a/n: I'm sorry for making you wait so long for this chapter! Between college classes, work and family, it's been hard to churn out a chapter, but I had to set one up for you guys now because I plan on starting NaNoWriMo. Starting November 1st I'll be balancing work, school, family and trying to write 50,000 words of an original story by the end of the month. So who knows when I'll have the next chapter of The Other Hellmouth up. I just hope you don't lose interest, because I know I won't.

Thank you for reading and please please please tell me what you think and what you'd like to see happen.

Chapter 74

The Prisoners

Jesse fidgeted in a mint-colored polyester chair in a windowless, dimly-lit waiting room, his fingers tapping against the pinewood arm rests. It was a building that the receptionist had called a counseling office, and when Jesse had given her a vague sob story of needing a place to stay and a purpose in life and someone to talk to, she fetched a boy named Jeremiah, who looked suspiciously young, with curly blond hair and sparkling eyes. This was the boy Buffy had told him about. As far as Jesse could tell, though, Jeremiah wasn't a warlock. At least that could be eliminated.

He didn't have to tell Jeremiah much before the boy led him into a waiting room with People magazines sprawled on a plastic coffee table, smiling vaguely all the while. Jeremiah told him to wait just a moment and Jesse leaned back in his seat, waiting patiently, until he realized he was supposed to be a nervous, troubled teen. So he started fidgeting. It felt right, and he tried not to let his chest swell with pride because he'd made such a good acting decision. He looked up, making his eyes wide with worry, as Jeremiah came back into the waiting room, carrying an armful of clothes.

"Thanks for waiting," Jeremiah smiled gratefully.

"Yeah, no problem," said Jesse, eyeing the clothes in Jeremiah's hands.

"After digging around, I think we found a place for you to stay tonight."

"Oh. Cool. Thanks."

"Yeah, all that we ask is that you let us treat you, first."

Jesse knitted his brow, his fingers squeezing the arm rests tighter. "Treat me how?"

"With simple, therapeutic meditation. We like to give our first time guests a kind of cleansing ceremony. This is the beginning of your new life. A life with purpose."

Jesse frowned. What was he getting himself into, just so that he could take the slayer out to dinner and convince her to go back to Lima? Was it really worth it?

"Um, okay…"

"Great. Just put this on."

Jeremiah outstretched his arm and handed Jesse what looked like a burlap hospital gown.

"What is this?" asked Jesse.

"Ceremonial robes."

Jesse frowned at the uncomfortable-looking gown. He really wasn't counting on wearing a dress.

"Well, you don't want to wear your own clothes for the cleansing. They'll get soaked."

Jesse nodded. "Right. And the cleansing is like some sort of baptism?"

Jeremiah smiled and shrugged. "Not quite the same."

xxx

"What's taking him so long?" Buffy asked herself, sitting on a stoop across the street from the counseling office that was squashed against the abandoned lounge where Reefer took note of candidates that poured in to his underground parties.

She'd wondered all day what kind of demon needed young, healthy people. Did he suck the life out of them and steal their youth, turning them into decrepit old people? Is that why Jeremiah looked so young but his eyes were so telling of ancient secrets? She had a bad feeling about him and she wouldn't be surprised if he made a habit of sinking his teeth into pretty young things. Buffy only feared that she made a mistake letting Jesse go undercover for her. What if she got him killed? She didn't want to feel responsible for another death. She decided that if she didn't get a text from him or see him in a window in the next ten minutes, she would go in after him.

10…

...9…

...8…

...7…

...6…

...She couldn't wait any longer.

She strode across the street and let herself in through the front door, into a small little hallway with a receptionist typing away at a computer desk. The receptionist, a plump woman with half-moon glasses, looked up and smiled, her eyes wary.

"May I help you?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah, isn't this, like, a therapist's office?"

"We have youth counseling services, yes."

"Great, because I happen to be in the need of some serious youth counseling."

"Oh, really?" The receptionist didn't look convinced.

"Yeah. You know, I just looked in the mirror one day and thought, 'Hey, what's with all the sin?' I need to change. With the… sex, and the envy… and the music we kids listen to nowadays…"

Buffy gulped, wishing she'd thought half as hard about her sob story as Jesse had. He'd made a detailed character backstory in his mind of a gay teen who ran away from his uber-religious parents who wanted to send him to a gay-away camp in Iowa, and with his extensive knowledge on off-Broadway productions, he could pull it off.

