TITLE: Something Like
AUTHOR: Sheila (mimesere@earthlink.net)
RATING: NC17
DISTRIBUTION: List archives, Lar if she wants it. Otherwise ask first.
SPOILER: The Re-arc, Epiphany.
SUMMARY: In which French poetry is discussed and sex is had.
DISCLAIMER: I have a whole dollar in my checking account. If Gunn and Wesley are that cheap to buy, then Joss can have it and I'll take them. Sadly, I don't think this is the case.
NOTES: For Ins, Te, and Mir, 'cause they write me prettiness. Look! happysmut! Sorta.

Yes, the poem does exist. Soundtrack by Moby, Fuel, and PJ Harvey.

Improv 11: wax, shelter, alert, vice.

*

It's still a surprise to Gunn that after everything he's seen and done, Wesley can still retreat into a full body blush whenever someone says anything suggestive. Stammers and looks away and prudes right on up, all prissy and English, like he's never done anything that'd get him dirty.

Gunn knows that's a lie. He's seen Wes beat up and bloody and covered in blue stuff, scraped and muddy and even with all that, Wesley comes in every day in neatly pressed clothes, glasses firmly in place, and it always, *always* makes Gunn want to mess him up a little.

Nothing big, just a little something to wipe out the perfection.

He leans his chair back against the wall, balances it on the back two legs and looks around the office. They brought in another desk from the hotel and Wesley's claimed it. Marked his territory in books and scrolls and bright pink post-its, scribbled all over with little bits of Latin and Greek and something that Wes said was Aramaic, but since it all looks like chicken scratches, it could be weird British graffiti and Gunn wouldn't really know the difference.

Wesley slaps another post-it down on the edge of the desk and makes a face.

"Bill?" asks Gunn.

"Rent."

"Ah."

Now, the practical thing to do would be to move back to the hotel. Set up base like they had before. But that's Angel's place, and none of them want to go back. They won't even go visit.

Gunn knows it's childish, but they need to make Angel come to them. Prove just how much they don't need him, not for shelter, not for protection, not for leadership.

He says, "We should change the name."

Wesley rubs his forehead and shuffles through a few notes. "If it weren't for the business license, the taxes, the fictitious name application, the stencilers, and the business cards we've already paid for, I would agree."

Fuck a duck. They've gone legit.

Gunn watches Wesley pull off his glasses and set them on the desk. He grooves on Wes sans the eyewear the same way he grooves on Wes with the heavy weaponry. Same guy, he thinks, or close enough that it don't matter. And one day, not just yet, but one day he wants to throw down.

Cordelia would call this Macho Guy Bullshit.

Gunn just calls it curiosity.

Okay, so it is macho guy bullshit. The fact that he knows and admits it earns him a few points on the sensitivity meter while the macho stuff takes away a whole bunch more.

Knowing and admitting doesn't make the urge go away, either. It just makes him look at it more closely and he comes to two conclusions. The first is that he can't know how far to trust Wesley at his back until he knows how good he fights.

The second is that it is a good goddamn reason to get up close and a little personal, feel all that skinny English muscle do some serious straining against him. Touch and get touched. Hell yeah.

Gunn is all over that.

And he's entertaining some thoughts of what he'd do once he got Wes stripped down and a little sweaty, not a lot, but just enough that Gunn can blame the groping on missing his grip, when Wesley whacks the desk a good one with the heel of his hand. Lets loose with a string of swearing and it always sounds so good when Wesley does it.

What Gunn wants to say is, "Is there something wrong which I can make better? Perhaps by fucking you through a wall?"

What he actually says is, "Whafuck?" while his chair slams down onto the ground with a solid, painful thud.

"We have to pay Angel," Wesley says pissedly.

Is that all? "Nah. He owes us retroactive pay from when we were unjustly released from his employ."

Wesley blinks. Takes a moment to process that sentence coming out of Gunn's mouth (and let's be honest, Gunn's more than a little surprised that he said it too) before he ducks his head and grins. "Retroactive?"

