The Buffy characters, and Cordelia, belong to Joss. The plot is mine. This
is set mid-season five, right after Riley took off.
Incidentally, someone asked how I'm doing these so fast . . . I've actually been writing for years, but the two Buffy archives I normally send to haven't accepted new contributions in about two years. So I've got some backlog.
Rob aka Mediancat
Look who did it to you
Joker over there with nothing to do
Don't let him get through
Keep on doing what you do
Why don't you listen to my little pep talk
Instead of what that person said
And now I'm gonna open up the window
And you will come in off that ledge
You work to hard to take this abuse
Be on your guard jerks on the loose
Jerks on the loose
Jerks on the loose
--The Roches, "Keep on Doing What You Do/Jerks on the Loose"
"I, I need to talk with someone. Someone who'll tell me the truth."
"Anytime, Buffy. The truth is my stock in trade. God, you sound awful. What happened? Your mom --?"
"Mom's fine – mom's fine. No, it's Riley. He's gone. And I think it might be my fault. That I wasn't treating him fairly, that I was being selfish."
"You can be a little selfish. Actually, you can be a lot selfish."
"Thanks."
"Doesn't mean you're being selfish now, though. Spill the details."
"How can I? It's such a long story – well, a couple of nights ago – after mom got out – I found Riley in an abandoned section of Sunnydale. He was paying – he was paying vampires to suck his blood."
"Ew."
"Tell me about it. Anyway, I took off – came back the next day and torched the place."
"Good."
"PLEASE don't interrupt – sorry for yelling. It's just, this is hard enough as it is, and –"
"I'm sorry, Buffy. Go ahead."
"Riley came the next day. Explained what was going on – he started because it gave him a taste of the dark side, gave him a taste of what I 'wanted.' Like with Angel. Then he said he kept up because they needed him. Like I, apparently, didn't. Then he said he was going to Belize at midnight to kill demons unless I could give him a reason to stay. And I wanted him gone. He'd betrayed me. So he left."
"Buffy –"
"That's not all. Xander came at me a few moments after. Wouldn't let up. Told me how stupid I was being. That all I'd been doing was using Riley, that I was holding back, afraid to love him after what I'd gone through with Angel. I accused him of doing the same with Anya, and he told me this wasn't about him. And I realized, I thought I realized, that I did love Riley and didn't want him to leave. So I chased after as hard as I could – and his helicopter flew off right before I got there. So the two men I've loved in my life both just left. Did I drive Riley away? Cordy? You can answer now."
"First off, the fact that he was LETTING – no, PAYING – vampires to drink him shows that his salad was short a few greens, no matter what else. That lets you off the hook for some of it, okay?"
"But, what if I drove him to it?"
"One word for that, Buffy: BULLSHIT! That's like saying you 'drove' a man to drink or you 'drove' a man to shoot himself with heroin. Nuh-uh. Riley was cheating on you with vampires. His motives were major-league weird in the first place, and saying he kept doing it because of need is his way of saying he did that because he saw a problem and he didn't want to talk about it with you. Which if he loved you was something he damn well owed you."
"He did love me. That I'm sure of."
"Well, he sure had a bizarre way of showing it."
"I guess."
"Don't guess here, Buffy. You came to me for the truth. This is the truth. You have three modes when it deals with guys you're attracted to: Reluctant approach, deliriously in love and bitter and angry self-inflicted pain. Well, now you're in mode three. And when you're in mode three, no offense, you've been known to run off to Los Angeles for a few months. This is when you get all self-absorbed. DON'T."
"Cordy –"
"You wanted my advice, right? Well, that's what I'm giving. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. Know that."
"I – I do."
"Good. Now, Riley wasn't getting what he thought he deserved out of you, so he went and let vampires bleed him for cash, and then he has the nerve to come back and say you drove him to it?"
"He – and Xander –"
"Xander should learn to mind his own goddamned business. Go on."
"Well, they say I was using him. For comfort, for support, for sex. And then I expected him to get lost when I wanted alone time. That I treated him more like a dog than a person. Except for the sex part, I mean."
"You didn't need to clarify. Now comes the million-dollar question. WERE you afraid to love him?"
"I don't know, Cordy. I do know that for the past few weeks or so I've been kind of neglecting him –"
"While your mother was in the hospital for a brain tumor. God! You are so selfish, spending time with your brain-tumored mother at the expense of your boyfriend. I bet you didn't spend as much time with Giles or Xander or Willow either, did you? God, what a bitch."
"OK, now you're being sarcastic."
"Do you think?"
"I'm still not sure –"
"Look. If you want to stay miserable, stay miserable. I'm just trying to help you like you asked. One final thing. You said you told Xander he was doing the same thing with Anya. I'm guessing that means you thought he was treating her like an object and not a person, right?"
"Yeah. But he went right to her after he got done rimming me out and pledged his undying love."
