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longcoolcowboy.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tampered2008-04-25 11:48 pm
longcoolcowboy.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2008-04-25 11:48 pm
log; ongoing
When; CATURDAY by which I mean SATURDAY by which I mean SHELL SHOCKED CURSE GET.
Rating; Eh, PG-15 for some gore, mentions of hardcore drug use and drunken BFF antics.
Characters; Spike Spiegel (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
longcoolcowboy) and Vicious (becomedemons) and possibly Julia (goodnightjulia) later on?
Summary; Just two soldiers on leave in what they think is a spaceport.
For a moment, he was back on Titan.
“Man, I am never getting this sand out of my… hell, anything.” He’d been sitting with his back against the canyon wall, tapping one boot against the heel of his hand, shaking it out. Gren was cross-legged in front of him, Vicious was stoic beside him.
Gren was smiling, in that way that he sometimes had, an interlude where it seemed like the war wasn’t so bad after all. He had his rifle across his knees, and Vicious was sharpening a knife, the deft scrapescrapescrape was for once, the only noise.
For a moment, everything was perfectly, inexplicably calm.
(- Before the storm)
Later there was screaming. But it was just a sound, something you could shut out, like background noise or bad music and that was fine, fine and fucking dandy until he tripped over someone’s intestines and went sprawling (the guy wasn’t dead, but he was in shock, gasping and panting and grasping at the sky because it was the last thing he’d ever see). The air smelled like shit, like gunpowder, like dying, and Spike scrambled away from the guy (they’d shared rations once, a long time ago). Not that there was anywhere worth scrambling to.
There was a hand at the back of his shirt, hauling him to his feet, and before he realizes quite what he’s doing he’s got a handgun drawn and pressed to the person’s abdomen, but it’s Vicious’s face he’s looking up into, beneath the blood splatters and the dirt, and so he lets the motion happen, easy and pretty as you please.
“Where’s Gren.” – Vicious’s lack of inflection makes it a not-question, the barest bones of an inquiry regarding a subordinate, and Spike shrugs and does not flinch at the whistle of an inbound screamer overhead. He wants a cigarette so bad he can taste it, and starts patting down his clothes.
“Come on.”
And Spike follows him – not because Vicious knows what he’s doing but because that’s how they operate. It’s like being back on Tharsis; busting heads over debt or dishonor or whatever else it was that the Syndicate needed heads busted over.
He finds a cigarette, though it’s bent nearly in half, and he doesn’t have a lighter to speak of, but he sucks air through it and gets the taste of tobacco in his mouth.
And then Vicious stops, cocks his head like a guard dog, and Spike is already moving in anticipation of his next staccato yell - get down! and the two of them end up in a tangled heap as the grenade sounds off less than ten feet from the both of them. Between body armor and sheer good fucking luck, when Spike shoves Vicious away from him with a little ‘tch’ of mock-distaste that neither of them hear (war’s gonna make him go deaf, he thinks), their injuries are minimal. He’s got a piece of shrapnel sticking out of his calf and Vicious is touching at a spot on his scalp, fingers coming away bloody. (Spike’s mind drifts to the man with the spilled-open belly and yeah, they got off easy enough. Nobody’s tripping over his intestines any time soon, if he’s got anything to say about it.)
Gren finds them a moment later, a barely-defined figure in the swirled-up dust that the grenade kicked into the atmosphere. He’s favoring one leg, and reloading his rifle as he drops down beside them (if you’re standing you’re a better target, after all).
“We lost the north end,” he says around the magazine he’s holding between his teeth. Spike, focusing on that damnable piece of shrapnel, nods. They’d all been expecting it.
“Casualties?”
Gren slams the magazine home. “Seventy percent. Maybe more, I haven’t seen—”
“… Hey Gren. Got a light?”
For a moment, Gren stares at him. A lot of the time, that’s soldier code for, ‘well I’m punching out, see you guys in hell’ but when Vicious snorts in laughter, the tension bleeds out of Gren’s shoulders and he offers him a Zippo, the sides etched with a few short, poetic words that Spike smudges his finger over so he doesn’t have to read ‘em.
“Thanks,” he says, and lights up. He closes his eyes for one blissful second and doesn’t hear the rustle of Kevlar on cloth as Vicious reaches over and yanks the shard of whatever-the-hell it was out of his leg.
To his credit, he doesn’t yell. He does, however, haul off and punch Vicious in the shoulder.
“Asshole.”
Vicious smirks.
The world goes white, and then red.
And he wakes up.
(His leg is throbbing)
------
It’s the strangest spaceport he’s ever been in, and he barely remembers how they got there – but that in itself isn’t surprising, as none of them had slept in days before being shoved prodded and thrown onto a transport, kicked offworld for leave. No one complained.
Vicious doesn’t quite sigh. He leans his white-haired head back against the wall, pale eyes half-closed in the starlight; the delicate light that wasn’t ever there on Titan and its atmospheric storms. Where are they orbiting, to get these shadows? Does it matter? Gren’s gone, but he doesn’t think too hard on it. He’s probably off calling his mom, and scoring. Hopefully scoring, and hopefully coming back to the two of them with enough drugs to keep them all flying for the week.
Us all…
They’re waiting for Julia to come pick them up. A knot tightens in his stomach thinking about her. That life with the Red Dragons seems a hundred years away, even though it’s only been four months. He’s going to want to know what’s been going on. Who does Julia work for now? Who’s running which operations? Are their boys still loyal? What did Mao’s face look like when he found out Spike was coming with him to Titan?
Does Julia still love him, after four months? And what would she think, if she overheard the tense whispers and frustrated words that had passed between he and Spike since they’ve met their new comrade?
Vicious looks down at his bandaged left hand. It’s the worst injury he’s sustained in all this time. He’s not touched his katana since before basic training, and he misses it. He misses it in a nearly desperate way; the things he loved that he’s not had are like an ache in his chest. He wants to do forms in the starlight, and be able to breathe again. He wants to show Gren why he has the ink that he does – he wants to amend it.
And suddenly, he doesn’t want to think of Gren at all, because it makes him too anxious, and so he half-turns to whack the sleeping figure next to him.
“Wake up.”
---
“I’m awake,” he grumps, though his eyes stay closed. And then, in the tone of road-weary children everywhere, he asks, “Are we there yet?”
And then raises a hand preemptively to ward off any further abuse.
He wonders, too, about Julia. About the Syndicate. About whether or not there’ll be any decent bars in which to get a decent drink and a meal that doesn’t taste like freeze-dried anything. He’d probably kill for a steak and a beer (hell, he’s killed for less) – alcohol is damn near impossible to smuggle in on Titan and nobody really wants to end up inebriated there anyways.
