For Scribes' Sake
A collaborative fic by Witchkittyn and Shuvcat (c) 2003
A continuation to Shuvcat's fic Hello Mary Sue.
In that fic, the Mayor was allowed to ascend by a fanfic writer named Mary Sue, a.k.a. Alison Burns. She helps Buffy and the Scoobs stop the Mayor from destroying the world, but keeps him in power, as he is her Muse. Alison's best friend is Luke, another fanfic writer whose Muse is Faith.
In this fic, the Scribes have lost their ability to write. A mysterious deity makes them an offer: to get their skills back, they must sleep with their respective Muses. Buffy and Angel tag along to stop the proceedings, but can they resist the deity's offer of one night together, curse-free? And who says mysterious deities play fair anyway?
Rated: R to NC-17. Semi-graphic sex, non-consensual sex, May/December sex, nekkid f/f wrestling. Language and violence, too.
Pairings: Buffy/Angel, Faith/Luke, Mayor/Alison, Buffy/Luke, Faith/Mayor, Alison/Angel, Buffy/Mayor, Faith/Angel... implied Buffy/Faith.... wow, think that about covers it.
Shuvcat thanx: as always, DreamSmith, and thanks as well to Diana, with much wishes of get well. Thanks for the tag-team letters of inspiration and suggestion, both of ya!
Buffy The Vampire Slayer and all characters therein are the sole property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and assorted cronies. However, the concept of Scribes, the characters of Alison Burns/Mary Sue Wilkins and Luke Kenji/FreakZilla are original creations belonging to Shuvcat (c) 2003. No copyright infringement is intended by this piece. Begun November 2001.
She could almost pretend it wasn't real.
Funny -- considering most of her daily life was spent feverishly trying to bleed life into things that weren't real: vampires, demons, Slayers, Hellmouths. Working six days a week in a bank, pretty much a glorified conduit for other people's money, working a job that they could probably train a chimp to do if they worked really hard at training the chimp... fantasy was about the only thing that kept Alison awake.
The bulk of her days were spent with a filmy caul over her view of the real world. A micron-inch-thick invisible screen upon which she built the perfect beasts, concentrated on materializing those ghostly images as solid flesh and blood. If someone had told her a year ago that she would one day succeed, that one day those images-- those beasts-- would suddenly tear through the caul, drag her into that suddenly solid ghost world, she would have--
...well, she would have jumped for joy, frankly.
That was sad, when your life sucked so much that getting mauled to death by a vampire actually sounded like a nice change of pace.
Alison Burns, aka Pandora (aka Mary Sue), entrepren Scribe of the Slayers Circle (and self-appointed First Priestess of Olvocan), sat meekly in the carriage as it bumped up and down on the rocky road. The terrain out the little window looked like the first scene in all those Dracula remakes, when Renfield is going to Drac's castle for the first time: mountainous, bleak, no visible bottom to the jagged canyons out there. The road they were traveling on was barely wider than a massive redwood log, with only the ruts keeping the wagon wheels on the road, like some primitive magnetic Hot Wheels track. The fact that they actually were going to a castle did nothing to lighten the creepy mood.
The first week Alison had gone without writing, she hadn't been too worried. She'd had dry spells before; all writers had them. The other Scribes in the circle were constantly bitching and moaning on the newsgroup about how blocked they were. But then after another week, and then another, without even crappy, cliched words burbling from her skinny fingers on to her Wordpad... well, that still wasn't unheard of, but it was plenty annoying. Several stories, with her in the most interesting parts of, and she couldn't advance them, any of them. Dramatic pause.
Then the headaches started. Alison hadn't been able to fill out the bank's withdrawal and deposit forms, couldn't write up a memo. At work, her fingers wouldn't work. And when she got home and got on the computer, whatever thoughts she was trying to convey would not form themselves into mental words for her to write.
She couldn't write. Period.
And strange as it sounded, Alison honestly wouldn't have cared. Unlike the other Scribes in the Circle, who all cranked out their manifestos with bright-eyed, firmly-convicted gusto, Alison had never been completely convinced she even was a writer. Any other time she would have taken this as proof positive of what she already had a hunch of. She would have racked it up as the latest of twenty-some years of failures, and left it at that.
Except Luke couldn't write either.
He told her so. Emailed her, and then came over to her house to tell her again, his dark eyes shiny in his lids. Luke Kenji was also part of the Slayers Circle-- Scribe Advant for Faith, the rogue Slayer. Luke was ten times the writer Alison was-- though that was purely her opinion. Facts spoke volumes, though-- about the literal volumes Luke had cranked out, in comparison to Ali's and the other Scribes' somewhat measly scratchings.
Luke did not scare easily. Most times back in school, all the kids had been scared of him, simply because he was into weapons, and Asian, and so the rednecks had automatically added that up to equate he knew judo. (That was funny; since neither Luke nor any of his family knew kung fu from kung pow.) Luke was level-headed, not given to superstition or panic. Even the war hadn't scared him. But he was scared by this sudden complete creative halt, and Alison could tell. Luke didn't think it was temporary.
So they had traveled to Sunnydale -- together this time. Voluntarily this time; last time they had been spirited there by other forces. Those forces were who they went to meet with: Luke to Faith, Alison to Mayor Wilkins. They had all come together in Faith's apartment, human Scribes and Sunnydale villains -- to compare notes, and to wonder why the two writers could no longer tell their Muses' tales.
And then Eryxinfleeis had appeared.
~:~:~
"Think of yourselves as mothers," spoke Eryx, "and your work as children."
Luke glanced over at Faith. Her arms were bare in her nondescript white tank top, and today she wore black jeans that were very form-fitting. Her scuffed boots peeked out from under the cuffs. As outfits went, not the most spectacular... and yet somehow she still looked incredible. Not only did she look as unchildlike as possible, he sure as hell wasn't a mother.
"The link between you as Scribes and your Muses has become blocked," Eryx continued. "This is the umbilical cord between which ideas flow, through which you Muses telegraph your stories to the Scribes. How long have you been writing?"
Alison and Luke realized the question was for them. "Uh... t-two years," said Alison hesitantly.
"Two," Luke answered as well. He felt like he was at marriage counseling.
The glowing form that had introduced itself as the deity Eryxinfliees seemed to nod assent. It was shaped like a human, but it glowed like a Barbie doll lit up from inside by a Christmas bulb. Its hair, cascading femininely over its glowing shoulders, was lit from within like the fibers of one of those fiber optic lamps. "It's long past due, then. Surely you've noticed the visions fading, becoming cloudier? Surely you've noticed it no longer comes as easy as it used to?"
"I have." That was Mayor Wilkins. He turned his glance to his young bardess. "It's been difficult reaching you, Mary, these past few weeks." He habitually called Alison by her pen name. "I understand circumstances on your end aren't.... well, as favorable as they once were, but--"
"We're in the middle of a war." Alison sighed wearily. "We could be nuked off the face of the earth any day. Been kinda hard to concentrate." Her voice was bitter.
"Unfortunately the connection fades on its own," Eryx spoke. "These outside interferences you speak of only hasten an inevitable process."
"So... what you're basically saying is... we're getting over it?" asked Luke hesitantly. He himself was in the middle of three separate multi-book sagas about Faith's exploits. The idea that he might soon no longer be interested in finishing at all was not something he wanted to hear. "Unless we do... this thing you're talking about--" He looked to Alison, wondering what she would answer -- and what his own decision would be. Making deals with the fantastic beings in the world they wrote about -- he knew too well how much danger that could lead to.
Alison/Mary was looking mournfully at the Muses. "Writing this stuff is the only reason I get out of bed in the morning," she stated flatly. "I know that sounds messed up, but... some days it's the only good part of my life." She looked to the goddess. "I'll do anything. What do you want?"
Luke tried hard not to let his breath escape him too gustily. He hadn't yet answered, of course -- but he certainly didn't trust Alison alone in Mayor Wilkins' company. He tried to tell himself he wasn't locked into anything -- but that was bullshit, of course he was. No way was he letting Alison go into this alone. The last time she'd gone to the Mayor.... Luke shuddered.
Eryx raised what could've been called its head somewhat importantly. "The method I have in mind is preventive, at best. It will add several years to your lease on your Muses. It will rejuvenate you as writers. You will become capable of great works."
"Awesome." Alison liked this already. "So what is it?"
~:~:~
"I don't believe it," Luke muttered after hearing what Eryx had to say.
They were alone now; back home on earth, having bid Faith and Wilkins goodbye, returning to the material world. They were sitting in Luke's basement, where he lived under his parents' landlordship. Alison's eyes flitted nervously about. "Well... it really isn't... the worst thing she could have asked....." She cleared her throat, starting again under the look of horror that Luke was levying on her. "I mean... it isn't like we've never... uh..."
Luke couldn't believe this. "Ali? Friend since kindergarten? Confessed virgin?" He didn't mean to be crude, but he couldn't believe what he thought she was saying. "Are you telling me, prior to now, at some point you actually... went to Sunnydale and... with the Mayor...." A look of extreme disgust crossed his face.
Alison looked up suddenly, as she slowly got what he was asking. "What?.... oh, no! No, no.... not that."
Luke hoped to hell that it was his imagination that Alison was looking... almost regretful toward that fact. "But Luke..." She flapped her hands, trying to sort out what she wanted to say. "....come on, after what we've written? Tell me--" her voice dropped, a long-time habit of shyness toward the subject matter. "--tell me you honestly don't feel like you've already been to bed with her!"
Luke swallowed. He was trying hard-- ugh, bad choice of words-- trying not to be too obvious about the fact that he was now, inexorably, put in mind of what Eryx had decreed was the only way to save their writing: That he, Luke Kenji, a hack writer from the real world, might actually take his life in his hands and try to go to bed... with Faith, the Slayer.
Alison, thankfully, was too wrapped up in what she was saying to notice. "You try telling me you don't feel like this is covered ground! You know what I wrote, I know what you've wrote, I mean hell-- after reading 'Idylls of the Chosen', I felt like I'd slept with Faith." Her guilty eyes glared at Luke from the corners. "You've undressed her, if only in writing. You know how she... acts... you know what she does, you know what she likes--"
"I made that up!" Luke protested weakly.
"You still know it!" Alison gave him a knowing glare. "Just like I know... what he's like." She jerked her head off in an indeterminate direction, making the vaguest possible indication of her own evil Muse. "You're right, okay? I'm not... well, not to whip the Jimi Hendrix on you, but I'm not experienced." Her usually pale face was even paler now, her eyes darted self-consciously. "But yeah, I've been in the Mayor's bed, Luke.... just as surely as you've been in Faith's. In writing." The winded, hushed way she spoke it made it sound like she was confessing to a corporate scandal. "So.... I'm not seeing this as a terrible loss, or any kind of a challenge. Not like we haven't been here before." She finally broke her gaze away from her belly button, glancing off toward the blank screen of Luke's big TV.
Luke was trying really hard now not to show the shudder that crawled over every inch of his skin. As she often could, Ali had somehow nailed it right on the head. Luke DID know what Faith was like in bed-- every ferocious, violent, sadomasochistic inch of her. He knew it just as well as if he'd been there in person; how a poor unsuspecting chump would try undressing the Dark Slayer... how her skin would feel, perfect and unscarred in spite of the thousands of gashes and scrapes she'd taken as the Slayer. How she would take control-- how the scene would likely turn kinky and nasty, and perhaps even deadly... how the poor nameless schmo's final sensation on this earth might very likely be the feel of Faith's thighs slowly crushing the bones of his skull.
Luke shuddered again.
~:~:~
The vaulting front hall of the castle-- again, it was truly nothing less than a castle, complete with peaked towers and arching windows and entrances-- seemed to go on and up forever. It was like something out of a Vincent Price movie. Out front there had even been a moat, the carriages joggling unnervingly as the wheels bounced over the unevenly laid board planks. Only those thin strips of oak kept them from falling hundreds of feet to their deaths in the rocky canyon below.
Now Alison stood, on her feet once more, on the hard stone floor of the castle-- no name, wasn't like the elaborately named vistas in the role-playing games Luke liked. Alison gazed up, up, into the near pitch darkness hiding whatever was up there. She shifted nervously, wishing that they had at least all been allowed to travel together in the same coach-- at least that she'd been able to see Luke beforehand. This was spooky, coming up here all alone. A draft-- in all likelihood a mountain breeze blowing over the cliffs could be felt on her feet, and heard gusting faintly through the glassless pyramidlike window holes in the side of the stone cold walls.
Clop clop clop clop. Alison turned in the direction of the noise, watching as the black horse-- only the faint sheen off its coat differentiated the animal from the dark shadows it was clopping from-- towed another carriage into the huge front court, through the yawning entranceway. The horse slowed, snuffed, and halted, the clops echoing softly off recesses in the dark.
Alison drew a sigh of relief when she saw the dark head of her friend Luke emerge from the carriage door. "Hey," she grinned, walking toward the carriage to greet him.
Luke nodded back, also with a smile of relief. "Hey. Some buildup, huh?" His dark eyes traveled upward, around at the deserted court. "Man..."
"I know." Alison suppressed a shiver in the cool air. "If it weren't so cold, I'd really be digging this. I always wanted to come to one of these--"
"Bordellos?" The word was out of his mouth before Luke really stopped to think about it.
They caught each other's glance... and looked away, embarrassed. "Castles," Luke smoothed it over, "yeah... way cool. Very Goth."
"Goth is beautiful," Alison rushed to agree.
They both stood there, heads up, staring into the darkness engulfing the ceiling. "You know, of course," spoke Luke, "that when we leave here tomorrow morning..... uh..."
Alison bit her smiling lip. "We'll be deflowered?"
Luke coughed, slightly. Much as he never would've admitted it, he and Ali were in the same boat here. "I can't believe it," he murmured. "I don't believe it. Something'll come up at the last second. No way we're gonna end up goin' through with this."
Alison glanced at him, tilting her upraised head slightly to glimpse his face. "You scared?" she asked quietly.
Luke refrained from coughing again. He wouldn't have thought he'd be, and of course it was deeply humiliating for any guy to confess something as silly as fear, in the face of sex.
But.... Faith. And.... Slayer. And.... incredibly buxom, incredibly beautiful, incredibly savage bad-ass chick who'd killed lots of demons and dusted lots of vamps and regrettably cut short the lives of more than a handful of human beings--
Shit yeah, Luke was scared.
