Fic
The Scenic Route to Elysium
Gunn/Wesley
Fandom: Angel
Rating: PG-14
Words: ~6000
Note: I started this one in September of '06 and if I don't stop messing with it eventually, it'll never see the light of day. There's a fair amount of season-hopping, so the segments are labelled to help you get your bearings. The format is based roughly on the 7_deadly_sins_ challenge, although I had to throw 'Absolution' in there as my own personal touch, for I am a less-than-secret sap.
So, without any further ado...
* * *
Pride (Early Season 2)
“Any time now, Wesley!” Angel yelled. The demon clan that Cordelia’s vision had sent them after was proving quite the challenge, even with the forewarning and careful preparation. It all came down to this spell…
“Wes?”
“Just… just a moment” Wesley called back from his position on the concrete wall above the battle. “No pressure,” he added under his breath, beginning to sweat. “Of course not.”
Angel and Gunn were doing their best to keep the demons in question dead, but the rate of reanimation was far more rapid than the Compendium had suggested. Wesley glanced down in alarm at Gunn’s cry, but it seemed to be a shout of disgust, if the severed hand that the young man was frantically trying to dislodge from around his ankle was any indication.
Even so, Wesley’s hands trembled violently as he completed the spell, and he stuttered the incantation with such poor inflection that he was certain he’d buggered it all up. The spell would fizzle and his friends would be torn to pieces by undead body parts or… or they’d escape but it would be all Wesley’s fault that the clan could pull themselves together (literally) and go back to gobbling schoolchildren and… wasn’t that white light the first indication of the charm’s effect?
Well, that was a bit of good luck.
Wesley climbed to his feet as the remaining components were consumed by the spell, breathing a sigh of relief as a net of light drifted harmlessly down over the parking-garage-turned-battlefield. Gunn appeared to hold his breath as the light passed over him, but he looked about as relieved as Wesley felt when the clawed hand at his ankle went still and dropped to the ground with a wet splat. Angel merely looked irritated, yanking an arm (a previously undead arm…) from around his shoulder where it had been creeping towards his throat. He tossed it aside and wiped ineffectually at his jacket.
Wesley hurried down to join them, picking his way through the mess and hoping that he wouldn’t be in too much trouble for that delay, a profuse apology already on the tip of his tongue. But Gunn greeted him with a wide grin and a slap on the back so hearty that Wesley nearly went stumbling.
“Now that was some cool mojo,” Gunn declared.
Despite Wesley’s earlier bout of performance anxiety and Angel’s sotto voce grumblings about claw marks in his leather jacket… despite everything… Wesley swelled with pride.
* * *
Sloth (Season 2, Darla-arc)
“Never gonna move again,” Gunn declared, shutting his eyes and resting his head against the back of the park bench.
Wesley ‘hmm’ed in agreement and wearily surveyed the remains of their latest battle. It made him want to laugh. A fine summer evening and he was out on the town doing battle. His nine-year-old self would’ve been thrilled beyond measure. As it stood, he was merely exhausted.
“Harpies,” Gunn muttered. “In L.A.”
“It was a surprise,” Wesley admitted, mimicking Gunn’s relaxed posture. “Tenacious lot too.”
“Good thing you’re a badass with a crossbow, English.”
Wesley glanced over, caught off guard by the new nickname. He’d never had a nickname before. None that bore repeating anyhow. “And you,” he said, “You were quite a formidable opponent yourself.”
Gunn snorted and Wesley immediately wondered what he’d said wrong. But Gunn was smiling, his eyes still shut, and Wesley’s stomach gave an odd little lurch-hop that he could feel right down to his toes. And all the places in between.
No, he firmly told himself, a little panicked. This is the first friend… possibly the only human male friend that you’ve had since… ever…
“We should phone Cordelia,” Wesley said, interrupting his own internal monologue. “She’ll be worried.”
“That mean I gotta move?” Gunn asked, dragging his eyes open with a seemingly Herculean effort. He shot Wesley a pitiful glance. “I don’t wanna move.”
So Wesley rolled his eyes and fished Gunn’s cellular phone from the pocket of the younger man’s jeans, trying not to consciously notice the heat of Gunn’s skin through the denim, and silently wondering precisely where the line stood between enjoying the company of a friend and… something a bit more than that.
Gunn’s smile never faded a bit.
* * *
Gluttony
“I can’t believe we finished the…” Wesley paused to stifle a hiccup. “…entire thing.” He held up the bottle as evidence.
Gunn leaned across Cordelia from the other end of the couch and grabbed the bottle from Wesley, after one missed attempt. He gave it a shake, causing the last remnants of the tequila to slosh in the bottom, then put it to his lips and tipped it up, swallowing twice before lowering it again. (Wesley watched these proceedings with a little smile and the liberty of the very drunk.)
“Now we finished the whole thing,” Gunn corrected cheerfully, setting the bottle down on the coffee table with a too loud clunk as he misjudged the distance.
“But why is the rum gone?” Cordelia giggled, slurring more than a little and leaning against Wesley, warm and unbalanced.
Wesley frowned in confusion. “Because we drank it,” he decided. “And that wasn’t rum… was it?” Gunn and Cordelia scoffed at him in stereo and Wesley tried his best not to pout. “You’re trying to confuse me.”
“Trying?” Cordelia snorted.
Wesley ignored her. He knew exactly where the tequila had gone. From Wesley’s car, into several toasts extolling their successful Angel-less state, into one highly complex drinking game at which Wesley was convinced that Gunn was cheating, and finally into three rather inebriated fighters of the good fight as they sprawled on Cordelia’s couch watching a stand-up comedy routine with the television volume set too low for them to make out the punch-lines.
A good Watcher was always aware of his surroundings. Even if he was a little tipsy. In fact, the last drops of the tequila in question could probably still be tasted on Gunn’s lower lip if one were to…
“I’m going to get some water,” Wesley announced, bracing himself first on Cordelia’s shoulder and then the edge of the couch as the floor rolled underneath him.
“Need a hand, lightweight?” Gunn offered.
Wesley flashed him a grin that felt entirely silly, shaking his head and wishing he were drunk enough to accept that offer. Being alone with Gunn wasn’t an entirely unappealing idea. A bad idea, certainly, but not at all unappealing. Although he couldn’t quite seem to feel his feet, Wesley pointed himself in the direction of the kitchen and propelled himself towards it by sheer force of will.
When he was alone in Cordelia’s kitchen, it became evident to Wesley just how very drunk he actually was, in a way that was impossible when there were other people around acting just as foolish as he. It was a good thing that he was alone though. Wesley knew that drinking made people do all manner of stupid things. This was both a curse and an opportunity, at least in Wesley’s tequila-soaked logic. Because while drinking made people do stupid things, it also gave people a perfectly good reason for doing stupid things.
He suddenly wished that Gunn had come with him, for some urgent reason that he rather seemed to be concealing from his own conscious thoughts at the moment.
He rinsed his mouth with cool water from the tap, feeling slightly ill. The water tasted strange and sharp against his tongue. Bracing himself against the edges of the sink, Wesley tried to gather his thoughts.
“Now she won’t stop talking about Johnny Depp,” Gunn complained, startling Wesley.
“And that’s my fault?” Wesley asked, wondering if he’d somehow drawn Gunn out here simply by wishing it so hard. Gunn shot him a smile and moved around him to grab a glass of water for himself.
“Nah. There’s just only so much talk about men in eyeliner that a guy can take, you know?”
