Author: Aydin S.K.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Spike/Drusilla.
Summary: Spike's fanatic fixations and Dru's outlandish images. It's a mix of humor and various reflections.
Timeline: Pre-shows, set in 1983.
Date: August 17, 2004.
A/N: Pulled from my response to Open on Sunday's 73rd drabble challenge 'lessons'. Kinda amplified.
Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss.
1983, San Diego, California.
Spike and Dru have sought their shelter from the daylight in a cottage that the vampires made their own after they'd done in the owners.
Spike sits in a chair at a table, drinking whiskey, smoking his smokes. The table is cluttered with records belonging to the late victims, going through the albums one by one he judges their taste in music.
'Look at all this muck. Here, Dolly Parton, Simon & sodding Garfunkel,' irritable Spike throws them back on the table and as he sighs he picks up a few LPs.
Severely he shakes his head as he briefly looks at Dru, 'Bette Midler, well, hate her. They even got Sinatra's bunkum, that just won't wash.'
Once again he slings the records back on the table, this time the objects slide off the other end of the table and smack on the floor. Spike shrugs.
'Sadness beyond. Really, I'd kill for a tune of the Ramones,' he looks at the two dead bodies that still lay about on the floor.
'Well, did that,' he sighs and looks back at Dru, 'Looks like the bloke was tellin' the god-honest truth then. Kept shoutin' he didn't take anything from the Ramones, 'it's a mistake!'. Guess he was thick enough to believe I'm some bloomin' messenger with a, message from riffraff. I'm considering to kill him again. Dead folk just don't learn.'
Suddenly he sits up and leans forward, 'Hey, 'd you know they released a new album?'
'Who did?'
'The Ramones, and's called Subterranean Jungle. Wanna ransack the local record shop?'
Ignoring the suggestion, Drusilla turns around and faces the darkest corner in the room. Indulges in the past, a 103 years ago to be precise, back when there were no silver shiny little discs that play music.
Nostalgically she cackles about the night she sired William, who no longer answers to that name.
Spike stops messing about with the albums and listens patiently to her babbling, but only because it suits her.
'Sniveling William, rejected for his feelings. But brave be Spike. He feels and emotes wisely, so wise it knuckles the trees, they nod, endure the wisdom of their naughty child. Children of trees, we are.'
'Timberland's our ancestor?' Spike interrupts her with a lick of astonishment. 'And here I was thinkin' we were children of the bleeding dark,' he stammers.
Drusilla merely casts a distracted glance over her shoulder and continues her cackling. 'Trees bring the black cover that we bear. We fall to ashes, like the trees, when fire rips out the roots. Heat, waves of scintillating flames. Ashes. Dust.'
'Ah, metaphorically speakin' aficionado,' he envisaged, muttering to himself, looking away as he feels a little hoodwinked. Dru casts him a bedeviled look but doesn't say a word which says enough and nails Spike's attention.
Surprised by the silence he looks up at her. 'Oh right, carry on my darling Drucake,' he gestures with his hand and a condensed grin.
Disregarding the multiple delays initiated by Spike she resumes once again, picking up where Spike's chipping in left her.
'The trees, they whispered in my ear. Hissing little trees, glinting stars. Woods so binding as mists never felt before. Swerving, bowing down to his dark, deep passion that was too hot for daylight's sun.'
Dru pauses and Spike stares at her intently. He rises from his chair and sits on the table, settling his right foot on the chair. His right arm rests on his propped-up knee as he takes a drag from his cigarette. Deciding he's not overly interested in sob stories he glances over his shoulder, shaking his head in a disapproving fashion at the sight of that pile of LPs and several CDs.
He thought it grotesque to see so much ghastly music stashed in one single house. 'Think I'll burn the lot,' he murmurs to himself. 'Along with the corpses. Maybe set the cot on fire too. What do you think, love?'
Expecting an answer he glares at Dru. All he get's is a blank, preoccupied stare.
