Two weeks and this cold is finally clearing up. Thank-fucking-doG, ‘cause my mother was saying the H-word (hospital). It’d be nice to have my voice back. Even though my throat doesn’t hurt, I still sound like I’ve got laryngitis. Haven’t even started my winter_of_wes fic and have no ideas as to plot or jist.

I’ve got job worries already, and I haven’t even started yet. How’s that for _beetle_ being a fuck-up?

I wanna move out West, where the air is dry, the accents are strange and no one knows who the hell I am.

I wanna see “Hostel”. It looks seriously fucked up, which makes it my kinda flick.

I used to wish I was a better artist.

I haven’t touched a paintbrush the past few years. I don’t even sketch in my sketchbook, anymore, I just write in it like a to-do list, and keep logs of snatches of songs or phrases I hear. Sometimes I doodle abstract shapes in the margins.

I used to write all over my drawing and paintings, poetry, song lyrics, weird shit my friends said. I do miss that. But I don’t miss drawing or painting. Used to draw every day of my life--I wasn’t Michelangelo, but I was decent--and I just . . . stopped.

I miss the passion of it--of standing, jammed shoulder-to-shoulder on the Q train and seeing a face so interesting, that I had to maneuver out my sketchbook and charcoal pencil, and draw, somehow. But I don’t miss the drawing itself. Now, I see beautiful faces on street corners and I forget them, or don’t see them at all. My mind is filled with what I’ll write when I get home, and I don’t care so much what the people outside my imagination look like.

I wish I was a better writer. I don’t suck, or anything, but I wish I was better. And wishing means I haven’t lost interest, yet. I wonder what’ll happen when I do. Aside from writing, I’m rather passionless.

The secret ingredient in cinnamon graham crackers? Is crack. Yeah, they’re addictive, and my inner child has a three-pack-a-day habit.

< /introspection >


Anyway, fydyan donated to fund_fic for more of DM, and I am her whore *bows* Also, dancinbutterfly has been threatening my life unless I finish this, and mirasol said she’d flash me if I ever wrote more, so . . . Demon Magnet.

Demon Magnet (9/9)
Author: _beetle_
Pairing: X/OMC
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If fantasizing about something made it mine, I would own the Joss!verses, naked!Catherine Bell and a time-travelling Delorian.
Concrit/Feedback: If you don't feel like leaving either, then please leave a donation and a fic-request over at fund_fic. Donations go to the The American Stroke Association.
Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: AU, early S6-ish and, if trends continue, not often updated. Previous parts are here: Demon Magnet.
Summary: A summary? What--you want I should detail your car, as well, while I’m at it?


“Do you ever get tired of it?”

Two quiet minutes have gone by, during which, two less-than-quiet customers have entered The Espresso Pump. They make their way to the counter, giggling and talking and way too peppy for 9a.m: a blonde dressed for a night club in summer, rather than a cafe in the fall, and a brunette dressed in forgettable shades of tan and grey.

“We’re all tired, Cass,” Rosa says softly, her flat, speculative gaze following the pair. The whirling crimson lights, like angry embers, have mostly faded from her eyes, and her smoking is downright pensive. “Tired don’t mean shit.”

Luc links his hands on the table and waits till her attention is once again on him before speaking. “I’m thinking it does. I’m thinking we’re the ones doing their damn dirty work on faith. But what if we just--stopped?”

A blank look, like Luc’s speaking Swahili. “What?”

Luc’s lips curve upward, as different from his repertoire of gameshow-smiles as night is from day. “You heard me. What if we stopped destroying worlds?”

Rosa’s mouth is a small, shocked, blood-red ‘O’, and the cigarette has halted about halfway there.

“Are you on crack?” She finally demands, at last taking an irritated drag off the neglected cigarette. Her hand is shaking, just a bit. “Or maybe you’re just fucking crazy.”

“A crazy angel?” Luc’s eyebrow says what he thinks of that; Rosa snorts, but lets it slide.

“So whaddaya mean by stop, Captain Sanity?“

Luc glances toward the counter. The two women, be-coffeed and be-biscottied, are bickering good-naturedly about which table they should sit at, the blonde casting coy glances Luc’s way. He flashes them a brief, dazzling smile, then leans in toward Rosa.

“What if . . . what if there was a way to save this world . . . would you want to?”

