Part 4. CORDELIA
The shriek of laughter reverberated through the apartment as I held onto my stomach almost collapsing back onto the couch and spilling the glass of juice over my t-shirt.
The picture of Angel in an orange leisure suit just wouldn’t leave. With green stripes no less! I remember watching Tom dressed like that in one of the cartoons of Tom and Jerry!
Spike sat there nursing his mug of blood between his hands, his legs sprawled straight ahead of him on my table as we watched the rest of ‘Someone like You’. During the course of the night I had come to the conclusion that Spike hadn’t inherited much from his sire.
He was not only funny, but he had a crude cuteness to him that I hadn’t noticed before…or remembered.
“I’m not crude and I sure as hell am not bloody cute.” He grumbled in his best ‘big bad’ accent.
“Save it spock…”
“Spike.”
“Whatever. You just don’t scare me anymore.” I snickered and took a handful of popcorn between us before throwing one up in the air and opening my mouth. That was when a pair of cold hands wrapped around my midriff and I screeched as he tackled me across the couch, his fangs drawn.
Another peal of laughter left me as I looked up into his morphed face. The laughing blue eyes and the twitching eyebrows just didn’t strike fear if they were supposed to.
“You think this is funny Vixen?” He tried his best to glare down at me but his mouth was turning up in a smile I knew was there.
I nodded helpless, my hands braced on his chest to push him away when the phone rang. “Spike! Get of me!”
“I’m not done looking down your shirt yet.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me suggestively looking less and less like the drunken sack of potatoes that had collapsed on my door.
While one had reached for the phone the other smacked the vampire upside the head and he let out an undignified grunt, his game face melting away into a frown. I winked as I hit ‘receive’.
“Now I know how to make you stop being all ‘grrr’.” I snickered as he stuck out a childish tongue. “Hello?”
“Cordy?”
What is it with Fate? I mean here I as enjoying a nice platonic interlude and suddenly I’m holding my breath again, which by the way isn’t necessary just happens come about when a certain someone I’m not even supposed to remember says my name.
“Broody.” I let out my held breath when Spike raised an eyebrow at me.
“You okay?”
I sighed and looked up into Spike’s amused blue eyes while he remained looking down at me, his arms braced on the arm of the couch under my head as he hovered there.
“I’m not dead. I’m not dying. I’m not getting visiony and I am NOT wearing red underwear.”
The vampire on the other line was silent and I wondered if he had always been such a dork. Adorable little creep.
The vampire leaning over me, although broke into a spurt of masculine laughter that seemed to jolt my boss into replying. “Who is that?”
“No one. Just Spark.”
“SPIKE! It’s Spike you bloody chit! How hard is that to remember!!!” The bleach blonde vampire glared down at me with as much menace as he could muster in his current state.
“SPIKE! Spike is with you! What the hell is he doing there!!?!? Are you crazy Cordelia! Where is he now!”
I held back a smile as Spo…er…Spike proceeded to try and glare me to death. “Right this instant?”
“YES!”
“On top of me.”
At the moment I was gloating in ‘I am so evil, I rock.’
CLICK. The other line went dead.
Spike blinked in surprise as I stared at the phone. “Wot?”
“He hung up on me.”
I was so dead.
***
WILLOW
The flowers smelled fresh. Like morning dew and snow cones. Then the ground began to quake and the heavens started screaming.
“WILLOW!!!”
“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” Jumping out of my bed I scrambled off the side nearly tumbling in my sheets as the rocking stopped.
I looked up panting, my breath wild and my heart hammering against my ribs. “Angel?”
The vampire had the decency to look slightly sheepish. “Sorry.”
Placing a hand on my chest I gasped. “Oh goddess! You scared me! I thought we were all dying and the earth was shaking and I was going to be sucked into the ground without shoes on or something!”
Angel’s brow drew together in a confused frown before he shook it off. “I’m sorry I scared you but there’s something you need to help me with.”
Heart had calmed slightly. At least it wasn’t fluttering madly in my ribs like a caged bird anymore. Oh eww. I think I just managed to gross myself out. Ewwie. “Um…right. In the middle of the night and my nice dream.”
“I..” His eyebrow shot up. “Dream?”
I blushed slightly at the question I knew was there. “Fluffy one.”
“Oh.” He seemed to accept that without further inquiries. “I found Spike.”
I blinked slightly at the irritated growl underneath the icy declaration before I realized what he had declared. “Spike! You found him!” I grinned happily.
“Really! Where?”
“On top of Cordelia.”
My mouth slammed shut as I stared at him, my eyes as wide as saucers. He didn’t mean that. Did he? It wasn’t possible. He loved Buffy!
He wasn’t supposed to move on! At least not with Cordelia. No. No. No. No. No. It just did not compute.
“What does not compute?”
I bit my lip with a small smile. “Did I say that out loud?”
Angel held back a smile. “Oh yeah.”
I ran a hand through my tousled hair and rubbed my eyes. “Well I always thought he’d like Buffy. You know. Always. Aren’t vampire’s obsessive that way?”
The vampire in front of me suddenly looked ill at ease and I saw him shuffle his feet.
Oh goddess.
I stared at him for the second time in the past five minutes my eyes wide as saucers. “Oh dear.”
He cleared his throat. “So, you coming?”
I nodded quickly as I grabbed my skirt and sweater off the chair and ran into the bathroom.
“I’ll just be a minute. Don’t go away.”