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jedibuttercupPG-13, Dresden Files x B:tVS; 1400 words. Finishing off a sequence in the Handle With Care 'verse, for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
twistedshorts.
I suppose there might have been a more effective way to spit in the eye of the Fates that had been dogging my steps all my life, but I can't imagine what that might be.
(Part I and Part II at AO3)
Title: In Perfect Light: Your Back to Mine - Part III
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13/T; het
Spoilers: B:tVS/Dresden Files; post-series and during "Small Favor", in an AU fusion timeline
Notes: Finishing off the Your Back to Mine sequence. Contains quotes from CS Lewis and Sarah Williams' "The Old Astronomer" (1868). Contains canon-typical violence.
Summary: I suppose there might have been a more effective way to spit in the eye of the Fates that had been dogging my steps all my life, but I can't imagine what that might be. 1400 words.
Of all the moments of awesome I'd experienced in my life thus far-- I'm wizard fighting a war against vampires who happens to be a private detective in my day job, so there've been more than a few-- the moment I proposed to my girlfriend easily made the top of the list.
It wasn't the scope of the battle we were fighting; the Denarians might be major league evil, but try getting an eyeful of two Queens of Faerie in full battle array sometime. As the man said, here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron. It wasn't the emotional stakes, either; I have a hard time imagining anything that could top the day when my half-brother and I soulgazed each other and I spoke with my mother for the first and only time. It wasn't even that romantic of a moment, unless you count the fact that Buffy had just literally disarmed a fallen demon to save my hide.
It was some alchemical mixture of all of three, plus a dash of faith-- and I don't just mean her sister Slayer, teasing us both as she fought at our sides. I'd been six years old the last time I actually believed in happy endings; sixteen, the last time I'd fully trusted my heart to another person. Not even Susan had ever fully breached my adult defenses-- not necessarily because I couldn't trust her, but because there had never been a time when we could meet on equal ground.
Buffy stood at my side, glorious and bloodstained and so out of my league I might as well be playing tee-ball by comparison, and in that moment I wanted nothing more than to keep standing at her side for the rest of my life. Of course I proposed to her. I couldn't not.
I suppose there might have been a more effective way to spit in the eye of the Fates that had been dogging my steps all my life, but I can't imagine what that might be. Lucky for me, Buffy's even more of a survivor than I am. And even more determined to snatch a little happily ever present from the jaws of some higher being's idea of cosmic balance.
We got to the top of the hill on that nameless island in Lake Michigan to find that Marcone had opened up an ice-cold can of whoopass on the delicate prison the Denarians had built for Ivy. When Buffy had cut herself free of the Denarians' trap, she'd freed him too-- and without a weapon to contribute to the greater fight, stiff and slow-moving and bleeding from damaged knuckles and a torn ear, he'd turned to the hollow tower instead, and put every ounce of strength he had left into dismantling the grotesque art of the greater circle imprisoning the little girl who was also the Archive.
There are few things more therapeutic for a torture victim than to bring a little cup of Shiva-D into the bad guys' lives for a change, at least in my personal experience, and watching Marcone go at the crystals and rune sticks and golden plates with a chunk of stone was... well, probably more contributory than I'd like to admit to some of the decisions I would make in the next few years. Once Ivy was free, we got the pair wrapped up in the Knights' cloaks and booked it for our extraction point just ahead of Nicodemus and his regrouping minions. Against all odds, we still had all the coins and blades we'd come with, and the worst injuries our group had suffered were those inflicted on the rescuees before we'd even arrived. My eyes met Buffy's once more, in a moment's fierce camaraderie, as we defended the others ascending the line to Gard's triumphantly arriving helicopter... and that was when karma struck.
Buffy and I were the last two on the island; I'm not ashamed to admit that with the Scythe in her hands, she's a far better close-quarters fighter than I am, with the speed and reflexes to bring a blade to a gunfight and make the other guy regret the mismatch. I spent my latter teenage years imprinting on a very old-fashioned model of male social behavior, often to the annoyance of women like Murphy who think I'm disrespecting them when I reach for doors or chairs on their behalf-- but I'm not dumb enough to insist on that kind of precedence in the middle of battle. So when Buffy held out the harness, gesturing for me to climb before her, I was more than ready to take the better part of valor.
Until I looked up. And saw the look on the face of the Chooser of the Slain hovering over us.
It felt like reaching the top of a very high roller coaster: that last gasp of breath before the rush toward the bottom. I don't know what Buffy saw on my face in that moment, but when I pushed the harness back at her, she took it. I had about half a second of relief, as a frown creased Gard's brow. And then Tessa and Rosanna appeared from behind a veil, so close I'd barely had time to register their presence before Tessa was ripping Sanya's Kalashnikov out of my hands.
