PAIRING : Fred POV

RATING : PG14

SPOILERS : “Over the Rainbow” on Angel

DISCLAIMER : I do not own these characters.

“Can never go back.” He whispers. His whispers sound like magic in this emptiness. For centuries it’s only been quiet. Me and the quiet. “Never go back.”

“You could… stay here.” I whisper back, barely recognizing the sound of my own voice. I don’t use it much anymore. I don’t use much of anything anymore.

He slowly falls sleep and I’m not sure why I offer him a place to stay or who exactly he is. But I do know that he’s… he’s… another word lost to me. Everyday, I lose one more.

I wash my hands of the blood. I’ve never known a creature to be drawn to blood the way he was. I wonder what kind he is, surely not one from here. He spoke of a portal, of a place called LA. I write those letters on the walls next to meaningless others that I see in my dreams. E=MC2. I know it used to be important but now it’s just chalk on rock and part of a dream.

I wake to the sounds of his crying and I go to him. He’s awake and his hands are covered in blood. He’s scratching them raw. I know how he feels. I too wish to itch the skin off of my body. “You have to stop.” I say as I pull his hands apart. His arms are bleeding too. “You can’t do this, now.”

I take his hands in mine and look down. The wounds are deep. I look at my own arms and see the scars of nights I spent doing the exact same thing. We two are alike. This much I know and perhaps that’s why I’m drawn to him. He’s just quiet. He doesn’t say a thing. I briefly look into his eyes but it hurts too much to do. I haven’t been connected to anyone that intensely since I got here. I haven’t look directly into anyone’s eyes in… I don’t even know. Seconds turn into days and weeks are eternity. I stopped counting after four hundred. I ran out of space on the wall.

He starts shaking again, if he ever stopped. I don’t know how to stop him since I’m not sure if I ever stopped and I don’t remember when I started. I touch his face and he looks at me. His eyes are burned. They’re filled with pain.

“Don’t touch me.” He says.

“But I am. See?” I touch him again and he leans into my hand. I jerk away. I wasn’t expecting that. I don’t understand it.

“You’re afraid of me.” He says. “They all are. They should be.”

“I’m not.” I say. “I just… I haven’t touched anyone.”

“In five years?”

“In forever.” I say and I feel the water in my eyes. Tears. I haven’t cried in a very long time. It’s not allowed by cows. “I… I don’t remember this world you speak of.”

“Maybe it’s not worth knowing.”

“Anything can be better than… no. I can’t pretend.”

“Pretend what?” He asks me.

“That there’s anything but this.” I stand up and point to the walls. “These are just dreams.” I say. “They’re pictures that I see when I close my eyes but I don’t know what they mean. I can’t remember how to put the letters. Every second, I lose a part of myself.” And now I’m crying and I can’t stop.

“Shh.” He says and his hands reach for mine. “I know the feeling.”

“I’m not afraid of you.” I whisper. “I don’t understand, but I’m not afraid.”

“I’m… I’m a monster.”

“Monsters hurt. You haven’t hurt me. You saved me.”

“There’s another part of me… it’s…” He hangs his head and looks down.

“You didn’t do nothin’ wrong.” I say. “Just the way some cows are, they got… special qualities.”

“I’ve got a demon inside me. It kills people and I hate it.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s me.”

“But you’re not killin’.”

“I hurt everyone who loves me.”

“Then you can stay here. I can’t love.”

It’s been two weeks since he came. Two weeks since the silence in the cave is less deafening. Most of the time, we just sit. Sometimes we’ll talk but most the time we sit. He looks at the walls and even painted a picture on a rock one day. He’s very talented with the paints. He disappears sometimes, at night mostly. He comes back, as I’ve come to learn, as a vampire. That’s what the monster is. Looking in the water is what gets him to change back.

He doesn’t eat. I assume that this other face of his, is what feeds him. I don’t ask. And he doesn’t offer.

I’ve watched him sit in the sun for hours at a time. It’s almost as if he hasn’t even seen it before. He likes to stare at himself in the water too. He admires his face and touches his eyes, like he’s never seen himself.

We don’t talk much about the LA I wrote on the wall. He doesn’t bring it up and I don’t ask. He asks me about this world, or so he calls it. He asks me how big it is and if there are bigger cities and places. I told him about a trip I was taken on to a larger city where there were rooms full of cows. I didn’t like that trip. I don’t want to leave again.

I told him about the day I was able to escape and how I broke my collar. He tells me about places called London and Paris. He tells me about his mother and sister.

“LOOK!” He shouts as he comes in. “Look what I found!”

“What?” I ask him. “A rock? You brought a rock?” I ask looking at the round object. “Funny rock.”

“No. Haven’t you seen these before?”

“No.”

“It’s a coconut.”

“A what?”

“It’s got milk in it.”

“Milk?”

He laughs and cracks it open. “Here. Drink.” I put it to my lips as he is and drink its juice.

“Mmmm…” I moan as the sweet juice fills my mouth. I haven’t had anything as delicious, surely not in this world or any other. “So good.” I say.

“I found a tree a couple miles in one way. I brought back a few more.” He hands me the bag and I take it.

“We’ll save them.”

“You can also eat what’s inside. It’s coconut.” And I do. It’s delicious as well. I’m so glad he’s here.

He fills my quiet and I hope he never goes back.

~El Fin~