Title: Chicken Soup For a Vampires Soul
Author: Elisha
Posted: 03-23-2003
Email: visiongirl90@hotmail.com
Rating: G
Category: Light
Content: C/A
Summary: Cordelia’s got a cold and Angel is playing nurse maid.
Spoilers: Nothing really set before That Vision Thing. Ever wondered why Cordelia had the raspy voice in TVT?
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution: Nothing Fancy, anything else just let me know.
Notes:
Feedback: Like Cordelia needs clothes.
Dedication: Big thanks to the wonderful and gorgeous Abby for not only making me continue to write this and not throw in the towel, but for Beta reading this. Oh and happy belated birthday girl. Also this is dedicated to Daisy and Gabby who make my day whenever I see their fic. oh and Lara who said the ‘m’ word.A thick woolen blanket shrouded her body, long legs, toned stomach, and miles of the softest skin Angel had ever touched wrapped up in a blanket of crimson, a flush pink toe peeking out from the bottom of the covering. There she lay, Cordelia Chase in all her glory—pink bunny rabbit pajamas, short brown hair pulled back into a pony tail, beads of sweat on her forehead, and to top it all off a thermometer dangling from her chapped lips. Respectively.
She gazed down the bridge of her nose, trying to read the thermometer. She felt like a turkey on Christmas day just waiting for the beep to say she was cooked through. Finally, it came, loud and obnoxious. She looked up as a pair of strong male hands descended and plucked the thermometer out of her mouth.
“Really, Angel, it’s not all that bad. Just a little cold.” Her voice came out raspy, like sandpaper over raw wood, a small cough escaping before she raised her eyes and pleadingly looked at the vampire who was studying the thermometer.
She wondered, pulling the blanket tighter around her, when things had changed between them. Wondered if it was maybe about the time that his color blindness vanished. She was proud of his slow conversion to the not-so-dark side. Sure, he still had his trademark black pants on, but the white shirt- well that was something new. She smiled happily, proud of whom he had become over the last three years. Proud that she had something to do with the person he’d become. Proud that she had been able to witness it.
“You’re burning up,” he said, a frown deepening his lips.
“Well, duh. I don’t need a thermometer to tell me that. But that’s not the point- I can totally go into work today.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” He placed the thermometer on the coffee table, and picked up a facecloth, gently placing the damp material on her brow.
“Sure I am.” She moved to get off the couch. “See this? This is me going to work.” She stood up only to stumble backwoods. Angel caught her gently and lowered her back down onto the couch. He kneeled alongside her, checking that she was okay. Seeing that she was fine, he opened his mouth to speak only to find Cordelia’s finger on his bottom lip, stifling his chastising words. “Minor glitch, that’s all.”
“You’re not going to work. Wesley can solve the case himself,” he growled down at her. When she batted her long eyelashes he sighed and said, “Cordelia, no puppy dog looks, no pouting, and no sneaking out the door is going to make me change my mind.”
“I didn’t sneak out the door. Sneaking would involve being stealthy, falling into the door was not stealthy.”
Standing, he picked up an empty glass from the floor. “You realize that sentence did nothing for your case.”
“I’ve been cooped up here for the last two days.”
“So one more day won’t hurt.”
She looked up at him, a perfect scowl forming on her face. “You’re such an ass.”
“Insults also not going to work… Dennis keep an eye on her,” he ordered as he headed towards the kitchen.
“I hate you.”
****
Walking into the kitchen, he moved across to a boiling pot of soup on the stove. He rolled up his sleeves, took off his watch, and turned off the stove. Moving to pick up a ladle, he carefully placed the chicken soup into a bowl. He placed the bowl of steaming soup on a tray and swung the oven door down. Removing the top tray, he dropped two golden rolls onto a plate and placed them down beside the soup.
