Gloomy Sunday. 5-6

Part V

He wasn’t sure how she’d moved him into her bed, but when he opened his eyes, that was where he was. Her crisp cotton sheets were pulled unfamiliarly tight against his bare toes. She must have tucked him in. She laid against him, mouth gaping, breathing wetly against his shoulder.

Had he pulled her in with him? Or had she slid in and snuggled up of her own free will? He couldn’t really remember and maybe it didn’t matter.

Maybe the most important thing was that she was there.

She slept, her face serene and peaceful. It was her and yet not. It was a Cordelia he’d never seen – vulnerable and trusting. No chatter, no thinly disguised defenses masquerading as flirtation and snark. She just … was. And he didn’t want to let her go. He pressed himself against her, reveled in the barest whispered murmur that no human could have heard.

She stirred against him, hitched a leg up around his hip and arched against him, sleek and supple. He caught her, held her, squeezed …

“Are you awake?”

She didn’t say anything, but twined her arms about his neck and slid to completely cover him.

He cupped a shoulder, shook it minutely. “Cordelia.”

“Shleeping,” she muttered drowsily, and her body went lax again.

He strained his neck to see the bedside table. Seven o’clock. He didn’t need to open the blinds to know the sun had set and even the dusk had dimmed to the tepid deep blues of early evening. Cordelia wriggled in a slow sleep tinged curve, somehow slipping even closer, but she was warm and he didn’t mind. She was safe here – with him – for the moment at least and she felt good.

He smoothed hands down her body as if to confirm it, down toned legs roughened with a hint of stubble. He cupped rounded buttocks, dipped into the curve of her back. He spread his fingers to better map her body, teasing out goosebumps and shivers and then a low, pleasure tinged moan.

“Are you awake?” He asked again, voice deeper than before, hoarse with sleep he told himself because if you don’t say the lie out loud it doesn’t count.

“Shhhh,” she whispered against his skin and he clenched her tighter. “Shhhh,” she hummed, but her body was awake enough to strain against him, to part for his fingers, to dampen for him and open for him and taste slick and salty … for him …

She raised her arms, pulled off her shirt and tossed it over her head and was nude, glimmering in the dark as only he could see her. She leant forward, fumbled for the light but he caught her, guided her back and propped himself over her, pooling his thumb in the curve of her throat, and then sliding it down until she gasped her breath and her hips seized.

Her eyes were wide on his. “I can’t not,” she said brokenly and he leant down to kiss her.

“I know,” he said afterwards, but kissed her again before she could respond. He didn’t want to think how her whimpers thrilled him, so he didn’t think and simply moved. She moved with him, and this time she curled her hand around him, and brought him to her, a farmer lovingly urging a thirsty, stubborn ox to drink, whispering pleas in sweet tones while offering an even sweeter temptation.

He’d never been one to say no for long, and he had never been very good about saying it to her. Instead, he let her pull him inside her and if he could remember dying he would swear this was what it felt like.

It was sweetly beautiful, but he drew out and played her like a master, moving slowly, purposefully. She struggled fruitlessly against his resolve, hurling her body at him, digging her fingers into his arms for leverage, cursing him in pants and gasps. He delighted in her pleas, reveled in the details of her – the soft nubby brown of her nipples as he pinched them, rolled them, suckled them into his mouth and teased them with his tongue. He palmed her ass, spread her cheeks, slid his fingers down until she froze with shocked pleasure.

“I want—”

“I know—”

“Shhh—”

Pleasure coiled at the base of his spine, Cordelia’s fingernails scratching the back of his neck. His muscles were corded solid with the effort of holding back when her eyes flew open, and she caught her breath long enough to lash out at him one last time:

“I’m still mad at you.”

“Cordelia—”

She yanked a hand free and slapped it over his mouth hard enough for his lips to sting. “That’s right. Cordelia.” And then her gaze clouded and her brow furrowed and he had the sudden, panicky feeling that she was about to cry.

He framed her face cautiously, smoothing tangled brown strands of hair back free with his fingers, holding her close. “Cordy…”

She burrowed against him, breath hitching suspiciously, but thankfully her cheeks stayed dry. “It’s okay. I’m okay,” she said, but her breath plumed as the room temperature plummeted, Dennis’ nervous energy flickering around them.

