Okay, now that was a turn up for the books. Or something less like what Wesley would say. I look at Angel, surprised. For once, I didn't have to drag the truth out of him. I didn't have to sit there and be all me about things while Angel was all, well, Angel about things.
He told me the truth. At least it feels like the truth, anyway, and all I can do is look at him.
"You think you're insensitive because you're okay?" I ask him, incredulously. I feel like throwing my hands up and praising God or whatever other deity we believe in this week because something I've actually said to Angel has gone through. "You really are something else, you know that?" Without thinking, I slide my hand over his.
"I know you, Angel," I tell him, "And I know you have this skewed way of looking at yourself like... Like, because you didn't go crazy and kill a bunch of people over her she can't have meant that much." Okay, so I didn't mean that as bad as it sounded, but still. "It's okay to survive this, y'know. It's okay to move on and honor her in a way that... That fits. Life is what we make it, Angel..." And I shiver, realise I'm echoing her words, "She made it count. And because you're doing this, this moving on without the psycho-trip? You're making her death count, too."
You sigh. You know she is somewhat right. But she doesn't know the whole deal. She doesn't know...
"I'm not even sorry." You say abruptly, standing up so fast that the chair falls to the floor with a bang. "I'm not even sad that she's dead. She was 'the love of my life', and I'm not sad. I haven't cried a tear. In fact I'm kind of glad for her sake. How is that normal? How does that make me honouring her?"
You smash your fist into the wall, in need for something to take it out on.
I stand and walk towards him, not knowing what he wants me to say. I want to make this right for his sake as much as anyone else's but I'm not sure I can.
"So that's what you've been doing these last couple of months?" I ask, tentatively. "Flagellating? Adding a new mode of brooding to your long list of already perfect skills?" I pause and look at him, taking his now bloody hand from the wall, eyeing the broken plaster with my definitive 'gee, thanks' look.
"Being human has nothing to do with it, Angel. I'm sad that she's gone, yeah, but... The one saving grace is that she's at peace." And somehow, I just know she is at peace, whether it was from that dream. "Those thoughts don't make you less than human. They don't make you a monster or insensitive. You're glad it's over because... Because it's over for her. No more fighting. No more waking up every morning to God knows what. You're honoring her because you're going on, Angel. I know it doesn't seem like that, but you are."
With your hand resting in hers you try to calm down. You can hear the words, and you understand that they make sense, but it won't connect with that feeling in your gut. The demon inside you whispering and taunting, doing a very good job at convincing you that all of this is no use. You are not and you will never be human, so why even pretend. That Shanshu can just go and stuff itself.
Then you look at Cordy again and you wish more than anything in the world that you could hear your heart beat, feel air rushing in and out of your lungs. That you could trust that your feelings were legitimate and just not the demon talking.
You draw back from her, putting the fallen chair in it's place and take a seat.
"You 're right, of course. But it doesn't change the way I feel about it. About myself and... You know what Cordy? Can't we just talk about something else?"
I reach under the counter, grabbing the first aid kit (I swear, that should get better time than I do for the workout it's received this week).
"Remember a few months back?" I ask him, "I did a round of 'are you okay's?' and 'Angel, talk to me, I'm worried about you's'?" Yeah, he remembers alright. "Well, back then? You did this little Angel-like thing of, oh, repressing. And if you repress now and we go back to that? I swear to God, I'll stake your ass."
I pause and gently start patching up his hand. "That? And I really am worried about you, Angel. I love you. You're my best friend. Don't wanna see you go down that road 'cause I didn't do what I should've done last time and just beat the truth out of you."
"You love me?" The surprise in your voice is too evident for your liking, so you try to tone it down to a somewhat neutral level. "And you want to beat me?" That neutral thing failes miserably. You fall silent and watch her fingers patch you up. Things are moving way too fast inside of you now. You can't keep up. So you try to concentrate on the small things.
She is way too good on this bandaging thing. You shouldn't be this good if you're not a trained nurse or... If you had to do it almost every day for several years. You guess one would be this good then.