Buffy grinned sheepishly at the receptionist. "I suck at undercover. Where's Jeremiah?"

The receptionist frowned, and darted out of her seat, but not before Buffy could catch up to her and slam her head into the wall. Buffy winced at the loud thump, knowing she'd given the woman a concussion, but hopefully no permanent damage.

xxx

"Well, don't you look nice?"

Two brutish thugs had walked Jesse from his changing room to a room in the basement of the office building. Jesse wondered why a counselor's office would need bouncers, as his eyes were level with their shoulders, feeling like he was being brought to see a loan shark. They let him into the basement room where Jeremiah was waiting, smiling unnervingly next to a stone pool of dark water. The bouncers left, locking the door behind them, and Jesse shivered, feeling ridiculous with his lean legs poking out of a burlap gown.

"I guess," he winced, folding his arms over his chest.

Jeremiah tread his fingers over the surface of the murky pool. "We come here to wash away the past. Come, kneel with me. Let the water run over the sin, the pain, the uncertainity."

Jesse gritted his teeth and knelt next to Jeremiah. "It looks kind of dirty."

Jeremiah just smiled, staring into the pool. "Feel the water."

Jesse braced himself, and let his fingers run against the water like Jeremiah's did. It didn't feel grimy like he expected, but cool, like a clean lake. His arm glided in until the water was up to his elbow. He wondered how deep the pool was. The door was thrown open and Jesse shook, pulling his arm out of the pool and whipping his head around, still kneeling. It was Buffy, standing in the threshold, her hazel eyes darting from Jesse to Jeremiah to the pool and back to Jeremiah, the door splintered from her forceful kick.

Jeremiah stood, puffing out his chest. "This is a private moment, if you could just-"

"How do you make them old, Jerry? You feed on youth? What's the deal?"

Jesse frowned. "I was about to make a breakthrough!"

"What, in his pool of youth?" Buffy raised an eyebrow.

Jesse looked down at his arm and tried to jump back from the pool, but he was yanked in by something beneath the water. Something pulled him in and he went head first, diving deeper and deeper, deeper than he thought the pool could go. Water filled his mouth and ears and nostrils and stung his eyes. His heart pounded, sure he was about to drown, when he hit concrete. The wind knocked out of him, it took him a moment to realize he was completely dry.

He rolled over and sat up, groaning, and looked up to see an identical pool latched onto the ceiling, the water suspended in midair. Soon after, Buffy and Jeremiah fell out of the pool together and hit the ground, hard, tumbling away from each other. Buffy got up on lightning fast reflexes, her eyes wild.

"Jesse! Are you okay?"

Jesse frowned around at the dark, stone chamber they seemed to be in. "No. No, I'm not okay. I'm wearing a dress."

"My face!" Jeremiah shouted, huddled on the ground, bent over with his back arched, clutching his head, "Ow, my face! Do you have any idea how long it took to glue that thing on?!"

He spun around, his face glistening and scarred, like lava spilling through cracks in a black, molten surface. Human flesh sat limply in his hand and he glared at Buffy, seething with rage.

"Guards!" he called.

Figures in clunky boots ran towards them from the shadows, their faces just as demonic and disgusting as Jeremiah's. Buffy scrambled towards Jesse and pulled him up by the arm.

"Come on!" she yelled, dragging him away from the guards, down a dark corridor, "There has to be another exit."

Their eyes widened at the sight of light coming from the end of the corridor. They stopped at the wide entrance, their jaws hanging open. It was an enormous open space, part factory, part prison camp. A Hell dimension. Young, human prisoners wore gray shifts as they hauled stones in rickety wheelbarrows, dust and grime staining their skin. Huge, concrete pillars ran up the walls and Buffy looked up, horrified, to see people hanging from them by chains. Left to die, for crimes unknown. Gutters run along the walls, molten metals running down them, and everything was covered with a thick layer of rock dust.

Jesse stared down at the workers, wearing the same demeaning outfit he had put on, only theirs were dirtier, and their faces were that of zombies. Demon guards patrolled the area, their bulky, military-style uniforms making them look like medieval Nazis. Jesse swallowed.

"What is this?" he asked Buffy, his voice shaky.

"Welcome to my world." Jeremiah stepped between them and gazed out at the area, a smile on his demonic face. "I hope you like it. You're never leaving."

xxx

Kurt fetched two glass tumblers from the kitchen cabinet, his homework sprawled on the surface of the breakfast table after night fall. Blaine was hunched over a Trig assignment, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth while he worked, as the ceiling lamp bathed in a warm yellow glow.

