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He crouched--hunkered, really, squatting there on his heels as he was wont to do, really--before her, considering her, regarding her.

"I don't know," he answered, still smiling a little. "If you'd chosen me, well, I wonder if I would have seen that neat little trick of yours. I might have toyed with you, knowing that there were more and others who wanted you. It would have been amusing to keep you out of his hands when he wanted you. That was some of the fun then, in those innocent days."

A veritable tangle of limbs now, he leaned his chin on his hand.

"He's spoiled it all, really, by telling you all these things, about who and what I am. He's right about them all. But so it goes. It was by my hand that he told, by my hand pulling on his strings as one pulls on the strings of a harp."

His smile turned wistful, charming, almost romantic.

"I wish you had chosen me. I think it would have been a delight. For however long it lasted. Perhaps the truth would have come out anyway. But it would have been a delight until then."

"I almost did. I would have, I think, if the whole--"

She gestured, index finger outlining some shape in the air that was supposed to represent a pregnant woman.

"Up until then, I kept thinking something was going to happen with us."

Divine intervention, she thought. But best to keep this up. He had emotions, right? Maybe not the same way other people did, but he had them. Maybe playing on them would be her best bet.

"I liked you."

A faint sigh.

"I kept thinking the same. That maybe something would happen. But here I was chased away yet again."

He crouched, considering her face again.

"I liked you too. I still do."

Well, fuck.

Now what?

How did you respond to a totally powerful psychopath-slash-sociopath-slash-everyotherpath who had stolen you away, threatened to disfigure you, and then was reminiscing about what might have been?

You tried to milk it and hoped to get out, she supposed.

"Do you knock out all the girls you like and toss them into hidden rooms?" she asked, all coyness and lashes, "Or am I just special?"

His smile turned sharp now.

"Count yourself special," he said, and nothing further.

"I always have."

She watched him levelly, eyebrows raised in something close to a challenge, even if she hadn't meant for that.

Well, she had never been a very good actress; and too good at wearing her heart on her sleeve. Oh, you tease was what she was going for.

Your move, asshole is what really showed.

Now he sighed again. "You're really not going to tell me, are you? Here we are, crouched alone, you and I, like two equals at a campfire, and you still won't breathe a word."

Like was the key word there.

They were sitting here, not as two equals, but like it. She wasn't sure who this man's equal would really be. That Holocause Nazi doctor with the twin fascination, maybe combined with Voldemort, with a pinch of Stalin thrown in for good measure.

"I breathe lots of words, if you want to ask me something else."

Plus Saruman. Actually, more like plus the Witch-king of Angmar. Although that's a difficult call, given the origins of Saruman versus the position of the Witch-King relative to Sauron (who comes complete with tower and red eye, oh funny things).

"Breathe an answer then: your world. What was it like?"

"Normal, for most of my life."

This, she could talk about. If they were talking, he wasn't hurting her, and this information didn't give him any sort of upper hand.

"Well, I guess that's not true. I grew up on a hellmouth, so you always heard about a lot of weird things. But you turned away, you ignored it, you made excuses for the girls found drained of blood. But then, my sophomore year of high school, this annoyingly perfect blond vampire slayer transferred to our school and I began experiencing it all first hand. Vampires, demons, werewolves, witches, curses, apocalypses, blah blah blah."

"Vampires, demons, werewolves, witches, curses, apocalypses, blah blah blah. Oh, sure. I know about that stuff. But that does rather tell me what I wanted to know, you know. I know, I know: surprise, surprise. I was just waiting to see where the truth would poke its head out."

Although what's unspoken is his quietly percolating idea that perhaps her aforementioned "hellmouth" might be less a mouth and more a door. Given the litany of beasties, it seemed entirely plausible. What a thought.

It didn't tell him anything. It didn't tell him what she was or how she'd become this way, what other skills she had and who had given her these powers and for what.

It taught him the words, but not the story.

"Well, then, you got what you wanted. What now?"

"I dunno," and he shrugged and looked around the room. "Maybe I ought to let you go. I don't usually do that, you know. Not unless I have very good reason."

Of course, there was a difference between letting someone go and releasing them from a locked room. A vast difference.

Cordelia felt a stirring of hope. Yes, good, letting her out himself. That would be the easiest way to get out of here.

She could leave, take Bert, convince the Nysgods they weren't safe here and that the two of them needed to leave. They could get away somewhere safe.

"And what," she said slowly, careful to keep the sudden excitement out of her voice, "Would be a very good reason?"

"If you were no longer of any use to me here, but it wouldn't do to have to you dead. That would be a very good reason."

He stood up, looming over her.

"That boy of yours is after me enough. I'd rather not spur him on with your mutilated corpse."

Not yet, at least. And if half that pair of lovebirds vanished, the other half would be left for the taking. It worked out any which way.

She looked up at him, craning her neck, tempted to look away or beg or bang on the door again, but too stubborn to do anything but look him on the eye, chin up.

