Here at the End of All Things
Title: Here at the End of All Things
Author: melissasjack
Rating: M
Chapters: 1/2
Genre: Fun, romance, sex, sadness, friendship, LOVE, Cordy and Angel
Prompts Used: ”Here at the end of all things"
Written for: jnb71976
(IF I had more time and was NOT a lazy HO Id’ve written MORE. If you or anyone else wants chapter 2, holler, OK??? I have mad ideas for later and exactly what I wanna see happen, I know I totes left this hanging and I apologize.)
Summary: Set between Double or Nothing and after Not Fade Away
In a fucked-up, cosmically-challenged, metaphorical way it made sense.
Gunn was about to lose his soul while she was sitting in the clouds, a damned goddess…
Oh the irony. Her high school-aged self must be reveling.
Meanwhile her friend she had sworn to protect (who was an idiot for making that deal in the first place. Of course, back then? A tricked out truck would have made her scoff, her soul was worth at the bare minimum diamonds and Versace) was making the kind of decision she used to whap him upside the head for even saying, let alone carrying out.
Angel?
She was screaming to him, pleading with him to see her, hear her, feel her. He always could before. It crossed her mind now and again that this was a trick, she was doing nothing of value as a so-called “higher being.”
Just waiting.
Time flowed differently up here, backwards and forwards, a freaky kaleidoscope that gave her distorted images of strangers, memories of anyone she had ever known, the agony of everyone she had loved.
She could be the bystander observing Angelus’s pleasure in taking his first novice, almost taste his greed as he first charmed, then defiled her repeatedly. Cordelia felt his lust and her terror vicariously. Other times she would be thrust into a memory of Angel, Angel now, grieving her; Angel before, lost and purposeless.
(Angel. Her stupid best friend.
Angel, her almost lover.
Angel… caressing her, his mouth hungry, his hands hungrier, one soft, palming her stomach, centering her as she shuddered, inhibitions cast aside; the other dipping deeper, touching every place she dreamed about. His fingers, long and sure, reaching inside her as his lips pressed relentlessly against her own.
This, -yes- right here, just like that, honey…
Her own bold move, his trousers unzipped before he could withdraw his hand from her warm sweetness, the sharp intake of breath she felt against her mouth, though his fingers never stopped their dance inside her. The headboard dug into her back as she slid her own fingers against his length- and oh, was he was ready for her.
He always had been.)
She felt she knew him, her Angel, like the bedtime stories her nanny used to read to her.
She’d always beg for one more, long after she had learned how to read, past the time her verbal skills surpassed her caregiver’s.
The house was so silent, her parents out every night at some fundraiser or a glamorous party- the sound of the words she knew by heart being repeated over and over soothed her, lulled her to sleep. The Brothers’ Grimm and Nancy Drew; it wasn’t the books themselves that mattered, more the sound of a familiar voice chasing away the shadows.
As a fully grown adult in LA?
Angel’s voice took over the soothing, his actions slayed the demons she had found out were real, his hands smoothed the hair off her face after each vision, his eyes panicked, focused solely on her.
She could never forget that… whoever was out there, hurting and alone, needing them, needing him? Angel always made sure she was alright first.
Every single time, no matter how rudely she snapped at him to go, just go already, I’m fine.
He was even more engrained in every particle of her being now than ever before.
Watching him flounder, mourn, try harder, succeed and fail all without her?
Nothing had ever been so painful.
Every lonely night as a child alone in bed, every make-up shopping trip her parents took her on, any single skull-cracking vision she had valiantly tried to hide, none of it, not a single memory of either of their pasts cut a deeper wound than the sepia-toned portraits she would receive of him bent over, locked away in the privacy of his half-rehabbed suite, head bowed to his knees, those broad shoulders shaking, tears staining the new carpet she herself had helped lay down, aching for her return.
______________
It was a horror story watching him feed quarters into a machine on auto-pilot, his soul, the soul that had saved so many, the soul she ached for every day, now up for grabs.
Goddamn it, she was Cordelia. Cordelia Chase. There was no way even the universe was going to stand in her way, not now, not with this man’s life at stake.
___________
Fate blessed her and cursed her in an instant. Angel was restored to himself the very second her memory was stolen; she plummeted down, so fast it hurt, the whirlwind blanketing her mind until she awoke standing in a foyer that smelled familiar though she could not remember ever standing there before.
She turned and saw strangers staring at her in awe, in speculation, their eyes almost feasting upon her.
She couldn’t remember her own name but she had not forgotten the sharp tang of fear in the pit of her stomach. It gnawed at her as the dark-haired handsome one strode closer to her, his eyes alight, both predatory and longing.
The woman who used to be Cordelia took a step back, equally repelled and curious.
The man’s face… He looked hurt, desperate, both scary and scared.
____________
Long after she had run away with the child she had not realized was his (theirs) but before that thing took over all of her being, she would look back upon that night as her first mistake.
