Ducks: Queen of Frickin' Everything

For more about 50_elements and my particular set of prompts, check out the post here. My element is Fire, Pairing B/A.

This also covers 100moods prompt .087 Scared.

TITLE: Should Love and Faith Remain
FANDOM: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
AUTHOR: Ducks, theantijoss
E-MAIL: ducksfanfic@gmail.com
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Joss' Genius and Asshattery, Fox's money & lawyers. Don't sue.
PROMPT: 50_elements #1 - Doll, 100moods .087 - Scared
WORD COUNT: ~1200 words
RATING: PG-13 for darkish stuff and language.
CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Buffy/Angel
TIMELINE: Comics continuity, sometime in the near future. You don't need to read the comics to understand what's going on, nor are there any explicit spoilers as yet.
SYNOPSIS: Buffy and Angel try to stay sane -- and alive -- in a supernatural prison.
DISTRIBUTION: Please ask. Chances are good that I'll say yes. :)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: These bits and pieces (I'm calling them "moments") are written for the Insane Journal 50_elements challenge. Eventually, I will weave them together to form a single story, but those who read along will have the fun of piecing things together themselves. Or something. *G*
FEEDBACK: That would be awesome, thank you!
DEDICATION: To thenyxie again, because she always inspires me. Usually to naughtiness of one sort or another.

Title taken from the poem "Views of Life" by Emily Bronte.

And, even, should Love and Faith remain,
(The greatest blessings life can show,)
Amid adversity and pain,
To shine, throughout with cheering glow;

They do not see how cruel Death
Comes on, their loving hearts to part

~

Moment 1: "Dolls"



It took Angel awhile to decide, but when he finally did, he was surprised the answer hadn't come to him right away. He tried to pull himself more upright so that his face was closer to the hole they had come to call their 'communications infrastructure' and he didn't have to raise his voice to be heard.

"Dolls," he said.

There was a long moment of silence from Buffy, in which the only sound to be heard was water plink-plinking on stones somewhere in the impermeable darkness, and the last choking cries of someone meeting a torturous end farther off than that.

Angel couldn't be sure if it was surprise at his response or that last piteous noise of a fellow prisoner—or maybe even her own pain and weakness—that made Buffy pause before responding.

"Dolls," she said, her incredulity clear in her thankfully still-strong and sure voice. "Seriously?"

There was no way to track time in this dim and dank place, whatever it was. No way to determine how long they'd been here without clocks or sunrise and sunset -- even his instincts for tracking them were broken by the utter lack of sensory input. There was no light, no regular rhythm to the horrible, hopeless sounds around them. They had been tossed together into a void where there was nothing. Nothing but one another.

He was hardly surprised to find that was almost enough to keep him going. The only things that remained constant, that gave him some slim foothold in reality, were the pain of his slowly healing injuries, his hunger growing by inches, and the precious sounds and scents of Buffy's continued existence.

"You asked me something I was afraid of that nobody knew about," he reminded her.

"Dolls," she repeated, then gave a soft chuckle. "Okay…why? Or should I even ask?"

Now it was his turn to pause. He and Buffy had made only two promises to one another when all of this began: that both of them would make it out of here no matter what, and that they would be completely open and honest with one another while they were trapped here.

The latter was turning out to be even more difficult than he expected the former would be. But damn it, he could keep two promises to Buffy, couldn't he? Didn't he at least owe her that for all she had given him over the years they'd known one another?

With that in mind, he soldiered on through the minefield of his memory and psychoses. "I have nightmares about them. They…remind me of some of the worst things I've ever done. Two of my deepest sins…" he trailed off, took a bracing breath, forced himself to continue. "My sister Mary Katherine, and Drusilla. They both collected dolls. Dru kept doing it even after I… she used to talk to them. Sing to them. Torture them. Pull their arms off and set them on fire. Now I can't think about dolls without wanting to scream... or walk out into the sunlight."

The silence after his confession was heavier. More profound. Even the water that constantly leaked into their hard stone cells stopped its incessant dripping as if shocked by his story.

"Oh," Buffy finally said. "I'm... God, I'm sorry."

Boy, sharing sure was fun, here in Hell.

That had to be where they were, didn't it? The starvation, the almost complete sensory deprivation. How physically close Buffy was, but how ultimately unreachable? The constant, nagging surety that he would be forced to sit here in the Stygian dark, separated from her by this impenetrable stone wall, and listen to her slowly starve to death? Or die of her injuries, or exposure, or the fucking Black Plague, for all he knew. They had to get out of here. They had to figure out where 'here' was, and who was keeping them prisoner. They had to...

Angel drew another deep breath, struggling to calm himself. Buffy was already terrified enough, and putting on such a fierce front for both their benefits. The very least he could do was the same. He made sure to breathe through his mouth, so he wouldn't have to smell the stink of misery and death that permeated this place, or the fetid aroma of wounds on the edge of infection. He closed his eyes, another useless gesture, but it cooled his fear and rage enough for him to speak.

Words were literally all they had now, after all. When he felt able to keep his voice steady, he said, "Your turn."

"Hmm. What am I afraid of that nobody knows about? Um… Can I have a new question? This one's too hard."

He laughed. "It was your question, Buffy."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." He heard her shift and give a soft grunt of pain as she exacerbated some injury with her movement.

"What is it?" he asked, still, as always, frightened of her answer.

"Knee. I tried to bend it too far." They kept one another apprised of their physical state as though that could take the place of the medical care they sorely lacked.

And that Buffy desperately needed. Broken ribs, possibly a punctured lung; internal injuries, broken fingers and several bones in her foot. Torn ligaments in her knee and elbows. Dislocated shoulder. Countless cuts and bruises.

He hadn't bothered to take stock of his own wounds. Even without feeding, they would eventually heal. It was a very mortal Buffy he was concerned about. Slayer or no, the kind of conditions they were being kept in...

He shook the thought away. No use going in that direction. There was nothing he could do except get more upset, and that would help no one.

"Are you okay?" The "relatively" remained a given. As did the ridiculousness of the question in general.

"Yeah. Fine," she lied. "Okay… argyle."

It took a moment for what she had said to sink in. "What? Like…the Duke of?"

"No. Like, the ugly clothing pattern."

Another laugh forced its way out of him. How she managed to do that under the circumstances remained one of the great mysteries of the ages. There was just something magical about Buffy that had always shone on him like the sunlight he so sorely missed. Only she could make him smile when there was nothing to smile about.

"Is this a fashion thing? Because I don't think that counts as a fear."

"It is too a fear. Somebody told me when I was a kid that really bright plaid and argyle will give you seizures. I totally bought it. To this day, I can't see an argyle sock without feeling nauseous and lightheaded."

God, how he wished he could touch her. Kiss her, squeeze her hand, give her a hug. Anything. He was almost desperate for contact with her warm skin. He would gladly give up blood forever just to put his arm around her slender, endlessly strong, shoulders for five minutes.

He tried to express that depth of affection and longing in his voice, and pressed both cheek and hand against the cold, damp stone wall for his own small comfort. "It's a wonder you survived all those years with Giles, then," he said.