FIC: Allergies Actualize (2/2)

Allergies Actualize (2/2)

by Silverna

* * * * *

To recap our story:-

1) Buffy figured out she's now allergic to vampire dust

2) Willow declared her admiration of Buffy's nose

3) Buffy said she loved Willow's nose too

4) Foppish vampire cut in on them

5) FVP staked Buffy who was otherwise occupied on Willow

6) Willow's eyes went black; eerie music played in our heads

* * * * *

Buffy stared up at the night sky. It was clear and she could see the stars shining brightly. ‘No scratch that,’ she mused to herself a second later. ‘Nots sho clear as ah thought…’

From out of nowhere, or was it the edges of her vision, a strange red mist was starting to creep over that sky. The stars were dimming – was it a cloud? Was a storm coming?

She blinked, once, and then again. Trying to see the stars. The blinks seemed to take an awfully long time. It was hard to open her eyes from that second blink…hard to see the stars…

From far away she heard a voice, speaking, saying something. Saying what? Saying it to whom?

“Interesting,” purred the voice, a masculine voice, deep and faintly menacing. “You’re a witch.”

“And you’re dead.” A second voice, oddly familiar. Chilling in tone; matter of fact. Speaking somewhere above her to someone.

Voices around her but no-one speaking to her, no-one offering to clear the sky and show her the stars…

‘God,’ thought Buffy. ‘What is wrong with me? I sound like I’m on dope!’ And with that sobering self-recrimination the Slayer was trying to sit up and see what was going on.

The moment her stomach muscles clenched in effort, the pain was all she could think about. Emanating from somewhere near her shoulder, spreading down and out through her chest, making it impossible to breathe, to think, to do anything but gasp and flail futilely...

She remembered this pain. From, oh, five minutes back before she’d zoned out and started tripping on nature’s wonders. A small part of Buffy’s brain smirked at herself. Ah, but the ceaseless punning that was Buffy helped her make it through the horrors.

At least she knew who she was now. She was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, apparently injured again, badly from the agonizing feel of it, but what else was new? She closed her eyes, reached down deep, and accessed the core of who and what she was.

A Slayer. The Slayer. The pain was shoved aside, compartamalized. Adrenaline rushed to the fore. Buffy concentrated, clenched her stomach muscles and with a slight grunt, rolled into a sitting position.

Something whipped by in the corner of her vision and she tried to focus on what it was, even as she scrambled unsteadily onto her feet. An arm. It was an arm.

An arm?!

Buffy stared at the severed arm, leaning so innocuously against a tombstone and thought somewhat blankly that, ‘Suzanne Jones, Beloved Wife and Mother of Three’ probably wouldn’t like that. It was probably disrespectful.

As though in a dream she turned and saw the owners of the voices. Willow, that was Willow with her back to the Slayer – Buffy recognized the long red hair. The little black cap had come off.

Buffy squinted as her vision started clouding over again. Little black cap? Oh yes, they’d been walking through the graveyard, patrolling, declaring their love for…oh yes. And then they were attacked by…some vampire.

That vampire in fact. The one who she could dimly make out was facing Willow down, complete with powdered wig and foppish outfit and minus an arm…

Minus an arm?

“My arm!” said the foppish vampire. He sounded surprised but not more than that. Not terrified or stupefied or like he was going out of his mind with pain and fear.

“W…Willow?” Buffy stumbled forward and just managed to stop herself from falling on her face by grabbing hold of the witch’s left shoulder with her right hand. She felt the shoulder tense, the whole body go unbearably tense and wondered for a moment if she was in for a magical whack through the air.

Instead she heard Willow ask so softly she could barely make it out,

“Buffy?”

And then Willow whirled to face her. They stared at each other, the vampire forgotten.

“Your eyes look funny.” Buffy’s voice sounded thick and stupid to her own ears and she felt like she was about to fall over.

Willow reached over and steadied her, virtually holding the Slayer upright by her upper arms. “Buffy! You should be lying down and resting! What are you doing up? Here, lie down before you fall down.” Her disconcertingly black eyes flickered down Buffy’s chest to where the stake head protruded from a dark, wet-looking patch on the denim jacket and her mouth hissed a little sound of dismay. When she looked up again her eyes were green and worried.

“Green eyes pretty,” Buffy told her solemnly as she lost control of her ability to stand. Together they sunk down in a graceless heap, Willow clinging to the Slayer and trying to slow the fall of her dead-weight.

“Hello? Remember me?” said the vampire. He sounded peeved. The best friends peered upwards to see him standing over them, holding his severed arm with his good arm and apparently trying to fix it back into place. “So who’s first? I’ve got to kill you for dismembering me now as well as for being delectable morsels of humanity.”

