Title: Warning Label
Author: Queen Boadicea
Email: queenboadiceaoftheiceni@yahoo.com
Spoiler Warning: Season five for AtS
Disclaimer: This belongs to Joss Whedon and the usual gang of idi…uh, geniuses.
Feedback: Do your worst—it can't compare to my worst ;)
Harmony scribbled her signature for the large package. "Thanks." She smiled flirtatiously at the Federal Express guy and batted her eyelashes. "So what are you doing after work?"
He sniffed disdainfully. "Getting my legs waxed, honey. Ta!"
She frowned at his retreating backside as he walked out the door. "Damn. Why are all the good-looking guys gay?"
A familiar voice came from her right. "Why are all the good-looking bints stupid?" Spike walked from the underground basement and smirked at her.
"I'm not stupid! Or are you talking about Buffy?" Harmony sneered, knowing that would get his goat.
The souled vampire scowled. "You watch your mouth. Buffy was head and shoulders above you."
"Sure. That's why you kept on calling her a miserable cow who was screwing things up for you, why you threatened to blow her head off with a shotgun and why you teamed up with your loony ex Dulcinea—"
"Drusilla. Her name was DRUSILLA, you dumb bint!"
"And what the hell does 'bint' mean, anyway? You use all these stupid terms and expect people to think 'Ooh, look at me, I'm such a badarse' and half the time I don't know what the hell you're—"
"Sod this," Spike muttered as Harmony launched into one of her favorite rants. He snatched the box lying on the counter and scrutinized the label. Then he grinned and began ripping at the wrapping.
She protested at once, grabbing for the package and darting from behind the counter when he evaded her. "Hey! That's not for you! It came to Wolfram & Hart!"
"Yeah, but it's addressed to the VPWS. See? That means 'vampire with a soul.' "
"How do you know?"
"That's something Andrew used to call me before he found out the poofster was sharing my spotlight."
"Andrew? Your boyfriend from Sunnydale?"
A dangerous cloud settled over Spike's face. "He wasn't my boyfriend, you pea brained hen."
"Really? I mean, he's obviously gay unlike that hunk of mailman that walked out of here."
Spike clenched his jaw. "Well, he is. But that's his thing not mine."
She puffed out her lips in derision, obviously unimpressed by his denial. "Is that why he hugged you and gushed all over you when he found you here and talked about how happy he was to have you back? From what I heard, you're weren't actually shoving him away either. And what's this about Angel sharing your spotlight? You're the one sharing his. He's the original, you know."
"Yeah, well, with me they got it right."
"That still doesn't mean the package is for you! Why didn't your boyfriend just put your name on it?" She made another attempt to grab for the package. Spike dropped it, gripped her arm and twisted it behind her back. "Ow!" Tears filled her eyes as she struggled against the pain of her shoulder tearing out of her socket. "You're hurting me, you asshole!"
"Yeah. We vampires do that." He shoved her hard into the desk and resumed opening the package.
Harmony stood up and rubbed ostentatiously at her shoulder. If looks could kill, her furious stare could have set Spike on fire. "I'm telling Angel you're tampering with the mail. That's a Federal offense, you know!"
He rolled his eyes as he pulled out what lay inside the package. "Aren't you the little office ass-kisser? Think I give a toss what the poof thinks? Oi, this is a nice bit of hardware," he finished as he inspected his prize. It was a crossbow, slightly used, but gleaming where somebody had lovingly polished and waxed it. A small bundle of arrows was taped to the handle and Harmony cringed as Spike dexterously began the process of loading the weapon.
"Spike, what are you doing? Put that away before somebody gets hurt!"
"That's the general idea, pet." He pretended to aim it at her and watched her duck behind the desk. "Relax. I'm not gonna hurt anybody. Maybe this does belong to Peaches. I'll just take it upstairs to him myself. You go back to polishing your nails or whatever it is you do behind that desk all day." Grinning to himself, he shouldered the weapon and sauntered into the opening elevator.
