Chapter 13: City of Angel's
The winter month of February was always overwhelmingly warm in Los Angeles, a never-ending testament to the sort of freakish and curious nature that characterized the city. This was the home to misfits from all over the country. Starstruck, ambitious, misguided, oddball, beautiful, corrupted, naïve, superficial, existentially despaired and aimless souls all resided here, making one wonder how this place could ever be nicknamed "The City of Angels".
Speaking of aimless souls, one such straggler was roaming the back alleyways of a Los Angeles blood bank, searching in the dumpsters for an uncleaned container, a pack of spoiled blood, any remnants of sustenance he could find. To any observer, this man was the saddest case of human survival; a person desperately hanging off of the bottom rungs of society, but somehow, always falling short. Someone who even put the homeless to shame. He sighed frustratedly, drawing his head from the dumpster, throwing the heavy bin over with brutish desperation. He glanced soberly around at his surroundings and down at himself, a sad excuse for a human being. Except he wasn't human.
His usually sturdy frame had been reduced to a frail mockery of what he used to be. His face was paler than it ever had been, a frightening canvas of ghostly white stretched over weary bones. His hair was greasy, lank, and fell short from the usual on-end shock of hair it usually was. His black clothes were tattered, hanging off his body in shreds---a sad end to what had before been a spotless Hugo Boss suit.
He had chosen this city for the anonymity. He knew, in the entire world, if you had no place to go, you could come here. A sort of unwelcoming hospice for freaks, losers, outcasts, pariahs, he figured he would feel at home here. Wrong. He should have remembered he felt at home nowhere. He was one-of-a-kind in all the world, he could never feel anonymous, even when he visually blended into the crowd of other social lepers.
He remembered existing like this once; the streets of Manhattan, not unlike this, he prowled about in sewers and alleyways, accepting his fate as the penultimate nothing---a thing that existed not as a human, not as a demon, therefore solidifying his out-of-place role in the universe. He told himself daily that his suffering and his pain had no point----he was nothing, insignificant---no one would ever care the trials he went through, not when he had spent nearly two centuries casting scourges of cruelty upon helpless innocents. He was paying the price for being one of the most infamous deviants in Europe; his name was uttered and feared by millions----now no one cared to even learn it. He had dealt with it then, what was so different about now?
Two years. Two years among eighty was enough to suddenly make him feel like he had a place in the world, that he mattered. Two years and one blonde girl gave his unlife purpose and meaning. Unaccustomed to any attention whatsoever, he was suddenly basking in it, in love and affection. Not only that, but he had something to give this girl: his aide, his support, his devotion. It almost fooled him into thinking that he had relevance to the world after all, that he could give and receive. He ragingly kicked the wall in self-desperation. Goddamn Whistler, he muttered hatefully to himself. Goddamn him for making me think there was something better . . . that I could actually become something. For giving me a taste of what could have been---no strike that, what never could have been. For making immortality seem that much longer without it . . .
"Hello?" A soft voice pierced the night, cutting through the hazy noise of sirens and car alarms that circled the man's head. It was the voice of a young girl, something that he hadn't heard in weeks. He quickly veered his glance to the source of the voice.
A blonde girl, somehow familiar, though obviously not. She cautiously and nervously glanced about the alley, searching its corners with a flashlight. She held a bag of trash in her hand, but had initially jumped when she first heard the noise. "Hello? I-is anyone t-there? I h-heard something. I-if anyone's there, come out now!"
He blinked twice, trying to see past his dizzying hunger and overwhelming despondency. She almost looked like---but no, it couldn't be. Still he was far enough gone to fool himself into thinking it was her.
"B-Buffy?" He whispered, and immediately, the flashlight shone in his direction. He could see her plainly enough to see she was indeed not the same---the difference in her facial shape, her clear, blue eyes instead of stormy hazel ones, all the signs were there indicating that this wasn't his girl. And still he imagined she was. Green eyes replaced blue ones in his mind.
