1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28
Dead Soul
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Angst/horror
Pairings: Spike/Drusilla, Spike/Sunday, Drusilla/Sunday, Spike/Drusilla/Sunday
Warnings: BDSM, non-consensual sex, violence, bloodplay, language, f/f slash,
inappropriate humor - all the good stuff
Disclaimers: Story and chapter titles are titles of Blondie songs. (I thought
about being careful with song dates and such but, like Spike, I got bored. Any
anachronisms are either intentional or so the hell what.) The usual disclaimers
for both characters and song titles. The only things I own are the things I
steal from dorm rooms. No, that sweater doesn't make you look fat. It just makes
you look purple
Distribution: Want? Take, have. But please let me know where
Feedback: Keeps the bloodlust in check, mailto:deadsoul820@aol.com
or drop me a comment on my LiveJournal, Dead Soul
Summary: Spike, Drusilla and Sunday in New York City, 1977. Ever wonder where Sunday (BtVS, Season 4, "The Freshman") came from? Why her fashion sense seems familiar, not to mention her attitude? She tells her story.
What is it now? I thought grumpily as I started to roll out of the warm, soft, comfy….
He was shaking me again, I must have fallen back to sleep. He whisked the covers off the bed and grabbed me by the hair, pulling me up into a sitting position. He bent to switch on the lamp by the side of the bed.
"Get your ass dressed now, or so help me I'll…."
"'Kay, okay, dressing now," I interrupted him. "Geez, where's the fire sale and why'd you have to pull my hair so hard?" Rubbing my head with one hand, I swung my legs out of the bed. My ass was still sort of sore from the spanking but it was bearable. At least a couple of hours must have gone by.
I leaned down to pick up my clothes from the floor. The leggings were all coiled up and knotted from when he'd rolled them off me, so I put the skirt on by itself and pulled the camisole over my head. I didn't bother with the shoes or socks. As I dressed Spike was pacing the room, smoking fast and glaring at me every few steps. I started towards the bathroom, "Let me brush my hair, it's all tangled."
"No time, come on now," he caught hold of my arm and swung me from my path to the bathroom, dragging me down the hall to Drusilla.
"What's she doing?" I asked, planting my feet, pulling against him. I wanted some kind of an idea of what was going on. I was so not ready for anymore of her craziness right now. I felt like I'd only just shut my eyes.
"What she's doin' is waiting, so c'mon already." I still wouldn't budge. "Look," he said, "just play along with her and everything will be all right." He jerked on my arm and I had to step forward to keep from falling.
Sure, play along, I thought. What the hell did he think I'd been doing all this time?
When we entered the cell, I didn't see why Spike was in such a swivet. She wasn't wailing, thrashing, scratching herself or any of the other crazy things I'd seen her do when she was in one of her 'moods.' No dervishing or self-mutilation; she was sitting calmly on one side of a small table; dressed, made up, hair brushed and immaculately arranged. Her hands lay palm down on the top of it. There was an empty chair directly across the table from her.
Soft piano music was playing, Chopin's Preludes; I recognized them from years of piano lessons. So many of them in somber minor keys. A few lamps and many candles had been lit, giving the previously stark room a warm glow. The bed was made and all the dolls were lined up prettily against the velvet pillow shams. There was no sign of drama or violence; nothing to give me any kind of a clue as to why Spike had hauled me so rudely out of bed. I wondered again just how much sleep I'd managed to get.
"Ah, Sunday," she said, beckoning languidly. "I need a manicure, my nails are in a dreadful state." A small bottle of black nail polish and another of white as well as the other necessary tools were laid out on the table - polish remover, cotton balls, emery board and buffer.
I glanced back at Spike who was still standing in the doorway, as if to say, 'You woke me up for this?' when I noticed the grim look on his face. He narrowed his eyes at me and gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. I looked back at Dru, studying her more closely. She was only calm on the surface - her eyes contained all the mania and slyness that had preceded her massacre of the minions. She giggled and I understood. This time she was setting me up for the fall.
I looked back around at Spike (I'm going to give myself whiplash at this rate, I thought), hoping for but not really expecting any kind of support, but his face had become completely impassive. I took a deep breath. I knew I couldn't count on him to help me but I didn't think he'd actively help her unless she asked him to directly. It was just a feeling I had. I hoped I was right. In his own way he was just as volatile as she was.
