Chapter 5
"Com what you?!"
"Comshuk. It's Pylean."
Oh great. Between Fred, Lorne and now Cordy, Angel would be happy if he never heard another Pylean word again.
"Wonderful. What does it mean?"
She got up and started towards the doors, avoiding his eyes.
"Can't you guess? Jeez, Gunn got it straight off, but then that's Gunn."
Angel followed her back inside, "You know, I'm not really in the mood for guessing games right know, so why don't you enlighten... Gunn? He knows about this? Gunn knows but you don't want to tell me?"
He was almost shouting again, growing weary of her avoidance tactics and more than a little irritated at the implication that she would confide in Gunn before him.
"Gunn knows what the comshuk is, so does Wesley, but they don't know what it was supposed to do. No-one knows that. I never told anyone until now," she stopped in the center of the lobby and turned to face him. When she did, Angel noted pain etched in every line of her face and the saltwater welling in her eyes again. He moved forward to comfort her instinctively. She stepped back and held out a warning hand. She knew if she was going to have to say what she had to say, she needed that distance. Space in which to keep her sanity.
Arms held out in offer of comfort dropped. Angel surveyed her uneasily. He was pretty sure whatever the comshuk was he wasn't going to like it, and from her reaction he'd gathered that Cordelia found a sudden and intensely painful death more preferable.
Cordelia closed her eyes and forced herself to stay calm. She bit down on her lip and then began through gritted teeth, every cell of her body protesting against the task, "In Pylea there was another part to the big `cursed one' prophecy. Something on top of the whole `being made a princess' part."
"And the mating with the Groosalugg," added Angel helpfully.
Cordelia regarded him, stunned.
"You know?!"
"That the Priests were waiting for you to mate with that dumb posing... um, really great... Groosalugg before they killed you? Yeah. The green Constable guy told me in Fred's cave, right before I stabbed him to death," Angel mused, reminiscing.
Cordelia was more than a little thrown, "Well, that's... great! Just... great!"
She sank down the counter on to the floor, heedless of the shards of glass and pottery scattered beneath her. Her eyes fixed on some indistinct middle distance. Nothing ever went to plan for her, ever. On the marginally less dark side, at least the subject was broached, and it was Angel who had done the broaching.
Angel observed her suspiciously, "What's that got to do with this awful comshuk thing and the visions?"
A shuddering sigh, a hand pressed to her forehead.
"That *is* the comshuk," she croaked finally.
Slowly, Angel closed the distance between them and lowered himself next to her amongst the strewn debris. He dropped his head into his heads, trying to impose some order upon the thoughts sparring in his brain. Cordelia waited, her energy spent for now. Head rested against the counter, lips parted, eyes on imagined heavens. Almost wishing she were removed to such realms already. Angel's bulk shifted beside her sending a familiar tiny and strangely warm sensation across her skin. Almost.
The heavy silence wrapped around them in a suffocating blanket. It was Angel's soft tones which threw off its lifeless hold first. It fled to the furthest corners of the old building, vanquished.
"So I'd have to... sleep with you?"
Oh god. Cordelia could only nod miserably.
"And that would take away the visions?"
A hopeless shrug.
His voice dropped even further until barely a whisper, "How?"
So much earnestness, so much confusion in one small word. Cordelia steeled herself to meet his gaze. Eyes deep and dark; haunted by horrors, clarified with conscience.
She took a deep breath and launched in, "Groo told me if we had sex his demon blood would absorb the visions. I'd be rid of the burden humans weren't meant to carry. But I don't know if it would work with anyone else, or out of Pylea. I mean, you could walk in the sun there - all the natural laws were screwy. Or it might have just been a one off prophecy thing. I just don't know, but it's the only possibility of getting rid of them I've ever heard. `Comshuking' and demon blood."
Angel took a moment to absorb these new revelations.
"You had a chance to get rid of them? Knowing you'd die if you kept them? And you didn't take it? God, Cordy! Why the hell not?," Angel ran his splayed fingers across his face and into his hair, incredulity seeping into frustrated horror.
Great. Now Angel was mad at her. This night just kept getting better.
