Breathing By Rote

Chapter 16.b


Cordelia Chase knew she was not the smartest cookie in the jar, but she was confident she at least had all her raisins. Though she would never admit it to anyone she had been in desperate need when Buffy’s undead ex had offered her a job answering phones at his rinky little detective service. She knew she was a great actress and her break was going to come soon. Answering phones was temporary she assured herself, even as weeks turned into months. Just to make the ends meet.

When she first started Angel flitted in and out of the office, usually in the company of one charming major hottie with a huge ass dog. Sometimes the only one who came in was Patrick, to collect messages and generally interrupt her manicuring with his mere god-like presence. Major hottie, and the way he said “sir” and “ma’am” to everyone with that subtle drawl: Cordy loved Patrick Days. His stupid mangy dog Jack could go, always either trying to look under her skirt or growling when she sidled too close to his master. The books had Patrick down as a detective (with little hearts stenciled in from the day the television was out) but Cordy caught on fairly early that his job was more about killing demons than any real detecting. She figured he helped Angel with the slayage and was happy to sit in the usually empty office and answer the phone. Impaled once, thank you, did not need any more scars to hinder her acting career.

Then came the day her boss barreled into the office with a pale, bleeding man in his arms, Patrick and his dog hot on his heels. The pale little thing was named Doyle, there was a demon after his eyeballs, and said slimy demon was determined to destroy some powers by using the link Doyle had with them. Before the night was out Cordy learned about seers, Angel’s duty to said powers and that she could still wield an ax when some nasty tried to eat Patrick.

She understood the agency was a front for Doyle’s visions, but as her opportunities were coming few and far between and usually entailed baring too much skin and smiling a lot she refocused on the dull office she spent way too much of her time in. Angel was charged with protecting the innocent so why couldn’t she drum up some herself? On a commission basis, of course, and kids meant a five percent hike. When she laid out her terms to the vampire he stared at her for a long while like he used to watch Xander when he was going on about some dorky geek fest event, but then he shrugged and let her do what she wanted. Smart man, that Angel was.

Unexpectedly Charles Gunn’s arrival changed Cordy’s life forever. The young street tough’s sister had been turned by some vampire trying to take over the neighborhood. Sad, especially since anyone could see having to stake his baby sister was going to break Gunn, but then Angel had stopped him. He’d smacked the girl down, bit into her neck and held her there on the dirty floor while her blood soaked her torn clothing. Gunn had looked ready to attack her boss, but Patrick did some neat move that had the younger man pinned on his knees in front of Angel. Dark brown eyes ringed in gold glanced briefly in her direction before the vampire caught Gunn’s chin and forced him to meet his inhuman gaze.

“Enough of this!” Angel roared. “All vampires still have their souls, but minions like your sister are not strong enough to fully merge so her demon is completely out of control. The vampire who created her is weak and shared his blood sparingly. If I give her enough of mine she’ll make a stronger vampire.”

“Like you?” Gunn whispered, watching his little sister’s snarls and growling grow steadily weaker as her blood continued to gush from her throat. Angel must have done something, Cordy absently noted beneath her gibbering fear. Vampires didn’t bleed like that from a single bite.

“Like me,” Angel said softly. The watching ex-Scooby opened her mouth to say something, to warn Gunn that the vampire was lying, but confusion froze her in place. Why was he telling this to Gunn? It made no sense to torture the guy this way, unless . . . Angelus! Her mind screamed. Big, nasty psycho standing ten feet away, but before she could lift her crossbow she met Patrick’s eyes. Sweet, so very polite Patrick was glaring at her with golden eyes and the young woman stiffened to feel a heavy weight brush her side. Glancing down she saw the same eyes staring back at her from Jack’s lupine face.

“Do it, please,” Gunn whispered, crying and limp in Patrick’s hold. “Give Alonna back to me.”

Afterward, while Gunn carefully cleaned his sister, both of them in tears, Angel ordered Patrick to take her home. Cordy didn’t want to go anywhere with her hottie, convinced he was taking her somewhere to dump her body and hopelessly let him take her arm and lead her to his mustang. Jack clambered into the back and tried to pant over her shoulder until she smacked him on the nose.

