This one-shot reimagines the interaction between Drusilla, Spike, and Buffy in Spike's crypt during Crush in Season 5 (S5:E14). Talking with Drusilla gives Buffy a new perspective, leading her to a different decision regarding Spike and his place in her life.
The story is unbetaed so errors, typos, and such are all mine. It borrows scenes and dialogue from Crush, with the disclaimer below
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
A Vampire's Handshake
"Oh. My. God. Spike has an actual shrine to me in his basement. This is so the last stop on tonight's creepy tour of vampire obsession-ville." Buffy shook her head, muttering to herself as she scaled the ladder up to Spike's main chamber. Ignoring the irony that she was exploiting unfettered access to his home after just having vamp-locking him out of hers, she said, "I was right to have Willow do her mojo."
"See anything interesting?" Spike's deep, unexpected voice was as close and intimate as a tiger's tongue lapping slowly against her cheek.
She re-gripped the ladder to keep from tumbling to the stone floor below along with the shards of her scattered thoughts. Darting her gaze to the side, she saw him crouched by the trapdoor. She swore he wasn't here before. But, hey, here he was now. And was that fresh blood, untidy and still wet on his full lips? On his unwounded lips under unusually lambent eyes. As though he were a regular vampire who'd just drunk down human blood fresh from the tap.
Her pulse sped at the thought, giving her a boost as she scurried out of the trapdoor. "Spike. I, uh… what…," she blathered while backing away to a better defended distance. Now on his feet, he stalked after her, matching her step for step. Finally, Buffy-brain caught up enough for her to finish her question. "Spike, what happened?"
"Why, I did, dearie," an amused female voice startled her from behind.
Less than a second later, she recognized the lilt of Drusilla's accent. And she realized that she was sandwiched between two powerful vampires. Where the heck had her slayer instincts scurried off to? Turning, she took a smooth half step backward, and then another, until she had Spike on her left and Drusilla on her right.
Interestingly, Spike was unarmed. Well, as much as a vampire with fangs, claws, and a century of fighting experience could be. Meanwhile, his sire held a metal stick that looked suspiciously like an Initiative taser. Or no; it looked more like a cattle prod. She really needed to have Giles get her a review of weaponish whoosits that were more modern than King Arthur's roundtable. Or maybe she'd ask Xander, since he'd actually find it a fun change of pace.
Catching her attention, Spike's eyes flicked from her to his sire, and back. "You remember my ex, don't you, Slayer?" A sense of warning overlaid his silky voice. And menace, too, which he compounded by lifting his hand to wipe the blood from his lips. Then he licked his fingers clean with an almost reverent look. Which… ew.
Ignoring his moment of ooky bliss, she replied, "How could I forget? Although I thought you said Drusilla was in South America."
"Los Angeles, apparently, these days." He shrugged, but his face had taken on the mulish expression he got when discussing Angel. And, what the what? Now that Faith was all tucked away in prison, had Angel decided it was time to fill his newly lonely hours by hanging out with Drusilla? His evil, loony-bin childe; the one he'd intentionally driven insane before turning.
The one who'd decided to visit Spike for some reason, which couldn't be good. Awesome.
As though reading her mind, which perhaps she actually was, Drusilla spoke. "My naughty boy is lost without his family. He lies to Mummy, but of course I can tell. He can feel the heart and how it calls to him, but his own heart doesn't follow." She paused, tilting her head in that standard vampire's all the better to see your aorta look. "Maybe he needs more filling sustenance," she drawled.
"Not gonna happen," Buffy asserted, ready for sudden movement.
Possibly not quite reading the threat, Spike grumbled, "I told you, Dru. Am not lost. You came here, out of the blue, to pluck me down to sodding L.A. All because you have some cockeyed dream of vampire happy-families."
His sire replied with a smile that was disturbingly pensive. "That I did. Come for my boy, who's been away from family too long." With a sigh, she added, "Neither fish nor fowl anymore, it seems. Not even the pixies could foretell what a lonely, crooked path he's walked without any guide. Mummy is here to finally do the right thing." As she finished speaking, she lifted the cattle prod.
Side-stepping sinuously around the slayer, Spike murmured. "Let's do this together then, yeah? Like sweethearts holding hands while jumping into the swimming hole." Lips pursed in that expression between amusement and cunning that pre-chip Spike had perfected, he kept his eyes fixed on his sire as he reached toward her weapon.
