(no subject)

[elgrey]

Harrogate, Part Seven

 

“According to the Wicca group that Alicia was attending, two of their members – Dora and Karin Pendleton, who were grandmother and granddaughter, were descendents of Jennet Pendleton, and had actual magical abilities. Well, the Wicca group don’t think that because they don’t believe in magic, but Alicia thought that Dora and Karin did.”

 

“And this Karin Pendleton must have thought Alicia did because she asked her to come over and help her with this revealing spell, right?” Gunn looked between Willow and Giles for confirmation.

 

Giles nodded. “Alicia definitely had some magical abilities. She wasn’t powerful, but there was a latent spark there. She was perfectly capable of performing simple spells.”

 

“So, I’m thinking the spell revealed something,” Willow said in between mouthfuls of scone. “And that’s why they were killed. They were killed because they were witches but not because the person who killed them didn’t like witches, just because witches were the only people who could find out what they were up to. I think the whole Bible quote thing was just to throw the police off the scent. I think Karin Pendleton may have been gay too, from something one of the wicca women said. So, the police might waste a lot of time chasing that as a reason.”

 

Gunn took another bite of his scone, clearly thinking this food was ridiculously finicky for the energy value it didn’t contain. “So, before you make with the hocus pocus don’t you think you should go and take a look at what the other two witches were doing?”

 

“First thing tomorrow,” Willow said. “But tonight Giles and I need to do a revealing spell to see if we can detect any demon activity in the area. That was one of the first spells I did with…” She broke off and Giles patted her shoulder gently. “Anyway, it should help narrow things down.”

 

Wesley looked up from his napkin. “I doubt it. The Yorkshire moors have always had a higher than average number of demonic denizens. So do Exmoor and Dartmoor, and, for obvious reasons, Wales.”

 

“Are we talking vampires here, Wes?” Gunn demanded.

 

Wesley shook his head. “Moors are too open for vampires, which are, after all, human in memory and on their reliance upon creature comforts. They prefer to mingle with mankind and enjoy all mod-cons wherever possible. What lives on the Yorkshire moors would inevitably be far more primitive and bestial than vampires.”

 

“Less inclined to watch ‘Passions’ too,” Giles pointed out.

 

“So, what spell would you suggest, Wesley?” Willow asked in an encouraging voice.

 

He went back to his napkin. “A spell to reveal magical activity rather than demonic biology.”

 

Giles craned his neck to see what Wesley had written on his napkin. There was a neat list.

 

Invocation of Evil Spirits – check against Lemegeton & Robert Turner

Raising of the Dead from Hell – despite contradictory references in Grimorium Spirituum we know empirically that this ritual demands living vampires, not the blood of witches

Negotia perambulantia in tenebris – planets in ascendancy for the summoning of Gamiel or Narcoriel? Check astronomical records.

Talismans of the Sage of the Pyramids? Which rituals use blood?

Talisman of Arbatel – double check against Theosophia Pneumatica

The seeking after lost objects of power? Grimroire of Honorius?

 

Giles sat back and evidently revealed his irritation as Gunn immediately leaned forward. “What?”

 

“I would love to know how the man who can barely comprehend an offer of a cup of tea has apparently every single one of his faculties in place when it comes to research?”

 

Gunn shrugged. “’Cause research is what Wes does for fun. And the crazier everything else gets, the more he gets into the research. It’s just his way.”

 

“He has a point about the magical activity,” Willow offered a little apologetically.

 

“I’m not denying it,” Giles acknowledged. “But I’d like to know about the demon species in the area anyway. It’s best to be…”

 

“More tea, Mr. Giles?”

 

Giles looked up to find Judith Philips hovering with the teapot poised to pour. “Thank you, Judith, a top up would be most welcome.”

 

She gave everyone a refill, including Wesley, who for reasons known only to himself, chose to look up, gaze at her intently, and then say: “Thank you.”

