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Life After Death : The First Cut	By : thelibrarian2003 Category: AtS/BtVS Crossovers > Het - Male/Female > Angel(us)/Buffy > Angel(us)/Buffy Views: 1550 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: : I do not own Angel: The Series, not Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Life After Death : The First Cut
- 1
Author:�� Jo

Rating:�� Adult

Distribution:� Just ask��

Summary:�� Buffy
sent Angel to Acathla�s Hell.� What
happened there? And why is Buffy involved here after her resurrection?

Life After Death� ��

1.��
The First Cut

The first thing that Angel remembers is that he�s lying on a
high promontory overlooking a desolate valley with rocks of garish yellow and
burnt orange and deep, earthen red.� The
steam and gases pouring from the land below make it look like one vast fumarole.� In the valley bottom is a lake of molten
sulphur, with the occasional sullen bubble breaking the surface.� It stinks.

He shakes his head to try and get some clarity.� No, this isn�t quite the first thing that he
remembers.� The first thing is that Buffy
kissed him and then shoved a sword into his gut.� He�s a bit hazy about what happened after
that, except that he feels as though he�s been put through an industrial
mincer, and now he�s somewhere that�s hotter than Hell.� And he still has the sword in his gut.

Hell...

Oh, God...

Acathla...

Memories crash over him, and he wants to howl in grief, but
in the heated silence a noise carries to him.�
It�s the clash of arms.� He can�t
see anyone yet, but he�s not alone, and the newcomers don�t sound friendly.� He�s pretty sure that, when he has leisure to
look at his new memories closely, he might want to die, but he�s not there yet.

Steeling himself for the silent agony to come, he grips the
hilt of the sword with both hands, and pulls.�
The only thing it�s not worse than is the earlier pain as his soul was
carved out of him.

He lies curled up, panting softly to control the exquisite
agony, but then he hears the sound of metal again, and now there are harsh
voices.� The sword in his hand is almost
as slim as a rapier.� It may be blessed
with special magical properties, but he�s certain that it won�t stand up to a
small army of broadswords or axes.

And it might be his only way back.� His blood and this sword seem to have been
the key to opening and closing the portal between wherever he is now and
Earth.� His blood, he�s sure, is going to
be spilled aplenty, but there�s only one sword.�
He can�t afford to break it, or to have it taken from him.

Hunched over, as much to relieve the tearing in his gut as
to stay out of sight of the approaching... whatever they are..., sliding and
scrambling over the treacherous rocks, he hurries down the precipitous valley
side, towards the bubbling lake at the bottom.�
At the lake�s edge, the stench is overwhelming, but he stumbles along
the shore, looking for a safe place.� At
last, he sees an overhang of rock that has the appearance of a pair of
sheltering wings.� It�s memorable enough,
and it�s close to the place where he fell into Hell.� Kneeling down, he thrusts the sword under the
overhang, regardless of the scalding sulphur that closes over his hand.� If he... lives (and the current state of his
existence isn�t clear to him)... perhaps he can find a way to use the sword to
get back to the world he knows.

The sound of men and armour is coming closer, behind him now,
and he looks back, appalled to see a long line of weaponed fighters silhouetted
on the ridge that he had landed on. And they are silhouetted against a fiery
red band of light.� It seems he has the
choice of burning in the sun or boiling under the lake.

And then the bloated sun shoulders its way over the horizon,
and his flesh remains whole and uncharred.�
Either he�s truly dead, and his soul is trapped here for eternity, or
the rules are different in this place.�
He opts for believing the latter, because the first terrifies him too
much to even contemplate.� If he still
has his semblance of life, then at least he still has hope.� Holding his wounded gut, he starts to run.

He doesn�t get far, even exerting as much speed as he can,
before he hears hoof beats behind him.� A
quick glance shows an animal that can�t possibly be called a horse, not with
fangs like that, and it�s running even faster than he is.� Its rider is whirling something that�s hidden
by the body of his mount, and Angel runs harder, lengthening his stride, looking
for rougher ground where he might be able to shake the thing.

And then he�s crashing to the ground, his legs entangled by
rope, and the heavy steel ball on the end of one of the ropes flies up to
strike his temple, and he knows no more.

+++

His unconscious is filled with nightmares, his reign of
blood and terror, the sharp splintering sound of breaking necks and breaking
hearts.� But, when awareness returns, he
wishes that he could return to that horror of shattered trust and murderous
love, even though the darkest part of him remembers it too wistfully.� Any part of the nightmare is likely to be
preferable to what might be coming.

His black shirt is gone, and so are his boots, leaving only
the pants.� That isn�t all, though.� He�s wearing a broad iron collar and chain,
with the chain attached to a huge column of rock, and he�s surrounded by a
couple of hundred... people.� They�re
mainly bipedal, so they can probably be called people.

Half a dozen of the demons in front of him are holding onto
the collars of things that he�s going to have to think of as dogs.� They have something of the look of a mastiff,
with the size of a small pony and the talons of a raptor, and they can smell
his blood.� He certainly can, and all six
of them are licking their chops.� All the
handlers are carrying heavy whips, but he doubts that any of their charges will
need much encouragement.

He scrambles to his feet, and backs up until he can feel the
rock against his bare skin.� He doesn�t
want anything coming at him from behind, not without the Slayer there to watch
his back, as she has so often before.� As
he has done for her, equally often.

The creatures are straining at their chains now, and their
handlers can barely hold them, when a word is given, and they are released to
launch themselves at him.� The crowds
cheer as the first one leaps for his throat, and he�s fighting for his life.

+++

He throws the body down with the last of his strength.� Four of the pseudo-dogs are dead, and the
other two are so wounded that they can�t offer any sort of threat to him, even
as badly mauled as he is.� He�s on his
knees, huddled against the harsh surface of the rock.� Until now, he�s been unable to follow events
in the crowd.� He�s been too busy just
trying to survive.� He only knows that
the crowd have been raucous, but whether it was for him or against him, he has
no idea.

