Rekindlefic! 'With No Direction Home' S/A - Adult - 2/2
At last, part two!
And it goes up unbeta'd. But - corrections will be made as soon as it's not nearly one a.m. on a 'school night'.
I have an amazing time writing these boys and this 'verse - so glad to have dipped a toe back in! Thanks, everyone, for coming along. :)
Part One
Yēsū Jīdū - Jesus Christ
2305 - the Blue Sun system was linked end to end by the cortex, and it seemed the 'verse had got bigger and smaller, all at the same time. It made Spike a little nervous and a lot curious, but it made Angel just that much more...the same. The problem with being rich with Angel was...Angel thought of it as a responsibility. He searched out worthy causes and stood around at dull parties listening to pontificating politicians. He did good - a habit he seemed incapable of breaking - and it all bored Spike stiff.
As far as Spike was concerned, money meant kipping somewhere clean and warm, meant the best liquor and the best drugs, meant parties and pretties and having some minion do the dirty work. Angel didn't exactly disapprove, but he was used to quashing his inner demon - more used to it than Spike ever had been - and he let his snooty 'friends' give Spike sideways looks when Spike came roaring in, bottle in one hand, girl in the other, blood on his knuckles.
So Spike went back to his old ways, using Angel's money to rove over the system: visiting this planet and that space station; hovering in orbit over a moon halfway through the terraforming; watching as the surface heaved with seismic tremors, as the atmosphere curdled and burned and wept.
He ferried black market animals and drugs and people from the four inner systems to the fringes, where engineers and miners and terraform scientists lived in cramped, dingy quarters aboard aging ships or half-built stations. He donned a suit and space-walked over the weapons platform being built at Murphy; he sampled hydroponic opium and synthetic neuro-blends and good, old-fashioned marijuana, purple and sticky and reeking of cut evergreen.
And he fought with Angel, which was the usual, but...different. Angel had moved into higher - other - cliques, and the military was circling now. His parties had Generals and Admirals in stiff uniforms, chests lacquered with medals won for nothing much, and they made Spike's fangs itch. Sometimes he dreamed, fuzzy and formless and aching, of his skull split open, lightning cleaving him. He didn't like the soldier-boys, and Angel seemed to think he should, and it all ended in a spectacular fight in Angel's new digs on Valentine.
Spike broke his hand, two walls, a lot of pretentious art, a really nice sofa and Angel's ribs, and left in the rattle-trap skimmer he'd been working on for weeks. After that, he didn't see Angel any more. He found a pretty red-head to turn and bunk with - found a newish Wasp-class transport, assembled a crew and took off for the Black. He was sick of the core - sick of rules. Sick of watching Angel try and try and try to redeem a soul that sat curled in his chest like a snake, endlessly dripping poison.
2460, and Spike was on his fifth ship, his eighth crew, and he'd dusted the red-head decades ago. He had a boy now, dark and lithe and slick as a snake, and they'd been running illegal drugs and guns for twenty years. Running other things, too. For a civilization mostly confined to rigidly ordered ships and cities and worlds, there was a lot of shady dealings going on.
It'd only gotten worse as the core resources started to run out, and the Alliance started pushing harder rimward, into the territories of moons and planets that had long been very nearly autonomous and close to lawless. Cruisers were turning up here, there, and everywhere, and Spike was kept busy running bits and pieces and sometimes whole operations further out - further in. Sleek little Alliance scouts were hovering around, nosing into everything, and Spike finally dusted off some fancy dress and went trolling on Sihnon for an Alliance soldier-boy - or girl - who could figure out a few ways to fake a ship ID or a ship altogether. That netted him Daylen, and she was so smart she made your head hurt. Scarily proficient in tech stuff Spike had never learned - hell, half the time he'd never heard of it.
Give him a gun, though, or a grenade - he could turn the most mundane of peace-keepers into something that could take down an elephant. Suliman, his 2IC, asked him what an elephant was and Spike had to really think about it before he could say.
In all that time, he'd only spoken to Angel once - a drunken wave that had turned into something of a wake for their past, their lives together. Angel had started in reciting poetry long about hour six and Spike had signed off in sheer self-preservation. Went and got so hammered he let his fangs drop in a bar, growling at the crowd. But they were too drunk, themselves, to care.
