My Axe & I
February 5, 2007
1,640 words
Written for Carlyinrome for the Gunn round at maleslashminis. Request found
after the fic.
Thanks to Mireille for the beta.
* * *
Gunn grabbed his axe and followed Angel out of the hotel. "What are we gonna kill?"
"If I get my way, nothing," Angel said, climbing into the car, and reaching out to unlock the passenger door. "Wesley said the demons we're 'meeting' are peaceful. Asking them nicely not to behead their prisoners should do the trick."
"And since when does talking do the job, man?" Gunn sat down and shut the door.
"You shouldn't do that," Angel said, both hands on the steering wheel. He hadn't turned the ignition yet.
Gunn frowned. "What?"
"Put that axe there." He had thrown his axe into the back seat of the car when he'd come in.
Gunn looked down between his legs at his axe, the handle held firmly in his hand. "Why?"
Angel had the audacity to roll his eyes at him, and Gunn scowled. "Kinda dangerous for the goods."
Still a bit pissed off at the eye-rolling, Gunn didn't understand what Angel meant for a moment. "Oh. OH!" He put a hand on his crotch and flung the axe into the back where it clanged on the sword.
"Hey!" Angel ducked. "Watch the head!"
"Whoa, sorry, man, didn't mean the almost-beheading there."
"Yeah. Next time, just dump it in the back before you get in."
"Sure thing."
Angel shook his head at him and turned on the engine.
<center>***</center>
"Wow, that fight was-"
"Disappointing? Bloody?" Angel supplied, holding the door for Gunn, and following him into the lobby.
"I was gonna go for cool, but bloody works," Gunn said.
"It was about time!" Cordelia interrupted them, marching into the lobby from the office and looking really pissed-off. "Do you have any idea how long you were gone?"
"Some, yeah," Gunn murmured.
Angel shot him a look, and turned to smile at Cordy-his best 'I'm so sorry, please forgive me' smile plastered on his face. Gunn snickered.
"Cordy! How nice of you to wait for us. You didn't have to, you know," Angel said in a syrupy tone, putting down his sword.
Gunn picked it up, and with a shake of his head, went to the weapons cabinet. He kept half an ear on the conversation going on, not enough to remember what they were chatting-well, arguing was more like it-about, but at least enough that he would know when they were done. He placed Angel's sword back in its place between Wesley's crossbow and another sword, and grabbed his cleaning kit. Something was off in there, but, frowning, Gunn couldn't figure out what. He sat down on the couch facing the cabinet and held his axe between his knees carefully.
He kept glancing up at the cabinet as he worked on getting the stains off the head of the weapon. Something missing in there, he thought to himself.
The meeting hadn't gone as planned-Gunn was gonna have a serious talk with English in the morning about the meaning of the word 'peaceful', cause those had been seriously pissed-off demons, nothing peaceful about them-and there was some kind of demon goo stuck in the details of the axe. He focused on the task, and did not, at all, no way, think about how he could still feel Angel's hands and arms from where he'd grabbed Gunn to push him out of the way when the demons had decided that they were done talking.
Nope, that was without a doubt not something he was thinking about; no way, no how.
"Hey, bum head!"
Something or someone poked Gunn in the arm, and he looked up to find Cordelia hovering over him and his axe. She looked annoyed, her hands on her hips like she was just about to lecture him about something. "Yeah?"
"I'm going home. Gonna give me a ride?"
He looked down at his axe, up to the cabinet, and back to Cordelia. "No." She gave him that annoyed look he hated so much, but he wouldn't budge. "Have my axe to clean. Don't wanna risk it being toxic or whatever."
"Why don't you grab a cab?" Angel asked. Whatever him and Cordy had been arguing about must have been serious, cause he was taking out his wallet and handing her some money.
"Sure, boss! I'll see you both in the morning." She turned on her heels. "Don't kill each other while I'm gone."
Gunn shared a look with Angel just as Cordelia exited. "Kill?"
