Spook Me entry
Not at all what I envisaged when I got my prompt (dark faerie). But Spike wanted to be bad, so. Have something short and nasty.
Title Unwrapping
Author Brutti ma buoni
Pairing Spike/Dru
Rating R
Warnings WW2 tragedies used with vampiric levity; vampires doing nasty, nasty things
Words 850
Setting pre-series
Some years were easier than others. Some decades passed lightly, swiftly, brightly. Some were leaden. Some dripped with gore (Spike couldn't remember the years of the Great War without a shudder, half revulsion, half delight, at how readily humanity had turned the world to blood and meat).
The Fifties were really starting to chafe. After so much bloodshed, so much horror, he'd had hopes for a bounce back with wild social change, music, drugs, dance, books and ideas, short skirts, emancipations and changes - the way the Twenties had lit things up last go-around. This time, humanity seemed to have turned inward with a polite negation of every base instinct they'd been demonstrating with delight not ten years ago.
Or perhaps, just perhaps, it was the action of a people who now held in their hands the power of auto-destruction, who were making themselves smaller than small, to be the ant or the cockroach that might survive annihilation.
Either way: fucking tedious when it came to birthday celebrations. Drusilla hadn't had a good bash since Hamburg in '43, and that had been pure jammy luck (and nearly the end of them both, along with so many others). Spike had been pondering on this one almost since the last one passed. It wasn't a special anniversary or anything, but he'd felt an urge to find something new, something big, something to make it worth her while. Could be a world-burner (there were rumours you could get the odd bit of the Judge on the black market, and it'd be a project at least, to aim for his reassembly). Could be a world ender (but Spike had never been wholly down with Armageddon, in all truth, and now it was so painfully near in the world of mortals, he wasn't getting keener). Or it could be-
"She's tiny," he said, barely daring to shape the words.
"Exquisite, is she not?" The little mole-man was the kind of snuffly, self-abasing toady Spike usually liked to crush on sight, but there was no denying he knew his stuff. "They are terribly rare, these days-"
He laughed. Exhilarated. Yes, he'd go with this. Not the end of the world. Not a huge, galumphing statement of macho power. Something jewel-bright and honed to what his beloved adored. "About to get rarer, I reckon. How much?"
Mole-man asked for an amount nicely calculated between 'eye-watering' and 'asking to get offed in lieu of bill payment', and Spike settled up. He'd be back, most likely.
She travelled in a jam jar, banging against the sides like a trapped firefly. Her purple flame burning the while, lighting up the car's inside with unearthly patternings. He could see Dru playing with this one a long time.
His beloved was asleep when he arrived home. He set down the jar at her bedside, additionally beribboned for style, and started to sing to her, low-voiced and rough in the early-evening dark. "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to yooouu-"
She stirred. Those glorious, all-seeing eyes opened. "What wonders have you brought for me, Spike?" She sounded radiant, expectant, confident. He could do this for her.
"Got you a little present, beloved," he crooned, whisper-soft in her ear, barely shifting the surrounding locks. "Something a little special for you to play with."
"She's old," Dru said. She still hadn't looked at the jar, but the room was suffused with the glow of his present. She barely needed to look to know what he had for her. "Old and frightened and alone."
She rolled over, knocking Spike to the floor in her eagerness. He lay on cold stone, laughing at her and at himself, at his pleasure in seeing her like this. She knocked on the glass jar. There was no answering tap. His gift had gone silent, making herself small. Perhaps she too was hoping to avoid the coming assault by being ever so, ever so good.
"Hello little faerie," said Drusilla. "You're my newest dolly."
He'd brought her some accessories, for she didn't have much of a size to be suitable - or so he had thought. He always overlooked the dolls, and how she cared for them.
It was one of Miss Edith's hatpins that skewered the last dark faerie in the West to Dru's little vivisection board. Right through the guts, to make sure she squirmed. "Bad boys," Dru sang as she worked. "Bad boys used to pull the wings off flies. But you're not a fly, are you, my lovely? And your wings are too pretty to take. Yet."
She began to work her nails, dagger-sharp and dagger-strong, into the faerie's shoulder joint. "But you don't need wings and, arms, now. Do you?"
It was fine and delicate work that Drusilla did with this one. Kept her so occupied she didn't remember her birthday cake for a week. At the last, though, Spike lit her candles from the dying purple flame.
She wore the wings as maquillage for years after. People would comment, at parties, on her dragonfly accoutrements, marking up one pale cheek or spread on her chest to invite rude stare. Spike got a little thrill, every time.
