fic: home (3/7) (buffy: the vampire slayer) (angel: the series)
Classifications and warnings available here.
Continued from Chapter 2.
* * * * *
Home by anr
* * * * *
3. THE DINER
Against all the bajillion reasons not to, coffee with Angel actually starts to become sort of a... thing.
What kind of a thing, she's not all that inclined to try too hard with the figuring of it out. All she knows is that if she decides to walk back to her place from the library instead of jumping on the thirty-three bus, there's a better than not chance she'll bump into him somewhere near the diner.
Well, him and any number of his non-friends.
"You know," she says, blocking a punch that was telegraphed way too early. "This is starting to seem a lot like an awful habit."
Angel grunts.
"I mean," she ducks, "one unexpected fight is unexpected. And two? Still within the realm. But four? In the last week?" The vampire grabs at her throat and tears off her necklace. His snarl as the cross pendant sears his fingers almost makes the sting from the chain snapping worth it. "We should probably look into a twelve step programme or something."
Angel sweeps the legs out from under the vampire he's fighting, and stakes her before she can get up again. He looks over to where she's slowly backing away from hers. "They have those for demons now?" he asks, moving up behind the vampire.
"It's possible," she says. "I'll call Betty Ford tomorrow. See if they have an outreach or something for wannabe-bad's." She breaks from her blocking moves and plunges the pointy end of her stake into the vampire's chest before Angel can steal her dust.
Bending over, hands on her thighs, she coughs away her reward.
"You know," he says, "you didn't have to help. I could've handl--"
"Oh, no," she says, straightening up. "Don't you be ruining my savouring here -- it's not often I get to rescue the damsel in distress."
"Well, that-- hey!"
Clapping her hands to get rid of any residual dust, she heads out of the alley. "So what's with all the one true pairing vamps these days anyway? Has there been another Romeo and Juliet remake that I'm not aware of?"
He falls into step beside her as they resume their path towards the diner. "Hunting in groups isn't uncommon. Back when I --" He coughs. "I mean, it's done. And has been done. A lot."
She rolls her eyes. "Nice cover, Mr Smooth," she says. "How is Darla these days? Still ashes to ashes?"
"What?" He sounds startled. "No -- or, I don't think so. The last time I saw her, she was leaving Sunnydale to go shopping with Drusilla."
And hello alternate history fun fact number six-hundred-and-five; like she didn't already have enough reminders of what she did. "How nice for them both," she mutters.
He gives her a strange look. "You know them?"
"Darla? No, thank god. She was out of the picture well before my Scoobie days. And I wouldn't ever claim Drusilla as a BFF what with her being psychotically insane and all."
Up ahead, a bus approaches the nearest intersection. It's not her usual line but suddenly she's thinking that if this is going to be a roll-call-of-Angelus'-favourite-people kind of night? Well, she's pretty sure she'd prefer any other storm in the port.
"Cordelia?"
She looks over to where Angel has stopped in front of the diner and is holding the door open for her, all Mr Chivalry-like.
"Yeah," she says, adjusting her bag strap, deciding.
The bus slows to a stop.
She heads into the diner.
*
"How many?"
She shrugs. "Not many."
"How many?"
"What are you, a broken record?" Grabbing the sugar, she pours a heaping into her coffee. "Let it go already."
"Just tell me," Angel says, taking the sugar when she passes it to him.
"Why?"
"Because I want to know."
She raises an eyebrow. "And that's a reason I should care about why?"
Leaning back in the booth, he sighs all frustratedly. "It's been bugging me, okay? So just --" He waves a hand. "Put me out of my misery. Please."
Grinning, she pulls her stake back out of her bag as quick as a quick thing. "Oh, well, that I can do."
He makes a face. "Funny."
"I thought so." Tucking the stake away, she tastes her coffee. "More than a breadbox," she says finally.
"Huh?"
She looks at him pointedly. "My answer, dorkus -- more than a breadbox."
He scoffs. "That's not an answer."
"So is."
"Cordelia --"
"Angel," she mimics.
Looking away, he stares at the window, jaw clenched. Patient, she sits and waits him out, sipping at her coffee. Eventually, he turns back to her.
"I'll tell you mine," he offers.
Her laughter startles him -- startles her, truth be told -- but a split second later he's grinning right back at her, all bright and beautiful and happy, and.
And not at all like Angelus, she realises, surprised.
"You should do that more often," she says softly, not pre-thinking her words too much.
"Make you laugh?"
She shakes her head. "Smile."
*
Even though she knows Angel knows where she lives -- his initial little stalking party put paid to that level of mystery -- he's been good at keeping his distance ever since.
Which is why she's more than a little startled to realise that their conversation since leaving the diner has covered the entire way back to her place.
"This is me," she says unnecessarily, stopping at her front door.
He nods, looking around the little alcove they're standing in. "It's nice."
"Sunny too," she says, "in the daytime."
He nods. "I can see how that would be helpful," he says dryly.
Pulling out her keys, she unlocks and opens the door, but doesn't step inside just yet. Shifting, she deliberately looks him in the eye. "I'm not going to invite you in, Angel."
He doesn't look surprised to hear it, and his, "I know," is markedly calm and understanding-like.
She's honestly surprised by how bad that makes her feel.
Dismissing the feeling, she steps across the threshold and turns back to face him. "Well," she says perfunctorily.
He smiles at her.
It's not the same big grin he gave her in the diner, and it's not at all like that weird little half-happy look he gave her after their first ever coffee catch-up, but the expression does something crazily scary to her nonetheless.
Existing one-hundred-percent in the moment, she lets her brain disengage as she leans forward and snags the lapel of his coat and tugs, pressing her mouth to his.
He tenses, just briefly, his mouth still against hers, and then --
Oh.
He can't touch her, not properly, not with the majority of her body all safely inside her apartment, but his hands move to her face, fingertips light on her cheeks, like he'd be threading his fingers through her hair if only he could push that far forward. His mouth moves with hers, slowly, softly.
Come in, she thinks fatalistically, come in comeincomeincomein...
Heart pounding way too hard and fast, she breaks the kiss, her breathing rapid against his lips. She closes her eyes. "One-hundred and thirty-eight," she says.
He doesn't seem to have heard her at first. Then, all dazed and confused, "huh?"
She pulls back slowly, feeling his fingers stroke along her jawline as the barrier keeps him in place. She smiles and opens her eyes. "One-hundred and thirty-eight vampires. I keep track."
He shakes his head a little, staring at her. "You're amazing," he says quietly.
He says it like she could believe it, and for that alone...
Biting down on the i-word with difficulty, she steps back and takes a hold of her door. "Night," she says, softly.
He steps back as well, his tone just as soft. "Goodnight, Cordelia."
As she shuts the door, and bolts it, listening to his footsteps fade away into the night, she realises he's right. For the first time in what feels like forever --
It is.
*
She's smiling as she wanders through her apartment, checking all the locks and dropping her bag onto her dining room table.
And she's still smiling as she brushes her teeth, and twists her hair into a knot at the back of her neck, and then heads into her bedroom. Pulling back the bedcovers, she reaches for her pillow and --
Aww, c'mon. Just one --
"More," she whispers.
She freaks.
*
By the time the cab she's called for can arrive and deliver her to Angel's, her panic-attack is approaching the epically bad standards previously only reached the first time they started to have sex.
Almost falling off the last step in his stairs, she screams his name.
He's in front of her before she blink, what looks like worry and concern creasing his features, and she slams her fist into his expression with a satisfying crunch.
He stumbles back a couple of steps, eyes wide and shocked, and she takes advantage, kicking out with a roundhouse that pushes him back again.
"Cor --"
Her low kick sweeps towards his shin-bone, and he jumps it, his instincts snapping to the forefront. Her next roundhouse is brushed aside by the palm of his hand, and she snarls at him wordlessly, trying it again.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" He blocks another kick, this time shoving back on her leg so that she falls, landing on her ass. Pushing herself up, she tries again, relentless. "Damnit, Cordelia. Stop it!"
"Change!"
"What?" He sounds honestly baffled, and that just pisses her off even more. He deflects an uppercut to his chin.
"Change!" She feigns a right jab in favour of a left, but he sees it coming and blocks the force. When she tries to spin out another roundhouse, he grabs her foot again and pushes back on it. She drops to the ground hard, breath escaping in a rush. As she struggles in that second of disorientation to breathe again, she looks up in time to see Angel wince, and reach out a hand to help her up.