“Eyeliner?” Wes echoed. He could spend fifty years in America and still not have the slightest bloody clue what his friends were talking about half the time. Or perhaps he was just a little distracted at the moment. Whether he was aware of it or not, Charles Gunn really was a distracting man, with his unconscious grace and the classically handsome line of his jaw.
“You alright there, English?” Gunn asked.
“No,” Wesley whispered, looking at his hands. Things were most certainly not alright, because he had this silly urge to just step forward and curl his fingers into the material of Gunn’s shirt until he could feel the heat of his body and press his mouth to Gunn’s own. And even worse, he was just drunk enough to try it. Gunn didn’t help matters in the least when he set down his glass and moved closer, obviously concerned.
“You sick, Wes? Here, sit.” He slid his arm around Wesley’s shoulders to help him to a chair, and the friendly contact was all it took to drive Wesley right over the edge into the realm of insanity. He grabbed Gunn’s shoulders and surged forward to kiss him on the mouth.
It wasn’t nearly as terrible as that first time with Cordelia back in Sunnydale had been, but it certainly came a close second. Noses bumped and teeth clicked and when Wesley tripped over his own feet and staggered forward a step, Gunn was still too shocked to put up any sort of resistance. The screech of the kitchen table sliding along the floor when Gunn stumbled into it was enough to make Wesley pull away, horrified. That… hadn’t gone at all how he’d imagined it. And Gunn was staring at him.
“Was that a British thing?” Gunn asked quietly.
Wesley’s stomach gave a lurching twist, and if he could only get his bloody legs to work properly, he would have liked to start running and never look back. His glasses were askew and he fixed them with a shaking hand. “It may have been a tequila thing,” he admitted, his cheeks burning. “Oh god. Gunn, I’m so…”
“If you’re gonna seize the moment, British, do it,” Gunn interrupted, his expression unreadable. He took a step forward and lifted his hand. Wesley flinched like an idiot, and then flinched again when Gunn removed his glasses.
“Breathe, man,” Gunn murmured, and when Wesley obediently complied, he was suddenly inhaling the moist warmth of Gunn’s mouth as it slid over his own.
Kissing was easy, if you weren’t over-thinking it and if the element of desperation was removed. Just a matter of soft movement and instinct and the inordinately erotic sensation of Gunn’s tongue against Wesley’s and, oh, his knees were going a little weak. Wesley wrapped his arms around Gunn’s shoulders (he doubted that the kitchen table could stand another assault) and Gunn gave a little hum of satisfaction. Wesley had to pull away to gasp, and Gunn’s mouth tracked a line of fierce kisses along his jaw.
“Is this an American thing?” Wesley whispered.
“Tequila thing, remember?” Gunn’s voice was a bit hoarse and so close to Wesley’s ear that it made him shudder. “Don’t think you’re allowed to talk during a tequila thing.” Then he kissed Wesley again, pressing him back against the table, and Wesley held on to handfuls of Gunn’s shirt so tightly that he thought he heard something tear. The world spun when he shut his eyes, until all that was left was the heat of Gunn’s mouth and the sensation of his hands in Wesley’s hair.
“Guuuys?” Cordelia called mournfully from the other room. “Where’d you go?”
Wesley jumped, but Gunn just straightened up with a chuckle, putting Wesley’s glasses back into his hand. “Kitchen, remember?” he called to Cordelia, “You want anything?” He took a step back and faded into the area beyond which Wesley’s vision was just a blur of color.
So much for tequila, Wesley thought miserably, already feeling the beginnings of paralyzing awkwardness setting in. He slipped his glasses back on and discovered with a jolt that Gunn’s eyes hadn’t left him for a moment. And he was half-smiling in that Charles Gunn way that made Wesley want to blush or fidget or grin like a fool. (He bit his lip and smiled at Gunn’s shoes and straightened his shirt.)
“Your timing needs serious work,” Gunn told him.
“I actually suspected that the setting was the problem,” Wesley replied, before his nerves could catch up with him.
“We’ve got room for improvement,” Gunn agreed. (Wesley tried not to read too much into the implications of that statement, but his heart gave a little hop despite himself.) “Let’s get back… Cordy’s gonna come looking for us. You sure you’re alright?”
Wesley nodded, more alright than he’d been in a long time, and let Gunn lead him back into the other room. Gunn’s hand brushed against his own, brief and reassuring, and Wesley found himself trembling so badly that it was a wonder he made it back to the couch at all. Carpe tequila, he thought giddily. If this was the sort of reward that he got for losing his job with Angel, he couldn’t help but wonder why he’d spent all this time feeling so very hurt in the first place.
* * *
Lust
It was an odd arrangement, certainly, but Wesley had been raised on odd. When most boys had still been asking their mums to check under the bed for monsters, Wesley had been learning how to categorize and kill the very real versions of those monsters. Gunn was a part of that world already, no explanations necessary. Where Virginia had shied away after Wesley was shot, Gunn knew how to run his fingers over the scar, gently, but without too much special attention. He had scars of his own, after all.
Or maybe it wasn’t that Gunn was anything particular special at all. Maybe the crux of the matter was that Wesley was lonely. So bloody, achingly lonely. There was a difference between a touch with intent (the kind that you could get easy enough at any old bar if you were generous with your compliments and played up the accent) and a touch with warmth. With fondness.
Gunn had this quiet way of ambling up when Wesley was busy with work, and he’d lean over Wesley’s shoulder and touch his back, or his arm, or the back of his neck. Always so casual, always there on the premise of something else… To update him on the current case, or to bring him a cup of tea, or just to make sure he wasn’t giving himself eye strain from reading too long in the bad light again. And then he would amble right back out again and Wesley would, inevitably, go a little bit crazy.
The sense-memory of Gunn’s hand would linger and spread until Wesley was flushed and distracted, and he would have to abandon his texts due to a sudden and inexplicable inability to read. And Gunn would always be waiting for him somewhere not too far away, with that damned knowing smile and ready hands, hungry mouth…
Sometimes Wesley suspected that Gunn did it on purpose.
* * *
Wrath (Mid Season 3)
Wesley’s hands, at least, were focused on the hunt as he touched the dark blood clinging to the bushes at the edge of the park, testing its temperature and consistency. His mind was somewhere else entirely, considering the newest happy couple in their little troop and knowing damn well that the situation would only get worse the more that he let his mind dwell on it.
Just so, he couldn’t seem to turn those thoughts off.
It wasn’t their constant touching that bothered him. No, not so much. It was their smiles. Those unguarded beaming ‘I’m so bloody in love I could just pop’ smiles that they tried their best to keep muted while he was around. It didn’t help in the least. He wanted Fred to be his Fred, and Charles to remain his Charles, and if they were a complete entity together, where precisely did that leave him?
In the face of their rosy new love, he felt ugly and awkward and ridiculous. He felt like the man that he had been in Sunnydale, the one who had nattered on about propriety at the worst possible moments and could inevitably make a conversation stop just by walking into a room. The undesirable one.
Trying to get his mind back on the task at hand, Wesley turned as the demon finally panicked and crashed out of the foliage not ten feet from him. He raised the crossbow and aimed slightly ahead of the beast as it made a break for the thick cover of the trees lining the opposite side of the park.
Logically, he knew that they hadn’t changed their behavior towards him in the least. If anything, they went out of their way to be even nicer to him. He had, after all, been such a gracious loser. But still… sometimes he swore that they rolled their eyes when he walked into a room these days. Sometimes he was quite certain that Gunn was laughing at him from behind his friendly smile. (Never needed you as much as you needed me.) He hated it, the way that they hastily pulled away from each other when he was around, grinning sheepishly at each other, sharing a joke and the joke was him.
