Disequilibria

“Dawn!” Spike called again.

 

Dawn looked across the Void, surprised that her vision was unaffected by the dark; frustrated that Spike didn’t seem to have heard her answer his calls. “Over here!” She replied again, waving the torch. “I’m here Spike!”

 

Spike darted for Indi’s courtyard. A curtain of fire fell across the archway, lighting up the cave again and spreading along the ground to Spike. Beating him back towards the Void. Panicking, Dawn went over to Philippe and Salma, who were standing far back from the edge, the weapons at their feet.

 

“Do something!” She screamed. They looked through her like she wasn’t there. “I’m talking to you,” she jabbed her finger on Salma’s shoulder.

 

In one swift move, the Eliminati jumped back, drew her sword and shifted into sparing stance. The tip of her sword shook as she pointed it in Dawn’s general direction.

 

“What is it?” Philippe asked, sliding his sword from its sheath.

 

“A spirit struck me,” Salma whispered.

 

Dawn was coming up with a theory. She waved the torch in Philippe’s face, he didn’t even blink. “You can’t see me, can you?” She asked. “You can’t hear me,” she said, sure now.

 

She hankered down, placed the torch on the ground and the moment she let go of the torch, the El Eliminati squawked. Had Dawn not been anxious, she would’ve giggled at their saucer eyes and round mouths, but the torch was starting to flicker out.

 

“Come pick it up Salma. We’ve got to keep it burning,” she said.

 

“I do not understand.”

 

“Pick up the freaking torch,” Dawn said, running to the bridge. “Spike! I’m over here!”

 

*    *    *    *

 

“Boy am I glad to see you,” Xander grinned, stepping off the bridge. He wrapped an arm around Dawn’s shoulders and hugged to his side, kissing the top of her head. “How did you get here so fast?”

 

“No idea,” Dawn wiped her hands on her tunic. “I was in Indi’s courtyard and then I woke up here with the torch in my hand.”

 

Spike watched Dawn scrub the skin between her fingers, understood her need for clean up. Indi’s courtyard was waist deep in incorporeal muck. “Where’s the torch now?”

 

“You won’t believe me,” Dawn said.

 

“Try me.”

 

“Salma’s got it…Spike, it makes you invisible.”

 

He didn’t believe her. Then again, it had been an unbelievably shitty morning so far, what was one more unbelievable thing? He glanced at Xander. The boy blanked him. “Fine, that’s just…fine,” Spike looked around for the cave for the absent Eliminati, “slap Giles once if you’re not invisible, Salma. Twice if you are.”

 

“Hold on just one…” Giles’ head swung left then right with the two resounding slaps, “minute,” he finished.

 

Well, bugger me, Spike thought, reminded of Xander walking in on him and an invisible Buffy having sex in his crypt. He let the memory caress him as he doused his lamp, took Giles’ lamp and doused that too.

 

“Salma, light these with Indi’s torch,” he held the lamps out. “Philippe, get four more from Main Floor.”

 

*    *    *    *

 

Torches that made you invisible, keys that were games and teeth that were people…his brain hurt trying to take it all in. On top of that, he was feeling paranoid. There he was, hiking to Fifth Ranking, Indi’s torch held close to shield his bare chest - and to singe the few chest hairs he had - and for all he knew Groza could be any one of the people streaming past him in the tunnel. He glanced over his shoulder, doing a head count of the four humans and two El Eliminati in formation behind him, swinging their Indi lamps and speaking in muted voices.

 

Giles was quizzing Dawn, asking her how she had crossed the bridge in nano-seconds. “Dunno,” Dawn said.

 

“Do you suppose Indi teleported you across?”

 

“How many more times, Giles? I don’t know!” Dawn shrieked. Her face was red and veins stood out in her neck. “I know Indigo didn’t want me in her Advisor-Free Zone, I know that.”

 

Thinking that Dawn sounded as paranoid as he felt, Spike said, “Two things, Nibblet. She’s called Indi and I didn’t hear her ban you.”

 

“How do other vampires know you’re a vampire? You don’t wear a badge and most of the time you don’t wear your vamp face. So how do they know?”

 

“Radar, luv. Feelers.”

 

“Indi is short for Indigo and she doesn’t let grunge-girls into her courtyard. Call it Dawndar,” she overtook him and run the last few steps to their unit saying, “I need a shower.”

 

“I’ll light the furnace,” Xander said, going after her.

 

“I think I’ll take a shower too,” Fred said.

 

Spike’s feeling of persecution swelled. The wise old man he’d been told about was called Indigo. The Custodian of Naught was called Indigo. Coincidence like that didn’t happen without someone meddling. “I’m being jerked around,” he said. “The whole Trail is jerking me around,” he said.

 

Giles nodded, his mouth down-turned. “Indi included.”

