The Other Side

By Meltha

Six

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Buffy said disbelievingly as she took in her new surroundings. “Drusilla and Darla are in Las Vegas?”

“You sound surprised,” came Darla’s voice from just behind her, making her jump. “It’s actually a vampire’s paradise: high crime rate, the turn-over is constant so there’s less chance of being recognized, nightlife is the norm, and the casinos have no windows.”

“When you put it that way, it sounds like I was working around the wrong Hellmouth,” the Slayer muttered to herself. “So what are the other Darla and Dru doing here?”

“Ehm, well,” Drusilla had appeared at Darla’s elbow and was starting to blush rosily, “they’re working as entertainers.”

“Entertainers? As in strippers?” Buffy asked with a blink.

“No. They haven’t sunk quite that low. Yet. Darla sings torch songs in a bar and Drusilla gets all gussied up in sequins and abbreviated Lycra in one of those tacky chorus girl shows. They don’t really need the money; I think they’re just bored—which is dangerous,” Darla responded frankly, a note of concern creeping into her voice. “I’m starting to suspect that Darla’s plotting something, but I don’t have the vaguest idea what it is.”

“Drusilla in a chorus line. I’m trying to picture that and failing, which might be a good thing,” Buffy chuckled.

“I don’t think the job is going to last very long. She keeps forgetting the steps and crashing into the other girls,” Dru said almost apologetically.

For just one moment Buffy allowed herself to take a step back from all that was happening in order to fully appreciate just how weird being dead was turning out to be. She was about to comment on this to William when she realized with a start that he was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh, geez, I did it wrong, didn’t I?” the Slayer thought out loud.

“Hmm?” asked Darla in a semi-interested tone.

“William. I think I left him behind when we came here,” Buffy responded with a shake of her head. Alive, she’d never managed to get a driver’s license. Apparently, being dead hadn’t helped her ability to get people from one place to another.

“No, dearie, you did just fine. He just had to be somewhere else at the moment,” Drusilla said with a frown. “And I’m afraid it might be quite an important appointment he needed to keep.”

“You guys can sense where the others are?”

“Nope. Just Dru. She may be dead, but she’s still got that whole psychic thing going,” Darla answered as she scanned the crowd, apparently looking for someone. In another moment, her eyes locked on a figure across the room in the crowded bar where they stood. “There I am.”

Buffy turned in the direction of Darla’s gaze and caught sight of a blonde figure who was utterly identical to the spirit standing next to her except for her clothes. The other, obviously vampiric version, dressed in a skintight cocktail gown of champagne-colored satin, was standing on a small, raised stage about thirty feet away, wrapping up the final bars of Johnny Mercer’s “Stardust.” With a small nod of approval, the Slayer noted she didn’t have a bad voice.

“That’ll be the end of the set,” Darla said as she began to stride quickly across the room while her vampire self exited behind the excessively gaudy stage curtain. It wasn’t until now that Buffy noticed the other woman was actually walking directly through some of the living people in the room in order to get to where she was going. None of them seemed to notice.

“Just a normal part of being on this end of things,” Drusilla told her as she put a motherly arm around the other girl’s shoulders. “I know it’s a bit startling at first, but the living don’t feel us unless we want them to. Well, except for those who have the sight, but they’re quite rare. You’ll probably be able to sense them.”

Buffy gave herself a little shake and forced herself to try to accept just how different things had become in the last few hours. “So, where is Darla going?”

“She’ll try to influence the demon inside her body. I’m afraid she hasn’t had much success where that’s concerned, but she does keep trying. Was that why William suggested you come here, to see the connection between our soul-selves and our physical bodies?”

“I think so. You mean that Darla’s about to…” she broke off tentatively.

“I’m afraid so. It’s usually between sets,” Drusilla answered the unasked question. “Are you sure you feel up to this? It isn’t a very pleasant sight.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve rapidly become used to, it’s unpleasant sights,” Buffy declared with more determination than she actually felt. After all, she had no possible way of defending whomever Darla’s intended victim might be.

“All right, then. But you’d best move your level of vision first,” Drusilla suggested casually as she began to lead Buffy in the same direction Darla had taken, completely ignoring the presence of any humans or objects in her way.

“My what of what?” the blonde asked with a slightly weary sigh. Did being dead have to be so confusing all the time?

