Part 8
Some say that rage is like a fire, but it’s not. A fire, fearsome though it may be, burns and consumes its fuel quickly, leaving nothing behind but ashes. A fire is over quickly, a passionate flame that burns and dies within minutes. Its life span is short.
Rage embodies an entirely different idea. It creeps up on you like quicksand, first only a mud puddle in your mind, appearing so innocuous that you don’t even notice. It cloaks itself as its less sinister cousins, annoyance or jealousy. It’s a minor irritation, as if you’d stepped in some damp dirt and couldn’t quite scrape it all off your shoes. It’s a tiny niggling that colors your decisions and keeps you awake a few minutes later at night, peppers your dreams with images of a woman you won’t admit you love resting in the arms of someone else. But Rage is still there, whether you notice it or not, and it grows.
Pretty soon, that once harmless dirt clinging to your shoes turns to mud, then to clay that sucks at your feet and slows you down. But despite the hindrance it causes, you explain it away. You say that it’s concern for a friend’s well being, nothing more. She doesn’t know how dangerous he is, but you do. You have to protect her. You aren’t angry, really. You’re just acting righteously on her behalf.
Even though you deny it its rightful name, Rage still holds its power. It begins to consume your thoughts, affecting your sleep and your work and every other facet of your life. But still, you don’t acknowledge it. You trudge on, the sticky substance creeping higher and making your legs heavier and heavier with every step. When you finally notice your folly, it’s too late. You’re waist deep in a quicksand of intense anger that has you trapped, unable to move or get out. And every action you take seems to make you sink, further and further, until you’re up to your chin in a substance so thick you can barely breathe.
As debilitating as rage is, there is a means of escape. If you’ll acknowledge the source of your raging anger and deal with it, you’ll be freed. If you recognize the love for her that caused your rage, you’ll escape. The quicksand will spit you out onto dry land and you’ll walk away with nothing more than a hefty dry cleaning bill. You’ll be free to live your life and explore that love, finding a happiness and joy that has always eluded you.
The only catch is to confront the source before you are smothered by the rage that denial causes. If you don’t acknowledge it, though, if you ignore the love you have inside, if you give in to the jealousy and the rage and the pain, the quicksand will consume you. Your soul will suffocate and leave behind a shell of the person you once were. You’ll destroy yourself, and her, in the process.
***
“What the hell do you want, Peaches?” Spike’s self-satisfied voice made Angel’s already boiling rage come nearly to the point of eruption. Clenching his fists and drawing on what was left of his control, Angel stalked forward and stepped into the edge of the light spilling from the lobby.
“Yes, what do you want, Angel?” Cordelia echoed Spike, her surprise at their visitor now firmly ensconced behind a cold mask of indifference.
Angel came a few steps closer to them, the distance unable to hide the struggle in his features. He was fighting his demon, the edge of his irises rimmed with gold as he warred with the intense feelings inside of him. Every cell in his body was screaming at him to walk over to that couch and yank Cordelia into his arms and shove her far, far away from Spike.
But he didn’t do that. He just stood there, his fists clenched, his jaw set, as he tried to come up with a viable excuse for being there. He finally settled on one, lame though it was.
“I just wanted to see if you were settled in okay, Cordelia,” Angel said softly, unable to hide the edge in his voice.
She arched an eyebrow at him and sunk further back into the cushions.
“We’re settling in just fine, Angel,” she said, putting an emphasis on the collective pronoun. “Spike’s been helping out a lot. We have the place almost back to normal.” She smiled at him, but it was an icy, polite smile, one that chilled even his unnaturally cool self.
“Good,” he said, a ghost of a smile on his face for an instant. “I’m glad its working out for you.”
They lapsed into a silent staring contest, the breaths of one person the only sounds in the room. Knowing it would irritate Angel, Cordelia snuggled in a little closer to Spike. In response, the blonde vampire wrapped his arm more tightly around her, his hand hovering less than an inch from her breast. He flexed his fingers as if he’d reach to stroke her, but didn’t. Inwardly he grinned as he watched Angel tense even more. If looks could kill, Spike would be dust.
Angel’s rage intensified at Spike’s obviously territorial gesture. It already galled him that Spike’s scent was firmly entrenched in this space, and he knew that Cordelia would smell almost as much like Spike as she did like herself. To the vampire in him, it felt as though his property was being tainted, sullied by his grandchile’s presence. To the man in him, he felt the last vestiges of his precarious control over Cordelia slipping away, and he was desperate to find a way to hang on to her.