He looked away from me and crossed the room to lay on the bed, feet crossed and eyes closed like nothing interesting was going on, just boring girl stuff, but I could feel the tension in his body; his fingers tapping restlessly against his chest.
Amazing what some good food, a little sleep and a good screw will do for you. The last time I'd seen her like this I'd been half-starved, sleep-deprived, and mentally and emotionally exhausted. But given a couple day's break, my survival instinct had come roaring back along with a good deal of determination not to be pushed around any more. Yes, I'd play her game, but, by god, for once I was playing to win.
She snapped her fingers to recall my attention to her. She pointed at the chair across from her. Steeling myself, I went over and sat gingerly on the hard wooden chair. She held up one of her hands and I took it in mine. Her long nails really were in a dreadful state, the edges ragged and torn, polish chipped away, crusts of her own dried blood underneath and along the edges of them.
I tsk'ed and laid her hand gently back down on the table. Using the nail polish remover and cotton balls I carefully cleaned the blood and old polish off her fingernails. While I worked she was swaying dreamily to the music.
"Darla killed him, you know," she said.
"Who?" I asked.
"Darla, Darla! You remember, my Grandmummy."
"No, I mean who'd she kill?"
"Him," she said. "Frederic."
"Chopin? Darla killed Chopin? Didn't he die of tuberculosis or something?"
"Consumption, they said, but it was really Darla."
"Didn't she like his music?" This was the one of the few semi-coherent conversation I can remember ever having with her.
"She loved it. Said it sounded like blood - sometimes slow, sometimes fast but always a little sad."
"Then why did she kill him?"
"He got too sick to compose anymore, that made her very angry. She wanted to turn him, but Daddy wouldn't let her. Said it wouldn't work anyway, that he couldn't compose if he didn't have his soul. Grandmummy didn't believe him, but he said he'd leave her if she did it. Grandmummy could never do without her Angelus. Until he turned into the Angel-monster, that is. Then she couldn't abide him. Said he smelled filthy and that she wouldn't have him stinking up her nice sitting room. I never smelled it but I could feel it."
"What could you feel?"
"His soul. Gypsies cursed him with a soul. Wouldn't take it back so we ate them. Tasted like paprika and violins."
"Gave me heartburn," Spike chimed in from over on the bed. I'd almost forgotten he was there; he'd been being so uncharacteristically quiet.
"Were you with your Daddy and Grandmummy when she killed Frederic?"
"Silly Sunday. That was way before I was born. Way before Daddy killed my bad family and made me. Sometimes I remember them." Her voice trailed off and her eyes got a far away look. "I remember what they liked to eat. Custard with brandied pears, and lemons and pomegranates." I recognized the menu. Had Drusilla been thinking of me as one of her long lost relatives during that time we were alone? Could she remember any other kinds of food?
I picked up the emery board and began smoothing the jagged edges of her nails, honing them to a new sharpness. The tape of preludes stopped and she said, "Spike? Again." He got up and rewound the tape to start it over from the beginning. For a moment the only sounds were the whir of the rewinding and the scratch of the emery board. I felt myself beginning to relax a little. Maybe I had imagined what I'd seen in her eyes. Maybe she still liked me. Anyway, she seemed to like it when I asked her questions and hung on her every word. As long as the conversation stayed away from ants, I thought maybe things would be all right.
When Spike had restarted the tape and returned to his position on the bed, I was still wracking my brain for another safe question to ask her.
"Did you ever eat anyone famous?" I asked finally.
She thought for a moment. "In Paris, just a few years ago. Spike, when were we last in Paris?"
"'71, love."
"Yes, the poet I ate, what was his name?"
"Jim Morrison. Used to be a musician. Wrote some damn fine songs back in the day."
"Oh, yes. The one with only one leg."
"No, pet, that was Rimbaud. Different poet. You ate him in 1891."
She pulled her hands away and examined them, testing the edges of her nails for smoothness and sharpness. Satisfied, she handed one back to me and I began to buff the nails to make a smooth surface for the polish.
"Oh yes, I remember now. Spike, I want another poet to eat sometime soon."
