a very belated birthday ficlet for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
starlet2367
Feb. 11th, 2008 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lostakashaSo sorry I was offline for your birthday, Kel! I hope you had a lovely day and that this year brings you nothing but good things! Here's a wee Season 1 AtS Cordy vignette for you.
Title: Prayer of the Damned
Pairing: Cordy
Rating: PG
Angel Season one, post-Parting Gifts.
Prayer of the Damned
“Take them back.”
Cordelia’s plea is the closest thing to a prayer she can muster. Not that she values prayer; the God she knows is the unreliable leader of the pious and unsure, creator of sunshine, butterflies, child molesters and monster bait.
Besides, whatever’s given her the gift of prescience is nothing if not reliable: if it oozes, stinks, shrieks, defiles or disembowels it plants itself in her consciousness like clockwork to tear at her long after the delivery of its hideous message. Angel and Wes always ask about the visions – is she okay, does she want an aspirin or a drink or a pat on the ass -- but they never ask about her dreams. It’s probably for the best: Wes probably dreams of tweed and underage girls, and she doesn’t want any part of what might go through Angel’s head once he closes his eyes.
The book on lucid dreaming doesn’t help much. Facing a slobbering, razor-toothed bolus of gag-inducing snot and telling it to get the hell out of her head is neither empowering nor effective – she still has to see it, smell it and taste it yet again.
Three Excedrin PM’s with a glass of milk works like a charm – until she tries to get up for work. Hours of blissful unconsciousness, undisturbed by reminders of the outside world, are followed by a six-hour haze that no amount of caffeine can lift. By the end of her work night she’s tense, bitchy, and exhausted – and worse yet, recognizes it.
Every attempt at exhausting herself into dreamlessness fails. Hot baths. Yoga. Re-reading Atlas Shrugged. Seinfeld marathons. The revisited scenes grow more relentless, gnawing at her, allowing scant periods of rest between heart-stopping moments of terror so visceral that she begins to leave a basin on the floor next to the bed.
What was once a sanctuary where she could fantasize about steamy sex with beautiful men and bring herself pleasure, the little island where she pretends the cheap polyfill comforter is down wrapped in satin and that the life she wanted has never gone away eventually becomes a repository of dread to be visited only by necessity.
She sleeps sitting up in the living room now, finding a rhythm of semi-sleep that allows her to get enough rest and function the next day. Dennis tucks her in and adjusts the throw pillow behind her neck, but there are certain favors she’s not sure he can grant her.
It doesn’t stop her from asking.
“Find him, please,” she whispers. It’s a nightly ritual now, not because she thinks it has a chance of working, not because she has hope, not because she believes that love could ever result in something so abysmal, but because it leaves a little less time to dread whatever demonic snuff film she'll be reliving in her dreams. “Find Doyle, Dennis. Find him, and ask him to take them back.”
~~fin~~
Title: Prayer of the Damned
Pairing: Cordy
Rating: PG
Angel Season one, post-Parting Gifts.
Prayer of the Damned
“Take them back.”
Cordelia’s plea is the closest thing to a prayer she can muster. Not that she values prayer; the God she knows is the unreliable leader of the pious and unsure, creator of sunshine, butterflies, child molesters and monster bait.
Besides, whatever’s given her the gift of prescience is nothing if not reliable: if it oozes, stinks, shrieks, defiles or disembowels it plants itself in her consciousness like clockwork to tear at her long after the delivery of its hideous message. Angel and Wes always ask about the visions – is she okay, does she want an aspirin or a drink or a pat on the ass -- but they never ask about her dreams. It’s probably for the best: Wes probably dreams of tweed and underage girls, and she doesn’t want any part of what might go through Angel’s head once he closes his eyes.
The book on lucid dreaming doesn’t help much. Facing a slobbering, razor-toothed bolus of gag-inducing snot and telling it to get the hell out of her head is neither empowering nor effective – she still has to see it, smell it and taste it yet again.
Three Excedrin PM’s with a glass of milk works like a charm – until she tries to get up for work. Hours of blissful unconsciousness, undisturbed by reminders of the outside world, are followed by a six-hour haze that no amount of caffeine can lift. By the end of her work night she’s tense, bitchy, and exhausted – and worse yet, recognizes it.
Every attempt at exhausting herself into dreamlessness fails. Hot baths. Yoga. Re-reading Atlas Shrugged. Seinfeld marathons. The revisited scenes grow more relentless, gnawing at her, allowing scant periods of rest between heart-stopping moments of terror so visceral that she begins to leave a basin on the floor next to the bed.
What was once a sanctuary where she could fantasize about steamy sex with beautiful men and bring herself pleasure, the little island where she pretends the cheap polyfill comforter is down wrapped in satin and that the life she wanted has never gone away eventually becomes a repository of dread to be visited only by necessity.
She sleeps sitting up in the living room now, finding a rhythm of semi-sleep that allows her to get enough rest and function the next day. Dennis tucks her in and adjusts the throw pillow behind her neck, but there are certain favors she’s not sure he can grant her.
It doesn’t stop her from asking.
“Find him, please,” she whispers. It’s a nightly ritual now, not because she thinks it has a chance of working, not because she has hope, not because she believes that love could ever result in something so abysmal, but because it leaves a little less time to dread whatever demonic snuff film she'll be reliving in her dreams. “Find Doyle, Dennis. Find him, and ask him to take them back.”
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Date: 2008-02-12 03:07 pm (UTC)