 

Judith seemed semi-mesmerized although Giles couldn’t tell if it was by some attraction Wesley possessed of which he was unaware or by the rather spectacular shadows under the man’s eyes. “Have you been ill, dear?” she asked him.

 

“Dead, actually,” Wesley explained.

 

Giles gripped his arm, quite hard. “He was in a coma. He’s still a little…disorientated.” He gave Wesley what he hoped was a quelling glare. “He’s recuperating.”

 

“I’ll get you some more sandwiches,” Judith told Wesley kindly. “You still look a little peaky.”

 

Giles waited until she was out of earshot before hissing at Wesley: “Stop telling people you were dead.”

 

Wesley seemed surprised by his irritation. “I was.”

 

“And you were a bloody idiot the whole time you were in Sunnydale, but I wasn’t planning on telling anyone about that either. If you can’t say anything sane then just…sit there quietly.”

 

“Hey, back off,” Gunn protested. “He can’t help being confused.”

 

“I think he probably could if he actually wanted to.”

 

Willow gave him a reproachful look. “Giles… Wesley isn’t doing it on purpose.”

 

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. I think he’s still on a mission from the Watchers’ Council to get me up on a murder charge.”

 

“Weren’t they blown up in this reality?” Wesley picked up his refilled teacup and sipped it with obvious pleasure.

 

“Wesley this is our reality,” Giles told him through gritted teeth.

 

“It really is,” Willow grimaced. “You went to…a dead place, and then you came back. You didn’t go anywhere else.”

 

Wesley took another sip of his tea. “Angel’s on a mission for the Powers. I think he may have to cross several dimensions.”

 

Gunn sighed. “Yeah, right, man. Angel’s still the chosen champion of the Powers, and is off there right now doing the heroic thing and is going to Shanshu any day now and live happily ever after in a domestic bliss threeway with Cordy and Buffy that only gets interrupted by the visits from the grandkids Connor gives him.”

 

Wesley gazed at Gunn unblinkingly. “You don’t believe him?”

 

Gunn put a hand up to his head. “I don’t think you’re seeing what you think you’re seeing. I think you have all these things in your head you never got a chance to resolve and now they’re paying social calls.” Wesley dropped his gaze and began to doodle on the napkin, but he was gripping the pen so hard Giles was concerned that it might break. Gunn grimaced. “Wes, I’m not saying your opinion doesn’t count. I’m not even saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying that the world you came back to is the same one you left, and in this world we don’t know what happened to Angel or Spike or Illyria. All we know is that they’re gone.”

 

Wesley stopped doodling and there was a moment of terrible stillness. “No, I saw him. He spoke to me. He told me where he was and where he was going.”

 

“And did he say anything to you that wasn’t exactly what you wanted to hear?” Giles demanded. Too late he saw Gunn waving to him to be quiet and had to grimace an apology.

 

“Or maybe you did see him,” Gunn said quickly. “Hell, you were always closer to him than I was and he’d know how you’d be worried. He’d want to set your mind at rest. We all saw Cordy, right? She was as real as you are and according to the records she never even left the hospital.”

 

“Well, yes,” Giles coughed hastily, trying to find some conviction in his tone. “‘More things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio’, and all that…”

 

Willow said: “So, Wesley – what spell do you think we should use to check for magical activities? I was thinking maybe a conjuration to reveal evil intent? What do you think?”

 

Wesley gazed into space for a long moment and Willow repeated her question with an artificial brightness that had an edge of desperation to it. As he still didn’t answer she added: “Cause I was thinking maybe the one from The Black Grimoire rather than the one from the old Grimorium Verum because I don’t actually have the windpipe of a stag in my luggage. And I know you might say – who goes anywhere without the windpipe of a stag, but I thought benzoin and storax would probably do as well. Wouldn’t you?”

 

Wesley picked up the napkin on which he’d been writing, said: “I have to do some more research,” and headed in the direction of the stairs.

