TITLE: In the Presence of Things Unreal
AUTHOR: Demon Faith
PAIRING: Cole/Leo
TIMEFRAME: Missing scenes from ‘Sympathy for the Demon’
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: How to seduce a Whitelighter: Step 1. Be in mortal danger Step 2. Act vulnerable Step 3. Look just like Cole Turner
NOTES: I was wondering over MSN about how to progress ‘from eye-f**ks to angsty hurt/comfort’ and dearest James just assumed I was talking about Cole and Leo. Which led to this somehow, though it contains neither eye-f**ks or true h/c. Huh.
And I still don’t even watch this show.
“Where are we?”
“Safe,” Leo said with no small amount of disgust, and Cole raised an eyebrow.
“You really do hate me, don’t you?” Cole appeared to be smirking. Leo gritted his teeth.
“No, I just don’t like you showing up all the time. Can’t you do your woeful-demon act somewhere else?”
Cole flopped elegantly into an overstuffed armchair and grinned. Leo rolled his eyes.
“I just bring out your best side, don’t I?” Cole said, picking up a dust-covered angel from the mantelpiece and frowning at it. “This your second home?”
“If you must know, it’s my retreat. I used it when I had more…clients.”
Cole looked like he was about to retort but instead grimaced and shifted awkwardly in the chair. Leo turned at the pause and studied his face carefully.
“Are you in pain?”
Cole’s mouth twisted unpleasantly. “Just some more…glass, I think.”
“Let me see,” Leo said and moved towards the chair. Cole’s eyes widened.
“Leo, we don’t…”
“Cole, you’re injured and I won’t play games. Let me take a look.”
With great reticence and a hint of a blush creeping up his cheeks, Cole tried to remove his shirt only to stop with a wince. Leo slid his hands forward to take over, slowly sliding the material over Cole’s shoulders before leaning Cole forward without resistance to drag his t-shirt over his head.
“This is way beyond the rules,” Cole mumbled into his shoulder, and Leo shut his eyes for a moment before examining Cole’s back.
As gently as he could, he pulled free the shards of glass marring the demon’s skin and Cole hissed, gritting his teeth and fisting his hand in Leo’s t-shirt.
“They’re only superficial,” Leo said, cursing the relief in his voice as he ghosted his hand over the cuts and watched them vanish away.
Leo pushed Cole away from his shoulder and shoved the t-shirt into his hand when he tried to reach for him. “Put that back on,” he said quickly. “It gets cold here.” He stood and began looking for a kettle.
Cole hurriedly pulled his t-shirt on and tried to resume their flippant banter. “So, what do we do now?”
At Leo’s look of panic, Cole rolled his eyes and backtracked. “How long do I have to stay here?”
“Until they call me back,” Leo said simply, avoiding eye contact with Cole and hoping that the summons would come soon. This was already way past awkward and he had no desire to get into the conversation that was surely coming. Giving up his search for the kettle, he sank into the opposite armchair and finally looked at Cole. His eyes were gleaming – not good.
“How’s Piper?”
Great – small talk.
“Fine, pregnant, no longer throwing up.”
“Ah – celebratory sex. I wish you joy of it.”
Leo grimaced. “Do we have to talk about this?”
With a sudden move, Cole was out of his chair and Leo stood with him, in shock. Cole threw up his hands. “What do you propose we talk about, Leo? I’ve been seeing manifestations of my own darkness, a demon just sucked out my powers and threw me through the screen door and now I’ve been banished to some “safe place” with the man I’ve been avoiding for decades. So, tell me, in light of all that, what’s safe conversation, what’s the appropriate thing to say? I’m waiting, because I know this is going to be good.”
Staring in confusion, Leo watched Cole crumple to the floor and hug his knees to his chest. Never had he seen him like this, never so completely broken by the Hell that was consuming him.
