Author’s note: This was inspired by someone’s comment on LiveJournal that Cordy seemed to have been surreptitiously aged between BtVS season 3 and Angel season 1…with one of the proofs being that she was drinking long before she should’ve been legal. Call this my explanation for why no one calls her on it. *g* To my wonderful beta reader, Christina–she knows Angel so much better than I do and really helped make sure I got him right.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Cordy–“
“No! Angel, this is ridiculous.” Cordelia glared from Angel to Wesley and back over her glass of Captain Morgan. “Both of you are being ridiculous. I am perfectly capable of handling this.”
“Angel is correct, however capable you may consider yourself,” Wesley admonished. “In California, one can’t legally consume alcohol until the age of twenty-one, which you are not.”
“So?” As usual, she was unbowed. “How am I supposed to get some rich, gorgeous young, single man who just happens to own a major television network to ask me to be the national spokesperson for their fall line-up if I can’t let him take me out for a couple of drinks? I mean, duh, this is LA–everybody lies about their age.”
“Yeah, but usually they say they’re younger than they are,” Angel retorted.
“Like you, Mr. Baby-faced-should-be-somebody’s-great-grandfather-times-ten?”
The vampire looked offended. “That’s different–“
“Besides, it’s not like I’m going to get caught–” Cordy persisted. “No one here knows how old I am, except for you two. And it’s not exactly as if you’re going to go turn me in, Mr. Sorry-I-can’t-go-to-court-and-testify-because-if-I-should-happen-to-step-outside-this-nice-sunny-courtroom-I’ll-burst-into-flames.” That, obviously, was directed to Angel. She turned next on Wesley. “Or you, Mr. Wetback.”
“Cordelia.” The ex-Watcher thought he sounded patient. It came out patronizing. “A ‘wetback’ is an individual who enters this country illegally across the Rio Grande–“
“And you entered this country illegally across the Atlantic Ocean. Which makes your back even wetter,” she shot back with a triumphant smile.
“One can hardly swim the Atlantic–“
“Oh, like Immigration is so going to care.”
Wesley blinked, cleared his throat, and folded his hands in his lap. “Ah, yes. As you yourself pointed out, you are remarkably mature for your age, and perfectly capable of behaving in a responsible manner regarding the consumption of alcohol.”
“Wesley!” Angel just looked at him. “If she were capable of behaving responsibly we wouldn’t even be having this conversation! I don’t believe this–you are such a wimp!”
The ex-Watcher stuck his chin out defiantly. Cordelia just fixed the vampire with a skeptical stare and an eyebrow that was doing its best to climb into her hair.
Angel wilted. “Okay, so I’m a wimp too.”
She beamed, jumping up to give them both a quick, benevolent kiss on the cheek. “I knew I could count on my boys.”
Humming happily off-key, Cordy bounced out of the room and up the stairs to the office. Angel and Wesley watched her go.
“We are such wimps,” the vampire repeated with a sigh.
“Surely you cannot lay the fault entirely upon our shoulders, Angel,” Wesley protested with a thoughtful glance in the direction their friend had gone. “I hardly think there is a man in this world brave enough to venture the wrath of Cordelia Chase.”