Title: End
Author: speedometer87
Posted: 08-29-2004
Email: speedometer87@hotmail.com
Rating: R
Category: Horror
Content: Cordelia/Angel, Cordelia/Connor, Cordelia/Other
Summary: What was the coma like? What did Cordelia see?
Spoilers: Up through s4
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution:
Notes: This is actually kind of stream-of-consciousness, except with someone else’s conscious. It only took about forty-five minutes to write.
Feedback: Yummy!
Thanks/Dedication:The coma is like endless sleep, except with weirder dreams. She sees things that never happened, sees variations of things that happened, and sees things that really did happen. It doesn’t really matter, because it’s not like anything’s happening to her now. Is this what it was like for Angel, trapped underneath forever and the ocean?
The course is a spread of green grass and pale sand and bright sunlight. Cordelia has never seen Angel in sunlight, let alone golfing attire. He’s wearing atrocious plaid shorts and sunglasses. “Cordy! Hey!”
“I’d like to rescind all my statements about you having a gay man’s taste,” she says evenly.
Angel smiles and pulls a three wood from the golf-bag. Or, his caddy does: it’s Wesley, wearing matching plaid shorts and sunglasses as well. Cordelia always knew bad taste was like some kind of contagious disease. “Hello, Cordelia,” he says, handing Angel the club.
“So, where’s Gunn?” she asks. “Is he going to make a cameo as Tiger Woods soon?”
Angel ignores her question, sliding a tee into the dirt and capping it off with a shiny, white Titlest golf-ball. “This is my new destiny,” he says, stepping back and surveying the course in front of him. “Eighteen holes at Rancho, you know?”
“No, I don’t know!” she screams suddenly, without knowing why. “Stop it!”
“It’s not polite to yell during a tee-off,” Wesley explains, as Angel takes a practice swing. “But you never did know anything about being polite, did you? Polite people normally don’t sleep with the sons of their boyfriends, after all.”
It stings. Cordelia begins to walk away, but the guilt follows, so she picks up the pace and tries to get away “—from it. Angel, it’s coming, I have to get away--”
Angel strokes her hair. “Shh, baby. It’s only Connor.”
Cordelia hesitantly opens her eyes, peers through the darkness surrounding their bed and into the light shining dimly in the doorway. There’s a silhouette there, a little boy with a bowl-cut and coltish body. “Mamma?”
Suddenly, Cordelia remembers where and who she is, memories taking shape into something she understands. “I’m sorry, sweet boy, I was having a nightmare.”
Angel smiles and touches her hand, underneath the covers. She turns toward him, leaning forward to kiss him, but when their lips touch she realizes it isn’t Angel but Connor and oh God, it’s Angel in the doorway, watching them kiss and touch and make love.
Connor pulls away. He slides his hand down her stomach to the wet spot between her thighs, pressing her just there, the spot that makes her keen. Smirking, he bites her earlobe and whispers, “Mamma?”
Angel makes a terrible sound, like the sound of her own voice. “Why do you think I let him out, you stupid little bitch!”
Cordelia sobs and struggles, invisible ghost-hands forcing her back against the side of the bed. She wants to be strong, she does, but this thing knows her better than anything else and she can’t. get. away.
The voice changes to something soft and pretty. The hands aren’t invisible anymore: they’re dark-skinned and warm, but they’re still holding her and it hurts. “Take off the bedsheet, make a noose,” the woman continues. “Go on. It’ll be over soon.”
Cordelia nods dumbly and begins to make the noose. Jasmine helps her onto the chair, slides the sheet around her throat. Angel watches from where he is kneeling on the floor, his hands on the edge of the chair, ready to pull it out from under her. “Oh, my God,” he breathes, reverently, his eyes on Cordelia. “You’re beautiful.”
Jasmine kicks the chair out from under her. The noose tightens like barb-wire around her throat, cutting and scratching and slitting her skin. She can’t breathe, can’t feel, can’t see anything.
The world begins to flicker and dim, like a strobe light gradually slowing to darkness. “Thank you for protecting and nourishing me,” Jasmine says. “Your spirit has been my shelter, but you can rest now. I’m so glad to see you, my sweet little boy,” Cordelia says, smiling and kissing Connor’s soft forehead. Angel moves behind her, his arms sliding around her waist, massaging her stomach gently underneath her shirt.
“And I’m so glad to see you, too,” she says teasingly over her shoulder, rolling her eyes.
Grinning, Angel kisses her neck and starts to hum. The room spins headlong into something hot and dark and dangerous, and before long, Angel has her pinned against the headboard as he slaps their hips together. It’s painful and pleasurable and everything that Angel is, everything that she knows inside him.
In the doorway, Wesley watches, his eyes glimmering. Justine is behind him; a knife flickers in the darkness, a smear of blood across the blade. Angel buries his face against her shoulder.
With Angel’s back turned, it’s easy for Wesley to sneak inside, snatch Connor up and run. The wound on Wesley’s throat splatters blood across the room as he runs, pooling in Connor’s crib and staining Angel’s bedcovers. Angel doesn’t notice, still moving inside her.
“Connor!” Cordelia shrieks, beating Angel’s shoulders with her fists. “Connor!”
He lifts his head, and Cordelia finds herself face-to-face with Holtz. “His name is Stephen,” he says, and Cordelia opens her mouth to scream or cry or spill her guts out, but she can’t, because her body isn’t hers anymore. She’s being raped from the inside out, pulled apart piece by piece until she isn’t even Cordelia Chase anymore. She stares down the barrel of Fred’s pistol, then her body slowly turns toward Angel—his expression makes her want to howl, but she can’t. Instead, her mouth curls into a sneer.
“This thing isn’t Cordelia,” he says emphatically.
The words are like puke, rising in her throat and flooding over. “Is that what you think, hero?”
His expression closes off, and she knows that he’s withdrawing, hiding deeper inside himself. She worked so hard to bring him out, and now this thing—oh God, it’s herself—is destroying him again. “She wouldn’t hurt her friends like this,” he says, louder than before.
“Or maybe you just don’t know me very well,” Cordelia replies, but she is flailing inside. The thing controlling her swells fiercely, shoving her downward, away from the surface. Angel’s words are dim, but the pain of them echoes, continuously.
“I don’t have a choice!” he yells, but Cordelia (not Jasmine) has trouble understanding him, the words sounding foreign and strange.
She senses the light in her gut, like a growing flame. It spreads and spreads, out of her womb and through her chest and up her throat, smothering her voice. Angel’s sword shines above her, silvery like the inside of herself, and growing brighter.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, raising his arm to strike.
Her body explodes, the light finally breaching her throat and pouring out of her mouth and eyes and ears. The pain is unbearable, flaring and angry, but she can’t scream because the magic is clogging her throat. This is the moment of weakness. This is the moment she can finally escape. This is the moment it will all END i really should be talking to people that are somebody i take crap from no one people really do change i learned that i have two people i trust absolutely with my life don’t be embarrassed we’re family do us a favor and stay away i’m just scared now i’m scared all the time presents or sweet little baby face it kind of depends on how you feel about me and Cordelia wakes up.
Ends.