Date: 03/11/00
Fandom: Angel
Rating: NC-17
Sequel: to "Restaurant Dogs"
Spoilers: nada
Pairing: Wesley/Gunn, (implied Giles/Ethan Rayne)
Feedback: keeps me writing fic instead of working on my thesis! (janestclair15@hotmail.com)
Summary: Morning. Or evening, depending on your point of view.
Disclaimer: Joss' boys. Warner's stuff. Fox's thang. Jane's story. Still. I keep checking, but it stays the same.
Sex disclaimer: Never ever have I ever done it in the university library with the winter sun rising across our naked, sweaty bodies, and did I mention we were naked?
Notes: I wanna dedicate this to someone, so I'll dedicate it to James Walkswithwind, because we have similar views on the importance of Naked!Wesley. And who offered me ice cream and was even kind enough to eat it for me. Damn but the soundtrack for "Lost Highway" kicks ass.

Wired
by Jane St Clair
Funny how secrets travel . . .
   -- David Bowie, "I'm Deranged"

He had this dream that Cordelia marched in and kicked them, and he isn't entirely sure it wasn't real, because there's this spot on his left thigh that hurts like fuck-all. The room had that swallowed-up light that rooms have when all the blinds are pulled in the daytime, and he was wrapped around Wesley with his cock nestled very happily in the shell of one of Wesley's too-thin hips. Both of them naked and knotted up in Wesley's very clean sheets.

Cordelia ranted about men who didn't call when they were casting spells on life-threatening demons, and threatened at least once to chain him to the office by a chain attached to a metal ring stuck through him in a place he doesn't really want to think about. So he ignored her and after a while she sort of faded out.

After that, he got to drift in that way-comfortable half-asleep place where he was just a big, warm lump in Wesley's bed. With Wesley tucked against his belly like a really big, bony cat. One with a really nice hip that he got to hump gently every so often. Which would have been really obscene if he'd been properly awake to think about it, instead of being a big, warm lump who couldn't be expected to produce extended metaphors. So. Drifted and sank deeper and woke again with his face pressed against Wes' clavicle. Licked it gently just because it was there.

At the moment, Gunn wonders why random strangers don't drag Wesley down and fuck him on the street. Because in the not-really-dark of the room he's almost glowing, and he looks less and less like a skinny, irritating white guy, and more and more like something that any sensible person would molest.

He can sort of remember them showering when they got in. Cold-ish water, because the day was heating up into something ugly that nothing living should be out in. Both of them sort of locked together and scrubbing each other down and rubbing each other off, and he thinks he got most of the runes off Wesley, but now that he's a bit more awake he isn't convinced he got absolutely every brush stroke. He hopes that just messing the little lines up is enough to mess up their power, because otherwise Wes' been channelling some big, bad things while they've been sleeping, and also he's still linked with Ethan Rayne, which is quite a bit more hideous than even the idea of Cordelia walking in on them.

"You have the most enormous eyes. They're quite wonderful, really." Wesley, who's woken up and is blinking at him with the particular charm of the near-sighted. His glasses are somewhere within reach -- on the night table, Gunn thinks -- but putting them on is the step that comes right before getting up, and they aren't going to be doing that just yet.

"Yeah. Uh, thanks."

He supposes that at the moment he's just grateful that Wes hasn't freaked over waking up with a great big black guy wrapped around him. He gives off those higher-class-than-thou vibes so often that Gunn finds he's still bracing for them. Waiting to get his ass dumped on the floor.

Instead, though, he gets long, thin arms wrapped around his shoulders, and Wesley pulls him back down. "It's only two in the afternoon. We don't actually have to get up yet. In fact, you should probably try to sleep."

Gunn finds that his cock is back against Wesley's hip. It's more comfortable than it should be.

"Fine. Jesus." Lets his head fall into the hollow of Wesley's shoulder. A bad angle, but Wes still manages to drop a kiss on his bare scalp. Electric. That same power he remembers.

"What *is* that?"

"What?"

"Like a really long static shock. When you kissed me."

"I don't know. Did it feel dangerous?"

"No. Not really." Thinking that it'd run through his body like a hard fuck earlier, but hadn't killed him yet.

"Then I'll look into it in a while. Go to sleep."