"I didn't *know* I'd die. 'Ever so slightly suspected' might be closer. And I told you why not. I didn't want to lose the visions. I chose this instead. I chose my friends. I chose the mission. Being pissed at me for it isn't going help any now, so please don't go there."
"I'm not pissed. I'm..." Angel tried to assess his overriding emotion out the crashing sea of chaos inside his head. "No, I guess, I *am* pissed! The bottom of my world is falling out, and you're sat there telling me it could have been avoided if only you'd thought for one second about anybody but yourself!"
Cordelia stared at him open-mouthed in shock, "I... I..."
"All you thought about was how much you like being the precious seer. No thought about how I'd... how we'd... cope without you. How much we'd hurt. How much it would tear us apart... missing you so much," he was taking unnecessary gulps of air. Chest shuddering with emotion, hands tightly closed into fists.
"What?! Angel! We need the visions to fight. To help people. To guide us. I couldn't leave them in Pylea as if sleeping with Groo was just the world's greatest migraine remedy! Maybe there *was* an element of selfishness, but only in that I didn't want to lose that self! You're not being fair!"
The tears that had been threatening to fall then did, coursing down a face animated with pain, "It's not like this is part of a Grand Plan to Martyrdom! I'm terrified, Angel! I feel sick, and lonely, and scared all the time! I don't want to die. I don't want to leave you, any of you. I don't want to be anywhere if you and Wes aren't there. But I thought I was doing the right thing. I really did. I'm sorry if I've hurt you. It's the last thing... the last thing..." Cordelia broke down into desperate sobs, so deep they convulsed her entire small frame.
God, he was a bastard. He was the selfish one. He deserved be sent back to hell for turning his own pain back onto her. For lashing out with false accusations. Contrite and guilt-ridden, Angel gathered her shaking body into his arms, whispering urgent repeated apologies into her hair and neck.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for saying those things. I was trying to get rid of the pain by inflicting it on someone else. Old vampire habit. I didn't mean a word, Cor, I promise. I'm just... afraid too. The idea of being without you... it paralyses me. But you don't have to be lonely, I'm here. I'll always be here," he smoothed the hair away from her face and took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him with her large, tear-washed eyes, "No recriminations, right? No blame. Just us. Here, now, and a possibility we can fix this."
She only shook her head dolefully, and pulled her face away from his grasp. She crumpled back on the floor, gulping back sobs and fumbling with the long sleeves of her sweater.
"It's even less of an option than the first one, and about a hundred times less likely to work anyway," she spoke quietly in phrases broken by big sniffs.
Now he had time to think about it, Angel was beginning to feel the tiniest bit insulted. It appeared Cordelia would rather die than even consider `comshuking' with him. He pushed the notion aside. His pride wasn't the issue.
"But it might. It's not as if we've got all that many contenders to fall back on, and this way I'd get the visions like I should have had in the first place. I don't understand what's so terrible here. I only know if there's even a tiny chance I won't lose you I have to take it."
Cordelia noticeably stiffened. The silence began to creep back out of retreat. A long moment passed before it was she who sent it fleeing this time.
"Well, isn't that heroic?" Cordelia sneered through her tears, " `Hi, I'm Angel. I'll do anything to save a life. Chop off a lawyer's hand? No problem. Sing Barry Manilow? If I have to. Screw Cordelia? Well, it'll cut into my moping time, but I'm willing to make sacrifices. That's what I do.' Is that how you see it? Is it really that simple for you?"
Her expression hung somewhere between disbelieving and scathing. Angel winced a little under it.
"If it's a toss up between the chance you might live and the certainty you won't then, yes, it is that simple."
Cordelia closed her eyes with effort, and with cutting coolness muttered through her teeth, "Good for you. It's still not going to happen."
"Cordy!"
Impatient desperation began to rise inside the vampire again, "Is it the curse? Are you worried about that? Because I won't lose my soul."
She opened one eye scornfully, "And you know that how? Oh, right, because you took the limits of the curse for a real good ol' test drive with the vampire bitch, didn't you? So I guess your soul *would* be pretty safe with me too. Good to know. "
"Cordy, I didn't mean it like that. You're not Darla."
"I'm not Buffy either."
"No, but that has nothing to do with it. The curse. It's not about sex..."
"Right, it's about sex with Buffy. I get it. Can we drop this, already?" she stood up and began to walk towards the stairs.
