"How long has she been out, anyway?" Angelus grumbled in mild annoyance as
he flicked another rose petal at Spike. Boredom was abounding. He glanced
to the left, toward the doors, before he finally settled his dark gaze upon
the slumped form of Spike. The younger man was stretched out on the red-
cushioned loveseat, arms folded, several rose petals sticking to his
outfit, with his unhappiness so very apparent.
...Not like it mattered, of course.
"Well?" He demanded again, voice raising a notch as he hurled a petal with a little more violence than before, annoyed with the silent gloom Spike seemed to radiate.
"If he knew, he'd probably be out with her, Angelus," Darla sighed, bustling through the parlor as she tugged at her green lace gloves. A dark glower of distaste was thrown Spike-wards. "I mean, he's always following her around like a little lost puppy, anyway. I'd be more curious as to why he isn't accompanying her."
Spike slowly raised his icy stare upon the elder pair, eyebrow twitching vaguely. "No, I don't know where she is," he replied curtly, trying to mask the tight note of pain therein. He sneered at Darla, now, as he continued to address them, "And no, she... didn't want me to go with her. Said she wanted tonight for herself. Wanted to find a certain somethin', and that she couldn't do it with others in her way. So... I stayed." A glance was thrown at a smirking Angelus. "Satisfied, O Pompous One?"
"Oh, so that's what she's been babbling on about all night? ...Huh." Darla drawled, devoid of any concern at all as she inspected her gloves idly. "You know, I think I'm beginning to think she really is insane. I mean, despite how long she's been around, I still can't make out a single word she says."
A dark snicker of vile amusement erupted from Angelus as he shook his head, a slightly tender hand resting on his lover's shoulder. "Now, Darla. She's just a bit batty is all, our Drusilla. A little ... 'special', maybe, would be more accurate. Don't you think, Spike?" A pointed smirk was shot at the younger vampire, who visibly tensed at those words.
Inwardly turning sick at how the conversation was turning, the blonde wrinkled her nose and sniffed. "Well, be that as it may, I'm bored. And hungry." Turning to her childe, Darla offered up a wickedly sweet smile that easily spoke the words that followed: "Angelus, dear, would you like to come?" And her beam grew drastically as he slipped a possessive arm around her waist.
"Of course! As if you'd expect me to lay about here?" Another 'look' directed to Spike before the pair – laughing raucously to themselves - had slipped past the two grand wooden doors, the lock snapping much louder than Spike had expected it to.
The clock seemed to tick louder, too. And slower. Definitely and annoyingly slower.
...Was the floor creaking a lot more?
A loud, long sigh escaped him as his right foot began to jiggle impatiently. His arms folded and unfolded. He shifted positions on the couch a total of five times in less than a minute. Hum a tune and it was off, or just didn't fit. With a growl of impatience, Spike stood up abruptly and swept to the window, peering intently out over the cobblestone and hobo-and-harlot-littered sidewalks below. "Where the bloody hell are you, Dru? Fucking bored..."
But then he heard it. Tiny as a pinprick - a little-bitty giggle that he recognized instantaneously. His ears perked and, at first, he couldn't repress the smile that flashed across his lips. Dru was home. ...And, upon concentrating hard enough as he took his sweet time making his way back to the loveseat, he could sense she'd brought along something warm. Again, he had a hard time hiding the sudden flare of joy.
He flopped down on to the tiny couch. This would be good. Oh yes it would.
"Spike? Love?" Her tiny, airy voice carried through the halls over their stolen home. He caught her tiny footsteps and the rapidly beating heartbeat of ... something else.
"In here, pet," Spike responded immediately, feet kicked up on the coffee table, Cheshire cat grin in place. As she entered the parlor, his eyes widened at her gift. A tiny infant wrapped in bloodstained blankets was cradled in her arms, wriggling gently in its place. "Pet... you brought me...?" He looked up hopefully to her, and was shocked to find Drusilla gazing lovingly down at the child.
"Sweet little angel... he sang such a tune as his mummy breathed her last," she rambled, her voice laced with sugar and sweetness that Spike could barely recall, one of her long, delicate fingers teasing the child's nose gently. "Couldn't leave him there for the wolves. The wolves would get him. Brought him home with mummy..."
