onlythebranch | (no subject)

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spike

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Since Mad Sweeney will be absolutely fucked before bringing a box of Valentine's Day cards just to get into a bloody party and is pretty sure Spike feels the same, the two of them are currently in the park, ostensibly to find something to fight, some asshole or creepy crawler using the distraction of the night to make things easier, but neither of them are looking with any particular effort. They're just walking, shoulders brushing, both of them smoking, and if they wanted a fight, Sweeney is sure they could have found it by now.

They're not really looking. They're on a fucking date.

That's okay with him. That's something he's gotten comfortable with, but he sure as hell hopes Spike hasn't got some gift waiting for him inside his coat, because Sweeney sure as fuck didn't do anything like that. He's not a flowers and chocolate sort of guy, which he figures Spike doesn't expect out of him, but the vampire has surprised him a few times already and he also doesn't want to be the dick tonight.

Shifting his free hand a little, he brushes his fingers against Spike's and is about to say something. Ask him if he wants to go get a drink or go back to his place or something other than pretending they're not just going for a romantic fucking walk together, but as he opens his mouth, someone just up the path calls out to them. She's holding a pair of ice skates.

"Hey!" The young woman waves, smiling brightly. "Hey, do you guy want to ice skate for a bit? No charge, I've had barely anyone here all night and I just want to see someone enjoying themselves tonight."

Sweeney has no idea what to say. He suddenly can't even remember the last time he'd been on a pair of ice skates. He's not sure if this is bad luck, being asked to skate, or good luck, being offered it free of charge.

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Spike was well aware of the date.

He'd struggled against the urge to pull off something romantic, flowers and candlelight and bloody poetry, but in the end, they'd simply agreed to spend the evening together, no further plans or expectations.

The park was quiet, that evening. There were a few couples walking hand in hand, young women clutching bouquets of flowers, their men often looking desperate or bored. It was a sad sight, and Spike thanked his lucky stars that they could simply forego all that nonsense. They were on a walk, nothing more, nothing less. And yes, their hands brushed more than a few times, most likely by more than chance, but what of it?

Spike heard the click of Sweeney's mouth open, turning with his brow arched expectantly, when a young woman began waving a pair of ice skates frantically in their direction.

"You sure you've got a pair big enough for this overgrown bastard?" Spike said, jerking a thumb in Sweeney's direction with a smirk.

There's a vague memory somewhere in the back of his mind of the last time he'd been on ice skates, something distant and diluted by time, a memory he can't quite grasp. Trying to pick out the details of the memory distracts him just long enough that Spike answers the woman first and her grin grows wider still.

"I think I've got something," she answers, then turns back toward the frozen rink. "Come on. It'll be fun. You can hold his hand if he falls."

"I'm not gonna bloody fall," Sweeney answers from around his cigarette, which might as well be a yes, I'd love to go skating. And it's not a denial of Spike holding his hand either, just an indignant response to the very idea that his luck alone wouldn't keep him on his feet instead of flat on his ass.

"No smoking on the rink," the woman calls back.

"I won't fall," Sweeney says to Spike this time. And then he does reach out and take his hand.

"Don't worry, love. I'm here to catch you if you do," Spike smirked deeply, reaching out to pluck the cigarette from Sweeney's lips and giving it one last puff before dropping it to the concrete and crushing it beneath his boot.

"So, we're really doing this?" He asked, brow arched. "One pass around the rink to make the girl happy, eh?"

Stepping in close, Spike rested a hand on Sweeney's shoulder, looking up at him with a softening smile. "You're a bit sentimental, aren't you?"

"Fuck off," he says before ducking his head to nudge a kiss against Spike's mouth. Sweeney doesn't much give a shit about any rules people have about fucking around in public, but this is different than pulling someone up against him in a dark corner of a bar. This is just as fucking sentimental as Spike is accusing him of being and he'd thought that bit of him died a very long time ago.