Twisting, she slams her leg into the side of his, yanking her foot back at the last moment so that her toes catch the back of his knee. As that leg crumples, she plants her other foot into his chest and shoves. He topples over onto his back and she scrambles after him fast, straddling his waist and holding a stake to his heart.
He freezes.
"Vamp out," she orders, panting.
His eyes widen. "Wh--"
She presses down on the stake. "Now."
He does.
Trembling, she watches the bones in his face shift, furrows deepening on his forehead. His eyes flash, gold leeching away the brown. His lips are mostly closed, just a hint of white teeth visible, and she leans in and down slightly, feeling the stake shift.
"Smile," she says.
"No." He's like solid marble underneath her, still and cool. "I'm scaring you."
Her laugh is brief and bitter. "Oh, please. Like you have any idea as to what scares me. Smile."
"No."
She pushes down on the stake and feels the tiniest change in pressure as the wood pierces the first layers of skin. He doesn't even flinch. "Smile," she hisses.
"Cordelia," he says softly. "You'll have to stake me first."
"If I have to," she threatens. "And don't think that I won't not because I will, damnit. I'll do it. I'll stake you."
Without even a trace of a smile he says, calmly, "I believe you."
Whatever fragile control she'd been grasping snaps in her uber-emotional fingers. Letting go of the stake, she lashes out with her fists again, this time pummelling on his chest. "Then do it! Smile! Show me again! Show me! Show me! Show me!"
Show me Angelus. Show me my nightmares. Show me what I did and what I can only hope of fixing. Show me death and pain and suffering and all the other things I caused. Show me Angelus and show me our body counts and I'll bet you anything mine is higher because I did this, I did this, I did this, I wished for this and it's mine so SHOW ME!
She beats on his chest, his shoulders, his face, until the demon in him recedes and his human features blur into the early hues of bruised-chic, and --
She freezes mid-punch, seeing him clearly for the first time since he left her front door.
"Why?" she whispers brokenly. Oh, god, why didn't you stop me? We were right there, grass and fangs and grave-bound, and you had me, you had me, you had me and you could have -- you should have --
He smiles then, mouth bloody and swollen from her rage, the expression terrible and devastating and still ruinously beautiful. "Why not?"
*
In the silence following her freak out, her panic fades back to her usual levels of post traumatic. She's kinda numb and drained in the absence of her anger, all tanks running on empty, but it's not a totally unfamiliar feeling so she's able to go with it, to deal, to sit on the bottom step of Angel's stairs and stare at a wicked looking sword mounted on a nearby wall.
It's all shiny and pretty and deadly and she'd love to pick it up and give it a swing, just to see how that'd feel.
"We are so absolutely and totally, conceivably bad for each other," she says eventually.
Angel, sitting on the floor and leaning against the sword wall, arms draped loosely around his bent knees, doesn't say anything.
"Epic badness," she says, like he tried to disagree. "No-more-credit-on-the-platinum stratosphere levels of negative, even."
Still with the no response.
Sighing, she pushes herself up, movements a little to jerky at first with her limbs all baby-Bambi awkward, and walks around into his kitchen. "I mean, look at me -- all survivor-girl, functioning and proper, right up until I place my hand in yours and take the Dorothy express back to the land of Oz. And you --" She shakes her head. "You! There's just not enough psychiatry in the world to explain your levels of screwed up."
She opens his fridge and stares inside blindly, ostensibly looking for a bag of blood -- she figures the absolute least she can do is grab him a platelet replacement, seeing as how she beat his out of him -- but she can't see one and so she closes the door again, walking back out.
She's heading towards the stairs again, not entirely sure if she's reclaim her seat or continue walking up and out, when Angel speaks.
"Doyle."
Blinking, she pauses a few feet away from him. "Huh?"
"After you left me -- the first time, I mean -- this guy, demon, named Doyle found me. Told me I had a purpose still, that there were people here in LA that needed my help."
Somehow she doubts this story, random topic change that it is, will end with hugs and puppies. "What happened?"
Angel shrugs. "I sent him away. After Whistler --"
"Who now?"
"Whistler. He was there the first time I saw Buffy, took me to see her called and told me she'd need help. My help. That if I went to the Hellmouth, she'd be there." Angel leans back until his head is against the wall. "She wasn't."
Though she knows he didn't mean it as such, a sharp stab of guilty blame-pain bites into her conscience at the reference to Buffy's persona non gratis-ness in Sunnydale. She ignores it. "You one-name guys really do like to flock, don't you?"
He either doesn't hear her, or doesn't care to. "I didn't want to fail again, so I told this Doyle to get lost, and then I did the same, just so there'd be no confusion."
She waits for a moment, and when he doesn't continue, she prompts, "and?"
He shrugs again. "And nothing. I never heard from him again."
Well, she was right about the lack of a happily-ever-after, but. "And? You can't just start a sequitur and not take it anywhere, Angel. That's just mean."
Tilting his gaze back to hers, he says, "I don't think you're bad for me."
A shivery shudder runs up and down her spine at his words. Her mouth goes dry. Her heartbeat trips into a double-time two-step. Grimacing, she says, "the Picasso on your face begs a strong difference."
"It's wrong."
"Angel --"
"Cordy," he says, super patient and calm, like what he's saying isn't a massively huge deal at all. "After Doyle, after you, I hid for a long time. A long time. Right up until I walked into that alley, in fact, and found you, five years on, still alive, still strong, and then it could have been five minutes for all I knew, because the moment I picked you up, I cared."
He is not saying what he's saying. She knows he's not. He can't be. "No."
He says, simply, "you're good for me."
A pulse of happiness, unwanted but no less with the potency because of that, warms her for a split second before reality can kick it to the curb. "Then you're even more fucked than I first thought," she says, coldly, "because I am good for no one, least of all Angelus."
He startles. "Angelus!" Standing quickly, he backs up against the wall like she's accused him of wearing plaid or tassels or something equally shocking. "I haven't been him for over a hundred years!"
She stays where she is, watching him move. "Not by my counting."
He shakes his head. "Well, your counting is wrong."
He doesn't believe, she remembers then, but unlike the first time she realised that -- all those years ago, in that hotel room that smelled of sex and them and sex -- the knowledge no longer shocks her.
Draining again, she heads back to the stairs and sits down. "You want to know why you don't really care, Angel? How I know you're wrong?"
He watches her warily. "How?"
"Because."
"Because?" he repeats, disbelievingly.
"Yep." She waves a hand, gesturing at the space between them. "Because you and me? We're like you and Buffy times a thousand. All misplaced hero worship and sexual tension. And that makes for interesting times, sure, but it's not real, and it's not healthy, and it's certainly not the foundations of the Spelling mansion. You're the ex of my ex's dream girl, and I'm the woman who wished for bluer Tiffany boxes, and you can get blood stains out of leather, I've found, but not if you expect to wear it again."
When he walks over and sits on step next to her, she turns to face him better, knowing she's right.
"We can maybe social-see each other, you and I. Hang out even. You're not horrible to look at, or be around, and when you're not all stuttery with word-indecision your conversationalisms are decent enough. But that's it, Angel. That's likely gotta be the all. Because anything else is just begging for a nightmare after dawn and I don't know about you, but I don't think I can keep freaking out every time we get close and personal just because my brain's wired itself to consider your bite as being synonymous with Xander and Willow's." She quirks a sad smile. "It's too exhausting."
Angel vamps out.
It's unexpected and she blinks in surprise, but somehow, somewhy, even with him so close, his hip just inches from her own on the step, his hands within grabbing distance, his mouth, his teeth, so near, and her heart starting to race, to pound --
But she's not scared, she realises. Not even close. Adrenaline, yes. Some uncomfortableness, sure -- 'cause bumpies? not really high on the attractiveness scale -- but actual fear?
Her nightmare-Angelus is more horrifying than any echoes he can give her.
"I can't not love you just because you say I can't," he says.
What did he just -- No, she thinks, not important. "Smile," she says, quietly.
He does, instantly, lips sliding back and revealing wicked sharp fangs.
She takes one breath, two, slow and even, all the ways this -- they -- could possibly play out slipping through her mind like lightning, white-hot and quick-fast, nightmare after nightmare after dream, and --
"Screw it," she mutters.
