Fanfiction: BtVS/AtS: I'm Telling You There Are Pieces Of Me You've Never Seen
Title: I'm Telling You There Are Pieces Of Me You've Never Seen (Or Five Secrets of Cordelia Chase)
Character: Cordelia (with references to Cordelia/Xander, Cordelia/Doyle, Cordelia/Angel, and Cordelia/Groo)
Word count: 905
Rating: PG-13
Summary: For a speaker of truth, Cordelia had always been good at keeping secrets.
Author's note: I kind of wanted to expand on the meta I wrote yesterday...by writing fic around the same concept. This is for day 6 of womenlovefest. Unbeta'd.
1. Cordelia wasn't a virgin when she started dating Xander Harris. That wasn't the secret (though she was never as experienced as some of the football players might lead people to believe).
The secret was why she never slept with Xander. He used to call her tease, beg her to do it, and in some of his worse moments accused her of thinking she was too good for him. She usually smirked at him cruelly, agreeing with him before slipping out of the closet to go home.
It wasn't that though. She liked Xander. Liked him more than any other boy which was stupid because he was Xander Harris. But she knew what happened to the boys she slept with. Most of them ended up dead or at the very least maimed. So she was really protecting him. And herself. She didn't want to lose him. She remembered how painful it had been, finding Kevin after he had been fed on.
And she liked Xander even more than she liked him. So really, she was protecting herself just as much as him.
Of course, in the long run, Xander cheated on her before she finally took that risk with him, and it hurt all the same.
Maybe she should have left him get eaten.
2. After she left Sunnydale, Cordelia cut off contact from her parents. Her mother hunted down the number of Angel Investigations (somehow) and called a few times, but she eventually gave up.
She supposed she should have more sympathy for them, at least her mother. Presumably, she didn't know her dad had been cheating on his taxes. But the truth was? She had never felt particularly close to them. They never really felt like parents. Growing up she had seen her various maids and nannies more than them.
So it's surprisingly easy to just not talk to them. What is there to say? "Gee, how is dad enjoying prison?" or how about "I can barely afford food most of the time, and I get painful visions that are slowly killing me and I never have time for a social life anymore but other than that? I'm just peachy."
They say if you don't have anything nice to say you shouldn't say anything at all. So that's what she did. She didn't say anything to them at all.
3. On the anniversary of Doyle's death, Cordelia always went out by herself to one of his favorite sports bars. She would start with an order of beer and a shot of whisky in his honor, and it usually ended in a good cry or two. She thought about inviting Angel once or twice, but ultimately, she never did.
It was something she liked having to herself. She'd imagine Doyle was there, where she could tell him about how grateful she was for the visions. Well, now she was. At first she had just been pissed, but that was pretty much a given.
She wondered sometimes, what her life would have been like if he had lived. Would they had fallen in love? Would she have eventually moved on from Angel Investigations? Would Wesley and the others still joined their team?
Not that she was unhappy, because she wasn't. She was proud of her life, but she couldn't help but wonder how things might have turned out if that night had played out a little differently.
Usually, by the end of the night she had drunk too much and had to take a taxi home. She'd call the office the next morning and tell Wesley she'd be coming in much much later.
If they ever figured out why, they never called her on it.
4. Cordelia wasn't dumb. She had known even before the ballet that her feelings for Angel were beginning to change, evolve into something more than friendship. But what Cordelia was was a realist, she always had been that. Pragmatic almost to a fault. And if Angel firing her had hurt her as much as it had, she didn't want to know how badly it might hurt if he broke her heart. And he probably would. It was always going to go back to some blonde or another with him. Darla, Buffy, they were always going to come first for him.
And Cordelia Chase didn't play second fiddle. Not after the Xander Harris fiasco.
So when Groo showed up, it was the perfect opportunity. Groo was sweet, and more so, he was safe. He worshiped her.
So what if he wasn't what she really wanted? At least she wouldn't get hurt this way.
5. When she woke up and saw her body still there, Cordelia knew she didn't have much time left. And maybe she should have told someone sooner, but what could they have done? They would have tried to focus on saving her, and she was well past saving. But she could still help save them. Save Angel. And that was the point, wasn't it?
So she smiled, and hugged them, and pretending everything was okay, just like she always did. For someone who talked about always speaking the truth Cordelia has kept her share of secrets in her time, and this would be her grand finale. They'd probably be mad at her when they realized the truth, but it couldn't be helped.
