CHALLENGE: atsendofdays
EPISODE: AtS 4.06 - 'Spin the Bottle'
TITLE: Uncontrolled Circumstances
AUTHOR: Eloise
RATING: PG13
CHARACTERS: Wesley
DISCLAIMER: Joss and ME own them. I just play with them.
NOTES: AU set for AtS S4 "Spin the Bottle". Quotes and refs from that ep, as well as BtVS ep 'Bad Girls'. Huge thanks to lonelybrit for encouragement, enabling and sterling beta work.
Uncontrolled Circumstances - Part II
"Perhaps a little karate technique will put you in your place..."
(Wesley Wyndam-Pryce: "Spin the Bottle")
"I'm rather at a loss here, Wyndam-Pryce." Dr Harrington shook his head, looking truly puzzled. "Your conduct here at the Academy has always been exemplary. One of the reasons you were chosen as Head Boy. And yet here you are again, for the second time today. And as difficult as I find this to believe, apparently for insolence to a member of staff."
"Sir, I was simply proposing that Mr Allen put some of his own theories into practice."
"I think that in your situation, a flippant attitude is rather ill-advised." The headmaster gave him stern glare, but Wesley thought he detected a note of humour behind the reprimand. When he had taken up his position with the Council, Wesley had learned that Dr Harrington did not agree with Allen's teaching methods, and held little respect for him as a martial arts instructor. But Allen had connections in the inner sanctum of the Council, and that counted for a lot more than qualifications and talent.
Wesley had studied fencing under the headmaster's expert tuition, and Harrington was an excellent teacher. His lessons had certainly been rigorous and demanding, but he was never cruel. He could understand why the Headmaster had little sympathy for this particular member of his staff.
"You will apologize to Mr Allen. A written apology; of no less than five hundred words, the first copy of which will be given to Mr Allen. The other five copies will be written in five languages of your choice, and delivered to me by five o'clock this evening. I'm sure you'll find that no challenge at all."
"The first copy will be in English, I presume?" Wesley barely managed to keep the smug smile off his lips. It was common knowledge that Allen hadn't quite the academic background of the other masters.
"Indeed." Dr Harrington's own smile was rather ominously affable. "And the other copies will of course be in the ancient or medieval forms of your chosen languages. One of which will be non-human." There was a hint of steel in the calm measured voice now.
Wesley nodded in deference, deciding to heed his warning and shut up. Harrington might secretly share his contempt for Allen, but he was unlikely to express his disdain in the presence of a snotty-nosed student.
Harrington glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. "I believe the Upper Sixth study period has just begun. After the examinations these are generally treated as free periods. You will be kept rather busy today, I imagine. Good day, Mr Wyndam-Pryce."
After assuring the class that he would hear a pin should they be disposed to drop one, the half-deaf librarian disappeared into his office for tea and sanctuary. Upon which the atmosphere underwent a subtle change; the noise level remained low, but they all relaxed, leaned back in their carrels. Some were writing letters home, or reading contraband copies of Stephen King, James Herbert or H.P. Lovecraft. There were even a few surreptitious games of pocket battleship going on.
Wesley caught himself chewing his lip in contemplation and frowned. He was surprised at how quickly the childish habit had returned. It had taken him half an hour to actually compose a convincingly deferential apology, and he was spending the other half of the period translating the piece into his chosen languages. He was sorely tempted to write one copy in Pylean, just to see the look on Harrington's face when a portal opened in his study, but he resisted the urge and went with the slightly more boring but infinitely safer Aratuscan.
"Look at the ponce!" The hated hissed whisper came from the carrels opposite. "Thinks he's still revising for finals." Wesley recognized the voice immediately, although it had been a couple of years since they'd met in L.A., and then not in the most agreeable of circumstances.
"Is there a problem, Weatherby?" He kept his tone deliberately cool, well aware of how much that would annoy the other boy.
Weatherby curled his lip into a particularly unattractive sneer, which wasn't much of a challenge, considering his less than personable appearance. "Just you, Windbag Prig. Trying to prove you're better than the rest of us by swotting up for the practical test."
