thedeadlyhook (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thedeadlyhook) wrote2006-08-28 07:28 pm
thedeadlyhook) wrote2006-08-28 07:28 pm
Entry tags:
Jack the Giant Killer, Part 6
I'm sure everyone's probably sick by now of hearing me say, "oh, just one more chapter to go after this!" But it does keep happening - I think I'm within spitting distance of the end, and then a conversation or two keeps growing, and before I know it, I've reached a natural stopping point. I could keep going, I suppose, make a monster-sized chapter out of it, but... the rhythms would be off then, you know?
But the next one's the last for sure. Or at least the one with the smut in it, which should be the end. : )
In the meantime, here's another segment of Jack the Giant Killer. Our heroes don't get too far, but there's talking and other things. Disclaimer, Summary: See Part 1.
Rating: PG-13, I think.
__________
"Ohhhowf!"
Hands flailing, icy droplets clinging to her face, Buffy heaved herself through the last layer of snow. Agonized minutes of digging were promptly forgotten in the sudden, welcome rush of fresh air. She gasped like a fish, filling her lungs, as Spike's bright head was birthed behind her, nearly invisible against the snowpack. Platinum on white.
"You okay?" he panted, though his need for air was of course nothing like hers. He only needed to draw enough breath to talk.
"I'm fine." Buffy threw herself up and out of the hole. Lay there, exhausted. "Could've lived without the whole being-buried-alive thing again."
"Once in a lifetime's enough," Spike agreed. He took a staggering step, hauling himself up and out of the hole, then flopped over onto his back beside her. His woollen coats fanned out around him, a dark patch in the relentless snow blanket. "Although lucky for us, as it turned out."
"How so?" She brushed some of the clinging snow from her own bright costume, red-orange nylon like peeks of exposed skin, then let her arms drop, stared up at the stars. Breathed in, out, as the cold air washed her face. She had a sudden, perverse desire to make a snow angel. "I wouldn't normally think of being practically smothered as lucky."
"Well, our benefactor, whatever the hell it was, sure hadn't seen a vampire before." He ran a leather-clad thumb absently across his lower lip, sweeping for blood residue. "Got close enough for me to get ahold of it. Like I said, lucky break," he mumbled, and sucked the digit into his mouth, eyes closing.
"Lucky br--" Buffy's eyes went wide as the meaning of his words sunk in. She rolled over to face him. "You killed it?"
He took the thumb out of his mouth, nodded. "One of 'em, anyway."
"One--"
"I'm pretty sure there was two. But then the whole thing went wonky soon as I got a mouthful. Bloody illusions."
Buffy gaped. Her own memories... well, they were mixed up and confused, weren't they? Conversations that stopped and started and blended into others.. but she remembered killing the giant herself. Remembered the baby giant running away. They were vivid memories, strenuous. Gross.
What about the rest? She sat up. Scanned around, and saw nothing, no movement at all. No sign of the baby giant. Nothing on the landscape anywhere. Just a blue-white expanse of snow, blowing, lit by a full moon.
"There's nothing here," she said, if only to emphasize it for herself. No debris, no skeletons, no tumbled blocks of ice. Barely more overturned snow than a suburbanite's shoveled driveway. "Spike, there's nothing."
"Like I said, illusions," Spike said again, patiently. He licked the palm of his hand, like a cat cleaning itself. "Odds are we've been laying right here this entire time."
"So it was all a dream." Feeling nauseous, Buffy pictured it: their frozen figures, covered by snow. She'd been all but passing out anyway, drifting off. Could it really have been a hallucination, all of it?
"Most of it," Spike corrected. He finally stopped licking his fingers and rolled toward her, propped his head on one gloved hand. She registered for the first time that he'd lost his hat at some point; the wind stirred restlessly through his blond hair. "Probably how it feeds. Gets into your head, makes you see what it wants you to. Probably tastes better, if you're terrified." He paused, as if unsure he should go on. Buffy just stared back at him.
"Is that how you knew? How did you know?" A better question was why she hadn't. It had all felt real to her. Realer than real. And it wasn't as if she hadn't had experience with weird dreams, or demon hallucinations.
"Couldn't move, could I? Could barely think, but the visions kept coming, like something trying to push into my head. Been there before. An' I could smell it, too, sniffing around. Smell its blood." He stifled a burp. "Of which, don't think it really agreed with me."
"What did you see?" Buffy was still stuck on the illusions. Did we even see the same things? "The illusions. What did they look like to you?"
"Well... like giants. You know, like a fairy tale."
"Jack the Giant Killer."
Spike raised an eyebrow.
"I read it somewhere," Buffy said quickly. "Go on."
"Surprised you've even heard of that one. Would've thought that tale was a bit off-color for California."
"Giles probably told me. Research, books, boo-scary." Buffy waved an impatient hand. "Go on."
