St Patrick’s Day

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“Will you have sex with me?”

Angel hadn’t actually meant to be so direct.  In fact a simple ‘hello, how are you’ had been his first plan of attack, not just the whole dive in and blurt out his demands once he realized that it was Willow who’d answered the phone.  Maybe that was it, the whole relief, or rather guilty conscious, that he was calling the Sunnydale number of the everlasting love of his life and she wasn’t the one to answer ~ he could certainly put it down to that.  Maybe.  Or perhaps he was simply horny and Willow had said that she’d be happy to return the ‘favor’ of St Valentine’s Day.

Shifting in his chair, Angel glanced about the empty office and cleared his throat.  The other end of the line was practically silent except for the rush of breath over the mouthpiece and he wondered if the direct approach was the worst possible thing he could’ve done.  If he’d slowly built up to the real reason he was calling at least he could have brushed it off as a joke, not that he thought for one moment that Willow would have bought the whole ‘joke’ angle either.  The line was still silent and he closed his eyes, this was great, he was the first vampire in history who was going to self-combust from shame.  He could feel it spreading through is body and his stomach was oddly heavy, undoubtedly from the ash that would soon consume him and snuff out his existence.

“Angel?” at last there was something from the other end of the call, although the startled murmur of his name did nothing to quell the growing shame and he was certain that if he belched he would have tasted ash.

“Umm,” what was he going to do?  Deny it was him?  Stranger things had been known to happen and he fiddled with the edge of his desk. He’d been well and truly called out by the redhead, there was no help in denying it and he sighed in resignation, waiting for the phone to drop as he turned to dust.  “Yeah.”

“Interesting way to start a phone call,” her voice seemed too far away and Angel wondered why she’d taken so long to answer him…had she perhaps been working through a list of people who’d start a conversation up with the question of sex?  If so, maybe now was a good time to test the joke theory.

“Thought it’d catch your attention,” he said softly and it was greeted with another long silence.  Leaning forward, Angel started to bang his head against the desk, silently berating himself for being so stupid.

“What’s that banging noise?” the disembodied voice asked and Angel ceased his head banging.  “Are you drunk?”

“Not yet,” Angel sighed as he rested his forehead against the cool surface of the desk and his answer was met with a giggle.

“You know, if you want a valid excuse for getting drunk it doesn’t have to be because you are going to have sex with me…” he could clearly hear the amusement in her voice, the way her voice lilted with the failing attempt to keep the giggles at bay.  “I mean, you have a perfectly good excuse in your loathing of St Patrick’s Day.”

“That’s why I called you,” he stated.  “I thought…well…I kind of…” he gave his head one last hard thump, sat up and screwed his eyes shut.  “Would you like to come down on St Patrick’s Day?”

There was yet another long silence and Angel kept his eyes firmly shut.  There could be no misunderstanding in what was behind the question, he could have spelt it out precisely, come down to Los Angeles and we’ll get naked together.  Of course she was going to say no, tell him in no uncertain terms that the St Valentine’s Day incident had been exactly that ~ a drunken incident that could never be repeated.  And the note?  That was something scribbled the morning after under the cover of embarrassment and one hell of a hangover…

“Okay.”

“Okay?” he repeated and his eyes shot open in amazement.

“Yes, I’ll come down,” the voice giggled, although Angel was certain he could hear some doubt under the soft sounds.

“You don’t HAVE to,” he stressed, it wasn’t like he wanted to railroad the poor girl into doing something she didn’t want to…although last time she had certainly seemed more than eager.  “I mean, if you’ve got other plans or you really don’t want to…there’s no obligation, I just thought that maybe you’d…”

“Angel, I will be in your office sometime on Friday, however…”

There was always a however and Angel was quite positive that she was going to stipulate that there was going to be no nudity involved, not that that was the only reason he wanted her company…but…

“You have to wear green.”

“What?” it was the most unmanly and scandalized squeak he’d ever made.

“Green,” declared the sweet voice.  “From top to toe, or else I won’t stay a single minute.”

“Green?” Angel couldn’t have heard her correctly.  “You mean…green?”

“Yes.”

He leant back in his chair, not sure what to make of her demand and he frowned.  “If I have to wear green then you have to wear black.”

“Excuse me?”

“If I have to wear color,” Angel dragged his fingers through his hair, quite sure that she was going to tell him exactly where to go with his next demand. “You have to wear a non color.”

“Maybe,” she giggled and Angel smiled.  “I’ll see you on Friday.”

With that, she hung up and Angel decided he’d better do some shopping.

