Queen of the Tentacles

Drabble: Memory Loss (Supernatural) [spoilers in comments]

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:05:12 GMT

Due to a near disasterous missing flash drive incident, this one nearly didn't make it, but it's a plucky little thing and here it is:

Title: Memory Loss
Author: bogwitch
Rating: Um. PG-13?
Character: Dean
Spoilers: Post No Rest for the Wicked
Word Count: 100
Disclaimer: Characters were harmed in the making of this fic.Nothing Supernatural belongs to me, but is the property of ~~hell~~ hellish corporate entities who would just love to track me down.
Summary: Hell is greedy

First gone, after blood has boiled dry and torn flesh begins to peel from ragged bone, are fragments of memory, the vital building blocks that make him Dean stripped away and disposed as junk.

He feels them go; experiencing each for a moment so he knows what he’s losing, before they slip away and disappear; random moments from a lifetime eaten like flames consuming a Polaroid: a woman’s smooth, naked back, a banshee’s last scream, endless motel rooms and Sam’s bright, boyish grin; every detail crumbling to ash flittering into the depths of hell’s maw.

Hell’s taking everything he has.

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Fic: There's No One Quite Like Grandma (Spike/Illyria)

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:31:39 GMT

The return of the tentacles!

Title: There's No One Quite Like Grandma
Author: Bogwitch
Warnings: None really. Unless you don't like things that squirm.
Pairing: Spike/Illyria
Summary: A dark post-apocalypse family fic. An out-take from the Succour tentacle-verse that was never actually an in-take. Sequel of sorts to Succour and Sucker.
Notes: From a prompt offered by myfeetshowit. Thanks to her for the beta.

“They come,” Illyria pronounces out of the blue, her words weighty and bitter as they echo through her vast and vacant halls.

Confused, Spike asks, “Who does?” It’s not like they get visitors anymore. All his friends are dead and gone, what’s left are cowering emissaries from vanquished lands and mistaken, desperate men that think they know how to be heroes.

He adjusts his belt and slips his coat back on, trying to look as respectable as he can after what they’ve just done. He still has some standards left after all. Pulling down his sleeves, he hopes his cuffs are long enough to cover the raw welts darkening his forearms. Not that it matters. No one will dare question them.

As Illyria predicted, the air before them starts to condense, twirling on a pinprick, coalescing and swirling into a tempestuous vortex. From the eye of the storm they wriggle through, ten or so, clumped together in a slivering mass of slick bodies, lazuli dark and multi-limbed.

Spike stubs out the remains of his post-coital cigarette on Illyria’s throne of bones, hoping she won’t notice the burn mark. His hand shakes, but the small rebellions matter. “What’s going on, Lil?”

“They are the progeny of our progeny.” Illyria says as she rises gracefully from her bony seat. Her shell is fierce, imposing and regal; the soft, curling coils of her true self gone with the last royal flush of her orgasm. “They have returned.”

Spike beams, despite his doubts. He’s seen his offspring; their rugrats are going to be terrifying, but he’ll still love his bizarre little family all the same. “A visit from the Grandkids? Brilliant!”

“They have drained their universes dry.” Illyria explains as she stalks forward, her arctic stare never threatening to break her frown. “They come to drink from this one.”

“Nice,” Spike humours her, thinking that there wasn’t much left of this world to drain now she’s destroyed nearly everything. He wishes fervently that he didn’t have his soul. “Probably runs in the family, pet.”

A child, twisted and slobbering with its need for blood, plops to the marble at his feet in a tangle of writhing limbs. It’s grotesque and he knows should be appalled, and deep down where his fear is a trembling wreck he really, really is, but this squirming thing carries something of him in its genetic blueprint and he can’t quite forget that. He’s been dead too long to ever hope that the miracle of life would ever include him, however twisted the resulting kids might be, and this is a gift too precious to destroy.

He reaches down and throws his arms wide in welcome. “That’s it, come to Granddad.” He doesn’t know if he’s hoping for a hug or deliverance. Help us, he wants to shout, but these are not the saviours of the world, they’re here to devour it.

A long, smooth tentacle answers his call, looping around his wrist, caressing him in familiar serpentine strokes, tracing the path of the weals that spiral his skin. “Um,” he coughs uncomfortably, unable to help thinking back to other pleasures, raw and vigorous and wrong. He pushes down his response, damping it down with memories of the horrors he’s been powerless to prevent. “I think in some cultures that’s considered incest.”

But he’s not in for a night of slippery ecstasy. Instead, the tentacle tightens suddenly like a noose of steel, gripping his arm like it’s caught in a finger trap.

“Ow!” Spike’s yanked to his knees to face a fearsome set of ragged fangs that drip with the blood of some other victim from another benighted dimension. This child doesn’t look like its going to be choosy about who it eats for dinner, family or not. Spike gulps. “Dead here, Son. Not gonna be tasty.”

He’s looking into hypnotic eyes that cry out to him from fathoms deep, sapphire pools that would like nothing more than to drown the world in blood, when Illyria stomps her boot down onto the child’s hideous head. The skull explodes like a merlot grape, with a burst of cobalt ichor that steams as it splats on the shiny floor and the tail of his coat.

He looks up at Illyria in dismay and meets an unforgiving mask. She doesn’t even twitch as she turns to dispose of the rest; a tyrannical queen that will brook no rival in her domain.

“Well, at least we won’t get stuck with the babysitting,” he sighs, slightly disappointed but mostly relieved, and he bounces up onto his feet again. He mustn’t let his precarious act slip too much. He’s too close and Illyria is pathologically paranoid; his betrayal is expected rather than feared. Failure has a very high price. If he doesn’t succeed, then what’s left of civilisation falls with him.

He’s the only hero that can save the world, because he’s the only one left.

.

2008 Book List

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:22:04 GMT

In January I decided I would join in and list all the books I've read this year like what some other people do. I am now ready to post it:

In 2008 I have read:

1. Far from the Sodding Crowd (More Uncommonly British Days Out) by Hallstead, Hazeley, Morris and Morris

And, um, that's it.

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Wallpaper: Praying to a Broken Altar (Supernatural)

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:28:55 GMT

I was amused today, yes I was, by the desperate lengths greetings card makers will go to at this time of year when there is a dearth of marketable holidays and high days to flog us cards for. Yes, the 'Thank You Teacher!' cards were out in force in the co op. (I'm not saying it isn't a nice sentiment, my teacher friends, but it does kind of highlight the lengths they'll go to sell cards. What was wrong with a normal 'Thank You' card? Or selling postcards?).

In other news, my FL is boring me to death with the Doctor Who squee which I am so not sharing. I'm afraid the combination of both Catherine shouty irritating Tate and Billie Piper's abysmal acting (not to mention just her sheer presence on my TV) was too much for me to bear and I turned it off last week for the rest of the season.

Therefore, I am getting my revenge by boring you to death in return with Supernatural and another wallpaper made by me:

1680 x 1050

1024 x 768

800 x 600

Fic: Working My Way Back to You - Chapter Twenty-Five - Cavalry

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:41:18 GMT

I joined wip_out in order to try to up my writing pace for the WIP and today is the first posting day. I made it!

I'm releasing this chapter a little hesitantly as it's a load bearing chapter and if I get it wrong I may have to go back and change things (this is unlikely, I hope).

Working My Way Back To You

No characters were harmed in the making of this fic. They do not belong to me, but are the property of Fox Entertainment and Mutant Enemy.

Summary: Spike/Buffy. Post-Chosen, Post Hellbound. What did you think the First Evil was doing after the closure of the Hellmouth? Knitting evil jumpers?

Thanks to myfeetshowit for her beta as usual.

I’m getting too old for this.

