BtVS fanfic: Who Wears the Pants Around Here?
Title: Who Wears the Pants Around Here?
Author: SCWLCRating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Of late I'm beginning to wonder if I even want to own them.
Summary: This is actually a rant cleverly disguised as a badfic.
Notes: Badfic. Also, I feel the need to vent.
Feedback: Comments? Questions? Complaints? scwlc@yahoo.ca
Angel had had enough. He had tolerated many things over the past three years, but this was simply the final straw. "CORDELIA!"
She appeared in the doorway, smiling that saccharine smile that had begun to grace her face nearly constantly. At first he had thought it was simply a phase she was going through, but somehow, she had changed, and had manipulated him into changing as well. "Yes Angel?"
"What the hell were you thinking?" he hissed at her. The way she frowned slightly, looking puzzled, only served to irritate him more.
"What do you mean?"
His eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared as he searched her, using all his senses, for any apprehension at all. He was disgusted with himself when he found nothing. "This is my room, Cordelia. Mine. My territory. No matter what you may think you may not wander in and out to rearrange things as you please." The tone of voice he used was one he hadn't used in more than a hundred years. Darla, Spike, Penn, anyone who knew him then could have told her it meant trouble for anyone who crossed him. But Cordelia just looked puzzled.
Then she smiled. Condescendingly. "I simply thought-"
"No. You didn't. You never think." A growl entered Angel's words, and finally he had the satisfaction of seeing her become nervous.
Still, the smile persevered, and Cordelia said gently, "Angel. If you want to be part of humanity, you have to be prepared to add things to your lifestyle. That includes having some books on things other than musty old poetry by that William Blake guy." She grew in confidence as she spoke, "Besides, those pictures are all ooky. So what if I replaced them with Martha Stewart craft books? You do need a hobby."
Angel drew himself to his full height and began to advance on her. When she didn't begin to back away soon enough, he vamped out. At the sight of Angel's demon side, Cordelia finally began to look afraid. As her steps began to hasten, Angel grinned and pressed further. Soon Cordelia was running flat out for the main lobby with Angel in an easy loping pursuit behind her.
He was smiling with manic glee as he released the pent up animal inside him. He wasn't going to kill her. No, he was going to terrify the life out of her. He had that option, because the others were all out for the day. Cordelia had opted to stay behind and `keep him company'. Which suited the vampire just fine.
When she turned a corner, Angel let her run on ahead, and took the other stairs down to the lobby, and lay in wait for her, hidden by the phones. He knew she would go to them first, instead of getting out into the sunlight where she would be safe from a vampire. He was proven right when he heard her laboured breathing come right up to the telephone. Angel grabbed the cord and simultaneously yanked the cord out of the wall, and the telephone out from under her hand.
"Looking for this?" he smiled, looking particularly evil. It was a look he had perfected for use on already terrified prey.
"A-Angel," she panted, her chest heaving in terror. She had never looked more attractive to him than this moment, when she was afraid for her life. Of him. "Angel this isn't you. Nothing happened to make you lose your soul."
He stalked around the counter and placed himself solidly between her and the door. "Who said I lost my soul?"
"Well for one thing you never act like this when you have it." She snapped, terror making her forget her promise to be kind and sweet until Angel hurled.
"Cordelia, if you were to ask the one person who knows me best, you would find that I do actually act like this sometimes." He raised an eyebrow, silently hoping she would take the bait.
"Angel, I've never seen you act like this, except when you were all evil." She said definitely. Then her eyes widened, "Oh my God. Was it me? Did I make you too happy? I should have known. I should have remembered to make you all miserable like when you were with Buffy-"
Angel breaking into hysterical laughter silenced her. As he staggered away, apparently helpless in the grips of his mirth, she tried to make a run for the door. The laughter stopped, and Angel let her get within a foot of the door before he snatched her away from freedom, and pinned her to the wall.
"Get over yourself," he snarled at her, "If you will recall, the only person to ever give me moment of true happiness was Buffy. In more than two hundred and sixty years, she was the only one." Angel chuckled bitterly, "You think you can just waltz up to me and make me forget about my soulmate? My mate?"
A spark, long missing, flared in Cordelia's eyes, "Your mate? How totally primitive is that?" she snarked.
