Title: Want to hear a story?
Author: Nodakskip
Email: nodakskip@aol.com
Rating: PG-13
Ship: Cordelia/Xander
Setting: AU at the start of season 3 and then set after season seven Buffy.
Contains a crossover.
Summary: Cordelia Chase gets a power, and tells her own story about how she got it.
***
I'm flying - floating - oh, hell, I don't know what you would call it, since you can't do either out here. But I'm on my way to visit the final resting place of a dear friend. And you might be saying to yourself, "oh, she's going to a graveyard?"
If so, nope. You would be way wrong. I've spent way too much of my life in graveyards. But this is not one of those times. Want to guess where I'm going?
An asteroid field.
The one between Mars and Jupiter. It'll take me a good twenty-odd minutes to get out there today, since Earth is far away in its orbit. But I have some time to kill - so, you want to know who I am, and why the hell I'm out here?
Thought you'd never ask. My name is Cordelia Chase, and I'm a superhero.
Now, odds are you're thinking to yourself, 'Cordelia Chase? Wasn't she the spoiled little rich girl from Sunnydale?' Well, I was - a long, long time ago. But my story does start there.
Still with me? Well, here goes...
I was the spoiled rich princess born with everything a girl could ever want. And I was miserable inside because of it. At school my friends were not really my friends, and I knew full well that after we graduated and went our separate ways to college or marriage or whatever, they would forget I'd ever existed. Because the sorority sisters would latch on to the most popular girl there, and start the cycle all over again.
But then, I met some new people. Well, maybe met is the wrong word, since I grew up with a few of them. Still, I was rich, they were not - so it's not like I knew them. It's cruel, yeah, but there is a pecking order that has to be maintained by someone.
But I fell in with the Scooby gang. Giles, Angel, Buffy, Willow, Jesse, Oz, Amy, and Xander Harris.
Notice how I used his last name there? Well, the fact is that he was the only one I really cared about, towards the end there. The only one who I could be myself around. Thing is, we wound up dating; well, more like going at it like dogs in heat first. I had kissed a guy before, of course. But I'd never really *kissed* someone before him.
Maybe it's just me, but if you haven't taken your boyfriend into a dark place and ravaged his lips for a few hours a few times a week, and let him ravage yours back, then you're missing out on one of life's greatest adventures. Oh, don't get me wrong now; it wasn't dirty or anything, but if we'd been on TV or pay per view it's not like you woulda heard the most tender music imaginable when we made out.
Okay, yes, that did sound kind of sleazy. But it works in my head, all right?
Anyway, the reason we all banded together was because Buffy was a vampire Slayer. And yes, vampires are real. Weird as, but I've found that a person can have a crap-load of evidence that something exists, and then promptly ignore it.
Well, too bad - they do exist, so deal with it. This little story isn't about that. There are dozens of people who'd love to tell Buffy's story, as she's a hero in it - I'm just not one of them.
Now, back to me and Xander and the kissing. When we started dating openly, we had all sorts of problems. Most notably, Jesse was the first stumbling block. You see, he was Xander's best friend, and well - he'd had the hots for me his entire life.
Okay, it's obvious when you look at me, you have to ask how can a guy *not* fall in love with me; but after an incident in the basement of Buffy's house I had picked my guy, and it wasn't Xander's best bud.
Of course Xander felt bad, since it was breaking some ridiculous guy code or something. But we got through it, and oddly enough Jesse and some other girl named Amy later did more making out then even Xander and I did. Amy told me once that she cast a spell to increase Jesse's stamina; that it worked wonders some nights. She offered to secretly cast it on Xander for me, as sort of a gift.
But magic and him definitely didn't seem to mix, so I turned her down. Besides, we weren't at that stage yet.
Xander hadn't...well, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, he had not had sexual relations with his woman. We came close so many times, but no cigar. Besides, I didn't want to tell my future children some day that they were conceived in the back seat of their grandfather's car, by accident.
Oddly enough though, it was *me* who had a hard time stopping when we got really hot and heavy. And don't judge me, unless you saw the guy with his trousers off and his bulging...ah, sorry. Let's just say it's an image that still keeps me warm some nights, even all these years later.
