Title: Breakfast, Aprons, and Other Normal Disasters
Author: Minnie-May
Distribution: Archive permission granted to: Sparkage and Shippers United. All others please ask.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of Angel (not even Wesley ;_;) they are all owned by Joss Whedon and the fine folks of Mutant Enemy…..lucky….
Summary: Post Players. After a busy night Gunn and Gwen talk things over the next morning. Oh yea, and eat.
Rating: PG-13 Feedback: Yes please! Send to: sweet_senshi@hotmail.com
Spoilers: Mostly for the Angel season 4 episode 'Players'
Author's Notes: So here's a fun fact: I wrote this story and then I realized that pancakes was an F/G thing *shudders*. So I just wanted it to be clear that that was not put in there purposely. Also I live off feedback!

Breakfast, Aprons, and Other Normal Disasters

It was amazing that Gwen's house was big enough to fit his entire crew (former) and yet there was nothing to eat. Gwen had slipped off to sleep hours ago but Gunn had been overcome by a grumbling in his stomach that compelled him out of Gwen's warm arms and onto the cold linoleum floor. From the outside the place looked as if it would be another crumbling one bedroom apartment like so many others in LA. He had stayed in enough of them to know the mo.; leaky faucets that didn't work, torn wallpaper, broken box springs. Inside the house looked like a mansion out of one of those fancy magazines.

Gunn closed the cupboard he had been searching and started in on another one. Did Gwen even know how to cook? Hadn't she mentioned something about a butler or maid or something the last time he had been here? Gunn couldn't even imagine that, having someone cook for him, clean up his shit. In fact he wasn't good at cleaning up at all, a fact that had bugged the hell outta Fred.

Jesus, Fred. Amazing how he hadn't thought of his ex-girlfriend all night. The exhilaration of the evening…and then his time with Gwen had wiped all thoughts of the Texan out of his mind. But there she was again, pouring over some ancient book with her hair half covering her face and a look of concentration on her face. And there she was again, jumping back from Wesley with the guiltiest look on her face; but a look that wasn't just guilty, it was also disappointed. As if Gunn had walked in on something that was none of his business and ruined the moment.

Gunn opened the next cabinet a bit too hard and a box of pancake mix hit him squarely on the head. He cursed as he bent to retrieve it.

"'Bout damn time" he muttered as he placed the mix on the table and continued his search for other supplies.

****

Gwen stretched out luxuriously on the satin sheets and stared up at the ceiling. Normal. It was such a strange feeling. As if she had just now awoken from a bad dream and everything was better now. In that one perfect night all the cold and lonely days of her childhood, of all her life really, had just melted away. She was just a normal girl laying in a bed and not worrying that she would burn a hole through the sheets. Gwen took a deep breath as she stared around her room as if seeing everything with new eyes. She wondered if Gunn had just taken off because he didn't want to deal with what had happened. She wondered what he was feeling, maybe he was…..cooking pancakes?

She was out of her bed and dressed in seconds flat, slipping the gloves up her arms as she appeared in the kitchen.

"Those smell like they're burning," she announced, leaning against the open doorway to her kitchen.

Gunn ran into the kitchen and she had to stop herself from doubling over with laughter. He was wearing her maid's apron which was splattered with pancake batter. Laura was going to have a fit when she found out the fate of one of her best aprons.

"They're not burnt!" Gunn said proudly, flipping them over and then depositing them on a plate. "Might be a little crunchy though" he said after a moment of consideration.

"You know you probably shouldn't be leaving those pancake all alone to cook by themselves; might get dangerous" Gwen remarked with a smirk as she pulled out a chair and sat down.

"Well you know, danger is my middle name" Gunn said, faking a British accent. He ended up sounding like a younger, female version of Wesley.

"That so?" Gwen asked, pursing her lips and raising an eyebrow.

"Nah, ain't got a middle name" Gunn replied placing the plate of pancakes in the middle of the table unceremoniously and grabbing the syrup.

Gwen pulled a pancake onto her plate silently while she stared at Gunn piling half the syrup bottle on his pancakes.

"That's disgusting" she remarked, staring at the wet, sticky pancakes in distaste.