“Ugh! No, no, no! You may be all with the time to kill the only person who knows Angelus is back, but there will be no drooling! This is Alice!, you flea bag!”

Patrick snorted. “No one’s dying, Cordelia. Let’s just get to your place and I’ll explain a few things, okay?”

Walking into her apartment Cordy frantically looked around for a weapon to save her life, but Patrick just calmly steered her over to her couch and gestured for her to sit. Glaring evil thoughts the brunette perched herself on the very edge, grimly watching the tall man step back to stand alongside his dog. If she had to she’d ruin a good pair of stilettos but she wasn’t dying without a fight.

“Remember what you told me about your friend Oz?” Patrick asked.

Cordy arched an eyebrow. “He’s a werewolf or plays in a band?”

“That he’s a werewolf. A perfectly quiet young man except for the three nights of the full moon when you all had to lock him in a cage so he wouldn’t hurt anyone? Did he change any other time?”

“No, but his nose was always really good. He knew right away that Harmony was wearing a knock off Chanel,” Cordy smirked remembering the pleasure she’d taken in that little one-upmanship. Who knew some boys had their uses?

“Ian,” Patrick said and Cordy’s attention jerked back to the man and dog in front of her as Jack hunched over. The change happened much more quickly than she’d imagined it’d take and left a disgusting slime on her carpet. The ex-cheerleader gaped at the naked man crouched on her floor, identical to Patrick. Then he stood up, grinning at her and Cordy blushed.

“Doggy penis!” she yelped and snatched up a pillow to throw at him.

Jack, Ian, Clone Guy laughed and caught the pillow. “Why all of a sudden shy, Cordy?”

“Shut up! What kind of demons are you two?”

Patrick shot his twin a warning look before dropping to one knee in front of her. “We’re werewolves, Cordy. Just like your friend Oz, but by the grace of the Werewolf King we can control our beasts.” Holding up one hand he slowly elongated his fingers, the skin starting to darken with fur and nails forming into claws before he pulled it back. “See? No ravaging beast, no full moon madness.”

Sitting back on her couch Cordy stared from one twin to the other, putting together every memory she had of them and what she’d been told about werewolves. The other one sat in her armchair, dropping her cushion over his lap with a bored expression. She made a mental note to send the re-upholstery bill to Angel. Patrick continued when she didn’t say anything. “We’re telling you this to demonstrate that not everything you were told in Sunnydale was necessarily the truth. I mean, your only source was who? A guy dedicated to killing anything not human, right? Not someone inclined to acknowledging that being different doesn’t automatically mean being evil.”

“So what Angel said earlier about vampires is the truth?” Patrick nodded. “And I should believe you because? I have seen him go all evil. He killed one of our teachers and tortured Giles! How do I know this isn’t all a scheme to lure me into a false sense of security?”

“Yes, because killing you now wouldn’t accomplish the same thing as killing you later?” Patrick rolled his eyes. “A properly made vampire is a union of demon and soul, okay? Take away the soul and bam!, instant psycho. Did what Angel said contradict anything you remember? Minions are mindless killers because they don’t have the inner strength to merge with the soul. Without the soul they’re just rabid beasts in need of staking.”

Cordy almost started chewing on a nail before she remembered herself. “Then why is Angel cursed with a soul?”

“Do people who don’t cheer or what do you do now, act?, do outsiders really understand what it’s all about?” Patrick’s clone spoke at a faster pace, voice slightly deeper. “Humans like the Watchers can observe demon kind but no one who’s not a demon can really know. A duck can never know what it’s like to be a lion, I don’t care if they watch them all day. You get me?”

Giles and Buffy were such know-it-alls, weren’t they? Patrick was right, also, they really had no reason to lie to her. If they didn’t want her to call Sunnydale they could have just killed her and she had no illusions about her secretarial skills. “I need to think about all this,” she finally decided. “I’ll call if I have any more questions.”

She went into work on Monday, at the same time as always. Surprisingly, Angel was there waiting for her, trying to act inconspicuous. He looked like a dork and Cordy huffed quietly as she dumped her purse into its drawer at her desk. Was he mauling one of her Cosmos? “I expect compensation for my work related stress,” she announced suddenly, glaring at the vampire taking up too much space in their small waiting area.