With a start, Buffy realized she'd become complacent around the chipped vampire. He was likely planning exactly what he'd said, which was to join hands with his crazy sire as she zapped Buffy into unconsciousness. And then… so much badness.
Stifling the misplaced sense of betrayal that had crept up on her like a gremlin, she spotted the moment that Drusilla turned her attention to Spike. Without wasting time or finesse, she launched herself toward the female vampire like a football player. Drusilla turned and evaded the slayer's rush while shoving the cattle prod at Spike's chest. Zap, zap, and he collapsed to the ground in a leather-covered sprawl at her feet.
To Buffy's astonishment, the vampire zapped him one more time before backing away.
"What the actual heck?" Buffy shouted. She was so disconcerted that the evening, up until now, fell away. Adrenaline racing, she faced Drusilla, remembering what both Giles and Spike had told her. So she kept her eyes from meeting the vampire's thralling gaze. Instead, she focused like a boxer on her slim shoulders and midsection. Stake in hand, Buffy was ready for a fight. Or for whatever Drusilla decided to do.
At least, she thought she was ready.
"'Actual heck'?" the vampire murmured prissily. Then, drawing herself up, she hissed like a cobra. "You are not a child. Stop pretending."
"Fine. Because being lectured by a vampire about my maturity wasn't on my calendar for today, anyway. So, I'm all grown up. And you're a crazy vampire. Got the memo." She glanced at Spike, who was unconscious but not dust. She felt a pang of relief, although she wasn't sure why. "Dru, what are you playing at, here?"
"You are the one who is playing," Drusilla snapped. "Knick knack, paddywhack, give your dog a bone. Then kick him because he howls like the bloodhound he is, waiting for your call to hunt while you keep him tied in the yard as your curiosity. For shame. If he were your pet, you'd at least give him table scraps. If a sword fell into your hands, you'd keep it sharp and you'd train so you and the weapon were as one."
As she spoke, Spike's sire began stepping to her left. Her movement was graceful and delicate, yet Buffy sensed the old, wiry strength in her precise movement. It didn't miss her notice that the vampire was still holding a cattle prod.
Mirroring the vampire's movement, neither closer nor further away, Buffy said, "Um, okay. But why did you zap Spike? And why aren't we, you know, fighting?"
"I'm not here for that kind of fight. I'm here because my boy is alone. His despair calls out, clawing the night and making the stars shudder." Then, with more control, Drusilla continued, "What is a vampire if he cannot slash and bash and truly feed? Where is the nest for such a creature? Who will nurture it to become this new thing he must be when there is no place for him? Should he try to be a vampire? Zap! Try to be a human? Slap!" Her free hand snapped and sliced the air along with her percussive words.
Buffy raised her stake defensively, just in case. Soulless Angel had taught her well that older vampires had the cunning to dissemble and distract enough to put her off her game. A normal vampire would've been all with the attack-age by now.
But Drusilla wasn't attacking. She was still circling slowly around Spike's prone form, leading Buffy in an ancient dance between equally matched predators. What didn't make sense was that Spike was in the middle, though he clearly wasn't Drusilla's prey. Was she protecting him? Or, in her vampire mind, were they slow-motion fighting over him?
While she pondered that, Spike's sire had continued speaking. "I should have felt his pain long ago. But you're here and you never did." Lifting her chin, she added, "Now his mummy finally showed him he can feed. Yet still the pixies show me he'll waste away for lack of belonging. It would take much more than one night of his mummy's care."
"Um, that's a big 'no'. Spike gets to stay in town because of that chip in his head. The only way you're staying in Sunnydale is if you fit in a dustpan. Especially not after last night's railway murder-gram." She gripped her stake harder at the thought.
"Ah, yes. But you see, Daddy's spark burns him from the inside. So he burned us on the outside. All for making his own wishes come true." As she spoke, she traced a finger from her chest up to her cheek, where Buffy now noticed still-healing burn marks. "I'd meant to stay in with the coats, but we are what we are. And all that blood, it pulsed so loudly with the promise of healing."
Buffy blinked, stunned to realize that Drusilla had almost given her an apology. At least, it was something like an explanation, although it was admittedly creepy because vampires. But wait, when she said Daddy, did she mean Angel? And that he'd intentionally set her on fire? Which again, see vampires above for mondo creepiness. But Angel did that? And if so, why was she trying to take Spike back to L.A. where presumably Angel was flambéing family members?
