i could have danced all nightRated: PG
Posted: June 30, 2000
Lyric Reference: "I Could Have Danced All Night"
Spoilers: "She", Season 1, Ep. 13 (the one that starts off with the party at Cordelia's.)
"I’ve been thinking - your comment - yesterday...""Which one?" Cordelia asked idly. "Taking a pay-cut? I refuse. I am already underpaid!"
"No, um - about the party." He was looking uncomfortable. "Not dancing, talking. Scaring your guests."
"Oh, that comment. Saying Wesley was cooler got to you did it?"
"No!"
Cordelia wasn’t convinced by the adamant reply. She finally looked up from the computer screen and quickly assessed Angel’s nervous mannerisms - they were almost all on display. Cordelia waited. Prompting usually extended the agony.
She reloaded the internet page and pretended not to care whether or not he was able to find his words today or next week. Angel had wandered over to the other side of the office and pulled a leaf from the long-suffering indoor plant that resided on top of the filing cabinet.
"I was wondering - with the dancing…" he fizzled out again.
"Yes?" A gentle, encouraging prod.
"Would you teach me?"
"You can dance! I’ve seen you…" Oops, she thought, that had been with Buffy, and technically it had been more holding on to each other and shuffling on the spot than getting into any real rhythm. Cordelia swept her eyes briefly to Angel’s face, he didn’t appear to have even heard the comment.
"And talk," he added dejectedly. Maybe that needed clarifying. "How to talk to people… women especially - chat…."
"…them up?" Angel’s frown took on a pained aspect at the interruption. Cordelia continued, "Okay, I don’t mind, but why? How come you want to socialise all of a sudden? I don’t particularly want to see you getting too chummy!"
"Not like that. Meeting clients - and things."
Cordelia giggled. Angel's expression of pain turned to despair. Cordelia decided to share the giggly image his words had conjured. "Oh sure. I can just see it!" Cordelia put on her best office voice. "Angel, Mrs Ballythingummy has arrived to consult you about her desperately serious demon issue. Could you put on the music and take her for a twirl around the office while I locate the files?"
"Never mind," he mumbled and began to slump away. Sometimes, just sometimes, he felt totally overpowered by Cordelia.
Cordelia, immediately regretful, called after him.
"Angel - don’t - I’m sorry - of course I can teach you. I was only curious. We can start right now if you would like?"
Angel came slowly back, propped himself against Cordelia’s desk and attempted to make a wordier explanation. "Cordelia, I’d just like to be able to blend better - when I have to mix and talk with…with humans."
"You talk to humans everyday, Angel. Do I need to remind you? Wesley and I?"
"I haven’t forgotten. I mean other people. Talking to you is easy - usually - well, most of the time," said Angel.
Cordelia’s mouth relaxed into a forgiving smile. "Hey! I’ll bet you don’t have any dance music downstairs. I can bring my cd player and a couple of dance compilations with me tomorrow."
"I have music," he said defensively, "Records."
"Oh yeah! If you want to do a mouldy waltz or a boring polka!"
"Waltzing can be fun. At least, it used to be - one hundred and fifty years ago." Dancing with Darla, revelling with Darla. Not a good comparison, he thought. This is Cordelia - no revelling. "I’ll teach you to waltz when we are done with my lessons. Unless you learnt in Sunnydale?"
Cordelia shook her head - she had managed to avoid those very uncool formal dance sessions. "Why not right now? Get the gruesome stuff over and done with first."
"Gruesome? Thanks!"
Angel found a crustily covered old record with a title in German that translated as something or other to do with a ‘fabulous collection of traditional and patriotic Austrian Waltzes’.Cordelia eyed the record distastefully. All the time spent formulating excuses in Sunnydale and here she was volunteering to be taught a fusty old dance by a fusty old…well, kind of cool… vampire. The cool vampire bit made up for the fusty old dance bit in Cordelia’s estimation. After all, she regretted, she could have been more sympathetic to his request for help instead of poking fun.
The old gramophone was creakily set in motion and a steady chuh-clink-chuh-clink accompanied a slightly wheezy crescendo of violins.
Cordelia stood in the middle of the small floor space, waiting expectantly. Angel remained beside the gramophone, the fingers of one hand strumming lightly against the wood, glancing over to Cordelia with a troubled expression. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Gee, let me think. You offered, I said yes. Since when have you known me to knock back anything that was free?"
"Gruesome. That’s what you said. I only realised - this could actually be... I mean ... me touching you."
"Oh, please! I’m always touching you! Do you see me flinch or groan in disgust? Some days it’s plain difficult to keep my hands off you! I’m either covering you in bandages, chaining you up or kissing you!"
He smirked at the recent memories. She was still waiting, eyebrows raised in a dubious query.
