The
Writing on the Wall
Author: Holly (holly.hangingavarice@gmail.com)
Rating: NC-17 (For language, violent imagery, disturbing content, and
sexual situations)
Timeline: Post-The Gift, AU.
Summary: There was no body to bury. There was no funeral. There was
nothing but the three rules and the knowledge that a thousand years of
torment was nothing compared to a world without her in it. Spike
embarks on a journey through the Gates of Hell to rescue the one he
loves, but in order to save her, he must risk losing himself.
Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of Joss Whedon and
Mutant Enemy. They are being used out of respect and affection, and not
for the sake of profit. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: I’ve had a rough couple days, but I thought I’d end the
weekend with a new chapter. Again, I am so incredibly thankful to
everyone who is reading, sticking with me through the rougher chapters,
and leaving reviews which fuel the muse. You guys do so much for me
without realizing it, and I can’t thank you enough.
Likewise, thanks to my betas for their hard work and insight. You
ladies are wonderful.
Chapter Six
It would be a night funeral. The others wouldn’t like it—it would
invite any manner of creatures and alert the demon underworld the truth
of what had occurred. The truth her friends kept protected. Buffy was
gone. She was gone, and the world couldn’t know. The world couldn’t
know the Hellmouth was unprotected. The world couldn’t know its
champion was in the ground. Not with the other slayer serving
twenty-five-to-life in a cell somewhere in Los Angeles county, and the
Scoobies were clueless whether or not Buffy’s death would trigger
another girl’s destiny. In the laws of the universe, she hadn’t been
the active Slayer when she jumped; her brief foray into death years ago
had stripped her of the formal title. And yet, despite everything, hers
was the name demons feared. No other slayer could wish to compare. She
was a legend. Buffy was a legend, and the world couldn’t know she was
gone.
For that reason, a night funeral was dangerous. Night funerals
attracted attention, and Buffy’s friends were nearly as recognizable as
the Slayer herself. If word got out that Buffy was gone, the Hellmouth
would become a bona fide war zone, the likes of which the Scoobies
couldn’t picture in their worst nightmares.
It was dangerous but necessary. If Spike couldn’t attend, there was no
telling what he might do with himself. If he couldn’t look at her one
more time. If he couldn’t say his goodbyes. His body was crippled with
starvation, his eyes hollow from sobbing and his throat choked with the
tears he couldn’t cry. He’d cried himself dry. He couldn’t cry
anymore.
Gone. Gone. She was gone.
No, no, no…
“Buffy wanted you to have this…”
Spike didn’t know to whom the voice belonged. He didn’t even know where
he was. The room was shapeless, the faces around him blurred and
unfamiliar. Buffy wanted him to have something? It didn’t seem right.
None of this seemed right.
“Who’s there?” he asked. He barely recognized his own voice. “Willow?”
Something heavy sank into his hand. Something soft and wet. Something
cold. A high shriek deafened his ears, every cell in his body freezing
in horror. He couldn’t see it. Couldn’t smell it. Couldn’t do anything
but hold. However, blind as he was, there was no questioning the tender
weight cradled in his palm. He knew exactly what it was. He’d held too
many to mistake it for anything else.
“You did your best,” the voice said. “No one blames
you.”
Panic speared his insides. No. No. None of this was right. This
wasn’t where he was supposed to be. This wasn’t where he was supposed
to be at all.
This was a place of death and loss, where Buffy was being laid into the
ground. But it wasn’t right. There wasn’t supposed to be a funeral.
There couldn’t be a funeral. She wasn’t dead. Her body was
missing but she wasn’t dead. And he wasn’t near anything resembling
normality.
Spike’s fingers tightened around the Slayer’s heart as his own
shattered again. No. This wasn’t how it happened.
He hadn’t had the chance.
“‘m not supposed to be here!” he screamed. “This isn’t right! This
isn’t fucking right! I’m gettin’ there. She needs me!”
“You did your best,” the voice said again. “All is well.”
“No, all is not sodding well,” Spike snarled, throwing the heart to the
ground and willing himself not to wince at the splattering echo.
“That’s not hers. You’re not here. I’m not here. She’s—”
“Gone.”
“Gone,” he agreed harshly. “Not dead. I’m getting her back.”
“You tried.”
