7.
A/N: This chapter contains a direct quote from the episode “Fool For Love”.
Dancing was always a good sign even if there wasn’t any music. He was content to sit and watch. Drusilla was happy, that’s all that mattered. She swayed over to Spike and bent down, securing the locks on his wheelchair. Then she gripped the arms of the chair and spoke lovingly into his face.
“Don’t worry Spike, I’ll make you strong again. I’ll make you mine again. Dance with me?” She held out her hand in invitation. Spike looked at his legs and couldn’t move.
A tall chaos demon, antlers dripping with thick slime emerged from directly behind Spike and took Drusilla’s hand. They oozed gracefully onto the dance floor. Spike tried to growl but could not. Drusilla glanced over her shoulder toward Spike.
“Don’t be a bad dog, Spike. You have friends to keep you company.” Spike glanced sideways and saw hundreds of gaunt huddled figures staring at him in accusation, each with dry puncture wounds at their throats. Drusilla’s solemn voice filled his head.
“I have to find my pleasures, Spike. You taste like ashes.”
Spike opened his eyes and stared at the blank ceiling. The reproof of Drusilla’s voice echoed in his gut like an old wound. Jangling images rebounded in his mind as the uneasy feeling lingered. There was something about Drusilla, something he couldn’t quite grasp. Clearly captivity did not agree with him. A chaos demon? Where did that come from? Spike sighed and let the images dissipate. It was a pity, Drusilla dreams were usually more entertaining than that one had been, and far bloodier as well.
*
When Buffy returned the next day Spike was ready for her.
“I don’t care what the soddin’ calendar says. You tell me about Drusilla. You said she changed. What? You dust her, Slayer? Is that it?”
“No.” It was the truth.
Spike walked forward, stretching the chains behind him to their limit. “You tell me where my Drusilla is, bitch, or I’ll tear through my flesh, out of these chains and rip out your bloody neck before you can reach the door.”
God. He’d probably try that. The Spike who loved Drusilla would have done that. In a flash Buffy knelt and grabbed the wooden leg of the easy chair.
“And she’s skilled at improvisation!” Spike chuckled mirthlessly and stepped back. He placed his hands on his hips and spoke in a relaxed tone. “Slayer, tell me the truth. Where’s my princess? I know you know.”
“She…left.”
“WHAT?! Fuck. That’s such a weak lie, it’s laughable.” Spike slowed his words so his dimwitted captor would understand. “She’s not well, dearie, and wouldn’t be able to leave on her own. What are you playing at?”
“I’m not playing, William.” Calling him by that name was not one of Buffy’s better decisions. It just happened. She merely wanted to show him that she knew him. He reacted badly, and surged forward once again.
“You’ve got something going with Angelus, don’t you? Tag team torture? Is that it? Been there. Done that. NOT interested. If that’s what you’re after, then break off that chair leg and stake me now because this pup ain’t playing.”
“Angelus has nothing to do with this.”
“You are a lying, bloody bitch, you are. It’s been a long time, yeah, but I’d know that scent anywhere.”
“Not this again,” Buffy let loose a weary sigh.
“And nobody, but nobody calls me that name.”
“You can stop it right now. I know your prancing peacock act. I’ve seen it. Seen. It.” Buffy showed her strength. She’d need to be tough and confrontational. This was Spike from long ago. Before he knew her. Before he loved her. Before he changed the world for her.
God, Drusilla, Buffy cursed silently. I’d reassemble your dust just to stake you myself.
“Angel is a friend. He’s my friend. He’s your friend.” She hadn’t heard him cackle in years. It was a frightening sound.
This one was off her nut. “You are delusional. ANGEL?!” The name was a sour screech. “Is that what those soddin’ gypsies cursed Angelus with? Hm? Is he a prancing poodle now or a nice soft door mat?”
“A friend. He’s a friend.”
“Right,” Spike’s icy expression disconnected from his dark amusement. “A ‘friend’ with his scent under you skin. You gave me your blood, Slayer. Did you think I wouldn’t taste that? He’s had you. Tasted you–“
Buffy clenched her teeth. “That’s over! That’s so…OVER!” Her mind scrambled for something that would convince him. “Why can’t your stupid nose smell…” Her voice shrank to a faint level. “I guess a skunk can’t smell himself.” Tears threatened. She fought them.
“Forget Angel, Spike. What about this? Did I fake this too?” She pulled at her neckline, turned her head and pointed to a small area of accumulated scar tissue. Spike moved forward by mindless instinct, his gaze fixed on her neck. Something jostled inside his body, a sort of ticklish throb. He licked his lips and felt himself harden.
