Disclaimer: I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

Feedback: Please do.

Challenge: Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you.

Other Requirements:
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something.

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

Imzadi: Yeah, I know about Seth and 'The Italian Job'; pretty good movie, in my opinion. Regarding Lindsey… I'll see what I can do, but don't get your hopes up, OK?

Vaguely amused: Glad it's proving enjoyable

YelloSparkStardust: Here you are (Hope you're feeling less tired, by the way)

a2zmom: Well, I didn't want to diverge too far from basic Buffy continuity

Angel's Eleven

Angel hadn't been to a circus for several years. Not counting his childhood visits (Which he'd never really managed to get into), the last time he'd been to one of these it had been in what he thought of as his 'fuck-'em-all, I'll-do-things-my-way' phase, and he'd made a few deals that he wasn't especially proud of and didn't want to be reminded off. Still, Wesley had said that their greaseman was here, and Wesley hadn't led him wrong yet.

"How much longer do we have to wait?" he asked Wesley, who was casually eating an ice-cream cone that he'd picked up earlier because he couldn't find anything else.

"Not much longer," Wesley said, smiling as he indicated the ring. "In fact, here's our candidate right now."

Angel looked at the ring as a short man dressed in a skin-tight red outfit came on stage…

And his jaw dropped.

"Oz?" he said, looking over at Wesley in surprise. He hadn't heard from Oz since he'd broken up with Willow after being diagnosed with having contracted HIV due to a brief, passionate affair with a young woman who'd proved mentally unstable; Oz hadn't wanted to endanger Willow while he tried to find some way to keep the infection under control.

"Yes, that's right," Wesley said, smiling at Angel's surprise. "After some time, he was put on drug treatments which proved successful in containing the infection- thankfully, he caught it early enough to avert it killing him. He started doing acrobatic work to keep himself in shape during the treatment, discovered that he seemed to have a natural talent for it, and, well…" He shrugged. "Here we are."

Angel nodded thoughtfully as he watched Oz walk along a tightrope, and then curl himself up into a ball in the exact centre of the rope.

Angel looked over at Wesley and nodded. "We've got a greaseman."

"We do indeed," Wesley smiled.

"So," Angel said, as the two of them began to walk back to the car after a brief talk with Oz, "who's our candidate for explosives? Riley?"

He shuddered at that option; even though it had all been over between them long before he and Buffy began to date again, he still disliked even thinking about the ex-commando….

"No point; he's dead," Wesley said, as they got in the car.

Angel blinked. "What?" he said, looking over at Wesley, trying to contain his brief feeling of elation at that news; after all, annoying or not, a man was dead… "How? On the job?"

"Skin cancer," Wesley replied. "I couldn't send floors at the time, so I dated his wife to express my condolences instead."

Angel smirked a little at that. Same old Wes…

He ran over his other options as Wesley began to drive out of the car park.

"Spike?" he said, looking over at Wesley inquiringly. Admittedly, Spike was, if possible, even less popular with him than Riley had ever been, but at least there it was more of a personal thing rather than a Buffy-thing; Spike was one of the few links left to a life that he was just trying to forget…

But, on the other hand, he was good with dynamite.

"We may be too later," Wesley said. "He's already on a job. And I know the people he's with; they make mistakes."

Angel sighed. "Well, we'll have to do what we can," he said, as he sat back in his chair, his index fingers raised in front of him in a thoughtful manner.

William Tennant, known to all and sundry as 'Spike', rubbed his hands together as he stared at the detonator in front of him. Looking around at his associates, he nodded his head, and, grasping the handles of the detonator, pushed down the switch, and smiled gleefully as he heard the miniature bombs he'd placed around the safe door go off.

As soon as the final explosion had died off, Spike smiled, got up, and walked out to look at the door, watching with an almost scientific detachment as it fell down due to the sudden lack of hinges.

Grinning, Spike walked into the vault, his hands already itching to get his hands on all that money…

And the alarms went off.

Spike groaned. "Oh, leave it out…" he muttered to himself, as he turned around to look at his associates in an exasperated manner.

"Warren!" he yelled at the self-proclaimed 'leader' of this job (Although Spike sometimes felt that he was the one who should be calling the shots; at least he had more experience in this sort of thing). "You had one bloody job to do, damnit!"

"S-sorry, Mr. Tennant…" Warren stammered nervously.

"Oh, bloody hell…" Spike said to himself, as he stared up at the ceiling.

Spike rolled his eyes as he stared at the cop in front of him, his hands cuffed behind his back in a manner that was embarrassing more than anything else.

"So, you're sure that's all you used in the operation?" the cop asked, as he made notes on the pad in front of him.

"What?" Spike asked, looking at the man in an insulted manner. "Are you implying I'd use booby traps?"

"Those aren't Mr Tennant's style," a voice said from off to the side. Looking over in the direction of the voice, Spike blinked in surprise.

Wesley? he thought to himself, taking in the sight of the former librarian dressed in a long fawn coat over a dark suit, in a manner that could pass as a detective if he was lucky. What's he doing here?

"You are?" the cop asked, looking at Wesley curiously.

Wesley pulled out an ID and held it briefly out in front of him. "Peck, A.T.F.," he said, before slipping the ID in his pocket and walking towards Spike. "Let me venture a guess. A simple G4 mainliner, double-coil, backwound, quick fuse with a drag under 20 feet?"

He looked over at the cop casually, and smiled. "That's our man. Tell me something else; have you checked him for booby traps on his person? I mean really checked, not just for weapons..."