Angel sprang up in response.
"NO! It's not, you don't, we CAN'T - and where the hell do you think you're going? I'm talking to you!" he was yelling again and hating himself for it, but the shadow of mortality had seemingly done little to quell Cordelia's ability to irritate him with her illogical and violent mood swings.
She stilled and very slowly swiveled her body back towards him. When Angel could see her tear stained face again, it was now blank. Void of any emotion other than a dispirited weariness.
"What? I'm tired, I ache all over, and I can't be here having this conversation with you, so I'm going to bed," she replied flatly
"Nuh huh. Too bad. You're not leaving until we've finished this. Got it?" he commanded.
It was all he could do to prevent himself from grabbing her and tying her to a chair. Good thing there weren't any chairs standing or he would have. She only shrugged imperceptibly, and continued to regard him with dulled eyes. He decided to take that as the nearest thing he would get to an invitation to carry on.
Angel forced himself to speak calmly, "It's not about sex. The curse is about perfect happiness. Something I'm so far from right now, I can't begin to tell you. I'm pretty sure the lingering possibility of my best friend's imminent death would take care of that. So, yes, I think it's safe to say my soul wouldn't be in danger."
"Great. Not really the problem, but still, reassuring it's not out-and-out physical revulsion on your part, I suppose," her voice carried the same dull intonation but she remained where she was. Angel took this as an encouraging sign and closed the distance between them.
"Cordy, you have to know. Sometimes you make me so happy - with just a smile, or by touching my hand, or by my listening to you wind up Wes on purpose - that I'm scared one day some stupid tiny moment like that will be all it takes to unleash Angelus again. You treat me in ways I never hoped for or deserve. I don't have to wait for some ancient prophecy to kick in with you around, because you already make me feel as if I'm human. You're not Buffy, and you're certainly not Darla. You're Cordelia. And the best woman I've ever known," he spoke so earnestly, every nuance of his face belying the truth of his words, Cordelia felt her indifferent facade crumbling with every syllable.
For a long moment she could only look at him, an expression of utter astonishment upon her face. Then quietly she managed a tender, "Come here, you dope."
She was crying yet again but a weak smile shone through the watery tracks. Angel covered the remaining distance between them in seconds. Cordelia pressed salty lips to his cheek. "That is perhaps the most amazing thing anyone has ever said to me... more than a little frightening as well, but that's sort of par for the course with us, isn't it?"
She laughed a little into his neck, slipping her arms around him and pulling him back to the ground.
"The best woman you've ever known, huh? Better than Buffy?" She was teasing now, and that was always a good sign.
"Buffy was just a girl when I knew her. I don't know her now. I don't even know if Buffy has grown into a woman. With you, I got to watch it happen. I know you, and how far you've come. I know you're kind, and brave, and strong, and loving, and that I can trust you to the ends of time."
She smiled guilelessly, tilting her head to one side, "Wow. You really think all that about me?"
"That's just the tip of the iceberg," he smiled too, and placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head.
"You want to describe any more of that iceberg, please feel free," she coaxed.
"Okay, how's immodest, big-headed, can't take a compliment..."
She interjected quickly, "Alright! Alright! I asked for that, didn't I?"
He only played with hem of her sleeve in answer.
"Wow," she repeated, turning his assessment over again in her mind. She smile faded as she recalled the conversation which had prompted it, "It's so incredible - that you think those things - but it only makes option two even more impossible."
Dark eyes questioned silently, as fingers toyed with her clothing.
"I couldn't do it. You might be able to lay back and think of Wesley..."
His head darted up at that, "What?!"
"...England, I meant England," she shook her head quickly in negation, "All `Mr. If-It-Takes-Sex-To-Save-A-Life-Well-Then-That's-Just-What-I've-Got-To-Do', but I couldn't. There's just no way."
"I know you don't see me like that, Cor, but surely it's not... Is it really *so* horrible a prospect?" Angel looked himself up and down self-consciously, cursing for the millionth time the limitations of the whole vampire situation. He wished he could see himself the way Cordelia did. Then again, maybe he was better off remaining ignorant.
"It's not that, it's nothing like that," she intoned ruefully, "and that's partly the problem."
