The much-delayed relocation is finally taking place! (During Christmas with 5 inches of snow forecast for tomorrow! *Sobs*)

I have just discovered that the central heating in the smallest bedroom doesn't work properly.

Anyway, I will lose phone and internet access tomorrow. I do not know when they will be restored. (I am therefore in the sh*t...)

Please would the Mods be patient with me? I need hiatius until the service is restored. There is no hope of internet access until it is.

Happy Christmas everyone.

I thought this was a human place, but I’m fairly sure the new family upstairs are Velourian demons. I wasn’t too happy when Mickey the Zipper told me, but he told me to look on the bright side. Some people like them – it’s not always a bad thing to have rodent-eaters living locally.

They say that there’s nowhere in the city where you’re more than ten meters from a rat but the right neighbours can clean up that problem fast.

I suppose I should be thankful. I really should. I’ve never really got used to being just on the edge of sleep and then hearing something scuttling in the walls; a gnawing sound somewhere in the room can be worse, though.

(We didn’t have that problem at the Hyperion. I wonder if having a vampire that didn’t bite people on the premises had something to do with that? I never thought of it at the time. He just kept blood in the fridge, but it can’t have felt natural to him. Perhaps he sometimes fancied a warm meal? I’m just as glad that I never found out, but it’s a bit late to thank him for that.)

It’s been quite quiet since they came. They don’t play loud music, either, you’d hardly know they were there. Maybe I should thank the Velourians for being good neighbours? I don’t think I will, though. They keep themselves to themselves. I don’t think they’d want to have a stranger knocking on their door just because he lives in the same building.

I suppose they might be lonely. They might be really delighted if I did knock … but I don’t think I’ll bother. I wouldn’t want them to invite me in for a snack.

Muse; Doyle.
Fandom; Angel, the series.
Words, 291

This time Doyle picked the counsellor’s letter out of a small heap of bills and went straight to the table, sliding the old laptop out of the way as he switched on the Dictaphone and started to speak.

“Hiding? Well, it’s not exactly that. I owe Mickey the Zipper for that gadget, and I owe the landlord, but I’m just keeping out of their way until the check clears…

I guess I do usually hide from creditors. That’s not as easy as it used to be, either.

I don’t think I should write that down. The counsellor probably knows that he won’t get paid any time soon, but still …Maybe I ought to think about tact.

It’s not that easy to think about what to write, though. I sometimes wish I had someone to talk to, but that wouldn’t be easy, either. I used to get on well enough with people, before it happened, but I’m not sure if I ever talked to anyone about the kind of thing that counsellors are supposed to hear.

He said that Harry and I didn’t communicate right, and that was true enough. We were too young. I don’t know how much difference it made that I’m half demon. I had friends before I knew, and – Harry didn’t even tell me if we were divorced or not. She said she was going to get it done, I thought she had and then, one day, she just turned up and said that she still needed me to sign the papers.

I’d thought the lack of communication was my fault. I was a teacher. I know how people learn. I’d have picked it up from my mother – and she’d forgotten to mention that I wasn’t entirely human until I found out the hard way.

There’s no way I can hide from that.

ETA, Dammit! Sometimes I think everyone here is afraid, and what they’re mostly afraid of is each other. I’ve never gone back. I’ve never got in touch with Mum’s family, where-ever they are. They are not going to want to know about me. People humans are afraid of demons, and of half-demons. That’s not hiding. There just isn’t any way…

Muse, Doyle.
Fandom, Angel, the Series.
Words, 328

No, I’ve never used it.

You don’t mean the visions, do you? I can’t use the visions for my own benefit. I don’t even get warnings for myself. I suppose it’s kind of a limiting clause affecting my kind of seer. I know it’s not the same for everyone – at least, I don’t think it is. Some psychics are supposed to be able to influence cards, win lotteries, all sorts.

I don’t know if the limits are to do with being half demon, either. That’s the thing I’ve never used. Brachens are … I don’t think they’ve got anything really useful. Of course, they’re stronger than humans, and faster; not that I ever thought of myself as much of a fighter. I’m much better with my hands when I let the Brachen side out, too. Come to that, last time I lost my wallet I found it by the scent, but a dog could do that.

Brachens are as ugly as Hell, too. When I want to make a joke about it I call it going pickle-puss. There’s nothing I could really use.

Come to think of it, there’s been stories that Vernhar demons made a packet playing something nasty in Dr Who. I wonder if I should go to that casting call for “They Came From Inner Space?”

Muse, Doyle.
Fandom, Angel, the Series.
Words, 199

I moved into this place a few weeks back and by this point it’s reminding me of Cordelia.

