I'm a sucker for impossible challenges...
Jul. 3rd, 2006 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
electricalgwenSo, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
_beetle_ apparently has a thing for Gunn/Andrew. Which I have to say, I couldn't see at all, ever, in any universe. EVAH. So of course, I took it as a challenge to write something for her.
Sorry, B, I couldn't manage Teh Hawtness on this one, but I think I managed to find an angle that (almost? maybe?) makes it make sense for me. I'd love to know what you think.
Rating: PG-13
Gunn’s always had a thing for the intellectually brilliant but practically challenged.
Take his sister, for instance – booksmart, street-dumb. He could still hear their mother’s exasperated voice: “Alonna, for someone as smart as you’re supposed to be, you sure are stupid at times!” She’d been ferociously intelligent, spending hours in their pathetic school library – but do things like walk obliviously home after dusk through a back alley. It had taken him years to hammer basic survival skills into her, and he’d hated having to do it. He’d opened her eyes to the monsters that lurked in the dark, and it had changed her; that easy smile and open, trusting expression were seen less and less often.
Ultimately, she’d been hard and brittle as frost. Before the end. Before he failed her.
Fred’s social difficulties had a more obvious external cause, but Gunn figured that even before Pylea she’d been a misfit genius. Here was a girl who could manipulate the fabric of the space-time continuum, cure plagues and corporealize ghosts, but somehow remain oblivious to signs of romantic interest. She’d face down demons with barely a flinch, but still get painfully shy and tongue-tied over calling for pizza. She knew how to kill, flawlessly and undetectably, but she hadn’t figured out that killing changed a person. That killing for her had changed him. He’d never know if he’d done the right thing, there. Probably hadn’t been a right thing to do by that point. He’d failed her long before.
And then. Then. The betrayal that still wakes him screaming at night. He can’t think too long on that. There will never be expiation.
Wes. The rogue demon-hunter, bumbling earnestly around with his books and scrolls and visions of a world where everything made sense. He meant well. But he’d had so much trouble looking beyond the printed word, into the hearts of his friends and allies. His insecurity made it easy to deceive him. Gunn’s often thought how things could have been, if Connor hadn’t been taken. If Wes had known when to trust, and accepted that others trusted him.
He thinks Wes learned, before the end. He didn’t begrudge him Fred – or Illyria. He wishes that Wes had made it to the alley, to see his pet prophecy fulfilled, but he thinks Wes probably knows.
He’s lost them one by one, the brilliant idiots he loved. But he thinks that really, he lost them when he tried to change them. They say you can’t change people, but Gunn pulled it off, and he’s regretted it every time. Their deaths were only the final and most obvious manifestations of the ways he failed them.
So when Andrew pads downstairs in the velvet dressing gown with “86” on the pocket, and says, “Any unusual activity on the vampyre front last night?” Gunn doesn’t cuff him upside the head and tell him not to be a pretentious freak. He’s too cognizant of his lousy track record. Andrew moves through a semi-imaginary world but maybe, just maybe, that’s what got him this far. Maybe that’s his survival technique.
After all, Andrew’s not your average guy. He’s a guy who invents stuff that makes the leftover Wolfram and Hart science equipment look like Fisher-Price toys. A guy who can channel magic and handle demons. A guy who finally grew up a little and chose a side, and is fiercely loyal once he gives his heart. He isn’t James Bond, epitome of suave, but if pretending that he could be keeps him warm and breathing? Gunn can live with it.
So Gunn doesn’t roll his eyes and tell him what a dumb-ass he is.
He rolls his eyes and puts the kettle on for Lapsang Souchong.
_beetle_ apparently has a thing for Gunn/Andrew. Which I have to say, I couldn't see at all, ever, in any universe. EVAH. So of course, I took it as a challenge to write something for her.Sorry, B, I couldn't manage Teh Hawtness on this one, but I think I managed to find an angle that (almost? maybe?) makes it make sense for me. I'd love to know what you think.
Rating: PG-13
Gunn’s always had a thing for the intellectually brilliant but practically challenged.
Take his sister, for instance – booksmart, street-dumb. He could still hear their mother’s exasperated voice: “Alonna, for someone as smart as you’re supposed to be, you sure are stupid at times!” She’d been ferociously intelligent, spending hours in their pathetic school library – but do things like walk obliviously home after dusk through a back alley. It had taken him years to hammer basic survival skills into her, and he’d hated having to do it. He’d opened her eyes to the monsters that lurked in the dark, and it had changed her; that easy smile and open, trusting expression were seen less and less often.
