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In the Company of Men
by Kismet
Email: mata_hari@angelfire.com
Rating : NC-17 (M/M)
Category: Cordelia ? A/L
Summary: Cordelia thinks about the men she's known, and
the fact that she keeps Angel's biggest secret
without quite knowing why.
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own the
characters, I own the story. This is a work
of amateur fiction and no copyright
infringement is intended.
Author's Note:
Ok, I've been asked time and time again whether I write
slash, and looking back I don't think any of my fic
could really fall into this category (except one early
one). So, slash-fans, enjoy the one-off while I consider whether I can write any more without blushing
more profusely than I am already. Reading slash is one
thing, writing it another !
*******************
There was something about men, she thought, that was purely erotic. Some magic to their bodies, naturally hard even as a woman's is naturally soft, the harsh abrasion of a day's stubble against mouth or cheek. Their clean scent of sweat and salt. That sense of something alien and unfamiliar in their touch. That wonderful possessiveness in their arms when they wrapped around her at night, that ubiquitous leg thrown over both of hers as if to say, 'This is Mine.'
Cordelia Chase liked men, and men liked her in return, gifted as she was with natural beauty. LA, though, was a wilderness of beautiful girls. A place where to be without beauty would be as bad as to be crippled. That kind of place.
And it made sense in some way that she should be lonely in this place full of beautiful people. Lonely for love, if not for companionship. Lonely in those hours between crises, after washing demon-goop from her fingers or cataloguing the weapons and making sense of their phenomenal dry-cleaning bill. Part of the cause was perhaps the possessiveness of her co-worker and her boss, otherwise known as her friends and a large part of her ICU-warded social life. She could feel their possessiveness rising every time she went off early because of a date. She had learnt long ago not to have men pick her up at the office.
She had friends, of course, both male and female outside of this, but how could you achieve the closeness you had with the people whom you deal with on a life-or-death basis ? After massacres and kidnappings and graveyard-duty and brain-splitting visions talk about the latest club or clothes, though fun in the Cordelia Chase book, could seem rather light-weight. And since that episode of almost-motherhood after mixing with the wrong crowd she had rather had her guard up. The girls may have been blameless, but she'd rather not carry a litter of demons again if she could help it.
So what did she think of as she sat in the swivel chair on slow days, flipping through a magazine or doing her nails, indulging the shallow side of herself ? It's at times like these when the strangest thoughts come to mind.
She thinks of past lovers sometimes. The not-quite relationships she'd had in high school. Jocks, popularity kings with their inexperienced, ego-driven fumbling. Giving her a taste of what was to come but never quite delivering. Losing her virginity hadn't been the mind-blowing experience she'd thought it would be. After all, how skillful can an impatient sixteen-year-old boy be ? Girls were women at 14 and boys rarely if ever reached true maturity.
Which almost always brought her to Xander. Alexander Harris had been her first true love affair, and the first one to break her heart. She'd fought kicking and screaming against his pull, but somewhere between his dorkishness and her contempt and slow draw in to the world of Slaying they'd both clicked. It had been fireworks in broom closets. She'd still remembered those stolen kisses, thrilling and sweet and the true thrill of love. Xander had had a wonderful mouth, made for kisses. She'd smiled secretly to think of what Harmony and the gang of bitch-queens would have said if they'd known what they'd been missing. Xander had a mouth made for wise-cracks and long sweet kisses....
"Cordelia." Angel's voice broke into her thoughts. He was standing there by the door, pulling on his coat. "Are you done for the night ?"
She continued leafing through the bills she wasn't really paying attention to. "No. I think it'll be a night for me. I might bunk over." She'd done it before. It wasn't as if there was a lack of rooms in this huge hotel where the halls could echo of emptiness sometimes.
"OK. I'm going out. I don't think anyone's going to call. Don't wait up for me." Barely a change of expression as he snapped from topic to topic.
" 'Kay." She waved an unconcerned hand. "Whatever."
The door clicked behind him.
She would give him ten minutes. She knew where he was going. Actually she couldn't blame him, not really. The man had had horrible break-ups in his day. Probably ten times worse than what she'd felt when she'd walked in on Xander giving one of those knee-shaking kisses to Willow.
After Xander had been Wesley. The Replacement Watcher of the stuffy attitude and all the wrong moves when it came to a headstrong Slayer with her own team of Slayerettes. Wesley's problem was that he hadn't realized that Buffy needed a father-figure and had found it in Giles.