His eyes narrowed as he zoomed in on the problem.
Spike.
Spike shouldn’t be here. He was dangerous. Spike could hurt her. Spike didn’t deserve to touch her. She was Angel’s best friend, not Spike’s. In that moment of clarity, Angel decided he would see hell freeze over before he’d let Spike get the upper hand.
Shaking the stiffness of his anger out of his shoulders, Angel walked slowly over to the couch opposite the one that Spike and Cordelia were occupying. With tiger-like grace, he draped his big body over the cushions, slouching into the seat, his legs spread wide as he faced them. He shrugged his broad shoulders comfortably into the backrest and propped one booted foot up on the coffee table. Hanging one hand lazily over his thigh and the other along the back of the couch, he took over the space, his presence filling it up as if he lived there once again. Everything in his manner and bearing shouted “control”, and he was not about to relinquish an ounce to the blonde interloper across from him. This was his town. His hotel. His woman. Wait, no, his best friend, he corrected himself.
Time to play dirty.
“So, what have you been doing to fix the place up?” Angel began nonchalantly, as if he were settling in for a long night of idle chitchat. The only telltale sign of his plan to unnerve them was the hot gaze he sent in Cordelia’s direction. “Done some painting, I see.”
Cordelia gritted her teeth and tried not to notice the butterflies in her stomach as he stretched his gorgeous body out in front of her. God, how could she not notice how the dark gray shirt fit him like a second skin? How it hugged every one of the magnificent muscles in his upper body, sculpting his pectorals in a way that made her want to drool as she ran her fingers over him? It was unnerving. And he was doing it on purpose.
“Yeah, we’ve done some painting. And Spike fixed the railing. All we really have left is the basement, and we’ll take care of that next week.”
Angel just nodded, flicking the wrist on his leg in time with his head movement. Automatically, the movement drew Cordelia’s eyes to the apex of his thighs, to the bulge under the fly of his black pants, and her cheeks burned as she looked longer than a few seconds. Okay, so she still wanted him. Badly. But he didn’t have to know that.
In retaliation for his sad little attempts at flustering her, Cordelia curled her legs up under her on the couch and leaned completely into Spike. Looking up at him with an expression of pure concern and sweetness, she gently placed her hand on his chest near the newly applied bandage. Stroking her fingers lightly over his skin, she asked, “How’re you feeling, baby?”
Even Spike was shocked at the endearment, but he recovered quickly, his mouth turning up in a self-satisfied smirk. Running his hand along her arm, he grinned down at her, the perfect picture of a man well pleased by his woman.
The moment that Cordelia’s hand had stroked Spike’s chest, Angel had felt the touch as if it had been for him. Immediately, his plan turned back on him in full force. He’d meant to fluster Cordelia and annoy Spike, but now the joke was on him. His body responded to her fondling of Spike’s chest, hardening instantly and pressing uncomfortably against his fly. Against his will, his mind went back to fantasies he’d conjured months before Cordelia was possessed, fantasies of her tending to his wounds. In his dreams, she’d touch him just like she’d just touched Spike, only her hot mouth would follow the feather-light whisper of her fingers against his skin. Her tongue would reach out, the heat of it burning his skin in a wake of wet fire. He’d curl his fingers in her hair, drawing her lips up to his, stroking the depths of her mouth with his tongue. His hands would curl around her breasts—
Spike’s voice interrupted his fantasy, snapping him cruelly back to the present.
“Yeah, luv,” he answered in a deep, sultry tone. “I’m feelin’ right as rain. Thanks to your magic hands.”
Angel’s jaw tightened at Spike’s possessive tone of voice. Contrary to his lazy position just moments earlier, Angel shot up stiffly, getting to his feet. He towered over Cordelia, his best glowering face in place, and stared her down.
“Can I speak with you for a moment, Cordelia?” he said through clenched teeth.
She glared back up at him, the defiance on her face not betraying the war within her. She wanted to talk to him, to give him a piece of her mind, to scream and rant at him for leaving her alone when she needed him most. But she knew instinctively that if she got away from her security blanket, away from Spike’s reassuring presence, she couldn’t be responsible for what she said. She might fall apart, or she might explode. Not having control like that scared her.
But in the end, she gave up.
“Fine.” She spat the word at him, her reluctance dripping from it. “We’ll talk in Wes’s old office.” She jumped up from the chair and breezed past him, walking purposefully towards the office. Once there, she whirled around and faced him, crossing her arms in a protective gesture.