Giles put down his heavy book and attempted to stifle a yawn, settling back into the comforting embrace of one of the Retreat’s wide leather chairs. The old, quality hide smelled of luxury and canny occultism: a heavy tang of expensive cigars and herby smoke from powerful spellwork. It was easy to feel invincible in these antique chairs, knowing that from such seats the Council had protected the world for generations, saving people from the dead that did not die and from other entities that wished to pierce the veils between dimensions to invade this one, but their enemy this time was wily, powerful and ancient, and it had already claimed dozens of their lives. They couldn’t allow their victories to make them complacent. The First would regroup and refresh its assault; of that they could be certain.

He hoped that time wouldn’t be right now. He was exhausted. He’d driven through the night, discussing with Willow what they might face and making plans to fight back; and on their return to the Retreat he’d thrown himself into yet more research. But he no longer had Willow’s youthful vigour or Buffy’s relentless stamina; he was well past forty and the adrenalin of the fight was slipping away, his body needed its rest. However, before he had any chance of turning in, he needed to discuss what he’d found with Buffy.

Only Buffy had disappeared. Almost as soon as they had arrived back at the Retreat she had vanished, claiming she needed a shower and a change of clothes. Willow’s magic made the lights work, the kitchens operate and the heating blast much needed warmth into the frigid rooms and the temptation offered by a torrent of hot water from the house’s antique showerheads was too much for Buffy to resist. Giles couldn’t disagree; she’d been covered from head to toe in blood and dirt and god knew what – heaven alone knew what she’d been facing to get that filthy – but he hoped she wouldn’t take long; the Retreat did have rather comfortable beds…

He jerked awake as the door snapped shut. He could only have dozed off for a few minutes as the murky dusk seeping in from between the curtains was still a leaden grey. The new day was not to begin with the golden light of a bright, hopeful dawn, but had started as it meant to go on; with grubby, iron-clad clouds that looked like they had come straight from a Turner painting without stopping for a wash first. A spatter of drizzly rain flecked the window with bitter spittle as the heavy clouds pushed the sky back down onto the earth, blending each to the other with a thin, listless mist. It was a day for planning, not war.

Giles shifted the big book from his lap and placed it on the table beside his half empty teacup, using the movement as an excuse to peer around the edge of the large chair to see the new arrival. He was hoping it might be Buffy, or perhaps Willow returning from the storerooms where the magic supplies were kept, but it was Spike that had breezed into the room from the reception hall. He was heading towards the small, well-stocked bar with a purpose.

Giles had fully expected Spike to have joined Buffy upstairs, but the vampire been prowling the house protectively, looking for any unwanted supernatural guests that remained. Whatever Buffy was doing in her room, the vampire was obviously not invited to share. Giles took that as the small comfort it most definitely was.

"Cosy little pile you got here," Spike said conversationally, but Giles couldn’t miss the unapologetic scowl that accompanied his words, just daring Giles to comment now Buffy was out of sight. There was no love lost in that withering glower and Giles couldn’t blame him; the hostility was entirely mutual. His feelings on the Spike issue were no longer just academic or based on a solid foundation of Council doctrine. His dislike had moved through all of that and had settled into personal.

“The Council has always looked after itself very well,” he reluctantly agreed. For all the Council’s faults, he’d rather not have creatures such as Spike point them out to him.

“Bet it has,” Spike poured himself a generous measure of their finest Scotch without offering to pour a glass for Giles. “Bunch of old gits sitting around with a nice brandy by the fire while the Slayer does all the dirty work for them.”

“Spike,” Giles sighed, retreating back into the chair and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I have no desire to have this argument with you. I agree that throughout much of the Council’s history, the Slayer has been considered an expendable commodity, as I am sure you know all too well. However, our present circumstances, with the hundreds of Slayers that have been called, will give the Council little choice but to change.”

“Yeah, right,” Spike snorted dismissively. “I bet the Council is still full of wankers looking to line their pockets from their old boys club. Can’t see any of the nice stuff filtering down to the rank and file.”

Spike’s all too accurate assessment made Giles grimace, and he was very glad the vampire couldn’t see his face, hidden as it was by the huge leather chair. It made him wonder just how much the undead populace knew about internal Council politics and the secrets that they had fought for centuries to protect. Certainly, Spike was an unusual case in the company he’d kept these past few years in Sunnydale, but it wouldn’t have surprised Giles if he’d known much more than that all along. There were plenty of higher demons that had sought to dabble in Council intrigue just for the fun of it and Spike had always appeared to be reasonably well connected.

He was spared having to reply, and telling Spike about the bursaries he had planned for the younger slayers, by Buffy returning, freshly bathed and clean. She took a seat on the elegant couch by the fire, still running a brush through her long golden hair. Giles didn’t fail to notice the way Spike drifted from the bar to hover nearby. He didn’t join her, Giles noted, as if he was still unsure of how close to her he was welcome to get, but to Giles’s great disappointment he returned the warm smile Buffy gave to him.

If they thought they were fooling him, they were very much mistaken. Whatever was going on between these two was fresh and renewed and so much more relaxed than before, bubbling to the surface in the easy smiles and longing looks they exchanged. If they hadn’t resumed their physical relationship just yet, Giles guessed that it wouldn’t take long. But for all the giddy lightness they were sharing, something was still keeping Spike at a hesitant distance. He could only guess at the cause, but it appeared that the issues between them, some now so painfully old, still remained relevant, preventing the relationship from achieving full bloom. Yet their continuing bond was no secret and hadn’t been for awhile. Everyone who had been living in the over-crowded house on Revello Drive with all the potential slayers had seen the way these two were still attracted each other. With everyone crammed into every last space during that tense time, the sexual tension between the slayer and the vampire had been tangible, sizzling in the air whenever they were in the same room – which was often, as they’d been rarely far from each other.

There had always been only two ways their relationship could go, Giles supposed, and he had been content as long as the seething hatred had been in the ascendant. But those days when he’d thought of the vampire as some sort of Morningstar, beautiful and terrible, charming and evil, with black wings clipped back to a long coat to walk amongst men were long gone. Since then Spike had changed beyond recognition and in Giles’ more whimsical moments even he’d had to confess that he’d considered whether perhaps he’d been wrong. The love between Spike and Buffy was evident in their every interaction, different and deeper than the teen-love she'd shared with Angel, but no less important or heartfelt. They knew each other so well, fighting beautifully as a team, instinctual and well matched. If he still didn't have his doubts over Spike, or if he could somehow stop being a vampire or erase his murderous past, then he would have to reluctantly give his blessing. He didn't have that luxury though; he had a duty to the slayers and to the world. Spike was a killer and whether he repented or not, that would never change. He had the blood of two slayers dripping from his hands, hands that had stripped so many others of their lives without remorse. Such atrocities, committed soulless or not, could never be forgotten.

This additional headache was one he could well do without, what with The First’s return and the Council elections, but this time he wouldn’t interfere, despite the inevitable pain the relationship would eventually bring. Their being together might be against everything he had ever been taught and his own instincts too, slayer and vampire, mortal and immortal, and there was no way any good could come out of this, but he knew his opinions would never sway Buffy once she had made up her mind; maybe this time the headstrong slayer would learn from her mistakes.

But there were more important matters to hand.

Foregoing the large whiskey he felt he needed but feared might send him right back to sleep again, he straightened in his chair and got down to business. On their way back to the Retreat, Buffy had told them more about the return of The First, but not the detail.

“Buffy,” he prompted. “Please start from the beginning. What happened here?”

Buffy put the brush down on the arm of her chair, gently running a finger over the bristles, back and forth, back and forth. “The First, its back and it looks like Spike. I tried but I couldn’t stake it. It has an army and it wants to sacrifice me, but not before it’s played with me first. Is that enough? I thought this was over, Giles! We beat it. We kicked its butt!”

“And you expected it to be pleased about that? The First Evil is a primal force of the universe, Buffy. You cannot defeat it any more than you can defeat death—”

Buffy coughed and Spike raised an ironically quizzical brow.

