what's love got to do with itRating: MA15+
Posted: April 24, 2001
Spoilers: For my readers in Aus/NZ/UK/Europe...This series is based on season 2 (spoilers and eps). 'What's Love', in particular, is set post "Disharmony".
Notes: Special mentions to Elektra, Penny and CrazyKath for suggestions for Host-speke and an extra thanks to Penny for the quick beta!
Part One
"I have reached a decision.”Part TwoAngel glanced up from his hand-tooled, leather-bound copy of “A Tale of Two Cities” to where Cordelia stood making her cup of coffee. Patiently, he marked the page, closed the book, folded his hands in his lap and waited.
“I want to fall in love.”.
Angel blinked. He had expected an announcement on which movie to watch or to be told she wanted pizza (extra pepperoni) for dinner..
“Or more to the point - I want to be loved! and quit with the Whitney-face!”.
“Huh? Whitney?”.
“My pet goldfish in grade two. There was Brad as well, but you had more of a Whitneyesque look going for you there. I’ve told you about my goldfish before. You never remember anything!” Cordelia slumped into an armchair, coffee cup perfectly balanced..
“Cordelia... you said...you said you wanted to fall in love and then you started talking about fish?”.
“That’s right. You reminded me of my goldfish.” Cordelia demonstrated the open mouth goldfishness of the long departed Whitney. Angel sucked up the slack as he realised his jaw was sliding away once more. Cordelia wanted to fall in love, wanted to be loved in return and she was talking to him about the possibility. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t....
“But what about, the you know?”.
“Don’t look so clueless, you know what love is...”.
“Yeah, but - who were you planning on loving?”.
“Silly! How would I know? I haven’t met him yet.”.
A tiny, freshly budded hope, in a far away part of Angel’s dead heart, withered. .
“But...”.
“I’m going to Caritas tonight to ask our friendly aura-reader to tell me something worthwhile!”.
“Like?”.
“Who I will be falling in love with and then I can go find him. Get the ball rolling. You know, head start.”.
“Why not wait?”.
“Because I might have to wade through the angsty mush and spilled guts of another four or five failed relationships before I get to my ‘one true love’. I mean why? If I can go straight to the goodness? Wouldn’t you?”.
“Um. Pass,” he mumbled before continuing with more determination, “Relationships have to develop, mature, grow. You can’t pre-empt fate. ”.
“Oh get out of here, we do it all the time! Visions, rescuing people! If I didn’t get visions what would happen to those people? I just want to get the good news on me. There has to be some good news.”.
Too soon, he thought, far too soon. Love would come in a few years, why couldn’t she be patient. The despairing ‘some good news’ tugged at both his conscience and his growing compulsion to see her happy. .
“Why? Why now? What brought on this need to know? You are only twenty, very young, too young, no reason to rush...”.
“Harmony.”.
“Harm...?” he groaned. .
“Do you know, Harmony has had a more intense relationship than I have ever had - and she was dead at the time! What does that say for my un-love life?”.
“You are dedicated to the... the cause! There will be time for love in two or three years!”.
“The cause! God, you make it sound like I round up stray puppies for neutering! And what makes you think my life will be any different in a few years? Women younger than me are getting over the ‘love of their life’ - more to the point, people I know have had suffocating, controlling relationships! Not me!”.
“And look at how unhappy it makes some of them. Besides, you had Xander....”.
“No way... Xander had me! He was too busy wondering if the grass was taller in the woods.”.
“Oh.” Shit, his head was spinning. Goldfish, puppies, Harmony, love and grass in the woods and most importantly, how to keep her from hearing the truth - or the potential truth..
“I want a life Angel and some fun and a man I can rely on, someone to love me!”.
“And you to love him?”.
“Of course. You’ve done the ‘one true love’ bit. What if that experience never happened?”.
If he had never experienced love, where would he be now? Still hiding in New York alleys? Possibly. In Los Angeles trying to keep up with Cordelia’s mercurial conversation? Probably not. He smiled to himself. At the very least, he was never bored with Cordelia for company. The inner smile faded. The truth about love. What hope was there.
“Well... I ... I’ll come with you.”.
“No need. I’m a regular.”.