“Would you wanna save this cesspool?”

“I believe I asked you first.” His mischievous green eyes twinkle with good humor, curiosity and kindness. He’s clean-shaven, well-scrubbed--so deceptively young. But his other face--

The true face, that watches and waits under its human guise--is ancient . . . is as strange and unknowable as the hidden face of the woman sitting across from him. These are not faces that know words like tired, or compassion, or even what if; they’re faces that knows only duty and cold satisfaction.

Most days, hidden as they are, those faces are easy to ignore. But not today. Not in this company, and not for either of them.

“Not our choice, is it?” Rosa drops her cigarette in her unfinished coffee. The women, unsurprisingly, park it a couple of tables away from theirs, the blonde still stealing little interested glances at Luc. “Humans are so predictable. They don’t change and they for-damn-sure don’t ever improve. The whole species is like a botched, seventh grade science project--one any sane kiddie would scrap.”

“Not according to Phanael,” Luc mumbles, his lips pursing in a way that, on someone who wasn’t an angel, would be considered pouting. “And you still haven’t answered my question.”

Obviously not one for self-doubt or introspection, she shoots a nasty, unnoticed glare at the women seated nearby. “Well, if there was a way, then I’d remind you that Phanael--our great and fearless former leader--already tried. Tried and failed, in the most spectacular and painful sense of the word. But she at least had the good sense not to get us mixed up in her mess. You remember where she is now, don’tcha?”

“She knew the risks and did what she felt was right--”

“‘Cause last I heard, she was stripped of her rank and powers, and Fed Ex-ed to the very worst of hell-dimensions for all time.” Rosa fishes a small mirror out of her purse and checks her lipstick, letting her words sink in. “That’s eternity, in the Quor’thoth, Luc.”

“None of the Separated can truly conceive of eternity, not even the big-wings--”

“So what? Even if they’re bluffing--the Quor’thoth is not a bluff you call!”

“Isn’t it?”

Rosa laughs ruefully. “First Phanael, now you. Un-fucking-believable. You’d really risk Hell, just to keep this stupid life?”

Taking a deep breath, Luc nods. “Yeah . . . yeah, I would. I can’t do it anymore. The killing and ending. All I want is some peace and--normalcy.”

”Normalcy?” She demands, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “What the fuck is normal and why the fuck would you wanna be it?”

Suddenly Kossuth bleeds through the thin mask that hides it--shields the world from it--with a subsonic thrum like the beating of a huge, inhuman heart. The crimson lights in her eyes have spilled down onto her face like tears, dancing across her flushed skin with a hectic, feverish intensity. The skin it touches begins to darken, taking on a coppery gleam.

“Tell me you wouldn’t miss this, Cassiel?” Rosa asks, laying a too-cool hand on Luc’s. “The moments just before the end gets into full swing . . . shrugging off the disguise--and all the bullshit baggage that comes with it--to deliver the one message you were made to carry.”

It’s like, calling to like--temptation, and one that Cassiel feels keenly, even in its half-waking state.

For a few moments, the skin on Luc’s back glows red-hot, singeing the back of his chambray shirt. The bright, emerald green of his eyes shifts to a murky, stagnant green, and minute cracks appear on the flawless skin of his face, under which glows a pale, virulent-yellow light.

It is struggling to awaken fully.

Now isn’t the time, but Cassiel’s growing awareness is melting Luc, like a blow torch melts ice cream that’s already been left out too long. It’s been thirteen years, nearly to the day, since Luc’s first manifestations; since Cassiel began to wake, bringing knowledge, scraps of memory and misery. Thirteen years, at least, that this world has been living on borrowed time, and Cassiel is more than ready to come out and play.

Reality in their immediate vicinity begins to shimmer, ripple and warp, like the disturbed surface of a pond, and Luc is one hundred percent sure that the end is nigh, Hezzuel or no Hezzuel--

“Not here, not yet,” he grits out through a frozen smile, desperately holding onto himself. He doesn’t know if he’s speaking to Cassiel, or Kossuth--or both. Across from him, the first sharp edges of Kossuth’s armor are trying their best to manifest on Rosa’s face and hands. She looks horrified and exalted. “It’s not time . . . Hezzuel isn’t here, yet. Not time . . . control yourself.”

