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tamingthemuseTitle: And If My Love Had Never Let Me Go 11/15
Fandom: BtVS, The Unwritten
Prompt: 408 - Demonomania
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.
“The doctors say it’s a matter of hours.”
Ethan’s face, limited to the mirror they’d laid down for scrying, looked small but even with that Xander could see Giles’ words had hit him hard. Ethan was in a coma here in this dimension but also running around in another dimension. It wasn’t completely clear but from the way the magic users were reacting if Ethan died here he’d also die there, but apparently there’d been nothing over there to tell him he was dying. It was weird, weirder than usual.
“What have you tried?” Ethan asked. He sounded so much like himself that Xander glanced to the bed. Nope, still in a big old coma. Damn.
Giles rattled off a bunch of spells. “There’s nothing else I can think of, love. You’ll have to find a way to return to me.” Xander looked away. He’d never seen Giles cry before.
Ethan’s hand moved forward as if he was trying to reach through the mirror. Giles reached out as well. The room flashed so brightly that Xander had to blink his vision back. Buffy was the first to recover. “What was that?” he heard her say.
The hospital room was dark as in no lights. Based on what Xander could see out the window, the lights were out all over town. Sunset, the perfect time for a power outage.
“Was it the spell?” Willow asked. “When you two reached out, did that trigger something?”
Giles looked up from the mirror, which was just a mirror now, no images from another dimension, and threw himself across the room to the bed. “Ethan? Ethan, are you here?” Ethan didn’t move.
“I think it was a different spell,” Miss Calendar said. “Not one of ours. It’s drained both electricity and magic.”
There was a voice. It seemed to come from out the window but Xander could hear it perfectly, which didn’t make sense. They were in the hospital and up on the seventh floor. He shouldn’t be able to hear what he was hearing. “You thought I was dead, Tommy Taylor. But you should have known Ambrosio always finds a way. A tunnel that leads back into the daylight.”
“Please tell me no one else heard that,” Xander said. “On second thought, don’t. I don’t want to be the only one who heard that.”
“Don’t worry,” Miss Calendar said. “I heard it too.” It wasn’t as comforting as he’d hoped.
Willow stepped over to the window. “Demon?” Buffy asked.
“It’s a man, or at least he looks like a man, but his skin is awfully pale.”
Buffy pulled out a stake. “On it.”
Giles didn’t move from Ethan’s side but he did ask, “Do you need me?”
Buffy stopped and turned back to Giles. “Always. But Ethan needs you more. Stay here. Get that mirror thing working again. Get Ethan back.”
“Actually,” Miss Calendar started to say. Buffy grabbed her and pulled her out the door.
“You don’t need me for the scrying, right?” Xander asked. “I’m just gonna …” He gestured toward the door.
“Go,” Giles said. “Backup Buffy.”
Out in the hall Miss Calendar was telling Buffy that the scrying wouldn’t work. “There’s no magic.”
“Because that other spell ate all the magic?” Buffy asked, sounding doubtful.
“Close enough.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Buffy said. “Giles needs to feel useful. Stay with him. I don’t care what it takes but make him think he’s helping Ethan.”
Miss Calendar nodded. “Of course.”
“I’m coming with you,” Xander told Buffy before she could get him doing busywork too.
“And me,” Willow said stepping through the door.
“Fine,” Buffy agreed. “Let’s go.”
By the time they made it to the parking lot the almost certainly a vampire guy wasn’t alone. There was a crowd standing about, almost blocking the entrance. Willow sidled up to one of the doctors. “So, what’s going on?”
A nurse answered first. “It’s Director Chabon, the prison warden. They say he killed a man.”
“Wait,” Buffy said. “When did Sunnydale get a prison?”
“Demonomania,” the doctor muttered. “Fascinating.”
“Demon o what?” Xander asked.
“It’s a monomania,” Willow said as if that explained anything. “A psychological disease. It means he thinks he’s a demon.”
The man, definitely a vamp, raised his arms over his head. His coat spread out like bat wings behind him. “When did he get a jacket?” Willow asked. He rose straight up into the air. “Oh,” Willow added. “Less of a mania and more of an actual demon.”
The vamp spun slowly in mid-air until he was facing them. “Sue Sparrow,” he said, looking straight at Willow. “And Peter Price,” he added as he saw Xander. “Can Tommy Taylor be far behind?”
