Part 8
Sleep sat seductively behind Lorne’s eyelids, calling to him like a siren, the urge to let his body give into sweet slumber was almost too much for the prescient demon to resist.
Yet he did.
He steadfastly stayed awake, his red orbs fixed resolutely to the front door of the Hyperion as he absentmindedly wrapped an elegant finger around a thick strand of Fred’s hair. The young woman’s breathing was soft and even, the light hum of her existence filled the lobby and made the oppressive silence of such a large building bearable. For her part Fred simply slept, her head resting in Lorne’s lap, exhausted from an evening of worrying about her friends.
Lorne had been enjoying his fourth sea breeze of the night, soon to be fifth, when his telephone had pulled him from the comfort of his favourite chair, the harried twang of his dear Texan friend reverberated in his ear as Fred rambled almost incoherently, distress causing her words to run and crash into each other more than usual. Lorne told her to calm down and made his way across town to the hotel as quickly as he could. He’d arrived to find the brunette pacing back and forth across the quiet lobby, wringing her hands and chewing her bottom lip like a woman possessed.
“Why haven’t they called?!” Fred demanded as he’d made his way cautiously towards her. The ‘they’, Lorne somehow deduced from her agitated babbling, were Angel Cordelia Wesley and Gunn. The ‘why’ Lorne had no idea. All Lorne knew was what Fred told him, the four had set out to a club earlier that evening in hope of catching the stalker they were currently investigating. But that had been hours ago and Fred hadn’t heard from them since, the physicist had called Angel’s cell phone, Cordelia’s apartment, Gunn’s apartment, Wesley’s cell phone and apartment, each time with no answer.
To say that Fred was worried would have been an understatement, it had taken Lorne a long time to calm the young woman until she finally fell asleep.
That was two hours ago.
The sun would be shining it’s presence over the horizon soon, Lorne would be worried too if he weren’t so damn tired.
The young woman mumbled quietly, her body twitching as she battled whatever was troubling her in dream. Lorne wondered what creature she was running from in her sleep, was it one of his family, someone he’d grown up with that made her hands ball into tight fists and her face wince with remembered pain? Lorne hushed her softly, humming a nonsense tune as he stroked her hair behind her ear, feeling guilty that it was his people that had caused the deep seated terror in Fred soul. As Lorne felt her relax under his touch he found himself marvelling at what a curious creature Winifred Burkle is.
So often pushed to the sidelines without a thought or glance, left behind while cases were solved and relationships were kept hidden. Yet she didn’t complain, didn’t stamp her feet and demand attention, Fred was a quiet bundle of enthusiastic energy and too many thoughts that always brightened his day the way a perfect jazz riff did.
Sighing softly, Fred rubbed her cheek against Lorne’s thigh like a cat marking its territory. The demon smiled and rested his hand on the gentle curve of her hip, tracing invisible circles over of the soft material of her pale yellow pyjama pants as he tilted his head back against the top of the sofa, letting his eyes close for a few blissful moments. His back ached, his legs were numb from being crossed at the ankle on the edge of the small coffee table and his hand desperately needed a drink to occupy it but there was no way he was waking Fred up to move. He liked her where she was, his little bundle of enthusiastic energy and too many thoughts asleep against him, bestowing him with a trust that squeezed joy around his heart even though it was situated firmly in his ass.
That didn’t seem to matter to Fred though, as far as Lorne could tell. She didn’t care that his skin was green, his eyes red, his suits loud and unapologetic. He’d thought that the young woman would shy away from him, not just because of his appearance, but because of where he came from, who he was by birth. Lorne knew she still had nightmares of Pylea, hell, so did he, but Fred’s were so much worse than his, he’d seen her fight her way back to consciousness many a time, the cold fingers of a night terror clutching sharply at her ankles until she woke gasping, a silent scream caught painfully in her throat.
Lorne knew the horrors she fought at night but he wondered if their friends did. Did they take a moment out of their day to think about the strange girl that hid behind glasses she only needed for reading but wore like a security blanket? Did they ever stop for a second to think about something that wasn’t their own tangled lives, to care about the precious woman with a heart so beautiful and fragile that it scared Lorne that he held a place in it?
