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who: Spike and whomever
what: Looking for new digs and scavenging for stuff.
when: Soon after his arrival (2nd week of May)
where: The Inhabited Area and likely the Abandoned City.
warnings: Spike being a jerk? Possible language. Edit: Biting, drinking, the vomiting blood in thread w/Cain.

Flatmates. The only ones he'd ever been able to stand had been the ones he was shacking up with, and for the better part of a century, that had been Dru. Oh, they'd been off and on again a few times, but this... well. This was a bit more permanent. And now he was stuck in a room with a bunch of other living bodies. Ones he couldn't take a nip from. It was likely better than Xander's basement, but only just.

And a job. Seriously? They'd given him a bloody job and expected him to just... do it? Clearly they had no idea who they were dealing with. But, as he hadn't entirely sorted out an alternative yet, he wasn't ready to piss away what was being offered. Not until he'd set something better up for himself. Surely this place had to have a graveyard. A set of crypts. A nice little mausoleum tucked away he could take as his own, yeah?

For the next week, each time the sun dipped down below the horizon, Spike could be found leaving the shared accommodations to go scour the city for just that. Looking for where the city might have its graveyard, and deciding to snoop past the fence that encircled the population and led out past where he'd been told the wild things may roam. Well, that was all fine and dandy, wasn't it? He was a bit wild himself. Could be he'd come across something he could vent a little of his frustrations on -- aside from the small dark shape that smelled like fox that had been shadowing him partway through the week. The area was rife with them, the city boasting people walking around with them like pets.

Spike didn't do pets. He ate pets. Though, he had a feeling that kitten poker would be frowned on here. Pity. He wasn't too bad at it, and they weren't bad for a late morning snack.

Perhaps someone might come across him with a shopping cart full of odds and ends he'd found and salvaged. Or maybe they'd see him slipping into the cemetery, when he finally found one. Or he could be heard talking to the shadows or hissing at one and telling it to stop following him. Who knows? Spike's a bit of an odd duck, but until he figures out or is told a way to be able to not burst into flame in the sun, he'll only be seen during the night-time hours.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"That your place?" asked Cain as they got closer. He moved so he could stand closer alongside Spike than the bit he had fallen behind while taking in the surroundings. There was a lot of that, especially in the dark. He could see dead people, he didn't have infrared vision, all right?

It wasn't a change of subject so much as making sure they almost to the destination point. "Okay, but call me crazy—if you got to feed from a human who didn't mind around these parts, you probably wouldn't want to drain them first go, huh?"

"Not all of it." He'd only snagged one mausoleum, after all, but he also wasn't too sure he'd have to worry about competition for the rest. He led Cain and his cart over to the entrance, the gate having fallen off a good while before Spike had ever set foot to the area. "Not far now." He'd picked one not too close to the entrance, but not too far in the middle of everything. Just one among the masses, but he knew which one was his.

As to that question, he mulled it over as he walked, pulling up along the crypt he'd claimed as his before he answered. "Dunno. Depends on how hungry I am and how many figs I give about who I'm nipping."

One mausoleum seemed like plenty of space to Cain, but he also had some self-admitted issues about that sort of thing. When choosing his own places, going grandiose always felt unnecessary and eye-catching. Weird considering what his first real career had been but since then he'd achieved a happy medium that never left him too anxious. As it was, he gave a nod — at least it looked like Spike hadn't picked the best-kept or biggest and shiniest out of them.

Or maybe he had. Cain hadn't seen the rest of the place yet.

"Okay, please tell me you get where I've been going with this," Cain said. Helping out with that TV had to count for something, right?

"Trying to decide on if you're just nosy for nosy's sake, or if you're suicidal as well. I meant what I said before. I'm not looking to start up an entire city with pitchforks after me. Be kind of obvious if I go 'Oi, I'm a vampire', and then someone winds up dead of lack of blood." He shot Cain a look, as if to imply he was still trying to work out his intelligence level.