"Oh my god," the girl murmured as she caught sight of the stranger's pinched, pallid face. She approached him slowly, pity coloring her face. "A-are y-you sick? Are you okay?" Sympathetic tone. Only one person in the world ever spoke to him this way. It only deluded him further into his mirage. He reached his hand out, trying to touch the girl desperately, grasp onto the air around her. At that, she backed away slightly. "Y-you are, aren't you? Y-you're sick . . ." Her gaze this time was mixed with apprehension and disgust. She had got a better look at him and frowned at his tattered clothes and slovenly appearance. And he was still reaching out to her, imploring her for her touch.
"Buffy? B-Buffy, is that you?" he was still muttering nonsensically. She suddenly got a glimpse of half-eaten blood packs at his feet, trash littering the space around him. She saw that his hands were matted and dirty, and covered with blood from clawing through the garbage can, rummaging his way through discarded syringes and needles. She understood now. He was a thing, not a sick helpless man, but a thing. A dirty thing. She gazed at him critically, repelled now.
"You aren't supposed to be here," she snarled.
The stranger looked as though he had been slapped in the face. "Wha----Buffy--"
He was obviously high, psychotic or brain-dead. "I'm not Buffy, or whoever you're mumbling out," the girl stated harshly, glaring accusingly at him. "You're crazy. You don't belong here, you're nothing."
He ground his hands to his skull. "No . . . n-no it's not true---"
"Get out of here!" she spat at him, shining the flashlight full on in his face, blinding him for a second. He hissed, so shell-shocked now that his demon visage was rising, turning his brown eyes to slitted glinting yellow ones and his smooth, pale face monstrously disfigured. The girl watched in horror as he morphed into the truly dirty thing he was and began to back away. Finally, she threw down her flashlight and bags she was clutching onto and screamed, a horrible, frightening sound that filled his ears with despair. A hundred years ago, a terrified shriek like this would have been his siren song, a beautiful sound he would have relished as much as musical note. Now it just filled him with dread and odium for himself.
The girl was scrambled away from him, running back into
the light, leaving him to soak in the darkness. And suddenly it wasn't enough for him anymore. He got off his feet and stumbled out of the pitch-black alleyway.
He could barely see where he was walking, all the lights, colors, people meshed into one stream of blurry color, every voice, call, siren and car alarm becoming indistinct and hazy. He never noticed the disgusted strangers who gave him disapproving looks as he limped past them down the dirty sidewalk. All he could distinguish from the chaotic cloud of people and noise and lights in front of him were blonde heads. Every blonde girl that past him suddenly made him die inside, because he always mistook them for one singular blonde girl, one who was the only one in the world for him, one who felt like she was a world away. He saw her face everywhere, floating above the rest of the crowd, smiling at him teasingly, laughing at him with a soft tinkling laugh that made him want to grab the mirage before him, touch it, savor her if she was real. He tried that once, but was rewarded with an infuriated blonde woman smacking him upside the head with her massive purse. "Goddamn druggies!" she yelled.
I can't do this, he was frantically muttering to himself. I can't. I can't live like this, there's nothing for me, absolutely nothing . . .
He was unconsciously stalking the streets now, almost forgetting that his place was in the shadows as he walked aimlessly under the sleazy, neon lights of this L.A neighborhood. Suddenly, a little item in a pawnshop caught it his eye and he halted. Pressing his hands up to the glass, he gazed at it longingly from where it sat studded in a little black box. It didn't look that expensive, he had seen a dozen rings like it before, but somehow, he now wanted it so desperately he was ready to raid the store in a fury for it. From behind the window, he saw a nervous and anxious man staring back at him, already guessing his motives by his scraggly appearance. He glowered back at the man and walked into the shop.
Thirty minutes later, Angel walked out of the pawnshop, leaving an unconscious shopkeeper lying amidst a ravaged shop in his wake. He had a box containing a claddagh ring in his hand, and enough money in his pocket for one train ticket back to Sunnydale.
