I have one story for you today. It’s a little… odd. Blame my flist, who when polled decided they wanted season 2, season 4, dragons, time travel and an apocalypse. Voila! *waves hands*
Title To Cancel Half a Line
Author Brutti ma buoni
Medium Fiction
Rating PG13 (there’s some filthy Spike-ish language, no other content of concern)
Characters/Pairing Spike and Buffy, with hints of Spike/Buffy, with appearances from Giles, Willow, Faith and Xander
Setting post-Becoming AU
Words 7400
Summary After the Apocalypse, Spike thinks about how things could have gone differently.
Genres Adventure, post-Apocalypse, Time Travel, AU, Pre-romance, perilously close to Gen
A/N I’d like to thank my valued collaborators, Omar Khayyám and Edward FitzGerald, for contributing the title. (Even if they were wrong about it.)
If William the Bloody hadn’t been in a wheelchair, the world would never have gone to hell. Or so he told himself, in the worst moments. Most nights were the worst moments. Days weren’t too clever, either.
Hell had turned out just as unfunny as Spike’d expected, with Angelus nancing around claiming to be King of Hell and Dru his Queen, ruling over their underworld domain in glory forever. The hell-demons took care of that little notion sharpish, of course. Took the demons a while to get sorted after Acathla, but they were fairly efficient when they’d really got a handle on their shiny new domain. They split the vamps from the humans soon enough, and put both groups to work on some namelessly hellish task. Spike assumed the groups were split so that the vamps didn’t just eat all the humans. Much more efficient this way. They even set up a blood factory, which fed the vamps and disposed of low-grade humans worn out by endless labour. (Odd, to find you could still die in hell. Spike assumed you just went to some other hell. He doubted it would be a good swap.) Angelus still had some nominal crown, but it was the hell-demons that ran shit. Not surprising, what with them being in hell, and all.
Not that the post-Acathla process had exactly been what Spike had guessed ‘sucking the world into hell’ would feel like. Was still the world he’d known, same towns and landmarks – maybe Acathla’s version of hell wasn’t big enough to swallow the whole of the Earth – but it was Earth with all the fun taken out of it. No beer, no footie, no peroxide (fuck knew what Spike looked like now; a poodle/scarecrow cross was his best guess, judging by judicious scalp fondling and the looks he got when anyone dared to stare in his direction). And the totalitarian hell-demon domination was pretty fucking depressing too.
Still, at least he had his legs back. Six months too late for any cunning plans, of course, but soon enough for him to make a break for it without being corralled into a demon factory. Hanging round Angelus’s court of pointless evil decadence was only marginally preferable to becoming vamp slave labour, and Spike had a hunch anyway that the courtiers wouldn’t last too long. The hell-demons would finally take over Angelus’s corner of hell, and though he was sure it’d be hilarious, Spike wasn’t sticking around to watch.
If you were cunning, and Spike certainly was that when he could be bothered, you slunk out of the way before the demons rounded you up into the labour camps. There was an underworld of such unidentified slobs, vamp, rogue demon, feral human, whatever, and so far hell was tolerating them, or ignoring them, or waiting to work the others to death perhaps before cracking down on the escapees. A world of fun, whichever interpretation you tried.
An underworld creates its own society, always. There’ll be top dogs and collaborators, the lower-than-low dying in gutters that make the pretty lowish types feel good about themselves. And there’ll be a furtive bloke who can point you to a big beefy man, good with his hands and with a reddish hue to his nose, who’ll – if you go about it right – tip you the wink and take you out back of his crib to the still. It’ll be rotgut moonshine poteen if you’re lucky, and sulphuric acid if you’re not. Mixed with blood, it’s still pretty tasty for Spike.
It was at one such place, run by Mack this time (or was it Rick or Phil?), that Spike looked up from filling his flask to let the next guy at the source of sweet oblivion. And met the startled eyes of Rupert Giles.
*
“Spike? Is it really you?”