Harmony watched him go and then picked up the phone. "Angel. Guess who's back again…"
__________
Spike got off the elevator as people skirted around him, bent on various businesses or other. He could scent his grandsire easily although his odor lay all over the place. Hiding himself behind a corner, he lifted the crossbow to his shoulder and waited for Angel to leave his office. He was pretty sure that blabbermouth Harmony had spilled the beans about his entry into the building and his theft of the package by now. But it would still be a hoot to see Peaches yell and flinch when he saw a wooden projectile pointed at his chest.
He shifted back and forth, waiting for Angel to emerge. Spike had never been the patient sort and, when he finally sensed Angel opening the doors, he swung the bow up a shade too quickly. The trigger activated and something in the mechanism jammed, sending the arrow shooting backwards.
Angel turned the corner and stared down at the bow lying on the floor. Loath to touch it, he watched warily as Wesley picked it up. "This what Harmony was nattering on about?" the former Watcher asked.
"It must be. She said Spike forced her into giving up the package and then he got into the elevator." Angel looked down both sides of the hallway and called out to one of the employees. "Say, did you see Spike come up here with this…?" He struggled to remember her name. "…Regina?"
She shrugged. "No, Mr. Angel. I just came out of my office and I haven't seen anybody except a couple of people from Tech Support all morning."
Wesley rubbed at the gray dust marring the shiny surface of the toy. "Angel, does this look like vampire dust to you?"
Angel peered closer at the ashy residue. "Looks like it." His eyes widened. "You don't think that's…?"
"Would we have any way of knowing for sure?" Wesley asked.
Angel rushed back into his office and went to the phone, pressing the speakerphone button. "Harmony, you said Spike was on his way up here with a crossbow. Did we have any other vampire clients coming to see us today? Somebody he might have dusted?"
Her voice chirped over the line. "No, we don't. No vamp clients. Why?"
"Well, we found the crossbow but no sign of Spike," he said as Wesley, still holding the weapon, entered the room behind him.
"But he didn't talk about dusting anybo…Oh my god!!" Her voice shrieked over the line and Angel flinched from the shrill tones, glad he wasn't holding the phone to his ear. "That's what he wanted that bow for, isn't it? That shit! How dare he try to kill my boss!? You're the one who signs the paychecks around here!"
"Thanks for the concern, Harmony," Angel answered dryly.
Belatedly realizing how callous she sounded, Harmony made clumsy sounds of worry. "You are all right, though, aren't you? I mean, you sound okay and you're obviously not dust."
"No, I'm not," Angel replied, glancing at the dusty weapon.
"Oh, I almost forgot. I found something else contained in that package," Harmony resumed.
"What?"
There were some rustling sounds in the background. "Well, underneath all the packing peanuts, there was a note. A really small note."
When she paused, Angel asked impatiently, "What does the note say, Harmony?"
She continued in her irritatingly high squirrelly voice. "It says, 'Warning: This bow has a hair trigger and a habit of firing backwards in a tight corner. Sincerely, Andrew.' Oh, Spike was right. His boyfriend did send him this. You might want to let him know that before he hurts himself."
Angel and Wesley looked at each other and then at the aforementioned dusty crossbow before Angel smirked. "Sure. We'll do that."
He hung up and Wesley replied, "It always pays to read the instructions before handling the merchandise, I always say."
Angel gazed on the weapon and murmured, "Andrew sent this? I'm wondering if he meant me to have this. That's probably why the box wasn't properly labeled. If I got killed by it, he could always claim that he'd meant it as a gift for Spike not a trap for me."
"Wouldn't put it past the little sneak," Wesley said in flat tones.
Angel pulled the bow from Wesley's hands and propped it up in a corner. "I'll have the decorators in and have them mount this on the opposite wall from the sword."
"What about the dust in the hall?" Wesley asked, leaning against the desk.
"What about it? The janitors will get it after office hours. Fancy any tea, Wes?"
"No. I'm good. Now about that sighting of trolls in Tuolumne…"
Finis