Who are you? Who, who, who, who?
-The Who-
Chapter 5
Two quick raps on the door announced that the doctor had returned. At least, Buffy assumed it was the doctor – who else would it be?
She remained in bed, facing the wall and the porthole.
There was rustling, Jane moving to let the doctor in, no doubt, followed quickly by hushed voices.
“Did things progress well?” Dr. Crowdner asked.
“The same, dear. She refuses to answer to her name and hasn’t had a bite to eat. Refuses to engage in conversation.”
“It’s not unexpected.” She heard more rustling and the sounds of the door opening and closing again before the doctor continued. “You’ll do fine on your own here. Just remember what we’ve discussed. Only address her by ‘Elizabeth,’ don’t permit her persist in her delusion about living in a different time. Be firm and in control.”
Holy mother of God. Were they talking about her or a horse? If they whipped out oats and apples, she was going to climb down off the bed and help them redefine ‘hysterical woman.’ Besides, even horses had ears. Did they really need to talk about her as if she wasn’t in the room with them?
There was more shuffling about and the clink of something – possibly a bottle – before the familiar sound of a door latch announced that someone had left.
Now she was curious, dammit. Had the doctor left with his wife? If so, someone else was here and she had a pretty strong suspicion that this person would be Spike, or the costumed version of him.
She could hear the person stepping closer to the bed and then nothing. Someone was standing directly behind her.
“Buffy?”
He’d called her by her name. All that long and miserable day, no one had called her by her name. And though she’d spent the better part of the afternoon planning what she would say to him, she found herself turning around quickly and asking another question entirely. “Why did you call me Buffy?”
He stood before her, looking gravely worried. He still looked like Spike, but there were subtle differences in the way he looked. His mouth wasn’t held so tensely and there was a depth to his eyes that reflected back such pain that she quickly looked down at the bedspread.
“It’s your name,” he said simply.
“They’ve been calling me Elizabeth all afternoon and they told you to call me that too.”
“I know some things about you, of which they are unaware.”
“So, you’re admitting it? You did this?”
“I didn’t do anything Eliza..buffy. I simply know, well, I don’t know precisely what is happening. But I know you were once called Buffy. I know you lived in Sunnydale with your family. I know you come from 2011.”
“Whoa. You slipped a digit. 2001. You got the name and the Sunnydale part right, but I came from 2001.”
He raised his brows at this and then winced slightly. The claw mark she’d left on the side of his head looked deep and painful.
Following an afternoon of being called the wrong name and being reprimanded every time she tried to explain herself to her captors, it was so like a balm to her mind - to finally have someone believe her, call her by her true name. It just would have been a whole world of better if that someone hadn’t been Spike.
She scooted back to the corner of the bed and sat up – tucking the covers around her.
“So what’s your story, Spike? What’s going on?”
“My name is William.”
“Yuppers. First name ‘William,’ last name ‘Bloody,’ middle name ‘the.’ I got the memo, Spike.”
“My name is William Pratt. Please don’t address me as Spike. I find it…disturbing”
She looked at him, the angle of his cheekbones, the way he tilted his head at her slightly. “So again, I’m with the asking. What’s your story, Spike?”
“What would you like to know, Elizabeth?” He raised a brow as he folded his arms across his chest.
“Why am I on a ship with a bunch of hard core Victorian cosplayers? And why do you know that I’m really Buffy when everybody else is stuck in Crazyville? If you didn’t do this to me – who did? Not that I’ll believe you, but I might as well hear your story.”
He gave a tight smile at that, but it did not reach his eyes. “Which question would you like answered first, Buffy?”
“Who are you?”
Before answering, he turned and pulled out a camp chair that the doctor’s wife had set up earlier in the day. He settled down next to the small folding table and placed his hands on top of it, clasping them together as if exerting a great deal of self control.
“My name is William Pratt and the year is 1880. You are Elizabeth Pratt, my recent bride. We are travelling together to California.”
“So, how do you know that I’m Buffy then?”
“Because you told me of this yourself. You came to me through time. You told me that you came from the year 2011 and that due to … well, due to the fact that I had done something in the past, something heroic – that my reward was to be…”
Buffy snorted. “Heroic? Pull the other one.”
“I beg pardon?” William looked confused.
