“Angel?”
“Hmm?”
“I… I know you’re upset and all, but… I thought you could use some company.”
“…Uh, Fred…”
“No objections, okay? I have nothing better to do, and besides, if I’m here then I might take your mind off this Bunny or Buddy or whoever it is you’re mooning over so just sit there and listen to me, okay?”
Silence.
“Okay, that was fun. Now… will you… tell me a story?”
“I’m not up to it Fred, I’m sor—“
“Oh, please. Please tell me a story, just a short one. Or a long one, whatever you’d like, I just… I haven’t heard a good story in so long that wasn’t actually real, or that wasn’t me thinking I’d dreamed it, or…”
“I’m no good at telling stories.”
“Oh, sure you are. Everyone is, you know. Cordelia said you’d have some good ones, and I believe her, too, what with you being really old and all… well, I don’t mean to say that you’re old like… old or anything, you’re a handsome man considering your age, and, and you can ride horses. I bet you have some great stories about horses, or something else. Anything would do, really…”
“Fred.”
“Yes?”
“If I promise to tell you a story will you settle down?”
“Yes! I’m sorry, I…”
“Fred.”
“Yes?”
“I promise to tell you a story. Now settle down.”
“When?”
“Right now.”
“Really? Okay.”
Silence.
“Well?”
“Oh. OH. No, I meant settle down right now. I’ll tell you a story later.”
“Oh. Oh, well, all right, I mean, I guess I can go and get Cordelia to tell me about the time you were the evil version of the beast…”
“No! Did she… did she tell you to say that if I said no?”
“I’m not supposed to say.”
Sigh.
“All right. Pull up a chair, I’ll tell you a story.”
Giggle. “Thank you! Oh, thank you… what’s it about? Does it have horses in it?”
“No, no animals, really… A few demons, though. Up for that?”
“Sure. A story’s a story, I don’t mind demons. Sometimes they’re nice. Are these ones nice?”
“…Occasionally.”
“Okay, sorry, I’m rambling. Go ahead, I’m listening.”
“All right. Now, it’s all true, what I’m telling you, but don’t go around parading that fact, okay? In fact, most of it’s an old vampire secret that you’re not even supposed to know, and what isn’t a vampire secret is a secret of the old world that no human is still supposed to know.”
“I’m a good secret keeper.”
“Good. Okay. All right. I can tell stories. Here we go.”
**
Once upon a time, before towns or people or even dinosaurs existed, there was land and there was sea. And there were demons. Big, huge, scaly demons that were absolutely pure evil and couldn’t be stopped… well, not like there was anyone around to want to stop them. They ruled the land; educated people refer to this state of the world as Demonia, which is Italian for “demon”. Not all that original, granted, but I guess it sounds nice enough.
Anyway, at that time, the atmosphere around earth was so thick that most of the demons had to burrow under the ground to stay alive. It’s warmer closer to the centre of the earth, see, so most of the demons didn’t freeze to death in any of the various ice ages that plagued earth. Eventually the demons got tired of staying in one spot underground, waiting for smaller pray to come by so they could eat. The demons were restless, I guess you could say. So they started moving around underground, creating tunnels and passages throughout the entire earth. Some of the more powerful demons created havens for themselves; over time, these havens were evolved into hell dimensions.
But I get ahead of myself. Now, once the earth wasn’t completely covered in ice, one of the demons emerged back to the surface. He was a particularly scaly guy, but he wasn’t that big or strong; people now refer to him as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. My old demon pals that have been around forever claim that he used to just go by Rex and extended his title to seem like more of a threat to other demons, though. Anyway, he accidentally mated with a Pterodactyl when it just seemed to fall from the sky one day and… uh, well, needless to say there were eggs but only one hatched, and lo and behold, there was a new species of demon.
You know, in one of the languages that’s been dead since before Christ’s time, “dinosaur” means “demon”. But again with my potentially faulty sources. You never know with immortal demons in hell dimensions; they’re rarely completely candid with you.
Anyway, blah, blah, other demons mated and evolved to become humans. It took a really long time, and it’s kind of boring, so let me proclaim the point right now: the series of tunnels to various hell dimensions grew and grew and are still growing, to the point where in some places, the land had collapsed. There are places throughout the world that will lead straight to a hell dimension if you only jumped down into it. One of these such places is in Sunnydale; we call them Hellmouths.
Because these passages lead straight to hell, demon activity around those areas is high. Mostly, all demons, including (and sometimes especially) vampires, essentially want to get to hell, because that’s where they originated from. Humans and various fluffy animals don’t feel that way because they’re so evolved that they want good things, whereas in reality their roots only want bad things. Vampires are an amalgamation of human and demon; they do and want horrible things, but they still don’t really want to go to hell; they just like hell-like activities. So vampires and other demons are drawn to hellmouths, even though most apocalyptic rituals suck the world into hell and exclude everything with a bad (or lack of) heart. It’s complicated and just generally gross to a human, so I’ll stop going on and on about this and get to the point I started trying to make in the first place.
