Out of Joint -- Chapter 5 (Part 2)
Mar. 20th, 2005 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sharelleI found it hard to believe that it's been more than a month since I last updated this story. It really doesn't feel like that long, but the past few weeks have gone by in a bit of a haze – though not necessarily in a good way. I'm starting to feel better little by little, however, and as a result, since last weekend, I've started picking away at writing again.
I actually have most of the next chapter for this written as well, though I'm not wholly certain of how satisfied I am with it. This scene is very short, and there are parts (one paragraph in particular) that I'm still not happy with, but it does close out Chapter 5 and set the stage for Buffy to really enter the story. As usual, I may do some editing later, although I hope people enjoy what is here.
Previous sections can be found in my Memories.
(Chapter 5 – Part 2)
* * *
They reached their shelter within a matter of minutes.
After fleeing from the house on Revello Drive, Spike must have made his way closer to the outskirts of town than he'd originally thought, his whole body working purely from instinct once again. Truth be told, even now, Spike’s feet seemed to be leading him, guiding him just as surely as the gentle tug of Drusilla’s hand. Like they knew where he was being taken better than his brain did. Probably a good thing too – that way at least one part of his body didn’t go into a tailspin at the sight of their destination. He managed to keep his legs under him, even as his mind whirled in a febrile spiral.
This was bloody unreal. Last he had seen, the place had been a burned-out husk. Now, it seemed just as intact as the day he’d first muscled his way into it. It seemed like a lifetime ago since he’d been back. Of course, it had only been a little over five years. But the factory, which had been his first home in Sunnydale, was only the most recent addition to the growing list of things that just shouldn’t be here.
Spike almost shuddered to think of what else might make the list. Though part of him had the sneakingly uneasy suspicion that he already knew. Direction things had been headed over the last few hours, some distant module of his brain had a right good idea of what lay on the other side of those doors. Even if it did seem bloody impossible.
He could sense the sun cresting the horizon in the distance, but the two vampires had already arrived well within the boundaries of the shadow of the looming factory and the surrounding structures. Spike thought back to the alley from several hours ago, the place he had first found himself after Angel and the opera house had vanished. He suddenly realized why it had looked so familiar. It was located at the back of the factory, on the other side of this cluster of buildings. Apparently, he had come full-circle since his appearance back in Sunnydale.
Drusilla towed him gently along behind her, swaying in a fluid, undulating swerve as she moved toward the door and humming tunelessly to herself as she walked. Spike felt himself stagger awkwardly behind her, partly from the buildup of shock at the situation in which he now found himself, and partly from his body’s dizzying loss of blood. The wound in his forearm had started to close, but his failure to replace the nourishment he had lost wasn’t helping to improve his state or replenish his body’s strength.
Drusilla laid her hand upon the iron door of the factory and turned her head back to him with a dulcet smile. She pushed effortlessly against the heavy metal and drew him inside.
Once there, everything was so eerily familiar. Spike staggered a bit through the main chamber of the factory, glancing at the overhanging catwalks and metal stairs that crisscrossed their way through the eaves. He walked toward the long table, which he recalled bringing to the place after Dru had said the factory was cold and lacked ambiance. Of course, he denied her nothing. Not then. And she had been so weak at the time, he was simply looking for ways to please her and help her to get well.
But now – he glanced at his dark rose as she leaned bodily against a steal beam, her fingers tracing playful figure-eights among the large bolts fixed into its surface – she seemed to be as strong as the day he had used Angel to complete that spell of healing. Which meant . . . .
. . . Oh! . . . Oh, bollocks . . . .
His eyes widened as he grasped the nearest high-backed chair and sank leadenly into it. No bloody wonder everything was going so wonky. The rest of his mind violently caught up to the part of him which already had a sneaking suspicion about what happened to him. Figures were adding up, details were falling into place.
The factory, Dru, Joyce, even the whole bleeding town. All of them inexplicably here.
