lit_gal | Kin of the Soul

Once upon a time there was Kin of the Heart where Angel and Xander learned to be friends. Now we're working towards something entirely different.

Kin of the Soul
Slash: Angel/Xander, Angel/Spike
Rated: ADULT
banner by objectivelypink
Prompt: Chiaroscuro

Since Angel's the one who got yanked out of heaven, is anyone interested in what he's thinking??

( Part One ) ( Part Two ) ( Part Three ) ( Part Four ) ( Part Five ) ( Part Six ) ( Part Seven ) ( Part Eight ) ( Part Nine ) ( Part Ten ) ( Part Eleven ) ( Part Twelve ) ( Part Thirteen ) ( Part Fourteen ) (Part Fifteen ) ( Part Sixteen ) ( Part Seventeen ) ( Part Eighteen ) ( Part Nineteen ) ( Part Twenty) ( Part Twenty-One ) ( Part Twenty-Two ) ( Part Twenty-Three ) ( Part Twenty-Four ) ( Part Twenty-Five ) ( Part Twenty-six ) ( Part Twenty-Seven ) ( Part Twenty-eight ) ( Part Twenty-nine )( Part thirty ) ( Part Thirty-one ) ( Part Thirty-Two ) ( Part Thirty-Three ) ( Part Thirty four ) ( Part Thirty-five ) ( Part Thirty-Six ) ( Part Thirty-Seven ) ( Part Thirty-Eight ) ( Part Thirty-nine ) ( Part Forty ) ( Part Forty-one ) ( Part Forty-two ) ( Part Forty-three ) ( Part Forty-four ) ( Part Forty-five ) ( Part Forty-six ) ( Part Forty-Seven ) ( Part Forty-Eight ) ( Part 49 ) ( Part 50 ) ( Part 51 )

52

Angel watched as the door slid open, a sickly line of light cutting through the constant darkness. The light wasn’t right though. It didn’t shine or warm his heart. It only made the shadow darker. It reminded him of a Giovanni Baglione he’d seen with the blonde vampire on his arm. They’d laughed at the human view of sex and love, but now… now Angel was almost certain that Xander understood this shadow world better than the vampire who had walked so long in it. A shadow person appeared, and Angel held Xander closer, careful to not bruise that shadow body. Even now he could feel the warmth gathering in the skin where Angel had hurt him, but Xander hadn’t complained at all.

“Blair said I should clean the mess.” The shadow woman came farther in. Harmony. She was Harmony. Angel remembered his hands holding her down, his fingers tangled in her hair as he drove his cock deep into her.

“I took ye,” Angel said softly, not sure whether the memory was real. Memory and fantasy were hard to distinguish, but he was almost sure he wouldn’t have fantasized about taking Harmony.

“Yep,” she agreed with a smile. “I’m a real part of the clan. Those stupid minions downstairs thought if you growled at me you didn’t like me, but you didn’t take them.” She went up on her toes and looked over the bed. “Ewwww. That’s pee. I don’t like pee. Xander’s going to like it even less if it stains his floor. Xander is all weird about his wood,” she said, heading into the sleeping quarters without even asking permission. Angel growled a warning despite the fact that something told him that she wasn’t a threat.

“Cordelia and Blair are back,” Harmony went on as she gathered up the towels, holding each by a corner and keeping it as far away from her as she could. Now that she had lifted the towels, Angel’s nose twitched with disgust. “The whole family is together. I really need to wash these. Or have a minion wash these. These are really disgusting. I thought Xander knew better. I’ll get some wood cleaner in here boss.” She backed out of the room, the towels held out away from her body as she left.

Family. Angel knew that word. Memories that belonged to the body flooded through him. A woman staring at him, her mouth forming words. She was begging for the life of her child. “We’ll send your husband your last message.” The blonde woman with the darkness in her center smiled, long fangs appearing. Angel jerked, a gasp forced out of him as his body relived the pleasure of killing the woman. He could feel a chuckle echoing through his head.

“Angel?”

Xander’s eyes were open, his hand resting on Angel’s chest, and Angel’s body reacted without his permission. It was like being a passenger in a car driven by no one. His cock hardened and his fingers itched to touch Xander, to taste Xander, to steal the warmth of that willing body. He wanted to pull away, but each time he did, he could see the pain in Xander’s face.