Now, the crowd is silently interested, as the handlers walk
forward, grim with anger.� It seems they
expected him to lie down and die.� It
occurs to him that the brutes must have had far greater worth to them than he
has.� Each of the six is shaking out his
whip, freeing the lash ready for use, and Angel levers himself to his feet,
agonizingly stiff and slow.� He�s not
sure whether he can catch all the lashes, but he�s going to have to try.

Then, a demon pushes through the crowd, carefully carrying a
large ceramic bowl with a shimmer of heat above it.� Angel stands as ready as he can, watching
carefully, unsure what to expect.� Quicker
than even he can follow, the demon throws the contents of the bowl at his
face.� It�s sand that�s been heated in a
furnace, and he�s consumed by fire, blinded.

And then he feels the burning kiss of the first whip,
followed by another and another.� He
can�t see, can�t anticipate, can�t make any effort to avoid the whips.� All he can do is endure.

++++

They leave him alone the next day, but when they come to him
in the evening, he�s only partly healed and even that much of the healing
process has made him ravenously hungry.�
He�s very weak, and his eyesight is still blurred.� There�s no suggestion of food, though, and it
seems there�s not going to be any more rest, either.

A crowd is gathering in the darkness, lit by flickering
torches.� There are even more of them
than before.� He pulls himself upright,
his back against the rock as three vaguely humanoid demons are led through the
throng towards him.� They�re about the
size of sumo wrestlers, but much more agile.�
He eyes them warily, only half aware that what looks like money is
changing hands all around.� Wagers, he
guesses.� He doesn�t want to think what
his odds might be.

He steels himself as the wrestlers come at him, trying to
blink away the blurred vision, and then there�s no more time for thought.

He never knows what carries him through that battle.� All three demons bear slash marks from fang
and claw.� All their throats have been
torn out.� In desperation, he tried
drinking from the last one left alive, but its blood was thick and sour.� It has no nutritional value for him.� As well as the injuries from the first beasts,
he now has broken ribs and a broken cheekbone.�
His shoulder is dislocated, but he can feel it creeping back into
place.� His fists are clenched against
the anticipated pain as it mends itself.�
At least there�s no one coming at him with whips.

They leave him huddled against the pillar for two days.� He sleeps in brief snatches, unsure of when
the next attack will come, and even sleep doesn�t bring relief from his
misery.� Every second is populated by
images of Buffy, and what he has done to her, to her friends, to her town.

Oh, my love...

++++

His next opponents are spider-like, if spiders were made of
leather and wire and venom.� He can tell
by the roars of the mob that he�s become quite a crowd pleaser.� But, when the dismembered pieces are cleared
away, the spectators haven�t dispersed.�
They�ve thinned out a bit, as they drift around buying food or drink
from itinerant sellers, but no one is going away.� It seems he hasn�t earned any rest yet.

As night falls, and the torches are lit once more, two dark
shadows are whipped towards him, howling in pain and rage.� When they get to the space in front of him,
he can see that they are bears, or what he would identify as bears if he were
home.� These are bigger, uglier, and
provided with even better teeth and claws, but they still look like bears.

He�s terrified.� As he
swallows back his fear, he remembers the bear-baitings that he�s been to, when
his world was young.� Now the case is
altered, and he�s suffering in place of the bear.

The first swipe of a giant paw knocks him flying, and the
collar and chain almost decapitate him.� He
might be out-fanged and out-clawed by these, but he has his own weapons.� He wants to live, and he�s famished and he
wants to taste blood.� He clings to the
rocky protuberances on the pillar, climbing higher as the bears lunge at him
and then, carefully judging the length of his chain he releases his own demon
and hurls himself down onto the nearest of his opponents. ��

++++

The crowd has gone now, and he�s curled around his terrible
pain.� He�s been almost decapitated,
almost disembowelled, and the mauling he�s received has gone down to the
bone.� In fact, it feels as though it�s
gone down to every bone.� But he got to
drink.� These creatures were nearer to Earthly
than he had any right to expect, and their alien blood will help him a
little.� But only a little.

He�s crying.� He�s
crying not because of the pain, or the despair, or the hopelessness, but
because he�s remembering the grinding noise behind him as Acathla opened, the
look on Buffy�s face as she understood what she would have to do.� He�s remembering what Buffy said to him
before she stabbed him.

Shh. Don't worry about
it.

I love you.

Close your eyes.

And he�s wondering what she�s doing now, whether she�s
mourning for him, or whether she�s managed to move on.� His better self hopes that she�s put him
behind her as an evil obscenity, an aberration she should have staked on first
sight.� The rest of him is remembering
the hidden sword, that faint possibility of a path back to her, if ever he can
find out how to use it.

++++

When next they come to him, they�re carrying ropes, and they
know how to use them.� Within minutes,
he�s on his back, spread-eagled.� Long
hooks drag his mouth open, digging into the soft flesh of palate and tongue.� A powerful demon strolls up to him, a large
knife glinting in his hand.� He presses
the knife against Angel�s throat.

�Drop your fangs,� he instructs, in heavily-accented
English.� Those are the first
understandable words that Angel has heard since he arrived here.� He doesn�t obey.

The demon straightens up and takes a step backwards.� Then he bends down again and slices off the
tattered remains of the leather pants.�
They might have been ruined, but they were all that marked Angel as
not-beast.� Now they�re gone, and Angel
doesn�t know what that�s going to say about him.� The demon puts the knife to Angel�s genitals.

�Drop your fangs or lose these.�

He gives in.� Another
demon, with the look of a blacksmith about him, scurries up with a tool in his
hand.� Angel roars in pain as the demon
de-fangs him, and then the ropes are pulled tighter, and the pincers are put to
work on his nails.� A vampire�s claws are
effective weapons, no matter how much they may resemble human fingernails.

