Kindred

By Sweetprincipale

Set in early Season Five. When Dracula called Buffy 'kindred'', he was doing a bit more than just saying they had a lot in common. Hungry for knowledge of herself and her power, Buffy didn't realize what kind of connection he had forged with her until he left town, and the damage was done. Hoping to break his hold over her, Buffy requests help from Spike. However, the way you break the hold of one vampire is to let another one possess you more fully. But, it'll only be temporary, right? Simple business, that's all…

Dedicated to: artemisthestargazer, pgoodrichboggs, Dreaming Haven, Brokenblackrose89, GoldenHeartedAngel, goodgirl6934, Ardynn. I thank all of you so much for reading and reviewing! You make my day!

XXXIX

Daniela threw her dress off without her usual care or sensuousness. She needed him to see her, have her, taste her, right now.

Daniela, naked, undressing him. His mind went to glorious, hedonistic places, but the learned man inside was still poking around in the recesses of his brain, trying to suss out what more he could do to "possess" her. He finally figured out that she meant for him to bite her as well. If Buffy manages it, I can manage it.

"Daniela? I— would you mind if I made a phone call for just a moment?"

She broke off in mid-kiss, stunned. "What? Now?"

"I- I'm sorry, darling, very quickly, I just—perhaps if I asked Buffy—"

Daniela backed up, thoroughly startled. "Have you never-"

"No! Obviously. I've never been with a vampire before you." It was his turn to give her a startled gaze, his hands hanging in mid-air, her hips abruptly absented from his grasp.

"Not only vampires enjoy this." Her hips swayed seductively, back into his grasp, pushing his hands firmly until they indented her creamy cheeks.

"No, of course not." Men who go wild for a pair of long legs, a round bum, big breasts, small breasts, long hair, blonde hair, redheads—everyone has their particular delight. My Daniela is a perfect package, beautiful everywhere.

"I suppose the only difference might be lubrication." She was pressing close to him again, kissing his neck, tongue flicking the bite she'd left and making him huff longingly, his eyes closing. "Definitely beneficial, but not required." Vampire bodies could withstand rough penetration more easily, but she hadn't imagined for a moment that Wesley would be rough, merely passionate, enjoying "taking" her in some taboo way that only a prim and proper man could dream about, letting his repression go, owning her, yes, slamming and thrusting in places he wasn't supposed to be, with a woman he wasn't supposed to be with.

Lubrication. Not only vampires enjoy… ? "Hm?" He unwillingly tore his neck from her lips with a confused, lust-addled noise. "What do you want me to do, my darling?"

In answer, she placed her long pale legs on the mattress, knees first, hips spread wide. Her demon had no inhibitions, never had when moving under her own steam. Her pussy was perfection, made to give and receive pleasure, and the demon could take pleasure in just about anything that was even remotely sexual, her particular vice. She slowly reached between her legs as he stood riveted, fingering herself with two manicured digits, ending with a long, slow drag that parted her sex and showed the glistening pale pink walls inside. Her Sorcerer was truly bespelled now, unable to move, rooted to the floor. His cock moved, though, pointing stiff and bobbing as he twitched without touching. "Are you enjoying the show?" she laughed, not unkindly.

"Yes." There must be words more eloquent than yes, but…

The fingers were in her mouth now, tongue circling, lips performing a slow, sucking dance. "I have no limits, really, as long as I feel safe. Even pain," she ran her nails over one smooth buttock and white-on-white trails appeared instantly, "is delectable when coupled properly. Like a fine wine with the right cut of meat."

"Like you biting me. Like my biting you." Was she worried he would harm her with his inferior "fangs"? Or that he would resist completing the coupling and the claiming, such as it was, because he wouldn't wish to inflict pain?

"Mmhmm." Her fingers were inside again, thrusting harder, not faster, letting him hear the wet, slick-slap of flesh around fingers. Soaked and semi-satisfied, she moved them out and up to her tight pucker. It had been months since she and a lover experimented there. She tended to save it for those she wanted to draw deeper into her web, her confidence, to keep around. She coated the tightness with her own juice and slipped her forefinger in. They gasped as one, her from the rekindled sensation and him from shock or pleasure. She kept it in, first knuckle to palm, moving it in and out without exiting. Her eyes opened and took in his slack-jawed gaze, the hand busily wrapping around his own length. "If you were worried about the pain- there is none. If you were worried about cleanliness-"

He knew how vampire physiology worked, but moreover, that hadn't crossed his mind. "I was not. Nor pain, if you say there's none. I trust you."