“He’s crazy,” decided Buffy, who was only still sitting up due to being draped over Willow.

“Oh my Goddess,” gasped Willow in reply and when Buffy glanced up to try and see why her jaw fell open. The vampire’s arm had somehow knitted itself back onto his shoulder and he was flexing both fists with a pleased look on his face.

“You regenerated!” Willow sounded accusatory. “Vampires don’t do that. But you did! You did what you don’t do! How?”

“Troll blood,” the vampire sounded smug. “Yes, that’s right, ladies, my great grandfather was a troll. Oh, the shameful family secret that got whispered behind my back at Court, how Great Grandma went down to the river of her own volition and solicited the ‘man’ under the bridge. If my fellows could only see me now! But wait, they can’t. Because I killed them all and drank their blood.”

“This isn’t good,” slurred Buffy into Willow’s nearby ear. “He’ll drink our blood next. Stinky troll-breath.”

“No he won’t!” Willow sounded appalled. For the first time in the past fifteen minutes she was thinking clearly and she was thinking that they were in mortal danger if she didn’t do something fast.

Buffy was plainly hurt beyond being able to slay and needed Willow to finish this fast and get them out of there. But here was the bad: She, Willow, had lost whatever it was that had somehow enabled her to cast the ‘Feather’ spell, oh so easily, and for the first time ever since reading about it. Not to mention she had no idea that she was capable of casting that spell to call others body parts away from their bodies, the one that she’d found in Giles' personal and secret black magic collection behind his back.

No, she sure didn’t know just how she’d done those things but she did know that she hadn’t had to think about it, like she was thinking now. She hadn’t felt the horrible panic creeping over her that she was feeling now.

‘Okay, Rosenberg,’ she thought to herself, pushing the fear down and wrapping her right hand more firmly around Buffy’s jacket sleeve, partly to keep the Slayer wedged sitting up and partly to give herself the incentive to keep this mad courage up. ‘Wits it is. Talk fast!’

“You were at court?” she asked the vampire in her best, ‘I’m fascinated and I really want to know’ voice. “Were you a,” here an innocent bat of the eyelashes, “prince?”

“Uh,” the vampire first looked nonplussed and then his _expression_ hovered over charmed. “Well, not exactly a prince, little girl, but close enough. I…” He leaned down and showed her a glowing ruby ring, the gem of which was the size of a marble, “…ate a prince. This was his.”

“Lovely!” exclaimed the witch, hiding her revulsion through effusive flattery. “It’s so big. And glowing. Like a big glowing…erm…”

“Yes,” said the vampire, now admiring the ring himself. “Yes, it is. And I have more!”

“Well you would,” said Willow, smiling up at him and really pouring it on. “You’re a big, dangerous, well-dressed and obviously important vampire. With such a distinguished lineage.”

The vampire glowered at her suddenly, obviously reconsidering her admiration. “Is that some sort of troll joke?”

“No, no!” said Willow hurriedly. “I would never joke about the slightly green and clammy tinge of your skin or the bulbous turnip-like qualities of your nose.”

“What?!” roared the vampire. “My nose is small and dainty, you whore. Small and dainty! And my skin is creamy and milky! Creamy and milky!”

“Buffy,” whispered Willow desperately as the vampire started to rant on and on about the blue blood running through his veins. She leaned back and shook the Slayer a little and was almost overwhelmed by relief that the Slayer’s eyes were still open. Well, half-open to be exact but Buffy was conscious and that was what she needed for her plan to work. “Where’s your hidden stake?”

Buffy mumbled something that might have been ‘Idontdosnoopydance’ or ‘watchoutforfireants’ but using logic Willow was able to reach around and remove the stake from where it was tucked into Buffy’s waistband at the small of her back.

“Okay, I need you to listen,” she whispered harshly, cupping one hand to the Slayer’s cheek for good measure. “I need you to throw me up and at the vampire with all the force you’ve got when I say ‘now’. Can you do that?” She peered into the Slayer’s dazed eyes, willing her to sense the importance of this.

“Uh,” Buffy looked dubious. “When?”

“Now!” cried Willow and amazingly the Slayer went into action, using her remaining strength and all her will to fling Willow up and out from her. The witch clenched the stake in her hand and shouted, “Ignite!”

The vampire looked up from his involved ramblings to see the witch flying towards him, a strange mix of anger and fear etched into her features and her right hand raised high, grasping a flaming stake. He had no time to move or even to say, “Gosh!” before she was on him, shoving the lit stake into his unbeating heart.

