Rating: R…maybe NC17
Disclaimer: This takes place after Angel locks the W&H lawyers in the wine cellar with Dru and Darla. He's in his beige period.
Authors Note: This might seem REALLY angst ridden but I'm feeling kind of depressed. So I'm going to take it all out on this story!
Feedback: Yes, dammit!!! Ahem…I mean…yes please! I would appreciate it!!
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~Part: 1~
The rain drizzled on her window and yet she could still see the images that blurred by. Isn't that what life was? Just a line of images that rushed by while you're left to watch, helpless?
Cordelia clenched her body within the seat of her cab as it made its way to the Hyperion Hotel.
Helping the helpless, it was their mission statement; she, Wes, Gunn and Angel. Together, they saved people. Just like real heroes. But even heroes fall.
Angel fell.
Tonight, Cordelia had her own mission: To make Angel understand that fighting for good was not fruitless.
Tonight, especially, she vowed not to be helpless.
The cab came to a halt and Cordelia handed the driver a wad of bills, not bothering to count. Getting out, she stood in the rain while the cab drove away to meet its next guest.
Anxious…scared…she was all emotions wrapped up in a bundled mess. She was so lost inside with her only thought being the salvation of Angel. He needed her. She had to do this. It was her duty as a friend to bring him clarity.
Thirteen Wolfram & Hart lawyers were found slaughtered in a wine cellar, locked in with two murderers who reveled in the kill: Darla and Druscilla. Locked in by Angel.
It was easy to piece together. The details in the paper were vague but enough to give Cordelia the answers to know who did what.
Angel had gone too far. He was being consumed by an unquenchable obsession and was lusting for a revenge that was probably beyond him. He abandoned their mission for the destruction of Wolfram & Hart, with helping the helpless only a latent consequence.
Cordelia tightened her fists and mustered up as much courage as she could possibly find. Angel was going to see the light, even if she had to beat it into him.
She made her way into the dimly lit hallway, soaking wet with tendrils of her brown hair dripping onto her shoulders. Her eyes wandered the lobby and she realized just how lonely and abandoned it looked, even with Angel still living there. Cordelia's fingers traced over the open books lying on the countertop. Her heart sank when she thought of Angel sitting in the dark, alone and empty.
"Cordelia?" a gruff voice from behind her called out.
Gasping, she turned to find Angel glaring at her. He looked…different. His face was scruffy and his eyes…they held disdain. "Angel?'
"What do you want, Cordelia?" he asked with a harshness that warned her to pick her words carefully.
"I came here to talk to you." she simply stated. A chill surged through her spine whether from the cooling rain drops on her skin or the demanding tension in the air, she didn't want to know.
He remained silent.
She took it as a cue to continue. She took a few steps towards his unrelenting form and began, "Angel, you're my friend. I love you and I care about what happens to you. But what you're doing isn't right. You have to stop going down this path! It won't lead you to anywhere but darkness. I don't want that to happen, not to you." she let out quickly. Her heart raced and suddenly she realized she wanted more than anything to hold him. She needed him to feel…to care again.
"I'm a vampire. Darkness goes hand in hand with that." he shrugged nonchalantly as if he'd just stated the time.
She began to plead, "It doesn't have to be that way! It wasn't before…Angel, you killed those lawyers! Those people…".
Angel's eyes shot to hers and he made a move forward, "I didn't kill them. That was Darla and Dru."
"But you locked them in there! They slaughtered those people and you just walked away knowing what was going to happen! You acted no worse than them!" she spoke loudly, becoming more frustrated the longer they spoke.
"I don't need to justify anything to you, Cordelia. You don't work for me anymore. You're not my employee" he said while matching her volume.
Her eyes softened and the vulnerability shone through her voice, "But I'm still you're friend." She stated this as a desperate reassurance, if not for him then for her, she wasn't sure. Cordelia searched his face for any indication that her words were taking effect.
"You want to be my friend? Then get out and don't come back." he stated before turning around and making his way up the stairs to the next level.