It wasn’t just the temptation of a revealed neck, ripe for the biting. A recognition rose out of his depths. Somehow Spike knew that he had bitten her. Those were his marks. How could that be? There was no memory in his head, but he felt it in his gut. She had let him drink from her.
His throat thickened with emotion and an aching hunger while his eyes took in the unbelievable, a grouping of tiny healed punctures. It was a beautiful sight, no question. He’d marked her. What the bloody, buggering hell was going on? Spike knew who he was. What he was. He fought slayers. He drained slayers. He didn’t mark them and he absolutely didn’t cl– No. Not that. No self respecting creature of the night would ever do that. This was a trick…a scam…a hoax. If he stayed sharp and kept his wits about him, he’d figure it out.
Spike twisted his lips into a disbelieving smirk. He ignored the gnawing in his gut that confirmed the truth and spoke with detached derision. “So…you’re telling me…What? I came to Sunnydale with Drusilla, she left me and you consoled me with your open legs and neck? That’s full service slayering, that is.”
“No, that didn’t happen, not like that.”
“Then like what? Because there’s only one way I know my mark would EVER be on your neck and, the thing of it is love, you’re bleedin’ well still alive.” His voice rose to a higher pitch of incredulity.
“What did you do, Slayer? Take some pointers from Angel and turn me into your lap dog? Is that what this is? I snapped out of it and you want to turn me back? Forget it. I don’t want to know anymore.” Spike paused and then tried a different tack.
“Strike a bargain, Slayer. Let me go and I’ll leave this town for good. I’ll find Dru myself and you’ll never see hide nor hair of me again.”
“I can’t let you go.”
“Why the hell not? I do know how to keep my word.”
“I know…” she spoke softly. “I know you were a gentleman.” He looked at her and blinked, taken aback. What exactly did she know about him? And if this wasn’t a game, what was it?
“It’s not safe for you. There’s too many slayers. You’d be staked for sure.”
“Too many? Don’t talk daft. There’s one slayer at a time. I should know.”
“Things changed. I told you. There was a calling of slayers. All the ones we trained are active now.”
“You mean there’s more of you? A stake happy brigade? Bloody–“
“Drusilla did this to you, Spike. She did this to hurt you, to turn back the clock and make you love her again.” Spike caught that reference. Love Drusilla again. Again? He already loved her. They were forever. Nothing would come between them. “I don’t know, maybe she had some notion that you’d follow her to the ends of the earth so she could hurt you again.”
Drusilla was fond of games, especially punishing games. “You’re in this with…Drusilla?” That made no sense at all, but nothing in this blank room made sense. Spike grasped at whatever straws he could, struggling to keep his head above water.
“NO! Get a clue would you? I didn’t do anything. Drusilla did. Impulsive, irrational, grind you beneath her insane heel Drusilla.” Spike started to pace.
“Drusilla left you, Spike, she did. First she left you for a Chaos demon and nearly drove you insane. Then she left you again for a Fungus demon. And she blamed you all the while. She captured you and put something in your brain. It ate up your memories. Now you’re back there, back in Drusilla’s tea party dreamland. She did this to hurt you. To take everything from you. Everything you fought for. Everything you are. She did this to destroy you.”
Spike paced and glared at her, then paced some more. His mouth twisted in thought while his jaw clenched and unclenched. As much as he wanted to smash the Slayer’s face for talking such rot, there was a glimmer of possible truth that couldn’t be totally discounted.
Drusilla would do that, he thought. Yank my bloody chain. Punish me because it rained on her bleedin’ dollies. The other demons part of the scenario was completely believable. When Drusilla got it in her mind to follow her wandering eye, she wasn’t exactly the most discerning of individuals. Whatever the truth was, Spike needed to find it out.
“Where is she, Slayer?”
Buffy balked, not knowing how to proceed. Hadn’t Giles urged caution in exactly this area? She knew she’d told Spike too much already and her silence was only making him more and more agitated.
“WHERE?”
“Sh-she’s– She’s dust, Spike.”
What happened next scared Buffy and shook her. It broke her heart. Spike’s face broke. He morphed and roared and surged forward, falling in a heap onto the cement floor. Howling. Raging. Crying out her name. His black goddess. His sire. His moon for over a century. Buffy ran from the room.
His primal howls echoed in her ears as she ran home through the fresh, dark night.