http://brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] still_grrr2011-03-06 10:56 am
Entry tags:

212 fic: Sing the Rage (Spike, PG13)

Title Sing the Rage
Author Brutti ma buoni
Rating PG13, for language, occasional sexual references
Word Count 730
Prompt 212 Greek and Roman myth. Spike's wandering a bit and rambles through the story of Zeus and Leda, then touches on Hephaestus trapping Aphrodite and Ares in adultery, before landing up with a very potted version of the Trojan War
Characters/Pairing Spike, references to Spike/Dru, Angelus/Dru, Buffy/Angel
A/N: set in late season 2, especially Becoming



As the poets tell, when a man steals another man's woman, many things may come to pass. Spike's considering the options while he waits to heal. (Thank all that's unholy for a classical education. He's not had to research any of this – turns out it was waiting for him in locked parts of his brain he's had little use for since he left school. Just had to sit sulking in his tent for a few months to bring it forth.)

*

If he's a mortal, and the bastard woman-thief is a god, there's nothing to be done but smile as your swan-screwing wife brings forth miracle eggs which hatch into godlings and faces to launch a thousand bloody ships, as though that helps to salve your pride. Lucky for Spike, Drusilla's not likely to hatch anything more embarrassing than the occasional new fledge, and Angelus is more than capable of seeing them off. Besides, he may be the Scourge and all that jazz, but divine, Angelus is not. So Spike doesn't have to bear up grinning. He can think about revenge.

*

Another more tempting option: the lame, cuckolded, humiliated man may fashion a miraculous net to catch the lovers at their play, and expose them to the mockery of crowds. Except, Spike thinks, the whole gang knows full well what Angelus and Dru are up to, and it's not the lovers who are subject to the pitying stares and muffled laughter. He's not up for even more of the same. Besides, he doesn't want to make it real by seeing their whole performance from first kiss to final fuck. The glimpses he's had are more than sufficient to catch in his gut already. So scratch that plan.

*

Or else, and this is better, the adulterers may bring down ten years of war and destruction on themselves, as the scorned spouse amasses an army to take out their stronghold. Now that appeals. Ten years of war is always good for a laugh, and if it ends with Dru back in Spike's arms and Angelus in bits on the battlefield, so much the sweeter. But Menelaus didn't haul back Helen in the lap of his wheelchair, and Spike's gonna need some myrmidons to help out. Can't use the minions. Got to be someone from outside. Someone with firepower.

Spike knows who he'd fancy on his side, if he can wangle it. Little buff Blondie'd do nicely in place of a coalition of Achaeans. She's got the firepower, if she's finally found the balls to kill her ex. And she'd probably get some nice catharsis out of offing Angelus, so it'd be Spike's good deed for the century too.

*

Mythology's a wonderful thing when you have it on your side. Dru sacrifices that other little Slayer bird, an Iphigenia to help the wind to change. And change it does, as the Slayer puts on the armour of her fallen comrade and comes rampaging onto the field (no, hang on, that makes the other Slayer Patroclus, not Iphigenia, doesn't it? And Angelus suddenly Hector not Paris… Sodding analogy won't hold water, which isn't too startling seeing as there's only a handful of characters in Spike's world trying to replicate an entire war – plus, in a coupla days and not ten years, so the chronology's all to cock too).

Anyway, and more importantly, Spike's taking the fight to the adulterous, betraying lovers, and he doesn't care if this plan makes him the Trojan bloody Horse in his own diseased scenario, so long as it ends just the way the Trojan expedition did. Lots of blood, lots of fighting, and the outcome he wants.

He'll be back off to Sparta (call it Mexico, he's a fancy to go south), with Dru contrite in his arms. Angelus/Paris/the whole Trojan army will be splattered in pieces across the battlefield, Troy in ruins. (Which probably means strife for his minions, oh dear, but Spike can't seem to care about them right now.) Little Blondie will play Achilles, maybe, and go down glorious, or wander the world rootless for a decade. Perhaps she'll even make it back home in one piece, like those occasional lucky Achaeans nobody ever remembers. Spike doesn’t give a stuff about her fate either, though he hopes to see her fight a bit. (Lovely moves on her, when she gives it a bit of welly.)

If there's one thing he's learnt from myth, it's that nothing ends up well for the heroes.

Luckily, Spike's nobody's idea of a hero.

*
shapinglight: (Who's your daddy?)

[personal profile] shapinglight 2011-03-06 01:35 pm (UTC)(link)
That was great. I love the analogies, even if Spike couldn't quite get them to fit.

[identity profile] diebirchen.livejournal.com 2011-03-06 01:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Given the physiology of swans, Leda seems fairly innocent of adultery. Danae at least got a pile of gold out of the deal, but then again, possibly it disappeared when Zeus was sated. The whole Europa and the bull thing . . . just unpalatable. And really, Achilles is a self-involved, vain prat; Hector is the true hero, but he dies sooner rather than later. You're right, luckily Spike, at that point, is not the hero.

[identity profile] diebirchen.livejournal.com 2011-03-06 02:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Which is not at all hard to do!

P.S.

[identity profile] diebirchen.livejournal.com 2011-03-06 02:44 pm (UTC)(link)
I laid hands on my grandfather's Bulfinch's compendium of mythology when I was about 11 and never looked back. It was the start of my adult reading life.
ext_30116: (Default)

Re: P.S.

[identity profile] libco.livejournal.com 2011-03-07 01:43 am (UTC)(link)
Ha! I was about ten and loved it so much I told my teacher I was no longer a Christian and that I now worshiped the Greek Gods and Goddesses.
quinara: Sheep on a hillside with a smiley face. (Meg cackles)

[personal profile] quinara 2011-03-06 01:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah, the stewing rage... Tee hee hee; yes, classical analogies will never sit the way you want them to.

[identity profile] norwie2010.livejournal.com 2011-03-06 02:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Great stuff!

God bless the Queen (the fascist regime) for educated englishmen/monsters. *g*

[identity profile] slaymesoftly.livejournal.com 2011-03-06 02:49 pm (UTC)(link)
I can totally see Spike sitting there working his way toward this conclusion. Well done! Fun and true to the character at that time. :)
snickfic: (Spike)

[personal profile] snickfic 2011-03-06 05:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Ha ha. This is great. Poor Spike, distancing himself from his own pain by filtering it through classical myth. And the last two lines are excellent.

[identity profile] rebcake.livejournal.com 2011-03-06 06:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Ten years of war is always good for a laugh

Now, that's a Spike I recognize. He's got it all swirling around in there, and some excellent ideas, but his endgame ("Dru contrite in his arms") is out of reach, and he's thoughtlessly set his own unforeseen (except by Dru) odyssey careening into motion. So cool! New stories always do have their basis in the old ones, don't they?

Dru as Medea has a lot of appeal. (Though Spike thinking he's Menelaus is pretty funny.) Fantastic job.

[identity profile] ever-neutral.livejournal.com 2011-03-07 12:04 am (UTC)(link)
This is utterly fabulous. And that last line, of course, ridiculously perfect.
gillo: (face)

[personal profile] gillo 2011-03-08 01:27 am (UTC)(link)
Poor boy. All that Classical education just gets his head tangled up. Nice S2 Spike, evil but already fixated on Buffy more than he realises.

[identity profile] dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com 2011-03-11 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, those last two lines just kick ass! Great job.

[identity profile] gigi-tastic.livejournal.com 2011-03-20 06:32 am (UTC)(link)
THIS WAS SO AMAZING. I.. I.. CANNOT PUT INTO WORDS. I AM STUNNED. OH GOD THIS IS WONDERFUL