Fic: Five things Charles Gunn never believed would happen to him
So, I finally wrote the long-delayed Gunn fic for still_grrr... It's Rulesverse, and it's not all that happy. Damn. I think there's still a proper Gunn fic to come.
Title Five things Charles Gunn never believed would happen to him...
Author Brutti ma buoni
Rating PG13
Word Count 555
Character Charles Gunn
A/N: This is part of The Rulesverse, a post-Chosen AU verse. The only key points for this fic are that Not Fade Away wasn’t such a fatal battle, and Angel Inc reconnected with a revived Slayer Council. They are involved in training Watchers of the future.
...Go to work with a vampire. But that didn’t turn out so bad. He still gets freaked out sometimes when Angel brings in a new formerly-evil demon instructor to give the Slayer Support Operatives some additional insights. (Polgara? But... spiky!) And they have had some bad days when a trusted new ally turned out to be seeking an in to the Council, usually to try and kill every last one of them. But nothing they haven’t been able to slay, so far. Charles is on the side of good, he’s saving people who can’t save themselves, and if his not-actually-boss happens to drink the blood of pigs in his downtime, that’s a compromise Charles has been willing to make.
...Save the world. A lot. He’s lost count now of how many times this is. At least a dozen, one way or another, when helping people one by one turns into something bigger. Those are good days, when he knows he’s part of something great. When they come to write his obit, it will be a good one. This last is a hell of a save. One that’ll go down in Council records for sure.
...Travel the world as a consultant for a major international corporation. Okay, the Slayer Council. But they have branches worldwide. He has a benefits package including retirement plan, medical, dental, you name it. Pretty damn corporate. He’s seen the Aurora Borealis and Uluru and more Pacific islands than you would believe, and he’s learnt that good and bad look pretty much the same wherever you are, but he’s never lost the urge to explore. Caridad may bitch, but she knows what suits him, and that he’ll always come home to LA.
...Marry a pretty girl from Buenos Aires and have a kid called Jesus. It’s only a middle name, but seven years on Charles remains sorry he caved under the pressure of seeing his wife in pain. Poor kid. But Caridad still believes in the big sky jockey, and who is Gunn to argue with a Slayer? (Not that that stops him, day to day.)
...Live to take up that retirement package.
He was wrong about the other things. But he’s pretty sure he was right about this one. He came home on the wrong day. Charles is looking at his guts, spilling onto the filthy Los Angeles sidewalk in a shower of blood and shit, and the gap beyond where his legs should be, and he knows this is a bad one. He can see Wesley’s look of panic, behind the reassuring half-smile and the efficient patter of you’ll be fine, just need a little patching up, you’ve had worse than this, hell I’ve had worse than this and you didn’t even try to be sympathetic. He can see Angel too, but he’s fading out now, keeping well back from the blood that he’ll never drink. Charles wants to say something to mark this very important occasion, probably the last he’ll share with these two very old, very good friends, who’ve seen him through all those unexpectedly good things in life, but somehow his voice doesn’t seem to be coming out right.
Charles Gunn didn’t expect much out of his life when he was young, and he got and gave back a hell of a lot.
But he’s done now.
***
Title Five things Charles Gunn never believed would happen to him...
Author Brutti ma buoni
Rating PG13
Word Count 555
Character Charles Gunn
A/N: This is part of The Rulesverse, a post-Chosen AU verse. The only key points for this fic are that Not Fade Away wasn’t such a fatal battle, and Angel Inc reconnected with a revived Slayer Council. They are involved in training Watchers of the future.
...Go to work with a vampire. But that didn’t turn out so bad. He still gets freaked out sometimes when Angel brings in a new formerly-evil demon instructor to give the Slayer Support Operatives some additional insights. (Polgara? But... spiky!) And they have had some bad days when a trusted new ally turned out to be seeking an in to the Council, usually to try and kill every last one of them. But nothing they haven’t been able to slay, so far. Charles is on the side of good, he’s saving people who can’t save themselves, and if his not-actually-boss happens to drink the blood of pigs in his downtime, that’s a compromise Charles has been willing to make.
...Save the world. A lot. He’s lost count now of how many times this is. At least a dozen, one way or another, when helping people one by one turns into something bigger. Those are good days, when he knows he’s part of something great. When they come to write his obit, it will be a good one. This last is a hell of a save. One that’ll go down in Council records for sure.
...Travel the world as a consultant for a major international corporation. Okay, the Slayer Council. But they have branches worldwide. He has a benefits package including retirement plan, medical, dental, you name it. Pretty damn corporate. He’s seen the Aurora Borealis and Uluru and more Pacific islands than you would believe, and he’s learnt that good and bad look pretty much the same wherever you are, but he’s never lost the urge to explore. Caridad may bitch, but she knows what suits him, and that he’ll always come home to LA.
...Marry a pretty girl from Buenos Aires and have a kid called Jesus. It’s only a middle name, but seven years on Charles remains sorry he caved under the pressure of seeing his wife in pain. Poor kid. But Caridad still believes in the big sky jockey, and who is Gunn to argue with a Slayer? (Not that that stops him, day to day.)
...Live to take up that retirement package.
He was wrong about the other things. But he’s pretty sure he was right about this one. He came home on the wrong day. Charles is looking at his guts, spilling onto the filthy Los Angeles sidewalk in a shower of blood and shit, and the gap beyond where his legs should be, and he knows this is a bad one. He can see Wesley’s look of panic, behind the reassuring half-smile and the efficient patter of you’ll be fine, just need a little patching up, you’ve had worse than this, hell I’ve had worse than this and you didn’t even try to be sympathetic. He can see Angel too, but he’s fading out now, keeping well back from the blood that he’ll never drink. Charles wants to say something to mark this very important occasion, probably the last he’ll share with these two very old, very good friends, who’ve seen him through all those unexpectedly good things in life, but somehow his voice doesn’t seem to be coming out right.
Charles Gunn didn’t expect much out of his life when he was young, and he got and gave back a hell of a lot.
But he’s done now.
***