TITLE: Remote Control (or The Hunting of the Spike)
AUTHOR: mailto:Xanpet2000@aol.com
SERIES: None
RATING: R
WARNING: Occasional swear words and reference to
torture. I’m trying to be good but I
really don’t write children’s stories.
PAIRING: S/X for friendship
SUMMARY: Why were Spike and Clem invited to the
wedding?
SPOILERS: Post ‘Older
and Far Away’ series 6:14
DISTRIBUTION:
Just ask. I don’t bite…often.
DISCLAIMER: The characters herein belong to Mutant
Enemy Inc., Kuzui Enterprises Inc. and Sandollar Television Inc. in association
with Twentieth Century Fox Television.
They are used without permission but with love. No money is being made.
FEEDBACK: Yes please! It’s better than chocolate!
(Okay so that’s a lie but it’s close! tee hee)
DEDICATION: To
Steffi for the challenge and nagging me until I did something about it. She also beta read so I guess it’s double
thank-you to her.
Author’s Note:
This was written
in response to the Remote Control challenge set in the summer by Estepheia on
Nummytreats. It went something like
this, ‘What if Evil Troika caught Spike and fiddled with the chip so that he
would do their bidding. Xander has to
rescue him using his inner nerd. Extra
points were earned for Star Wars references, James Bond, Jonathan throwing up,
and the magic bone.
Remote Control (or The Hunting of the Spike)
Part 1: Lost
Worried was a
word that could be used to describe Clement, the floppy eared, saggy skinned
demon, at the best of times. It was
such an apt word, a precise word, a clear word but it wasn’t the word for right
now. No, he wasn’t worried so much as
scared shitless. Spike was a no show
and had been for the last two nights.
His crypt clearly hadn’t been slept in and he hadn’t been seen in any of
his usual haunts either.
“Maybe the
Slayer finally did her job,” said Frank, the bar keeper at the local dive where
Clem and Spike played cards on Thursdays.
If Clem could have snarled, he would have. For the fact of the matter was he liked Spike, for all his little
idiosyncrasies the vampire was still a friend.
He was a companion in a world of prejudice and fear, and the thought of
his being dust on the wind - well it didn’t make Clem a happy, floppy eared,
saggy skinned demon at all.
He walked
despondently through the darkened cemetery.
He owed Spike kittens but he guessed he would never get them. He wondered where she’d done it. It was impossible to say, he could be
walking over his friend right now. He’d
liked the Slayer that was the funny thing.
He’d thought she was a friend and friends didn’t dust other’s friends. He thought she liked Spike too. Okay so they made a kind of odd couple, but
her kid sister was cute and…
“Owe!” Suddenly
he was jumped from behind. He fell
forwards under the weight of his attacker, rolling over and over in the grass
and finally came to rest with that bricklayer friend of the Slayer’s sitting on
top of him.
“Oh sorry
Clem. Thought you were a demon. I mean, obviously you’re a demon but - ah is
it okay to say demon or is ethically challenged more PC?”
“I’m not ethically
challenged and excuse me, but you’re sitting on my kidneys.” Clem mumbled into
the ground.
Xander jumped
up and helped Clem to his feet. “I just want to know why,” the demon said as
soon as he was standing. He brushed
bits of twig and moss from the folds in his skin.
“Why what? Why
the world fails to end? Why Britney Spears thinks she can sing? Why Sunnydale gets more and more like
Springfield every week?”
“Why Buffy
dusted Spike.”
“Why who did
what? Buffy hasn’t dusted Spike. Oh
boy, would I know if Buffy had dusted Spike.”
“Well, where is
he then?” demanded Clem, shaking his head so that his ears flapped. He explained all about his great Spike
hunt. When he’d finished Xander looked
even more puzzled and the demon began to think that maybe he’d been a bit hasty
to believe Spike had been destroyed.
What he needed was help so he asked, “Ah, maybe you could help me? Um, if you’re not too busy that is.”
“Spike missing?
Yeah I’ll help. Want me to get party
streamers or make dip?”
