404 - Besom - 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 7/15
Fandom: BtVS
Prompt: 404 - Besom
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

IALverse

The ER had emptied out by the time Jenny and Buffy returned. Jenny had no trouble spotting Xander, who jumped to his feet as they ran through the door, but didn't see either Rupert or Willow anywhere. “No Giles,” Buffy said. “Good news?”

Buffy didn't look surprised when Xander shook his head. “He's with Ethan. The doctors said there wasn't much time.”

“And all those books we carted over here earlier?” Buffy, who'd done most of the carrying, asked.

“Willow's going through them,” Xander replied. By the tone of his voice Jenny could tell that even Willow didn't think research would help at this point.

Buffy shifted the box she was carrying. “We'd better get this stuff up to Giles.”

Xander led the way up to the seventh floor. The nurse at the main desk looked up as they passed. “Visiting hours end at nine.”

Willow, surrounded by piles of ancient tomes, rose to her feet slowly when she saw them. “No change,” she said, almost apologetically, as if she thought it was her fault things weren't going better.

Only Buffy entered the room, dropping the box onto the table with a loud thud as the others crowded in the doorway. The rasps of Ethan's pained breaths seemed to echo across the room. His pale face against the white sheets and walls made Ethan look as if he might just fade away at any moment. Rupert, looking unusually dour in his dark tweed, provided a grounded focus, as if he were a rock or a clump of earth holding Ethan to the world by force of will. Rupert looked up but didn't move from Ethan's side. “Could you please see to it that I'm not disturbed?”

“On it,” Buffy replied. She and Xander took off in different directions down the hallway.

“I worked Fox's Scrying for Occult Influences at the shop,” Jenny told Rupert. “It wasn't completely conclusive, of course, given the presence of so many magical items, but the only energies I found were Ethan's.”

“Thank you,” Rupert replied. Jenny nodded. She had to give Rupert one thing: even with his lover dying, he hadn't lost his British reserve. Even as she had that thought, his head fell to the bed and his lips brushed against Ethan's hand, held in his own. The cry that tore out of his throat was more keening wail than any civilized sound.

Jenny pulled Willow away from the doorway. “Let's give him a moment.”

She waited until she heard him moving about the room before returning. Jenny would have let Rupert perform his rituals in peace but, based on the supplies he'd asked for, knew he'd need a partner for some of them. None of them would do any good, but Jenny rather figured Rupert already knew that.

Jenny and Willow watched as Rupert pulled a besom out of the box and started the cleansing by sweeping the broom against the walls of Ethan's room. Willow let out a squeak as the twigs left brown smears against the pristine white of the walls. “The color from the twigs anchors the spell into the walls,” she said, thinking that Willow had stayed because she was curious about the spell. “He's cleansing the room of external influences, of foreign magics.”

“But you said there weren't any.” Willow's voice was insistent, as if her words themselves could drive reality. “You found only Ethan's magic at the shop.”

“I said there probably weren't any. The test isn't completely conclusive. I could have missed something.”

“So, if whatever has Ethan in a coma was an attack, Giles' spell will block it and Ethan will be okay?”

Jenny glanced at Willow. The girl looked almost as pale as Ethan. Telling Willow the truth would worry her, unnecessarily since there wasn't anything the girl could do to change the situation, but Jenny had vowed never to lie to Willow about magic. Willow might be untrained at the moment, but she had too much power to be allowed to believe lies about how magic worked. “If it is an attack and it requires an influx of magic, then the spell could help Ethan, but most magical attacks are quick strikes, like a knife to the gullet. In those cases, blocking the magic after the attack is useless.”

“But Mr. Giles knows what he's doing. He's been studying magic all his life. One of his spells will help, right?”

Jenny couldn't bring herself to meet Willow's eyes. “Rupert isn't trying these spells because they'll work; he's trying these spells because he's desperate.”