It was strange to remember how much that nickname had once hurt. Now it just seemed incredibly puerile and utterly lacking in wit. Wesley threw him a pleasant smile.
"I see no point in proving something I already know to be true," he returned with intentional smugness, and went back to his translation, studiously ignoring the threatening glare from the other side of the room.
When the bell rang for morning break, Nigel pushed back his chair so he could look into Wesley's carrel. "Are you feeling alright?"
"Absolutely fine, thanks." Wesley finished the Norse translation and slipped the paper into his file.
"You haven't lost your memory or something? Say, maybe your mind?" Nigel poked his arm reasonably hard. "You do remember who you are goading, don't you?"
"Weatherby? He's just a second rate little bully with inadequacy issues. Mainly due to the fact that he actually is inadequate."
Nigel looked suitably shocked, as if he couldn't believe Wesley's stupidity in expressing such an opinion. Weatherby's reputation as thug-in-residence was long established; no surprise that he would later find gainful employment as an assassin for the Council. They were always on the lookout for borderline psychotics as potential employees of the wetworks department.
He was rather surprised that Weatherby wasn't waiting for him outside the library, but the reason for his absence became clear when he heard whimpering coming from the bathroom at the end of the corridor.
"What are you doing?" Nigel mouthed frantically, as Wesley handed him his file and opened the bathroom door.
The scenario was not an unfamiliar one. Weatherby had a small and desperately squirming first year in a vicious head lock, and was dragging him towards the toilet, where one of his more mindless minions was waiting with one hand on the flush chain.
"P-Please, Weatherby. Matron will be so cross if I get my uniform wet again," the boy sobbed.
Weatherby nodded to the other two minions, who grabbed the hapless first year's ankles and held him upside down. "Well, we'll make sure we only dunk your head, then."
Wesley sighed, making it purposely audible. "It's a bit of a cliché, I know, but why don't you pick on someone your own size?"
"You're not serious, Pryce." Weatherby seemed almost amused by his suggestion.
Minion number one, whose name he couldn't quite recall, paused uncertainly. "I don't know, Colin. You should have seen him in Allen's class this morning."
Weatherby snorted in derision, and dumped the first year onto the tiled floor unceremoniously. The boy got to his knees, staring up at Wesley as if he were the second coming. Wesley turned to Nigel, whose expression was now one of horrified disbelief.
"Get him out of here." He turned back and addressed the minions who were hovering hesitantly behind Weatherby. "And you three can bugger off as well."
It was rather gratifying to see the look of astonishment on Weatherby's face when they began to back out of the door.
"You're not fooling anyone, Pryce." Weatherby leaned against a wash basin and folded his arms in a reasonable attempt at nonchalance.
"Apart from your friends. I do seem to have them fooled."
"Wouldn't exactly be hard." That much was true. The capacity for rigorous intellectual thought did not tend to feature highly in the recruitment of mindless minions.
"So, you're going to show me the error of my ways, then. Put me in my place with a little karate." Weatherby's tone was derisive and Wesley winced internally, recognizing that as a direct quote from his teenage self. He really must have been the most insufferable prig.
"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of punching you in the face."
It was only fair to give him a bit of warning, Wesley thought, before actually carrying out his threat. It hurt his knuckles, but from the look of Weatherby's now gratifyingly bloody nose, it had hurt his face rather more. Weatherby seemed slightly dazed, although more by the fact of the attack than the actual punch. He swung his own fist in reprisal, managing to connect with Wesley's cheek more by luck than judgement.
The fight had progressed along the usual lines. A reasonable number of punches were thrown, along with some particularly satisfying kicks. Weatherby's problem, as it turned out, was not that he was outclassed; in fact they were probably quite evenly matched; but that his expectations of his opponent's abilities were rather low. And Wesley had taken full advantage of that.
He glanced over at the other boy, whose eye was now almost swollen shut. His own cheek throbbed considerably, but evidently not as much as Weatherby's, which had necessitated the application of an ice pack and two aspirin. They both stood as straight as their respective injuries allowed, while Dr Harrington paced the office rather in the manner of a caged tiger.