“What’s wrong?” Xander asked.

“I killed her,” Angel confessed.

“Who?” Instead of recoiling in horror, Xander just looked confused.

“I dunna even know.” Angel frowned and tried to remember a name, a reason, some circumstance that would have justified the taking of a life. Her husband. Her husband had chased him, made him feel impotent. He didn’t like feeling impotent.

“Recently killed, like since I fell asleep?” Xander pushed himself up and rubbed his eyes.

“No,” Angel said. “I remember her.”

Xander sighed and sat so his back rested against the bedhead. Angel pushed himself up to sit next to Xander.

“You probably have a lot of memories of killing people. For both our sakes, please do not describe them, but that’s in the past, Angel.”

“I did it.”

“Yeah,” Xander agreed, but he did so slowly. He said he agreed, but he didn’t. The shifting words, the hidden lies crawled over Angel like worms. He felt raw, like he’d never felt a lie sliding against his skin before, and Angel couldn’t control the shudder. Xander sighed. “Angel, you did it, but you didn’t have a soul going. You definitely didn’t have this soul attached, because this soul pretty much proved that it is good. I mean, you got into heaven. At least, I assume it was heaven. Anyway, I have lot of memories, things like riding the short bus because the school gave me this test that said I was a total idiot. Jesse was standing outside the window waving the latest issue of Spiderman, and I was so not even listening to the teacher who was doing the testing, but that’s a memory, Angel. I’m not an idiot. So, the memory is like this thing that isn’t real.”

“But…” Angel frowned. “It is real.”

“No, it was real. It’s over, Angel. Was, past. Is, present. Past, present.Present, past. Not the same thing. If it was, we wouldn’t have two words for it.”

There was a flaw in the logic, but Angel couldn’t find it.

“We should get up and see what kind of mess we’re facing, huh?” Xander said as he swung his legs out of bed. Angel watched as Xander went to the dresser and pulled clothing out. He remembered waistcoats and long underwear, but Xander pulled out briefs and a t-shirt. Change… always change, and yet the need to cover the fragile body remained.

“Hey, you’re up!” Harmony stood in the doorway. Xander made a sound that Angel couldn’t place, it was a squawking sort of distress that sent Angel leaping out of bed, his vampire features to the front as he growled at Harmony.

“Geez, boss! I’m not looking,” Harmony said, turning her back. Angel checked himself right before reaching out to grab her. He couldn’t hurt someone who wasn’t looking. She was… the word slid away from Angel like a fish darting between his fingers. However, killing her would be bad.

“Hey, no breaking Harmony.” Xander grabbed Angel’s arm, and again, Angel’s body reacted without Angel’s permission. A shiver went through him as the warm hands forced a response out of Angel’s flesh.

“Yeah, no breaking me,” Harmony agreed, “especially when I brought the floor clearer so that Xander doesn’t make that face like he made when Spike broke the banister, only I think peeing on the floor is way worse than breaking some railing. And I don’t know why you’re complaining at all. I mean, you blew up a whole school without feeling guilty, so what Spike does, that doesn’t even compare.”

Harmony’s words brought a flood of memories rushing through Angel. A giant snake eating a man, Xander standing above the crowd with a sword in hand like an avenging Angel. Spike throwing himself forward, his fists flying as he tried to rip apart the darkness that threatened to swallow them all. A woman with yellow hair who had light leaking from her skin, goodness that crept out to skitter across his skin like cobwebs.

“Blowing up the school was a public service.” Xander hopped on one leg to try and get his limbs into the clothing. “Anything you break on the hotel, I have to fix, and I am so not okay with having more work added to my to-do list. Which is why I am thanking you for taking care of the floor, even if I would prefer you knock next time.” Xander went to the closet, and Harmony still had her back turned.

“Blair said that knocking might sound too violent. He said I should just sneak in real quiet. Spike said you’d stake me if I just came in without warning, but Spike was wrong.” Harmony frowned. “He wasn’t happy when I said that.”

Xander snorted. “I bet he wasn’t.”

“There’s lots of people not happy, and face it, when Cordelia’s not happy, he’s not happy. So me pointing out that he was wrong is not to blame. However, I will not be pointing it out again,” she said as she rubbed the side of her head. Harmony turned back around, and this time Xander didn’t make his noise, so Angel supposed it was okay now. “I should clean.” Harmony nodded happily and headed past Angel.