Here eyes are bright and hot, like fire--could burn Luc to a cinder where he sits, leaving only Cassiel in all its sickly glory--but the hand/gauntlet on his own hand is ice-cold.

“Soon,” Rosa says. It’s not a question, and it’s not--totally--her voice.

Luc jerks his hand away, opens his mouth to tell her--tell them--no. But what comes out is:

“I count the moments.”

And Cassiel’s the one who says it, grave and unsmiling. Kossuth nods once, an understated concurrence.

Then, like some sort of strange fish, the dark, heavy, alien extra-ness that is Cassiel slips down below the surface of self-awareness . . . but not so far that it couldn’t be easily recalled. Reality reasserts itself, snapping back into its proper place like a rubber-band, leaving Luc and Rosa to shiver, and gasp for air.

In seconds, their breathing and heart rates have normalized. There’s no crimson light crawling over Rosa’s skin, no hints of Kossuth’s armor.

Luc’s complexion is flawless once again . . . if pale under his tan.

Not ten feet away, the two women are talking and paying them no mind--well, the blonde’s talking, and the brunette’s sipping coffee with an overdone look of interest on her face.

No doubt the kid behind the counter is still engrossed in Spin.

“Jesus . . . how ya gonna argue with that kinda logic, Luc?” Two tears--real ones, this time--run down Rosa’s face, but she doesn’t look at all unhappy. She snatches one of her napkins and blots carefully at her eyes before her make-up begins to run. “Whatever lover-boy does for you can’t compare to what it feels like to be them.”

Luc’s eyes skitter away from Rosa’s and he starts folding the last napkin absently, trying not to will away the ache in the muscles of his back. He’s had chronic ”back pain”, to one extent or another, since he was nine years old.

The day the pain finally ceases is the day the world ends.

“You went native,” Rosa is saying, still starry-eyed and breathless. “It happens. I understand--you’ve had a nice, human life and now you’ve got this nice, human guy that you want a nice, human future with. But here’s the problem: you’re not nice, you’re definitely not human, and the future of this world and everything on it can be measured on a stopwatch.”

“Phanael thought--”

“Fuck, Phanael!” Rosa exclaims; her hand flashes back and forth between them. “We’re not Phanael! We’re just destroyers, Luc. Foot soldiers. We aren’t nearly as smart and powerful as Phanael was--shit, we aren’t even as smart and powerful as Hezzuel, come to it! You wanna be a Pollyanna? Fine. You wanna wage an unwinnable war? Fine. But don’t be surprised when you get caught, and the big-wings toss your ass straight into Hell!”

“It doesn’t have to happen that way. Not if I had you and Louis on my side--”

“Oh, so now you think Sariel’d be stupid enough to go along with whatever crazy plan you’ve got stuck in that pretty head?” Rosa laughs, not unkindly. “Please! Little Lord Fauntleroy’d narc on you as soon as Hezzuel showed up!”

“Maybe not. He’s a man with a lot to lose, hear him tell it.”

“Hear him tell it, Sar’s not a man at all, and neither are we.”

“Semantics.” Now Luc’s eyes are steady on Rosa’s, solemn and scared; two emotions that don’t suit the face he currently wears. “He’s got people he loves, commitments to honor. Ties that bind. If we could get him to--”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Rosa darts frightened glances from Luc, up to the ceiling, as if expecting lightning to strike. “Whatchoo mean we, white man?!”

The charming smile is more instinct than premeditation, and out it comes. “C’mon, Ro. . . .”

“No, you c’mon, Loo! I got nothin’ personal against humanity--most of it, anyway--but I’m not spending the rest of my existence in hell just to save one measly world!”

“What if I wasn’t asking you save the world, but--one man’s fiancee, one man’s barely-begun romance--” Luc extends his hand to her. Sitting in his palm is a perfect paper rose. “One woman’s five year old daughter.”

“She’s four, and fuck you, you fuck.” Rosa swats the rose out of his hand and they watch it drift to the floor. Luc’s smile slips just enough to make Rosa sigh, and pick it up.

“For someone without a soul, you can sure work the guilt like a pro. Catholic-style,” she grumbles, handing it to him. The anger seems to have gone out of her.

“For someone without a soul, you’re amazingly susceptible to small fits of conscience.” Luc shrugs, elegant and unapologetic. A few passes with his fingers, a few tugs on the petals, and the rose is just a napkin, again. “If only for the people we care about, this world deserves to keep turning.”