Damn him. She did love him so, but his sweet, simple words could get in the way of what should be far more animalistic. "I trust you, too. I want you to take me here, take me hard, possess me, oui? I will be your host," she tempted, eyes flickering shut as her finger kept moving, feeling too good to be removed just yet. "If you don't have something slippery handy, I have something in my cases."

Lubricant, slippery stuff, did he…? No point in bothering to look. He moved on autopilot to her larger case, full of underthings. "Where-" He couldn't look away. She was arching the round globes of her ass up higher, switching the pace to something faster. Her shoulders came down to the mattress and her other hand went back to the sweet, slippery folds of her flower, rubbing her clit in lazy circles.

"The makeup bag and toiletries." Her voice was rather muffled, cheek pressed to the comforter.

He yanked open the smaller case and rummaged until he came up with some boutique brand of intimate personal lubricant. "I- not with anyone else." He didn't know where to aim or how to move. One couldn't assume that just pounding away inside would feel good to the other partner. It wasn't a place only intended only for sexual gratification, not like vaginal walls with their lovely soft spots full of nerve endings that made her moan so beautifully against him.

"I have. But not many." Not many in total. A dozen or so. To her, that was a tiny number. Her hands stilled and left her body, sitting up to embrace him as he came to the bed with her bottle outstretched. "I have never given myself to a man in this way, in love. The demon enjoys fucking and pleasure, passion, getting fed. I want to experience all of that- and with love. I think you'll like it. Do-" she hesitated. What if he didn't like the idea, simply because he didn't fancy taking her like that? It could happen. She had to stop seeing all her partners as basic variations on a theme. Wesley was his own symphony. "Do you think it is appealing, this act?"

Honestly, he hadn't much thought about it. One had to be in a relationship to think about it, or alone and relieving tension with one's thoughts, or even clicking through some risque images. Those nights never lasted long, he was always too busy, too tired, or the images failed to be very captivating. Would she think he was sheltered? Well, he was, in a way. "I spent so much time learning about what goes on in the streets after dark to worry about what goes on in bedrooms. I find this act incredibly appealing, I'm simply not sure— that it'll be very enjoyable for you. I don't have practice, you see. The other things, I at least had practice. A little." His erection began to flag, but then bobbed back up as the erotic images of her spread cheeks and her wet lips played again in his mind.

"Mmm, and that to me, is incredibly enjoyable. I will be your first, yes?"

"Yes." A blush, a smile. Damn it all, blushing in her presence.

"And you will be mine. The feeling of you, deep inside me where I do not allow others to go— shh, no others now, none will be in me but you. You will unlock another secret, Sorcerer."

"Secret?" How had he lost his grip on the bottle, how had her lips hypnotized him so thoroughly?

"Wesley is not a monster, non. Wesley is my beautiful beast, the demon hunter…" she kissed him and slid back, face up this time, posing provocatively. "And you will not slay me, no. You will tame me, won't you?"

"I- like you wild."

"Mmm. I like you wild, too. Come here?" She crooked a finger at him. He obeyed. "Mon sauvage…"

He wondered if it were a little bit of a test. Could he make love to her the way she needed, satisfy her in all the ways she liked? My savage. Beautiful beast. Well, hadn't he bedded a demon? Hadn't he dreamed a blue and black tiger lying beside him, hadn't he kissed her in fangs and came endlessly while being bitten?

He didn't want to be a demon. He wanted to be himself. He, himself, wanted to make her scream in the very best possible ways. Like everything he'd ever undertaken, he threw himself into it wholeheartedly.

Daniela gasped and clutched the mattress with both hands as he gripped her cheeks and buried his face in her wet center, tonguing her first before sliding his cock in, thrusting hard and fast for a moment. This was not the usual approach— and it was not a bad thing to find out her slow and gentle lover could turn up the tempo. It took her several seconds and an insistent nip on her shoulder to understand that her lover was speaking. "I said, 'rub yourself for me.'"