Drusilla stopped short. “William didn’t explain to you about the difference between the material world and the spirit world?”

“Oh, he did that. Taffy and everything. I get that. Well, mostly,” the Slayer told her. “It’s kind of complicated, though.”

“But he didn’t mention that you can see both of them, if you wish?” Drusilla asked with a little smile. Taffy? He had to be the strangest soul she’d ever met.

“No. He kind of left that part out.”

“Well, it’s quite easy. As you’re looking around now, you can see all the things that exist in the physical world, including human bodies. If you concentrate, you can switch your sight so that instead of seeing what the average human does, you can see the other side of things, rather like a seer.”

“I’ll be able to see everything’s soul?” Buffy said with a raised eyebrow.

Drusilla paused, considering. “Well, that’s roughly it. Go ahead and give it a try.”

Closing her eyes, she centered her mind on the idea of taking the wrapper off the taffy. Slowly, as though a veil were lifting over her mind’s eye, she became aware of a difference in her senses. When she slowly lifted her eyelids, she was both nearly dazzled and deeply confused by the strange pictures that greeted her.

Seven

Buffy’s eyes opened on a room that was strangely blurred. While she could tell that the objects in the bar were still there – the chairs, the tables, the floor and walls – it was as though a scrim of gray veiling had been rested over the surface of every thing in the room. Reasoning this out, the Slayer came to the conclusion that this was because things didn’t have souls.

The people present, on the other hand, were changed so much as to be unrecognizable. Features and forms were completely obscured, leaving a soft radiance in their place. Each one glowed with a depth and intensity of light all his or her own. No two were alike, yet there was something strangely similar between them all.

She glanced towards Drusilla, hoping for an explanation, and was startled to find not the dark-haired, blue-eyed woman but a brilliant glow of golden light. Glancing around the room once more, Buffy realized her companion was one of the brightest souls in the room, perhaps even the most dazzling of them all.

“You… you’re…” the Slayer started to stammer in wonder. “Wow.”

“Quite,” Drusilla voice said with a lilting chuckle. “But before you become too impressed with me, perhaps you’d best take a look at yourself.”

Buffy moved her hands in front of her face and was shocked to see blazing light, intense as…

“’It’s brighter than the fire,’ I believe she said,” Drusilla chuckled quietly. “But come now, we’d best see what Darla has been able to accomplish. I hope she’s had more luck than usual.”

The two followed the direction Darla had taken, Buffy still half-mesmerized by her new view of the world. In mere moments, they had passed through a stage door and out into an alley behind the casino, where a truly bizarre sight met their eyes.

Not one, but two struggles were taking place. The one that would have been obvious to mortal eyes was the vampire Darla pummeling a rather fat, greasy, flashily dressed middle-aged man. However, what would have been missed by the majority of humans was an even more surreal display than an attempted biting. Darla’s soul was glimmering just behind her vampire, repeatedly trying to pass through its body in much the same way that she would pass through a wall. But the vampire itself… Buffy shuddered. It was a dark gray form, devoid of the beauty present in the humans she had seen, although when she looked at it closely enough, it did have what appeared to be a single spark of light fluttering around the area where the heart must be.

Darla’s soul was uttering some decidedly non-mystical language as she was thrown out from the vampire’s form time and again.

“Let me in!” she shrieked angrily, and Buffy experienced yet another shock as she realized Darla was practically in tears. “That’s my body you’ve got, and I’m saying stop it!”

The single, firefly-like light in the vampire’s body drifted as close to the rest of itself, for the Slayer had already realized it was the part of Darla’s soul that had become trapped, as it could, straining desperately towards her.

It was too late. As Dru and Buffy looked on in helplessness, the vampire succeeded in draining the man. As the light began to separate from the victim’s body, Darla howled aloud in anguish, obviously experiencing the same pain that Drusilla had earlier. In a flash, both of the other females were at her side, attempting to comfort her. Suddenly, it no longer mattered that Buffy didn’t particularly like the other blonde. Darla’s suffering both terrified and saddened her.

As this was taking place, the light that had been inside the man’s form detached from the body completely, leaving an empty, gray-veiled object lying on the equally gray alley’s ground. Slowly, the disembodied light faded away, much as Buffy suspected her own had when she’d found herself in Limbo. The vampire turned to go, but was suddenly joined by yet another dark-gray form.

