Fic: Untitled (Crossover, PG)
Title: Untitled. But I'm open to suggestions.
Author: littera_abactor
Fandom: Angel, mostly.
Author's Note: Written for the Slightly More Than 24 Hours Crack Crossover Challenge, in two hours just before the deadline; totally unbeta'd or even proofread, so let the reader beware. I mean that, and not just because of the probable errors; there's also, like, plot and characterization and, um, other issues.
It's posted here as an object lesson, really: why I should never sign up for challenges due in less than a week.
Gunn kept his left hand on the steering wheel, looked around for cops, and worked his phone out of his pocket all at the same time; he was a multi-tasker from way back. “Yo.”
“Come in right now.”
“Hi there, Cordelia. What’s up with you?”
“Wesley has lost his mind.” Cordelia’s voice was quiet - her version of a whisper - but intent.
Gunn swung into a left turn lane and popped a u-turn. “We talking rabies crazy?”
“We’re talking stiff-upper-lip, noble-sacrifice, going-off-to-fight-and-die crazy.”
“What?”
“He’s at his desk right now making notes for me about useful places to recruit people to replace him. He’s making a will. He gave me his email password. He wrote a check made out to me for his entire account balance so that I could pay the rent on the office next month.”
Gunn glanced in the review mirror and floored the accelerator.
~
When he walked in, Cordelia was standing in front of Wes’s desk, mouth compressed, notepad in hand. Wesley was saying, “And be sure to ask Lorne about anyone you recruit. Now, I’m leaving the agency to you and Gunn jointly, but I’m making certain it’s a 51-49 split in his favor in case of - further repercussions of the case.”
“What case? What the fuck’s up? You swore you’d stay in bed, Wes.” Which was the closest Gunn was ever going to come to admitting in front of Cordelia that he’d been in bed with Wesley when they’d had that discussion. He wasn’t uncomfortable with it, exactly. He just didn’t want her to force him to take all those Cosmo relationship quizzes with her.
“There’s, er, a bit of an emergency.”
Cordelia, her face flat, handed Gunn a very long sheet of rolled paper. He spent a few seconds trying to hold it open and read it at the same time, and then she took it back, opened it, and held it in front of his face.
“Lords of Justice call upon ye,” he read slowly. The thing was written in the weirdest, curliest calligraphy he’d ever seen; every letter had five extra loops. He figured this had to be someone’s real handwriting, because no font on earth was this fucked up. It’d be easier to read if it was in Wingdings. “…registered owner of Angel Investigations or duly authorized representative, to appear before the Court…” He blinked. “Whoa. Wait. Lords of Justice? Court?”
“A sort of magical court kind of thing,” Wesley said, not looking up from his writing. “Gunn, I’m making you my executor. Is that acceptable?”
Gunn was - sort of getting pissed off, actually. “No. No, it fucking isn’t.” Wesley looked up at him, surprised. “It is not acceptable, Wesley, because that means you’ll be dead.”
Wesley pushed his glasses up and frowned at him. “I’m afraid that isn’t optional.”
Cordelia said, “It’s a court case, right?”
“Of a kind.”
“So can’t we just send a lawyer as our authorized representative?”
“’Representative’ does not, in this case, mean lawyer. It means champion.” Wes looked at them for a moment, then looked down at his desk. “The Lords of Justice are somewhat - Darwinian. Right will be determined, in this case, by might; my co-defendants and I will face the champions of the plaintiff in arena combat.”
“Aren’t we your co-defendants?” Gunn didn’t give a shit about the Lords of Justice, but he was pretty sure that if he and Cordelia went along they could figure some way out. That didn’t involve anyone dying. Especially not Wes.
“Er, no, actually. Paragraph 13.”
Gunn counted down and then returned to deciphering the handwriting, which got worse the further you got into the scroll. “Uh, Lion-something, LLC. And…the something Order something.” Does anyone know who that is? Or even what this says?”
“No idea, I’m afraid. But apparently they also cast some spells against Lykovix last year. Er, before you came aboard, I think that was, actually; Lykovix was a sorcerer who wished to open the gates to someone called the First Dark.”
“We think,” Cordelia said.
“Wait, you cast spells on this dude and you didn’t even know for sure what he wanted to do?”
“We had a prophecy stating that if he succeeded, Evil would triumph, the Dark King would reign, and death would openly stalk the land. It seemed safe to assume that was a bad thing.”
“So now we’re being sued because we saved the world?” Gunn was having a hard time getting up to speed on this one; for some reason, the mental image of Wesley bleeding in the street was getting in the way of rational thought.
“The Lords of Justice aren’t especially interested in saving the world, I’m afraid. They’re on the side of Justice.” Wesley paused, and looked at Gunn directly. “As they define it.”
“Well, wait. How do we know that the other guys, the co-defendants, can’t handle it? Or maybe the champions from the other side won’t be so bad.”
Wesley didn’t answer. Cordelia gave him a sympathetic look and pointed to a spot near the end of the scroll. It said, Complainant represented by Wolfram & Hart. Plus some weird red squiggle thing, but he didn’t need to read that to know they were in deep shit.
“Oh, fuck,” he said.