“I’d like to hear you sing.”.
“Whatever - I’ve been practicing my husky style. You can get away with a lot if you work the phlegm.”.
Cordelia stood on the low stage of Caritas and performed her enthusiastic rendition of Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It.”Angel and the Host sat at a nearby table. One took a nervous sip from his warm double pig’s blood and the other critically examined a freshly made Sea-breeze.
Cordelia wailed into the chorus. “Oh, what’s love got to do with it, what’s love but a second-hand emotion, what’s love got to do with it, who needs a heart when a heart can be broken....”
Angel squinted at the wavering, lingering ‘broken’.
“So big fella, what do you want me to tell our Cor-delight?”
“She’s expecting the truth.”
“You ready for that?”
“No.”
“Ooh, who’s a fluffy scaredy cat?”
“No, I’m - yes - she deserves so much more....”
“You might not think you are ready to be a Prince Charming, but Cinders here is itching for her glass slipper!”
“There’s no way she... nuh-uh, don’t believe you.”
“Well, I won’t say our girl is going to walk right over and plant a big smoochie on that cute kisser, but she is warming up to you! Come on, give me a smile - that rusty old ticker of yours might even be beating again in a few years.”
“Are you sure?”
“No. Hey, what’s your complaint? If it was up to me, she’d be looking my way, but stop-light red isn’t her style. She’s more of a melting hersh-eyes-licious kind of girl.”
“Look, you told me I’d fall for Cordelia - that we would fall in love - but in two, maybe three years. What’s the point of telling her now?”
“I let you into the secret. I owe her the same.”
“You had a reason. You were trying to steer me away from Darla...”
“And see how well my plan worked!”
“...and nothing good will come from letting Cordelia know.”
Cordelia’s out-pouring finally came to an end.
“Ah, sweet-cheeks, you don’t see what I see. I wonder why she chose this song and not ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’?”
The Host giggled and Angel glared.
“You knew? You...knew!” Cordelia stamped her foot in a confused muddle of frustration, anger and disappointment.Cordelia and Angel stood face to face alongside an over-full dumpster in the Caritas alley. In her immediate fury, Cordelia had dragged Angel from the crowded bar to the relative privacy of the side street.
“Well, I wasn’t certain... he’s given me some misleading and even unreliable....” The accusation in Cordelia’s eyes brought him to a halt. “Yeah, yeah, he told me when I was going through my Darla phase.”
“And you were so pleased... the news drove you to try and lose your soul with her!”
“Shit...no! It was vague - he’s such a drama queen! At first I thought he was trying to distract me from Darla because he thought she was all wrong... later he told me - he said things that I have only just pieced together. It’s not like I guessed for sure.”
“Right - so all the protective looking-out-for-Cordelia’s you’ve been doing since you came back - it’s been your way of preserving the merchandise, huh?”
“Cord, don’t.”
“Don’t? Why the hell not? Geesh! My whole life has been ruined! I’m going to live unhappily ever after with a vampire! That’s the last time I sing Tina! No, it’s the last time I sing! Soul-reading’s a scam!” Cordelia thrust her hands onto her leather-clad hips and began striding aggressively up and down the narrow space.
Apprehensive, Angel observed the movements of the woman who had gradually, and painfully, become his best friend. He may have pushed aside the Host’s revelations in the turmoil of Darla but Angel had recently begun to imagine life-with-Cordelia as friend and lover. It had been difficult. The knowledge was too precipitous, his emotions were still raw and his confidence had been under-mined to even lower lows since the confrontations with Holland and Darla.
The prospect of love itself was both tantalising and terrifying, but Cordelia was right. Unhappily ever after. How could it be otherwise with a curse that denied the intimate belonging they both craved. Angel mentally kicked himself. What did it matter if there were a way around the curse? And he no longer placed any reliance on the old ‘becoming human’ chestnut. Life with a vampire, even with an un-cursed soul, was nothing for any woman to look forward to. He had no expectations, no delusions, no dreams, no hope.
“Stand still.”