Clop clop. Alison's head jerked, startled herself, as the noise of more horse hooves echoed eerily in the vast front hall. Another dark horse halfheartedly emerged from the black, carrying another carriage-- and even in the low light, both Scribes could see that there were two passengers inside this one. "They're here," whispered Ali, her voice filled with unnerved anticipation.
They certainly were. Once the horse had been whoaed, the carriage door burst open-- and there was Faith, as shiny and as black as the horse that had brought her. "Damn," was her first comment, as her dark eyes looked around at the dark and eerie courtyard. "When's Frankenstein showin' up?"
Behind her, the hand of Mayor Wilkins delicately gripped the frame of the carriage door, and he emerged as well, taking in the surroundings for himself. "Well," was all he could remark. "I'd say gosh, but I've really kind of come to hate that expression." With a characteristic chuckle, he disembarked from the coach.
Alison and Luke, uncharacteristically, made no move to go greet their respective Muses. "Why'd they get to come together?" Alison wondered aloud.
Luke took a deep breath, seeming to gather his courage. "Oh....kay," he sighed, heavily. "Let's go do it."
Alison nodded. "Let's go." But oddly, neither one of them made the move.
The Mayor, unnervingly enough, was the one to sight them first. One of those patently scary huge grins broke over his face, like a curving thumbnail moon. "Well, hello Mary Sue!" he greeted Alison from across the distance. It might have been Luke's imagination, but the evil mayor looked almost hungrily eager to see her.
By Luke's side, Alison almost audibly shuddered. "Sir!" she called back, her voice newly tight. But she was smiling, too. Sort of.
The two evil partners in corruption strode toward the two Scribes. Faith was wearing a smile now, too; red lips glistening-- again, the word hungry was stuck in Luke's mind-- as she caught his eyes. "Hey, Freakshow," she greeted, misappropriating Luke's pen name. "Love the skin." An appreciative tanned hand spiked with blood red nails slid up his right forearm, clad in his relic leather jacket that resembled hers. "How about it, baby? Ready to get it on? Or off?" Her red lips grinned in a uniquely dirty type of sweet.
Christ, she was beautiful. Luke silently rebuked himself for not instantly coming up with a better, more poetic description of her. He was a writer, after all. But that was all that was coming to his mind-- now, as it did whenever he watched her on his big screen. She was beautiful fighting. She was beautiful kicking. She was beautiful having sex. (Oh yeah.) She was.... he had to stop, he was distracted by that last one-- she was beautiful when she was feeling remorse/regret/pain/disgust. Those dark eyes and young face, aged so spectacularly by her darkness. Didn't make her look old, just... older. Wiser. Sadder. Not neccessarily a bad thing.
No-- poetry aside, the word beautiful was the only one Luke could come up with.
He was a blocked writer, after all.
"Now, Faith...." That was the Mayor, making himself heard. "No need to get ahead of ourselves. There'll be plenty of time for that. Why don't we put it off until we get inside, hm?" He cast a look down at his young Scribe/admirer-- and Ali tried hard to affect a lighthearted grin back at him.
But Luke could see that Alison was painfully self-conscious in her real skin. He realized all of a sudden that she wasn't projecting. Ordinarily, when in Sunnydale, Alison would use her Scribe powers to cast her "Mary Sue" full-body disguise-- an exotic illusiory form that was of course much more glam than Ali was in real life. But for some reason tonight, where any other time she would have been vampy, tucked, glossed, and almost ethereal-looking, she now looked nothing more or less than what she was-- a wan, plain, slightly frumpy young girl from the burbs.
Suddenly Luke knew, as if some invisible servant of twilight had whispered it to him, that the Scribes' power of manipulation was not going to work here. This wasn't Sunnydale. It wasn't their alternate versions of Buffy's universe. He and Alison would not be able to influence their appearances-- or anything else-- here, in this faraway castle, on this strange world.
It struck him then, in full force, just how helpless the two of them were right now. Luke had grown used to manipulating everything in his Sunnydale, too; tilting the cards in his favor-- or more often Faith's-- sometimes just for arbitrary ends, sometimes simply for safety's sake. Here, Luke knew now he wouldn't be able to do that. There would be no safety nets here, no nice safe writer-invoked boundaries to keep death or demons-- or overeager horny Slayers-- at bay.
It couldn't have happened at a worse time. Strangely, Luke found himself feeling worse in Ali's case. He knew for a fact that Alison had never been with anybody before. He didn't envy her having to be with the evil, much-older Mayor, her first time out. His skin crawled just thinking about it.
Out of discomfort, Luke forced himself to look away from the trainwreck of Alison gazing moonily up at the demonic politician/sorcerer, and to look into the much-preferable sight of Faith's face. "How... how'd you guys find us?" he pushed himself to ask.
Faith's black shoulders shrugged. "Boss did it. He travels to these worlds all the time. Like takin' the bus for him." The glance she tossed toward her "boss" was reserved, as it always was.
"Never here, though." The Mayor took his turn gazing up into the darkness that hid the ceiling. "We're seeing a bit of the universe today. Eryxinfliees is not a name I'm familiar with, either. Except, of course, from that sweet little Beatrix Potter book." He chuckled. "Gotta say, she's certainly not taking an avenue I'd have chosen. But.... rules are rules." He dropped his eyes down to his young supporter, wordless at his side like some minion in waiting.
Luke felt nauseated suddenly. He turned away again. "So-- where's our host? We gonna get this going or what?" He looked over the walls of the front hall, back to the coaches that had brought them-- no drivers, the horses had just trotted here like homing pigeons. Can't find good help these days....
In one of the arched stone doors that dotted the circular court wall, in the blackness beyond, a soft smudge of light suddenly began to glow.
Faith was the one to see it first. She nudged Luke's arm, and pointed wordlessly at the ball of light, trailing strands of faint sparkly residue as it sailed silently through the grey air toward them. As they watched, it floated over their heads, and seemed to be making for the door opposite the one it had emerged from. With no noise at all, the luminous gold-tinted globe slipped through the arch, engulfed by the blackness within. Its glow could still be seen, but it was rapidly fading.
The four looked at each other. "Well," commented the Mayor, taking charge of the situation, "unless I miss my guess, that's our welcome wagon. Come on, Mary."
She had already fallen in line behind, following him as he took off toward the door that the ball had disappeared into. Faith, casting a smiling look at Luke, followed too. And Luke brought up the rear, figuring it was as good an action as any.
The hallway they found themselves in was straight out of the Emerald Castle in The Wizard Of Oz. Hundreds of arches over a hall that took forever to get to the end of. When they did get there, the glowing ball had dispersed into another vast, vast room, almost a twin to the courtyard out front, except that this one was supposedly what constituted the living room. It had an Oriental rug, anyway.
"So where we supposed to do it? On the rug?" Faith asked, giving it a deprecative glance. And Luke would've answered, except that he was too shocked by the sight of two figures standing over by the hulking fireplace. The company fell silent, as the two turned around.
Buffy and Angel. Together.
~:~:~
The six stared. Buffy and Angel; two powerful Scribes; and two deadly villains.
Buffy was first to spring, of course. Faith, ever her dark mirror, bolted into action as well. The two Slayers met in the middle of the circle, fists raised, ready to strike. Angel's features stiffened, like a cat's fur ruffling, as he caught sight of Mayor Wilkins-- and the Mayor caught sight of him. With a burring growl that flared into a full-out roar, Angel's fangs sharpened, his muscles bulged and he tensed, ready to lunge into a defensive attack against whatever dark magic the Mayor was about to unfurl on them all. In the background, completely helpless for once, the two Scribes watched the action with horror, and a certain almost awe.
The room exploded.
The blasting noise was a shock to everyone, of course, since none of them had struck yet. The thunderous sound was magnified even worse by the vaulting stone walls, and in his mind's eye, Luke had a sudden vision of a cheezy exterior castle shot from some old 50's horror movie, its turrets wobbling against the dramatically painted night sky backdrop.
"ENOUGH!!" came a shrill, booming voice, somehow louder than the thunderous roar preceding it.
In the aftermath of this, the six were indeed frozen, more or less in place, still poised in the actions they would have made, but now their faces were each turned toward the landing of the massive stone staircase, from where the booming demand had issued.
It was a woman. Had an author been looking for a flesh-and-blood incarnation of an ethereal beauty to center a series of fantasy novels around, she would have fit the bill. Dressed in white, her long strawberry blonde hair purling exquisitely over her bare shoulders, she was either just such a being, or she was next in line to be some hairspray corporation's don't-hate-me-because-I'm-babealicious spokesgirl.
The being's perfect pink mouth turned up in a smile, as though hearing this description. "I am Eryxinfliees," she spoke-- intoned; that was the only word that could really do justice to what she did. "I bid you welcome-- Slayers, Scribes, demons-- welcome all."
On the floor, Buffy looked back at the rest of the audience. Luke and Mary Sue at the back could only be described as cringing, even though they both probably would've taken offense at that description. Near them Angel returned Buffy's glance, his chilling vamp face still bared. The Mayor's hand, presumably readied to unleash some magic mojo on them, was dropping to his side, slowly. Faith was closest to her, as well she would be, since she and Buffy had just been about to go at it. The dark Slayer's dark eyes caught Buffy's; the kill instinct still there, though restrained, for the moment. She looked much the way Buffy felt-- what the hell's this, now?
Buffy felt secure enough to break her gaze with Faith, turned her head toward the strange new woman on the stairs. Tried not to think about the fact that her back was exposed. Sniffing, gathering her breath, Buffy lifted her chin, defiantly, to the woman. "Eryxinfliees who? Or-- is it just like Cher; one name for showbiz sake?"
Eryxinfliees smiled again. "I was known to your ancient Greeks as Eris-- the goddess of Discord," she offered by way of explanation.
Well, okay. Except Buffy still didn't see what the connection was. Way in the back, Luke now felt safe enough to speak up. "How... come you don't look like the biker chick from 'Hercules: The Legendary Journeys'?" he called out.
"Because you haven't crossed over, my boy," answered the goddess, as though that explained it all. "This is still very much the Buffyverse--"
"Wait--" Buffy held up her hand at that one. "The...whaty-verse??"
The goddess only smiled again.
"Wait-- I wanna know something." Mary Sue/Alison stepped forward, in a surprising show of courage. "Just tell me one thing. You brought us four up here to... um... so what're they doing here??" She jerked her thumbs in either direction; one at Buffy, one at Angel.
Buffy cast a glance at Mary/Ali that wasn't far removed from a look of disgust. Careful disgust-- the last time they'd tangled, Mary had conjured the demon Olvocan to swallow Buffy alive, after all. Keeping an eye out for any surprise guests, Buffy spoke; "We were told to come here. Angel phoned me from Los Angeles. Said he'd gotten the same call-- that he'd been told there was big evil going down. And that you were at the bottom of it." Buffy's glare/glance widened to include all of them; the Mayor, Faith, and Luke. "And what a surprise-- guess who the first people we find are." She shifted on her feet, assuming an attack stance, just in case she would need it. "Now why don't you just tell me what exactly it is you four got 'brought for', and we'll commence with the general slaying."
Above, the humanized form of the goddess Eryx stretched her arms out to them. "There will be no violence," she commanded-- again, that was the only word that fit. Thunder, though not like the loud explosion before, rumbled warningly overhead.
Strangely enough, there was silence.
Eryx lowered her arms. The most solemn expression was upon her perfectly symmetrized face. She looked like a drawing-- a replica of some carefully planned and executed painting, rendered in flesh and blood. "There is a purpose for each of you here," she spoke quietly. With her talent for booming, even this conversational tone was easily heard above the rising wind and thunder above. "The communion will take place-- the Scribes will be replenished in the essence of the Muse who possesses them."
"Sounds kinky." That was Faith, smiling now. She hadn't forgotten what it was they'd come for.
The self-styled goddess paid no attention to this catcall. "To you, Slayer-- and you, Ensouled one-- I am allowed to give a gift, this night only." She wasn't smiling, but all of a sudden her voice was. They could hear it in her words. "In recognition of your pure love for each other. By virtue of the Slayer's, and of the many good deeds she has done--"
"Ha," came Faith's voice again. Luke could hear it clearly.
Eryx paid no mind. "--and by virtue of the vampire's attempts to find the light.... I am allowed to give both of you what you want most."
"No-run mascara?" That was Alison, barely audible but no less snarky for it.
Eryx set her fathomable gaze on Buffy and Angel, who had dropped his game face. "I give you... each other," she proclaimed. As if on cue, the thunder rolled.
Faith, of all them, was the one moved to speak. "That's lameass!" she burst out, laughing. "You don't keep up on things too well, do ya, girlfriend? This one--" she jerked a thumb back at Angel "--he's jinxed. Last time these two got down and dirty, he went psycho killer."
Buffy felt dirty, agreeing with Faith, but she couldn't help it. "We can't... I'm just taking a guess that you mean you want us--" she looked back at Angel "--to... sleep together?"
Eyrx nodded her perfectly formed head. "The communion must take place," she said.
"The curse," Buffy said right away. "He'd lose his soul... it happened before--"
"The curse is rendered null and void. This night only." Eryx raised its arms again, extending toward all of them. "The magics taking place that allowed the Muses to slip the veil, that allow them to touch their Scribes without setting off cataclysmic events on all our worlds-- these same alignments will grant you a night of true happiness together." A perfect finger ended with a perfectly manicured nail extended. "One night. After this night, after you have left this hill, the curse will apply as always."
The silence in the wake of this decree was enormous. Eryx's skin seemed to glow; it was a glow that had been growing as she'd been talking about Buffy and Angel. A glow like the flickering globe that had led them here. "You Scribes have until sunrise to consecrate the tethers between yourselves and your Muses," she announced. She looked out the window, where the cold sun was being cleaved in half by the peak of the mountain. "And behold! the sun sets. Your time is slipping by. I suggest you enjoy it... while you can." And with a smile that was suspiciously like a sneer, the woman in white turned away... and then vanished in a searing flash of light and glitter.
A butler-- an actual butler, complete with suit and stuffy Brit disposition; no glowing ball of light this time-- appeared in the darkened arch doorway. "A dinner has been prepared," he announced to the guests. "Follow me, please."
~:~:~
"This is creepy," whispered Alison. "This whole place is set up expressly for people to have sex."
Luke was faintly relieved at this sign of the old, shy Alison, peeking through her mum verneer. "Sleazy, isn't it?" he muttered. "It's like one of those places in Vegas; everyone knows what you came for."
"Lovin' it." Faith grinned, the atmosphere right up her alley. She glanced over at Luke... and then past him, at Buffy, who was walking alongside Angel. Luke caught that look... and tried very hard to repress his instinct to indulge in the sleazy fantasies that Faith's glance at Buffy had set in him.
