Author: Angel, the part time Succubus (Angelia Sparrow)

Email: valarltd@hotmail.com

Rating: PG-13, inappropriate touching.

Spoilers: Graduation Day 2, pretty minor.

Summary: Cordelia Wesley make up in the hospital.  Some
m/m mentioned in passing
(Giles/Wesley, Wesley/Oz).Some BDSM, minor.

Disclaimer: The usual. Not my characters, not my world.
They belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant
enemy and WB. I don't own anything, except my
Mississippi Gaming Badge.  Staidol is an
actual drug, I don't know who makes it.  But the
hallucinations it gives are swell... And "Double
the Milk shake" comes from _What to eat when you're
expecting_: 1 frozen banana, 1 c. milk
1/3 c. powdered milk, 1 tsp vanilla.  Run in blender on
high.

Distribution: Yes, please.  USCL archive of course,
anyone else that wants it.

Feedback: Will eat haggis for feedback.
 

Goddess dreams

Wesley Wyndham-Price awoke to pain.  This had been a
way of life for almost a week now.  The pale green
hospital walls came into focus, then the traction
machinery, looking like a medieval torture engine, that
held his trampled, fractured bones so they could heal.
He had hated it from the moment he awoke from the
anesthetic and seen it looming over him.  There had
been nightmares where it devoured him in its metal maw.

The Watcher Council had paid all the bills, private
room, and all.  Mr. Giles came daily to see him,
bringing good tea, scones and strawberry jam.  He also
insisted Wesley drink a full 16 oz glass of orange
juice before he got any tea.  The vitamin C would help
him heal faster.  He credited tea time far more.  Not
only was it a break from hospital food, it was good to
know someone cared.

His neck cast itched where the 4 vertebrae had been
broken.  His left arm and both legs were suspended by
the machine.  The pain was ridiculous.  Who would have
thought a few broken bones could hurt so much?  He
would heal, American doctors were the best in the
world.  And the visitors had helped.

Buffy had come twice.  Once to apologize, and once to
visit.  He had impressed her with his true desire to
help, even at the cost of his own bones.  She was glum.
Angelus had left her, fickle creature of the night he
was, and her own inner sun seemed to have gone out.
Both times she had brought a thermos with a sludge her
mother had sent.  It was banana flavored, and she
called it a "Double the milk shake."  She was as bad as
the nurses who insisted he drink the miniature carton
of milk that came with every meal, and the two they
brought him in between.  And she had threatened to come
again tomorrow.

Xander and Willow had come once.  The stay had been
awkward, but he had been touched by the fact they came,
and even more touched they brought gifts.  He hadn't
the heart to tell Willow he loathed Eliot's poetry, or
Xander he was allergic to chocolate.  He used the
chocolate bars to bribe a nurse to keep him posted on
Faith's condition.  Mr Giles kept him well stocked on
reading material, having learned of his vice for Agatha
Christie.  And the hospital had satellite, so he had
BBC America, even if it was 15 year old sitcoms.

But one person had not come.  Cordelia.  He thought of
her with longing.  Even remembering their disastrous
kiss, he desired her.  He wanted to show her he did
know how to kiss and demonstrate it all over her body.
She stalked his dreams, a sensual queen of hearts in a
Wonderland where miniature milk cartons chased him
screaming "Drink me!" and thermoses of sludge and
tumblers of orange juice swelled to gargantuan size and
threatened to drown him.  More than once she had
rescued him from a hail of scones and strawberry jam.
After two nights of this, he had given up on reading
Lewis Carroll.

Having suffered enough with the pain of his neck and
legs, he pressed the analgesic drip.  The world wavered
in and out.  He tried to focus on Cordelia.  On her
long lithe legs, her chestnut hair, her sleek body.

And there she was.  She sat on an ebony throne and he
knelt before her, whole, but naked.  A leash, attached
to a slim metal collar around his throat rested in her
hand.  She was dressed in red leather: the boots barely
grazing the bottom of her miniskirt, and the bustier
setting off her breasts to delightful advantage.

She tugged the leash and gave one imperious, never-to-
be-disobeyed command.  "Worship me."

