Go TeamC/A
-
Title: Walk on Gilded Splinters
Author: Ficbitch82 - aka Christie
Posted:
Rating: N-17
Content: C/A
Summary: Cordelia wakes up before YW in S5. She leaves Wolfram and Hart and Angel behind to fight the good fight and is joined by Wesley and Spike. Halloween comes round and they’re invited to a bash at W&H…
Spoilers: Everything up to S5. If I get something wrong, forgive me, I haven’t seen much of S4/S5.
Disclaimer: Truly, truly not mine. They all belong to Joss Whedon (unfortunately).
Distribution: Just ask first. :o)
Notes: I’m shifting lots of S5 around in this so… Just ignore Joss’ timeline.
Thanks/Dedication:Extra-special thanks to the lovely, fantastic, ever-so-sweet Debs for the tireless and fabulous beta. And to the lovely Gabs who requested a Halloween Party at Wolfram and Hart, Cordelia/Spike working together, Angel not being happy about it and Smut-on-a-desk.
Feedback: Does Angel have fangs? :p
Part 1It happened in a variety of ways over the first few weeks she was awake. She’d made her decision only moments after the first big shock and really, there’d been so many.
Connor missing, Fred with the miniskirts, Gunn with the hair and Angel – God, she couldn’t even get started on Angel. The final straw had been Harmony and that was overlooking the fact that her friends had clearly gone insane while she’d been in her post-Jasmine coma and started working for Wolfram and Hart.
The more Cordelia thought about it, the more it left a bitter taste in her mouth and the kicker was that she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
It was Spike who picked up on it more than anybody else. Only yesterday he’d told her that she was getting an overhanging forehead to match Angel’s – she’d only started talking to him again when she’d had a vision and, more subject to requirement than anything else, she’d had to tell him where the danger was.
“I was only kidding,” he murmured sourly, when Cordelia had ignored him for the fifth time that car ride. Wesley had almost stepped in to play mediator between the two when Spike had dared to lean over and flick Cordelia on the back of the head and demand sullenly that she at least bitch him out.
He wasn’t used to silences where Cordelia was concerned.
She’d been awake for two months – both of those not easy as alliances were forged and friendships seemingly ruined, hanging in tatters out the window of the big necro-tempered glass building that Angel felt comfortable calling home these days.
Wolfram and Hart. The very bane of their existence for more than four years. The place that had brought back Vocah to destroy Angel’s link (and yeah, she was still a little pissy about that) and the place that, for its own selfish gain, had brought back Darla, trying to drive Angel to the dark side.
It had worked, at least at first. After locking a bunch of lawyers in a cellar and leaving the majority for dead, Angel had gone insano for awhile opting to stalk Darla and generally scar Cordelia for life by making her think that Angelus was on the loose again. That she’d be on the end of yet another clean up operation, only maybe this time she wouldn’t be so lucky.
They’d fought back from that. Angel had clawed his way out of the very depths of despair and come back more focussed, more willing than ever to make a difference. And Cordelia was seriously wondering how he’d got from that to this, working inside the belly of the beast and taking most of his friends along with him.
She risked a glance at Wesley, watching him through the partition in the lobby as he did his usual fact-checking on the case they were working on. She’d moved back into the hotel the day after she’d woken up, finding it dusty and deserted, though it still felt like home to her.
Spike had followed a day later, Wesley a week. The others, it seemed, were too far gone to notice anything unusual about the fact that they were working for the very place they’d fought for four years and Cordelia, clinging to the hope that maybe they’d been brainwashed, mentioned it to Wesley.
He’d shaken his head with a sad smile, obliterated any hope that she’d had left, and asked softly, “Then how did I get away?”
She had to admit he was right. Wesley was smart – possibly the smartest guy she’d ever had the fortune of meeting – but then Angel was too, most of the time. He actually believed that they were doing good in there, selling some company line about everything being a-ok when Cordelia happened to know that it wasn’t.
He’d been at her bedside within 15 minutes of her waking up. He’d put his arms around her and Cordelia had thought that, despite their problems, they’d get through it. Until Angel offered to take her shopping.
Now Cordelia, ever the pragmatist, was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Stuck wearing an icky hospital gown, who was she to say no to all the gorgeous clothes that Angel was fairly throwing at her? Was she curious about the money? Sure! But she could bury her head in the sand enough to think that maybe they’d won the lottery or something, right?
Wrong. She’d first noticed something was up when they were heading home from the Beverly Center in Angel’s snazzy new Viper, going in the opposite direction of the hotel. “Uh, I know I’ve been in a coma and all, but shouldn’t we be heading that way?” She asked, pointing in the other direction.
Angel swallowed, looked a little guilty, and said, “Cordy, we need to talk.”***
At first, she thought she was hearing things. Surely that couldn’t be right – her best friends working for the very people who’d tried to, oh, kill them on a regular basis?
Turns out, she’d heard right after all, because as Angel pressed the button that led them to the top floor and his office, Cordelia realised that this was something she couldn’t be wrong about. It was right there in front of her – people crawling out of the woodwork to pay homage (not literally, thank God) to ‘The Boss’.
She gaped at him the full time, especially when the guy that looked like the Devil himself offered Angel a game of squash tomorrow. “Are you kidding me?” She whispered hoarsely, “I mean, really, are you?”
Angel shepherded her into his office with a carefully placed hand at the small of her back and Cordelia let rip, demanding to know what the hell was going on around here.
She didn’t get much of an explanation. Wesley came in, followed closely by Fred and Gunn, and when Cordelia asked where Connor was only to be met with blank stares from the others, Angel’s face turned thunderous and he asked if he could talk to Cordelia alone.
It was like those conversations they usually had, only this time Angel was doing the talking and Cordelia was doing the listening. She stared at him open-mouthed, barely breathing, and when the door opened and in launched Harmony, Cordelia took a step back, giving Angel yet another ‘what the hell?!’ look as her former friend threw her arms around her.
“Oh my God! Fred told me you were back, but I totally had to see for myself. Do you know what this means? We can go shopping and—”
That was it. The final straw, the one that broke the camel’s back or whatever the hell that old saying was. “Are you freaking kidding me?!” Cordelia shrieked.
Angel wasn’t polite when he shoved Harmony out of the office, he turned back to Cordelia, ready to face her wrath and stave off what he could and was pinned by an incredulous gaze.
“What is this, bizarroworld? First, I find out that you work for Wolfram and Hart and your son doesn’t really exist anymore – except to us and, for some reason, some girl called Eve who makes you flinch every time you say her name. And now I find out that my replacement is Harmony? You do remember she’s a vampire, right Angel? One without a soul, as you so keenly pointed out to me three year ago. And did I mention the trying to kill us part?”
Angel looked lost for a moment, “I wasn’t…she was…Wesley hired her.”
“Wesley?!” Cordelia looked disgusted. As if the whole thing wasn’t bad enough! They worked for Wolfram and Hart, Angel had raped the minds of all his friends and they’d hired Harmony as her replacement.
