Fandom: Angel
Characters: Wesley/Gunn, Cordelia
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1998
Description: Fantasy sports, rock climbing, hanging out at the comic book store, holding the bags while Cordelia shops, and reading in bed. Late season 2. No actual spoilers.
A/N: Comic book references for my new fandoms, and because I can't help myself. The book Gunn is reading is by Robert Crais. Also, this would have taken place in early 2001, so sports and comic book references use that time frame.
1.Fantasy Baseball
Gunn settled in behind the computer, and crossed his arms behind his head. "You're going down, English."
Wesley raised an eyebrow, glanced around the office to make sure they were alone, and leaned closer. "That's what you said last night."
"And was I right or I was I right?" Gunn grinned, then, as Wes moved closer, pushed the wheeled chair back from the desk. "Nice try, but I am not letting you distract me." He pointed at the monitor. "I'm going to teach you how the game is played."
"I dare say I'll be able to hold my own."
"Have you ever been to an actual baseball game?"
"That's hardly the point. A proper understanding of statistics and formulas for projecting from a mean of performance –"
"All I know is, Jason Giambi comes up, he's mine."
"Actually, while Giambi had an excellent year in 2000, an examination of statistical variants would predict –"
"You can keep your number crunching. I grew up with this game. I'm a student of –"
"What are you two still doing here?" Gunn and Wesley looked up to see Cordelia standing in the doorway, looking none too happy. "I thought you guys joined some baseball league. Remember how you were going to get lives?"
"We did," Wes said, with what Gunn considered to be an unnecessarily superior tone, considering what it was that they were actually talking about.
"Well, shouldn't you be out playing baseball?"
"Actually –" Wes started to raise his eyebrows
"This week is just the draft," Gunn broke in, hoping she wouldn't ask any more questions. "Games don't start until April."
She leaned over to look at the screen. "Oh my God, is this fantasy baseball? God, Wes, I should have known you could only win a championship at pretend sports."
Gunn turned to him. "Wait, you won this thing last year?"
With that air of false modesty that sometimes often Gunn want to slap the smile off his face – and sometimes makes him want something totally different – Wes said, "I simply utilized a subroutine that plugged in various factors including runs batted in, slugging average, and on-base percentage – "
"Since when do you subroutine?" Cordelia demanded, eyes narrowing. "Wait, that's what you paid Willow Rosenberg to write you last spring." She turned to Gunn. "He said it was to chart out the location of the demons in my visions, meanwhile he was playing Yogi Bear on the company dime--."
"Yogi Berra," Wes mumbled. "And Willow did write the tracking program; I bought the other thing with my own money."
"You didn't have any --"
"All right," he amended. "But I paid it back out of my winnings."
Gunn glared at Wes. "Subroutine? Are you just trying to win all my money, or were you planning on sharing this information?"
"What? A student of the game requires the assistance of a number cruncher?"
"Money?" said Cordelia.
"Yes," said Wesley. "There's a rather substantial cash prize for the winner of the league. Unofficially, of course. I would hardly countenance gambling on actual games of chance, but as a test of intellectual skill -- "
Cordelia shoved them both aside and sat down at the computer. "I'm in," she said. "And I get Barry Bonds. Still. You guys should really try something that's an actual sport."
2.Rock climbing
Wesley tightened the harness around Gunn's waist. "I'm not so certain that this is wise."
"Ease up, English. I just need you to spot me."
Wesley frowned. "It's called belaying."
"Whatever it's called." He nodded toward the physical trainer who was supervising the indoor climbing wall. "You passed the aptitude test fine. Guess you have some experience with ropes and chains."
"Yes," Wesley agreed, fingering the buckles. "This mechanism is actually remarkably similar to the one my father taught me. He used it in New Zealand to capture a feral – koala."
Gunn heard a snort, and turned to see a trim young woman curling her lip in disgust. "I can't believe you're bragging about interfering with the habitat of an endangered species."
Wes smiled weakly. "I said my father –" The girl rolled her eyes and walked away.
"Only in L.A." Gunn shook his head. "So you gonna belay me, or what?"
"I only wish the wall weren't so entirely vertical."
"Well, that's kind of the point."
"I just can't imagine needing to go up a mountain that badly."
"Even after a feral -- koala?"
Wes didn't smile. "I'd feel better if I could try it out myself. Only –" He grimaced and nodded down at his still-recovering gunshot wound. "I just hate to feel like you're taking all the risk."
Gunn reached over for his shoulder and squeezed. "Just catch me if I fall, English. That's all I'm asking."
Wesley smiled. "I think I can handle that."
3.Hanging out at the comic book store
Gunn pushed the door open with one shoulder and immediately winced in pain.
"Honestly, Charles." Wes reached out to keep the door open for him. "After that rappelling fiasco, I'd think you'd be more careful with that shoulder."
"That's not what you said last night," Gunn muttered, then stepped back as the pink-haired salesgirl emerged from behind the counter. He remembered her vaguely; her nametag said "Echo."
"Looking for the latest Dark Horse titles, Mr. Gunn?" Echo asked.
"He's looking for a less active hobby," Wes answered.
"We've gotten a lot in since the last time you were in here, if you're interested in renewing some subscriptions."
"Subscriptions?" Wes repeated, walking over to the wall of DC titles.
"Says the guy who gets Wizard Wankers Weekly," Gunn shot back.
"Wizards' World," he answered.
Echo frowned and went for her catalog. "I don't think we carry –"
"It's all right." Wesley lifted a comic with the trademark red and yellow S on the cover, and showed it to Gunn. "I seem to recall Superman dying a few years back. It was all over the newspapers."
