The Sick Rose
by Pandarus


4. In Libris, vitae

The Globe Bookshop was quite full, considering that it was so far off the beaten tourist track. The people in here didn't think of themselves as tourists, though. "Travellers", every one of them, as if such semantics meant anything at all. Spike wandered down an aisle of second-hand books, scanning the battered spines with mild interest. One title caught his eye. He pulled out a horror paperback and glanced at the back-cover blurb: "Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red." Clive Barker - an Englishman after his own heart. He grinned and slotted it back into place. A little further along the same shelf there was a hardback edition of the collected writings of William Blake - now that was more tempting. Blake knew a thing or two, to be sure; Spike had heard a rumour that the old boy had been a Watcher at one point, but had lost the plot when his Slayer died. Wouldn't surprise him in the least.

Drusilla was not a great reader herself, but she was partial to eating poets, and painters, and other such fanciful dreamers of dreams. Spike had a speculative eye on a charmingly gauche little redhead loitering before the poetry shelves in the New Books section; all soft curves and freckles, with her hair pinned up haphazardly and not-quite-fashionable glasses that kept slipping down her slightly-too-long nose. Adorable. Not pretty, but quite possibly beautiful.

He followed her receding form discreetly, admiring the concave flare of her waist and the translucency of her skin. The nape of her neck was slightly sun-scorched from wearing her hair up during the day. Spike could already imagine the heat of it under his mouth, and he gazed at the frayed lacework of her peeling skin with a predatory little smile. She rounded the central stack of shelves and Spike sidled along a few paces behind, one hand loosely clasping The Collected Works of Blake and the other trailing absently along the spines of the books he passed.

His attention was caught by a flurry of movement at the door and Spike paused on the balls of his feet, taking in the new arrivals with interest. Dark eyes, dark hair, olive complexions ripened in the sun to a warm near-chocolate. For a moment he couldn't decide whether they were brothers or friends, so alike the two lads looked. A brush of hand on arse and the quality of a smile suggested that they were neither, and upon closer inspection he realised that the impression of similarity owed more to gesture and expression than to actual physiognomy. Latin lovers. He'd have hazarded a guess at Romanian or Macedonian but the cut and colour of their clothing indicated western tailoring rather than post-Soviet block. He drifted closer, aware that the girl was paying for her books of verse and escaping into the darkness but no longer interested as he followed the two matching fawns into the Globe's coffee shop.

* * *


"Mind if I join you gents?" It was a reasonable request, since there were no empty tables. The couple glanced up automatically, wearing twin expressions of irritation that faded as they took in Spike's dangerously disarming smile and the acres of black leather.

He took the empty seat and scanned the menu casually, aware of two pairs of liquid brown eyes fixed upon him as he inclined his bleached head and read with an appearance of fascination. He noticed the shop's motto "In libris, veritas; in kava, vita" - In books, truth; in coffee, life. Thought about the tatty Clive Barker paperback with its gruesome cover and smiled to himself as he waved at the waitress and ordered a double round of plum brandy for himself and his unsuspecting new "books of blood". "In Libris, Vitae" was more like it.

After the fourth glass of slivovice they were all the very best of friends. It transpired that, despite their Arcadian appearance, the pair were Londoners; Londoners of Italian extraction, but Londoners just the same. Gianni and Bob. ("Roberto. But everyone calls me Bob, except my mum.") They were childhood sweethearts, no less - grew up together, since some 25 years earlier their dads had moved to London from the same little town outside Verona, married a pair of good Italian girls and all set up together in the restaurant business. (Gianni rolled his eyes with a sheepish grin at the clich.) Back in Blackheath Bob and Gianni were, they assured him, so far back in the closet that they were practically on first name terms with Aslan. Their parents were determinedly oblivious and kept pushing appropriate girls at them and dropping hints about grandchildren. Spike found this a little difficult to believe - their body language screamed "couple" - but the human capacity for ignoring the obvious never ceased to amaze him. It was very convenient.

Since Gianni and Bob were no more Mancunian than Spike, they were, naturally enough, big fans of Manchester United. They started arguing about the off-side rule and as he ordered more slivovice Spike realised that he was having a fine old time. They smelled of Lux soap, CK1 and of each other, and he thought that Drusilla would find them entirely delightful. The gold medal-standard game of 3 person footsie under the table left him in no doubt that he could get them back to the hotel with perfect ease.

"I've got a place," he said after a while, looking squarely at Bob and then Gianni and savouring the cocktail of pheromones.

Piece of cake.