who. cordelia and angel what. cordelia faces one of her biggest fears. rather - she gets angel to face it for her. when. a night or two after the buffy/angel thread. where. angel's apartment. locked to. broody mcbroodster ( aka angel ) rating. pg-13 status. complete
Angel really should have been more careful about who he gave his credit card to. Granted, Cordelia was his best friend. Unfortunately, she was his best friend who had a slight addiction to clothes. Even if Cleveland wasn't the epitome of a shopper's paradise, it had a Macy's. That was all a girl could ask for. And really, Cordelia had only planned on picking up a few necessities. Those few things had turned into three bags brimming with brand new clothes. Hey, at least they had all been on the sale racks. Over the years, the Seer had learned to shop thriftily, since Angel had all but paid his employees with the bare minimum. Which had always brought up the question; how did Angel get the money to pay them at all? Somehow, Cordelia doubted that Angel had spent any time working some nine-to-five job. As she opened the front door of Angel's apartment, she made a mental note to ask him how many banks he'd robbed later on. For now, her main focus was getting the clothes to her room before Angel noticed that her "few" things had turned into a $500 dollar charge to his credit card. From the looks of it, he was in his room. Nothing new there. If Angel wasn't patrolling, he was in his room, or sitting in front of the fireplace that was really unnecessary given the rising temperatures outside.
Somehow managing to balance all of the bags, Cordelia slid the door shut as quietly as possible, before making a mad half-dash-half-tiptoe to her room. Once there, she quickly shoved the clothes under the bed like some teenager might shove their stash of porn, scared that their parents might see. Fifteen minutes later, she had changed into an over-sized shirt and was sitting in the center of the bed, painting her toenails a dark shade of plum. For all of a few minutes, she was able to forget about everything that had happened over the last couple of months. Things had been looking up for Cordelia for once. She was dating someone who seemed to be a genuinely good person ( if there was such a creature ), she was no longer in that shithole of a motel, and she had her best friend back. When she felt the corners of her lips twitch like they might smile, something akin to guilt slammed into her gut. How could she be happy when everyone else was so miserable? Yeah, things were looking good for her but what about Angel? What about Wesley? She hadn't spoken to Wesley in over a month, and after their last meeting, it was no wonder. Cordelia had seen Wesley angry. She'd seen him hurt and bitter, but never had she seen him like that. The man she had seen might have sounded like Wesley and wore his face, but he wasn't the Wesley that Cordelia had known for so long.
Smiling now seemed like some sort of betrayal. Suddenly, she was furious at herself for being happy when no one else felt the same.
Sighing, Cordelia focused once more on the small brush in her fingers. The rhythmic back and forth motion it made over the nails served as a distraction. Some song that Cordelia had heard a few times before played faintly through the radio she had set up next to the bed. In the room next to her, she heard a slight movement. It was nothing more than a creak of old floorboards, but it let Cordelia know that Angel was there. She wanted - needed - to talk to him. Ever since he'd gotten back the night before, he'd been nearly unapproachable. When he had gotten in the previous night, Cordelia had been sitting on the couch, trying to read one of the novels that Angel always seemed to have around. From the moment that he stepped in the door, slamming it behind him hard enough to shake the walls, she'd known that it was something with her. Buffy Summers, ever the mood-killer. Not that Angel had much of a mood to kill recently. Still, it had been nearly an entire day since she'd spoken to Angel, and for the two best friends, that was too long. She decided that as soon as she finished painting her toenails, she would march into his room and demand to talk to him. Or, you know - ask politely. It would all depend on the look she got when she first walked in.
When she saw a dark blur of movement out of the corner of her eye, Cordelia's head whipped to the side. That's when she saw it. It wasn't just a spider. It was a huge spider, and it was staring straight at her a mere four feet away. Going on sheer instinct, she tossed the bottle of nail polish at it. Of course, it landed on the wall just behind it, leaving an erratic arc of purple against the off-white wall. Angel would be so pleased. Right now, she had bigger problems. Speaking of which, that problem was moving towards her, its legs making a mad dash toward the bed. That's when Cordelia leapt to her feet, hoping that the bed she was standing on would serve as a barrier between her and the spider. As it got closer, Cordelia began to scream. It was an awful, blood-curdling scream and only got louder the closer that it got.
"Angel! Angel, help!"
Cordelia could face demons without breaking a sweat, but she panicked at the sight of a spider. Go figure.