Unfamiliar

He returned not for help this time but to at least talk to the man, uncomfortably aware that Wes had been right, that they’d read his notes and journals and of course thought that was the only thing going through his crazy English head. Never listened to the reason, not from the man himself.

So on a Saturday night Gunn told Fred he was going on patrol and knocked on a door he’d promised never to darken again, expecting a repeat of drunken!Wes or maybe bitter!Wes, not expecting an unknown man reeking of sex to open the door, look up as though startled, and sidle past him and down the hallway to the stairs.

He was still staring after the man when Wes stepped up to the door, shirtless and hair still damp so there was no doubt what had been going on, and Gunn just pushed inside, not touching Wes but not really thinking about it, striding the few steps into the living room (if you could call this living) and blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

“So what, you’re gay now?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“I’m whatever pays the rent.” Said carelessly, with a glimmer of the old smile half-mad beneath his despairing eyes. Misery rolled off of him in palpable waves, barely hidden by irony.

“Oh man.” Gunn backed up a step. “That is seriously wrong.”

“Seemed the best solution at the time,” he slurred flippantly, speaking to the last puddle of whiskey in the snifter.

“Yeah, sure. Whore yourself.” Disgust, now, where before there had only been a cleaner hatred, overpowering the shock. “At least put a shirt on. Damn.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Charles,” the name as mocking as the half-sane light on his face, like saints’ faces in old cathedrals. “I won’t do anything without cash up front.”

“Can you at least tell me why?” Gunn said quietly, that voice that had always broken through to his friend. Wesley looked down, that light fading somewhat.

“I emptied my bank account,” he said quietly, almost whispering in that broken voice. “When I thought I would need the money for …” Connor, neither of them said. “I was mugged after my throat was slit,” he continued matter-of-factly. “And unfortunately, translating obscure texts doesn’t pay quite as much as, well.”

And Gunn couldn’t even suggest that Wesley could have come back to the hotel, or think beyond the things that could happen to a man, fresh out of the hospital and desperate.

“Tell me you’re at least careful,” Gunn said, broken. Finished. Hard to carry any anger against someone fallen so far.

“Oh, I practice safe sex,” and manic!Wesley reappeared, grinning wryly into his scotch. “None safer, I’ve had loads of practice, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life it’s if they’re going to fuck you over anyway it’s best to prepare for chlamydia.” He paused, tilting his head in a fey gesture and Gunn just watching, sickened. “Or something like that, anyway.” And he smiled, one of the old, luminous smiles. Gunn shifted nervously under the urge to conduct an impromptu drug-test. “Was there anything else?”

Gunn looked up again, almost to the door, and shook his head. “Naw, man.” Not his fault Wes was so broken, and still so beautiful. Not his fault. “I’m done here.”

A/N This would qualify as crackfic. Extreme AU, complete.