For a moment the quietly snapped command baffled Angel. He stood motionless and automatically sniffed at the dank night air for approaching danger. Angel was still expecting a demonic ambush even as Cordelia clasped her hands behind his neck and pulled his face down toward her own. She was kissing him. Softly working at his mouth, parting his lips, swirling inside with her feather-light tongue. Angel, stunned, had no time to rationally decide to remove his hands from his duster pockets to pull her close before she was pushing him away, releasing his lips from between her own with a moist ‘pyuck’. Too soon. The kiss had ended too soon.
“Better than the last one?”
“Hmmm?”
“Did you hear fireworks? Little tweetie-birds?” an interrogatory frown puckered Cordelia’s brow.
“Um...” His head was still twirling. Shit, what was she doing to him. Plummeting to the depths of hopeless despair and soaring to the highs of a sensual kiss. Angel made an effort to drag his gaze from the shimmering, freshly kissed lips and focus, instead, on the words issuing from the sweet tasting mouth.
“Right. I should get home and wash my hair.” The frown on her face dissolved into a blank acceptance.
Not, Angel thought, happy words. Was she disappointed he hadn’t responded to the kiss or disappointed in the prospect of loving him or .... God, he couldn’t blame her.
“You are expecting too much. Pre-empting fate, remember? The time isn’t right.... a few more years and... it might not even happen... ”
“Yes, I’ll go wash my hair and then I might just find a nice high bridge to throw myself off. Nothing personal - but - you and relationships ... angsty, unhappy, tortuous, Angelusy affairs, right?”
Angel nose-dived to familiar despair. He shrugged mutely and hid his shame by staring at the ground.
“I wanted to be happy,” whispered Cordelia. The pale face, softly lit by an overhead sign for “Raunchy Rosy’s”, unexpectedly crumpled into tears.
The tears took Angel unaware. He rested a hand on each of her shoulders, bent down to peer into the brimming, swollen eyes and smothered a desire to tell Cordelia that he understood how she felt. He doubted the condolence would boost her spirit.
“He has been wrong before, Cord. I might not be the one.” The attempt at soothing only caused more tears to run down Cordelia’s reddened cheeks.
“Wrong? There might not....might not be... any... any...one?” she wailed between gulping hiccoughs.
Angel gathered the grieving girl to his chest and pressed one damp mascara drizzled cheek into his new charcoal-grey Italian dress shirt. To his credit, he didn’t consider the possible damage.
Suspension of disbelief. No, that wasn’t right. Angel rubbed a finger uneasily along his jaw. Suspension of beliefs - his beliefs.He stood beside Cordelia’s bed. A bed that contained a naked Cordelia. At least, she was naked underneath the frilly bed cover. He had glimpsed enough to know there was a lot of unclothed flesh, such as... well, the bits he would normally expect to see clothed.
Suspend the belief. Inconceivable that he would willingly stand here. Unthinkable that he was about to lie on the bed with a perfectly bare, satiny smooth, creamy-skinned Cordelia. Beyond absurd that all would end in a contented sigh.
Beliefs may have been shoved out of sight but anxiety, apprehension, misgiving, trepidation all crowded to the fore of Angel’s consciousness. Not that he could tell Cordelia. He imagined her comment. “Performance issues, much?”
Pitiable fool that he was, caring more for her happiness than his judgement, he packed away his convictions to accomodate her own.
“Do you think I’m... maybe... sexy?” Cordelia had asked the question on their return from Caritas.
Not a question that needed a lot of thought. Of course he thought she was sexy and he had told her so. But a warm buzz when she smiled at him didn’t equate to a quick romp in the hay. For Cordelia, it all hinged on the fact that they were not yet in love. She wanted to have sex now because they were able. Not in six months - right now - while ‘we are both pretty miserable about the whole Beauty and the Beast thing’.
Their shared misery was a bonus, Cordelia had reasoned. Hadn’t Angel admitted to being depressed - just a little - when he slept with Darla? and there was no ‘grrr’ - therefore sex with Cordelia, dejecting as the thought might be, would be ‘safe’. Once, according to Cordelia, love rolled around, Angel would once again be a no-boner. It was only logical that she found out what he was like in bed so she could properly appreciate the lack of what they would be missing out on - eventually. Or something. Angel’s argument that the physical intimacy she was proposing was best accompanied by love was ‘pfffted’ away. Love, apparently, had no place in their current relationship. That was the whole point.
Now here he was, trying not stare at a uncharacteristically immodest Cordelia.
Angel felt as though a dense fog had enveloped the operating ‘think, man’ part of his brain. Probably a small fog. Beliefs, strengths. Cordelia. She was holding a slender hand out to him, fingers beckoning. Angel cleared his throat.
“How do you want to do this?”
“Together.” she said and sighed impatiently. “What would you normally do? After 250 years I expect you have a routine going.”
“No. No routine - it depends on who I am with ... who it.... anyway I’m guessing you don’t want the vampire smackdown type of f.f.fore, um... mood-setting?”
“Nope. We’ll save that for role-playing during our mid-life crisis. Oh, have you already had a mid-life crisis? Might explain her. If you don’t mind, I’ll ignore that nasty little mental image.”
“Good idea,” he mumbled in relief. Cordelia’s delicately raised brow prompted Angel back to the current task. “If you don’t have a preference then gentle um, f.f.fond...hugs, then we could, well, do the rest.”
“Sex,” she said matter of factly.
“Yeah, that sounds more ... do we really need to talk about what to do?” he asked, on the verge of a whimper.
“I want it to be... special. I’ve only done - sex - once, I’d like this time to have ... a nice memory of it.”
Shit, only the one, fuck-wit Wilson. How had he forgotten. Cordelia didn’t deserve loveless fornication with a dead vampiric entity, not after Wilson and his demonic impregnation, maybe not ever. A little of the blanketing fog lifted and his heart sank.
“No. No way. I can’t do this to you, Cord,” he entreated as he shuffled a step back from the bed.
“Geesh, you don’t have to do anything. Get down here,” Cordelia muttered.
Angel felt her fingers snake inside the top of his pants and with a sound yank, he was sprawled over the bed; naked Cordelia quickly straddling his hips, her nippled orbs swaying inches from his suddenly Whitney-face.
“Now, just do as I say, and you will be fine.” The dark sweat shirt was brusquely pushed up under his chin.
“I was hoping...” the belt buckle was loosened...
“that you would lead the way,” buttons undone...
“seeing I’m the not-so-experienced partner here,” zipper un-zipped...
“and maybe even teach me a move or two,” boxers negotiated...
“but if not, then I don’t read Cosmo for nothing... oh, what’s this?”
Her delving hand re-appeared with a conspicuously limp penis.
“Why isn’t it, you know, firm already?”
Angel, watching in a growing horror, wondered why his limbs felt leaden, immovable. Cordelia had his penis in a firm, though elegant, grip between finger and thumb - frowning at it quizzically as though she wasn’t sure how it had made its way into the silk underwear.
“Cord, please, put it... my... put it down.”
“You’re nervous. Just relax, enjoy. I’ve studied the glossies....” Cordelia’s face disappeared, her hair wafting over Angel’s groin. Before he could protest, she popped up again, nose wrinkled. “There’s kind of, well, an odour. When did you shower?”
Angel groaned. For all his reluctance, the mental image of Cordelia’s glistening pink mouth around his throbbing, engorged penis, was profoundly arousing. Angel struggled to prop himself on one hand and reached out to retrieve his deflated dignity with the other.
“This afternoon. Cordelia - wait - we need to talk some more.”
“No talk, you are putting me off,” she protested and swiped at the encroaching hand. “I can do this.” Cordelia’s face displayed a grimacing contortion which Angel, always the enthusuiastic pessimist, took for fellate martyrdom. Cordelia lowered her head once more. Angel sank back onto the bed with a muffled moan which almost drowned out the deep, determined breath inhaled by Cordelia.
A moist, luscious warmth quickly enveloped Angel’s flaccid penis. A velvety rough tongue rasped along the underside of his shaft. Angel curled his fingers tightly into the folds of the delicate bedspread, pushed his head back into the pillow and closed his eyes. Cordelia. Sucking his cock. Go with the pleasure. Block out the slurping, noisy little gasps and gags that erupted each time she tried to take a bit more of him. Block out the teeth that uncomfortably grated on the way down. The fog settled once more. Darla’s teeth... now they ...
