Tip toe through tireless
peace
Come and go, leave your
toys and sweets
If I had a place you
could visit me
Read fairy tales, play
hide and go seek
Angel held Buffy to him, rocking slightly as one might comfort a small child. Without really thinking about it, he hummed a soft tune reminiscent of a lullaby as she calmed in his arms.
Cliff faces are far too
steep
Even though we try to
smile through our teeth
Yet even as he devoted his thoughts to giving her comfort, his mind was being pulled elsewhere. It was as if his mind had been struck by lightening, and now something he could not name was burning him from within. It was impossible to fight it.
/Disorientation. Confusion. Sensation./
This surface is not too
deep
Although we have our
secrets to keep
/Scents hung heavy in the air, like over-fragrant incense. It smelled like frankincense, so thick that it had lost all possibility of pleasantness. There was a hint of something else beneath it, but he couldn’t tell what it was. It softened the scent slightly, but not enough.
It made his lungs burn./
Tightropes are seldom
too weak
Say I’ve lost my shoes
or I have cold feet
/His entire body felt wrong. Like it didn’t belong to him. His chest felt tight. And that felt wrong, unfamiliar. He…he couldn’t breathe. He was suffocating.
His sudden gasp for air made him cough violently. It hurt…actually, everything hurt. The burning in his lungs, however, faded with each gasping breath./
Say stranger how did we
meet
Who will hear us when
we start to speak
/Without realizing it immediately, he had opened his eyes when he had started coughing. His vision was simply a blur at first, a swirl of reds and oranges. For some reason the flickering, fiery images made him deathly afraid.
He tried to wipe his eyes to clear them, but found that he couldn’t. He couldn’t move his arms. Both were held fast about the wrists and he struggled in vain against his bonds./
Our shadows are still
out on the street
My skin still as white
as a sheet
/Two figures entered his hazy and confused vision. At first he only got vague impressions they were there. The first was a vibrant, energetic, and powerful presence that soothed him in a way he didn’t understand. The second figure was dark and suffocating, as if it took everything around it in and gave nothing in return./
Our time is short and
fleet
Empty pockets, trick
or treat
/The dark figure spoke first. “Your creation is awake, old woman,” he said. His image resolved itself into a middle-aged man. He was dressed in a long, red robe, but beneath it peeked the collar of a dress shirt and tie.
The second figure was a woman, and despite the man’s words she did not seem to be old to the captive. In truth, he could not tell what age she was. Her hair was long and straight, and pure white. She, too, was dressed in a robe, white as her hair, though she wore hers like it was a part of her instead of simply ceremonial trapping./
We all need food to eat
Friend or foe we all
go to sleep
/”He is not my creation,” she said in a voice that was both young and old. She had an odd accent. “You make me sound like Dr. Frankenstein.”
The man scoffed at that. “We all saw the ashes,” he said. “You can’t expect me to believe that…”
“I don’t care what you believe, so long as you listen,” the woman snapped. “I told you; you can not simply kill this man. He is too important to Them. The retribution would be beyond what either of us could imagine. The best we can do is render him powerless…helpless. Than neither he nor They can do anything against you.”
The man smiled cruelly. “I like the way you think, old woman,” he said, running a hand down her side./
Life away from home is
far from cheep
So look long before you
leap
/The woman looked disgusted at his touch. “Stand back, fool,” she demanded. “I’m not done here.”
“What do you mean you’re not done?” the man demanded. He gestured towards the captive. “Look at him, staring at us like a frightened animal. He’s helpless. Harmless.”
“Yes, he is,” the woman agreed. “But do you want him to stay that way or for him to remember exactly what you did to him the moment he walks out that door?”
The man looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he stepped out of the captive’s field of view. “Proceed,” he ordered./
Hey soldier please have
a seat
You’re only alive while
your own heart beats
/To the man, it might have appeared like she was leaning over the captive, chanting. To the captive it was something else entirely. She held a long knife in her hands, its blade catching the firelight. “I’m sorry,” she whispered so that only he could hear. “I wish there was another way. But the Phoenix must rise again.”
She held the knife steadily over his chest. His breath came faster in fear. “You will not remember me,” she said, “but you will see me again, Angel.”
