MANIFEST   by Jayne Leitch
C. 2001

"Speaking of saliva--"

     a slightly acidic secretion of the salivary glands produced instinctively as a response to
stimuli such as food, an appetite response, salivating, which I cannot manage whenever
Fred is in the room because her very presence makes my mouth go dry as if I were still a
schoolboy

[I hate being made to feel like a child]

     what an awful time, awful, with Professor Ashcroft in sixth form and Roddy Kirk at
recess and the constant terror that I would have to bring a poor grade back to Father
which would lead to reprimands and the strap and the closet and Mother would put water
on for tea and I wonder if she didn't do that so often because just being around Father
made everyone's mouth dry and palms slick with sweat

[I hate that Mother never did anything but leave to put water on for tea]

     like every morning in the shower with soap lather and shampoo and the steady rain of
nearly scalding water heating the bathroom and fogging the mirror fog makes everything
seem so very private which is why it's easier to let myself do things I shouldn't in the
bathroom, things I shouldn't do because I am a good man with values and refinements
and breeding

[I hate that all I ever have is pictures in the darkness behind my closed eyes]

     am I back to Father again and the dark of the closet under the stairs there was privacy
there as well but without the feeling that I was safe to do things I shouldn't because at any
moment the key might slide into the lock and Father might open the door and the light
might shine in and blind me and hurt me for a moment like sunlight can damage Angel,
only without the burning

[I hate how the vampire scent lingers on her skin after they stand close together]

     unless you mean mentally because Father standing in the door to the closet under the
stairs would be staring down at me with that look and I would cringe and shrivel and
flinch away mentally just as Angel does physically whenever he walks into an indirectly
sunlit room only Angel doesn't fold under the pain, he tightens his jaw which is a strong,
pale jaw

[I hate how they're drawn to beauty before brains]

     very cold to the touch we've been in positions to touch each other's skin and I wonder
if his fingers find my skin too hot because I know mine find his too cold

[I hate that no one can tell until they touch]

     cold and strong in ways I've never been even when I wanted to be or pretended to be
(Angel) because I am not a strong man I have toast-rack ribs and I lack real muscles
everywhere but in my fingers where they don't do any good I was simply made too fragile

[I hate knowing that she could hurt me so easily]

     and they take advantage of that because I am not strong enough to do anything about it
especially when I'm tied to a chair and bleeding and hateful because she did that to me in
front of him and reminded him of how weak I really am when I thought I had been doing
so well pretending

[I hate having to pretend for them all]

     I can be strong it took being shot to convince them, it took pain and blood and cold
and every heartbeat shuddering more blood onto the pavement and I was terrified but I
took the bullet for Gunn and he thinks I can be strong

[I hate how easily he can make her smile]

     and *his* skin is warm but his eyes gleam like the Orbs of Caedvryn I saw once in the
vault at Council Headquarters when I was nineteen I thought they were the smoothest and
coldest things I had ever seen

[I hate the icy facades that shut me out and the warm vulnerabilities that lure me in]

     until I was sitting in a library with people who hated me and a young woman walked
in, entirely self-possessed, and my palms began to sweat and my mouth went dry--

"--where is Cordelia?"

End.

Go back to Buffy/Angel Fic.