She came in from school painfully aware that there was nothing in Angel’s mansion that she could pick up and throw.
He was skulking in the corner away from the sunshine and Cordelia barely had time to think about the fact that she’d pointed the Corvette in this direction instead of home.
“How was your day?” He asked as she placed herself carefully down onto his couch.
“Shitty,” she answered, her voice thick, “Everybody knows.”
He made a sympathetic face which still smarted, though she didn’t want to kick his as much as she’d wanted to kick Giles’… “It’s all my fault.”
“Cordelia, it’s not—“
“Not Xander,” she huffed, wondering if he knew, like, anything. “Of course that’s not my fault. I’m talking about today. I opened my big mouth and—Now it’s all over school and—I’m not going back there. Ever.”
“Ever?”
“Ever,” she nodded, reaching up to remove her earrings and toss them on his coffee table which was about the time she noticed the TV. Cordelia blinked, “What’s that?”
Angel’s look of surprise faded into a tiny smile, “A television.”
“Duh,” she rolled her eyes, “I get that. But what’s it doing here?”
His smile faltered a little, “You—You kept telling me I needed to get one. Because you were bored. So I thought…”
Cordelia blinked. It hadn’t been there that morning, which meant… “You went out to get me this?”
“Well,” he gave a careful shrug, “It was no big deal.”
Her eyes misted suddenly and Cordelia had no choice but to blame the suck-fest that been her day. “You risk a melba-toast experience to go out and buy me a TV and it’s no big deal?”
“I just thought… I thought…” Angel paused, frowned. He didn’t know about the melba-toast experience but the sales guy at the store had been pretty scary. Demonic, he was sure, showing Angel this TV and that, telling him how the one that was ten times the price of the one he’d bought would revolutionise his home. “I don’t know what I thought. I just wanted to do something for you. I can take it back…”
A slow smile spread across her face. “Don’t you dare.”
“It’s, uh, it’s not the only thing I did…”
Cordelia looked at him, no longer suspicious just… Mildly surprised. “What do you mean?” She asked, carefully.
He placed his book by the fireplace and edging around the drapes he left open most days when she was there, led her to one of the other rooms in the mansion.
He did the Awkward-Dead-Guy-Shuffle which, shocker here; he was really good at and gestured for her to go forward first. Whatever she was expecting? It wasn’t a bed, fully made up. And it wasn’t a small dressing table with a mirror placed right on top, her clothes by its side on the chair.
Cordelia looked up at him, tried to swallow past the lump caught in her throat. “You did this for me too?” She asked, once she’d found her voice again.
Angel nodded, still perfecting his shuffle. “There was some stuff down in the basement… I just moved it upstairs, was all.”
Cordelia thought it was maybe the nicest thing anybody had ever done for her which took her on a whole trip to Weirdsville that she didn’t even want to think about right now. “So…. What, you want me to move in with you?”
His gaze shot up – that hadn’t been his intention at all and now… “No, I just—I thought that while you were here—You kept saying there was no mirrors either.”
She shook her head, looking back into the room. It was still the nicest thing anyone’d ever done for her but the conversation was nine seconds away from descending into awkward so she smiled at him, “Admit it, you just don’t want to sleep on the sofa any more.”
He grinned suddenly – and that? Was a world of not scary. It looked… Natural, kinda. Not constipated, not forced… And whoo-boy, if he walked around doing that? He’d be beating off girls with a stick. Not her, of course – Broken Heart and all – but—Seriously.
“Guilty,” he nodded, having stopped shuffling too. “I—Uh, I’ll get back to my reading.”
He made it all the way to the top of the stairs before Cordelia realized that she hadn’t thought about school once since she’d come home and spoke again. “Broody?”
He turned, the corners of his mouth lifting at the nickname. “Yeah?”
“Thank you,” she told him, her voice soft.
“You’re welcome.”
——–
On the 6th day she’d stayed with Angel, Cordelia came home to find him bruised, bloody and so very not the picture of manpire nonchalance she’d grown used to this past week.
He was even sitting on the couch which, okay, she guessed it was his and all but would it’ve killed the guy to put down a throw since he was bleeding all over the thing?
“What happened?” She asked, moving to sit beside him, avoiding the blood.