As though settling Buffy's concern, Drusilla said, "My boy already decided he's not coming back with me. I'd thought to take him away with me, anyroad. Just like he took me away when we left Daddy to your deadly kiss and your merciless sword." She snarled, but continued speaking, "It seems, though, he's already changed too far. He upended the game mid-play and will forever leave an empty place at the table."
As Drusilla turned toward where her childe lay unconscious, Buffy chanced a full-on look at the brunette's face. Even in that brief glance at her profile, burns and all, Buffy saw an array of emotions so complex that she was confused. Sorrow, anger, and even a facsimile of what she swore was love moved her delicate features. But that couldn't be real.
"Vampires can't feel love. You can't love without a soul," she blurted. She quickly refocused her eyes on the vampire's deceptively slim shoulders as she returned her gaze at Buffy's words.
"Phht. Ignorant girl. We can love quite well, if not wisely. Besides, within each of us dwells the soul of a demon. Whatever do you think chases out the human soul?"
Buffy took an involuntary step backward at that little breaking newsflash to the Watcher's Council. Not that it should matter because, either way, a vampire lacked a human soul. But still, if the Council was wrong about vampires lacking souls of any kind, what else might Giles have taught her of the not-quite-right variety. Reinforced by Angel, too, if she remembered correctly.
And hey, since Angel reverted immediately to his evil self when the soul went poof, did that mean his demon soul was always there wrestling with his human soul when the latter was resident? Was that why Angel was so… contrary? Like how he'd literally dropped into her life to help her, but in retrospect had rarely done the help-age in person. Or like how, claiming to love her, he'd walked away from her but then kept returning just when she'd almost gotten over his absence. Was that his soul loving her while his demon used the opportunity to continue its obsessive, slow-motion torture?
In terms of vampire obsession, was Spike declaring his love for her and building a shrine to her in the privacy of his basement really worse than that? Because she'd just locked out Spike for declaring his love while Angel still had free-range rights to her house. She may have misjudged things in the heat of the moment.
Blinking, she did her best to package up that whole mess of not-so-fun questions and answers for later. Hopefully much later.
Meanwhile, vampires and love were still the uncomfortable topic of the moment. Reaching out with one of her feet, Drusilla gently traced her childe's spine from hips to neck with her toe. Pensively, she said, "My William never forgot how to love. Never stopped. It's laced in his bones and viscera. Everything he does is for love, or blood, or passion. Man and vampire. But, he's doomed to love those who do not know how to love him back."
A shiver went down Buffy's spine as she recalled earlier in the day, when Tara had said almost the same thing about that story they were supposed to have read. Hunchback of Nostradamus or something like that. The one about the monster full of love who was never loved back. She swallowed, realizing that perhaps both Tara and Spike's sire were more knowledgeable about the whole love thing than she was. That thought was beyond wigsome.
As the vampire looked poised to resume her slow circling around Spike, Buffy exhaled heavily enough to gust stray hairs back from her face. This was getting ridiculous. "Dru, stop. Why are you telling me all of this? I'm kinda more used to villain speeches about evil plans to take over the world. This type of Oprah girl-talk moment? Not so much."
"Heedless girlies need to clear the wax from their ears," the vampire snapped. Waving her free hand, she said, "I cannot see through the sparks that dart like fireflies 'round the cage of metal and blood inside. But what I do see now is that this is where the path splits like a tree cleaved by lightning."
"Okay…."
"He was my bad dog, my knight, whose fights were glorious with the poetry of fists and blood. He was my champion, but that no longer moves him from within. Even now he knows that, with me at his side, feeding and lovely mayhem could still be his, he obeys rather than leads. He is not mine anymore." She sounded genuinely sad. Yet Buffy couldn't help but recall when blubbering, drunk-off his-ass Spike came all the way to Sunnydale because he wanted a spell to restore his crazy sire's affection.
"As I understand it, you were the one who kicked him to the curb."
"You had already stolen my knight from me," the brunette vampire intoned in a low, bitter voice. "Not loyal anymore. He was blind to it, but I saw it clearly. He tasted of sunshine and ashes. His voice sounded like dung beetles crawling under the skin. I tried to put him back to who he was, but it wasn't magic that changed him and he has no spark to steal."
"Say what now?"
"He's covered in you, drowning in you. Was then. Is now. But still he waits, languishing, for you to give him a place in your court."
"Um, last I checked, Mister I've-Always-Been-Bad isn't waiting for some 'here comes the judge' moment in court. Which, I now realize isn't the type of court you meant. But same diff. He's not languishing, he's obsessed. He has an actual shrine to me, which is majorly weird." Her lips pulled as though they'd touched something that tasted a bit off.
