How To Save a Life

Sarrain

Sarrain

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Shay gave Angelo a blank look. "It's not like I was looking for a fight, exactly," she explained. "I was just angry... and cold inside. I wanted to see Klaus and I wanted to yell at him."

"And how could I talk to you about it, Angelo? The last time I told you what was in my head you looked like I'd hit you. I couldn't tell you how I was feeling. You're..."

Shay stared him down, trying to find the right words. "You're too good. You're normal. Even after everything. You're a good person, and I'm not. And," she crinkled the magazine in hand and stared down at it in her lap. She sighed. "And you're the first adult I've ever wanted to impress. You're the first person who was there for me in a completely selfless way. How could I tell you? When I don't think I should even be allowed around you.

"Caelin is young. She's got a chance, and Roa is... like you. Just angrier. Angrier and more cynical, but like you anyway. He's got a hero in him. I don't."
 
Romi

Romi

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Angelo grimaced. He hadn't wanted this conversation. Not again. They'd agreed to disagreed more or less, not really speaking about it, and now there he was, having to go over it again.

"Shay," Angelo said desperately. He didn't want this. Not again. "I'm not too good. I killed people, Shay. I killed innocent people in cold blood. We've talked about this before. I'm not any better then you. I'm not someone who should be... put on a pedestal like that."

He didn't think he was ever going to be comfortable with that. With someone thinking he was somehow... good. Angelo had a completely reasonable sense of self worth, but the way some people wanted to put him on a pillar as if he was infallible just made him uncomfortable.

"Do you think, when I was a kid, that I thought I was a good person, Shay?"
 
Sarrain

Sarrain

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Shay shrugged meekly. "Probably not. I don't think you do even now. That's what confuses me about it all, you did kill people. And probably torture them and all sorts of nasty things, but you're still good for the sake of being good. You have all this empathy now. I don't know if I can ever get there... I don't even know if I want to, honestly. I just..."

She messed with her hands, rubbed her face and sighed. "I just don't want to keep disappointing you. It's all I ever do is disappoint you, and ruin things. I wish I could make you proud, like Roa."
 
Romi

Romi

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"You get there by working at it," Angelo said, his voice maybe a shade too firm. "Some people are just raised with that kinda empathy. Some people, like us, have to work at it. We have to think about things. We have to... to teach ourselves to empathize. It grows on you over time."

Even right then, years down the line with a good job and eleven kids in his corner, Angelo still sometimes struggled with it. Especially with criminals. Someone like Klaus? Angelo had a really, really hard time feeling bad about anything that happened to him. He'd put innocent people in danger.

Maybe it was better that way. It made it easier to pull the trigger when things were bad. It let him get over it faster.

"You're not disappointing me. You think I thought I'd have a daughter who got married? You think I thought I'd ever have that?"
 
Sarrain

Sarrain

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"You have several daughters," Shay pointed out, "and I'm more than positive nine out of ten of them will get married in one form or another."

And then Shay thrust a thumb into her chest. "I'm sure you didn't plan on having any kids anytime soon, least of all one with a criminal record. Me, well, I'm a lot like Klaus. We can argue about that, but let's face the fact that we had a lot of similarities."

After all, there was a reason she'd always been Klaus' favorite. Because she was like him and he had a tendency to only enjoy the things that best reflected himself.

She rubbed her eyes, not to stop any tears but to stop a sudden nagging pain there. Shay sighed heavily. "You weren't much Reaper before, but you're not Reaper at all now... I do have a lot of empathy! Sometimes too much and sometimes none and now that gang leader's voice is in my head. And he won't ever shut up."
 
Romi

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"This is Manta Carlos, so doubtful. Demons aren't exactly big on church marriage, either. Most of my demonic coworkers do away with marriage entirely."

But that was a side point, wasn't it? Angelo dragged the conversation back around to the actual focus, rather than rambling about the odds that someone like Caelin might get married.

"My point was more that second bit. That I hadn't thought I was going to have kids. At all, really. When I was a kid, I thought it'd just be me and the Family forever. Maybe a lover on the side like most of the other guys. But having kids of my own? This whole thing is a pleasant surprise. Something I never thought I'd have."

Angelo frowned when she mentioned the dead man's voice. It was going to keep bothering her, wasn't it? A part of him wished that he'd wished that away, only there was no possible way he could have known. She hadn't told him. And he hadn't realized it was even a risk.

"Then tell him to cram it," Angelo said. "He can bother you when I'm not around, and if he isn't careful I'll go dig up a reaper that's even more reapy than you and drag them down here to exorcise his dead ass."
 
Sarrain

Sarrain

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"And you'll be a grandfather soon... I hope." She put a hand on her stomach, thoughtful and looked at the ceiling. She breathed out in a long drag.

When she looked back at Angelo, she smiled lazily at him (there was a hint of sadness there too). "I'd tell him if I could but I don't think he can hear me Angelo. I don't think it's a haunting. It's just divine punishment. Who knows? Maybe it'll go away if I redeem myself."

Shay didn't say it, but she deserved it anyway. It was sort of its own weird form of self-harm not to do a thing about it.

Shay got up and stretched her legs before approaching Angelo and awkwardly latching onto him, burying her face in his chest and standing there in a long, silent hug.

"Please," she said in such a low whisper that he'd have struggled to hear it. She spoke, more to the Heavens. More to herself. More to the wind that wasn't there. "Please, please don't go. You're the closest thing to a dad I've ever had. You are my dad..."
 
Romi

Romi

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"Shay," Angelo said with a small huff as he wrapped his arms around her. He wasn't making any attempt to be quiet about it, either, and the fact that she was mostly talking to herself had completely flown over his head. "I'm not going anywhere. For one, work would kill me if I ran off. For another, Roa would really kill me if I went anywhere. And you'd probably find some way to sick angry ghosts on me. I'm not going anywhere, and you can count on that."

He thought some very choice words about the fact that giving up his abilities as a reaper definitely qualified him to remove the not part of not-dad, but he kept those to himself, opting to reach up, patting her back instead.
 
Sarrain

Sarrain

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Truth was, Shay liked to hug. She couldn't determine if she did it a lot or not enough. When you hugged someone you didn't have to look at them, they couldn't see what was going on in your head through your eyes. But you were trapped too, which was sometimes how these things could feel. Shay didn't feel trapped then, but the thought was there anyway.

She imitated his huff and bumped her forehead to his chest somewhat aggressively. "If I could sick angry ghosts on people my life would be so much easier."

That was easier to say than trying to explain how weird it would be to call Angelo dad. If she started calling him that, thinking of him in that way, then maybe whatever curse plagued her would have him gone. Dead, or missing, or just sick of her. Who knew.

"I could just lock us together with handcuffs, you don't think that would be awkward, do you?"
 
Romi

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"That sounds like the plot of a bad comedy," Angelo replied, letting the hug linger longer than he otherwise might have before he finally pulled back, giving Shay some space.

"Just two guys handcuffed together, trying to go about their day to day life and acting like they aren't bothered by being handcuffed together."

He cracked a smile at that, ruffling Shay's hair in a way that he was sure would irritate her.

"So, you starting dinner or am I?"
 
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