Xander usually felt a bit girly when Buffy stepped between him and danger, but this time he was okay with it, completely and totally okay. “I don’t know who you are,” she told the vampire, “but you came to the wrong town on the wrong night.”
“Come not between Ambrosio and his prey, mortal one, lest he batten on thee instead.” Oh, this wasn’t good. Guys who used weird, old language were always trouble.
Buffy didn’t take her eyes off the vamp. “Willow, Xander, get these people out of here.”
Willow scattered herbs out of her magic ready pack and chanted a few words that would usually raise smoke. Nothing happened. “Oh, right, no magic.” She sounded a bit lost and they still had to get everyone out of the parking lot. Xander ran for the entrance, screaming about a gun, hoping to start a bit of a panic. People shrieked and raced after, almost trampling over him before he ducked into the stairwell to wait for the rush to pass. By the time he made it back to the parking lot, the vampire was flying straight at Buffy.
She ducked and struck up with the stake. The vampire flew on past. “Damn. Missed.”
The vampire turned, impossibly fast, faster than anything Xander had ever seen, and grabbed Buffy. “So. We spill each other’s blood. This is right. This is holy. And now it is my turn.”
Fangs pierced Buffy’s neck but the vampire looked up as Willow shrieked out Buffy’s name. “Sparrow,” the vampire hissed. “Do not fly off. You’re next.” Xander grabbed at a trash bin but it was bolted to the sidewalk.
An older man appeared almost out of nowhere. By his clothes and demeanor, he could have been a businessman out for a casual stroll by the hospital but he addressed the vampire. “I think this is a really bad idea, Mr. Chadron. Don’t you?”
The vampire dropped Buffy, ignoring her as he hissed at the man. “Taylor.”
“That’s Tommy Taylor?” Buffy yelled. “That’s your nemesis?” She grabbed the stake out of his chest and hit it home. The vampire fell into a pile of dust.
“Well, that was different,” Taylor said.
“So, you’re Tommy Taylor?” Buffy asked. “What would a vampire want with you?”
Taylor’s grin was almost as creepy as the vampire had been. “Hardly.” He started walking toward the hospital, not to the door but toward a wall.
“Hey,” Buffy called out. “What was that with the floating vampire business?”
“Nothing for you to worry about, little girl.”
And that was the wrong thing to say. Buffy threw him against the wall. He tried to fight her off and seemed surprised when he couldn’t. “This is bigger than you know. Stay out of it.”
“Seems like I’m already in it.”
“Buffy, look out,” Willow shouted. “There’s something in his hand.” Xander caught sight of it, something that glittered? He wasn’t sure what it was but a stream of light spread up and down from where Taylor had struck it into the wall and then around until it formed the shape of a door. Taylor stepped through but Buffy wasn’t letting go. Willow ran forward, grabbed Buffy’s hand, and vanished through the door with them.
Xander ran after, catching a glimpse of prison bars before the doorway vanished. “Hey,” he shouted, pounding at the bricks, “give my friends back.” Stepping away from the building, he shouted, “Dammit Willow, I thought magic wasn’t working.” Maybe her magic would working wherever she ended up. He hoped so. He didn’t know how to get them back otherwise. Xander looked up in the general direction of Ethan’s room. Giles would be in no shape to deal with this given that Ethan was both in a coma and missing. Xander sighed. Giles would come through. Giles always did.
Xander had taken one step toward the hospital when something started glowing behind him. He turned and saw a big hole, larger and squarer than the doorway, in mid-air, about eight feet off the ground. “Oh thank God.” Three figures fell through and hit the ground: two men and a woman. Not Willow and Buffy. Not Willow and Buffy at all.
One of the guys, dark-haired, picked up a map that had come through with them. “Where are we Lizzy?”
She looked around although there wasn’t much to see, just the hospital and a town with no lights. “Sorry, Tommy. I don’t know.”
Tommy? “You’re Tommy Taylor?” Xander asked. The other guy, the one with the funky beard that was worse than Giles’ goatee even, rolled his eyes. Okay, Xander had tried being polite. “You’re the guy that vampire was looking for?”
That got their attention. “Vampire?” funky beard guy asked.
“Yeah,” Xander agreed. “Pale skin, no hair, dark clothes. Oh, and here’s something funny. He could fly.”