Seeing her in that stance, her face fixed with the determined, no-nonsense look that he’d fallen in love with, nearly overwhelmed Angel. For a moment, Buffy was nowhere in his mind, and he was back in the old office they’d shared the first year they were all in L.A. The time when Cordelia was her old, bitchy self, when he’d felt the first stirrings of attraction for her. The birth of his love for her. Something inside him broke, a dam feelings that flooded him. He looked at her, the soft curves of her body, the beautiful planes of her face, and he felt a pull that went beyond lust. A longing for her that lent heat to his cold frame.
As quickly as the flood of unacknowledged emotion had come, it departed, and he berated himself for the disloyalty of his body. One wayward thought about Cordelia. . . okay, maybe a few wayward thoughts about Cordelia . . . had his mind and body in a flood of lustful sensations. And to be reminded by his grandchilde’s very presence that she wasn’t his, was never his, was now someone else’s. . . it was just too much.
Even if he didn’t want her anymore. Because he didn’t. Really.
But that didn’t mean she had to make a stupid mistake like this. And he wasn’t going to let her ruin her life without a fight.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Cordy?” Angel hissed, bringing his face within inches of hers.
Okay, so maybe attack mode wasn’t the smartest way to get her back on his side.
“Since when do you care what I do, Angel?” Cordy shot back.
“I will always care about you, Cordelia,” he said softly. “Don’t ruin your life like this. Don’t let Spike in. He’ll hurt you. He doesn’t love you, Cordelia. He can’t.”
She scoffed, a sound that was a harsh echo of her anger. “Please, Angel. Don’t give me that crap. Spike has a soul. Like you. He has a conscience, a grasp on the idea of right and wrong. A desire to preserve life. He won’t hurt me.”
“He might not hurt you physically, Cordelia, but he could take advantage of you.”
She looked at him like he had the intelligence of a turnip. “Are you hard of hearing in your old age, Angel? I said don’t give me that crap. Spike won’t hurt me.”
She turned away from him and began to pace the office in front of him. “You know what really frosts my cookies, Angel? Your almighty, ‘I am god’ attitude about all this. You think you have my best intentions at heart, but you don’t. You’re selfish. You don’t want me, you loathe me, in fact, despite your protestations, but you don’t want to see me with anyone else. You don’t want me with Spike because you don’t want me with anyone.”
Stopping in front of him again, her face flushed in the heat of her indignation.
“You told me the other day that I abandoned you. You knew it was a lie, but you said it anyway.”
There were tears glistening in her eyes, the anger and pain taking a physical, saltwater form. She got right up in his face. “The truth is, Angel, that you abandoned me. I needed you, I needed you more than anyone when I woke up, scared and alone, from that coma. When I’d lost nearly a year of my life. When I’d found out that my body was used to cause terror and destruction to my family. But you shoved me away. You left me, all alone, to pick up the pieces of my life and move on.”
“Cordelia—,” he began, but she cut him off with a swift swipe of her hand.
“Just shut up, Angel. I don’t want to hear it. I’m with Spike now whether you like it or not. I know he doesn’t love me, and I don’t love him. Not yet. But he understands me. He knows what I’m going through like no one else does. He comforts me, pleasures me, completes me in a way that I desperately need right now.”
Her tears spilled over, making angry, wet trails down her cheeks. She welcomed the sting, using them as a reminder of why she was here. why she was pushing him away.
Her voice dropped to a pained whisper. “So don’t come up in here and tell me what’s good for me or what’s not good for me. You gave up that right when you practically slammed your door in my face.”
He opened his mouth as if to speak again, but then thought better of it.
She turned her back on him, wiping at her tears. “Get out, Angel. Get out, and don’t come back. I don’t want you here. Spike doesn’t want you here. Go back to Buffy, try to find your happiness. I want you out of my life, once and for all.”
There was silence behind her, so she turned back around, only to see him staring at her with an undecided look on his face. It was as if he didn’t believe her, didn’t think she really wanted him gone.
He was wrong.
“Get THE HELL OUT OF MY HOTEL, Angel!” she screamed, pointing a finger at the door. “LEAVE!”
At her screech, his face darkened and his eyes flashed gold for just a brief moment. He turned away, striding purposefully toward the door. Without a backward glance at her or Spike, he melted into the shadows of the night.
