Cordelia Chase paused, halfway up the stairway, to catch her breath and to resume the tirade which, intermittently, had been going on ever since the demons had popped up at her audition.
Below, at the door, Willow Rosenberg finished brushing the dust, and put the badger-hair brush back in her bag. She touched the lock and hinges briefly (and slightly trickily, since she had to slip her sandal off to do the lower hinge all at the same time), and muttered the incantation. Rust formed, thickly, chestnut-coloured, and Willow smiled with modest satisfaction. Even a demon might have problems getting past that. Then she took a deep breath and prepared to immerse herself once more into the tormented maelstrom that was Cordelia.
"I mean, if a girl can't have one day -- !"
"Cordy - it's time to move on," Willow said.
"Move On ! If anyone should be - "
Suddenly, as the door resounded to thumpings, it occurred to her that what the little red-chaired witch meant was moving to get further away from the pursuing demons.
"Oh ! Right !"
They climbed two storeys (just in case the demons thought to jump to a window) and then started along the spine of the building. Wendel-Zhamer was only a small production company, but Norm Wendel had a background in warehousing, so their offices were on a lot full of old offices which were being taken over to be storage facilities.
"Where are we going ?" Cordelia asked, when they came to the narrow walkway to the next building.
"Over there, I guess," Willow replied.
"Mightn't they . well, see us ?"
Willow looked round, then threw a set of grimy coveralls to her friend.
"You're joking, aren't you ?" Cordelia asked, sharply. Then she remembered Sunnydale High and that Willow was one of the least jokey people she'd ever. "You're not, are you ? You expect me to - "
"Cordelia - if it's that, or be demon-food . "
"Okay - okay - donning the sackcloth of shame," Cordelia said, and proceeded to do so.
Willow was far less concerned with how she looked, and even if her set of coveralls were too long in arms and legs, she simply rolled them up. Coming to the coast had seemed a good idea - none of the Scoobs had seen Cordy in far too long and it was a chance to re-establish what warmth the two of them had been developing before Cordy had caught Willow smooching with Xander Harris. And she hadn't been too surprised, when she'd got to Angel Investigations, to find that Cordelia's invitation had ulterior motives.
Fixing the firm's IT so that it could cope with the super-high-speed comms set-up that one client had brushed off on them instead of a fee had only taken half the time Cordelia had thought it would, and Willow had endured the shopping frenzy Cordy had inflicted on her as "reward" for her speed.
Accompanying Cordy to the audition at Werner-Zhamer had not been high on Willow's list of anticipated joys, but she was willing to go through with it, in return for a trip to the fun fair. The demons had simply been a bonus of the sort that Willow had become increasingly used to, after she'd found out what really went on behind the bright lights of suburban California.
"So, do we run or -- ?"
"You're a workman," Willow told her: "Or you're dressed like one. So act like one. Just stroll across." As an afterthought she pulled out her brush again, and a little pot of a different powder (fairy blue, with silver sprinkles), and dabbed some on the walkway.
Inevitably Cordelia overdid it, and one of the demons spotted them.
"Keep going !" Willow said, spilling a little more of the powder onto the middle of the walkway. Then, when they'd got to the far side, she had Cordelia wait.
"Open your overall a bit," she urged. "Let them see it's you, underneath."
"Let who ?" Cordelia asked, and then wished she hadn't. The demon (she had a few seconds now to look at it properly, framed in the farther doorway) was greyish-brown, and had long claws. It was also short, with a pot belly.
The demon saw the woman it had been ordered to kidnap and paused. It had never liked walking across narrow bridgey things.
Of course, it could just stand there, and block the way back. Then the others, who would now be rushing into the building she was in, would be able to capture her.
Which would mean that he would not get the credit for the capture. So perhaps, since there were handrails .
It poised itself and then started forward . only to look down and see that the walkway stopped, dead. Unable to do that (scaly skin and clawed feet unused to metal), it plummeted down, to meet the unyielding concrete.
Willow peeped round the side of the door.
"Good - they've all gone to chase us. Come on."
Cordelia was gazing at the walkway. She had just seen the demon go headlong over the side, almost as if he had thrust himself forward and down headfirst.
"And keep your eyes on me - don't look at your feet."
Willow seemed blithely unaware of danger and her voice had more than a hint of resolve, and Cordelia obeyed her as much from self-preservation and confidence.
"Okay," Willow said: "Come on - we'll hide for half-an-hour or so; by then they'll have gone."
