ONE NORMAL LIFE / TWO EXTRAORDINARY LIVES

CHAPTER 203 – THIS ISN’T YOU

Over the years, Buffy had been on the receiving end of plenty of nightmares. Some could be classified as slayer-prophetic standards issue ones. Others could just be categorized as the strange workings of her brain's synapses doing the wacky. However, waking up (if one can call it that) inside of William's nightmare world as it played out before her in real time, was a genuine shock. One minute she'd been in bed with William, the next she found herself chained to a wall here. From what she could make out in the dim light cast by a solitary lantern, here appeared to be an old wooden shed.

Buffy struggled with the chains, but it was useless. So was calling out, apparently. Although she wasn’t gagged, she found she couldn’t use her voice. Fighting off a sense of panic, Buffy took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

Though rusty from disuse, she recalled Giles’ teachings from years ago. Allowing her mind to slip into a state of meditation; she called upon her ancient slayer birthright to center herself, and to focus her will and her strength.

As though this reality around her had been cloaked, the curtain now lifted. At once she sensed them – vampires. Slowly, Buffy opened her eyes and what-- rather who-- she saw made her blood run cold.

“No! No way!” Buffy gasped in disbelief.

At hearing this, Drusilla smiled to herself. Everything was in place, and all the dollies had come to her tea party. It was show time. Moving aside, she allowed them to see each other.

Across the room their eyes met. That’s when Buffy felt true fear for the first time since she’d found herself in this untenable position; for him as much as herself.

Like a panther stalking its prey, he slowly and methodically made his way across the room towards her. Conversely, like a drunken sailor, Drusilla wove and danced in and out of his trajectory; whispering in his ear every time she neared him.

Slayer training took over, and Buffy struggled against her restraints. Above her was a large hook in the wall that the chains attached to her wrist were looped over. If she could only get some leverage, she just might get them to come up over the edge of the hook, freeing her. Scanning the area around her, she saw there was an old crate only a few feet away. She stretched out her leg and tried to grab it with her foot, but it was just out of reach.

Bad move.

With a feral growl, he rushed at her with vampiric speed, kicking the crate across the room. Before the splintered pieces had time to land, his cool hand was around her throat, as he viciously knocked her head back against the wall.

Buffy came to with a start, opening her eyes to the horror that she'd momentarily took her leave of. A few feet away from her stood Drusilla, whispering to William. Like some sort of grotesque step of the danse macabre, they turned to face her in tandem.

"Look my sweet, she's awake. I think she wants to play. Dollies always like to play," Drusilla said, giggling.

You’re not real!” Buffy choked out, her throat burning from the bile that had risen to it.

"Aren't I?”

"You're dead!"

"Am I? Then again, who here isn't? Or in your case, Dearie, will be soon. Very soon."

"It’s a trick; I saw you dust!"

“So I’ve been told."

The sounds of Drusilla's sudden, sharp peals of maniacal laughter rang out in the small shed, making Buffy shudder. Then, as abruptly as it had started, the laughter ceased.

"But don’t you know? You of all people must know..."

"Know what?" Buffy said through gritted teeth.

"We're hard to kill, little girl."

At the sickening, familiar phrase, the hairs on the back of Buffy's neck stood up in alarm. Still, she glared defiantly at her taunter; “Didn’t seem so hard to me."

“Yet, here I am; come back to my sweet William, come back just like my sweet William came back.”

“You’re nothing like William! He’s a hero who died saving the world. You’re just a skanky ho bag who..."

Buffy’s head snapped back from the force of his slap and she felt blood trickling from her mouth. In front of her, cold dead eyes looked at her with such burning hatred, that she couldn’t help hers from tearing up.

“Why…?” Buffy asked, through swollen lips.

For a split second, the question seemed to stump him as he glared at her. She saw a flicker of confusion playing across his features before his eyes glazed over again. However, in that slightest moment of hesitation, behind the empty eyes and dead emotions, the curtain had lifted and Buffy saw him. He was sill there.

Buffy wasn’t the only one who had sensed it.

“Taste her, kill her, make her pay for what she’s done to you,” Drusilla keened.