Moving over to the door of the mausoleum, he pushed it open and gestured with his arm. "Go on then. Not that you need an invitation."

Cain headed inside at that, turning to look around the whole room while he waited for Spike to get his cart inside with him. Definitely one of the weirder places he was going to have had spent some of his time. Thankfully he'd never really been dead long enough to go through the whole funeral thing and woken up somewhere like this.

"Appreciate it anyway," he said. Despite the conversation, he was definitely still very casual and at ease. "Look, I wasn't suggesting you incriminate yourself. I've never met a vampire, though, and thought maybe you'd like the chance to indulge someone and get a treat out of it."

There was a little voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Abel just going don't be an idiot right now. Easy enough to ignore, he'd been ignoring that voice for a while. Not a super necessary voice when this sort of thing lacked a lot of repercussions.

The crypt looked much like most did on the inside, though it was a little bigger than some. It seemed to be a family one, so it was large enough for a clan, giving him room to shove all the tombs to the edge of the room and make space for a ratty couch he'd stolen and dragged here earlier. "You want me to indulge in your, what... curiosity about the undead?"

Spike dragged the cart in, pushing it over to a corner. When he turned around, his face was decidedly unhuman, fangs showing as he grinned when he spoke. "So you want to be my test subject, eh? See if I can give you a nip without hurting myself because you want it..."

He turned when he heard the cart make its way in, followed the movement and looked up when Spike turned around. His head tilted back at the change but his expression wasn't very alarmed. This whole thing was already a weird and crazy scenario so even though he was definitely surprised, it would only show in his heartbeat picking up.

"Yeah," he said after a pause. "For science. Or curiosity. Usually they're the same thing."

"There's never been anything more stupid or suicidal than a curious human." He snorted a laugh, coming over with his thumbs tucked into his belt, watching Cain and taking in his reaction. "You sure about this? Playing an awful nasty game of trust, aren't we? We're in a crypt. Away from the city. No one to hear if big bad says boo."

Despite the game of cat and mouse, Cain took out his phone and started to type very quickly with one hand. It didn't take long to set it up — or at least pretend that he had.

"There's this cool feature," he said, finally glancing over to the predator closing in on him. "Most people don't realize it. Timed texts? You can pre-send a message to someone, have it out there and waiting until you want it to actually get there. So, say, if I'm not around to turn it off in about an hour or so, there will be a notice on the network saying where I was and what I was doing."

Not totally a bluff. It was a card he could play for real and had plenty of failsafes to make sure it actually got through. Considering their conversation earlier about what sort of goodies Spike had picked up in his cart, he wasn't sure the guy would even know to try some of his precautions. Never hurt, though.

He shrugged, more confident now that he was used to the face he saw. "What I'm saying is, it's not trust so much as a mutual agreement not to screw each other over. Which seems like the best possible way to do it when, yeah, we don't trust each other whatsoever."

Pausing, Spike cocked his head as he watched Cain fiddle with his phone. He hadn't really bothered to muck around with it too much, so he had no idea if that was something the man could really do or not. Welcome to someone whose tech was pre-new millennium. Considering where they were, though, and what he'd seen thus far, he opted to err on the side of caution. "Right. Well. It wasn't like I was going to try to really kill you. Still need you to fix my bits and bobs, don't I?"

Posturing. He'd mastered the fine art a long time ago.

"I figured," he said with a quick dip of his head. Spike couldn't have possibly been stupid enough to really go that far, but it would probably do well to establish the baseline now that Cain wasn't intending to take any shit from someone who would probably have killed him if not for the two gigantic problems with that idea.

See previous subjects, re: Spike's affliction; Cain's affliction.

Putting his phone back into his pocket for now, he put his hands into his jacket and gave a smile. "Can't blame a guy for being cautious when he's threatened by a vampire, can you? And yes, I'll still fix your stuff."