She'd rather be with her, Luke thought. Not that he was surprised... or would have stopped them, under any other circumstances. Faith and Buffy together... that was a nice thought, he thought. But if she, or he, ever wanted him to write her again.... this whole thing was insane.
After a very elegant dinner of crab (the Mayor cracked his crab legs and ate them almost in the exact manner he'd eaten the spiders of Gavrock, which made Luke lose his appetite, and which Ali watched with wide, rather longing eyes), two more butlers appeared with oil lamps, ready to take the couples to bed.
Buffy and Angel were led up the dark stairs. "We can't give in to this," Angel whispered. "Buffy... you know if there was a chance--"
"I know." Buffy nodded, trying very hard not to think about the possibilities. She wouldn't say Eryx was the most trustworthy... being she'd ever met, but still... the thought of being with Angel... with no curse, no consequences...
She shook that away as Angel went on. "It's a bribe, just remember that," he said.
Buffy shrugged. "Gee, it sounds so nice when you put it that way."
"You know what I mean." The door to their room opened, the butler seemingly not listening to a word that was being said. "This is all just an attempt to distract us."
The lights in the room brightened, and Buffy and Angel found themselves in a room with a huge, comfortable looking bed. The door shut behind them.
They just stood there staring at it. "Well," said Buffy, "it's definitely working."
~:~:~
Luke shut the door on the creepy-ass butler who'd brought them up here. "Well, look," he muttered, and that was all he got to say, because Faith jerked him around and slammed him against the door.
Luke's first thought was "Damn, that hurt," and his second thought didn't get much past the impulse of emotion -- of shock -- as he realized Faith's mouth was on his. Her tongue pushed in, her hips pushed in -- shit, everything was pushing IN. Her breasts crushed against his chest, and he barely remembered to plant his feet so he wouldn't just collapse on the floor like a tackled linebacker. With no bones about it Faith reached down and pulled her own shirt over her head, rubbing her black lace tits against him hungrily.
Luke couldn't believe this. He'd dreamt about it, yeah -- he'd lived it vicariously through countless fanfics, he'd been able to piece together many lusty visuals from the few times he'd seen her do it on TV-- but his brain was still pretty much just trying to function under the jangling realization that Faith was actually getting ready to screw him, probably right up against this door, and she wasn't faking it, she actually seemed turned on by him -- he'd never even gotten asked to his prom!! He hadn't had a date in months, and here Faith was going to have sex with him-- because--
He pushed at her frantically, his mind simultaneously jangling "Make her stop" and "No idiot, make her keep going" in his ears. The one thing Luke absolutely hated about the way so many of his fellow Scribes treated Faith was they way they callously used her for sex. (And damn, if that wasn't an ironic statement to be coming from his end of the chromosome pool....) In fanfic, just as in the "real" universe, Faith was too often used as the quickie sex joke, the excuse to write an X-rated story. Luke was no Boy Scout-- he'd read them all, had himself plotted out a thousand likewise scenarios. But in every single one, he'd resolutely refused to write Faith as anything besides in complete control. The dominatrix-- the one on top, as it were. Damn......
He fought to keep his cool. If they were going to sleep together -- shit, he couldn't even believe he was saying that, he and Faith were going to sleep together!! No, but if it was going to happen, regardless of whatever Scribe/Muse "connection" they were supposed to make -- Luke was determined it would be because Faith wanted to do it. Not because he needed her to do it, not because he was "conning" her into it. He would NOT take advantage of her.
And.... he was rapidly realizing... that was a little bit like resolving he would NOT be a carbon-based lifeform.
He finally pushed her licking mouth away long enough to -- well, first he had to breathe, then he had to speak. "Faith, wait--"
She backed off -- her nails hooked into his shirt, and she threw him to the floor. He hit hard on his shoulder, rolled on his back in a panic -- and she crashed down on top of him, her pelvis effectively pinning him down like a moth to a display sheet, rubbing hornily as a bonus. Luke dizzily watched as Faith hooked her thumbs in her black bra straps and snapped them against her pale marble skin, like a proud person would with suspenders. "C'mon, Freak," she taunted him with his pen name. "Tell me they don't call you that for some dumb reason like you collect oatmeal labels or somethin'."
Christ, her voice is sexy, Luke thought off-topic, trying hard -- no, bad word -- trying desperately not to think about the amazing miracle of her being on top of him. "Faith... at least... on the bed? Please?" All those stories about wild freaky sex on the floor were clearly written by Scribes who'd never had the pleasure. His back hurt, bones were getting pinched and crunched everywhere.
Faith laughed at that. She looked dangerous. "Your funeral, baby," she rasped with a uniquely ill choice of words. Strong hands shot into his chest again, nails scraped through his shirt and gouged his skin. She lifted him up off the floor, with frightening strength, and threw him onto the bed, as if he were just a vamp she was fighting.
That's what this was like, Luke had time to think just before she jumped on him again -- not like sex, more like Faith was fighting him. It was a whirlwind of experiences; how she fought, how she seduced, how strong she was -- it was a great character study, and Luke would have been deeply appreciating the lessons if he could just think past the insistent grinding of Faith's crotch -- holy shit, when did she have time to take her jeans off?? -- against his own (still clothed) legs.
"So what have you been dreaming about doin' with me, Freak?" Faith's mouth asked between wet kisses. "You want me goin' down, don't you? That's a big thing with you guys -- I've read some of the stuff you write. Fun on a late night, I tell you." She grinned. "Damn near all of 'em get down on their knees at some point." She rubbed harder, feeling the effect her words were having on him. "Is that what you want me to do? Huh? Cause I tell you what... the price is you doin' it to me first."
Luke was literally dizzy from all the provocative images she was feeding him. Yeah, he'd definitely like that... but then he thought of something else. He froze, realizing that Faith was inching upward, her knees puncturing the bed underneath his armpits as she hooked her thumbs into her black lace panties... and stopped just short of pulling them off. "Wait!!"
Faith smiled down at him, laying there helpless underneath her nearly naked body. "Don't wanna?" she asked.
He was having trouble remembering why not. "It's... this story I wrote..." He tried to laugh, his throat was dry. "You, uh... you popped the guy's skull like a grape." As tempted as he was, Luke certainly didn't want to end up like that.
Faith actually stopped writhing for half a second, and a broad grin worked over her beautiful face. "Wicked," she cheered, clearly digging the idea of sex ending in bloodshed. "You're one vicious son of a bitch, aren't you?"
She slunk back down his body, dropping down. Her hot, feral mouth came down on his again, and Luke did not have the willpower to think anymore. He'd come here to connect with her. Muse and Scribe had to be joined. He was here to get his writing gift back. And damned if that wasn't just what he was going to do.
Assuming he lived through the night, of course.
~:~:~
Alison felt naked.
She wasn't, actually... but the fact that she might soon be made her feel as vulnerable as if she already were. There stretched before her was a neatly made, clean bed. And standing on the other side -- almost like they were each using it for cover -- stood the Mayor, hands in pockets. He looked at her, and she looked at him.
"Having second thoughts?" he asked with a bright grin.
"No," Alison answered quickly. She wasn't lying -- the notion of sleeping with her Muse had crossed her mind more than once. But, in good girl form, she had always immediately pushed such thoughts away -- it's wrong, he's evil, he's way too old for you, and what kind of sicko would want to sleep with someone twice.... three, four..... six times her age anyway? She was supposed to be lusting after Justin or Joey or Enrique, wasn't she? She shouldn't be thinking about an ages-old, insensately evil, slightly balding sorceror/mayor like that, it was supposed to be ridiculous. She KNEW it was ridiculous.
I wish he wasn't wearing the turtleneck, she found herself thinking nevertheless, somewhat traitorously. He looks a lot better... a lot younger in some of his other stuff. Now what kind of thing was that to think? she immediately rebuked herself. He looks fine. Really fine. You liked the turtleneck, remember? "What about you?" she fired his own question back at him. "You don't -- actually wanna do this... do you?"
"Well, as I understand it--" the Mayor raised a hand to the back of his neck thoughtfully-- wow, he actually does that. I thought I made that up, she idled as he went on, "--we don't have much of a choice, now do we?" He smiled at her; a muted version of his much more dangerous Wile E. Coyote grin. "Isn't this right up your alley? An elegant hotel room, a dark and stormy night, a swell-looking Gothic castle -- I should think you'd be relishing this whole affair."
Alison nodded, daring to venture around the bed. "I just... I guess I'm trying to figure out why you're going through with it. I didn't think you'd want to." She was suddenly feeling clumsy with her words. She was supposed to be a writer, she ought to be able to articulate her feelings better than this... It was exactly what she meant, though. Prior to this point, if she'd ever had the notion to have the Mayor of her stories be presented with this choice-- have sex with a strange girl or else-- she would've naturally written him running away with skin crawling. She never would've pictured him coming this close, much less agreeing to go the rest of the way.
The Mayor came around too, meeting her halfway. He was a head and a half taller than she. For no reason Alison suddenly found herself wondering how they were going to line up when they were..... ohh, way too intimate thought there, just yet. She felt warm fingers on her chin suddenly, and he gently tilted her head up, and she was looking into those pale, evil eyes again.
"It's just magic, Mary," he told her calmly. "You think this is the toughest thing I've had to do in my time? Heck no. A practicioner of the black arts has to go to much stranger places, do much stranger things, than you can imagine. You know my wife?"
She nodded, of course she did. "Thanks for reminding me," she muttered uneasily. "I'd almost forgotten about this technically being adultery, too." And he was being so calm. It just went to prove how insane he really was, a fact Alison could too easily overlook most of the time -- he could justify all this by virtue of it being for a magic trick??
The Mayor dropped his hand, shook his head. "I could ask her to do anything -- handle snakes, gut toads." He chuckled. "You can bet she didn't love some of it, but she was quite the trooper. She'd have gone anywhere for me." He paused, his eyes darkening at some long-ago memory.
And now Alison felt a strange sense of sorrow, recalling all the things she had written the Mayor and his wife Edna Mae doing together-- all the trials, the betrayals, the pain... and the love, that they had inflicted on each other. Coming in on this was guilt-- and a little dread, as Alison was reminded of the fact that it was firmly her own fault the Mayor's wife was no longer around. She herself had written Edna off as a suicide, for the sake of dramatic prose.
That was funny. In a painfully unfunny way. Here Alison was, nitpicking over being his maybe-mistress, and here she'd effectively broken up the Mayor's marriage long before this. Just as certainly as if she'd shoved Edna Mae off that balcony ledge herself.
He'd rather be with her, right now, Alison knew too. "I'm sorry... I can't seem to change, here," she whispered apologetically. "I'd be her for you, if I could."
He was nodding slowly, but didn't really seem to hear. "She was a godsend," he murmured, with a curious choice of words. "I remember once I had to wade into an aqueduct full of entrails just to drag her out."
Alison's nose wrinkled, knowing that for a neat freak of his caliber this had to have been excruciating. "Wasn't that gross??"
The Mayor nodded, smiling; brought back to the here and now. "Sure was. Unfortunately that's one of the occupational hazards that comes with being a sorcerer, isn't it? All the newts and snails and puppy dog tails. Sometimes in our trade, you find yourself having to do things you would never otherwise do."
Like sleep with otherworldly chroniclers, Alison thought to herself, nodding tiredly. The Mayor was considering this a simple business neccessity, no big deal. She could handle this -- she was technically a grown-up, for God's sake. And it wasn't like she hadn't dreamt about this, in half-ignored, half-repressed daydreams, what it would be like with him.
She couldn't help it. The curiosity was just too much for her. Countless Scribes had published their versions of what sex with Angel would be like, or with Spike, or with Buffy... but no matter who the fic was about the sex was always the same: perfect, soft-focus, surrounded by hearts and flowers. Alison had grown bored with such tales, they were too perfect... too impersonal, too uncharacteristic, and therefore meant nothing to her. Exploring the same thing with other objects of desire... other, less obvious characters, with all their strange peccadilloes and flaws... now that was interesting. New territory.
The Mayor was still gazing at her, but it wasn't exactly an amiable look anymore. "On the other hand," he spoke, his voice a bit lower, a bit softer, than it had been a moment before, "being a wizard comes with an awful lot of perks, too." His hand had come up again, and he smoothed the side of Alison's hair back over her right ear.
She almost jumped as she felt a wash of... something... flow over the right side of her scalp like warm water. It poured like water invisibly down her ear, down her neck, solar-flared gently over her shoulderblade. The effect was incredibly warm, incredibly soothing... almost exciting.
"You just wouldn't believe," the Mayor went on, musingly, "some of the neat little tricks you learn. You just never realize how handy they'll eventually be."
He was doing that, Alison realized -- now that she was feeding him her creative energy (and there was a sign right there, that this whole Scribe/Muse communion thing was working), the Mayor could literally do all the magic finger tricks that she'd written him doing to his wife Edna Mae-- and others. And this time... he could do them to her.
Alison couldn't stop the compulsive shudder that rifled her, as his hand closed around her wrist, which hung by her hip.
Slowly the Mayor lifted her right hand, pressed it between both of his, her skinny digits sandwiched between two sheaths of almost unnatural warmth. His thumbs carressed her fingers gently, as if rewarding them for creating so much mayhem and murder for him. "The hand that wields the keyboard," he said like a proclamation, "is the hand that rules the world."
"That's all wrong," Alison murmured dimly, like that made any sense. Of course he would revere her fingers; if not for them he'd still be blown to smithereens back at the high school, back in that other Sunnyverse. And this set the final realization in her-- one she'd known all along, of course, in the back of her mind-- the real reason that Mayor Wilkins was going along with this, instead of doing what Alison would've predicted; running away with the characteristic shudders at the mere thought of knockin' booty:
It was power. At the end of the day there was nothing Wilkins would not do, nowhere he wouldn't go for more power. His complete control of Sunnydale was everything to him. If keeping it meant killing friends, gutting toads, wading through pools of filth... if it meant diving straight to the bottom of his young Scribe herself-- then he would do that. Phobias, usual inclinations be damned.
He did what he did. It was only in character of him.
