__Do Not Go Gentle__
By B'cat
...I am Jack’s smirking revenge...
~Fight Club
* * * * *
Despite all his talk Spike stepped gingerly over the splintered wood piled in the tomb doorway and
vamped out to cautiously sniff the air. Her. Right off that spice flooded his nostrils and his
lips peeled back. Slayer scent. Nothing more intoxicating, except maybe Slayer blood.... None of
that here though. Just Slayer sweat and adrenaline and the burning echo of something violent. He
inhaled again and grimaced. There was a tinge of magic there, a powerful spell that had singed
the air not long ago. There was something else as well: something dark in the undercurrents that
caressed his bumps and tickled the tips of his bared fangs. And not in a good way.
And it was fucking dark too. He blinked rapidly but it did no good, he was almost blind
and that was disturbing. Resonances of the inside of Willy’s industrial fridges tickled ice along
his spine and he shivered, and then shrugged his shoulders in irritation. Well, if those fucking
spooks were back they would find more than a happy snack this time around. William the Bloody had
a score to settle that no amount of fear was going to rob him of again.
Still it was extremely dark...
Spike turned back to the doorway and was relieved to see the bright stars were still where they
should be, burning like icy dew in their mantle. He held out a hand and took Dawn’s small one to
help her over the ruined doorway. She didn’t stumble, but skipped lightly across it to land softly
by his side. Had the Summers’ blood in there alright. Nimble and quick just like big sis.
“Its so dark in here.” Dawn’s voice was dull in the stone room.
“Had noticed that ‘Bit.” His own voice was not much better. Spike turned from the starlit sky
and back into the blackness. “Slayer’s not here though. Not anymore.”
“Maybe she’s gone back outside?”
“Nope.” He swept his nearly blind eyes around the room, just making out the faint smudge that was
the far wall. “She’s in here alright. Just not here.”
“Its stinks.” Dawn said. He felt her shiver through his leathers.
“Yeah.” He agreed. The sudden image of a rotting corpse heaving and slithering itself around the
room popped into his head. Mummies? Zombies? A leper that some fucking sick brother or sister
Turned for a joke? “Like something that should be long dead.” He mused out loud. The odour was
not the usual dead things stink though. He squinted. “Can’t see anything creeping about though.
Can’t hear anything, either.”
“You can see? In here?”
“‘Course.” He said confidently, only exaggerating a little, after all he could see well enough to
swat any beasties that came charging couldn’t he. He stepped deeper into the tomb and his living,
breathing shadow followed. “Its dark but its not that dark- Wait a minute.”
“What is it?”
“A door.” Yeah, that was where she, where they, had gone alright. He padded across the floor,
his boots a soft whisper against the dusty stone. Dawn clumped along behind him, pressed into his
coat.
As he moved, strange air currents swirled around Spike’s legs, his arms, his chest, his face.
Delicate and sharp, like slivers of glass, they stroked at his skin with unkind intent and left
tiny, transient lines of ice in their wakes. Curious. The little eddies flowed over his ears and
he listened intently to their whispers, but there was no sense to be made of them. It was just
wind, flowing out of the dark doorway ahead, on its way back out into the starlight.
Spike pushed Dawn further behind him as they came to the opening in the far wall, but no sounds
emerged from the blackness. Nothing tried to lunge out - it was quiet and still - which only
served to raise his hackles. He paused a moment to inhale again. And yes, once more, there they
were: the Watcher, pencil man, the oddly familiar fellow and the woman. Strange, strange woman.
Her scent, smothered in lavender and roses, was tainted with something he had never smelled before.
Its dull stain was an ugly squat bulging thing amidst the flower scent. More curious...
And the Slayer. She was there. She had been there. Her scent flooded his nostrils, his
lungs and penetrated into his guts and he felt himself fill up with her glow. What was she up to
down here? He would find out. He would get it out of her. And then he would have his way with
her. Oh yeah. The memory: lying there in the battle dust, eye to eye, and her all ablaze with
her want of him and terrified of that want, was so hot in his mouth he almost had to pant.
