Title: Half-quart
Author: Scynneh
E-mail: scynneh@yahoo.com - Please tell me if it moved you- to confusion, anger, disgust.
Disclaimer: I think that Joss' ending of 'NPLPG' was artfully cruel, and there is so much that could have been said in that moment of dawning comprehension. Things that would have broken him, that is.
Improv 17: ragged, decade, intent, cascade.
Rating: R, for thoughts that are not light and happy.
Pairing: B/A, A/L, somewhat.
Author's Notes: I feel that the people that Angel works with view him as something of a tool; useful, but he is just 'there'. Sure, 'Delia, he only saves your neck all the time, maybe it wouldn't hurt to tell him that he is appreciated once in awhile. I like Fred. She is a nut. No cute velvet dresses, but maybe wardrobe can help her out there. Er, I have babbled. I am done, promise. And Lar, I wanted to jump out of that scene in 'TDDM' and do something else with the boys. My reason? Who the hell else would understand losing such a woman? My thoughts exactly. This was my answer in some way to those who were weeping for B/A togetherness. Sure, they can be soulmates, but what about Angel? He isn't his soul- he is a combination of things, and you can't feed one thing and neglect the rest. If that made any sense, great. I just wrote what came to my fingers.
Spoilers: The finales. There was so much in that parting of Angel's lips, his eyes, that I couldn't leave him alone with his sorrow.
May 2001
*
The
forces of the universe are ever mysterious to the living, and the dead are
rarely able or willing to answer questions; unless a medium is interested to
offer them a body to inhabit temporarily in compensation.
But the few who totter on the edge of both worlds, lively with death, are
sometimes as lost as the ones who may walk freely in the sun.
He knew this, and now wonders how any God could let such a thing happen to a Golden Goddess. Not sanctioned by any tribe, certainly, but with the beauty and goodness that made her divine. And she gave her life as a hero should. Willow told him that; assured him that there was no other way, and that it was very quick. That he thanked her for, as Cordelia held the Witch, and Wes stared at his back, no doubt anticipating some sort of reaction.
What did the humans expect? A howl of grief? Him to go insane and enact vengeance on the deceased or the living that have so recently proven that they can survive well without him? No, he likes to think that he has learned something in several centuries. So he turns, nods at Gunn, who knows loss and the need for quiet, and gives Willow a comforting pat on the shoulder. Then he walks out. Cordelia mutters something about ‘déjà vu’, and Wes shrugs. ‘Give him time.’ Yes, he thought, give him time to try and reassemble a heart that has been fractured so often that it is impossible to see all the pieces for they are scattered over decades of loneliness and death.
It has been a long time since he remembered her smile. The way that the suns of film and paintings seemed charlatans beside her brightness. And how he could move close and be burned, just a little. Searing his skin, his demon, were her fingers, her mouth, her eyes. And he didn't mind the danger, knew that she was nearly frozen by his cold, and if she could bear frostbite, then her warmth was a pain to be suffered with pleasure.
Where in what book did it say that she had to die like this, leaving so much behind undone? Yes, Slayers gave death, but she gave herself to Him. Angel can see that cowl and blond hair standing just beyond the horizon, he imagines that the dark one murmurs in her ear, and she turns her head, a cascade of hair like sunlight melted over her shoulder as she looks back at him. And smiles.
The wound in his chest was healing, too fast for his current mood, and he pressed fingers into the depression, encouraging blood to flow again. They will not stop him, there has been too much about him that was not completely understood lately, and his strange behavior will be looked as a reversion to form. He did not care, not now. The car was obedient, and he pointed it out onto the road, letting scents drift over him, searching for the one that he wants. A consistency that has made things amusing or bearable in the past months. Toys are meant to be played with after all, and he has been told to put his away.
'Bad boy, don't do that, you shouldn't enjoy this.' He enjoyed her, let her go to do normal things, and she died for her mundane life, her little sister who was a part of the very ordinary.
So he turned up the volume on the radio and set off after those shades, knowing that what he needed laid just over those highways, out of the 'City of the lost'.
