Chapter 5
“Aaaaaahhhhhh!!” Lorne grabbed his butt cheek with one hand and his forehead with the other.
“Give a demon a heart attack and a stroke will ya. What’s with the Lord of the Rings battle gear?” Lorne barked, still trembling from the fright.
“Sorry, Lorne. We thought you might be Angelus.” Fred lowered her crossbow and axe and sat down on the pouf. It was almost four in the morning, and she was exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.
“I know I’m as handsome as the stud muffin, but do I look like a homicidal killing machine? And, can I say, way to see the love light you two.” He finally descended the steps toward the wary couple.
Gunn flashed a sheepish grin at Fred that turned into a yawn. And, as yawns tend to do, it elicited a chain reaction of yawns from Fred and Lorne.
“Man, I don’t think I can be all guard dog Gunn for much longer. Do you think he’s even coming back here tonight? I wouldn’t if it was me,” he said while winking at the pixie next to him. Despite his fatigue, he couldn’t keep the heat from coursing through him at the sight of Fred’s eyes widening and her knowing grin spread across her blushing cheeks.
“Hold that thought. On second thought, let go of that thought and give me the 411 on the serious heebie-jeebie vibes you two are screaming at me in between the ‘why don’t we get drunk and screw’ ones?”
“We are? I mean not the heebie-jeebie ones, ’cause I know all about those, but the other ones? Both of us?” She looked at Lorne and then at Gunn who was doing some serious polishing of his hubcap baby and refusing to acknowledge the conversation.
“Sweet cheeks, if you two get any more vibey in that arena, I can cancel my subscription to the Spice channel. Which is fine by me, because apparently the porn industry isn’t the steppingstone to stardom that it used to be. Talk about dragging the bottom of the barrel…blech…but I digress. What’s this about Angelus? Spill it, kitten.” Sitting next to her, he patted her hand with just the right amount of care to calm her.
“Well, ya see, Angel and Cordy…they’ve been…seeing a lot of each other lately. And I mean A LOT of each other, if you know what I mean.” She gave a sideways glance to Gunn for some help.
“What she means is they’ve been mashing the fat…knocking it out…doing the do.” Lorne still looked lost. “Ah, hell…they’ve been fucking like rabid bunnies, okay?” He shot an ‘I’m sorry for the crude remark’ frown at Fred who just chuckled at his embarrassment.
“Oh! Well, it’s about time. I thought those two would never get a clue. Talk about the Spice channel and Playboy and every porn movie ever made. So, how did I miss this? What planet have I been on lately?”
“I’m not sure, but I think it’s only been going on for a few days. At least that’s why I don’t think Angelus has come out yet. I figure it’s only because maybe Angel’s not really in love with her yet. But, after what we saw tonight, I’m thinkin’ there’s a good chance the next vampire to walk through that door isn’t gonna be very soulful. That’s why we’re on guard duty. Just in case. Of course, if he is and Cordy’s dead, I’m not so sure I want to stop him from killing me, too. It’ll be all my fault if…” She started to tear up and sniffled to hold it back.
“Ah, don’t be silly, pumpkin. If Angelus isn’t here already, he’s not coming back. He’s been in love with Cordy for months now, maybe longer. I think that little retreat he took after Buffy died did more than help him get over his past love. He just didn’t want to admit it because he felt he would be betraying her. But, now that the apparently immortal Buffster is back, there’s nothing standing in their way.”
“Nothing but the curse. How can he be in love with Cordy and not lose his soul? Does he not love her as much as he did that B girl?” Anger started to boil in her gut at the thought that Angel could love anyone more than Cordy. Her hero couldn’t be that blind.
“Okay, I’m going to tell you a secret because I think you’re about to implode with worry about this, and I don’t want Fred guts all over my shiny Rat Pack sharkskin ensemble. He loves her more than the B girl, but it doesn’t matter. He can’t lose his soul with her because she holds it in her heart. As long as he’s with a true love like Cordy, his soul will be safe.”
Gunn suddenly felt a twinge of the protective brother in him. “What do you mean ‘a true love like Cordy’? Does he have more than one, because I’ll stake his undead hide if he cheats on Barbie and hurts her in any way?”
