****************** Title: Breathless Author: ebonbird@hotmail.com Summary: Wesley's late coming home with the Philly steaks. Work date: January 21, 2002 Tracks: It's War - Cardigans, Angel (Suffered Angel Remix) - Darling Violetta, Love Will Tear Us Part (Acoustic) - The Swans, The State I'm In - Belle & Sebastian, One Good Reason - Cousteau, Under The Milky Way - The Church, Heaven Coming Down - The Tea Party, The Messenger - The Tea Party, Raindrop - The Reindeer Section, Fire In The Head - The Tea Party Started: May 30, 2001 December 8, 2001 ****************** First, comes steam - then the effortless advance; gaseous water cooling and contracting around the shade that is Angel. Leaving the bathroom, he makes no sound. His dark gray shirt frames his chest and stomach, drapes his shoulders and arms, grazes the backs of his hands. Steam swirls over his cold fine skin, condenses and dissipates and the song pulling him forward is so Dru. Jangling guitars. Driving rhythms. Swooning cellos. //come crush me now// Cordelia sways from side to side. Her wrists kiss at the pinpoint ting of a triangle sketched in the air. Thrusting violins twirl her through a waltz. She glides from foot to foot, her arms undulate - thrown out, and up, and around her shoulders and torso. Her dark hair swings, screening her face in wavelets and curls. The chanteuse entices with a voice pitched midrange. //Come on, it's war, come on// Angel's pale hand trails up the center seam of his shirt. Buttons close and the woman continues to croon. Cordelia's thin, tanned ankles turn. Her hips and shoulders follow. Her stomach is tight, then fulsome and loose as she waltzes herself through half a measure. Stepping around crumpled newssheet, treading on paper filthy with color, she leaves a riptide of pastels on the floor - umber, cerise, purple. bronze. Claret. And that sweet girlish voice singing that she was hurt and ready for fire. But Angel would approach with his hands, brave the heat rising off Cordelia's skin. Wait for the moment her hands swung beyond the sunlight. Clasp her hands and lead her away from the window, around the coffee-table and couch . . . The apple perfume of her shampoo wafts like gauze, light and distinct, over the barb-wire snarl of sodium laurel sulfate and carageenan residue in her hair. She's sweating a little, under her arms despite the deodorant she's slicked there. There her skin sparkles, minutely and only to his eyes. His eyes fill because Cordelia's hair is shiny and tangled and full. Handholds beyond dreams cascading past her shoulders and bare arms. Her top is orange and fitted. Her brightly patterned skirt is full. Angel thinks of Gypsy girls blazing trails of scattered blood, torn flesh and cloth, as they flee before him into thickening forests. * "Anyahasseo" Wesley calls over the bell tinkling at the deli door. "Next time, get more food. You are much too skinny, skinny man," responds the proprietor. Her gray-threaded, skull-shaped hairdo follows the curve of her head so closely it's like someone painted it on, scraped if off, and painted it back on. Her eyes are tired, but the automatic smile that pushes wrinkles around her mouth enlivens them. Smiling a little stiffly, Wesley exits the deli. He could continue walking on Sunset until he reaches Pacific Palisades but he turns on Embury toward home. Wesley carries the bag of Philly Steaks a little in front of himself, holding his hand beneath the bag because removing grease stains from fabric is not his forte. The plastic bag contains three wrapped sandwiches - one for Cordelia, one for him, and one for them to fight over. The smell of grilled onions and beef soaking into yeasty French rolls teases him through the paper and plastic. Setting his shoulders and straightening his back, he sighs and walks straight down the center of the sidewalk. In the summertime, tank tops abound. Artfully arranged hair, exact accessories and appropriate footgear adorn cookie-cutter people, for all that their accoutrements mark them as different types. Wesley looked up the neighborhood in a travel guide when he learned the location of Cordy's apartment. There was a rather long section about Silverlake in the Lonely Planet. The travel guide described it as trendy but laidback. In the early evening, when the pace of the day has begun to slow and the heat is radiating off the sidewalks and back into the air, Wesley sees that those who walk the sidewalks are carefully dressed but carry themselves as if they wore 'this old thing?' Even Angel, no native Angeleno he, has more than a bit of that. Black on black outfits, and painstakingly arranged hair that Angel himself can never ever see, no matter how much time he spends in the wc. In a sense, Angel is his own mortician, preparing himself for a funeral that took place long ago. * Cordelia sways with her back to Angel. Her bark