brought something back to me, it's in my blood

[redeye]

Who: Spike and Vicious.
What: A friendly chat.
Where: The Valhalla Inn.
When: After Spike gets back from getting patched up after the riots.
Warnings: TBA.

There is some kind of emotion, surely, that exists in the vast expanse of unsurprise at Spike still being at the Valhalla, extending his stay despite lack of funds through a mixture of inexplicable charm and pity. It's not contempt, it's not even irritation - old, familiar resignation, maybe; Vicious is not surprised the door is unlocked, but he did expect to have to step over discarded clothes and old cup noodle containers on the floor. The lack of it shows either the depths of repressed anxiety, or simply the evidence of the extent of his injuries.

(Or nothing.)

A bottle of shit vodka and the tell-tale wrappers and plastic tubes of painkillers and antibiotics all on the bedside table, decorating the half-eaten, complementary breakfast - potatoes and eggs almost cover up the smell of stale blood, but not quite. Vicious moves with neither deliberate stealth nor threat, existing in a space near-impossible for even the most hair-trigger of unconscious minds to detect. He checks where Spike's got his gun, where his hands are, considers how many rounds he could have.

Then he sits down in the chair facing the worn hotel bed and its occupant, and waits.

Comments

[jericho941]

Spike hasn't been dreaming. It's a phenomenon he discovered after the injury; that when he found the right combination of alcohol and painkillers, it cleared his mind of everything but the deep reaching expanses of space. The experience is enough for him to justify any recent questionable decisions on his part. At least until he starts to feel guilty for what he's attempting to repress and goes off them.

Can't really call it progress, but it keeps him sane while he passes the time in recovery.

When someone else enters the room, he doesn't rouse from the bed, and for a long while it seems he's too far gone to acknowledge them at all. Maybe he is. The silence between them stretches so long that it could almost be considered rude of him not to sense that he has company.

Then without prompting, he opens his eyes and looks over at the man sitting patiently in the chair. Spike doesn't move otherwise, and there is no expected look of surprise on his face. Even his breath is carefully steady.

"What took you?"

[redeye]

Uncanny, Vicious' gaze is level with Spike's the moment his eyes are open - there's no sense that he was waiting, staring, yet there's no sense it was a startling accident, either. It just is; Vicious doesn't seem like he'd spaced out, but he also doesn't seem like he'd become impatient. It's as if Vicious had just sat down, and Spike came to attention exactly when he wanted him to. Schrödinger's boredom.

... But because it's Spike, he'll know it's nothing unearthly; it's just Vicious, and his utterly unmysterious and unlikable inability to pace himself like a normal human being.

He tilts his head. Someone else might have, facetiously, asked if Spike was lonely.

"As usual," and his voice is still that same old, cracked, dark, rusted sound, "I have more productive things to attend to than you do."

[jericho941]

His answer doesn't quite get the chuckle he may have been going for, but Spike cracks a grin. There was never need for details when it came to terms like 'productivity' with Vicious. In a way, it's a comforting confirmation of his paranoia. Because even with the slight possibility that he's a drug-laced hallucination (considering that Spike killed him), he knew he'd be seeing him again.

"And you still made time." Same familiar mocking tone that enjoys parodying a time when they were friends. Back when he wasn't a breath away from reaching for the gun by his bed and starting over.

[redeye]

Spike could try to shoot him. Vicious has, of course, taken that entirely likely possibility into consideration. It's equally likely that Spike will realize he won't be able to hit him and that it would be wasting bullets to try, though. It's his hand to play.

"I thought you might appreciate a familiar face, given your condition." Blandly. Yes, this is all very touching, parodying themselves - or people somewhere, anyway; who knows if these two men were ever anything akin to normal even when they were inseparable. Memory has made such things bitter and twisted, by now. "A valiantly close call."

[jericho941]

The shit-grin seems to be held completely out of spite now, since only Spike can find the humor in the implication that Vicious already knows the exact extent of his injuries (that he's not confirming by jumping up just yet). Not to mention how to track him down - although he couldn't take all the credit for that one. Spike made it easy for him.

