guy stuffRating:PG
Posted: October 14, 2000
Notes:
1) Conclusion to the 'Orla' thread. Helps if you have read the Brief Conversations... Modern Medicine and Thin Ice as well as Our Lad Liam.
"Is that better?” Angel asked. He slowly straightened his back and raised his arms to stretch the threatening cramp from his body. His skewed position at the end of the sofa wasn’t the most comfortable.Angel waited as Cordelia pushed herself up from the deep cushions on the sofa, his gaze fixed on the hooded hazel eyes. This evening had been a real challenge. He only hoped that Cordelia would say he was improving.
“Much better, thank you,” Cordelia finally declared and reached over to free Angel’s hand of the bottle of “Champagne Shell.”
Angel allowed himself a smug smile. “I’m surprised you haven’t taught Dennis to paint your toenails.”
“Oh...I tried,” she admitted in a lowered voice, “Shakes...bad... my whole foot was Gleaming Ginger! Must be a ghost thing. Anyway,” she added as an afterthought, “you have a lap.... a comfy one, too.” Cordelia wriggled her toes and regretfully lifted her feet from their resting place between Angel’s thighs.
“Wait,” he said, grasping Cordelia’s ankles, “Don’t we need to do another coat? Talk to me while this gunk dries.”
“Talk? As in an exchange of opinions? What a neat idea!” she smiled over at him, “Hey, have you had that guy talk with Wesley?”
“Um, no, I haven’t...yet.”
“You can talk to me you know. I watch television. I can analyse whatever is bugging your head.”
“Cordelia it’s not that I don’t want to discuss it with you...I just think it would be best to get some ... thoughts from another man.”
“Whatever. So who is she?” Cordelia persevered.
“What?”
“This goes back to that time I had to cuddle the icicles away, huh? Not just the time we went roller-blading. Who is she? I mean, I know enough to make a reasonable guess. It’s about some female, right?”
Angel stared stonily at an airy point in the middle of the room, hoping to repress any further enquiry.
“Anyone I know?”
A false hope. “No,” he sighed.
“That’s a nice change.” Cordelia gazed at the calm profile at the other end of the sofa. “You’ll notice I refrained from any smart-ass descriptive comment. I do think that alone is worth a pat on the head, don’t you?”
“Cordelia....”
“Are we talking old, old girlfriend here or is it,” she mused, “...is it someone ... new?”
“I don’t remember her very well.”
“A one night stand?” Cordelia sounded incredulous.
Angel shook his head.
“Oh. Like you can’t remember the colour of her eyes or you’ve forgotten her favourite candy?”
Angel continued to focus on the non-existent spot hanging in the dim air. “Blue, but sometimes green...I think...” he said dreamily.
“Sounds like she wore coloured contacts,” Cordelia offered.
“...or her clothes were green and blue and flowing...shawls...like a butterfly. Her hair was long and dark and always loose. The breeze would catch at the shawls and her hair, shining in the sun. I could stand in the sun and watch her.” Angel stopped briefly, a faint smile barely curving his lips, seeking another picture stored in the depths of his memory.
Cordelia studied her hands. Angel was saying ‘was’ - past tense - and ‘stand in the sun’ That was good. He must be talking a long, long time ago.
“Dainty feet in green kid shoes...elegant...and a very pretty ankle,” Angel’s fingers lightly rubbed against Cordelia’s ankles and the soft soles of her feet. “I think she had a faint smattering of freckles across her nose. She was tiny - her head only just reached the top button on my waistcoat....” The smile dissolved. “Mostly I remember the pain and the gnawing anxiety and invading my head whenever ... like when we went roller-blading.” He fell silent. “Am I boring you?”
Cordelia’s eyes flickered quickly to the still profile. “No! I was trying not to interrupt with any stupid questions.”
“Did you want to ask me something?” Angel finally turned his head to look over at Cordelia.
“You haven’t said her name and er, is she still, well... alive?” Or a vampire, she wondered to herself.
“I haven’t spoken her name... not since I died, Liam died. Her name was Orla,” Angel’s voice rasped over the name. He cleared his throat, “ and she would be very dead. I only knew her for a few months before, well, before I met Darla.”
“Long enough to fall in love,” murmured Cordelia.
Angel’s body stiffened at Cordelia’s words. A faint memory from his bleak, blurred, human past. What was love... don’t fear love... a puling-woman’s love... a pitiful illusion. His own Liam voice, groggy with gin, flooded his head ... Love? Why do you mention love? I have no need for such a weakness! Dread, deep and painful. He had fallen in love without understanding.
“You killed Orla? Turned her?” Cordelia ran perspiration-anxious palms down over her hips and belly.
The question startled Angel from the salty, wind-swept quay of two and a half centuries earlier.
Tell her how you tried to find Orla in London, tell her how you wanted to share the suffering she had inflicted on Liam - a hundredfold, tell her how you thought Orla would be amusing - for a little while. I am nothing, I don’t know you, I don’t need you. Was it all still true? Tell her. “No. I didn’t kill Orla... and don’t associate that with any noble gesture ... Orla had left Galway by the time I... rose. I never saw her again. The most I did was disappoint her. I’m good at that.”
“Don’t, please. I thought she must have been haunting you because you were feeling guilty about her death.”
“No,” he said once more.
“I mean, Angelus does usually try and hurt the people he cares about.... when he was you.... or Liam ....ugh... you know what I’m getting at!”
Angel didn’t respond. The mid-air dot had regained his attention.
Time to change the subject thought Cordelia. The broody look at the other end of the sofa was darkening. A shame, there was much more she wanted to know about Orla... and Liam.
“That reminds me,” she said with a dash of ‘bright’ in her voice, “I must speak to Wesley about an Angelus Action Plan, in case you... in case Angelus comes back.”
