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Title: Feral
Author: Benaresq
Pairing: Angel/Post-Hyena!Xander
Rating: NC-17
Setting: BtVS S3
A/N: Sequel to Tame. 


There comes a point, a bend in the road, where you just can't stand being
the butt of everyone else's jokes any more, and by the time you've been
possessed by a hyena and kept naked in a cage for a month, Xander reckons
you've progressed *right* round that bend.

Cordelia was the one who made the hyena come back, so he's heard. Something
about a vengeance demon and it was all an accident and now she's sorry. But
he felt a glint of other-than-sorry, just a tiny hint of amusement in her,
when he shook her hand and forgave her. And Buffy, and Willow, and Giles.
They were very sympathetic, very relieved to have him back, commiserating
over his "trauma" (Giles) and "you missed so much school! You'll have to
repeat next year!" (Willow, natch). But still. There were overtones,
undertones-- tones, anyway, of oh-Xander-this-WOULD-happen-to-you in their
voices.

Xander had gotten away from them as soon as he could, hating himself, the
self he saw them looking at. Because, no, it never *would* have happened to
Buffy, or Willow, or --ha, definitely not Giles, nude Giles in a cage makes
his brain fizz blank because Giles probably isn't even naked under his
*clothes*. He was going to just walk, walk till the humiliation settled down
and he no longer felt quite so much like wearing a paper bag over his head
for the rest of his life. He'd find a way to keep living with the
humiliation; he always had before, he might be burning with it now but he'd
adjust somehow. And then Angel had loomed up in his head, and he'd thought:
tonight I have nowhere to sleep. And tried to pretend that wasn't just an
excuse, that he couldn't ask Willow, or Giles. And tried, quite valiantly
for five minutes or so, to pretend that he wasn't thinking about his cage...

("Angel? Could I just... see the cage again?")

...tried to get away from the humiliation, the absurdity that is Xander
Harris, but now he's fucking rolling in it, covering himself in it, and he
doesn't know how that is sensible but somehow it is, and the more he thinks
about the shame of this, how this would *look* to his friends, the more he
wants it. When he finally hears the click of Angel locking his cage door he
feels a massive surge of relief. Relief and other stuff. He thinks it's the
hyena's memories, Pavlov association with the locksound, that made his cock
so damn hard as soon as he heard it

"Take your clothes off, Xander."

and Angel knows. Of course Xander has to take his clothes off. That is the
next logical step, that is the re-creation, yes? It was always like this,
Xander, naked in his cage in his hyena, Angel watching over there in his
straight-backed velvet chair. Xander strips, dropping his shirt and t-shirt
outside the cage.

Naturally the bars are widely spaced enough for manarms. This cage was built
by vampires, and vampires like to play games. Xander is more hesitant when
it comes to removing his lower clothing, even his shoes. Not because naked
feet are so *terribly* naked (oh but the things hyena paws feel, the
knowledge they learn from the earth!) but because he doesn't want to bend
down. Yet. Feels like it would be admitting something, to bend down in front
of an Angel who is watching him with such devoted attention.

It feels like giving something away which ought by rights to be tortured
slowly out of him, but there is no helping it, so he's in a crouch and
pulling his shoes off and--yes, somehow that was a cue, because Angel stood
up as he squatted down, has taken steps closer to the cage. He's Licking His
Lips and Xander is very small down here, but continues to strip, huddling as
far as he can into a graceless ball while taking off his pants. No boxers
because he was still a hyena when Angel dressed him, so he just wraps his
arms around his legs and waits on the cage floor. Angel is casting shadows
on his skin.

"Stand up."

Xander does, a little unsteady, but not hesitating.

"Come close to the bars," and so Xander presses himself against them, metal
delightfully cold to his skin.

