For Mitchell

[nobler_things]

He ached. His knees were bruised-- he'd jammed them on the floor of the stage, and he'd been coming down off an hours long adrenaline high that just wouldn't quit. Humanity, at times, was horribly tedious. He'd been looking after his own for centuries-- his girls, whose faces changed over the years but each was no less important to him than the

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[chasinghumanity]

The election speeches had left Mitchell unsettled, to put it lightly. His own performance he felt had been lackluster and then, more importantly, that poor girl had had to gone through all that on a stage and Peter Parker had to trample indelicately all over it like her trauma was a piece fitting neatly into his argument. Like bad shit didn't happen everywhere.

But long after his ire at the former Councilman had faded, Mitchell was still worrying over the girl. Fred. He only knew her name because she'd introduced herself in the speech, but he'd seen Spike sprint for her with real worry on his face. Mitchell didn't know Spike like he did George or Annie, but there were Rules. Spike was like Mitchell, One of Them, a brother in blood regardless of dimensions. Fred Burkle was important to Spike and, according to the Rules, that made her important to Mitchell.

So he worried but did nothing about it, knowing his place. Worrying his thumbnail between his teeth, he walked into the Hub looking for a drink to accompany his thoughts about when and how best to check on the pale bastard when, lo and behold, there he was.

Mitchell slid into a seat beside him with a worried frown creasing his brows. "Should I ask about you or her first?" he asked.

[nobler_things]

"Having a chat about our feelings, are we?" Spike said with a low chuckle, eyes sliding over to the man at his side for a quick glance at that face all pinched with worry.

Knocking back the rest of his glass, he let out a sigh and waved the bartender down for another pour.

"She's fine. Scared out of her head, but in one piece. Which, as I understand it, isn't the end one usually gets after being fitted with one of those bloody collars."

[chasinghumanity]

"We don't have to, if you don't want," Mitchell pointed out, but that worried look never went far from his face. It got muddled up with detached politeness and interest, but stayed put. Even while asking the bartender for a beer, his eyes darted back and forth between him and Spike.

"Usually happens?" he repeated. "So it was something from home, not something wholly island created?" The only collars Mitchell was aware of in abundance on the island were on dinosaurs and those didn't just appear on people.

[nobler_things]

"Not home, specifically. A demon dimension she had the great misfortune of getting herself trapped in," Spike said, patting down his pockets for a cigarette.

"But that was before I knew her. I'd heard that she'd been broken when Angelus found her there, in Pylea, but I'd never seen her like that. Not until today."

[chasinghumanity]

"Angelus?" Mitchell repeated, frowning slightly. Being well familiar with that pat down, he fetched his own stash of homemade cigarettes from his pocket and offered them to Spike.

He supposed that ultimately whoever the fuck Angelus was mattered little, so he carried on. "A.. demon dimension. That sounds like-" Well it sounded like hell and utter shit, but both descriptors felt likely to be inadequate. "The poor girl," Mitchell said, face falling in pity. "You don't think it's gonna knock her back?"

[nobler_things]

"Angel," he muttered, taking the cigarettes with a grunt of thanks and lighting one up before continuing, "Tall, dark and brooding. Believe that girlfriend of yours knew 'im, 'fore he went and vanished."

Taking in a deep drag and letting out with a slow sigh, he said, "Dunno, mate. But she's... The girl's tough. Tougher than she looks. She'll get it together, I just don't like seein' her in pain."

[chasinghumanity]

"Oh right," he said, the faint frown returning, this time with recognition. "I knew him. I remember 'cause.. said he drank pig's blood." Even simply saying it aloud made the contents of Mitchell's stomach shift and inspired a disgusted look on his face.

He shook his head and returned to the actual matter at hand. "You care about her," Mitchell said simply. "You can be there for her. Hold her hand through the pain." It wasn't much of something to do, but it was something and something that would make a difference to the girl.

[nobler_things]

"You might have had the luxury of choosing not to feed, but where I come from, when it's a choice between pig's blood and wasting away in agony until you're nothing but a shriveled husk, literally, I doubt you'd be so picky," Spike said, smirking over the top of his glass, because years ago, he'd said the same bloody thing of Angelus, scrounging around in back alleys, eating rats.

"Hm," he agreed with a low, wordless sound, "We've seen each other through a lot, though she wouldn't remember any of it. She came from a time before we met, so, that first day, she saw me as a stranger."

[chasinghumanity]

"Well, no, obviously," Mitchell agreed readily, ignoring the dig about choice. It wasn't the time or place to elaborate on the crippling pain of conscious as compared to the searing pain of hunger. "But it still sounds disgusting."

He shook his head, turning his glass on the counter. "George is from before me and Annie. It's.. weird, not having him know everything, having to tell him things." Or not tell him things, as the case may be. "But you got close once. Means you know you can do it again."

[nobler_things]

"Hm," Spike murmured, neither agreement or argument. Close wasn't necessarily the word he'd have chosen for it, but they'd been something. Every one of them had felt responsible for her, in a way. Every one of them had felt something in them die the day that Fred left them.

"There are things she... she can't know. Things it's better she doesn't. She's too smart not to realize I'm keeping things from 'er, but I'm sure she's got it in her head they're all secrets about Angel or whatever she's made up in that pretty little head of hers about my very colorful and sordid past."

[chasinghumanity]

"Good," Mitchell remarked, lifting up his glass to take a drink. "Keep it that way."

Some people didn't believe in secrets. Vampires lived by secrets. In the extensive and bloody list of things Mitchell begrudged the more evil of his brothers, lying was never one of the items. Order needed to be maintained, and full, complete truth only gummed up the works, sometimes dangerously. "Not knowing those things isn't going to keep her from knowing you, is it?" Mitchell asked, though in his mind the answer was obvious. No.