Title: Desdemona's Innocence

Author: Syn

E-Mail: veruca_werewolf@hotmail.com

Rating: R

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Spoilers: Up to Calvary and a smidge of future speculation

Setting: Set a few days after Calvary.

Content: Fred/Gunn, slight Fred/Wes

Summary: She wishes she could claim innocence, but she can't.

A/N: Ouch. Not a fluffy fic that's for sure. I went the dark route here, touching on Fred and Gunn's breakup and the confusion Fred is obviously feeling. I'm not very nice to F/G here and I feel bad about it because they're one of my favorite ships. Argh. Umm...originally this was much, much darker, but the story didn't want to go where my sick brain wanted it to go. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing...

Feedback: If you feel the need, I say go for it!

"Is the radio mine or yours?"

His voice is soft and cold from his perch on the end of the bed they once shared. She glances up from her careful study of the carpet, her bare toes digging into the blurring pattern, seeing the round hunch of his shoulders and the emotion clear on his dark face. The shadows lay heavy and thick on his stiff form as he sits with a large cardboard box between his feet.

She eyes the clothing and the pictures, the shoes, the jackets, his old roller blades and the Gameboy stuffed in the box; angry, accusatory objects that are stamped with his imprints and impressions.

This is all he has in the world; one lonely cardboard box.

Her eyes flick numbly to the radio on the nightstand. "It's yours."

He pulls the plug out of the wall with a jerk and drops the radio into the open box. Then he stands, a great weight on his shoulders that humbles her too, making her bend her head toward the floor. Through her eyelashes, she can make out his blurred figure, his eyes searching the room for more signs of his life here.

The closet only holds her clothing now. His dresser drawer is empty. All he has to do is walk out the door and he'll be nothing but a memory in this room. That truth lays heavy in the air, arching between them as they stand on opposite sides of the room, bodies turned away from each other. She won't meet his eyes, nor does he want her to do so.

"Where are you going to stay?" She asks, breaking the tension as the minutes stretch by.

"I have a place." He says and the coldness is a shock to her system. She aches in all the places she was sure were dead. This is real. This is happening. Was Angelus right?

"Where? Are you still coming in to work? We need you here..."

"Why you asking?" He questions, his hands folding into fists, crumpling worlds and words and history in his fingers. She feels the pull of his eyes on her and looks up, flinging curled locks of hair out of her face.

"Because I care."

He doesn't say anything, but the twist of his lips gives away the derision in his heart. His eyes shift around the room and his body becomes even more rigid, even more defensive. She knows him and she knows the hurt and the longing that is suffering through his system, pulling his heart and mind into a million different directions. Anger is his way of covering his hurt and she accepts it.

Let him be angry. She was hurting too.

"I'm sorry, Charles. I didn't mean for it to happen..."

"And I didn't mean to kill the Professor. It just happened. Small world, ain't it?" He says shortly and then picks up the heavy box with one straining swoop. He moves toward the door, intending to leave the memories of her skin and her smile and the innocence of summer far behind him.

She blocks his path.

"Don't leave it like this Charles. Not with angry words and things we can't take back."

"Too late for that Fred. We both done stupid things and we can't change them. Now move." He towers over her, brown gaze avoiding brown gaze. He focuses on a peeling strip of paint that reveals black magic marker on the wall beneath. There's a kind of irony in the words he reads, lips forming each word as if they hold the meaning of life.

Listen, listen, listen.

"Not until we talk this over. Please."

"What is there to talk about? We're breaking up. Moving on. I have nothing to say to you and anything you have to say will just make it worse. Let's just let it go."

"I can't." She wants to beg and plead and ask him to stay for a split second. And then she wants him to go and never come back and to never see him smile again. She wants it all. She wants nothing.

"Okay, fine, let's talk. I'll go first." He drops the box and crosses his arms over his chest, dark eyes cold and impenetrable. "When did you stop loving me?"

She winces as the question tumbles from his mouth and hangs in the air. Every second she fails to respond is another knot of guilt in her stomach.

"I do love you Charles. I just..."

"Just don't love me as much as other people."

"It's not about him, Charles." She sighs in impatience and the sound cuts the air.

"It's always about him, Fred! With you, it always goes back to him no matter what I do. I'm not enough. Maybe I was at first but not now. You know it's true."

She can't deny the twist in her stomach, even though she wants to. "Are you blaming me?"

"In certain ways, but not for everything. I blame him."

"Him? What did he do?"

"If you even have to ask..." He looks completely disgusted as he glances at her, tearing his eyes away from the peeling paint. "All he cares about is getting what he wants. His pain and suffering is so much greater than ours, even though he betrayed US. Then he comes here and he just takes over everything. And you let him. Yeah. I blame him."

"He only thinks of himself? What are you doing right now? You're just as selfish!"

"If caring about us is selfish, then yeah, I'm selfish! Someone has to care..."

