shipperx | Arriving Somewhere Not Here

TITLE: Arriving Somewhere, Not Here
RATING: Hard R
PAIRING: Spike/Buffy
ENSEMBLE: Lindsey, Dawn, Eve, and Others
DISCLAIMER: We all know they aren't mine. They belong to Joss. Consider me disclaimed.

SUMMARY: In the year 2021, the world has gone to hell. When Spike assists a Watcher on a quest to retrieve a stolen artifact, he crosses paths with Buffy for the first time since "Chosen." Post-Not Fade Away

AUTHOR'S NOTE I: This story is based on a fic request by the very patient

kellyhk. I hope she likes it. And I hope she has more patience because, although I managed to rough draft the entire thing, I did not manage type it and send it to a beta in time to post the entire story. For that reason, I'm posting as a WIP.
AUTHOR'S NOTE II: The title is based on a song by Porcupine Tree (which I've posted here. In fact, here's my playlist)

CHAPTER ONE

The Hummer’s speedometer maxed out at one hundred and ten, and Spike began to laugh. It felt great. Speeding full tilt down the highway called to every fiber of rebel and demon inside him and was easier to deal with than the sadness he felt when he looked at the wide, empty desert.

This is how the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.

But what had Eliot known about the end of the world? He hadn’t seen it. There had been bangs: wars, fires, floods and at least one demon horde that had clogged a rain-drenched alley in downtown L.A. And people had done far more than whimper. They had screamed and raged. They had sold each other out and slagged each other off. They had shown bravery and cowardice in uniquely individual combinations and persevered when the abnormal had become the norm.

Pockets of the old world continued to exist, bought at a price. But as Spike looked down at Death Valley, he thought that this wasteland was more indicative of the state of the world than most people wanted to accept.

“They’re still following,” the Watcher said.

Spike glanced at the man in the passenger’s seat, having almost forgotten that he was there, then through the rear window to see the Outriders that followed them. Ch’e-hoetey demons, furry bastards with coyote-like faces and a preternatural love of all things Harley. Spike had sighted them six miles back, and he hadn’t been surprised. These days, Ch’e-hoeteys were common scavengers in this part of California.

Reaching beneath the seat, Spike pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and handed it to the Watcher. Not for the first time, he wondered how any man that had lived through the last decade could look naïve: too much shit had gone down for that. But what could one expect from a man named Octavian Bartholemew Berris. Spike could just imagine the tweedy academic and the sweet, doughy wife that gave such a name to their darling baby boy.

Berris stared at the gun. “I don’t know how—“

“Not complicated,” Spike said.

Berris looked uncertain.

An Outrider threw a heavy iron pipe, sharpened into a makeshift javelin, through the rear window, shattering the glass and flooding the car with a blast of furnace-like heat.

“Shit,” Spike said. “Any idea how hard it is to find glass for this thing? Not to mention necrotinting.” If he hadn’t been driving west, the hole in the rear window would have set him on fire.

Aggravated, he floored the accelerator, set the cruise control, placed Berris’s left hand on the wheel, and grabbed the gun. “Just steer,” he said as he took aim at the first Ch’e-hoetey and fired.

He missed.

The Ch’e-hoetey gave a maniacal laugh, and Spike flipped him off before shooting the front tire. Rubber peeled off and sparks flew as the rim hit the pavement; then the first Outrider skidded into the second, causing a high-speed tumble of flesh and crushed metal. Spike smirked as he resumed control of the wheel. A nasty case of roadrash, courtesy of sun-baked asphalt, should keep the Outriders from preying on travelers for at least a week.

“There’s a blanket in the back,” Spike said. “Cover the window.”

Berris unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed over the seat.

Ponce, Spike thought, noticing in the rearview mirror that the Watcher had trouble attaching the blanket .

The Watcher vaguely reminded Spike of Wesley; only Berris looked younger than the Watcher Spike had met seventeen years before. Though, that couldn’t be right. Wes had been in his mid-thirties when he had died, and Berris must be around that age now. However, Wesley had looked like the world had handed out its fair share of hard knocks, and Berris looked fresh-faced and ready to fight for truth, justice, and the American way… except that Berris was British, which meant that he’d spout rhetoric like “God save King Harry.”

Spike frowned. At least, he thought Harry still held the throne; if it could be said that Britain still had a throne after the Thames had gobbled chunks of London, and demons had overthrown Parliament. The last report that Spike remembered reading said that King Harry had retreated to Balmoral with a dozen regiments of the army, including two tank divisions and the Royal Horse Guard. Word was Harry planned to set up a base of resistance. But that had been ages ago and communications between countries had become somewhat sporadic since the Internet Worm Crash of 2018. Spike knew that he could ask Berris for an update on current events, but he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know. Perhaps it was better to believe in unlikely legends of a Warrior King.