“Yes. I imagine their champion will be - rather challenging.” Wesley’s voice sounded slightly unsteady. He cleared his throat. “So, obviously, I’m preparing for the worst. But that doesn’t mean it will come to pass; there are several variables in the situation. I don’t think you should be unduly concerned.”
Gunn looked at Cordelia. “When do we need to have someone there by? How much time is he gonna have to heal?” Wesley had ripped his stitches out the week before, and he wasn’t even supposed to be sitting up, let alone traveling.
Cordelia said, “Midnight. Tonight.”
“Okay, no. No fucking way. They can’t expect you to go now. You can barely fucking walk. And, and -“ Gunn tried to think of something better to say than, and I can’t face losing anyone else, but he couldn’t, and the sentence just kind of died.
Wesley said, “Rumor has it that the Lords of Justice do not count patience among their virtues.”
“So don’t go. Just - stay here. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Wesley said, “Do you see what it says in Paragraph 20? ‘Herein fail not at your peril?’ That doesn’t just mean me, Gunn. It means you and Cordelia.” He thought for a minute, “Angel as well, I suppose, as he was head of this firm at the time of the alleged offense, but I’m not terribly worried about that.”
“So why not send Angel?”
“I doubt we could find him in the time, or persuade him to go if we did. One has to hold the summons and voluntarily will transport to the Courts; a champion cannot be sent unawares to this sort of trial.”
Problem solved, then. Gunn grabbed the paper out of Cordelia’s hand, squeezed his eyes shut, and thought, Take me, I’m stronger, I’ll be the champion, take me up there right now.
It didn’t work. Nothing happened. He opened his eyes, feeling like an idiot.
And he was somewhere else.
~
Gunn figured it was kind of unfair to make a guy fill out a ton of paperwork just so he could fight to the death in your arena, on your orders, by your rules, but he didn’t want them doing the peril thing to Wes and Cordy, so he did whatever the little green dude said. It took three hours.
First there was a lot of discussion, then a careful review of the rules of the contest - and since there was really only one rule, and it was ‘Kill or be killed,’ Gunn had to be impressed that the green dude had taken almost an hour to explain it - and then Gunn had to sign his name on what he was pretty sure was every piece of paper ever manufactured since time began.
Then he had to hear about all the things he couldn’t do. No use of ‘unauthorized weapons,’ which, from the list he was given, meant everything but hands, feet, and whatever weapon he picked from the ones that would be waiting outside the arena. No leaving before the battle was over. No magic, not even stuff that had been cast on him before; the gate to the arena would remove ‘all spells, illusions, enchantments, compulsions, restraints, and concealments, leaving only your natural self,’ which was fine by Gunn. Not like he’d had time for spells anyway. And whatever his ‘natural self’ was, it was probably a fighter.
Gunn tried to focus, but this guy was so boring he’d put Wesley to sleep in ten minutes flat.
Eventually, though, the green dude said, “Your appointment is accepted. Your co-defendants have already reported and are being processed; you will meet them in the Defendant’s Chambers. The trial will begin in exactly one hour and seventeen minutes. You will hear a chime when the portal opens; go through it to the entryway, then pass through the gate after the second chime.”
Gunn opened his mouth to say thanks or got it or fuck you - he still wasn’t sure what was going to come out - but the green guy tapped the table with a little hammer, and once again he was somewhere else.
It was starting to piss him off. “Haven’t these guys ever heard of walking?” he muttered.
“I’m afraid not, no,” and for a second, Gunn thought the fuckers had taken Wes anyway, because the guy talking was English.
He spun around. There was - a guy standing there. Kind of a little guy, smaller than Wes, wearing a suit and a tie. “You my co-defendant?” he asked.
The guy smiled at him at little sadly. “One of them. I’m Remus Lupin, representing the Order of the Phoenix. Pleasure to meet you. Shame about the circumstances.” He pushed his glasses up his nose; Gunn noticed one of the little arms had recently been broken and fixed with tape. Great, he thought. If the other guy can’t fight, we’re in deep shit.
Gunn offered his hand, and after a moment Lupin hesitantly took it and shook. “Hey, uh, Remus,“ and wasn’t that, like, a Deep South kind of name? “I’m Theodore Gunn, representing Angel Investigations. What’s the Order of the Phoenix?”
“A group dedicated to - well, I suppose one could say, a group dedicated to fighting evil.”
“Hey, us too. So that’s what you do? You fight evil?”
Lupin looked a little sad. “Some of the time. I’m also a schoolteacher.”
“Oh.” Gunn had nothing to say to that at all. “Uh, who’s our other defendant?”
“I suppose I am.”
Gunn was getting really tired of these guys showing up behind him. He turned around and saw - well, fuck. A pansy. And not the kind Gunn was himself these days; this was a blond guy in a slinky shirt and slinky pants and with the kind of messy hair Cordelia did when she had a date with someone rich. His pose was definitely the pansiest thing about him, though; dude was standing there with his hips tilted a little, hands posed just so - he looked like a model. He was definitely pretty enough to be one. And young enough; he was maybe 20. At best.
We are so in deep shit, Gunn thought. Out loud he said, “You come from the Lion something, right?
“Lioncourt Investments, LLC.” The guy smiled, mouth closed, head to one side; he had a vague accent, but Gunn couldn’t place it. “I’m Lestat de Lioncourt.” He paused, like he expected them to recognize the name.
