Disclaimer: I don't own Angel; it belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy; please don't sue me.
Author's Note: Thanks to a.a.k88, speaker4thesilent, YoAngel4E, justawritier, and, of course, -J, for the reviews. You guys rock my world.
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"All I am is what I am. I lived seven lives at once. I was power and the ecstasy of death. I was god to a god. Now…I…I'm trapped. On a roof. Just one roof. In this place with an unstable human who drinks too much whiskey and called me a smurf." --Illyria, "Underneath"
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A finger jabbed into the soft flesh of Angel's exposed armpit. He grunted and reluctantly opened his eyes, only to find Illyria standing over the bed. "So you finally decided to move," he mumbled. "What'd you want?"
"I require sustenance," the god-king stated, oblivious to his morning moodiness.
He blinked and reached for the alarm clock on the bedside table. The lurid green numbers informed him that it was only just seven. "There's leftover pizza in the fridge." He started to roll over, but a hand clamped down on his shoulder and forced him back on his back.
"I desire a certain form of sustenance."
Angel sighed inwardly. Where was Wes when you needed him? Oh, right, three doors down, stretched out on one of the hotel's beds, just a spiritless shell. It had been three weeks since Cordy and the demon god's combined efforts had brought Angel back from the dead, but still no one had come to help either Spike or Wes. Cordy had made him move their inert bodies to two of the bedrooms so people wouldn't have to step over them every time they walked through the lobby (Spike currently bore a bruise on his arm where Gunn had accidentally trod on him in the dark).
"Ok," Angel said, deciding he wasn't going to get any more sleep unless he played along. "What do you want?"
"Thin, fried bread, folded in half, stuffed with crumbly meat products, shredded and moldy dairy byproducts, and bits of vegetable."
"'Shredded and moldy dairy'…" Angel muttered. Then it dawn on him. "Oh, you want a taco!"
The blue demon cocked her head to the side. "Yes…that is the word. I require a taco."
"Illyria, it's seven in the morning—none of the taco places are open right now. Trust me, I know from when Fred was eating twelve of them a day…" He paused, his sleep-addled brain trying to make sense of something he'd just said. "Fred…"
"The shell's soul is gone," Illyria snapped.
Angel sat up, scooting back against the headboard, as he gave her a good, hard look. Physically, nothing had changed about her since day one—there were little worm-like impressions on the left side of her face from being smashed into the carpet for over two weeks, but that was it. There was something else, something not physical though it was very nearly tangible. She was agitated, he realized. Something was upsetting her, and he doubted that it was her stomach. "You just want tacos. All right, I'll get you tacos." He went to swing his legs over the side of the bed and realized that he was naked under the sheet. "Um…can you wait out in the hall?"
Piercing blue eyes bore into him suspiciously. "Why?"
"I don't have any pants on." He made a little shooing motion.
"Your naked form neither bothers nor excites me."
"Yeah but you seeing me naked bothers me. Out!"
She went, and he fumbled around on the floor for his discarded clothes. Cordy, asleep in the bed he'd just abandoned, stirred as he buckled his belt. "Where're you going?" she murmured sleepily.
Angel bent over her and planted a kiss on her temple. "The grocery store—Illyria wants tacos."
"Hm…breakfast tacos sound good."
"You want me to make you some?"
She nodded into the pillow.
Gently, he drew the sheet back up to cover her bare shoulder, kissing it before hiding it beneath the white sheet. "Be back soon," he promised as he slipped quietly out into the hall.
Illyria was waiting, as ordered, right outside the door. "I require tacos," she repeated.
"I got that the first three times you said it. Now, put your human face on and let's go—I'm going to introduce you to the 'breakfast taco'."
He hurried on down the hall so he wouldn't have to watch as she shifted from Illyria to fake-Fred. Seeing her wearing the face of his dead friend was bad enough…
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Which is how Angel ended up in the Food Village supermarket, pushing the God-King of the Primordial Ooze up and down the aisles. Illyria, wearing Fred's face though not Fred's mannerisms, sat folded up n the basket of the cart. He'd made her climb in after she'd shown a bit too much interest in a toddler in the cereal aisle. She now had a bunch of green grapes hanging from one hand. One by one, she plucked the fruit from the stem, inspecting each grape carefully before popping it into her mouth.
"This fruit is barren," she observed as he paused in front of the meat section and started poking through the ground beef. Angel might not have been able to eat food for a couple hundred years, but he'd had plenty of opportunity to cook for his friends. Hell, in the earliest days of Angel Investigations, Doyle and Cordy would have been subsisting on take-out alone if it weren't for him. Wes too, when he came along after Doyle died.
He put a pound of hamburger in the folded-out child's seat of the cart. "What? Oh, you mean they're seedless. They grow them like that."