"Well, gentlemen. I have spoken with the other boys who were present at this... brawl, for want of a better word." The headmaster fixed Weatherby with a cold glare. "I have been made aware of your activities, Weatherby, and I have to say I'm appalled. This systematic bullying of the younger boys will not be tolerated. If I hear even a whisper that you have been indulging in this sort of behaviour in the future, I will thrash you soundly. Is that understood?"
Weatherby didn't even try to fake defiance. He shifted his weight with some difficulty and whispered "Yes, sir."
"And now we come to you, Wyndam-Pryce. You seem to be developing some worryingly recidivistic tendencies. This is the third time you've found yourself in my office in almost as many hours."
Wesley wasn't sure, but he thought he might have seen a glint of amusement in the headmaster's eyes. He felt the corners of his mouth quirk up in solidarity, but quelled the smile quickly as Dr Harrington's eyes narrowed and his brow wrinkled into deep furrows.
"Be assured, Mr Wyndam-Pryce, that should I have occasion to rebuke you again, Head Boy or no, that reprimand will be considerably less verbal than those you have previously received. I trust I am making myself clear?"
The headmaster's tacit approval of his actions against Weatherby was confirmed by the lack of reprisal for the fight, but there was a limit to the man's patience. Following the headmaster's gaze to the cane on the top of the cupboard, Wesley understood that he would not be so lucky if he ended up here again today. "Crystal, sir."
Dr Harrington eyed him thoughtfully. "I'm glad we understand one another."
The rest of the morning passed uneventfully; a particularly dry lesson on syntactic theory in early Glagolitic and the hazy heat of early June combined to create a rather torpid atmosphere in the lecture theatre. At one point, Wesley was sure Professor Bruner dozed off in mid-sentence, but as most of the class were asleep themselves, his wool-gathering went relatively unremarked.
After a dinner that appeared to have been prepared by some of the nastier descendants of the Bourgia family, the Upper Sixth trooped dutifully over to the older part of the college for physiology and fencing; these lessons being thankfully consecutive rather than coterminous.
They had just listened to a detailed anatomical description of the Kwaini demon and were about to attempt a diagram of its digestive system, when the doors to the lecture hall opened and Dr Harrington made his way to the centre of the room, his gown billowing behind him with a kind of unfeigned elegance that would have made Angel jealous. The class stood up immediately.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen. Please be seated. Now, I know you were expecting a fencing lesson after this lecture, but there has been a change of plan."
There was a soft whisper of anticipation in the room, and Nigel mouthed the words 'practical test' to Wesley.
"As you may have surmised, this afternoon's lessons will be suspended, and you will all undergo the final exam in your Practical Skills course." The headmaster waited for the murmurs to die down and then continued. "This test will take place in the old library and will begin at three o'clock exactly." Wesley glanced at his watch.
"You have ten minutes to prepare yourselves. Good luck, gentlemen." He nodded politely to them, and swept out the room, his gown swishing lightly in his wake.
"I knew it! This morning, after martial arts, I was saying to Hughes, I bet it's today." Bentley major was proclaiming his precognitive skills to anyone who would listen. To be honest, none of them actually were. They had all adjourned to the old library and were now rather preoccupied in investigating the contents of their pockets, checking for stakes and vials of holy water.
Wesley was pleased to discover a thin but reasonably sharp stake, a small bottle of holy water, a cross, and a small penknife with a retractable blade. He smiled wryly as he imagined Baden-Powell's reaction to his rather individual interpretation of the Scout motto. There was also, rather inexplicably, a small plastic ring containing a water reservoir and rubber bulb. Quite clearly a novelty toy; he couldn't imagine how his stuffy teenage self came to have such an item in his pocket.
"Where did this come from?" He held it in his palm and Nigel stared at it for a moment.