He’s got all his belongings in this mortal world crammed in a duffel bag under his chair, and all he can think about is how he’s gonna blow his money on cigarettes. (Vicious is buying dinner)
---
“Yes,” Vicious says, his voice as flat and dispassionate as ever. “Julia’s late.” And she’s never late, but it has been four months. Maybe she got held up. Maybe something happened. Maybe she doesn’t care anymore. Maybe she’s somehow read his mind and exposed his soul and forced him to admit things in his slee—Vicious stops himself from that continued line of thought, because it’s paranoid and fairly stupid. He finds himself paranoid at strange times and for no reason, these days, and a part of him wonders if it’s a side effect of one of the myriad of vaccines he was required to take. Because it wasn’t enough that they were out there dying and killing and getting blown to hell, they were tweaking the minds of their own soldiers before they got out the door. It’s a cold, uncomfortable thought. He almost wants to ask if Spike ever feels the same.
“I’m not sitting here any longer, let’s just find a hotel.” Pause. “And a bar.” Maybe not in that order. His hand goes to his communicator, but he doesn’t take it. Spike can call her. He did already. Didn’t he? He’d have had to, for Julia to know to come pick them up. He doesn’t want to bother her again.
---
“Might’ve given her the wrong time. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to calculate Titan time into everything else?”
He doesn’t think that’s it, though. And maybe it’s the war that’s made him paranoid but he starts thinking about things a little more than he generally approves of. What if she’d been hurt, or killed? Their work was never easy, and danger was a constant pressure of Syndicate life. He’d sent her the specs almost a week ago, and it’s not like a lot couldn’t happen in that time.
Huh.
“How about a hotel with a bar?” Best of both worlds, and the both of them need it. Julia can catch up with them later – she always does. He tries not to think about how good it’ll be to see her again.
---
Vicious makes some monosyllabic noise in response. Of course Spike excuses Julia – he’s been doing that a lot lately, where Vicious can’t. It’s not that he doesn’t care for her. She’s his girlfriend, after all. She’s given so much for him, to him, and he thinks the world of her. Julia is compassionate and steady and deadly and beautiful. And Spike has a crush on her, of course. Always has. Though it took him half a year to stop seeming goofy and embarrassed about it, it never left his eyes. It was Vicious that was slow to cotton onto it, and maybe Julia, too. He looks at his friend for a moment, and wonders why he isn’t angry.
He stands and stretches his arms over his head. Even though it’s night, he’s only wearing so much of his uniform: cargo pants, boots, tan t-shirt, requisite dog tags. That meant, yes, let’s get up and go, your leg be damned.
---
Standing isn’t as hard as it was three weeks ago – the torn muscle has been slowly knitting itself back together over the course of Spike’s general laziness (which is hard to do when deployed, but if anyone could manage it, it'd be him), and when he sighs and gets to his feet, his reluctance is more because he’d rather stick around and wait for Julia.
But he understands the need to go, too.
He’s dressed much the same as Vicious – they’re identical except for their dog tags (SPIEGEL, SPIKE, 132-1548-AFF, blood type: o, non-religious) and their hair. And of course the fact that Spike slings his bag over one shoulder and hunches over, whereas Vicious walks like he’s got a stick crammed up his ass.
“Lead on, Vicious.”
---
Vicious does not walk like he has any of that, thank you, and Spike would be getting one up side the head if he’d said that out loud. He simply has proper posture, and some semblance of grace, unlike some. His dog tags carry their own information, though the only thing real about it is his medical data.
He carries his canvas duffle bag by the handles with one hand (his uninjured one), moving forward and into the street of this foreign space station. He’s hungry. Food first, then. A quick, polite but quiet inquiry to someone passing by results in directions to a place nearby called the Coliseum. They can ask around, there, about where to stay.
They get there easy enough (Vicious is always quiet as they walk, either listening to whatever Spike’s on about or content in their ever-companionable silence) and Vicious shoves his bag under the table they’re shown to before sitting. It strikes him as odd they haven’t seen any other Titan uniforms drifting around, but maybe they just lucked out. No one to come by and whisper about them and their body count.
---
And it’s silence this time – Spike folds his hands behind his head and walks like he hasn’t got a care in the world (he has, really, he’s just adept at ignoring them). Their silence is, as ever, comfortable and calm, the metaphysical equivalent of crawling into a favorite t-shirt.
He makes a note of the lack of uniforms as well – which was downright weird, usually they shipped the Titan crew off in droves, and hauled ‘em back in the same. But after taking his seat, the thought fairly flew out of his mind in favor of food.
“Will you kill me if I order ten of everything?” he asks, quite seriously, as he picks up the menu. Because living on rations = not actually living at all, as far as he’s concerned.
---
“Only if you’re not going to share,” he murmurs, glancing over it himself. He’ll get a few things – two fancy dishes and something utterly disgusting and deep fried, because comfort food and fine dining are equally non-existent on Titan. And beer. Oh, Christ, he missed beer.
He gets the attention of a waiter with ease – he has that ability, even when he barely speaks, and puts in his order quickly, nodding to Spike and his assault on the kitchen to open fire.
---
“When do I ever share with you anyways,” he grumbles, and at this newly acquired waiter-attention, he starts pointing shit out on the menu. Hamburger, fries, steak, if it’s got meat and it’s even remotely dead he probably orders it. Whatever he doesn’t scarf down is going in his rucksack and getting smuggled back to Titan. Here’s hoping it won’t rot.
After the waiter (with an aghast look) scuttles off again, Spike leans forwards, elbows on the table, chin in his hands.
“Too bad Gren couldn’t make it, huh?”
---
“Why is that bad?”
Vicious is studiously looking at the drink menu. Or maybe it’s the dessert menu. Read read read, oh, chocolate frosting, is that right. He’s not paying attention to Spike and that look he’s probably giving him, anyway. Hasn’t he tried to start this conversation enough times while they’re supposed to be asleep or supposed to be on watch or supposed to be getting shot the fuck up? Let’s just have beer, let’s not bring this up.
---
"You'd almost think you didn't like the guy," he drawls lazily, though he's grinning a bit. If Vicious wants to read more into what he's saying that's fine by him. Honestly, he was wishing Gren was around because the two of them play awesome doubles at pool, and Spike wants to troll for some ass to kick, later.
... Not that Vicious is bad at pool, per se, he's just not ... well. Great. And he gloats when he wins. Which is not often. (His gloating is also limited more to a barely-there smirk and huffy little jackass noises but no one's keeping score)
---
Vicious is excellent at pool. Angles, timing, use of specific force. He simply happens to play much of it after just enough beers to make him shitty at pool. And, really, smirking over things is much better than running and screaming and doing victory dances.
“He does as he pleases.” And maybe he doesn’t want to see you with your girlfriend. That thought needles at him, and his eyebrows knit together just a little. “I’ll call him later if we go score.” Gren always had the best hook ups for drugs.
---
Spike waves a hand in a sort of 'yeah, right' gesture, and the waiter chooses that moment to return with two mugs of beer. Godsend, thy name is...
