And I should do what in my spare time? [open]

[idolstolemylook]

WHO Spike and YOU
WHAT Spike's compulsions are many and varied. Have some!
WHERE Cemetery, Hellsing, bars/dives, random streets. Anywhere a vampire can go.
WHEN All this week! Backtagging always welcome.
NOTES Spike can be just as loyal and generous as he is snarky and drunk, so if you want anything from him this is a good time to get it.
WARNINGS

Comments

Tuesday evening?

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho felt... odd. Curious. Kind of stuck. Terrified and also determined. It was weird. She wasn't sure if she liked it. That being said, she couldn't seem to stop it.

It was why she was currently standing in the middle of the cemetery in the thin evening light, turning in a slow circle and trying to find a mausoleum made out of the same pale stone she'd seen behind Spike in the video with the ramen noodles. Which, yes, that was also weird. And was a very good reason for her to stay very far away. Not that she was listening to very good reasons at the moment.

Clearly.

Because she'd just knocked on the doors of two of them and stood around for a ridiculous amount of time seeing if either would open up. They hadn't. Well... huh.

Now Cho was just standing in the middle of the cemetary, turning in a slow circle. There had to be an easier way to do this. "Spike? Spike!" That was one way to go about it.

Tuesday evening!

[idolstolemylook]

Spike couldn't imagine who would be calling his name. Who even knew he lived here besides Buffy, and she was more the "kick down the door" sort of girl. He flipped off the tv (it was re-run of Falcon Crest, anyway) and went to the door, more curious than anything else.

Striding through the cemetery, he could see her before she saw him. Mostly because she was turned the wrong way, but he recognized her instantly.

"Well, well," he called out, some distance from her. "If it isn't Miss Corpus Interruptus herself. Point of interest, pet--you want to avoid vampires, you don't call 'em up in a graveyard."

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho whirled around quickly, on guard (for all the good it would do her) but seemingly unafraid. "You do if they live in one and you're looking for them." And she was looking for him. Because she wanted to talk to him. And it seemed like a good idea. Not a good enough idea for her to have told Wataru what she was planning, but still...

[idolstolemylook]

"Fair point," he admitted, sauntering up to her and looking her over as he did so. It was hard to avoid looking lascivious with those cheekbones and that coat and Spike rarely tried. "Look whole enough. Come to thank me for savin' your life the other day, or you hidin' a stake somewhere in there?"

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho wasn't sure why she was here, aside from a vague lack of understanding and a need to not just lie in bed staring at the ceiling and feeling her heart race. "Do you know the kind of PSI it would take to actually drive a sharpened stick through the sternum deep enough to hit the heart?" He probably did. "I need help to open pickle jars."

[idolstolemylook]

He did, but it was more something one just got the feel for. He'd never bothered with the arithmetic. For now he just eyed her.

"You came out here to get me to open some pickles?" he said. He sighed. "Look, biscuit, that's a bloody stupid thing to announce in a cemetery in the city of sin of all places." He frowned, and lest he look like he'd gone soft, "Not that I care but I am paid to protect civvies like you."

[tenuefarfalla]

"What? No. That would be stupid. It's just figure of speech." An idiom, and one of only a handful of common ones that she knew. "I came here to see you." And to hide. To get away. "Your crypt is a very common colour." The filter between her brain and mouth was lacking. It was like being high without the dulling of her senses.

[idolstolemylook]

"Thought it was blood loss," Spike said after a moment. "But looks like you're always like this. All right, then. You'd best come in, before something comes after you an' I'm forced to look heroic."

He turned and marched off towards his crypt. Well, sauntered very quickly, would be more accurate; over the years, Spike had somehow perfected the art of slouching at high speeds.

[tenuefarfalla]

"It takes at most forty eight hours for the human body to replace lost plasma," she said almost immediately. She also followed him without complaint or question. Because this was what she wanted. She wanted to understand the things that were out to hurt her.

Cho did not slouch if she could help it. Especially not when she actually felt confident. She didn't have the height to spare. She did have a knack for hurrying without looking like she was hurrying, though. She moved with an understated kind of grace, and she made her own wind when she walked. Because someone had spent many hours showing her how. Because she was supposed to.

"How long have you been dead?"

[idolstolemylook]

"Well aren't you just full of exciting facts about your tasty innards," Spike drawled, noting, as they went, her sort of willowy (if short) grace. He shot her a look as he opened the heavy iron door, his gesture for her to enter slightly at odds with his peremptory march across the graveyard.

"Bit personal, innit?" he said, without any conviction. "1880, was the banner year. An' it's undead, thanks very much."

[tenuefarfalla]

"You bit me. That's pretty darn personal... and I think undead would just be alive." Cho liked technicalities and details and semantics. Well, mostly she liked them because they were niggling little things that conformed to rules, even if they didn't always seem logical. Cut and dry, once you broke them down enough.

Cho stepped inside the crypt and looked around. She'd never actually been inside a crypt before. Terrifying, but the thrill was... an actual thrill and not just fear and confusion and worry. "I had a friend who was a surgeon. Theoretical medical trivia is something I have a lot of."

[idolstolemylook]

"You'd think, but then, dead would just be rotting in the ground, wouldn't it?" Spike suggested. "Seem alive enough to you, don't I? Just don't have a heartbeat or a soul. Makes your little distinctions a bit limited, don't it?"

Shutting the door--really, the ominous sound was unavoidable, it was a crypt--Spike sauntered over to the fridge. "Want a beer?"

[tenuefarfalla]

Trapped in a crypt with a vampire. It was thrilling. And probably pretty stupid. But considering that there were monsters everywhere, at least this one put what he was on the table up front.

"All right." Cho didn't actually like beer, but she'd been friends with Gabriel long enough to have acquired a taste for it. And it was rude to refuse. Compulsions aside, Cho never actually felt a desire to be impolite. Anyway, being drunk was fun.

She thought about this - about alive and dead and undead. "Being dead is just... being no longer alive. You're not alive, are you? I mean technically. You're not inanimate, but... dead but not decomposing? What keeps you from decomposing?"

[idolstolemylook]

Spike shot a look over at her. "'Course I'm not decomposing," he said. "Do I look like a bloody corpse to you? Anyway, guess it's a sort of... reanimation. Demon takes over your body, keeps you moving about."

He poked his head into the tiny refrigerator. Supplies running low, he thought to himself.

"Got whiskey, too, if you prefer," he offered.

[tenuefarfalla]

Better than beer at least. "I'll have whatever you're having." And then she thought about that. "Not blood." She hadn't actually come for a drink. Well, not that way. With everything around her in a sudden state of upheaval, control (or even just the illusion of it) was very appealing.

[idolstolemylook]

Spike looked at her a long moment, amusement lingering in his eyes, and nodded.

"Jack it is," he said, shutting the fridge door and grabbing a half-full bottle instead. Glasses. Did he have any glasses? Right, he'd picked one up when Buffy had mentioned something about drinking, though she'd never used it. He poured her a shot and walked over to her, holding it out.

"You gonna tell me what you came lookin' for, then?"