“It’s okay,” he whispered back, but he wasn’t sure which of them he was talking to – maybe them both. “I wish,” he said. “I can’t let—”

She snaked an arm around his neck, pressing it closer to her hot cheek.

“I know.”

She moved wistfully against him, bearing down on him until he could almost forget the poignancy of her whispered words and simply lose himself in the heat of her body. But it had to be more than that now because he couldn’t close his eyes but had to watch her, study each crease of her forehead, learn the tiny wrinkles bracketing her mouth as she gasped his name, struggling for breath.

“Oh, good lord!”

The door flew open, slamming against the wall and she flew off of him, scrabbling across the bed and under the mounded covers on the floor. Wesley stood in the doorway, rumpled and horrified.

Bright lights flared and Angel instinctively shot up a hand to cover his eyes from the piercing glare.

“Angel? What the devil … Cordelia?” Wesley’s voice careened up crazily in shocked horror as he apparently put two and two together. “Sor– I’m so sorry,” he stuttered, and backed toward the door.

Angel spied his pants but they were too far to reach without standing and he couldn’t move without showing Wes even more than he’d already seen. It would have been fine if Wesley had actually left, but while trying he bumped clumsily into the wall next to the open door and slumped against it instead, overwhelmed.

He rubbed two fingers against his forehead, as if to scrub the image out of his head, or more fully comprehend the situation. Angel wasn’t sure which. But he couldn’t wait forever; already Cordelia’s heartbeat was thumping fearfully. So instead, Angel rose as nonchalantly as possible and reached for his pants.

“I’ll just talk to you – Oh, dear Lord!,” Wes practically shrieked, flinching from the sight of Angel’s full nudity. “I don’t need to see that, Angel, you’re –” He gulped and then slapped a hand over his eyes, muffling his own voice. “I’m just going to be leaving now. Perhaps when you’re both decent …”

A slingback flew out of the hall, through the door, and clobbered Wesley on the head. “Ouch!” He grasped his head in shock and turned to glare primly at the empty hallway. “Well, that was quite rude!”

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Angel muttered.

“That’s not all that just came out of your mouth,” Wesley shot back.

“Wesley,” Angel said slowly, enunciating clearly. “Get out!”

As if on cue, the door wavered, and then banged shut forcefully. The bolt locking was loud in the shocked silence. Wesley watched Angel warily. “Apparently, Dennis is requesting that I stay.”

Angel groaned silently, then sat back down and cursed the haunted apartment and its devoted ghost. “Okay, fine. Just … hand me my pants.”

“Why would Dennis lock me in here with you?” Wesley’s eyebrows lowered in concern, and then in suspicion. “Where exactly is Cordelia?” And averting his eyes, Wesley stepped over to the chair and flung Angel’s pants toward him. “Cordelia?”

Silence. Angel dressed, zipping his pants and reaching for his shirt in quick economical movements.

“Cordelia?”

“Stop it, Wesley,” Angel said shortly. “Give her a minute.”

Wes ignored him. “Cordelia, are you alright?”

The embarrassed, gusty sigh was unmistakably Cordelia’s. “I’m fine, Wesley.”

Angel snatched up his coat, shouldered into it. “Of course she’s fine,” he bit out. “Cordelia’s always fine. Haven’t you noticed? Nothing fazes Cordelia. The visions don’t hurt; the helplessness doesn’t bother her, she just always. Feels. Fine.”

Wesley shifted uncomfortably, reached unobtrusively behind him and tested the door knob.

Still locked.

“Err, uh,” he stammered, “not to interrupt anything more, but really – why has Dennis locked us all in here? Surely I’m not a necessary part of whatever,” his hand flailed descriptively, “is going on here?”

Cordelia’s voice floated up. “Maybe he’s nervous of what else Mr. Moody is going to do.”

“This wasn’t all me, Cordelia,” Angel said flatly.

She popped up, wrapped neatly in a cotton sheet. “Are you implying that this is my fault?”

Angel jerked open the curtains and stared outside. He was not going to start this argument. Not now. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It most certainly does matter!” Wes exclaimed. “Need I remind you two of the curse that is meant to prevent exactly this type of activity?”