She should have stayed.
(Then again, in her most bitter, wrenching moments afterwards, Cordy always thought he should have known something was wrong, tried harder to find her, kept searching no matter what plane of existence she was on.
This was Angel.
Her Angel, her champion.
How could he have not known until it was almost too late?
And then it was too late and she could never truly live again.
But back then, waiting for him to swoop in, leather coat swirling as he fought the higher
realm for her release… it had played out again and again in her mind. His face would be set, locked in anger, determined to free her or die trying.
All or nothing.
It still broke her that this was the one vision she suffered that had never come to pass.)
_____________
Afterwards for a long time, she wasn’t aware of anything. It was never once like watching everything unfold; past, present and future invading her mind like an ice storm, fierce, intense, relentless.
It was just a cool, calm blackness. Time flowed on regardless, twisting and whispering secrets she couldn’t grasp, as her body withered, unbeknownst to her.
She knew she was Cordelia when the mist cleared, she was Cordy and she was dreaming, or maybe she was living, she never could be sure. She just knew that whatever had been stealing everything out of her had left.
Somehow she knew this one bald fact.
It had to be real because she could see him again.
Angel.
_____________
It was a foggy, floaty dream, hazy with images of her and a man she knew once again to be Angel and a baby, a sweet round faced baby they called Conner. He was hers and he wasn’t but as more and more time passed even that distinction became less clear. She fed him a bottle, loving every moment, cradled in the arms of the man she adored. Angel would hold her in his lap, the three of them complete, her head resting against his chest, his cheek pressed against her hair. The sounds of Connor sucking were like music as they sat there, suspended in time, awed.
Angel pressed kisses against her hair, she could feel him inhaling her scent. His arms tightened around her, rocking them both ever so gently. She raised her head up, angling for a kiss and felt the warmth course down her body as his lips pressed against hers. Connor gurgled, pushing the bottle away and she freed herself with a reluctant laugh.
“Looks like our little guy needs to be put down.”
Angel’s eyes followed her every move as she burped, changed and then ever so lovingly laid Connor in his crib. He was at her shoulder before she had a chance to turn around, leaning down to brush a hand across his son’s baby face. Cordy caught her breath as he straightened, picking her up in one quick swoop, one of his rare grins enhancing his features as he carried her back to bed.
“It’s our turn now, babe,” he crooned softly, brushing a lock of hair off her forehead. “Haven’t we waited long enough?”
“Too long,” she told him, wrapping both arms around his neck as he settled them against his bed.
TBC……
Author: melissasjack
Rating: M
Chapters: 1/2
Genre: Fun, romance, sex, sadness, friendship, LOVE, Cordy and Angel
Prompts Used: ”Here at the end of all things"
Written for: jnb71976
(IF I had more time and was NOT a lazy HO Id’ve written MORE. If you or anyone else wants chapter 2, holler, OK??? I have mad ideas for later and exactly what I wanna see happen, I know I totes left this hanging and I apologize.)
Summary: Set between Double or Nothing and after Not Fade Away
In a fucked-up, cosmically-challenged, metaphorical way it made sense.
Gunn was about to lose his soul while she was sitting in the clouds, a damned goddess…
Oh the irony. Her high school-aged self must be reveling.
Meanwhile her friend she had sworn to protect (who was an idiot for making that deal in the first place. Of course, back then? A tricked out truck would have made her scoff, her soul was worth at the bare minimum diamonds and Versace) was making the kind of decision she used to whap him upside the head for even saying, let alone carrying out.
Angel?
She was screaming to him, pleading with him to see her, hear her, feel her. He always could before. It crossed her mind now and again that this was a trick, she was doing nothing of value as a so-called “higher being.”
Just waiting.
Time flowed differently up here, backwards and forwards, a freaky kaleidoscope that gave her distorted images of strangers, memories of anyone she had ever known, the agony of everyone she had loved.
She could be the bystander observing Angelus’s pleasure in taking his first novice, almost taste his greed as he first charmed, then defiled her repeatedly. Cordelia felt his lust and her terror vicariously. Other times she would be thrust into a memory of Angel, Angel now, grieving her; Angel before, lost and purposeless.
(Angel. Her stupid best friend.
Angel, her almost lover.
Angel… caressing her, his mouth hungry, his hands hungrier, one soft, palming her stomach, centering her as she shuddered, inhibitions cast aside; the other dipping deeper, touching every place she dreamed about. His fingers, long and sure, reaching inside her as his lips pressed relentlessly against her own.
This, -yes- right here, just like that, honey…
Her own bold move, his trousers unzipped before he could withdraw his hand from her warm sweetness, the sharp intake of breath she felt against her mouth, though his fingers never stopped their dance inside her. The headboard dug into her back as she slid her own fingers against his length- and oh, was he was ready for her.
He always had been.)
She felt she knew him, her Angel, like the bedtime stories her nanny used to read to her.