“…well mostly,” Giles continued. “Eventually death will conquer us all…”

“Even if it takes a couple of attempts, right?” Buffy smiled.

Giles returned her smile with a resigned nod. The less they thought of that, the better.

“So what do we do, Giles? Just accept it’ll win and we die? That’s not really my style.”

“I don’t know. Not yet. The First merely lost the battle in Sunnydale, but this war isn’t over. By calling all these girls as slayers, we may well have disturbed the delicate balance of good and evil. We should have expected The First to retaliate."

“Okay. So why this place?” Buffy gestured to the house and at the dreary landscape outside. “Why lure me out to the land of no shops?”

Lure. Lured. The word sent a chill through Giles as he realised what she was saying. He’d been manipulated into sending Buffy here for a purpose. Suddenly Wyndham-Pryce’s plans became clearer. This wasn’t just a way to bribe him into stepping down from an election; there were deeper conspiracies at work. In the rush to come to Buffy’s aid, Giles had forgotten he’d seen a Bringer bundling Wyndham-Pryce into a car. That was the last he’d seen of the man. Such an action could only mean one thing: The First’s spies had been within the Council all along.

The implications were startling and far-reaching. Had Wyndham-Pryce been conspiring against them? And if so, for how long? Such a betrayal answered questions Giles hadn’t dared ask. As a trusted, senior member of the Council, Wyndham-Pryce could have told The First’s envoys anything without challenge, he may even have planted the bomb that had destroyed their headquarters, slaughtering his own colleagues in return for the Council leadership. The First’s own agent installed as the head of its main opponents.

That thought renewed Giles commitment to ending this war here and now. They could not go on like this, fighting skirmish after skirmish until every one of them was dead. The First could fight a war forever, but they were just mortal people. Even the Council, with its long, long history that wound back to times unrecorded, was just an upstart to such an entity. Somehow their strategy needed to contain a decisive stroke.

“I do believe the reason you’re here is this.” Giles picked up the book he’d been reading and opened it at the page he’d marked. He stretched over and handed it to Buffy.

“The Deeper Well,” Buffy took the book, barely glancing at it before she looked up, preferring her answers to come from him rather than dry, printed words she couldn’t be bothered to read. “The First mentioned that. What is it?”

“It is a burial ground. Of a sort,” he explained, taking a fortifying sip of his lukewarm tea. “Supposedly, a hole in the world so deep it runs right through to the other side. It dates from an age when demons were ascendant on the earth. They would place their honoured dead inside the well to await their rebirth.”

Buffy leant forward earnestly. “These demons, Giles, The First wants to wake them up. This would be bad. Really bad.”

“Indeed it would. The Council is well aware of that. This house was not just built as a training centre, Buffy. It had a very specific secondary purpose: to guard the Well.”

Spike laughed bitterly at that. “Guarding it in comfort. Quite the sacrifice you lot made.”

“Spike, please listen.” Giles would have snapped, but he wasn’t going to give Spike the pleasure. He scratched his head wearily instead. “These demons are the Old Ones, pure demons of untainted blood. They only sleep and in the right circumstances they can be awoken. A being such as The First would gain much from rousing such creatures.”

“By sacrificing Buffy?” Spike interrupted again, edging nearer to her.

Giles nodded gravely; trust Spike to cut straight to the only point that concerned him. “I believe any slayer would be suitable, but as you both have a prior history with The First, it may well be looking for its revenge.”

“I’m sick of The First.” Buffy snapped the book shut and threw it onto the couch beside her. “Can’t we find a way to destroy it or banish it or something?”

"Buffy, The First Evil is a primordial being, part of the fabric of the universe. We cannot destroy it forever any more than we could alter gravity or turn back time. Something about you caught its interest, either your resurrection or the arrival of another souled vampire.” Giles glanced at Spike, who frowned in return. “These are things that are not meant to be. On the most basic metaphysical level, you're both out of your pre-ordained roles and this has disturbed the balance in Good's favour. The First is merely trying to redress that discrepancy."

Spike contemplated his Scotch as he swirled it the around his glass. "So something awful has to happen?"

"Good lord, I hope not.” The thought of that possibility was enough to cause Giles to pale. “Let's just say that the First will return and that we should be vigilant and prepared."

"So, you are saying we should just let it win?" Buffy chipped in.

"It will attempt to press any advantage it can until there is an excess of Evil. Don't doubt that."

“Giles.” She gave him a hard stare. “You’re being avoidy.”

“Buffy, I don’t know all the answers. But the Equinox is tomorrow; we should be as prepared as we can be. I think perhaps now is a good time for us to get some rest. Maybe when—” Giles broke off as he heard voices in the hall.

Before he could react, Buffy had shot to her feet, immediately slipping into a fighting stance, primed and ready for battle. Spike was suddenly at her side, covering her flank; but Giles noticed how much looser his posture was, still deadly but less focused than Buffy’s; seemingly less worried about the potential of a fight.

Curious, Giles stood up and tried to hear for himself what was going on outside the door. The heavy wood muffled the sound and he strained to make out the identities of the speakers. He didn’t doubt that with his sharper vampiric hearing, Spike could hear everything being said, but the only voice Giles could recognise at this distance was Willow’s and he couldn’t hear her well enough to make out what she was saying. At least two males replied, both speaking at the same time, but the frequency of both voices was too low to distinguish their words. By his tone and the way he talked over the other, Giles could tell at least of them was angry.

Then Willow shouted, “Wait!” and the door flew open, smashing back into the wall. For a moment, Angel filled the doorway like a towering thunderhead; his eyes scanning the room for his quarry.

His glare settled on Spike.

.

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:14:38 GMT

I'm back again! Not that a lot of people would've have noticed that I'd gone. But two days, it's a long, long time for me and LJ.

In short my PC's hard drive gave up and the laptop didn't want to know my cable modem. Luckily, all my important stuff is safe for the moment (unless my dad manges to wipe them) - my fic and and all my pics (all 20 GB) were on another drive. Phew.

Not happy about losing a lot of the fic and meta I've collected recently though.

As it stands, I've got the laptop working and the PC is being fixed, normal service resumes!

PS. Not impressed with Firefox 3, all it's done is crash and reduce me to IE. I'm sure than wasn't their intention.

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Desktop Meme

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:27:49 GMT

I've done this meme before, but that was so long ago it was worth doing again:

1. Go to your desktop and press the Print Scrn key (located on the right side of the F12 key).

2. Open a graphics program (like Picture Manager, Paint, or Photoshop) and doing a Paste (CTRL + V).

3. Post the picture on your blog. You can also give a short explanation on the look of your desktop if you want. You can explain why you prefer such a look or why it is full of icons. Things like that.

4. Tag five of your friends and ask them to give you a Free View of their desktops as well.

I'm tagging everyone!!!!!

Yes, I am currently obsessed with Kung Fu Panda

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:21:37 GMT

It's time to summon up one of my organisational miracles. The contents of two stuffed wardrobes must fit into one. Squeeeeze!!!!!!!!!

Goodbye faithful worn out clothes of yesteryear!

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FIC: Hell to Pay (Supernatural)

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:48:33 GMT

Not content with narrowing down any possible readership even further than just by writing a little Supernatural ficlet, I go and write it about Bela as well. This by no means says that I'm not writing the Buffyverse.

Hell to Pay (Supernatural)

No characters were harmed in the making of this fic (that comes after). Bela does not belong to me, but is the property of ~~hell~~ hellish corporate entities who would just love to track me down and rip me to shreds too.

Summary: Bela. Post-Time is on my Side Spoilers for same.

Throwing caution to the four winds and posting this unbetaed because I know myfeetshowit would tell me off for some of the obliqueness.

“I’ll see you in hell.”

