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“Cordelia?”
“Yes?” Cordelia gives Angel one of her trademark sunny smiles. Sunny, he thinks. What a word. To most, it means something positive. Warm. Bright. But to a vampire, the sun is death. Immolation. Imminent catastrophe. He thinks perhaps that meaning is more apt to describe their current situation.
“What is that thing and why is it on my desk?”
Cordelia’s smile grows sunnier. “I got us a guinea pig!”
“Yes,” says Angel, “I can see that.” And indeed he can. The horrible creature twitches its horrible little nose at him from inside its cage. Which is, again, on Angel’s desk. “But why?”
“I thought you could use a bit of cheering up,” says Cordelia.
“I don’t need cheering up,” says Angel. “I’m perfectly cheery.”
Cordelia gives him a look. Angel concedes that he probably should’ve smiled while he said that if he wanted to be more convincing.
“Why a guinea pig?” asks Angel.
Cordelia unlatches the cage and picks up the beast. “Well, I thought about getting a puppy,” she says, “but then I remembered your whole nailing-puppies-to-the-ceiling phase, so,” she holds out the guinea pig for him to take, “a guinea pig it is.”
Angel takes the guinea pig and holds it at arm’s length. Its little legs squirm under his hands and eventually he is forced to bring it closer to his chest so he can support it. “Cordelia, I really don’t think – ”
Cordelia puts up a hand. “No need to thank me,” she says. “Just doing my part to make you a less miserable vampire.”
The guinea pig nibbles on his arm. It has surprisingly sharp teeth, and seems entirely too willing to use them to gnaw on humanoid flesh. Well, Angel supposes, they have that in common.
“We could even give him a name from your part of Scotland,” Cordelia continues. “Like Kevin, or, uh…Seamus!” She points a knowing finger at Angel. “You’ve gotta admit, he kinda looks like a Seamus.”
Angel chooses to ignore the ‘Scotland’ comment. “Seamus?” he says dubiously, looking down at the lump of orange and white fur in his arms. The guinea pig looks back up at him with strangely soulful eyes. From across the room, Cordelia smiles at him like a deadly sunbeam.
He sighs. “Okay,” he says. “Seamus it is.”
Wesley shows up the next day with a crossword puzzle book in hand. “Angel,” he says, bursting into Angel’s office where the vampire in question is relaxing with a bit of Kafka, “you’ll be glad to hear – ” He pauses. “What’s that on your desk?”
Angel shrugs helplessly. “Seamus,” he says.
Wesley raises both eyebrows. “Seamus?” he repeats, extending his neck to examine the guinea pig on Angel’s desk. Wesley has a way of bobbing his neck about that has always put Angel in mind of a pigeon.
“Cordelia got him,” says Angel by way of explanation.
“Ah,” says Wesley knowingly, his pigeon-neck retreating to safety. “Yes, she said something about you needing a pet. Although I was under the impression she was going to get you a puppy.”
Angel grimaces. “Puppies and I don’t exactly…mix,” he says. Cordelia had been right about that, at least.
Wesley looks at him quizzically for a beat, then appears to remember his research on Angel’s past crimes and gives an awkward cough. “Right, of course.” He wrinkles his nose and sniffs. “Is it dusty in here?”
“Don’t think so,” says Angel. He vacuums religiously. Or – whatever the vampire equivalent of religiously is.
“Really,” says Wesley. He sneezes, then sniffs again. “You’re sure, are you?”
Angel looks up at him. “Wesley,” he says slowly, “are you allergic to guinea pigs?”
Wesley looks alarmed. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve never met one before.” He peers at Seamus. “I’m not allergic to any other animals. Surely guinea pigs alone wouldn’t cause” – he sneezes again – “this kind of reaction.”
Angel stares at him. Wesley sniffs again, wrinkling his nose against the urge to sneeze.
“Wesley,” says Angel, “I think you’re allergic to guinea pigs.”
Seamus chutters in his cage. Wesley stares at the pig with an expression of growing dread. Seamus stares back at him with an expression that Angel interprets as a kind of smug rodential self-satisfaction.
“Hi, Wesley!” says Cordelia as she comes through the door. “Got any cases for us today? Oh, have you met Seamus?”
“Excuse me,” says Wesley, his eyes beginning to water. “I need to go home right now.” He leaves, taking his crossword book with him. Angel hears him sneeze violently on the way out the door.
“What’s his problem?” Cordelia asks Angel after Wesley has left the office.
“No idea,” says Angel, and goes back to reading his book.
One day Angel walks into his office to find his desk covered in shredded, gnawed-up paperwork, with one very satisfied-looking guinea pig dozing away on top of the mess.
Angel grits his teeth. “Cordelia,” he calls.