"You confiscated it yesterday. From the second years in the quad." Nigel's face creased into a worried frown. "You do remember that, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, of course," Wesley lied so convincingly that he began to laugh, and Nigel stared at him in terrified anxiety.
"Wesley! Pull yourself together!"
The panic in his voice sobered Wesley. It was alright for him, in the four years he'd spent in California he'd grown accustomed to facing a wide variety of demons on an almost nightly basis. He remembered now that up until today, none of these boys had ever seen a real vampire. They had read of them, studied their habits, practised appropriate methods of despatching them, but he knew firsthand how inadequate such training was when face to face with the real thing.
"I'm sorry." He reached over and laid his hand on the other boy's arm. Nigel was trembling uncontrollably. "We'll be fine, Nigel."
The library door opened and Dr Harrington entered, followed by two middle-aged gentlemen dressed in dark, expensively-cut suits. Wesley recognized Quentin Travers immediately, but it took him a few moments to identify the other man. It was the family resemblance that gave it away, and Wesley managed to stifle a giggle as he recognized Robert Giles.
Dr Harrington cleared his throat. "Your studies at the Academy have prepared you well for the intellectual rigours of a Watcher's life. Those of you who have excelled in the academic disciplines should be proud of your achievements, and rightly so. There are many rewarding career opportunities in the Council for linguists and historians. However, I'm well aware that the position most sought after is that of active Watcher."
He paused, and glanced around the room, and it seemed that he met each boy's eyes individually. "But it takes more than detailed theoretical knowledge to become a Watcher. You must be able to apply that knowledge appropriately in difficult and stressful situations. Which is what today's test is all about."
He nodded to Travers, who stepped forward with an air of self-importance. "The test is simple. Somewhere in this section of the building you will find two vampires. They represent a considerable threat to the rest of the school. Your task, gentlemen, is to eliminate that threat."
With that, the three men left the library, locking the door behind them. Wesley couldn't help smiling. This was it. He had a vague memory of two vampires and controlled circumstances; had even boasted of it to Giles when they had first met. What he had omitted to tell Giles was that he had absolutely no recollection of the actual encounter. He had always assumed that it had been so terrifying he had blanked it from his mind. It was really quite amusing to discover the true reason for his memory loss.
Wesley looked at the faces of his classmates, each one of them pale as the undead they were about to seek out. They looked utterly terrified. "Right. We need to seal the area first. Bentley, Cates, St John-Smythe; you do a standard protection spell to cover all the exits. That should keep them contained."
There was a stunned silence. Wesley realized they were unable to reconcile this self-assured attitude with the teenage version of himself. "Look, we've been trained for this. We know what to do. It's just a matter of putting what we've learned into practice." He gave what he hoped was an encouraging smile. "We can do this."
It was Nigel who backed him up. "Okay. I still reserve the right to have you committed to an insane asylum at some point in the future, but you seem to have some idea of what to do." He bit his lip anxiously. "So what do we do?"
"Set up the protection spell." He nodded to Bentley major, who looked at him nervously. "Caedmon's Compendium, page 418. The rest of us need to check for weaponry. Anything that could be useful."
Aside from his own contributions, the spoils were fairly pitiful, considering their circumstances. Only one stake, of doubtful acuity; twenty assorted pens and pencils; ten crosses; five (smallish) bottles of holy water; three penknives, and a pack of condoms. This last item had been produced rather sheepishly by Hughes, and Wesley tried not to smile when he noted the expiration date on the side of the sealed foil pack. The presence of the pack in his pocket clearly demonstrated a triumph of hope over adversity.
Looking at the items on the tables in front of them, Wesley felt an idea forming in his mind. He lifted his own penknife and flicked the switchblade mechanism. The blade shot out with pleasing alacrity. If only he could find some sellotape, or even an elastic band. He had a sudden, searingly vivid and rather worryingly arousing image of Valerie Singleton on the set of Blue Peter.
And for today's project you will need a pencil or sharpened wooden stake, a switchblade, a packet of condoms, a small vial of holy water and a roll of double sided sticky tape.
He stifled the desire to laugh manically and began to explain his plan.