Right then, I give you the first chapter of Unholy Trinity. This part is Angelus/Penn only, no William yet sorry. What else do you need to know? Um, oh yeah the WARNINGS - This story deals with anti-religious views so if you think you might be offended then don’t read…if you read anyway and take offense then don’t come complaining to me ‘cos it’s your own fault for not heeding the warning. Also there aren’t any spoilers and I’ve tried to weave this around canon…well as a whole anyway, it’s not applicable to this part as we never saw this bit on screen. Lastly, apologies for the crap title, it didn’t have one until like 2 minutes ago and was just hastily slapped on so I could post this bit.
EDIT : Alright it didn’t all fit in one post so it looks like I’m gonna have to splice it up so…
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~Part: 1~
Angelus had arrived in Boston Massachusetts less than an hour ago. Tired, hungry and none too happy after being confined to a ship, forced to feed discreetly and sparingly to avoid detection (after all he wasn’t sure how many people could mysteriously disappear before someone noticed) all he wanted to do was grab a bite to eat and find a safe place to bed down for the day. Come next nightfall he’d be moving on westwards to eventually meet up with Darla in New York.
Angelus hung around the dock for a while hoping to catch a quick and easy meal. Had he stayed in Italy or ventured back to England as he’d hoped to do, he wouldn’t have been able to take two steps without being propositioned by those unfortunate enough to be reduced to selling their bodies in order to survive, but here it didn’t seem that this was on offer and unfortunately no one seemed to be traveling alone making for too hassled a kill in his current travel weary state.
In need of a decent feed, he was beginning to feel the cold himself. He sat a moment, taking a swig of whiskey from his flask, hissing in pleasure as the amber liquid caressed its way down his throat, momentarily warming him from the inside out.
Scanning the area looking for a potential meal, he slipped the flask back into his pocket sending silent thanks to the poor chap whom he stolen the liquor from; along with his life. Good whiskey from an aging Irish man, who on hearing Angelus’ tell tale brogue, had struck up a conversation on the boat. He’d commented that New England would be more aptly named New Ireland, what with all of the Irish and Scotch-Irish that had immigrated there either to pursue their religions in peace, like the Puritans who’d founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony (not that he understood them of course, a good catholic man like himself) or like his family had done, to escape the unrest in a homeland that he didn’t remember, being a mere babe when he’d first arrived on American soil…and if the man hadn’t mentioned that he was traveling alone, and if Angelus hadn’t been so hungry, he was sure to have heard more of the old guy’s story.
A quick stroll around the docks proved fruitless at first, hell there weren’t even any homeless souls trying to find shelter in any of the usual kind of places. Then Angelus spotted him. A lone working skiving, enjoying a sneaky smoke behind some cargo crates, something that he’d never be able to do again; nor would the second worker who’d appeared a few moments later looking to bum a fag from his friend. Hopefully their corpses wouldn’t be discovered until the packaging crates, that the vampire had neatly crammed them into, were opened in an entirely different place. Drained of fluid they should mummify nicely or at least not cause a stench on which ever ship they happened to sail out on.
Well, that was dinner sorted, now to find a place to stay and perhaps a little entertainment since his hunger had been near sated, dispersing much of the accompanying tiredness with it.
The vampire made his way out of the dock area, walking the streets, passing houses and blocking out the boring domestic sounds seeping out from behind the closed doors and concentrated instead on the more promising sounds further down the way. Raucous laughter, heated arguments, sordid proposals, all fuelled by drink called to him, seeking him out and drawing him towards them. The varying scents of unwashed mortals, thankfully dulled with the heavy stench of perfumes and alcohol, escaped from the public house.
He was almost there, the tavern not yet insight but certainly close, when he spotted a young woman walking alone towards him but on the opposite side of the street. An opportunity not to be missed, he crossed the street and headed towards her, smiling disarmingly as she noticed his approach.
The woman didn’t return his smile, pretending not to have seen him, although the quickening of her pace indicated that she had.
“Excuse me Miss,” Angelus opened with, leaving the woman no choice but to acknowledge him. “I ask myself, what is a lady such as yourself doing alone on these streets?” he continued, falling back onto one of his well used pick up lines, so similar to the one uttered to Darla in much the same circumstances.
“I’m, I’m on my way home,” she answered politely with a soft Irish lilt and a nervous stammer, never slowing her step.
“In that case could I perhaps offer myself as an escort to protect you from harm on your way?” Angelus asked, easily keeping pace with the woman.
The woman didn’t even get the chance to speak the “you’re very gracious,” that Darla had when he’d offered her much the same courtesy, nor did she get the chance to refuse him. Stepping past the mouth of an alleyway Angelus gave up on his seduction, on his attempt to entice the woman to somewhere less obvious to feed and had instead simply shoved her into the opening, clamped his hand across her mouth to muffle any cries then sunk his fangs deep into her neck before she even knew what had hit her.
A quick slice across her throat to cover his teeth marks with his flick knife hid the cause of death and the raising of her skirts and some artistic savagery provided the motive. Rummaging through her pockets to insinuate theft as an added bonus, Angelus found only a copy of the Bible and a rosary, the cross of which burnt his fingertips; hardly a decent revenge from beyond the grave on the woman’s part in place of her life.
As he sucked the injured digits into his mouth he wondered, not for the first time since being turned, why the crucifix always burnt his skin. If it were because it was a religious icon, then why did the Bible he was also holding not scald him, not even spark so much as a warning tingle? In fact why didn’t any other religious paraphernalia harm him? It didn’t make sense.
Angelus knew full well that he could sit on the pews in a church, sleep safely on the floor in a mosque, use the Star of David to carve pretty patterns into a Rabbi’s flesh, drink from the veins of those at prayer in a temple, commit sodomy in a monastery, slaughter Sisters in a convent, look upon the figures of saints and saviours immortalized in stone without being blinded and dress in the frocks and cassocks of holy men to deceive his prey or indulge in his own particular kinks.
He’d drunk communion wine by the gallon, done unmentionable acts with the host, hell he’d left victims to die upon altars before their God’s or Goddesses’ eyes, and still none, not one almighty being, had laid a hand on him…although he’d swear that a statue of Kali, the blood goddess, had smiled at him appreciatively in Asia as he left a victim bleeding and broken at her feet, not intended as an offering but more out of convenience.
There was always that one exception to the rule though wasn’t there, or in this case two, not just the crucifix but holy water too; now that did burn.
Angelus had a idea that it wasn’t the ‘holiness’ of the water that caused damage, more the incantation to bless it that gave it the potential to ignite…after all he’d seen first hand the power of witches’ and warlocks’ words that could cause a reaction to happen to substances when the right catalyst set it off, why couldn’t the same thing occur for some priest who just happened to stumble across a set of words that worked as a charm, a curse that affected the undead?
The crucifix was a puzzle though. Why should that burn him? It was as evil as he, a symbol of torture and not of salvation as the Catholics and Christian’s alike deemed it to be.
The vampire didn’t understand why the cross should be chosen as a symbol to behold, the instrument that their messiah had been murdered on…then again maybe that was the point, to remind them of his suffering…wasn’t that what religions were all about; suffering? He wondered idly if Jesus’ followers would have been content to wear a silver fashioned noose had the son of God been hung to death or perhaps a sword if he’d been run through.