It took Angel a second to realize that Xander was just staring at him. Angel slowly shifted his attention from Harmony to Xander. Xander’s stare turned expectant, and Angel waited, not sure what reaction Xander wanted. Maybe Xander would touch him again. Xander liked to do that, but Angel still couldn’t help feel uncomfortable at having his body react. He wanted to control his own body, and when Xander stood near, he couldn’t. His body wanted Xander, only Angel remembered what it meant to touch Harmony, and if he did that to Xander, he’d hurt him.

“Well?” Xander asked.

Angel blinked at Xander.

“Are you going to get dressed?” Xander looked down at Angel’s body, and Angel realized that he shouldn’t be naked. Naked in front of a woman was bad for some reason he couldn’t quite remember. Angel knew he should get dressed, but he looked around at the rumpled bed and the dressers and the closet with the brass doorknob and at Harmony polishing the dark wood floor, and he wasn’t sure where he was supposed to get the right clothes.

Before Angel could admit ignorance, Xander when to the closet and opened it. “No clothes in heaven, huh?”

“Was he really in heaven?” Harmony asked. They both looked at Angel, and he didn’t know what to say. The memories were starting to fade, like pictures printed on tissue paper. However, he couldn’t say where he’d been. He hadn’t been here.

“Yeah, he was,” Xander said, the sadness leaking from him. Angel walked over and touched Xander’s cheek, trying to understand the source of the pain. “I think I wished him back, although I really tried not to, Angel. Honestly. I wasn’t going to let Angelus keep hurting people, either.”

Angel frowned. He remembered Xander’s voice calling out. Words hadn’t meant anything, but the pain had cut through Angel’s awareness, making his soul bleed… although bleed was not the right word. The right word didn’t fit in Angel’s head.

“I’m so sorry, Angel. You shouldn’t have needed to come back.”

Angel titled his head. “You hurt.”

Xander sucked in a fast breath, and Angel closed his eyes and scented the raw pain. The pain, not the words, had called him back. This world was dark—shadowed and frightening—but he couldn’t ignore the call of Xander’s pain.

“I shouldn’t have pulled you back. You’d earned heaven,” Xander said again, his voice barely louder than a whisper. Angel didn’t understand what Xander meant. The words twisted shape, dangling in the air between them until they didn’t even make sense to Angel.

“You needed me. You hurt,” Angel repeated. That’s all he could say.

Xander looked up at him, his eyes shining. “And I pulled you into the hurt.”

Angel frowned. “Nothing pulled me. I heard you and I came.” Taking the pants Xander had chosen out of Xander’s hands, Angel started pulling them on. He didn’t understand this world, but he knew he didn’t want to have this conversation. Xander ducked his head before he turned back to the closet and started searching through the shirts. He pulled out a deep brown one and passed it over without looking at Angel.

“Which is still feeling pullish,” Xander said softly. Angel let him have the last word only because Angel didn’t know how to argue with someone who rejected logic. That felt familiar, like he expected to lose arguments not out of any logical failing but because Xander simply ignored logic. “So, when did Blair get here?” Xander asked loudly. He was looking at Harmony.

“She called me not long after Spike got here, and I told her all about what happened. So then Cordelia came striding in. Spike almost had a heart attack, and he staked about a dozen minions who looked at her too long. He tried yelling at her about how she could have gotten herself and Blair killed, only there weren’t any minions looking to kill them. Cordelia came in and started ordering them out of her way and calling for Spike, and mostly the minions were just confused.”

“That’s my Cordy. She can confuse a demon into forgetting to eat her,” Xander said with a warmth in his voice that Angel liked. Angel moved closer and rested his hands on Xander’s shoulder. Xander smiled at him, but the expression had a tinge of sadness that made Angel unhappy. He didn’t want to make Xander sad.

“She’s scary,” Harmony agreed, nodding her head so the hair swayed briskly. Angel watched it, fascinated by the movement.

“She is.” Xander took Angel’s hand in his and Angel looked down at where their hands met. “So, let’s go see how much damage Spike did in his anger, but you have to promise me something, Angel.”

“M’fhear?”

