Phoenix by Starlet2367
Summary: Through smoke and storm, the battered bird rises.
Spoilers: Sacrifice, Season Four.
Notes: I can't seem to do a PWP without a smidgen of plot. Here's what you need to know: In my world, Spike shanshu'd and Buffy did the Fray thing, staying behind to close the Hellmouth. Connor went evil and Angel killed him. Angel, trying to preserve what family he had left, let W&H convince him to work for them, in exchange for bigger guns, better pay and the best medical care for Cordy. Then Cordy woke up to find her world shattered. Refusing to work for the enemy or lose sight of the mission, she formed The Chase Agency with Spike and Giles, refugees from Sunnydale. The story picks up from there. Thanks to my excellent beta crew, Lala247 and Ignited, who heard my pleas for help and threw me a lifeline. Inappropriate gropes to Queen Mab who talked me through the scary parts and made me see the fic in a new light. And to Julie Fortune, who knew which part was just for her and who never lets me get away with a damn thing. To Gabby. Because she wanted some smut. With a capital SMUH.
It wasn't the first time
Angel had watched a woman through her
bedroom window.
Cordelia slept,
curled in a little ball against the edge of the bed,
both protected and
able to bolt if danger approached. Her body remained rigid, even in sleep.
A shadow moved
across the doorframe and the light from the hall
bounced off of Spike's bone-white hair and skin. He'd kept the same schedule as before. The only thing the shanshu had
changed was his
residence, the girl he obsessed over, and his eating
habits.
Resentment churned,
blacker and more toxic than the polluted air,
but he choked it back. Don't feel. Don't feel anything at all.
Angel's jaw clenched
as Spike brushed his fingers across the
back of Cordy's
hand. He then stiffened and glanced toward the window. Had he sensed Angel somehow? And then Cordy
shifted, and the
shine of light in her eyes, the tense-and-release of her muscles, pulled Spike's attention away.
She reached for
Spike's hand and smiled when he spoke to her.
Then she shook her
head and closed her eyes and Spike slipped
out of the room. Angel heard the front door close on the
other side of the
building and waited for the DeSoto's engine to catch. Its throaty growl hit the air before the car appeared,
turning the
corner and heading right underneath him.
The exhaust valves
needed adjusting again, but then Spike had always
sucked as a mechanic. He claimed he didn't have patient hands, but the truth was, they were patient enough when he
was
doing something he
liked. Smoking, crushing a windpipe, fucking. Or these days, helping Cordy fight the good fight.
Cordy sighed in her
sleep and relaxed the C of her body into a loose
S. Angel liked to think it was because she sensed him and felt safe, but more likely it was because she thought she was
finally alone.
The sounds of the
city passed around him. Cars, sirens, the slap
of shoes on concrete as a third-shifter got home from work. It was a tone poem, a story the city told him, and he knew
just by
listening what her
mood was.
Tonight she was
tired, quieter than usual, like someone beaten
down and braced for
another blow. Or maybe that was just him.
The light, dry air
shifted and carried with it the damp currents
from the ocean and
an odd sound reached his ears. Was it just the wind, or was that really a key scraping in Cordy's lock?
He shimmied around
the corner of the building, balancing on the slim,
decorative ledge, letting his preternatural reflexes take over. Once upon a time he would have treated the intruder to an
ugly
death; now he simply
watched as the front door opened.
The light from the
hallway cast a triangular shadow on the wood floor,
and the outline it left was hardly one he expected to see. Angel peered around the edge of the living room window,
watching as Wesley
closed the door silently and slid through the dark like a wraith.
He must have kept
his key, too, but unlike Angel, he didn't seem
to have any qualms
about using it. They'd all had keys from the summer after his basement apartment blew up. He
remembered that
summer in a golden haze, just the three of them,
like phoenixes rising from the ashes of their former lives.
The rogue demon
hunter, the May Queen and the Scourge of Europe
all died in that fire, and they'd built something good,
something clean on
the remains.
Or so he'd thought.
Today had sucked
beyond the telling of it. He breathed a silent,
wry laugh as he
realized how his life had changed since he met Buffy and her friends. From the slang he'd picked up to the
soul
he'd lost, he was a
different man.
Willow'd given his
soul back twice but after today he realized there
was no danger of losing it. Not because it was magically anchored but because every bit of joy in his life had been
flattened out and
run through the shredder.
He and his crew had
faced off against The Chase Agency just after
sunset. It was a turf war, pure and simple. Spike, Giles and Cordy against Fred, Wes, Gunn and him.