On with the story; it turns out there was another guy that had the hots for me, like Jesse had. But I'll get to him in a second. First, I have to tell you about the fluke. He always thought that I never had any idea, but come on. I'm not that dense!
When your guy suddenly overnight gets a guilty look on his face and doesn't grope that one place just right...sorry, I just really haven't gotten laid in a long time. Pity, I used to have a life, you know?
Well, Xander and Willow had been sharing smoochies behind the backs of me and Oz, her boyfriend. We bust in to save them, and guess what we find? Them kissing on a bed. I ran off and fell through a set of old steps, and got speared by a rebar. That made me even more pissed.
Possibly, I would have forgiven him for the kisses after a while. But after you lose that much blood, you kind of get madder than hell.
I was a pure bitch for a few months, I'll admit it. But he just tossed every insult right back at me. The big dork didn't know that turned me on a little. Do you know just how aggravating it is to be turned on by someone you're supposed to hate? So I'll just say it was bad for a while between us, and leave it at that.
Not surprisingly at all, my parents were thrilled that I'd dumped Xander. They even tried to press charges against him, for me getting hurt. Thank God I was only *just* able to stop that.
Towards the end of the senior year we were still kind of being mean to each other when the jackass showed his ugly face.
Warren Meers.
Okay, again me, somewhat popular, hot, head cheerleader. I was the object of quite a few wet dreams of all the guys at high school. And by the looks a few of the teachers, not only them. You know in teen movies where the guy has the daydream of the hot girl wanting him? That was me.
Warren, on the other hand, was a nobody. A sophomore geek, who even Willow didn't like. He had the hots for me real bad, I guess. And we found out almost too late, that he had a good command of magic.
I know a geek with magical abilities? But this was the Hellmouth.
Anyway, one night I got knocked out and woke up on a hospital gurney, strapped down and unable to move. I could see the little shithead had prepared well for this day. I saw several outfits lying around; French
Maid, stripper policewoman, and so on.
Every color in the fetish rainbow was represented. And when he saw that I was awake, he was almost giggling with glee. He told me what he wanted to do to me...
Warren had some old dark magic book that had a spell in it, to make me his devoted love slave. And I'm not talking about a relatively harmless love spell here, I mean a full on "yes master, screw me harder" kind of mindless love slave.
My brainpower would be permanently reduced to an IQ of 45 or less, and my only thoughts would be how to please the little shitface. And he loved rubbing it in that this was payback, for all the nasty things I ever did to him. But I know for a fact that I never even said two words to the idiot nerd! As if I'd lower myself to his level...
Well, long story short, at the last minute in came my white knight in shining armor. Yep, you guessed it; Harris of all people came in on his high horse to save me.
It seems my car had been found abandoned, on a road a few miles away. My hero was pretty beat up from fighting with Warren's demon security squad. But boy, when I yelled across the room to Xander what Warren wanted to do with me...I'd never seen him that mad.
I think Warren dropped a load in his pants, just at Xander's angry face. In the end, I was saved and Warren ended up dead. And I heard later, eaten by his own demons...
Now, I ask the ladies among you. You're still very much attracted to your ex-boyfriend, and then he risks his neck fighting demon dogs and saves you from a life of becoming a brainless slut? What the hell do you do?
I figured it was time to give him some forgiveness. We started to make out in secret again, and this time - we did a *lot* more in those closets than just kiss.
But alas, it didn't last. Our lives were going in different directions. Mine to UCLA and business school. And him to parts unknown, in other words a road trip to find himself.
So after the fun that was graduation, we gave each other a tearful goodbye. I told him there was always a warm left side of my bed with his name on it waiting for him, when he came to LA to visit me.
Fast forward to about seven months later, and I had a few postcards from him, but no big letters. Then the next summer came, and I got a major surprise. It seems he wanted me to come stay with him over the break. In his New York City apartment.
He had saved the life of a very rich entertainment executive from some vamps. So they gave him a job and a company apartment. It was huge, for NYC standards. So I happily accepted and was on my way. That's when I got my big break, as it's been called.