"Right." He came over, gesturing to Cain absently. "So... where you want me to..." He smiled, showing fangs to indicate them in the question. If the guy dropped his pants, Spike was going to kick him out of his bloody crypt, headache or not.

Thankfully, his intentions were nothing like that. Ew. Get your head out of the gutter, Spike. He shifted, one hand going to the other sleeve while his head tilted to the side. "Either wrist or neck is best, isn't it?"

"If you're aiming not to have me nick anything, wrist would be better. Besides, neck's a bit up close and personal if I've got to look you in the eye after." He still half expected Cain to balk when it came down to it, but there was a look in the man's eye, as if he had a strange reason for doing this.

At least Cain wasn't smiling. He knew better than to make it look like a taunt, especially when he didn't have enough of a bead on Spike yet. Usually one would wait before offering their blood at all when they didn't know that much but Cain was pretty impulsive and let the rest fall as it may.

He tugged at the sleeve of his jacket to pull that half off, then rolled up his shirt sleeve up to his elbow and held it out. It was his off-hand, at least, on his right. "What, don't like seeing your meals?"

"I do if they're young, female, and possibly up for..." He smirked, head dipping to the side. "Not like I won't feed from a bloke, but, well. We tend to prefer what we prefer, if you get my drift." He looked at the unmarked wrist in front of him, mouth already watering. It had been too long since he'd had himself a decent nip, but the possibility of that searing pain had his hand hesitating before he reached out to grab Cain's arm.

Huh. Although he waited without letting on, Cain definitely noticed the hesitation. Probably to do with that nasty little ailment about feeding on people and all that. That kind of reinforcement could definitely mess up what should be natural instincts.

"Makes sense," he allowed as if Spike wasn't taking his time. "If your food is people and you already have a people-preference, those wires crossing... Something's better than nothing, though, right?"

"Right enough." Lifting Cain's arm, Spike shot him a glance, looking away as there was too much of an intimacy to looking someone in the eyes when you fed on them. His tongue wet his lips and he brought Cain's arm up, mouth opening as he gingerly moved to bite him, waiting for that whiplash of pain.

A whiplash that didn't seem to come before he tasted salty, hot blood trickling into his mouth. Wires crossed or not, he hoped Cain didn't pay any mind to the almost orgasmic sounding groan that came from him as he sealed his lips around the small wound and sucked.

That was... different. Cain had suffered pretty much every kind of wound in some form or another by now (although there was a certain group of people back home determined to prove him wrong), and this was not quite like any of them. Puncture wounds were a thing. Blood loss was a thing. Having it sucked out of him and ingested by an undead creature of the night was not a thing. Until now.

He sucked in a breath as he could start to hear the sound of his heart rushing past his ears. Spike's noise went more or less ignored because he was having his own thing go on right now. It didn't hurt in the ways that Cain knew pain to be. It wasn't like some kind of life-altering epiphany but it didn't bring about agonizing pain and that was good. With teeth still in his wrist and aggravating the wound, it wouldn't even start to heal yet; not unless the obstruction was there for an absurdly long time and his body had reason to push it away.

"No bad juju?" he asked, a little breathlessly. As if this whole thing wasn't answer enough.

Cain's blood was different. Not in the way that a Slayer's was, or any other non-human he may have fed from. Maybe... maybe it was just that it had been long enough since he'd fed right from the source that he was forgetting, but it felt like there was more life in this blood. Like it had just a bit more punch. He had a very real urge to not stop, to just keep going until he'd drained the man dry. Evil, remember.

But not stupid either, and he remembered the phone gadget and the threat of retribution and all those out there who seemed to be waiting on him to take a wrong turn. It was with visible regret that he withdrew, pulling off Cain's arm with a long, drawn in breath, panting a little, face still bumpy and demonic as he looked up at Cain. "Not so far, no. I'd call that a win."

