Chapter 8: Strangers like you and me
He watches from the shadows as she steps through the oak doors and into the empty library. He always watches. Never speaks. Never acts.
Just watches.
He knows his place. He knows the line to which he can go and he has no intention of crossing it. He does not want to give them the slightest incentive for hurting him.
Because they would take it.
So he watches in silence as she crosses the vast marble floor of the empty library; her blonde hair pulled tightly back into a ponytail, clad in camouflage trousers and a tight-fitting black top. She reeks of slayer.
He does not want to be here. He never did. Yet hewill have to play his part in their crazy pantomime. He is special. Abnormal. The Council has an interest in him and that is why he is here.
And as long as they want him to, he will stay and watch and be silent.
The overhead lamp went on with a spluttering hiss that made Buffy sigh in gratitude. To find an abandoned motel had been a stroke of luck she still found inconceivable and the fact that the lighting had been dead in every single room had been the only thing that had made her believe she was not dreaming. Of course they would have been fine sleeping in total darkness, not a problem, but she would like a good look at Angel in a place where the maximum amount of lighting did not peak in a pocket-sized flashlight.
Besides, the batteries in that thing had definitely joined the last chorus.
A dusty, unmade bed stood sprawled across the wooden floor along the wall to her right, facing a half-open door behind which a bathroom in green tiles was collecting dust. There was only a single window in the wall facing the entrance, consisting merely of a wobbly wooden frame since all the glass had been broken off, which was flanked at either side by brownish-green curtains that flailed madly as the door was opened.
The single lamp beside the bed finally stopped its hysterical spitting and the warm, orange glow made the room seem much more welcoming than it had done during the lamp's make-believe disco-lighting. The floorboards creaked slightly as Buffy walked to the cupboard and pulled the doors open, not in the least bit surprised to find them empty. Behind her she heard Angel slowly close the door.
Not wanting to look at him, afraid to see what she had only heard, glimpsed and felt she fled to the bathroom. She was scared. Strange as it was, Buffy felt certain she had never felt so terrified in her entire existence. The prospect of opening the door and looking at Angel as he had become froze her to the core. She did not want to look at him and see him branded. She did not want to look at him and see the Angel she knew buried beyond uncountable layers of suffering that could never be broken through.
Because looking at him, seeing the changes would make it real. Seeing him spattered with the blood of the men he had slaughtered, seeing the madness in his eyes would truly, finally kill the Angel she remembered.
She was afraid to look at him and forget what she had known.
Her fingers felt oddly stiff as she forced them to close around the doorknob. She stared at her white knuckles, the veins that pulsated underneath the skin as she strained her unresponsive fingers firmer still around the smooth copper, before finally making her decision and pushing the door open.
At first she thought the room empty and that Angel had left. Then movement at the corner of her vision caught her eye and she spun on her feet to see him standing as far back in the darkest corner as he could get. Her body went numb and she licked her lips in indecision. The curtains whispered as the night breeze tugged gently at them. Angel shivered.
'There's –' Her voice broke. She cleared her throat awkwardly. 'There's warm water. I thought…for your wounds. If you want me to have a look.'
He turned his back to her and did not answer. Buffy felt her eyes begin to sting again. She took a deep breath and pretended not to notice.
'Angel.' He stiffened. 'I have to know. I have to see.' The floorboards creaked as she took a step closer. His hands were trembling. 'I can't help you if I don't know what's going on, and to be honest with you, right now I don't have a frigging clue! I'm tired, confused and scared. And I need your help.'
She could have reached out and touched him but her arms remained hanging loosely by her sides. Ever so slowly he turned and the glint from the lamp crept across his face.
Buffy could not stop the sob that threatened to choke her.
He was thin and awfully so. His cheeks had sunken to the point where his perfectly chiselled cheek-bones protruded from his face and his dark eyes seemed sunken and matte. His skin was not pale; it was colourless, pearly white but without the life. And on the right cheek endless brandings had left a white scar, an intricate design of the Council's interacting initials forever burned into his skin. Buffy did not notice the tears that trailed down her cheek, nor did she plan for her hand to fly to his cheek; he flinched under her touch but she did not care, her fingers tracing the hideous marking across his skin, and slowly his gaze rose to meet hers.
