Chapter Six

Everybody’s Fool



Fucking perfect.

“What is this?” Spike growled vehemently, casting his duster to the vacant chair as he stormed inward. “’Ave I turned into a bloody Holiday Inn? Is there a vacancy sign advertisin’ a room in large neon letters that I missed? What the hell makes you birds think you can waltz in an’ out of here as you please?”

The woman in question looked forlorn at the inquiry. She pouted, and he had to remind himself that he was angry. A century’s worth of schooling was enough to convince his feet to cross the floor and take her in his arms. After all, she had been the love of his unlife. His salvation.

She had also ripped his heart out, stomped on it twice for good measure, and persuaded him back here.

Where he fell in love with the Slayer.

And now she was in his crypt, standing precisely where he had left Darla prior to bolting for the Bronze. She was alone; he knew that much. The presence of his great-grandsire had faded even as her scent lingered. But that didn’t change the very persistent depiction of a woman in his home. A woman he would have killed—very literally—to see a few months ago. A woman who had since wedged her way onto the unwelcome list.

His once black goddess.

Drusilla was still pouting, her large brown eyes drooping at his duress. “Are you not pleased to see me?”

He snickered and marched inward begrudgingly. This was turning into a very peculiar night. Were it any other town, any other livelihood, and he would’ve sworn he was dreaming. But no. Reality was too weird for words at times. Especially in a place where that particular phrase was consumed and digested on a daily basis. “Wonderful, luv,” he snickered. “Did the pixies tell you that, or were you able to work it out on your own?”

“I thought grandmum had talked with you. She did not mention you being cross.” Drusilla grinned seductively and took a step forward. “Do you want to punish me, William? Have I been awfully bad?”

“I really can’t stand for more of this, you know. You got your own bloody town to run amuck through. Leave me outta it. What the fuck is this? Pick On Spike Week?” He caressed his brow in loom of an impending headache. “Jus’ bugger off, Dru. Take Darla an’ get the hell back to Los Angeles. ‘m sure there’s plenty of fun to be had there.”

She whimpered. “My boy does not want to come to the circus? There’s a great big elephant, you know. And the acrobats have begun their stretches.”

“Good for them. Get out.”

Over the past half century, Spike had taken to mentally comparing Drusilla’s pout to the mournful sadness displayed by Pound Puppies. It used to have a profound effect on him, but now it simply made him angry. Her antics had been once purposeful; while motive had not changed, the thought of what she was trying to accomplish did little more than prod his negative buttons. “You don’t mean that,” she continued dazedly. “Didn’t grandmum tell you our delightful plan? What fun it will be? Round and round we go, never hopping off the carousel even when our mummies and daddies shake their fingers at us. We’re very bad children. Naughty. Shhhh.”

The peroxide vampire rolled his eyes. “Yeh. The ole bag laid full load on me. Bloody Peaches has gone the way of the Dark Side an’ now everyone wants a retake of our fun in nineteenth century Europe. Merry loads of bloodshed an’ laughter to make some deranged happily ever after.” He paused with a frown. “Only without the rhyme. That was bloody disturbin’.”

There was a long-winded whine. “You really don’t want to come?” When he offered nothing more than an arched brow in turn, the vampiress pressed her hands to her ears and began moaning in earnest. “Poor Spike. My poor, poor Spike. Left here in the cold when everyone else gets their cookies and milk. We’re going off and the little birdies will eat all the crumbs if we leave you any to follow.”

“Just leave, Dru. I won’t be followin’.”

“I don’t want to,” she complained. “Not without my prince.”

“Learn to live with disappointment.” Spike snickered and moved for his discarded duster to fish out a half-smoked pack of cigarettes. “Know I did.”

“Are you still sore? Mummy could kiss it better.”

He shook his head and lit up. “Snooze you lose, luv. You walked out on me, din’t you? Mummy’s kisses ‘ave turned bloody sour.” When her looked displayed a longing for lost comprehension, he sighed melodramatically and shook his head. “You walked out on me, you crazed bint! I did everythin’ I could for you! Every single day for a sodding century!” Temper got the better of him; he consigned his ciggies to the floor without consideration, knowing belatedly that he would regret that once he had the place to himself again. “Bloody well worshipped the ground you walked on. Gave you everythin’ you ever asked me for. Bent over backwards to make sure you were happy. And where the fuck did it get me? Here! In Sunnyhell with a blasted chip up my skull. The pun to the Slayer’s radically unfunny sense of humor an’ forced to play nice with the other puppies ‘cause it’s the only way I can get a decent spot of violence. An’ now you want me back? To come with you? For what! I might not like what’s become of me, but I’ve bloody well adjusted. Makin’ the bleedin’ most of it. You ‘ave some nerve to try an’—”

