Title: With These Hands

Author: Syn

E-Mail: veruca_werewolf@hotmail.com

Rating: PG-13

Content: Short Gunn character piece with Fred/Gunn undertones

Summary: Gunn's hands tell the story of his life.

Disclaimer: Fred and Gunn do not belong to me.

A/N: This kind of came out of nowhere, but that's usually the way it is with me. *sigh* I miss F/G, dammit.

Feedback: Come on, you know you want to!

He likes the feel of cold metal slowly warming in his palm. He likes the calluses ingrained in the skin, hard and familiar, like his life. He likes the shiny flat ribbon of a scar that runs across the back of his left hand. He's not sure where he got it, but he knows he likes it.

He likes to make things. He once burned himself on molten metal (that's what that tiny burn on his wrist is from) and had to wear a bandage for a week. He couldn't afford the hospital bills though, so he had one of his crew patch him up and prayed that Neosporin would do the trick. It healed roughly, but he didn't care. The new sword he'd made was well worth it. He killed a Varshuk demon with it the day he took the bandage off.

He likes looking at that old scar and thinking of the crude sword that had the wickedest edge he'd ever seen. It was broken a year ago in a street fight with a random vampire. He misses it sometimes, but he still has the scar to show for it and that's enough for him.

There was once a time when he got his hands in demon blood. He didn't know what kind of demon--there wasn't time to care and he wasn't good on the research anyway--but it made him itch for a month. The skin was raw and red and he finally had to get a local shaman to give him the cure. He'd gotten off lucky too, because the shaman had informed him he was about to sprout horns on his fingers.

He hated the close call, but he chalked it up to experience and made sure he kept his hands out of strange demon blood from then on. It's something of a phobia now. And thinking of that makes him remember an earlier time.

When he was seven, he was playing in the street outside his parent's apartment building. Alonna was playing Double Dutch with Kimmie and Kelly Bowes, who lived a few apartments down. He wandered off, walking into the forbidden alley that ran alongside their building. He wasn't supposed to be there, but the mazes of trash and boxes were too good a playground for any inquisitive seven-year-old boy to resist. He was rummaging through a box full of old magazines when his chubby little hand brushed something furry and warm.

The rat was attached to his thumb before he even realized what it was. It quickly let go, but there was blood everywhere. He cried all the way back to his apartment, not even caring that Alonna and the Bowes twins were watching him. His mother tended to him and gave him a big lecture about playing in the alley. He listened, for once, and never again walked into the alley, where the rats could get him again.

He thinks its odd that there isn't a scar where the rat bit him, but really, it left a large impact on his life; he shudders at the mere mention of rats. But he isn't afraid to admit his fears.

Maybe its the way she looks at him when he's being honest about it. Her eyes get so large and round that he gets lost in them. He feels the need to touch her soft skin, feeling the rasping contrast of his palms cupping her face.

She used to say his hands told the story of his life. He just smiled and pressed them into her skin, needful, yearning, possessive. She liked the way his fingers knew all the hollows of her body. They tread on dangerous paths and trails, finding their way into warmth and wetness that lingered and made his whole body ache.

He doesn't touch her anymore. His hands are rough and dry. When he holds them up the light, he's amazed at how old they look. He's only twenty-five and he has the battle scars of a veteran. When he watches her, he thinks maybe she hates his hands now. Maybe she remembers the wet snap and the easy flex of his muscles? He knows he can't forget it, or the feel of bones crunching beneath his palm.

It was so easy. He never knew he had it in him, really. All the death and destruction he's dealt out in his short years and he never even contemplated killing someone. But he has. The memory is locked in his hands now. No scars, no burns or blood. Just a ghost of a memory and the knowledge that he's no longer the same man he once thought he was.

Things will never be the same.

He sits in the garden of the hotel and stares at the sky, where the sun is shining like a miracle. His hands look old. He feels old too. The door eases open and he knows the light footsteps that tread the cracked pavement before he can see her. She sits down next to him and stares up at the sky in silence.

He's nervous and unsure of himself. What does she want?

His heart aches when she takes his hand in her own and rests her head on his shoulder. She doesn't say anything and she doesn't have to. He takes a deep breath and holds her hand in his own, soaking up the softness and warmth of her skin. He never thought he could feel this safe again, but, as he looks at her fingers curled intimately in his hand, he thinks maybe he was wrong.