Part 3
They walked the rest of the way, more or less in silence. Cordy would ask Wesley a quick question now and then about how to kill the demon or whether it was male or not, considering it only ate women.
Wesley would answer flippantly, suggesting they simply hack it to pieces and if that didn’t work, behead it, or that he didn’t know what gender this particular demon was but if Cordelia was that interested, she could bend over and check while they were fighting it.
That earned him a kick in the butt from Cordy, who was walking behind him, arm linked with Gunn, who proudly carried his favourite axe over his shoulder, scanning the sewers for any signs of danger.
The four of them had run into a pack of vampires earlier, who had provided a slight problem since they hadn’t brought any stakes. But dusting half of them with axes and crossbows was pretty easy since the other half simply ran away at the sight of Angel.
They managed to grab one of the vampires, who told them exactly where to find the Karranja demon. So they let him get away. Or at least Cordelia told him he’d be spared, not realising that Angel was going to give the other vampire five seconds to think he was getting away, before shooting a perfectly aimed wooden arrow through his heart.
Cordelia had stared at Angel in shock. Wesley had straightened his glasses and coughed. Gunn hadn’t even batted an eyelid.
Angel walked at the front of the group now, desperate to find the Karranja demon so that he had something to take out his aggression on. The look on Cordelia’s face had burnt itself into his heart, and his demon roared in anger. He was so unbelievably angry.
Angry at Cordelia for making him fall so hard, so fast, for sweeping his legs out from underneath him without his even knowing, for making him want to love her and hold her and fuck her and just be near her, for making him feel a twinge of guilt in his heart whenever she was hurting and a pang of joy whenever she laughed.
He was angry with Wesley for encouraging Cordy to come along, for giving him orders, for patronising him. He was angry at Gunn for that arm that he had around Cordelia’s shoulders, for hating a particular side of him, for occasionally making him feel guilty about what he was.
He was angry at himself for feeling guilty, for being angry at his friends and the woman he loved, for being so whipped, for being so brutal, for hurting Cordelia, for falling for her, for wanting to make love to her not just as a man, but as a monster, for falling asleep while making love to her…
Angel closed his eyes and stopped. The stench of something inhuman hit his nostrils with such a force that it nearly made him topple over. Wesley crashed into him with an “Oof!” clearly too occupied with his sickle to pay attention to where he was walking.
Angel heard Cordy mutter “Dork” under her breath, and he held his hand up, demanding silence. He walked forward slowly, his senses on full alert, searching for anything, well, as Gunn so marvellously put it, big, round and blue.
Suddenly his head jerked around, his ears perked up and he ran quickly through a sewer tunnel. Cordy, Wes and Gunn could do nothing but gape and then follow as fast as they could, hoping that they would be able to keep up with his vampire speed. The sound of four pairs of feet could be heard, splashing against the mucky, sewer floor.
“Oh Nancy, I’m sorry honey, these boots really weren’t made for walking!” Cordy grimaced as she looked at her leather boots, covered in grime and slime and other crap that lurked on the sewer floor. They emerged from the sewer tunnel to find themselves behind Angel in a large rectangular space that had several sewer tunnels on the opposite side from where they were standing, symmetrical to the side on which they were.
The area was very dark, dimly lit by the odd light here and there, several of which were broken or fused. Smack bang, in the middle of the room, was a very large, very round, blue demon. And it was sleeping.
“Awww!” Cordy said, tilting her head slightly, an affectionate smile gracing her lips. The three men turned around and stared at her as though she had grown a second head. Cordy raised an eyebrow. “What? It looks like that big, fluffy guy from Monsters Inc.”
Wesley rolled his eyes and lowered his weapons bag, removing a large sword and throwing it at Angel, who caught it with one hand. Wes then removed his own weapon and raised it over his head, advancing towards the demon.
“Wesley!” Cordelia whispered harshly. Wesley stopped abruptly and turned around, sparing the brunette a quizzical look. “What?”
“You can’t kill it while it’s sleeping! That’s just not fair! It’s like, drugging your opponent before you fight him. That’s like, illegal.”
