The Symphony Hall
Pre-Bebop, pre-Julia. Twenty-year-olds Spike and Vicious are low-time gang members for a group called the Red Dragons, but when an opportunity makes itself clear, their lives are changed. Rated R for cussing and adult situations.
Radishface
~ 5 ~
It was almost unthinkable, that Vicious had to return home, to his own apartment, once he had dropped Spike back off at his own house. Wolfe had told him earlier that day to introduce Spike to Annie, to show him a little more of the ropes. Spike had been around long enough, but up until now, he hadn't been trusted to meet their supplier. Where Annie got the goods, Vicious didn't have any idea about.
His relationship with Annie, if anyone could call it such, was strictly business. No 'hello' when he entered, no 'goodbye' when he left, no 'thank you' when he received she pulled out unusual boxes from under the counter and handed them to him. Kids were reading pornography in the back shelves, and she had enough on her hands without him trying to make small talk.
Of course Spike would see it as a different story, as an opportunity to make a new friend of some sort-- Vicious smiled wryly. And now that Spike had gained Annie's favor, he was sure to get free candy now and then. At least Annie wouldn't glare at him if he told her that he lost his new gun. She'd happily replenish him with a few more, no problem. And now Spike was home, probably watching television, even though Vicious told him that Wolfe had told him to tell him that Spike should get some sleep as soon as he could, for a speedy recovery. Spike had shrugged and laughed when he mentioned this.
Vicious drove the car into the parking lot and got out, not even bothering to look at the form coming out from the shadows.
"Fuck off."
"That's not very nice." Wolfe smiled indulgently on him, the street lamp illuminating his bony features. "Did you know more and more people are getting laid off?"
Vicious snorted, and glared in his general direction. "Is that a threat?"
"Why would I get rid of you?" Wolfe turned and ran a hand through his hair, brushing it out of his face. "Even if the economy is in a condition similar to that of Earth's."
"What do you want?" Get to the point. Fucking bastard.
Wolfe smiled that indulgent smile again, looked like a cat ready to lick its lips and devour a mouse, and Vicious wanted to put a hole through his head. "Did you introduce them?"
"I follow orders." Vicious replied.
Wolfe raised an eyebrow. "And if I told you that Spike will be fine now?"
Vicious stared for a minute, didn't understand.
"I may reassign him." Wolfe said simply.
"Reassign him where?" Vicious said, letting a hint of a snarl into his voice despite himself. "I wasn't aware that we had any other factions."
"Oh, but we do." The gang leader smiled at him, eyes glinting slightly under the light of the street lamp. "As of today, I have signed a contract of cooperation with the recently-deported Chinese syndicate leaders."
"And why," Vicious said, "would they want to merge with us?"
"You know," Wolfe began, "we have a very admirable reputation for a street gang. Your arrival, coupled with Spike's, has increased our standings in the region. We aren't just the Red Dragons anymore, Vicious. The Chinese are just looking for some lackeys to do their dirty jobs." Wolfe's smile persisted, and he continued. "Your first assignment will be here in the west end, and you'll be dealing with the cocaine branch of the Chinese syndicate."
"So I'm a delivery boy?" Vicious looked up Wolfe, and the other man laughed.
"Maybe you'll do deliveries."
"And Spike?"
"Oh, that's right." His smile grew broader so it almost stretched from ear to ear. "Well, I'm not sure."
"Are you going to reassign him?" Vicious managed to force his voice into complying, and then the words came out unbidden.
"I don't know." Wolfe's eyes widened innocently. "I think he'd do very well in the negotiation business. Or does he need to spend more time with you?"
Vicious refrained from saying yes because Spike was a stupid bastard at times and didn't know what he was doing and had a tendency to get into fights that he didn't initiate and didn't know everything just yet, if only because Vicious hadn't taught him everything yet. But there wasn't anything to learn. When he had first arrived in the Red Dragons, Wolfe had sent him off alone to work. He didn't have the luxury of a guide, he was just the other member, he was just the other--
"Maybe you should ask him." Vicious managed to keep his voice light.
Wolfe raised an eyebrow and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket.
"No--" Vicious started, and Wolfe looked at him incredulously. "It's too late."
Wolfe snorted. "I'm sure you know Spike Spiegel's nocturnal habits as well as I do." He dialed a number, and pushed the phone up against Vicious's ear. "I want you to ask him."
Me. Vicious thought to himself.
The phone rang four times, and then a very grudging voice, slightly raspy, "Yeah, what?"
Vicious swallowed. "It's me."
Spike seemed to yawn on the other side of the phone. "Wasn't your number on the ID."
"I'm using Wolfe's phone." Vicious murmured, and heard Spike laugh.
"You haven't killed him yet? Surprise, surprise."
Vicious let himself smile a little. "He just wants to know." And his voice stuck, and Wolfe, who was pacing back and forth in the parking lot, looked at him with an amused eye.