brown hair hangs across her back, ending in bronze glazed mahogany. As she sways, her hair parts over her shoulder, revealing a quadrangle of tanned flesh. The muscles beneath her skin play golden against one another and she holds her hand in front of her - loose at the wrist - swaying from foot to foot. Before Angel drove her mad and killed her, Drusilla never danced. Afterwards, afterwards she jigged like a fey thing, rolling her hips and shoulders to shattered harmonies and strained melodies that he could never hear, but only feel as a rhythm thrumming beneath his fingers when he held her down and broke her again and again. The shifting quadrangle of flesh on Cordelia's back prickles from smooth girl-flesh to goose flesh. Cordelia sweeps to the right and his fingertips catch a weft of teak-blurred brown hair suspended in midair. She turns her head to regard him, her profile limned satin-platinum in the rays of the setting sun, and a smile touches the corner of her mouth. She extends her hand. A buttery bar of setting sunlight bends diagonally across the length of her lower arm and splashes to the floor between their feet. He grasps her shadowed hand and he leads her backward into a quiet dark. They circle each other, palm to palm, profile to profile. Her eyes are clear but she sees nothing in how pale his face becomes. She is a seer but she can't see Drusilla shadowing his eyes. And he whirls her thus and thus. Her skirts swish as she steps twice to his left, and to the right. Their knees brush, and brush. She snickers, her eyes are honey clear, but she sees nothing. Nothing of who he was. He draws her close. Directs her flush along the length of his body, with the edge of one hand firm between her shoulder blades and the other rigid with all of his preternatural strength. Cordelia is a natural follower, her understanding of the dynamics of motion ground in her natural grace and long hours of cotillion. Her eyes narrow. "Do it," she commands. He smirks and dips her. Her eyes widen with delight. She cackles. The pulse beats mad in her long throat. He draws her up, checks her raised hand to his, and sets her off in a spin, whirling her away from himself and back into the light. * Heavy glass and metal door resists Wesley's pull. He gasps, releases the tension in his arm, resettles the warm packet of sandwiches on his hip and yanks at the handle once more. The hair fringing his forehead trembles. Tendons stand on his neck. He grits his teeth, strains, and with a low groan opens the door. Old condensation drips from the overhead window air- conditioning unit, missing Wesley's shoulder by inches. Overripe banana must weighs the air. Fluorescent gray shapes impose themselves on Wesley's vision as his pupils dilate. Slutty linoleum floor beneath his feet, tell-tale mildew reek from the mop standing in the wheeled bucket at the end of the aisle. Nostril's flaring, Wesley wends his way down the second aisle, the angle of his body shifting to accommodate display stands crowding the narrow space. He passes a jangle of travel size dishwashing and laundry detergents and comes to the candies. Longing for wine gums, his gaze skips over American candies to hover over squeak-toy yellow, purple and green packages of bubble gum. He buys several packets of chewing gum, perceiving that he is in the mood for grape - not realizing that he's chosen them on the basis of the brilliant purple cow Cordelia had been drawing when he left apartment. He pays at a counter crowded with breath aids, first aid paraphernalia, grooming guides, horoscopes and hanging produce. The door is heavier upon his exit. Back on the street, aluminum screens scroll down to the pavement as shops close. "Mustn't have soggy sandwiches," murmurs Wesley, adjusting his glasses and squinting at the orange sun. * . . . and into the light. Cordelia's skirt bells sheer and her legs are black against the light. That heavy hair of hers fans in a weightless, rippling arc. Her spin complete, she squeals, bounds in place and claps her hands. "You danced!" Angel's chin recedes into his neck. "I don't dance, Cordelia." But there's something fish quick in his expression, hiding behind his mouth. Eyes twinkling, she launches her laughter like a net, snaring his elusive smile. "Stand there," he says, reaching for paper and charcoal on the coffee table. "Just . . . pose." She grabs a fistful of her hair. "Like this?!" She steps forward. The blank silhouette of her head decants into the momentary wreck of her heart-shaped face - forehead corrugated by one manicured eyebrow bent double, her opposite eye slitted, and wide mouth agawp. At the very least, he thinks, she'll catch flies. He sketches that mouth, his own pulls to the left of his face, curling in on itself. She gasps. "Angel?!" There's a mouse-feet chuckle followed by a low, "Yeah." He's sketched the edgemost curl of