"Did it make you nervous?" Said in a certain way, it could sound like he was trying to get killed just to see what would happen. But that would only make sense if he was already aware of when the riot would take place.

Which of course he didn't.

[redeye]

"Of course. You know I always want the best for you, Spike."

Vicious could not be baiting harder if he had a fucking bull's eye painted on him, but hey, that's what friends are for, right? There's something about him that's different than the last time they met, on Mars. They were ending something then, and the weight of it was iron crosses over the both of them - momentum, inevitability, destiny, whatever word would work. It was a disgusting, brutal, elegant end.

... Or not.

Now there is a beginning, a new opportunity and the confirmation of what Vicious knew all along: they are inescapable entwined. No matter how much Spike wants to cut that part out of him, it'll always be there. In life and in death.

Vicious seems almost cheerful. Spitefully, darkly, maliciously cheerful.

[jericho941]

Vicious finally gets his laugh, although it's not as sunny. Death doesn't erase history, and he can remember exactly how it felt to watch him fall. To watch her. He'll even concede that he deserves to be mocked for having expectations.

"Sorry to worry you." Tension causes his hand to twitch. If there were a gun already in it, he may have given into the temptation. Since there isn't, Spike puts off traumatizing the staff a while longer. He sits up, holding in a breath, and keeps talking to distract from any telling signs of strain as the bandages tear into his skin. He's always had a high pain tolerance. (The pills help.)

"Did you come to bullshit all day, or is the ambush waiting outside?"

[redeye]

"Lay off the vodka," he advises, faintly disapproving and almost lazy. If Spike thinks that Vicious would stoop to something this artless, he's more than half out of his mind from his recovery cocktail.

He rises from the chair, slow enough to be apparent in his lack of drawn weapon or overt threat, and re-buttons the front of his jacket. No, apparently, he did not come to bullshit all day. A few minutes has been sufficient.

"I was just stopping in to give you something to live for."

[jericho941]

That's the thing about Vicious. Everything always has to be planned, set up as some overly elaborate mind game, when the end result would be the same if they tore this room apart right now. He has to make his point. He probably thinks that he orchestrated everything before and after the coup, down to Spike storming the headquarters.

Some people might call that OCD.

"And what's that?" Spike's voice cuts in once he stands. Oh, he knows what he means, but he'll plead ignorance if it manages to piss the other man off. It's the least he can do for his trouble.

[redeye]

Some people would be highly misinformed about what OCD is.

(Not that Vicious is sane.)

Disinclined to give Spike the satisfaction of any kind of reaction out of him, Vicious merely sends one more self-righteous look his way and turns to the door. It's both an insulting and completely reckless move - either daring Spike to shoot him in the back, or saying he doesn't think he's got the balls to try.

But even if he did fire off a round, there's little chance Vicious wouldn't dodge it; too many variables he could hear and compensate for with simple estimation, having seen the layout and Spike's injuries already. The door opens, Vicious steps out, and closes it behind him without a backwards glance.

[jericho941]

The thought crosses his mind, more times than could be considered healthy in the span of their short conversation, to push the envelope and insist that they don't drag things out. In the end, he doesn't move from the bed until he's left with his empty chair and all his very practical reasons for conserving his bullets. Namely that his head is so fogged that he's not even sure if he could aim. (Which is only enough to barely tip the scales in favor of common sense.) Spike knows it's intentional; Vicious loves having something to hold over him, so it makes sense that he'd only show up when Spike is nursing a serious injury that could have been avoided if he'd only tried. Always about timing.

The next few minutes are consumed in profoundly frustrated silence. Then he frowns and pushes himself up, one hand over his abdomen that's still mostly being held together by stitches, and stands. Even that's more of an ordeal than he remembers it being this morning, and he sways before he gets his balance right. ... Maybe he overdid it a little.

As he walks across the room, he reluctantly starts to break down what this turn of events means. First of all, he'll have to find a new place to stay. Find a way to make money and friends in places that will give him an idea of who Vicious is playing towards. Get back to the world of the living when he'd been content to drift along until nothing bothered him anymore. -- It was nice while it lasted.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, he pulls the door handle tight and flips the lock.