this is my only fred icon.
Yay, hawkfromhandsaw! It's full of totally fabulous fic, guys, check it out.
Thanks to bribitribbit for the last-minute beta. This is for desertrose, because...Just because. ♥
Um, spoilers for all of Angel. Fred, some Fred/Gunn. PG?
divinity that shapes our ends
"Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
That would not let me sleep...."
--Hamlet, Act V Scene ii
I.
In Pylea, Fred doesn't sleep. It's all she wants to do, really, to feel the blanket of nothingness sweep over her, a comfort that would be more welcome than anything else. More welcome than facing the wallsof the cave watching her witchy and pockmarked, or facing the endless litanies of blame in her head, the voices telling her she screwed up, that she's stuck here forever, it's her fault she's a cow you deserve it
curiosity killed the cat but I'm not a cat I'm nothing, I'm dirt I'm lost, lost. It keeps her awake, the never-ending monotony of it, and the fear. She remembers, briefly, a line. Her high school English class. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come… But not that far, not yet. It was the sleep of life she was worried about. At
least, it was, when staying alive was still a priority.
It took her sooner than she thought it would to reach the point where she didn't care.
Sometimes, she drifts off in the middle of the day, although it's all subjective, really; the time blends together and stretches and twists, days and nights pass before she can tell. She remembers a city of Angels, or even just angels. She remembers her parents, and Professor Seidel, and her perfectly starched lab coat, the orderly rows of books at the library. She dreams about the foreign letters and the disappearance, the rush of pain that filled her like arrows. The collar they put around her neck, slivers of sharp shocks cutting into her muscles and bones. She can't decide, for days after, if the pain is worse in waking or sleeping.
So Fred lies awake, body rigid against her packed earthen bed, rigor
mortis but not, really, though close enough the difference shouldn't matter. And the part of her that had dreams and memories trickles away, fading like the flesh from her bones and her formulas and theories. She can begin them, scribbled hastily in her rare moments of energy, but they can never be finished, her hazy mind unable to find the variables that fit.
II.
Angel disappears after her first day back, reassuring her that he will return, that everything will be alright. Everything will be alright is what people say when she starts to babble or her eyes are too bright or someone catches her writing on the walls, tearing away the old wallpaper and paint with her insistence. The forgetting is getting worse, and she needs to cling to something real, here where everything is soft and clean and far, far too good to be true. Now she knows she must have finally fallen asleep. The dream is different than she imagined it would be, but the pain, at least, is finally gone.
Years later Lorne tells her that they took turns watching her at night, as she fitfully fell to sleep and the battling emotions on her face subsided. When you woke up, cupcake, he said, idly stirring his drink, you looked confused, like you couldn't remember anything. We weren't sure you knew where you were, then.
And she'd laugh, but know he was serious, and worse yet, that there were days it still happened, and that it always would.
III.
When she slept with Charles she slept, warm and protected. His arms around her were like a shield against the bad things, even the ones in her head. It wasn't that she couldn't fight them on her own, but it was nice to have someone to unburden herself to, someone who could touch her and free her and make her forget herself even for a while.
It was a delicate thing, one that began a fragile but beautiful interaction, but one that became something strong and sure. Charles's laughing brown eyes, his surprisingly smooth hands; these were the things that would beat back the dark for her, now. It's what she wanted so badly to believe.
But sometimes in the middle of the night he found her sitting on the desk, perched like a bird and making her mad art, counting and re-arranging and making the numbers fit, they had to fit, why can't they fit, here, of all places, what is the answer? And they were rare enough nights that he could hold her and calm her and tell her about all the things they would do together, the future he knew they would
have. They would take a day off, they would go to the carnival and ride all the rides and buy giant strawberry ice cream cones with sprinkles and he would win her a bear in the ring toss game. And Fred would nod and try to believe that she could walk through that bright world without the constant rush and rambling she felt now growing in her brain like a bad headache.
He stilled her hands, and led her back to bed, but the part of Fred that would melt at his indulgent smile, that part had hardened long ago in the pockmarked caves.
So the Winifred Burkle they know and love, the one she keeps on like a
second skin, gives Charles a halting smile back and lets herself be tucked beneath the sheets.