Thing about surviving an Apocalypse in the underworld? Normal social mores go straight out the window. Spike was bloody glad of a familiar face, and so was the Watcher.
Ridiculous really. Spike wasn’t actually hungry just then, but he would be. Watcher should be more careful. Plus, last time they’d met, the Watcher’d been severely post-torture at vampire hands, despite Spike’s best efforts to preserve him and postpone Angelus’s effing stupid apocalypse from coming to fruition. So Giles’s pretty chirpy greeting was really fucking dumb.
But there were two ways Spike could play this. Firstly, hail fellow well met, oops you’re lunch. Had its attractions, that did. Spike didn’t get many square meals these days, and Rupert looked unusually well fed. Secondly, though, was more interesting. He could play along, and get an in with Giles. Because if the Watcher was eating right, he wasn’t a sewer rat like Spike’d become. He had a place, had a food source. More than likely had friends, possibly friends with weapons, because keeping a sweet well-fed nook clear of demon interest and desperate lowlifes was a job for more than one man.
Which meant, quite probably, the Slayer was alive. And if anyone could get them out of this literal hellhole, he’d bet it was blondie.
Spike barely had to think before he opted for box number two.
*
“So, you turned from Angelus?” Giles didn’t sound completely disbelieving. Well, he shouldn’t. He’d had a box seat to Spike’s ineffectual efforts to slow down the waking of Acathla. So Spike’s tale of lost love, bitter hatred and a wish to reverse Angelus’s stupid grandiose hell scheme was finding a just-about receptive audience.
Well, it was truth. Bloody uncomfortable thought, that. Honesty was vulnerability.
“…and I reckon you’re the first chance I’ve had since the big rock drew breath. Bet you an’ the Scooby Gang have some cunning wheeze going to undo this, get us out of hell on earth.”
Giles looked pinched, distant. Uh-oh. Something not right there. No wonder he’d been lurking round backstreet moonshiners if he was the only survivor of their little team.
“You did make it, you lot? Slayer’s still walking the world?” Bloody better be. Though if not, he could dine off Rupert for a week or so, gorging after months of famine. So there were upsides.
“Erm… Yes. Buffy is alive. So are… most of us. But I think you’ll be surprised by our situation. If you’re sincere in your wish to fight Angelus, we might perhaps discuss actions for the future. Some kind of shared… Yes. I’ll have to blindfold you, though. We don’t usually take in strangers, and most certainly not vampires.”
Sexy bondage fun with the Watcher wasn’t top of Spike’s list, but he acquiesced. There’d be time for treachery later if Plan B didn’t work out.
*
“Watcha got?” Spike didn’t recognise that voice. It was female, wary-bordering-aggressive, young. Hmm. Scoobies got some help, huh?
“An old enemy. But also an enemy of Angelus. I thought he might be of use.”
“Screw that. He’s a vamp. Gimme a stake.”
Which was Spike’s cue to drag off the blindfold and get into a fighting stance pretty bloody quick. His still-healing back swore at him for the speed, but what’s a guy supposed to do when there’s a staked-up Slayer in the house?
Because that was who she was, whatever the name she went by. Some new kid on the block, called by the killing of that little West Indies Slayer before her, he assumed (if not a couple of links further down the Slayer line – they must be fighting hard in hell, those destiny-bound kids). Dark and glowering, this example, a sultry mirror to little Buffy’s peppy blonde. In the interstices of fighting Slayer #2 for his life, Spike managed a quick flash of what a truly awesome threesome they’d make, if he could get the Slayers onside. Worth a shot? But she was a fast fighter, if a little sloppy, and he couldn’t think it through for long.
Things were starting to get seriously fun, and seriously scary, when Spike found himself hurled backwards by a small blonde fury, who headed straight for his opponent. “Giles, what the hell is Spike doing here? And should Faith be killing him?”
