(no subject)

[bloodandnicotine]

Spike walks down the street, scowling. He remembers when the Meatpacking District was full of bloody meat -- literally, the blood stink leaping strong and alive from every crack no matter how they hosed down the gutters. These days it was all galleries and pretentious restaurants still spilling their last tipsy patrons onto the clean sidewalks, and all Spike can do about it is see them safely into cabs and subways like a sodding doorman. He sucks harder on the cigarette, as though the smoke might turn liquid in his mouth.

Comments

[sunnydalealum]

There are footsteps behind him.

Well, of course there are footsteps behind him, the sidewalk's crowded with late-night pedestrians, but there are footsteps following him.

[bloodandnicotine]

The stake from his pocket is in his hand, fangs slide down and out with the little pleasant sting that isn't quite pain. Mixed messages, Spike thinks. He could do something showy with vamp speed and turning but really it's simpler to just stop walking and lounge back against a handy brick wall.

"Looking for me?" he drawls, and then sees it's a girl, and a stranger. At this time of night, in this neighborhood... maybe the fangs were overkill. So to speak. He eases them back, hoping she wasn't close enough to see. "Or just company?" She doesn't look like a working girl, but then neither did Darla, at first.

[sunnydalealum]

"You're a vampire," she says warily, stopping a few feet away from him. Out of arm's reach. "I thought so."

[bloodandnicotine]

"Yeah," he admits. "You're not." He slides the stake slowly back into his pocket, making sure she has time to see it, then leans slightly towards her and sniffs. "Slayer?" he asks.

[sunnydalealum]

Her eyes flicker toward the stake and back up.

"That's what they call us. The Council."

[bloodandnicotine]

Spike shrugs. "That's what we call ya too. The vampires. Started as vampire slayer but that's a mouthful and mostly they're not particular. There's a new name?" Spike's lips twitch in a half-smile. "Vamp-dusting-American? Person with superpowers?"

[sunnydalealum]

"I don't --" She shakes her head sharply, backing up a pace. "I don't kill vampires. I don't kill anybody. I'm not a Slayer."

[bloodandnicotine]

Spike takes a step back himself, holds up his hands. "Alright. Makes no odds to me. Best be prepared to fight 'em off when they come calling, though. Plenty of vamps follow the Slayer smell for glory or a tasty treat, and some of 'em won't stop to chat."

[sunnydalealum]

The girl folds her arms across her chest in an unconscious sketch of self-protection, one hand clutching the fabric of her jacket on the opposite shoulder.

"I saw you with the others last night," she says abruptly. "The ones from the Council. Fighting the -- whatever it was."

[bloodandnicotine]

"Gragglesplat -- Garrchalsphart -- bloody big slime demon," Spike gives up the attempt to impersonate Wesley. "Eats rats, but unfortunately it also eats track workers and ConEd blokes."

He pauses. "You're pretty good. I didn't know you were there. And they're not all from the Council. Angel wouldn't have them on a bet."

[sunnydalealum]

"But they work with you?"

Clearly this makes no sense at all to her.

[bloodandnicotine]

Spike's twisted grin reappears -- not like it makes a lot of sense to him either, some days. "Yeah. They've been on most teams, seems like. But then, who hasn't?"

"They do all right," Spike adds, reluctantly. He pauses. "Think we skipped a step. Hi. I'm Spike."

[sunnydalealum]

"I'm Beth."

She isn't coming any closer, but she's unfolded from the defensive huddle.

"So how come they're willing to work with a vampire? I thought ..." She trails off, uncertain.

[bloodandnicotine]

"That the Council was a bunch of self-righteous gits? Used to be. Still have a few of them hanging about. But now they're outnumbered and the inmates are running the asylum. Past time, too."

Spike decides Beth isn't too likely to run or attack and goes back to slumping comfortably against the wall. He lights a fresh cigarette and offers her the pack.

"Tell you the truth, pet, sometimes I still want to put the Council through a wall. After the way they screwed Buffy over... they're still awfully quick to rush to judgment, and fancy themselves in charge. But our blokes learnt their lesson. Most do if you get 'em out in the field long enough, so they have to talk to somebody besides each other." He takes a long drag.

"Oh, yeah, and I've got a soul."

[sunnydalealum]

There are so many possible reactions to that.

Beth wavers between several, and settles on "Who's Buffy?"

[bloodandnicotine]

Spike opens his mouth. On one level, it only makes sense that a teenager halfway across the country -- the world, now -- wouldn't have heard. On another, it is unthinkable.

"She's --" The best, the last, the one who did this to you (me), the one that saved you (ditto), a prig, my ex, the one that got away, "It's a long story."

Spike glances across the street to where Florent was still and always open. "Fancy some overpriced chips? Fries," he corrects himself at her blank look. "I'm buying."

[sunnydalealum]

A long, long pause. She's studying him.

Finally: "Yeah, all right."

[bloodandnicotine]

The blond not-a-Slayer stares warily at a giant plate of fries between them as if it might bite back. Spike pops a few into his mouth, sucking air around the burning oil. The pain makes a handy distraction from sitting across from a blond Slayer barely out of her teens -- not that that reminds him of anything -- and buys a minute to figure out what the hell to say next.

"Buffy was the Slayer back when you only got one at a time," he says finally. "Saved the world a handful of times, lasted years longer than the sodding Council bargained for. She's the one who made it so all you lot got called at once. She never much cared for the rules, unless she was making 'em."

[sunnydalealum]

Beth looks up at him, her expression somewhere between 'bewildered' and 'skeptical'.

"One at a time? I thought ..."

Four or five to a generation, Emma said.

[bloodandnicotine]

Spike nodded. "They had a whole bleeding soliloquy about it, into each generation... one girl in all the world is chosen... blah blah blah. 'Cept it ended up two at one point, 'cause the big destiny mojo didn't know what to make of CPR. When one died the next got the nod. Didn't take too long, mostly, one teenager and one old guy with a book against all of us."

[sunnydalealum]

She picks up a fry, gingerly.

"And that's why ... Buffy changed it so there'd be more of us."

If her tone gives no indication whether she believes him or not, that's possibly because she honestly isn't sure.

[bloodandnicotine]

Spike shrugs. "More or less. There was a big bloody demon army and the most godawful boring villain. Talk your ear off, it would. Even with me and all her little mates she couldn't take 'em down, so she called in the cavalry."

He fiddles with the paper from his straw, flicks a glance at Beth and just as quickly drops his eyes. "She gave them the choice," he says. "The ones who were there."

[sunnydalealum]

The fry's still almost hot enough to burn. She eats it anyway, and reaches for another.

"Where's she now?"

[bloodandnicotine]

"Italy." Spike winces a little, thinking of Angel and a Vespa and Andrew. Not their proudest moment. He can't smoke anymore in a New York restaurant, however wrong that seems, so Spike signals for a drink instead.

[sunnydalealum]

"Mmn." Beth puts a couple fries into her mouth and chews. And swallows.

"I don't get you," she says abruptly.