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What occurs to Gunn at this point is that the skinny British fuck
looks really *good* naked. Less skinny than he thought, and
there turned out not to be some sort of uptight English kind of
underwear under all those over-pressed clothes. Just bare skin
and very soft grey cotton boxer-briefs that are piled now on the
ground with everything else. No t-shirt, even. The chest he
exposed has a lot of scars on it. Just thin white lines, but
Gunn can feel every slash of the very *sharp* knife that must
have made them. Recent, too. Maybe he can get the story out of
Cordelia later. Maybe.
He wouldn't be getting this view at all, except that Wesley
couldn't cast this spell indoors, and he didn't want to be
vulnerable in the open. So they're up in the Hollywood hills,
sort of watching the city through its dirty haze (*really* dirty,
which he forgets when he's down inside it, and now he wonders
what colour his lungs must be turning, non-smoker or no).
Wesley's bike that both of them rode is sort of off to one side,
with its oddly butch leather saddle bags open.
And Wesley's crouching, one knee down in the bare earth for
balance, the other up against his chest. Painting long, foreign
letters across his skin with a brush and a jar of something
that's disturbingly close to red. His arms are done already.
Started on them as soon as he'd marked out a pentagram in what
turned out to be ordinary table salt.
"Gunn, how good are you with a brush?"
"Why?"
"Because I'm not very good at drawing on my back. Could you do
this?" Holds up a ratty old book with a series of symbols
scrawled in it. "It has to be perfect."
"Just show me where."
Long white fingers reach back and brush a shoulder blade, then a
patch on his ribs a bit below and on the other side, then the
flat place where his spine ends and his ass begins. Gunn paints
on the symbols Wesley shows him, very carefully. A kind of
charge runs up the brush and snakes into his hand while he does
it, and he supposes that must be magic, and it feels good, though
magic usually isn't something he wants anything to do with if he
can help it.
So he concentrates instead on the thinness of the skin he's
marking. How soft it is. How good Wesley smells right now and
the fact that as of sometime earlier today he's got no hair at
all below the neatly clipped base of his skull. The shaved skin
is more sensitive; Wesley shivers every time Gunn touches it, and
if Gunn wasn't being so very, very careful, that twitching would
be a big problem. He doesn't like to think about what happens if
any of the runes happen to be wrong.
"Done."
"Thank you." Wesley stands and whispers, and all the marks on
his body glow blue for a second. "That's perfect. Thank you.
You might have a future in this."
Gunn snorts. "I'll settle for having a future at all. Try not
to kill us both, OK?" Catches Wesley's little half-flinch before
the man catches himself and grins. Thinks again how somebody
hurt this guy very badly. That maybe that's why Wesley didn't
become the wizard he's obviously supposed to be a long time ago.
"I'll do that."
Just before he steps into the circle, Wesley twists around and
favours Gunn with a big, crooked smile. "Watch your fingers."
And steps in. Closes his eyes, whispers something, raises his
arms so that all those long, usually invisible muscles suddenly
mark themselves out against his bones. "Now."
Gunn sits on the seat of the motorcycle and watches. He knows
that somewhere across the city, there are two other Englishmen in
roughly the same position that he and Wes are in now. One, the
one with glasses who flinches when Angel stands over him, should
be watching, like Gunn is. The other one would be on a chain if
Gunn had had his way. Skinny, scarred, just a weasel of a guy
who still radiates way too much power for any one being. Him in
the pentagram. Glasses brought Weasel-Man in more or less by the
scruff of his neck, while Weasel-Man whispered sick nothings back
at him.
Wesley's still chanting. Bends for a minute to touch one of the
pentagram's interior lines but doesn't muss it, so it must be
part of the ceremony. Gunn's more aware that he's being treated
to a first-class view of a first-class ass. With the symbol he
painted hanging like fire just above it.
Then Wesley straightens and extends his hands, and for a second
Gunn sees a line of white fire extend from his fingertips towards
the beach where Glasses and Weasel-Man are casting. Power
running up those hard, pale legs and out and into the air. It's
the sexiest fucking thing he's ever seen.
Wesley's pants are crumpled against one of the bike tires. Gunn
scoops them up and runs his hands over them. Dark grey. Wool,
he thinks. Hint of anal-retentiveness in the now-ruined crease
running up each leg. He's seen Wes in jeans before, and at least
once in some truly spectacular leather, and he can't figure out
at all why it's wool that does it for him now. Except that the
weave's picked up Wes' scent: sweat and aftershave and the smell
he used to think was dust but which he now suspects is magic.
Buries his nose in the waistband for a second, then drops the
pants to his lap. Rubs very soft grey cloth over the bulge in
his jeans that's been building stealthily since Wes stripped his
shirt off over an hour ago. Bucks against it a little. Watches
Wesley.
Who's so deep in what he's doing that if the San Andreas finally
decided to fuck them all he'd probably drown in the Pacific
without ever opening his eyes. Rocking a little, chanting very
low. Winding down, Gunn thinks, though he can't really tell.
Maybe it's the kind of spell that ends really loud, with the sky
opening and all hell breaking loose. Maybe Weasel-Man will fuck
all of them and all the LAPD will find tomorrow is a set of
charred corpses and one harmless-looking English sleaze.
Somehow, he doesn't think that one's coming, though. He suspects
that the rat'll finish what they've started if only so Glasses
can do unspeakable things to him after.
Down to a whisper and then stops. Wesley's shoulders slump a
little and his posture regains its soft don't-notice-me curl and
Gunn realizes he's still rubbing himself with the pants.
"It's done. The demon is contained."
"What about Angel?"
"He's fine, as far as I can tell. Herding people out of the
wreckage."
"You finished, then?"
"Yes." Turns and steps out of the circle and only afterward
focusses on the big black man doing mildly obscene things to his
trousers. Or tries. His bare face is prettier than Gunn
expected, but obviously myopic. He drops the molested pants and
brings Wes his glasses. Waits until he knows Wes can see before
leaning in and kissing him very hard.
There's a lot of power still running up Wesley's body. He can
feel it under his fingertips, electric like the runes felt while
he created them. Can follow its progress while it all pours into
his belly and then into his cock. Bizarrely-pale skin under
Gunn's touch, even with the added blood, but it's less
interesting at the moment than the thin-lipped mouth that's
returning the attack with more enthusiasm than he suspects Wesley
has previously generated in all of his staid British life.
Gets a knee between those bare thighs and pulls them both back so
that Gunn's half-sitting on the bike and Wesley's poured against
him, making those little noises that are sounding progressively
less like whimpers and more like growls.
And rubs them together, *hard*. Kissing so deep that he's fairly
sure he could crawl down Wes' throat with almost no effort at
all. At some point, Wesley's hands have got busy, because Gunn's
shirt is untucked and his fly is open and his dick is getting
some new interesting sensations involving magic residue and
Wesley-skin and the rapidly cooling air around them. Shaved
flesh on his, *hard*, and then Wesley practically crawls up his
body, so that he's pretty sure that neither one of those bare
white feet is on the ground, wraps a pretty English hand around
both cocks, and jerks them off together.
It must be Angel's influence that makes Gunn bite into Wesley's
neck when he comes. Smooth human teeth in that flesh, but he can
feel it giving, and still hangs on another second before letting
go. Tastes blood, likes it, wonders what that says about the
company he keeps.
Wesley in his arms is drained and lying against him, just a mass
of sexy, exhausted, still rune-marked Englishman. Probably so
tired that he doesn't realize how much he's channelling. Gunn
can get random impressions of the others just by touching the
runes on Wesley's skin. The one on his left pec shows Angel with
his legs slung over the edge on the hotel roof, thinking. On his
thigh Cordelia, curled up downstairs in the office and pretending
she isn't worried that Gunn and Wes aren't back, that they
haven't called.
The one where Wesley's back and ass meet gives Gunn a flash of
Glasses and Weasel-Man on the beach just north of the Palisades.
Scent of strong magic and sex and a hard dash of still-warm
blood.
Gunn folds Wesley to the ground and wraps around him, watches the
night rise. The bushes keep them almost completely out of sight,
and they're far enough off-road that not even the most obsessive
cop is going to track them down for a simple indecent exposure
charge. When Wes is coherent again, he thinks Gunn might do a
fairly serious job of licking him, and then they can decide what
to do for the rest of the night.