Looking in at life from the outside is. . . weird.
There was a time when we were both out in it, both a part
of it. Even when I was at my brooding, self-pitying worst, even when he
was an obedient momma’s-boy, we were in the thick of it. Of life.
Things are a bit different, now. We can watch the world, but not impact or change it.
We can’t touch it and we miss that most of all.
The absolute worst was watching the girl we’d both had romantic leanings towards suffer from the curse I’d unwittingly passed on to her and being unable to put an arm around her. . . .
Yeah, it didn’t sit particularly well with me or him, let's just say (though seeing her and Groo - komshock - was an extremely close second on the awful-o-meter).
And now that she’s up and disappeared, I feel -
“Damnit, Dennis! She’s not coming back!”
- pulled back into the present by Fred's little Mount St. Helen routine. So much for my rambling internal-monologue.
“She’s wrong.” Dennis is watching Fred fall all over herself apologizing to Angel and Gunn. “Say she’s wrong.”
He and Fred share the same look of helpless misery. Sadly, I can only take care of one of them.
“Dennis." I lay a hand on his arm. It’s wild, y’know? How warm and solid and alive he feels to me. How real.
“What the hell happened to her, Francis? Where’d she go?”
That's the same thing we’ve been asking each other for three months, now.
“I dunno, Dennis. What I do know -” ain’t much, I’ll tell ya. Can’t let
on, though. He needs me to be strong for him and. . . it’s damn nice to
be needed again.
I step into his personal space and he automatically wraps his arms
around me, pulling me closer. “What I do know is that wherever she is,
if anyone can find her, help her, it’s Angel. He helps the helpless. Least that’s what it says on the business cards.”
“Sounds like he’s been pretty helpless, himself,” Dennis notes, frowning.
We hold onto each other and watch what’s left of Angel Investigations
pack up and file out of the apartment with boxes of Cordy’s things. I
can’t help sneaking peeks at Dennis’s familiar, unhappy face the whole
time.
“It’ll be okay,” I say when the front door eventually snicks shut with a sound like finality.
Dennis looks down at me. The limp excuse for a smile he manages is
strained and about as real as a nine-dollar bill, but he’s trying. For
me.
“You’re right. Of course you are.”
“Belaboring the obvious, there, aren’tcha?” I grin. It’s the classic,
Francis Doyle, it’s-gonna-be-okay grin. Dennis responds to it
immediately, returns it and leans closer, staring into my eyes as if
he’s searching for something.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Francis.” His hands settling on my waist feels like comfort. Like home. The sudden flood of affection I feel for him’d take my breath away. If I had any breath, that is.
“Same here.” I wind my arms around his neck and hug him as close to
myself as I can, afraid of losing him, of losing the only warmth, the
only touch I have left. “Now hush, love.”
I don’t know if it is. Love, I mean. But we can touch each other, and
that’s the closest to life either of us have been since - well, being alive. If close-to is all two ghosts like us get, then I’ll hang onto him, alright. With both arms.
When our lips finally meet, the kiss is bright and keen, like electricity. Like oranges. Like touch.