Chapter Text
Must Be Tuesday
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Chapter 1: Wish Granted
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Amidst a swirling cloud of ash and smoke, with distant laughter echoing through the Djinn realm, Afret sat on the rim of a volcano, lost in deep thought.
The offerings from Alf’s last summons flicked idly in his hands. Some golden teeth (gums and all), and a celestial moonstone. Another goddamn celestial moonstone. Alf tossed both behind him into the volcano, hearing them sizzle into the bubbling magma below.
It was hard to admit it, but he had to now. This should’ve been it. This summons should’ve fixed his unrest—there’d been bloodshed, a doomed war, demonic possession, and a delicious exchange of goods and services that let him do all the things djinnis prided themselves on. But it hadn’t helped. None of it. Instead he was sitting here, on the edge of his realm, reflecting on eight thousand years of mischief and the emptiness it now left him in.
Put simply, Alf was bored.
He’d thought he’d still have at least four more millennia to go before he lost interest, but he was wrong. Too wrong. How did every dimension in existence, parallel and nonlinear, become so dreadfully and predictably dull?
There’d been a time when he enjoyed his kind’s particular brand of service. A little torture here, a sprinkle of suffering there. Kill a mortal or twenty thousand; steal and lie and cheat the fools who dared summon him. Even watching the sheer, gormless terror that swept into a human’s eye when he revealed his true form lost its zest. He was zestless.
“Still there, Alfie?” Merry nudged him lightly on his sizzling shoulder. Shit. He forgot he’d been in the middle of a conversation when he realized how fucking bored he was.
“I’m fucking bored,” said Alf. “And I thought we agreed Alfie was off the table.”
“You say that every century.”
“I mean it every century.”
“You’d be angrier if I actually listened.”
Alf sent a small fireball in Merry’s direction. Predictably, it extinguished before it could touch him.
“We’re worried about you, man. You haven’t been out with the boys in the last decade. We haven’t even seen you drink any sacrificial blood lately. Blood!”
“I know,” Alf winced.
“You love blood. The last two offerings were virginal. Virginal, Alf. You used to love that.”
“I know, I know I did. But I did just come off my own summons.” He nodded at the pit of the volcano where his trophies now disintegrated.
“Yeah,” Merry gave a wry glance at the edge of the volcano, “and that really seemed to help.” He shook his head. “The hell is going on, dude?”
Alf ran a tired hand over his face and let out a sad little sigh. “It’s all the same, Merry. I thought when the big man upstairs made us, he had guaranteed us a lifetime of fun. New shit every day. But it’s not, is it? Just the same torture. Same flayed rich man with rivers of blood and ransom. Same dumbasses who summon us with their talismans and bottles—”
“I hated that phase when mortals used bottles and oil lamps.”
“—and I feel like there should be something more. Something….just something. You know?”
Merry narrowed his eyes curiously. “You turning white hat?”
Alf snorted.
Then thought about it.
“Good god, man.”
“I’m bored, Marid.”
Merry gave Alf a long-suffering look before retrieving an orb from his back pocket. “These are the new requests in the sixteen-billionth dimension. The mortals are only just getting on their feet, so there should be plenty of…noble endeavors here. See if you like any.”
Alf accepted the orb with surprise. “You were carrying this?”
Merry shrugged. “Like I said, me and the boys have been worried. And to be honest, Alfie, we kinda knew about the bored torture routine thing.”
With a final, parting pat on Alf’s flaming shoulder, Merry rose up and glided away.
Alf looked at the orb nervously. It was pale and innocuous, like all summons orbs. Unless specifically requested, any djinni could listen in to a wish and accept the job. Unlike most of his kind, though, Afret was not an anonymous entity to be called upon. The universe had his name. It was a foolish mistake in his early wish-granting years, one Marid—Merry—had made as well; he’d revealed his name during a summons, and time and space had written it down no matter where he went. Every dimension knew of Afret of the Djinn.
Mortals knew him. Knew how dangerous he was. He who massacred legions of men at the behest of one wish—only to cruelly slay him and his loved ones as a fair price. It’s what made his summon requests less and less, as more people—demon and mortal alike—grew wary of striking a deal with him.
But he was still free to grant any wish he wanted, should he answer a summons. A human, a talisman, and his service would be theirs.
But this? Alf twist the orb in his fingers. He could feel the…the goodness and the innocence of these wishes seeping through the glass. An infant dimension, answering white hat wishes. A millennia ago he would’ve laughed outright. But now…
Alf sat up straight and lifted the orb to his gaze. Catching the deep, viscous swirling mist inside, Alf let the wishes pour through his mind in a deep flurry.