The winter month of February was always overwhelmingly warm in Los Angeles, a never-ending testament to the sort of freakish and curious nature that characterized the city. This was the home to misfits from all over the country. Starstruck, ambitious, misguided, oddball, beautiful, corrupted, naïve, superficial, existentially despaired and aimless souls all resided here, making one wonder how this place could ever be nicknamed "The City of Angels".
Speaking of aimless souls, one such straggler was roaming the back alleyways of a Los Angeles blood bank, searching in the dumpsters for an uncleaned container, a pack of spoiled blood, any remnants of sustenance he could find. To any observer, this man was the saddest case of human survival; a person desperately hanging off of the bottom rungs of society, but somehow, always falling short. Someone who even put the homeless to shame. He sighed frustratedly, drawing his head from the dumpster, throwing the heavy bin over with brutish desperation. He glanced soberly around at his surroundings and down at himself, a sad excuse for a human being. Except he wasn't human.
His usually sturdy frame had been reduced to a frail mockery of what he used to be. His face was paler than it ever had been, a frightening canvas of ghostly white stretched over weary bones. His hair was greasy, lank, and fell short from the usual on-end shock of hair it usually was. His black clothes were tattered, hanging off his body in shreds---a sad end to what had before been a spotless Hugo Boss suit.
He had chosen this city for the anonymity. He knew, in the entire world, if you had no place to go, you could come here. A sort of unwelcoming hospice for freaks, losers, outcasts, pariahs, he figured he would feel at home here. Wrong. He should have remembered he felt at home nowhere. He was one-of-a-kind in all the world, he could never feel anonymous, even when he visually blended into the crowd of other social lepers.
He remembered existing like this once; the streets of Manhattan, not unlike this, he prowled about in sewers and alleyways, accepting his fate as the penultimate nothing---a thing that existed not as a human, not as a demon, therefore solidifying his out-of-place role in the universe. He told himself daily that his suffering and his pain had no point----he was nothing, insignificant---no one would ever care the trials he went through, not when he had spent nearly two centuries casting scourges of cruelty upon helpless innocents. He was paying the price for being one of the most infamous deviants in Europe; his name was uttered and feared by millions----now no one cared to even learn it. He had dealt with it then, what was so different about now?
Two years. Two years among eighty was enough to suddenly make him feel like he had a place in the world, that he mattered. Two years and one blonde girl gave his unlife purpose and meaning. Unaccustomed to any attention whatsoever, he was suddenly basking in it, in love and affection. Not only that, but he had something to give this girl: his aide, his support, his devotion. It almost fooled him into thinking that he had relevance to the world after all, that he could give and receive. He ragingly kicked the wall in self-desperation. Goddamn Whistler, he muttered hatefully to himself. Goddamn him for making me think there was something better . . . that I could actually become something. For giving me a taste of what could have been---no strike that, what never could have been. For making immortality seem that much longer without it . . .
"Hello?" A soft voice pierced the night, cutting through the hazy noise of sirens and car alarms that circled the man's head. It was the voice of a young girl, something that he hadn't heard in weeks. He quickly veered his glance to the source of the voice.
A blonde girl, somehow familiar, though obviously not. She cautiously and nervously glanced about the alley, searching its corners with a flashlight. She held a bag of trash in her hand, but had initially jumped when she first heard the noise. "Hello? I-is anyone t-there? I h-heard something. I-if anyone's there, come out now!"
He blinked twice, trying to see past his dizzying hunger and overwhelming despondency. She almost looked like---but no, it couldn't be. Still he was far enough gone to fool himself into thinking it was her.
"B-Buffy?" He whispered, and immediately, the flashlight shone in his direction. He could see her plainly enough to see she was indeed not the same---the difference in her facial shape, her clear, blue eyes instead of stormy hazel ones, all the signs were there indicating that this wasn't his girl. And still he imagined she was. Green eyes replaced blue ones in his mind.