“Jump back, Peach fuzz, he’s not cheating on Cordy. I meant that he’s going to live a very long time, and he’s bound to love more than one person along the way. But, guess what. Those women will all be Cordy. He can’t help it. They’ll always be drawn together. That’s just how it works.”
“Oh, so you’re saying they’re soul mates. I mean the real kind. The two halves that make a whole kind,” Fred asked dreamily.
Lorne shook his head at the sweet romantic in front of him. “Lambykins, I’m surprised at you. Do you really think it’s that simple? There’s math and chemistry and physics and anatomy. It’s a whole science soullapalooza, but if you want to put it in Sesame Street terms, then yes. They’re soul mates.”
“Wow! So, there must be a formula to this whole thing. Charles, if I could figure out the formula for soul mates, I’d be rich! Think about it. It’d be bigger than the diet industry because if you could find your soul mate, why would you need to lose weight? Your soul mate would love you no matter what! I’ve got to get started on this now.”
She started to get up, but Gunn’s hand on her wrist stopped her. “Whoa, girl. I didn’t know you had dreams of being rich and famous. I’m not so sure I like the idea of you getting so big you leave us, ya know?” He had a scared look on his face that made her insides puddle.
“I’d never leave you guys. You’re my family. Besides, think of all the helpless we could help if I had more money than God!” Her eyes lit up at the thought and Gunn snorted at her sacrilege.
“Who’s got more money than God?” They jumped and stared at the vampire who’d managed to sneak up behind them.
“Uh…well nobody…yet. Well, maybe Bill Gates, but you’d have to check out God’s last income tax return, and I think they keep that pretty hush hush.” She smiled nervously hoping he hadn’t been skulking and listening for long.
“Yeah, I hear they lost a lot of IRS agents during His last audit. Where’s the trust, you know? I mean, c’mon, it’s God. Would he cheat on his taxes?” He was in such a good mood, he didn’t bother trying to censor himself. The attempted joke just came out naturally. He was pleased with the result, but his goofy grin was met with stares of disbelief and slight nausea.
And there’s the reason I never tried to be the first vampire with a soul comedian.
**You mean there’s another reason besides you’re just not funny?**
Angel shuffled uncomfortably in the silence engulfing the room, both from the lack of snickers and the realization that he was caught coming in from his assignation. The smile faded and the fidgeting began.
Gunn recognized the look. Angel was caught in the headlights and was trying in his goofball, dorky way to avert their attention by his crappy humor. Delighting in the fact that he had something he could hang over Angel’s head for the moment, he decided to have some fun with the vamp. “I thought you were upstairs reading, and tell me you did not go outside with that mess on your head.”
**You couldn’t be sneaky Angel and just go upstairs unnoticed. No! You had to be social dork Angel and look where it got you. Ah, fuck. Just rip his head off and let’s get some sleep.**
“Reading! Oh, yeah…well, that book was pretty boring after all. So, I decided to just go out for a while. You know, just felt like a drive up the coast. And, what mess on my head?” Angel started back peddling toward the stairs and straining his eyes upward as if he could see the offending mess.
Lorne was about to say something and Angel pinned him with that look that told him to keep his big, fat aura reading thoughts to himself.
Fred gleefully joined in the torture of her beloved champion. “In leather pants and silk shirt? That doesn’t sound too comfortable for driving. And your hair is really messed up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it look like that after just driving. Have you, Charles?”
Angel’s hand ran through his disheveled locks to feel how bad it was. His heel caught on a step and he almost stumbled, but he stopped his fall by latching onto the railing. Keeping his balance with the railing, he began to ascend the stairs backwards at a much quicker pace.
“Now that you mention it, no I haven’t. It looks more like it does when he first gets up in the morning, you know? Bed hair,” Charles helpfully concluded, barely able to keep the laughing fit merely rolling around in his chest instead of bursting from his mouth.
“I think you’re right, Charles. Angel, have you been in bed somewhere not here? Because if you’re sleeping some place else, we should know in case we need to get in touch with you. Does Cordy know you’re not sleeping here? I think she should know, don’t you, Charles? I mean she does have the visions and she needs to know where Angel is at all times, right? I think I’d better call Cordy now and find out if she knows about this.”