Cordelia felt a little sick.
Sensing that she wasn’t at her best right now, Angel gestured to the chair behind her, “Cordelia, perhaps you should sit down.”
She did so, heavily, unable to believe that this was happening. They worked for Wolfram and Hart. Worked here as in clocked into the Big House of Evil every single morning.
“How, Angel?” she asked quietly, her elation at having woken up from her coma gone and replaced with a sense of dread.
“Lilah,” he murmured, “She told me if I took this deal…she’d make it different for Connor. He wouldn’t remember this. He was so hurt, so confused. He tried to kill people. He tried to kill you.”
She felt her stomach roll, an unpleasant feeling that made her want to throw up the little she’d had to eat in the last year since her coma.
“They had the best hospitals, Cordy. After your coma, I just wanted to make sure you’d be looked after.”
Cordelia blinked, “You wanted to make sure I’d be looked after so you took Lilah’s word?”
Angel nodded.
“The same Lilah who sent me killer visions so you’d go free psycho-boy from that hell dimension with Skip?” Angel managed to look at least a little uncomfortable at this, “The same Lilah who helped Vocah put me in a coma when they wanted to sever your link to the PTB?”
“Cordy, when I took that deal—”
“When you took that deal what?” She asked, stepping down on the end of his sentence, “You’re working for people who tried to kill us a not small portion of the time. How the hell do you explain that?”
How could he explain that? Angel stared at her a moment, knowing damn well that once Cordelia started in on their lack of helping the helpless this year, he’d be screwed. Once he’d tried for a normal patrol, just once, and the Wolfram and Hart squad had been on him so fast, making him sign papers and pose for publicity shots, that Angel’s head had spun. Sure, he’d fired that squad soon after, but he was still finding his feet, so to speak, changing things from the inside out.
They were making a difference, weren’t they?
“You don’t even have an answer,” said Cordelia, disgusted. Connor, she got. She didn’t want to hear his son had died either but there should have been another way – a way that didn’t involve raping the minds of their friends and working for the enemy.
“Just…just let me show you around first, please? We’re doing good here, Cordy.”
She’d raised an eyebrow at that and at the end of her tour of Wolfram and Hart, when she’d visited Fred’s department of science, Wes’ department of translation, Gunn with his nifty new knowledge of the law and Lorne’s entertainment division, Cordelia had turned to Angel, deflated.
“This is doing good?” She whispered.
Angel looked wounded. He’d so wanted her to believe that there was something of value here, something that they were doing that made things right and the fact that she didn’t… “I didn’t have any other choice, Cordelia.”
“Yeah, Angel, you did. Maybe not a lot of choices, but you still had some.” At the end of the day, he’d signed that contract – he’d talked them into signing that contract – they’d all said themselves that they weren’t honestly sure why. “You used to care what happened to people.”
“That’s not fair,” he murmured, his jaw tensed.
Cordelia sighed, “Isn’t it? All I see is numbers, Angel. Figures and graphs that exist to help you keep peddling your company line while all you’re doing is trying to balance the books against Wolfram and Hart’s Big Show of Evil. When was the last time you were out there fighting? Not for a client, but for someone who really needed it?”
“We’re making a difference,” he tried again.
“No, you’re just treading water. Did you ever think that maybe they had an ulterior motive in all of this? That they could keep close tabs on you and your gang of do-gooders while they set other things into place? Bigger things?”
“Of course I thought about that,” he snapped, “How could I not?”
“Then why the hell didn’t you listen to it? Jesus, Angel, even the dumbest of animals has some basic instinct that makes it want to survive…”
“You can’t say that,” he growled. “You don’t know what it was like.”
Cordelia’s eyes blazed suddenly and Angel knew he’d overstepped the mark, “Don’t know what it was like?” she repeated. “Oh, I’m sorry, Angel. Were you body-jacked and raped so that all of this could be put into place? I was there through all of it – every single little part of it – having my strings pulled like some fucking human puppet, listening to stuff come out of my mouth that I wouldn’t have dreamed of saying, not to anybody, least of all your son,” she snapped. “And I was there afterwards, too, on those rare occasions when you came to see me, when you told me yourself that you’d screwed up, that you didn’t see a way out. So don’t give me that bullshit about not knowing, Angel, because I know more than you think.”
They’d said too much. They stood apart, bright, immovable battle lines drawn between them and Cordelia realised then that it was too much, not enough. She hadn’t expected everything to be the same when she’d got out of her coma, but she hadn’t expected it to be this different either.
“I think… I think I need to go,” she said, her voice a little hoarse as she watched Angel, looking for any sign of emotion flitting across his face. If he cared, he didn’t show it. It was like he couldn’t.
“Go where?” He asked, deadpan.
“I don’t know. Somewhere. Anywhere that’s not here.”
His gaze moved to hers, his mouth open as if in protest. He quickly shut it when he noticed the look in her eyes. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go,” he said quietly.
“Home,” Cordelia breathed out, “I want to go home.”***
That had been pretty much the end of any civil conversation they’d had since she’d woken up. Home, it had turned out, was rented by a new couple – one who’d gotten wise to the thing that had been evicting tenants since Cordelia had gone missing shortly after her little amnesia trip.
Home wasn’t her apartment any more because Phantom Dennis wasn’t there; he’d been exorcised, sent packing to the other side.
Her eyes had misted over at that and, left with a lump in her throat, Cordelia had glanced up at Angel. “I guess it was silly to think everything would be the same when I came back,” she said quietly. A whole year had passed and she’d expected, what, everything to be waiting where she left it?
“Cordy…you can stay with me,” he offered. “Just until you find your feet.”
He’d explained about his penthouse. A few months ago, Cordelia would have jumped at the chance ‘cause, well, hello penthouse. But the fact remained, and she simply could not let this go, his penthouse was funded by Wolfram and Hart. As was this snazzy little car that Angel was sitting in.
“Where’s the Plymouth?” She asked suddenly, catching Angel off guard.
He shifted uncomfortably for a moment, not wanting to meet her gaze, “Still at the Hyperion.”
Cordelia blinked. So he’d left that behind too. The Plymouth, the hotel, everything, “Is the hotel empty?”
“I think so,” Angel nodded. “It’s still leased in my name.” He waited a beat, “You want to—”
“Yeah,” Cordelia nodded, “I think I do.
Part 2He sat down beside her, dropping a bucket of probably the greasiest Buffalo wings known to mankind at her feet. “Oh, c’mon,” he muttered sourly, pointing towards them as if they would sway her mood in his favour. “You can’t stay mad at me forever.”
“Really?” she asked, arching a perfectly shaped eyebrow, “because I’m doing pretty well on that.”
“Even when I’m doing this much grovelling?”
Cordelia gave him a withering look, “FYI, Spike, Buffalo Wings? Not the way to this girl’s heart. That might have worked with Little Miss Likes to Slay, but me? Not so much.”