“That’s the other me,” Drusilla explained softly as she and Buffy continued to softly support Darla’s light with their own radiance. It was obvious the experience had drained her terribly.

The Slayer looked at the second vampire and immediately noticed a substantial difference between her and Darla. Instead of a single spark, Drusilla’s vampire retained a ball of light the size of a fist, but it crackled and sputtered strangely, sometimes growing slightly larger, sometimes dimming down to a mere candle flame.

“There’s more soul in yours,” Buffy remarked in puzzlement. “But it’s…”

“Flickering? That’s the insanity. I may not have it anymore, but since that piece of my soul is still inside a human body, it’s as broken as ever it was,” Drusilla murmured sadly. “I can’t even try to join with it like Darla does. Instead, I work through, well, an intermediary of sorts.”

“An inter-what-iary?”

“I have to try to approach my soul through another source. Since it can’t understand me on its own, I have to speak to it in a roundabout way.”

The Slayer was just about to ask what she meant when it dawned on her exactly what Drusilla was talking about.

Eight

“You talk to her through her doll, don’t you,” Buffy ventured tentatively.

“Yes. In a way, you could say that I am Miss Edith,” Drusilla said as Darla managed to support her own weight again. The experience of the feeding was still making her queasy and weak, but she was starting to recover. “Unfortunately, even that way, things turn out rather garbled. As often as not, when I tell her something she doesn’t want to hear, she just pouts that I’m ‘speaking out of turn’ and ignores me.”

The three souls were now leaving the alley and meandering down the Vegas Strip. It was quite an interesting trip, to say the least. Glitz was completely stripped away, and instead, all Buffy noticed were the lights of the human souls around her. After awhile, she became aware of yet another strange occurrence.

“Some of them are brighter than others,” the Slayer remarked as she studied the passing figures.

Darla nodded in response. “They’ve all got souls, but some of ‘em are stronger than others. It varies from minute to minute, too. Try looking at the scene over there with regular vision first.”

Concentrating once again, Buffy closed her eyes and opened them on a none-too-pretty view. A heavily made-up prostitute boldly flirted with a man in a business suit, a group of suspicious-looking teens hung around the entrance to one of the casinos, and a family of four strolled the sidewalk, eyeing their surroundings with distaste.

“What do you see?” the blonde asked Buffy quietly.

“Hooker. Probably a gang. Vacationers with ‘mug me’ practically tatooed on their foreheads,” she replied.

“Now try looking again, this time the next level up,” Darla suggested, a knowing smile crinkling her eyes.

Taking a moment to change her viewpoint, Buffy was stunned. The brightest soul on the sidewalk belonged to the prostitute. The others all had varying degrees of darkness, but the so-called “gang” seemed quite angelic compared to the benign-looking family’s mother.

“Not always the way you think it’s going to be, is it?” Darla murmured as she reached out a tendril of her own light and used it to gently caress the streetwalker’s aura in passing.

“No, I guess it isn’t,” the Slayer agreed quietly.

“I’m growing concerned about our William,” Drusilla suddenly interjected. “He’s been gone a terribly long time.”

“Have any idea what’s up with him, Dru?” Buffy asked, the nickname slipping off her tongue as though the two had been friends for ages.

“I have my suspicions. It most likely has to do with, well, the recent events in Sunnydale,” Drusilla tactfully suggested.

“You mean me dying? What would that have to do with William?”

“You know, for a kid who managed to survive a lot longer than most Slayers, you’re not too bright sometimes,” Darla said with a roll of her eyes. “Think for a second. What happened the last time Spike lost somebody he loved.”

“You mean when Drusilla left him? He got all gloomy and depressed and then he tried… to…” Her words drifted off as she remembered Willow telling her that the witch had walked in on Spike attempting to stake himself. “Oh, geez, you don’t think the bleached idiot would do something, well, idiotic?”

The other two females exchanged looks that did nothing to reassure her.

Locking eyes with Drusilla, Buffy half begged, half demanded “Where is he?”

“Giles’s home. But Buffy, I don’t think it would be wise for you to…”

The rest of Drusilla’s words were lost as the sheer force of Buffy’s will transported the three of them back to Sunnydale. When her hazel eyes opened, the first thing they beheld mystified her completely.