"Figures. Never mind that. Don't you see what he was doing?"
"What?"
"He was PROJECTING, Buffy. He was taking his fear of what was going on between him and demongirl and putting it on you and Riley. HE was the one who was afraid he was using someone. HE was the one who'd never told her how much she meant to him. Not you."
"But I hadn't –"
"Did you love Riley?"
"Yes."
"Did you show him?"
"Well, I guess, apart from recently – yes."
"Had you told him?"
"Yes. I think – I'm not sure."
"Damn. Did he tell you?"
"Um, the same?"
"There you go. That one's a draw unless your memory clears up. Look, Xander was afraid, not you. He just convinced you with his . . . passion, his seriousness about it."
"Are you SURE, Cordy?"
"Look. If you want me to say you were all miss goody-goody and never did a thing wrong, I can't. I know you too well for that. But the vampire hookers tip it in your favor all by itself, and the rest of it stands as not proven at best. Sure, some of it was your fault. But RILEY was the bad guy here. Not you."
"Doesn't make his heading off to Belize any easier."
"I know. Well, if you still think he's worth it – and that's an if the size of Beverly Hills – wait it out. He won't be in the jungles of Central America forever. And if he isn't – well, time may not heal, but it sure scabs things over. You of all people should know that."
"Yeah, I guess. Thanks, Cordy. I feel a little better."
"Good to know. Sure you'll be okay?
"Eventually. I'm glad I called you."
"I'm glad you did too, Buffy. Just remember that it wasn't nearly all your fault."
"I'll try."
"You do more than that or I'll come down there and kick your ass from there to Sacramento."
"You know, I do believe you would."
"Damn straight."
Part 2
So many people live in my town
And mind to my business and none of their own
They're all so happy now that I've done wrong
I'm surprised they don't trouble to thank me
So if you have moral advice
I suggest you just tuck it all away
'cause my mood to burn bridges
Is not unlike my mood to dig ditches
Don't cross me on either day
-- "Mood to Burn Bridges," Neko Case
.
"How dare you."
" 'Hello, Cordelia. How are you?' "
"Don't give me any shit, Cordy. I'm not in the mood right now."
"Well, then, Xander, since you're not much on pleasantries, what's got your boxers jammed up your behind?"
"You know damn well what. How dare you do what you did with Buffy."
"You mean tell her the truth?"
"No, I mean run that line of bull past her. You know. When you told her it wasn't her fault. When you told her I was confusing her and my problems with our relationships."
"Like I said, I told her the truth. And you know, I've got my own problems here and a lot better things to do than listen to you give me a hard time. So lay off the attitude or you'll be talking to a dial tone."
"Well, how the hell do you expect me to be when you've told her I essentially have no clue what I'm talking about? Happy?"
"No, but I expect you not to start off screaming at me. Could you possibly get any MORE incoherent or were you hoping to keep this above the level of grunting and hitting people over the head with clubs?"
"Look. I'm not going to be happy. I did my best to try to help her –"
"Odd way to show it."
"You know as well as I do that Buffy almost never responds to calm, logical arguments. She needs to be hit over the head with a sledgehammer."
"I'll go along with that. That doesn't mean that your PARTICULAR blow to the skull was well-deserved."
"But it was."
"Okay, you've got your chance here: Convince me and I'll apologize."
"Okay then. First off, Riley's seeing the vampire babes? I'll agree that was sick. Once I can barely understand, but over and over again meant he liked it. So I'll give you that one."
"I don't see how even once is understandable, even barely, but keep going."
"That's not the important part. The important part is Riley was convinced Buffy didn't love him before her mom's troubles even started, over a month back. When I was moving into my new apartment Buffy and Riley were helping me move my stuff, and Buffy had just left when Riley went into a rapture about how Buffy made him feel. And he ended it up with, 'But she doesn't love me.'"
"That is information I didn't have before."
"I thought that might make you change your mind. Something else was that, while Buffy and Dawn were with Joyce in the hospital Riley and the rest of us scoobies tried to do the Slaying. We went after a group on a graveyard – one of 'em had caught Buffy with her own stake earlier in the day, so I get why they ticked Riley off so much. We said we'd come back and get 'em later, they were too much for us, and Riley simply went back and chucked a grenade in there to wipe 'em out."
"And this little Rambo act is supposed to impress me with his sanity?"
"No, with how much he loved Buffy, and how the stress of the relationship was getting to him."
"What stress? So far all you've told me is that Riley SAID Buffy didn't love him, and a stress release that I'm fairly sure Freud would not approve. Riley loved Buffy? I'll go along. Buffy said so, and you say so –"
"If you'd heard the way he described being with her in the basement, you'd have no doubts. You'd have thought he was with a goddess. To him, she was."
"Okay, I don't doubt you. He loved her. So why do you think he was convinced that Buffy didn't love him back?"
