Fic: Pieces of Six (You and Me and Her) Buffy/Angel/Cordy
Fluffathon Assignment!

TITLE: Pieces of Six (You and Me and Her)
PAIRING: Buffy/Angel/Cordelia
RATING: NC-17
SUMMARY: There are 6 unique relationships in any three way relationship.
WARNING: Lots of Femslash!
REQUEST: This was written for the Fluffathon, for carlyinrome, who requested Buffy/Angel/Cordelia with candy, lingerie, and a plot beyond heavy petting.
NOTES: This turned into a really strange kind of comedy/romance. I think I really love it. Fluff means, literally, without substance, right? If that's the case, I am completely unable to write pure fluff. Or at least, this is as close as I get when I still have to write a plot. But it's happy.

She’d always loved Angel so much. Loving him was like breathing; necessary, vital. She’d loved him so much she’d thought her heart might burst with the heaviness of it, so much that she’d worried it might kill her. And in the end, it almost had. Her love for him now was nothing like that. It was light, open, and free; utterly unafraid. It pulsed and leaped through her body with a rhythm she’d never heard before but somehow instinctively recognized.

She’d never expected to love anyone like that. Much less, two people.

But there it was.

Pieces of Six (You and Me and Her)

They weren’t really all that different when you got down to it.

Maybe that’s why they’d never gotten along before.

It started with a wacky spell, like so many unusual things in their lives had. Only this time when the spell went, the love didn’t.

All Buffy knew for sure, was that she’d come to LA seeking a conversation with Angel, an excellent mocha latte, and a new pair of designer shoes.

What happened next was the stuff of fairy tales.

Well. As close to fairy tales as their lives were likely to get.

*

“You’re cooking?” Buffy couldn’t quite keep the surprise and dismay from her voice. “Should I call the fire department?”

“Pot,” Cordy said, lifting the pot from the stove as an example. She turned it sideways and poured the contents into a pan, then added, “Kettle—-Ms. Sarah Connor of the kitchen.”

Buffy moved up behind her and slid her arms around Cordelia’s waist, planting a kiss just behind her ear.

“It’s already cooling,” Cordelia said, dipping one finger and licking the red syrup from the tip. Buffy watched, mesmerized.

“Want some candy, little girl?” Cordelia taunted with a wicked, teasing smile, turning toward her.

“What kind?” Buffy asked.

“Red Hots,” Cordelia said and smiled, then kissed the breath out of her, tongue tasting with the sweet burn of cinnamon, soft as it licked the inside of her mouth and curled around her own, and Buffy wondered if she’d ever get over how different it was, being with another woman. Put her hands against Cordy’s cheeks, slid the pads of her fingertips over smooth skin and delicate jaw, nibbled Cordy’s lower lip and suckled it inside her mouth like it was candy instead of only tasting like it.

Buffy pulled back, dipped her finger into the pan and painted Cordy’s lips with a glaze of sugary red. Sucked her fingertip dry and then leaned, slowly licked every single drop of warm, cinnamon candy from Cordy’s lips, tongue feathery light as she traced the contour of Cordelia’s mouth.

She’d always loved Angel so much. Loving him was like breathing; necessary, vital. She’d loved him so much she’d thought her heart might burst with the heaviness of it, so much that she’d worried it might kill her. And in the end, it almost had. Her love for him now was nothing like that. It was light, open, and free; utterly unafraid. It pulsed and leaped through her body with a rhythm she’d never heard before but somehow instinctively recognized.

She’d never expected to love anyone like that. Much less, two people.

But there it was.

The door to the kitchen pushed open, and Angel walked in, slinging his arms around both their shoulders. “How’re my girls?” he asked with a quick kiss to each of their foreheads. Buffy and Cordy looked at each other, then each dipped a finger into the cooling candy. Painted a heart on each of his cheeks and laughed at how it looked like rouge.

And Angel just stood there and grinned like an idiot, looking for all the world like the happiest man alive, though they both knew that couldn’t be true.

Not with two women to keep happy. Never even mind the soul.

*

They were both territorial. The love spell hadn’t changed that.

Cordelia had fallen in love with Angel years ago. Fallen hard. She’d known even then that he could love her, that he would love her, if only the world would stop getting in the way. But she’d also known, even deeper down, where secrets go to live, that no matter how much he loved her, she’d never come close to touching the place of once-in-a-lifetime love. No matter how she cut her hair, no matter how much she lightened it, no matter how saintly she had tried to become, she would never be the woman she’d unconsciously emulated. And if that had made her a little quicker to judge, a little quicker to lash him with the sharp side of her tongue, well, she couldn’t really be blamed, could she?

She’d always imagined that it would be a war between the two of them if Angel fell for her. A struggle between two women to lay claim to the man they loved most. But she’d never, in her wildest dreams, imagined a world where she loved Buffy, too. Had never considered a place where Buffy would love her, too, and how that would solve every single problem they might have faced.