“Nestor demon,” he told her, wincing as he moved, “I’m fine.”
“Yeah, ‘cause you look it,” she rolled her eyes, “Do you need a hospital?”
He shook his head, which was about the time she noticed the bandages at his feet. She very much resisted the ‘eww’ face and glanced back up at him again, “Actually, you look like crap.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up, “Thanks.”
“No, really.”
That grew into a full on smile, albeit a painful one, “I’ll live.”
Cordelia wasn’t so sure – it was the first time she’d seen him looking all beat up and stuff – wasn’t one of the perks of being a vampire fast healing or whatever? “Want me to get you anything?”
Angel shook his head, “No. Thanks.”
She patted his arm gently, since it looked like the only place on his body that wasn’t hurting right now, and settled back beside him. “TV?”
He smiled again, “I’d like that.”
—–
His stomach had growled twice in the three hours they sat there.
The first time he ignored it, since Cordelia had missed it too, and tried to judge how painful it was going to be getting off the couch to go to his refrigerator for blood.
He tried twisting and the answer was very painful, so he sat back, resting his arm against the back of the couch.
Nestor demons were nasty, lived in sewers and only came out of hibernation once every three month to feed and feed a lot. He wasn’t sure when this particular Nestor had moved in but it looked like a first for Sunnydale and it was big.
He’d caught wind of it from Willy a couple of nights ago when he’d visiting the slimy bar owner, trying to shake some information out of him on a prophecy Giles had called him on.
He’d hit the sewers after Cordelia had left for school that morning and had almost had to be scraped off the floor with a spatula. Nestor demons were quick, went for the throat of anything that attempted to get between it and its prey, which today? Had been Angel, only it hadn’t just gone for the throat.
His stomach rumbled a second time which he knew Cordelia heard because she sort of stiffened on the couch beside him. “Was that you?” She asked.
He shook his head, feigning innocence. He tried not to eat when she was here because for all Cordelia knew and seemed to accept what he was? Eating in front of her was sort of—Not intimate, perhaps, but… Definitely not something she’d want to see.
She got up and Angel was torn between going after her, maybe apologizing, when she exited his kitchen with two cups.
He smelled the blood before he saw it and his stomach growled again, making him squirm even as she held out the cup. “Cordelia—“
“What?” She took a drink of her own beverage of choice which was not blood and pushed the cup in his direction again. “Take it.”
Angel blinked, “You don’t—I mean, I shouldn’t…”
“Shouldn’t what, eat?” She arched an eyebrow, “Why not? It’s not like I don’t know what you live on.”
He frowned, “I know that, Cordelia, but—“
“Angel, would you take the cup?” She sounded exasperated, so he did as he was told. “Besides, if you’re drinking that? It means you’re not trying to drink me,” she told him, “Which I am very much on board with.”
She curled her legs beneath her on the couch, blood forgotten about, and turned back to the TV, ignoring the fact that Angel was sat beside her open-mouthed. She didn’t even blink when he raised the cup to his lips, just gave off this tiny little smirk that said See? That wasn’t so bad… and kept watching TV.
——-
By the 7th day, Angel was completely healed and the television he’d thought was going to be a total conversation killer led them to a variety of discussions.
They talked about her aspirations as an actress, led by some of the movies he was surprised to find she liked – Casablanca, Gone With the Wind.
They talked about her parents who were absent at best then, to Angel’s dismay, his own parents and the past that he’d just as soon forget about but never could.
It was never going to be a conversation he liked having and he tried to ignore the fact that he was talking to Cordelia about this but when something on the TV piqued her curiosity and she turned to him, asking him if he remembered all the people he’d killed? He shook his head, slowly. “Not really,” he admitted quietly. “There was a lot.”
She didn’t answer that for a moment. She turned back to the TV and Angel thought that maybe she hadn’t heard him when she piped up with, “I guess a couple of hundred years of being evil there would be.”
“Yeah,” Angel nodded, thinking the conversation was over.
“Is that why you help?”
He turned his attention – which had been flaky at best – from the TV to her again. “Help?”
