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Cordelia’s visions were painful, unpleasant, and showed her yucky and gross and terrible things like people in danger and pain, and they pretty much universally sucked. At least this time she woke up in Gunn’s strong arms. Her head didn’t hurt like she had bumped into something, just like she had gone way too hard on the drinks last night (and wasn’t that just typical, that she got all the downsides of a hangover without any of the fun part beforehand), so he must have caught her on her way down. Not for the first time, she wished she could walk up to someone and complain until they did something about it. Couldn’t the Powers make a way to give her she information she needed that didn’t end with her passed out and unable to do anything? Like, wouldn’t that be more helpful, if she could actually act on the information as soon as she got it? Whoever had designed the vision distribution system needed to be fired, ideally yesterday.
She quickly told Gunn and Wesley the Cliff Notes and location of the nest of vampires and the guy in trouble she’d seen, and they jumped into action. They had a system for who grabbed what, and it didn’t take long until they were all geared up and ready to go.
She was surprised that they’d done so well without Angel, to be honest. Restarting Angel Investigations without him had been her idea (kind of), but they’d done really well, with a few very lucrative cases among the general misery of demon-hunting. Honestly, she hadn’t really expected them to survive, much less do as well as they had, given that they were three humans up against demons, vampires and more. They were hopelessly outclassed, but they made do, because what else was there to do? Cordelia had tried turning her back on it, being normal, and that hadn’t gotten her very far. She just couldn’t walk away: especially not now, with the visions and all. What if she got a vision in the middle of a scene? Nobody would hire an actress who would just faint at random times.
There was a gang of vampires in the warehouse, because of course there were. And it was full of dust, rusting iron bars and flakes of what she sure hoped was paint peeling off the ceiling. Why couldn’t vampires ever hang about somewhere nice and cozy, like a spa or something? And more to the point, why couldn’t the visions be about something that was easy to deal with? No, they had to point them to situations where there were five vampires, one victim, and the three of them, who, as previously pointed out, were outclassed even when they outnumbered the vampires. But they had their stakes, their crossbows, and their holy water, so what else was there to do? They drew a collective breath.
There was one vampire that was just about to sink her fangs into the guy’s neck. Wesley fired a crossbow and hit her in the heart. The guy dropped to the floor. He tried to crawl away, showing he had at least some common sense. One of the other vamps started to follow him.
“Hey assmouths, why don’t you pick on someone who can fight back?” Cordelia yelled, and regretted it when he turned on her, showing his gross, ridged face and fangs: she’d been close enough to them to know that those fangs really brought out the drool, topping out the yuck.
“Assmouth?” Gunn asked her incredulously.
“You come up with better on short notice,” she replied.
She’d needed to yell something to grab their attention, and it had worked. Who cared if it wasn’t the wittiest insult ever? Everybody just had to be a critic. Then there was no more time for banter, because she had an angry vamp right in her face.
The mission was a success, the vamps ended up dusted, the guy was saved. He was grateful and surprisingly receptive to Cordelia’s hint that he should give them a little something to support future endeavors of theirs: saving people wasn’t free, you know, and they needed to eat and keep their equipment in good condition. He even wrote them a check right there on the spot. Cordelia loved it when they got to save people and made money: it felt good to do the right thing, and it felt good not to have to worry about whether to pay the electricity or water bill this month.
Gunn and Wesley seemed to think the same. Seeing them all buoyed up, riding high on the triumph of winning against a gang of vamps, gesturing wildly as they re-enacted their victory, hyping each other up, Cordelia couldn’t help but smile. Suddenly it struck her. It was so simple really: they were hers. Her stupid, silly, wonderful boys. This was what it was about. The three of them, making the best of it. She wanted to keep them forever. Angel left—fired them—and that hurt, but Wes and Gunn, they were different. They’d stay with her, and she’d stay with them—forever, if she could.
They returned to Cordelia’s flat in a celebratory mood: they didn’t host the party of their first successful mission, but held a quieter celebration among themselves. Intimate. Just the three of them, a bottle of wine (or two), some music. They ended up on her couch, Cordelia nestled between Gunn and Wesley. She leaned into Wes, then pulled Gunn to her.
“We belong together,” she declared.
“We sure do,” Gun agreed easily, and Wesley hummed.
“I mean, we belong together,” she said, because she didn’t think they’d quite gotten it.
They were tipsy, she’d give them a pass.
“As in together, together? All three of us?” Wesley asked.
“Are you out of your mind? What makes you think we’re even into each other?” Gunn said, almost at the same time.
“Don’t front with me,” Cordelia told him.
She was almost insulted that he thought she hadn’t picked up on it: was she the one in the group with a high EQ or wasn’t she?
“I see the way you look at each other and at me. So are we doing this or what?”
Gunn tipped his head to concede the point to her. Then he looked across to Wesley.
“Are you up for this, Wes? Or does it offend your delicate British sensibilities?”
Wesley raised his eyebrows in affront.
“Clearly you have never been to a British boarding school. When you put a group of adolescent boys into an isolated and isolating environment, things happen. I would say I am probably ‘up’ for anything you might be, literally and figuratively.”
“Oh hell no! No way you’re claiming to be more experienced than me,” Gunn shot back.
“Well, I can’t speak to your experiences, but it would hardly be my first time I engage in ménage-a-trois,” Wesley said, a touch smugly.
“Seriously? I’m inviting you into a relationship and you’re turning it into a pissing contest?” Cordelia snapped at them.
They both looked shamefaced.
“Now, kiss and make up,” she ordered them, and after a brief hesitation, they did, both leaning over her to reach the other, and what a glorious kiss it was.
Cordelia leaned back and just basked in the pleasure of watching them. They were really going for it, with tongue, Wesley’s hands on Gunn’s collar, Gunn gripping Wesley by the back of his head and the small of his back between him and the couch cushion. She let them go on for a little while before pouting.
“Who’s going to be the one to kiss me, then?” she asked, and they both fell over themselves to get to her first.
Yeah, she could live with this.