Cordelia would not be shut out so easily, "I'm not leaving until you hear me out!" she warned before yanking his elbow towards her. Please Angel, hear me out. I need you to hear me.
He growled, "What are you going to do? Give me a lesson on good behavior? I think you're hardly the best candidate for that speech." He was being harsh…he knew it but he couldn't stop the words from flowing out of his mouth.
Cordelia's cheeks burned with anger, "What exactly is that supposed to mean?" she demanded as she roughly tugged on his arm. Things were getting dangerous but she could only feel herself feeding the sparks that were threatening to burn them both down.
Angel turned fully around on the step and caressed her face only to have her flinch away. In a smug voice, he explained, "You were Queen C; a stuck up bitch that made outcasts fear you. One day, you accidentally get Doyle's visions and you're suddenly the spokesperson for morality and good behavior? Come on, Cordy…who are you trying to fool?"
Angel's cool touch seared but it was nothing compared to his words. "I'm different now. We all change, just as long as it's for the good and we…" she tumbled on her words.
"Do you even hear yourself? No, you probably don't. Look, do yourself a favor and get out. Now. I don't need this." Angel warned as his face loomed dangerously close to hers.
"I told you, I'm not going anywhere…and drop the 'scary vampire' act. It doesn't work well with you." Cordelia said while attempting to look confident. Please don't turn me away Angel. I only want to help you. She was shaking. Angel had never spoke to her this way and the things he said…this was definitely not heading in the direction she thought it would.
~Part: 2~
Angel watched the emotions contort Cordelia's facial features. He couldn't believe she had actually come to the hotel, much less, to see him. He had thought for sure her pride would have stopped her.
Yet there she was, unyielding, trying to accomplish a task that was likely to be futile, trying to convince him that they were friends. He had gone centuries without friendship; he didn't need it, especially not now.
Besides, he was a demon. It was his nature to revel in the darkness and scorn the light. Having a soul no longer meant anything to him. It didn't make him any better or worse because no matter what, the demon always lived inside. He would just have to show her.
Before he knew it, he was crossing the lines of his relationship with Cordelia.
Angel gripped the back of her neck and pulled it forward to roughly taste her lips. They felt as full and soft as they looked. Angel was in a haze. The lines between his self-control and dark impulses were crossed. He no longer cared that she was fighting his embrace or that her tears were wetting his face. He told her to leave but she didn't.
Cordelia hung on to Angel's shoulders and felt them sink to the floor in a heap. She managed to escape his mouth in time to gasp out, "Angel, what are you doing?!?" Her heart was pounding a frantic rhythm and she knew he was feeling every beat of it. Angel was kissing her but not out of love but something more sinister.
"I'm going to show you what its like to live in the darkness." Angel looked down at her and stated with a cold fury that made her stomach quake in an unbelieving fear.
"Don't…don't do this…please!" she cried out even though she knew he wasn't listening. She refused to believe the validity of this new personality her dear friend was taking on. He doesn't know what he's doing…
His hands roamed savagely along her body, shredding her clothes, feeling her damp, rain soaked skin. She was trembling in shivers, yet he could feel a searing warmth traveling throughout her lithe form.
"Angel! I know you! You know me! Just stop for a minute and look at how completely wrong this entire situation is!" Cordelia tried again knowing that his mind was in a place where words meant nothing. It seemed that he was in that place more often than not these days.
"Wrong? There is no right and wrong, Cordelia. There's only action and consequence." Angel sniped. Morals had no place in a world like his. They were useless and only brought more complication than necessary.
He was growing more agitated the more they spoke. She was complicating everything he'd come to learn from the events of the past few months. Cordelia was threatening to take his clear-cut logic and tangle it in with her good versus evil rhetoric.
"Angel, you know that's not true! How many lives have you saved? You did it because you knew it was the right thing to do! Not because…" Cordelia exclaimed, all the while trying to forget the roughness with which he was tackling her weakening form.