“Wait,” Lizzy said, “his being a vampire doesn’t bother you but his flying does?”
“Ambrosio,” funky beard guy almost growled the name. Apparently he wasn’t a big fan of vampires. Good, Xander wasn’t either.
“I go by Tom,” the dark-haired guy offered.
“So you are Tommy, um, Tom Taylor? Because that other guy, who was also a Taylor if you believe the vampire but then again who believes vampires untrustworthy creatures that they are, said he wasn’t.”
It took them a moment to catch up. “Wilson Taylor was here?” Lizzy asked.
Xander shrugged. “I suppose. He didn’t give his first name. Actually he didn’t give his last name either. Got that from the vamp.”
“You couldn’t tell that he was Wilson Taylor?” funky beard guy asked.
“Who’s Wilson Taylor?”
The three of them glanced at each other but Tom replied. “My Dad.”
Xander wasn’t sure why they thought he’d recognize some guy’s father but didn’t ask. He had more important concerns. “Um, okay. Look, he made some sort of big glowy door, sort of like the one you came through, and my friends fell through with him.”
And there went the glancing at each other again. Great, it probably meant Willow and Buffy were in a bad place, not that he was surprised. “Did you see where the door came out?” Lizzy asked.
“I did,” Xander said, “but I’m not telling unless you agree to take me with you.”
“You’re just a kid,” Tom said.
“I’ve been fighting vampires for two years. I don’t care how young I am. My friends went through that door and I’m going with you to find them.”
“I guess we were all kids once.” Tom stared at Lizzy for a moment. “Okay,” he told Xander, “but we’re going now.”
The sooner the better. “It was a prison.”
“Roncevaux do you think?” Lizzy asked.
“Worth a try,” Tom replied.
“What would he be doing there?” beard guy asked.
“Let’s find out.” Tom threw the map onto the ground, put his hand down onto it and mumbled something Xander didn’t catch. A big hole, much like the one they’d fell through to get here, appeared on the map. “You still coming?” Tom asked.
Xander looked up again toward Ethan’s room. Giles had said there wasn’t anything they could do to help Ethan from here. Maybe if he stepped through the hole he could help Willow and Buffy. “Let’s go.”
Fandom: BtVS, The Unwritten
Prompt: 408 - Demonomania
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.
IALverse
“The doctors say it’s a matter of hours.”
Ethan’s face, limited to the mirror they’d laid down for scrying, looked small but even with that Xander could see Giles’ words had hit him hard. Ethan was in a coma here in this dimension but also running around in another dimension. It wasn’t completely clear but from the way the magic users were reacting if Ethan died here he’d also die there, but apparently there’d been nothing over there to tell him he was dying. It was weird, weirder than usual.
“What have you tried?” Ethan asked. He sounded so much like himself that Xander glanced to the bed. Nope, still in a big old coma. Damn.
Giles rattled off a bunch of spells. “There’s nothing else I can think of, love. You’ll have to find a way to return to me.” Xander looked away. He’d never seen Giles cry before.
Ethan’s hand moved forward as if he was trying to reach through the mirror. Giles reached out as well. The room flashed so brightly that Xander had to blink his vision back. Buffy was the first to recover. “What was that?” he heard her say.
The hospital room was dark as in no lights. Based on what Xander could see out the window, the lights were out all over town. Sunset, the perfect time for a power outage.
“Was it the spell?” Willow asked. “When you two reached out, did that trigger something?”
Giles looked up from the mirror, which was just a mirror now, no images from another dimension, and threw himself across the room to the bed. “Ethan? Ethan, are you here?” Ethan didn’t move.
“I think it was a different spell,” Miss Calendar said. “Not one of ours. It’s drained both electricity and magic.”
There was a voice. It seemed to come from out the window but Xander could hear it perfectly, which didn’t make sense. They were in the hospital and up on the seventh floor. He shouldn’t be able to hear what he was hearing. “You thought I was dead, Tommy Taylor. But you should have known Ambrosio always finds a way. A tunnel that leads back into the daylight.”
“Please tell me no one else heard that,” Xander said. “On second thought, don’t. I don’t want to be the only one who heard that.”
“Don’t worry,” Miss Calendar said. “I heard it too.” It wasn’t as comforting as he’d hoped.
Willow stepped over to the window. “Demon?” Buffy asked.