"The way she used him. The way she expected him to be there when she needed him, and take off when she didn't. The way she stopped relying on him in the fighting when he lost his superpowers."
"Struck a little close to home, did it, Zeppoboy? You saw what you thought happened to you way back when happening to Riley now and you sympathized with him."
"Apart from the Zeppoboy slam, yeah."
"You identified with him."
"Yeah."
"Maybe so much so that you saw something that wasn't there?"
"No, she wasn't using him for backup except when she had no choice. That was there."
"But he felt useless. Like Buffy didn't need him anymore. Exactly like the way you felt. But you got past that."
"I proved I could do things on my own. No thanks to you."
"Let's not go there at the moment. Anyway, you proved you could do things on your own – and you got better. Riley proved he could do things on his own, and went off to pay vampires to suck on him. Not exactly the work of the most balanced gymnast on the beam."
"I've already given you that."
"You're not getting it. You accept that Riley's mental state was off. But you sympathize with him so much that you're ignoring that maybe his brain was a little whacked well before he lost his superpowers. You get me? I'm betting the only evidence you saw of Buffy not wanting to love Riley happened after he made his confession to you. Right?"
"Right. But I did see it."
"And wasn't most of Buffy's time taken up then by something that kinda had the right to dominate it? Her mother's brain tumor?"
"Yeah –"
"So was that really the best time to be objective about it?"
"Maybe not."
"Good as I'm going to get."
"Okay, Cordy, what's this about me projecting? If I was identifying with Riley I can hardly have been seeing my own problems in Buffy's. You don't get it both ways."
"Why? What's so ridiculous about it?"
"It – it just is, that's all."
"You realize that's one of the lamest POSSIBLE arguments in the history of mankind, don't you?"
"No it isn't."
"For God's sake, Xander, don't make me sound like I'm channeling Frasier Crane. Your mind, yes, even yours, is certainly big enough to hold two thoughts at the same time without you even realizing it; for you to be able to identify with both Riley's situation as a so-called victim and Buffy's as the one who allegedly used someone for their own convenience, when it was YOU you were seeing both times."
"Damn, Cordy, why do you do this?"
"Do what?"
"Make so damn much sense. I called here ready to rip your head off and now – well, I can't say I buy everything you've told me, but you've definitely given me something to think about."
"Good. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to bed."
"Cordy, it's ten in the morning."
"Yeah, I know, but if I've made you start thinking then obviously there's no point in staying awake any longer because that HAS to be the highlight of my day."
"Had to get in another shot, didn't you?"
"Would I be me if I didn't?"
"I guess not."
"Damn straight."
Part 3
Her lips were waitin'
Her eyes looked sad
The dreams of a lifetime
A year gone bad
The dreams of a lifetime
Told me wrong
Everything is all right
And now it's gone
Don't blame me
Please be strong
I know I'm not wrong
Here comes the nighttime
Lookin' for a little more
Waitin' on the right time
Somebody outside the door
Don't blame me
Please be strong
I know I'm not wrong
-- "I Know I'm Not Wrong," Fleetwood Mac
"Identify yourself!"
"Identify MYSELF? You're the one who popped up in my dream, nimrod. You first. And put down the gun."
"Special Agent Riley Finn."
"Why, why, WHY did I order that shrimp and garlic pizza? Never again, I tell you."
"I told, now you."
"Cordelia Chase. And this is one of the strangest dreams I've ever had."
"Item one, this is my dream, not yours. Item two, why does your name sound familiar?"
"You probably heard Buffy mention me or something. You're her traitor ex- boyfriend, right? God, if I only had a million dollars every time that phrase came up . . ."
"I'm not a traitor. I love my country; that's why I'm here in Belize."
"Not the kind of traitor I meant. I meant you betrayed HER. What you did to her."
"It was my fault. Straight out. But -- she drove me to it, the way she used me. And I left her when she wouldn't give me a reason to stay."
"And had you given her a reason to give you a reason? Or had you been spending your free time paying a bunch of vampire hookers to give you, well, suck jobs?"
"Probably the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life."
"That's a half step above dousing yourself in blood and jumping in a shark tank. I've seen people in comas do smarter things."
"You don't need to rub it in."
"Somebody has to, and I guess given this dream we're both stuck in that somebody is me."
"I'm not going to listen to this. I have demons to kill, so I'm going to wake up now. We head out into the jungles tomorrow morning."
"Think that'll be far enough?"
"Far enough for what?"
"For you to run away from your problems. I mean, that IS what you're doing, don't bother to deny it."
"I left because I had no reason to stay."
"You left because you didn't want to take the tough road of fighting for your relationship."
"I didn't think there was anything to fight FOR!"
"You loved Buffy, right?"
"Love. Yes. God, yes."
"I can tell. Then why did you run away?"
"How many times do I need to repeat this? She didn't give me a reason to stay."
