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Title: Summer In Hell 1/1 (Interludes in Sin II)
Author: Eleni Angel
Rating: R
Synopsis: Interludes in Sins of the Daughter, the truth about the summer
Angel spent in Hell post Season Two..
Spoilers: Sins of the Daughter, All seasons of Buffy to an extent,
heavily AU.
Content: Buffy/Lex implied, Buffy/Angel implied, BtVS/Smallville
crossover.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Mutant Enemy Productions,
Warner Brothers company, Tollin/Robbins Productions or any of the other
creative minds behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Smallville.
All songs contained within are property of the artists listed. Which
means, duh, that Im just an unpaid fan.
Distribution: Your Eyes, Fanfiction.net, Land of Denial, and anyone else
who is archiving my stories. If youd like to have this story, just
e-mail me the URL so I can link to you.
Feedback: Send all comments to eleni9724@juno.com.
Dedication: For Michelle.
Note: Lyrics are Sabbath Bloody Sabbath by Ozzy Osborne and Living
Hell by Misfits.
Interludes in Sin
Los Angeles, CA 1997
She was awash in total and utter misery, her heart to heavy and trampled
on that she felt that she didnt deserve to feel ever again. Working long
shifts in that seedy diner under the name Anne was only a small part of
her penance, she would never really be able to make it up to him, or to
anyone for what she had done. She would never be able to even come to
terms with it herself. She was a horrible human being. She had sent an
innocent man to hell, condemned him to eons of torture at the end of her
sword.
Her boss was the kind of lech that didnt hold it to himself to make his
passes in private. He would hit on her, and any other woman in the diner
in plain sight of the others. Of course he was married, and he was
obviously unhappy with his dowdy, cold, and frumpy wife who would no more
shower him with any kind of affection than give up the last piece of
fried chicken to a starving child.
Sandra Carson was not a happy woman either, her eating habits and verbal
abuse of her husband showed it all. On the rare occasions she came into
the diner that they co-owned, she was horrible to both staff and
customers. She picked on Buffy the most, sensing the fighting spirit
buried deeply under the girls sallow skin and stringy hair, fearing it
because she knew that one day she would find out what it meant.
For the most part, Buffy ignored the womans barbs in the same manner
that she pretended that Randy Carson wasnt trying to get into her pants.
She wasnt happy here, but it was the only place that would hire her
without her high school diploma and not inquire much about her background
and the reason why she hadnt graduated yet. So she suffered through the
minimal wages and greasy food provided to her on breaks. She would endure
because what he was going through was so much worse.
//You've seen life through distorted eyes
You know you had to learn
The execution of your mind
You really had to turn
The race is run the book is read
The end begins to show
The truth is out, the lies are old
But you don't want to know//
She used to think that the moment that she had found out that she was the
Slayer was one of the worst of her life. That image was now replaced by
the look of betrayal on her lovers face as he was sucked backwards into
that vortex, her sword sticking out of his chest. He had closed his eyes
for her, let down his guard even though he was very confused and
frightened, and she had stabbed him in he back for it. She had taken that
trust, that blinding devotion and turned it into something ugly. And now
he was paying for her sins in hell, and she would never again have the
chance to hold him and tell him that he was loved, trusted, and that she
was sorry.
If only she hadnt been so hormone driven, if only she hadnt forced the
issue, then maybe they wouldnt have made love that night, and quite
possibly would have discovered the clause some other way and fixed it.
Maybe Jenny would still be alive, and Giles wouldnt subconsciously blame
her for his loves death every time he looked at her.
No matter how much he denied it, he would always look at her and see Ms.
Calendars dead body left in his bed by her lover. And Buffy wasnt so
sure that she could ever go back there and face that look. The look that
he got when he was thinking of her. It tore at her heart and made her
that much more guilty of causing others pain.
//Nobody will ever let you know
When you ask the reasons why
They just tell you that you're on your own
Fill your head all full of lies//
"Order up on table six!" Randy yelled from the back. Buffy skirted past
him over to the counter to pick up the food for her only table that
night. She hoped they tipped well, she was overdue on her rent that week.
The trays were laden with artery clogging, cholesterol filled food, but
it seemed to be some of the higher priced items on the menu. That usually
meant that there was a lawyer or a doctor here on dinner break with
friends. The diner was adjacent to both a law firm and a hospital, which
held much more irony than she could ever laugh at, and sometimes members
of both would take their breaks here.
"Is there anything else I can get you?" she mumbled as she placed each
plate before the person whod ordered it. She glanced up at a new person
at the table and froze. His hair was shorter, his eyes more wary, but
there sat someone that shed never thought that shed ever see again.
"Hello," he greeted, smiling in amusement at her wardrobe. She bristled
instinctively. So what if it was far from the silk and satin trappings
that had always adorned her before her parents had split up, and it
wasnt even the soft cottons that she had worn while living with her
mother in Sunnydale. But it was clothing, and it was clean, and there
wasnt much more she could ask for.
