Fanfiction: Angel: Maybe I'll Be The Lucky One Who Doesn't Get Burnt (original) (raw)

Title: Maybe I'll Be The Lucky One Who Doesn't Get Burnt
Author: superkappa
Rating: R
Pairing: Angel/Cordelia
Word Count: 2,276 words
Summary: During ATS S2, Cordelia goes undercover to catch a demon with a taste for strippers. Beige!Angel buys a private dance with her. (prompt given by xlivvielockex) Takes place post "The Thin Dead Line" but before "Reprise".
Author's note: Written for the 2011 Cordelia/Angel Valentine's Day Smutathon. Special thanks go to bellonablack for beta-ing this and being a generally awesome cheerleader.

In retrospect, Cordelia realized she probably should have run this plan by the guys first, but Wesley was still in the hospital recovering from being shot and Gunn had stuff to take care of with his gang. And Angel....

She shook her head a little to avoid that thought and looked at herself in the mirror, adjusting the blond wig. Angel wasn't part of the picture anymore. He was too busy obsessing over Darla and trying to get revenge on Wolfram and Hart. He had abandoned the mission. Pfft. If it was only that easy for her to do the same . Too bad she had projections of people's suffering directly into her head. Made it hard to ignore.

Which was why she was here in the first place, in the backroom of a skeezy strip joint. She had been recently having a series of visions about this demon that was killing of strippers. She had looked through Wesley's books and stuff, but she hadn't been able to find much information just yet. Girls kept dying, so the best course of action seemed to be for her to go undercover, try to lure out the thing, and kill it before it could do anymore damage. How hard it could be?

Apparently, harder than she had realized. She had been doing shifts in this place for over a week now, and she hadn't been able to lure in the thing yet. What, was she not hot enough for it? Because she was plenty hot, thank you very much! Not to mention her years of experience in cheerleading helped make the transition more easily than she would have expected. She had come home every night with several hundred dollars proof of that. It'd be nice making good money for once even if it wasn't sort of degrading. At least no one she knew had come in or anything.

Yet anyways.

She sighed, staring at herself in the mirror and readjusting her top. She was wearing a deep, blood red tank top and a black leather skirt that she was pretty sure was too short to actually count as a skirt. Underneath it was a lacy red bra and a matching thong. The outfitted was completed with a cheap blond wig, six inch strappy red heels, and slightly overdone makeup.

One of the other girls came into the back room, tying her top back on as she looked at Cordy. "You better get out there. They're about to call you."

"I'll be out in a moment!" she called and then took a deep breath. She had done this before and had managed not to kill a single one of the skeevy guys that broke the rules so she could do this again, right? Right. She was Cordelia Chase.

There wasn't anything she couldn't do.

She just hoped she found that stupid demon soon enough so she could still have some of her dignity left when this was all said and done with. That would be nice.

But since when did her life ever go that smoothly? She stared at herself in the mirror for a moment, her fingers tracing the scar on her stomach from where the rebar went through her. At least it was dark enough that most people didn't seem to notice that.

As she exited the dressing room, she heard the DJ announcing her stage name: Cinnamon Fire. One of the other girls had picked it out for her based on her fiery personality. She had always expected someone to announce her name to crowds someday, but this wasn't the kind of crowd she had had in mind or the kind of entertainment she had planned on doing.

The music swelled, and she made her way onto the stage, loosing herself into the rhythm It was easier not to focus on the crowd in front of her, except to scan for any signs of a demon or unusual behavior. And so far? There was none.

She swayed to the music, careful not to completely lose herself in it. She danced along the stage, wrapping one of her legs around a pole as she bent backwards, curving her back. She peeled off her shirt, tossing it to the side, and she heard the appreciateve shouts from the back. She knew her breasts were one of the many parts of her body that had quickly made her one of the favorites. She wasn't surprised. She always knew she had a body to die for (which is why she never quite understood why Daryl had only wanted her head) but still, the praise was nice even if it was coming from guys she normally touch with a ten foot pole.

When her number was was over , she was left in just her bra, underwear, wig, and heels. She had just picked up her clothes when one of the other girls came to whisper into her ear that she was to go to one of the private rooms for a one on one dance. Which was just perfect, really. Like she didn't feel sleazy enough as it was. Might as well kiss the last bit of her dignity goodbye.

She stepped into the room, closing the curtain behind her, and froze up when she saw the man sitting in the chair. Or more accurately, the manpire.

She felt unnerved. Despite everything, the last person she had wanted to see her like this was Angel. She remembered the last time she saw him was when she had chased him out of the hospital. Was this his revenge? If it was, it was pretty cruel, even for how jerky he's been lately. How did he even know she was here?

"You can't be serious," she said, finally breaking the silence as she made her way to the vampire who was staring at her blankly. If he thought he could intimidate her, he had another thing coming. She refused to let him get to her. She tried to ignore the way his dark eyes trailed over her body with something that she couldn't quite discern. The look was almost like desire, but that would be ridiculous. She wasn't his type. She wasn't blond, though she did have that wig on. Maybe that was close enough to the real thing for him to get his jollies off.