"We got a few months of backpay coming to us."

"It's petty and childish, you realize."

Gunn spreads his hands and tries to look innocent. "We're just giving back what he gave us."

Wesley taps his pen against the desk. That, at least, is better than him sticking it in his mouth which made Gunn have to leave the office for a while. "Cordelia would approve."

"She would," Gunn says solemnly. Him and Wes and Cordy against the world. Gunn can get behind that.

The ledger that Wesley pulls out is on actual paper and has to be absolute pain in the ass to keep current. But he keeps at it like having the numbers on paper is going to make some kind of difference when the bills come and there's no money in the bank.

They have a business account. Gunn can't get over that.

Wesley scribbles a few numbers on the page and pulls out the calculator. This gets a "A real man would do it longhand" from Gunn which, in turn, gets a ball of crumpled up paper tossed at his head. Wesley doesn't even look up when he throws it, which makes getting nailed pretty fucking impressive.

"I thought I was an ass pansy," says Wesley.

"Pansy ass."

The gesture that Wesley makes is short and to the point.

Gunn snorts. "I'm just saying."

"And I'm just saying that my ass is not a purple flower."

Ah-ss. Long a. Dig it. Gunn sure as hell does. "Isn't there a poem about that?"

The look Wesley gives him is priceless. "A poem about one's ass resembling a purple flower? Dear God, I hope not."

"They're just waxing the light poetic, Wes."

Wesley rolls his eyes, implying that not only is Gunn delusional, but he's also stomping all over the English language and will he stop, please and thank you.

"It exists," insists Gunn. "By someone French, I think. Lots of vowels."

"Oh. The French." Wesley says dismissively and flaps a hand in a way that Gunn can only describe as incredibly gay. "They wrote about a great many things."

Gunn can't even remember where he first saw the poem. Probably something Alonna brought home from class. Magnet school for literature and the arts, and he'd felt guilty when she left to stay with him, but not guilty enough to make her stay in.

And anyway, when was French poetry about someone's ass gonna be any kind of help killing vampires?

Gunn shrugs. Tips his chair back. He wonders, briefly, if discussing asses can be counted as coming out to a coworker. Maybe it just fits in under heavy flirtation. Obvious flirtation. Bordering on an outright proposition.

Wesley hums as he goes back to playing with his spreadsheet.

If it's a proposition, it's flown completely over Wesley's head and short of getting up and kissing the hell out of him, Gunn's running right out of ideas. The kissing is only to be used as a last resort.

In case of emergency, break rules and go for it.

Gunn's looking at Wesley looking at the calculator like it's insulted him.

"We do have a nice accounting program on the computer, you know."

"Bloody useless machine." Wesley turns that Glare o' Insultedness onto Cordelia's i-Book.

"Is the big bad demon hunter afraid of a little computer?"

"This big bad demon hunter is terrified of Cordelia."

Gunn has nothing to say to that. Cordy'd ripped him a new one the last time he touched her computer. "Yeah, well."

"It's Cordelia," finishes Wesley. He beams at Gunn, this huge smile that's all for him. And that, *that* is just too. damn. much. 'Cause how is Gunn supposed to stay all the way across the office when that look is being aimed at him?

Unfair. Gunn's pretty sure he doesn't have that kind of a weapon to use on Wesley.

His chair hits the ground again and it jars Gunn out of his sudden urge to grab Wesley and just fucking well *do* it. Reality intruding its ugly little head into Gunn's world and his life and he wants to avoid it.

Oh yeah. There is always more down.

Wesley's looking at him all confused like, and there's concern there, yeah yeah Wes, just...Gunn needs to deal, and he's thinking that maybe he won't be able to. Not without hurting Wes or alerting him to over six feet of brusque, macho infatuation.

Could be more. Maybe.

"Gunn?"

