Summary: Gwen meets someone new.
Pairing: Gwen Raiden/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Rating: PG-13
"Redcoat, up, double the vodka." Gwen leant over the bar, glancing around before spotting them. "And can I get one of those swizzly things?"
The girl behind the bar nodded and turned away as Gwen hopped onto a bar stool. She turned to look at the guy next to her, who was nursing a drink. She couldn't tell what it was, but by the smell of it, it was pretty high on the boozy stakes.
She nodded her head towards the bar-girl. "Smile costs nothing, don't you think?"
He looked up at her. It didn't take a master of observation to know that he'd been drinking for a while, and obviously had some serious sorrows to drown.
"Yeah." He went back to staring at his drink. Geez, talk about tough nut to crack.
"Six dollars." Gwen fished some cash out of her pocket and pushed it across the bar, barely taking her eyes off the guy. She absently twirled the swizzle stick around her drink, and then whistled at the bar girl.
"Hey, cherry," she yelled. "Can I get a dollar of that in change and the rest in ones?"
Wesley had been sitting there, minding his own business, happily slipping into a drunken stupor when the girl appeared beside him. She seemed insistent on talking to him, but making conversation hadn't really been in his plans for the evening.
He really noticed her as she refused to take the change that the girl behind the bar was trying to hand her. She was starting to make a scene.
"Look, all I'm saying is, you don't wanna die tonight, maybe you should just put the change down on the bar and I'll pick it up, okay?" The action was a little blurry, but he could see the girl clearly. "No, I'm not threatening you, I'm just stating the facts. Last guy I touched died." The young woman behind the bar placed the change down in front her, and started to step away. "Hey! I brought him back!" Sighing, she sat back down on the stool and started twirling her swizzle stick again. "Stupid Axis," she muttered.
Axis. That rang a bell. Something he'd heard, or read ... recently ...
"The Axis of Pythia?"
The girl stared at him again. "What if it is? How do you know about it, anyway?"
Wesley tried to co-ordinate his mouth and his brain, neither of which were working at a particularly high speed. "Someone steals a thirty-three million dollar object, it doesn't usually go without being noticed."
"I guess." She stared for another couple of seconds. "Gwen Raiden. I'm the infamous one that stole your thirty-three million dollar object."
"Do you usually go round telling people that you stole things before you've even been introduced?"
"I've been introduced, where were you? Gwen, remember? Its traditional that now, you provide me with your name so that I can stop calling you 'hot guy' in my head." She shrugged. "Besides, I'm a good judge of character. And I have the feeling that you're so off-your-head drunk that you won't remember what I just told you by the morning anyways."
Wesley laughed a little. "Wesley Wyndam-Pryce." He held out his hand, and was a little surprised when Gwen pulled back.
"I shouldn't. I mean, I *probably* won't kill you, but these are new gloves and I haven't fully tested them yet."
She could see the confusion in his eyes right off the bat after that one. She always got a kick out of people's reactions ... until it sunk back in that no matter how cool it was, she was a freak - and always would be.
"That's the second reference you've made to killing people in the last five minutes." Wesley squinted at her. "Should I be running for my life?"
Gwen shrugged. "That's up to you." She leaned in close to his face. "Depends how much of a risk-taker you are."
Wesley made no effort to pull away from her. "I've not exactly got anything to lose."
"Well, aren't you the adventurous Brit?"
"It's not all it's cracked up to be."
They fell silent for a few moments before Wesley looked back over at Gwen. She was extremely pretty, and a man would have to be insane not to go ... well, insane ... over the way her leather clothes clung to her curves ...
"Hey, Wes, I'm up here." Gwen waved her hand in front of his face and smiled. "You like what you see?"
Wesley blinked at her. "So what was that you said about killing people?"
She sighed. "It's a thing. I'm a freak. Electric." She put some of her change back down onto the bar and yanked off a glove. Checking he was watching, she took a coin in her hand and sparks flew, melting the coin in a second.
Wes blinked again. "You weren't kidding, were you?"
Gwen shook her head, and tugged her elbow-length glove back over her arm. As she went back to stirring her drink - which she was yet to take a sip of - she didn't see Wesley's arm raise up until it was hovering beside her face. As she turned to look at him, he tentatively touched her cheek, recoiling slightly as a spark flew to meet his fingers.
She stared at him. "Wow." She smiled, shyly. "Nobody's ever done that before. Well - not anybody who knew."
Wesley looked down at the bar. "Well, maybe you never told anybody with nothing to lose before."
He looked back over at her, her face flushed and a smile playing at her lips. He leant towards her, focussed on her lips. So what if it kills me, he thought. It'd be a good way to go.
She pulled back a split second before his mouth reached hers. "What, are you crazy?" She jumped back from her seat, looked at him, and sighed. "Nobody should ever have that little to lose."
"I do."
"I don't believe you."
Wesley fished around in his pocket and pulled out a pen. Scrawling his number on a napkin, he handed it to her and stood up. "If you ever need someone to kill ..." he smiled. "Or you manage to stop being quite so ... electrifying ... call me."
Gwen nodded, and took the card from him. "I will. I definitely will."
Throwing back the rest of his drink, Wesley took one of Gwen's gloved hands in his, and brought it to his lips, kissing it. "It was nice to meet you, Gwen."
Gwen watched as he walked away. "You too," she muttered.
End