madimpossibledreamer

Main Points:
Torchwood/BtVS 'Casting' AU
Rating: T
Word Count: 2,066
Cast of Characters:
Destiny = Buffy
Brynwon = Angel
Aerie = Cordy
Brynmor = Angel
Captain Xan = Xander
Jeramy = Jesse
Emily = Willow
Will = Spike
Giles as himself
Buffy/Angel is a thing
Summary: People have been disappearing in Cardiff. Police Officer Destiny Sumner has been assigned to the investigation, only to find that she is not the only one looking at the evidence-something called Torchwood has ordered all police officers off the investigation and is conducting their own. She isn’t willing to let this go, however, and in her desire to know the truth, she might find a little too much...

The team settled in, and Jeramy started on the first pizza (meat lover’s) before anyone else had even grabbed a paper plate. In not too long, Xan was joining him in inhaling the pizza, which explained why they’d needed six pizzas for five team members. “Oh, and by the way,” Xan asked with his mouth full, “Who orders our take-away under the name ‘Torchwood’?” Strangely enough, it didn’t make him any less attractive. Maybe because it showed off his cheeks...argh! She had to get off this mental topic!

Jeramy coloured and started choking a bit on his pizza. He promptly took a large swig of the soda cans that seemed to have magically appeared out of nowhere. When he’d finally got his breath back, he scowled in Xan’s direction. “That was me, all right? Sorry, I’m an idiot.”

“Oh, that’s okay. It’s not any surprising news or anything,” the Captain answered airily through another mouthful of pizza.

Jeramy’s hands twitched. “Do they fire you for strangling your boss?” he asked, gritting his teeth.

She’d started worrying about homicide with what was apparently her new team when Captain Xan started laughing. He quickly took a drink from his own miraculous soda can to prevent himself from spraying pizza over the table. “No, I think they do an investigation over that,” he finally answered when he could speak, grinning like the lunatic he probably was. “Because your boss is no longer alive to fire you, you see.”

“Glad you cleared that up,” the doctor answered, rolling his eyes.

Emily patted her on the arm. “Sorry. It’s a bit mental to work here.” If anything, that was an apology. Then she realized that she probably wasn’t giving the potential hiree a good view of her workplace, and added, “But it’s great. Don’t worry about Jeramy, he just likes to give everyone a hard time. And the Captain, well...” a slight, amused blush appeared. “He’ll flirt with anything that moves. And some things that don’t. Don’t worry about that either.”

“Well, it seems like attractiveness is still a requirement for working at this particular pizza parlor,” Xan commented, still grinning. “Of course, that was just a bonus for some of their customers during the massive vampire infestation we had. Oh, it must have been, what, twenty years back? Anyway, the acting Captain at the time...” He trailed off into a long story that managed to have everyone, even the scowly Jeramy, laughing their heads off by the end. He stopped laughing and smiled at the cup that had just appeared in his hands when he’d stopped gesturing. They’d all been too busy watching the Captain and listening to the story with rapt attention to notice Will flitting around the edges, clearing away empty pizza boxes and placing steaming cups of tea in front of everyone.

Xan took a long, deep sip from the mug in his hands, making sounds that in another context could probably be described as pornographic. When he finished, he let that rapturous look on his face remain for a moment longer before he opened his eyes again. “Will, I don’t thank you enough for the manna you bring.”

“Actually, sir, you do.” The room became quiet as everyone drank from their cups. “The verbal kind is all I need. I’m not interested in your particular brand of gratitude.” That got a snort from the doctor, a small smile from Emily.

The Captain fake pouted. “Aww, you’re ahead of me. I’m supposed to actually harass you before you use one of your patented comebacks.”

Jeramy massaged his forehead. “And those noises you were making didn’t count? I’m pretty sure that was harassment for everyone at this table.”

Just like that, he was back to smiling. “I suppose so. Sorry. But you can’t say the temptation isn’t strong with his tea.”

The doctor didn’t bother to reply, just pounded his head gently against the table.

“That’s bad for you,” Giles, at the end of the table, pointed out in an even tone, still absorbed in his book.

Emily nudged Destiny’s arm and nodded at the tea. She made a face. Honestly, she was more of a coffee person. Still, to please she took a sip.

Her eyes widened as liquid ambrosia entered her mouth. It seemed to be super-sweet honey tea. She’d always had a bit of a sweet tooth, and this just...mmm. He might have just converted her to tea.

“I’m glad you like it,” Will remarked, taking one of the empty chairs by Giles.

Xan returned from his own private heaven long enough to remark, “Who doesn’t? Somehow you just know what everyone needs.” He paused for a second, looking a bit surprised. “Okay, for the record that wasn’t meant to be innuendo.”

Emily smiled, the way one would do for an amusing younger sibling. “Is it okay to start the meeting now?”

He nodded, but Destiny could tell he was paying more attention to the tea than his teammates. Not that she could blame him.

Will spoke up. “I’ll get someone to take your place, Destiny. We can’t let people go hungry just because of Torchwood business. And you should really leave before five o’clock, since Mr. Aneurin has reservations for a restaurant at six o’clock.”

It scared her, just a little, that they’d obviously been using surveillance on her. Why? Obviously she’d done something, but she couldn’t even remember what it was.

The Captain just nodded, as if it’d just been business as usual. “You do that.” He didn’t bother to stop eating while talking.

The butler (if that was indeed his job) barely avoided rolling his eyes at the poor manners his boss displayed and disappeared again.