You know those Pairsed Jeans commercials, that had this amazing babe from a few years ago? The one where everyone was more interested in the tight almost see-through shirt, rather than the jeans themselves? That was me.
Not that I needed the money, but those paychecks were huge. Plus Xander got a kick out of the fact that his old girlfriend and sometimes bed buddy now had a huge billboard in Times Square. I even mentioned him, whenever I got interviewed. I teased him a heckuva lot when I got the offer from Playboy.
Of course I didn't pose, but I made him think I was considering it for a week. I have some standards.
That summer is also when I found out something big. Xander Harris, my so-called Zeppo, got himself a power. I figured he would go back to Sunnydale and help out in the big fight, but oddly enough he didn't want to. He said Sunnydale was thinking too small, and after understanding his powers I knew what he meant.
I was the only one who knew he had that power; I was the only one out of our old gang who ever knew who was under that mask. Our friendship grew very close; some of my friends told me to just marry him, already. Even Angel said we should just get it over with, whenever we visited his hotel with his agency in it.
Granted we had to cut back on the visits when people wondered how Xander would show up in LA to see me, and yet he lived in New York.
But for five years, we carried on that way. I was a superhero's girlfriend. And I loved it; the secret identity stuff was way better than Buffy's version. You don't know how hard it was to hold back the laughter, when Buffy would go on and on about how her new boyfriend Spike was so brave and such a hero. Xander had his deeds beat hands down, oh if only I could have told her just to see her face...
Xander was there for most of the important moments in my life, but the biggest was my first business. I'd bought a dance club, then remodeled it and also renamed it. He and I danced the first dance in the hottest new club in LA, called The Light.
Then it all ended.
I was at Angel's hotel, with just him and me there. Well, his son was running around somewhere too. Yes, Angel the vampire with a soul had a human son and yes he was a vampire so it shouldn't have happened but it did, so can we skip all that? Good, thank you.
So, we're in the lobby when Xander came in crashing in through the doors. He was hurt bad. I had never been so afraid in my life; I still have nightmares about it. He had been fighting some supervillain, and his wounds were...mortal.
He knew he was going to die, and he came to see me. All he wanted was to see me one last time before...okay, I'm not going to cry again!
He had just enough power to give Angel and me some protection against the radiation.
What? Oh sorry, I forgot. He had a lot of injuries but he was dying of radiation poisoning. He could protect us from it, but not himself. I never knew why. But after we said goodbye, I gave him permission to pass his powers onto me.
I had just said yes when he whispered "I love you" to me, and then he was gone.
It took me a long time to get over that; and I still haven't completely succeeded, even though years have passed since then. I'd like to think that I have become almost the hero Xander was. Of course I took out the guy who killed him, but that left the problem about what to do with Xander's remains.
See, not only had the bad guys killed him, but for some reason they wanted his body. I wasn't told why by the others, till days later. But they knew they couldn't let them get their hands on his remains. And I knew I wouldn't let his body be desecrated like that.
We finally settled on this very odd grave. I buried him on an asteroid the size of Rhode Island. He's entombed here, floating in the void.
I cry sometimes, knowing he's out here all alone. That's why I told the others that if anything ever happens to me - that they'll come out here, and bury me right alongside Xander.
***
She floated there for hours, telling him about her week; it had become a ritual of hers. Anytime a big battle happened, she came and told him about it. She remembered back in high school how much he'd hated it when Buffy would keep him out of the battle for his own good. So Cordelia made it a point to tell him every detail of every battle.
She stared at his carved name on the side of the asteroid, as it rotated into the light of the faraway sun.
Then she heard it. A voice in her head from the moon. The voice of Xander's friend, and now hers, J'onn J'onzz.
//Cordelia, you are needed at the Watch Tower.//
//Alight J'onn,// she sent back to the Martian. //I'm on my way.//
"I'll guess I'll have to finish the story later, Xander. Bye for now..."
With those last few words Cordelia Chase, the Green Lantern of Earth left a trail of green energy behind her as she raced to see what was happening back on her home planet this time.