He sobered completely at the mention of Buffy and got up, the drop of his shoulders irking Cordelia and making her feel sorry for him all at the same time, "Oh for God's sake..."
He turned and grinned, dropping next to her on the circular sofa that just wasn't God's way of letting you be comfortable. "Wing, pet?" he offered, holding out the bucket.
Cordelia wrinkled her nose and shook her head, "Not in this lifetime."
Spike sighed and delved into the greasy portions himself, tearing into one and asking through a mouthful of food, "You still mad at me?"
"Let's see, are you still an asshole?" she asked, only semi-disgusted at Spike's eating habits these days. Sad to say, but she'd actually gotten used to the guy - the only Champion in her rolodex these days, and she used that term loosely.
"Always have been an asshole," he murmured around his food, "Ask Ang--" He cut himself off before he said that name, knowing damn well that it was a sore subject where Cordelia was concerned. "Where'd Percy go?"
Cordelia looked up. Wesley had made himself scarce right around the time that Spike had appeared at the lobby doors, not wishing to get 'embroiled in yet another fight with you two'. She'd huffed silently at that, but she'd had bigger fish to fry, namely Spike. Only she hadn't quite fried him in the sense she'd first meant. "Translating something, I think. Shocker, huh?"
Spike pulled a face. Two months he'd been working at this little venture and if Wesley wasn't moaning about the state of the lobby, he was out reading something, checking out a new book from the demonic library of crap. The bloke seriously needed to get out more. "So, I hear Angel dropped by."
He dropped this into the conversation so casually that Cordelia was almost shocked by it. Almost. She'd learned not to be shocked by certain things these days. Angel turning up where he was least expected was one of them.
"Yeah," she nodded, "He was less than happy about my current living situation."
"You told him to piss off, right?"
"Not quite like that," Cordelia shrugged slightly, "but I think he got the general gist of it."
From the look on her face, Spike gathered that Angel had more than got the gist of it. He'd left, and so he should, with his proverbial sodding tail between his legs and it'd been about damned time he got a dressing down. Spike was only slightly miffed that he hadn’t been round to see it. "He say anything interesting?"
"You mean, 'did he ask about you'?"
Spike grinned, "Well, that too. What'd you tell him?"
Cordelia met his gaze, "I told him we were comshukking like bunnies, Spike," she said deadpan, "What d'you think I told him?"
"That you'd seen me naked?" He asked, deflating visibly when Cordelia gave him that look again. "C'mon, pet, gotta have some fun with the big poof."
Yeah, fun… thought Cordelia, rolling her eyes. Angel had been at his broodiest, picking his way through the lobby and casting an almost critical eye at it. It had been as clean as the day she'd left it, at least, no dust bunnies clawing their way through the hotel to sneer at.
"I hear you've got a new addition to the family," he’d tried to bait her, enjoying the way she flinched, even though she'd done a more than stellar job at hiding her uncomfortableness. That was his problem - he knew her more than anybody else ever had, than anyone else had ever tried and that just pissed her off.
"Is that why you've come here?" She asked, pretending to look busy as she cleared away folders, "Because if it is you can just stow it, Angel, I'm not in the mood."
"So how's it going?"
Conversations between them had been strained at best since she’d come back. They started out civil enough but before long they were back to the bitterness, to the recriminations that just wouldn't settle. More than once, Cordelia'd had to bite her lip where Angel was concerned, stop herself asking why he just hadn't noticed that there was something up with her. Why, when he knew her better than anyone, hadn't he noticed that there was something very wrong?
"How's it going?" She repeated. "You took time out of your busy CEO schedule to come ask me how it's going?"
Angel stiffened. Every time he got close to Cordelia, close to talking to her about what happened, she threw Wolfram and Hart and his current status of CEO in his face. It was bad enough that she’d left, taken Wesley along with her – he saw it as more of a blessing that she’d taken Spike – but for her to bring it up every single time, knowing that he simply didn’t have an answer for it…well, that was just playing dirty as far as Angel was concerned, because he couldn’t stoop as far as the level that he wanted to go, that he could go if she pushed him far enough. Angel knew he never would.
“Do we have to do this again?” He growled.
Cordelia just stared at him. “Are you still working for them?”
“You know I am.”
“Then no,” she shook her head, “we don’t have to do this again ‘cause we don’t have all that much to say to each other,” said Cordelia coldly. “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”
She started to walk away from him and Angel was across the lobby in three short strides, grabbing her wrist and spinning her towards him so that she was flush up against his chest.
“What?” She demanded, seeing the flash of anger in his eyes, “Hit a nerve, Angel?”
She was maddening, infuriating, the biggest pain in his ass he’d ever known…and he loved her desperately. Loved her so much that at times he couldn’t stand it, knowing that they were playing on opposite sides of the battlefield these days, that Spike had taken his place as her friend, her Champion.
She didn’t waver, didn’t even move or let a hint of fear show on her face, but Angel heard her pulse quicken, watched her tongue creep out to moisten her lower lip.
“Why him?” he asked, his voice husky. “Why Spike?”
Cordelia’s gaze remained on his, “You see many other Champion’s beating down my door?”
“He’s not a Champion,” Angel growled.
“He cares,” she retorted. “That’s enough for me.”
“And I don’t? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t know, Angel,” she said, her voice sounding weary all of a sudden. “You used to. Maybe you just lost too much and decided it was easier this way.”
She really had hit a nerve with that one because Angel had shoved her away, knocking her into the desk as he’d stormed out of her hotel. She hadn’t been hurt, not really, but there was a bruise on her thigh to add to the list of general aches and pains of this fight.
“That well, huh?”
Spike’s soft voice broke into her thoughts and Cordelia glanced up, so painfully aware that she’d ‘gone off on one again’ as Spike liked to call it. “Yeah,” she nodded, “That well.”
“He tell you about Lorne’s bash?”
Cordelia shook her head, “Bash?” They’d been too busy arguing to have anything resembling a normal conversation.
“Halloween thing. Fancy dress.” Spike’s mood soured a little at that.
“What, you’ve got something against fancy dress?” She asked.
“It’s not that,” said Spike, “it’s bloody Harmony asking if I’ll be her date. There must be a dozen birds in that law firm who could’ve asked me and instead I get her.”
“Yeah, well, you know what they say, Spike. You made your bed…”
“Hey!” He snapped, “I haven’t shared that bed in at least three years. More, actually. So don’t go starting in on that. You going?”
“To a Wolfram and Hart Halloween Bash?” Cordelia gave him an incredulous look. “You’ve got more chance of me eating one of those wings.”
Spike shot a baleful look in the direction of his bucket, “I was sort of hoping we could…”
“What, go together?” Cordelia blinked, “Look, Spike, I like you but—”
“It’s not a date,” he murmured, seeming flustered. “I just…well, don’t you wanna wind Captain Forehead up a little? It’s a chance to get dressed up as well, pet, let our hair down, so to speak. And you know as well as I do that it’s the slowest night of the year.”
