5. Sleepless

I'd sell my soul, my self-esteem
A dollar at a time
For one chance, one kiss
One taste of you - Magdalena/A Perfect Circle

Second time around, the dream didn't fade quite as quickly. Third time (which was anything but a charm, that was for certain), it lingered. It was still haunting Xander when he punched out at the end of his shift. Technically, since he was in charge, he could have flown the coop a little early, but that wasn't his style. He had to be responsible, he had to set the example for his crew.

Just when the hell had he become the responsible one?

But the dream… the third time, that had been Thursday. Days after the meeting, no new clues. He was beginning to feel that Spike had been right, and if anything grated his cheese more than siding with Spike, he hadn't experienced it yet. But the dream had him forgetting all that mighty quick. His head had throbbed from the intensity of it by early afternoon, and by the time he arrived home he was waiting for his forehead to split open - it would surely happen if the headache got any worse.

The dream made just being near Anya difficult. He couldn't escape the feeling that he was failing her somehow. As an expert in that department - left the pretty bride at the alter, didn't ya, slipped out into the night and slunk back into town like the coward you are - he knew the feeling well. Only Xander had no idea what the dream was about. It was recurring, and he remembered more and more of it with each "showing", but he knew next to nothing about dreams. He'd picked up a bit of the usual babble from Giles over the years, but he'd tuned most of it out. And Sunnydale High? Psychobabble long since forgotten.

The end of it terrified him the most. The pool… he was sure it was called a Well, though it wasn't, exactly, a well like anything in his own world. Going there meant his end. Going there meant he would fail the girl he loved. Going there meant oblivion.

So why did he find himself there every time?

---

A wise-ass once said only two things in life were certain: death and taxes.

Anya knew she would die. There was no doubt in her mind. Her death was imminent; fire and brimstone would play a key roll in her future. The powers were not at all forgiving of demons. They were even less forgiving of demons who'd forsaken their calling to become human. At any level of heaven or hell, Anyanka would be distinctly unwelcome, an embarrassment to some, a disease to others, hated by all and destined to suffer.

Death was imminent, and it would be a bloody, violent end for her. Struck down by the blade. She was sure of it. Death was part of being human, violence was part of loving Xander and hanging around Buffy and the others. Slaying plus humanity equals death. A simple equation.

Yet, if Xander, mortal through and through, failed to accept these odds with nary a second thought, would she still love him?

To that, Anya had no answer. But she was proud of her man, no matter how he had wronged her, and that amazed her. As a vengeance demon, she had cursed many grooms who had found themselves with cold feet and fled, leaving confused, teary-eyed would-be brides in their wake. Boils, warts, oozing sores - all on the genitals, leaving a scarred, broken, limp dick in their wretched hands - that was her style. And that was just for starters.

With Xander, she had done the unthinkable. She had forgiven him.

Now her man was having dreams. Nightmares. She knew, though he never spoke of them, that they were extremely painful. He muttered apologies to her nearly every night, never consciously, always cried out from his restless slumber. It worried her. At first, she'd been tempted to pass them off as belated after-effects of the wedding incident - this debacle, the worst day of your mortal life, shall forever be known in your mind as the "Wedding Incident", her brain taunted her - but Anya had come to dismiss this idea. While they still had things to work out, still had that dreaded talk to take care of, the trashing and moaning Xander exhibited each night indicated something much more sinister. She was going to have to consult some of the books at the Magic Box. The store had a decent selection of texts on dreams and the subconscious. Plus, she'd have to pry the subject of the nightmares out of Xander eventually in order to interpret them. That she was not looking forward to.

Worrying over the figure dozing next to her - thus far it seemed Xander would be dream free for the night - it never occurred to Anya to question the timing of Dawn's request for a book about dreams.

---

Green and glistening with Midnight dew, thick blades of grass poke up between the toes of her bare feet as she walks. They tickle her soles, but Dawn takes no notice, focused as she is entirely on the figure ahead of her. Here she is in the cemetery again. Here we are, now entertain us. She knows it isn't real, that she's dreaming, and knows equally well - from what she'd learnt via the volume Anya had leant her - that it is extremely rare for someone to know they're dreaming and yet continue to do so.

There's no dress of blue silk clinging to her this time around. Instead, she wears only a silk thong, which hangs so lightly that it feels as if she's wearing nothing at all. It makes the faintest caress of the cheeks of her ass as she saunters to the man in black. Maybe, she thinks distantly, the particulars of a dream change with each viewing, or the mood of the dreamer, while it's the overall experience, and atmosphere, that is important. That remain unchanged. Either way, at least the color is consistent. Blue dress, blue thong. If only she had a matching top. Here she is, out in the open, graves left and right, and her breasts hang free, bouncing lightly as she walks. She feels… exposed. And hot. Her nipples stand erect. Dawn is embarrassed to discover that she is turned on,

Dream, just a dream, I don't really feel this way, nipples don't really throb

and more than just a little concerned that she keeps walking to the distinctly male figure in the distance unabashedly.

