Date: 09/12/00
Fandom: Angel
Rating: NC-17
Sequel: to "Raspberry Swirl"
Pairing: Wesley/Gunn
Feedback: keeps me writing fic instead of working on my thesis! janestclair15@hotmail.com
Summary: Possession.
Disclaimer: Joss' boys. Warner's stuff. Fox's thang. Jane's story. Still. But I have someone watching for me in case they come up for sale on e-Bay.

Sex disclaimer: Never ever have I ever done it with my ex in the bathroom of a really good Chinese restaurant, while our spring rolls and vegetarian birdsnest cooled on their clouded white platters and the ice in our drinks slowly melted.

Warnings: There's something resembling blood play, here. Nothing more extreme than we already saw in "Raspberry Swirl," but it's there, nonetheless. Also, keep in mind that certain remarks regarding the transfer of bodily fluids are part of the character's stream of consciousness, and shouldn't be taken as medically accurate, except in the context of the story.

Notes: You know, I really didn't intend for this to be a series. It's a testament both to how addictive the process can be, and to how little I wanted to write that term paper. (But it's in, and that, in the end, is what counts.)

Words I think my spellchecker needs: shitload, out-butched, slutting, homeboys, magicked People with no imaginations must program these things. Mine recognizes not a single obscenity. You'd think it would be important for folks to spell those right.

This is the soundtrack, if you're interested. All the .mp3s in the world are on Napster, so you should be able to dig this stuff up using it. Even the Rustavi. It's where mine came from.
1. U2 "Walk On"
2. Sarah McLachlan "Posession" (acoustic/piano version that's the hidden track on "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy") *please note that McLachlan must be listened to with a full appreciation for exactly how fucked up those lyrics are
3. Crystal Method "Busy Child"
4. Rustavi Choir "Orovela (plowing song)"

Oceanus
by Jane St Clair

And love is not the easy thing . . .
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind
- U2, "Walk On"
___________________________________________

The thing about living in LA is that he *knows* he's in California, but he doesn't, really. He's in LA, which is this huge world of cement and thick air and chemically-coloured sunshine. Maybe four times in his life, he's left the city, and only once he made it up the coast as far north as Santa Barbara. That was when he first got a sense of the world outside the Los Angeles basin. Huge rocks, huge trees, a lot more wind and something sharp and blue which is what the ocean smells like when there isn't a shitload of city waste pumped into it.

He knows that there are more songs written about driving this highway than he could listen to consecutively without being driven to commit serious property damage, but he doubts any of them were written about driving it at night. Not in the open air, with low beams and Wesley Wyndham-Pryce jammed between the singer's thighs. So there's at least that much of a split between the Twilight Zone of classic rock radio and both of them on Wesley's motorcycle.

He's thinking that Wes must have out-butched him at some point, because Wes is, in spite of Gunn's bitter protests, driving.

There's a hot place under the palm he laid against Wesley's ribs, and he doesn't need vampire senses to know it's bleeding there, underneath the skin and possibly even on top of it. It's been half an hour since he could distinguish between just hot, and hot-and-sticky. An hour since he snaked a hand under Wes' jacket and shirt and felt for his breath and heartbeat. Belly and ribs, both still there, and only a bit the worse for wear.

Three hours since they stood panting over the corpses of three Shibboth demons who'd been hell-bent (and isn't that a phrase just made for the occasion) on gutting every homeless kid they could get their hands on. Fourteen human bodies for the city to bury, or cremate, or do whatever they do with the bodies of dead people nobody cares about. If Gunn had died just a year ago, his body would have gone to the great beyond the same way. Unless he vamped first.

Gunn crouched on the floor after and watched Angel. Who was almost twitching with the smell in the place. Human blood all over, and some of it was so warm that it was steaming. Angel'd walked around, checking everyone. Held Cordelia by the chin and wiped the blood off her face with a bandana of some kind (black, cotton), then stashed it inside his coat somewhere. Rubbed Gunn's shoulders with one big hand when Gunn refused to stand and look him in the eye. Wrist-clasp with Wesley, who'd pulled himself out of the tangle of two-by-fours he'd been thrown into when his spell released. He was bleeding, too, from scratches on his arms. Rusty nails, probably, and it occurred to Gunn that if Wesley were in any other profession, he wouldn't *need* to have his tetanus booster up to date.