Clem looked sad
and turned away. He felt a hand on his
shoulder, “I’m sorry, ‘course I’ll help.” Said Xander and he tried, but he
couldn’t think of anywhere Clem hadn’t already looked.
It was possible
Spike had simply taken off, but Clem wasn’t ready to hear that so Xander
wracked his brains for someone who might be not only able, but also willing to
help. The others were all busy on
patrol and wouldn’t take kindly to stopping saving the world from mortal peril,
to play hunt the Spike. Who was he
kidding; if they thought the vampire gone, they’d have a ticker tape
parade. Hell, he’d have a ticker tape
parade if Clem weren’t standing there looking so expectantly at him. He thought harder, “Come on,” he said
suddenly, grabbing the demon by the arm,
“let’s go and see Tara.”
The blonde
witch was sitting in her college room watching ‘The Plight of the Panda’ on
National Geographic. They were showing
a map of the distribution, small pockets of pandas separated by deforestation
and major road building. If only they
could all get together they’d be enough, but separated from others of their
kind, they were dying out.
There was a
time when she’d have been curled up on the sofa with Willow, but not now. She wasn’t even asked to patrol. It was funny how losing your lover meant
losing your friends too. It was as if
people came in family bundles. She
remembered meeting Spike’s friend at Buffy’s party. They’d all liked him. He
even made Spike seem somehow less prickly, but if Buffy managed to rid herself of
the vampire, that new friend might go too.
Life was sad that way, just like the pandas. If they could only get all the little pockets of friends
together. The knock on the door scared
her, “Who is it?” she called.
“Xander and
Clem.”
“Two little pockets
of friends,” she thought, but knowing her vampire safety drill, she got up and
opened the door without saying come in.
As it was
Xander and Clem, they came in anyway.
“We need you to find Spike,” said Xander.
Tara frowned at
him. Why on earth would Xander be
looking for Spike? She hoped they
hadn’t had some sort of fight. They had
done nothing but bicker of late. Maybe
Xander had found out about the vampire and Buffy. She looked at Clem.
Something was definitely wrong, “Have you tried his crypt?” She asked.
Clem’s ears
actually began to twitch in annoyance.
“We really need
you to make with the magic bit. You
know the tracking type hocus-pocus,” said Xander.
“You want me to
find a vampire, on the Hellmouth, with magic?”
She asked incredulously, “It’s
not an exact science, Xander. It’s not
like using a bloodhound, no pun intended.”
“You mean no
tracker dog spells?”
She sighed and
thought for a bit, “Well, I could…. I
mean - if I had something of his.”
Clem produced a
lighter from his back pocket, “Will this do?” he said, “I won it from him in a
bet. I was going to return it but he
was gone.”
The blonde
witch smiled at him and took the lighter.
She gathered a few more things including a mirror and a spell book. She made a sacred circle using orange
coloured sand. Holding the lighter, she
sat opposite the mirror inside the circle and, checking the book for the exact
wording, began to chant,
“I call on
spirits of the air,
Devine our
friend who’s missing here.
Guiding spirits
hear our prayer,
Show us Spike
relieve our fear.”
Xander pulled a
bit of a face at the word friend and when Tara pulled a bit of a face, he
guessed the spell had failed.
“That’s funny,”
she said.
“Not worked?”
he asked.
“Oh no, it worked
but I can’t see Spike. Just a bunch of
guys I don’t know. Here, you should be
able to see the images too.”
Xander moved
behind her, careful not to touch her or cross the circle. He could see a room in the mirror that was
like something out of James Bond meets Inspector Gadget. He could see two people he recognised, one
he didn’t and they seemed to be playing a bizarre game of charades.
“Maybe Spike
just isn’t the fairest of them all,” he said, although he was pretty sure that
amongst this motley crew, he was.
“He’s there,”
said Clem matter-of-factly. Xander
looked harder. It was like ‘Where’s
Wally?’ Suddenly he saw it. Not a
red-and-white striped jumper, but chains about two maybe three inches above the
ground and more hanging at a strange angle above head height.