Something inside of him shattered painfully, tearing through him like shrapnel and making his pulse pound in his temples and behind his eyes. The demon went down with his first shot, but he reloaded as he walked towards it and fired again, this time aiming for the face. The demon’s pained shriek resonated against that new dark loathing inside of him.
Stepping up to the writhing creature as it rolled onto its back, Wesley saw the second bolt protruding from its eye socket, dark liquid oozing from around the shaft. He reached down before he had decided to, giving the arrow a vicious twist as he jerked it free.
He knelt down beside the thing, staying clear of its claws. “Where is your lair?” he asked, ignoring its anguished howls.
When it came down to it, the real demons were far easier to silence than those inside his head.
* * *
Envy (S5, ‘Harm’s Way’)
The talk turned to seating charts and weapon scanners, and Wesley tuned them out, already calculating the time that he would need to refresh his grasp on the languages in question. Vinji in particular was notoriously difficult, what with the clicks and…
“And since none of the clan representatives speak English, I’ll be doing most of the talking,” Gunn concluded. That caught Wesley’s attention. He looked up in surprise.
“You?”
Gunn grinned at him, straightening up proudly and launching into yet another of his ‘Along with the law’ explanations about the wonderful things that Wolfram & Hart had injected into his brain.
Wesley found himself biting his tongue. Demon languages now, of all things. As if several years of rigorous training at the Academy could be replaced by a simple… whatever it was that they’d done to Gunn. As if, after all these years, Wesley could find himself seamlessly replaced by an admittedly expensive medical procedure.
Wesley noticed that Lorne was watching him with veiled interest, and realized with an unhappy shock that his aura was most likely rivaling the empath in its greenness. Ducking his head, he buried himself in the list of demon customs, knowing bloody well that he wouldn’t need it anymore. Pity he’d already committed it to memory. Angel confirmed his fears not five minutes later, with nary a glance his way: Gunn would sit at Angel’s side during the summit. And Wesley would sit out.
Wesley hadn’t realized just how fiercely he’d guarded his position on the team until it was suddenly rendered unnecessary. Now Gunn would take care of translations and demon lore, and Wesley would… shoot things. His father would be so proud.
He kept quiet for the remainder of the meeting though his thoughts became increasingly dire. When Angel decided that he’d had enough of summit-planning for one day, Wesley nearly bolted for the door, making a beeline towards the haven of his office.
“What’s up with you?” Gunn, of course. Given the real concern in his friend’s expression, Lorne must not have been the only one to notice Wesley’s silence during the meeting.
“Not a thing,” Wesley said tonelessly. He set course for his office again and Gunn kept pace with him, obviously not content to drop the matter.
“You sure about that? ‘Cause the brood quota in Angel’s office? Reaching critical proportions,” Gunn joked.
Wesley glanced at him, prickling with irritation at Gunn’s smile. At his teasing tone.
“And now I suppose you’ll tell me exactly what those proportions are,” Wesley snapped, “in metric, Imperial, and thirty-seven demonic systems of measurement besides.”
Gunn’s eyebrows went up immediately and Wesley could see the realization dawning. “That’s what this is about, huh?”
“Gunn…” Wesley began, breaking eye contact and deflating with a sigh. It seemed so childish now, unable to hold up under Gunn’s steady gaze.
“Hey, it’s cool. The implant ain’t exactly peanuts,” Gunn admitted. He broke into a sudden smile, reaching out to lightly punch Wesley’s arm like he was suggesting a game of Risk. “Tell you what. I could pull a few strings, take you to see Sparrow… the doc could hook you up with an upgrade of your own.”
“No, thank you,” Wesley interrupted firmly, stepping away from him.
“Scared you might learn something?” Gunn was still smiling, but there was something chilly in his expression. Something defensive.
“I’d rather not give the Senior Partners carte blanche to poke about in my brain, if it’s all the same to you. Perhaps I’m old-fashioned.” Wesley turned and headed into his office, unable to bring himself to shut the door in Gunn’s face, unsurprised when Gunn followed him in. “You should be preparing for the summit,” Wesley murmured, heading to his desk.
“No,” Gunn said, “I think we should be talking about this.”
Wesley turned to face him, folding his arms and leaning against his desk. “You’ve obviously got something to say on the matter, Charles. I’m listening.”
“Maybe you always looked down on me a little bit. Maybe you liked it better when I was just the dumb guy with the axe.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Wesley said, unsure of whether or not he was lying. “How are we to know if they’ve done something to you?”
“Like what?” Gunn asked, battle in his eyes. “Everybody keeps saying that and nobody can tell me what they mean.”
Wesley looked away for a moment, considering the question. He hadn’t forced himself to put it into words until know, that lingering fear that they’d taken his old friend and done something to him. “What if they’ve changed you?” he said. “It’s disconcerting, Charles. How’re we to know that you’re the same man?”
“I’m not the same man,” said Gunn.
“I rather suspected that when you began humming the bloody Pirates of Penzance to yourself when you think no one’s around,” Wesley muttered, trying to pretend that Gunn’s admission didn’t disturb him.
“Wesley…” Low warning in Gunn’s voice, and Wesley found himself suddenly too close to Gunn, trapped between the desk and the man in front of him.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” Wesley said flippantly, trying to edge out of this tight spot, feeling a little light-headed. Gunn wore cologne these days, something warm and expensive, and Wesley’s brain had a nasty tendency to run rampant when Gunn got too close. He needed to get out…
Gunn frowned and grabbed Wesley’s arm, gentle but insistent. “Now who’s not taking this serious? We’ve all changed. Me, you, Angel… all of us. Can’t sign on in a place like this and stay the same.”
Wesley shrugged, not meeting Gunn’s eyes, wishing that he’d let him go. It was too much like… earlier times. Sweeter times, when Gunn might’ve looked into Wesley’s eyes like he meant it and tilted his head and gently kissed his lips, hesitant and real and…
… just like this.
Wesley caught his breath and touched his mouth, as if he could find evidence there of what had just happened. He stared at Gunn, some distant part of his mind pleased to note that at least he wasn’t shaking this time. “What was that?” he demanded, his voice a bit rough.
“Proof,” Gunn said, letting him go and taking a step back. His expression was perfectly unreadable and Wesley wanted to shake him.
“Of…?”
“Proof that I’m still me,” he said, a little of the old Gunn slipping through as he offered a shrug of his own.
“Charles,” Wesley started, his sentence trailing off before it even started. There was simply no rational way of explaining that it was too late… far too late for that kind of proof. That old scars opened so very easily and not every kiss was the key to a fairytale ending. Wesley shook his head, turned away. “You should be getting ready for the summit,” he said again, quietly. “Angel needs all the help that he can get.”
Wesley waited until he heard Gunn close the door behind himself before letting out a shuddering sigh, running his hand over his face. It was all the proof that he had needed, of course. He simply hadn’t thought that it would hurt so badly.
* * *
Greed (S5, post-‘Shells’)
Gunn drifted on the morphine haze, riding the pain in and out like a tide. He begged them to reduce the dosage each time. He liked the pain. It kept him from thinking.