***

“What are you wearing?” Cordelia demanded, her mug of coffee was held suspended midway to her mouth, which was slack from shock.  She’d only glanced up when the elevator’s metal cage had been pulled back, but the sight the vampire made demanded a constant and critical stare.  The shirt was the first thing that caught her attention, a dark forest green turtleneck knit with long sleeves.  If that had been the only colored item he wore, then she wouldn’t have questioned it, but it wasn’t.  Well-tailored and slightly darker but still green trousers hung on his muscular frame and there was not a trace of black that she could see.

“Clothes,” Angel muttered, fiddling with the coffee machine in an attempt to make himself a cup.

“But they’re…” Cordelia put down her mug before she had the chance to scald herself and one perfectly groomed eyebrow shot up in amazement as she stood up to look him over.  “Green.”

“Really?” asked Angel, pouring a few sugar sachets into his coffee.  “I would never have known.”

“And where are your shoes?” she demanded as he picked up his coffee and took it through to his office, padding away on green sock clad feet.  She never received an answer and threw him a cautious glance as he sat glowering in green at his desk.  “I think you’re taking the ‘proud to be Irish’ thing a little too far.”

“Just because a person is Irish, doesn’t mean they wear green, Cordelia,” Angel growled before he sipped his too sweet coffee and tried to ignore his Seer.  She, on the other hand, wasn’t going to be ignored and walked over to his open door, crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe.

“Then why are you wearing green?” her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Well, you know,” he picked up the paper, swiveled on his chair so he could turn his back to the brunette and stuck his stockinged feet up on the desk’s corner.  His voice held no emotion as he proceeded with his explanation.  “I wanted to celebrate the coming of spring, the renewal of life, flowers blooming, lambs bouncing, bees buzzing and green seemed a suitable representation of those things.”

“Are you on some sort of medication that I’m not aware of?” demanded Cordelia, pushing herself away from the door jam and going back to her desk.  “Because it would explain a lot.”

The day only got stranger for Cordelia and Angel’s mood darkened with every cup of coffee he made during each passing hour.  At two o’clock a pizza delivery boy showed up and Cordelia was in the middle of winning the ‘we didn’t order pizza’ argument when Angel strolled out of his office, stated that he’d ordered the pizza and paid for it.  Then things got weirder.  Instead of handing her the pizza with an apology for his behavior, which Cordelia fully expected him to do, he opened the lid, pulled out two slices and dumped them on a napkin on her desk before heading downstairs with the rest.  When she demanded to know what was going on, he merely shrugged her off and dismissed the pizza with a casual comment of ‘thank god it’s Friday’.

The hourly coffee consumption was obviously messing with his medication, but Cordelia decided it was a temporary madness that she could live with.  But with that madness came the blackest and sulkiest mood she’d ever witnessed and he would agitatedly pace, glancing up at the outer office door, waiting and watching.  Sometimes, Cordelia decided by five thirty in the afternoon with a tension headache from merely watching him, coffee was not a good thing for Angel to drink.

“Do you have worms or something?” demanded Cordelia as he once more made another trip to the coffee machine. 

“What?” he snapped back at her.

“Worms?  Do you have them,” she said dryly, resting her elbows on the desk and rubbing at her temples.  “What with all this joy at welcoming spring and the constant pacing like some animal in a cage, I thought you might have picked them up somewhere.  If so, do you want me to get you some Collbantrum? Or are you a big boy now and once you put your shoes on you can get it yourself?”

“Cordelia,” he growled from between clench teeth but his rage was soon made impotent as the very person he’d been expecting since sunrise on this Sainted day opened the office door.

“Willow,” Cordelia flew out of her chair and grabbed the redhead in a bone-crushing hug in a relieved and rather abnormal show of affection.  “How are you?  What are you doing here?  You’re just in time to save me from the ogre.”

“Ogre?” Willow asked, her smile broadening as she saw Angel.  “Don’t tell me he’s been taking out his frustration with St Patrick on you?”

“St Patrick?  Oh my god, is it St Patrick’s Day?  That’d explain a lot.  He’s been a complete pain in the butt all day,” exclaimed Cordelia and she turned to glance at him.  “Mind you, wearing that, who wouldn’t be?”

“I’m still in the room, Cordelia,” Angel protested.

“Really?  You wouldn’t think so considering you haven’t even said hello to Willow,” sniped the brunette, bringing the seemingly ethereal redhead even closer to him.

“Hello, Willow," his face may have been stoic, but he could feel a grin threatening to break through. “What a pleasant surprise to see you.”

“Hello, Angel, and for what it’s worth,” Willow tilted her head and bit her lip as she closely examined the vampire and his green outfit.  “I think the look suits you.”

“Oh please,” Cordelia rolled her eyes in annoyance.  “He’s not even wearing shoes.”

Willow frowned and glanced down at the green socks that covered his feet.  “Why aren’t you wearing shoes?”