…Bring my aunt back home, please, I will do anything…
—and kill the bastard, him and his gang—
—don’t want this to be an issue, let someone else deal with it—
—help me.
Alf’s eyes opened. He zeroed in on the soft voice, the softest of pleas that was still echoing around in his ears. He peered closely into the orb, navigating through the wishes, until the sight came forth.
A young girl, with honey blonde hair and bright green eyes. She sat in a large bedroom at the edge of a floral printed bedspread, rubbing her thumb idly on an oil lamp. Fucking oil lamps, Alf groused internally. He could tell this particular one had never been used before now, so he could forgive it just this once. Focusing now, Alf listened intently to the girl with her wish.
…I wish my soulmate could be here, so they could help me through this. Through everything, forever.
Alf almost dismissed the wish entirely. Soulmates were a soup of cosmic fuckery that even djinnis seldom dealt with. They were too unpredictable, unreliable, and teetered on the edge of the ‘can we, can’t we’ line of what his powers could actually grant. Forcing love was out of his jurisdiction.
…But this wasn’t actually demanding love, was it? Alf listened to the wish again carefully. And again. Huh.
Who was this girl? He could feel through the wish the depth of sorrow and loss she was experiencing. Everyone had a sad story to defend their wish; nothing out of the ordinary. This one had something else to it, though, a flavor he couldn’t quite identify.
Alf singled out the honey-haired girl from the orb and projected her forward, flickering her in an imitation of televised display. “Alright,” he murmured, flicking his finger. “Let’s see who you are.”
Dozens of images rolled in front of him—the girl smiling, laughing with her friends—the girl grimacing, holding a bleeding shoulder as demons launched themselves at her (this made Alf’s eyes widen with surprise)—the girl snarking something fiercely and somewhat petulantly as she retracted a wooden stake from a dusting vampire.
Oh ho HO! A slayer! A real slayer! He grinned gleefully. Oh, he hadn’t seen one of these in ages. “But this is odd,” Alf thought aloud. “What is a slayer doing wishing for soulmates?”
He flicked his finger again and saw a sped-up reel of the lovers in the girl’s life. Alf hissed in disgust. “Ugh. Gross. Why humans need so much copulation is beyond me.” He saw another image, of her thrusting a sword into her undead lover. Another of the lover returning from hell (Alf recognized that hell dimension and rolled his eyes; it wasn’t that terrible of a place). Another of him leaving, and returning, before leaving. Again and again. Her latest love, a meaty-looking mortal, had just left as well. Oooh, and her mother’s death. Bingo. And what was this about a hellgod?
“Glorificus?” Alf was outright giggling now. “Holy shit! That little rat got booted from her own realm.”
A slayer, a soulmate, and a hellgod. Alf started grinning. Oh, this sounded fun. Completely lame, but this could be fun. And new. And a slayer! None of his buddies ever struck a deal with a slayer—though that could be attested mostly to their hairsbreadth of a lifespan.
Regardless, this was it. Oh yes, this would be excellent. Just the pick-me-up Alf needed. Rising from the rim of the volcano, Alf shook out his shoulders and tossed the orb back and forth between his hands.
“Right then. Let’s see your soulmate.”
A second image flickered to life. Alf tilted his head thoughtfully as hundreds of images meshed together of the man meant to be hers, both of what had passed and what was yet to come.
“Alright, Buffy Summers,” Alf smiled, “your wish is granted.”
Throwing the orb into the air, he watched it shatter into a massive, yawning portal. With a sure jump, Afret of the Djinn crossed through the portal and fell straight into Buffy Summers’ room.
-:-
Buffy rubbed her eyes blearily as she closed the door to Dawn’s room. It had taken them an hour to stop the weeping and even more to get her to bed. Not that Buffy wasn’t an equal and participating party of the weeping. Because she more than was. Still, in the end, she was the grownup and she had to put Dawn to bed.
Buffy paused on her way to her room and glanced at the one across the hall. She wanted to look away, but the rawness of her confession to Dawn was still fresh and smarting. Heart aching, Buffy went to the master bedroom.
Joyce Summers was everything that was classic elegance and seasoned art historian. A sharp contrast to Buffy’s faded boy band posters, Joyce had tasteful artwork hanging along the walls, well-placed pieces that were almost certainly priceless. The bed was neatly made, the clothes hung and pressed, the bathroom spotless. She was a mom and an adult with hobbies and everything Buffy couldn’t bring herself to be.
She sat heavily on the edge of the bed. The silence in the house was deafening. The zinging emptiness in her mother’s bedroom rang in her ears. Lips trembling, Buffy pressed her fingers against her eyes and hunched over.
“I can’t do this,” she said quietly.