Leaning in, she presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
She's already killed this world and been attempted-killed by it in return... has spent the last four years devoted to fixing it all back again... surely a little personal happy isn't too much to ask for, now.
After all, what's the worst that could happen?
*
"Want to hit me?"
She half-smiles. "Constantly."
They've moved off the stairs and onto his sofa and, okay, it's only a marginal softness improvement over the concrete, but some is better than none, and the touch of his hand is distracting enough for it not to matter anyway.
He threads his fingers through hers. "But you're not going to."
"Confident much? Keep talking, boyo."
"If you were, it would have happened, oh, at least an hour ago."
She raises an eyebrow, pushing her palm flat against his. "You think you know me so well, huh? Think I'm all predictable and figurable out?"
He shrugs. "Maybe."
Tempting as it is to pull her hand free, to swing her legs off of his lap and push herself up from the sofa, she has a feeling that would be the exact opposite of proving him wrong. Reaching out, she snags the collar of his shirt with her free hand instead and pulls until he's leaning towards her and close enough to kiss.
His mouth touches her, softly, then pressing in, his lips teasing hers apart. His tongue slides against hers, licking into the wet warmth of her mouth. She moves her hand from his collar to the back of his neck, anchoring him to where he is. The kiss gets hotter, firmer, and his fingers tighten around hers almost enough to hurt so she grips back just as hard.
The trick to not freaking out, she realises now, is simply to never leave.
Angel pulls back after awhile, untwisting from his lean. As her legs resettle over his lap, she can feel him hard against her outside of her thigh.
His hand holds hers.
"I met someone," she says, all non-sequitory, "after I left you."
He says nothing, but his thumb begins to brush the side of hers in slow, even strokes.
"I'd been in San Salvador a couple of months, and I wasn't doing too well. I could barely leave my room most days -- all I wanted to do was sleep, but every time I did I'd wake up screaming from nightmares. I started drinking to anesthetise."
She looks away from Angel, focusing on the empty spaces behind his right shoulder.
"I don't remember exactly the first time I met Gru but I know that after I did, I began to drink less, sleep less, live more. I left my room. I went shopping."
"He helped you," says Angel.
Deficiency alert, she thinks, but not unkindly. "No, he was a hottie. Heir to a European textile corporation, and rich and handsome no less. And I wanted you out of my head. So I shook off the crazy and set about getting the delicious Gruben Salugg III's attention." She nods satisfactorily. "Totally succeeded, too."
She brings her gaze back to his.
"He treated me right, you know? Everything expensive. He called me his princess and acted like I was a queen. It was he who suggested I do something about my scars."
She watches Angel's eyes drop down to her neck, and she nods.
"My arm too -- no third degree burns for his girl, he said."
Angel says, quietly, "you loved him."
"I loved what I thought he represented," she says. "Gru was sweet and accommodating. He looked great and, with him lavishing on me, I thought, 'hey, I can't have been so bad -- not if I can have someone like Gru in my life -- that's a good person reward!' He wanted nothing more than to live in a fairytale with me at the top of his tower and, okay, he didn't make me feel safe, and he couldn't stop my nightmares, but he told me -- over and over -- how deserving I was of this life with him until Sunnydale seemed very far, far away."
She shakes her head.
"He wasn't the smartest guy."
"What happened?"
She sighs. "Demon party in the resort got out of hand one night. It had happened before but this was Gru's cherry picking and it showed. He'd never had to face anything more taxing than a New York mugging before then. He eschewed my epically brilliant plan of 'run and hide' and --" She breathes out, remembering -- "They tore his head from his body."
Angel grimaces. "I'm sorry."
She pushes the images of that morning after, of finding his body still in the restaurant when she'd finally ventured from her room, out of her mind and clears her throat. "I took the next flight back to LA firma."
"I'm sorry," Angel says again.
She waves a dismissive hand. "It's my MO, you see? Fall, fracture, flee and freak. I love, I hurt, I run, I crazy."
"You're not crazy."
"Pot meet kettle," she says, rolling her eyes. "But it's okay, you know? So there's a few limits to my sanity. So what? Everybody's got issues and at least I know mine now. Most people I've known were utterly clueless about theirs." She thinks, Xander, Buffy, my parents, Gru, Willow...
Bringing their joined hands to his mouth, he kisses the back of her palm. "I think you're very brave," he says. "To keep trying again."
Four and a half years of solitude begs and differs, she thinks. "And I think you'll regret this." She's not a safe bet, she knows, and not even close to being a sane one. Despite whatever resolutions are in her brain right now, the first time she leaves his side she'll no doubt jump the next train back to Anxiety Central and derail spectacularly, no survivors.
He shakes his head, features resolute and determined. "Never."
*
When she yawns for, like, the fifth time in as many minutes, Angel says, "you need sleep."
"Duh." She rests her head against the back of his sofa sleepily. "It's vampire-pm."
He runs his fingertips down her calf. "You can take my bed."
Like she wasn't going to anyway? With a groan, she swings her legs off of his lap and gets herself up, holding out a hand when she's all vertical. "C'mon."
He places his hand in hers, and stands as well, but doesn't step after her. "Maybe --"
"What maybe?"
With his free hand, he brushes a swath of hair off her shoulder. "I can stay here. On the sofa."
"For what now?"
"Well, you -- the last time you were here --" He gestures awkwardly. "I just thought you might be more comfortable if --"
She rolls her eyes. "No offence, Angel, but regardless of whether you're beside me or not, I'm still probably going to go hulk on you come morning. Just because I'm all issues-cognisant girl tonight, doesn't mean I won't be when I open my eyes." She pauses, considering. "Which is a pretty good reason for you to not want to be there, actually. My bad." She lets go of his hand.
He takes it back again immediately. "I do want to."
Wow -- if she'd known Angel was this big of a softie back in Sunnydale... "That's sweet," she says, smiling a little. "Suicidal, but sweet."
Turning, she starts towards his bedroom, his steps following hers. He flicks off the lights as they leave the main room. When she's beside his bed, she toes off her shoes, unthreads her belt, and pulls the knot out of her hair. She slides between the covers on his bed and lies on her side so she can watch him get in beside her.
He turns off the lamp beside the bed, plunging the room into darkness.
She breathes shallowly, waiting for her eyesight to adjust, waiting for him to settle under the covers. His bed is smaller than she's used to, and much smaller than she's ever shared with another person, and she can feel his leg brushing against her knee, can feel the oh-so-close sense of him.
"Promise me you won't turn evil while I sleep?" she asks softly.
He turns his head on the pillow, facing her. "I won't ever hurt you," he says. "I couldn't."
"Angel," she says, voice catching, "every night you kill me in my dreams."
His hand fumbles underneath the blankets and sheet until he can find hers. He threads his fingers between hers and holds on steady and sure. "Not anymore."
For a moment she thinks she can feel tears pricking at her eyes. She concentrates on the touch of his palm against hers. "I want that I could believe that," she whispers.
Angel squeezes her hand, just once, just gently. Quietly, he says, "I wish you could too."
I wish...
She closes her eyes and does not cry.
*
His hand slides between her thighs.
Parting her legs, she cants her hips closer to his hand, stretching on the rumpled sheets. Her eyes are closed, senses reduced, and she focuses on the coolness of the sheets beneath her naked flesh, the flush of heat moving under her skin, the whisper of sound as he shifts beside her on the mattress.
His mouth presses against the side of her breast at the same time his fingers slip across her sex, pulling at her attention. She doesn't know which touch to lean into more, and arches helplessly.
His finger pushes inside her.
Breathing out sharply, she reaches out with one hand, finding the back of his head and guiding his mouth down over her breast until he can lick and suck at her nipple. The resulting sensations spark down towards her womb, joining the heat building from his finger as it strokes in and out of her sex.
She's going to come if he keeps doing what he's doing and, oh god, she hopes he keeps doing what he's doing so she can come, and --
Her right leg pushes out further, brushing against his cock, and -- oh, she was wrong, she's not going to come, not yet, not until she can feel him inside her, the solid pierce of his flesh into hers...
Shifting her hand from his hair to his shoulder, she pushes back hard, rolling him off his side. His fingers pull free of her sex, slicking wetness over the outside of her thigh as he steadies her quick straddle of his hips. She reaches between them and takes his cock in hand, tugging gently once, twice, before holding him still as she slides down over him, seating him deep inside of her.
Sitting up, she rolls back her shoulders and opens her eyes.