“Yeah,” she muttered, “like that’s stopped the Powers before.”
“We’ll answer their visions if they send you one. C’mon, love, girl I’ve heard everyone talk about wouldn’t dream of passing up a party.”
“Again, I say Wolfram and Hart,” Cordelia scowled, “Not looking to make with the merry in that building.” And she very much did not like the impression that she’d turned into some kind of killjoy or something. They’d had different things to worry about, just because she hadn’t been all ‘Yay, Party!’ since she’d woken up, didn’t mean she didn’t know how to have a good time any more. Did it?
“It’d do you good, y’know.” Wesley’s voice from the other side of the lobby made Cordelia look up.
“How long have you been here?” she asked, wondering why it was they were suddenly ganging up on her.
“Long enough to think Spike’s right,” said Wesley, ignoring the incredulous looks he was shot by the two. It wasn’t often he agreed with Spike so when he did, it came as a shock to them all. “We could go. It’d be a chance to catch up.”
“You want to see Fred,” Cordelia accused.
His cheeks flushed slightly, “You’ve got me there. We could also use it as a chance to see what Wolfram and Hart are up to. I don’t think they’ll have thought of revoking my security pass.”
“Trust Percy to think of work,” Spike rolled his eyes.
Looking affronted, Wesley hung his coat on the back of his office door, “I don’t think we can afford not to. Those Bendril demons were a client of Wolfram and Hart’s.”
Cordelia glanced at him sharply, he hadn’t told her that, and it just seemed to drive it home that they really were on opposite sides of the battlefield these days. They were fighting the things Angel was representing and that was still kind of bewildering.
“Yeah, and since someone let one of them get away…” Spike smirked, knowing full well that the bloke would bite. He was wound tighter than Cordelia, some days.
Wesley frowned, “Its mate was standing on my face, Spike. It was rather hard to contain anything, never mind a bloody demon. And I don’t recall you stepping in to help.”
“That’s a shoddy excuse, that. And besides, I had my own demon to contend with,” Spike shook his head, before turning his attention back to Cordelia. “C’mon, love. You heard what he said. It’s all for the good of the team.”
Cordelia sighed, maybe they were right. “Fine. But I’m gonna need a killer costume.”***
“You done yet?” Spike’s voice filtered through the curtain of the costume shop, sounding bored, annoyed and reverent of the fact that she could totally kick him when she came out.
“I’m…looking.” She decided on one finally, turning this way and that to see her best angle – currently her ass right now, since she’d been working out.
She’d checked the credentials of the guy she was buying from three times already, telling him that if she even got near changing into her costume de choice, she’d be back here kicking his ass so fast his head would spin.
Truth be told, he looked at her like she was a little crazy but Cordelia was oh-so-used to that. Years of having visions in public places had kind of set her up for the ‘let’s stare at the Crazy Lady’ parts of life.
“You’ve been ‘looking’ for twenty minutes,” said Spike, “What’s up with it? It can’t make you look any scarier than that last costume.”
The last one had been a costume dress, period piece in red and black that’d really brought out Cordelia’s, uh, better assets. Spike had shaken his head, looked up to find her grinning, and then realised who she’d looked like.
Spike had shuddered imperceptibly, avoiding her gaze.
“What? You don’t like it?” She asked, biting her lip uncertainly. She hadn’t been sure when she’d pulled the costume from the rack, even though red and black were totally her colours.
“It’s…it’s not that I don’t like it, pet. It’s—”
“What?” She glanced down at the corset, smoothing her hands over the lacy fabric. “What’s wrong with it?”
“You just look like someone, is all.”
“Who?”
Spike glanced at his feet and mumbled a name that had Cordelia retreating right back into the dressing room to change. Drusilla.
“So what’s wrong with this one?” He asked again.
“I’m trying to decide on your next biggest insult,” she shot back.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he groaned, catching the eye of some hapless idiot across the way who looked just like he did, trying to placate his better half through the filmy curtain separating them. “You looked fantastic, pet.”
“Yeah, I just reminded you of a blood-sucking vampire, is all.”
The salesgirl walking near shot Spike an odd look and he gave a resigned sigh, muttering “old girlfriend” as she passed. “Cordelia—”
“Okay, okay." The curtain flipped open and Cordelia stepped out, making Spike’s mouth fall open.
She grinned, spun to give Spike the full view and arched an eyebrow, “Well?”
“Gonna be a lot of guys adjusting their crotch area tomorrow night,” he observed, making her laugh.
Part 3The party was everything she’d expected. A particularly lavish affair decorated and hosted by Lorne, the Anagogic demon with more style than a Neiman Marcus footwear sale.
It looked fantastic, a world away (but not completely) from the floor Cordelia had stood on two months ago, and that served to make her feel a little better.
Wesley had tried to come over all 007 in a simple tux, until Cordelia had stepped in and demanded he up the ante a little. Now, complete with manly stubble, Wes had been transformed into Indiana Jones, along with a very intimidating looking whip and a hat that he was afraid made him look rather silly.
“You look great, Wesley,” Cordelia had told him for the ninth time in the car on the way over.
Spike, however much he’d told Cordelia about how ‘fun’ it would be, didn’t go in for ‘all that dressing up lark’. Content in his leather duster, he’d scowled when one of the other partygoers had asked if he was supposed to be Billy Idol.
“It’s your own fault,” she’d laughed, once Spike had groused around his beer for ten minutes. “There were thousands of costumes in that shop.”
“What’d you want me to come as, bloody Superman?” he muttered, standing awkwardly to the side of one of the offices. “I mean Billy Idol, pet, really. I gave that bloke his looks!”
Spike hadn’t been impressed at that. Still whining another twenty minutes later, Cordelia gave up on the idea of him enjoying the party and decided to mingle, plainly avoiding the demon that looked like he had a whole excess of skin thing going on.
She got herself a glass of punch – non-alcoholic, because she maintained that she needed a clear head in a place like this – and started milling around the room, noting the appreciative gazes and filing them under ‘still a hotty even after two demon pregnancies and a coma’.
She was talking to a guy who she’d decided was most definitely evil when she heard Lorne’s voice. She turned, excusing herself from the guy, and headed over to him, touching his arm lightly.
“Plumcheeks!” His face lit up when he saw her and he whistled, watching as she twirled to give him the full benefit of the outfit, “You look—”
“Fantastic?” She supplied with a grin. “Amazing? Like I haven’t survived two demon pregnancies and a coma in the last three years?”
Lorne smiled, “I was going to go with ‘a million dollars’ but yours works too. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“Yeah, well, how could I pass up a party?” Cordelia smiled again, her gaze travelling the room a moment until it landed on Angel. He hadn’t noticed her yet, caught up with what looked like a heated discussion with some demon or other.
