Go TeamC/A
-
Title: Caged Hearts
Author: MexicanAlibi
Posted: 01/04
Rating: R
Category:
Content: C/A
Summary: What if Buffy and Angel's Great Love Affair was just another cruel curse bestowed upon Angel by Gypsies? Never one to miss an opportunity, Lilah lifts Angel's various curses and sets about screwing with his life. Fun!
Spoilers: Season 3, post Connor.
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution: just ask
Notes: I watched 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered' the other day, and decided the only way Buffy and Angel could be so obsessed with each other was if they had a love whammy bestowed upon them. Or, if they were both really really stupid. It's open to debate.
Thanks/Dedication:
Feedback: Yes please.
PrologueLilah Morgan was known throughout Wolfram and Hart as being a shrewd business woman. Of course, everyone knew that 'shrewd business woman' was just a euphemism for 'complete bitch'. It was funny how lawyers had polite technical terms for everything nowadays.
She sat in her office, leaning back in her leather chair and rubbed her temples. Another day, another decimation. How remarkably boring the apocalypse industry was when your arch-nemesis was distracted by baby formula. Ever since the unexpected arrival of Angel's newborn son, Lilah had been given her orders to keep her distance from the vampire and to busy herself with other projects. But being evil was ninety percent paperwork, and as much as she hated to admit it, without Angel running amuck throughout her offices there really wasn't much that interested Lilah anymore. Even virgin sacrifices seemed oddly tame compared to Angel's little antics.
Stifling a yawn, Lilah leaned forward in her chair and batted at her computer keyboard, wiping the Wolfram and Hart screensaver off the monitor with a well-manicured hand. A familiar flashing message in the corner of the screen reminded her that she had approximately 43 unread email messages that were, undoubtedly, nothing she would be interested in anyway. Out of sheer boredom she clicked on her inbox icon and figured now was as good a time as any to catch up on her correspondence. Hell, if things got really boring, she might even read her faxes. It was just that kind of day.
Something in her inbox caught her eye. Instinctively Lilah straightened her back and took a breath of stale office air. It was an email from one of the departments downstairs - one of those insignificant little corners of the law firm where people were required to obey her every command, on pain of death. Quite literally.
That, in itself, didn't shock her. It was the subject line that had caught her interest.
'Re: Gypsy curses. New developments.'
"Interesting." Lilah conceded, clicking on the 'read' link. Her eyes graced the body of the text, growing wider and wider with each word. Only her foolish sense of pride was what was stopping her from mashing the keyboard with her palm and screaming in excitement.
Finally, something to do around here!
Lilah picked up her phone and pressed Line 1, impatiently waiting for her secretary to pick up.
"Susan? Did you get the office memo?.... good. Get the Peloponnesian Shamans on the line as soon as possible, I want an estimate for how much it'll cost us to lift that curse, and I want that estimate before tonight."
As Lilah grabbed a pen and started scribbling notes on her office pad, her secretary whispered something down the phone line that she almost didn't catch.
"What? - What do you mean 'which curse'?..." She waited impatiently for the girl to try and justify her question, before cutting her off mid-sentence, "... No, I don't mean the soul curse, you moron. I'm talking about the love curse that'd had him bound to the slayer all this time. Did you even bother reading the memo?" Wow, vampire in love with a slayer? Gypsies certainly weren't without a sense of irony. Lilah smirked to herself as she continued to scribble, her mind racing at a mile a minute.
"And call an emergency office meeting for two o'clock this afternoon. If we can rid him of this stupid slayer obsession, it'll change everything."
Lilah slammed down the phone, hoping her incompetent assistant had gotten all the details right. She leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms leisurely above her head, smiling to herself.
Giving Angel full control of his own emotions back? Well, that certainly would change everything. And to think, Lilah sighed, that she thought today was going to be dull.
Part 1Angel knew something was wrong from the moment he work up.
It was not uncommon for him to be awake so late at night, seeing as he had this whole vampire situation to contend with, but since the arrival of his son Angel had made a special effort to keep more human-friendly hours. All the same, he was exhausted and knew he should probably be trying to get some sleep.
Yet, something was missing. He lifted up the bed sheets and took a quick inventory of all his bodily pieces, mentally noting that nothing was physically wrong with him - but all the same, he felt different. Kind of weird, if he was being totally honest. And for a long while he just lay there, butt naked except for a strategically placed silk sheet reaching only as far as his hips.