Suddenly dry-mouthed, Alison focused on the fascination of her small writing hand between his startlingly heated ones. As erotic moves went, it was the most innocent move a person could have made. An onlooker might even have mistaken it for an affectionate touch between friends. But Alison could feel that warmth, that uneasy flush spilling over her forearm from where the Mayor held her, blooming up her bicep and cupping gently around her shoulder... almost as if it were drawing her in. Alison felt as though she were being swirled upward in a whirlpool. There was a rubber hook in her chest, slowly uplifting her entire being; her head swam with the effect of motion. If she wasn't careful, the abyss she was sampling was going to absorb her whole--
Her hand tore out of his tightening grip suddenly, and she backed away. "Wait--"
The Mayor let her go, the spell broken. At this close range she could see in his eyes; he'd felt it too, that feeling of being sucked in, absorbed. The magnetic force between two drops of water. They were communing with each other -- he the Muse, allowing himself to be studied, willing to give up his tale, and she the Scribe; dipping a cup into his dark resevoir, acting as megaphone for his ego. It was a ritual as old as the cavemen who told tales of the hunt; timeless, almost as primal as eating or sex. In some ways it was even more intimate than sex, because it was their heads they were letting each other into, and the landscape of the mind is often the darkest place on earth.
Alison shuddered under the sickness and the sheer excitement of it all. "I just--" she struggled for a decent excuse for her sudden shy. "I'm not... exactly a supermodel under here," she finally offered lamely. God, she wished she could shapeshift right now! All she could think of was getting her clothes off... and pale skin, and stretch marks, and scary stuff she had to see in her mirror at home every morning....
The Mayor's smile almost returned. Almost. "I'll tell you a secret," he said, leaning forward slightly as his voice dropped hushedly: "Neither am I."
Alison laughed out loud, clapping her hand over her mouth.
"Do you have any idea how refreshing it is these days, to see a girl with some meat on her bones?" the Mayor continued. "You've got curves; well, what do you expect? You're a girl! You shouldn't be ashamed of that. Any fellow who doesn't like a girl to look like a girl... well..." He shrugged, beaming reassuredly. "...there's just something wrong with him, now isn't there?"
Alison nodded, thinking it best not to mention Luke and his thing for sculpted Teutonic warrior babes. "You're sweet," she giggled.
"I can be." The Mayor's hand had once again cuffed her small, skinny wrist, almost rubbing it. "You know, I think you're missing the big picture here. When you think about it, this is really no different from Zeus coming down from Olympus and romancing Alcmene, or any of his mortal subjects. Do you have any idea how flattered I am?"
It took Alison a second, to realize that he was drawing that comparision between the Greek god and her. "It's not every day a fellow finds himself propositioned by the Supreme Being." He uttered a chuckle. "I've got to say, I'm awfully intrigued. I think this might be very interesting, you being a goddess and all."
Alison's eyes widened at him talking about it so frankly. "A virgin goddess!" she pointed out, half-laughing. "I don't know how much fun you're gonna have, sir; I don't know what I'm doing!"
The Mayor grinned at that, and it was the first time this evening where he'd looked a little bit menacing. "Ohh, but Mary... don't you know virgins are what demons like best?" His eyes twinkled gleefully.
And Alison could only stand there, eyebrows arched in bewilderment.
~:~:~
She hit the satin sheets on her back as his smooth rippling body came over hers. He slid between her perfect thighs, both of them shuddering at the close contact. Her fingers slid over his cool curves of muscle, and the tattoo that had been inked into his dead skin. "Angel..." Buffy whimpered into his neck.
It had been so long, they had wished for this so much.... "Half an hour," Angel grunted through his teeth, barely keeping his vamp face in.
Buffy nodded, helpless in the whirlpool of her own desire. "Half hour's -- not so bad," she gasped, tightening her leg-hold around his hips. "What... what could happen in a half--ahh--" Eryx, you better be serious about that no-curse clause! she thought frantically, just before Angel thrust downward -- and promptly eradicated all thoughts from her mind other than the most important, primal one. "Ohh-- God..."
~:~:~
"Faith!!"
Luke had always been of the opinion that screaming stuff out during sex was mostly just a tool of lazy writers to move the, ahem, action along in the context of a love scene. He'd never bothered with that. His method had always been detail, detail, detail, in graphic extreme; descriptions of every move Faith might make along Buffy's skin (or, y'know, whichever lover she happened to be with); a very prescise description of what was going where, what was being done to which body part, and the effect it might be having on Faith, or Buff-- or whoever.
That had been his method, because, in brutal reality, he'd never actually had sex before. This was his first opportunity to see just how that whole screaming lover's names in moments of ecstasy thing got started. "Faith... Faith..."
And he was beginning to see why people began calling out wearisome pet names like "baby" or "darlin'" or "hot mama"-- it was because after a while, even at the height of what had to be the best freakin' sex EVER.... even Luke couldn't deny he was starting to sound repetitious. "Faith... uhh, babe..." Great, now he was a Sonny and Cher song. "Faith... don't stop--"
Faith laughed at that one, snagging a piece of his lip between her teeth. "Don't worry," she breathed, doing just the opposite.
~:~:~
Alison's mouth opened in a gasp as she writhed, in a thoroughly unhinged, very non-platonic way, against the sheets.
It was the warm water feeling-- it had spread from the spot where his fingers had grazed her temple; had spread down her arm and neck and bled itself welcomingly throughout her entire body. Every single nerve ending in her body had become hypersensitive, almost painfully responsive to the slightest sensation; resulting in waves, waves of near-psychedelic bliss. Her toes were curling. Her fingers were clawing into the down comforter, rumpling the sheets.
It didn't make a bit of difference that the Mayor was nowhere near her.
He was, in fact, now some feet away from her -- he'd seated neatly himself in the plush chair facing the bed and was watching her now, with a singularly composed expression... almost concentration... as he watched the young girl twisting and turning in a fit of passion -- totally alone -- on top of the sheets.
Her hands slid directionlessly over her own thighs, her belly, between her own breasts. God, everything that touched her-- the comforter, her own still-on clothes, her own hair brushing against her neck-- even the air in the room seemed to be heavenly torture to her now overly-tender skin. She was brutally aware of her own blood, pumping loudly in her veins, could hear the noise it made in her ears. Even the motions it caused as it was pumped through her very heart-- the squeezing of muscle against muscle, of blood around bone, of hot liquid filling and being suctioned from inside out--
Her head dug back into the mattress as her mouth opened and a gutteral moan-- a noise of pure erotic pleasure felt like it was literally pulled out from the depths of her soul. Simply from the act of her heart completing one beat.
She heard him move, slightly, in the chair. Most any witness would have seen this as a unbelievably filthy, perverted scene; an ages-old evil sorcerer watching quietly as a young woman was set upon by a full-blown orgasm of an apocalyptic degree. They weren't having sex-- not the way Angel and Buffy and Luke and Faith presently were. Not in the old-fashioned sense. But Alison knew acutely that it was his magical manipulations causing the maelstrom inside her. They were feet apart, each fully clothed-- but she felt just as touched, just as explored, just as... laid... as she would if they'd gotten down n' dirty the old fashioned way.
She was aware, too, in some far-off still-functioning part of her brain... she was registering faint despair at the oddly certain certainty that the feeling wasn't mutual. The Mayor wasn't "getting off" on this. If anything, that noise she'd heard a moment ago-- pleasantly registering inside her ear, causing more warm flashes-- that had probably been the sound of him glancing at his watch.
"I don't suppose," his voice reverberated tautly against her eardrum, almost causing her to lose consciousness from the waves of intoxicating ecstasy that flooded her head, "you ever thought, when you were writing me doing this to my Edna Mae-- I don't guess you even fathomed what it was you were writing about, did you?"
God, his voice was so-- her belly was quivering, her whole body was trembling. No-- she had to agree all the way with him, there. And she thanked herself, again, for coming up with such a freaking fabulous idea in the first place. "This is so... so...." She couldn't even get the words out. The vibrations her own voicebox was making against her throat-- "--Ohhh-- sir--"
"Ah-ah-ah." His voice, though still not quite teasing, took on a softly scolding note. "I'd really rather you didn't call me that while we're... ahem--"
Her leg muscles tightened, her fists clenching tightly on either side of her body in the flustered comforter and sheets. "Wh--what do I-- ohh, I gotta call you something, you gotta give me something to scream!" She hadn't meant to scream that, it just kind of came out. "What do I say??"
~:~:~
"Angel!!"
They couldn't separate themselves. They were moving in a frenzied junction, hardly letting each other slip even a micron inch from contact from the other's skin. Buffy's eyes had rolled back in her head as Angel thrust against her, her lips almost unconsciously mouthing his name, over and over. "Angel-- oh, Angel..."
Angel stiffened, both at the fiery heat of her tight body and the feel of her grasping nails on his bare skin. "Buffy... Buffy..." He couldn't stop saying her name, it was the only name he ever wanted to say like this, in the throes of passion; it was the only word he ever wanted on his lips again. "Buffy...."
~:~:~
Luke's eyes opened, stinging from the sweat lining them. "Wh-what?" his bruised lips got out.
Faith raised her head, her hair swirled around her head in messy strings, her feral face shining with dampness. Her breath dragged out of her in ragged gasps, her entire lithe body still quivering. Her shoulders were shuddering as she looked down at her Scribe.
He was tied to the bed. She'd spent the better half of the night introducing him to the five basic S&M groups. Faith had no idea if what was supposed to be happening -- the Scribe-Muse communal thing -- was actually happening.... but he was a decent lay, anyway. But she'd been screaming something there, during that last climax...and it was a pretty damn good one too...but the name she'd been calling in ecstasy...
Faith slumped, the wetness between their bodies so thick they might as well have been swimming together. "I didn't say anythin'," she muttered, sinking her face into his throat again.
~:~:~
Three AM
Four hours to daylight
His bare feet padded down the carpeted hallway. It was cold in the dark castle air. He crept down the stone staircase, feet aching on the icy stone, but the floor at the bottom was thankfully carpeted again, and Luke walked the vast dark front room to the kitchen in relative comfort.
He had to get something to eat. After hours of rigorous marathon sex, he needed fuel. Faith had given him strict orders for Mountain Dew. He just hoped the fridge had some. Judging from Amish-R-Us down the road, he didn't think it was likely, and Faith would be pissed if that was the case...
He padded into the dark kitchen. Even though this was an ancient castle, it had still been renovated with all the modern amenities; a huge Amana fridge complete with ice maker stood in the corner.
He stopped dead halfway there. "Ali??"
Alison jumped a mile, jerked around. Her face was wax-colored in the dim light from the fridge, and her pale brown hair was rumpled and slicked back.
Luke stared at her, startled by her strung-out appearance -- she looked like hell. "What are you doing down--"
She shrugged once, trying weakly to smile. "Same thing you are," she guessed, glancing down at the silver platter he was carrying for the food.
Luke shrugged, feeling shy for the first time in years. "Faith wanted--"
"I hear ya." Alison turned back to the fridge, looking almost unnerved by the name. "I had to...I needed something to drink, I'm all dried out."
Silence. "Too much info, there," Luke's voice muttered.
She blinked, embarrassed. "Oh... um, well..."
He noticed right then how dark she was around the eyes; her mascara had smeared... he hoped. Luke felt extremely awkward. Each of them knew what the other had been doing. Since they'd grown up together, it was intensely weird for them to see each other like that. Luke wasn't all that encouraged by Alison's... he couldn't come up with a better word; godawful appearance. He hoped it was just the bad light from the fridge making her look so drained. She even looked thinner than she had this afternoon, her eyes were gleaming almost unnaturally.
"Are you all right?" he ventured.
"Oh, mm-hmm." Alison nodded, again, too quickly. She drew her thin lower lip into her mouth, trying to smile at the same time, as her skinny hand reached for a glass bottle of milk.
Luke shrugged, shaking off the crawly feeling around the back of his neck. "Well... so what's the verdict?" He couldn't quite keep the resentful note out of his voice. "Was he everything you were hoping for?"
He watched her stare into the fridge light, pausing. Ali must have known he was hoping she'd say it was horrible, and she looked as though she was thinking of answering that, just to ease his mind. But then, a sickeningly girlish smile worked its way across Ali's pale face. She opened her mouth to answer, but only succeeded in grinning. "Um..."
"I hear you." Luke nodded, dropping it. At the very least, she was having a good time. With the Mayor.... bleagghh. With a shudder Luke continued studying her -- and realized, suddenly, what was wrong.
"What the hell happened to your hair?" he blurted out.
"Huh?" Alison looked up, obliterating what Luke had caught sight of. He reached out and carefully turned the right side of her head back to the refrigerator light, so he could see.... he showed her the lock of her hair, held between two of his fingers.
The lock was a definite coppery red.
Alison stared at the lock that should have been as mousy light-brownish as the rest of her hair. The lock that had been brown, several hours earlier. "Huh!" she sniffed, surprised. "Well... maybe it's the chlorine in the water or... something..."
Luke wasn't hearing that. He didn't think it was any coincedence that this streak in Ali's hair was almost the same shade of red as the Mayor's. "He marked you," Luke whispered with a growing sense of horror.
"Oh, that's silly." Alison pushed his hand away. Her tone of voice was a little too breezily scoffing. "C'mon, what about you?! Look at these bruises, and these welts..." she motioned to the soft blackish marks Faith had dealt him, "--I mean, you wanna talk about being marked? Look at--" she was checking out his neck "--well... I don't see any death hickeys, but--"
"They're not on the neck," Luke interrupted quietly, embarrassed.
Alison stopped, mouth open. "Okay, now who's the one with too much info?!" she huffed, grabbing a grapefruit out of the fridge and shutting it.
"Okay, okay--" Luke grabbed her shoulder in the dark... had she always been that bony?? He didn't remember her legs being that skinny... not that he'd ever looked at her legs much... "Listen, just tell me... he isn't hurting you, right? I mean he's not making you do anything... weird... is he?"
Her skin looked so pale. Ali was pale anyway, but... Luke couldn't help thinking of the Mayor's fingerprints on her, bleaching her.... Christ, how could she stand being in bed with that psycho leprechaun-faced bastard?! Luke felt helpless-- and although he didn't know why, he was aware of a certain twinge of almost... jealousy. He filed that away, wondering if there was anything he could have done to stop this whole mess before it started.
Alison's haunted eyes seemed to soften. "Define weird," she murmured with a pensive half-smile. "No, really, it's been..." She seemed to search for an adequate description, and finally blushed. "It's fine," she assured, finally. "He's being so nice to me... really. I'm having a blast." She stared into Luke's eyes, trying to appear the picture of health. "How about you?"
Luke looked away, finding himself being scrutinized now. "Ah, well... y'know. Wouldn't be Faith if it didn't hurt." It did hurt, but he wasn't about to tell Alison how much. Poor kid wasn't exactly down with the joys of violent sex. His body ached in places he didn't think could ache. The really perverted thing though... was that, much as it hurt... Luke really, really liked it.