He�s truly, agonizingly defenceless now, blood streaming
from mouth and hands as they let him back up.�
This is what was done to bears
that were too successful against the dogs, he thinks.� He�ll mend, and his fangs and nails will grow
again, but not quickly.� At least it�s
more of a chance than the bears of his youth ever had.

He backs up to the rock, shaking his head like one of those
wounded and chained animals, trying to focus, to anticipate, wondering what
they will send against him next.� It�s a
group of fighters with swords and knives.�
He finishes the fight with a sword in his hand, and a knife buried deep
into his back.� They come to him with the
whips and the burning sand again, so that they can retrieve the weapons.� They�ve taken his own away.� They aren�t going to let him keep any others.

++++

He can�t count how many days they keep him there.� Sometimes they let his fangs and nails grow,
and sometimes they tear them out again.�
Sometimes he fights creatures that he can try to feed on, even if it�s
with distaste, and for very little nutrition, and sometimes the blood is so
toxic to him that it makes him ill.

There are days, or nights, when he is only called on to
fight once, but there are many others when he must fight twice, or three times,
or even more.

Whenever he�s allowed to rest, he�s haunted by images of a
lover whom he�s hurt beyond any hope of recovery, of a town that he has
terrorized, of friends and strangers that he has killed, all because of a night
so beautiful and wonderful in which he was so happy that he, in all true senses
of the word, died.� Reliving that night in
his memory is perhaps the worst of his torments.

He learns to cry tears of bitter remorse here, and tears of
grief and self-pity.� And he learns to
pray.� He prays to get away from this
collar and chain, away from this pillar of rock, and these cheering, jeering
crowds who get so much pleasure from baying for his blood.� And he prays for the agony to stop.

Had he known what was coming for him, he would have prayed to
be allowed to stay in this circle of suffering forever.

++++

He�s slumped against the rock, his knees drawn up to his
wounded belly.� He�s utterly exhausted
from his latest combat, in which his... captors? ... owners?... had pitted him
against half a dozen beasts that resembled nothing so much as man-sized crabs
with yard-long claws.� The spectators are
currently making merry with an impromptu barbecue of the dismembered remains,
but there was nothing there for Angel, even though this time they�ve allowed
him to keep his nails and his fangs.�
Against that many monsters, he was grateful to them for that small
mercy.�

But he�s ravenous.�
He�s been shackled to this rock for perhaps three months, and the blood
that he�s consumed in that time has nourished him about as well as grass and
tree bark will nourish a starving human.�
So, there�s another monster he�s unexpectedly grateful to.� Angelus.�
Angelus glutted himself on human blood.�
It�s been like laying down fat for the winter.� But the winter of torment here is endless,
and the layer of blood-fat is gone.�
Without it, he�d be dead already.�
Well... torn to pieces, anyway.�
He�s still not sure what difference that would make to his existential
state, here.

Still, the next combat, or the next... He won�t last much
longer.

He�s aware that he�s falling into a stupor, and he doesn�t
fight it.� He welcomes it, to escape the
pain of his wounds, and as he drifts away from consciousness he feels a small
hand run over his heart.� Silky hair
nestles against his cheek, and if he opened his dream eyes, he knows it would
be blonde.� Her scent fills his nostrils,
but now there�s a chilly patch where her hand was, but is no longer.� Then his real world eyes fly open at the
sharp, piercing, burning agony when her stake bites through his flesh.� But it�s only a dream.� Again.�
He�s invited death from her in so many ways since he fell.

He wants to slip back into a dream, any dream, to find a way
to change things, to turn back time, but beneath the raucous merrymaking of the
crowds he can hear a faint noise.� A new
noise.� It�s the jingle of armour, and
it�s getting louder.� Nearer.

He listens to the approaching sound until a column of
horsemen rides out of the darkness, their burnished steel armour glowing
furnace red in the flickering light of the torches.� They look like men, and they look like
horses, more or less, more so than anything he�s seen so far in this town, and
the spectators have fallen into a muted silence, watching them warily as they
pull up close to where he�s tethered.

Out of the hiatus, a man crosses over to the waiting riders,
and then another man follows him.� It�s
the demon who periodically threatens to slice his balls off if he doesn�t let
them rip out his fangs, accompanied by a demon that Angel has so far tentatively
identified as some sort of headman.

The rider at the head of the column, the one with fancier
armour and with more complicated harness on his animal, says something that
stops the two townsmen in their tracks.�
Angel can�t speak the language yet � his circumstances have hardly been
conducive to careful study and exchange of conversation � but he�s picked up a
few words.� He doesn�t need even those to
understand that the armoured demon has just issued orders to the people of the
town.� And there was one word, repeated
several times, that he already recognises.�
Acathla.

The demon who is possibly his owner � or maybe his keeper � starts to remonstrate, but
there�s the scrape of steel on leather as swords are drawn, and the demon backs
off.� Another warrior rides up and pulls
out a slim leather pouch which he tosses to the headman.� There�s the chink of coinage as the demon
catches it.� The leader nods to the
warrior and, sword in hand, he nudges his mount towards Angel.�

Reluctantly, Angel�s keeper calls for rope.� A demon that Angel has seen before brings a
long length.� He�s carrying a mace, as
well, a heavy, pear-shaped black stone lashed to a thick haft.� He tosses the rope to his master and goes to
stand over Angel with the mace raised, ready to bring it down onto Angel�s
skull.� They�ve obviously taken the view
that the only safe vampire is an unconscious vampire, but Angel stands, and
says to him, �I won�t fight.�� It might
be the most words he�s uttered since he got here, and he means them.