As the cop stared at Wesley in confusion, Wesley grabbed Spike, spun him around so that he was leaning against the car, and began to apparently frisk him for weapons as he looked over at the cop. "Find Griggs, will you? I need to see him."

"Who?" the cop asked.

Wesley groaned. "Do it!" he yelled, grabbing the cop by the shoulder and shoving him away. As the cop vanished, he leaned over and whispered to Spike, "How fast can you put together a bomb with what I gave you?"

Spike smiled. "Done," he told his old acquaintance. "Thirty seconds from now all right?"

"It'll have to be," Wesley said, as he grabbed Spike's shoulder and began to walk away, Spike following him.

"So, is Peaches here?" Spike asked, looking over at Wesley.

"Just around the corner," Wesley said, smiling slightly; Spike and Angel rarely got along at first glance, but both of them always seemed to secretly respect each other, regardless of their differences.

"Bloody hell, I'll be glad to work with professionals again…" Spike muttered…

Just as the bomb exploded, taking the police car with it.

"Run!" Wesley yelled, as he and Spike ducked down and dived into a nearby alley, the policemen running about in surprise at the sudden burst of flame.

"So, is he interested?" Angel asked Wesley as they sat in Nabbit's bar, which he'd given them to use as their headquarters.

"He's interested," Wesley said, nodding in reply as he took a quick swig of his beer. "Anyone else we should be looking for?"

Angel sipped thoughtfully at his own pint, before putting it down and looked up at Wesley.

"Giles?" he asked inquiringly.

"He won't come," Wesley said, shaking his head. "He got out of the game about a year ago; he'd been diagnosed with an ulcer." He looked back at Angel. "Besides, we both know he might not be interested; he did seem pretty annoyed at your omissions in your past when talking to her…"

Angel sighed, and then smiled over at Wesley.

"You could still ask him," he said.

Wesley nodded thoughtfully. "I could ask," he agreed.

The next day, Wesley sat at the race track, looking casually at the slightly older man sitting a few rows down from him, his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose like they were about to fall off, staring at the ticket in his hand with a regretful expression as he looked at the dogs as they prepared to start.

Walking down towards the stand, Wesley stood there for a moment or two, just looking at the back of the man's head.

"I saw you back at the desk when I was getting my drink," Giles said, looking straight ahead as he spoke. "I saw you before you even got up this morning."

Wesley sat down beside his old friend and, swallowing the last chewed nut, smiled.

"Hello, Giles," he said, looking over at the man who'd helped him and Angel actually get their detective business started, providing them some much-needed money when pickings were slim.

"Whatever it is, I'm not interested," Giles said, turning back to look at the track.

Wesley smiled and looked at the track himself. "Which one are we rooting for?" he asked casually.

"Number four," Giles replied off-handedly. He looked over at Wesley. "Any reason you're staying here after what I told you?"

"Giles, you may not have had a good career, but you're the best there is," Wesley said to him. "You're in Cooperstown. What do you want?"

"Nothing," Giles said simply. "If Angel put you up to this- and I'm sure he did, knowing you- you can tell him that

"People like us don't change, Giles," Wesley said casually. "We stay sharp or we get sloppy, but we don't change." He looked over at Giles inquiringly at that. "And you know as well as I do that Angel regretted more than anybody else how things turned out."

"Just leave me alone," Giles grunted, turning back to look at the track.

After a few minutes, Wesley smiled and looked back at Giles. "Is that your hound way in the back there?"

"He breaks late," Giles said dismissively. "Everyone knows that."

As the dogs began to get closer and closer to the finish line, with Giles's dog still at the back, Giles sighed and looked back at Wesley.

"Are you going to at least treat me like an adult and tell me what the scam is?" he asked.

Wesley leaned over and whispered in Giles's ear, then got up and walked away.

As the dogs crossed the line- Giles's dog the last in the line- Giles sighed and stared at the ticket Wesley had just given him.

Then, as the dog crossed the finish line, he sighed and tossed it off to one side.

If he was going to get back in the game, he might as well get started in style.

"And Giles makes ten," Angel said, as he sat in a bar behind Wesley, who was slumped over the desk with a glass of whiskey in his hand. "Ten ought to do it, don't you think?"

Wesley shrugged slightly.

"You think we need one more?"

Wesley shrugged lightly again.

"OK; we'll get one more," Angel said. He looked down at Wesley. "Any ideas?"

Wesley sat back up and looked over at his friend.

"One," he said, his expression giving away nothing. "And you know who I mean."

Angel's eyes widened.

"Oh no…" he said, staring at Wesley in horror. "Tell me you're joking."

"Trust me, I'm not," Wesley said, looking back at his old friend. "Angel, you know as well as I do that he's good at what he does; you said yourself that he's remarkably proficient-"

"And incredibly pissed off at me!" Angel hissed at his friend. "Wesley, you know that he's mad at me for leaving him; how am I meant to ask him for help? He wasn't exactly happy about me never telling him I existed, you know!"

Wesley just stared at Angel for a few moments, and then, finally, Angel sighed and sat back down.

"Fine," he sighed. "I'll ask him."

Wesley nodded. "Good, he said approvingly. He patted Angel reassuringly on the shoulder. "Look at it this way; maybe this will help you patch things up with him?"

"Practically sixteen years of ignoring him, and then we work together on this case?" Angel asked, looking back at Wesley. "I doubt Connor's going to be that easily swayed, Wes."