|
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 since disappeared from the fandom but who
encouraged this idea in the first place. (If you ever read this, you
know who you are, and you are missed by others as well as by me.)
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.
Chapter Four
The rest of the day passed without Buffy learning anything about
possible demons at the office, and almost as little about her job.
Lunch was a lot like the first day at a new high school, with only
Eric showing interest in sitting with her, and her microwaved burrito
raising the concept of unappetizing to new and unexciting levels.
Eric, it appeared, wasn't happy living life down on the cube farm, and
was planning to make a name for himself in the world of country music.
As a first step, he was going to put Harry's nose out of joint at the
Talent Show, and then he was going form his own band.
After five minutes, Buffy refused Eric's fourth request for a date,
dumped the sludgy mess of cheese and dough in the garbage, and made
her way back to her desk. The whole place was a disaster. There wasn't
even any Tab in the vending machines. The fact that even PowerPoint
was better than lunch was probably a plot to increase productivity.
Only Harry could possibly approve. Buffy was starting to wonder if the
dead employees had all staged dramatic and unlikely suicides out of
desperation for a moment of real excitement.
During the afternoon, Harry zipped by a few times, apparently
volunteering for errands that would drive up his pedometer count, Rita
paid another extended visit to Stan's office, and Melandra deluged
Buffy with several dozen emails with huge file attachments in various
formats. Spike wandered past once, throwing her a suggestive smirk
that destroyed her concentration for at least a half-hour. By quitting
time, her wrists and back hurt, and she felt like someone had beaten
her across the shoulders with a lead pipe. While she was shutting down
her PC, Harry came by collecting empty soda cans for points towards
the Ecology Award. He renewed his offer of a ride home, but Buffy felt
she'd had as many Harry Points as she could cope with for the day.
The bus was late, Dawn was cranky, dinner was leftovers because Willow
and Tara had evening classes, and when Xander showed up, he had Anya
in tow. Buffy resisted an impulse to hide upstairs with her head under
the covers, and was eventually rewarded with the arrival of Spike and
a six pack. She didn't drink much any more, but some days just
screamed the need for foamy goodness.
Eventually, Willow and Tara arrived, breaking up an argument in front
of the TV about whether Walker, Texas Ranger or Kung Fu
was superior, and an argument between Dawn and Anya about whether all
males were insane or just the males Buffy and Anya were dating.
"Dating?" snapped Buffy. "Who's dating?"
"No one, no one," said Dawn, rolling her eyes as she patted Buffy's
shoulder. "Rest easy, grasshopper."
Before Buffy could challenge this, Willow bounced through the door,
demanding to know what Buffy had found out.
"That work is boring and my cubicle is not egomatically designed."
"I think you mean ergonomically." Tara began making coffee in
preparation for the night's research.
"Well, I am sure my boss is monomaniacly inclined." Buffy noticed that
Spike had wandered into the kitchen too and casually placed himself
next to her. "And Spike has a job there too," she admitted.
"Ooooh!" Willow looked up from unpacking her laptop. "That's good. You
have backup."
Spike nudged up behind Buffy and whispered, "That's right, Slayer.
I've got your—back."
Buffy shoved his hand away from her butt and looked around to see if
anyone else had noticed.
"Wait." All the Scoobies were clustering together, moving between the
kitchen and dining room, and Xander had heard at least part of the
last exchange. "Spike got an office job? What alternative universe is
this place located in? And what happened to the cab driving gig?"
"The cab is out of commission, and I'm not a desk jockey." Spike
opened the fridge, noted the beer was gone, and poured himself a cup
of coffee. "I work in what they call Facilities, which seems to mean
wandering about and using a screwdriver every once in a while." He
pulled a flask out of his pocket and dumped some of the contents in
his mug. "Since screwing is one of my strong suits—"
Xander interrupted. "Heh, heh, Spike's a janitor!"
"Am not!"
"He's right," Buffy got between them before shoving and chip
activation could take place. "He's supposed to repair stuff. They have
a separate staff for cleaning bathrooms and emptying wastebaskets."
She smirked. "I understand that Facilities is responsible for
shampooing the carpet, though. How are your shampooing skills, Spike?"
Willow was set up in full research mode. "I've been trying to
calculate probabilities all day, but it’s weird that there’s no one MO
for these murders. Most killers have a special style they like to
stick to. With this guy, it’s as if he doesn’t care how they wind up
dead. He just uses whatever happens to be at hand to kill them."
Buffy looked over her shoulder. "Hey, is that MS Access you're using?"