Angel had almost made it to the landing when Fred turned toward the office to call Cordy. “Wait! Fred, it’s very, very late and Cordy will be really pissed off if you wake her up. Besides, I’m not sleeping someplace else. I was just driving, like I said. My hair must’ve gotten messed up with the wind, you know? Convertible…wind. Besides it’s like a tornado out there.” Just a few more steps, and I’m home free. “Must be those Santa Anas kicking up. Yep, that’s it. Those old hot, pesky Santa Ana winds. They’re really, really…windy. Well, good night!” The landing went ghostly quiet without the fumbling Angel entity.
The three lobby inhabitants looked at each other and began to quietly chuckle.
“Poor Angel cakes. He was about to blow like Mt. Vesuvius all over a Pompeii holiday. I think Angelus can take a lesson from you two. Well, good night, mes enfants. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Ah, hell, that means you can do anything at all!” Lorne blew them a kiss as he disappeared around the corner.
The newly paired couple stood motionless for a few moments absorbing Lorne’s directive and pretty much the whole night. Fred turned slowly and turned her shy gaze upon Gunn’s slowly grinning one and her stomach flipped.
***
How she made it home without dying in a ball of flames would forever amaze her. She hadn’t seen a single stoplight or stop sign, nor had she paid any attention to any street she had turned onto. But, somehow she had made it home, sloughed off her clothes and crawled into bed without an accident or conscious awareness of how she’d gotten there.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the least bit sleepy. Her body still hummed from the touch of his wicked mouth and roaming fingers. Her mind swirled with memories of his lusty words, satisfied and hungry moans, and oddly enough his laughter. He was so playful and carefree. More so than she’d ever seen him before. Who am I kidding? Angel’s never playful and carefree.
“Oh, God, Dennis. I think I’m in love with Angel. And, what’s even more bizarre is I think he might be in love with me. He was so different tonight. We had so much fun, and we talked and talked about the dumbest stuff. Ha! It was almost like we’d really never met before.”
Who was that stranger? She laughed at her own joke.
But, her smiling face turned shocked when that silly thought turned into a possible reality. “Dennis, what if he was really into the ‘stranger’ game? What if the guy I was with tonight truly wasn’t Angel, but just someone he made up? Does that mean I’m in love with a made-up Angel and he’s really not in love with me? Oh, dammit! Why did I have to think of this stupid love with a stranger idea? Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
She pounded her pillow until she killed it. Dennis nudged back a strand of hair from her face and placed a note in front of her.
“No, I’m not being silly. You weren’t there, Dennis. Now that I think about it, he was completely not like Angel. I mean we danced for Pete’s sake. Without me even begging. He led me onto the floor. How NOT Angel is that? That’s some weird ass robot Angel. And, he was charming! I mean, c’mon. Angel is never charming. Pitiful, yes. Pouty and broody, yes. Fumbling, stumbling, clumsy jerk wad…yes. But, charming? Please. Angelus is charming, but Angel is…”
She bolted upright, yanked back the covers and her feet hit the floor pacing.
“OhmyGod, ohmyGod, ohmyGod!!! How could I not see it? I just had mind-blowing sex with Angelus! I’m in love with the most hated, feared killer in history. What’s wrong with me? Do I have some weird Bonnie and Clyde fixation? I’m surprised I don’t have pen pals lined up from Leavenworth to Sing Sing. Hell, I should’ve married a death row inmate by now. Is Charlie Manson still available?” She gave herself chills with that image.
Dennis floated another message to her.
” ‘Why aren’t you dead?’ That’s a good question, Dennis. Why am I still alive?” Incessant drumming of fingernails on enamel helped her ponder the dichotomy of Angelus leaving her still able to breathe. She concluded there could only be one reason.
“Because he’s playing with me, that’s why. He really gets off on dragging out the torture. Can you say play with your food much? Besides, he’d save me for last. He’d kill everyone else first just to make me suffer more.”
The awful picture in her mind of mutilated friend parts being laid at her door like an offering jolted her so strongly her eyelids hurt from the strain of being pulled so wide. “Oh, shit! Fred and Lorne are in the hotel with him alone right now. Oh, please, let them be okay.”