“You claim that I travelled through time because you were some kind of hero and deserved it?”
William tilted his chin up. “You said I saved the world.”
Buffy tossed her head back and hit the wall with such force that it brought tears to her eyes.
“I don’t claim to have done any such heroics, Buffy. This was told to me by you.”
“By a time-travelling me, who came from ten years in the future, to give you a reward for saving the earth. Sure, Captain Planet. And they think I’m the crazy one.”
“I know very little about the details, Buffy. You were quite hesitant to tell me the specifics. I only know that you claimed that, should you not intervene in events, I would become a type of monster.”
“Well, you’ve got that part right at least. You did become a ‘kind of monster.’ You were vamped.”
“Vamped?”
“Vampire? Oh god, why do all my conversations have to be so painful? Look, Spike, all I want to know is, why did you bring me here. Spare me the creative back story.”
“Buffy,” he emphasized her name and gave her a determined look. “My name is William Pratt. You came to me six months ago with this tale. You said you were Buffy Summers, from Sunnydale California. You were determined to intervene on my behalf and…”
“And did I?” she interrupted.
“Did you, what?”
“Did I intervene? Did you meet Dru?”
“I…I’m not certain what you’re referring to. There was to have been a party and when you told me of what was to take place, I didn’t attend the party. I was not…what was the word you used? I was not turned into the monster you’d spoken of.”
“So why I am here? Why didn’t I go back to SunnyD after I saved your sorry ass?” Buffy glared at him in exasperation.
“You…you told me that you had a choice and you chose to remain with me. We were wed shortly afterwards.” His hands clenched into fists on the tabletop, his knuckles white. He kept his gaze on the table top, on his hands. There was a storm of emotion playing just behind his eyes, but Buffy couldn’t begin to imagine why he was so emotional at this moment. He used to be a much better liar.
“So, Elizabeth is me, from the future, who decided to stay with William the Unvamped in a land that does not have flush toilets – because at some point in the future, Spike saves the world. That about sum it up?”
He continued to look at his fists, balled up on the table top. “Yes.”
“Then why is it that this wimpy version of me has zapped into the Great Beyond and the real me from 2001 ended up in your bed, naked, with you, naked – the very night after you chained me up in your crypt?”
He looked up at her, his mouth dropping open in shock. “No. I wouldn’t. Even as a monster, you said I was noble. I wouldn’t have, well, I couldn’t have. You gave me every impression that…”
He was interrupted by two firm raps upon their cabin door.
Unfisting his hands, he buried his right hand into his thick brown hair, tugging at it absently as he walked toward the door. It was such an unSpikelike mannerism that it caught her off guard.
He opened the door a crack, then upon seeing who was there, opened it all the way and stepped back into the room. A teenage boy stepped in, bearing a large covered tray. It was the same boy she’d met that morning while she’d been frantic on the deck of the ship.
“Excuse me Mr. Pratt, but I’d not seen you and your wife at lunch or dinner, so I thought you might want to dine in your room this evening.”
“That was very thoughtful of you, George.” Spike seemed to be regaining some of his scattered composure. “The table’s rather small for all this food. Shall I…?”
“Oh, I’ve another table in the hall, sir. Dr. Crowdner had asked me to bring something larger for his medical equipment. I shall just bring that in now, if you’d hold the tray, Mr. Pratt.”
Spike held the tray, keeping his gaze firmly trained on the food in front on him. The black-haired staff member wrestled a wooden table past the raised threshold and placed it near the foot of the bed, where Spike stood next to the folding camp chairs.
Once the table was settled, the young man began arranging plates of food on top of it.
“George, you’ve been too kind. I believe I can handle it from here.”
“It’s nothing, sir. I’ve…” The boy cast a look toward Buffy; a dark red blush immediately stained his cheeks. “I’ve included ice cream. They did not have peach, so I asked the chef for cherry. I hope it’s not too bold, but I wish very much for a speedy recovery for Mrs. Pratt!” He blurted out the last line, almost as though it was a declaration. Like ‘Remember the Maine!’ or ‘Vive la France!’
Blushing a furiously deep shade of red, he stumbled over the high metal threshold and emptied himself into the hallway, closing the door with a click.
Spike began to lift covers off the various plates of food as he laid the food on the table.