He couldn’t be bothered to waste his time thinking about those things now, the riddles of religions. Which if any where true, one god or many (actually, having met a god and a couple goddesses himself he knew the answer to that one) all of it, the whole deal; every answer he found invariably lead to another question and all that served to do was aggravate him.
Angelus angrily crushed the rosary to dust under his boot heel. It symbolized the God that Liam used to trust in, the one that never once answered his prayers, his cries of help and didn’t care enough to save him; the God who with the help of his father pushed him literally into the hands of the devil herself, and ultimately to his salvation. He had no need for God anymore, the one whom he now mocked, stuck it to in anyway he could and went out of his way to offend and punish. He was his own God now and made his own rules.
The Bible was disposed of a little further along the street, tipped into a blazing fire being tended by a group of vagabonds. Angelus smiled to himself as he received a “God bless you,” as the so called holy book was consumed in the inferno, his offering to the flames a mystery to the tramps.
He walked on, the tavern clearly in sight now.
“….and you’ll never amount to anything more than that,” Angelus caught the tale end of the angry words, cannon-balling from down the side street to his right as he made to cross it.
An ice cold shiver ran up his spine and a pain gripped his chest as his head snapped towards the voice, his eyes wildly searching the darkness expecting to come face to face with his father, who in all his self righteous glory would condemn him once more.
Darla was right when she’d told Angelus that his father’s defeat of him would last lifetimes. Since going by the name Angelus, the vampire hadn’t felt fear until this very moment.
The anxiety sloped away as Angelus spotted the owner of the heated words, not his father, whom he knew to be dead by his own fangs, but not so different either. The voice was similar, the disgusted expression even more so, his critical and scathing words were a mere snap of a memory away.
Turning his attention to the recipient of the quarrel, Angelus felt a foreign wave of sympathy shoot through him. Liam’s essence (at least that’s what the vampire allowed himself to believe if any less than demon feelings or tendencies arose) had snuck into his consciousness, lying just below the surface, conjured up by the sound of that dreaded voice, the one of his maker; the only being who unyielding broke him apart piece by piece and made him believe that he was nothing, that he was a worthless waste of space, until he finally gave in and through the pain became what his father had deemed he was.
He recognized himself in the lad. Just over 30 years ago that had been him, Liam he amended, standing before his own father, the bitter words cutting him to ribbons on the inside, only the need to prove himself to this unappeasable man keeping the wounds from showing on the outside, wanting just once to be approved of, to feel that he was something; to be told that he was loved.
“If you’ll not repent then be gone with you, but if you leave then don’t ever expect to come back,” the stern voice spoke once more and Angelus wondered if perhaps all fathers belonged to some secret society that taught them what to say to their offspring, as he heard his own father’s words repeated once more.
“Don’t concern yourself Father,” the lad spat out the name as if it were a foul taste in his mouth, “I have no desire to ever cross this threshold again as long as I live.”
“I pray for your soul,” the father tried in one last vain attempt to protect his son.
“Save your breath, I have no need for your prayers and no need to repent for I did nothing wrong,” the younger man said defiantly, his jaw jutting forward as if he expected his father to strike out at him.
“You wicked child. You disgusting creature. May the devil have at you, only hell awaits you now,” the older of the two men growled angrily and slammed the front door closed in a temper.
Angelus got his first proper look at the young man as he stomped away from what had been his home until a moment ago and headed towards his end of the street. He guessed the man to be of around his own age, at least the age that he appeared to be and would forever more. Light brown blended with the darkest blonde hair framed a strong handsome face from which peered a set of beautiful blue eyes that shone clear even in this bad light. Angelus knew then that he’d found his entertainment for tonight, always a sucker for blue eyed boys. Had his last kill been either of those, she’d not have died a maid nor been dispatched as quickly.
The clothes the man was wearing didn’t do him any favours, shapeless non-descript drab dark grey and black, easily recognizable as the garb of a Puritan. Nevertheless Angelus could easily imagine a strong hard body hiding beneath the dreary layers.
Angelus wanted him but knew that he couldn’t eat another bite right now. All of that fasting on the ship had messed with his usual digestive habits. Still, he was sure that by the time he was through enjoying the man’s body that he’d have worked up an appetite.
“Oof,” Angelus allowed himself to be bumped backwards as he purposely stepped into the path of the young man storming his way down the street, careful to make it appear that it was the fault of the lad for not watching where he was going rather than putting the blame on himself.
“Sorry,” the man apologized gruffly but made no attempt to stop.
“No harm done,” Angelus wheezed a little, halting the man’s step and causing him to turn around to regard Angelus properly.
“Are you alright?” The man asked, the harshness of his voice giving way to concern as he stepped back toward the vampire who, feigning pain, was rubbing at his chest as if trying to catch his breath.
“Just winded me, caught me at a funny angle,” Angelus explained, with a tight voice as he gradually overcame his fake battle for breath. “I should ask if you’re alright. It was as if you had the devil himself on yer heels with the speed you were going,” Angelus observed, and although he presented it as a statement it was clear from his tone that he expected some sort of response.
The other man’s first thought was to tell this stranger to mind his own business, but he found himself offering obscurely, “The devil would have been more auspicious.”
“Ahh, yer father was it?” Angelus asked, the man’s stunned expression suggested that he’d guessed correctly, unaware of course that that the vampire had heard the commotion before. “Aye, I know what that’s like,” the vampire sympathized with a sad sigh, hoping that the possibility of shared experiences would get the man to open up to him.
“He said I was only fit for hell,” the man made his solemn confession, but surprised Angelus when it wasn’t presented with the woeful and fearful tone that he’d expected from a Puritan, on the contrary it was issued with something akin to a defiant bitterness that only increased with his next words, “and if I’m already headed there then I’m damn well going to enjoy the ride and make the torment that awaits me worthwhile.”
If Angelus had been any sort of man he might have been inclined to talk to the lad, try and set him back on the path to righteous, but wasn’t a man and he had no intention of doing anything other than leading this lost sheep further into the wilderness with no hope of ever finding his way back.
“Care to join me in a drink on your descent….?” Angelus asked with a grin, tipping his head in the direction of the inn and allowing enough of a pause that the man would feel obliged to offer his name. He knew full well that Puritans believed that if you worked hard you’d get to Heaven. They condemned pointless enjoyment and so didn’t frequent bars and inns, nor visit theatres or play sports, even going for a Sunday walk was frowned upon unless of course you were headed to church. It was unlikely that this man had ever set foot in a tavern before, but it would be one finger up at his father to do so.
“My treat,” Angelus added noting that the man carried no possessions having left his home so hastily. He probably didn’t have a penny on him and the vampire didn’t want to risk losing his precious catch over something as trivial as money. There were too many people milling around now for him to simply pounce here, he needed to get his prey off of the street and to somewhere more discreet for what he had planned.
“Penn,” the man supplied his name obligingly, then, “make mine a stout.”
Angelus laughed heartily and patted him on the back approvingly. “The name’s Angelus,” he supplied warmly as they fell into step and headed on down to the tavern.
xxXxx
Courteously the vampire held the tavern door open and allowed Penn to enter ahead of him.
The instant Angelus stepped inside he was throw for a loop. This was just like the pubs back in Ireland. He hadn’t had the pleasure of being in such a place for a long, long time and was strangely overcome with sentiment as a feeling of familiarity washed over him. Irish accented voices talking, laughing, singing, the smell of his Ma’s cooking, the high spirited dancing, the aroma of fine whiskey, cheap stout and even cheaper beer; all sights, sounds and smells that invaded his senses.
