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Title:
Cubed
Author:
Miss Murchison
Rating:
R, overall
Disclaimer:
All characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy,
etc. Only the lame plots and dialogue herein are mine.
Word Total: about
20,000.
Summary: To solve a
mysterious string of deaths, Buffy and Spike must go where they have
never gone before—undercover at a large company, where they must hunt
down a murderer amid the cubicles while coping with PowerPoint
Presentations and the Coffee Fund Rules.
Extra long, boring,
skipable note: This is a long-gestating fic. In fact, several
elephants could have gestated, been born, and grown to adolescence
since I started it. I started it just before Season 7 began airing and
worked on it a bit more during the depths of angst-ridden drama on the
screen, at my job, and in my fic. I kept adding to it whenever I was
desperately in need of cheering myself up. I finished it as an
antidote to my current fic, which chronicles Buffy's depression.
Therefore, I've set it in an alternative Season 6 where there is no
angst. Assume Buffy didn't die at the end of Season 5, or, if she did,
she was glad to get back. Don't go looking for any huge problems among
the canon characters. They're not there, although all is not sweetness
and light. Which is good, because we all know how bad light is for
Spike.
Thanks:
To
Keswindhover and
to the friend who has later disappeared from the fandom but who
encouraged this idea in the first place. Thanks as well to
It Must Be
Tuesday, for creating the
Seasonal Spuffy community on Live Journal that encouraged me to
finally finish this story.
Harry won as Most Original Demon at the Fang Fetish Awards. I can't tell you how tickled I am to get this on Harry's behalf. But I know I'm not half as pleased as he would be!
Nominated at the Fang Fetish Awards for Best Sleeper, Most Original Demon or Vampire and Best Long.
Runner-Up for Best Comedy Fluff in the 2006 Year's Best at the Love's Last Glimpse Awards.
Thank you to the judges at the Love's Last Glimpse Awards for recognizing Cubed in Round 15.
 
Nominated for Best Long Story, Best Comedy/Fluff, Best Plot, and Best Original Character (Harry just squeed with excitement again!) at the Love's Last Glimpse Awards.
Chapter One
The road was long and winding, destitute of any lights or human
habitation. Two sinister red lights gleamed ominously in the depths of
the dark and stormy night. It was impossible to make out the contours
of the thing that hosted those crimson eyes in the moonless, velvety
darkness. The scarlet beams veered suddenly to one side, as if a demon
had leapt on some unwary prey. Then they jumped again, with
stomach-churning swiftness, but in the opposite direction. Xander
peered over the steering wheel and ground his teeth in frustration.
What the hell was the driver in front of him doing?
And what kind of jalopy was that idiot driving? Either the third tail
light had burnt out on the vehicle in front of him, or it was too old
to have ever had more than two. Some decrepit old pickup truck, he
guessed. Probably with bald tires. The twin red lights zigzagged
dizzyingly again. That asshole was going to slide right off the road
if he wasn’t careful!
"Damn!" said Xander. He flicked his own lights off, then on again. One
of his headlights had definitely burnt out. It wouldn’t have mattered
so much in town, but out here, things seemed unusually dark, even for
the vicinity of the hellmouth. And he was afraid the asshole in front
of him was about to have an accident, possibly blocking the path home.
He navigated carefully around the curving path of the rural road,
trying to remember how far away the turn to Sunnydale was.
As he negotiated a hairpin turn, the tires of the car in front of him
shrieked painfully, scraping against the road surface as the driver
slammed on the brakes while spinning the steering wheel hard to the
left. Xander's way was suddenly barred by the rear fender of an aging
Toyota and—something else. He stood on the brakes out of instinct,
thinking that it might have been better to keep going and use the
Xandermobile as a weapon. Too late. There was a shriek as metal met
wood and objected strongly to the acquaintance. He’d wrapped his ride
around a tree trunk.
By the time he’d assimilated this information, he was pulling his head
out of an airbag to the sound of someone drawling in an annoyingly
familiar voice, "A bit of career advice, Harris. Driving instructor
may not be your vocation."
Xander was too shaky to quip a response. He even allowed a helping
hand on his elbow as he emerged from the car. He leaned against the
frame, choking from the dust and checking himself for damage. When
he’d found only scratches and his breathing had returned to normal, he
said to his non-breathing rescuer, "Fuck. The Xandermobile is no
more."
"It is an ex-car," Spike agreed. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder
up the hill. "But at least you're not an ex-Xander. Other bloke wasn't
as lucky."