Empty words that offer no comfort and they’ll be the last Bela will ever hear. A severe goodbye from another doomed soul on the same twisted path to the pit. They’re all too horribly true.

Time’s up, Bela. The world seems to whisper on a haunting reverb. Your debt is due.

No hourglass sands to count down the minutes to the end of her life, nothing but the flip of a number on a scruffy bedside clock. 12:00: magic midnight, but Hell won’t be sending a carriage.

There’s no escape. Not from this. There are no more deals left to make, no more desperate cards left to play. Death has punched her ticket and is waiting. She’s got a third class ticket downstairs and it’s going to be one hell of a trip. Ten years of lying, stealing and conniving for naught but pain and swift death in cheap hotel room. Ten years of running from cruel, wandering hands. Damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t. Fortunes blown on nothing but dead ends bought, sold and traded. All the charms, all the herb lore, all the empty words the spirits have whispered, each as useless as the next. Every lead ending in the same conclusion: she can’t be saved, her soul is no longer her own. She’s one of the damned. The long con is over and it turns out she was the mark all along.

Bela wipes her face clean of self-pitying tears for final time. The night is hot and airless, despite the April chill. A storm is about to break, super-heated by her own despair and dread, holding itself close as howls and low snarls curdle the night beneath a solemn, silent moon. Hell is coming to collect. The hounds call for her blood, ready to rip away her mortgaged soul. She already knows them too well; they have filled her blood soaked dreams for years with lunging teeth dripping with foam and slobber. Their flashing claws, ferocious and possessive, tear her skin, shredding sinew and scraping the flesh from her shattered bones night after dreaded night. They want her to know they are waiting. Always.

She swallows and lifts her chin. One year, ten years; the fate is the same. There are no more seconds left to be grabbed back and hoarded with salt lines and Devil’s Shoestring. The one thing she knows about time is that there is never enough of it.

Too many could have beens have been wasted to save a life already plundered by a monstrous man who knew better but couldn’t care less. Her freedom had a high price and a body count, but she won’t die a coward. Not now. She made her own fate ten years ago in a neat English park. Just let them try to break her.

At least she’ll have company.

See you down there Dean Winchester.

Time’s up. She doesn’t see 12:01.

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Anyone else celebrating?

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:12:39 GMT

According to the Dunstable Herald and Post it's International Compost Awareness Week. Hurrah!

So just doing my bit.

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Fic: Working My Way Back to You - Chapter Twenty-Four - Icarus

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:55:05 GMT

Months of tinkering and I think I can finally let go:

Working My Way Back To You

No characters were harmed in the making of this fic. They do not belong to me, but are the property of Fox Entertainment and Mutant Enemy.

Summary: Spike/Buffy. Post-Chosen, Post Hellbound. What did you think the First Evil was doing after the closure of the Hellmouth? Knitting evil jumpers?

Thanks to myfeetshowit for her beta work yet again.

Chapter Twenty-Four - Icarus

A brief recap of recent events...

Spike found Buffy in the woods where they came face to face with The First who took control of Spike's mind to play with him a bit. It also revealed that it plans to sacrifice Buffy in order to release the Old Ones from the Deeper Well and bring on a new demon age. Spike and Buffy flee, only to run into the The First's army, a mix of Bringers, vampires and dead that have risen from their graves. Some of these, those who weren't buried in hallowed ground, manifest as dark and dangerous wraiths that fill Buffy with dread. Our heroes take shelter in the only place they can find to defend - the church. Problem is the wraiths don't find stone walls much of a problem and they find their way in. But as Buffy starts to surrender to their evocative calls, the church fills with a bright, weird light.

From last time...

She sank back into her own head, her eyes drooping sleepily as her mind started to drift away. She felt her legs sag and give way, reality swimming before her as her soul reached out for its immortal release.

“Buffy! Stay with me. It’s all a lie.” She could hear the panicked note in his voice and his strong arms supporting her, propping her up, not letting her crumble, but he sounded so remote and distant his words were almost lost. “Buffy, we have to g—”

As her eyes closed, the air seemed to expand and explode. The windows blew apart in a waterfall cascade of stained glass splinters and the church filled with a warm, brilliant light; divine and white but dappled with Technicolor. The brightness forced her eyes back open even as it dazzled her and she covered her eyes with her arm, squinting past their cover to see a clear blue daylight sky through the empty Gothic arches.

She was still aware of Spike, his hands gripping her arms tightly enough to bruise, but he was falling away, pulling her with him, tumbling backwards onto the hard floor between the pews.

And he was screaming.

The whole church shone. Beams of light so brilliant it was like staring for too long at the California sun: too bright to watch, too intense, too painful.

Spike’s screams had become rasping snarls filled with agonies. A punk Icarus too close to a vicious sun, the strange sunshine flooding in through the shattered windows was too strong for him to bear. The light poured into the nave like a cleansing tsunami heaven-sent to purify the malevolent night. It took back to the divine what the profane had defiled with innocent blood and Buffy feared the thin strips of weak shade underneath the pews were not nearly enough to protect his undead flesh from its scouring. She stretched herself back over his chest in the desperate hope she was doing enough to shield him from crumbling to dust in her arms. Her small body was poor protection from the savage glare, but his skin had already begun to sizzle with a sickening hiss and there was no other shelter she could offer.

Too harsh to escape, the light washed away colours and drowned shadows as it intensified, whitewashing the walls, arches and dark sacred hollows to a stark monochrome. But she couldn’t afford to close her eyes, not yet, even though they stung and had begun to pool with tears which softened the edges of her vision and made the church look like a painting brushed in lipid watercolours. Through this watery lens the arches rose above her like a series of tall waterfalls, solemn cascades in a river of luminescence, the sagging wedding blooms hung from them brought back to life as bubbling spray crashing upon the rocky pews at the feet of the columns. Beyond them, the altar seemed vague, a boxy island in the torrent, but the vivid spring emerald of the altar cloth had become sallow and liquid, the intricate patterns embroidered onto the fabric and the gruesome trail of dry anaemic blood that stained the thin thread lost as the colours ran and bled into each other. Even the shimmering gold cross had faded into a formless, unrecognisable blob, bleached and pallid against the now drab cloth.

With no darkness left to sustain their tainted counterfeit of life, the revenant dead shrank away; crawling back into the silent refuge of their dark holes or, like the wraiths, curling away into charcoal smoke as they let cry one last shriek of hideous complaint. As the last of them fell mute, the banging on the church door ceased; the high tide of the risen ebbing as they returned to their desecrated graves.

Their racket was replaced by a sudden and reverent silence, the world falling still for a long moment out of time. As life and death reorganised themselves back into their proper order, Buffy felt something shift inside her, an odd movement of her being; as if the universe was clicking her soul back into position. The unbearable pressure of the wraith’s calls lifted from her like a heavy, suffocating veil to reveal how false their entreaties had been. A while ago she might have given anything to join them, to regain a longed for peace that had been ripped away, but that was then and for all the upheaval her life had seen since she didn’t seek death just yet. Finally, with a new lightness inside, she let her eyes fall shut.

The weird sunlight didn’t last. After a few minutes it slowly relented. Like a flare giving up all hope of rescue, it dropped in intensity, fading from dazzling to daylight to a brief, deepening dusk. As the church settled back into tranquil, moonlit shadows again, full dark returned and Buffy opened her eyes to a black world, deep and impenetrable.

She wiped a hand across her face, sweeping away the tears and trying to blink away the fuzzy constellation of polka dot stars burnt into her retinas. “The hell…?“

Spike didn’t reply. Instead he released a heavy, relieved sigh and let his head slump to the floor.

Gently, she prised his tense fingers from her arms and rolled off his chest onto her knees. She was worried about him, but he was solid and substantial and wasn’t on fire, and so was unlikely to dust if she left him for a minute to check for any more dangers. Even though her eyes were still adjusting to the dark, she peered out over the back of the pew. The church seemed to be smothered in a quiet calm. Nothing moved in the shadows or hollered a war cry from a undead throat. They appeared to be alone.

