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Cheerleader Philosophy, Part One

Cordelia kept thinking about it – when they’d found their path again; how easily it could have ended in their deaths. She’d been so drunk she had to remind herself that nothing might have happened quite as she remembered it. Not the moment when the cold air had hit them as they stumbled out of Caritas, the pain of her vision still twanging behind her eyes, a strobe light effect in her brain that slashed white and rainbow daggers of color. It had felt a little like sobering up; the sick pain in her head; sicker memory of that woman with the gaping wound spewing blood, and the demon’s hunger, a taste of that anticipation in her mouth as well, as he dragged the helpless victim away to devour her.

She would have said it was impossible to communicate the urgency of it; her need to see the vision through; to rescue the one whose peril was shown to her; but she had never needed to explain it; not to Angel, not to Wesley, not to Gunn. Not until recently when Angel had vanished into vengeance and obsession, her visions and her need to see them through to even the most dangerous conclusion a gnat-bite, easily dismissed with a wave of his hand, beside his pressing need to revenge himself upon the people who had turned Darla back into a vampire, and upon the vampire Darla had become again. Love and hate were too closely intertwined with him; always had been. The dark avenger in search of redemption, or perhaps just on a death wish, dating a Slayer, driving a convertible, and then having driven himself to a place that none of them would have cared to follow. Although perhaps without the rest of them to argue him out of it, Wesley might have tried. He did share that with Angel sometimes, the half-assed pull towards the more than possibly fatal. Angel’s eyes had been as dead as…well, as he was. Hard to believe this was the same sometimes goofy guy who quibbled about the service charge on a check, cooked them eggs, told Wesley, straight-faced, that plaid was making a comeback and corduroy, under certain circumstances, could indeed be considered cool.

That wasn’t the same guy who’d locked in those Wolfram & Hart lawyers with Darla and Drusilla and then told them about it without a flicker of emotion. They’d all looked in vain for some shame in his eyes, but there had been nothing, like staring into an oil spill, the same blackness, the same knowledge that one spark and there would be flame. Angel had thrummed with anger and spite. Gunn had murmured it as they walked out of the doorway: “What he did – that was just plain nasty.”

Gunn hadn’t met Angelus and even Wesley’s introduction to him had been fleeting but she remembered Sunnydale and the corpse left out for Giles, the practised cruelty that had gone into scattering those rose petals, the same pettiness that took time out from a killing spree to slaughter Willow’s goldfish. She hoped that along with all his official Watcher reports, the thick volumes that dealt with the past misdeeds of Angelus, Wesley remembered how it felt to have someone you trusted hit you hard enough to make white stars explode into blackness before your eyes. She’d thought Angelus had broken Wesley’s neck with that backhand; the casual brutality of it. She couldn’t even say that Angel, with his soul in place and no doximol to temporarily turn him, would never do that to Wesley, as he’d done it only a few weeks before to knock him out of the range of fire. Sometimes she wondered if Angel even knew how frightening his strength could be. Such a comfort when they went into battle, certainly, but the cause of a flinch of unease sometimes as well. She had seen Wesley jerk his head out of the way instinctively the next time Angel moved a little faster than usual, to gesture with his right hand when his voice was raised; the shocked hurt in Angel’s eyes that the man could have thought even for an instant that he was about to hit him. Wesley’s apologetic wince, his whispered apology.

But you did hit him, Angel. She hadn’t said it aloud. She knew how that shroud had affected all of them, what incredible self-control Angel had shown to overcome its power after they had sent him off on that mission to drive himself half-crazy. Human blood drunk by him for the first time since…Buffy. Wesley had admitted they could hardly have screwed up more; their distraction from Darla almost turning into a bloodbath. It had bothered her a little that Wesley hadn’t displayed any anger about being interrogated by two cops who had seemed to know everything there was to know about intimidation tactics – their fingers had left bruises on his wrists where they’d manhandled him from room to room – too busy scourging himself for not having realized in time how dangerous the Shroud could be.

Despite her valiant efforts to shift the blame in Caritas, she had to admit – if only to herself – that neither Wesley nor Gunn were to blame for being fired, and neither was she. Angel was the screw-up here. Angel was the one who had lost the mission. They were the ones who had managed to cling to the right path, having gotten back onto it in that blood-stained warehouse.

That was where the moment had happened; a snapped freeze-frame at which her mind kept wanting to worry. Not the stink of blood, the sobbing breath of the woman in shock and pain, the snarling of the beast, or the way it threw her friends around like scarecrows. No, it was the moment when it had pounced on Wesley and pulled his arms behind his back, the frightening resignation on his face. As it yanked him into position she had seen a look of weary acceptance there, as if he knew this position of old and how it couldn’t be escaped, once they had you like this there was nothing to do but endure it until they shifted their grip and you could get free again...

Why did she think that was what she’d seen? So much tequila and the night air after the warm bar; the spike of the vision still thrumming like a multi-colored migraine behind her eyes. If she’d blinked she would have missed it, the creature had moved so quickly, pulling Wesley into position before it closed its jaws around his shoulder and bit deep. His whiplash jerk against the pain, head snapping back, that cry. Being held down and hurt had looked way too familiar to him.

