FIC:(repost) Janus Was Healed (1/2)

[Mad Hamlet <Mad-Hamlet@xxxxxxx>]

Disclaimer: All this belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy (Grrr...Argh)



Drain Brameged Inc. Proudly Presents

A Mad-Hamlet Production





Janus was Healed

Xander and Giles wave to us one last time before rounding the corner of what
was left of the campus pub. That is, Xander waves, and keeps waving, and
waving, and waving, till Giles's hand snakes back, grabs Xander by the collar
and pulls him out of my sight. I smile at my oldest friend's antics. He's a
pain sometimes, but I love him to death. Once around the comer Buffy sinks
back onto her haunches. She sniffs the air a few times and gestures
emphatically at the corner Xander just vacated.

"Boy silly." She grunts still pushing at the air in front of her.

I nod to myself, still smiling. "Yeap." I drawl, " We love him anyway
though." 

I cast a glance in the Slayer's direction, that being mostly down. She's not
paying any attention to me; a fallen leaf is distracting her. She sniffs at
the ground around the leaf a few times before raising her head up to look at
me, looking at her. 

"Leaf smell strange." Buffy explains. She has the leaf pinned to the earth
underneath one hand and her other drawn back into a fist. She looks ready to
give the leaf a good thrashing should it do anything foolish.

I try not to snicker.

"Tell you what Buffy," I say crouching down myself so we're more eye to eye.
"Since I highly doubt that leaf will rise from the dead to threaten the
innocent, what say we let it rest in peace and head home. I'm bushed." 

A cool evening breeze springs up, I sniff a few times, Buffy follows suit.
The fire was put out long ago, so why do I smell...oh, cause I smell. 

"And I need a shower," I finish lamely. 

Buffy glances back at the leaf, deathblow still poised, then back to me, and
back to the leaf one last time. She stays like that for a few seconds, then
shrugs her shoulders. "Willow want."

"Good," I mutter, starting to stand back up. "Glad that's settled."

"DOINK!" Buffy suddenly exclaims loudly and pokes me in the center of my
forehead.Being in a crouching position on the balls of my feet I easily lose
my balance and fall onto my butt.

"Hey!" I shout and scramble to my feet. Buffy tears off down the street
laughing...I think? 

I only find it mildly disturbing that she's running on all fours rather than
upright.

"Not catch Buffy!" She loudly taunts me. 

"Wanna bet?" I growl and take off after her.


One of these days I have to have my head examined. She's the Slayer for
goodness sake! Of course she could outrun me. If I glued her feet to the
ground she could probably still outrun me. Wait, no that doesn't make sense,
maybe if she took off her shoes, provided I glued her actual shoes to the
floor and not her literal feet. Yeah, that works. 

All thing considered though she didn't actually outrun me. To be outrun
requires that you see the person running away from you. I didn't. She was,
Buffy just went POOF! Gone!

&.

Oxygen deprivation, that has got to be the only answer. I slump gratefully
onto a nearby bench. I had been chasing Cave-Buffy for three blocks. She's
probably not even winded and here I am gasping for breath. Where the heck is
she anyway? She disappeared around a corner and I haven't seen her since; not
that I'm worried or anything. I'll just catch my breath, should only take
three or four hours, and head back to the dorms. 

Me feet are complaining loudly about how much they don't like being overused.
With all the running away from nasties you think they'd be more willing.
Still, this is nice spot. Lots of streetlights keep the most of the night at
bay, though I'm not naive enough to believe that they offer any form of
protection. It's kinda sad really. Behind me is the park I used to in when I
was younger. So full of trees to play on, and trails to run. I didn't actually
climb the trees. Xander did that. I can remember him daring me to climb the
iron fence that rings the park. I never did even though it's still there
today. I look at the tall, metal spikes. They look...um...pretty spiky.

I used to think it was so safe and warm in the park. All the time. Now I know
better though; it is safe and warm enough, in daylight. 

"Willow play!" Buffy announces her presence by popping up from behind the
backrest of the park bench and practically shouting in my ear. I react
accordingly. 