Cordelia pokes her head in. “Don’t grind your teeth,” she says. “It’s not good for them, and you’re not exactly on dental insurance. Which, for a vampire, is just bad planning, honestly.”
“Cordelia,” Angel repeats, “your pig has eaten our files.”
Cordelia blinks and turns to survey the scene. “I think you mean your pig has eaten our files,” she says. “Anyway, they probably weren’t important. Everyone’s all paid up. By the way, do you think we should start charging more? We do have a guinea pig to take care of now, after all.”
Angel shrugs, his eyes still morosely fixed on the guinea pig snoring away atop the sad remains of documents that were probably more important than Cordelia is giving them credit for. He considers telling Cordelia to take the guinea pig money out of her own paycheck, but then, like a premonition from the Powers That Be themselves, he sees how that conversation would likely play out, and he wisely chooses to remain silent instead.
“Maybe we can write him off as a business expense,” Cordelia muses. She scoops Seamus up and kisses him on his little guinea pig forehead. “What do you think, Seamus?”
Seamus blinks sleepily and nibbles her nose. Angel, in a fit of what he can only assume is some kind of madness induced by inhaling too much guinea pig hair or perhaps just spending too much time with Cordelia, smiles despite himself at the sight.
Cordelia’s sitting across from him, idly toying with a pencil, when she suddenly asks, “Angel?”
Something about the way she says it makes him sit up and pay attention. She sounds hesitant. Unsure. Unlike her.
“Yeah?” he asks.
She spins the pencil in her fingers. Angel eyes the wooden writing utensil warily in case she accidentally sends it flying towards his heart. “Do you actually…like Seamus?”
Angel opens his mouth, then closes it, not sure how to answer her. “Sure, I like him,” he says at last.
She squints at him. “Are you lying to me? Like you lied about how you thought I was a good actress? ’Cause I haven’t forgotten that, Mr. I’m So Tortured I Can’t Even Be Honest With My Friends.”
Angel sighs and leans forward. “Look, Cordelia – ” He turns his words over in his mind, trying to arrange them just right. “I don’t dislike Seamus. I don’t,” he emphasizes when Cordelia levels him with a disbelieving look, clearly unimpressed with his perceived dishonesty. “I just don’t really…get him. That’s all.”
Cordelia looks baffled. “You don’t get him? What’s there to get? He’s a guinea pig.” She frowns. “Wait. Did they not have guinea pigs in the 1800s? Do you not know what a guinea pig is?”
“1700s,” says Angel. “And yes, I know what a guinea pig is. That’s not what I mean. I mean, you know, his personality. I don’t get it.” He turns to look at Seamus now, across the room in his cage (which is thankfully no longer on Angel’s desk). Seamus returns his gaze with a challenging guinea pig stare. Angel is tempted to look away, but refuses to be cowed by a larger-than-average rodent.
“Why not?” asks Cordelia.
Angel gestures helplessly, finally shirking away from the pig’s accusatory stare. “You know, he’s…stubborn, and inconvenient, and he keeps getting into our files and eating them, and he always has this weird little guinea pig smile on his face, and…” He trails off, casting another glance over at Seamus, who now that he has established his alpha status over Angel is ignoring the vampire completely.
“He doesn’t feel bad about anything,” he finishes.
Cordelia appears to consider this. “Well, feeling bad about things isn’t anything to feel good about,” she reasons.
He looks back up at her, at her warm brown eyes and the confident set of her jaw, and thinks about the kind of person she is. Aside from the occasional spell of insecurity or guilt over high school hijinks, Cordelia herself seems practically immune to feeling bad about things, as if she’d been vaccinated against it as a baby so that it only ever manifested as a short-lived sniffle of doubt. It’s one of the things he’s always liked about her, even before he properly got to know her, and it’s a personality trait that he thinks will probably elude him no matter how long he lives.
“No,” he says, his gaze falling on Seamus again, “I guess it isn’t.”
Later that day, he tries giving Seamus a treat. Seamus bites his finger and, as always, appears completely unapologetic about it. But for the first time, Angel finds that he doesn’t really mind.
“I don’t get it,” says Angel. “What’d I do wrong?”
“Uh, hellooo?” says Cordy, gesturing to her shoes. “You got demon gunk all over my shoes! With your fancy sword-swinging!”
Angel shifts awkwardly. “That was an accident,” he says. “Besides, it’s…only a small amount.” It’s not. “No one will notice.” They will. “I mean, who’s even going to look at your shoes?” Okay, that’s a good point. Score one for Angel.
Cordelia rolls her eyes so far that Angel worries they might roll out of her head and under his desk, and then she’d make him look for them. “God!” she says. “Clueless much?” And she turns on her heel and walks out the door.
Angel watches her go, feeling lost and unsure what to do with himself. A chuttering catches his attention, and he turns to look at Seamus, milling about in his cage.
