Roomies

Disclaimer: The characters of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series Universes (Angel, Cordelia, Spike, Xander, Doyle, etc…) are the creation of Joss Whedon and are, therefore, the property of him, Mutant Enemy (Grr, Arg), and 20th Century Fox (and all other affiliated parties). No money is gained from this work as it is created purely for the enjoyment of others. Please do not sue.

AN: Constructive criticism and friendly fedback are always appreciated. Flames will be used to warm my toes.


~Part 2: Shirts Off to Cocoa~


Angel glared at the screen in front of him. The latest evil was extremely… slimy. There wasn’t any other word that he could use to describe the demon. He tilted his head to one side in an attempt to make anything else out of the picture that Cordelia had presented him with. Though this angle provided him with was a raised eyebrow from Cordelia before she went back to her work, the demon still looked as shapeless as before.

The Mouragh demon was described to be a seven foot tall, three eyed, extremely not friendly to vampires slimy potato. It had a knack for using black magic to help it obtain its victims though usually it just used its bulk. It could only be destroyed using a true iron tool, which had to be put through its middle eye. Getting near it was the hard part because the only time it approached a vampire was when it needed a new toy to play with.

The word out on the street was that the demon had a Master vampire in its possession. Angel hadn’t wanted to go after the demon at first mostly because, in killing the demon, he would also have to fight a vampire that would most likely be as strong as he, if not stronger. The only thing that had convinced him to start hunting the demon was Doyle’s vision of the Mouragh standing over someone holding some kind of torture device. Along with Doyle’s vision, Angel was also getting more and more vampire callers about the demon roaming into their territory. Even though rumours said that it already had a vampire they still wanted it destroyed - just in case.

Usually vampires took care of trespassers themselves but not many vampires had the inclination to fight against a dark magic wielding demon. Plus, very few vampires had any idea how to kill a Mouragh thanks to the fact that the creatures had managed to destroy most documents that even mentioned them. Of course, vampires considered hiring someone else to take care of a demon much more resourceful than trying to do it themselves.

Now Angel was stuck with trying to figure out where the demon was holing up. So far “sewers” was his only lead. That gave him two choices. Either he did it the hard way and tried to track down the demon by scenting it, which could take days, or speak with other vampires in LA and find out where the demon had been spotted over the past couple weeks and narrow down his search.

He glanced over his shoulder at Cordelia who was turning the page in the newspaper. He knew that she wasn’t looking for reports on sightings of strange characters. Her mind was set on getting out of his apartment and for some unexplainable reason that thought made him clench his teeth and fight back a growl.

He stood. “Cordy, I’m going to call it a night. Are you coming?”

Cordelia looked up from her newspaper and smiled that gorgeous smile of hers. “Yeah, I guess it’s about time to turn in. Are you going to start tracking the Moo-Rage tomorrow?”

Angel nodded an affirmative, wanting to grin at the cute, incorrect way that she pronounced the demon’s name. “I plan on heading out to a couple dives that I have contacts in. Hopefully Mirak and Ans will give me some information that will narrow down the search. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to start out somewhere near our demon.”