She wondered, briefly, if Angel was attempting some kind of deal but Lorne soon squashed that theory. “No business on this floor tonight, Pumpkin,” he shook his head, “It’s party time only. Why don’t you go over?”
She cut Lorne a glance that told him to stop interfering, that she’d go over when she was ready, but it was too late. Angel had seen her already, excused himself from the demon and begun to make his way towards her.
Cordelia’s calm wobbled a little and she straightened, knowing she looked fantastic and that if Angel gave her cause to, she could hold her own in an argument as much, if not more, than he could.
This Angel was different than the one she’d seen a week ago, and she wasn’t just talking about the big black wings that were sprouting out of his usual black suit. He looked more focussed somehow, at ease with his role and that unsettled her more than it served to calm.
“Athena.” He said as he reached her.
Cordelia blinked. As expected insults went? That really wasn’t one. “Huh?”
“Greek Goddess of Wisdom,” he smiled. “That’s your costume.”
Cordelia glanced down at the knee-length Roman style white dress, tied at the waist with thin ropes of gold. Her hair was pinned up with a tiny gold flowered headband, curly tendrils falling down over her face. Her shoes were gold, too, laced up to her calf, her skin bronzed from an hours worth of spray-tanning.
“I was going for hot and sexy,” she mused. “I didn’t really consider the whole mythology behind it or anything.”
He smiled at that, stepping a little closer to her, “She was known as protector of the city. She offered advice and protection to heroes to help them win their battles.”
Cordelia’s cheeks flushed slightly as she took in what he’d said. “She didn’t happen to get a little vision-brain every now and then, did she?”
“No,” he chuckled, “no vision brain. She was known for her strategizing skills in war.”
“Not much for the strategizing,” she grinned. “I’m more for the ‘poke them with the big shiny sword and hope they go away’ ploy.”
They smiled at each other and for maybe the first time since she’d woken up, it felt normal being around him. It was hard, sure - being inside this building was never going to put her at ease – but she could deal with that for now.
She started to say something, to ask Angel how he’d been this last couple of weeks – Queen of Small Talk, thy name was Cordelia Chase – but Angel got there first and with it, her stomach dropped.
“Cordy, can we talk?”
“Angel, look—”
“I’m sorry about last time,” he told her quickly, earnestly. “But what you said made me think that maybe you’re—”
“Cordy!”
She turned right in the middle of Angel’s sentence, cutting him off at the knees to greet Fred who’d headed there with Gunn and drinks, looking a little glassy-eyed.
“Hey guys,” she grinned, thankful for the interruption as she took the drink. She took a sip, making a face as she realised it was alcoholic. Hadn’t her plan been to not do the alcohol thing tonight?
“Isn’t it great?” Fred gushed, unaware that Angel was glaring at her as he was handed one of the drinks by Gunn. “It’s just totally what everyone needed! I mean, after the week we’ve had -”
Angel cleared his throat and Fred clammed up, flushing guiltily. Cordelia’s spirits soared a little. So, his week hadn’t exactly been great, huh? That was…kind of a good thing, as far as she was concerned. Then she just wondered if it was something to do with their killing those Bendril demons and her spirits dropped. “Bad week at the office, huh?” She tried.
Fred glanced at Angel, floundering for a moment, “Well, I mean…”
“We had visitors,” said Angel, taking a drink of the punch from the small, frosted glass. He didn’t look like elaborating was in his game plan.
“Anyone I know?” She asked, trying to sound offhand about it, though her curiosity was piqued.
Angel frowned, glancing from Fred to Gunn and then back to Cordelia. “Buffy,” he said quietly, “Buffy was here.”
Cordelia’s previously in-place calm wobbled again. “Buffy?”
“Y’all talk about her like she’s the second coming or somethin’,” Fred murmured, ignoring the fact that Gunn jabbed her lightly in the ribs. Three glasses of punch did not make for a very patient Fred, especially when her friends were big dummies who couldn’t see what was right there in front of them the whole time it’d been there.
“Fred,” Angel warned softly, having heard this argument only a few nights before.
“What?” She demanded. “You get your hands cut off and she shows up and acts like you brought it on yourself just ‘cause you’re a vampire. She couldn’t even try to be a little bit sympathetic!”
Cordelia’s mouth fell open, “You had your hands cut off?”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Angel tried, though it didn’t put her at ease, “and she did save me.”
“That figures,” said Cordelia, rolling her eyes. She had a funny taste in her mouth. “So she just happened to be in town and save you from a…what did it, anyway?”
“A Slayer,” said Angel. “She was-”
“Psychotic,” Fred interrupted. “Completely and utterly out of her tree. She was in a mental institution when she was called. She thought Angel was the guy who’d killed and tortured her parents ten years ago.”
Cordelia blinked. She’d heard bits and pieces from Spike about the last few days in Sunnydale, what they’d done in making all the potentials into Slayers. It sounded like a good idea at the time, Cordelia had admitted, but maybe now Buffy was thinking that she hadn’t quite thought it through. “So what happened?”
“Buffy showed up, saved Angel and then decided to bitch him out for taking the job at Wolfram and Hart.”
Angel looked mutinous, his mouth cut into a thin line as he glared at her. “Thanks, Fred.”
She looked confused for all of a second until sarcasm registered and she rolled her eyes, not quite sure when speaking her mind had become her top priority. That was usually Cordelia’s job. “No problem, boss.”
“Now can we talk?” Angel asked, glancing at Cordelia.
Cordelia frowned, not at all sure she wanted to hear how the Buffy and Angel show had gone. She glanced at Gunn and Fred, now hasty in making their retreat, over at Spike who was being pissed off by Harmony and then to Lorne and Wesley, deep in conversation. “Okay,” she sighed, “Fine. Let’s talk.”
Part 4
Alcohol was very much needed when Cordelia stepped into Angel’s office for the second time in two months. She’d forgotten all about his compliments earlier, her store of ‘Still a Hotty’ having been used up and discarded in the face of the last five minutes.
Buffy was back. Or had been back. And though she hadn’t exactly made a lasting good impression on Fred, Cordelia knew it was only a matter of time before the Buffy and Angel show kicked in and she really wasn’t ready for that.
“So, what did you wanna talk about?” She asked, airily, deciding that if this was the moment that Angel attempted telling her that he was giving up Wolfram and Hart to go be with Buffy, she’d poke that katana on his wall in a place that wasn’t destined to be comfortable any time soon.
He looked caught off guard by her bluntness. She wasn’t exactly a stranger to that. God, no. She’d just thought that if she got this over with, it wouldn’t be so painful. Like pulling off a band-aid maybe. Do it quick and it just stung for a moment, do it slow and Jesus, did it hurt.
“Buffy?” She was amazed her voice hadn’t cut out on her at that.
He looked confused, “Buffy?”
Cordelia frowned. Him playing dense manpire was not exactly helping right now. “You remember Buffy,” she said, “Slay-Gal Extraordinaire, all swooping in to do the saving of Angel.”