“All the innocents get to go to the heaven-dimensions, lucky fuckers. They got nothin’ to worry about.”

“Except the horrible deaths they’ll suffer beforehand?” Luc snorts. “Those lucky fuckers.”

“Lucky compared to us. Twelve, fifteen years from now, we’ll be doin’ all this again, being eaten alive by human guilt till we finally put another corrupt, stupid world out of its misery,” Rosa says bitterly, watching Luc’s fingers. He’s folding, again, but it won’t be a flower, not this time.

“Maybe not.”

“Maybe not?” Behind the sparkle of mockery is a flicker of curiosity. “Listen to you, all cool and confident . . . you really think this plan of yours has a shot, don’t you?”

Luc’s smile is enigmatic and lovely. He offers Rosa a paper crane, which she ignores. “Are you in?”

“That depends on if you’ve got a plan.”

“Which depends on if you’re in, or not.”

“You want me to take a leap of faith?” Rosa throws her head back and laughs loudly, drawing the attention of the two women. Turning a smile as sweet and irresistible as any of Luc’s on the startled pair, she rolls her eyes. “A leap of faith, he asks. Ladies--am I the only one choking on all the irony?”

After a moment, the women start laughing, too, a tad uncertainly. But Rosa’s already turned a composed face back to Luc, who’s still holding out the crane. “So, let’s hear this crack-brained scheme of yours.”

“Sorry, Koss. There’s too much at stake and, courage of my convictions aside, I really don’t wanna wind up in the Quor’thoth if it can be avoided.” Luc’s fingers twitch slightly and the crane flutters, as if it’s about to take off.

“You know I won’t fink on you, no matter what you tell me.” She looks so hurt, Luc sighs and puts the crane down to take her hands in his own. Once again, they’re noticeably warmer than the human norm, just like his own.

“I need more than that from you. I need active participation. Unless you helped me--and helped me convince Sariel--my . . . alleged plan wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance.”

Rosa shakes her head and removes her hands from his. “Plans and schemes, man? Shit, back in the day--”

“Back in the day, we were obedient, efficient, but not sadistic. Blasting open a Hellmouth--this Hellmouth--is . . . Jesus, I’m trying so hard not to say evil--”

“No! We stop evil, Cassiel. We bring purity, order and silence to the corruption, chaos and din of creation. We--”

“Are too damn old to still believe the propaganda we got spoonfed, like, a bajillion years ago!” Luc snaps, pounding on the table for emphasis; the crane jumps, and minute cracks appear in the marbled formica. He turns even paler and folds his hands together in his lap. “All we’ve brought, for ages now, is pain and death to the hapless.”

“Occupational hazard.” Despite the glib reply, Rosa is starting to look very uncomfortable. Luc presses his advantage.

“Hellmouths doesn’t gulp, Ro, they savor. Years will pass in slow agony before this world finally dies and when it dies . . . and it’ll die screaming. Can you really go through that again? Knowing what you know and feeling what you’ve felt?”

“At least the people we love won’t know we’re the ones carrying out their death sentence. They won’t see us once we go to work; that’s something we should be thankful for.”

“Yeah . . . thankful is the word for how all the world-destroying makes me feel.” His smile turns wry before it disappears altogether. “We’re at war against people who don’t even know they’re in one. That’s wrong.”

“I know you think it’s wrong because being alive has made you kind and soft-hearted, this go-’round. Merciful.” Rosa leans closer, her eyes dark and fierce. “But every angel walking the lower planes was Separated for the same reason. We may carry different messages, Pestilence, but they all mean the same thing . . . and it ain’t mercy.”

Luc sits back quickly, as if stung, but Rosa’s--Kossuth’s gaze never leaves his.

“Each of us has to do what we were Separated for, Cassiel.”

“To what end?”

She gestures dismissively, cigarette smoke trailing, as if to say we’ve killed trillions. Does the ‘why’ even matter, at this point?

“Do they deserve armageddon?” Luc nodding at the women chatting nearby, his voice little more than a whisper. “You should remember more clearly than I do what it was like being part of the Undifferentiated. There was no grand agenda, no judgment; and we definitely didn’t know what death was, let alone pestilence, or war, or famine.”

