Chinese Whispers
It started, as things tended to, with Angel. Or, more precisely it started with Angel putting his foot in his mouth. Angel drifted up beside Cordelia, where she was pretending to file things, but was really painting her nails behind the desk of the Hyperion.
"Wesley's my boss now, so don't think you can tell me off for not working," Cordelia said without turning to look at Angel.
"Well, Wes looks a little too busy to be worrying about the state of your nails at the moment," Angel slid next to Cordelia so that they could both see Wesley and Gunn comparing swords on the other side of the lobby, "So, they got close when I was..."
"Evil?" Cordelia suggested, blowing on her drying nails.
"I wasn't evil! I was just...Anyway, we were talking about Wesley and Gunn."
"Oh, them. Yes, they're having plenty of manly fun together, Gunn only calls Wesley a pansy assed Englishman once a week now."
"Oh well that's good, it's good that Wesley has someone, I'm pleased for him. But maybe you should talk to him, you know about office romances, and not letting them get in the way of..."
Cordelia has been painting her nails since she has seven, and she hasn't smudged the polish since she was eight, but now she slopped caviar red down her index finger. "What? You think they're..?"
"You mean they aren't?" Angel winced.
"No, I mean, sure they have that homoerotic buddy cop thing happening, but..."
"You know what," Angel said, backing away from Cordelia rapidly, "lets just forget we had this conversation, and better not tell those two," with that Angel, who could happily face down slime demons, turned and fled for the office.
Cordelia turned back towards Wes and Gunn who seemed to be involved in some sort possibly gay wrestling activity, "hmm."
"Are Wes and Gunn sleeping together?"
"What's that, sugar plum?" Lorne looked up from his deeply involving sea breeze.
"Wesley."
"Yes, the oh so handsome English boy, I'm familiar with his work."
Cordelia was stunned silent for a moment, she was not used to descriptions of Wesley that didn't involve the words dorky or pansy, however Cordy was never one to let silences last. "Angel thinks Wesley's doing the dirty with Gunn."
"Do you know, I wouldn't have credited Angel cakes with that much insight, but I suppose he's been around the block a few hundred times."
"You mean they are? Because that would be hot..." Cordelia's brow furrowed, "and possibly slightly off putting."
"Well, they're not, yet."
"Yet?"
"Sorry, sugar plum, that's all I can tell you unless you can get one of our gorgeous boys down here to sing," Cordelia, recalling the 'We are the champions' episode hoped that it wouldn't come to that.
"So, you wanna explain to me why I have to buy you breakfast once a week?" Gunn grinned at Cordelia over a table full of breakfast burritos.
"Because I'm still saving you're life."
"Right, and burritos help you in this."
"Of course," Cordelia smiled sweetly, "I knew you'd understand." Gunn shook his head slightly, but continued to devour his morning junk food. "Hey Gunn, are you and Wesley sleeping together yet?" Half eaten burrito hit the table, and Cordelia continued to flash her million volt smile at him.
Gunn, to his credit, said nothing, just stood up with as much dignity as someone with bits of chewed burrito on their t-shirt could muster, and walked out of the diner leaving Cordelia to ponder two things, first of all: Gunn really was very strong, dark and handsome and it was a shame that he was sleeping with Wes, and second of all: did she have enough money to pay for her own breakfast?
Wesley opened his door to find a disgruntled looking Gunn lounging in the hallway, as soon as the door was opened Gunn brushed passed Wes, "Do you know that Cordelia has got the idea into her skinny little head that we're doin' it."
"Yes, I had heard that." Wesley watched, amused, as Gunn paced his living room.
"Oh man, Cordelia get to you too?"
"No, I had a rather awkward encounter with Angel. The words 'homoerotic buddy cop' came up. I suspect this is a concept that hasn't drifted across the pond yet."
"But, you set him straight, right? Told him no way is anything going on between us."
"I will, I was rather anxious to leave after the homo-erotic comment. Would you like a beer?"
"Beer? The entire office thinks we're going at it like a couple of rabid dogs, and you're thinking about beer."
Wesley walked through to the kitchen and popped open two bottles of Murphys, "Rabid dogs – thank goodness Angel didn't think of that metaphor."
Gunn accepted the proffered beer and took a long swig, "you ain't worried people will think where there's smoke there's fire?"
"Charles, you don't really believe everything you hear, do you?" Gunn raised an eyebrow, "From Cordelia?" Wesley added, and Gunn laughed and downed the rest of his beer.
"I'd better go, got some vampires in bad need of being killed tonight." He offered the empty bottle back to Wes and strode out the door. Wesley had just dropped the two bottles in the recycling bin when there was another knock at the door, he opened it to find a tense looking Gunn standing there, fists clenched at his sides. The two men stared at each other for what seemed like a long moment, but was in reality about three seconds. Gunn launched forward with a momentum usually reserved for staking vampires and pushed Wesley back into the hallway, hands grabbing at Wesley's shirt, belt, hair. Lips finding the other mans and pushing Wesley into the wall. Wes's mouth opened wide and Gunn's tongue slithered in, both men would probably wind up with terrible stubble rash.
"There might be a little fire," Gunn murmured twisting Wes around towards the living room as the Englishman fumbled to find skin under Gunn's shirts. "But I'm only doing this to check."
The two men crashed over the back of the sofa and tumbled to the ground on the other side with cushions raining down around them, Wesley grabbed the belt of Gunn's baggy jeans, "Precisely, just checking, they emphasised the need to be thorough in watchers school. "
"Shut up English!" and Gunn kissed Wesley deeply, very hard to talk with someone else's tongue in your throat, speaking of things that were hard...