~~
"Com what you?!"
"Comshuk. It's Pylean."
Oh great. Between Fred, Lorne and now Cordy, Angel would be happy if he never heard another Pylean word again.
"Wonderful. What does it mean?"
She got up and started towards the doors, avoiding his eyes.
"Can't you guess? Jeez, Gunn got it straight off, but then that's Gunn."
Angel followed her back inside, "You know, I'm not really in the mood for guessing games right know, so why don't you enlighten... Gunn? He knows about this? Gunn knows but you don't want to tell me?"
He was almost shouting again, growing weary of her avoidance tactics and more than a little irritated at the implication that she would confide in Gunn before him.
"Gunn knows what the comshuk is, so does Wesley, but they don't know what it was supposed to do. No-one knows that. I never told anyone until now," she stopped in the center of the lobby and turned to face him. When she did, Angel noted pain etched in every line of her face and the saltwater welling in her eyes again. He moved forward to comfort her instinctively. She stepped back and held out a warning hand. She knew if she was going to have to say what she had to say, she needed that distance. Space in which to keep her sanity.
Arms held out in offer of comfort dropped. Angel surveyed her uneasily. He was pretty sure whatever the comshuk was he wasn't going to like it, and from her reaction he'd gathered that Cordelia found a sudden and intensely painful death more preferable.
Cordelia closed her eyes and forced herself to stay calm. She bit down on her lip and then began through gritted teeth, every cell of her body protesting against the task, "In Pylea there was another part to the big `cursed one' prophecy. Something on top of the whole `being made a princess' part."
"And the mating with the Groosalugg," added Angel helpfully.
Cordelia regarded him, stunned.
"You know?!"
"That the Priests were waiting for you to mate with that dumb posing... um, really great... Groosalugg before they killed you? Yeah. The green Constable guy told me in Fred's cave, right before I stabbed him to death," Angel mused, reminiscing.
Cordelia was more than a little thrown, "Well, that's... great! Just... great!"
She sank down the counter on to the floor, heedless of the shards of glass and pottery scattered beneath her. Her eyes fixed on some indistinct middle distance. Nothing ever went to plan for her, ever. On the marginally less dark side, at least the subject was broached, and it was Angel who had done the broaching.
Angel observed her suspiciously, "What's that got to do with this awful comshuk thing and the visions?"
A shuddering sigh, a hand pressed to her forehead.
"That *is* the comshuk," she croaked finally.
Slowly, Angel closed the distance between them and lowered himself next to her amongst the strewn debris. He dropped his head into his heads, trying to impose some order upon the thoughts sparring in his brain. Cordelia waited, her energy spent for now. Head rested against the counter, lips parted, eyes on imagined heavens. Almost wishing she were removed to such realms already. Angel's bulk shifted beside her sending a familiar tiny and strangely warm sensation across her skin. Almost.
The heavy silence wrapped around them in a suffocating blanket. It was Angel's soft tones which threw off its lifeless hold first. It fled to the furthest corners of the old building, vanquished.
"So I'd have to... sleep with you?"
Oh god. Cordelia could only nod miserably.
"And that would take away the visions?"
A hopeless shrug.
His voice dropped even further until barely a whisper, "How?"
So much earnestness, so much confusion in one small word. Cordelia steeled herself to meet his gaze. Eyes deep and dark; haunted by horrors, clarified with conscience.
She took a deep breath and launched in, "Groo told me if we had sex his demon blood would absorb the visions. I'd be rid of the burden humans weren't meant to carry. But I don't know if it would work with anyone else, or out of Pylea. I mean, you could walk in the sun there - all the natural laws were screwy. Or it might have just been a one off prophecy thing. I just don't know, but it's the only possibility of getting rid of them I've ever heard. `Comshuking' and demon blood."
Angel took a moment to absorb these new revelations.
"You had a chance to get rid of them? Knowing you'd die if you kept them? And you didn't take it? God, Cordy! Why the hell not?," Angel ran his splayed fingers across his face and into his hair, incredulity seeping into frustrated horror.
Great. Now Angel was mad at her. This night just kept getting better.
"I didn't *know* I'd die. 'Ever so slightly suspected' might be closer. And I told you why not. I didn't want to lose the visions. I chose this instead. I chose my friends. I chose the mission. Being pissed at me for it isn't going help any now, so please don't go there."