"And when did you ask her to give you this reason?"
"Excuse me?"
"The way I hear it, you talked to her within a day after she'd found out you were paying vampires to suck on you."
"Yeah, that's right. I needed to feel – what she felt when vampires bit her."
"I'm guessing pain. That's what most of us feel, at any rate."
"Then why did she let both Angel and Dracula do it?"
"Dracula? Never mind I don't want to know. Same person I've heard of, though? Hypnotic powers, the works?"
"Yeah."
"There you go. Buffy didn't let him bite her because of any great thrill she got; she was hypnotized. And as for Angel – well, the only time I KNOW about involved Angel biting her because he would die if he didn't. Not a whole lot of sexual charge there either. I take it you enjoyed it, though."
"Not really; they just needed me."
"No, they just acted like it. So did you expect her to beg you to stick around when you obviously found more comfort in a bunch of vampire whores than with her?"
"Whose fault is it I went to the vampires in the first place? If she'd made me feel like she loved me, instead of like she was just using me –"
"How long did you feel this way?"
"A while now. I told Xander about it a month or so back but I'd figured it out before that."
"So why didn't you tell Buffy about it?"
"While her mother was in the hospital? That would have been pretty damn heartless of me."
"How about before that? Xander said you told him about it in his basement one day; did Buffy's mom get sick ten minutes later? Or maybe after she was out of danger – or did Buffy figure out about your extracurricular activities while Joyce was still in the recovery room?"
"No – there was time. I guess I just wanted to keep it going as long as I could. Buffy – is an amazing person to love."
"I've got quite a bit of secondhand experience working with a guy who knows that one. Did you despair of 'getting' her to love you?"
"Yes. I just wanted to preserve the illusion."
"You do realize she chased after you, right?"
"What?!"
"After the two of you had it out Xander came by and read her the riot act. Told her she'd been treating you like a pet dog and asked her if she really loved you. She decided she did and came chasing after the helicopter taking you out of Sunnydale but when she got there it was too late."
"Damn. Damn. Damn."
"So who threw the relationship away? Her, for – ALLEGEDLY – treating you like a convenience, and right now I'm treating that as not proven, or you, who ran away from the problems, again and again and again?"
"Me. I've already admitted this was my fault. But I still think her using me caused part of it. Do you realize I wasn't even the first person she told when it turned out her mom's problem was worse than they thought, Spike was?"
"Spike? You're kidding."
"No."
"And where were you when she found out?"
"I was out killing the bastard who'd just staked her in the stomach."
"Oh, right, the grenade thing. And when was this?"
"Sometime the middle of the night."
"And when did you show up at Buffy's next?"
"The next morning."
"And so where were you in the interim?"
"Probably asleep."
"Probably?"
"I – might have gone out to a bar. I'm not sure."
"So you triumphantly kill a vampire, an entire nest of them, with guts and a hand grenade, and instead of telling Buffy about killing the demon that had damn near ripped out her stomach you either catch some z's or go for a drink."
"I can't be with her all the time. She made it abundantly clear there were times she wanted me there and times she wanted me gone."
"And this was one of the latter? Did she spell this for you straight out?"
"Well, she needed time to recover from her injury. I later found out she spent the time talking with Spike, God knows about what."
"Jealous?"
"Well, Spike does have a crush on her. He told me so himself."
"THAT'S news. But I wouldn't have thought you'd have had anything to worry about. Buffy doesn't go for soulless demon types."
"But Dracula –"
"Is Dracula, in a class by himself, and doesn't count. So you went off to the hookers because you were JEALOUS?"
"Yeah, I guess that has something to do with it."
"People have been betraying Buffy all her life. Her father's an asshole, Angel lost his soul, tried to kill her and did kill a good friend of hers, Xander's done stupid things, I know Willow made a stupid mistake last year, there was that asshole Parker I've been told about, and so much more. And now you. Betrayal after betrayal after betrayal. She's been shown time after time that the only person she can really, truly, completely trust not to screw up is her. Is it any wonder she's the way she is with people like you around?"
"I did nothing but love her as long as we were together."
"And in the end you screwed her over just like everyone else."
"I've said this was my fault. Over and over I've said this was my fault. I screwed over the woman I love AND now it seems I ran out on her without giving her the chance to say she really did love me. What more do you want?"
"Me? I don't want a damn thing."
"Then why are you here in my dream?"
"You know what? I think we're sharing this dream. Someone somewhere wanted us to have this conservation."
"Great. Now even God's after me."
"Oh, don't be self-pitying. You screwed up, you admit it, now haul ass back to Sunnydale as soon as you can to try and patch things up. And keep apologizing. Because whether Buffy treated you like that didn't justify what you did. You feel crappy? Good. You should."
"You're not a very nice person."
"I had no reason to be nice."
"But I'll bear in mind what you said. Now could I get some sleep? Talking with you is an exhausting experience."
