Tribulations - Chapter 39

If you'd asked Buffy for a list of the hundred things most likely to happen when they got down to the Hellmouth, having Seb and Willow start macking on each other while changed into giant demon-god things wouldn't have showed up anywhere near the top. Or on the list at all, for that matter.

She couldn't believe her eyes. This had to stop.

"Buffy, no!" Giles told her. He sounded winded, and sweat was already dampening his hair and the back of his shirt. Come to think of it, things were getting hot down there. A dry, pulsating heat, like a bad fever. Or maybe that was her fever.

Only, she didn't have one anymore. She was fine, no aches, no pains anywhere. A burst of happiness hit her so hard she nearly laughed out loud. They'd done it! They were going to be okay!

She turned to Giles, a smile spreading all over her face, ready to share the wonder of it all with him, when it hit her that, however great she was feeling, he didn't look like he was sharing the joy. In fact, he looked like he hurt pretty badly: the sweat running over his face now and his jaw all clenched as each individual word of the spell was painful to him.

When she reached out to him, Giles shook his head fiercely, and Buffy pulled back, feeling strangely rejected even though she knew this had to be a bad time to distract him. Not only had his eyes gone all bloodshot, but it looked like he was working up to the mother of all nosebleeds, too. He wasn't supposed to do this alone, she knew that. The others were supposed to help; they were here to help.

"What's up with you two? C'mon, Seb...Willow..." She meant to shout at them until they saw the error of their ways, but instead the goat-god guy who'd been Giles's son raised his head out of the lip-lock to give her a mildly pissed look, and a second later she was flying across the room (cave?) to hit the rock-and-concrete wall at the back. Dust rained down on her.

She was getting pretty damn tired of all-powerful creeps tossing her around like some dog's chew-toy.

When she'd finished coughing and hacking from her sudden dust-shower, Buffy picked herself up off the uneven floor, feeling every bruise and pulled muscle. This time, the red-headed woman, whom she couldn't quite make herself think of as Willow, gave her the eye. Burning green, for a change, instead of red, but somehow Buffy suspected that the end result would be pretty much the same. Lots of bad magic and flying-across-the-roominess. She braced herself for another close encounter with the wall.

Instead, though, Giles said something commanding-sounding that made not-exactly-Willow turn to him instead and snap off a string of liquidy words that made the hair on Buffy's nape stand on end. Rather than looking terrified, like any normal person, Giles got that really, really-interested-in-stuff-anyone-else-would-find-deadly-dull look and muttered something that sounded like, "Phoenecian...but not a form I've encountered previously."

"Earth to Giles," Buffy muttered in return. "I think she wants to kill us."

"Oh, no, I wouldn't think so," Giles replied. Buffy wasn't sure how convinced of that he sounded and, personally, she didn't want to take any chances. "Strangely enough, it appears that Sebastian and Willow have become Avatars--representatives of gods on earth. I must say, I didn't anticipate this."

"Three big cheers, then, for the Avatars," Buffy answered, sidling over towards him. The two of them freaked her out; she definitely knew when she was outgunned. "Now, any ideas on how our we get Seb and Willow back? 'Cause I don't look forward to explaining this to Mrs. Rosenberg, and I'm leaving Celeste to you."

A lot of the fascination went out of Giles's eyes, sadness and stress replacing it so fast that Buffy felt sorry she'd said anything. "Well...yes...I'm afraid that may not come down to us, Buffy."

Tossing her snaky red braids, not-exactly-Willow turned away from them and began to walk some kind of weird pattern on the cracked, dusty floor. She hummed as she walked, and each step added a little bit more to the glimmery green lines of the pattern. Goat-god-Sebastian watched her with his arms folded across his powerful chest. Apparently, six-pack abs and huge biceps went hand-in-hand with the Avatar thing.

This new version of Seb definitely gave her the wiggins. In fact, she didn't want to look at him at all, especially not after her little taste of if-looks-could-kill. Instead, she glanced away to see what Willow was up to, only to find that her eyes got caught by the pattern: she couldn't have looked away to save her life.

At first, there didn't seem to be any center to the thing, though to look at a certain spot in the design made a hard ball of pain flare up deep inside Buffy's head. After a little while, though, the floor in that one place took on a oily blackness that somehow get thicker and thicker, even though it didn't rise any off the surface of the rock.