The silence in the lobby was thick, the tears now coursing freely down Cordy’s face. She’d trailed out of Wes’s office back into the lobby, staring unseeingly at the door that Angel had just exited. Spike walked up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and settling his chin on her head. She turned in his arms, burying her face in his chest, and sobbed. She cried for the loss of her best friend, the loss of her memory, the loss of her family, the loss of the only man she’d ever loved enough to die for. He was gone, and she felt like there was a huge, jagged hole where her heart should be.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
***
The satisfying whoosh of a vamp turning into dust had not been nearly as therapeutic as Angel would have liked. Right after leaving the hotel, he’d sought some physical violence, hoping it would stem the flood of anger that coursed through him. He was livid, infuriated, and underneath it all, desperate. He’d lost the only person who’d stuck by him through everything, despite his good intentions. He’d lost her to the one person he hated more than anyone else.
The anger was consuming him. He needed a distraction. He needed something to help him get his priorities back in line. He needed something that would let him vent his passion and distract him from his anger and pain.
He needed Buffy.
A smile curved his lips as he thought about his girlfriend. She was so beautiful. Always had been. He thought about what it would be like to make love to her, the right way this time, taking all night to relearn her body, to give her the pleasure she’d been denied the first time they’d been together. He quickened his pace in anticipation. That’s what he needed tonight. He needed Buffy’s comfort. He needed her reassurance, her love, to help dispel this feeling of gloom he had after his argument with Cordelia. Making love to Buffy would put everything in perspective again.
He reached his apartment within minutes, flinging open the door and striding in purposefully. He caught Buffy on her way from the bedroom to the kitchen, an empty water glass in her hand. Without so much as a hello, Angel grabbed her, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close against him.
His mouth descended on hers with barely a warning, crushing his lips to hers in a bruising, passionate kiss. He wasn’t gentle, wasn’t considerate, wasn’t kind. The kiss was meant to wipe away everything but the hunger for her, the passion of it meant to be all consuming. Again and again, his mouth slanted over hers, his tongue plunging deep within her mouth and exploring every crevasse, every dark corner. She tasted of strawberries and mint, the warm bouquet of her flavor savored on his tongue.
A few moments after he’d attacked her with his mouth, he felt her pushing against his chest. He ignored her. She shoved harder, and when he still didn’t respond, she slammed her fists against his chest, shoving him halfway across the room.
Gasping and panting for breath, Buffy turned a flushed face to him. “Geez, Angel? Trying to suffocate me?” she said, making a joke out of it.
He closed the distance she’d put between them, wrapping his arm around her more gently this time. He kissed her again, this time softly and sensually, a reverent taste of her lips.
“No,” he said in answer to her question. “But I want you, Buffy. I need you.”
She searched his eyes, her intuition shouting that he wasn’t telling the whole story. Seeing the secrets hidden in his eyes, she suddenly felt cheap, as if he wasn’t making love with her because he loved her, but because he needed to escape from something else.
She wasn’t about to be his therapy.
Gently pushing him away from her, she smiled softly at him. “Angel, I’m not ready for that yet. I feel like I just got here, like we still have a lot of catching up to do. We’re different people than we were five years ago. I’ve grown and changed a lot since then, and I want you to know the new me, love the new me, before we get physical again.”
He frowned at her, not liking the direction of this conversation. He’d hoped to be in the throes of an orgasm by now, but apparently the fates had other ideas. Figures.
“Please, Angel?” she said, biting her lower lip and looking up at him coyly. “I promise, I’ll make it worth the wait.”
He gave a small smile at that, pulling her into his arms again and giving her a kiss that should have melted her to her toes. “Okay,” he agreed, pulling back. “But I’m going to hold you to that promise.”
“Thanks,” she said, slipping out of his embrace and walking back to her bedroom. As soon as her face was turned away, the soft expression fell, leaving in its place a look of pure guilt.
Tonight, while she’d been on patrol, Buffy had come across a vamp that had reminded her so much of Spike that her heart nearly stopped. The blonde fledgling had been a perfect model of Spike’s cockiness, his fighting dirty and erratic like Spike’s had always been. Not being the master that Spike was, he’d met a dusty end at the point of her stake, but the memories his presence had dredged up had ruined any chance of a romantic entanglement with Angel tonight.
She hadn’t told Angel the truth. She couldn’t sleep with him. Not yet. Not when his kisses did nothing more than incite a lukewarm lust. She wanted to burn for him, but she didn’t. She wanted to dream about him, but she didn’t. Until she could find a way to love him passionately again, she wouldn’t sleep with him.