"Fine, let’s do this." Encouraged, Angel took two short steps to place himself within arm’s reach of Cordelia. "I guess you know the basics?"
"Yep. Do you want to lead or shall I?"
"Let’s pretend I’m the man, shall we?"
"I can go there." Cordelia held her hands out to him. Courage wavering, Angel was slow to respond, eyes flickering from one very feminine hand to the other. Hesitantly he clasped Cordelia’s outstretched fingers. He shuffled minimally closer and lightly rested his hand on the slim waist.
Angel had held Cordelia close on other occasions. Holding her now, he resolved, would be no different, especially if he could completely focus on the music and method of the dance. Angel quickly looked down to the upturned, expectant face and caught a glimpse of determined patience. She was set on being nice, kind, patient. Hell. As little as he wanted her to be attracted to him, or to be physically attracted himself, patience was not what he coveted. He should be relieved that he and Cordelia could have a purely friendly friendship. No hidden dangers, everything simple and open. Hell, Angel. Keep your mind on the music. You withstood sensuous Jheira - this is Cordelia Chase, ex-Sunnydale Cordette, how difficult could dancing with her be?
"Do you like this piece of music? Johann Strauss wrote quite a few waltzes," said Angel, practicing his social small-talk skills.
"Oh right - the Blue Danube guy."
"No, that was his son."
"But Johann Strauss wrote the Blue Danube?"
"Yes."
"So why did you say ‘No’?"
"Because the Johann Strauss who wrote this waltz, didn’t write that waltz!"
Cordelia swiped Angel’s shoulder adeptly with the hand that had been softly lying against his shirt. "Geesh! Just dance."
Angel tried to dance. He pushed Cordelia around the floor. Pushed, literally, as Angel managed to maintain maximum air space between their two torsos. His see-sawing levels of self-confidence led him to employ the better safe than find out strategy. Cordelia’s set patience was decaying and eventually disappeared as Angel’s grip on her waist tightened to painful proportions.
"Stop!" Cordelia pulled her hand away from Angel. "Stop. You can’t lead by putting a stranglehold on my waist and dragging and shoving me around! I have seen people waltzing you know! You are supposed to guide me with your thigh!" Cordelia pointed an accusatory finger at the appropriate piece of Angel’s (rather splendid) anatomy.
"Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you." Angel looked abashed. There was always someone to be hurt. "We should forget about…"
"No! As much as I didn’t want to learn to waltz, we have a deal! I suffer though this lesson and then I make your dead life utterly miserable tomorrow with modern Saturday Night Feverish dance stuff. I am looking forward to that now - so you had better keep your part of the bargain. Waltz," she demanded, "properly!"
He did.
Cordelia gradually relaxed into Angel’s embrace and allowed herself to be effortlessly directed around the room. Easy, she thought and wondered why everyone had made a fuss about ‘proper’ dance lessons. If I can waltz this effortlessly, anyone can. She generously conceded that a good partner might be of some benefit and, well, Angel was improving.
Cordelia concentrated on fixing her gaze on the top button of Angel’s shirt, determined not to look at his face or make any comment that might put him off balance and send him scuttering defensively back to his shell. Before long, the concentration had trickled away to be replaced by imagination. A sparkling, glittering, chandeliered ballroom, movie fog rolling over the reflective floor. Angel, flawlessly handsome and seductively gloomy in black tuxedo, herself in a sequined splendour of alluring, what-is-holding-it-up, colourful nothingness - bodies slithering and sliding, moulding rhythmically ….
Cordelia’s fingers had strayed over Angel’s shoulder and now absently, slowly, moved against the sensitive flesh at the back of his neck. Shit, this is good, thought Angel.
Angel tilted his head and saw the far-away-look in Cordelia’s eyes, seemingly centred on the dark shirt. Where was she? He had lessened his pace, enjoying the comforting presence in his arms. Comforting? The touch on his neck was… good. The scent drifting from her increasingly warm body only added to the … good. Angel mentally shook himself. Hell. He withdrew his gaze from Cordelia’s studied countenance of other-placeness. They were virtually shuffling on the spot. Hell.
"Nice shirt?" he asked abruptly.
Startled out of her reverie, she stumbled onto the toe of his rather large shoe and embarrassed, immediately forgot her resolve, bringing the lesson to a unexpected end.
"Sorry," she grimaced an apology for the toe treading. "So. Can you Tango?" she asked brightly.
Angel dropped the hand and the body attached to it as though they were bathed in sunlight. Holding Cordelia close for a conventional waltz had been an enjoyable challenge. However, an exotic, sensuous, rhythmical…. "Tango? Um, no."
"It’s okay, I was only teasing. I have to admit, you’d look great all suited up, swirling and posturing around a dance floor with your broody face all dark and…."
"Coffee?" he asked, and stalked off to the bland safety of the kitchen.
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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.