Wesley was part-comical, part-vulnerable, part-hero, part-idiot. She loved him, of course, as she would have loved a family member, a brother she’d been stuck with through an accident of birth, ashamed of him and exasperated by him and proud of him and fiercely protective of him all at once. But she didn’t really know him; not what he’d been. Not what had gone into his making. He was from an alien culture. Who knew how English people raised their kids anyway? Not too hot on the warm fuzzies, she gathered, by the way he was so touched by any small kindness, got tearful if someone hugged him or said anything a little too nice. She made sure she kept an edge with him. No coddling. He was too soft, she suspected, needed to be toughened up. The world was hard and they fought demons for a living. Make him a sandwich, smack him upsides the head, just because. Keep him guessing but yes, okay, make him the sandwich before the smack because, God, he was thin. It was much too easy to slip into feeling protective and instinctively she knew that wasn’t the right approach. He had to find a level of masculinity somewhere above the zero he too often hit or it wouldn’t be her and Gunn calling him an ass pansy but some bastard in an alley looking for a reason to shove a beer bottle in someone’s face. The accent was off the scale annoying somedays. Hard to believe she’d ever found it sexy. Prissy prig of an ex-Watcher Wesley, being pompous in his extra-clipped accent in a way that just invited a knock down drag out fight.

And now she was back to that moment again, and the demon dragging his arms behind his back and that resignation flickering across Wesley’s face because here he was again with something stronger than him, yanking him into position with nothing for him to do but endure until it stopped.... He probably had been bullied, when she thought about it. He’d been bullied in Sunnydale. He wasn’t good at making friends or fitting in with new people; much too inclined to try to puff himself up like a pigeon to look bigger than he really was. She’d been a bully herself, and she’d always gone for the misfits; the Xanders and Willows who weren’t cool and didn’t have a clique behind them. Wesley would definitely have been one of those – all eager to please and so easy to make him cry; and it wasn’t as if he came across as very masculine either. If they’d been at school together, she would have picked on him, no question, and he would have come back with the waspish little put downs and it would have just escalated from there. Except in all boys’ school they didn’t just use words, so…yeah, Wes had probably been smacked around a few times by bigger boys; teased and humiliated and hurt and on some deep level maybe he was angry about it and on some much nearer to the surface level maybe he expected it. Either way there wasn’t a lot she could do about it now.

As with Angel’s past crimes there came a point where she had to just go into denial because they couldn’t be undone and if she thought about them, the rapes and mutilations and torture and murder, the dead children, dead women, dead innocents piled up in his past, she would feel she had to hate him. And what was the point anyway when that wasn’t who he was any more?

Gunn had asked Wesley that one day, shock in his unexpectedly gentle brown eyes as he caught a glimpse of Angel’s file, the case histories of Angelus, wood engravings of old horrors, tremulous accounts on crackling parchment of terrible crimes. “How do you forget all that, man? How do you work with someone who did stuff like that?”

“I never forget it.” Wesley had spoken quietly as he closed the file. “And I never forget that Angel was the first victim of his killing spree, that he was the first one to die.”

She felt like that about Wesley’s past. As it couldn’t be undone, as there was no way to go back in time and make his parents love him and remember to tell him from to time that maybe he wasn’t the total loser that they thought, what was the point in dwelling on it? She would have liked to find a way to tell her father not to fiddle his tax returns too. She didn’t like to think about the child Wesley had been; about the under the stairs darkness he’d been locked into for failing to live up to expectations. Perhaps it had been character building, she told herself. Perhaps it was even useful, now he battled demons for a living, that he had presumably long since worked through any fears of the dark. Much better to think of it that way than to think of some scared, skinny little boy sitting huddled fearfully in the shadows with his arms wrapped around his knees wishing someone loved him enough to let him out.

“Are you okay?” She looked up from her place behind the front desk in the Hyperion to find Wesley with an armful of books and a concerned expression on his face.

“Do I look not okay?” she demanded, putting a hand up to her hair as if her pride was piqued. “Or is Mister Fashion Victim of the Century attempting to diss my appearance?”

As she hoped, he looked relieved. “I was worried you were lost in deep and painful thought. Silly of me.”

“Very,” she assured him. “And you do know that shirt – okay, actually that shirt, as your shirts go – not one of the worst ever but still not exactly out of the – now I look at it again – is that Ralph Lauren?”

Wesley looked at her blankly then down at the shirt he was wearing. “I don’t know.”

“Is that even yours? Or did Angel lend you one of his?”

“Virginia bought it for me.” Wesley plucked at it sombrely. “She said something about burning my wardrobe.”

“I always liked her. Hey, does that mean that for a while there you were actually a kept man? Because that would impress me a lot more than you knowing the mating habits of a Venkharak Demon and insisting on telling the rest of us about it when we were trying to eat. But if Virginia was feeding you and clothing you I’d say that puts you at least halfway along the road to being a kept man for a while there. In which case – props to you and by the way – you slut....”

“If you don’t mind, I did actually pay the restaurant bill when we went out for dinner.”

“So, that’s why she was always taking you to those fancy parties her friends kept throwing then? No fighting over the check.” Having convinced him, Cordelia, hoped that worrying about his feelings was the last thing on her mind, she added casually: “When you were at school…?”

Properly irritated now, Wesley put the books he was carrying down on the front desk. “What about it?”

“Did they treat you okay?”

Wesley blinked in confusion at the change of subject. “What do you mean?”