Wesley arrived a few hours after Harmony had left, entering the room without knocking and shutting the door behind himself silently. He was the last person that Gunn had expected to see, and for a moment Gunn was convinced that they’d finally gone and OD’ed him on the meds and he was hallucinating. But the helpless hurt in Wesley’s expression when he turned around was too damn painful to be anything but reality.
The insane (or maybe not-so-insane) idea that Wesley had come to smother him to death with his own pillow flashed through Gunn’s thoughts. Real fear made a fist around his heart when Wesley’s shadow fell over him. (He deserved it, sure. But that wasn’t the way that he wanted to go out. Not like this, not by Wesley…)
“You’ve nothing more to fear from me,” Wesley said, quiet and eerily calm. He sounded almost numb. “I’ve taken my revenge upon you. It’s finished.”
“Oh,” said Gunn. He wasn’t sure he believed it just yet. Wesley might not physically attack him again, but whatever subtle understanding that had existed between them was broken for good. He looked into familiar blue eyes and didn’t know the man behind them anymore.
Obviously aware of Gunn’s doubt, Wesley attempted a smile. Watching that felt a hell of a lot like a paper cut to the heart, Gunn decided.
“It’s over, Charles,” Wesley assured him.
Gunn barely repressed a wince. God, the guy could be talking about so many things. If this was a peace-offering though, he’d gladly take it. He’d take anything Wes offered him right now.
It hurt to speak past the lump in his throat, but Gunn forced the words out anyway. “They’re not telling me anything.”
Wesley smiled ruefully and Gunn was sure that he was remembering his own time in the hospital, laying there with thick bandages around his throat and feeling like he didn’t have a friend in the world. “No, I didn’t imagine that they would,” Wesley said.
They hadn’t told Wesley a thing after the mess with Connor, and Gunn had been sure that Angel got some weird-ass pleasure out of it. Some twisted alpha-vamp sense of justice. You don’t run with the pack, you’re out. It made him sick to think of it now.
But Wesley got to his feet, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress. “What would you like to know?”
For a second, Gunn thought about asking if they were okay now. If a scalpel in the gut could really be the end of it. “Knox..?” he asked instead.
“Dead,” Wesley told him, his tone leaving nothing to the imagination.
Gunn nodded, swallowed hard. “But I’m not.”
“No,” Wesley murmured, “You’re not. Fred wouldn’t… she wouldn’t have wanted that. And I…” He took Gunn’s hand in his own suddenly and pressed it to his lips, blank-eyed and trembling with a kind of self-preserving unconsciousness.
Iliad, Book XXIV, Gunn’s implant supplied helpfully. ‘I have gone through what no other mortal on earth has gone through; I put my lips to the hands of the man who has killed…’
He silently screamed at it to shut up. All this pain just to have poetry in his head and a bit of legalese. He would’ve torn it out with his own two hands if he thought that he could, but his left hand was balled into a fist and Wesley’s tears had begun to fall on his right. Wesley didn’t seem to realize that he was crying.
“I couldn’t lose you both,” Wesley whispered. “I imagine that’s selfish of me. But I couldn’t lose you too, Charles.” He bowed his head like a man at prayer and Gunn pulled him close, ignoring the shriek of pain that shot through his stomach at the rough motion. The lump in his throat had somehow translated into tears of his own, and he cradled Wesley’s head against his chest, letting himself cling to the only thing he had left.
* * *
Absolution (S5, ‘Time Bomb’)
Wesley seemed to lose interest in the conversation when it turned away from the matter of Illyria, and Gunn wearily got to his feet, taking that as his cue to get out of here. He’d come looking for some sort of compass in this place only to find that Wesley was spinning out of control even worse than him.
He took a step towards the door, but something about this tableau made him hesitate. Once upon a time, he used to make a game of this sort of thing; Charles Gunn versus the big-ass dusty books, competing for Wesley’s undivided attention. He used to have it down to a fine art, back when things were sweeter and simpler.
Goddamn, but that felt like a hundred years ago.
“Mind if I stick around for a bit?” he asked.
Wesley made some neutral noise that Gunn decided to take as consent. He shut the door and went to join Wesley on the carpet, crouching down next to him. “When was the last time you ate something?”
Wesley looked up absently, seeming to search for something. “Hmm? Oh. Spike brought me a sandwich from the vending machine at some point,” he said, reaching past Gunn for a volume. “Excuse me.” Book in hand, he paused. “You know, I don’t think I was supposed to tell you that.”
“Spike did?” Gunn echoed.
Wesley appeared to consider it for a moment. “It does seem a bit unprecedented, doesn’t it? He did call me Percy…” His voice trailed off again and he leapt to his feet and skittered across the room to consult a text propped open in the windowsill.
Things had gotten bad around here if the only guy who had noticed that Wes needed some help was Spike. Everybody was so wrapped up in their own drama that a man going quietly crazy in the privacy of his own office slipped through the cracks. Gunn stood up and made his way across the quite literal paper trail, careful not to disturb anything. He caught Wesley by the arm.
“You still in there, English?” Gunn asked quietly.
The obvious confusion on Wesley’s face made Gunn’s heart sink, but it was gradually replaced by a sad little smile. For the first time since he’d returned from the holding dimension, those blue eyes looked at Gunn, rather than through him.
“We’ve all changed, Charles,” Wesley said, “But I’m afraid it’s still just me.” And he leaned in close and kissed Gunn on the lips, warm and gentle.
Hard to believe that it was the same guy; the guy who had made a clumsy, drunken, brave-as-hell move all those years back. Who’d made Gunn think to hell with loneliness, just for a little while, and who’d offered everything he had without asking for a single damn thing in return. All those old memories.
(Gunn didn’t really see the point of Wesley armoring himself up with all those hidden weapons when he could take a man apart with just a kiss.)
Wesley drew back and considered him thoughtfully. “The Hypogean Conspectus,” he said.
Gunn blinked. “Under the teapot, Wes,” he said, past the lump in his throat.
“Of course, of course…” Wesley ghosted away from him again, retrieving the scroll and promptly sitting down on the floor with his back against the desk, already scanning the document.
“What about sleep?” Gunn asked, following Wesley’s path again and looking down at him. The warmth of Wesley’s mouth still lingered on his lips. “You slept in the last couple days?” He sat down next to Wesley, stretching his legs out in front of him and trying not to mess up the books too badly.
Wesley frowned at him. “I’m sure you have better things to worry about than that.”
Gunn thought about the pile of paperwork on his desk that had grown like mold in his absence. “This is what I want to worry about right now.”
“That’s silly.”
“I just got back from hell,” Gunn reminded him, trying for a smile. “Cut a guy a break, huh?” He reached over and slipped his hand onto the back of Wesley’s neck, not surprised to find the muscles there tense and knotted. He started massaging gently and Wesley’s eyelids fluttered to half-mast.
“What’re you doing?” Wesley asked.
“Nothing. Keep reading.” He shifted to make himself more comfortable, working on Wesley’s shoulders next.
“This isn’t particularly productive,” Wesley said. His eyes had fallen completely shut and he leaned slightly into Gunn’s touch, the scroll forgotten on his lap.
“Screw productive,” Gunn murmured. “Everybody’s always got to be so productive around here.”
It took a few minutes longer, but Wesley eventually sighed and relaxed completely into his arms, mumbling something that sounded like ‘Could never read when you were around’ before his breathing slowed and his head rested against Gunn’s shoulder in obviously much-needed sleep.
Yeah, the books had definitely lost this round.
Gunn leaned his cheek against Wesley’s hair, letting himself shut his eyes and forget hell and hurt and guilt, just for a little while.