Angel could feel Cordelia’s glare hot on his back. “Oh, we didn’t forget,” she said oh so sweetly. “It just doesn’t apply in this situation. Isn’t that right, Angel?”

“It’s none of your business, Wesley.”

Wesley pursed his lips disapprovingly. “It would seem that Dennis disagrees. He’s uncomfortable with whatever it is the two of you are doing, and quite frankly, so am I.”

Angel’s jaw jutted out menacingly, his voice lowered in a hushed threat. “Wesley, it’s none of your business.” He watched Wes unblinkingly, until the slight man gulped and inched closer to the door.

Just as Wes reached out to try the doorknob, Cordelia exploded in a frustrated huff. “Oh, come on, Angel! Is that any way to talk to a guy who cares about you and your future? He’s concerned! Why don’t you explain it to him the way you explained it to me?”

Wesley’s glance bounced from one to the other and then he whispered fervently, “Dennis, please!” He jiggled the doorknob again. No luck.

“Cordelia,” Angel warned, but she was on a roll and ignored him.

“I said, ‘What about the curse?’ ‘Not a problem,’ he said. The height of romance! Not a problem.” Angel was glaring at her, and she was spinning out of control … “So forget the concern! He simply finally found a safe way to have sex,” she said blithely, cruelly. “I just never thought it’d be me. I haven’t decided yet whether to be honored or insulted –”

Angel was behind her in a second, wrapping an arm around her, covering her mouth with his hand. “Stop it, Cordy,” he said soothingly, and dropped his chin down to her shoulder.

Surprisingly enough, she did. Normally, his command would have sparked an outburst unlike anything he could prepare for, but not today. Today, she was exhausted and her head still throbbed from the last vision and confronting him earlier had left her feeling like an old wrung out dish rag.

She was always pushing him and probing and today she’d pushed for one answer when all she’d wanted to hear was its opposite. She hadn’t heard it. And she never would.

But he was still there, wrapped around her, comforting her as if he could sense how tightly strung she felt, that her iron hewn spine was softening and that if she let go for just a moment, it just might snap –

She leant backwards against him, and sighed heavily.

“Well,” Wes huffed. “This is spectacularly awkward.”

Angel frowned. “Why are you here, Wes?”

“I went to the apartment this morning. I found the latest victim there, as Cordelia described. The cops were just coming as I left and,” He looked apologetically at Cordelia. “I thought you might want to know.”

She shrugged, a brave attempt at insouciance. “I knew.”

And cared. They all knew it, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

“We need to put our energy together to figure this out,” Wesley said resolutely. “Obviously the Powers That Be intend for us to do that, or they wouldn’t keep sending such traumatizing visions.”

“There’s something Angel isn’t telling you,” Cordelia said suddenly, ignoring the stiffening of the body behind her. “I wonder if the two are related.”

Wesley turned an inquisitive gaze to them, and Angel jerked free.

“I’ll go to the Oracles,” he said, and aimed a dark look up at the ceiling. “Dennis. Open the door.”

The door unlatched obediently and swung open.

Wesley huffed in bewildered injury. “How does he do that?”

Cordelia shrugged, watching the dark swirl of leather as he disappeared. “He’s Angel.”

---

Part VI

She put clothes on and met Wes in the kitchen. He was puttering about busily so she set the table. Her mother would be embarrassed if she knew, but there was a lot about Cordelia that her mother would no longer appreciate. At least having Dennis kept her from having the do the dirtiest of household cleaning.

“I’m worried about him,” Wesley said.

Cordelia slid into a chair and propped her elbows up on the table. “So am I,” she said.

“I’m worried about you too,” he added, and she smiled. This worrying thing still felt new. She liked it.

When she didn’t say anything, he tried a different tact. “What isn’t Angel telling me?”

Her stomach growled loudly, and Wesley shot her a pointed glance. “When’s the last time you ate?”

“Too long,” she complained. “Is the food done yet?”

“It’s just soup and sandwiches.” He put a plate in front of her, filled her bowl with tomato soup and sat down. “Eat and talk.”

“It happened last week. Maybe two weeks ago.” She crunched into the sandwich and nearly moaned. Fresh cucumbers, tender spinach, creamy avocado … did she really have all this in her fridge?

He shook out the paper napkin she’d neatly folded, and placed it on his lap. “I stopped at the store on my way over. I thought you might need some restocking.”