"Where?" she felt a thrill tingling along her spine and ending in her clit, tightening her walls around him. Dracula had ordered her to perform various acts, certainly. She had occasionally asked for clarification. Other lovers over the years had played games with her. This was different. I am Wesley's, he is mine. He's making this about both of us, our pleasure together.

"Your clitoris," he breathed against her hair, unused to saying the words.

"Oh, yes. Mmmm. Can you feel my fingers dancing when you're in me, lover?"

"I can."

"When you're in my cul, you shall feel them then. Fingering one tunnel while you pound the other."

"Not yet," he told her as much as himself. Where was that elusive bottle? Why had he indulged in this first, her pink paradise? He wasn't going to last much longer and he'd barely begun. "Tell me how to."

"How to?"

"To make love to you there."

Oh, he was wicked. He knew everything to say, but he was so innocent, too. He genuinely wished to know. "Stroke it with your fingers and your tongue until it- until it—" her orgasm was rapidly closing in, making her grasp of English fuzzy. "'Til it's soft. No resistance, slides right in."

"Then?"

"Go in slow until you're in all the way."

"All the way? Like this?" He slammed his hips home inside her pussy and both of them groaned.

"Ah, ah, yessss. Like that."

"What happens next?"

What happened next? She thought as best she could. Her walls struggled to adjust to an invader, and that was half the fun. The friction became a dull throb, then a roaring burn, pleasure. The harder he went, the more her walls relaxed and gave in. Repeated pounding did something to her, perhaps through the thin membranes that separated the anal canal from the pleasure center on the other side, or maybe all the nerves around and inside her tight, clinging entrance. She didn't much care. The demon certainly didn't care. It liked when things were primal and just this side of painful, above all, pleasurable. "Then you pound me until I scream and I drain every drop of cum from your cock. You spend in me, deep inside."

He pulled out so fast that he almost lost his balance. She gasped, high and sharp, ending with a whimper at the sudden loss. "I had to, darling," he panted, getting himself balanced again. He leaned forward, rubbing her shoulder, sliding his hand down her spine, and then taking a cheek in each palm, slightly tightening his grip.

"Ohhh. Oh?" A questioning moan as he parted her. She didn't blush, she preened, demon on display. "How wet you've made me. Admiring your handiwork?" she teased as his gaze lingered on her dripping opening, juice running down into her dark curls, spread back like wings where her bottom met her thighs.

He didn't speak, unusual for the man who loved words and sometimes hid behind them. Beasts don't talk so bloody much.

"Wesley!" she found herself pitching forward from the force of his tongue against her, inside her, scooping up her wetness and flicking it back over her lips, then up between her cheeks, biting each one softly, Her hands came to her breasts and squeezed, eyes shut. Any minute now, he'd take her, be in her, share the initial bit of discomfort, watch her take it and tame it. Wild and tame, all at once. Like us.

But he had other ideas, his tongue back and sweeping shamelessly over the entrance she was offering, dancing lightly over the taut ring of flesh and back to the ready, hungry opening he'd just left. He dug his fingers in her pussy and dragged them up, dotting slippery coating all over the sealed star of flesh. "Good?" he finally asked, head lifting as he searched for the bottle again.

"Mon dieu," a hoarse prayer.

"Non." He gripped her ass tightly in one hand, thumb rubbing her backdoor insistently. "Mon sauvage," Wesley corrected with mock severity. "My name on your lips, please."

"Wes-ley!" Daniela found her exclamation broken in half as the thickness of his thumb pushed inside, not significantly wider than her own finger, but the feel of it still made her tingle.

"Is that the way?" he murmured, tense muscles in his stomach, lust clouding his eyes. This hadn't been on his to-do list. Frankly, before Daniela, not dying in an embarrassing way had pretty much been his entire life's ambition. Now?

To do everything, anything, as long as she was with him.

"That's the way, yes," she moaned, pushing back against his hand. "Tight, no?"

"Tight, yes. Very." One of his ambitions was now to make her cum like this, screaming into his pillow, both holes his. Then feed her. And bite her. Yes, that was a new and sudden desire that had become concrete in the last blink of an eye. "You're mine, aren't you?" His voice was silky, weaving threads, tying her to him. He didn't want to control. But he wanted her. If she asked— he was hers.