It probably should have. It exists still against all the bloody odds there are. He's not sure if that's lucky or the very definition of unlucky, but there's no undoing it now and he doesn't think he'd want to.

"Why the fuck not?" he asks a moment later, already moving in the direction of the rink. "Seems like a Valentine's Day thing t'do, don't it? Play your cards right and maybe you'll even get one of them pink roses those assholes are selling on every fuckin' corner from here to your place."

"Oh, Valentine's Day, is it? Hadn't noticed," Spike smirked, catching Sweeney by the chin and dragging him into a brief but deeper sort of kiss.

"You buy me a rose, I'll thump you. Just watch," he said, taking a step back, his grip lingering at Sweeney's lapel before falling away entirely.

By now, the young girl had hurried back with the skates, one pair of average size and one looking rather like two boats outfitted with blades on the hull.

"Impressive," he said to her, sitting himself down on a bench just outside the rink with a flourish of leather.

The threat only makes the rose even more appealing and Sweeney grins as he sinks onto the bench beside Spike, though the look turns a little skeptical at the sight of the skates. He has to wonder how long those have been sitting around, who the last person might've been to actually wear them, and he knows he's not the largest person this city has seen, but he had a difficult time picturing the Iron fucking Bull on ice skates.

Of course, he figures most people would say the same thing about him.

"No way in fuckin' hell I'd be doin' this without my coin," he says as he kicks off his worn, well loved boots, then starts to jam his feet into the skates.

That's true in more ways than one, he thinks. Without his coin, he's pretty sure he'd be dead.

"Yeah, you'd be dead in the muck, without it," Spike pointed out, brow arched as he unlaced his own boots, shoving them under the bench with his heel before shoving his feet into the skates.

"Who ever heard of a vampire on ice skates? The things I do for you," Spike said, playfully long suffering as he stood, balancing effortlessly on the blades. Still, even he couldn't make the plodding trek over to the rink particularly graceful. Stepping out onto the ice, he pushed off the wall, gliding with impressive ease along the ice and turning in a smooth arc to face Sweeney, smirk planted firmly on his face.

When he skidded to a stop, he wobbled. Just a bit.

"Dunno about that," Sweeney answers, watching Spike before he gets up, too. "Seems t'me you had a little somethin' to do with dragging me free."

It'll be a hard thing to forget, how worried Spike had been that morning, early enough that the sun had yet to rise. There are some memories that have stayed with Sweeney for his entire long life, weaving themselves into the very fabric of who he is, making up the quiet parts of him people don't see as often, and he knows already, had known from the moment he'd opened his eyes that day and coughed up the water in his lungs, that Spike's concern would be one of those memories.

By the time he makes it to the rink, he's already doubting this decision, but once he pushes off and glides across the ice, it isn't so bad. He gets to Spike without bashing into him, but he does reach out, hands going to the front of Spike's coat to steady himself.

"Suppose I'm a bit like your knight in shining armor, yeah?" Spike smirked, puffed up and full of pride over the moment, despite it being one of the worst moments in his recent memory.

Perhaps one of his worst moments in all of his century and a half of existence.

"Watch yourself, love," he warned, curling his hands around Sweeney's wrists. "Careful not to take me down with you."

Edited 2019-03-09 17:32 (UTC)

"Didn't realize it'd be such a bad thing, me takin' you down with me," he answers with another grin before he glides away again, getting the hang of it. When he fights, there's a brutal sort of grace in his movements, but skating is a hell of a lot different than that, and he's pretty sure the only thing keeping from going ass over tea kettle is his luck.

So he wants to test it a little and he turns, skating backward away from Spike.

"Kinda figured that was how this night was gonna end," he calls as he skates further away. No one else is here, not that he'd give a shit what he was saying even if there were.

"And traumatize the nice girl who gave us the skates for free?" Spike said, cheeks hollowed around a smirk.

"Surprisingly light on your feet for a giant, aren't you?"

The whole situation was absurd-- a vampire and a leprechaun ice skating together on Valentine's Day. Perhaps as absurd as a vampire and a leprechaun making a go at a relationship.