She couldn't have explained if someone had asked her, why she couldn't tell him. That he'd been the one to tell her the name of the story, in the dream. Something trying to push into my head. Which could mean, maybe, that it'd been the same for him. That he might've seen--
"Well, there was tall, hairy, and scary, threatening to eat us. That whole thing. Then some bollocks about challenges, and you got stroppy for some reason I still can't figure out, and then everything was a bit of a blur. Don't remember anything more until we were both digging out of the snow."
"Stroppy?"
"Well, yeah. In the--"
"No, what does it mean? Is that anything like shirty?"
"Uh, no."
"You always do that. Use words I don't know." She was being childish. She knew it, but... god. You saw me. In my head, you saw everything.
"Don't mean to, love, sorry."
"You just don't want me to know what you're really calling me."
"Not calling you anything. Just means you were having a bit of a sulk, is all."
"I'm not sulking."
He paused. "In the dream."
There was another awkward pause.
"Right." Buffy got to her feet. If the wind weren't so cold, her face would've been flaming. "We should get out of here."
"No arguments from me." Spike levered himself up. They might not have argued at all to judge by his attitude--he just stretched, rolled his shoulders, stifled another belch. "Probably best to get going while this blood's still holding me. Can't say I feel very well." He was, in fact, swaying on his feet in a rather alarming manner, although his face was at least no longer frost-white. "So which way, oh fearless leader?"
"Just a mintue." Buffy patted down her jacket pockets for the compass she'd relied on to get them this far, only to find it gone. Probably lost in the confrontation with the giants, buried in the snow. Or lost even farther back, for all she knew. She shot Spike a pleading look.
He held up his hands. "Don't look at me. You're the leader of this safari."
"Don't you have, I dunno, vampire radar or something?" Okay, it was a joke. Sort of.
"Oh, sure. Plunk me down on a street corner, I'll find my way fine. I'm a city boy, Slayer, not Daniel bleeding Boone."
"Right. I knew that." And she did. She suspected she now knew more about him than she'd ever had. And ditto him for her. Now only if I could think about that without feeling so panicked.
She readjusted her snow goggles, surveyed the open horizon.
"This way," she said, pointing. Then added, "I'm totally guessing."
Spike just shrugged. "Right, then. Let's go."
__________
It was a little more than an hour later when Buffy's shock from the giant encounter finally wore off and caught up with her. When the impact of the situation they were in seeped into her, that they were lost, with no way out. In a wilderness she knew nothing about. Miles from civilization.
"Buck up, Slayer," Spike said, as if reading her mind. Or her mood.
"I don't even know if this is the right direction." She kept trudging forward, though, because what else could she do? Except stop. Lay down and die.
"Well, at least we're going somewhere. We've picked a course."
"A course that could lead straight to the North Pole. Although I doubt we'll live long enough to meet Santa."
"You never know."
Her glare brushed past him like the wind. "Don't tell me Santa's a demon too."
His brow furrowed for a moment, as if he was trying to remember, and then he shook it off. "We've gotten out of worse fixes. Like that last one, for instance."
"Right, that was great. Demons tried to eat our brains."
"Still counts as a stroke of luck. Divine providence."
"And hello again to the demons and the brain-eating. Not so much with the lucky."
"Hellish providence then, whatever. Just saying."
"I'm not lucky. Everything that happens to me is like..." She groped for a word. "Like a punchline. To a bad joke. I mean, just look at us." Lost on a glacier. Because she'd wanted to make a romantic gesture. Her throat closed up.
He was quiet for a second. "Maybe it just seems like that to you." He shouldered his pack a little higher. "Can't always tell a gift horse from a curse, you know?"
She stopped. Turned slowly to face him, her feet frozen bricks in the snow. The wind whipped her hood back from her face, and she let it go, let the icy breeze filter through her hair because, why not? This might be their moment. Their goodbye.
And she wanted to do it right this time.
Tears smarted in her eyes, behind her goggles. "Spike, I--"
"Hey." He stepped forward, put his hands on her shoulders. "None of that. I told you, don't worry. We'll get out of this. You and me both, what can't we beat, right?"
"Right," she said miserably. He couldn't possibly believe that. She knew that he didn't. What with his whole I'm trying my damndest here to do the right thing rant. She was sure that part of the illusion was him, and not her. More than sure.
She didn't always want him to be the one doing the right thing. Really didn't. "Would you just stop it and listen to me? This is important. This is--"
He held up a hand. She frowned at him, annoyed. "What?"
"Listen."
She did. Made a yeah, so? face.
"Don't you hear it?"
"Hear what?" And then an instant later, it came ot her. The faint sound of barking dogs.
She stared at Spike, incredulous. He flashed her a grin, raised one arm in a lazy, wide wave, and pointed with the other hand to the horizon. A clump of black specks was just visible, approaching fast.