He reaches for the nearer of the two mugs, and cups his hands around it. It's cool, and his hands are calloused and blistered from all the time he's spent digging latrines. Which are, he notes, a sight better than graves. Most of the dead on Titan are incinerated, if they're recovered at all.
And then, in a totally contrary moment, he holds out his beer. "To being off that hunk of rock."
---
Before the waiter slips off, Vicious gives him a quick direction to bring back a goddamn pitcher of it. Hello, soldiers. It was like they’d never had legitimate men inside – though the clientele looked half asleep. What a boring ass station – but Spike had a point.
Vicious raises his glass to knock against his friend’s. “And still being breathing.”
---
"If that's what you call this," he says wryly, knocking back half the mug in one go. If he could grow gills and live in beer, he would - and probably be all the happier for it. After a moment, though,
"I should call Julia, let her know where we are."
It's not you should call Julia. He's guessing that things are going to be a little awkward now, between the two of them, and wants to alleviate it as much as possible. Of course, his motivations aren't entirely unselfish, he's been wanting to hear her voice since... since...
... Well, a long time, now.
---
Spike was more of a philosophy jackass than he appeared, with his dreams and his living and whatever else. It was easier, for Vicious. You were alive if you weren’t lying to yourself.
His suggestions leaves the white-haired man quiet for a bit, watching his glass as he turns it in the light. Maybe Spike hasn’t suggested anything earlier, but he does now, whether he realizes it or not.
“Not bad for local shit.”
He takes a drink. He only swears outside his own head when he’s troubled, or angry. But he isn’t angry at Spike, that much is obvious. It’s something simmering inside. He nods. Call her.
---
Spike catches that little nod, the silence that preceeded it and the expletive that worms its way into Vicious's turn of phrase. "What're you talking about, it's practically pisswater."
His left hand twitches in the general direction of his communicator, but he ignores it for the time being. He'll call her later, after they've eaten. Right now, he's going to concentrate on unwinding. Concentrate on making Vicious unwind. Because Spike's always been able to tell, since they were kids, when he was just shy of putting a bullet in someone, and maybe that's an exaggeration in the here and now but maybe it's not.
He sprawls back in his chair like it's a throne.
"We'll get a real party going later," he says, and it's almost a promise, almost a question. He'll leave Julia out of it if Vicious wants, and he's sure the other man realizes it.
---
Vicious sees the suppressed move to the communicator, though he’s not really watching. He also knows Spike is holding off, offering, all for his sake. For a moment he’s floating in between being pissed off that he’s being babied and being thankful his friend is offering him a few hours to get his shit together in his own head. It takes a lot – a lot - of trust for him to be thankful.
He nods again, and when he meets the others’ eyes, there’s a bit of a smirk forming. His namesake is not ill-bestowed. “It’s been a while.” Since they’ve partied – too long. The violence of war isn’t the violence they thrive on. They need a good chase, adrenaline, and women after wouldn’t hurt. Though Spike was probably thinking more of women than of going to strangle some punk dealer for the hell of it. That was all right. They made it work between the two of them.
---
Part of it's the women, yeah, but mostly he just wants something to sink his teeth into (mostly in metaphor, though he'll be gnawing on his steak like nobody's business, whenever it comes). And if Vicious wants to venture into the Land of Busting Heads for the Fucking Sake of It, who's he to turn him down?
"Man, I hope the food gets here soon. I'm starving."
---
“You ordered half the menu,” he says, giving him a raised eyebrow as he refills their beer glasses from the pitcher. “It’s going to take a minute.”
He sits back, and wants a cigarette, but doesn’t have any. He probably shouldn’t smoke while eating, anyway. His mind drifts to drugs for a bit. Speed? Coke? Red eye won’t do, he’s not into that sort of high right now. Something that’ll be out of his system by the time they process back into action. He knows he should be off this shit by now, but the thought of it is comforting. Maybe he’ll just get drunk and fuck someone. But that thought is another needle, because he should be with his girlfriend. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? You run off the ship and into the arms of your happy smiling lady who’s been waiting for you all along, wearing your sharp uniform and pressed neat little hat.
He doesn’t realize he’s been tapping the surface of the table with frustrated runoff energy for a moment, and then forces his hand to stop. Part of him knows he’s scared to see Julia because he doesn’t want to know what he’ll feel when he does. What if he feels nothing, and all the shit he’s paranoid about is real? Why is this more important right now than the Syndicate? He hates this. His fingers are tapping the table again. He moves to hold his glass in both hands, stilling himself.
“Do you have a cigarette?”
---
Does he have a cigarette. Really. Cigarettes are the only contraband Spike's ever been into, on Titan. He's down to half a pack, but it's not like he minds sharing. Especially when he's watching Vicious across the table and every move he makes is wired. He pulls a pack from the chest pocket of his rumpled button down and taps one up, leaning across the table to offer it to him.
He's heard about how guys come back from war and blow their brains out. How eventually they become addicted to what they're doing and how without it, without the hunt and the chase and the kill of combat, they go nuts and die. He thinks (and this may be the drugs that he was pumped with during his first tour) but he thinks that maybe Vicious would be one of those guys. If he had no one to return to, and no one to stand at his side. Comrades, Gren had said. Heh, it's not a bad word.
"It wasn't half the menu, asshole," he mutters, as he pulls a Zippo and holds it out, flame lit, for Vicious to utilize. "I'm using some restraint."
Rating; Eh, PG-15 for some gore, mentions of hardcore drug use and drunken BFF antics.
Characters; Spike Spiegel (
longcoolcowboy) and Vicious (becomedemons) and possibly Julia (goodnightjulia) later on?Summary; Just two soldiers on leave in what they think is a spaceport.
For a moment, he was back on Titan.
“Man, I am never getting this sand out of my… hell, anything.” He’d been sitting with his back against the canyon wall, tapping one boot against the heel of his hand, shaking it out. Gren was cross-legged in front of him, Vicious was stoic beside him.
Gren was smiling, in that way that he sometimes had, an interlude where it seemed like the war wasn’t so bad after all. He had his rifle across his knees, and Vicious was sharpening a knife, the deft scrapescrapescrape was for once, the only noise.
For a moment, everything was perfectly, inexplicably calm.
(- Before the storm)
Later there was screaming. But it was just a sound, something you could shut out, like background noise or bad music and that was fine, fine and fucking dandy until he tripped over someone’s intestines and went sprawling (the guy wasn’t dead, but he was in shock, gasping and panting and grasping at the sky because it was the last thing he’d ever see). The air smelled like shit, like gunpowder, like dying, and Spike scrambled away from the guy (they’d shared rations once, a long time ago). Not that there was anywhere worth scrambling to.
There was a hand at the back of his shirt, hauling him to his feet, and before he realizes quite what he’s doing he’s got a handgun drawn and pressed to the person’s abdomen, but it’s Vicious’s face he’s looking up into, beneath the blood splatters and the dirt, and so he lets the motion happen, easy and pretty as you please.