"You think I don't care? You really don't know me very well, Charles." She snaps, anger twisting her features and a tendril of hair curling over her forehead. He hates that charming tendril as he fixes his burning gaze on it, her words sinking in. "You're the one that broke up with me. You brought this all on yourself."

This time he really looks at her and he wants to laugh. "You're right. I did bring it on myself. I loved you too much. I killed for you and that was my mistake. I should have just let you kill him. You're ruthless enough, I think you could have handled it, don't you?"

"Charles, don't."

"No Fred, could you have dealt with the late nights, sitting up and remembering the feel of bones breaking under your hand and the screams? Would you still feel the tug of that portal whenever you closed your eyes? Could you have lived knowing that you had a killer inside you now, because you loved someone so much you were willing to risk everything? Could you?"

He advances on her very slowly, glaring with eyes that aren't quite sane. "Shut up, Charles."

"Gunn." He growls and she jumps at the sound.

"What?"

"Don't ever call me Charles again."

"Charles don't--"

She jumps and a tiny yelp escapes her throat as his hand slams into the door beside her head. His body presses close, pinning her in place, fear gluing her feet to the floor.

"Gunn. Say it."

"You're scaring me." Her eyes are huge in her head, like copper disks that reflect his angry gaze a thousand fold.

"Good. He scares you too, doesn't he? The danger? The brains? Does he make your heart beat real fast?" He places his hand on her chest, searching for the beating organ beneath the sharp bones and small breasts that fascinate him even now.

"Charles, stop it!" She lifts her hands and shoves him hard in the chest. He doesn't move, his smoky gaze burning. She knows madness when she sees it, her body shaking as his hand burns her skin, fire licking up through her limbs.

"Gunn!" His anger batters at her senses and she closes her eyes, groping blindly.

She's not really sure how or why or even if she wants it, but he's suddenly kissing her. Or she's kissing him. The world melts away as his mouth finds hers open and hungry. His hand pushes hard into the whipcord of muscle and bone on her chest, seeking the beating, throbbing heart that eludes him. His mouth tastes bitter, like defeat or victory. She's not sure which.

His tongue makes its way into her mouth and she welcomes it, suckling the slippery muscle with a scrape of her teeth. Her head bangs against the door and her eyes explode with a deluge of brilliant, dancing sparks. Her hands have found a way into his shirt, twisting into the fabric and nearly ripping it with her thumbs. His body covers her like a warm, suffocating blanket, hands reaching, savagely squeezing her breasts possessively.

"Charles, stop!" She manages, tearing her mouth from his with a wrench of her head that makes her temples pound. She inhales a sweet swirl of air that smells like his cologne. His mouth lands on her chin and her temple, sending electric sparks through her skin. His body shakes as he thrusts against her once, twice.

"You don't want me to stop. You like this...don't you Fred?" His statement is a rumbling threat that tears up through layers of grief and desperation. One of his hands roams lower on her body, grazing her hipbone as he grinds into her. The path his fingers take is dangerous and she gasps. Her legs feel weak.

"No...stop. Charles, please. This isn't...we can't..." She wonders why not. Why can't they? Because she doesn't love him? She loves someone else? She doesn't know these answers and maybe she never will. She's not sure who she is anymore.

"Gunn." His voice slides into her ear like a wriggling worm that makes its way through her brain, destroying thought and muscle control. She sinks against him, feeling the anger flowing through his chest. It sparks against her skin and she clings to that impulse in her veins. It's so easy touching him. She knows the planes and valleys of his skin, has marked them and named them all. It's so easy just to give in.

"Gunn." She acknowledges on a shudder, her eyes squeezing shut. As if she's given him permission with that one word, he scoops her up in his arms and they fall on the bed. He covers her, keeping her warm in places that swelter from the frictional heat of their bodies. His hand finds her hair and she feels a savage tug as he grips from the root. Her head goes back, exposing her throat.

His mouth is a razor as it slides across the delicate bones and corded muscle, a low hum just beneath the skin as she moans in pain and frustration and a plea that rises in a crescendo as he works his hands under her clothing. She forgets the uncertainty of her thoughts, the waking guilt that ebbs and flows in her gut as he pushes his wants through the maze of ugliness her life has become.

She forgets the world burning outside the hotel. She forgets the Beast and Connor and Cordelia. Forgets about Angel's soul and dead priestesses, totems, electro-girls and shamans, Slayers and dead lawyers. Yes, she even forgets Wesley, whose image has so plagued her thoughts lately. Her heart aches.

He forgets Wesley and betrayal and everything his life has been boiled down to. All he can feel is the woman in his arms and the certainty of his love and his hatred for her. Emotions war through his body as he starts to tug her clothing off.