Spike sat stock-still, dumbfounded by her words. "...Dru, love. I... hope you mean for a meal."
And that seemed to crack her out of her state. Drusilla's dark, wide eyes snapped up to his face, narrowing drastically. "You're not devouring my little angel prince!" She huffed, breezing past quickly. Spike was left blank, mouth agape. He hurriedly scrambled from his place, following after her into the master bedroom, where she was setting the child down in the abandoned bassinet. "Well what the bloody hell did you wanna do with it, then?!"
"I'm going to keep it," Dru responded airily, chin tilted up. "My perfect," she crooned down to it, rocking it idly. "Singin' its little song, all for me. Needs a mummy."
"Dru..."
"Needs me," she growled, not even looking up, though Spike knew well enough that it was a warning not to test the waters. But he couldn't stand for this! At all!
"Dru. Poodle. We can't have this child," he sighed, explaining it gently. Though the words felt weird as he spoke them. ...Very, very weird.
She turned her cat-eyes upon him again, a perfectly arched brow twitching. "Why not? I can take care of my little lamb. Make him whole and new and shiny. Make him mine."
"He's not yours!" Spike protested, voice raising
"He IS." Dru rose to her feet immediately. "He's my lost boy! No angel from above or below can take him now! I saved him, he's got me!"
He froze, staring at her, her eyes wild, and he knew. At once, he knew. "You planned this, didn't you?"
Sitting back beside the bassinet again, Drusilla sniffed. "Told you he sang to me. Called for me. Didn't like that wretched whore, the overbearing ogre. Wanted his real mummy. The world was spitting him up, like... olives to a turtle..."
And Spike, then, knew it was best he left well enough alone. He knew he couldn't argue, and knew that it'd come up again later, as soon as Angelus and Darla returned. But he couldn't fight it now, and instead just shook his head as he left the room.
As he'd suspected, there was an argument later. Angelus left the room with a scratch across his face and a limp in his step, daring Spike with his livid gaze just to cross him. Spike declined the unspoken offer and instead decided to peer in on his Sire. Upon reaching her door, he opened it a crack, peeking through. There she lay upon the bed, the child settled upon her stomach as it violently shook something in its fisted hand. He heard the soft rattling sounds, and his brow furrowed at her amused giggle.
She caught his eye and tilted her head back. An invite to enter.
Spike stepped in slowly, closing the door quietly behind him. "'Lo, love."
Drusilla merely hummed in response, returning her gaze upon the infant. He winced inwardly, knowing she was still royally brassed off with him. "Little tiny Tommy, all dressed up in red," she sing-songed her favorite rhyme, clasping the infant's tiny, flailing hands in her own. "Fell out of bed, smashed his head... Little bitty Susie, hangin' from a tree. They cut her down, her head rolled free..."
"Going to give the nibblet nightmares, pet," Spike snickered as he sat slowly beside her. He felt her tense, before slowly easing back. He was happy at that. "What's that in his hand?"
"He won't. He's a brave little soldier, ready for the night. The moon doesn't scare him, not the ramble of the wind. It's much too big a box to be frightened," Dru defended 'her' child, releasing his left hand. The child opened his fist, dropping something tiny and bleached. A rat skull. Spike picked it up, giving it a shake, a tiny rattling filtering out. He peered into one of the eyeholes and found slightly larger chips of bone inside.
A makeshift rattle.
He lifted a brow, before setting it aside and opening his arms for the child. "Give 'em here." Drusilla hesitated, before offering the boy to him and sitting upright as Spike took him. "What's his name?"
"Name?"
"Gotta have a name for the boy, love," Spike pointed out, unable to resist smiling as the baby gurgled in the I'm So Cute sort of way.
"He doesn't need a name, I know who he is," Drusilla beamed, running a nail softly over the child's head. "And he knows who he is."
Spike looked over the top of the infant's head. "And me, pet? I don't. And I'm thinking if Darla and Angelus are letting you keep it, you'd best let them have something name-like to curse at."
He surveyed her as she rolled languidly on her back, sprawled out like a cat. "Mmm... name... what's a name..." she mumbled, running her hands over her stomach gingerly. Her eyes closed, and Spike could almost hear her purr. "Somethin'... somethin' big, yeah... bigger than the space of all—"Her eyes opened in a flash, and she sat up, staring at the child with a wicked grin. "Name yourself, mummy's brilliant prince!"