Rosa follows his gaze, then stares so hard and for so long that one of the women--the mousy brunette--shivers, and glances their way.

“Hi, there,” Rosa mouths, blowing their observer a kiss. The woman blinks slowly, almost as if she’s half-asleep. Her companion glances over at their table, her eyes lingering on Luc before ticking to and dismissing Rosa in less than a second.

“Hey--still talking, here,” the blonde says, waving a hand in front of the brunette’s face, earning herself a narrow-eyed scowl.

“Yeah, I know. You’re always talking. I can’t even remember the last time I got a word in, edgewise!”

The blonde looks more confused than hurt. “Tess--” she starts, but Tess cuts her off.

“In fact, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve considered driving a finger into my right eye, just to see if you’d interrupt your own fucking monologues to ask me if I’m okay! God--you’re so self-involved you probably wouldn’t even notice!”

Luc looks away from the mini-soap opera. Rosa--Kossuth?--is smirking at him and the crimson lights are back in her eyes.

“We didn’t know,” Rosa/Kossuth says smugly, turning to watch the pair avidly, like they’re professional wrestling. “But we sure learned quick, didn’t we?”

“--if you could actually hold up your end of a conversation, I wouldn’t have to talk so much!”

“Maybe if you knew anything about the world, current events, history or--hell, anything that wasn’t your hair, I’d have something to say to you!”

Both women are standing up, now, opposing each other, hands braced on the table. Except for the lack of foam around their mouths, they resemble nothing more than rabid dogs about to have it out.

What makes Luc uneasy, is the not-so-small part of him that finds nothing unpalatable about the fight or its instigator. “Stop this, Ro.” His mouth is dry, the minty flavor of his toothpaste less than a memory. Rosa puts her hands up in smirking self-defense.

“Hey--I just nudged! They’re the ones can’t let go of a grudge.” The look she gives him is delighted and sly, like a toddler torturing the family pets. “You know what? We should tag-team ‘em! I got the brunette, you should take the blonde . . . give her the ebola virus, or scurvy, or something.”

“No!”

“C’mon, Cassiel, let your hair down and show off a little . . .”

But before Cassiel can stir again from its strange half-sleep and really take interest, Luc closes his eyes . . . tries to tune her out. Which has the unfortunate side-effect of tuning him in to the ridiculous, but escalating argument.

“--said you were shallow and stupid--”

“Oh, is that why he asked me out?”

“No, he asked you out because you’ll spread your legs for anyone with a pulse!”

“You bitch! I--”

Cassiel’s faint stirring is being quickly replaced by a headache. Luc clears his throat. “Um, excuse me, ladies?”

The two women put their argument on hold to turn dagger-filled eyes on Luc. Even his best smile doesn’t put one on their flushed, angry faces. “It’s a really nice morning, too nice to spoil it with fighting--”

“What my friend’s trying to say is--take it outside. Now,” Rosa adds, when the blonde starts to protest. Luc can’t see what Rosa’s eyes are doing, but Tess can. It makes all the blood drain out of her face.

Animus momentarily forgotten, she grabs the blonde’s arm and drags her out of the cafe. Once out in the fresh air and sunshine . . . they immediately resume their argument in front of the picture window. Neither Luc nor Rosa can hear what they’re saying, but the expansive gesturing and unmistakable facial expressions are rather telling.

“Fuck--that was so good, I need a smoke.” Rosa chuckles and up-ends her purse over the table. Half a Walgreens cosmetics aisle, the tiny mirror, tissues, an empty and crumpled plastic baggie, rolling papers, a lighter, and the battered pack of cigarettes falls out.

“See?” Rosa leans back in her chair and nods at the window; the blonde is storming off, red-faced and muttering. “I’m what ya might call a motivated go-getter, showing some initiative. Granted, lighting a fire under petty resentments is a parlor trick--a mere bag of shells. But damned if it ain’t like falling off a bike.”

“You mean riding a bike, you psycho.” Luc runs his hands through his hair and tugs on it, watching Rosa light up. After her first few contented puffs, she defies the laws of physics and crams everything but the cigarettes and lighter back into the purse. Out on the sidewalk, Tess is still standing alone, and staring angrily, forlornly after her friend. “I can’t believe we’re related.”