I scream at the top of my lungs. 

Buffy lurches backward with a startled shriek of her own at my reaction and I
whirl around, one hand clasped to my chest, glaring fiercely at Buffy. She's
sprawled backwards, resting her weight on her elbow and staring up at me open
mouthed.

"Don't do that!" I admonish her fiercely, shaking a finger in her face. 

"Buffy!" I continue to say glaring at her. "You nearly gave me a heart
attack, that wasn't very nice."

Buffy starts making hiccupping sounds once or twice and I can't help but
stare a little as her eyes begin to tear up. She rolls over on her side and
covers her face with her hands and begins to cry. 

"Shh..shhh.." I whisper quietly, kneeling down and gathering her in my arms.
She tries to pull away a bit but I don't let her. "Hush, you're okay." I
whisper in her ear, rocking her back and forth. "You're okay. We're okay.
Everything's okay. Shhh..."

Buffy looks up at me, her eyes, shimmering in the light... They seem so
innocent. Almost as if everything that has happened to her, fires, demons,
hunts and demons, like none of those ever happened. She looks like a child who
has just been given their first spanking. Sure in their belief they are sure
they are the worst, most miserable, wretched sinners, in the whole of
creation. But she's not and I'm not going to let her think that for a second
longer. And on a second note, if I ever have children I am not going to spank
them. 

"Willow," she opens and closes her mouth a few times, she's searching for the
right words, and considering that her vocabulary is a lot less than it was a
few hours ago, it's probably a lot harder than it used to be. That's alright
though, I'm patient, I can wait. 

"Willow," she repeats starting her sentence over. "Still like Buffy?"


"Of course." I murmur pulling her close for another hug. "I'll always like
you." 


That's the problems with words, 'like', 'admire', and others are so basic,so
commonly said and repeated. I..I don't feel that way about Buffy, I feel more.
Not sure how, just more. I mean, there's family and other friends..even
..well..Oz. But behind all this, is her. My feelings for her, she's needed by
me... she's so needed. Which means I'm needy but I'm not greedy in my
needy..er.. She's critical to me. How do I... Well. I'm not sure how I explain
this to her. Even if she was..er..fully available, y'know..all functioning I
don't think I could really tell her how I feel. I can't even tell myself how I
feel! Maybe now...with simple things being so important to her..maybe I can
now. Tell her I mean. And me.

"I like you Buffy," I repeat nudging her chin with the tip of my finger so
she has to keep looking up at me. "I'll... we'll always be together." 

Her eyes are still shimmering in the lackluster light of an overhead
streetlamp. "To..geth..er?" She pieces the word together slowly, brow
scrunched in concentration. 

"Yes." I take her hand in mine and gently roll the fingers down one by one
until only her index finger is still pointing, then, I curl my own fingers so
I too am pointing. 

"You," I say calmly, inside I'm a shivering whirl of nerves, something bigis
happening here. I'm not sure what...but it's going to change a lot...and I
want it to. I point my finger at her, its tip a whisper away from her heart,
"And me," then guiding her own hand with my free one I lead her in pointingat
me. "Together," I line up our pointing fingers and slowly ease my index finger
next to her and finally curl it around hers. "Forever. See?"

Again I meet her eyes with mine and now her eyes are not just shimmering, but
tears, fresh ones, slide down her dirty cheeks leaving tracks in the ash
covering her face. Her lower lip trembles and I watch silently as her throat
works, swallowing a few times. The cool night air suddenly becomes very heavy.


"Buffy..." she says in a raspy voice. She swallows once more and tries again.
"Buffy loves you." 

I think I'm about to cry any second now. Without another word she bends down
quickly and brushes her lips across where our two fingers are intertwined. I
wanted to show her, and now I'm the one being shown. 

"I.." I too need to swallow to choke down a sob. "I love you too Bu-"

Someone screams.

My arms feel suddenly cool and empty. Buffy's gone. She pulls herself out of
my hug, and is over the fence and lost in the dark before I can even realize
it. One minute we were snuggly and now we're...not. 