It wasn't much of a hardship for Cain to admit to himself that he needed to sit down after that. He moved slowly and sat himself down on that ratty couch in the middle of the disturbed crypt and leaned himself against the back of it while observed the look on Spike's face. Not a normal face by far, but it still had human features on it and that helped.

"Well now we both know that works," he said, absently running his thumb over the bite marks in his wrist. It had already stopped bleeding no matter where exactly Spike had gone and he could feel a sort of tense stillness in his body while it caught up with what had happened before it would make its reparations. Take back what belonged. "How was it? As good for you as it was for me?"

"Better, I'd wager." He licked his lips, smiling as his face bled back to human. Oh, yes. He'd missed that. Enjoyed the bloody hell out of it. But even as he was standing there, bathing in that sated predatory bliss, he noticed something... off.

Once he fed, that was generally when he felt the new blood start to feed into his system. To warm him up, give him a full body rush. It wasn't unusual for a male vampire to get a little... ahem. But that wasn't exactly happening just then. It felt... different. Like what he'd just drank was sort of... separate. Sealed off from him in a strange way. "You said you were human, yeah?" Spike was giving him a curious look, willing to call bullshit on it just by being able to bite him alone.

Well, that was a pretty immediate call out. What was it that was tipping Spike off? As far as Cain was aware, he was entirely human — just someone with a bullshit fate that he couldn't really deny since it had been written on him since birth. The one in charge of that decision was completely out of his and every other being's reach, so he would just have to live with it. And live with it... and live. For a very, very long and indeterminate amount of time.

Sometimes he hated the general rule of never telling someone else their time. Other days, it kept him sane. Either way, it didn't seem to really factor in to his humanity or not.

"Born and bred," he answered. If he was lucky, he could get an answer before his blood started trying to go back where it belonged. If he was even luckier, Spike wouldn't try and murder him for knowingly offering himself like that. If he was going to win the lottery, he'd still get to walk out with that charger sitting in the cart. "Why?"

"Couple of things," he said, hand moving up to his stomach, a curious look on his face as he felt an odd sort of roiling inside him. "Aside from you tasting good enough I could drain you dry and come back for seconds and thirds, there's... something a little off."

And he couldn't put his finger on it. Spike didn't exactly experiment with blood much. He drank human, animal, and now the synthetic nonsense. He'd never felt anything quite as strange as this. There'd been that one insect demon he'd nipped once that had left a nasty taste in his mouth. Ichor instead of blood didn't go down quite so well. But this? This was blood. This was blood that tasted sweet and hot and delicious, but he couldn't feel that rush anymore. In fact, he was feeling a little nauseous. "You didn't drink holy water or anything daft like that beforehand, did you?"

"No," Cain said truthfully. Please don't be a chestburster. Much as he didn't actually care for the continued state of things against the natural order, that would be way more than just desserts for something he'd lured into biting him. Unnecessary cruelty was just cruel. The fact that he apparently tasted rather good to a vampire's senses might have put him in a more entertained mood than before, too.

His wrist was dry, empty where it was about to start calling his blood back. Now he was feeling the tingling like pins and needles, blood moving in an absence and knew it was basically now or never. "But I do have a condition that might make things unpleasant. Friendly reminder I haven't turned that text off yet, so try not to go into a raging fit," he added perhaps quicker than necessary. "And I honestly wasn't sure if anything would come of it, either."

Oh yeah, here it came. Healing. Forceful and abrupt and whether he wanted it or not.

that's what people keep telling me......

You'll see, grasshopper.

Now he just figured out he can punch demons!

YEAH! LET'S GO FIGHT EVIL! For... puppies.

AND CHRISTMAS!

Spike trying to be helpful was sad. Spike trying to get Buffy to notice how 'good' he was is worse.

This is gonna be bits of good things with terrible writing overlaying it all, isn't it

I'm on the S5 finale right now and it's like ... AGH.

I'm so sorry

It's good, but this is definitely a "Spike is a kicked puppy" episode.

That's the worst/best thing

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