Angel lay there and brooded for a while.Meanwhile, at a residence in Sunnydale - several miles away:
Buffy Summers was curled up on the couch, enjoying as well-earned night off from the Doublemeat Palace. And although Buffy knew she didn't have to be back in work until after the weekend, the fact that her dearest friends, Willow and Xander, had inched their way as far over to the other side of the sofa as possible was evidence enough that she still smelled like processed meat and animal fats.
Still, she didn't mind. Buffy took what little comfort she could get nowadays. And watching television, even with mildly insulting friends, definitely fell under that category.
Impatiently Willow, clad only in fleece pajamas with some kind of teddy bear motif, flicked through the movie channels with some degree of frustration.
"There's just nothing on!" She grumbled, very unWillow-like.
Xander and Buffy exchanged worried glances, knowing that their friend was going through a difficult time. She had given up practicing magic altogether, which Giles explained over the phone, was not unlike trying to give up crack cocaine. And coincidentally, a conversation with Willow was not unlike lighting a bomb fuse and waiting for expletives to come flying back at you.
Buffy was worried. She missed the Old Willow. Teddy-Bear-Motif-Willow.
"Hey," Xander said, "Look - is that Pretty in Pink? What say we fuel Buff's Molly Ringwald obsession for a while, huh? Make fun of James Spader?"
Buffy was about to agree, but Willow's glare silenced her.
"No. We're not watching anything by John Hughes."
"Why not?"
"Because the eighties suck."
"Oh. Okay." Buffy agreed, quietly. Even though she was quite fond of the eighties.
Willow caught her friend's sad facial expression and immediately felt a stab of remorse. She relented, just a little, on her bad mood and finally found a movie channel she could tolerate.
"Hey - let's watch Interview with a Vampire. We can make fun of vampires in general and also, I like the angst factor. I need the angst right about now." Willow settled further in the couch cushions, playing anxiously with a lock of red hair that she usually tucked behind her ear.
Xander balked, and elbowed Willow sharply in the ribs, gesturing frantically at Buffy. Willow didn't understand what he was trying to tell her at first, but after he blinked emphatically for a couple of minutes, she finally realised what was wrong.
"Oh, Buffy! I'm sorry! That was completely insensitive of me! Watching the -... W-with the vampire! And the Anne Riceness! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."
Buffy scratched the back of her head, and regarded her friend curiously.
"Wil - did somebody up your sugar dosage?" She asked.
"No, it's just - I thought you'd be upset.... Because, well - y'know..."
Xander leaned over Willow, leaning an elbow on one of Buffy's overly muscular thighs.
"Because," He interrupted, "you were always talking about how the film reminds you of Angel, and blahblahblah, yay Angel! Blahblahblah, you and Angel can never be together! Blahblahblah..."
Annoyed, Willow smacked Xander on the arm, causing him to kick over the bowl of popcorn she had placed on the floor. Buffy thought back to Angel and felt a stab of something in the pit of her stomach.
It was a swirling empty feeling, and it felt kind of different to the pain she was normally used to feeling when she thought of her beloved Angel. It wasn't loneliness or guilt. She didn't particularly miss him, or anything. Somehow, Angel had stopped being the love of her life and had become simply - Angel. Her ex-boyfriend. Someone she cared for quite dearly and who may or may not have once endeavored to eat all her friends. Somebody she had ceased to know several years ago.
Sitting up on the couch, Buffy managed to identify the swirling sensation in her stomach.
"I'm hungry." She said, "Who wants pizza?"
Angel was suddenly forgotten.***
By the time Angel had managed to drift off and wake up again, it was already late morning. A quick trip to his make-shift nursery informed Angel that his son wasn't still in his crib. Someone - probably Cordelia - had already sashayed into his bedroom without asking, to feed his son and bogart all the baby snuggles. The baby and offending culprit were, undoubtedly, downstairs.
Angel smiled to himself. Well, he just couldn't allow that now, could he?
He didn't notice the squeaky floorboard in the hallway outside his room. He didn't notice the strange looks he got off his colleagues as he skipped the stairs, two at a time. He didn't even notice his own uncharacteristic chipperness, because today, as far as he was concerned, was a great day.