“Angelus?” Penn questioned uncertainly.
“Hmm?” The look on the lad’s face was clearly asking if he was alright, “Oh, just reminded me of home,” Angelus heard himself say without conscious thought, his voice sounding distant even to his own ears. Home? He hadn’t thought of anywhere as home since his turning and he hadn’t realized until this moment that he’d even missed it.
“Is it far?” Penn asked. It had been obvious to him when this stranger had first spoken to him that he wasn’t local. His accent may well have been Irish, but it was different from his own.
“Too far,” Angelus offered cryptically, but didn’t give pause for any more questions as he lead the way to the counter in the hope of acquiring some lodgings, trying to push aside the feeling of longing that had blossomed up from somewhere deep inside.
It was damn Liam’s influence invading his consciousness again he decided. As always it was easier for him to attribute any weakness to Liam, rather than admit that he actually had a heart somewhere inside, albeit slowly decaying from disuse. He was Angelus now he reminded himself and he no longer had a home, a family…he was above that now, didn’t need such petty things.
Even so it was with a tight lump in his throat that he secured a room for the night, accepting the key from an old woman with bright loving eyes, crinkled permanently with laughter lines at the edges. She’d offered him a “here you go deary,” in a tone so soft and lilting that it could have easily been his Nanna’s voice, the one that she reserved especially for him. She’d never thought him to be a waste of space, a terrible disappointment as his Da had done.
Angelus swallowed yet another unwanted feeling down and forcefully reminded himself that this wasn’t his life. It was Liam’s and *he* was dead and buried…yet it didn’t stop him from ordering a pint of stout and even a plate of home-cooked food, the remembered smell mercilessly enticing him even though not a single trace of solid food had passed his lips since he rose from the grave.
“Here,” Angelus passed Penn his drink as he scanned the area looking for a suitable place for them to sit, before tipping his head suggesting that his new friend should follow when he found the perfect location.
Out on the street he’d planned to just lead the lad straight up to his room and take what he wanted. It wasn’t as if the boy would be able to stop him. But now, on second thought, it might be worth sharing a drink and a bite to eat with the boy. It would put Penn at ease and save him some hassle later on, the vampire convinced himself. No honestly, it had nothing to do with wanting to soak up the atmosphere, nor wanting to recapture the pleasure of having a companion to share a drink with like when he’d been that sociable young lad back in Ireland. If he happened to relax a little himself too, hell that wouldn’t be his fault either. No, it would just be an act, part of his plan.
Angelus took the lead making his way easily through the heaving crowd, all unconsciously moving aside to allow him passage as if some sixth sense had picked up on the danger, a hunter in their midst. Following in his wake, Penn also navigated the floor with ease.
The vampire chose a semi-secluded corner table just being evacuated by a couple of young lovebirds, keeping in sight of the serving lass so that she could see them to deliver their food that they’d been promised would be ready as quick as a flash, the last of the previous batch having just been served.
“To my descent,” Penn raised his glass in a toast echoing Angelus’ earlier words. “To you Father, and your God,” he added disrespectfully, titling his glass in a definite ‘up yours’ manor.
Angelus clinked his glass against Penn’s before taking a swig of the dark heavy liquid, closing his eyes in blissful remembrance, slowly opening them again as he hissed out his satisfaction.
“His God?” Angelus asked trying to kick start a conversation. He figured that Penn’s upbringing was pretty much like his own, his father using God’s name in vain with his constant onslaught of “in God’s eyes Liam…” followed by a suitable statement that described whatever it was that Liam had been doing that his father disapproved of whether in truth the actual God had any opinion on the matter or not; hence the term ‘his father’s God.’
Penn took a draught of his own drink and flicked out his tongue to clean the white foam that settled on his top lip. Maybe Angelus had been wrong when he’d summarised that Penn wouldn’t have had a drink before, he’d expected at least some reaction to the bitter taste.
“Aye, his God. The one who I have to listen to him preach about day in, day out. He’s a Pastor,” Penn dropped in that little bit of information, “as was his father before him, as he wanted me to follow in his footsteps one day.”
“Ah, and you wouldn’t,” Angelus stated the obvious.
Penn shook his head in denial, “Not wouldn’t, couldn’t. I knew that I could never bring myself to stand before a congregation and preach a faith that I no longer held true.”
Angelus guessed that most likely the lad didn’t agree with all of the rules and regulations and found the Puritan religion restrictive. Raised under Catholic rule, Liam hadn’t really had that problem and in fact found Catholicism a convenient faith to behold. You could do what you wanted; confess, repent and offer penance; then do it all again. It even had that handy escape clause if you knocked upon death’s door without having sought prior absolution, a final reprieve for a lifetime of sinning. It was his father’s twist on God’s words that had brought him pain and suffering and caused him, by association, to despise God and his religion. It seemed that Penn had, by default, done the same.
“When I was very young Mother used to read me stories from the Bible,” Penn began seemingly from nowhere, “spinning fascinating tales of a loving and forgiving God, a good and righteous God who looked after his children here on earth. I accepted the tales willingly, knowing them to be true as Mother, who would never lie to me, had told me so. I believed because I’d been taught to believe. I knew nothing else. That changed when I was older,” Penn set the scene.
“Once I was able to read, Father instructed me to study the Bible for myself. I remember trying to find the stories that Mother had told me, or those that Father had spouted before his enraptured flock, but I couldn’t find them. I found plenty of tales about a God who was a tease, a tormentor, but none of the merciful and understanding God that I’d learnt about.”
“A wicked God?” the words were out of Angelus’ mouth before he’d even thought them. “Two gods?” He was confused, knew himself that there was only one God in the Bible and didn’t remember Father Delaney making any mention of a bad God from his pulpit. “Ah you mean Satan?” he guessed.
“Have you read the Bible?” Penn asked, not answering the vampire’s question. Angelus hadn’t and wasn’t going to admit that aside from not really being interested, he didn’t know how to read even if he had been. That was another thing about Puritans, they valued their education. They built colleges, such as Harvard, just for the purpose of learning more about the Bible and its values.
“No, I had enough of listening to it in church,” the vampire covered smoothly.
“Ah,” Penn nodded as if that explained everything, a small smile playing across his lips as he recognized a similar religious distaste in Angelus’ comment. “Then you’ve not heard the real story.”
“Here you go Gents,” the serving lass interrupted them brightly, presenting each man with a plate of steaming hot food. “Ma’s own recipe,” she boasted about her Mother’s cooking proudly. This was obviously a family run establishment. “Now, is there anything else I can get you?”
Normally Angelus would have taken this opportunity to flirt with the girl, but intrigued by Penn’s words and wanting to hear more he merely ordered, “Another drink for me and my companion if you would,” slipping some coins from his pocket into her hand.
“Won’t take a minute,” the young woman promised, disappearing off in the direction of the bar. It wasn’t everyone who would get table service, but in his fine clothes it seemed that Angelus was deemed worthy of a little preferential treatment.
“The real story?” Angelus prompted as Penn tucked into his meal.
Penn gestured with his fork in the easily recognised, “excuse me, my mouth is full” pose, as he chewed then swallowed.
“The one *they* don’t tell you, the one that proves there is no God,” Penn said easily.