He'd known it'd
happen sooner or later; he'd just been hoping for
later. When he saw
her, cold-eyed and tight-jawed, press a sword
to Fred's throat, he knew that everything he'd ever tried to
build had burned up
again.
He slipped back
around to the bedroom, tracking Wes's movements through the apartment. He couldn't pick up even the
sound of footsteps;
Wes had become an excellent tracker over the
last couple of years. Now that Connor was gone--
Angel closed his
eyes and let his breath take over his thoughts.
He could still feel
the sword sliding into the crevice between his boy's ribs. When the tip sliced through Connor's heart, Angel
felt it
like it was buried in his own chest.
"The father
will kill the son."
Wes sure had a way
with prophecies. Funny that he wasn't angry at
Wes anymore. Now he just felt...dead. Dull.
He'd thought taking
the job at Wolfram and Hart would give everyone
exactly what they wanted. Connor a good home. Cordy the
best medical care. The rest of the crew a solid job and a
chance to make a
life and home in the world. To be the monster fighters they were.
But that had
crumbled just like the first life he'd built with Buffy,
and the second he'd
built with Cordy and Wes, and the third he'd tried to build with Connor. Family...it wasn't meant for him.
He
really was better
out here alone on the ledge, watching Wes--
Watching him.
Angel's skin prickled. Wes stood in the doorway,
staring right at
him. Surprise jerked him off balance. A loose piece of masonry slithered free and fell to the sidewalk two
stories below. He
shoved his fingers into a crack in the stucco and held on.
The sky started to
get heavy; he could feel the clouds move in. An
ocean storm, coming
up fast. He glanced up. No overhang. No matter. He'd been wet before. It wouldn't kill him to get wet
again.
Even as he thought
it, a memory from his short, human life surfaced.
Stealing his father's boat during a storm and sailing on Galway Bay. He remembered the way his heart raced, his body
braced, as the ship
pitched and tossed. Even then he'd been a danger junkie, meeting death face-to-face and beating it down
with both fists. Of
course, that was before it found him in an alley,
looking at him
through eyes as blue and timeless as a summer sky.
When he looked
again, Wes had slipped into the shadows next to
the closet, tucked into a corner where Cordy wouldn't see him if she woke. He gave Angel a nod. No one but a vampire could
have seen it.
The barometric
pressure dropped suddenly and the first drops of
rain hit the window
in a hard, wet spatter. He held on as the wind blew up, welcoming the chilled air and the slap of the water
on
his skin. In the
bedroom, Cordy shifted fitfully in her sleep.
Wes stood, arms
crossed, leaning against the wall. Angel could
just make out the
blue-silver gleam of his eyes in the darkness.
Cordy groaned,
rolled over and punched the pillow. Wes and Angel
both went still. When she sighed and relaxed onto her belly, Angel relaxed, too. Wes didn't let down until her
breathing evened
out.
Angel's hair got
damp and water trailed down his temples and into
his collar. The wind blew, rattling the windows in the complex. He heard the next-door neighbor roll off his
mattress and
slam the window shut.
In her bed, Cordy
shifted again, and turned her face to him. The perfect,
pure curve of her cheek reminded him of the hull of his father's boat--made for cutting through the waves and getting
him home after a
night on stormy seas.
Her eyelids
fluttered and her lips moved, like she had something
to say, but only the
people in her dream could hear it. That was Cordy--always with something to say. She'd told Fred she'd
let
her live—this
once—but if she found her on her turf again, she'd
kill her.
What happened to the
sunny girl who jabbered about manicures and
screamed about the roaches in her apartment?
Life happened. He
couldn't feel guilty anymore--Cordy had made her
own choices and he had to respect that. He couldn't undo those choices, any more than he could undo Wes's decision to
take Connor, or
Buffy's decision to stay behind and close the Hellmouth.
The people he loved had minds and hearts and lives
of their own.
But that didn't mean
he'd let them go down without a fight.
Cordy had closed
herself off from them after she woke up. He knew
how she felt--he knew *exactly* how she felt. But the closest
he'd been since then was a sword-length away. So he
remedied it the only
way he could.
By getting wet on
her windowsill in the pouring rain.
The storm came on
full force, pounding down the street, blowing
the rain in sheets.
The wind whistled, grabbing his hair, wrapping his coat around his calves. The temperature dropped
but it didn't mean
much to him; just something to observe as the time passed.
