And If That Mockingbird Don't Sing... (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
A Roseverse ficlet, this one some post-fic Cordy.
Timeline: Takes place a significant amount of time after The Rose.
Pairing: Cordelia/Jesse
She didn't see him die.
She thought at first that that was why he haunted her, why she thought she saw him every time she left her house. And by the time she'd finally reached the proper conclusions, it was too late and everyone knew.
She let them take her away, hide her underground with his old friends, and never once let slip what she really wanted. Instead, she was silent and withdrawn and occasionally snippy, and her companions tried guilelessly to comfort her for her loss.
She didn't want comforting. She wanted him, the demon outside her window who spoke to her at night while the others slept; who shone with his essence and his love for her long after death had taken him away from her. So one night, she slipped from her room past her unusually distracted bodyguards and made her way outside, awaiting him below her window.
He glided over almost instantly, arms moving to pull her into his embrace. She closed her eyes with relief. "I love you."
"Yes," he said simply, laughter in his voice so nasty and potent that she turned to squint at him in confusion.
Behind him, something shifted.
The dark shadow wafted toward them until it resolved itself into a woman, pale and fragile and patently unearthly. "Do it, my little one," she crooned.
He stared at the girl before him, the earlier affection gone. "Gotcha."
And then there were teeth burrowed in her neck and a hand clawing at her body and she was rapidly losing consciousness, dizzy with blood loss and betrayal and the realization that she'd miscalculated. This wasn't him, not anymore, and she'd given herself to a monster.
The last image she saw before she surrendered to blackness was the face of the one she'd loved.
See you soon, she thought, and then she was gone.
Timeline: Takes place a significant amount of time after The Rose.
Pairing: Cordelia/Jesse
She didn't see him die.
She thought at first that that was why he haunted her, why she thought she saw him every time she left her house. And by the time she'd finally reached the proper conclusions, it was too late and everyone knew.
She let them take her away, hide her underground with his old friends, and never once let slip what she really wanted. Instead, she was silent and withdrawn and occasionally snippy, and her companions tried guilelessly to comfort her for her loss.
She didn't want comforting. She wanted him, the demon outside her window who spoke to her at night while the others slept; who shone with his essence and his love for her long after death had taken him away from her. So one night, she slipped from her room past her unusually distracted bodyguards and made her way outside, awaiting him below her window.
He glided over almost instantly, arms moving to pull her into his embrace. She closed her eyes with relief. "I love you."
"Yes," he said simply, laughter in his voice so nasty and potent that she turned to squint at him in confusion.
Behind him, something shifted.
The dark shadow wafted toward them until it resolved itself into a woman, pale and fragile and patently unearthly. "Do it, my little one," she crooned.
He stared at the girl before him, the earlier affection gone. "Gotcha."
And then there were teeth burrowed in her neck and a hand clawing at her body and she was rapidly losing consciousness, dizzy with blood loss and betrayal and the realization that she'd miscalculated. This wasn't him, not anymore, and she'd given herself to a monster.
The last image she saw before she surrendered to blackness was the face of the one she'd loved.
See you soon, she thought, and then she was gone.