Spike watched, non-plussed, as she scooped the child from his hold and rose, spinning around the room. "You'll be my little Tommy. Little tiny Tommy..." She broke into the childish song again, spiraling around the large bed. Spike had to give it to her, it wasn't the most creative thing. He could do far better and – wait, what?
"Yeah, well, love? Hate to break it to you, but it's almost sunrise," Spike lifted a brow, and Drusilla's smile fell immediately into a pout. "Baby Tommy and you need to be off to beddy-bye now."
"We're not sleepy..." she protested weakly, hugging the child against her chest. "Don't want to go yet... the burn can't flash, can't cut, not yet..." A pause, an eyebrow twitch. "Please, daddy... we just want to play, don't we, mummy's lamb?" She spoke the latter to the child, wiggling his hand playfully.
"I understand that, love," he chuckled as he rose, moving toward her and pressing his forehead gently to hers. "You'll have plenty of time to play later."
Drusilla's eyes lit up, and Spike smiled softly and brushed a strand from her face. "Promises? Mummy wants to hear..."
"Promise, ducks," Spike pecked her forehead gently. "Now, get goin', put little Tommy down to bed."
They only kept the baby for two and a half weeks. Drusilla left him on the shelf of the candy store, having forgotten him there. She cried for the week after, and... admittedly, Spike couldn't help feeling gloomy himself. And maybe he was fooling himself, but even Angelus and Darla seemed a little down for a while. But all was quickly returned to a state of normalcy. The family hunts, the bickering...
Actually sleeping and getting some, Spike recalled with a small, contented smirk as he felt Drusilla sleepily slide underneath his arm. He couldn't help but glance up, however, a glint of gold, from a brilliantly engraved picture frame, caught his eye. He stared at it for a moment, catching his lower lip beneath his teeth, before he finally rose. Storming to the picture, he lifted it, studied the coy smiles and one happy – too happy, he thought – child, beaming back up at him. ...And Spike chucked it firmly into the trashcan beside the oak desk. Lying beside Dru again, head resting atop hers, he firmly shut his eyes and willed himself to sleep.
Pictures spoke a thousand words, it's true, but sometimes they were better left silenced. And in this case...
...Not like it mattered, of course.
"Well?" He demanded again, voice raising a notch as he hurled a petal with a little more violence than before, annoyed with the silent gloom Spike seemed to radiate.
"If he knew, he'd probably be out with her, Angelus," Darla sighed, bustling through the parlor as she tugged at her green lace gloves. A dark glower of distaste was thrown Spike-wards. "I mean, he's always following her around like a little lost puppy, anyway. I'd be more curious as to why he isn't accompanying her."
Spike slowly raised his icy stare upon the elder pair, eyebrow twitching vaguely. "No, I don't know where she is," he replied curtly, trying to mask the tight note of pain therein. He sneered at Darla, now, as he continued to address them, "And no, she... didn't want me to go with her. Said she wanted tonight for herself. Wanted to find a certain somethin', and that she couldn't do it with others in her way. So... I stayed." A glance was thrown at a smirking Angelus. "Satisfied, O Pompous One?"
"Oh, so that's what she's been babbling on about all night? ...Huh." Darla drawled, devoid of any concern at all as she inspected her gloves idly. "You know, I think I'm beginning to think she really is insane. I mean, despite how long she's been around, I still can't make out a single word she says."
A dark snicker of vile amusement erupted from Angelus as he shook his head, a slightly tender hand resting on his lover's shoulder. "Now, Darla. She's just a bit batty is all, our Drusilla. A little ... 'special', maybe, would be more accurate. Don't you think, Spike?" A pointed smirk was shot at the younger vampire, who visibly tensed at those words.
Inwardly turning sick at how the conversation was turning, the blonde wrinkled her nose and sniffed. "Well, be that as it may, I'm bored. And hungry." Turning to her childe, Darla offered up a wickedly sweet smile that easily spoke the words that followed: "Angelus, dear, would you like to come?" And her beam grew drastically as he slipped a possessive arm around her waist.
