I sit in bed, completely dazed however sleepy I'm not. I've slept, but there's so much limbo in my life right now that I can't get a bearing of what is up and what's not. There's the sun coming in from the window to left of my bed, but warmth is lacking in it and only a sterile light seems present.
My apartment with it's usual tenant present should be full and well, but is strangely void of what is needed. What is desired.
Looking over at my radio-clock of my nightstand, the time flashes out. Around one in the afternoon. Work started more than five hours ago, but I didn't wake to go to it. If going there puts me near what I can't have, only to watch him sadly, then I'd rather not. Quitting my job and finding another one actually crossed my mind, and it gets better each time I hear it as an idea.
Azrael said I shouldn't love him anyways...
I pull out my phone from where it charges, and look at videos and anything else to try and entertain myself in my low state. But everything I do look at in some way rivets back around to remind me of my dejection. There's so much pain in me now, and it leaks out like the rains of the great flood.
Nothing makes me feel better, so soon I put my phone away and then go back to laying in bed. Sometime later I go the bathroom, and also wash my face, red and dried in my eyes, because of crying, still miserable in appearance.
Going back to bed, I lay back down, quiet, and sighing out.
I spend all of the time I got back from yesterday, from the office, miserable with water running from my eyes. I spent maybe an hour or more in the shower, crouched down and sobbing as warm water that felt distant ran down my body. Nothing of that experience eased me, nothing at all.
Looking at the clock, I see that it's still only around two, well, closer to three, but time doesn't mean anything right now either. I could be road-kill for all I care since I barely move.
Suddenly, I hear a knock from my front door. I turn over and cover my head with a pillow. Ignoring it. I don't want anybody around. Or me around for that matter. There's no point in being around anybody, unless it's him.
But he doesn't want me around. So there's no me.
The knocking continues though, until I start to also hear a voice, that pulls me out of bed as I in complete disbelief find Azrael standing outside my apartment door.
He has on his suit, but it seems askew. His tie is not right in the length it hangs down, and his hair is in disarray. Under his grey eyes, still beautiful, are blueish circles, and his eyes are red and painful.
But that doesn't compare to his eyes, which are wide, and sad. Torn, hurt, despondent, wet. Searching for me, and when he finds my eyes, they tear up more.
"Hello, Hogarth," he says in a whimpering voice.
It hurts to see him in such suffering, but I recall how he shoved me away so hard, and my face turns stony.
"What is it?" I ask, a little coldly.
Azrael flinches, and he cowers before me.
"I-I," starts Azrael, "I wanted to come and...t-talk to you."
"Talk?" I ask, hoping for more.
"Y-yes," says Azrael connecting his eyes to me, and then averting them downwards, "i-if you would grant me your time."
I sense him trying to say more, but not ready to. But if talking perhaps leads to something, I guess I will.
Nodding, I open the door, and Azrael walks into my apartment, trembling and his head ducked slightly.
I walk and lead my way to the bedroom of mine, where I lay back down in. Azrael with his light weight follows me, and stands around awkwardly before I gesture to a chair that he pulls over to sit next to my bed.
"So," I say keeping my voice distant, "what is it that you want to talk about?"
"Oh, um," says Azrael perking up when being talked to, "I, uh, I noticed, that...y-you didn't come to the office. And, um, it crossed my mind that you were unwell."
"I'm not," I say pointedly.
Azrael winces, and nods.
"I understand," he says, while keeping his eyes down.
"I think I'm going to be resigning from being your assistant," I say, voicing my idea I pondered for a long time today.
Azrael looks up with his wide and sad eyes, finding mine, but then realizes something and then looks back down.
"I...I understand."
The weak surrender of Azrael's shocks me, and the stone surface I created on my face falls away.
"You're not going to try and keep me?" I ask.
"I...I understand that you wish to not be affiliated with somebody like me," says Azrael, ducking further more, "somebody like me disgusts you."
"No," I say tersely, "I do not hate the person I love."
Azrael raises his face, looking at me, and I say, "I love you, and that's still the same as it was yesterday."
"How?" asks Azrael in disbelief, "knowing my...heritage?"
"It means nothing to me," I say, "you are the best there is in this world."
"I am not," says Azrael as he ducks his head again.
"Yes," I say as I sit up, and lean closer to him, and he's caught on the backrest of the chair, "you are. I've come to realize that I do love you, and there's no denying it."
"How can you ignore my nature?"
"What you are," I say, "is not your fault. You can only understand it and then perhaps move forward from it. I can overlook your characteristics. Why can't you?"
"I...I don't want to love," says Azrael, "I...knowing that love created something like me...I fear it..."
"Why?"
"I'm an abomination," says Azrael, "love created me. I fear that which has done so."
"You feel that in yourself," I say, "who do you know thinks that of you?"
Azrael opens his mouth to answer, but then can't, and closes it. The action actually is rather cute, and I smile a tiny amount.
"See?" I say, "Nobody thinks you're wrong because of what you happen to be. Your family, Jane, or me. The same for the others if they knew: Kota, James, Levi. We don't care that's what you are. Why can't you just accept yourself? Maybe you're not perfect, but that doesn't matter."
Azrael sits quietly and thinks of what I say. I give him a few minutes to consider my words.
"Okay," he say and looks up at me, "I'll try to...to be alright with myself."
"And me loving you?" I press.
"A-and, you loving me," says Azrael as his face glows red.
"Do you love me?" I ask, recalling yesterday.
Azrael looks up at me from his hands on his lap, wide-eyed.
"I've never loved," says Azrael, his eyes watering a little, but not being let out, "I...I don't know what it is to love somebody."
"Well," I say as I close my eyes and lean back onto my pillow, disappointed to say the least of his answer, "why don't you try figuring it out?"
I hear Azrael tense in his chair, and it strikes me that I might've been a little too cruel. But before I open my eyes, I hear Azrael walk out of my room, and sounds of him doing something in what I think is my kitchen. Then he comes back over. I don't see him, but certainly hear him.
He brings his chair closer, and then I feel something soft and wet touching my face.
Opening my eyes, I see Azrael leaning close to me and wiping my face with a wet cloth. Me opening my eyes connects mine to his, and he averts his eyes once, before swallowing, and then looking back and wiping my face.
"I...I think that you take care of people you love," he says uncertainly.
I smile, and sit up which causes Azrael to also lean back in surprise, but I grab his hand before it retreats too far.
"Yes," I say, "you do."
And Azrael after a few moments smiles sheepishly, and nods.