Now I don’t mean that there’s a beautiful starlet living close by. I don’t even mean that it’s got a poltergeist, because it hasn’t. The landlord says that noise is the air in the pipes.

I mean that right after I unpacked the roaches came out of the walls.

She used to have a real problem with them. Well, she never seemed to put anything away, or to wash up. I couldn’t quite believe it when I first saw how she lived. She was coming out of that chaos looking bandbox smart, too, when it suited her. I could never figure out how she did that.

I find the mustiness of this place kind of clings to my clothes. It’s almost like the miasma around a smoker, but not quite. It’s almost like the smell that clings to clothes in a thrift shop.

I think Cordy would have called it the smell of failure.

I don’t like it, either.

Muse, Doyle.
Fandom, Angel, the series.
Words, 194

When Harriet and I were thinking about marriage I decided to read a bit about America. ( Not just the guide books )

Muse; Doyle
Fandom, Angel, the series.
Words, 567

“Take someone out”? Who do you think I am, Sam Spade?

It’s ironic that I ended up as a detective. Teachers usually don’t, at least, they don’t in fiction. I’ve read about all kinds of detectives, from Rabbis to old maids, but never a primary school teacher. Being a detective in LA is violent, all right, but that used to be more Angel’s side of the business. He liked it.

(The truth is that violence never was my style, not even when I was trying to throw my life away with a vague kind of idea that I deserved it, that I must deserve it or it wouldn’t have happened to me.

When I was a kid I used to go to confession, and I think I remember how I felt afterward. As if I was – almost invulnerable. I remember that a car just missed me, once, and I was thinking that if I died I’d go straight to Heaven, as pure as rainwater. [Rainwater was pure back then; well, we thought it was.] How did I get onto that?)

By the time I joined Angel Investigations I didn’t really want to get involved. I tried to deliver the message from the Powers and be on my way, at the start. I suppose I didn’t take much persuading to hang about, though. I don’t know whether I would have stuck around, but then Cordy joined…

It’s funny, I can’t really remember taking anyone out on a date, either. I was married at 18 and then I was separated. I didn’t even know if I was divorced or not.

Written down like this, it doesn’t seem much of a life.

Muse; Doyle,
Fandom, Angel, the series.
Words, 279

This time Doyle read the question on the neatly printed card and didn’t even glance at his old laptop. After a moment’s hesitation he turned on the Dictaphone and started to talk.

“If you’re asking about me cheering someone up I should tell you straight away that Harry always said I’d got no talent for that, none at all. I used to think I could I do it. When my mother felt down I used to make her a cup of tea and maybe joke a bit. Then I might try to come home with a little present for her later, or paint the ceiling or something.

Now I think of it, I suppose I tried to treat Harry the same way. At least, I did at first; not so much later, when we were rowing all the time. Not after she threw the tea at the wall that time, anyway.

The truth is, though, that I’m probably better at doing something practical than trying to talk someone out of feeling depressed. It’s patronizing to jolly people along, and half the time it makes things worse. (At least, that’s what Harry said after she threw the tea.)

When Cordy had all that trouble with the cockroaches and then couldn’t find an apartment I didn’t tease her much. I just asked around and got her somewhere decent to stay.

I’m not saying it cheered her up right away, exactly, but it worked all right in the long run. At least, she seemed happy enough there later on.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure it cheered up Dennis.

Muse, Doyle
Fandom, Angel, the series.
Words, 260

That question bothers me. I don’t know how much the law applies to me at all.

Look, as you may have gathered, I’m not entirely Irish. I’m not even sure if I’ve got a soul – I mean, assuming that everyone else has. That may rule out me being affected by religious law, but how would I know? (I’ve had to give it some thought and if we don’t all get a bit of sense over birth control it’ll be standing room only on this planet, sooner or later. That may not be the kind of law they mean, though.)

I’ve killed a couple of demons myself, and I’ve helped Angel kill more. Now that’s probably not against the law, but I don’t know. Maybe there are places that would call it cruelty to animals or something? I don’t really know what the law would say about it at all. Some of them just evaporate or turn to dust, or whatever, and there’s no corpus-delicti. In a lot of legal systems that means that they can’t call it murder, maybe they can’t call it anything.

I don’t know what could happen if one of them killed me. If they’d killed Angel I suppose he’d have turned to dust, vampires usually do. Anyway, it wouldn’t have been a crime to kill him and it might not be a real crime to kill me.

That’s what it meant when they used to sentence people to be outlaws back in history. The law didn’t apply to them any more. You could do what you liked to them, if you were strong enough.