Across the room, Buffy stares back at her. She's leaning against the hotel bathroom door jamb, bright lights haloing her from behind. Her clothing is Walmart-thrift, the scar on her face vivid and jagged.
"He'll never love you," Buffy says, kohl-rimmed eyes staring. "Not like he loves me."
Beneath her, Angel's hands span the curves of her hips, guiding her slow rocking. The sliding drag of his cock inside her is breathstealing.
"You're wrong," she says, gasping. She can feel her orgasm rushing through her.
Buffy raises an eyebrow. "Am I?"
Yes, she thinks. Yes, yes, yesohgodplease...
She looks down and sees Angelus grinning up at her. "Hey, baby."
*
She wakes gasping, body thrumming and mind churning. Part of her is wondering at her not-quite-almost-but-still-mostly-sort-of-yes-yes-definitely-yes-nightmare and part of her is trying to breathe through the tension in her muscles and bones and skin and part of her is thinking that this is not her bed, not her bedroom, not her apartment, but if she could just slip back into sleep, back into that nightdream, she would be coming so hard...
She opens her eyes wide.
His hand is between her legs. His fingers are tucked tight in the apex of her thighs, the side of his thumb pressing against the seam of her jeans, his wrist resting over the location of her scar. Even without moving, she can tell that her flesh is slick and ready.
He's sleeping beside her, his features smooth and ridge-less and peaceful, but as she stares, as she breathes shallow and quick, his lips part slightly and his nose twitches.
She watches him draw in a breath, then a deeper one, and she knows the instant he smells her arousal because his eyes flash open, surprise erasing sleep.
"Angel," she breathes out.
His hand flexes slightly between her thighs, dragging a soft moan from her, and his eyes go impossibly large. His arm tenses like he's going to pull free and she squeezes her knees together before he can.
"Don't," she manages. Her muscles tremble around his hand, the slight shifts of movement they've made increasing her need almost to breaking point. She's so close...
For one breathless moment they do nothing. Then --
"Kiss m--" she starts, but before she can get the words out all proper-like, Angel's moving. His mouth slants over hers, hard and fast, his tongue diving into her mouth. His hand simultaneously pushes up against her, grinding into the damp denim between her thighs as he leans over her, forcing her down into the mattress.
She comes hard, arching into him until it feels like her spine could snap from the tension, his hand rubbing over her sex, his mouth still eating hers.
It's difficult to breathe, to think, to breathe and she tears her mouth from Angel's desperately, gasping, shoving at the blankets tangling around them. He pulls his hand out from between her legs but doesn't go far, his fingers moving to pop open the button on her jeans and to tug open her zipper. As he yanks the denim down her legs, she reaches for his own waistband, twisting in the brace of his arms.
Their clothes disappear in quick tugs and pulls, but she still has her bra on, and she thinks Angel's pants are still trailing from one foot, when he rolls over on top of her and thrusts in deep.
She forces her legs further apart, kicking at the tangle of blankets and clothes until her leg can hook around his hip, dragging him down and closer.
He sinks into her, bottoming out. They both groan.
Angel shoves at the pillows beneath her, pushing them out of the way, before bracing his forearms on the mattress, caging her in. His hips pull back, his cock sliding almost all of the way out of her, before pushing forward again. She feels the slow, heavy thrust in every skin cell and muscle and bone in her body. Her toes curl.
He sets a steady, not-quite-harsh rhythm, rocking her into the mattress. His mouth returns to hers, kissing her deeply, and she meets him on every thrust, at every kiss, pushing her hips up to his and sucking on his tongue.
His bedroom fills with the sounds of sex; the rasp of her breathing, the slick slap of his belly against hers, the creak of his headboard against the wall.
Her second orgasm is subtler, a slow build and gentle fade. She relaxes into the spreading warmth and feels it move through her like slow bubbling champagne. Her arms wind around his neck and she lets him move her as he needs to, lets him take what he wants, the stroke of his cock inside her a delicious continuing pressure.
He comes hard, his hips slamming against hers in an uneven staccato. On the last push, his arms tremble slightly.
She ends their kiss and sucks in a deep breath. Her legs are still locked around his hips and she's not so sure she can move them yet. Or, maybe, ever. He doesn't pull out of her and she breathes in again.
"So," she tries, exhaling. "Uh... good morning?"
The trembling in his arms increases until she's a delayed reaction or two away from panicking and --
Laughing, Angel collapses on top of her fully before quickly rolling to the side. He slides out of her but pulls her body with him, keeping her close.
His laughter is infectious and she starts to giggle in response.
"Yeah," he manages, eventually, smiling. "It is."
*
She salvages her jeans and underwear from the tangle of blankets at the foot of his bed, but her top, on the other hand...
"What is with you demons and your propensity for fashion damage?" Rummaging through his closet, she fishes a white shirt out of a sea of black, brown and navy, and slips it on. "If you're not ruining someone else's sensibilities with your own incredibly bad faux-pas', you're all 'grr, argh, rip' on DKNY."
Still on the bed, Angel says nothing.
"And don't look at me like that," she says, anticipating his downturned expression. "You might be allergic to sunlight, but most of the things I have to do each day can only be done outside of twilight." From her bag, she pulls out a small brush and starts running it through her hair, trying to gain some semblance of decency to her appearance. "This town hasn't been exactly night-friendly the past few years."
"I don't want you to go," he says quietly.
She sighs, pushing aside the temptation to angle for a compliment or two as to why not. "I know." Dropping the brush back into her bag, she leaves her hair free and loose and tousled-chic. "I kinda don't want to either." Returning to the bed, she sits on the edge and looks at him. "And if I could promise us that I won't go all psycho-girl once I'm outside, I would."
"But you can't."
"But I can't," she agrees. She perks up suddenly. "But, hey! Look at it this way -- if I do, that'll probably mean I'll be back here all super fast."
Angel does not look reassured. "Stake in hand?" he asks dryly.
She shrugs. "Take the good, take the bad."
Standing again, she leans over and kisses him, coaxing away his bad-moodiness. She stops before she can forget to, pulling away from the hands he has moved to her hip and shoulder.
"Stay," he says, reaching after her.
She backs away from the bed and grabs her bag, sliding the strap over her head and shoulder. "The diner," she counters. "Tonight. You can buy me a coffee."
"Seven."
She frowns. That might be when the sun sets, but. "Nine," she says, firmly.
"Eight."
"And this became a democracy when exactly?" She shakes her head and keeps moving. "I don't think so."
At the door to his bedroom, she looks back and takes him in, frowny face and all, naked and rumpled and beautiful on the sex-mussed blankets.
"See you, Angel," she says.
She's gone and walking up the stairs before he can change her mind.
*
Despite her historical intentions, and what she knows to be best, and the thread of freakin' discontent lacing through her post-orgasmic haze... she's at the diner by eight.
"Refill, hon?"
Shaking her head, she shifts her cup to the opposite end of the table. "No," she says, "thanks. I'm waiting for someone."
The waitress shrugs, and walks away, leaving her to go back to her waiting and watching and oh holy Abercrombie and Fitch -- almost seven years on and she's still just the girl biding time for Angel's attention.
What on any earthly reality is she doing here? Is she trying to see how girl interrupted she can make herself? To deliberately wish off the mostly brain-healthiness of the past four years?
Hell, she even rushed through her spar with Jean-Claude and her usual library time in order to get here all early and --
Screw it.
Giving in to the feeling of sick twisting through her, she slides out of the booth and stands, turning towards the exit.
The diner door opens.
Frozen, she watches as Angel walks inside, a black look on his face that rapidly wipes into one of surprise when he sees her standing beside the booth.
Her mouth engages while her brain is still rebooting. "You're early," she says.
He takes a hesitant step towards her and, when she doesn't move, then another, surer one. "So are you."
Thinking again, she turns back to the booth and slides in, aware of him following. When he's sitting in his usual position opposite her, he rests his hands on the table top between them.
Her hands are also on the table top, and her forefinger twitches towards where his right hand lies within a breath of hers.
Awkwardness settles, like they're back on that first ever coffee non-date, all how've you been? and a country n' western song in the making.
Exhaling sharply, she says in a rush, "Angel, you make me absolutely mental."
Angel has her hand in his before she can blink, his fingers wrapping around hers like she's his one and only deadline. "Yeah." He looks beyond relieved at her words. "You too."