Drusilla tssked. "He puts you above all others, as one does with those one follows, whether in loyalty or in love. Do humans not keep mementos of those you admire? A bouquet pressed and dried for memory's sake, a lock of hair, a trinket, or perhaps a portrait?"
Her mind served up a disconcerting flash of her mother's scrapbooks, Dawn's boy-band posters and collectables, and the remnants from her own regrettable New Kids on the Block phase. While she was busy quashing those too-close-for-comfort observations, Drusilla continued speaking.
"I can only show my William the way he was, which is not who he is destined to become." She lifted her chin. "I'll make a truce with you. Since he will not fight for me anymore, he could fight for you."
"Are truces, like, a whole thing with vampires?" Buffy blinked at the insanity of having yet another vampire offer her a truce. Maybe it wasn't all vampires; maybe it was just Angel's family.
"One does not have 'half' a truce," Drusilla sniffed. "One does not do things by half measures at all, lest one wants to fail by full measures."
This was becoming one of the crazier nights of the year, which was saying something. As she had that thought, something else occurred to her. "Wait, how is enlisting Spike to fight at my side an actual truce? It's like a business deal. And the party in question is majorly of the el splatto on the ground, at the moment."
"It's a truce because it ends this stand-off between you and me, so neither of us will kill the other one tonight. And, as long as you are true to your word, you and yours are off limits to me. I will defend myself, of course, but won't attack or thrall you to do my will." A dry smile shaped her voice as she added, "And I will leave no more trains garlanded with blood in your town."
"Well, that part certainly works." She rolled her eyes. "But Spike already fights for me, at least sometimes. So, I'm not getting where the word-of-Buffy comes in, here. It sounds more like a get-out-of-jail card for Drusilla."
"On your part, you must help my William to find himself in this new world that he occupies. He is like a fledgling again, mimicking those who hold his life in his hands. The lion teaches a different lesson than the vulture."
Buffy put her free hand on her hip. "So let me get this straight. You're, like, trying to pass responsibility for Spike to me?" At Drusilla's oddly elegant nod, she muttered, "Well that should make him majorly pissed off when he wakes up."
"You do not understand us at all, slayer. He'll be delighted to finally belong where he wants to be. He'll feel the passing of fealty to you, running like the most glorious of bindings through all that he is."
And there was that vampire thinking, again, which would never feel right to Buffy. Yet, she almost got what Drusilla was trying to describe.
"You're going to leave him here with me regardless of my answer, right?"
"No, I would not leave him like an orphan under the whims of an indifferent nanny. Of course, I cannot answer whether he would return later. Or whether he would have shed the unnatural metal and electricity from his brain by then."
Well, that was a fun little veiled threat. Take Drusilla's offer, or let her take Spike so she could work on restoring his pre-chip menace, knowing he'd likely return for her and the Scoobies.
As she considered that, she realized the threat didn't actually matter. Somehow, while they'd spoken, she'd already decided to take the vampire up on her offer. Honestly, being in charge of Spike wasn't too different from the present. And, she could kinda see the point that helping Spike actively be on her side could only be of the good. Further, getting his evil sire out of all their lives was fine by her. She could later find out what the heck it meant that she was spending time with Angel, who apparently set her on fire. There was something decidedly rotten in the state of the self-appointed Champion of the Powers.
But that didn't matter tonight. What did was that, for some reason that she wasn't ready to explore right now, she didn't want Spike to be gone. That wasn't something she'd expected to feel at all. Not after everything that had transpired earlier this evening, before she'd spoken to Drusilla of all people, or all vampires, or whatever. But there it was.
After a lengthy exhale, she said, "Fine, I agree to take charge of Spike and do more to … I don't know… teach him how to fit in better with humans."
"To fit in better with those who fight on your side. To belong to your side," the vampire corrected her.
"Fine. What you said. And now it's your turn."
"I agree to relinquish my knight, William, to you. You will let me leave town, and I will henceforth leave you and yours unharmed."
"When you say William, you mean Spike, right? Your childe. You know: the guy under the leather coat." She didn't want any funny business, like finding out she'd just somehow given Drusilla a free pass in exchange for a long-dead soul in heaven, rather than the vampire who lay sprawled on the ground between them.
"Of course. Did you not even know his name?" The affront was clear in her tone.
"Sure, William the Bloody, a.k.a. Spike, a.k.a. Slayer of Slayers, although I prefer not to use that last one for obvious reasons. But, since I know you're still evil, I wanted to check the fine print, as it were."