"I'm not looking forward to tonight," Kurt said and breathed through his nose, pouring cherry lemonade into both glasses and taking a seat at the table, handing one to his boyfriend.

Blaine sipped from the glass, both of them falling into a habit of pretending that they were drinking wine and doing their taxes every evening. "You could stay at my house."

Kurt pursed his lips, hovering above his glass. "I don't know…"

"I'm just saying, it's been fun playing house with you."

"And your parents wouldn't mind?" Kurt raised an eyebrow.

"Well, my mom and dad are on a homecoming retreat for the OSU professors, so he wouldn't have to know."

"Well, mine would find out, and Burt would mind. Besides, I need to practise self control."

Blaine sighed. "You practise self control twenty-four seven and you always slip up. Not that I blame you, I mean, I'm adorable-"

"I mean, controlling my clairvoyance."

"Oh," Blaine blushed, "You know, I don't mind if you see my dreams. I only dream about you. And chasing a full moon, but you're usually there."

Kurt smirked and flipped open a pad of graph paper. "That's flattering, but seriously, it's like every time I learn how to control one aspect of my powers, something new pops up. And these dreams… I mean, we need to find Finn a girlfriend, okay? You have to help me play matchmaker."

"I'll see what I can do. How does it happen, anyways? You don't have any way to stop it?"

"It's like, I see this door, and behind it is someone else's dream, but as much as I don't want to invade their privacy, it's like I can't stop myself. And Finn is giving me these weird looks. I think he's noticed that I'm in too many of his fantasies. Really, though, how long ago did Rachel break up with him? He says he's fine but I've never seen him so lost."

"You're really eager to play Cupid, huh?"

"If anyone's going to set Finn up with a new girl, it should be me."

xxx

Spots appeared in front of Buffy's eyes and she blinked hard, trying to adjust to the darkness. Her head ached hollowly and her skin felt slick with grime and sweat. She sat up, her butt against a concrete floor, and saw Jesse sitting beside her, his back against the high-rise wall.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice hoarse.

Jesse looked over at her, surprised. "He hit you with his mallet… thing…"

Jesse's rattled gray eyes shifted around the room and Buffy followed his gaze to a much older man who was hugging his knees, his eyes wide with horror, against the other wall, and a decaying corpse in the corner. Buffy held her hand over her nose to mask the pungent smell of rotting flesh. Three of the walls were concrete blocks, black with soot, but the fourth was a wall of wrought-iron bars, like an old-time prison cell.

"Where are we?" Buffy asked, remembering Jeremiah's ugly face and the demonic labor camp they had stumbled upon. She was still wearing her own clothes, though they were now dark and dusty.

"Hell," Jesse replied, looking shaken.

"This… isn't Hell…" said Buffy, though she couldn't be entirely sure.

"Isn't it?"

She and Jesse looked up as Jeremiah swaggered over to the bars. His face looked cracked and un-human, but his voice was that of the oddly pleasant, unnervingly happy young man they had met before.

"What is Hell, but the total absence of hope? This is where you've been headed all your life. You've come from nothing, to become nothing."

Buffy glanced at Jesse, who was glaring up at Jeremiah. She hoped his innate narcissism would make him angry. She needed him angry.

"Just like Lily," said Jeremiah.

Buffy bit her bottom lip. Now she was angry. Good.

"She remembered your name long after she'd forgotten her own. But, after all those years…"

"Years?" Jesse raised a dark eyebrow.

"Time here moves more quickly than in your dimension. A hundred long years will pass here. On Earth, just a day."

"So you work us until we're too old, and spit us back out," Buffy said, grinding her teeth.

"You'll die of old age before anyone wonders where you went," Jeremiah smiled, "Not that anyone will. I know you, 'Anne'. So pathetic. So determined to run away from whatever it is you used to be. Well, you got your wish."

Buffy set her jaw and looked at Jesse, whose chin was raised in defiance. She knew what he was thinking. Jeremiah hit the nail on the head with Buffy, but Jesse St. James was an entitled WASP with a trust fund and two overbearing parents who wanted to hear from him weekly. Jeremiah was never going to get under his skin. Buffy wished he wasn't getting under hers.