Drusilla whimpered again, effectively tearing into his rant. She wiped her eyes of fake tears and sniffed pathetically in an overdrawn cry for furthered attention. “I’m here to save you, my sweet. To make everything all right again. I’ve felt you calling. All alone, whispering and clawing at the dark. My prince…trapped in a prison of electricity where the nasty fence shocks you if you reach passed the wire. Left in the corner where only…only…”

“So, yeh…news travels.”

“The big bad lawyers told me. They whispered all sorts of nasty lies.” She neared, nuzzling the crook of his neck. “But the stars, my sweet. They tell the greatest lie of all. They said that you had gone away from me. So far that I cannot reach you. So far into the dark where my help cannot lead you back to where you belong.”

Spike snickered and moved aside, puffing appreciatively at his cigarette. “You lost interest in tryin’ to reach me years ago. The only reason you’re here is to make your precious Daddy happy. Sorry, Sweets. I’ve had my fair share of that scene, an’ I’m not lookin’ for a repeat.”

“Not even for your princess?”

That was bloody rich.

“Face it, Dru. You stopped bein’ my princess a long time ago.”

Someone unaccustomed to her random bouts of behavior would have been taken for a loop. As it was, he had more than his fair share of experience playing on his behalf. When she fell to her knees and began moaning once more, shaking violently, it was an exercise in protocol not to go to her immediately. “You…you stink of her!” She proclaimed loudly, wiping her hands against herself as though trying to rid her skin of an unwanted residue. As though contact with her former love was contamination of his uncanny humanity. As though she was in danger of contracting the same sort of caring. “She’s all over you. Filthy, rotten girl. Stealing my William. But she leaves you in shadows so that she can dance. You’re in the shadows now. With me.”

“You came to me, luv. So, yeh. I got myself a li’l problem concernin’ a girl that will, for the sake of this conversation, remain nameless. ‘S your fault, anyway. Y’should’ve known a right catch like me wouldn’t stay on the market long after we parted ways.” He managed a semi-cocky smile that failed for his lack of feeling. “Did you think I’d wait around for you to come to your senses?”

“She’s…” Her face crumpled with disgust. He knew that feeling well having grown more than accustomed to its presence. His own realization where his heart lay, and would remain until Buffy finally snuffed it or he rightfully met his dust. Either option was not the sort that one aspired to accomplish. “She’s a Slayer, my lovely. A nasty, wicked girl. Ooohhhhh…my skin is crawling all over. Crawling, crawling…” She started scratching at her flesh madly, a glance of pure desperation overwhelming her. “Make it stop! Make it stop!”

Spike had the decency to look sheepish. “Oi. No one’s braggin’ here.”

Drusilla mewled pitifully as her compulsion deepened. “I cannot see you. You’re lost in the woods and I cannot take you home.” She paused; ignoring the skeptical look he gave her, and had cried out in pain the next minute, clutching at her stomach. It was habit alone that prompted him to go to her, to support her in his arms as the vision came and went. The familiar trembling lasted only a minute, but she clutched to him far longer than needed. “The big bad wolf is coming for you, my Spike. All alone, lost in the woods. Galloping, galloping, and here he comes.”

A flawless eyebrow perched. “Somethin’s comin’ to get me?” he asked hesitantly. “Think your timin’s a li’l off, sweetheart.”

“But no…it’s coming for the both of you.” As suddenly as it had appeared, her depression alleviated and a huge grin sprouted across her face. “Ooh, isn’t that pretty? You should really see it, my darling. The stars are painting such lovely colors. And now…the sky is about to open.” The still crypt rang with the harmonious melody of a delighted squeal. “No one can stop the lark from singing. Sweet nightingale. Born to the night, just as we are. Singing sweetly until the nasty lark comes to chase you off. Bad lark. The sun will do nasty things to you when she wakes.” With another demented cackle, she pivoted to her childe, eyes shining like gems. “You have been a very bad doggie,” she scolded, performing the international sign for ‘shame on you’ before bringing her finger to her lips. “No treats for the bad doggies, you hear? No, no…no treats at all.”

Spike sighed tiredly. This was getting really old, really fast. “You’ve heard my answer, luv,” he said with every last strain of patience that he could muster. “An’ I’ve had my fair share of nightly visitors. Go tell Darla that ‘s off. The whole buggerin’ deal, you get me? I want no part of this.”

