Fear – Xander
Walking down into the basement area of the agency I find Cordelia curled up on the couch, reading to Angel. As always he's way too close to her, scrunched down so he can rest his head on her shoulder. Her arm curls around his neck, so she can hold the book without obscuring either of their views.
They'd make a cute picture, if you want to ignore the fact that he could kill her in less than a second if he chose to.
It's not that I can't understand Cordy and Buffy's determination to protect Angel, I just don't agree. The way Angel looks at them, for example how he looking at Cordy right now, makes it all but impossible for them to even consider hurting him. His expression, his eyes, you can see the perfect, utterly complete trust he puts in them. My three-year-old looks at me like that. She has no doubts, no reservations, not when it comes to me, I'd die before I betrayed her trust.
Eventually she'll grow-up and she'll question my judgment, make disgusted noises when she catches Anya and I kissing, stay out later than I want her to and generally turn into a teenager. But for right now Anya and I are the center of her world and infallible in her eyes. She's too young to understand the concept of limited trust yet. That's why you teach little kids never to talk to strangers; they have to learn that you can't trust everyone. Angel has that concept down pat, but he doesn't get limited trust either, and he won't out grow that. Once he decides a person is his friend, he trusts them without bounds.
I understand the position he puts the others in, it's hard to talk about whether or not we should kill him when they all know that Angel, despite everything that's happened to him, trusts them not to hurt him. He would let them press a stake to his heart and never blink. Giles, Wesley, Willow and Kate are trying to be rational about this, to make a decision based on reason not emotion. I still see their eyes soften whenever Angel enters the room. Even Gunn, who seems to want hate Angel, can't seem to stop himself from playing with the vampire.
We all have our ideas about how badly he must have been hurt and a number of the group, both members the LA contingent and those of us who stayed in Sunnydale, feel responsible in some way. We know Hell itself didn't manage to do this to Angel, sure Buffy says he was feral for the first few nights, but he shook it off, this time he can't. Hell is the ultimate definition of badness, and something worse than that happened to Angel. A part of all of us wants to see him happy, to make up for whatever guilt the others have managed to conjure up, or just because in my case. That's right even I don't want Angel to be hurt anymore. He's been through more than we can begin to imagine and none of us want him to suffer any further, but unlike them I don't want to risk anyone else being hurt either.
I already know that no matter what I argue they won't stake Angel unless they're forced to, in other words, until after he's killed someone. Even then they'll blame whatever did this to him or they'll blame themselves for not taking more precautions. They shift the blame and maybe even promise to do better next time. They won't just face the facts and admit that he should be humanly put down. They couldn't do it if they had to, I could.
Why am I different? Because Angel doesn't trust me. I wouldn't have to look into eyes that adore me and drive a stake home; on the other hand I can't get within six feet of Angel either. He doesn't trust me, I don't know why. It's not like I've done anything threatening. The one time we were left alone together Angel retreated as far as he could from me, snarling threateningly until Buffy came and got him. He even trusts Spike, but not me.
Well, okay, Angel nearly ripped Spike's head off the first time he saw the muzzled vampire, but Cordy called him off and somehow convinced him that Spike was on the good guy list and now he adores Spike.
We discourage him from rough housing with anyone else, even Buffy. It's doubtful that he could hurt her, but we don't want him to get the idea that it's ever okay to attack a human. Not even if he's only playing.
Spike, however, is a vampire. Angel can attack them anytime he feels like it. Besides he couldn't kill Spike by accident, and given his current level of tool using skills, maybe not even if he were trying to.
It's weird watching Spike and Angel. What they do isn't disciplined enough to be called sparring, they're too good-natured to be fighting and too violent to be compared to little kids scuffling. It really is closest to a couple of cougar cubs playing. Hell, everyone practically thinks of Angel as a cat these days anyway. Why not? He sounds like a cat. He acts like a cat. He even moves more like a cat than a human. Spike claims all vampires can move like that, all smooth muscles and perfectly balanced grace, but under most circumstances their memories of being human are too strong. Angel certainly doesn't have that obstacle, not anymore.
The funny thing is I don't share the other's worries. If the curse were going to break it would have done so already. It's kind of pathetic, but the simple truth of the matter is we've never seen Angel happier, well except for Buffy of course. Apparently the gypsies considered sanity to be a component of perfect happiness. I suppose we should all be grateful that they didn't have the same criteria I did when choosing books for English class. I liked the short ones. Mark Twain's "The Stranger" is something I'm real glad they weren't familiar with; if they had been we'd all be in a world of hurt right now. The curse would be just a memory. On the other hand if the curse broke killing Angel wouldn't be such a hard decision.
Then we could just be done with this before it turns into a complete tragedy. When the others are being level headed, which pretty much excludes Cordelia and Buffy, they worry about Angel killing some random stranger. To prove their fears groundless Cordelia brings Angel into the offices during business hours to show that he wouldn't hurt anyone. Wesley was horrified the first time she did it, but honestly I think Cordy's right. When someone he doesn't know comes in Angel goes into instant lurk mode. It's remarkable to watch a six-foot plus, roughly two hundred pound vampire turn invisible seeming at will, but I swear that's exactly what he does. Angel's fight or flight reflexes have a strong bias toward flight, he'll run if he can and if he can't chances are the other person deserves whatever happens to them.
That doesn't mean I don't worry about Angel killing someone someday, I just don't think it will be some innocent passer-by. He's going to kill one of us before the others face the facts. No one else ever gets close enough to corner him. Angel won't let anyone that close unless he trusts them, unless they're one of us. But even Giles says Angel wouldn't purposely hurt us. They all think I'm being paranoid, because he's just so sweet and lovable.
They're wrong. Angel's a mine field of hidden dangers. They just don't want to see it. He actually growled at Buffy the other day. Until that moment no one had a clue that Angel hates having his face touched. It was just an innocent little gesture, her fingers brushing across his cheek, but it almost set him off. I don't doubt that Angel has reason to fear that particular touch, but it doesn't matter. We have no idea what's been done to him. We can't know what other seemingly harmless gestures Angel has learned to associate with being tortured. The only way to find out is the hard way, and Angel won't be to blame. He'll instinctively try to protect himself from a danger that exists only in his damaged mind and someone will die. That he didn't know what he was doing will be cold comfort when it happens.
I'm so sick of being told how I never liked Angel and I'm just acting out of my old hostility toward him. I know how I felt and how I feel. I know I hated him, that I was jealous of him. I know we've never even come close to being friends. I know all that, and I know it isn't affecting me now; there isn't enough of Angel left for me to hate.
I'm not acting out of emotion, just reason. All I want to do is protect my friends and maybe killing him is the kindest thing we could do for Angel. If anyone else were being objective they'd admit that Angel himself, if he were in his right mind, would probably choose death over the possibility that he might hurt one of us. None of that matters to the other, they won't kill him now, instead they're determined to play out another of those short books I always looked for on the reading lists, it was called "Of Mice and Men" and I've recommended it to a lot of people recently. Cordy burned the copy I gave her. I wonder what part she'll end up playing, George or the girl who was killed.