I'm not really wet

She finds herself unable to stop. She finds that she doesn't want to stop.

---

Just like the others, it ends with her walking into the arms of some unseen figure, never seeing his face (and it is a He, of that Dawn is very sure; this dark man of her future is distinctly male).

Three times she's had the dream now. And still she was yet to find the courage to try out the spell from Dreams & the Shadow World - a spell she'd originally found while helping Giles catalogue the Magic Box's collection. But it would be soon. Very soon. Dawn was determined to figure out who was haunting her dreams. And while the timid schoolgirl side of her mind warned her about meddling with dark forces - look at what happened to Willow, remember Mom?, do you really think you can handle a tenth of what Tara could? - Dawn was also the sister of a Slayer, raised on a Hellmouth. Raised, for so long as she had actually existed.

Maybe, thought Dawn, the dreams had something to do with that. Maybe the figure in them was her destiny. Maybe he could help her find herself.

---

The fruits of my frustration litter the wastelands. The souls claimed skitter two and fro, yet always return to the sound of my call. They always returned to their master, no matter how they hated him.

These thoughts amused Phereus. Scyomancy was his craft - at least that was what they called it here - but so many failures, so many aborted births… the Well had become crowded. Yet soon it would grow again, its tormented populous would be forced to accept newcomers, and the wastelands on the other side would know new wailings. Between his callings, it was all they could do. Wander the vast expanses of nothingness beyond the Well, and cry out. For mercy or for oblivion; they were really one and the same.

Soon. Soon the number would grow. He needed their power.

His vessel was leaking. They always did, in time. It always had the same side effect. Like with a leaking gas pipe, those who got close for too long would begin to see things. And too long wasn't long at all. Phereus couldn't help it. He just hoped they didn't see too much. What they saw while bits of his aura, to use the rather poor human word, escaped his mortal body was beyond his control. Usually, he caused nightmares, which amused him to no end, but once, someone had seen too much. He did not wish to have it happen again.

Roanoke. He had been drawn to the determination of that colony. Maybe they would have amongst them a woman capable of receiving him, of birthing him. In the end it hadn't mattered. In the end it had gone badly. The Croatoan wise man had, between his puny mortal magicks and the dreams escaping from Phereus's mortal form, discovered him. He'd warned the settlers. They had reacted rather unexpectedly.

They killed all of their own women. Right down to the youngest child. The girls had all stood in line in the town square, waiting for their throats to be slit. Blood turned the pressed dirt courtyard to mud where it pooled at its thickest. They went willingly, one by one, undeterred by the thrashings of those falling before them. Phereus had arrived too late to stop it, and in a rage had wiped out the rest of the colony, slaughtering them all, taking what he needed, and casting their remains into the ocean.

Someone had, of course, managed to leave a clue behind. He's discovered this years later. The word, Croatoan, carved into a tree. It was a message. Talk to them. They know. But he's killed their wise man, and the other members of the tribe refused to talk of the spirit they'd angered, nor the fate of the settlers.

Many of those settlers still served him. They wandered the wastelands beyond the Well, waiting for his summons.

---

Blood of the many, flowing before her. Blood of the innocent, the young, the lost, the helpless. Blood of those she had failed.

Buffy watched it flow through her mind, a river of toxin threatening to drag her down in its undertow. Soon enough the unseen dam burst, and she ran from the outpouring in full-fledged panic, wave upon wave crashing down around her heels.

The blood of those she could not save haunted her dreams.

This was not a new dream by any stretch of the imagination. From nearly the time her gifts as a Slayer had revealed themselves - from the very beginning - it had stalked her. Buffy was quite sure failures of past Slayers were mixed up with her own; surely she could not have so much blood on her hands in just a few short years. And there were faces. Some she recognized: Jessie, who might have been a friend save for an early death she could not prevent. Jonathan, who never really fit in. Jenny. Maggie Walsh, felled by her own hideous creation, a being Dr. Frankenstein himself would surely have marveled at. Tara. Tara hurt the most. She had been a real friend, had stood by Buffy when the Slayer was at her worst, had come back from a righteous mindfuck administered by a half-crazed Hell God and never once thought of giving up the fight. Other faces she had either forgotten or had never known. Three sisters roughly her age in Victorian garb. An old black man, maybe the oldest person she had ever seen. A blind man who might have been from somewhere in South America. A British man she was sure was a Watcher.

Lately, it seemed the dream... dream, or dreams maybe, for it was never exactly the same… was more intense. More vivid.

Now there was a new twist. Now there was a man dressed in black, face hidden, arms outstretched, as if ready for a welcoming embrace. Buffy was powerless but to walk towards him. To her left, from the corner of her eye, she saw Dawn. Dawn was walking in time with her towards the darkened figure awaiting them. Dawn was naked. Looking down at herself, Buffy was somewhat less than surprised to find that she was also naked.

Tears streamed down the cheeks of both sisters, but neither were aware of them in the least.

Each time she awoke, Buffy was sure of only one thing - she wanted to go to that man (it was a man, she was sure). She wanted to do whatever he asked of her, whatever it might entail.