Title: The Society of British Matchmakers
Author: Natauni
Posted: 02-22-2001
Rated: R, For language and a little sexual innuendo, but that's it. I don't so sex, sorry folks
Disclaimers: standard and as true as ever. Whedons, not mine... My own cause enough trouble
Summary: Uhm, Wesley prepares to do something either incredibly brave or absolutely suicidal?
Matchmaking for a vampire might very well be considered a suicidal endeavor. I'll admit it is, but as they say, 'sometimes a man simply has to do what a man has to do....'
It's a matter of perspective after all. A risk is only as dangerously unreasonable as the consequences of not taking it are... and at this point I will frankly state I'm willing to do just about anything if it will end this pathetic nattering I've found myself subjected to nearly constantly as of late. I mean do you realize how irritating it is to be the sole confidant or observer of a person in love? Especially when you have to listen to and cope with the whining from -BOTH SIDES!- It's been a week and a half of watching them make each other insane, and I'm ready to lock them both in the nearest available closet!
Angelus be damned, I'd be the one to destroy this city if this doesn't stop soon!
Don't ask me what it is, either. If you're really useless enough to think I'm being done in by the long silences or the one-way longing look contests or even the tension filled arguments they've been having about her increased involvement in the more dangerous side of our work as of late, then you don't deserve to know why I'm about to put my neck on the line. This isn't about the fighting or the sparring or the anxsting, or even about the sheer sexual tension that permeates the office these days. I'm pretty much invulnerable to all of the above by now. Lord knows I've had the opportunity to build up a tolerance.
No this isn't about the old and the faithful issues….I wish it were.
This is about Cordelia's bloody underwear commercials. And Angel getting a clue.
"They're NOT UNDERWEAR COMMERICIALS!" I can practically hear her bellowing those words right now. She was absolutely -indignant- to hear Gunn refer to them as such the first day she came into the office - all lit afire with the opportunity of actually being on major network television. Of course they aren't 'technically' underwear commercials… they're for Hanes casual lounging wear. You know - the tanks and sweat type boxer bottoms so popular among women lately. But that's the problem… Cordelia proved she could lounge very well… And the response has been tremendous. Not to mention drool worthy.
But then again I probably shouldn't be even thinking that. Angel might sense it and have to kill me like every other male on the planet.
Instants of clarity. Funny, how little you realize a woman is a woman until other people start noticing. We were shocked enough to find out that Cordelia's commitment to going back to some of her old dreams was genuine: that she was still interested in breaking into the entertainment/modeling industry. For her to land this audition only a week after she started going to screening calls made us all distinctly uncomfortable… It made us afraid she might suddenly remind us she was capable of doing whatever she wanted to do. Even if that meant leaving us.
And then of course there's the issue of Wilson. We're all so paranoid about someone exploiting her… about her being hurt again. It makes us rather insane…
Andrea Jenkins is even more protective of Cordelia's innocence than we are though. So we're all left flopping about like pathetically posturing fishes. While she has the time of her life.
Success is one of life's bitter ironies. We never thought she's make it in Hollywood. It's cruel but it's the truth: I guess we figured somehow that her apparent lack of acting ability and the sheer number of people involved in the industry would mean she'd always slip through the cracks. We saw how good she was at other things: at running the office and patching up our wounds and providing the occasional kick in the pants when it was needed, and I suppose we said that show business was beneath her - that she could do better things. That she would always want to.
We were willing to live with her not having her dreams come true. Apparently she wasn't though - out of spite or maybe a simple need to try and reassert her own power over her life she started going back to auditions again. We never thought she'd get picked.
We never thought she was actually born to do what she loved. But she was. It just took a person with a whole lot better eye for hidden beauty than any of those other idiots out there. Including us.
Multi-national. Cordelia often make jokes that she really ought to demand a raise from Angel considering how much new notoriety her face is now bringing the agency. Not that one successful commercial/photographic series necessarily means she has forever sealed her place in the world of the glamorous, per say, but on the other hand her particular 'flavor' has been so wildly the rave as of late that she can't even go to the mall without being recognized anymore. She's all American, all casual. Sheer woman who goes to shoots twice a week and spends the rest of her days trying to rid her clothes of demon goo...and arguing about whether she can rearrange the office files…
And it hit Angel the hardest of all of us. The day he noticed. The day he realized he wanted her. That he wasn't ready to share.
Oh what a day that was. Frankly I don't think he's managed to pick himself completely up off the floor yet.
He's scared to death by this. Scared of her excitement and her confidence and the way she's changed and yet not changed at all. He's scared of what he's finally noticing. What he'd rather have remained more immune to. I'll never forget the look on his face the night her commercial first aired. I thought he was going to swallow his tongue. As it was, he choked on his blood.
Now I'll admit I haven't ever been there myself, but what's it like to look at your present and finally recognize your future.
Enthralling. Viviacious. Playful and and fresh and giggly and so utterly breathtaking I don't think we'll ever quite recover. Don't ask me where that particular look on Cordelia's face came from…I'm quite sure I'm no more ready to know than Angel, but that image of her, standing on that front porch swing laughing so freely - so human and so utterly feminine as she wielded that minature squirt gun against an unseen opponent. Every man on earth wishes they'd been the one she was pointing at. It was brilliant camerawork…and she fit the role perfectly.
I'd originally thought it would take nothing less than an act of God to make Angel see the truth. As it turned out, all it took was a break between sections in the Semi-final playoffs.
