I dreamed about my favorite vampires!
I had a dream about Darla and Dru and Angel and Spike!! As so often happens with dreams, it’s doesn’t make any sense whatsoever now that I’m awake, but it made sense while I was actually dreaming it. I hardly ever dream about characters I love- no character-insertion dreams, no replaying of events dreams, no sex-with-Harry or sex-with-Spike dreams (apparently people have those; I’m kind of jealous), so this left me feeling extremely happy when I woke up.
The details are already gone, and as I said, it doesn’t make any sense now that I’m awake, but this was the gist: Spike was courting me (I don’t know if I was supposed to be Buffy or if Buffy had never existed in this scenario; no clue), and Angel was courting Darla, BUT for whatever reason Angel had no idea that Darla was Darla (I think she may have been under a glamour around him). OTOH, we knew exactly who they were, although the boys didn’t tell us they were vampires and thought we were oblivious humans. Meanwhile, Dru was just…there. She and Darla came as a package set.
Darla was a vampire, but for whatever reason, she wasn’t evil (I’m guessing that everyone had souls, although there was no explicit mention of them). Still prickly and aloof and conniving but also protective of me, for some reason, and not murderous. Dru was also a vamp but not evil; gentle and docile, she hummed to herself, talked to the pixies, etc., most of the time but helped when Darla gave her a direct order. She also had short, shoulder-length hair, and she was really pretty. I emphasize that because I’ve personally never thought Dru was attractive, but in my dream her hair was different and she looked really lovely.
There was also an enemy closing in on us, but only Darla, Dru, and I knew that, and while the oblivious boys cooked us a huge Italian feast (don’t ask me why, I don’t even like Italian), Darla and I conferred about what to do. And by that, I mean she plotted strategy and rolled her eyes when I jumped and told me not to be a baby, she would take care of it. At some point a female vampire attacked us, and I…somehow disposed of her (one of those details that no longer makes any sense). I was elated and proud for a minute before realizing it had been too easy and it must have been a distraction. The boys called us in for dinner before anything happened, and we all sat down to eat, except most of them just picked at their food because it wasn’t blood. And it was all awkward and funny because we were secretly on the lookout for enemies, Angel had no idea who Darla was, and the boys where trying to be charming while under the impression that we had no idea who they were.
I’m not really sure what happened after that; the boys might have temporarily disappeared and the vague sense of dread might have grown stronger, but at some point my family appeared in the dream (possibly we were all going to my house to meet them?) and I started doing budgeting stuff for the Shakespeare campus club I’m in. And that was the end of my adventure with the Fanged Four.
As you can see, it was really weird and nonsensical, but it was so enjoyable because except for not being evil, personality-wise, Darla, Dru, and Angel (and probably Spike, although he didn’t do much) were spot-on! Darla was a BAMF and a HBIC, issuing orders to Dru and me about how to let her take care of things and rolling her eyes at my weak-human attempts at bravery but also giving me rare nods of approval when I did things right. We weren’t friends, per se, but for whatever reason, she had taken me under her protection, and she was going to see that through; she was also really gentle and nurturing toward Dru. She thought Angel and Spike were morons for pretending to be human and not knowing who she was, but it also amused her a lot. We had a rare moment of girl-talk-bonding over their efforts.
As for the other characters, Dru was exactly the way I imagine she would be if she had a soul: docile, gentle, and out of it but also able to use her vampire speed and strength in terrifying ways if instructed to (which Darla did). Angel was being adorable-dork!Angel in the kitchen with Spike, giddy because he thought stuff like, “I’m carrying off my master plan of wooing her and not letting her know I’m a vampire so well!” (and Darla was like, “Lol, my dear, stupid boy, I know everything about you.”). Spike was the least in-character because he was subdued and didn’t do much overall (he’s the one I’m least clear on; probably my subconscious was trying to will him out of my dream so that he could go back to Buffy).
There was also a nice feeling of dread in the dream; I was scared enough to be on edge, but I wasn’t so scared that it became a nightmare; I trusted Darla to guide us through the fight, and I was eager to defend myself and prove my worth. The dream felt like an adventure, not just like a really bizarre double date. Oh, and the excellent gender reversal roles improved everything, too! The boys were oblivious to the danger and were cooking us dinner while Darla, Dru, and I held down the fort!
Lastly, the characters looked like themselves. You know how in some dreams, you know a person is supposed to be Person X but when you wake up you think, That didn’t look like Person X at all, ugh, what I was thinking? Not so in this one; Darla was Darla, Angel was Angel, Dru was Dru (albeit with different hair), and Spike was Spike.
The story itself was strange, but I got to hang out with awesome characters I love, not just paltry imitations of the characters, and they considered me one of their own. It was great.
I wish I could go hang out with Darla and Dru again. I would not have guessed that would be so much fun…