Things were getting tense all over, though. Little things that Spike, with his long-view that stretched further than most anyone could imagine, could see building in a slow, steady pattern. He could see the rim planets chafing at having to support the core, and still go begging for supplies - personnel - medicine. Could see the slow grind of the military-industrial faction as it tore down old ways, insinuated itself into everything - ate the Alliance budget and parliament with nibbling, painless bites.
Something ugly was coming, and Spike started caching weapons and money - drugs and trade goods and anything else he could think of. Safe houses and bunkers on remote moons - connections built over decades that gave him a vast web of names, talents, and intelligence.
2489. Out of the blue, through every defense, Angel showed up on his door. Spike was living in a converted hauler, his ship docked in the shadow of it, see-me-not static and blur thrown out on the com that would confuse any Alliance vessel into thinking it was just junk - moonlet debris, nothing of interest. Down in the galley with his crew, watching them cook and joke and relax and suddenly the klaxon was going, proximity alarm that scattered them to stations, panic making the air sharp and vital.
"Daylen!" Spike roared, heading up to the bridge with long, angry strides. She was at the com panel, stabbing buttons and swearing, and gave him a slightly panicked look when Spike stepped through the door.
"I've no idea how he did that," she said. A signal popped on the panel, viewing screen flickering to life in a wash of bluish static, strobing and wavering before it steadied to show a familiar dark head and deep-set eyes.
"You going to let me in?"
"Angelus, you fucking wanker. What in bloody hell are you doing here?"
Angel's picture shifted and faded for a moment - whited out and then focused, suddenly crystal clear. "We need to talk."
"We fucking well don't. Get off my doorstep and get the hell away." Spike spun on his heel, ready to retreat - ignore - forget. But Angel's voice stopped him cold; made him turn slowly, staring - feeling a long-forgotten spasm of pain and hate.
"Spike - remember the Initiative?"
Spike sat looking at Angel, who leaned with fake ease against the bulkhead of Spike's quarters. He was wearing a sort of military uniform, dark browns and tans, gun at his hip, strap across his chest supporting a worn, olive-drab kit and tall, scarred boots. Spike wondered just what in hell he was playing at.
"So - talk. What's going on?"
"There's a place, called the Academy. It's set up like a...school. For gifted children. They've been recruiting for a couple decades." Angel pushed away from the wall - stepped across the room to the rumpled edge of Spike's bunk and sat down.
"Yeah, so?"
"So, they're not just recruiting. They've kidnapped some...students, too. And most of them...well...they never graduate."
"And that means what? They're not actually all that gifted? They're sellin' them to slavers? What?"
"Remember I said 'Initiative'? They're experimenting on them. Drugs, brainwashing - surgery, sometimes."
Spike stared at Angel for a long moment and then he bent a little, reaching down to the bottom cabinet in his locker - opening it and drawing out a bottle and two glasses. He methodically poured out two drinks and capped the bottle - leaned across to give Angel his glass and then sat back with his own, the sharp-sour scent of whisky in his nose.
"Why? What for? Trying to make some kind of...wonder-kid?"
"Some kind of super-soldier, actually." Angel drank - licked his lips, tilting the glass this way and that, eyes never leaving the oily liquid. "They're stuck, it seems. Keep killing them, or making them so crazy they're useless. They've got a moon, Qin Shi Huang. Got a...holding facility there. Deep Six."
Spike drank, as well, then stretched for the bottle and refilled his glass. "How many?"
"At the Academy? About fifty, right now. There's about a dozen at Deep Six. They've killed....over a hundred. " Angel finished his drink; got up and moved closer, settling one hip on Spike's com console, before pouring himself more and tossing it back with a snap of his wrist, his gaze hard.
"They're planning for something big. I can feel it. I know you can, too. I know what you've been doing - all your safe houses. They're stacking the deck with this...Academy. Or - trying to."
"Not succeeding very well, are they? And why in hell are you stalking me?"
Angel just looked at him, shoulders bowed down and the empty glass in his hands, fingers turning and turning it. "You know why."
"Don't feed me any Auld Lang Syne shite, now, Angelus -"
"William. My boyo. Don't pretend you're pissed."
"Not pissed yet," Spike muttered, but he snorted, soft laughter, and poured Angel another drink. "Yēsū Jīdū. All right. Tell me more."