* * * * *
Continued in Chapter 4.
SOUNDTRACK: Home
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated. *g*
Continued from Chapter 2.
* * * * *
Home by anr
* * * * *
3. THE DINER
Against all the bajillion reasons not to, coffee with Angel actually starts to become sort of a... thing.
What kind of a thing, she's not all that inclined to try too hard with the figuring of it out. All she knows is that if she decides to walk back to her place from the library instead of jumping on the thirty-three bus, there's a better than not chance she'll bump into him somewhere near the diner.
Well, him and any number of his non-friends.
"You know," she says, blocking a punch that was telegraphed way too early. "This is starting to seem a lot like an awful habit."
Angel grunts.
"I mean," she ducks, "one unexpected fight is unexpected. And two? Still within the realm. But four? In the last week?" The vampire grabs at her throat and tears off her necklace. His snarl as the cross pendant sears his fingers almost makes the sting from the chain snapping worth it. "We should probably look into a twelve step programme or something."
Angel sweeps the legs out from under the vampire he's fighting, and stakes her before she can get up again. He looks over to where she's slowly backing away from hers. "They have those for demons now?" he asks, moving up behind the vampire.
"It's possible," she says. "I'll call Betty Ford tomorrow. See if they have an outreach or something for wannabe-bad's." She breaks from her blocking moves and plunges the pointy end of her stake into the vampire's chest before Angel can steal her dust.
Bending over, hands on her thighs, she coughs away her reward.
"You know," he says, "you didn't have to help. I could've handl--"
"Oh, no," she says, straightening up. "Don't you be ruining my savouring here -- it's not often I get to rescue the damsel in distress."
"Well, that-- hey!"
Clapping her hands to get rid of any residual dust, she heads out of the alley. "So what's with all the one true pairing vamps these days anyway? Has there been another Romeo and Juliet remake that I'm not aware of?"
He falls into step beside her as they resume their path towards the diner. "Hunting in groups isn't uncommon. Back when I --" He coughs. "I mean, it's done. And has been done. A lot."
She rolls her eyes. "Nice cover, Mr Smooth," she says. "How is Darla these days? Still ashes to ashes?"
"What?" He sounds startled. "No -- or, I don't think so. The last time I saw her, she was leaving Sunnydale to go shopping with Drusilla."
And hello alternate history fun fact number six-hundred-and-five; like she didn't already have enough reminders of what she did. "How nice for them both," she mutters.
He gives her a strange look. "You know them?"
"Darla? No, thank god. She was out of the picture well before my Scoobie days. And I wouldn't ever claim Drusilla as a BFF what with her being psychotically insane and all."
Up ahead, a bus approaches the nearest intersection. It's not her usual line but suddenly she's thinking that if this is going to be a roll-call-of-Angelus'-favourite-people kind of night? Well, she's pretty sure she'd prefer any other storm in the port.
"Cordelia?"
She looks over to where Angel has stopped in front of the diner and is holding the door open for her, all Mr Chivalry-like.
"Yeah," she says, adjusting her bag strap, deciding.
The bus slows to a stop.
She heads into the diner.
*
"How many?"
She shrugs. "Not many."
"How many?"
"What are you, a broken record?" Grabbing the sugar, she pours a heaping into her coffee. "Let it go already."
"Just tell me," Angel says, taking the sugar when she passes it to him.
"Why?"
"Because I want to know."
She raises an eyebrow. "And that's a reason I should care about why?"
Leaning back in the booth, he sighs all frustratedly. "It's been bugging me, okay? So just --" He waves a hand. "Put me out of my misery. Please."
Grinning, she pulls her stake back out of her bag as quick as a quick thing. "Oh, well, that I can do."
He makes a face. "Funny."
"I thought so." Tucking the stake away, she tastes her coffee. "More than a breadbox," she says finally.
"Huh?"
She looks at him pointedly. "My answer, dorkus -- more than a breadbox."
He scoffs. "That's not an answer."
"So is."
"Cordelia --"
"Angel," she mimics.
Looking away, he stares at the window, jaw clenched. Patient, she sits and waits him out, sipping at her coffee. Eventually, he turns back to her.
"I'll tell you mine," he offers.
Her laughter startles him -- startles her, truth be told -- but a split second later he's grinning right back at her, all bright and beautiful and happy, and.
And not at all like Angelus, she realises, surprised.
"You should do that more often," she says softly, not pre-thinking her words too much.
"Make you laugh?"
She shakes her head. "Smile."
*
Even though she knows Angel knows where she lives -- his initial little stalking party put paid to that level of mystery -- he's been good at keeping his distance ever since.
Which is why she's more than a little startled to realise that their conversation since leaving the diner has covered the entire way back to her place.
"This is me," she says unnecessarily, stopping at her front door.
He nods, looking around the little alcove they're standing in. "It's nice."
"Sunny too," she says, "in the daytime."
He nods. "I can see how that would be helpful," he says dryly.
Pulling out her keys, she unlocks and opens the door, but doesn't step inside just yet. Shifting, she deliberately looks him in the eye. "I'm not going to invite you in, Angel."
He doesn't look surprised to hear it, and his, "I know," is markedly calm and understanding-like.
She's honestly surprised by how bad that makes her feel.
Dismissing the feeling, she steps across the threshold and turns back to face him. "Well," she says perfunctorily.
He smiles at her.
It's not the same big grin he gave her in the diner, and it's not at all like that weird little half-happy look he gave her after their first ever coffee catch-up, but the expression does something crazily scary to her nonetheless.
Existing one-hundred-percent in the moment, she lets her brain disengage as she leans forward and snags the lapel of his coat and tugs, pressing her mouth to his.
He tenses, just briefly, his mouth still against hers, and then --
Oh.
He can't touch her, not properly, not with the majority of her body all safely inside her apartment, but his hands move to her face, fingertips light on her cheeks, like he'd be threading his fingers through her hair if only he could push that far forward. His mouth moves with hers, slowly, softly.
Come in, she thinks fatalistically, come in comeincomeincomein...
Heart pounding way too hard and fast, she breaks the kiss, her breathing rapid against his lips. She closes her eyes. "One-hundred and thirty-eight," she says.
He doesn't seem to have heard her at first. Then, all dazed and confused, "huh?"
She pulls back slowly, feeling his fingers stroke along her jawline as the barrier keeps him in place. She smiles and opens her eyes. "One-hundred and thirty-eight vampires. I keep track."
He shakes his head a little, staring at her. "You're amazing," he says quietly.
He says it like she could believe it, and for that alone...
Biting down on the i-word with difficulty, she steps back and takes a hold of her door. "Night," she says, softly.
He steps back as well, his tone just as soft. "Goodnight, Cordelia."
As she shuts the door, and bolts it, listening to his footsteps fade away into the night, she realises he's right. For the first time in what feels like forever --
It is.
*
She's smiling as she wanders through her apartment, checking all the locks and dropping her bag onto her dining room table.
And she's still smiling as she brushes her teeth, and twists her hair into a knot at the back of her neck, and then heads into her bedroom. Pulling back the bedcovers, she reaches for her pillow and --
Aww, c'mon. Just one --
"More," she whispers.
She freaks.
*
By the time the cab she's called for can arrive and deliver her to Angel's, her panic-attack is approaching the epically bad standards previously only reached the first time they started to have sex.
Almost falling off the last step in his stairs, she screams his name.
He's in front of her before she blink, what looks like worry and concern creasing his features, and she slams her fist into his expression with a satisfying crunch.
He stumbles back a couple of steps, eyes wide and shocked, and she takes advantage, kicking out with a roundhouse that pushes him back again.
"Cor --"
Her low kick sweeps towards his shin-bone, and he jumps it, his instincts snapping to the forefront. Her next roundhouse is brushed aside by the palm of his hand, and she snarls at him wordlessly, trying it again.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" He blocks another kick, this time shoving back on her leg so that she falls, landing on her ass. Pushing herself up, she tries again, relentless. "Damnit, Cordelia. Stop it!"
"Change!"
"What?" He sounds honestly baffled, and that just pisses her off even more. He deflects an uppercut to his chin.
"Change!" She feigns a right jab in favour of a left, but he sees it coming and blocks the force. When she tries to spin out another roundhouse, he grabs her foot again and pushes back on it. She drops to the ground hard, breath escaping in a rush. As she struggles in that second of disorientation to breathe again, she looks up in time to see Angel wince, and reach out a hand to help her up.