It was bad enough that Buffy had come back. But to learn that Buffy had come back, saved Angel from a psycho Slayer and quite possibly done Cordelia’s job of patching him up was like the ultimate betrayal.
Could he just tell her that he was riding off into the proverbial sunset with her and do it now please?
“She saved me, yeah,” Angel nodded, “but that was all, Cordelia. We hardly even talked, other than for her to bitch me out over my career choices.”
“Smart girl.”
“I’ve had worse,” he said pointedly.
Cordelia shrugged at that. She wasn’t about to apologize for giving Angel a few home truths. It seemed like he’d been lacking in those since she’d fallen into her coma. “So what did you want to talk about? I’m guessing Buffy is now off the conversational menu.”
He took a drink of the punch Fred had given him – Dutch courage, maybe? – and cleared his throat, going straight for the heart with three little words.
“I miss you,” he said quietly.
That, she hadn’t been expecting. “You miss me?”
“I have for a long time, Cordelia,” his voice was firmer this time, “I just didn’t realise it.”
Cordelia glanced down at her glass. And she was supposed to say what to that? That he damn well should have? That he should have fought harder, known better, known her? Or what wasn’t her? God, this was confusing.
“I mean, I did realise it,” he continued, flustered at her silence, “When you were in your coma, you were…you were the only one I could talk to.”
She frowned, “You mean I was the only one who didn’t argue back.”
“You really think that?” Angel’s eyes flashed. “I’d have given anything—everything—to have you back with me. Even like this…”
“Like what?” Her voice sounded tired again. “On opposite ends of the battlefield? Me fighting in one corner, you in another? It was never supposed to be like this, Angel. We were supposed to be…”
“Friends,” he finished for her. “Family. And we’re not, are we?”
“No,” she shook her head, “Not any more. Not like this.”
Usually, this would be the point where the conversation ended. Where one of them backed out because it was too painful to continue, because the other didn’t want to.
Cordelia took a drink, more to have something to do with her hands than anything else, and felt the liquid burn slowly down the back of her throat. “Why didn’t you notice?” She asked softly.
Angel’s head snapped up. She looked haunted now, her eyes shadowed by memories of the things that only they could remember.
“Wesley, I could sort of understand. He hadn’t been around in ages, but you…” she closed her eyes. “Everything that happened, the things I did… I get that you had things going on but…you knew me better than anyone.”
“If I could change it…”
Her eyes snapped open, “It’s not about changing it, Angel, it’s about moving on. I can’t talk to anyone about this and it’s driving me crazy.”
She hated how desperate she sounded. It was like an open wound, itching away at her and slowly becoming infected. It had been that, more than anything that had eaten away at her for weeks.
She couldn’t talk about it. She couldn’t spank her inner moppet and move on because nobody but Angel knew about it and, having known the majority of it anyway, did he really need the details?
The feel of his hands on one of hers drew Cordelia’s gaze upwards, “I’m here now,” he offered quietly, hoping more than anything that it wasn’t too late.
She gave him a pained look, about to shake her head and get the hell out of this building when her mouth opened and it all started tumbling out. “I’m so mad at you,” she whispered, “I’m so fucking mad at you for all of this. For taking this deal, for making him forget, for not letting me…”
He looked like she’d driven a stake through his heart at that but she couldn’t stop. Weeks of bottling it up and Cordelia was finally getting the release she needed. “You didn’t notice,” she said quietly, “Not one of you noticed, not even when I was trying to unleash the one thing I’ve always been afraid of…”
Angel stared at her for a moment, “Angelus.”
Cordelia didn’t seem to hear. “Even after that, with Connor…” Her insides twisted and she took a step backwards, though she didn’t let go of his hand. “I was there. Throughout all of it, watching as this thing played him, as it…” Her eyes closed again. There were just some things that she couldn’t bring herself to say. “It was so wrong, Angel, and I couldn’t do anything. I tried and I couldn’t stop it.”
She felt raw and open, exposed. She’d gotten a lot of what she’d wanted to say off her chest and she didn’t even feel a little bit better.
“I thought that afterwards, one of you would know. That you’d just look at me a-and realize… I mean the outfits alone, Angel…” She didn’t even attempt the humor on that one. Just thinking back to the clothes she’d worn was bad enough – starting in on the things she’d done was a thousand times worse.
“It was like he was mine,” she said softly, her brow furrowing, “Those few weeks, he was just a baby and it was so easy to think like that, y’know? And then when he came back…”
He’d been so confused, so hurt and angry. And he’d been the only one there when she’d been all Amnesia Girl – the only one who’d told her the truth because he’d been sick of the lies himself.
“He kissed me,” she said quietly, “when we were training together. I’d got a move right and he kissed me and even then it felt wrong. And then Lorne did that spell and I was just here—” she tapped her forehead “—stuck. Watching as this thing tricked my friends and it used me to do it.”
Cordelia felt sick. She’d thought that talking about this was the way to go, that it would make things better somehow. She was all for making herself spank her inner moppet, she just hadn’t expected it to hurt like this.
“I spent months wishing I’d done things differently. It gets kind of boring in a coma – all you get to do is think and reflect and, y’know, think a little more. There’s so much I would have done differently. So much I would have changed.”
She sighed, looking down at their hands.
“I’m mad at everyone,” she told him softly, “Skip, the Powers…but most of all, I’m mad at me. For leaving you that night, when we were supposed to meet up. For fighting everyone else’s battle but ours. Maybe if I’d been a little more selfish, maybe it would have worked out differently.”
And that was the ironic thing. Self, first, everyone else last had been her motto for her entire natural life. The one time it had changed everything had been screwed up beyond recognition, and what kind of message was that to send to people?
Angel sighed, “Maybe this is the way it was supposed to work out, Cordy. Because maybe to realise what you have, you have to lose everything first.”
Cordelia stared at him a moment, “Huh?”
“I lost everything,” he said softly. “I thought I was making it easier for everyone else, so that my son wouldn’t know or recognise me, so that the people it affected most wouldn’t remember. Only that didn’t work with you.”
“Great,” she murmured softly, “me and my impenetrable coma.”
“You’d have been more pissed at me if it had worked,” Angel told her and she kind of had to admit that he was right. “But you were wrong about what you said last time because I never stopped caring, Cordelia, and I never stopped loving you.”
Despite her misgivings, Cordelia felt something awfully like hope flare inside her chest. This conversation was a world away from the one she’d been expecting. Inner moppets had been spanked (well, hers anyway), Angel had declared he loved her – had never stopped, actually – and now…
She loved him too. Loved him completely and utterly and he really, really pissed her off sometimes, especially with his whole career path de jour and that’s what made this so hard. So very, very hard, actually.
“What do you want me to say, Angel?” She asked, quietly. “You work here and you go against everything we’ve fought against for the last ever. It doesn’t change because you love me.”
“Why not?”
