[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Four 9/11 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Four 9/11

Author: Helen Raven

Email: helenraven at talk21.com

Pairing: Wesley/Gunn

Summary: The full history of the relationship between
Gunn and Wesley in the Birthdayverse. A novel in six
parts.

Rating: NC-17

Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit, not even a blip
on the litigation radar.

The Story's Home Page: http://www.kelper.co.uk/kungai

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The duals said Gunn and Wesley were both better for
the break from training, and it was true, they were.
They'd got stale, they'd stopped feeling the
commitment, really feeling it. (Five weeks now, since
the last vision.) But being forced to take a break had
shown them they enjoyed the training for its own sake
- so they should focus on that from now on, not look
for their motivation in the idea of the visions
hanging over them.

Saturday. Angel had thrown the books around the room
but hadn't torn any pages out, and he might even have
started to read the landscape book. Wesley was out
having a language lesson when Angel woke up, so Gunn
took the blood in on his own. After a first quirk of
surprise, Angel treated Gunn like a piece of
blood-carrying furniture and gave all his attention to
the doorway, expression slightly puzzled, but hopeful.
Looked to Gunn like Angel had forgotten all about the
day before - or he thought it was years in the past.
He hardly seemed to notice Gunn taking the beaker and
leaving, and he kept on watching and hoping for at
least five minutes afterwards. Gunn got caught up in
searching the news on the computer and didn't see
Angel give up, how he took it; but Angel was sitting
on the mattress with the book the next time Gunn
checked, and he looked absorbed and content, not like
he was trying to console himself.

When Wesley returned Angel looked up from the book. He
was obviously pleased to hear Wesley's voice but he
didn't call or anything, and after a few minutes of
listening he went back to the book.

Gunn and Wesley went out for dinner. A date, with
Wesley in his suit and all. Compensation (or
something) for the night they were going to spend
apart, with Gunn helping the boys check out night-time
access for some attractions they wanted for their
tours. There wasn't nearly enough street in those
three - hell, Wes had more, Wes had a sensible,
practical attitude towards breaking-and-entering.

Gunn got about three hours sleep at the beach-house,
then drove straight to the warehouse to meet Wesley
for training. After training they had breakfast in
Santa Monica, and then they went home to bed. Gunn
fell asleep afterwards and woke to find Wesley still
with him, sitting up reading.

A few hours later, halfway through lunch, Wesley said,
"It was sexual. With Angel. It is."

Gunn stared at him, then said, "He's done something
else."

Wesley pulled a face, looked embarrassed. "He tried to
kiss me last night."

"Tried how? Why were you in there?"

"Angelus had been there. He'd been doing some drawing.
I went in to take the drawings out before Angel could
see them. But I was too late and so we talked about
the drawings and about Angelus. And after a while
he... got this look and he tried to kiss me."

" 'n' this isn't your hand?" No. "Jeez. How d'you get
him off? Or d'you have the water?"

"He wasn't - He was... quite gentle. He was asking."

"How 'bout taking no for an answer?"

Wesley nodded. "He argued for a while. But he wasn't
aggressive. He didn't try again. When I asked him what
he thought of the book, he went back to talking as if
nothing had happened."

"How long'd you stay after?"

"About ten minutes. It seemed the best way of playing
it down." Wesley shrugged and took a forkful of salad.
"I wonder who he thought I was. Who he was seeing."

"Wha'd'you mean?"

"It's Angel. He wouldn't look at me. He likes people
who are... solid. Who know how to take up space. Like
you."

Gunn snorted. "Yeah, like he looks at me! Course he's
seein' you. He loves you. Or close as makes no
difference."

Wesley was shaking his head. "It's Angel. He
couldn't."

"You're the only good thing he's got. You treat him
like a person, you talk to him, like a person. Far as
he's concerned, you're the only body that doesn't want
to hurt him. So where's he gonna draw the line?"

"A way of thanking me, you mean? Yes, he might think
like that. That would fit."

Well, Gunn hadn't meant that, and he hadn't said that,
but it was no loss to him if that was what Wesley
chose to hear. Be a waste of words telling Wesley
about Angel staring at the door all those minutes,
nothing in his head except that Wesley might be on the
other side; Wesley would say that was just Angel's way
of feeling grateful, that he might have been waiting
to say thank you for the books, or something.