IV.
When the world goes to hell Fred finds that her mind works quicker and clearer than it has in years. When she's running and surviving she is free and alive; it seems too long since she's been on her own and the thought makes her feel vaguely trapped. Since she's been back (and she's thinking as she runs and stumbles and shoots and catches her breath and plans, she's always planning, it's what's replaced the counting, the checking, searching for answers where she now knows there are none), it's the others protecting her more often than not. She's been forgetting, in a haze of fleeting comfort, what it's like to fight tooth-and-nail for only herself. It's almost a good feeling, some sort of revelation.
When she saw Jasmine's face, it didn't frighten her, not really. In the back of her mind she expected it, and Fred wishes she wasn't so cynical, now.
Later, when she has a moment to catch her breath, she can't help grinning at her dirty, sweaty, ragged self. Because she's brilliant on her own, and it took her too long to realize just that. They want her to be brave, they're always telling her that she is, but for the first time Fred really feels it.
Then she keeps running, and there's no time to feel anything else.
V.
At Wolfram and Hart, Fred has these things (she's taken to making
lists, but on paper now, not on walls):
1 office
1 chair, too large for her and smelling like an animal
1 desk, topped with important papers for her to read on crisp, white, letterhead stationary
1 lab, staffed full time by people who look directly through her yet obey her every whim
1 hour for lunch
1 strange, broken family who she's less concerned than she expected about forgetting her
2 hands, for mixing chemicals and making things work and brushing gently against the beautiful, sharp corners, the polished steel and glass and brilliant white plastic
1 place where her heart used to be (she thinks)
hours and hours to think about: (you were the girl who they saved, handsome man, a baby's hand touching mine, the answers are there somewhere I have to keep looking I have to, nothing fits; fits, Charles called them, at three a.m. and then we repainted the walls in blue --- I'm forgetting, I'm forgetting something. We're all forgetting.)
very, very little sleep
VI.
"Why are you still awake?" Angel asks Wesley. It's the part of night just before the dawn, but the lab has no windows.
Wesley says, "Illyria doesn't sleep."
Thanks to bribitribbit for the last-minute beta. This is for desertrose, because...Just because. ♥
Um, spoilers for all of Angel. Fred, some Fred/Gunn. PG?
divinity that shapes our ends
"Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
That would not let me sleep...."
--Hamlet, Act V Scene ii
I.
In Pylea, Fred doesn't sleep. It's all she wants to do, really, to feel the blanket of nothingness sweep over her, a comfort that would be more welcome than anything else. More welcome than facing the wallsof the cave watching her witchy and pockmarked, or facing the endless litanies of blame in her head, the voices telling her she screwed up, that she's stuck here forever, it's her fault she's a cow you deserve it
curiosity killed the cat but I'm not a cat I'm nothing, I'm dirt I'm lost, lost. It keeps her awake, the never-ending monotony of it, and the fear. She remembers, briefly, a line. Her high school English class. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come… But not that far, not yet. It was the sleep of life she was worried about. At
least, it was, when staying alive was still a priority.
It took her sooner than she thought it would to reach the point where she didn't care.
Sometimes, she drifts off in the middle of the day, although it's all subjective, really; the time blends together and stretches and twists, days and nights pass before she can tell. She remembers a city of Angels, or even just angels. She remembers her parents, and Professor Seidel, and her perfectly starched lab coat, the orderly rows of books at the library. She dreams about the foreign letters and the disappearance, the rush of pain that filled her like arrows. The collar they put around her neck, slivers of sharp shocks cutting into her muscles and bones. She can't decide, for days after, if the pain is worse in waking or sleeping.
So Fred lies awake, body rigid against her packed earthen bed, rigor
mortis but not, really, though close enough the difference shouldn't matter. And the part of her that had dreams and memories trickles away, fading like the flesh from her bones and her formulas and theories. She can begin them, scribbled hastily in her rare moments of energy, but they can never be finished, her hazy mind unable to find the variables that fit.
II.
