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tamingthemuseFandom: BtVS
Prompt: 400 - Mahogany
Warnings: None
Rating: PG
Summary: Trekker wrote a series called In Another Life where Rupert went back to the Council but never broke up with Ethan. In the chapter “The Dark Age, Postscript”, Ethan is drawn into a universe where his and Rupert's relationship had ended. It was such a fascinating idea I couldn't help but play with it. This is a remix of that chapter.
Note: The story shifts between the two verses but headers are included to orient the reader.
Note: It's easier to read in AO3. LJ messes up my paragraphs.
Note: Aaargh, and now I'm kicking myself for not describing an in-house music warfare between Ethan and Beth where she would play Diana Ross' Theme from Mahogany just to annoy him. On the other hand, Beth is a very minor character and I really should be focusing on Rupert and Ethan's relationship. I would have just loved to work the song into the story.
Previous scenes:
In Another Life verse shifting over to Whedonverse
About a month-and-a-half after he and Rupert had moved to Sunnydale, Ethan had bought the local magic shop. He didn't need the money. The shop in London was doing quite well under Beth's management, but there wasn't much of anything for him to do in Sunnydale outside of helping Rupert with his Watcher duties and that involved far more getting hit on the head than Ethan could honestly get enthused about.
After Buffy had learned Angel was a vampire and had let him live, Rupert, disappointed with his Slayer, had grown quite excited about Ethan's new shop. He'd tried to convince Ethan to keep the old location, but Ethan knew Rupert's interest had more to do with the look of the place than any practical considerations. To put it bluntly, Rupert had been seduced by the mahogany of the stairs and bookshelves. Rupert, however, wasn't the one who'd be climbing up and down those stairs each and every day. In addition, in a town where vampires used underground tunnels to get about, Ethan didn't want to be anywhere near a basement that provided access to those selfsame tunnels. The location Ethan had selected was more heavily trafficked than the old magic shop. As with his shop in London, Ethan had named the shop after himself. He owned it after all. Why shouldn't his name be spelled out in gold letters on the window?
When the customers and inventory vanished around him, Ethan's first thought was that he should have listened to Rupert. The shop, in such a central location, had been to noticeable, had almost asked to be attacked. But it didn't look as if the shop had been attacked so much as abandoned and not so much abandoned as if it had been a completely different shop to begin with. The name was still the same but the hangers and mannequins, appearing as little more than detritus, suggested a different type of inventory. Clothing perhaps? The denizens of Sunnydale certainly could use a good influx of style but Ethan didn't see such a shop prospering here. Of course, based on the look of the place, it hadn't.
The first thing to do was work out what had happened. The easiest thing to do was check the date. All he had to do was step out of the shop, walk five feet to the closest newspaper kiosk, and check the date, which was the tenth of November. Well, time travel had been unlikely. In the storeroom behind the shop, Ethan found a few crystals and herbs, enough to put together a few spells which told him that whatever had been done, it wasn't a glamour. He was seeing the real world or a real world. An alternate universe made the most sense but in what kind of a universe would he have let his shop fail?
It hit him like a brick being slammed upside his head, a feeling he was all too familiar with from his misspent youth. Ethan found himself racing for the high-school before he could even put it into words. He would have let the shop go to hell only if Rupert had died.