Wherever he�s to be taken, he must be conscious.� That first day, he was stunned by the side of
the lake, but he�s sure he wasn�t out for more than an hour, probably much
less.� The lake � and the sword � have to
be within an hour of wherever he is now, and therefore within his ability to
find if ever he can get free.� He has to be able to find his way back to
here from wherever they are taking him.�
He can only do that if he can see the way.

And so he stands, meekly waiting.

The keeper, after a nod from the warrior, fastens the rope
around Angel�s neck and hands over the other end.� Then he unfastens the iron collar.� Angel suppresses the shudder of relief as the
heavy iron is lifted off the galled wounds that it has dug into his neck and
shoulders, even as the cool air stings the raw flesh.

The warrior tugs on the rope, reeling Angel towards
him.� A pair of heavy, primitive manacles
dangles from a very short chain at his saddlebow.� The keeper snaps them shut around Angel�s
wrists, and the warrior knots the rope to the iron ring they hang from. �If he had any thought of escape, he�d have to
carry an armoured warrior and an almost-horse on his back. �And Angel knows that, wherever they�re going,
he�s going to have to run.

He�s right about that.�
It takes about two hours at a steady gallop, and by the time they reach
the fortress, Angel is so exhausted that he�s being half-dragged, half clinging
on to the saddle horn.

In the courtyard, the troop of demons that brought him here
gather around, with their swords drawn, as he�s loosed from the warrior�s
saddle and dragged inside.� Waiting in
the outer hall is a man.� He�s not
entirely human, although only his scent gives that away.� And he�s dressed in a suit.� It looks like Armani.

The leader of the soldiers makes a small bow, and exchanges
a few words with him that Angel cannot understand.� Then the stranger turns to something on the
table behind him and tosses it to Angel. �It�s a bag of blood.� A plastic bag of blood, just as it comes from
a hospital in the world that Angel fell from.

�You look half starved,� he says, in perfect English.� �You�d better eat that before you fall
over.�� Too hungry to question, Angel
bites into the bag and gulps it down.�
Within seconds, darkness is bleeding into the edges of his vision, and
he can�t keep his balance.� He doesn�t
have time to retaliate before he falls into a drugged sleep.

++++

The last thing he remembers seeing is a stone-built hall;
and the first thing he sees when he regains consciousness is a room built of
stone.� But it�s a different room.� And the air is different.� He�s slow to recover his senses, but even as
dazed as he is, he can tell that the air is very different indeed.� Instead of blood and decay, fire and demons,
he can scent fast food and gasoline, pine forests and the sea.� And humans.

When he can focus he takes stock of his immediate
surroundings.� He�s in a modest cell,
lying on a narrow stone shelf that runs the length of one long wall.� There�s a solid iron door in the end wall.� There are no windows, no other openings, and
the light comes from fluorescent fittings that run around the edges of the
ceiling.� Apart from that, there�s only
one other thing.� The centre of the small
room is dominated by a large, waist-high stone block that�s well-supplied with
iron rings and chains and shackles.� Two
of the shackles are locked around his wrists, but at least he�s still without
the collar.

Sitting on top of the stone block are two bags of blood, and
he�s still ravenous.� He�s dirty and
bloodied, and his wounds have only just started to heal.� At least, his guts are no longer threatening
to fall out of the hole in his abdomen from where two of the crab things tried
to rip him open.� He needs the blood, and
even that might not be enough to finish the job.� But is it drugged again?�

Painfully, he pulls himself to his feet and takes the few
steps to the stone block (sacrificial
altar, he�s beginning to think).� He
drops his fangs and carefully pierces the bag, sniffing at it.� He can find nothing untoward.� He pushes his finger into the hole, dabbling
the tip into the blood and then licks it off.�
It tastes wholesome enough.� It�s
his favourite, AB negative, very unusual.�
He tastes a little more.� He�s
humiliated to find that he�s salivating for the rest.� But he feels no new ill-effects.� Unable to stand any more delay, he wolfs down
the blood, and then the second bag, and then he sits down on the stone
shelf.� So far so good.� These don�t seem to have been tampered with,
and now all he can do is wait.� He
stretches out on the stone shelf, every sense straining for a threatening sound
or movement.

He doesn�t have long to wait.� A key grates in the metal lock, and the door
swings partially open.� It�s too far for
his chains to reach, but he�s on his feet anyway.� A young girl comes in carrying a bucket of
steaming water.� She�s small, blonde, and
rising eighteen, but she has nothing else in common with Buffy.� Her chapped hands and pinched features speak
of hard work and insufficient food.� Her
shadowed eyes speak of other cruelties.

�I�m to wash you,� she tells him, her voice expressionless.

�I can do that,� he replies.

She shakes her head.�
�They said I�m to do it.�

�They needn�t know,� he offers.

She flinches, and shrinks in on herself.� Her glance ticks back towards the door.� A small panel is open.� He can�t see anyone, but he knows they are
being watched.

�I�m to wash you,� she repeats.� �If I don�t, they will... hurt me.�� She fingers a slim woven black cord around
her neck

He knows that they have deliberately sent a child like this,
so that he will submit, to protect her.�
He gives her a short nod.� She
hesitates, and then carries her bucket within the measure of his chains.� He scents a spike in her fear, and he does
his best to look unthreatening.

�I won�t hurt you,� he says.

She dips her hand into the water and then wrings out the
large flannel that she finds there, and soaps the moist cloth.� Tentatively, she reaches up to him and starts
to wash his shoulder.� She�s using
sandalwood soap, and he wonders whether that�s purely coincidence.� It was always Angelus� favourite.

Most of his wounds are fully healed, but he�s covered in
blood and dirt, and she�s careful in case she hurts him.� It�s a long time since anyone cared about
that.� The deep wound in his abdomen has
still to close over, but another feed will do the trick.� She�s very careful there, dabbing gently at
the skin, making sure that she doesn�t push any of the dirt into the mouth of
the wound.