Xander gave another smile stained with sadness. “Promise that if I say stop, you’ll avoid breaking anyone. You were a little on the cranky side with Spike last time. Actually, you were cranky with Graham, too. So, no breaking family members.”

“They threatened you,” Angel said with a frown. Spike had threatened to hurt Xander. Angel could feel the growl rise in his throat.

Xander rested a hand against Angel’s chest. “That was a good sort of threatening. He wouldn’t hurt me, but threatening me told me that he was serious, and he was telling me to keep myself safe, so that was sort of anti-hurting of me. Honestly.”

Angel frowned. Again, the logic didn’t make any sense; however, Angel could tell that Xander believed what he said.

“Just, don’t break people, okay?” Xander asked. “Oh shit. Lindsey. I forgot to ask, what happened?” Xander looked at Harmony, and Angel’s memory supplied him with an image of a man hanging from chains, his body bruised and bleeding. Angel had felt powerful and lust had stained his thoughts as he pressed a thumb into the purpling center of a bad bruise. Angel’s cock started to harden without his permission, and Angel pulled away from Xander and pressed himself against the wall. Xander gave him an odd look, but Harmony talked on like this was all normal.

“He was marked up pretty bad, and Wesley was too tired to do much with the spells so he fixed the worst of it, and we put Lindsey in bed with a really good knock-out spell so he couldn’t feel much. Blair wanted to send him back to Wolfram and Hart, but Spike growled over that, and Cordelia said that if he was going to be evil, he had to expect people to get cranky, so that overruled Blair. I didn’t even know that Blair was family, but anyone who can argue with Spike that much and not get eaten is family. He’s been good for Faith, too. He’s spent most of his time with her.” Harmony was rubbing strong smelling liquid into the floor, wiping it with a strong rag, and Angel frowned as he remembered his hands on Graham, the sound of bone snapping and the feel of flesh yielding to his hands.

“I broke Graham,” Angel said softly. Guilt rose up. Graham had wanted to protect Xander. He hadn’t threatened Xander like Spike had.

“Wolfram and Hart’s guys did that,” Xander disagreed.

“Oh no, Angel broke him,” Harmony said with the same cheerful tone. Xander’s head turned until he could pin Harmony with a gaze that Angel recognized as dangerous, but Harmony kept smiling and cleaning the floor.

“Angel what?” Xander asked.

“When he pushed Graham into the door, he broke all kinds of things. Spike was cursing and Faith actually cried. Considering that Faith is the one who let him get captured, she didn’t have a whole lot of room to cry.”

“She….” Xander didn’t say anything else, turning, he bolted out of the room. For a half second, Angel stood, dumbfounded and caught in his own memories. Then he realized that Xander had gone out into a world full of demons, and Angel leaped after him. Even with vampire speed, Xander beat him to Faith’s door, throwing it open without knocked.

“Graham?” Xander asked, breathless. Angel stopped just before the door, not sure he wanted to look inside the room. He could smell pain and blood.

“Hey,” a weak voice answered. Xander went into the room, and that forced Angel to follow even though he desperately didn’t want to. The only alternatives were forcing Xander back to the room or leaving Xander alone, and Angel wouldn’t do either of those. Edging into the room, Angel saw Graham propped up on the bed. Someone had strapped his arm to his chest and two deep punctures over the wound suggested Spike had to drain blood out of the joint. Angel had taught him that. A man they’d hit had bled under his skin, and Angel had shown Spike how to feed on the pooled blood to prolong the victim’s pain, only it hadn’t been Angel. It hadn’t been him, but he could feel the swelling skin under his fingers; the man’s cries had made his cock hard. Angel cringed.

“Geez, Graham. You look really shit-like,” Xander said as he stepped closer to the bed. Blair sat by Graham’s side, and the room smelled of Faith and sweat and tears, but she wasn’t anywhere around.

“This is me after Wesley and Spike did their doctor impressions. It was mildly impressive,” Graham said with a tight smile. His gaze kept skittering over to Angel, but Angel had no words. What he felt didn’t fit inside neat words that he could pass to someone else.

“They are never getting to play doctor with me.” Xander said, and a half second later, he turned red and Graham laughed, at least until he hissed in pain.

“I hear that Spike already played doctor with you,” Blair said with a huge smile, and Angel looked from one to another, not understanding the conversation. It was as if the meaning was a balloon that slipped out of his grasp every time he tried to reach for it. The feeling was familiar, but Angel could feel his frustration rising.