She mumbled her thanks around the mouthful of food and kept chewing.

“I asked him about that demon you mentioned – the one that caused him such injury. He didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.” Wes was a noisy eater, chomping with relish, and slurping his soup loudly. She swallowed a thread of disgust.

“He’s got scars,” she said simply.

“That’s impossible. Vampires don’t scar.”

Frustrated, she pushed the sandwich away. “Trust me, Wesley. I just got a real up close and personal look.”

Wes gulped and immediately changed the subject. “Did he tell you anything about the demon that night?”

She thought back. “He was really confused. Kept zoning in and out and didn’t really say anything. I think it might have been purple. And it must have had three claws on each hand. He had scratches,” she gestured at the locations where he’d been wounded.

“It was purple? Could be a Szago demon,” Wesley mused. “Or a Kangu!” Excitement lit his eyes and he fumbled for his bag on the floor. “They have an amazing ability where they can both levitate and spontaneously regenerate their claws. Although, I think perhaps they’re a lime green. And possibly extinct,” his voice petered out as he buried his nose into a huge, dusty tome.

She rolled her eyes. “Nice to know that some things never change.”

****

Angel brushed dust from his coat after shouldering the hidden door open. Like all secret entrances, it was rarely used and had required just the right amount of brutal force in order for him to move it. Not that strength was an issue for him. Residual adrenaline was zipping through him, coursing through borrowed blood and pooling in silver tingles in his knees and ankles.

He bounced lightly on his toes and fisted a hand almost contemplatively. He’d walked four blocks out of the way, down an alley and waited nearly an hour before he’d found what he’d been searching for.

Vamps. A pack of them.

He’d taken his time, letting them throw a few desperate punches before taking them apart. No wisecracks. No jokes. Just the simple ease of violence, the reassuring crunch of breaking bones. The peaceful whoosh of vampires disintegrating into dust.

Flicking a match against its box he watched it flare to life. The incantation bowl awaited, dried thyme and hog’s hair strewn perfectly. He tossed the flame toward it, but his fingers fumbled. The match tumbled down, extinguishing instantly on the damp floor.

His hand was gashed open nearly to bone. A year ago, it would have been a paltry insignificance, but now it stung and made his fingers clumsy. He thought of Cordelia for a moment. Wished she were here with her bandages and fussing. But then he forced her out of his mind. He had to focus and thinking of Cordelia had a disturbing tendency to distract him. Striking another match, he tossed it into the bowl. “I beseech access to the knowing ones,” he said and stepped through the now glowing doorway.

The oracles reclined against cold marble, gazing at him with resigned expectation. He laid his offering on the ground, and waited for their acknowledgment.

“Speak, lower being,” the female finally commanded. “We grow weary of your silence.”

“My friend – my seer,”

“Is in trouble,” she finished for him. Lights shifted behind her, gold gleaming into silver; her blue eyes bored into his unchangingly. “She struggles to orient you and yet you are lost.”

She strode toward him, around him. The shoes hidden beneath her heavy velvet robes clicked hollowly on the marble as she strolled, eying him musingly. “Your touch has been poisoned, your mind and your feelings blurred until you know not which way to look or who to be. She will die unless you learn.”

He lunged forward, desperation heightening each movement, each crack of his voice. “What? Cordelia –”

The woman toyed with her robes, a throwback gesture to the girl she’d never been. “She softens to the world. She has awakened to the sight but cannot see what awaits her.”

“What do you mean? She’s seeing people that we can’t help! Why send her visions if we can’t save the victims?”

“She does not see everything,” the man cautioned stonily. “That is reserved for the powers alone. Yet she knows your cowardice, she sees how you run from what you believe is your fate.”

Angel spun to him, hands flung out in entreaty. “My fate?” Dread swamped him, icy realization clamping his muscles into knots. “I used to think it would be Buffy. But Cordy can’t possibly still think—”

“Fate is the just the view from one window. She knows this,” the woman cut in. “But all she knows might soon wither, unless…”

“Unless?”

“Your job is to save the innocent, warrior,” she reminded him. “You must learn how to save yourself to save them all.”