* * *
Gunn/Wesley
Fandom: Angel
Rating: PG-14
Words: ~6000
Note: I started this one in September of '06 and if I don't stop messing with it eventually, it'll never see the light of day. There's a fair amount of season-hopping, so the segments are labelled to help you get your bearings. The format is based roughly on the 7_deadly_sins_ challenge, although I had to throw 'Absolution' in there as my own personal touch, for I am a less-than-secret sap.
So, without any further ado...
* * *
Pride (Early Season 2)
“Any time now, Wesley!” Angel yelled. The demon clan that Cordelia’s vision had sent them after was proving quite the challenge, even with the forewarning and careful preparation. It all came down to this spell…
“Wes?”
“Just… just a moment” Wesley called back from his position on the concrete wall above the battle. “No pressure,” he added under his breath, beginning to sweat. “Of course not.”
Angel and Gunn were doing their best to keep the demons in question dead, but the rate of reanimation was far more rapid than the Compendium had suggested. Wesley glanced down in alarm at Gunn’s cry, but it seemed to be a shout of disgust, if the severed hand that the young man was frantically trying to dislodge from around his ankle was any indication.
Even so, Wesley’s hands trembled violently as he completed the spell, and he stuttered the incantation with such poor inflection that he was certain he’d buggered it all up. The spell would fizzle and his friends would be torn to pieces by undead body parts or… or they’d escape but it would be all Wesley’s fault that the clan could pull themselves together (literally) and go back to gobbling schoolchildren and… wasn’t that white light the first indication of the charm’s effect?
Well, that was a bit of good luck.
Wesley climbed to his feet as the remaining components were consumed by the spell, breathing a sigh of relief as a net of light drifted harmlessly down over the parking-garage-turned-battlefield. Gunn appeared to hold his breath as the light passed over him, but he looked about as relieved as Wesley felt when the clawed hand at his ankle went still and dropped to the ground with a wet splat. Angel merely looked irritated, yanking an arm (a previously undead arm…) from around his shoulder where it had been creeping towards his throat. He tossed it aside and wiped ineffectually at his jacket.
Wesley hurried down to join them, picking his way through the mess and hoping that he wouldn’t be in too much trouble for that delay, a profuse apology already on the tip of his tongue. But Gunn greeted him with a wide grin and a slap on the back so hearty that Wesley nearly went stumbling.
“Now that was some cool mojo,” Gunn declared.
Despite Wesley’s earlier bout of performance anxiety and Angel’s sotto voce grumblings about claw marks in his leather jacket… despite everything… Wesley swelled with pride.
* * *
Sloth (Season 2, Darla-arc)
“Never gonna move again,” Gunn declared, shutting his eyes and resting his head against the back of the park bench.
Wesley ‘hmm’ed in agreement and wearily surveyed the remains of their latest battle. It made him want to laugh. A fine summer evening and he was out on the town doing battle. His nine-year-old self would’ve been thrilled beyond measure. As it stood, he was merely exhausted.
“Harpies,” Gunn muttered. “In L.A.”
“It was a surprise,” Wesley admitted, mimicking Gunn’s relaxed posture. “Tenacious lot too.”
“Good thing you’re a badass with a crossbow, English.”
Wesley glanced over, caught off guard by the new nickname. He’d never had a nickname before. None that bore repeating anyhow. “And you,” he said, “You were quite a formidable opponent yourself.”
Gunn snorted and Wesley immediately wondered what he’d said wrong. But Gunn was smiling, his eyes still shut, and Wesley’s stomach gave an odd little lurch-hop that he could feel right down to his toes. And all the places in between.
No, he firmly told himself, a little panicked. This is the first friend… possibly the only human male friend that you’ve had since… ever…
“We should phone Cordelia,” Wesley said, interrupting his own internal monologue. “She’ll be worried.”
“That mean I gotta move?” Gunn asked, dragging his eyes open with a seemingly Herculean effort. He shot Wesley a pitiful glance. “I don’t wanna move.”
So Wesley rolled his eyes and fished Gunn’s cellular phone from the pocket of the younger man’s jeans, trying not to consciously notice the heat of Gunn’s skin through the denim, and silently wondering precisely where the line stood between enjoying the company of a friend and… something a bit more than that.
Gunn’s smile never faded a bit.
* * *
Gluttony
“I can’t believe we finished the…” Wesley paused to stifle a hiccup. “…entire thing.” He held up the bottle as evidence.
Gunn leaned across Cordelia from the other end of the couch and grabbed the bottle from Wesley, after one missed attempt. He gave it a shake, causing the last remnants of the tequila to slosh in the bottom, then put it to his lips and tipped it up, swallowing twice before lowering it again. (Wesley watched these proceedings with a little smile and the liberty of the very drunk.)
“Now we finished the whole thing,” Gunn corrected cheerfully, setting the bottle down on the coffee table with a too loud clunk as he misjudged the distance.
“But why is the rum gone?” Cordelia giggled, slurring more than a little and leaning against Wesley, warm and unbalanced.
Wesley frowned in confusion. “Because we drank it,” he decided. “And that wasn’t rum… was it?” Gunn and Cordelia scoffed at him in stereo and Wesley tried his best not to pout. “You’re trying to confuse me.”
“Trying?” Cordelia snorted.
Wesley ignored her. He knew exactly where the tequila had gone. From Wesley’s car, into several toasts extolling their successful Angel-less state, into one highly complex drinking game at which Wesley was convinced that Gunn was cheating, and finally into three rather inebriated fighters of the good fight as they sprawled on Cordelia’s couch watching a stand-up comedy routine with the television volume set too low for them to make out the punch-lines.
A good Watcher was always aware of his surroundings. Even if he was a little tipsy. In fact, the last drops of the tequila in question could probably still be tasted on Gunn’s lower lip if one were to…
“I’m going to get some water,” Wesley announced, bracing himself first on Cordelia’s shoulder and then the edge of the couch as the floor rolled underneath him.
“Need a hand, lightweight?” Gunn offered.
Wesley flashed him a grin that felt entirely silly, shaking his head and wishing he were drunk enough to accept that offer. Being alone with Gunn wasn’t an entirely unappealing idea. A bad idea, certainly, but not at all unappealing. Although he couldn’t quite seem to feel his feet, Wesley pointed himself in the direction of the kitchen and propelled himself towards it by sheer force of will.
When he was alone in Cordelia’s kitchen, it became evident to Wesley just how very drunk he actually was, in a way that was impossible when there were other people around acting just as foolish as he. It was a good thing that he was alone though. Wesley knew that drinking made people do all manner of stupid things. This was both a curse and an opportunity, at least in Wesley’s tequila-soaked logic. Because while drinking made people do stupid things, it also gave people a perfectly good reason for doing stupid things.
He suddenly wished that Gunn had come with him, for some urgent reason that he rather seemed to be concealing from his own conscious thoughts at the moment.
He rinsed his mouth with cool water from the tap, feeling slightly ill. The water tasted strange and sharp against his tongue. Bracing himself against the edges of the sink, Wesley tried to gather his thoughts.
“Now she won’t stop talking about Johnny Depp,” Gunn complained, startling Wesley.
“And that’s my fault?” Wesley asked, wondering if he’d somehow drawn Gunn out here simply by wishing it so hard. Gunn shot him a smile and moved around him to grab a glass of water for himself.
“Nah. There’s just only so much talk about men in eyeliner that a guy can take, you know?”