Being a slayer was to be alone, but Buffy had always thought that in the tail end of it, she wouldn’t feel this alone. She had people who loved her. People worth fighting for. But this?
Buffy hastily wiped her eyes and glanced almost accusingly around the bedroom. She resented every second of this. Slowly, everything she loved was leaving. Isolating her. Even Riley couldn’t pretend with her anymore that things would be okay. Her sacred duty was killing her—it was going to kill Dawn, and then it would kill her. Then it would take her friends, the whole of humanity, and finally upend very ground of the earth in which her mother now rested six feet underneath.
A glimmer of gold caught Buffy’s eye as she brushed away an errant tear. An oil lamp sat on Joyce’s night stand. It was elegant and clearly part of her mother’s collection of historical oddities, now purely decorative. Buffy reached forward and picked it up, carefully rubbing the surface gently.
“Prince Ali, mighty is he, Ali Ababwa,” Buffy sang under her breath, snorting at the silliness of it. “What I’d give for a magical genie to make all this go away.”
And what? What would that solve? Buffy’s mind reprimanded. Using powerful hand-wavy magic wouldn’t fix anything. She had to do this herself. It’s how it’s meant to be.
But if she could…if she could have a harmless hand-wavy magical wish, she’d let herself be selfish. Just the once. The world took her body, her life, loved ones. But she wanted at least this for herself.
Buffy exhaled softly, sadly. She replaced the lamp on the table, letting her thumb brush against it once more. “If I could? I’d wish for someone who’d stand by me and never leave. I wish…” she lost herself in thought. “I wish my soulmate could be here. So they could help me through this. Through everything, forever.”
Buffy let go of the lamp with a bitter smile. “But that’s not happening any time soon.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”
Buffy jumped up at the sound of the voice and whirled around. A sharp inhale through her mouth was all she allowed at the sight of the man standing in front of her, before grabbing a letter knife on the night stand. He gave no resistance when Buffy pushed him back onto the bed and pressed the blade against his neck.
“I wouldn’t bother doing that, either,” the man said mildly, eyeing the letter opener with amusement.
“If you’re here for petty theft, you picked the wrong house to burgle, buddy,” Buffy said through her teeth. He smiled ominously. When his eyes flashed red, Buffy reared her head back a little, then narrowed her eyes. “Especially if you’re a demon.”
A look of revulsion overcame him. “Me? A demon? You’re lucky I’m already granting your wish—I could have you ass for that kind of insult.”
Buffy yelped when his formerly solid body became transparent, and Buffy fell face-first into the bed. She rolled off quickly and darted up to see the man now sitting atop the dresser.
No. Levitating over it.
“Uh, newsflash—not of the human? Puts you straight in the demon category. And soon to be ash on my mother’s carpet.”
“Yes,” the red-eyed man with coal-fire hair nodded with understanding. “Her passing wouldn’t stop your slaying. You’re too good for that, aren’t you.”
Everything in her body froze. Terror threatened to climb up her throat. He knew her. This guy knew her, and knew about her family. Ice gripped her heart at the thought that he could be working with Glory.
“You have five seconds to start talking before I kill you.”
Her words left him unfazed, as if he’d heard this all his life. Instead he looked at her steadily, red eyes flickering like flames.
When he opened his mouth, it was her voice that rang back at her. “I wish my soulmate could be here, so they could help me through this. Through everything, forever.” The man then smiled at her shocked expression. “Surprise! Your mortal wish is granted.”
What?
WHAT!
“I didn’t mean it,” she blurted, ignoring the absurdity behind it. The red-eyed man raised an eyebrow. “I—I was crying, and it was silly, and I—”
“Meant it,” he finished. “A wish is a wish. You used the lamp. You meant every word. I answered your summons, little mortal, you should be happy.”
“Well I’m not,” Buffy gritted her teeth. “I’m returning the wish. Full refund. Now get out of my house.”
“You would return the soulmate you could have?” the red-eyed man said with incredulity. Buffy paused, eyes going wide.
“I…”
The man’s expression settled into something calm, comforting. “Your soulmate could be here. Do you want that?”
Yes, she thought. The man smiled, as if hearing her answer.
“He could help you. Everything, forever. Do you accept?”
Buffy’s breath lodged in her throat. She stared at him, eyes wide, unwilling to voice what her mind was saying on repeat.
He must have heard it anyway, for he nodded once. “Wish granted.” He was in front of her in a blink, his left hand resting atop her head with his thumb between her eyebrows. “In return, I will have two pints of your blood and one hour of your time.”
“What? You—”
But the world now swarmed in black, and Buffy had fallen in a dead sleep on her mother’s bed. She did not hear the disgruntled words that followed: “God, I hate wearing a people suit. Human flesh is disgusting.”