And she�s very thorough.�
At first he watches her, wishing she were someone else, and then he
can�t bear it any longer, and he closes his eyes, but he still sees in every
cell of his skin, and what he sees is Buffy, sponging and massaging and smiling
as she lifts his feet.� His eyes snap
open again.� That�s something he really
can�t bear.

This other girl soaps and rinses every square inch of flesh,
even pushing the cloth under the iron manacles, until she comes to those most
sensitive parts that he�s kept at the cost of ripped-out fangs and
fingernails.� She hesitates again, and he
holds out his hand for the cloth.� She
shakes her head, and she presses the cloth around him, stroking, and soaping, carefully
cleaning, until he�s completely hard, and completely needy.� Simply having someone touch him so tenderly
has reawakened his yearning for the physical pleasure of a warm hand, a human
touch.� Buffy�s touch, a touch that won�t
ever be his again.� But, this soft caress
on his genitals is too much.� Now he
badly needs relief, and he�s not going to get that, either.

She drops the cloth into the water.� �I�ll get some fresh, for your hair,� she
whispers, and leaves him bereft.� When
she comes back, she gets him to kneel in front of the bucket as she washes his
hair, using the same sandalwood soap.� He
feels strange, on his knees, as though he were seeking absolution.� That�s another thing he�s never going to get.

When she�s finished, she brings him two more bags of blood,
and then he�s alone with his thoughts, and a painful erection.� He lies down on his side, his back to the
wall, and tries to sleep.� His dreams are
of Buffy, and of the night he lost his soul to her.� He also dreams Angelus�s dreams of Buffy.� There aren�t always that many differences.

++++

The girl comes to him the next evening with blood, a bucket
of water, and the sandalwood soap.� When
he asks, she tells him her name is Jane, but she won�t answer any more of his
questions.� She takes away the soiled
water � as thorough as she was yesterday, this second wash has left him even cleaner
� but then she comes back, a basket over her arm.� She shakes out a white towel, and rubs him
down, the rough terry material making his skin feel fresh and new.

When she�s finished, she stands uncertainly, and he can
smell the spike of fear again.

�You�re to lie down on here,� she offers at last, patting
the stone block.

�Now?�

She nods.

He sits on the edge and swings his legs up, but the shackles
are chained to one side of the block, pulling one arm over his body.� She bends to her basket and retrieves a key,
unfastening the shackle.� He contemplates
trying to fight his way out, but the door is closed and locked.� The effort would only result in defeat,
perhaps in death, and while there�s life there�s hope, right?� Or are life and death the same thing for him
here, wherever here now is?� He lies back
to let her do whatever she�s been ordered to do.

She rearranges the shackles onto wrists and ankles, running
the chains through iron rings on the stone, until he can only move his arms and
legs by an inch or two, and is utterly helpless.� He expects her to leave him then, but she
doesn�t.� Instead, she bends down to her
basket again and comes back with a plastic box.�
Inside is a sealed plastic bag, and inside that is something fluidly red.� When she opens the bag, he knows exactly
what�s in there.� Slayer�s blood.� Not his
Slayer�s blood, but it�s fresh.� His
stomach lurches.

She�s standing by his head now, and he can see exactly what
she�s holding.� It�s a wad of cloth
that�s been liberally soaked in blood.�
She�s carrying the pad on the plastic so as not to drip blood on the
floor.

�Open your mouth.��
Her voice is pleading.

Obediently, he opens his mouth, and she gingerly pushes the fist-sized
pad over his tongue.

�Please don�t bite me.��
Then she presses the pad further back towards his throat.� He won�t choke on it, but he gags all the
same, and she pulls it out, uncertain.�
She backs away, and then doubles over with a small scream of pain,
clawing at the cord around her neck.�
When she can straighten, she�s crying.

�I... I have to...��
Her voice is hoarse.

He can�t answer, but he tries to nod.� When she�s done, the bloody pad is wadded
into the back of his mouth and partially down his throat, and his senses are
consumed by Slayer�s blood.� He knows
he�s vamped out, and if he thought his erection was as hard as it could get
before, he was completely mistaken.� His
fingernails are digging into his palms with the pain of it.� There isn�t a vampire in the world who wouldn�t
react like this to being force-fed Slayer�s blood.� It�s as elemental as feeding vampire blood to
a human who has been drained to the point of death.

And he desperately wants to know why this is fresh Slayer�s
blood, but not Buffy�s.

Somehow, through the inferno of sensations, he recognizes
that Jane is standing beside him again.

�Close... close your mouth.�
Please.�

He does so, with difficulty around the size of the
obstruction, and she presses a large rectangle of sticking plaster over his mouth.� Now he understands some of it.� If he were a human, he would have choked to
death or suffocated, of course.� But he
isn�t human, and he isn�t suffocating, and this is a very effective gag.� He can�t make a sound.�

The blood that has trickled down his throat, squeezed out as
he has been forced to swallow, is flowing like quicksilver in his veins, and
the fumes of it have filled his nostrils, are exploding in his head.� His fangs are sharp against his tongue.� It isn�t until she puts her hand on his chest
that he realises she isn�t finished yet.�
He tries to focus against the overwhelming intoxication of the Slayer�s
blood, and he sees that she has something in her hand.� But, the madness of this feed has overtaken
him and he can�t identify the handful of cloth.

�I�m sorry,� she says, her voice soaked in tears.� �I�m so sorry...�

And then she leans over him.�
Through the mists he feels her slip something onto his head, and then
she pulls it down over his face.� A hood.

�I�m sorry,� she repeats, as she pulls the cord tight around
his neck to fasten the hood in place, like a shroud.� It�s black silk, loosely woven.� His face can�t be seen, but he can see the
change of light and shadow.� Nothing
more, just light and shadow.� He�s immobilised,
mute and blinded, his senses fogged by Slayer�s blood.� He�s terrified.

