close your eyesRated: G
Posted: July 10, 2000
Lyric Reference: "Close Your Eyes"
Chronology: A companion piece to "I Could Have Danced All Night"
Notes: If this gets a little angsty, sorry - I was writing this as "our Pat" lost at Wimbledon :(
The dance lesson was the promised nightmare.Cordelia was baffled. If he could find the rhythm in an old waltz how could he possibly miss the loud incessant beat in a modern dance song?
"Relax" and "go with the music" just didn’t work on Angel. He demanded steps to follow. The track she started with was "Move Your Body". Heck, he simply had to do as the lyrics said. That didn’t go down too well.
"Have you listened to the words of this song Cordelia? ‘If you want to move your mind - just move your body’? What is that supposed to mean? Shake around the grey cells?"
Cordelia quickly shushed him and reset the cd. "We aren’t here to critique lyrics! You wanted to learn to dance! Never mind the words, feel the beat."
She took his reluctant hands in her own. "Go limpish." Other than a twitch to his eyebrows and a bleaker set to his mouth, she didn’t notice any perceptible change.
"Look, like this..." Cordelia began to wriggle and sway in time to the music. Hair and hips swinging.
Angel surveyed Cordelia for a few seconds before looking away, self-conscious. She was jiggling - all of Cordelia was jiggling.
Cordelia opened her eyes as the song came to an end. Angel was admiring the floor with the intent expression of a floorboard enthusiast. "Angel!" Cordelia was well on the way to exasperation. More than five minutes of determined encouragement and she was getting nowhere. "You aren’t even watching! If you aren’t interested why are we wasting our time? This was your idea, remember?"
"I... it’s... everything is moving Cordelia. I can’t look." He took a less than surreptitious glance at the now stable breasts, as though expecting them to start bouncing of their own accord.
"Well? What do you expect?" she said, looking down at her chest. "I hold onto them? For heaven’s sake! Not everything has to be about sex! You’ll have to get used to a lot more than this if you want to socialise! They are just bits of flesh - jiggly functional bits of flesh!"
"Functional?"
"Yes! Feeding babies - suckling a child...." Oh Lord, why not just give up now, thought Cordelia.
"I think this is a coffee moment, don’t you?" Angel didn’t wait for an answer. He was already on the way to his kitchen.
"Yes," she sighed.
Angel had wanted to forget modern dance and plunge right in to ‘social chit chat’ but over their coffee Cordelia talked him into another attempt at dancing, with a vague promise not to move around quite so energetically.The next track on the cd was Tina Cousins’ "Nothing to Fear". Harmless, Cordelia thought, no heavy beat, quick but danceable.
Once again Cordelia took the cool hands in a light clasp, gave Angel an encouraging nod, closed her eyes and allowed her body to move with the quick beat, letting his hands slip gently away. Cordelia began to sing along with the chorus, "....nothing to fear as long as I’m here, close your eyes," and opened her own.
He was gone. Again.
"Crud!" Irritated beyond patience, Cordelia whipped the cd from the machine, roughly closed the disk inside the cover and almost threw it into her bag.
"Angel, I’m going!" she called loudly in the direction of the kitchen. There was no reply. The kitchen, his usual first line of retreat, was empty. As was the bedroom and bathroom. The office or the roof? What on earth could have sent him scurrying off? Cordelia debated going to search for her wayward boss. Her concern, and curiosity, dominated.
She found him on the roof. Legs up along the rampart, back to the brick wall, hands clasped in his lap, looking out over ‘his’ city.
Angel looked up as Cordelia stepped onto the roof. Relieved - he thought she had probably gone home in a huff . Irked - he really wanted some time to, well, brood - genuinely.
"I wasn’t running away from you Cordelia." He hoped his tone fell somewhere between the two emotions.
"Glad to hear that," Cordelia leant against the low wall, beyond his large shoes, "What happened?"
Angel contemplated resistence. No, she was here now. "The words of the song."
"Move Your Body?" she was bewildered. Why would he get so upset about such pitiful lyrics?
"Hmph! No the other," he moved his feet restively. "...about ‘close your eyes’."
Cordelia waited.
"That’s what she said to me, just before she sent me to Hell. ‘Don’t worry. Close your eyes.’ Oh, and ‘I love you’." His voice had taken on a ragged edge.
Cordelia stood silently, looking down at her folded arms. Buffy. Shit. She really wasn’t in the mood for one of his Buffy moments. Anyway, how could she possibly say anything soothing to that little revelation. Don’t worry? Nevermind? I’m sure she didn’t mean it that way? You didn’t deserve it? It’s all over now? Cordelia made an effort to swallow, her throat and mouth all at once felt dry, rough and raw. She remained silent.