Still not looking away--as if she could--Buffy called out to Giles, "What's going on? What's she up to?"

He didn't answer. With a huge effort, Buffy dragged her eyes away from the floor. "Giles!" she barked, "Snap out of it! I need to know."

He still didn't say anything, didn't even blink. His face was that same greeny-pale it had been when they'd started all this mess--though maybe that was the reflection of the pattern on his eternally-untanned skin--and his eyes, that she could see, had not pupils whatsoever.

The red-haired woman, looking less and less like Willow all the time, crossed the floor to him. She reached out one long finger--unnaturally long, it reminded Buffy of ET--and with its glowing tip drew a mark on Giles's forehead. Its greenness seemed to get inside him, then, so that his normally light-green eyes shone with the same burning color as the woman's. Smiling, she took his face between her hands and, actually having to bend down a little, kissed him long and hard.

Buffy didn't like that smile. In fact, she hated all of this. She started to dive forward, intending to knock the former Willow ass-over-head away from her sweetie, but at least a dozen long, whippy, black-green vines shot out of the blackness, curling around her arms, legs and body so tightly that she didn't have a prayer of breaking free.

More vines followed, thicker ones, and branches that reminded Buffy uncomfortably of both the Little Shop of Horrors Hellmouth beast that they'd fought on two occasions, and the weirdo trees in Giles's Wild Magic Park. Neither of the two associations exactly gave her warm fuzzies.

"Giles!" she screamed. "Giles, time for Plan B."

The blank green of his eyes turned to her, showing no expression that she could read. Was any of this what he'd expected and, if so, what in hell had made him--or any of them--think it was a good idea? Buffy began to get the uncomfortable feeling that she really should have paid attention this time--and the even more uncomfortable feeling that the vines were tightening, and might well rip her limbs off.

Time felt weird, all at once speeded up and syrupy-slow. More vines sprang up, getting thicker and woodier, with dark, fuzzy leaves like some kind of giant paws, and clusters of dark berries or grapes hanging down from twisty stems. Creeped out as she was, Buffy had to admit that the fruit, whatever it was, smelled wonderful. Her mouth watered uncontrollably, and she wanted a taste, just one little berry, worse than she'd ever wanted anything in her life.

Smiling, the woman reached up into the swaying greenery, first stroking the furry leaves as she hummed some more, then harvesting a cluster of the berries. She crushed the ripe fruit until the cup of her hands was full and an overflow of the black juice dripped on the floor, staining the gray rocks purple and crimson. Still smiling, she drank, the liquid darkening her lips, then offered the double-handful to goat-got-Seb.

"No," Giles breathed, and took a step forward. He looked marginally less out of it, but at the same time, Buffy still wasn't sure about the look in his eyes. Somehow she knew that if he went any farther, there wouldn't be any turning back for either of them--whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, she didn't know, and not knowing made her feel completely desperate.

"What do we do?" she whispered, not even believing that he would, or could, answer her. "We can't just let them..."

"No," Giles repeated. "No, we can't." Somehow, though Buffy hadn't felt him go, he'd slipped by her--she'd no idea he could move that fast. Horned Sebastian was just bending his head for another drink when Giles plowed into nothing-at-all-like-Willow, who must not have been on guard either, because the two of them went rolling, the juice fountaining everywhere. A little even splashed on Buffy's arm, feeling weird there, warm and icy at the same time. Her mouth tasted as if she'd been eating flowers.

Once again, the goat god turned to her: Buffy could have sworn his red, red eyes were burning holes right through her skin. To her surprise, though, when he spoke, the words were not only in English, but sounded amused. "You think you know what you have done, little Slayer? Oh, child of blood, prepare to be amazed."

"Uh...Celeste..." Xander said. Her sweating back was pressed to his, which normally he'd have found just a little too exciting--except that, just at the moment, they both had plenty of excitement of a very different kind.

"Yes, Xander," Celeste answered, sounding very cool and British. Even in the current situation, the way she said his name gave him chills: Zahn-DAH. Way too classy, really, for a guy like him. But that was Celeste for you. Nothing if not classy.

"I just wanted to say...I...it's been nice knowing you." He'd meant to make it all sound light and tough, the snappy line of some guy in an adventure movie: Yippee-ki-yi-yay. Hasta la vista, baby. The last couple words came out choked, though: the two of them had staked so many vamps in the past two hours he'd lost count, and Xander's throat burned with dust.

