Subject: [DarkSlash] Black Mercy Files 5: Fire, Eat My Soul (Buffy/Twin Peaks C/O) Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 06:24:30 -0000 From: "sycoraxil " Summary: Giles and Doug Mercer, his Watchers Institute whitewicca friend, are visiting a forested border town called Twin Peaks. In this place, there have been sightings of a long-vanished FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper. As Giles, Doug and John Constantine search the town for clues, they become aware of a growing, festering darkness that is eating the town's soul. Disclaimer: Giles is Joss Whedon and UPN's, David Lynch produced the original concept for Twin Peaks, as well as the surviving characters within this sequel to the series. John Constantine belongs to DC Vertigo Comics. Lawrence Hayes is taken from "Desperate Remedies," a New Zealand feature film. Doug Mercer is my own original character. ---- See these eyes so green I can stare for a thousand years Colder than the moon Well it's been so long And I've been putting out fire With gasoline See these eyes so red Red like jungle burning bright Those who feel me near Pull the blinds and change their minds It's been so long Still this pulsing night A plague I call a heartbeat Just be still with me Ya wouldn't believe what I've been thru You've been so long Well it's been so long And I've been putting out the fire with gasoline Putting out the fire With gasoline See these tears so blue An ageless heart that can never mend These tears can never dry A judgement made can never bend See these eyes so green I can stare for a thousand years Just be still with me You wouldn't believe what I've been thru Well, you've been so long It's been so long And I've been putting out fire with gasoline Putting out fire with gasoline Putting out fire Well, I've been putting out fire Well, it's been so long, so long, so long Yes, it's been so long, so long, so long I've been putting out fire I've been putting out fire Yeah, yeah, putting out fire I've been putting out fire Yeah, been putting out fire I've been putting out fire It's been so long It's been so long And I've been putting out fire David Bowie (C) "Putting Out Fire" [Theme from 'Cat People'] Let's Dance (1983) --- "Ms.Heyward? We need to talk." Doug sat on a log in the middle of a clearing, as the deceptively feminine and diminutive figure walked from the forest, as if she were a predatory animal who belonged to it. Her eyes were lemon yellow and she regarded him with caution and apprehension as her gameface rippled. "What the hell do you want with our town, mage? And where the hell were the likes of you ten years ago, when we needed your precious little Watchers Institute? Oh, that's right, your 'slayer' and her holy mission. Well, you can get out of here, now. This is our town, now." "Ours being...?" "Hello, Douglas. It's been a long time." From the woods came a second figure, and he was one whom Doug thought he would never see again. He was uncertain about how to respond, but the taller, muscular man held up his hand. Heyward scowled at this gesture of conciliation, but the taller man looked down at her and shook his head. She acquisced to him, but with visible reluctance. "What's it all about, Lazza?" Doug asked as the newcomer leant against the wood of a dilapidated pinetree, long since dead, like everything else in the immediate vicinity. The vampire in question was dressed in a dated-looking whalers outfit, which could pass for casual on a good day. He noted the stance of the whitewicca and shook his head: "Douglas. We were never enemies, not we ourselves. You know how I felt about what Spike did to you. And...Fraser did to me." Doug blinked, and looked away. Damn it. Why did Hayes always end up doing this to him- invoke feelings of brotherhood where none should exist? Because Larry/Lazza/Lawrence Hayes was dead right- Doug Mercer and he had something in common. Lawrence had been another victim of Spike's, albeit in the mists of the nineteenth century, as Doug had been, in the fading years of the twentieth. However, their lives had diverged. After Fraser, his associate, had violated Lawrence, Spike had turned the former vampire slayer's associate and destroyed what had given his life meaning until then- working alongside Dorothea Brookes, the legendary New Zealand slayer who had gone up against the Hellmouth that scarred the fabric of reality near the nineteenth- century settlement called Hope. "There's a difference, Lazza. I don't deny what that Fraser bastard did to you was wrong and evil. For one thing, Spike