I awkwardly scramble to my feet and clamber over the pointy black metal
spikes (Ha! Xander would be proud.). I crash through bushes and dodge
frantically around trees. There! I can hear...growling?

I run around a large clump of bushes and...

Buffy is crouched at the base of a small incline in the cemetery. She's on
all fours and her back is arched. It's like she's a cat, even her matted hair
seems to stand up... highlighted by the moonlight, I can hear a low, feral
growling coming from the back of her throat and she's staring balefully up the
gently sloping black grass.

Standing on top of the rise, looking like people playing some nightmarish
form of 'King of the Hill' stand three vampires. By their posture I can tell
they are not newly risen. They give off a sense of confidence, and power. My
heart catches in my throat as I realize something that I normally wouldn't
find so chilling. They look, most ominous of all, patient. 

The one closest to us seems most lethal, his arm is outstretched and dangling
from his talons is the body of ..oh god.. it looks like a girl. She couldn't
be more than fifteen. He stares down at us with a sense of mild disinterest
before carefully and with extreme deliberation turns his back to us, with a
flick of his wrist he sends the body tumbling down the hill toward where Buffy
and I are. A rolling, flopping, flapping disjointed empty husk of limbs and
meat. 

Buffy starts really snarling now, pacing back on forth, still on all fours,
behind the girl's body. Her eyes never leave the vampires standing a bit
higher up the hill. Her teeth are bared and there's this deep rumble echoing
from her chest. It's...painful somehow to witness. 


The vampires watch us, I can see them eyeing each other but they look amused.
One of them even snickers, his arms crossed over his chest. Why should theybe
worried? She has no stakes, no holy water, no nothing. Just her.. just her.If
anything we should be running but I won't leave her and I doubt very much I
could get her to leave with me. I'd probably have an easier time commanding
the tides.


The Leader, I guess, still has his back to us. He knows who Buffy is. That's
almost impossible for a vampire not to know the Slayer lives in Sunnydale. He
doesn't seem worried though. Oh God.

Oh God!

"Kill them." His soft purr echoes down to me.

The two vampires on either side blur as they come hurtling down the slope
toward us. 

They don't snarl and growl as they advance. Maybe they're too experienced,
too old, or just confidant enough not to sound bestial.

It could be because they're already dust.

Buffy kills them.

I've never seen her move so fast. 

One second she's crouched at the edge of the hill and then she too
just...blurs.

I see her pounce on the closest one, grab it's arm as it tries to claw her
open. She grips its wrist and yanks, nearly tearing its limb off, I hear the
crack of bone, but that's all I hear because it doesn't have time to scream.
Buffy drives her hand into the soft tissue underneath the armpit and her hand
comes bursting out its other side gripping the thing's heart. Yanking her hand
free she jumps up and uses the already dead vampire as a springboard beforeit
can turn to ash, sending her hurtling at the other one almost on top of her.

A flying tackle clotheslines the other and before it can regain its footing
she is on top of it, clawing, biting, and yowling. Her hands blur as they
burrow into its chest, it has time to scream though. Once. Dry cracking of
ribs being pried apart then a moist sucking sound as Buffy rips its dead heart
free. 

This all happens in under a second. 

I think.

It is one of the goriest things I have ever seen and yet I am strongly
untouched. 

So, it seems, is the leader.

"They were children." He sneers down at where Buffy is again crouching. The
body of her recent kill having blown away moments before. 

His posture, the way he's resting his chin on the knuckles of one hand, with
his other hand providing a resting place for his elbow, screams sophistication
and age old manners. Or someone who overdosed on classic vampire movies. I'm
sure Buffy would say something to that effect. If she were Buffy. Which she
isn't.


She isn't Buffy anymore. I mean she is, but... I ..don't know... This is new.
I should be scared, I think. I should be scared and nervous because I don't
know her any more. I should be terrified. But I'm not, I don't think I am.

"She was a snack." The leader indicates with his chin to the body still atmy
feet. "You will be the main course, Slayer. My piece de la resistance!" 

Oh brother.