“Back the fuck off, B,” said the other Slayer, struggling in Buffy’s grip. “‘M killing a vamp. It’s what we do. Remember?”
And that was viciously meant, Spike saw. Not just a passing swipe, that was Faith talking about Angelus, and the vampire Buffy didn’t manage to kill.
His Slayer (he didn’t want Faith as his, ta very much, she looked like trouble) flinched, and almost loosed her grip, which could very well have meant Night Night for Spikey.
So he leaped to Buffy’s defence, for a confusing moment (the second time he’d done as much, though the first time he’d been in the wheelchair, and he hadn’t been leaping so much as snarking in Angelus’s general direction in the hopes of being distracting). “Oh, this Slayer’ll remember trying to kill me all right. Near cut me in half with a church roof, as I recall. But she’s not dumb enough to stake me without checking if maybe I could be useful first.”
Faith snorted, pretty much into Buffy’s face, which was mildly disgusting. “You wanna help? Right.”
“Yeah,” said William the Bloody, feeling every bit the fool he sounded. “I wanna save the world.”
*
Most of the Scoobies were alive. The little redhead and her boyf, who turned out to be a werewolf (which went some way to explaining why this hidey-hole didn’t attract more attention. Any sensible demon stayed clear of the wolves, even outside the moon nights.) The risible clown boy too, and his large-breasted girlie with the razor-sharp tongue. Plus Rupert, and some other defiant schoolkids who didn’t seem all that special.
But not, he noticed, Joyce Summers. Damn. That woman’s axe-technique could have been handy. Probably explained some of the Slayer’s low state, if her mum was dead.
Because Spike’s understanding of the dynamic in this place was: Faith the Vampire Slayer on top, everyone else second. She didn’t have a lot of time for Buffy’s Watcher, and her own Council tweed-head was never mentioned. What was mentioned, a whole lot, was how if Buffy had killed Angelus like she was supposed to, the world wouldn’t now need saving.
If Spike had been a charitable man, he’d have seen through Faith’s lipstick armour to the shaken child beneath. Nineteen, tops, and well fucked by life even before she was Chosen, he reckoned. Come to that, getting the call to sacred duty in the middle of the fucking Apocalypse couldn’t have been a picnic, and Faith’d survived long enough to fight her way from the East Coast to Sunnydale, seeking out the other Slayer and her gang. Only to find that they’d been on top of the bubbling Apocalypse and failed to shut it down. Must’ve been a bad night, that one, when she lost her last hope.
But Spike was neither charitable nor a man, so he mostly wished Faith would shut up, stop with the threats to his well-being, and let him and the grown-ups plot their way out of here.
Because Spike was famous for his subtlety and long-term plotting. Also, they’d chained him to the bed so he couldn’t even grab a snack.
Fuck.
*
“This stuff’s disgusting.”
His Slayer looked a little more alive today, mostly because she enjoyed putting him down. She looked down her tiny nose at him with a touch of her old confidence. “What? You thought we’d let you feed on humans while you’re here?”
No, he hadn’t. But then Spike hadn’t expected to be getting bed and breakfast out of the Scoobies. One quick plot, possibly a fight to the death, and then off back to his own life, in this hell or on Earth again, depending on outcomes. The idea he’d get chained to a bed for a bit while they thought about how to make use of him was new and unwelcome.
The good part, apart from perking up his Slayer a touch, was that they seemed to be thinking seriously about saving the world. Which was, apparently, also new.
“Drink your delicious cow’s blood. Fast. I’m not leaving you the mug, we don’t have enough china to waste it on you.”
“Well, that’s charming talk. And to think I’m making peace with my oldest enemies for the sake of saving the world.”
She shrugged. “We don’t have a plan. Just a vamp on the team, taking up space…”
“On the team, am I?” He gestured at the chains and the cracked mug she wouldn’t let him keep.
“We didn’t let Faith kill you. So I’d say yes.”