“It’s a man, or at least he looks like a man, but his skin is awfully pale.”
Buffy pulled out a stake. “On it.”
Giles didn’t move from Ethan’s side but he did ask, “Do you need me?”
Buffy stopped and turned back to Giles. “Always. But Ethan needs you more. Stay here. Get that mirror thing working again. Get Ethan back.”
“Actually,” Miss Calendar started to say. Buffy grabbed her and pulled her out the door.
“You don’t need me for the scrying, right?” Xander asked. “I’m just gonna …” He gestured toward the door.
“Go,” Giles said. “Backup Buffy.”
Out in the hall Miss Calendar was telling Buffy that the scrying wouldn’t work. “There’s no magic.”
“Because that other spell ate all the magic?” Buffy asked, sounding doubtful.
“Close enough.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Buffy said. “Giles needs to feel useful. Stay with him. I don’t care what it takes but make him think he’s helping Ethan.”
Miss Calendar nodded. “Of course.”
“I’m coming with you,” Xander told Buffy before she could get him doing busywork too.
“And me,” Willow said stepping through the door.
“Fine,” Buffy agreed. “Let’s go.”
By the time they made it to the parking lot the almost certainly a vampire guy wasn’t alone. There was a crowd standing about, almost blocking the entrance. Willow sidled up to one of the doctors. “So, what’s going on?”
A nurse answered first. “It’s Director Chabon, the prison warden. They say he killed a man.”
“Wait,” Buffy said. “When did Sunnydale get a prison?”
“Demonomania,” the doctor muttered. “Fascinating.”
“Demon o what?” Xander asked.
“It’s a monomania,” Willow said as if that explained anything. “A psychological disease. It means he thinks he’s a demon.”
The man, definitely a vamp, raised his arms over his head. His coat spread out like bat wings behind him. “When did he get a jacket?” Willow asked. He rose straight up into the air. “Oh,” Willow added. “Less of a mania and more of an actual demon.”
The vamp spun slowly in mid-air until he was facing them. “Sue Sparrow,” he said, looking straight at Willow. “And Peter Price,” he added as he saw Xander. “Can Tommy Taylor be far behind?”
Xander usually felt a bit girly when Buffy stepped between him and danger, but this time he was okay with it, completely and totally okay. “I don’t know who you are,” she told the vampire, “but you came to the wrong town on the wrong night.”
“Come not between Ambrosio and his prey, mortal one, lest he batten on thee instead.” Oh, this wasn’t good. Guys who used weird, old language were always trouble.
Buffy didn’t take her eyes off the vamp. “Willow, Xander, get these people out of here.”
Willow scattered herbs out of her magic ready pack and chanted a few words that would usually raise smoke. Nothing happened. “Oh, right, no magic.” She sounded a bit lost and they still had to get everyone out of the parking lot. Xander ran for the entrance, screaming about a gun, hoping to start a bit of a panic. People shrieked and raced after, almost trampling over him before he ducked into the stairwell to wait for the rush to pass. By the time he made it back to the parking lot, the vampire was flying straight at Buffy.
She ducked and struck up with the stake. The vampire flew on past. “Damn. Missed.”
The vampire turned, impossibly fast, faster than anything Xander had ever seen, and grabbed Buffy. “So. We spill each other’s blood. This is right. This is holy. And now it is my turn.”
Fangs pierced Buffy’s neck but the vampire looked up as Willow shrieked out Buffy’s name. “Sparrow,” the vampire hissed. “Do not fly off. You’re next.” Xander grabbed at a trash bin but it was bolted to the sidewalk.
An older man appeared almost out of nowhere. By his clothes and demeanor, he could have been a businessman out for a casual stroll by the hospital but he addressed the vampire. “I think this is a really bad idea, Mr. Chadron. Don’t you?”
The vampire dropped Buffy, ignoring her as he hissed at the man. “Taylor.”
“That’s Tommy Taylor?” Buffy yelled. “That’s your nemesis?” She grabbed the stake out of his chest and hit it home. The vampire fell into a pile of dust.
“Well, that was different,” Taylor said.
“So, you’re Tommy Taylor?” Buffy asked. “What would a vampire want with you?”
Taylor’s grin was almost as creepy as the vampire had been. “Hardly.” He started walking toward the hospital, not to the door but toward a wall.