As Cordy tossed and
turned and her mumbles became cries. He tensed
as he realized what was happening. Nightmare. His hand
found the windowpane even as Wes started toward the
bed.
But her cries died
as the wind did and she settled down again. Wes
pulled up a shadow and settled in; Angel pressed his shoulder
into the arch of the window.
Then Cordy wailed, a
long, animal cry of pain so deep it seemed to
waver up from somewhere in the earth's black center.
He'd never heard
anyone make that sound before--except maybe himself.
Those first few days after he got his soul, as the memories
overlapped into reality. As he realized he could see
each and every face,
taste all the thousands of gradations of blood, like variations of grapes in wine. He'd wanted to
spit, to gag,
to vomit it all up, to give it all back, to give back all that life.
Her scream tapered
into a moan and just as he thought she was calm,
it started up again. The neighbor came to the window and peered out, and Angel could see the gooseflesh standing on
his
bare arms.
Wes moved to stand
beside the bed. He glanced up at Angel. Should
he wake her, or let her fight the demons herself?
Angel knew no one
could comfort her. But to be alone was so much
worse. He'd needed someone to guide him through and no
one had been there. If there was the slightest chance that
Wes, who'd known
darkness, could comfort her....
He nodded and Wes
stroked her hand.
Now her scream
became a yelp of terror as she woke, wild-eyed
and backed into the
headboard. Wes shook his head, spoke calmly.
He offered his down-turned palm like a man trying to
calm a wild dog.
Angel saw the spark
of recognition, of anger, of shame, and then she
blocked it all out. Flash-frozen and then nothing existed but the hard gleam of her eyes in the blackness.
Wes kept talking to
her, talking, talking, and moving ever-so-slightly. The muffled rise-and-fall of her voice
filtered through
the window. "Who let you in...what makes you think…get
out...."
Angel stopped
listening to the words and watched her body language.
Wes's movements weren't calming her down at all--instead
she escalated, moving in agitated jerks as she got
off the bed and
rounded the mattress. "Out!" She pointed to the
door and he could
see in the slash of light the way her chest heaved, hear the frantic beat of her heart.
Wes raised his hands
in supplication and moved toward the door,
but then he stopped and turned to her. "I'm sorry," he said.
Angel knew he'd
nearly whispered it, but he could hear it over the
rain and wind, clear
as a church bell on a bright day.
"You should
be," Cordy said. "And don't let the door hit you on the
ass on the way
out."
Wes shook his head.
"That's not what I meant."
Cordelia exploded,
coming at him full force, and shoving him into
the hall. "I.
Don't. Care."
Wes grabbed the
doorjamb and held on. "I'm sorry I took Connor."
Cordy went
completely still, staring at him, dumb-faced.
"I never got to
tell you that. I--" He bowed his head. "You were
gone, you see. I had
no one to talk to and--"
"Oh, right,
blame me." She made a "go ahead" motion with her
hand, like a
fighter, taunting an opponent. "God knows I deserve it."
Wes raised his eyes.
"No, Cordelia. Neither of us did." He
rubbed his mouth and
dropped his hand to his side. "Just promise me you won't make the same mistake."
Her laugh was harsh,
mean. "Going to Holtz? Stealing the baby?
Fucking the enemy?
Which mistake, Wesley? There were so many."
For a minute the
only sound was the rain. Then Wes's voice came,
quiet and broken. "Isolating yourself." He opened his
hands and held them
in front of him. "Don't you see? It's what broke us apart."
She paced next to
the bed, and the wide-legged pajama pants dipped
low on her hips. From here he could see the pink lace of stretch marks around her belly button, marring what had once
been creamy smooth
skin. Evidence of what she'd been through, of
how the last few months had marked her, body and soul. "I
thought I told you
to get out."
Wes stood, straight,
and his own scar, the one that lashed his
throat nearly from
ear to ear, glimmered. "You did."
"Then. Get.
Out," she said through clenched teeth. She stopped
pacing and crossed
her arms over her chest.
Wes hung his head
and turned to leave. Then he stopped. "You
know what?" he
asked, as if he'd suddenly been possessed by an idea. "No." When he stepped back into the room,
his head was
high, his shoulders straight. "I met you in that alley today,
sword to sword, and
it was one of the worst days of my life. I never wanted us to become enemies, Cordelia."
"Woo hoo. So
you had a sucky day. Welcome to my world. Dennis?"
she asked, looking around the room. "Get him out. Now." But the ghost stayed quiet. "Dennis!"