“This isn’t you, William. She’s doing something to…”

Blows rained down upon her, keeping time with Drusilla’s keening in the background. A particularly hard punch to the stomach knocked the air out of her lungs, and the only thing that kept her from slumping to the ground were the chains that held her up.

“This…isn’t…you,” she repeated, through pained breaths, earning her more of the same.

Buffy could feel herself struggling to stay conscious. She closed her eyes and once more tried to find her inner strength. As a slayer, she’d long ago accepted that her life would likely be a short one. She ought to know; she’d died twice. If she had to die, yet, another premature death, she would prefer it be at the very formidable hands of Spike, former-enemy-cum-beloved, rather than anybody else’s. What she absolutely could not, and would not, accept was her death under these terms of mystical confinement, and with William being controlled by something as strong as the chains that bound her.

“You’ve killed two other slayers, my William. Make her your third. Do it for me, please,” Drusilla begged. “Do it and you’ll finally be free to return to you are; who you were meant to be; strong and wicked, my bad, bad dog.”

An invisible signal seemed to pass between him and Drusilla as he turned to look at her. An eerie quiet fell over them. Then, with a nearly imperceptible nod, he turned his full attention back to Buffy.

This was it.

In a split second, he was upon her. His left hand fisted in her hair; cruelly he snapped her head back to give him better access to her neck.

She gasped in pain as she felt his fangs tear into her neck. With what remaining strength she had left, Buffy tugged and pulled at her chains. Then it happened; the hook creaked and turned sideways. Still, she couldn’t get enough slack in the chain in order to get it over the edge. The only way to do it was if she got some leverage. Somehow, she managed to grab hold of the next handful of links above her wrist, and with all her might she pulled herself up and wrapped her legs around his waist to boost herself upwards.

With a snarl, he pulled his teeth out of her neck. His yellow eyes looked her up and down, as his tongue snaked out to lick her blood from the corner of his mouth.

His arms came up under her thighs and he rammed his pelvis against her as hard as he could.

Buffy moaned in pain, as his thrusts hit her already tender stomach.

“Like this do you, slayer?” he asked, with a lecherous grin. “Always knew you had a bit of kink in you.”

This heartless mockery, this perversion of the intimacy they shared, hurt her more than his biting her did. Still, Buffy swallowed down her nausea as he continued to slam against her, as she looked for the advantage. Finally it came, and she got the leverage she needed to pull the chain holding her left arm off of the hook.

Victory was as short-lived, as his instincts were impeccable.

With preternatural speed, he released his hold on her thighs and grabbed hold of her wrist, slamming it back up against the wall; the chain dangling from it.

“Thought you had me fooled, eh luv? You forget who you’re dealing with,” he said, and with a growl, he once more sunk his fangs into her neck.

“That’s it my William, drink deeply of her,” Drusilla crooned into his ear. “You'll be back in the dark with me, singing our little songs. You've always liked them, right from the beginning. That’s where I’ll take you; back to the beginning.”

Buffy could feel her heartbeat slowing, as the life was being drained from her. With a last ditch effort, she dug her nails into his hand. Howling, he pulled his fangs out of her neck, and shoved his arm against her windpipe. Her fingers released his wrist, as she lost consciousness. Satisfied, he removed his arm from her windpipe, then interlocked his fingers with hers to prevent her from using her nails any further, before sinking his teeth into her throat once again. Barely conscious, Buffy whimpered softly.

Oddly enough, it was bone-crushing pressure being exerted on her fingers that brought her around to any coherent thought at all. With the last of her strength, she tightened her own fingers around his.

“It’s...not...you...”Buffy whispered.

Then, through the fog, Buffy suddenly felt the chill of death retreating. Starting with her hand, warmth radiated down her arm, suffusing her whole being with power and life, itself.

He felt it too.

Slowly, his head lifted from her neck, a dazed expression on his face. His eyes traveled upward to their hands, then back at her.

“Bu...” he stammered, his lip trembling and his eyes wide in shock.

In the background, Drusilla screamed in rage, then faded altogether.

Buffy stared into the eyes of the man she hadn’t seen for almost seven years.

“Spike?”

END CHAPTER 203