"Damn straight."
Incidentally, someone asked how I'm doing these so fast . . . I've actually been writing for years, but the two Buffy archives I normally send to haven't accepted new contributions in about two years. So I've got some backlog.
Rob aka Mediancat
Look who did it to you
Joker over there with nothing to do
Don't let him get through
Keep on doing what you do
Why don't you listen to my little pep talk
Instead of what that person said
And now I'm gonna open up the window
And you will come in off that ledge
You work to hard to take this abuse
Be on your guard jerks on the loose
Jerks on the loose
Jerks on the loose
--The Roches, "Keep on Doing What You Do/Jerks on the Loose"
"I, I need to talk with someone. Someone who'll tell me the truth."
"Anytime, Buffy. The truth is my stock in trade. God, you sound awful. What happened? Your mom --?"
"Mom's fine – mom's fine. No, it's Riley. He's gone. And I think it might be my fault. That I wasn't treating him fairly, that I was being selfish."
"You can be a little selfish. Actually, you can be a lot selfish."
"Thanks."
"Doesn't mean you're being selfish now, though. Spill the details."
"How can I? It's such a long story – well, a couple of nights ago – after mom got out – I found Riley in an abandoned section of Sunnydale. He was paying – he was paying vampires to suck his blood."
"Ew."
"Tell me about it. Anyway, I took off – came back the next day and torched the place."
"Good."
"PLEASE don't interrupt – sorry for yelling. It's just, this is hard enough as it is, and –"
"I'm sorry, Buffy. Go ahead."
"Riley came the next day. Explained what was going on – he started because it gave him a taste of the dark side, gave him a taste of what I 'wanted.' Like with Angel. Then he said he kept up because they needed him. Like I, apparently, didn't. Then he said he was going to Belize at midnight to kill demons unless I could give him a reason to stay. And I wanted him gone. He'd betrayed me. So he left."
"Buffy –"
"That's not all. Xander came at me a few moments after. Wouldn't let up. Told me how stupid I was being. That all I'd been doing was using Riley, that I was holding back, afraid to love him after what I'd gone through with Angel. I accused him of doing the same with Anya, and he told me this wasn't about him. And I realized, I thought I realized, that I did love Riley and didn't want him to leave. So I chased after as hard as I could – and his helicopter flew off right before I got there. So the two men I've loved in my life both just left. Did I drive Riley away? Cordy? You can answer now."
"First off, the fact that he was LETTING – no, PAYING – vampires to drink him shows that his salad was short a few greens, no matter what else. That lets you off the hook for some of it, okay?"
"But, what if I drove him to it?"
"One word for that, Buffy: BULLSHIT! That's like saying you 'drove' a man to drink or you 'drove' a man to shoot himself with heroin. Nuh-uh. Riley was cheating on you with vampires. His motives were major-league weird in the first place, and saying he kept doing it because of need is his way of saying he did that because he saw a problem and he didn't want to talk about it with you. Which if he loved you was something he damn well owed you."
"He did love me. That I'm sure of."
"Well, he sure had a bizarre way of showing it."
"I guess."
"Don't guess here, Buffy. You came to me for the truth. This is the truth. You have three modes when it deals with guys you're attracted to: Reluctant approach, deliriously in love and bitter and angry self-inflicted pain. Well, now you're in mode three. And when you're in mode three, no offense, you've been known to run off to Los Angeles for a few months. This is when you get all self-absorbed. DON'T."
"Cordy –"
"You wanted my advice, right? Well, that's what I'm giving. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. Know that."
"I – I do."
"Good. Now, Riley wasn't getting what he thought he deserved out of you, so he went and let vampires bleed him for cash, and then he has the nerve to come back and say you drove him to it?"
"He – and Xander –"
"Xander should learn to mind his own goddamned business. Go on."
"Well, they say I was using him. For comfort, for support, for sex. And then I expected him to get lost when I wanted alone time. That I treated him more like a dog than a person. Except for the sex part, I mean."
"You didn't need to clarify. Now comes the million-dollar question. WERE you afraid to love him?"
"I don't know, Cordy. I do know that for the past few weeks or so I've been kind of neglecting him –"
"While your mother was in the hospital for a brain tumor. God! You are so selfish, spending time with your brain-tumored mother at the expense of your boyfriend. I bet you didn't spend as much time with Giles or Xander or Willow either, did you? God, what a bitch."
"OK, now you're being sarcastic."
"Do you think?"
"I'm still not sure –"
"Look. If you want to stay miserable, stay miserable. I'm just trying to help you like you asked. One final thing. You said you told Xander he was doing the same thing with Anya. I'm guessing that means you thought he was treating her like an object and not a person, right?"
"Yeah. But he went right to her after he got done rimming me out and pledged his undying love."
"Figures. Never mind that. Don't you see what he was doing?"