“No God?” Angelus wasn’t sure that he’s kept the shocked squeak out of his voice. You couldn’t just go around saying things like that for anyone to hear. Heresy could get you into a lot of trouble, especially around these parts. They didn’t take kindly to heretics and those believed to be in league with the Devil.
He’d heard tales of what happened in a place called Salem not too far from here (thou shalt not suffer a witch to live) and had actually witnessed events just as sinister in Germany when Darla had taken him there as a newly turned vampire.
He remembered standing dispassionately among a crowd of people all clapping and cheering at the plight of one of their fellow townsfolk, strung high upon a raised platform, screaming in agony as his skin was torn from his body, strip by strip, to see if he wore the pelt of a werewolf hidden beneath.
“What’s Vati?” He’d asked Darla, drawing her attention to a small girl standing at the base of the podium screaming the word over and over at the helpless victim.
“Daddy,” Darla supplied easily. “That’s her father they’re flaying. Isn’t it just delicious Darling?” She grinned slipping her arm tighter through his as she offered conspiratorially, “they’ll most likely turn on her next. You see that blemish on her cheek?” Angelus nodded that he did. “Sure sign of a witch,” Darla winked then rolled her eyes at the stupidity of these mortals, “she’ll be thrown to the flames for sure.”
Angelus couldn’t help but agree with her assessment of these humans. Did they honestly believe that they were doing God’s work, carrying out His wishes by murdering men and women that they believed to be in league with the devil? If their suspicions were proved wrong when they’d finished dissecting the poor man, would God forgive them for their mistake or punish them for killing mercilessly and reveling in the death or another?
What had the accused himself thought? Had he sympathized with those who’d see him in pain knowing that they believed themselves to be carrying out God’s wishes or would he have damned each and every one of the bastards that rejoiced in his suffering?
“You don’t believe?” Angelus snapped back to the present, realising now that his earlier plans to lead this man astray were obviously null and void. Penn needed no help in being mislead, he’d wandered off the beaten track of his own accord.
It was true that Angelus had abandoned his own faith, despised religion, but that didn’t mean he’d ever doubted God’s existence, after all he reveled in pissing The Almighty off in any way he could. If there were no supreme being, then who was he mocking?
“It follows no logic to believe,” Penn shrugged in response. “The more I studied the scriptures, the more I discovered. I found that the book was full of inaccuracies, implausibility, contradictions, conflictions and many upon many pointless rules all laid out with the punishments you’d receive if you did not abide by them. It didn’t take me long to realise that the pages of the Bible weren’t the words of a deity as I’d been taught, but rather the word of man, devised to control humankind and ensure conformity, the product of men whose only wish is to control and enslave through fear.”
Men like both of their fathers, Angelus thought.
“Did you know that the Bible is incomplete, that entire sections have vanished over the years? If these were the words of God that he wished you to read, would he have allowed them to be taken and lost forever? No, they are easily erased and forgotten, these are rules that failed, stories that provoked men to follow their own paths and think for themselves, this is why they were removed.”
“The fact that its erroneous doesn’t prove that there is no God,” Angelus purported. “It was written by man on God’s behalf, it’s bound to have some flaws.”
“It’s more than that,” Penn explained. “I’m not simply talking about a few minor mistakes here and there like the order of creation being different in chapter one than two, or whether the animals were supposed to enter the ark by twos or sevens, how many sons Abraham really had or what the soldiers gave Jesus to drink.”
“Huh?” Angelus thought but said nothing. He hadn’t studied the Bible as Penn had and knew nothing of what he spoke.
“I’m talking about great big gaping chasms,” Penn continued. “Even making allowances for these errors doesn’t make the Bible any more believable, at least not if you are to believe that God is good and just. The events should surely still be accurate to some degree wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes,” Angelus agreed with a nod leaning in further to listen to the other man, creating their own private little niche from the rest of the world.
“Then if they are to be believed, the God they talk about is certainly not a deity I wish to associate myself with. The pages might as well be written in blood for all of the horrors contained within; they preach and condone hatred, cruelty, injustice, slavery, degradation, intolerance, discrimination, mutilation, murder and the list goes on. You don’t even need to read far into it to see the evidence; it clearly begins with the first book, Genesis.”
“The garden of Eden,” Angelus stated all too suddenly in his haste to prove that he did know something.
Penn nodded, shoveled some more food into his mouth and swallowed before he proceeded to recite a few verses by heart from the Bible, his manor clearly showing that he was indeed the son of a preacher.
“Chapter 4, verses 3-5 if you will,” he began, “And in the process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.”
Angelus looked at Penn blankly. What was he supposed to determine from those verses?
“It made me wonder,” Penn mused, “why would God, loving and peaceful, prefer a blood offering, a sacrifice wrought of pain, over that of fruit and vegetables? And why would he make a comment that would show favouritism? Surely this could only lead to rivalry and disharmony between the two brothers; and we are shown that it did. Through jealousy over God’s attention, Cain killed Abel.”
Angelus nodded, he knew that Cain had killed Abel, but he’d never understood why.
“I remember asking Father about this, and I remember the tanning that he gave my backside for doing so too. I was supposed to just accept the words and not think on them, let alone dare to question them. Oh thank you,” Penn offered as the serving girl returned and put their pints on the table.
“Quite welcome,” she batted her eyes at Penn who was either oblivious to her attention or simply not interested.
“Then,” Penn continued ignoring the girl who pouted, took their empty glasses and left, “after destroying his brother, Cain makes a strange comment that “everyone who findith me shall slay me.” But are we not told that the only other inhabitants of the earth are his parents? Who is this ‘everyone’ that he speaks of?”
Angelus didn’t know the answer and would have found it difficult to speak if he had. His mouth was full of human food for the first time in over 30 years, and to his surprise he found that he was enjoying it; the taste, the texture, the odour. Since his birth into vampirism he hadn’t consumed anything other than blood, human food seeming tasteless and bland in comparison…but this? It tasted just like the dinners that his Ma and Nanna used to make, that Kathy too had been learning to prepare under their guidance. It rekindled that sad longing feeling again, the need for...something. He wasn’t certain what that something was, but was sure that it was down to Liam’s influence again.
“It made me think. Made me take a closer look to see what else I had missed,” Penn continued. “When I started to look at the words objectively and see them for what they really were all I found were more questions, that lead on to more questions, followed by more, but never answers.
“I wanted to know where Eve had come from, if she was created alongside Adam, made from the dust and given the breath of life as is first told, or if she were born of Adam’s rib to be his ‘help meet’ as is later stated. I wanted to know where Cain’s wife had appeared from if the only people said to walk the earth were his parents and brother. I’d already learnt not to put such questions to my Father,” Penn’s gaze dropped from Angelus’ at this hinted revelation.
“Although I kept my silence, questions still plagued me. I pondered how, without understanding the concept of good and evil prior to eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, God could have expected Adam and Eve to know that they were doing wrong, for logically they did not know what wrong was. Of course, I also wondered why God would forbid them to eat in the first place, did he not want them to thrive and learn?
To deter them God lied to Adam, telling him that he’d die if he ate the fruit, assumed to be an apple although it’s never actually stated, which of course he didn’t. That led me to think if God didn’t want them to eat and realise knowledge, then why did he even put the tree there in the first place, was it just for his own twisted amusement? Do you see how each question leads invariably to another?”
Angelus too was beginning to wonder how he’d accepted the story before without actually thinking any of it through logically. He also wondered how his drink had disappeared so fast and catching the eye of the same serving wench hailed for a refill.
