Spike~Wesley friendship. Rated G / PG-13.
Set in the beginning of season 5 of Ats
Playing Chess with Shadows
As soon as he had a glimpse through his open door of the now
familiar blond hair and black leather shadow, Wesley dropped what he
was doing – or rather, carefully put down the priceless book he had
been perusing – and ran after him. He called out Spike’s name through
the deserted hallway but with no result. He didn’t pause to wonder why
the building was deserted; didn’t realize that he should have gone home
hours before like most employees had. Instead, he simply caught up with
the ghost. Apparently, Spike was going toward the lab; and Wesley
suspected he knew why. He had noticed that Fred seemed overly
preoccupied with their resident spook, and that said ghost always
seemed to look for her whenever he reappeared. Why was still to be
determined, but Wesley was rather sure it was entirely professional.
“Fred is not there,” he stated to the twice-dead man who was still ignoring him.
That finally worked. The blonde turned toward him, and Wesley felt a
cold shudder run down his back at the haunted expression the ghost was
wearing. Even in his head, the pun sounded lame, and quite
inappropriate when confronted with the rising panic and confusion in
eyes so pale they seemed transparent. Actually, they were becoming
transparent, as was the rest of Spike’s body.
“Where?” the ghost sputtered. “When?”
“She’s at a conference in San Francisco. She’ll be back tomorrow.”
Spike’s eyes closed, and his lips moved in a silent curse as he
continued to fade. Time to see if his theory proved true, Wesley
thought grimly.
“Would you come to my office?” he asked, slightly too loud, as if Spike
disappearing from view might make it more difficult for the ghost to
hear. “I’d like to discuss a few things with you. About your condition.”
Slightly better. Not as transparent, but still see through. A good start, still.
“My condition?” Spike repeated with a short, dry chuckle, before tensing visibly. “What did she tell you? She wasn’t supposed…”
Fading again. Wesley spoke quickly, filing in the back of his mind that
Fred had information about Spike that she had been asked not to share.
“Fred told me nothing, if you’re indeed talking about her. I have been
observing your coming and going and have been waiting for days for you
to return so that I could share my theories with you. Will you please
come to my office?”
Again, the ghost closed his eyes. Again, he repeated Wesley’s words,
this time in a murmur barely loud enough for Wesley to understand.
“Days… Felt like centuries.”
The fading had stopped, but Spike wasn’t fully there.
“Spike?” Wesley tried to get his attention back. “Come with me? Please?”
The ghost nodded; and Wesley headed back to his office, slightly
relieved to see Spike walking next to him, still disoriented but at
least still there.
The door closing behind them didn’t bring any sense of security to
Spike. There was another door, far more dangerous, ready to open again
under his feet at any moment, and that was the only door whose closing
mattered. And his only hope was frolicking in another city. Hadn’t she
promised to help him? If he couldn’t count on her, he was as good as
doomed.
“Would you like to sit down?” the Watcher offered, and Spike’s only
reply was to raise an eyebrow at him. Sit down? What else? Have some
tea, maybe? Chat about redemption and bloody useless souls?
“What did you want to talk about?” he said shortly, already regretting having followed the man.
If Wesley was offended by the brusque answer, he didn’t show it. He sat
down on the edge of his desk and grabbed a slim folder behind him, but
didn’t refer to it as he told his bit.
“As I told you, I’ve been trying to document all of your
disappearances,” he said. “Tried to find common points between them, to
see if something triggers the phenomenon, which could give us a clue
about how to reverse it, and…”
With a sharp gesture of his hand, Spike stopped the man’s ramblings.
“I’m not getting any older,” he commented dryly, “but you are. You want to get to the point?”
Once again, Wesley didn’t react to the rudeness.
“From the data I gathered, almost every time you disappeared was
preceded by… someone ignoring you or making derogatory remarks about
your worth.”
There had been a pause, almost imperceptible, and Spike would have bet
his soul that the vague ‘someone’ Wes had nearly named was his boss. He
thought about it for a few seconds, about the times he had faded off
that the Watcher had no way of knowing about, and he mentally added a
third occurrence to Wes’ two. He left this reality when he was being
ignored, insulted, or when he was… hell, he wouldn’t say it out loud
but he could at least admit it to himself. When he was brooding. When
he was thinking of the Hellmouth, his last corporeal instants, his last
touch…
“Spike! Whatever you’re thinking of, I’d suggest you stop right now.”