"What?"
"He was PROJECTING, Buffy. He was taking his fear of what was going on between him and demongirl and putting it on you and Riley. HE was the one who was afraid he was using someone. HE was the one who'd never told her how much she meant to him. Not you."
"But I hadn't –"
"Did you love Riley?"
"Yes."
"Did you show him?"
"Well, I guess, apart from recently – yes."
"Had you told him?"
"Yes. I think – I'm not sure."
"Damn. Did he tell you?"
"Um, the same?"
"There you go. That one's a draw unless your memory clears up. Look, Xander was afraid, not you. He just convinced you with his . . . passion, his seriousness about it."
"Are you SURE, Cordy?"
"Look. If you want me to say you were all miss goody-goody and never did a thing wrong, I can't. I know you too well for that. But the vampire hookers tip it in your favor all by itself, and the rest of it stands as not proven at best. Sure, some of it was your fault. But RILEY was the bad guy here. Not you."
"Doesn't make his heading off to Belize any easier."
"I know. Well, if you still think he's worth it – and that's an if the size of Beverly Hills – wait it out. He won't be in the jungles of Central America forever. And if he isn't – well, time may not heal, but it sure scabs things over. You of all people should know that."
"Yeah, I guess. Thanks, Cordy. I feel a little better."
"Good to know. Sure you'll be okay?
"Eventually. I'm glad I called you."
"I'm glad you did too, Buffy. Just remember that it wasn't nearly all your fault."
"I'll try."
"You do more than that or I'll come down there and kick your ass from there to Sacramento."
"You know, I do believe you would."
"Damn straight."
Part 2
So many people live in my town
And mind to my business and none of their own
They're all so happy now that I've done wrong
I'm surprised they don't trouble to thank me
So if you have moral advice
I suggest you just tuck it all away
'cause my mood to burn bridges
Is not unlike my mood to dig ditches
Don't cross me on either day
-- "Mood to Burn Bridges," Neko Case
.
"How dare you."
" 'Hello, Cordelia. How are you?' "
"Don't give me any shit, Cordy. I'm not in the mood right now."
"Well, then, Xander, since you're not much on pleasantries, what's got your boxers jammed up your behind?"
"You know damn well what. How dare you do what you did with Buffy."
"You mean tell her the truth?"
"No, I mean run that line of bull past her. You know. When you told her it wasn't her fault. When you told her I was confusing her and my problems with our relationships."
"Like I said, I told her the truth. And you know, I've got my own problems here and a lot better things to do than listen to you give me a hard time. So lay off the attitude or you'll be talking to a dial tone."
"Well, how the hell do you expect me to be when you've told her I essentially have no clue what I'm talking about? Happy?"
"No, but I expect you not to start off screaming at me. Could you possibly get any MORE incoherent or were you hoping to keep this above the level of grunting and hitting people over the head with clubs?"
"Look. I'm not going to be happy. I did my best to try to help her –"
"Odd way to show it."
"You know as well as I do that Buffy almost never responds to calm, logical arguments. She needs to be hit over the head with a sledgehammer."
"I'll go along with that. That doesn't mean that your PARTICULAR blow to the skull was well-deserved."
"But it was."
"Okay, you've got your chance here: Convince me and I'll apologize."
"Okay then. First off, Riley's seeing the vampire babes? I'll agree that was sick. Once I can barely understand, but over and over again meant he liked it. So I'll give you that one."
"I don't see how even once is understandable, even barely, but keep going."
"That's not the important part. The important part is Riley was convinced Buffy didn't love him before her mom's troubles even started, over a month back. When I was moving into my new apartment Buffy and Riley were helping me move my stuff, and Buffy had just left when Riley went into a rapture about how Buffy made him feel. And he ended it up with, 'But she doesn't love me.'"
"That is information I didn't have before."
"I thought that might make you change your mind. Something else was that, while Buffy and Dawn were with Joyce in the hospital Riley and the rest of us scoobies tried to do the Slaying. We went after a group on a graveyard – one of 'em had caught Buffy with her own stake earlier in the day, so I get why they ticked Riley off so much. We said we'd come back and get 'em later, they were too much for us, and Riley simply went back and chucked a grenade in there to wipe 'em out."
"And this little Rambo act is supposed to impress me with his sanity?"
"No, with how much he loved Buffy, and how the stress of the relationship was getting to him."
"What stress? So far all you've told me is that Riley SAID Buffy didn't love him, and a stress release that I'm fairly sure Freud would not approve. Riley loved Buffy? I'll go along. Buffy said so, and you say so –"
"If you'd heard the way he described being with her in the basement, you'd have no doubts. You'd have thought he was with a goddess. To him, she was."
"Okay, I don't doubt you. He loved her. So why do you think he was convinced that Buffy didn't love him back?"