 

As Gunn rose to go after him, Giles caught his arm. “Gunn, I really think you need to let him start to do things by himself. I know it’s hard. I know it’s not easy seeing him like this, but he is a grown man, and at least some of his faculties are still in place. I really think the best thing to do is finish your sandwiches and then return to the flat at a more leisurely…”

 

“I left the windows open.”

 

Giles rose to his feet as well. “Probably best to get on with that invocation in any case.”

 

Willow had already sprung up. “I’ll just go and make a start on that.” She darted past a surprised Judith Philips with an apologetic wince as she headed after Wesley.

 

“Could we take those with us?” Giles asked, taking the plate of sandwiches from her.

 

“Of course.” She looked after Wesley in bemusement. “Is he feeling ill?”

 

“He’s fine. Just a little…” Giles tried to think of one word that encapsulated everything that Wesley was right now.

 

“Tired,” Gunn put in.

 

Giles nodded. “Absolutely. He’s very, very tired. Thank you for a lovely tea.”

 

“Yes, lovely,” Gunn added, before taking the stairs two at a time after Wesley.

 

Giles sighed and took a moment to catch his breath as he thought of Alicia walking up these stairs, worse, of her coming down them for the last time; probably all lit up with excitement because a real witch had asked for her help. As he began to trudge up the stairs after Gunn, it occurred to him that although Alicia’s powers had been weak, if these two other women had indeed come from a long line of witches then their combined power should have been considerable. Which meant that whoever their murderer had been, he or she was clearly an extremely dangerous adversary.

 

***

 

Willow sat cross-legged in front of the map of Yorkshire and took a steadying breath. The crystals looked incongruous on those meticulously drawn railways and rivers, those red arterial roads and curving contour lines, but Giles had said they needed Thespia to be exact. They had already emptied their pockets of all alloyed metal, Willow removing her necklace and placing it to one side in case the silver and copper it contained affected the spell. She could still hear the sounds of traffic faintly, and when people walked down the sidewalk just under the open window to her bedroom she could hear their conversation. She felt there should be hushed expectancy as they walked past the building in which a girl had lived who had been murdered, some reference to Alicia, but they were talking about their plans for the evening; one of them mentioning a boy she hoped would be in the ‘pub’ that night.

 

Giles was the one who went into each bedroom in turn and closed the windows, pulled across the drapes, then came out, shutting the doors firmly. It felt as if they were in the womb of the house now, a room’s width from the street; the kitchen and bathroom with their small windows looking out onto the back yard and, in the middle, this warm protected space.

 

The turning of the page of a book seemed disproportionately loud and Giles sent a glare in Wesley’s direction, but the man was oblivious, still working at that little pine table.

 

“Wesley, would you like to join us?” Giles suggested in his best parade voice.

 

Wesley didn’t even look up. “No, thank you.”

 

Willow wondered if Giles was ever going to get used to the fact that Wesley wasn’t Xander and had not been a teenager when Giles first met him. Wesley had done the equivalent of Giles’ job for four and a half years in Los Angeles; he was presumably past the point where he would do what he was told just because a male authority figure was the one doing the telling.

 

Gunn said, “Man, leave him alone while he’s quiet.” Gunn was interested in seeing the ‘hocus pocus’ as he called it. Willow found that she already felt comforted by having him around, sitting opposite her, cross-legged, all boyishly handsome and intrigued by what was going to happen next.

 

Willow gave Giles a ‘please don’t be mad’ look. “Given that he seems to think we’re all hallucinations, he’s really very polite to us.”

 

Giles took what seemed to be a deep, steadying breath of his own. “Let’s just get on with it.”

 

Willow gazed at the map, nodded to Giles, picked up the powder in its little pewter dish and then froze. Her mouth was dry as sawdust as she saw a man with his skin torn off, felt the rush of something dark and terrible and pitiless spring from her mouth with a stench like putrefaction; felt the rush of it through her veins, power, the exultation of it, an untamed thing wanting to be set loose. She put down the dish and breathed in and out, deep even rhythms just as they had taught her at the coven. Then she looked at Gunn and realized what the problem was.