“Where’s Gren.” – Vicious’s lack of inflection makes it a not-question, the barest bones of an inquiry regarding a subordinate, and Spike shrugs and does not flinch at the whistle of an inbound screamer overhead. He wants a cigarette so bad he can taste it, and starts patting down his clothes.
“Come on.”
And Spike follows him – not because Vicious knows what he’s doing but because that’s how they operate. It’s like being back on Tharsis; busting heads over debt or dishonor or whatever else it was that the Syndicate needed heads busted over.
He finds a cigarette, though it’s bent nearly in half, and he doesn’t have a lighter to speak of, but he sucks air through it and gets the taste of tobacco in his mouth.
And then Vicious stops, cocks his head like a guard dog, and Spike is already moving in anticipation of his next staccato yell - get down! and the two of them end up in a tangled heap as the grenade sounds off less than ten feet from the both of them. Between body armor and sheer good fucking luck, when Spike shoves Vicious away from him with a little ‘tch’ of mock-distaste that neither of them hear (war’s gonna make him go deaf, he thinks), their injuries are minimal. He’s got a piece of shrapnel sticking out of his calf and Vicious is touching at a spot on his scalp, fingers coming away bloody. (Spike’s mind drifts to the man with the spilled-open belly and yeah, they got off easy enough. Nobody’s tripping over his intestines any time soon, if he’s got anything to say about it.)
Gren finds them a moment later, a barely-defined figure in the swirled-up dust that the grenade kicked into the atmosphere. He’s favoring one leg, and reloading his rifle as he drops down beside them (if you’re standing you’re a better target, after all).
“We lost the north end,” he says around the magazine he’s holding between his teeth. Spike, focusing on that damnable piece of shrapnel, nods. They’d all been expecting it.
“Casualties?”
Gren slams the magazine home. “Seventy percent. Maybe more, I haven’t seen—”
“… Hey Gren. Got a light?”
For a moment, Gren stares at him. A lot of the time, that’s soldier code for, ‘well I’m punching out, see you guys in hell’ but when Vicious snorts in laughter, the tension bleeds out of Gren’s shoulders and he offers him a Zippo, the sides etched with a few short, poetic words that Spike smudges his finger over so he doesn’t have to read ‘em.
“Thanks,” he says, and lights up. He closes his eyes for one blissful second and doesn’t hear the rustle of Kevlar on cloth as Vicious reaches over and yanks the shard of whatever-the-hell it was out of his leg.
To his credit, he doesn’t yell. He does, however, haul off and punch Vicious in the shoulder.
“Asshole.”
Vicious smirks.
The world goes white, and then red.
And he wakes up.
(His leg is throbbing)
------
It’s the strangest spaceport he’s ever been in, and he barely remembers how they got there – but that in itself isn’t surprising, as none of them had slept in days before being shoved prodded and thrown onto a transport, kicked offworld for leave. No one complained.
Vicious doesn’t quite sigh. He leans his white-haired head back against the wall, pale eyes half-closed in the starlight; the delicate light that wasn’t ever there on Titan and its atmospheric storms. Where are they orbiting, to get these shadows? Does it matter? Gren’s gone, but he doesn’t think too hard on it. He’s probably off calling his mom, and scoring. Hopefully scoring, and hopefully coming back to the two of them with enough drugs to keep them all flying for the week.
Us all…
They’re waiting for Julia to come pick them up. A knot tightens in his stomach thinking about her. That life with the Red Dragons seems a hundred years away, even though it’s only been four months. He’s going to want to know what’s been going on. Who does Julia work for now? Who’s running which operations? Are their boys still loyal? What did Mao’s face look like when he found out Spike was coming with him to Titan?
Does Julia still love him, after four months? And what would she think, if she overheard the tense whispers and frustrated words that had passed between he and Spike since they’ve met their new comrade?
Vicious looks down at his bandaged left hand. It’s the worst injury he’s sustained in all this time. He’s not touched his katana since before basic training, and he misses it. He misses it in a nearly desperate way; the things he loved that he’s not had are like an ache in his chest. He wants to do forms in the starlight, and be able to breathe again. He wants to show Gren why he has the ink that he does – he wants to amend it.
And suddenly, he doesn’t want to think of Gren at all, because it makes him too anxious, and so he half-turns to whack the sleeping figure next to him.
“Wake up.”
---
“I’m awake,” he grumps, though his eyes stay closed. And then, in the tone of road-weary children everywhere, he asks, “Are we there yet?”
And then raises a hand preemptively to ward off any further abuse.
He wonders, too, about Julia. About the Syndicate. About whether or not there’ll be any decent bars in which to get a decent drink and a meal that doesn’t taste like freeze-dried anything. He’d probably kill for a steak and a beer (hell, he’s killed for less) – alcohol is damn near impossible to smuggle in on Titan and nobody really wants to end up inebriated there anyways.
He’s got all his belongings in this mortal world crammed in a duffel bag under his chair, and all he can think about is how he’s gonna blow his money on cigarettes. (Vicious is buying dinner)
---
“Yes,” Vicious says, his voice as flat and dispassionate as ever. “Julia’s late.” And she’s never late, but it has been four months. Maybe she got held up. Maybe something happened. Maybe she doesn’t care anymore. Maybe she’s somehow read his mind and exposed his soul and forced him to admit things in his slee—Vicious stops himself from that continued line of thought, because it’s paranoid and fairly stupid. He finds himself paranoid at strange times and for no reason, these days, and a part of him wonders if it’s a side effect of one of the myriad of vaccines he was required to take. Because it wasn’t enough that they were out there dying and killing and getting blown to hell, they were tweaking the minds of their own soldiers before they got out the door. It’s a cold, uncomfortable thought. He almost wants to ask if Spike ever feels the same.
“I’m not sitting here any longer, let’s just find a hotel.” Pause. “And a bar.” Maybe not in that order. His hand goes to his communicator, but he doesn’t take it. Spike can call her. He did already. Didn’t he? He’d have had to, for Julia to know to come pick them up. He doesn’t want to bother her again.
---
“Might’ve given her the wrong time. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to calculate Titan time into everything else?”
He doesn’t think that’s it, though. And maybe it’s the war that’s made him paranoid but he starts thinking about things a little more than he generally approves of. What if she’d been hurt, or killed? Their work was never easy, and danger was a constant pressure of Syndicate life. He’d sent her the specs almost a week ago, and it’s not like a lot couldn’t happen in that time.
Huh.
“How about a hotel with a bar?” Best of both worlds, and the both of them need it. Julia can catch up with them later – she always does. He tries not to think about how good it’ll be to see her again.
---
Vicious makes some monosyllabic noise in response. Of course Spike excuses Julia – he’s been doing that a lot lately, where Vicious can’t. It’s not that he doesn’t care for her. She’s his girlfriend, after all. She’s given so much for him, to him, and he thinks the world of her. Julia is compassionate and steady and deadly and beautiful. And Spike has a crush on her, of course. Always has. Though it took him half a year to stop seeming goofy and embarrassed about it, it never left his eyes. It was Vicious that was slow to cotton onto it, and maybe Julia, too. He looks at his friend for a moment, and wonders why he isn’t angry.
