standing on the cornerRating:PG
Posted: October 9, 2001
Notes: (1) A continuation of Sitting in the Back Row, from Cordelia's rambling and random perspective. I know this BC has been a while in the coming, so a refresher might be a good idea.
“Is a thirsty man happy with one sip of Coke?”I went out there to be angry, firm, determined.
I went out there because I couldn’t enjoy my lobster while his eyes burnt holes into my treasured four year old Gucci blouse.
When Derek - have I mentioned Derek? Hey, he was nice and average and solid and all sparkling white toothy. He breathed. Always a plus in a prospective boyfriend. Top of the Cordelia checklist - pulse, breathing, good teeth. Anyway, when he and I took our seats in the restaurant, I thought I caught a glimpse of broody vampire, but I put it down to wishful - no, not wishful thinking, but habit. I’m so used to having Angel hovering and hulking around me, for a fleeting second I almost expected to see him out in the dark.
When the sizzling tingling in my shoulder blades began just after the soup arrived (french onion under a flaky pastry crust) I put it down to an overactive imagination and wishful - no, no not wishful thinking - maybe regret. I had to move on didn’t I? What good would come of sinking deeper and deeper into the despair a set of soft brown eyes or the cold comfort of a cold hand clasping mine offered?
God, I had been living for Monday nights and then Saturday nights. The long lonely stretch between Tuesday morning and Saturday night had become as bleak as nursing a four day vision hangover with no one but Dennis and a TV Land "Bonanza" Marathon for company
I just wanted to find my Angel again and we were - are - were getting along just swell - until I ruined it all by wanting too much. We were aiming for friends, level one, beginners. Got there, no hassle, framed the certificate and suddenly, boy, I’m out of my depth and shooting for friends, level six, dating. Geesh, what was I thinking? Obviously, I wasn’t thinking I was fantasising, an inside my head escape from a dull, vision-led un-social life.
Don’t know when you are well off, Cordelia, do you? Always wanting more. You had a friend again and Angel played along nicely, innocently, into your everyday girl goes to the movies with her everyday guy. Of course, the everyday guy was slow on the uptake, he’s a gentleman, and I had to be the one to hold his hand and that was just so everyday. Holding hands at the movies and once, only once, holding his hand all the way home. How ordinary can it get?
Huh, normal and Angel. Square peggy things. That’s Angel and no matter how hard I pretend, I’ll never hammer him into that ordinary round hole. God, that sounds vaguely sexual. Sick, Cord, you are sick.
I mean, it should have been safe, right? I was certain there was no way he was going to make a pass at me - me and Angel? Ugh, no. There’s this huge no-man’s land - or no chick land - emblazoned around the guy. He isn’t interested in anyone ‘cept she who slays and I’m too smart to wanna fall for a vampire with an iffy soul. Death wish, much?
So I was safe. Angel was safe. Was.
I guess I was wrong, leading the guy on.. Is hand holding classed as leading on? But I thought it would be okay, I didn’t mean any harm. Dating without the added msg or salt. His hand in mine was friendly and comforting and right. Was. I was trying to turn the most abnormal guy in my life into Joe Average. Reality check in the Cordelia Chase aisle of escapism.
Is that how it felt for him too? Comforting. Is that how it happened? Was he looking for a new hang-up and I was right there, all handy with the hands?
You’ve gotta admit, Angel is a hunk, isn’t he? You know, I’m not totally immune to a good-looking man, and at one time you might even have shouted “Go, Cordy!” when I told you about the movie non-dates, but you see, there’s this bundle of fairly active self-preservation stuff in my brain that just won’t be ignored - usually. Walking home with him from the Egyptian, my hand engulfed in his, the alarms didn’t go off. Weird. It was only after that when I started choosing my outfit the day before movie night, and I spent an hour dithering over the the tones of Parme Chantoung and Earth Angel and deciding on Earth Angel because of the shade name that I eventually heard the bells and hooters and whistles and sirens.
I can tell you are probably thinking it was my fault that Angel got all smoochy with me on that noisy, windy street corner. I stood there, didn’t I? And I waited. I waited because I knew there had to be more. Somewhere, somehow. If I had turned away in a Cordelia huff it wouldn’t have happened. I’d have gone back to my date and Angel’d stand there stewing up the gloom. Of course, I would have been really fuming by the time the creme brulee arrived and I’d probably have stormed over to his corner again and seethed some more. Then he would have kissed me. The kiss was going to happen somewhere, sometime. One of those things you can look back at and say “I should have known it was coming.”
