Special thanks to Selene for the gorgeous artwork for this story.
A/N: The following fiction is written in alternating POVs. Spike's POV takes place on the drive into Sunnydale pre-School Hard; Drusilla's POV takes place post-What's My Line.
Drusilla had never been the quiet type.
Her voice was his first memory of her, his first contact with the woman who would become sire, lover, savior. When he had been lost, abandoned, those tones had been there—ethereal, childlike, yet still somehow so strong, so certain. Before he could look in her eyes and see the promise there, it was her voice that had drawn him, that had insinuated itself inside the walls of frustration, pain, and shame to find and rescue the lonely man inside. Her breathy incantations of eternity, of beauty and belonging and effulgence, even now echoed in his head when he closed his eyes to sleep; over a century later, he remembered and treasured every word, every syllable, of the vows she had made that night.
To see her silent now, brought so low from the vibrant, proud being she had been, curled in on herself into a ball that seemed far too small, too constricting for a creature as sinuous and graceful as he knew her to be… it ached in the deepest recesses of his being. She was hurt… his darling girl, his wild, malevolent princess… she was so very ill, and he wasn’t sure how to heal her.
~*~*~*~*
Her darling boy was broken.
All he’d wanted to do was save her, she thought as she watched him sleep. Her William had always wanted to be her knight, from the moment he’d awakened; he had always wanted to be the strongest or the canniest or the most wicked. She was no fool; she knew that no matter how gallant his nature, he still felt the need to outshine her Angel, and that so many of his quests were undertaken to that end. But she also remembered how he’d charged through the mob in Prague, ignoring the charring of his flesh from the rain of holy water directed at him, only barely hissing from the sting of crossbow bolts that missed their mark but still penetrated his flesh as he scooped her into his arms and ran. That moment, and everything since, had been solely purposed to help her; there was no taint of Angelus to his efforts, merely the ardent desire to make her as strong and vicious as once she’d been. Now all of his efforts had been rewarded. She was well again, could feel virility and power coursing through her, but what did it help when he was so shattered?
She’d been in just that position for days; back against the headboard, his head in her lap, watching her beautiful Spike sleep, listening as his body attempted to heal. She’d brought him there, covered him carefully in the thick comforters in which he’d wrapped her when she was at her worst, ordered that they were to remain unmolested except for the delivery of meals; necessities having been dealt with, nurturing could begin. It would take weeks, she knew, until he was himself again; long weeks during which he'd need her desperately, and she so wanted to nurse him as he had her. She was as lost for easy panaceas as he had been, however, and so she stayed by his side, long graceful fingers in his hair, humming softly the songs he'd always loved the best. He had her sole consideration, her lovely childe did; after so many years, so many of his attempts at currying and keeping her favor, all of her attentions were finally solely his.
~*~*~*~*
A series of tiny whimpering groans caught his attention, and he glanced towards Drusilla from the corner of his eye. She’d been unable to escape her agony, even in her sleep; the pain was too intense, too all-encompassing, for her to find any relief. He’d wanted to hear something from her, wanted some break in the oppressive silence, but he hadn’t wished for this; a momentary, crippling surge of guilt overtook him, as though his selfish wish for her companionship had somehow been twisted into whatever was causing her to cry out and clutch at her chest. Each sound was another knife to his heart, another prickle of fear down a spine already rigid with tension and despair. Surely the solution would be here—if anywhere could offer succor, the hellmouth was that place. Its energies would restore her, would bring vitality back to her eyes and her features, would chase the worst of the madness away. Would allow her to be his ripe wicked plum again, rather than this fragile, tortured shell.
The whimpers began to increase in volume, slowly becoming a wail; Spike was alarmed when he smelled blood, and turned to find her rending her skin with long, sharp nails, tearing desperately and clawing as though something had climbed inside her flesh—something she desperately wanted to dig out. As quickly as he dared, he steered the car off the road onto the shoulder, slid across the seat, and took her into his arms.
This small California town had to be her Lourdes, he thought as he began to rock, smoothing her hair with his hand and crooning to her as though she were a frightened child. They had no other hope.
~*~*~*~*
This place had been such a shameful disappointment, Drusilla mused regretfully as she ran a finger along Spike’s brow, smiling softly as he gave an appreciative little moan and leaned into her caress. There had been so much promise to its reputation, and she’d shared Spike’s excitement over the potential of a cure, of life so close to the edge of their source. But it had all been wrong. So much was out of place here, as though the world had been turned on its head by the energies expended from beneath them. Her Angel soul-stricken and blinded by love; the naughty little Slayer leading him about as though he were her pet; the Slayer gifted with family and friends, lacking the solitude that was her birthright; the town itself overrun with evil and blackness but possessing none of the joy, the glory or the freedom inherent in such pervasive wickedness.