“I don’t think demons quite classify as ‘legal’, Cordelia.” Wesley retorted.
“Yeah, well, legal is overrated. It’s just a big, fluffy, round ball!”
“Who eats women’s internal organs, Cordy!” Wesley said, exasperatedly.
“Okay, Mister Snooty pants, argue all you wants but you know it isn’t fair.” Cordelia flicked her hair over her shoulder. “When you walk out of this sewer, having slaughtered an unarmed and helpless creature, every step you take will be tainted with its blood and you will have the words cheater and murderer written across your chest, forever!” Cordelia finished dramatically, inwardly cringing at how lame she sounded when Gunn let out a snort.
It was just that it looked so much like Sully…
Angel smirked. “Cordelia, for someone who fights the bad guys, you’re having a hell of a time attempting to save monsters today, aren’t you?”
Cordelia looked at him and crossed her arms over her chest. “I fell in love with one didn’t I?”
Angel’s smirk faded and he held Cordy’s gaze, his eyes darkening intensely. Neither of them spoke. They just stared at each other. Gunn raised both eyebrows and then made a cutting motion with his hand, in between where they were standing, opposite each other. Cordelia glanced at him and frowned. “What the hell are you doing?”
Gunn looked up. “Cutting tension.”
“Oh for goodness sake!” Wesley walked over to where the other three were standing and glared at Cordy. “Cordelia, you really want to be fair? Be my guest. Go wake it up so that we can slice its head off, so that I can go home and have an aspirin and a bloody cup of tea and so that you and Angel can go into a bedroom and sort out your little soap opera situation!”
Cordy’s mouth dropped open in shock and Gunn snickered. Cordelia glared him into silence. When she finally regained her composure, she hit two birds with one stone.
“Why would I do that Wes? So that Angel can fall asleep on me again? No, why do that when I can just hang around here a little longer and hear you bitch about your little migraine, something that I know absolutely nothing about of course, being vision girl and all, and then watch you experience exactly what it’s like to have a PAINFUL HEADACHE!”
Wesley winced, mirroring Angel and Gunn, as Cordelia screamed those last two words loud enough to wake the living dead. Ironically enough, it woke up something close to that definition.
***
Angel, Gunn, Cordy and Wesley watched anxiously, as the blue demon rose slowly to its feet, glaring at them through large, round, red eyes. Cordelia gulped loudly and Angel’s hands tightened around his sword. The demon stood quietly for a moment, simply observing the four people stupid enough to enter its den. Then it caught sight of Cordelia. Its mouth watered slightly and it drooled.
“Eww!” Cordelia made a face. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or feel sick!”
Wesley raised his sickle slightly and the demon roared loudly, revealing a gigantic mouth of even larger, grotesquely yellow and decaying teeth.
Gunn swallowed. “Large, round and fluffy ain’t looking so fluffy anymore huh Barbie?”
“Shut up Gunn!” Cordy hissed irately.
Gunn simply shrugged, regaining his defensive pose. Angel addressed Wesley without taking his eyes off the demon, who was slowly inching closer. “How we gonna do this Wes? One from each corner or do we just all lunge at it from one angle?”
“Lunging!” Cordy and Gunn screamed out at the same time. They glanced at each other.
“Don’t be stupid. Let’s do this rationally…”
“Wesley,” Cordelia said through gritted teeth, “we don’t have time to think freakin’ rationally! There is a ten foot big, blue demon with bad breath that looks just about ready to…oh I don’t know, kick our tiny heinies from here to Nebraska! And you wanna go into logic mode? You may have room for improvement externally but I don’t, and I don’t need any more slashes or big gaping holes in my body for decor…aah!!” Cordelia ducked as a large, furry arm swiped at her.
Man, sometimes it sucked to be a woman. Or bait. Same fucking difference!
She heard Angel yell as the demon lashed out at him. He vamped out at the contact. “Stupid fucking demon! What did I ever do to you?”
“Maybe you fell asleep on him in bed.” Cordelia provided usefully.