“Eyeliner?” Wes echoed. He could spend fifty years in America and still not have the slightest bloody clue what his friends were talking about half the time. Or perhaps he was just a little distracted at the moment. Whether he was aware of it or not, Charles Gunn really was a distracting man, with his unconscious grace and the classically handsome line of his jaw.
“You alright there, English?” Gunn asked.
“No,” Wesley whispered, looking at his hands. Things were most certainly not alright, because he had this silly urge to just step forward and curl his fingers into the material of Gunn’s shirt until he could feel the heat of his body and press his mouth to Gunn’s own. And even worse, he was just drunk enough to try it. Gunn didn’t help matters in the least when he set down his glass and moved closer, obviously concerned.
“You sick, Wes? Here, sit.” He slid his arm around Wesley’s shoulders to help him to a chair, and the friendly contact was all it took to drive Wesley right over the edge into the realm of insanity. He grabbed Gunn’s shoulders and surged forward to kiss him on the mouth.
It wasn’t nearly as terrible as that first time with Cordelia back in Sunnydale had been, but it certainly came a close second. Noses bumped and teeth clicked and when Wesley tripped over his own feet and staggered forward a step, Gunn was still too shocked to put up any sort of resistance. The screech of the kitchen table sliding along the floor when Gunn stumbled into it was enough to make Wesley pull away, horrified. That… hadn’t gone at all how he’d imagined it. And Gunn was staring at him.
“Was that a British thing?” Gunn asked quietly.
Wesley’s stomach gave a lurching twist, and if he could only get his bloody legs to work properly, he would have liked to start running and never look back. His glasses were askew and he fixed them with a shaking hand. “It may have been a tequila thing,” he admitted, his cheeks burning. “Oh god. Gunn, I’m so…”
“If you’re gonna seize the moment, British, do it,” Gunn interrupted, his expression unreadable. He took a step forward and lifted his hand. Wesley flinched like an idiot, and then flinched again when Gunn removed his glasses.
“Breathe, man,” Gunn murmured, and when Wesley obediently complied, he was suddenly inhaling the moist warmth of Gunn’s mouth as it slid over his own.
Kissing was easy, if you weren’t over-thinking it and if the element of desperation was removed. Just a matter of soft movement and instinct and the inordinately erotic sensation of Gunn’s tongue against Wesley’s and, oh, his knees were going a little weak. Wesley wrapped his arms around Gunn’s shoulders (he doubted that the kitchen table could stand another assault) and Gunn gave a little hum of satisfaction. Wesley had to pull away to gasp, and Gunn’s mouth tracked a line of fierce kisses along his jaw.
“Is this an American thing?” Wesley whispered.
“Tequila thing, remember?” Gunn’s voice was a bit hoarse and so close to Wesley’s ear that it made him shudder. “Don’t think you’re allowed to talk during a tequila thing.” Then he kissed Wesley again, pressing him back against the table, and Wesley held on to handfuls of Gunn’s shirt so tightly that he thought he heard something tear. The world spun when he shut his eyes, until all that was left was the heat of Gunn’s mouth and the sensation of his hands in Wesley’s hair.
“Guuuys?” Cordelia called mournfully from the other room. “Where’d you go?”
Wesley jumped, but Gunn just straightened up with a chuckle, putting Wesley’s glasses back into his hand. “Kitchen, remember?” he called to Cordelia, “You want anything?” He took a step back and faded into the area beyond which Wesley’s vision was just a blur of color.
So much for tequila, Wesley thought miserably, already feeling the beginnings of paralyzing awkwardness setting in. He slipped his glasses back on and discovered with a jolt that Gunn’s eyes hadn’t left him for a moment. And he was half-smiling in that Charles Gunn way that made Wesley want to blush or fidget or grin like a fool. (He bit his lip and smiled at Gunn’s shoes and straightened his shirt.)
“Your timing needs serious work,” Gunn told him.
“I actually suspected that the setting was the problem,” Wesley replied, before his nerves could catch up with him.
“We’ve got room for improvement,” Gunn agreed. (Wesley tried not to read too much into the implications of that statement, but his heart gave a little hop despite himself.) “Let’s get back… Cordy’s gonna come looking for us. You sure you’re alright?”
Wesley nodded, more alright than he’d been in a long time, and let Gunn lead him back into the other room. Gunn’s hand brushed against his own, brief and reassuring, and Wesley found himself trembling so badly that it was a wonder he made it back to the couch at all. Carpe tequila, he thought giddily. If this was the sort of reward that he got for losing his job with Angel, he couldn’t help but wonder why he’d spent all this time feeling so very hurt in the first place.
* * *
Lust
It was an odd arrangement, certainly, but Wesley had been raised on odd. When most boys had still been asking their mums to check under the bed for monsters, Wesley had been learning how to categorize and kill the very real versions of those monsters. Gunn was a part of that world already, no explanations necessary. Where Virginia had shied away after Wesley was shot, Gunn knew how to run his fingers over the scar, gently, but without too much special attention. He had scars of his own, after all.
Or maybe it wasn’t that Gunn was anything particular special at all. Maybe the crux of the matter was that Wesley was lonely. So bloody, achingly lonely. There was a difference between a touch with intent (the kind that you could get easy enough at any old bar if you were generous with your compliments and played up the accent) and a touch with warmth. With fondness.
Gunn had this quiet way of ambling up when Wesley was busy with work, and he’d lean over Wesley’s shoulder and touch his back, or his arm, or the back of his neck. Always so casual, always there on the premise of something else… To update him on the current case, or to bring him a cup of tea, or just to make sure he wasn’t giving himself eye strain from reading too long in the bad light again. And then he would amble right back out again and Wesley would, inevitably, go a little bit crazy.
The sense-memory of Gunn’s hand would linger and spread until Wesley was flushed and distracted, and he would have to abandon his texts due to a sudden and inexplicable inability to read. And Gunn would always be waiting for him somewhere not too far away, with that damned knowing smile and ready hands, hungry mouth…
Sometimes Wesley suspected that Gunn did it on purpose.
* * *
Wrath (Mid Season 3)
Wesley’s hands, at least, were focused on the hunt as he touched the dark blood clinging to the bushes at the edge of the park, testing its temperature and consistency. His mind was somewhere else entirely, considering the newest happy couple in their little troop and knowing damn well that the situation would only get worse the more that he let his mind dwell on it.
Just so, he couldn’t seem to turn those thoughts off.
It wasn’t their constant touching that bothered him. No, not so much. It was their smiles. Those unguarded beaming ‘I’m so bloody in love I could just pop’ smiles that they tried their best to keep muted while he was around. It didn’t help in the least. He wanted Fred to be his Fred, and Charles to remain his Charles, and if they were a complete entity together, where precisely did that leave him?
In the face of their rosy new love, he felt ugly and awkward and ridiculous. He felt like the man that he had been in Sunnydale, the one who had nattered on about propriety at the worst possible moments and could inevitably make a conversation stop just by walking into a room. The undesirable one.
Trying to get his mind back on the task at hand, Wesley turned as the demon finally panicked and crashed out of the foliage not ten feet from him. He raised the crossbow and aimed slightly ahead of the beast as it made a break for the thick cover of the trees lining the opposite side of the park.
Logically, he knew that they hadn’t changed their behavior towards him in the least. If anything, they went out of their way to be even nicer to him. He had, after all, been such a gracious loser. But still… sometimes he swore that they rolled their eyes when he walked into a room these days. Sometimes he was quite certain that Gunn was laughing at him from behind his friendly smile. (Never needed you as much as you needed me.) He hated it, the way that they hastily pulled away from each other when he was around, grinning sheepishly at each other, sharing a joke and the joke was him.
