ataraxion | voice, the second } crack kills

[ THIS IS FORWARD DATED spike would usually do this up on video but given the chaos and just how shitty he looks-- oh, yeah, if you haven't seen spike in a bit there's a reason for it. he looks like death. literally. skinny, sallow, low-energy. he's not even quipping like he should be. he's scarcely been here ninety days, but without blood, he's not healing like he should. these demons are giving him the go around and he doesn't like it. so have a raspy english voice, sounding much tireder than usual, which really everyone should expect given the theme around here. ]

I'll tell you all, I've seen an apocalypse or two in my day. And this? This is a bloody disaster.

Floor 22, Room 17. I've got some weapons and hiding spots, but that's not what I'm on about. I'll see you all in the trenches anyway. [ he takes a breath, he might be smoking. ]

...This blood situation, yeah? For us vamps. [ pauuuuuse ] It's wrong, and I'll tell you why it's wrong. This might be a bloody big ship, but it's going to start seeming a whole hell of a lot smaller if we keep handing over human to them--us. To us.

I don't drink human blood, it's a life choice. Let's use an analogy. Now, I talked to an expert on the subject so let's call 'blood' ... 'heroin.' And let's call bagged blood something they call 'methadone.' That's a drug used to bring someone down off scag, if you didn't know. But it doesn't work, and neither does this. Drinking it from a bag? Well. Just makes someone want the real thing.

Over on the Cyllene, guy name of Jayne told me to look for Dr. Tam up in the med bay? But I'm sorry, doc, and anyone else who might have a hand in that concoction -- I don't trust it. Don't ruddy well trust anyone with a beaker and I've got good reason.

There's got to be another way.

[ he hangs up rather abruptly, it takes a lot to get a rise out of him like this. it took the perfect cocktail of starvation, sleeplessness, nightmares and demons from his homeworld but now he's here and he's mad. and yeah, no that's basically it. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No, you're probably right.

[ which is just another sign of how tired he is. usually he'd have a quip for that. ]

...Well, uh. I mean, I've seen vamps starving, sure enough. They get real skinny, weak, emaciated like. [ like me ] It's not pretty but I don't know if we can really die from it. Reckon someone probably comes along to put 'em out of their misery before that happens, if they're lucky.

[Lucky isn't the word for that--but maybe he's biased, considering his whole raison d'etre right now is not being killed.]

They were they starving themselves by choice? Or was it something else?

[Because come on it's not like there's famines, for vampires.]

Not by choice, no. No one bloody starves by choice. [ except them, he supposes. ]

Yeah? So why, then?

Out of fear. Or sometimes... captivity.

[ he sounds like he knows about the latter intimately, mostly because he does. ]

Jesus.

[Because, okay, fear, he can identify with fear, maybe, but captivity sounds like a fucking horror show option. Prison, but at least prison is escapable, right--so does that mean something worse, something bleaker--]

How long--?

Told you, I don't rightly know. Could be months. Could be less.

[ a beat ] Or do you mean, how long was I locked up?

[ may as well vocalize it, even if it still stung to talk about. ]

Why the hell were you locked up in the first place?

[Maybe intrusive. But easier to start with than imagining imprisonment, with vampire circumstances.]

Just for being what I am. What we are... [ he inhaled a bit, reluctant to tell mitchell what had happened there -- but he was already in this too deep. ] Got a chip put in, so I couldn't bite humans. Or even look at 'em crosseyed.

[ the way he says it, it's clear he's no longer bitter about that aspect of it. ]

Not that they ever intended to release me, but I broke out.

[What the fuck. There's just-- silence, at first, because what the fuck. It's not like a vampire can't be trapped, right, or held--and it's not like there's not those that would want to trap them, it's not unheard of--it's part of what keeps them in hiding--but this thing, about the chip--]

But there were others. You weren't the only one they were holding like that. That's-- [No different than smashing out their teeth and leaving them in the catacombs of some church, or blowing up the funeral parlor; no different than Christians, or cults--] Jesus.

Who were these people?

Yeah, mate, it was-- [ completely fucked up? but he had deserved it hadn't he? unlike some of the monsters the initiative had caught. ]

A top secret sect of the American government, no longer operating. Supposedly.

The government gets involved with your shit, where you're from?

Not habitually. But they had to stick their nose in sometime, didn't they?

Yeah, we get ourselves in the government, t' make sure nothing like that goes on. Or at least we get 'em on retainer.

[probably shouldn't be bragging if he wants to distance himself from the vampires but old habits etc.]

[ ugh you sound just like angel shut up mitchell!!!! he was really starting to like you. ]

And what, fight from the belly of the beast? I've heard that one before.

Something like that, yeah. Less fighting, more-- avoiding consequences.

[that part he can be outright bitter about.]

Not that it lasted. [and, actually--] Not that it even matters, 'cause now we're in space.

So we are. I'd almost forgotten, again, til you said.

[ and by the sound of his weariness it's not all a jibe. he's at least partially serious. ]

[He huffs a laugh.]

I'm almost impressed, that's a hell of a thing to forget.

[And he's sort of sorry that he reminded Spike at all. Being in space sucks, and he's sympathetic to that, so--there's a slightly awkward pause. And he doesn't do this for just anyone, all right, be honored--]

D'you remember when everybody was making horror movies about giant insects?

[slightly off topic maybe?]

[ he sighed, almost wistful. the change of subject doesn't throw him off; he jumps right on it actually. ]

That was a great time, wasn't it, mate.

Like the best. You could go to the cinema every month of the year and they'd have a new insect terrorising civilisation, it was brilliant.

[they just don't make 'em like they used to etc. And, okay, so making friends with other vampires is bad, especially other vampires on blood, even if it's otter blood (?), buuuut....]

The thing is, I think I've found the space equivalent.

Spill.

Try massive burrowing space beetles with twenty eyes and like a scorpion stinger, and fangs. And wings. Terrorising a planet of people that live in pods attached to these purple trees, and one intrepid alien spaceman beams down and it's down t' him to save them all.

It's got everything.

...Why aren't we watching this right now?

Because I haven't found the space popcorn yet.

And pro-obably because if we had movie night now, we'd have to invite these monsters along. But once we're rid of them, it's Invasion of the Bazgoo'rn for you, mate.

I'm holding you to that.

I also may have some popcorn.

voice; locked

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