Chain

By Irfikos

Part I: Blood

1.3: Junk Food

Notes: This section takes place shortly after "Older & Far Away."


I like food, food tastes good!
I like food, food tastes good!
Juicy burgers, greasy fries,
Turkey legs and raw fish eyes
Teenage girls, with ketchup too!
Get out of my way, or I'll eat you…

-I Like Food
The Descendants, 1981

Gotta admit, it’s pretty darn big. It’s been a long time since she’s looked up at the sky. Actually looked at it and noticed it up there. Crisp and dark and glittering with stars. Nice. Kinda funny how you can get so used to something being around like that that after awhile, you don’t even see it anymore. Like it’s not even there.

She takes her breaks outside now, ever since the whole being trapped in a house thing. Spends her time gazing up at the sky. She spends a lot of time trying to feel. Sometimes she’ll just sit there studying her hands. Watching the tendons flex as she wriggles her fingers. Looking for evidence that this is real. That she’s real. Allegedly, she is now a twenty-one year old woman. It has been officially marked by the traditional birthday disaster, complete with bloodshed. She wonders if being dead counts toward birthday points, or if she actually still has 147 or so days to go. Time off for dead behavior. Or is she actually only a few months old now? Or, funny thought, considering how much longer it was… where she had been… maybe she is actually very, very ancient…

She tries to think of the last time she had actually done this. Looking around her. Seeing things. Huh. Had she done it at all after the whole rising from the grave thing? She doesn’t think so. It was just too much. Too big, too bright. Too overwhelming, that sense of having been a part of something– else – and knowing that she isn’t really a part of anything at all anymore. Knowing that the only person to whom she had felt any connection at all anymore wasn’t even technically a person. Worrying about what that says about her. Knowing in her gut that somehow she had come back wrong.

He hadn’t crashed her birthday party. She had kinda half-expected him to. Could picture him sauntering in with a six pack or a bottle of – yeeaurgh – whiskey, acting like nothing had happened. Following her through the house all night. Making some sort of lewd comment at the sight of Willow’s present. Luckily, he hadn’t appeared. Instead that Richard guy Xander and Anya tried to set her up with did the puppy dog, following routine. It was cute. It felt good having someone… well… human showing an interest in her. And he was normal. Really, really normal. Milk and cookies normal. So… that was a good thing. Of course, then he’d been almost gutted by that demon thingy. Not so much a good thing. Probably not gonna be calling her anytime soon. Stupid scaredy normal guys. So easily damaged. So quick to run.

She takes another bite of her not-actually-made-of-meat Doublemeat burger. Nope. She’s absolutely positive that this is not real. Sighing, she wraps the rest of it in the paper and rises to drop it in the trash can by the sidewalk.

---

“Can I have a bit of that?” Feels like such a ponce, begging and all. Well, not begging. Just… asking. Making conversation is what it is. ‘Cause he doesn’t actually care, really. He places a hand to his stomach and pushes at it to quell the rumbling.

Jonathan looks down at his burger guiltily, frozen in mid-bite. “Um… Warren says we’re not supposed to–”

“Hey, you don’t eat hamburgers! You’re just supposed to drink blood and stuff.” Andrew sips at his milkshake and puts a protective hand over his own paper-wrapped burger.

Yeah. Supposed to. Would love to. Would kill to right about now. Ha bloody ha. “Right. I’m a blooditarian. Not strict about it though. Give me a fucking burger.”

He’s affecting as cool a posture as he can. Going for a casual lean against the only solid wall of his enclosure. Trying not to let on just how much he’s relying on the wall to keep him up. Feeling a bit wobbly of late. Growing weaker each day from lack of blood. His clothes are hanging off him. He’s had to cinch his belt twice in the week that he’s been up and about. On the last notch of it now. The healing has all but stopped – still a catch in one of the ribs when he tries to move. The cheekbone had gotten a good start at mending before stalling as a hairline crack. The right eye’s still swollen and tender. He imagines there’s quite the nasty bruise there. Even when he was well-fed, it would always take bruises longer to heal than anything. Even bones. He'd always assumed it was because the blood had more chance to pool up. Vampire circulation being what it is. Odd thing, really. He always figured that if a vampire starved enough, lost enough blood, whatever, that there wouldn't be enough left to spread around. Sluggish circulation would stop altogether. Any blood pooled up in spots would have no way to move about at all. Nothing to do but sit there and congeal under the skin. He shivers. What a waste.

The concussion is a bother. It’s still making him sick. Lightheaded at times. Every so often he’s overcome with nausea and he doubles over, retching, dry heaving, nothing left to come out. It’s humiliating. All of it is humiliating, really. The whole bloody situation – pathetic.

“You know, you shouldn’t be so mean. You’re like, our prisoner. I mean, we hold your fate in our hands and stuff.” Another slurp from the shake.

“You hold my burger in your hands, ponce. Now give it.”

“Hey! Bite me you big, stupid… um… petaQ!”

“Happy to. Just let me out of this and – wait a minute. Come again?”

Jonathan looks up at this and answers around a mouthful of food. “It’s Klingon. He called you a–”

“Hey, hey, hey, guys. No talking to the prisoner, remember?” In saunters the Alpha Nerd, from the adjoining room. He’s got that damned scanning thingy in his hand again. He comes right up to the barrier pointing the thing at Spike. Starts taking more readings. No chance of getting a bite now.

Spike sighs and slides unsteadily down the wall to assume his now-accustomed crouch on the floor.

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