Incomplete.

[pseudism]

Who: Giovanni [pseudism], Spike [7livesleft].
What: Giovanni owes Spike a visit and a "friendly" chat.
Where: The Task Force HQ, near the docks.
When: PREEEETTY BACKDATED. After the plane shift, but before the Magister's game began.

It's so late and I barely proofread this I'm so sorry. Will fix any issues tomorrow!

Comments

[7livesleft]

This was different. Just when Spike thought he understood their relationship, he wanted to talk.

Spike kept his gun readied, but didn't move as he listened to Giovanni getting closer and babbling like all lunatics tended to do once the atmosphere started turning. Either that or Spike wasn't the only one who wondered how he was still around. There was luck, sure, but a history of getting used up and pulled back from the brink of death started to grate down someone's rationality after a few years. He was slipping, had been for a while, and some part of him knew it was deliberate.

Nothing like having someone there to remind him. He didn't respond, but Spike kept his smile in place when he thought back to that last meeting. Giant monster on one side, three-headed dog on the other, and a stray cat was all it took. Wasn't hard to guess it'd be a sore spot. Who could resist rubbing it in?

That could be the only reason he was hesitating from going through their old routine. Giovanni's interest was never in Spike; every time he got a little bit closer to ending it, he wasn't doing it because of any grudge against him. Probably wouldn't have any motivation if it weren't for how things played out. So after one too many encounters with Smoker, it could be that he moved on to someone he thought he had a chance against -- and there wasn't much else around to keep him busy with the city mostly abandoned. Made so much sense that he couldn't fault him for it. And Giovanni wasn't the only one who hated to leave things half finished.

And if there was some kind of lesson Spike was supposed to take away from surviving, they should start figuring out that he was a lost cause. Save them both the trouble.

"--What, the cat? I wasn't." He looked to the side, trying to spot the stray that had crawled off once he was inside, waiting to pop up at the wrong moment. "Thought I was protecting myself. Bad judgment call."

Speaking of, Spike didn't see Giovanni's shadow trotting behind him, even as he tried to get a better vantage point. "--I guess I'd rather experience it firsthand." A pause, still keeping his voice carefully casual. "Meant to ask you what happened to your pet. What happens to a three-headed dog when it loses one?"

[pseudism]

Giovanni counted, watching over the edge and straight down the length of the corridor. All he could see was a dust of black hair and a sliver of his blue jacket, nothing worth firing at, no real target - but the fact that he's there, that's enough. There was no movement yet, no indication that he knew how close Giovanni might be. For the time being, he wasn't looking his way at all. And Giovanni, for his part, didn't make a single sound for a long time. Even his breath was silent.

It was a little different than usual. But they had to start communicating some time, didn't they - if Spike wanted this to go anywhere past him being shot outright, and if Giovanni wanted to get a better understanding of who he was actually up against. It wasn't necessary, precisely, not when he was just human, not when he was so easily killed and his strategies and motivations didn't really matter, but. Smoker had taken an interest in him. Smoker had cared about him, and relied on him, and considered him his most valued ally. And Giovanni realised, he didn't know why.

The question about his dog made him pause - distinctly remembering that sudden, sharp stab, that bang of pain sharper than a point blank gunshot straight though his skull, the loud and near-hysterical whimpers of the dog as it dragged its dead head, pawed at it like it had nothing to do with the rest of the Cerberus any more. All those eyes set on Smoker, and for a second he'd seen through them, for a second he'd known what it felt like to be both dead and alive at the same time, looking through those three skulls.

No Smoker, not any more. And so it all fell on Spike's shoulders, it all ended with him.

He moved into the corridor, and walked the length of it without a sound, didn't so much as say anything until his gun was already clicking up into position next to Spike's head, nudging the cold barrel up through that dark hair, and Giovanni stepped to where he could see him at his side. His familiar smile was there finally, familiar and thin and strange and looked at Spike, really looked at him. It was the first time he'd seen him properly in a while, not just at a distance, or smeared with his own blood while Giovanni embedded his foot in his face over and over. He'd almost forgotten.

The gun drifted from Spike's hair down to the space just behind his ear - a prime killing shot.

"You should worry about your own head."

Giovanni nudges his broken glasses up his nose with his free hand.

"You tried to protect yourself by covering the cat with your own body?... That's pointless, isn't it. But you already know that by now.

"... I'm thinking. Maybe I should have you drop your gun, and then let you have a head-start. What do you think?"

[7livesleft]

Pointless was a good word for it. Familiar. Spike realized he could have done more before he was out of options if he cared to. Everything happened because he let it and at that point he wasn't sure if he was awake or dreaming the whole confrontation; they'd become so similar that he couldn't remember what kind of skewed vision of his was reality.

Best not to think about it. Like that ever stopped him--

Anyone else might have tensed the moment they turned to see the barrel of a gun in their face; especially one held by someone who had a reputation of pulling the trigger. But as it turned out, you see it enough times and it takes out the thrill until all that's left is a joke without the punchline. Not a good one, in any case. What difference does it make if you put more holes in a dead man? Just another stain on the carpet.

This time he came with something new though. Spike didn't answer right away, but kept his gaze leveled on Giovanni with that lazy grin on his face, as if he didn't even see what he was pointing at his head. Must really be boring night out there.

The bounty hunter kept still and made no move to lower the gun. "Sorry, I can't do that. You'll have to shoot me."

First time he'd ever looked at Giovanni so closely. He'd never even seen his eyes. How old was he, anyway? Should have asked Heine. "--You should get new glasses. People might think you're crazy wearing those."

What else did he have to say? There was no plan, no trying to prolong it. Go ahead and take his chances.

See if he can wake him up.

[pseudism]

That left them at something of a standstill.

It would've been very easy to depress the trigger and spatter his brains all over the wall, make that long lanky body of his thud back into its own running juices and slump down lifeless (and maybe a little bit satisfying, too, because he hasn't really indulged it in a long time, not to the end like that, not to shoot something and actually kill -) but that wasn't the game he was trying to run, something Spike had probably already realised. And the kind of person who'd stand there unarmed and say 'kill me', that didn't interest in him in the slightest, that was off-putting and went against everything comfortable or fulfilling about what he's doing.

He should've known from before, watching the blood bloom out from his bullet, that Spike had a death wish. Even if it was just tempting fate, calling Giovanni's bluff, it was normally the sort of thing someone did when they had nothing to lose. It wasn't something he'd experienced in his own life - a person who can't die from a shot to the head doesn't have a death wish, and back when he was young, back when he knew the fear of death, he wanted nothing but to live.

But Nuadoria had helped fill in the blanks, little by little. The idea of being able to die, the idea of wanting to for whatever reason. But even then, even like that, there was that catch.

Spike could stand there and die because, as Giovanni never easily forgot, there was a safety net, a second chance at life, a way to return. They could break their fall, as long as they didn't do something stupid like get themselves killed in the Abode of Mist.

"I haven't found new ones, yet." Giovanni looked at Spike, looked at the casual little smile creeping across his face, and didn't move so much as to do any more than breathe. "That's all you have to say?... I don't know what you're expecting. But I don't have to shoot to kill."

He twitched the gun down slightly. Trained on Spike still, but on a less lethal point if he decided to shoot.

The possibility remained. If he shot him now, Spike would still live long enough to keep it interesting.

"Why did you join the Task Force?"