Perhaps not the best birthday he ever achieved for her. But unforgettable.
Title Unwrapping
Author Brutti ma buoni
Pairing Spike/Dru
Rating R
Warnings WW2 tragedies used with vampiric levity; vampires doing nasty, nasty things
Words 850
Setting pre-series
Some years were easier than others. Some decades passed lightly, swiftly, brightly. Some were leaden. Some dripped with gore (Spike couldn't remember the years of the Great War without a shudder, half revulsion, half delight, at how readily humanity had turned the world to blood and meat).
The Fifties were really starting to chafe. After so much bloodshed, so much horror, he'd had hopes for a bounce back with wild social change, music, drugs, dance, books and ideas, short skirts, emancipations and changes - the way the Twenties had lit things up last go-around. This time, humanity seemed to have turned inward with a polite negation of every base instinct they'd been demonstrating with delight not ten years ago.
Or perhaps, just perhaps, it was the action of a people who now held in their hands the power of auto-destruction, who were making themselves smaller than small, to be the ant or the cockroach that might survive annihilation.
Either way: fucking tedious when it came to birthday celebrations. Drusilla hadn't had a good bash since Hamburg in '43, and that had been pure jammy luck (and nearly the end of them both, along with so many others). Spike had been pondering on this one almost since the last one passed. It wasn't a special anniversary or anything, but he'd felt an urge to find something new, something big, something to make it worth her while. Could be a world-burner (there were rumours you could get the odd bit of the Judge on the black market, and it'd be a project at least, to aim for his reassembly). Could be a world ender (but Spike had never been wholly down with Armageddon, in all truth, and now it was so painfully near in the world of mortals, he wasn't getting keener). Or it could be-
"She's tiny," he said, barely daring to shape the words.
"Exquisite, is she not?" The little mole-man was the kind of snuffly, self-abasing toady Spike usually liked to crush on sight, but there was no denying he knew his stuff. "They are terribly rare, these days-"
He laughed. Exhilarated. Yes, he'd go with this. Not the end of the world. Not a huge, galumphing statement of macho power. Something jewel-bright and honed to what his beloved adored. "About to get rarer, I reckon. How much?"
Mole-man asked for an amount nicely calculated between 'eye-watering' and 'asking to get offed in lieu of bill payment', and Spike settled up. He'd be back, most likely.
She travelled in a jam jar, banging against the sides like a trapped firefly. Her purple flame burning the while, lighting up the car's inside with unearthly patternings. He could see Dru playing with this one a long time.
His beloved was asleep when he arrived home. He set down the jar at her bedside, additionally beribboned for style, and started to sing to her, low-voiced and rough in the early-evening dark. "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to yooouu-"
She stirred. Those glorious, all-seeing eyes opened. "What wonders have you brought for me, Spike?" She sounded radiant, expectant, confident. He could do this for her.
"Got you a little present, beloved," he crooned, whisper-soft in her ear, barely shifting the surrounding locks. "Something a little special for you to play with."
"She's old," Dru said. She still hadn't looked at the jar, but the room was suffused with the glow of his present. She barely needed to look to know what he had for her. "Old and frightened and alone."
She rolled over, knocking Spike to the floor in her eagerness. He lay on cold stone, laughing at her and at himself, at his pleasure in seeing her like this. She knocked on the glass jar. There was no answering tap. His gift had gone silent, making herself small. Perhaps she too was hoping to avoid the coming assault by being ever so, ever so good.
"Hello little faerie," said Drusilla. "You're my newest dolly."
He'd brought her some accessories, for she didn't have much of a size to be suitable - or so he had thought. He always overlooked the dolls, and how she cared for them.
It was one of Miss Edith's hatpins that skewered the last dark faerie in the West to Dru's little vivisection board. Right through the guts, to make sure she squirmed. "Bad boys," Dru sang as she worked. "Bad boys used to pull the wings off flies. But you're not a fly, are you, my lovely? And your wings are too pretty to take. Yet."
She began to work her nails, dagger-sharp and dagger-strong, into the faerie's shoulder joint. "But you don't need wings and, arms, now. Do you?"
It was fine and delicate work that Drusilla did with this one. Kept her so occupied she didn't remember her birthday cake for a week. At the last, though, Spike lit her candles from the dying purple flame.
She wore the wings as maquillage for years after. People would comment, at parties, on her dragonfly accoutrements, marking up one pale cheek or spread on her chest to invite rude stare. Spike got a little thrill, every time.
Perhaps not the best birthday he ever achieved for her. But unforgettable.