Angel disappears after her first day back, reassuring her that he will return, that everything will be alright. Everything will be alright is what people say when she starts to babble or her eyes are too bright or someone catches her writing on the walls, tearing away the old wallpaper and paint with her insistence. The forgetting is getting worse, and she needs to cling to something real, here where everything is soft and clean and far, far too good to be true. Now she knows she must have finally fallen asleep. The dream is different than she imagined it would be, but the pain, at least, is finally gone.
Years later Lorne tells her that they took turns watching her at night, as she fitfully fell to sleep and the battling emotions on her face subsided. When you woke up, cupcake, he said, idly stirring his drink, you looked confused, like you couldn't remember anything. We weren't sure you knew where you were, then.
And she'd laugh, but know he was serious, and worse yet, that there were days it still happened, and that it always would.
III.
When she slept with Charles she slept, warm and protected. His arms around her were like a shield against the bad things, even the ones in her head. It wasn't that she couldn't fight them on her own, but it was nice to have someone to unburden herself to, someone who could touch her and free her and make her forget herself even for a while.
It was a delicate thing, one that began a fragile but beautiful interaction, but one that became something strong and sure. Charles's laughing brown eyes, his surprisingly smooth hands; these were the things that would beat back the dark for her, now. It's what she wanted so badly to believe.
But sometimes in the middle of the night he found her sitting on the desk, perched like a bird and making her mad art, counting and re-arranging and making the numbers fit, they had to fit, why can't they fit, here, of all places, what is the answer? And they were rare enough nights that he could hold her and calm her and tell her about all the things they would do together, the future he knew they would
have. They would take a day off, they would go to the carnival and ride all the rides and buy giant strawberry ice cream cones with sprinkles and he would win her a bear in the ring toss game. And Fred would nod and try to believe that she could walk through that bright world without the constant rush and rambling she felt now growing in her brain like a bad headache.
He stilled her hands, and led her back to bed, but the part of Fred that would melt at his indulgent smile, that part had hardened long ago in the pockmarked caves.
So the Winifred Burkle they know and love, the one she keeps on like a
second skin, gives Charles a halting smile back and lets herself be tucked beneath the sheets.
IV.
When the world goes to hell Fred finds that her mind works quicker and clearer than it has in years. When she's running and surviving she is free and alive; it seems too long since she's been on her own and the thought makes her feel vaguely trapped. Since she's been back (and she's thinking as she runs and stumbles and shoots and catches her breath and plans, she's always planning, it's what's replaced the counting, the checking, searching for answers where she now knows there are none), it's the others protecting her more often than not. She's been forgetting, in a haze of fleeting comfort, what it's like to fight tooth-and-nail for only herself. It's almost a good feeling, some sort of revelation.
When she saw Jasmine's face, it didn't frighten her, not really. In the back of her mind she expected it, and Fred wishes she wasn't so cynical, now.
Later, when she has a moment to catch her breath, she can't help grinning at her dirty, sweaty, ragged self. Because she's brilliant on her own, and it took her too long to realize just that. They want her to be brave, they're always telling her that she is, but for the first time Fred really feels it.
Then she keeps running, and there's no time to feel anything else.
V.
At Wolfram and Hart, Fred has these things (she's taken to making
lists, but on paper now, not on walls):
1 office
1 chair, too large for her and smelling like an animal
1 desk, topped with important papers for her to read on crisp, white, letterhead stationary
1 lab, staffed full time by people who look directly through her yet obey her every whim
1 hour for lunch
1 strange, broken family who she's less concerned than she expected about forgetting her
2 hands, for mixing chemicals and making things work and brushing gently against the beautiful, sharp corners, the polished steel and glass and brilliant white plastic
1 place where her heart used to be (she thinks)
hours and hours to think about: (you were the girl who they saved, handsome man, a baby's hand touching mine, the answers are there somewhere I have to keep looking I have to, nothing fits; fits, Charles called them, at three a.m. and then we repainted the walls in blue --- I'm forgetting, I'm forgetting something. We're all forgetting.)
very, very little sleep
VI.
"Why are you still awake?" Angel asks Wesley. It's the part of night just before the dawn, but the lab has no windows.
Wesley says, "Illyria doesn't sleep."