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.

Note: Flashbacks are shown in italics

Chapter 15

Spike led the way to the dance floor, finally feeling like he'd found his way home. Buffy swayed in his arms as if he'd never left, her face tilted up for his kisses. For the first time in months, Spike's inner voice seemed to just shut up and let him be. He revelled in the sense of belonging he felt. One more job, and he could start over. Together, with Buffy. He could start planning for the future. He could have a future. The music changed tempo, becoming too upbeat for both his and Buffy's taste.

"Let's go for a walk," Buffy whispered directly into Spike's ear. She walked off the dance floor, using Spike's tie as if it were a leash. The pair walked the quiet school corridors, stopping often to kiss or to hug. Spike figured it was probably some sort of arrested development thing, but since it was the best thing that'd happened to him in about half a decade, he certainly wasn't complaining. Buffy eyed the doors of the classrooms as they passed, until they came to the nurse's office. Buffy turned the handle and gave a wide smile when it opened to her touch.

"You know, I feel ill. I think I might just have to go in here, and have a lie-down," she said in a teasing tone.

"I think you should," Spike retaliated. "But, just in case it's infectious, I'd best stay with you, kinda like a self-imposed quarantine zone. It wouldn't be responsible if I wandered around on my own and spread some disease." He slid through the door behind her and locked them in.

Their bodies responded to each other as if the intervening years had never happened. Spike was thankful they were finally out of sight of the rest of the party-goers. Suit trousers, however expensive the suit, were not as effective as skin-tight denim at keeping a raging hard-on constrained. His hands slipped Buffy's jacket from her shoulders as she pulled her lips away from his long enough to make an observation.

"I know you Brits like to complain that SoCal doesn't have any weather, but you seem to have brought your own private rain cloud with you. You're going to have to come out from under it before we can even begin-"

Spike on the other hand only managed a few words of rebuttal at a time because he couldn't resist the fullness of Buffy's lips when she pretended to pout.

"And it's just like a typical California girl. A little rain follows me to town, and you're already making plans to bail..." Spike gripped Buffy by the waist, lifting her so she sat on one of the counters facing him. Her legs automatically crossed behind his back, drawing him toward her. The heat he could feel emanating from her centre gave her away every bit as much as his erection brushing her inner thigh did him. His hand slid up into the back of her hair, drawing her in for a deeper kiss, while her fingers traced the corded muscles of his back under the smooth lines of the suit.

'This,' thought Spike, 'is what I should have been doing for the last ten years.' A decade of longing infused every frantic caress and every kiss as they tried to reclaim the lost time.

"It's been so long I've forgotten who gets tied up." Spike regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. Buffy pulled back away from him.

"Wait."

"What?" Spike asked wondering how she could deny the wellspring of desire that they had tapped.

"No. No little boy lost voice. Just stop."

"Stop?" Spike took a step back, leaving some breathing space between them. "What's wrong? Too fast?"

"I'm sorry," Buffy responded, her confusion evident as she hopped down off the counter.

"Too fast?" Spike asked again. The query sounded almost hopeful, as if he was afraid it might be some more serious problem between them, but he hoped it wasn't.

"No-I, Yeah, maybe. It's like something. Something's missing... something..."

"What?"

"Wait. I know..." Buffy lashed out with her fist, catching him square on the nose, just like always. Her lips parted in a broad grin. "That was it. Welcome home."

Spike's answering grin made his eyes light up like blue neon, and Buffy melted back into his arms as he ducked his head to steal another kiss. They fumbled their way back to the bench, without their lips losing contact, Spike's hands instinctively undoing the buttons down the front of Buffy's waistcoat. As it sailed across the room, their lips finally parted long enough for them both to draw gasping breaths.

Buffy couldn't hold the words in any longer. She'd ached to say them since his car pulled up in front of the radio station that first day, but every self-preservation instinct she had had kept them locked away inside, until now. "God, I missed you."

~+~

Downstairs, the tide of arrivals had slowed to a trickle and then stopped. Nancy Doyle-Stevens had been abandoned by her helpers and sat alone at the table, where only a sparse few unclaimed badges remained. She rested her head on her arms, secure in the knowledge that none of the revellers in the adjacent room would come to check on her. She could spend weeks organising the event, designing stationery, tracking down far-flung alumni through her job with the IRS, but no-one would actually notice that she missed out on the party. No-one would come to chat with her while she kept her lonely vigil. No-one would bring her a plate of food from the finger-buffet. Hell, no-one would even come to relieve her for five minutes to go to the washroom.

The outer door scraped open, and she sprang back to life, her welcome for this late arrival every bit as pert and false as her words to the first-comers, even if she couldn't quite summon the enthusiasm to rise from her seat any more.

"Welcome back, Dalesman. It's Nancy Doyle-Stevens. And who might you be?"

The newcomers gaze flicked rapidly to the table, alighting on the nearest ID.

"It is me, Freddie Iverson," answered the one-time terrorist, with the precise, measured turn of phrase that generally marks someone who isn't speaking their native language, or has an IQ that falls far below anything with three figures.

Nancy picked up the badge from its spot and looked from the picture to the man in front of her. "My, you have changed. And spent some time overseas. The time down the gym really has paid off." She passed over the badge, her gaze following the tall well-muscled figure as he moved toward the auditorium. "Save a dance for me, now," she called as he walked through the far doors.