In the end, it was simple. Angel had been using his military contacts for years to keep track of people, politics, movements. Finger on the pulse of the 'verse, and all that. Winds of change, moving through the Black like a tide, slow but steady - inexorable, really. The Alliance was tired of its fraying edges and raveling seams. Tired of two dozen tin-pot dictators and planets who flew their own flags, of ships who didn't register with the cortex and who slipped about like ghosts, dodging cruisers and making trouble.
It was going to be war, and Angel had already picked his side. Now, he just wanted Spike to come in. Right hand man, as usual - partner in crime and even in justice. Spike lay on his back, smoking, the only light the dim, bluish glow of the com on stand-by. Beside him, Angel stirred and stretched and rolled over, coming up on one elbow. His hand slid up Spike's ribs and settled, cool and heavy, on Spike's sternum. His thigh slipped up over Spike's, pinning him with a pleasant weight.
"You can't say no, Spike."
"Course I can. Say no all the bloody time. Say no to you more than anybody else."
"Sure." Angel's fingers stroked slowly, circling one nipple and then the other, taking their time. Spike shifted and sighed out smoke. "But you say yes a lot, too."
"Too bloody often." Spike ground out his smoke - turned in the narrow bunk, knees and thighs and spent cocks brushing, his hand finding the dip of Angel's waist, just above his hip bone. "What's the answer, then? What the big plan?"
Angel let his hand slide around Spike's ribs to his back - tugged him close until Spike was half on top of him, their faces inches apart.
"What we're best at, Spike. We fight. Just like always...we fight."
2506 was the beginning of the end, though they didn't know it at the time. It seemed they could prevail - seemed like passion and stubbornness and honor could win the day. Two years in, they suffered a bad loss at New Kasmir, losing half a battalion and a quarter of their air-tanks. But they rallied. They battled on, winning rim planets and moons and independent stations - winning hearts and minds, as Angel said, a gleam in his eyes.
Spike just laughed - tracked another highliner full of Alliance supplies and sent his squad of pirates after it. In 2510 they were besieged at Du-Khang - dug in and hunkered down for four long months while skimmer-scouts and drop ships kept them supplied and the Independent cruisers Yangtze and Darwin blockaded the Alliance into starvation and surrender.
But that was the last real victory. After that, it seemed, the Alliance got some extra push - some new strength. And while they won here and there, time after time, they kept losing the big ones - the strategic ones. Lost the ground they'd gained, and saw their lines stagnate - no advances, no retreats. The Alliance was shaky, too, fighting off Lords and Ladies and Senators and Citizens who were horrified at the trillions spent - the trillions more recovery would require.
The Independents were scraped thin - supply lines stretched across too many systems, resources running dry and the civilians starting to get tired, to give up, to lose hope. A three-day brainstorming session hashed out a final plan - a last, concerted push by everything, by all of them. One more decisive battle, a win to turn the tide.
Spike and Angel stood on the bridge of the Yangtze, watching scout ships go out - watching air-tanks deploy, lumbering through space like great, scarred whales, bellies full of their last hope.
"Our brave Browncoats," Spike said softly, hands locked behind his back, his own brown coat heavy on his shoulders. "They're going to die, Angel. All of them."
"Might not," Angel said, but his voice was winter-bleak, stretched as thin as they were - as they all were.
"Never have gone down without a fight, though, have we," Spike said softly, and Angel laughed.
"Never have. Guess we'll go down again, then."
"Fists and fangs," Spike said, and nudged Angel with his shoulder. Angel turned and sent him a flashing, sharp-edged, grin, golden eyes gleaming, and Spike laughed out loud, baring his own fangs.
"Next stop, Serenity Valley. See you in hell, Angelus."
"As always, William. As always."
Author's Notes: I could not have done this without the excellent resources of this timeline at the The Firefly and Serenity Database. Also, the now defunct but Wayback-able FireflyWiki Timeline, and the FireflyWiki Cortex Lexicon. There's also the List of Firefly Planets and Moons.
Chinese translations are from this marvelous site. I don't intend for The Academy to equal the Initiative, but the comparison is a fair one, i'd say.
ETA: Now with the fabulous beta stylings of darkhavens!