"Nothing to say Cordelia? Not like you!" She winced at the bitter tone. Fine, he wanted a fight - he certainly wasn’t going to get sympathy.
"What do you expect? Platitudes? I don’t know what I could possibly say that would make you feel better about those words...or about...anything." Cordelia moved her head slightly to see his reaction. "Happy?"
"No." Quickly he pushed himself forward, legs swung down on either side of the rampart, leaning on his hands as he drove his face close to her own.
"Happy? No. She said she loved me, she killed me, knowing I would go to Hell." Cordelia could feel the cold air on her cheek as he angrily hissed the words. "I never thought about her words much .... until I heard the song.... ‘I love you - don’t worry - close your eyes’."
"It’s history. Deal with it." Cordelia didn’t want the conflict, wishing she had left in a huff , not bothered to seek him out. She thrust herself away from the wall. He could brood all he damn well liked.
Angel was on his feet before Cordelia took a step. "Deal with it?" His fingers dug into the soft flesh above her elbow. "Those are your words of advice?"
"Are you looking for a brawl? You are hurting me Angel!" Cordelia pulled away from his grip. "Okay? Take it out on someone else! Go find a demon to throttle." Cordelia made for the door to the stairwell, but turned on her heel half way, her anger swelling on injustice.
"Buffy killed you to save the world, remember? Whether that sent you to Heaven, Hell or Walmart wasn’t the issue. You’d been badder than bad - killing Jenny, torturing Giles - saving the world - that you tried to suck into Hell - meant you had to die," Cordelia spat out. She wasn’t sure if she was making sense, was beyond caring. "Back then - if it had been me that had to kill you? Yes! I would have done it - but I didn’t love you!"
Angel stared at her mutely, sullenly.
"Now? Would you kill me now?" Angel had moved closer and stood within a few feet of Cordelia.
"Don’t - this isn’t fair."
"No? Who’s to say you won’t be put in a similar position? We deal with evil every day....You say you are prepared to stake Angelus?"
Cordelia nodded silently.
"Will you kill me - as I am? Look at me, Cordelia!" Angel clasped his fingers around Cordelia’s wrist, pulling her around to face him. "Look at me. As I am. Angel."
How could he even ask? The thought made her feel ill. "This is sick!" even so, she whispered a "No. You’d have to send for Buffy."
The grip on Cordelia’s wrist was relaxed. "I’m sorry..." he attempted the apology which only renewed Cordelia’s anger.
"No you aren’t! You were hurting and you wanted someone else to hurt too - share the horror - and I was foolish enough to let that be me! Damn you - why can’t you keep your demons to yourself? Isn’t it bad enough having to live this life without you trying to add your torment and grief to my own?"
"Cordelia..."
"Shut up! I don’t have Buffy’s strength to kill you - physical or emotional - anyway there’s no way an ordinary mortal like me could love you the way Buffy was supposed to - the greatest-love-of-all-time crap that was shoved down our throats - as though Willow or me or Xander weren’t special enough to ever love or be loved that way..." she was getting lost, she didn’t start out to say this, "...But even as a friend - at least I thought I was your friend - I couldn’t kill you. Get me a stake though - right now I’d give it my best shot!"
Cordelia’s tumbled words only confused Angel. How did Buffy’s love bear on Cordelia staking him today? He focused on her last few sentences. "You are my friend. I know I don’t always treat you...as well as I should... and I might not act like the best friend in the world...."
"You got that right!"
"I was messed up tonight - thinking about the words - wondering how someone you loved could hurt you so much."
"Huh! And when you came back - acting as though you’d been on the Riviera for four months." Cordelia had, in her way, stood up for Buffy enough for one night. Time for some backlash.
"Buffy didn’t understand. She’s young." Angel’s familiar Buffy-protective-tone had returned.
"Oh please! Not that chestnut. We are the same age! How much understanding does it take to realise that Hell can’t have been much fun?" They were back in their customary Buffy camps.
"Aaargh!" Cordelia groaned and leant forward over the rampart, her hair tumbling into the cool black air, hiding her face from him. "You started this - so I am not going to apologise for how I feel about Buffy. Anyway - wasn’t I defending her a few minutes ago?"
Angel grunted a smile. "I expect nothing less than honesty from you Cordelia."
"Even when you don’t listen to me?"