Ultimately, she’d been hard and brittle as frost. Before the end. Before he failed her.
Fred’s social difficulties had a more obvious external cause, but Gunn figured that even before Pylea she’d been a misfit genius. Here was a girl who could manipulate the fabric of the space-time continuum, cure plagues and corporealize ghosts, but somehow remain oblivious to signs of romantic interest. She’d face down demons with barely a flinch, but still get painfully shy and tongue-tied over calling for pizza. She knew how to kill, flawlessly and undetectably, but she hadn’t figured out that killing changed a person. That killing for her had changed him. He’d never know if he’d done the right thing, there. Probably hadn’t been a right thing to do by that point. He’d failed her long before.
And then. Then. The betrayal that still wakes him screaming at night. He can’t think too long on that. There will never be expiation.
Wes. The rogue demon-hunter, bumbling earnestly around with his books and scrolls and visions of a world where everything made sense. He meant well. But he’d had so much trouble looking beyond the printed word, into the hearts of his friends and allies. His insecurity made it easy to deceive him. Gunn’s often thought how things could have been, if Connor hadn’t been taken. If Wes had known when to trust, and accepted that others trusted him.
He thinks Wes learned, before the end. He didn’t begrudge him Fred – or Illyria. He wishes that Wes had made it to the alley, to see his pet prophecy fulfilled, but he thinks Wes probably knows.
He’s lost them one by one, the brilliant idiots he loved. But he thinks that really, he lost them when he tried to change them. They say you can’t change people, but Gunn pulled it off, and he’s regretted it every time. Their deaths were only the final and most obvious manifestations of the ways he failed them.
So when Andrew pads downstairs in the velvet dressing gown with “86” on the pocket, and says, “Any unusual activity on the vampyre front last night?” Gunn doesn’t cuff him upside the head and tell him not to be a pretentious freak. He’s too cognizant of his lousy track record. Andrew moves through a semi-imaginary world but maybe, just maybe, that’s what got him this far. Maybe that’s his survival technique.
After all, Andrew’s not your average guy. He’s a guy who invents stuff that makes the leftover Wolfram and Hart science equipment look like Fisher-Price toys. A guy who can channel magic and handle demons. A guy who finally grew up a little and chose a side, and is fiercely loyal once he gives his heart. He isn’t James Bond, epitome of suave, but if pretending that he could be keeps him warm and breathing? Gunn can live with it.
So Gunn doesn’t roll his eyes and tell him what a dumb-ass he is.
He rolls his eyes and puts the kettle on for Lapsang Souchong.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-04 03:10 am (UTC)I love this line, lovely imagery and really speaks to Gunn's continuing feelings about his role in his sister's death:
Ultimately, she’d been hard and brittle as frost. Before the end. Before he failed her.
With Fred I also love that kick-to-the gut line:
And then. Then. The betrayal that still wakes him screaming at night. He can’t think too long on that. There will never be expiation.
This is a very cool insight, that has me reflecting on Wes now:
If Wes had known when to trust, and accepted that others trusted him.
I think you've explored a key aspect of Gunn's character; taking responsibility for the people around him:
Their deaths were only the final and most obvious manifestations of the ways he failed them.
It makes me think of the episode right before they go to Pylea and he's wracked with guilt about his old crew member getting killed. And when he's in Pylea, he realizes he can't do what Wes does and take that responsibility of leading people who may die.
I like how all this builds to why Gunn is okay with who Andrew is and letting him be who he is. I admit that Gunn/Andrew is a difficult pairing to imagine, however I think you do an excellent job of setting up why they could work.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-04 06:08 am (UTC)I think Gunn does take responsibility for the people around him - sometimes too much, or inappropriately, being very hard on himself. Thanks for reminding me of the scenes in Pylea, I'd forgotten that.
Wesley - yes. I find Wesley dialogue difficult to write (thus far) at least but he's a fascinating character and his motivations during the whole Connor arc are interesting to explore. I'd like to look at that sometime, how much they're mired in issues with his father, with the Council, with Faith, and with the notion of evil vampire - even with a soul, he doesn't really trust Angel, or, if he feels emotionally inclined to, he overrides himself.
Thanks yet again for a detailed and inspiring comment! :)