He stands and stretches his arms over his head. Even though it’s night, he’s only wearing so much of his uniform: cargo pants, boots, tan t-shirt, requisite dog tags. That meant, yes, let’s get up and go, your leg be damned.
---
Standing isn’t as hard as it was three weeks ago – the torn muscle has been slowly knitting itself back together over the course of Spike’s general laziness (which is hard to do when deployed, but if anyone could manage it, it'd be him), and when he sighs and gets to his feet, his reluctance is more because he’d rather stick around and wait for Julia.
But he understands the need to go, too.
He’s dressed much the same as Vicious – they’re identical except for their dog tags (SPIEGEL, SPIKE, 132-1548-AFF, blood type: o, non-religious) and their hair. And of course the fact that Spike slings his bag over one shoulder and hunches over, whereas Vicious walks like he’s got a stick crammed up his ass.
“Lead on, Vicious.”
---
Vicious does not walk like he has any of that, thank you, and Spike would be getting one up side the head if he’d said that out loud. He simply has proper posture, and some semblance of grace, unlike some. His dog tags carry their own information, though the only thing real about it is his medical data.
He carries his canvas duffle bag by the handles with one hand (his uninjured one), moving forward and into the street of this foreign space station. He’s hungry. Food first, then. A quick, polite but quiet inquiry to someone passing by results in directions to a place nearby called the Coliseum. They can ask around, there, about where to stay.
They get there easy enough (Vicious is always quiet as they walk, either listening to whatever Spike’s on about or content in their ever-companionable silence) and Vicious shoves his bag under the table they’re shown to before sitting. It strikes him as odd they haven’t seen any other Titan uniforms drifting around, but maybe they just lucked out. No one to come by and whisper about them and their body count.
---
And it’s silence this time – Spike folds his hands behind his head and walks like he hasn’t got a care in the world (he has, really, he’s just adept at ignoring them). Their silence is, as ever, comfortable and calm, the metaphysical equivalent of crawling into a favorite t-shirt.
He makes a note of the lack of uniforms as well – which was downright weird, usually they shipped the Titan crew off in droves, and hauled ‘em back in the same. But after taking his seat, the thought fairly flew out of his mind in favor of food.
“Will you kill me if I order ten of everything?” he asks, quite seriously, as he picks up the menu. Because living on rations = not actually living at all, as far as he’s concerned.
---
“Only if you’re not going to share,” he murmurs, glancing over it himself. He’ll get a few things – two fancy dishes and something utterly disgusting and deep fried, because comfort food and fine dining are equally non-existent on Titan. And beer. Oh, Christ, he missed beer.
He gets the attention of a waiter with ease – he has that ability, even when he barely speaks, and puts in his order quickly, nodding to Spike and his assault on the kitchen to open fire.
---
“When do I ever share with you anyways,” he grumbles, and at this newly acquired waiter-attention, he starts pointing shit out on the menu. Hamburger, fries, steak, if it’s got meat and it’s even remotely dead he probably orders it. Whatever he doesn’t scarf down is going in his rucksack and getting smuggled back to Titan. Here’s hoping it won’t rot.
After the waiter (with an aghast look) scuttles off again, Spike leans forwards, elbows on the table, chin in his hands.
“Too bad Gren couldn’t make it, huh?”
---
“Why is that bad?”
Vicious is studiously looking at the drink menu. Or maybe it’s the dessert menu. Read read read, oh, chocolate frosting, is that right. He’s not paying attention to Spike and that look he’s probably giving him, anyway. Hasn’t he tried to start this conversation enough times while they’re supposed to be asleep or supposed to be on watch or supposed to be getting shot the fuck up? Let’s just have beer, let’s not bring this up.
---
"You'd almost think you didn't like the guy," he drawls lazily, though he's grinning a bit. If Vicious wants to read more into what he's saying that's fine by him. Honestly, he was wishing Gren was around because the two of them play awesome doubles at pool, and Spike wants to troll for some ass to kick, later.
... Not that Vicious is bad at pool, per se, he's just not ... well. Great. And he gloats when he wins. Which is not often. (His gloating is also limited more to a barely-there smirk and huffy little jackass noises but no one's keeping score)
---
Vicious is excellent at pool. Angles, timing, use of specific force. He simply happens to play much of it after just enough beers to make him shitty at pool. And, really, smirking over things is much better than running and screaming and doing victory dances.
“He does as he pleases.” And maybe he doesn’t want to see you with your girlfriend. That thought needles at him, and his eyebrows knit together just a little. “I’ll call him later if we go score.” Gren always had the best hook ups for drugs.
---
Spike waves a hand in a sort of 'yeah, right' gesture, and the waiter chooses that moment to return with two mugs of beer. Godsend, thy name is...
He reaches for the nearer of the two mugs, and cups his hands around it. It's cool, and his hands are calloused and blistered from all the time he's spent digging latrines. Which are, he notes, a sight better than graves. Most of the dead on Titan are incinerated, if they're recovered at all.
And then, in a totally contrary moment, he holds out his beer. "To being off that hunk of rock."
---
Before the waiter slips off, Vicious gives him a quick direction to bring back a goddamn pitcher of it. Hello, soldiers. It was like they’d never had legitimate men inside – though the clientele looked half asleep. What a boring ass station – but Spike had a point.
Vicious raises his glass to knock against his friend’s. “And still being breathing.”
---
"If that's what you call this," he says wryly, knocking back half the mug in one go. If he could grow gills and live in beer, he would - and probably be all the happier for it. After a moment, though,
"I should call Julia, let her know where we are."
It's not you should call Julia. He's guessing that things are going to be a little awkward now, between the two of them, and wants to alleviate it as much as possible. Of course, his motivations aren't entirely unselfish, he's been wanting to hear her voice since... since...
... Well, a long time, now.
---
Spike was more of a philosophy jackass than he appeared, with his dreams and his living and whatever else. It was easier, for Vicious. You were alive if you weren’t lying to yourself.
His suggestions leaves the white-haired man quiet for a bit, watching his glass as he turns it in the light. Maybe Spike hasn’t suggested anything earlier, but he does now, whether he realizes it or not.
“Not bad for local shit.”
He takes a drink. He only swears outside his own head when he’s troubled, or angry. But he isn’t angry at Spike, that much is obvious. It’s something simmering inside. He nods. Call her.
---
Spike catches that little nod, the silence that preceeded it and the expletive that worms its way into Vicious's turn of phrase. "What're you talking about, it's practically pisswater."
His left hand twitches in the general direction of his communicator, but he ignores it for the time being. He'll call her later, after they've eaten. Right now, he's going to concentrate on unwinding. Concentrate on making Vicious unwind. Because Spike's always been able to tell, since they were kids, when he was just shy of putting a bullet in someone, and maybe that's an exaggeration in the here and now but maybe it's not.