“Which is something we will not be discussing. But I’m hoping that’s not the kind of doctor Spike has been playing. Because honestly, biting that kind of bruise is not looking like the fun kind of doctoring,” Xander said. “That’s more the kind with dentist drills and really big needles.” Xander reached out like he might touch Graham’s bruised and bitten shoulder.

“He drained off blood that was gathering,” Graham said. “I was a little out of it at the time, but short of going to a hospital, I couldn’t have gotten better care.”

“Wesley couldn’t give you any of his quick cure stuff?” Xander settled on the edge of the bed.

“Man, the body is not built to have magic shoved through the cells. It really isn’t built to have magic shoved through it twice in a week,” Blair said with a snort. “Respect the body, and it can do some amazing things on its own.”

“I broke you,” Angel said softly. The room fell suddenly silent, so silent that Angel thought at least one of the humans had stopped breathing.

“You tried to protect Xander,” Graham said. “I might not appreciate the way it turned out, but you acted for the right reasons.”

Angel tilted his head. “You submitted to the demon.”

Blair sucked in a breath, and Xander definitely stopped breathing now.

“I trusted that the demon was strong enough to stop even bigger dangers,” Graham said. It wasn’t total agreement. Angel could feel the cracks in the words, the places where meaning and intent and sound didn’t quite match up.

“I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m thinking this is a conversation for another time,” Xander suggested carefully. Angel moved to the bed, and Blair moved back with slow, careful steps. “A time far, far away. Years away. Any time other than now would be good, in fact,” Xander said, the words falling out of him in a stream. That was familiar too.

Reaching out, Angel took Graham arm in his hand. The silver cuff caught the light and made it dance in spots against the wall.

“Careful with the human clan members, Angel,” Xander cautioned, but Angel ignored him. He ran his thumb over the edge of the cuff and with a little stinging in the pad of his thumb, the cuff came off.

“Thank the heavens,” Blair said, his word little more than a breath.

“I think I’ll thank Angel,” Graham answered. “Thank you, Angel.”

Angel turned the cuff over in his hand, the silver of it warm under his hands. He’d used this to trap Graham, to hold him. “Were you going to leave?” Angel asked, confused about why he would trap a clan member. Fear rose up, fear of being left, a woman riding a horse away with a laugh. A human with long hair, her hands clasped as she stood behind Angel’s father, turning her back as Angel’s father raised a switch. “I wouldn’t be left,” Angel said softly. He looked around the room.

Blair answered first. “Man, we all have our loose screws. I totally have abandonment issues myself.”

Graham snorted. “For me, it’s all about being not good enough. When Riley wouldn’t believe me about Willow and Jenny getting out of hand, it touched every insecurity I ever had.”

“Yeah, at least you can name an issue. My issues have given birth to litters,” Xander said with a snort. “My parents sold me, my school thought I was short-bus material, my mother’s stupid wish got my lover yanked out of heaven, and my family….” Xander cut himself off, his lower lip caught between his teeth. Angel frowned at the unhappiness in those tones.

“We’re going to be okay,” Graham promised. “As long as we know we have issues, we’ll be fine.”

“Trust me, I’m all knowing-boy when it comes to my issues… which makes it sound like I’m saying I’m all knowing, which is not what I was trying to say.” Xander shrugged. “I also have issues with English.”

“Man, who doesn’t?” Blair asked.

Angel still didn’t understand most of what was being said, but the words didn’t have the sharp edges of earlier. The words floated up like balloons, and some Angel understood and some he didn’t, but none of them cut at him.

“We should go see what the rest of the issuey clan is up to,” Xander said. “Last I looked, we were sort of drowning in minions and assorted other demons.”

“Spike’s temper cut down on that,” Blair said. At the same time, Angel offered his own assessment based on what he could hear from downstairs. “They’re talking about a goddess in Sunnydale ending reality,” he said, repeating what seemed to be the important part of the conversation Spike and Cordelia and Faith were having.

“They… what?” Xander’s voice rose an octave.

“Oh man,” Blair whispered. “It just never stops with you guys, does it?”

Angel looked from one to another, struggling to understand the sudden shift in the tone. “What?” he asked, bewildered at their reactions. No one had any answer at all for that.