Girl had a point. And he was chained to a bed with bugger all to do, so he was entitled to a little nosy. “She the boss of you all, then? Seems like you’d be the senior partner in this setup.”
He wished he hadn’t spoken, though, because the perkiness drained from her at that. “I… I guess she is. She always knows what to do. And I… I kinda let her.”
Spike could picture that. This girl wasn’t the Slayer he’d first met, bubbling with confidence. Letting Angelus send the world to hell couldn’t have done a lot for her ego. Last thing he remembered was seeing her coming off second-best in the fight before Acathla. He was surprised she hadn’t died there, as a matter of fact, but that wasn’t going to cheer her up so he kept it quiet.
“So Faith came to town and saved you all?”
Shrug, again. “Pretty much. Her Watcher died, so she came looking for us, and we were holed up in the Library but that wasn’t working out. Too near the Hellmouth, and the demons kept on coming. So she found us this place, and we worked on the defences, and food and…”
Regular little survivalist compound they had here. He should have realised when he got a mugful of warm cow’s blood. They must be farming. Bloody miracle, that was, in the circs. “You good with animal husbandry then, love?”
She looked blank. Then, “Uh, no. There’s this secret government agency here. They were meant to be experimenting on demons, but now there’s not a lot of point, so they’re helping us protect people. And hiding. They have supplies, and livestock and…stuff.”
Scratch survivalist compound, think covert military facility. Right. Well, it sounded efficient, but also threatening to the wellbeing of a (usually) malignly-intentioned vampire. And he didn’t like the sound of experimentation on demons, either. Spike was mildly comforted that he was being held in what looked like a cave-slash-basement, with pretty basic chains. Nothing too government-experimental about that. He suspected no one had told these agency types that they’d captured a vamp for the good team.
Which was interesting.
“You get along okay with them? Lots of mutual trust and bonding?”
The look on her face was a lot more honest than her verbal, “Sure.”
Lot of bosses in this scenario, he’d bet. Blondie was feeling insecure, even with her confidence at a low ebb. She’d bow down to another Slayer while she lacked self-belief, but not to some faceless officialdom. Rift in the lute, and whatnot. Spike couldn’t immediately see how to use that, but he’d find a way. “Ta for the blood, love,” he added, slurping repellently at the dregs. Best not to let her think on how much she might have just revealed.
She made a face, grabbed the mug, and ran off.
*
Seemed like Madam Faith had nominated Buffy as the chief bringer of vampire foodstuffs, because Spike got a lot more chances to check out the Slayer situation in the next couple of days. He suspected it was a subtle power play (“You brought the damn vampire in, you feed him. He’s not just for Christmas, kids.”) But Buffy didn’t seem too bowed down by it and he was enjoying the service.
She was a gorgeous little thing, apart from all else, still lithe and moving like a fighter. Shame they didn’t seem to give her the chance to prove it much. There were the odd patrols, and the occasional human saved, but it seemed like the so-called “Initiative”‘s compound was little more than a survivalist place after all. The idea of saving the world apparently made the soldier boys snicker. It was a far cry from the Slayer setup he remembered, and he said as much to Rupert one day when Buffy didn’t do the blood run.
The Watcher nodded at him, forgetting to sneer for a moment. “I think we all lost confidence. And then Faith and the Initiative… they’re very determined, and very convincing, but neither of them has experience with the bigger picture. They think in terms of saving individual people, of keeping us alive. But I wonder how long that will last, especially if the hell-demons choose to focus on this place.”
“‘Bout twenty-four hours, I’d imagine. They’re strong, those buggers. Right now they’re just working the captives to death. But they’ll come for you in the end, and no mistake.”
“Quite. Which is why I was unexpectedly pleased to see you, when you came by and talked about actually saving the world. It felt… well, like something we should be doing.”