What he had had was beautiful hands and an attraction to willowy brunettes.
Electric bills, water bills, phone bills, dry cleaner's bills. Even a florist's bill.
She'd first noticed his hands when he'd been flipping through an old book. 'Cauldron Spells and Potions', she thought it was. He had beautiful long pale fingers, musician's fingers with the appealing angles and perfect joints of unspoiled male hands. Fingers which brought to mind English fields in hunting season and gloved hands holding a pair of Purdeys. Jeremy Northam pulling back a bowstring in 'Emma' while Gwyneth Paltrow looked on. Fingers which would have burned on her skin right there in the library.
She glanced at her watch. About time to go.
Like so many young people in LA she didn't have a car, but then she'd coaxed Wesley into teaching her how to handle a bike.
Angel always kept his keys in the second sock-drawer from the left. He was a creature of habit. Maybe 250 years could do that to you. She'd always been tempted to see if he colour-coded his underwear too.
He'd taken the car, of course, but the bike was there. She didn't know much about bikes, but she did know that she preferred the sleek racer types. Not this old clunker, no matter how shined-up it was or how much it would be worth on the market. The only thing she knew about it was it was 1000cc. Or something like that.
She pulled on the protective gloves. Always wear protective gloves and a helmet, Wesley had warned her. Don't think you're invincible unless you want to become a statistic.
Actually it was her face she wanted to protect. The last thing she wanted was to have to go through the rest of her life looking like that Master-guy they'd dusted back in high school.
She'd only slept with Wesley once. No one knew about it but the both of them and neither was likely to talk about it.
Yet Cordelia Chase smiled briefly, a fleeting smile of true pleasure as she remembered. Unlike anything that had happened with Xander this had been planned. Nothing spontaneous about dinner and the hotel.
The wind blew out the hair that hung out under the helmet as the powerful motorcycle purred underneath her. She'd buttoned up her jacket and her denim-clad thighs clutched the bike securely as she maneuvered on the streets of LA.
Wesley's hands on her skin had been every bit as delicious as she had thought they might be. It had been amazing, actually, what he'd become after she'd broken him out of the shell of his suit and tie, taken off those nerdy spectacles . She'd always thought of him as old just because he acted that way, all serious and bookish and responsible. Like a Giles-clone with less of the Nice. But Wesley had been and was still a young man. He'd had that naturally taut body of a healthy young male, not overbuilt but resilient under that milky English skin. And he'd had an older man's experience and restraint in bed, with none of his normal hesitance once they'd been between the sheets. Wesley had been wonderful, a once-and-never-again though she knew that there had been certain times where, if she'd gone up to him, he would have said yes.
It was behind her now and it wouldn't come back again, like Doyle. Doyle she cried for still, cursed still. She smiled as she turned off the main road. Funny that Doyle could still make her mad even though he was dead. Actually, a big part of Doyle had been Funny. His plus was a great sense of humour. Of all the men in her life he'd had the least contact with her but had touched her deeper than anyone else. All he'd done was kiss her once, but he'd reached into her very soul to give her this 'gift of sight'. She'd never had a worse gift ever, actually, even that pair of socks she'd gotten from her Grandpa at Christmas when she'd been expecting Hairdresser Barbie.
Here. She cut the engine and felt its dying shudder under her, then got off and walked the bike down the alley, feeling the crossbow tucked inside her jacket surreptitiously. She knew exactly which doorway to go into, which stairs would lead her up to the abandoned apartment, just as she knew from the car she'd seen who it was in the other apartment across the street whose window she could look into to see the bedroom.
She'd half-expected it to be Spike, actually. Wesley had heard something about the peroxide blond terror being in town. He'd been here before, to this apartment rented under a woman's name. She'd never been inside but she knew the bedroom was papered in stained blue and there was a large bed there with white sheets. Easy to wash. Just load on bleach and stain-remover.
She knew that the bill never turned up among those she handled.
She'd seen him and Spike several times before. It wasn't a blond tonight but a brunette. Almost Black Irish, this one, always nervous and on edge, a jumble of uncertainties, anger, desperation and fear, unlike Spike who snapped his teeth, stretched and fought like a cat and enjoyed himself.