THE END
Author: Nodakskip
Email: nodakskip@aol.com
Rating: PG-13
Ship: Cordelia/Xander
Setting: AU at the start of season 3 and then set after season seven Buffy.
Contains a crossover.
Summary: Cordelia Chase gets a power, and tells her own story about how she got it.
***
I'm flying - floating - oh, hell, I don't know what you would call it, since you can't do either out here. But I'm on my way to visit the final resting place of a dear friend. And you might be saying to yourself, "oh, she's going to a graveyard?"
If so, nope. You would be way wrong. I've spent way too much of my life in graveyards. But this is not one of those times. Want to guess where I'm going?
An asteroid field.
The one between Mars and Jupiter. It'll take me a good twenty-odd minutes to get out there today, since Earth is far away in its orbit. But I have some time to kill - so, you want to know who I am, and why the hell I'm out here?
Thought you'd never ask. My name is Cordelia Chase, and I'm a superhero.
Now, odds are you're thinking to yourself, 'Cordelia Chase? Wasn't she the spoiled little rich girl from Sunnydale?' Well, I was - a long, long time ago. But my story does start there.
Still with me? Well, here goes...
I was the spoiled rich princess born with everything a girl could ever want. And I was miserable inside because of it. At school my friends were not really my friends, and I knew full well that after we graduated and went our separate ways to college or marriage or whatever, they would forget I'd ever existed. Because the sorority sisters would latch on to the most popular girl there, and start the cycle all over again.
But then, I met some new people. Well, maybe met is the wrong word, since I grew up with a few of them. Still, I was rich, they were not - so it's not like I knew them. It's cruel, yeah, but there is a pecking order that has to be maintained by someone.
But I fell in with the Scooby gang. Giles, Angel, Buffy, Willow, Jesse, Oz, Amy, and Xander Harris.
Notice how I used his last name there? Well, the fact is that he was the only one I really cared about, towards the end there. The only one who I could be myself around. Thing is, we wound up dating; well, more like going at it like dogs in heat first. I had kissed a guy before, of course. But I'd never really *kissed* someone before him.
Maybe it's just me, but if you haven't taken your boyfriend into a dark place and ravaged his lips for a few hours a few times a week, and let him ravage yours back, then you're missing out on one of life's greatest adventures. Oh, don't get me wrong now; it wasn't dirty or anything, but if we'd been on TV or pay per view it's not like you woulda heard the most tender music imaginable when we made out.
Okay, yes, that did sound kind of sleazy. But it works in my head, all right?
Anyway, the reason we all banded together was because Buffy was a vampire Slayer. And yes, vampires are real. Weird as, but I've found that a person can have a crap-load of evidence that something exists, and then promptly ignore it.
Well, too bad - they do exist, so deal with it. This little story isn't about that. There are dozens of people who'd love to tell Buffy's story, as she's a hero in it - I'm just not one of them.
Now, back to me and Xander and the kissing. When we started dating openly, we had all sorts of problems. Most notably, Jesse was the first stumbling block. You see, he was Xander's best friend, and well - he'd had the hots for me his entire life.
Okay, it's obvious when you look at me, you have to ask how can a guy *not* fall in love with me; but after an incident in the basement of Buffy's house I had picked my guy, and it wasn't Xander's best bud.
Of course Xander felt bad, since it was breaking some ridiculous guy code or something. But we got through it, and oddly enough Jesse and some other girl named Amy later did more making out then even Xander and I did. Amy told me once that she cast a spell to increase Jesse's stamina; that it worked wonders some nights. She offered to secretly cast it on Xander for me, as sort of a gift.
But magic and him definitely didn't seem to mix, so I turned her down. Besides, we weren't at that stage yet.
Xander hadn't...well, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, he had not had sexual relations with his woman. We came close so many times, but no cigar. Besides, I didn't want to tell my future children some day that they were conceived in the back seat of their grandfather's car, by accident.
Oddly enough though, it was *me* who had a hard time stopping when we got really hot and heavy. And don't judge me, unless you saw the guy with his trousers off and his bulging...ah, sorry. Let's just say it's an image that still keeps me warm some nights, even all these years later.