Xander and Spike walked through the kitchen door of the Summers'
kitchen and into an argument between Tara and Dawn about the viability
of broccoli as a foodstuff. Tara was for, Dawn against.
Willow looked up from weighing a small pile of herbs on a tiny scale
and saw Xander's face. "What happened? Your cheek is bleeding. And
look at your hands!" She glared over her friend's shoulder at the
vampire. "Has Spike been getting you into fights again?"
"No need for the suspicion, Red." Spike shrugged out of his coat. "I
was out making minimum wage to keep young Dawn in broccoli when I just
missed crashing head on into someone on the county road and got
treated to the sight of Xander sliding his basically boring
transportation into a ditch. I picked him up, tossed him in my cab,
and, seeing as Anya's out of town, brought him home to the rest of his
womenfolk."
Three feminine squeals were followed by hugs, requests that Xander sit
down and assure them he was okay, and demands to know if they could
get him anything. Spike ignored the fuss and rummaged in the fridge.
"Spike called 911. They're towing away the wrecks." Xander was perking
up under all this female attention. "They were scratching their heads
and other body parts over the skid marks when we left." He reached in
his pocket.
"Eww," said Willow. "But kind of typical of Sunnydale's finest."
Spike's head emerged. "They'd be pissing instead of scratching if they
saw what I saw just before the crashes."
"Crashes?" Tara looked more puzzled than usual. "There were two?"
"I didn't hit the other car," said Xander. "It spun sideways for no
reason and I went into the ditch trying to avoid it." He pulled a
small card from his pocket. “Why do I think that heroic action is
going to make things even harder to explain to my insurance agent?”
"There was a reason." Spike popped the lid off a beer bottle. "I was
heading in the opposite direction, out of town to pick up someone
who’d called for a cab and I saw it happen. Something jumped right in
front of the poor bugger."
Willow left off petting Xander and stared at Spike. "Since Buffy's not
home yet, I'll be the one to hope it was a deer."
"Not unless Sunnydale deer are 6 feet tall, walk on two feet, and have
a vertical jumps like a grasshopper. Thing was there, and then it
wasn't. I barely missed crashing myself. By the time I stopped the
cab, it was gone.”
Xander got up and went to the fridge to retrieve a beer for himself.
"I don't think it was the first time it spooked whoever was in the
car. The driver was all over the road, as if he kept seeing something
scary."
"What kind of a demon was it?" Willow was already heading towards the
dining room and her laptop as she threw the question over her
shoulder.
"Didn't get a good look," said Spike, following her.
An hour later, Willow was scanning the police report. "The victim was
a guy named Harvey Kofax who worked the midnight shift at Ashiana
Industries but lived outside of town. I guess that's why he was on
that road."
Dawn, who had been peering over Willow's shoulder, looked up as the
front door opened. "Speaking of people who were supposed to be working
the midnight shift --."
"I kind of had to revise that plan when I got fired," said Buffy. She
tossed her backpack on the floor. "Why does it have to be against the
rules to kill your supervisor?"
Dawn's expression became even more severe. "I hope this was a Slayer
thing and not just an anger management issue."
"A bit of both." Buffy looked around. "There are lots of people and a
demon in my dining room. They are eating my food and Willow is
researching. Why does this not please me?"
"Sorry. Xander almost got killed," said Tara so apologetically that
someone who didn't known her would have thought she was guilty of
snacking on more than a few Doritos.
But Buffy's eyes were straying elsewhere. "Hey!" protested Spike. "I
saved the wanker!"
Xander sat up straight. "You did not! My continued existence is due
entirely to the airbag engineers and those crash test dummies who
convinced me to buckle up. All you did was give me a ride back to
town."
A chorus of voices brought Buffy up-to-date on events. When they were
done, the Slayer's eyes focused on the one person who had been silent
during the confusingly non-linear description. "What about you, Will?
Picked up on something?"
"Yeah." Willows fingers were still flying across laptop keys and she
didn't look up as she answered. "The employer. Ashiana Industries.
This place must have a florist that delivers to funeral homes on
retainer. They’re listed as the employer on over thirty death
certificates issued so far this year." Willow hit a few keys, scanned
the screen for a moment, and moved on to another document. "All
violent deaths. Ick."
"Ick?"
"Accidents, dismemberments, freak poisonings. All kinds of weird and
nasty. Any place but Sunnydale, people would have noticed, even though
most of the killings didn’t happen on the job."
