By the time he'd returned to his apartment his throat burned, his lips were dry - his heart was a judas stung hum in his chest - too fast to be simply un-beating. Rain dripped down his jacket, pooling around his boots - wet and street-stained. The air was ripe with an accusation he dared not address, hearkening to his guilt.
The flat welcomed him back to its tomb of empty rooms as it usually did - drapes drawn tight against windows like hooded eyelids, a musty dankness that was all his own. The objects d'art like effigies (dusty, unsmiling); his welcome a wake.
Cordelia never really said if having the rooms dark and shuttered down affected her. She took the place of the sun he never saw, her skin reflecting the mood of the season, the color of clear honey and the smell of warm flowers. Time with the seer was piecemeal, pleasurable but fragmentary. An afternoon here, rushing through the sewers, several nights there, sometimes a weekday night spent dusting the city's undead populace. Angel found it easy to come and go, particularly since that seemed to match her own rhythm.
The recent months of madness were at last winding down; there was calm instead of chaos, and everyone was just healing, adapting or making out the best they could. Evil was finally backing off and Angel sometimes wished they were - once again - one big, quite likely unhinged, family. He needed to see Wes. Truths and lies - he was ready to take on both; to face Wesley with the truth of what he knew, and to (please god) lie convincingly enough that this would be easy, that they could just get it over with and then both of them could be on the same side again, could work together on some way to put an end to this terrible situation.
Angel momentarily paused with his book when he heard Cordelia's return, flipping back and forth until he found the most recent pages. In the margins, pushed between cross-outs and erasures: That's where he lived. Afterthought, substitute, just small enough to fit between drafts of the twist of Darla's long neck, the lift of Buffy's smile. Decorating the periphery, the borders between indistinct memories. He wondered again what love kept him here, if it was fear or faith that rooted him so. The ancient weave of the carpet beneath his feet held him fast, its crimson art a shackling beauty. Angel finally fumbled with his book, set it aside with the pages bent, shifting to grab up the shirt held aloft on the back of a chair.
The material hugged the contours of his broad shoulders. Its synthetic content adjusted itself to his torso with every slight movement. He left the cuffs undone and they draped away as he reached to slip each front button methodically into its slot. Trying to utilize the routine of the simple act to relax, the cool texture of the shirt only seemed to magnify his increasing discomfort, how tense he felt. It wasn't until he set the novel down on the bureau that he was witness to the once significant piece of jewelry.
When he'd returned to the realm of the living the first time - and really, spending ageless decades in hell never got any easier - he'd found Buffy's claddagh lying on mansion stone. He'd kept it - a silver-banded hope, a momento maybe.
It came to him, then, frozen: soft blonde hair tumbled into Angel's eyes. His fingers explored its silken texture; his mouth consumed its scent. This was nothing new, but the quality of this surcease was funereal, almost surreal, the brimstone reckoning nearly enough to choke him. In the interregnum there was little love lost to share, less the afterglow. He withdrew from their curious coition with a gathering distaste. And he'd been honest with Buffy - but not really - when he told her that their time had passed. A parting shot from a tiresome mind. She hadn't seen him slip the knife in but she had felt it. His satisfaction was (distressingly, if he cared) indistinct.