On with the story; it turns out there was another guy that had the hots for me, like Jesse had. But I'll get to him in a second. First, I have to tell you about the fluke. He always thought that I never had any idea, but come on. I'm not that dense!
When your guy suddenly overnight gets a guilty look on his face and doesn't grope that one place just right...sorry, I just really haven't gotten laid in a long time. Pity, I used to have a life, you know?
Well, Xander and Willow had been sharing smoochies behind the backs of me and Oz, her boyfriend. We bust in to save them, and guess what we find? Them kissing on a bed. I ran off and fell through a set of old steps, and got speared by a rebar. That made me even more pissed.
Possibly, I would have forgiven him for the kisses after a while. But after you lose that much blood, you kind of get madder than hell.
I was a pure bitch for a few months, I'll admit it. But he just tossed every insult right back at me. The big dork didn't know that turned me on a little. Do you know just how aggravating it is to be turned on by someone you're supposed to hate? So I'll just say it was bad for a while between us, and leave it at that.
Not surprisingly at all, my parents were thrilled that I'd dumped Xander. They even tried to press charges against him, for me getting hurt. Thank God I was only *just* able to stop that.
Towards the end of the senior year we were still kind of being mean to each other when the jackass showed his ugly face.
Warren Meers.
Okay, again me, somewhat popular, hot, head cheerleader. I was the object of quite a few wet dreams of all the guys at high school. And by the looks a few of the teachers, not only them. You know in teen movies where the guy has the daydream of the hot girl wanting him? That was me.
Warren, on the other hand, was a nobody. A sophomore geek, who even Willow didn't like. He had the hots for me real bad, I guess. And we found out almost too late, that he had a good command of magic.
I know a geek with magical abilities? But this was the Hellmouth.
Anyway, one night I got knocked out and woke up on a hospital gurney, strapped down and unable to move. I could see the little shithead had prepared well for this day. I saw several outfits lying around; French
Maid, stripper policewoman, and so on.
Every color in the fetish rainbow was represented. And when he saw that I was awake, he was almost giggling with glee. He told me what he wanted to do to me...
Warren had some old dark magic book that had a spell in it, to make me his devoted love slave. And I'm not talking about a relatively harmless love spell here, I mean a full on "yes master, screw me harder" kind of mindless love slave.
My brainpower would be permanently reduced to an IQ of 45 or less, and my only thoughts would be how to please the little shitface. And he loved rubbing it in that this was payback, for all the nasty things I ever did to him. But I know for a fact that I never even said two words to the idiot nerd! As if I'd lower myself to his level...
Well, long story short, at the last minute in came my white knight in shining armor. Yep, you guessed it; Harris of all people came in on his high horse to save me.
It seems my car had been found abandoned, on a road a few miles away. My hero was pretty beat up from fighting with Warren's demon security squad. But boy, when I yelled across the room to Xander what Warren wanted to do with me...I'd never seen him that mad.
I think Warren dropped a load in his pants, just at Xander's angry face. In the end, I was saved and Warren ended up dead. And I heard later, eaten by his own demons...
Now, I ask the ladies among you. You're still very much attracted to your ex-boyfriend, and then he risks his neck fighting demon dogs and saves you from a life of becoming a brainless slut? What the hell do you do?
I figured it was time to give him some forgiveness. We started to make out in secret again, and this time - we did a *lot* more in those closets than just kiss.
But alas, it didn't last. Our lives were going in different directions. Mine to UCLA and business school. And him to parts unknown, in other words a road trip to find himself.
So after the fun that was graduation, we gave each other a tearful goodbye. I told him there was always a warm left side of my bed with his name on it waiting for him, when he came to LA to visit me.
Fast forward to about seven months later, and I had a few postcards from him, but no big letters. Then the next summer came, and I got a major surprise. It seems he wanted me to come stay with him over the break. In his New York City apartment.
He had saved the life of a very rich entertainment executive from some vamps. So they gave him a job and a company apartment. It was huge, for NYC standards. So I happily accepted and was on my way. That's when I got my big break, as it's been called.
