Grosse Pointe Buff

By TalesOfSpike

Disclaimer: Spike, Buffy and all the other members of the Sunnydale crowd belong to Joss Whedon, UPN, Fox, and so on, and so on. Grosse Point Blank was written by Tom Jankiewicz, D V deVincentis, S K Boatman & the vastly talented John Cusack. It is of course owned by Hollywood pictures and Caravan Pictures and not me. I’m ripping them both off for no profit whatsoever, other than the happies I may get when and if you lovely people review.

Chapter 11

"It's customary to use the doors. In fact, there's this little button right next to it, that rings a bell to let us know when people come calling." Joyce's voice betrayed her amusement.

"What can I say? Old habits die hard." Spike turned to face his companion, treating her to a broad smile.

"That would mean that you still have a sweet tooth for hot chocolate."

"You always did know my weaknesses, Joyce."

"Mostly, because you never tried to hide them, William." Joyce headed toward the back door of the house. "You'd best come in... I caught Buffy's show. I knew we'd be seeing you sooner rather than later."

"You're still looking good, Joyce. It's good to see you again." Spike hedged until he knew where Joyce was headed, but that didn't mean that he didn't mean every word. In fact, he knew better than to try to lie to this woman, who had always been able to read him so easily.

"You're back for good, aren't you?" Joyce asked as she tipped some milk into a small pan to heat.

Spike shrugged. "That depends on Buffy. If we can... If she'll let me."

She turned looking him straight in the eye as she said her next words. "You were right to leave. It was the right thing. Buffy couldn't see it. She was eighteen, she was in love, and she still thought that love would be the answer to everything. You ...weren't quite so naive. How am I doing so far?"

"I'm not sure... I don't think there's one... It was a lot of things."

"You never felt like your mother got a chance to live up to her potential, did you? You always felt that having a child so young, getting married at seventeen, that she missed out on her chance at life."

"Christ, Joyce. You know as well as I do that she never had a chance. They had to bloody elope to Scotland 'cause she wasn't even old enough to get married without her parent's consent in England. She got into Oxford, and she gave it up, to bring up a kid, that if she'd had any sense, she should have aborted." Spike's hand raked through his hair loosening his curls from the hold of the gel that fixed them. "It's a miracle she didn't end up hating both of us."

"Maybe ...but she didn't. She loved you both. She loved your dad so much, that she couldn't cope with it when she lost him." Joyce's voice softened as she spoke of Drusilla's broken mind. "But you wanted Buffy to have the chances she never got, didn't you? And you knew that as long as you stayed in contact, she wouldn't let go..."

"You're making me sound like Johnny Oates, Joyce. I'm not sayin' you're entirely wrong. I'm just saying that if you're right, it was only ever one tiny part of the equation. An' I didn't reason everythin' out and decide what was best. I was scared, and I ran. Full stop."

"You did what you felt was right. At times, the difference between instinct and logic isn't as big as people like to think. I'm just surprised it took you this long to make it back."

Spike's eyes briefly clouded over before he tossed his head back, raising his chin in a subconscious gesture of defiance. "By the time I was out of the army, she was already wed to that... guy. She deserved a chance to make it work, without me stickin' my nose in where it wasn't wanted."

"It's been three years since the divorce."

Spike looked round the room, his gaze finally settling on his feet. "I stopped writin' after the wedding." Spike gave Joyce a guilty glance, realising he'd given himself and his accomplice away. "An' then, when... My job. It's not something a married man should do."

"I had a feeling you would have kept tabs on her. So who was it? Dawn?" Joyce queried.

"Yeah, but after I left the army, we kinda lost touch. I didn't know about the divorce till I ran into her just before Christmas."

"And this job?"

"I'm thinkin' I'm probably goin' to quit. It's pretty much lost its appeal. It was easy money, but I think it's time I moved on."

Joyce nodded her head and passed him a steaming-hot mug of cocoa.