Alison, predictably, rolled her eyes. "Well, don't let her hurt you too much. I mean it." She tried to smile at her bruised childhood pal. She leaned forward, locked her shaky arms around his neck in a friend's hug.
Luke couldn't help smiling. Good ol' Ali, worried about everybody. Even in this, he was aware that his arms didn't seem to want to embrace his friend too deeply-- the reminder of what they'd both been doing was still ever-present. The damned Mayor had in all likelihood been touching... groping, drooling over this same skin just moments before... Luke barely kept himself from jerking away in disgust. "We're gonna get through this," he said, patting her back reassuringly. "Just a couple more hours til morning, and then we're outta here."
"Right." Alison pulled back, sniffing, not from any emotion but from the chill in the kitchen. "Don't forget your plate."
"Oh yeah." Luke looked down at the silver platter he kept forgetting he was holding. "Pizza Rolls, Faith says. Like they're gonna stock that here. Like Haggis-R-Us down the road there even sells 'em."
Alison giggled.
~:~:~
Up in the turrets, the proceedings were being watched by Eryx, who was smiling over all the indiscretion happening in her castle. "And now we turn up the juice," she laughed, waving her hand over the crystal ball.
~:~:~
Luke went back to his room, clicking the door shut. "Faith," he whispered.
The room was dark. Luke swallowed... Faith was the kind of person who thought it was funny to jump you from the shadows. He oughta know. He cast a look around the darkened room, the tousled bed they'd spent the past few hours soiling. "Uh... Faith..."
Well, he'd just crawl back into bed. He knew she'd come back there eventually. Luke climbed in, and realized there was a body in there already.
So that's where she was hiding. The sheets were so messed up... and slightly damp... that he hadn't seen her. "Faith," he whispered as her long legs wrapped around him, and his stomach jumped against hers. Lips covered his, sealing off any protests he might have made -- not that he was protesting any, thank you very much. He braced himself for the inevitable kink she was going to whip out any minute, the bruises he'd sustained this evening throbbing in anticipation... yeah, I really am a vicious sicko, he had to admit as he smoothed her blonde hair back--
Wait a minute.....
Luke pulled back, startled so much that he actually jerked up a knee and pushed it into her stomach. Buffy's face stared back at him, as surprised as he was. "Where's Angel?!" she exclaimed.
"Where's Faith?!" Luke blurted back, as if defending himself.
Had he gotten the wrong room?? How hadn't he realized? And why wasn't Buffy jumping out of bed right now? What was Angel going to do to him when he got back and found his girl in bed with a strange guy?? And -- maybe the best question of all -- why didn't Luke care?
He stared at Buffy, her golden hair tousled, her skin warm and softly pinkish, undoubtedly from what she and Angel had been doing all night. Buffy, the star of so many Scribe fantasies, considered by most everyone to be the most desirable, most beautiful... a sentiment Luke had to say he shared. He'd dreamt about being with her -- hell, who hadn't? Everyone wanted Buffy. It was ludicrous not to, and ludicrous to think he'd ever have a shot with her.
Which was why Luke was extremely shocked that Buffy wasn't leaving.
As a matter of fact, she was moving closer. No, it wasn't his imagination -- she lifted her adorable little chin and gave him that soft, green-eyed look of hers... and she kissed him. Hard.
Luke went with the duh reflex for only a moment. Then he gave in and kissed Buffy back, reveling in the taste of her pink lips -- Christ, she really does taste like vanilla -- and slunk his arms around her petite (and completely naked) body, nearly having a heart attack at the way her body was melting, the way she was descending around his renewed hardness, without any hesitation at all. He couldn't believe this, he couldn't believe this....
"I can't--" Buffy's breathless voice came between her assaults on his mouth. "I can't stop kissing you," she breathed.
Luke did something... he guessed he nodded, whatever. "Okay," he mumbled into her mouth. Buffy thought she had to explain?? He wasn't complaining--
"No--" Her muffled whimpers hummed against his mouth. "I mean it.... I really can't stop doing this." The brief flash he caught of Buffy's emerald green eyes held an unmistakable note of panic. She was shoving him now, aggravating the bruises Faith had already left on him... and yet her fingers were grabbing him at the same time, in a confused dance of embracing and pushing away.
Luke tried to push away, too. He tried very hard to repress the primal urge that said to just take her and get it over with-- tried to think clearly enough to get out of the bed-- and even when he finally realized that he wasn't kissing Buffy and stroking her and moving in on her because he wanted to--
.....he literally couldn't stop.
~:~:~
"Mary, I've been thinking," said the Mayor as the door clicked shut, signaling the girl's return. He had just returned from a trip to his luggage, having changed his clothes, dressed in fresh shirt and socks. It was true-- he and young Mary Sue hadn't physically consummated their relationship. He had done little more than sit by and watch while the muscular spell known to the ancient Sumarians as the Caress of Denhtrop did its thing. For someone with his phobias, the Caress was a perfect solution. The only drawback was that it didn't leave the conjurer completely numb to it-- even from across the room, he'd still felt the sensations. If not as fiercely as she had. So even though he hadn't touched her, administrating the spell and bearing witness to Mary's virtual rapture had still left him feeling awfully... dirty.
So he'd cleaned himself up, not able to stand feeling disheveled even for a little while. Now he stood by the complimentary wet bar, looking for one of those itty-bitty bottles of scotch -- hotel scotch was repulsive at best, but he dearly needed the taste of some right now. If only to wash away the taste of deluded bardess in his mouth. What was it with young girls these days, that they thought they constantly needed to be sticking their tongues in people's mouths? Didn't anybody realize how unsanitary that was??
He sighed, straightening from his crouched position by the mini fridge. "Boy, for a castle, this place certainly doesn't come well stocked. Mary, I think--"
He was silenced by a hand on his shoulder jerking him around. An arm locked around the back of his neck..... and yet another hot, insistent, and strangely familiar tongue pressed into his mouth. His attacker/seducer threw her other arm around his head and tugged him down as she jumped up, latching her legs around his hips, and it was only then the Mayor realized that the hair he was stroking wasn't Mary's-- it was--
"Faith!!" He pushed her back purely by reflex.
Only her leg lock around his waist kept the dark Slayer from falling to the floor in a heap. Faith laughed, her hands clawing at his shirt as she came back up, hair whipping wildly. "Figured you'd be into the rough treatment," she rasped, her smiling teeth flashing before his eyes. Her nails tore his shirt apart, and buttons snapped, ricocheting off the wall with tiny clacks-- brand new shirt, too, darn it. Her legs tightened around him slowly, her feet locked together behind his back.
The Mayor looked up at his dark Slayer's young face, his stomach recoiling at the feel of her heated weight against him. Faith was not going to remember, but there was a universe out there, created by the mad little girl he'd spent the last few hours sitting next to, feeding into her wide-eyed fantasies... anyhow, there was a world out there, one in which a girl just like Faith had passionately bedded a man just like himself. Multiple times. They had spent many dark nights of the soul together, taking sick comfort in each other, using each other. Black, angry... painfully pleasurable nights. The Faith presently using him as monkey bars wouldn't remember, because she was not that girl. That Faith belonged to another time-space dimension entirely.
But the Mayor remembered. During the Transformation, when he had ascended into demonic godhood, he had felt himself suddenly become aware of all those parallel universes out there. Thousands of alternate Earths had burst over him, overwhelming his senses in a flood that nearly washed him away as he'd risen. He had become aware of a thousand, a million Mayor Wilkinses in a million other Sunnydales in a million other galaxies. How truly small this world was, and how truly ignorant human beings were, not to know all this existed.
He remembered. The memories of a man who had sunk so low as to take advantage of a young girl, Slayer or no, were as sharp as his own-- because they were his memories. The Mayor had never had Faith -- boy, there was a pun -- but he knew her, intimately.
He could taste her flesh in his mouth even now.
The Mayor licked his suddenly dry lips, realizing he had to handle this very carefully. "Faith... now..." He tried jimmying his fingers between himself and her thighs, to pry her off -- but she took that for erotic touching and actually purred, wrapping her arms around his neck. She dropped her face to his ear, and he let out a yelp as he felt her hook her teeth into his earlobe, biting down hard. "Faith, if you don't get down this minute you're going to get a walloping," he warned her. Surely Faith would know a walloping in his book didn't mean a meager punishment, and it didn't mean something dirty, either.
But Faith wasn't stopping, even though her hands were clamped on his shoulders peculiarly, not quite clutching him anymore. "Love to, boss," she whispered in his ear, her breath hot. "Why don't you make me?"
Any other time he might have taken it as the smartaleck response he was used to from her. His girl was famously insolent. But when Wilkins tried to do just that -- force her off him -- he found he couldn't. Instead, much to his own dismay, his hands stroked over the parts of her left exposed by the sheet she'd come here wrapped in, which was fast falling off her. Her legs were like a heated vise around his waist, and as much as he tried to push her away, he found his own hands literally would not comply.
"It's a spell," he got out through her tightening clinch on his ribs. He recognized it in a flash, the familiar muscle twinges that accompanied a binding spell... only he couldn't for the life of him figure out what manner of binding spell it could be. "Faith-- listen very carefully to me, we've been enchanted. It's some type of behavior-inducing--"
"Never mind," Faith growled through gritted teeth, impatient with his explaining. Her nails shredded holes in his shirt, not even realizing she was doing it, as she spoke while she planted fierce, wet kisses haphazardly on his mouth. "You're-- the black magic-- guy-- can'tyoubreakit?"
"Well, given time--" But time was something he didn't have great supply of at the moment. Faith herself seemed torn between giving into the charm and fighting valiantly against it, and Wilkins took momentary pride in that -- his Slayer fighting tooth and nail against forces trying to do her in. That was his girl. In fact he'd be feeling mighty proud about Faith's initiative if only she weren't dangerously close to breaking a few of his bones. The Slayer was going with her attack reflex, but since there was no physical enemy to fight against, that meant he was bearing the brunt of her attack. They struggled for some time like that, fighting each other almost as much as they were fighting the spell that made them tumble back on the bed and indulge in fierce, utterly inappropriate kissing.
Wilkins didn't want this. And for all her false bravado, for all the times she had playfully suggested doing it, he could tell Faith wasn't happy with the situation, either. She was used to being in control-- as was he. This predicament, where their own limbs would not obey them... it was humiliating. The Mayor cast spells, he didn't fall victim to them. And his recollection of that other-verse Faith's bedroom habits -- she despised being weak, he knew that much. She preferred dominance, as a holdover from her harrowing experiences on the street. She was always on top.
But the spell seemed to know this. The Mayor watched somewhat miserably as his own hands, ones he couldn't control flipped Faith over on her back, and he stared down into her black, fathomable eyes. There was fury in those eyes, that fight he loved so well, and there was aggravation at her failure to override whatever spell had been cast on them. And... there was defeat, too, which honestly made him feel ill. Not many things could make him feel guilt anymore. But to see Faith's realization that she couldn't have a choice in this, that she had to give in to yet another not-entirely-wanted tryst... that very nearly broke what was left of his heart.
Her deep brown eyes fluttered, gazing wearily up at him. "Do it, boss," she rasped, her dusky voice shuddering from exertion. "Ain't like I never asked you.... just go for it already."
Mayor Wilkins hadn't despised himself in over two hundred years. But he did now, in the moment between the soft, apologetic kiss he pressed against Faith's fevered forehead, and the moment his ensorcelled limbs gave in to her request.
~:~:~
Alison had waited for Luke to disappear down the hall before she reentered the room she was sharing with the Mayor. She didn't want Luke to worry about her. It was true -- she didn't feel especially well. Her hands were shaking like they did when she hadn't eaten for a while; in fact her bones felt like the marrow had been sucked out and replaced with sugar-filled Kool-Aid. She felt naked, even with all her clothes on.
Stripped. No... more like drained. Fragile, like her body wouldn't hold together long.
It was the communion, had to be. She should have asked Luke if he felt like that, like Faith had sucked something out of him and forgotten to put it back before they'd pulled away physically. Well, knowing Faith, she'd probably sucked something, all right.....
....No, Alison did not feel well at all.
Maybe it was just the cold mountain air. She bet she was coming down with something; she hated the cold. Maybe it was that post-coital chill everyone talked about. Alison paused to think about that, for a second.
She was no longer a virgin.
She wasn't sure what she was supposed to feel now. Overjoyed? She wouldn't say that. Disgust? No... decidedly not. Having the Mayor do... whatever it was he'd done to her... certainly hadn't been the worst experience of her life. It was right up there near the top of things wanted to remember for a long while, frankly. The only part that kind of ruined it was that he hadn't actually touched her-- hadn't held her, hadn't let her satisfy her morbid, sick curiosity about a few things. That would've been....
Well, considering what he'd done to her without even touching her... it might have been way too intense. But... it might've been nice.
All her life, Alison had never felt herself to be any more incidental than the barely-scribbled people constituting crowd scenes in the back frames of cartoons. Not the star, not even noteworthy enough to be drawn as decidedly male or female. Tonight, she didn't feel like that. She felt highlighted... underlined. Someone of consequence, someone to be worried about. Someone to take seriously. Someone to consider dangerous.
For the first time ever, she felt aware of her breasts. That sounded like an insane thing to say, considering she'd had them since age 12. But she'd never really.... noticed them before. Tonight, though, after the flushes of warm feeling that had burst over them, sparkles of sensation like butterfly kisses on her breasts...
Not only did Alison feel real. She felt female.
That wasn't to say she didn't still feel.... drained.
What they'd done hadn't been sex. It had been more of a strange, disembodied swapping of minds. The most intense thing had been the swimming, the feel of losing herself in the darkness, in a whirlpool of black tides. The feeling that she wasn't just observing a void... she was lending some of her own solidity to it, allowing it to become more real. She had stared into the abyss tonight, and it had stared right back.
Alison couldn't help feeling it had taken some of her with it.
Well, that was what they'd come here to do, wasn't it? And that thing with her hair... well, that was weird. But she'd worry about it later. That was what hair dye was for, after all.
Alison turned the doorknob, slipped into the room, surprising herself with how much she wanted to get back into bed. "Sir," she whispered. She wasn't even sure what to call him now. You couldn't really call someone you'd been intimate with "sir" anymore, could you? She approached the bed in the darkened room, drawing up her courage for round two. She certainly hoped this whole thing was working; it would be hellish if, after all this, she still wouldn't be able to write. "Um... hey," she whispered as she drew back the blankets and slipped into the bed.