Startled, Spike returned his attention to Wesley, before looking down at himself. He was fading again.
“Bloody…”
“Do you play chess?” the Watcher asked out of the blue as he moved behind his desk.
“Do I what?”
The question made so little sense, Spike thought for an instant he had
disappeared again and had come back in the middle of a conversation.
But no, Wesley was still talking to him – there was no one else in the
room as Spike saw when he looked around – and the not so pleasant
memories and sensations leftover from his trips there weren’t any
stronger than a second before.
“Do you know how to play chess?” Wesley repeated, placing a board and
its wooden pieces on the desk and sitting down. “If you don’t, I could
teach you.”
“Of course I know how,” Spike answered, annoyance battling with incredulity. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Look at yourself.”
Despite himself, Spike did just that, raising a hand up to the level of
his eyes. Not quite fleshy, but he had stopped disappearing.
“I’ve been thinking about what could prevent you from fading away,” the
Watcher continued, his tone slightly lecturing and reminiscent of
another Watcher. “Something like chess, where your opponent can’t
ignore you or your moves, and, hopefully, won’t make disparaging
comments about you, seemed like a good hypothesis.”
Inquisitive eyes rose to Spike. “And it might keep your mind off
whatever it was you were thinking about when you started fading just a
minute ago.”
He didn’t ask what it was – which was good, because Spike wouldn’t have
answered, at least not to him. Instead, he made the first move, pushing
a white pawn forward.
“So, how do we do this?” Spike asked tiredly as he perched his
insubstantial self on the edge of the very solid desk. “I tell you what
to move for me?”
Wesley had a tight smile as he nodded, and Spike couldn’t help but
wonder why the Watcher was doing this. As it was, if the man’s theory
was right, Spike’s had to choose between playing his game or getting
back before long to the other side. The choice was easy to make. They
played.
They played until morning without exchanging more than a dozen words
beyond Spike’s instructions as to what pieces he wanted moved. Both of
them won and lost a few times, until who was in the lead was simply not
important any more. Despite his tiredness and the ghost’s lack of
conversation, Wesley felt excited that his theory was working. Spike
admitted that it was the longest time in the last couple of weeks that
he had remained solidly anchored to this reality.
When the building started to buzz with employees and customers, Wesley
excused himself to use the gym’s showers and change into his spare
clothes he kept in his locker. He didn’t leave Spike to his own devices
though; instead he offered a challenge of sorts to him – to test
hypothesis number two. He spread out on his desk copies of an ancient
Latin text and its translation and asked Spike if he could read the
language – which, as he had thought, was answered diffidently but with
a yes – and would he be willing to look at the text and translation and
give his opinion about it.
Wesley was back as quickly as humanly possible; but when he returned to
his office, the souled vampire looming over the purposefully bad
translation wasn’t the one he expected.
“Where is Spike?” he asked curtly, already fearing he knew the answer.
Angel shrugged as he briefly looked up from the papers scattered on the
desk. “Who knows where he goes when he disappears? He’s out of here,
and that’s enough for me. Did you know every other sentence in this
translation is…”
“What did you tell him?” Wesley cut in impatiently. “What exact words did you use to address Spike?”
“What exact words?” Angel repeated, puzzled. “Why does it matter?”
Sighing, Wesley gathered the loose leafs off his desk and picked up the folder underneath, which he gave to Angel.
“I’ve been researching Spike’s little disappearing act,” he explained
as Angel scanned the few pages the folder contained. “Testing theories.”
He stopped and waited for the vampire to read for himself.
“So he vanished because I told him to get lost?” Angel asked incredulously as he raised his eyes from the folder.
“That would be one of my theories, yes.”
Angel snorted, shaking his head as he returned the folder to Wes.
“Frankly, I don’t know why you bother,” he started, but Wesley interrupted him immediately.
“It could have been you, Angel,” he reminded the vampire. “Whoever
planned this thing certainly wanted it to be you. Don’t you think we
should have as much information as possible in case something similar
happens again?”
For long moment, there was no reaction from the vampire, and if the
coldness of his gaze was somehow familiar to Wesley, he couldn’t have
said why. Finally, Angel nodded.