“Because it just doesn’t,” she frowned. “What do you think, that the Powers are going to send me visions while I’m shacked up in your penthouse?”
“I think I want to try and make it work, whatever happens,” he said firmly, and this time he wasn’t going to ask if they had been in love or if they’d been working towards that in their own unique and completely fumbling away. This time he was going to ask her outright – did she love him? – so he did.
“Do you love me?”
She wasn’t used to him being that direct. She stared up at him, shaken by the way his gaze seemed to burn into hers, and shook her head, “What kind of question is that?” Because, seriously, how dense was he? Could he not just look at her and see? “Angel, I’ve loved...been in love with you for…God, I don’t even remember. Feels like a lifetime,” she murmured softly.
She felt his hand shift, his fingers lace through hers and when he squeezed gently, Cordelia sighed, “You drive me crazy,” she said quietly, “completely and utterly off the charts crazy. Do you know that?”
Angel nodded, “I do.”
“I don’t even know how we’ll make this work.”
This time, it was Angel’s spirits that soared, “Does that mean you’ll try?”
Cordelia gave a tiny smile, “That means that maybe I’m adopting my old way of thinking. That maybe being a little selfish is the way forwards.”
She didn’t know how it would work, but she’d give it a try, “It’s not over. I mean, there’s still stuff we need to talk about.”
“I know,” he nodded, “and we will, Cordy. I promise.”
She reached up then, pressing her lips against his, wondering at the fact that the haze of the alcohol had started to wear off a little. She felt his tongue press gently inside her mouth and she whimpered softly, wrapping her arms up and around his neck.
He pulled her flush against him, felt her smile against his mouth, and pulled back a little, his forehead resting against hers. “Cordy…”
“What?” She asked, impatient now.
“Audience,” he nodded towards the windows of his office, where his employees were dancing the night away. Some gazes had swayed towards the office but mostly they were ignored. He wanted to keep it that way.
“We could let ‘em watch,” she joked.
Angel growled softly, making her laugh. “We can be away from here in ten minutes.”
“Are you kidding?” Cordelia asked, rolling her eyes, “Everyone wants to talk to the Boss Man, Angel. It took us twenty minutes to get in here alone.”
He leaned down, nuzzled lightly against her neck, “What do you suggest?”
“Well you do have blinds,” she observed, whimpering as she wondered how he managed to find a spot on her neck that seemed to be directly connected to the place between her thighs, “And a lock on your door.”
He laughed against her collarbone, placing a feather light kiss there before pulling away and doing as she’d suggested, closing them both off from the world outside. When he turned back to face her she was sitting on his desk, watching as he moved towards her, legs crossed at the knee.
“I’ve missed you too, y’know,” she breathed out as he got closer.
Angel’s smile threatened to split his face, “Even with Spike taking my place?”
“Only in the Champion capacity,” she pointed out, “My own was -”
“Otherwise engaged?”
She nodded, seemed to accept that, and slid forwards on his desk. “You planning on kissing me soon?”
His smile turned wry as he bent his head towards hers again and he kissed her, long and slow, one hand sliding up to cup her cheek. She melted into him, opening up her mouth to his, and she knew at once that she’d come home, that she was right where she was supposed to be.
“Angel, I—”
She was 99.9% sure she’d been about to tell him she loved him. So sure, in fact, that when the sharp rap came at the door, she let out her ‘the entire world needs to go bite me’ humph and glared at Angel. “Do you ever catch a break?” She demanded.
The fact that he didn’t answer it right away earned him many points in Cordelia’s book. He remained at her side, went to kiss her again, when Spike’s voice rose above the music.
“And whose bright idea was it to spike the bloody punch?”
Cordelia reared back as though she’d been slapped. The punch? Somebody had spiked… Was that what this was? Their whole conversation, everything they’d talked about tonight, a by-product of someone spiking their drinks?
Cordelia got down off his desk and pushed past him, adjusting her dress as she pulled open the doors. She was aware that her lipstick was smudged and that her previously ruffled calm was now seriously so. Still, she managed to level her gaze at Spike. “Someone spiked the punch?”
“Ask him!” He pointed at Lorne who was currently being manhandled by an equally ruffled looking Wes.
“Geez, would you let go already? You’d think the world was ending!” Lorne griped, before a look of panic blossomed on his face, “Oh, Jumpin’ Judas on a unicycle, it’s not, is it?”
“It might,” said Cordelia, warningly. “What the hell did you do?”
Lorne’s gaze went immediately to Fred and Wes. Fred, who was looking more dishevelled than the last time Cordelia had seen her, straightened out her shirt. “Who told?”
Fred honestly didn’t look like she cared who’d told what at that moment. She kept looking at Wesley much the same way as Angel kept looking at Cordelia. Something she was very much trying to ignore.
“You spiked the punch?” Cordelia asked.
Lorne looked very guilty all of a sudden. “Well, I just…I only put a couple of drops in!” He glanced at the mutinous look on Wesley’s face, “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Smart Stuff. You two’d still be jostling around the niceties if I hadn’t intervened.”
Wesley's mouth fell open, “So you took it upon yourself to spike our punch?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Lorne pointed out, “It got you two to talk. Open up. Tell each other how you feel. That’s all I wanted, to see you and Freddles happy.”
“And you thought what? You’d extend some to the floundering vampire and his on-off best friend?” Cordelia frowned.
“Pumpkin, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Lorne, turning towards Cordelia. “Really. That stuff was for Fred and Wes and Fred and Wes only. It wouldn’t work on you two anyway.”
Cordelia blinked, “So you didn’t…”
“Nope,” Lorne shook his head, “Why would I? You’d get there on your own steam eventually anyway. You always do.”
“Oh.” Said Cordelia softly, risking a glance at a smiling Angel.
Angel stepped forward, taking hold of her hand and squeezing as he began to lead her back to the office, “No more interruptions,” he told them firmly, “not even if the building is falling down around our ears.”
When he’d closed and locked the doors again, Cordelia shot him a guilty look. “Are you sure my costume isn’t really for Goddess of Over-Reaction?”
Angel smiled, walking towards her and reaching up to play with a lock of hair that had worked its way free. “Judging by the way our previous conversations have gone, I can’t say I blame you.”
“There is that,” she nodded, wanting to get back to, well, what they’d been doing before. “Any chance we can forget my little outburst?”
“Already done,” he told her, lowering his lips to hers again. It was like they’d never left. Cordelia reached up, wrapping her arms around his neck and gasping softly as he slid his hands down her back, letting them rest on the curves of her ass.
She expected her mind to boggle at the fact that Angel had his hands on her ass – hello, major line crossage here! – but all Cordelia could think about was if maybe they’d done this sooner, gotten over all the things that were in the way, they could’ve had it a lot longer.
“I love you,” she murmured against his lips and whimpered as she felt him pull back.
