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 byHollywood 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.
Dedication:For Retroskater, Rosie, Belladonna, Ava and NeverMindDaria. Retroskater – I’m afraid you spoke too soon. Rosie – I hadn’t thought about it, but since you asked… NeverMindDaria – glad you liked the bit with Jonathon because he’ll be back to be victimised further later.
A/N: Flashbacks are in italics.
Chapter 3
Will frowned as he looked at his reflection in the mirror. The white shirt and black slacks didn’t seem right without a tie and a blazer, but they’d do until he sussed out what passed for schoolwear amongst this bunch of colonials. And okay, what with his gran and the transatlantic move, he’d missed a visit to the barber’s which wasn’t a good thing when you had curls like his to keep under control. Yeah, the wire framed glasses were sort of old fashioned, but better that than those huge bright coloured things that seemed to be in just now.
Sod it. It was as good as he was going to get. Wasn’t like he’d exactly set the world on fire at his last school. And by the looks of things it wasn’t about to change now. Anyway, the five percent of people who didn’t actually think secondary education was one of the many layers of hell were the ones who reached their peak there. English or American, school’s just something to be survived …one day at a time, starting today.
"You all ready yet, pet? You’re not going to have time for breakfast if you don’t hurry?" his mum’s voice carried up the stairs.
"Coming!" he called before grabbing his bag and rushing downstairs. He dropped the sports bag in the front hall and darted through to the kitchen, grabbing a slice of toast and a glass of orange juice off the table eating and gulping down the liquid without even sitting down.
"So how’s my darling boy, this morning?"
"Fine, mum, but I’d be better if you’d lay off with the ‘darling boy’s. Dad in his study?"
"Mm-hm," His mother confirmed. "He’s been up since six, trying to sort out his lecture notes."
Nabbing a second piece of toast to eat on the way, he stood on tiptoe to kiss his mother quickly on the forehead. At five foot seven, he was only a few inches taller than she was. He just hoped he was due a growth spurt. Dainty and frail was quite the look on his mum, especially since the ebony-haired beauty could almost pass for ten years younger than her thirty-two years. On a teenage boy, it was akin to walking round wearing a huge ‘kick me’ sign.
"See ya later. I’ll ring if I’m goin’ t’ be late." He slung his bag over his shoulder, paused to stick his head round the door to his father’s study and say a brief goodbye and then left for his new institutional torture.
"So, my William, d’you think our boy’ll be alright in your nasty American school?" Will’s mum put down the cup of black coffee on her husband’s desk and moved to the window, so she could watch their son as he made his way down the road.
Strong arms folded around her as her husband’s jaw came to rest against her temple. "I survived it. And despite all your English snobbery the American education system isn’t as bad as you’d like to make out, Dru. Got me into Oxford, didn’t it?"
She turned in his arms, brushing her lips against his. "That was fate. Nothin’ to do with your education system. How else were you going to meet your dark princess?" Deep blue eyes laughed knowingly back at her from an older, more confident version of her son’s features.
"So it was written in the stars that I was going to get you knocked up at seventeen, so you didn’t even finish your freshman year?" William asked.
"It was written in the stars that we would be together. Our Will just gave fate a helping hand, my love. It’s not like we weren’t careful. It was destiny," Dru replied.
"Well who are we to flout destiny?" William picked up his wife in his arms and carried her back to their bedroom forgetting all about the notes for the courses he was due to start teaching at Sunnydale U the following week.
~+~
Will kept an eye open for someone he could ask for directions as he neared the school’s main building. He smiled as he noticed the petite blonde perched on the wall near the building’s main doors. Her hair hung in golden glossy waves that ended level with her bust-line. It was held back from her face with a pastel pink ribbon whose bow flopped just slightly off-centre and matched the short flouncy skirt she wore. Her white camisole top failed to conceal the delicate straps of her bra. She kicked her tanned legs against the wall and blew perfectly co-ordinated bubbles as she looked off in the distance apparently waiting for someone.
He came up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. Instantly, the girl was doubled over and coughing. It was only then that Will noticed the headphones that had made her unable to hear his approach. He’d only gone and managed to make her swallow her gum. He was aware of a group of figures jogging toward them, but he ignored them trying to make sure the girl was alright.
"God, pet, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you couldn’t hear me coming." He tried to rub her back, comfortingly but found himself pushed out of the way by a guy the best part of a foot taller than him. Everything about the guy screamed clean-cut All-American jock. And, oh look, they came in a two-pack with matching bimbos. The second jock came to stand directly in front of Will.
"I think you’ve done enough here. Why don’t you just move along and stop pestering the lady?"
William refused to be intimidated. "I just wanted to make sure she was alright."
"Buffy doesn’t need you to make sure she’s alright. That’s Riley’s job, and it’s one he takes kind of seriously so why don’t you just get the hell out of here before he decides to do something about you getting her into this state in the first place?"
One of the girls with the group butted in at this point. Her voice whining and slightly nasal. "Percy, why are you even talking to this loser? Hello?"