"I'm not pissed. I'm..." Angel tried to assess his overriding emotion out the crashing sea of chaos inside his head. "No, I guess, I *am* pissed! The bottom of my world is falling out, and you're sat there telling me it could have been avoided if only you'd thought for one second about anybody but yourself!"
Cordelia stared at him open-mouthed in shock, "I... I..."
"All you thought about was how much you like being the precious seer. No thought about how I'd... how we'd... cope without you. How much we'd hurt. How much it would tear us apart... missing you so much," he was taking unnecessary gulps of air. Chest shuddering with emotion, hands tightly closed into fists.
"What?! Angel! We need the visions to fight. To help people. To guide us. I couldn't leave them in Pylea as if sleeping with Groo was just the world's greatest migraine remedy! Maybe there *was* an element of selfishness, but only in that I didn't want to lose that self! You're not being fair!"
The tears that had been threatening to fall then did, coursing down a face animated with pain, "It's not like this is part of a Grand Plan to Martyrdom! I'm terrified, Angel! I feel sick, and lonely, and scared all the time! I don't want to die. I don't want to leave you, any of you. I don't want to be anywhere if you and Wes aren't there. But I thought I was doing the right thing. I really did. I'm sorry if I've hurt you. It's the last thing... the last thing..." Cordelia broke down into desperate sobs, so deep they convulsed her entire small frame.
God, he was a bastard. He was the selfish one. He deserved be sent back to hell for turning his own pain back onto her. For lashing out with false accusations. Contrite and guilt-ridden, Angel gathered her shaking body into his arms, whispering urgent repeated apologies into her hair and neck.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for saying those things. I was trying to get rid of the pain by inflicting it on someone else. Old vampire habit. I didn't mean a word, Cor, I promise. I'm just... afraid too. The idea of being without you... it paralyses me. But you don't have to be lonely, I'm here. I'll always be here," he smoothed the hair away from her face and took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him with her large, tear-washed eyes, "No recriminations, right? No blame. Just us. Here, now, and a possibility we can fix this."
She only shook her head dolefully, and pulled her face away from his grasp. She crumpled back on the floor, gulping back sobs and fumbling with the long sleeves of her sweater.
"It's even less of an option than the first one, and about a hundred times less likely to work anyway," she spoke quietly in phrases broken by big sniffs.
Now he had time to think about it, Angel was beginning to feel the tiniest bit insulted. It appeared Cordelia would rather die than even consider `comshuking' with him. He pushed the notion aside. His pride wasn't the issue.
"But it might. It's not as if we've got all that many contenders to fall back on, and this way I'd get the visions like I should have had in the first place. I don't understand what's so terrible here. I only know if there's even a tiny chance I won't lose you I have to take it."
Cordelia noticeably stiffened. The silence began to creep back out of retreat. A long moment passed before it was she who sent it fleeing this time.
"Well, isn't that heroic?" Cordelia sneered through her tears, " `Hi, I'm Angel. I'll do anything to save a life. Chop off a lawyer's hand? No problem. Sing Barry Manilow? If I have to. Screw Cordelia? Well, it'll cut into my moping time, but I'm willing to make sacrifices. That's what I do.' Is that how you see it? Is it really that simple for you?"
Her expression hung somewhere between disbelieving and scathing. Angel winced a little under it.
"If it's a toss up between the chance you might live and the certainty you won't then, yes, it is that simple."
Cordelia closed her eyes with effort, and with cutting coolness muttered through her teeth, "Good for you. It's still not going to happen."
"Cordy!"
Impatient desperation began to rise inside the vampire again, "Is it the curse? Are you worried about that? Because I won't lose my soul."
She opened one eye scornfully, "And you know that how? Oh, right, because you took the limits of the curse for a real good ol' test drive with the vampire bitch, didn't you? So I guess your soul *would* be pretty safe with me too. Good to know. "
"Cordy, I didn't mean it like that. You're not Darla."
"I'm not Buffy either."
"No, but that has nothing to do with it. The curse. It's not about sex..."
"Right, it's about sex with Buffy. I get it. Can we drop this, already?" she stood up and began to walk towards the stairs.