Buffy’s stomach growled uncomfortably. She hadn’t eaten a thing since the previous night, when she’d mooched off Dawnie’s movie popcorn.
Dawnie. Her stomach gave another uncomfortable lurch and she felt her appetite dim. How was Dawn in all of this? And her mom? She’d been away for a day now – they had to be at Defcon Five Freakout Mode.
“Why don’t you try to eat something, Buffy? There is roast turkey and filet of beef. You need to keep your strength up. We can talk of these matters once you’ve dined.”
He had a point, she thought. Starving herself wasn’t going to help her get out of this situation and it wouldn’t help her get back to Sunnydale. Brains and muscles worked better with food in the tummy. She eased herself off the foot of the bed and sat down at the camp stool he’d placed across from his own.
“Food for now, but later you get with the explaining. You know I’m not the ‘giving up easily’ type, Spike. I have people that need me back home and I will find a way back to them.”
~ * ~
Meanwhile, in the belly of steerage, a young man wakes…
Sepp woke from his dream sporting the most painful erection he’d had in his nineteen years. His cock lay on his belly, sharp and hard – an elephant tusk of need. God, what a dream!
He placed his hand in his front pocket, and fished out his pocket watch. Eight o’clock. The rest of the boys must still be at dinner, then. Third class was often served late into the evening, from the talk he’d heard on the ship. It was just as well. After spending most of last night vomiting, he wasn’t up for food anyway. It was his horniness, not his hunger that needed tending.
With his bunkmates at dinner, he might as well have a go with his weisswurst in the privacy of his own room. What a luxury. Almost leisurely, he began to unfasten the buttons of his trousers, when the thought came to him so clearly that he jumped, smacking his head on the overhead bunk.
What if it wasn’t a dream?
It was so clear, so different from his own head that he looked around the room, just to make certain that no one else was there.
What if the crate is really there? What if that girl is actually inside it? That girl who could give you such an erection, with her dark hair and red, red mouth that looked so lovely around your cock?
His fingers paused from their frantic unbuttoning.
It wouldn’t hurt to check just see if it’s like it was in the dream, ,if the crate is there, if the pry bar is there the way that Shimmering Man showed you. If those things are there, then maybe she will be there as well - with her eager red mouth.
Sepp buttoned up his fly and slid off his bunk. What would it hurt, really? It would only take a few moments to check. The crew was busy with dinner and wouldn’t notice one passenger slipping into the cargo hold. He grabbed a stubby yellow candle and a few matches on his way out the door.
He slipped down to the end of the darkened hallway and down the narrow stairs to find himself before a large metal door, which was labeled with many incomprehensible English words, and one word that he did understand: verboten.
The Shimmering Man had shown Sepp this door in his dreams. The man had made odd hand gestures toward the door before showing him that it was unlocked, despite all the words written across it.
Sepp tried the door. The latch opened as easily as it had in his dreams. With shaking fingers, he stopped long enough to light the wick before stepping into the room.
The candle’s light was dim, but he could just make out that he was in the cargo hold of the ship. The lines of trunks and crates were densely packed which, combined with the dim light of his candle, made navigating the room difficult. He knew where she was, however - against the wall in the far corner.
He walked with one hand trailing along the wall, the other held his flicking flame before him.
The pry bar. Don’t forget the pry bar.
Och! The man in his dreams had shown him that lying just behind the door of the cargo hold was a small collection of tools, including a pry bar. He took a few steps back and, thrusting his candle into the dark space behind the door, saw the dim wink of metallic tools flash back at him. The pry bar lay conveniently at the very top of the pile.
Holding his candle with one hand and the pry bar with the other, he used his hip and feet to feel his way along the wall. If possible his cock throbbed even more painfully now that both his hands were busy holding something. If he could just get to the dirndl in the crate and she could wrap her lips around his weisswurst as she’d done in the dream.
When he could just make out the corner of the room through the shadows, he saw it. The crate. Her crate. Just as her knew it would be. Nondescript, with the number 868 stamped clearly in the upper right hand corner.
In his lust, he nearly dropped his candle as he stumbled toward the crate. He placed the candle and pry bar on the floor and ran his hands eagerly over the rough boards
“Schnuckelchen, bist da drin?” he cupped his hand and shouted into the crate. He waited a moment before realizing that he was a dummkopf. She wouldn’t know his language. In his dreams, she’d used her mouth, but not for talking.