You know those Pairsed Jeans commercials, that had this amazing babe from a few years ago? The one where everyone was more interested in the tight almost see-through shirt, rather than the jeans themselves? That was me.
Not that I needed the money, but those paychecks were huge. Plus Xander got a kick out of the fact that his old girlfriend and sometimes bed buddy now had a huge billboard in Times Square. I even mentioned him, whenever I got interviewed. I teased him a heckuva lot when I got the offer from Playboy.
Of course I didn't pose, but I made him think I was considering it for a week. I have some standards.
That summer is also when I found out something big. Xander Harris, my so-called Zeppo, got himself a power. I figured he would go back to Sunnydale and help out in the big fight, but oddly enough he didn't want to. He said Sunnydale was thinking too small, and after understanding his powers I knew what he meant.
I was the only one who knew he had that power; I was the only one out of our old gang who ever knew who was under that mask. Our friendship grew very close; some of my friends told me to just marry him, already. Even Angel said we should just get it over with, whenever we visited his hotel with his agency in it.
Granted we had to cut back on the visits when people wondered how Xander would show up in LA to see me, and yet he lived in New York.
But for five years, we carried on that way. I was a superhero's girlfriend. And I loved it; the secret identity stuff was way better than Buffy's version. You don't know how hard it was to hold back the laughter, when Buffy would go on and on about how her new boyfriend Spike was so brave and such a hero. Xander had his deeds beat hands down, oh if only I could have told her just to see her face...
Xander was there for most of the important moments in my life, but the biggest was my first business. I'd bought a dance club, then remodeled it and also renamed it. He and I danced the first dance in the hottest new club in LA, called The Light.
Then it all ended.
I was at Angel's hotel, with just him and me there. Well, his son was running around somewhere too. Yes, Angel the vampire with a soul had a human son and yes he was a vampire so it shouldn't have happened but it did, so can we skip all that? Good, thank you.
So, we're in the lobby when Xander came in crashing in through the doors. He was hurt bad. I had never been so afraid in my life; I still have nightmares about it. He had been fighting some supervillain, and his wounds were...mortal.
He knew he was going to die, and he came to see me. All he wanted was to see me one last time before...okay, I'm not going to cry again!
He had just enough power to give Angel and me some protection against the radiation.
What? Oh sorry, I forgot. He had a lot of injuries but he was dying of radiation poisoning. He could protect us from it, but not himself. I never knew why. But after we said goodbye, I gave him permission to pass his powers onto me.
I had just said yes when he whispered "I love you" to me, and then he was gone.
It took me a long time to get over that; and I still haven't completely succeeded, even though years have passed since then. I'd like to think that I have become almost the hero Xander was. Of course I took out the guy who killed him, but that left the problem about what to do with Xander's remains.
See, not only had the bad guys killed him, but for some reason they wanted his body. I wasn't told why by the others, till days later. But they knew they couldn't let them get their hands on his remains. And I knew I wouldn't let his body be desecrated like that.
We finally settled on this very odd grave. I buried him on an asteroid the size of Rhode Island. He's entombed here, floating in the void.
I cry sometimes, knowing he's out here all alone. That's why I told the others that if anything ever happens to me - that they'll come out here, and bury me right alongside Xander.
***
She floated there for hours, telling him about her week; it had become a ritual of hers. Anytime a big battle happened, she came and told him about it. She remembered back in high school how much he'd hated it when Buffy would keep him out of the battle for his own good. So Cordelia made it a point to tell him every detail of every battle.
She stared at his carved name on the side of the asteroid, as it rotated into the light of the faraway sun.
Then she heard it. A voice in her head from the moon. The voice of Xander's friend, and now hers, J'onn J'onzz.
//Cordelia, you are needed at the Watch Tower.//
//Alight J'onn,// she sent back to the Martian. //I'm on my way.//
"I'll guess I'll have to finish the story later, Xander. Bye for now..."
With those last few words Cordelia Chase, the Green Lantern of Earth left a trail of green energy behind her as she raced to see what was happening back on her home planet this time.
THE END