“What do you do?” Gunn asked, hoping against hope he’d say he killed demons or something.
“You could call me a dilettante.” Lestat looked like everything he said was deeply amusing but they weren’t smart enough to see it. It was starting to piss Gunn off.
“Odd that a dilettante would have opposed Lykovix,” Lupin said quietly.
“Oh, but I’m deeply opposed to evil and death,” Lestat said, and then the amusement dropped, just for a moment, when he added, “And he killed an old friend of mine.” Then he put his face back on to say, “Besides, it was highly entertaining.”
Gunn let Lupin handle the intros while he did the math. One pretty white rich boy, one poor English teacher, one Gunn. Wolfram & Hart better be sending nuns.
~
“Can either of you guys fight?” Gunn had had a second of hope when he realized these must have been the people doing the spellcasting themselves, but then he’d remembered they weren’t allowed to use magic.
“Afraid I’m not, er, at my most effective right now,” Lupin said.
Lestat looked amused. Again. “I have no fear,” he said. “And I’m certain a big strong man like you can protect me.” He looked Gunn up and down and licked his lips. Gunn resisted the temptation to punch him; it wasn’t like he needed to make the situation worse.
“I might be a little busy protecting myself,” Gunn told him flatly.
Lestat looked away from him. “I’m confident that it will all work out.”
“That makes one of us.”
Lupin said, “If we could hold off battle for, er…twelve days. Suppose not.” He went back to studying his hands.
The room was silent for a minute, and Gunn stared at the guys, hating them. They weren’t doing shit, weren’t even trying to figure things out, and even if they were fucking doomed they could go down with a fight.
Gunn finally snapped, “Do either of you give the slightest shit about whether you live or die?”
The silence got more tense for a moment, and then Lupin said, “Not all that much. Not anymore. It all seems rather fated at this point, and I won’t be sorry to…” He trailed off, obviously finishing the sentence in his own head. He looked at Gunn, looked away, and added, “Apologies. I’m not being much help, am I?”
“Not so much, no.”
“I - I will try my best, truly. I don’t think it is as hopeless as all that.”
“What about you?” Gunn turned to Lestat, trying not to let the guy see how pissed he was. “You care whether you come out on your feet or in a coffin?”
Lestat smiled at him. “Not at all.” He thought for a moment, looking just for a second like he actually had a functioning brain, and Gunn hoped maybe he had something useful to say.
But then Lestat reached over, put his hand on Gunn’s thigh, looked into his eyes, and said, “So tell me. What’s a sweet young boy like you doing in a place like this?”
After that, the situation kind of deteriorated.
~
Lupin had summoned a surprisingly firm voice and managed to enforce a truce between Lestat and Gunn before they got as far as hand-to-hand; he’d sent them to opposite ends of the room, snapping, “Fighting each other will not improve this situation.”
The resultant silence had lasted for twenty minutes. Gunn spent the time leaning against the wall, arms crossed, trying to save his anger for the fight. Lestat spent it lounging in the only really comfortable chair, eyes closed, hair artfully arranged, arms relaxed at his sides. Every time he looked at Lestat, Gunn wanted to punch him in the mouth, so he focused on Lupin, who had taken off his glases and was staring at them, but not like he was actually seeing them.
Gunn remembered when Alonna died, how for months he had gone into battles kind of hoping that he’d die. He thought, watching Lupin, that maybe this little guy was in the same boat.
“Did you lose someone?” Gunn finally asked.
Lupin looked up, startled, and studied Gunn like he’d said something interesting. “That is why I volunteered to go, yes.” He paused, then added, “At this point, the way things are heading, it doesn’t much matter how I die, and the others, my friends, they will be more useful in the coming - situation.”
Gunn was trying to figure out what the ‘coming situation’ was when Lestat had to throw in his two cents. “I, too, have loved and lost,” he said.
Lupin looked away. Gunn looked at Lestat and forced himself to unclench his fists. “You know, until just this minute,” he told Lestat, “I didn’t think I could hate anyone as much as Angel, but you sure proved me wrong.”
Lestat smiled again. “Thank you,” he said, exactly like Gunn had paid him a compliment.
Gunn just hoped he lived long enough to see this fucker die.
~
The chime interrupted another bout of silence, and Gunn said, “Thank god.” He was starting to think the Justice guys were fucking with time, because they had to have been in that little room for days.
“I very much doubt he has anything to do with it,” Lestat told him. “Well, shall we?” He rose gracefully from the chair, strolled over to Gunn, and offered him his arm.
Gunn gave him a dirty look and stomped ahead of him toward the now-glowing portal. He was so pissed he didn’t even remember until he was already through it that he’d been planning to make Lestat go first.
The portal took him to a little hallway thing; there was nothing there except a bunch of weapons on the wall. Going through first meant he got his choice, so he took the longest sword he could see; he figured he might as well take advantage of his reach.
Lestat appeared behind him, almost running into him. Gunn jerked away. Lestat smiled, looked around, and said, “Ah. Shopping.” Lupin followed; after he looked around, he just sighed, shook his head, and took off his glasses, storing them carefully in a pocket of his jacket.