Gunn moved to look over his shoulder. "Like DC's gonna leave the franchise character dead."
"And here's Jean Grey," Wes mused, turning to the Marvel shelf. "I know for a fact that she was dead in 1981." To Gunn's raised eyebrows, he said. "One of my American cousins came to visit that year. He brought all his comics."
"Not doubting you," said Gunn. "I just never had you pegged for X-men fanboy. I thought you would have been this –" putting on a vague British accent, he said, "—veddy serious, sensitive child."
"And it takes a very serious child," he answered in a solemn voice, "to fully appreciate the mythic resonance of the Dark Phoenix Saga. As for my sensitive side. . .well, Jean and Cyclops were so much in love." He flicked a thumb over the pages of the book. "Whatever happened to him?"
"He lived on a shrimp boat for a while. Then he married his dead girlfriend's clone. And no I'm not kidding." He took the book from Wesley's hand. "You probably don't want to know the rest."
"And taint my boyhood memories? Perhaps not. Does something smell fishy to you?"
"Yeah," said Gunn. "It's called taking a great story and retconning the fuck out of it, but that's Marvel for you. You think that's bad, they're getting Ben Affleck to play Daredevil."
"No." Wes dropped to his knees. "I mean, 'fishy.'" He slid his hand under the bottom of the shelf and pulled it out, dripping with slime. "Fishy as in a Verlander demon depositing its spawn in the storeroom." He straightened. "Miss? Excuse me, but what's behind that panel? Also –" His eyes rose to the display wall, "How much do you charge for Thor's hammer?"
4.Holding shopping bags for Cordelia
Cordelia picked up the blouse and spread it in front of her. She frowned at the mirror, then dropped the garment in a crumpled heap. "You can't expect me to have visions of every little demon infestation in the city. It couldn't have been that dangerous if you guys killed it with a plastic hammer."
"It would have been dangerous if it had gotten a chance to hatch."
"That was probably weeks away. You and Wes saved me a headache."
"Ruined my favorite pair of Chucks," he mumbled.
"And saved me," she repeated, in that voice you didn't argue with, "a mind blowing headache. So what do you think?" She held up two blouses. "Lilac or mauve?"
"I think," he answered, "that holding the bags while you shop does not actually count as a hobby."
"I can't help that everything you try ends up in physical injury or disaster. Well, besides the fake baseball thing. How am I doing?"
"You're winning," Gunn mumbled. Apparently, the principle of How hot is he? combined with, What a weird name! beat both statistics and lifelong study of the game.
"Hmm," Cordelia said innocently. "How about that?"
"Not suspicious at all, psychic girl. Lemme know if you have any visions about the Yankees falling apart in the homestretch."
"Uh huh," she said, dropping both blouses and moving on to the next display. "So what's going on with you and Wes?"
"Well, we're getting our asses kicked."
"By slime demons, fake cliffs, and imaginary sports," Cordelia concurred. "But that's not what I meant."
"Seriously?" Gunn raised a hand to rub the top of his shaved head. "Is it that obvious?"
"Seriously, Gunn. It doesn't actually take a psychic."
5.Reading in bed
Wesley stood in the door of the bedroom, frowning. "Is that a book?"
"From the library. Believe it or not." Gunn spread the spine with his thumb so that the plastic on the dust jacket crackled. "No pictures or anything."
"That's not what I meant." Wes placed a hand on Gunn's bare shoulder, leaning over to read the text on the cover. "Wait, this is a book where Elvis is a detective? Does he have a talking cat?"
"The detective is named Elvis," Gunn said defensively. "But it's modern. He lives in L.A. Works with a partner. Drives a Corvette." He shrugged. "Writer's no Walter Mosley, but he's okay."
"Looks good, actually," said Wes. "I used to read a bit of that sort of thing myself. You know, Spenser and Hawk. Lew Archer. Philip Marlowe. And of course the British classics from the Golden Age, Christie and Marsh and – I'm babbling, aren't I?"
"Little bit." Gunn smiled. "You can borrow the book when I'm done."
"Yes, only, what I mean to say – not that I mind, you understand. Far from it. But I hadn't thought of us having a reading in bed kind of relationship."
Gunn could tell Wesley was flustered by the conversation because, when he set the book open and face down on the bed, Wes didn't even give it a pained look. "You're thinking of this as a relationship?"
"Well – two people – relating to each other as we do – by definition –"
"Cordelia knows."
"Oh." Wes rocked back on his hands. "How --? And well, I suppose, Angel --?"
"I don't think she told him. But he does have those vampire senses."
Wesley wrinkled his nose. "Don't remind me. You don't suppose they – that is, it wouldn't – to them –"
"Wes, Cordelia's in show business. Supposedly. And considering all the time Angel spent running around the world with other vampires, raping and pillaging and God knows what --"
"A minor deviation from the heterosexual norm isn't exactly going to shock either of them."
Gunn grinned. "Minor?"
"All right, all right." Wesley laughed and, putting his hand behind Gunn's neck, leaned in to kiss him. "A huge bloody deviation from the norm–" Gunn's fingers slipped past the waist of Wesley's sweat pants, and he gasped for a moment before going on -- "Using a purely statistical definition of 'norm' of course, carrying no actual normative implication in terms of convential moral –"
"Wes?"
"Yes. Very good. Shutting up."
"Thank you."
Seriously, thought Gunn. And Cordelia says I need to get a hobby.
END