Blast from the Past (Ripper and Buffy)
Feb. 9th, 2020 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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dollymixturesLooking into the future was not a precise art, Ripper knew that, it often only showed a possibility of things to come and sometimes trying to avoid a specific vision was exactly how one drove oneself into it, but he would argue - were he to actually bother discussing this with anyone - that he didn't want to achieve or avoid any particular future, he only wanted to know if there was a possibility his attempts to avoid his supposed destiny would be successful.
The world, or more accurately his father, was pushing him heavily towards becoming a Watcher, it had been planned since before he could even remember, they'd pushed him into the best schools and encouraged him to study languages and history and mythology all with the express purpose of readying him for a life guiding a Slayer.
And then he'd rebelled.
And that was going great so far, it really was, but he suspected he was being humoured more than actually allowed to continue his rejection of everything his father stood for. As though he was being left alone to get this out of his system, only for his father to step in at a later date and drag him back to his future.
So he decided to try and figure that out for certain. Or slightly more certain, anyway.
The spell itself had been easy to set up, given his little gang's predilections he had almost everything he needed just lying around the flat (or close enough approximations), so when he had the place to himself it seemed the perfect opportunity.
He drew the sigils, lit the incense, spoke the incantation and... nothing.
The stream of smoke wafting up from the incense was supposed to coalesce into a kind of mirror and show him a vision of things to be, but instead it just seemed to be looping lazily around him, caught in whatever cross-current of air filtered into the room.
Then it began to thicken, and he suddenly realised that none of it had actually dissipated, it had just continued to curl around him and now it was curling even tighter and almost solidifying, pulling in tight around him and squeezing until -
he had just enough time to wonder if maybe he'd chosen the wrong substitutions when the room around him disappeared and there was a sudden release of pressure as the smoke almost exploded back into, well, smoke. Ordinary, non-corporeal smoke.
Only when it cleared, he was standing in a graveyard he didn't recognise on a warm summer's night, and not in his dingy flat in London.
The world, or more accurately his father, was pushing him heavily towards becoming a Watcher, it had been planned since before he could even remember, they'd pushed him into the best schools and encouraged him to study languages and history and mythology all with the express purpose of readying him for a life guiding a Slayer.
And then he'd rebelled.
And that was going great so far, it really was, but he suspected he was being humoured more than actually allowed to continue his rejection of everything his father stood for. As though he was being left alone to get this out of his system, only for his father to step in at a later date and drag him back to his future.
So he decided to try and figure that out for certain. Or slightly more certain, anyway.
The spell itself had been easy to set up, given his little gang's predilections he had almost everything he needed just lying around the flat (or close enough approximations), so when he had the place to himself it seemed the perfect opportunity.
He drew the sigils, lit the incense, spoke the incantation and... nothing.
The stream of smoke wafting up from the incense was supposed to coalesce into a kind of mirror and show him a vision of things to be, but instead it just seemed to be looping lazily around him, caught in whatever cross-current of air filtered into the room.
Then it began to thicken, and he suddenly realised that none of it had actually dissipated, it had just continued to curl around him and now it was curling even tighter and almost solidifying, pulling in tight around him and squeezing until -
he had just enough time to wonder if maybe he'd chosen the wrong substitutions when the room around him disappeared and there was a sudden release of pressure as the smoke almost exploded back into, well, smoke. Ordinary, non-corporeal smoke.
Only when it cleared, he was standing in a graveyard he didn't recognise on a warm summer's night, and not in his dingy flat in London.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 10:07 pm (UTC)The cloud suddenly exploded, shooting outwards and she could make out a shape of a man in the darkness. It reminded her of Dracula, or those cheesy kid magicians. She wasn't really in the mood to run into either of them.
She approached the figure from behind, her stake gripped tightly in one hand. "All right, smokeshow, want to tell me why you're hanging around a graveyard this time of night?"
no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 11:36 pm (UTC)Ripper spun on his heel at the sound of a voice behind him, taking in the blonde girl standing there and working out two things very quickly.
First, that the young woman who'd spoken was American, and given the unfamiliar warmth around him it wasn't a stretch to assume that he had somehow crossed the pond in the course of his spell.
Secondly, given that she herself was hanging around a graveyard in the middle of the night, and holding a stake no less, it didn't take a genius raised to be a watcher to figure out who, or possibly what, she was.
Which lead him very quickly to a possible conclusion. Whatever strange vision the smoke had deposited him in, it theoretically had something to do with his future. His future that apparently involved the states, and a slayer.
"Well, bollocks."
no subject
Date: 2020-05-08 05:40 am (UTC)"Giles?" She looked him over, taking in his clothes and hair. God, that hair. "What happened to you?"
no subject
Date: 2020-05-11 08:16 pm (UTC)So. A strange blonde American woman who was definitely a slayer and, somehow, knew his name. Or his surname at least.
This was the last time he substituted anything in a spell.
"Look, apparently you know me, or my name anyway, but I don't know how or why or who the fuck you are," he retorted, because being flung into some weird situation that may or may not be a vision of his future (a strangely realistic and solid feeling vision of his future) would make anybody a little testy, and he doesn't appreciate being on the back foot in this situation when it's his spell that brought him here.
"So I'm not answering your question until you answer at least one of mine."
no subject
Date: 2020-10-24 12:55 am (UTC)"Oh my god," she said, sucking in a breath. "Did you just swear?"
She doesn't know whether to laugh or to be utterly horrified. Her tweed loving, tea drinking watcher didn't swear. At least not unless it was involuntary and even then it was never on the level of an f-bomb.
She tried to pull herself back together a little, crossing her arms and staring him down. "Fine. Shoot, Mick Jagger."
no subject
Date: 2020-10-24 01:03 am (UTC)Ripper's eyes narrowed, trying to work out if she was mocking him somehow - she couldn't be much older than him, if at all, so why did it surprise her so much to hear him swearing? Unless she was one of those people who thought the British were all posh, tea-drinking prudes with sticks in their arses.
At least she agreed to answer his questions, which was something.
"Alright," he said, lifting a hand to count the questions off with his fingers "Where am I, who are you, how do you know my name... and what year is this?" at least that would solve the is-this-the-future question, even if that would potentially bring about a whole raft of further questions.