"A dogsled team." She still couldn't believe it.
"Providence," Spike said.
A rescue. The chance of a rescue. Somebody else, rescuing them.
"This never happens to me," Buffy heard herself saying. "This never happens."
"Our lucky day," he said, and continued to wave.
to be continued...
But the next one's the last for sure. Or at least the one with the smut in it, which should be the end. : )
In the meantime, here's another segment of Jack the Giant Killer. Our heroes don't get too far, but there's talking and other things. Disclaimer, Summary: See Part 1.
Rating: PG-13, I think.
__________
"Ohhhowf!"
Hands flailing, icy droplets clinging to her face, Buffy heaved herself through the last layer of snow. Agonized minutes of digging were promptly forgotten in the sudden, welcome rush of fresh air. She gasped like a fish, filling her lungs, as Spike's bright head was birthed behind her, nearly invisible against the snowpack. Platinum on white.
"You okay?" he panted, though his need for air was of course nothing like hers. He only needed to draw enough breath to talk.
"I'm fine." Buffy threw herself up and out of the hole. Lay there, exhausted. "Could've lived without the whole being-buried-alive thing again."
"Once in a lifetime's enough," Spike agreed. He took a staggering step, hauling himself up and out of the hole, then flopped over onto his back beside her. His woollen coats fanned out around him, a dark patch in the relentless snow blanket. "Although lucky for us, as it turned out."
"How so?" She brushed some of the clinging snow from her own bright costume, red-orange nylon like peeks of exposed skin, then let her arms drop, stared up at the stars. Breathed in, out, as the cold air washed her face. She had a sudden, perverse desire to make a snow angel. "I wouldn't normally think of being practically smothered as lucky."
"Well, our benefactor, whatever the hell it was, sure hadn't seen a vampire before." He ran a leather-clad thumb absently across his lower lip, sweeping for blood residue. "Got close enough for me to get ahold of it. Like I said, lucky break," he mumbled, and sucked the digit into his mouth, eyes closing.
"Lucky br--" Buffy's eyes went wide as the meaning of his words sunk in. She rolled over to face him. "You killed it?"
He took the thumb out of his mouth, nodded. "One of 'em, anyway."
"One--"
"I'm pretty sure there was two. But then the whole thing went wonky soon as I got a mouthful. Bloody illusions."
Buffy gaped. Her own memories... well, they were mixed up and confused, weren't they? Conversations that stopped and started and blended into others.. but she remembered killing the giant herself. Remembered the baby giant running away. They were vivid memories, strenuous. Gross.
What about the rest? She sat up. Scanned around, and saw nothing, no movement at all. No sign of the baby giant. Nothing on the landscape anywhere. Just a blue-white expanse of snow, blowing, lit by a full moon.
"There's nothing here," she said, if only to emphasize it for herself. No debris, no skeletons, no tumbled blocks of ice. Barely more overturned snow than a suburbanite's shoveled driveway. "Spike, there's nothing."
"Like I said, illusions," Spike said again, patiently. He licked the palm of his hand, like a cat cleaning itself. "Odds are we've been laying right here this entire time."
"So it was all a dream." Feeling nauseous, Buffy pictured it: their frozen figures, covered by snow. She'd been all but passing out anyway, drifting off. Could it really have been a hallucination, all of it?
"Most of it," Spike corrected. He finally stopped licking his fingers and rolled toward her, propped his head on one gloved hand. She registered for the first time that he'd lost his hat at some point; the wind stirred restlessly through his blond hair. "Probably how it feeds. Gets into your head, makes you see what it wants you to. Probably tastes better, if you're terrified." He paused, as if unsure he should go on. Buffy just stared back at him.
"Is that how you knew? How did you know?" A better question was why she hadn't. It had all felt real to her. Realer than real. And it wasn't as if she hadn't had experience with weird dreams, or demon hallucinations.
"Couldn't move, could I? Could barely think, but the visions kept coming, like something trying to push into my head. Been there before. An' I could smell it, too, sniffing around. Smell its blood." He stifled a burp. "Of which, don't think it really agreed with me."
"What did you see?" Buffy was still stuck on the illusions. Did we even see the same things? "The illusions. What did they look like to you?"
"Well... like giants. You know, like a fairy tale."
"Jack the Giant Killer."
Spike raised an eyebrow.
"I read it somewhere," Buffy said quickly. "Go on."
"Surprised you've even heard of that one. Would've thought that tale was a bit off-color for California."
"Giles probably told me. Research, books, boo-scary." Buffy waved an impatient hand. "Go on."
She couldn't have explained if someone had asked her, why she couldn't tell him. That he'd been the one to tell her the name of the story, in the dream. Something trying to push into my head. Which could mean, maybe, that it'd been the same for him. That he might've seen--
"Well, there was tall, hairy, and scary, threatening to eat us. That whole thing. Then some bollocks about challenges, and you got stroppy for some reason I still can't figure out, and then everything was a bit of a blur. Don't remember anything more until we were both digging out of the snow."
