How To Disappear Completely

Every morning, Angel wakes to the sun on his face and the taste of blood on his tongue.

When Nina comes by, he watches her sniff the air. It’s not an obvious motion, not that anyone (not a monster) would notice, just a tilt of her blonde head and a flare of her nostrils. He doubts that she realizes that she’s doing it, taking in the scents, because it’s not really her who’s doing it, is it?

That’s why he can be with her with (almost) no guilt. She knows what it’s like to carry something inside you, something dark, something different.

It took him decades to stop doing that around humans, to fight down the urge to sniff the air for traces of blood.

(Though sometimes, he still does, so that he can remember what it was like, so that he doesn’t forget.)

Angel fights like he has nothing to lose these days (because he doesn’t), and the demon in him roars like it always does when he dances close to death.

When Angel fights, he feels the almost solid, almost substantial. When Angel fights, he knows who is, what he’s doing. When Angel fights, the world is clear and simple, and he only needs to live for the next second or the one after that.

When Angel fights, he can believe that he’s doing the right thing.

The demon clients like to call him “vampire” with a sneer, reminding him of who is, what he is, as if he cares, as if he doesn’t already know his place.

Spike likes to eat human food in front of him. Likes to eat it messily, fingers covered in sauce and grease and oil, all of it the wrong color so that Angel cannot mistake it for blood.

Spike thinks Angel needs to be reminded of his place as well.

He’s much better at it.

Angel keeps things, even though he knows he shouldn’t, even though they hold him back, hold him down.

There’s a box he keeps, with Doyle’s video, some of Cordelia’s shirts, a stack of old Angel Investigations files (still out of order), a lock of Darla’s hair, a silver cross he stole from Buffy’s house.

After he left the Hyperion for the last time, he brought the box up with him to his new penthouse and placed it there, in the back corner, hidden behind his jackets.

He hasn’t touched it since.

He doesn’t talk to them much anymore, Wesley, Fred, Gunn, Lorne. They have their own departments to think about, their own problems.

They have meetings, sometimes, but those conversations are distant and stilted, full of formal discussions about budgets and clients and projects.

That doesn’t mean Angel doesn’t see them, however, through the windows in his office, doesn’t mean he doesn’t watch as they go about their business, have meetings, talk to clients, live their lives.

That doesn’t mean Angel doesn’t wonder if he’s better off on this side of the glass.

There are moments, when every cell in Angel’s body wants to take a car to see his son, to see how he’s doing, if his grades are good, if he’s fitting in at college, if he’s getting along with his sister, if he’s cut his hair, if he’s still happy.

Then he remembers that he doesn’t have a son.

Every night, Angel brushes his teeth in front of a mirror and stares at the empty space in the reflection where his body is supposed to be.

FIN.