He hears the grate of the hinges and knows that she�s gone,
but he isn�t alone.� A shadow falls
across him and then is gone, as someone else walks round the stone block... sacrificial altar...� He fights the blood in his mouth, in his
head, but his sense of smell is so blunted as to be almost useless.� The visitor is a man, he can say no more than
that.� He�s going to have to make do with
what�s left.� His ears.

�Hello, Angel,� the man says, a smooth, cultured voice that
he doesn�t recognise.� An older man.� �I expect you have a lot of questions, but I
also expect that you�ve worked out I�m not interested in satisfying your
curiosity.� Not yet.� But I will tell you something.� We�ve, ah, hired, I think is the word, yes, we�ve hired you from Acathla.� For a while, anyway.� We have a use for you, and Acathla is... in
our debt.� And besides, I�m going to
enjoy this.�

The man falls silent. �The fall of light and shadow tells Angel that
the man circles his sacrifice twice before speaking again.

�You�re in Los Angeles, Angel,� he says at last, �in your
personal future...�

He hesitates.

�At least, it�s a
Los Angeles, and a possible personal future.�
You�re here already.� Can�t you
feel yourself?� Hmm.� I�ll have to check into that.� Of course, you�re not in this building � the
other you, that is.� We�re keeping him
busy, so he won�t get underfoot.�

He circles the block again, his feet as silent as a cat�s.

�This is... a bordello of sorts, I suppose you might call
it.� We cater for anything our customers
desire.� And we have a customer for you.�

The shadow falls again as the man walks down the length of his
body.� He feels one finger flick his
aching penis and he�s shamed by it.

�Looks like we�ll have no problems with you being able to
give satisfaction.� Good.� We always give value for money... Well,
usually money, but not always.� Not in
this case.� I�ll be back later.�

And then he�s gone.

Angel tries to clear his head, to think about what he�s just
been told.� Los Angeles. The air is
redolent of humanity, and so he�s as sure as he can be that this Los Angeles
didn�t get sucked into Hell.� A possible personal
future.� Is it a future in which he
didn�t lose his soul?� A distant future
in which Buffy lived a full life, and that�s why this blood belongs to another
Slayer?� Or a future in which Angelus � he � killed Buffy?� He knows that there are no answers yet, but
the questions won�t stop tormenting him.

Strangely, few of those questions are about his own
immediate future.� Bordello, the man had
said.� Angel�s pretty sure he can endure
whatever is to come.� Surely nothing in
this Los Angeles can be as bad as he can expect in Acathla�s world.� And sex for a vampire is nothing if not
inventive and rough.� He�s used to that.

And then everything else is put on hiatus as the door swings
open again.� The newcomer steps across
the floor, and he recognises the step instantly.� His gut wrenches with a familiar yearning, an
instant visceral response, and his heart, shrivelled and wizened though it must
be, leaps.�

A scent, powerful enough to cut through the miasma in his
head, confirms what every cell in his body already knows, and now his heart truly
soars.� Is this a miracle?� Has she come to rescue him?

It�s Buffy.

He remembers Kendra with gratitude.� The blood currently drowning his senses must
be from her replacement, or the one after.�
None of them have ever lasted long, except for the one he loves.

She moves closer, and he tries to speak.� He tries so hard, but it�s impossible.� In frustration, he pulls against his
bonds.� The chains rattle in the
retaining rings, but there�s hardly an inch of play in them.� He waits for her to pull the hood off, to
free him from this gag, to just see
him, but she stands silently by his side.

And then she puts her hand on his hip.� It�s like sunlight on his skin, and then his
skin begins to burn, and there�s something different about her scent.� Something older.� Something deeper, darker, colder, something
that wasn�t part of the Buffy who wept as she killed him.

He thinks that there�s something else that he should
recognize, but between the Slayer�s blood in his throat, and the Slayer by his
side, he can�t identify the elements of that alien scent.

Take this mask off,
Buffy, he thinks, willing her to do it.�
Take it off and see me.� And let me see you.� Please.�
Do it.� Why don�t you do it?

She says nothing, simply standing there with her palm
burning through his naked skin.� And then
her fingers move lightly over his flank, up to the cage of his ribs.� He quivers along the line of fire that she�s
drawing.� His arousal needs no
encouragement, but he answers to her, nonetheless.�

�You look a lot like him,� she says at last, her finger
trailing electricity around his nipple.�
�I don�t know how they managed it, but you are so like him... As far as
I remember, anyway.� We were never
together that much.� Not... together.�

His heart freezes.�
How can she not know it�s him?�
Can she not feel him, as she used to do?�
As he can feel her?

�You know,� she continues casually, giving him the answer,
�I always thought that stomach double flip thing was all to do with him.� I guess it was only another vamp warning
signal.� Should have listened.�

Listen now, he
pleads silently.� Listen to your instincts, Buffy.�
But perhaps she and he are too far apart, in this future.

The shadows, and his ears, tell him that she has stepped
back down his body.� Her finger tips run
up his engorged penis.� If he could, he
would sigh.

Her voice is pensive as she strokes him.� �I think you might be a bit bigger than
him.�� In a spurt of anger, she squeezes
him hard, and he wants to cry out.� �I can�t even be sure of that much!� The
words rip out of her.

And then she�s leaning over him, blocking out whatever small
amount of light filters through the hood, throwing him back into the
shadows.� He recognizes the sharp,
persistent pressure as the point of a stake, and it�s pressed down onto his
throat.� She leans a fraction harder, and
he would swallow against it if he could, as he feels the skin part and a cool
trickle beneath his jaw.

�Of course,� she says, �you�ve no idea what I�m talking
about.� I don�t care who you are.� I don�t want to know who you are.� I don�t want to see your face or hear your
voice.� They�ve assured me that you�ll
never talk about what happens here.�

They�ve got that right,
he thinks.