“I don’t want the pineapple,” Fred muttered in her sleep and Lorne realised she was probably dreaming of food and not the horrors of her past. With a quiet chuckle the prescient demon resumed tracing gossamer circles over her hip, skirting the tips of his fingers over the slip of pale skin where her vest ended and her pyjama bottoms began. Fred stilled once again, nestling herself closer to Lorne, searching for the comfort and warmth her friend gave.
Lorne and Fred were a strange duo, a demon with every colour in the rainbow dancing in his flamboyant soul and a quiet young girl that knew more about numbers and equations than life.
They were the best friends either of them had ever had.
The private moment was brought to a crashing halt as the front door, which Lorne had stopped staring at because everyone knows a watched door never boils, swung open with none of the vampire’s usual stealth.
The sound startled Fred from her slumber, she sat up sharply nearly cracking the back of her head against Lorne’s chin and blinding him with her hair as she went.
“Where have you been?” Fred asked as she rubbed a hand over her face. “Where are the others? Is anyone hurt?”
“Everyone’s fine,” grunted Angel as he stalked past them, barely registering their existence as he strode up the lobby stairs two at a time.
“What-”
“Fred.” Lorne stopped her with a restraining hand.
Angel was screaming, at least that was what it felt like to Lorne. Six foot two inches of pure anger, annoyance and confusion. Clenched fists, hunched shoulders, Lorne knew danger when he saw it. The only thing that stopped him from running to the weapons cabinet was the raw ache that spiralled from the core of the vampire’s aura. A sadness mixing and blurring with the flashes of colour that surrounded him. It wasn’t the dreadful beige that had blanketed Angel’s being during those dark days when Lorne feared he’d never find his way home again, no, this was different.
This was about a girl.
But not a blonde.
“But-” Fred blinked with confusion.
“Not now pumpkin,” he squeezed her shoulder as he watched as Angel disappear out of view. “It’s best not to prod an already angry bear.”
“What bear?” she frowned, still not completely lucid.
“Just trust me.” Lorne wrapped an arm around her shoulder and steered her towards the stairs. “You should scootch on up to bed and get some proper sleep sweetie, I don’t imagine my lap makes the most comfortable pillow.”
“I liked it,” Fred said from behind a wide yawn that made Lorne smile tenderly even as every nerve in his body felt raw from the tense aura that had radiated from the vampire in the few short seconds he was in their presence. “I wonder what happened tonight,” she said, her sleepy stare fixed to the dark corridor Angel had retreated to.
***
Angel could still smell Cordelia on his skin, her scent was imprinted into his every pore and tattooed along every line of his fingerprints. Her taste still lingered on his lips.
He wanted to stay.
Angel wanted to stay in the warm bed that smelt of sex and possibilities, watch Cordelia sleep and run his hand over the swell of her hip, a landscape of pure woman laid beside him. He wanted taste the salty sheen of sweat on her neck, fist his hands in her hair and make her call his name into the small apartment.
Angel wanted and it was for that reason the vampire had spent most of the night driving aimlessly around LA. With his hands on the steering wheel and the lights of down town blurring by, Angel replayed every murmur his best friend made as he moved within her. Her breathing, quiet pants of air that barely left her lips, the flush of pink that painted itself across her flesh, her flesh, so soft, so feminine, he wanted to sink his teeth into the supple slope of her breast, taste the coppery elixir of her life, roll it over his tongue until there were no difference left between them, until the vampire couldn’t tell where he ended and Cordelia began.
Groaning, Angel rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes as his demon’s whispered longings of blood and desire continued to torment his body and shame his soul. The demon didn’t care that Cordelia Chase was his best friend, it just wanted to claim and mark, bury itself inside her warmth and write it’s ownership across every millimetre of her skin.
It’s just the demon, he tried to convince himself.
Just the demon that wants to howl it’s ownership, just the demon that wants her cries of pleasure, just the demon that needs to make Cordelia arch her back as his tongue learnt her past present and future.
Just the demon….
Of course, Angel knew deep down that he was the demon. He knew it just as he knew the sun would rise in less than hour, imprisoning him from doing the thousand small things humans took for granted.
He was his demon, they were the same, Angel and Angelus, same memories, same cravings for blood and chaos. The vampire separated himself and the animal inside because it was easier to get through the day that way. That way he could look his friends in the eye and not see fear.
