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[unflagging]

[Herein shall there be PSLs and goings-on.

Please exercise caution if you so choose to read this. Flagg being Flagg, I cannot guarantee everything that goes on here will be safe for work or even safe for life.]

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[advancedbosoms]

"You weren't asking all that nicely," she pointed out.

"And more to the point, Bubba," Cordy paused there, debating the use of the word. He wasn't much of a Bubba. It sort of felt like calling Mussolini kiddo, but too late now. "More to the point, you threatened to leave me a blind stump. If you want information, you shouldn't have given me a reason to hold onto it."

[unflagging]

Now he really threw back his head and laughed, like a wolf howling, like he was just overjoyed with mirth and delight, more of that gusty joy far too wild to be sane.

"But," he said, still laughing, "I think you'd make a really lovely blind stump!"

[advancedbosoms]

The threats hadn't really scared her. She'd heard worse.

The kidnapping hadn't scared her. It had mostly pissed her off.

Even the being-pushed-against-the-door hadn't scared her. She was used to having physical harm made against her and a little brute force wasn't enough to even annoy her anymore.

The laughter made her understood where the term blood ran cold came from. He really was completely--

Other.

"Thanks," she finally managed. "But no thanks."

[unflagging]

He calmed to a giggle, but his words still came out jumpy and giddy with laughter themselves.

"All right, all right. No stumps. Not for the time being anyway." The laughter welled up again, then passed as much as it would. "Oh, but what I wouldn't give to draw out that power of yours and see it for myself--no, not in another demonstration, dear heart, not for the world. But I would love to pull it out and take it apart and take it, well, to heart myself. It seems a pretty thing."

[advancedbosoms]

Good.

Truth be told, she wasn't sure she could give another demonstration.

Suddenly more tired than she could explain, Cordy slumped against the door, falling down with her kneels curled up against her chest, breathing out a slow, quiet sigh, surprised by how much air she had been holding in.

"What if I had picked you over Bert?" she asked. "Then what? Play with me and kill me when you're bored?"

[unflagging]

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."

[advancedbosoms]

"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."

[unflagging]

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."

[advancedbosoms]

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?"

[unflagging]

His smile turned sharp now.

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

[advancedbosoms]

"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.

[unflagging]

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."

[advancedbosoms]

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."

[unflagging]

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?"

[advancedbosoms]

"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."

[unflagging]

"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.

[advancedbosoms]

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?"

[unflagging]

"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.

[advancedbosoms]

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?"

[unflagging]

"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.

[advancedbosoms]

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."

[unflagging]

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."

[advancedbosoms]

"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."

[unflagging]

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."

[advancedbosoms]

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."