The Competition

Author: Pippychick
Pairings: Angel/Demon, Demon/Neal, Angel/Neal
Warnings: There will be (in no particular order): Graphic sex, slash, gender ambiguity, BDSM, and a complete lack of respect for all organised (and disorganised) religion. There will probably be many more warnings applicable to this story in time, but I will update you on those as they come around. Expect horror in later chapters.
Disclaimer: They’re mine… all mine! The characters and their universe belong entirely to me. I do not, however, own Jesus. He belongs to God, and no copyright infringement is meant.

Author's Note: First of all, thank you to FlurryDivider for your review. I hope you'll like this chapter as well :)

Most of this chapter is written as a flashback for Angel and Demon.


Chapter Five

There was another. Angel knew of the other even now, and searched for it, soaring over the ravaged planet below. Unlike Heaven, this wasn’t a place where Angel could take on a physical form to study it. Angel wasn’t surprised by the magma and the heat. Heaven had looked the same way in the very beginning. And there was no life here yet. But Angel saw something new; something that by turns bothered, confused, and shocked him. The future was not an enigma, and Angel could see it – at least a little way. This necessary violence was not merely a beginning. This would continue once life came to the dead rock. There was another. Troubled, Angel retreated a little to watch from a distance.

In contrast, Demon glided over the planet happily. It was like Hell in the beginning. The beginning was a favourite time, because it was so unruly. By necessity, once life began here the planet would calm, but for now… Then Demon saw something new; something that by turns angered, intrigued and frightened him. The future had already come to pass in some ways, and Demon could see it. Demon could see that the planet would calm – but it was more than that. There were no words, but Demon felt the onset of something alien to him. Not only would there be calm – there would be stability. There was another. Curious, Demon stayed to watch.

They were both right – because over time, although there was stability, there was also uncertainty. At times the land revolted against the orderly appearance of the slowly forming crust, as a volatile reminder of what lay beneath. Angel and Demon moved closer to their first meeting, and the earth reacted to that too. Water came from the interior of the planet and thunderstorms began, filling the hollows and making oceans.

Eventually, life appeared, simple at first, and both Angel and Demon were excited by it. Angel observed the single-celled organisms with hope and love, watching over them as a father might watch over children. But there was something wrong.

If Angel could blink and rub his eyes, then Angel would have done so. But in the ethereal form, all that happened was Angel drew back in surprise, then came closer again. There was no doubt about it. Now there was one, where once there were two. It was all the wrong way around. An opposite of reproduction. How could that be? But then Angel observed the other, trapped inside the now bigger organism, suffocated; its brief flame of life slowly extinguished. It wasn’t frightening – Angel knew no fear. But it revolted and insulted Angel in the worst way.

There was another. The air changed subtly as the other came close, and Angel asked the question without words. Is it you? A positive answered, a positive that mixed with Angel’s negative reaction to the sight of life consuming itself, and the fragile stability of the earth gave way for the briefest of moments before Angel fled.

Demon pursued, feeling a new kind of desire. There was another! Demon chased Angel over the earth, while beneath them the planet cooled, and ice caps formed. Their flight took them from volcanoes and earthquakes to the darkness of polar night, to deserts where the sun never seemed to set, over vast masses of rainforest that constituted the main part of the one colossal continent of true land.

Millions of years passed while the pursuit continued, both of them were a match for each other. While ever Angel did not want to be caught, he was free. And while ever Demon did not want Angel to escape, he was close. It was an impasse, and eventually something had to change. The one to change was Angel.

As the time had passed, Angel had been able to take physical form at last… but he didn’t do it often. Unable to stay for long in one place, Angel favoured the ethereal – but that involved a kind of distance that Demon didn’t maintain. As the endless hunt continued, Angel knew that the earth had become stable. The plates had moved long ago, and continued to do so, creating continents that drifted slowly further and further apart and causing earthquakes where they collided. He saw life creep from the oceans. He watched as a diverse range of animals began to populate the forests and plains. But it was darker all the time. What had in the beginning seemed like Heaven was becoming something else.

