Title: Too Close
Author: Samsom
Posted:
Email
Rating: R
Category: a bit of dark
Content: C & A
Summary: Crap. I suck at summaries – never seems to be enough plot in my stuff to have one. Erm, Angel’s a vampire with vampire senses and he’s been living with Cordy all summer. There ya go!
Spoilers: None. Post TSiLA
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution: Please ask
Notes: This fic gave me more fits than I can count, I just hope it turned out the way I pictured it in my head.
Thanks/Dedication:Thanks to Starlet for the nice, encouraging words along with the beta. She’s the best and any mistakes are all mine..
Feedback: Who doesn’t like feedback?.
In a deserted business district off Sepulveda, a figure in black sailed through the air in an endless second of grace, before hitting the pavement with a painful grunt.
Angel rolled to a halt and paused for a moment to collect his wits before pain drove him to his feet and into a fighting stance, waiting.
The demon was overconfident, sure of the kill.
His mistake.
Another few minutes, a few more painful hits, and the demon rolled into the sewer, his head following after.
The vampire turned and managed to make it the few feet to the curb before collapsing in a heap to take stock of his wounds.
A short rest, and then he would go home.
***
The lights were out in Cordelia’s apartment. Usually, she left a lamp on for him, when she knew he was coming back, but he’d told her he might be out until close to dawn.
Dennis swung the door open, allowing Angel to cross the threshold.
He stopped in the middle of her living room, a light floral scent immediately wrapping around him.
Cordelia’s perfume.
There was a book laid spine up on the side table next to the chair she read in. Some nights, when he knew the memories of her visions got especially painful, she sat and read something light and fluffy, the light of just one lamp shining softly down onto her tense shoulders, a cup of cooling tea next to her elbow.
Angel would stand in the darkened kitchen watching her, helpless, shut out of her pain.
a basket of clean laundry was left on the coffee table, a paddle brush lying on top of the television in the corner.
She was all over the place, bits of Cordelia surrounding him.
And like now, when he could smell the faint salty scent of her arousal in the air along with the perfume she dabbed onto the curve of her neck twice a day. Twice before he’d walked into a cloud of this same fragrance, both times when she thought she was alone.
He turned slowly in the direction of her closed bedroom door.
Soft gasps, so quiet he knew she was under the covers up to her chin, hand dancing beneath the soft cotton pajamas she wore to bed, ever mindful of Dennis, but not of the vampire she’d invited into her home with absolute trust.
He eyed the door, his body gone hard and wanting between one gasp and the next.
He became deaf and blind to everything but the knowledge that slammed him like a stake to the chest, sudden and absolute –
-that Cordelia was touching herself-
-was masturbating.
He moved silently, and then the tips of his fingers were pressing the wood of her door.
Eyes closed, picturing that body flushed pink as her blood rose to the surface of her skin, back gently arched as she reached for the orgasm, and he wanted to be in there with her, hips cradled by her thighs as his hand replaced hers, soft flesh pressing up against the thrust of his fingers, swallowing her cries with his mouth.
The temperature in the hallway dipped to freezing.
Dennis was warning him.
Angel glanced over his shoulder, eyes blind with want, growling his own warning to the ghost.
The lights flickered.
A chair scraped in the kitchen.
The rhythm of her breathing changed, catching suddenly, and Angel pushed away from the door, stumbling blindly back into the living room.
He couldn’t have that. Never could again, or the whole world would pay in blood.
The front door flew open.
“I wouldn’t hurt her, Dennis, you know that.”
The air remained cold.
He strode out of her apartment and into the night air, letting the moonless dark swallow him up.
Behind him, Dennis locked the door and threw the deadbolt.
***
It was just after dawn when Angel came back.
He opened the front door and walked in, dropping three newspapers onto the coffee table before going to the kitchen.
This time it was the smell of fresh coffee and halzelnut creamer that greeted him.
Cordelia was at the kitchen table, reading a magazine.
She looked up when he walked in, smiling brightly. She was dressed in her cotton pajamas and a baby blue t-top, hair pulled back and up. Her face was freshly scrubbed.
Cordelia in the daylight.
“Hey, what happened to you?” she asked, getting up and walking to the refrigerator. Opening it up, she reached in and withdrew a container of blood, taking it to the microwave for heating. “I thought you’d be back before now.”
Angel took a seat near the wall, shrugging at her question. “Ran into some trouble, got delayed.”
She waited while the blood heated. “And?”
“And what?”
“And what happened, doofus? Are you alright?” The time dinged and she reached in, taking the blood out and coming over to him with it.
“I’m good.”
“Great, I’m glad. Drink up. We’ve got work to do.”
He took the blood and she walked passed him, going out into the living room.
He took the top off the container and sipped the thick liquid, resisting the urge to gulp it down at first taste, resisting the urge to vamp out.
He lost.
“Angel?” Cordelia called from the other room. “What’s with the newspapers?”
He scraped the plastic sides for residual blood with his finger, licking it clean through the fangs that crowded his mouth. “I thought Wes and I would look for office space again today.”
There was a beat of silence and he heard Cordelia sigh. “I guess it’s time, huh?”
Angel sat in the kitchen, staring at the wallpaper over her stove with yellow eyes.
“Yeah,” he said tonelessly. “It’s time.”
End
