Everybody Got Their Something
They still played Christmas carols.
It felt wrong but also right. And, heck, in the crazy world that they lived in Cordy thought why the Hell not? One more thing to add to the "then ____ will have won!" cry of defiance that had more or less become like saying "Have a nice day." Two years ago it was terrorists. This year it was the Beast.
Cordy didn't want to know what next year would bring.
She felt like apologizing to everyone she saw. Every person who passed her on the streets, darting out like mice to do things, to cope. Each one trying find a way to be normal in a world that reeked of smoke that you didn't want to identify, or think about, for all that she had tasted this smoke for months now, long before the rain of fire had come down, and probably long after too.
At least the rain had stopped. Which was good, because the experts had busted spreadsheets trying to guess how long Los Angeles, big tinderbox that it was at the best of times, would burn. The latest guesses said months. Maybe even more than a year.
She could have gone to New York, but she wanted to be a movie star.
She wondered if it would have made a difference, all things considered.
She walked the streets, rag clutched uselessly in her hands. She was supposed to cover her mouth with it. Standard survival technique for dealing with smoke inhalation. Connor wetted it down himself and made her take it whenever she went out. She took it to make him happy but she didn't use it.
Everything she knew about religion she got from CBS specials that she'd watched as a kid, and from various conversations with Angel that started out friendly but then took a wrong turn at downright squicky when his big, dorky, now she understood that it was puppy love expression lost a certain light in it that let her be comfortable or delude herself into thinking that if they were the last two people on earth Angel wouldn't gut her like a fish when the bloodlust got too bad.
But she knew a little. And she remembered something about the Christmas story. About how the wise men brought the gifts, and the virgin Mary had taken them into her heart.
Cordy did that now, with the smoke. She breathed it in, taking it - and everyone in it - into herself.
Stupid. Unhealthy. Probably not the brightest thing to do when she was fairly certain the extra demony-goodness had been left behind on the higher plane. But she didn't care.
It was her fault. If she was a higher being she could stop this. But she'd gotten greedy, or pissed somebody off, or just hadn't adhered to whatever dress code they'd had in the lighted planes or something and she'd been thrown down to earth like a discarded comet. And instead of some great reunion with her friends she had this. A city on fire. And no family. Not really. Because Fred and Gunn were Fred and Gunn, and Lorne was just Lorne. But Wes and Angel had been family, freaky as that was, and now they weren't any longer. Wesley was now psycho-boy, and Angel made her skin crawl.
And she hated this. She hated this place. But she stayed in it, because this was her punishment. Or her challenge. And she refused to be beaten by either.
The first order of business was control. She might be human, and poor, and living in a place with no shower but she could be Queen C even still. The Powers could do whatever they wanted. She would still make a palace for herself.
She would still have a prince.
A prince, even if that was Connor. Connor, who she loved, really she did. But as she loved any human, these days. Not because she cared, but because they were real. They were just as miserable and vulnerable as she was. They weren't Beasts, or vampires, or totally evil.
She wondered if Connor knew just how much he could be as creepy as his dad, sometimes.
She wondered, under different circumstances, if she'd have been screwing Wesley. Or even Gunn.
Hell, maybe even Fred.
But this is what life had given her, so she made the best of it. She screwed Connor not because she loved him, but because she liked the kid, and it made him happy, and it was real. Sex she understood. Sex she could cope with. She couldn't cope with fires that could be marked by the change in seasons, or a view from her window that never changed because there was no sunlight to illuminate it.
And her relationship with Connor gave her a life. It was a strange kind of normal. They woke up together, ate breakfast together, planned the day together. Of course the day's planning usually involved figuring out what would need killing, or wondering what new thing they'd need to do to try to stay alive, but it was a routine. It was theirs.
Cordy had decided that they would have that, even if they had nothing else.
Which was why she was outside, with ash raining down on her like snow.
It was Christmas.
She and Connor were going to celebrate.
Not with a tree. Anything flammable was under the international sign for not as far as the city of Angels was concerned. But there could be things. There could be presents, and decorations if somebody was clever enough to Martha Stewart their way through the supplies.
Cordy was ready to make snowflakes out of tin foil if she had to.