“You hear these things.” She shrugged, trying to keep it casual.

“It was a very good school.” Wesley still evidently thought she was either getting at him or had lost her reason, or possibly both.

“Boarding school, right? Where you sleep in dormitories and things?”

“Yes. A very good boarding school with the highest levels of academic achievement.” His bewilderment at her questioning was reassuring her considerably.

“So, you weren’t…unhappy there?”

That was clearly a very confusing question for Wesley. “No, I loved it. Or rather, I suppose I sort of hated it, too. It was always cold and the food was terrible and I missed my mother, but it was.... I always knew that I’d be going there. It’s what one does in my family. Go to prep school until thirteen and then transfer to the Watchers’ Academy. There were never any alternatives so I never thought anything of it. The point was to do as well as possible, and I did.”

“Were you homesick?” She couldn’t help letting a little softness creep into her tone as she thought of Wesley as a little boy.

“Yes.” His face got that blank look it did sometimes when any reference to his father came up. “Just not for my actual…home.”

“So, the bigger boys didn’t....” She couldn’t think of a way to phrase it. “They didn’t…do anything to you?”

A reassuringly total blank from Wesley who was clearly as clueless as it was possible for a human being to be about what she was talking about or else a much better actor than she’d ever given him credit for. “Well, there was a certain amount of teasing, of course. I mean there always is in an all-male hierarchal structure. It’s proven to actually be quite beneficial for the recipients to have to find their own level within that kind of an environment. And ultimately, once at the Academy, I was made Head Boy.”

She was shocked. “You were?”

Her expression clearly confused him. “Yes. Head Boy of the Watchers’ Academy. Which is a good thing,” he added when she didn’t immediately seem to realize it. “Like being…what do they have in your schools?”

“Prom Queen?”

“Is that good?”

“Yes, but....”

“Well then, I suppose it would be the equivalent.”

She sighed. “So, you did have to date a lot of football jocks then? I was afraid of that.”

“No. Cordelia....” Wesley put a hand up to his head. “I really do feel as if we’re divided by a common language at times.” Realization seemed to hit him and he opened his eyes wide. “Have you by any chance happened upon a copy of Tom Brown’s Schooldays in the last week or so?”

She opened her mouth to start this conversation over, reminding him about that weary resignation he’d shown when the demon had seized him, both of them getting red up to their ears as he finally realized what was concerning her, and then at the thought of it her heart quailed and she took the coward’s way out. She grimaced. “You got me. Yes. I read it and I was thinking about you being in an English public school like that and....”

He smiled in relief, a slightly patronising expression on his face. “Really, Cordelia, it’s kind of you to be concerned, but I can assure you that my schooldays were nothing like that.”

“So, why are they called ‘public schools’ anyway when they’re not open to the public?”

“Well, technically, they are, of course, it’s only that there is also a fee-paying structure....”

She let him lecture her about the English private school system, not listening and wondering if she had just been a little gutless; then she thought about how she couldn’t make anything at all that had gone wrong in Wesley’s past or Gunn’s past or Angel’s past or even her own past any better just by wishing things had happened differently. The only thing she could influence was the present. She let him wind down and then took his arm. “We’re going out to lunch.”

“We are?” He looked at her in surprise.

She picked up her jacket, not because she needed it but because it matched her skirt and set off her whole ensemble. “Well, for once you’re wearing clothes that don’t make me ashamed to be seen out with you and I think we should celebrate that. And as you’re the boss you can pay.”

“You’re all heart,” But he was smiling as he said it and she could see he was more touched than not.

Looping her arm through his she steered him towards the doors of the Hyperion. “And, as a special treat and because that check from the Robinsons turned out not to be made of rubber after all, I’ll pick out some pants to go with that shirt that – here’s an idea – actually fit you.”

Wesley looked down at his pants in confusion. “These fit me.”

“See, your definition of ‘fit’ and mine – so not the same. In Wesley World if an item of clothing doesn’t actually fall off if you make three extra holes in your belt to keep it on, that constitutes ‘fitting’. Out here where the real people live, that would be ‘so not fitting at all’.”

As they passed the mirror which Angel kept wanting to take down and she had insisted they left up, she stood them in front of it, and then reached up to straighten Wesley’s glasses and push his hair back so it looked even cuter. He looked surprised and touched at the attention and escort-worthily handsome. For a moment she remembered how he’d appeared to her back in Sunnydale when he had seemed everything that was grown up and sophisticated. Difficult to believe that now when, despite being technically younger than either of them in years, she tended to think of him and Gunn as the annoying younger brothers who needed firm sisterly guidance to keep them in line. “You look nice,” she told in him. “Even in the older brother hand-me-down pants.”

“I don’t have an older –” Sighing in resignation, Wesley sensibly accepted defeat. “And you look lovely. Even in the ‘sold your right to remain pissed off for a handful of designer threads’ Judas wear.”

She beamed at him. “Thank you.”

He grinned back. “You’re welcome.”

She walked him out towards the sunlight just as Angel appeared in the lobby from the stairway, bleary with not enough sleep. “Where are you going?”

“Out to lunch,” Cordelia called gaily over her shoulder.

Angel gave them the puppy dog eyes. “You don’t want to order something in that we could all share?”

“Does the blood bank do take out these days?” She was determined not to give up her quality time with Wesley, who was clearly wavering. She tightened her grip on his arm. “We’ll bring you back donuts if you’re good.”