His breath is ragged as he rips her clothes off. She tries to do the same for him, but he grabs her hands and pins them over her head. She doesn't like this and he knows it. The fear of capture has never left her and it flares up with white-hot intensity, burning through the lethargic ecstasy that has wrapped around her brain. He smiles to see the terror racing through her brain.

"Stop!" She bucks beneath him and he only holds on tighter, one of his large hands encircling both of her bony wrists and forcing them down on the bed. She yelps and he smothers the scream with his mouth.

He's very strong and very warm. She wonders, if she twists this way or that, would she be able to knock him free with a swift thrust of her knee? Or should she twist this way and feel the hard bulge of his erection slide along her inner thigh? The decision is taken from her as he twists her the way he wants. She gasps against his mouth as he pushes into the softness of her thighs, seeking the heat further down and further in.

She lifts her hips and he is amazed at the action, just as she is amazed at the betrayal of her body.

He doesn't notice the terror in her eyes. He enters her with a fierce crush of his lips on hers and a tightening of his hand on her wrists. He fills her, bringing home summer and suntans and promises and dreams with a rush of memories that floods her cells and destroys every ounce of anger in her body. Now there is only numb regret.

He moves fast and rough, taking what he wants without regard for her comfort. He doesn't meet her eye, though she desperately wants him to. He has never failed not to meet her burning gaze when they've made love, but this isn't love he's pouring into her and she knows it. This is anger and frustration and blame. This is his way of dealing and she knows it.

She knows him so well.

She doesn't realize it when his hand lets go of her wrists, or when she has his head in her hands. But when she does, she forces him to look into her eyes. Those magnificent brown orbs are dim, mad and glistening. A tear tracks down his cheek and lands with a wet, condemning splash between her breasts. He thinks his heart is going to break in two as she lifts her mouth to his.

Slowly, she kisses him, dredging the last bit of memory from his mouth. It spills between them and shatters in the air.

He slows his pace and she throws back her head, feeling like some discordant spirit lying beneath him. Here but not here and there but not there and yes but no and stop but please don't.

There's one Fred here, you see. And she knows exactly what she wants. Oh, and that one over there? Confused as hell! She just wants her cave. That other one hovering near the refreshment table, she's just hungry. And that one right there, oh that one...she's the worst one of all...

And just like that, sudden as a portal opening, it's over. As quickly as it started, it's done and his head is resting on her chest, his mouth near the betraying teardrop on her skin. She doesn't feel satisfied or violated or even much of anything. She's here, she's breathing, she's alive. He feels like slitting his wrists or using a knife to dig out the heart in his chest that has so betrayed him.

He lifts away from her body and sits with his shoulders hunched, staring at that pattern on the carpet just as she had done earlier. She feels the pain radiating from his skin and bathes in it. He can feel and she can't, but she doesn't envy him his emotions.

"I love you." He says as he drags in a suffocating lungful of air.

"I love you too." Does she really mean that? Is she already now thinking of someone else? He can't be sure. Neither can she.

"It's not going to work. It can't work." He shakes his head, wishing it weren't true.

"I'm sorry." Relief works it's way though the apathy for a moment and she clings to it.

"You don't get to say that. You're not the one that---oh God I'm so sorry." She touches his shoulder as a sob tears through his body. She knows what he thinks just happened between them and it grieves her that she can't make the words to tell him otherwise. She can barely tell herself otherwise.

He gives one shudder and then his spine straightens, steel pulling at his emotions and closing him off from the pain. She hurts to see him hurt, but again, she can't tell him so. He stands and pulls the blankets over her shoulders, hiding her body in a tumble of thick cloth that smells like his body. Wordlessly, he straightens his clothing and lifts the forgotten cardboard box. She gets one last glimpse at his dear possessions that are so familiar to her before he lifts the opening of the box above the horizon of her eye line.

He doesn't hesitate. He doesn't look back.

The door closes and she stares at the blank wood with a bleak expression on her face. Her wrists hurt and her belly aches in expectation. The discordant spirits of her mind float through the air and she reaches for them all desperately. She wants to stay where she is and cry; if she can force the tears to fall. She wants to go downstairs and pretend like everything is fine. She wants to pretend she's the victim, even though she's not sure she is. She wants to be comforted in Wesley's arms. And most of all, she wants to run after Gunn and make things better.

She doesn't do any of these things. She refuses to cry. And she will not run after Charles because she can't. Everything was splintered the moment she kissed Wesley. She knows this but she can't make herself regret it. She aches in so many directions. She knows that soon Wesley will drift upstairs and he'll hold her and comfort her like he thinks she needs. Maybe she does need that. She's not sure. Maybe she'll even cry.

She'll be able to think about what Angelus said, even though she doesn't want to. She doesn't want to think about the truth that she's already embraced. She just hopes she can forgive herself one day.

With dry eyes, she lays down and waits for Wesley. She's not sure she even wants him, but she waits all the same, her heart an empty shell, her innocence gone for good. She doesn't mourn it.