'Oh Angel – I'm so sorry – so sorry…' She did not try to suppress the sobs that surged through her body as her fingers gently explored his ghostly face; the brand, the obtrusive cheekbone, the blue-toned lips. The rain had washed the blood from the wound on his forehead where a bullet had clipped the hairline and he stood silent and still as her hand glided across the cold skin. The tears stung her eyes as she gently brushed a lock of long hair from his face, before her fingers swept over his jaw-bone. Immediately he jerked his head away from her, the movement so sudden and curt Buffy instinctively yanked her hand back. He shuffled away from her, blinking frantically and with his head held low.
He had felt like Angel underneath her touch, the coolness underneath her fingers had been familiar and soothing, almost making her forget… now it was gone, she suddenly felt very much alone again. 'I-I'm sorry! Are-are you hurt? I didn't mean to –'
She trailed off.
He had raised his head and his narrowed eyes flicked across her face. 'Buffy?' he breathed, his hand starting upwards as though he had been reaching for her face but then thought the better of it.
The sleeves brushed past his wrists at the motion and Buffy froze, her eyes locked on the sharp glint of the metal, gone now as swiftly as it had come. Angel noticed and began to turn from her. She grabbed his arm.
'No. Let me see.'
Immediately he tore his arm from her grasp, and turned his head away from her. Buffy tried to ignore the tiny pang that shot through her at his rejection.
'Let me see,' she repeated insistently.
His dark eyes scrutinized hers intensely and in the end she was the one who had to look down.
'They won't go away just because you hide them,' she said quietly, 'and I will see them sooner or later.'
He gave her a strange look and something gleamed briefly in his eyes before they dimmed to the lifeless, matte brown they had been before. Lightless. Lifeless.
Defeated.
Silently, he slowly extended his hands towards her, his eyes flicking nervously from them to her face and back again.
Buffy did not gasp or cry out or move. She had known what she would find, but nothing could have prepared her for the boundless rage that boiled within her at the sight of the metal rings piercing his wrists. Dull grey in colour and about a centimetre wide, they twisted out of his pale skin like dying serpents, writhing past the faint grey outlines of the veins that started and convulsed before her eyes.
She sucked in a sharp breath of air that hissed through her clenched teeth, and Angel started at the sound. But he did not draw away.
'I'll get these off you,' she promised vehemently, feeling the heat within her chest expand. 'If I have to brand Mark with his own branding iron to find a way, I promise I will do it.'
Her voice shook almost as much as her hands.
Angel was silent, watching her warily, motionlessly, and Buffy's eyes darted about the faintly lit room, blinking back the tears that began to burn at the back of her eyes.
'Right.' It felt as though she had been torn in minuscule pieces and scattered throughout the shadows that coated the room. 'Right – we-we need to get you checked over.' Why was this so hard? Her thoughts refused to be forced back into her head, and she felt detached, light-headed, but at the same time as though her body was being dragged downward. 'There's warm water,' she repeated. It was easier than inventing something new to say. Her mouth had gone dry as she fought for something to say that would make it all better. There had to be something that would make it easier to understand.
Angel's voice was quiet, almost a whisper but it sounded loud in the stifling silence of the room and her head jerked up:
'I don't…' His eyes flickered over her face, randomly catching the faint gleam of the spluttering lamp. His mouth worked wordlessly for a brief moment. 'I don't want you to see…'
'Don't be a baby. I've seen it before, you know.' Her hand gave a strange, non-committal gesture; perhaps because her voice did not have the vivacity it used to do when she said things like that.
Of course Angel did not allow her to throw his meaning away. 'You shouldn't…' he began, his eyes narrowing with a pain that was not physical, 'you shouldn't have to see this…'
'And you shouldn't have to show me, yet here we are,' she countered, the heat gone to leave her chest hurting so much the words suddenly took on a spiteful tone that had not been intentional. Angel looked down and did not answer.
A cold tear trailed down her cheek and Buffy bit hard down upon her lower lip. 'I'll get the water,' she began, turning from him to disguise the tears in her voice. 'You just get the shirt off…'
The water was warm and light brown as it fell from the rusty pipe into the oval bath-tub. The plug was long gone but Buffy had torn the old, lice-eaten rug from the bed into trawls and stuffed the black, gaping hole in the greying white surface until the water began to pool satisfactorily. The deeper it became, the darker a shade of brown it took on but a quick inspection had satisfied her that it was merely rust, and now she sat by the edge of the tub, watching the torrent of water crash against the ever-moving surface.