Gunn stayed in his crouch as Angel passed him and watched the way that coat moved. Thinking that Cordelia's blood was in there, somewhere. That Angel could take it out, later, and smell it, or suck on it, or jerk off into it, or whatever repressed vamps do with bloody rags. When they figure out when Angel's birthday is, Gunn's going to get him handkerchiefs, the big white ones you can buy in discount linen stores, so that he'll be able to track the blood that Angel collects.

He didn't get up until Wesley walked over and offered him one too-white hand. Something dark under his nails that Gunn didn't ask about. He'd walked through Wesley's apartment once and looked at everything, and he knows now that he doesn't want to know any more about spell components than he currently does.

He flicked his eyes around the warehouse twice to see who was watching them. Not Angel, not Cordelia. Maybe the bodies. Wesley had pulled him forward and wrapped arms around him. Just a loose hug -- bodies touching from groin to shoulder and their weight bracing, but no tight grip, and no huge post-adrenaline passion that might scare the children. Maybe just the edge of a hard-on that he rubbed carefully against Wesley's belly. Until he felt the itch that meant Angel was watching them and stepped back. Walked out of the warehouse about six inches from Wes' shoulder but didn't touch him again. And just stood in the night almost-chill, watching Wes and Angel wrap everything up in the philosophical parts of their brains so the rest of them could go home and sleep soundly.

Gunn wondered if Angel had noticed that the second helmet on the motorcycle wasn't pink anymore. Most of the time if Gunn wanted to go somewhere, he took his truck, but once or twice they'd taken Wesley's bike, and he'd growled about the pink helmet loud enough that now there was a new one. Matte and unguarded in front, so that he could see. Obviously male. A little too obviously his.

Which alone was enough to make him flinch a little, and it was worse because Wesley turned around then and saw him. Froze like a troll in sunshine (and when did he start making Tolkien references, he hadn't read the books in years) and watched Gunn shift his ass against the cycle. Big vulnerable eyes for a second and an answering flinch. Then both dark eyebrows pushed together and he walked from Angel back to Gunn. Stepped into his personal space, so close that one thigh was between Gunn's legs, and just stood there, staring into his eyes at close range.

At some point, Cordelia coughed nervously, then whimpered, and Angel said he was going to take her to the hospital to get stitches.

Washed-out blue eyes three inches from his.

Then Wes leaned in and kissed him, very softly with an open mouth. Just one tongue-touch to Gunn's upper lip, but it was enough to let energy crackle between them.

"Come on," he said, and at some point after that they left LA, and since then they've been driving.

On this highway. Out north of LA, and they're driving fast enough that if Gunn was driving instead of Wes, they'd have been pulled over by some bitchy traffic cop long ago, and both of them would be face-down on the ground while the bastard screamed at them how they'd stolen the bike. Kinky, if you're into that sort of fantasy. Mostly it's boys who look like Wesley who seem to be. If they looked like Gunn, it wouldn't be a fantasy. All they'd have to do would be stand around long enough.

An hour into the trip, he pulled the collar of Wesley's jacket down and kissed the naked base of his neck. Wes shivered and the bike swerved, so that for a dozen seconds they were in the wrong lane, suddenly so close to the guard rail that Gunn could feel the vibrations of the surf a hundred or so feet down the cliff. They turned back into their own lane, eventually, and he got the rare twist of Wesley's ass against his crotch, which felt better than it should have and nearly pushed him into the realm of indecent assault.

*boy, you been molesting this man?*

*nothing he didn't ask for, officer*

*OK, asshole, you're under arrest no more feeling up pretty white wizards for you*

And isn't that a strange thought. Wizard. Because it's becoming clearer that this is exactly what Wesley is. In their last handful of fights, he's cast more spells than he's thrown punches, and the spells are making Gunn's job a lot easier. The rest of the time, he walks around like Wesley, looking over-neat and English and book-addicted. Like he could get a high out of decomposing paper. Cordelia hasn't, as far as Gunn can tell, noticed the mild charge that Wesley now radiates almost all the time. Maybe they just don't touch enough for her to think it's anything but socks on a wool rug. Angel hasn't said anything.

