your angel and spike story line swap au sounds AMAZING. and dawn reminding angelus of kathy?????? yessssssss!!!! write it! write it! write it! write it!
IVE TRIEDDDDD believe me i've tried. i have a few chapters floating around in the void but for this story to be what it needs to i'd basically have to rewrite most of btvs + write a whole prequel thing. and there is no way in hell i'm doing that. so instead i'll just tell you what happens.
it's sort of a three-part story? like if i WERE to write it as a fic it'd be broken up by whose perspective it's told through.
Part One: Spike (the part i've thought the most about)
spike is cursed with a soul by xin rong's watcher after he killed her. he leaves the whirlwind shortly after.
curious about why spike would make such a big fuss about killing a slayer, angelus tries his hand at it. he gets really really into it, but he likes the technical impressiveness of the feat more than the thrill that spike loved so much. regardless, angelus is now the slayer of slayers, and his slayer kill count ends up much higher than just two.
annoyed by how obsessed angelus has become with killing slayers and trying to get back at spike for abandoning his "family", darla and drusilla ditch him.
spike is having a rough time with his soul. (but after having spent only two decades as a vampire, quite a lot of william remains intact. he's still spike, sort of, but quieter. more gentle. and a hell of an avoider.) he knows about the slayers being killed but he doesn't know how to stand against angelus.
spike meets nikki wood. he realizes that this time, he has a chance to save her. he warns her and he warns her, but she doesn't believe that angelus is all spike claims he is. she's gotten cocky in what is, for a slayer, old age. (having lived at least four years past her calling.)
the two get closer. maybe angelus won't come for her. he hasn't killed every slayer, after all. spike even discovers robin, who nikki had kept secret. for a very brief time, spike has something that could someday take the form of another family. they know one another for no longer than a few months. there's a lot of chemistry between them, it isn't hard to imagine they could develop feelings given more time.
nikki faces off against angelus for the first time, and realizes that spike was right. she can't beat him. she makes spike promise to protect her son no matter what. (because she knows she's already dead.)
spike finds nikki's mutilated body. and angelus. it's their first proper conversation since separating at the turn of the century. he has an open shot at angelus and can't bring himself to take it. but he swears to himself that he'll find the strength someday to stop his grandsire, even if it hurts, and help the slayers that are to come.
finally, spike has a purpose again.
Part Two: Buffy (the part i'm not too sure about)
btvs starts as normal. buffy meets angel. buffy likes angel. but a new figure lurks in the shadows.
when it's finally clear what he has to do, spike reveals himself to buffy. he tells her that angel isn't who he says he is. obviously, she doesn't believe him. he tells her his name is spike, and if she doesn't believe him, she should mention the name to her watcher.
buffy brings it up to giles. giles is deeply concerned. all accounts mention both spike and angelus in some capacity, but angelus has a tendency to frame spike for the killings, so the blame is usually placed on both of them. giles thinks that if spike is in town, buffy must be in grave danger.
buffy is reasonably freaked. the guy she likes might be evil. the spooky british guy in the shadows is almost definitely evil. things only become clear when she catches angelus in a moment where he isn't pretending to have a soul, being very very evil and enjoying it.
she goes to spike for answers and he explains who he his, his complicated relationship to angelus, briefly mentions nikki, and tells buffy that he's here to help her and she needs to play along with angelus' ruse in order to beat him. for now, at least, because angelus doesn't know buffy's onto him yet, so she isn't in immediate danger. angelus always prefers to play the long game.
not sure how this part happens but eventually angelus does catch on, thus becoming an active threat. somewhere in that mess he murders giles. spike starts working more actively with the scoobies as the resident stuff-knower. and by this point, buffy has started forming a crush on spike.
at some point buffy confesses her feelings to spike and he rejects her. it's awkward and she's upset but they have bigger things to deal with. + he hasn't really had the chance to think of her like that on account of him being constantly worried about her dying at the hands of someone he sorta kinda does think of like that. at this point spike is effectively buffy's watcher.