“Yeah, help. Y’know, people? Me?” Her head tilted as she studied him, “At first I thought it was to impress Little Ms. Likes to Fight but then… I don’t see her around here so much any more.” Actually, she hadn’t seen her around here at all since her Dinner Party of Death but she wasn’t going to draw attention to that. “So I figure you’re trying to impress someone.”
He semi-frowned at that. “I’m not trying to impress anyone.”
Cordelia shook her head, “Okay, maybe not impress someone… Make up for it, maybe?”
Angel sighed, “That’s a whole lot of things to make up for, Cordelia.”
She scoffed, “And what, time’s an issue for you? Hello, you’re immortal, remember? As in going to live forever?”
He thought about that for a while, didn’t speak. Cordelia turned back to the TV with a roll of her eyes, pegging Angel’s silence for Brood-Greatly-Mode where he beat himself up with all the things he’d done, as if he hadn’t saved a few hundred people since then.
“You think I can make up for it?” He asked, almost a full half hour later, wondering why it mattered.
Cordelia shrugged, “I have no idea, it’s not like I’m on a direct line with those on high or whatever, but… I think maybe it means something that you try.”
Angel nodded.
—–
She’d been there a week and a half and the weird thing about their pseudo-friendship? Was that it wasn’t that weird at all. She’d told him on the night of her Get Well Soon Party of Fail that they didn’t really have much in common but that hadn’t stopped them talking.
And talking.
And talking a bit more than that, too.
She’d told him all about her weird dream where she’d wished Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, he’d somehow disappeared too and she’d been killed by Willow and Xander who, as if life weren’t weird enough in that dream? Were skanky-ho-vampires and totally in a relationship and having sex or something.
He’d arched an eyebrow at that and Cordelia had rolled her eyes, telling him that if he was going to start in her subconscious mind or whatever, he’d be wearing the blood he was currently drinking.
“I mean, I make this wish and then don’t even include a clause that says that I won’t die or whatever? Who does that?” Because she was her father’s daughter, after all. Common sense told you that you checked the small print on e-v-e-r-y-thing.
She was honestly trying to puzzle it out. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought that Buffy was the total root of all her problems but wishing she’d never come to Sunnydale was a bit harsh. After all, that would mean Angel never would have either… And she was thinking about that why?
“It was probably just a dream, Cordelia,” said Angel, smiling uber-patiently (which seemed to be his thing with her).
“Well it sure felt real,” she murmured, shaking her head. “And did I mention the part that the girl I made the wish with is now an exceptionally pissed off student at my school?”
That got his attention quick. “She’s a student?”
“Ha!” She grinned, “Not too quick to call it a dream now, are ya?”
Angel frowned, “Have you talked to Giles about this?”
Her sudden smile faded, “Oh, sure. ‘Cause I make it my life’s mission to run to Bookish, British and Boring every time I have a weird dream.”
“I’m serious, Cordelia,” said Angel, “She could be anything, some sort of demon…”
“And she could also be a normal teenager with raging hormones who hates Sunnydale as much as the next sane person,” Cordelia rolled her eyes, “Geez. Overreact, much?”
Angel frowned again but said nothing else, wondering if he was overreacting or whether there was something in it. He made a mental note to speak to Giles, nonetheless, and took another sip of blood as Cordelia switched on the TV and propped her feet on his lap.
They watched uninterrupted for half an hour, Cordelia’s laughter ringing out every so often at something Chandler said on a rerun of Friends.
He didn’t hear the door, didn’t even hear her heartbeat which was strange when he considered how attuned he was to Buffy’s movements when they’d been together.
He heard her voice first, heard how pissed she was and knew that the shit was about to hit the proverbial fan.
“This looks cozy,” said her voice from the door and as Cordelia turned, she could actually swear that Buffy was about to, like, breathe fire or something.
She pulled her feet from Angel’s lap and stood – not, of course, as quickly as Angel did (hello, super-Vampire-speed) and opened her mouth to speak.
Angel, again, got there first. “Buffy… What are you doing here?”
Her gaze narrowed as she moved further into the room, “I came to see how you were doing. I’ve mis—You, uh, haven’t been on patrol lately and I just thought…” Her voice trailed off as she looked from Angel, to Cordelia, then back again, expecting an explanation.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Angel started, stepping to one side and putting himself squarely between Cordelia and Buffy.