He sprawls back in his chair like it's a throne.
"We'll get a real party going later," he says, and it's almost a promise, almost a question. He'll leave Julia out of it if Vicious wants, and he's sure the other man realizes it.
---
Vicious sees the suppressed move to the communicator, though he’s not really watching. He also knows Spike is holding off, offering, all for his sake. For a moment he’s floating in between being pissed off that he’s being babied and being thankful his friend is offering him a few hours to get his shit together in his own head. It takes a lot – a lot - of trust for him to be thankful.
He nods again, and when he meets the others’ eyes, there’s a bit of a smirk forming. His namesake is not ill-bestowed. “It’s been a while.” Since they’ve partied – too long. The violence of war isn’t the violence they thrive on. They need a good chase, adrenaline, and women after wouldn’t hurt. Though Spike was probably thinking more of women than of going to strangle some punk dealer for the hell of it. That was all right. They made it work between the two of them.
---
Part of it's the women, yeah, but mostly he just wants something to sink his teeth into (mostly in metaphor, though he'll be gnawing on his steak like nobody's business, whenever it comes). And if Vicious wants to venture into the Land of Busting Heads for the Fucking Sake of It, who's he to turn him down?
"Man, I hope the food gets here soon. I'm starving."
---
“You ordered half the menu,” he says, giving him a raised eyebrow as he refills their beer glasses from the pitcher. “It’s going to take a minute.”
He sits back, and wants a cigarette, but doesn’t have any. He probably shouldn’t smoke while eating, anyway. His mind drifts to drugs for a bit. Speed? Coke? Red eye won’t do, he’s not into that sort of high right now. Something that’ll be out of his system by the time they process back into action. He knows he should be off this shit by now, but the thought of it is comforting. Maybe he’ll just get drunk and fuck someone. But that thought is another needle, because he should be with his girlfriend. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? You run off the ship and into the arms of your happy smiling lady who’s been waiting for you all along, wearing your sharp uniform and pressed neat little hat.
He doesn’t realize he’s been tapping the surface of the table with frustrated runoff energy for a moment, and then forces his hand to stop. Part of him knows he’s scared to see Julia because he doesn’t want to know what he’ll feel when he does. What if he feels nothing, and all the shit he’s paranoid about is real? Why is this more important right now than the Syndicate? He hates this. His fingers are tapping the table again. He moves to hold his glass in both hands, stilling himself.
“Do you have a cigarette?”
---
Does he have a cigarette. Really. Cigarettes are the only contraband Spike's ever been into, on Titan. He's down to half a pack, but it's not like he minds sharing. Especially when he's watching Vicious across the table and every move he makes is wired. He pulls a pack from the chest pocket of his rumpled button down and taps one up, leaning across the table to offer it to him.
He's heard about how guys come back from war and blow their brains out. How eventually they become addicted to what they're doing and how without it, without the hunt and the chase and the kill of combat, they go nuts and die. He thinks (and this may be the drugs that he was pumped with during his first tour) but he thinks that maybe Vicious would be one of those guys. If he had no one to return to, and no one to stand at his side. Comrades, Gren had said. Heh, it's not a bad word.
"It wasn't half the menu, asshole," he mutters, as he pulls a Zippo and holds it out, flame lit, for Vicious to utilize. "I'm using some restraint."
oh my god this icon is suddenly SO LITERAL
Vicious is not a regular smoker, and the nicotine hits him hard and deep. Combined with the beer it takes a bit of the edge off his anxiety. He tilts his head back to exhale after a long drag.
He stares off into space for a bit, lost in thought. It's not very long, but Spike surely noticed anyway. His gaze flickers over to the waiter coming out with at least some of their food, apparently having decided to take it out as it was finished versus waiting for everything. Good.
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And wow, that is Spike being distracted by food. Heaping, gleaming plates of the stuff, slick with deep-fried fat. He can feel his arteries harden just looking at it, but it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. He heard once that you can always tell when someone's either been in the service or in prison - they eat like a man possessed when free of it.
He's fully prepared to keep the adage alive.
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He finishes his cigarette before starting in on his food, which he cuts up and eats like a civilized human ... okay, maybe a little faster than straight up civilized. But who can blame him?
And it's so good. Ration bars are going to taste worse than two day old vomit after this week off.
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He laces his hands across his stomach and leans back in his chair. Lights up a cigarette as he waits for his second plate.
"Guy could get used to this," he says, in between draconic puffs of smoke.
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He wants to kill them all when he gets back.
He looks back down at his plate, and cuts off another bit of steak.
"Yeah."
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And yeah, he could have let Vicious go alone. He knows it. He knows, too, what he was giving up. Mao was grooming him for succession and everybody was aware of it. In five years, or ten, he would be the de facto leader of the Red Dragons.
Or, would have been. Perhaps that's the more apropos terminology. Vicious challenged too much of what they were, but Spike? Naww, Spike went along with the flow. He wasn't the renegade type.
Until Titan.
He'd gotten the draft notice - like almost every able bodied man of wartime age. And he'd sat there a while, in the dark, folding and unfolding it. It went in the trash bin twice. He picked up the phone to dial Mao three or four times, but always he hesitated two, three, five numbers in. Always there was a whisper at the back of his mind. He knew about Vicious, about his 'lesson' and he knew the kind of person he'd be if he let his best friend rot away in hell. They'd heard rumors of Titan. They all had.
Eventually, though he was punch-drunk at the time, those papers got signed. He reported to his superior officer, standing next to Vicious, twenty-four hours later.
And four months had passed since then.
So yeah, he heard that silence.
"Well, take what you can get," he said, with the cavalier wave of one hand. In a more serious tone, however, he leveled a glance at Vicious and asked,
"... What're you going to do about the Syndicate?"
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He lowers his utensils, though doesn't discard them, and looks up at him. "My views haven't changed."
He pauses, half to collect his thoughts, and half because it's a little bit dramatic and that's just sort of what he does. "Even your idealized leadership would result in collapse with the way they're running everything into the ground. You'd have nothing left to work with."
Vicious knows they want Spike to lead. Maybe one day, before he'd gotten mouthy, they'd wanted Vicious as well. He had to wonder if they realized how the two of them functioned. There's so much unspoken content he knows Spike will hear. His views haven't changed and they've gotten stronger. Spike would have nothing left to work with unless... unless Vicious does what he knows he can do. Out with the old. Baptism, rebirth, by blood and fire.
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Spike tapped the ash off the end of the cigarette - he was ignoring the No Smoking signs, and by the grace of the fact that his uniform at least was trashed and wrinkled and had a hole through one shoulder that might have been a bullet wound; (it'd been washed half a dozen times but blood doesn't come out that easy) people were leaving them the fuck alone. As long as their money was good (and wasn't it always?) they were just fine and dandy.
"Then we'll just have to go back," he pauses, takes a goodly chug of beer. "And take over."