Revenge was going to be so so sweet.
Oh, he just had to find her.
“Come on.” He forced his thickened tongue to form the words and stepped into the gloom. Time
to hunt.
* * * * *
Running.
Feet like flint against the tinder dry floor, striking fast and hard.
“... Odisse...”
Running.
“... Slayer...”
Running.
“Dawn! DAWN!”
* * * * *
...Yon. Alexandra. Zina. Asako. Isabel. Nikita. Cassandra. Meiying. Ebba. Aishah.
Polly. Pania. Kaiya. Bethany. Babette. Kirsty. Zola. Kalska. Merpati. Katerina. Nikki.
Shawna. Peta. Buffy...
It was a soothing chant. A ritual that always calmed him; that never failed to harden his
resolve. Edward’s lips moved silently as he scurried through the darkness. Ahead of him, there
were the dim forms of his companions walking in a ragged line, one after the other, down the
slowly descending corridor.
The corridor, as far as Edward could tell, had been hewn straight out of the earth and the faint
scent of soil filled the air. The ceiling was low enough that Giles, the tallest of them all,
was forced to hunch his shoulders; and its breadth narrow enough that they could not comfortably
walk any other way but single file. It was a frightening confinement - one made all the more so
by his allocation to last place.
The strange breezy air smelled cold too, and made the tunnel feel chilly and windswept, but also
oddly smothered. He reached out a tentative finger and touched the wall. He let it trail over
the surface as he walked and the rough sandpaper texture chafed his skin and vibrated unpleasantly
through his flesh. He shivered and pulled his hand back.
When he had requested this assignment, standing stubbornly in Councillor Knightly’s plush office
and refusing to leave it, he had not really thought about the actuality of the mission. At the
time he had been utterly consumed with the idea of it. The very concept of taking his
place in the Council journals, of knowing that his name would be inscribed forever in parchment
and compact disc, had aborted any projections about what it may actually entail - particularly any
less than glorious possibilities. Then, once Councillor Knightly had yielded to his superior
brand of intractability and announced him, he had been too fevered in his preparations: reading
the mission profile, organizing his equipment and attending last minute physical skills classes.
The latter were usually the bane of his existence. He lacked the superior strength and
co-ordination of those whose destiny lay in the direction of Watcher, and he lacked any interest
to struggle against this deficiency. He could see no use in a future Council historian and
records keeper learning the finer points of rope climbing or wrestling or running aimlessly for
miles and miles through snow, gale and burning sun. But not anymore.
“You will be accompanying the Slayer young Frost!” Councillor Bryant’s voice was more clipped
than usual. The professor of his torment on any normal day, the man had insisted that he
personally take Edward through his final days of instruction. He was convinced, no doubt, that
nothing short of his own attention could lift his worst student to a satisfactory standard. If
that could ever be achieved without resorting to the dark arts...
Though it must have galled him no end that his most inept pupil was going where he himself had
never had the privilege to go, Bryant was not overt in displaying his disgust. Despite that fact,
Edward was sure the tutor was going to make him pay for his new mission with sweat, for certain,
and tears and blood if it became necessary.
“The Slayer!” He had continued as he paced feverishly up and down in front of Edward in
the Council gymnasium. He had both hands clasped together and held tight at the small of his
back. “The Slayer! The epitome of physical endurance and strength. Not to mention her Watcher.”
He stopped abruptly and faced the younger man. “Rupert Giles was a very capable student young
Edward, dedicated and gifted, and I am told, he has only improved with time.”
Rupert Giles. Councillor Bryant never stopped talking about the one that made it. Though
Edward knew the truth, Bryant’s version had grown to the point where most of his current students
were beginning to believe that Giles was a male version of the Slayer herself. Edward had not
corrected them, enjoying the little buzz that his secret knowledge brought him, though he knew the
real story from his extracurricular studies. The records were very clear: whilst Rupert
Giles was an above average student in the physical arts he was by no means brilliant. Bryant’s
own precise, terse assessments recorded time after time that the young Watcher-to-be was sound of
movement and quick to master each new lesson, but he was stubborn and difficult. He was polite;
he was capable; but he would not follow instruction to Bryant’s satisfaction.