"The way she used him. The way she expected him to be there when she needed him, and take off when she didn't. The way she stopped relying on him in the fighting when he lost his superpowers."
"Struck a little close to home, did it, Zeppoboy? You saw what you thought happened to you way back when happening to Riley now and you sympathized with him."
"Apart from the Zeppoboy slam, yeah."
"You identified with him."
"Yeah."
"Maybe so much so that you saw something that wasn't there?"
"No, she wasn't using him for backup except when she had no choice. That was there."
"But he felt useless. Like Buffy didn't need him anymore. Exactly like the way you felt. But you got past that."
"I proved I could do things on my own. No thanks to you."
"Let's not go there at the moment. Anyway, you proved you could do things on your own – and you got better. Riley proved he could do things on his own, and went off to pay vampires to suck on him. Not exactly the work of the most balanced gymnast on the beam."
"I've already given you that."
"You're not getting it. You accept that Riley's mental state was off. But you sympathize with him so much that you're ignoring that maybe his brain was a little whacked well before he lost his superpowers. You get me? I'm betting the only evidence you saw of Buffy not wanting to love Riley happened after he made his confession to you. Right?"
"Right. But I did see it."
"And wasn't most of Buffy's time taken up then by something that kinda had the right to dominate it? Her mother's brain tumor?"
"Yeah –"
"So was that really the best time to be objective about it?"
"Maybe not."
"Good as I'm going to get."
"Okay, Cordy, what's this about me projecting? If I was identifying with Riley I can hardly have been seeing my own problems in Buffy's. You don't get it both ways."
"Why? What's so ridiculous about it?"
"It – it just is, that's all."
"You realize that's one of the lamest POSSIBLE arguments in the history of mankind, don't you?"
"No it isn't."
"For God's sake, Xander, don't make me sound like I'm channeling Frasier Crane. Your mind, yes, even yours, is certainly big enough to hold two thoughts at the same time without you even realizing it; for you to be able to identify with both Riley's situation as a so-called victim and Buffy's as the one who allegedly used someone for their own convenience, when it was YOU you were seeing both times."
"Damn, Cordy, why do you do this?"
"Do what?"
"Make so damn much sense. I called here ready to rip your head off and now – well, I can't say I buy everything you've told me, but you've definitely given me something to think about."
"Good. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to bed."
"Cordy, it's ten in the morning."
"Yeah, I know, but if I've made you start thinking then obviously there's no point in staying awake any longer because that HAS to be the highlight of my day."
"Had to get in another shot, didn't you?"
"Would I be me if I didn't?"
"I guess not."
"Damn straight."
Part 3
Her lips were waitin'
Her eyes looked sad
The dreams of a lifetime
A year gone bad
The dreams of a lifetime
Told me wrong
Everything is all right
And now it's gone
Don't blame me
Please be strong
I know I'm not wrong
Here comes the nighttime
Lookin' for a little more
Waitin' on the right time
Somebody outside the door
Don't blame me
Please be strong
I know I'm not wrong
-- "I Know I'm Not Wrong," Fleetwood Mac
"Identify yourself!"
"Identify MYSELF? You're the one who popped up in my dream, nimrod. You first. And put down the gun."
"Special Agent Riley Finn."
"Why, why, WHY did I order that shrimp and garlic pizza? Never again, I tell you."
"I told, now you."
"Cordelia Chase. And this is one of the strangest dreams I've ever had."
"Item one, this is my dream, not yours. Item two, why does your name sound familiar?"
"You probably heard Buffy mention me or something. You're her traitor ex- boyfriend, right? God, if I only had a million dollars every time that phrase came up . . ."
"I'm not a traitor. I love my country; that's why I'm here in Belize."
"Not the kind of traitor I meant. I meant you betrayed HER. What you did to her."
"It was my fault. Straight out. But -- she drove me to it, the way she used me. And I left her when she wouldn't give me a reason to stay."
"And had you given her a reason to give you a reason? Or had you been spending your free time paying a bunch of vampire hookers to give you, well, suck jobs?"
"Probably the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life."
"That's a half step above dousing yourself in blood and jumping in a shark tank. I've seen people in comas do smarter things."
"You don't need to rub it in."
"Somebody has to, and I guess given this dream we're both stuck in that somebody is me."
"I'm not going to listen to this. I have demons to kill, so I'm going to wake up now. We head out into the jungles tomorrow morning."
"Think that'll be far enough?"
"Far enough for what?"
"For you to run away from your problems. I mean, that IS what you're doing, don't bother to deny it."
"I left because I had no reason to stay."
"You left because you didn't want to take the tough road of fighting for your relationship."
"I didn't think there was anything to fight FOR!"
"You loved Buffy, right?"
"Love. Yes. God, yes."
"I can tell. Then why did you run away?"
"How many times do I need to repeat this? She didn't give me a reason to stay."
"And when did you ask her to give you this reason?"