 

“I need to talk about what I did.”

 

Giles put down his dish of powder wearily. “Willow, this isn’t an AA meeting.”

 

“But I need Gunn to know. If he’s working with us – if he’s living with us – if this is what we are now – the four of us, I don’t think we should be having secrets from them.”

 

“I’m sure they already know.”

 

“Wesley didn’t until I told him.” She turned to Gunn. “Did you know that I flayed a man alive and tried to destroy the world?”

 

Gunn blinked. “Uh – no, I guess that never came up.”

 

“I lost control. I was grieving and all I cared about was getting revenge, and I did terrible things, and I hurt Giles, and I tried to destroy the world, but Xander stopped me.”

 

That seemed to intrigue the man more than the flaying tale had shocked him. “How?”

 

“With references to yellow crayons,” Giles sighed. “A story I have heard, I must confess, rather too many times. I don’t think Gunn needs to know all the gory details, Willow.”

 

“I think I need to tell him.” She started to tell it, how it felt to be in the grip of a grief so consuming it hollowed you out, until there was nothing of you left, there was just the grief and the rage that this could have been allowed to happen; that there could only be this empty space left where your life had been and the power that had filled that emptiness, seeping into every pore.

 

She was less than halfway through before Gunn held up a hand. “Giles is right. I don’t need to know.”

 

“But I…”

 

“Betrayed your friends? Hurt the people who love you? Lost sight of right and wrong? Willow, we’ve all been there.”

 

“But I want you to…”

 

“Fred’s dead because of me. Connor grew up in a hell dimension because of Wesley. Cordelia let herself get demonised and then damned near killed us all. Angel let warlocks who worked for the most evil firm in the world mess with our memories to protect his son. And we were the good guys. You think you guys had the patent on screwing up down in Sunnydale? We did our fair share in LA, and then we did the fair share of about twenty-five other people and their families. Good people fuckin’ up sometimes – not exactly newsflash material to me.”

 

Willow sighed and held up the little bowl of powder. “I just need you to know that every time I cast a spell I walk a tightrope and I could fall off at any time, and if I did I could hurt you very, very badly.”

 

Gunn just returned her gaze steadily, eyes warm and kind. “So don’t fall off.”

 

She managed a smile. “If you were a woman I might have to marry you. Of course, I probably know a spell that could fix that you not being a woman thing…”

 

“What makes you think, if I was a woman, you’d be my type?”

 

Willow felt a healthy bolt of indignation. “Oh, I am so your type!”

 

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. ’Cause although I may be susceptible to a pretty girl with brains, I have never dated a redhead in my life.”

 

“I don’t believe you.”

 

“No, it’s true. Because they’re Satan’s handmaidens and I ain’t going there.”

 

“I am not Satan’s handmaiden! If I was going all hellboundy I wouldn’t be working as a ‘handmaiden’ I’d be running a circle of Hell all by myself, with punishments that would make your hair stand on end apart from the little detail of you not having any. And I’ll have you know that redheads are very passionate and loyal. Also, good at math.”

 

Gunn gave her the kind of smile that would have had her dropping her books on the floor in a fluster a few short years earlier. He shrugged, conceding defeat. “Okay, the math thing just turned me right around – because what man won’t give it up for a calculus nerd?”

 

“I’m just glad that you recognize the power of the vectors, and hey – algebra.”

 

“Can we please get on with the spell?” Giles demanded.

 

Willow rolled her eyes. “It’s customary to exchange banter before moments of high tension. It calms the nerves.”

 

“Well, during the interminable wait for the two of you to finish exchanging inanities, mine are getting frayed.” Giles picked up the powder and nodded to Willow.

 

“So, how does this work?” Gunn leaned forward with interest.

 

“We call on the goddess Thespia to show us where the demons are hanging out and she lights them up for us like Christmas Eve, and then we tell her how great she is.”

 

“Sweet.”