'Cept I didn’t.
He kissed me and I couldn’t focus or think. I felt though. God, I felt - marshmallow knees wobbling in cotton candy legs, tingling lips and aching breasts and lungs that damn well forgot how to work. Then he stopped. Just stopped. Pulled away from me. Along with the freaking air rushing into my body came fear and all the little safety measures I had built in sorta went haywire. Buzzing, screeching and flashing all at once in my head. It was all wrong, it had to be.
“Cordy, I...”“Don’t Angel, not now.”
“I just wanted to give you a bit of me, you’ve...”
“Give me? You call kissing me like that giving? Stealing my sanity is not giving, Angel.”
“I... I drive you crazy?”
“Yeah, yeah. I get you where you belong - all safe and abnormal and potentially deadly but safe, you know and then you come along and start holding my hand and...”
“Actually, Cordy, you...”
“...and if that isn’t enough you stand there and kiss me!”
“It seemed the right thing to do, at the time.”
“Right? For who? You are so not right for me!”
“Then why did you stay?”
“Huh?”
“You have a living boy over there. But you stayed. Why did you stand there and look so ‘kiss me’?”
“I did not look ‘kiss me’, I only looked, there had to be more... I, I only wanted to understand.”
“And do you?”
“I understand that you can’t kiss me again - like that or go to the movies or lurk or get all hand holdy or...”
“Tell me Cordy, one thing, tell me - no happy clause - huh? No threat of Angelus and would you still be pushing me away?”
“No fair.”
“Answer me.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know. Why me, Angel? Why do you have to fixate on me?”
“I thought you’d be safe. Damn it Cord, you are so prickly and and defensive and closed-up I thought it would be safe to be around you. I didn’t choose to fall..., to care so much.”
“How much, Angel? How much?”
“A lot.”
“No, you don’t do this to me. We are friends and you care about me because we are friends, but that’s all. Do you understand? If you feel the need to obsess then you will have to find someone else. Fred! Get me?”
“Cordelia, I didn't choose...”
“Get me?”
He put his hands in his pockets, you know how he buries them, burrows them knuckled into the cloth when he’s tense. Yep. He was tense. What did I expect? He all but told me he was in love with me. He can’t. I won’t let him. I’m not being all St Cordelia of Silverlakey here, but it was for the best, right? He’d thank me for waking up in time and keeping the relationship in the safe, distant-friendly line.God, I can’t stand it when he gets so little boy lostish. He wasn’t even looking at me. Standing on the corner, staring at his Docs and the itty bit of old newsprint worrying around his feet in the breeze.
It was for the best, he’d understand, he’d look back and say “thank Christ”. Once he was feeling stronger and he realised he didn’t have to have a woman as a pivot in his life. But now...
I put my hands up, one on either cool cheek and lifted his head so I could see into those - yep - big brown eyes but, for once, the puppy and the little boy weren’t there. There was anguish and sadness, yes, but it wasn’t ‘pity the puppy - don’t kick me’ stuff it was just ingrained, part of him, like his leather duster - there.
Step back, let him go, he’ll survive.
Would I?
I could feel his pain, echoing inside me. Why did it hurt so much? Hot pincers mangling my intestines - ugh. I was feeling his pain, right? Not mine, because I had come to terms with the situation. That’s right, isn’t it? I only had to walk back across the street to Derek and creme brulee. Didn’t I?
God, do Angel’s eyes have hands because something reached into me, I swear; tugging and pulling, squeezing and stroking all the private, locked-up me. Damn, I’m weak.
His face drifted closer to me, eyes full of nightlights and fear and love; ragged little puffs of his breath swirled over my face. So close. Where was my courage?
Which courage - the courage to turn away or the courage to stay?
The courage to run back to an increasingly false reality or to stay and confront a new, agonisingly raw reality?
I sent up a last minute, under my breath request for an extra serve of understanding and strength and hope. Then I leant in until I could taste the tangy, hesitant air drifting from his mouth and I kissed him.
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.