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spike

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Even by Mad Sweeney's insane fucking standards, it's been a weird bloody week.

The bed in the apartment given to him is a touch too small, and his feet hang over the end, but it's a far sight more comfortable than the ice cream truck had been and better than most of the places he's slept over the past few years by leaps and bounds, so he stays there now. When he's not too drunk to make his way home, that is, which has happened once or twice already.

But he's gone to the apartment, rolled his own cigarettes, tucked them into a silver case he'd found at a second hand store not far away. Every now and then, swiping something for no other reason than he can gives him a little wriggle of pleasure, but he has the money to spare and when he offers the owner three of his gold coins for the case, she nearly shits her pants in delight.

So he's got hand rolled cigarettes and a case to put them in, a cheap plastic lighter and his own, well loved flask, but he's in a bar where he can't drink what he's brought, can't smoke his cigarettes, can't even pick the bloody music on the jukebox, and not even his beloved Southern Comfort and coke tastes right.

The cuts on his face have yet to heal, probably because he keeps reopening them in fights that only satisfy him for an hour or so, and then he's back to this. No luck, no way out, no Dead Wife, no Wisconsin, and no fucking coin. So he's sitting here in this dark, shitty bar, poking the scab on one cheek, wondering if it's worth yanking it open again just for that little burst of pain.

"Aiteann," he mutters, though he's loud enough to be heard by anyone nearby. It's not directed at them and chances are they won't bloody well understand him anyway.

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Christ, but the Irish grated on his bloody nerves. As a lad, he'd had nothing against them, though his mother might've had a few hesitant words about the lot of them being hooligans. Then, he'd met Angelus, bastard that he was, and Spike's opinion on the entire country changed in a matter of months.

That muttered bit of Irish Gaelic was enough to set his teeth on edge.

But instead of ignoring the bloke, who was a giant even seated in his chair and looked to have fist impressions dotted across his Cro-Magnon forehead, Spike swiveled on his stool and smirked.

"Rough night?"

"Just lamenting the fact that everything in this fuckin' city is just the slightest bit off."

He's been warned against speaking like this more than a few times already, once there'd even been fists involved, though Sweeney had won that particular fight without much effort and had walked away fairly disappointed. Some of the locals don't like the outsiders, he's learned, but he's been an outsider ever since he was a fucking bird, so he figures they can all go eat their own asses if they care that much.

"Southern Comfort and coke," he says, holding his glass up toward the light. "Tastes wrong, though. Not enough for me to say they're fuckin' me over, understand, not off enough to say the booze ain't right or that they're givin' me some slop they distilled themselves in their piss trough and trying to pass it off as what I want, but still off all the fuckin' same."

"Dunno, mate. Seems to me, what's off is a grown man drinking Southern Comfort and Coke," Spike smirked, well aware that he was antagonizing a bloke who appeared large enough to snap him in two, but that was half the fun. There was no use picking fights with someone when you knew without a doubt that you'd win.

And that was certainly what he was doing. Picking a fight. In the months since his family had gone, the need to get his arse beaten to a pulp had subsided somewhat, but not entirely.

He'd always enjoy a good rough and tumble, after all.

"It's a fine drink," Sweeney protests, looking over at the man wearing that fucking smirk. It's not the most infuriating he's seen, not even in Darrow, but it's up there, and he wonders how the man would like getting it punched right off his well defined face. Given that he's here, pissing on Mad Sweeney's choice of drink, he has to figure he'd rather like it a fair deal and that's the sort of stance Mad Sweeney can respect.

"Now mead, that's the shit you want to keep your distance from," he advises. People who drink mead make all sorts of pacts they shouldn't, that's his experience in the matter, and he's wondered from time to time just how many men Wednesday has conned into drinking that piss. "And what is it you're drinking that you'd consider so much better? Let me guess. A pint."

He affects a British accent for it, rolling his eyes. They're always the fucking same. Head to the pub, get a pint, watch some fucking footie, get drunk and smash shit when their bloody team doesn't win. It's only that last bit that he can get behind.

"Bourbon," Spike drawled, not taking the bait of that shoddy British accent. "Lucky for you, mate, you'll need a bloody time machine to find a pub willing to serve mead."

He'd never been a fan of it either, but its popularity was even before Spike's time. It made him wonder at this man's age. Outwardly, he appeared no more than forty or so, but Spike knew well enough not to judge such things by looks alone.

