Title: Don't feed the plants. 3/9
Author: Pythia
Disclaimer: I don't own any of them - Buffy and the gang belong to Joss, and
Audrey-II was originally cultivated by Roger Corman before being set to
music by Howard Ashman.
He can't have been unconscious all that long. No more than a few minutes, really. But it was long enough for his assailant to drag him deeper into the greenhouse, to tug off his jacket, slash at the seams of his trousers, rip open his shirt, lash his hands together with garden twine and then to hook those bonds over a piece of the overhead racking, lifting him up so that when he awoke it was to find himself dangling helplessly, a good foot or more above the floor.
Everything hurt. His glasses were missing and so, for some reason, were his shoes. There was a tight band of pain around both his wrists, his shoulders felt half wrenched from their sockets and his head was pounding mercilessly. There seemed to be blood trickling down the side of his face. He could feel it trickling elsewhere too, little runnels of it tracking down scored skin; it painted his breastbone, ran dribbling from thigh to knee, and was creeping down from his knees until it dripped from his toes. His captor was encouraging the next such cascade when he woke, clawing a pattern of deep lines from his shoulder to the base of his spine.
He probably should have feigned continued unconsciousness, but the fiery scrape of what felt like rusty metal points across his back was enough to spur an involuntary spasm, his body protesting the assault almost before he'd registered it.
"Bloody hell," Giles hissed, biting back a gasp of agony as the shift of his weight twisted the bindings around his wrists. The narrow twine was already cutting deep; another line of blood joined the rest of his open wounds, oozing out to slowly slide its way down his arm and drip from his elbow.
"Oh God," he heard a matching exclamation echo from behind him. "You're awake. You're not supposed to be awake. He's awake," the young man's voice called, addressing someone else, someone Giles couldn't immediately see.
He could hear them though. Could hear the response to that uncertain cry, drift back from the echoing heart of the hot house, in tones of deepest, determined confidence.
"I don't care *what* he's doing, so long as he bleeds. Feed me!"
The traipse down the now-empty corridors and across the school yard seemed much longer on the way back. It looked as if the cheerleaders had finally gone home, leaving the school echoing with weighted silences. Willow seemed to remember flying most of what now seemed an interminable distance, encouraged by unwanted images of dried blood tracked across the floor. The scuttle of large spiders and the rustle of what might have been rats in the shadows as she'd left the annex had added their own sense of impetus to her flight.
She wasn't proud of her rush, no matter how quickly it might have spilled her into the library and into Buffy's confident presence. The darkened, abandoned building had creeped her out, and she knew it - but that didn't excuse the haste with which she'd left Giles' side, the fluttering gratitude of her heart when he'd sent her in search of assistance.
Because now she was trudging back, her mind was wrestling with all the dire things that might have happened to him since she left him alone - and if they *had* happened to him she'd never forgive herself.
Buffy didn't seem too worried though, striding ahead with the axe resting on her shoulder. Angel stalked at her side, his expression a mixture of anxious and grim - a good look for a brooding vampire, and a bad look for anything nasty that decided to jump out at them from the shadows. Xander was scowling at him, which was something that Xander did when he thought nobody was watching him. Willow wasn't exactly watching him, but she caught the look, all the same.
It bothered her a little.
Okay, not so much because of the 'he's a vampire and we can't trust him' stuff, but more because Xander's attention was focused on Buffy and he didn't seem to be noticing anything else. She'd have *liked* him to notice her - except that she was glad he didn't, because she wasn't sure she could cope if he did. But a girl could dream - just as she could sigh happily, watching a much older man stack books and expound on subjects both exotic and esoteric, engaging her in intellectual and adult conversation.
She *liked* Giles. And she hadn't liked leaving him, no matter how confident and commanding he'd been. The shuttered, musty air in the annex had felt wrong the moment she'd walked into it, and the moment she'd seen the trail of blood she'd known there would be something very nasty waiting at the end of it.
"I hope he's all right," she muttered, drawing Xander's attention away from the Slayer and her determined stride.
"The Library Man?" He grinned, goofily. "He's fine, Will. Probably lurking in a dark corner somewhere, watching the bad guys and taking notes. Bet he'll even ask questions, later."
"You think?"
"Yeah." Xander gave her an curious look. "You're really worried about him, aren't you. You only left him - what? Ten minutes ago? How much trouble could he get himself into in ten minutes?"
"*Feed* me," the voice insisted, a deep, velvet sound punctuated by a note of petulance.