They had a committee meeting for the survey early in
the evening, so they prepared for that, and then after
the meeting they got Chinese to go and rented a movie.
Gunn didn't have much of his mind of the movie; he
kept looking down at Wesley leaning against him, and
he kept looking across the room to the other screen,
which showed the same thing each time he looked: their
prisoner fast asleep, still as death.

Gunn finally had a real reason to throw a jealous fit,
and turned out he didn't know what to feel. A
beautiful man had made a pass at his boyfriend. He'd
probably do it again, with Gunn right there in the
room. No, not a beautiful man. A beautiful vampire.
More than two hundred years old and one of the worst,
and in love with Gunn's boyfriend. If you could be "in
love" when you couldn't even learn the person's name.
But wanting to be close to him, wanting more, wanting
to have everything he was willing to give. Gunn could
sympathise. For the first time he could almost imagine
Angel as human.

On Monday morning Gunn was looking hard for signs of
Saturday night. There was nothing in the welcome or
during the drinking, but then Angel paused while he
was handing the beaker back to Wesley and he said,
"Can you stay? Stay and talk."

"What do you want to talk about, Angel?"

A small smile and a shake of the head. "I don't mind.
What do you like?"

Wesley swallowed. "I can't stay. I have to work."

Angel looked disappointed; but trying to accept. "I
thought... It would be good if I could see more of
you."

Gunn folded his arms. "Which we all know means: 'I
want to have sex with you.' "

"We do?" Now Angel was looking grateful, straight at
Gunn. Then immediately to Wesley, free hand reaching
out to Wesley's waist: "Can you stay? We don't have to
talk."

Wesley snatched the beaker from Angel and stepped out
of range, shaking his head hard. "I'm not going to
have sex with you. I can't have sex with you. You're a
prisoner under my care. Of course we're not going to
have sex."

Angel took a step to follow Wesley, but Gunn moved in
with the water. Angel backed off, not taking his eyes
off Wesley for a second, then started shaking his
head. "You shouldn't be worrying about their rules.
They never made the rules for this. And there's no
reason they'd ever find out."

"It has nothing to do with them. It's wrong. It would
be terribly wrong."

"No!" Passionate. "Not with us. The way we both want
it. We want it... to be more. How can that be wrong?"
Suddenly, to Gunn: "Tell him. If you tell him what he
feels..."

"Man, you heard him say no. You need to get over this
and soon. There's nothin' for you in this."

Angel was shaking his head at both of them. "I don't
understand. When we could... There's no reason."

Reason and sex. Since when? "We're going now, Angel.
Like Wesley said, we got work to do. Look, know this
is rough. We don't blame you but you gotta accept that
it's no. Even if you don't understand. You hear me?"

Staring, then Angel turned and went to lie face-down
on the mattress, without even taking a last look at
Wesley. Stubborn sulking or crushed resignation?
They'd find out soon enough.

"Jeez, but he does go for the classics. 'We both want
it.' 'I'd like to see more of you.' Give me two
hundred years, I'd come up with better than that."

"He's..." Wesley's gaze slid around Gunn's for a few
seconds. "You really shouldn't blame him for that.
When he -" A ragged sigh. "You know I have a reaction
to him sometimes."

"Oh!" Gunn gave a sharp laugh of surprise, mostly at
himself, that he hadn't thought of it. "Like just
now?"

Wesley closed his eyes hard, then nodded. "It must
come straight through in my sweat. He knew last time,
too."

Gunn laughed again, more gently, then pulled Wesley
into a hug, rubbed his cheek against Wesley's. Feeling
Wesley's arousal wasn't important; feeling Wesley's
sigh of relief, that was crucial, and the moment when
Wesley started to return the pressure. "Well... guess
he's not gonna get over it until you get over that.
How long d'you give it?"

"Oh, a week. Now I've told you. I'll just... I'll
think about you laughing." A pause, then, hushed: "I
love you, Charles. I don't know how you do this. I
couldn't. If it was you."

"Wes. You make it easy."

* * * * *

Angel spent all of the next few days jerking off - or
that was how it seemed to Gunn. Every time Gunn looked
up at the screen there Angel would be on the mattress
with his pants down near his knees and his shirt wide
open. Most times he was quite slow and deliberate,
almost loving, but about once in each day he'd be
urgent and desperate, crying out so you'd think a
vision had hit him. Whenever he started they'd turn
the screen off for half an hour, using Wesley's old
method for ignoring Angelus.