 

“It’s a mutually beneficial contract where we get information and she gets to feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”

 

“Hey, I remember how it is with goddesses – they never get enough of that love and praise thing.”

 

Giles raised his bowl of powder and glared at Willow, who quickly followed suit. She concentrated as they poured the powder onto her hand, seeing Tara in her mind’s eye, glowing by the candlelight that seemed to reveal her full beauty in a way that the brassy brightness of sunlight never could; the flame turning the edges of her fair hair to beaten gold… Seeing the look of pain on Giles’s face, she wondered if this was a spell he had done with Alicia; if in Willow’s place right now he was seeing the girl with the fair hair and the embroidered sweater. Willow met his gaze and for a moment she felt it pass between them, a tangible grief, a sombre power added to the mix.

 

Giles poured the powdered malachite and vervain onto his hand as Willow poured the powdered celestine and ground Bishop’s weed onto her open palm, feeling it tingle, the sting of the spiteful weed reacting against the focusing energy of the crystals. She closed her eyes.

 

Giles intoned quietly: “Thespia, we walk in shadow, walk in blindness.  You are the

protector of the night” and behind his voice she could hear Tara saying the same words, when everything had been so bright and new and perfect between them; when the love they were already feeling had barely revealed itself in more than a feeling of excitement at getting to spend another evening with her new friend, a sense of connection unlike anything she had ever known before.

 

A tear welled up in her eye and trickled down her face in a slow salt sting as she said her half of the spell: “Thespia, goddess, ruler of all darkness, we implore you, open

a window to the world of the underbeing.” She opened her eyes and it was Giles in front of her, watching her steadily as they both blew their powder onto the map. There was such understanding and compassion in his green eyes that although they were sitting cross-legged across the opposite sides of a Landranger map, she felt as if he had just cut off a piece of his strength and given it to her. She blinked away the tears and tried to concentrate on the swirl of multi-coloured mist in front of them. There was a lot of it, and as it concentrated into floating dots of colour she realized that they had certainly not left demonic energy behind in Sunnydale; in fact there seemed to be a lot of it in all of Yorkshire in all kinds of species.

 

She and Giles exchanged a weary look of recognition. “Whoopee,” Willow sighed.

 

 

The Spell for Detecting the Acts of Dark Sorcery that Giles found in one of his old books had turned out to be a bust. Willow had said the incantation and thrown the powdered sage over the area around the cave where the girls had been killed and there had been not even a glimmer of sorcery. She sat back in disappointment.

 

“Maybe I overshot. This spell is for detecting really powerful magic. Maybe the people who killed Alicia aren’t that powerful. Maybe they’re just…”

 

“Incompetent misfits trying to get some attention?” Giles glanced across at her. “We both know how dangerous even that can be.”

 

“A man with a knife is generally going to be stronger than a woman, unless she’s a Slayer,” Willow sighed.

 

“Or a witch,” Gunn put in. “If the guys who took the two from the bookshop didn’t have any real magic whammo then shouldn’t those witch descendent women have been able to take them?”

 

“Maybe they weren’t that powerful, after all.” Willow turned through the spellbook for anything else that might help them. “Or maybe they had the potential to be powerful but they hadn’t had the right training.”

 

Giles shook his head. “But they were clearly from a background of comprehending witchcraft. It seems unlikely that they wouldn’t have known how to train themselves to improve if they actually possessed any power. Perhaps they simply maintained a fiction of having real abilities.” He glanced over at the table where Wesley was working. “Wesley, what do you think?”

 

There was the usual long pause before Wesley looked up and focused on them. “If they’re killing witches for their blood but don’t have ability enough to know if a witch has power herself then they’re not truly dangerous. If they have power enough to overcome witches of real power and hide themselves from your detection, then they’re more powerful than we are.” He looked back at his books, adding almost conversationally: “Either way, more witches are probably going to die.”

 

Giles sighed. “I think it’s inevitable.”

 

Willow gazed at him in horror. “That more witches are going to die?”

