SPOILERS: None.
SUMMARY: Gunn waits. Wes wakes. (Set late Season 2, just after 'The
Thin Dead Line'.)
RATING: PG 13 - nothing but a dash of immoderate language to get your
knickers in a twist
about. Slashy implications, but nothing saucy just yet. (The next instalment
may be a little
steamier, though.)
DISCLAIMER: The characters & any text in quotation marks inside
brackets are the property of
Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui, Sandollar, and David Greenwalt Productions,
20th Century
Fox, and whoever else may have a hold upon them. I do not mean to infringe
upon any
copyrights. Not mine. Just playing. Don't sue.
NOTES: Thanks to ElenaB and Herself for Betaing and to everyone who
asked about a sequel to
'Games'.
Gunn really fucking hated hospitals.
Watercooler half-full. Big fake plant in the corner of the waiting
room that needed dusting. Pile of
dog-eared old magazines with smiling white women on the covers, banal
headlines in bold,
primary colours offering "101 Ways To A Slimmer Summer!" "How To Get
That Guy!" and "The
Secret Of Giving A Perfect Blowjob!"
It was a quiet night, which meant there were a couple of spare seats
and that the number of
rowdy drunks, squalling kids, gently bleeding moms and bickering hookers
was lower than Gunn
had seen it. He automatically noted any movements on the peripheries
of his vision, constantly
scoping the room for possible sources of attack - but right now his
conscious thoughts were full of
Wesley.
Perched briefly on the edge of one of the nasty orange plastic chairs;
would have preferred a
corner seat but there were none to be had. Uncomfortable with his back
to the door, though, and
too much nervous energy to sit still; so after a moment he rose and
resumed the angry pacing.
Stepped around babies and bags and crutches with unthinking grace.
The old white guy in the
corner watched him nervously and Gunn felt a familiar pang of impatience.
That's right, gramps, I'm here to mug your wrinkly ass.
Sat down again with his back to the wall, a different chair this time
(just as nasty, just as orange),
one that one of the working girls had just vacated. Chewed his bottom
lip as he stared blankly at
the window. Still dark; he could barely distinguish the neon signs
and car lights outside because
of the white, institutional glare in here. The window acted like a
black mirror, casting his own
anxious face back at him and leaving him feeling way too exposed. Gunn
was more comfortable
in the shadows on the other side of the glass.
He glanced away after a moment and shifted awkwardly on the hard plastic.
Remembered his
Mom lying in a bed in a place like this, way too late. Alonna, that
time she broke her arm when
she was little. Derek. Marion, her pretty face all torn up. Wayne.
Jasmin. Veronica. And now
Wesley Wyndham Price, skinny ass English guy, who really had no business
bein' in LA in the
first place, let alone bleeding to death from a zombie-inflicted bullet
wound there. But at least
Wes had medical insurance, which meant one less set of hoops to jump
through.
And God, God, he'd thought for sure it was too late by the time they
got to the hospital. Heart in
his mouth when the weird simplicity of frantically kicking zombie ass
gave way to staring
confusedly at the suddenly-crumbling corpses; when the flood of relief
dried up as he
remembered his boy was *dying* there. Ol' Wes was a resilient little
bastard, give him that -
Gunn had more than half expected him to be dead before they left Annie's
place, but he'd hung
in there. Needed medical attention like, *yesterday*, but somehow he
was still breathing, his
precious prissy face growing greyer and older by the second. Gunn had
hovered protectively
around him like a mother hen with one chick left, swinging between
fury and fear, useless
adrenaline zinging through his veins. He wanted to kick the shit out
of the person who did this -
but since the zombie was technically already dead when the shooting
occurred, and since it was
a whole damn heap deader now, there was nobody to take it out on but
himself.
Gunn had failed again. Someone was dying because Gunn had failed again.
"Sorry sir, only next of kin allowed," the orderly had said as Wesley
disappeared through the
swing doors in a flurry of medics. The look Gunn turned on him made
the guy flinch automatically
and raise his hands palm-outwards in a gesture of appeasement. "Hey,
man, I'm sorry. But it's
the rules."
"He's my brother. My *twin* brother," Gunn had said in a dangerous
tone, daring the guy to
contradict him, muscles bunching in readiness for a fight; but he was
disarmed by the
compassion of other man's face and by the light touch of Cordelia's
hand on his arm. He'd
half-way forgotten Cordy was even there, but her hand was shaking and
when he glanced down
he could see that she was just barely holding it all together herself.