The rain lashed all
of a sudden, surprising Angel and sending him
bumping into the window.
Cordy's shoulders
tensed and she turned, slowly, and stared at him.
"God DAMN it," she said. She slammed the sash up. "What are
you doing?" Her voice lashed like the rain, a cold slap.
"Nothing."
He ducked his head into the dry room. "Well, getting
wet. And
eavesdropping."
She didn't crack a
smile. "What is your damage?" She glared at
him, then over her
shoulder at Wes. The light threw a shadow that
made it look like the raindrops were sliding down her face
and chest. She put
her hands on the window and made to slam it
but Angel stopped its downward motion. "Let go!" Her teeth
were clenched, her
eyebrows drawn together in a straight line.
"No." He
glanced in at Wes. "Could I get a towel?" Wes nodded
and left, and Angel
heard him rummaging in the bathroom.
"You can't
come--" Her teeth gritted.
He slid through the
window. "You didn't revoke my invitation," he
said, dripping on
the carpet.
She narrowed her
eyes at him. "Kinda hard to find the time what
with being evil,
getting out of a coma, and starting my own company."
Wes handed him a
towel and took his wet coat. "I was feeling
rather bad about you
being out there in the rain." He draped the coat over the top corner of the door, where the wet leather
could
air out.
"It's
okay," he said, toweling his hair dry. "It was actually kind
of--"
She looked from one
to the other, her face pulled taut with fury.
"Did you plan
this? Un-fricking-believable." She threw her hands
up in the air.
"Fine. If you won't leave, then I will."
Angel didn't bother
correcting her misconception. Instead he grabbed
her arm, stopping her from passing. "No. We need to talk." He led her to the bed and sat her down on the
mattress. When
she popped up, he put his hand on her shoulder and
forced her to sit.
"Stay down."
Her face went
completely blank. "You told me that before."
He stared at her,
searching through his mind for when he would have
said such a thing. The memory snuck up on rat's feet. Angelus.
And Jasmine. In the basement when she let him out of
the cage. "How
much do you remember?"
Cordy's shoulder was
tense beneath his hand. "Everything."
It was the same
feeling he'd had when Connor told him how Holtz
taught him to track. That someone he cared about could be subjected to that kind of abuse tore something loose inside
him.
Something he was
afraid he couldn't control.
The three of them
waited, frozen in the silence. Angel wrestled
the rage down and
watched as Cordy tried to restrain her own emotions.
The sight of her trembling fingers and heaving chest
only made his rage
harder to catch.
He touched her.
"Cordelia." His voice was thin, trembling.
She jolted like
she'd been shocked. "Don't touch me."
Wes simply stood and
witnessed, quiet but present. Having him there
made Angel feel grounded, sure that what he was about to do
was right.
He squatted down in
front of Cordelia. "Look at me."
She closed her eyes.
"Leave me alone."
Wes put his hand on
Angel's shoulder and Angel looked up at him.
Wes held his gaze. They'd seen enough infections to know when
one needed lancing. Wes sat down next to Cordy,
hemming her in
between the headboard, the bedside table, and Angel.
She jumped to her
feet, but Angel grabbed her arm. Angel saw her
tense, felt her blood pressure shoot through the roof. Do it sharp, do it clean, do it fast, he thought. "Tell
me."
She jerked her arm.
"Get out."
He muscled her back
onto the mattress. "Tell me."
She shoved his
chest, but he wedged her in with his knees. Wes
slid an arm around
her waist, anchoring her.
She struggled,
frantic. "Stop it." She shoved at Wes's arm, kicked
Angel in the knees.
Neither of them budged. She opened her mouth
to scream and Angel clamped a hand over her and held
her still.
"Cordelia,"
Wes said softly. "We can help you, but you have to let
us."
She panted, eyes
wild above his hand. Outside the rain peppered the window, turning the room into a cotton-wrapped
haven, removed from
the world, completely safe.
He wasn't sure what
did it, whether it was the silence, or Wes pressing
his lips to her temple, or the simple fact that she could see they weren't giving up. But her shoulders slumped and
when
he took his hand
away, she stayed quiet.
"Tell me."
He backed up to give her some breathing room,
trusting now that
she wouldn't bolt.
When her eyes met
Angel's they were dark, dirty pools. "I thought
I was doing the
right thing." Her voice sounded empty, like the space left behind by sand crumbling at high tide.
"Giving up love for
the mission." Her breath hitched.
