Night And Day

An Angel vignette

WARNING: [PG-13] Includes a reference to a naughty body part.

SPOILER ALERT: Contains very vague spoilers for Angel the series.

DISCLAIMER: Joss Whedon, 20th Century Fox, Mutant Enemy, and/or the WB Television Network own these characters. I've just borrowed them for this story. No copyright infringement is intended or inferred.

TIMELINE: Some time early in season one of Angel.

Night…

I'm starting to realize that this business of mine has its drawbacks. One of them is that I sometimes have to take care of things during the day. I don't mind this, not in itself. It's just that I've got to sleep at some point, and night has never been my favorite time for it.

Can I talk to you about my nights? It must be the move that's done it - leaving Sunnydale … leaving you. I've had some rough nights in my time, but this latest stretch is right up there with them.

I'm really starting to hate the night. Yeah, I guess that is kind of funny. A vampire who doesn't like the dark. At night, we're at our strongest … our demons are at their strongest. Mine's a sick little puppy. He likes to play. These days, he only gets to play inside my head. Trust me, it's bad enough.

Time was, I'd worry that he'd take control while I was sleeping. Now I know better, and that's precious little consolation for the curse, or for having to go through this night after night. I free fall through my dreams, left to my demon's tender mercies.

That's the way it was last night. I got to experience it with excruciating clarity. All of it. Things I remember doing, things I swear I've never done … the sort of things that stay with you for a very long time.

You tell me that they're only dreams, that they're not real. They're real to me. Real enough to wake me, sweating and afraid. They sicken me enough that I almost start to retch. They burrow deep enough that I'll scrub myself raw in the shower, trying to purge away the contamination that's an inseparable part of myself. They were real enough to leave me with an erection so fierce it hurt.

This is hardly the sort of thing to be confessing to the love of my unlife. In a way, I'm relieved that I didn't have the guts to actually make the call. I won't tell her any of this. I can't tell anyone else. She's been the only one who understands. She's been angry with me, hurt by me, even hated me; but she's never judged me, not like the others. Not like myself.

I try to keep her with me as I crawl into bed, the Buffy that I carry around in my head. The Buffy that I cling to like a talisman, hoping against hope that she'll keep the nightmares at bay.

Just once.

Day…

I've just come back from Hell. Not literally, of course. In my dreams.

I wake, and I know where I've been and what I've been reliving. I know it, even though I don't remember. I never remember. In an existence cursed with too many memories, I'm grateful for this.

When I sleep, though, the memories worm their way through my thin crust of sanity, and drag me back into Hell.

I know this from the way I feel afterwards. I don't feel anguish, or misery, or despair. I suffer from those when I wake up from the other nightmares of my stint ... away. The nightmares about the time before I was broken, when I still had some semblance of humanity.

No, I don't feel pain. I don't feel. I wish I did. I'd welcome a little honest hurt right now. But even pain becomes tedious, given time. Apathy becomes the worst enemy, as the mind disentangles itself from the emotions.

Lethargy takes hold, weighing down my body. I sink back onto the cool sheets without as much as a sigh. At times like this, I feel truly dead. My thoughts are sluggish as they echo through the hollows of my brain.

I stare across the darkened room; the lift providing what little illumination there is in the apartment. My eyes are drawn to the tentative patch of light just inside the partly open doorway of the bedroom. The light is flickering, and I realize that I'm going to have to change the bulb. A laugh rises up at the banality of the thought, but doesn't quite make it to the surface.

"Angel?"

I heard her as she walked through into my office. I listened as she opened the door to the basement and hesitated at the top of the stairs. Her presence, her call, come as no surprise to me. I just have nothing to say. To her. To myself. To anyone.

"Angel? Are you okay?" This time, there's more concern and less petulance in her tone.

Poor Cordelia. She's grown accustomed to seeing me during the day. She forgets that it isn't my natural environment.

I wait. There's a faint rustle of clothing as she shifts uncomfortably. She quietly shuts the door behind her as she leaves. Sometimes even Cordelia knows to leave well alone.

I'll go up there in a little while. I'll put on a brave face, and be grateful that Cordelia's no more comfortable discussing these things than I am.

Yes, I'll go up there in a while.

In a while.

Scarlet Lady