After that, it became semi-official. Giles would come by to talk strategy, sometimes Willow too, the wolf boy – Oz – and Xander at times. Occasionally Cordelia, always a treat for the senses. And Buffy. No one else was of the inner circle, it seemed. Funny, to find Spike in that company, but he fitted in. Because they were all thinking around the same problem. How in hell do you fight hell?
Plans came and went, impractical or futile. Prophecies of world saveage that relied on the world not already being in hell, for example, weren’t all that useful. Massed military attacks on hell-demon headquarters were all very well, but presuming there were others across the world it wouldn’t be more than a glorious death in the end, making a small point in favour of humanity.
Idly, Spike said one day, “Shame you’ve not got a witch on side. I know you can do a bit, Rupert, but this’ll take a sight more than book magic, won’t it?”
Willow looked startled. “But… I am a witch. Kinda. I mean… I was doing the spell for Angel’s soul, and it was working, I know it was… it just didn’t in time before…”
“You were working a soul curse? Fucking hell, woman! Why did nobody let that little nugget slip? Here I’ve been thinking we didn’t have real magic onside.”
Buffy looked doubtful. “Uh.. Will, I know you think you can… but you never actually….”
“But I felt the magicks. They were coming through me. So I could maybe… We could try some other stuff, right?”
There was a pause. The Watcher cleaned his glasses, and broke the silence. “It would be absurdly risky. But, frankly, what do we have to lose?”
*
The Watcher’s library was in shreds, but they’d preserved enough spellbooks to keep them covertly busy after that. Not that making magic in hell was easy. But then, who’d ever have thought it would be?
The first effort at a spell was just duff. The red witch got all lit up, drawing attention they really didn’t want from passing Initiative types, but once the making of transparent excuses was done, they were no further forward. She simply didn’t have the firepower to reverse Acathla’s hell-spell. Shouldn’t have been a shocker, she was just a kid who’d played with spellbooks and thought she could do the one great spell she’d been given. But could she really have re-ensouled Angelus? Doubtful.
So they thought again, and found a spell to kill an entire species of demon, whichever one you chose. Which wouldn’t quite fix the entire-world-in-hell thing, but hell without the hell-demons would be pretty bearable. Trouble was, the ingredients weren’t too easy to come by.
Pesky things, spell ingredients. Always need half-a-hundred of them, and rarely anything so simple as some human tears or the eyelash of a vampire (check, check, thanks very much Spike, oh don’t mention it, I enjoy making girls cry). Covert collecting wasn’t simple either, though Willow had let the Initiative boffins know she was experimenting with spellcasting so the basics like burba weed and fleur de nuit were readily forthcoming.
But still, a clear week into spell prep, and they were short a dragon’s scale and the root of a mandrake. Someone had to go out to the black market and get’em. Someone with deniability, should the Initiative start asking questions about reckless efforts to save the world and get noticed by the hell-demons. Someone, it turned out, like Spike.
He tried not to do a Snoopy dance of happiness when the Scoobies finally realized they’d have to let him out. Been locked in this cave for over a fortnight, and chained too. A mite depressing, even for a vampire of equable temperament. When they told off Buffy to be his guard, make sure he didn’t run off to kill humans with gay abandon or some such foolishness, his cup began to run over.
Just him and the Slayer, out on the town. Allies, for once. Oh yeah. William the Bloody: not your ordinary vampire. Spike could picture it perfectly.
“Oh,” she said, startled and sorry, dragging him back from his foolish dreams.
“What’s up, love?” Shouldn’t call her love. Seething enmity, really. Just, it came to mind and tongue more readily than the alternatives. He’d been a long time living with a woman, and endearments were warm things in a world lacking such luxuries.
He followed the direction of her troubled gaze. “Oh. Yeah.” She was looking at his wrists, where she’d freed him from sixteen days’ worth of restraints. They were a mess, all right, scraped and mortifying, hideous scabs on dead flesh. Hadn’t really seemed worth mentioning, since they didn’t have much choice but to keep him chained up. But she seemed oddly upset.