Angel cracked the bones in his neck and cast a glance around his empty bedroom. A dark, empty space that felt as though it were filled with the souls of every innocent he had slain, their cries echoed in his ears at night, their terrified pleas so sweet to hear, he’d hungered for them almost as much as he had their blood.
Blood.
So hot, so alive, a stain of red against virginal skin, a landscape of strawberries and cream, just as sweet, just as wicked.
Angel inhaled a slow breath that he didn’t need into his lungs, a futile attempt to calm the battle that forever raged inside of him. It was stronger now because of the want, because of the soft yielding warmth of a woman’s body so recent in his memory. He stripped off his clothes because Cordelia’s perfume sat enticingly on them and it did nothing to abate the need that drummed through his silent veins. Her perfume, a light mist of green apples and sunlight with something deeper, something beneath the surface of her lotions and soap.
Woman.
So vital, so alive, sun kissed skin and warm succulent flesh, elemental creatures who dance to the rhythm of the moon. Sweet fertile blood flowing like champagne between their thighs and on to his tongue, the Scourge of Europe had feasted on the innocence of thousands and the memory alone made Angel hard, made his skin itch with dark hunger and fierce desire.
No, Angel battled against the need, not woman. Cordelia. His best friend. The rich girl from Sunnydale who fell down on her luck and ingratiated herself into every damn aspect of his life. The girl that forces him eat waffles with too much syrup even though he doesn’t need to eat and the sugar makes his teeth ache.
Just Cordelia.
The girl that makes him laugh and smile, the girl that by simply walking into the room brightened the shadows that blurred every corner of his existence.
Cordy.
Cordy with her long unmarked neck, lush thighs, full breasts and softly curved stomach that held inside it the secrets of the universe….
A low groan rumbled through the vampire’s chest as he sat down heavily on the corner of his bed, with his face buried in his hands Angel gave up trying to fight the want that coursed through his body. Closing his eyes he let his back fall bonelessly to the mattress, the tell tale burn of his true face rippled beneath the surface of his skin, muscles tense and body hard even though his earlier desire had been sated.
Sated but not extinguished. Not in the way his demon wanted, not in the way he wanted.
The demon had had a taste and now it wanted more.
It wanted everything.
***
Dawn crept its morning light slowly over the horizon, blanketing a faceless city with a golden hue that forced its night time evils to retreat back to the cold corners in which it dwelled in while every day life hummed and buzzed. The shadows were still there in the back alleys and dirty sewers, they were just harder to find while the brittle Californian sun bounced off the sidewalks. There was little difference between night and day in LA, not for the members of Angel’s investigations anyway, they worked and lived by their own clocks.
You had to when you worked fought side by side with a vampire.
So the difference between night and day meant very little to Wesley, whatever structure and order his father had beaten into him in his youth, while not forgotten and lord how the Englishman wished he could forget, had been pushed aside in favour of long nights spent fighting along side a vampire and days filled with the constant unexpected.
There were still books filled with the end of the world, musty tomes bursting with all the horrors of man and demon kind, but the ex watcher no longer simply watched as the council had taught him, as father had expected of him, no, now Wesley Wyndam Pryce was on the front line of the fight, every day, every night, with a purpose, a cause.
Yet it still wasn’t enough for his father.
Wesley wasn’t a child anymore, his father couldn’t throw him against the living room wall, he couldn’t crush him beneath a perfectly polished shoe, he wasn’t that frightened boy that had hid in the woods too scared to go home when he’d accidentally spilt orange juice on a scroll that was older than time. That voice, so full of bitterness and resentment, a tongue as sharp and quick as a serpent, biting words that stung worse than any belt buckle could.
Even though his youth was far behind Wesley his father’s voice still remained. A grating whisper in the corner of his brain, what are you doing boy, who do you think you are, you think you’re important, you’re not, you’re nothing, idiot, fool, a nancy child too scared to let go of your mother’s apron strings, sit up straight boy, do you want a beating, you’re disgusting-
“Hey, where’d you go?” Gunn brought him back to himself and away from a remembered voice that still haunted him.
“I’m here,” Wesley smiled reassuringly, his past present and possible future mixing and blurring in the dappled morning light.
“Didn’t feel like you were,” the black man fingered the messy locks of hair that stood at odd angles over Wesley’s head, chestnut strands that felt so good between his fingers.
