Title: Still Standing

Author: Rabbit

Website: www.geocities.com/impudent_guttersnipe

Contact: [email protected]  (or)   [email protected]

Summary: On a rainy afternoon, do you ever take out old pictures and cry? Wes/A/Gunn

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Let me introduce you to a nice man named JossWhedon. No infringement intended, no profit made.

Feedback: I like it.

Imrov15:  Air, orange, chime, dark

 

 

 

Can you hand me that tile cutter? Wes…Wesley?”

 

“Huh, oh yes. Right. Here it is.” I shake myself and reach over to the box of tools that he’s laid on the table. Not too far, I can still feel the catch of pain as the healing skin stretches with my movement. Gunn’s been overly solicitous of me since I took a bullet for him.

 

He watches me as I straighten up. Serious, but then he breaks into a smile and it never ceases to amaze me how much that grin transforms his face, lights it up, and always seems to bring a similar one to my own. That’s why I know I’m grinning like a ninny as I hand him the tool he’s asked for.

 

 He takes it and expertly slices it’s cutting edge into the ceramic surface, dragging it over and over in a line against the dark sunset tone, flecks of orange like a dying sun. And isn’t that just apropos considering how much change we’ve all been through recently, now is the time for us to rise from the ashes, clear the air and move forward, all of that business.

 

 Cordelia found the tile, a discontinued line sold at a discount, and she had to have it. She just ‘knew it would give the office a touch of class, and class brings class,’ or some nonsense like that. And I was slightly surprised when Gunn offered to lay it. That was a skill I had not anticipated from him, but I find that he’s full of surprises.

 

The chiming of bells hanging on the front doorknob signals someone’s entered the office. Cordelia’s at home today. Sniffles. So it’s up to Gunn and I to greet the newcomer. We both look up and see Angel’s bulk just coming across the threshold, and even now when I see him, I feel that twisting in my gut that has nothing to do with my recent wound.

 

He stops when he sees our proximity, and I feel heat infusing my cheeks. That’s what makes me so mad, with one little look, he still has the power to affect me so profoundly. An interaction as harmless as helping Gunn put a new floor in has me all flustered, wondering what it must look like to Angel, wondering if he’s jealous that he’s not included, is he sorry that he abandoned me…I mean, *us*?

 “Hey guys, what’s all that? Do you need some help?” Mussed hair and a wrinkled black sweater, I swear I see dark circles under his eyes and I wonder whether he’s getting any sleep? Isn’t that what started this whole thing in the first place?

 

“No, we got it.” Gunn refocuses his attention on the tiles in front of him, snapping one into two perfect halves with a sharp ~plink~. I pick up the two pieces, as I have been doing, but am self conscious about the way my wrist brushes Gunn’s now that Angel’s dark eyes observe every minute detail of our interactions.

 

“I see the bonding continues,” the barest nuance of bitchiness simmers just below the surface of his voice.

 

Where was this attention earlier?  It’s too late now for him to lament the fact that I’m tired of waiting for him. Does he even fathom how much he cut me when he spiraled into his dark descent? How afraid I was to watch him tread that path, knowing that there was nothing I could say to stop him? How alone I felt as I watched him pull away from me? And now he thinks he can come back as if nothing ever happened, *knowing* that I’ll be waiting for him as always.

 

But not this time. This time, I’m strong.

 

 

 

 I’ve finally realized that Angel’s not a good choice for me. Those few moments of pleasure I’ve felt with him, innocent and sensual. Watching him, aching when that rare smile touches his lips, I try to preserve those, weigh them against the violent desperation gleaming in those dark eyes when he began rambling about Darla, Lindsey McDonald…Wolfram and Hart. Hold them up against the hollow pang that was left when he broke in and stole that book, threatened Cordelia and I.

 

I didn’t recognize him then, he was someone different, true shades of the demon that is suppressed within. For the first time since coming here to L.A., I really believed him capable of the atrocities Angelus perpetrated. For those few moments, I had no doubt that he could kill one of us, that he wouldn’t have to dig too deeply within to find the motivation to do so.  Now when I look at him, I see that mask of hatred superimposed on his features, and it’s hard to remember the smile. He shows it less often now, if that’s even possible.

 

Gunn kneels on the floor, smearing the thick paste adhesive on the back of the tiles, showing me how to carefully line them up, tap them in place, set them into their permanent home. He praises me when I do it correctly, giving me a thumbs up, and I can’t help but smile. That impulse is quelled when I glance surreptitiously out of the corner of my eye. Angel's watching, comparing Gunn's interaction with me to what he and I used to do, dissecting every undercurrent of intent for familiarity, for a sign of something spelling out the evidence that *we’ve* progressed beyond the point that he and I did. The rest of the job is at best uncomfortable, under his scrutiny. Gunn blithely goes about the business at hand, and I can’t really tell if he’s missing the subtext, or just stubborn.