Jesus, poor Cordy.
"Look, I'm sorry - I know you're frightened for your friend, but the
rules are the rules. He's in
good hands, now, the best; just let them get on with it. You can wait
in there and I'll come tell you
as soon as there's any news. I promise."
* * *
The waiting was the worst part. And God knows he should be used to
waiting by now - vampire
hunting involved plenty of waiting around patiently between stakings.
But then you had some
measure of control. A purpose. This hospital waiting drove him insane
- nothing to do but replay
everything in your head, think about all the things you'd done wrong.
Think about what the
doctors were going to say. Think about things you should have said
yourself, back when there
was still time to say things.
It wouldn't be the first time he'd had one of his people die on him
("No! No. We don't talk about
that. That's done."), but ever since Alonna, Gunn had lost some sort
of protective shell he'd
never even known was there. Since Alonna, Gunn was finding that he
couldn't be ruthless about
risking other lives anymore - not like he had been up until then. Giving
the necessary orders left
him feeling raw and drained and empty with the knowledge that any one
of the familiar faces
could vanish if their trust was misplaced. If he made a mistake. He
knew they needed a decisive
leader, knew he wouldn't help his people by going easy on them; but
it ate away at him every
time he sent them out into the darkness with nothing but a bit of wood
and their reflexes between
them and all the bad thing that waited in the shadows. ("Everybody
dies. I'm just trying to make
sure that when we die, we stay dead.") It was a relief to be out of
the neighbourhood, to be
fighting demons alongside people who didn't matter so much - people
who weren't *his* people,
people who weren't his responsibility. People who were Angel's responsibility.
After Angel up and left, wild horses wouldn't have made Gunn desert
them; and of course,
inevitably, now he felt like these middle class white folks were his
people too. Should have seen
that one coming, but it still took him by surprise. And Wesley was
special - he would be
astonished to hear it, he'd blush and say something self-deprecating,
but the white boy was
special just the same. He'd somehow sneaked in under Gunn's radar while
his attention was
elsewhere and turned out that Wes dying would matter a whole lot, would
matter maybe more
than Gunn could handle. ("You're the one that's falling now. Let me
catch you") It had taken
Gunn a while to realise it, but Wesley Wyndham Price deserved a helluvalot
more than he
thought he did, a helluvalot more than he would ever dream of asking
for. Wesley might be a
pansy-ass momma's boy with some spectacularly ugly clothes to his name,
but he was *alright*
and Gunn was proud to have him as a friend. Embarrassed by him some
of the time, yes, but
painfully protective and proud of him just the same.
And he was bleeding to death right now because of Gunn. Because he
was a well-meaning
English guy who didn't understand how rough things could get in the
real world. Who thought
that people were basically fair and reasonable - that *the cops* were
basically fair and
reasonable - and that everything could be worked out if a person just
talked in a fair and
reasonable voice. Who didn't understand you could be in a world of
pain and trouble with the law
just for walking while black.
Wesley Wyndham Price didn't know jack shit about the real world.
And OK, gotta admit that Gunn hadn't been expecting things to go down
the way they did. He
hadn't expected white, middle class, Masterpiece-Theatre-soundin' Wes
to get shot on sight;
and he sure as *hell* hadn't expected the cop to get up and walk around
after Rondell shot him
dead.
So maybe Gunn didn't know shit about the real world either; 'cause
he *still* didn't know what
made those fuckers stop moving, what made them fall down like puppets
with their strings cut and
start looking and smelling like the long-dead meat they really were.
If they hadn't all just
committed mass zombiecide or whatever the hell that was, Gunn and Cordy
and Ray and Annie
and the rest of those kids would be toast. And so would Wesley Wyndham
Price. They all owed
their lives to some whacked out freak of chance - because G had been
fresh out of ideas when
the zombies started coming through the walls.
He had failed again; and if Wes lived through this it was going to
be no damn thanks to Charles
Gunn. ("Is anyone else cold?")
Started to his feet when the doors opened, but it was only Cordelia
back from the coffee
machine. Her makeup was all to hell and she looked haggard, dark bags
pouching up under eyes
that looked a damn sight older than her years. Gunn knew that look,
had seen it reflected back at
him in mirrors and dark windows plenty enough times. Seen it on the
faces of his crew. For once
the mouthy little actress seemed at a loss for words as she passed
him a plastic cup of
nasty-smelling liquid with a half-hearted attempt at her triangular
smile. He nodded at her and
accepted the coffee wordlessly. It scalded his tongue. Tasted like
shit.