 

Giles wiped the last of the revealing powder from his hands. “That I’m definitely going to have to hit Wesley at some point.”

 

***

 

One moment Gunn was asleep and dreaming of the cellar again; dreaming of a demon cutting out his heart every day before sending him back to the brightness of that artificial family whom he thought he loved and who loved him but who sent him down the cellar to have his heart cut out by a demon who sent him back to the brightness… Then he was awake.

 

Just for a moment of disorientation, he thought he was in his bedroom in the Hyperion, that the place in the bed beside him was warm but empty because Fred had gone in search of an after-sex snack and that any minute now he’d hear Connor start wailing for his three a.m. feed – Then he remembered all that was gone now; that every family he had ever known had been taken away from him by vampires, and the only thing he had now was –

 

“Wes!” Gunn sat bolt upright in the bed, heart hammering as he realized the bedroom door was open and the bedroom window was open, and there was no sign of Wesley.

 

He was already wearing his boxers, but pulled on a pair of sweat pants at the run, going straight to the bathroom and hoping the door was closed with the light showing underneath, but, no, damnit, it was dark and open and empty – and talking of empty so was the front door that led down to the tearoom.

 

Giles half-stirred on the sofa bed, blinking in the confusion of the near-sighted and semi-conscious. “Is something wrong?”

 

“No, it’s okay. Just go back to sleep.” He didn’t want Giles getting angry with Wesley and he knew how close the man was to blowing a fuse. He hurried down the stairs, feeling the draught as he touched bottom, pushing open the door into the tea shop and blundering forwards, hitting his hip on the edge of a table, knocking over a chair; swearing as he set it upright again, stubbing his toe on a table leg before he had made it to the open door, swung wide and letting in the night air. “Wes? Wesley?”

 

He stumbled out onto the sidewalk, hurting his bare feet on the paving and there was Wesley in his pyjamas, just stepping out from between two parked cars despite the cab hurtling down the street, two burning eyes out of darkness, and as capable of dealing out death as any demon from a hell dimension. Gunn grabbed him and hauled him back, not caring how roughly he did it, just wanting to get him out of the way of those beams of killing light. Through the blare and swerve of the taxi driver’s annoyance, he found himself shaking him. “Wesley, what the hell are you doing?”

 

Wesley looked even more haggard in the neon lighting, and although Gunn’s fist bunched in his pyjama jacket was arresting his motion, his attention was still focused on the other side of the street. He focused on Gunn with difficulty. “I saw Angel.” He went to step off the kerb again and Gunn yanked him back.

 

“Damnit, Wes, he’s gone, okay? Angel’s gone! He ain’t anywhere on this earth and he sure as hell ain’t where we are any more!”

 

Wesley tried to pull loose. “I saw him from the window. He was going down there. I have to follow him.”

 

Gunn saw the narrow sidestreet leading off their own, barely an alley, a house width between towering walls, no street light, just the neon reflection of their own lamp in a puddle ten feet into the darkness. It looked like the kind of place where a vampire would wait for prey. It certainly wasn’t the kind of place he wanted anyone he knew wandering down at night, barefoot and unarmed.

 

“He wasn’t there, Wes!” Still keeping his fingers bunched in the man’s pyjama jacket, he yanked him roughly back into the tearoom, slamming the door behind them and shooting all the bolts across that Wesley had no business pulling back in the first place. “You can’t just go wandering off by yourself in the middle of the night, do you understand?”

 

Ironically, Wesley looked like Wesley again; a sleep-deprived, exhausted, back-from-the-dead Wesley but animated with intent now, like the old version who got hyped up on his research and believed in what they were doing; there was a new focus in his eyes, as if they’d just been handed a case and he’d found the way to solve it. “I have to find him.”

 

He slammed him back against the door he had just bolted, not knowing where this anger had come from just knowing it was a white light in his head, a red mist in front of his eyes. “He’s gone! He’s gone and he isn’t ever coming back! None of them are! All that’s left now is you and me, and if you play in the damned traffic there’s just me. Now, am I going to have to tie you to the bed? Because I will. Don’t think I won’t.”

