DISCLAIMER: Let it be.
TIMELINE: Post-Deep Down (AtS 04x01)
SUMMARY: This has a very thin plot, don't snap it. But basically it's based on
Angel's mini-discourse, focusing on the "But then I got stuck in a hell dimension by
my girlfriend one time for a hundred years" part.
WORDCOUNT: 2408
Written for Kristi at the Connor-ficathon
Double It's Dark Ourside Award at The Dark Awards
SEEKING ANSWERS
by Leni
You don’t hear everything he tells you, you heard him enough months ago and you can
still hear his voice as you trapped him in his newest coffin. No, you don’t even want
to hear him.
But he mentions ‘hell dimension’ and for a moment you suppose he’s about to
blame your father again for taking you there. Your chin sticks out in pride. Yes, you were
raised in a hell dimension and you survived it. You were feared in it. There is
nothing this vampire can say that can make you think less of your origins.
Then you realise that Angel wasn’t talking about you at all. It was about him, always
him, hadn’t the world just proved it could continue without his oh so righteous help?
Hundred years in a hell dimension, he says and you can’t help but feel a little happy
at the thought. My girlfriend sent me there, he continues and you think: Girlfriend?!
while trying to connect what little Fred and Gunn had told you over the summer as Angel
kept talking and talking and talking.
He stops enough to throw you out, and he looks at you as if you were actually supposed to
believe his lie. Love, right. Nobody would love the one who captured him underwater, much
less a vampire.
So you run until you find a passable shelter. It reminds you a little of your home in
Quor-Toth, just in steel instead of rock. But you’re still so alone, and you still
have to hunt for survival.
The idea doesn’t come to you until days later, when you’re victorious with a
pimp’s wallet in your hand. None of the others had as much money as this one and you
look at the broken body in disgust before handing the woman half of it. She smiles and
walks up to you, offering what so many already had tonight. You stomp on the urge to
backhand her too and retreat into your hide-out.
That was the first time you are sure Daddy Dearest is following you. Made a noise too many
when you were approaching the whore. As if he was afraid you were going to hurt her. You
shake your head, takes one to recognise another, don’t they say? No wonder you wanted
to hit her with his blood running through your veins.
The world would be a safer place without either of you in it. Or at least without him, you
learned control the hard way and you owe every slice of it to your father. But Angel, oh,
he has so much to pay for. That century in hell couldn’t be enough punishment. Then
you think about his words. A girlfriend sent him them, he said. Which means that if there
was once a way, surely it can repeated.
You think about it all night, remembering every word that Fred and Gunn said to you.
Angel's girlfriend... Angel's girlfriend, did they ever mention a girlfriend?
Yes, you finally remember that one. Gunn had been teasing you about getting a girlfriend
and going out in a double date. Fred had elbowed him and said ‘not to bother the
kid’. You just smiled tightly and tried not to pay them any attention. Now you're
glad their voices were too loud in the adjacent room. “I was just kidding,
darling,” said Gunn, no apology in his voice. “It’s... difficult for
him,” Fred had tried to explain. Gunn sighed loudly. “Even Angel had that Slayer
before,” he told Fred, “I don’t see how his situation could be worse than
Connor’s. Seriously, that boy has to get a life. A normal life.”
At that time you brushed the conversation off because a Slayer being with Angel was too
ridiculous a thought. But in the following months you discovered that this was an absurd
world with absurd rules, so that romance isn’t as hard to imagine now as it was once.
The following days are spent gathering information. You don’t have a name or a
location, and you need both if you want to send Angel to the place he truly belongs to.
Funny thing about vampires, they aren’t the loners most believe them to be. You have
seen them in groups, sometimes even in stable packs. This is the one advantage vampire
hunters have, you can find many of them in a single place. The other funny fact, gossip
runs in vampire communities just as in any other. It doesn’t take long until you find
the one who knows the facts.
