"The thing about Magic? There are always consequences." Spike BTVS Season 6
It was pitch black inside her coffin. So dark that she could have fallen into the deepest pit of nothing. Eerily silent too if it weren't for the sound of enormous strain on her lungs. The phrase 'Silent as the grave' had never made more sense.
Normally she wasn't afraid of the dark. The Demons and the Vampires it helped cloak were more terrified of her and for good reason. But this...this was a different kind of gloom altogether and the more it encroached the more her desire to escape magnified.
Sickly dread spread like the roots on a tree, branching out into her veins and with it, supercharged shots of adrenaline ruled her blood. Buffy's heart soon hammered to the rhythm of fight or flight.
The Slayer within refused to back down and gave the girl the power she needed to combat the darkness. One punch after another and something finally gave way under the force of her fists. The earth groaned in protest as it shifted its weight and began to pour in from all sides. All too quickly her freshly resurrected body found itself pinned back into the satin lining of her wooden prison. Was this how fledges felt before they climbed their way out? Blind and smothered digging through the muck to reach the surface?
At least they didn't have to breathe.
Buffy, however. Required that pivotal thing called oxygen and the sharp burn on her lungs told her it was fast running out.
Her natural reflex was to gag and cough at the foreign invader that was dirt pouring into every orifice. She couldn't help it.
Not when she knew it was only a matter of time before exhaustion won and she ended up entombed in the earth. So she kicked and clawed.
Took no notice of how easily her fingernails snapped. How slick and bloodied her hands became.
In the end, her efforts weren't enough. The pressure had proven too much to bear as the darkness swallowed her down whole in its hungry gullet.
****
Spike had been having quite the dream before being startled awake by the sound of upset. He'd had The Slayer very naked and willing in his bed. That perfect tight little body of hers wrapped around him so that every golden curve was within reach of his wandering hands. Naturally, he was right brassed to be disturbed. That was until it dawned on him, that something wasn't right.
Something was wrong.
For one thing, part of his dream was still playing out. Although he was disappointed to note she was fully clothed. Buffy Summers was in fact, sleeping in his bed. His scarred brow knitted at the miracle he'd dreamed to experience for years now.
For another, she appeared to toss and turn all over the ruddy place and not in the fun way.
It seemed that his Slayer was lost to her subconscious. Only hers wasn't enjoying herself.
He studied her pale pinched face in the shadows of his cavernous room as tiny whimpers of distress escaped the soft pout on her lips.
"What the bloody hell!?"
Had to be in the throes of a nightmare. The poor bird just hadn't realised that her dreams were seeping into the waking world. An easy fix was to wake her up.
The problem was she had no idea that the Vampire who tried his best to console her to settle with his gentle whispers, was not the terrifying monster after her. So it was no surprise she fought harder and became desperate. Her flailing limbs kicked for freedom.
While Spikes' attempts to calm her down not only superseded in doing the opposite but also resulted in another broken nose.
"Christ!"
All it took to make him forget about the searing eye-watering pain was hearing her cry out.