He crawled forward and kissed the toe of her boot.
Encouraged by her stern nod, he licked her boots with
long, laving strokes that left the leather reasonably
dry.  He was just about to kiss the creamy flesh of her
inner thigh when a gentle hand woke him.  He heard the
rattle of tea things and smelt the oranges and
strawberries before he opened his eyes.

"Good afternoon, Wesley.  Dreaming again?"

"Hullo, Rupert.  I do spend a lot of my time doing
that.  The pain is rather bad, but the Staidol sends me
right off.  There doesn't seem to be a middle ground."

"So I see," he chuckled.  Wesley looked over the neck
cast and blushed.  He was tenting the sheets at his
hips.

"I was having the most amazing dream about Miss Chase,"
he blurted, relieved to get it off his chest.

"Indeed."  Giles handed him the glass of orange juice.
"A most amazing young lady to begin with.  Care to talk
about it?"

Wesley considered as he sipped.  Giles, after all, knew
the young lady better than he did.  He was dying to
know more about her, but reluctant to ask.  Perhaps a
full confession to someone older and wiser would help.
Giles might even have some recommendations.

"On two conditions," he said handing over the tumbler.
"First, you tell me all you know about her.  And second
you get to make your full lustful confession after
hearing mine."

Giles laughed.  "All right.  Tell me your dream first."

"She was dressed in red leather, a dominatrix, and I
was commanded to lick her boots.  You woke me before I
could proceed with the act of worship."

Giles poured them each a cup of tea and spread jam and
whipped cream on the scones.  He handed one to Wesley
and put the tea in easy reach.

"Cordy as bitch goddess.  Hardly a new idea.  Been
common since I arrived in Sunnydale.  She was a
sophomore.  She ruled the in-crowd with an iron fashion
sense, and biting sarcasm.  She seemed to take to
Buffy, until Buffy tried to stake her.  Mistaken
identity, of course.  She used her father's money to
buy herself a clique.  Then she fell for Xander, and
fell hard.  I think they made out in every closet in
the school.  They broke up shortly before you arrived.
It seems she and Oz caught Willow and Xander kissing
when they were rescuing them.  She was badly injured,
impaled actually.  But nothing vital was damaged and
she recovered about the time you came.  She seemed
quite attracted to you until graduation day.  What
happened?"

"I kissed her.  Rather badly I'm afraid.  I don't have
a lot of experience kissing girls.  She looked
disgusted and hasn't spoken to me since.  Have you
talked to her?  Will she come to see me?"  Wesley sat
the scone down and addressed himself to the tea.  It
was strong Earl Grey and very comforting.

"There seems to have been some sort of monetary problem
in her family.  She doesn't have a car now.  She's
planning to move to Los Angeles and live with Angel for
a time as she starts her acting career.  I'll ask
whether she would like me to bring her some afternoon."

"Would you please?  I'd like to prove I'm not really a
horrible kisser and that I do desire her."

"I know you're not." Giles smiled in fond memory of the
night the younger watcher had spent in his apartment.
" Although an apprenticeship under Travers hardly
prepares one for such a thing, kissing girls is much
the same as kissing boys.  But girls expect you to take
more of the lead.  It's more like dancing.  And I saw
that you can dance."

Wesley blushed a bit.  "And you promised me a full
lustful confession about the young ladies in your
charge," he ordered, eager to change the subject away
from his apprenticeship.

"All right.  They are too young for the most part.  I
actually prefer Joyce."

"Joyce Summers?  You're having an affair with your
Slayer's mother?"  Wesley sat the teacup down in shock.
"Unheard of!"

"Off and on.  There was this incident with some altered
candy..."

"Ah yes.  The Thwarting of Lurconis.  Already a bit of
a legend in Watcher circles."

"The part that got left out of the report involves a
very willing lady, the bonnet of a police car and a
pair of handcuffs.  Her idea that last, I might add.
We've seen each other professionally fairly often, and
socially a few times.  Buffy has no idea.  We arrange
it for weekends she's visiting her father."

"But I've seen you look at Willow.  And Miss Rosenburg
is only half your age."

"Willow is a beautiful girl and a powerful one.  Even
she has no idea of the destiny that awaits her and Oz.
The Watcher Council has them both under observation,
and is guiding their lives into the service of the
Council.  It pains me I cannot tell her she has been
Chosen as a Watcher and I as her Mentor.  That must
wait another three years."