Something inside of him shattered painfully, tearing through him like shrapnel and making his pulse pound in his temples and behind his eyes. The demon went down with his first shot, but he reloaded as he walked towards it and fired again, this time aiming for the face. The demon’s pained shriek resonated against that new dark loathing inside of him.
Stepping up to the writhing creature as it rolled onto its back, Wesley saw the second bolt protruding from its eye socket, dark liquid oozing from around the shaft. He reached down before he had decided to, giving the arrow a vicious twist as he jerked it free.
He knelt down beside the thing, staying clear of its claws. “Where is your lair?” he asked, ignoring its anguished howls.
When it came down to it, the real demons were far easier to silence than those inside his head.
* * *
Envy (S5, ‘Harm’s Way’)
The talk turned to seating charts and weapon scanners, and Wesley tuned them out, already calculating the time that he would need to refresh his grasp on the languages in question. Vinji in particular was notoriously difficult, what with the clicks and…
“And since none of the clan representatives speak English, I’ll be doing most of the talking,” Gunn concluded. That caught Wesley’s attention. He looked up in surprise.
“You?”
Gunn grinned at him, straightening up proudly and launching into yet another of his ‘Along with the law’ explanations about the wonderful things that Wolfram & Hart had injected into his brain.
Wesley found himself biting his tongue. Demon languages now, of all things. As if several years of rigorous training at the Academy could be replaced by a simple… whatever it was that they’d done to Gunn. As if, after all these years, Wesley could find himself seamlessly replaced by an admittedly expensive medical procedure.
Wesley noticed that Lorne was watching him with veiled interest, and realized with an unhappy shock that his aura was most likely rivaling the empath in its greenness. Ducking his head, he buried himself in the list of demon customs, knowing bloody well that he wouldn’t need it anymore. Pity he’d already committed it to memory. Angel confirmed his fears not five minutes later, with nary a glance his way: Gunn would sit at Angel’s side during the summit. And Wesley would sit out.
Wesley hadn’t realized just how fiercely he’d guarded his position on the team until it was suddenly rendered unnecessary. Now Gunn would take care of translations and demon lore, and Wesley would… shoot things. His father would be so proud.
He kept quiet for the remainder of the meeting though his thoughts became increasingly dire. When Angel decided that he’d had enough of summit-planning for one day, Wesley nearly bolted for the door, making a beeline towards the haven of his office.
“What’s up with you?” Gunn, of course. Given the real concern in his friend’s expression, Lorne must not have been the only one to notice Wesley’s silence during the meeting.
“Not a thing,” Wesley said tonelessly. He set course for his office again and Gunn kept pace with him, obviously not content to drop the matter.
“You sure about that? ‘Cause the brood quota in Angel’s office? Reaching critical proportions,” Gunn joked.
Wesley glanced at him, prickling with irritation at Gunn’s smile. At his teasing tone.
“And now I suppose you’ll tell me exactly what those proportions are,” Wesley snapped, “in metric, Imperial, and thirty-seven demonic systems of measurement besides.”
Gunn’s eyebrows went up immediately and Wesley could see the realization dawning. “That’s what this is about, huh?”
“Gunn…” Wesley began, breaking eye contact and deflating with a sigh. It seemed so childish now, unable to hold up under Gunn’s steady gaze.
“Hey, it’s cool. The implant ain’t exactly peanuts,” Gunn admitted. He broke into a sudden smile, reaching out to lightly punch Wesley’s arm like he was suggesting a game of Risk. “Tell you what. I could pull a few strings, take you to see Sparrow… the doc could hook you up with an upgrade of your own.”
“No, thank you,” Wesley interrupted firmly, stepping away from him.
“Scared you might learn something?” Gunn was still smiling, but there was something chilly in his expression. Something defensive.
“I’d rather not give the Senior Partners carte blanche to poke about in my brain, if it’s all the same to you. Perhaps I’m old-fashioned.” Wesley turned and headed into his office, unable to bring himself to shut the door in Gunn’s face, unsurprised when Gunn followed him in. “You should be preparing for the summit,” Wesley murmured, heading to his desk.
“No,” Gunn said, “I think we should be talking about this.”
Wesley turned to face him, folding his arms and leaning against his desk. “You’ve obviously got something to say on the matter, Charles. I’m listening.”
“Maybe you always looked down on me a little bit. Maybe you liked it better when I was just the dumb guy with the axe.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Wesley said, unsure of whether or not he was lying. “How are we to know if they’ve done something to you?”
“Like what?” Gunn asked, battle in his eyes. “Everybody keeps saying that and nobody can tell me what they mean.”
Wesley looked away for a moment, considering the question. He hadn’t forced himself to put it into words until know, that lingering fear that they’d taken his old friend and done something to him. “What if they’ve changed you?” he said. “It’s disconcerting, Charles. How’re we to know that you’re the same man?”
“I’m not the same man,” said Gunn.
“I rather suspected that when you began humming the bloody Pirates of Penzance to yourself when you think no one’s around,” Wesley muttered, trying to pretend that Gunn’s admission didn’t disturb him.
“Wesley…” Low warning in Gunn’s voice, and Wesley found himself suddenly too close to Gunn, trapped between the desk and the man in front of him.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” Wesley said flippantly, trying to edge out of this tight spot, feeling a little light-headed. Gunn wore cologne these days, something warm and expensive, and Wesley’s brain had a nasty tendency to run rampant when Gunn got too close. He needed to get out…
Gunn frowned and grabbed Wesley’s arm, gentle but insistent. “Now who’s not taking this serious? We’ve all changed. Me, you, Angel… all of us. Can’t sign on in a place like this and stay the same.”
Wesley shrugged, not meeting Gunn’s eyes, wishing that he’d let him go. It was too much like… earlier times. Sweeter times, when Gunn might’ve looked into Wesley’s eyes like he meant it and tilted his head and gently kissed his lips, hesitant and real and…
… just like this.
Wesley caught his breath and touched his mouth, as if he could find evidence there of what had just happened. He stared at Gunn, some distant part of his mind pleased to note that at least he wasn’t shaking this time. “What was that?” he demanded, his voice a bit rough.
“Proof,” Gunn said, letting him go and taking a step back. His expression was perfectly unreadable and Wesley wanted to shake him.
“Of…?”
“Proof that I’m still me,” he said, a little of the old Gunn slipping through as he offered a shrug of his own.
“Charles,” Wesley started, his sentence trailing off before it even started. There was simply no rational way of explaining that it was too late… far too late for that kind of proof. That old scars opened so very easily and not every kiss was the key to a fairytale ending. Wesley shook his head, turned away. “You should be getting ready for the summit,” he said again, quietly. “Angel needs all the help that he can get.”
Wesley waited until he heard Gunn close the door behind himself before letting out a shuddering sigh, running his hand over his face. It was all the proof that he had needed, of course. He simply hadn’t thought that it would hurt so badly.
* * *
Greed (S5, post-‘Shells’)
Gunn drifted on the morphine haze, riding the pain in and out like a tide. He begged them to reduce the dosage each time. He liked the pain. It kept him from thinking.
Wesley arrived a few hours after Harmony had left, entering the room without knocking and shutting the door behind himself silently. He was the last person that Gunn had expected to see, and for a moment Gunn was convinced that they’d finally gone and OD’ed him on the meds and he was hallucinating. But the helpless hurt in Wesley’s expression when he turned around was too damn painful to be anything but reality.
