Subject: [DarkSlash] Black Mercy Files: Fire, Eat My Soul 2 (Buffy/Twin Peaks/Hellblazer CO: NC-17)
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 07:05:08 -0000
From: "sycoraxil <sycoraxil@yahoo.co.nz>" <sycoraxil@yahoo.co.nz>


Summary: It is one year before Warren Meers shot and killed Xander
Harris and then murdered Rupert Giles in the "Not Seeing Red" AU.
Rupert Giles and Doug Mercer, his gay whitewicca friend, have been
sent to investigate sightings of Dale Cooper, a long-lost FBI Special
Agent in a town five klicks or so from the Canadian border. You may
have heard of this forest-shrouded community. It's called Twin Peaks.

Disclaimers: Rupert Giles belongs to Joss Whedon, John Constantine is
a DC Vertigo Comics character, and Doug Mercer is my own creation,
while James Hurley, Hawk and Shelley Johnson, and the town of Twin
Peaks, belong to David Lynch. This work is intended as nonprofit
fanfiction.


As they drove through the oppressive darkened town, Doug closed his
eyes and shuddered. Giles looked over at his friend and said:
"What are you getting?"
"It's as if the Shadow of Death was in a holding pattern over this
damned place, Ripper, and I do not use the term damned in a
metaphorical manner. It's like something you get...from an old
Hellmouth?"
Giles nodded:
"You're right. It is one of those, but it closed in the early
nineties."
"Yeah, but we've read Cooper's case files before his mysterious
disappearance a decade ago. He was goin' to investigate a Native
American magickal portal called the Black Lodge. I've done some
reading about it, and happily, one of our contacts is a Native
American."
"It's just as well you're a New Zealander."
"Yeah, for sure. We have a healthy respect for Indigenous Magicks
and Old Religion back where I come from. But these others...Hurley,
Johnson, Truman. I get darkness from each and every one of them. It's
as if something is deliberately blocking out my psychometric
abilities in each case."
"After we establish the necessary protocols with Sheriff Hawk, you
investigate our other leads..."

As they entered the diner, Doug and Giles caught sight of an elegant
woman in her late thirties, who strode over to meet them both:
"Gentleman. What would it be?"
"Mrs. Johnson, I wish this was a courtesy call, but it's not. We're
investigating the disappearance of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper in
this area ten years ago. Our leads told us that you might be able to
help us out..."
Shelley Johnson seemed taken aback, but regained her composure as she
sat down. She looked them both in the eye, hard. Doug knew that look,
and knew it meant this woman had survived something dark in her life.
He knew because he had been through a similar sort of hell, and
realised that could be used to get through to her.
"Some stones are better left unturned." Shelley said, at length.
"Yeah, but some secrets rot you inside until they threaten to eat
your soul." Doug said, as she shivered.
"What would you know about that, mister?" Shelley challenged the
younger man, who maintained his own hard but malleable stare back at
her.
"I suspect I know as much as you do, Ms.Johnson. Even if not in the
same way." Doug left it at that, as Shelley blinked and realised that
the younger man had been to a place like she had braved, nearly ten
years ago. She did want to find out more about the two strangers,
this older man and the strange, intense, but also compassionate
younger man whose own eyes contained a world of pain inside them.

As they left the diner, Doug let a single tear roll down his eye:
"I got a really strong empathic link inside there, Ripper."
"What exactly was it?"
"I looked into her eyes and she looked into mine, and I think we both
instinctively realised that she and I had been through hell in our
lives. We both know that it's different kinds of hell, but..."
"Can you pursue this?"
"Fuck it, though, Giles. How many secrets does this damned place
have?"

As he locked up his office, James Hurley saw the two men walk toward
him. For an aching, bitter moment, he thought it had been his beloved
Donna Heyward. But that was impossible. And only he knew why, and the
fire inside him hurt like he was screaming and crying out in the
worst flames of hell. It had done that ever since he returned from
university to set up his legal practice there, and had tried to make
things right. But Twin Peaks would never let him do that, no matter
how hard he tried. He wouldn't descend into drink, not like Harry had
done. But then Harry had lost Josie forever and he understood what
had driven their sheriff over the edge and led to his fall from
grace, sacking and shadow status.

James kept to himself a lot. He'd wondered about some of the choices
he'd made, he and some of the other people around him. Why had he
left? While he had been gone, Donna Heyward had been torn apart by
evil and had been ripped away from the familiar world that they had
shared with one another, forever. She was still walking the streets
and stalking the forests of this town, but she was lost now. She had
become lost and he could never get her back, not unless he became as
she was.

"Mr.Hurley. My name is Rupert Giles and this is Douglas Mercer, my
colleague. We come from the Watchers Institute, an international
investigative agency."

James held his hand up:
"It's all right, Mr.Giles. I know what sort of investigations your
agency handles, I've read about your casework as Buffy Summers'
Watcher. I've heard about Mr.Mercer and his rep, too. I guess I'm
surprised to see you both here, that's all."
Doug nodded:
"Giles here and I reckon this place has too many secrets, mate. We're
here about the Cooper case."
James turned from the two men and said shakily:
"What is there left to tell? Dale Cooper left this town, he never
came back. At least, not in the form that anyone else wanted to know
about. We have too many secrets in this town, Mr.Mercer. They're
eating us alive. Literally."
"Mr.Hurley, we know that you were involved in helping to clear up the
Laura Palmer murder investigations. Special Agent Cooper was a friend
at the time. We need to know what else has happened to this place in
the meantime."
James looked back at the other two men, suddenly haunted:
"What do you want to know? Christ. It's so damned good just to let
your soul fly free and away from this miasma..."
Interesting choice of words, Doug reflected, and appropriate.