“I was just thinking,” Wesley said by way of explanation.
“Always thinkin’,” the black man murmured pressing the tips of his fingers to Wesley’s forehead, his eyes brimming with an adoration that Wesley knew he didn’t deserve, a love that he wasn’t sure he could accept. “Wanna talk about it?”
“Not really,” the Englishman declined even though he knew it was that kind of response that kept such a gapping chasm between them even as they lay tangled in bed.
“It might-”
“It won’t.” The urge to close his eyes to shut out Gunn’s concerned gaze twisted thickly in Wesley’s gut.
“Fine,” sighed Gunn with a painful amount of dejection lacing his tone. “I should probably get going.”
“Stay,” Wesley grasped his arm before Gunn could roll away from him.
“Why?” Gunn asked, a simple question loaded with so much expectation.
“Because I want you to,” the ex watcher tightened his hold on the other man’s arm. A silent moment passed where Wesley could see the battle being waged in Gunn’s eyes, whether to stay or leave like he so often did of late. Gunn opened his mouth to say it wasn’t enough but the words were caught by Wesley’s lips before he could even form their cadence. Wesley stole away his arguments with the sweep of his tongue, silencing both their thoughts and re-igniting the fizz of desire that had kept them up through the night. Gunn’s resolve began to splinter around the edges, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t keep doing this, that he’d walk away from Wesley’s haunted blue eyes and distant heart. But he always came back, always fell back into this bed even though it broke the black man’s heart every time.
When Wesley kissed him nothing seemed to matter, when hands that where meant to hold books, not swords, circled around his neck to pull him closer Gunn needed nothing more than this, when thumbs that were so often smudged with ancient inks drew delicious patterns across his jaw, Gunn never wanted anything to change.
It was when the sun came up and real life flooded back into the Englishman’s bedroom that unspoken words and difficult decisions made their presence know.
“What about what I want?” Gunn asked as he reluctantly pulled away, his voice was a throaty whisper that licked warm breath across Wesley’s lips.
“Don’t you want this?” Wesley grazed his thumb over Gunn’s stubble rough jaw, his teeth nipping teasingly at the flesh of his bottom lip.
“You know I do,” his words left the black man’s chest in rumble of want as he rolled Wesley on to his back beneath him, his larger body pining the ex watcher to the mattress and god, it just felt so right to have their chests pressing together, skin against skin and who cared what other people thought, what their friends might say. Gunn didn’t care, had stopped caring or fearing societies reactions that first morning when Wesley had kissed him and everything had finally started to make sense.
“It’s you that isn’t sure,” Gunn leant his forehead against Wesley’s, his eyes slipping shut as lithe fingers massaged trails of fire over the now liquid muscles in his back.
“I want this,” Wesley said honestly, that much he was sure even though he knew it wasn’t enough for Gunn. “I want you, Charles,” he spoke his lover’s name and it meant more than any uncertain declarations of love could to the other man’s ears, it settled warmly over Gunn’s heart like soothing balm, not filling all the cracks but easing the ever present ache that hummed inside.
Gunn kissed Wesley so the words that were threatening to spill from his mouth wouldn’t break free, this was enough, it had to be. The low moan that sounded in the back of the Englishman’s throat as his tongue sought Wesley’s every secret thrummed along the millimetres of Gunn’s skin, raising goose bumps across his arms and pooling hard desire in his groin. To Gunn, Wesley tasted of sweet tea and British reserve, he’d wanted to drown in that feeling that first time, wrap it around himself until the world that had brought him to his knees too many times could no longer touch him.
Breaking the kiss, Wesley trailed a wet path across Gunn’s jaw and down his neck, his hands stroking equal amounts comfort and desire down his sides until they settled in the two small dimples of flesh at the small of his back, pressing down until nothing separated them but the beating of their hearts.
“Damn, Wes,” Gunn groaned into his neck, his hips grinding against Wesley’s in a rhythmic dance that drummed urgently through their veins. Even if nothing else did, this made sense to Wesley, to feel Gunn’s sweat slick skin moving against his own, to learn the hypnotic play of muscles beneath his fingertips, those were things Wesley could put a name to and understand.