He screamed; Willow fell back and watched from her new position on the grass as the vampire clawed at the stake, hissing as the fire stopped him from being able to repair the damage. It took longer than usual but finally with a fizzing nose and a sudden spew of smoke, his ashes were raining down everywhere.

“Eugh,” she said. She rolled over and looked for Buffy who was easily found, flat on her back nearby and sneezing incessantly.

“Buffy!” she cried, scrambling over to her friend’s side and laying a comforting hand on the Slayer’s heaving chest. “We gotta get you to Giles’ place. Can you walk?”

In answer Buffy only sneezed twice in quick succession and made no move to get up. Willow leaned over her and noticed with a sinking heart that not only were Buffy’s eyes still half-closed, they were completely unfocused.

‘This is bad,’ she fretted inwardly. Out loud she merely said in her best convincing tone complete with resolve face, “Up you get. Up and at ‘em.” She tugged at the Slayer’s shoulders, trying to get her to sit up and pay attention.

“Schoolsh bad, sleep iss good,” mumbled Buffy, clearly out of it.

“Pop quiz today, no pass leads to failing grade,” countered Willow, tugging more desperately. She was rewarded by Buffy slowly sitting up with her help, the Slayer looking around herself in confusion.

“Willow? Heresh in my bedroom?”

“Soon, Buffy, soon hopefully,” said the witch, cracking a slight smile. “You’ll have me, with you, in your bedroom in your nice warm snuggly bed if you just get up and help us get there. Okay? We’re gonna stand up now.”

“Willow?” The witch was relieved to see that Buffy was actually looking at her and focusing now. Mostly. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Please stand up, Buffy.” Desperation leaked out the crack in her voice and when she went to stand, the Slayer struggled to her feet alongside her. Once up Buffy swayed but Willow draped her right arm over her shoulders and tried to support the Slayer’s compact weight. She staggered a little. Okay, this wasn’t going to be easy…or short…

“What’sh wrong?” repeated the Slayer, as they started heading slowly for the graveyard’s entrance. She would take a few steps on her own steam and then sag suddenly, then regain her equilibrium and walk some more. The worst part for Willow was that Buffy didn’t seem aware of her own lapses.

“Nothin’,” panted Willow, grimacing as the Slayer dropped out on her for a moment, for the third time. She didn’t dare let herself think about what would happen if Buffy lost consciousness. She knew she couldn’t carry her friend and she blanched at the thought of leaving her alone to go for help. There were too many Nasties out here just waiting to sink their teeth into an incapacitated Slayer. “C’mon, hhhh, we’re almost there.”

Blatant lie.

“Uh where?” The Slayer’s voice was weaker now.

“C’mon.” It was an effort for Willow to get that much out. She focused on taking the next step, gasping for enabling breath at the same time.

One step. Two. ‘Don’t think of the burn in your shoulders. Don’t think of resting on the nice soft grass. Gotta keep going. Gotta. Chin up, Rosenberg.’ Next step.

It became a pattern.

One step. Two. ‘Don’t think.’ Next step.

Next step.

‘Want to…rest.’

Next step.

‘Hurting, hurting bad. Need to…stop.’

One step. Two.

‘Gotta stop. Please, can’t go on.’

Next step. ‘Don’t think.’

Next step…

And just when she thought she could convince herself no more despite her mental litany - when she was sure her body would give out regardless, they were there. Staring at Giles' door, only needing the energy to reach out and knock.

She stared. She felt dizzy and short of breath. They were here? Already? Slowly she let Buffy slide to the ground and propped her up against the doorframe. The Slayer’s eyes were closed, her face was ashen and Willow could hear that she was breathing funny.

But she was alive. And they were where help was.

Willow knocked. Long moments passed. The witch felt her energy coming back to her.

“Willow?” Giles stood in his doorframe looking perplexed, wearing flannel pajamas and a robe, with a cup of tea in one hand.

“Buffy,” she gasped, looking down at the Slayer.

He followed her gaze, gasped himself, then hurriedly put down the teacup and knelt to pick Buffy up.

“What happened? Get my kit – it’s on the bookshelf.” His voice was sharp, worried.

“Big vampire,” explained Willow, her anxiety coming back full force now that her ordeal of strength was over. “He staked her through the shoulder.”

“But she slayed him?” Giles took the medical kit from her and set it down next to where he’d laid Buffy out on the couch.

“I did.” Willow’s voice was quiet. She was standing at the end of the couch where Buffy’s feet were and staring down at her friend. Buffy was so pale. And the stake head – there was more of that thick red darkness around it – it wasn’t right. It looked wrong. This was wrong. This shouldn’t be happening.

“You?” Giles sounded…oddly reserved. The look he shot at her seemed...thoughtful? Suspicious? Giles, suspicious? Of her?