Diving for her purse and the phone inside, she dialed Fred’s cell and started getting dressed as the ringing went on forever in her head. “Please, Fred, pick up. Don’t be dead, don’t be dead, don’t be dead.”
“Hi, you’ve reached the voice mail of Winifred Burkle, which you probably already know since you’re calling me and I didn’t answer. So, it was pretty silly of me to even mention the fact that you’re talking to me, for one, and two my voice mail and not me. So, anyway, if you’re still there and still want to leave me a message, start talking after I finish, okay? Okay. Well, then, see ya later. Well, I guess not see ya so much as hear ya later. Okay? Okay, then. Uh…bye.”
Cordy had stopped dressing with one leg in her jeans and one leg out, and was dumbfounded by Fred’s rambling message. When the beep finally sounded, she wasn’t sure if she cared if Fred was alive or not. “Fred, if you’re still alive by the time you get this, get the hell out of the hotel and take Lorne with you. I think Angelus is back.”
She tossed the phone on the bed and pulled up her jeans and threw on a sweatshirt mumbling, “Damn, stupid Fred. Angelus could’ve killed half of Pasadena by the time her message was over. Serves her right if he’s draining her dry at this very moment.” She sat on the bed to put on her shoes and her shoulders folded with the weight of her sudden guilt. “Oh, God! I didn’t mean that. Please let her be okay. I’ll do anything if they’re okay. I’ll never have sex again, if you just let everything be okay.”
She was tying the laces on her sneaks when her cell went off. It could only be Fred or Angelus. If he’d been there when she’d made the call, he could’ve seen who was calling. Her hands trembled as she picked up and her voice was no steadier.
“Cordy, did you just call? Are you okay?”
Holy shit, it’s Angelus. Fuck, damn! What do I do? And, he sounds soooo concerned. And the Oscar goes to… She was power walking a rut from her bedroom to the living room and back trying to expel the terror building in her being.
“Cordy, are you there? I can hear you breathing you know.”
Sure you can, you evil breathing hearer demon. Aren’t you special? “Uh, yeah, I’m here.”
“What’s wrong? Did you have a vision?” Angel’s voice echoed the beginning of the panic his tensed muscles conveyed.
No, and just why is that, you freaking powers that fuck up my life? “Nope, no vision, nuh-uh, nothing’s wrong. I just need to talk to Fred, that’s all. So, uh, what are you doing with Fred’s phone?” Deciding to save on those long distance charges to Hell by using the dead girl’s phone? Even Angelus is a tightwad!
“I heard it ringing and decided to check with Fred to see if there was a problem. She doesn’t usually get phone calls at four something in the morning. Are you sure nothing’s wrong? You sound stressed?” He wasn’t feeling the relief he would normally feel after her assurances. Something wasn’t right about Cordy calling Fred just after the wonderful night they’d had. Especially since it sounded like she was not feeling as great as he was about it all. Besides, it wasn’t like Fred and Cordy were really that close.
“Yes, I’m sure! I just need to ask her something. How…uh…where is she?”
“She was in the lobby with Gunn and Lorne when I got here. I guess she’s still there. Cordy, please let me help.” Why would she call Fred and not me if something were wrong? She trusts me with her life, doesn’t she? Something’s really not right here.
“No, you can’t. Because…er…because…it’s a girl thing!”
“A girl thing?” He heard the lie in her voice. She’d gotten much worse at lying to him the closer they’d become. For whatever reason, there was something she couldn’t or wouldn’t talk to him about, and he couldn’t believe how much that stung his heart and his ego.
I’m such a fool. I really thought she loved me.
**You really should go to more slumber parties. She wants to talk to Fred about how fuckin’ great we are in bed you dipshit!**
Women don’t do that, do they?
**God, I promise I’ll be a good demon if you just kill him.**
“Angel? Fred, please!”
“Oh, sure. Okay. I’ll go get her.” Angelus may be crude, but his perceptions about women left Angel in the sandbox dust. A little of the alarm that had suffused his body was ebbing away into soft dread as he headed for the lobby.