Gunn wanted to hold this moment in his hands, the warm sun streaming through the window on to his back, Wesley’s panting breath in his ear, the scent of old books, clean soap and sex perfuming the air. It made Gunn feel dizzy and foolish, very much not the hardened street fighter that everyone believed him to be.
A hiss whistled from his lips as Wesley’s knowing hand slipped between them, grasping their cocks together in his fist, they both bucked sharply at the contact, so simple and intimate, bodies too tired from a night spent putting the karma sutra to shame for anything more than this deliciously slow grind. They felt equal this way, face to face, eyelids fluttering open and shut as the world belonged to them alone.
Usually the bedroom was filled with guttural shout and cries, a cacophony of pleasure filled curses that rattled the walls and made the neighbours tut and shift uncomfortably in their seats. But as LA woke up around them, while showers were taken and coffee was consumed in unhealthy amounts, the only sounds in the Englishman’s small apartment were murmured groans that hung heavily on the air and shuddering breaths that coated their skin in a fine mist of want.
“Oh, God….” Wesley groaned, the English reserve his friends so often teased him about didn’t exist here as his legs locked around Gunn’s and his free hand gripping bruisingly around the black man’s biceps, hot sparks of pleasure dancing like an electric storm between their bodies.
Time turned itself inside out as sharp coils of desire pooled thickly at the base of Gunn’s spine, he sucked roughly on Wesley’s bottom lip as their cocks jerked together, the Englishman’s blue eyes glazed and unseeing as he worked his hand over them both, sharp movements that pushed them both closer and closer to the edge. Everything Gunn felt shone brightly through his brown eyes, eyes that were so often bristling with rage or blank with sadness, now felt like deep endless pools of adoration to Wesley, it made him want to look away but it was too late, the burn in his groin tugged sharply through his cock and there was nothing but the rush of pleasure, his back straining towards that impossible nirvana and finally the white hot nothing where his father’s approval didn’t exist, societies expectations didn’t mean a thing because nothing ever felt this right, this good, so full of everything that he couldn’t bring himself to say he wanted.
When the world slowly slipped back into the almost silent bedroom Wesley’s arms were wrapped tightly around Gunn’s body, the sticky evidence of their orgasms sandwiched wetly between their bellies. He felt Gunn shift in his embrace and loosened his hold, smiling blissfully as they kissed with lazy abandon.
“I love you,” Gunn whispered into Wesley lips before he could stop himself.
Silence.
Complete and debilitating, it drowned out everything, the cars that passed by outside, the creaking of the hot water pipes, the chatter of the neighbours early morning tv. The bedroom turned into a black hole, sucking in every noise until nothing was left but the three words Gunn had promised himself he wouldn’t say again and the three words Wesley didn’t know whether he could say.
“Lets pretend I didn’t just say that,” Gunn grunted, untangling himself from Wesley and flopping his back heavily onto the mattress.
They stared at the ceiling, their chests rising and falling as three words that had the capacity to shatter everything they had stood in the room like an unwelcome guest.
“This is why I should have left,” muttered Gunn.
They both thanked God when the sound of a cell phone ringing broke through the deafening silence.
“S’mine,” Gunn lurched off the bed and dove for his pants, answering the call and wrestling with his jeans at the same time. “Yeah? Hey girl…calm down…he’s fine…didn’t Angel…damn child, you kiss your mama with that mouth?”
Wesley rubbed his hands over his face as he half listened to the one sided conversation, he still hadn’t shaved and the bristles on his jaw scratched against his palms. He dragged himself to sit up, his body tired and too relaxed even as his brain flipped over Gunn’s words until they lost all meaning.
“That was Fred, she’s pissed no one called in last night,” Gunn said casually as he slipped the small cell phone, compliments of Angel investigations, into his back pocket. His tone was deceptively even, as though he hadn’t just worn his heart on his sleeve only to be greeted with nothing.
“Oh dear,” Wesley frowned, he reached for his glasses from the bedside table and slipped them on.
“Yeah,” nodded Gunn as he sat down on the corner of the bed and pulled on his boots, his back to the ex watcher so that he didn’t have to look at him, so he could try to regain some of the dignity he had just lost.
“Are you leaving?” Wesley asked even though he already knew the answer.
“I’ve got stuff to do,” Gunn told him over his shoulder as he stood up and walked out of the bedroom.