"Ohhhh." He'd switched from thumb to two fingers, widening her and making her stomach jump. The sensation of him felt so good. Her fingers in pussy rubbed his through the skin, making him gasp in surprise. He'd never felt that before. Later, if he was amenable, she'd show him all sorts of tricks, ways to make things tighter, fuller, better. Life had gotten so much better with him. How had she been content to live before him, passing from lover to lover, fashion to fashion, book to book? Always change and pleasure, but nothing solid.

I was free, and free was enough, yes. But there's more to life than mere freedom.

"You didn't answer." He shouldn't press, but he did. She said he would possess her more fully. He rubbed lubricant around her opening as his fingers left, then dribbled a line across his cock as well, hoping that was enough. "Am I yours, my love?"

"Oui, yes. Yes, you are." She felt his hips meet hers, the tip press against her skin. She wanted to be still, let him push in, but she couldn't help but rock back eagerly. Want to give him this. Feel this with him.

But he stopped short, hands on her cheeks, pushing her forward, preventing his cock from slipping home, simply nudging the tight ring that was waiting for his entrance. "Are you mine, beloved?"

Both hands on the mattress now, squaring up her slender shoulders with the generous curve of her hips. A shaky breath she didn't need to live, only to speak, "I am yours, utterly."

A desperate, frantic grunt burst from him as he slid home, probably far too quickly for most women.

She was not most women. "YES! Parfait! Parfait, perfect, Wesley!" A tangle of French and English, eyes closed, radiant satisfaction on her face.

"Good… Good God. Ohh." He blinked. That was tight, ridiculously tight and grasping, pulsating, not as soft and smooth as her mouth or her pussy, but thrilling in a different way. She rammed her rear backwards, pushing him further inside, another tourniquet of contractions right on the tip of his slippery cock. "Bloody fuck!"

"Later, Lover," she moaned, looking back over her shoulder, her fangs out, unable to hold them in. This was what her demon liked best, a bit rougher, bit wilder, any human constraints peeled away, a breaking a mental barrier far more than a physical one. "Fuck me nice and hard?"

"As soon as my head stops spinning," he laughed, anchoring himself by gripping her waist. She was apparently not content to wait for that. Her beautiful ivory rump rocked back into his darker hips, fucking herself on his cock. "Oh. My God."

"Ah, ah. No other name from your lips," she teased, face reverting.

"Goddess, then. My Aphrodite, my Persephone, my Nyx…" He was rambling and lost- and didn't give a damn. She loves me. She's mine. I'm hers. "I can't see your face like this," he half-whimpered, letting her lead the dance, finally starting to meet her insistent nudges with thrusts of his own.

"You are supposed to be focusing on other things," she teased, laughing into the pillow as her hands slid back, briefly passing his hands on her waist, then parting her cheeks so he could watch himself slipping in and out. Apparently, he quite liked that idea, withdrawing completely to slowly sink back in. "Stay in. I like that best," she hissed, feeling so full once again.

"I like this best." He leaned forward, kissing the middle of her back, putting his weight on her supernaturally strong frame. His knees jostled with hers as he joined her on the bed and they scooted up. Daniela let out a little cry and they were suddenly flat, her pinned under him, his cock still buried deep inside. "Sorry, darling!"

"Non, non, stay! Stay like this." He was in her so deep it was very nearly painful- but not quite. The pressure of his body around hers pressed her pussy hard to the mattress and she aided it, slipping a hand under herself, finding her clit while he pushed her limits.

"I can't—" No leverage like this. He wasn't sure he could make her cum like this, but he could cum endlessly, break some sort of physical record.

"I am the ocean, you're boat. Rock. That's all. Make waves," she hissed, and bless his clever and brilliant mind, he learned.

He rested his head to hers, hips rocking into her, feeling every thrust, short strokes, buried deep, creating a ripple all over his sensitive cock, trapped inside her. His hands came under her chest and wrapped around, her breasts in his palms as his eyes closed and instincts took over completely.

Her eyes closed, yellow under white lids. She was trapped, no, merely wrapped, shielded by his body, lost in a world of his harsh breathing and the smell of arousal and lust- and tension. Not quite fear… "Surely you can tell?"

"What?"