The blonde first laughs. “Vampire and Slayer? Freakin’ Romeo and Julia of the
dark world, I’d say.” You twist her neck until she shrieks, knowing that a
little more and it’ll be her head rolling down the floor. “She sent him to
hell?” you ask slowly. She tries to nod. “How?” Her words are a torrent of
portals and I don’t knows. You realise she really doesn’t. Almost a week on this
and your only source doesn’t know shit, you let her go in anger and look amused when
she tries to escape. A couple seconds and she’s beneath you again. “Where?”
“Sunnydale,” she answers and you consider saying ‘thank you’ before
driving the stake home.
Well, you think as you dust yourself off, might as well go there. It’s not as if you
have business in this city. So you snatch a couple wallets here and there, stupid drunks
that will only waste their money next night. Then you manage to lose Angel in the maze
that is L.A. for enough time to figure out where to buy your ticket and where to board the
bus.
And down you go, to Sunnydale.
---
She isn’t as hard to find as you first supposed. Just follow the stench of death down
the main street, turn left where people’s screams still echo through the buildings
and straight up where the smell of vampire dust is recent.
Sure enough, there she is. Hand on her knees and a couple stakes around her, on the dust
that has settled enough to give her a chance to breathe. You study her carefully. Small,
maybe smaller than you. Blonde and with danger spelled in her eyes when she looks around
in your search. Good hunter, she is, and you feel like laughing. Seems old Daddy had a
very definite type, because sure as hell you feel you just repeated your father’s
words when he gave in to describe your real mother. Maybe you moved, you’re not sure.
But she is suddenly closer and staring right in your direction.
The first thing you see is wariness mixed with dismissal. It still itches you that nobody
recognises the Destroyer you are. Can’t she recognise a predator when she sees one?
So you smile, one of those smiles that always scared Fred and made Gunn be cautious around
you. It doesn’t affect this woman. She just continues regarding you until finally
dismissal wins and with a last shrug she turns around.
Bad move, little Slayer, is all you think before jumping, a kick aimed to her kidneys is
next. Serves her right for underestimating you. You have always been curious, ever since
the day your father mentioned them. Ancient power, he said, centuries of tradition and
duty running through their veins. You couldn’t help but wonder if that power was
mightier than the one which allowed something to grow out of two vampires.
Time to prove your theory.
Except that your research specimen is jumping out of danger and the hit never connects.
Point for Slayer reflexes.
“There we go,” she says before throwing a punch in your direction. Of course it
doesn’t hit you. She stops, tilts her head and asks curiously who you are.
Surprise is the best advantage in any fight, your father used to say. “Angel’s
son.”
The next blow comes so fast that you’re on the floor before you can see it.
“Liar!” she says, and keeps you down with a foot in the middle of your chest.
“What do you want?”
You shrug insolently before rolling away and jumping back to your feet.
“Information,” you tell her honestly, rounding her carefully.
Her gaze follows you, not allowing any space to attack.
“You sent Dad to hell, I want to know how.”
“Because that’s your Father’s Day project, right?” She laughs, still
in the middle of the circle your steps describe. “If that’s your idea of a low
blow, it’s wrong. You’re what, fourteen?”
“Or eighteen." Ever since you 'came back', everyone has been asking the same.
"Who cares?" You and your father certainly didn't while trying to stay alive.
"Right. Eighteen." The Slayer rolls her eyes and steps aside letting your kick
go past her harmlessly. You quickly aim at her back, a solid punch that should throw her
down. But she’s ready for it, catching your arm and sending you crashing onto the
ground. “Even worse. He would have told me about you, but he didn’t have to.
Because you’re lying.” She stresses her point with a fist to your face. The next
minute is a continuum of defence and attack, and after receiving a mighty blow that make
you feel your ribs crack, you must concede defeat.
“Now, what do you want?” she asks again, impatience colouring her voice.
“You don’t believe me,” you whisper, a little amazed that the Slayer
actually doesn’t know about you. Son of two vampires is born, you’d think that
would have made the underground headlines, especially in such a short distance as the two
hours in-between.