her hair, the arc of her shoulder and smudged the line to shadow her neck with the tip of littlest finger. Cordelia huffs but closes her yap, submitting. She's an animated girl, her expressiveness schooled into countless expressions so practiced they seem spontaneous but for a moment there's a sweetness there, her eyes aren't at their widest, her smile isn't at it's brightest but that's her gazing at him. Funny girl, sunny girl. Her world view isn't black and white, but it's judgmental all the same. Her inner-universe isn't orderly but it's consistent and even in light of his many years and wide experience, he can't predict her at all. His elusive grin parts into an actual smile. She's posing - holding that hank of hair, indulging him. And that smile of his widens. Alarm binds it into a snarl when Cordelia screams. Charcoal splinters to dust between Angel's hand and Cordelia's shoulder as she writhes under the weight of her third vision since Vocah. He's got her on the couch, is kneeling next to her and saying, "You're okay. You'll be okay. I've got you, Cordelia." It's to reassure himself while she whimpers. And while she's been thrashing, the bathroom door has flown open. A jumble of plastic bottles zooms out of the bathroom, rattling as one after another opened with a popping sound. The tap runs in the kitchen. A tumbler is filled with water. It sloshes as it floats through the air. It settles on the coffee table and all the while she's writhing, her eyes fluttering. The old woman she might become if she endures, ravages her features while her back arches off the couch. Her pulse rattles in her throat. Slowly, he gets her shoulders down. Slowly, she lays flat and then it's over. Her splayed fingers push weakly against the sofa cushion nearest her chest while she catches her breath. Familiar tear musk on her face; the thin, hard tease of blood diluted by saliva, floating past her lips with every pant. She and Drusilla have the same fine bones. He'd trapped the wailing remnants of an outraged girl in a vampire frame for eternity but her eyes are by turns celadon and forest gray. "Cordelia?" His hand frames the side of her face. "Mmm-hmm," Cordelia nods, sheer water in her hazel gaze. "Vision-girl, that's me." He casts his glance over the back of the couch. Barest daylight lightens the lowering night, but the hills just outside Cordelia's window are in shadow. "Before moonrise. Vampire gang's setting up an ambush in an alley off of Embury and -- Palisades?" she says, hunching up on her elbows. Angel frowns. "Tow truck?" "Some kind of truck. Smells like Doritos. And through air freshener." Her nose wrinkles. "And *feet*." "Bouki demon?" Angel asks. "Yay high," he raises his hand an inch above his shoulder. "Completely brown eyes?" "Human, twenty-something, and in serious trouble. He thinks he's a vampire hunter but he's in way over his head." "Human in need of rescue." Angel gets that, but there are tear tracks on her face and her eyes are bloodshot and she's having trouble catching her breath. She drags a hand through her hair and holds her breath. Her eyes close. A muscle twitches in her jaw. Her neck goes slack and her head drops. The sweeping lids of her eyes, the graceful arch of her neck, the delicacy of her jaw and her high cheekbones, and the exhaustion leaching the color from her skin. White skin, closed eyes, he only needs to close his hands around her neck and clench to match the vision to memory. Transfixed by memory, he is painfully, thrillingly erect. He swallows. "You'll be alright?" She sits up and fresh pain swivels through the soft parts of her head. Clasping her head she sucks in a breath, then glares at him and points at the door. He hesitates. Plastic strands and beads slither and click against one another as Cordelia re-thrusts her finger at the door. "Go! He's a good guy but he's bitten off more than he can chew? Dead soon? Maybe turned?" Brush of cool fingers down her cheek, and he is gone. The apartment door swings shut. Cordelia sinks back into a lying position. The wet water glass hanging midair, nudges the back of her hand. Her many bracelets clatter and whisper down her arm as reaches for the glass. Damp, the pills leave dim coral smears in the palm of her hand. The first goes down without a hitch, the fourth sticks and burns in her esophagus "Thanks Dennis," Cordelia says when she's drained her glass, closing her eyes and raising her tumbler palm up. Dennis takes the glass in his transparent hold. "Wesley!" she exclaims, her eyes opening wide. "Ohmigosh, Wesley!" she cries, jumping off the couch. Loses her balance in pain. Her features screw up. She shakes her head, worsening the discomfort and whimpers. Huffing, her shoulders rising and falling, her legs braced apart, she endures until her pain fades. She gathers her hair into a pony-tail, slides a glittering, red-beaded, elastic