"Do I look like I'm kidding, Cordelia?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "I paid good money for this. A little overpriced, if you asked me. For that sort of money, I could have gotten about four tavern girls back in my day."

"I'm better than ten of your stupid, little tavern chippies and worth way more than you could ever pay," she snapped back, glaring at him. He looked amused. Here she was, trying to save lives at the price of her pride (and what else did she have left, these days?), and he thought it was funny. Well, she'd show him. A look of determination settled on Cordelia's face, and she switched on the CD player in the room. Every step she took toward him was calculated and pronounced with a sway of her hips.

"Is that so?" Angel asked, issuing some kind of challenge to her.

"You damn well know it is. Or you would if you weren't spending every waking moment of your life chasing after some blond or another." She climbed onto the chair he was in now, balancing a leg on each side so it was almost like she was straddling him except they weren't touching. They were close, close enough that she was sure he heard her heart beating furiously in her chest but not touching. She wasn't sure if she could keep her resolve if they touched. She was supposed to hate him. Not want to touch him.

Not that she wanted to touch him. Not after he had fired them, had abandoned them. He wasn't the man she had sworn to stay by, and he wasn't the man she had come to think of as her best friend. Maybe he had never been. It wouldn't the be the first time she had misjudged a man, and it probably wouldn't be the last considering her luck.

"I don't always like blonds’" he murmured, a smirk playing on his lips. He brought a hand up and removed the wig from her, letting her short brown hair fall down. His voice dropped to a dark, sensual whisper as he continued, "I've been around a long time, Cordelia. I've been with a lot of women, and most of them weren't blondes so don't assume you know my type. I preferred when your hair was longer, of course, but this is nice too."

His voice, his words, everything about him right now sent a shiver down her spine, awakening something inside of her that she didn't want. Not right now. Not when he was like this.

"I don't care, " she snapped, curving her body so they barely touched as she moved to the music. All she had to do was lower her hips, and she would be grinding against that part of him that was definitely paying attention to her right now.

"You're lying," he called her bluff, tilting his head so his nose grazed her neck. "I can smell it. Your fear. Your anger. You care so much ,Cordelia, more than anyone else I know. Don't you get tired of it?"

"Sure I do. Everyone does sometimes, but some of us work through it instead of giving up like selfish, fucked up assholes," she hissed, and now she closed the contact, grinding her hips against his to get a reaction out of him.

Anything other than that self righteous smirk he seemed determined to wear.

"And what does that give you?" he asked, and his voice was softer now, more ragged, as if he was really hoping for an answer he could hold onto somehow. His hands grabbed her hips, pulling her closer to him, his grip bruising her skin. "What reward do you get from it?"

"I save people lives. Fight the good fight because otherwise my head would throb even longer than it already does. I don't get much reward, but I can't ignore it. Won’t ignore them. The powers won't let me ignore thingseven when you do, and it's not fair because it's your mission to begin with. You're nothing but a coward."

And with each word, she ground against his hardened memeber. She didn't even know if she was trying to make a point anymore. She could be just that desperate to make a connection with him again as he was to make a connection to anything. It was hard to tell.

"I'm not a coward," he hissed in anger, but his words lacked conviction. They lacked truth. He didn't believe them, and she thought maybe, just maybe, she could finally get through to him.

"You are, Angel. Things got hard, they didn't go your way so you gave up, you gave in, and now you feel isolated and alone, which is probably what led you to a strip club of all places to begin with, which is really, really pathetic. But at least this place is so sad no one has to worry about you getting the big perfect happiness with some chippy you pick up."

"I didn't give up," he protested, his nails digging into her bare skin, adding their marks to the bruises he had already left there. She couldn't tell if he was trying to convince himself or her. Maybe it was both.

It was her turn to challenge him now. Her eyes met his, noticing the outlining amber in them. "Prove it."

Before she could say anything else, his mouth was on hers, hot and desperate. He bucked his hips up to meet hers. The friction, the tension, was too much for him to take. He came inside his pants, and it was all because of her.

She gasped into his mouth at his reaction and frantically pulled herself off of him. There was a moment of shock, and suddenly she was afraid to meet his eyes, afraid of what she might find there. But even more afraid that she might find nothing there.

"You should go, she told him, trying to catch her breath. It wasn't supposed to go this far. He didn't like her like that.He was just using her as a way to work through his fucked up problems. And Cordelia had too much pride for that, right? She wasn't so sure. She needed him to leave as quickly as possible. Her thighs were bruised and scratched up from his hands and worst, she both felt and looked vulnerable. Not a combination she was fond of.

She heard him stand up and make his way to the curtained doorway before pausing.

"I killed the demon earlier tonight, Cordelia. You can stop now."

And then he was gone.

Cordelia quit that night.

She knew Angel had been telling the truth because in the middle of her bath (she thought it would help to clean herself, but it wasn’t really helping at all) she had another vision, so painful she might have drowned without Dennis’ intervention. She called up Gunn, telling him where he could find the nest of vampires that needed dusting. Fighting the good fight. What else could she do?

When she went to bed, there was only one vampire on her mind. She couldn't help but think maybe her best friend was still in there somewhere.

Or maybe she was deluding herself

She supposed only time would tell.