"Of course! As if you'd expect me to lay about here?" Another 'look' directed to Spike before the pair – laughing raucously to themselves - had slipped past the two grand wooden doors, the lock snapping much louder than Spike had expected it to.
The clock seemed to tick louder, too. And slower. Definitely and annoyingly slower.
...Was the floor creaking a lot more?
A loud, long sigh escaped him as his right foot began to jiggle impatiently. His arms folded and unfolded. He shifted positions on the couch a total of five times in less than a minute. Hum a tune and it was off, or just didn't fit. With a growl of impatience, Spike stood up abruptly and swept to the window, peering intently out over the cobblestone and hobo-and-harlot-littered sidewalks below. "Where the bloody hell are you, Dru? Fucking bored..."
But then he heard it. Tiny as a pinprick - a little-bitty giggle that he recognized instantaneously. His ears perked and, at first, he couldn't repress the smile that flashed across his lips. Dru was home. ...And, upon concentrating hard enough as he took his sweet time making his way back to the loveseat, he could sense she'd brought along something warm. Again, he had a hard time hiding the sudden flare of joy.
He flopped down on to the tiny couch. This would be good. Oh yes it would.
"Spike? Love?" Her tiny, airy voice carried through the halls over their stolen home. He caught her tiny footsteps and the rapidly beating heartbeat of ... something else.
"In here, pet," Spike responded immediately, feet kicked up on the coffee table, Cheshire cat grin in place. As she entered the parlor, his eyes widened at her gift. A tiny infant wrapped in bloodstained blankets was cradled in her arms, wriggling gently in its place. "Pet... you brought me...?" He looked up hopefully to her, and was shocked to find Drusilla gazing lovingly down at the child.
"Sweet little angel... he sang such a tune as his mummy breathed her last," she rambled, her voice laced with sugar and sweetness that Spike could barely recall, one of her long, delicate fingers teasing the child's nose gently. "Couldn't leave him there for the wolves. The wolves would get him. Brought him home with mummy..."
Spike sat stock-still, dumbfounded by her words. "...Dru, love. I... hope you mean for a meal."
And that seemed to crack her out of her state. Drusilla's dark, wide eyes snapped up to his face, narrowing drastically. "You're not devouring my little angel prince!" She huffed, breezing past quickly. Spike was left blank, mouth agape. He hurriedly scrambled from his place, following after her into the master bedroom, where she was setting the child down in the abandoned bassinet. "Well what the bloody hell did you wanna do with it, then?!"
"I'm going to keep it," Dru responded airily, chin tilted up. "My perfect," she crooned down to it, rocking it idly. "Singin' its little song, all for me. Needs a mummy."
"Dru..."
"Needs me," she growled, not even looking up, though Spike knew well enough that it was a warning not to test the waters. But he couldn't stand for this! At all!
"Dru. Poodle. We can't have this child," he sighed, explaining it gently. Though the words felt weird as he spoke them. ...Very, very weird.
She turned her cat-eyes upon him again, a perfectly arched brow twitching. "Why not? I can take care of my little lamb. Make him whole and new and shiny. Make him mine."
"He's not yours!" Spike protested, voice raising
"He IS." Dru rose to her feet immediately. "He's my lost boy! No angel from above or below can take him now! I saved him, he's got me!"
He froze, staring at her, her eyes wild, and he knew. At once, he knew. "You planned this, didn't you?"
Sitting back beside the bassinet again, Drusilla sniffed. "Told you he sang to me. Called for me. Didn't like that wretched whore, the overbearing ogre. Wanted his real mummy. The world was spitting him up, like... olives to a turtle..."
And Spike, then, knew it was best he left well enough alone. He knew he couldn't argue, and knew that it'd come up again later, as soon as Angelus and Darla returned. But he couldn't fight it now, and instead just shook his head as he left the room.
As he'd suspected, there was an argument later. Angelus left the room with a scratch across his face and a limp in his step, daring Spike with his livid gaze just to cross him. Spike declined the unspoken offer and instead decided to peer in on his Sire. Upon reaching her door, he opened it a crack, peeking through. There she lay upon the bed, the child settled upon her stomach as it violently shook something in its fisted hand. He heard the soft rattling sounds, and his brow furrowed at her amused giggle.
She caught his eye and tilted her head back. An invite to enter.