Oh, my God. I can’t believe I just said that to Angelus! A girl thing?!? Now he thinks I’ve got cramps or some venereal disease. Or, worse, he thinks I want to talk to Fred about how great he is in bed. What an ego. Sure, that’s what every woman does after Angelus beds them. They call their girlfriends at four in the morning and squeal about his sexual prowess. Ooo, I’m just so mushy about my big, hunk of homicidal maniac I can’t wait ’til a decent hour to tell you about it. Oh, geez, get a grip, Cor. What the fuck do you care what Angelus thinks?
“Cordy…uh…Fred can’t come to the phone right now.”
Why is that I wonder? Is she too dead maybe? She tried to calm her voice, but it still came out far to high and broken and ended on a whine. “Why not? I really need to speak to her.”
“Well, she’s in the lobby kissing Gunn. I just don’t think she wants to talk to you or me right now. Cordy, you sound upset. Did I do something…are you sure I can’t help?” Maybe Angelus wasn’t so smart after all. Would she be so frantic and insistent on talking to Fred about their sex life? Alarm was building into fear again and the roller coaster ride wasn’t helping his less than stable grasp on his love life.
Cordy jiggled her free hand and rolled her shoulders. Shake it off, shake it off. Just calm down. Wait a sec. What did mutant evil just say?
“Did you say she was kissing Gunn? When the hell…” Focus, Cor. Angelus means dead, no-longer-able-to-kiss friends. “Listen, I have to talk to her. So, please get her for me. Thanks.”
“I was afraid you’d say that. Okay, give me a sec.”
When did Fred and Gunn start kissing? I could’ve sworn Wes had the inside track there. How could I have missed that? I’m losing my touch. No, I’ve been too busy helping my best friend lose his soul. I am so going to hell. God, Angel, I am so sorry.
She broke out in a cold sweat when the realization hit her. She’d been in automatic reaction mode for the past ten minutes to save her friends, but now her heart felt like it would explode in her chest and her knees buckled with the reality of what she had to do.
“I’ve got to stake Angel. I’ve got to kill my best friend and the man I love.”
She didn’t know her body could shake so violently and not disintegrate and fly away on the waves of despair emanating from every pore. Only the sound of the only woman crazier than she was on the phone brought her some hope.
“Cordy? Did you need me?” Fred chirped.
A blimp-size portion of air escaped her lungs in relief. “Oh, thank God, Fred. Are you okay?”
“Sure, why wouldn’t I be? Oh! You mean because I didn’t answer the phone.” Cordy could hear the embarrassed giggle she tried to suppress.
“Fred, listen…is Angel still there?”
“No, I think he went back to his room.”
“Good. Okay, I want you to grab Lorne and Gunn and get out of the hotel now! I don’t want you to panic, but I think Angelus is back, so you’ve got to get out of there.”
“Angelus isn’t here. Just Angel.”
“Fred, I don’t think that’s Angel. I don’t have time to explain, just get the guys and leave. I’m on my way over.”
“Cordy, it really is Angel. Lorne saw him. He would’ve known immediately if it was Angelus. Besides, he did the funniest thing when we were teasing him about his hair, and he kinda tripped up the steps backwards. That was Angel all right. Why would you think Angel was Angelus?”
She could feel the weight of the world lifting off her back as Fred talked. And it was almost completely gone until she asked that question.
“Uh…well…what did you say about his hair?” she deflected.
“Oh, it was really messed up. So, we teased him about having bed hair and that’s when he kinda started tripping all over himself.”
Dammit. I should’ve told him to fix it. Who knew these freaks would still be up when he got home. When ‘Angel’ got home. She sighed in relief and laughed at the memory of her fingers destroying his perfect coif.
“Cordy? Why did you think he was Angelus?”
Why can’t she just let it go? Why couldn’t I have just gone to sleep when I got home. Maybe I’d be dreaming about Angel instead of… “Ah…it was a dream. I woke up and wasn’t sure if I’d had a dream or if it was a vision, so I decided I’d make sure. You know, better safe than sorry.”
“Oh, sure. I’m all for safe not sorry. So, it was just a dream? Of Angelus, huh? What was Angelus doing in this dream?”
Oh, dammit, Fred. Can’t you just go to bed? “Yes, Fred, it was a dream. Speaking of that, I really want to get back to sleep. Oh, my, *yawn* I’m so sleepy. You must be tired, too. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Fred. Night.”