Relieved – nothing to worry about except a whole undead army blocking their way home – she sat back on her heels and looked down at Spike. “It’s okay, they’ve gone.”

He nodded, slowly heaving himself up to sit beside her. “About time.”

“What was that?” she wondered aloud, not really expecting him to have the answer.

“Not a buggering clue.” He hissed as he shrugged stiffly. “Ow. Bloody hurt though.”

“Are you okay?” she asked, not seeing anything wrong. He was nothing but a black shape tipped with silver where his hair caught the moonlight, but she couldn’t forget the terrible sounds he’d been making. She reached out to help him somehow, soothe him maybe, but as she touched his hand he snatched it away.

“Bit sore, pet,” he croaked apologetically, lifting his head out of the shadows. His exposed skin looked angry and red, just like he was a real boy who’d fallen asleep on a beach in the mid-day sun. In some places it was already beginning to blister and peel. “Nothing to worry about.”

She had her doubts; he looked so raw, but her concern could wait until they had figured out the cause of the mysterious light. If it happened again they needed to be ready for it. The sunlight – if that was what it really was – hadn’t felt evil though, like something The First would conjure, and it had driven the dead back to their rest, but she already knew that it wasn’t divine in any way – slayers didn’t get that kind of intervention. Instead it had felt more like being caught in a nuclear blast or standing too close to a star. Spike, pinned under her body where they’d fallen, had been protected from its full strength, but he was lucky not to have crumbled to powder a second time.

If she hadn’t fallen across him…

She didn’t think anymore, suppressing the cold fear scything through her, and just kissed him.

If she’d thought it through rationally, she wouldn’t have expected him to respond, maybe ducking out from under her searching lips as he tried to re-establish the distance between them, but instead he grabbed her, wincing a little with the pain, but kissing her back forcefully as if this was what he’d wanted all along.

A perfect moment became captured in one kiss. She shut her eyes, her hands gripping his arms, clenching the leather of his coat tighter and tighter after every second they were connected. She'd forgotten! Forgotten how great the soft swell of his lips felt against her mouth, how his touch made her feel so, so good. She never wanted to forget again, never, because this was what she had been missing all this time; that fission fusion, ying yang push-pull of their auras that drew them together, pitching light against dark in such wonderful ways; a struggle as old as the sun and the moon themselves.

And how different this was from the all the kisses they’d shared before, when she’d been so wrapped up in her own misery that she hadn’t noticed his. In her life she'd tasted young love, remorse, hopeless longing and, all too often, despair on another’s lips, but this kiss was in another class. This was one of those moments she’d tried to deny, when heat expanded like a supernova inside them, the same intense passion there had always been causing her to tingle all over with excited sparkles that exploded in her fingers and toes. A churning whirlpool of lust spun in her stomach as the kiss lingered; past passion into the barest of touches, a connection between them that neither wished to break.

They always came back to each other; to this now… though what this was exactly she couldn’t put a name to. A tangled knot of opposing feelings had warred within her. She knew they weren’t soul mates or anything fanciful like that, most of the time she’d known him she’d wished him a swift dusty death and meant it, but she had the fleeting thought that maybe they had become tied together somehow, tangled up on a tether that reached even through dimensions and death. How they’d got to this, she couldn’t say; but she couldn’t help wondering if this thing between them that kept drawing them to each other had all been part of some spell, perhaps even a residue effect of mistaken magic that had bound them together in a twisted arranged marriage. Maybe that spell of Willow’s had had much deeper consequences than a whole lot of red-faced embarrassment.

Whatever it was, whatever they’d felt, at some point it had deepened; Buffy couldn't quite pin down the exact instant when Spike had gone from murderous annoyance to sex-on-a-stick, but she guessed it had been something to do with her death. His weight, plummeting with guilt and grief, had somehow accentuated his best features and suddenly, tall, looming hunks were as out as last season’s hottest shoes and in came short, lean, muscular punks in mean leather and silver jewellery. If she’d realised just how deep a punk-rock, beached blond, irritating vampire could worm his way into her heart, she could have defended herself. Without a soul he would always be Mr. So Very Very Wrong, but that was no longer an issue. So here he was, Mr. Can't Live Without back from the dead again, cocky and coarse and with a soul just for her. She would not squander her second chance.

When they finally broke apart, his smile was warm, as happy as any she'd seen him wear, but when she looked up at him, trying to decipher his deeper mysteries in the soft moonlight, she saw a wariness there that lingered in his eyes as if he still couldn't believe this to be true. But he held her gaze and she saw there the same devotion she’d denied, buried under the doubt and the hope and the fear and the elation. She wanted so much to reassure him that this time she would get it right, but this wasn’t time for words. She said it all with another kiss.

When that was over she reluctantly pulled away. She licked her lips absently. “We had better go.”

“Yeah,” he replied, his rumbling voice scratchy and low, a promise for more to come.

She dropped her eyes and turned away, breaking the moment. She might even have blushed. If she kept her eyes locked with his, they might never leave and she seriously needed a shower. “Um. There’s—“

She never finished her sentence.

A whiplash crack of thunder rent the air and the church door imploded inwards, wrenched violently off its mangled hinges by the blast. The pew that had wedged it shut was propelled backwards, smashing against carved stone, the old wood pulverised into matchwood. As it fell to the floor, nothing more now than sharp, toothpick splinters, a dark figure stepped into the doorway, terrible in silhouette.

“Willow!” At the sight of the witch standing in the porch, hair bleached silver with raw magic billowing around her head at the centre of its own cyclone, angry ivory whips lashing at the air above her, Buffy brightened into a relieved grin.

Following Buffy’s voice, Hurricane Willow turned her head. For a second she still looked inhuman as she scanned the church for her friend, something capricious and elemental. Sparks still zipped and snapped from her fingers, her eyes fathoms deep with magic, but the impression was gone the instant she saw Buffy. Her power started to dissipate, colour flushing into her pupils and her hair bleeding back to red as the magic drained away.

A normal girl again, she gave Buffy a goofy smile in return.

Buffy pulled away from Spike and jumped to her feet, rushing down the nave to throw her arms around her friend. "Will! You're here! What happened? The First was outside. It had an army.”

“Yeah, we saw it.” Willow smile upped in wattage to become a broad grin. “Most of them are all dead or dusty now. The rest fled back into the woods.”

Of course, Buffy realised, a bright, uncanny light from out of nowhere – a spell. “That light. That was you?”

“Tara’s little sunshine spell. I tweaked it a bit,” Willow nodded proudly. “Okay, a lot.”

“Careful where you’re firing it next time, Red.”

As Spike spoke and emerged from the shadows, Willow’s sweet grin evaporated and she darkened; hair turning to russet, auburn, black. The glittering softness in her eyes hardened to flint. Her hand shot out and he froze mid-step, locked into freeze frame.

“Willow, no!” Buffy pleaded, moving herself between Spike and the witch. “It’s just Spike.”

Before Willow could answer, Giles appeared at her shoulder. He looked tired and worn, worry carving deep lines into his forehead, but he still looked dangerous and determined, a worthy adversary to anything evil foolish enough to cross his path.

“No, Buffy, it’s The First.” he told her, not greeting Buffy with any friendliness. There was work to be done and this wasn’t the time for happy reunions. “Please stand aside.”

“Giles! No!” Buffy protested, worried that this stand off was going to end up like a gunfight at the Not-Okay Corral. “Believe me, this is Spike. I know it. The First is out there somewhere.” She waved her arm in the vague direction of outside.

Willow’s glare seemed to waver. She gave Giles an anxious glance.