 

“Gunn…”

 

He wheeled around in anger at that quiet voice behind him, and found Giles wearing the same brand of striped pyjamas he’d bought Wesley, and Willow in her much less striped pyjamas still at the foot of the stairs, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

 

“He was out in the street!” Gunn yelled at Giles as if it were his fault.

 

Giles just kept looking at him. “So I gathered. But you’re going to hurt him.”

 

Gunn became aware of how tightly he was gripping Wesley’s arms, how hard he had slammed him back against the door. He let him go as if he burned his fingertips. “Oh God, Wes, I’m sorry.”

 

Wesley was looking at Gunn as if he’d never seen him before in his life. “I just want to find Angel.”

 

“He’s gone.” Gunn ran a hand over the comforting warmth of his own shaven head, wondering if he could feel his brain throbbing with fear and frustration through his bone and skin. “They’re all gone.”

 

Giles stepped forward. “Wesley, you need to go back to bed. We can discuss what you saw in the morning, but for the moment you need your sleep, and, frankly, so do I. Now, please do as Gunn tells you.”

 

Gunn reached out and took Wesley’s bony wrist in his hand and gave him a gentle tug in the direction of the stairs; a little to his surprise, Wesley came with him, but when he looked around the darkened tearoom he didn’t seem to recognize anything. Wesley’s eyes widened. “Gunn?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Did you see Angel too?”

 

Gunn realized belatedly that he was exhausted, bone deep, marrow deep, nerve deep tired and that his wound was aching, a rhythm throb of pain. “No, Wesley. I didn’t see him.” He could feel his muscles hurting with too much inactivity. He’d been cooped up for so many days now, in the hospital, in the coven, and now kept under house arrest by Wesley’s mental instability. No wonder he was starting to go crazy too.

 

He led Wesley back up the stairs, just stepping around Willow because he didn’t even know how to deal with anyone else right. He didn’t know how to deal with Wesley, and he didn’t have a choice about that. His fingers wanted to tighten on Wesley’s wrist until they left a bruise, some proof that he existed, that he had left an imprint on Wesley. He made himself keep his grip firm but not cruel, no tightening his fingers until Wesley was in too much pain not to comprehend that he was right here, right now, even if he had to hurt him to make him notice…because he didn’t want to be that guy, not even tonight.

 

At least Wesley wasn’t struggling, although the first thing Gunn did when he got him back into their room – after firmly shutting the door before Giles and Willow decided this was a party to which everyone was invited – was shove him onto the bed and then hurry over to shut the window and pull across the white-painted catch. He turned around and there was Wesley sitting on that coverlet looking up at him like he was so damned…lost. That stopped every word that had been on his lips, Wesley gazing up at him like that, desperately needing Gunn to give him a world that wasn’t spinning out of control. As if Wesley’s sanity was something one of them should have remembered to keep in a jar for occasions just like this.

 

“I saw him.”

 

Gunn thought about just closing his eyes and going to sleep for a thousand years. He could play Sleeping Beauty for a change. He was sick of having to be Prince Charming. He didn’t want to fight any more dragons or cut his way through any forests of flesh-tearing thorns. He didn’t even want to be woken up with a kiss. They could just let him rest.

 

“I believe you think you saw him, Wes. I just don’t think he was there.”

 

It was a shock to realize that Wesley had tears in his eyes, those haunted grey-blue eyes of his, the ones that could be cold as death sometimes but right now were just too full of pain for Gunn to bear. He sank down on the bed next to him and took his hand. “I’m here. Can’t that be enough for now? Can’t it just be enough that you and I aren’t dead?”

