Three days as a puppet. It couldn’t be that hard. Other people managed with handicaps much worse than simple feltiness, and if they could, so could he, right? Right?

Of course, Angel had reckoned without his constant pain in the ass stalker, more commonly known as Spike, and the screw up in the Allocations Department that rendered said stalker car-less. Then there was Wesley’s bright idea of casting Spike in the role of puppet caretaker after he found Angel jumping up and down trying to reach the call button on his private elevator.

Now the whole situation was plain humiliating. Witness the idiocy with the sword, the cigarette and the pen.

“Spike, put it down.”

“Don’t get your felt-y knickers in a twist, puppetman. Not gonna do anything to it.”

Angel flinched as Spike whirled the katana around his head, Kill Bill style, missing the wall by millimetres and Angel’s wrath by less.

“It’s not a damn toy! That sword is over a thousand years old and worth more than you are.”

“Boring sod. ‘S not like I’m gonna – oops.”

The lamp flew up in a graceful arc, turned a somersault when it reached the end of it’s cable and landed with a crash in the centre of the desk in front of Angel, sending papers and pens scattering in every direction.

Angel gazed at the mess in unreserved horror. He had spent the entire afternoon reading through those case notes and now they were fluttering to the floor in a blizzard of extra work, all because of… He looked up, glaring at the guilty party who grinned, shrugged and belatedly rehung the sword in the display case.

“Could have been worse,” Spike said, kicking through the mess on his way to the other side of the room, “Least the lamp survived the flight.”

Lost for words and frustrated well beyond searching for them, Angel banged his head on the desk and prayed for divine intervention. Harmony’s squeals and attempts to hug him would be preferable to this.

“So, that Wolfgirl,” Spike said conversationally as he wrenched open a locked cabinet and pulled out a shotgun. “Heard you finally took her up on breakfast, despite the whole ‘Angel as chew toy’ thing. Couldn’t wait to get her teeth into you, I reckon,” he sniggered, holding the gun up and taking aim.

Angel yelped and ducked down as the dangerous end swung past him at head height, his brain conjuring up images of, funnily enough, his brain, blasted all over the wall and reduced to the size of cotton balls. “Loaded! Spike, it’s loaded.”

“Well, yeah,” Spike answered, the hurt evident in his voice. “Don’t you trust me? Know what I’m doing with these things y’know. Used to have one in fact…”

“Says the guy who just trashed an entire day’s work,” Angel said gesticulating, and then realised his words were pointless. Spike had a dreamy expression on his face and was obviously lost in some happy memory, probably involving wreaking havoc on some poor hapless idiot. Or Buffy.

That thought made him growl, and he buried it by clambering to the floor to retrieve the papers. And wasn’t that easier said than done when your hands had too few fingers and all the dexterity of a pound of sausages. Still, when the alternative was asking for Spike’s help, Angel was willing to go at it alone. He shoved all he could into a pile and, after considering the likelihood of dropping everything before he got it back on the desk, decided to stay on the floor to sort them out.

Ten, extremely difficult to handle, sheets later, he took a break and, ignoring Spike who was settled on the edge of the desk, wandered over to the window to watch the sunset. However long he remained at Wolfram and Hart, Angel didn’t think he could ever get bored with this.

Once the colours had faded from the sky and the city was lit up beneath him, he heaved a satisfied sigh and immediately caught a whiff of cigarette smoke and something else, infinitely more worrying – the scent of burning paper.

“Crap!” he bellowed, throwing himself across the room to rescue his quietly smouldering paperwork.

“What?” Spike asked, jumping sideward when he realised his feet were dangerously close to a small bonfire. “The fuck!”

“Your damned cigarette,” Angel answered, hunting around for something less flammable that a non-flame retardant puppet or a vampire to save them. “Most people use ashtrays but no, that’s too freaking obvious for you. Just put in out in the paperwork.”

“Stupid bloody place to put paperwork then, wasn’t it,” Spike said, joining in the search.

“They were only there because of you and - Noooo!” Angel cried as Spike grabbed the decanter of blood which had miraculously escaped the sword and, despite Angel’s yell, chucked the entire contents on the fire where it spread in a crimson pool over the remains of the day’s work.

Falling to his knees, Angel scrabbled for the few pages that had avoided the carnage. Spike’s boots appeared next to him and an oddly chagrined voice said, “Sorry, was that lot important?”

Important? Important! Angel couldn’t think of anything more important right now. God, please, please, let the deposition be there. Gunn would never forgive him if he had to take it again; apparently K’rattish demons smelled like fermenting sauerkraut only not as pleasant. He came up lucky, dragging a single slightly singed and besmeared sheet from the bottom of the pile.

“No, Spike, I spend my days doing nothing important at all,” he snapped. “Now get out and leave me in peace.”

“Hey, there’s no need to be like that,” Spike answered, doing a good impression of someone mortally offended. “Said I was sorry, didn’t I? Here gimme that and I’ll clean it up for you.”

He went to take the sheet and Angel snatched it back, holding it against his chest. Spike lunged for it determined to help out and, after a brief tug of war which involved Angel dangling several inches off the ground, the paper tore neatly down the middle sending both combatants staggering backwards.

“Oh, bollocks,” Spike said, staring at the scrap of heavy watermarked paper in his hand, and then glanced up at Angel, who for a puppet was looking remarkably like his soulless counterpart at that precise moment. The growl simply added to the overall effect and Spike swallowed heavily. “Tape?” he suggested, taking a step towards the desk and the small dispenser, and froze when something crunched ominously under his boot. Scared of what he might find, he lifted his foot, saw the mangled pen and turned slowly.

“Er,” he said backing away from the hideous visage in front of him. “Just gonna find Harm, okay? Get her to clean up the, um, mess.”

Angel heard the door slam shut and blinked trying to clear his eyes. All to no avail; the world remained in darkness and something wet ran down his face and dripped from the end of his nose. Sticking out his tongue, Angel took a tentative taste, wincing when the harsh chemical exploded in his mouth.

Ink.

Ink?

He was covered in ink? No, correction, Spike had covered him in ink. That ungrateful, moronic, useless piece of shit. Using the now totally ruined deposition, he wiped the worst from his face and sat down in a puddle of dejection. There was no way this day could get any worse.

“Hey, boss, Spike said you needed some help.” Harmony’s vacuous voice preceded her, but Angel knew the precise moment she entered the room. “Oh my god!” she squealed. “You have the cutest little fangs!” and then broke into song, “Sunny Day, chasing the clouds away…”

Two more days. He could do this, really he could.

~Finis~