// Falling
Disclaimer: The characters of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel are not mine and belong to Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, Mutant Enemy. They are used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
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Feedback is incredibly welcome.
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For Melymbrosia, on her birthday. Has an accompanying musical piece (right-click--ctrl+click if you're on a Mac--to save). Thanks to Oyce and Edo no Hana for the beta. Faith and Alexiel, post-"Not Fade Away" (Angel) and post-series (Angel Sanctuary), with hints of Buffy and Fray. Adult.
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Falling's like flying: you get better at it the more practice you have, and oh, you've had so much practice falling, something even (especially) Angel and Wesley wouldn't have denied. You know what Heaven looks like from inside your not-sister's skin (and isn't B the sister you always wished you'd had, the sister you always wished you could tuck close and caress and fuck?). You know what Hell looks like when it's the life story of the man who saved your soul and the monster who restored the sun. You know what it's like to sell out every friend you thought you'd had and land on your feet, fighting for the wrong cause but fighting nonetheless.
You know her first by her eyes: dark, wide, compassionate, and a killer's all the same. Killers recognize each other, secret brand beneath the skin. You see her across a landscape of exposed bone and sulfurous smoke and ashen stone, tall and unbowed, hair rippling behind her in the hot wind. A sword gleams brightly in her hand, seven-bladed. It's far from the strangest weapon you've seen.
There's no red sickle for you, not at this end of time.
"What are you doing here, little traveler?" the woman asks.
You scowl at her, not entirely with unfriendly intent. She is tall, after all, and that sword looks wicked. Still, if she wanted to fight, she'd have attacked by now. "Looking for someone. He crashed the gates of hell and took a city with him. I'm here to bring him back."
The woman's gaze sharpens. "You must love him very much."
"It's not that kind of relationship," you say. You wanted him once because he was Buffy's; you don't think that's what the woman is talking about. Besides, intimacy isn't your thing. "He saved my soul. I owe him one, you know?"
"So that's what brings you to the borderlands of Hell," the woman muses. She makes a motion you can't quite follow, and the sword vanishes. Then she kneels and sketches a great twisting labyrinth in the dirt. There's poetry in the arch of her neck, in the perfect curve of her slim fingers.
"What are you doing here?" you ask. She must be fallen like you, to be here, whether by choice or not. Strangely, for all the strength you sense in her, you also feel that she knows what it's like to live with the consequences of terrible decisions.
The woman points to the center of the labyrinth. A strange wind stirs the dirt, and the air tastes of ashes and corpses and forbidden fruit. You have a strong stomach, but you gag even so. "We're alike, you and I," the woman says. "You've lived a thousand thousand lives, chained by village elders and burned at the stake. You've lived in the shadows of high towers and ziggurats; you've shared your hunting-grounds with ghouls and dragons and fox-spirits. You've lived in so many different skins. You'll be twin-born and damned for it, a sinner who can never win the Powers' approval. You've dreamed all those lives, past and present and future, so many lives for a woman to carry."
She hasn't answered your question. You doubt you're going to get an answer.
You've shifted into a fighting stance, weight evenly balanced over both feet. "How do you know all this?" Strange thought--"Are you one of us?" She's beautiful, no question, but you would have said that she's too old to be one of the new Slayers, one of Buffy and Willow's progeny.
She laughs. "Oh, no," she says. "But I've been reborn over and over again, sometimes man, sometimes woman, always doomed. I've walked the paths of Hell and I've come out the other side. Perhaps we can be of use to each other, little Slayer."
"Maybe," you say.
"What is his name, this man you're looking for?"
"Angel," you say. For a second all you can remember of Angel is the rain. Not his shoulder, not the everlasting black coat, not the awkward comfort of his touch, but the rain in the alley. "His name. It's Angel. And he's--he's human." The word tastes strange. "It's just a name."
You've never been one for religion, not even in a world where crosses burn vampires and holy water scalds them. But if you had to choose between one of those winged Hallmark angels and the vampire--the man--you knew, well, the choice is no choice.
You had a dream, the way Slayers do, or the way you and Buffy do, anyway. You've never asked the other Slayers if they have the dreams, and they never show up in yours. Truth to tell, you don't feel the loss. Isn't one sister enough?
You had a dream, and in that dream Angel stood with sunlight pouring between his fingers as he shielded his eyes, his face bloodied, breathing heavily. Breathing because he had to, for once, not because he could.
In the morning, when you woke up, Los Angeles was gone: nothing but a hole opening into Hell. So you jumped, and you fell, and here you are.
"He wasn't always human, was he?" the woman asks. She takes your hesitation as a yes. Her smile turns fierce, and six great wings arch overhead, washing you both in light.
"You're not human, either," you say. It only confirms your guess. Really, would an ordinary human be here?
"Are you one to speak?" she says, playful. "Let me tell you a story. In this story the world is a pendulum caught between Heaven"--she draws a helix through the labyrinth, and sure enough, it's a complete path--"and Hell." She flattens her palm against the dirt at the edge of the labyrinth, pinches the dirt. "Once upon an apocalypse, an angel fell from the world and became a man. And on that very day, a man fell from the world and became an angel. But the world swings, still caught between the machinations of Heaven and Hell, Powers beyond naming, and not until the two meet will the balance be restored." She smiles sadly. "I have to do this so I can return to my sister, my sister who is also my lover. You might know a little about what that's like."
You stare at the fallen angel.
"Curious?" she asks. She raises her hands to you: callused, a killer's hands. Then she draws you in and kisses you, a young man's kiss, insistent and eager and not one whit yielding. You know how to kiss like that, too, you know how to do a great many things with men and women. But all you do, this once, is accept the kiss as proof.
"I don't suppose you know where Angel is, then," you say when your pulse has slowed down.
"We will find him together," she says. "What is your name?"
"Faith," you say, aware as usual of the irony. You'll never know what your mother was thinking.
The angel's wings fold; a feather brushes your shoulder and leaves a moment's trail of light. "Faith," she says, and smiles. "Call me Alexiel."
There's thunder in the distance: no, hoofbeats, and gaunt riders upon horses with no eyes. "I hope you can bring that sword back real fast," you say.
Just like that, it's back in Alexiel's hand. "Come," she says. "I like the odds, don't you?"
Two against infinity. You'll make it work. "Damn straight," you say, and reach for your stakes.
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