Angel didn't let his
gaze waver, but her words hit him like a Fyarl
demon's fist. Wes
had pulled back to give her space and sat with
his arm around her looking at his lap. He'd have made a
good priest, Angel
thought vaguely. The perfect confessor.
"And then I was
just...alone. Bored. Nothing--" She twisted her
fingers together.
"I kept calling you but you didn't come. I could see
everything. You under the sea, Wes and Justine looking for you, night after night, Connor leading Fred and Gunn on a
wild
goose
chase…."
Angel waited for her
to continue. When she didn't, he reached out
and took her hand.
"What happened next?"
She made a sound in
the back of her throat, a little click, like she
was swallowing
tears. "I don't remember. I was just...here." She tapped
her forehead. "I couldn't get out. All I could do was watch."
She hunched over and
wrapped her arm around her waist.
They sat that way
for a long time, Cordy curled around herself,
Wes staring down at
the floor, and Angel stroking his thumb across
the back of Cordy's hand. The rain ebbed and flowed,
beating the window
then receding in a near-silent hiss. The numbers
on the clock changed in an endless flow of minutes,
life marking off the
time between the birth and death of the people he loved.
And then he heard
her cry, little half-hidden sobs that seemed to
be working their way
out from somewhere so deep they were having trouble getting free. Wes pulled her closer and
started
rocking, side to
side, in the same, endless flow as the minutes.
A timeless gesture
of comfort, of contact, of human warmth.
She curled into him
and Wes turned slightly and pulled her into his
lap. She buried her face in the crook of his neck.
Angel leaned in,
both the demon and the man drawn by her agony
. Not sure whether to revel in it or soothe it. He smoothed his hand down her back, and drew himself up on the bed.
She sniffled and
pulled away, looking at him. Her face was streaked,
wet, her nose red. She wiped it with the back of her hand like a little girl. Wes shifted her on his lap and when
she
turned her head too
look at him, their lips brushed.
Both of them
stiffened and then Wes smiled, a gentle, sweet sweep of his lips. And Cordy pressed her mouth to his.
To Angel it looked
like a thank you between friends. A warm, human
expression of gratitude. But as he watched it turned into something else. Something harsher, needier. She bit his lips
and Wes groaned and
opened his mouth.
His legs shifted and
he raised knees, cupping himself around her,
drawing her in tight against him. As Angel watched, Wes tilted her head and devoured her mouth. They pulled back
panting, and Cordy
stared at him. Then her eyes turned to Angel and she held out her hand.
He drew it to his
mouth and laid a kiss on the velvet-smooth back.
"Cordy," he said.
She shook her head
and he realized that all they needed was the silence.
For the first time
since he could remember he could feel his body,
the empty space where his heart didn't beat. His skin tingled as he watched Wes run a thousand kisses over Cordy's
face. Cordy smiled,
a winsome curve, and kissed him back.
The smile faded as
she traced his scar with her fingertip and Wes
arched back to give her better access.
Angel got hard
instantly. Where before he'd been warm, comforted,
happy to watch, now he wanted. Wanted his teeth on that throat, his hands on Cordelia's pure, beautiful face.
Almost as if they
heard him, Wes and Cordy turned and spread the
net of their smiles. Wes slid back, pulling Cordy with him and he lay down diagonally across the bed. She slithered down his
body and rested in
the crevice under his arm, then she reached back
and took Angel's hand and drew him down behind her.
He pressed his body
against her, and she pressed back, pushing her bottom against his pelvis, lighting up his
circuits. He groaned
and she did it again.
Her hand roamed over
Wesley's chest, stroking him through his
shirt, finding the
buttons and slipping them free. Angel had a half a second to wonder if this was what she really wanted before
she shimmied up and
straddled Wes's hips. He arched into her and
she threw her head back and rode him.
Angel put his hand
on her shoulder, ran it under her hair to the
nape of her neck,
and tugged. She leaned down and kissed him for the first time since the ballet. Her mouth was a hell of
a lot
better than his
fantasies, and on her tongue he could taste Wesley,
dark and male.
Mobile, hot, soft,
her mouth moved against his, and her quick tongue
darted out and tasted him. She moved off of Wesley and onto the bed, deepening their kiss. Angel let the sensations
wash over him.
She watched him. He
wondered if she could see his emotions the
way he could see hers. He'd kept them reined in for so long, but his heart had run aground like his father's boat and
there
wasn't anything to
do now but get out and *feel*.
End.
Contact
Starlet2367