ethrosdemon ||| Buffy & Angel

Oubliette
by ethrosdemon HRH

EMAIL: naturallycalm@yahoo.com
Distribution: You don't want it
Disclaimer: Joss made it up, too bad he is an incompetent ninny. Mutant Enemy and others own the rights. No suing please.
Rating: PG-13 naughty words
Pairing: X/S sorta
Dedication: To Lar who wanted a fic from me, and who is so wonderfully and snugly all the time.
Note: If the meaning to this is not clear, I will post an explanation. It came from me bouncing ideas off of Lar for plots. The one I settled on was: "Someone is dreaming about a past life."
Note II: The title means a place where you are trapped with no escape (literally a dungeon that only opens at the top).
Spoilers: Through the Season 2/5 crossover.

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Dreaming is like falling into a chasm that you know has no bottom, life becomes falling falling falling, occasionally being wafted by drafts or currents. No control. Never any control.

"Why must you always behave so in front of the guests?" Rustle of starched petticoats, lavender notes drifting to echo the voice. Mama. No face. Can't bring it back, just the voice, and the scent. Wishes and maybes.

Caught with thistles of memory here. Thorns twining in my hair, pulling blood to the surface of my skin. The fall keeps bringing me to this suspended place; so much further to drop, but this is where the pain dwells.

Need and wrath smouldering through my breast, fed to surfeit on the tears that roll down my throat. The cause isn't caught here with me, just the children it spawned. It spiralled away when the flowers were still fresh and world so much brighter, and darker too. The light to stun the eyes, the dark to swallow me up.

Tamp down the tendril of baser thoughts that seek me out when the falling breaks off. Want, need, must have Mama's face. Any face. Not the swell of a cream and berry breast covered discretely by muslin and an apron. Not the lingering curve of a calf encased in black wool stocking. Not the tears ruining newly scribbled ink.

"Xa…"

Late afternoon light setting dust motes to a jig, filling the room with sepia, dappled glory. Icy finger to the belly in the midst of the enveloping glow. Dust to Dust.

"Xander."

Whoosh. The cord breaks, and I tumble up and up and up. Sitting straight up in bed, sweat pooling off my body in the super icky way it always does when I dream this hard.

Spike guppy mouthed, standing over me, clenching and unclenching his fists like a maniac—oh, wait, he is a maniac.

Turns his face away from me to look at something not very interesting on the floor. Still way too disoriented to start the 3rd degree over how he got in here or why. Aren't averted eyes a sign of submission?

"Xander, what were you dreaming of?" Is that a tone other than cocky or pissed off?

"What the fuck do you care?" It's way too hard to struggle. The heavy limb half-coma is setting in, and I just want him to leave me the hell alone to be a mindless in peace.

"You were talking, you know, in your sleep. It was…odd." This must be another dream. I can't remember the other part ending, and they just bled together. Spike doesn't talk to me like I'm some kind of wild animal. And I never just try to go back to sleep when Spike has apparently broken into my apartment while I'm asleep.

Collapse back onto the sodden sheets and hope this dream will transition into a wild sex orgy involving, but not limited to, the cast of Charmed.

Creak of leather sleeve on leather-clad side. The bed gives way under his weight. Dramatic sighs. Flint strike and flame I can see through closed lids. He's here for the long haul. Just best to ignore him. Learned to do it when I was in the basement. He likes to watch people sleep. Grade A freak.

"When you were talking in your sleep, this time, other times, your voice altered...do you speak French, Xander?" Burning iron to complete freeze of panic. I thought I quit talking in my sleep years ago. No one has mentioned it since we were 8, and Willow woke me up in a blind panic.

"When did you hear it before? And why didn't you tell me or taunt me mercilessly?" My eyes are still closed, but I know he's facing away from me, flicking ash onto my carpet.

"Didn't want you to make me sleep at Giles'." Shifting, putting the cigarette out with the index and thumb of his right hand, pocketing the butt. "I wanted to hear it. I miss the cadence. It's always on Thursdays."

Too tired to even care. This is your life, Xander Harris. What's he talking about cadence? I can't move to throw him out anyway. My brain's shut my body off in preparation for full hibernation.

Feel the bed rise and fall back and then nothing….falling again.

"Mama. Why are you doing this?" Hoof beats. Snow crunching. Chill draft on the back of my neck.

"For your own good. For the family's, child." Black shawl covered shoulders retreating down the hall, always too far away. Run run, never catch up. Ash to ash.

"Mama, I love her." Birch rod and leather strap. Translucent hairs over purpling flesh. Nocturne drifting to me, to someone.

***********

You'd thing the bloody git would do a disinvite spell. Probably doesn't even remember saying: "come over whenever you want guys", with me sitting right the hell next to the cooing witches. Not the brightest bulb in the pack is our Alexander.

Asleep again. Chasing his ghosts around in his head.

Revenge is as sweet as molasses. But not always. Rarely for me, here where all the strands of my life wrap around themselves into a knot so tight I can't find one end or the other. Satan curse this fucking place!

I should have just run out the bleeding door when I realised. That first night I sat there tied to the Barkalounger and listened to his sleep-voice shift and take on the aristocratic accent. Clipped vowels and phrases only heard now in period pieces.

Should've run. But I can't. As weak as I ever was.

Besides, when he's asleep, he can't knock my hand away when I brush the sopping hair from his forehead. Can't hear me when I whisper to him.

"I forgive you, Cecily."



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