Wham. Love right to that spot precisely between the eyes. Love not just protective and tender and intimate, but -possessive.- It was all about ownership, and Angel didn't even see it coming. He didn't see her. Not that he's ever been very good at that before now. Well okay, he most certainly looked at her often enough, but he didn't-see- her. Maybe he didn't allow himself to. Maybe he had settled himself so much on another type and maybe he and Cordelia were still struggling so hard to rebuild their friendship after the whole Darla mess that it never occurred to him she wasn't the only one reacting out of extremely strong feelings. Angel isn't always the brightest of souls, you know. I mean yes, his reading list makes mine look like peanuts and his intellect certainly isn't something to be questioned, but in terms of his common sense - his ability to see the end of his nose? He's seriously devoid in the blindingly obvious IQ, if you get my meaning…
I mean…he's been back - we've been a team for a good five and a half months now, and he still doesn't know she is and has been in love with him for….well forever?
Yeah she is. Not that she ever expected anything to come out of it. That's the real sad thing about it. The man spent so much of his time when he first came to Los Angeles mooning over Buffy and swearing he'd never put himself into a situation where he'd have to rip his heart out like that again, and yet he doesn't recognize a person doing the exact same thing in his own office. Cordelia has loved Angel since the night he pulled her off of the streets - though if you ask him he'd say she did more of the pulling - and she's been in love with him nearly as long. Maybe its because he's the first person who's ever truly seen her and still accepted her. Maybe it's because he doesn't mock her. Maybe it's just because they are such totally similar souls and they've gone through Hades and back together.
Regardless that fact is she would do absolutely anything for Angel. Absolutely anything.
Well except maybe forgive him after he ran off on us and I got shot.
War of wills. That was the first change. The true start of all of this. I've often wondered what the outcome would be if Cordelia and Angel ever went nose to nose on the logical-emotional front. If they ended up on opposite sides of an issue and neither were willing to back down any ground. I can tell you now what the result is: pain. Gut-wrenching, wall scorching, pain, accompanied by intermittent bouts of fury and silence and stubbornness so potent I sometimes wondered if both of them were going to make it out alive.
It made Hirsoshima look like a minor event - their little conflict of opinions. He was damned and determined to make things right - to bring them back to the role of best-friends/warrior-seer he'd been so comfortable with, and she was damned and determined to prove she would never need him again. Needless to say these two particular goals clashed: especially when she stopped accepting money for her work as long as the checks were written to him and not to the Agency. And then compensated for her food bill by regularly donating blood…
I don't know where he took her when he found that out - but I assume the building's no longer standing. It was likely the single longest, most painful self-implosion I've ever been glad to have not witnessed in my life. And it ended with him agreeing to give her self-defense lessons if she's agree to let him start paying her again.
It was then I think, he realized he could never dare take her for granted.
That didn't mean he saw the truth for what it was though. I wouldn't be lucky enough to be friends with reasonably self-intelligent people.
It's all about priorities. He was threatened by her renewed quest for Hollywood from the start because he saw it as a path leading away. Mr. Control freak wanted his nice little family back, but he was still adjusting to the fact that all of us had changed as a result of what had happened, and so his tendency to try and overcompensate was making all of us a little nuts. Cordelia especially bore the brunt of it: both because she was the center of his restoration efforts and because, frankly, she was the only one who couldn't manage to get him to bugger off. Their days were unbelievably entwined: I can't believe how many useless reasons Mr. Antisocial managed to come up with for them to do things together: be it the filing or following up a lead or whatever - and the nights were worse.
He never invited her to a Disney movie, but I believe he probably would have if he'd thought it was the only way to guarantee him another evening in her presence. Was it any wonder she wanted room and he was simultaneously so reluctant to give it?
And then there were the sparring lessons. Oh wasn't - that- just the single brightest idea our fearless leader had ever had. Oh I know that he had himself convinced he didn't like it: he had a remarkably chauvinistic response to our girl wanting to be able to fight for her own benefit. Still though, considering the fact that both Gunn and I were also more than capable of helping in the instruction, he managed to come up with every plausible excuse for why he and he alone was to have the privilege of teaching her. The most pathetic excuse on the list being he was sure if he did it she would never accidentally be hurt….
Brilliant logic mister immortally strong master vampire. Brilliant logic.
I might just bloody well have to frame that one and hang it on our wall.
She broke one of his ribs. Actually, I think she broke two of them and possibly cracked his sternum - not that he was willing to confirm it. It was hard to say who felt worse - her or him during that recuperation period. Cordelia was absolutely inconsolable at first - she was appalled she could have injured him. She stopped her outside office activities to play nurse for nearly a week, and yet no amount of reassuring on his part could convince her it had been his fault. Not that he wasn't happy for the extra attention.
Bloody bastard. Frankly I think he deserved it. Honestly Angel, if you want to judge the sheer strike force ability of someone you're never tested before don't you think you should at least be prepared with a half effective block?
So she's beautiful and he's stupid and they want each other and neither is capable of doing anything about any of it. And that about sums it up: the story of a Wyndham-Price downfall. I've been cursed with the two densest people in the world. Angel - who went for months without the slightest clue that his best friend was head over for him, and Cordelia, who, when she's finally got what she wants in sight is too busy trying to improve all three of us boys 'absolutely pathetic' wardrobes to notice.
They're really quite the pair, aren't they? I half think they deserve this little ride they're on - but -I- don't deserve it… and I have to figure out what I'm supposed to do. And very quickly.
Because honestly, if seeing her in polar fleece boxers and a shorty shirt had this affect, what's the new spring line up coming out going to do to my pathetic life?
End.