He stepped forward with an arm outstretched, trying to soothe and reassure her like she was an uneasy thoroughbred. “Buffy. I know these past few months have been difficult and you have lost a lot, including Spike. But this is not the Spike you knew. Something happened in Los Angeles, Buffy. The First has changed…”

“Giles, I know,” Buffy couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “I’m not jumping to conclusions because I want him back. The First is solid and it’s wearing Spike’s face. I’ve seen them both. Tonight. Together. In the both in the same place standing next to each other kind of together.” She gestured to Spike beside her, as still as a statue sculpted in ebony and alabaster. “And this one is Spike.”

Giles stopped and straightened. “Are you sure?”

“A million percent sure.” Buffy nodded. “I can tell the difference, Giles.”

“Hmmm.” he pondered as he gave Spike a critical inspection. Buffy bit down on her anger as she saw him weighing up the pros and cons of trusting her judgement. After all that had happened he still couldn’t quite accept that she was an adult capable of putting her feelings to one side.

Eventually he seemed to come to a conclusion and gestured for Willow to stand down. She lowered her arm sheepishly and she lightened again.

Spike, staggering slightly as he was released from his temporal trap, snapped. “Watch it, Red. This body’s brand new. Not likely to get another one!”

Willow's eyes grew huge as she realised he really was Spike. "Wow, then it's true! You're back."

Spike shrugged, using nonchalance to cover the awkwardness. "Just took a bit of a detour getting here."

“Two of them!” Giles sighed, rubbing his face with a hand. “As if one wasn’t enough already.”

Buffy chose to ignore that. “So how did you know we needed help?

"Giles got a call from Angel,” Willow said, picking her way through the debris she’d made to join Giles in the nave. Her nose wrinkled as she caught the stink of death that hung in the air. “He said you might need some Scooby assistance."

“Yes,” Giles added. “I believe Wesley found out something about the First's plan. Angel thought you should know. They're on their way."

Buffy ’s stomach dropped like a runaway elevator, hitting the bottom with a smash. "Angel's coming here?"

Spike snorted with disgust or contempt. Probably both. "Great, might have known the old bugger couldn't leave it alone. Still can't trust me, can he?"

"There’s a lot of that going round,” Buffy said acidly, but she put her irritation with Giles aside. “So how did you even get into the village?” she asked. “There's a spell..."

"Yeah, it's a really strong one too. We had to punch our way through it,” Willow gave the air a half-hearted right hook with her delicate fist.

“Indeed,” Giles agreed. “The village has been pulled into another reality …”

Buffy couldn’t resist. “Another dimension? Is there shrimp?”

“Yes, I believe so. Buffy. Please pay attention,” Unconsciously, Giles removed his glasses and started to polish them. This discussion was getting all too familiar; she might have been back at High School getting her daily Giles-lecture. “As I was saying, this village has been pulled into another reality, as it were, but we’re in nothing as complicated as a whole dimension. We’re within a spell. A powerful one that is holding us out of phase with the rest of the world, but the village remains real and physical. Unless they know it is here, people will subconsciously avoid the area, but once they find a way in they cannot escape. They get caught here.”

Buffy thought that over. Absently, she rubbed her biceps. Spike had held them so tightly she would have a bloom of bruises by morning. “A bit like a magical spider’s web?”

“That would be an excellent analogy. Yes, indeed it is.”

Spike nodded in that way he did when he was mulling things over. “It’s a trap. Lures you in, keeps you going round in circles til it drives you bonkers.”

“It’s like the whole village is contained in this big invisible bubble,” Willow threw her arms out wide to demonstrate her point and Buffy didn’t miss they way Spike dodged warily out of their range. “We had to ignore what our eyes were telling us and drive straight into it."

“We break the spell then.” Spike said firmly. “Get the hell away from here.”

Buffy perked up at that. "Great, that means we can leave."

"Not really,” Giles just had to pour cold water on an awesome plan. “We could break the spell, but for the moment I’m not sure that’s wise.” he explained, “As it is, The First has contained its armies within the village and the spell, but that only means they’re just as stuck as we are. They cannot harm anyone outside the boundaries. We may find it prudent to keep them here for as long as possible.”

Buffy slumped back down onto a vacant pew. “So what do we do?”

.

I am calm

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:49:18 GMT

Today would be a really bad day to start my Jedi training as I’ve been a quivering ball of rage for the last 24 hours, which isn’t like me. I’ve had to tell myself to be calm all day and I’m not even pre-menstrual!

My bio-rhythms must be hitting a particularly low trough at the minute, lots of tiny irritations too numerous to describe in full have been piling up to really, really annoy me the last couple of days like irritation Tetris. I think I’ve just lost the level.

So in order to regain my former laid-backiness I have spent the day compiling a therapeutic list of what’s pissing me off. In some cases names have been concealed to protect me from the guilty:

1. Ancient heavy duty staplers
2. Abbey Loans liars
3. Cahoot customer service and security
4. Credit cards that won’t hand over the cash
5. Coffee machines
6. Bananas
7. Headaches
8. Coffee that won’t stay in the cup
9. Microsoft Word
10. Printers with their own insane ideas about how it thinks you want things printed
11. Computer network and helpdesks that think you have the entire contents of a network drive memorised
12. CD Trays
13. Computers in general
14. MP4 players
15. Bittorrent
16. VirginMedia (as always)
17. TV schedulers that put all the good stuff on at the same time on the same evening
18. Petrol stations
19. Mango chutney
20. Another people’s house plants
21. Headphone cables that aren’t long enough
22. Work computers without the correct codecs to let me watch SPN (Grrr!!!!)
23. Stupid bag designs
24. Telephones
25. Realplayer update interruptions
26. People who can’t remember your name, but have a (wrong) guess anyway
27. Cars with stupid bucket seats
28. Sports suspension + pot-holed roads
29. Broken cars
30. Queue jumpers
31. Awkward people who get huffy when you ask them to do their job even when you’ve done half of it for them
32. Mothers and money
33. Cats who won’t take their pills
34. Cat food on fingers
35. Traffic (especially slow drivers that hold everyone up and don’t move over)
36. Bright early mornings that wake you up at 5.30
37. Time in general (not enough)
38. Tangly curtains
39. Forgetfulness
40. Pushy passive-aggressive f***ers from the HM Customs Construction Industry Scheme. I will name you: Tom
41. Spiral notebooks

Wallpaper: Fractured Soul (Supernatural: Dean)

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:02:34 GMT

Bogwitch posts, they're like buses. Wait forever for her to ~~stop wasting time on the Playstation~~ get creative with it and then get blasted with a load of stuff no one is interested in!

More SPN, I'm afraid.

I couldn't decide which version I liked better:

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Drabble: Cracks (Life on Mars)

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:07:47 GMT

I was raking through my notebook today and found half a Life on Mars drabble I started last year, so I um finished it:

Cracks
(Life on Mars, PG, no pairing, just Sam)

Sometimes the future feels so close; a breath, a blink, a heartbeat away. Sam wishes he knew how to burst the bubble of his psychosis and grab it back.

He hears things whispering constantly at the edge of his perception, echoes of his real life slipping in between the crackles of radio static and David Cassidy hits. There’s nurse’s chatter and the dour concern of the doctors, there’s his mother’s sad voice willing him to live and the ticking time bomb of the heart monitor, counting down.

Perhaps if he could just reach out through those cracks, he’d wake up.

.

Wallpaper: Blood is Life

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:39:51 GMT

As promised, a ~~thingy~~ Spike one:

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Wallpaper: Cordelia

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:14:17 GMT

For some reason from nowhere a Cordelia wallpaper popped out of my brain:

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And... And! There might even be a Spike (remember him?) one later.

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Personality Test

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:45:08 GMT

Not sure I like this test. I don't sound very nice and I don't think I'm neurotic at all.

