Title: In Season
        Author: Cipher Muse
        Summary: Takes place in the hospital room at the end of Thin Dead Line, 
        and the next morning. Bound to be an AU by next week, but I live in hope.
        Disclaimer: Joss owns the copyright, and the penguins belong to nobody 
        but themselves.
        Author's Notes: This is a Snippet, and therefore needs no excuse. If it 
        did, I'd just say hi, this list looks like a nice place to be. Also I'm 
        annoyed with Angel over this tedious Darla thing. 

        In Season 
        By Cipher Muse
        2/18/01


        He's ripe, is Gunn. The sweetest, ripest, darkest fruit on the tree. 
        Everywhere on that beautiful body the ripeness and juices seem about to 
        burst from his liquid-melting skin. I thought once that Angel would 
        pluck him and break my heart. I loved him, loved Angel, so much I 
        thought I'd burst myself from over-ripe longing and the decay of 
        loneliness. Instead I fell with a thud and found to my surprise I 
        remained whole though untasted. My rival, my enemy is now my chiefest 
        companion and a delicacy my eyes do savor. 

        I don't think Angel is mine to love any longer. He lost whatever he 
        might have found in Gunn when he bit instead into his own darkness and 
        found a terrible rot from his past. We are both free now, Charles and I, 
        and though I've lost more of my own juices than I could afford perhaps I 
        now have room to ripen again, under this young man's fluid gaze. 
        Whatever else we know of each other, I recognized that look he cast at 
        me when the bullet came inches from my life. How can I not know, when 
        his eyes hide nothing? He seems so young, and I wonder what miracle 
        allowed him to grow and survive in a darkened war zone yet remain so 
        open, so absorptive of sunlight.

        This young man, this creature heavy with vitality risked himself for me 
        with no question in his mind as to why. He risked his own life and the 
        lives of friends from his early years to keep me rooted to this world. 
        He sits by my side, and his gaze never wavers. His smile is full and 
        rich with sweetness and I know that he does indeed love me. I know also 
        that this does not frighten him. He will drink from me, if I let him. He 
        does not fear nurturance. And I will let him.

        The breezy whine of Cordelia's words to someone in the corridor breaks 
        through the hazy air between myself and Gunn, and a shadow passes over 
        my heart when I hear a flat tone I know too well. Angel is here. 
        Something within me seems to sour, and my hand falls away from the one 
        holding it so gently. The brightness of daylight I saw in Gunn's eyes 
        fades and I see only black leather and hollow eyes that need me but live 
        in terror of my love. I am too worn, too wounded for the ripest summer 
        fruit. My broken teeth must not mar the perfect flesh. 

        I am turned away, and I do not know when my companions leave. But when I 
        awaken, the sun is shining once again, and my fears for once are empty 
        husks. For love is still hanging poised above me, sleepy but smiling by 
        my bedside, and has once again plucked my hand from the coverlet.

        I look into Charles' enormous wet eyes and tell him what I mean to do.

        "I will climb that tree, I will pick that fruit", and he laughs a little 
        at the non sequitur.

        "Good morning, Wesley. Orange juice or apple?"


        ~somewhere left of center~

        Oh, the quote. "I will climb that tree, I will pick that fruit" comes 
        from the lovely Song of Solomon, in, um, the Bible. Yeah.