Up to his right, the rock face is slanting back, but it's still huge enough that it blocks out half the sky. His world's been reduced to rock and dark and Wesley pressed back against him. Satisfying enough, and he's too tired to figure out what corner of wherethefuck they're in now. As long as he stays hanging on, he can just doze until the sun comes up.

In fact he doesn't get to, because at some point trees grow up on their left and they're not in danger of falling into the water anymore. A semi rolls past them and rocks the bike hard towards the rock, so that it takes all of Gunn's and Wesley's balance to keep them from sliding out.

Reflective sign announces gas-food-cheap motel in fifteen miles, but Wesley pulls in at the next rest stop. It isn't quite morning yet, and the trees around them have this huge, strong smell that he can't shake. Lots of water and salt in with the needles and leaves. Smells good, so that he walks off into them to stretch his legs, and relieves himself there in the dark. Cold air on his cock and chill on his balls that wakes him up really well. The backs of his knees hurt from having been bent the same way for so long.

When he comes back, Wesley's standing across the gravel lot from him. Behind him, there's some kind of cedar-lined path leading into the dark. Which isn't comforting for a guy who's used to there being big, ugly monsters in the dark, and Gunn doesn't care that right now it's probably just deer or maybe bears. In his boot, he has a couple of short-shank knives, and there's a stake inside his jacket. He can't walk towards Wes with his hand on one of them, not without being really obvious and paranoid, but he would if he could.

Wes leans into him for a second when he finally does come. From out of the dark, suddenly, there's this *boom* that makes all his skin crawl two inches higher than it was a second ago, and it's only Wesley holding him down that keeps him from jumping like a cat.

"What the *fuck*!"

"Shh. It's the ocean. We're only about thirty yards from the beach."

"It's loud."

"The tide's coming in. And you can hear it better now that the motorcycle isn't running." The hand at the small of his back presses in and rubs down an inch inside Gunn's jeans to brush his tailbone. Clever fingers probe the shape of the bone and the flesh around it.

Something rings.

Softly, Wesley says, "Bugger." Steps back and digs in some inner pocket of his coat, comes out with his cell phone.

Gunn snatches the plastic wafer out of Wes' loose grip and answers it. "Yeah."

"Gunn?" Cordelia's voice is way too vivid, like she's standing right behind him and bitching again about how he's a danger to himself and others.

"Yeah."

"Why are you answering Wesley's phone?"

"Because I stole it from him."

"Why would you steal someone's phone? I mean, all someone has to do is call you on it and they can prove it's not yours . . ."

"Cordelia, he's right here."

And he is, but not in front of him anymore. Wesley circled him at some point and came at him again out of the dark, pressing that too-thin body against Gunn's back and wrapping an arm around his waist. The other's somewhere up by his collar. Cool touch on the back of his neck an instant before Wesley's lips press against it. Making Gunn arch back like some kind of fucking alley cat, slutting himself for a touch.

"Gunn?"

Oh *fuck* yes. Wesley's crotch pushes up against his ass, warm and hard. And he keeps thinking that he's supposed to being doing something, but he's happy right now just being the object of Wes' slightly perverted attentions, and now that he's getting used to the sound of the ocean it's just an interesting extra rhythm he can use to push himself up against the man behind him.

"Gunn?!"

Cordelia. Right.

"*What*?"

"Where are you?"

"Fuck if I know. Somewhere up the coast." Holds the phone away from his mouth. "Wes, where are we?"

"About a hundred and eighty miles north of Los Angeles." That second hand working at his shirt, at his belt, working its way into his clothes to stroke his navel.

"We're up north." Something sticky on his belly that he's worried might be Wesley's blood. "Why?"

Awkward pause. "I don't know. I got scared. I don't know where Angel is."

Fuck. "Do you think he's in trouble?" It's three hours, maybe four, back to LA, and he doesn't want to abandon this spot. Not yet, and maybe not for a couple of days. Even though Wes isn't groping him anymore, just draping an arm around Gunn's neck and paying attention.

"I . . ."

"Vision?"