“But I have a secret,” she cooed, eyes distant in a gaze that forewarned little was getting through. “Miss Edith told me not to share. She’ll be so disappointed if I break my word. But I’m cross with her. She whispers lies against the night wind and makes it impossible for the children to have their cake and milk.”

Another sigh. Experience cautioned that it was better during such spells to simply humor her. The consequences if impatience was exacted could be very dire. He knew this firsthand. “All right, luv. All right. What did Miss Edith tell you?”

Not a beat was spared. Drusilla fell to her knees unceremoniously and straddled her wrists, raven hair flying back as her eyes narrowed gleefully. “The beast is coming for you,” she informed him, rocking back and forth. “Scampering down hallways, looking over the corridors. You aren’t as sneaky as you think. No, no. Not nearly enough time. No. We don’t want to make the King of Cups unhappy. That won’t do at all. Oooohh!” she threw her head back, grinning as though she had just reach some orgasmic bliss. “My Daddy likes to play. He and grandmum want to taste her blood. They will pour it down every hallway and dance naked under the moonlight. He is a vulture, circling around the dead. And you…” Her eyes opened and cleared, centering resolutely the peroxide vampire. “You are the lark, and he is going to make you bleed all over.”

There was one thing he knew for certain; making Drusilla jealous was not something that one should aspire to, regardless of her disposition. His affection for the Slayer was dangerous enough—implicating Angelus would likely push her over the proverbial edge.

But the Grand Poof wasn’t interested in making Buffy his voracious sex kitten. If he wanted her in Los Angeles, it was for one cause and one cause alone.

It was rather unnerving, knowing that he would stake Drusilla here and now if she made one brazen move to complete her still-unvoiced intentions. Unnerving to know that he was so lost already as to compromise a hundred years of history for the sake of something that would never be his. Buffy was untouchable, and he accepted that. He accepted that the morning he awoke from that godawful (bloody fantastic) dream. The morning he first realized the depth of his true feelings. Even if he performed the largest transformation the world had ever seen, there was no hope for his hapless desires to manifest.

It was a dreary acknowledgment, but he was satisfied. Content. Because with her, with this distant admiration, he knew the only peace that the century had offered.

Drusilla had been his savior; Buffy was redemption in itself. And to protect her, he would do what every fiber of his being rejected. He would stake his sire. He would defy the mandate of vampiric law. He would betray his brethren and do all he could to protect the Slayer.

Hell, he was a rebel, after all.

“Pet,” he said slowly, stepping forward, every move marked with caution. He knew her well enough to know that the slightest offset could potentially send her down a spiral of bad tidings. Even in falsely civilized conditions such as this. “Y’don’t know what you’re gettin’ into here. There’s…stuff in motion that you can’t stop. You an’ Darla an’ the Ponce can be as bloody chaotic as you please in dear ole LA. I—”

She held a hand up, quivering slightly. Every indication of a merry temperament lost itself completely with the presence of her demeanor. “I see you,” she whimpered, voice quivering. “Nasty little jibes. Dancing all on your lonesome. You’d kill for her…” The crazed vampire’s fingers caressed her own lips as if to ward off nasty words from escaping into the air. “You’d kill your princess?”

“Dru—”

“You’d…” And then she was disgusted, scratching at her skin once more. The face of a leaper without his disease. That was his girl, all right. The true first— Spike’s first, and in many ways, the only. She had brought him here. A nineteenth century lunatic attempting admirably to keep up with a world that did not want her. “You’d die for her. Nasty, nasty William. Reeking of the Slayer. She stinks you up, she does. Perfuming her good intentions all over.”

“You an’ Darla…” He sighed. This was more difficult than he could have ever comprehended. “You jus’ need to go back. I’ve told you my part. The answer’s no. Bloody carnage, sod all. Got me plenty of that ‘ere.” The nagging voice harbored perpetually in the back of his head forewarned that he was dangerously close to talking himself out of his own excuse, but somehow, even that cautionary diction failed to signal any red signs. As though, despite his liking for violence, he knew well enough to leave matters be. The chip’s exclusion would be a plus. A major plus. But somehow, the appeal had lost itself. He hadn’t given it much thought at all since the night that everything changed for him. And that was the way it was. “Jus’ doesn’ hold the same thrill for me anymore.”

“I’ve wrecked you,” she decided sorrowfully. “I’ve turned you inside out and all the birdies tear at your ribbons until there is nothing left but spoiled milk.”