Nine

Buffy squinted at the scene before her and became even more confused. She was obviously in Giles’s living room, that much she could tell. But there only appeared to be one person present, and she’d never laid eyes on him before. Even more bizarre was the fact that Buffy was still viewing the world from the level of souls, and the man, instead of appearing as a bright light, looked perfectly normal. He was standing next to a bookcase, peering at the titles with an interested look on his face.

“What the…” Buffy began, speaking to Drusilla, who had appeared at her shoulder, but to her amazement, the man turned around at the sound of her voice.

“Hey! You gotta be Buffy, right?” the man asked as he grinned broadly and walked across the room, passing directly through the table.

“Uh, yeah, that would be me,” Buffy responded carefully, looking to the other two spirits for reassurance. Attempting a quick test, Buffy returned her vision momentarily to the physical level, and the stranger disappeared from her view completely. Whoever he was, a normal mortal wouldn’t be able to see him.

“He’s just a ghost,” Darla explained in a mildly bored voice. “They don’t look the same as us because they still feel more connected to the regular, humdrum, physical world than the next level up.”

“So, he’s not quite human, but he doesn’t want to be a spirit, so,” Buffy tried to follow the reasoning slowly.

“So I can hear everything you’re saying,” the man interrupted with a slightly annoyed tone. “I have stuff I still need to do down here, so I still look, for all intents and purposes, like a human to you.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude,” Buffy apologized. “Guess I’ve just gotten used to no one being able to hear me.”

“Ah, it’s okay. By the way, the name’s Dennis,” the ghost said as he stuck out his hand. The Slayer shook it uncertainly. “And you two other lovelies would be…?”

“I’m Drusilla and that’s Darla,” the brunette replied in a friendly voice, gesturing towards Darla, who had now taken up residence on the couch. “How is it that you happen to be here?”

“I room with Cordelia. She’s in town for the funeral with the rest of the L.A. crew,” Dennis told her.

“My condolences,” Buffy offered sympathetically.

“But you’re the one who died,” he said bemusedly.

“No, about you having to live with Cordelia.” Buffy smiled as he rolled his eyes comically. Suddenly, she remembered why they’d arrived in the first place.

“Where’s William?” she asked quickly, glancing around as though she expected to see the now familiar spirit perching on the kitchen counter.

“Upstairs, I believe,” Drusilla said quietly.

In a flash, Buffy whipped up the staircase only to run directly into a very weary William, his soul wonderfully bright, but seeming almost to sag somehow.

“You okay? ” she asked gently, resting her hand on his shoulder.

“Yes, I believe everything will be fine now,” he said in a tired voice.

“What are you doing here, though? I mean, weren’t you supposed to be with Spike?” Buffy questioned him.

“I brought him here. It was the best place for him. He’s asleep now, thank goodness, although it took long enough,” William said as he plodded wearily down the stairs.

Ten

“William! You look exhausted!” Drusilla cried as she rushed towards the other soul. Darla looked up from the couch and her face clouded.

“You got through, didn’t you?” the blonde asked in a tone that said she already knew the answer.

William nodded before suddenly collapsing to the floor. He appeared to be unconscious.

“We need to get him out of here. Now.” Darla’s tone brooked no contest.

In the span of a single human heartbeat, they found themselves in a decidedly masculine, comfortable, book lined study with beams of sunlight pouring through large bay windows that looked out upon a windswept moor. William’s frighteningly still form was draped over one of the soft couches upholstered in hunter green leather. Buffy knelt beside him, her features etched in concern.

“What’s happened to him?” she asked the other two women.

“Spike must be in real turmoil,” Drusilla replied as she gently sponged his forehead with a damp cloth. “Remember how I said that Darla and I attempt to influence our other selves?”

Buffy nodded.

“William has always had a more… direct link to Spike than either of us have to our old bodies. The connection between the two of them is very strong. When Spike used to feed…” Drusilla shuddered violently. “You remember how bad it was for Darla and me? It was about ten times worse for him. He’d barely get over the last time before the next one would hit.”

“But on the up side, he hasn’t had to deal with that for over a year now. And he’s always been able to reign in his other self better than Dru and I,” Darla explained as she massaged his feet. “Ever since the chip, the connection has grown, too.”

William’s eyes fluttered open briefly. He wrinkled his nose and burrowed into the cushions more deeply before turning his sky-blue gaze on the others.

