AN ANGEL'S FACE
by Yseult deBreton

RATING: PG-13
TIMELINE: Set during "Becoming II"
SUMMARY: “An angel’s face is tricky to wear constantly”
AUTHOR’S NOTES (1): Thanks to Manon for the lyrics to Tori Amos’s “Purple People”.
AUTHOR’S NOTES (2): Written for the 8th turning of the Buffyverse Lyric Wheel.
DATE OF COMPLETION: 4 April 2004
DISCLAIMER: So not mine.
FEEDBACK: Send yummy feedback to yseultdb@yahoo.com

Pain.

Agonizing mind-numbing pain.

Pain that never ceases.

It is his sole focus and reference point. Each movement and word is measured against the amount of pain it produces.

Pain is the body’s response when fingernails are ripped from nail beds or bones are wrenched from joints or skin is peeled from muscles. Pain and searing screams. Something… something pours down synapses, travels over nerve pathways, somehow arrives at the brain where the somethings are interpreted as pain. Introns? Inions? Electrons? Not electrons; that’s physics. He knows this. He knows he knows this. He spent four months learning anatomy so that he would know exactly what part of his body was being ripped apart at this moment.

The forgotten word hovers at the edges of his mind.

* * *

Through the bloody haze that tints his vision, he watches his captor watch him. As torture sessions go, and with the exception of the screaming, this particular round has been quiet. At first, the respite from the repetitive questioning was refreshing. Then, the silence began to gnaw at him as he pondered his blood soaking the floor. Now it is another source of anguish. Without the questions and the requisite lack of answers, there is no reason for the pain. Unless, of course, the application of pain brings pleasure to someone. He lifts his head and gazes at the monster before him. Yes, pleasure would be the primary motivation for this creature.

* * *

Pain ebbs when the stimulus is removed. For several hours he is treated to multiple examples of this physical lesson before his synapses collapse under the weight of “stimulation”. The elegant phrase is from his physiology instructor who once stated that no one can withstand torture. There had been an immediate onslaught of philosophical and pedantic arguments from the students. Discussion had abruptly ended when the instructor removed his shirt and displayed a garish body to the class. The soft-spoken man had pronounced that, under optimum conditions, pain was a jealous entity that would subsume their existence. A student scoffed: tons of people are barbarically tortured and never spill their guts. The instructor slowly shuffled toward the student and spoke in a voice laced with experience, “If I were you, boy, I’d pray for the mercy of unconsciousness.” The student had shrugged his shoulders with the indifference of youth. Years later he is ready to bargain his soul for that sweet release.

He patiently waits through the rush of new pain. He has learned that at some point he will simply “pass out”. He will be enveloped in a cocoon of blissful non-pain. There will be silence and warmth. He will sleep deeply and wake reluctantly. If he is fortunate, he will choose the time of awakening. It will be a slow gentle process that provides him time to assess the damage his fragile body has sustained. It will be accompanied by self-assurances that he can survive this ordeal intact.

He has “lost himself” three times since the pain first began. With each re-entry into real life, the desire to return to that haven of painless-ness increases until the sound beats against his eardrums louder than his own screams. He lives now for those minutes of dead time when he remembers nothing. The truth is that those minutes are all he cares about. Escape is defined as unconsciousness. Relief is defined as unconsciousness. Ecstasy is defined as unconsciousness. His agonized scream carries him to nirvana.

* * *

He awakens to changed scenery. The number of participants in his torture has doubled. Wonderful, he thinks, twice the fun. Then his mind grasps that he has twice the chance of reaching that elusive paradise. He is almost eager to renew the pain until he sees the face of the monster.

There is more dialogue. He tries to participate. He forces his mind to walk the quaking corridors of logic and codify creative responses. He wills his face to show contempt and disgust. He stuffs his sobs of pain into any stifling space he can find. He practices his “patter” and fills the voids of time with nursery rhymes and limericks. He is maddeningly reasonable and deceptively lucid. He is an actor auditioning for the role of tortured Watcher. He is a tortured Watcher auditioning for the role of a dead man.

This dance is more complicated. He is fatigued and thirsty. He needs time to regroup and gain control of his thoughts, but paradise eludes him.

Suddenly it is before him. He closes his eyes and runs through a mental checklist. Pain? He still feels it, so this can’t be that safe place. He opens his eyes and she is still there. His brain struggles to comprehend the illogical vision: how can he see a dead woman if he’s not unconscious? He blinks rapidly, but the woman does not move or shimmer or do anything that would suggest that this is not his lover. She offers comfort. She asks questions. She touches him. He is so sure that she is real, he stops questioning why or how she is with him. She is here and that is sufficient to quell the disquiet. He answers her questions with relief, grateful that he can share his knowledge with someone who loves him unconditionally. Her kisses freeze the pain and heal the bruises on his soul.

He eagerly responds and chases the passion to the edge… where he sees triumph etched on the features of his captor. He glances back at the woman and sees someone else. His spirit crumbles as he realizes that his mask is broken. An angel’s face is tricky to wear constantly. Pain floods his body, but Rupert Giles is mute with grief and does not cry out.