Bright lights and dimwits, that was Los Angeles’ in a nutshell as far as Spike was concerned. The night was as clear as one could hope for in a city with ills running so deep, they could wrap around you in a tangible cloth of stench. London Fog reborn in West Hollywood. Made Spike glad he didn’t need air to live, otherwise death might seem like a sweeter alternative.
He watched lazily as Drusilla skipped ahead, delicate fingers ghosting over glass as she moved from store to store, taking in the wares. A small smile bloomed on his lips as he watched his love, looking young and untainted, a porcelain doll that had yet to break.
It only went prove how deceiving one’s eyes could be.
Spike’s gaze was drawn momentarily to the storefront window on his right, eyeing a mannequin in a pink vinyl getup appreciatively. He was about to suggest the item for his princess, when the same breath he was happy for not needing caught in his throat. Gazing back at him in a similarly shocked manner was…himself. What the bloody…
The ground seemed to fall out from beneath as he watched his reflection in awed silence. His princess danced a whirly gig about him; cool breath on his neck, sharp nails scratching up the length of his arm, leaving little red welts along his collarbone.
The air thickened about Spike wrapping him tightly in its dark embrace as, slowly, the image twisted, and changed, melding with his own in a cheap photographers trick. Eternal seconds clicked on by as the newly merged image before him made his knees quake, as a sudden and irrational fear suffused him. The world around him faded to black.
Brilliant blue eyes gazed into
his own, out of a face that unmistakably belonged to him, only almost
unrecognizable due to one dramatic difference. The eyes staring back at him
were filled with horror. An emotion he knew to the depths of his bones, and had
only before ever seen in the eyes of his victims. I think I’m gonna be sick…
He felt his stomach lurking as a sudden wave of nausea overtook him, before his mind was swept back to reality, and the feeling was a quickly washed away. The image faded as the voice of his black beauty whispered in his ear; “Such a merry feast we shall have.” She took the lobe of his ear in between her lips then, and bit down, hard. A trickle of blood began to flow down his neck, but was swept away by the velvet of her tongue.
Somehow, Spike managed to find his voice again, “When would that be, Dru?”
Her dancing twirls sped up, hair rushing around her like a black fog, “When all the pretty stars line up and take their bows.”
She craned her head to the heavens, hands running up and through her dark locks before she reached out and swooped Spike up into the dance; laughing merrily before resting her head on his shoulder, “My William is coming home.”
“Pet?” His query was silenced by her soft lips pressing against his own, their arms wound tightly around each other as what was chaste become laden with passion, pulling him down deeper into her madness. The outside world drowned out in her depths and brought low by that intoxicating kiss.
Drusilla broke the spell suddenly from him then, admiring the pretty kiss swollen lips of he boy. She drug her thumb across his mouth before lifting her eyes and met Spike’s heavy lidded and slightly irritated gaze, to ponder; “I wonder what he would like for his birthday?”
Spike drew back slightly from her then, the image already fading from his mind, a silly dream that had no reason to be recalled, and cocked his head in question.
Her eyes blackened and she began to sway to a non-existent breeze. Without further warning or any explanation she grasped his hand tightly in her own, and took off at a tear down the street, “We must go now, or Daddy shall be cross.”
With a loud ‘hrumph’ Spike plopped down on the plush maroon velvet sofa, running his hand through his hair, freeing the curls from their gelled prison, as he watched Drusilla greet Angelus with a kiss. Ponce.
He leaned his head onto the back of the seat, losing focus as he traced each line of the ceiling - glided along their curves and twists. Strangely reminiscent of a cloud filled sky.
He suddenly missed the sun.
The hypnotic exercise caused Spike’s mind to drift while the world ebbed away, becoming murky and insignificant. The voices of his family seemed distant and liquid, and he had the vague impression of being held beneath water, the still surface of a lake. His limbs flailing uselessly for purchase, but failing utterly. The thought of drowning forced a shudder to amble up his spine, and caused him to focus on the always-entertaining members of his little family troupe.
“Hey! Get your crazy lips off of my man!” The shrill cheerleader’s voice ripped through Spike causing him to lift his heavy head for a moment – watching Cordelia furiously pull Drusilla away from their sire. Angelus laughed a light, sardonically benevolent laugh, and appeared to be distantly appreciating his dark princess’ sulking after being torn from her ‘Daddy’.
Cordy’s yelling escalated, and soon she was virulently and bodily threatening both Dru and Angelus. Spike, irritated at this inane and all-too-common interruption from a perfectly meandering reverie, threw his hands up and snorted at his grandsire’s half-handed attempts to calm Cordelia’s impetuous and malicious tendencies. Eventually Angelus succeeded in abating her childish fury, and was drug into the couples’ suite to make amends for his offense.
Spike’s eyelids, still heavy with apathy, closed to the soft cooing of his love while she brushed Miss Edith’s hair and set up a tea party for herself and her beloved doll.
He spared his pet a glance, simply assuring himself that Dru was, indeed, as contented as she sounded, and smiled lightly when he saw Red joining her for the party.
With perfect sincerity and concern, Drusilla questioned; “Where did your pretty little boy, go?” She stroked the redhead’s ashen face and poured warm, imaginary tea into their cups.
Willow wiped the corners of her mouth and smiled in skull splitting amusement as she answerd her sire: “Got hungry, Mommy.”
Drusilla shook a long finger at Willow, “tsk, tsk. Naughty girl. Playmates are so much nicer when they can fight back.”
Willow’s full bottom lip jutted out, “I know. All my puppies break so easily though.”
“Then we shall have to get you a stronger one.”
The crystalline laughs of the two girls filled the room, granting a brief reprieve from the animal grunts coming from the pair in the bedroom and allowed the fog to overtake Spike once more as he drifted into sleep with a smile.
Something a few dreams were sure to wipe clean.
To Be Continued...
Story Index