"Stroppy?"
"Well, yeah. In the--"
"No, what does it mean? Is that anything like shirty?"
"Uh, no."
"You always do that. Use words I don't know." She was being childish. She knew it, but... god. You saw me. In my head, you saw everything.
"Don't mean to, love, sorry."
"You just don't want me to know what you're really calling me."
"Not calling you anything. Just means you were having a bit of a sulk, is all."
"I'm not sulking."
He paused. "In the dream."
There was another awkward pause.
"Right." Buffy got to her feet. If the wind weren't so cold, her face would've been flaming. "We should get out of here."
"No arguments from me." Spike levered himself up. They might not have argued at all to judge by his attitude--he just stretched, rolled his shoulders, stifled another belch. "Probably best to get going while this blood's still holding me. Can't say I feel very well." He was, in fact, swaying on his feet in a rather alarming manner, although his face was at least no longer frost-white. "So which way, oh fearless leader?"
"Just a mintue." Buffy patted down her jacket pockets for the compass she'd relied on to get them this far, only to find it gone. Probably lost in the confrontation with the giants, buried in the snow. Or lost even farther back, for all she knew. She shot Spike a pleading look.
He held up his hands. "Don't look at me. You're the leader of this safari."
"Don't you have, I dunno, vampire radar or something?" Okay, it was a joke. Sort of.
"Oh, sure. Plunk me down on a street corner, I'll find my way fine. I'm a city boy, Slayer, not Daniel bleeding Boone."
"Right. I knew that." And she did. She suspected she now knew more about him than she'd ever had. And ditto him for her. Now only if I could think about that without feeling so panicked.
She readjusted her snow goggles, surveyed the open horizon.
"This way," she said, pointing. Then added, "I'm totally guessing."
Spike just shrugged. "Right, then. Let's go."
__________
It was a little more than an hour later when Buffy's shock from the giant encounter finally wore off and caught up with her. When the impact of the situation they were in seeped into her, that they were lost, with no way out. In a wilderness she knew nothing about. Miles from civilization.
"Buck up, Slayer," Spike said, as if reading her mind. Or her mood.
"I don't even know if this is the right direction." She kept trudging forward, though, because what else could she do? Except stop. Lay down and die.
"Well, at least we're going somewhere. We've picked a course."
"A course that could lead straight to the North Pole. Although I doubt we'll live long enough to meet Santa."
"You never know."
Her glare brushed past him like the wind. "Don't tell me Santa's a demon too."
His brow furrowed for a moment, as if he was trying to remember, and then he shook it off. "We've gotten out of worse fixes. Like that last one, for instance."
"Right, that was great. Demons tried to eat our brains."
"Still counts as a stroke of luck. Divine providence."
"And hello again to the demons and the brain-eating. Not so much with the lucky."
"Hellish providence then, whatever. Just saying."
"I'm not lucky. Everything that happens to me is like..." She groped for a word. "Like a punchline. To a bad joke. I mean, just look at us." Lost on a glacier. Because she'd wanted to make a romantic gesture. Her throat closed up.
He was quiet for a second. "Maybe it just seems like that to you." He shouldered his pack a little higher. "Can't always tell a gift horse from a curse, you know?"
She stopped. Turned slowly to face him, her feet frozen bricks in the snow. The wind whipped her hood back from her face, and she let it go, let the icy breeze filter through her hair because, why not? This might be their moment. Their goodbye.
And she wanted to do it right this time.
Tears smarted in her eyes, behind her goggles. "Spike, I--"
"Hey." He stepped forward, put his hands on her shoulders. "None of that. I told you, don't worry. We'll get out of this. You and me both, what can't we beat, right?"
"Right," she said miserably. He couldn't possibly believe that. She knew that he didn't. What with his whole I'm trying my damndest here to do the right thing rant. She was sure that part of the illusion was him, and not her. More than sure.
She didn't always want him to be the one doing the right thing. Really didn't. "Would you just stop it and listen to me? This is important. This is--"
He held up a hand. She frowned at him, annoyed. "What?"
"Listen."
She did. Made a yeah, so? face.
"Don't you hear it?"
"Hear what?" And then an instant later, it came ot her. The faint sound of barking dogs.
She stared at Spike, incredulous. He flashed her a grin, raised one arm in a lazy, wide wave, and pointed with the other hand to the horizon. A clump of black specks was just visible, approaching fast.
"A dogsled team." She still couldn't believe it.
"Providence," Spike said.
A rescue. The chance of a rescue. Somebody else, rescuing them.
"This never happens to me," Buffy heard herself saying. "This never happens."
"Our lucky day," he said, and continued to wave.
to be continued...
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