Chapter Text
Life Is A Dead Man's Party
by Pirate Turner
Chapter One
The existence of a ghost was a miserable one indeed. It was never ending and extremely, painfully lonely. There was little that a ghost could do to relieve their boredom, and they had far too much time to think. There had never been a ghost who hadn't spent too much time dwelling on the past, in Dennis' opinion, both all the wrong things they had done while living and all the things they'd done while still human that, whereas the deeds themselves might not have been wrong, they still would have done differently.
He'd had too many regrets over his living life, and now he had too many regrets about his ghost life. There was too much he had done, too much he had seen, too much he would have changed for him to ever rest peacefully, but what hurt the most was knowing that he'd let down his very best friend in all the world. The dearest friend he'd ever had through both life and death had needed him direly, and he had let her down.
He rattled Cordelia's pictures as he floated impatiently through their apartment. He'd known something was wrong when Angel and his team had come to take Cordy's items, and he'd hidden these pictures away from them, refusing to allow them to take every memory he had of his cherished best friend, a woman who could not have been more of a sister to him if they had been born together as they should have been. He had wept and howled over her. He had scared every potential tenant away, and he still did even now on the rare occurrence that the landlord thought to try to rent out the apartment again. He'd never let any one else back into his space. Nobody belonged living here with him other than his Cordy.
And yet he had let her down. It wasn't his fault, Dennis thought, though he still moped. It was really Angel's more than anybody else. He was the dumb ass who'd always let their Princess down, and it was for him that she'd tried so hard to be better and that had caused her to lose the very basic right and decency of possession of her own body. They'd told him that she was dead, but they'd been wrong. Dennis hadn't known it then, so he'd not been able to tell them. Not that they would have listened had he tried.
But he had known the truth now for a whole year, a year spent reminiscing about good times and bad, about when the beautiful Princess Cordelia had first blazed her light into his life and defeated his evil mother and all the times since, both when they had laughed together and when he had held her while she had cried over Angel. He remembered every thing they'd ever done together as though it had just happened yesterday, and he cherished every memory. Yet what he clung to the most was his determination.
It wasn't too late. Angel and his crew had signed Cordelia off for dead. They'd buried her, they'd told him weepingly, but Dennis knew Cordelia still lived . . . or, rather, existed as well as he himself did. He knew, because he had heard her crying last Halloween and had turned his phantom eyes to look between the dimensions. He had found her there, trapped, and for just a scant moment, they'd been able to talk. He had learned of the sacrifice she'd made on the last night he'd seen her, the night she'd at last gathered all her bravery to her and set out to tell Angel that it was truthfully he who she loved and always had been.
She had made the ultimate sacrifice that night in the belief that she'd be able to help her beloved Angel achieve his dream and save the world in a way more powerful than any time they'd saved it before. She had given of herself, her heart and soul, for that Vampiric dumb ass, and it had torn Dennis' own heart and soul asunder to learn of what she'd really endured. His dearest friend had been tricked horribly and had lost her own body in the process of trying to give Angel his soul.
Her body had been taken by a great evil called Jasmine, and it had been Jasmine who had returned in Cordelia's body, Jasmine who had -- Dennis had shuddered greatly as Cordelia had tearfully reflected upon the story -- bedded Angel's son with Cordy's body, mind wiped all of her friends, and tried to kill Angel. She had taken over the world with Cordelia's body, and Cordy, trapped in limbo, had felt everything she had done with her body. She had even felt her body die, but though her human shell had been buried six feet deep, Cordelia's spirit lived on, still in search of a way back to her world, her family, friends, and love, and still very much able to live again if only she'd had her body.
She had cried like never before as she had told Dennis everything that had happened, and he'd shoved against the doorways separating them with more force than even he had ever known he had. By the time she'd finished her tale, the sun had just been starting to rise. Halloween had finished, and their chance of crossing the planes, or getting the foolish mortals to hear and understand them, was gone with it. Cordelia had howled with pain and anguish as she had been sucked away from Dennis, and the doorways had slammed shut between them again with such force that he'd been sent spiraling backwards and almost out of the apartment. If he hadn't been trapped in the apartment, he would have gone straight through the building, but the apartment was his cage, just as that place between worlds was his beloved Princess' trap, and Dennis had been forced to wait in his cage for a chance that had not come for a year.
He'd waited all year, hoping and remembering, chasing away every prospective tenant that came to investigate the apartment, scaring the bejeezus out of a ghost hunter and a holy Priest that the landlord had called in to try, in such pathetic attempts that Dennis found them absolutely laughable, to exorcise him out. He'd finally scared the landlord so badly a month ago, appearing before him, in a fit of anger, as the landlord's own dead mother that the landlord had screamed like a girl, fled the scene, and hadn't returned since. Dennis hoped he didn't return, though it was lonely here.
He'd also spent the entire year hoping that Angel or one of Cordelia's other friends would come by, but no one had. They had all forgotten about him for it was only Cordelia to whom he'd ever been important. The year had crawled by without a single sign of any of them, and though it had only been one year, it had felt like a hundred. Now, at long last, the sun was beginning to sink behind the horizon again, and Dennis' spirit thrilled. It was time! It was Halloween again at long last, and this Halloween, nothing was going to stop him from rescuing his Princess or, rather, seeing that her dumb ass Knight finally got his crap together and did what he should have done years ago! He fled the apartment as soon as he was able to, soaring high and shooting straight for Angel.
To Be Continued . . .