The Sick Rose
by Pandarus


2. The Golden Tiger

He used to be quite partial to a spot of absinthe. The sight of Gary Oldman's Dracula swigging the stuff, however, had given Spike a definite distaste for the green liquor - and indeed for Gary Oldman, of whom he had previously been rather fond. Instead he accepted a foaming pint of Pilsner Urquell and surveyed the human contents of The Golden Tiger pub with a speculative glint in his eye. It was ridiculously busy, but he just didn't see anyone he fancied - although he was aware of being checked out by a number of men and women. They would do well enough for a quick bite, but he wanted to get Drusilla something special.

Perhaps jewellery was a better idea, or some fragile wisp of lace.

His attention was finally snared by a fresh-faced young Australian; a big, bonnie, brawny lad with a tumble of golden curls and a disarming baritone. Shoulders and hands that reminded him of Angelus, but the face bespoke sunshine and surfing and uncomplicated pleasures. He was alone, but wholly unintimidated by the mass of beer-swilling strangers surrounding him. The boy caught his eye and grinned at him. Spike smiled back.

His smile deepened when the Australian held his gaze for half a beat longer than necessary - the half a beat that amounted to foreplay in a certain kind of bar. Interesting. Not Drusilla's type, this one, but potentially entertaining nevertheless. He stepped a little closer.

"You meeting somebody, mate?"

"Guess I just have," the Australian said with another lingering smile. "Name's Sean."

"Spike." They drank in companionable silence for a few moments while the tide of eager tourists ebbed and flowed around the bar.

"So this is where they all come, then, eh, The Golden Tiger? Clinton, Hrabal, Havel, all those guys?"

"Apparently so," Spike said, glancing around at the horde of mundane men and women as he patted his pockets in search of the silver lighter he'd stolen in Budapest. He found it, lit a battered Marlboro and took a lungful of the smoke without any further comment. He didn't feel very much like small talk; had rather hoped this human might prove a bit more entertaining than the rest of the crowd, but apparently not.

"Well it's boring as fuck, mate," said Sean after a few moments. "Where's the action around here?"

Spike grinned. Perhaps he'd been too hard on the boy. He caught Sean's eye and held it for a space, then let his glance slide down to the wide mouth and the freshly shaved chin and then linger on the tender skin sheathing his Adam's apple. Delicious. His upper body was well muscled - a rugby player's physique. Spike's glance trailed lower and he was satisfied to see the boy's slumbering, denim-encased cock stirring under his attention. He looked back up into the wide green eyes and was rewarded with a lovely expression of straightforward lust.

As Spike licked his lips and lifted the brimming glass of Pilsner, the jostling arm of a large local made him splash beer down the front of his red shirt and interrupted a rather pleasant train of thought. He set the glass back down on the counter and then looked slowly from his wet shirt to the human responsible and back again.

"How d'you feel about bar fights?" he asked. Sean's sleepy eyes lit up and a broad grin stole over his wholesome face.

"Here? Now? You're off your fucking head, mate!" But he sounded rather taken with the idea.

Spike turned to the group of Czechs on his right and grabbed the shoulder of the shirt-wrecker, twisting him around.

"You spilled my pint," he said evenly. The man scowled in utter incomprehension. "D'you speak English? Mluvite Anglicky?"

"Ne," replied the Czech, looking thoroughly pissed off.

It was not that Spike couldn't speak languages other than his own - in point of fact he was fluent in quite a number by now - but he generally preferred not to as a matter of principle. This, however, was an exception. He smiled sweetly at the various meaty faces turned towards him.

"Your country stinks of shit, your women are all whores, Havel copulates with pigs and your beer tastes like goat piss," Spike said, in loud and perfectly accented Czech.

That did the trick.

* * *


Afterwards, bruised and bleeding and retaining the semblance of human form by the very skin of his teeth, Spike stalked out of the pub with an expression of battered triumph. That would teach the fucker not to spill people's pints. Sean - who had handled himself quite respectably in the fight - stumbled along at his heels, fingering his tender jaw and walking with a slight limp. Drusilla was far from bored with the city, so Spike had made a point of not killing anyone in public - didn't want to have to flee the local bobbies just yet. Spike was reasonably sure none of the motionless bodies littering the floor of The Golden Tiger was actually dead. This, in his considered opinion, constituted keeping a low profile.

"That lively enough for you?" he asked, glancing back at his Australian with a fierce little grin.

"You really are a mad bastard," said Sean, sounding awed and a little afraid.