“Cordelia, there is a plan. Stake. Remember?” he said softly.
“And what if we had staked you after Rebecca-the-wannabe let Angelus out to play? Totally unnecessary.”
“You were both lucky that time. Angelus is Angelus. However it happens, you should stake me. You told me once that you would do it, don’t change your mind now or get complacent. Promise me.”
“We’ll see,” Cordelia ignored the requested pledge, “Anyway, I don’t intend discussing any of our Angelus Action Plans with you!”
“You don’t think I might be able to offer some insight?” he asked, slightly huffed.
“Huh! And if Angelus gets out you’ll know exactly what we intend to do!”
“Oh,” he said.
“Duh!” she replied. “So, if you didn’t hurt Orla, why is she unsettling you now? Do you think you are you actually seeing her ghost?”
“A ghost? No, I don’t think so. Just memories. You know,” interrupted Angel, “I really think I will save this discussion for Wesley. It’s kind of... delicate.”
“Geesh, you keep saying that but then Mr Silently-Suffering-Stoic takes over!” she rallied, but added more seriously, “Please Angel, it can be a bit frightening when you have your ‘memories’... if that is all they are.”
“I will, you have my word. You ready for another round of this polish?” Angel held out his hand for the shell pink bottle.
Cordelia tossed the tiny container to Angel. Enough pushing for one night.
“I’ve only mentioned this because I promised Cordelia. She’s worried about me so I know she won’t let it rest,” said Angel, perched on the corner of his large desk. “What do you think?”Angel had given Wesley a brief history of Orla and her affect on Liam as well as a guarded description of the recent Orla-like appearances and sensations.
“Honestly, it sounds as though you have worked out all the Orla symbolism. You don’t really need me to tell you,” Wesley replied. He turned away from the darkened window and leant against the sill.
“I guess not. Back then I had no idea how to love or let myself be loved. I didn’t even want to recognise love when it was offered. I was freaked out then. I’m scared now. Love, responsibility, you name it.” Angel spoke to the painting on the opposite wall. For most of the conversation with Wesley, Angel had directed his dialogue to the painting, unsure of how much Wesley knew of his present day love-burden and hesitant to give too much away. Anyway, it was easier to meet the steady gaze of the solemn looking woman in the huge pink feathered hat than to look into Wesley's all too discerning eyes.
“Orla, at least, the memory of Orla; the old confusion caused by a combination of alarm, panic and love; it’s all acting now as an early warning signal. It is simply your subconscious using your memories of Orla as mental flags - keeping your fear at a healthy level,” said Wesley quietly.
A quick shiver ran down Angel’s back as he remembered the chilling depression he had suffered a short while ago. “Huh. Healthy for who?” asked Angel.
“For us all - particularly Cordelia.”
“You know?” Angel was hardly surprised when he saw Wesley nod his head.
“I’m not going to walk away this time Wesley. I’m might be scared - but, not this time. Just think, if I had had the strength of character to follow Orla and not Darla.....,” Angel sat quietly for a moment, “Cordelia and I can be friends, we are friends, she doesn’t need to know I how feel. I can explain away the - stupid - things I have done and....”
“Angel, the Lord knows I’m the last one to want to see you romantically involved with a woman, but this is Cordelia! How can you explain without telling the truth and without hurting her?”
“I’m trying to protect her! Wesley, I’m in control, I can....”
“No, you will never be fully in control - you have to fight the demon every day. You’ve been through this before. What makes you think another town, another girl, will make the situation any different?”
“You expect me to run away or what? Tell Cordelia to leave? Tell her I love her? There is no correct solution, Wesley. I have to stay in LA, Cordelia is my seer. The best I can do is to be her friend.” Frustrated, Angel pushed himself up from the desk and began to pace between the desk and the window.
“And if Cordelia wants more? If Cordelia is in love with you?”
“She’s not.” He denied the possibility with a firm clarity.
“For pity’s sake Angel....”
“She’s not, I’d know. God, I don’t want her to be! You aren’t to say anything to Cordelia about this conversation!”
“Well you can count on me not breathing a word to Cordelia!”
“About what?”
Both men started at the sound of Cordelia’s voice behind them She stood leaning against the door frame.
“Cordelia! We were just talking about....,” Wesley began.
“Nothing,” Angel finished bleakly.
“Nothing? Oh, is this the guy talk, the um ‘delicate’ stuff? About time.”
“Yes,” admitted Angel.
“You haven’t suddenly remembered that you did hurt Orla... have you?”
“No, just some, er... guy-type talk. Honest.” Angel attempted a smile. It was more like a slipshod smirk.
“I take it you mean sex? How gross! Hey, I know some men like to compare notes but geesh, from two hundred and fifty years ago?” Cordelia wrinkled her nose.
“Sex is sex, Cordelia, whenever it happened.” Wesley chimed in before Angel could make any denial.
“As if you would....” Cordelia’s derogatory comment was forestalled.
“Okay Cordelia, the Orla discussion is finished. I don’t want to mention her again. Understood?” Angel said as he walked towards the door.
“Fine with me!”
“Good.” Angel moved to squeeze past Cordelia, still standing in the doorway. “And I did not have sex with Orla,” he added in a lowered voice.
“Oh, now I understand. That sort of delicate guy-stuff.... performance issues, huh?” she grinned up at him.
Angel grimly swallowed the lurking need to kiss the smiling face.
“Yeah,” he smiled back and walked on.
back to index
Disclaimer: The characters are Joss Whedon's, Mutant Enemy's and probably a heap of other people about
whom I know nothing.
I lay no claim to ownership of the characters, I simply like to ask them out to play now and then.