TITLE: Sangre y Cigarrillos
AUTHOR: zero (zero@jamesmarsters.com)
RATING: PG-13 for vague sex.
CLASSIFICATION: Spike/Dru
SUMMARY: Spike and Dru come to terms with their relationship. Set sometime
after "Lover's Walk".
DISCLAIMER: Yes, they are mine. Okay, not really. I wish they were,
though. Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon, 20th, the WB,
Mutant Enemy, and probably Satan ('cause you know Joss has to have sold
his soul by now).
AUTHOR'S NOTE: All my fics are available at www.zeroimpact.com. This one's
for my fellow goatherders, who made me laugh harder than I *ever* remember
laughing before.


SANGRE Y CIGARRILLOS
by zero (zero@jamesmarsters.com)

The screaming had stopped hours ago, after he'd smoked his first
cigarette. Since then, three more had burned down untouched, filling the
air with the familiar scent of smoldering tobacco. There was a foul taste
in his mouth from the first one, but he made no move to wash it away with
the bottle of tequila resting near his boot.

The porch swing was old, its paint peeling, and a creaky hinge had been
keeping the time as he swung slowly and slightly. Forward, back, forward,
back. A rhythm oddly like life: no matter what you did, you still ended up
hanging in the middle wondering what the point was to setting yourself in
motion in the first place.

After hours of relative stillness, staring at nothing, he turned his head
as the screen door banged open. Drusilla stepped delicately out, arms
flung wide, a rapturous expression on her face, as if carried on a
breeze... or swept away by some knight in shining armor.

His armor, he knew, looked quite tarnished through Dru's eyes. But it
wasn't anything a nice smearing of blood wouldn't cover.

"Have fun, Poodle?" he asked dryly, his voice conveying his annoyance.

She whipped about and her arms dropped, as if she hadn't noticed him there
when she made her entrance onto the porch. "Shhhhh!" she scolded, holding
up a reproachful finger. "You've been naughty!"

He didn't disagree. Didn't say any of the things on his mind. Didn't
point out that she'd been the naughty one -- with a Chaos Demon, of all
things! -- or that he really had nothing to apologize for.

No, logic didn't work with Drusilla. He'd learned that long ago.

"I know," he sighed. He crushed out his cigarette with the toe of his
scuffed black boot.

"You didn't get to play!" Drusilla continued, in a kind of taunting
sing-song. Her feet began stepping rapidly, carrying her in a dance of her
own making about the sagging porch. "Spike's been naughty, so he couldn't
play with Princess!"

He couldn't contain another sigh, but she didn't seem to notice.

"It was so lovely, Spike," she murmured, a dreamy look in her eyes. She
sat gingerly next to him on the bench, perched there like a bird that
would take flight again at any second. "Such a wonderful gift. All the
blood..."

She trailed off, and he turned his head again to look at her. The evidence
of her "play" was splattered over the front of her white dress in a
senseless pattern that would've made the fashion world murmur in awe, if
the effect hadn't been achieved through the arc of severed arteries.

They sat silently for a moment, side by side, her bare arm brushing
against his. Then she stood abruptly, whirled around to look down at him
imperiously and said, "Now my Spike may play."

He was on his feet immediately, the motion smooth and much anticipated
after hours of stillness. Drusilla laughed and pranced away when he
reached for her, his fingertips barely brushing against the material of
her sleeve. She began spinning again, the blood-stained white dress
flaring out around her and her bare feet thumping hollowly on the old wood
of the porch.

His hands reached into the whirling storm of limbs and hair to grab her
face, his firm touch stilling her. Two sets of burning yellow eyes met,
locked, and then their lips met, too, in a ravenous kiss. She bit his
tongue, and his teeth punctured her lip, and their stolen blood mingled in
their locked mouths. His kiss tasted of stale cigarettes, and hers of
cheap wine, but the blood washed it all away.