Destiny can turn on the smallest of things: a coin dropped on a lawn, a few seconds saved, a xeroxed party invitation. My mouth went dry as the gun was turned toward the sky. Then Buffy screamed my name... and something fell into my range of vision just as Tessa unleashed a hail of bullets in her direction.
I grabbed reflexively at the object that had fallen: it was the Scythe, her blade, the blesséd weapon crafted specifically for those who stood as Guardians within the Gates to the Nevernever. For a long, horror-struck moment, as my fingers wrapped around its haft, as her body jerked and went still in the harness overhead, I could not imagine for the life of me why she would have chosen to do that with her last moment, rather than-- anything else. Anything.
Fury filled me for several heartbeats, like nothing else I'd ever known: the dark, curling undertow of bloodlust I'd fought all my life, until she'd walked into it in a pair of dainty high-spiked sandals. And then the blade lit in my hands: and I felt her, felt the presence of the part of her she called Slayer, as though she were still standing at my side.
I'd never touched the Scythe before that day, and never since; it wasn't made for the likes of me, any more than Amoracchius or its siblings. And if you use a weapon of power for anything but its true purpose, you risk its destruction; I know that better than anyone. But in that moment-- well, let's just say that I had a much better understanding then, even moreso than after our soulgaze, of the strength of my girlfriend's spirit.
I made it off the island, in the end, by the skin of my teeth and a clever bit of wordplay with a Gruff-- but also with an even more well-stuffed bag of silver coins. Only Deirdre, and maybe Nicodemus, escaped; not quite equal compensation, in my opinion, for the price we'd all paid, but enough to give Michael and Sanya quite a bit more breathing room for the foreseeable future.
And of all the people who could have taken a bullet that day... the 'thanatophage' who'd already survived death more than once and healed as quick as my incubus brother was already awake again-- and relieved enough to see me to crack two bones in my hand saying 'yes'-- when I dropped the Scythe in Faith's grasp and rushed past her to kneel at Buffy's side.
I'm a wizard still nowhere near my prime; my fiancée is a Slayer long past the age when historically, those like her have fought their final battles and passed on. We've both been fighting the dark for more than half our lives, and stained our own hats more than a little along the way. But as long as we keep getting up again, as long as we keep doing so together--
As another poet said, though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light.
(read at AO3)
twistedshorts.I suppose there might have been a more effective way to spit in the eye of the Fates that had been dogging my steps all my life, but I can't imagine what that might be.
(Part I and Part II at AO3)
Title: In Perfect Light: Your Back to Mine - Part III
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13/T; het
Spoilers: B:tVS/Dresden Files; post-series and during "Small Favor", in an AU fusion timeline
Notes: Finishing off the Your Back to Mine sequence. Contains quotes from CS Lewis and Sarah Williams' "The Old Astronomer" (1868). Contains canon-typical violence.
Summary: I suppose there might have been a more effective way to spit in the eye of the Fates that had been dogging my steps all my life, but I can't imagine what that might be. 1400 words.
Of all the moments of awesome I'd experienced in my life thus far-- I'm wizard fighting a war against vampires who happens to be a private detective in my day job, so there've been more than a few-- the moment I proposed to my girlfriend easily made the top of the list.
It wasn't the scope of the battle we were fighting; the Denarians might be major league evil, but try getting an eyeful of two Queens of Faerie in full battle array sometime. As the man said, here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron. It wasn't the emotional stakes, either; I have a hard time imagining anything that could top the day when my half-brother and I soulgazed each other and I spoke with my mother for the first and only time. It wasn't even that romantic of a moment, unless you count the fact that Buffy had just literally disarmed a fallen demon to save my hide.
It was some alchemical mixture of all of three, plus a dash of faith-- and I don't just mean her sister Slayer, teasing us both as she fought at our sides. I'd been six years old the last time I actually believed in happy endings; sixteen, the last time I'd fully trusted my heart to another person. Not even Susan had ever fully breached my adult defenses-- not necessarily because I couldn't trust her, but because there had never been a time when we could meet on equal ground.
Buffy stood at my side, glorious and bloodstained and so out of my league I might as well be playing tee-ball by comparison, and in that moment I wanted nothing more than to keep standing at her side for the rest of my life. Of course I proposed to her. I couldn't not.
I suppose there might have been a more effective way to spit in the eye of the Fates that had been dogging my steps all my life, but I can't imagine what that might be. Lucky for me, Buffy's even more of a survivor than I am. And even more determined to snatch a little happily ever present from the jaws of some higher being's idea of cosmic balance.