“Hello?” Sepp called, but there was response.
Not knowing what else to do, he gave three sharp raps to the top of the crate. Tap, tap, tap.
Christ. Had he gotten this far only to find that the whole thing had just been a dream? He stroked his erection through his trousers. Had he came this fucking far in the dark only to find nothing?
Tap.
Immediately, he tore his hand off his cock and looked at the crate.
Tap, tap.
“I bin da um da z' helfn!” He shouted, forgetting in his lust that he’d already decided that she didn’t speak his language.
Tap, tap, tap. Tappity, tap, tappity, tap tap.
His lover was becoming frantic! So, come to think of it, was Sepp. He began to pull at the cross beams with the pry bar, just as the man had shown him in his dream. He pulled hard, and the board pulled free: first one board, then another. Once he’d worked the front boards free, he found another layer of boards – this time fashioned like a door, with hinges on one side.
And the whole time he was tearing through the boards, his lover was talking to him, through the wood, tap, tap, tappity, TAP TAP TAP.
He was nearly in a frenzy by the time he’d pulled off the final two boards and swung open the box’s wooden door. He expected her to spill out at his feet, with her warm and willing mouth ready to please him. She did not.
He grabbed his candle to shine a dim light into the crate. The flickering glow revealed, not a lady, but…dollies. Child’s toys – four of them all lined up along the wall. Only these dollies were in no way a child’s playthings. One had a knife jammed through the center of her head, directly where her ears were. The one next to that had two shards of glass poking from empty eye sockets. The third had, where its mouth should have been, a large railroad spike jammed in, and sticking out through the back of its head. The forth doll was unharmed. It looked at him with its dead, unblinking eyes.
Sepp stumbled backwards – out of the crate and onto the floor. He’d kept a firm grip on the candle, thank Christ. Its flickering light played across the mutilated dolls as he pushed his legs along the floor until his back was against the wall.
From inside the crate he heard a rustling, and then a small sound, like a coo.
Jesus und Maria! He made the sign of the cross and gripped the candle tightly, standing with shaking legs. As he fumbled towards the door of the cargo hold, his heart thudded a mad rhythm inside his chest.
He was trying to run backwards – too terrified of the thing that lay inside the crate to risk turning his back on it. When he saw the feet, dressed in women’s shoes, and the bottom edge of a long skirt just step out of the shadow of the crate’s door, he froze.
As she stepped into the dancing circle of his candlelight, he could see her, his dream woman. With her thick ringlets of raven hair, large dark eyes and porcelain skin, she was rather like a doll herself. His gaze flickered over to where her tortured toys were arranged near the crate’s door and he shuddered.
She smiled, showing a row of perfectly white teeth inside her beautiful, wunderbar mouth.
As she stepped toward him she tilted her head to one side, then quickly back to the other side. It was an odd, snakelike gesture, and made him back up against the wall of the ship.
He wanted to explain himself, but without the English, knew he would fail before he began. If he could, he would tell her that he hadn’t intended to bother her. He would explain that this had all been some kind of terrible mistake. But even as the thought was forming in his mind, her face shifted. Her beautiful blue eyes turned yellow and feral; her teeth elongated as she lunged toward his neck.
His last conscious thought, as his lifeblood poured out of his neck and down her throat, was that the terrible mistake had been his own. His mute audience of dollies, passively watched his being devoured – their pointed accessories winked and sparkled at him, until the candle guttered out and all was black.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks to AmyXaphia for the beautiful banner. Thanks to Capella42, DoriansKitten and Lutamira for the beautiful beta'ing. And thanks to YOU for the wunderbar feedback!
Chapter End Notes:
To commemorate his short and boner-filled life
Sepp awoke with morning wood in his third class bed
Remembering his dream of getting wunderbar head
Though he knew it was wrong, Sepp crept from his bunk, he
Should have stayed put and just spanked his monkey
He found the girl’s crate, plus a nasty surprise
A row of dollies with shards in their eyes
His dream girl emerged, but poor Sepp was cursed
For she sucked on his neck, not his throbbing weistwurst
A victim of his times, now please let us mourn
A life cut short for want of internet porn