Of course, the outlaws had to break the law to survive at all… So, it can be illegal to keep yourself alive, but is it wrong?

Don't ask me. I didn't teach an Ethics class.

Muse; Doyle
Fandom, Angel the Series,
Words, 310

I did try to cheat at poker, that one time. I managed it, too, until Mickey the Zipper caught on that his cards just might be reflected in his own glasses, laid down beside him on the table.

My shoes were cosmetic, for a while. Nicely polished uppers and the soles worn through. Some people cut out cardboard insoles and put them in their shoes, so when they wear through like that they won’t have their bare feet on the pavement.

Linoleum tiles work better for protecting your feet, but I was stupid. I was cutting shoe-soles out and sticking them under the shoe, not in it. I never thought of putting them inside until I read about the cardboard insoles, and I didn’t do that until I could afford books again. It’s really difficult to make your shoes water-proof either way, but the tiles give better protection from glass and so forth.

If things had been different I’d have put having a decent job-hunting suit before having anything more than basic food, too, and I’d have put food far above having drink.

Right at the beginning I thought about trying to make the visions show me horse races, or maybe a winning lottery number. I mean, if you’re going to see someone eaten by a Drokken demon or dragged through a dimensional portal wouldn’t you think that you might see what’s on the TV behind them at the same time?

It doesn’t work like that, though. I’d guess that The Powers take trouble to prevent it. There’s no sense in giving someone really painful visions so that he can atone and then making him a millionaire at the same time, is there?

Muse; Doyle,
Fandom, Angel (the series)
Words, 202

284 You're fired! Talk about a time you were forced out of something.

If there was any hope of getting away with it I’d say I’d lost the teaching job for health reasons. It’s even true, in a way. “For a given value of truth,” they’d say nowadays.

I was settled in that job. I’d been there since I was 18 or so and I’d got hopes of being a Headmaster, one day. Then things changed when I was 21. I told Harry I couldn’t keep the job for long and she told me not to be so negative. She said that knowing I was half-demon hadn’t changed me in myself. I was still the man she’d married and I was still the teacher they’d employed.

That literally depends on how you look at it. I went on working, all right, for a while.

Have you ever noticed how a summer cold can come on you so fast that you’ve no chance to suspect it? One second the Headmaster’s asking if you can take some extra classes because some of the staff are off sick, and the next you’re sneezing all over him?

I found out about being half demon on my twenty-first birthday because if I sneeze, or if you really startle me – that’s when I look like my father.

So, I was forced out of teaching because I got a cold, (or maybe a hay fever attack, although I’d never had it before.) If I tell someone that they’d probably wonder why I didn’t sue them for wrongful dismissal.

I’ve never found an answer to that.

Muse; Doyle.
Fandom, Angel, the series.
Words; 256

My first thought was that I don’t really speak any – except English, as you’d know from the post itself. Then I thought about it.

(Well, I really clicked the spell-check on a letter and it glitched; it asked if I wanted UK English or American English. When I looked there’s a whole drop-down list in there, eighteen kinds of English, from Australian to Zimbabwean, with Irish listed as an English in its own right. That figures, too, I started to put things in closets after I’d been here a while, but before that I put them in cupboards.)

I only speak a few words of the Gaelic but I’m a native Irish speaker. I always understood every word that was said to me, there. Here, if you say that the crack’s good down at the Hibernian Mouse they can take you up wrong, (and be disappointed when they find out it just means that there’s good conversation.)

So, there’s Southern Irish, then I can write educated English when I put my mind to it; the kind they call “received English”. That helped with the teaching, not so much for getting lessons over to the ninth grade but for applying for the job in the first place. Then I speak and understand American English.

That may not be a too bad a list. Sometimes people expect me to speak the Gaelic and ask if I ever wanted to get back to my roots, but I never did see the use of learning that. I’ve never met anyone who had the Gaelic but spoke no English. (I never saw the need to learn the Brachen language, either, if they’ve got one. I've always heard that they speak English, too.)

Muse, Doyle
Fandom Angel (the series)
waords, 290

I’m not sure if it matters how I’m buried. It’s not easy to be sure if I have a soul at all, but I suppose I should go ahead as though I do.

Cremation isn’t permitted to Catholics. I read somewhere that it’s believed that the fire destroys the soul as well as the body. That does seem odd. I’m almost sure they had that wrong. It doesn’t really make sense. I mean, either the soul is still attached to the body or it isn’t, and if it isn’t then how would what happened to the body affect it?

