Fic: The Soul Lies Down (3/?)
Title: The Soul Lies Down (3/?)
Pairing(s): Buffy/Spike, (Anya/Xander, Willow/Tara)
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~1,200 this chapter (~6,200 total)
Timeline: AU S5, S6, S7 and post-series
Warnings: character death, violence and gore
Summary: As a child, I used to dream of a man in black and white, spinning in the desert like a dervish, sword flashing in the moonlight as he danced with death. (A sequel/companion to Angearia's Fin Amour)
Notes: Many thanks to Yavannie82 and Angearia for beta work, ETA: and big thanks to Bewildered for the thorough retrospective <3
3
First Breath
Spike’s confused. The last thing he remembers is the desert, Glory, pain as big as the world… now he’s lying on his back looking up at a young woman’s face against a backdrop of blurry white.
“Am I dead?” he croaks, voice no more than a whisper. Everything hurts, but the defeat is what’s crushing him, a boulder on his chest. Glory…
“That would make me an angel, huh?”
He blinks, slow and stupid. She’s kind of dazzlingly beautiful, but it’s got to be a joke. Poor taste at a time like this. No angels where he’s going, excepting the tall, brooding variety if he’s very unlucky.
“God.” He lets his eyes unfocus completely, quick shallow breaths helping him float over the agonies of the flesh. Nothing doing for the agonies of the heart, though. “Failed.”
“What’s that?”
“Buffy. Failed. Glory… found us.”
“Oh, Spike,” the woman murmurs, and maybe she was telling the truth after all because no one says his name like that, softly and with warmth. Heat on his shoulder sears him, but it’s nothing to her words. “You didn’t fail. Buffy’s alive, the baby too. They’re safe, because of you.”
He loses it then, and doesn’t care if she’s watching. A release like the crashing of waves. She’s good enough to retreat from his field of vision for a bit, at least, dimly aware of her presence nearby but not too close. Later - minutes, hours - once he’s too wrung out for anything beyond blinking wetly up at the white ceiling, he feels a gentle hand behind his head, something brought to his lips.
“Drink,” she says, and he does, and when he’s done the heat presses lightly on his forehead and he loses consciousness like exhaling.
*
Waking is easier the next time. He’s healing, bodily; spirit suffused with, not happiness, but grateful satisfaction. The one thing he could give Buffy that she would accept, he gave. He won. They won. She’s alive, and he died as he always thought he should, fists and fangs, blood and glory. It’s good. Better. Better than he expected, a good end.
She'll never be able to forget him now, tangled as he is with the little bit’s survival. There’s pride in that - banked, diaphanous warmth that settles over him like a silken death shroud. Except…
…well he can’t be anything but dead, and yet this isn’t quite what he’d expected.
He appears to be in some kind of field hospital, a large linen awning rippling like a sail overhead, medical supplies arranged neatly on stainless steel trolleys. He’s lying on a gurney or old-fashioned hospital bed, body bandaged with crisp white wrappings, so extensive he looks like a reject from The Mummy. For a moment he’s stabbed by the idea that Buffy got him out somehow, a sick, shining ache, but no, there’s grass beneath, lush and trampled, no sand in sight. Not in Kansas anymore. Not in SoCal. But, incredibly, not in hell either.
His not-angel is asleep at his bedside, curled up in a saggy armchair that is utterly incongruous with the rest of the scene. She’s childlike in repose, cheek resting on her hand, brow smooth. He spends some curious moments studying her: pale heart-shaped face, high cheekbones, pointy little chin, long chestnut hair that falls in a straight, shimmering sweep across her cheek, over her shoulder. She looks familiar somehow, though he can’t place her, like an oil painting he glanced at once in a gallery. He tries to inhale, but his nose must still be damaged because he can’t get a clear sense of her.
Can’t get a clear sense of anything.
Where the hell is he?
Like an answer, she awakens, a wracking yawn, long limbs uncurling. To Spike she looks to be in her early twenties, but there’s something a little gangly about her still, a reedy body yet to finish filling out into womanhood. Her smile, when their eyes meet, reminds him strangely of Joyce. And again, that breath-taking sense of beauty.
“How are you feeling?”
He blinks, tests himself. Tests the situation. “Hungry.”
Her reply is easy, eager. “One mug of blood, coming right up.” He squints at her.
Not so stupid as to start questioning before the nice warm blood is in his hands, though. Christ, it’s human, and fresh too.
“Ethically sourced,” his strange nurse says in response to Spike’s surprise. When he drinks it straight down, she has another one ready to press into his hands - hand. Spike’s right arm won’t work and he can’t quite remember why. All the while she watches him with something proprietorial in her gaze. But not the look of a predator, he senses, which is itself unnerving.