Edward thought about that as the Councillor sent him up the rope, again.
“Grip it properly! Put some effort into it!” Bryant bellowed from somewhere far too far below
Edward’s rope entwined feet. “Do it properly, like I showed you, you buffoon. Do you want
to slip? Well, do you?”
“No sir.” Edward gasped, struggling to comply. His entire upper body was on fire.
“I should think not! You’ll be accompanying the Slayer! And Rupert Giles. I will not
have their report stating that any student of mine slipped!” Now, that was a truly
horrifying thought. That his name might be forever inscribed in the records alongside a
description of his stumbling and bumbling millstone presence was too terrible to contemplate.
Edward redoubled his efforts.
Then he was there!
He made it to the ceiling and exalted being only a nose away from its smooth surface. He grinned
tightly at his faint, distorted reflection. Sweat was slick over his hot skin, and his arms
seemed to have cramped into place, bent tight against his chest, but he had made it! For the first
time in his life he had made it. A short time later as his feet touched down on the matting he
could not help the smile that burst across his face.
“Alright.” Bryant made a very, very small mark on his file folder and looked blandly at him.
“Again.”
As he lay in bed that night, listening to his roommate’s snoring, aching in every muscle and with
both palms burning, Edward finally understood Giles’ reportedly poor attitude. His secret
knowledge suddenly became more than a private pleasure because he finally understood it: Bryant
was an unreasonable, miserable old bastard who was impossible to please. Edward had climbed that
bloody rope for hours and hours until Bryant had been absolutely convinced that each and every
finger was in its correct position. That Edward had collapsed into a jelly by the end of this
pedantic and excessive exercise, quite unable to use any of his limbs, did not rate a blip on the
Councilor’s radar.
The only remaining part of Giles’ record that remained a mystery now was that he had remained
polite for all those years. He must have taken lecture after scolding after insult, but he never
once forgot his manners. Edward had found himself filled with a new and even greater admiration
for the Watcher and he had resolved to make himself a fit companion no matter what. Returning to
the gymnasium in the following days he had fiercely tackled every order and every criticism as a
personal challenge, pushing himself until he collapsed again and again. And never once was he
anything less than perfectly polite.
Now, he was filling with a sick trepidation that he was going to fall disastrously short in his
resolution. Already he had proved himself a useless appendage when he had failed to do anything
more than save his own skin back in the tomb gallery. He wasn’t even able to make a running
journal record, having lost his only readily accessible pencil, and the shame of it built into a
lump in his throat.
Suddenly there was a mumble up ahead and the torch light, that was illuminating nothing more than
tunnel, guttered alarmingly. The little party stopped abruptly and Edward stumbled into Ethan
Rayne’s back. Rayne turned briefly and Edward could all too easily imagine the withering stare on
that shadowed face.
“Dammit!” Giles’ voice was harsh, and dulled by the earth. There was a rattling sound and a
sharp slap of flesh on plastic. Another slap. It echoed strangely, coming faintly, a beat later,
from behind them. Then the light was back and Edward exhaled with relief. They started moving
again, faster this time.
“Dawn!” A sudden, faint scream froze the party again. Somewhere close the Slayer was still
chasing this Dawn. And still being swept along by the same false visions her Watcher had succumbed
to. “Dawn!”
“Did everyone hear that? It wasn’t just me?” Giles barked over his shoulder.
“Oh yes.” Anita answered.
“Clear as crystal.” Ethan.
“GILES!” The Slayer called out again, voice raw with strain.
“Oh thank the - BUFFY!” Giles yelled back and the next thing Edward knew, he was sprinting as
fast as he could not to be left behind.
... Yon. Alexandra. Zina. Asako. Isabel. Nikita. Cassandra. Meiying. Ebba. Aishah.