"No. I just . . . I don't know where he is and my head hurts and I didn't know where Wesley was either. Or you. And my head hurts. There's almost nobody awake in the hospital and it's dark and they told me I couldn't sleep. This nurse with pokey fingers swings by every fifteen minutes or so and makes sure. So all I can do is sit here and think, and I hadn't seen you guys since we left the warehouse, and . . ."

"You should talk to Wes. He does reassuring way better than I do."

Hands the phone back over his shoulder and closes his eyes. Wesley, even talking on the phone, is still there, pressed very close against him and rubbing gently against his ass. Warm arm on his shoulder, though he misses the one around his waist and his belly's getting cold way too fast with his shirt hiked up. Gunn slides a hand down to cover up, but the arm on his shoulders snakes down and catches him, pushes him aside and resumes the earlier stroking of his navel and the line of fur that runs up and down from it. Teasing at the waist of his jeans and the thin skin underneath it. Only once reaching farther down to rub the heel of that way-too-busy hand against the bulge of Gunn's erection.

Fucker.

Fucker who's still talking in that low, soothing English voice to Cordelia on the phone and keeps petting Gunn into horny incoherence. Whose eyes, from the sound of his voice, must be almost closed behind his glasses. So goddamned calm, just like he isn't the walking bundle of nerves that he is. Like he doesn't vibrate when anyone someone looks at him funny.

"Yes. Yes. Yes, we're fine. We're safer up here than we would be in Los Angeles." Angel-ees, the Englishness seeping off of him.

"I know. I will." Reassurance and promise to something she's demanded of him. Something that Gunn suspects he doesn't want to know about, because if it's about Angel, it's another case of too much bad information, and if it's about him . . . he doesn't want to know what Cordelia thinks about him. He still hasn't shaken off the I'm-being-watched feeling that Ethan Rayne stuck him with, and sometimes he thinks he remembers Cordelia in the room with them, the first day he and Wesley slept together. One of those fucked-up dreams that refuses to go away.

"Hush, now. It'll be all right. We'll be back today or tomorrow, I promise. All right. Goodnight, Cordelia." Snaps the phone shut and buries it in his coat again.

Without the necessity of holding the phone steady, Wes is free to push himself into a full-body *rub* against Gunn's back. It's hard enough to knock him forward. Gunn staggers for a second, and by then Wesley's moved. Out in front of him on the tourist-safe past, looking again like the too-awkward Englishman who does Angel's research and keeps his files in order. Not looking at all like a wizard, or even particularly sexy. Maybe a little like he's hurt, which is something Gunn's going to have to check on.

Except that Wesley's disappeared around a smoothed corner of some rock, and Gunn has to run to catch up with him. Loose bark under his feet -- cedar, he thinks. Sharp wood-smell like the insides of the boxes in Wesley's apartment. Pine and salt over it. Wesley still out in front of him, ducking through the trees and vanishing suddenly.

It's a drop-off, he finds. Only about six feet down, and the rocks are way too smooth, like they're under water sometimes. The sand down below is brilliant-white in the dark, running down to the huge shock of sound that's the ocean. The next boom makes him start, and then it's jump or fall, so he jumps, lands with his legs curled under him and crouches there, watching.

Wesley's peeled his jacket off, and his shirt. There's a dark splash across his abdomen that's probably blood, but Gunn can't smell it for the ocean (and when, exactly, did he get to know what blood smelled like?).

White fingers catch a little of that mess on their tips and mix it with the breath-fine sand that's everywhere, even getting into the hollows of Gunn's ears. Rub and rub and then Wesley stands up and wades into the water, barefoot but with his pants still on, and rinses his hands. A huge wave hits him at the same moment that he turns to look at Gunn, but he just leans back into it and lets the water slide down around him. Very bright in the dark. Like he's radiating something. Not sunshine, or even something as pure as moonlight. More like he's radioactive or wired up to some particularly nasty brand of demon that glows in the dark.

Hears Ethan Rayne again, saying *wizard*, and realizes for the first time how scary that is.

Wesley comes back out of the water, dripping. He should look like a wet cat but for some reason he doesn't. More like a snake, or a sea-thing getting loose. The hollows of his skull only gradually start to look like eyes as he gets closer. As he steps up to Gunn, then into his personal space again. Undresses him, efficiently, like some kind of manic butler. Jacket, shirt, belt, boots, pants, jockeys, socks all hit the sand. Leaving him naked and very aware of the air all around him while Wes stands back and looks him over.

