{"id":7593,"date":"2015-10-30T15:10:08","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T15:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/goteamfiction.com\/?p=7593"},"modified":"2015-10-30T15:10:27","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T15:10:27","slug":"lost-to-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goteamfiction.com\/index.php\/2015\/10\/30\/lost-to-her\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost to Her"},"content":{"rendered":"

Title: Lost To Her<\/b> (A Darkness Within fic)
\nAuthor: samsom<\/b>
\nPosted: <\/b>
\nEmail<\/b><\/a>
\nRating: <\/b>R
\nCategory: <\/b>Angst
\nContent: <\/b>C\/A
\nSummary: <\/b>Angel\u2019s not coming back and Cordelia can\u2019t follow.
\nSpoilers: <\/b>This takes place at the end of Redefinition, after Angel sets Darla & Dru on fire, but before Wes comes down to the basement to make his declaration. Nothing in the scene, however, is spoilery for that ep unless you squint.
\nDisclaimer: <\/b>The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
\nDistribution: <\/b>Just ask
\nNotes: <\/b>It\u2019s a little rough, but I honestly can\u2019t do anything else for it.
\nThanks\/Dedication:<\/b>
\nFeedback:<\/b>Is yummy<\/p>\n

\n

The kitchen\u2019s a little spare for food, but she tries anyway, scrounging in the fridge. The hangover that mostly disappeared with her vision in Caritas is still trying to make waves in her belly and she needs a little something to calm her rolling stomach.<\/p>\n

Ah-ha.<\/p>\n

Comes out with jelly and some bread, and smiles slightly before remembering why she\u2019s standing in her kitchen with a slight hangover.<\/p>\n

She never thought, ever in a million years, that this is where she\u2019d be at twenty-years-old. Her picture of her future involved splitting her time between college and traveling Europe, double majoring in decorating and Business Admin.<\/p>\n

Instead, she\u2019s an unemployed secretary; an actress with no agent left to speak of, and, as the ache in the back of her head reminds her, still a full time seer.<\/p>\n

With no Angel.<\/p>\n

Taking her load to the kitchen table, she puts the jelly on the bread and spreads with quick and even strokes, murmuring absently when Dennis brings her a glass of milk.<\/p>\n

She crazy for thinking they were going to be able to make the Agency work without the namesake, but she\u2019s surprised to find that she\u2019s jazzed that they\u2019re going to try.<\/p>\n

Wesley\u2019s knowledge, Gunn\u2019s fighting skills, and her conduit-ness \u2013 it still counts.<\/p>\n

They\u2019d saved a girl.<\/p>\n

Killed a demon.<\/p>\n

They could do it.<\/p>\n

But first they needed their tools.<\/p>\n

Finishing her too-sweet sandwich, she downs the milk and gets up with purpose.<\/p>\n

~~<\/p>\n

She\u2019s mildly surprised her key still works and slips into the dark lobby with as little noise as she could manage.<\/p>\n

Holding the empty box in a light grip, she moves quietly behind the counter, opening up the built-in cabinet and pulling out her reference books.<\/p>\n

She flips through them quickly, trying to pick the ones she thinks they\u2019re going to need the most, and chooses three, dumping them in the cardboard box.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you doing here, Cordelia?\u201d<\/p>\n

Yelping, she jumps from her crouch and ends up sprawling back on her butt, heart pounding painfully in her chest as she stares up Angel.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s half shrouded by darkness, his face painted up with cuts and purpling, angry bruises.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat, the lawyers fight back this time?\u201d She stands up. \u201cKnow what? Never mind, I don\u2019t want to know. I\u2019m just here to get some Agency property and then I\u2019m gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

She crouches down again, and continues her inventory.<\/p>\n

Except.<\/p>\n

Now she doesn\u2019t feel the bound leather from the tingling in her fingers, doesn\u2019t see the titles because every one of her senses is honed on Angel, so she haphazardly grabs two more volumes, tossing them carelessly in the box with her other texts without knowing if they\u2019ll be useful.<\/p>\n

\u201cFine, take them and get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

He disappears from her peripheral.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is your damage<\/i>, Angel?\u201d She\u2019s up on her feet and hissing at him before she could think about it.<\/p>\n

He stops on his way to the stairs and turns back around to face her.<\/p>\n

She rounds the counter and comes to stand in front of it, hands propped on her hips.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen did you decide to make our decisions for us, tell us<\/i> when the fight was over?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I fired you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that easy,\u201d she counters, her head throbs, suddenly, as if in agreement, \u201cnot that easy for some of us to walk away.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stares at her with a face of stone, and doesn\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you care that you\u2019re taking the low road? That you\u2019re throwing away everything you\u2019ve worked for?\u201d<\/p>\n

She sees her answer in his eyes before he opens his mouth to confirm it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I don\u2019t. Now get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

She sets her jaw and glares at him with scalding eyes, hating that he can get to her so easily, feeling him like a shard of steel right through the center of her heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you\u2019re just another vampire, and I\u2019m wasting my time.\u201d<\/p>\n