No sign of shame or guilt, even when he was waking up
after Angelus had been there; instead he'd smile and
look towards the door, and then get his clothes back
in order.

A shower would have been out of the question, and the
effort wasted, anyway, in a couple of hours. From the
second day they decided to let him do his own
sponge-bath, and after feeding him they took all the
equipment in, and a change of clothes. He behaved very
well when they were in the room: casual but friendly
with Wesley, distant but civil with Gunn, but as soon
as they left he'd throw himself down on the mattress
and they'd have to turn the screen off again. He
didn't know they could see him; he couldn't know.

Gunn and Wesley added a new guess every day as to what
Angel was building up to; because there had to be
thoughts accumulating in there, and this pace just
couldn't last. None of their guesses was right - or
not right enough to be at the top of the stack when
Angel reached his limit on Friday afternoon. They'd
gone in to collect the dirty clothes and the
equipment, and they were hardly in the room when Angel
placed himself in front of Gunn, set solid for a
confrontation. "I know it's you. Let him."

"Not makin' sense, Angel. And back off. Y'got your own
space, get into it."

A sharp shake of the head, no backing off. "You
haven't got anyone. So you don't want him to have me.
You're stopping him."

Gunn turned his head. "Wes? You wanna take this?"

Wesley nodded, and crossed behind Gunn to stand at his
left side. "Charles does have someone, Angel. He has
me." Wesley placed his hand on Gunn's arm; they looked
at one another, then back at Angel. "Even if you
weren't a prisoner under my care. Even if we could
meet... as friends outside here. I'd still be saying
no, and yes, that is because of Charles. But not
because he makes me. Because he's everything I need. I
belong to him. Do you understand now?"

Angel had started out looking suspicious and ended up
glaring. When Angel stopped talking Gunn realised that
he could hear Angel breathing - a rasping though a
clenched throat - and he slowly reached behind his
back and unhooked the water-spray from his belt.

"Angel?" Wesley was either prompting or warning - or
both.

Two more breaths then Angel gave a loud, harsh laugh
and took a big step away from them, almost like he'd
been driven backwards by the force of his derision.
"You think I know nothing about duals! Or you honestly
think you're the only one who fucks himself. And you
even think it's real. It isn't sex! Any other dual
could tell you that. It isn't real. You should be
looking for more."

Wesley was about two seconds slower than Gunn in
taking in what Angel had said, what he must have been
thinking. "Angel. You are completely wrong. We are not
a dual. We are two separate people. We were born eight
thousand miles apart. And eight years. Or course we're
not a dual. Please. Be sensible. Accept... Accept what
we are."

No. Big no, judging by the muscles working in Angel's
jaw. Suddenly: "Get out." Cold, and steady. "If you
think you can - I thought you were special but you're
worse than a coward. Get out of my sight."

A brief pause, then Wesley shrugged. "Well, Angel,
it's your room... We'll just collect what we came in
for and then we'll leave you."

Angel did a lot of angry pacing over the next half
hour. Then he focused on the books and kicked them
over to the wall by the door, out of sight of the
camera. Maybe he'd meant to tear them all up, but he
started reading instead. Each page brought a reaction,
some shade of indignation or hurt, and he did rip some
pages out, but slowly, and not when he sounded
angriest. Eventually he fell asleep there, and they
were not at all surprised when he had nightmares and
then woke up back in his old hell. Could be days
before he'd talk to them again, weeks, maybe.

They took the duals out for noodles after training,
and near the end of the meal Wesley said, "Do you mind
if I ask you something personal? Or - It's not because
I've been wondering about you. It's something I read."

"Well, you can ask."

Wesley cleared his throat. "Do duals - How common is
it for a dual to have sex with himself? While he's
split apart."

A blink then a shrug. "Pretty common, I suppose. First
few months after you arrive, when you're getting used
to being a dual... If both halves find the other
attractive enough. But..." Badueen pulled a face and
shook his head. "I've never heard anyone admit to
preferring it to real sex." To Epwor: "Have you?"

"No, never. The subject does come up sometimes, and
what you get is a list of the reasons why it's boring.
Or depressing. Not even as good as regular jerking
off. Finding out afterwards exactly what the other was
thinking. That's reason number one for most people."

Badueen laughed. "Though there's some people you
wonder about."

* * * * *

Angel did let them in the room the next day, but he
wouldn't let them get close - gestured to Wesley to
put the beaker down and move back - and he watched
them intently the whole time. He wasn't scared, he
didn't seem angry; but he didn't know what they were
and he wasn't about to trust them. He stayed like that
for most of the next few days, braced in his corner,
doing some hard thinking.