The voice faded, rolling into a faint, haunting melody which grew more
and more distant with each syllable. It calmed to a hush before
ultimately falling into a void he could not follow. The ground beneath
his feet began to tremble, throwing him off balance as the disfigured
world around him descended into a spiraling pool of darkness. It
couldn’t be real. It couldn’t. He hadn’t been given a chance.
They hadn’t let him try. Try, try, try…
It couldn’t be real.
And it wasn’t. Spike slowly became aware of several things. The cold,
jagged stone against his back. The pounding throb hammering his head.
Every stretch of his body was sore, tiny pinpricks stinging the heels
of his palms where the rope had burned harsh lines into his skin.
Everything was fuzzy and distorted.
He had no idea what happened or how much time had passed. The last
thing he remembered was nothing overly remarkable—nothing that would
naturally lead to waking up on the cold cave floor with a bastard of a
headache and a stomach twisted with knots, haunted by false memories
and fears of things that would never come to pass.
There wouldn’t be a burial. So long as Spike survived, there wouldn’t
be a burial. He’d fight to free her with his last drop of energy, with
the last ounce of strength in his body. He didn’t care what it cost.
What he had to sacrifice was immaterial. All that mattered was Buffy.
“Bloody hell,” he groaned, sitting up with a grimace.
“You’re telling me.”
Spike sighed, glancing over his shoulder. “Mind telling me what
happened?”
Larry shrugged casually from where he stood cross-armed, leaning
against a small alcove. “Not uncommon,” he replied. “Everyone passes
out after they get to Hell.”
“‘m not a person,” the vampire retorted. “Is there a reason?”
“Well, it is Hell. We do get some bad press.”
“Not sure if you noticed, mate, but I’m not your typical tourist.”
Larry blinked. At least it looked like a blink. Difficult to tell when
the demon didn’t possess conventional eyelids. “And I suppose that
matters?” he drawled dryly. “Hell is Hell, no matter how you flip it.”
“Hell looks a bloody lot like a bat cave.”
“And I say again, it doesn’t matter. The journey’s greater than the
destination. You got here and you knew what it was, even if the entry
hall doesn’t look how you pictured it. Cheer up, man. It happens to
everyone.” Larry offered another shrug. “Are you ready for the first
trial?”
“Guess I better be, right?”
“You’re always free to turn around and walk away. No one would blame
you, certainly.”
Spike’s eyes darkened, his mind dragging him back to the world he’d
seen in his dreams, the one where Buffy’s home was in the ground. His
heart twisted and filled with renewed determination. “Sorry to send you
back to the filing room,” he replied snidely. “But what’s another few
millennia when you’re in Hell, right?”
Larry smirked unpleasantly. “You’d be surprised.”
“Somethin’ tells me I wouldn’t.” The vampire sighed and shook his head,
rubbing the back of his neck to worry out the kinks. He wasn’t a bloke
of refined tastes, but there was a great difference between sleeping on
a sarcophagus and sleeping on a stony floor. Didn’t much help matters
that he’d grown accustomed to a soft cushy mattress over the past few
months. “Right then,” he said with a nod. “Let’s get going.”
“There’s no shame in quitting,” Larry assured him. “Not many have
gotten even this far. The thought of the unknown scares them away. You—”
“Don’ scare.”
“Don’t scare, as I think we’ve established into overkill.”
“An’ you’re looking more an’ more like a git who’s worried about
keeping his job,” Spike retorted. “Figure you finally looked me up in
your books, is that it? Found out I’m also not the sort to leave the
woman I love in her own sodding nightmares when I know I have the power
to get her back.”
Larry’s huge, greasy shoulders heaved upward. “I’m not too concerned,”
he said. “Yeah, you’re nuts about this girl, but the trials turn men
into mice, and mice into cheese, if you get my drift. And they get
harder the further you go.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Of course they do. Isn’t leveling up the idea?”
“I just don’t think you understand how difficult it will be.”
The vampire’s jaw tightened. “I think you better shut your gob before I
rip out your tongue an’ shove it down your throat.”
“Someone’s touchy.”
“You’re tellin’ me I don’t get how impossible it’s gonna be to take the
Slayer
out of Hell?” Spike took a step forward, eyes blaring dangerously. “The
girl jumped off a tower to save the world an’ fell into a world where
her worst fears are her reality. An’ yeah, she’s the enemy. She has a
stake up her arse the size of a giant sodding redwood. I don’t care. I
love her, an’ I’m not going back unless she’s with me.”