Polly...
* * * * *
Dawn had a handful of Spike’s coat again, this time the tails, as he hurried them into the
darkness of the underground tomb. Ergh. Gross tomb. The blackened tunnels were as stinky as the
entrance and just as freaky. It wouldn’t be so bad though, she guessed, if she could just see
something - anything! She couldn’t even see the coat she was holding and the only indication that
it was attached to anything was the tugging that went with Spike’s determined footsteps. He
wasn’t even breathing like he usually did, so she didn’t even have the comfort of a companion’s
respiration.
For Spike not to breathe he must be really keyed up. It was very weird. Then again Spike was
very weird (in a sexy way of course), because like: dead thing and breathing, not so mixy, and yet
Spike did it all the time. He breathed his cigarette smoke, he crooned to himself (when he
thought no one was eavesdropping), he sighed and huffed, he panted like a steam engine after a
really hard fight and he seemed to spend a huge amount of his time sniffing the air - most times
for no reason Dawn could see. The only times she had seen him not breathing was when he was
concentrating hard or when he was sleeping, and then she hadn’t really cared because, well, Spike
slept naked...
... Yeah, uh well, so awake-not-breathing-Spike meant that he was not all that fun to be around.
Spike concentrating was Spike being quiet and totally focussed and oh so dull. For once though,
she was kind of hoping for dull.
Spike suddenly surged forward and she almost fell.
She stopped thinking and concentrated on keeping her feet. When Spike had first charged through
the tomb doorway and into this tunnel she had been terrified that she would trip or slip on
something rubbl-y and be lost forever in the dark. She wasn’t entirely sold on the concept that
Spike would stop for her. Despite his slip of the tongue earlier, she wasn’t totally convinced
that being one of Spike’s princesses was really a 100% safe place to be. Sure, he had been sweet
on Drusilla for over 100 years, but she was, like, a vampire and tough in all the ways that a
human wasn’t. There was no real guarantee that Spike recalled anything about being human enough
to remember that they needed a lot more consideration than someone who was one half demon and one
half already dead person. It was lucky for her that the sandy tunnel floor was free from rocks
and stuff. Now all she had to do was hold on...
* * * * *
Giles sprinted down the tunnel toward the sounds of his Slayer’s distress. Again she called for
him and again he surged forward. It was instinctive, reactive. He could do nothing but
respond.
“BUFFY WHERE ARE YOU?” No answer. Dammit. The tunnel seemed to go on and on: twisting and
turning, but leading him no closer to his charge. It didn’t make sense. She sounded closer than
this. Was this another twisted characteristic of the Hellmouth? Was it playing them all for
fools?
“GILES?” She was closer. Finally. Chest and legs burning the Watcher forced his pace to the
limit. “I’M HERE! GILES WHERE ARE YOU?”
“BUFFY, I’M COMING-” And the tunnel hooked abruptly to the right. He tried to correct his trajectory
but his feet slid on the sandy floor and he flailed for a moment, torch waving wildly. Contact.
He slammed into the wall unable to stop himself. Pain exploded across his right shoulder, ribs
and arm. “SHIT!” His body ricocheted and he hit the opposite wall before spinning out of control
into a dark open high-vaulted space. He fell and dropped his torch. The flashlight skittered
away, light strobing as it spun across the floor.
“GILES!” The Slayer’s voice was suddenly right on top of him, then so was she, grabbing onto his
prone form so ferociously he was trapped where he was. The sharp point of her stake stabbed into
his ribs. And the Hellmouth slid along his skin, spreading out from wherever Buffy was touching
him. God, not again. He felt the small eddies of cold gritty wind begin to wind
themselves through his hair, across his skin, through the gaps in his clothing. “Giles, oh thank
god, thank god, thankgodthankgod.”
“Buffy, are you alright.” He tried to twist around to sit up but it was impossible.
“I can’t find Dawn. She’s in here but I can’t find her.”