She turns to get her belongings.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood-bye Angel.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s leaning over for her box when she\u2019s jerked back around by a hard grip on her elbow, and finds herself nose to nose with a pissed off vampire.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what, Chase, maybe you need a lesson, you know that?\u201d Backing her against the counter, amber eyes rimmed with red, he snarls into her face, lips pulled back over a predator\u2019s teeth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am<\/i> a vampire, something you seem to forget pretty easily when you\u2019re telling me who to hire and who not to kill, who to help and who doesn\u2019t deserve it!\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s yelling into her face and if he grips her any harder, she\u2019s going to start hearing bones crack, in addition to the blinding pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone has to, you lost your ability to reason out the obvious months ago \u2013 and let go of me, goddammit!\u201d<\/p>\n

She reinforces her demand with the cross she keeps in her front pocket, pressing it with her whole palm into the back of his forearm.<\/p>\n

His skin hisses instantly, and he pulls back with a pained snarl, letting her go and jumping back from the object, getting between her and the double doors on both sides of the lobby.<\/p>\n

Angel regards her calmly with his demon\u2019s face, glancing at his arm to check the damage before considering her for a long moment.<\/p>\n

Her shaking breath fills the empty air between them, and he smiles grimly, smiles at her fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat wasn\u2019t nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWasn\u2019t meant to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, good to know the rules, then.\u201d<\/p>\n

He moves faster than she can blink, knocking the cross from her hand and grabbing her arms, pushing her back against the counter, holding her there with his body.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou aren\u2019t playing by anyone\u2019s rules but your own, Mr. King-of-the-Universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

He nods approvingly, grunting as his eyes circle her face and neck.<\/p>\n

\u201cCatching on, Cor \u2013 that\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBetter late than ever, I always say. So now that I know the score, I\u2019ll just leave you to your suicide dive,\u201d she glares up into his face. \u201cI\u2019ve got better things to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWes and Gunn can wait. You, on the other hand, need a lesson on what to expect when you go pulling crosses on friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not friends.\u201d She grits through her teeth and tears.<\/p>\n

He stares down at her for a second, face in shadows she can\u2019t see into, thoughts gone where she can\u2019t follow. She wants to cry because he\u2019s so far removed from what she thought he was \u2013 lost to his past and its hold over him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we never were,\u201d he mutters before lowering his head and kissing her.<\/p>\n

Except it doesn\u2019t feel like a kiss, it feels like an invasion \u2013 another way for Angel to take something from her, to push her further away then she already is from him.<\/p>\n

It nearly works.<\/p>\n

She wants to stick her cross up into his ribcage and get the hell out of dodge but –<\/p>\n

As he invades the inside of her mouth with his tongue, she tastes something different.<\/p>\n

Desperation.<\/p>\n

Need.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s in her mouth, salty and bitter.<\/p>\n

Opening her eyes, she sees the tears down his face, going through the bruises and the cuts, mingling with his saliva on her tongue.<\/p>\n

The shard of steel through her heart twists deeper, and she softens her body against his, tugging against his hold so she can bring her hands up against the sides of his head, holding him instead of pushing away.<\/p>\n

Her mouth opens of its own volition and her kiss deepens, taking him in, trying to give him the succor of her touch, to heal some of the hurts that has him so twisted up he can\u2019t see anything but pain and revenge.<\/p>\n

His arms wrap around her torso, bringing her up closer, against his chest, holding on convulsively, his hands fisted in the back of her shirt, desperately taking what she\u2019s giving him like a thirsty man in the desert.<\/p>\n

The room narrows and time stops as Angel holds her, the world centers down to this moment and she thinks maybe she\u2019s reaching him, bringing him back from the brink of whatever precipice he\u2019s standing on.<\/p>\n

She breaks away because she has to breathe, and he buries his face in her neck, his body vibrating with tension and a grief she doesn’t understand.<\/p>\n

Then suddenly, he thrusts her away and she nearly stumbles back before catching her footing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAngel, what-?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGet out.\u201d<\/p>\n

She thought it hurt when he fired her, that it couldn\u2019t hurt any worse than knowing he could cut them out of his life so easily.<\/p>\n

She was wrong.<\/p>\n

This is worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet. Out.\u201d<\/p>\n

He turns half away from her, steadying his voice along with his resolve, fists clenched against the sides of his thighs like he was looking at a cross.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you really making this choice, Angel, because there\u2019s no coming back \u2013 you know that, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her voice is soft but firm. She can\u2019t afford to cut out more pieces of herself to hand over to him so he can stomp all over them. There\u2019s got to be something left, or she\u2019ll disappear, and if he sends her away this time, she\u2019ll stay away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not coming back, Cordelia. Get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

She nods once and goes to pick up her box, hefting it under her arm, and leaves him to his misery.<\/p>\n

But she\u2019s crying because she can still taste his pain in her mouth.<\/p>\n

She can\u2019t hear him tear up the inside of the lobby, can\u2019t see him pack up her personal belongings and shove them into a closet.<\/p>\n

Because she doesn\u2019t look back.<\/p>\n

~*~<\/b><\/p>\n

Samsom<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Title: Lost To Her (A Darkness Within fic) Author: samsom Posted: Email Rating: R Category: Angst Content: C\/A Summary: Angel\u2019s not coming back…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-completed-fics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goteamfiction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goteamfiction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goteamfiction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goteamfiction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goteamfiction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/goteamfiction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goteamfiction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goteamfiction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goteamfiction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}