Wesley saying his name makes him want to do a lot of things to that skinny white body, none of them decent. And oh look, Gunn's not sitting down anymore and he's not on the other side of the office neither. Looking down at Wesley now, and being this far up and so close is going to give him a pain in the neck.

And the first kiss isn't anything like what Gunn wished for. It's painfully awkward from where Gunn is, can't be much better for Wesley sitting frozen in that chair. And this is the thing about kissing: every time, *every* single fucking damn time he's seen people kissing, they've just gotten to it. Slipped in and started going at it like pros and maybe he's doing it wrong that it's never that great the first time, no matter how much he's done it or the other person's done it. Always weird, new shapes to learn, new everything and God.

God.

Just.

When he pulls back and takes a look at what he's just done, he doesn't know whether he should preserve this for posterity or give up now 'cause Wesley's looking to be seriously weirded out by the whole thing but his mouth is all wet and red. He's also not kicking Gunn's ass, which, on the whole, is a pretty good thing.

A good sign.

That Wes gets up, grabs a fistful of Gunn's shirt and drags him into the back room, that's even better. Or else he wants to do the asskicking in private. Either way, fuck or fight, being watched is not Wesley's secret vice.

Gunn finds himself pressed up between a wall and Wesley, and he could push Wes away easy, no problem what with the ongoing healing process and him not being up to his usual standards and all, but no way is Gunn going to. Wesley's got him just where he wants to be.

"You--" starts Wesley.

"Yeah. It's, uh."

Wesley holds up a hand to stop him from talking. "Just. You are..." He does that hand flappy thing again. Gets a little closer.

Gunn shrugs.

"And you want this." Wesley shakes his head. "Me. You want."

All Gunn can do is nod.

Wesley's damn is soft and heartfelt. He presses close, makes one line of contact all along the space between them. This close up, Gunn can smell Wes' cologne, something crisp, cool, surprising given how warm he is.

When the door chime goes off, Gunn echoes him.

Cordelia's voice drifts through the closed door. "Gunn? Wesley? You guys here?"

"We're in the back, Cordelia." Wesley lets go of Gunn's shirt and takes a few steps back. Gunn doesn't move and Wesley just stares at him thoughtfully.

No way, no fucking way is Gunn going to continue the conversation with Cordelia there, so he goes back out to the front office, Wesley trailing behind, and for a while it's the same old story.

Vision, fighting, and the killing of a nasty looking demon.

Gunn feels a little better with Angel at his back 'cause that means Wesley's out of immediate danger and that's one less thing to worry about. Nothing fragile about Wes, but the whole actually caring thing makes Gunn stupid about it.

And then they're in the truck, just the two of them since Angel took Cordy back, parked in the alley beside Wesley's apartment building. It's dark and the rain's giving them a sad sense of privacy, but they're still not talking.

Gunn's completely willing to brush it all off, retreat into full on guy mode and pretend none of it happened if that's what Wesley wants. If that's what it takes to make things go back.

He's pretty sure that's Wesley's hand on his leg (seeing as it's definitely not his own), sliding up the corduroy and stroking his thigh like he's a skittish virgin. He turns to look but he can't see much of anything in the dark except for the flash of Wesley's glasses and the blocky shadows that make up the rest of him.

The message he's getting is come closer, and Gunn's never been one to ignore a message like that. Gets a lapful of determined Brit, fingers that he knows are long and elegant on his nipples, and a hard kiss on his mouth for his troubles and this is good, this is *great*. Gunn is on board with everything.

Except for the stopping which Wesley's doing.

Fuck.

"Wes?"

"Your dashboard is digging into my back." He sounds rueful.

"Well, fuck." He truly can't help that it comes out sounding just a little confused and a lot frustrated.

Wesley kisses him again, long and slow. He writhes a little, licks Gunn's lower lip like it's some new kind of candy and when he speaks again, his voice is this low thing that's pure sex. "There's no dashboard in my flat."

And Gunn has to laugh in relief and sheer want. "Don't have to tell me twice."

