Title: In Your Dreams (1/?)
Author: Ash
E-mail:ash_j88@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: Not mine. I wish. Well, sometimes.
Distribution: Anyone who asks and all who have any of my fic.
Feedback: Ohhhh yeah. My insecurity has been out of control lately, so, if
you’ve been wondering where my other fics were…
Spoilers: Up to Wild at Heart
Rating: Probably will be R, eventually.

Dedication: To my very dear friend CJ, without whom I probably would never
have started writing again. Get better!

Part One

Most people think that dreams are meaningless, bits of fluff cast up by our
unconscious to keep us sane until daylight brings us back to the world. Is
it any different for those who wake to moonlight?

What do vampires dream?

What delicate visions could survive in a demon's mind, what faintly
remembered faces swim into view through blood-mists?

Vampires are still when they sleep, still as the dead. Nothing there to
whisper to a watcher of flickering prey running down cobbled streets, of
kisses stolen from smiling lips long since rotted to bone. Just perfect
stillness and, perhaps, a sense of waiting.

Spike lay like a carved funeral sculpture of some ancient king, his hands
crossed over his chest in a way that suggested that a sword should lie under
them. The hotel room that entombed him had unpleasant stains on the ceiling
and a bad landscape over the bed, but the red sunset light filtered through
the sheets covering the windows and made the white plaster walls glow like
slabs of amber.

The sun lost its hold on the sky and fell behind the horizon, sending out
one last burst of ruby defiance to dim the victorious moon.

Spike opened his eyes on a world the color of blood, and his lips twisted
into a brief smile- brief, because in the next second his dreams came
flooding back to him. A second later, the bedside table smashed against
the wall with enough force to split the polished top into two pieces.

"Christ, not again!" If the sound of furniture being spontaneously
disassembled hadn't been enough to wake the neighbors, his shouted curse
would have done the job. He looked around the hotel room for anything else
worth throwing, but found only his own possessions and a rather tatty rug.
It didn’t look like the manager was going to come by to complain, which was
a pity. The manager was a tall heavyset man, and it would have been
supremely satisfying to pitch him out of the window.

Sitting down on the bed, Spike leaned forward and closed his eyes,
struggling to call back that night’s dream from its mist-shrouded realm.
The details were a little fuzzy, but the main features were the same as they
had been for every night that week.

He put his palms over his eyes and pushed until twisted red lines spiraled
in the darkness. *- There. -* There was a part of it. A strange girl’s
face, smiling at _him_. Endless hallways thronged with humans, and- one of
them had pushed him! Spike remembered that, remembered bending down to
gather up something that he’d dropped and murmuring a soft apology instead
of taking the idiot by the collar and hitting him until the blood was a
crimson mask that covered his face and stained Spike’s sleeves.

Another piece snapped into place with a silent click. Spike let out a
pained groan as he remembered the Slayer running towards him down a sunlit
corridor, and the feel of her arm around his shoulders as she pulled him
into a room filled with people. He’d walked to one of the seats, and sat
there beside the Slayer for what seemed like hours, occasionally leaning
close to whisper something… what, he couldn’t quite remember.

The whole dream had been like that, one missed opportunity after another.
An entire day’s sleep wasted on meaningless chatter and friendly exchanges.
He was there, but not in control, dragged along behind the main mind like an
orbiting satellite.

His eyes snapped open. Almost flinging himself off the bed, he opened the
door and stalked out, leaving the door to flap limply behind him. His eyes
gleamed in the darkness as he disappeared in the direction of downtown. He
had a lot of niceness to make up for.

********

The alarm went off at eight o’clock, AM. Its shrill peals cut through the
sleepy silence and penetrated the heap of tangled blankets piled around the
figure on the bed. A white hand tunneled out of the snowy mass and felt
around on the night table, dislodging numerous items that had been happily
perched there.

Finally locating the alarm, it started to press buttons at random. The
first two had no perceptible effect, but the third time it pushed, loud
music thundered out of the speakers. A second hand erupted out of the
bed-nest, grabbing the alarm in a strong grip. It flew across the room,
landing with a muffled thump.

“Ow!”

The pile shifted, and wide green eyes peered out through a gap. “Buffy?”

Buffy sat up in the other bed, one hand rubbing her side. The alarm lay
beside her, and her tone was wry when she said: “Traditionally, alarms wake
up people with noise, _not_ by attacking them.”

Willow pushed aside more of the blankets and struggled upright, hair falling
around her shoulders in crimson tangles. “This… this must be one of the new
models!”

Mentally crossing her fingers, Willow shook her head in mock sorrow and
looked down at the floor. “That’s progress for you.” She waited for a
beat and then looked up. Buffy wasn’t buying it. Willow’s shoulders
slumped, and she pulled the blankets more firmly around her. “Sorry. I
guess I just wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay.” The Slayer turned the radio over in her hands, frowning
thoughtfully. “We may have to get a new alarm clock, though.”

If possible, Willow looked even guiltier. “I threw it that hard? Are you
okay?”

Buffy patted her side gingerly. “I’ll have a bit of a bruise, but you know
me… Super fast healing factor, just like Wolverine. Without the claws. Or
the facial hair.”

Willow pushed the image of a clawed and bewhiskered Buffy away before it
made her laugh, since that would pretty much destroy the contrite image she
was going for. “I really am sorry.”

Buffy rolled her eyes, getting out of her bed in a fluid movement that did
more than her words to reassure Willow that the projectile appliance hadn’t
caused any serious harm. The blonde paused by the door. “I’m going to go
get washed up, and when I get back I don’t want to hear one more word about
this… it’s no big deal, Will.”

Willow winced when she heard her friend’s super-patient tone, knowing that
this was one more thing being chalked up to the ‘Poor Willow, still pining
after Oz. Let’s indulge her.’ syndrome. She’d been hearing that
well-meaning patience in a lot of voices lately.

The door closed behind Buffy, and Willow let her face fall to her hands,
remembering the feel of other hands on her ‘other’ face. She remembered
more, too. Remembered the salty slickness of blood against her skin and
something flying across an alley. Something that had been a person to begin
with but landed as a broken doll, shattered glass eyes staring blindly.

Her body shook with sobs that weren’t sobs at all but dry gasps of pain.
She could feel the scream building in her throat, and unshed tears were acid
pooling behind her eyes and burning into her brain. There were so few
minutes before Buffy would be back, before she would have to be nice and
happy and pretend that things were only slightly wrong. Pretend that she
wasn’t seeing horrors every night.

One acid tear escaped her eye and burned a trail down her cheek. Wrapping
her arms around herself, Willow rocked back and forth, her eyes fixed on a
place far away where slender fingers had peeled skin away from bone. Her
words came out in a harsh whisper of breath that hurt her throat. “Oz… Why
are you doing these things?”