�Don�t know what they�ve got planned for you,� she
continues, �but I might stake you myself, afterwards, just to be sure.�

The stake moves a little, and more skin parts, more blood
trickles towards his ear.� He thinks that
if she presses much harder, the blood that�s loosed will be the Slayer�s blood still
in his throat.� And then she takes the
stake away.

�Like I said, I don�t care who you are.� Your body�s close enough to his.� I didn�t think that was possible.� I thought he was... him, unique... special.� But
I guess not.� You even smell like
him.� But he�s here, in this city, and he
doesn�t want to see me or talk to me, even though I watched him for an hour
tonight, and I don�t think he ever knew I was there...�

Not true, Angel
thinks.� Whatever incarnation of me is here, he�ll know if you�re within half a
mile of him.� You�re stitched into his
soul.� You�re even stitched into the
demon.� He�ll know every time you�ve
watched him, and it will be tearing him apart... He almost misses what she
says next, but it�s the key to why she�s here.

�...and there are things between us... things I need to let
go of, or they�ll rip me apart.� I can�t
do that on my own.� So, tonight you�re
going to be him.� You�ll be Angel, and
tonight, I�ll say what goes.� You�ll be
lucky if I don�t stake you, because I�m still very angry with him.�� Her voice is as flat and cold and deadly as
her words.

He hears movement from her, the soft whisper of cloth, and
then she straddles him, warm against his belly, her knees resting on the stone,
pressing into his sides, her hands spread on his chest.� She�s naked.

�Angel... you
abandoned me!� You left me.� You always left me!� And then I died � and when Willow brought me back, you couldn�t even bear to help me,
when I needed you most!��

He hears a small sob that she chokes back.� He doesn�t know what she�s talking about but
he wants to sob, himself.

�I needed you, and you never came back.� I guess you were too busy with other things
to bother with an ex-girlfriend, but after Willow pulled me out of Heaven, I
was so lost.�

She starts beating at his chest with her fists, and he feels
a sharp stab as a rib cracks.� It seems
to be no more than he deserves, in this unknown future.

�I needed you as much as I�ve ever needed you, and you
abandoned me!� All I had left was
Spike.� He wasn�t the same as you, but at
least fucking him made me feel something.�

Now he knows what that elusive scent is.� Spike.�
Spike has fed on her and fucked her, and how the hell have things got so
screwed up in this future?� Once more, he
drags futilely, desperately, at the chains.�
If only he could make her realise that this truly is him, not some substitute, lookalike
vampire...� Yet, if he could do that, she
seems to have plenty of reason to stake him.�
Would she hesitate, to give him the benefit of the doubt?� He doesn�t think so.� He subsides, but he feels the stake
again.� It�s over his heart this time.

�Bored, already?� Too
bad.� Don�t piss me off.�

The point is now at least half an inch into his flesh, and
blood is dripping down past the broken rib.�
At the same time, she pushes backwards against him, rubbing herself
against his aching cock.� She lifts
herself up, her weight, slight as it is, held on her knees and on the stake,
which sinks deeper.� Then she lowers
herself onto him, sliding easily down until he�s as deep as she can get him.

�Shall I take you as you took me?� she whispers.� �In blood and pain, pain that you turned into
pleasure?� At least you got that bit
right, for a few minutes, but now I can only remember the rest of it.� It�s like all the good things in my life got
left in Heaven.� If there�s a difference
between this place and Hell, I don�t know what it is.�

Neither does Angel.

She starts to move on him, and his mind�s eye supplies an
image of her, her slender figure, her cornsilk hair veiling her face, the light
making her golden skin glow.� Whatever
the other Angel might know of her, this Angel can only remember her as he knows
her, as she is at seventeen.� She isn�t
that here, by a long shot.� She has to be
older in years, he understands that, but whatever has happened to her has made
her older in cynicism.� He can imagine
that Spike... Spike... has coarsened
her, made her darker and crueller, has spoilt that innocent and trusting young
girl, and he doesn�t know whether he can bear to hear what she and Spike have
been doing.

Neither does he know what she expects of him tonight, but he
can�t help himself.� His limbs are
immobilized, but he can still move with her.�
And he does.� He lifts to meet
her, matching her stroke for stroke, feeling her rhythms through his whole body.� The stake, too, seated in his breast, moves
with them both.

Warm wetness strikes against his breastbone, and he�s suddenly
afraid that it�s her blood.� But it
isn�t.� The scent comes to him, and it�s
the bitter salt of her tears.

No, Spike hasn�t coarsened her.� Or, if he has, he only finished what Angel
himself began.� He wants to take it all
back, everything he ever did that hurt her, even though he doesn�t know what
most of it is.� Everything except loving
her, and right from the earliest days, he knows he should have kept that to
himself.

Except... Even now, he can�t.� Even now, when he should simply let her do as
she wishes and vent her fury on him, he presses up against her, into her,
closer, deeper... There... and there...�
Harder, deeper...� And she flies
apart.� So does he.

She clenches round him as he spills into her, grinding down
onto him as he pushes further up, and now he really fights the shackles, as her
cries of fulfilment turn into something that has nothing but sorrow in it.� He wants to take her in his arms, to take all
that sorrow and rage into himself, to make her into the Buffy she was before, but
he�s utterly incapable.

She�s beating on his chest, now, hammering at him, repeating
time after time, �You bastard, bastard, bastard.� I loved you and gave you everything I was,
and you abandoned me, you bastard...�

He�s wished many things in his long, long life.� He�s wished that he�d never met Darla, that
Darla had killed him instead of turning him, that he�d occasionally listened to
his father, that they�d never gone to Romania.�
What he mostly wishes now is that he was back in Acathla�s world, chained
to the pillar, and being torn apart by monstrous demons.� It would hurt so much less.