My Personality


Neuroticism	65
Extraversion	2
Openness to Experience	41
Agreeableness	47
Conscientiousness	12

You are a calm person who is considered almost fearless by some, however you tend to lack energy and have difficult initiating activities. You get overwhelmed by too much noise and commotion and do not like thrill-seeking activities. You tend not to express your emotions openly and are sometimes not even aware of your own feelings. You do not like to claim that you are better than other people, and generally shy from talking yourself up, however you do not particularly like helping other people. Requests for help feel like an imposition on your time. You take your time when making decisions and will deliberate on all the possible consequences and alternatives.

Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report.
.

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:04:35 GMT

I think my car is dead. :(

.

Wallpaper: Supernatural (Dean again)

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:22:12 GMT

I threatened another Supernatural wallpaper last week and now its been tweaked to my satisfaction, its ready for the world:

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As an added bonus to the one or two people who'll care. I made a Dark Angel Alec wallpaper for a laugh:

1680x1050 only (as I couldn't work out how to resize it)

Now if I can stop playing with the descriptions and actually flesh out the meat of the chapter, I might actually finish the next chapter of the WIP...

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Wallpaper: Supernatural (Dean)

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:33:26 GMT

I made a couple of Supernatural wallpapers over the last couple of weeks. This is the first of them.

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and a blue version:

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DIY tales

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:25:51 GMT

Pulling up the rotten carpet in my bedroom today, my dad found £40 in old (but not old, old) notes. Result!

.

Not striking

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:17:47 GMT

I was going to spam LJ today, but I decided that was a little childish. Besides, I don't have much to spam about. I'm sure you don't really want to know about how by ovary is playing up or that it's a bit wet outside. Plus, I can't say I've noticed much difference in the amount of posting/commenting.

So, um, that's it. Maybe if I think of something later I'll post that. Otherwise, we could just have a nice chat.

.

Oh MP3 player thou art sick!

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:13:00 GMT

You sacrificed yourself, throwing yourself out of the car and dashing your screen against the concrete just for me didn't you? Just so I could get that snazzy new model I've been thinking about.

or was it because you couldn't stand to play Babes in Toyland at full volume anymore?

I will miss you.

.

Eep!

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:16:01 GMT

Coincidences are a part of life, but I going to start logging these, I swear. In the last few months all sorts of these coincidences keep happening to me - far more often than normal. I can't remember any just off the top my head, but I have people who will vouch for them.

So tonight I nearly missed Ashes to Ashes. Now, I don't watch a lot of TV and following a series other than by watching them online requires me to keep tabs on the time (which I'm very bad at), nothing unusual there. So today I was larking around in Paint Shop Pro and I lost track of what time it was, then what should come up randomly on my Media Player at exactly 9.00? The Human League - Love Action. Ooh, I thought, the 80's are reminding me to watch, cool! That was weird enough.

And then what song was in Ashes to Ashes tonight?

Yep.

What does this all mean?

ETA: Ooh! ooh! We had a conversation at work yesterday about Shakin' Stevens too! Can't say I've had many of those in my life.

.

Fic: Working My Way Back to You - Chapter Twenty-Three - Near Distance

bogwitch@yahoo.co.uk — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:29:50 GMT

My muse is still catatonic, but I have managed to get it to function enough to prise a new chapter out of it...

Working My Way Back To You

No characters were harmed in the making of this fic. They do not belong to me, but are the property of Fox Entertainment and Mutant Enemy.

Summary: Spike/Buffy. Post-Chosen, Post Hellbound. What did you think the First Evil was doing after the closure of the Hellmouth? Knitting evil jumpers?

Thanks to myfeetshowit for her beta work this round.

Chapter Twenty-Three - Near Distance

A brief recap of recent events...

Spike found Buffy in the woods where they came face to face with The First who took control of Spike's mind to play with him a bit. It also revealed that it plans to sacrifice Buffy in order to release the Old Ones from the Deeper Well and bring on a new demon age. Spike and Buffy flee, only to run into the The First's army, a mix of Bringers, vampires and dead that have risen from their graves. Some of these, those who weren't buried in hallowed ground, manifest as dark and dangerous wraiths that fill Buffy with dread. Our heros take shelter in the only place they can find to defend - the church.

“So did you have a plan when you dived in here or did you just have an urgent need to repent?”

Buffy took a deep breath, noting the way Spike turned in her direction as he spoke but dropped his eyes to avoid meeting hers. The pallid moonlight caused harsh, jagged shadows to cut across his face with noir slashes of darkness, but he couldn’t fool her. If they had survived the night, she would sort this, but the time was so very not now to deal with his evasiveness or go over all the complexities of everything that had happened between them; souls and sex and sacrifice were heavy subjects she couldn’t tackle with a few glib words and he deserved more.

“I don’t know. I need time to think,” she told him. A tickle of that icy dread she’d felt outside still gnawed at her nerve endings, warning her that they still weren’t safe. As if to emphasise her fears, their makeshift barricade shuddered as the dead made a renewed sortie against the church door. “We can’t stay here.”

“Won’t have any argument from me.” Giving it a firm shove, Spike tested the strength of the pew one last time. Like the heavy door it was propped against, the pew was robust and sturdy. It would hold long enough for them to find a way to escape. He seemed satisfied by the way it remained firmly wedged against the fluted column of one of the ornate arches and straightened. He finally gave her a brief glance. “This is not exactly a place I’m comfortable, you know.”

A strained silence, leaden with the past and a hundred things still left unsaid, settled between them. Buffy bit her lip as she realised why. The church. Oh god. She should have thought of that. One of the most significant moments of their lives and it hadn’t even occurred to her. There was no way this wasn’t going to be awkward.

Despite the levity of his wisecracks, Spike’s discomfort was clearly visible even in the dim light. His jaw flexed with an anxious twitch and he shoved his hands into his pockets. When he slipped past her, he didn’t touch, pointedly skirting round her personal space, stalking along the aisle like a streak of absolute darkness in the covering moonshine.

“You okay?” she asked softly with a lightness she wasn’t feeling. She watched sadly as Spike used the pretence of giving their shelter a critical once over, searching for hidden dangers and weaknesses that could be exploited, to put a comfortable distance between them.

“Been better,” he confessed, dismissing her worries with a shrug, but he still refused to meet her eye. The barrier that had been thrown up between them was still very much in place and she didn’t know if she should try to penetrate his guard or give him time to relax. “Just came face to face with myself.” He paused in the centre of the aisle, spotlighted in the rainbow light beaming in through the large picture window, and reached out to gingerly touch an ornately decorated cross that was carved into the side of a pew. A small wisp of smoke rose from his sizzling finger and ghosted into the night. “Might need a minute.”

“Right.” She leant back against a table covered with leaflets advertising church services and toddler playgroups that would never be, keeping one cautious eye on the door and thinking over the implications of what he was saying, of what The First had done to him. This near distance he was keeping wasn’t about his soul or anything else that had happened in that Sunnydale church, but about the other things that still plagued his troubled mind. Perhaps he’d been too crazy back then to realise how much that moment had meant to her. “It’s not you, you know,” she offered. “It could never be a fraction of what you are.”

He turned his head to her then, raising an eyebrow over his shoulder in curious challenge, but the moment passed and he looked away again. “Maybe. But what it said, I don’t feel like that.”

“Huh?” A horrible sickly feeling started to sour her stomach; a dreadful burning flush that curdled in her gut. “Oh. That stuff about me using you? I—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he cut her off with a gentle swipe of his hand. “Everything that happened. It’s all forgiven. Water under the bridge and all that. I just wanted you to know.”