“Ouch! Cord... stop!” Angel sat up abruptly. The teeth had taken a sharper, inexpertly painful turn.
Cordelia remained kneeling between his spread thighs. She looked up at him with surprised, watery eyes, one hand still wrapped around the barely-pumped penis, her reddened lips covering his tip, prepared for the next toothy plunge.
Nausea rumbled its way through Angel’s gut. How could he pretend this sexual ... what? ... experimentation? exploration ? was justifiable?
Cordelia withdrew her mouth from Angel, sat back on her heels, wiped the excess moisture from her lips with one hand and neatly tucked Angel inside his black silk boxers with the other.
“Not working, huh?” she asked, an uncertain little smile peeping through.
“Hey - it isn’t your fault - I’m tense and... and tired ... I’ve had a long day - but you! You were doing, wow, great! ”
Cordelia crawled over the muscular thigh, threw herself down alongside Angel and dragged the rumpled bed-cover over her hips.
“Your lie-face sucks, Angel!” To his dismay, she buried her face into his chest and gurgled with laughter. “I.... I.... sucked!”
A tinge of relief and a pinch of hope surfaced within Angel.
“You aren’t mad at me?”
“What for?” The shaking giggles stopped. Cordelia ran her hand over Angel’s muscular stomach, up to the concertina’d sweater and tugged the fabric down over his exposed chest. “It was a pretty stupid idea. You can’t expect two people who normally wouldn’t consider each other sexually to suddenly act out Debbie Does Dallas! A porn movie,” she added helpfully.
Angel wriggled his broad shoulders into a more comfortable position; Cordelia snuggled a little closer. This was comfortable, nice. Naked, but nice. He could sense an end to the craziness. “You’ve watched a porn movie?”
“No, I’m just culturally aware.” Cordelia plucked at the black material under her hand. “What did I do wrong?”
“Noth... ” he began tentatively, but decided to go with the truth, or a portion of the truth. For Cordelia’s future reference. “The teeth, too toothy - with the teeth. You just need to try it a few more times.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll scoot down and pick up a guy from a bar or, if I ask nicely, Wes and Gunn might oblige me with...”
The abrupt force of powerful arm contracting around slender body combined with a sudden shift of Angel’s weight clipped the end from Cordelia’s remark. A glowering forehead darkened the brown eyes glaring into Cordelia’s own, clearly indignant, gaze.
“Possessive, much?” she managed to say.
“I am not.” The scent rising from her warm piqued body filled Angel’s nostrils. Was she angry or excited?
“I am not possessive.” He lowered his head closer to Cordelia’s face, her shallow breath flurried across his cheek. Excited. Angel rubbed the tip of his nose against one pink ear-lobe.
“If you want to perfect your technique...” The nose gave way to a cool tongue licking at the captivating aroma behind her ear.
“...you practice on me.”
Angel thought he heard a sighed “mmmm” from Cordelia, though it may have only been her quickened breath. At the side of her neck he gathered a tiny soft fold of flesh with his lips, alternately gathering, kissing and suckling his way along the fascinatingly pulsing artery to the shallow hollow of her throat. He dipped his tongue to gently caress the indented skin.
Cordelia lay motionless beneath his embrace. “Angel?”
“Mmm?”
“I really - like - this....”
He vaguely registered the comment. Somewhere inside he considered asking if she wanted him to continue, if , like he, she craved the ‘more’, craved the belonging, the owning, the possessing. It was a fleeting consideration, easily swamped under the growing hunger for her peaking scent.
Angel mewled an indeterminate “Make... happy...” into the ribbed valley between her breasts. He cupped one breast within his two hands, carefully brushing at the puckering nipple with a gentle thumb until it firmed under his touch; then pampering it with his tongue, seeking the irresistible flavor of the hardened tip.
A pressure on his head, fingers pushing into scalp, moved him away and, obligingly, down over her belly towards the delicious mound of neatly shaven hair.
Another deep slow breath and he absorbed more of Cordelia; Cordelia settling at the back of his throat, Cordelia on his tongue, Cordelia behind his eyes - tart, salty, sweet, beautiful - all at once. The piquant aroma of her awakening need and eager willingness sent thrills of shimmering excitement across his skin, thrumming in his ears, twisting at his lungs.