"Right…and that tiny issue of the 'Shanshu prophesy' had nothing to do with anything. Believe me, Cordelia, we're all selfish beings that roam this world. Everyone has an agenda." he remarked while unhooking the material that was keeping him from her flesh.
"No…you don't even know what you're saying! Stop twisting everything around!" Cordelia cried out as she tried to get him to look at her. Her hands were shaking as they tried to hold his face.
"Everything is already twisted. There's no sense in trying to unravel anything. The world is what it is. Who am I or you to stop anything?" Angel asked with a coldness that made everything seem so much more desolate.
Cordelia felt herself shed tears. Tears for Angel.
Angel reached behind her frame and unhooked her bra so that her full breasts were free to his gaze. Unwittingly, he rubbed his roughened cheek against the softness of her breasts; his coarse facial hair scoring them, making her ache. Cordelia was about to scream out for him to stop when she felt his cool tongue wickedly lave the peaks of her breasts. He then voraciously began a sucking motion that triggered a moan to escape from her mouth.
He hastily undid the buttons of his shirt and pressed his chest against her body. She was so warm and so absolute to his touch that it burned the austerity of his dead heart. Only she could do this to him.
Only Cordelia.
His hands hastily shed the rest of her clothing while she was left to writhe. She vowed not to be helpless and now she was. Her vision was clouded and her brain muddled. Cordelia's sadness became apparent in the bleak understanding that however much she wanted to run and leave him, the yearning to save Angel was stronger and wouldn't let her abandon him. She wanted to save him but not in the way that he'd done for her so many times. Cordelia wanted to save his soul.
She had to. At that moment, she realized she needed Angel. She needed him to fill the emptiness she was feeling for the past weeks. She missed him so much.
Angel moved his hands down from the valley of her breasts to her abdomen that was constricting rapidly. His fingertips pressed into her skin as they moved to her pelvis and further to her core. He could feel her blood pumping through her body like a wildfire that was threatening to burn him down. He wanted to burn.
Angel was lost and all he could think to do was drag Cordelia with him, wherever he was going. She was fighting him and fearing him at the same time and his demon was cheering. It had been so long since his hands had plundered without remorse. He wanted to conquer her, overcome her. She was the light that burned through even the most wearisome times and he was the darkness that wanted to extinguish her.
~Part: 3~
Cordelia shut her eyes repeatedly from the dim lights of the lobby that seemed to harshly glare at her. She tried to steel away from the rawness of everything that was happening and seconds slowly dripped by. The cold linoleum chilled her back while the iciness of Angel stung the front of her.
Cordelia smoothed her hands down his arms and traced them gently along his lower back. Her mind was so far away from what was happening that it felt as if she were looking down on their bodies. Everything was so surreal that nothing seemed real. It was all so distant. Yet, she could feel everything. The way Angel took unnecessary breaths against her skin or the way he would occasionally look up to her eyes and she swore she would see a hint of the man he was before. Cordelia knew him so well. She saw through everything he was trying to do and still she would be gentle with him.
Angel was intent on destruction. Not only his but now Cordelia’s also. She wanted to help him but first he would show her just how dark his world has gotten. Surely she would turn away from him and let him continue down this thorny path. Centuries had gone by and not once had he depended on anyone. He no longer felt the fear of nonexistence.
His roughened hands kneaded her tender skin while he moved down her frame to bluntly bite into the crease of her hip. His eyes roamed over her chest to see her breasts heave in rhythm with her breathing while he felt her blood pulsating through the wrist he was holding. Angels eyes narrowed when he saw that Cordelia was watching him intently. There were no tears. Didn’t she get it? He was trying to hurt her, to show her that he didn’t need her and that she didn’t mean anything to him. Not now and not ever.
Angel wanted to distance himself from her heart. He wanted to push her as faraway from him as he could. His demon was in the foreground, spurring Angel to test Cordelia’s boundaries of friendship and then to push as hard as he could to see if she would break. He knew she was scared. It was something that he could smell in the air. The shred of humanity along with what was left of his soul were buried deep inside of Angel but still feeling the desolating sorrow of what was happening. They were seemingly helpless.