Then the knife lowered slowly. It pierced his skin and he cried out in sudden pain. He continued to scream as she dragged the knife along his chest. It cut deep, and somewhere beyond the pain and terror he could feel the dampness of his own blood. As she looked into his agonized gaze she chanted softly, inaudible over his screams. She continued her work with careful precision, a lone tear trickling down her cheek./
There will always be wolves
among the sheep
But what’s left of the
earth will be plowed by the meek
Ploughed by the meek
By the meek…
/Suddenly she stopped, removing her knife, and the scream died in Angel’s throat. He was panting for breath, already feeling strange from the loss of blood. She stood tall before him, already withdrawing from his vision.
“Clean and dress that wound,” she ordered the man still somewhere in the room. “You don’t want him dying after all the work I did to give him to you alive.” The woman swept out of sight a second later, and Angel could hear the sound of a heavy door slamming.
She was gone./
Tip toe through tireless
peace
Come and go, leave your
toys and sweets
/The man reappeared before Angel, a sneer twisting his already cruel features. “Clean and dress that wound,” he mocked. “No, it may hurt like hell, but it won’t kill you…yet.” He leaned over Angel and pressed a hand over the precise cuts, making him bite back another cry of pain. “Just think,” the man said. “Reborn, the first sound you make is always a scream.” He pulled his hand away and showed Angel the blood. “Revenge is sweet, isn’t it?”
He stood up again, still smiling. “You will leave here when we are done with you; don’t doubt that,” he said. “No reason for us to keep you around any more than necessary. First, though…” he turned from Angel to direct his attention to someone out of sight. “Do with him what you will,” he said. “So long as he’d breathing when he leaves here, nothing else matters.”
He returned his gaze to Angel and his voice dropped into a mocking tone. “Be a good boy and drop into a coma for us, would you?” he said. Then he, too, was gone.
The pain and the screams continued./
When I have a place you
can visit me
Read fairy tales, play
hide and go seek
And go seek
And go seek
And go seek
Go seek…
“Angel!” Buffy’s voice was very close at hand. “Angel, what’s wrong?”
Angel’s breath calmed and his heartbeat slowed. He looked down at Buffy, knowing that she was concerned even though he could not see her in the darkened room. “What?” Angel asked in confusion.
“You were shaking,” Buffy explained. “You were holding me, humming, then stopped suddenly, started shaking, and wouldn’t answer me.”
“I’m alright,” Angel assured her, but he wasn’t so certain of that himself. He felt dazed, disoriented. He put his hand to the scar on his chest and was faintly surprised to find that it wasn’t bleeding or even painful. “How am I alive?” Angel whispered.
Buffy sat up straighter, pulling away from him slightly. “What?”
“I was dead, wasn’t I?” Angel asked. He was surprised at how easily the question came. He frowned in concentration. No, there was something more… “How long was I...?”
“You remember something,” Buffy said in understanding.
“Yes,” Angel whispered, preoccupied.
“Tell me what it is, Angel, please?”
Angel leaned back, suddenly exhausted. “I saw…when I was brought back, I guess. I…can’t explain how they did it. And I don’t know who they were. But I know I was dead. And I think you know it, too. But how long…”
Buffy sighed audibly. “Were you dead?” she finished for him. “We…Cordelia, Wesley, and I…aren’t sure, exactly. You were gone for several days, but considering…the condition you were in when you were found, you may have only been dead for a brief time, then kept…elsewhere. Captive.” There was a long pause as Buffy contemplated what to say next. “That’s not all you’re asking, though, is it?”
Angel didn’t even need to think about his answer. He felt like he was standing on the edge of a large precipice, possibly even already falling, over the gaping hole called ‘past.’ “No, that’s not all I was asking.”
Buffy shifted against him, and Angel could imagine her thinking of how to approach the subject gently. She took a deep breath, then spoke slowly and precisely. “You were dead…undead…for two and a half centuries.” She waited silently for Angel’s response.
“Undead?” he asked, ready to refute what she’d said. Then it all seemed to slip together, dreams traveling over the line into memory. “Vampire.”
“Yes,” Buffy replied carefully.
Angel was faintly surprised. Not at the facts, which came together, healing his fractured memory with each passing second. Rather he was surprised that Buffy, who had refused to tell him anything about his past, was suddenly so forthcoming. “Why are you telling me this now?” he asked.
“Because you were right,” Buffy explained. “I don’t know what we’re up against, but it always has something to do with demons, vampires, or fighting all of the above. I would bet anything that whoever captured us is in league with demons or evil or something.” She sighed and leaned comfortably into Angel’s arms once again. “Besides,” she whispered, “I get the feeling you already knew.”
Faces without names. Names without faces. Names and faces together. Mother, father, sister…sire, childe…friend, lover… “Yes, I knew.”
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