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All I ever want to do is curl up in her lap. She was the first person to speak to me when I awoke, naked and wet and singed and unable to even move because of all this horrible fear that crashes through me all the time. I try to fight it and I can't, not until her hand is on my back, gently urging me along the halls of this pretty, clean place called Wolfram and Hart. They all talk to me, it makes my head ache and their words fill up my head until she speaks, and then its clear again. She makes it all better again.
The music makes it all better, too. Brahm and Chopin and Mozart and oh, the melodies lifting me away, back into the time when I was strong and powerful. Angelus at my side, my beautiful, cursed fucking childe...
I'll kill him. I know that I will. That's why they brought me here, that's why they introduced me to my pretty keeper and the man, the one without the hand who talks to me like he knows that I'm old and wise. I like it better when she talks--voice smooth and rich like something with a taste, something that's not blood. Butterscotch or chocolate, some human food that I want again. When I asked them for caramels they looked at me like I'm a child.
But they gave them to me. They give me whatever I want, and I have clothes that have clean lines and a soft flow, grownup clothes, not my little girl things of two years ago. My flirtation with the Catholic Church is over, after my little romp in hell. And she picked them out for me, purple dresses and grey pantsuits--pants, can you believe it?--that brush against my skin like the fur of some animal. I'm naked under my clothes and sometimes I feel just like I was in that box, when I looked out, shivering, and saw her face...
That other one, the man...the way he looks at her, at me, I know that he wants to take us away from each other. He shares my passion for Brahm, he brings me music and curses when he can't open the casing. I never help him with anything. I just wait around until she shows up.
He snaps at her, for treating me like a child, for talking to me softly with her sweet voice, and for letting me curl up in her lap while she strokes my hair back from my face. He doesn't know that I love her, love to just sit with her and let her hold me. He doesn't know that soon enough, I will rip his heart from his chest and eat it raw, because he wants me, and he wants her, and he doesn't want us to be together.
She knows. I can see it in her cat-like eyes when she looks at me, amused but still so concerned, so sweet to me. She never has that tone of voice unless she's speaking to me, that soft look in her eyes...
I wonder if she will taste his heart with me. I wonder if she will dance naked in Angel's ashes. I want to show her everything in the world, the way I tried to show Angel.
This time, I will not fail.
