All he had was fifteen blissful seconds. At least, as close to bliss as Angel could possibly experience nowadays without becoming substantially less cheery then his already dour demeanor could be. Angel had just come back from singing- horribly- to the Host at Carita's. The act alone wasn't causing him fatigue, but sleep was something Angel had actually been looking forward to since he woke up last. Not something he normally did, but nonetheless he had dimmed the lights of his office and shut his eyes. He had apparently foolishly thought that moving Angel Investigations out of her apartment would make Cordelia much less apt to complain bitterly to him about every little thing.
Not fifteen seconds after his eyes closed had she run into his office, leaving Doyle and Wesley in the Hyperion lobby cleaning up and now there he sat, listening to her latest tirade about Doyle. Normally Angel would find slight amusement in seeing the girl deny caring at all about the man before launching into a soliloquy about how he's different or asking non-stop questions about how he's doing outside her care. Right now though, he couldn't't be bothered. He was much too tired. All his work was making sleep hard to get, apparently. In the back of his head he knew this wasn't true, though. Angel had been sleeping more often than he had ever before but couldn't shake the tired feeling out.
"Are you even listening to me?" Cordelia huffed, breaking him out of his thoughts of sleep.
"Yeah, Doyle is-" Angel started, guessing this was in fact what she was speaking of that moment. He frankly had no idea, too distracted by his drooping eyelids what she had actually said.
"He's being impossible! I never asked him to take the vis-" And there she goes again Angel thought to himself with a sigh. The two had been acting like a bickering old couple, even more so than Wesley and Gunn on the off occasion Gunn joined them for any reason.
She was upset that he moved out and took the visions against he request. He was testy because she refused to see this as signs of caring on his part and, Angel noticed, he had stopped drinking. It was probably either the smell of him or the recent living situation that had Angel noticing but Cordy was oblivious and Wes and Gunn didn't know him well enough to assume he was doing this.
Angel smiled to himself at the irony of their situation. He was upset at her because of all those moments he was gone she was growing as a person, accepting the visions and taking him in and she was upset at him because of all the growing he was doing as a person now that he was back. Now, all of their passive frustration was reverting them back to their old selves somewhat.
"What are you going to do about him?" She asked frustrated.
"Cordy you both just have to give the situation time. I'm sure everything will work itself out." He tried to answer vaguely.
"Maybe your right. It's just frustrating, you know?" She replied after a pause.
"Yeah. But you have to understand everything he does is to show you he cares." Angel offered while trying not to reveal that his friend was in fact head over heals in love with the girl.
"But why can't he let me show him I care?" she asked, much to the surprise of Angel.
He knew that the two liked each other. A lot. The problem was getting them to admit it to each other rather than him. Angel was hardly a matchmaker. His own love life was proof that he had no business in the whole ordeal. Ever so briefly his mind brought forth the image of a certain blonde. However it wasn't the one he expected. Buffy was no where to be found inside his thoughts, but someone else. So surprised by the woman's reappearance in his thoughts Angel didn't sense the long silence that filled the room as Cordelia waited for an answer.
"Whatever." She huffed as she left, "I guess I just have to figure this out by myself. The men in this office are sooo useless." She continued long after the click of her heals could be heard on the hotel room floor.
Once again he let his eyelids drop in a vain attempt to find sleep. Sleep wasn't the problem though. He could fall easily into slumber. Something outside was causing the problem. Inside him he secretly believed his entire problem was this team he had formed around him. Each time his brain let him think this he denied it of course. It was just his loner ways that made him think having people around him was unhealthy. He knew it had to be untrue. But lately, every time Gunn and Wesley bickered or complained about each other- despite barely knowing one another- or even when Doyle had a vision he felt himself resenting their presence in his life. It was getting harder and harder to ignore and he didn't know why. Angel just hoped it would go away soon. Either this problem in him...or them.
Well now I have a definite schedule at school and everything I have Monday afternoons and all of Fridays off so I think I'll post the next chapters then- or at least type them up then and post them in the week. Let me know what you guys thought of this one...