'I saw passive passion, ooh, come out my butterflies, flutter and set him free!' giddily Drusilla claps her hands and assumes her vampire self.
She turns to Spike, smiling playfully, 'How do you like my wings?'
'All I see are teeth, love, what wings?'
She hides her vampire face behind the human mask that takes after a child that depicts disappointment and hurt, 'The ones that set you free, Willy.'
'It's William,' he corrects her as if insulted. 'But,' he emends, 'don't call me that.'
'Still licking your wounds.. Shame!'
Angrily Spike puts out his fag on one of the CD covers, 'Well somebody bloody well ought to!'
Dru's scrutinizing look falls upon her bleeding Spike, 'Really?'
'Yes, bloody surpassingly really! What of it? Came, saw and slaughtered for records of Ramones, sod all else, wrong bleeding hut we ravaged ourselves into! Everything stinks, and that fella was raunchy. Why couldn't I have the lady?'
'Lady wasn't mouthwatering,' Dru pouts. 'Like poison to my insides, she made my butterflies cry.'
Spike looks away, raising an eyebrow and folding his arms across his chest.
After a few moments of silence Drusilla lifts her eyes off of Spike. She turns the other way, mumbling to herself, to the invisible stars, the dark corner in which she stands, to the walls, the ceiling. Anything with ears is welcome to listen.
'It's the hands,' she speaks with wonderment. 'William, that cupcake, innocent young gent, used his hands for poetry. Silly rhyming words that were his thoughts. Crumbled thoughts on smooth paper, none listened, none could hear. Ridiculed!'
Bewildered Dru faces Spike again, glaring mournful at her creation. Briefly she pouts and approaches him with her arms stretched out, draping skeletal hands waiting for him to hold them.
Wistfully Spike observes his sire and as she's now within his reach he takes her hands and pulls her closer into his private space.
'But dear heart, written words were not your poetry, William. It are your pretty hands, Spike. Poetic hands, prosaic face,' she lay her right hand on his cheek, gently rasping his pale skin with her black nails, her thumb sealing his lips. Spike responds to her touch with longing, parting his lips.
'Yes,' she breathes elated and turns to look at the corpses. 'Spike's little ditty can break your neck, snap! And bite your tongue! Ask him not to dance before you, his rhythm will not suit you.'
'cause I talk back now,' Spike respires with an indicative grin. Dru leans in, tentatively brushing her lips against his', then she chortles. 'With a vengeance.'
'Yeah, so, speaking of ditties, let's get back to the issue at hand: the Ramones' new album.'
Drusilla smiles promising. 'You can have anything you want, pretty Spike, all you need to do is want it.'
'Wanting it, all right. Killed these two for it, didn't we? And I'm still wanting, 'cause these sods didn't deliver.'
Friskily Dru shakes her head, 'No, slashed because they didn't fancy us sleeping over, darling Spike. They were going to let us burn, in the sun.'
Spike rolls his eyes. 'Well, yeah, obviously. Look at us. For all they knew you could've been a fierce fruitcake with a dashing hatchet man on your arm.'
'But we're not!' Drusilla prompts in frenzied laughter and swings her arms around his neck.
Spike paints a somewhat patronizing smirk on his face, wrapping his arms around her.
'No, 'course not. Just vampires with evil schemes.'
Suddenly Spike looks up, suspiciously, 'Wait a sec. Didn't late Trish and Patrick here have a mutt?'
A little fazed Dru studies him. 'A little puppy?'
'Think it was an inch bigger than a pup, pet. Like Lassie. Was barking his little woofers out while we killed the bossies. Where'd it go?'
'Why? Do you wish to hurt Lassie?'
Pokerfaced he shrugs. 'No, wanted to take it for a stroll in the park. Always wanted to walk with Lassie, since I was, well, 90.'
'You know Lassie?' Dru asks stupefied.
'Every bloody body knows Lassie! Don't you watch television?'