The disturbing and traceless absence of Dawn.
Buffy, the way she attacked him, the way she hated him, even the way she sodding looked. No wonder she reminded him so much of the first time they had met.
And Spike? Hell, he knew damn well where his place was during all this. On his bloody backside in a god forsaken wheelchair, that’s where.
What the hell had that Cup done to him?
Absently, Spike wondered where the chair was. Probably in his own chamber, behind a locked door, where he usually left it when he had been sneaking out, trying to avoid the discovery that he had been steadily healing. 'Course the plan to keep his recovery a secret, which had worked at the time, seemed rather moot now. Now that Dru had found him outside, that is. He wondered if he should be grateful that he’d managed to limp awkwardly behind her as she towed him back to the factory. The old Spike hadn’t wanted his cover blown. So at least his confusion and blood-loss-induced disorientation had served some purpose.
The big question now was, why the hell was he here? The Shanshu Prophecy had said the vampire with a soul would either save creation or destroy it after drinking from the Cup of Perpetual Torment, but Spike thought some higher power must have its signals crossed. After all, he had already saved the world . . . from here. With Buffy.
Sort of.
Spike wondered if his presence here was just part of the torment the Cup had in mind. Must be. Not that this particular point in his life hadn't been tormenting enough during the first go-round. What, with being forced to live here with Dru and—
He suddenly felt Drusilla sway over to his side and slither down to the floor in front of his chair, crouching low and placing a hand on each of his knees, her fingernails tracing lazy circles across the denim. She gazed up at him with parted lips and an expression of pure rapture. “Now, dear heart,” she murmured, “you know Mummy should scold you for keeping naughty secrets.” Glancing downward in mock coyness, she extended her arms and leaned away from him, clasping onto his knees as she bent over backward, nearly in half, her body writhing and swaying to music only she could hear. Drusilla giggled girlishly and threw her head back, then began to straighten slowly into an upright kneeling position once again. Her hands slid progressively up the lengths of his legs as she raised herself, stopping at the point where his thigh met his hip. Spike shivered very slightly at the contact.
“But,” Drusilla added in a soft coo, “Mummy does so want to know just how well her dear boy has healed.” She straightened her head and met his gaze again, laughing deeply and wickedly in the back of her throat. Her eyes were lit by a playfully sinful blaze. “Will you show her?”
Drusilla’s fingers continued their roaming and they began to dip downward into the curve of his thighs. For a moment, Spike didn’t think he’d ever felt more powerless in his life. He had always been captivated by the way she could switch so drastically from childlike innocent to villainous seductress. It was one of the things he’d always loved best about her – before. He swallowed hard and stared back into her entrancing eyes.
“Well,” a voice resounded from overhead. Biting, smug, antagonistic. Spike knew that voice. “Looks like the prodigal gimp’s come home, after all. And here we were, so afraid you’d gotten yourself caught in the morning sun. We’ll rest easy now, won’t we, Dru?”
Spike tore his eyes from Drusilla and she immediately pulled her hands away from him. She rose quickly to her feet, beaming with a kind of pride at the individual on the catwalk above them. Spike looked up as well.
The last piece to the puzzle of where he now found himself finally fell into place like the dropping of a wrecking ball. He tilted his head in acknowledgment, not even making a pretense to hide the scorn in his voice as he greeted the other man.
“Angelus.”
* * *
To be continued. . .
I actually have most of the next chapter for this written as well, though I'm not wholly certain of how satisfied I am with it. This scene is very short, and there are parts (one paragraph in particular) that I'm still not happy with, but it does close out Chapter 5 and set the stage for Buffy to really enter the story. As usual, I may do some editing later, although I hope people enjoy what is here.
Previous sections can be found in my Memories.
(Chapter 5 – Part 2)
They reached their shelter within a matter of minutes.