It would be good. It would be normal. It would be controlled.
Which would be that part of it handled.
Then there would be the other part. The abnormal.
Abnormal, like detouring from the Safeway in favor of one of the few buildings that wasn't actively on fire, for all that it still showed damage. Abnormal, because she wanted to be here.
Abnormal, because the phrase "better the devil you know" was always supposed to be a metaphor, and not one of those real- life things.
But the funny, clutch you by the neck and throw you down an alleyway humor of the situation was that, hey, at least this was honest.
Cordy liked honest. Honest was more than the world itself had ever given her. Because when she was a kid the world was safe. The sky was blue, the ocean was wet, her hair was immaculate.
Then she hit high school.
She wondered what it was like in the dimensions where the worst thing that happened to you in high school was the head quarterback telling all his buddies he'd scored with you when actually you hadn't given him the time of day.
It had been an odd moment of sisterly bonding, running into Lilah again. They'd met up in the liquor section of the grocery store, taken one look at each other's baskets, and checked out together.
They'd done the tests back at Lilah's place. One positive, one negative.
"Wesley's?" Cordy had asked.
Lilah had given her a dry look. "Because my social calendar is so full now that the world's ending? Let me guess - Little Ricky?"
"Yeah," Cordy had said, sipping her wine.
They'd sat in silence for a while, each of them getting drunk in their own way before the question was asked:
"Are you going to keep it?"
"No," Cordy had replied.
Lilah had mulled that over. "Even though you could be carrying - "
"I know what I could be carrying," Cordy had replied.
For some reason, Lilah had accepted that for an answer. "I know a place. It's busy but I can get you in."
Cordy had looked at her. "Why do you care? Shouldn't you be stealing it for your bosses or something?"
"My bosses," Lilah had said, "were turned into file folders when the building collapsed on top of them. Right now all I give a shit about is survival."
Cordy could drink to that.
And now, weeks later, she was back again. Not for the first time. Not even for this.
They'd done it on her third time over. Her second was the meetup for the doc, who'd been legit, which had surprised her but made sense when she realized that it was Lilah's doctor, and not one of the Wolfram & Hart recommended ones. Lilah had gone with her. For something to do. Or maybe proof that the deed was done, for whatever the information was worth these days. Which was possibly a lot, given all the potentials.
But Cordy didn't like potentials anymore. She liked realities.
Lilah was real. A bitch before, a bitch now. Cordy could respect that.
Which was why she'd visited the third time. And why, during the hours-long conversation about the Wesley-Connor-Angel triad of men in their lives, she hadn't flinched when Lilah had suggested abandoning them all for something safer.
She didn't know if Lilah found her safer, but Cordy at least found Lilah constant. She could want her for that, if nothing else.
Lilah was experienced, Cordy was not, but could learn quickly. Kissing someone else who wore lipstick was interesting. As was finding a pair of boobs squished against your own. Or slipping a hand down and feeling someone else's wetness.
But she'd muddled through.
Now she was better at it. She arrived at Lilah's apartment and made herself at home, going through the preliminaries of conversation like it was nothing, ignoring the signs that said Wesley had been there, not thinking too hard about how this had probably been a near-miss, and just going into the bedroom like it was nothing, like she did this all the time because, well, now she did.
It wasn't kinky sex. At least, no more kinky than the fact that it was two women. Instead it was almost comfortable.
It started out with kissing. Lilah's perfume filled Cordy's nose as their tongues swirled around. Lilah's tongue was smooth, and filled Cordelia's mouth. Cordy didn't know how her tongue felt to Lilah.
After a while there would be a little itch. Lilah always knew when Cordy started to feel it, but lately Cordy was getting good at distracting her before she could be smug. Lilah liked having her nipples played with. One good, hard pinch and she would gasp, eyeshadowed eyes closing as her dark red mouth formed a perfect O.
Cordy had her then.
All she had to do was keep up the nipple play. Pinching, twisting, pulling - it got Lilah's back on the bed, her hands dancing up towards the headboard as her hips shifted and humped the air.
Cordy learned to tease. To start out working through Lilah's clothes. She would suck and bite through satin Versace shirts and lace La Perla bras and make Lilah squirm.