Breathing Wesley's body-smell in. Warm skin and sweat drying on it because somewhere just outside those blinds, it's really, really hot. Not blazing, but hot enough that he's going to leave the sheet rucked around his waist and be grateful for the sweep of the floor-fan that Wesley dragged out and aimed at them before they crawled into bed at eight this morning.
___________________________________________

Wakes up later and Wesley is gone, out of bed and across the room, with his ass up on the window seat and one knee bent up across it so that the heel of that foot rests against his crotch. Naked except for his glasses. His cock just brushing his foot, too pale without hair. Gunn got to learn first-hand exactly how sensitive that newly-shaved skin is. Stubble in a day or two, but it's still barely twenty-four hours since Wesley skinned down in the first place, and in the afternoon light he's slick and tense and sexy.

Gunn realizes he's curled up on himself in Wesley's absence. No pillow clutched against his belly, at least, but one hand's reached across the stripped sheets, looking for that other body.

Wesley doesn't look over at him. The hand slung in his lap has china in it, some kind of basic mug that's steaming even in this heat. He keeps looking out the window, every so often brings a hand up to the screen and runs his short nails down it, paying close attention to the tiny wire-scream that it makes. Then drops the hand and drinks with the other one. And doesn't look over at Gunn.

Not even when Gunn gets up and stalks over. He knows what he looks like naked, or at least what kind of thing he looks like. Big, dangerous. Longer legs even than Wesley's, more muscles showing. Slick. If it's an out-butching contest, he wins, but topping Wesley in the butch department is a hollow victory. Like out-sensitiving Cordelia or out-smiling Angel. Or not. Because he isn't even a contender in either of those categories, and radiating sheer masculine threat is what Gunn does naturally.

He has to hook fingers under Wesley's chin to turn the man towards him, and when he does, he can see all the little lines that were smoothed out last night and this morning by whatever Wes was channelling. Wesley, in spite of his almost childish insecurity, isn't young. Not middle-aged yet, but definitely grown up.

Jostles Wesley's arm, and gets to find out that it's tea in the mug and not coffee when it spills and Gunn can really smell it for the first time. Wesley's expression is utterly British, just blank but with a brittle edge underneath. Big hurt blue eyes behind the dark wire rims.

He doesn't quite have words for what's wrong with Wesley right now. He suspects that it has something to do with being English, and a lot to do with being a wizard, but mostly just to do with being Wesley, who's got a lot of raw nerves and always has a few of them screaming. But he steps in for a second and lets Wesley's face fall forward against his belly. White skin against black, and black hair brushing over him.

Gunn says, "I should go." Then regrets it, because suddenly he can see some major tendons standing out in Wesley's shoulders. And tries not to regret it, because he suspects they're getting close to a morning-after scene that needs to be avoided at all costs.

"Should you?"

"I haven't called in. My people are going to be scraping the floor of ever sewer in town for my dead body." Grins while he says *my people*, because after a certain amount of time spent in the vicinity of lawyers and other suits, he's come to associate having people with doing lunch. Then tries to imagine any of *his* people making lunch reservations in some upscale hotel for him. And laughs inside. It's a joke he's going to share with Wesley one of these days, though not for a bit, probably.

"You're fairly large. I'd think you'd make a lump big enough to trip over."

Gunn reaches down and takes Wesley's cup away, then takes a swig from it. Black tea or green, he's not sure, but with a lot of sugar in it. And that, combined with the light, *really* reminds him of being about eight and sitting beside his Mom on a window seat a lot rattier than this one. It makes him wonder what she'd think of Wesley. That he's skinny, probably, and white, and scared of his own shadow. But she might also get the whiff of power off him that Gunn does, and he thinks she'd respect that.

Wesley kisses Gunn's floating ribs. Then the slightly hollow place under them, then his navel. All without raising his hands, one of which is back against the screen and making that little noise again. Licks the thin line of hair that runs from his navel down. Bites a tiny fold of skin.

"I think you should leave later. After we're finished." He stands, so close to Gunn that there isn't room for both of them to breathe. Drinks the last of his tea and puts the cup down. Kisses him and proves that the bitter dark of really good tea and the mass of sugar in it can produce a really interesting short-term high.

