Work Text:
Bereavement
by Lucinda
"He was my north, my south, my east and west;
My working week, my Sunday best;
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song.
I thought that love would last forever, ... I was wrong. "
-- W.H. Auden, 'Song IX' from 'Twelve Songs'
Spike leaned back in his chair, balancing it against the wall. In the middle of the room, Drusilla was humming to herself as she twirled through a bastardized waltz with one of her pets, some terrified blond in a pink dress. The girl kept whimpering, and he could smell the salt from her tears.
He didn't care about the girl's fear, but he frowned as he surveyed the room. It shouldn't be like this. Their family had been broken, Angelus had vanished after those gypsies, and Darla. Well, she'd said that he'd bollixed any chance of making the gypsies fix what they'd done, and after beating him severely, she'd stormed away, vanishing into the night. Without the rest of their family, things just weren't right.
Darla should be in the corner, playing the elaborate notes of a waltz on the piano, which would have been polished until it gleamed. Angelus would have been sitting in another chair, sketching the frightened girl for a while before stepping in for a waltz with Dru or dragging the girl off to play his own games. There would be minions keeping the place clean and presentable.
Instead, things were... different. Granted, he no longer had to compete with Angelus for Drusilla's time and attentions, but... It didn't feel quite as satisfying as he'd always hoped. He'd wanted her to choose him over Angelus, not for Angelus to just vanish. He would have sworn that no power on, above, or below Earth could make him miss Darla, but... Damn, he even found himself missing her.
"Why are you crying, pretty?" Dru's voice filled the shadows of the room as she finally noticed the girl's tears.
"Please, just. let me go. Please..." The girl in her pink dress whimpered.
"Let you go. I suppose that you'd go home to your Daddy, and have him give you a kiss?" The dance had halted, and one hand slid over the girl's cheek. "Would your Daddy hold you close and tell you that everything will be safe and good?"
The girl didn't answer in words, only the irregular hitching of her sobs. More tears. As if that would make things better for her. Daft chit really should have learned by now that crying wouldn't solve everything.
Leaning closer, Drusilla kissed the trembling pink lips softly, and whispered, "Would your Daddy hold you close while you sleep, and chase away the bad dreams? Does he caress your soft skin, like mine does?"
"N-no!" The girl was trying to pull away now, struggling ineffectively in Dru's grip.
"He's gone, Dru. Daddy went away." He shook his head, wondering if she was trying to deal, or if this was another of those days when she didn't remember everything.
Dru glanced over at him, her dark eyes full of sorrow. "My Daddy went away from us. He left and now we're all alone."
"It's not as bad as it could be." He spoke firmly, uncertain if he was trying to convince Dru or himself.
Drusilla let go of the girl, allowing her to collapse into a pink and golden puddle on the floor, still sobbing. She glided over to Spike, and settled onto his lap, one hand sliding behind his neck, the other tracing around a button just below his ribcage. "Why did Daddy have to go away from us? I was a good girl, I did everything that he told me to. I even did what Mummy told me to do."
He pressed a kiss against her head, and sighed. "I don't know. He was upset after that spell; they hurt him. And he had to go somewhere for a while."
"But he wasn't all broken and bloody, there were only a few little scratches. I could have kissed them all better. You could have kissed them all better." Her voice sounded so soft, almost broken.
"Inside, luv. They hurt him inside." He pulled her closer, and closed his eyes, telling himself that it was just so the strands of her hair wouldn't get in his eyes.
"Was he leaking the darkness out? Like when I break my toys, and they leak all their blood onto the floor and the walls in pretty patterns?" Her fingers slid the button free from it's hole, and moved up to the next one.
For a moment, Spike considered how to answer that. Leaking the darkness? "Yeah, he was hurt inside. Not a matter of blood and bones, but in his mind."
"But I like to hear them screaming." She whispered, glancing at him through dark lashes.
"I think he was the one screaming inside." He didn't like this conversation. It felt almost wrong to think of their sire like that, wounded, broken. weak.
"Can you help me forget?" Her fingers were slipping the button right under his chin free, and then she nipped at his throat, right over where his pulse used to throb. "Can you make the confusion go away? Make everything simple, and the world shrink down to just you and me?"
He kissed her, tasting a hint of salt - had she licked the girl's tears? Slowly, his hands slid over her body, unfastening the row of buttons on the back of her dress. He tried to convince himself that his hands weren't shaking, that he was only looking forward to a good shag. He didn't miss anyone. Really. "I can make the whole world just the two of us, baby. Just you and me."
"Promise? You'll make me forget?" Her words were barely audible, more the soft puff of air against his throat.
"I'll make sure that you're just screaming for me." He nipped at her collar-bone, sliding the dress down from her shoulders. His fingers traced over her ribs, the bumps of her spine, and he smiled as she shivered. "Even if I have to tie you up to make sure I've got your attention."
"Sometimes I like to be tied up." She whispered, her fingers scratching at his scalp. "Are you going to tie me up and spank me? Have I been a naughty girl?"
"I'll make sure you have everything you need." He tried to push away the memories of Angelus telling Dru that she'd been bad, that her visions were because she was all filled up with evil and secrets. He wanted Dru to forget Angelus, he didn't want to replace him.
Soon, neither of them were thinking of anything else. Not of the absence of Darla and Angelus. Not the sobbing girl on the floor. Only each other, and of pain, of pleasure, and of blurring the line between the two.
end Bereavement.