A still beat settled between them. Larry favored him with a long,
appraising look. “Good to get that off your chest, big guy?”
“Gotta get it through your thick skull somehow. You keep saying it won’
happen.”
“Well, give me some credit,” the demon replied. “I did
tell you I wasn’t going to make things easy for you. It’s my job to
make sure she doesn’t budge. I gotta give you a fighting chance, sure,
but I’m not going to be idle about it. And yeah, I get that you love
her.”
Spike’s nostrils flared. “Don’ say it like that. Like it’s nothing.”
“Never said it was nothing.”
“You sodding—”
Larry held up a claw. “Gonna stop you there. First: I’m not easy to
offend. I mean, look at me.” He stretched his scaly, log-sized arms.
“Do you imagine there’s anything I haven’t heard? Secondly: I know
you’re serious. Anyone stupid enough to climb into Hell has to be
serious…or insane, but you were never the nutty vamp, so I’ll take
what’s behind Door Number One. In the end, I guess I’m just jaded. I’ve
seen too many people swear their undying love for their honeys. Give
them ten minutes in a trial and they’re swearing there’s nothing they wouldn’t
do to get back home, no matter the cost.”
The explanation did little to smother Spike’s outrage, yet there was
little to be gained by screaming at the top of his nonbreathing lungs.
If anything it would prove the git was worming his way into the
vampire’s subconscious, burying a seed of doubt where doubt should not
exist. Larry’s prophesies aside, Spike remained steadfast, though there
was no denying the fear that he would fail. The fear that he would
collapse and die along the way. That he wouldn’t be strong enough to
withstand whatever it was the guardian wanted to throw at him.
His own strength worried him. While he vowed to give every ounce he had
to get to Buffy, he worried he wouldn’t have enough.
That was where his fears ended. The other possibility failed to
resonate. The one featuring him crying uncle and returning to the world
without Buffy. Returning a failure. They could shove a stake through
his chest and he wouldn’t beg for mercy. They could toss him into the
sun and he wouldn’t cover his eyes. They could ask him to bathe in holy
water and he wouldn’t flinch. There was nothing he wouldn’t endure.
There was no price too high.
But he couldn’t allow himself to lose his temper again. He couldn’t let
Larry see his weakness, even if it was glaringly obvious. “You’re not
my favorite person right now,” he ground out, hands curling into fists.
A gross understatement of laughable proportions, but he had nothing
else to offer.
He needed to maintain focus.
“I’ll have to blog my despair,” Larry retorted, rolling his crimson
eyes. Sarcasm, however, seemed misplaced for the demon, whose otherwise
cheery disposition couldn’t manage an acidic tone. “All right then, Big
Guy. If you’ll follow me, we’ll get you started with the first trial.
And whoo boy, is it a doozy!”
Spike inhaled sharply and forced a nod. “Can’t hardly wait.”
*~*~*
At first glance, there was nothing to the trial. Nothing at all. No
tangible objective and no way of meeting
the objective; nothing but a starting point and an imaginary finish
line. After leading Spike through several narrow tunnels, Larry had
stopped so abruptly the vampire nearly collided with his foul-smelling
back. The arrival had been anticlimactic but the aftermath was just
puzzling. What sat before him was not a trial at all. He didn’t know
what it was.
Well, not entirely. What it was seemed rather self-explanatory.
But he had no idea how to proceed.
No idea whatsoever.
The channel broke into a larger crevice, the stone floor stretching a
good ten feet or so before falling into a pool of black water. The
spread between the walls stood at approximately four meters, stretching
just far enough to make the tunnel-inspired claustrophobia ease while
still emphasizing the fact that Spike was far from home. At the end of
the pool was a wall carved from cave rock. There was no opening. No
ostensible goal. The pathway simply ended.
“Shouldn’t have taken that right at Albuquerque,” the vampire muttered,
rubbing his jaw.
“I always preferred Daffy Duck to Bugs Bunny,” Larry retorted. “I
thought he got a bad rap.”
“Fascinating,” Spike noted dryly. “You should write a book.”
“No need to get touchy, now.”
Ignoring him, the vampire waved at the pool. “What the bloody hell is
this?”