All Angel was focused on was his son, who quite happily lay in a small woven Moses basket, next to Gunn on the circular couch in the middle of the lobby. Gunn was playing one of those - whatd'yacallits? Game boys? A miniature obnoxious computer game that made far too much noise.
Connor, in turn, just lay on his back and moved his legs, gurgling happily. Being a baby, he'd only recently developed the ability to kick his legs and therefore found this activity endlessly fascinating. This suited Angel just fine, because he found the whole routine to be endlessly cute, in fact everyone did. Angel leaned into the basket and tickled his son, causing yet more gurgles and more then a little squealing.
Gunn shifted in his seat, his eyes not leaving his game.
"Man, please. I am trying to concentrate here."
Angel didn't let that ruin his mood. He nodded and scooped up the Moses basket, moving it over to the front desk where he could fuss over his baby appropriately. En route, he noticed Cordelia at her desk, typing away on some case file and occasionally pausing to crane her neck, trying to work out the kinks.
Angel gently placed Connor on the desk, and watched her, intrigued by something. By what? He wasn't sure, but there was definitely something.
Cordelia yawned, stretching her arms high about her head and arching her back, inadvertently sticking out her breasts in the process. Angel felt a stirring of something down in his joy department, and damn near squeaked in surprise.
Breasts?! Since when did Cordelia grow breasts? Why didn't anybody warn him?!
Horrified, Angel glanced about the office to see if anybody else had noticed what had just happened. Gunn was still playing with that god awful Gameboy thing of his, which had a tendency to suck up all his undivided attention. Fred, wearing her cute little professor glasses of hers, was sitting opposite Cordy, scouring a book and Wesley was safely sheltered in his office, blissfully unaware of what had just occurred. Lucky bastard.
Cordelia noticed him standing there, and smiled.
"Morning!" She said, quite simply. Like it was any normal day.
Oh God, what if she knew? What if she felt it too? What was going on here?!
Suddenly, Angel felt like he was under a spotlight. He didn't know what else to do, so he grinned nervously, flashing Cordelia a wide set of beautiful white teeth, and in turn - causing her smile to grow confidently and rival his. In fact, everything else seemed fade insignificantly into the background, eclipsed by this bright, sunny phenomenon that was - what? Cordelia being happy? He got to see Cordelia being happy all the time, so what was so different about today? It occurred, quite randomly, to Angel that Cordelia once told him he should smile more often. That must have meant that she liked his smile too, right?
Cordelia looked a little creeped-out now. Angel knew his smile must look forced and possibly a little malevolent, like that of a china clown. So, nodding to Cordy by way of hello, Angel made the executive decision of indignantly snatching his son out of his little woven basket and carrying him upstairs at a terrifying speed to hide in his bedroom.
Cordelia stared at the space Angel used to occupy, more than a little confused.
"Alright," she said, "you all know I pride myself on my title of 'Miss Vamp Psychologist', but I'm stumped on this one. Anyone know why Angel's being weird?"
Gunn shrugged, "Because it's Wednesday?"
Fred wrinkled her nose in delight, causing her thick-framed glasses to move further up her face. "No, silly! It's 'kyrumption!'"
"Fred, honey - don't make up days of the week. Gunn?"
Gunn grunted, putting most of his effort into his stupid video game.
"Man, I don't know. Maybe it's his time of the month, or something. Ask English."
Part 2The meeting room was bigger then Lilah's whole apartment.
Cleaner too, Lilah mused, as she ran a well manicured finger along the arm of a leather bound chair, sitting at the head of the table and overlooking forty pairs of sleepy eyes stared at her from down the room. She still wasn't entirely used to this newfound position of power, although you wouldn't think that to look at her. The people gathered around the meeting room looked up to Lilah with respective degrees of fear and awe and admiration, so much so that when Lilah Morgan had stamped, and screamed, and demanded an emergency debriefing at two o'clock in the morning, representatives from every department in Wolfram and Hart came running to her aid. To the right of her peripheral vision, Lilah could see Gavin Park leaning confidently in his chair as he scrutinised her with his typical 'Dr Spock'-like enthusiasm. Beside him, an attractive brunette in a too-tight blouse sat scribbling notes and taking the minutes of the meeting.