"Disgusting is in the eye of the beholder…or the taste buds anyway" Gunn replied as he shoveled food into his mouth. Gwen winced and cut a tiny piece of her pancake, inspecting it closely before she put it in her mouth. Dear God, that was the most terrible pancake she'd ever had in her entire life. She barely managed to choke it down before looking around for something to drink.

"I made some fresh squeezed orange juice with your…squeezy thing" Gunn commented, disappearing into the other room and then reappearing with two glasses full of orange juice. "That thing is fat by the way."

"I've never used it" Gwen remarked as she downed half of the juice in the vain urge to rid herself of the lingering taste of the pancake. Who knew you could mess up something that as practically pre-made?

Gunn was staring at her not-touched pancakes and Gwen felt a stab of guilt. No one had ever made her pancakes before.

"Not gonna eat the rest of your pancakes G?" Gunn asked, leaning his chin on his hand with his dark eyes furrowed.

"Well I'm not too hungry and…" Gwen trailed off and then shook her head. She never beat around the bush with people; it was just her way. "And these are really, really bad pancakes" she finished.

"Yea I know" Gunn said pleasantly, finishing his plate off and reaching for hers. "But when you live on the streets for most of your life you learn not to be picky."

As Gwen was about to reply to that with some sarcastic remark Gunn's cell phone rang and he scrambled to answer.

"Yea, what up English? I'm kinda in the middle of---Well I know sleeping with Connor was a pretty weird thing to do but--Oh, you mean really evil. With a butcher knife? Well, shoot, if she's some evil mastermind she could have gotten a better weapon. Yea, I'll be there as soon as I can. Yea, I'm here with Gwen….it's been an eventful night. I really don't know what you're implying man" and here Gunn seemed to get a little uncomfortable. "Yea, I'll ask her. Maybe we should get a exorcist or something, strap her down to the bed….in err a non sexual way. Right. I'll see you soon then, good luck holding down the fort English." Gunn closed his cell phone and stared about the room in shock.

"Wow, that the English guy? I thought you didn't like him?" Gwen asked, raising an eyebrow and running a gloved hand up and down her neck.

"We're working stuff out" Gunn said, smiling haphazardly. Then the smile melted off his face and he got up from his chair, looking around for anything he might have left strewn about the apartment.

"What's going on? World ending again?"

"Cordelia's evil."

"Figures" Gwen said, sounding a little pleased at the news. Gunn cocked an eyebrow but didn't say anything as he gathered up his belongings.

"Wanna come? There's gonna be some nasty stuff to hack and slash so you know it's my deal" Gunn offered.

Gwen thought the offer over for a minute. She should just say no, she finally had a chance at a normal life. She could get a job, a normal one, and date. And she wouldn't have to run indoors every time there was a storm for fear of getting hit by lightening.

God, how boring did that sound?

"Count me in!" Gwen jumped off the chair and slipped her house and car keys into her pocket.

"You don't need those you know" Gunn commented, nodding his head towards her hands.

"What, the keys? How do you think we're gonna get to the hotel Denzel? Fly?"

"No" Gunn said, stepping towards her and grabbing her silken gloved hand. "I mean you don't need the gloves anymore." Gwen stared down at her hands and realized that without thought she had slipped them on. It was routine to wear her gloves and part of her was afraid to take them off. Part of her wasn't really ready to be normal.

"Ohh" Gwen said, pulling away slightly. "But maybe I should keep them on, just in case-" before she could finish the sentence Gunn had yanked the gloves off and thrown them on the kitchen counter. He flashed her a smile and nonchalantly walked towards the door.

"Let's get going, I have a feeling Cordy's gonna get all Linda Blair on our asses. Nothing ever easy with that girl. She hit me over the head once" Gunn said, opening the door and waiting for Gwen. She cast one last look back at her gloves, abandoned next to the cold plate of pancakes. Then she moved towards Gunn and the door.

"Was she evil then too?"

"She was trying to save me actually."

"Has she always been weird?"

"Weird, yes. Evil? No," Gunn said, closing the door behind them.

Gwen smirked as they headed in the direction of her car and her eyes roved up and down Gunn. She turned on her heel before Gunn could open the passenger door and squeezed herself between. Her eyes caught his as their bodies pressed against each other.

"So Charles Gunn, I have one question for you before I go off to save the world or whatever you people do" Gwen said, leaning closer.

"Really," Gunn smirked, "and what's that?"

"Do you usually fight evil in an apron?"

end