Drusilla moaned, pressing close against him, her hands crawling up
underneath his shirt, her fingernails leaving bloody furrows in his skin.
He growled in response, grasping her arms and tugging them to the front,
where he held them tightly. She growled back, playfully snapping her
elongated teeth at him, then she twisted from his grip and sprinted like a
gazelle into the house.

He yanked the screen door back open before it could even fully close and
followed the patter of her feet through the place. The house was old, but
not falling down, and the interiors were much nicer than the outside would
have onlookers believe. And as an added bonus, it had a spacious, dark
basement, which had quickly become Drusilla's playpen.

The blood of the old Mexican couple he'd killed for the place had tasted
foul on his tongue, and their deaths had been performed indifferently. The
murder had been a perfunctory one: something he had to do to secure the
house, and he'd taken no joy in it. It had been a long time since death
had thrilled him.

He found Drusilla in the bedroom, her dress haphazardly tossed over a
chair and she herself spread out, gloriously naked, over the king-sized
bed. Her fingers brushed up and down over the slight, gently rounded
curve of her belly, her nails barely scraping the flesh. Her legs were
spread, just slightly, inviting and tantalizing.

Her eyes were black and bottomless when she looked up at him, then her
hand strayed lower, and a wicked grin spread across her face. The index
finger of her other hand bent, and he stepped toward her, as if a string
were attached to his heart and the other end was wrapped around her
finger. If he didn't go to her, he would run the risk of his heart being
pulled right from his chest.

She smiled widely at him, pulling him onto the bed with her. The sun that
rose over the Mexican horizon didn't touch them, though it tried hard to
penetrate the spray-painted and boarded bedroom windows.

They spent the day in bed, making love and playing like puppies and
curling around each another while they slept. Drusilla was wonderfully
strong, her recovery complete and her power at its peak. Spike touched her
with all the passion he felt, communicating his love without words. Their
joining carried an undercurrent of desperation, because they both
understood: those daylight hours were their last as lovers, and darkness
would part them for good.

He slipped from her embrace as the room darkened almost imperceptibly,
signaling the sun's exit from the sky.

"You'll go back to Sunnydale." Coming from her lips, it was not a
question.

"It's home," he answered, with a shrug. When he turned to look at her, his
fingers deftly buttoning his jeans, she almost looked disappointed. "I'm
not the demon I used to be, Dru."

She smiled, sadly, and crawled across the bed, her feet meeting with the
floor. She moved lightly, almost seeming to float; her fingertips rested
on his chest so softly that he barely felt them there.

"You are the demon you always were." Her voice was faint, but earnest.
"You've simply stopped trying to be the demon that others want you to be."

She turned her back to him, crossing to the closet to retrieve clean
clothing, and they finished dressing in silence. They left the house more
easily than they'd acquired it, their arms linked together as he walked
her outside. Drusilla's playthings were abandoned to the house, which
would soon stand empty with the exit of the vampire couple.

They parted ways on the front porch, and she took a seat on the swing as
he descended the steps to his waiting DeSoto. He paused with the door
open, looking back at her over the top of the car. Her dress billowed
slightly in the hot breeze, and she swung her legs underneath the bench
like a little girl.

"You'll be alright?"

She smiled at him, beautifully, like some dark Madonna. A response was not
necessary: for the first time since her death and rebirth... she would be
fine on her own. She would *flourish*.

He nodded once, but didn't climb into the car. "I love you," he said,
passion spent and falling away like the last drop of water from a leaf.
His love changed into something deeper, something old; a piece of the past
that would remain with him, but no longer govern his heart.

"Always," she responded, and though her voice had been barely more than a
whisper, it was carried to him on the wind. "Go and find the life that was
meant for you."

Blood and cigarettes lingered on his tongue, and the taste served as a
reminder of the past. Dust billowed out from under the car's tires as he
raced toward California, Drusilla quickly fading from view.


THE END


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