get your words out { 2025 } yahtzee tracking

[iluvroadrunner6]

Fill Form

Running Score: 140 (5/8)
Word Count: 19,678

Comments

too late for you, too late for me | buffyverse/tvdverse | 1,630

[iluvroadrunner6]

[prompt]

Buffy comes to somewhere dark and damp, with her arms twisted into an odd position above her head. She can feel the familiar tell tale numbness of her wrists in restraints and does her best not to panic impulsively. She tries to work her way backwards to remember how she wound up in this position until a panicked voice breaks through her thoughts.

“Please don’t be dead. Matt will never forgive me if you’re dead.”

“I’m not dead.” She blinks her eyes open to look at Tyler, blinking until the two versions of him coalesce into one Tyler. “Though I’m not sure Matt would be thrilled with you kidnapping me, either.”

Tyler, if she’s honest, looks miserable, which is not the expression you normally expect to see on a kidnapper. Usually there’s gloating, some taunting. Maybe a little grievous bodily harm. But Tyler looks as though he doesn’t know what to do with himself, and she has to wonder why exactly she’s found herself in this position.

“You know, if you objected to Matt and I dating, we could have talked about it. You didn’t have to escalate to kidnapping.”

“I don’t—” There’s a huff as he slumps to the ground, staring into his hands. “I didn’t want this.”

Buffy’s head tips to the side curiously as she studies him. “Then why am I here?”

“Because Klaus told me to get rid of you.”

“Oh.” The three of them all knew that at some point, Klaus would notice at least Buffy’s presence, as she’s the one out and about being publically a Slayer at school, near Stefan Salvatore. She hopes that it’s still true that only Damon knows about Faith and Kendra, but it’s hard to say. She glances up at the cramped tunnel they’re currently sitting in and frowns. “And this is getting rid of me?”

Tyler shakes his head. “No. This was as far as I could get before whatever makes me do what he says realized I was following the letter of the orders but not the spirit of it and I had to stop. I hoped I could just get you out of town to buy me some time to figure out what to do, but …”

“The compulsion caught up to you and now you’re stuck.” Buffy sighs. “Well, I appreciate the effort, but this isn’t going to end well for you. You get that, right? There are going to be people looking for me.” I’m not alone is what she wants to say, but who knows how much of this conversation will get back to Klaus.

“It’s not compulsion.”

Buffy blinks, before turning back to him in confusion. “If it’s not compulsion, then why?”

“I don’t know. I just … I can’t say no to him. I used to be stupid about it, like Klaus’s orders just rewrote the logic in my brain, but now that I see it, I can’t unsee it and there’s this part of me that just has to make him happy and …”

“Oh. You’re sire bonded.”

Tyler glances up at her and frowns. “Yeah, that’s what Damon called it. That’s really a thing?”

Buffy grimaces. “You see it with vampires sometimes. If someone is really into the vampire that turns them, it gets amplified into a full on obsessive stalker level of being in love with that person, doing whatever it takes to make them happy.”

“But that’s not me. I’m not in love with Klaus.”

“You must feel some kind of big positive feeling about him, or you wouldn’t be stuck in this situation.” Buffy doesn’t say it the way she does to be cold, but given that he did kidnap her, it’s hard for her to be in full comfort mode.

Tyler looks down at his hands again. “Now that I’m a hybrid, I don’t have to turn anymore.”

“Oh.”

It’s hard not to hear that and swing to the side of sympathy. Tyler isn’t the first werewolf she’s met. She’s heard—and seen—the horrific transformations, the terror it inspires. Of course, that he’d never have to turn again would be considered a boon, a swing of gratitude so strong that the magic that makes them vampires would twist it into something awful. That’s all that magic ever does.

“I never wanted to lose control. I could feel it sometimes when I would just get so angry I’d see red. I’d grown up my whole life with my dad and his temper and I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to become, but my temper would rise and it would just feel … inevitable. I always knew that eventually I was going to hurt someone in a way that I couldn’t take back. And then I did.” Tyler’s eyes don’t meet hers, and she can see the shame lurking under the weight of it. “And then it was like I was losing control all the time. Every full moon I would become this thing that I didn’t want to be. Yeah, there was the pain and the nightmare fuel, but every time I worried I was going to wake up one morning with blood on my lips and not know what—or who—it was. I don’t want to kill anyone else.”