She swirled around him but he spun with her, bracing his feet and squaring his shoulders. “This mystical gibberish isn’t going to work this time. If Cordelia is in danger, I need to know about it. I need to save her.” They remained stubbornly silent and anger coursed through him, roughening his voice and sharpening his glare. “I’m going to save her, and you’re going to help.”

She wavered, casting her eyes toward the other in search of advice but Angel knew how to finish her off. “She’s my link to the Powers that Be,” he reminded her. “Without her, I’m out.”

She shimmered coolly, icy blue eyes flashing at him. “The demon seeks strength through your weakness, and she is yours. He will destroy her.”

Fury rippled through him, face shifting into sharp fangs and an enraged growl exploding from him. “I’ll kill it,” he snarled. “What is it – how can I find it?”

But it was too late. The temple dissolved around him, and the basement loomed large, lit only by the embers of the rapidly dying fire.

****

She was helping Dennis put away the cleaned and dried dishes when she heard it.

“Eureka!”

She glanced up at the ceiling. “I cannot believe he actually says that,” she whispered. A dinner plate suspended in mid air waggled in unmistakable agreement before floating to join its counterparts in the cupboard. She stuck an old battered tea kettle in the sink and turned on the water with an impatient yank. Under the running water, her fingers looked shriveled and … old.

And one of her fingernails was broken. She couldn’t even remember when that had happened, and if that wasn’t a sign that everything was changing – that she was changing, she didn’t know what was.

“It’s not right, Dennis,” she said. “I’m not right. This isn’t supposed to be happening to me.” She wasn’t the sad martyr-y girl, the one that fought against the odds in the name of honor and duty. She was the hot girl that married her doctor or lawyer or banker and lived happily ever after in Beverly Hills. While saving lives.

Some day, she’d figure out how that actually worked.

Wesley skidded into the kitchen, cheeks flushed with excitement, eyeglasses askew. “Cordelia, did you hear me? I said, Eureka!”

“I heard.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she eyed him impatiently. “What’d you find out?”

“Well, I initially thought it had to be a Szago demon, as they’ve not only got the three claws but are renowned for their claw use in battles. In fact, it is commonly believed that it was, in fact, a Szago demon that was responsible for –”

“Wesley,” she warned, banging the tea kettle down against the stove top. “Can you get to the point?”

His excited glow faded the tiniest bit and guilt flushed her cheeks. She’d sounded like a shrew. Maybe she should really care, but there was more important stuff going on than the un-annotated history of Szago demons. “I’m making tea,” she offered and he beamed a smile at her.

All was forgiven then.

“Well, after cross referencing several different texts, I think what we’re dealing with is a Desgial demon. Reptilian, clawed, four eyed and multicolored, although strong emotions such as rage, jealousy, fear tend to turn them such bright colors as magenta, turquoise and purple, when they’re visible which is infrequent at best.” He opened a book to a photo and slid it across the table to her.

She ignored it. “How do you kill it?”

“There’s more, Cordelia,” he said. “Desgial demons feed off emotional highs and lows. They attack psychically to create emotional peaks and valleys, and then bleed their victims dry, metaphorically so to speak.”

The tea kettle whistled shrilly. She jumped, startled. She thankfully turned to fix the tea, eager to not have to look at Wes while she processed his words.

“Go on,” she said.

“They leave a wide path of suicides,” he said. “They were especially prevalent during the Great Depression, although it was difficult to tell which people were their victims because there’s no physical damage to the body, just –”

“An overwhelming loneliness,” she said bleakly. “They make people feel alone and then feed off that emotion until what? Their victims die?”

“No, the suicide itself is a real reaction to an unnaturally intense level of depression.”

She poured water into a ceramic cup and dropped a tea bag into it. “These people kill themselves because of what this demon makes them feel?”

“Essentially, yes,” he said.

She turned, handed his tea to him. Dennis fluttered anxiously, nudging a kitchen chair behind her legs which she gratefully sank into. She expected Wes to ask for sugar, for cream, but he didn’t and she was glad she had a moment to absorb his words. To question.

“What does this have to do with Angel?” she asked.

Wes sipped delicately at his tea. Amazing that a man with such slopping dining habits could drink tea so precisely. The cup clinked lightly against the saucer. He meticulously fished out the bag and deposited it neatly into the dish.