Originally entered at http://tabaqui.dreamwidth.org/165110.html - comment where you please!
And it goes up unbeta'd. But - corrections will be made as soon as it's not nearly one a.m. on a 'school night'.
I have an amazing time writing these boys and this 'verse - so glad to have dipped a toe back in! Thanks, everyone, for coming along. :)
Part One
Yēsū Jīdū - Jesus Christ
2305 - the Blue Sun system was linked end to end by the cortex, and it seemed the 'verse had got bigger and smaller, all at the same time. It made Spike a little nervous and a lot curious, but it made Angel just that much more...the same. The problem with being rich with Angel was...Angel thought of it as a responsibility. He searched out worthy causes and stood around at dull parties listening to pontificating politicians. He did good - a habit he seemed incapable of breaking - and it all bored Spike stiff.
As far as Spike was concerned, money meant kipping somewhere clean and warm, meant the best liquor and the best drugs, meant parties and pretties and having some minion do the dirty work. Angel didn't exactly disapprove, but he was used to quashing his inner demon - more used to it than Spike ever had been - and he let his snooty 'friends' give Spike sideways looks when Spike came roaring in, bottle in one hand, girl in the other, blood on his knuckles.
So Spike went back to his old ways, using Angel's money to rove over the system: visiting this planet and that space station; hovering in orbit over a moon halfway through the terraforming; watching as the surface heaved with seismic tremors, as the atmosphere curdled and burned and wept.
He ferried black market animals and drugs and people from the four inner systems to the fringes, where engineers and miners and terraform scientists lived in cramped, dingy quarters aboard aging ships or half-built stations. He donned a suit and space-walked over the weapons platform being built at Murphy; he sampled hydroponic opium and synthetic neuro-blends and good, old-fashioned marijuana, purple and sticky and reeking of cut evergreen.
And he fought with Angel, which was the usual, but...different. Angel had moved into higher - other - cliques, and the military was circling now. His parties had Generals and Admirals in stiff uniforms, chests lacquered with medals won for nothing much, and they made Spike's fangs itch. Sometimes he dreamed, fuzzy and formless and aching, of his skull split open, lightning cleaving him. He didn't like the soldier-boys, and Angel seemed to think he should, and it all ended in a spectacular fight in Angel's new digs on Valentine.
Spike broke his hand, two walls, a lot of pretentious art, a really nice sofa and Angel's ribs, and left in the rattle-trap skimmer he'd been working on for weeks. After that, he didn't see Angel any more. He found a pretty red-head to turn and bunk with - found a newish Wasp-class transport, assembled a crew and took off for the Black. He was sick of the core - sick of rules. Sick of watching Angel try and try and try to redeem a soul that sat curled in his chest like a snake, endlessly dripping poison.
2460, and Spike was on his fifth ship, his eighth crew, and he'd dusted the red-head decades ago. He had a boy now, dark and lithe and slick as a snake, and they'd been running illegal drugs and guns for twenty years. Running other things, too. For a civilization mostly confined to rigidly ordered ships and cities and worlds, there was a lot of shady dealings going on.
It'd only gotten worse as the core resources started to run out, and the Alliance started pushing harder rimward, into the territories of moons and planets that had long been very nearly autonomous and close to lawless. Cruisers were turning up here, there, and everywhere, and Spike was kept busy running bits and pieces and sometimes whole operations further out - further in. Sleek little Alliance scouts were hovering around, nosing into everything, and Spike finally dusted off some fancy dress and went trolling on Sihnon for an Alliance soldier-boy - or girl - who could figure out a few ways to fake a ship ID or a ship altogether. That netted him Daylen, and she was so smart she made your head hurt. Scarily proficient in tech stuff Spike had never learned - hell, half the time he'd never heard of it.
Give him a gun, though, or a grenade - he could turn the most mundane of peace-keepers into something that could take down an elephant. Suliman, his 2IC, asked him what an elephant was and Spike had to really think about it before he could say.
In all that time, he'd only spoken to Angel once - a drunken wave that had turned into something of a wake for their past, their lives together. Angel had started in reciting poetry long about hour six and Spike had signed off in sheer self-preservation. Went and got so hammered he let his fangs drop in a bar, growling at the crowd. But they were too drunk, themselves, to care.