"What kinda ugly-ass dead demon you squeeze this from?" Gunn asked
her, feeling a sudden
rush of tenderness at the desolate look on her face. Waited for Cordy
to bitch back at him,
needing some sort of normality to hold onto just now, something to
occupy the front of his mind
for a little while. Sure didn't expect to see her cheerleader face
slowly crumple in a way that
wasn't pretty at all. Just when Gunn thought it wasn't possible to
feel any guiltier, suddenly he
went and made Cordy cry and found himself feeling a whole new flavour
of guilty.
"Shit, girl!" he said, wrapping long arms around her and holding her
tight. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry,
baby. Thank you for the coffee, it's the best coffee I ever had." It
was too long since Gunn had
held anybody; surprisingly he found himself powerfully reminded of
holding Alonna. Not that he
wanted a new kid sister to look out for, not that some spoilt-brat,
whiney, white Prom Queen
would ever have been his choice of family; but deep down Cordelia had
the same ballsy courage
his little sister had always had, was almost as smart. Maybe he needed
that to keep him
grounded. And sure, Cordelia was a fine looking girl - but for some
reason Gunn would no more
think of her like *that* than he would have thought of Alonna like
that.Ê Shit, he hadn't meant to
make her cry. "I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry. It's gonna be OK, you'll
see."
"It wasn't OK before," she said eventually, her rich-girl voice sounding
frayed around the edges.
"Doyle didn't deserve to die, but he died anyway. I don't think I can
take it again, Gunn." Which
was so damn close to his own thoughts that there was nothing he could
say at all, so he just
stood there and held her and prayed silently that this time things
would be different.
* * *
When they finally got to see Wesley he was unconscious and looking
very much like someone
who'd been shot in the gut by a zombie cop and then left to bleed all
over a sofa for a while.
Morphine drip plugged into one frail-looking arm. Dark shadows under
lidded eyes that looked
oddly vulnerable without their customary armour of glass. Face ashen
and slightly translucent;
the vivid tracery of veins visible under his paper-thin skin reminding
Gunn of that old blue-painted
white china you sometimes saw in junk shops. Too fragile. Pitiful.
("I was never gonna let anything happen to you. I was supposed to protect
you")
More waiting.
* * *
Gunn watched the gentle rise and fall of Wesley's skinny chest and
felt awkward, like he was
some kind of Peeping Tom.Ê Fiddled with the corner of the blanket
and remembered the first time
he'd ever set eyes on Wes, lying scarred and unconscious in a hospital
bed just like this
because of Angel. Remembered how irresistibly simple it always was
to wind Wesley Wyndham
Price up, right from the start. Remembered the unlikely bravado with
which Wes would fling
himself into battle like he was trying to prove something. The way
he would defer to Angel all the
time; the unquestioning loyalty with which he followed the vampire's
orders; the self-doubt under
his pompous bickering; and the incredulous look of wholly unexpected
pain on his sweet, dumb
face when Angel fired them.
Bastard.
Gunn hadn't cottoned on for the longest time to the fact that the whole
hero-worship thing Wes
had going on with his employer maybe had another dimension to it. It
wasn't until they'd met that
guy Fletcher at a post-slaying venue one night that Gunn had realised
that ol' Wes was - well,
that he wasn't exclusively into girls. Sure hadn't seen *that* one
coming either; although he
really, *really* should have done, 'cause when you thought about it,
Wesley was just So.
Damned. Obvious. But Gunn had thought maybe that was just the whole
English thing.
But *Angel* knew. Gunn had given it some thought and he was quite sure
of that. Angel had been
around the block a good few times in the past couple of centuries -
no *way* he was going to
misinterpret Wesley's adoration. Looking back, Gunn realised that Wes
had been walking
around with his heart on his sleeve the whole damn time. Cold-blooded
sonofabitch was happy to
just use the guy's hopeless crush and then throw the poor slob out
on his skinny English ass
once this skanky peroxide-Elvira Sire showed up again.
Bastard.
He realised belatedly that he was already thinking about Wes in the
past tense and that would
never do. It was all OK - English was gonna be playin' darts again
and huddlin' over his dusty
books again in no time flat. Everything had turned out all right.
This time. What about next time? 'Cause they all knew there was gonna
be a next time.
No point in thinking about that now. Gunn found that he really, really
wanted to touch Wesley -
just wanted to reach across and squeeze his pale hand so English knew
that he wasn't alone.