I look at him, strangely. "Of course I love you, dumbass. And, sometimes? Yeah, I want to beat you... But in a nice way."
Are there any nice ways to beat people? I shake that off, thoughts of dominatrixes and strippers dancing oh so unwelcomely in my head and continue to patch his hand up, aware that he's watching my hands.
Somewhere back there, I think I lost the ramp for 'personal bubble' space but... He's not invading, not really, and I was the one who kinda insisted on patching the guy up.
"You've gone all quiet on me." I tell him after a moment, trying to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from giggling, "I at least expected an 'I love you too, Cordy.'"
"Oh sorry." You snap out of your mental images of Cordy in red leather wielding a whip in a very *cough* professional manner. " I kinda got stuck on that 'beating in a nice way'-image. But of course I love you too."
Again, you're going for normal, even casual maybe, but your voice won't have any of that. Instead it goes all deep and husky and at the same time sort of... nervous? You are so weird lately, you swear you have no idea what's up with you. Except for the whole death of Buffy thing, and being isolated in your room for a short eternity. You've never been nervous in front of Cordy before. Hesitant maybe, or perhaps even slightly unsure, but never nervous.
"Dork." I laugh, pulling the bandage a little tighter around his hand. Not that I blame him for thinking of me that way-- Although I'm not offering the information about the thoughts clogging up my head space two seconds ago.
I notice the dip in his voice, the way his eyes sort of burn into mine but... I put that down to the image-fest I just gave him.
Fastening the end of the bandage with some tape I look up at him and grin, "Voila! That's French for 'I think we stopped the bleeding.'"
"Oh, and here I've been going around for 250 years thinking it..." You face her with an impressive frown on that forehead of yours. "Dork? Did you just call me a dork?"
"Now would I do a thing like that?" I ask, innocently, packing away the First Aid kit. I turn my back on Angel and under my breath (knowing he can hear every word) I mumble, "I also called you clueless, dumbass, a retard... The list goes on..."
"You know that you are teasing a vampire here, right? You didn't forget that while I was away?"
She just smiles at you and you continue.
"You know how vampires have... let's call it special skills. Super strong, super evil... super fast?"
You step closer to her, forcing her to back up against the counter.
"Had any visions lately, Cordy? About how a certain seer gets, let's say, tickled into submission?"
She is so stuck. You've got her cornered, and there is no way for her to escape. This is going to be the ticklefest of a lifetime, or four. Who's counting?
"Forget that you were a vampire?" I ask, eyebrows arched, "Please, who d'you think has been keeping you in blood for the last three month and, by the way? Eww!"
I grin because I've been fetching Angel blood for as long as I can remember and it doesn't phase me - it never did.
"And another thing--" I stop, realising that El Dorko himself has me pressed up against the counter. "You wouldn't!" I tell him defiantly, eyes glinting with mischeif.
He told me the truth. At least it feels like the truth, anyway, and all I can do is look at him.
"You think you're insensitive because you're okay?" I ask him, incredulously. I feel like throwing my hands up and praising God or whatever other deity we believe in this week because something I've actually said to Angel has gone through. "You really are something else, you know that?" Without thinking, I slide my hand over his.
"I know you, Angel," I tell him, "And I know you have this skewed way of looking at yourself like... Like, because you didn't go crazy and kill a bunch of people over her she can't have meant that much." Okay, so I didn't mean that as bad as it sounded, but still. "It's okay to survive this, y'know. It's okay to move on and honor her in a way that... That fits. Life is what we make it, Angel..." And I shiver, realise I'm echoing her words, "She made it count. And because you're doing this, this moving on without the psycho-trip? You're making her death count, too."
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"I'm not even sorry." You say abruptly, standing up so fast that the chair falls to the floor with a bang. "I'm not even sad that she's dead. She was 'the love of my life', and I'm not sad. I haven't cried a tear. In fact I'm kind of glad for her sake. How is that normal? How does that make me honouring her?"
You smash your fist into the wall, in need for something to take it out on.