Angel sighs and goes over to the pig, picking him up and cradling him in his arms. “At least you’re not mad at me,” he tells him.
Seamus twitches his nose disdainfully at Angel.
“Don’t look at me like that,” says Angel. “I didn’t do anything wrong. There was a demon! It was attacking people! What was I supposed to do?”
Seamus just stares at him, stone-faced.
“Okay, fine,” says Angel. “Maybe I could’ve been more…sympathetic.” Cordelia always tells him he needs to work on that.
Seamus nudges him with his nose.
Angel hums. “You think?” He extends his arms out in front of him so he can look Seamus in the eye. Seamus blinks, befuddled.
Angel sighs again. “Yeah,” he says, “you’re probably right.”
The next day, Cordelia has a new pair of designer shoes waiting for her. She squeals and hugs Angel tight, and Angel sneaks Seamus extra treats all afternoon.
Angel is not having a good day.
It started, as most things do, with one of Cordelia’s visions, and now Angel is being thrown against the wall of his own office by a Krulzag demon, who’s angry that the Angel Investigations team stopped him from killing and eating his Krulzag demon wife.
“Ow,” says Angel, landing on the floor behind his desk.
“Angel! I’ll save you!” That’s Wesley, bursting through the door with a sword in his hand. He spots the Krulzag demon and charges.
“Wesley, wait – ” Angel calls out, but it’s too late; the Krulzag demon brains Wesley with one of Cordelia’s many broken staplers and knocks him flat on his back.
Angel drags himself to his feet. He touches his pounding forehead, and his fingers come away wet with blood. He resists the urge to lick it.
“Now it’s just you and me, vampire,” says the Krulzag demon. Angel tries to remember his name. Brad? Brett? Brandon?
A crossbow clicks behind the Krulzag’s head. “Don’t forget the crossbow bolt that’s about to kill you,” says Cordelia. Before the Krulzag has finished turning to face her, she’s already fired a bolt into his neck.
And the Krulzag pulls it out as if it were nothing more than an irritating tick.
“Oh,” says Cordelia. “Nevermind then.”
She tries to whack him with the bow itself, but he grabs it and crumples it in his hand. Luckily the distraction has given Angel enough time to cross the room in his admittedly weakened state and try to grapple the Krulzag from behind.
With a roar, the Krulzag throws him off and sends both Angel and Cordelia to the ground with a spinning kick. Angel groans.
“You wouldn’t let me kill Helen,” says the Krulzag. “Now you’ll all die in her place.”
He extends claws from his hands, claws that look sharp enough to kill with one blow, and sweeps them downwards in a deadly arc, on track to decapitate Angel and Cordelia both –
– and a blast of fire knocks him backwards. The Krulzag screams. Angel and Cordelia lift their heads. Above them, still in his cage, Seamus’s eyes are glowing red, his fur is standing on edge and has turned black as coal, and he’s breathing pure hellfire in the Krulzag’s direction.
Angel gapes. Cordelia laughs in disbelief. The Krulzag burns.
It’s over in less than a minute, the Krulzag dissipated into ash that, unfortunately, Angel is going to have to clean up later. Seamus’s fur calms down from its wild state and the black color recedes until he’s orange and white like usual.
Angel stands up and helps Cordelia to her feet as well, his eyes still trained on Seamus. “Cordelia,” he says, “I think you bought a hellpig.”
“No kidding,” says Cordelia, looking in wonder at the pig in question. She turns to Angel, grinning. “I told you he was a good investment! He totally protected us from that creepy demon guy!”
Angel studies Seamus. The guinea pig’s nose twitches innocently. Angel smiles.
“Yeah,” he says. “He did.”
He unlatches Seamus’s cage and cradles him in a hug. Cordelia comes over and coos over the hellpig affectionately, letting him nibble on her fingers.
“What’d I miss?” asks a dazed Wesley from the doorway, staggering to his feet.
“Seamus killed the demon guy by breathing fire at him,” says Cordelia, matter-of-fact.
“Ah,” says Wesley, still sounding rather out of it. “That’s nice.” He slumps against the wall and tries to catch his breath.
“Maybe we should start paying Seamus a wage,” Cordelia muses out loud. “If he’s going to be helping us out, I mean.”
Wesley frowns, coming back to his senses. “What could a guinea pig possibly want with money?”
“That’s his business,” says Cordelia. Seamus burps out a remaining flame, as if to emphasize her point, and Wesley jumps a little. Angel and Cordelia exchange a look, and then break out into a shared laugh.
“That’ll do, pig,” says Angel, scratching Seamus behind the ears. Cordelia flashes him a smile, not deadly like the sun, but as safe and comforting as overcast skies and rain on the roof. In Angel’s arms, Seamus begins to purr. Maybe, Angel thinks, today will be a good day after all.
Wesley sneezes.