The feel of something icy cold against her bare flesh made Alison scream -- loudly.
She screamed again as the cold whatever-it-was rolled over on top of her and muffled her scream with something that felt like a cold, wet, eel-like tongue pushing into her mouth. Alison let out a muffled, full-mouth groan as a very aroused, very cold body pressed into her... way into her; if she hadn't put her underwear back on for her trip downstairs, he -- whoever he was -- would have been inside her right then. He pulled back-- and she was faced with Angel's deeply surprised features, staring down at her.
"You're not Buffy," he said.
"No shit, Sherlock." Alison squirmed uncomfortably under what felt like several heavy bags of chopped ice between her legs. "Why are you in my room?!"
"This isn't your room." Angel, as shocked as he clearly was, had made no move to get up or let her out. He stayed where he was, and Alison realized with shock that not only was he moving slightly... in a very non-platonic way, against her cotton-pantied middle... but that the sensation, as lurchingly icy as it was, was turning her on.
No-- she wasn't gonna do that. Alison shoved against him. "Lemme up," she ordered outright.
Angel seemed like he was going to. He tried, anyway, his movements only irritating her already tender undersides. "I can't," he finally admitted.
Alison looked up at him with a you-gotta-be-kidding look. "Don't be retarded, get off!" she snapped, unnerved.
He didn't. Instead Angel rolled slowly against her, and Alison's breath caught in her throat-- in revulsion. God, how could Buffy stand this?? Yeah, the vampire was muscly and good-looking, but he was cold... so clammy and cold, like snuggling up to a fish from the freezer. Alison was already chilly from being out in the hall, this wasn't helping her any. "Angel... please let me up, Angel..."
He kissed her. Even his mouth was cold, and even so Alison couldn't help kissing him back, feeling like she was sucking a frozen ice cream pop. He was being gentle, and careful, he wasn't hurting her... but she didn't want him, his studliness notwithstanding. She didn't like Angel, for the same reason she despised Buffy -- they were the Mayor's enemies. And besides being someone else's man, and as ice-damn-cold as a freezer rack of ribs, Angel was also something like 300 years old-- way older than the Mayor; which technically made Angel a creepy old geezer who just happened to be wearing a young stud's face. An ice cold old geezer, bleagghh.....
....and she couldn't stop kissing him, why couldn't she stop kissing him??
Why didn't he let her up? Jerk he might be, but Alison knew that Angel, the non-evil Angel anyway, was no rapist. Why was he doing this to her?! Coupled with these questions were Alison's frantic wonderings as to why her knees were rising, her legs ignoring her mental pleas and hooking around Angel's icy, muscled calves. Alison shuddered from head to toe as his cool hands slid down the length of her body trapped beneath his. Fingers like smoky links from the fridge pushed up the tiny sleeper tee she wore, pulling it off over her head, and Alison uttered a disgruntled moan as her now-bare breasts hit cold, hard muscle.
Those dead hands worked between the elastic of her panties and tugged them down, his heavy cold body pinning hers as he tugged the cotton off her warm legs. "I don't want this," Angel's tight voice came against her forehead, where his mouth was pressed.
Then why the hell are you doing it?! Alison wondered, and her horror at what he was doing was only matched by her confusion at why she was letting him. Her body would not obey commands she had been giving it her entire life. She was kissing Angel's face almost unconsciously, her lips seeking out his, as if she liked the feel of something cold and slithery in her mouth. His body pressed unrelentingly against hers again, and this time there was no material between them, nothing to hinder the feel of his way too excited body kneading against her, as cold and as hard as glass.
Above her, Angel broke away from the kisses he couldn't keep from tasting, as horrified as the young girl underneath him was. He wasn't doing this, not of his own free will. He'd been bewitched before, and that's what this felt like... he was more and more sure by the minute that he and Mary Sue had fallen to some kind of twisted love spell. That sounded so melodramatic, like a soap opera... but it was the only answer he could come up with. He had absolutely no desire for the dangerous, deluded Scribe, especially not when Buffy had been here minutes before, would be back any minute....
Angel's body, however, seemed to belong to somebody else; like something he could only watch from inside of, not control at all. He winced at the look of pure terror on Mary Sue's face -- he'd had enough of fear, had seen too many looks like that from hundreds of young maids, tavern wenches, soon-to-be childes... damn whatever powers-that-be were putting him through this, playing this sick joke on him when he was trying so damn hard... "I'm not doing this," he almost pleaded with her to understand. "It's not me--"
She was definitely under the spell, too. The movements she was making, her hips arching up, her soft damp lobes torturously pulsing against the length of him, the heat rising off her warmblooded skin... she clearly wasn't doing it of her own will, and yet she seemed as completely unable to stop as he was. "I'm sorry," Angel rasped, sinking into her painfully hot body.
~:~:~
"I can't believe you did that."
Buffy sat on the edge of his bed, looking as confused as Luke felt. They were both still breathing somewhat heavily from the violence of their coming together. The statement had been Luke's. He didn't understand what had just happened between them, and as much as he'd dreamed about it -- almost as much as he'd dreamed about being with Faith -- he did not like it. Something was deeply wrong here.
Making things worse was the fact that Buffy wasn't answering. She wasn't even looking at him. Her pale green eyes were fixed on the dresser, her slender wrist clutching the sheet that was covering her up. Luke felt... well, underneath the afterglow from the extreme rush and the sense of impending doom he was also, truthfully, starting to feel a little insulted. He knew he wasn't the picture of studly gorgeousness, but dammit-- he wasn't a toad, either. Buffy had practically tackled him, for Christ's sake. Now she was acting as if it were all his fault. Like he hadn't tried to stop it. Like he'd done something wrong.
It's because I'm not Angel, he realized.
And even though he understood that; he knew Buffy loved Angel, would always love the vampire, that she had only ended up in this bed tonight through some insane miracle, some twisted smiling of Fate that decided Luke Kenji deserved to live out his fantasy... even though Luke had known damn well from the start that Buffy would never have looked twice at him under normal circumstances...
It still stung. He wasn't good enough for her.
Ordinary humans weren't good enough for the Slayer. This ethereal, unreal girl. Of course they weren't. What was Luke thinking? He was nothing special, not a vampire or an Army boy. He was just comic-reading white trash from suburbia who'd fallen through some metaphysical dog door in the cosmos.
He watched with a lot more than resentment, as Buffy got up, slowly, from the bed, taking his sheet with her. Of course she could have his sheet. He would give Buffy whatever she wanted. Had to. It was in the script.
She didn't even turn around as she left. Click.
Luke sat there on the bed, a thousand miles from his own bed, from his own comfortably cluttered room where he'd dreamt about what he'd just done so many times, wondering how he could feel so shitty after he'd been with not one but two incredibly beautiful Slayers. After what was likely going to be the one and only amazing experience of his sorry life.
At least the spell seemed to have worn off, the idle thought swam in and out of his miserable reverie.
~:~:~
And here Angel had thought he might be near the end of his brooding.
He had seen the look before. Not from Mary Sue, as a matter of fact he couldn't really recall exchanging more than hello and goodbye with the Scribe before. How insane was that? To barely know someone past her name and fall into bed with her? He had never done that, not while he'd had his soul. Not even in his drunkenest days as a mortal had he ever....
The girl was flattened against the door of the room now, even though Angel certainly had no plans to come for her. In fact, after he had given into the spell, charm, whatever it was, after they had each released each other's climaxes-- that seemed to be the instant the spell released them, and they were free to jerk away from each other. By that time, of course, it being too late to do anybody any good. Worse than almost all of it was the glare of pure, utter rage she was landing on him, a look he was well familiar with by now, having seen similar looks of pure hatred on the faces of victims, of their families, after he'd slaughtered and pillaged. She was -- almost tangibly -- hating him into the floor.
"When we get back to Sunnydale," she actually growled, her voice still out of breath and deeply, deeply bitter, "you will never sleep through another day."
It sounded like Willow, with her childish voice, making terrible witch curses. Except Angel knew not only could Mary Sue back them up-- she would. There was nothing this ersatz creator of the universe could not do. She might rewrite the unwritten rules of what made a vampire's flesh become flammable, extending it to apply to... anything, really. Candlelight, moonlight, water, polluted air. She might cause Angel's fangs to grow and gnash until they gobbled up his own head, from the inside out.
There was no reason for her not to perform any of a thousand gruesome, sadistic tricks. She had despised both him and Buffy before; she could make their lives hell now. Angel thought he knew how Hercules must have felt. Trapped in a world created by a goddess who hated him.
Angel hated Greek mythology.
"You could have stopped this," he couldn't help retorting, tightly.
Psuedo-goddess she might have been. But she was still a child, nonetheless. And she reacted as a child would: turned red, her cheeks blotchy against her white face, and turned and stalked out the door. Slam.
~:~:~
Alison paused outside the door of Angel's room, wondering if there was a bathroom on this floor. She really felt like she was going to throw up. Her whole body felt stiff, dead... like a corpse. Angel had turned her skin to ice; the Mayor had killed part of her hair... at this rate, Alison wondered if she was even going to live to see sunrise.
She had not wanted to have sex with Angel. She had fought it with every ounce, every fiber. She had lain there shaking in terror and rage the whole time, wondering why, as bad as it was, why she couldn't just punch him out, get up and leave. She literally had been powerless to do anything.
The hallway was cold and dark. Her icy feet stumped down the carpet, which afforded no warmth to her. All she wanted was to find her own room... find the Mayor and tell him what had happened. Tell him how dirty and sick she felt. She was all too aware of the fact that (as everyone seemed dead set on pointing out to her) he was evil. Her fear was all too sharp that he might not care either way.
On the other hand, he would love having another excuse to hate Angel. At the very least, he could rub some warmth back into her... her hands felt numb, she barely felt her feet now at all....
Her dead hand gripped a doorknob that felt like a lump of tundra. This was her room...she hoped. She'd mistaken the other door in the dark, even though that had looked like her room too, and look how that had turned out. It struck her as ironic, even in her sickened state, that hundreds of girls-- and quite a few guys-- in the Slayer's Scribe circle would have gladly blackjacked her to be in Angel's bed. Well, she could have gone without the pleasure indefinitely.
Being raped by something that was as cold and hard as glass was not what the fics cracked it up to be.
With a grisly squeal, straight out of a horror film-- the relentless horror movie theme was beginning to get on even her nerves, and that was saying something-- the door dropped away into the darkness. Alison peered nervously into the room, wondering what she might find herself faced with now. "Mayor Wilkins?" she called, almost hopefully.
There was a form in there, sitting at the edge of the bed. Alison was sure-- at least, she hoped-- that the castle wasn't one of those enchanted interchangeable-room deals, and that she might be walking in on Angel again.
She'd kill him with her bare hands if he did it to her again. She really would.
With a heavy sigh, Alison stepped into the room, cautiously. "Sir," she whispered.
The door, of its own accord, swung to and snapped shut behind her in the flicker of an eye.
Alison's head jerked. She didn't look back, though, because on the bed, Luke was staring back at her with a startled expression. "Ali?"
~:~:~
Buffy shuffled wearily down the hallway in the darkness. Her fist still clutching the sheet she'd taken from Luke's bed. She was filled with something she had not had the bad luck to feel in a long time-- defeat. Disappointment. And this time there was no one except herself to put the blame on.
She hadn't even been able to hold back. She remembered having sex with the Scribe, whom she hadn't even talked to all that much-- was she really that desperate? Sure, it was a while since she'd last had sex, six weeks in fact-- but she had just gotten through having pretty fantastic sex with Angel-- something she'd thought she'd wanted for a long time. Had she really, though? Or was she just so desperate that she would have done it with anybody-- did, in fact, do it with anybody? Maybe when she got back to Sunnydale, Cosmo magazine would have some answers.
Frowning at all the strange, nonsensical, unlike-her thoughts rattling around in her head, Buffy shuffled on.
It hadn't been her choice. Repressed desires, neglected feelings, magazine advice aside-- sleeping with Luke was not something Buffy had wanted to do. To his credit, she was pretty sure he hadn't wanted it, either. The whole time, in fact, he'd almost seemed to be fighting it as much as she had-- which couldn't have been much, seeing how it turned out.
Buffy's skin crawled.
No, it had almost felt as if something-- someone-- had been controlling her. She'd never felt such failure in controlling her own body before. Being a Slayer meant precise control over every aspect of your body, with death the ever-present threat for anything less. She could have stopped herself-- would have, if something hadn't been making her go through with it.
Or someone.
Magic. There were only two people in this castle who were very experienced with magic. Eryxinfliees was definitely trailing the Mayor only by a slight, slight margin. Both of them had motive-- the Mayor to control Mary Sue even more than he did now, and Eryx... well, because she was a major madam-house perv, was the only real reason Buffy could think. That was the only reason she fell second to the Mayor in Buffy's personal list of suspects right now.
She'd ended up in front of a door somehow. She turned the doorknob without even thinking about it.
Mayor Wilkins was inside the room. He looked up, with that almost haughty look of attending to business that he had. Almost as if he had been expecting her.
"You're in the wrong room," he snapped by way of greeting.
"I know." Buffy walked in anyway. "I walked right past mine. I don't know how I got here."
The Mayor's thin mouth perked at the corner, with a singularly cruel, ironic sneer. "You don't even realize what's happening, do you missy?"
Buffy stalked him. Whatever was happening, she was willing to bet blood that the politician was at the bottom of it. "But you do. So how about sharing the wealth?"
"I would have thought it was obvious." The Mayor watched as the Slayer came closer, noting how her blonde hair was tousled by her recent dalliances. Stringy, bleached... how did kids find that attractive, anyhow? For nothing except to amuse himself, he decided to go on talking. "We've been enchanted, all of us. You and Mary's young friend, Mary and your Angel... Faith and I..." He would have laughed at the sick irony of the whole thing, if he himself hadn't been next in line to be the punchline. "Musical chairs, not to put too fine a point on it. And it's not over. In a very short while, Miss Summers, you and I are going to be inclined to, ah..." He clicked his tongue thoughtfully. "...oh, how can I say this and be discreet--"
Turned out he didn't have to. The young Slayer had stopped before him, closer than she obviously wanted to be, all pouts and golden highlights and folded arms. Her eyes widened, in sudden enlightened horror, gazing up at the Mayor towering over her shorter form.
"No way," Buffy spoke firmly.
And then she kissed him.
