Wide Awake While Everyone
Sleeps
Author: Rachel
Homepage: Rach's Stuff and Under A
Blue Night
Dedication: To Cat, just for being there.
Written: September 2001
Summary: A quick Angel POV with a little Cordy
fluff! Late at night at the Hyperion, Angel makes rounds, checking on his crew
to make sure they're safe.
Rating: PG for exposed panties
Distribute: Take it!
On hot nights like this I lie wide awake in bed
until night changes into morning and the sun comes up, skyrocketing the
temperature in L.A. at least another twenty-five degrees. It's not natural for
me to be sleeping at this time. Nature tells me I should be wide-awake, on the
prowl, stalking innocence, hunting blood. I gave up the hunt long ago, and
cohabitating with humanity leaves me compromising my sleeping patterns. And
even though I'm not tired, I still sleep through part of the night. My crew
stays up late to accommodate me; I retire early to accommodate them. It's a
good compromise; it means I can be with them. Being with them has come to be
the most important thing in my life. My crew, my friends, my family…they're all
I have, and I've come to realize all I need. And I'm proud of that.
Sometimes I venture downstairs, down to the kitchen to take in a little
midnight snack. Over the years, pig's blood has become my food of choice, my
only food actually, even as I used to loathe it. Believe me, it tasted
horrible. It smelled worse, and I remember the first time I tasted it, I almost
choked—if Vampires can choke that is. Choke to death, no. But choke, yes. We
can choke. We can regurgitate. And the act is just as unpleasant for us as it is
for humans. And regurgitating pig's blood was ten times worse than downing it
the first time so I made sure I learned to stand it, and fast. After a while, I
acquired what I guess could be called a taste for it. And Cordelia even started
me adding cinnamon to it, mixing it up from time to time, giving it some
variety, making it a little different.
I owe her for more than just the cinnamon.
When I'm not alone in the hotel, I sometimes make
rounds—check doors, locks, windows—make sure everyone is safe. If something
entered the Hotel, invaded our home, I'd most likely know it. I could sense it,
smell it, feel the attack within my senses. But still, I check the locks. Just
to make sure. It makes me feel better, knowing they're okay.
It's very hot tonight; I'm almost sweating. And
that doesn't happen often. Vampires don't do what's considered normal in most
types of bodily functions, sweating being one of them. I can sweat. And I have.
But only in extreme situations. Regardless of the room temperature, I usually
stay cool—easy being that I have the body temperature of a corpse. Which is
pretty much what I am—a walking corpse. Luckily the hotel stays pretty cool,
even on the hottest LA day. There are so many floors, the heat rising to the
top of the building while the lobby and lower levels stay bearable. My crew,
they all reside on the third floor. Myself, the fourth. All of the other floors
here at the Hyperion Hotel are in desperate need of renovation and aren't yet
fit to live in. I hope to someday restore it to its original splendor. But
there are many floors, hundreds of rooms, and lots of time required in order to
do it. And right now the process is slow. We have other things to worry about
besides renovating the hotel. Lots of other more important issues.
Lots.
Visions for instance.
Cordelia had a hard vision tonight, so I go to
check on her first. Her room comes before the others anyway, and I usually pop
my head in—if I know she's sleeping that is—once on the way in and again on the
way out. Tonight, she's sleeping. But not soundly. I can hear her sighing in
her sleep. After checking on the others, I'll come back.
Wesley and Gunn are both out. Of course I didn't
even need to enter their rooms to know that. Both of them snore so loudly, I
can usually catch it from the elevator. The sound…it sounds like an earthquake.
Or an avalanche. Really, the two of them together should be enough to bring
down these old walls. But then maybe I'm over exaggerating. My perception, my
hearing abilities…well, sometimes I can hear mice in the attic, fifteen stories
up. I guess I'm not really the one to ask. What may be usual for others may be
deafening to me. Luckily, I've adapted to selective hearing—I need to when they
start arguing—If I paid attention to every single sound I heard, I'd go nuts.
And I've been there. Definitely done that. No need to go back. No way. But
really. It's a wonder I get any sleep at all. You should hear the ruckus they
all make in the afternoons before I've risen. Cordelia and the
clack-clack-clack of her heeled shoes, Wesley and his dropping things or
running into things or calling out to the others for things, Gunn on his loud
manner of dialogue. I swear, when the three of them get together, I can
sometimes imagine them in the midst of a wild party. Laughing. Talking.
Shooting the shit. Call me an old man, but a vampire needs his sleep!
Especially at two o'clock in the afternoon. Fred, on the other hand, is as
quiet as a mouse. She sleeps that way too. I check on her before moving back to
Cordelia's room.