“I also thought it unfair,” Penn continued, “ that Adam didn’t hesitate to blame Eve for making him eat in the first place, as if he had no mind of his own, and even more unjust that God accepted Adam’s excuse and punished Eve for her crime of innocence. After all right and wrong bore no meaning until the deed had been done. We see countless times in the Bible that women are of less consequence than men, and often of no importance at all. Is this the sort of God that I want for my Mother and sister?”
Prior to being turned Liam too regarded women as less than him, things to be used and take his pleasure with, however with Darla as his Sire he’s seen the error of his ways. Penn was right though, mortal men did see themselves as superior to women and he wondered why Penn should be any different, spying some dark and menacing memory storming behind the clear blue eyes suggested that he had reason enough.
“Keep ‘em coming darlin’,” Angelus dropped an entire handful of coins into the serving girl’s apron pocket, many more than necessary, as she answered his call and replenished their drinks. “More of the same and a jar of your finest whiskey,” he added.
“You can be sure of that sir,” she smiled brightly, clearing the table of their empty plates, only to return a few moments later with the requested whiskey and a tray full of enough pints to keep them going for a while, telling them that plenty more would replace their empties, blushing as Angelus’ slapped her bottom playfully when she turned to leave.
“Other things puzzled me too. Don’t you find it strange that God who is said to have made man in his own image, a replica, would then be so offended by a piece of foreskin that he would order the men to mutilate themselves through circumcision, even though later in Galatians Paul says that it is unnecessary? I wondered if God was circumcised himself and questioned that if this piece of flesh was so offensive, why he chose to gift man with it in the first place. Does God even have a body?” Penn mused. “In Genesis he is heard walking in the garden so he must have form, but in Luke, we’re told that he doesn’t, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones.”
“I didn’t understand how a loving god could make such a request of Abraham to sacrifice his own son as a test of his devotion and why God thought that Lot was worthy of being spared from the torment that he planned to rain down on Sodom and Gomorrah, when Lot was far from righteous having offered his virgin daughters to an angry mob, in place of the angels hiding in his home. I could never offer my sister so willingly,” Penn said determinedly, his only comparison should such an event occur.
“I began to wonder just how many gods there truly were. Um no thanks,” he broke his flow of speech when Angelus tried to add some whiskey to his half drunk glass of stout. “God is heard many times speaking both about himself as being the one and only, ‘I am he: before me there was no god formed, neither shall there be after me,’ and also as a collective, ‘let us make man in our image.”
“When I read about Noah and the flood, I saw more than what was written in the Bible. I saw the other untold side of the story. The side in which God’s own creations fought desperately for their lives, crying out for their supposedly loving and forgiving God to save them, but having their pleas ignored. How they must have suffered in terror, knowing that they were being left to die with no hope of salvation. I wondered what they thought of their God then, knowing that he had ordered their deaths and that he was sitting idly by watching them as they perished. Men, women, children, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God drowned them all.”
“Do you know why he decided to kill his own creations in the first place?” Penn didn’t require an answer from Angelus. “It was because they didn’t do *exactly* as he wanted. He said they were violent. Do you suppose murdering them made them any less violent? Where was the loving, understanding God that should have taken the time to speak to and listen to them and not simply step in and teach them a lesson by killing them? You know yourself that if you question his words or don’t believe and accept you can be charged with heresy and subjected to punishment or death. That’s an interesting word, heretic. It’s taken from an old Greek word and it means ‘those who make a choice,’ and I ask would this not be what God should wish of his creations?
“Would a loving God bless his creations with feelings, responses, desires and urges, but then take pleasure in forbidding you to react or partake? Would he give you intelligence, a mind to think for yourself but tell you that you’ll suffer his wrath for doing so? Would he put restrictions on your happiness by denying you your ‘God given’ natural thoughts and feelings or does he take cruel satisfaction in watching you suffer in emotional turmoil as you try to abide by his rules and regulations? Should he not love you as you are, unconditionally, his creation, his design rather than insisting, no, forcing you to go against all that you hold inside, that which he bestowed upon you?” Penn delivered this speech so passionately and imploringly that Angelus was able to hear not only what he said, but also what lay unspoken beneath them. The lad wasn’t only making a reference to what he wanted and expected of a God, but also of a father. He’d been let down by both.
“It is for these reasons and many more that I cannot bring myself to believe in the Bible’s version of God. I could go on, Genesis to Revelations, cruelty after cruelty, injustice after injustice, absurdity after absurdity. I’ll never kneel before that god nor bow my head in submission to one so unworthy,” Penn stated before downing the rest of his drink in one go and wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. His words were lost on Angelus who was deep in thought telling himself that he could provide Penn with all of the love and approval that he needed – hang on, where did that come from? It had to be bloody Liam again, sympathizing with the situation and still pining after a previous life, a family, a home. Penn would make a fine companion, a worthy son.
Angelus lifted his glass to take another swig, saw that it was empty and so helped himself to another. Something occurred to him as he thought of Penn’s earlier toast ‘to his descent’. If he didn’t believe in God, then surely, in relation, he couldn’t believe in the devil either and respectively Heaven or Hell. Is that why he hadn’t been concerned about his father’s damnation of his soul?
“Oh there’s a hell alright, maybe not fire and brimstone,” Penn said, puzzling Angelus. Had he asked his question out loud? “I know there’s a hell, I was living it,” he offered nonsensically, at least to Angelus’ ears. “Even if there was,” Penn seemed to contradict his last statement, “the devil doesn’t strike fear into my heart.”
“Yer be tinkin dat Satan be notin’ ta fear?” Angelus accent slid as easily as the whiskey down his throat (and the one that followed it instantly) his brogue becoming stronger, his style of speech older and less cultured.
“Satan, the Hebrew word meaning ‘opponent’, Lucifer meaning the ‘enlightened one’, the Devil, the Antichrist, Mephistopheles, Beelzebub; single adversary beings or different names for one rival?” Penn mused. “With conflicting stories, this is something else that is never fully clear. They mix and mingle, one and the same yet never the same.
“If we suppose for the sake of ease that Satan, the Devil, is one being, why should we fear him? Where in the Bible does he threaten us with his wrath as God does? We only hear one side of the story, God’s side, and can these be trustworthy words if coming from an opponent? We only have his word that Satan is a malevolent corrupter, that Hell is a place of torment and so on and so on. Where do we get to hear the other side of the story? Where does Satan stand up and tell us lies about God to make him self look better or have the chance to defend himself? Where does he dictate pointless laws? What does he ask of you? How many of his own has he slaughtered? As an opponent, he stands for everything that God denies us, our true natures and our own will. He asks us to be nothing that we are not, asks nothing of us in return for everything. God asks everything in return for nothing. If a being such as this were true, then it would be he who should be revered.”
“I believe that these ‘evil’ beings were designed as scapegoats for men to do as they please against God’s so called wishes but excuse themselves by stating that the devil made them do it or that it was Satan’s work and influence.”
“Where?” Angelus asked looking around the tavern, absently humming along with the music being played on a fiddle.
“Where….?” Penn questioned back, waiting for Angelus to fill in the blank, also scanning the area to see if he could see what his friend was searching for.
“The goat,” Angelus stated, banging his elbows down on the table a little too heavily and resting his face against his palms as he smiled endearingly at Penn.
“A goat?”
“The escaped one.”
“What? Oh, no,” Penn shook his head and snuffed a laugh as he realized what Angelus was talking about.
