Author: Katharine
Email: kaffeineaddict@hotmail.com
Summary: Shanshu on the rocks with a twist...
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Season 2 of Angel, Season 5 of Buffy (and possibly minor spoilers for the opener of Season 6, although I myself haven't seen it)
Disclaimer: My attorneys inform me it's wrong to claim ownership of things that are not mine. The only thing I can say is mine is the plot.
Dedication: Wow. Uhm, this fic was dedicated to a hell of a lot of people. This time, I'd like to say a big thank you to my fellow Nutters, for just being fabulous. SJ, Chelle, Ky, here's hoping we all stay that way ;)
Distribution: Want, take, have. Let me know if you have, so I can take the opportunity to see where it was wanted.
Feedback: Please. I lost all the feedback from this story when the old board went down, and I'd love to know who's been patient enough with me to continue to follow it.
And here it is: Memory Lane: Shanshu on the Rocks with a Twist (the Director's Edit)
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return." Cordelia gave up trying not to cry. The tears flooded down her cheeks as she sniffled loudly, and reached for a tissue. As the movie ended, she sat silently, completely miserable. It was her favourite film, but it got her every time. Never failed to ruin her makeup. When she'd managed to calm herself, wiping her eyes, she turned to Angel.
"So? Wasn't that just the most fantastic movie you've ever seen?" Angel couldn't look her in the eye. He couldn't believe he'd just wasted two and a half hours of - okay, so he had eternity, but - Cordelia looked at him expectantly. He coughed uncomfortably. "Oh, come on! 'Above all things, I believe in love'? 'Love is like oxygen?'!"
"I, uh... the choreography was... and the lighting -"
"Yeah, I know, but the storyline? Wowsome, huh?"
Angel wracked his brain for something he could truthfully say. He just hadn't really... got it. Not to mention that tragic romances weren't his thing. He'd experienced enough doomed romances three dimensionally without having to watch them from an audience's perspective. He realised that the silence had been going on far too long, and the girl sitting beside him on the couch was starting to look a little irked. Just as he was starting to plan his epitaph, his saving grace came from the other side of Cordelia.
Wesley was snoring.
She whacked him across the chest. "I'm awake! I'm watching..." Cordelia raised an eyebrow. "I had very little sleep last night, and I only missed the credits!"
"Wesley. What happened at the end of the movie?" Cordelia asked, ever so sweetly. Wes looked horrified, and hedged his bets with a nice, happy, Hollywood cliche.
"All the lovely people managed to open their theatre, and... the two main characters lived happily ever after?" he tried. Cordelia hit him again.
"Nice try, buster. First thing - if you'd even been watching the very *beginning* of the film, you'd know it didn't have a happy ending. Secondly - you don't even know the names of the main characters, do you? And thirdly, you made me sit through the Sound of Music - also a musical, by the way, and an inferior one at that! - which has Julie Andrews in it, who I really hate!"
"Whom."
"Sorry?" Cordy said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Uhmm... nothing," Wes quickly amended, not wanting to inspire the further wrath of an already irritated Cordy. Cordelia turned to Angel, who quickly tried to pretend he hadn't been about to fall asleep. She raised an eyebrow, and turned back to Wes.
"And, Julie's number one fan," she smirked as Wes blanched, "oh yes, I've noticed your email username, original much? Lastly, I know that you and Angel are members of that special Sound of Music Fan mailing list. You think I don't go through your inboxes? Pfft, one of the most interesting parts of my otherwise dull day." Wesley looked in astonishment at Angel, who was experimenting with the theory that if you sink far enough into a couch, it'll swallow you all up.
"What? It's a classic..." he muttered.
"Indeed," Wesley agreed. "Although, this startling information worries me a little. We do know that Angelus always had an obsession with nuns..." Cordelia rolled her eyes, and Angel glared at him. "I liked the part of htat film where they sang 'The Hills are Alive'..."
"Oh, so you were awake for the first ten minutes..." Cordelia muttered.
"What's your favourite song? I've never really been able to talk to anyone about this..." Wes continued, ignoring the mutterings of the seer.
"Maybe because the rest of the world are *normal*," Cordy interjected.
"I, uh, I think Edelweiss is kind of pretty..." Angel said quietly. He wasn't sure why he admitted it; it would just result in months of teasing.
"Enough of the madness! Geez, I cannot believe you preferred *that* to a movie that can successfully mix Marilyn and Madonna, with Elton and Bowie on the side!"
"Well, I don't really think those people were around in 1899 - it wasn't very historically accurate..." Wesley added, ever so helpfully, stopping as he froze under the ice cold glare. Cordelia sighed from where she sat between the two pop culturally-challenged men. She should have known they would never appreciate watching a 'Bohemian Storm' brewing. "And the real Moulin Rouge was nowhere near as clean and pleasant..."
"That's true," Angel nodded. "It was one of my - Angelus' favourite haunts just before we went to China. One of the things that movie did get right: there was some truly beautiful women of the night there at the time..."
"Fair enough," Wesley said. "But, as I was saying, there were certain historical anachronisms in the film. For example-" Cordelia looked heaven-wards, but Wes, as usual, didn't take the hint.
"Oh, for the love of-"
"And Patti LaBelle was *certainly* not around; although, when you look at her..."
In fact, it was only when there was a thump from the other end of the couch that he finally stopped, and looked at the empty spot on Cordelia's couch where Angel had been sitting.
He was now curled up in the fetal position on the floor, convulsing and shaking. Cordelia yelped in horror, and knelt down next to him, grabbed him by the shoulders, and shook him.
"Angel? Angel?! What's... what's...what the hell did you do to him?" she yelled accusingly at Wesley. Wesley looked both worried and annoyed.
"*I* did nothing. Maybe that ridiculous film made him remember another heinous crime he committed as Angelus; awoke some memory of, I don't know, his torturing prostitutes in Paris or something equally disturbing!" Cordelia exhaled in despair.
"Oh, shit! Geez, come on, Angel, it was only a movie! It's good, but it's not *that* good. It's not even realistic! Just... stop it!" she commanded. It seemed to work He started convulsing a little less, Cordelia still kneeling with his head in her lap. She grinned triumphantly at Wesley, but the terror in her eyes gave away some of what she was actually feeling. She suddenly yanked her hand away from his body, as if scalded. "Wesley... he's.... *warm*," she whispered. Angel suddenly sat straight up.
"Wh... where am I?" he asked, confused and disoriented. Cordelia's eyes widened in disbelief, and a little horror. Wesley leaned in a little closer, not believing his own ears. "I... I don't know... where is this place?" he repeated. With a very distinct Irish brogue.
"A...Angel?" Cordelia asked, fear in her voice. Wesley looked grimly at the man sitting on the floor next to the seer.
"That's not Angel."
to be continued...