holidays in the sun

[idolstolemylook]

Spike's days had taken on a fairly hum-drum rhythm: there was minding his business, minding the shop, and minding the Little Bit, and the real difference between the three was the presence of alcohol, demon ass to kick, and Dawn

Comments

[returntous]

"Huh." She never finds it odd to stumble across these things when she's just passing through; usually the stranger things happened then for Mabel.

"So you stop smoking once you get out of direct sunlight, then, but you can still be out and about?"

Mabel Albans is not-quite-alive, very-slightly-dead. She does not smell good to eat. Her blood tastes awful, and she's had testimony on that.

[idolstolemylook]

Spike looked around, sniffing a bit at the odd smell. Bit of the undead, was she?

"Seems like," he said casually. "If I knew I was goin' on a picnic, wouldn've brought a blanket."

[returntous]

"Sunscreen," she adds brightly (Mabel likes dead people. Unless they start to chew on her). "And one of those old lady floppy hats that would just ruin that bleach blond look of yours, but at least nobody would be roasting weenies off the remains of your corpse."

This is not remotely threatening. It's just how she decides to be friendly.

[idolstolemylook]

Spike was not in the least threatened. He merely cocked his head at her, looking a little like she'd just told Sampras how to serve.

"Been around the block a bit," he said. "Sunscreen doesn't work, 've tried. An' an old blanket works better than a... bonnet."

[returntous]

"Ah, experimentation," she says approvingly. Not that he needs her approval. "I don't see a lot willing to do that. But the lot I see don't really think much in the same ways, I guess; vampires are different."

The lot that she chooses not to define at this moment.

[idolstolemylook]

Spike's brow furrowed. "Dif'rent from what?" he asked.

[returntous]

Xanadu was an odd place. Sometimes it was filled with ghosts, sometimes it was devoid. Ghosts, she knew, tended to differ depending on who saw them. Just because her version was the most horrific one possible didn't mean that was how anyone else was going to see them.

But as her luck would have it, the dead that usually lurked around her seemed to be avoiding her today. It could be the vampire, maybe.

"Straight-up dead people," she says plainly. "I'm a paranormal investigator."

[idolstolemylook]

Spike looked faintly disbelieving that he was being compared, but he was reasonably patient in his explanation.

"It's a mistake to lump us in with the dead," he said. "I admit it's a bit confusin', what with the 'undead' thing, an' then there's your walking dead, but vampires ain't much like ghosts. We're as alive as anything."

[returntous]

Mabel's eyes narrow a bit.

"So are the dead," she says, simply. "They're just a different state of being. It ain't so much that you're different, but people expect y'all to be. Hell, I think vampires are more human than humans are. Guess you can call that being more alive."

[idolstolemylook]

"Well I don't know how that follows," Spike snorted. "An' if the dead are as alive as we are, then there's not much point in the distinction, is there?"