Lupin picked a quarterstaff, which made sense; if you fucked up with one of those, you didn’t cut your own fingers off. Lestat picked a spiked mace. Gunn was still trying to figure that out when the second chime sounded.
Gunn had considered not going through, but that proved not to be possible; the second the gate was open, he felt a need to go through it, a need so strong that it had to be magical. Nice that they can still use magic when we can’t, he thought. Apparently justice was pretty much equally fair everywhere.
He walked into the arena, shading his eyes automatically against the glare of lights, keeping his sword at his side.
Across the way - the arena was huge - three guys were moving through the other gate, and for a second he thought they were just ordinary. Then he realized they had to bend over to get out of a gate almost twice as tall as Gunn, and he said, “Oh, fuck. Giants”
And then he heard the growl - throaty, furious, inhuman. From behind him. He turned.
“Fuck,” he yelled, and the half-wolf half-man still wearing Lupin’s ripped pants turned its huge yellow eyes to him and charged. Gunn dodged, but the thing was faster than any vampire, and it still got a claw into his shoulder as it passed him. It skidded to a stop and turned for another pass.
Before Gunn could turn to face Lupin, Lestat came through the gate. He hadn’t turned into a wolf, exactly, but he didn’t look like himself, either - he was moving fast, way too fast, and he, too, focused immediately on Gunn.
Gunn never even saw him move. Just, he was smiling at Gunn from fifteen feet away, then a split second later he was right there, grabbing Gunn with incredible strength, opening his mouth - and, fuck, those were fangs, and Gunn was going to wonder later why he’d never popped into game face, because this guy was clearly a vampire and clearly deep into blood lust. Gunn tried to jerk away, but Lestat’s hands were fucking strong, and he was going to be killed by his own side, he was never even going to get to fight.
And then Lupin, running back for his second pass, slammed into them both and knocked Gunn loose.
Lestat turned on Lupin, and Lupin growled, and Gunn shouted, “No! Fight them!” pointing to the giants who were standing in the middle of the arena looking confused and making deep rumbling noises.
The vampire and the werewolf kept circling each other, both snarling, both obviously furious. Gunn tried to think of some way to get them fighting the enemy that didn’t involve getting near him…
…and he was running, running along the wall of the arena until he was level with the giants and then swerving toward the middle of the battlefield, measuring the distance to Lupin and Lestat. He figured he’d have one chance at this, and he needed to be as close to the giants as possible. He wasn’t sure if this would work at all, but it was his one chance, and it had to happen now, before Lestat and Lupin killed each other.
He got within reach of the giants. They looked puzzled by prey that ran toward them rather than away, and he used their seconds of surprise to measure the distance, spin around, and hurl the sword with all his might.
The giants made a surprised “huh” noise, and Gunn ran right past them, glancing over his shoulder to see if his shot was on target. The sword flew through the air in a perfect, beautiful arc, and came down handle-first…
…on Lestat’s head. Lestat screamed in rage, spun around, and then the dude was right there next to the giants, already ripping one’s guts out with the sword, and Lupin was chasing him and ripping into the nearest prey, which turned out to be another giant.
Gunn grinned and mentally patted himself on the back. “Not bad.”
~
“Anyway, after that, it took about five seconds. Lupin and Lestat went back to human right away; I guess the revealing thing only worked while the fight was on.” Gunn paused. “Poor Lupin. He was really fucking freaked, turning back to human and finding himself all covered in chunks of giant.”
Wesley was staring at Gunn, his expression hard. “Very clever. I suppose you think this justifies stealing the summons?”
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Wesley, come on. Of course it does. He had to.” She paused, then added threateningly, “But if you’re going to be a prick about it, I guess we could all discuss how you weren’t even planning to tell him until after you were gone.”
Wesley’s eyes widened in alarm. Gunn stood up. “I,” he said, “will be happy to kick your ass for that.”
Cordelia added cheerfully and quickly, “Unless of course you’d rather we just forgot about it and went straight to telling Gunn how great he did and how tough he is.”
Wesley did the math, shook off the anger, and let his lips quirk up slightly. “Don’t forget handsome, Cordy.” Gunn blinked at that.
She settled back, satisfied. “And totally brilliant. How’d you think of the sword thing?”
Wesley leaned forward and said, “Yes, indeed. Where in heaven’s name did you come across the legend of Cadmus?”
Gunn felt the anger draining out of his body, and suddenly he felt - inexplicably, stupidly mushy. And since he was still standing anyway, he headed over to sit next to Wesley on the couch. “You told me about it. Remember? After I had the nightmare?”
Wesley smiled for real. “Ah, yes. You told me it was ‘a crappy bedtime story,’ as I recall.”
“I take that back,” Gunn said, and pulled Wesley into his arms. Gently. He wanted Wes all healed up as soon as possible. It was an essential part of his plans for celebrating not being dead yet. “It was a great bedtime story. The best.”
Wesley said, very quietly, “You’re the best.”
“Oh, god. You guys finally take one step out of the closet and suddenly you’re both Hallmark cards. It’s disgusting.” Cordelia shuddered and stood up. “So I’ll just leave you two alone until you work this all out of your systems, OK?”
Wesley said, “We’ll do our best.” His smile was vaguely dopey.
Cordelia made a gagging noise and walked quickly toward the door. “You have an hour. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the bathroom. Puking.”