band from the wrist of the securing hand, over her looped hair, and cinches her ponytail tight. She lunges for the armoire, pulls out Wesley's crossbow. She opens a drawer, slides her arm through a bandolier of quarrels. Another lunge takes her to the coat tree and where she searches through the pockets of her jackets, stopping when she comes upon her taser. Frowning, she flips on the power. A tiny arc of electricity ZAAKTS! And Cordy smiles as hard and bright as the electric flare and says, "Okay, shoes." She runs to the closet, wrests the door open, drops to her knees. Where she reels, the heels of her hands pressed against her scalp as residual pain throbs in her head. She forces herself to hook out a pair of tennis shoes, and wear them. She looks down at her feet, judges the untied laces as being hazardous for her health, summons her fortitude and kneels, shoving the laces between the interior of the tennis shoes and her feet. "Shoes, check. Keys. Angel took the car!" A basket on the mantelpiece shifts back and forth and the slick settling and resettling of keys is heard. "Motorcycle!" Cordelia hisses. "Dennis, you're a genius!!" Dennis tosses the basket. The keys sail through the air and into Cordelia's outstretched hand. Dennis swings open the front door. Cordelia bounds down the stairs, two, three, four at a time. She stands on the curve, turning her head from left to right, spots Wesley's motorcycle across the street and dashes into traffic, cars honk! Tires squeal. "STUPID BITCH!" is screamed at her but she hops on Wesley's motorbike, pats the front for the ignition. Finds the ignition. The keys slither and turn in her hands as she looks for the proper key, she shoves that key home. Turns it, nothing happens. Shaking the handlebars Cordelia screams wordlessly. Thinks, thinks, thinks - how am I supposed to start this again. Leaning on the handlebars she hops, hops. Kicks the kickstand back and jumps onto one of the silver thingies on the bottom here and - urhrhrhrhrhrhrURGRHHHH – Ignition! Concern for Wesley mutes the triumph that Cordelia feels at the most minor accomplishments. She wears no smile; her eyes smoky with intent as she peers over her shoulder, gauging vehicles’ trajectories. Certain that Wesley wanted to bring her Philly steaks, Cordelia heads east, the sun descending at her back. * Colors, Wes thought in colors, the vanishing colors, changing colors, fading disappearing colors. Blue to brown, gold to nothing, white to gray smears against night sky. A tow-truck, its cab festooned by yellow streamers written with Chinese characters and rosaries, limped along the west-lane of Embury street. Wesley felt the tow truck driver's eyes on him. He continued on his way home. Blue leached out of the sky. Eventually, Wesley was the only person on Embury. Around the edges, the sky was an eggshell brown, smash the egg, let drop the yolk, turn the shell inside out - that brown. Then it was gone - Sundown. Colors, he was thinking in colors, the vanishing colors, changing colors, fading disappearing colors. Blue to brown, gold to nothing, white to gray smears against night sky. Ataxia, when one foot in front of the other literally became another and simple walking became an impossibility when Wesley - seeing that it was almost nightfall - picks up his pace and feels in his pocket for the cellular phone that wasn't there. The edges of his vision grayed and his knees dipped to far down for them to straighten. He flinched at memories. Faith, pretty Faith with the wonderful eyes and aggressive mouth, licking the flat of a blade before applying lighter flame to it. Dancing slashed oval of white within, dancing slashed oval of blue within darker blue. Cordelia's apartment is not so far away. Not so far away at all. He says this aloud, not more than a murmur over his shallow, whispery breaths. The need inside of him, need for air, need to breathe, expands thicker and thicker inside him, he's gasping on the sidewalk, reaching for his glasses that have somehow fallen off his nose. He leans against a beige wall that's partially covered with weathered particle board. Black on red posters advertising open mike night at the Perro Caf‚ descend in staggered diamonds from head height to shoulder level. He really should be getting on. He leans against that wall, forces himself to take a slow breath, and to exhale it slowly. He starts to walk. One foot trips over the other, and Wesley sprawls. Simple ataxia, really, he tells himself. His mouth is dry. Simple ataxia. Tachy-tachy-tacky, tacky, for a Watcher to be out in Los Angeles with nothing more than a wooden crucifix around his neck. Ataxia, it's the drugs, a side effect of the drugs. Faith had snickered that when she boiled his eyes, their whites would split like overcooked eggwhites. Can't unbreak an egg. Can't put the pieces back together again. Angel is . . . Angel is a man who is a demon. What is Angel, exactly? The stuff of darkness who is a warrior of the light? It's dark out. He's out in the dark; alone, on Embury Street. * Angel rides with the top and windows of his convertible up to protect him from the sun. He can see out of his windshield, for all that the sunlight, thin and waning as it is, stabs at him. He doesn’t mind looking at the light, for all that it is hurtful and a little blinding. Crossing the railroad tracks he scents blood on the wind. He hears the feral, mocking, growls of his damned brethren tunneling through the humid air of the night in triumph. Angel’s nostrils flare, but he keeps his mouth shut so he will not taste the tart and musky panic of prey. It’s always so smooth. Too smooth. Even when the blood had cooled and was congealing on his gums. There’s a surge and a thunk as the car accelerates. Tires squealing as he takes a corner too fast, the car fishtails, and Angel’s fingers on the steering wheel begin to flex. He spies a bright yellow tow truck stopped in the middle of the road, four vampires converging upon it as a young man fumbles with the latch of the door. Angel’s predatory gaze gleams yellow and a whirl of shadow troubles the pale expanse of his lowered brow. The fastest of the four vampires reaches the young man just as he opens the door. Angel throws the parking brake of his car. The lead vampire, wielding a stump of stake in his left hand grabs the young man by the back of his denim jacket. The car spins. The lead vampire rams the splintered end of the stake stump it into the young man’s shoulder. Angel grabs crossbow and sword. The prey shrieks. The car spins, swerving towards the stopped tow truck and attacking vampires. The vampire grabs the young man’s forehead and shoulder, wrenching the prey’s head aside, further injuring the shoulder and barring the clarion call of pumping blood running in the thick and flaring jugular of the meat. As the car squeals to a halt, Angel, in game face, leaps from the front seat and over the side of the door. The young man headbutts the vampire restraining him. That vampire growls, releases the young man momentarily. The other two vampires capture the young man, holding him between them. Angel’s coat gusts inkily behind him, his legs fetched to his chest, his arms out stretched. “Behind you!” shouts the fourth vampire, from his position atop the cab of the tow truck. Angel takes aim, looses a crossbow bolt. The lead vampire’s head whirls eyes meet Angel. He bursts into seer motes of dust. The vampire atop the cab jumps to the ground. Raises a gloved hand and repels Angel with a fluttering length of paper painted with Mandarin characters. Angel stops in his tracks. The gloved vampire is panting, his face contorted, his hand trembles. The other two vampires raise the human between them. Pulling at him from opposite ends. “Put down your sword!” commands the vampire holding Angel off with a spirit ward. The vampire itself looks in a bad way. It’s entire body shudders and it’s face convulsives. Blood seeps through the glove and the glove itself is smoking. Angel hefts the mid-size blade. There’s a cunning flash and the sword flares bright as it creases the air, skewers ward and vampire. A sulfurous burst of air accompanies the sound of a vacuum tube exploding and it’s down to Angel, and two vampires playing wishbone with a human. Angel glances from badly dressed vampire to badly dressed vampire. “Don’t come any closer!” cautions the one with the glistening, curly hair. Angel hazards half a step forward anyway and the human’s eyes bulge as both restraining vampires pull him tighter between them. Angel raises both hands, dropping his crossbow. At that moment, the vamps exchange glances. Angel snaps both hands forwards. Two stakes, from housings on his wrists, streak from his sleeves. The jherri curl vamp freezes. The one with the high-top fade pulls on, then releases the human’s arm, flinging both human and his vampire companion towards Angel. The human falls towards Angel, dropping like a sack of rice, first at the knees then, on his face. The jherri curl vamp stands still long enough for Angel to grab his sword and cleave him in two. * Astride the motorcycle, Cordelia roars back and forth, in shorter and shorter distances, zeroing in on a block of rusticated buildings, completely out of place with Embury. She must've walked past here any number of times with friends, but she's not noticed it before - and that's weird. Cause she's from Sunnydale and she knows from weird and evil supernatural weird. She finds Wesley sitting on the ground - the only man on Embury. For a horrible moment, Cordy's sure he's dead. That he's been bit and left for her to find. Because there's no way prissy Wes would sit his ass on the ground like a wino, clutching a sack to his had, staring at nothing. TBC