Fic: Sleeping Beauty

[annelise@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Sleeping Beauty.
Comments/Theories on Atlantis/Etc. to: annelise@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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Buffy strolled softly up the grey-blanketed hall, attempting to 
disturb the thick layer of dust as little as possible. She opened 
creaky doors, their hinges almost rusted away in places, and peered 
inside drab rooms that had seen no movement in a hundred years. 
Everywhere it was the same; the century of dust blurred outlines and 
caused faded draperies to lose what little colour they'd retained. 
Now and then she had to step carefully over a comatose body that had 
fallen down when the evil spell had hit.
The silence was eerie. The birds and other small animals had also 
fallen to the curse, and even the wind seemed to succumb before it 
reached the castle. 'Look on the bright side,' Buffy thought, 'at 
least there's no spiders. Or rats.' A century's worth of cobwebs 
would not have been pleasant. Dear god, no. And she'd hated rats ever 
since that time Amy had turned her into one. Bitch.
She slipped lithely past a pile of old rubble, where long decay had 
caused part of the wall to fall in, and moved quickly to a grand 
looking doorway. The hinges were particularly stiff, and so rusty 
that she had to employ Slayer strength to budge the door at all, and 
the effort required to force the door open caused it to rip away from 
the wall and fall crashing to the floor with a bang that was 
startlingly loud in the silence.
"Oops?" she commented, and stepped inside.
Once Buffy managed to stop coughing from the huge cloud of dust 
she'd raised, she wiped her eyes and peered blearily into the room. 
Finally, she had found her.
The large four-poster bed was hung with curtains. Once, they may 
have been considered sinfully luxuriant, but now they had paled and 
turned threadbare. Several had torn and collapsed under the their own 
weight, from a century of aging and dust. Buffy moved to draw aside 
the ripped cloth, to view the sleeping figure, but the fabric came 
apart in her hands. It occured to her then that this was one of the 
most richly furnished rooms she'd ever seen; the sparsity of fabric 
elsewhere being a testament to the Rosenberg's deeply religious 
views; Wealth was a sin, but one that the room's occupant was loathe 
to eschew.
There she lay, perfectly composed in the bed. Her beautiful red 
hair brushed out to frame her perfect features. Her hands clasped 
lightly together, virginally, at her breasts. She seemed as though 
she were but a carved statue on a tomb, a Juliet who'd lost faith in 
her returning Romeo.
Buffy leaned forward until her face was inches from this sleeping 
Goddess. Though she could detect no visible signs of life, no 
marginal rise or fall to those perfect breasts, this was clearly no 
corpse that lay before her. She'd seen more than enough to know.
She edged closer still, then pulled back and withdrew from her 
sleeve a red silken handkerchief with which she wiped away the thin 
veneer of dust from this Goddess's ivory face. And then she kissed 
her, softly, on the cheek.

Nothing.

'Come on,' she thought. She tried again, brushing those ruby lips 
with her own.

Not a sausage.

'Dammit,' she thought. 'I wish Giles were here. He'd know what to 
do. Oh Buffy! You have to dance a jig at midnight and splash her with 
sucrose and aqua... Think! what did you expect from a spell powerful 
enough to stun SunnyDale into a century-long hibernatory?' Either 
she'd been fed the wrong information, or she was going to have to try 
a bit harder. How much harder, she didn't fancy speculating. But if 
what she planned to try next didn't work, she'd have some *serious* 
words with Willy.
She leaned forward, and lightly pushed down on the sleeping girl's 
chin to cause those perfect lips to part, and lowering her head, she 
kissed deeply, soulfully... and drew back violently, coughing, 
choking, retching under the power of a century's worth of morning 
breath.
Buffy pulled herself together, and took a fighting stance, 
attempting to recapture the romance of the moment. She took a deep 
breath, then another, and held it, before giving the Goddess a kiss 
that would grade higher than something from the Princess Bride, 
albeit without a fat giant and a strange spanish guy staring at her.
A timeless, silent, perfect moment. A breath taken, perfect breasts 
rose once more with infused life... and then Buffy was thrown back as 
Willow gave her a resounding slap that made her head ring.
"What the Hell are you doing?" Willow screamed. "Why have you got 
your tongue in my mouth?!"
Willow sat up, violently, causing the ancient faded silk pyjamas 
she wore to disintegrate around her.
"Mommy!" She yelled, attempting to cover her exposed flesh with yet 
more material that just fell apart as she pulled at it.
Buffy shook her head to clear it, and tried to think of what to 
say. This wasn't going entirely as she'd pictured it. A part of her 
noticed that the gorgeous mane of fiery hair that had so enthralled 
her earlier did not look quite so good when it was stuck out in all 
directions.
"Oh God!" Willow cried, a pained expression on her face, as 
sensation returned once more to her shapely limbs. "I *so* need to go 
pee!"
With that, she leapt out of the bed, scattering clouds of dust, 
unheeding that the sheet she'd grabbed to cover herself had become 
little more than a handful of fibres. She ran across the room to a 
small door and slammed it off its hinges in her haste to pass through.
Buffy picked herself up bemusedly from the floor, where she'd been 
knocked down in passing, coughing a little at all the dust that had 
been raised. Now that Willow had momentarily stopped yelling, she 
could detect other sounds outside. The Rosenbergs were waking up.
She stood up and adjusted her red-leather trousers which had 
twisted uncomfortably when she'd fallen, and attempted to brush some 
of the dust out of her hair. After a few moments, Willow's head 
appeared around the door. She seemed to have found some heavier 
material to wrap herself in. A pool-cover, or something.
Buffy opened her mouth to say something clever and give her best 
friend an apologetic smile, but before she could utter a syllable, 
Sheila Rosenberg buffeted her way through the broken doorway like a 
mobile buffer state.
Buffy looked at Sheila. She looked back at Willow. She looked again 
at Sheila, who had the sort of expression one might expect to find on 
a mother who has just caught someone in their daughter's bedroom with 
half her clothes torn off.
"Its not what you think," she stammered.
Sheila frowned as years of religious upbringing settled on her 
shoulders like a concrete overcoat. "I told you, young woman!" she 
addressed her daughter, who blushed crimsonly. "Not before you're 
married!"
"Mom!" A scandalised Willow cried out. "If you're going to preach at 
me, at least put some clothes on!"
Buffy hung her head in shame. It was going to be a long day.

*

End.