As Jeremiah called for a guard to come get them and put them to work, Buffy winked at Jesse. The guard led them down to a dark room with old, iron machinery, and a large group of other lost-looking teenagers waiting, frightened.

"You work and you live," the demonic guard said to all of them, clutching a thick stone club, "You do not complain or laugh or talk or do anything besides work. Whatever you thought, whatever you were, does not matter. You are no-one now. You are nothing."

The guard walked invasively closely to a boy who couldn't have been much older than Buffy, with blond hair and a baby face. He shivered, terrified.

"Who are you?" asked the guard.

The boy shook and hesitated. "...Aaron."

The guard swung his club and smashed it over Aaron's head, knocking the boy to the ground. Buffy flinched and saw Jesse's hand move, but she pinched him before he could do any damage, as the guard moved on to the second prisoner.

"Who are you?" he asked a small girl with a wild mane of red hair.

The girl blinked back tears. "No-one."

The guard smiled, and moved to the next person. "Who are you?"

Buffy turned her head to Jesse. "We're gonna get out of here," she whispered.

"I know," he hissed back, his jaw locked, "How?"

"I'm a slayer. You're a warlock. We can figure this out. Just tell me… How are my friends?"

Jesse blinked at her like she was insane. "They're… fine."

"But, specifically."

"I mean, I don't know. They're pissed at you, for one thing."

"Jesse, come on, I'm looking for something that'll make me want to see them again."

Jesse nodded like he understood. "Rachel wants to go to New York for college next year. Big Broadway dreams and all that jazz. Quinn has emulated the Courtney Love look. She's going through the grunge phase a little late. The gay one came back to McKinley, and he brought his barber-shop boyfriend."

Buffy smiled. "Really?"

"Yeah, really. Your watcher is sad all the time. The Asians broke up."

Buffy gasped. "Tina and Mike broke up?!"

"I don't think we have time to talk about this," Jesse frowned as the guard came closer.

Buffy bit down hard on her bottom lip. "I need to be there for them. I need to be their friend."

"Yes, good, which first means that we have to get out of here," Jesse said nervously.

"Yeah, I know…" Buffy trailed off as the guard stepped up to the boy on her other side.

"Who are you?" he asked.

An Indian boy trembled next to Buffy. "No-one," he replied.

The guard nodded and stepped in front of Buffy. "Who are you?"

Buffy paused, and glanced at Jesse, then turned back to the guard with a wide smile.

"I'm Buffy. The vampire slayer. And you are?"

The guard raised his club and as he brought it down, Buffy caught his arm and jerked it back, a horrible cracking sound eliciting a scream from the demon. She grabbed the club that had dropped out of his hand and swung it at his face. He fell back onto the dusty concrete ground, unconscious, his arm bent at an unnatural angle.

"Anyone who's not having fun here," said Buffy, looking back at the other teenagers, "Follow me."

Buffy took off in a sprint down a dark corridor, with Jesse on her tail, and many soft footsteps following them. They came to a corner and huddled against the shadows, and Buffy waved them back to wait as she crept closer to look around the next corridor. Around the bend, a ledge looked over a wide chamber of workers; the one that Buffy and Jesse had ran to when they fell through the portal.

"What are we supposed to do?" Jesse whispered over Buffy's shoulder, staring at the guards wandering on the ledge.

Buffy gulped. "Okay, when those guards leave, and they will, you take these guys and get up to the ledge. If anyone else wants to come along, fine, but you don't stop for anything."

"Where are you going?"

They turned and heard the barking voices of guards approaching behind them. "We've gone public," said Buffy, "Get them out, now!"

"But where are you-"

"Jesse, go!"

Jesse ran forward, leading the rest of the trapped teenagers through the main chamber as a group of guards ran toward Buffy. Buffy's eyes scanned the small group and she ran out into the chamber, wondering if she could take them all. Quick on her heels, she grabbed one of the standing metal pipes and swung herself around, kicking one of the demons in the face. A few of the workers stopped what they were doing and stared at the slayer, their mouths open wide as she fought off demon guards.

It wasn't long before a screeching siren began to sound. A cool sweat dampened Buffy's forehead as searchlights passed over her face. Buffy waved her club through the air, keeping the demons at bay when she spotted Jeremiah rushing onto the ledge that lead into the chamber, staring wide eyed at the commotion.

"Humans don't fight back!" he yelled in her direction, "That's how this works!"