"My theory is there’s something in the water here," said Spike.
Everyone turned to stare at him. "Well, other places, crowds come
after my lot with pitchforks and burning torches. Here, the butcher
shops give out two-for-one coupons for pints of pigs' blood."
"But demons don’t usually check to see where the person is working,”
Tara objected. “Even in Sunnydale, I mean."
Buffy was still watching Willow. "Anything else on this Asinine
Industries?"
"A bunch of ads for temporary and even some permanent jobs," said
Willow. "It looks like they have lots of openings. I guess all those
dead employees make for a pretty high turnover."
"Which suggests a plan!" Everyone looked at the Slayer. "Maybe I can
get a job there. I could investigate from the inside."
This announcement won her some unflattering stares. "You're going to
work in an office?" asked Willow.
"And even if you get in, how are you going to stay in?" asked Xander.
He caught Buffy's glare and tried to justify himself. "I mean, your
track record for keeping jobs is worse than, uh, mine when I first got
out of high school."
Spike was silent for once, but his expression was not reassuring.
Dawn was the only one to react with anything approaching enthusiasm.
"You could earn some grocery money too. Because my plan to pay the
mortgage by playing the lottery—not panning out."
"You’re too young to play the lottery," said Buffy.
"Not if I can talk some older guy into buying tickets for me," said
Dawn.
Willow and Buffy turned to stare at Xander and Spike, both of whom
raised their eyes to the ceiling and tried to look as if they weren’t
following the conversation.
"And is there anything else they’re buying for you?" asked Buffy,
turning her attention back to her sister.
"Oh, no," said Dawn. "Spike steals the Jack Daniels, he doesn’t buy
it." Then she added quickly, "Joke. That was a joke. The only thing he
ever got me besides the lottery tickets was the American Pie
DVD."
"You gave her American Pie?" shrieked Buffy.
Spike shrugged. "Didn’t see the harm. Of course, I missed the film in
the theaters so I didn’t know the wanker was going to shag the symbol
of motherhood and American goodness. I might have asked you first if I
had. Not completely irresponsible, you know."
"No, just 99.9 percent purely irresponsible," said Buffy.
"Hey, it was Xander who got her the sequel," said Spike, abandoning
all sense of male solidarity in an effort to protect himself.
"Was that bad too?" asked Willow. "I’ve never seen it."
"Wasn’t that the one with the flute?" asked Tara.
"What about a flute?" Willow looked confused.
"Don't worry, sweetie." Tara patted her hand. "Trust me, you don't
want to know."
More pointless bickering and fruitless research followed. Eventually
Xander managed to get through to a towing service that promised to
retrieve his car first thing in the morning, and he announced that he
was heading home. By that point, everyone was tired enough to agree to
Buffy's plan. She would try to get hired at Ashiana Industries the
next day and see if she noticed anything odd going on. Dawn said Buffy
wasn't to worry if it took a while. "Feel free to keep working there
long enough to, say, collect a paycheck."
Buffy ignored this and reached for her coat. "Time to patrol."
"Yeah," said Spike, jumping down from his perch on the dining room
table. "Patrolling. Still very important. We can’t forget that."
Buffy looked over her shoulder. "Dawn, it won't matter if I’m kind of
late, will it? Tara and Willow are here just in case. Because there
could be a lot of demon out there for me to take care of. Demons, I
mean. Plural. Lots of demons."
"Sure thing, Buffy," said Dawn. "We'll be fine. You go take care of
that demon, er, demons."
The three girls watched until the kitchen door shut behind the Slayer
and the vampire. "My sister’s gotta take care of that demon, all
right," said Dawn with a snicker.
Willow snorted with equal amusement. "Yeah. Just who do they think
they’re kidding?"
Tara, however, was serious. "Do you think we should just tell them we
know so they don’t have to sneak around all the time?"
"Oh, no!" Dawn was horrified. "Buffy doesn't want me corrupted by the
knowledge she's got another vampire boyfriend, and Spike's afraid
he'll lose even more face among the other demons if they find out his
sleeping with the enemy isn't just, you know, figurative. Besides,
watching those two try to be subtle is one of the few joys of my
desolate teenage existence. If you took that away, I might have to get
into real trouble just to keep myself amused."
Tara gave her a quick hug. "Well, okay then. As long as it’s important
to your well-being, we'll continue to snicker behind their backs with
a clear conscience."
Chapter Two, where Buffy enters the belly of the beast.
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