Will looked round the group and decided he wasn’t about to get a chance to either check properly on the girl or make a decent apology. "Alright, mate, can take a hint." He backed away from the group wondering if any of them were natural blondes or if they got a bulk discount on their peroxide. Once he’d reached minimum safe distance, he turned and almost bumped straight into another gum-chewing female.
"Deee-nied," said the tall black-haired boy with her. "Tut, tut, tut. You must be new if you don’t know better than to try talking to the Sunnydale Aryans without an invitation."
"Yeah, well, I was under the impression that you yanks had something in your constitution about freedom of speech."
Will couldn’t help but be aware of the mischievous glitter in the short brunette girl’s eyes, as she looked him up and down appraisingly. "Like the accent," she commented.
He couldn’t help an answering smirk as he answered. "’S nothin’, pet. Everybody’s got one where I come from." Sensing he was on firmer ground with this pair he decided to introduce himself, "Will …Will Blank."
"Xander Harris," answered the taller boy, "and this is my little sister Faith."
"Right, well, I don’t suppose either of you could point me in the right direction for the guidance office?" Will asked.
~+~
Spike cringed as he walked through the halls of the local mental hospital. It could have been worse. There were large windows letting in lots of light, but the net curtains covering them were too thick to permit the residents a view of the outside world. The colour scheme ran to cream near the top of the walls, but the bottom five feet was painted with a brown gloss that was easier to clean when the inmates made a mess with whatever bodily fluid happened to be flavour of the day. All in all the place seemed clean enough, but the day room looked like it hadn’t seen new furniture in twenty years.
The nurse, who was accompanying him, pointed over towards the far corner of the huge room. "She’s over there." Spike walked over toward the figure she indicated, not wanting to believe what his eyes were telling him. There were thick grey streaks in the wild hair and she seemed to be wearing a sort of fleecy dressing gown. As he walked round to face her he noticed the lines beneath her eyes and how the only make-up she wore was some smudged lipstick, whereas she’d always looked perfect, to him at any rate. She had always taken a pride in her appearance, her hair and make-up faultless, her clothes rich and stylish if not conventional.
"Mum?"
"Will. Sit. Sit." Spike couldn’t help but be glad she at least recognised him, even if she was trying to get him to sit in a wheelchair. "They’re fun. Go on," she insisted, so he sat.
He looked at her, wondering if this was what he was going to be like at forty-six. "How are you, mum?"
"I’m fine. They look after me ‘cause I’m a princess."
"Yeah? The nurse said you were taking lithium?" Spike tried to assess exactly how far-gone she was, but it was a hopeless task.
Dru looked over to her right, turning away from Spike’s gaze, humming an old tune, that he finally recognised as Wasteland by the Mission. Just as he decided she was off in a world of her own her head whipped back to face him. "I saw your dad last night."
Spike gave her a rueful smile; "I kinda doubt that."
"But I did. He said to keep to the right when I was driving."
"Mum. What happened to the house? What happened to the money I sent you? Dad’s royalty cheques?"
His mother twisted a finger in her hair like a small child giving him a coy smile. "Gone," she answered softly.
"Gone where, mum? What happened to it?"
"Stolen." She whispered to him as if confiding a secret. "The pixies stole it so that the fairy queen could have a lovely party, but I was not invited."
Spike sighed. "So what else did dad have to say?"
"He said that you should marry Buffy. She’s a keeper." The apparently lucid words caught Spike like a body blow, but Buffy hadn’t been his to keep for the last ten years.
"Yeah, well, the old man always did know what he was talking about," he conceded not knowing which of the two of them were crazier, his mum for seeing someone who’d been dead the past three years or him for listening to the message she was passing on.
He was interrupted by the sound of the nurse he’d spoken to earlier clearing her throat. "I have to take your mom back to the ward now. It’s time for her medicine."
His mum’s face brightened. "This is Nurse Beatty. She’s my best friend."
Spike stood up from the wheelchair, watching as the RN helped his mother into it. He walked round one side of the furniture grouping where they had been sitting as the nursed wheeled his mother round the other to reach the main corridor.
As he stepped out into the corridor, he smiled at his mom as the nurse took her back to her ward. She looked up at him as if seeing him for the first time. "You’re a handsome devil," she told him coquettishly. "What’s your name?"
~+~
Spike looked at the headstone that showed his father had died three years before, aged forty-seven. He hadn’t even found out until two months later. He’d been away on a job. He opened the bottle of single malt he’d found where their kitchen used to be and poured a stiff one for the old man. He couldn’t help thinking that his dad was better off where he was. The house was gone along with all the money he’d saved up. His wife was medicated to the gills, talking to dead people and trying to chat up her own son. Said son was a killer for hire. Yeah, dad would have been so proud.
He dropped cap and empty bottle onto the grass and walked away.
~+~
He booked into a local hotel. It was a huge rambling affair that dated back almost to the town’s founding, back to when it had once been a popular seaside resort. When he reached his room he pulled the furniture away from the walls a piece at a time until he found what he was looking for. He unscrewed the plate that covered over the disused fireplace and slid the case with the tools of his trade and the red plastic wallet into the gap that was revealed. He replaced the plate and slid the dresser back into place before he flopped back on the bed for the night. The dossier and all the business that went with it would have to wait. He had his own problems to think about.