Grape pinched between thumb and forefinger, she rotated it to view it from every possible angle. "What crime did it commit that your people no longer permit it to breed?"
Angel rolled his eyes, moving along to the dairy refrigerators. "The grapes didn't do anything—it's just easier to eat them if they don't have seeds."
"I do not castrate my food before devouring it."
"Illyria, you normally don't eat," he pointed out.
"When I feasted on the flesh of my enemies," the god-king amended.
"Benevolent of you." Angel placed a block of cheddar cheese in the palm of her other, empty hand. "Listen, we need to talk."
"You are too puny a creature to make any demands of me now, mortal rodent." She opened her mouth wide, her jaw dislocating like a snake's, to fit the block of plastic-wrapped cheese entirely inside. Stunned, Angel could only watch as she popped her jaw back into place and swallowed. No rectangular shape passed down her throat, but she must have digested the cheddar somehow, for when she opened her mouth to speak again, it was empty. "The moldy dairy byproduct pleases me…though the outer shell is flavorless."
"Uh…" Angel worked his mouth, trying to process the rather horrific scene he'd just witnessed. "You aren't supposed to eat the plastic…and you're avoiding the subject. It's been three weeks, and nobody's shown up to bring Spike and Wes back to life."
"The call was sent out to the mate of the one called Spike," Illyria answered. "If she does not come, then it is because she cannot." She cocked her head to the side—an expression so incongruent with Fred's form. "Or, perhaps, she will not."
"Do you have any idea of who 'she' is?" Angel prodded as he got another block of cheddar out of the case. This one went beside the hamburger in the cart, not the demon.
"I told you—his mate."
Angel snorted. "Spike's been around for a while. He's 'mated' with quite a few women." He was pushing here, but he had to know. Cordy was probably right—it would be either Drusilla or Buffy. If it was Drusilla, then she was probably too lost in her own head to realize she was being mystically summoned to LA. If it was Buffy…he didn't want to think that it was Buffy.
Illyria sniffed. "His true mate—the one best fit to bear his progeny."
Angel felt his stomach clench. It had to be Buffy then. Drusilla was technically dead, and dead things don't give birth as they'd all learned with Darla and Connor. He tasted bile in the back of his throat at the thought of Spike and Buffy together again. It wasn't that he wanted her for himself—he'd been honest when he'd told Cordelia that on the roof—it was just…there was just something cosmically not right about the two of them together.
"This upsets you," the god-king observed.
Angel quickly turned away from her to find the sour cream.
---
They spoke no more as he finished the shopping. The cashier that rang his purchases up at the checkout line raised her eyebrows at the sight of the god-king scrunched up in the cart, but she thankfully didn't say anything.
They walked back, each carrying a bag, and Angel holding the half gallon jug of milk in his other hand. Los Angeles was well into its morning rituals—cars honking impatiently as they tried to navigate the morning's rush, people bustling by on the streets nattering into cell phones. The air was heavy with an agitated hostility, slightly more so than normal. It was as if his attempted coup against Wolfram & Hart was still affecting the city's populace, even if they didn't notice it. The collapse of the main offices—blamed on terrorists—injected a heady dose of fear into the mix as well. In the area surrounding the Hyperion (curiously untouched by the battles, though they had taken place directly adjacent to it), the media reported a massive fire destroying several buildings including a shopping center and a bank. How else were they going to explain away a dragon attack? The corpses of those Angel and his friends had slain had been cleared away before the fire fighters arrived—Wolfram & Hart covering its tracks.
Angel looked up at a palm tree as they neared the hotel—half of its fronds burned away by the dragon's breath. In the sun, like this, with the woman he loved waiting for him not a half block away, it was hard to imagine that he'd been dead not too long ago.
It was almost too perfect. Which meant the other shoe was going to drop real soon. The Power That Be just couldn't seem to let him have more than a moment's peace.
Angel and Illyria rounded the corner, and he stopped and stiffened. There was someone lurking near the gate leading to the hotel's courtyard. As Illyria continued forward, the person paced restlessly back and forth in a small circle. It was Connor.
Angel broke into a run at the sight of his son, oblivious to the groceries in his arms. As he drew nearer he realized Connor was covered in blood. It soaked his abdomen, stained the knees of his khakis, trickled out from a cut on his cheek, wept from his busted knuckles…
The milk exploded as it hit the concrete. "Connor? What's wrong?"
His son raised his head, and Angel's heart seemed to freeze in his chest at the sight of Connor's blue eyes so full of wild grief. "They're dead, Dad," the young man said, holding out his torn and bloody hands. Tears began to stream out of the corners of his eyes. "They're all dead." He threw himself at Angel, wrapping his arms around him, and sobbing into Angel's shirt. "They're all dead…"