“Its alright. Dawn isn’t down here.” He struggled to sit up. The wind tugged at him and strange
dislocated whispers tickled along his mind.
“What?” She demanded and Giles twisted his head to follow the voice to its source. Shadows.
That was all that was there. For a moment he wondered if this wasn’t yet another Hellmouth trick,
sending him a false shade in place of his charge. A wraith. A flat collage of shadow that only
superficially resembled Buffy. He blinked. Frowned. Then he remembered and felt a surge of
distress: this was Buffy. Where he expected to see the rich suggestion of soul and spirit,
revealed to him (even in the darkest of places) in jewel-like light and colour, now he saw only
the surface. That incantation of Ethan’s, or maybe the Hellmouth, had blinded him and it looked
like it wasn’t going to release his gifted sight anytime soon. He swallowed. Was this how Ethan
saw the world? Xander? Dawn? And everyone else who called themselves normal? It made
the world dim and unreal and alarmingly unreadable. He felt a panicky flutter in his stomach.
The Hellmouth swelled like an ocean wave across his senses.
“Giles?” Buffy asked in a panicky wind-blown voice.
“Its alright Buffy.” Giles pushed his own panic down and turned his ear from the illusory. “Dawn
isn’t here. It’s a trick of the Hellmouth. Now, just let me up and we’ll see-”
“But I heard her calling me-”
“Buffy - trust me - Dawn is safe and sound at home. Now please, let me up.” He surged upward
again and Buffy let him, moving off to crouch nearby, one hand twisted into his coat. “Ethan!”
He called, and heard the faint scrape of footsteps coming in under the waves of Hellmouth
illusion. Buffy’s shadowed head swung around blindly, looking for Ethan no doubt. She moved away
slightly, but Giles scooped her close again and tried to ignore the touch of Hell that was growing
stronger by the second. “Ethan hurry up!”
“Giles-”
“It’s alright Buffy, just stay quiet for a moment. Everything is going to be alright.” I hope.
“Bloody hell Ethan-”
And then it was alright. Just like that. Once again it was quiet and still and dark.
Buffy collapsed against his side with an expletive he was sure she should not know. Spike’s
influence or his own candy fuelled fugue? He squeezed her shoulders reassuringly. No response.
He looked down, alarmed, and was again rewarded with only impotent, implacable shadow. He opened
his mouth, but was beaten to the punch by a sudden swell of light.
“M- Mr Giles?” It was Frost and the mislaid torch. Giles turned his back to him and got a good
look at Buffy for the first time. And again felt his stomach clench at the sight. With no
familiar colours to cast her in her true light, to guide him to his best counsel, she was a figure
on a TV screen: dim and two dimensional and distant. If he hadn’t been holding her shoulders he
might have mistaken her for a well-crafted waxwork. He swallowed. If this was a permanent
condition he didn’t know what he was going to do.
“Buffy? Are you alright? Are you injured?”
“I’m ok.” Her voice was small but he could see her rallying - at least he thought so. He stared
hard but it didn’t improve matters, he was going to have to take her word for it.... Then she was
looking at him. “What happened?”
“It’s the Hellmouth. It was reaching out to you - ”
“So Dawn-” She asked again, unwilling to let the matter rest.
“Not here. Its just us.” He waited a moment and watched her take that in, and then peer around
him, over his shoulder and then all around them. She swallowed. “Ok?” He asked again.
“Ok.” She nodded and let him rise, reaching out to steady herself. But as they rose he realised
that it was he who was steadying himself against her – helped upright with that alarmingly casual
strength; that same strength that was now flowing through those sleek young hands to clasp his
forearms in an uncomfortably steely grip. His bruises were taking on new bruises, and that body
slam into the wall was suddenly making itself felt anew. He gritted his teeth. Shoulder, arm,
ribs. One mass of hurt that he had to call on his training to suppress. “Where is everyone?”
Buffy asked.
Oh hell! He’d forgotten them.
“Anita? Ethan?” He called, looking around the dimly lit ‘room’. Frost ran the torch obligingly
through the darkness.