“I swooned, didn’t I?” he said with a note of disgust.

“William, dearest, don’t berate yourself so,” Drusilla admonished him. “You did what needed to be done. Anyone would tire.”

He slowly pushed himself into a seated position and proceeded to drink from a large mug of hot chocolate that had spontaneously appeared. With a small pop, about a dozen miniature marshmallows were suddenly added as he sipped. William looked over the rim with surprise at Buffy, and she smiled warmly.

“My mom told me Spike liked them. I hoped you might, too.”

His eyes crinkled as he smiled wearily and set the half-emptied cup on a nearby table. “Yes, that does happen to be one of the things we have in common. I’ve always had a monstrous sweet tooth. Funnily enough, it meant I had rather poor teeth as a mortal… something Spike has never needed to worry about.”

“What happened down there?” Buffy asked quietly.

William sighed sadly and rubbed his head as though a migraine was stirring inside. “He was, indeed, contemplating ending his unlife. I believe he was planning on staying on your gravesite until sunrise. Some silly load of tosh about wanting to die with you. Honestly, all he was really doing was thinking of himself. So I made him think of someone else. Dawn.”

“She’s staying with Giles?”

“Yes. I managed to get him to go there. We’re both really quite devoted to your little sister. He’s sleeping on the floor in the hallway outside the door to her room. I don’t think I’ll need to worry about him doing something ridiculously insane again,” William said as a table appeared in front of him, practically groaning beneath the weight of a succulent roast turkey, steaming mashed potatoes with melting butter, a plate full of golden beef pasties, loaves of tantalizingly scented fresh bread, and a full compliment of china and silverware for four. It smelled downright heavenly, Buffy thought with a wry smile. “We never did get to enjoy our picnic before. Please, eat up.”

Until now, Buffy had completely forgotten her empty stomach. Now she realized she was, in fact, practically ravenous. The four of them dined pleasantly in the old-fashioned study, a warm fire crackling in the fireplace sending cheerful light dancing over the group. It was such a relief for Buffy not to worry about how much she was eating or fat or cholesterol. It was a completely guilt free dinner. At the close of the meal, William gave her a little smile and a huge slice of chocolate cake, dripping in hot fudge, smothered in vanilla ice cream, and topped with an enormous mound of whipped cream dotted with colored sprinkles, plopped directly in front of her.

“Don’t worry. You can’t get a stomach-ache,” Drusilla mock-whispered conspiratorially as she proceeded to delve into a large piece of apple pie while Darla busied herself with a mammoth bowl of cherries jubilee and William nibbled a stack of oatmeal raisin cookies.

“You know, this Limbo thing isn’t half bad,” Buffy remarked as she brought a fudge-loaded fork to her mouth.

After eating, she felt surprisingly energetic. There was no post-Thanksgiving Day dinner heaviness, just a general sense of having eaten well. The fire crackled merrily in the hearth, and she was pleased to see William was looking far better than before. Unfortunately, the quiet moment was broken abruptly when both Darla and Drusilla suddenly stood.

“I’m afraid we need to be leaving again,” Drusilla said quickly. “Please, don’t get up. We’ll return as soon as we can.”

“Are you sure?” Buffy began, but before the words finished leaving her mouth, the two spirits had vanished, leaving her with no idea where to find them again. This left William and her quite alone once more. On an impulse, she asked him the question that had been bothering her.

“William, it’s, you know, really great and all that you stopped Spike from killing himself, because he may be annoying but he’s kind of grown on me and I feel safer knowing Dawn has him to protect her, but wouldn’t it have been easier for you to just, sort of, let him go poof so that you can hitch the next ride out of here?” she managed to get out in one breath.

William looked a bit flummoxed, and, raking his fingers through his hair in a gesture she was beginning to recognize as signalling that the soul was feeling awkward, he began to sputter a reply.

“Darla has asked me that more times than I can count,” he began. “It’s just, well, Spike has a rather unusual opportunity. As do I. His demon has been muzzled very effectively by the chip, which means that…” He drifted off, trying to find the words.

Slowly, Buffy began to grasp what was happening. “Will, when I looked at the other Darla, she had a soul the size of Tinkerbell. Dru’s was bigger, maybe five times the size, although it looked like a strobe light it flickered so much. Just how much taffy got left in Spike’s wrapper?”

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