Author: littera_abactor
Fandom: Angel, mostly.
Author's Note: Written for the Slightly More Than 24 Hours Crack Crossover Challenge, in two hours just before the deadline; totally unbeta'd or even proofread, so let the reader beware. I mean that, and not just because of the probable errors; there's also, like, plot and characterization and, um, other issues.
It's posted here as an object lesson, really: why I should never sign up for challenges due in less than a week.
Gunn kept his left hand on the steering wheel, looked around for cops, and worked his phone out of his pocket all at the same time; he was a multi-tasker from way back. “Yo.”
“Come in right now.”
“Hi there, Cordelia. What’s up with you?”
“Wesley has lost his mind.” Cordelia’s voice was quiet - her version of a whisper - but intent.
Gunn swung into a left turn lane and popped a u-turn. “We talking rabies crazy?”
“We’re talking stiff-upper-lip, noble-sacrifice, going-off-to-fight-and-die crazy.”
“What?”
“He’s at his desk right now making notes for me about useful places to recruit people to replace him. He’s making a will. He gave me his email password. He wrote a check made out to me for his entire account balance so that I could pay the rent on the office next month.”
Gunn glanced in the review mirror and floored the accelerator.
~
When he walked in, Cordelia was standing in front of Wes’s desk, mouth compressed, notepad in hand. Wesley was saying, “And be sure to ask Lorne about anyone you recruit. Now, I’m leaving the agency to you and Gunn jointly, but I’m making certain it’s a 51-49 split in his favor in case of - further repercussions of the case.”
“What case? What the fuck’s up? You swore you’d stay in bed, Wes.” Which was the closest Gunn was ever going to come to admitting in front of Cordelia that he’d been in bed with Wesley when they’d had that discussion. He wasn’t uncomfortable with it, exactly. He just didn’t want her to force him to take all those Cosmo relationship quizzes with her.
“There’s, er, a bit of an emergency.”
Cordelia, her face flat, handed Gunn a very long sheet of rolled paper. He spent a few seconds trying to hold it open and read it at the same time, and then she took it back, opened it, and held it in front of his face.
“Lords of Justice call upon ye,” he read slowly. The thing was written in the weirdest, curliest calligraphy he’d ever seen; every letter had five extra loops. He figured this had to be someone’s real handwriting, because no font on earth was this fucked up. It’d be easier to read if it was in Wingdings. “…registered owner of Angel Investigations or duly authorized representative, to appear before the Court…” He blinked. “Whoa. Wait. Lords of Justice? Court?”
“A sort of magical court kind of thing,” Wesley said, not looking up from his writing. “Gunn, I’m making you my executor. Is that acceptable?”
Gunn was - sort of getting pissed off, actually. “No. No, it fucking isn’t.” Wesley looked up at him, surprised. “It is not acceptable, Wesley, because that means you’ll be dead.”
Wesley pushed his glasses up and frowned at him. “I’m afraid that isn’t optional.”
Cordelia said, “It’s a court case, right?”
“Of a kind.”
“So can’t we just send a lawyer as our authorized representative?”
“’Representative’ does not, in this case, mean lawyer. It means champion.” Wes looked at them for a moment, then looked down at his desk. “The Lords of Justice are somewhat - Darwinian. Right will be determined, in this case, by might; my co-defendants and I will face the champions of the plaintiff in arena combat.”
“Aren’t we your co-defendants?” Gunn didn’t give a shit about the Lords of Justice, but he was pretty sure that if he and Cordelia went along they could figure some way out. That didn’t involve anyone dying. Especially not Wes.
“Er, no, actually. Paragraph 13.”
Gunn counted down and then returned to deciphering the handwriting, which got worse the further you got into the scroll. “Uh, Lion-something, LLC. And…the something Order something.” Does anyone know who that is? Or even what this says?”
“No idea, I’m afraid. But apparently they also cast some spells against Lykovix last year. Er, before you came aboard, I think that was, actually; Lykovix was a sorcerer who wished to open the gates to someone called the First Dark.”
“We think,” Cordelia said.
“Wait, you cast spells on this dude and you didn’t even know for sure what he wanted to do?”
“We had a prophecy stating that if he succeeded, Evil would triumph, the Dark King would reign, and death would openly stalk the land. It seemed safe to assume that was a bad thing.”
“So now we’re being sued because we saved the world?” Gunn was having a hard time getting up to speed on this one; for some reason, the mental image of Wesley bleeding in the street was getting in the way of rational thought.
“The Lords of Justice aren’t especially interested in saving the world, I’m afraid. They’re on the side of Justice.” Wesley paused, and looked at Gunn directly. “As they define it.”
“Well, wait. How do we know that the other guys, the co-defendants, can’t handle it? Or maybe the champions from the other side won’t be so bad.”
Wesley didn’t answer. Cordelia gave him a sympathetic look and pointed to a spot near the end of the scroll. It said, Complainant represented by Wolfram & Hart. Plus some weird red squiggle thing, but he didn’t need to read that to know they were in deep shit.
“Oh, fuck,” he said.