“I didn’t have any in green.”

“Ah,” Willow nodded in understanding and had to duck her head to hide the grin.

“You understand this sudden obsession he has to dress in green?” asked Cordelia indignantly, she was starting to suspect she was missing out on the big picture with the green outfit.

“Does anyone really understand Angel?” asked Willow, blushing slightly and not looking at either of them.

Once more Cordelia’s eyes narrowed to slits and she took a step back, thoroughly inspecting Willow.  “Come to think of it…why are you wearing white?”

“What?” Willow asked, her face blushing even more as she fiddled uneasily with a button on her coat.  “I’m not, see, my jacket, it’s brown and kind of has every color imaginable.  White?  Pfft.”

“Okay,” Cordelia crossed her arms and glanced first at Angel before turning her full attention back to Willow. “What’s going on?”

“Going on?  Nothing’s going on, what reason would you possibly have for thinking that something’s going on?  I mean really?” it was the start of a pretty typical Willow ramble and Cordelia, after a full day of a mobile and caffeine fueled green vampire, couldn’t take anymore.

“Fine,” she said in resignation, rubbing at her temples and closing her eyes.  “I don’t care and better yet, I don’t want to know. If you two want to play your childish games with some sort of secret language in the way you dress, then that’s perfectly fine by me,” taking a deep, calming breath, she dropped her hands down and turned to Angel.  “Do you need me for anything? Is there some emergency that’s brought Willow here or can I leave the loony bin?”

“I asked Willow to come down,” Angel stated calmly, the explanation only caused Cordelia’s perfectly shaped eyebrow to arch up even more, in a way that usually had Angel spilling forth far more information than he’d given her, but he remained oddly silent while Willow blushed profoundly.  He stuck his hands in his pockets and caught Cordelia’s gaze.  “I’ll see you Monday, Cordy.”

“Well, whatever you two have planned,” Cordelia turned away from the pair, making her way to her desk to pick up her bag and jacket. “I hope you have…I won’t say fun, but stay out of trouble.  I don’t want any phone calls in the middle of the night saying the leprechauns are holding you both hostage with demands of green beer.”

“Contrary to popular belief,” began Angel only to have the Seer cut him off as she stepped through the outer door of their office.

“Yeah, yeah, Angel, whatever, I don’t want to hear it,” she gave the pair one last exasperated look and shook her head.  “You two are just weird.”

“Are we weird,” Angel asked, turning back to the redhead once he made sure that Cordelia really had left them and wasn’t going to burst back through the main door.

“Well, she’s always thought I was weird,” Willow shrugged and glanced about the main office area, not quite able to meet Angel’s gaze.  “And I guess she knows you well enough to make a pretty reasonable assumption of your character…”

“So, I’m weird but at least I’m in good company,” Angel crossed his arms and leant back against the cabinet that held the coffee machine.  She glanced back at him and he was granted one of those secretive smiles that only lovers would ever see, a soft, slow curve of the lips and a spark of pure sin flashed in the green depths of her eyes until she broke the gaze. He watched as she continued to glance about the office, looking at everything but him, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and fiddling with the front of her jacket.  It was then that he realized Cordelia had been right in her statement about the Witch wearing all white, starting with none other than a turtleneck and what he could only hope were white leather pants and matching boots.  “You are wearing all white.”

“Yeah,” she admitted, her face flushing again and she gave him a shrug.  “You said a non color and since you wear enough black for everyone I thought I’d go with the other non color…white.”

“It suits you,” Angel stated truthfully.  Unfortunately the comment merely made Willow blush even more and a silence fell over the room.  It was awkward.  When he’d asked her down Angel hadn’t actually given much thought to what they would do, except for the sex part and even then he really hadn’t really moved beyond fantasy.  He wasn’t ready for the uncomfortable silences or the blushes.  There was the fleeting thought of just picking her up, clearing Cordelia’s desk and having his wicked way, but it was merely a fleeting thought.  Knowing his luck Cordelia would come back at the most inopportune time and he would never hear the end of it. 

“We should go downstairs,” stated Willow and Angel’s mouth fell open.  She’d gone from bashful to brazen in the space of a heart beat. 

“Err…umm…well…” Angel was at a lost for words as she opened the doorway that hid the stairs to his apartment. 

“You need to put on your shoes and a jacket.”

“Shoes?” asked Angel as she disappeared down the stairs.  He pushed himself away from the cabinet and made to follow her.  Shoes and a jacket, perhaps she wanted to recreate that first night, or perhaps she had some secret fetish for fully clothed sex, or perhaps…

“We’re going out,” Willow stated as they reached the bottom of the stairs, squashing all his deviant possibilities.

“Out?” maybe he’d misheard her. 