She led the way back the way they had come, until she suddenly turned into a room full of rungs and curtains and other fabrics.
"Here," she said: "This looks comfy."
She glanced round.
"We can probably get rid of the coveralls, as well."
Cordelia unfastened hers, and winced at the ruin it had made of her dress. She wouldn't be wearing that for an audition again . unless Willow's magic stretched to instantaneous resurrections, of course .
She turned, and the breath stopped in her throat. Willow must have slipped her good clothes off before she'd put her overall on - she was standing, in pale green bra and panties (which set off her chestnut hair very well), folding the coveralls up. Even to Cordelia, she looked . magical.
"God, Willow, you look . "
And Willow grinned.
Then they heard voices. Willow put a finger to her lips. Both stood rock-still, silent as doves.
"Look at that - they can't have gone back across it - Drogvar must have done it, to stop them cutting back. All right - Vulkrow is at the far door - they have to be in here, somewhere."
The voices went away.
Cordelia looked at Willow, who beckoned her over, so that they could speak without risking being heard.
"I magicked the bridge thing - that's why you couldn't look down. It looks like most of it is missing. So obviously, since they saw us get across it, the damage must have happened later, and we must still be in the other building."
"But when they can't find us there, won't they come looking here ?"
Willow shook her head: "You being too clever for them. These aren't bright demons - they're just like hunting dogs. And after a while they'll have to go back where they came from - they can only exist on our plane for so long, especially in daylight."
She thought for a moment.
"But we should probably not risk going out for a while."
"So what are we going to do ?"
"We'll think of something," Willow replied, sitting down (or, rather, lounging) on a pile of old curtain fabric. It rustled, and for some reason a thread of - of something that wasn't fear - flickered in Cordelia's stomach.
"Duh," she said, on reflex, and plucked at her ruined blouse. The pants might be salvageable, for spring-cleaning, which was a bitch because they'd only been worn a time or two and .
Suddenly she fell down beside Willow.
"That's better," Willow murmured, letting go of Cordy's sleeve. She waited a second, then picked up Cordelia's hand. "Now . "
"Ow ! Strange much !"
The delicate nibblett on Cordy's pointed finger had been a shock. It had also sent sensations right up her arm, across her shoulders, down her chest (including a very disconcerting diversion through the very ends of her nipples, which now tingled like crazy, but she didn't dare rub them) and then down her torso ending up somewhere even more disconcerting that it also wouldn't be appropriate to rub.
Willow smiled, secretly, and brushed her fingers over the back of Cordelia's hand. The involuntary shiver the ex-Princess of Sunnydale High gave excited Willow a little. Then, she had been the class nerd, in drab clothes, butt of jokes and sneers. Now (through no-one's fault) Cordy had lost her status, had elected to lose Xander, and hadn't exactly triumphed in L.A. While Willow was computer research girl for the Watcher, French-kissing-cousin (and more) to Buffy and Tara (and, possibly, if things worked out, Anya too) and was nearly ready to start teaching college classes rather than just taking them. Moderation in all things was good, but turnabout was fairly good, too.
"Come on," she said; "You can't sit in those overalls all day." And she started briskly to uncocoon Cordelia.
"Mind the - " The blouse was ruined, anyway, but the little nibbly-suck Willow had given her finger again had also caught the sentence short.
Then a thread parted and a button rolled away. She'd worn her best underwear for the audition - dressing up like that gave her confidence - and the sheer bra (which, it just so happened, did a little more to expose her bosom than to swathe it) peeped out through the suddenly deepened cleavage of her blouse.
Willow said nothing, but her fingers trailed along the exposed skin as she pretended to pat the blouse back into place.
"Shoes," she said, and whipped them off Cordelia's feet. Then she went back, gently, to rub those feet, drawing a sigh from Cordelia.
"What are you doing, Willow ?2
"Sshh." Deftly she unfastened the waistband of Cordelia's slacks. "There - less chance of indigestion like that."
"I haven't eaten - "
"Oh. Here."
With no hesitation, almost as though Cordelia's comment had been expected and prepared for, Willow slipped Cordy the lip.
"There - should be slightly honey-flavoured, if the sunscreen hasn't worn off." And Willow licked her lips. Right in front of Cordy. That thread of something not fear sparked to life again, and Cordy licked her own lips reflexively.