“Who are you?” he finally bursts, annoyed by the fleeting, sliding sense of recognition. “What is this place? Where am I? What the bloody hell do you want with me?”
She breaks out into a grin that he wants to find irritating, but somehow doesn’t. “A friend,” she starts, counting off on her fingers, “a pocket dimension, ditto, and to save your life. Um… unlife. Whatever.”
“Right.” Too busy reeling to be smooth. Too many questions branching off, like a chain reaction of weirdness, meltdown imminent. Start with the easy stuff. “You got a name, friend?”
“Dawn.”
From nowhere, a prickling warmth shivers up his spine. Dawn. The thing all good vampires fear. Beautiful, terrible.
“Well, Dawn, not that I’m not grateful and all,” he swings his legs slowly over the side of the bed, “but nothing a nice girl like you wants with a vampire all alone in the middle of… reality… so how about you just put me back where you found me and I’ll be on my merry way.”
“So long and thanks for all the blood, that what you’re saying?”
“Something like,” he mutters. Having slid to his feet, it’s now taking a whole lot of concentration not to deflate like a concertina to the floor.
Before he realises it, Dawn is at his side, one warm hand under his bandaged elbow, a look of wry amusement.
“You, ah, you want to put some clothes on first?” They both glance down at the white sheet clenched precariously around his waist in the same hand gripping the gurney rail, left hand doing double time for the useless right. “Not that I’m not loving the look, very Julius Caesar. You came, you saw, you’re gonna conk out unless you sit back down for a moment.”
He’d really, really like to disagree. He hates magic of all kinds and this is some powerful mojo going on here. Nothing good’s going to come of his staying. And somehow he’s cheated death and Buffy’s alive and he just wants…
But the floor tilts crazily then rushes up to meet him.
After a stunned moment, he groans. Fuck, that hurt.
His head is forced gently up, something soft pushed underneath.
“I warned you, dumbass.”
“Dumbass?” he protests weakly, eyes closed against the onrush of fresh pain. “Big Bad here, girl, show a little respect.”
“Yeah, real bad, toga man.” She snorts, though there’s something in her tone he can’t parse. Fingers thread through his hair, a sensation he hasn’t felt since Drusilla left him.
“Little tremble wouldn’t hurt,” he grinds out, confused, aching, and then able to do nothing but breathe.
Chapter Index | Next
Pairing(s): Buffy/Spike, (Anya/Xander, Willow/Tara)
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~1,200 this chapter (~6,200 total)
Timeline: AU S5, S6, S7 and post-series
Warnings: character death, violence and gore
Summary: As a child, I used to dream of a man in black and white, spinning in the desert like a dervish, sword flashing in the moonlight as he danced with death. (A sequel/companion to Angearia's Fin Amour)
Notes: Many thanks to Yavannie82 and Angearia for beta work, ETA: and big thanks to Bewildered for the thorough retrospective <3
3
First Breath
Spike’s confused. The last thing he remembers is the desert, Glory, pain as big as the world… now he’s lying on his back looking up at a young woman’s face against a backdrop of blurry white.
“Am I dead?” he croaks, voice no more than a whisper. Everything hurts, but the defeat is what’s crushing him, a boulder on his chest. Glory…
“That would make me an angel, huh?”
He blinks, slow and stupid. She’s kind of dazzlingly beautiful, but it’s got to be a joke. Poor taste at a time like this. No angels where he’s going, excepting the tall, brooding variety if he’s very unlucky.
“God.” He lets his eyes unfocus completely, quick shallow breaths helping him float over the agonies of the flesh. Nothing doing for the agonies of the heart, though. “Failed.”
“What’s that?”
“Buffy. Failed. Glory… found us.”
“Oh, Spike,” the woman murmurs, and maybe she was telling the truth after all because no one says his name like that, softly and with warmth. Heat on his shoulder sears him, but it’s nothing to her words. “You didn’t fail. Buffy’s alive, the baby too. They’re safe, because of you.”
He loses it then, and doesn’t care if she’s watching. A release like the crashing of waves. She’s good enough to retreat from his field of vision for a bit, at least, dimly aware of her presence nearby but not too close. Later - minutes, hours - once he’s too wrung out for anything beyond blinking wetly up at the white ceiling, he feels a gentle hand behind his head, something brought to his lips.
“Drink,” she says, and he does, and when he’s done the heat presses lightly on his forehead and he loses consciousness like exhaling.
*
Waking is easier the next time. He’s healing, bodily; spirit suffused with, not happiness, but grateful satisfaction. The one thing he could give Buffy that she would accept, he gave. He won. They won. She’s alive, and he died as he always thought he should, fists and fangs, blood and glory. It’s good. Better. Better than he expected, a good end.