Lilah eyed this woman, critically. Was this her new secretary? Yesterday, the last one she had decided to quit her job, or maybe she was fired or something. Possibly even eaten, Lilah wasn't sure - she hadn't gotten round to reading that particular memo yet. Anyway, whatever had happened to the poor girl, Lilah decided she liked her better then the new one. The New Girl didn't look nearly as intimidated as she should have been, and Lilah made a mental note to rectify that situation as soon as her schedule would allow it.
Addressing the room, Lilah leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers.
"Is everybody here?" Lilah asked, demurely.***
Cordelia Chase didn't bother knocking on Angel's bedroom door anymore.
Of course, when you're working with a 240-something year old eunuch, there is little room in your working relationship for innuendo or sexual farce, so why bother with knocking? As far as Cordelia was concerned, it wasted valuable time when she could be doing something important like arguing with Angel, or manipulating him into giving her money. And why shouldn't she just barge in? She and Angel had no secrets with each other, and with him being the King of the Castrated, it's not like she could catch him doing anything embarrassing.
Well, except for tonight, it seemed.
She had walked straight into his bedroom with every intention of talking to Angel - she wanted to know why he was acting so weird. In fact, everyone was starting to get a little curious as to why he hadn't come downstairs all day, even Gunn, who was permanently glued to his Gameboy, was vaguely interested.
And yet, Cordelia hadn't expected to see... that.
Angel was sprawled on his bed clad, quite uncharacteristically, in something that wasn't black. He was wearing dark blue drawstring pants, something he usually only wore for training or working out. He was bare foot, and bare chested, and dosing quite happily in the early evening, a time when most vampires would be pacing back and forth with anticipation.
But that wasn't embarrassing in and of itself.
The embarrassing part was the fact that Angel lay with his son snoozing gently on his chest, surrounded in a sea of cuddly toys and baby entertainment equipment. It looked like a Beanie Baby massacre - the French Revolution of stuffed animals. Amongst the precariously scattered toys all over the floor, a musical night light softly played a lullaby, whilst projecting colourful images of stars, and clouds, and flowers on the ceiling of Angel's poe-faced apartment. Cordelia smiled and started gathering up the toys, figuring that the boys must have been through a very difficult and traumatic day of nonstop playing. No wonder they were pooped.
Tucking a teddy bear under one of Angel's bare arms, she scooped up Connor with every intention of placing him down in his crib. He gristled for a moment, annoyed at being disturbed from his comfortable position of drooling on his father's left nipple, but quickly settled in his new upright position against Cordelia's warmer and softer chest.
But on the bed Angel wasn't so compromising, he grumbled in his sleep and pulled the helpless teddy bear into a death-like hug against his chest. Cordelia smiled.
"Pfft. Scourge of Europe, my ass."***
Lilah paused mid-sentence to stare at the contents of her coffee mug with morbid fascination. The coffee used to taste better than this, didn't it?
"Anyway..." she continued, "...it's quite obvious from his behaviour over the past few years that Angel cares strongly for his seer."
She paused again to make sure everybody got a copy of the glossy photographs she had been passing around the room. The men of the office, upon seeing the photographs, were instantly awake and inspecting them with great enthusiasm - even Gavin, who had a thinly disguised disinterest in everything, unconsciously licked his lips.
But then, Cordelia Chase had that effect on men. Lilah rolled her eyes.
"You should all already be aware of Miss Chase's statistics, she has known Angel for many years now. A written copy of her profile will be passed around before the end of the meeting."
"The only reason no one here has tried to use Angel's own feelings for the seer against him is because of the "Buffy Clause", excuse the phrasing. With that clause now removed, if we can manipulate those emotions and drive him to distraction, not only should we be able to snatch that miracle child of his, but we stand a good chance of getting him to lose his soul."
Lilah leaned triumphantly back in her chair, and awaited for the onslaught of questions and comments to begin. Not unexpectedly, the first of which came from Gavin, who regarded her with a skeptical eye. Clearing his throat, his raised his voice and straightened his posture in an attempt to gain the attention of the entire room.
"You're forgetting one thing Lilah - we've tried similar tactics with Darla before. Angel managed to smoke us out."
Lilah scoffed.
