The cigarette lay in the glass dish, burning out. Amiel was leaning back in his chair, Valerian asleep in a nest of pillows across the room. He snuffled every now and again, turning, a silk tassel sneaking into the corner of his mouth and soaking up drool. Sometimes Valerian looked like a strange animal, in the right light. Like a pet.

Amiel brought one hand up to his chest and pressed where his heart should be. A Demon pact. A contract, with that thing that slept in the pillows. He was helping that thing sustain its form, and in return... once it grew, perhaps he could have the answers he sought. A life of the charm and friendliness he had always lacked, due to his career choice and disposition. The ability to be someone else... He placed his hand back around the frame of the photo he still held, and tilted it in the dim light. It was a woman, her hair tied up, she couldn't seem to help but smile. Amiel let go with one hand again and picked his cigarette up out of the dish, taking a drag. He replaced it, and shuddered as passing ash got on the photograph. It wasn't a feeling, so much as a memory that repeated itself.

In the photograph, his wife-- ex-wife was smiling. It was a ghost, the distant memory of someone who had existed once. Even before she left, that image of his wife was gone. She was distant and cold. Cruel, because she had convinced herself that she deserved to be. Once, this photograph had hurt him beyond words. Now, though the memory rose to the surface as it always had, he felt nothing. Just a cold curiosity, as he looked at her face. Was there some hint of what she would later do, leaving him alone, taking his child with her? Was it in her eyes, or the tilt of her mouth? Maybe there really were no signs, no warning that he could have taken. The only reason he even had this photograph was because he kept it in the breast pocket of his coat at the funeral, the day his wife has left him. She had taken everything of herself that she could find.

Amiel put the cigarette out, slid the drawer of his desk open and put the photograph back in. A feeling as close to affection as he was capable of swept over him. He looked up at Valerian. Since making that pact, things had changed. Maybe he had lost the ability to feel strongly for anyone, but... the unbearable darkness, the heaviness of blame he felt for not having predicted his wife's flight, it had been lifted from him. The pact had, in a way, saved his life; if it wasn't for Valerian choosing him, he would likely be alive by dawn. Amiel could not say this for sure, but it had been one year since his wife had left him, and the night of the pact he had decided that if he was unsuccessful, he would likely not make it through the year. The weight of mourning was too heavy. For someone who made friends easily, who had a lot of connections and support, it wouldn't have been so bad. Amiel had no one left when his wife left. He spent all his time with books or corpses; who would want to befriend someone like that?

He stood and walked over to Valerian, picking him up. The imp was heavier than he would expect, but that was always the case. Valerian didn't do anything, just kept on sleeping. Amiel carried him into the other room, set him down on the nest of blankets and pillows he had made for the imp near his bed-- if they were too far apart, it was unpleasant. Amiel, though he felt no heart any more, knew he was bound to the imp.