 

“How do I know you’re not dead? How do I even know that I’m not? I should be dead. It made sense. It was the last thing in my life that made sense. How do I know any of this is real?” Wesley demanded, and if it hadn’t been so shocking, Gunn would have been relieved to finally hear him express some emotion; except, for the first time in their lives, Wesley was looking to him for the answers and he didn’t have any. He looked so fucking scared and Gunn didn’t know how to help him. Wesley kept looking at him as if Gunn had to have some proof for him, like Gunn should be checking his pockets right now to see if he’d left the incontrovertible evidence of their existence in his other coat. “They talk to me. They touch me. How do I know you’re not one of them?”

 

Gunn thought of Cordelia, warm and alive in his arms; a life he could feel; breath on his skin, the scent of her; touch and taste and sight and sound; all the senses that told you what was real and what was just a dream. He felt the tears come into his own eyes, not sure if it was because of mourning Cordelia or just that hopeless sense of his own inadequacy. “I guess you don’t.” He slipped his fingers through Wesley’s and tightened his grip. “But I am real and we’re both alive. I just don’t know how to prove it to you.”

 

“I think it was Angel. I think it was really him. Maybe not tonight. Maybe I was dreaming and I walked to the window and I thought I saw him and he wasn’t here, but before, when he came to me, I think it was him. I think he was real.”

 

Concerned, Gunn put his other hand to Wesley’s forehead. “Wes, you’re going to get sick if you don’t just…believe in something that’s real. I don’t know how to take care of you. I don’t know how to get you back.”

 

“If it wasn’t him then everything’s gone.”

 

Gunn put a hand up to his own head, realizing he had a headache that felt as if it was going to burst every blood vessel in his brain. “When you came to LA, all Angel and Cordelia were to you was people who knew your name. And from that you built a family. Well, that’s what Willow and Giles are. You know they’re good and you know their names and they know who you are. And maybe that’s enough. It was enough before. So, even if Angel and Cordy are gone for good, that doesn’t mean you have to lay down and die too.”

 

“But I did.” Wesley wearily wiped his eyes.

 

“And now you have to get up and keep going, because that’s what we do.” Despite his words, Gunn lay down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling, the world spinning with weariness all around him, as if even the colours had nothing left to give; like it wasn’t even dark because the day was over, just because the sun had run out of fire a long, long time ago. “And I miss them too, and I have to go to sleep now. And I need you to be here when I wake up.” He kept his fingers laced through Wesley’s and pulled his hand in against his heart, wanting to cry like he hadn’t cried since he was a little boy, because his family was gone, and he didn’t have the strength to build another one either, but one of them was going to have to be strong and it looked as if it was going to have to be him. “Please be here when I wake up, Wesley.”

 

He felt the bed dip as Wesley lay down next to him, and squeezed Gunn’s hand. Gunn opened his eyes and saw Wesley gazing at him in concern. He realized he hadn’t won anything. There was no proof that he could offer that they were alive or that Willow and Giles weren’t just figments of Wesley’s imagination. Wesley just felt sorry for him because he sounded so broken, and Wesley was so lost and alone and confused right now he didn’t have the heart even to be unkind to a hallucination.

 

˜™–—˜™

Comments

[castalie.livejournal.com]

Ooopsie, you forgot the tag for that part *g*

*off to find the first part*

[elgrey.livejournal.com]

Sorry! I just checked it and noticed it wasn't there. Thanks for telling me. :)

[castalie.livejournal.com]

You're welcome - and I'm afraid you did it with part 8 as well lol

[elgrey.livejournal.com]

It's taking out the Word code. I always get code in there that I have to go back and delete and then it put things in the wrong font to annoy me on purpose and by the time I've finished pasting in font code I've deleted the LJ Cut. I think Word just likes annoying me because it's evil. Like your Daniel Jackson icon btw. That lip lick of his is darned sexy.

[emeraldteal.livejournal.com]

*pets Gunn & Wes* And my heart gets broken all over again. *sniffles*

On the other hand you made me choke on a bun I was eating. That was during the Gunn/Willow nervous banter. Satan's handmaiden indeed. :D

[elgrey.livejournal.com]

Oops! Sorry for the heartbreak but glad you enjoyed the nervous banter!