403 - Zygomancy - And If My Love Had Never Let Me Go - dragonypoenix - BtVS

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Title: And If My Love Had Never Let Me Go 6/15
Fandom: BtVS
Prompt: 403 - Zygomancy
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.








Whedonverse



Consciousness hurt. The sharp punch to Ethan's jaw had left a dull ache in its wake. The back of his head felt tender, telling him that nothing had broken his fall. Keeping his eyes closed, not moving more than he had to, Ethan felt and listened. There was wood below him, hard and unyielding, possibly one of the library chairs. He'd always hated the library chairs, awkward uncomfortable things. His arms had been pulled back behind him, tied together at the wrists. He tugged but the rope didn't move. He was bound to the chair then, quite tightly in fact.

There were no sounds, nothing to tell him if Rupert was still in the room, until something flew past his face, so close that he could feel the brush of air. He startled in place as it clattered behind him, sounding as if it had hit a table. “You are awake.” It was Rupert's voice. So much for scoping out the situation unnoticed. Ethan opened his eyes.

Rupert stood before him, about three feet away, this universe's Rupert, the clean shaven Rupert, although he looked, otherwise, enough like his own Rupert that it brought a pang to his heart. He stepped forward until he was towering over Ethan, standing so closely that Ethan could have touched him if he could have moved at all. Rupert reached a hand out, brushing his fingers through Ethan's shoulder length hair. Ethan half-expected him to tug at it, but Rupert's touch was gentle. “What's this? Grew your hair out with magic since yesterday? Is it supposed to make me wax nostalgic? Offer you clemency?”

Well, Rupert knew him, that much seemed to be certain, but this universe's Ethan and Rupert didn't seem to be on particularly good terms. On the other hand, Rupert was still brushing his hand through Ethan's locks. Perhaps there was enough chemistry between them to get him out of this. “Rupert, my hands are asleep. I don't suppose you could untie them?”

Rupert's hand tugged at his hair, pulling it sharply. Ethan didn't complain. It hurt far less than his jaw. So, that hadn't worked at all. “Won't people talk? I mean, here I am, bound to a chair in the middle of a high-school library.”

Rupert stepped back and glanced around the room as if he didn't see Ethan's point. Gods, what kind of a hell dimension had he landed in when leaving a man bound in plain sight didn't raise questions? Rupert's sudden grin reminded Ethan of Ripper, which was hardly surprising. Given the violence he'd already seen from this Rupert, he was much closer to Ripper than his own Rupert. “Then you'll have to convince them,” Rupert said, “that nothing untoward has happened.” Ethan stared back at him. “What's the matter, Ethan? Not up to it? Didn't you once tell me you could talk your way out of anything?”

Ethan recalled the words with a wince. Riper, upon first hearing them, had gone on a shopping – meaning stealing – spree that had landed them in trouble with a pair of coppers. Ethan hadn't talked his way out of that. Ripper had used his fists and then they'd run. “That wasn't me.” It was true, in a way. He'd never said the words to this Rupert.

“What game are you playing at?” Ethan almost let out a sigh of relief. There was that much similarity then. Rupert, even at his most Ripperish, could always be distracted by a puzzle.

“I'm not the Ethan you know. I've been pulled in from an alternate dimension.” Gods, this didn't sound convincing at all. “You noticed the difference yourself. You said something about my hair? I have to admit, it is odd, seeing you clean shaven.”

When he spoke, Rupert's tone was mocking but he brushed a hand over his chin. “I have a beard in your dimension?”

“A goatee actually.”

“You always did prefer ...” Rupert took two steps back. “No.”

“I don't know what happened between the two of you …” Ethan, feeling his way, trailed off there.

And that, apparently, had been the wrong thing to say. Rupert's jaw clenched. “And what did I, or he I suppose I should say, give up for you? His conscience? His moral code? Are you still calling down demons? Killing innocents? How many more have died since Randall?”

“Randall's dead?” Ethan fell back against the chair and winced as hid body pushed his wrists into the wood. Randall had been the best of them. Ethan's first friend after father's beatings had driven him out of the house. Ethan would never have survived the streets …

Ethan looked up, meaning to ask what had happened to Randall, but Rupert was raving as he paced across the room. “Never should have listened. You come here, again, and try to kill my Slayer, again.”

“Buffy? Is she alright?” The moment the words were out of his mouth, Ethan regretted his outburst. It drew Rupert's attention back to him.

Rupert's stillness was far more dreadful than anything Ethan had seen from him so far. “Did you honestly believe I'd fall for this charade? You can't pull off innocent, Ethan. You never could. You were born vile. The world would be better off.”

Ethan could hear the end of that sentence: without you in it. The compactness of the words were what frightened him. Rupert, swearing and ranting, was Rupert blowing off steam. This was nothing like that. “A spell,” he blurted out.

“What?”

At least that had distracted Rupert. “There has to be a spell to prove I'm from another dimension. We could to to my shop, search through my spell books.” No, wait. The shop had been empty.

“The same shop where you dedicated Buffy to Eyghon?”

“What?” Eyghon? Wasn't that a demon? It couldn't be. No matter how bad things had gotten, he wouldn't have. Rupert's fist was readying to strike. “No, please. You wouldn't hurt an innocent.” He didn't know that. Ethan spoke to his own Rupert, hoping this one was enough like him to hear.

“You were never innocent, Ethan.”

“One spell. What can it hurt? Please. I'm not the Ethan you know. I swear it.”

Rupert's arms folded up between them like a wall. “One spell. It's not worth the time I'd waste researching. You're lying, Ethan. You always lie.”

“Divination then, something quick. Bibliomancy. Let a book fall open. See what it says.” Rupert hadn't been far off with that talking his way out of anything comment. Ethan could put his own spin on the interpretation of anything Rupert read. Ethan glanced at what he could see of the bookshelves. Of course most of Rupert's texts related to demons, evil wizards, things that went bump in the night. “Or tarot cards. Or perhaps cleromancy. Toss a few coins. Zygomancy even.”

“Or oneiromancy?”

“Dreams would work.” Ethan said. Dreams would work very well. Surely someone would come along and free him, given enough time.

“I fancy osteomancy with a few very specific bones.” Rupert's hard stare suggested where those bones would come from. “Or perhaps hydromancy. Dump you, chair and all, into the ocean. If you sink, you're innocent.”

Gods, he was going to die and at Rupert's hand. “Please, Rupert.”

There was a sharp clap from behind him. A pause, deliberately timed to raise the tension, and then another clap. Rupert had gone white. Ethan inched his chair around until he could see.

Ethan saw himself standing at the top of the stairs. He, the other Ethan, was dressed more formally than his own more casual style, and his hair was short, so short it didn't even curl down to the neck. That haircut must be very easy to take care of. It was an idiotic thing to think, he knew it was an idiotic thing to think, but he couldn't quite handle this Ethan who was so obviously not himself.

“Very amusing.” Ethan heard his own voice coming from another throat. He saw his own grin plastered on another face, a face that was the twin to his own. Ethan knew what that grin felt like from the inside, but he'd never before understood why it had always put his Rupert on his guard. The other Ethan spoke again. “You honestly believed that pathetic tosser and I were the same man?”