Maybe it’s because the body is supposed to be resurrected in the end, so if it’s been burnt then there’s no way. It seems unfair if it’s like that, though. There’s a fellow who used to live across the hall from me who lost his leg in a car accident. I think they must have incinerated it at the hospital, so would he come back like that in Heaven? (Or wherever…)

When I changed dimensions, or whatever, I think my body stayed pretty much as it was before I ... I don't remember anything much about it. It might answer some questions if I did.

Anyway, if I died predictably I’d really like to have got to confession first, and then have someone get the last rights for me when they’re sure I’m dying. There’s some prayer I learned in school that we’re supposed to say at the end, too, but I can’t remember it. I suppose I really ought to remember the act of contrition.

Maybe I should look it up? You never know.

Afterwards – I wonder if anyone would have the mass said for me? I’d need a bit of praying for.


Muse, Doyle.
Fandom, Angel the Series.
Words, 294

Doyle had opened several bills before he came to one of the familiar cream-laid envelopes used by the Counselor. He slid a thumb under the flap and revealed the usual neatly typed card – then he started to grin when he read the question, saying aloud,

“Well now, some of the things he’s asked me had me wondering whether he knows his clients apart, but this one’s addressed to me, all right!” He sighed, “I don’t know whether I can answer it, but at least it relates to my life, a bit.” Then he turned on the Dictaphone and started to talk.

“I suppose it would depend on what kind of zombie I was facing. I’ve read somewhere that you throw salt at the ones in the Caribbean. When it hits them they remember that they’re dead and go back to their graves. I don’t know how that works, but there was some garlic salt in the apartment when I moved here. That’s got to be worth a try.

Apart from that I suppose I’d need some kind of weapon that chops them up. Maybe a machine pistol, if I could get it. I mean, the whole point of zombies is that they’re dead but they won’t lie down, so I guess they’d have to be fixed so they couldn’t stand up. I don’t know if holy water would be any good, but…”

He hesitated and then picked up the phone and dialed, “Hello, could I speak to … oh, it’s you. No, I just didn’t expect to get straight through to … it’s me. Doyle. I just wanted to ask what kind of zombies you’re expecting? I mean, this week’s question. There’s all different kinds of zombie, and what I’d do depends on …” He stopped talking and listened to the agitated voice on the other end,

“Well, I’d fight, of course. Who’d want to rescue me? No, look, I do see, it’s just that I was thinking about – well, you asked me what I’d do. I suppose I was answering more in terms of how I’d do it.”

Muse, Doyle,
Fandom, Angel, the series
Words, 362

280 What do you think?

Doyle came in late that evening, but he was carrying the laptop and handling the battered case carefully. He cleared the desk by sweeping the clutter aside, hesitated over a not-quite-empty can but dropped it into a plastic bag and knotted the top before dropping it into the waste.

He picked up the mail rather warily. The pile of letters had gathered dust and a spider ran quickly over his fingers and dropped to the floor. He swore and slapped the papers sharply against the wall. Nothing living fell out so he sat down and started to open the envelopes, talking softly to himself,

“This place is squalid. I shouldn’t have moved in – maybe I can do something about going somewhere decent. Things are looking up. I can start answering my mail, too, now that the laptop’s fixed. The way that thing plays up - I do wonder about it, but plugging in that flash-drive with the exorcism didn’t get any reaction and changing the motherboard seems to have helped … a bit, anyway.

It might make more sense to get a new one but think I’ll stick to XP for as long as I can. Even Ripper George says that I won’t like Vista and he’s always trying to sell the new stuff. I think it’ll last for a bit longer and then – maybe I could get a Mac, or somebody might invent something. I haven’t got time to learn a whole new system, anyway.”

Muse, Doyle.
Fandom, Angel, the series.
Words, 245

It was some time since Doyle had received one of the long cream-laid envelopes from the Counselor. He hadn’t really missed them, but once or twice it had crossed his mind that he might have forgotten to give the man his new address.

“It’s more likely that I forgot to pay him,” he muttered as he picked the thing up and slid a thumb under the flap.

"Are you an only child? Write about your siblings or lack thereof."

He looked at the question typed neatly on the card with angry disbelief, said,

“If it wasn’t for the card he sent me at Christmas I’d wonder if he knows one of his clients from another!” and started to type quickly and angrily, mouthing the words as he wrote,

“Of course I’m an only child! Give my mother credit for that much sense, at least, will you? Likely enough I was an accident, anyway. There are things you can’t get in Ireland, not in the South. I don’t even know how long the two of them knew each other…”

Then he stopped typing and sat at the desk looking thoughtful, talking to himself,

“My father’s family knew where I was as soon as they wanted something, though. They said they were my father’s family, anyway. They knew about me, all right. If he’d remarried, or whatever, I suppose … or even if there’d been a kid that took after him more when it was small and it just stayed with him when they split up…”

He hesitated and then typed slowly,

“I don’t know anything about my family, really. I can’t answer this.”