"I am not hurt. I'm happy. In love. Safe with my… Safe with you."

"Turn?"

Her eyes flared open. Turn him?

"Over?"

A quick parting, a quicker roll, and she sheathed him back in her slick tunnel, holding him tight. "Your wish is my command."

"Never that. But perhaps my requests earn your favors?" He laughed gently, lips meeting hers.

"Of course."

A tangle of tongues, a tempo change, his hips slamming hard to hers, opening her up, making her gasp on every thrust. The gasps eventually changed to one long wail as she came on him, and instinctively, like they knew just what to do— he slid his shoulder forward and she sank her teeth in. She felt his hot, creamy spurts inside her body and a thin gush of scarlet in her mouth.

"Yours," Wesley hissed, eyes rolling back.

Damn him, more tempter than I had imagined a human could ever be. No, no, she mustn't do that. But still, where magic wasn't listening, in her head, she thought it. Kindred…

"Well, hello, Cupcake. Who let the breeze out of your — oh, Angelpuss, you're dripping on my tiles." Lorne steered a bedraggled and rather bloodied vampire off his recently waxed floor. "You can't get on stage like that."

"I'm not here to sing. I just—" I can't go home. Cordy's mad at me. Not that she's there. Wesley's an idiot. Not that he's there. Gunn took her side. Buffy- Everything went to a more miserable shade of gray inside his head.

"You're in need of a stiff drink and a soft bed."

Soft. Bed. He looked around like a trapped animal, too many memories of soft bodies taken on beds, stiff bodies left behind. "I shouldn't have come."

"Well…" Lorne looked between Angel, who really could use his help, and he was on the side of the Angels, ha ha— and Cordy and Chuckles, bonding and giggling in the corner. Hadn't seen enough smiles out of those two lately. Even fewer out of Angel. He groaned. "You three need an intervention."

"Four."

Lorne frowned. "That's right, where is A.I.'s answer to Hugh Grant?"

"Gambling with his life with a soulless demon, but suddenly I'm the bad guy."

"Say what?"

"Oh, some pretty pair of fangs with a big estate, that's all." Angel's soul only twinged slightly. That made Wesley seem cheap. "Stupid, but not cheap."

"The girl?"

"No- girl? Vampire. Fangs. Vampire."

"Must be some special vampire. Your merry little band is more about the killing — which I'm okay with outside of my cozy, homey little establishment. Which reminds me, you've got a little ash on you there," Lorne brushed down his staggering guest. "And some blood. Gore. Look, maybe a table in the back corner?"

"Why aren't you freaking out?"

"Because I don't think anyone here realizes that you're walking around with half of demonic LA on your ensemble. Yet. Back table? Now?" The green host insistently moved the vampire away.

Angel allowed himself to be marched along. "Why aren't you freaking about Wes?"

"Smarty Pants? He can take care of himself. I'm guessing she doesn't follow the all-human diet or he wouldn't be swooning over her. What'll you have? You look like you could use a whiskey."

Angel rolled his eyes. "She claims she gets it from willing donors. You know," he lowered his voice, the monk-like side of himself shifting eyes to and fro, "bedding them."

"Hm. He doesn't seem like the kind to put up with that."

"Exactly! And - no! That's got nothing to do with it. She's evil. She's a demon."

"Well, so are you. So am I."

"We have souls!"

Lorne raised one eyebrow. "Oh please, Angel Cake. You have a soul. I have a soul. Mine ain't human, never will be. You know I have soul," Lorne sang with a twirl that was reminiscent of James Brown. "If you meet any cuddlier, more loving guy than myself— I want you to introduce us." With a wink, the green demon sauntered off.

Angel sat and brooded for a moment, looking at Cordelia laughing tipsily with Gunn, who, to his jealous mind, looked at the buxom brunette with far more than brotherly interest.

Well, let him have her.

Like someone else has Buffy.

Like Dracula could have her, because you wouldn't help.

You can't have her. Either of them. What's the point?

Thoughts took a nosedive from lust and longing, to hopelessness, and finally to anger. Even loyal toadying Wesley had been hoodwinked into growing a spine just at the wrong moment. Show him a pair of tits and a whoring trap…. The Irish brogue rang louder in his head, the longer he thought. Can't even trust these two to mind him for me! Probably bleeding out in his own bed. She's still riding him as his eyes roll back, life leaves them —stop. The demon chuckled, so disconcerting that it was always in his own voice.