“Cordy—”
“Don’t you dare,” she warned him heavily, pressing her body closer to his, “If you tell me how we can’t, or how we shouldn’t I’ll—”
“I love you, too,” he told her, silencing her fears quickly, “I just don’t want us to…I don’t want our first time to be…”
“What? Here?” Cordelia smiled up at him, “There are a lot of benefits to here, Angel. Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about doing it in your office.”
He laughed at that, the sound rich and warm, and Cordelia reached up, nuzzling her nose into his neck.
“All I meant,” He said as he ran one hand up her back, massaging the soft skin of her neck lightly, “Was that I wanted it to be special.”
“I’m with you, aren’t I?”
She pressed a kiss to his jaw line, peppering kisses up to his lips and working her way back again. She went further, wanting to know how far she could push him, and bit lightly on that space between his neck and his collarbone, not hard enough to break skin, but not soft either.
Angel growled lightly, his gaze darkening with need, “You do that again and this’ll be over way too fast.”
“Can’t have that,” she murmured. One of his hands had worked its way round, pulling lightly at the thin strands of rope holding her dress in place. She’d tell him that patience was a virtue but she wanted this as much as him – more now – so she let him get on with it, pulling back when she realised he’d stopped.
“What now?” Again with the impatience.
Angel blinked, “Cordy, your dress, you—”
“Wow, 250 years of getting some and this gives you problems?” She laughed as he mock-glared at her, reaching up to undo the shoulder tie and blushing slightly as the dress fell and Angel’s gaze wandered over her.
“You’re flawless,” he told her immediately, “My Goddess.”
“Duh,” she rolled her eyes, bringing him back to earth with a bump. The dress fell further and Angel reached out, cupping one breast in the palm of his hand.
Cordelia bit her lip, they were very much doing this. This wasn’t first-time fumblings with Wilson Christopher. This wasn’t even Groo, sweet, dependable Groo who she’d totally made into an Angel clone. This was Angel. Her best friend and, yeah, okay, she was—
“Nervous?”
“A little,” she admitted, without really thinking about it. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he shook his head. “It’s fine, Cordelia. We’ll go slow, okay?”
Part 5Twenty minutes later and Cordelia was so very much over slow. Had she been nervous? Sure she had – who could blame her, since her last foray into sex had ended up with her knocked up by Angel’s son?
She was trying extra hard to not think about that but then, Angel made that easy because – and she was aware she sounded like a giant ho when she said this – the guy was good. Better than good. Fan-fucking-tastic, actually.
He’d made her come twice already and they hadn’t actually got to the sex part yet. Sated and so painfully aware that she was lying on Angel’s desk with something digging in her side, she slapped him on the arm. “Remember when you said we’d go slow?”
He pressed a kiss at the small of her back, right over the middle of her tattoo and Cordelia shivered slightly, feeling him smile against her skin as she did so. She felt like an enormous weight had been lifted from both her shoulders and her heart, and though she wasn’t completely free, it felt like she’d get there eventually.
“I think I died and went to Heaven,” she murmured.
“You may have blacked out for a minute there.”
“Oh, you’re just all over the smugness there, aren’t you?”
He was working kisses up her arm now, sweeping feather light touches over the arch of her shoulder. She smiled when he got to her lips and pulled him down towards her a little, tasting herself on his tongue.
“You’re way too dressed for this to go any further,” she pointed out, getting impatient and beginning to undo the buttons on his shirt.
Angel smiled down at her and tried to push her hands away.
“Angel,” she whined, “It’s no fun if you don’t let me play!”
He laughed at that, placing a soft, open-mouthed kiss on the swell of her breast, “I thought I was.”
“Ha ha,” she rolled her eyes, now down to where his shirt met the slacks. She leered at him, wiggling her eyebrows as she pressed her hand against his cock, “See? It’s good when you let me play.”
“I’ve noticed,” he breathed out, unable to stop himself from thrusting into her hand when she wrapped it around him. “Fuck, Cordy.”
“That’s the plan,” she grinned, then made a face. “That was a little too bad porn-ish for my liking.”
“I thought it was pithy,” said Angel, smiling at her. “Couch?”
“Do I want imprint of wood tattooed on my ass?”
He took that as a yes and scooped her into his arms, carrying her over to the leather couch he’d had put in his office months ago.
She yelped as the cold material touched her back and Angel chuckled, “Sorry.”
“You did that on purpose,” she admonished with a smile, watching as he divested himself of the rest of his clothes.
“Me?” He was the picture of innocence, total kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar, and he was driving her damn well crazy, pressing himself against her aching centre like that.
“Angel,” she moaned, “Would you just—”
He slid home in one thrust and Cordelia gasped, her back arching. He kissed her softly, waiting for her assent to move and when her hips canted slightly, he took that as his cue.
She felt thick, wet and heavy, wanting to take him in, take him deeper. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled his mouth to hers, crying out as his hand slipped between them and thrummed her flesh, once, twice… And Cordelia was clenched around him, gasping his name.
He kept going, tiny thrusts of his hips as he ate her mouth, and Cordelia whimpered softly as Angel took her higher, not letting her fall just yet.
She ran her hands over the expanse of skin, down to his ass where she angled him deeper and Cordelia arched up again, her muscles sore and tired, overworked now. His thrusts were still slow, languid, and when he hit that sweet spot inside her, Cordelia cried out.
“Jesus, Angel, what did you…”
He was smiling against her mouth. He did it again, pinched her clit between his thumb and forefinger, and Cordelia clutched his shoulders as she exploded around him.
He called her name as he came, dropping his face into her shoulder and biting down lightly on her skin with blunt teeth.
Cordelia’s hips twitched and she slid her feet down the back of his calves, “Told you there were advantages to having sex on the Boss’ desk,” she murmured, sleepy and sated.
She felt him smile again, felt him nuzzling his nose into her neck.
“I don’t think Wes would have liked it much…”
She laughed at that, watching him for a moment as he settled beside her. “Angel-”
“I know, Cordy,” he said softly, reading the look on her face more adeptly than she’d expected, “we still need to talk about things.”
Cordelia sighed, “Normal people would have a different post-sex conversation. Not ‘Your Best Move Post-Coma, Pre-Apocalypse’…”
“We’re not exactly normal,” Angel observed, folding her in his arms a little tighter before he spoke again. “Wait, you think there’s gonna be an apocalypse?”
“What do you think the Senior Partners are gonna do when they learn the CEO is shacking up with Vision Girl – throw a party? There’s gonna be hell to pay, Angel, and you know it.”
Angel shrugged, “Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. You were right with what you said earlier, Cordelia. It’s time to start fighting for us.”
She found herself smiling slightly, “Now that’s a cause I can get behind.”
“Good,” said Angel, “because it would have really sucked fighting it alone.”
“Well, duh…” Cordelia grinned, “Y’know, your life would go much easier if you just admitted you needed me.”
“I do need you,” he said, firmly, “I always did.”
She smiled again at that, “Finally, he realizes. My Champion, Ladies and Gentleman...”
End