Now he ran through a world that was almost entirely composed of monsters, and Angel knew his flight made it so. Retreat made it like this. And so, after a pursuit that had lasted billions of years, or perhaps only an instant, Angel stopped running. As soon as he did, the world began to change. The balance shifted, and the reptilian dominance of earth began to wane. Demon caught up to him, and their first clashes were unwelcoming and murderous. Fascination there may be – but neither of them could accept the other.

This is your doing, Angel accused, seeing a world that was cruel and heartless. Cold and ruthless. The worst of all was death. In Heaven there was no death – and the concept of it was unimaginable – or had been before this place.

Demon was furious. After all the time spent giving chase, building this world in the image of a paradise, it was being dismantled by something beyond his control. Death he may be, but senseless extinction was something new to him, and he mourned for the loss of every perfected species. It was no consolation at all to know that they still existed in Hell.

Reaching an accord at last, when both of them became weary of fighting, they seperated for a while. Both of them wandered alone, giving to the earth that it might more accurately reflect the way things should be.

Mammals came to take the place of reptiles, and although Demon had admired the first domineering life on this new planet, he came to appreciate what could be done with hot blood and fur. And of course, there were always going to be teeth and claws. But he hated some things. These animals nurtured their helpless young. It was such an obvious imperfection, and Demon knew who was to blame.

Angel too, watched the mammals rise to superiority, and it was all wrong. He urged them to sacrifice and nobility with the necessity of family and instincts that were an echo of the love he felt. But he disliked some things. There was still death everywhere he looked. There was still struggle, and that first shocking experience of life consuming itself was all around.

Both of them knew, however, that this earth did not require so much energy to sustain. In fact, it required hardly any. And both of them assumed – wrongly – that the other was responsible for the continuance of this world.

Only when millions of earth years had passed did they meet again. This time, both of them had succumbed to the temptation of life on earth in an attempt to gain the upper hand. Their imaginations were embodied on this planet, in the variety of life that thrived upon it, and while they were not true representatives of their chosen incarnations, they at least chose the things that appealed to them the most.

And so, at last, after all of the chasing, and fighting, the lion and the lamb faced each other. Angel represented everything that was important; innocence, hope and love. Demon, everything that was an advantage; physical superiority, honed reflexes, killer instinct. Slowly, in a kind of silent truce, they approached each other. Angel did not feel fear, or even understand it, and so he registered the lion’s reticence with suspicion.

Demon did not feel forgiveness, nor did he understand it, so he viewed Angel with wary fear, waiting for the moment when the attack began anew. But it never did. They were close enough to touch, and they discovered that although there was a likeness in the lion’s furry mane, and the lamb’s coarse wool – no two were ever so different.

But, as they explored and investigated each other, the peace was shattered by a coming storm. Together, they took shelter under a gathering of trees on the grassland, and lie down together to wait it out. It made a strange sight, and later, this image would return to haunt them both. But for now they rested against each other. They didn’t understand, and they didn’t know each other, but for now at least, the war was over.

Their meetings were infrequent after that, and yet they both seemed to seek one another at the same time. At every one of their rendezvous’ there was a thunderstorm, as though the natural order of things were protesting at their proximity to each other.

It was difficult for them to even begin. Their attraction at first was all that kept them from destroying each other out of ignorance. It was as though one were blind, and the other deaf. Neither of them could explain satisfactorily their point of view, because for instance Demon could not comprehend such a thing as love, and Angel, for all his understanding, could not envisage such as thing as hate.

They were not always in the physical form when they met, and when they were, they were not always the lion and the lamb. So it was inevitable that the day would come when they met as equals. Both of them were shocked to find that they had chosen the same this time – for they were both human.

This animal was new, a more evolved species of the ape which Demon had chosen many times before. But Angel chose the human because there were echoes of Heaven in these animals. They lived in families. They shared love in a way that no animal had before now. When trouble came to them, Angel had even known them to die for each other. Why was Demon taking their shape?