“’Cos ye have’ta be careful with ‘em, goats they’ll be after stealing yer whiskey if yer not careful,” Angelus shared his wisdom. “Oi tink he’s been messing wit our drinks,” the vampire whispered very loudly and nodded down at all of the empty glasses, inadvertently drawing Penn’s attention to the fact that he could really tuck it away fast.
Penn didn’t recall seeing Angelus drink *that* many, but knew that only two, or was it three, of the glasses belonged to him. Things were suddenly getting a little fuzzy around the edges. The meager amount of alcohol, even with the cushioning of food, was already beginning to take effect on this inexperienced drinker.
“Drink up quick,” Angelus urged Penn, clumsily tipping up the pottery jar and pouring the last dregs of whiskey into the younger man’s glass, “’fore he comes back.” Penn did as he was told, lifting up the glass and swallowing the amber liquid. By the time he’d recovered from the coughing fit that had ensued, more alcohol had been delivered to their table.
“Oi remember this farm yer see…” Angelus began with a slurred voice, his tale quickly trailing off as he instead joined in with the chorus of the song currently being sung, “With me too-ry-ay, Fol-de-diddle-day, Di-re fol-de-diddle, Dai-rie oh ,” before going back to his story without missing a beat.
With a fully belly and warmed by drink, Penn was happy to sit back and let Angelus’ soothing voice wash over him, no longer really taking in what was being said, but enjoying the rhythm of it as his thoughts ran away with him. He studied the heavy set face before him, thinking how handsome he was, just like an angel.
Penn briefly stole a glance into deep chocolate eyes that seemed to be devouring him even in their glazed state, before letting his gaze skim across flawless skin, onto full pale lips that just begged to be kissed. His eyes fell lower to take in strong shoulders and a hard heavy chest beneath the confines of his shirt. Penn couldn’t help wondering what it might be like to push away the obstruction and stroke his hands across that broad full chest, what it would be like to rest his head there, to take a firm flat nipple into his mouth and…
Angelus was vaguely aware that his words were being lost on Penn. It seemed he’d slipped into his own little world given the lusty, dreamy look Angelus caught being directed at his own chest and the heavy scent of arousal that hung in the air. He tugged at the ties on his shirt ‘accidentally on purpose’ allowing it to fall open a little to reveal the smooth, hairless expanse of flesh. In response he heard the human’s heart rate increase, the organ hammering away in his chest and pumping the blood harder around his body.
Penn’s eyes flicked back towards Angelus’ lips and he unconsciously licked his own, imagining what it might be like to slip his tongue inside that dark, wet cavern. That’s when he noticed that those luscious lips were no longer moving. He’d stopped talking. With a start Penn sat bolt upright, his mouth hanging open in shock as his face flushed deep red with a nervous embarrassment. Had he been caught? His eyes flicked instantly to meet Angelus’ and was surprised to find him looking at him, not in disgust, but with his eyebrow cocked and an amused smile creeping over his lips.
“Oi tink yer pretty,” Angelus said after a moment of consideration, a sloppy smile gracing his features.
“An’ I think yer drunk,” Penn slurred and took another draught of his own drink, dismissing Angelus’ words as alcohol induced rambling, not sure if he was really being given the come on or not.
“Aye, mebee,” Angelus conceded with a drunken grin, draining yet another glass of whiskey and banging the empty glass on the table in accompaniment to another rowdy song, “but oi still tinks yer pretty,” and after a pause, “Wanna fuck?”
Penn couldn’t believe that Angelus had just come out with those words easily even in his wasted state. You didn’t just out yourself as a sodomite like that. Hell you didn’t out yourself at all. Didn’t Angelus know what these people might do to him if they found out? Penn worriedly looked all about the room to see if anyone was listening in, but doubted that anyone could have heard them over the raucous singing that had been gradually getting louder and more incomprehensible as the night wore on.
“Wa’sa matta? Do yer not tink I’m pretty?” Angelus pouted, looking hurt when Penn starred at him and failed to answer. “Or do yer no’ like men?” He added more positively, his looks not being brought into question of that were the case.
Penn couldn’t help snickering and snorted unattractively at something comical that only he seemed privy too.
“What?” Angelus joined in his laughter, forgetting his hurt feelings.
“I have no home t’ go t’ because I like men,” Penn laughed insanely. It wasn’t even funny, was quite sad in truth and didn’t really make sense and yet being drunk it seemed perfectly rational.
“That’s what yer father threw yer out for?” Angelus snorted too, spraying Penn with a mist of whiskey from his mouth as a larger amount dribbled down his chin. “He dinne know before t’day?”
“Oh he knew. Even tried to cure me,” Penn spat out a blast of drink with his violent outburst of laughter this time, “thought it was a disease or some’it I did ta piss him off. I heard ‘em all Levi..Leviticussss, Deutero..mny…onomy, Corin…thianssss,” Penn tried to sound out the name of some of the chapters that his father had quoted in disgust at him condemning homosexuality, but gave up as the art of speaking seemed to evade him. “Only I reckon I pissed him off more ‘an normal t’day,” Penn snickered as he remembered the look on his father’s face as he’d caught his son in a compromising position with his best ivory crucifix, the one with the rounded stem and grooved beading at each extremity. It wasn’t so funny when he remembered the beating that had followed.
Angelus noted Penn’s sudden silence and fell quiet a moment as if in some sort of respect, although mere seconds later he asked “So, wanna fuck then?” and set them both off snorting and giggling again.
~~~*~~~
Angelus left Penn propped up against the door jamb as he tried repeatedly to get the key to cooperate with the lock on his door, whilst catching his friend each time he started to slide down the wall.
How they made it up the stairs without injury was a mystery but somehow they’d managed it, supporting each other on their perilous journey. Miraculously the whiskey jar that Angelus carried under his arm also survived the ordeal intact.
“Hah!” Angelus announced triumphantly as he finally negotiated the ‘lock/key’ problem, slinging an arm around Penn’s shoulders as both of them practically fell into the darkened room, illuminated only by the silvery moonlight glowing through the window.
Penn tripped over his own feet as he stumbled across towards the bed, looking for somewhere to collapse, somewhere safe where the walls might not spin so fast around him. He heard Angelus kick the door closed before the larger man was suddenly on top of him, all sloppy kisses and wandering hands as they rolled around on the bed, pulling and tugging at clothes with no finesse until they were both naked.
Angelus was hard and ready for action and Penn was certainly willing, though definitely unable in his drunken state, sporting a clear case of brewer’s droop.
“Roll over,” Angelus impatiently urged Penn, who tried to oblige but ended up on the floor with a thud and a chuckle.
“Where d’ya go?” Grinning, Angelus slid to the edge of the bed and peered down at the man laying face down on the carpet, making no attempt to rescue himself.
The vampire’s smile dissipated as he gazed down upon the vulnerable body on the floor, his ardor dissipated and a liquor induced maudlin-ness swept over him. Pushing himself up he swung his legs off of the bed and holding Penn under his arm pits awkwardly pulled him into a kneeling position, maneuvering his head so that it rested against his thigh.
“Was it yer father?” Angelus asked softly, running his hands through the other man’s hair; sentiments and actions that would have Angelus fuming later when he realised what he’d done in his inebriated state, acting as Liam, coddling and sympathizing with the food.
“Hmmm?” Penn questioned dreamily.