Cranking up the mp3 player so that The Ramone’s “Crusher” blasted at a volume that could make ears bleed, Spike took a sharp right and blew past a sign that said “Death Valley Junction – ¼ mile.”

When he drove onto the shoulder of the road, peppering the Hummer with gravel before rolling to a stop, Berris looked with confusion at the barren stretch of desert and then at Spike. “I don’t understand,” he said

Spike fished a pack of cigarettes out of his left pocket and settled into his seat to wait. “Can’t walk up to the front door, can we? Besides…” He gestured to the low-hanging afternoon sun.

“Why can’t we walk to the front door?” Berris asked. “You arranged this meeting.”

Spike lit his cigarette and took a deep drag. “Made the contact. Doesn’t mean I trust ‘em. That’s why we’re meeting on neutral ground.”

Never trust Wolfram and Hart. Spike had thought that the first day he’d heard of them, and he hadn’t changed his mind since. Plus, there was the small issue of the Senior Partners having a price on his head. Still, there were contacts inside the firm that owed favors.

Savoring his cigarette, Spike watched the pink and gold sunset through the necrotinted glass, waiting until the last sliver of sun sank beneath the profile of the hills in the distance.

A few days ago, Octavian Berris had arrived on his doorstep in Vegas saying that Andrew had given him the address, that something had been stolen from the Watchers, and that he needed Spike’s help retrieving it. Spike’s first urge had been to tell the wanker to go to hell, but, the truth was, Spike was bored. He hated being bored, and it didn’t take long for him to drop the cantankerous act and accept the job that Berris offered.

At least it was something to do.

Reaching into the back seat, Spike picked up his katana. The longsword had been given to him on a trip to Japan a long time ago. And he told Berris to bring the shotgun, although the Watcher chose to grab his weathered black backpack first. Berris seemed as attached to the thing as a three-year-old was to its woobie.

Shaking his head, Spike led Berris on a hike through the scrub, following the seemingly endless line of old, creosote-soaked power poles. There was little conversation between them, though Spike knew that Berris wanted to ask questions about who and why. But, as Berris hadn’t been forthcoming with information about himself, Spike had stubbornly done the same.

By the time they reached the ghost town, twilight had given way to night. And the silence, a sprawling void where life should have been, felt unnerving.

Spike spied the Art Deco Armargosa Opera House that he’d visited once before. He and Angel had had a free-for-all brawl there, and, when trying to think of isolated places to meet his contact, the abandoned theater had come to mind. After all, Eve had been in league with Lindsey at the time of the fake almost-apocalypse that the two of them had tried to pass off as a consequence of there being two souled vampires in the world. Eve would know how to find the place.

Spike motioned for Berris to follow him, as he skirted the entrance of the building to head to its rear. If Eve had reinforcements, they would be watching the front door. Ducking behind a gnarled, stubby tree, he found the loading dock. After ripping off the lock, Spike threw open the rolling door that rattled upward with a cacophony of sound.

“I thought we were being stealthy,” Berris said.

Spike shook his head. “Just wanted the element of surprise.”

Lights inside the building were quickly snuffed, and Spike told Berris, “Get behind me.”

The Watcher did as he was told. “This meeting was arranged,” Berris said, sounding outraged that someone might be impolite or even duplicitous in his or her dealings with a Watcher.

Spike wanted to ask the man if he was thick, but was distracted by the massive six-foot, three-eyed, bipedal iguana monster that came barreling out of the Amargosa.

“Bugger,” Spike said, just before the monster hit him with a flying tackle, sending them both to the ground with a thud.

Spike knew his best option was to gouge out the creature’s eyes, but he surprised himself by gaining purchase on the razor-like scales, which looked like a vermilion-colored cockscomb, at the back of the monster’s neck. The scales sliced his hands but he refused to let go. Roaring as he strained, Spike snapped the creature’s neck.

The monster went limp, and Spike jumped to his feet, anticipating the next iguana's attack. That was the problem with Treslegate Demonios: they traveled in threes. But they weren’t just trios; they were three parts of one whole. To kill any of them permanently, you had to also kill both its brothers.

Spike asked the Watcher, “Do you see it?”

Holding Spike’s katana gripped in both his hands, Berris searched the darkness. “See what?”