Now the
movements of the others began to make more sense. First one would approach and then another. They were hitting out at the area between
the chains with chair legs, base ball bats or just their fists. The blows were savage in their intensity and
the chains pulled from one side to the other, as the invisible vampire reeled
under each new assault.
“There,” he
said leaning forward. The image
vanished and Tara briefly gave him a cross look. He’d leant across the circle.
“It’s okay.” He
said covering his basic mistake, “We’ve
got enough. We didn’t actually see him
but then vampires and mirrors not exactly mixey things. We know where he is,” and to himself he
thought, “Oh man, is there going to be some interest in that payback when it
comes!”
“Only we
don’t.” said Clem. He was beginning to
feel like he would never find his friend.
“Yes we do,”
said Tara. “Or at least, I have a feel
for where it was. You can follow my
guiding light.”
As soon as the
tiny ‘Tinkerbell’ light had been summoned, Xander and Clem set off after
it. Clem urged Xander to hurry. He didn’t know what was happening, he wasn’t
that kind of demon, but whatever it was, Spike was a friend in trouble.
For a guy so
damned concerned for his friend’s welfare, Clement had an exasperating way of
showing it, Xander decided as he waited outside the liquor store.
Clem came out
clutching a brown paper carrier. In it
were four bottles of whiskey. After what
they’d seen, he thought Spike would need it.
He made conversation as they walked, “Sorry it took so long. Can you believe the counter clerk asked for
ID? Sometimes I don’t know if this is
the best town to live in or the worst.
People are so blasé. The time
was when everyone would’ve hidden, even from me. Once -about two centuries ago…” he said it like it was about two
weeks, “…they actually sent for a priest.”
“What did you
do?” Asked Xander, still keeping his
eyes on the tiny light in front of them.
“Got drunk with
the priest and he told me all the town gossip, he’d picked up in the
confessional.”
They both
laughed.
Hidden in the
bushes, outside the house Tara had seen in the mirror, Xander asked, “How are
we going to play this?” It was going
to be hard enough to find a reason for him being there at all, let alone having
a demon in tow, even one as innocuous as Clem.
“Maybe you should stay here. It
might make it easier explanation wise.”
The demon
nodded and scratched his head with his long clawed hand. They could see Spike through the windows, no
longer chained, doing the strangest things and he was totally naked.
“Maybe it’s not
him,” said Clem hopefully, but it had to be, the finding spell and Tara’s
guiding light had both led them here, this was definitely Spike. With the chains removed, he was jiggling
about so that parts of him bounced Xander really didn’t need to see so soon
before his wedding.
Xander stared
hard and shook his head. He refocused
his attentions on Clem, standing patiently beside him hugging the carrier. “I don’t get it,” he said, “Why do you like
him?”
Clem thought
for a moment, “Because he’s my friend,” he said simply.
For a minute
that statement just hung in the air, eventually Clem asked, “Why don’t you like
him?”
“Got - oh I
don’t know - the rest of your life?
Apart from the fact that he’s evil, a killer and a walking corpse with
no soul, he’s tried to kill us, betrayed us and is playing stalker of the year
with my best friend. He’s a monster, a
demon and did I mention evil?”
“Earlier this
evening you accused me of being ethically challenged, I think it’s your ethics
that need challenging. To some your
last statement might have sounded racist.”
“I am so not a
racist! I’m marrying an ex demon for
God’s sake.”
“Would you
marry her if she was still a demon?”
Suddenly the
air around him became very hot. Xander
didn’t want to answer that question, so he moved swiftly along, “Look, truth is
I don’t ‘don’t’ like him. I do like him,
or I would if he wasn’t a blood-sucking creature of the night, and okay to some
that may sound racist. ‘My wife is a
former Jew and I’d like him if his skin was a different colour’ type KKK
racist. Look can we just rescue him,
then I’ll make with the nicies.”
Simple plans
are best so, taking the carrier, Xander simply walked up and knocked on the
door. There was a lot of scuffling and
‘Nerd of the Year’ opened it. He was
the most timid and ineffectual person Xander had seen in a long while. Large grey eyes peered out from under over
long blond hair.
“Who are you?”
He and Xander chorused.
