Road Trip (Ficlet)
He tends to associate people with places and the way they felt to him. It is one way to keep some certainties in an ever changing world. Angel is the Hyperion, always, the sensation of being backed to a wall, rooftops and the city underneath, and the far too bright light of a shopping mall. Cordelia is and always will be a makeshift home in an abandoned building, sitting in a window frame, watching her sleep. Harry, oddly enough, is Griffith Park before he is rave clubs and balconies and a variety of cities: Griffith Park, hiking, sunshine and dust, and what turned out to be, in retrospect, his last perfect Californian day. The road though, just the road and riding a car, listening to music, eating fast food, and being in no particular hurry to arrive at what is almost impossible to find - this will always be Justine.
When he saw her again for the first time after burying Angel in his watery grave, he hadn't intended more than not failing her the way he had failed Daniel Holtz, had not managed to give Holtz reason enough to live, and to stop her from her intended revenge on his parents when he went with her. What followed was a road trip, sure, but it became more than that. It was Utah, the Utah they both had been promised at different times by the man they had lost - had killed, each in their own way - all the Utah they would ever have. Justine once had said, before they really knew each other, that she should have been his mother; on the road, they became comrades; and then, inevitably, he fell in love with her. Sometimes he wonders whether there is something wrong with him, because he can't seem to manage friendship without love. At other times, he's afraid it's not friendship but family he can't manage that way, but he tries very hard not to think about this at all.
Better to think of the good days; of her red hair in the wind because she couldn't stand being locked up for too long, so they had the windows of the car open, of the Donna Reed tapes she played again and again, of that car which miraculously survived impossible roads (though not of the time when he smashed the window because they had argued and she had struck him, and at the last moment he remembered if he struck back she would end up seriously injured or dead, and hit the car instead), and the odd peace they had in an endless series of motels. He thinks about being Stephen and how hunting vampires again had been blessedly simple, without ambiguities. The scar on the back of her hand, and the letter he carried, last physical reminders that a man named Daniel Holtz had existed. They never had remained in one place for longer than four days, a week at most, and far more often just one night, not knowing, really, where and when they wanted to stop for good, and by keeping on the move, the reality of his parents and divided loyalties and past lies had been kept at bay.
For a while. Then, as all road trips must, it had ended.
When he saw her again for the first time after burying Angel in his watery grave, he hadn't intended more than not failing her the way he had failed Daniel Holtz, had not managed to give Holtz reason enough to live, and to stop her from her intended revenge on his parents when he went with her. What followed was a road trip, sure, but it became more than that. It was Utah, the Utah they both had been promised at different times by the man they had lost - had killed, each in their own way - all the Utah they would ever have. Justine once had said, before they really knew each other, that she should have been his mother; on the road, they became comrades; and then, inevitably, he fell in love with her. Sometimes he wonders whether there is something wrong with him, because he can't seem to manage friendship without love. At other times, he's afraid it's not friendship but family he can't manage that way, but he tries very hard not to think about this at all.
Better to think of the good days; of her red hair in the wind because she couldn't stand being locked up for too long, so they had the windows of the car open, of the Donna Reed tapes she played again and again, of that car which miraculously survived impossible roads (though not of the time when he smashed the window because they had argued and she had struck him, and at the last moment he remembered if he struck back she would end up seriously injured or dead, and hit the car instead), and the odd peace they had in an endless series of motels. He thinks about being Stephen and how hunting vampires again had been blessedly simple, without ambiguities. The scar on the back of her hand, and the letter he carried, last physical reminders that a man named Daniel Holtz had existed. They never had remained in one place for longer than four days, a week at most, and far more often just one night, not knowing, really, where and when they wanted to stop for good, and by keeping on the move, the reality of his parents and divided loyalties and past lies had been kept at bay.
For a while. Then, as all road trips must, it had ended.