"How does that make me human?"
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"So that's what you've been doing these last couple of months?" I ask, tentatively. "Flagellating? Adding a new mode of brooding to your long list of already perfect skills?" I pause and look at him, taking his now bloody hand from the wall, eyeing the broken plaster with my definitive 'gee, thanks' look.
"Being human has nothing to do with it, Angel. I'm sad that she's gone, yeah, but... The one saving grace is that she's at peace." And somehow, I just know she is at peace, whether it was from that dream. "Those thoughts don't make you less than human. They don't make you a monster or insensitive. You're glad it's over because... Because it's over for her. No more fighting. No more waking up every morning to God knows what. You're honoring her because you're going on, Angel. I know it doesn't seem like that, but you are."
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Then you look at Cordy again and you wish more than anything in the world that you could hear your heart beat, feel air rushing in and out of your lungs. That you could trust that your feelings were legitimate and just not the demon talking.
You draw back from her, putting the fallen chair in it's place and take a seat.
"You 're right, of course. But it doesn't change the way I feel about it. About myself and... You know what Cordy? Can't we just talk about something else?"
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I reach under the counter, grabbing the first aid kit (I swear, that should get better time than I do for the workout it's received this week).
"Remember a few months back?" I ask him, "I did a round of 'are you okay's?' and 'Angel, talk to me, I'm worried about you's'?" Yeah, he remembers alright. "Well, back then? You did this little Angel-like thing of, oh, repressing. And if you repress now and we go back to that? I swear to God, I'll stake your ass."
I pause and gently start patching up his hand. "That? And I really am worried about you, Angel. I love you. You're my best friend. Don't wanna see you go down that road 'cause I didn't do what I should've done last time and just beat the truth out of you."
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"You love me?" The surprise in your voice is too evident for your liking, so you try to tone it down to a somewhat neutral level. "And you want to beat me?" That neutral thing failes miserably. You fall silent and watch her fingers patch you up. Things are moving way too fast inside of you now. You can't keep up. So you try to concentrate on the small things.
She is way too good on this bandaging thing. You shouldn't be this good if you're not a trained nurse or... If you had to do it almost every day for several years. You guess one would be this good then.
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Are there any nice ways to beat people? I shake that off, thoughts of dominatrixes and strippers dancing oh so unwelcomely in my head and continue to patch his hand up, aware that he's watching my hands.
Somewhere back there, I think I lost the ramp for 'personal bubble' space but... He's not invading, not really, and I was the one who kinda insisted on patching the guy up.
"You've gone all quiet on me." I tell him after a moment, trying to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from giggling, "I at least expected an 'I love you too, Cordy.'"
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Again, you're going for normal, even casual maybe, but your voice won't have any of that. Instead it goes all deep and husky and at the same time sort of... nervous? You are so weird lately, you swear you have no idea what's up with you. Except for the whole death of Buffy thing, and being isolated in your room for a short eternity. You've never been nervous in front of Cordy before. Hesitant maybe, or perhaps even slightly unsure, but never nervous.
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I notice the dip in his voice, the way his eyes sort of burn into mine but... I put that down to the image-fest I just gave him.
Fastening the end of the bandage with some tape I look up at him and grin, "Voila! That's French for 'I think we stopped the bleeding.'"
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"You know that you are teasing a vampire here, right? You didn't forget that while I was away?"
She just smiles at you and you continue.
"You know how vampires have... let's call it special skills. Super strong, super evil... super fast?"
You step closer to her, forcing her to back up against the counter.
"Had any visions lately, Cordy? About how a certain seer gets, let's say, tickled into submission?"
She is so stuck. You've got her cornered, and there is no way for her to escape. This is going to be the ticklefest of a lifetime, or four. Who's counting?
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I grin because I've been fetching Angel blood for as long as I can remember and it doesn't phase me - it never did.
"And another thing--" I stop, realising that El Dorko himself has me pressed up against the counter. "You wouldn't!" I tell him defiantly, eyes glinting with mischeif.
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