"Not if you're a fuckin' god, you don't," he mutters, then adds, "I've heard."

People in this fucking city have acted like he's some kind of heretic for talking about gods. As if they're not all over the damn place, doing whatever the hell they please, but people want to be blind and most of the time Sweeney figures he can't actually blame them much for it. The gods are assholes, after all, and it'd be best for everyone if they just ignored them.

But Odin always had mead available. Every bloody time he needed to make a pact with someone, there was the fucking mead.

A god.

Oh, Christ. In his experience, gods tended to be self-righteous, arrogant pricks. He had very little desire to spend time with another.

"Right. I've had more than my fill of gods for one century, thank you."

"A-fuckin'-men to that," Sweeney agrees, lifting his glass before he drains it and sets it back down on the bar top. The man isn't a god either, he can sense that, but he's just spoken of being alive for a century and that's enough to have Sweeney looking at him sidelong.

"So what the fuck're you, then?" he asks. "T'have been alive for a bloody century and to have had any experience with gods. They're fucking assholes who like to meddle, but they don't usually make themselves known."

And he's being a hypocrite, because he likes to meddle, but he can't help it. He was made this way.

"Vampire," Spike said offhandedly, allowing his face to shift for the span of a heartbeat, just enough to give the other man a clue to what he was.

"And what of you, then? Not a god. A demon?" He arched a brow. The bloke was certainly the size of some of the demons and monsters Spike had come across in his day.

It's fucking ugly, the way his face goes all bumpy, but it's not the ugliest thing Sweeney has ever seen either and he doesn't flinch at the sudden shift. All his years alive, he's only met one other and and that prick been a shitty little asshole, the creator of a cult of teens obsessed with the idea of being pale and immortality and drinking blood. All strung up on what they thought was the romance of the thing. Nothing like this. Because it's the belief of a thing that makes it possible, after all, and years of vampire obsession had willed a certain type into being.

This is more interesting.

"Demon," Mad Sweeney echoes with a snort, then gestures for another drink. It might not be right, but it's close enough and for the time being he'll take it. "No, lad, I'm a leprechaun."

Spike was silent for a moment, waiting for the punchline. It didn't come.

"A leprechaun?" He echoed, more than a bit skeptical. "I've come across a lot of creatures in my day, mate, but no leprechauns."

He arched a brow, lips twitching with mirth. "I suppose those little wee lads with hard-ons for rainbows and pots o'gold are a load of bollocks, eh?"

"You'd suppose right," Sweeney agrees, though he doesn't have anything in particular against rainbows and he certainly likes his gold, though it doesn't do much to make his prick stand up after so many years of being in possession of it. By this point it's only a means to an end. The gold means he can still drink, still eat, still sleep somewhere warm and that's the extent of it.

"You've General Mills to thank for most of that shit," he says, though he raises a hand and with a twist of his fingers, he's holding a gold coin. "Except for this bit. They got the gold right."

"Well, well," Spike said, brow arched, "The next round's on you, then."

He knocked back the rest of his drink and flagged down the bartender, looking rather gleeful as he ordered another bourbon, reached over to clap the leprechaun on the back, and said, "This one's on my friend here."

"D'you take gold?" Sweeney asks, deadpan, sliding the gold coin across the top of the bar. It doesn't matter, he has money in his wallet and he can find someone who'll pay for the gold, but it's still amusing to watch the bartender take the gold coin and stare at it in confusion, twisting it between his fingers.

"Christ, lad, I'm givin' you a hard time, I have money," he says, then swirls a finger in the air. "Get the vampire another drink."

The bartender cut Spike a nervous look. Smirking as his drink was refilled, he considered flashing a bit of fang, but thought better of it.

"Cheers," he said, knocking back his glass. Half empty, he set it down on the bar. "The name's Spike."

"Mad Sweeney," he answers. It's not the name he was born with, but it's the one he was given a very long time ago and, if he thinks about it much, which he tends not to, the name he prefers.

But he has a feeling a man named Spike isn't the sort to look at him sideways and ask if that's his real name. There are benefits to meeting creatures old enough to know better.

"So a fuckin' vampire, then," he says. "Only ever met one before and he was..." He trails off and twirls his hand in the air. "A fuckin' child."

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