Tyler finally meets her eyes as he continues. “And then Klaus turned me, and I realized I would never have to do that again. How do you not be grateful for that? That you have a choice again?”

“Except you still don’t,” Buffy replies softly. “Not when Klaus snaps his fingers and you snap to attention.”

Tyler’s eyes drop again, but he pushes forward. “You said you’ve met other vampires with it. Does that mean you know how to fix it?”

Buffy hesitates on the edge of the answer to that question, because she knows how to fix it. But she’s not sure that fix is the right fix for Tyler. It will not solve his problems.

“You have to stop feeling that feeling.” Tyler blinks at her in confusion and she continues. “The bond is rooted in that powerful feeling you have for that person. So when it’s these vampires that were in love with their sires, you have them flip their humanity switch. Turn it all off for a little and when they turn it back on again, the bond is gone. Can’t say their relationship is recoverable, but at least the baby vamp has the agency to make their own choices again.”

“Do you think that would work for me?”

“I think it would work. But I don’t think it’s the right move.” Buffy looks up at him. “You talked a lot about losing control, and how scared you are of it, and I—turning off your humanity switch, even if you have a plan to turn it back on again, is a gamble. You may decide to renege on the plan. Or you’ll do it, but you’re going to go on a minor killing spree first. You’ll be in control, but you may not like yourself in the morning, and I think you already have enough of that going on.”

“So that’s it? I’m just stuck like this?”

“No. You have to get rid of the feeling.” Buffy looks at him meaningfully, hoping he’ll read between the lines. “Have no reason to be grateful. Be able to change so easily that you don’t even think of it. In a way, that means you have control of the wolf. To regain control of yourself, control all of yourself.”

Tyler looks dismayed, like his worst nightmare is coming to pass, but before he can respond, there’s the sound of footsteps coming up the tunnels. Tyler zips forward, pulling her with him against the wall. Buffy obliges, not really in a position to do much else, until two familiar brunettes stride onto the scene—one, she expected. The other—

“You brought Damon to my rescue?”

Tyler’s hand comes up against her throat, and Faith turns immediately at the sound of her voice, holding up a crossbow. “Back up,” Tyler says weakly, and Faith shakes her head, a slow smile crossing her lips.

“Bad move, buddy. I promised your boy that I’d try not to kill you, but that doesn’t mean I won’t make this hurt.”

“Faith, don’t! He’s sired!”

Faith’s arm falters, dropping slightly. “Shit, really?”

“Yeah. It’s not his fault.”

“Still don’t like his hand on your throat, B.”

“Neither do I,” Buffy admits, before glancing over at Damon. “What are you doing here?”

“Your boyfriend was unavailable to give a tour of the werewolf tunnels. He twisted my arm. You’re welcome.” Damon’s eyes dart past her to Tyler. “And I don’t know why you’re telling her to stop. There’s only one cure for a sire bond.”

“Yeah, they flip their switch.”

That seems to take Damon by surprise, and he glances over at Faith. “What?”

“Most sire bonds only last until the vamp in question flips their switch,” Faith glances back to Damon, amused. “Do I know something the ancient-ass vampire doesn’t?”

Damon seems flustered, before shaking his head. “That can’t be the plan. If Tyler’s emotions are off and he slips his leash and stops listening to Klaus, that’s a recipe for a dead Tyler, anyway. Might as well save the time.”

“There’s another way.”

“He kidnapped you.”

“Yeah, and we talked and I feel kind of bad for him.”

“Thanks,” Tyler mutters, but she ignores it.

“The best plan is the one that gets all of us out of here alive.” Buffy takes a deep breath. “So here’s what we’re going to do.”

It’s not a plan she loves, but it’s a plan she will make work. And for now, that may have to be just enough.