Spike stepped in slowly, closing the door quietly behind him. "'Lo, love."
Drusilla merely hummed in response, returning her gaze upon the infant. He winced inwardly, knowing she was still royally brassed off with him. "Little tiny Tommy, all dressed up in red," she sing-songed her favorite rhyme, clasping the infant's tiny, flailing hands in her own. "Fell out of bed, smashed his head... Little bitty Susie, hangin' from a tree. They cut her down, her head rolled free..."
"Going to give the nibblet nightmares, pet," Spike snickered as he sat slowly beside her. He felt her tense, before slowly easing back. He was happy at that. "What's that in his hand?"
"He won't. He's a brave little soldier, ready for the night. The moon doesn't scare him, not the ramble of the wind. It's much too big a box to be frightened," Dru defended 'her' child, releasing his left hand. The child opened his fist, dropping something tiny and bleached. A rat skull. Spike picked it up, giving it a shake, a tiny rattling filtering out. He peered into one of the eyeholes and found slightly larger chips of bone inside.
A makeshift rattle.
He lifted a brow, before setting it aside and opening his arms for the child. "Give 'em here." Drusilla hesitated, before offering the boy to him and sitting upright as Spike took him. "What's his name?"
"Name?"
"Gotta have a name for the boy, love," Spike pointed out, unable to resist smiling as the baby gurgled in the I'm So Cute sort of way.
"He doesn't need a name, I know who he is," Drusilla beamed, running a nail softly over the child's head. "And he knows who he is."
Spike looked over the top of the infant's head. "And me, pet? I don't. And I'm thinking if Darla and Angelus are letting you keep it, you'd best let them have something name-like to curse at."
He surveyed her as she rolled languidly on her back, sprawled out like a cat. "Mmm... name... what's a name..." she mumbled, running her hands over her stomach gingerly. Her eyes closed, and Spike could almost hear her purr. "Somethin'... somethin' big, yeah... bigger than the space of all—"Her eyes opened in a flash, and she sat up, staring at the child with a wicked grin. "Name yourself, mummy's brilliant prince!"
Spike watched, non-plussed, as she scooped the child from his hold and rose, spinning around the room. "You'll be my little Tommy. Little tiny Tommy..." She broke into the childish song again, spiraling around the large bed. Spike had to give it to her, it wasn't the most creative thing. He could do far better and – wait, what?
"Yeah, well, love? Hate to break it to you, but it's almost sunrise," Spike lifted a brow, and Drusilla's smile fell immediately into a pout. "Baby Tommy and you need to be off to beddy-bye now."
"We're not sleepy..." she protested weakly, hugging the child against her chest. "Don't want to go yet... the burn can't flash, can't cut, not yet..." A pause, an eyebrow twitch. "Please, daddy... we just want to play, don't we, mummy's lamb?" She spoke the latter to the child, wiggling his hand playfully.
"I understand that, love," he chuckled as he rose, moving toward her and pressing his forehead gently to hers. "You'll have plenty of time to play later."
Drusilla's eyes lit up, and Spike smiled softly and brushed a strand from her face. "Promises? Mummy wants to hear..."
"Promise, ducks," Spike pecked her forehead gently. "Now, get goin', put little Tommy down to bed."
They only kept the baby for two and a half weeks. Drusilla left him on the shelf of the candy store, having forgotten him there. She cried for the week after, and... admittedly, Spike couldn't help feeling gloomy himself. And maybe he was fooling himself, but even Angelus and Darla seemed a little down for a while. But all was quickly returned to a state of normalcy. The family hunts, the bickering...
Actually sleeping and getting some, Spike recalled with a small, contented smirk as he felt Drusilla sleepily slide underneath his arm. He couldn't help but glance up, however, a glint of gold, from a brilliantly engraved picture frame, caught his eye. He stared at it for a moment, catching his lower lip beneath his teeth, before he finally rose. Storming to the picture, he lifted it, studied the coy smiles and one happy – too happy, he thought – child, beaming back up at him. ...And Spike chucked it firmly into the trashcan beside the oak desk. Lying beside Dru again, head resting atop hers, he firmly shut his eyes and willed himself to sleep.
Pictures spoke a thousand words, it's true, but sometimes they were better left silenced. And in this case...