“If we went to that little place by the sewer access I could –”

Time to be truly firm. “I’m taking Wesley shopping. If you were any kind of man you’d have done it yourself but as you haven’t I’m stepping into the breach. Look at these pants.”

Angel looked and shrugged. “They look okay to me.”

“Would you wear them?”

Angel conceded defeat with a shrug. “No.” Evidently seeing the hurt look in Wesley’s eyes he added hastily: “We’re a different shape. They wouldn’t fit me.”

Cordelia wasn’t letting him weasel out of it that easily. “Would you wear anything at all in Wesley’s wardrobe? And let’s face it we’re talking about someone who would literally be choosing not to be seen dead in the clothes under discussion.”

Angel very obviously cast around for a way to be tactful, settling on: “I like that shirt.”

“I rest my case.” Cordelia tugged decisively on Wesley’s arm. “We’re going shopping. If I get a vision I’ll call you.”

She was aware of Angel and Wesley exchanging one of their ‘Women…!’ looks over her head but didn’t care. Perhaps the boys at Wesley’s stuffy uptight boarding school had done horrible things to him after lights out and perhaps they hadn’t but either way there was no reason for him to wear pants that didn’t fit him when he had the kind of figure that good clothes would just hang on perfectly if he could only be persuaded that there were more important things in the world to spend his money on than books. And, yes, she could see there wasn’t a particularly direct correlation between a possibly buried childhood trauma involving sadistic abuse and a well cut pair of pants, but in her mind at least the second did make some kind of recompense for the first.

“This is money well spent, Wesley,” she added as they passed out into the world of sunshine and a lot less demons than at night-time, leaving Angel sending them a reproachful ‘poor little me, I can’t go out in the daylight’ look that was already making Wesley gaze over his shoulder and waver. “We need to make a good impression on the clients. There’s nothing that says ‘success’ like a well-dressed team of investigators. Remember that next time you’re frittering our hard-earned money away on more of those musty old books.”

“And I’m sure the clients whose problem we can’t solve because we traded in all our reference material to buy designer frocks will be very impressed by the fact that although we can’t actually kill the demon who is eating their first born we do look very well turned out while failing to do so.”

“Just for that, you’re buying me dessert as well as lunch and you’re getting the donuts for Angel on the way home.”

Wesley sighed and checked his wallet. “I really did want to get that copy of the Prophecies of Odenard they have in the bookshop down the road. I think it may have some more information about the coming apocalyptic battles that would be useful for cross referencing.”

She sighed back, and did it better, being an actress. “Okay, no dessert, but I’m making sure you buy shoes with an Italian label sometime this month whether you like it or not.”

He slumped in defeat and she knew she had him where she wanted him; which was as it should be; she couldn’t see the point in working in a dangerous, dirty, and unglamorous job with three demon-killing males if they didn’t darned well snap to it when she wanted something. “I think the Watchers’ Council should really hire me as a clothing advisor,” she added. “I could save so much time and heartbreak for you guys. A whiteboard, some flow charts, a few swatches, and even you truly hopeless cases would be working out that there are other materials in the world than tweed and corduroy. And I could throw in a special ‘this is how you talk to girls’ class free.”

Wesley looked smug. “I don’t remember you finding my clothing so off-putting when we were in Sunnydale.”

“I was on the rebound. Although that reminds me – who did teach you to kiss anyway?”

Wesley went a little pink around the ears. “No one. I mean – none of your business.”

“Oh, come on, you went from totally clueless to gold star, go to the top of the class and get a free lollipop from the jar.” She stabbed a finger at him. “You got a freebie from a hooker who took pity on you and liked your accent, didn’t you?”

“Cordelia!” He looked genuinely shocked. “A man’s private life is his own affair.”

“I’ll get it out of you,” she assured him. “A few vodkas and you’re anyone’s. I’ll make you spill every dirty little secret you’re hiding. Just you wait and see.”

“That could work both ways. Do you really want me telling Gunn who your dancing partner was for your High School Bacchanalia?”

She considered the point for a moment and realized he might have a winning hand. She’d always liked to give the impression to Gunn that Wesley was the kind of man who would only get a woman like her in his dreams; it wouldn’t do a great deal for her street cred for it to be known that she’d once had a schoolgirl crush on Angel Investigations’ very own Pansy Assed British Guy.

Innocently, Wesley added, “I have photographs of us dancing together.”

“If I pay for lunch you have to promise me you’ll burn them.”

Wesley shook his head. “They have sentimental value. I couldn’t possibly part with them or destroy them. I could, however, put them in an inaccessible drawer with a lock on it when Gunn is coming over. Or leave them lying around in full view....”

“Okay! Okay! But this means war. I’ll pay for lunch and for the donuts. But we’re buying you underwear as well as pants, shoes and socks, and only by being very nice to me indeed are you going to avoid having to do at least some of your shopping in that store where the sales clerks invited you round for a threeway.”

Wesley gaped at her. “Is that what they were suggesting?”

“Wes, if you’re going to live around here, you’re really going to have to learn to speak West Hollywood.”

