Zaedah apologizes for making the surprising number of Rooftop fans wait months for this chapter. Please don't send virtual firebombs. I thank you for returning and will post the final two chapters as soon as possible.
Rooftop Diving
Chapter Ten
Cordelia Chase, marker of territory.
Naturally she would carry that innocent face to the grave, as long as the evidence of a newly risen biting predilection remained safely beyond public scrutiny. But she knew it was there and when Doyle shifted the seam of his tee shirt from his bruised and tender shoulder, her teeth pulsed with phantom sensation. He hadn't seemed to mind at the time. What happens on the kitchen floor stays on the kitchen floor. Except when it doesn't.
Because two hours after they'd straightened their clothes and scrubbed off the satisfied grins, the wrinkling nose of a scent-perplexed vampire sniffed around in her favorite room on planet Earth. The over-Fabreezing coupled with enough bleach to clean an Olympic stadium was clearly confusing Angel's hound dog nose. Cordy threw a discreet glance to her accomplice, who was smirking like the devil at a gun fight. The boss eyed the dish strainer, taking in the drying mugs, plates and … napkin holder. Please, she prayed, don't ask what we used that for.
If she mashed their brains together, the whole of Sunnydale still couldn't match her partner's creativity. Clearly he'd seen a lot of… those movies. He stood now, watching his terribly masculine friend fight the girlish fright.
"Did you need to sterilize everything?" Angel's disgust would need a wheelbarrow to carry out.
"Thorough is my new middle name?" Cordy suggested, tugging on Doyle's arm to exit before Angel found the disfigured whisk.
Criminals don't loiter at their own crime scene, especially when the detective is pulling the egg timer out of the trash. Turning the dial, the tiny machine vibrated for a moment in his hand, then sputtered to a creaking stop. Angel dropped the timer like it was leaking liquid sunshine.
"I don't want to know," he muttered as the guilty pair slipped out the view.
Unfortunately for her beau, Cordelia remembered the issue preceding their improper use of kitchen tools. Noncompliance to Queen C's decrees. Notwithstanding the 3 big O's he'd given her hours before, the disobedient dog would still need training if he wanted a repeat performance. Leaving Doyle by her desk, Cordy hastened to the front door, locking it against the hopeless world that liked to be saved on a budget.
She needed to be direct.
She needed to be firm.
She needed to turn her skirt around. There was no way to gracefully twist the offending cloth around the right way and Cordelia just hoped he failed to notice.
"Okay," she began, pointing like a school marm. "You have some explaining to do and no amount of unexpected seduction can get you out of it. This time."
With a tilt of his head, Doyle gestured to the oddity that was the shorter-in-the-back skirt. "Might want to fix that first, Princess."
"Hey, I was in a hurry. That spatula wasn't cleaning itself." And of course the firm went out when the blush rode in. "And anyway, I could yell just as loud with the label in the front."
"Do ye need to?"
Giving up grace for function, the skirt was shoved into place, succeeding only in bunching her one-time-a-year pantyhose. While she was occupied with a fashion faux pas, Doyle pushed aside her stack of magazines, which were purely research material. He perched on the edge of her desk and Cordy briefly contemplated warning him of the cracked leg beneath him. Wishing for nothing to kill him before she did, Cordy reached out and pulled him to his feet. The sun sent rays to eavesdrop, hazing her vision a bit with the constriction of her pupils.
"Tell me what the hag said."
"She…" It was the sigh of an interrogation room confession. "She said she hears t'ings in the sky. Words in the rain and all that."
Her mind reading skills were akin to her ability to make a missile from gum and toothpicks but she was fairly sure the crone gave him more than a weather report. She just hoped it wasn't a rotted appendage. Giving still-lush hair a swish in that 'I'm superior to disintegrating flesh' way he was sure to bow to, Cordelia reached out to reclaim his hand.
"Words in the rain. And the words weren't a tongue-of-bat recipe, were they?"
No decent vision was needed to detect the grin. "Lung-of-dragon, actually. We'll try it tonight."
"Only if celibacy works for you." Tightening her grip around his palm, Cordelia bid goodbye to the jovial mood as she pushed heavily on the crow bar. "So, you risked my wrath and went to see her. Did you get anything out of it?"
Doyle's jacket, and the body within, leaned away as though a smack was forthcoming. "More o'the same. I shouldna be here. I'm betrayin' my purpose. But hey, ye gotta admit, her clothes are worst than mine."
Okay, she had to give him that. "And that was it?" Incredulous was a bone she was gnawing to bits. He left her alone for that?
"Guess you can't hear 'rain words' when it's dry."
Shrug plus eye avoidance equals lie. It would have been irritating math had Doyle's hands not stolen to her waist, skillfully kneading while cleverly pulling her closer. When the devious half-demon finally looked at her, the gaze was 110 degrees on concrete. And kissing was an evolutionary progression. As much as the mush labeled his girlfriend was cursing the distraction tactic, her body was blessing it with a zeal that nearly brought them toppling over. Breaking a heel in the effort barely registered. The few circuits of her brain not currently misfiring in the waves of his heat considered the desk full of potential toys.