He means that literally as well as figuratively. With the right pressure (and he knows all about pressure) Mao will resign. The clan heads will have to go.
And maybe war has hardened him, or maybe the Syndicate did it first, but he really doesn't give a shit one way or the other.
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"We'll have to do just that."
He finishes his current glass of beer, finished with his plate. He'd always known he'd never have any cause to doubt Spike.
And here was the rest of their food. Vicious had a faint smile on his face as their plates were arranged in quantity to disturb any sane person.
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He always knew, though. Vicious'd been doing it since they were kids, as if he never noticed.
Thing is, he knew his own pride, and he knew Vicious's as well, and so he never said a word, just shut his mouth and ate it down, and if he watched Vicious' back a little more than was strictly necessary - if that tear in his shirt was from taking a bullet for him, then so be it.
It's a long time and at least half the rest of the food before he decides that he is done. And then he nods to Vicious, laces his fingers together and stretches, knuckles popping in the process.
"Let's blow this joint."
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He's leaning back in the booth, satisfied and relaxing in the soft din of the restaurant when the other speaks. Vicious cracks a half-smile.
"Dump our gear, find a bar?" And call Julia. Suck it up, Vicious. Say it. "And call Julia."
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At the mention of Julia's name, however, Spike lowers his fork.
"... Speaking of Julia. Do you know what you're..." going to say to her is on the tip of his tongue but he doesn't say it. Instead, he just gives Vicious a steady, no-pressure look - the sort that says, you can change the subject, or punch me in the face, and I won't hold it against you.
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The look Vicious gives him is of a resigned but still struggling man. They both walk fine lines. Just different ones.
"I... know what I need to do." He looks at his hands, which are on the table, apart from each other. He gestures a little with one as he says 'need'. His other hand taps the table, as if absently suggesting But I'm still all the way over here. It's a quiet, nearly ashamed admission. It's likely only even coming out of him because he's a little buzzed, tired from eating, and Spike's pledged his commitment to what will probably end up being a mission to murder the fuck out of the men that raised them. He owes him enough right now to not give him bullshit about Julia.
There's a long silence. He always struggles with getting out things of emotional significance. It's weakness, and he hates it. Spike is one of the only people, if not THE only person, to see this side of him. Even with Julia, it's a flirtatious, sexual closeness (or it was).
"I just need a little bit to get there."
Because he doesn't know how to handle having feelings for who he has feelings for to the point where he can barely acknowledge said feelings. He doesn't know how to handle them cropping up how they have. Because discovering these things about himself in the middle of a damn war, a war they're only in because he's a man with a vision, is screwing with his head so bad that half the time he thinks his sanity is only hanging on by one frayed thread.
It's asking a lot of Spike, to be his friend through this. But he can't not ask him. It's such an understated way of saying it all: You've got my blessing with her, I'm ending it. He just needs time, because he's already nearly drowning within himself when he takes the time to notice.
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He takes his time returning to their table, gathering his shit together, because he's giving Vicious time to collect himself. It's the least he can do.
"Waiter said there's a decent bar like ten minute's walk from here. I'm ready when you are." He holds out Vicious's credit card with something approaching a mischievous grin.
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And then snags his card back with a wry look. Jackass.
"Get your crap, princess." He stands, and hauls out his duffel, slinging it over one shoulder.
It's surprisingly easy to find a place to crash - weird station - even though everyone they spoke to seemed confused at what they were asking. Apparently they were just going to get billed. By magic. Whatever, they were probably billing the army. Vicious found he didn't really care - it was their first night on leave, and he had no intention of sleeping anytime soon.
They were at this nearby bar quick enough, and wasted no time setting in on shots. Vicious wasn't much of a drinker to begin with, and it didn't take too many for him to be able to man up and shove Spike to call Julia. He hovered over his shoulder (NOT nervously, he would insist) as he did.
He'd also insist this hovering was purely to make sure Spike did not break the damn thing, and did not warrant resulting in a damn near wrestling match on one side of the bar, but since when did Spike listen to him? Never, that's when.
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After that, their bickering, scuffling and general rambunctious table-hopping calmed down, and the two of them sat at the bar, nursing their alcoholic beverages, while Spike made a point that the complimentary bar peanuts were now his own personal property. It was one of those moments. Spike was anticipating that any second now they were gonna start with a round of, 'So whaddya wanna do' back and forth until either Julia showed up or they killed each other with their own bar stools.
His heart was beating faster than normal - maybe he noticed it because of the drugs they'd pumped him full of on Titan, or maybe it was just because his head was pounding with each successive beat of his heart. He wants to see Julia. He doesn't want to see Julia. He wants Vicious to see Julia, he doesn't want to be around when Vicious sees Julia... and oh, the cycle goes on.
He tosses back a few more peanuts, takes another swig of beer and starts seriously contemplating suggesting karaoke.
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No.
Vicious is really buzzed.
Fuck it.
Vicious is drunk.
He's drunk and he's half slumped on the bar next to Spike, and he's just as lost in his thoughts. He wants to see Julia. He doesn't want to see Julia. He wants Spike to see Julia but he doesn't know if he wants to be there when Spike sees Julia and he doesn't know if he wants Spike to see him see Julia because he doesn't know what the hell Spike is going to see. It doesn't matter if they know the other is thinking the same thing. It just means Vicious is wishing magic easy buttons existed and he didn't have to deal with this. He was a man who showed no fear in fist fights, fire fights, duels, assassinations, and war, but the idea that he might soon be breaking up with what was quite possibly the greatest woman who ever lived because he doesn't know if he really loves her after all and his best friend does is turning his insides into a mass of cold jell-o. For one horrific moment it occurs to him that having Gren here might make this easier and that is the wrong answer and that feeling in his stomach gets worse. Cold, solid, wriggling jell-o... He needed to stop thinking.
He steals a couple peanuts from Spike - his hands are still ridiculously fast and artful even drunk - and sits up on his elbows.
"Stop looking at the karaoke machine."
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Of course I think you're beautiful, Julia.
It's a curse. Of course it's a curse, because Spike and Vicious are obviously drunk together in some bar and it's been a long three years since the three of them have been anywhere near drunken revelry together.
They're twenty again. She's convinced of it. They're somehow twenty again and partners and best friends and they think she's still with Vicious, and there's a bitter taste in her mouth because she doesn't know if it's worse that they're there without her being as blissfully unaware as they are... or if not having to go through it is a step up.
But the streets of the city smell like violence. They feel unsafe, and she edges around the sounds of gunfire down one block on her way to meet them.
It's like a war zone.
She pauses at the door, taking in a breath like it could give her strength.
(It doesn't.)
When she steps inside, the sight of the two of them is almost -- almost -- enough to make her jaw drop. Very quietly, under her breath, she mutters a single word: fuck.
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He feels it. And that's it.
