SPN/BtVS: Under Darkening Skies

[rivkat]

Under Darkening Skies
Summary: The Winchesters take a job involving a demon-influenced woman and a powerful witch. Explicit heterosexual content (not, amazingly enough, involving Faith).  35,000 words.
Notes: Written for Sweet Charity for giandujakiss. This goes AU early in SPN Season 3 and right after the first “episode” of Buffy Season 8. Thanks to geekturnedvamp for beta and giandujakiss for accepting a shift in her scenario!

Read the whole story here.  

Comments

[giandujakiss.livejournal.com]

Sigh. Still wonderful. I'm reading it over and just marveling at how I can hear all of them, their voices are so pitch perfect.

Do not forget - in addition to the SPN and Buffy communities or wherever else, you must post it to the Sweet Charity "goodies" section :-).

Thank you so much! Hee!

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Ok, that story was THE MOST PERFECT CROSSOVER IN THE HISTORY OF EVER.
*Flaily hands* Seriously, I don't even have words for how much I loved that story.

...

At a certain point I started a cut and paste file for lines that were utterly and completely perfect, but it is more than three pages long, so I guess I will spare you quoting back EVERYTHING I loved, but damn! Your Willow is just so wonderfully adorkable, and I loved Buffy being tempted by the evil shoes from hell and yet her fashion sense is what got them out of there, and the only thing funnier than Dean's total joy in having a bunch of girl slayers throw him around while they sparred was that HE TOOK OFF HIS SHIRT and threatened to rip Sam's off, too, when they wanted to see that (*insert more flailing hands*).

And LILAH! That made me jump up and down, because I've been thinking for a while someone out to involve Lilah in researching Dean's contract, given she's a lawyer in hell and all. And cameo by Ethan! And fairy tales! And the multilayered way that fairytale and the hunstman and the heart/hart worked in this!

But I do absolutely have to quote back my three favorite parts. After watching Dean's moral struggle with their mission, and how trapped he felt, this part nearly broke me:

I know that what I did is what got us here. I know we've spent the past few years going from death to death, and the price tag just gets higher, and I got us used to paying." He looked up into Sam's eyes—he would have put his hands on Sam's shoulders, if not for the fear that Sam would get skittish and knock him unconscious to finish the job.

"But I'm asking you—I'm begging you—be better than me. Be stronger."

Dean looked at Sam—really looked, allowing himself to notice all the strain and grief written on his face and in the hunch of his shoulders. A bad year for Winchesters, he thought. Maybe a bad generation. Sam was staring right back, searching for something in Dean's face, but since Dean didn't know what, he didn't try to give it. He just remembered that Sam was his brother, and was all that mattered in the world, and maybe the only way for the world to be worth saving was to be willing to let it end.

"... Okay," Sam breathed.

And this part made me cheer:
All this bullshit about the boy king," he said—boy king? he wondered—"but nobody ever asked who fostered him. Who'd raise someone like that with enough strength to get the job done."

Her eyes were wide and scared now, feigning humanity. "What—are—you?" she wheezed.

"I'm a Winchester, bitch," he said, and clenched his hand into a fist.


And this conversation is why this is hands down the best crossover ever:
"And it's like you've been carrying this weight for years and years. It's always hurt, but you couldn't put it down. Then you did, you got a chance to rest, but it turns out that you're not done after all. And everyone around you expects you to pick that weight right back up, and you expect you to pick it up, but you don't want to. Maybe you never wanted to, but that didn't matter before. Now—you can't make yourself pick it up again. But you can't stop thinking you should."

In conclusion, I completely loved this story.

[kelly-girl.livejournal.com]

This was breathtaking. If I ever wanted a fic crossover to be made into an episode, this would be the one.

Your grasp of Sam and Dean's voice and of Buffy and Willow's was perfect.

I loved that I didn't know if Dean and Sam would go through with their 'assignment' or not. With some stories you can say, "oh, of course they're not" but with this one I was guessing to the end. And then them choosing to go out together, one hand clenched around the other's.

There is so much to love about this fic that I can't name every single thing.

This is not just writing a story but weaving one so it flows seamlessly into an amazing piece of art.

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

I've only read part of this but I had to stop and squee and tell you it's marvelous! And I do not watch SPN, other than a couple of first season eps! BUT I ADORE THESE CHARACTERS AS YOU HAVE WRITTEN THEM.

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

Hiya again. You simply MUST post here. http://community.livejournal.com/newly_legion/

Or I will rec it, if you'd prefer! :D

[auroramama]

That was incredibly good. And pure pleasure, even though my eyes are full of tears, and yes, I didn't know whether they were going to go through with it or not.

The crossover relationships were incredible. I loved the way the boys each saw the other in the girl they bonded with, though I was never sure whether they saw it themselves, or if it was just an irresistable unconscious draw. I admire the way that that works whatever the precise nature of that undersea beast, their feeling for each other, might be; you invoke everything about it that really matters. I need to reread this a few dozen times. Need to read it aloud to DearSpouseFanGuy, too. There are a whole flock of incredible scenes, extravagant gifts to the reader.

I also agreed about the scenes singled out by norwich36. Dean deserves a moment with someone who's been there and understands. Buffy did too, of course; she got Spike instead, which didn't work out so well. Buffy, who is enough like him that they don't hit on each other, is perfect for this. And when he asks Sam to be better than him... we just started watching S2, and at the end of Blood Lust, the expression on Dean's face when he looks at Sam, that was just what I was seeing: his understanding that sometimes Sam's going to lead. That Sam may be able to do things he can't. And that that's actually pretty wonderful.

