My Angel

My Angel: Chapter 12

Standing there, his dead black eyes pouring over me, my visitor waited perfectly motionless in the center of the hall.

He was the best thing I'd seen in a long time.

"Archie?" I breathed, standing just as still as him - but not for long. I launched myself, using all of my speed to slam into him. I let out a cheery laugh as I did, causing him to stumble back a couple of steps. He was barely able to catch me, and had even more trouble staying upright.

Not that he needed too, I kept my feet firmly planted to the ground, and I made sure he didn't fall.

I threw my arms around him, hugging him desperately - it felt like I'd been a survivor stranded on an island, and he was the first one to greet me when I got home. It was amazing!

And he felt weirdly warm. All of my memories told me that he was a solid block of ice every time I touched him, but now he felt strangely nice. I hadn't even thought of what it would be like to interact with other vampires. I didn't consider that we'd feel... normal? To one another at least.

When I pulled back, I kept a hand on his shoulder, grinning like an idiot, as I looked him in the eye.

"Beau." He said with a choked voice, like he was trying to hack up the word. His arms were tight to his sides as he kept looking at me, from my head to my feet and back up again.

"What are you doing here man?" I asked him, feeling giddy. A part of my old world was standing right in front of me, beneath my grip. It was real, it was solid.

It was silent.

"Archie?" I asked with a wide grin, looking at him with a slightly confused face. "You okay?"

He kept the silence up, not saying a thing, even as I shook him a tiny bit. It was unnerving. I've seen vampires go still before of course, myself included - but the way he was looking, it was like I was gazing at an actual corpse.

"Archie." I said with concern this time, putting my other hand on his other shoulder.

Finally, I got a response. "Beau." He croaked, looking me in the eye. "What happened to you?" He asked quietly.

"What do you mean?" I asked dumbly, blinking a couple of times.

He didn't answer. I blinked again.

"Oh!" I said, looking down at myself, and then back up to him. "Right. Well, I died." I said with a shrug. It was strangely normal to think of it by this point, because I've just had to deal with it.

Was it weird that I'd gotten so used to it in only what amounted to a week's worth of time? That I could coherently remember at least.

His frozen expression of shock slowly melted into a grim one. It was the same look he had when we were running from Joss back then, when he had to call his family, and tell them his visions. When he saw me die the first time - he had to be the bearer of bad news.

All of which was an unpleasant reminder, but I couldn't care less right now.

"You died." He whispered.

"Well, I mean, obviously I'm not dead dead." I said, my stupid grin still on my face as I finally let my hands off of him, taking two steps back. I gestured to myself, standing a bit straighter. "I'm... one of you."

He was silent again.

It was actually starting to annoy me that he was doing that. Here he was, coming back after almost half a year, and he's not even talking. Obviously, this was a little bit of a shock, but it wasn't the end of the world. Not for him at least.