“We’re over here Rupert.” Anita. He exhaled, unaware he had been holding his breath. The three
of them followed his lover’s voice back the way they had come, and from the shadows the torchlight
drew out the forms of their missing teammates. Ethan was sprawled bonelessly on his side and
Giles recognized the ‘recovery position’, slightly twisted to keep the airway free. He was quite
unconscious. Anita (dim and lost to him without her golden glow) was kneeling by his head, the
fingers of one hand threaded through the short spiky hair. “He passed out right after casting.”
Anita said. Giles pursed his lips, irritated to find himself alarmed by the sight, and squinted
impotently at the prone form.
“He’s alright.” Anita spoke again, looking straight at Giles, straight through him really. “He’s
just sleeping, believe it or not.” She switched her gaze to Buffy. “Are you alright?” Giles
caught Buffy’s nod out of the corner of his eye, still unable to take his eyes off Ethan. The
stupid prat - then he found his gaze straying from the other man to Anita’s fingers. Pale smudges
tangled within the dark brown of Ethan’s hair. He frowned. It was another point of irritation
that this was a sight that could still rankle, even after all these years.
“We can’t wait for him to sleep it off. We have to keep moving. We have to regroup above ground.”
“A moment Rupert. A moment.” Anita frowned at him. “He -”
“What was that?” Frost’s thin young voice suddenly erupted from behind Giles. The torchlight was
yanked away and Giles followed its rotation with an abrupt swivel.
“What was what?” He demanded of the younger man.
“Th- there was a sound. I heard it earlier but I thought it was just an echo. I heard it again
though, just now.” Frost continued to make his lighthouse swing around the room. Giles followed
it, ears straining against the silence. Beside him Buffy was also alert, staring around silently.
Nothing happened.
“Maybe you -” Giles started. Then he heard it. A sound like a single footstep, but not quite. It
came from the far wall. The jittery torch beam flashed across the space toward the noise.
Nothing. Giles spared a quick glance back at Anita. He motioned to her dim form, palm pushing
the air down and back. She nodded and shrank backward to the wall, pulling Ethan’s limp body
with her. The sliding sound was jarringly loud in the suddenly pregnant silence.
He felt a tug on his sleeve: Buffy. The Slayer pointed to herself and thumbed over her shoulder
into the dark. Giles cocked his head. She pointed at him and the young Councilor’s turned back,
made a ‘talk’ sign with her free hand and pointed out into the ‘room’. Giles nodded and Buffy
slipped away.
“You are hearing things Frost.” Giles suddenly spoke. Adrenaline gave only a slight tremor to
his voice. “This is the Hellmouth after all and we’re all a little bit jumpy.”
“But sir, you heard-” Frost objected.
“Nothing.” Giles stepped closer to the young man. Frost looked up at him, torch drooping in his
hand. He made to object again, but stopped himself. Well-trained young pup, Knightly had not
been lying about that anyway, but unfortunately that was not what they needed right at this
moment. “Don’t trouble yourself about it. This is your first time in the field and I know how
unnerving that can be. Why, my first time was with a team that had been sent out to clean out a
Nest, and believe me when I tell you that -”
The footstep. Again. Followed by a skittering dozen of them. This time from the left and
closer. Frost swung the torch before Giles could stop him and they all saw the flash of their
target: a slim quick shadow moving with determination, and coming up fast on their left flank.
Giles reached for his belt: no axe. When had he dropped that?
Then there was no time to wonder, the intruder was upon them.
* * * * *
Buffy slipped through the dark, hunting. For the time being the wild illusion she had just
thrashed her way through was forgotten and she existed only in the moment. Hunting, leaving Giles
and the others behind she quickly padded into the dark, eyes wide and missing nothing. She hoped.
Giles started talking, his mellow voice a welcome anchor as she waded through the shadowy sea of
the room. She tuned out his words, hearing only the timbre.
Then skittering in the dark. Sandy footsteps.
Buffy smiled and closed in.
Oh yeah...
* * *