"Especially then." Angel reached out a finger and pushed a strand of the wafting curtain of hair away. "I am truly sorry. You were right - I wanted to hurt back. I should have gone prowling - or at least tried to send you away."
"Next time - give me patience - I won’t follow you up here."
"This might sound - depraved - but, I am glad you did."
"Yeah? Me too. It’s a worry." Cordelia rubbed the cool air from her arms and once more made for the stairwell. "Coffee?"
"Mmmm."
"I recall that last night you promised to, um - ‘make my dead life utterly miserable’ tonight," Angel said as they sat at the kitchen table."Uh huh. True to my word - with your able assistance," Cordelia managed a wan smile over her coffee mug. She gave the mug a quizzical glance. "What is it with you guys and refreshment breaks?"
Angel raised his eyebrows, bemused.
"Tea and coffee. With Giles it is tea, you it’s coffee. A moment gets hairy or uncomfortable and there you are, in the kitchen - beans in hand. Or in Giles’ case - tea leaves."
"Really?" he sounded skeptical.
"Yes. Last night - I mention the tango - you couldn’t get in here quick enough. Tonight when I jiggled - coffee. Again tonight, after our fist fight on the roof - coffee!"
"Actually you mentioned coffee and the bout on the roof wasn’t technically a fist fight."
"Huh. How come I feel bruised?" Cordelia gingerly prodded her arm. Angel rose from his seat, opened the freezer and swiftly wrapped some ice in a tea-towel.
"I’m sorry, I should have done this straight away," he said, squatting down beside her and tying the towel above the crook of her arm.
"I don’t think it is quite that bad, Angel - but I’m not going to complain! Makes a nice change to bandaging you up all the time," she smiled down at him, relieved to see the smile returned in full.
Angel returned to his chair, the smile paling. "Cordelia - after Xander..."
Cordelia looked up swiftly from rearranging her ice pack. "Xander?"
"It probably still hurts," that had been pain he saw in her eyes, replacing surprise. "That’s what I wanted to ask. How long does it hurt? When can you look at someone else and hope? - without remembering the pain and loss?"
"Geeze Angel, you can really pick a moment!" Cordelia looked stunned. Angel dragged himself through a wallow of angst so now he thought it was her turn?
"You are already down. Better ask now than spoil a good mood later on." The reasoning seemed entirely logical to Angel.
"What the hell, I guess a lighthearted conversation would be out of place tonight. You know, I think about Xander sometimes and get this awful ache in my side," she grimaced at Angel. "That was a pun by the way."
"I know - a painful one."
"Hah! A pun on a pun! We’ll have a future in stand-up comedy yet. Chase and Angel - you get to be the straight guy!" Angel thought he could see a real sparkle in her eyes.
"Uh uh - Angel and Chase.... and you are trying to change the subject," said Angel and regretfully watched the sparkle die. "Look, if talking about Xander is too...."
Where was Mr Stoic tonight, wondered Cordelia? Why did he want to know about Xander? Compare notes on how he felt about Buffy? Was he looking for some sort of release? She couldn’t give him an easy answer.
"Everybody is different Angel," she said gently.
"Right...but I want to know about you. Does it hurt as much?"
"Sometimes it still hurts. Like after Wilson I... anyway, it’s not as though Xander was the love of my life. How could he be? - betrayal, rejection, humiliation - not to mention the near death experience!" Cordelia was talking to her sore arm, a solid but unresponsive audience. "Me, Cordelia Chase, fell for the school dork and he rejected me. I was pretty much me, me, me in those days."
Angel smiled forlornly at ‘those days’ - how long had it been - eighteen months?
"Are you asking because of all this angst tonight about Buffy?"
"Buffy?" he asked, surprised, as if it were the first time her name had been mentioned. "No, I really wanted to know about you - how you are coping."
"Oh! Oh?" Cordelia was suspicious. "You aren’t going to try and set me up with Wesley are you?"
Angel, confounded at the suggestion, smiled and shook his head.
"What about you - the forbidden love of all time?" No more walking on eggshells for this guy, thought Cordelia, pulling off the ice pack before her arm turned blue.
"Ah... well, recuperating. I’m a work in progress.... I think I’m doing well, don’t you? If you allow for the occasional, um - sulk?"
Sulk? Right, thought Cordelia. Oh, what the hell, he was smiling at her with smiley eyes.
"Great! Maybe we can date someday soon," she watched, satisfied, as the smile sank to an open mouthed gape.
"Whaaa..?"
"Joking," she said and neatly landed a piece of melting ice on his stupefied nose.
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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.