Title: Rubesco 
Author: Scynneh
Feedback: Scynneh@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Oh, chocolate covered vampires abound in my world- sadly that place is not here. I own my imaginings, and that’s it.
Rating: R- more of my usual, angst, and thoughts of moving people’s body parts around for amusement. Not for the overly sensitive.
Improv: 10- flow, rave, blue, fall
Spoilers: Up to ‘Epiphany, what *should* happen. But that’s just my humble opinion. 
Author’s Notes: I do so enjoy a good mental whimper, and as Angel is good at that, I felt it necessary for the two members of his brain to get their thoughts out. With a goal in mind though, there is something that should be rectified, and that is left up to a certain someone. Could be considered a sort of continuation/ sequel to ‘Cruelest Kindness’, but this one stands on its own and is for a purpose. It leads somewhere- really. The title is Latin for ‘to redden.’
February 2001

*
I live in two worlds: one where I smile and interact patiently and reasonably with the humans around me that used to consider themselves my “friends”, and the other, a place of blood and deep and deadly passionate understandings.  I know that none of that makes any sort of sense to others reading this account, but really, the only other being that might even approach understanding me is inside my head.   And he isn’t talking to me at this juncture.

I mean, yes, people are very obliging creatures, but it’s one thing to be asked to a picnic where an it is agreed that evil should be run out of town, and, an entirely different matter to take a look after someone and tell that person whether or not they’re on the verge of doing some time in Stockholm.  Decisions are rendered even more impossible when there is no question that one’s employer should be hauled off at the earliest opportunity and put away.  In solitary, no less. 

Personally, I have reached the only conclusion available after carefully reviewing all evidence and events of late: I am losing control. It’s as basic as that, really.  Things flow like water down the hill of morality to the point that after a long day in the big bad city, I actually look forward to kicking back in my darkened room and conversing with my inner psychopath.  Only trouble is that he’s not so much in me as he is me; he parts of myself that I’ve never been altogether comfortable with examining in great detail.

  But now I can no longer evade the truth of him and what he had done.  I know of his sins, have recalled them in what dear Cordy might label ‘Dolby Digital memory’, and have at last come to grips with the truth.  Some knowledge is as inescapable as it is crippling, doubling me over until I may die from the spiritual agony of it.  He is unredeemable.  No matter how hard I try to be what the Powers would have us be, there is too much to atone for, and not enough time by far to rescue all of those he threw to eager Death. 

  And he is aware of this fact, which is his reasoning for never doing what is preferred, and what might in fact give him a small taste of the comforting and constricting numbness that has covered me like a blanket recently.  No, he is too ancient to fool himself with the false hope that prophecies bring, or let the delusional ravings of primeval deities shape his existence.  He is his own, even if that means that he will suffer eternally, this is the sole possibility for his survival, and it is one that I must learn to accept if I am to be the only other creature in his hall of charcoaled mirrors.  I am the anchor that keeps him stationary on the slope of this vicious torrent, the only thing that keeps him from sliding into the mud and down beneath waters that would treat him with fatal Justice.  Neither of us could hope to survive such an ordeal, the least casualty of which would be what is left of his sanity.  His mind has been too damaged by centuries of abuse for anything whole to be salvaged, but perhaps it is better that he not be what he was; for now his lack of balance will give him a chance to project an attitude of ambivalent indulgence; catching our foes off guard.   

  A piece of linen is dipped in the vat of color, then removed to soak in the sun.  When it has dried, it is nearly white, with the smallest shade of something darker almost indiscernible to the human eye.  The process is repeated over and over until there is no recourse for the bleaching sol but to concede the struggle to dripping crimson and let what should be go on its way.

           He continues to surprise me.  A number of his more normal traits go fiercely against his demonic constitution.  Good with children.  A quality often overlooked by people when searching for a prospective bodyguard/ partner, but one that I found to be of use in our mutual endeavors.  I didn’t remember how to interact with adults, but little people were relatively easy to communicate with.  But I wasn’t prepared for that facility to carry over.  It was unexpected, that was for sure, but whenever he enters a room, his smile is less superior, and a more playful beast comes out, and the small tykes cluster around his legs, as eager as to explore a new being in their worlds as he is to introduce them to a concept unheard of in the universe that they inhabit: Evil.

  True, he has been a devoted student of the killing arts, but when he isn’t occupied playing ‘arrange the dolls’ with children’s corpses, he likes to practice.  For there is no better critique than that of the youth; their instincts are not ignored as in the ‘smarter’ adults, and it only takes the tiniest slip for the charade to end and an alarm to be sounded.  So when he is able to fool the babes, he is effectively cloaking his intentions from the entire species.

  And if they find the farce anywhere near as desirable as I do, then the smirk that curves my lips without my consciousness permission is ominous for its origins.

 *
There are few things on this planet that make me as angry as whiners.  My soul is the exception and, at the top of that list, as it has been the bane and joy of my companion’s decades-long struggle to ‘find himself’, and after all that time and effort, it is sickening.  That incandescent orb has had only the briefest flickers now and again.  It appears to me as though the bulb has gone out and no higher power has the foresight to run out and procure a spare before things slipped into disaster.  As with all things that are bruised, the blue wounding under the skin can slowly spread outwards if not observed carefully and attended to.  This particular soul has determined that it is better to endorse the slumber promoted by a demon than to continue to stand uncompensated before the flood.