“Not just related, but shaped for the same purpose, babe. So I know you get off on the smiting--or will, once you unwind a little,” she exhales, the picture of self-satisfaction.

“Once upon a time that woulda been true.”

“You liar!” She accuses, but there’s laughter in her voice. “How can you lie, like that? You know good and goddamn well that when we’re all together and the fireworks begin . . . you won’t give a shit about this world, or the people infesting it.”

“Only because my own humanity will have been burned away by this--thing inside me!”

“Exactly, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so why waste energy fighting? This world’s already on the ropes. We’re just the TKO.” At Luc’s crestfallen expression, Rosa’s ‘tude falters. “Okay, look, if your little plan works, what then? Assuming that sooner or later, some archangel doesn’t drop in and send us all to Hell--we just live our short little human lives, then face whatever tea party waits for us afterwards?”

Squaring his shoulders, Luc’s resigned reply is: “Something like that.” His weary sigh sends the crane scudding an inch closer to Rosa’s side of the table.

“I figured.” She shrugs and picks up the crane carefully, examining it. It’s impossible to tell it was ever anything but a crane. “Fuck it. Worse comes to worse and whatever plan you’ve got fails--anything running around the Quor’thoth’d at least be fun to kill.”

“Wait--what?” Luc blinks warily and actually leans forward as if he’s misheard.

“There’s worse ways to spend eternity than killing monsters with my best friend at my side.” Rosa shrugs again, crimson flashing in her eyes like anticipation.

“Really?” At her nod, Luc grins, fit to crack his face in two. “Ro, sweetie--how in love with you am I right now?”

“God, you’re, like, extra-strength gay.” Rosa rolls her eyes. “Anyway, I dunno what you’re so enthused about, I mean--does your plan cover the boss’s arrival?”

“Oh . . . I think I know how we can take care of Hezzuel--”

“‘Think’? ‘Take care of’?”

Luc fidgets a little. “Alright, I know, and . . . maybe take care of is too . . . nebulous a term for what I’m thinking. . . .”

“Nebulous. Uh-huh . . . and what term would be less nebulous?”

Luc takes a cigarette from the pack, Rosa automatically lights it. He takes several deep, fortifying drags before he answers. “Kill.”

The look of slightly condescending--very sardonic--curtesy turns to one of cold, predatory interest. “No shit--we’re gonna kill Hezzuel?”

“For starters, yeah.”

“Can we even do that?”

“Did the Slayer bring down Glorificus?”

At Rosa’s blank look, Luc shrugs. “That means yes.”

Rosa crushes the paper crane, her eyes flashing crimson and brown so fast, they seem Halloween-orange. “Now you’re speakin’ my lingo! Lay out this plan of yours, Polly--I’m so in.”

*

Hezzuel still slumbers.

Its dreams are sweet: billions of voices, rising in one perfect scream. The screams of the dying, the repentant, the despairing--the cries of an ending world--are music.

But still not as beautiful as the sterile silence that will come . . . after.

After their cities burn, after their hubris has been rewarded, their unrighteousness addressed . . . their atonement witnessed.

Hezzuel has been perfect in its dedication, its obedience, its faith in its purpose. Perfect in its devotion. It has carried the Message to thousands of worlds, as it was created to do, and it has never doubted, never questioned.

But other messengers have been found wanting, in this wise. They have let desire and envy corrupt their faith--have acted counter to the mission.

Have tried to prevent the Message from being delivered.

Oh, yes . . . when Hezzuel wakes, it will address such concerns as faithlessness and corruption with the ruthless zeal, and single-minded determination that have led it down millennia, after blood-soaked millennia. When it wakes, it will stretch purity and silence across this world. It's almost time; time to make the Message felt. So close. . . .

Hezzuel's hour has nearly come around, at last, and it's--

"--the end of the world
As we know it
It's the end of the world
As we know it
It's the end of the world
As we know it
And I feel fiiiiiiiiiiine. . . .“

It’s a toss-up as to which is more unexpected and jarring--Michael Stipe's voice, or the continuing whine of the alarm--but both sounds so have to go.

After a minute of half-awake flapping and flailing, he gives up on the snooze button and just yanks the clock-radio plug out of the wall-socket.

Blessed silence. . . .

Smiling, Xander slouches back to dreamland, where Hezzuel waits to be born.

TBC in On A Pale Green Horse