Shoulder--Charles Gunn fic

Gunn. Connor. Hanging on. Set during the break between AtS seasons Three and Four.



Thanks to all the lovely people who audienced and commented on this for me; tesla321, idyll, lynnenne and remember_nomore. Special thanks to janedavitt for helpful critique and inadvertedly slipping me the idea for the title.


Shoulder

Gunn never wanted to be a father. He’s always been damned careful about that sort of thing, because he’s seen first-hand what fooling around can do. Ain't no joke, messing around with a kid. Being responsible for another life, for bringing someone up right.

But now he is.

The kid just looks at him with those too-big eyes, that too-thin body, and never mind that the eyes are blue, they’re still… they’re asking Gunn for things he just--

Gunn doesn’t have those things, to be giving them to anyone. He's nobody’s father.

Isn't even anybody’s brother anymore.

Hell, it’s all he and Fred can do to put food on the table for the three of them, the way they all eat. Gunn's not cut out for making a business out of doing what’s right, but if what’s right is pretty much your 24/7, how else are you supposed to pay the rent and buy the kid clothes and keep up with this big-ass hotel’s utility bills? And how much business can they do, if they spend half their time looking for Angel and Cordelia? Wes was the one with the business contacts, the one who liked running the shop. Gunn’s been leading his own crew since he was Connor’s age— which, hell, wasn’t even that long ago. But that never included invoicing and filing receipts and scrambling for new clients and shaking down old clients for money they can’t afford to or plain don’t want to pay up.

When did doing the right thing become a fucking business? And why does it all make Gunn feel like he’s slowly becoming The Man, like he’s gonna wake up one day and look in the mirror and see some freaky-ass corrupted version of himself?

Things used to be so clear.

Gunn thought he was through being responsible for other people, after Alonna. He doesn’t want to— he can’t. He can’t fuck up again, not like that.

But sometimes Connor looks at him with those big eyes, and Gunn somehow stumbles upon the right thing to say, and there’s a split second when the kid smiles at Gunn, and the world is a wonderful place.

Then Gunn opens his big mouth and the kid gets pissed off again and Gunn’s never quite sure how that happens, anyway.

Gunn’s sure he’d have plenty to be pissed off about, too, if he’d got snatched and raised in a hell dimension by a crazy vengeance-seeking demon-hunter guy. Not to mention the whole vampire parents issue, and his real father disappearing into thin air. It’s not like the kid doesn’t have grounds to complain. Gunn just wishes Connor would meet him and Fred halfway, sometimes, or would just tell Gunn what he’s supposed to say, ‘cause Gunn’s got nothing.

How are you supposed to keep a handle on a kid whose nickname is “The Destroyer,” anyway? It’s like having Bruce Banner at the dinner table every evening.

But the thing is, he does show up at the dinner table every evening. The thing is, even when he pisses and moans and sulks, Connor just keeps coming back, polishing the weapons and doing his own stubborn thing out on the job, but Gunn can tell he’s trying to be there for them, maybe even wants to be there for them, with them. Nobody’s twisting anyone’s arm here; they’re all free agents.

The thing is, it’s all kinda like having a family again. A whacked-out, apocalypse-fighting, clueless-at-running-a-business family, but.

Family.

And they’re gonna find Angel any day now; they have to, and Lorne will return their phone calls and Wes will pull his head out of his ass and maybe they’ll even get to see Cordelia again. And Connor will be okay. They’re all gonna be okay. Gunn and Fred just have to keep it together until then.

Gunn isn't anybody’s father, but he and Fred are all the kid’s got, and that’s just gonna have to do.