“Gunn, wait,” the Englishman jogged after him, his feet getting tangled in the legs of his sweat pants as he hurried. Wesley found him in the kitchen pulling on his T-shirt. “Don’t leave like this, stay-”
“Why?” Gunn cut him off with the same simple question he’d asked Wesley in bed.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“Gunn-”
“Just leave it Wes,” Gunn said as he snatched his keys from the counter top, without saying another word, without even looking at the other man, he walked to the front door and let it slam behind him, leaving the Englishman alone with thoughts he’d been trying to ignore for too long.
“Shit,” Wesley grunted and tugged a hand through his hair.
He should go after Gunn, he knew that, he should drag him back into the apartment, kiss him and say I love you too. Pull them back into bed and not listen to all the doubts that whispered in the corner of his brain, whispers full of his father’s disapproving voice.
Wesley wasn’t a child anymore, but his father’s voice remained. He dropped down heavily onto his sofa and let his fears chase away the man that loved him.
***
Cordelia tapped the end of her pen against her teeth and turned the glossy page of the magazine she was reading. She sighed longingly at the sight of this season’s Manolos and cursed her father’s poor fiscal skills for the millionth time since that horrible day when the IRS knocked at their door.
Helping the helpless and saving the world was all well and good but nothing compared to the feeling that came with a shiny new pair of shoes.
“I miss pretty shoes.”
“Stop torturing yourself,” Fred looked up from behind her latest invention.
“Ha! You just spoke to me!” Cordelia quirked a satisfied eyebrow at the physicist.
“No I didn’t,” the Texan grumbled and ducked back behind the mountain of oddly shaped metal and wire. Cordelia rolled her eyes and closed her copy of Vogue, she slid off her stool and walked around the counter to where Fred was seated on the middle of the lobby floor.
“How long are you planning on being mad at everyone?” Cordelia squatted down next to Fred at a safe distance away from the deadly looking spear that jutted out of the back, or possibly front, of the waffle iron come torture device.
“I’m not mad at everyone,” Fred said as she attacked a tangle of wires with a pair of needle nose pliers.
“Fine, how long are you planning on being mad with everyone but Lorne?”
“Two, maybe three days,” she shrugged.
“So you’ve given it some thought?” Cordelia settled into a more comfortable position on the floor, she had a feeling this was going to take a while.
“Well yeah, I had plenty of time to think when I stayed up all night worrying that y’all were dead in a ditch somewhere,” Fred scowled, looking very much like a constipated kitten. Cordelia bit the inside of her cheek to stop the laugh that threatened to bubble out of her mouth. This was serious, Fred was angry, laughing at the way the physicists face squished up when she was mad wasn’t going to help the situation and it certainly wasn’t going to put a stop to Fred giving her the stink eye for the rest of the day.
“I’m sorry honey, everything was just so crazy with the stalker stalking and the vision,” and the sex Cordelia added silently, “I guess we all just kinda forgot.”
“All four of you, just forgot?”
“I guess,” Cordelia shrugged a shoulder and avoided making direct eye contact.
“Look, I know there’s stuff going on here that I don’t know about and that’s fine, I’ve got stuff going on that y’all don’t know about-”
“You do?”
“Well…yeah, but that’s not the point-”
“What stuff?” Cordelia seized upon the subject.
“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” Fred arched her eyebrow and Cordelia regretted teaching the other girl that move.
“I don’t have stuff,” Cordelia shifted uncomfortably under the Texan’s inquisitive gaze.
“Uh huh,” Fred narrowed her eyes and attempted the glare that her Mama had used on her when she was keeping secrets.
“I don’t!”
“OK, then why did Angel come home just before sunrise looking like he was fixin’ to unleash all kindsa hell?”
“He did?” Cordelia snapped her eyes to Fred’s, kicking herself when she saw the smug grin on her face.
“Yep, looked real pissed off, d’ya know why?”
“No,” the PTB’s seer said honestly, letting her gaze drift to the dark corridor at the top of the stairs. When she’d arrived at the Hyperion for work that morning she’d paid little mind to the fact that Angel hadn’t yet surfaced from his room, more often than not the vampire didn’t join the land of the living until past noon.
He was a creature of the night after all.
Cordelia had been relieved that she wouldn’t have to see Angel for a few hours, although last night had been mostly empty of the usual awkwardness that accompanied the two of them sleeping together, she was in no rush to see her best friend.