"Hi," she replied rather tersely.
"Do you two know each other?" the lawyer asked. "I thought youd never
been to Los Angeles before, Lex?"
"He hasnt," Buffy answered calmly, folding her arms across her chest in
poor attempt to cover what the flimsy uniform didnt. "We met back in
Metropolis a few years back. It wasmemorable." Lex pulled out a small
business card and scribbled something on it.
"Heres the number where Im staying," he said, handing it to her. He was
concerned about how thin she looked, how underfed. "Call me and well get
together sometime."
"Sure," she said, slipping the card into the pocket of her apron and
shuffling back a few steps. "I have more tables to wait on. Ill be back
later with the check."
//The people who have crippled you
You want to see them burn
The gates of life have closed on you
And now there's just no return
You're wishing that the hands of doom
Could take your mind away
And you don't care if you don't see again
The light of day//
Glancing up at the high, prominent building that passed as one of the
most exclusive hotels in all of Los Angeles, she wasnt sure why she was
even here. Sure, Lex had invited her to come by on the phone earlier
today, but she knew that it was wrong to see someone like him when she
was in such a venerable state. She knew the kinds of things that could
happen with him if she let them. The attraction, pure animal magnetism,
that they shared wasnt something that she would deny to anyone. It was
just a matter of not informing them of him in the first place.
The doorman had obviously been coached that a shabby looking blonde girl
would be coming, and to let her inside, or possibly people like her
wandered in here all the time, just for different reasons. The look that
he gave her bred truth to the last, it was clear that he thought she was
some sort of hooker. She glared at him, trying to make it known that if
he touched her, he would pay dearly for it.
Lexs room was up several flights of stairs, or one really long elevator
ride, but it was made clear by those in the lobby that she wasnt welcome
to use the device, so she was stuck walking up the thirty-two flights of
stairs to a very nice suit, though not the penthouse. She was greeted at
the door by Lex, who looked confused as to why she was huffing and
puffing.
"Stairs," she said by means of explanation.
"Why didnt you just take the lift?" he asked, still confused.
"The concierge made it clear that I wasnt welcome to," she answered with
a shrug, following him inside and sitting down on a fainting couch.
Looking around, she wasnt surprised by the splendor that surrounded her.
Lex was always one for show, getting the biggest and best of everything
while they were together.
//Nobody will ever let you know
When you ask the reasons why
They just tell you that you're on your own
Fill your head all full of lies//
"Perhaps I should have a word with them if they continue to treat my wife
in such a manner," he mused, moving closer to her.
"Dont," she answered, rising as he stood before her, her hand staying on
his chest. "Dont bother them, I dont want to meet here next time, daddy
has friends here. I dont want him to see this."
"As you like," he answered nonchalantly. His hand covered hers, a warmth
that she hadnt known in months. Smiling, his lips fell to hers for a
searing kiss the likes she hadnt experienced for months of coldness, of
being alone.
//Where can you run to
What more can you do
No more tomorrow
Life is killing you
Dreams turn to nightmares
Heaven turns to hell
Burned out confusion
Nothing more to tell//
"I shouldnt be here," she whispered against his neck as he moved them
closer to his bed. "I cant do this, I-"
"Ssh," he murmured, nibbling along her jawbone. "This never happened, you
were never here, I of course havent seen you at all. Lets just relax
and not be here."
~*~*~*~*~
They met like that several times in the next few weeks, even after hed
gone back to Smallville. He made the trips back to Los Angeles, to her
apartment, and she would lower herself into more sin, her husband at the
helm of her libido. And in all the while, the guilt she still felt, would
always feel, about Angel festered like a blister that needed to be
popped.
And then one day, after they had both fallen back onto her dirty
mattress, she burst. She relayed to him about how lost she felt, about
how shed been kicked out of the house and that she had betrayed someone
that shed loved. Each and every word spilling out of her mouth a half
truth. Buffy said nothing of vampires and the fact that she was the
Slayer, nor that the loved one that she had betrayed was now being
tormented in hell because of her.
It was the next day that she had up and gone home, leaving Lily in her
place. She was finally ready to admit that she needed to be in Sunnydale
with all of her friends, because facing their judgment and hatred was
better than not having them at all.
//Everything around you
What's it coming to
God knows as your dog knows
Bog blast all of you
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Nothing more to do
Living just for dying
Dying just for you//
Undisclosed Location, Unknown Time
Pain, he was in pain so intense that he couldnt even being to describe
where he ended and the long river of blood he was drowning in began.
Sorrow he felt searing through his bones and eating at his soul as each
image was replayed before him. The few moments reprieve that he had
experienced as he regained his soul seemed like a blissful ignorance now
that he knew the truth of what had happened in those few months.
He had betrayed the trust of the woman that he loved, had killed her
friends and terrorized her family for that entire time, trying simply to
break her hold on the world and send her tumbling into an abyss that
would be a pleasure to bring her forth from. He could remember his demon
halfs partially formed plans of turning the Slayer and making her his
mate. He was ashamed to realize that it was something that he wanted very
much, to have her at his side for all eternity.