She didn’t wait for Fred’s reply before hanging up. Sometimes the only way to shut her up is to shut her off.
“Well, Dennis, I guess I was wrong. Fred said everything’s okay and Angel is Angel.” She slipped off her shoes and jeans and tumbled back under the covers before tossing off the sweatshirt.
“I guess that means I really was with Angel tonight.” She snuggled deeper into the dark warmth of her bed with images of happy Angel dancing in her head.
“Mmmmm. I’m in love with Angel.” The last fifteen minutes of sheer agony were completely overshadowed by her all-consuming love for her man.
She was just about to slip from the real world when Dennis tickled her nose with another note.
“It wasn’t Angelus THIS time,” his note read.
In a flash her skin prickled with bumps and the acid churned in her gut. “I can’t think about that right now, Dennis. Can’t I just be happy for a little while?”
Yep, there’s definitely some Egyptian blood in me.
Her friend tucked the comforter tighter around her and decided to let her have one more night of contentment. But just one.
Next day, 1:17 p.m.
**Hey! Soul dork! Wake up and let’s get this sex machine pumped and primed.** Angelus was anxious for the next round. Once he’d talked the chicken shit into what he should do, it was just a matter of waiting. But fuck that. It was one thing to have the patience to stalk and torment a victim, but another if that torment was your own. Demonic want and need fueled him like a spark setting off pure oxygen.
The soul was ready to give up. Not give up itself, damn it to hell, but give up the bitch! And, he wasn’t ready to stop the fun or lose any of that fine ass acreage just yet. Maybe never.
Unfortunately, the pretty one, the Angelic one didn’t have the nuts to follow through. A few nights of drooling at those tits and hypnotized by her smell and he was ready to pick out china. Oh, yeah. He heard the thoughts…he saw the fantasy…and he’d never known hell until Angel had dreamed saying those words. “I do.” Oh, fuck, the torture!
But, what was even worse torture than the soul’s stinky feelings of love was the moment he decided to let her go. Angel thought that continuing with this fuck buddy business was not right. Apparently he was already causing the woman he loved strife if that phone call was any indication of her feelings, and he couldn’t risk destroying her life. To top off the disgusting noble routine, he whined that he didn’t want to lose his best friend.
**What a fuckin’ woman! How I managed to avoid sharp wooden corners during that bellyache festival, I’ll never know. I must be a saint.**
And, even more surprising, the soul actually thought that prick Wesley was right. If he allowed himself to love her and then lost her, he wouldn’t be able to survive and the mission would be over.
So Angel was going to be all self-righteous (yet again) and give her up, and Angelus had never felt such pain in all his miserable existence.
While Angeles in no way, shape or form liked that the soul was in love, he was surprised to find he could tolerate it. He could live with the foul blight of it because for once what the soul wanted, he wanted, too. Angelus didn’t and couldn’t love, but he did want to fuck that body in the worst way and in every way. And, he hadn’t wanted anything other than his freedom for a very long time. He couldn’t take another loss.
The problem was convincing Angel not to let her go. Luckily, working Angel was child’s play. It went something like this…
Earlier that morning, 5:08 a.m.
**So, you’re really going to quit?**
Angel was splayed across his bed, the sheets tangled around his legs and his forearm draped across his brow in serious thought of their evening together. The club, the laughing, the lovemaking, his realization of his true feelings, and now…the pain of knowing he would have to give her up.
“I have to. I love her goddamn it. You heard her on the phone. She was really stressed about something, and I just know it was about us or me! It was so hard hearing her like that knowing it’s my fault. I am not going to take what future happiness she might have away from her and make her life a living hell. God, this is so fuckin’ hard.”
**You’re right. She’s better off without your pathetic, whiny ass. You know I’d have to sleepwalk you into the sunrise if you actually went so far as to…I can’t believe I’m even saying the word…marry…that cunt.**
“I told you not to call her that, and I’d probably let you because there’s no way she’d marry me. She’s too smart for that.”
**Great!**
“Good.”
Angelus paused for dramatic affect and to let Angel believe he was in total agreement with it. Then he went for the jugular.
**So…how are you going to tell her? Maybe, we’d better rehearse this so you don’t fuck it up. I’ll be her.**
“No! That’s stupid. And, I won’t fuck it up.”