There was a loud spitting hiss as a second iguana lumbered out of the theater, making an angry beeline toward Spike.

“That,” Spike said, ripping his sword from Berris’s hands to lop off the iguana’s head before it cleared the loading dock. Treslegates might be a bitch to kill, but they weren’t very smart. “Where’s the third one?” Spike asked.

A new voice said, “Inside where I told him to be.”

Spike turned away from the headless corpse to look at Lindsey McDonald.

“You’re dead,” Spike said.

Lindsey, looking exactly as he had the last time Spike had seen him nearly twenty years ago, leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. “You should talk.”

Spike jumped onto the loading dock. “Lorne killed you.”

“Not dead enough,” Lindsey said, looking hard and angry.

Spike pointed to the two Treslegates on the ground. “Your revenge?”

Lindsey shook his head and, turning his back to Spike, walked inside. “If I wanted revenge, you wouldn’t see it coming.” He lit a Coleman kerosene lantern that created a glowing bubble of light at the center of the stage. “This was just a test to see if you had backup. I didn’t want you ambushing Eve.”

Spike said, “Hardly an ambush if I made an appointment.”

“And why did you do that?” Lindsey asked. “If you wanted information, there are men who sold their souls to Wolfram and Hart that you’d trust a hell of a lot more than Eve.”

Something cold moved through Spike as he thought about Lindsey’s words. “Didn’t know you were alive. Are you saying others are too?”

“It’s the standard Wolfram and Hart contract. They own their employees. In perpetuity. Even post-death.”

“Own? Like slaves?”

Lindsey ignored the question and posed one of his own. “Why did you think Eve was there?”

“Thought she was evil. Where else would she be?”

“Did you forget about her leaving the Senior Partners for me?” Lindsey asked.

“No, but you were dead. And I heard a few things. Enough to know the woman has her fingers in several sticky pies.” Spike looked over his shoulder and saw Berris standing on the loading dock. “Go ahead,” Spike said, tilting his head to indicate Lindsey. “Ask this one your questions. His fingers are sticky with pie, too.”

Lindsey’s expression twisted into a sneer. “You know that?”

Spike shrugged. “It’s a guess.”

Berris asked, “Can we trust him?”

Spike snorted. “Hell no. But we came for answers, and, no doubt, Lindsey’s chock full of them. ”

Berris eyed Lindsey with suspicion. For a moment, Spike thought the Watcher was going to go mulish and refuse to ask anything, which, while not a bad idea, would only leave them where they started.

Berris said, “Something was taken from Council Headquarters in Edinburgh. Something important. We have to find it before… something happens.”

“Something,” Lindsey said. “Don’t trip yourself up giving so many specifics.”

“I… “ Berris looked stymied. “It could… The world could…”

Lindsey laughed and offered Spike a drink from the small silver flask he pulled out of his plaid shirt’s breast pocket. Spike shook his head, not because he didn’t want a drink but because he didn’t trust Lindsey. Lindsey took a swig of whatever concoction was in the flask and circled Berris, his cowboy boots thudding against the wood floor. “If you’re working toward saying that your lost gadget could end the world, you might want to look around. The apocalypse happened. The good guys lost.”

Berris dropped his ever-present backpack and faced Lindsey eye-to-eye, any hesitancy vanishing from the Watcher’s demeanor and voice. “I’m not talking about global warming flooding the coasts or terrorist attacks destroying Washington. Earthquakes, fires, crashing the internet? That’s nothing. I’m talking about the destruction of the fabric of reality.”

Lindsey frowned.

Spike wiped blue-green Treslegate blood off his katana on the fraying stage curtains. “Quite the corker, innit,” Spike said before leaning against one of the columns carved to look like the jackal Anubis that flanked the stage.

There was a clatter and unearthly scream outside the ramshackle auditorium.

“Your back-up?” Lindsey asked.

“Your Demonios?” Spike asked back.

Berris looked between the vampire and the deadman. “We need to res… uh… retrieve—“

Lindsey held up his hand to stall the Watcher as the scuffling noises outside the auditorium grew louder. In the midst of what appeared to be Spike and Lindsey preparing to accuse one another of a double-cross, their gazes locked, and Spike thought they reached the same conclusion — this was someone else.

Lindsey pointed upward then looked questioningly at Spike.