Things were getting tense all over, though. Little things that Spike, with his long-view that stretched further than most anyone could imagine, could see building in a slow, steady pattern. He could see the rim planets chafing at having to support the core, and still go begging for supplies - personnel - medicine. Could see the slow grind of the military-industrial faction as it tore down old ways, insinuated itself into everything - ate the Alliance budget and parliament with nibbling, painless bites.
Something ugly was coming, and Spike started caching weapons and money - drugs and trade goods and anything else he could think of. Safe houses and bunkers on remote moons - connections built over decades that gave him a vast web of names, talents, and intelligence.
2489. Out of the blue, through every defense, Angel showed up on his door. Spike was living in a converted hauler, his ship docked in the shadow of it, see-me-not static and blur thrown out on the com that would confuse any Alliance vessel into thinking it was just junk - moonlet debris, nothing of interest. Down in the galley with his crew, watching them cook and joke and relax and suddenly the klaxon was going, proximity alarm that scattered them to stations, panic making the air sharp and vital.
"Daylen!" Spike roared, heading up to the bridge with long, angry strides. She was at the com panel, stabbing buttons and swearing, and gave him a slightly panicked look when Spike stepped through the door.
"I've no idea how he did that," she said. A signal popped on the panel, viewing screen flickering to life in a wash of bluish static, strobing and wavering before it steadied to show a familiar dark head and deep-set eyes.
"You going to let me in?"
"Angelus, you fucking wanker. What in bloody hell are you doing here?"
Angel's picture shifted and faded for a moment - whited out and then focused, suddenly crystal clear. "We need to talk."
"We fucking well don't. Get off my doorstep and get the hell away." Spike spun on his heel, ready to retreat - ignore - forget. But Angel's voice stopped him cold; made him turn slowly, staring - feeling a long-forgotten spasm of pain and hate.
"Spike - remember the Initiative?"
Spike sat looking at Angel, who leaned with fake ease against the bulkhead of Spike's quarters. He was wearing a sort of military uniform, dark browns and tans, gun at his hip, strap across his chest supporting a worn, olive-drab kit and tall, scarred boots. Spike wondered just what in hell he was playing at.
"So - talk. What's going on?"
"There's a place, called the Academy. It's set up like a...school. For gifted children. They've been recruiting for a couple decades." Angel pushed away from the wall - stepped across the room to the rumpled edge of Spike's bunk and sat down.
"Yeah, so?"
"So, they're not just recruiting. They've kidnapped some...students, too. And most of them...well...they never graduate."
"And that means what? They're not actually all that gifted? They're sellin' them to slavers? What?"
"Remember I said 'Initiative'? They're experimenting on them. Drugs, brainwashing - surgery, sometimes."
Spike stared at Angel for a long moment and then he bent a little, reaching down to the bottom cabinet in his locker - opening it and drawing out a bottle and two glasses. He methodically poured out two drinks and capped the bottle - leaned across to give Angel his glass and then sat back with his own, the sharp-sour scent of whisky in his nose.
"Why? What for? Trying to make some kind of...wonder-kid?"
"Some kind of super-soldier, actually." Angel drank - licked his lips, tilting the glass this way and that, eyes never leaving the oily liquid. "They're stuck, it seems. Keep killing them, or making them so crazy they're useless. They've got a moon, Qin Shi Huang. Got a...holding facility there. Deep Six."
Spike drank, as well, then stretched for the bottle and refilled his glass. "How many?"
"At the Academy? About fifty, right now. There's about a dozen at Deep Six. They've killed....over a hundred. " Angel finished his drink; got up and moved closer, settling one hip on Spike's com console, before pouring himself more and tossing it back with a snap of his wrist, his gaze hard.
"They're planning for something big. I can feel it. I know you can, too. I know what you've been doing - all your safe houses. They're stacking the deck with this...Academy. Or - trying to."
"Not succeeding very well, are they? And why in hell are you stalking me?"
Angel just looked at him, shoulders bowed down and the empty glass in his hands, fingers turning and turning it. "You know why."
"Don't feed me any Auld Lang Syne shite, now, Angelus -"
"William. My boyo. Don't pretend you're pissed."
"Not pissed yet," Spike muttered, but he snorted, soft laughter, and poured Angel another drink. "Yēsū Jīdū. All right. Tell me more."