"Oh my god," the girl murmured as she caught sight of the stranger's pinched, pallid face. She approached him slowly, pity coloring her face. "A-are y-you sick? Are you okay?" Sympathetic tone. Only one person in the world ever spoke to him this way. It only deluded him further into his mirage. He reached his hand out, trying to touch the girl desperately, grasp onto the air around her. At that, she backed away slightly. "Y-you are, aren't you? Y-you're sick . . ." Her gaze this time was mixed with apprehension and disgust. She had got a better look at him and frowned at his tattered clothes and slovenly appearance. And he was still reaching out to her, imploring her for her touch.
"Buffy? B-Buffy, is that you?" he was still muttering nonsensically. She suddenly got a glimpse of half-eaten blood packs at his feet, trash littering the space around him. She saw that his hands were matted and dirty, and covered with blood from clawing through the garbage can, rummaging his way through discarded syringes and needles. She understood now. He was a thing, not a sick helpless man, but a thing. A dirty thing. She gazed at him critically, repelled now.
"You aren't supposed to be here," she snarled.
The stranger looked as though he had been slapped in the face. "Wha----Buffy--"
He was obviously high, psychotic or brain-dead. "I'm not Buffy, or whoever you're mumbling out," the girl stated harshly, glaring accusingly at him. "You're crazy. You don't belong here, you're nothing."
He ground his hands to his skull. "No . . . n-no it's not true---"
"Get out of here!" she spat at him, shining the flashlight full on in his face, blinding him for a second. He hissed, so shell-shocked now that his demon visage was rising, turning his brown eyes to slitted glinting yellow ones and his smooth, pale face monstrously disfigured. The girl watched in horror as he morphed into the truly dirty thing he was and began to back away. Finally, she threw down her flashlight and bags she was clutching onto and screamed, a horrible, frightening sound that filled his ears with despair. A hundred years ago, a terrified shriek like this would have been his siren song, a beautiful sound he would have relished as much as musical note. Now it just filled him with dread and odium for himself.
The girl was scrambled away from him, running back into
the light, leaving him to soak in the darkness. And suddenly it wasn't enough for him anymore. He got off his feet and stumbled out of the pitch-black alleyway.
He could barely see where he was walking, all the lights, colors, people meshed into one stream of blurry color, every voice, call, siren and car alarm becoming indistinct and hazy. He never noticed the disgusted strangers who gave him disapproving looks as he limped past them down the dirty sidewalk. All he could distinguish from the chaotic cloud of people and noise and lights in front of him were blonde heads. Every blonde girl that past him suddenly made him die inside, because he always mistook them for one singular blonde girl, one who was the only one in the world for him, one who felt like she was a world away. He saw her face everywhere, floating above the rest of the crowd, smiling at him teasingly, laughing at him with a soft tinkling laugh that made him want to grab the mirage before him, touch it, savor her if she was real. He tried that once, but was rewarded with an infuriated blonde woman smacking him upside the head with her massive purse. "Goddamn druggies!" she yelled.
I can't do this, he was frantically muttering to himself. I can't. I can't live like this, there's nothing for me, absolutely nothing . . .
He was unconsciously stalking the streets now, almost forgetting that his place was in the shadows as he walked aimlessly under the sleazy, neon lights of this L.A neighborhood. Suddenly, a little item in a pawnshop caught it his eye and he halted. Pressing his hands up to the glass, he gazed at it longingly from where it sat studded in a little black box. It didn't look that expensive, he had seen a dozen rings like it before, but somehow, he now wanted it so desperately he was ready to raid the store in a fury for it. From behind the window, he saw a nervous and anxious man staring back at him, already guessing his motives by his scraggly appearance. He glowered back at the man and walked into the shop.
Thirty minutes later, Angel walked out of the pawnshop, leaving an unconscious shopkeeper lying amidst a ravaged shop in his wake. He had a box containing a claddagh ring in his hand, and enough money in his pocket for one train ticket back to Sunnydale.