❝CORDELIA CHASE…❞ she studies the woman who she understood to be ascended as a higher being. ❝Winifred’s faint memories of you are ECHOING from the walls of my head. I sensed a FRIENDSHIP between the two of you.❞
Even though she’s seen this – god, demon, whatever the hell this parasite invading her friend’s body is – before, it’s different like this. Mourning the loss of Fred from above had always been an abstraction, but from here? The cold blue pervading where warm, familiar brown once had settled is beyond OVERWHELMING. “Yeah, well – you wouldn’t know much about the feeling, would you?”
okay, i’m getting to the point where even reading is tiring, let alone writing, so i think it’s time for me to turn in for the night. i’m so glad to be back here actively, though, and thanks so much to everyone who wrote with, talked to, or honestly just did anything with me today! i appreciate all of you so fucking much, no lie <3
Send ‘😴’ for my muse to fall asleep in your muse’s bed.
It had been a LONG day for Cordelia Chase. Between barely getting any sleep the night before, having her mind and body torn apart by the vision from HELL, and being left alone on baby duty for the day ( a job she rarely ever minds, but it would be a hell of a lot easier to do if every muscle in her body didn’t ACHE, and she could keep her eyes open for more than a minute at a time ), it doesn’t take long at all for exhaustion to sink in. Even the mere idea of trying to make it back to her own apartment is far too much right now – and besides, she knows Angel willtotally freak if he came back to an empty hotel – so it’s not long before Cordelia finds herself curled up in the center of Angel’s bed, body forming a protective shield around the baby beside her.
( And really, it’s no surprise at all that she’s already out like a light mere minutes later. )
“Dunno, Queen C, but I’m willin’ to bet it’s a problem,” Safe. Snug as a bug in a rug, yo. Safest Slayer there ever was– she might, in fact, be hella more protective than B, honest to god, hand to heart, but it’s not really her fault. She’s the hero type deep down. Nobody’s ever bothered to look. “Wouldn’t figure it a good idea to take it on if I don’t know, either. Angel’s probably got a little more knowledge to drop on it, before I hurl myself.”
There’s a weird, unconscious need to be careful when she reaches up and takes the hand against her shoulder, squeezes it softly. She thinks the thing doesn’t see them– she thinks it might be motion-based– won’t see until they move. “Hate to be pushy, but I’m def faster’n you. I’m the Flash. Gotta problem with me pickin’ you up, gettin’ you outta here?” Voice calm, lower, “Don’t wanna leave you in the dust. Just don’t wanna freak you out. Cool?”
Cordelia hadn’t expected the Slayer’s proposal to be to run, not to fight, but if that means getting out of here? There’s no way she’ll complain. “If it means I don’t have to end up being THAT thing’s dinner? You can carry me all the way back to Sunnydale for all I care.” she answers, the words a more colorful echo of her thoughts just moments before – though her voice is just a little too high, slender fingers tightening around black-polished ones. Not that she’s slow by any means – years of cheerleading, gymnastics, and running for her life from the big, the bad, and the UGLY weren’t for nothing, after all – but Cordelia would be a complete idiotif she thought she could outrun pretty much anything, or anyone, of the ‘unknown supernatural’ variety without a little help.
For once, Cordelia has no sharp-tongued rebuke to offer as she’s shoved behind the other girl, stumbling backward in heel-clad feet. She loathes to admit it, but even after everything with Angel and Wesley,even after Faith has gone ROGUE far too many times for her to try and count, there’s still something that feels unnervingly safe about the Slayer. Especially now that she’s shielding Cordelia from… whatever the hell that slimy, growly, AWFUL thing before them is.
But instead of acknowledging this, Cordelia Chase does what every Sunnydale expat does best: Denial. She ignores the way Faith’s arm is thrown up before her as if that alone can keep her out of harm’s way. She pretends it doesn’t matter that the girl who once had absolutely no qualms about ( literally ) knocking Cordelia out of the way to get what she wanted is now potentially risking her life for her. Instead, she simply allows her face to scrunch up in DISGUST, a hand on the smaller girl’s shoulder her only show of gratitude as she loudly proclaims, “No problem there; because, ew, what the hell is that thing?”