Thinking while they back towards the bed that Wesley naked at home is different than Wesley naked in public. Softer, though not necessarily in a bad way. Fewer edges. Less vulnerable without his glasses, like he knows his way around well enough not to need them. A blind man's perfect spacial perception.

Long fingers slide down Gunn's back like a static charge.

"Holy *shit*."

"Still doing that?"

"Um, yeah." Electricity getting under his skin, running up into each muscle group individually and doing criminally good things there.

"Good." Fiercely. And kisses him again, hard, and twists them around so that when they hit the messed-up sheets again, Wesley's on the bottom, his knees already spread to hold Gunn between them.
___________________________________________

Outside, Ethan Rayne's sitting on a closed dumpster.

"Did you fuck him?"

"You're the spy. You tell me," Gunn says. Tries not to notice Rayne perving at the place on his belly where his t-shirt's still rucked up from Wesley's last kiss.

"The runes are spoiled. I could tell you were having sex, but not what you did."

Gunn gives him the scary-black-guy fish-eye and doesn't answer. Tries not to flinch when Rayne jumps down and falls into step beside him. Tries not to think about Ethan's messy, skinny body making one long arc in the moment he slid off.

Thinks instead about Wesley's body under him upstairs. Them necking, Wes bucking against him, Gunn's fingers sliding between those long legs and getting in where he really wanted them to be. About the fantastic whimper-hiss Wesley made when Gunn pushed both index fingers into his ass and went looking for his prostate. About the howl when he found it, and about the upstairs neighbours pounding on the floor in protest (jesus people, it's five in the afternoon, loosen up). How he locked his mouth onto Wes' very hard after that and just kissed until they were swallowing each other's breath.

"How *is* our Mr Wyndham-Price?"

Gunn ignores him.

"Don't do that. I wasn't asking about the sex. I already know how he is in bed, if you'll remember. I meant how is he reacting to the new power?"

Wonderful. Electric. Wesley's touch on his back was a wave of sparks when he thrust in. The grip around his cock was almost too tight, like something overloading. The two of them fucking, with Gunn up on his knees and Wesley arched back on his shoulders with his hips hauled up into Gunn's lap. Still touching each other as much as possible, like a closed arc, even with the space between their bodies. If he was a little older, even Wesley's age, he's have put his back out doing that.

"Huh." Not really a question, but there's something that Ethan knows and he doesn't, and if Weasel-man doesn't tell him in the next couple of minutes, maybe Gunn'll just shake it out of him.

"Wesley's power is manifesting. It usually feels like something between sex and an allergic reaction. Sounds familiar, yes?"

"Yeah." God. Wesley's mouth under his when he came, electric and wet together and Gunn really thought it was going to short-circuit something vital. Huge charge a minute or so later when Wesley came, hauled up to sit straddling Gunn's still-hard cock. Wesley bit into their kiss, drew blood, and threw enough power across their contact to singe the tips of Gunn's ears. And he *knows* that was magic. Nothing in nature should be able to do that. "Why now?"

"Because he cast the most powerful spell of his life last night, and it opened a few new possibilities, if you like. He's always been a wizard. All Watchers are, to a greater or lesser extent, but he has the potential to be a lot more powerful than most." Unspoken *like me*. "Like Ripper. It should make him useful to you."

Gunn pulls together the handspan of height and forty pounds he's got on Rayne and uses them to back the wizard up against the nearest wall of chain-link without actually touching him. Big flash of cowardice and arousal in the shaded brown eyes. He looks around, but it's the wrong time of day for innocent bystanders, and he doesn't see anyone.

So he pushes one hand down into Rayne's waistband and comes up with a handful of shirt, keeps pulling it up until the man's whole abdomen and a lot of his chest are exposed. Looks hard at the bruises he sees there. Rubs a thumb over the two shallow, parallel cuts.

"What're these?"

"Foreplay. Last night." Blunt, watching him. But he already knew that Rayne was perverted, so this isn't really news. If it bothered him, he'd have scrubbed himself and Wesley off really well sometime last night. Naked Wesley at the San Gabriel reservoir, shimmering in the dark.

Gunn walks off to catch a bus. Reminds himself to drive next time. Or steal Wesley's motorcycle. Somewhere behind him, Rayne lights a cigarette.


End