Disclaimer: You recognise it, I don't own it.
You aren't sure when it started, you being the only person to call him Charles. It seems kind of silly, even in your head, that everyone else uses a last name that is already a noun. They don't call you "Burkle" or Wesley "Wyndem-Price", which is a mouthful anyway, or Cordy "Chase", which kind of sounds like a dog and you know she wouldn't like that because of the time you called her Lassie.
The point – can you do that anymore, can you think in points? - the point is that it's different with Charles. That's actually more congruous than not, because everything is different with Charles, so why should this not fit the pattern? But you don't understand why everyone else thinks it's different with Charles when usually it's just you. What you do understand is why you call him Charles even though everyone else calls him Gunn.
A gun is a cold, metal object with an innate understanding of physics and a frightening possibility of harming you. Charles is none of these things and you do not want him to be. As you ponder this concept, you consider the actual gun aimed at you and wish that it would turn into Charles, because then you would be out of the trouble you specifically promised him you would not get into when you left the hotel to begin with.
Your eventual solution is to kick a garbage can and create a fulcrum which causes a nearby load of garbage to drop on your attacker's heads, letting you flee despite the fact that there were people shooting at you. You register them screaming your name at you as you run, fleeing as quickly as possible to the safety of the hotel and your room and your cave...
You slam the door and promise yourself that not even a supreme deluxe taco is worth venturing that way again, even as you down the remains of your food gathering expedition. You are safe in your cave and you may never leave it again, because the outside world is terrifying and for a little while, you'd forgotten about that fact. Part of you, the part that encourages your demon hunting activities, wants you to forget again, but while some of you wishes you could, most of you is far, far too scared. You are a cave dweller once more.
But you forgot that Wesley wanted your help with some tissue samples and Charles knew you left the hotel and soon enough both are knocking on your door to figure out what's wrong. The problem with caves is that they don't move when you need them to, so they know exactly where to find you when you deviate from being normal.
They notice the difference immediately. A small barricade between you and anywhere the outside world could get in might protect you, but it will definitely get your friends' attention. They become worried about you, you can hear it and they're pleading with you to open the door. If you open the door you might let reality in and it frightens you so much that you won't do it.
Your door remains shut.
Wesley respects your wishes, as always, and you can hear him going away. Charles, stubborn as always, sits outside your door and tells you loudly that he's staying right there. You aren't sure which you appreciate, but you know which one you need and it isn't someone who lets you build walls around yourself again, not when you almost had them down. But despite that, you still need a door and you suspect if you make Charles sit out there for more than ten minutes, you won't have one anymore.
Wesley is all wide eyed astonishment when Charles's ploy actually works and you're opening the door, letting the boys in. Lorne, Cordy, Angel, Wesley and Charles are all okay, all feel safe to you, but you check to make sure nobody's in the hall that shouldn't be. When you find out it's only the pair of them, you open the door a little wider, allowing them to shimmy through your barricade to get inside.
Charles made you open the door, but you know he won't make you talk about it. He's good like that, when he knows you've got time. Instead, he finds himself a seat and asks you a basic physics question, something slightly more detailed than what he asked you last time you went crazy and needed help focusing. You almost smile, because you like teaching him physics and it's a sure bet to making you less crazy, which is nice. Sometimes you need help doing that. Besides, you like it when he proves that he's learned something from you by which questions he asks.
You're so busy with your lesson that you jump when Wesley gets impatient and asks you what happened. You don't like it. Your world had become ordered again and now it's not and you're more crazy, much more like before and that's not good at all. Wesley catches your arm and you cringe away and then he and Charles are arguing and you never meant for them to argue, not about you. They're some of the only constants in your life and they're arguing about why you're so scared and maybe, that part of your brain that wants to forget how deadly outside the cave is whispers, maybe you can fix this because you aren't scared of either of them, you couldn't be scared of either of them without being permanently broken.
So you tell them. Such a long battle just to get tacos, not that you don't appreciate the food but seriously, are even they worth this? They don't seem to get it, why you're as scared as you are, because while they're mad and sad that this happened, they also aren't moving to action so you think maybe you forgot something because you thought for sure they would be doing things by now. They just want you to try again, telling you the experience was unfortunate but unlikely to reoccur and you suddenly can't breathe because they want you back out there and that isn't going to happen. They notice, but they don't comprehend why and you somehow manage to choke out the part you'd forgotten.
The people with the guns knew you. They'd known your name and you'd never said a word to them. There were people with guns that wanted you and only you, not somebody random. No matter how you phrase it, the fact doesn't change and you wish it would.
Well. That changed everything. You can tell. Suddenly, there is no more talk of you going out, only talk of digging around and investigating and...
Before you know it, you are a case. You are not working with them, not anymore. You are outside and inside all at once, because you are just another thing to be filed, like any other case.
It doesn't take you long to decide you don't like this, not at all. Not even the entire gang sitting in your room, worrying about details can make you like this. You let them know how much you don't like being a case.
You lose track of the individual words that you're saying to them, but right now it comes out strong and determined and nothing like how you feel right now. They admire you for it, though nobody sees what's underneath and this time they include you as someone working the case – a person. You like that.
You add that you want the name of a taco place that delivers, preferably directly to the hotel room door so you don't have to leave your room again. Ever. Food other than tacos might become necessary at some point too, but not if it means leaving this room.
