First Stanza - [Action & Voice]

[deadpoet]

[Action, Locked to Willow]
[A few moments before Spike arrived, he and Illyria had just escaped most of the main action and a great big bloody dragon come out of nowhere. He'd lost track of Angel and Gunn. Wesley was dead. So now it was just the two of them. Until Spike suddenly came to the surface of the river, cursing as he suddenly started burning and then swimming back underwater again until he could hide under the shade of the bridge. A bloody tiny bridge. And here he was with only a pair of white pants, now failing to hide much of anything, as he ended up STUCK in this tiny shadow. There was a book in the sunlight that was just out of reach. As the day passed on, it continued to get further away from him as the sun shifted the shadows further and further away.

What bollocks.

He decided he'd just wait until the first person came across the bridge and get their attention. That ought to do it.]

[Action/Voice, Open To All]

[Well, Willow took him 'home'. And he rather decided he liked it. Of course, a vamp can't make himself good and comfy without the proper accouterments. So after taking a nice long shower in House Seven, perusing the kitchen, and no doubt making his new housies terrible uncomfortable, he makes his way out as soon as it's evening. In his New Feather pants at first, because what else was there? But his first stop is the clothing store and he's soon back into slimming back. And then it's off to pick out a fancy weapon, get some blood at Good Spirits, find some smokes, recollect his lighter, and then snoop around town because he knows a certain old flame is around here. Not you, Buffy.

Around midnight, he hits up the journal after finally recollecting it from beside the bridge.]

This is a nice little village you lot have here. Very cozy. Has a certain quality to it, you might say. Very Shyamalan-type setting. Too cheerful. Downright unsettling, if you ask me.

Anyway, who do I talk to for the big plan? I've done my sitting around already. Relaxing, sure. Not too fond of the wings. Too ironic for my taste. But I'm ready to go and find the wankers who locked us up in here and do something about it. Champion of the people, right here. Just point me in the right direction.

Comments

[deadpoet]

Oh how he wanted to simply enjoy that. Soak it up in the moment. He could do it, but having a soul meant knowing when you were up to thinks you shouldn't be. He was starting to become aware of how much he hated who he was being right now.

He rolled away from her, sitting at the end of the bed instead. "There's not going to be victims, Dru. I can't live here with you. Not in the middle of sodding nowhere."

[namesthestars]

"What?"

She sat up abruptly, the glow of being with him scraping off at his sudden departure.


"But...we need nowhere, my dangerous boy! My deadly boy! They'll come for us, otherwise! With torches!"

The Inquisitor....

[deadpoet]

"Because you're sodding reckless, Dru. The rules are different here."

He reached down for his pants. "I ran into the other Slayer looking for you. She had a stake ready for you. Wouldn't have hesitated to use it on you. Victims or no victims."

[namesthestars]

"Numbers, dearest," she crooned, trying to reach his pants first. "The more of us? The weaker they are."

What was he doing? Was he....


He was going to leave her.

[deadpoet]

He took hold of them. Tightly. He knew what she was doing.

"I don't sire, Dru. Not now, not ever again."

[bloodwaif]

"That soul!" she cried, trying to fully engage in a tug of war with those trousers, now. "It's the soul, is it not? It's made you all feeble and I'm cross! CROSS."

[deadpoet]

He gave them one solid tug. To prove his strength. "Feeble is one thing I've never been, pet. Weak for love, yes. But never feeble."

[hismasterpiece]

She tugged right back, also strong. "Prove it! Kill an infant child for me!"

[deadpoet]

"No." He isn't going to rip his pants in a tug of war, so he lets her have them. But he grabs a sheet to wrap himself with instead. "You want strong? I've a stake, right there on the floor. Strong would be killing you. I still love you, Dru, with my soul and all. I'm a bloody fool to do it, after what's happened. But I do, so there you have it. I don't want to kill you. But you won't make me kill either. Not for you."

And if he could help it, he wouldn't kill her either. He sure as hell didn't want to.

[hismasterpiece]

"Lost lost lost lost lost." She clutched her face in her hands. She loved him. LOVED him, blackly, bleakly. A macabre need for him. He made her dead heart dance. He always had.

With his pants still in her possession, Drusilla rocked back and forth on the bed. She was trying to comprehend it. He was back, but he was different, and he wasn't himself. But he loved her. But he wouldn't prove it.

She moaned.

[deadpoet]

He stared at her, cursing himself for being sympathetic. She was his sire. And the one he tore through Europe with for a century. And he hated himself for it. He loathed that he just used her to ease his frustrations.

Spike sat back on the bed again, reaching for her shoulder.

"Not lost, Dru. Found."

[hismasterpiece]

She was crying. Her face was wet, at least. Tears.

"Lost," she whispered back. Brokenhearted.

[deadpoet]

"I know."

Tears from a killer. A monster. He knew in his mind what she was. But that didn't make those tears any less genuine. His own pain of being in love without a soul still so fresh in his mind.

[namesthestars]

"Stay. I'll bake you pies of treacle and apples. I'll cook that onion dish you love. Stay. Don't leave trails for me to follow again."

Don't go back to her.

[deadpoet]

"Too late to go back. The night's more than gone."

He hadn't planned to leave. Not for long. It was just not a discussion for the nude. The offer to cook, however, had him mildly perplexed. He'd indulged in other foods for the entirely of his unlife. But they always stole it from their victims. It was efficient in a way.

[bloodwaif]

What else would a souled man want? Drusilla was shooting in the dark.

"Then you'll stay. Come back to bed. Come back."

She had no sheets wrapped around herself. Nudity was a non-issue for Drusilla. Angelus had made sure to destroy her sense of propriety and shame a long time ago.

[deadpoet]

"No more human blood."

It was time for a bargain. A terrible bargain made by lovers. But one he had to make to save her life.

"That means no more victims, Dru. Dead or alive. You drink the blood I bring you. No matter how nasty it tastes. Then I stay."

It was a strange reversal, him setting the terms of their relationship. So different than when she abandoned him five years ago.

[hismasterpiece]

"You're....you're siding with them." Dru snarled it like a cat. But she couldn't lose him, not again -- not when she'd waited so long for family.


"..........Promise?"

[deadpoet]

"I promise. You won't be alone. I'll see to that."

A willingness to compromise. There was hope yet, he thought.

[namesthestars]

"See to it, then. See to it, my dangerous deadly boy."

[deadpoet]

Something. That's what it was. It remained to be seen how long Drusilla would play along before boredom and bloodlust set in. He was banking on being there for damage control.

"It's been seen. But you get any fancies, you'll tell me, won't you?"

[namesthestars]

"I fancy everything. I fancy all. My notlife is one great long lacy black fancy, dearest. You know that."

A pause.

"I'll tell you everything I see, down to the tiniest finger."

[deadpoet]

It hadn't gone unnoticed what she was wearing before. He'd have to see about some dresses for her, wouldn't he?

"What do you see now, pet?"

[namesthestars]

"I see me, dressed all in eiderdown. I see me floating over a colorful girl. Biting her. Turning her."

Silly fancy -- Drusilla couldn't bite at the moment.

[deadpoet]

He sighed, a familiar sense of exasperation washing over him. How often they talked like this. Him trying to set her straight. Though before, he'd have no issue with her biting someone. Now...

"No, Dru. No biting. And definitely no turning."