She had to rise up on her tiptoes to do it. Slowly unfolded her arms and sliding them up his lapels, locking around his neck. And then the little minx opened her mouth as if it were her own idea and pressed her tongue tightly, wetly, against his lips. She still didn't catch his mouth all the way; he ended up with a wet chin -- again with the tongue, the Mayor thought with deep irritation. What on earth was it with kids today and tongues?!
With a gentle push, Buffy's was pressing now into his lips, between his teeth... and the politician felt her moan of pure and absolute revulsion grumble softly inside his own mouth.
Likewise, he was sure. Germs, disease, infection.... was all the Mayor could think, as the little Slayer's tongue vehemently cleaned his. And very, very, VERY much against his own will, the Mayor was dropping his head to kiss Buffy back, cupping the back of her small skull with his hand as he drank her, generously showing her how little girls ought to be kissed--
With a sudden wrenching tug, Buffy jerked her head back, both her arms shoving like pistons into Mayor Wilkins' chest.
Her eyes were wide, her tiny brows crunched in absolute horror. Her mouth hung open, the taste of.... whatever creepy hundred-year-old demon-mayors noshed on in the off hours was full in her mouth. Suddenly, cutting out her own tongue with the nearest available sharp object didn't seem like too outrageous an idea right now.
She totally couldn't believe what she'd just done. No-- no, that was way too mild a description for the violent full-body stomach turning she was feeling right now. She didn't think she'd could have felt more mortified if she'd been dropped face first into a septic tank. About the only comfort Buffy could take was in the fact that Mayor Wilkins looked almost as grossed out as she felt. And Buffy felt a brief, egotistical sting -- she wasn't that repulsive, was she??
Then again, consider the source.
The Mayor actually smiled at her. That was a deeply yikes sight this close up. "Oh, don't look so surprised," he sighed. Buffy was further revolted to realize that the vibrations against her breasts... weren't all that bad. Her own body was throbbing with revulsion at the undeniable hungry longing that was building in her with every word the Mayor spoke. "Surely you must have realized something was up when you ended up in a compromising position with Mary's young man?"
He knew about that. What the hell was he, a mindreader on top of everything else? "It's so obvious, I'm really surprised you haven't caught on by now," he rambled on. "Generally a summoning of the deity Artemes involves many more participants of an orgy. You're really hurting without Mr. Giles around strutting his wisdom, aren't you?"
Buffy's skin crawled. "You set this up," she accused. Her hands, which she meant to shove right through his ribcage, instead stroked up and down his shirt. Slowly, not violently. She watched, in disbelief, as her fingers failed to heed her mentally screamed warnings and delicately began unbuttoning his shirt.
The centuries-old politician actually shuddered underneath her touch. "Oh, God no, what a thought! You think I'd actually cast a spell that would have such--" he glanced down at himself "--messy conditions? Oh-ho, don't flatter yourself, little miss Blondie! My dead wife's got more skin on her bones than you do! You may have one older man wrapped around your finger, but even I have... standards...."
But even as he was saying it the Mayor's hands were in her hair again, pulling Buffy's face close, very gently tasting her lips of vanilla and bubblegum, feeling her muffled grunts of revulsion hum in his mouth even as she kissed him back with singularly clumsy adolescent eagerness. Her skinny arms -- skinny but strong, like bands of steel concealed in rubberbands -- slipped around his back. Tiny nails clawed through his shirt and she tugged herself closer, trying to get closer. "Stop... kissing... me..." Buffy snarled into his mouth.
And the Mayor was honestly trying. The last thing he wanted was this arrogant little stringbean in his bed! Although... he had to admit, there was a certain perverse irony to bedding an enemy that he had tried repeatedly to kill.... that had actually succeeded in killing him, however temporarily. He might have actually found it rather funny under other circumstances....
She struck him.
Landed a barrage of blows on his back -- and as she was a Slayer, they hurt. Not as much as Faith had, but still. Vengefully, the Mayor shoved her back, feeling a thousand angry cold pinpricks along his shoulders and arms as he resisted the spell's dictations to embrace his mortal enemy. He walked backward into something-- which made him tip, and fall, and crash onto his back on the bed.
Buffy landed on top of him. Her arms promptly locked around his shoulders, her bare legs immediately tightened around his hips. Her fists clenched around clutches of his starched shirt, and her entire lower half actually quivered with hungry desire as she began grinding very non-discreetly against--
Buffy tore her mouth away from her frenzied devouring of his. "Ohhh... God... I think I'm gonna throw up!" she gasped.
The Mayor blinked. "In that case, get on the bottom," he muttered, trying hard to roll her over.
Once on top, he resumed kissing her. Agonizingly Buffy tried to stop herself from hungrily sucking the Mayor's lips and tongue, trying to push herself away from the magnetic force that made her want to do..... really sick things with the Mayor that she didn't even want to dignify with words. She wanted to retch at the feel of his tongue on hers, even though the taste wasn't especially bad... it was just him, and that was something Buffy didn't want, no way, no how. Perhaps the worst thing of all, the thing that really disturbed her was that it was a somewhat familiar taste, one she knew as--
She tore her head back with a furious effort, feeling sick to her stomach. "Faith," she breathed.
The Mayor blinked, staring at her for a minute. Buffy resolved to worry later about his potentially wondering how she would know what Faith tasted like, as she tugged him down and began hungrily devouring his neck. Buffy only refrained from trying to bite his jugular, Angel-style, because the thought of Wilkins' blood in her mouth was even more skin-crawling than tasting his tongue. He tasted like Faith. He'd had his disgusting way with Faith.
Buffy was totally going to kill him. That is, if she could stop herself from having sex with him.
They rolled off the bed, and hit the floor, tumbling over and over in what looked more like a frenzied brawl than any kind of sexual act. The Mayor was a fighter; Buffy had to admit he had some kind of training there, though of course nothing even close to her moves. He was probably one of those people who took classes at the Y on the weekends. They punched and kicked, carressed and kissed, madly trying to avoid the inevitable. "What-- did you do with Faith?!" Buffy demanded.
The Mayor was underneath her on the floor, his senses panicking at the thought of all those rug mites. "She left," he got out, breathless as he matched Buffy's sensual exploration of his mouth. "There's a pattern here... she was with young FreakZilla, then she came to me." His nose wrinkled at the idea of all that unbridled bed swapping. "I imagine... she'll seek out Angel now." He shoved Buffy off again, pinning her to the floor.
Buffy moaned as the Mayor's face dropped between her cleavage, nibbling her skin. A long time ago, he had threatened to eat her...and Buffy really didn't care to ever take him up on that. "Angel!!" she nearly screamed. If Faith had left before she got here-- and if Angel was under the same spell they all were--
An ungodly, deranged giggle burst against her throat. "Well-- you can pretend you're with him if it makes you feel better, missy--"
Buffy had had it. Spell or not, she was getting out of here. "Roll me over to the door," she ordered, feeling strangely dominatrix-like.
The Mayor pulled back, gave her a bizarrely prim glare. "If you're even thinking of slamming something in a door in order to separate us--"
"Mayor Wilkins, help me fight this spell or I'm going to have sex with you! And then I'm gonna kill us both!!" Buffy nearly screamed in frustration.
She could see light dawn in his eyes. "Well, when you put it that way," he huffed, pushing himself to his knees, and then his feet, as best he could with a young amorous girl hanging off his frame. He got the door open and pitched forward into the dark hallway, Buffy's mouth hungrily devouring his neck.
~:~:~
They nearly crashed into Angel and Faith at the end of the hallway. Buffy's already sickened stomach rolled as she saw an all-too familiar sight, one that she had banished back to the darkest part of her closet of bad memories: Faith, in Angel's arms. The two of them kissing, stroking, cents away from just having each other right there on the floor. Buffy couldn't help but remember the last time she'd had to watch this; when she and Angel had been trying to trick Faith into giving up valuable info about the Mayor. They'd gotten what they'd wanted-- but it still stung Buffy, big time. And even though she knew the only reason it was happening now was because of some perverted spell-- how'd you get him Faith, magic-- it stung Buffy again.
On the upside, it did take her mind off the Mayor's hands smothering her breasts.
Buffy tore her mouth away from his, forcing herself to look upon the horror. "Angel!!" she shouted.
He looked away from Faith-- some part of Buffy feared for a second that the spell had somehow skipped them and they were just getting jiggy for the fun of it. "Buffy!" he called back, and she knew her fears were nonsense.
"The Scribes--" she tried to voice the conclusion she'd arrived at.
Angel got it, no words necessary. "--We're looking for them," he said. "Mary Sue-- her room's down there--" Somehow he pulled his hand away from the thing it was doing to Faith's hindside and pointed strenuously at a door.
Manuvering, he lunged across the hallway and slammed Faith against the door-- with a more than appreciative groan from her-- and got both his hands off her long enough to try the knob. Angel dropped his head back, craning his neck around Faith's hair, letting her taste the other side of his neck. "It's locked," he reported to Buffy.
She nodded. "Gotta be theirs," she deducted. "We gotta... break it down..." An idea came to her, just then. "Faith!!"
Faith's head jerked out of Angel's neck. She looked toward Buffy, and the look in her eyes... realization.... anticipation....
Somehow Buffy unlocked her legs from around the Mayor's hips.
Somehow Faith shoved herself out of Angel's muscled arms.
The two Slayers ran down the hall toward each other, their hands locking, Faith's blood-red nails linking with Buffy's peach-pale fingers. Their bodies came together with a truly forceful slam, blonde and dark hair flying; no sheets, no nothing hindering them. They locked arms, creating an immovable force of Slayer.
Faith looked into Buffy's soft green eyes for what felt like forever, but what was really only a fraction of a second before their entwined bodies hurtled toward the locked door--
CRASH!
They were on the floor, amidst a flailed deposit of wooden door splinters. The shag rug scraped their bare bodies welcomingly, as Faith and Buffy writhed together on the floor, unable to separate their arms and legs, not entirely wanting to disentangle themselves--
The scream might have been anybody. Might have been in fear, or surprise, or disgust. Buffy only got a look at what was happening as she rolled over on the rug, Faith on top of her. She gasped.
The Scribes were together in the room together, all right. But unlike the rest of the castle guests, they were not having sex. They were in the middle of the room, standing at the foot of the bed, circling each other in a twisted dance. The only thing that kept them from coming together was the fact that each of them was wielding a large, dangerous-looking weapon-- Luke a dagger, Alison a sword.
Buffy tried very hard to disengage her consciousness from what Faith was trying to do to her, on getting to her feet, on addressing the two Scribes. "Stop it!!" she shouted at them, still convinced that they were writing the orgy.
But Alison and Luke took no heed. Alison was holding the sword in shaking, sweaty hands. Her eyes were full of fear, bewilderment; even she didn't look as if she knew what she was doing. Luke seemed to be brandishing the dagger like Buffy used to flash her crucifix at vampires in the beginning-- like it would ward off evil. More frightening was the fact that he was pointing the blade of the dagger at Alison just as much as she was locking her sword on him. They both looked as if they were going to lunge and impale the other any second. "Buffy!" cried Alison, and her voice was ragged, thick with tears. "Help us! Please!!"
Buffy mentally ran the first manuver she could think of-- she and Faith could secure Alison and Luke, disarm them both, get them away from each other and.... Buffy realized right then that this sensible plan would not work. She knew, somehow, that the second she touched Luke, she would begin to have sex with him. Again. There was no reason to think Faith wouldn't be forced to do the same thing to Alison.
The spell had gotten all of them. Buffy had been under the impression that the Scribes had caused it, but they seemed to be holding the blades on each other for the precise reason that they were afraid of having sex together. The Mayor hadn't caused it, or said he hadn't anyway, so that only left--
"ENOUGH!" The thunderous boom was like an explosion of God's wrath right outside the bedroom window. Lighting turned everything electric white.
~:~:~
The whiteness blinded Buffy. For some seconds she was panicked, wondering if this was what it was like to be struck blind.
But it began to recede, after a moment more. And with it, Buffy felt the "force"-- whatever it was that had been subversively coating her muscles, working her limbs without her consent-- suddenly she literally felt it flush away. She was free to move again-- really free; she knew she would not be having unplanned sex again. She pushed Faith away-- Faith was either not free of the spell yet, or... she didn't seem like she really wanted to stop...
The fierce white light seemed to be lessening in intensity-- but only because it seemed to be collecting-- clotting together in a spinning ball-like shape in the center of the room. Threads of flashing, glittering sliver-gold brushed out at light speed, whipping through each of the witnesses. The elongated solid shape in the midst of the light show almost had a human form. With another flash, another, Eryxinfliees the goddess of Discord was standing before them. All flashy and glowy and uberpowerful....
And suddenly it all melted away.
The light was gone like it'd never been. There was nothing left standing there but a girl. Not the fabulously sexy being that had welcomed them in the front hall earlier this evening-- this was nothing but a very human-looking young girl. A blonde, at that.
The six were left standing there with identical looks of gawp on their faces. It was almost funny. "What..." Buffy was the first to get it together enough to start.
Faith, who still seemed torn between wanting to fight monsters and wanting to shag Buffy, was the next to speak up. "What the fuck--!!"
The Mayor went next, though not out of outrage toward Eryx. "Hey!--" he admonished in Faith's direction.
Luke, oddly enough, felt empowered by Faith's outburst to speak out next. "What the hell's going on?!" he shouted, getting to the point where none of the rest had.
And Alison was the last to make herself heard. "SHUT UP!" she shouted above them all. The silence that followed was mostly a shocked reaction to her unprecedented taking of charge. She had a sword, too.
She took a breath, trying to calm down enough herself. "Okay, then," she huffed, resigning her control of the situation. She glared at the transformed Eryx, who looked every bit as ordinary as she or Luke did now. "I'm gonna speak for all of us, I think. Who are you?"
Eryx smiled. "C'mon, Pandora," she snickered, forcing a sarcastic edge into the name. "FreakZilla? You recognize me, don't ya? I've had my photo up on my About Me page for only the past five years. Don't you guys ever look at the names on the fics you trash?"
But both Alison and Luke were at a complete loss. "Eryx," Luke seemed to be trying to figure it out, picking apart everything he knew about that name. One of Aphrodite's sons, in Greek mythos, a combatant and eventual casualty of Hercules. A software application for Windows 99. Name of a story by Lovecraft--
Luke realized, suddenly. "Erica?!"
The new blonde girl smiled. "Finally!! I was beginning to wonder. It wouldn't have been as... y'know, good if you didn't know who I was, or why I did it."
"Why did you do it?" asked Alison, who hadn't caught on.