The fear was hiding behind the tone of voice, and Angel could finally smell it. It was an intoxicating aphrodisiac. He smiled as he breathed it in, "Primitive? Yeah, I guess you could call it that. But Buffy and I were always beyond such civilised notions as `boyfriend'."
"Buffy?" Cordelia's voice was trembling as Angel ground against her. Terrified of the thought of him raping her, Angel could tell she still thought this was because he was attracted to her.
"Yeah. Buffy. The Slayer. The one girl-"
Cordelia interrupted, "In all the world, chosen to kill big uglies. I've heard it."
"The only woman who ever understood that I'm not a `Care Bear with fangs'. Cordelia." Angel waited for his jibe to sink in. She took it as her second wind.
"Exactly my point," Cordy stated firmly, "You are like a big fluffy teddy bear. You just like to have a bad boy rep."
He slammed her against the wall again, and snarled. "I am a vampire Cordelia. Get that through your skull. I am a killer."
"Angel," her expression softened, "If this is about you feeling guilt, I understand."
He threw her the length of the lobby.
"No. You. Don't. You can't. I am a hunter Cordelia. I need to hunt. Ever since you first took over my quest for redemption and moulded it to suit your own, you've been trying to get me to stop. Well guess what? All you've done is make me a lunatic.
"Everywhere I go, every day, I can't stop thinking about it. It was never this bad when I had no soul, because then I wasn't trying to be something I'm not. In the meantime, you've been so busy trying to forget who you are that you're starting to project onto everyone else. Fred isn't outgoing enough for you, Wesley isn't cool enough, and Gunn and I aren't cheery enough to suit you. The only person around here whom you think is perfect, other than yourself, is Groo. All that talk of happy glorious battles, alternated with worshipping you, that's your dream person isn't it?
"I'm sick of conforming to whatever you've decided I should be. I am a demon Cordelia. I have been for two hundred and forty six years. Buffy understood this. She understood that just because I love her is no reason to place blind trust in me. She trusted my self control around her. Not my inherent fluffiness. She knew that if it weren't for that control I would kill her. I love her, and that's why I have that control.
"But you don't understand this. It seems that I'm the only person around here who's not allowed to slip up. I get tortured by a law firm that is about twenty steps ahead of everyone else, and you expect me to what? Get over my sire? One of the two women who made me what I am today? The greatest influence in my life for two hundred and forty years? Darla was more than just someone I slept with Cordy. A sire isn't simply some sort of disease carrying vermin. She's like a mother, a lover, a wife, co-worker, and so many other things there aren't words for.
Cordy, Buffy isn't just my mate because I fell in love with her. She's my perfect match. She has all those qualities Darla had that kept me with her for a hundred and forty years, but she also has a soul."
That was when Cordelia made her biggest mistake of the day. "Oh, you mean vamp bitch." Her diction and attitude screamed the valley girl she was raised to be, and Angel was completely unhesitating as he brought his fist into her face. Cordelia went down for the count.
When the rest of AI came back from their day at the beach, they found a letter taped to the front door, and a concussed but still fuming Cordelia tied up in Wesley's office.
Hey guys,
I just want you to know I'm heading back to Sunnydale. I'm going to find a way to get my soul permanently attached, and then get back together with Buffy. Talking to Cordelia, oh who am I kidding, scaring the hell out of Cordy and really enjoying it, gave something of an epiphany.
This is my quest for redemption. You guys have Groo now, go ahead and run Angel Investigations. Do it without me, because I am sick to death of putting up with Cordelia's bullshit. You may be too cowed to realise this, but I don't want to work for her any more.
That's right, work for Cordelia. Since the day she walked into my office and turned my mission from the PTB into some sort of money grabbing enterprise I've suffered. Since I started to listen to her and her notions about my connection to humanity, I've lost all internal balance. I'm a vampire guys. I have vampiric instincts, and ignoring them like Cordelia asks is exactly why Wolfram and Hart have been able to get to me so much.
You want to continue the good fight out there, you have my blessing. I'm going to rejoin my connection to humanity.
Angel
**************
He pulled up in front of Buffy's house and didn't go to the front door, but climbed in her bedroom window and waited for her to come home. When she did, they kissed and made up.
Then they made out.
And all was right with the world.
The End
I feel better.
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