“Yep,” Willow smiled furtively and her eyes once more roamed over his body, finally coming to rest on his sock clad feet.  “So you need to put on some shoes and a jacket.”

There was a sudden and unwarranted wave of panic that swept over the vampire and he frowned.  “Why?”

“Well, you’ll look pretty silly without shoes,” Willow shrugged, turning away from the vampire and moving deeper into the apartment.  She glanced back over her shoulder at him as he followed her. “And you might need a jacket, it’s kind of cool out.”

“No, no, no,” Angel shook his head and Willow stopped, turning to face him.  “Why are we going out?  I thought we were…going to…”

“We are, but first we’re going out.  I mean…” Willow blushed slightly, her bravado failing her.  “We have to do the traditional thing and get at least semi intoxicated, although not as drunk as last time…”

“You’re under aged,” Angel took a step closer, the smirk from upstairs finally breaking through as he remembered all of her arguments for not drinking on St Valentine’s Day. But he wasn’t prepared for the quick reply.

“Not in Ireland,” Willow waggled her eyebrows, grinning very much like the Cheshire cat and Angel narrowed his eyes, more than slightly suspicious that there was a plan that he was intimately involved in but not having the faintest idea what it was.  Best way to find out was to ask.

“What are you planning?” he crossed his arms, determined to find out her intentions.  Ever so slowly she took a step forward, her mouth forming the most perfect blackmailing pout he’d seen in a long time and her eyes grew as wide as saucers.  In the next breath the eyes darkened and the pout transformed into a lascivious curl of the lips, lips that seemed impossibly close to his own as she stood on tip toe, tilting her head and looking up at him from those impious green orbs.

“Go get your shoes on,” she whispered, her hot breath running across his lips and he could almost taste her, causing his mouth to water.  “And you’ll see.”

She was pulling away from him before the thought of dropping his head to kiss her even entered his mind. The blood in his body was pooling southward, away from his brain, making his thought process incredibly sluggish.  Perhaps that’s why he took so long to come up with something that would keep up with the flirtatious pace she was setting.

“I can’t,” he stated, still not able to move from his spot on the floor.  It seemed that his mind, once the blood had realized it wouldn’t be any good heading south if the thought process couldn’t even get him to first base, was going into fantasy overdrive and once more he envisaged her giving him a spanking in the worse possible way…only this time it involved a lot more leather, and ball gags, and short leather riding crops, and leather shackles, and chains and…

“You can’t?” she wasn’t holding a leather riding crop and demanding that he beg. Nor was she wearing a red leather cat suit, just her white outfit covered by her coat and there was definitely a look of puzzlement on her features, jolting Angel from his spanking fantasy.

“They’re not green,” he stated, not missing a beat and Willow started to laugh. 

“That’s alright,” she said through the giggles and turning away from him to wander into his lounge room.  “You can wear black shoes and a black jacket.”

For Angel it wasn’t that easy.  With the renewed blood supply to his brain there was also the endless possibilities of what the night held and those possibilities needed careful consideration when it came to his choice of footwear.  For example, should he wear the lace up boots?  Certainly they were difficult to get off quickly, but they did ensure that they wouldn’t come off in an inopportune moment and it wasn’t exactly like he was going to do another striptease…striptease?  Oh yes, the memory came flashing back in one horrible moment as he went to pull on one of the lace up boots and he was mortified.

An hour later found Willow and Angel, after finally deciding on a pull on boot with a slight heel, wandering about in one of the many popular night haunt districts of LA.  Well, Angel was wandering and Willow was deliberately heading towards a certain bar.

“So,” Angel glanced down at the girl beside him.  “Where are we going?”

“Well, you know,” Willow shrugged, burying her hands deep in her jacket’s pockets.  “I thought maybe we’d wander into Wolfram & Hart, it was such a hit last time.”

“Can’t get in there anymore,” Angel stated, his face stoic.  “They’ve upped their security so that they can detect vampires…”

Willow stopped in her tracks and stared at the vampire.  “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, we made it so trendy that we can’t even get in anymore?” Willow broke into a grin and shook her head, slowly circling the vampire and heading towards the entrance of a local bar.  “Well that totally ruins my plans for tonight.  Guess we’ll just have to go in here.”

‘Here’ was an Irish Pub, one that Angel had heard Doyle talk of as being truly authentic and nothing at all like the tourist traps that were scattered about the city.  That alone made Angel certain that it had to be a terrible idea.

“Willow, no, I’m not going in there.”

“Okay, you don’t have to…but I am,” with a final cheeky grin over her shoulder, Willow disappeared into the older style building and Angel just stood in the middle of the pavement.  Hesitantly he took a step toward the entrance, he just knew he was going to regret this…especially dressed in green.

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