Twisting, she slams her leg into the side of his, yanking her foot back at the last moment so that her toes catch the back of his knee. As that leg crumples, she plants her other foot into his chest and shoves. He topples over onto his back and she scrambles after him fast, straddling his waist and holding a stake to his heart.
He freezes.
"Vamp out," she orders, panting.
His eyes widen. "Wh--"
She presses down on the stake. "Now."
He does.
Trembling, she watches the bones in his face shift, furrows deepening on his forehead. His eyes flash, gold leeching away the brown. His lips are mostly closed, just a hint of white teeth visible, and she leans in and down slightly, feeling the stake shift.
"Smile," she says.
"No." He's like solid marble underneath her, still and cool. "I'm scaring you."
Her laugh is brief and bitter. "Oh, please. Like you have any idea as to what scares me. Smile."
"No."
She pushes down on the stake and feels the tiniest change in pressure as the wood pierces the first layers of skin. He doesn't even flinch. "Smile," she hisses.
"Cordelia," he says softly. "You'll have to stake me first."
"If I have to," she threatens. "And don't think that I won't not because I will, damnit. I'll do it. I'll stake you."
Without even a trace of a smile he says, calmly, "I believe you."
Whatever fragile control she'd been grasping snaps in her uber-emotional fingers. Letting go of the stake, she lashes out with her fists again, this time pummelling on his chest. "Then do it! Smile! Show me again! Show me! Show me! Show me!"
Show me Angelus. Show me my nightmares. Show me what I did and what I can only hope of fixing. Show me death and pain and suffering and all the other things I caused. Show me Angelus and show me our body counts and I'll bet you anything mine is higher because I did this, I did this, I did this, I wished for this and it's mine so SHOW ME!
She beats on his chest, his shoulders, his face, until the demon in him recedes and his human features blur into the early hues of bruised-chic, and --
She freezes mid-punch, seeing him clearly for the first time since he left her front door.
"Why?" she whispers brokenly. Oh, god, why didn't you stop me? We were right there, grass and fangs and grave-bound, and you had me, you had me, you had me and you could have -- you should have --
He smiles then, mouth bloody and swollen from her rage, the expression terrible and devastating and still ruinously beautiful. "Why not?"
*
In the silence following her freak out, her panic fades back to her usual levels of post traumatic. She's kinda numb and drained in the absence of her anger, all tanks running on empty, but it's not a totally unfamiliar feeling so she's able to go with it, to deal, to sit on the bottom step of Angel's stairs and stare at a wicked looking sword mounted on a nearby wall.
It's all shiny and pretty and deadly and she'd love to pick it up and give it a swing, just to see how that'd feel.
"We are so absolutely and totally, conceivably bad for each other," she says eventually.
Angel, sitting on the floor and leaning against the sword wall, arms draped loosely around his bent knees, doesn't say anything.
"Epic badness," she says, like he tried to disagree. "No-more-credit-on-the-platinum stratosphere levels of negative, even."
Still with the no response.
Sighing, she pushes herself up, movements a little to jerky at first with her limbs all baby-Bambi awkward, and walks around into his kitchen. "I mean, look at me -- all survivor-girl, functioning and proper, right up until I place my hand in yours and take the Dorothy express back to the land of Oz. And you --" She shakes her head. "You! There's just not enough psychiatry in the world to explain your levels of screwed up."
She opens his fridge and stares inside blindly, ostensibly looking for a bag of blood -- she figures the absolute least she can do is grab him a platelet replacement, seeing as how she beat his out of him -- but she can't see one and so she closes the door again, walking back out.
She's heading towards the stairs again, not entirely sure if she's reclaim her seat or continue walking up and out, when Angel speaks.
"Doyle."
Blinking, she pauses a few feet away from him. "Huh?"
"After you left me -- the first time, I mean -- this guy, demon, named Doyle found me. Told me I had a purpose still, that there were people here in LA that needed my help."
Somehow she doubts this story, random topic change that it is, will end with hugs and puppies. "What happened?"
Angel shrugs. "I sent him away. After Whistler --"
"Who now?"
"Whistler. He was there the first time I saw Buffy, took me to see her called and told me she'd need help. My help. That if I went to the Hellmouth, she'd be there." Angel leans back until his head is against the wall. "She wasn't."
Though she knows he didn't mean it as such, a sharp stab of guilty blame-pain bites into her conscience at the reference to Buffy's persona non gratis-ness in Sunnydale. She ignores it. "You one-name guys really do like to flock, don't you?"
He either doesn't hear her, or doesn't care to. "I didn't want to fail again, so I told this Doyle to get lost, and then I did the same, just so there'd be no confusion."
She waits for a moment, and when he doesn't continue, she prompts, "and?"
He shrugs again. "And nothing. I never heard from him again."
Well, she was right about the lack of a happily-ever-after, but. "And? You can't just start a sequitur and not take it anywhere, Angel. That's just mean."
Tilting his gaze back to hers, he says, "I don't think you're bad for me."
A shivery shudder runs up and down her spine at his words. Her mouth goes dry. Her heartbeat trips into a double-time two-step. Grimacing, she says, "the Picasso on your face begs a strong difference."
"It's wrong."
"Angel --"
"Cordy," he says, super patient and calm, like what he's saying isn't a massively huge deal at all. "After Doyle, after you, I hid for a long time. A long time. Right up until I walked into that alley, in fact, and found you, five years on, still alive, still strong, and then it could have been five minutes for all I knew, because the moment I picked you up, I cared."
He is not saying what he's saying. She knows he's not. He can't be. "No."
He says, simply, "you're good for me."
A pulse of happiness, unwanted but no less with the potency because of that, warms her for a split second before reality can kick it to the curb. "Then you're even more fucked than I first thought," she says, coldly, "because I am good for no one, least of all Angelus."
He startles. "Angelus!" Standing quickly, he backs up against the wall like she's accused him of wearing plaid or tassels or something equally shocking. "I haven't been him for over a hundred years!"
She stays where she is, watching him move. "Not by my counting."
He shakes his head. "Well, your counting is wrong."
He doesn't believe, she remembers then, but unlike the first time she realised that -- all those years ago, in that hotel room that smelled of sex and them and sex -- the knowledge no longer shocks her.
Draining again, she heads back to the stairs and sits down. "You want to know why you don't really care, Angel? How I know you're wrong?"
He watches her warily. "How?"
"Because."
"Because?" he repeats, disbelievingly.
"Yep." She waves a hand, gesturing at the space between them. "Because you and me? We're like you and Buffy times a thousand. All misplaced hero worship and sexual tension. And that makes for interesting times, sure, but it's not real, and it's not healthy, and it's certainly not the foundations of the Spelling mansion. You're the ex of my ex's dream girl, and I'm the woman who wished for bluer Tiffany boxes, and you can get blood stains out of leather, I've found, but not if you expect to wear it again."
When he walks over and sits on step next to her, she turns to face him better, knowing she's right.
"We can maybe social-see each other, you and I. Hang out even. You're not horrible to look at, or be around, and when you're not all stuttery with word-indecision your conversationalisms are decent enough. But that's it, Angel. That's likely gotta be the all. Because anything else is just begging for a nightmare after dawn and I don't know about you, but I don't think I can keep freaking out every time we get close and personal just because my brain's wired itself to consider your bite as being synonymous with Xander and Willow's." She quirks a sad smile. "It's too exhausting."
Angel vamps out.
It's unexpected and she blinks in surprise, but somehow, somewhy, even with him so close, his hip just inches from her own on the step, his hands within grabbing distance, his mouth, his teeth, so near, and her heart starting to race, to pound --
But she's not scared, she realises. Not even close. Adrenaline, yes. Some uncomfortableness, sure -- 'cause bumpies? not really high on the attractiveness scale -- but actual fear?
Her nightmare-Angelus is more horrifying than any echoes he can give her.
"I can't not love you just because you say I can't," he says.
What did he just -- No, she thinks, not important. "Smile," she says, quietly.
He does, instantly, lips sliding back and revealing wicked sharp fangs.
She takes one breath, two, slow and even, all the ways this -- they -- could possibly play out slipping through her mind like lightning, white-hot and quick-fast, nightmare after nightmare after dream, and --
"Screw it," she mutters.
Leaning in, she presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
She's already killed this world and been attempted-killed by it in return... has spent the last four years devoted to fixing it all back again... surely a little personal happy isn't too much to ask for, now.