In answer Angelus leant forward and ran a finger gently across one of the welts decorating Penn’s buttocks. Whoever had done this was no amateur with a horsewhip and knew how to cause maximum damage without actually breaking the flesh.
“You can see those in this light?” Penn asked absently then, “Chasten thy son while there is still hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell,” Penn quoted from Proverbs quietly, his words intoxicatingly slow but surprisingly comprehendible.
“Does it no’ hurt?” Angelus questioned, his own voice lazy and sluggish. He didn’t know how the lad could have bared to walk, let alone sit with these wounds without causing a fuss.
“’Tis not so bad,” Penn breathed the lie deliriously, nuzzling into Angelus’ thigh as if seeking warmth or comfort.
“Why did ye no’ fight him?”
“He’s my father.”
Angelus found that he could relate to Penn’s light easy answer. All of those times his father had punished him he too had simply endured it. He’d never once thought to evade, nor strike back. It wasn’t done. He was scared of his Da and it was Father’s right as his maker to lash out at him, even when he was no longer a child but a young man.
“Was my father,” Penn corrected his previous words groggily. The preacher may not have treated his son right, but he had still been his father nevertheless. It was at this moment that Penn fully released what he’d lost today, what he’d walked away from; his family, his home and now he had nothing. He was out here alone in the world for the first time.
Angelus didn’t comment on the sniffling that followed that statement nor the wet droplets that splashed against his thigh and simply continued to stroke Penn’s hair calmingly.
“Yer ha’ his crucifix up yer arse?” Angelus asked incredulously, only Penn didn’t remember speaking, yet he must have done. “An’ fer pleasure?”
Although Penn had admitted in the bar room that he liked men, Angelus had assumed that he meant as in fucking them. He didn’t understand why anyone would want to be on the receiving end. Sure he was going to use Penn in that way then dispose of him, but that was for his own enjoyment, not his partner. It was unthinkable that the lad had actually penetrated himself on purpose, and for enjoyment.
Angelus had used loads of men and women this way and although he loved the tight squeeze, the blazing heat engulfing his cock, he’d never once found anyone that relished him ramming into them, not if the screams were anything to go by. On the few occasions when Darla had shoved objects into him he too had experienced nothing but pain, a flaming burn reminiscent of holy water. He wondered absently what her response would be but she’d never allowed him to take her that way, nor would she ever.
“I’d no’ punish you fer that,” Angelus heard himself say as he continued to pet the boy. If he were Penn’s father and had discovered his son self fornicating in such a way he’d wonder what madness had possessed the lad to want to do something so painful, but he wouldn’t have beat him.
As a little boy he remembered not understanding that day when his father had called him a dirty boy, unclean and smacked him until his bottom was red raw and he’d no more tears left to cry. One minute he’d been playing quietly on his own, rubbing his willy because it made him feel nice, and the next second he was across his father’s knee being spanked for being naughty. His father growled words that he didn’t understand and continued to proclaim that he was dirty. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong. He’d washed his face like Ma had told him. He’d helped Nanna wash the potatoes and scrubbed his nails clean to rid them of mud. He wasn’t dirty.
It wasn’t until much later when he made the connection and realized exactly what had enraged his father, why he’d been deemed unclean.
Knowing how it made him feel, if Liam had lived to have a son, he’d not have treated him the same way. If he’d discovered his lad in the same situation he’d have explained that it was something private and not to do it in company, he’d not have scolded him through his innocence, nor would he have told him that he’d go blind, that his dick would drop off or that God wouldn’t love him. Angelus had practiced enough now to know that his father had lied to him about such things and no longer cared whether God loved him or not.
“Oi reckon I’d a’ made a good Da,” Angelus announced with a determined sureness, albeit it delivered with a sad tone.
“Would have?” Penn questioned. He knew he’d never be a father himself, he wasn’t interested in women but guessed that Angelus was given the way he’d flirted with some of them downstairs.
“Aye…” The vampire began but trailed off as Penn interrupted him with a, “Hmm pretty,” regarding him with wet, doped, yet wonder filled eyes as he gazed up at the older man, his cheek resting against a strong thigh.
It was only when Penn clumsily reached up with one hand to touch the vampire’s face that Angelus realized what the other had found pretty. His game face had surfaced for no real reason and without conscious effort.
“Yer no’ scared?” Angelus breathed in wonderment, this boy was full of surprises. Angelus honestly couldn’t say that anyone had ever had that reaction on seeing his true self appear before.
“The devil is notin’ ta fear,” Penn mumbled distractedly and struggled to raise himself fully on to his knees. Slowly, he bowed his head in submission then without warning suddenly engulfed Angelus’ cock with an ease and skill that suggested he was no novice, exciting it to hardness with deft tongue strokes and suction hollowed cheeks.
“Fuck,” Angelus hissed a pleasured curse at the unexpected action, falling backwards on to the bed from his sitting position, landing in an untidy sprawl, arms wide as a crucified martyr.
Penn knelt up higher, following his fall, and seemed to rouse a little from his stupor, performing his task better than any whore Angelus had used before, better than any terrified victim who hung onto the false hope that the vampire gave them, telling them that their very lives would depend on the skill of their act.
For a spilt second a whole barrage of questions ran through the vampire’s brain. Had he understood right? Did Penn believe him to be The Devil?? If so, what was it he’d said about this deity in the bar? Something about being worthy of reverence wasn’t it? What was it he thought the Devil could offer him? Approval? Acceptance?
He didn’t bother to find the answers, abandoning all thought as his lone disciple sought sanctification in his body, sliding his mouth up and down the cool column of hard flesh and using his hands to explore further. Whatever spell Penn was casting, Angelus was lost to it now, floating deliriously in a sea of ecstasy as this boy worked his magic on him.
In Penn’s confused household Father equated God and to idolize Angelus now, in Penn’s mind, was to put him up on that pedestal. He’d lost his father and was seeking a God to stand in his place. He was not simply a man wanting to pleasure another, but a lost child on his knees, worshiping *Him*, seeking that which he had lost, that which he’d never had; someone to believe in, someone to believe in him.
Angelus could feel his body coming alive under the other’s power. He could feel his body responding to each and every touch. He could hear himself groaning and hissing in pleasure, yet had no control over anything as he just gave in, lay back and let himself feel.
A hot wetness slid effortlessly up and down his length, sucking him unrepentantly into its fiery depths over and over again. A blazing trail of heat swept across his sac before one testicle was slowly sucked into the wet inferno of his devotee’s mouth, shortly followed by the other before once more his cock was worshiped and adored, laved and bathed in passionate heat.
Maybe it was the drink, maybe not, but Angelus couldn’t remember a time when his body had been treated so good; so right. Darla may have been a professional, but she had nothing on this man who unerringly knew just the way to handle another male body.
A hand weighed his balls, rolling them, lifting them….suddenly Angelus was aware of an uncontrollable strange wild sound escaping his mouth as he felt a scorching heat like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Smooth liquid fire penetrated him, lapped and licked at his insides. Instead of pulling away from the flames, his body reacted of its own accord, his knees hitching high against his chest, falling open wide and wanton as he revealed himself demanding more of the wet burning pleasure. He’d never felt, never imagined ecstasy such as this before…what was the boy doing to him?