Cordelia frowned at the words, noted Buffy’s scornful look and stepped out from behind Awkward Dead Guy in turn. “Uh, hello? It’s exactly what it looks like,” she pointed out huffily, “We’re watching TV.”
“Cordelia—“ Angel’s voice was low, harsh, and that stung more than his earlier words, “I’ll handle this.”
“Handle what?” She demanded, “There’s nothing to handle. We were watching TV, end of.”
Buffy watched the exchange silently, hands clenched into fists by her side. “We need to talk,” she said to Angel, and spun on her heel to walk outside.
Cordelia looked at him, about to tell him that he did not need to follow her and defend himself because there was nothing to defend, when she caught the look.
“Stay here.”
—–
He came back in to find Cordelia on the couch, staring at the screen. He sat beside her but she made no move to put her feet in his lap as she might have done earlier, didn’t even blink.
“Cordelia…”
“Did you explain?” Her voice was cold but she didn’t take her eyes off the TV.
“I—I told her that we were…” Angel sighed. He hadn’t told her much, actually. Cordelia had been right, there was nothing going on and yet the way it looked…
“You told her that we were what?” She turned to look at him now and there was no mistaking the hurt in her eyes.
“I told her you needed a place to stay,” said Angel. Even to his own ears the explanation had sounded lame. It sounded even worse saying it to Cordelia.
“What, because I don’t have a place of my own? You didn’t have to explain, Angel,” she frowned.
“I did,” said Angel. “The way it looked…”
“The way what looked?” She glared at him, “Me and you, sitting together watching TV? Like we can’t be…” Her voice trailed off.
“Can’t be what?”
“I guess I just thought…” Her words stuck in her throat and Cordelia’s gaze dropped. Was it such a stretch to believe that she could find something in common with Angel? Or that he could, God, be her friend?
It was his fault! Offering her a place to stay, buying a TV, talking with her…
If he hadn’t done all that then maybe she wouldn’t be thinking this. Maybe she’d just be at home where she belonged, cutting the Xander-heads off all her photos.
The heartache that she’d managed to stave off for most of the week suddenly seemed very there and very real and Cordelia was suddenly left contemplating the fact that maybe she hated Angel a little too because this was his fault.
“I thought we were friends,” she admitted with a tiny little laugh that should have sounded funny, not high and painful and breathy. God, she was an idiot. “I mean, you and me? Having something in common? Please.”
He looked wounded at that but Cordelia honestly couldn’t bring herself to care; it was nowhere near the barb she could’ve delivered but then, lately, none of them were. She shook her head, standing. “I think it’s time I left.”
“Cordelia—You don’t have to do that… Buffy understands…” He tried.
Mostly, it was futile. Cordelia had pretty much made up her mind the minute Angel had went to fall all over Little Ms. Likes to Slay and this so was not a jealousy thing. “She understands what?” She frowned, “That we watch TV together? That we talk? She made whatever *this* is look totally sinister and up until you opened your big, stupid mouth? There was nothing sinister in it!”
Angel looked puzzled, “When I—What did I say?”
He was completely and utterly clueless. “It’s not what it looks like,” she mimicked, glaring at him. “No wonder she thought something was going on… That’s exactly what Xander said to me outside that stupid warehouse.”
“Oh.” And suddenly Angel understood.
Cordelia sighed. All he’d had to say was that they were friends. Okay, maybe it did look a little weird to Buffy but… That weird? Really?
“I’m gonna get my stuff,” she said with about as much enthusiasm as she could muster which, right now? Was very little.
“Cordelia, really…”
“Angel, it’s fine. I had to go home sometime anyway,” said Cordelia, tossing him the remote and shrugging like she didn’t have a care in the world.
It took less than three minutes to collect her stuff and the goodbye? Was awkward personified but finally she was out of there and driving back to her own life, back to reality after a week and a half of… She didn’t even know what with Angel.
She didn’t feel the prick of tears until she turned the corner to her very big, very empty house and pounded her fist on the wheel. “Suck it up, Cordelia,” she snapped at her reflection in the mirror, grabbing her bag to go into the house.
What, exactly, had she expected?