She didn’t add that the reason why the assistants in that store had suggested that Wesley helped them out with the filling for the sandwiches they were going to be making later was because she’d told them that he and Angel were an item to get them a store discount. And if she’d maybe given the impression that Wesley might be in need of a some comfort from other quarters due to Angel’s habit of straying, and was consequently susceptible to overt flirting by the right alpha male, it was only because there had been a dress she’d desperately wanted, and when you were talking about twenty percent off for really beautiful clothes she really didn’t think a few embarrassing minutes for Wesley were a lot to pay. She hadn’t actually forced Wesley to go on a date with the store clerk at gunpoint or anything, although, come to think of it, if they still had that sea-green silk dress in the window....

She noticed that even without being privy to her thought process Wesley already had a very satisfying deer in headlights look. “Cordelia, I didn’t understand half of what they’re saying to me and in view of your explanation and the way Gunn was smirking last time I gather that some of my responses may have given them entirely the wrong impression.”

“Well, someone’s going to be measuring your inside leg in the next hour, bucko, and I get to choose who it’s going to be....”

“I have a very secure desk drawer and I could lose the key. And I’d love to buy you lunch, truly. It would be an honour.”

She gave him her best thousand watt smile and looped her arm back through his, pulling him closer. “We are going to have such a great day out.”

He sighed. “Yes, Cordelia.”

“We never get to spend enough time together any more, just you and me.”

“No, Cordelia.”

She kissed him on the cheek impulsively. “You do know I love you, right?”

He looked surprised and wary, clearly thinking there had to be a catch. “Sometimes....”

“All the time,” she assured him.

“Even when you’re yelling at me?”

“Yes.”

“And when I spill things on you?”

That was a tough one but the truth had to win out. “Yes.”

“Even when I spill things on you in front of famous people you’re trying to impress?” He couldn’t hide the disbelief in his eyes or voice.

“Yes.” She squeezed his arm. “And that’s how I know you love me too even when I’m beating you with whatever comes to hand when you do the spilling thing.” They were getting close to the restaurant now and she was sure she could see a few at least ‘C’ list celebrities lurking at the back in their designer sunglasses hoping that someone would notice how trying not to be noticed they were. “Even if, for instance, the beating was so brutal, vicious and sustained that it ultimately involved extensive dental work....”

“I’ll keep my elbows into my sides like we talked about,” he sighed in resignation.

“Still loving you,” she assured him brightly.

“Almost believing it,” he returned.

She wasn’t having that. She abruptly pulled him in for a hug that smooshed the air out of his tall thin body very satisfyingly and then kissed him on the cheek in front of everyone on the restaurant. Only when he was gasping did she let him up for air. “Are you believing it now?”

Wesley ran a finger around the inside of his shirt collar, despite the fact it wasn’t buttoned and he wasn’t wearing a tie. “That was.... Um... People are looking.” Wesley lowered his voice. “They might think we’re....”

“Are you believing it now?”

He gave her one of his genuine smiles; the sweet ones that made him look boyish and happy and huggable. “Yes.” There was a pause before he added, “But nothing truly says ‘I love you’ like not making someone undergo ritual humiliation in an overpriced clothing store.”

“And nothing says ‘I love you back’ like someone being told she can have whatever she likes from the a la carte menu and there will be no quibbling about the cost.”

“Done,” Wesley said quickly.

She gave him another beaming smile and took his arm so she could steer him into the restaurant without allowing him to bump into anyone or trip over anything just in case his newfound confidence as the boss of Angel Investigations didn’t extend to lending him any better coordination in crowds. Perhaps she didn’t want to know exactly what his childhood trauma was, but she did want to have an expensive lunch, buy him some clothes that made him look as good as he ought to with that figure, and then get him to take her out somewhere where they could dance and she could, if possible, try to find him another rich girlfriend to cosset him, feed him, buy him expensive clothes, and hopefully send some well-heeled clients their way. Perhaps she liked to rule the men in her life with rather more of the steel fist showing through the velvet glove than they occasionally thought was good for them, but she always had their best interests at heart, and it wouldn’t be her fault if she didn’t get them all paired up, happy, and seriously rationing their brooding time.

“You have that look in your eye,” Wesley said warily.

“What look?” She beamed at the waiter as he steered them to a table that was halfway between the nobodies and the somebodies, a credit to Wesley’s shirt and the designer clothing Angel had bought her. If she’d only got Wesley those new pants first they would have been right up there with the ‘C’ listers.

“The one where you make plans for us all that involve us having no free will for the next twenty years.”

“And doesn’t that always give you a warm glow of contentment knowing I have your best interests at heart?” She let him help her into her chair, hoping that some wealthy woman at a nearby table was noticing the accent and the impeccable manners.

“Exactly the same kind of warm glow it would give me to know that a Strongash Demon blamed me for devouring its brood.”

Hardly listening, she said, “Does Gunn own a tuxedo?”

“I doubt it.” Wesley was still looking wary. “Why?”

“He’d look very good in a tuxedo. As would you and Angel.” She looked around the room again. “I think we need to go to one of David’s parties quite soon. And all three of you need to wear tuxedos. And David needs to invite some of the wealthy single women that he knows.”

“Don’t you mean single men?” Wesley frowned at her in confusion. “Are you back to the prostituting yourself for money idea again?”

“Try to say that a little louder, can you? I think some of the people at the back didn’t quite hear you.” She reached for the menu while still thinking aloud: “If Angel hadn’t completely messed up with Rebecca Lowell by going all fangboy psycho we could have had a foothold into the entertainment world and the right kind of clientele beating a path to our door. And we did very well out of you knowing Virginia.”