Cordelia had once thought she could like this man. She had a marked preference for dark men as history proved. And she couldn't say she liked doing this. At first it had been real hard to accept, turning her stomach as much as it fascinated her, but she knew she would always be here. To watch over him at his most vulnerable because he was one of the men in her life. One she didn't quite know whether she liked or not. This was true: it hurt her every time. Her own brand of possessiveness, maybe.
What were they doing, she wondered in a strangely detached way as she settled down on the worn chair at the window, the only thing in the bare, unlighted room. Would it be teeth and claws ? A fight perhaps, a struggle, fists flying and a spurt of blood ?
There was something about men, she thought again, that was purely erotic. Men kissing with their strangely hard mouths open hungrily against each other, devoid of the tenderness there might be between man and woman and full of the struggle to assert command over each other.
She couldn't say she felt nothing as she watched Angel's fingers drive none-too-gently into the half-maddened young man's head of black curls. She knew what the human's feelings were. Worry, guilt and anger at himself because Lindsey the lawyer would have been killed on the spot if they'd known he was here and Lindsey the man had to have hate and lust clash every time he came here. He'd call it sick, even depraved, and enjoy it all the more each time.
Yes, Cordelia thought with a touch of spite. She'd thought once that Lindsey was a Possible, but then Lindsey was addicted now. And nevermind that Angel was a guy because Angel made gender irrelevant. With him it was purely personal. You weren't sleeping with a man or a woman; you were giving Angel a lay and there was always the spicy possibility you'd give him a True Moment and he'd go Angelus on you. Perversely that made you want to go the distance even more. It was like the Good-Lay inbuilt barometer.
The men in her life. Hilarious that she was sitting here in what was probably a rat-infested creaky old building watching Angel scoop his human lover up, probably crushing him in his grip as they kissed. Then why'd she feel like crying ?
Watching them tear at each other with their mouths and hands she could just imagine the sounds. Those masculine grunts and growls and curses that men make. She could feel muscle harden in their arms and shoulders as they grappled, Angel throwing the smaller man down on the bed and pinning him down with his weight. The hardness of men all over as their bodies strained and slid, one beaded with sweat and smelling muskily and deliciously of arousal and Man, the other cool and just the slightest bit too firm to be human.
At this angle she couldn't see, but maybe Angel had vamped out and was kissing Lindsey so the human could feel the fangs behind the flesh of his lips. Or maybe it was open-mouthed, almost a bite. She'd seen Spike and Angel both vamp out on each other before, snarling like wolves as they fought with bared fangs as if what they sought was a chunk or flesh instead of a kiss. Maybe Angel had drawn blood, a long scratch down Lindsey's chest or flat belly, licking as a single tear-drop of red slipped down the gasping young man's limbs and spotted brilliantly on the white sheet.
Then they both drew up kneeling on the bed and Cordelia leaned forward, watching as Lindsey turned his back to Angel so he fitted against that cold chest, between his flanks. She could almost feel the coldness of Angel's skin as he felt it, twisting his neck and head so those cool lips could come down with a devouring kiss. She could almost understand what Angel must feel at this baring of the neck, this willing surrender. She could feel the softness of Lindsey's head of wavy hair, the curls brushing her collarbone and the rasp of the young man's five o'clock shadow as Angel planted kisses and bites down the column of that offered neck. She could feel that rush of hate and want, thinking as Lindsey did that This is the Man who took my Hand, who yawned when I came to Him and tried to make Him Understand and who fought me all the way after. If I could Kill him I'd take Holland's place no questions asked, but I'm here and I can't because he's doing this to Me and oh God his hands, his Mouth, his Teeth....
She could imagine the silky heaviness that Angel's hand was encircling now, stroking long and lusciously so Lindsey's head lolled back on his shoulder as it was now, that pretty mouth opening in pleasure, his chest rising and falling.
And what would Angel be thinking ? Of loneliness ? Of how strange life is ? She couldn't ever tell when he was with Lindsey. Guilt, yeah. Angel was built on guilt. With Spike she knew he felt a love probably as strong as he'd felt for Buffy, only he knew thrillingly that in way he owned Spike. He'd made this viciously, icily gorgeous monster who was high on life in general the way he himself couldn't be.
But then the human man had moved onto all fours now with Angel over him, one arm pulling him up close to that cold belly. Cordelia could almost smell them, saw the flash of the light on one of Lindsey's sweating flanks, the phoenix tattoo on Angel's shoulder as he forced the young man up closer to the headboard.