~+~
Graham and Forrest watched as the Lincoln pulled into a parking space diagonally across from the radio station the next morning. They watched as Spike hesitated, almost getting back in the car twice before he finally crossed the road and pushed his way into the booth where Buffy sat.
If it were possible, he looked even paler than normal and he hovered in the doorway his weight shifting from foot to foot, looking for all the world like the awkward schoolboy he’d once been.
"Hi," he said, his greeting so soft it was almost a whisper.
Buffy sat in her seat stunned into silence until she realised that the current track was almost ended so she flipped the switch that put her on air. "That was Cyndi Lauper and this is Heart with… one of their songs." She set the turntable in motion but not quite sharply enough and the first bar or two played at something less than their intended speed before the equipment righted itself. She took off her headset and Spike was relieved to see the red light that said "ON AIR" wink back out.
"Hi," she replied, the tone of her voice neither hostile, nor welcoming.
For a moment he was struck by the panicked thought that maybe she didn’t recognise him. "It’s Spike. High School?" He watched as she rose from her seat to stand in front of him.
"I know who you are, bleach brain!" Her fist flew out almost too fast to see catching him squarely on the nose as always.
He quickly felt to make sure it didn’t need resetting and tried again. "Hi."
"Hi," she replied once more. This time her voice was marginally warmer as she edged a fraction closer to where he stood. Six inches separated them and neither was sure if it was six inches too much or about a state too little. How on earth do you greet the love of your life when you didn’t say goodbye and you haven’t seen them in ten years? Hug? No. Peck on the cheek? No. Handshake?
"Shake my hand?" Buffy held her hand out, unprepared for the charge that passed through both their bodies at the slightest touch. Afterwards she couldn’t say for sure, but she thought, maybe Spike had jerked her toward him. Their lips met and two pairs of hands moved feverishly to re-acquaint themselves with curves and planes that had once been as familiar as the lines of their own bodies. She pushed him back against the glass-panelled door of the booth and he kept his grip on her hips pulling her with him so that his leg parted her own, her crotch rubbing against his thigh. She reached upward, one hand gripping the taut muscles of his upper arm through the leather of the duster the other twining with the soft curls at the back of his neck, forcing his head forward to deepen the kiss. Finally, they had to come up for air. As the fog of hormones cleared from her brain, she punched his nose again on principle, before moving away to the far side of the booth.
Spike resumed his nervous shuffle, this time mirrored by his counterpart at the far side of the room. He looked at his boots suddenly finding the old cracked leather interesting, but unable for long to keep his gaze from her face. "So ten years, huh?" he threw out, as much an observation as a question.
"Ten years …ten years since you stood me up on prom night. Yeah it’s been ten years." Her voice steadily got firmer and louder as she continued. "So what you been up to, Spike?"
Spike shrugged. "Based in Chicago. Self-employed. Travel round a lot on business."
"That’s it? That’s ten years?"
Spike shrugged again and lit up despite her disapproving look. "Pretty much."
Buffy pulled the cigarette from her mouth, squashing it beneath her foot. "I was kinda hoping for some great abduction story. Something that might explain why I ended up sitting on the back porch crying my eyes out over you."
"Well, there’s a few stories but …no. Nothin’ that really explains…" Spike looked awkward again.
"So. Self-employed. Doing what?" Buffy asked, chin high.
"Professional killer." The words came out so quietly Spike cleared his throat. "I’m a professional killer."
Buffy raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Assassin. Hmm. They have like a trade journal for that? Maybe a union?"
"Funny you should ask… look, pet, your record’s nearly done. You’re going to have to … whatever. I think maybe I should piss off and leave you to it. I mean, I’m here for the weekend. I’ll be back, but for now, I think I should go?" As Buffy hurriedly pulled another record from its sleeve, he made his escape from the room.
"That was Heart with These Dreams from the year I first met the love of my life. The guy who just walked back in here, ten years after he stood me up on prom night and vanished without a trace. Not a phone-call, not a postcard. No explanation whatsoever as to why he left or where he’s been. He comes back and he’s evasive and he makes jokes about where he’s been and what he’s doing and then he ups and leaves again. And all those feelings I thought long dead are suddenly back as strong as ever.
What am I feeling? Is it pain? Is it hope or is it panic? Is it anger? That’s a given. Is it love …or is it indigestion?"
Graham and Forrest listened to Buffy as she filled the dead air by waffling about her deepest feelings while she tried to cue the next song. They watched Spike as he paced back and forth behind a parked SUV, never quite bringing himself to cross back to the far side of the road where his car was parked.
"I’m going to go with indigestion. What do you think Sunnydale? Do I let this guy back into my life? This man I thought was the one… This man who broke my teenaged heart… This man who’s walking right back into the station and into my booth?"
The "ON AIR" light went out once more and the population of Sunnydale finally got to hear the opening bars of The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen.
End of Chapter 3