Hopefully, they'd forgive her. They'd forgiven her secrets before.
What was one more to the list?
Character: Cordelia (with references to Cordelia/Xander, Cordelia/Doyle, Cordelia/Angel, and Cordelia/Groo)
Word count: 905
Rating: PG-13
Summary: For a speaker of truth, Cordelia had always been good at keeping secrets.
Author's note: I kind of wanted to expand on the meta I wrote yesterday...by writing fic around the same concept. This is for day 6 of womenlovefest. Unbeta'd.
1. Cordelia wasn't a virgin when she started dating Xander Harris. That wasn't the secret (though she was never as experienced as some of the football players might lead people to believe).
The secret was why she never slept with Xander. He used to call her tease, beg her to do it, and in some of his worse moments accused her of thinking she was too good for him. She usually smirked at him cruelly, agreeing with him before slipping out of the closet to go home.
It wasn't that though. She liked Xander. Liked him more than any other boy which was stupid because he was Xander Harris. But she knew what happened to the boys she slept with. Most of them ended up dead or at the very least maimed. So she was really protecting him. And herself. She didn't want to lose him. She remembered how painful it had been, finding Kevin after he had been fed on.
And she liked Xander even more than she liked him. So really, she was protecting herself just as much as him.
Of course, in the long run, Xander cheated on her before she finally took that risk with him, and it hurt all the same.
Maybe she should have left him get eaten.
2. After she left Sunnydale, Cordelia cut off contact from her parents. Her mother hunted down the number of Angel Investigations (somehow) and called a few times, but she eventually gave up.
She supposed she should have more sympathy for them, at least her mother. Presumably, she didn't know her dad had been cheating on his taxes. But the truth was? She had never felt particularly close to them. They never really felt like parents. Growing up she had seen her various maids and nannies more than them.
So it's surprisingly easy to just not talk to them. What is there to say? "Gee, how is dad enjoying prison?" or how about "I can barely afford food most of the time, and I get painful visions that are slowly killing me and I never have time for a social life anymore but other than that? I'm just peachy."
They say if you don't have anything nice to say you shouldn't say anything at all. So that's what she did. She didn't say anything to them at all.
3. On the anniversary of Doyle's death, Cordelia always went out by herself to one of his favorite sports bars. She would start with an order of beer and a shot of whisky in his honor, and it usually ended in a good cry or two. She thought about inviting Angel once or twice, but ultimately, she never did.
It was something she liked having to herself. She'd imagine Doyle was there, where she could tell him about how grateful she was for the visions. Well, now she was. At first she had just been pissed, but that was pretty much a given.
She wondered sometimes, what her life would have been like if he had lived. Would they had fallen in love? Would she have eventually moved on from Angel Investigations? Would Wesley and the others still joined their team?
Not that she was unhappy, because she wasn't. She was proud of her life, but she couldn't help but wonder how things might have turned out if that night had played out a little differently.
Usually, by the end of the night she had drunk too much and had to take a taxi home. She'd call the office the next morning and tell Wesley she'd be coming in much much later.
If they ever figured out why, they never called her on it.
4. Cordelia wasn't dumb. She had known even before the ballet that her feelings for Angel were beginning to change, evolve into something more than friendship. But what Cordelia was was a realist, she always had been that. Pragmatic almost to a fault. And if Angel firing her had hurt her as much as it had, she didn't want to know how badly it might hurt if he broke her heart. And he probably would. It was always going to go back to some blonde or another with him. Darla, Buffy, they were always going to come first for him.
And Cordelia Chase didn't play second fiddle. Not after the Xander Harris fiasco.
So when Groo showed up, it was the perfect opportunity. Groo was sweet, and more so, he was safe. He worshiped her.
So what if he wasn't what she really wanted? At least she wouldn't get hurt this way.
5. When she woke up and saw her body still there, Cordelia knew she didn't have much time left. And maybe she should have told someone sooner, but what could they have done? They would have tried to focus on saving her, and she was well past saving. But she could still help save them. Save Angel. And that was the point, wasn't it?
So she smiled, and hugged them, and pretending everything was okay, just like she always did. For someone who talked about always speaking the truth Cordelia has kept her share of secrets in her time, and this would be her grand finale. They'd probably be mad at her when they realized the truth, but it couldn't be helped.
Hopefully, they'd forgive her. They'd forgiven her secrets before.
What was one more to the list?