"And after I am through draining you dry and dismembering your corpse, I'll
eat your little friend too." He says pointing at me with one delicate, yet
lethal looking talon. 

And Buffy speaks. At least, I think it's Buffy. I've never heard this voice
before, it's guttural and rasping. More beast than human. 

"No friends." She grunts and, still on all fours, takes a step toward him.
Even walking like an animal Buffy has such grace. Even, maybe even more than
when walking upright.

"No family." A rattle deep in her throat. Like her throat is no longer
sophisticated enough to make the proper sounds for speech and she's having to
force it. 

"No help." Another step. 

"Just the kill!" 

He smirks, looking faintly amused. "Your's maybe." He laughs gently. "Come
then Slayer, let us do baaaARGHH!!"

I guess Buffy got bored.

Buffy would have listened to what he had to say. Buffy would have made some
snappy comeback before flashing the vampire a dazzling smile. Buffy would have
strode forward, fearlessly to do battle against her enemy. But this thing
isn't her enemy, it's her prey.



She smashes her forehead into its nose then she's raking her nails across its
face. It's dark and they're so far away and yet I can see everything. All of
it. His eyes being pierced by her fingers, her teeth flashing in the
moonlight. I can hear her snarls, and his screams. 


He sounds like a pig. A pig being butchered. Sooeee little piggy.

No no no no no, couldn't have thought that, this is wrong, she shouldn't be
doing it this way. She shouldn't be sinking her teeth into the vampires neck,
I shouldn't be seeing the blood leaking around her teeth and her throat
working convulsively, she must have swallowed some of it. She shouldn't be
doing this, killing this way. I..I..I shouldn't be enjoying this.

She has her teeth locked around it's throat still, her jaw muscles standing
out as she violently shakes her head back and forth. Her arms are wrapped
around it's head and her feet pushing against its chest. She's trying
to..trying to...

I'm in a field of grass and flowers. It's a warm, sunny, summer day. I'm a
child again. Xander, also a child, is standing in front of me holding a
dandelion under my chin. 

"You like butter!" He proclaims. 

I nod smiling up at him. "Yep." I say.

"Watch this." He says. He hooks his thumb right underneath the flower, where
the stem and the blossom meet. 

"Mama had a baby," He intones almost seriously. "And it's HEAD popped off!"

When he says 'Head' his thumb snaps upwards tearing off the poor dandelion
blossom, I watch it fly into the air and begin to fall back, a graceful, dead
arc. And I'm running home, crying. Crying about how Xander killed a baby. 


And I'm in the park again, the memory releasing me. The vampire's talons
shredded the back of Buffy's shirt, but its strength is gone. Its hands hang
limp at its sides. I see the muscles of Buffy's back tense and ripple
underneath her flesh. I hear her feral growling, and the cracking of
vertebrae. The Vampires screams are now a wet, bubbly gurgling. 

"Mama had a baby." I whisper to myself.

Buffy heaves again, there's a sound of...stuff..tearing. Just stuff, nothing
human or living or something with feelings. Stuff, plain, simple stuff is
tearing. 

"And it's head popped off." This time I don't cry.

In the moonlight the arcing blood looks black, who knows, maybe it was old
enough to be black. But in midair it disintegrates into night blown ash as he
died. His head doesn't even make it to the ground before blowing away in the
wind. 



It's over. I take a deep breath and try to ignore the trembling in my knees.


What I have just seen... get a grip Rosenberg... was the ..it..really just
really. So how come I'm not all shocked or, or numb? My feet are here, not
cold either. The night doesn't seem any more ominous or, or, foreboding. It's
just night. A night with Primal Buffy.

Now the only king of the hill is Buffy. Still crouching on all fours, head
flung back, mouth open, eyes staring at the moon. Covered in blood. She looks
... so ugly and..and feral. Like some beast, a killing machine honed by nature
over the course of eons. Hair matted down with gore, face bathed in the stuff.


She's beautiful.

Peeling back her lips in a growing feral snarl, she tilts back her head and
howls.