Angel slid up her body while his hands brusquely dispersed of his clothing, spread her legs and positioned the tip of his pulsating erection at her fevered center. Just before he entered her, Angel looked down from his angled stature one last time. Cordelia stared back at him. He thrust up into her as deep as he could. She was searing him and felt her muscles involuntarily constrict against him as he kept moving rapidly inside of her. He bent down to imprison her mouth against his and sharply bit her tongue.
Angel was propelling his hips back and forth harshly and the more he looked at her sympathetic eyes the more he wanted to hurt her into hating him. He didn’t understand what she was doing. Her body was responding to his movements but there was no anger or even pleasure. It was appeasing. He felt himself shudder as he pounded ruthlessly into her body and yet suffered more from her gentle caresses. Her hands smoothed against his skin and touched him with a gentleness that was the complete opposite of the treatment that he was inflicting on her.
Cordelia swallowed down the pain of his actions and focused on Angel’s face. Her cheeks were flushed and her body was shivered. But there was no way that she wanted to think of the brutality with which he was forcing himself on her. She saw the way he was intently looking at her, waiting for her to cry and beg him to stop. She was not going to let him have that victory of seeing her vulnerability. Cordelia would take all the sinister thoughts and anger that resided within him and show him that after all was said and done she would be there for him. She was there to be his strength.
He thrust into her but never did he seem to find his release. Frustration mounted and there was no pleasure for either of them. Suddenly, Angel collapsed angrily on top of her after sliding out of her body. There, they lay encased in sweat and sorrow, both clinging to one another as if there was nothing left in the world.
For Angel, an infinity of time had slipped away, he’d helped saved the world so many times and rescued people from the dangers not many knew about. Now that he was the one in danger, she would be the humanity to save him. It was her vow.
Angel’s mind was conflicted with heavy thoughts. Flashes of he and Cordelia laughing together or taking part in their daily sessions of banter went through his brain. He remembered the way she could always make him laugh. He also remembered the time when she became pregnant and he’d felt an overwhelming fear for her. For her safety.
Clarity hit him with a brutal force and there was no stopping it. Angel was hurting her, this he knew but the pain he was feeling wasn’t from the misdeeds of the world. It wasn’t from the bleakness of what he thought the future held. It was pain from hurting the one person in the entire world who wanted to save him from his own hell.
Then he cried. Cold tears seeped down his face and onto her shoulders where his head rested. His arms clung to her desperately.
Cordelia let out the breath of tension from her body. She felt sore and her body pained in a way it had never before. Despite the relief of having survived the ordeal and feeling a renewed hope in Angel, Cordelia entered a place that was a little less bright. Angel had raped her. The reality of that sunk in and she wanted nothing more than to shed the tears that were finally surfacing.
She could feel him tighten around her and realized that she didn’t want to soothe him. She didn’t want to ease his pain. She had tried that and it hadn’t worked. Now Cordelia wanted him to feel every bit of guilt that he was now being tortured with.
Tugging on his arm that was locked across her body, Cordelia moved it and silently got up to dress herself. Every part of her body tingled in a numbing pain. Behind her, she could hear Angel rustling with his clothing. The air was engulfing and still there was a sense of loss.
Cordelia turned around to see Angel sitting on the round plush seat in the middle of the lobby with his head in his shoulders. Tears welled in her eyes as resentment settled in her heart while she watched him. Making her way to him, she placed both of her hands on the sides of his face and lifted until he looked directly at her.
Angel’s face was stained with crimson tears as he looked to her and mournfully said, “I’m so sorry…”
Cordelia pursed her lips together before saying, “Don’t be. There is no right or wrong, remember? Only action and consequence. Now it’s your turn to deal with consequences no matter how much they make you suffer.”
Then she walked out of the hotel into her own consequences.
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