He nudges Vicious, and is very glad the bar stools spin, because he doesn't think he'll be standing any time soon. He turns it around so he can look at her, something he hasn't done in a long time.
He doesn't know how, but she's more beautiful than he remembers.
"... I'm ... gonna ... go write my name in a bathroom stall," he stumbles over his words (he's probably not as hammered as Vicious - he's always had the higher tolerance) and then over his feet as he takes a few awkward steps away.
But then he stops. And looks back at Julia - and Vicious, who's watching Julia, and Julia who's watching Vicious, and he smiles a little. It's rueful. Or would be if he were less drunk and could remember that rueful was a real word and not a type of duck, which is what he resolutely believes it is. It just sounds duckish. Rueful. Get it?
"... It's good to see you again, Julia." And he sounds more serious than he means to. Shit. Shit.
He raises a hand in combination greeting and farewell, sticks his hands in his pockets and heads off to find a bathroom.
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And then Spike is up and gone and Vicious is too inebriated to stop him or grab him or strangle him because goddamn he doesn't want to be alone with her just yet but leave it to Spike to just rip the damn band-aide off.
The wound-up coils of tension in him aren't all bad. Seeing Julia is strengthening. Vicious looks at her, and it's not a look he's ever given her before. Nervous, yes, but after a moment it's a good nervous, because he gets to see her. And somehow it's all right. They can get through this because Julia is a warrior, just like he is.
Vicious smiles, small and soft and with a sort of quietness that isn't wholly like him - no smirks or dangerous glances of ownership that use to turn them both on. War has changed him in so many ways. He stands up, one hand still on the bar, and has to let out of a quiet laugh at his unsteadiness, tilting his head forward, hair falling over his face.
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(There's warmth in it. She hates that there's warmth in it.)
She's been through the worst already. This is just...
It's just another dream. It's just a curse.
She'll have to see where it takes her. She's certainly not leaving them alone out here in the state they're both in.
With Spike safely out of the room, she can't help watching Vicious almost as if she's seeing him for the first time since arriving. There was a time when a laugh like that one would've been gratifying to hear. Now it seems so foreign that it's more surprising than satisfying.
"What'd you have to give him to get him out of here that fast?"
She manages to sound a little bit amused, and she is. Because the alternatives are to either cry -- if she didn't let herself do that when she first saw Spike again, she's not going to do it now -- or pull out her gun and cause some damage.
And that she'll just have to do at the range tomorrow. Right before enjoying the vodka Faye left when she moved.
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Vicious wonders if Spike would understand her energy right now.
He gives her a little smile, and it's closer to his usual smirk than before. "About six woolongs and a screaming case of anthrax," he says, relaxed and a little loopy but still as elegant as ever.
The fact that she hasn't moved any closer is putting things into awkward territory. He doesn't know if he should use some dumb line asking her for a hug or a kiss or give her a 'C'mere!', even though part of him wants to. He knows - and it feels like she knows - that they aren't what they were, but part of him still wants to hold her and just be with her. This whole process is going to hurt... His smile becomes a little more sad, then, self-depreciating. He knows he's got a few more scars, but the worst are the ones inside, and sometimes they creep out through his eyes. Maybe that's what she's frightened of.
"Have I changed so much?"
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Every single thought process going on in her brain wants to stop in wounded shock.
He thinks she's still his girlfriend, she has to remind herself. He went to war with Spike. Is this what could have been? If Spike had gone to Titan with Vicious? She wonders what he thinks has happened. She wonders how long into his stay this is supposed to be.
She wonders why he has to smile at her. There's no malice in it. Can it possibly feel as strange to him as it does to her?
She steps forward then, denying every instinct that tells her she should have a hand on her gun, and when her lips curve in a smile, there's sadness in it. And it fades almost as soon as it appears.
"You've changed." When she's close enough, she reaches out and touches the tag on the chain around his neck. "You... just aren't quite as changed as expected."
Not yet. Not today.
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Slowly, he moves his hand to cover hers. It's a gentle touch, the sort he saves for intricate work and tiny quiet moments when no one else is looking. There's other people in the bar, of course - curiously populated for whatever'am they're at now - but he doesn't mind.
"I guess I already knew," he says, pale eyes on her blue ones. He tries to smile for her, encouraging and very nearly apologetic. "I should probably be talking to you like this when I'm not so tanked."
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This is only the second time she's seen him since he told her she was going to kill Spike for him three years ago, and this meeting is nothing like the first. He doesn't get to see how much it costs her to face his smiles or how much this whole thing shakes her at the core.
Not even Spike would get to.
"There are worse ways to talk."
Like at gunpoint. She knows that well.
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"I know it can't have been easy for you," he says, his voice low. He doesn't need to explain - everyone knows whose woman she is, and why he and Spike are off at Titan. He'd given everyone the third degree before he left to stick together and look out for each other, but that wasn't the entire Syndicate. And plenty of people who agreed with him were still going to go along with the Van when he wasn't around.
"We're going to make it right, he and I."
She'll know what that means. Spike had never vocalized an opinion except to watch Vicious' back. No longer.
And then it hits him and he nearly pulls a face, but he's better composed than that. She's so hesitant, almost painfully so. What is he even thinking, talking to her about this? A litany of profanity goes by in his head and he scrambles about how to save this - how did he not think of this immediately? How would she even-- Those bastards.
He tilts his head, giving her an inquisitive look, and gesturing at his chest with his other hand. She'll understand-- Are you wearing a wire? His brain tries to find some sappy line to spit out to recoup his declaration but he's too buzzed to figure anything out.
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He thinks she might... have some kind of transmitter on her? A microphone? It's enough to startle a short huff of unhappy laughter out of her.
"No." She shakes her head, her hand slipping out of his, and holds both palms out like she could somehow prove it that way. "There's nothing on me, Vicious."
Nothing but a gun and a knife and disbelief so heavy she can't shake it off.
"The two of you are going to make it right?"
The Spike she knows wouldn't have gone to Titan. He wouldn't have made Vicious's ideals his mission.
"Vicious." It feels shockingly bold to reach out and brush his hair back out of his face, and she won't do it again. She can't. "You're going to hate yourself in the morning."
For all he knows, she's talking about how much he's been drinking.
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At the thought of Spike, he wonders where that idiot's been. He glances over his shoulder is that will make him appear. Hopefully he didn't pass out. He looks back at Julia.
"Why don't you sit down?" He nudges a barstool.
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She doesn't know if this is going to be better or worse with Spike around, but right now she almost feels like she needs him back in here to balance things out.
"Thanks."
She asks the bartender for a scotch on the rocks -- it won't go any further than that, but she knows she's going to need it -- and even though she can't believe she's doing it, she offers Vicious a cigarette when she slides a pack out of her pocket.
Under the circumstances, she's not willing to throw things off by holding on to her gun like it's a lifeline. A cigarette's going to have to do for now.
"You've really been making up for lost time today, haven't you?"
She wonders if he'd actually let himself drink this much these days if not cursed.