did the same to me. And I won't discount your own pain because you're a vampire. Rape is rape, and it is always, always wrong, no matter who it happens to. I'll ask again, mate. What the fuck are you doing in this town, and what's the story with young Donna there? Is she your childe?" "No, Douglas. Believe it or not, I came to rescue as many of the town's inhabitants as I could before this place went up in hellfire. And it's going to do that. You arrived too late, and I think you know that." Doug shook his head: "What, so I'm supposed to accept that Twin Peaks is going to be destroyed? That Shelley will never have the chance to continue to rebuild her life? That James is going to live a sterile, career- governed life without any more love in it? That Dale Cooper is going to continue to face the imprisonment of his soul inside the Black Lodge, while his doppelganger stalks and kills in this world? Bullshit, Laz. That is not what I'm about, that is never what I have been about, and you know that." Lawrence Hayes laughed: "You'll never change, will you, Dougie? Never, ever go quietly into the night." "Nope. Because I was faced with that option once upon a time, and I chose life instead, because of the love of good friends. Laz. If it is going to go up around us, I hope you're out of range, okay? Because even if you are a vamp, I'm not going to stake someone whose life is governed by his or her own version of the light." Hayes' eyes shone yellow, as the vamp smiled softly at him: "Goodbye, then, Dougie. I hope that we meet again, after this. And as far as young Heyward goes, yeah, it was Cooper. It was Cooper who did this to the woman his whiteself loved, who tortured Bobby Briggs out here in the woods, who is the unseen darkforce behind so much else. Keep your wards up." Then he was gone, and not for the first time, Doug hoped that the gentleman vamp would find the peace that he deserved. He walked back toward the town, then stopped. "Johnno." "Hayes was obliging, wasn't he?" "We Kiwis stick together. Spirit is thicker than blood." "Dougie, I know what you're going to try to do. Don't." "And what the fuck am I supposed to do, Johnno? Eh? You heard Hayes, this place is going to blow if someone doesn't stop Cooper's darkside twin laying waste to the town's inhabitants. And with all due respect, mate, it's going to be me who goes to the Dark Lodge and confronts this." "Dougie. Mate, don't throw your life away this way. What if you don't come back? And don't you dare give me that bullshit about not having anyone on this side of the veil, either. That's crap. Look at you. You're only just twenty, man. I know you give it all for your friends, but there are people out there who'll mourn you if you ever do fall in the line of duty. Because it would be such a bloody, tragic waste, before you ever got the chance to really live, the way you deserve." "We all carry that risk with us, Johnno." "Just be careful, mate. You've got so much more to give..." At a semideserted bar, a bleary-eyed figure stumbled from his barseat into a darkened street and flickering street lights. Once, Harry had been a cop, and had prided himself on his dedication to duty. But then he'd met another man's wife, and she had claimed him. And then, one tragic day, his delicate flower had died, and Harry lost the will to live. Oh, Coop and Hawk had been there for him, but then Coop disappeared too, and then all those other deaths started. As he made for his own house through the rapidly falling pall of night, Harry was unaware that something was stalking him. Then, as he cut through a deserted alleyway, there was a familiar outline, and then, a familiar face. Harry's mind registered the semblance of an old friend and his eyes misted as he ran forward, stumbling toward his vanished blood brother of all these years. But then, Dale Cooper's distorted simulacra shone with black fire and it erupted outward, coursing across Harry's body, incinerating him alive in a manner of seconds, until only a charred and blackened skeleton lay on the alleyway. In his bed, Giles jerked awake and ran his hands through his hair. He gasped to himself as he poured himself a whiskey and looked out into the night, as he heard a knock on the door: "Ripper?" "Doug? What is it?" "Hawk just got off the phone with me. There's been another occult killing. Harry. Mate, I won't live like this. I won't let the darkness here claim the people of this town. I'm going to use all the warding I can, and I'm going into the Black Lodge. One way or the other, it ends soon." To Be Continued