“I never wanted this for you,” Leo found himself saying, and when he had started, he was unable to stop. “It’s just…I have a wife. And she loves me and…I dreamed of stuff like this, long ago, and now, she’s here and she’s…”
“Good,” whispered Cole bitterly and Leo closed his eyes.
“Yes,” he replied softly, and opened his eyes to meet Cole’s aching dark gaze.
“It was never about that, Leo, and you know it.”
“Cole,” Leo pleaded, desperately, “you promised me…”
“Damnit, Leo, you want to cling to rules we made thirty years ago? Think about it – why did we do it? Make up rules when we weren’t planning to see each other ever again? Because we knew, even then, that Fate has this way of just slamming us together.”
Leo winced and Cole offered a coy smile. “Poor choice of words?”
“Don’t joke about it. I didn’t want to make rules or anything like that. I didn’t even…I…”
“Say it,” Cole said, with such a look of hope that Leo couldn’t deny the words even as they sprung to his lips.
“To leave. I didn’t want to leave.”
There, he’d said it. And Cole was gawping at him like a fish and it shouldn’t be attractive but it was, and how on earth had they ended up here? Again?
“I…didn’t know that,” Cole finished, his expression unreadable.
“It was true every other time, why would this be any different?” Leo muttered, as he lowered himself to the floor, sitting cross-legged across from Cole.
“Because you had proof this time, proof I was working for the other side?”
Leo shook his head slowly and Cole’s eyes widened.
“I was never sure.” He sighed. “Or maybe I just didn’t want to see. And when you came back, thirty years on, never having aged a day, I just wanted…wanted so much to believe you’d changed, that Phoebe wasn’t in danger and that I, we, could just be…friends.”
“We never really mastered that, did we?” Cole said, settling his cheek on his knee and looking at Leo from that angle with unknown intent.
“Don’t look at me like that, Cole, please…” but his words fell on deaf ears, as Cole stretched like a cat, all elegance and daring once more, and pounced.
Leo knew he should fight, push him away, anything but kiss him back and hold on as if he were drowning. Eventually, he pulled away, shocked at himself and the demon – currently ex-demon – sprawled in his lap.
“I’m married,” he said lamely and Cole’s raised eyebrow gave his opinion of that argument.
“There are rules?” he hazarded, but Cole just gave him a triumphant smile. Leo was running out of reasons and the insistent hands roaming over his back weren’t doing anything for his concentration.
“You’re evil?” he tried one last time before his mouth was consumed by Cole’s and could anything that felt this good really be a demon’s work? His rational mind had unfortunately vacated and was unable to answer but his body didn’t want to bother about pesky things like a moral compass when it was happily being devoured.
“You are incorrigible,” he managed to breathe, as Cole moved to his neck, carefully leaving no marks and with a sickening lurch, Leo was dragged back to reality. He pushed Cole gently away and met his eyes seriously.
“We can’t do this.”
Cole leaned forward again and tugged at Leo’s lip with his teeth. “I’m not asking for undying romance, Leo. I lost my chance at that a long time ago. Oh no, I just want a…reminder. A memory that’s…pure.”
Leo realised, belatedly, that he was being seduced by a master. And that he didn’t care.
Closing the gap between them, he took Cole’s mouth in another kiss and forgot reality.
~
Cole woke to find himself wrapped around Leo in a sickeningly romantic embrace. He studied him for a moment, debating how best to extricate himself before, with shocking clarity, he realised he didn’t want to.
Whilst he was attempting to process this frightening new development, Leo stirred and smiled at him for a second before laying a hand over his.
“Good memories?” he whispered sleepily, and Cole remembered why he loved this man.
Suddenly, Leo sat up straight with a look of horror. “Piper’s calling.”
In a flash, they were out of bed and Cole’s clothes had been orbed onto his body. “You’re no fun,” Cole pouted, as Leo smiled and took his hand.
As they orbed away, Cole could’ve sworn he heard Leo sigh under his breath – “Back to reality.”