“So, you’re planning to prostitute us for money now?”

She gave him a look of exasperation. “I’m having to remind myself that I love you right now.”

“Cordelia, I didn’t sleep with Virginia because I thought it would be good for our business.”

“No, you slept with her because you were in her bedroom under false pretences pretending to be someone you’re not, so don’t come the high moral ground with me, Mister I’m Angel No Really I Am.”

Wesley rolled his eyes. “You can’t just put Angel, Gunn and I into formal wear and hawk us around a gathering of rich people in the hope that someone might like the look of us.”

“It’s that or you can get a lot of leaflets printed and go and put them under a lot of windshield wipers. My way you get crab puffs.”

There was a pause before Wesley picked up his own menu. “You didn’t mention the crab puffs.”

“I can phone David as soon as we get back from picking up your tuxedo. Then we tell Gunn that we need his help –”

“Choosing evening dress?”

“Get him a tux of his own, and Bob’s your Uncle.”

“Or presumably our Sugar Daddy if you have your way.” Wesley looked at the menu, adding conversationally: “This really is a sordid little scheme, Cordelia, even by your standards.”

“Crab puffs,” she said again, adding to the waiter, “No, that’s not my order. I’ll have the soup. No, the cous cous. No the breaded Camembert and oyster mushrooms. He’ll have the same.” As Wesley made to protest, she said smoothly, “You need to fill out a little or your cummerbund is going to sag.” She pointed to the wine she wanted so the waiter could see it but Wesley didn’t have to hear the name of it. Aloud she said: “Should we ask for a party or a formal dinner where you can make more of an impression?”

“I don’t think Gunn would enjoy a formal dinner, given that most of his friends are living on leftovers and garbage and having to sleep in shelters.”

“A party then. But I need all three of you there so I cover the broadest spectrum of potential clientele. Angel can look handsome and mysterious, Gunn can look butch and boyish, and you can look cute and vulnerable and as if you need to be taken home and given a good meal. That way we’re covering all the bases. Oh yes, and remember to do the thing with the accent.”

“What ‘thing with the accent’?” he demanded in irritation. “You mean talk in my ordinary voice?”

“Yes, exactly.” She wondered why he was so slow some days. “Hey, you don’t help stake a self-styled ‘life coach’ to dust without learning all there is to know about actualising your potential. I’ve been completely under-utilizing an obvious asset.” She glanced at the mirror reflecting Wesley’s rear view and realized that Angel and Gunn also looked very good from all possible angles. “Three obvious assets in fact.”

“You’re unbelievable.” He shook his head.

She beamed at him. “But you love me anyway.”

“Do I get a choice?” He still sounded a little sulky about being the one who got to be cute and vulnerable instead of butch or mysterious. Male egos were such fragile things.

“None whatsoever,” she told him blithely.

He had to smile despite himself, even as the waiter filled their glasses with a red that it was going to take at least one wealthy new client to justify. As he leaned across to kiss her on the cheek in formal submission to her charm and scheming, she snatched her glass out of the way of his elbow. “Spill anything on this blouse and you die, remember?”

“Remind me again why I love you?”

She put up her cheek so that he could still kiss her and pointed to the right spot so he couldn’t duck out of it. “You just do,” she assured him.

He obediently kissed her, sat back down, picked up his glass, tasted it, looked surprised at how good it was and then said, “You’re going to bankrupt me today, aren’t you? So I have to agree to the prostituting ourselves plan?”

“Prostitution is such an ugly word.” She tried out her Oscar acceptance smile on the waiter as he brought the breaded camembert and mushrooms. “I just want you all to be looking your best while mingling with a few carefully chosen rich, single, lonely women in an environment of gaiety, music, and free-flowing judgement-blurring alcoholic beverages. If one or all of you should happen to wake up in the bed of some attractive woman who enjoys your company and might want to send a little business our way, how would that be a bad thing?”

“Well, if Angel was the one who did the waking up after a night of really good torrid passion....”

“Good point. We’ll tell people Angel is gay and plays hard to get. The women will still be interested but won’t feel slighted if he turns them down. In fact, their interest might be heightened as there would always be the chance of converting him, but he won’t actually have to put out.”

Wesley looked at her with something approaching awe. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You’d actually do that.”

“In a heartbeat.”

Wesley’s mind was clearly working; that could be a good thing or a bad thing; he was smart and when he was researching some slime demon problem it was reassuring to see the cogs of his brain going around, now though, she wasn’t so sure.

“How exactly did you persuade the gentlemen in that clothing store to give you a discount on that insanely overpriced frock anyway?”

Damn, she was afraid that was the way his mind was working. “Charm,” Cordelia didn’t hesitate. “Lots and lots of natural charm.”

He was steely eyed and implacable. “Whose?”

“Well…yours.” She conceded it with a shrug. “I told them Angel was cheating on you.”

“Wonderful, so now I’m not only gay, I also date the Undead and can’t keep my boyfriend’s interest?” As the occupants of the two nearest tables turned around to look at Wesley with renewed interest he glowered at them in a way that made them focus on their meals with close attention.

Cordelia used her soothing stating-the-obvious tone: “I only suggested you might need some consolation in the near future. They were grateful for the tip and showed their gratitude in a very real and very money off kind of way. I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss.”