**Do I have to bring out the parade of pain? The basket of botched romance? The caravan of coma-inducing conversations? Because I can. I was there for all them, and you know me and torture. Love it!**
Angel kicked and wiggled his legs free of the sheets and jumped from the bed both in frustration with his inability to have Cordy and to quiet his demon. The tension in his legs propelled him back and forth at a brisk pace.
“All right, all right. We’ll rehearse. You start.”
**Ahem…(mimicking feminine, Cordy voice) Hi, Angel, you big hunk of manpire you.**
“Oh, just stop it. She doesn’t sound like that and she’d never say that. If you can’t do this without making fun of her, then we won’t do it at all.”
**Fine, fine. I just thought it would be more realistic. But we’ll do it your way. Here we go. ‘Hi, Angel.’**
Facing even a pretend Cordy in his head sent tremors through his body, and he sought protection from the quaking in a shadowed corner by the bed.
“Hi, Cordy. Listen, we need to talk.”
**’I know. Last night was kind of weird, huh?’**
“Weird? I guess. But good weird, ya know?”
**’Oh, totally. You were so hot and your cock was so big…’**
“Angelus,” he growled through his tensed jaw.
**Okay, okay. It’s just nice to hear it sometimes.**
“Just stop it. This is serious. Now where were we?”
**Big cock, big cock, big cock.**
Angel gave Angelus the ‘cut’ signal and flopped back on the bed. “That’s it. We’re done. I’ll just have to wing it.”
**Shit! Did they leave out the humor portion of the soul this evening? Lighten up. I promise I’ll be as good as a demon can be. Here we go. Let’s start again. So, Angel, you wanted to talk?**
Angel hesitated to answer expecting another stupid taunt, but after a few seconds he took up the conversation again. “Yes, I wanted to talk. You know last night was great. I mean I had a great time.”
**’Good! So did I. I can’t wait until tonight.’**
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I don’t think we should do this any more. I’ve decided to forfeit. You win and you can name your first shopping date.”
**’You’re forfeiting? So you admit you lost, which means you admit you fell in love with me in less than a week.’**
“No, I do not admit that. I simply want to stop the game and, to be fair, that means I have to forfeit and pay the price.”
**’Uh-huh. Yeah. That’s bullshit, Angel. I know you. There’s no way you would just give up and let a girl…hell, let ME…beat you at anything. Just admit you’re in love with me, and we’ll stop.’**
“Cordy, you can’t make me have sex with you. If I want to quit, I’ll quit.”
**’You know damn well I’d never let you just quit. That would upset me so much I might have to share my pain with many, many friends. Maybe even friends in my old home town.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
**Oh, I so would dare. But, I’ll be nice and let you quit if you sing for Lorne and prove you’re not in love with me.’**
Oh, God. He’d forgotten the Lorne factor. He couldn’t sing for him and have him confirm it. How could he face her every day after that?
“Fuck, fuck, fuck. I can’t sing for Lorne. He’ll see it right away. How the hell am I getting out of this in one piece?”
**Well, if you’re asking me, there’s only one way.**
“Okay, I’m asking you. What’s the one way?”
**Make her call it off.**
“And how do I do that?”
**By letting me take over from here.**
“Are you insane? Strike that. That goes without saying. I will not let you hurt her.”
**Who said anything about hurting her? You’re still the upfront guy. I’m just saying let the demon out to play a little. She’s a naive girl who really has no idea about demon sex. Once she gets face to face with it, she’ll be begging you to let her off the hook.**
Angel had to admit, the plan had merit. Cordy had no clue what the demon in him was capable of doing to her body. It was only fair he show her all aspects of his personality. Plus…sex with Cordy. Not really a downside to that part of the plan.
“Okay. Demon sex, but absolutely no pain. I am still in control.”
**Fine. You’re the man. I’m just the inspiration. Now, get something to write on, we have to make a list.**
And that was all it took. His Cordy was right. Angel is a dork and a dumbass. What the idiot didn’t remember was that sex with Angelus is oh so habit forming. One night with him, and not only would she NOT be begging to quit, but she’d be begging to get rid of the asshole soul. Oh, yeah. Angelus was a very happy demon.