Freshed Stale Air

[deathly_dru]

Blood and bone and all things dead... There was a place for me, but it weren't here.

Not yet.

Not how.

Daddy's gone home... Stars are all a-twinkle and Princess come in the wake of lies, see. Time ain't what

KING OF CUPS

Spike... It's cold. There's a terrible lament and the daffodils aren't scratching like they should.

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It's

Comments

1/2

[breakmychest]

2/2

[breakmychest]

...Drusilla?

[deathly_dru]

w i l l i a m

I tried to tell them about you and they wouldn't have it. But then the dragon came.

[breakmychest]

...Angel's dragon? Didn't realize you were in LA for all that.

Who'd you tell, pet?

[deathly_dru]

Doctors.

They put me in a hospital, Spike. Everyone tasted funny... They never believed my pictures 'til it happened.

I saw everything you'd do.

And the fish...

[breakmychest]

Where are you?

[deathly_dru]

Got given a room. I think it's got spies.

Can't you feel them, Spike?

No... No, you wouldn't.

[breakmychest]

A number would be helpful, love.

[But he's still gonna head out as he talks and start going up, sniffing the air as he goes. It's just a matter of time until he picks up her scent, if she doesn't just tell him.]

[deathly_dru]

There's a 7... I think it should be a game.

ACTION SPAM

[breakmychest]

Yes, you would think that.

[Still, it doesn't take him long to find her cabin on level 7, and soon he knocks on her door. Sure, he may not need an invite, but he may as well be polite.]

Dru?

Re: ACTION SPAM

[deathly_dru]

Sire bonds can be tricky things. They've always affected her more than most vampires, though. She might have been a powerful medium, had her human years not been interfered with. Might even have met him, older in appearance than she eventually was.

But then Angelus came...

There was a melodic humming behind the door. Drusilla's 'run and catch' nursery rhyme, so often invoked for all manner of things. They hadn't met since Sunnydale. Since he chose the Slayer, whether consciously or not.

But that did nothing to prevent the fondness of the smile which greeted him as it opened.

"William..."

[breakmychest]

Spike nodded at her, though he didn't really smile. Drusilla would always be important to him, of course, and a part of him still loved her, but his heart didn't belong to her anymore. He wasn't the same monster he'd been back when they'd dated, and he wasn't about to pretend otherwise.

"Hello, love. Been a while."

[deathly_dru]

Hand slowly reached up, fingers extending and then - snap. Suddenly retreated with a miniature gasp.

"You're teaching the witch..."

[breakmychest]

It had been long enough since their time together that Spike's Drusilla-translating skills were rusty. He used to almost always know what she meant, even when others would be confused. But now he wasn't sure what she meant. If it weren't for the fast retreat, he'd think she was referring to Elphaba, his wicked witch inmate. But that reaction seemed more likely to refer to something else that had changed in him since they'd last seen each other.

"If you're talking about my soul, it wasn't given to me by any witch. I got it all on my own."

[deathly_dru]

A slow, repetitive shaking of the head, from left to right, followed Spike's guess. The initial one had been correct.

"Flying monkeys... Burning, baby fish. But she does seem to like you."

The middle phrase was an echo of time fluttering back to her. Drusilla's first meeting... A lot of this was reminding her of that. The time when she had found a lost poet and given him the fire he craved.

Brow creased and Drusilla seemed to cock head, facially expressing either wariness, displeasure or perhaps a mixture of both. She was... Reading things. Listening to them, scratching and whispering in the ether. Couldn't really avoid it, but at least could try and focus and sift one set of meanings from another.

"You spoke with the Slayer, again... Except-"

The other Buffy. The undead Buffy. But as Drusilla trailed eyes to the floor, hands came together, crossing over one another in an emotional retreat of defensiveness, looking hurt. She never liked how he dwelled upon the Slayer. Not like it was in the early days, when things were all about

[breakmychest]

"They want to give you back your soul," Spike says softly. A souled Drusilla... It wasn't something he'd ever thought about before. A soul didn't necessarily make you good. Souled people did terrible things all the time. But it was a hell of a lot harder to be good when you didn't have one. He wondered if Drusilla would find it easier or harder to deal with the guilt.

"It's not so bad, you know. Having a soul." That wasn't true, of course, it was horrible and painful and if Buffy hadn't been there, if Angel hadn't gone through it first, Spike wasn't sure he would have made it. But it was infinitely better than the alternative.