She'll never be able to forget him now, tangled as he is with the little bit’s survival. There’s pride in that - banked, diaphanous warmth that settles over him like a silken death shroud. Except…
…well he can’t be anything but dead, and yet this isn’t quite what he’d expected.
He appears to be in some kind of field hospital, a large linen awning rippling like a sail overhead, medical supplies arranged neatly on stainless steel trolleys. He’s lying on a gurney or old-fashioned hospital bed, body bandaged with crisp white wrappings, so extensive he looks like a reject from The Mummy. For a moment he’s stabbed by the idea that Buffy got him out somehow, a sick, shining ache, but no, there’s grass beneath, lush and trampled, no sand in sight. Not in Kansas anymore. Not in SoCal. But, incredibly, not in hell either.
His not-angel is asleep at his bedside, curled up in a saggy armchair that is utterly incongruous with the rest of the scene. She’s childlike in repose, cheek resting on her hand, brow smooth. He spends some curious moments studying her: pale heart-shaped face, high cheekbones, pointy little chin, long chestnut hair that falls in a straight, shimmering sweep across her cheek, over her shoulder. She looks familiar somehow, though he can’t place her, like an oil painting he glanced at once in a gallery. He tries to inhale, but his nose must still be damaged because he can’t get a clear sense of her.
Can’t get a clear sense of anything.
Where the hell is he?
Like an answer, she awakens, a wracking yawn, long limbs uncurling. To Spike she looks to be in her early twenties, but there’s something a little gangly about her still, a reedy body yet to finish filling out into womanhood. Her smile, when their eyes meet, reminds him strangely of Joyce. And again, that breath-taking sense of beauty.
“How are you feeling?”
He blinks, tests himself. Tests the situation. “Hungry.”
Her reply is easy, eager. “One mug of blood, coming right up.” He squints at her.
Not so stupid as to start questioning before the nice warm blood is in his hands, though. Christ, it’s human, and fresh too.
“Ethically sourced,” his strange nurse says in response to Spike’s surprise. When he drinks it straight down, she has another one ready to press into his hands - hand. Spike’s right arm won’t work and he can’t quite remember why. All the while she watches him with something proprietorial in her gaze. But not the look of a predator, he senses, which is itself unnerving.
“Who are you?” he finally bursts, annoyed by the fleeting, sliding sense of recognition. “What is this place? Where am I? What the bloody hell do you want with me?”
She breaks out into a grin that he wants to find irritating, but somehow doesn’t. “A friend,” she starts, counting off on her fingers, “a pocket dimension, ditto, and to save your life. Um… unlife. Whatever.”
“Right.” Too busy reeling to be smooth. Too many questions branching off, like a chain reaction of weirdness, meltdown imminent. Start with the easy stuff. “You got a name, friend?”
“Dawn.”
From nowhere, a prickling warmth shivers up his spine. Dawn. The thing all good vampires fear. Beautiful, terrible.
“Well, Dawn, not that I’m not grateful and all,” he swings his legs slowly over the side of the bed, “but nothing a nice girl like you wants with a vampire all alone in the middle of… reality… so how about you just put me back where you found me and I’ll be on my merry way.”
“So long and thanks for all the blood, that what you’re saying?”
“Something like,” he mutters. Having slid to his feet, it’s now taking a whole lot of concentration not to deflate like a concertina to the floor.
Before he realises it, Dawn is at his side, one warm hand under his bandaged elbow, a look of wry amusement.
“You, ah, you want to put some clothes on first?” They both glance down at the white sheet clenched precariously around his waist in the same hand gripping the gurney rail, left hand doing double time for the useless right. “Not that I’m not loving the look, very Julius Caesar. You came, you saw, you’re gonna conk out unless you sit back down for a moment.”
He’d really, really like to disagree. He hates magic of all kinds and this is some powerful mojo going on here. Nothing good’s going to come of his staying. And somehow he’s cheated death and Buffy’s alive and he just wants…
But the floor tilts crazily then rushes up to meet him.
After a stunned moment, he groans. Fuck, that hurt.
His head is forced gently up, something soft pushed underneath.
“I warned you, dumbass.”
“Dumbass?” he protests weakly, eyes closed against the onrush of fresh pain. “Big Bad here, girl, show a little respect.”
“Yeah, real bad, toga man.” She snorts, though there’s something in her tone he can’t parse. Fingers thread through his hair, a sensation he hasn’t felt since Drusilla left him.
“Little tremble wouldn’t hurt,” he grinds out, confused, aching, and then able to do nothing but breathe.
Chapter Index | Next