By the way, all the bitching I just did over my
friends…it's not that bad. Sometimes the closing of a book is enough to make me
stir. I've thought about earplugs. But I have this thing about putting stuff in
my ears…it kinda freaks me out. Yeah. I have a phobia. Go figure. Just don't
tell anyone about it.
Cordelia is tossing a bit. I go to the foot of the
bed and I wait. She's murmuring something now, and then quiets down. She rolls
on her side, clutching her pillow to her stomach, and rolls again to her back
once more before drifting off into a temporary silence. There's a film of
perspiration on her face, arms and legs. More mumbling. More tossing. I worry
that she's having bad dreams. After-effects from the visions? Maybe I should
ask Wes to make her a talisman or something, anything that could help. Certain
charged stones have the ability to ward off bad dreams. Like Amethyst. I could
slip a piece of Amethyst beneath her mattress…of course I'm sure Cordy wouldn't
like a rock in her bed. Maybe she wouldn't even know. Of course she'd know;
it'd be like the Princess and the Pea. She'd complain of not just headaches and
nightmares, but backaches too.
I could go out and by her a nice piece of Amethyst
jewelry. I'm sure she'd love that. Or, magical rocks aside, I could just stop
letting her eat all that junk food before going to bed. Too much of the wrong
food in the digestion track will haunt you in your sleep. And Cordy likes to
divulge in snacks after coming back from a job…when her stomach can handle it,
that is.
Sometimes the visions make her stomach ache, and
she wont eat for days. It's not healthy; nothing about the visions are. I wish
I could change things; keep her safe from it, make them stop. But I can't. I
have about as much control over that as I do my own destiny. And this is
Cordelia's destiny. And she loves it. Obviously. She loves who she is. She
wants who she is. She takes it, the bad with the good, and she deals with it
wholeheartedly. She rarely complains…anymore.
She loves her destiny…at least someone in this
hotel does.
Cordelia mumbles and scowls and shifts to her
side. Crossing my arms, I resist the urge to wake her. Her chest rises and
falls slowly through the faded cotton tank top she's been wearing to bed the
past few nights. After a moment, she mumbles more and scratches at an inch on
her stomach just above her panty line—faded panties too. If she knew I saw her
in them, she'd most definitely stake me. Her hand falls back across the bed.
She kicks what little cover she has left to the side and the blankets tumble
off the bed. It's too warm in here. She's not comfortable.
I cross the room to the large windows and quietly
push them open. A breeze immediately makes its way in, circling the room and
causing some significant relief. I glance out at the courtyard below and can
smell the night jasmine in bloom there. Jasmine used to remind me of Darla. Not
anymore.
Cordelia does has a nice view. She chose a nice
room. The others' only have a view of the street.
I go back to Cordelia and stop to pick up her
blankets. I separate them from the sheets, settling the blankets within reach
if she happens to need them during the rest of the night, but I lay one of the
sheets across her body. She clutches it, tightly, and sighs. And I feel a
little better. I hate for her not to be covered up, even in this heat.
Finally she seems content, but within the second
it takes me to turn my back to her, she's kicked them off again. She turns her
body again, now, completely on her side; hands going to huddle beneath her
chin, legs curling in a loose fetal position, hair splaying out—it's grown a
couple of inches in the last few months—short and sleek and dark in contrast to
the white of the downy pillow.
She breathes. I can see her chest rising and
falling, and her stomach slightly, too, where her top has ridden up.
To place my hand over that spot, to feel the
warmth, the heat, the life in her…I can only image the privilege that must be.
I confess; some nights I reach out and touch her
hair. Other nights, I don't. Tonight ,I don't. She's too conscious, and I'm
afraid of what she'd think if she awoke to catch me in her room like this. And
I don't want to frighten her. And I don't want to weird her out either. Oh man,
if she knew…
I watch her, often. Not in a perverse way, not why
she might think if she ever found me standing here. You must understand how
important it is for me to be able to take in the sight of her sleeping. To know
that she's sleeping, here, within reach, completely trusting me to be a floor
above her. I watch her because she's important. Because she is everything I
could ever hope for in life, and more. Because it makes me feel good to know
that she's here. She does trust me again. I thought it would be harder, to earn
that trust back after I'd thrown it away so haplessly just a few months ago…
It feels like years.
But it wasn't hard at all. Once I got passed the initial
standoff, I mean. She hated me. She wanted to hate me. I wanted to hate me too.
But I'd hated myself too long. And something…something drove me back. To her,
to them. And as easy as it had been to let them all go, when they were ready,
when they were willing, it had been a thousand times easier to let them back
in, to want them. Because I think for the first time in this life, I was able
to realize how much I wanted them. And want is a very powerful thing.