This close, he can see that Wes is cut, but not badly. The wound's long and shallow, and it isn't really bleeding anymore. Must've hurt like a mother, though, when Wes pulled his shirt off, and the edges are newly seeping where the shirt must have stuck to the congealing blood. One more mark on that body in the course of Angel's quest for whatever the fuck it is he's after. Redemption or some shit. Right. You'd think in two hundred and whatever years he'd get over himself.

Cold and sticky on his abs when Wes presses into him again. Wet pants against Gunn's naked skin, some blood. The cold makes his balls try to crawl back up inside his body, and his cock isn't even half sure whether it wants to be hard or not. He's only warm where Wes' mouth has latched onto his.

Somewhere back through the trees, a semi screams past them and Gunn jumps.

Wesley looks at him hard. Blue eyes sharp behind the glasses. "You don't like it when I kiss you."

"No." Meaning, *no, that isn't it* instead of *no I don't like it*, which he'd like to explain, but he can just picture himself trying to stammer it out, and it sounds entirely too much like Cordelia, so he just swallows it.

Blue eyes watching him. Then one bony hand closes around Gunn's wrist and drags him forward until they're halfway between rock and ocean. Pulls/pushes him down to sit. Wes isn't actually strong enough to make him do anything -- Gunn has twenty pounds of solid muscle on the man -- but he's radiating again, and the sparks running from his hand to Gunn's arm whisper that he's angry. And it's definitely anger sparking out of his eyes when he folds himself down and straddles Gunn's legs, putting their eyes a handspan apart.

Wet mouth on his, kissing shallow and sharp.

"Feel that." Sharp, itching power runs across his chest, and he can feel/see the blood marks Wesley made over a week ago on his skin. "Let me make this clear.

"You are mine"

Kisses him harder, and presses down into Gunn's lap. But not the way he usually does, with his ass pushing in towards the erection pushing up towards him. Just down, holding Gunn down awkwardly enough that he can't get away without hurting them both.

There's something other than anger pushing to the surface. Hot and bubbling. It could be hurt, he thinks. Because he *knows* it bugs Wes whenever he flinches away. But he just doesn't see the point in them getting their asses kicked if they don't have to. One vamp, two vamps, OK, but half the homeboys in South Central just might be a match for them, and he'd much rather be a quiet

//closet//

case happily fucking Wes in the abandoned rooms of Angel's hotel than a faggot kicked to the curb and crucified there. And he's *sorry* about that, but survival's kind of an issue with him.

He's gonna have to explain that in really careful words, though, because what Wes will get out of it otherwise is that Gunn's ashamed of him. Doesn't

//love//

want him. Because Wes got to go to school in some stick-up-the-ass private academy thing back in England, where rich Brits learn to be secretly OK with boys fucking each other.

He opens his mouth to say so, figuring he can maybe find the words as he goes along, but the instant he does, he has Wesley's tongue down his throat. Wesley's hands are clamped around his skull, holding him steady, and Wes is up on his knees again, pressing his whole weight down on Gunn's mouth. So hard that it's not reasonable for those glasses to still be resting perfectly on his nose. Wet, slick, very serious.

Gunn slides back onto his elbows and looks up as Wes. Who's digging something out of a pocket of his coat, reaching out long and lean with his knees still clamped around Gunn's hips. Who uses his thumb to crack open the bottle of something liquid and slick that he comes up with. The smell of it almost blue, sharp like the surf making huge bass rumbles in the background.

Body-warm when it pools on his belly, sliding into his navel and making snake-slick trails down to the dip of his pelvis. Wes' hand in it is warm, living, moving like greased fire along him. Just massaging right now, working out some of the tension that Gunn hadn't realized he was building, but which is now almost cramp-tight. "Shit that feels good." "Mmm." The kiss he gets this time is gentler.

He could stay like this for hours, drifting and almost asleep, while Wesley strokes him. Only half-aroused, the rest of him just happy to be touched and to be warm. The sand under him must have been viciously hot during the day; even now it's radiating heat slowly into his back.