She ran her hand down the curve of Buffy’s hip, pulled her in close, each of them with an arm tangled around Angel’s shoulders, his body sandwiched between the softness of them both.

Not even fully rousing from sleep, Buffy’s hand rose to cover Cordelia’s, pulled it close against her skin, snuggled back down into the pillow and claimed it as hers, utterly.

Mine.

*

They were both territorial. The love spell hadn’t changed that. Both of them feeling they had a claim to the man they loved most. They had bickered about it at first, fought over him like a crackerjack prize between bouts of heated lovemaking, much to his alternate pleasure and chagrin. And then the other spell had happened and they’d been too busy grieving to fight. Turned out, tragedy really did bring people together.

And Buffy discovered that there was nothing else in the world like Cordelia’s laugh, like that brilliant smile when it bloomed just for her, or the feel of that silk smooth skin against hers, loving her. How their fingers fit together just so—almost perfectly, like they’d been made to go together. How she loved orchids and sunsets and how she made this tiny, broken noise like a sob when she came. How Cordelia’s mother had never been very smart or very sweet, and how deep down, under that brittle, seeming cluelessness, Cordelia had always been both.

And Cordelia realized that Buffy was tender and loving, giving in the most selfless of ways. That she always had been—-if you knew what to look for—-and that once you saw it, you could never un-see it. Learned her every move, the way she breathed, her favorite songs, and exactly how hard she liked her clit tongued. That she’d never been very close to her father and that sometimes she still cried over her mother in the middle of the night. That she could touch with gentleness and look with such love that it almost broke Cordy’s heart just to see her.

Once Angel was returned to the land of the human--well, vampire--they never thought to fight over him again.

Although, ever after, Angel was left with a vague craving for polishing and an urge to balance drinks on his head.

*

“You... without me?” Angel looked like a little boy who’d just discovered all his toys had been broken.

“You...” Buffy searched for the words. “Weren’t available!”

“I was an end table!”

“We were mourning!” Buffy objected. “We were... comforting each other.”

“That doesn’t—“

Cordelia cut in, smirking up at Angel. “We video taped it if you want to watch.”

“That’s acceptable,” he mumbled.

*

They both loved to shop. Shoes, dresses, boots, skirts, shirts; these things were the life and the way, like kissing, breathing, and fingers that went hand in hand in hand in heart.

Angel took them to Frederick’s one weekday while the stores were slow, and they’d spent hours in and out of the dressing closet. There’d been giggling, and kissing, and tongues against smooth skin, fingers teasing through thin, damp silk. Lipstick smeared, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, they modeled for Angel while the store attendant pretended to look the other way.

When Cordelia yanked down Buffy’s $40 red satin panties and licked her clit like a kitten to cream, Buffy broke the hook off the back of the door and bit down on her lower lip until she drew blood. Came on Cordy’s fingers like a wanton whore, the feel of silk all around her, price tag scratching the sensitive skin of her inner thigh.

After, Cordelia fed Buffy the taste of herself with gentle fingers. Circled Buffy’s clit with the fingers of her other hand, moving with lazy, insistent strokes until Buffy came again, arching her hips into Cordy’s body.

They exited the dressing room to find Angel even paler than normal and strangling on his own tongue, whereupon he quickly bought them every scrap of lingerie their hearts desired.

It was a good day.

*

Sometimes, Buffy wondered how she’d never known that four hands were better than two.

*

They were both brave. And kinda righteous. And most times, Angel loved that about them. Although, other times, like now, he could have cheerfully strangled them both.

“I’m going to kill it, Cordy. End. Of. Discussion.”

“Oh, please. Just because you’re the Chosen One, you think you’re special or something?”

Buffy paused, favoring Cordelia with a flat, deadpan gaze . “That’s what being the ‘Chosen One’ means.” She cocked her head at the dark-haired woman and arched her brows. “Pretty much literally.”

Cordelia grabbed the axe handle in Buffy’s hands and tugged on it. “Yeah? Well, I’m a Champion, little Miss Chosen One. And that loser made me break the heel on my last pair of designer sandals! So _I_ get to do the honors!”

Buffy quirked a not-altogether friendly smile at that. “When you get the super strength to back up that title, come talk to me.” The smile dropped from her face and she tugged the axe from Cordelia’s hands, turning away. “I’ll be killing the bad guy.”

Cordelia ran around in front of her, stopped, planted her hands firmly back on the axe handle and leaned in, eye to eye with the Slayer. “Over my dead body.”

Behind them, the “bad guy” in question, simply stared at them both as if they were insane. Perhaps they were.

Helplessly, he looked to Angel. Finding no help there, he shrugged, coiled his muscles, then roared and leaped at the girls.

As one, they swung together, cleaving the demon neatly in half.