He grabbed a guard by the shoulder and ordered him to get down there before vanishing back into the corridor that led toward the portal. As the guards occupied themselves with fighting Buffy, a few soot-covered prisoners peeled away from their posts and ran toward the exit. One of the demon guards jumped off of the ledge, a warrior's cry ripping from his throat as he fell toward Buffy. The slayer took one step to the side and the demon landed with a thud on the ground.

"Demons," Buffy grunted, "Not that bright."

At the end of the exit corridor, Jesse stood underneath the portal of suspended, murky water, he and another boy hooking their hands together on the ground so that they could lift the prisoners to freedom. His ears rang with the shouts of the fight down the corridor. A droplet of sweat stung his eyes and he blinked it away, wondering if even the slayer could survive in a chamber full of demons.

"You," he said, pointing to a generously freckled boy, "Help lift."

The boy obediently took Jesse's place as Jesse crept down the corridor, headed toward the chamber, keeping to the shadows. The end of the dark hall was eerily silent, and when he saw the sliver of light and the cacophony of noise coming from the chamber, something thin, cold and sharp was tapped against his neck.

"You're coming with me."

Jesse swallowed. It was Jeremiah's voice and Jeremiah's blade threatening to slice Jesse's throat. Jeremiah pushed him forward, keeping the blade tight against Jesse's neck, and led him out onto the ledge. Jesse widened his eyes down at Buffy, who was a little blond fleck fighting off a horde of demons armed with clubs and blades.

"One of you fights," Jeremiah bellowed, his voice echoing throughout the chamber, "And you all die."

Buffy looked up, her chest heaving, and stared at the blade on Jesse's throat. Jesse's mouth crept up in a smirk and he winked one eye at Buffy, hoping she'd notice. Buffy's arms fell limp to her side and a bunch of demons grabbed at her limbs, holding her in place.

"That…" Jeremiah breathed, "Was not permitted."

Buffy frowned coldly up at him. "Yeah, but it was fun."

Jeremiah gritted his teeth. "You've got guts. I think I'd like to split you open and play with them. Let everyone know, this is the price of rebellio-"

Jesse shut his eyes and threw up one hand, and a crooked bolt of lightning cracked and illuminated the entire chamber in a blinding white. Everyone shrunk back and when Jesse opened his eyes, Jeremiah had dropped his blade to the floor and was holding one hand in front of his face to shield from the light. Jesse grabbed onto the rough fabric of Jeremiah's clothes and threw him off of the ledge, right into a vat of molten metal. Prisoners and guards alike gasped and shrank back from the flecks of hot metal, and Buffy laughed with surprised, looking up at Jesse with a newfound respect.

The slayer headbutted the two surprised guards and leapt onto one of the machines, grabbing on to a hanging metal chain that was hooked onto the ceiling and took a jump, swinging onto the ledge and landing with a heavy thud and a spry body roll. Jesse grabbed her arm and hoisted her upwards.

"Let's go."

Down the corridor, they helped the rest of the prisoners out before the last few pulled them up with them. Breathing heavily, they pulled themselves out of the murky pool and when they'd looked back, it was replaced by solid stone.

"It's closed," Buffy sighed, "It's gone."

Jesse stared at the pool, his breath rattled.

"Are you okay?" asked Buffy.

"No," he frowned, "I'm wearing a dress."

xxx

It's been a while since I wrote in my journal. The last entry Finn cheating on Rachel with Santana… so I've obviously been on kind of a break. What can I say? Things got hectic. Things got bad. Real bad. The worst they've ever been, actually. And I left. I couldn't deal, so I ran. It's not the soundest solution, but my fight or flight instinct kicked in. All it took was seeing someone from Lima again.

Jesse got me thinking about my friends more than I already was. Rachel and Quinn are happy together. Tina and Mike broke up. Finn's back in glee club. Mr. Schuester is depressed… The only one he couldn't really tell me about was my mom. Not knowing about her was the worst. I was missing all of these important moments in my friends' lives. I couldn't handle it anymore.

So Angel's letting Jesse rent his room, and Fred let him fill my position at the cafe. Jesse says it's just until his big break, so not long. I took the first Greyhound back to Ohio. I needed to face my fear of returning to what's no longer there so I can be around for what is there. When Mom answered the door, I half expected her to slam it on my face. But she folded me into her arms and wouldn't let go for an hour. I'm in the bathroom now, scribbling in my journal like a little girl, preparing myself.

It's time I see my friends.

- B