Her best friend who’d gone down on her.
She’d recovered from the embarrassment quickly the night before, too occupied by the vision induced desire to spend too much time worrying about, well, anything, but the morning brought with it a clear head and very vivid memories of Angel’s face between her legs.
Not to mention the lingering heat of the naked Angel dreams that now haunted her every sleeping moment.
All in all it was a little too much for Cordelia to handle at once so she took the easy way out and convinced herself that Angel’s mouth, lips and tongue (oh God, his tongue) had been no where near that part of her. It had been working too until Fred stormed down the lobby stairs, a skinny tornado of questions and concern that had quickly turned into a stony silence when Cordelia informed her that all were alive and well, they were bad friends is all.
The scant remains of denial Cordelia had wrapped protectively around herself disintegrated into thin air with the news that Angel had returned to the Hotel from her apartment with a black cloud hanging over his head. Was it because of her? Had she done something wrong? Had she, she couldn’t believe she was actually thinking this, tasted…bad?
Squeezing her eyes shut to rid that particular thought from her head, Cordelia let the night before resurface from where she’d buried it in the far recesses of her brain, trying to recall anything that might have been the cause of Angel’s self imposed isolation.
Images rose up like smoke in Cordelia’s memory, desire fogged waves that made the tips of her fingers tingle with remembered caresses. She wasn’t sure if it had been Angel or the lingering vision that had made her blood thick with want to begin with, but when realisation dawned that it wasn’t vision Angel but Angel Angel that was kissing her so intimately, reality and vision had melted together and she’d flown apart with a muffled cry and it didn’t matter.
If she closed her eyes she could still feel it, the nip of his teeth and the drag of his tongue, her legs parting for the best friend she’d ever had, for the vampire that had terrorised entire continents for a hundred years.
Cordelia felt a deep red flush creeping up the back of her neck and she swallowed audibly, her eyes fixed unseeingly to the dark corridor that led to Angel’s suite.
Fred watched her with unreserved curiosity, her head tilted at an inquisitive angle and her brow creased in thought.
“Cordy?” she ventured softly, her earlier anger forgotten.
“I don’t know,” Cordelia said for no reason other than it was the first and only thing that popped into her head that didn’t involve the words Angel, tongue and orgasm. She forced her eyes to focus and dragged her gaze to meet Fred’s.
“You and Angel, you’re being, you know, careful, right?” Fred asked, not worrying about diseases or pregnancies but the simple fact that if Angel got too happy their world would be torn apart at the seems. Fred wasn’t stupid, she’d read the Sunnydale file, she knew what lurked beneath Angel’s soul filled eyes.
“There’s nothing going on between me and Angel, Fred. We’re friends, nothing more, nothing less,” Cordelia insisted even as memories, dreams and visions told her different, as her body continued to hum from the night before.
“Uh huh.”
“There’s nothing going on.”
“If you say so.”
“I think I preferred it when you weren’t speaking to me,” Cordelia muttered and stood up, the inside of her thighs pulling with that delicious after sex ache.
“Where are you going?”
“To find out what’s wrong with surly,” Cordelia told Fred over her shoulder as she made her way across the lobby towards the staircase.
***
Cordelia knocked sharply on the door to Angel’s suite, she counted to ten and when there was still no answer the brunette turned the handle and opened the door enough to poke her head through.
“Hey, can I come in?” Cordelia called out softly only to be greeted with silence, squinting into the shadowy room she could make out the vampire’s outline as he sat on the edge of the bed, his back hunched and facing her.
“Angel?” she tried again, when he still said nothing Cordelia stepped cautiously through the doorway.
“What is it Cordelia?” Angel said without turning to look at her, his voice made Cordelia’s steps falter as she walked over to where he sat, memories of a time when his words were empty of any humanity even though he still had a soul, people had died and their family torn apart with that voice, you’re all fired had echoed in her ears for days afterwards.
“Well aren’t we chirpy this morning?” Cordelia pushed down the spark of fear that blossomed in the base of her spine, there was no way she was going to let Angel drift into that cold nothing once again, especially when she had no idea what had triggered it.
“Fred said you were looking slightly beige when you got back last night,” the young woman crossed her arms over her chest and cocked an eyebrow at him, not that it did any good, Angel hadn’t looked at her once since she entered the suite.