In the end, it was simple. Angel had been using his military contacts for years to keep track of people, politics, movements. Finger on the pulse of the 'verse, and all that. Winds of change, moving through the Black like a tide, slow but steady - inexorable, really. The Alliance was tired of its fraying edges and raveling seams. Tired of two dozen tin-pot dictators and planets who flew their own flags, of ships who didn't register with the cortex and who slipped about like ghosts, dodging cruisers and making trouble.
It was going to be war, and Angel had already picked his side. Now, he just wanted Spike to come in. Right hand man, as usual - partner in crime and even in justice. Spike lay on his back, smoking, the only light the dim, bluish glow of the com on stand-by. Beside him, Angel stirred and stretched and rolled over, coming up on one elbow. His hand slid up Spike's ribs and settled, cool and heavy, on Spike's sternum. His thigh slipped up over Spike's, pinning him with a pleasant weight.
"You can't say no, Spike."
"Course I can. Say no all the bloody time. Say no to you more than anybody else."
"Sure." Angel's fingers stroked slowly, circling one nipple and then the other, taking their time. Spike shifted and sighed out smoke. "But you say yes a lot, too."
"Too bloody often." Spike ground out his smoke - turned in the narrow bunk, knees and thighs and spent cocks brushing, his hand finding the dip of Angel's waist, just above his hip bone. "What's the answer, then? What the big plan?"
Angel let his hand slide around Spike's ribs to his back - tugged him close until Spike was half on top of him, their faces inches apart.
"What we're best at, Spike. We fight. Just like always...we fight."
2506 was the beginning of the end, though they didn't know it at the time. It seemed they could prevail - seemed like passion and stubbornness and honor could win the day. Two years in, they suffered a bad loss at New Kasmir, losing half a battalion and a quarter of their air-tanks. But they rallied. They battled on, winning rim planets and moons and independent stations - winning hearts and minds, as Angel said, a gleam in his eyes.
Spike just laughed - tracked another highliner full of Alliance supplies and sent his squad of pirates after it. In 2510 they were besieged at Du-Khang - dug in and hunkered down for four long months while skimmer-scouts and drop ships kept them supplied and the Independent cruisers Yangtze and Darwin blockaded the Alliance into starvation and surrender.
But that was the last real victory. After that, it seemed, the Alliance got some extra push - some new strength. And while they won here and there, time after time, they kept losing the big ones - the strategic ones. Lost the ground they'd gained, and saw their lines stagnate - no advances, no retreats. The Alliance was shaky, too, fighting off Lords and Ladies and Senators and Citizens who were horrified at the trillions spent - the trillions more recovery would require.
The Independents were scraped thin - supply lines stretched across too many systems, resources running dry and the civilians starting to get tired, to give up, to lose hope. A three-day brainstorming session hashed out a final plan - a last, concerted push by everything, by all of them. One more decisive battle, a win to turn the tide.
Spike and Angel stood on the bridge of the Yangtze, watching scout ships go out - watching air-tanks deploy, lumbering through space like great, scarred whales, bellies full of their last hope.
"Our brave Browncoats," Spike said softly, hands locked behind his back, his own brown coat heavy on his shoulders. "They're going to die, Angel. All of them."
"Might not," Angel said, but his voice was winter-bleak, stretched as thin as they were - as they all were.
"Never have gone down without a fight, though, have we," Spike said softly, and Angel laughed.
"Never have. Guess we'll go down again, then."
"Fists and fangs," Spike said, and nudged Angel with his shoulder. Angel turned and sent him a flashing, sharp-edged, grin, golden eyes gleaming, and Spike laughed out loud, baring his own fangs.
"Next stop, Serenity Valley. See you in hell, Angelus."
"As always, William. As always."
Author's Notes: I could not have done this without the excellent resources of this timeline at the The Firefly and Serenity Database. Also, the now defunct but Wayback-able FireflyWiki Timeline, and the FireflyWiki Cortex Lexicon. There's also the List of Firefly Planets and Moons.
Chinese translations are from this marvelous site. I don't intend for The Academy to equal the Initiative, but the comparison is a fair one, i'd say.
ETA: Now with the fabulous beta stylings of darkhavens!
Originally entered at http://tabaqui.dreamwidth.org/165110.html - comment where you please!