"Okay, okay," the young man agreed, his own voice strained and sounding harassed. He stepped into the light, finally giving Giles a chance to get a look at him. A somewhat fuzzy look, given the loss of his glasses and the blurring of vision from what was undoubtedly a concussion.
He was beginning to recognise the symptoms by now.
"Simon?" he questioned, blinking to get a better look. "Simon Kellman?" Kellman was one of the students who'd been reported missing - a good student by all accounting. One of the few who made regular visits to the library.
"Uh - " the young man froze, wincing at the sound of his name. "Yeah. Umm ." He turned and looked up at his captive, a decidedly apologetic expression on his face. "Look, Mr Giles, I'm . I'm *really* sorry about this, okay? 'Cause if I *wanted* to do this to anyone, it wouldn't be you. You're okay. As . teachers go. But - you walked in here, and you saw, and . it's hungry, It's always hungry. If I don't . feed it, it'll eat *me*. And I don't want to be ." Kellman broke off mid thought, grimacing with a mixture of frustration and guilt.
"It was going to be the best thing ever. *Ever,*" he repeated with a note of pain. "I found it and I planted it, and it just grew and grew. And then they closed the building and I had to start sneaking in to take care of it. I gave it plenty of plant food and I watered it well. I used potash. I added extra sunshine - see how I fixed up the lights?" He waved his hand at the scaffolding above the plant, indicating the six big arc lights that hung around the humid space. "I gave it fresh dirt every day. I even dug some up from the cemetery because they grow the best roses, you know? I did all that, and it's driving me crazy. It ate all the rats, and then it ate my dog and it's still hungry." His expression was strained, haunted in a way that almost made Giles feel sorry for him. Almost. The sensation of deep screaming scratches burning into his skin and the slowly numbing pain in his hands and arms somewhat dampened his surge of sympathy.
"Just - l-let me down, Simon," he suggested as calmly as he could. "And we can talk about this."
"*Feed me, Simon! Feed me now!*"
The cry was a demanding, almost angry scream; the vines that draped the greenhouse interior shook and rustled, writhing with almost animal motion. Kellman quivered, tightening his grip on the rusty fork in his hand.
"I can't," he whispered. "I can't. I gave it Orin, because . because he hit Aubrie, only .. Only Frank saw, so I had to give it Frank, and . now you came here looking and I - I have to. Only . only - I thought I hit you hard enough, so you wouldn't know and ."
"**Feed me!**"
It wasn't a demand, it was a command. The young man closed his eyes for a moment and Giles' heart sank, realising that any chance he might have had of reaching him was lost. The boy had just admitted to two murders - and while he might regret a third, he obviously felt driven to commit it. Clearly, reason and rational argument would have little influence on a mind caught and enthralled by . by whatever it was that lay at the centre of the hothouse.
"Sorry," Simon said, lifting the fork - and raking it savagely across the captive Watcher's stomach. "I'm really, really sorry ."
Giles didn't really hear the apology. He was too busy fighting the pain. He'd hastily sucked in his gut as the weapon slashed in his direction, but even so the wounds the tines left behind were deep enough to start spilling blood almost immediately. The movement had wrenched at his arms and driven the twine even deeper into his wrists; for one hopeful moment, he thought he'd been about to black out again.
No such luck: while nausea had flared and the fire in his skull had pulsed with white hot intensity, both sensations had quickly subsided again, leaving him limp and shaking from head to toe. This was not good. Nor was the way his blood was running down his skin, soaking into tattered fabrics and dripping in thick fat pendulous drips onto the leaf and vine covered floor.
He was in serious trouble, and he knew it.
"Simon," he tried, a last desperate appeal for mercy that the young man studiously ignored. "Y-you don't want to do this. You don't have to do this." Kellman was busy unhitching the ropes that worked the overhead racking, setting the mechanism into motion. "I'm sure we can talk - " Giles' words became a gasp of pain as the racking shifted, the jerky movement wrenching at his arms and twisting the twine even deeper into his skin. He glanced up in alarm as the section from which he was hanging started to move up and across, lifting him further from the ground and deeper into the glass enclosed space. He rose several feet into the air, swinging like a lump of meat, while his blood splattered down, painting the vegetation below him with splashes of scarlet
The green and purple coloured mass that lay at the heart of the hothouse stirred. Unfolded.
*Blossomed.*
And became a yawning mouth - one with a deep purple maw and a row of jagged, splintery teeth.
"Oh, baby," the nightmare flower declared, licking at its fleshy lips with a slimy stamen tongue. "Come to *momma*. It's *suppertime .*"