Both Gunn and Angel spared her a grossed out look before the vampire, with a war cry that would have made Braveheart proud, charged at the demon and jabbed a large knife into its side. Cordy looked up from her crouched position to see ‘Fluffy’ roar in pain, abandon her, more formally known as bait, and make a grab for Angel, missing its target by inches.
Gunn grabbed his axe and hurled it across the room, aiming for the demon’s vertebrae. Only he missed and the weapon barely avoided Cordy’s head, who was now standing. It imbedded itself in the wall behind her.
“Gunn!”
“Sorry…sorry! My bad!”
Wesley managed to shoot the demon twice with his crossbow, on the third shot realising that he was just wasting arrows. They had no effect whatsoever. He grabbed his sickle, speeding forward and burying it in the demon’s arm, which was now trying to tackle a defenceless Gunn. The demon lashed out, throwing Wesley into the wall. He slid unconscious to the floor.
“Wes!” Gunn yelled out, watching as their boss fell limply to the ground. He turned back to the demon. “You son of a bitch!” Gunn grabbed a large sword from the weapon’s bag, joining Angel, who was attempting to spear the demon through the heart with his own sword.
Gunn managed to imbed the sword deep into the demon’s back a few times, before an hatchet flew directly passed his ear, so close he feared his face would suffer from whiplash, and struck the demon’s spinal column with a sickening crack. The demon bellowed loudly. Gunn whipped his head around and found himself staring at a smirking brunette.
“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.
“Clearly exercising better aim than you.” Cordy snapped.
“Yeah well, it nearly cut off my ear!”
“Just be glad it didn’t cut off something else Gunn!”
“Uh guys?” Angel’s voice interrupted Gunn and Cordy’s argument, causing both his friends to turn and look at him. Angel was struggling with the demon, who had now recovered and gained the upper hand, and seemed to be swiping at him with claws consistently, disallowing the vampire to inflict any pain with his blade.
Cordy and Gunn both grabbed their weapons and launched themselves at the demon. Cordelia slashed at it from behind, while Gunn and Angel tried to swing at its neck from the front. The demon howled and wailed and backhanded the two men, sending them both flying in opposite directions of the room.
Gunn bashed into a wall, collapsing to the floor, groaning like a dying man. Angel was hurled across the room with a violent force that sent him flying through the air at a dangerous speed. He landed hard on a pile of broken wood in the corner. Cordelia had a split second to observe that it hadn’t rotted away, despite its old, splintered and serrated appearance.
Of course then reality kicked in and Cordelia felt all rational though leave her as a shuddering gasp escaped from her body at the realisation of who was landing where. Angel was a vampire and he had landed back first on a pile of sharp wooded planks. Her vampire groaned in pain, and Cordelia felt her heart drop to her toes. She screamed out his name.
Angel felt a sharp, unbearable stab of pain in his backside, just below his ribcage. Looking down, he saw a rebellious plank of wood, sharp and bloody, protruding from his stomach, just beneath his heart. Angel took a sharp intake of breath, the unrelenting agony flooding through his body, and cried out in anguish.
“Angel!” Cordelia’s vision suddenly became blurry and it took her a moment to comprehend that tears were freely falling down her face. The demon must have taken momentary pity on her because it stopped and hovered above her for a second before swiping at her again. She ducked and ran around the demon, never stopping until she was directly in front of the fallen vampire.
Angel could barely move and his eyes had closed in pain. Cordy stood defiantly, defensively in front of her boyfriend’s fallen form, one figure against an enormous demon, raising her sword confidently and pointing it at the furry beast.
“Look pal, I saved your ass! Wesley was just gonna chop you up while you were dreaming about some random…God, I don’t even want to know, but I stopped him. So you should be eternally grateful to me!” Cordelia nodded her head vigorously, as if to emphasise her point. The demon growled and swiped at her again.
This time, instead of ducking, Cordy swiped at it with her sword and managed to cut a deep gash in the creature’s forearm. It howled and swiped again. Cordelia ducked and rolled under it, slashing a clean slice through its midriff and then pushing the sword upwards as hard and as deep as she could.
The demon screeched in pain and made a grab for the small body underneath it. Cordelia quickly got to her feet, abandoning her sword and rushing over to Angel. She grabbed his sword.