Standing, the brunette picked up a messy pile of papers and dumped them in the garbage. She gave the rest of the desk’s clutter a dirty look before walking with him to the elevator. “I hope we get this thing. The last thing this world needs is another slime monster.”

~~~

Down in Angel’s apartment, Cordelia sat on the couch. She was glad that Angel had decided to get one of those hide-a-beds but found she hated him for it too. She didn’t need him to do more for her then he already had. Especially considering that she had finally relented into letting Doyle set up a thing for a place he knew about.

“I’m making some cocoa. Do you want some?” the vampire called from the kitchen.

“Sure,” she replied and went back to her thoughts.

Over the past couple weeks things had fallen into a routine. She got up usually when he came in from the night’s adventures, they would talk over coffee then she would go upstairs and start working. By the time Angel came up to the office, around two, she would already have nothing to do. For the past week, she had been going out and looking at different places with Doyle in the afternoons and usually didn’t see Angel until after that.

At night, Angel always made sure that Cordelia was downstairs by eleven. He would make cocoa or tea – never coffee - and they would talk about the day. She would crawl under her covers after a shower and listen to him move around for a while. Soon she fell asleep only to wake to the sound of his trap door to the sewers opening. She figured that was when he went to get his blood or did the whole meeting with contacts thing.

Today had been like every other day except for when Angel had come in that morning he hadn’t said a word to her and had gone straight into the shower. She had been stewing over why he had done that all day and had got nothing done. The fact that the few places that she had gone to see today after Doyle had showed up were horrible hadn’t improved her mood either.

With a sigh she stood and pulled out the bed. She fixed the blankets, set up the dozen pillows that Angel provided for her, and sat back. Glancing at the nightstand that Angel had moved next to the couch she saw that he had placed her mug of cocoa there and left.

She felt like she had been punched in the stomach. Not only had Angel not spoken to her this morning, he obviously didn’t want to speak to her now. Her eyes went to the door of Angel’s bedroom. She couldn’t help but wonder what she had done to make her hunk of a boss not want to talk to her all day. Without realizing it there was an intense longing in her eyes that the vampire saw the second he opened the door.

“Hey, sorry about that. I just needed to change,” Angel said. He took in the sight of Cordelia wearing a pair of oversized sleep pants and a tight little tank shirt that displayed her midriff. His focused on her eyes just in time to see a kind of fleeting shadow in them before it was gone. For a second Angel paused, trying to decide if what he had seen had been his own imagination or not. He shook it off as his own imagination; Cordelia would never long for him.

Blushing slightly, Cordelia looked away and laughed nervously. “Why are you sorry? I didn’t say anything.”

Angel didn’t reply to her statement, he just sat next to her in the corner of the couch so that he was facing slightly towards her, his back cushioned by pillows. “Oh. I thought…” he trailed off, not sure what to say. A thought hit him and he looked up abruptly. “About this morning… I’m sorry but I got attacked in the sewers. I managed to be completely submerged in raw sewage; there was some pretty rotten smells and I didn’t want to bother you. You in the morning when faced with nastiness are a very scary thing.”

Cordelia smiled her first real smile of the day. “I wouldn’t have minded if you had told me what had happened.”

“I’ll quote you on that in case I ever come back smelling awful and you comment about it.” Angel’s tone held a sarcastic kind of humour and his eyes were twinkling with amusement.

Laughing softly, Cordelia leaned back into her pillows and sipped at her cocoa. She was trying desperately not to let the huge amount of flesh that Angel didn’t appear too concerned about showing distract her. She had a feeling that they were in a stage of their friendship where showing incredible amounts of very well muscled flesh wasn’t a big thing. The fact that Angel was only wearing a pair of sweatpants that seemed to be just barely hanging onto his hips kind of cemented that theory.

She had no idea where she was supposed to look. His arm kept drawing her gaze because every time he lifted his mug the muscles there rippled and tightened. Every time she looked away from his arm, she caught sight of his abs, which weren’t exactly helping her predicament.

“So, Angel…” Cordelia trailed off as she ran her brush through her hair. She had picked it up in an attempt to keep her eyes off of Angel.

Angel shifted slightly and frowned at the waves of tension that he could sense rolling off the girl. “So, how is your apartment search going?”

Cordelia sighed and put down her brush. “Horribly,” she stated.

“Doyle tells me that you finally gave the okay for him to set something up for you,” Angel said tentatively.

“Yeah,” Cordelia said with a nod. She picked up her cocoa and took a sip. “We’re going to go look at a place tomorrow.”

Angel nodded and thought about the running around he was going to be doing the next day. He knew that the Mouragh would be relatively easy to track down once he got in the general vicinity of it. The problem was that he didn’t know if he could take the thing with the amount of dark magic that it was bound to know. A deep sigh drew his mind back to the girl next to him and Angel watched Cordelia stare off into a space that seemed directed at his abs for a moment before saying brusquely, “What’s wrong?”

Startled, Cordelia spilt her cocoa down her shirt. Crying out softly she put the cup down and immediately stared pulling her shirt off. At her cry, Angel had gone to the kitchen to grab a cold towel and returned to the sight of Cordelia wearing nothing more than a lace bra over her breasts. He quickly got over her surprise and handed her the cloth. She took it and pressed it to her near bare chest and bit her lip to stop herself from crying in front of him.

“Cordy, I am so sorry. I don’t know what to say…” Angel couldn’t stop that wave of guilt that hit him at the sight of her sitting there in a plain lace bra with a large, angry red splotch on her chest that he had caused by scaring her. The knowledge that she was going to be alright calmed Angel down enough to really be affected by her state of undress and, if he could have, he would have gone red himself. The sight of her sitting there, in a slightly sprawled out fashion affected his body more then he cared to admit and he quickly turned away.

“Angel, don’t. It wasn’t your fault. Come back.” The plea in her voice set his demon into a wild frenzy. It slashed at the walls that his soul had erected around it and demanded to be let loose and take the girl. Never had Angel felt the need to release his demon so tempting. To let him out even just enough so that he gained the courage to take the girl wasn’t an option, though.

He gritted his teeth and turned, meeting the girl’s eyes. “I’m sorry, goodnight Cordelia.”

Cordelia gasped at the unmasked lust in the dark vampire’s eyes and felt a bolt of heat snake down to her center. At his sharp intake of breath she knew that he could sense her arousal. Her mind was racing. Ever since he had been with Buffy she had only seen Angel a friend, an enemy, and then a companion in battle. Since she had moved in with him, she hadn’t stopped thinking about him with lusty thoughts. Now she realized that she wasn’t the only one affected by their close quarters.

“Angel?” she asked tentatively.

Suddenly, Angel growled and grabbed her by the arms. He kissed her savagely and pulled her to him so that she was flush against him and could feel his want for her. He broke away and trailed hard kisses across her jaw and down her neck. His left hand moved to roughly knead her breast while his other hand pulled at the knot in her sleep pants.

He moved to kiss her lips again and violently pushed her lips apart with his tongue. At her soft whimper he jumped up off the bed and looked around him. His eyes were wide and his face seemed to be in a state halfway between his human and demon forms. The wildness in his eyes slowly melted away to be replaced with self-loathing and an extreme amount of guilt.

With a soft growl he turned and went into his room, slamming the door behind him. Moments later he reappeared, dressed and blank-faced. He silently opened the trap door to the sewer and dropped down into the inky blackness below. He slammed down the door with loud crack behind him.

Cordelia watched all this soundlessly with a hand pressed to her bruised and swollen lips. Her mind barely comprehending what had just happened.