She watched as he prodded gently at Buffy’s injury, then gestured her over to help.

“Hold her down. I’m going to remove the stake.”

“Isn’t that bad?” The witch wished she knew more about this kind of thing.

“Ordinarily yes.” Giles sounded unsure himself. “But Buffy can’t heal around the wood – and heal she will. The Slayer has extraordinary regenerative powers.”

“Regenerative,” muttered Willow. “There’s that word again.”

Giles blinked, decided not to pursue it for now and went to work cutting away the denim around the wound, then positioned Willow’s hands on the Slayer’s chest. Without warning he grasped the stake head and heaved. It took an agonizingly long instant to dislodge, an instant made worse by Buffy’s strangled cry of pain and return to awareness.

Then it was out and the Watcher was holding it in front of himself and sweating, while Willow had sunk down onto the couch beside Buffy, her hands fluttering over the Slayer’s chest in small, soothing motions.

“Sssh,” she said. “It’s okay, Buffy, it’s okay. You’re okay. It’s over now. Just lie back. That’s it, don’t struggle. You’re okay. I’m here. I’ve got you. Sssh. That’s my girl.”

The Slayer blinked up at her dazedly and then at Giles who was pressing a folded towel into Willow’s hands to press over the wound. She hissed in pain.

“Glad to see you’ve joined us in the land of the living.” Giles sounded falsely chipper as he retrieved some painkillers and juice. “It hurts now but I think when we stop the bleeding you’ll be right as rain. Give or take a few days of rest.”

“Hello Sleepyhead,” Willow said, making sure to continue applying pressure to the injury. The Slayer stared up into the pain-filled green eyes and weakly raised a hand to curl around the witch’s nearby arm.

“You okay?” she asked.

Willow looked down into hazel eyes that were filled with an _expression_ of…it was hard to describe. Buffy looked protective. Of her. But how could that be when Buffy was the one who was hurt…

“You’re good, I’m good,” she replied simply. Buffy’s gaze darkened, filled with something warm and liquid and all-encompassing and Willow felt like her heart was melting right out of her chest.

If anything should ever happen to Buffy she would die. She was sure of it.

“Love you,” said Buffy and her hand clenched around Willow’s wrist the way that the witch knew meant that she felt strongly.

“Oh…my,” said Giles.

Willow didn’t dare look up at him. She knew that he knew that she knew that he knew that…

“Painkillers?” The Watcher kneeled down beside them and handed his offering to Buffy. “How’s the bleeding?” he asked Willow, somehow managing to do both without any direct eye contact.

“Slowing,” squeaked the witch, watching as he propped Buffy up with the aid of some pillows and a certain amount of difficulty.

Together they worked on cutting the denim jacket off and on dressing the entry and exit wounds left by the stake.

Buffy was quiet while they worked except for the occasional whimper and tiny jerk. 'She's always so brave,' thought Willow to herself, half in awe. 'She holds everything inside. Is that healthy?'

As she mused on this, Buffy's eyes drooped closed and Giles retrieved a blanket which they tucked snugly around the sleeping Slayer. Then he went into the other room and gestured for Willow to follow him.

"She should be out of it at least until tomorrow morning but I'd appreciate if you stay with her tonight. I'd watch her but..." here he hesitated. "I think you're the person for the job." He looked very much like he wanted to clean his glasses but was trying not to.

"Sure, Giles, I can do that!" Willow jumped at the chance. She too was trying not to pay attention to the red burn creeping up her cheeks. "I'll stay here and sleep with her... that is I'll lie down beside her and...do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except for lying beside her. In a completely platonic way. The way that..."

"I get the idea." Giles voice was dry. "Well, I think I should settle in for the night but rest assured, Willow, we are going to talk about how you 'stopped' this vampire, come morning." He turned to go, then came back and looked her in the eyes finally. “Good work,” he said. Willow beamed.

When he had gone upstairs, Willow was left to make her way to Buffy's side to tentatively sneak under the blanket and snuggle up beside her. The Slayer started snoring softly into her ear which was less than romantic, but the witch couldn't care less.

Buffy was okay, or would be. She, Willow had come through when her best friend needed it and that thought filled her with pride and no little relief.

Best of all, Buffy was hers.

That thought kept her awake late into the night.

When she did fall asleep she was smiling.

FINIS

Note: Okay, I realise they can go places from here and I sorta want them to. I like the idea and fics dealing with B/W from highschool onwards so I may write a sort of ongoing sequel to this at some time but for now I'm back to working on 'One of Many Prophecies'. So at this stage the allergies have only actualized the relationship. Who knows where they will take Buffy next?!