The insane (or maybe not-so-insane) idea that Wesley had come to smother him to death with his own pillow flashed through Gunn’s thoughts. Real fear made a fist around his heart when Wesley’s shadow fell over him. (He deserved it, sure. But that wasn’t the way that he wanted to go out. Not like this, not by Wesley…)
“You’ve nothing more to fear from me,” Wesley said, quiet and eerily calm. He sounded almost numb. “I’ve taken my revenge upon you. It’s finished.”
“Oh,” said Gunn. He wasn’t sure he believed it just yet. Wesley might not physically attack him again, but whatever subtle understanding that had existed between them was broken for good. He looked into familiar blue eyes and didn’t know the man behind them anymore.
Obviously aware of Gunn’s doubt, Wesley attempted a smile. Watching that felt a hell of a lot like a paper cut to the heart, Gunn decided.
“It’s over, Charles,” Wesley assured him.
Gunn barely repressed a wince. God, the guy could be talking about so many things. If this was a peace-offering though, he’d gladly take it. He’d take anything Wes offered him right now.
It hurt to speak past the lump in his throat, but Gunn forced the words out anyway. “They’re not telling me anything.”
Wesley smiled ruefully and Gunn was sure that he was remembering his own time in the hospital, laying there with thick bandages around his throat and feeling like he didn’t have a friend in the world. “No, I didn’t imagine that they would,” Wesley said.
They hadn’t told Wesley a thing after the mess with Connor, and Gunn had been sure that Angel got some weird-ass pleasure out of it. Some twisted alpha-vamp sense of justice. You don’t run with the pack, you’re out. It made him sick to think of it now.
But Wesley got to his feet, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress. “What would you like to know?”
For a second, Gunn thought about asking if they were okay now. If a scalpel in the gut could really be the end of it. “Knox..?” he asked instead.
“Dead,” Wesley told him, his tone leaving nothing to the imagination.
Gunn nodded, swallowed hard. “But I’m not.”
“No,” Wesley murmured, “You’re not. Fred wouldn’t… she wouldn’t have wanted that. And I…” He took Gunn’s hand in his own suddenly and pressed it to his lips, blank-eyed and trembling with a kind of self-preserving unconsciousness.
Iliad, Book XXIV, Gunn’s implant supplied helpfully. ‘I have gone through what no other mortal on earth has gone through; I put my lips to the hands of the man who has killed…’
He silently screamed at it to shut up. All this pain just to have poetry in his head and a bit of legalese. He would’ve torn it out with his own two hands if he thought that he could, but his left hand was balled into a fist and Wesley’s tears had begun to fall on his right. Wesley didn’t seem to realize that he was crying.
“I couldn’t lose you both,” Wesley whispered. “I imagine that’s selfish of me. But I couldn’t lose you too, Charles.” He bowed his head like a man at prayer and Gunn pulled him close, ignoring the shriek of pain that shot through his stomach at the rough motion. The lump in his throat had somehow translated into tears of his own, and he cradled Wesley’s head against his chest, letting himself cling to the only thing he had left.
* * *
Absolution (S5, ‘Time Bomb’)
Wesley seemed to lose interest in the conversation when it turned away from the matter of Illyria, and Gunn wearily got to his feet, taking that as his cue to get out of here. He’d come looking for some sort of compass in this place only to find that Wesley was spinning out of control even worse than him.
He took a step towards the door, but something about this tableau made him hesitate. Once upon a time, he used to make a game of this sort of thing; Charles Gunn versus the big-ass dusty books, competing for Wesley’s undivided attention. He used to have it down to a fine art, back when things were sweeter and simpler.
Goddamn, but that felt like a hundred years ago.
“Mind if I stick around for a bit?” he asked.
Wesley made some neutral noise that Gunn decided to take as consent. He shut the door and went to join Wesley on the carpet, crouching down next to him. “When was the last time you ate something?”
Wesley looked up absently, seeming to search for something. “Hmm? Oh. Spike brought me a sandwich from the vending machine at some point,” he said, reaching past Gunn for a volume. “Excuse me.” Book in hand, he paused. “You know, I don’t think I was supposed to tell you that.”
“Spike did?” Gunn echoed.
Wesley appeared to consider it for a moment. “It does seem a bit unprecedented, doesn’t it? He did call me Percy…” His voice trailed off again and he leapt to his feet and skittered across the room to consult a text propped open in the windowsill.
Things had gotten bad around here if the only guy who had noticed that Wes needed some help was Spike. Everybody was so wrapped up in their own drama that a man going quietly crazy in the privacy of his own office slipped through the cracks. Gunn stood up and made his way across the quite literal paper trail, careful not to disturb anything. He caught Wesley by the arm.
“You still in there, English?” Gunn asked quietly.
The obvious confusion on Wesley’s face made Gunn’s heart sink, but it was gradually replaced by a sad little smile. For the first time since he’d returned from the holding dimension, those blue eyes looked at Gunn, rather than through him.
“We’ve all changed, Charles,” Wesley said, “But I’m afraid it’s still just me.” And he leaned in close and kissed Gunn on the lips, warm and gentle.
Hard to believe that it was the same guy; the guy who had made a clumsy, drunken, brave-as-hell move all those years back. Who’d made Gunn think to hell with loneliness, just for a little while, and who’d offered everything he had without asking for a single damn thing in return. All those old memories.
(Gunn didn’t really see the point of Wesley armoring himself up with all those hidden weapons when he could take a man apart with just a kiss.)
Wesley drew back and considered him thoughtfully. “The Hypogean Conspectus,” he said.
Gunn blinked. “Under the teapot, Wes,” he said, past the lump in his throat.
“Of course, of course…” Wesley ghosted away from him again, retrieving the scroll and promptly sitting down on the floor with his back against the desk, already scanning the document.
“What about sleep?” Gunn asked, following Wesley’s path again and looking down at him. The warmth of Wesley’s mouth still lingered on his lips. “You slept in the last couple days?” He sat down next to Wesley, stretching his legs out in front of him and trying not to mess up the books too badly.
Wesley frowned at him. “I’m sure you have better things to worry about than that.”
Gunn thought about the pile of paperwork on his desk that had grown like mold in his absence. “This is what I want to worry about right now.”
“That’s silly.”
“I just got back from hell,” Gunn reminded him, trying for a smile. “Cut a guy a break, huh?” He reached over and slipped his hand onto the back of Wesley’s neck, not surprised to find the muscles there tense and knotted. He started massaging gently and Wesley’s eyelids fluttered to half-mast.
“What’re you doing?” Wesley asked.
“Nothing. Keep reading.” He shifted to make himself more comfortable, working on Wesley’s shoulders next.
“This isn’t particularly productive,” Wesley said. His eyes had fallen completely shut and he leaned slightly into Gunn’s touch, the scroll forgotten on his lap.
“Screw productive,” Gunn murmured. “Everybody’s always got to be so productive around here.”
It took a few minutes longer, but Wesley eventually sighed and relaxed completely into his arms, mumbling something that sounded like ‘Could never read when you were around’ before his breathing slowed and his head rested against Gunn’s shoulder in obviously much-needed sleep.
Yeah, the books had definitely lost this round.
Gunn leaned his cheek against Wesley’s hair, letting himself shut his eyes and forget hell and hurt and guilt, just for a little while.
* * *