 

When we’ve finished, Gunn stays to wipe the drying mortar off the floor, while I take the various tools into the bathroom to clean them at the sink. I don’t have to look up to know I’m not alone any more, and the mirror in front of me wouldn’t do me any good anyway in that department. Angel.  Is there really anything to say to him? He’s back here in our lives, but I’m not prepared to welcome him back fully. There’s a line that’s been crossed, and it’s forever jaded the future I used to dream about. Our future together.

 

“So are you and Gunn together now?” He’s never quite reached that resentful pitch before, and nothing he’s done in the past few months has earned him the right to claim it now.

 

“Are Gunn and I together?” It’s hard to keep from laughing in his face, I focus scraping the sticky residue off of the putty scraper and rinsing it under the running water, until I can speak without resentment clouding my reply. “Gunn is my friend. I respect him and enjoy working with him, because he has shown nothing but loyalty and responsibility to the cause and to Cordelia and I. Something that I have been hard pressed to find around here in the recent past.

 

“Yeah, I see that he’s stepped right into my shoes hasn’t he? You two seem happy with your nesting.”

 

“Shut up!” I whirl around and I’m holding the flat end of the scraper pointed at his chest, although I have no idea what I would possibly do with it, but it feels good to crush the handle in my fist and shake it at him. “You’re the one who went away. It was you who abandoned *us*, your duty. You just walked away and left us here to deal with a city full of misery that we had no real expectation of stemming by ourselves, left Cordelia with debilitating visions that were meant to guide *YOU* She never asked for any of this, but she gladly suffered through it because she knew how badly this city needed some hope.”

 

“I know. I know that Wesley, but I’m here now. I’m not going to walk away again, but someone needs to cut me some slack. I feel like you guys are slamming the door in my face every time I turn around.”

 

I reach impatiently for some paper towels and begin wiping the moisture off the tools, and from around the sink basin. “Did you think we were going to throw the door open and nothing would be changed? You scared the hell out of all of us, you hurt Cordelia badly.” When I say the last, I mentally substitute  *me*  in place of her name.

 

He leans against the door, and just a month ago,  a survival flag of fear and panic would’ve caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. But now, it’s hard to miss the beaten air evident in his slumped shoulders. “I’m sorry I hurt…you.” The last syllable dips when his voice lowers, intimate in the enclosed space. His eyes have always reminded me of a Labrador retriever, sad and brown, and before, I would have said trustworthy, loyal to death. But now that’s colored with the fear that he’ll snap again and if he were a dog, you’d never turn your back on him again for fear you’d find him at your throat.

 

“I’m sorry you did too, because that fact has changed everything between us.”

 

“And there’ll never be any *us* again? You’ll never forgive me, take me back?” He blinks slowly, and listens intently. As if his attention can force the words he wants to hear out of my mouth.

 

“I’ll forgive you. Eventually. But I don’t think we can ever go back to that space, this will always lie between us.”

 

He nods bitterly. “And you’ll always keep it there, won’t you?”

 

“This isn’t getting us anywhere, we’ll forever go around in circles over it. I can only tell you how I feel, and you’ll have to deal with it. I can’t change what’s happened. Maybe in time…it’ll be different?”

 

“It’ll be different when? When it’s too late? When you’re fucking Gunn? “

 

And now this is my fault? “I’m really trying to refrain from warding this office against you. If you want to join us, things will be different; you’ll have to adjust. If you think that’s not possible, then so be it, but this isn’t really helping your case any.”

 

“You haven’t yet…have you?”

 

“I’m not going to answer that!” I gather up the implements and push into him. He doesn’t make an issue of it; steps back and gives me a clear passage past him.

 

Once back in the foyer, I throw the tools into Gunn’s box with a clatter. One doesn’t clear the opening, and I pick it up, toss it again. It doesn’t make it, ricocheting against the lid and thunking on the table. The third time isn’t any luckier, and I’m suddenly reminded of why I never played sports in school.

 

Gunn intercepts my grab for it with a raised eyebrow, picks it delicately up with  pinkie raised ,and places it deliberately with the others. “You gonna tell me why you goin’ all Martha Stewart on acid here,  ‘cause Globetrotter with the mad skillz…you are not.”

 

“I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”

 

“Angel say somethin’?”

 

He really is too perceptive. Did I think his ignorant of subtext earlier? More like selectively daft, I’d wager.  “We had a dialogue, yes.”

 

He snaps the catch on his toolbox. “He try to sweet talk ya, huh? You cave?”

 

 

“Still standing,” I assure him proudly.

 

He tucks the box under his arm, resting against his hip. “You want to get something to eat?”

 

“Yes. Yes I do.”

 

END