“It’s a body of water.”
“An’ it’s my trial?”
The demon nodded slowly. “Well…yes. I think it’s rather
self-explanatory.”
“Self-explanatory. You want me to take a bath?”
Larry snorted and shook his huge head. “No. We’re Hell. What do we care
about cleanliness? No, your goal is rather simple. This is the path
that takes you to Buffy. It’s about a half-mile long, give or take a
few feet. To get there, you just have to…well, get there. Starting
here.”
Spike’s eyes were fastened on the wall. “An’ getting across the pool is
the firs’ test.”
“That’s right.”
“Gotta say, mate, after you talked it up so much I’m a li’l
disappointed.”
Larry favored him with a skeptical glance. “Do you not see the
huge slab of stone?”
“Doesn’ worry me.”
That wasn’t entirely true, but there was definitely some level of
relief. After everything the demon had said, a dead-end swimming hole
seemed too good to be true. All he needed to do was get around the
barrier—then he was on his way. On closer inspection, it might be even
easier. Perhaps the wall wasn’t a wall at all, rather a door. Perhaps
there was a lever of some sort. The kind he saw in old noir films. The
secret book the on-screen dame pulled in the old crone’s library to get
to the manor’s hidden chambers. The trick-candle in a castle’s dungeon
that made walls spin around.
It didn’t seem right, but he wasn’t going to voice his misgivings.
“I did mention this is the only path to your slayer, didn’t I?”
the demon guide said. “It’s not like you can cut back and take a
short-cut.”
Spike shook his head, huffed out a deep breath, and took a step
forward. “See you on the other side, Larry.”
A closer inspection of the wall didn’t yield new results. There weren’t
any telling creases to indicate it doubled as a door and he saw clearly
that it stretched below the surface of the water. And while hopes of
immediate success faded accordingly, he refused to be put off. He now
had a rough idea of where he was. Of where Buffy was. Buffy was beyond
the wall. Buffy was waiting for him. In just a few short hours he could
be with her. He could see her face. Bask in her smile. Hold her if she
let him. Christ, he could be getting pummeled into the ground by the
woman he loved and he would revel in every second. He could be with her
and there was no greater prize than that.
Spike stepped up to the edge, peering into the black pool. “Jus’ water,
then?”
“Your plain ole H2O,” Larry agreed. “We don’t get much light down here.
Not that it would matter, right? As long as it gets you to Buffy.”
He nodded. “As long as it gets me to Buffy.”
“Okay, then. Feel free to proceed at any time. She ain’t getting any
less-tortured, you know.”
A dark shudder commanded the vampire’s body and before he could help
himself, a growl had tumbled through his lips. It was an intentional
ploy, but it worked nonetheless. Larry wanted him to rush. Wanted him
to get sloppy. Wanted to instill an unneeded sense of urgency to trip
him up and cost him the mission.
Buffy.
Spike shifted his weight from one foot to the other before kneeling
before the pool. He had to keep his thoughts with Buffy.
Buffy was the prize. She was the light.
And he would get to her.
Thus with a sigh, he dipped in a finger to test the water.
And immediately pulled back as his flesh started to sizzle.
“Bloody hell!” Spike barked, leaping to his feet and shaking off the
pain. He whirled around to the demon with a fierce snarl. “You stupid
git, might’ve bloody mentioned—”
Larry blinked innocently. “What?”
“Plain ole water?”
“Holy water is plain water. It just happens to be, y’know, holy.”
“This is Hell.”
“So you noticed.”
“Holy water—”
“Is nothing but water consecrated by some earthbound dress-wearing
putz,” Larry acquiesced. “And yet, it makes your skin burn. I honestly
thought you had this figured. What fun would it be if the water wasn’t
blessed?”
Spike snarled and waved at the dead-end. “I’ll bloody dissolve before I
even touch the sodding wall.”
“I’m here to help if you need anything.”
With a disgusted grunt, the vampire turned back to the pool and clamped
his jaw shut.
Don’t accept what you’re offered.
He was pretty certain advice fell under that guideline, which meant
there was nothing he could do. Nothing but sit and hope an answer bled
through the cracks of his broken psyche.
A sigh rattled his bones. Spike sank to the ground and settled on his
knees.
Might as well get comfortable. He was going to be here for a while.
TBC