I can't move. I can't feel or think or hear. But I can see and I can see in
my mind over and over again what she just did. She just butchered them. They
were strong, and powerful and old. She was just one and she didn't have any
weapons! Yet she just tore them apart like...nothing!

She enjoyed it too. 

And I don't care. 



It wasn't too much, or too violent or primal or anything. Maybe others would
think so. Xander would be devastated. It takes a lot to make Xander panic
but... He'd be crazy. Shouting and fierce. His winsome quirks crushed undera
wave of fear. He'd be afraid of Buffy. I..I wouldn't be. I'm not. Giles
probably would be cleaning his glasses furiously, give her some space maybe.
Read a few books. Than, after some time, try and get her to talk about it.
Something Buffy, even when she fully is Buffy, hates to do with a passion. 

But I know I don't care. Because...because....because I...

She's stopped screaming, howling, whatever.

Buffy's staring at her hands now. Even though the vamps themselves were
dusted the blood on her flesh remains. She's staring at her hands now, at the
blood running over her fingers, between the cracks in her skin, coating her
arms up to the elbows. She turns her hands this way and that, underneath the
light of the moon, studying the crimson liquid hugging her hands close likea
second skin. Then tentatively she touches her face, the skin around her lips
and chin, her finger slide over the flesh down to the base of her neck. She
would leave red streaks on her face from the liquid coating her fingertips,if
the entire bottom of her face wasn't already drenched in blood. 

She runs the edges of her fingers in the sticky mess that coats her jawline
and pulls her hands away and then she just stares curiously at the fresh
covering of blood on her fingers. Then her head slowly lifts and her eyes meet
mine. 

Buffy's in there. 

Behind the blood and dirt and ash.

Buffy's in there.



I almost..almost take a step backwards. Her eyes are so sad. Even from the
base of the small hill I can see them. Again covered in a sheen of unused
tears, her lips involuntarily beginning to turn downward, I see a single tear
curve gently over the slope of her cheek and get lost in the red and black
muck of ashes and blood on her face.

"Willow?" Buffy chokes out. Her hands begin to paw at the air in front of her
helplessly, like trying to fend off something.

"Willow...see?" She asks. The gentle lilt of her voice has returned. The
guttural, snapping beast voice is gone, along with its rage and protection.I
can see what's happening..I can see it and can't do anything to stop it. 

My own vision is getting blurry, hot streaks run down my face, and I thinkI
have to blow my nose. 

Buffy has placed her hands on the ground. Her body language..all the strength
has seeped out of her, her shoulders are slumped, the wild vitality that drove
her is gone so her matted hair hangs loose and unkempt, even more so than
before. Only her eyes, her terrible, sad eyes still retain any sense of life.


"Willow, Willow see Buffy?" She asks again, her voice is desperate. She wants
me to say no, no that I didn't see anything, that I didn't witness her recent
slaughter and that I didn't see, ultimately, what a slayer is. I want to say
no. With all my heart I want to smile and deny I saw anything. To make
everything go away that probably is going to hurt her.

I nod. I nod and damn myself the entire time doing so. A whole whopping half
second.

With an inarticulate scream she turns and rushes down the other side of the
hill and is lost to the dark seconds later. 

"Buffy!" I shout in vain. "Buffy come back! Please!" 

I move to run after her only at the last second noticing the body still
sprawled out in front of me. The unknown girl's eyes are open, staring
sightlessly at the black heavens. Her throat was torn open, I can see hintsof
white bone of expose spinal tissue. This wasn't a feeding, this was fun. An
evening out for them. 

I shake my head and with a brief silent prayer step over her body without a
backward glance. I can't do anything for the dead, but I can do something for
the living.





	

There is only one thing that can damn me.
That can send me down in a swirling maelstrom of fire and pain.
And it is not the word of Man.
And it is not the lessons and rules of the Church, hypocrites every one.
And it is not the words of God, nor the judgements of Angels.
And it not a fair tribunal of my 'peers' that can find me guilty of crimes
immortal.
No. 
I can only be accused, judged and damned by my own Soul.
And I would never be so betrayed.

Mad-Hamlet