Title: After All
Author: Nina/TechnicolorNina
Pairing/Characters: Mark/Angel, Mr. (Jacob) Cohen, Mrs. (Ruth) Cohen, minor OC, very brief Nanette, mentions of Mimi and Roger
Word Count: 3 116.
Rating: R, for bits of sex.
Genre: Romance/Fluff with substance
Summary: It couldn't have been a more perfect night.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Spoilers: A/U.
Warnings: Sex-ish stuff.
Notes: A blast from the past. Written last year for rentchallenge on LJ.
Special Thanks/Dedications: For Jenwyn.
Mark pulled Angel out of her chair and away onto the dance floor, laughing quietly, black and white against silky red.
His father looked after them. Ever since Mark had left school for Alphabet City, the girls he brought home had grown progressively weirder, ending in this girl who, technically, wasn't even female. Jacob Cohen had, up til now, assumed Mark had left that behind when he graduated high school and shortly thereafter had broken up with the boy two streets over. Apparently not.
He wasn't going to pretend to approve, although he supposed last night he'd taken it too far. But really, when you knew a bathroom cabinet was empty, and then your son and his . . . significant other . . . came home to stay for a week for Chaunukah, and you found half a dozen bottles in various stages of emptiness in that cabinet, what were you supposed to think?
"What are these, Mark?" He held out the bottles. Mark's eyes widened. "What were you doing in Angel's stuff?" His temper flared. "This is my house, and I have a right to know what kind of people you're bringing into it, Mark Cohen." Mark's cheeks flushed a dangerous red. "Those are Angel's. You should have left them alone." "He's a junkie, isn't he? A pill-pusher." "Give those to me! She needs them!" "You're taking them too, aren't you?" "I said give them to me!" Mark, pushed beyond frustration, reached out to grab them. "You want them, you can get them yourself. I won't have you taking drugs in my house." He flung the bottles on the floor. One was plastic, and cracked. The other was glass, and shattered. Mark dropped to the floor and quickly began sorting the pills out of the glass. "You bastard, you -" A sleepy form appeared in the doorway. A form that was not just sleepy, but confused. "Mark? Did you move my AZT?"
AIDS. He was pretty sure Ruth had said something about it, but it hadn't occurred to him that Mark might actually be . . . could be dating someone who had . . . and Angel was sleeping in his son's bed! Using the same bathroom! Had taken the water bottle Mark had carried in the car and drunk from it!
Mark had given him a disgusted look when he pointed out these things, and then had coolly and tartly informed him that HIV could only be transmitted through sexual contact or blood. They weren't stupid. They were using protection. Jacob was pretty sure Mark would not have added that particular piece of information if he hadn't already been angry enough to spit bullets and breathe gunpowder. He was nothing if not protective of his . . . of Angel. Who did, admittedly, look decent in a dress. And was not too loud, although incredibly exuberant and enthusiastic over even the smallest tasks. And did know how to put on makeup properly, unlike the drag queens Jacob had once seen on a stage. And had had more than a fair share of troubles, at last landing with Mark and, if not prosperity, then security. Truly happy for the first time ever.
He supposed he could do her the favor of calling her "she" if that was all she really wanted. And it would undoubtedly please Mark, perhaps help smooth the waves he'd made the night before.
Mark tensed as his father's boss sat down at their table. He'd hated Richard Sayre from the moment he'd met him, twenty years ago at the age of six, and that hate had never abated. The man was unbelievably slick, slimy as slug trails. And horribly narrow. Mark eyed his shiny bald head with a sincere desire to drop something heavy on it.
He tried to turn Angel away from the table and back onto the dance floor as soon as he heard Sayre's opening comment.
"Must be hard, having a son like that."
A college drop-out? A bohemian? A filmmaker? Sure, any of those would be hard in Scarsdale. But what Sayre really meant at the bottom of it was "gay," and while Mark didn't classify himself that way - he rarely if ever even tried to classify himself - most people who realized Angel's true physical gender did. And assumed he was not only gay, but picking from the bottom of the pile. If only they knew. If only they took the time to get to know her instead of judging her. Angel twisted against his arms.
"Mark, I'm tired. I really want to sit down."
Panic. Complete and total panic. His father opened his mouth to answer. Disaster flashed through Mark's imagination in red letters a thousand feet high. Angel in tears, feeling herself cast out yet again. Running away in the middle of the night as she had so many times before. Trying to find her. Failing. Losing her.
"It is. You wouldn't believe the number of people who won't even talk to him because of who he loves, and it breaks my heart."
Mark's breath left him in a single titanic swoop. So maybe his father didn't entirely approve. He was still going to play the game.
For Mark's sake.
Sayre flushed red. The grin on Mark's inner face was not entirely a pleasant one, though outwardly it looked sweet enough.
"All right."
It was a rare opportunity, and now that the man was boxed into a corner, Mark intended to torture him. Just a little.
Or maybe a lot.
Angel perched nervously on the edge of her chair. Mark reached for his water glass, emptied the last swallow, and looked around for the water pitcher. It was empty.
"Be right back." He excused himself from the table and headed up to the bar thing in the corner. Angel tried to keep her eyes from darting nervously through the room. She'd gotten through the dinner all right by watching Mark out of the corner of her eye, the fancy place setting with its three forks and a special spoon just for the coffee, and dancing she could do, but these were wealthy people, educated people, suburban people, and she had no idea how to proceed with a conversation. Most had been polite, some downright friendly, but none were as relaxed as Mark, and this man most certainly wasn't. He was staring at her like she was some kind of rare and exotic jellyfish - odd, slightly repulsive by way of its sheer strangeness, and possibly dangerous.
Mark's father rescued her.
"Looked like you were having fun out there."
Angel smiled. "I love dancing. I think it must be how birds feel when they fly."
The man sitting across from her made some kind of derisive noise. She turned her head to acknowledge him. He was one of those people. He flushed, caught out.
Mark returned, put a daiquiri on the table in front of her. "Thought you might be thirsty." He sat down with his own drink. Angel was mildly amused to see that it, too, was a daiquiri. Mark had adamantly denied liking them in front of Roger. Apparently they weren't "manly." Who cared about manly? Angel just liked them because they tasted like strawberries. She sipped the drink happily.
"So - when is this over?"
Mark's father raised an eyebrow. "Eager to go already?"
Mark shook his head. Angel admired how smooth, unbroken, the action looked when he was wearing contacts. "No. I just remember coming when I was still in high school, and they played a whole bunch of swing music about an hour before people started leaving, both times." He smiled. "I was kind of hoping they still do that -"
"They do," the man in the dark suit interjected. "For couples dancing."
Angel was stung, but determined not to show it. Mark smiled widely. "Good." He reached for her hand and laced their fingers together. "I finally have a partner who's good at swing."
This was far from the truth. Angel knew what Mark had taught her and Mimi on long autumn days in the loft, the three of them teasing Roger endlessly until he finally dragged himself off the sofa to join them. The formal dancing Angel knew was pretty much nothing but basics. Mark had learned most of it from the rabbi's daughter, with whom Angel had already become fast friends. And Nannie had learned it . . . somewhere. Probably had had lessons as a child. It was that kind of town.
The man in the dark suit flushed again. Angel smiled appreciatively at Mark and toyed with the cuff of his dress shirt. He looked so cute in it. A song Angel knew well suddenly began to play.
"Want to dance?"
Mark deposited Angel in the car before walking around to his own side and sliding into the back next to her. They were both laughing, heady with wine and dancing and the excitement that came of a winter party, even a wealthy, educated, suburban office winter party.
"Did you see the look on his face?"
Angel laughed a little more and rested her head against Mark's shoulder. Mark had traded her off for a bit with Nanette - who had promptly offered him a "mazel tov" on finding someone with whom he fit so well - and Angel had ended up dancing with Sayre himself, who had looked exquisitely uncomfortable. Angel had then proceeded to absolutely dance circles around him. She was a regular little Ginger Rogers, and Mark had told her so as soon as she landed back in his arms. Then she'd had to ask him who Ginger Rogers was. Mark had explained, briefly, and then Angel had called him a liar - laughing all the time she did it.
He got out of the car to open her door. She tripped on a cobblestone as soon as she got out, and fell against him, laughing. Mark saw his mother, standing at the door, smiling at them, out of the corner of his eye. He supposed she had reason. For just a few hours, the world he loved and the world he'd been born in had merged perfectly. Good food. Wine. Dancing. Angel pressed tightly against him as they turned a slow circle on the dance floor. Coming down the stairs in her dress for the first time, absolutely breathtaking. And then his dad's comment to that slimeball Sayre. If any one thing could make the night absolutely perfect -
"- tea?"
Mark blinked. He'd completely missed the conversation, but his father was looking directly at him and Angel, and so he assumed some kind of intelligent response was required.
"Uh -"
Angel stood next to him, positively beaming. "Absolutely!"
Mark slipped out of his shoes as soon as he was in the door. Angel didn't. She seemed to like her heels, pretty and dainty with about a thousand little straps on them, and was loath to take them off. Angel led them to the kitchen, her shoes going click-click-click on the polished wooden floors. Mark followed her, clueless until he saw his mother with the teakettle on. They'd been asked to have a cup of tea, the usual after-party ritual here in Scarsdale. Mark mentally contrasted this with sprawling on the floor of the loft, a mostly-empty bottle of hard liquor in hand, everyone being loud and raucous. He decided he liked the cup of tea better. The revelation scared him a little, but he was still just mellowed enough on the sweet red wine served at the party that it didn't bother him too much. Maybe growing up wasn't so bad, as long as he wasn't totally sold out.
His mother placed a cup of tea in front of him, and he sipped it slowly. The aftermath of hours of dancing always left him a little bit langorous, somewhat surreal. He needed the quiet to come all back to himself. Angel, on the other hand, was happily chatting away with his parents about painting.
He might have drifted off, half-asleep at the table, because the next thing he knew there was only one light on in the kitchen and his parents were gone and Angel had a hand on his arm.
