Work Text:
The Slow Slide Into...
It's dark.
There's chanting, slow and soft, an even-toned drone that weighs her eyelids down even as she's already asleep.
In the shadows, a figure moves.
***
The next day, she can barely keep her eyes open in school—even during chemistry lab, which is her favorite class of the day.
Before last period, instead of dropping by the library to check up on the gang, she heads towards the cafeteria to buy a soda; she's not much of a caffeine drinker—she doesn't need her babbling rambles to sprout even more tangents, thank you very much—but she's gotta try something to keep her attention on Hamlet.
She skips the customary meet-up in the library after the last bell, yawning while waving 'bye to Xander before stumbling towards home.
When she gets there, she flops onto the bed, fully clothed, and doesn't wake until morning.
She gets up with a smile on her face and energy to spare.
So she passes it off as a fluke.
Everyone has an off day, right?
***
It's dark, again. The kind of dark that has texture and depth, the kind of dark that has a great mouth that swallows people whole…
The chanting is there, too, hypnotically rising and falling like a song she can't remember.
And in the very background, she can hear something…bubbling.
She doesn't think it's soup.
***
She's tired the next morning, but somehow, it's not quite so bad. She buys a Red Bull on her way to school and downs it after lunch.
She passes a Calculus test with flying colors.
The gang meets in the library after school to research a string of disappearances on the East side of town. She digs into the task, flipping through the thick tomes of occult literature with confidence, fingers skimming the pages until she finds…
"Got it," she announces to the room, a pleased bubble of satisfaction rolling in her stomach as she explains what she's put together.
It isn't until she's brushing her teeth—up and down, nice, even strokes, just like the dentist taught her when she was four—that she realizes the text was in Ancient Sumerian.
She frowns as she stares at her reflection in the mirror; it's a language she's never learned.
***
The bubbling is louder, a rolling boil that echoes the churning fear in her gut.
She feels trapped, pressed in on all sides, but strangely, as if she's coming loose at the seams, her very molecules expanding in the damp, dank air.
Her own panting breaths echo in the space, growing louder and louder as the panic wells up inside.
She jumps when a voice whispers in her ear.
***
She "borrows" some books from Giles, volumes on dreams and dreamwalking and spells and anything she thinks might help.
Sitting at her desk that evening, she skims page after page until the text is swimming before her eyes and, exhausted, she stumbles to bed.
***
There's a flicker in the darkness—bright yellow flame that lashes against the shadows, orange tongues that beckon her closer…
In the dim lighting, her eyes adjust and she can make out a cauldron, and then the bubbling makes sense.
She jerks around as her peripheral vision catches movement, a squeak slipping from her throat as a figure retreats out of sight.
***
That afternoon, when Giles is writing a summoning spell for a ceremonial dagger Buffy will need to slay a Talbosh demon that's been leaving dismembered body parts across town—patching bits and pieces of existing spells together, and doesn't something inside rankle at the fact that his respect for magic doesn't seem any greater than hers—she corrects his conjugation.
It just slips out—"Uhm, Giles?"—and the suggestion is leaving her mouth before she can properly think.
Her grasp of Latin isn't the greatest, although she is improving, but when she backtracks and sorts through the sentence, she discovers she's right.
She glances up, cocking her head at the puzzled frown he's wearing; somehow, the expression is very familiar and a strange sense of exasperation fills her.
She bites her lip—in a way, it doesn't even feel like it belongs to her.
***
It's still dark, but the bubbling and the chanting are gone.
The silence is startling.
"Hello, Willow."
She can feel the air moving against her as the figure slips around her, body heat soaking into her skin. When she looks up, she gasps; she knows that face.
"It's been a long time, I know." He studies her, dark eyes roving across her features.
She's never felt so naked.
He smiles, but it does nothing to settle the knot in her chest.
Calloused fingers brush against her cheek, smoothing the hair from her face. She tries to jerk away, but he seizes her arm and holds her fast, pressed against him. "I knew," his breath puffs against her neck and she shudders, "the moment I saw you, that I had to have you."
"What?" she yelps, drawing her arms across her chest protectively.
A deep, rumbly, and wholly unnerving bark of a laugh pours from his mouth. "My dear, I'm not after your body." He leaned closer, dilated-black eyes locking with her own. "I'm after something so much more…special."
Suddenly, she's on fire. No, not exactly, but every inch, every particle of her body seems to light up, pulsing incandescently with her rasping breaths, burning brighter and brighter until she can't breathe, can't think, can't…
***
She wakes, not in her bed, in her room, as is customary, but in Giles' house. In Giles' house, climbing Giles' stairs—and since when does she sleepwalk?
But she isn't sleeping now, and she's walking, but she doesn't feel like she's walking and she feels floaty, like the balloon that Xander got her for her ninth birthday when her parents were away in Africa. It said "Get Well Soon", but he'd bought it at a gas station and that was all they had, and it was a little wilty when he gave it to her, the metallic-glittery ribbon that tethered it a little frayed at the ends, but she'd grinned proudly when he presented it to her, blushing sheepishly.
It was the best present she'd ever had, but really, she shouldn't feel like that now, and hey, she's going into Giles' bedroom, which is firmly no-no territory, and why can't she stop moving?
She opens the door and stops next to the bed, staring down at Giles' sleeping body for a moment before reaching for the notepad and pen on the bedside table.
"My Dearest Rupert," her hand begins to write.
She tries to blink away the odd sensation of seeing her own, small, white hands scribbling across the page when she has no idea what she's writing, and really, no feeling that she's writing.
She skims the words, bits and phrases jumping out at her:
"apologize for my hasty departure"
"understandable loss"
"your Miss. Rosenberg will be accompanying me"
Something inside freezes as she read the words. Going? With him? She isn't going anywhere. She doesn't…she can't…Giles! she tries to speak, tries to scream, Wake up, wake up, wakeup! but the words won't come.
She has no control over her mouth, her body, her…
***
It's dark.
It's dark and quiet and still.
There's no chanting, no bubbling, no creepy figures hiding in the shadows.
But she's never been more frightened.
She won't wake up, can't…
After all, it's not a dream.
Not anymore.
FIN.
***
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Fic & Art Masterlists:
BtVS/Ats * Harry Potter * Heroes * Crossovers * Other Fandoms * Awards