“I’m… Spike, I didn’t know it was that bad.” He enjoyed the remorse for a few seconds, but it didn’t sit right with either of them. Not how their relations should be, he thought.
So: banter. “Funny kid. Think nothing of dropping a church onto me and leaving me for dust in the flames, but get all teary about a few scratches. Some Slayer you are.”
Good job, Spike. Changed her attitude, reminded her of the mission, and got them out of the Initiative’s complex with a hint of her old stroppy spirit.
Fresh night air felt good, even with the hints of hell on the breeze. It was a strange walk they took, covert from any hell-demon spies that might be around, and suspicious as all-get-out of each other. She might be taking him out to slay him, after all, though he reckoned the chances were infinitesimal after all the co-plotting and the recent remorse. Still, she was a Slayer underneath it all. Someday, they’d fight again. So they kept a close eye on each other, as well as the surroundings.
The mandrake wasn’t too much hassle. Spike knew a guy who knew a demon who let you pick your own, so long as you brought your own obsidian, which they had. Dragon scales though… not so simple. A world shortage, seemed to be the consensus, though buggered if Spike could understand why, in the circs.
A long time later, in the deepest part of the night, they were trudging back towards the compound, failed warriors with only a poxy plant to show for the night. Then, up above, came the familiar leathery creak of wrongness. A reminder of the hell they inhabited.
“Slayer… ‘M pretty sure that’s a dragon.” Spike’s voice was oddly quiet. He should be used to dragons by now, guarding the hell-demons in their fell work. But somehow, living in a world of dragons had been the part about going to hell that freaked him out the most.
Buffy was looking upwards, eyes shining in the faintest reflected darklight. “Can you get his attention?”
“What? You’re not serious, Slayer.”
“Sure I am. You telling me you never Slayed a dragon?”
“Bloody right, I’m not.”
“Well, Sir William the Bloody, tonight’s gonna be your lucky night. We needed a dragon scale, we got ourselves a dragon. What could be better?” She threw him a pike from her pack, and a poleax for his spare hand. Fucking hell. She was serious. What’s more, she was glowing with it, moving with more purpose than he’d seen of late.
It was that, more than any sense that dragon-slaying was a sensible unlife choice for Spikes, that made him follow her. Dancing on the road, waving his arms and shouting, pretending drunkenness to hide his lurching fear. “Oi, lizard brain! Over here! Come and get me!” Not the flames, please not the flames. He wasn’t overly keen on frying alive, to be honest, even as a world-saving diversion.
But no, the dragon was following hell’s protocols, swooping low to check on what this aberration from the established order might be.
The Slayer leaped from cover and flung with venom – and got the right wing perfectly with a slicing lance. The dragon paused, teetered, all its terrible grace lost in a single cut. Hamstrung, the useless wing slumped, and the beast fell to earth.
This was the danger moment, just the two of them and the dragon, up close and drawing the in-breath that would immolate them. But they were fucking good fighters, Spike and his Slayer, and they danced and wove, fast and confusing enough that the lizard couldn’t draw a bead on them as they jabbed and hacked and saw its strength ebb.
It was Spike who got the chance first, and leaped onto the dragon’s neck. Buffy moved off, deliberately distracting, as Spike fought to a suitable vantage point and, finally, drove the poleax through the dragon’s eye. It thrashed, belched flame, and died.
No time for celebration, not really. A fallen dragon would draw hell-demons faster than they could run. But there was still a perfect second of victory, arms aloft, grinning at each other over the beast’s smoking skull. Who Slayed the dragon? We did. We fucking did it. You amazing fucking girl, I never thought I’d get to do that, and you didn’t even blink.
Didn’t say it, of course. Not sensible, and it was a thought Spike wanted to take somewhere private to examine. Him and Buffy. Huh.
The way she’d looked back at him, now. That was the kind of look that got a vamp to thinking.
*
Originally posted at https://seasonal-spuffy.dreamwidth.org/317276.html