“You thought I would?” She steps back, regarding you with something close to...
contempt? “I’ve had a bad week, make it a bad decade, but I’m not
crazy.” She chuckles. “Not yet anyway. What? I’d see a boy who claims to be
Angel’s son and tell him about Acathla. As evil plots go, this is easily the most
ridiculous. Except for that candy stuff.” She notices your baffled expression.
“Never mind.”
How is she still alive when she talks so much?
“Angel doesn’t deserve to live. He’s a vampire.”
She looks at you expectantly.
“He killed people. Hundreds, thousands!” Your father’s words coming
out of your mouth. “He murdered, raped and slaughtered for decades. The fire of Hell
is his rightful place.” You smirk. “Or the cold bottom of the sea.”
“You don’t know one thing about Angel,” the Slayer says firmly, ignoring
your last comment. By now it’s obvious the L.A.-Sunnydale communications are
non-existent. “Eighteen years old and you think you understand the world.” She
laughs humourlessly. “Believe me, you don’t.” She nods at you to get up.
You do. Then she looks at you with the same look Fred gave you when she realised you were
lost in a new world. “Now go home, take a shower and leave Angel alone. Forget this
world and, wherever you got that strength from, give it back. It’s not worth
it.”
“It’s mine,” you answer defiantly. “Given by my parents, the only
decent thing they gave me.”
“Whatever,” she shrugs and shakes her head, preparing to leave. “Even if I
told you about the portal, it’s over. The door is closed, the key destroyed. It all
ended a long time ago.”
She is telling the truth, you are almost sure of that. With that truth go your answers and
this trip was a complete waste of time. But something is still nagging at you. “Wait!
Why are you protecting him? You are the Slayer, you should know better!”
That laugh again. “Call it returning a favour. Karma. If you ever bother to know
Angel you’ll discover that he has worked hard to get where he is. He doesn’t
deserve a boy-sized pebble in his shoe.”
You swipe your chin, surprised when blood appears on your hand. The Slayer is good,
you’ll give her that. You’ll give her the truth too. “He should have
thought better of it before sleeping with Darla.”
That stops her in her tracks. “Darla?”
You shrug. “It was a prophecy. It came to be two years ago.” She looks at you
and rolls her eyes. You realise she’s thinking you cannot be two years old.
“Another dimension, another time.” You gesture at yourself. “Gives a new
meaning to fast development.”
This time you can practically watch as belief descends upon her. She steps back and yet
she reaches a hand out, as if to touch you. The look in her eyes is foreign, something you
can’t recognise and yet nags at you. She keeps it for the longest time, eyes fixed on
you, going slowly up and down your body. Then she shakes her head and chuckles. “Of
course.” Her hands go around her chest, a gesture you saw Fred make every time they
met a dead end. “I get death sentences and he gets a son. Figures.”
The Slayer laughs, laughs until you think she will get sick. Walks away as she does, like
one of those crazy toys Gunn pointed at when you went to the mall. But she finally
composes herself, her eyes bright and wide when they settle back on you. Her voice is a
whisper when she talks, strained and not like it sounded minutes ago. “Tell him I
said ‘congratulations...” She stops and turns to look at you with a fake
cheerful smile. “...it’s a boy’.” One last chuckle before walking
away. “Maybe I’ll even send balloons.”
Then she disappears and you could follow her. Track her down like you did when you first
arrived.
But you understand there would be no point to it.
---
On the ride back home you realise that you have no answers, not the ones you were looking
for. Instead you have a fighter of ancient tradition, a fighter of Good, who says that
Angel is a comrade in arms and implies that he deserves to have been brought back.
You also have the puzzle of that look when she first discovered who – or whose –
you were. With a jolt you suddenly realise it’s the same look Angel gave you before
sinking him into the ocean.
Betrayal.
Betrayed love.
You sit back and look out of the window, not really seeing what passes by.
Interesting that, how those two think they can really love. Don’t they get that their
own natures imply that they cannot?
Don't they realise denial isn't a luxury you can have?
The End
14/07/04
Feedback would make this a happier day.
