entranceway | [ 004 | Audio/Action ]

Entry tags:

[ 004 | Audio/Action ]

[Audio:]

[It's evening when Angel's message reaches the network. There's a brief pause after the feed initially opens, an incredibly faint hint of background noise filling in the gap while the speaker searches for words -- a low humming picked up from the sounds of the birds and crickets going about their business in the garden.]

Cordelia Chase is no longer here in Wonderland. She had friends here. I thought-- they'd want to know.

[Admittedly, he didn't know who she was close to beyond him. They never talked about that kind of thing, but it was important that anyone else who cared about her know that she was no longer with them. They deserved that, even if he didn't know them well enough to give the message personally.]

If you knew her, she probably appreciated you more than you realize.

[That's just the kind of person she is. A big, big heart to match that thousand-watt smile of hers.]

That's all.

[The feed ends abruptly. He never was good with public addresses.]

[Action:]

[With dark having fallen, Angel can be found out in the garden beyond the mansion, seated on one of the benches there and hunched over, his eyebrows drawn downwards as his mouth settles into a determinedly flat line, pensive. Pensive Face is pretty standard for him, but there's something more to it now, a little extra hunch to his shoulders, his usual level of brooding upgraded to Brooding with a capital B.

Her disappearance has hit him hard, for a thousand different reasons, most of which he's not sure he can articulate.

Anyone who passes by and looks closely enough might see that he's holding a piece of jewelry in his hands -- a locket, which he turns over and over without rest, even when he directs his gaze elsewhere, tirelessly repeating the same seemingly meaningless routine as he mulls over what this disappearance means. For Cordelia. For him.

He can't say he knows for sure what she's going back to. Death, but more than that. The Powers always had bigger plans for her, and somehow the uncertainty makes everything worse. All he knows that her leaving again--

He's lost her so many times now. Failed her just like he's failed everyone else, but somehow this is so much more painful. He feels defeated. Nobody trusted him or believed in him the way Cordelia did, but he's never been able to protect her. Not the way he ought to.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ She keeps her gaze straight ahead of her, knowing she's being acknowledged by the feel of the bench shifting with his weight. When he speaks, it's hollow, but more self-deprecating than anything else. It's as she's expected and as she wants, really. Men are so much easier to manipulate when emotionally compromised. ]

If I gave you a penny for your thoughts...

[ She finally tilts her head to the side, regarding him. ]

...what are you in the mood for?

[If only she knew how much they had in common. Without the soul, without the one thing that forces him to become Angel rather than the beast the blood would make of him, he's a master of manipulation, among other things. Now, it's not something he's proud of, but while Angel wouldn't approve of her motives? Angelus very much would.

In fact, maybe, somewhere inside, he's already beginning to feel a bit appreciative.]

It would take a lot more than a penny.

[He pauses, finally looking her square in the eye.]

I don't know. [An honest answer. Painfully honest.] I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do now.

[ She eyes him up and down, waiting to see if there's more following the admission. Perhaps not. It's not like they're friends, after all, not even with the stint where they believed they were (yuck) high school students and indulged in a bit of childish merriment. But she clearly holds some interest in him, why else would she keep showing up? He's got to figure that much. If he assume it's all about demonic solidarity...maybe that's just the easiest angle to work from. ]

You were pretty close, huh?

[ Ruby can only assume he doesn't get this worked up over every disappearance. ]

We were family.

[There's so much more to it than that, but how can he explain all of that to someone who's practically a stranger? Cordelia was his best friend, his guide. He'd watched her grow from a spoiled rich girl into a Champion, a transformation that had almost made him forget the girl he'd met when he first went to Sunnydale.

He'd loved her.]

I was closer to her that I've been to anyone in a long time. ... we've been through a lot together. She didn't just go home.

[He grimaces, suddenly finding his shoes very interesting all over again.]

She's dead.

[ Ah, death. Even those who have died know the effect it has on the living, perhaps even more so than most. It's the sense of uncertainty that can give hope, but finality is something that even the most fearsome creatures themselves fear. Depending on the circumstances, you can't always come back. It's why it's such a good looming threat. ]

So there's no chance of seeing her again, is what you're saying?