“Yes. I imagine their champion will be - rather challenging.” Wesley’s voice sounded slightly unsteady. He cleared his throat. “So, obviously, I’m preparing for the worst. But that doesn’t mean it will come to pass; there are several variables in the situation. I don’t think you should be unduly concerned.”
Gunn looked at Cordelia. “When do we need to have someone there by? How much time is he gonna have to heal?” Wesley had ripped his stitches out the week before, and he wasn’t even supposed to be sitting up, let alone traveling.
Cordelia said, “Midnight. Tonight.”
“Okay, no. No fucking way. They can’t expect you to go now. You can barely fucking walk. And, and -“ Gunn tried to think of something better to say than, and I can’t face losing anyone else, but he couldn’t, and the sentence just kind of died.
Wesley said, “Rumor has it that the Lords of Justice do not count patience among their virtues.”
“So don’t go. Just - stay here. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Wesley said, “Do you see what it says in Paragraph 20? ‘Herein fail not at your peril?’ That doesn’t just mean me, Gunn. It means you and Cordelia.” He thought for a minute, “Angel as well, I suppose, as he was head of this firm at the time of the alleged offense, but I’m not terribly worried about that.”
“So why not send Angel?”
“I doubt we could find him in the time, or persuade him to go if we did. One has to hold the summons and voluntarily will transport to the Courts; a champion cannot be sent unawares to this sort of trial.”
Problem solved, then. Gunn grabbed the paper out of Cordelia’s hand, squeezed his eyes shut, and thought, Take me, I’m stronger, I’ll be the champion, take me up there right now.
It didn’t work. Nothing happened. He opened his eyes, feeling like an idiot.
And he was somewhere else.
~
Gunn figured it was kind of unfair to make a guy fill out a ton of paperwork just so he could fight to the death in your arena, on your orders, by your rules, but he didn’t want them doing the peril thing to Wes and Cordy, so he did whatever the little green dude said. It took three hours.
First there was a lot of discussion, then a careful review of the rules of the contest - and since there was really only one rule, and it was ‘Kill or be killed,’ Gunn had to be impressed that the green dude had taken almost an hour to explain it - and then Gunn had to sign his name on what he was pretty sure was every piece of paper ever manufactured since time began.
Then he had to hear about all the things he couldn’t do. No use of ‘unauthorized weapons,’ which, from the list he was given, meant everything but hands, feet, and whatever weapon he picked from the ones that would be waiting outside the arena. No leaving before the battle was over. No magic, not even stuff that had been cast on him before; the gate to the arena would remove ‘all spells, illusions, enchantments, compulsions, restraints, and concealments, leaving only your natural self,’ which was fine by Gunn. Not like he’d had time for spells anyway. And whatever his ‘natural self’ was, it was probably a fighter.
Gunn tried to focus, but this guy was so boring he’d put Wesley to sleep in ten minutes flat.
Eventually, though, the green dude said, “Your appointment is accepted. Your co-defendants have already reported and are being processed; you will meet them in the Defendant’s Chambers. The trial will begin in exactly one hour and seventeen minutes. You will hear a chime when the portal opens; go through it to the entryway, then pass through the gate after the second chime.”
Gunn opened his mouth to say thanks or got it or fuck you - he still wasn’t sure what was going to come out - but the green guy tapped the table with a little hammer, and once again he was somewhere else.
It was starting to piss him off. “Haven’t these guys ever heard of walking?” he muttered.
“I’m afraid not, no,” and for a second, Gunn thought the fuckers had taken Wes anyway, because the guy talking was English.
He spun around. There was - a guy standing there. Kind of a little guy, smaller than Wes, wearing a suit and a tie. “You my co-defendant?” he asked.
The guy smiled at him at little sadly. “One of them. I’m Remus Lupin, representing the Order of the Phoenix. Pleasure to meet you. Shame about the circumstances.” He pushed his glasses up his nose; Gunn noticed one of the little arms had recently been broken and fixed with tape. Great, he thought. If the other guy can’t fight, we’re in deep shit.
Gunn offered his hand, and after a moment Lupin hesitantly took it and shook. “Hey, uh, Remus,“ and wasn’t that, like, a Deep South kind of name? “I’m Theodore Gunn, representing Angel Investigations. What’s the Order of the Phoenix?”
“A group dedicated to - well, I suppose one could say, a group dedicated to fighting evil.”
“Hey, us too. So that’s what you do? You fight evil?”
Lupin looked a little sad. “Some of the time. I’m also a schoolteacher.”
“Oh.” Gunn had nothing to say to that at all. “Uh, who’s our other defendant?”
“I suppose I am.”
Gunn was getting really tired of these guys showing up behind him. He turned around and saw - well, fuck. A pansy. And not the kind Gunn was himself these days; this was a blond guy in a slinky shirt and slinky pants and with the kind of messy hair Cordelia did when she had a date with someone rich. His pose was definitely the pansiest thing about him, though; dude was standing there with his hips tilted a little, hands posed just so - he looked like a model. He was definitely pretty enough to be one. And young enough; he was maybe 20. At best.
We are so in deep shit, Gunn thought. Out loud he said, “You come from the Lion something, right?
“Lioncourt Investments, LLC.” The guy smiled, mouth closed, head to one side; he had a vague accent, but Gunn couldn’t place it. “I’m Lestat de Lioncourt.” He paused, like he expected them to recognize the name.
