Cabbages And Queens
"Oh no you don't, Single White Female," Lorne said, swooping into the living room on a Thursday night, holding a strawberry margarita and grimacing at the blond curled up in his favorite fuchsia bathroom monogrammed with his name. It had been a gift from Liza for the fabulous "breaking up with What's His Face" party Lorne had given on the day the divorce went through. "That's my robe, my couch, and my private time to enjoy Will and Grace on TiVo."
Andrew's lower lip trembled. "But no one else LIKES Will and Grace!" he whined. "Also, Thursdays Wesley kicks me out of his apartment to...commune with the dead. And the dead apparently don't like to commune when I'm listening in the living room. Actually, the dead are just really really loud when they're getting communed. It's all, 'oh God oh God oh WESLEY oh God' and that's kind of distracting to the viewing process."
Lorne closed his eyes. If there was only such a thing as mental bleach to make the bad dirty and wrong images go away. "And the award for images I did not need in my head goes to..."
"Well, you see my dilemma then. Until I get my own apartment, I have nowhere to go on nights Wesley decides to commune with the dead four times in a row while listening to Pink Floyd really loud. And you like all the same shows I do on Thursdays. And your bathrobe looked so cozy. Plus, look, I brought Pirate Booty!"
He held up a bag of yellowish popcorn and Lorne felt enough pity to overcome his desire to watch Will and Grace without people around. Nobody should be forced to listen to hardcore hetero necrophilia during Must-See TV. Besides, it was Andrew. It wasn't as if the jokes would be lost on the kid, unlike, say, Angel.
Oh, Angel. So fond of styling products, yet so aimlessly style-free. It made Lorne want to cry, when he didn't want to shag him senseless, because if ever a straight man had more chemistry with every man in the room, it was the Gloomy Avenger. Angel had failed to have chemistry with Cordelia, who was, let's face it, sex on a stick if that's how you liked your sex. And sure, there was the crackly tension with Lilah, but like Wesley, Lilah made inanimate objects want to forget their gender, sexuality, and inanimate nature and jump on the legs.
Pity she was Satan herself and the walking dead, but that was Wesley's problem and he apparently solved it with kinky kinky sex. Lorne had Andrew camped on his couch eating Pirate Booty and getting jazzed for Will and Grace. That was his problem.
"So, when are you getting a place?" Lorne asked, sitting down next to Andrew and taking a handful of Pirate's Booty.
"When I get my first paycheck next week," Andrew said with a shrug. "I found a great place in North Hollywood."
Lorne nodded with approval and clicked on the television. "I like North Hollywood. 818 unfortunately, but at least it's not, sigh, Van Nuys. What Fred was thinking when she got that place, I do not know, but it's her morning to waste in traffic, not mine."
"Yes, the traffic on 405 is rather daunting," Andrew said in that vague and faux-sophisticated way he had. "Were I Fred, I'd be looking for housing on the west side, but that's just me."
Lorne snickered. "Fred's her own person who can make her own choices. Anyway, let's watch Will and Grace and not be gossipy, because we've already fulfilled every other gay stereotype known to human and demonkind. All we need is to be listening to Cher while drinking white wine spritzers and the queer-o-meter would go tilt tilt tilt."
Andrew deftly stole Lorne's margarita, took a swig, and tilted his head contemplatively. "The way I always heard it, we need to be listening to Madonna and our drinks need to have little umbrellas. Possibly it could be a musical, but I find telling people I like Madonna is all the coming out I need to do. Except to Angel, whose gaydar is as non-existent as George Michael's career."
Who was this sly and snide queen and what had he done with Little Miss Andrew Wells? Lorne laughed and took the margarita back. Yay for TiVo, because it was all the entertainment and none of the commercials and could wait for the interesting conversation before deploying.
"So," Lorne said with a sheepish grin. Because after all, he was a freaking' empath demon and shouldn't have been the last to figure it out. "Friend of Dorothy?"
"Because the month of Wesley-drooling I've done didn't make that perfectly obvious?" Andrew asked wryly, doing a dead-on Lilah impression probably without knowing it. "Sorry. But mmm, Wesley really is a specimen. So dark, so mysterious, so..."
Lorne laughed. "Yes. Except for the part where he once knitted his own sweaters and is basically a complete poindexter made over via Angelcakes and Evil Miss Thing," he said cattily. "I remember back when Wesley wore glasses and couldn't tell you who Chow Yun-Fat was and was also crushing on Angel. Because, baby, if you're going to go for cruising dark and mysterious man, go for the original. Go for Angel."
"But Angel could dress better," Andrew said dubiously, eating more popcorn. "I saw this Armani suit the other day that would so define his pecs."
Didn't Lorne know it. Not a day went by (or any number of visits to International Male) that he didn't want Angel to wake up to the fact that he dressed terribly. But this was LA, and if you were a beautiful man like Angel, you could have the fashion sense of an Arquette and still be as hot as a Baldwin.
"Honey," Lorne said, thinking that he needed a refill and Andrew definitely needed one for his cutely camp ass. "Honey, I've been trying to suggest to Angel for THREE YEARS that he needed to dress better. Sadly, this isn't Queer Eye for the Straight Vampire, so no dice. Or color."
"But he's such a fall!" Andrew protested. "And black? So not his color. A warm brown, maybe some dark reds, a few charcoals..."
Lorne nodded. "I know, I know," he said. "Nobody has any fashion sense at the office except Succubitch, and she's like unto Karen."
"Except dead. And more evil. And less prone to saying fun stuff like, 'oh honey' or doing anything endearing," Andrew said, snagging the margarita and finishing it off with feigned innocent. "But she is rich, evil, fashionable, and a complete whore."
"Now, now, now, Notorious F.A.G," Lorne said, shaking his finger at Andrew. "Whores get paid."
Andrew howled with laughter. "That was...incredibly mean and shallow. But very funny," he said. "Can we get more drinks before watching the show? Because this was an exquisite margarita."
"I'll make us a pitcher, and we'll homo out on the couch and watch Will and Grace," Lorne said. "It'll be fun. Or if not, can't be worse than the meeting this morning. My God, did you see what Angel was wearing?"
How long had it been since Lorne had had this much fun being catty? Nobody at Angel and Hart was really good at truly snippy commentary and sometimes it felt good to mock the Days of Our Unlives that was working for Angel at Wolfram and Hart LA.
Besides, maybe it was the margaritas or the chemicals in the fruity Pirate Booty, but Andrew? Was starting to look cute.
"And those demons. Who dressed them, Fredo Corleone? Plus, the agony of the muffins. We really need to fire our caterer," Andrew replied cattily. "I think they were both non-fat and sugar-free."
"I know better than to touch the muffins," Lorne replied, mixing the pitcher of margaritas. "So, Andykins, you think Will and Jack are going to get together?"
"Well..." Andrew said, looking up with a smile. Yeah. Definitely cute. "I think that it's all just a tease. But I guess we'll see."
Lorne brought the pitcher and two glasses back to the couch. "Definitely," he said, handing Andrew a glass. "We're definitely going to see..."