Wet, messy kisses. Girl-soft mouth on Wesley. The rest of him isn't even noticeably *off*, it's the mouth that makes people squint at him in the street, that makes him just a little implausible on the arm of a woman.

Wes' tongue stays gently in his mouth while the first warm, slick finger comes to press against Gunn's ass. For a second he only blinks, and for ten after that he wants to shake his head like a dog. No. But it's not invasive yet, just stroking, and he's still getting kissed. And when it is invasive, it's only a little, full and startling in a way that makes him gasp and then snake an arm around Wes' neck and pull him down closer.

Two fingers is more startling. Not because he's never done it before, but just something about the fingers themselves, their shape and leanness and the power that he *knows* is radiating through them, even if it's not transferring right now. Stretched at the same time that he's just a bit threatened. Watch it, mister, or you'll be magicked to kingdom come, and won't you have an interesting time explaining yourself when you get there? Growls, pushes his hips down against the fingers, manages a breathy obscenity or two when they catch on his prostate.

When Wes nudges him onto his side, then onto his stomach, he's willing to go with it. The sand's comfortably warm, and the warmth of Wesley curled against his back works against the air. Sometime while he's been locked in the sharp strangeness of his own body, Wes' pants have disappeared. Skin on his skin. Breath in his ear. Warm, long kiss that wraps its way around his neck.

Nudge of Wes' cock against his opening, slow and careful. Just an inch on the first thrust, more on each one after it. A long time before he's all the way in, and by then Gunn's panting, wanting it bad, almost prepared to beg for it. Almost. He's prepared to push back, to make himself an active participant in this fuck even with his body plastered against the sand and no purchase to speak of.

Hard thrust. "Mine." Just a hiss, but there's a spark on one shoulder where Wes is touching him. Wesley whispers something in a not-living language that somehow translates in Gunn's head. Telling the earth who he belongs to.

"Mine." Telling the water that keeps making a sound so huge he's going to be buried by it soon.

"Mine." Telling the rocks. "Mine." Telling the rock face. "Mine." The air and the sun that's going to be rising soon.

"Mine." Naming the elements. Some kind of spell. Gunn wondered if he can feel them reaching back, or whether he's just tired and wired and getting fucked too hard to sort out his senses.

"Yours." Not a whimper, he's quite sure of that. A hiss, maybe. A growl if he's lucky.

"Ashamed of me?"

"No!" Fuck, so good. Wes's got one knee down and thrusts in at an angle, and it's suddenly deeper and lodging in a different place than he's felt before. Enough to make his eyes go wide and the big shock of pleasure that means he's going to come run down his chest towards his groin.

Wesley kisses his ear, then just traces it with his tongue. There has to be sand getting into Wes' mouth, but he doesn't complain or even spit. Just takes the grains and lays them onto Gunn's skin in the next open-mouthed *suck* on his shoulder. Thrusting quite fast now, desperate like a kid on his first time. Pushing Gunn hard enough against the ground that he comes without a reach-around. Howling and thinking in those ice-white seconds that his cock is raw from the sand, that if anyone touches it he's going to turn inside out and run screaming into some wild place and not come back.

Wes is still on top of him, still thrusting. Gunn's just panting now, waiting for it to be over and whimpering every time the hit on his prostate comes too hard. If he was as pale as Wesley, his whole front would be red from friction. He needs for this to be done, before it starts to hurt. Wes' half-words in his ear sound apologetic, but if he can just . get . himself . up it'll be less of an issue.

It takes all his energy to clamp down, but that and a twist of his hips push Wes over. For long seconds he howls at the world that keeps pushing in at them, with more breath than someone that slight should have at this point. Relaxes in stages until he's just laid along Gunn's back and holding him in a full-body hug that seems like it should belong to a kid instead of the man who just topped him.

Quick, sharp pain when Wesley pulls out, but after that Gunn can roll over and breathe easier. Wesley's head presses into his chest and doesn't lift again. Softer, shallower breaths until he's clearly asleep.

Even in the dark, something quick and brilliant catches one lens of Wesley's glasses in the sand next to them, and Gunn makes a mental note (an order? something fierce that he can carve into his memory) not to roll over onto the specs, even if it would mean he gets to drive home.

