Author: Morgan R.
Email: Lshallot@juno.com
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The Host is cool. And you know it.
Feedback: Feedback=Me grinning like one of the Gentlemen. Sans silver teeth. Maybe even golf clapping.
Spoilers: Epiphany
Author's Note: Happens before the final reconciliation scene. Sigh.
****
There is something about the Host, a faintly familiar quality in his address which has been perplexing Angel for some time. Of course, during the 'crusade,' he wasn't too interested in figuring it out. Or anything else beyond Wolfram and Hart's next move...
It's something about his lighthearted sarcasm mixed with amazing empathy. The Host sees destruction even before it happens, but he smiles like a star and polishes his glamour and pours out charm like water. Each glittering smile looks slightly too perfect, like it was prewrapped and carefully designed. The stage in Caritas is superfluous to its fabulous owner, because his performance never ends.
A roll of his fiery eyes, his expressive face telling you exactly what he thinks of you without ever revealing what he really thinks.
The Host knows you need him. He knows you crave his frank words and exquisite countenance. He knows that you can hardly believe he's real, hardly believe his ability to be materialistic but never vulgar, sassy but never quite unkind.
How can someone construct themselves for show, then reject their showcase because they want to help in defiance of their skepticism?
After fighting Skilosh and a southerner, Angel lies and wonders. The Host is totally unique, so it is absurd to think that he could be similar to anyone else. Yet his eloquently raised eyebrow is so familiar-
And Angel knows. He knows someone who looks like decoration and fights with determination. Someone shiny and witty and superior. Familiar. Family.
She was the Hostess, Angel realizes. He stares into the dark, ignoring Darla's lingering stink of appalled lustful anger, remembering the archly beautiful girl of months past. As obsessed with luxurious detail as the Host still is, too opulent to fight but to warmhearted to do anything else. The Host has not changed. The Host won't let Angel close enough to damage his shimmering veneer, because the Host doesn't need a vampire on his side.
"You really hurt my feelings."
Clumsy words, too honest for refined loveliness, and how bizarre to feel guilty for turning her honest.
But he had promised to take care, to watch out for her gilt edges. The Host asks for no promises, being self-sufficiently regal. As she had been once- but she had allowed him to take the tags off. Given him a backstage pass, even.
He burned the theatre down.
She can survive, of that he is sure. Raw steel under a gold finish, and her essence has not changed. But he tore her shield out of her manicured hands only to attack in force, and he doesn't want to be satisfied with the Host's artful beauty only to submit to Cordelia's suspicious eyes.
Tomorrow he'll give it back. The control he had ravaged will be returned to her, his hands trembling in the hope that she will know how to fix it.
Maybe he can go visit the Host, ask advice, even if it means the humiliation of the microphone, just to see if there's any way-
He can help.
****
finis