"Know what?" Spike yawned again. "Hey, you want to come over or something? The girl that stopped by today is a dancer at the Cheetah's. I think you'd like her--"
Vicious found himself glaring to himself, to something, to somebody, but not at Spike, or Spike's choice of words, and he didn't know how to phrase his next words accordingly. "Listen." He started.
"What?"
"Wolfe signed a deal with the Chinese." He said, and his voice dropped to a neutral tone, and it was easier to conceal things that way, easier to hide himself. "He says he wants to assign me to deal with the cocaine dealers in the west end--"
Spike was laughing on the other end, and Vicious heard a feminine giggle, and he clenched the phone harder in his hand, could feel the sweat on his ear and on the phone. He waited, he listened. He couldn't make out what was being said.
"Sorry." Spike said, a little out of breath when Vicious heard him next. "Yeah, I heard you. Got a little distracted, that's all. Are you sure you don't want to come over--"
"No."
Spike seemed to sense his impatience, and sobered a little. "Right, right. So what is it?"
"Wolfe wants to assign you somewhere else." He replied evenly. "He wants you to work with their negotiators."
There was a long pause on the other end, and Vicious suddenly felt very conscious of the skin on his lips-- how they were dry, how his eyelids felt stretched open even though he felt like a weight had been pushed down in his lungs, how scratchy and annoying his hair felt, hanging in his face, how Wolfe was staring at him with a satisfied expression, although what he was trying to prove, Vicious didn't know.
"Oh." Came Spike's voice at last, and Vicious couldn't make out what emotion was behind it, and then decided vehemently that he wouldn't care.
"So." He said, and couldn't think of anything to say.
"That's so fucking gay."
The words had so many possibilities. "What?" Vicious asked.
"The... the thing." He could just see Spike gesturing wildly now, unable to make any sense for the time being. He wondered what the girl was seeing, how the girl was reacting to this. "The negotiations."
Vicious took a breath. "Right."
"Do I have a goddamned choice?" He was saying, his voice was getting louder, and he was getting angry. And for some reason, Vicious felt absurdly happy.
"Actually, you do." He said, and as soon as the words left his lips, Wolfe was looking at him again, and Spike had suddenly stopped talking.
"So?" Spike said, after a while. "What's... what are my choices?"
Vicious turned around so that his back was facing Wolfe, and started walking in the opposite direction, towards the next lamp post. "You can either work in negotiations, or you can join me and deal cocaine."
Spike laughed. "I'll deal fucking cocaine with you anytime."
"That's--"
"I mean." Spike hesitated, "if it's all right with you."
"Spike," he started, "you know--" and then he stopped, because he was going to say too much, and Wolfe had followed him and was looking, inquisitive, at him.
"What?"
"Never mind."
"All right." Spike said, and Vicious could hear the woman's voice again, this time hushed, and he could hear them in their murmured voices, and then laughs. "Hey, Vicious." Spike said. "Are you sure you don't want to come over? Stupid bitch was listening on the other phone. She thinks your voice is sexy."
Vicious stared straight ahead of him, ignored Wolfe behind him. "No."
"Then I'll see you tomorrow."
"All right." He said, quietly.
"Vicious--"
"What?"
"I-- I don't know." He could hear Spike there on the other end, closed his eyes, and tried to picture himself there. "I guess I'm just glad that I don't have to work with negotiation. What the fuck gave Wolfe that idea?"
Vicious smiled. "I have no idea."
"But yeah." Spike's voice was hesitant on the other end. "God, this is so gay. Maybe I'll just say it."
"Why don't you?" His voice was controlled. He kept it that way.
"I like working with you." Spike's voice was light, and he laughed, and Vicious lifted his gaze to the sky, which was a dark canvas, littered with specks of white and silver paint, and Wolfe was watching him, watching all of his reactions, and Spike was talking to him from across the city, and he wondered why this was happening. "I don't think I'd get along with anybody else."
Vicious was about to say something when Spike hung up. The stupid fucker always had to have the last word, didn't he?
He closed up the phone and handed it to Wolfe without looking at the other man.
"I can't read your expression." Wolfe said, tucking the phone into his pocket, and standing back from Vicious, contemplating. "Either you should be ecstatic or completely devastated."
"Why?" He asked, and it wasn't really a question, just filler. He wanted to go back to his apartment. He wanted to go to sleep, crawl under his covers or over them, and lie awake for a few hours.
"No reason." Wolfe shrugged. "So I guess he volunteered to stay with you, and I'll have to deal with my two best men working in one region while everybody else screws every other branch up."
"I guess you will."
"Good night, Vicious." Wolfe said, and headed back towards his car.
~
Liked it? Hated it? Tell me what you think! C&C always cheers me up and makes me write more. ^_^ In the next chapter, Spike and Vicious meet some pretty major side-characters who are working for the Chinese. Just guess who. They're really cute, and their names rhyme.