The stories were not happy ones. Shelley Johnson had been a battered
woman, and the violent party had been Leo, her alcoholic trucker
spouse, until Shelley had become involved with Bobby Briggs, a
troubled football player. Leo had died under mysterious circumstances
after a paralysing accident, and no-one had asked any significant
questions. Bobby hadn't lived well and healthy after that, though.
One night, something had happened to him in the dark woods that
surrounded the town. He returned, naked, bloody and covered in
wounds, and had been held in a psychiatric institution ever since.

Donna Heyward. Giles noticed how difficult that this story was for
the young man to tell, and, not for the first time, he thought about
his beloved Janna, and brushed back a tear from his own eye at the
pain in James' voice. Briggs had been a bastard, but he had done well
for Shelley after her husband's death. But Donna was a good, kind if
edgy young woman, and she had a bond with James. Until, one night,
her family's car went off the road, at the time when he'd fled the
town, trying to find himself. Well, James had found himself, proved
himself, and come back changed, but the price was far too much. He
didn't seem surprised when Doug Mercer said softly:
"Mate, is Ms.Hayward a vampire now?"
James closed his eyes and let out a strangled sob:
"Yes. Yes, some predatory undead bastard killed her family to get at
her and then it turned her and destroyed the Donna who I'd known and
loved. And I didn't know and I couldn't do anything about it until it
was much, much too late."
Giles said:
"Look, there are...ensoulment spells. We can bring her back to you."

James shook his head:
"Don't those Kalderash spells come with a price tag? Sure, vamps get
their humanity back, but she would be unable to love me. God help me,
I don't know if I can love her anymore, not after what she's become
now. And she became what she did because I wasn't there to catch her,
and her life went out of control. Like everyone elses does in this
damned place..."
Doug felt the weight of the other man's soul and as ever, felt cold
in comparison. James had obviously loved Donna Heyward, and to an
extent, still did. When would he ever be able to open up and share
that much of his life with someone? When would he be able to trust
himself enough to take risks?
As they walked back, Giles laid a hand on the younger man's shoulder:
"I can read you like a book, Doug. And do you want to know something,
my young friend? It's not true. You are not that cold, nor that hard,
nor unloving at all. Do you know why I called you in to deal with
this place? Because you're the only one I know who's been in the
worst kind of hell, and come back."
"Not completely, Ripper." Doug said quietly, and looked back at James
Hurleys darkened law office. Even if he'd never have had to deal with
the loss of the person whom he'd loved and held onto at a time when
the world around them fell apart, he envied James Hurley for at least
being strong enough to love someone, once in his life. For Doug, that
time had never come. Five years ago, Spike had ripped his way into
Doug's existence as a Wellington street hustler, and the predator had
taken his prey to hell, where the whitewiccan had spent five days of
horrendous agony that would have driven a lesser woman or man insane.

Giles wished he could do something to take away the void in his
proteges soul. Doug was a brilliant, compassionate and gifted white
wicca, but he lived for his job and responsibilities, and there was
nothing else in his life apart from that. Perhaps that was why Doug
was the only one who could help him to breach the darkness inside
this infernal town. For his part, Doug noticed the older man's look
of compassion and understanding and wished that Giles had been able
to find a woman that he could fight alongside and care for, and share
his life as they fought the darkness together.

As the two friends entered their hotel, they spotted a familiar
scruffy figure in creased trousers, a cig in the corner of his mouth,
tousled blond hair, and a trenchcoat. Doug grinned:
"Here's trouble."
"Not really. At least Constantine's on our side, roughly."
"Yeah, he is a right rough bastard, inne? Yo! Johnno, matey!
Over 'ere!" Constantine looked up and laughed. Even if Giles and he
had had a difficult history, he was fond of young Mercer there. He'd
met him in Vienna when their paths collided a few years back, for the
first time, and was hellish impressed at his level of discipline and
commitment and risktaking if it meant saving the lives of innocents
and people he cared for. Young Mercer might keep his head on his job,
but there was no denying that the young bloke had a big heart, even
if there was no-one around to share it with. Not for the first time,
he thought about Captain Peroxide and vowed to carve different sorts
of sigils onto the pasty bastard's hide if he ever got inside the
vicinity again. Then he thought about Nikki, and his eyes blinked,
and he remembered that he had his own history with that particular
vamp. He still remembered that evening, several years back, when he
hammered on the doors of that subway train while she went off to face
the bastard.

He didn't want to remember how she'd looked when Giles, Alessandra
Norton and he had finally found her the next morning. He had a soft
spot for Dougie. Hell, working-class mages weren't all that common
enough and that was why he knew where this bloke was coming from. He
was damned good at his job, yet he would never let his power go to
his head. Even if Giles had turned into this bloody stuffed shirt
these days, Dougie was like he had been, back when John and he had
crossed paths for the first time. And not for the first time, he
wished his young mate there would meet a life's companion of his own.

"How are you, you old bastard!" Doug said as the two men hugged.
"'Ere, enough of that, you whelp. Ripper, you tell 'im, we two aren't
old, we're...pleasantly weathered."
"Now John, why would I do that? We're the same age, you haven't got a
single grey hair at all yet, and I hate you for that."
"So what brings you to Twin Peaks, Johnno?"

John Constantine looked out at the gathering night:
"Same thing that brings you, Dougie, Ripper. I want to stop someone
igniting the Apocalypse with the poisons that this place carries
within its soul." Doug shivered at Constantine's assessment of this
town, but he knew that his old mate had been spot on when he'd summed
it up. Yeah. Yeah, this place was a way station on the road to Hell,
and not for the first time, he wondered who he'd find on the road
down there. At that moment, Ethan Rayne walked through the door, into
the hotel restaurant.

To Be Continued