Angel's face is scrunched-up, and Xander realises Angel is desperate, more
desperate than Xander is for this , this-- thisness, this thing that this is
between them. Angel is hypnotised by Xander's every movement, imprisoned by
his presence. And that pleases Xander, makes him feel warm towards Angel and
want to give him something. Makes him feel powerful too, and he does a
seductive little movement with his hips, watching Angel watch him.

"Yes," says Angel hoarsely. "Just like that. You used to..." He releases a
heavy breath. "Do you remember?"

Does he? "I remember, in the cage, it was all about you." Xander hesitates
after making this confession, but carries on because Angel is rapt, absorbed
in what he's saying: the first love story Xander has ever told to an eager,
wanting audience. "You'd come into the room, and I'd move my hips like that
to get you to look at me. Because I knew you liked the way I moved, and I
wanted to please you. Because I wanted you to come into the cage, and touch
me."

"And sometimes I did."

"And sometimes you did, and I was so happy. Because you weren't just a
person to me..."

"I'm not a person..."

"You want me to tell you or not?" says Xander, teasing harshly.

Pause. "Yes...please."

"You were like: you were like the end of the world. Not the sucked into Hell
kind. There was me, and I had my cage and my bowl, and there was you, and
that was it. That was the only thing there was. You were my horizon. You
were everything."

"Everything?" Angel: Angel, you're so *hungry*.

"You brought me food. You brought me water. You were the only thing to ever
touch me."

"With a whip."

"Not only... and even that was..."

"Was."

"You. It was you and it seemed right because it was you. You know?"

Angel is distant and dreaming. "I think I do..." Pauses, looks right at
Xander. "You want it again?"

And Xander remembers the hyenavoice, how it was this hum in his head, not
laughter but a soft little song about earth and wind and food and shit and
death and the sun and... the bars of his cage and Angel.

//You surround me: you are like sky. You nurture me: you are like earth. You
warm me, you are like sun. You, and You, and You: because you made the cage,
these bars are you; because you brought me food, these bones are you;
because you are sky and earth and sun, my body is you. So when I rub on the
bars, or suck on the bones, or fist on my cock while I dream to myself, it
is all for you, always, and also in your absence.
And yet I still crave your presence, Master.//

At the intersection between human and hyena, there disturbingness lies. The
thoughts of Angel that stalk those realms are not proper human thoughts, no.
Angel is distorted there, not a person but a concept or a myth; he rampages
through that mental universe like Godzilla. Or possibly, drop the -zilla.
Even the image of Angel's physicality is exaggerated and huge, as he might
seem to someone lying on the ground looking upward at standing-Angel. Xander
shivers, and thinks that someday soon he shall have to try that. Just to
see: if he'd been in that position before? Had Angel been wielding the whip
at the time? Is that why it's so vivid?

"Yes," and he had to drag the answer out, but it's there between them now,
and the bars protect him, like he's a little less naked with a cage between
them.

Suddenly Xander wishes he could retract it, because yes is the most
dangerous word in the language; and maybe Just Say No would have been a
useful lesson to have learned by now. He could have made it his personal
motto, but hell· he never was the sharpest knife. And being stupid suddenly
seems like freedom; a license, to, well, be stupid. No one expects any
better. He can swap everything he has (what everything?) for magic beans if
he likes, for shares in the Golden Gate Bridge. Or for Angel's whip, Angel's
lips...

For the storybook giant looming in his head.

For that power, that intensity. Triple distilled experience, and-- ho-ho,
caught yourself out there, Xander. This is in your genes, *brat*. This,
*this* will kill you.

For something so overwhelming...

That Xander will in fact be overwhelmed. Lost.

"Yes. That's what I want."

Angel nods, and moves to kiss Xander through the bars. Angelâs an intense
kind of guy. He *would* like it like this.

