UntouchableCordelia was in a state of utter…. Well, something. And whatever that was, it made her feel light headed and twisted up inside. It was a pleasant feeling. It was a terrifying sensation.
Control. She had to get her control back. If only to prove to herself that she could. After all, she’d given up control once, and let her heart be stolen by careless hands. That wasn’t going to be a mistake she repeated. Not ever.
Her candles lit the room, made it soft and liquid, her comfort zone. The bed sheets had been made by the house keeper, and Cordelia had taken the time to make it herself when she’d gotten home. Her hands had been too shaky to get all the corners how she liked them. So she’d just tossed herself onto the bed, and watched the light on the wall shift and change as the hours passed by.
Dazed.
Who did Buffy think she was anyway? Sure, the protector of Earth and all that garbage. But when it came down to it, she had a heart and a soul like the rest of them. Well, most of them. Right now though, Cordelia had a hard time getting past the look that had been in Buffy’s eyes as she all but attacked her in the girls locker room.
Dark. Afraid. And lonely. So lonely it put an uncomfortable ache straight into Cordelia’s gut just thinking about it. She knew all about loneliness. Well, what did she care? They’d gotten each other off, and that was a big - scary thing, but she could deal. Yeah, right. And that’s why she’d been staring at herself in the mirror all day, expecting her skin to look different, her face to have changed. After all, she’d just had her first sexual encounter with a woman, forget for a moment that it was the Slayer - and that should show on her, right? Somewhere?
All the way home from school, her heart had thundered inside her rib cage. Cordelia had almost driven off the road, when a group of football players honked at her, whistling with their thumbs. Swallowing, she’d given them a huge plastic smile, and waved daintily. Her heart had been in her throat the entire time. So she turned up her music, and tried to forget. What if someone took one look at her and knew? She’d be ruined. The Queen C would fall from glory even more than she already had by falling in love with Xander, a social outcast. No, she didn’t need any of this at all.
Standing at her bedroom window, she looked out into the dark of her lawn. The moon stared at her, alone on it’s purple perch in the sky.
Cordelia stepped away, stomach tight and turning. Carefully, she picked up the hair brush from her dresser and sat down at her vanity. Sighing, she began to brush her hair back from her face. Counting the strokes.
One…. Two… Three….
Her eyes closed in something like sorrow, and she told herself she wasn’t waiting for Buffy to call. Why would she be? Fun was one thing, and they’d had a bit of it, but they still hated each other. Buffy hadn’t exactly made deceleration of love by throwing her up against a locker.
Twenty… Twenty-one… Twenty-three….
Cordelia hadn’t eaten dinner that night. She couldn’t stand the idea of sitting at the table with her Mother and Father at the end, the silence hanging over them all. Especially when she felt flushed and frustrated, too itchy when she sat still. What if one of them had actually turned and said, “So Cordelia, how was your day?” Sure, that would be a cold day in hell - but who knows? She’d actually gotten fingered by Buffy today, and that hadn’t been something she would EVER expect to happen.
Her heart hurt just thinking… just admitting that she HAD imagined it before.
Eighty-eight… Eighty-nine… Ninety…
The disembodied hands that she had felt in her fantasies, in her dreams, were already beginning to connect to a face. She could no longer just let herself feel them, or take solace in those gentle, knowing fingers. Now, Cordelia found herself avoiding the daydream, because the face and knowledge that came with it was too much to bare. Buffy’s face, hovering just beneath her eye lids.
After one hundred strokes through her hair, she set the brush down and stared into the mirror. Her face was red, painted all over with color. She flinched from looking in her own eyes. Who was this girl-woman that looked back at her? She was having a hard time pretending now, had been ever since giving in and loving someone. Admitting to it. Was she stuck now? Doomed to have a heart that filled to bursting each day where she could do nothing but sneer at the people she found herself caring for against her will.
Standing on wobbly knees, she squared her shoulders and walked to her closet. She wasn’t going to let this get the best of her. Cordelia slid open the mirrored doors to reveal a wide selection of glimmering out fits. She blew her breath out, and began shoveling through them all. She’d go out, pick up a guy or something. A boy toy, that’s what would make her feel better. She just wasn’t herself anymore, and that HAD to change.
Cordelia held up a silver short skirt and shirt against her body. Her eyes glinted with determination.