The smiling looks you were getting before vanish as the group realizes your implicit declaration. They don't come back as time passes and you don't leave. Cordelia's exasperation almost makes you want to take it back. Wesley's quiet reassurance that you'd been improving and he misses you almost makes you want to take it back. Angel even tries to coax you out eventually, which almost makes you cave, but not quite.
What does pry you out of your room is Charles, almost identically to when he convinced you to open the door. He places himself right in front of it and you can smell the plate of pancakes even through the closed door. Eventually you realize there's less than two minutes until you no longer have a door, which makes you reluctantly open it. The starch brings you nervously the rest of the way across the hallway until you're sitting right beside Charles, accepting the food. He didn't physically pull you out, but he sure as anything didn't enable you, not one bit.
The pancakes taste like victory even if you're pretty sure you just lost.
Three days later, just when you're getting used to leaving your room and breakfast is now something shared just barely outside your comfort area, he shows up again. You open the door, but find that he is not bearing the all important food, which is necessary because you need to have a good breakfast if you are going to survive for the rest of the day. You want both of you to survive, so you want food.
He promises you that there are omelets in the kitchen and that he would stay with you the entire time, if you wanted. Charles even laughed when you complained that eggs in the kitchen were no use when you were up here, and gestured you out. You were reluctant but Charles was persistent and before you know it, you're seated beside him eating with everyone. Wesley and Angel are welcoming you back and Cordy is teasing you about taking forever and Charles is right there with food. He has the nerve to dab butter on your nose and the omelet tastes like friendship even if you did just hide in your room for three straight days.
You think it's over when you're used to the hotel again and leaving your room without a second thought. What you don't realize is that you've just expanded your cave though apparently Charles does because he asks you out to breakfast in the world outside of the hotel. He asks you of all people, as if he can't remember the danger at all and like he wouldn't want to ask anyone else in the world.
You're so scared at first, but the part that wants to forget the fear and danger has grown and manages to tell Charles yes using your mouth. When the time comes to actually set foot outside you wonder how it did that because certainly no part of you wants to do this. But Charles tells you that you can and is right beside you and eventually throws you over his shoulder and carries you into the truck. You pound on him with your fists in your terror, but he just calmly puts you in and gets in with you, clearly waiting for you to give him permission to drive away from your cave.
You feel your breathing go back to normal and the world continues turning like it didn't even notice and you see the taser laid out for you at your feet. This feels important as usually when you're crazy people don't trust you, but Charles gave you a weapon he knows you can use and sits beside you ignoring the fact that he has no way of knowing whether or not he's scared you enough to use it on him. If he's only pretending he knows you won't, he's doing a very good job of it because he looks like you don't scare him at all. You make everybody weird when you're crazy, but Charles just waits for you to tell him you still want to go to breakfast with him.
Eventually, that same part, the maybe courage part, finds your mouth and tells him to drive and he does, immediately. The smile he gives you and you give him is worth it and you hope it is for him as well because surely neither of you is going to make life easy for the other right now. But that's not really the point of life anyway, is it?
In the diner, sitting across from Charles and maybe still crazy but not at all insane, the waffles you eat taste just a little bit like love.
Of course, it doesn't end there, entirely. You still haven't figured out who those people who knew your name and pointed a gun at you were. But you have a Gunn pointed back at them, so you feel okay about leaving the hotel again.
Eventually, it turns out that it is the science department of Wolfram and Hart. Why? You have no idea. But everybody who wants to eventually become the head of that department is trying to kill you. Most of them are attempting to create something that will destroy you, or each other. Usually something chemical, apparently. Thankfully the hotel is warded, so they can't get you through the water supply no matter how hard they try. It also explains the killer robot taken out last week. The person who paid the gunmen was the only one who deviated from using his scientific skill set. He was taken out by his inability to identify H2SO4 as opposed to H2O. If the man had not been signed onto Wolfram and Hart, you might have felt sorry for him. But he was trying to kill you, which tempers your feelings about his death significantly.
Lilah, surprisingly, is the person that tells you this. She comes to offer Wesley a job, a nice one with significant benefits. She refuses to offer Angel a job, because she never offers anything she does not want to give. This has been going on for months that her friends are offered jobs at an evil law firm where they might be useful. Lilah includes Cordy and Charles on the offers, because she doesn't not want them, even if she's not really doing it for them. She's never offered you a job before, because she doesn't want you.
Only this time, this time she turns to you and suddenly she is. It sounds like a job offer. Something like what you barely dared to dream of as a grad student, big shiny equipment and a full staff. It feels good to be asked. You envision it, for half a second, but realize that it would only be success and not happiness. You thank her, but turn her down emphatically.
Your friends, a little startled but not surprised that someone like Lilah offered that much for you, ask you why you turned her down. You shrug and don't point out that all of them did as well, ignoring that point for the more obvious one.
Breakfast would taste terrible.
All your friends laugh, but you hope they get it too. You hope that one day you'll be able to explain properly the feeling that they're your friends and you share losses and defeats and maybe something more than friendship, but mostly just...home. They're your home and nothing can replace that.
You like to think they, who know you so well, would know that, too.
A/N: I know the whole thing sounds a little crazy, but I was trying to set it in Fred's mindset early on in season three somewhere. Let me know how I did, please?