After all, what's the worst that could happen?
*
"Want to hit me?"
She half-smiles. "Constantly."
They've moved off the stairs and onto his sofa and, okay, it's only a marginal softness improvement over the concrete, but some is better than none, and the touch of his hand is distracting enough for it not to matter anyway.
He threads his fingers through hers. "But you're not going to."
"Confident much? Keep talking, boyo."
"If you were, it would have happened, oh, at least an hour ago."
She raises an eyebrow, pushing her palm flat against his. "You think you know me so well, huh? Think I'm all predictable and figurable out?"
He shrugs. "Maybe."
Tempting as it is to pull her hand free, to swing her legs off of his lap and push herself up from the sofa, she has a feeling that would be the exact opposite of proving him wrong. Reaching out, she snags the collar of his shirt with her free hand instead and pulls until he's leaning towards her and close enough to kiss.
His mouth touches her, softly, then pressing in, his lips teasing hers apart. His tongue slides against hers, licking into the wet warmth of her mouth. She moves her hand from his collar to the back of his neck, anchoring him to where he is. The kiss gets hotter, firmer, and his fingers tighten around hers almost enough to hurt so she grips back just as hard.
The trick to not freaking out, she realises now, is simply to never leave.
Angel pulls back after awhile, untwisting from his lean. As her legs resettle over his lap, she can feel him hard against her outside of her thigh.
His hand holds hers.
"I met someone," she says, all non-sequitory, "after I left you."
He says nothing, but his thumb begins to brush the side of hers in slow, even strokes.
"I'd been in San Salvador a couple of months, and I wasn't doing too well. I could barely leave my room most days -- all I wanted to do was sleep, but every time I did I'd wake up screaming from nightmares. I started drinking to anesthetise."
She looks away from Angel, focusing on the empty spaces behind his right shoulder.
"I don't remember exactly the first time I met Gru but I know that after I did, I began to drink less, sleep less, live more. I left my room. I went shopping."
"He helped you," says Angel.
Deficiency alert, she thinks, but not unkindly. "No, he was a hottie. Heir to a European textile corporation, and rich and handsome no less. And I wanted you out of my head. So I shook off the crazy and set about getting the delicious Gruben Salugg III's attention." She nods satisfactorily. "Totally succeeded, too."
She brings her gaze back to his.
"He treated me right, you know? Everything expensive. He called me his princess and acted like I was a queen. It was he who suggested I do something about my scars."
She watches Angel's eyes drop down to her neck, and she nods.
"My arm too -- no third degree burns for his girl, he said."
Angel says, quietly, "you loved him."
"I loved what I thought he represented," she says. "Gru was sweet and accommodating. He looked great and, with him lavishing on me, I thought, 'hey, I can't have been so bad -- not if I can have someone like Gru in my life -- that's a good person reward!' He wanted nothing more than to live in a fairytale with me at the top of his tower and, okay, he didn't make me feel safe, and he couldn't stop my nightmares, but he told me -- over and over -- how deserving I was of this life with him until Sunnydale seemed very far, far away."
She shakes her head.
"He wasn't the smartest guy."
"What happened?"
She sighs. "Demon party in the resort got out of hand one night. It had happened before but this was Gru's cherry picking and it showed. He'd never had to face anything more taxing than a New York mugging before then. He eschewed my epically brilliant plan of 'run and hide' and --" She breathes out, remembering -- "They tore his head from his body."
Angel grimaces. "I'm sorry."
She pushes the images of that morning after, of finding his body still in the restaurant when she'd finally ventured from her room, out of her mind and clears her throat. "I took the next flight back to LA firma."
"I'm sorry," Angel says again.
She waves a dismissive hand. "It's my MO, you see? Fall, fracture, flee and freak. I love, I hurt, I run, I crazy."
"You're not crazy."
"Pot meet kettle," she says, rolling her eyes. "But it's okay, you know? So there's a few limits to my sanity. So what? Everybody's got issues and at least I know mine now. Most people I've known were utterly clueless about theirs." She thinks, Xander, Buffy, my parents, Gru, Willow...
Bringing their joined hands to his mouth, he kisses the back of her palm. "I think you're very brave," he says. "To keep trying again."
Four and a half years of solitude begs and differs, she thinks. "And I think you'll regret this." She's not a safe bet, she knows, and not even close to being a sane one. Despite whatever resolutions are in her brain right now, the first time she leaves his side she'll no doubt jump the next train back to Anxiety Central and derail spectacularly, no survivors.
He shakes his head, features resolute and determined. "Never."
*
When she yawns for, like, the fifth time in as many minutes, Angel says, "you need sleep."
"Duh." She rests her head against the back of his sofa sleepily. "It's vampire-pm."
He runs his fingertips down her calf. "You can take my bed."
Like she wasn't going to anyway? With a groan, she swings her legs off of his lap and gets herself up, holding out a hand when she's all vertical. "C'mon."
He places his hand in hers, and stands as well, but doesn't step after her. "Maybe --"
"What maybe?"
With his free hand, he brushes a swath of hair off her shoulder. "I can stay here. On the sofa."
"For what now?"
"Well, you -- the last time you were here --" He gestures awkwardly. "I just thought you might be more comfortable if --"
She rolls her eyes. "No offence, Angel, but regardless of whether you're beside me or not, I'm still probably going to go hulk on you come morning. Just because I'm all issues-cognisant girl tonight, doesn't mean I won't be when I open my eyes." She pauses, considering. "Which is a pretty good reason for you to not want to be there, actually. My bad." She lets go of his hand.
He takes it back again immediately. "I do want to."
Wow -- if she'd known Angel was this big of a softie back in Sunnydale... "That's sweet," she says, smiling a little. "Suicidal, but sweet."
Turning, she starts towards his bedroom, his steps following hers. He flicks off the lights as they leave the main room. When she's beside his bed, she toes off her shoes, unthreads her belt, and pulls the knot out of her hair. She slides between the covers on his bed and lies on her side so she can watch him get in beside her.
He turns off the lamp beside the bed, plunging the room into darkness.
She breathes shallowly, waiting for her eyesight to adjust, waiting for him to settle under the covers. His bed is smaller than she's used to, and much smaller than she's ever shared with another person, and she can feel his leg brushing against her knee, can feel the oh-so-close sense of him.
"Promise me you won't turn evil while I sleep?" she asks softly.
He turns his head on the pillow, facing her. "I won't ever hurt you," he says. "I couldn't."
"Angel," she says, voice catching, "every night you kill me in my dreams."
His hand fumbles underneath the blankets and sheet until he can find hers. He threads his fingers between hers and holds on steady and sure. "Not anymore."
For a moment she thinks she can feel tears pricking at her eyes. She concentrates on the touch of his palm against hers. "I want that I could believe that," she whispers.
Angel squeezes her hand, just once, just gently. Quietly, he says, "I wish you could too."
I wish...
She closes her eyes and does not cry.
*
His hand slides between her thighs.
Parting her legs, she cants her hips closer to his hand, stretching on the rumpled sheets. Her eyes are closed, senses reduced, and she focuses on the coolness of the sheets beneath her naked flesh, the flush of heat moving under her skin, the whisper of sound as he shifts beside her on the mattress.
His mouth presses against the side of her breast at the same time his fingers slip across her sex, pulling at her attention. She doesn't know which touch to lean into more, and arches helplessly.
His finger pushes inside her.
Breathing out sharply, she reaches out with one hand, finding the back of his head and guiding his mouth down over her breast until he can lick and suck at her nipple. The resulting sensations spark down towards her womb, joining the heat building from his finger as it strokes in and out of her sex.
She's going to come if he keeps doing what he's doing and, oh god, she hopes he keeps doing what he's doing so she can come, and --
Her right leg pushes out further, brushing against his cock, and -- oh, she was wrong, she's not going to come, not yet, not until she can feel him inside her, the solid pierce of his flesh into hers...
Shifting her hand from his hair to his shoulder, she pushes back hard, rolling him off his side. His fingers pull free of her sex, slicking wetness over the outside of her thigh as he steadies her quick straddle of his hips. She reaches between them and takes his cock in hand, tugging gently once, twice, before holding him still as she slides down over him, seating him deep inside of her.
Sitting up, she rolls back her shoulders and opens her eyes.