"I've always loved that about you," says Wesley, and Gunn's 99.44 percent sure that Wesley's laughing too.

"Up," says Gunn.

"Mmm." Wesley seems to be ignoring the dashboard now; he's way more interested in making Gunn swear, in finding all the places that tickle and make him rub against Wesley's hands and body.

He finds Wesley's knee where it's pressed hard against Gunn's hip and follows the line of his leg up. It makes Wes' breathing get all ragged against Gunn's cheek.

"Up," Gunn says again. He digs his fingers into the muscle of Wesley's thigh and gives it a squeeze. It earns him a very satisfying yelp.

Wesley scrambles off Gunn's lap and out the door while Gunn's still laughing. "Well?"

"Hey, I'm not the one that needed to be told twice."

"Oh, do shut up."

"Touchy, touchy."

"That is the idea."

Gunn slides out the passenger side door and slings an arm around Wesley's shoulder. "Patience grasshopper."

And whatever he thought was going to happen when it all came out, having an eager, slutty Wesley groping his ass whenever he felt that Gunn was moving a bit too slow wasn't it. Wasn't even on the list.

They make it up the stairs and while Wes is fumbling the key into the lock, Gunn takes the opportunity to do a little pressing and writhing of his own, hard up against Wesley's back and it's nice that they line up so well.

He slides one hand down Wesley's side, brushes a hand over where the scar from the gunshot wound is. Wesley shivers and Gunn drops a kiss on the back of his neck. Quiet thanks because Gunn can say it, and has, but he's almost positive that Wesley has no earthly idea what that did to him.

Finally, thankyouthankyoujesus, Wesley gets the door open and the spill into the room. Gunn kicks the door shut and has a few seconds to look around while Wesley looks at him. The apartment is warm and smells like it's been freshly painted. Nice place.

Wesley steps up close, but not touching anywhere except the waistband of Gunn's pants, undoing them and staring straight at Gunn. The rasp of the zipper is loud in the room and it should be awkward, should be a lot of things. Right now, right here it's wanted deep and hard and fast because Gunn's not sure that he can do anything else.

Gunn leans back against the door, spreads his legs some so Wes can get closer. Open invitation. Who the fuck needs subtle when blatant works just as good?

Wesley's working him now, firm callused grip on his dick and Gunn has to wonder what it feels like from that side, 'cause hell, he knows what he likes but Wesley's doing everything *right*, not hesitating, just going all out, quick and ruthless and wonderfully uncomplicated.

And he wants there to be something to grab on to, keep himself from falling 'cause Wes won't be able to hold him up, but all that's behind him is the door and that's no good place to dig in, hold on.

All Gunn can say is Wesley's name over and over again, throw in a few fucks for good measure and a couple of moans 'cause Wesley Wes *Wes*, jesus fuck English, likes words, Gunn knows that.

Gunn likes Wesley's hand just where it is.

But all good things and all that, and when Gunn comes, he does it hard. Gets a cheerful sound from Wesley and when Gunn manages to pry his eyes back open (he's still standing and he thinks this kind of accomplishment should get him something), Wesley's licking his hand clean.

*jesus*.

The sound he makes is a whimper. The sound Wesley makes is very close to a laugh, just one step left of it, hungry and happy and something else. And it's fucking *sad*, pitiful and all that shit, that Gunn is so easy. Ready, willing, and able to let Wesley do whateverthefuck -- all he needs to do is ask.

Wesley's smile is nothing short of smug and when Gunn flips him off for that, Wes just grins wider, tilts his head toward the bedroom and lifts his eyebrows in an obvious question.

"Yeah, yeah. Gimme a sec."

"Pansy ass," says Wesley, still grinning. His mouth is surprisingly wide, and that smile is everything Gunn could have asked for.

*
End

Sheila
"When history looks down its weird evolved vestigial stump of a nose at us, it'll have a lot of very shitty things to say."
http://home.earthlink.net/~mimesere/