Title: Gone in 60 Seconds (1/1)
Author: zahra (frans_angel@hotmail.com)
Feedback: The words 'hell yes' immediately spring to mind
Pairing: W/G
Rating: PG13 for language and m/m implied
Spoilers: There's No Place Like Pltrz Glrb/ The Gift
Disclaimer: Not mine. I can't dance like Numfar at all.
Summary: Gunn. When someone dies, everybody's affected.
Dedication: To everyone who still believes in me, despite my inability to get my shit together.
Notes: Fred kept saying 'bad things always happen here' she was right - just had the wrong location.

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One word.

Buffy.

One word has gone and changed everything. Again. Shit. If anybody knows the power of one word to change everything you damn well better believe he does.

Gone. Dead. Vamped. Left. Dead.

Doesn't need someone to draw him a picture. This Buffy chick, apparently a couple of those words are applying right about now.

More power in one word than in a million of 'em strung together and hung out the window to celebrate.

Yes. No. Stop. Go.

Damn. Shit just continually gets worse and worse around here. He honestly hadn't thought that was gonna be possible.

Not when he looked at the last year. Could it really get any worse? Obviously it could. Obviously his ass never should've even thought something like that.

Shit can ALWAYS get worse.

Demons. Vamps. Reformed demons. Dead sisters. Alternate dimensions. Mad vamps and Englishmen. Men he wants and can't quite seem to get a grasp on. Fleeting stares and lost chances.

He can feel Wesley slipping away.

Bad things are always happening around him. Bad things are always happening here. Always happening TO him.

His mom. Alonna. George. Enough vamps and demons that if you put 'em end to end, they'd probably stretch from here to China and back. Some days he almost feels like a magnet. And he can accept that too. Charles Gunn isn't one to argue about life being 'fair' and people not getting what they work their asses off for. Knows that that ain't even right.

'Fair' isn't a state of affairs, it's a carnival with rides and weak games. Someplace you go to throw your money away. Like Vegas. And yet. It's just so fucking unfair. He never even got a real shot. He could've made him happy. Knows he could've but that chance is gone.

Going. Going.

Just a fraction of time as he watches Wesley slip away. Seconds on a clock he can't see but can hear pounding into his skull. He can feel his heartbeat racing and his hands opening and closing. Trying to hold on. Trying not to let him go. Frozen. Desperation. Wesley.

Watches as those huge blueish-gray eyes search Angel's face and knows he's going. Going.

Unconsciously closes his fists trying to grab hold of something that he never really had in the first place. Doesn't mean he won't miss it. But he can see it leaving. Wesley. Their chance.

Wonders if he ever had it to begin with. If *they* ever really had it with big dumb vampires, and so many unspoken words between them. Gunn just got completely fucked and not in that way he was hoping for.

What the fuck did he do to deserve a hand like this? In the poker game of life he can't even get a fucking pair. It's like he's been betting against the house, thinking he was gonna win. Can't win when the deck is stacked against you.

Gunn was never a cards guy anyway, prefers craps. You can't stack dice.

Sometimes shit really gets on his nerves. Like this life. It's a crapshoot and apparently someone just got snake eyes. Got it right between the eyes. Him. Buffy. Everybody losing out. Once again bad shit has happened.

Gunn can feel the air being sucked out the room and this one word, or name, is responsible. This one name has more presence than his entire gang rolling down Rodeo Drive.

Doesn't need an explanation. Doesn't need a fucking road map and 'X' marking the spot.

He doesn't need anyone to tell him that seriously bad shit has occurred. All he has to do is look at him. All he has to do is see the way his face falls and his eyes become listless.

All he was to do is watch the way that Cordy and Wesley immediately flank Angel. Waiting. Watching.

Sure of the collapse, of the spiral into depression. Of the backlash.

And don't get Gunn wrong, he's worried about Angel. Worried that he's gonna go all psycho again. That he's gonna go into that place he goes that brings about bad shit like Darla, and Wes getting shot.

He can't have that happen. Not again. Still trying to repair the damage from the first time around. Can't let that happen to English. Not again.

Only has to take a quick glance as Wesley to know that it might be too late. That *he* might be too late.

Only has to take a quick glance to know that he IS too late.

Sees the retreat behind the wire frames. Sees the glazed look. The way that Wes is looking at Angel. He's lost him. That minute grasp that he had. That one sliver of a chance that things might be different now.

Now that Wes was different, now that he was different. Now that they were back. Thought that maybe they might be able to get their shit together.

Just once. It would be nice. Fuck nice. It would've made everything worth it.

There would've been some justification, for something. For once.

But all the wishful thinking in the world isn't gonna change how shit has gone down. All that clenching and unclenching of his hands isn't gonna erase the effect of one word.

All that hope, all that fear. It ain't doing shit for him right now.

He can't even reach out and touch Wes now. Less than five feet away and he might as well be on the other side of the planet.

The death of one girl that Gunn doesn't even know just cost him the only thing he wants.

Bad shit is always happening here. Sometimes he wonders why he doesn't just leave LA.

-finis-


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