“Stress?” Angel dumbly repeated.

“Yes. Stress. Anxiety. Desecrated furniture. Can’t Patrick’s clone carry underwear in a doggie bag or something? Either of them do that gross changing thing in here and I will not be responsible for my actions. Potentially having to stake my boss for the future of humanity was not in the job description. I demand a shopping spree.”

Again Angel was gifting her with a strange expression equal parts amusement and bewilderment but Cordelia was determined to stand firm on this. She needed new shoes and he was buying. “Very well,” Angel said at last and Cordy smiled at him benevolently.

“And the whole happy thing?” she clarified.

“No longer a problem.”

“Good.” She turned on her computer and took out her nail file. Angel was still in front of her, strangling her magazine. “Anything else?” she prodded. How did he expect her to get any work done with him sitting there like some deranged gargoyle?

“Um, hired Gunn to work with the twins?”

“Good idea. Let him know if he wants health insurance I’ll need all his information otherwise he can work freelance.”

“We have health insurance?”

“Yes!” She snatched a message sheet from a stack in their little bin. “Now, are you going to leave on your own or do I have to send you to Mrs. Simmons who thinks she’s being haunted by her dead cat?”

He left without the case, though they later discovered Mrs. Simmons was not being haunted by her cat but rather was hearing the siren downstairs eating her victims. It turned out to be Gunn’s first assignment and proved Angel was right in hiring him. It was a boys club for certain, but Cordy didn’t mind being the only girl at the agency. They were all her boys, right? Except Gunn’s sister occasionally went on cases, with increasing frequency, and they all would vaguely make mention of Someplace Else. At first she didn’t make the connection between Gunn’s pad and Patrick’s home but then when Patrick said Moira was making ribs and Gunn said okay warning flags went up. Moira who? Was Gunn living now with Patrick and his clone? And where did Angel squirrel himself during daytime hours anyway?

Cordy was admittedly fairly self absorbed. Looking as good as she did took a great deal of time and attention to the little details. She didn’t have time to worry about what other people were doing out of her sight. Maybe that was a flaw; Daddy’s embezzling had certainly come as a surprise. Perhaps she was just not suspicious by nature, but as the months passed and Angel continued rescuing innocents and not trying to plunge the world into hell then she assured herself that curiosity had no place where paychecks came on time.

Yet the niggling thought lingered that she was being excluded just like back in high school with Buffy and her Loser Squad. Not that she cared, mind, that a bunch of boys crashed together in a glorified bachelor pad. She shuddered to think of what the place must look like. After overhearing the exchange she came right out and asked Patrick who Moira was and from his answer concluded his sister and her small children would not be living with two werewolves, a vampire and a street tough.

Then Elaine walked into the office. Lustrous red hair, six feet without the heels, breathing movie star perfect with an ease Cordy spent hours trying to achieve. She immediately wanted to hate her, but Patrick’s sister, his other sister, and she was beginning to wonder how many there were, thrust out a manicured hand and smiled with a charm that was hard to resist.

“So you’re the Cordelia Doyle is always going on about. I’m Elaine, the twins’ younger sister, here to take over for them for a while. Are those Gianfranco Ferre’s? They look awesome on you.”

Cordy smiled. Who really cared what Angel and all the rest did when they weren’t earning her paycheck? She just knew her and Elaine were going to get along famously.

~*~

March.

Cautiously easing himself out of the bed Riley glanced back only once before he slipped out the door, but Buffy didn’t stir once. She never noticed his leaving and he wasn’t sure why that bothered him. He grabbed up his jeans from their usual place, slipping into them once he was out in the hall. The Summers’ house was quiet, painfully so with Mrs. Summers in the hospital. Padding through the darkened halls the commando escaped to the backyard.

Once outside he did not wander far, seating himself on the back door’s concrete step. It wasn’t smart to go wandering at night in Sunnydale, shirtless and shoeless. He’d either run into a nest of vampires or an Initiative patrol given his luck recently and he really couldn’t guess which would be worse. Since he’d taken this assignment nothing seemed to be going right in his life: his till now sterling career was in dire straits, his girlfriend barely tolerated his touch and, oh yeah, he was having this life crisis on the mouth of Hell.