"'We'? There was no 'we', Gavin - you weren't even there. In point of fact, this really isn't your area of expertise. If Angel Investigations gets a termite infestation, I promise I'll page you." Gavin's eyes frosted over with annoyance, but Lilah chose to ignore it. She addressed the rest of the room.
"I can guarantee that using the seer should prove much more effective than using Darla. Angel has to work alongside Miss Chase every single day - there will be no escape. It could push him completely over the edge."
Beside Gavin, the New Girl looked up with vague interest, before she carelessly tossed the notes she was writing onto the meeting table in front of her, causing a noise that drew the entire focus of the room away from Lilah.
"Miss Morgan is right." She said, speaking for the first time. The young woman pulled her shoulders back, subtly sticking out her chest, "Think about it as The Garden of Eden; it's the equivalent of taking the apple and forcing it down Adam's throat."
Lilah stared at her with disbelief, and crossed her arms. Suddenly she had a vague recollection of seeing this girl from somewhere before, but she wasn't quite sure from what department. Such a memory lapse was unusual for Lilah, because she liked to keep track of all the people that really annoyed her.
"It's smart." The girl concluded.
Lilah nodded, "Yes it is. And your name is...?"
"You can call me Eve."
"Eve? How appropriate. Say, do you think you can put a lid on those Garden of Eden metaphors long enough to get me a cup of decent coffee?" Eve looked at her, incredulous, "And here's a little tip - you grind it from beans, not from crap."
"No sugar in mine." Gavin added, unhelpfully.
"Everybody else, get to work - I want to hear some decent ideas before the end of the night. And Gavin, why are you still here?"***
Connor slept peacefully, Angel - less so.
As Cordelia finally cleared away the last of the toys, she paused momentarily to rub her palms on her jeans, not so much to clear her hands of dirt, but more symbolic of all the hard work she had just endured, cleaning up more of Angel's mess. She smiled as she saw the vampire was still lying on the bed, but without the soothing lullaby music he had fitfully rolled onto his stomach and crushed the poor, defenseless teddy bear with his weight. Sleepily, he half-growled at some figment of his imagination in his dream, and Cordelia absently wondered what it was vampires dreamt about.
From the lazy way he was behaving, Angel kind of reminded Cordelia of a cat. She toyed briefly of the idea off waking him up and telling him so, but decided against it. A cranky vampire was never fun. Instead, Cordy settled for playfully scratching Angel behind his ear, silently giggling at the low growl response she got for her efforts.
Cordelia pulled her hand back, and watched in amazement as the low growl continued for a few seconds, even after she had stopped teasing him.
"What is up with you today?" She whispered, "Do you have some sort of random 'weird behaviour' generator that you like to fire up every Tuesday or something? Just to keep things moving?"
By way of response, Angel half-growled, half-muffled-by-pillow something that sounded like her name. Cordelia watched in confusion as he growled again and stirred his hips, rocking against the mattress. Whatever he was doing was obvious having the right effect in all the right places, because the growling slowed and was replaced by sharp intakes of unneeded breath, as Angel gyrated against the mattress.
Cordelia stood in shock - she shouldn't be seeing this. This - this couldn't be what it looked like, could it? She watched him move, slowly and snake-like, as some intangible person in the depths of his subconscious spurred him on. It would probably be a good idea if she reached out and woke him up, before he did something embarrassing - or, well, evil and Angelusy - but Cordelia found herself oddly fascinated by the little grunts of effort he made, and by the way his tattoo rippled under the strained movements of his muscles.
No - she should wake him up. This wasn't soft-core porn, goddammit! It wasn't even a Discovery Channel documentary, this was Angel! Captain Castration! Her Best Friend! She should either leave him to it and trust that Mr Mattress wasn't able to give him a moment of true happiness, or face the music, bite the bullet, take a stand and embarrass the both of them by waking him up.
And so, Cordelia gave her bodily limbs their orders; to save her, and her family, from a brutal maybe-massacre by waking up Angel. Yet, her limbs still couldn't seem to move. She couldn't even tear her eyes away from Angel's vivid movements on the bed. She shook herself, realising it could take nothing less then a slap across the face and a cold shower to get her legs to start moving of their own accord.
"No," she whispered to herself, "no more screwing around. This is serious. It's wakey wakey time."
But then, Angel did something completely unexpected.
He opened his eyes.