[goodbyebird]

This got recced at newly_legion. Looking forward to reading it, just have to play catch up with SPN first ;)

[luluminion.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! What a roller-coaster ride between hope and despair for Sam and Dean. They fit into this world. I really want them to have a community, because their communities in their own world keep dying/turning on them/rejecting them.

Bobby. HA! That is so how he would react to news that the government is coming for his ass. HIGHlarious.

The end gave me chills. Lilah is so excellently evil. Poor Dean never gets a break.

[just-ruth.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! What I know of Buffy/Angel is periferial, having had a walking/talking Spikaholic in the house until she went to college.

The voices are clear, the characters both well and clearly defined and oh, hell yes for half-naked Winchester sparring practice! I think Buffy's words to Dean at the end are what he knows in his heart but not what he wants to hear, much like Buffy herself. Kudos for great cameos; from Henricksen to Lilah and assorted Slayerettes.

The Huntsman and his heart - nice blending of legend and old tales.

All and all a terrific effort and I thank you for it!

very nice

[sapphoq.livejournal.com]

I have never watched either show. I did like the story even if I wasn't familiar with the characters and probably missed some of the nuances that the show watchers would catch.

The words flowed and it was an easy read for that reason.
Powerful ending.

spike

Good Story

[eileenlufkin.livejournal.com]

I liked this story. I liked the Buffy and Willow voices. Thanks.

[snowpuppies]

This was very enjoyable.

I'm not entirely sure I believe the Dean/Willow 'ship, but you made it work well anyhow.

Thank you for sharing.

[persuna.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. This was one of those times when I just never wanted what I was reading to end. When I loved it so much I went all the way through devouring at top speed and into slow deliberate reading to soak up all the moments. I used to read BtVS fiction, and now I read SPN fiction, and I so so wanted to read a good crossover, and this, this was the perfect crossover. BtVS and SPN are really very unlike each other, for all that I see them compared, but somehow you combined them and made them seem seamless without sacrificing either. You got that ineffable BtVS quality, the pace and tone and wit and horror-comedy-with-metaphors ("You don't eat, you don't drink, and you don't try on shoes.") vibe it has I can't quite describe and always miss a little in everything else I ever watch. And you also got the emotional intensity of SPN, the depth of the connection and love between Sam and Dean and their isolation from and togetherness against the rest of the world and from now on I am going to be saying "I love" a whole lot because their was a whole lot I loved.

I love that you did justice to BtVS and SPN and the characters of all involved. Buffy killed more pizza things than Sam and kicked a whole lot of ass generally because duh, that's what she does. Willow wasted those attacking demons with only a swoon afterwards and did geek stuff and was that latter day BtVS combination of awesome power and awesome Willowness that she perfected (and you even remembered, unlike Willow, that she is most likely bi, having once had a perfectly fulfilling relationship with a man). Dean enjoyed getting beaten up by girls and took command of the group fighting situation and was willing to do anything, including nothing about his deal, to save Sam. Sam was thoughtful and intense and lock picking and law enforcement impersonating and surprisingly more ruthless than Dean in that way he sometimes is. And Sam and Dean would have taken down Buffy and Willow, despite the girls both being more powerful in and of themselves (okay, boy king, but that's so untapped), because they had planning and competence and won-trust (realistically won because they actually are good guys!) on their side, but then they had to be rescued when they were all set to tragically and grandly sacrifice themselves, so it all evened out in terms of who was cooler (and I feel a little petty in so explicitly admitting that I weighed this stuff up, but I did, and I have to learn to accept these failings in myself...).

And oh. I just loved the whole setup. Because there is very little Winchesters won't sacrifice for each other, and this chill just seized me the moment the government gave their little proposal, because I knew that Sam and Dean would go very far to save each other and I didn't know if they would go all the way. I cannot express how much I loved the resolution in words. I love that it was Sam who came closest to killing his victim, who would have made it a soul selling (because it totally is) Winchester hat trick. Because whoever said Dean was the dysfunctional one has never seen Mystery Spot. I love that it was Dean in the end who saw that this was a trade too many and that they had to stop damning themselves for each other one day.


This was his life: get something good, lose something else. Kill the demon, let a hundred others out. Break the deal, make another one.

And still he couldn't stop thinking. For his own self, Sam would rather be dead than have him make this trade. A couple of years back, that might not have mattered to him, when Sam was more of an ideal who'd left, who'd wanted a life outside of the Winchester family business. Now—well, even if they survived getting out of the Slayers' grasp, and even if the military had been telling the truth and let them go, and even if the next set of bad things didn't kill them—at some point, you had to say that it wasn't worth it anymore.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Well, that was haunting. Excellent.

[paleogymnast.livejournal.com]

I'm left speechless on this one. Definitely the most pitch-perfect SPN/Jossverse crossover I've ever read. Brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing! Any chance there is more to this? :)

[the-summoning-d.livejournal.com]

That was brilliant! I loved the Dean/Willow, it was absolutely adorable ^^ One question, though - what's the significance of the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart? Why does Dean react so badly to it at the end?

"I'm a Winchester, bitch."
PLEASE ACCEPT THIS 'BEST LINE EVER' AWARD

And the bit near the end was amazing, the parallels you drawn between Dean's situation and Buffy's. In conclusion: YOU. THIS FIC. AWESOME.

[sothcweden]

I read this over the weekend (downloaded from the eBook archive), and I really, really enjoyed it. My knowledge of BtVS is from the first two seasons, and catching the odd later ep, so while I don't really know the backstory, the story wasn't hard to follow at all. I especially liked that you paired Willow with Dean, because it seems less obvious to me than Dean/Buffy or Sam/Willow.