"Excuse me?"
"The way I hear it, you talked to her within a day after she'd found out you were paying vampires to suck on you."
"Yeah, that's right. I needed to feel – what she felt when vampires bit her."
"I'm guessing pain. That's what most of us feel, at any rate."
"Then why did she let both Angel and Dracula do it?"
"Dracula? Never mind I don't want to know. Same person I've heard of, though? Hypnotic powers, the works?"
"Yeah."
"There you go. Buffy didn't let him bite her because of any great thrill she got; she was hypnotized. And as for Angel – well, the only time I KNOW about involved Angel biting her because he would die if he didn't. Not a whole lot of sexual charge there either. I take it you enjoyed it, though."
"Not really; they just needed me."
"No, they just acted like it. So did you expect her to beg you to stick around when you obviously found more comfort in a bunch of vampire whores than with her?"
"Whose fault is it I went to the vampires in the first place? If she'd made me feel like she loved me, instead of like she was just using me –"
"How long did you feel this way?"
"A while now. I told Xander about it a month or so back but I'd figured it out before that."
"So why didn't you tell Buffy about it?"
"While her mother was in the hospital? That would have been pretty damn heartless of me."
"How about before that? Xander said you told him about it in his basement one day; did Buffy's mom get sick ten minutes later? Or maybe after she was out of danger – or did Buffy figure out about your extracurricular activities while Joyce was still in the recovery room?"
"No – there was time. I guess I just wanted to keep it going as long as I could. Buffy – is an amazing person to love."
"I've got quite a bit of secondhand experience working with a guy who knows that one. Did you despair of 'getting' her to love you?"
"Yes. I just wanted to preserve the illusion."
"You do realize she chased after you, right?"
"What?!"
"After the two of you had it out Xander came by and read her the riot act. Told her she'd been treating you like a pet dog and asked her if she really loved you. She decided she did and came chasing after the helicopter taking you out of Sunnydale but when she got there it was too late."
"Damn. Damn. Damn."
"So who threw the relationship away? Her, for – ALLEGEDLY – treating you like a convenience, and right now I'm treating that as not proven, or you, who ran away from the problems, again and again and again?"
"Me. I've already admitted this was my fault. But I still think her using me caused part of it. Do you realize I wasn't even the first person she told when it turned out her mom's problem was worse than they thought, Spike was?"
"Spike? You're kidding."
"No."
"And where were you when she found out?"
"I was out killing the bastard who'd just staked her in the stomach."
"Oh, right, the grenade thing. And when was this?"
"Sometime the middle of the night."
"And when did you show up at Buffy's next?"
"The next morning."
"And so where were you in the interim?"
"Probably asleep."
"Probably?"
"I – might have gone out to a bar. I'm not sure."
"So you triumphantly kill a vampire, an entire nest of them, with guts and a hand grenade, and instead of telling Buffy about killing the demon that had damn near ripped out her stomach you either catch some z's or go for a drink."
"I can't be with her all the time. She made it abundantly clear there were times she wanted me there and times she wanted me gone."
"And this was one of the latter? Did she spell this for you straight out?"
"Well, she needed time to recover from her injury. I later found out she spent the time talking with Spike, God knows about what."
"Jealous?"
"Well, Spike does have a crush on her. He told me so himself."
"THAT'S news. But I wouldn't have thought you'd have had anything to worry about. Buffy doesn't go for soulless demon types."
"But Dracula –"
"Is Dracula, in a class by himself, and doesn't count. So you went off to the hookers because you were JEALOUS?"
"Yeah, I guess that has something to do with it."
"People have been betraying Buffy all her life. Her father's an asshole, Angel lost his soul, tried to kill her and did kill a good friend of hers, Xander's done stupid things, I know Willow made a stupid mistake last year, there was that asshole Parker I've been told about, and so much more. And now you. Betrayal after betrayal after betrayal. She's been shown time after time that the only person she can really, truly, completely trust not to screw up is her. Is it any wonder she's the way she is with people like you around?"
"I did nothing but love her as long as we were together."
"And in the end you screwed her over just like everyone else."
"I've said this was my fault. Over and over I've said this was my fault. I screwed over the woman I love AND now it seems I ran out on her without giving her the chance to say she really did love me. What more do you want?"
"Me? I don't want a damn thing."
"Then why are you here in my dream?"
"You know what? I think we're sharing this dream. Someone somewhere wanted us to have this conservation."
"Great. Now even God's after me."
"Oh, don't be self-pitying. You screwed up, you admit it, now haul ass back to Sunnydale as soon as you can to try and patch things up. And keep apologizing. Because whether Buffy treated you like that didn't justify what you did. You feel crappy? Good. You should."
"You're not a very nice person."
"I had no reason to be nice."
"But I'll bear in mind what you said. Now could I get some sleep? Talking with you is an exhausting experience."
"Damn straight."