"Markie? Sweetheart? Are you okay?"
He blinked, shook his head once to bring himself back out of whatever daydream he'd been in. His contacts felt gritty. He should have taken them out hours ago.
"Yeah." He smiled at her. "Just a little . . . yeah. I think next time I need to not drink so much."
Angel gave him a look. "Mark, you had three glasses of wine and a daiquiri in five and a half hours. Don't tell me you're drunk."
Mark smiled. "Just a little buzzed." He raised a hand to his eyes. "I need to take these things out. Let's go upstairs."
Angel sat on the bed and slipped out of her shoes. She didn't want to take them off, she admired how little they made her feet look and how pretty the bright red was against her skin, but she couldn't very well sleep in them. She sighed, long, contented, and carefully brushed out her hair before putting it neatly on the dresser. She was almost back to the bed - Mark's room was comparatively large and she was walking slowly, taking small steps, drinking in the luscious feel of thick carpet beneath her bare feet - when Mark came in, his glasses back in place. Angel smiled at him.
"That was nice." 'Nice' was nowhere near strong enough, but it would have to do. She felt a bit like she was floating, a combination of a late night and dancing and wine and Mark, and at such times her English had a bad habit of deserting her.
"You know the only thing that could make tonight better?"
Angel cocked her head curiously.
"Que es?" She used the Spanish deliberately, teasing him.
Mark was having none of it. He stepped forward, bent his head toward her, and kissed her firmly, hands on her waist. Angel gasped involuntarily, then giggled when he broke away and put their foreheads together.
"I love you."
He'd gotten more used to saying it over time, but it still thrilled her somewhere deep in her stomach whenever she heard it. It was like the butterflies she got coming down a hill in a car at a high speed, only better. She pulled him close and kissed him again. Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized he'd just undone the zipper on the back of her dress, and became intensely aware that Mark's parents were just down the hall. She put her hands on his chest and pushed lightly. Mark took the hint and pulled away, looking at her curiously.
"Mark, your parents -"
He laughed quietly. "Are probably both asleep by now and wouldn't hear anything even if they weren't. This isn't the loft, Angel."
Angel stared just a moment too long, thrown off by Mark's statement and the last of the wine, just long enough for him to tackle her playfully and throw her off-balance. They toppled backward and landed on the bed, Mark shifting his weight to the side so he wouldn't land directly on top of her and cause bruises. Angel let out a quiet shriek of laughter.
"Mark, don't do that!" She was aware of the feeling of a seam trying to strain somewhere along her shoulder, and quickly extracted herself from the dress before it could be torn. It was the most expensive piece of clothing she owned, bought for her in Puerto Rico, and she wasn't about to have it destroyed because Mark was feeling just a little too playful for two thirty in the morning. She was left in nothing but her underwear and the shift she'd worn under the dress - Puerto Rican clothing was pretty, but not exactly suited to December in New York - and reached for Mark's shirt to compensate. He slipped out of it effortlessly, and Angel glanced uneasily at the door. Mark was right. This wasn't the loft. A closed door might not be respected if there was too much noise from within.
Mark rolled off the bed, padded across the room, stretched, drew a deadbolt Angel hadn't even noticed in the two days she'd spent in this room. He returned to her side, raising an eyebrow.
"Better?"
Angel tackled him, rolling on top of him, her hands on his chest, his hands on her shoulders, pinning him to the bed.
For a few seconds, anyway.
Then he sat up and flipped her onto her back. She squealed again, still consciously trying to keep the volume down.
Mark stretched his hand out. She heard the nightstand being opened, somewhere behind her head, and realized in the back of her mind that Mark really meant to go through with this. He was planning to have sex, with his parents only three or four rooms away.
Nothing risked, nothing gained.
Her hands fell on his glasses and pulled them from his face.
Angel pressed herself against Mark's skin. They'd both shed their remaining clothing some time ago, had made love twice, and now Angel was feeling quite thankful that winter mornings started late and Mark's mother never bothered trying to wake them up unless they were coming perilously close to sleeping past noon. This was, after all, their vacation. And it was four-thirty in the morning. Mark sighed behind her and snuggled against her bare back. She was pretty sure he was already asleep, or fairly close to it. He'd pressed his mouth against her shoulder about ten minutes ago with another whispered "I love you," and that had been the last she'd heard from him.
She closed her eyes, nestled her head on Mark's pillow. Good food, sweet wine, friendly people, hours of dancing, and then they had come home and made love. It was like something directly out of one of the fantasies she'd had when she was much, much younger, still mostly unbruised by anything but her own upbringing. It was something she'd given up all hope of years ago.
Mark moved behind her, and she felt his breath on her ear, sleepy, langorous, but still somehow urgent.
"I almost forgot. Merry Christmas Eve."
Angel smiled, twisted so she could reach his ear.
"Happy Chaunukah."
Mark took in a deep breath, let it out contentedly. "Best ever."
Angel closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest.
Best ever?
Yes, she'd agree with that.