Staple remover anyone?
But his assault stopped, leaving her in a gasping heap of singed nerves. Tossing a glance to the approaching footsteps, Doyle looked as frustrated as she felt.
"Lunch break?" He suggested with a nod to the door.
"Break? Hell, I quit."
The form that lunch took pushed the boundaries of state regulation; unannounced, extended and in no way involving food. The drive back to the office proved a challenge, his speed differing based on the location of her hand. What was the point of dating if one couldn't mold playing into a threat of vehicular homicide? Angel wasn't likely to notice that Cordy's outfit had changed, though she mourned the shirt Doyle had damaged in his rush. Although, routinely returning the favor would allow her to slowly replace his wardrobe. There was no downside to that plan.
Still, it occurred to her that this was less a man making up for lost time as a man quickly running out of it.
Dry leaves swirled around the steps of the building and a rumble sounded overhead. Just a train, she decided based on hope alone. Storms, of late, bring prophesying zombies. Entering the lobby, Cordelia was assailed by the sharp scent of shoe polish, strong enough to have conquered the bleach. The walls appeared to stand up straighter and even the sun had tucked itself away before its bedtime. Following husky voices, Cordy and Doyle peeked into Angel's office and the reason inanimate objects seemed to quake became clear. Three men, dressed like the secret service with posture like marines, filled the small space, towering over a seated vampire. Angel, for his part, looked almost amused at their stab at intimidation. He must have sensed the arrival of his wayward staff because he raised his voice in a comically obvious way.
"So, to summarize the last hour of my life, you think I'm employing an illegal immigrant?"
Doyle backed away from the door frame like a kid caught sneaking porn and Cordelia followed as quietly as chunky shoes can manage on polished wood. The slightest squeak had her removing them for expediency. Once safely tucked away near the supply room, Cordy tangled with a mop and lost. Doyle stepped in for the rescue and the lamplight caught his eyes. The confidence he'd displayed in their varied intimacies today had evaporated into anxiety on legs.
And Supportive girlfriend mode was engaged. "If Angel snaps on them, you could go demon on the Men In Black rejects."
"S'not my thing."
Cordy resisted the urge to throw in a head smack. Men needed physical punctuation sometimes. The tapping foot was muted in deference to the pistol-packing G-men or whatever they were.
"Then maybe your 'thing' can brave the paper cut to whip out your green card?"
"I don' exactly," the dreaded shrug was back, "have one."
Which is when the mouth shot past the brain. "I'm screwing an illegal alien?"
"Cordy…" Doyle gestured to the roomful of Armani agents.
Stilling the nearly in-flight hands, Cordelia was desperate need of good, solid lumber. Because despite rapid progress, their sticking point continued to be the truth, something he kept shoving into oncoming traffic.
"Anything else you've forgotten to mention?" Whispered yelling was hard on the throat.
Angel wished the visitors a noisy farewell and Doyle tugged her into the hall, waiting for an all-clear. Slamming the door behind the strangers, Angel's huff could be heard in Hell.
"Doyle!"
The emerging pair found their boss commencing a panther-like pacing in the lobby. Never had a carpet garnered more sympathy.
"How did this happen?" The personification of fury asked the fading paint of the nearest wall.
Cordy's spine evoked a spelling bee. "Your human resources department didn't make it an employment requirement."
"Which is you," Doyle patted her shoulder in appreciation of the self-incriminating defense. Dropping onto a couch, Doyle rubbed his eyes. "Harry and I were married and divorced in Ireland. Nothin' was filed here. When the Powers shipped me here, I kinda took a shortcut through the paperwork."
"By not doing any." Angel sank into the opposing chair and Cordy's mind reading skills came online long enough to know Angel was asking the same thing she had. Anything else?
Doyle's pending deportation back to the land of fellow leprechauns was certain to cramp their one day old sex life. Although his penchant for failing to mention things wasn't helping either. Before the depressing thought could be fully formulated into a punch in the face, Doyle stiffened, ducking his head. Then it hit; a train wreck of a vision slamming into his brain. His head fell into his hands as he rode out the pain and her taste for domestic violence turned sour in her mouth.
Sliding onto the floor, Cordelia kneeled between his knees and willed him to unclench his jaw and take a breath. Ninety seconds later, the tremors subsided and Cordy drew his head on her waiting shoulder.
"What did you see?"
The Irishman, too busy chasing down his breath to respond, reluctantly raised his head from the crook of her neck. His eyes were squeezed shut against the artificial lights that Angel used in a mockery of daylight. Under her probing hand, his heart was beating so hard Cordy feared it would launch itself out of his chest. And she wasn't real into organ catching.
"Leaving the country," pant, swallow, gasp. "Bad idea."
Angel moved to the edge of the easy chair. "As long as we can keep you out of INS's hands."
"Maybe it only works in movies," Cordy whispered against his ear. "But we could get legal."
Predictably, someone fainted.