Angel shrugged. "Apparently, we're in a bad mood. Must be PMS."
"Women." Gunn shook his head and turned back to his axe. He was almost done with the goo when Angel tapped his shoulder with a beer.
"Here."
"Thanks, man," Gunn said, grabbing the bottle and taking a good swallow, thankful that Angel had thought to get the cap off. "Good stuff."
"Yeah, Cordy bought it. Probably cost me a fortune too," Angel said, sitting down close to Gunn. He was watching him clean, and it made the back of Gunn's neck tingle. But not in a gay way.
"You gotta take a shower, Angel, man, you stink," Gunn said instead of thinking about how not gay the tingling on his neck was. Cause that way led to thinking about what else was not gay, and still feeling Angel's hands on him like he was branded or something kinda fell into the same category. And that made him think about Angel's hands, and-yeah, not gay either.
"I don't stink more than you do," Angel replied, his tone mildly offended. Talk about personal hygiene and the man immediately got on his high horse. That was kinda gay.
"Whatever you say, man." Gunn shrugged, cleaned up the last bit of goo from the tip of his axe, and went back to the cabinet. Which is when he realized what was missing. "Hey, what happened to my axe?"
"Huh, you're holding it?"
Gunn put the axe up by Wesley's crossbow, and started moving things around at the bottom of the cabinet. "The one my crew made me. It was in here, now it ain't."
"Oh, I think Cordy put it in the office, on the wall."
"What?" Gunn frowned.
"Go see for yourself. You can ask her why tomorrow, cause I have seriously no idea what made her think that would be a good thing to do."
Gunn walked to the office, beer in his hand, and Angel following just a few feet behind him. "Well, damn," he said. The axe was hung on the wall. Gunn would never ask Cordy how she'd managed that, but it did have a certain style to it. "Gotta give it to the girl, she got taste."
"I'm not so sure about that."
Gunn glared at Angel. "You saying my axe ain't worth being on a wall?"
Angel smiled. "I'm just saying the wall might not be strong enough to hold it up. It's a very pretty axe."
"Whatever." Gunn stared at the wall, and soon enough, the scowl was gone, replaced with a smile. Yeah, Cordy was cool.
"All right, I really do stink."
"Told you."
"I'm gonna go up and grab a shower."
Gunn would swear later that he'd been possessed, without a doubt. Yeah. There was no way he would have replied what he did if he hadn't been. "Got hot water in that shower of yours?" Totally didn't think this in a gay way.
No, really.
Angel was already halfway up the stairs when Gunn got out of the office to get his answer. "Yeah, but I don't think it'll last for two. I had to change the water heater cause the old one was busted, and I only found a small tank. Cordy still hasn't okayed buying a new one."
"I ain't got nothing against sharing."
Angel gave him an incredulous look from the top of the stairs, then the look turned speculative, and almost-almost like he was checking Gunn out. He shrugged. "Sounds like a plan to me."
Gunn smiled. Angel's arms, Angel's hands, he could still feel them, and the tingling was back. He climbed the stairs two by two, and followed Angel into his room, suddenly very eager.
Okay, maybe he was a little gay.
The next morning, he had to admit that he was not a little gay. No, he was very gay. He could say it was all Angel's fault, but he hadn't been the one to make the first move, Gunn had. He was still a bit stunned by that, too.
When they came down for breakfast, both of them dazed and a little confused, Wesley told them about the effect of the demon goo Gunn had spent an hour cleaning off his axe with a rag that Angel had picked up on their way to the office and dumped in the garbage can.
They looked at each other and shrugged. When they met again that night, neither of them was possessed. And it was about a thousand times more fun.
Being gay really didn't suck.
The end.
Male character they want paired with Gunn: Angel
Things they want in the fic: fighting, Cordelia, that huge "not a real axe" of Gunn's
Things they *don't* want in the fic: Wolfram and Hart, Connor
Preferred maximum rating: Do what you want.
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