With amusement rolling her words, Drusilla replied, "You do know something about us after all. But come, now we must shake on the agreement. Vampire to slayer." The telltale crunch of bones shifting let Buffy know she'd changed into her demonic visage. She passed the cattle prod to dangle loosely in her left hand, balled her right one briefly, and then presented her palm to Buffy.
"Um, Dru. I know you're a vampire and all, but there's blood on your hand." A single glistening, ruby drop welled from a rapidly closing hole that she'd likely skewered with one of her pointed, claw-shaped nails. Given the jagged, knowing grin Buffy saw from the corner of her eye, she was sure that was exactly what the vampire had done.
"It's an oath, dearie. It requires a drop of life to seal it."
"Well, I'm all brim-full of life here. All on the inside, so no need for blood on the outside. Just shaking my full-of-life hand should do just fine." With that, she reached out, intending to do the loosely-gripped-fingers thing to accomplish the minimal required shake-age. All while she held her stake ready in her other hand, thank you very much.
But, with lightning speed, Drusilla slid her own fingers around Buffy's palm and sliced a razor-sharp fingernail into the flesh of the slayer's hand. It was just enough to draw a single drop of blood to mix with her own when she grasped Buffy's palm for a quick handshake.
"Oh, no you didn't!" Buffy immediately tried to pull away, but only succeeded after a pulse raced through her like a gong rung in her bones. It felt like awe; like completion. Blood screaming inside you to work its will, a memory called out in Spike's voice. It was all about the blood. Always.
"Of course I did," the vampire replied, grinning again as she smoothly backed away. "Evil, like you said before. But what I pledged was true without spiders of trickery tucked inside. A truce between us as long as we both uphold our sides of the bargain. And I have granted you the most loyal knight of the realm." She kneeled briefly to brush hair back from Spike's forehead as her own human features returned.
"That's still a little weird and not entirely reassuring, but we'll make the best of it."
And, boy howdy, she was surely going to wait for a while before she told her watcher what she'd just done. She wasn't up for another lecture about recklessness at the moment. Besides, she was starting to understand that Giles was not entirely aware of the world of vampires, and what truces and deals with them might actually mean. Between what she'd learned tonight and what she might learn from Spike if she actually listened, she might soon be well ahead of her watcher.
Dru stood up in a single motion and stepped back. "Tell William that I will always miss him, as a mummy does. If he needs me, he can find me. But time has moved on and he is ready for what comes next."
"I'll tell him," Buffy agreed, while keeping her eye on the vampire as she swirled her way toward the door, cattle prod held jauntily at her side.
Then Drusilla paused, hand on the doorknob. Turning to Buffy, she said, "Should you remain unsure of William's loyalty to you… the pixies warned me tonight that, after you appeared, he planned to knock me out and offer my ashes to you as proof of his devotion. That was a grand gesture for one of us. A lady must learn to shape and then be worthy of her knight's favors."
Buffy shook her head. Vampire thinking was of the mondo weirdness sometimes. And she was starting to realize that, if she had any hope of helping Spike bridge to Scooby humanism, she was actually going to need to understand it.
As the crypt door closed behind Drusilla, Spike groaned. Looking down, she saw how, even when zapped into unconsciousness, he looked ready to spring back up and fight. He was like a weapon of bone, muscle, and fangs, wrapped in leather. And a strange habit of devotion.
Jeez Spike, what am I going to do with you? She knew his sire had tricked her with that handshake, which had the feeling of ritual. But, in the larger scheme of things, it was probably okay. After all, Spike was already in Sunnydale, willingly under her authority. He already seemed internally motivated to help her. And he truly was a formidable fighter. Perhaps now he'd feel more aligned to her, so she might be able to trust him more fully.
She crouched next to him. "Wakey, wakey, Spike. We need to talk." And boy, was that putting it mildly. After all, this was uncharted territory. She'd long had vampire fanboys, with the whole juiced-up obsession package, from Angel to Dracula to Spike. But now she had her own dedicated, devoted vampire knight.
And she had work in front of her to help him integrate into her Scooby network. Both in getting her friends to accept him and in getting him to be, well, less vampire-y on the regular. And jeez, she'd start by instructing him that human women were absolutely not charmed by having their clothing stolen to build stalker-level shrines to them.
As Spike began to rouse, she decided she could make this work and Spike would help her. She felt it in her bones. Drusilla had been sure of it, and now so was she.
.
[The End]