Wondered if Wes guessed on some level that Gunn was watching over him
again - but watching
for himself this time, not as a favour to Angel. "These people mean
a lot to me," Angel had said,
back before they meant anything to Gunn. Maybe that was true then,
but where the hell was he
now? Where the hell had Angel been all these past weeks, when they
had been staying alive by
the skin of their teeth? (Bastard.) He sure hoped Wes would somehow
just know he was there,
but kinda doubted it.
He found his long fingers twitching involuntarily with the sudden urge
to enfold the hand that lay
there helplessly in front of him. He wanted the contact more than he
could explain - wanted to
feel the first spark of stirring consciousness when Wes tentatively
squeezed his hand in return,
the muscles contracting slightly in his grasp before the naked blue
eyes peered myopically out
from between slowly-parting lids and Wes was Wes again, instead of
this vulnerable Wes-shaped
shell stretched out neatly between hospital sheets.
He balled his hand into a fist and bit his lip, staring intently at
Wesley's defencelessÊ face. He
wouldn't touch him.Ê Didn't want ol' Wes getting the wrong idea
there, waking up with Gunn
holding his hand like some lovesick pansy. Nothin' wrong with Wes liking
guys - Hell, life was too
damn short to worry about that stuff - but Gunn was a regular guy.
A man's man. Wrapping his
warm fingers around Wesley's poor sleeping hand would just be leading
him on, like Angel had
been doing all that time. Besides, he could just imagine Cordy's raised
eyebrow when she
returned with another undrinkable coffee and found him all snuggled
up with Wes. That was *so*
not going to happen.
Flashed on 'Sleeping Beauty' for no good reason and wondered with a
grin whether he could
wake Wesley with a kiss. A beat later he couldn't believe he'd even
thought of such a thing.
Found himself remembering how warm and vulnerable and human Wesley
had felt in his arms as
Gunn helped load him into the ambulance. ("Come on, man. I got you.")
He wasn't prepared for the surge of sheer delight that rushed through
his weary limbs when
Wesley finally stirred. Hadn't realised how damned tense he'd gotten
until he saw Wes peering
drowsily back at him and Gunn felt the knots in his muscles start to
dissolve, felt the urge to get
up and dance or punch the air, or make some other stupid *stupid* expression
of exultation and
relief that his boy was back. That this time it had all ended differently.
Thank you, Baby Jesus.
Leaning in closer, suddenly tongue-tied and irrationally shy, Gunn
said "Hey." Heard the
undisguised pleasure in his voice and felt like blushing. Wesley looked
over at him very slowly
and answered: "Hey." And, God, Gunn wanted to just hug him - weak as
a kitten but still just
*Wes* looking back at him, drugged to the eyeballs but blessedly, beautifully
alive. His heart was
about ready to burst with the joy of it.
"How you doin'?"
Wesley considered the answer. "Oh. . .I feel I should be in a great
deal of pain," he said
cheerfully.
Gunn felt like a school kid. "Getting gut-shot will do that to you,"
he pointed out, grinning.
"And yet. . ." said Wes, musing upon the IV that sprouted from his
left hand "Is this morphine?"
Gunn nodded. "Well it's bloody lovely!" Wesley said simply, giggling
as his blue eyes met
Gunn's.
Gunn couldn't help himself then, had to grab hold of Wesley's hand
and squeeze it tenderly for
just a moment before sitting back with a little sigh. And it felt so
normal and unremarkable and
*good* that he wondered what on earth he'd been waiting for. Found
that he wanted to pick the
guy up and just cradle him in his arms, press his face into the soft
hair behind his ears and
promise him that it wouldn't ever happen again; that Gunn wouldn't
*ever* let it happen again.
"Where's Virginia?" asked Wesley after a moment, his eyes unguarded
and his mouth still
curved into that irresistible little dopey grin.
Hadn't been expecting the pure burst of jealousy that the question
provoked - hadn't been
expecting it one little bit. Fact was they hadn't even thought to call
her - which was really bad,
when you thought about it. Gunn wondered just how to explain this without
sounding like a
complete idiot and found himself unable to frame the words as Wesley
peered guilelessly over at
him, smiling. Such a trusting little expression, such a relaxed and
affectionate and above all
innocent expression. Gunn found himself feeling vaguely ashamed, but
didn't want to think about
quite exactly why.
And then Cordelia was back with some more of the evil-tasting coffee
and the air was suddenly
filled with affectionate Cordy-babble, leaving Gunn oddly adrift and
probing his own emotions like
a kid with a loose tooth.