"Yeah." Willow looked surprised. "I've put each death in a database
with method, location, time, and some other factors."
"Can you show me how you did that?" Buffy edged her chair closer.
Dawn and Tara joined the crowd at the table, bearing bowls of potato
chips and carrot sticks respectively. Tara frowned at the chips but
made no comment.
"You want to help me filter death scenarios?"
"No, I want to keep my boss from verbally eviscerating me because I
can't do the same thing with budget numbers."
Anya looked over her shoulder as she headed to the kitchen. "Well, if
you think that your job is more important than finding the thing that
almost killed poor Xander and caused damage to his car in excess of
the insured value, then I suppose we just have to understand that."
"Okay," said Buffy sulkily. "Slayage before work." She glanced
sideways at Spike. "I suppose eventually there will be some pleasure."
She leaned over and looked at the paper in front of her sister. "How's
your research coming? What’s with all the calculations? Is that a
numerology thing?"
"Uh, not exactly," confessed Dawn. "I couldn’t find out anything about
your demon, so I’m picking numbers for the lottery. Spike, what’s your
favorite number?"
"Sixty-nine," said Spike automatically.
Buffy looked amused until Dawn giggled, then she cast him a glance of
outrage. His eyebrows rose and she frowned. "You’re not being much
help either," she said. "Or did you find out anything today?"
"A bit. Most of Marketing and Human Resources are demons."
"Doesn’t surprise me," said Buffy, remembering the chilling gaze of
the woman who had hired her.
Spike snickered. "Yeah, Human Resources. Sounds like a vampire
cafeteria. Turns out it’s a job for people who—"
"Yes, Spike, we know what their job is," said Willow wearily. "What
kind of demons are they and what are they up to?"
"Not much. They’re just your basic emotional parasites. Drain people’s
sense of purpose and ability to enjoy life. Feed off it somehow.
Common buggers. Gravitate to jobs like that in Sunnydale, well, and
all over the world, really. But their victims usually recover as soon
as they’re out of psychic range. There are lots of these demons all
over Sunnydale; this lot aren’t your big bad and barely worth the
Slayer’s notice."
"Except when they’re sucking her emotional energy," grumped Buffy,
remembering her job interview. She made a mental note to steer clear
of Human Resources.
"Also, that wanker who was showing you around this morning."
Buffy's hand stopped on its way to snag a potato chip. "Harry's a
demon?"
"Yeah. An assenssus demon."
"Sounds dangerous." Dawn's hand dodged past Buffy to scoop up chips.
"Not really." Anya was standing by the fridge, a cup of coffee in her
hand and a frown on her face. "They're approval-seekers. They feed off
praise."
"Explains a lot." Buffy cheered up. "In fact, I can't ever remember
being so glad to find out someone was a demon. Makes me feel much
better to know no human could be that much of a nerd."
Willow was peering at her laptop. "Found an entry on them. They're
ranked as harmless. In fact, it says here that they make good
housekeepers, if you can stand their constant need for attention."
"If you kept an assensus, you wouldn't always be out of coffee
creamer." Anya sat down at the table. "They're efficient shoppers too.
Always clip coupons."
Buffy glanced at the messy kitchen and toyed with the idea of taking
Harry home, but remembered how annoying he'd managed to be during the
time she'd known him. Better not.
"Don't want one of that lot around here. Bunch of bleaters," was
Spike's assessment.
Buffy decided to change the subject. "I did notice this weird smell
from one of the cubicles about four aisles down from mine, so I talked
to some of the people nearby, and they said they think the guy who
sits there is keeping something freaky in his desk drawer."
"Rats," said Spike.
"Why, did you miss one, oh mighty smeller of demons?" asked Xander.
"No, Harris, the guy has rats in his drawer. Keeps a litter box and a
supply at hand. His kind only like live meat, but they don't eat
anything much bigger than Speedy Gonzalez either. He's not likely to
be killing humans."
"It seems like Spike's doing most of the detecting on this job." Anya
regarded Buffy over the rim of her coffee mug. "Since you didn't
accomplish much, I don't see why you didn't have enough time to buy
creamer this afternoon."
Buffy, who was already tying to stifle her annoyance that Spike had
managed to find out so much more than she had, snapped at him. "Well,
there was this really weird woman in the cafeteria. Frizzy hair,
sweater, lunchbox fetish. Did you sniff her out too?"
"No." Spike took the last of the chips, leaving Buffy to stare
resentfully at the carrot sticks. "Crazy lunchbox lady is all yours,
Slayer."
In
Chapter Five, Spike shows Buffy some novel uses for office machinery
|