Wesley glowered at her. “How about if I tell the head waiter that if he gives us a free starter you’ll meet him around the back for a quickie after his shift?”

He still had his not-going-to-get-over-this-in-a-hurry expression and was building up to a full blown sulk. Sighing inwardly, she did the only thing possible under the circumstances. “Why don’t I pay for lunch?”

“Why don’t I let you,” he returned grimly. “And let’s have another bottle of that rather nice wine, shall we?”

She dialled her cellphone quickly, relieved when David Nabbitt picked it up right away. The man really did have no life at all. Kind of tragic really as she’d always hoped that money just got a bad press and really did buy one happiness. And shoes. Lots and lots of both. But it seemed as if it actually didn’t. She told him about her idea for a party and the importance of those single women being there – she would call him back when Wesley was in the bathroom and tell him to ensure there were single men there too – breezing through his vague unformed objections while keeping an eye on Wesley, who continued to glower back at her as only he could. Angel could outbrood anyone, and Gunn had more Attitude than a classroom full of eight year olds, but when it came to sulking, Wesley had them all beat. This was clearly going to take some careful manipulation on her part to get the three occasionally truly awkward men in her life out of their everyday clothes, into their formal wear, and wearing their happy faces as they stepped across the threshold. David was easy by comparison and was soon agreeing to everything she suggested. With Wesley’s still sulking face right in front of her, she knew she was going to have to go into charm overload.

“David, I know you’re catering is always fabulous, but just as a suggestion, I think you can never have too many crab puffs....”

As she put down the phone, she blew Wesley a kiss. “You see? Your happiness – always uppermost in my thoughts.”

“When you’re not selling my virtue to sales clerks so you can get a discount on an overpriced dress?”

“It was a one-off.”

Wesley looked slightly mollified. “So, you wouldn’t do it again?”

“No, I mean the dress. It was a Kenneth Cole original. Not that any of you ever notice what I wear. I have to go to Lorne to get any kind of a compliment about my appearance.”

Wesley really had missed out on not having a sister. He was learning, of course, but still quite slowly and a quick guilt jab could usually wrong-foot him pretty well. “I think you look very nice.”

“Well, of course you’d say that now when I’ve just told you that you never notice what I’m wearing.” She risked a glance at him and he seemed to have temporarily forgotten that he was the one with a grievance. She was ready to take on the lunch bill; that wasn’t the issue; it was getting up enough momentum again to ensure he agreed to rent a tuxedo and to the party idea. She was going to need him to be on board to persuade Gunn and Angel to agree. “I remember a time when I didn’t have to remind the men in my life to pay me compliments. I remember a time when I didn’t wake up with demon goop on my shoes. Not to mention a time when I had something approaching a normal life.”

“I know this must be hard for you....” Yes, he was softening, looking sympathetic, and awkward because he’d been unkind to her. Then he frowned. “Wait a minute. You grew up on a Hellmouth.”

“Also not to mention the skull-splitting scratch’n’sniff visions,” she added quickly. She had him there and she knew it.

“Are you getting one now?” He leaned across in concern.

She massaged her temples. “I don’t think so. Just…residue. I don’t see why The Powers can’t just pick up the phone when they want to get in touch with Angel, like normal people do.”

“Normal people.” He looked a little wistful. “I remember those. Actually, maybe I don’t. Being the son of a Watcher and sent off to Watcher Academy at thirteen.”

She had another pang as she remembered his childhood. The way Slayers were born and not made did kind of suck, for the Slayer anyway. She didn’t get a choice about whether or not she was chosen; she just had these powers and had to use them to fight for mankind or else the world got overrun with the undead; but at least Buffy hadn’t been expressly bred by her parents to be a Slayer, unlike the way Wesley’s parents seemed to have bred him just because it was their duty to put another Watcher into the world.

She reached out and held his hand in hers. “That’s why we can never have too many crab puffs, Wesley. You know how we’re Angel’s link to humanity? They’re our link to normal people and normal things and....”

“New clients with lots of money?” he finished for her.

She nodded. “And especially those.”

“I’ll try to talk Angel into going if you take Gunn.”

She wasn’t sure which one of them was getting the best part of the bargain there, but Wesley did have more leverage with Angel than he did with Gunn at present, so it was probably him. All the same it was a step in the right direction. “Done.”

“But the tuxedos will have to be hired and they’ll have to be off the peg. We’re not going to have any money left in the kitty for bespoke formal wear.” Wesley drained his glass. “Especially not after you and I finish lunch.” She conceded it with a shrug. “And you can’t tell anyone I’m gay or in the middle of a tragic break-up with Angel however rich the client is.”

She noticed a beautifully dressed man had come into the restaurant who was being shown straight to the ‘A’ list section of the restaurant. She didn’t recognize him but the waiter certainly did and there was that fluttering air of deference about him that spoke of money or power or both. He was looking at Wesley with considerable interest and she realized that Wesley’s last comment had been open to all kinds of misconception. Sympathetically she said, “You know you can rely on my discretion at all times, Wesley.”

The ‘A’ lister was about forty-five; tall, broad-shouldered, handsome, greying slightly at the temples; truly exquisite clothing. He looked like a movie star but Cordelia would have recognized him if he had been. No, this had to be someone who made things happen behind the scenes. He was still looking across at Wesley and she had to concede that Wesley was looking very handsome; serious, and interestingly pale from all those nights of research; just the right air of vulnerability about him too.