“Sorry sweetie.” She ran back towards the demon, who swiped again, this time scratching Cordelia across the cheek. The seer felt the sting but it wasn’t as painful as she imagined it would be.
“So Fluff, you get a manicure recently?” The demon growled again, clutching its wounded stomach and trudging towards her. Cordelia raised her sword as her heart flipped in her chest and prepared to cut the demon’s throat. She never got the chance.
The demon collapsed a few feet in front of her, falling onto its front, still clutching its stomach in pain but not moving and for the first time, Cordy was able to see the damage the four of them had actually done. The demon’s whole backside had been cut into. Scratches and deep cuts marred its light blue fur and purple blood oozed from its wounds. Cordelia almost felt remorseful for a moment before she realised that that thing had thrown all her friends into the walls. Angel…
Cordelia turned abruptly, throwing the sword down and rushing to her boyfriend’s side. His eyes were still closed but he was mumbling in pain. Cordy, eased herself down next to him and steered his upper body into her lap so that she was cradling him. Angel’s temple fell lightly onto her shoulder and she stroked his cheek as uncontrollable tears spilled over her own.
“Angel?” she whispered, unable to keep the emotion from her voice. “Baby, wake up. Open your eyes.” Angel’s eyelashes fluttered as if he was too in pain to even hear her. Cordelia cleared her throat and swiped at the tears on her face. “Angel, open your eyes.” She said again, more forcefully. The vampire slowly opened one eye and then the other, squinting at her in agony.
“Hurts.” He murmured. Cordy felt her heart clench tightly in her chest. The tears began falling once again and she looked down at the piece of wood sticking out from Angel’s stomach…so close to his heart…
Cordy whimpered and Angel looked at her, the sound startling him slightly. Realisation finally dawned and with all the strength he could muster, he leaned up slightly, moving his arm and tilting her chin so that her eyes connected with his.
“Cordy, baby, I’m fine.” He smiled reassuringly, then winced in pain, She gave him an incredulous look. “No really, I’m good, I just hurt a little that’s all.” He smiled again, this time managing to run his hand lightly along her cheek, feeling her lean into him.
“Angel, there’s a makeshift stake imbedded in your back.” Cordelia rasped. “How fine can you be?”
“Well I’m not dust so that’s a good sign.”
“Angel!” Cordelia’s eyes filled with tears again and Angel quickly recognized his mistake. Now really wasn’t the time to joke around. He stroked the skin under the pad of his thumb and then stopped immediately.
“That bastard scratched you?” Angel asked angrily.
Cordy smiled, her heart warming at his concern for her, while he was the one skewered on a wooden spike. “Well, we still don’t know if it was a guy or a girl.” She tilted her head towards the demon. “Maybe I should go check.” She turned back to Angel, who was looking at her, his eyes filled with adoration and love. Something painful pulled deep inside of her and she began sobbing uncontrollably.
Angel’s eyes widened and he cupped her cheek again, stroking her golden skin, soothing her. “Cordy, I swear, I’ll be fine. I’m okay. We just have to get this thing out of me and then I’ll be as good as new…well, as new as a dead person can get anyway.” He added light-heartedly, hoping to at least get a smile from her. She continued to bawl.
“Cordy…” Angel started.
“I’m sorry.” She whispered through the hand covering her face. Angel’s eyes evidently showed confusion when she glanced at him, so she continued. “I’m sorry for being such a bitch. I should have understood why you fell asleep last night. If you’re out there doing stuff like this…” she trailed off, waving at his injured state rapidly. “I should’ve known that you’d be tired. I…I shouldn’t have pushed.”
“Cordelia, there were two people there last night. I wanted it too. I just…I didn’t realise how exhausted I was.” Angel said.
Cordelia shook her head. “Even then, I shouldn’t have kicked you out like that. And without your pants…” her mouth tilted up slightly and even Angel grinned. But then she sobered. “I just…when that demon threw you across the room, the only thing I could think about when you landed on a pile of pointy wood was…” she gulped.
“What?” Angel asked, soothingly stroking her cheek.