"I can do things," Cordy said. "If you'll let me go, I could agree to all sorts of depravities."

He stopped, he paused. He leaned down closer to her and set his hands flat against the door.

"Are you offering? Are you claiming that you're bargaining for your freedom?"

Another pause, as he considers her again.

"And here I was, up to this point, prepared to let you go immediately."

"No you weren't. Spurring Bert on with my mangled corpse and letting me go aren't the same."

Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe. She didn't buy it. He would have teased and maybed and hemmed and hawed and then have changed his mind. It was what people like him did.

"But if you want to let me go, if you want to release me out of the goodness of your heart, go ahead. Open the door."

He slid back down to the floor with her, since she seemed disinclined to stand. No matter. He hummed a little to himself, tunelessly, the sound of thought. He looked at her, askance, sidelong, and smiling.

"Here's a fun game:" a pause, a beat. "Kiss me. Kiss me and I don't care if it's out of the goodness of your heart or not, but do it with both of us firm in the knowledge that you'll carry it back to him like one might carry a fire nestled in a horn, and then I'll unlock this door."

Enough for her.

She supposed she should have felt guiltier, or at least more disturbed. But she wasn't horrified, wasn't disgusted, wasn't anything but eager to get herself away and free.

All right. If she was going to kiss him, she'd kiss him, so no complaints could be made that she had half assed it or hadn't done a good enough job. Cordelia scooted closer, raising herself up onto her knees and closer, closer, until she could wrap her arms around his neck, twine her fingers into his hair, eyes on his.

"All right." And she leaned in, close enough that she could kiss him without even having to stretch her neck. "But promise me, first. Swear, on whatever it is that's sacred to you."

Perfect. Splendid. She seemed so willing, so content to play along. Yes, it was a gamble (or a gambit?) on her part just to get out, to slip away, to escape--such as she could. But she seemed so suddenly willing, so suddenly delighted by this arrangement. He smiled at her, smiling even to the light dancing in his eyes.

"There's nothing sacred to me. Important...perhaps." He slipped his arms around her waist. "But sacred? No." He drew closer. "So I'll swear..." and closer still "...on you."

And he held still then. She was to kiss him, and not the other way around, and that was the word of it, and he would have her hold to it.

"I swear. I swear on you, on your hair and your eyes, on your lips and your neck, on your skin and your hands, on your back, on your tongue, that I will let you go after this one act."

And he waited.

She kissed him.

Fingers in his hair, drawing him close, drawing closer herself, until their chests pressed together and noses bumped and she turned her head so her lips were on his.

Cordelia closed her eyes.

Soft, at first, lips on his and pressing down--but a moment later, those lips parted, yielding and warm, still tasting faintly of the honeyed, spiced red wine she had sipped earlier.

Edited (Because sometimes my writing is pretty terrible) 2013-05-14 17:10 (UTC)

In another time, another place, another situation, another set of circumstances, he could have slipped her any number of poisons now--by her own mouth, through her skin. He could have magicked up any number of traps or torments for her to rise up and catch her even now. He could have thrown her against the floor and either taken her or shattered her skull or both, as it pleased him. He could still.

But she was soft--soft, soft. All curves and sweet tastes. Red wine and red lips. Salt sweat and bitter fear and anxiety and panic and anger and sweet wine. He held her a little tighter. She was soft--soft, soft.

And she had given her word and she had kept her half of the bargain. Brave girl. Clever girl. Maybe he'd even keep his half of it.

Maybe.

He kept the kiss longer than one might have wanted it (longer than she might have wanted it? that's up to her, of course). But, not without a parting glance, he nipped at her lip. And now smiled again.

"There. And because you were a good girl and did what I asked--" he brought his left hand, open, between them "--I'll keep my promise too."

He smiled again, wider this time. He closed his empty hand, opened it again, and suddenly the key lay in his palm. (Sleight of hand, a conjuror's trick, scarcely different from the little magic show he'd put on for Lloyd back in the day--and that was a locked door too, wasn't it?)

"Off you go. Fly away, dove."

She was still waiting for her heartbeat to still when he offered up the key.

What was that? She despised him. Completely and utterly, no question there. And she wasn't the sort to believe that everyone had a kind, warm, gooey center. The world wasn't made of hearts of gold with steel casings. There were bad, bad people and he was one of them.

Brief lapses of humanity, that was all you could hope to get. Moments of kindness between all the instances of cruelty.

She hated him. But, and she couldn't begin to explain why, Cordelia kissed him again. She reached out, she took the key in her hands, and she kissed the horrible, terrible, really genuinely godawful man a second time, eyes open this time and hand still on the key.

It was unexpected, but not unwelcome. He answered in kind, warmly (warmly as he could, at least). And this time he let one hand slip across her face and over her ear to twine in her hair. His other hand closed over hers, the hand that held the key.

Again, he let it linger and again, when he broke away, he smiled. Broke away, yes, but didn't pull away entirely.

"Now," he whispered almost against her ear, "What brought that on?"

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