She sighed. He didn’t need to say any of this; she already knew he’d forgiven her, but she wondered how he could just sweep the issue away like that when it was obviously still troubling him. This wall he’d put up was the price she would pay for using him in more ways than one; venting all that anger and frustration which had built up inside her, giving him little in return but empty sex and fists to his face. His dismissive words weren’t going to erase the pain of being taken for granted. She might have offered him her faith in the end, but for all those times she’d beat him down for not having a soul, made him jump through impossible hoops, at the end he was the one she relied on and that wasn’t enough. She shook her head, she was such an idiot, she should have told him sooner that she loved him and not let words fail her after their first chaste night together. It sounded so pathetic in hindsight to have offered up those words only as he’d died; no wonder he was so distant now.

“Is that what’s really eating you?” Safe and cosy their feelings for each other were not, but passionate heights were dangerous by their nature. Maybe they shouldn't be in a relationship again if being with her hurt him so much. Flushed, she pushed off the table and approached him slowly, allowing him to keep some space but trying to shut the emotional chasm before it became too vast to close.

“That and the rest of it,” he replied quietly. “I’d ask you to kill me if I thought it would take.”

She blinked up at him in surprise. “What?”

“The First.” He whirled around and stabbed his chest with a finger. “It can control me. “I don’t know what—”

“Hey! Hey.” She grabbed his hand in and held it tight affirmation, looking up into his eyes as if she could will him into seeing the amazing person she saw before her reflected in her own. Back when things had been less complicated, before kissing him in an alley had destroyed it all, she'd gone to him talk through her problems, knowing that while he couldn't solve them for her he would always try. She needed to return a little bit of that commitment. “Not this again. I thought we were past all this trigger stuff. Spike, the trigger has gone. You saw to that.”

"Not the trigger!” He shook his head. “You saw it, the sodding First doesn’t need one now. It can control the dead, control me."

“I am not killing you. Not now,” she told him vehemently, realising what he was trying to ask her. She squeezed his hand even tighter. There was no way she was letting go.

“Buffy, I don’t think you can, but…” His eyes searched hers, blazing, pleading with her and she couldn’t help being drawn in. “but you’ll have to watch out. For me. I can’t—”

The agony she saw in his face made her gasp, but it also made her angry and she jerked her hand away. The moment was broken. “It’s bullshit, Spike! Don’t listen to it. It’s playing with both of us. Don’t you see? The First can manipulate you, so what? Nothing’s changed. We’ve been there before. And we know we can beat it. Think about it! If it could turn you against me so easily, then why didn’t it do that outside?”

“I don’t know!” He moved away and started to pace as if caged by his own powerlessness. “It could be waiting for something!” he suggested. “For the right moment. Anything!” With that, he lashed out, kicking the front pew over in frustration. It toppled over onto the stone floor in a scatter of prayer books and splinters.

“Spike! This isn’t helping.”

At the sound of her voice, the flare of his temper cooled as suddenly as it had ignited. When he looked back at her, the angry tension she’d seen was replaced with a cold fear. “Buffy, it said something. About keeping you here as a sacrifice. You know about that?”

She crossed her arms defensively, as lost for an answer as he was. “Only what you heard it say, that it would release the first demons from this Deep Well thingy. You know about that?”

“No.” He shrugged. “Never heard of it before. I mean we’ve all heard about the Old Ones, but they’re supposed to be dead. We need to find out about the well, and soon. I…” He strode back up the length of the aisle, drawing close again. He said lowly and tenderly: “I don’t know what The First could make me do. That’s why if you need to when the time comes you’ll have to stop me. Not losing you.”

“Spike. It’s not going to happen. I won’t let it. When this is over we’ll go back to the Retreat. They still have some books there. There might be something in one of them.”

“Okay. Research.” Spike nodded, but he didn’t seem to relish the idea.

That made two of them. “I know. I wish Giles was here.”

“Yeah, I’m sure old Rupert would know a thing or two,” he agreed, absently. His attention had drifted back to the walls of the church. “There another way out of this place?” he asked, turning and stalking back toward the chancel.

“I don’t know, I didn’t—” As he passed the ornate lattice of the rood screen and stepped up onto the dais, she went to follow him, but she stopped as she felt the floor beneath her shake. The movement was almost imperceptible, but she’d experienced earth tremors before and she knew what they felt like. “Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?” Spike asked, unconcerned. Finding no exits in the area behind the altar, he gave up and his attention fell upon the headless corpse still sprawled on its back across the altar cloth.

“I don’t know. Maybe I imagined a quake or… Never mind.” Maybe it had been her imagination after all. England didn’t have earthquakes, or at least she didn’t think so. She pushed it out of her mind as she watched Spike brush a finger across the dry pool of dark blood under the vicar’s chest, wrinkling her nose at the sight. She hoped he wouldn’t do anything vampiric and gross because if he put that finger anywhere near his mouth she would have to rethink this whole relationship thing. Reality really lacked the soft focus of her memories sometimes.

“I didn’t feel—” Spike broke off as the whole church shuddered. As he looked around to find out why, a hand shot up from the headless body and clamped itself to his neck, its bloated partner joining it to capture him in a fierce stranglehold.

Buffy staggered, clutching onto the pews as she struggled to keep her balance. She couldn’t help him. In their private chapels at the edge of the nave, the local great and good had awoken where they had been interred; their skeletal fists punching through the sides of their knightly tombs, the heavy stone pulverised by undead strength. Still dead, still not living, they too answered the muster of their unholy master. Those that had been laid to rest in the fair earth outside were not the only ones The First had roused from their eternal sleep it seemed.

Realising the incipient danger, Buffy shoved the pews apart; searching desperately for the axe Spike had tossed aside while they were barricading the door. She could just see it poking out from under the pew in front, its handle lying just out of reach beside the vicar’s lost head.

Spike prised the decomposing fingers from his neck and shoved the vicar away. "Dead here,” he told the flailing body as it bounced off the altar and fell to the floor into a spray of fallen petals from a wilting wedding arrangement. “What's choking me supposed to do?"

Buffy scrabbled under the pew for the lost weapon, kicking away moldy hands that grabbed at her legs until her hand closed around the axe’s haft. When she sprung back up, Spike was already there, ripping the corpse’s head from the rest of its desiccated remains. But as she readied the axe to pitch in, the spectres emerged one by one through the walls of the hallowed sanctuary with piteous cries. Insubstantial and angry, the phantoms passed through old stone that was no barrier to those stuck in a state between the spirit and the flesh. Buffy froze as they closed in. Her limbs refused to obey her, suddenly paralysed and drained of all energy as their darkness tugged at her life force. Drenched with cold and a bitter acid dread, she longed again for the void of death and her afterlife of peace.

“Buffy!” She felt Spike grab her arm, pulling at her sleeve, trying to make her come with him, but she couldn’t go. She had to stay and wait for them to return her to the quiet of her grave. “C’mon!”

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words made it out.

Spike tugged at her coat again, more desperately this time. Tossing the skull aside, he stomped a heavy boot down through its cranium to stop it from snapping at his foot and grabbed her with both hands, giving her a vigorous shake. “There has to be another door near the tower, c’mon!”

She sank back into her own head, her eyes drooping sleepily as her mind started to drift away. She felt her legs sag and give way, reality swimming before her as her soul reached out for its immortal release.

“Buffy! Stay with me. It’s all a lie.” She could hear the panicked note in his voice and his strong arms supporting her, propping her up, not letting her crumble, but he sounded so remote and distant his words were almost lost. “Buffy, we have to g—”

As her eyes closed, the air seemed to expand and explode. The windows blew apart in a waterfall cascade of stained glass splinters and the church filled with a warm, brilliant light; divine and white but dappled with Technicolor. The brightness forced her eyes back open even as it dazzled her and she covered her eyes with her arm, squinting past their cover to see a clear blue daylight sky through the empty Gothic arches.

She was still aware of Spike, his hands gripping her arms tightly enough to bruise, but he was falling away, pulling her with him, tumbling backwards onto the hard floor between the pews.

And he was screaming.

.