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It was an act of defiance. A statement against the world. It was drawing a line and saying: "No further! This far and no further!"
Possibly.
What it actually was, was a cigarette. A cigarette that, in blatant contravention of state law, Spike was daring to smoke in a bar.
God, he hated life. Unlife. Whatever. If it had reached the point that the nearest he could get to being rebellious was having a bloody fag, he might as well stake himself. He glared at the cigarette and hoped it gave everybody cancer.
A brief twinge in his head reminded him that wasn't a good thought.
The barman glanced over at him but quickly looked away, evidently deciding that it wasn't worth the risk of confronting him. There were only two other people in the bar, after all, and neither of them looked likely to look up from their beers any time soon.
Place seemed to be home to the local freak-quotient. One was an Angel-wannabe, carefully brooding over a low-cal, low-alcohol, low-enjoyment, soya beer substitute. The other was a middle-aged has-been with fluorescent orange hair and matching clothing. Jesus.
He took a deep pull on the cigarette and wished he was somewhere other than California. Why the hell did so many vamps come here? Land of sunshine but the vamps came flooding in. They were, he decided, a criminally stupid species. It was a miracle there were any left, when you thought about it.
So he didn't.
Instead he thought about where he wanted to be. London used to be fun, though it had gone downhill in the eighties. Paris - ah yes, Paris in the spring... He and Dru had spent six months there, back in the twenties. He smiled reminiscently. Wandering down the Champs Elysees, before finding a pretty little French girl to-
"Who the fuck are you?"
Spike blinked and slowly looked up at the fluorescent bloke. A fellow Londoner, he noted absently.
"What makes you think you want to know?"
"What the fuck are you?"
Spike frowned and leaned further back. "What do you think I am?"
"A ghost." The man's hand closed on Spike's shoulder. "Got to be."
Spike slapped the man's hand away and tried not to wince. "Solid as you. Mate."
"Spike. That was your name." The man was staring.
"Maybe."
"Twenty-five years and you haven't changed."
Oh, shit. Angel got faces from centuries ago. He got them from the previous few decades. It wasn't sodding fair. "Plastic surgery can do miracles, you know."
"I saw where you carved your name on him."
Okay... The last time he'd carved his name in a body had been a century or so ago, at which point Angel had slapped him and told him to find something more original. And it had been 'Will' that he'd written, anyway. He sighed. "You've lost me, mate."
"Forget that easily?"
"Evidently. So either refresh my memory or piss off. You're ruining my beer."
"Sid."
Shit. How could he have failed to recognise Johnny Rotten? "Sid who?" he lied easily.
"You're a crap liar."
Not that easily. "Alright. Sid. I remember."
"That's not plastic surgery. You really haven't changed."
"I sold my soul to the devil for these cheekbones and the right to keep them for eternity. Now, is there a point to this touching reunion?"
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why him? Why did you have to pick on him?"
Spike thought back. "Because he was a crap bassist."
"Not when he was straight."
Spike grinned reminiscently. "He was never straight."
John didn't smile. "Sober. Okay, he was never going to be great but he was decent."
"No sign of that in Dallas. So I figured I'd kill him. You know - raise the tone of the group."
"He hadn't had any heroin for the whole of the tour."
Spike smiled. "I guess that was why he was so keen to come with me."
"You really did sell your soul to the devil."
"Just a demon, actually. Satan doesn't bother stepping foot out of hell. I got a crappy deal on it too - those guys make used car salesmen look like amateurs."
"He was wittering about this blond he'd picked up. Paul and Steve thought he meant a woman."
"And you didn't?"
"I saw you leave with him."
"Jealous?" Spike smiled sweetly.
"I stopped being jealous over Sid a long time before that."
Could that really mean what Spike thought it meant? He considered it for a moment before deciding that he just had a dirty mind. Occupational hazard. "Don't blame it all on me. You were the one who let him get that way in the first place."
"You think I don't know that?"
Spike glanced away from the look on John's face and tried to find a sharp comeback. There wasn't one. These months hanging around with the Scoobies appeared to be giving him some basic human feeling. Damn. He shrugged instead.
"You think I haven't blamed myself every single fucking day for the past twenty years?" John continued. "I introduced him to the stupid bint. I got him into the fucking band in the first place. I know it's my fault. But you didn't help."
Spike sighed. "The drugs I gave him? They were shit. Cut so much you'd have got more of a buzz from a cup of coffee. He was so desperate, he convinced himself he was high. Hell, I had more of a high than Sid and mine were diluted with the dealer's blood." Whoops.
John stared at him. "Blood?"
Spike sighed and blurred his features rapidly into demon form, then back to human. "I'm a vampire. If you're going to scream and faint, get it over and done with. And don't worry, I'm not going to kill you." Though if it weren't for that damn chip...
"I fucked a vampire?"
"Next best thing to bestiality. Pervert." Spike took a mouthful of beer to hide his smile.
"Necrophilia."
"Whatever you call it, it's damn good."
"It's still just grunting and sweating."
"Tell that to Sid." Which was, of course, the wrong thing to say, he realised as John's face closed.
"Bit difficult considering he's dead." John lit a cigarette, his hands trembling slightly. "What did you do to him?"
"With him." Spike didn't know why the difference was important but it was. "Nothing he didn't want."
"Sid never knew what he wanted. He was thick."
"He knew that night." Spike closed his eyes against the surge of remembered sensation. "He knew exactly what he wanted."
"Are you going to tell me or not?"
Spike considered for a moment, his gaze flicking between John's face and his bottle. "Not. None of your business."
"More my business than yours. He was my friend."
"He was my one-night stand." Spike stubbed out the remains of his cigarette and flicked another out of the packet. His lighter wouldn't spark, no matter how hard he shook it.
"Here." John held out his cheap plastic disposable. Spike had to steady John's hand to get his cigarette to the flame.
"No cigarette burns any more," he commented, sitting back.
John glanced at his hand and shrugged. "No need." He took a quick drag on his cigarette then stubbed it out on his palm. He frowned. "Still doesn't hurt."
Spike pushed away the memories of Sid's rapture as a cigarette hissed against his skin. "I've had this lighter forty-three years and it's never let me down before."
John sparked his lighter and studied the flame. "I've had this lighter three days and it's never let me down."
Spike drained his drink. "Lovely. I'm going."
John looked up. "You're not going to tell me then?"
"What's to say? He thought he liked it rough. He liked it sweet. He thought he wanted to be boss. He was wrong."
John's murmur was almost inaudible. "Took me years to learn that."
Spike shoved his chair back and paused. "Want to come back to mine?"
John didn't even think before shaking his head. "I stay faithful."