"I know you're cold, love, but I hadn't planned on fucking you on the ice," Sweeney answers, coming to a slow, though still relatively graceful stop. Once he's sure he's not about to end up on his ass, he begins to skate back to Spike, smirking at him. "My prick can only handle so much cold before it might become a bit of a problem and then where would we be?"

He catches Spike by the hand this time, pulling him along for the skate, the two of them moving together.

It has to look fucking ridiculous, both of them like this, and Sweeney doesn't really give a shit what people think, but he sure as fuck is glad Odin and his bloody birds aren't here. He'd never hear the end of it.

"Oh, I don't know. I always warm up," Spike pointed out, brow arched. With their hands laced together, palm to palm, the moment felt oddly like the ones he might've had as a young man, before giving his soul over to Drusilla.

However, now he had over a hundred years of life experiences, and he knew exactly how fragile and fleeting peaceful moments like this one truly were.

"All this warm blood's good for somethin'," Sweeney agrees, still making a joke of the entire thing, and he knows it would seem like he doesn't really give a shit about this, if not for his fingers laced through Spike's.

"So what's the plan after this?" he asks. "Box of chocolates? Bubble bath in a heart shaped tub? Couples massage?"

The second suggestion, minus the heart shaped tub, actually doesn't sound half bad, now that he's thinking about it. The tub in his flat isn't nearly big enough for the two them, unfortunately.

"Don't know if you noticed, pet, but there is no plan," Spike pointed out, amused by Sweeney's suggestions. While he knew it was all meant in jest, he also wasn't so blind as to see that Sweeney was enjoying himself quite a bit.

"Where in the bloody hell would we find a heart-shaped tub, let alone one big enough to fit you in it?"

"Hotel," he answers, probably too quickly. There's no part of him that actually expects to take off these skates and go find a bloody hotel with a giant tub in it, but the idea isn't so terrible.

"Doesn't have t'be heart shaped. You ever been in one of those giant fuckin' jacuzzis? Those things could fit three of me." That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but he has no doubt it could fit the two of them comfortably. That shit is generally more Technical Boy's style than Mad Sweeney's, but he has to admit to partaking once or twice, when the mood struck.

"Got one of those up on the mountain. If I'd known you were interested, love, I'd have reserved us a room."

Most likely, given the day, they were all booked up.

"Dru and I took out a couple on their honeymoon, once. They had quite the suite," Spike said, a faintly nostalgic smile gracing his features as he thought on that night, long ago. "Dru was rather taken with the jets in the hot tub. Said it felt like stars crackling in her belly."

He chuckled.

"Got a penchant for those of us who're a little off our rocker then, do you?" he asks, smirking at the look on Spike's face. Hating it and loving it in equal measure.

He wonders, though only very briefly, what would happen here if this Dru were to show up in Darrow. If Spike's bloody wife returned. If Laura showed up. If Essie did. It seems like death doesn't matter in a place like this and Sweeney doesn't know if he's seen anything more dangerous than that.

It's not the sort of thing he cares to dwell on, not tonight, so he shifts to skate in front of Spike and asks, "So the Clown Motel's not of interest t'you, then? Seems like that place might have faces painted on the bloody ceiling."

"Oh, Drusilla would make you seem quite sane, I assure you," Spike said, rolling his eyes a bit as he caught that smirk on Sweeney's face.

"Might be a bit of a laugh," Spike considered, head cocked thoughtfully. "Always been a bit curious if that place is only a novelty, or if it's really as cursed as it looks."

"So we go and we're rewarded either way," he says, letting out a rough laugh. "Either we fuck if it's not cursed or we fight if it is. Kinda like the sounds of that."

It's a hell of a lot more interesting than a traditional Valentine's Day date, although he's having a better time with the ice skating than he wants to admit. It's the sort of thing that doesn't need to be said. They're both still here, still skating, he figures that's enough of an indication.

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