What he saw as he entered the room convinced him that all the worst things he'd heard about the reunion system were true. An area had cleared around what appeared to be a major hazard in the middle of the dance floor. It appeared that the DJ had been unwise enough to include the can-can in his selection for the evening, and it looked as if a one-time basketball star, or football player, had decided to perform the traditional high-kicks without taking into consideration that the group of ex-cheerleaders he had tried to join in with, were ill-equipped to support his weight, even in the days before his expanding waistline.

The girls all pulled away from his still reaching hands and regained their feet, leaving Riley sitting on the floor by himself.

~+~

Neither Buffy nor Spike was dressed quite so neatly as when they went in, but they'd only got dressed because they were afraid they would lose track of time and get locked in overnight. Under the circumstances, they both figured clothes were a major achievement. Spike all but carried Buffy from the room, pulling the door closed behind them. Buffy's arms were wrapped round his neck, and his hands rested on her waist, limiting their movement to a slow shuffle, that was, nevertheless, made even slower by the fact they celebrated two out of three steps with a lingering kiss.

"What d'you say to a couple of weeks away, pet. Take off, just the pair of us, have some time to ourself. Work this whole thing out, see whether we can make a go of it..."

"Will there be shopping?"

"If you want," Spike offered, "there can be shopping."

"I'm in."

Buffy managed to extricate herself from his clutches, backing away toward the sound of The Thompson Twins.

"Where're you going?" Spike questioned her.

"Well, you know. There's some people I should say goodbye to. Civic duty and all that."

Spike made a face at the thought of all Buffy's cheerleader friends. "Well, I think I'll have myself a fag-break, head back this way and meet you out front."

"I'll find you," Buffy promised as she backed away.

Spike pulled his lighter and cigarettes from a pocket, blatantly ignoring the "No Smoking" signs and taking his chances with the sprinkler system as he lit up. Buffy finally turned, suit jacket dangling over her shoulder, swaying with her hips as she strolled away. She pushed open the fire door at the end of the corridor, only to come face to face with Riley for about the thousandth time that night.

As they moved past each other in the confined space, Riley gave her a knowing snigger, and she knew he'd smelled Spike's scent on her. She hated seeing him like this. Monday morning, he'd be back at his dad's car dealership, selling BMW's to young executives, who were making do until they could afford a Mercedes. He'd be sober and respectful, everyone's best friend, at least until the paperwork got signed. For now, he was the drunken bully, with a chip on his shoulder because of the injury that had cut short his college basketball career and prevented him from becoming the white Dennis Rodman. She glanced back as she turned the corner to enter the stairwell, watching as he made his lurching way toward Spike.

Spike treated him much the same as he had all night, and most of the time he'd known him. He gave him a nod as he walked past, taking the cigarette from his mouth long enough to acknowledge the fact of his existence. "Riley."

"Buffy Summers, huh? You gonna hit that shit again?"

Spike inhaled deeply, his voice rising to well above conversational levels. "I'm fine, Finn. How're you?"

"You think you're real smart, don't you? Come on. Let's see how smart you are with my foot up your ass?" Riley closed the gap between him and Spike as Buffy peered round the corner. He towered over Spike by inches and probably weighed half as much again as the Englishman. For some reason, even as the belligerent, former athlete peeled his jacket from his shoulders, Buffy realised she wasn't worried for Spike, she was worried about what he might do.

Spike just tilted his head back, so that he looked the other man square in the eye. "D'you really think that there's some stored up conflict that exists between us? There is no "us". You were with Buffy, and you blew it. End of story. No more to tell." Spike pointed back and forth from himself to the other man, wafting smoke under his nose in the process. ""We" don't exist. So who are you mad at, here? It's not me." Spike gripped the lapels of Riley's jacket and pulled them back up over his shoulders. "Now, what do you want to do here? What are you trying to achieve?"

Riley pulled a rumpled scrap of paper from his pocket, holding it out toward Spike, reminding him of a small child passing a used tissue back to their parent.

"Finn, I don't know what that is?"

"These are my words."

"You wrote something. See, that's the proper- Express yourself. Go For It."

"A Schroedinger's Life by Riley Finn."

"Good title, deep. I mean that says so much before you even get to the story."

"It's a poem. There are fifteen verses."

"Okay, how about you skip to the end."

Riley peered at the paper, holding it no more than a couple of inches from his face, then turning it over before he continued.

"Alone... just me and my cat."

Against his better judgement Spike found himself wondering if Riley was referring to a real animal or the hypothetical beast in a box that Schroedinger's principle talked about. "Really, I liked it a lot. Maybe you should get your own web site or something..."

"You wanna go down to the courts, shoot some hoops?"

"No, no, I don't."

Spike unexpectedly found himself crushed in a bear hug.

"I missed you," Riley spouted in Spike's ear.

Spike somewhat gingerly patted at the larger man's back. "Okay, I missed you too."

The two pulled apart, and Buffy ducked back into the stairwell to avoid being seen. Riley paused as if he were about to make some comment, and then looked at the piece of paper clutched in his fist as if he wondered how it had gotten there. His eyes flicked back to Spike, who smiled at him and gave him a half-wave as the larger man turned back in the direction he came from and shambled off.

Back downstairs, Buffy said her farewells and watched from the sidelines as Xander finally danced with Aura Buckingham. 

end of chapter 15

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