Across the room, Buffy stares back at her. She's leaning against the hotel bathroom door jamb, bright lights haloing her from behind. Her clothing is Walmart-thrift, the scar on her face vivid and jagged.
"He'll never love you," Buffy says, kohl-rimmed eyes staring. "Not like he loves me."
Beneath her, Angel's hands span the curves of her hips, guiding her slow rocking. The sliding drag of his cock inside her is breathstealing.
"You're wrong," she says, gasping. She can feel her orgasm rushing through her.
Buffy raises an eyebrow. "Am I?"
Yes, she thinks. Yes, yes, yesohgodplease...
She looks down and sees Angelus grinning up at her. "Hey, baby."
*
She wakes gasping, body thrumming and mind churning. Part of her is wondering at her not-quite-almost-but-still-mostly-sort-of-yes-yes-definitely-yes-nightmare and part of her is trying to breathe through the tension in her muscles and bones and skin and part of her is thinking that this is not her bed, not her bedroom, not her apartment, but if she could just slip back into sleep, back into that nightdream, she would be coming so hard...
She opens her eyes wide.
His hand is between her legs. His fingers are tucked tight in the apex of her thighs, the side of his thumb pressing against the seam of her jeans, his wrist resting over the location of her scar. Even without moving, she can tell that her flesh is slick and ready.
He's sleeping beside her, his features smooth and ridge-less and peaceful, but as she stares, as she breathes shallow and quick, his lips part slightly and his nose twitches.
She watches him draw in a breath, then a deeper one, and she knows the instant he smells her arousal because his eyes flash open, surprise erasing sleep.
"Angel," she breathes out.
His hand flexes slightly between her thighs, dragging a soft moan from her, and his eyes go impossibly large. His arm tenses like he's going to pull free and she squeezes her knees together before he can.
"Don't," she manages. Her muscles tremble around his hand, the slight shifts of movement they've made increasing her need almost to breaking point. She's so close...
For one breathless moment they do nothing. Then --
"Kiss m--" she starts, but before she can get the words out all proper-like, Angel's moving. His mouth slants over hers, hard and fast, his tongue diving into her mouth. His hand simultaneously pushes up against her, grinding into the damp denim between her thighs as he leans over her, forcing her down into the mattress.
She comes hard, arching into him until it feels like her spine could snap from the tension, his hand rubbing over her sex, his mouth still eating hers.
It's difficult to breathe, to think, to breathe and she tears her mouth from Angel's desperately, gasping, shoving at the blankets tangling around them. He pulls his hand out from between her legs but doesn't go far, his fingers moving to pop open the button on her jeans and to tug open her zipper. As he yanks the denim down her legs, she reaches for his own waistband, twisting in the brace of his arms.
Their clothes disappear in quick tugs and pulls, but she still has her bra on, and she thinks Angel's pants are still trailing from one foot, when he rolls over on top of her and thrusts in deep.
She forces her legs further apart, kicking at the tangle of blankets and clothes until her leg can hook around his hip, dragging him down and closer.
He sinks into her, bottoming out. They both groan.
Angel shoves at the pillows beneath her, pushing them out of the way, before bracing his forearms on the mattress, caging her in. His hips pull back, his cock sliding almost all of the way out of her, before pushing forward again. She feels the slow, heavy thrust in every skin cell and muscle and bone in her body. Her toes curl.
He sets a steady, not-quite-harsh rhythm, rocking her into the mattress. His mouth returns to hers, kissing her deeply, and she meets him on every thrust, at every kiss, pushing her hips up to his and sucking on his tongue.
His bedroom fills with the sounds of sex; the rasp of her breathing, the slick slap of his belly against hers, the creak of his headboard against the wall.
Her second orgasm is subtler, a slow build and gentle fade. She relaxes into the spreading warmth and feels it move through her like slow bubbling champagne. Her arms wind around his neck and she lets him move her as he needs to, lets him take what he wants, the stroke of his cock inside her a delicious continuing pressure.
He comes hard, his hips slamming against hers in an uneven staccato. On the last push, his arms tremble slightly.
She ends their kiss and sucks in a deep breath. Her legs are still locked around his hips and she's not so sure she can move them yet. Or, maybe, ever. He doesn't pull out of her and she breathes in again.
"So," she tries, exhaling. "Uh... good morning?"
The trembling in his arms increases until she's a delayed reaction or two away from panicking and --
Laughing, Angel collapses on top of her fully before quickly rolling to the side. He slides out of her but pulls her body with him, keeping her close.
His laughter is infectious and she starts to giggle in response.
"Yeah," he manages, eventually, smiling. "It is."
*
She salvages her jeans and underwear from the tangle of blankets at the foot of his bed, but her top, on the other hand...
"What is with you demons and your propensity for fashion damage?" Rummaging through his closet, she fishes a white shirt out of a sea of black, brown and navy, and slips it on. "If you're not ruining someone else's sensibilities with your own incredibly bad faux-pas', you're all 'grr, argh, rip' on DKNY."
Still on the bed, Angel says nothing.
"And don't look at me like that," she says, anticipating his downturned expression. "You might be allergic to sunlight, but most of the things I have to do each day can only be done outside of twilight." From her bag, she pulls out a small brush and starts running it through her hair, trying to gain some semblance of decency to her appearance. "This town hasn't been exactly night-friendly the past few years."
"I don't want you to go," he says quietly.
She sighs, pushing aside the temptation to angle for a compliment or two as to why not. "I know." Dropping the brush back into her bag, she leaves her hair free and loose and tousled-chic. "I kinda don't want to either." Returning to the bed, she sits on the edge and looks at him. "And if I could promise us that I won't go all psycho-girl once I'm outside, I would."
"But you can't."
"But I can't," she agrees. She perks up suddenly. "But, hey! Look at it this way -- if I do, that'll probably mean I'll be back here all super fast."
Angel does not look reassured. "Stake in hand?" he asks dryly.
She shrugs. "Take the good, take the bad."
Standing again, she leans over and kisses him, coaxing away his bad-moodiness. She stops before she can forget to, pulling away from the hands he has moved to her hip and shoulder.
"Stay," he says, reaching after her.
She backs away from the bed and grabs her bag, sliding the strap over her head and shoulder. "The diner," she counters. "Tonight. You can buy me a coffee."
"Seven."
She frowns. That might be when the sun sets, but. "Nine," she says, firmly.
"Eight."
"And this became a democracy when exactly?" She shakes her head and keeps moving. "I don't think so."
At the door to his bedroom, she looks back and takes him in, frowny face and all, naked and rumpled and beautiful on the sex-mussed blankets.
"See you, Angel," she says.
She's gone and walking up the stairs before he can change her mind.
*
Despite her historical intentions, and what she knows to be best, and the thread of freakin' discontent lacing through her post-orgasmic haze... she's at the diner by eight.
"Refill, hon?"
Shaking her head, she shifts her cup to the opposite end of the table. "No," she says, "thanks. I'm waiting for someone."
The waitress shrugs, and walks away, leaving her to go back to her waiting and watching and oh holy Abercrombie and Fitch -- almost seven years on and she's still just the girl biding time for Angel's attention.
What on any earthly reality is she doing here? Is she trying to see how girl interrupted she can make herself? To deliberately wish off the mostly brain-healthiness of the past four years?
Hell, she even rushed through her spar with Jean-Claude and her usual library time in order to get here all early and --
Screw it.
Giving in to the feeling of sick twisting through her, she slides out of the booth and stands, turning towards the exit.
The diner door opens.
Frozen, she watches as Angel walks inside, a black look on his face that rapidly wipes into one of surprise when he sees her standing beside the booth.
Her mouth engages while her brain is still rebooting. "You're early," she says.
He takes a hesitant step towards her and, when she doesn't move, then another, surer one. "So are you."
Thinking again, she turns back to the booth and slides in, aware of him following. When he's sitting in his usual position opposite her, he rests his hands on the table top between them.
Her hands are also on the table top, and her forefinger twitches towards where his right hand lies within a breath of hers.
Awkwardness settles, like they're back on that first ever coffee non-date, all how've you been? and a country n' western song in the making.
Exhaling sharply, she says in a rush, "Angel, you make me absolutely mental."
Angel has her hand in his before she can blink, his fingers wrapping around hers like she's his one and only deadline. "Yeah." He looks beyond relieved at her words. "You too."
* * * * *
Continued in Chapter 4.
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