People show up here when they should be dead all the time, but-- doesn't seem like I should hold out for it. It's more complicated than just death.

[She belongs to the Powers now. They had a purpose for her, and it sure as hell wasn't putting down roots in Wonderland. She was gone. Beyond the early plane, beyond this place, just gone.]

... no. I don't think I'll get to see her again.

[That would mean he deserved some kind of unearthly reward. With how many times he's lost his way, he's sure he doesn't.]

[ Sweet despair. Really, for a vampire, he's entirely too human for his own good. She's sure he'd like that comparison; there are a lot of ways he reminds her of Sam, despite how little they actually know one another. Some people are just a stickler for the redeemable monster gig. She can play it up as well as the best of them. Ruby crosses her legs, moving to clasp her fingers together and rest them on her knee. ]

That makes the time you did have pretty special, doesn't it?

[He is too human for his own good, though it's made worse by the fact that he never quite thinks he's human enough. The temptation to give in to his darker nature is always there, the pull to think of humans as food rather than people, but he's worked so hard to come as far as he has-- it makes every time he strays off the path just a little bit worse than it already was.

He sets his jaw as he looks over at her, mildly skeptical, but almost appreciative, too. She's the last person he'd be expecting any real sympathy from.]

I just feel like I could have done something different and changed her fate. Maybe not here, but somewhere along the line-- I could have done something.

Everything that's happened is because of me. She never should have had to suffer the way she has.

[Even the visions -- they were given to her so she could act as his guide. They had caused her more pain and trouble than anything else.]

[ Temptation is a wonderful, terrible thing. It's exactly what she plays on. It's not always a single thing, either; tempted to feed, tempted to feel--really, in the end they're all the same. There's a hole, a lacking that needs to be fed, be filled. Ruby just happens to be good at doing all of that. ]

Everything? [ She raises a brow at that. Though she doesn't know this woman he's mourning, she knows very well that multiple forces are always at work. Sure, some are stronger than others, but if there was only one factor at play, Sam's slow meandering towards her point of view would be a sprint. ]

I know you're a big tough guy, but something's telling me you're not quite the Big Bad, here.

[ Didn't she have anything to say in her own actions? If not, then perhaps she's misjudged Angel. ]

Everyone suffers.

[He shakes his head, just once. He's not a Big Bad, not anymore, but there's still guilt. Endless, insurmountable guilt, weighing on his shoulders and no doubt responsible for all that slouching he does.]

The Powers sent me a guide. He had visions, meant to guide me to help people in need. He died, and they passed on to Cordy. The Powers put her in his place, to keep me on track. Her life changed that day.

[More than it already had been simply by living in Sunnydale, simply by moving to Los Angeles and tripping her way into his life.]

They almost killed her. More than once. She became a half-demon so they wouldn't, so she wouldn't have to leave me to do everything on my own, and that was just one step closer to the fate the Powers had in store for her. To their taking her away.

If she'd never met me, she could have had a better life. Longer, that's for sure.

[But it's not true, and even as he says it, he knows it rings hollow. She would have been vamp food at eighteen if not for him, and she'd made it clear that being his guide had been a worthwhile journey, fulfilling and helping her become who she thought she was meant to be.

But right now, all there is? Is the guilt.

He sighs, clasping his hands between his knees.]

... maybe I'm being too much of a martyr. But it's impossible to look back and not see how things could have been different. Better.

[She could have had a life of her own, or she could have walked the same path and they could have had a family if he'd been able to protect Connor. Instead, the Powers -- or rather, a Power that Was -- found a way to use the two people he loved most against him, destroying both of their lives in the process.

Drusilla was his greatest sin, but Cordelia and Connor were his greatest failures.]

[ For someone who can make such caustic comments, Ruby is a surprisingly good listener. So she listens, letting him fill in the blanks and offer more about how he sees himself than, perhaps, what was really going on with Cordelia. The similarities to Sam are really too easy not to exploit. It's what she does best. ]

You probably are. [ Ruby raises a brow to him. Too much of a martyr, that is. ]

Sounds like you're a pretty important guy, though. Ever consider she wanted to meet you?