Willow snagged two cushions out of the pile of fabrics, and deployed them appropriately. Then, when Cordy had just relaxed again, Willow mischievously pounced at her, toppling her into the cushions.
"What -- !"
This time the kissage was open-mouth, and fervent. Cordy took a moment to register it. A moment too long, since in that moment Willow had (somehow) flicked her blouse completely open, and was kissing her belly below her bra. Then, when Cordy tried to struggle upright again, Willow moved to the top slopes of her breasts, exposed white beneath the darker fabric, and her hands softly caressed Cordy's already-half-erect nipples. The electricity went straight to her brain, and also southwards, towards where the tingling was getting more insistent.
Then Willow went frankly for the body-to-body hug and snuggle and Cordy's senses started to overload. For one thing it had been so long, for another the release of tension from running from the demons had made her susceptible to unexpected kindness (or so she told herself).
A moment later she was kissing Willow back, and running her hands up and down the length of her back as well.
"What are you doing to me ?"
"What I want," Willow said. "Kneel up."
Cordy obeyed, and Willow smartly took her slacks down to knee-height.
"Lose them," Willow commanded, toppling Cordy back onto the cushions again, and running her tongue round an ear, across to Cordy's lips, down over her chin, across her chest and straight to the edge of the bra. Somehow Cordelia managed to obey the instruction, working most way to blind, and was rewarded by having her breasts scooped together and then the front clasp of her bra popped, so that her lovely bosom sprang free and into Willow's waiting hands.
This time the assault on her nipples was a little rougher, but that just fuelled the rising tide of raw emotion that was flooding what little Cordy had of good girl-scout sense.
"God, Willow - "
"Goddess, please - but I know what you mean. They're lovely: you oughtn't to hide them so."
Then Willow's knee slipped up between Cordelia's legs and applied some subtle pressure, and the sensation of having her breasts caressed was overtaken by another driving urgency.
"Are you ready for this ?"
Cordelia was apparently expected to answer the question. Somehow she managed to get words out, but they had less to do with the question, and more to do .
"What about your clothes ?"
"Would you like to take them off me ?"
It was a little like Christmas (a hackneyed cliche, but, Cordelia had to admit, true). Any sense of time and place were gone - this was a Here and Now where Passion and Desire existed as almost tangible forces, and where a beautiful young woman was offering her the chance to undress her and, implicitly, do more.
She unclasped Willow's bra and worshipped, with eye and hand and tongue, the perfect breasts that were revealed. They lay together naked but for final scraps of fabric, and rubbed their bodies against each other. They savoured the sensations, and sensed the rise in subtle sensual tension that was being engendered. They caressed careless of proprieties, for no-one was there to see them, and when, at length, they stripped each other of the little (and somewhat damp) items of clothing that were all they had left to doff, they did so by mutual consent and with the knowledge that the Time was Right and all was Permitted them just now.
Things wrapped round each other, heated cores were pressed and rubbed gently. Natural secretions naturally secreted and friction was washed away in favour of slippery slidey sweetness. They kissed, their tongues explored; their hands roved and their fingers gently but insistently probed. All was well and they moved on, slightly faster, slightly more urgently. Breaths and heartbeats accelerated, but it was all part of the pattern. It was what they wanted. They entangled, they wrestled (in the friendliest of ways), they caressed and they tempted. Briefly Cordelia had to pause, to allow sensation to sweep through her. Then she found that Willow hadn't bothered to wait but was already trying to stoke the fire again. Cordy wanted a moment's rest, and found the best way to get it seemed to be to do to Willow what Willow was trying to do to her. Somehow she made the effort, and it was Willow for whom earth and sky, heaven and oblivion, briefly met and collided.
But, like salted peanuts, one was never going to be enough. Somewhere, in the back of Cordelia's mind, a phrase (from PBS, perhaps) came to mind: "I've started, so I'll finish". Well, they had started, but, really and truly, she didn't care if they never finished.
Well, not while she didn't know if she'd passed the audition - and perhaps not even then.
And, yes, Willow did taste a little like honey - also champagne, salt, cream and a delicate fruity flavour Cordy couldn't quite place. Not, frankly, that she had much time to think it over, over the next several hours.
The demons evaporated eventually, fruitless in their search. Two were eaten by their Dark Master and the others were sent to work in very dark places.
The angels, on the other hand, thoroughly approved of love, especially when it was shared so selflessly
And the Goddess smiled at her children and blessed their union, for She knew from whence it had come, and, more importantly, where it would lead.