Then it was a game. Sometimes Cordy would be sitting up on her hands and knees, head bent down as she sucked on Lilah's tits, and Lilah would worm her leg between Cordy's, lift it up, and press against Cordy just so.
Which wasn't fair. Because then there was friction, and it was so easy to lean back, roll her hips, and feel Lilah's leg pressing the seam of Cordy's pants right into her clit and oh, oh, oh. Cordy could loose herself on this. Give up the pretense of thinking and just hump Lilah's leg until she came.
Lilah teased back, though. She knew how to modify the rhythm, or move away so that Cordy would have to deliberately shift her position to get more which would mean admitting she liked it, if only through body language.
And Lilah wasn't the only one with sensitive boobs. On hands and knees like this, her breasts hanging down and carefully contained in a lace bra of her own, Cordy was especially sensitive. Lilah's well-manicured hands cupped and squeezed expertly, and didn't even ask as she pulled Cordy's shirt and bra up - not taking them off, just exposing her.
Lilah's mouth was warm.
It was Cordy's turn to hump air as Lilah's hot, wet tongue licked her tits. Cordy bit her lip, trying not to cry out as she squirmed, making high pitched-gasps as Lilah traded tongue for teeth.
A hand got between Cordy's legs, and a single finger rubbed the soaking wet seam.
Cordy moaned, finally asking, "Please." Lilah undid Cordy's belt and fly, and slipped her hand under Cordy's pants and underwear to stroke her properly.
Cordy's clit felt like a diamond. Lilah's hand couldn't get close enough.
Except - yes. A finger slid inside of her easily in spite of the long nails and it, and the rest of Lilah's hand, started to make circling motions that would have soaked a nun.
"You're warm today," Lilah observed.
"Please," Cordy gasped.
She was rewarded with another finger. It was strange - nowhere near as thick or filling as fucking Connor, or Groo, or anything else that had a dick, but still, it felt good. Maybe because it was cool and thin and different. Cordy didn't know. She just knew she liked it.
She bent down at last, undoing Lilah's shirt but leaving her bra in place as she sucked and licked Lilah's nipples, knowing the lace added an extra bit of friction that Lilah liked. They kept at it, trying to see who would break first.
Finally Lilah put her free hand on Cordy's shoulder and pushed her lower.
This was weird. This, more than anything else, brought that invisible specter of Wesley back into the room. But Cordy ignored it, reminding herself that in another time and place it would've been Lilah's job to worry about Wes on her. She could deal.
Lilah wore thigh-highs. Cordy left those on as she fluttered her palm over sopping wet panties. Lilah spread her legs, arching upwards. Cordy took advantage of this as she pulled the panties off.
Then she swallowed, because she still wasn't used to this.
But she could do it, even though it was the one thing that obliterated any ability to deny that this was nothing but mutual masturbation. As so many guys had crudely joked when they thought she and any other girls couldn't hear - if you licked carpet, you were a dyke.
On the other hand, who gave a shit?
She brushed her lips over Lilah's cunt, wetting them to get that hurdle out of the way. She shifted her position, moving so that Lilah could keep rubbing her in that insanely good way. Then she traded lips for tongue, fluttering it over Lilah's clit until Lilah was as hot and wet as she was.
She started sliding her own fingers in, making it to three before she felt Lilah start to get vise-tight.
"Do you wanna - ?" Cordy asked.
"What do you think?" Lilah replied.
Cordy pumped her fingers in and out, kissing and sucking Lilah's clit until Lilah bucked and squirmed and spasmed around her.
"Not bad," Lilah told her, which Cordy figured was another way of saying Lilah had had worse, but also better.
It didn't matter, though, because once Lilah was relaxed she devoted more attention to Cordy. She pulled her back up to lick and bite Cordy's nipples as her hand jiggled in Cordy's pants, getting her hot but not letting her go over until Cordy finally gave in and rocked and writhed, seeking out the friction she needed until she gasped and twitched and came.
They lay together in the humid silence as their bodies recovered.
Cordy noticed the clock, thought about when the stores would be closing, fixed her clothes and let herself out.
She'd be back.
It was the only constant thing she had.