“Alright. If that’s what you want to do with your days, have fun. Just be kind enough to keep him away from me, would you?”
“Certainly,” Wesley stated pleasantly. “That way maybe he’ll actually stay around long enough for me to get some information.”
Angel had the graciousness to look slightly guilty as he left the room.
Wesley sat down at his desk to pen everything down that had happened in
the past hours. When he was done, which was after a surprising amount
of time since he also jotted down a few ideas that he might want to
test when Spike reappeared, a simple phone call was enough to let him
know that Fred had returned. Without losing any more time, he walked to
her department, vaguely aware that he was retracing the path Spike had
been following the night before.
Each time Spike suddenly came back into this damned building,
those first minutes when he was too disoriented to be quite sure where
he was were almost as bad as what happened before. When he finally
managed to get his bearing, he always felt better. A tiny bit better.
He held his duster tight to him, as if he could feel anything real, let
alone the cold, when his flesh still echoed the phantom of fire
consuming him. He strode through the corridors, oblivious to the humans
– or demons – he crossed path with, and hesitated briefly when he
realized it wasn’t toward the girl’s office his steps were leading him.
Still, he kept walking. She had been very understanding, but she hadn’t
helped much. On the other hand, the Watcher seemed to have a theory
that might lead them somewhere. That might lead Spike out of hell.
Of course, that would necessitate Spike actually getting to the man’s
office without disappearing first. And right now, with Angel’s coming
out of the office in question, it wasn’t exactly a given. Especially
since the other vampire’s eyes were looking straight at Spike.
Steeling himself for his grand-sire’s rebuttal he was certain would
come, yet hoping that not listening would do the trick and save him
from drifting off again, Spike was almost surprised when Angel gave him
a short nod and the barest hint of a smile before being on his way.
Still disbelieving, Spike continued and was immensely relieved to find
Wesley there when he entered the office.
The relief didn’t last long. As soon as Spike announced his presence,
Wesley looked up from the book on his desk, and if the expression of
his face had not been enough to clue Spike in, then his worried words
and uncharacteristic excitement left no room for doubt. The girl had
talked.
“Spike! My god, are you alright? It has been two weeks, I was beginning to fear the worst!”
“And what would that be?” Spike drawled, pushing with some difficulty a smirk to his lips.
“Fred told me…” Wesley started as he came forward, hesitating when
Spike turned his back to him on the pretense of examining books on a
shelf. “She told me where you go when you disappear. Why didn’t you
tell us?”
Spike shrugged. “Tell who? Angel would probably have gotten a happy and
lost his not so shiny soul. Now wouldn’t that be fun, Angelus at the
head of this company?”
“You could have told me,” the brunette insisted. “If I had known I would have helped…”
Spike turned back to him, cocking his head to one side as he evaluated
the man and the words he had offered. “You didn’t know, but you still
tried to help me. You’ll have to excuse me, but I have some serious
trust issues with ex-Watchers.”
He didn’t elaborate, and by Wesley’s raised eyebrow, he could see that
the man had questions. They remained unasked, however, as the Watcher
simply nodded.
“I have shared some of my theories with a few members of the staff,”
Wesley announced as he returned behind his desk and picked up a folder
that seemed considerably heavier than the last time Spike had seen it.
“I didn’t tell them about… where you go, but I asked them to try to
play nice if they came face to face with you.”
That explained Angel’s reaction, Spike thought grimly.
“So, what now?” he asked aloud. “Did you find out how to make me a little less ghostly?”
“Still working on it, but I have a few hypothesis to test, if you’re willing.”
Suppressing a sigh, Spike wished for the thousandth time since he had
appeared in Angel’s office that he could smoke. Whatever the Watcher
had in mind, it was going to be a long day; Spike was sure of it. On
the other hand, the chess night had been an interesting, non-hurting,
way to pass time, and he wouldn’t have minded a repeat, especially as
long as it kept him in this dimension.
“Willing or not, I don’t really have anything better to do,” he
commented with a slight shrug as he perched himself on Wesley’s desk.
“So, what did you have in mind this time?”
the end
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The characters and names used in these stories do not belong to me. All copyrights remain with Fox and Mutant Enemy. No profit is made from this fanfiction.