Angel sprang up in response.
"NO! It's not, you don't, we CAN'T - and where the hell do you think you're going? I'm talking to you!" he was yelling again and hating himself for it, but the shadow of mortality had seemingly done little to quell Cordelia's ability to irritate him with her illogical and violent mood swings.
She stilled and very slowly swiveled her body back towards him. When Angel could see her tear stained face again, it was now blank. Void of any emotion other than a dispirited weariness.
"What? I'm tired, I ache all over, and I can't be here having this conversation with you, so I'm going to bed," she replied flatly
"Nuh huh. Too bad. You're not leaving until we've finished this. Got it?" he commanded.
It was all he could do to prevent himself from grabbing her and tying her to a chair. Good thing there weren't any chairs standing or he would have. She only shrugged imperceptibly, and continued to regard him with dulled eyes. He decided to take that as the nearest thing he would get to an invitation to carry on.
Angel forced himself to speak calmly, "It's not about sex. The curse is about perfect happiness. Something I'm so far from right now, I can't begin to tell you. I'm pretty sure the lingering possibility of my best friend's imminent death would take care of that. So, yes, I think it's safe to say my soul wouldn't be in danger."
"Great. Not really the problem, but still, reassuring it's not out-and-out physical revulsion on your part, I suppose," her voice carried the same dull intonation but she remained where she was. Angel took this as an encouraging sign and closed the distance between them.
"Cordy, you have to know. Sometimes you make me so happy - with just a smile, or by touching my hand, or by my listening to you wind up Wes on purpose - that I'm scared one day some stupid tiny moment like that will be all it takes to unleash Angelus again. You treat me in ways I never hoped for or deserve. I don't have to wait for some ancient prophecy to kick in with you around, because you already make me feel as if I'm human. You're not Buffy, and you're certainly not Darla. You're Cordelia. And the best woman I've ever known," he spoke so earnestly, every nuance of his face belying the truth of his words, Cordelia felt her indifferent facade crumbling with every syllable.
For a long moment she could only look at him, an expression of utter astonishment upon her face. Then quietly she managed a tender, "Come here, you dope."
She was crying yet again but a weak smile shone through the watery tracks. Angel covered the remaining distance between them in seconds. Cordelia pressed salty lips to his cheek. "That is perhaps the most amazing thing anyone has ever said to me... more than a little frightening as well, but that's sort of par for the course with us, isn't it?"
She laughed a little into his neck, slipping her arms around him and pulling him back to the ground.
"The best woman you've ever known, huh? Better than Buffy?" She was teasing now, and that was always a good sign.
"Buffy was just a girl when I knew her. I don't know her now. I don't even know if Buffy has grown into a woman. With you, I got to watch it happen. I know you, and how far you've come. I know you're kind, and brave, and strong, and loving, and that I can trust you to the ends of time."
She smiled guilelessly, tilting her head to one side, "Wow. You really think all that about me?"
"That's just the tip of the iceberg," he smiled too, and placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head.
"You want to describe any more of that iceberg, please feel free," she coaxed.
"Okay, how's immodest, big-headed, can't take a compliment..."
She interjected quickly, "Alright! Alright! I asked for that, didn't I?"
He only played with hem of her sleeve in answer.
"Wow," she repeated, turning his assessment over again in her mind. She smile faded as she recalled the conversation which had prompted it, "It's so incredible - that you think those things - but it only makes option two even more impossible."
Dark eyes questioned silently, as fingers toyed with her clothing.
"I couldn't do it. You might be able to lay back and think of Wesley..."
His head darted up at that, "What?!"
"...England, I meant England," she shook her head quickly in negation, "All `Mr. If-It-Takes-Sex-To-Save-A-Life-Well-Then-That's-Just-What-I've-Got-To-Do', but I couldn't. There's just no way."
"I know you don't see me like that, Cor, but surely it's not... Is it really *so* horrible a prospect?" Angel looked himself up and down self-consciously, cursing for the millionth time the limitations of the whole vampire situation. He wished he could see himself the way Cordelia did. Then again, maybe he was better off remaining ignorant.
"It's not that, it's nothing like that," she intoned ruefully, "and that's partly the problem."
~~