* * *
The club was loud and dark, just the way she liked it.
The music was hard and sexy, just the way she liked it.
The men were hot and stupid, just the way she liked it.
And she was alone, just the way…
Cordelia took a deep breath, walking through the smoky haze of The Bronze, her heels clicking against the floor. A girl with short, yellow hair whispered something behind her hands, eyes rolling Cordelia’s way. Cordelia just flicked her long hair over her shoulder, and continued on.
She needed this. She wanted to dance. To forget anything that ever was, but for the very real feel of skin, sweat and sex.
Sometimes you don’t get what you want. Obviously.
And this was where the heart stepped into the throat and shouted out with… something other than glee.
Buffy. Center stage of course, all eyes on her. ALL EYES - including Cordelia’s. She was dancing close to some guy Cordelia had seen around school, but had never paid much attention to. Never given the guy enough of a time of day to even look at, but she looked now. Because she didn’t have a choice really - her only thought: Buffy is dancing with who? And why?
This is where Cordelia wanted to throw up.
She danced like she fucked - dark and with a hint of something more. Like maybe she might care enough to be gentle if you could just squeeze your way into her heart. But that heart was locked tighter than a Chastity belt for the type of love Cordelia might admit one day, she wanted. But not today. Today, she wanted to do nothing more than make Buffy pay for sliding her little legs and hips up against someone other than… no, she wouldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t even begin to imagine there could be more than hate and some hot fucking lust between Buffy Summers and Cordelia Chase.
It would be stupid to even try.
So she just watched her, and let that familiar sneering mask slip over her face. Buffy gyrated to the music like the beat was alive, like there was something beneath her skin, dying to get out. Cordelia didn’t feel like being empathetic, especially when Buffy was rubbing herself all over some no-named face, so she just stuck her chin in the air and prepared to go to the other side of the club. Where she wouldn’t have to watch or feel that hateful jealousy slither throughout her body.
Then Buffy’s shadowed eyes landed on her and she stopped dancing, dead in her tracks. For one moment, Cordelia felt the world slow around her. Each writhing body and tilting set of lips became as thick and heavy as a single beat of her heart. And then Buffy canted her head back, a small, satisfied smile sharpening her lips and eyes. The world went fast and real around her, snapping back into focus. Cordelia almost tripped over her heels as the blood raced through her ears.
Buffy leaned her head against the boy’s shoulder.
Cordelia turned; escaped and tried to breathe. Pushed her way through the crowd, she COULDN’T breathe!
She wouldn’t fall for Buffy… She wouldn’t fall for Buffy…
No way in hell, was she going to fall for Buffy.
* * *
Buffy followed her. Cordelia knew it even before Buffy’s slim, white hand wrapped around her wrist and jerked her to a stop. For a moment, they both stood there; breath ricocheting off the alley walls where smoke littered the stone. Cordelia with eyes set stubbornly on the ground, held her head down like a sullen child and refused to turn around.
Buffy could have turned her at any moment, but she didn’t.
Cordelia could still hear the beat of the music, and it made her hungry even as bile rose to sting the back of her mouth. Dammit, why did she have to suddenly have all this confusion swimming inside of her? Had she been picked randomly by some unnamed power - a hand that pointed and said, “She - she will be one.” Or maybe it was all just random, and not some plan to make the Queen fall to her knees and beg to be forgiven for the things she’d done before and already spent midnights regretting.
Anger festered high, growling to be let loose.
Gently, so gently tears pricked Cordelia’s nose, Buffy’s fingers slid up her arm; across her forearms, up the soft path of her inner elbow and toward her shoulder. Buffy’s fingers clenched firmly and pressed for Cordelia to face her. Deciding, Cordelia did. Their eyes collided and she saw Buffy draw a sharp breath through her nose.
“I said I’d call you.” Buffy said, stepping back and away, standing awkwardly near a poster of some punk band that didn’t make a mark anywhere.
“I never said I’d be waiting for you to.” Cordelia shot back and Buffy’s eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to speak, but seemed to think better of it, looking away and biting her lip. Cordelia grew frustrated. “What?!”
Buffy sighed, and seemed very human all of a sudden, different than she had five minutes ago. Five hours.
These were not the eyes of the woman that hated Cordelia. It caught Cordelia off guard, and there was nothing Cordelia disliked more than being caught off guard. Okay, well… maybe SOME things.
