"Boys? Cram it." Buffy growled.
Spike grinned stupidly at Methos. Methos opened his mouth to snark and settled for a weak sneer instead. He didn't have the energy to put the vampire in it's place. He felt his knees threaten to buckle and reflexively reached out for the wall. Spike gripped his wrist and held him steady.
For a moment the men locked eyes. Methos jerked his arm free and fell to his knees. The world grayed and blinked out.
"He's bloody 'eavy 'is wot 'e is!" Spike snapped. Effort and annoyance had turned his normal accent into a caricature performance. Methos remained limp, listening to the vampire struggle to continue hauling him along. Why was he breathless? Did he breathe?
"Wakey wakey beautiful." Spike snapped and dropped Methos on his ass. The immortal controlled his temper and tried to figure out where they were.
The tunnel was long gone. They were traipsing through a child's idea of a forest, ripped right from Disney. Too bright colors, birds perfectly in key with none of the raucous warning cries or clacks of natural bird song, impossibly bright and beautiful flowers….
"Where's Walt?" Methos asked surprised and disturbed by his croaking voice.
Buffy sighed and got him upright. He felt better, still weak but he could think and walk. He shrugged Buffy's hands away although he noted a slight tremor in her hands as she drew back.
"What's our status?" He asked eyeing Spike closely. The group looked exhausted, and gaunt. They were thin not starvation thin but certainly a week shy of good meals thin. Spike looked like he was going to lose it soon.
"We've been on the move for oh a week maybe." Buffy admitted. Methos was stunned.
"I've been down for a week?" He asked incredulous. The group just stared at him with flat, exhausted lizard eyes. He nodded.
"Disney or not there has to be something edible around here." He said.
"For you lot probably." Spike hissed. Methos glanced at him.
"How long can he go?" He asked Buffy.
"Not much longer." Spike interrupted. Methos studied the tension in the vampire's face and nodded. He hated the idea of this. Stomach churned at it, but the vampire was in a bad way and had apparently been dragging him for a week.
Moving so fast that Buffy didn't have time to intervene Methos tore a sleeve off his shirt and thrust his wrist at Spike. The ravenous vampire needed no further encouragement in less than a second his face had morphed and he was latched on to Methos' wrist. As the immortal and vampire sank to their knees in a bizarre embrace Methos wondered where his recent altruism had sprung from. As nausea and weakness – telltale signs of blood loss- set in Methos jerked his wrist away from Spike. Spike raised his bloody monstrous face to the crystal blue of the Disney sky and let out a low, almost sexual, moan.
Methos twisted his face away from the vampire's ecstasy and was violently sick. His empty stomach produced a thin gruel of bile and saliva. He groaned and got to his feet. Buffy moved to assist him. He shook his head. He didn't want to be touched. He could feel his wrist healing as the group started to move again. Spike had the sense to avoid Methos' line of sight.
After awhile Buffy drifted up to Methos' elbow.
"That was…"
"Necessary." Methos sighed. He didn't want admiration, pity or any of the rest of it. He wanted out of this world, away from its monsters and back to his own place. Back to where the only demon was the idiot Ahriman, where the scariest thing in the dark was his Horseman. Buffy quietly shadowed him content in silence.
As the hours dragged on and the sun never changed position Methos began to grow frustrated.
"How long have you been stuck here?" He asked quietly.
"Willow thinks it's been a week of time here."
"Here?"
"She thinks we're in a micro universe, a secondary trap in the tunnel."
"Shit, that means decades could have passed in my world."
"I know, I'm sorry, Willow is trying to find a way out-"
Methos shoved past Buffy and moved toward Willow. Buffy scowled and followed.
"Watch the hands buddy." She hissed as she closed in on him again.
"It's not just magic, there's something else at work here." Willow was explaining. Methos nodded.
"Perception. Look, if we stop and take a break can you try to bring this thing down?"
"We've-"
"Been trying, yes I know but what if while you attack it's physical presence the rest of us attack it's appearance?"
Willow frowned.
"Well, that would mean-""
"That it's only as strong or as hellish as we make it, yes."
"Okay."
"Will can this work?" Buffy asked. Willow nodded once tightly.
"It might."
The band drew together and settled onto the mattress soft ground. Methos felt exhaustion and blood loss conspiring to drag him back to the gray. He ignored it and focused on the group.
"I think most of you are somewhat familiar with meditation. What we're going to do is similar. We need to think about reality, about dull, cold, cruel, pointless reality. Cold rain, hard chairs, bad food, reality." Methos said sternly. Xander was frowning at him.
For a moment Methos wondered if he could kill the boy and still get out of this nightmare fantasy alive, let alone back to his own realm. He sincerely doubted it. Shelving the impulse he led the group into a trance. Willow sat in the rough center of the group and did her thing.
At first all was still and quiet. The quiet went on for what felt like hours, then, all at once with a terrific sound like a hundred jumbo jets hitting a mountainside the world tore. Methos' eyes snapped open like window shades. They were in the tunnel. Behind them it disappeared in a straight relentless line, ahead it stretch on into darkness.
"Good days work." Methos grumbled and got up. Relieved laughs and excited chatter rippled through the micro army. Methos let them have this small victory. They were still screwed he thought, they were free of the delusion but they still lacked food and water and gods alone knew what else lay in wait for them. Still, he felt a bit better himself. He caught sight of Spike, separate from the group. He loathed the creature, what it represented, but it was useful and keeping it happy could keep things smooth.
"You all right?" Methos asked the blond. The vampire glanced over its shoulder at him and sneered. He looked better, fuller, brighter.
"S'a good thing you've not got any of me in your place mate, let me tell yeah if you did you'd have more to worry about than a bit of decapitation." Spike hissed. His face twisted into its bestial form and the vampire lunged at Methos.