  His life is not interspersed with healthy relationships, and the latest one with the gods, or whatever politically correct term they use nowadays, is yet another stunning example of him being maneuvered into a position where the only recourse leads him ever closer to where the insane rave and sound quite the adjusted philosophers.  I have wintered there for many nights, and it will be good to exchange some tales with a fellow wanderer.

  When he enters my bedroom, I see the marks that ‘the good fight’ has chewed out of his heart, and my sensitive ears catch the lies that have led him to me.  I take him in my arms and soothe him; the litany of woes coming out of the grievously damaged seraph too fast for me to avoid a surge of anger.  Even Peace has perpetrated deeds hurtful on him; promising relief while carrying in a wicker basket concealed under laurels, only worse consequences and tasks that are rending in their requirements.

  Karma has countless fathoms to which one can descend, and by that I mean that a footstep may result in a butterfly hatching out of its chrysalis under the web of a ravenous spider, or a couple of teenage lovers to walk past the lair of a vampire one evening too many to escape the sharp teeth of a demon.  Yeah, Fate’s an unfaithful lover, but to not leave the options open means that Justice is the other choice, and her frigid thighs have only garnered pain for me.  I have been the unwilling witness to many whirlpools in the Straits of Love, and I do not want to fall any longer.  Freedom is flight, and terrifyingly wondrous in that unpredictable euphoria that my life has been short of under the staid administration of ‘Goody Two Shoes’.  But I do not want to draw out a quarrel that has been resolved.

  Following our settling of conflicts, I have been able to turn my focus to more pressing concerns.  In the last several days, I expressed my distaste for some of the other more annoying individuals that have made my life unpleasant in the past.  Darla got the spotlight, of course, being that she was my Sire and the fact that she was simply the closest neck to my hands when I regained enough sense to get around to snapping vertebrae.  She had the look of a stunned moose when she collapsed to the floor, and I must say that death has rarely looked as attractive on anyone as it does on her.  Twice I’ve killed her, and it doesn’t lose its charm with repetition.  True, that injury has only disabled her, but the parting of nerves has rendered her nicely silent as I go about my other business.

  While on the subject of insubordination, I must admit that the sheer audacity of humans is ever amazing to me: the lawyers at that law firm; thinking that they could control two monsters, and of the Master’s line, to be even more specific.  I don’t think that the girls killed them slowly enough.  Me, I’d have sat down and explained things to them, with nice little diagrams, the kind that I used with my especially obtuse children when they didn’t understand the finer points of Master and Childe dynamics.  Whether I forcibly set down rules with my adorable human ‘family’ remains to be seen.  Reactions tell so much and entertain more than repetitive film reels.  The steps of the Hyperion wind upwards, radiating satisfaction at the return of authority, and the scent of regret approaching overpowering sweetness as I inhale living air.  Home, dysfunctional home.

  *
He was Seduction walking.  Dark hair restrained with invisible chains of chemicals bringing tufts up on his head.  The hem of his jacket had a rhythm that was mesmerizingly familiar; brushing back and forth along his thighs with each deliberate step he took across the polished floor.  Only just re-employed misgivings were confirmed with the reverberations of the doors’ closure.  The motionless woman knew what he was at that moment, if not his true name. 

  A demon strode into her arena, and he had no soul to keep him tethered to morality.  But he sensed the fear, and still did not attack.  Instead, he moved with a feline’s grace to the counter that curved around one wall of the lobby, and hopped up on it to sit and stare down to where Cordelia was frozen at her computer.  

  Not even his necklaces twitched for what seemed an eternity of consideration.  His eyes of icy moonless midnight delved into those of an unwilling Prophet, and something poured from one extreme to the other.  No animosity clouded the air, but fear and curiosity were pungent in his nostrils. He restrained the urge to grab her and rip out the soft flesh of her inner elbows that called to him with womanly knowledge, even when she had no intention of ever fulfilling her body’s promising invitation.  Delicate wisps of hair floated around her face, and, against all of his wiser instincts, he reached out to brush one away, choosing to ignore the expression on her face, the twist of plain, unvarnished terror that held her still under his touch. 

  She was an intuitive female; Seeing what the men never suspected, yet not making an effort to flee or attack, knowing that either course of action would most definitely result in her life being shortened drastically.  So much of that was exchanged in a second, so when Wesley emerged from a stack of books that he was rearranging on new shelves, Cordelia jumped, startled.  She met those calm eyes, and smiled brightly for her most important audience as the ex-Watcher spoke.

  “Good to see you Angel, you took so long that I was a bit concerned.  But, nothing to worry about, as usual.”  He turned his wheelchair and proceeded to lever another pile of tomes onto his lap for their move back into the Angel Investigations  Research Department.

  Everyone is lying; it’s just a matter of the degree to which the deception is carried.

  Fin