She could not remember when Angel had fallen silent, or if he had at all, the noise of water upon water perhaps drowning out any noise he might have been making. She had not intended to close the door but the breeze from the open windows had slammed it shut while she fought with the soaked pieces of woollen material and she had not opened it again.
Her mind was a lot like the grimy water, she reflected grimly. Muddled to begin with, but then more and more was poured into it until it was an ever-moving whirlwind of impenetrable murkiness. The situation she now found herself in was too macabre for her to reflect on; she could do nothing but take it one second at a time, hoping something would happen that would yank her out of the foggy parallel universe she suddenly found herself in.
And Angel…
Buffy sighed, and turned the water off. She stared unseeingly for a moment as the water kept chasing itself in widening circles. Angel was another thing she had to take one second at a time.
Otherwise she would realise she had no idea what she was doing or what she was going to do, and that was not something she wanted to see happen.
The door squealed in protest as she pushed it open, and a gust of icy wind immediately struck her face, tearing at strands of hair as it loosened from her pony-tail. Her gaze travelled from the flailing curtains to Angel's still form where he had sunken back against the unmade bed. He had complied and the blood-soaked shirt was gone, leaving the upper part of his body naked down to the grey pants of the same coarse material that remained tied at the front. One arm was slung over his face, the other resting by his side; he was lying on his back and Buffy felt winded at the sight that met her. Now that the grey rag was off, his stomach caved inward to the point of absurdity, every rib and both hip-bones stood painted in stark contrast by the silhouetting lamp-light. Exhaustion was visible in every inch of his posture.
Not really wanting to startle him out of a rest she did not doubt he severely needed, Buffy took a hesitant step forward. The floorboards gave a shriek squeak, and before she could react Angel had flung himself off the bed, but still disorientated he staggered brutally against the wall before he could regain his balance or composure.
Buffy flung out her arms, her voice more shrill than she had anticipated.
'Angel! It's me – I'm sorry, it's just me…'
He blinked at her, letting out a hoarse, trembling breath.
'Oh God…' he half-whimpered, his eyes leaving her face to take in the ceiling, the room, the window… Even in the half-light thrown by the spluttering lamp she could see his eyes clench shut. 'I didn't mean to – it doesn't hurt - Oh god….'
The fit he had suffered at the gallery suddenly exploded before Buffy's eyes and she stepped closer, one hand outstretched as though he was a cowering animal. She checked herself, and forced the tense muscles to relax, forced the arm to hang down her side. 'Angel?' she tried, her voice half-caught in her tightening throat.
He shuddered at the sound of her voice, his eyes dropping to the floor between his hands, all the while murmuring, muttering, words she could not catch. It felt as though her heart had stopped beating and her mind had blanked out; every part of her watching, waiting yet fearing what would come next. Please, God, someone…please…
It began to burn at the back of her eyes again, as Angel's pale hand brush aimlessly over the dusty floor; his eyes remained shut as the muttering died and he fell silent.
Not again, please not again…
'It is okay, Angel. It is going to be okay…'
Another trembling breath, half-way between a sigh and a sob left him, but he opened his eyes and looked up at her.
'No,' he whispered, the light from the lamp reflecting in the narrow path the tears had carved down his cheek. 'No, it won't.'
For a moment she simply stared into his dark eyes because he was right, she realised. She could not know how everything was going to be. She knew nothing. So she gazed into his eyes and he stared back, unblinking. He was not breathing but remained perfectly still; the only movement was the occasional flicker of dark and light in his eyes as he saw something in hers. Her heart had come alive once more and Buffy could feel it thundering against her tightening ribcage, while the breaths were catching in her throat.
Then he blinked, and his head lowered as he pushed himself to his feet. Her legs still numb, Buffy staggered away from the open bathroom door towards the window where tiny drops of rain were torn past the splinters of broken glass and into the room by the night-wind, as though the night was crying too. Staring into the darkness, she felt the water strike her face like splinters of ice, hearing through the weeping of the wind the screech of the floorboards as Angel slowly crossed the room and the distant sound of fearful screams, rising through the darkness as shrill, terrified cries.
The wind smelled of ash and sweet, burnt flesh.
A/N:
I am so, so sorry! It has taken me months to get back to this story – believe me, it wasn't intentional.
Thanks so much to you all for your support this far, and special thanks to a2zmom, nimwen, Veronika and StephanieB for giving me a kick behind and getting me back to this!
I'm a very bad, bad author…
But please, please review and let me know someone still have a faint clue just what is going on here…