Cordelia looked back at him. “What the last thing I said to you was. I…you would have been dust and the last thing I said was…” she trailed off, huge tears flowing from her big, brown eyes, sobs racking her body. Angel felt his heart break.
“Baby…”
“I don’t think you’re a monster!” she blurted out, interrupting him and not caring. “I don’t! I just said it because I was angry and hurt and you were laughing and I wanted to hurt you but that’s no excuse because I don’t think you’re a monster and I love you and I’m sorry!” her last few words came out in a choked sob and she covered her face with the hand that wasn’t supporting his body.
Angel, despite the despondency of the situation, smiled. She was so adorable when she rambled.
“I love you too.” He said softly, prying her hand from her face and kissing her fingers softly. “I know you don’t think I’m a monster. You’ve told me enough times. And I’m the one who’s sorry. You have every right to be angry and I should have just said no to you and explained why last night. Although it was kinda hard with the…y’know.” He winked at her, gesturing towards her body, a clear reminder of what she had been wearing the night before.
Cordelia blushed and smiled ruefully. “Well, I promise to be badly dressed from now on, every time you come over.”
“Don’t do that!” Angel said in a panicked voice.
Cordy just grinned at him tenderly, lowering her face to his. “Dumbass…”
“Well that’s definitely better than asshole.” He murmured against her mouth, seconds before she jerked back and looked at him guiltily.
“I’m sor…” she started.
Angel swiftly moved the hand on her cheek down to her neck and pulled her towards him, claiming her mouth with his own, silencing her apologies. She sighed and relaxed into him. Angel rubbed his tongue over her lower lip until she opened her mouth and let him in, sweeping out to meet the eager muscle with her own.
Any further tongue duelling was stopped however, due to a loud roar that came from the not-so-dead demon, which had risen, and was now slowly staggering towards the couple, evidently in pain. Cordelia glanced over at her sword, the one she had dropped underneath the demon, halfway across the room, in her urgency to get to Angel.
Her eyes darted around for Angel’s and found it positioned directly underneath one of the demon’s large, furry feet. She inwardly smacked herself for abandoning both weapons.
Angel watched the large demon stalk towards them. He really would have loved to be able to do something but he couldn’t physically move. And Cordelia didn’t look ready to leave his side either.
“Cordy, maybe you should…” he started
“Shut up broods, I’m not leaving you.” She warned, eyes narrowing slightly. Angel gulped and nodded. He so didn’t want to get into that again.
The demon raised its hand in the air, ready to take a swipe at them, when suddenly, it yowled in pain and its eyes rolled back in its head. It crumpled in a heap on the floor, sticky blue goo squirting out from its nose and landing straight on the vampire and seer before it.
Cordy and Angel looked up to see Wesley Windham Price, standing with his hands fisted and thrust forward from where he had been holding the sword, the weapon now firmly implanted into the demon’s back.
“No one throws me into a bloody stone wall and gets away with it!” Wesley said as coolly as he possibly could, before jumping up and down and shouting, “Did you see that? Wasn’t that cool? I just stabbed the bugger straight in the back and he had no idea what hit him! Wasn’t it cool?”
“Yeah man, it was cool.” Gunn rolled his eyes and groaned from his still foetal position on the ground. Wesley ran over to help him.
“Yeah, thanks Wes but eww!” Cordy looked down at her once crisp, white shirt, now messily stained with blue goo or snot, whatever the hell that stuff was. “Will there ever be a fight where I don’t end up covered in demon goo?” she asked disdainfully.
“Well at least now it matches your boots!” Gunn quipped, now standing firmly on his feet, thanks to Wesley. Cordelia simply gave him the finger, making Angel laugh and then flinch at the contraction.
“Oh my goodness! Angel!” For the first time the watcher realised Angel’s predicament and both he and Gunn rushed over to the vampire, helping him up, putting one of his arms around each of their shoulders and steering him towards the exit.
Cordelia watched them take him, her heart clenching once again at the makeshift stake that went straight through him. If it had been a few centimetres higher…she swallowed her nausea and walked behind the three men.
“Hey Wes?” she asked casually, “What’s with the mucus spurtage?”