The Book of Love (Fred/Gunn, PG)

Gunn begins to dismantle the cage. Perhaps we should leave it up, Wes says, in case we need it again, but because Wes said it, and because Gunn wants to believe they won’t, Gunn ignores him. He gets out the tools and he goes to work, alone.

***

Wesley and Fred’s reorganization of the research books has chased everyone into the lobby. In fact everyone had started out spring cleaning, but apparently their strengths lie in breaking things, not tidying them up. In the offices, Wes and Fred have fallen into the kind of arguments only NASA is used to hearing, bandying twelve-syllable words about in defense of their preferred organizational styles. Gunn started dusting and organizing the weapons cupboard, but gradually lapsed into seeing if he can teach himself to use nun chucks. Angel and Cordelia’s reorganization of the lobby furniture somehow devolved into the two of them collapsed over the couch, limbs intertwined in a cattish display of shared languor.

Angel is telling Cordelia about the Book of Love. She drapes her arm over her eyes, dramatically. Seriously, Angel. Does everything have a prophecy? You know what we could do with less of? Prophecies. Trust me on this; it’s kind of my area.

It’s like, Angel says, ignoring her, it’s like a blueprint of every love in history. The mechanics. His face sours. And what went wrong.

Or maybe what went right, Cordelia says. Her hand curls around the nape of Angel’s neck, comfortably. I mean, they don’t all go wrong.

Angel doesn’t say anything.

Anyway, Cordelia says, her Listen Up voice, anyway, what good is that? Would you want to know how things get ruined, if they have to get ruined? Do you really want to know how things end?

The nun chucks slip, crack against the Hyperion’s marble floors. In the offices, Fred is laughing, her head back, exposing her lovely pale neck, at something Wesley has said.

***

Gunn works alone; the simple physical reality of the tools in his hands is reassuring enough to almost be company. Upstairs, angry voices ring through the empty halls of the Hyperion. They’re almost, but not quite, muffled by the sounds of the cage falling down around him.