“Yeh well, your bad, pet.” He spread his arms. “’m a taken gent. I might be bloody ruined, but I’m taken.”

Drusilla sniffled. “Grandmum will be most displeased.”

“Piffle. Grandmum doesn’ give two bloody pisses about me. Never has. She made herself quite clear when she was…” Spike trailed off with dangerous realization, glancing about the crypt in confirmation of what was already known. Though he had acknowledged it upon approach, Darla’s absence hadn’t struck him as particularly suspicious until it occurred to him that in a town of such size, there wasn’t much territory to explore.

And if the tale was accurate, her invitation at the Summers residence still stood.

“Dru,” the peroxide vampire said sharply, parading over to his dark maker and grasping her by the shoulders. One good shake—not too violent. He wouldn’t be intentionally violent with her unless it came down to radical decision-making. “Where’s Darla?”

She blinked at him. A long, annoyingly tame blink.

“Where. Is. Darla?”

Another blink. Then slowly, she smiled.

“Grandmum went for walkies,” Drusilla singsonged, pulling free without much persuasion. “She wanted to dance under the moonlight and taste the delights off the candy-coated tree. They are quite nummy, as I recall. Loads and loads of sweets to eat. Apples, plums, and—”

“Did you do somethin’?”

“My prince asks—”

“Bugger your sodding prince!” Spike knew he was on the verge of bursting into game face, and had he a moment to stop and reflect; he would have been taken aback by the unspoken implication. “You’re understandin’ me, Dru. I know that look. Stop skittering around the question an’ answer me. Darla mentioned somethin’ about some drug. Ro…Rohypnol, tha’s the one. Popular among date rapists an’ the like.” He paraded closer, eyes flashing neon. Energy protruded from every dead vein, begging to be released. A timely image of the Incredible Hulk flashed within his hindsight, and he inwardly reminded himself to kill Xander for the bloody awful cultural references. “You were at the Bronze tonight, weren’ you? The place was crawlin’ with—”

“I remember the Bronze,” she replied cryptically, kittenish grin revealing too much of what had not been said. “We used to go dancing. All of us. Remember that, William?”

“Actually, you an’ Peaches would go dancin’. I’d watch from the bloody sidelines. On. With. It.” He paused. “The lackeys…Stay Puft mentioned there were a few—”

“Ooohh! My boy’s getting it! Closer, closer, please! You’re almost there.” The grin on her face grew wider, and she was practically bursting with glee. “You mustn’t be cross with us, Spike. Grandmum assured me all was for your benefit. And I do so want to do right by you, my sweet. To make everything the way it should be.” She brought her hands behind her head and thrust her pelvis against him suggestively. “Grandmum always knows best.”

Spike’s eyes went distant with the cold sting of realization.

“Buffy.”

“She’s gone!” Drusilla cried gleefully, clapping her hands together. “Ring around the rosey, pockets full of posey, the nasty Slayer is gone! Oh, we’re going to have such fun with her!”

“This was all Darla’s fixin’. She knew I’d…” In all his years, he didn’t reckon he’d ever felt any thicker than he did at that minute. “She knew that I’d race across town the moment she mentioned that you were after her.”

It was useless attempting to make conversation with Drusilla. She was completely foregone, resorting to twirling in endless circles, face mapped with unkempt delight. “It’s just as I thought it would be!” She stopped just as suddenly as she began, focusing darkly on her platinum childe. “I’m sorry you do not wish to come with us, my darling,” she said regretfully. “But if you like, I will give the Slayer your regards.”

In days to come, Spike would wonder what prompted him to let her go that night. He remembered distinctly wishing her dead. He remembered the charge coursing through his numb limbs, the will to pop her head off good and proper. To do what he had wanted to do time and time again for ruining him. For sending him here. For bringing him to his complete and final destruction. He had imagined it a thousand ways. A thousand times. Every corner of Drusilla’s demise was etched out and played, stopped, and played again.

But he couldn’t do it. Not that night.

Not when his thoughts were consumed by one consistency. One reason to end all other reasons.

One choice to make in order to right the others broken.

He knew. He knew what he had to do. A decision made with such ease that it would have startled him into submission if he truly recognized the layered nadir of his transformation. Knee-deep in redemption without knowing that such was what he sought. Drowning in the light.

Drowning before he fell.

The beginning had never looked so bleak.






To be continued in Chapter Seven: A Distant Chord…





You must login (register) to review.