Now, there was a wiggins-inducing thought. As if the knowledge of their imminent deaths and/or conversion to Creatures of the Night wasn't enough for one evening.

He should have been more scared. He should have been terrified.

"Likewise," Celeste answered, still cool, still British.

Yeah, he should have felt petrified, but he didn't. Neither did he feel sad, or angry, or numb. It wasn't that he wanted to die or anything, but maybe, in his heart of hearts, he'd always known it would end up this way: a summer night, a full moon, fighting the good fight. Okay, so that was a horrible cliche, but this, whatever it was, didn't feel bad. It was more like--for maybe the first time in his life--he'd stopped feeling like someone's punching bag, or like some kind of bad joke. He wasn't running away, he wasn't sheltering behind Buffy. Here he was, Xander Harris, standing on his own two feet in a way that almost made him believe that leading his class to a good, solid win against the mayor's mob hadn't been such a huge fluke after all.

More than anything else, Xander felt surprised: maybe he had something inside him after all.

Naaaaah...the old, sarcastic, biting Xander-voice wanted to say. Who do you think you're kidding? But then Celeste passed him another handful of stakes, and his body was doing things he hadn't even realized he'd learned how to do. His chest ached, his arms ached, but that was all right, it was real.

"I'm not a joke," Xander breathed, dust exploding in his face. He was caked with it; his clothes gave out gray puffs every time he moved. "I'm not a joke."

"Of course not," Celeste answered. "You're a terribly brave young man."

He hadn't meant to say the words aloud, but in a way he was almost glad that he had. Really, Xander wished he'd said a lot of things over the years, or that, somehow, he'd be given a second chance to say them.

That didn't look likely, not any more, but he felt as if he'd finally managed to climb a place where that was almost okay. At least this was better than all those years of furious, crawling shame plastered over with a cheap, thin coat of humor: keeping everything and everybody at arm's length, hating his family, hating himself, but never possessing quite enough guts to make it stop.

"Xander," Celeste said, as dust flew again, and again, "What are you thinking?"

He looked around and saw, just for a moment, that there was nothing around, nothing that needed to be dusted and sent back to hell. With an actual moment to think, the weirdness of the situation struck him: here he was, defending a door that looked exactly like the old library door, except that it opened onto someplace that was dark and creepy and weird-smelling as anyplace he'd ever seen. Stranger still, the door just stood there, in the middle of a circle of gravel--you could walk around the back and not see anything, it wouldn't open that way at all. From the other side, his and Celeste's side, it opened all right, but the place beyond certainly wasn't any library he'd ever seen, unless it was the Central Branch Library of Hell. Strangest of all, he knew and Celeste knew that, wanting or not wanting, they weren't supposed to go there, and neither was anything else.

Especially their present company: the vamps were coming back.

"Do you see...?" Celeste began.

"I see them," Xander answered, taking just a minute more to look at her. Celeste still looked great to his eyes, even crusty and sweaty and gritty with vamp-dust. Her brown eyes gazed at him with warmth and kindness, and he the only thing he was really sorry for was that everything ended here, and they'd never get to really, really be friends.

Celeste pressed the handle of yet another stake into his hand, her fingers curling around his tightly, just for a minute, a brief smile lighting her face. She was an amazing fighter, almost in Buffy's league even without the Slayer strength, and Xander was more glad than anything that he hadn't let her down, hadn't failed her.

Yet another wave of vampires approached--cautiously at first, then at a shambling run. Again, Xander and Celeste braced themselves, knowing that this time, tired as they were, there were really too many, that they didn't have the ghost of a prayer. Not taking his eyes away from their game-faced company, Xander poured the last of Celeste's holy water into the Super Soaker. "At least we can make 'em burn a little, right?"

"Yes," Celeste answered, with so much tenderness in her voice that it made a lump grow in Xander's throat. "Yes, dearest, we can do that, at least."

Xander squeezed the trigger. The water shot out like acid, scorching some, even hitting one or two new vamps hard enough to make them explode into hissing flame. But then a car door slammed, and the three women started up the little rise, heading toward the door in a way that told Xander they didn't intend to stop any time soon. The first was a blonde girl, the second a redhead.

The third was the vampire with the wild black hair who'd been the dead Slayer Helena's partner in crime, and somehow, seeing her there, Xander knew this was it. Finis. The end.

They were toast.