“Hey,” Buffy called out. “What was that with the floating vampire business?”
“Nothing for you to worry about, little girl.”
And that was the wrong thing to say. Buffy threw him against the wall. He tried to fight her off and seemed surprised when he couldn’t. “This is bigger than you know. Stay out of it.”
“Seems like I’m already in it.”
“Buffy, look out,” Willow shouted. “There’s something in his hand.” Xander caught sight of it, something that glittered? He wasn’t sure what it was but a stream of light spread up and down from where Taylor had struck it into the wall and then around until it formed the shape of a door. Taylor stepped through but Buffy wasn’t letting go. Willow ran forward, grabbed Buffy’s hand, and vanished through the door with them.
Xander ran after, catching a glimpse of prison bars before the doorway vanished. “Hey,” he shouted, pounding at the bricks, “give my friends back.” Stepping away from the building, he shouted, “Dammit Willow, I thought magic wasn’t working.” Maybe her magic would working wherever she ended up. He hoped so. He didn’t know how to get them back otherwise. Xander looked up in the general direction of Ethan’s room. Giles would be in no shape to deal with this given that Ethan was both in a coma and missing. Xander sighed. Giles would come through. Giles always did.
Xander had taken one step toward the hospital when something started glowing behind him. He turned and saw a big hole, larger and squarer than the doorway, in mid-air, about eight feet off the ground. “Oh thank God.” Three figures fell through and hit the ground: two men and a woman. Not Willow and Buffy. Not Willow and Buffy at all.
One of the guys, dark-haired, picked up a map that had come through with them. “Where are we Lizzy?”
She looked around although there wasn’t much to see, just the hospital and a town with no lights. “Sorry, Tommy. I don’t know.”
Tommy? “You’re Tommy Taylor?” Xander asked. The other guy, the one with the funky beard that was worse than Giles’ goatee even, rolled his eyes. Okay, Xander had tried being polite. “You’re the guy that vampire was looking for?”
That got their attention. “Vampire?” funky beard guy asked.
“Yeah,” Xander agreed. “Pale skin, no hair, dark clothes. Oh, and here’s something funny. He could fly.”
“Wait,” Lizzy said, “his being a vampire doesn’t bother you but his flying does?”
“Ambrosio,” funky beard guy almost growled the name. Apparently he wasn’t a big fan of vampires. Good, Xander wasn’t either.
“I go by Tom,” the dark-haired guy offered.
“So you are Tommy, um, Tom Taylor? Because that other guy, who was also a Taylor if you believe the vampire but then again who believes vampires untrustworthy creatures that they are, said he wasn’t.”
It took them a moment to catch up. “Wilson Taylor was here?” Lizzy asked.
Xander shrugged. “I suppose. He didn’t give his first name. Actually he didn’t give his last name either. Got that from the vamp.”
“You couldn’t tell that he was Wilson Taylor?” funky beard guy asked.
“Who’s Wilson Taylor?”
The three of them glanced at each other but Tom replied. “My Dad.”
Xander wasn’t sure why they thought he’d recognize some guy’s father but didn’t ask. He had more important concerns. “Um, okay. Look, he made some sort of big glowy door, sort of like the one you came through, and my friends fell through with him.”
And there went the glancing at each other again. Great, it probably meant Willow and Buffy were in a bad place, not that he was surprised. “Did you see where the door came out?” Lizzy asked.
“I did,” Xander said, “but I’m not telling unless you agree to take me with you.”
“You’re just a kid,” Tom said.
“I’ve been fighting vampires for two years. I don’t care how young I am. My friends went through that door and I’m going with you to find them.”
“I guess we were all kids once.” Tom stared at Lizzy for a moment. “Okay,” he told Xander, “but we’re going now.”
The sooner the better. “It was a prison.”
“Roncevaux do you think?” Lizzy asked.
“Worth a try,” Tom replied.
“What would he be doing there?” beard guy asked.
“Let’s find out.” Tom threw the map onto the ground, put his hand down onto it and mumbled something Xander didn’t catch. A big hole, much like the one they’d fell through to get here, appeared on the map. “You still coming?” Tom asked.
Xander looked up again toward Ethan’s room. Giles had said there wasn’t anything they could do to help Ethan from here. Maybe if he stepped through the hole he could help Willow and Buffy. “Let’s go.”
