Title: How To Break Up A Tuesday Afternoon
Author: Samsom
Posted:
Email
Rating: G
Category: Fluff
Content: C & A
Summary: Uncanny
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution:
Notes: Based on an offhand comment by Angel in S1.
Thanks/Dedication:
Feedback: Always adored.
He’d just straightened up when he’d caught a faint whiff of her perfume.
A second followed before the outer door slammed shut and he heard the machine gun sound of her high heels on the bare wooden floor as she approached their office.
Clutching the file in one hand, he just cleared the door of his office before she was inside.
“Angel! I’m back!”
The door slammed with more force than necessary to close it.
So the audition didn’t go so well.
He pulled out the candy dish, setting it at the edge of his desk, and leaned back in his chair to watch her through the glass.
“Don’t forget-“
She paused, stared at empty space for a second, brow furrowed ever so slightly in concentration.
He smirked, and waited.
“-we have an appointment at 3.”
She stood in the doorway and looked at him.
“Why do you look like that?”
He smoothed his features into smooth nothingness, with just a hint of inquiry.
“What’s the appointment?” He asked.
“It’s a little mundane.” Her eyes skidded away and his narrowed in suspicion.
Before he could ask her what the case was, she grabbed some jelly beans and skittered back out to her desk.
He craned his neck, watching her stop halfway to her desk, watching as she popped some pink drops in her mouth. She looked to the right, then the left, and for a second, her eyes narrowed.
She turned back to look at him and he settled back in his chair, grabbing the file up again and opening it.
It was a second before she plopped down behind her desk, pulling a magazine out. By the awful perfume inserts that immediately assaulted the air and his nose, it wasn’t Time she was flipping through.
He reminded himself that a ceiling fan wouldn’t be too much of an indulgence in the near future.
He waited, and then scooted closer to the window that separated his space from hers.
Her fingers were fanning the glossy pages, but she was staring out blankly around the office, a considering look on her face.
He could feel the smile creep around his lips.
She bent back down to her pretty people again, but he saw the way her toes tapped a rhythm beneath her desk.
Something was bothering her.
She looked up again, an exasperated sigh escaping her lips.
He waited.
She stood up abruptly, rounded her desk, frowning as she considered something. Then she looked down at her desk again, put her hands on top of the wood as if trying to divine by touch.
The file he held slipped to the floor.
She straightened and walked slowly to the center of the room, head down. The slow tap of her heels were like rocks thrown against a window.
Everything about Cordelia was loud and brash.
But right now, head down, eyes closed, she was centered, concentrating like he’d rarely seen her do with anything else.
She turned in the direction of the filing cabinet she rescued from storage last week and stared at the rusted metal.
A second later she was standing in front of it, hands hovering. He watched her consider the second drawer, then the first, skimmed the third and finally, she settled on the fourth.
Hand tightening around the handle, she pulled it open, cheap metal making a metallic scraping sound as it loosened.
Sticking her hand inside, she felt around, reached, and fished out something wrapped in paper towels and stuffed in a plastic bag.
He hadn’t made it easy.
“Angel! Why do you keep putting money everywhere but in the safe?”
Uncanny.
End