She’d always beg for one more, long after she had learned how to read, past the time her verbal skills surpassed her caregiver’s.
The house was so silent, her parents out every night at some fundraiser or a glamorous party- the sound of the words she knew by heart being repeated over and over soothed her, lulled her to sleep. The Brothers’ Grimm and Nancy Drew; it wasn’t the books themselves that mattered, more the sound of a familiar voice chasing away the shadows.
As a fully grown adult in LA?
Angel’s voice took over the soothing, his actions slayed the demons she had found out were real, his hands smoothed the hair off her face after each vision, his eyes panicked, focused solely on her.
She could never forget that… whoever was out there, hurting and alone, needing them, needing him? Angel always made sure she was alright first.
Every single time, no matter how rudely she snapped at him to go, just go already, I’m fine.
He was even more engrained in every particle of her being now than ever before.
Watching him flounder, mourn, try harder, succeed and fail all without her?
Nothing had ever been so painful.
Every lonely night as a child alone in bed, every make-up shopping trip her parents took her on, any single skull-cracking vision she had valiantly tried to hide, none of it, not a single memory of either of their pasts cut a deeper wound than the sepia-toned portraits she would receive of him bent over, locked away in the privacy of his half-rehabbed suite, head bowed to his knees, those broad shoulders shaking, tears staining the new carpet she herself had helped lay down, aching for her return.
______________
It was a horror story watching him feed quarters into a machine on auto-pilot, his soul, the soul that had saved so many, the soul she ached for every day, now up for grabs.
Goddamn it, she was Cordelia. Cordelia Chase. There was no way even the universe was going to stand in her way, not now, not with this man’s life at stake.
___________
Fate blessed her and cursed her in an instant. Angel was restored to himself the very second her memory was stolen; she plummeted down, so fast it hurt, the whirlwind blanketing her mind until she awoke standing in a foyer that smelled familiar though she could not remember ever standing there before.
She turned and saw strangers staring at her in awe, in speculation, their eyes almost feasting upon her.
She couldn’t remember her own name but she had not forgotten the sharp tang of fear in the pit of her stomach. It gnawed at her as the dark-haired handsome one strode closer to her, his eyes alight, both predatory and longing.
The woman who used to be Cordelia took a step back, equally repelled and curious.
The man’s face… He looked hurt, desperate, both scary and scared.
____________
Long after she had run away with the child she had not realized was his (theirs) but before that thing took over all of her being, she would look back upon that night as her first mistake.
She should have stayed.
(Then again, in her most bitter, wrenching moments afterwards, Cordy always thought he should have known something was wrong, tried harder to find her, kept searching no matter what plane of existence she was on.
This was Angel.
Her Angel, her champion.
How could he have not known until it was almost too late?
And then it was too late and she could never truly live again.
But back then, waiting for him to swoop in, leather coat swirling as he fought the higher
realm for her release… it had played out again and again in her mind. His face would be set, locked in anger, determined to free her or die trying.
All or nothing.
It still broke her that this was the one vision she suffered that had never come to pass.)
_____________
Afterwards for a long time, she wasn’t aware of anything. It was never once like watching everything unfold; past, present and future invading her mind like an ice storm, fierce, intense, relentless.
It was just a cool, calm blackness. Time flowed on regardless, twisting and whispering secrets she couldn’t grasp, as her body withered, unbeknownst to her.
She knew she was Cordelia when the mist cleared, she was Cordy and she was dreaming, or maybe she was living, she never could be sure. She just knew that whatever had been stealing everything out of her had left.
Somehow she knew this one bald fact.
It had to be real because she could see him again.
Angel.
_____________
It was a foggy, floaty dream, hazy with images of her and a man she knew once again to be Angel and a baby, a sweet round faced baby they called Conner. He was hers and he wasn’t but as more and more time passed even that distinction became less clear. She fed him a bottle, loving every moment, cradled in the arms of the man she adored. Angel would hold her in his lap, the three of them complete, her head resting against his chest, his cheek pressed against her hair. The sounds of Connor sucking were like music as they sat there, suspended in time, awed.
Angel pressed kisses against her hair, she could feel him inhaling her scent. His arms tightened around her, rocking them both ever so gently. She raised her head up, angling for a kiss and felt the warmth course down her body as his lips pressed against hers. Connor gurgled, pushing the bottle away and she freed herself with a reluctant laugh.
“Looks like our little guy needs to be put down.”
Angel’s eyes followed her every move as she burped, changed and then ever so lovingly laid Connor in his crib. He was at her shoulder before she had a chance to turn around, leaning down to brush a hand across his son’s baby face. Cordy caught her breath as he straightened, picking her up in one quick swoop, one of his rare grins enhancing his features as he carried her back to bed.
“It’s our turn now, babe,” he crooned softly, brushing a lock of hair off her forehead. “Haven’t we waited long enough?”
“Too long,” she told him, wrapping both arms around his neck as he settled them against his bed.
TBC……