How often did we do the very same thing, only we were a-ruttin', couldn't let the limp little beauties we drained ride us that final time, could we, Liam?

With a savage growl that was drowned out by a three-headed demon loudly singing Run-Around Sue, he staggered unevenly toward Cordelia and Gunn. Too busy getting drunk and pawing each other, right in front of me —behind my back…whatever the position. Don't say position! The point is, they can't watch Wesley when I need them to. I should've been there!

Why, Liam? Not like he'd have changed his ways. No one listens to you. Better off without 'em, aren't we? The demon was still slyly hinting.

He angrily pushed it down. He won't listen to me. No one listens to me and I'm the only one who gets this, what it's like to be a vampire with a soul, to live with a demon in me, to fight it- you give in without a soul, in a heartbeat.

He could hear Cordelia's heartbeat, steady, slightly elevated as she laughed loudly at something Charles had just done, leaning heavily on him as she arched her long leg back, fingers deftly caressing her ankle as she adjusted the straps on one sexy heel. He wanted that heart to belong to him. His demon wouldn't mind if it slowed and petered out while her blood was spilling in his mouth.

Parts of him twitched, lust and guilt, as he realized all of him would like her blood in his mouth, her body sheathing his, tender thoughts one minute, violent ones the next, sometimes her face in his dreams, sometimes Buffy's.

All of them off-limits. Vampires can't be with humans. Shouldn't be. I'm the one who lived— mostly—through that mistake, but do they learn from me? No.

"-wish we could go with Wes and Daniela this weekend. I don't know what kind of party Spike and Buffy are having, but I'm betting she'll be bored out of her mind in a backwater hole like Sunnydale." Cordelia was shaking her head as they walked back to their drinks.

"You want me to go to a place that's literally called a Hellmouth — as in, the mouth of literal Hell? No! You go your damn self, but I get you stereo when you bite it."

"Oh, come on! I lived through like- a half a dozen apocalypses during high school. No big."

"Girl, you're cut off. 'No big', she says. Use that smart-ass brain of yours and let the Watcher and the Vamp go riding off together. They're all the backup they need."

"Buffy's having a party? With Spike?"

Cordelia whirled so quickly the high table rocked and a stool clattered to the floor.

"Angel!"

"What kind of party?"

Charles kicked the stool back to a standing position and steadied it with his hand.

"You sent me passive-aggressive texts about not waiting up while you were out saving the city, you jerk!" Cordelia gave him a glancing blow with her purse.

"Yeah, and I see you were all broken up about it," Angel said sarcastically.

"Would you lay off, man?" Charles hissed.

"Why, so you can have her to yourself?"

This time the blow wasn't glancing. "Stop being a complete dumbass. Charles, let's go. We'll have to sing another time."

Angel couldn't believe that she stalked past him, that Gunn followed, looking grim. "You two still work for me, you know. I asked what Buffy was doing this weekend and she's part of an on-going investigation." And Wesley's screwing our lead source….

"Playing the boss card? Cheap." Cordelia kept marching. Daniela's words rang in her head. They make conscious choices… He can still kill with a soul. Thousands of humans do it every day. He spared lives without a soul- passing up dozens of victims to torture one for longer.

"Cordy!" He ran to catch up with her, pushing past Gunn and squeezing by dancing couples.

"Why do you care what she does?" Cordelia demanded. Internally she was puzzling that out, too. When you were evil, you wanted to kill her. When you were good, you loved her. When you wanted to move on, you left her, didn't care if it killed her. What the hell kind of a guy am I — not in love with. What kind of person do I care about? Daniela says she can love without a soul. Can this guy love anyone ever again — even with one?

"I… I care about her." It was true.

"Okay, well, she's having a party. You're not invited. I get why not. It's tricky with exes," Cordelia paused outside of Caritas in order to let Gunn rejoin her.

"She's having a party? Now? In the middle of," he shrugged, giving his two assistants his stressed-out puppy face, "all this?"

"Does seem like a weird time to throw a party, gotta agree," Charles was forced to side with the vampire, at least for that second. "Of course, you ask me? It's a Helmouth. No partying ever."