“What do you do?” Gunn asked, hoping against hope he’d say he killed demons or something.
“You could call me a dilettante.” Lestat looked like everything he said was deeply amusing but they weren’t smart enough to see it. It was starting to piss Gunn off.
“Odd that a dilettante would have opposed Lykovix,” Lupin said quietly.
“Oh, but I’m deeply opposed to evil and death,” Lestat said, and then the amusement dropped, just for a moment, when he added, “And he killed an old friend of mine.” Then he put his face back on to say, “Besides, it was highly entertaining.”
Gunn let Lupin handle the intros while he did the math. One pretty white rich boy, one poor English teacher, one Gunn. Wolfram & Hart better be sending nuns.
~
“Can either of you guys fight?” Gunn had had a second of hope when he realized these must have been the people doing the spellcasting themselves, but then he’d remembered they weren’t allowed to use magic.
“Afraid I’m not, er, at my most effective right now,” Lupin said.
Lestat looked amused. Again. “I have no fear,” he said. “And I’m certain a big strong man like you can protect me.” He looked Gunn up and down and licked his lips. Gunn resisted the temptation to punch him; it wasn’t like he needed to make the situation worse.
“I might be a little busy protecting myself,” Gunn told him flatly.
Lestat looked away from him. “I’m confident that it will all work out.”
“That makes one of us.”
Lupin said, “If we could hold off battle for, er…twelve days. Suppose not.” He went back to studying his hands.
The room was silent for a minute, and Gunn stared at the guys, hating them. They weren’t doing shit, weren’t even trying to figure things out, and even if they were fucking doomed they could go down with a fight.
Gunn finally snapped, “Do either of you give the slightest shit about whether you live or die?”
The silence got more tense for a moment, and then Lupin said, “Not all that much. Not anymore. It all seems rather fated at this point, and I won’t be sorry to…” He trailed off, obviously finishing the sentence in his own head. He looked at Gunn, looked away, and added, “Apologies. I’m not being much help, am I?”
“Not so much, no.”
“I - I will try my best, truly. I don’t think it is as hopeless as all that.”
“What about you?” Gunn turned to Lestat, trying not to let the guy see how pissed he was. “You care whether you come out on your feet or in a coffin?”
Lestat smiled at him. “Not at all.” He thought for a moment, looking just for a second like he actually had a functioning brain, and Gunn hoped maybe he had something useful to say.
But then Lestat reached over, put his hand on Gunn’s thigh, looked into his eyes, and said, “So tell me. What’s a sweet young boy like you doing in a place like this?”
After that, the situation kind of deteriorated.
~
Lupin had summoned a surprisingly firm voice and managed to enforce a truce between Lestat and Gunn before they got as far as hand-to-hand; he’d sent them to opposite ends of the room, snapping, “Fighting each other will not improve this situation.”
The resultant silence had lasted for twenty minutes. Gunn spent the time leaning against the wall, arms crossed, trying to save his anger for the fight. Lestat spent it lounging in the only really comfortable chair, eyes closed, hair artfully arranged, arms relaxed at his sides. Every time he looked at Lestat, Gunn wanted to punch him in the mouth, so he focused on Lupin, who had taken off his glases and was staring at them, but not like he was actually seeing them.
Gunn remembered when Alonna died, how for months he had gone into battles kind of hoping that he’d die. He thought, watching Lupin, that maybe this little guy was in the same boat.
“Did you lose someone?” Gunn finally asked.
Lupin looked up, startled, and studied Gunn like he’d said something interesting. “That is why I volunteered to go, yes.” He paused, then added, “At this point, the way things are heading, it doesn’t much matter how I die, and the others, my friends, they will be more useful in the coming - situation.”
Gunn was trying to figure out what the ‘coming situation’ was when Lestat had to throw in his two cents. “I, too, have loved and lost,” he said.
Lupin looked away. Gunn looked at Lestat and forced himself to unclench his fists. “You know, until just this minute,” he told Lestat, “I didn’t think I could hate anyone as much as Angel, but you sure proved me wrong.”
Lestat smiled again. “Thank you,” he said, exactly like Gunn had paid him a compliment.
Gunn just hoped he lived long enough to see this fucker die.
~
The chime interrupted another bout of silence, and Gunn said, “Thank god.” He was starting to think the Justice guys were fucking with time, because they had to have been in that little room for days.
“I very much doubt he has anything to do with it,” Lestat told him. “Well, shall we?” He rose gracefully from the chair, strolled over to Gunn, and offered him his arm.
Gunn gave him a dirty look and stomped ahead of him toward the now-glowing portal. He was so pissed he didn’t even remember until he was already through it that he’d been planning to make Lestat go first.
The portal took him to a little hallway thing; there was nothing there except a bunch of weapons on the wall. Going through first meant he got his choice, so he took the longest sword he could see; he figured he might as well take advantage of his reach.
Lestat appeared behind him, almost running into him. Gunn jerked away. Lestat smiled, looked around, and said, “Ah. Shopping.” Lupin followed; after he looked around, he just sighed, shook his head, and took off his glasses, storing them carefully in a pocket of his jacket.
Lupin picked a quarterstaff, which made sense; if you fucked up with one of those, you didn’t cut your own fingers off. Lestat picked a spiked mace. Gunn was still trying to figure that out when the second chime sounded.