We got to the top of the hill on that nameless island in Lake Michigan to find that Marcone had opened up an ice-cold can of whoopass on the delicate prison the Denarians had built for Ivy. When Buffy had cut herself free of the Denarians' trap, she'd freed him too-- and without a weapon to contribute to the greater fight, stiff and slow-moving and bleeding from damaged knuckles and a torn ear, he'd turned to the hollow tower instead, and put every ounce of strength he had left into dismantling the grotesque art of the greater circle imprisoning the little girl who was also the Archive.
There are few things more therapeutic for a torture victim than to bring a little cup of Shiva-D into the bad guys' lives for a change, at least in my personal experience, and watching Marcone go at the crystals and rune sticks and golden plates with a chunk of stone was... well, probably more contributory than I'd like to admit to some of the decisions I would make in the next few years. Once Ivy was free, we got the pair wrapped up in the Knights' cloaks and booked it for our extraction point just ahead of Nicodemus and his regrouping minions. Against all odds, we still had all the coins and blades we'd come with, and the worst injuries our group had suffered were those inflicted on the rescuees before we'd even arrived. My eyes met Buffy's once more, in a moment's fierce camaraderie, as we defended the others ascending the line to Gard's triumphantly arriving helicopter... and that was when karma struck.
Buffy and I were the last two on the island; I'm not ashamed to admit that with the Scythe in her hands, she's a far better close-quarters fighter than I am, with the speed and reflexes to bring a blade to a gunfight and make the other guy regret the mismatch. I spent my latter teenage years imprinting on a very old-fashioned model of male social behavior, often to the annoyance of women like Murphy who think I'm disrespecting them when I reach for doors or chairs on their behalf-- but I'm not dumb enough to insist on that kind of precedence in the middle of battle. So when Buffy held out the harness, gesturing for me to climb before her, I was more than ready to take the better part of valor.
Until I looked up. And saw the look on the face of the Chooser of the Slain hovering over us.
It felt like reaching the top of a very high roller coaster: that last gasp of breath before the rush toward the bottom. I don't know what Buffy saw on my face in that moment, but when I pushed the harness back at her, she took it. I had about half a second of relief, as a frown creased Gard's brow. And then Tessa and Rosanna appeared from behind a veil, so close I'd barely had time to register their presence before Tessa was ripping Sanya's Kalashnikov out of my hands.
Destiny can turn on the smallest of things: a coin dropped on a lawn, a few seconds saved, a xeroxed party invitation. My mouth went dry as the gun was turned toward the sky. Then Buffy screamed my name... and something fell into my range of vision just as Tessa unleashed a hail of bullets in her direction.
I grabbed reflexively at the object that had fallen: it was the Scythe, her blade, the blesséd weapon crafted specifically for those who stood as Guardians within the Gates to the Nevernever. For a long, horror-struck moment, as my fingers wrapped around its haft, as her body jerked and went still in the harness overhead, I could not imagine for the life of me why she would have chosen to do that with her last moment, rather than-- anything else. Anything.
Fury filled me for several heartbeats, like nothing else I'd ever known: the dark, curling undertow of bloodlust I'd fought all my life, until she'd walked into it in a pair of dainty high-spiked sandals. And then the blade lit in my hands: and I felt her, felt the presence of the part of her she called Slayer, as though she were still standing at my side.
I'd never touched the Scythe before that day, and never since; it wasn't made for the likes of me, any more than Amoracchius or its siblings. And if you use a weapon of power for anything but its true purpose, you risk its destruction; I know that better than anyone. But in that moment-- well, let's just say that I had a much better understanding then, even moreso than after our soulgaze, of the strength of my girlfriend's spirit.
I made it off the island, in the end, by the skin of my teeth and a clever bit of wordplay with a Gruff-- but also with an even more well-stuffed bag of silver coins. Only Deirdre, and maybe Nicodemus, escaped; not quite equal compensation, in my opinion, for the price we'd all paid, but enough to give Michael and Sanya quite a bit more breathing room for the foreseeable future.
And of all the people who could have taken a bullet that day... the 'thanatophage' who'd already survived death more than once and healed as quick as my incubus brother was already awake again-- and relieved enough to see me to crack two bones in my hand saying 'yes'-- when I dropped the Scythe in Faith's grasp and rushed past her to kneel at Buffy's side.
I'm a wizard still nowhere near my prime; my fiancée is a Slayer long past the age when historically, those like her have fought their final battles and passed on. We've both been fighting the dark for more than half our lives, and stained our own hats more than a little along the way. But as long as we keep getting up again, as long as we keep doing so together--
As another poet said, though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light.
(read at AO3)