~+~

Spike knew it was a bad idea, but he didn't let it stop him. He was just so far beyond caring. He sauntered back in the direction of his hotel, taking a route that brought him alongside the parked car. Miller, it seemed, had drawn the short straw. He was awake and keeping an eye on the hotel, watching in case a light came on in Spike's room. Gates was sleeping, his face resting against the car's side window. Or he was asleep, until Spike rapped sharply on the glass.

The window whined its way down, and Spike bent over so he could see both the car's occupants.

"I figured you guys must be gettin' a bit tired of all this by now, so I thought maybe a couple of double espressos would do the trick."

Forrest looked uncertainly at the cardboard tray that Spike held by the open window. Spike rolled his eyes. "Why would I be trying to poison you, when I've already proven I can just avoid you if I want to? For all you know, I could have done whatever it might be that you think I should be doing, before I made the detour to the coffee-shop." Spike pressed the tray into Forrest's unresisting hands and walked off whistling "I Fought the Law." As he neared the hotel's entrance, Forrest, still holding the tray, climbed out of the car. The station wagon then did a rapid three point turn, as the other agent, presumably, went to check the well-being of Spike's target.

~+~

The station wagon was, once more, parked outside the radio station. The two agents watched as the black Lincoln pulled up outside the Espresso Pump. "What's the deal with this guy?" Forrest complained. "Why can't he just do his job, so that we can do our job and head for home?"

"What d' you mean, why can't he do his job?" Graham looked over at his companion. "You are not supposed to be the cheering section for the bad guy. We are meant to be the good guys."

"Let me get this straight." Forrest looked over at Graham. "We're the good guys. When he does his job, that makes him the bad guy. At which point, we, the good guys can do our job without becoming the bad guys. But up until five years ago, he was doing our job, taking out the bad guys so that he was the good guy. But, don't you think it would be better if we could just do our job, without waiting for him to do his job, because then we would be preventing the bad guy from doing the bad thing?"

Graham shook his head and gave his partner a rueful smile that somehow bordered on boyish. "You know it doesn't work that way."

An identical town car pulled into the spot next to Spike's. "And hell-o, Angelus." Forrest supplied commentary. "Ooh. It looks like our friend's brown-bagging it today... I wonder if he'll play nice with our Mr Blank?"

~+~

Spike reached below the table, pulling a small gun from an ankle holster that was made convenient by his cross-legged position. Angelus quickly crossed the room and took a seat opposite. For a few seconds each tensed with their fingers on the trigger before they laid their weapons aside, Spike's hidden by a napkin, Angelus's still in its brown paper bag.

"What brings you to California, Liam?" Spike was careful to give the name just the right amount of derision.

His counterpart was spared from answering when a waitress wandered over and started to recite the day's specials. Neither man even looked in her direction as they placed their orders. They were too busy watching each other's eyes for the give-away flicker that would precede an attack.

Angelus watched as Spike picked up and swallowed the various tablets and capsules he had laid out ready on the table. "What are those?"

"Nutrients."

"Here's the new stuff, boy. Durazac 15. Makes Prozac look like your morning coffee." He tossed a small container from his coat pocket onto the table. "Keep 'em. I've got boatloads."

"I don't take that shit any more," Spike answered.

"And he wonders why he's got the shakes. Now I know how all those burn-out rumours got started."

"Well that's fascinating, but some of us came here to eat, not discuss your drug habits."

"I heard about the little blow out you had at the seven-eleven."

"Really?" Spike arched his brow. "One of yours?"

"Me. No. I'm still hoping we can come to some sort of agreement, work together again. I heard it was some indie Frog. Some Basque separatist turned capitalist from the Pyrenees. Are you sure Oregon doesn't ring a bell? Pacific North West? Something about some wonder dog? Cujo?"

"Budro. If you're going to make it such a joke, at least get the damn name right."

Angelus gave a smile that reached nowhere near his eyes. "Budro. Cujo. What's the difference?"