Fervently he lusted after her scent, thrusting fingers deep inside her welcoming cunt; licking tongue ardently stroking the sumptuous flesh and in the flush of his exhilaration, nipping at the ripe, swollen folds; sucking on tiny, brilliant droplets of blood wine.
In some nebulous, far away world, the woman in his grip tensed, her muscles rippling tightly over his fingers and tongue. The pungent essence now seeping from her every pore almost brought him to his own orgasm. The mounting pressure broke a rasping growl from his throat, grating against her sodden, inflammed flesh. Make her happy. No, he dismissed the care. Make her his. Possess her. Ever more. His.
The gasp as he desperately pushed into her moist, slickened cunt might have been pleasure or pain; might have been himself or her. That was in the other world. In this world he was chafing to end the tension, pressing into her further and further, pace feverishly mounting, seeking the peace.
In a moment of almost-forgotten hope, he opened his yellow glazed eyes and found his salvation in the soft white indulgence of a blue-veined breast. The beauty of blue-veined, ice-white and blood-red. Sensuously slicing into the yielding flesh. The roar of blood in blood, the exultation of his release deep within her belly, and in the distance a cry of anguish and the name that belonged to the other. His ambrosia, her life, pounding through his body. Sucking noisily at the whitened breast, tenderly caressing the rose-red blood dripped nipple, the name permeated once again.
His name. Angel.
“Angel! You bastard! Get off me, now.”
Angel only just managed to focus on the source of the voice of outrage when he felt a swipe across his face.
“What the hell was that for? Fuck you! You bit me!” Another swipe bit into the flesh on his other cheek. It was only when he put his hand up to the stinging sore that he realised the vampire within, was very much out.
Cordelia was hitting him. He was... oh God... blood pooling on one lush breast, red on the ice, blood in the snow.. Hastily he rolled off the trembling, furious body.
“I’m ... Cord I’m so sorry.” The pits of despair and self-abnegation opened at his feet. “The ... your scent... and the blood... I...”
Cordelia reached for her robe, huddled into the sleek fabric and scrambled off the bed before she looked at his bruised, shamed face.
“You drank from me, you...,” She closed her eye-lids tightly and took several deep breaths. The lids eventually re-opened on a perplexed gaze. “My blood is in yours.”
The ‘yes’ refused to budge from his mouth. He nodded bleakly.
“But I’m not going to be, oh crap, I’m not going to be like you?” Cordelia waited while the abject figure shook his head. “And this is all normal for casual sex with a vampire? Pain and ... and... ,” Cordelia bit her lip. “Why did you... I don’t understand... I wanted this to be nice. You knew I wanted it to be nice!”
Again, Angel’s attempts at speech dried away. He nodded once more.
“I have to understand. If we are going to... no, not now, I don’t think I can.... I need to get clean.” Cordelia turned, cautiously limping her way to the bathroom.
Angel sat on the edge of Cordelia’s bed - impenitent penis rapidly dwindling, mortified heart splintering - as Cordelia washed away his tainted passion.
Unhappily ever after had begun.
Footnotes: I don't often feel the need to explain my stories, but "What's Love Got To Do With It" does not necessarily portray either Angel or Cordelia in a good light. Cordelia does, in many respects, dominate Angel - this is not a fanfic trait. Angel, I am sure, would at times subjugate his better judgement to a Cordelia whim. Even so, as in the first paragraph of the story, I had to suspend my beliefs to get the couple into this situation - I don't expect that the characters as shown on the programme would ever endanger each other in such a manner - but I did want to explore the potential outcomes. I ended up with three paths to the one outcome, none happy. That would hardly be possible as I wrote the fic around the last line - "Unhappily ever after had begun" - and the image of my poor boy sitting on the bed.For those readers who abhor 'hurt-fics' - I'm not sure if this story would fall into that category - but, this certainly didn't start out as a 'hurt Cordy and make Angel sorry' fic. But this *is* the way the characters acted in my imagination. Face it, I just wanted to get them into the same bed!
Disclaimer: The characters are Joss', 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.