Chapter One
He had to be drunk.
He just had to be; there was no other way to explain it.
I mean, sure he hadn’t been drunk since he was…well for a long, long time, but how else did one explain how he, James Marsters, was currently in Sunnydale. And actual Sunnydale--not the sound stages, but the actual fucking town? the streets continued on for blocks and blocks, which he guessed was easy enough to fake with smoke and mirrors.
But what had convinced him that this was the town of Sunnydale was the cemeteries. There were ten of them--and they were huge, with real tombstones and multiple crypts and everything. It was something that didn’t make any sense at all, but he couldn't figure out how it was anything other than real.
Which led back to his original conclusion that he was obviously drunk out of his mind.
If he was lucky this would be just some bad dream...or maybe even a fevered hallucination; if he wasn't....Well, let's just say he wasn't going to think about that just now.
Maybe this was some dream and he was supposed to work out his insecurities or some crap like that by talking to 'Spike'. Then he could get back to his regularly scheduled dream--the one involving him and that hot girl from down the block and certain....instruments.
Right, he'd done enough episodes to figure his way around this 'town'. Just had to think a bit first is all. He was in Shady Hill cemetery, he could tell as much from--well, from the huge iron sign proclaiming 'Shady Hill Cemetery' welded across the gates not five feet in front of him, which meant that if he would just go five streets down, four to the left, then around that one corner...He'd be at Spike's cemetery.
*~*~*~*
Funny how playing a character who lived in a town, for five years didn't exactly prepare you quite as much you'd think for finding your way around set town when the situation became literal. Either he'd taken a few wrong turns or he hadn't exactly been paying close attention when he was 'pretending' to go from one cemetery to the other all those years.
Whatever it was, he was now standing outside Spike's crypt--something much harder to find when the cemetery was real and full of crypts and headstones that all looked incredibly similar.
Now the next step was…to talk to Spike. And fucking hell he had to be insane. He was about to go talk to his fictional alter ego…and couldn’t figure out how to tell you it wasn’t all as real as real could be.
Deciding that there truly was no time like the present, James knocked on the door, not one hundred percent sure why he was knocking in the first place, after all, it was him on the other side of that door.
“Whoever it is better just bugger off; a bloke’s got things to do.” It was weirder than he could have imagined to hear that voice—his voice—answering him.
Deciding that if he knew Spike—and if he didn’t then who the hell did? He was Spike—that if he knew Spike, the vampire wouldn’t be changing his mind if he asked politely, James decided to give up and just go in.
“You know, might want to look into being a might more hospitable; it’s been my experience that girl’s like it, too.” James wasn’t all that surprised when Spike didn’t get up from his seat. What did surprise him—at least a little—was how quickly he jumped up when he saw just who was talking to him.
“Oi! Who the bloody hell are you!” Spike didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he didn’t like some demon being able to pass themselves off as…What the…?! “You’re human?” He hadn’t been this confused since…well he couldn’t remember when but he was sure the Slayer was somehow involved. Probably involved in this too, he figured.
“That’s where things get a bit tricky, actually—“
“So, Slayer finally called up Geek-Boy then, did she?”
“What?” So maybe he’d played Spike and Spike was Spike because of choices he’d made, but James had no fucking clue what Spike was talking about.
“Slayer finally gave in got herself a Spike toy…made herself a bit of a robot there, did she? Figured give it all the shaggable Spike qualities without all those pesky vampire attributes? Gotta say though, she really missed it wit the hair.”
“Buffy didn’t—“ How was he going to explain this? “Listen, man, this is all a dream of mine. I’m James Marsters and you’re Spike-“
“Know who the bloody hell I am, mate,” Spike interrupted.
“And I played you on Buffy for five years.”
“You played me on Buffy? What’s that supposed to mean? No one—‘sides maybe they Slayer—has ‘played’ me. Not even Dru.”
“What I mean,” No wonder Buffy had gotten so exasperated with Spike, he was a trying person—character, character, trying character. “What I mean is that I, James Marsters, portrayed the fictional character of Spike aka William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers on the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer for five seasons.”
“Bint can’t even go about making a bot right, ends up with one off its bird.”
“I am not a fucking robot, alright? I’m James Marsters and you’re a character I played on TV—this is some sort of dream of mine and I have to talk to you to figure out why I’m having this dream. Then I can wake up.”
“You. Are. Insane.”
“Fine, we’ll go a round of 20 questions and then see if you’ll believe me.” Logically any question Spike came up with James should know the answer to given that Spike was a creation of his…he only hoped that logic came into play in this dream or whatever it was.
*~*~*~*
“So, clearly I’m the insane one because I think I just might believe you.” Over the past two and a half hours Spike had asked this James person every obscure question he could think of—things only he’d know, things only he or Buffy would know—and the man had known every answer. The questions Buffy would know the answers to were gotten out of the way first, the more private inquiries coming only when Spike had to know for absolute certainty if this doppelganger of his was telling the truth.
James had no idea why he wanted to reassure Spike, but for some reason he didn’t like seeing that confused look on what was, essentially, his face, “Don’t worry this is just a dream of mine anyway—nothing to worry yourself about.”
“Oh, that right Jimmy boy? I’m supposed to feel better because in your little world I don’t even really exist? Excuse me while I stay a little perplexed.”
“Err,” Quickly he realized how insensitive he had sounded, “What I meant was…We’ll get this figured out soon.”
“Course we will. Get Red and Glinda on it soon as the sun’s up; get you on your way.”
“Okay, so we’ll find Al—Willow and Tara in the morning….what should we do til then?”
“Been my experience that knowing too much ‘bout alternate dimensions and all that can through the world for a loop so I say we sit tight and watch some telly.”
“Yeah, that’ll work,” James then decided that this had to be the strangest—and longest—dream he’d ever had. “Got cable?”
“Shouldn’t you know? Seem to think you created me and all. Awfully narcissistic if you ask me,” Spike grumbled. “But yeah, I’ve got cable; hooked it up a few months back.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
*~*~*~*
TBC.........Please review
Should have said this before...I'm personally not very big on RPF stuff and ddin't think I'd ever write it....for this fic just that little bit of JM in it helped the story along. I'm not pretending to know him or his character enough to write him--I'm making up a fictional character and trying to be as true as possible...I don't think I'm ever anything but kind and respectful...and don't mention anyone else in his life--except for maybe a sentence or two.
I hope you can enjoy this story and know that I don't mean any disrespect to James Marsters in any way.