At least, not until she saw Spike one last time. And if he still didn’t want her, maybe she’d see if she could dredge up a bonfire from the ashes of her first love.
Back in the living room, Angel watched Buffy disappear into the hallway with a feeling suspiciously like relief in his mind. He refused to acknowledge it. So she didn’t want to sleep with him. Fine. There were plenty of other opportunities later.
Going over to the cabinet, he poured himself a glass of whiskey and sat before the fire, staring into the flames. Without trying, his thoughts went back to this evening’s disastrous events.
Cordelia was just upset, he decided. In a few days, when she’d calmed down, he’d go and talk to her, smooth things over. She wouldn’t stay mad at him forever, would she?
***
Spike rocked Cordelia gently in his arms, her sobs having subsided to mere hiccups. He gently rubbed circles on her back, her tears drying on his chest as he comforted her.
“How you doing, luv?” he asked softly, running his hand through her hair.
She pulled her head back and looked up at him, her smile wobbly. “I’m okay now, I think. He just makes me so angry.”
“I know he does, Cordy. And you have every right to want to hack his balls off.”
She choked in her laughter at his vivid word picture. “That would be kinda satisfying. Messy, but satisfying.”
He chuckled. “I think I’d pay to see that, too.”
“You and the rest of the vampire population of L.A.” she added.
Sighing, she snuggled further into his arms. “I still love him,” she admitted. “Even after all that, I can’t let go. I’m afraid I’ll never be able to, Spike. What if I can’t ever let him go?”
Her eyes searched his, the tears welling up again.
“You will, Cordelia. It will work out somehow.”
“He just makes me so angry. Why does he have to be such a heartless jerk?” she groused.
“Well, he did see you do a whole helluva lot of evil things, even if it wasn’t really you, pet.”
“I know.”
“It had to be hard on him. Didn’t you say you thought he loved you at one time?”
“Yeah,” she said, her voice breaking. “We never said it, but I know he did. It was there in everything he did, every word, every touch. But I didn’t realize it until I saw him now, saw how cold he was to me.”
Spike thought about that for a moment. “He was protecting himself by giving up on you. Sorry ass excuse, I know, but I do the same thing.” His statement echoing back in his head brought a low growl of frustration to Spike’s chest. The last thing he wanted to do was defend his sorry ass grandsire, but it looked like he was doing just that.
“Well he’s still a goober.”
Spike laughed. “That’s quite the insult, luv.”
“I ran out of good ones.” She smiled up at him, his blue eyes twinkling and sympathetic all at the same time.
He’s such a good friend, she thought to herself. And God, so yummy.
She’s such a strong woman, he thought to himself. And gorgeous.
Reaching a hand up to stroke his cheek, Cordelia blasted him with one of her mega-watt smiles.
“Thanks for being here for me, Blondie Bear,” she said, taking the pitiful nickname and making it special.
He didn’t respond, cupping her cheek as she was doing with his. Suddenly, the atmosphere changed between them, crackling with a new electricity that hadn’t been there before. Their smiles fell, and his eyes darkened slightly. Her breathing increased, her heart speeding up. It was as if they’d just discovered each other, this playacting at being together taking on a semblance of reality.
And in their pain, in their desperate need for comfort, the reached for each other. Grasping in the dark corners of their sadness, the found reassurance in each other’s eyes.
As if drawn together by magnetic force, Spike’s mouth lowered and briefly touched Cordelia’s. They both froze, Cordelia holding her breath, as they felt the spark of that touch. After a mere moment’s hesitation, Spike repeated the contact, deepening the kiss. In moments, it grew heavier, thicker, the lust in the air becoming nearly tangible. Their mouths moved in fury against each other, their tongues seeking contact as if it were necessary to their very survival.
Giving her room to breathe, Spike pulled his mouth away from hers and trailed cool kisses down the smooth column of her throat, lingering on the tantalizing beat of her pulse. He licked her there, nipping at the skin and making her moan. His hands came up, toying with the hem of her shirt, inching it slowly upwards towards her breasts. His mouth journeyed up again, finding hers and searing her with a cool fire that threatened to swallow her whole. His fingers stroked her flat tummy, dancing a path up to her breast.
But the moment his finger glanced over her nipple, Cordelia jerked her mouth away from his and backed up. Breathing heavily, she stared at him, her eyes wild.
“Spike, what the hell are we doing?”