Angel had chosen something that belonged to Hell, and for a moment Demon was astonished. The human animal was reminiscent of the advanced animals in Hell. They had made the transition from vegetarians to hunters. They were highly intelligent, volatile and violent. He had seen them kill each other when they fought over a mate.

It was perhaps no surprise then that Angel had favoured the female form, while Demon took on the more aggressive male of the species. But something different was in the air, and both of them realised it. Demon felt the desire he had known for so long become primal and concentrated… almost beyond his control. Angel felt the love he held for Demon, despite the tragedies on the earth, grow much stronger… almost too much.

They had to touch – and when they did, nothing was ever going to be quite the same. Whatever they felt, and however different they were, their passion was the same. It was everything – and it lasted. When their physical bodies tired of their demands they simply took new ones. They changed roles often, sometimes Demon taking the female form, and showing Angel a kind of aggression and forcefulness that he hadn’t believed the females were capable of. At times their gender was the same, almost as if it didn’t matter, because what mattered was them.

In their best moments, Demon lay still and compliant while Angel made love to the body Demon had chosen, so slowly that the earth entered a period of almost complete peace. Then, at the worst times, Demon listened while Angel begged for death - and he did kill Angel time and again, making blood, violence and pain a part of their sexual deviances.

Every dark desire Demon could imagine he practised on Angel. And when he became weary, Angel took the opportunity to love him. Everything that the human would do in years to come was contained in their coming together. Every selfless act of love, every twisted desire. When they were finally sated enough to part from each other, Demon was surprised to find that Angel had not changed. Angel was likewise surprised that Demon had not mellowed. But somewhere, something had altered drastically and suddenly. It would become one of the greatest mysteries.

The human animal had begun to draw pictures on the walls of their caves. Later, it would be argued that these were a pictorial representation of the day’s hunt – but it was a new awareness of imagination and art. Expression. It was important because the animal had begun to think in an entirely new way. And with that came other things. The animal had become aware – they had questions – and in their desire to answer them, they began to speak.

In many ways, the human animal became a mirror of the relationship between Angel and Demon. They sought to understand their conflicting nature, how it was that they loved and hated with an equal fiery passion. Above all they longed for ‘the reason’ and in their questing they were almost aware of their makers, and every time that happened, Angel and Demon knew each other a little better. But for all this, the human animal was unaware of what they meant to their Gods, and they had no idea that they were being used.

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In the present day, Neal walked into the snooker club, and grinned when he saw a couple of the local lads at the bar.

“All right?” he asked casually, pulling a tenner out of his pocket and catching the barman’s eye while the others greeted him. The man was attractive, but Neal didn’t even dare to imagine making any kind of comment. Here was home. Here was where he had to fit in, or be… what? Eaten alive? Beaten? Murdered? He considered the lads that he was stood with. They didn’t look so fearsome, really. But he knew enough about the way their minds worked to know that if he came out here, he would regret it.

So, he stayed quiet, joining in with their raucous comments when the subject of girls came up. That wasn’t so difficult – Neal had an attraction to girls too, which made him feel out of place on the gay scene as well. It was as though there was no place for him to be, and often he felt completely alone. But if he didn’t let anyone know, then he would be safe.

Angel and Demon watched him, this youth who was a reflection of them, and their struggle with each other. Both of them had known interest in a particular human before, and both of them were aware of how maddened and insane Jesus had been by the end. Angel may have won, but in their battle, the man had been torn to pieces between them. Their use of Jesus had led him to be crucified by his fellows. The human animal was complex and able to combine the best and worst of Angel and Demon in a way that was startling – but it couldn’t withstand the pressure when the attention of the two became personal and focused.

Whatever he thought about his sexual preference and his silence, Neal wasn’t alone – and he wasn’t safe at all.


To be continued...


Author's Note: Thank you for reading, I hope you are enjoying it. Reviews are welcome and will make me write more quickly. Constructive criticism appreciated and encouraged.

And now, if you are reading, I promise I am writing femslash. You know who you are *g*