He sat and looked at it for several moments. It didn’t really seem worth printing, let alone sending, but there was nothing else to say.

Muse, Doyle.
Fandom, Angel, the series.
Words, 285

I heard about the terrible diseases that you can get from being immoral back when I was a young kid. (Father Paul used to sound as though he thought all sickness was a punishment from the Almighty. I heard he got very frail when he got old. Sometimes I wonder if he thinks he deserves it.)

Anyway, I thought of that when I got the Mimsies, back in L.A. It’s like having very bad motion sickness even though you’re standing still. The spinning is inside your head and the nausea can get everywhere.

I couldn’t believe it when the doctor told me what was wrong with me. There didn’t seem any way I could have caught something like that. It was the doctor who pointed out that the only reason those diseases are “sexually transmitted” is that they’re so hard to catch that people can only do it by what she called “really close exposure” to the body fluids of a carrier.

After that I could work out that it probably happened when I was bitten by a Mockdreffen. That’s a kind of demonic dog-thing. Being bitten might not have been enough to infect me - but it still had its teeth in me when Angel beheaded it.

When she told me the price of the cure and produced a big bag of the medication I felt a lot sicker. The things were brown and gnarled. They were much too big to swallow and you could see that they were sticky even through the transparent wraps. They didn’t look like anything that anybody would ever want to eat. She didn’t unseal the bag until I’d paid, and then I could smell the things…

I heard later that the cure for the Mimsies was discovered by accident, in Glasgow. You have to eat caramel-filled candy bars deep-fried in batter, washed down with beer. You keep up that diet for three weeks. It changes your body chemistry. I guess treatment lasts for so long because there’s no way to be sure when the world stops spinning and making you feel sick because of the Mimsies and starts spinning and making you feel sick because of the diet.

I’ve never liked the smell of chocolate since.

Muse; Doyle.
Fandom, Angel, the Series.
Words, 373.

(Recorded for Counselor)

Look, I was a teacher once. I was ordinary. I taught third grade, just innocent kids. Well, they were city kids but comparatively innocent. I mean compared with adults - compared with city adults, anyway.

In a way, I suppose I was innocent, too. Everybody says,
“Oh, it’s a hard world,” and “Life wears the corners off us all.” And I used to say it too, but I never realised the extent of it. Not really.

Once, when I was a kid myself, I stayed with some of my mother's relatives up in the far south of Ireland, and one day I went into their old barn. I don’t remember why. I’ve got the feeling it had something to do with livestock but I don’t really remember them having any. The barn wasn’t big enough for cows or horses and I never heard of anyone only keeping a couple of sheep. Maybe it was a chicken house but I didn’t see any.

Well anyway, whatever I was there for, I slipped. I put my hand up to hold on and it went into the roof. It felt as though this bit of wood came off in my hand and then I was holding it.

( more )

Muse; Doyle.
Fandom. Angel, the series.
Words, 468

It started to come through the ceiling.

That would normally have bothered me, but it started very slowly. There was just the discolouration at the place where the ceiling met the wall. There was condensation or something there anyway. Black mould or mildew or something like that spreading down the join. I wouldn’t have stood for that, once, but it’s the slums, you know?

Then, in the dream, it started to form a kind of … message. It was almost as if it was written in the Gaelic, the letters were like that, but I couldn’t read any part of it. I knew the message was very important, so I went closer, trying to see it from all angles.

Suddenly I was closer than I’d known, and I could see it was insects. They were like mites or tiny ants, swarming towards my hand where I was leaning on the wall! I jumped back, and suddenly I saw that they had wings. They were bees or hornets or something, flying at my face. I was trying to cover my eyes with my hands but that meant I couldn’t find the door, and then there were bats …

That’s all I remember. I woke up with the feeling of something trailing over my cheek. I can’t help hoping it was the tail of the sheet but I’ve got a feeling it was a spider.

At least there aren’t any cockroaches here. Mickey the Zipper says that mice eat them.

Muse; Doyle.
Fandom, Angel, the series.
Words 240

OOC, I still don’t have a proper computer; the broken one goes to be repaired on Wednesday; I can't be sure when I will be able to post again.

My computer failed on Christmas day and it is hardly working at all. It is going away to be repaired on January 2nd.

I will be back on-line as soon as I can.