He picked up the kettle, pouring the hot water into her favorite cup, a tea bag lying at the bottom of the mug. With a squirt of honey and lemon, the tea was finished and placed onto the tray with the soup and bread. He carried the tray and its effects into the lounge room, only to find Cordelia, remote in hand, scowl on face, flicking through the channels.
“What’s on?” he asked as he placed the tray on the table, taking the tea and putting it on a coaster.
“Two Fat Ladies. It’s a cooking show. Speaking of cooking…” She smiled down at the food and pushed the blanket off of her. Sitting up, she curled her legs under her.
Propping a pillow behind her head, Angel moved around and put the tray in her lap. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, a little hot is all. So what’s this?”
“Chicken soup.”
“I get that, dumbo. I mean why?”
“You have to keep your fluid and vitamins up.”
“So- Jewish Penicillin,” she said, earning her an odd look. “We had a chef when I was back in Sunnydale who was Jewish, and whenever I was sick she would make it for me. I remember this one time when I was sick, she was away for her son’s wedding. So my mom made some for me. It tasted hideous,” she said, laughing. “And the kitchen was a mess afterwards. Completely destroyed… But it was the thought, you know? The fact that my mother would even make me something. That she would take the time away from her country clubs and her bottle of scotch to try to make me feel better. She did care. She didn’t show it often, but she cared.”
She looked over to Angel sheepishly. He knew she hated going into details of her past.
“So, Two Fat Ladies, huh?”
“Yeah. Hey, don’t they also say chicken soup is good for the soul? Maybe you should have some.”
“I was thinking about that, but then I didn’t want to get perfectly happy.” He looked at her just in time to see the eyebrow at full arch. “Sounded funny in my head,” he said, shifting her legs so he could sit on the couch.
“I bet. You realise you could have sat on the floor? I was comfy.” She put a spoonful of the soup in her mouth to bite back her grin. Another spoonful swallowed, and she had to try her hardest to keep it down, when he looked at her blankly, she could see the excuses ticking over in his mind.
He blinked at her, finally registering his answer “I am 200 odd years old, Cordelia, sitting on the ground only adds to backache.”
“Backache?”
“Yeah.” She coughed at his comment, and he couldn’t be sure if it was from the cold or not.
“You do remember you’re a vampire, right?”
The blank look was back with a vengeance. “Um…”
“Um?”
“Well. Yeah. We vampires get aches and pains like anyone else.”
“I'm sick, Angel, not stupid.”
“This from the girl that fixes my wounds despite the fact that she knows they heal on their own.”
“You realize you just broke the first rule of males and females. Girl says she is fat you say, ‘No, you’re not.’ Girl says, ‘Does my ass look big in this?’ You say, ‘Of course not.’ Girl says, ‘How do I look you?’ You tell her she looks beautiful stunning, elegant, sexy, etcetera etcetera. Girl says ‘I’m not stupid,’ you say, ‘Of course your not.’”
“I don’t like to tell lies.”
He ‘oomphed’ as a pillow hit his head.
“Hey, sick girl, no strenuous activities. Now watch TV.” He smiled, enjoying their bickering. Enjoying the fact that her spirit had suddenly lifted.
“Augh! Fine I will and just so you know. You want to sit here?” she indicated to where he was sitting with her head. “Be my guest just know I get rights to do this” and with that she placed both feet on his lap. She smirked at him before digging back into her soup.
“I don’t know why I bother with you sometimes, Chase.”
“Well Mr. I Don’t Have A Last Name So Can’t Play That Whole Surname Card, I know exactly why you bother with me.”
“Oh, you do?”
“Yeah. See, you find me totally irresistible. You just can’t live without my sexiness.” With that she picked up a tissue and blew her nose. Angel’s eyes scrunched up, and a smile played on his lips as he took in the image.
“Oh yeah, that’s definitely it.”
“Told ya. They don’t call me a seer for nothing you know. Now, since you insist on being my Florence Nightingale, so be a darling and massage my feet would you? They’re sore.” With one hand holding the chicken soup, she leaned across to the side table and picked up her vanilla massage oil. She smiled up at him as she handed it over.