In the meantime, Emily had been setting up her equipment. Now she just clicked a button, and what looked like a hologram appeared against the far wall. It was a map of Cardiff, and for some reason it looked 3-D. Except for the fact that holograms didn’t exist, not with current technology. Unless the government had been holding something back. Again. Maybe conspiracy theorists weren’t all nutters.

“I’ve been able to put together what I was able to get magically from the scene as well as all sorts of readings from the Lhozh scanner, and this is what I managed to get.” She gestured, and the hologram moved to the middle of the table. Destiny squeaked, but the Captain smiled at her reassuringly and leaned forward. A total of thirty seven pulsing red dots appeared in various areas around the city.

“Only fifteen of these disappearances went reported. Some are from eyewitness reports, either sent to Torchwood, one of our contacts, or myself. I went around and did a little digging. People are surprisingly ready to talk to reporters. Everyone wants to be famous I guess.” She smiled at all of them, and eventually even Giles put his book down. “At each of these sites, the scanner picked up the same signature. Not one we’ve seen before. I checked.” A blue wavy line, sort of like an electromagnetic signature, appeared above the map, and Xan leaned even closer, frowning like he actually knew what was going on. Not just a pretty face then.

“But I set up a program to do some cross-referencing, since it felt a little familiar.” A second wavy line, this one green, appeared, and slid so they matched up. One entire section was almost completely the same. “This one’s from the Darkness Falls case two years ago, shortly after I was first recruited. Case number 0X78IIO, which I wrote down for Will to get as soon as he’s done with his other homework.”

Captain Xan nodded, grin completely wiped off his face. In fact, he looked a little grim.

“For those of us just joining the audience, what the bloody ‘ell does that mean?” Jeramy asked.

“Jeramy hadn’t been with us then,” Xan explained to a confused Destiny, eyes staring at the glowing dots a little haunted. “Some Chotag had landed on Earth and gotten stranded. Not trusting the proper authorities even though we’re authorized to deal with aliens on behalf of Earth since the Shadow Proclamation treaty of ‘63, they preferred to try to tap into the energy of the Rift in order to try to refuel. Problem was, they didn’t have a clue what they were doing.” He took a deep breath. “They borrowed a few Uxi-that is, technological converters from one of our unscrupulous space junk suppliers. Since their ships run more on magic, though, it didn’t work exactly as they were planning. Damn near pulled one of the shadow dimensions through onto Earth.”

It would have sounded crazy, but they were all so matter of fact about it. Well, her grandmother, whom she’d so strongly admired, had always been adamant about the existence of ETs. If nothing else, she could keep an open mind-or keep an eye on Torchwood. If it was real, she’d want to help. This work was important. If they weren’t nutters, that was. If it all turned out to be gibberish, she could report them. “So you think they’re trying it again.”

Emily was the one to shake her head. “No, they’re just similar. They don’t match exactly. And someone would have come to us screaming about it if they’d been naughty. I’m not one hundred percent certain, but I’m pretty sure that...well...it’s alternate dimensions again.”

“Great.” The Captain stretched. “If you meet a version of me with an eyepatch, feel free to punch him in the face and lock him in the vaults. I don’t even want to think about the damage an evil duplicate of me could cause. That would definitely not be of the good.”

Giles looked up from his book, which he had returned to sometime during the presentation. “Your sense of humor, Captain, leaves a lot to be desired.” He paused, then added, “I’ve finally found what type of demon we’ve been having a lot of sightings of lately. Epiqi.”

“Could they be behind the disappearances?” Xan asked, still frowning over the information they’d found so far.

Giles shook his head, looking grave. “I don’t think so. Epiqi are notorious for eating pets, not people. I’m afraid that the disappearances look more like people accidentally wandering into portals...or the gathering of people for some sort of ritualistic sacrifice. I needn’t tell you that in the case of sacrifice the plan is likely diabolical in nature and scope.”

The Captain swore. “Okay, Emily, Destiny, with me. Rupert, try to figure out more that can help us. Jeramy, you and Will are running the show from here. If he’s needed for research, you’re in charge. Don’t let it go to your head.”

A few minutes later, Destiny was beginning to think that stepping in a vehicle with Xan at the wheel was one of the most dangerous decisions she had ever made.

The man was a manic driver. If Nigel had thought she was bad, he really had to see the Captain on the roads. Maybe he had; there’d been no mention of how many driving tickets the Captain had accumulated over the years. She glanced over to find Emily had closed her eyes tightly and appeared to be muttering to herself. “Are you okay?”

The eyes popped open, and Emily smiled a little queasily. “I’m pretty sure the pizza was a bad idea.”

She had to laugh.

“So, you seem to be taking all of this fairly well,” Emily commented.

“That levitation trick you did...” Destiny trailed off. She wasn’t sure why, to be completely honest. Maybe it’s because she’d seen it before, although she didn’t remember that. Maybe it’s just because she really wanted to know the truth and stop any more disappearances, and her best chances with that either lay with the Torchwood team or gathering enough information to get them off the case. She’d petition the Queen if she had to if it turned out they were promising things that couldn’t be delivered.

“Oh.” She blushed. “I didn’t know anyone was watching. Do you want to see it again?”

Destiny nodded, and the rest of the trip was spent doing and watching magic tricks. Not the usual children’s party magician magic tricks either. Cool stuff like merging two coins together, making the laptop seethrough, and making the pens dance. Emily was laughing by the end of it.

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