Subtext? We don't need no stinkin' subtext!
Precision in an Imprecise World by Justhuman
Rated R
Notes: Written for the Buffyverse1000. Post-Not Fade Away.
Charles Gunn had a reputation to uphold. Or at least he had
had one when he had fought on the streets back with the old gang. On the streets
it was okay to be pretty and to let the other guys see you taking some care
of your bad self. After all, they all got that it was just to impress the
women.
Charles Gunn had never been out to impress the ladies, at least not any more
than he had been out to impress the rest of the gang. What he was was tidy,
neat, an anal mother about all sorts of shit that the guy on the street just
didn't know or give a crap about. Yeah, his clothes had hung carelessly about
his body, but nobody ever saw a stain on them. No one ever saw him snatch
a little bottle of laundry soap off the shelf of Albertsons and scrub the
shirt until he nearly wore holes in it.
He was sure it wasn't obvious to anyone that he carefully rolled the toothpaste
from the bottom and threw out a disposable razor at precise intervals. The
oil was changed on the truck at exactly 3000 miles. It was because of this
attention to detail that he gave up on the idea of making his Saturday night
arrangements with Wesley more permanent. This was back when an arrangement
had been theoretically possible, when Saturday nights had been about guy stuff
in the living room of Wesley's apartment.
Wesley wasn't precise. Gunn knew that in a court of law, another lawyer could
put up a good case to contradict that, because Wesley could be the poster
child for stuffy. But Gunn knew it was all an act, following a routine to
impress some jackass father that was half-way around the world. The books
were in alphabet order, but there was dust on every spine. Notebook after
notebook filled with every last detail, but in a scrawl that showed no attention
to detail, no thought about anybody else ever reading those notes. There was
always a dirty dish in the sink. It was like all the etiquette on the outside
was locking down some natural messiness that had to leak out around the edges--get
out in what most people considered stupid shit.
And Wesley squeezed the toothpaste in the middle.
The last person that Gunn had expected to pick him off the ground in that
alley was Lindsey McDonald. Lorne had done his job, shot the lying bastard,
but Lindsey managed to play act his way out of it -- one last magic tattoo
to fool your enemies.
Gunn figured it was more or less suicide, but he let Lindsey drag his ass
back to the apartment with a funky paint job, bandage him up under glowing
runes. That was when Gunn saw it, in the way Lindsey made the symbols in the
air, shot the powdered herbs at the walls and stitched him the hell back together.
Lindsey was precise, a man who understood that each action had a goal, a purpose.
When he started fucking Lindsey, he found out the man knew all sorts of thing
about pacing, timing, how hard he could thrust into Gunn's mouth, and how
much pressure to use with his teeth when he was returning the favor. Just
two boys from the street--or in Lindsey's case a dirt road-- who had learned
that if you wanted to get ahead, the first thing that you needed was control
and that started with yourself.
Eventually Gunn knew that this understanding would lead to a probably fatal
break up just as soon as one of them wouldn't give that control up to the
other. That was okay, something he could live with for now.
Besides, Lindsey squeezed from the bottom and rolled the tube up tight.
.End
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