“I SO killed him,” Cordelia said triumphantly, without missing a beat.

“As if,” Buffy snorted.

“Hey,” Angel said weakly, trying to intervene. “You did it together.”

As one, they turned to stare at him.

“Look at you with the touchy feel-y stuff,” Buffy admired, sardonic.

“Angel... what’s it like to be the only girl in this relationship?” Cordelia snorted.

Oh, and that was just. IT.

He took them home and made them come repeatedly and concurrently, until they recanted and begged for mercy. Afterward, tired, victorious, and sated, they snuggled up on both sides of him, winding their arms around his neck and cradling each other.

Most days, they all ended up winners.

*

They all knew no one understood it. And after all, how could they be expected to? So easy to chalk it up to lots of sex—-and there was lots of sex, no doubt, but that wasn’t all it was about. But almost no one got to see that side of things, the tender moments alone, the loving caresses, the sweet surrender and careful support. There was no way they could hold themselves that they not be touching each other, and the moments when two divided were quickly healed in private conversation later.

No one understood it, but they all accepted it. So long as their triangle of sex and drama didn’t intrude into their friends worlds too often, said friends were perfectly happy to pretend it wasn’t happening at all. If the three of them hadn’t known better, they’d have sworn that every single one of the group suffered from Sunnydale Selective Memory. Given the capacity for denial they’d witnessed among Angel’s own people, Sunnydale Selective Memory was starting to look a lot like Worldwide Selective Memory.

Except maybe for Lorne. But then, given his ambiguous sexuality, that wasn’t really so surprising.

*

Lorne mixed Buffy another Sea Breeze and handed it to her with friendly smile.

“You know polyamorists are the next group of ‘sexual deviants’ to come out of the closet.”

“Really?” Buffy asked. “But I thought the gay people...”

“Oh, sugar pie, being gay is like breathing in this city.”

“So who’s left in the closet?’

“The midgets.”

Buffy blinked. Considered that for a moment.

“Is that because they can’t reach the doorknob?”

*

When Angel had imagined his fairy tale life (and yes, he actually _had_, not that he would ever admit that on pain of death), it hadn’t been anything like this. Hell, it hadn’t even been on the same planet as this. Universe, maybe. Because yeah, Buffy was always there. But this, his heart so full. His... lap, so full.

He’d been part of a sort of quadrangle, once. And there’d been a certain sort of balance to that, in the even numbers and ability to pair off. Triangles, though, he was learning, were not quite so balanced. In his more honest moments, he had to admit that he and Buffy had a penchant for, well... drama. Which often resulted in Cordelia rolling her eyes and giving both of them the self-righteous what-for, and then they would have to resolve their differences while making it up to her. The times when he and Cordelia fought, Buffy ended up on Cordy’s side more often than not—-when she deigned to stick around long enough to hear anything they said, that was. When Buffy and Cordelia went at it, he usually only had two choices. One, step up and hope he could referee without the two of them ganging up on him, or two, stand back, shut up, and pray they didn’t actually come to blows. Either way, they usually ended up pissed off at him in the end, like the whole thing was his fault.

It wasn’t all roses, but he knew nothing ever was. Loving him was the easy part, and he got that, as strange and unlikely as it seemed. But Buffy and Cordelia loving each other was hard, even stranger, and, when he thought about it, slightly absurd. They were so much alike, in so many ways, and they ended up going head to head in competition and battles of razor wit as often as they ended up kissing and hugging.

But it was the times when they did both that he liked best. Like now.

Buffy perched on one of his legs, Cordelia on the other, their arms wrapped around each other in the space between, mouths licking and sucking, tongues spearing, hands all over each others bodies like they’d die if they couldn’t touch every inch of each other. Hurling insults and biting swollen lips, heat rolling off them like the devil in the desert in the middle of summer. So beautiful, the two of them together, so right somehow, despite that if he hadn’t seen it for himself, he’d have laughed himself sick at the very idea. And he wasn’t much of a laugher.

It was bizarre, loving two women this much. Being allowed to love two women this much and be loved in return. It was really more than he ever could have hoped for, in his wildest dreams. More than he’d ever believed he deserved.

It wasn’t always easy, but even in their worst moments together, it was always worth it.

*

And no, it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t even next door to normal. But as Buffy slid down into sleep, her arms tangled in them both, surrounded by the smell of them, she didn’t care.

All Buffy knew for sure, was that she’d come to LA seeking a conversation with Angel, an excellent mocha latte, and a new pair of designer shoes. She’d found all three. But in the end, she’d stayed for Angel and the designer shoes—-and the 120 pounds of dark-haired, fiery-eyed woman inside them.


---

And this is the story that spawned like footnotes. I had such a difficult time writing this, because it was fluff. My brain kept trying to make it angst, because it's SO easy to see the angst inherent in this triad. If you're in the mood for this triad with serious, twisted angst, go read Something Borrowed