Gunn had considered not going through, but that proved not to be possible; the second the gate was open, he felt a need to go through it, a need so strong that it had to be magical. Nice that they can still use magic when we can’t, he thought. Apparently justice was pretty much equally fair everywhere.
He walked into the arena, shading his eyes automatically against the glare of lights, keeping his sword at his side.
Across the way - the arena was huge - three guys were moving through the other gate, and for a second he thought they were just ordinary. Then he realized they had to bend over to get out of a gate almost twice as tall as Gunn, and he said, “Oh, fuck. Giants”
And then he heard the growl - throaty, furious, inhuman. From behind him. He turned.
“Fuck,” he yelled, and the half-wolf half-man still wearing Lupin’s ripped pants turned its huge yellow eyes to him and charged. Gunn dodged, but the thing was faster than any vampire, and it still got a claw into his shoulder as it passed him. It skidded to a stop and turned for another pass.
Before Gunn could turn to face Lupin, Lestat came through the gate. He hadn’t turned into a wolf, exactly, but he didn’t look like himself, either - he was moving fast, way too fast, and he, too, focused immediately on Gunn.
Gunn never even saw him move. Just, he was smiling at Gunn from fifteen feet away, then a split second later he was right there, grabbing Gunn with incredible strength, opening his mouth - and, fuck, those were fangs, and Gunn was going to wonder later why he’d never popped into game face, because this guy was clearly a vampire and clearly deep into blood lust. Gunn tried to jerk away, but Lestat’s hands were fucking strong, and he was going to be killed by his own side, he was never even going to get to fight.
And then Lupin, running back for his second pass, slammed into them both and knocked Gunn loose.
Lestat turned on Lupin, and Lupin growled, and Gunn shouted, “No! Fight them!” pointing to the giants who were standing in the middle of the arena looking confused and making deep rumbling noises.
The vampire and the werewolf kept circling each other, both snarling, both obviously furious. Gunn tried to think of some way to get them fighting the enemy that didn’t involve getting near him…
…and he was running, running along the wall of the arena until he was level with the giants and then swerving toward the middle of the battlefield, measuring the distance to Lupin and Lestat. He figured he’d have one chance at this, and he needed to be as close to the giants as possible. He wasn’t sure if this would work at all, but it was his one chance, and it had to happen now, before Lestat and Lupin killed each other.
He got within reach of the giants. They looked puzzled by prey that ran toward them rather than away, and he used their seconds of surprise to measure the distance, spin around, and hurl the sword with all his might.
The giants made a surprised “huh” noise, and Gunn ran right past them, glancing over his shoulder to see if his shot was on target. The sword flew through the air in a perfect, beautiful arc, and came down handle-first…
…on Lestat’s head. Lestat screamed in rage, spun around, and then the dude was right there next to the giants, already ripping one’s guts out with the sword, and Lupin was chasing him and ripping into the nearest prey, which turned out to be another giant.
Gunn grinned and mentally patted himself on the back. “Not bad.”
~
“Anyway, after that, it took about five seconds. Lupin and Lestat went back to human right away; I guess the revealing thing only worked while the fight was on.” Gunn paused. “Poor Lupin. He was really fucking freaked, turning back to human and finding himself all covered in chunks of giant.”
Wesley was staring at Gunn, his expression hard. “Very clever. I suppose you think this justifies stealing the summons?”
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Wesley, come on. Of course it does. He had to.” She paused, then added threateningly, “But if you’re going to be a prick about it, I guess we could all discuss how you weren’t even planning to tell him until after you were gone.”
Wesley’s eyes widened in alarm. Gunn stood up. “I,” he said, “will be happy to kick your ass for that.”
Cordelia added cheerfully and quickly, “Unless of course you’d rather we just forgot about it and went straight to telling Gunn how great he did and how tough he is.”
Wesley did the math, shook off the anger, and let his lips quirk up slightly. “Don’t forget handsome, Cordy.” Gunn blinked at that.
She settled back, satisfied. “And totally brilliant. How’d you think of the sword thing?”
Wesley leaned forward and said, “Yes, indeed. Where in heaven’s name did you come across the legend of Cadmus?”
Gunn felt the anger draining out of his body, and suddenly he felt - inexplicably, stupidly mushy. And since he was still standing anyway, he headed over to sit next to Wesley on the couch. “You told me about it. Remember? After I had the nightmare?”
Wesley smiled for real. “Ah, yes. You told me it was ‘a crappy bedtime story,’ as I recall.”
“I take that back,” Gunn said, and pulled Wesley into his arms. Gently. He wanted Wes all healed up as soon as possible. It was an essential part of his plans for celebrating not being dead yet. “It was a great bedtime story. The best.”
Wesley said, very quietly, “You’re the best.”
“Oh, god. You guys finally take one step out of the closet and suddenly you’re both Hallmark cards. It’s disgusting.” Cordelia shuddered and stood up. “So I’ll just leave you two alone until you work this all out of your systems, OK?”
Wesley said, “We’ll do our best.” His smile was vaguely dopey.
Cordelia made a gagging noise and walked quickly toward the door. “You have an hour. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the bathroom. Puking.”