"Look, is it my fault if the bloody wankers I got paid to off were using dynamite to flush game, and the stupid gits go and borrow a soddin' retriever. I didn't touch the damn dog."

"Yeah, well. What I hear, word on the street says that your marks "borrowed" your client's prize hunting pooch. So bad luck for the bow-wow and bad luck for you, boy."

"Let's forget about Budro. How about we talk about the two No Such Agency's sat in the station wagon out front. Word is you set me up."

"Me?"

"Yeah. You."

"As if. Look, why don't we get our relationship straight?"

"We don't have a relationship. Get it? I got into this line of work because I don't do relationships. If I was the little team player you want me to be, I'd be sitting in Fort Dix or some other army stomping ground with a hundred other guys all dressed in the same little uniforms. I didn't fit in that little box. Look at me. Look at the way I'm dressed for Christ sake. I don't do teamwork. Lone gunman. Emphasis on lone. If you want to have coffee and doughnuts with your co-workers, why don't you join the bloody police force?

If it makes you feel any better, the chances are this is going to be my last job. So what do you say we both put away the guns, forget the whole thing, and have some breakfast?"

Something in Angelus eye gave him away before he moved, and Spike was just as quick to grab his own gun, resulting in another stand-off. "No scabs. From right now all jobs, all arrangements, all contracts are regulated."

"With you as the new boss?"

"Yes."

"Don't think so."

"Okay, but you aren't going to do your job, because we are. And once we've done that job, then we're going to do another little job."

"Do tell." Spike's calm scorn infused the two words as Angelus' voice resonated with cold menace.

"We're going to blow a hole right through that lily-white forehead of yours, and just to prove you can be useful, I'm going to let every guy that works for me fuck the brain-hole."

"You know I always wondered, with how you were about the clothes and the hair, but I guess that proves it really is blokes you fantasise about."

This was the point the unfortunate and reluctant waitress chose to return with their meals. Spike reached out as if to take his plate from her, but let it fall to the floor instead. As the waitress was slightly off-balance, bending to pick up the pieces, he pushed her toward Angelus, backing rapidly toward the door with his gun still drawn but hidden. Neither man could get a clear shot on the other, and Spike bet that Angelus would bide his time, rather than risk injuring innocent bystanders, not out of any feelings of compassion, but just because it made life more complicated. He bet right.

~+~

All day, Spike had had nothing to do except call his psychiatrist and get ready for the reunion. By rights, he should have been spick and span and on Buffy's doorstep, by now. Instead, he was wandering round his hotel room with his shirt undone waiting for Cordelia to pick up the phone. On the second ring, she answered.

"Cordy? It's Spike," he cut-in before she could get a word in. "I've been trying to get Doc Rosenberg, but she's not answering my calls, and I'm already late for the re-union. Look, can you ring round? Try her at home, in her car, at her gym, wherever you can think of but get a hold of her and patch her through. I need to speak to her right now."

"Alright. Breathe, Spike. I'm on it."

Spike stood in front of the mirror as he fastened his shirt and tie. He'd decided to prove to Buffy he could look like a grown-up when he wanted to, and he was back in the black Armani. He practised various lines with varying degrees of sincerity as he worked.

"Hiiii. I'm Spike. Remember me?"

"Yeah. I'm a pet psychiatrist. I have an office in Iowa where I treat cows with post-traumatic stress syndrome."

"Me? I sell couch insurance. Mm-hm. Mm-hm. You do?"

"Yeah, I lead a small cult. Some of the members were originally with Bader-Meinhof, but I managed to convert them. Every month we sacrifice a goat and deflower any virgins who might have joined. What about you?"

"Yeah, you look great. Oh, you married a plastic surgeon... Uh-huh. Wish I'd thought of doing that."

As he straightened his collar, he let the fake smile he'd been practising fade away.

"Hi. I'm William Blank. Remember me? I'm not married. I don't have any kids, and I'd blow your head off if someone paid me enough."

end of chapter 11

next chapter