"She just wants a reason to have Wesley bring Daniela over, it's good to have someone who can dish the dirt on Drac.'

"You don't need a party for that. You need a phone call for that."

Cordelia frowned. As mad as she was at him and as much as she doubted his motives were anything but sulky jealousy, he had a point. "Why don't you call and ask her instead of interrogating me?"

Because the last time we talked she told me to hand the phone to Wesley. She yelled at me. She… defended Spike. He blinked, trying to shake the funhouse memory that he couldn't stop replaying, couldn't stop hearing her voice, so impassioned, an edge of anger and fire that made him long for her in depraved ways he knew his beautiful, sweet Buffy wouldn't never indulge in.

Beautiful, sweet, innocent, and naive. She was defending the guy who was helping her when he could not, but that wasn't the end of it. The way her voice rang struck so many chords in him, even replaying it now, "You tell yourself that so you can be okay with all the crap you did to me without one. You tell yourself that so you never have to admit that you hurt people and take responsibility for it, even now that you're 'fixed' with that soul. You say it so you never have to admit that you hurt him and took what he loved. You don't want to believe he could be what you aren't!"

"Girl has a point." Gunn filled the silence the vampire left dangling.

"I take responsibility all the time! I made a career out of it! I wouldn't even get paid for it if it weren't for her!" Angel jerked his head pointedly toward Cordy.

Cordelia and Charles gave each other a confused look. "What?" Charles finally asked.

"Buffy! I'm not calling her because she doesn't get it, either." Or what if she did? Spike was right there. Maybe he was making her do this. Saying choose, Dracula or me. Well, Buffy knew that Spike was an ordinary, annoying run-of-the-mill vampire. He just happened to be hard to kill, like a roach. She was a good actress. He remembered that scene with Faith and he burned in several ways, kissing the brunette Slayer while Buffy was chained to the wall. She'd hated that he was so quiet afterward, she went all clingy and wanted reassurance. He didn't give as much as she wanted because the deviant part of his mind… he wasn't going to go there right now.

"Maybe I'd better go in person," Angel finally muttered.

"Go to what? The party? You're over here throwing a hissy fit because Wesley is even seeing Daniela, you can't seriously want to go with them on some couples retreat!"

"There are no couples. Couples mean two people in love and we both know that one half of each— pair —can't love!"

"Couples also mean people who stay and we know that you can't stay, so why—" Cordelia's voice rose and crashed, hot angry tears crashing with it, "—can't you let her go?"

Angel blinked, straightening from his intimidating, in-your-face tower over her. "I—" Because she was mine first. I had her first. I took her, I loved her, I bedded her, I broke her, and… I love her. The best way I can. The only way I can.

You can't tell her that. "This isn't about that. This isn't about me, it's about her."

"Heard that one before," Gunn muttered, torn between reaching for Cordelia's shoulder and punching his boss.

"I lived with Spike for decades. I knew of Dracula for centuries. The Countess was his wife for centuries and you think she'll fall for someone like Wesley in weeks, out of the 'purity' of her heart? You think Spike doted on Drusilla like her hand-picked puppet for decades and hunted every Slayer he could track to suddenly forget all about Dru and get cozy with the Slayer? Demons use people. Love is just a really good cover, the perfect con— and that's all it is."

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and stalked away, determined that he'd make all of them see. Yeah, it would hurt. Yes, they'd be mad at him. No one ever thanked him when it mattered. Martyring and misery-gutsing going full-blast in his head, the demon squelched down small, where he was supposed to be. He felt worse and better at the same time.

Cordelia watched him go, not looking back at his incredulous friends. At her.

"Hey. Don't listen." Gunn found himself saying words he wasn't quite sure he believed.

"Daniela said it. He's still himself, no matter what. That's what he believes. Love is a con." She'd believed that too, once. Angel had made her re-think it. She didn't want to love him. She didn't think anyone like that could deserve love, but she saw him try and try, and hate himself more than she thought she ever could.

She just didn't think he'd abandoned love so completely. "I think I was kidding myself," she whispered, voice hollow.

"That's what he thinks of demons without souls. He's got one. He cares about you. You can't be with him like— y'know. That."

"Not healthy?" Cordelia let out a bitter laugh. "Or you mean the little problem of sex equalling serial killer?"