“I’m a friend
of Jonathan’s,” said Xander.
I’m a friend of
Warren’s,” said the nerd, followed by a gasp.
He clamped his hand over his mouth as if he’d said a dirty word.
Andrew hovered
on the doorstep not knowing what to do.
A friend of the Slayer’s was here in their new headquarters and he’d
just said Warren’s name. Warren had
said no names; he was supposed to be Gold Warrior.
His panic was
only just relieved by Jonathan arriving behind him. He wasn’t too pleased to see Xander either, but he needed some
relief from what was going on downstairs.
Maybe Xander’s presence would put a halt to it.
Warren was a
genius it had to be said. He’d figured
out the chip thing double quick but he was a megalomaniac and had gotten a
taste for mind control. Any advantage
gained over someone was quickly turned to humiliation and Jonathan knew all
about that. He knew just how painful
and crushing it was. “Come in,” he said
hurriedly and ushered their surprise guest into the basement.
“Hi Warren, hi
Spike,” said Xander jauntily. Now he
could see Spike clearly, he realised just what a state he was in. The vampire had angry welts on his wrists
and ankles from the manacles on the chains, even though he no longer wore
them. His body was covered in bruises
and the left side of his face had definitely hit a door or someone’s fist. He was bleeding from somewhere as well. Tiny drops of blood, so dark they were
almost black, landed on the linoleum as Spike swayed on the spot. His eyes were glazed and apparently
unseeing.
“Well say
hello!” snapped Warren, sitting at the computer. Spike stood up straight as if pulled on strings and said, “Hello
darling, give us a kiss!”
Xander was both
puzzled and startled by Spike’s strange greeting and, while Warren and Andrew
convulsed with laughter, Jonathan just looked uncomfortable.
Spike began to
mince forwards grimacing like he was fighting some unseen foe. Suddenly Andrew ran towards Warren, “That’s
not fair! You said one turn each per
round. Now you’re having two
turns. Make him dance again. I want to see him dance!”
Warren slapped
at Andrew’s outstretched hand, “Not in front of our guest, Andrew.”
“And you said no names!” cried Andrew,
really upset now, “I’m Red Leader, you said I could be Red Leader.”
“Red
Leader?” Said Xander, “So what’s he…”
pointing at Spike, “Pink Ranger?”
There was a moment
of clarity for Spike when he’d begged St Vigious and St Jude that Xander’s
arrival heralded the beginning of the end.
Wasn’t he the white hats, the cavalry?
He knew the young man didn’t like him much, but surely Buffy had some
feelings beginning to stir? Had she
sent him? He heard Xander’s quip and
hope faded as quickly as it had risen.
Xander took his
eyes briefly around the room. It was
like being on the inside of a super geek’s brain. There were comic books and collectibles strewn about and mixed up
with gadgets of every type.
Two-week-old pizza boxes made the place smell faintly of mouldy
cheese. “God, I used to live like
this,” thought Xander.
The malevolent
figure of Warren approached him, “What are you doing here and how did you find us?” He asked, his tone flat.
“Well here’s
the thing. I didn’t find you. No, that’s not true obviously I found you,
but I was looking for Jonathan. I kinda
need you to make with the magic,” he said turning to the spell caster, “getting
married soon, don’t want to disappoint, know what I’m saying? Oh and I heard you were real handy in the
glamour department so a little enhancement and the odd multiple…you know? Can’t exactly ask the girls, matter of the
delicate kind.”
He knew he was
into a complete babble-fest and looked about for inspiration. His gaze fell on a plastic wallet sticking
out of a pile of dirty underwear. He
bent down and, placing the carrier with the whiskey to one side, slid it out
gingerly. “Oh WOW!” He exclaimed out loud, “The Birthday Pikachu
Set. What else have you got? I bet there are some things here that are
uber bucks. So Jonathan what about it?”
“Well I could…”
“Hey guys. He’s
got real drink!” Exclaimed Andrew
suddenly, pulling out a bottle from the bag.
Warren immediately snatched the bottle away from him and opened it,
daring Xander to say anything with a look.
It was clear he wasn’t sharing.