“‘Discretion’?” Wesley frowned at her. “Cordelia, what are you…?”

She squeezed his hand gently, the way one would if comforting a friend in the midst of a tragic break up with his cheating undead boyfriend. “Try and eat something. You’ll feel better. You need to get your strength up for the party at David Nabbit’s on Friday.”

Not exactly subtle but Wesley was distracted by the waiter bringing the main course she’d ordered for him and didn’t catch everything she said. She hoped the man in the beautiful suit had though. He was bound to know David Nabbit or someone who could give him an introduction to him and, if he really did want to get an introduction to Wesley, the least he could do was come up with a nice supernatural disturbance that needed investigating. A man who was really keen would make a point of putting them on retainer and perhaps coming up with something that would need several visits to try to clear it up. Thank goodness Virginia had brought Wesley that shirt and that it suited him so well.

“Cordelia....” Wesley frowned at her in confusion. “Is everything okay?”

She glanced across at the man in the suit who was using his cellphone. Making enquiries about David Nabbit she hoped. “Everything’s fine.” She beamed at him reassuringly. “Eat up your lunch and then we can go and get that tuxedo. And on Friday there will be crab puffs.”

The reassurance worked and he managed a tentative smile back. “Well, I suppose business has been a little slack recently and it’s not as if we’re actually hawking for clients like common streetwalkers. Just…networking.”

“Exactly. We know there are a lot of things that go on in this city that go unreported. Supernatural events. Hauntings. Demons. Peculiar infestations. All in our line of work. But not the kind of work you can advertise or that people want to admit they need. This is the perfect opportunity to touch base with new people, see if there are any new helpless out there we can help.” She pitched her voice loud enough that anyone who wanted to know what Wesley did for a living and so could work out a strategy for the best way to strike up a conversation with him at an exclusive party would have all the information they needed. Times past she would have been looking for a partner herself by this method, but the truth was she didn’t have the energy for dating any more; and knowing a vision might arrive midway through dinner or – worse – the coming up to see a guy’s etchings part of the evening – kind of killed her enthusiasm.

“Just richer than Croesus helpless?” Wesley observed cynically, digging into his linguine as he did so in a way that suggested he hadn’t eaten for a month.

“Let’s not be inverted snobs about this. If people need our help they need our help and the fact they may have a six figure annual salary isn’t going to stop us from holding out the hand of…helpfulness.” She gave Wesley another gentle sympathetic look. “And it would be good for you to get out there again. You need to stop licking your wounds. There are plenty more fish in the sea.”

She did feel a pang of conscience when he looked so touched at her realizing how much the break up with Virginia had taken out of him but she trod it under by reminding herself fiercely that they all needed to eat and Wesley most of all. It was for his own good. And it’s not like I’m giving out his or Angel’s home phone numbers just to drum up some fake business from people who have designs on their virtue. She glanced back at the label of the wine she had ordered and had expected Wesley to be paying for. Well, not yet anyway.

“You’re right.” Wesley looked up from his linguine. “We should do this more often. Just the two of us.”

Looking around the restaurant, Cordelia noticed that a blonde woman in her late thirties was gazing at Wesley speculatively as well. Going by the obvious signs of wealth about her, the beautiful clothes and equally beautiful hair and skin, she could easily be one of Virginia’s friends. It was quite possible that some of them might have liked the look of Wesley while he was chaperoning Virginia, and be interested in moving in now the break up was being talked about more widely. She was certainly sitting close enough to have heard Cordelia mention the party at David Nabbit’s and the nature of their work as well. And she’d only had Wesley in the restaurant for thirty minutes. Cordelia really did feel she had hit on a strategy for drumming up new business that could be successful and – given their usual lifestyles – remarkably non-fatal. With Gunn and Angel also to use as temptation, Cordelia foresaw a few weeks of bogus and consequently undemanding and non-dangerous cases from clients interested in getting up close and personal with her attractive co-workers. And money coming in. Nice, clean money that didn’t come at the price of one or all of them getting shot, stabbed, bitten or clawed. The Powers could let her know if there were genuine cases of Helpless out there and in the meantime they could actually all make their rent money for a change.

She beamed at Wesley. “Let’s make it a regular occurrence.”

They clinked glasses and she made a point of dropping an Angel Investigations card onto the floor where both the thirty-something woman or forty-something man could see it and perhaps one of them could pick it up after she was gone. She wondered if she could get Angel on board with her latest strategy. Under the guise of it being for Wesley’s protection she might be able to persuade him to play the slightly psychotically jealous albeit unfaithful ex-boyfriend role at the party. That should stop anyone trying to take Wesley home with him. Or would that frighten off potential clients?

“Why are you thinking again?” Wesley sounded nervous.

“No reason,” she assured him cheerfully. “Just enjoying my meal. I’m paying for it I might as well enjoy it.”

“We can split it,” he sounded resigned.

She gave him a sisterly kiss on the cheek. “Now I remember why I love you.” He looked touched as he always did when someone showed him any affection. When it came down to it they were family. They loved each other no matter what. That was who and what they were.

Cordelia just hoped that Wesley would remember that at the end of David Nabbit’s party on Friday night....

***