*
The Irish were impoverished, ignorant, and they had the wrong religion to boot. At the point in history when they came to America, the people still believed in 'the Roman Catholic Conspiracy'. Made them scary. And that was true They didn’t come because they were models of well adjusted happy citizens.
To get the Irishmen to dig ditches in places like Connecticut, they went to Ireland, put up a large sing and paid passage for the people, then subtracted the price of coming to America from their already miserably small wages.
The Irish were the single biggest bulk because they were the most miserable lot wanting to leave. Others followed them. We as a country of hopeful people have this image of refugees finding political freedom, most, even in the age of computers and the Internet, are economic betterment cases.
I think about the Irish a lot lately, mostly because someone that I used to hang out with was born in Ireland. Yeah, just can't get away from him.
It's not that I am fanatical about Angel. It was never my intent to have him floating around in me like a scoop of mint chocolate ice cream or, with wilderness in the flavor. God knows that the man is arrogant, self-righteous, and a real bastard much of the time, but there is something important that must e remembered about Angel: I love him.
Yes, I hate him too; our relationship has been based on a lot of things, but mutual dislike is one of the most fundamental pieces. Love, yeah, blood and spit and pebbles round into scraped flesh. That's all great, but hate keeps you alive and hungry. Look at him; always trying to find that Redemption, but coming back to me and the darkness.
I never meant to get him- in a box from Tiffany’s, the rose colored paper stained with tears and blood. But that was what happened. Days on the road and I settled down in a gully, slept away from the cities and thought that I was happy. He showed me differently.
He stood at the hill's summit, looking down, and I thought of the Reaper, come to get me. In leather coat and torn clothes. But he came down to me, trembling, his eyes too wide, blank and there was Death only on his breath.
A vengeful saint can find peace in justice. He had been killing, and did not care about it. Probably some criminal too stupid to run. It must have appealed to some Power, they were not always interested in Truth and how to save humans.
And in a flash I saw what he was to her, their love too. His spirit wound over her like some obscenely greedy, ravenous snake-not biting, but twisting in a sinuous ballet. Everywhere he touched her, the pores burst like pustules filled with milky, deadly sweetness a poison that had to be distilled before it could be drunk. Without him, she was not whole, and his presence impaired her to where she could not fully function without him by her side. Love was a disease, and she had found it fatal.
Now, he had met his adversary, to kill him? Without witnesses? Did that mean that there was no soul any more? That the stresses were overwhelming? Or that conscience was weary of working overtime without pay?
The spat of outrageous supposition grew and peaked soon thereafter
“If there are
no threats, let's try for long embarrassing silences and meaningful eye contact,"
he said, motioning for the vampire to sit down on a rock near the fire.
It's exciting to be young and rebellious. Grabbing ideologies made fresh with new packaging and running with them can be likened to stealing cars and the consequences may be less harsh for youth today, but then again, that might not be true.
That was how he thought of himself; an unworldly young man who thought that he could ascend the stairs of power, and then finding a trapdoor that he wanted to step through instead.
Whenever recalling painful memories, Angel relived them, that rawness attractive in its honesty. Soft as the first raindrops on a foggy dawn moor his words came to Lindsey’s ears
“She’s
dead,” those words he could make out, but other than the wobbly tone, there
was nothing else.
“Who?” Oh. Then it came to him; the vampire’s only other girl. The one who was Destined. The Slayer, the sane one. Buffy.
“How?”
“Saving
the world. Again.”
“Seems that you two have that in common”. Noncommittal in his reply, unsure of how he might react to sarcasm. Isn’t a problem, the vampire was contemplative, not interested in ripping his throat out. At the moment at least.
“Women have a
civilizing effect. Levelheaded. Provide discipline to men who would
be lost and troublesome without direction.”
“Like
Darla?”
“No, she was
the absence of order. We never
tried to hold back.”
“There is no
right or wrong- stories are spun to satisfy the people. “
“Well then,
the people are overly obsessed with violence. And pain.”
Pinocchio had strings. When they moved he behaved in certain ways; when the strings were removed, he got into trouble. Parents focus on the nose when in reality, it's the strings that are important. Gods should take better care of their Chosen Ones and their strings, when they fray, not much can repair them, and nary a one is interested in a repeat of the last act.
Fin