 

“You reckon?”

 

“That awful woman hypnotized us, Spike. She softened our minds with her conjuring tricks thereby making us susceptible to her suggestion. While we were in this softened state, she hypnotized us with a game of pool and trampled through our psyches without so much as a by your leave or an adequate de-brief afterward,” Giles whipped his glasses off and chewed on an earpiece. “I’m feeling somewhat,” he waved his glasses, “somewhat overwrought and Dawn, Xander and Fred will no doubt be feeling the same. It’s your duty to re-establish their sense of security.”

 

Watcher was spot on. They had to go to ground. Go somewhere safe to regroup and separate paranoia from persecution. “Meeting, my room, twenty minutes. Tell Nibblet and Fred to be showered and packed by then,” he turned from Giles to the El Eliminati.

 

“Philippe, I want chef to stock the larder and cold room full as he can get them. Tell whoever’s shift-leader to order a year’s supply of sawdust and a war’s supply of arrows. Want beds ordered and taken to the Pool House today.”

 

“How many beds, Mi Amo?”

 

Difficult question. Two beds if Xander was in the mood to let by-gones be by-gones, three if he wasn’t. “Three beds; one goes into the room a door away from Xander’s, the other two go to the right wing.”

 

Philippe ran in the direction of The Arches and Spike addressed Salma.

 

“You’re sorting out the dousing. Have every lamp and torch in The Arches doused, the furnace and chef’s stove too. Re-light them with the torch,” he traded his torch for Salma’s lamp, “and make sure there’s an Indi lamp in all The Pool House rooms. When you’ve doused and re-lit, put the torch in the bracket at the top of the Pool House staircase. Where’s it to go, Salma?”

 

“When I have doused and re-lit, the torch is to go in the bracket at the top of the Pool House staircase,” Salma parroted.

 

“Off you go…wait,” Spike waved her back. “Before you do any of that, get Xander’s building crew to mend the main gates.”

 

*    *    *    *

 

The what’s it channel, Discovery or Living channel reckoned haunted houses had cold spots. You walked through one of these cold spots and you could be sure you’d exchanged bodily auras with a ghost. His room was something like that, had electric spots and they were coming off of Xander.

 

He and Xander went from the wardrobe to the bed, throwing clothes into their bags, which were open beside Giles. Spike could have pointed out that the wardrobe held very few of Xander’s things and that those jeans Xander wadded into a ball were not Harris-wear. They were his, new and would be a chore to iron without an iron.

 

But the electric spots crackled like greasy bacon on a pan when he and Xander were in touching distance, sputtered when their arms brushed as they both reached for the same tunic in the closet. Spike didn’t think it clever to bitch about which bag his gear went into what with the high voltage situation. 

 

Leaving the tunic to Xander’s rough handling, he pulled out a nightstand drawer and overturned its cache of cigarettes, matchbooks, lube, two rings and bits and bobs into his duffel. Giles looked into the bag and thinking man that he was, would soon be thinking about the tubes of Eros on top of the heap. Spike shrugged, picked out the fishbone rings and a matchbook and stuffed them into his pocket.

 

“Been thinking. There’s a catch to the games,” he said, a frisson of antagonism going through him when Xander muttered something that ended in ‘…asshole.’

 

Being confused made him an asshole did it? Well maybe the boy was right ‘cause only an asshole would let himself get all muddled up over a summer fling. A scenting gone out of control was what he and Xander were; an extended one-night stand, was all. Truthfully, and he was being truthful, there wasn’t a damn thing to be confused about. Buffy was the Slayer. She was gutsy, had an attitude ten times the size of her. Xander was, at the moment he was a spectacular pain in the arse. The man had a week to somehow impossibly become the perfect Earned and what did he do? He moped about Spin the Bottle instead of stepping up his game. Attitude? Harris had it. The attitude of a little boy who’d never amount to anything but an understudy.

 

“Would you not do that?” He said as Xander scrunched up his silk dressing gown.

 

“What? This?” Xander screwed the gown into a tight ball, dunked it into his backpack and swiftly added the lone Nike sneaker.

 

“Give us a minute, Giles,” Spike said, very softly.

 

“No Giles, stay,” Xander said just as softly, meeting and holding Spike’s gaze.

 

The bedsprings creaked as Giles shifted, the air vibrated with tension – Xander vibrated with tension. An addictive blend of anger and recklessness poured off him, pushing all things and all people to a distant corner of Spike’s mind. He was hard and wanting and only Xander would do, but the door opened, Dawn and Fred came in looking woebegone with their arms clinging around their backpacks. They saved Giles from witnessing the ravishment of Xander Harris.

 

Uttering a dark chuckle, Spike sauntered to the door and lounged on the doorframe. Xander walked over to and sat on the table, arms crossed and face averted towards the window. Fred and Dawn joined him there, Dawn asking, “why are we packed?”