Luke felt obliged to fill her in. "Ali, it's Erica Lovecraft. From the Slayer Scribes? She did all those Buffy/Angel sagas last year, you feedbacked her that she was beating a dead horse--"
Alison got it, finally. "Ohh... SSLoveCraft!!" Her expression of relief at being let in on the mystery was immediately replaced with one of horrified awe. "But.... wait a minute...."
The two Scribes looked at each other. They had been forced by magical forces -- what they thought were magic-- to very nearly come close to having sex with each other. The whole evening had been nothing less than a mass orgy. They'd long since come to the conclusion that whoever was calling the shots tonight must be some infinitely powerful demon, or witch, or similiar supernatural force; much more powerful than the Mayor or anything Buffy and the gang had yet faced.
But here... all they had been controlled by was Erica Lovecraft?? From Pittsburgh?!
Erica was smiling coldly at their simultaneous enlightenment. "Not so funny when someone does it to you, is it?"
Alison looked like she'd been smacked, hard. "But-- we're real," she flailed, as if fending off a monsoon with her bare arms. "Them, I understand..... we all do them...." She cast a look back at Buffy and Angel, Faith and the Mayor. "But... we're real people!! How could you--"
It was unthinkable. Somehow, Erica had done to Alison and Luke what all the Scribes had been doing to the citizens of Sunnydale for years. Hijacking their souls. Misappropriating their sagas. Manipulating their emotions, their feelings, their lives. Throwing them in bed with anyone they damn well felt like.
Even each other.
Erica's smile was really not something that belonged on a cute, petite blonde like herself. "You guys," she spoke, in the amused tone of a person who's just tickled to bits by how stupid everyone else is. "Posting every night on your online journals, back and forth. Thinking nobody else can see what you're saying. You guys both detailed the process of being absorbed into Sunnydale very well. Did you really think you guys were the only ones who'd ever figure out how do it?"
"You--" Even though Luke had been the one to recognize the girl, he still hadn't realized the final, much worse fact. "You... wrote us into an alternate universe? All of us??"
Alison was still shaking her head, unable to get past her former epitath. "But we're real..." she muttered.
"But why?" Luke demanded. "Why us? Why them??"
Erica shrugged. "Why'd you pick on me? All the Buffy/Angel writers out there? All of us beating that ol' dead horse? Why'd you pick ME to dump on? And here's a mindbender for you: why'd you pick them?" She cast a glare back at the assorted Sunnydalians-- in particular, at Faith and Mayor Wilkins. "They're not even the stars of the show. They're not good-looking, either one of them-- and they're evil! They're nasty, rotten big bads! If you guys want to write about freaks like that, why don't you go over to the X-Files newsgroup?? Leave the Slayer Scribes to us 'boring old horse beaters'!" The sneer on her face was singularly childish.
Luke couldn't believe this. Not Erica's stance-- the newsgroup was full of similarly stubborn Scribes, all of them convinced that their character ought to be the star of Buffy's show-- but the fact that Erica had been able to take control of her craft the way he and Ali had; that she had been able to manipulate, not only the fictional characters of Buffy's universe, but two flesh-and-blood people from real life as well. How powerful was Erica? Where would she have stopped-- if in fact she was going to stop now at all?? Who was to say she wouldn't just start it all over again, stand there and force all of them, Scribes and Muses, humans and demons to just engage in one huge sex-o-rama right now?!
Erica made her pretty face turn up in a yuck expression, hearing Luke's thoughts. "Ew. No way." She heaved a sigh. "You know what, I'm bored. You guys aren't even worth writing a practice piece on. I was blocked on the new chapter of my Buffy/Angel romance, and I thought I'd write you guys in some nasty shit, just for writing's sake-- but I don't even think I'm gonna save this on my hard drive. Didn't pay off as good as I thought it would." She huffed, folding her arms, Buffy-style. "Only reason I had Angel and Buffy in here at all was 'cause I'm a shipper." She smirked at Angel from across the room. "Mmm. Wouldn't mind watchin' you, Angel baby. Maybe...." Her brow furrowed, deep in thought. ".... maybe I'll just go home and take another whack at the romance fable. I think I'm unblocked now." She smiled sweetly at all of them. "Thanks for helpin' me out, guys. Have a nice night."
And then, just like a special effect in a movie, she vanished completely.
~:~:~
On the darkened street, Faith walked slowly past the graveyard. Watching listlessly as stone after stone rolled past her, like slow-motion posts on a highway guardrail.
The night wind softly carressed her long hair, several different facets of brown glimmering even in the low light from the streetlamp. Her pale breasts jogged with her movement, slightly; framed by her low-cut black top and her stolen leather jacket. Her red lips were pursed, in determination, as she listened-- past the faint wind, past her own foot falls, past the soft hum of human heartbeats throughout the city.
He was here. He never jumped out at you with a growl, like the other vampires did. Came with the reformed-bad-boy territory.
Faith saw him all of a sudden, leaning against a tall obelisk, with that cool deal-with-me stance. "Hello Faith," Angel greeted her.
Faith had stopped in the sidewalk, leaning to one side, standoffishly. "Hello, Deadboy," she said deliberately.
And then she lunged. She didn't stake him right away, that would've been too easy. She kicked him so hard in the chest that he snapped the pointed stone in half. She picked him up and threw him headfirst into another stone, and then she grabbed the broken half of the obelisk and took advantage of his prone position to sledgehammer the damn thing straight down into his chest, squashing his dead heart like a roach in the dirt. The vampire died right away, even though stone wouldn't usually do the trick.
Snarls caused Faith's head to whip around, catching sight of more vamps coming up out of the dark behind her. Her brows crooked, momentarily confused. It was.... Angel. Again. And another Angel. And another. An army of Angel clones was appearing from the dark as if by magic.
Or-- as if by pen.
Faith smiled, ironically. "Gonna have me punish Angel, Freak baby?" she spoke to the night air. "Have me kick his ass for rapin' your girl? Hm.... talk about settin' someone up." Her cruel smile bloomed into a full-on grin. This fight had a decided tipped-scale feel... and for once, Faith knew the scales were tipped in her favor. "Ain't no way I can lose this one, is there?"
That definitely felt good. She cracked her knuckles, loosened up in readiness for the fight. "Let's party, baby. Bring it on." Her black eyes glinted with a hard shine as the Angels came at her for their deaths. "Punishment is served."
~:~:~
In front of his computer, lit up by his large monitor, Luke Kenji drew a relaxing breath, flexing his own fingers after all the typing. "That's my girl," he murmured appreciatively.
He sat back in his task chair, stretching his bones, hearing his back creak, slightly. This felt vaguely like relief; being back in the chair, watching the words come, seeing it in his head like he used to. The flow flowing, so to speak. Though he wasn't sure that his sudden unblocking as a writer had come so much from sleeping with Faith, as it had from knowing what Angel had done to Alison.
Most of Luke's better fics had been written in a blind haze of vengeance. Used to be only sins against Faith that incited his wrath, but this time....
It wouldn't fix anything. It wouldn't erase what had happened, and of course it wouldn't hurt the "real" Angel even a micron. But... it made Luke feel better, anyway.
His revived skills notwithstanding, Luke still didn't feel... back to normal. As much revenge as was in the piece he'd just written, it was also half-fueled by guilt. Because as bad as he felt for Ali, the honest reason for Luke's despair tonight was purely selfish.
It was what they called an anti-climax, he guessed. As good as it had been... as unbelievably fierce, as amazing, as... wicked as Faith had been to him in bed the other night.... Luke felt let down.
Four years. All that buildup. All that wishing and mooning... fantazising about Faith. All that writing for her, all that putting her through hell-- always to emerge the victor, never less. For her, Luke would have given anything. Years of his life. Hours of sleep. Thousands of thousands of dollars in bills to his local net service provider, thousands of dollars to the electric company, the phone company. Days and days of sunlight deprivation. Carpal tunnel syndrome. Sugar diabetes from all the Mountain Dew he chugged while hitting the keys. He'd given her a lot.
So he guessed, subconsciously, that he had been building up to IT the whole while. The exact thing that had happened the other night. Hoping for it. Fantasizing, in true fan-boy tradition. The day Faith somehow mystically came to life, came to his bed, thanked him for it all. Loved his skill; rewarded him for being such a clever bastard. Loved him for loving her.
Luke couldn't say he'd felt like it had played out that way. He'd enjoyed himself, definitely.... it seemed fair to say that Faith had enjoyed it... and yet....
She didn't "get" it. It had just been another tumble in the sack to her-- at least, that's how it had felt, to Luke. Just another bang.
That was one of those cruel ironies of being a writer, he guessed. You might love it with all your heart, sell to it your soul.... but the muse, the trade-- the art-- would never, never love you back as much.
Never.
Knock-knock.
Luke turned in the direction of the basement door. He was about to call to Alison to come in... but thought it might be better to get up and actually answer the door for once. Not least because of the fact that certain things shouldn't be invited in. And if he and Ali could get into their world... wasn't anything saying that a couple ice-cold dead denizens could've somehow made it to this side, too.
He pushed his chair away from the monitor, leaving the Faith vs. Angels fic for the moment. He opened his door-- slowly, just in case it actually was a vamp-- and stepped back to let Alison in. "Hey," she greeted him softly.
Luke nodded back. "Hey. What's up?"
She shrugged. "Just walkin' around. Was trying to write." She seemed to pause. "See if it worked."
Luke watched her closely. "Did it?" After all they'd gone through the other night, it better have.
Alison seemed to smile. "Jury's still out. How about you?"
Luke's eyes sneaked a glance back at his monitor, where the document titled "FAITHSMEARZDEDBOY" was waiting. "Yeah, I think it took," he answered.
"Good." Alison's head seemed stuck in nod. "That's good to hear."
Luke waited a moment before he asked it. "You all right?"
"Yep." Another too-fast response.
Luke sized her up worriedly. There was so much stuff-- not just the Angel fiasco, though that was most likely the thing looming large in her mind right now. Luke couldn't even begin to tell Ali how sorry he was for what had happened at the castle the other evening. As much as he was into weaponry, as many blades and daggers and shivs as he had at home-- he had never held a blade on anyone before, even as a joke. And he'd never wanted to see her on the other side of one of them.
It had seemed the only option at the time, though. Seemed like the only thing that could have prevented Erica's bitchy sex spell from working its mojo on the both of them was the other, equally-primal instinct of self-preservation. The only thing that had kept them from jumping right on each other's bones.
Of course, most anyone might have said "Well, having sex with your best friend is a hell of a lot better than killing her, isn't it?"
And Luke had to admit, in 20-20 hindsight, it would have been the smarter choice. The saner one. But... Ali....
She was his oldest buddy, his childhood compadre. His damn-near sister. It was uncomfortable having to face her now, yeah, but if they had... especially after Angel had....
Luke tried hard to convince himself that these bleak subjects might in fact the least of all bads. He looked at Alison now, and could not ignore her wasted appearance. Her white skin, the strung-out circles under her eyes, like a junkie gone too long without a fix. More frightening than all of that, though... was her hair.
The red streak she'd acquired that night at the castle had not washed away. She'd dyed it a brown that didn't quite match her natural shade. But the dye was growing out already; he could see her roots. A distinct halo of copper-tone red was seeping from her scalp, underneath the store-bought brown. Her stubby fingers scratched her neck nervously, and Luke saw even more red revealed, inching down her locks. It was everywhere.
He couldn't look her in the eyes. Not just because of the close call they'd had, but because her eyes-- a pale blue as long as he'd known her-- he hoped it was his imagination, but Luke really didn't think he was dreaming the fact that Ali's eyes now seemed glassier, yet sharper... and an almost greenish hue.
Red and green. Joker's colors. Joker's smile.
And Luke found himself wondering, suddenly, how he himself looked. He'd always had dark eyes and dark hair. Had he changed, too? Was Alison looking at him now, thinking that his eyes looked a little too black, too empty... that his black hair might have acquired a chocolate-brown cast?
She knew what Luke was thinking. Her newly-green eyes flitted away, the corner of her pale mouth twitched humorlessly. "At least it worked," she pointed out quietly. "They're still... in us."
Luke shook his head in blatant refusal to believe. "That's lameass." Even this was chilling; it was Faith's word, but it was the only verdict he could make. "We go through all that shit... Erica puts us through all that, makes us..." He couldn't even bring himself to say what had almost happened. "...all for her stupid fic, and after all that.... she didn't even post it to the list. Didn't even use it."
Alison listed back and forth, her eyes glassy. "If someone wrote a book based on your life, would anyone want to read it?" she quoted the Army's latest catchphrase listlessly.
That was a crummy thought. "We weren't even a good story," muttered Luke, underlining the obvious.
And still, Alison's pain was worse. She was hugging her arms, as if protecting herself from the memory. "I don't want to remember this," she whispered.
~:~:~
A thousand miles away:
At her terminal, the desktop of which spotlighted Christina Aguilera in several of her stretchy poses, Erica Lovecraft made a face at the icon labelled "ALINLUKESHAGGIN". "Ew," she rejected it, moving the My Little Pony cursor to send the offending icon to the recycle bin. When the pop-up appeared asking her if she really wanted to delete the file from her hard drive, Erica clicked yes with an eager finger.
~:~:~
In Aberline:
Luke blinked, wondering what it was that had him in such a black mood all of a sudden. His brows furrowed, trying to remember what he'd been thinking about a second before. Something with Faith.... some scene he was going to have her go through... or no, maybe it was...
"That's weird."
Luke turned his attention to Alison, who seemed completely baffled, for no reason that he could see. "What?" he asked, shuffling his Faith conundrum to the back burner for a sec.
Alison's arms had been folded in an almost protective pose, but now she unlocked them, looking down at herself in confusion. "I was just...." She half-laughed, a confused sort of laugh. "I was thinking about... some stupid thing I read in a fic a while back... something about Angel..."
They looked at each other, both thoroughly confounded. "I don't even remember what I came over to talk to you about," Alison went on, hesitantly. "Something... about one of our stories, it was... really sad, seemed like...."
Silence. Alison laughed, again, and it was a strangely out-of-place sound. "Weird!" She rubbed her shoulders again, as if hoping that would remind her why she'd been gripping them so tightly. "Must be the weather. I felt really rotten about something a second ago.... darn if I know what it was." She giggled.
Luke looked up suddenly. He, too, was trying to solve the riddle of what he had been thinking about a second ago that was grim enough to make him feel like this... but that laugh from Ali had arrested his attention. It was loony... a little reminiscent of the Mayor's deranged laugh. And it was then Luke noticed--
"What the hell happened to your hair??" he blurted out.
The End