Xander kisses back, lightly running his tongue in the inside of Angelâs
lower lip. Heâd been needing that--Angel kisses. Heâd been thinking about
this, with Angelâs tongue in him gentle and rough like Angelâs hands had
always been on him. It feels that Angel is sucking all the air out of him,
and Angelâs mouth is cold, like when Cordy would suck an ice cube, in
between their overheated kisses. Angel, though, doesnât taste of cola and
mint-over-garlicky-pizza. Angelâs mouth is... old, and too dry; itâs like
heâs kissing one of Gilesâs books, so Xander licks and licks, trying to make
Angelâs mouth wet and human again, wanting to pretend this is something less
sick than it is.

And then Angel reaches a hand round the bar, and pulls Xanderâs head closer
still, so that cold steel is bruising his cheekbone. And it hurts, and
Angelâs hand is iron, so that Xander cannot move his head at all; and there
is a kind of horrible rightness to that. Pain and being trapped and it makes
sense in a way that Cordyâs cola kisses never did.

When he thinks again (again) of Cordy's badly hidden amusement that morning
he winces deeper into Angel's barely yielding body, crushing himself. The
thing he had with Cordy seems, with nostalgic licence, sweet and simple,
teen l...ust with stock options on Love. Wrecked thoroughly now, like he's
always wrecked everything, but that makes sense here in the stripy light of
Angel's cage. Because he was meant for this. Of course he wrecked what he
had with Cordy, he can see clearly now that it was inevitable, could never
have been real. Because he was always _this_ underneath. Desperate mindless
animal pretending to be a person, walking and talking but really wanting
nothing more than to be needed, petted, stroked. And he'd always have been
willing to crawl for that, always. Layers of human _skin_ that heâs peeled
off for Angel, layers of protection and pretence, and he presses harder
still into Angelâs hold, because when you have no skin you have to be
wrapped up so tightly, you have to be owned and restrained and bound so you
don't fall apart. You have to·

OK, you still have to breathe, and Xander tries to slide his lips to one
side, slip them along Angel's cheek for some air, and succeeds after a brief
struggle. Angel lets go of him then, and steps backwards.
And that quirk of Angel's lips that always annoyed him so much, it's back.
How desperate does he look, panting and naked and staring, unable to take
his eyes off Angel because he needs to be touched again NOW, and he needs
Angel to come close again, close enough that he can't see that smirking
face, his own reflection in Angel's mirror-dark eyes. But instead Angel
steps away from him and walks around the corner.

*He's coming into the cage.*

Oh God· OH god, did he really use to prostrate himself at Angel's feet and
whimper when Angel entered his little metal-bounded world? He remembers what
that felt like: Angel ripping up reality and discarding boundaries was
disturbing for a hyena, like a human might feel if some inconsiderate god
were to start walking on earth (Giles's library: gods are too bright to look
at, they burn any mortal who sees them). And apparently, he *did* do it,
because his body is clenching against an impulse, rocking forward, muscles
wired to vividly unfamiliar of his brain are pushing his hands forward on
the floor, stretching him out till his nose is lowered onto concrete, inches
from Angel's bare feet.

Angel· Angel purrs. Xander doesn't look up. Can hear, feel, almost smell him
moving around, in and out of the cage, opening a cupboard and Xander
breathes and waits. He knows this routine, his body remembers it and his
scars are aching in anticipation. And even though he can see nothing but
grey concrete and red behind his eyes, he knows exactly how Angel looks when
Angel's shadow falls on him. He used to smell the shift to gameface, a
sharp, slightly rank alert in the air, and even now, even though he can't
smell it really, his mind is creating the same warning, making adrenalin
flow, making his marks throb and Angel's whip lands exactly on the part of
his back that was aching for it most.