 

“We’re moving to the Pool House,” Spike said. “You have two-”

 

“Xander got attacked in The Pool House,” Dawn interrupted.

 

“I’ll memo Tresten, tell him to keep his Advisor in check or the deal’s off. You have two hours to shop for what you need for a month. Take your sparring partners with you to the market.”

 

“I was gonna get more parts for the Launcher,” Fred said.

 

“Write a list, send a Drone to the hangar with it.”

 

“He might get mixed up on the specifications without me there.”

 

“Write a bloody list, Fred, send a Drone. You’re not going to Main Floor,” Spike shouted. Fred’s eyes filled up and he tuned the shout down, “There’s a catch to the games.”

 

A fidget ran through Giles, Dawn and Fred. Xander sat unmoved.

 

“Harris, aping the rules isn’t your real test. Anyone can fake submission, it’s too easy. Now take a man who’s not wired for submission and ask him to give the honor of Master to another man. To say it and mean it when he can’t mean it – that’s brutal. Groza’s going for brutal.”

 

“The honor was yours this morning. I meant it this morning,” Xander smiled at him, iced him over with that hostile curve of lips. “But that was this morning.”

 

“What went down this morning?” Dawn asked.

 

Xander’s now stiff back had been pliant this morning. Stretched out and sloping, it had panted ‘Master’. His fantasy come true. Nibblet the budding news hound didn’t need to hear this. She needed to understand that, “You’re Tresten’s queen in waiting. You’re being groomed for royal services to your king.”

 

Gasps all round. Spike raised his eyebrows in inquiry.

 

“Perhaps now is an apt time to practice diplomacy,” Giles said.

 

“Humans like honesty. I’m being honest,” a glance at Xander. “If I was Tresten, I’d kidnap Nibblet, dose her up on tranquilizers, box her in with mighty mojo and shackle her to my side until she belonged to me completely.”

 

“Because you’re a psychopathic creep?” Dawn sniped.

 

“Just thinking with my demon head. I wouldn’t leave my queen - the person who’s gonna make me invincible - in my rival’s camp. Why’s Tresten doing exactly that? You share Slayer blood…”

 

“And Slayers abhor evil. It’s in them to be repulsed by it and against their fundamental calling to use it for self-serving ends. Tresten anticipates the blood in you will deter you from using Ruby’s iniquitous gifts to liberate yourself,” Giles rubbed his temple, winced as in pain. “This is…you’re already boxed in. Damned by your blood if you use the gifts, damned to becoming a demon if you don’t.”

 

“You’re looking at the new Chosen, Giles. Train her like the world depends on her, coach her to use the gifts she never asked for. Be for her what you were for Buffy and do it in seven days.”

 

“That’s quite the tall order, I’m not sure it can be done,” Giles could’ve been rubbing his hands, the anticipation in his tone.

 

“Sure it can be done. We won two out of two and we’re gonna win four out of four. Gold, yeah? Silver is for losers. We don’t play the losing game. Tomorrow we take the Indi lights into the Trail and choose a homage game from the walls ‘cause by hook or crook, we’re going home.” De-briefing duty done, Spike stepped out into the courtyard. “Who’s up for breakfast?”

 

“Me, the New Chosen. I’m up for blueberry muffins,” Dawn skipped out of the room. “But can I have ten more minutes to pack? I’ve got a houseful.”

 

“Two housefuls, you shop often enough,” Fred filed out after Dawn.

 

“Does breakfast come with tea? A pot of Earl Grey would make me completely yours,” Giles said, behind Fred.

 

“Didn’t think Watchers came so cheap,” Spike watched Xander pace to the door and back into the room where he paced from bed to window. Relentless like he did in the pool, swimming length after length. “Order me up cinnamon-spiked blood, Fred. Crispy bacon, three sausages and a loaf of toast for Harris. And coffee. He lives on coffee. Giles, pen that memo and send it to Seventh Ranking with a Runner.”

 

“Runner?” Giles asked.

 

“Walk him through it, L’il Bit,” Spike sighed. “We’ll be with you in fifteen minutes.”

 

Armed with cigarette and matchbook, he leant on the doorframe and lit up, refusing to be guilt tripped by Xander’s tight lips and tighter strides. They’d have words today Xander and him. They’d fuck, rest and find something else to fight about tomorrow. It was all they did, fought, fucked, rested. Much as he liked a brawl, the appeal of brawling with Xander had long ago become unappealing. He liked the shagging and resting better, the groans of completion and the tangled limbs of respite, those mindless conversations about why Santa Clause hadn’t upgraded his transport from reindeer to Harley Davidsons with wings.

 

Patience thin, he exhaled a plume of smoke into the room. “Screw this. I’m off. Are you coming?”