There's booming water around them, pushing in towards the rock face. Overwhelming until his heartbeat matches it, and then it almost vanishes, and he can finally drift a bit.
___________________________________________

He wakes up at midday and there are huge rock towers in the surf. Farther out, there are islands. Just this one shallow sandy place inside a world of rock and lichen and big, soft trees. The sun on his skin's been baking him slowly for several hours, but it's a comfortable bake that's going to leave him happier and gentler than he was last night.

Wes isn't on him anymore, but the air still feels electric, so he can't have gone far.

In fact, he's down at the water, kneeling ankle-deep in it with something on his hands, muttering. Sand and blood, Gunn thinks, like last night, but with something else in it. Gunn's eyes track sideways and inform him that Wes has carefully gathered up his semen and left a handful of actually kind of interesting rocks in the resulting hollow in the sand.

He's naked when he turns. The glasses at this point are bizarre, something extra on a slick, wild animal, and he wonders just how blind Wes must be without them. He's still got the mix of bodily fluids and sand on his hands, and it occurs to Gunn to ask if Wesley has *any* idea how un-nineties (zeroes? some modern decade where blood and come are dangerous) that is. How messy. And he probably would ask if Wes didn't rinse it off right then, but he does, and comes back, sits down cross-legged in the loose sand.

"Good morning." Soft, crisp. Like someone imported him straight out of that rainy European island he comes from and dropped him here, naked, to deliver Gunn's morning wake-up call.

"Hey." He reaches out to trace the line of Wes' thigh and breathes easier for some reason when neither of them flinches.

"I should probably apologize for last night. A bit much."

*You don't say.* Not the first time Wesley's cast something while they fucked, but definitely the most intense. Pulling them inside out together. But Gunn isn't as angry as he thought he'd be, and he can't think of anything creative to say, so he just watches the skinny, curled body sitting next to him and waits.

"I . . ." Hesitation. He's starting to wonder whether the glasses aren't more for armour than vision. Twitch of his lips that Gunn, strangely, reads as *fuck I hate being English*. Interesting enough to coax him into a full sitting position, to lean him in towards Wes.

Who's currently got what looks like a broken shell in his hands. Knife-sharp. He keeps testing the edge and flinching away, coming back to it and not looking at Gunn.

"What?"

Wesley looks at him then. Very bright, pale eyes. And hold out the shell and a forearm.

It takes him a long minute to figure out what Wesley means, and a couple more to think hard about whether this is something he wants.

*Just think. Your very own wizard.*

Gunn nods, and takes the shell, steadies the bony wrist against his knee. The first cut isn't deep enough, but even with Wesley's determinedly steady breathing, he knows it's gotta hurt. So he's more careful, makes the next one deep enough to draw real blood, high on the arm where there aren't any life-threatening veins.

His own, next. Third try's the charm, and this is the cut they needed to begin with. Part of his brain is howling about blood sharing, but it's a stupid quibble considering the sheer number of times they've fucked bareback.

He mixes their blood together on his fingertips, watching Wes for small 'yes' and 'no' cues. Because he isn't any kind of a wizard, but even he can feel the mass of the energy he's channelling, well enough to feel that it's huge. Blood like kindergarten fingerpaints. Sticky, warm, already congealing. Wes is holding the sleeve of his ruined shirt against the messy cut on his arm and holding his arm up to slow the bleeding. Gunn hasn't looked at his own yet, but he can feel the warm drip of something that isn't water running down towards his wrist, so he'll have to deal with it sometime soon.

Wesley's hand on his wrist helps him draw. He doesn't know what the symbols are, but he recognizes the answering ache on his own skin, so he has a fair idea what they mean. *Mine.*

He whispers that. "Mine."

"Absolutely."

Wesley. Huge eyes and too-pale skin and all the dark hair on him stark in the brilliance of morning. The blood marking out his skin looks not quite real, but it doesn't drip after it touches him. Every so often one of them flinches when the salt in the air gets into one of their cuts.

When Wes releases his wrist, Gunn pushes his red, sticky fingers into the white of the sand and leans in to kiss him. Wet and messy, salty and sour and electric. Spark of unnatural energy when their chests touch.

Bright and huge, this morning.


End