Numb-sting-burn; he surrenders himself completely to the strange knowledge
of his skin, and the blows fall almost gently, caresses when you let them
be. It's a fucked up kind of Zen, and Angel is beating the thoughts from his
head-- just whistle, crack and *love* in the burn crawling over his body,
the pain blanket. And sometimes he wriggles but he could be wriggling for
more, he can't tell. He's drifting far, and it feels that there's something
dark he's going to fall into, he's orbiting around the edges of something·
And Angel strokes him, brings him back, a little farther away from that
alluring dark. Not enough that he can *speak* or anything but when he's
pulled gently up to his knees, when he feels cool slick hands on his ass he
moans loudly, having wanted this for too long, uncountable identical days.
And Angel's paws-- fingers-- are inside him and he pushes back hard, hearing
a hiss above him as he demonstrates his impatience. Derailing Angel's own
control, he guesses, and it annoys him to imagine Angel having been cool and
calm and controlled all the time he stood above Xander and beat him into
*space*, so he keeps up the relentless thrusting back, not caring that the
fingers hurt him in the stretch-- he's on fire all over anyway.

It almost feels like a fight between them, irregular, unmatching rhythms and
Xander being jabbed at odd angles but no way he's going to co-operate with
Angel's hand, he may be a bitch but he won't be a· a *glove puppet*. And
when Angel hisses again and withdraws his fingers Xander sighs and knows
he's won; and he stays still and co-operates when Angel's cock arrives at
his ass... hell yeah, touchdown finally, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry
about the months we spent caught in turbulence· like the culmination of a
much delayed journey, and shoves its way in like, like well like a Boeng 7 4
fuckinggodsake 7, and it hurts. But it's the right thing, to be stretched
this big and wide, to hold Angel as if his whole body is an embrace, and
Xander realizes how much more it hurt before, all those months before when
Angel wouldn't do this, when he'd knelt for it, begged for it, crawled for
it.

Angel does want him, and is thrusting massively into him to prove it. He
feels normal, human, surfing this rhythm, even as he arches and sweats and
whimpers and drool drips from his mouth. He holds onto himself as his body
is thrust forward with the repeated shock of Angel, and again Angel,
barreling into him till he collapses forward and is nose to concrete again.
The hand he didnât catch himself with is still on his dick, which jerks and
spills from something close to sheer exhaustion-- not the most climactic of
climaxes but he's still caught up in this massive, epic, ride of being
fucked and held and loved and used by Angel so he doesn't care.
Angel seems to take that as his cue to bite, to drink again from Xander's
shoulder, or maybe it was some inner cue of his own, because he speeds up
then, a few quick thrusts and there is cool leaking inside Xander, and they
are suddenly peacefully lying together, Angel nuzzling contentedly with his
fangs inside Xander's skin, Xander using his hand as a pillow to protect his
face from the concrete, and Angel still buried inside him in a way that
feels cosy; he'll miss it when it's gone.

Angel lifts his head from the wound. "You taste human now." Spoken in that
too-sudden way of his where you can tell he's not used to having
conversations. Xander can't read his tone, whether Angel's disappointed or
pleased.

"Yep· born human, raised by hu· well, raised by pigs actually, but 100%
human being here, except of course for the fact that I do have a bit of
vampire in me·"

"Ssh," says Angel gently, and Xander complies gladly, waiting for Angel to
be the one to say something.

Eventually he does. "What did you come back for? Was it me or the cage? Do
you want to be a hyena again? Tell me, Xander, because people confuse me,
and I don't understand you."

"Not the hyena. You. Well, you and the cage. They're kind of both mixed up
in my head."

"You could live like this as a human?"

Xander's heart leaps. Live like this· *live* like this-- why, it's
practically a proposal!

"Not sure I can live any other way, Angel, really. If you want me here, I
mean· actually, just forget I said the first part of that, would you?"

Angel smiles then, a wry grin as he runs his hands gently on Xander's belly.
"I want you here. And maybe we can work on the other ways to live. If you
like. I don't think I understand what they are, but· if you like. Or you
could just stay in the cage, if that's better."

"Mmm, maybe." Xander is sleepy now that he's secure, wants to crawl into his
tangle of blankets already. He'll worry about big futurey things tomorrow.
Angel disengages from him, just before it starts to get uncomfortable, and
Xander is asleep before they can clean up the mess.
 

End


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