His expression when he watched them was different from
day to day, moving fairly-steadily from suspicion to
puzzlement to speculation to a sort of wary sympathy.
He differed, too, in who he watched most: one day it
would be Wesley, the next Gunn, and the next he'd need
to check back and forth between them both. There was
no jerking off now. Had he lost all interest in
Wesley? Or did he have no thoughts free for any
fantasies?

He'd come out of his corner to drink, and then he'd go
back and he'd nod to Wesley to come forward to get the
beaker. On Thursday, though, he stood just watching
them after he'd emptied the beaker, and then he didn't
bend to put it on the floor, but brought it over and
placed it in Wesley's hand.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

A few more seconds of watching both of them, then, to
Wesley: "Could I have a shower?"

"Of course. We'll need a few minutes to get ready. Why
don't you get undressed while we're doing that?"

They decided that Wesley would give him the shower, in
the hope that it would help ease him back to normal,
back to the time before Wesley got the stitches in his
hand. Because since then Wesley hadn't showered him:
there had just been that one shower with Gunn, and
then having himself wash himself in his room. And him
asking for a shower, that was a sign, wasn't it, that
he did want to get back to normal? He'd got undressed
ready for them, and he turned immediately and held his
arms back for the chains. Gunn had to stop himself
from saying, "Good boy, good boy" - like Angel was a
dog.

Wesley washed Angel's hair first, like he always did.
Next came Angel's arms, then his sides and back. But
Wesley had hardly started on Angel's back when he
suddenly stopped, took a step back, and then all three
of them were looking down at Angel's erection.

"I'm sorry." Angel sounded like he was willing himself
to die. He was talking to the wall. And then he turned
his head with a jerk and he was talking to Gunn. "I'm
sorry."

Gunn shook his head then leaned forward to shut the
water off. "Hey, man. Happens to all of us. Not like
there's a switch. But you need to go back to your
room, yeah?" Angel nodded, so relieved, so grateful.
Gunn looked over to Wesley. "Take him straight back?
Give him the towel?" Wesley nodded too, looking nearly
as relieved as Angel.

"No, Angel. Don't lie down on the mattress. Just stand
right there. Wait while Wesley brings your clean
clothes."

Wesley placed the clothes on the corner of the
mattress, then stood back while Gunn let Angel out of
the chains. As they were leaving Wesley told Angel to
call if he wanted them to come and collect the towel
when he was finished, but of course he wasn't going to
call, not after that. Wesley turned the screen off and
Gunn was slid the bolts, and they agreed they'd get
the towel and the dirty clothes when Angel fell
asleep.

Angel did call, though, and only twenty minutes later,
while the screen was still off. "Can you - Can you
come in?"

He'd folded the towel and put it on the mattress, with
the clothes in a neat pile beside it; but he moved in
to block them before they'd taken more than three
steps in that direction.

"I'm sorry."

"We know, Angel. Don't worry about it. You've really
been very good."

Angel was shaking his head. "I thought I'd be able to
- Since you made me understand." To Gunn: "I know how
you need him." To both of them: "I know you need to be
together. I know how important that is. I wasn't
trying to... I won't do it again. I'll make it stop. I
will." He made to touch Wesley's shoulder, struggled
visibly for several seconds, then slowly lowered his
hand. "I know you've stopped wanting to talk to me.
I've made you -" Two slow, dragging breaths. "But
could you want to again? If I can prove that I have
made it stop. Could you want to come in and talk? Or
have I made you -"

"Angel. You've made me sympathise with your situation,
that's all. I'll be glad for both of us when you do
make it stop. I've missed being able to come in and
talk to you."

They went down to start a load of laundry. Gunn said,
"So it's taken him nearly a week to accept that we're
a couple. And that he's got no chance."

Wesley shrugged. "That would have taken me months when
I had one of my ridiculous crushes. Of course I'd
never make a move, so I wouldn't get anything like the
decisive rejection that we gave him. I think he's
being brave. In his terms, he's giving a lot up. Well,
not that I'm -"

"He never had it to give up. But yeah, y'don't see it
like that at the time. Your dick sure doesn't. What
was he thinking, asking for a shower?"

Wesley sighed and nodded. "That he wanted a fresh
start? He's never been very good at thinking ahead."


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