There was blood coming from the corner of his mouth and it proved entirely irresistible. Spike grabbed him and dragged him down the nearest alley. Sean was taller than Spike, putting the hollow of his throat in line with Spike's mouth; he closed his lips over the tantalising Adam's apple and sucked, feeling the blood rise up under the skin but pulling away before he broke the soft layer of tissue. He found the trickle of dried blood on the lad's chin and licked it back to the corner of his parted lips, settling into a feeding kiss that tasted every recess of the boy's mouth before returning its attention to the luscious little leaking wound. Spike could feel the itch of the demon mask just beneath the surface of his skin, and controlled it with some difficulty. The large hands that clutched his arse provoked a shiver at the visceral memory of Angelus. But now was not then, and Spike was the only one calling the shots these days. He wrapped his own hands around Sean's face and stepped back, forcing the lad to look at him.

"Take your clothes off," Spike said. The boy blinked.

"But I'd rather..."

"I said. Take. Your. Fucking. Clothes. Off," repeated Spike. "Now."

Sean scrambled to comply, the memory of Spike's unexpected strength still uppermost in his mind. He'd been utterly astonished (and not a little turned on) by the skill and no-holds-barred ferocity with which Spike had flung himself into the fighting - like a peroxide Bruce Lee on speed. Arguing with him was right at the top of things Sean really didn't want to do anytime in the next century.

"Knickers too, pet."

Spike lit a fag and stood back to watch the boy disrobe, plainly enjoying his shivering self-consciousness. They could hear people walking along Husova Street a scant few yards away and Sean had not anticipated finding himself butt naked in an alleyway in the middle of the city. That wasn't quite how these things usually worked, in his experience, and the unexpected nudity was making him feel exposed in all kinds of ways. But he wasn't protesting. Within a few minutes Sean was standing with the bare curve of his buttocks and shoulders pressed into the brick wall, glancing down at the bag containing passport and wallet with an expression of sublime misery that was at odds with the way his knob was slapping into his firm belly.

Spike, fully dressed and enjoying it, withdrew the cigarette for a moment to lick the forefinger of his right hand. He ran his finger around the boy's mouth, making small circles, and then traced a delicate little line down over his throat, dwelling on the firm, smooth flesh of the sternum. Spike stopped smoking long enough to dropped an incongruously chaste kiss on the warm curve of a collarbone and then, cigarette nonchalantly clamped between his lips once more, he rubbed the cool, calloused heels of his left palm over the boy's perky nipples. He smiled at the moan this elicited and let his hand traverse the trembling skin until it reached the salivating head of his penis. Young Sean had shown plenty of spunk in The Golden Tiger and he'd watched Spike's back like a good lad. Spike was feeling generous. He'd let the boy show a little more spunk before he died.

He brushed the wet tip with the end of his finger and idly stroked the pulsing underside of his cock, before wrapping a tepid hand around the shaft and beginning to work it firmly. The green eyes widened and then closed and the lad's breathing grew hoarse and ragged. He bit his lip and after some time began to gasp out the kind of inanities people usually did: "Yes", "More," "Fuck," "God," and other monosyllables, until Spike gagged him with another sucking kiss. A little later Spike unfastened his own flies left-handed and freed his prick, grinding the cool skin of his erection roughly against the lad's bollocks. Sean's fingers dug into the vampire's shoulder and he let out a helpless moan of pure sensation as his hips bucked in that distinctive way and he finally came into Spike's waiting palm.

In the hazy moment that followed, Spike rubbed the spunk over his cock and slipped a sticky finger between the human's thighs and up into the hot little bud of clenched flesh, readying it for his first thrust. Sean's eyes peeled open in puzzlement, but before he quite knew what was happening Spike had angled the warm pelvis according to his needs, wriggled the head of his cock into the tight passage and then slammed in, lifting a thigh in each hand and wrapping the lad's legs around his waist. It was not an especially comfortable position for either of them, and Spike could smell fresh blood as the boy's skin rasped against the rough bricks behind him.

"What the fuck?" Sean was astounded at the ease with which the slighter man had picked him up and bent him into this shape. "Shit, what are you - what - you're not wearing a fucking condom, are you, you mad fucking bastard!" He thrashed against the wall and when his wriggling only made Spike smile he eventually pulled back his fist and punched the vampire in the face. Spike never missed a beat, but he let the human mask melt away like butter on a hot griddle and Sean yelped at the sight.

"Yeah, what big teeth I have, eh? All the better to eat you with, my dear," said Spike, his hips hammering away as his fangs came down on the boy's neck.