Fic: Nevermind The Darkness (AtS)

[beer_good_foamy]

Here's a pairing I don't think I've written before. Also, gold star to anyone who recognizes the song they're dancing to.

Also, gotta love that femslash_minis did an A Softer World challenge. I'm going to miss that comic.



Title: Nevermind The Darkness
Author: Beer Good (beer_good_foamy)
Fandom: Angel s3, alt version of "Waiting In The Wings"
Rating: PG13
Word count: ~860
Characters/Pairing: Fred/Cordelia; nods to Angel/Cordelia, Wesley/Fred, Gunn/Fred
Summary: Written for femslash_minis and carlyinrome's prompt everyone smiles at us like we're the cutest couple/ let's do something wrong. Fred and Cordy getting ready to go to the ballet.

Heisenberg and Schrödinger are pulled over for speeding. The first cop asks Heisenberg, "Sir, are you aware that you were doing 80 mph?" Heisenberg says, "Great, now I'm lost." The other cop inspects the car and asks, "Sir, are you aware that there's a dead cat in your trunk?" Schrödinger says "Well, NOW I am, thanks for nothing!"

Nevermind The Darkness

"Yeah, we're hotties. Really, more than any mortal man deserves."

It's only when Cordelia walks into Fred's room like she has every right to, puts her arm around her shoulder and poses next to her that it really sinks in to Fred that the woman in the mirror is her. Well, obviously she knew it was her, but that feeling of playing dressup and the clock striking midnight and the pumpkin and the mice and all that suddenly fades away. She really is here, in her actually own room, in an actually real gown, in actually real LA, waiting to go to an actually real ballet.

Really, it's impossible, she thinks as she leans into Cordelia and looks at them both. "Yeah."

She catches herself thinking of Pylea - not as something she's not allowed to think about, not as something she can't bear to think about, but just as something that happened and was awful but is behind her. She got there, which was practically impossible, she made it back in one piece, which was theoretically impossible, everything everyone's taught her was horse hockey and she can do anything.

"So, what do you think?" Cordelia nods to the open door. "Are we going to make someone happy tonight?"

Fred makes a haven't-thought-that-far noise. "I'm just buzzed, y'know? Like I wanna..." What? Can't she just want, unspecifically? "I dunno, dance..."

Cordelia shoots her an amused look. "I'm pretty sure ballets aren't big on audience participation."

"Aww. Are you sure?"

"Not even remotely. Don't know the first thing about ballet." Cordy pulls back a stray lock of hair from Fred's face, fixing it behind her ear. "But here's what I do know: act like you know what you're doing, and everyone will assume you're doing it right. If you wanna dance, knock yourself out."

And suddenly there's a song on the radio, well, technically the radio had been on in the background the whole time because she can have the radio on now anytime she wants, but somehow it felt like it just came on. She's danced to this before, back in high school. She's not sure which one of them makes the first move, but suddenly she's got her arm around Cordy's waist and they're dancing. It shouldn't be this easy, she hasn't worn heels since... Prom, probably. And she's pretty sure she slipped them off when she went off to get high with the usual gang. When was the last time she did that? The last time she did anything she wasn't supposed or forced to do? But now she just does it,and the song is really long but it's a good refrain, and they're both here and now and she hasn't been this close to another person in so long. The sort of long that you probably can measure, I mean, allowing for dimensional drift and slightly longer Pylean days and years, but what's the point because numbers can never say exactly how every second, every infinitesimal Planck-length part of a second can feel. It's not so much Cordy (though for the first time Fred really gets why they made her a queen, the grace she has and gives) as it's her own awareness of them both, of this moment right here and now where the song picks up speed and the hair stands up in symmetry on their arms and there's electricity in their fingers and this whole business about one person leading and the other following is pointless. It's probably basic quantum physics and observer effects but fuck it (she can say that if she wants to) she's not going to open that box. She's just going to let the music take her where it wants to go, and her hand grabs Cordy's swaying hips and -

Then the song ends and they're standing there, cheek to cheek. "See, what'd I tell you?", Cordy breathes into her ear, as if to convince herself she knows what she's doing.

And then there's applause, and they both look up to see Angel, Gunn and Wesley standing in the doorway, all three with rented tuxes on their arms, all three grinning like they won the lottery. Angel's looking at Cordelia like he saw God and Wes and Gunn are looking at... her? Aw crap, they're both... Suddenly she stands a little taller. They're both. With her. And that can't be good in the long run, but right now she's on Planck time and there is no long run.

Cordelia lets go of her - almost, still holds her hand as she takes a bow for the boys. "OK guys, show's over. Go put on your pants, we need to get going."

The song somehow starts up again - maybe this night really is magic, or maybe the DJ's just asleep. And as Cordelia closes the door in the guys' faces, Fred just sort of follows her momentum and pins her with her back to the door.

"OK, where were we?"

There's exactly 8 minutes and 57 seconds until the song ends, and they say nothing lasts forever but they've been wrong before.

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thank you, so glad you liked it! This was a fun prompt - it took a while to figure out where I could fit it into canon, but once I did, I'm quite happy with it.

[carlyinrome.livejournal.com]

Hey, femslash_minis' next round is an Author's Choice round. Are you interested in picking a theme? It's not going to start until 20 July, so you have plenty of time to decide. I seem to remember it was your turn before, but we couldn't make it happen. Let me know. :)

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Maybe some other time, but 20 July is right at the beginning of my holidays and I plan to be gloriously unscheduled... :)