Chapter Text
“D’you think the one over there is into BDSM?” Angel asks, pointing with her chin at one of the many military women in the bar. “She’s got a whip and everything, I'd let her-”
“Take this cocktail to table fifteen,” King interrupts her before she can say another word, leaving the mojito on the waitress's tray, “and lust after all the girls you want, but when your shift is over, c’mon, go.”
Angel snorts, sticking her tongue out at King, who only motions at her to hurry up. What Angel doesn't see – since she's too busy making sure her smile is seductive enough and the way she sways her hips can knock someone’s breath out of their chest – is King grinding her teeth and cleaning glasses so angrily you'd think the glass insulted her mother.
No, of course Angel doesn't see any of that; lately she doesn't pay attention to anything that has to do with King, much to her dismay. King would like to think that she does it to make her jealous, to make her regret having told her that she didn't want anything serious – but, oh, she's known Angel for so many years, she knows that's not how she dances tango.
So she bites her tongue and lets her blood boil every time she pauses what she's doing to look for her with her gaze, and finds her exchanging words and sneaky glances with one of the soldiers from table ten. She is gnawed by the urge to kick everyone out, lock every exit, grab Angel by that tiny waist of hers and corner her against the bar, just as she did a thousand and one times before, when there was a full moon on every spring night.
But the moon cut off her hair long ago, and she no longer has any interest in shining for King.
“Hey, do you need me to stay and close with you today?” The question catches King off guard; Angel hates closing the bar since they stopped hooking up. You took the fun out of it , she complained during one of their many arguments, with no bite to her words
“I don't know, are you going to complain that you have to do your job if I say yes?” She answers with another question and her mocking tone almost seems natural. Angel smirks, glancing toward the entrance of the bar, clearly searching for someone, King feels her stomach in knots.
“I'm going to complain for the sake of complaining, blondie, I thought you already knew that. It just happens that…” He leaves the words in the air, leaning against the bar, trying to look casual, but King knows her like the back of his hand, and she knows that Angel’s anything but. “You saw the short-haired brunette, right? The one with the whip, she's been smoking by the door for about ten minutes, and she doesn't stop looking at me. Do you think if I make her wait long enough, she'll come talk to me?”
King thinks they should give a Guinness Record to the person with the most self-control in the world, because if she were someone else – maybe someone more daring, more forward, maybe if her feelings for Angel were different – she would have lost all composure, she would’ve grabbed Angel by the back of her neck and given her such a loud kiss that the damn military woman smoking at the door would have run away, because she would understand that Angel is hers and no one else's.
Ah, but King is King, and Angel wants nothing to do with King. So she just shrugs, telling to do what she wants and keeps cleaning the bar until its surface is no longer sticky.
The answer doesn't seem to satisfy Angel, who remains motionless for a couple of moments that seem like an eternity, before turning around and leaving without saying goodbye. And if she takes the brunette by her arm and goes home with her, King prefers to not find out.