“Wanna tell me why?” Cordelia asked when his only reply was to lean his elbows on his knees and thread his fingers together.
“…”
“Please tell me we’re not reverting back to those conversations where I talk and talk and you look at me blankly?”
Still Angel said nothing.
“Well, OK then.” she sighed with exasperation and sat down next to him on the bed, the mattress dipped slightly under her weight but the vampire didn’t appear to notice.
“Been a while since you’ve brooded in the dark,” Cordelia said thoughtfully as she realised this wasn’t lawyer killing Angel but the regular, if unusual of late, counting his sins and drowning in guilt Angel. She crossed her legs at the ankle and smoothed out the material of her skirt for something to do.
“I heard you didn’t get home til just before dawn?”
“…”
“Which is strange because I could have sworn you leave long before then.”
“I went for a drive.”
“So you can speak!” Cordelia gasped sarcastically which earned her a wry half smile from the vampire, “gonna tell me what’s wrong?” she asked softly, bumping her shoulder into his as if she could jostle the words out of him. Cordelia realised that every muscle in Angel’s body was pulled taught with tension, she hadn’t noticed it until she’d sat down beside him.
“OK, this is going to sound a little more Buffy than I like but, was it something I did?”
Angel snapped his gaze to hers so suddenly it made Cordelia startle.
“Of course not,” he told her fervently.
“If it’s because of the….” Cordelia trailed off, really not wanting to say the words oral and sex out loud.
Especially to the vampire that had been involved in said oral sex.
“Cordy, really, last night was…it has nothing to do with last night,” Angel lied.
“So you’re just sitting in the dark for the fun of it?” Cordelia narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him.
“Like you said, haven’t brooded in a while,” he shrugged.
“Buffy hasn’t died again, has she?”
Angel quirked an eyebrow at her.
“What? It’s what she does,” Cordelia said, fluttering her eyelashes innocently which caused the corners of Angel’s mouth to twitch into a ghost of a smile.
“Well, as much fun as this has been I’m not really one for sitting in the dark, come down stairs so you can take your turn at Fred shouting at you,” Cordelia stood to leave only to be stopped by a cool hand snatching at her wrist, the sudden contact made her jump with surprise.
“Wait,” Angel whispered, Cordelia felt her heart leap into her throat.
“What is it?” she asked, unsure of why she too was whispering. Angel opened his mouth as if he were going to say something but closed it without saying a word. He brushed his thumb over the warm skin of her wrist, the beat of her blood vibrated through his skeleton. “Angel, what is it?” Cordelia repeated, her voice echoed loudly through the silence, silence that pulled the walls in too close and choked the air out of the room. Fingers that had gently coaxed pleasure from her the night before now gripped firmly around her wrist, hard enough to leave a bruise.
The vampire swept his gaze from the seductive contrast of his pale skin against young woman’s sun kissed sheen and up the elegant length of her arm, Cordelia’s face prickled with heat as Angel’s eyes flicked over her breasts for a long moment before he finally met her stare.
Cordelia felt the air leave her lungs when eyes that had only ever looked at her in friendship, confusion or exasperation became clouded with something she had only seen in her visions and dreams. They were an endless ocean of obsidian, filled with promises of long hot nights perfumed with sweat and desire, of tangled legs and panting lips, in Angel’s eyes Cordelia saw herself come undone.
“Angel?” Cordelia forced herself to say even though the word felt too big and complicated in her mouth.
The soft caress of his name on her lips made Angel close his eyes, Cordelia watched him with nervous anticipation but when he opened them again the intense pools of black had reverted back to the soft brown that she knew, that she trusted, that didn’t twist sharp desire through her body.
“I’ll be down in while,” Angel let go of his hard grip on Cordelia’s wrist but she caught his hand in hers before he could pull away.
“You sure you’re OK?” Cordelia asked him with concern even as her stomach continued to churn.
“Yeah,” he nodded, squeezing her hand affectionately before he let her slip out of his grasp.
When the click of the door closing signalled Cordelia’s departure from the room, Angel closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath into his dead lungs.
In her absence Cordelia’s scent lingered on.
Green apples, soap and woman.
The demon rattled roughly at the shackles of his soul.