She was grateful for her cure, and acknowledged that without this place she would likely have been dust, but Drusilla would have liked nothing better than to leave, to forget that the nightmarish topsy-turvy enclave existed.
As soon as her Spike was well, they would leave this place behind, would find others to paint crimson with slaughter and decadence. As though he heard her thoughts and was agreeing with her wishes, Spike gave another little sigh, and she pressed a kiss against his forehead, careful to keep her hair from aggravating the damaged flesh on the side of his face. Just as soon as he was well, blood would run again. Far, far from here.
~*~*~*~*
He knew that he needed to see that she fed, and quickly; the last time she’d eaten, she hadn’t been able to keep it down. He had forced himself to believe that her intolerance was only because the man had been homeless and wretched, pushing from his mind the fact that she’d been entirely unable to drain the little sweetling of a teenager he’d lured for her the day previously. Mind racing as he continued to try to placate her, he realized that the gas station attendant he’d shoved in the trunk earlier would have to do; he had no time to hunt, or even to consider what she would like best, when she was so insensible. She couldn’t be left alone, and they were still too many miles from anywhere to make finding a victim likely even had he been able to leave her unattended. He knew that one meal wouldn’t be enough—not if she kept spilling her own blood, and certainly not if she couldn’t finish the man off—but he would find a way to make it sufficient, find a way to bolster its power until they could reach what he hoped would be her ultimate cure.
The Slayer.
He didn’t remember in what little town he’d heard the news, the low whispers of a tiny, deathly little thing plying her trade on the hellmouth. Strange that he couldn’t recall, because that was the moment in which his hope had reawakened, the moment that he’d begun to plan, to believe that his attempts to save Dru weren’t simply whiling away the time until she was beyond saving. If anyone knew the effects of Slayer blood—the richness, the strength and vibrancy and sheer power of it—Spike did, and he had to believe that if anything could counter the devastation of Prague, Slayer blood was that wonder. It was only a matter of getting there, of finding her, and of taking her down. The first two had been for him, for the glory of the kill and the reputation his viciousness had gained him; this one, however, he would gift to Drusilla.
~*~*~*~*
Drusilla watched as Spike drained the young girl that Dalton had brought, her arms supporting his shoulders as he held the girl across his useless legs. It was Drusilla who pushed the corpse aside once he’d finished, having noticed the tremors in his muscles that came from the sheer effort of maintaining any posture other than prone for longer than mere moments. Carefully, gently, she lowered him back to the bed, ignoring the grumblings and protestations that he made at being so coddled as the noise and bravado that they were. It was a testament to how drained and wounded he was that he was back asleep within moments, the fresh blood serving to help bones and tissue begin to knit back together but doing little about his lethargy.
It worried her more than the prospect of what was bound to be a lengthy recovery for him, really, this lassitude that had taken control of Spike in the wake of her cure, of his defeat. It was almost as though—and she shuddered to think it—he had actually been truly defeated, for the first time. Never, ever had he given in—no matter what treatment Angelus had heaped upon him, no matter how badly his tender heart had been hurt—he had never broken under the strain. She wouldn’t allow this… this ignorant child to be the thing that broke her wild, wicked Spike. She simply wouldn’t stand for it.
Drusilla murmured Spike’s name as she stroked his shoulders, the pressure of her touch just great enough to reawaken him. As she watched his eyes blink open confusedly, she slid her arm across his chest, raising one elegant, alabaster wrist to press against his mouth. “Drink, my William,” she told him, giggling a bit as his eyes widened when he recognized the magnitude of her gift. Sire’s blood wasn’t something she gave often—it was far too precious of a prize to offer up for small glories. His defeat of each previous Slayer had earned him this gift—this Slayer’s defeat of him would earn it as well. And then, when he was stronger, the Slayer would offer up her own blood in atonement—Drusilla would see to that.
It seemed only fair that she find a way to avenge her darling boy; it was, after all, no less than he had done for her. But while she was at it, couldn’t she teach this town—so steeped in evil and yet still so ignorant of it—the true meaning of fear, of gorgeous madness and gruesome death?
She did, after all, have a birthday coming up.