“Perhaps they had an encounter in the sewers,” he said, “and something happened that freed this demon, made it able to attack, to feed. And because of that—”

“The PTBs are sending me the visions to make Angel fix a problem he created?”

“Precisely.”

She thought for a moment, and then folded her hands neatly and rested them on the table. “So,” she said. “How do we kill it?”

Wes pulled off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose in a move that was eerily reminiscent of Giles. “First we have to find it. And the visions aren’t exactly giving us a head start in that department.”

They both sat for a moment, in silence. It weighed on her, pressed against her, until –

“Wait a second,” she said suddenly, shooting out of her chair. “There’s one thing both victims had in common.”

“What?” Wes asked.

“Music,” she said. “That really quiet music.”

He slouched back into the chair, eyes fogging with contemplation.

“Angel heard it at the first house. You knew it would be playing at the second house.” He turned a concerned glance toward her. “I didn’t think to check for it at the third.”

Years ago, as Cordelia had quailed at the first of a million departures from home, her mother told her that if her smile was big enough, no one would see past it. She’d held both of Cordelia’s hands tightly within hers and warned that if people saw weakness they would use it to break her. It was one of the few things Cordelia could remember learning from her mother – that to smile in the face of terror was the epitome of strength.

And so Cordelia smiled. Large and toothy, with a carefree shrug thrown in. “We should go fast, so we’re back before Angel.”

Wesley, to his credit, didn’t question her resolve. “Let’s go,” he said.

****

The house was small, nestled in between two just like it in varying shades of cream and mocha. The police had left, stringing yellow crime scene tape across the door. Wesley brushed it aside and tried the doorknob. It was locked.

Without Angel and his super door breaking strength, it took Wesley nearly thirty minutes to pick the lock of the back door. Her shoulder bag vibrated repeatedly, but she knew who was calling without even looking and she definitely knew better than to answer. She left the bag behind as they snuck into the house.

It was immaculate. Plush white carpets, lush oriental rugs, vibrant paintings hung on otherwise stark, empty walls. “He was in –”

“the bedroom,” Cordelia finished. Duh. She’d gotten the vision. Of course she knew where he’d been when he died.

“Check the living room stereo first,” she said instead, hoping she wouldn’t have to go in the bedroom. She didn’t want to see the carpet crusted with dried blood. She didn’t want to see the permanent stain of their failure to save yet another innocent soul.

Wesley’s eyes scanned the house, filing away details so busily she could almost hear his mind working. At her words, he moved to the stereo and cranked up the volume knob. Nothing. Studiously avoiding her eyes, he gestured to a nearby door. “That’s the bedroom if I remember correctly. I’ll investigate,” he offered. “You stay out here.”

She sunk into the soft couch, beige leather with minuscule stitching. She breathed – in through the nose, out through the mouth – just as she’d done in yoga before she gave up on anything that required that much silence and self-contemplation. It had bored her then, much like watching Angel’s endless tai chi rotations.

Why work so hard to focus your energy on doing nothing? Especially when there was so much to do in life? She’d never understood before, but now, the simple breathing relaxed her. She closed her eyes and pulled her legs up to her chest. In. (through the nose). Out. (through the mouth). In (through the nose). Out.

Piano notes clinked softly, a sadly melodic tune, veering from plaintively sweet into a creepy minor key. It sounded … familiar.

A woman’s voice sang, but it was too quiet, and she craned her neck back to better hear.

“Cordelia?” Wes was standing behind her. “Can you hear it?”

“Just barely,” she said. “What is she singing?”

“I’ll turn it up.”

Moments later, she could hear the voice. Eerily familiar, sweetly beautiful, sad enough to bring tears to even her eyes.

Death is no dream, for in death I’m caressing you, with the last breath of my soul, I’ll be blessing you…

It faded away as Wes turned the stereo off, but she knew.

“It’s the same song,” she said softly. “Don’t you recognize it?”

He watched her silently, but she couldn’t talk around the knot of sadness clutching her throat. “We should go back,” she finally said.

He held the door open for her. And he drove the motorcycle home slowly, like he had a precious child behind him. She wanted to nudge him, to tell him to speed up. That she was a perfectly capable adult and she could hang on just fine. But instead, she wrapped her fingers around the seat edge and rode in silence.

Part 7