"There's that one we saw at the club, Patti Smith. D'you want her? Or there's Jim Carroll. Problem with poets is, they're never famous enough anymore to be easy to find."
"Mmmm," she was literally licking her lips.
"Do poets taste different than other people?" I asked.
"Words," she said. "I can taste their words. They swirl in my head and make such pretty colors and music. They taste like fireflies and butterflies and mayflies, like hummingbird wings and flying fish singing to me."
"What do I taste like?"
She drew one of her newly sharpened nails along the back of my hand, slicing the skin, and lifted it to her mouth. She sucked on the wound for a moment. "You used to taste like fear and lust, but now you taste like, hmm, excitement and confidence. The fear and lust are still there but you're more alive tasting, almost, even happy. Are you happy here with us, Sunday?"
I considered the question. I tried to remember a time when I'd ever felt more alive and excited and confident. And scared and turned on. I couldn't. "Yes," I said slowly. "I think I am happy here with you."
She nodded contentedly. I picked up the bottle of black polish and began very carefully to paint her nails. We were comfortably silent. I could smell Spike's cigarette and the music played on. I finished the first coat and said quietly, "May I?" pointing towards the bathroom door. She just nodded, waving her hands to hasten the drying of the polish.
In the bathroom I ran a brush through my hair and quickly brushed my teeth, too. This wasn't going too badly, I thought. I even wondered if they would take me to Rome with them when they left to meet Darla.
I caught sight of the cut on my hand. Curiously I raised it to my mouth to taste the blood still seeping from it. To really taste it, to concentrate on the flavor, to try to imagine what they tasted when they drank from me. Salty, metallic, it didn't taste any different than it always had when I'd reflexively stuck a cut finger in my mouth or accidentally torn a cuticle I was chewing on. It didn't taste like food or nourishment or words or colors or music or emotions.
I shrugged and returned to Drusilla who was still sitting at the table. I applied the second coat of polish. This one would take longer to dry and I didn't want her to get impatient and mess it up - I was quite proud of the job I'd done - so I wanted to ask her another question. So far asking questions had kept her entertained and still.
I was searching for a safe subject when Spike spoke up. "I never did tell you, Dru, how I bagged my second Slayer."
"No, you didn't, you naughty, naughty boy. Tell Mummy right this very minute."
He leapt off the bed and launched into an animated recounting of the tale. At one point when he wanted to demonstrate one of the moves he'd used against her, he grabbed me up out of my chair, lay down on the floor and had me sit on top of him, holding his neck. Dru exclaimed, "Oh, brilliant! Charades!"
With a weird little flip thing, not rolling me over to the side like I'd been expecting and had my legs braced for but somehow throwing me forwards over his head and swinging me around, it's really impossible to describe how he did it but we ended up in exactly the same position as before except he was on top of me with his hand around my neck.
Dru was bouncing in her chair and clapping enthusiastically as he continued this somewhat too realistic reenactment when she suddenly started screaming. She was waving her hands as if trying to flick something off the ends of her fingers. "The ants! The ants!" Spike jumped off me and went to her, standing behind her chair to reach around her and hold her wrists so she wouldn't start scratching herself again. Indeed, the gleaming black polish did look something like the shiny black carapaces of giant black ants. I was kicking myself for not noticing it sooner.
Spike wrestled her hands down to the table and held them there. "There, there, love, don't fret. Sunday will kill the bad ants." She sat shivering, her eyes closed. He jerked his head at me to come over. I slid into the chair and grabbed up the bottle of white nail polish, it seemed the quickest way to cover the black. I quickly painted a slash of white across the tip of each of her fingernails.
"See," I said as cheerfully as I could manage, "The ants are gone. No such thing as black and white ants. It's just your pretty new manicure. I bet no one else in the whole world has a manicure like this."
She opened one eye cautiously and peered down at her hands. "No more ants? You promise?"
"She promises, love, and so do I. Look at your pretty fingernails. No one has fingers as dainty as my princess."
She stopped shivering and Spike warily released her wrists. She held her hands up and looked them over. "Oh, Sunday," she said. "I like this. The white makes my nails look even longer."
Never boring, I thought. She was never boring.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28