Day
_____________________________________________________________SPOILER ALERT: Contains general spoilers for Angel the series.
DISCLAIMER: Joss Whedon, 20th Century Fox, Mutant Enemy, and/or the WB Television Network own these characters. I've just borrowed them for this story. No copyright infringement is intended or inferred.
TIMELINE: Some time early in season one of Angel.
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I've just come back from Hell. Not literally, of course. In my dreams.
I wake, and I know where I've been and what I've been reliving. I know it, even though I don't remember. I never remember. In an existence cursed with too many memories, I'm grateful for this.
When I sleep, though, the memories worm their way through my thin crust of sanity and drag me back into Hell.
I know this from the way feel afterwards. I don't feel anguish, or misery, or despair. I suffer from those when I wake up from the other nightmares of my stint ... away. The nightmares about the time before I was broken, when I still had some semblance of humanity.
No, I don't feel pain. I don't feel. I wish I did. I'd welcome a little honest hurt right now. But even pain becomes tedious, give time. Apathy becomes the worst enemy, as the mind disentangles itself from the emotions.
Lethargy takes hold, weighing down my body. I sink back onto the cool sheets without as much as a sigh. At times like this, I feel truly dead. My thoughts are sluggish as they echo through the hollows of my brain.
I stare across the darkened room, the lift providing what little illumination there is in the apartment. My eyes are drawn to the tentative patch of light just inside the partly open doorway of the bedroom. The light is flickering, and I realise that I'm going to have to change the bulb. A laugh rises up at the banality of the thought, but doesn't quite make it to the surface.
"Angel?"
I heard her as she walked through into my office. I listened as she opened the door to the basement and hesitated at the top of the stairs. Her presence, her call, come as no surprise to me. I just have nothing to say. To her. To myself. To anyone.
"Angel? Are you okay?" This time, there's more concern and less petulance in her tone.
Poor Cordelia. She's grown accustomed to seeing me during the day. She forgets that it isn't my natural environment.
I wait. There's a faint rustle of clothing as she shifts uncomfortably. She quietly shuts the door behind her as she leaves. Sometimes even Cordelia knows to leave well alone.
I'll go up there in a little while. I'll put on a brave face, and be grateful that Cordelia's no more comfortable discussing these things than I am.
Yes, I'll go up there in a while.
In a while.
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Night
Angst fiction