It wouldn't be the first time someone's told me that.

[In fact, Cordelia was usually first in line to do so -- though there had been others. It was no secret that Angel was far harder on himself than was strictly necessary. Though it might seem too harsh in other people's eyes, as far as he was concerned, it was never enough. All part of being burdened with a soul. When you'd committed atrocities the way he had, there was no allowing yourself to relax, no simple acceptance of the fact that everything would supposedly turn out all right.

He frowns, his mouth a hard, thin line.]

Maybe she did.

[He can't help but think back to the Cordelia he'd first met, barely sixteen. She'd been an entirely different person then.]

Back then, I never thought we'd be friends, let alone--

[Let alone what they had come to mean to each other as adults.]

[ He doesn't need to finish the sentence, Ruby is more than capable of reading between the lines. Still, she gives him a show of her discovery; she raises her brows, her lips forming a small "o" before smoothing out into an understanding smile.

A vampire mourning the loss of love. How terribly Anne Rice. ]

This is more than Julia Roberts movies and a pint of slow-churned ice cream can help, huh?

[And here he'd thought his Anne Rice days were behind him when he'd said goodbye to Darla.

The question earns a mirthless chuckle in reply, and he shakes his head, just once.]

Maybe time will make it better someday. It's hard to say. It's not the first time I've lost her. Back home... nobody else knew the truth. We all mourned her, but no one else knew why she'd gone.

[Or whose fault it was. That was the crux of the issue.]

Right now, it's like starting the process all over again. Maybe worse.

[Because he hadn't expected to get a second chance with her. He hadn't even considered what it might be like to lose her all over again.]

[ To her credit, Ruby has a wonderful sympathetic face. Genuine or not, her eyes saw a bit deeper than one might expect of a demon. ]

Pretty sure there's a saying somewhere about "time healing all wounds", but I'm pretty sure it's full of crap.

[ She believes it to some extent--there are things that she has long-since moved past in her new existence and over time, but she hasn't forgotten what it feels like. She hadn't been lying to Dean or Sam when she told them. ]

I've had more time than most.

[Not as much as her, he's sure, but nearly three centuries? That's a pretty decent stretch, even for a vampire. Most of them get themselves killed before they can reach a second century.]

I'm still waiting for that saying to come true.

[He has a lot of regrets, more than he can count. Regardless of how much time passes, he has yet to forget a single one of them--

But he can still hope that someday, this might hurt less.]

Immortality's not all it's cracked up to be. But I figure I don't have to tell you that.

[ Ruby gives a nonchalant shrug, turning her gaze out towards the scenery at large. No one promised her immortality; she knew she had ten years to live it up. That was so long ago and so far away, sometimes it was hard to recall just what it had been like, but she remembers. Some things you just can't forget.

Or maybe she's just lucky enough (or unlucky enough) to be able to grasp the last shreds of humanity before it's all ripped away with every inch of flesh. Which she's lost more than once. ]

I really wouldn't know. [ She let's her gaze fall back to Angel, head lulling to the side. ] An eternity of torture and damnation isn't quite what I'd call living.

[They may not be immortal in the same sense -- Ruby had been human once, just as he'd been, and then their lives had taken wildly different paths, but there was still the promise of eternity. Eternity, until you managed to slip up and get yourself killed -- but it was still the potential for a whole lot of years.

Mortals always seemed to think having that much time was a blessing, but the weight it left sitting on your shoulders was more of a curse than anything.]

It's not the same, I know. It's not all sunshine and rainbows on the surface, either. All that time just means-- more time to suffer.

[He pauses. Damnation. It bore commenting on.]

... I spent a few centuries in hell. That's where-- back home, that's where you are?

[His demons roamed freely above-ground. Most of them, anyway. It was hard to imagine any of them being willing to go back to their realms of origin.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ 004 | Audio/Action ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject