Date: 01/11/00
Fandom: Angel
Rating: NC-17
Sequel: to "Chaparral"
Spoilers: not one
Pairing: Wesley/Gunn, (Giles/Ethan Rayne)
Archive: only with permission
Summary: The sun's coming up / And I'm riding with Lady Luck / Freeway, cars and trucks / Stars beginning to fade . . .
Disclaimer: Joss' boys. Warner's stuff. Fox's thang. Jane's story. Still.
Sex disclaimer: Never ever have I ever done it on a crowded bus.
Notes: For Spike, who got me to say I wouldn't sequel "Chaparral," because that's the easiest way to get me to write something.
Summary by Tom Waits ("Ol'55").

Restaurant Dogs
by Jane St Clair

Gunn's not a movie fanatic or anything -- considering what he does for a living, he hardly needs that kick of extra excitement that most people go looking for in Hollywood's dreck -- but he is fairly sure that this particular restaurant has appeared in at least one Quentin Tarantino movie. Something about the sheer anonymity of it, about the waitresses' too-short polyester skirts and the very, very strong coffee. If five white guys in black suits come in the door together, he's so out of here.

Which might leave Wesley a sitting duck, but Gunn's increasingly of the opinion that Wes can fend for himself, and probably the rest of them, too. He hasn't slept yet, and neither has Gunn, but unlike Gunn, Wesley's luminously awake. Brown eyes radiate the hard charge he's had since the spellcasting yesterday. He's watchful, electric, almost too wired to sit still. Chewing his omelette reflectively while the tip of his tongue does vaguely obscene things to the fork.

Gunn's happier just dealing with his second cup of the restaurant's very strong coffee. Like if he drinks enough if it, he'll be able to pretend that he did sleep last night. Instead of driving north with Wesley practically to the San Gabriels and then back. Instead of leaning on the bike on a gravel pull-out by the highway and Wesley sucking him off. Dangerous mouth around his flesh. Wesley's eyes behind the egghead glasses dug under his skin, found every bone and tendon and muscle and stray thought in him in the time it took to slide Gunn's way-too-hard cock down Wesley's throat.

Sometime in the midst of that, this huge goddamned semi ran by them. Flare of halogen and a horn that shook all his bones out, and Wes didn't even slow down. Just laughed up at him and skimmed the underside of Gunn's cock with his teeth.

Seven am now, and Gunn's caught somewhere between too exhausted and utterly wired. Singing Tom Waits of all things, about the sun coming up, but in that voice that makes you suspect that it's all a trick of the streetlamps and in a minute the night is gonna come crashing down again.

Wesley says, "Um." Stops. So insanely British of him. Fuck him for the bastard he is for sitting there like newly poured sex and still looking unbelievably prim. He out-classes everyone in the room in spite of the ruined crease in his pants, the gravel ground into his knees, the semen-stain just visible next to his zipper. English even in his leather jacket that now smells like both of their sweat, and diesel fuel, and smog and dirt and come.

"What?"

"I think they're coming."

Very helpful. "Who?"

"Giles and Ethan."

And that's enough to make Gunn nervous, both because the ProtocolDroid!Wesley he's used to shouldn't just *know* things like that, and because Ethan Rayne makes his skin crawl, no two ways about it.

"How the hell do you know?"

"My skin itches." Small crooked grin at Gunn, just like he knows what he's been thinking. "Remind me to shower properly when I get home. These runes are decidedly uncomfortable."

Gunn has the sudden, scary thought that if Wesley can track Giles and Rayne through the runes on his body, then Rayne can do the same for them. And nearly crawls right out of his bones at the thought. Because whatever else Rayne may be, he's powerful as fuck, and having him watch you feels a little too much like being out alone and unarmed in a city full of demons.

At which point Glasses and Weasel-man decide to join them, and Gunn gives even more thought to making himself scarce. He can find Wes later; he knows where he lives. Maybe help bath him. He made three of the runes marking Wesley's skin himself, and he's itchingly curious to know what condition they're in after twelve hours of wear.

"Good morning, Gunn." Glasses. Giles -- Englishman the way Wesley's an Englishman: prim, dressed stuffy, and debauched just under the surface. This morning he has blood under his neatly trimmed fingernails, and since Giles isn't moving like it's his, Gunn has to wonder just whose blood *has* found it's way under those lily-white claws, exactly.

He's guessing Ethan Rayne's, because Rayne looks very happy, but like he's been ridden hard and put away wet. Just a little stiffer than last night, and with a very secret smile sliding around the corners of his mouth. Red on his teeth and a big bruise on his cheekbone.

Rayne spends a long time watching Gunn while Giles orders tea for both of them and peruses the single-sheet laminated menu. Gunn wouldn't have guessed that this particular restaurant even served tea. He wasn't convinced you could even get it in this part of the city. Nothing tea-ish in this particular stretch of warehouse and industrial wasteland. He associates tea with Englishness, but also with his Mom, who used to make it first thing in the morning and hang out the window with a cup of it, watching the sun rise in the million colours that smog brings. It smells like old crocheting and grown-woman perfume, which are two things he *definitely* doesn't want to admit he's ever been near. But he'll tell Wesley about it sometime.

"I feel wonderful," Rayne tells the room at large. "We should market you, Ripper. The rest of us could retire rich and live like the Marquis de Sade on what we'd make off your services."

"Shut up, Ethan." Pleasant, distracted, like he's said it a lot.

"How I am supposed to market your erotic skills if I'm not allowed to describe them?"

"I don't want you to, particularly. This restaurant is full of large truck-driving men and other individuals whose activities are, I suspect, of a criminal but largely heterosexual nature. Either group will almost certainly take exception to your remarks eventually, and when they come over here, I'm giving you to them, to beat or molest as they choose."

At some point while the British are fighting, Gunn's acquired a shoeless foot in his lap, and the things it's doing to him are fairly interesting. He glances down, just once, to make sure it isn't Rayne, molesting him for the sake of entropy, but the sock is one he's seen before. Plain, black, just a little thin at the heel. The foot underneath it, he remembers, has a lot of very delicate, interesting bones just under its surface.

So he sits back and drinks his coffee, stares at Wesley over the anonymous rim of his cup with Wesley looks blandly back, just as if he weren't all but jerking Gunn off with his toes.

He's arching back by the time the touch suddenly disappears, and Wesley wordlessly stands and excuses himself. Walks towards the back and the washrooms, looking every bit the prissy, lost Englishman, and it's only when he *knows* only Gunn can see him that he gives that twist to his hips. Ethan Rayne is looking at him. Giles, whose glasses, Gunn notices, are distinctly dirty, studies the placemat and looks like he wishes the waitress would hurry up and bring his two soft eggs and toast.

He thinks about making an excuse, then says *fuck it* and just gets up. Rayne slides the slick smile further up his face. Gunn thinks hard about the various cruelties that he *knows* Giles inflicted on the man last night.

"Be back," is what he says.

The washrooms are down a short hall, and the door to the men's is locked. Gunn lets his forehead fall against it, not hard. Whispers at the varnished wood, "Wesley I know you're in there. Wesley open up. You're going to crawl out of your skin next time I touch you open the goddamn door."

Click.

Wesley's not at the door when Gunn pushes it open. He's back across the one-room can, perched on the edge of the chipped sink. With his pants open and his shirt open and one hand wrapped around his already-hard cock.

"This is some secret English thing that you haven't told me about yet, isn't it?"

"Yes. Well." Small grin. Soft.

Gunn kisses that mouth, surprised that it tastes this good after the number of hours it's been free-ranging through Los Angeles country. Pushes down, rubs their teeth together. Gets treated to Wesley's dangerous little tongue snaking up between his lips and mapping the lines of his mouth.

He's already learned a lot of the body under him. While they were still in the Hollywood Hills, Gunn had an hour of Wesley's nakedness while they dozed together, and in that time he managed to learn a few things. The different textures of Wesley's nipples. The lines along his ribs that make him gasp even when he's too drained to move.

He rubs a thumb hard against one or two of those places now. Thoroughly enjoys the feeling of Wesley squirming against him. Long, slinky, skinny body that still smells so fucking good. Slides his hand down, under the boxer-briefs, and finds the tiny hollow of Wes' hip, rubs there. Wesley hisses.

One of these days, he's going to spend a lot of hours making Wesley crazy, but he'll do that when he's not exhausted, and Wesley's lying down, and they're not doing it in the one-room men's can of a particularly nameless eatery. He slides down on his knees and wraps his mouth around Wesley's cock.

Surprised, because he hasn't done this before, on Wesley at least, and it's better than he remembers from the last time he went down on someone. He doesn't remember the smell being so hot (hot, hot and utterly male and still somehow English -- he's going to have to find out what all he's smelling, but later), or the flesh tasting so good, or the cock resting so easily on his tongue. Like it belongs there. Like he could spend hours and hours sucking Wes' cock, listening to the man's half-muffled whimpers.

His fingers are up there, too, reaching into the warm, dark places of Wesley's body. Holding his balls and rolling them between his fingers. Rubbing the sac's base until the hips against his face buck convulsively. Reaching back and stroking the very tight hole he finds. While he isn't going to get there now (but isn't it an interesting thought?), it's on his calendar, and somehow he doesn't think Wesley's really going to object.

Gunn tilts his head back, opens his throat, and gets the head of Wesley's cock down past his gag reflex, and Wesley hisses so loud that Gunn's sure there's going to be a waitress in a minute pounding on the door and screaming for them to get out of there. He lays a slap of Wesley's hip, just to get his attention and let him know that he needs to shut up, then rubs the place with the heel of his hand, promises mentally to kiss Wesley there really thoroughly later, leave a hickey that'll last for days.

Swallows once and Wesley comes, and between them there's still this faint charge from last night's spell, and when Gunn runs a hand up Wesley's ass to the small of his back, his fingers catch on the power lines in the rune and the shockwave that runs down through him is enough like orgasm that he isn't going to complain.

He only lets the cock slide out of his mouth when Wesley pulls together enough to start stroking the back of his head, and then kisses it before he tucks it away. Another kiss on the grey cotton before he zips Wes' pants up for him.

He supposes they could leave one at a time, but somehow he doesn't think that'd be much more subtle, so he just follows Wesley back out. Trucker sitting close to the washroom hallway glares over at them for a minute and mutters something. Gunn grins back and watches the washed-out blue eyes slam back down to the tabletop, and stretches the grin wider, enjoying what a scary black bastard he can be, even with damp knees and semen at the corner of his mouth.

At the table, Ethan Rayne grins at him, and Gunn grins back. He's figured out by now that Weasel-man was watching them through whatever magical-type connection was forged last night, but he can't quite bring himself to care. He notices that Wesley doesn't look at Rayne, and files that information way for future reference. Something about a senior wizard, or maybe just Rayne getting under his skin.

Probably the latter, because it is, in spite of the debauchery, still Wesley, and he's working on a pretty good blush. Gunn's wondering whether Wes did in fact plan that little scene, or whether he was just surprised enough to go with it. Isn't sure it matters, at this stage. Once they've both had ten hours sleep, Angel will only just be waking up, and things are going to look a lot saner. He's thinking about a shower, and cold sheets, and the edge of magic that follows Wesley around even in the rapidly hardening light.

Both of them crawling through the city on Wesley's motorcycle, moving towards that.


End