“I was only teasing…” This stranger murmured, a hand with pale pink finger nails raked through blonde hair. Cordelia’s eyes were distracted, drawn like a moth to a flame, to all things Buffy.
“Teasing?” Cordelia balked, mouth stretching grimly across her jaw. Figures. “After today, you could?” Cordelia shook her head roughly before Buffy could speak. “Forget it. I don’t give a damn.” Of course Buffy could tease, Cordelia realized. There was no sensitivity in hate. So Cordelia pressed her palms against Buffy’s chest, and as the blue eyes brightened with lust, shoved her back hard against the wall.
Buffy made this little choking sound in shock; her chest heaving even as Cordelia stepped forward, towering over the smaller woman. Buffy didn’t shrink away, in fact she extended her muscles, trying to face her on an equal level. But that wasn’t what Cordelia was looking for, not at all.
Cordelia pressed her palm directly between Buffy’s thighs, and listened to The Slayer - The Chosen One… whimper.
Buffy could have pushed her away at any moment, gained the upper hand. But she didn’t. Instead, she arched her back into the wall, neck bared to the yellow street light. Her hips pushed with extra strength against Cordelia’s hand. Cordelia fluttered her fingers deliberately; lips a tight, flat line. Buffy moaned lightly, letting her.
“I need…” Cordelia ignored her, unzipping Buffy’s jeans and sliding her palm inside - beneath the cotton panties and into the hot, wet silk. Buffy’s hands came up to rest on Cordelia’s shoulders, but she flinched from those fingers touch; hurt. She didn’t want those hands to touch her ever again. Not when they were so callus with a heart… that Cordelia was so afraid might have been given long ago, if not for the wall she’d built around it. The wall was now a three-foot chain link fence.
And it faded every day.
Her fingers slipped inside, one - two - three, like puzzle pieces clicking into place and Buffy’s face pulled tight against the stretching sensation. But at that moment, Cordelia didn’t give a damn, she was going to get another piece of Buffy then walk away for good. When she pressed her thumb over Buffy’s clit, circled it; The Slayer cried out, hips bunching inward, then out like a tidal wave, riding the friction.
Cordelia smiled in satisfaction as the thick scent of Buffy’s sex rose into the air and surrounded them. She knew she’d carry it inside her for a long time to come, and had no choice in forgetting it. Buffy’s mouth opened wide, and her hand grasped the back of Cordy’s head, dragging her in for a kiss… but Cordy was somehow reluctant and kissed Buffy’s chin instead. A kiss would mean too much. And she was not good with pain.
Buffy gave a small mewl of protest, so different from the aggressor she had been so little ago - and thrust her hips one final time, skull slamming back into the brick wall as her orgasm swept over her body. Cordelia lived it vicariously, breathing in Buffy’s hair, something she swore she would never do again.
And while the walls of Buffy’s vagina clenched around her fingers - she tried to push out the twinge near her heart. When it was over, Cordelia let one small kiss slip past the edges, and brushed her lips over Buffy’s glazed eyes… the backed away. Buffy’s eyes followed her with something akin to sorrow. And she throbbed in regret; oh she throbbed.
“I’m sorry,” Buffy whispered, fingers flattening against the wall behind her, pants unbuttoned and hanging low on her hips. “I don’t know what got into me, I’m not usually… like that.”
“I don’t care.” Cordelia said heartlessly, hating herself and hating the way her stomach was betraying her. “We all just want to fuck sometimes. Right?”
Buffy didn’t answer; her eyes were wavy. Like she had something to regret too. But Cordelia couldn’t begin to imagine what. They hated each other after all. Always had, and always would. “But this won’t happen again.” With those words, Cordelia turned on her heel and walked off into the fog, skirt pulled tight against her thighs from the long strides she took. She heard Buffy call her name sharply, and then a whistle of wind near her ears. Glancing just behind her, she saw Buffy and a Vampire rolling around on the ground. She looked silly with her clothes half off, and lips smeared, but beautiful… Cordelia blinked, and began walking away again. Buffy could take care of herself.
An outsider looking in, might have seen them: Buffy beating the crap out of the undead; Cordelia striding away like something that walks on water - and thought them both untouchable.
As untouchable as ever.
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