****
Masculine hands kneaded her calf carefully. Cold skin on hot. Like ying and yang, they fit perfectly. Slowly his thumbs grazed upwards, brushing softly over the small of her foot before traveling back down to the heel. Pale fingertips slid fluidly across tanned skin. His index finger moved in slow circles along the small bones of her ankle, working the ache out of them. Strong hands once again moved to the base of her toes, massaging between them, spreading his fingers out he massaged downwards to the base of the foot.
“Can I keep you?” Cordelia asked as her head lolled backwards, the washcloth falling off her brow. “I mean you cook, you clean, you massage.”
Deadpanning, he added, “I also torture.”
“Was that innuendo or I-used-to-be-a-vicious-murderer?”
He shrugged. “Bit of both.”
“I think I corrupted you.”
“I think you did.” He smiled and removed his hands from her feet.
“Wha? You’re finished?” she whined.
As he stood up he circled her, lifting the now empty bowl of soup from her hands and contemplated having some himself. After all, maybe she was right. Maybe it really was good for the soul. Couldn’t hurt. He leaned down to pick up the washcloth as he continued on into the kitchen, placing the containers in the sink. Turning on the water he lowered the washcloth under the spray. Squeezing the excess water out, he turned off the tap and walked back to Cordelia, placing it back on her forehead as he entered.
****
The blanket was once again covering her fully. The back of her throat was becoming dryer by the second, and her ears ached every time she swallowed, so much so that she had already decided she was never going to swallow again. Or was at least trying her hardest.
Bloody noses she could deal with. Hell, she could even deal with blood coming out of her ears and mind splitting migraines—or at least she wished she could. But this cold was driving her batty. She hated feeling like this, all stuffy, with the watering eyes and head full of lead and only being able to breathe through one nostril of her nose because it was so clogged up with god knows what, and whenever she blew nothing would come out. She made a mental note that right after she kicked the PTB’s arses, supposing they had arses, she would blackmail them into making the cold and flu disappear.
“So I said to him, ‘Your hands go any further south and your testicles will become my accessories.’”
He laughed, stopping when he realized what that had implied. “Did they, uh, go- further south?”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Nope.”
“So I don’t have to kill him?”
“Xander’s okay Angel. He’s a good bloke.”
“Who cheated on you!”
“Who was also there when I really needed someone!”
She watched Angel, his gaze cast downward, wondering if he realized that his hands where absently playing with the comforter.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his eyes still avoiding hers.
“Sorry?”
“For not getting to know you back then.”
“Pfft!”
His head bolted upright to stare her in the eye. “Don’t pfft. I’m serious.”
“Angel, if you had gotten to know me back then, things wouldn’t be like they are now. Besides, you had Buffy I’m-a-bottle-blonde-pygmy-but-I-can-kick-your-ass Summers on your mind twenty-four/seven. And I had ‘Ooooh, that’s a designer brand’ on mine… Anyway, I don’t want to hear any of this.” She waved her hands in the air, “I have a raspy voice and I’m hungry.”
“What do you crave?”
“I made Jell-O yesterday?”
“How do you make Jell-O?”
“You put the packet into a container, add water, and mix. I’ll have you know it’s very complicated.”
“Yeah, all that pouring and stirring.”
“Don’t forget opening. So I’m a bad cook, sue me.”
“Well, you can sue people for just about anything nowadays.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So Jell-O,” he said as he got up and went into the kitchen. He could hear Cordelia coughing and sputtering as he walked back in. “Here you go.” Cordelia accepted the food eagerly.
“You know what I love about Jell-O?”
“No.”
“It wobbles.”
“That’s what you love?”
“Yeah. Wobble wobble wobble.” She indicated it by putting the bowl under his face and shaking it. “Oh, it also jiggles.”
“You’re a strange, strange girl.”
“I’m also highly medicated.”End.