“Help
yourselves,” said Xander, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
Andrew took
another bottle and, opening it, had a large swig. His eyes watered and he spluttered uncontrollably. To cover up his uncoolness he began to show
Xander the fabulous collection of Star Wars plastic figures he owned. “Of course they got the dimensions of the
Millennium Falcon all wrong,” he said with rare authority.
Warren sat back
in the computer chair and surveyed the scene with king-like detachment. His subjects were doing well. He sipped at his whiskey. It was good that they had something else to
do anyway. Torturing Spike had been fun
for a day or two, but Andrew would think of such stupid things like making him
walk in the sun. It had taken Warren
too long to work out how the chip worked, and modify it to accept computer
written commands, to have Spike charred to dust. Andrew was the type of child who always broke other people’s
toys, Warren decided.
Xander did no
more than sip at the bottle in his hand.
He had to make a show of it but as time went on, it was possible to
slide closer and closer to Spike, who had slumped in the stairwell.
Andrew and
Warren were locked in a staring contest.
Every time Warren took a swig Andrew would follow. It was only a matter of time before one of
them heaved. Jonathan’s head kept
dropping onto his chest and he’d snap it back up with a jolt. He had in one hand his magic bone, which he
kept caressing as if it could make all the nasties go away. Warren made some remark about him stroking
his boner and Andrew and he laughed like Beavis and Butthead.
Finally, Xander
made it to Spike’s side. Crouching down
beside him, he said, “Here, drink some of this,” and offered Spike the bottle.
Spike shook his
head carefully and said, “Not got enough control to swallow. The chip, that bastard has it wired. He’s not as good as he thinks he is though,
can still talk, see.” He looked at
Xander with derision, “S’ppose you think this is funny? Gonna put it in your wedding speech? I’m sure I’m a great after dinner joke!”
The words were
vicious but his head lolled at a strange angle and all of a sudden, Xander had
had enough. He hated the vampire at
times it was true, but the one thing Spike didn’t need was any more public
humiliations, and this, well he wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy and
sometimes that was Spike, so he really ought to rescue him. He put his shoulder under Spike’s arm and
hauled him to his feet. The others were
too drunk to notice. He began up the
stairs.
“Hey, not so
fast!” shouted Warren, jumping up. The
rapid movement made him reel as he staggered after them. Andrew had been asleep, he too jumped to his
feet, collided with Warren and they both fell in a sprawling mass on the floor.
Xander
continued to climb the stairs, Jonathan tried to help his fallen comrades but
all movement exacerbated the spinning room, his stomach rolled over and began
to spasm.
“Not over me,
asshole.” Screamed Warren, so Jonathan
turned and spewed whiskey-smelling bile directly into the computer vents. There was a hissing, sparks flew and the
screen went dead.
Spike shook his
head once or twice, just to be sure.
Yes, he was really free. He
charged back down the stairs, grabbed his coat and swung an almighty punch at
Warren. It connected lifting the young
man clear of the floor with the force.
Spike staggered back clutching his head. “Fuck, that hurt, but it was worth it,” he thought, throwing his
coat around his shoulders.
Spike in
nothing but a leather coat was something else Xander didn’t need to see so
close to his wedding, but he savoured the sight anyway. He’d been right, Spike was tightly muscled,
compact and his pale skin contrasted perfectly with the black leather.
“Getting an
eyeful, ‘arris?” Spike’s voice roused
him.
“Ingrate!” He thought but not with ill humour. He called for Clem as soon as they were
outside and together they helped the injured vampire back to his crypt.
Clem didn’t ask
silly questions like how and why. Those
could wait. They weren’t important and
if Spike wished to tell he would in his own time.
Once Spike was
back home, washed and dressed, Xander decided he’d better go. After all, it was nearly light. He looked from the doorway at Clem and Spike
sitting on the sofa drinking and watching TV.
How different their friendship was from the Lunatic Triad they’d left in
their basement bat cave. These two were
lucky he thought and he was almost jealous.
He had so few male friends. “By
the way,” he said, “You’re both invited to the wedding of course,” and then he
was gone.