Spike nodded and, with katana in hand, he took a running leap to the balcony, landing between seats and creating a spray of dust that drifted to the floor below, making Berris sputter and sneeze. Spike didn’t blame him. The old seats smelled like something found in a dead grandmother’s attic, perhaps the dead grandmother herself, packed with long forgotten clothes in a cedar chest containing lime and mothballs until desiccation and dryrot set in. Foregoing breathing, Spike traversed the balcony, heading for the faux-gilded double doors in the center of the far wall and reaching the second floor stair landing just as something slammed into the supports below.

The damage must have been structural because plaster exploded off of splintering wood lath as the landing crashed several feet downward, coming to rest at a dangerous left-leaning tilt. Realizing the whole thing was about to come tumbling down, Spike grabbed the balustrade and jumped the rail, his legs absorbing the shock as he landed in a squat on the threadbare lobby floor. He barely had time to note the third iguana monster impaled on a newel post that had been ripped from the stairway before he caught a flash of movement to his right.

Thrusting his katana upward, Spike blocked the killing blow of an axe. He stood, his sword-arm circling, parrying his opponent’s attack until they stood face-to-face, arms extended upwards with the insides of their wrists touching.

Christ, Spike thought as the bottom fell out of his stomach. Hell, it felt like a bomb had gone off at the heart of his world.

“Buffy,” he said, his whisper akin to a gunshot in the sudden silence.

She blinked. She opened her mouth but no words came out.

Rendered speechless, they stared at one another. He could feel the warmth of her, damp with sweat from the hellish heat. They stood against each other; opponents turned something else, as they lowered their arms and weapons.

Spike glanced at the axe, recognizing the Slayer Scythe, and half-wished that she had split his skull with it. That would have been less painful than the kick in the balls of finally facing her again.

It had been seventeen – nearly eighteen – years since they’d last locked gazes, touched hands, and he’d been incinerated. And it had been at least ten years since he’d stopped wondering when they would meet, deciding that if they hadn’t by then, what made him think that they ever would?

Someone pushed open a door from the auditorium and, with amusement in his voice, Lindsey said, “In all the abandoned opera houses in all the world, and she had to walk into yours.”

“Look out!” Berris yelled, alerting Spike and Buffy to the enraged Treslagate with the vermilion cockscomb that Spike had killed earlier. It must have regenerated before Buffy had killed its last surviving brother.

Wordlessly, Buffy and Spike parted so that the charging iguana careened through the space where they had just been.

“Call the damned thing off,” Spike said to Lindsey.

Lindsey said, “You killed its brothers. What makes you think it’ll still listen to me?”

The demon hissed, and Buffy muttered something about Sleestacks as she and Spike turned in unison. She embedded her scythe in the creature’s gut, causing a spray of blue-green blood before Spike took the monster’s head with a single slice.

There was a moment of satisfaction in seeing the conquered monster at their feet, but the sense of triumph and relief faded, returning to the awkward silence that he and Buffy had been caught in before.

He glanced at her. Her hair looked slightly more brown these days and only intermittently streaked with blond. And she had a few more curves than he remembered, but to his eyes, she looked exactly the same: beautiful, stubborn, and strong.

He had thought about what would happen at this moment. Thought about it dozens, maybe even hundreds, of times. In moments of fantasy he had dreamed that Buffy would look at him and smile the glowing smile she’d bestowed on others, but never on him. In those dreams he allowed himself to wonder what it would feel like if she was happy to see him, if he’d been wrong and she had meant the words that she had said. There had been a time or two when he had even allowed himself to think of her with tears in her eyes, grateful that he had returned, throwing her arms around him, laughing and crying at the same time, thrilled that he was real.

He’d cursed himself for those daydreams, asking himself what kind of fool he’d be to believe in the possibility of them. The most likely scenario revolved around her hauling back to knock his block off, leaving his nose bloodied and his ego bruised.

And here was the moment. It was now, and it was real. And it wasn’t anything like he had imagined. For one thing, strangers were present, and Spike found himself wishing that Berris and Lindsey would either make their presences felt or go the hell away. They weren’t allowed to be silent witnesses to this…

Reunion? Was that what this was? This stretch of dead air where Buffy could find nothing to say and Spike remembered a laundry list of half-forgotten fantasies?

Buffy finally tore her gaze away from Spike, walked passed him, and went to Berris. “I came as soon as I got your message,” she said to the Watcher.

Spike tightened his jaw and searched his pockets for his cigarettes, only to produce an empty pack that he crushed in his hand and dropped on the floor.

Berris asked Buffy, “Have you heard anything?”

She shook her head.

Berris looked desperate. “We have to find her.”

Spike frowned. “Her?”

Buffy looked up at Spike with haunted eyes and said, “Dawn.”

Chapter 2