I was able to get her back, and she came, to stay,
here, beside her vampire.
And I am hers.
I will never risk losing her again, that's for
damn sure. Damn sure. I mean, seriously, I have never been surer of anything.
She sighs and shifts and settles, her feet
dangling from the mattress. But something causes her to tremble and whimper,
and I go against my better judgment and circle the bed to kneel before her.
Hazel eyes shift beneath light lids, lips purse as
if she's either going to frown or scowl, her brows knit together in confusion.
When the expression on her face shifts to fear, I reach out and place my
fingertips against her temple, light enough, just barely, to let her know that
I'm right here.
"Don't go." She sighs, and her hands grasp the
sheets.
"I'm not going anywhere," I whisper. "Not
anywhere."
Her fingers loosen on the linen, the fear on her
face fades. She frowns, mumbling something indistinguishable before turning up
and away. My hand flits across her cheek before I have time to pull away.
Loudly, she sighs. And within the sigh, "Angel, I'll be fine."
Sometimes I worry—actually, most of the time I
worry. That she doesn't need me, not nearly as much as I think; as much as I
kid myself sometimes. As often as she says she does. Oh god. If Cordelia
doesn't need me, then who does? If she doesn't then no one does. And if that's
true, it would strip away everything I've thought myself to become. Everything
I've worked for. All the meaning in my life, poof. Done. Gone. Goodbye.
Meaningless. The last two years would have been a sham. My redemption, a lie.
I'd be lost. More lost than ever…
Oh, god, please let her always need me.
Now that I've thoroughly scared myself, I pause.
Briefly. Before deciding to get out of here. Shifting my weight to rise from
the kneeling position on the floor, I guess I lean against the bed and disturb
her because suddenly she turns back to face me, eyes starting to open, head
rising from the pillow, hair spilling back from perspired skin to hang in a
dark mass. I seriously consider bolting out of the room, but then she reaches
out a hand and takes a light hold of my wrist and the heat from her palm and
fingers causes me to halt, and I don't move. Not an inch. As her eyelashes
flutter slightly—blinking rapidly to clear her sleep-laden vision—she peers up
at me through the darkness and scrunches up her face in marvel.
"Angel?" Her voice rasped with sleep.
"Ssh," I say, running my hand over her forehead to
push back a few stray strands of damp hair.
"Is…is everything okay?"
"Yeah…are you okay? You were tossing,"
"Oh," She blinks and thinks, and then regarding me
there, beside her, nods. "Bad dream, I think. But…not anymore."
"Good,"
"Are you sure you're okay?"
She's becoming more aware now, and her head
glances to and fro and I start to back up when she looks down at herself and
must realize that she's slightly indisposed. Surprisingly she peers back up at
me, not rushing to cover herself up—perhaps she isn't as awake as I'd
thought—and actually scoots to sit, legs pulled beneath her, rubbing her forehead.
"Cordy, honey, go back to sleep."
"Are you having trouble sleeping?" She asks in
confusion.
I let a small smile work its way into the corners
of my mouth—not any farther, but it's there.
"No." I say.
She stares at me for a moment, completely out of
it, then slowly nods her head. She falls back, sighing as her heavy eyes close,
and she settles into her pillow. Instinctively reaching, she pulls at one of
the blankets at her side, and I help her spread it across herself. She snuggles
down into it, and she murmurs, "If you need me…"
She hasn't even finished before she's drifted.
"Good night." I say.
"'Night," She manages. And then she's asleep
again.
She's the one with the nightmares, and she's
worried about me. I love this girl so much.
And she didn't even freak about me being here.
That's a good sign…even if she was zonked.
All right. That was SUCH a Xander Harris word. I
shiver. Ew.
I stare down at her for a moment before scolding
myself to stop before my eyes get all teary. For two hundred and forty-eight
years, no one has ever been closer to my heart. Call me sentimental, but I'll
cherish this girl for the rest of my days.
I take the opportunity to lay a light kiss against
her temple, resulting in her lazy, unaware smile, and then I turn to exit. I
will sleep easier now. I never thought anyone would regard me so…familiarly.
It's a load off, really. Such a load off. I don't know why I doubt myself so
much…years of habit, I assume.
Cordelia really is the heart of the group. And if
she's comfortable, that means everyone is comfortable. And now all my
insecurities have been banished…until the next time I get insecure, that is.
God, my Seer is good for so many different things!
And she's comfortable with me. How great does that
make me feel!
But she's obviously not comfortable with the
blanket because by the time I reach the door she's already kicked it off again.
She sleeps flat on her stomach, one leg dangling from the bed…faded panties in
full view.