The tendons on his neck stand out, and his back bows with
effort as he exerts all his strength to break the chains.� Blood runs from his wrists to his elbows, but
still he tries.� He cannot permit this to
continue.� He must make himself known to her.

Suddenly, she delivers a stunning blow to the side of his
head, and then to the other.� And then
she deals him blow after blow.� An
uppercut to the jaw rattles every tooth in his head, and he feels the bloody
linen wad slide further down his throat.�
He hopes it�s too big to go all the way.

�Lie still!� she spits out, interspersing her words with
blows.� �Lie still and take your
punishment like a man!� But you�re not a
man, of course.� You�re a vampire.�
What do you care about anybody?�
You were in Hell for centuries.� When you got back, I looked after you for months.�
And you couldn�t be bothered to help me!�

His mind snatches at the words �got back�, but it isn�t until
later that he realizes she said centuries.

Her tears are coming hot and fast, now, and she stops trying
to break his skull.� Instead, she starts
raining blows down onto his chest again, double-handed blows this time, not a
Slayer punishing a demonic opponent, but a woman railing against a faithless
lover.� She�s using Slayer strength,
though, and more ribs have cracked.�
Angel isn�t sure his breastbone is still in one piece.

At last her anger seems to have run its course, but Angel is
soon to find that it�s merely changed its form.�
He�s still impaling her, still aroused, although less intensely than
before.� He feels her weight shift as she
leans back, and she takes his balls in both hands, squeezing them hard and
jerking them savagely upwards.� He throws
his head back in a silent, agonized scream.

�You wanted some action,� she grits out.� �Come on, then.�

And, despite the pain, he answers to her again.� She moves on him, gathers his balls into one
hand, and then the stake, the stake that he�d hoped had been dropped, thrown to
the floor, tossed away, is shoved back into the half-healed wound over his
heart.� As she works him, she works the
stake, digging deeper, grinding down harder, lifting, moving.

�Move,� she hisses, �move, damn you.�� She presses the stake down harder.� �Move!��
Spike seems to have given her a taste for violent sex, and Angel will
kill him for that, if ever he gets a chance.

He�s been grateful so far that he doesn�t need to breathe,
with half a dozen cracked ribs.� Moving
to meet her brings knives of pain, but he welcomes them.� He can�t cry out, but the hitches in his
movement as the knives bite will tell her that she has hurt him.� He truly hopes that will give her gratification,
and some sense of retribution.� But the
Slayer�s blood is having its effect.�
Soon the pain dulls as his broken bones knit, and he knows that the
purple bruises are yellowing and then fading as she watches.

She doesn�t beat him again, though.� Instead, she rides him harder and harder, her
nails clawing at his chest, her power driving the stake more firmly in.� And then her muscles start to spasm as ice
and fire flow through her.� He tries to
resist, but it�s as though they are locked into synchrony, and his back arches
as he spills into her for the second time.

And then she�s riding him again, driving him on, but she
pulls the stake out with a jerk, and he hears it clatter onto the stone
floor.� She wrings one more orgasm from
them both, and then she falls forward onto him, apparently exhausted.�

He still scents anger on her though.� She hasn�t yet exorcised the issues that
brought her here.� He wonders what might
be the implications of that, as he lies beneath her, hoping that she won�t see
the dampness darkening the hood as he sheds silent tears for her and for
himself.

Uncharacteristically, he loses track of time as she lies
quiescent over his body, only her scent showing any evidence of her emotions,
her rage, but by the time she lifts herself off him, the hole over his heart
has healed.� The hole in his heart is as
gaping as ever.

He hears her cleaning herself up, wiping him away from
her.� She doesn�t do the same for him,
and their mixed secretions lie chill across his belly.� It will be another day before anyone comes to
let him off the stone altar, and to clean him up.� There�s the rustle of cloth again as she
dresses and then there�s a single blow of her fist against the door, and the
grating of the key in the lock.� He
hadn�t realised that she had allowed herself to be locked in this cell with
him, and his gut clenches at her recklessness.�
She could have been as much a captive as he is.

He�s afraid for her, for what will happen to her now,
whether she will slide further into rage and sorrow.� He�s afraid for himself, too, for what will become
of him now that she�s finished with him.�
But his fear turns to horror as he listens.

A man, the same man who taunted him before, is at the door,
all attentive courtesy.

�I trust that madam is satisfied with our arrangements?�

�Yes.� It was a good
specimen.� The resemblance was...
remarkable.�

It...

�I am glad our efforts pleased you.�

She hesitates on the threshold.� �I don�t think I�m finished with it yet.� I�ll come back next week.� Have it ready for me again.� Oh, and I want something more
comfortable.� I�m not worried about that...�

The direction of her voice tells Angel that she has aimed her
remark at him.

�You can put it on a bed of nails for all I care.� But I don�t want to be kneeling on
stone.� And give it a bit more movement
in the chains.� I want an excuse to break
its arm... or something.�

�I believe we can accommodate all that.� And you still require the hood and the gag?�

�Yeah.� I never want
to see his face or hear his voice.� If I
do, I won�t be able to pretend again.�
And I think I might want to play this game for some time yet.�

No, my love, he
thinks sadly, you wouldn�t be able to
pretend.� You�d know.� He decides that he really would prefer the
pillar and the monsters to being tormented with her over an indefinite
period.� But at least she�d called him him, at the end.

�And I want you to give him some cuts and bruises for when I
arrive.� Make him look like a champion
fresh from the fight.� I�d find that...
good.�

He expects they can accommodate that, too, as he remembers
how often they�ve tended each other�s wounds.�
He hears her take a step out into the corridor, but then she turns back
to deliver her final blow.� Her voice is
as bleak as her words.

�On second thoughts,� she says, �make him look as though
he�s been through Hell.�

The End

December 2009
- 1
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Life After Death : The First Cut