So far gone the vampire was only vaguely aware of an insistent, pushing pressure that seemed to be coming from the centre of the slick heat until suddenly the burn increased. He tensed uncomfortable for a moment before the warm wetness soothed and tempered the flames to a delicious level once more easing his body back to that relaxed state. Again, a flare of heat and pain, a stretch, molten wetness then bliss once more.
Angelus eyes shot open in shock as his cock was swallowed whole again, yet the glorious slip and slide, push and pull continued lower down, deep inside him. Oh yeah, he knew what was going on now. He raised his head and his lust laden yet frightened eyes met the heavy lidded ones of his seducer. What had he done? He’d let his guard down, let this mortal take control, have power over him, let a human touch him, emasculate him, touch him there, he’d….
“Shhh,” Penn soothed him, sliding his mouth off of the vampire’s cock to take a breath before swallowing him once more. Penn didn’t speak again but Angelus heard another soft “sshhhh” reverberating gently inside his head as a warm hand crept slowly up his chest then slid into his own trembling hand, squeezing reassuringly.
“Trust me My Lord,” Penn breathed as he slipped his mouth free once more, holding the elder man’s softening accepting gaze as he slid his mouth down to the root again, with a hot swirl of tongue.
“Sire,” Angelus hushed the correction without conscious thought, then slowly, unsurely lay his head back down, still holding Penn’s steady gaze as a lifeline and his hand as an anchor.
A lascivious smile around his cock, a wicked quirk of eyebrow and wickeder quirk of fingers and all Angelus’ doubts and fears faded into nothingness as he was suddenly overloaded with more pleasure than he could handle. He pulled his hand free and it swiftly joined its partner, flying up to grip the headboard railings, worried that he might float away on a wave of euphoria if he wasn’t somehow secured.
Angelus couldn’t bring himself to care that this mortal was watching his reactions intently as he sucked and worked his fingers deep inside, pushing and pulling, twisting and stretching. Angelus hid nothing of his pleasure as he thrashed around on the bed. Once this was over he’d…“Hhnnggugg,” he groaned and threw his head back, arching his neck skyward. What was it he was going to do? Oh yeah, he’d um, break this mortal’s neck for his transgression, no one would know what he’d done here, but for now… “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuuukkkk,” he’d just push back against this welcome, wanted intrusion and “Harder!”
Penn worked harder, wanting to please his…what was he to call him? Not Lord, no, what was it? Sire, yes his Sire.
This boy was amazing, fallen from heaven or risen from hell, Angelus didn’t know but “Fuck!” he wanted to keep this creature forever, feel *this* for eternity.
He caught the lad’s eye a second before he felt the first tendrils of orgasm shooting like lightening through his entire body, eyes that shone bright with one clear request, one solitary plea, “Love me!”
With each orgasmic contraction, each spurt of seed, each pulse of unrestrained pleasure, Angelus could hear those words pounding in his head, over and over “Love me! Love me!” drowning out the beautifully horrendous sounds issuing from his own vocal chords as he reached his goal, soaring higher than ever before, then suddenly crashing into nothingness as he passed out cold.
xxXxx
Angelus awoke suddenly, dazed and suffering the effects of a night’s drinking, startled by a clash of thunder to accompany the heavy rain that was battering against the window. It appeared dark outside but something told him that it was day. With no reason to get up and realizing that there was no cause for alarm, he settled back down to sleep. His eyes flew open again, shocked by something else this time.
There was a body in the bed with him. That was nothing new. The fact that it just snored however was strange to the extreme. Stranger still was the way it was no longer content to drape across him as a lifeless corpse, but actually snuggled, yes, snuggled up against him.
Angelus couldn’t remember ever having woken up to find a live body in his bed, nor had the pleasure of being held since his turning. Darla didn’t hold him or cuddle him, just used him, rode him for her pleasure then rolled off and turned her back on him as she sought sleep. He had to admit that this was kind of nice. He, no Liam, had missed this, the simple pleasure of being held, holding…um yeah, what was with that? He realized that the body wasn’t only holding him, but that he was hugging it right back, his arm protectively curled around its shoulders where its head burrowed into his armpit, resting against his chest.
Penn, the word floated through his groggy brain. That was its name, but….
Angelus thought back over the events of last night.
He remembered wanting to fuck the lad, remembers telling him so. He took his hand to lead him across the floor to the stairs, up the stairs, wait no go back there was something in between heading for the stairs and reaching them, um, yes, dancing and singing and…a goat? Then they ventured upstairs. Crying. There was crying, wet blue eyes, “Love me!” a sad plea echoed somewhere in the back of his mind.
There was fucking, hell was there fucking. Angelus was about to congratulate himself on not killing the boy, after all he had a whole day to waste up here and could have another go at him then dispose of…he cut those thoughts short fast. The vampire felt a sudden intense wave of fierce protectiveness over this creature resting in his arms, it pained him to think of any harm befalling it and knew that he destroy anything that might threaten it…he tried to shake those thoughts away too. Feelings for the food? No, it must be bloody Liam still lurking around making him feel like that, he always appeared when there was drink to be had. So yeah, there was the making love…what!!! No!!! Fucking, there was fucking, Angelus corrected himself…well almost fucking, he allowed, there were mouths and hands and…
He remembered waking up sometime earlier than this to the sound of the human retching and heaving, spilling his guts over the floor in the small cupboard like room adjoining this, crawling around on his hands and knees and crying pitifully that he was dying. Angelus vaguely remembered trying to force some whiskey down the boy’s throat to chase away the pain, but giving up when all it did was turn the mortal even greener, drinking the entire jar himself instead lest it go to waste.
Angelus looked down at the sleeping figure and smiled as he noticed that he was absently stroking its hair as he tried to remember more. He tried to wipe the smile off of his face, it wasn’t very demon like, but it just wouldn’t budge. What the hell was wrong with him? Here he was grinning away and feeling a sense of deep satisfaction for…
“Oh please just kill me,” he remembered the lad pleading as he lay in a heap on the floor suffering for his excess of drink, not even able to crawl out of the puddle he’d pissed around himself.
He remembers actually considering it. “Yer do no’ mind?” He has a flash back of himself asking seriously, in his wasted state thinking that the human meant it as an actual request, not just the result of a drunk and distress addled mind.
“Nah go on,” the heap on the floor slurred back.
There was a bite, the taste of blood in his mouth rich, hot and metallic…and amazing. Penn’s lips, stained crimson, murmuring something about body of Christ, blood of Christ, no that wasn’t it, wasn’t Christ, another name hushed with reverence though Christ seemed the most familiar, Liam remembered those words from church…he had a fleeting humorous moment as he imagine the congregation as vampires, feasting on the blood and body of their Messiah…no his mind was wandering again, where was he? Oh Yeah, so…those hopeful blue eyes again, beautiful eyes, speaking to him, “Love me.” His own voice, “I will. I do.”
He remembers feeling like a god as he held the balance of life and death in his own hands, birth or destruction all on his whim. More blood, lots of blood, rivers of blood, enough to ensure a safe return.
He remembered crying as the body, this body resting with him now safe and protected, lay limp and lifeless in his arms.
Penn gently snuffled again, drawing breath in and out of his lungs.
He’d be sure to lose that habit soon enough, it wasn’t something that vanished all on it’s own like a heartbeat, Angelus mused.
Why hadn’t he noticed that? He should notice things like that shouldn’t he? Things about *his* boy, *his* son if he was going to be a good Da. If he was going to be a…
“Sire,” Penn breathed in his sleep, nuzzling further into the arms of his choked Father.
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