By Any Other Name- by Cari Kinz

Chapter One:

Where Angels Fear To Tread

He woke up, biting back a scream.

"What? Bad dream?" she asked and yawned sleepily. Her blonde hair was messy and sticking up in a way he found completely charming. Sunlight streamed in through the open window and across the bed.

"Yeh. Bad." He said and laughed shakily.

"Oh don't be such a baby." She grinned and put her hand against his cheek. "After all you're the scariest thing around."

"What?"

The room grew dark.

"You. You're the scariest thing around." She said again but this time the smile was gone. "You're evil. You kill."

The bedroom door flew open and Drusilla and Spike walked in. Behind them came Darla. She smiled at him.

"What's a matter, lover? Can't bear what you've done?"

He looked back at the woman beside him.

Her eyes were lifeless, her throat ripped out.

He tasted her blood in his mouth.

"Buffy…?" he whispered.

It became a scream.

The two demons, one red, one blue, watched the vampire. He was in the middle of his cell, naked and curled into a shivering ball.

"What's that about?" the blue one asked his companion. "He's in a torture cell and there's not a mark on him. What gives?"

The red one sighed. "Get with times." He raised one clawed hand and tapped the other demon on the side of the head. "It's all up here now. Mental torture."

"Oh." The blue demon said and turned back to watch the vampire for a few moments. "So… what? We don't get to do the hot poker thing?"

The red one nodded. "Sure. Later. But that's just for us. He's over it. Been over it for years in fact. That's why they're doing the mental thing now. It was the only way to break him. Now, they just make him believe the worse thing he can think of is happening. He does the rest himself."

The blue demon whistled softly. "Wow. Modern psychology."

"Yeh. It's a miracle ain't it?" the red one said as they continued down the hallway.

They dragged him into the center of a huge circular room. Sharp stones dug into his naked flesh and the shackles bit into his wrists and ankles. His guards dropped him in a heap, then prodded him to his knees.

"You will pay."

A demon with massive curved horns and a mouthful of teeth said that to him.

That is what it always said. For years, it had said this same thing to him.

"You will pay Angelus."

Or was it decades?

What was coming was coming there was nothing he could do.

What… did he call me?

"Your punishment Angelus. You are being punished. You tried to have the world sucked into this place. You will pay for that Angelus."

Angelus. Is that my name?

He knew he'd heard this all before. It was always the same speech after all.

Except… he wasn't supposed to know that.

"You failed to have the world sucked into this place. You will pay for that as well, Angelus."

The Demon laughed at the irony.

There was a flicker of a memory.

He had tried to answer these charges. He had done what they said he had done. He accepted punishment. But he also knew that the fault was…

"Do you hear me, Angelus?"

Why does he call me that? Is that my name?

In his mind he heard someone calling him something.

Liam

It seemed right but at the same time it wasn't.

No. He decided. That's not my name.

"ANGELUS!"

That's not my name either.

When he didn't answer, the beating began.

He was ready for it.

He accepted it.

It wasn't the worst that had happened to him after all.

He ignored the blows and continued to think. It seemed like it had been a long time since he'd done that.

Thinking.

This was not a place for that. This was a place for instinct and survival and pain.

Thinking gave them ways to hurt him.

So he had tried not to do it. Tried to just continue on.

But… now he tried to think.

I have a name. What is it?

Who am I?

The beating stopped. Blood leaked from his mouth and dripped down his chin.

"Answer the charges Angelus." The Demon said.

He stared at it silently.

It didn't really want an answer. He'd answered it before.

It never mattered what he said, the outcome was always the same.

He remembered that now.

"Very well Angelus." It gestured and a door opened behind him.

Buffy and her friends filed into the room.

For a brief moment fear filled him. But again, there was a flicker of memory.

This isn't real.

He wasn't supposed to know that, but he did.

"Do you care at all for these things Angelus?" the Demon said, pointing at Buffy and the rest.

He stared at them. They pleaded with their eyes.

Why did he know them and yet not know himself?

"Do you care for these things Angelus?" the Demon asked again.

He remembered this too.

Hundreds, thousands of times he'd been asked this.

No matter his answer they would die.

Only… they weren't real.

And he knew that.

He tore his eyes away from Buffy's face.

"Answer carefully Angelus." The Demon said.

He stared at the demon.

"No answer?" The Demon made another gesture and his guards fell upon Buffy and her friends.

Panic and fear started to flood his soul.

It's not real.

His mind told him this while his soul screamed.

The Demon shrieked its laughter.

It's not real. Illusion. Buffy… her friends… they would not be here.

That simple realization came and the moment it did the images of Buffy and her friends disappeared.

The Demon stopped laughing.

"Have you learned a new trick Angelus?" it asked.

Not my name. That is not my name. My name is…

Grimacing against the pain, he got his feet under him and stood up. His guards fell back a step.

The Demon frowned."You will answer me Angelus!"

"Angel." He said. "Just Angel. I'm Angel. That's my name. That's who I am."

The room was filled with light.

The Demon rolled his eyes.

"Great. Just great." It mumbled. It looked up at the ceiling where a huge ball of light had appeared.

"Ok, so it's done! He's yours, take him and get the hell out of my… hell!"

Angel glanced up, shielding his eyes from the brilliance.

The glow descended, enveloping him, lifting him.

The shackles fell from his arms and legs.

He felt something he hadn't felt in so long that he barely recognized it:

Peace.

Then he was falling.

He hit the floor hard and lay there, panting.

It was dark and he was cold.

He looked around and recognized where he was.

The mansion.

He had lived here. In Sunnydale.

Another illusion. He thought. They were torturing him again.

It didn't matter. He'd get through. He'd survive.

He always did.

Instinct rose up and it began to make it's own priorities.

Food.

Shelter.

He let it come but held on to one thought:

I am Angel.

He would not forget again.