"But the Watcher/Mentor relationship almost always
includes a sexual element.  You know that as well as I.
Have you been told young Oz's Mentor yet?"

Giles said nothing, but stared hard at Wesley.

"Oh surely not."

"Come now, Wesley, you didn't think two Slayers was the
only reason you'd been summoned to Sunnydale.  But
that's for the future.  We'll discuss it more when you
are well."  He handed Wesley another scone.  "We have 3
years yet.  Much can happen."

A soft knock came at the door, and both men were
startled to see Cordelia there.  Giles hastily packed
the tea things into the wicker hamper.  "I'll be going.
Have a good visit."

Cordelia came in and sat in the chair Giles had just
vacated.  The silence grew.  First heavy, then awkward.
It progressed through leaden and uncomfortable into
actively painful.

She broke it first.  "I'm sorry."  The words rarely
came from her mouth but she felt they were warranted.
"It was my fault.  I expected you to be my knight in
shining tweed, and whisk me off from the nightmare my
life is becoming.  And with the knight-thing comes the
expectation you know how to kiss me into weak-kneed
swooniness."  She chuckled.  "Too many romance novels.
You, um, haven't kissed many girls, have you?"

Flushing at her directness, Wesley said, "No, I'm
sorry.  I wanted so badly to be your knight, I tripped
on my own armor.  And to be precise the last woman I
kissed was my great-aunt Matilda at my graduation from
Oxford."

She looked at him hopefully.  "I want to try again.
This time, let me do the kissing, since I do know how
to kiss boys.  Just hold still and enjoy."

She leaned over the head of the bed and carefully took
his face in her hands.  Her lips brushed his, the
barest graze of moist rose petals.

His lips felt electrified.  Were he not in traction, he
would have pulled her into the bed and let her kiss him
until the nurse brought his sleeping pill.  Then she
pressed to him lingeringly.  She was better than the
Staidol for controlling the pain.

He tongue flickered across his lips, a dragonfly
skimming the surface of a pool.  He melted in the casts
that held him together.

He opened his lips as she became more insistent.  She
caressed his teeth, the roof of his mouth and the
underside of his tongue.  The inside of his lips was
warm silk under her mouth.

She let him up for air.  "See, it can be good for us,"
she purred.  "Just let me have control."  she reached
down careful to avoid the casts and stroked the ridged
sheet at his hips.  "No underwear.  Sexy."  She kissed
him again.

"Ne-necessary," he managed.  "Can't fit over the
casts."

"Get well," she laid light kisses along his cheekbone
to his ear.  "Dream of me until you do."  She pinched
the head under her fingers roughly.  "This is mine.
And I will have it once you
are well."

"Yes, Mistress," he whispered as he had so often in his
dreams.

She smiled approvingly and kissed him again, until he
threatened to stain the sheets.  This time, he stroked
her tongue with his own, worshiping her in the small
way he was able.

"I'll see you tomorrow, and every day,' she said,
sitting back in the chair, hearing the rattle of dinner
things down the hall. "I want you to consider a move to
LA.  You'd be so much more fun than Buffy's angsty,
fangy care bear.  Before we proceed, who do you think I
am?"

Wesley thought for a moment and decided to tell her his
deepest truths.  The pain was singing in his legs, and
he was ready for another hit of staidol.  The sooner he
told her, the sooner she would leave and the sooner he
could sleep.  Even the most devoted adherent must tend
to the needs of the body to better serve at the temple.

"You are Cordelia.  You look like a child on the brink
of being a woman, but you are ageless.  You are a
goddess, and I your most faithful worshiper.  Train me
in the rites you require.  And by your leave, I would
sleep again, that I may heal and serve you better and
more quickly."

Flattered, she kissed him again.  "Sleep, then,
darling, and dream of me."  She kissed him one last
time and left as the nurse brought his dinner tray.

"All right, Mr.Pryce.  How are we this evening?"

"Better," he managed, still gazing at the door She had
left through.

"Mmm, down to 3 doses of meds, the last one over 2 hrs
ago.  You must be feeling better.  BP, temperature and
then you can have dinner.  Don't forget to drink your
milk."

She took his vitals, and left him to address himself to
the tray of nondescript food.  Obediently he ate, and
when finished, pressed the drip button to return him to
sweet oblivion where his goddess waited for him