angelus kidnaps spike and spike is like oh shit buffy's going to get herself killed trying to rescue me. but plot twist!!! buffy and robin wood to the rescue. yup robin is here now to help save his vampire uncle. buffy has a chance to kill angelus but hesitates, because even though angelus is evil, she knows he's spike's oldest family, and she doesn't want to hurt spike. as a result of this, angelus just barely escapes.
way later on angelus comes back to sunnydale with the intention of defeating buffy and spike properly this time, only to be captured and chipped by the initiative.
spike thinks this might be angelus' chance to redeem himself. he wants desperately to believe that it's possible. so angelus is allowed to live.
throwing this here bc idk where else to put it: it's important to note that spike and buffy's dynamic in this au is never what it is in the show. the closest comparison is what they had at the very start of s6, where spike was 100% just supporting buffy and trying to be there for her. this version of spike adores buffy, and he was never exactly a mentor for her, but he was never really a viable romantic interest, either. they're best friends who would kill for each other. :]
Part Three: Angelus and Dawn (the part that's very very special to me)
the key is given human form.
glory stuff starts.
angelus is hanging around but only passively. he's piiiiissed that he can't kill people anymore but he's kinda getting used to it by this point. kind of a nuisance. still a hell of a manipulator. he actively avoids what the scoobies are up to unless he's absolutely sure he can get something out of getting involved.
one day, angelus finds dawn on a walk home. she asks him to help with her history homework (spike can't help because despite having been alive at the time, he was too busy moping). he's baffled and offended that she isn't scared of him, but he sees an opportunity. if he gets the slayer's sister to like him, there's no telling what he could then accomplish.
dawn starts meeting with angelus in secret as a way to rebel. he plays nice but grows quickly bitchy, in a way that's almost like banter. almost. he definitely threatens to eat her more than a few times. she isn't concerned. she starts calling him angel.
dawn and angel find out that dawn is the key. angel is pleased to have found even more leverage.
at some point before his evil plan can take effect, though, dawn is almost killed/taken by glory/some demons/idk, and angel comes running at the sound of her terrified screams. he doesn't understand why he feels so urgently like he has to protect her, but he does. something forgotten has awaken inside of him. memories buried a long, long time ago.
when liam was alive, he was very close with his little sister, kathy. he felt she was the only person who understood him for who he really was. they had half-serious plans that they would sail away together someday, and finally be free of their father. liam saw himself as kathy's protector and he loved her more than anything.
when angelus murdered his family, kathy was only among the dead because he got carried away. he was high on the power he found in violence. it wasn't even a conscious thought to kill her, really, and it would be days before he really realized what he had done. he wasn't guilty, exactly, but he wished he hadn't done that. he could have turned her, at least. she understood him. he loved her. he did not want her to be dead. so he blocked it out. repressed the memory. when he remembers killing his family, he doesn't remember having had a sister at all.
angel saves dawn. dawn is elated. this is the first time buffy and spike find out about their little arrangement, and they're furious, but also shocked that angel would save her. angel spirals into full-blown crisis-mode. if he isn't a monster, then what is he? why did he murder his sister?
it's a rocky progression with a lot of backwards steps, but starting with dawn's rescue, angel is on her side. not the side of good. because he isn't good. but he is very much on dawn's side. he's her protector. and if protecting her means working with the slayer and her scoobies, well... it might be horrifically embarrassing for him, but he powers through. and god help anything that threatens dawn summers, his only friend in the world.
spangel starts to happen now that they're kind of almost on the same side for the first time in a century. it's hella awkward but there's something there. or might be, given time.
glory tower portal stuff occurs. angel closes the portal by drinking from dawn and jumping into it, sacrificing himself and leaving everyone else feeling extremely emotionally conflicted about it.
i am unsure of whether or not he comes back after that. i certainly like the idea of him fighting for his soul someday, but it would take a lot more time and character development to get to that point, plus i still don't know how on earth he would get resurrected since basically everyone who could do that knows what a horrible idea that would be. but it might be cool, idk.
if anything is unclear or otherwise you have questions PLEASE shoot them my way