There’s only one problem with being near a Hellmouth; vampires aren’t themselves. They don’t have as many superpowers. Here, I can jump two-story buildings without pulling a muscle; three stories if I really want to push it. But in Sunnydale, I couldn’t jump any higher than a human. Two feet tops, not two stories. There have been various theories for this, but most vampires attribute it to one thing alone: The Legend.
Now, I’ve never believed in The Legend myself, but Darla always did. Basically, according to The Legend, vampires are more like vampires and more like humans above Hellmouths. They have increased bloodlust, but they can’t act on it quite as well; they have to work for their kill, but it satisfies them more. I loved being on the Hellmouth in that short spell when I was evil a couple years back… it was the best feeling in the world. But… I won’t… okay.
Angel stopped talking for a moment, remembering back to his battle with Buffy before she sent him to hell. It was a fantastic battle, but he would have beaten her if they’d been in L. A., or anywhere besides Sunnydale, really. He’d wanted to kill her so badly, and then he wanted to love her so badly before she killed him. Like he’d killed her by not coming to her rescue. He let her die, three years later. She was gone. Dead. Probably in hell for sleeping with and loving a vampire. Him. He not only killed her, he sent her to hell.
“Angel?” Fred was saying softly. “Are… are you gonna finish the story?”
“Huh? Oh… uh, sure…”
Nobody knows why exactly The Legend exists in the first place. Darla’s theory was that The Legend was true because… um, because… because hell takes better care of bloodlust than it does ability. In my lengthy stay in hell, work was harder and I never ever got fed. Not once. Even at the beginning, when I fought to get out just to see Buffy again…
Buffy Buffy Buffy Buffy you let her die
…I st-still didn’t find any… any food. No blood anywhere except that of other vampires, and drinking another vampire’s blood does absolutely nothing except making you wish there was a willing woman about, and that wasn’t something I needed then. Actually, I still don’t need it, since I… uh.
Right, so. Spike never believed in The Legend either; chalked it all up to self-perception. Vampires are always aware when they’re near a hellmouth, always. I can sense the one in Sunnydale from here, actually. But it’s too far away to affect me.
Drusilla thought it was all her mummy’s fault, but she was and is completely insane, so let’s just leave her out of this picture.
James and Elisabeth both believed in it, but they were both too busy staring into each other’s eyes and being poetic for no reason to tell me why. And that about concludes the vampires I hung out with.
**
“So… so that’s my story, Fred. I’m sorry it wasn’t told very well, I told you I wasn’t the greatest story teller in the world.”
“You started out great… and then you faded a little. But I guess that’s to be expected… Oh well! It was a great story. But there’s just… just one thing I’m not clear on.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, two things, actually… I thought it was two, but then I realized that it might actually be one, since you might know the answer and all, but then I thought, maybe he doesn’t, so I had to amend my answer, and…”
“What is it, Fred?”
“Okay, uh… what’s your opinion, if you don’t believe in The Legend?”
“I don’t need an opinion. I know the truth.”
“I knew it! I knew it was only one thing, but I talked myself out of it, and…”
“I can’t tell you the truth, Fred. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. Now… I’m sorry, I don’t want to be rude, but I just want to be left alone.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe it? I… I believe pretty much anything these days. Well, not everything, but near…”
“The truth is that the gravitational pull is more over hellmouths.”
“…Well, that can’t be true.”
“Told you. Now, why don’t you go rant about it to Cordelia and Wesley and Gunn, since they’ve been listening so intently this entire time.” There was a short bout of shuffling outside the door.
“Gravitational pull isn’t greater at any point on the earth, unless it…”
“Towns over hellmouths sag. Quite a bit, actually.”
“Then why don’t they appear that way on satellites?”
Angel smiled dimly. “Satellites are just big floating demons in space that the world is deluding themselves they made. The demons don’t want anyone to learn the truth, so they amend the images they send back to earth to make hellmouth regions just look like valleys above sea level. Now, Fred. You know I’m very glad to have you here. But right now I can’t have you here. You understand; Buffy’s deeeeath is … very difficult for me to deal with, and I… I have to be by myself. So please don’t repeat this to anyone ever; don’t discuss it with the others, but do remind them that I’ll have a problem with any of you if you ever mention this to anyone, including yourselves or me, again.”
Fred nodded. “Okay. I… I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. It… it helped. For a while.”
Fred nodded sadly and left the room.
You let Buffy diiiiiie
But I saved her.
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