It wasn't a chair she was straddling anymore; it was the bike, engine idling under her, vibrating with its eagerness to go on the road as she watched them. She tasted what Angel had forced into Lindsey's mouth with his tongue, his thumb pulling back the corner of his lover's mouth cruelly for more access into that chamber of wet and warmth. The taste of Truth, of Guilt and Loss and Death. She felt the thrum of the bike between her thighs as Angel forced Lindsey's head back roughly, kissing him and taking the flavour of warmth and Life from him as he positioned himself carefully. And perhaps the taste of innocence too. It was what had drawn Cordelia herself and most certainly Angel, the inexplicable innocence in that handsome face with its beautiful structure and the blue eyes of a child, that would always be there no matter how long he worked at Wolfram and Hart.
Then Angel's powerful back arched and he pushed savagely forward.
Cordelia gave a soundless breath as Lindsey's muscles strained as if in agony, standing out under his skin. The bike roared to life underneath her, growling powerfully like a wild thing. She felt the wind in her hair; could almost hear Lindsey's strong cry as he struggled.
She felt the power of the smooth, sleek machine in Angel's driving rhythm, his larger, heavier body forcing into the young man in a coiling motion like rape. Ah,yes, rape. She felt the shivering reverberation gripped between her legs as Lindsey's hips began to rock of their own accord, pushing strongly back against Angel, welcoming the invasion and the hand beneath him; trapping him.
Her lashes fluttered as she watched them move faster with the strength of wild things, and she felt the powerful ache of a sob in her chest. The bike purred under her as she reached for the crossbow and braced it against her shoulder, squinting through the sights.
Angel's hips jerked spasmodically and she saw the muscles hidden under his flesh rise in his back as he came. The head of the bolt swept over him, caressing the spot between his shoulder-blades as he held rigid. Then it stroked down Lindsey's side as he in his turn shuddered and all but collapsed, his mouth opening in a gasp.
Then they did fall onto the bed and as she watched Angel allowed the exhausted young man to draw up against his side as they indulged in Man's weakness, his most vulnerable moment. Angel buried his face in the crook of Lindsey's neck, taking him more surely than he had with his thrusts, licking and sucking as those blue eyes went half-mast.
Her fingers trembled, a hairsbreadth from the trigger. The roar of the engine receded slowly from her ears. There was no bike. It was downstairs and this was a torn old chair she was straddling. She could hear rats scrabbling in the walls.
Then, exhausted, she let the hand with the crossbow fall. They were, after all, what they were. The men in her life. The essence that she felt on the edge of her rage, the aftertaste of strong drink, the smell of warm bodies exerting themselves in the gymn. A death-cry. Blood and dust and the scent of smoke and cinnamon. That which causes women frustration and tears of anger, perhaps, but which they can never quite bring themselves to destroy ,even for their own good.
Time to go.
She tucked the crossbow back into her jeans and buttoned up her jacket. She took the time to make her hair into one long braid.
( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . (
Cordelia Chase was lying between cool sheets by the time Angel got back, breathing evenly, the snake of her braid dark on the pillow.
He came to her room as was his habit when she slept over, opening the door silently and slipping into the dark room like something mothers warn their children about. He made absolutely no sound as he stood there, watching her as if to make sure it was really her and that she was really there.
Cordelia could remember her father doing this long ago when she'd been little. A last check on his little girl before he and her mother went up to bed. But she didn't turn over and give him a sleepy grin the way she used to with her Dad.
"Goodnight, Daddy."
"Goodnight, sweetheart. Daddy's little Queen Cordelia." And he'd smile and shut the door, leaving her to sweet dreams.
None of this here and now, though she wondered if one night she would sit up and ask him to come over to the edge of the bed so she could taste his mouth, to lick out the gunpowder-raw-oyster taste of men from him. Maybe Spike's signature of cigarettes and alcohol, an iron-tang of blood like a half-formed threat.
Maybe one night she would do it, with all the unpredictability of Woman. Maybe she would rise up naked with her hair like a shawl around her, and whisper to him that she wanted Lindsey for his glossy curling hair and his innocent blue eyes. For now she would close her eyes and pretend to be asleep with her back to him, waiting until she heard the soft, almost imperceptible sound of the door being closed by an inhuman hand.
F . I . N
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