Buffy, he knew, was partly his fault. She liked to dominate, which was great, but she was singularly lacking in creativity. Maybe it was a thing with American girls, but he had to practically beg for a blow job. She said doing those kinds of things, touching each other practically anywhere below the waist except with their “naughty bits“, was disgusting. Before Buffy, Riley had never thought of himself as disgusting. Yes, he was bisexual, but none of his previous lovers had hesitated to explore their mutual pleasure. Then again, maybe the problem was with him. Buffy had been the first lover he had pursued. Ever since Conal, Riley liked being chased, courted, fucked hard and then kissed tenderly after. He liked that spark in the other person’s eyes, their desire catching fire. Buffy watched him with that spark, still did, but she made him feel used, like a poor fit to fill some void in her heart. Though he had never met the vampire Riley was pretty sure Angel was to blame. Buffy was a one man kinda girl and Riley bitterly knew he wasn’t that man. He just wasn’t sure what to do about it all yet. A year ago, he’d have kissed her goodbye and put in for a new assignment. A year ago . . .

His career was fixable. Dr. Walsh was getting out of control and he’d already put in a call to Uncle Robert. It was Bobby’s job to investigate shit like what Walsh was doing, and a woman like that did not get the authorization to recruit the best without making a few enemies. Dr. Frankenstein was going to be in for a shock when she found out just high the Finn name went and just how harshly she’d be held accountable. It sucked sometimes being the grunt at the family gatherings when there were generals and admirals hogging the holiday cookies, but the Finns looked after their own. If he wanted his job back, he could have it.

If he wanted his job back.

Protecting that town last year from dragons had been awesome and he’d felt that same thrill again when he and Buffy had fought the Gentlemen. Hunting Walsh’s hostiles was exercise. Getting the chance to save people from the monsters; that was what bounced him out of bed in the morning. If he went back in, there’d be no guarantee where he’d be placed and he didn’t want to give this up.

Sitting on the Summers’ back step Riley shook his head. No one with any sense went wandering about Sunnydale at night, but he honestly could say he’d never felt afraid being out here. He’d never feared the dark. Since he was a little kid he’d enjoyed going outside. The night comforted as it always did, tonight no different, like there were invisible eyes out there in the darkness, watching over him. Not for the first time he wished those eyes were real and he sat out in the Summers’ back yard until the sky began to lighten, clutching onto that comfort until it was time to go back in to his life.

TBC.

Reviews:
Susan: Thanks! I definitely delved deeper into the various relationships than originally anticipated but I think that only helped the story.

Kage: This is slowly coming along, no fear of that. I love cute!Spike and William knows Xander’s a big ol’ softie for the cuddles. A friend who was doing some editing for me asked about all manly Xander running a coffee shop and wouldn’t Spike setting him up in a bar be more realistic? But this is all bookish, Daddy’s favorite lil’ poet in disguise. I think of everyone, Xander is going to be the most surprised when the truth comes out.

Josie_h: Thanks! I would be at this story for another year if I tried to give every character, canon and my own originals, their fifteen minutes of spotlight, but I do want to touch on as many as I can. I consumed massive amounts of sugar before writing Cordy’s scene so I hope I managed to capture her Ego in all its glory. My favorite part was Angelus’ reactions to her. Demon or souled, I don’t think he’s equipped to handle Cordy!

Purple Mist: Wow, thanks for this huge review! Most people who’ve commented agree with you that what Angelus did didn’t seem like rape. For him it was not the physical, but the mental manipulation. He forced Riley to let go his grief at believing his little brother was dead. Never before had Angelus used his control of Riley to brutalize his emotions to such a degree. Angelus could almost be feeling guilty, if he wasn’t a demon who’d use whatever force necessary to keep his boy on keel. I have plans for Wesley, have no fear. Graham still has his role to play and by the end people will probably be vainly hoping for a sequel to see the continuation of his story. Angelus and Riley will be coming together within the next two chapters.

Nelson: Thanks! I’m trying to keep a fairly fast pace to this story. ADD, anyone? *snort* The time trip is happening next chapter so most of Xander and Spike’s relationship has evolved off camera. Past!Angelus is in for a few surprises.