012 [ accidental video | location: hyperion hotel ] a kick in the teeth is good for some

[breakmychest]

Spike is sitting on the floor in the Hyperion lobby hunched over and concentrating hard. He's holding a deck of cards, and several other piles are in front of him on a foot stool in the solitaire set-up. He moves an ace up and stares at the cards for a little while before flipping three down. Then he moves the cards around again. This continues for

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[ visual ]

[breakmychest]

Oh, fantastic. Now he gets to deal with someone who's new to Taxon and from the looks of it, new to vampires in general. At least he's not screaming in terror. Spike's not great at comforting strangers. He scowls at the tablet.

"Yes, I'm a vampire. A real one. But I don't eat humans seeing as how I've got a soul and it's really not worth the mind-numbing guilt. Name's Spike. Did I miss anything? And who're you?"

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[breakmychest]

"Well, this isn't Hollywood, and I'm no actor." Spike crosses his arms and leans against the front desk, slowly relaxing. It's hardly Stefan's fault he doesn't know about vampires, and talking to someone is a hell of a lot more interesting than solitaire, so growling at the kid is probably counterproductive.

"Anyway, I generally keep my fangs in cause they're not all that attractive. They only come out when I'm..." he gestures at the wreckage. "Killing playing cards, apparently."

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[breakmychest]

"None taken, seeing as you obviously know nothing real about vampires. We're not like what you see on TV, you know." Though the other vampires here are different. "Look, I've got no idea why I'm the way I am. It's just how it is."

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[breakmychest]

"In my world? Yeah. Though the really old ones can't look human." The Master, for instance. Ugly, ugly vampire. Spike shrugs. "I'll probably die before I reach that age."

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[breakmychest]

"What? We don't turn into bats." Except Dracula, but Spike doesn't feel like getting into that. Especially since Stefan seems to grab onto everything he says and ask more questions. "And very few vampires last long enough to end up like that. I've only met one." And a host of Turok Khan, but that was an entirely different breed of vampire, and it didn't count.

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[breakmychest]

Spike raises an eyebrow. "Mainstream media barely gets the non-supernatural things right. Why would you trust them on vampires? Look, there might not even be vampires in your world. I mean, you might be one of the blind idiots who thinks all the bloodless dead people with neck wounds had an interesting accident with a very sharp fork, but you could also live somewhere where they really aren't real. I don't know."

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[breakmychest]

"Glenn Beck? Thought he did radio." Not that Spike watched the news back home very often as it was. They tended to ignore the things that had anything to do with the supernatural, so he mostly just watched when he was bored and nothing else was on.

Spike shrugs. "You'd know better than I would."

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[breakmychest]

Spike frowns and looks him over for a moment before speaking. "What year is it?"