He forced himself to push the idea from his mind, knowing that it
wouldnt be Buffy at all, that it would a demon who inhabited her body,
with her memories, but not truly her. It was the one thing that Angelus
wanted most, a demon in possession of one of Gods most deadly weapons.
//Imprisoned in this world of darkness few have known
A monster lusting blood and the hunger grows//
He didnt blame Buffy for what had happened, it wasnt her fault. She had
only done her duty, her sacred job as the only force between the world
and the forces of darkness. He was ashamed at what he had done, how he
had behaved that had gotten them into this mess in the first place.
She was the innocent one, he had been an older, much more traveled person
who hadnt cared to check things out before jumping into a sexual
relationship with her headfirst. He had been so caught up in the moment,
and the fact that he didnt have to hide his feelings anymore that he
hadnt thought so far ahead as to imagine the consequences.
He was in hell, paying for his crimes against humanity, against her.
Demons walked around him as if he were nothing, and to him he was. He was
just a vessel with a soul that carried a demon of epic proportions. That
was the only thing that kept some of the lesser demons from asking for a
turn in tormenting him, fear of retribution should he break free again.
//Out on the streets, danger's real, the killer's still at large
A trail of death and sewers to the underground//
He screamed a soundless, incoherent noise as the one punishing him today
ripped another strip of flesh from his back with a red hot poker. He
could smell the burning skin, and nearly retched. This wasnt nearly as
bad as it got. They couldnt hurt him nearly as bad with the physical as
they could with the eons of mental anguish.
There were some demons, Lucifers pet torturers he guessed, that did
nothing but hit him with a barrage of images, clips of things that hed
done in his long, long life, the sins that he had committed against
others. Visions of the sins he committed against her.
Buffy.
He loved her more than anything else in his entire existence, raised her
up as his goddess and paid tribute to her. She had been the first hint of
lightness to his dark world, showing him without reservation that he was
loved, a thing worthy of redemption. In the time with her, hed never
felt like hed finally belonged more than when he was with her, despite
all of the obvious dangers. He loved her completely, unashamed.
And Angelus had thrown it all back in her face.
//I fell their fleeting life draw into my bones
Hear the heart that pounds, the blood that flows
Eternity, I damn thee, let me rot into the ground
As the empty veins collapse
Cast them down//
On the night that they had made love, he had honestly felt like he was
flying. There was no more pain, no burden, no faces of the dead lurking
in the corner of his minds eye. There was only her, her light, her love,
her flesh, her caress. And that was the ticket to his damnation.
Because the moment that he forgot who he was, what he was, the moment
that he let everything melt away and come into her, he was lost from that
light, cut off from it by the demons claws striking out and breaking
free into the mortal world. In loving her, he had cursed them all to
months of torment, of pain, until she alone got up the courage and
strength to defeat a monster wearing his face.
Hed never been more proud of her.
//Living Hell
I just can't go on...
In this living Hell//
The fire that seemed to surround him dropped back into the abyss, and he
was frozen in ice. He knew that the demons were done for the moment, or
had perhaps devised some other sort of torture for him. Maybe they were
going to leave him buried here for a few centuries, no food or contact of
any kind, all alone in his misery and shame. Yeah, that would be like
them, to leave him until he recanted against God.
When in front of him, against a wall of solid ice the pictures began to
flow again, he knew that they had other plans. Again, he was forced to
watch various scenarios of what had befallen his lover since his trip to
the netherworld. An endless world of possibilities that all entailed her
death or serious dismemberment.
The guilt was eating him alive.
//This town has worn thin, everyone knows
Panic in the news and the terror grows
A tunnel full of filth, escape into the night
Another hole to dwell in the underground//
Every inch of his body was frozen, freed of emotions, or pain, it was
just the numbing cold of the ice. His mind, they left venerable to every
scream of torment that escaped her perfect lips. Every time she died, he
blamed himself just a little bit more until there was nothing left of the
man that she had loved, only a monster so consumed with guilt and pain
that hed become primitive, raw with it.
//I feel their fleeting life draw into my bones
Hear the heart that pounds, the blood that flows
Eternity, I damn thee, let me rot into the ground
As the empty veins collapse
Cast them down//
The show shut off, and everything became a bath of warmth, of purity, and
his mind could not hope to understand it. Before he knew it he was
falling, falling through clouds, and things that should not be. But he
knew he was really rising from the depths of hell, being brought forth,
being stripped of all his serious wounds as it went. The animal that he
had become could not understand this, but emotionally he was so
overcharged with feeling anything but pain again that all he could do was
shake.
He landed against a charred floor in a pool of bright light. When it
faded, he found himself curled around a small metal object. What, he
could not understand, much of his mind could only remember pain. But his
heart knew, and whispered to his mind one word.
"Buffy."
//Living Hell
I just can't go on...
In this living Hell//
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