"Both."

"But Wesley with Daniela, that's healthy? She bites him." She didn't even feel guilty throwing Wesley under the bus, didn't even care if Gunn knew or merely suspected.

"That's sick."

"I guess."

"Well, it makes me sick. I don't know about y'all, but it gives me the dry heaves."

"Me, too. Sometimes stuff changes. Not that, though." She made a sudden noise of disgust, face twisting. "I'd never let him bite me, ever. Too close to letting Angelus run the show, at least in my head."

"Yeah."

They walked along, half-expecting to see Angel turning back to meet them, half-looking for Cordelia's car along the street.

"I wanted a rich doctor. Or a lawyer," she mumbled. "A Hollywood Heartthrob would have been okay, too."

Gunn gave her a look. "That cannot be the Cordelia Chase I know now talking."

She hadn't really asked herself that question recently. She wanted someone handsome. Gorgeous. She'd liked Angel's looks from the second she saw him. Part of it had been to score over Buffy.

Then she grew to admire all the good he could do. Selfless. Caring in awkward ways. The way they made each other laugh, even though he really, really didn't seem to want to laugh.

This was only adding to the misery. "Forget about me. I'm filed under Hopeless Cases. What about you?"

"Ha, girl, you're tripping. In my neck of the woods, you worry about staying fed, not hooking up."

"Well, you're in a whole different neck of the woods, now! So am I. We're— we're inter-woodsy these days."

He sighed. Fine. If he had to play along… "I want a fighter. Someone who won't think I'm crazy when I start talking about monsters. It would help if she were easy on the eyes and had guts. If she could cook…" he trailed off with a sigh. "I'd put a ring on that."

"If you were the ring-having type?"

"Who says I'm not?" he asked defensively.

"You just said it!"

"The old me, maybe. Maybe inter-woodsy me would consider it. If I live to be thirty. Hell, twenty-five."

They found her car.

Cordelia had dated considerably. A lot of rich, handsome, jerkliness abounded. "I want someone who really loves me. All the parts. Bitchy, rich-wannabe, weird visions, drop-dead gorgeous with expensive tastes, former-mean-girl, current-helper-of-the-helpless. All of it. And if he could cook…."

They laughed as they fell into the car. Cordelia hissed impatiently at her seatbelt, slapping at it in annoyance.

"Wait. I'm okay to drive, You're not." Gunn reached for her keys.

"I'm not drunk!"

"You're half-drunk- as in you drank half of the Sangsom in that restaurant. Gimme the—" There was a scuffle and shove, a playful, laughing, head-butting struggle until Charles was successful. He crowed in triumph and began to spring out of the passenger seat. Cordelia tried something she knew was guaranteed to work. She grabbed him by his collar and hauled him back down, smashing her lips to his.

When she pulled back, she was woozy.

And guilty.

And shocked. How could someone like Gunn kiss like that? It was like he was fighting the surprise attack, tongue some kind of martial artist fighting dirty to make sure they'd win, make sure they would bring any opponent to its knees.

Her knees were weak and she was already sitting down.

"Um. You can drive." She clambered out of the car, keys still in his palm.

"I'm sorry!" He was springing out, too, panting, eyes uncertain. "I should have—"

"No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have. That was dumb trick to pull. And you're right. Shouldn't be driving." If she leaned on the car for support, no big. He'd assume she was starting to feel the alcohol or that the heels were starting to hurt.

"Stuff happens."

"Yeah. Yeah. Not a big deal."

"Didn't even happen, right?"

"What are we talking about again?"

"Can't remember."

Hasty lies meant to reassure, they started breathing easier, laughing softly as they got into the car, places reversed.

Charles pulled onto the mostly deserted streets. One question nagged him. Had to ask it. "Cordy?"

"Yes?" Apprehension was obvious in her tired voice.

"Can you cook?"

"No."

"Me, either."

To be continued…

Don't hate me. I've lost control of the vehicle, the sub-plot bunnies do what they want. The next chapter is back to our main characters!

Thank you

Also, if you're looking for a naughty treat, Mountain Bound: A Monstrous Love Story by S.C. Principale is free with Kindle Unlimited and a .99 cent read right now! Happy Early Halloween!