After fleeing from the house on Revello Drive, Spike must have made his way closer to the outskirts of town than he'd originally thought, his whole body working purely from instinct once again. Truth be told, even now, Spike’s feet seemed to be leading him, guiding him just as surely as the gentle tug of Drusilla’s hand. Like they knew where he was being taken better than his brain did. Probably a good thing too – that way at least one part of his body didn’t go into a tailspin at the sight of their destination. He managed to keep his legs under him, even as his mind whirled in a febrile spiral.
This was bloody unreal. Last he had seen, the place had been a burned-out husk. Now, it seemed just as intact as the day he’d first muscled his way into it. It seemed like a lifetime ago since he’d been back. Of course, it had only been a little over five years. But the factory, which had been his first home in Sunnydale, was only the most recent addition to the growing list of things that just shouldn’t be here.
Spike almost shuddered to think of what else might make the list. Though part of him had the sneakingly uneasy suspicion that he already knew. Direction things had been headed over the last few hours, some distant module of his brain had a right good idea of what lay on the other side of those doors. Even if it did seem bloody impossible.
He could sense the sun cresting the horizon in the distance, but the two vampires had already arrived well within the boundaries of the shadow of the looming factory and the surrounding structures. Spike thought back to the alley from several hours ago, the place he had first found himself after Angel and the opera house had vanished. He suddenly realized why it had looked so familiar. It was located at the back of the factory, on the other side of this cluster of buildings. Apparently, he had come full-circle since his appearance back in Sunnydale.
Drusilla towed him gently along behind her, swaying in a fluid, undulating swerve as she moved toward the door and humming tunelessly to herself as she walked. Spike felt himself stagger awkwardly behind her, partly from the buildup of shock at the situation in which he now found himself, and partly from his body’s dizzying loss of blood. The wound in his forearm had started to close, but his failure to replace the nourishment he had lost wasn’t helping to improve his state or replenish his body’s strength.
Drusilla laid her hand upon the iron door of the factory and turned her head back to him with a dulcet smile. She pushed effortlessly against the heavy metal and drew him inside.
Once there, everything was so eerily familiar. Spike staggered a bit through the main chamber of the factory, glancing at the overhanging catwalks and metal stairs that crisscrossed their way through the eaves. He walked toward the long table, which he recalled bringing to the place after Dru had said the factory was cold and lacked ambiance. Of course, he denied her nothing. Not then. And she had been so weak at the time, he was simply looking for ways to please her and help her to get well.
But now – he glanced at his dark rose as she leaned bodily against a steal beam, her fingers tracing playful figure-eights among the large bolts fixed into its surface – she seemed to be as strong as the day he had used Angel to complete that spell of healing. Which meant . . . .
. . . Oh! . . . Oh, bollocks . . . .
His eyes widened as he grasped the nearest high-backed chair and sank leadenly into it. No bloody wonder everything was going so wonky. The rest of his mind violently caught up to the part of him which already had a sneaking suspicion about what happened to him. Figures were adding up, details were falling into place.
The factory, Dru, Joyce, even the whole bleeding town. All of them inexplicably here.
The disturbing and traceless absence of Dawn.
Buffy, the way she attacked him, the way she hated him, even the way she sodding looked. No wonder she reminded him so much of the first time they had met.
And Spike? Hell, he knew damn well where his place was during all this. On his bloody backside in a god forsaken wheelchair, that’s where.
What the hell had that Cup done to him?
Absently, Spike wondered where the chair was. Probably in his own chamber, behind a locked door, where he usually left it when he had been sneaking out, trying to avoid the discovery that he had been steadily healing. 'Course the plan to keep his recovery a secret, which had worked at the time, seemed rather moot now. Now that Dru had found him outside, that is. He wondered if he should be grateful that he’d managed to limp awkwardly behind her as she towed him back to the factory. The old Spike hadn’t wanted his cover blown. So at least his confusion and blood-loss-induced disorientation had served some purpose.
The big question now was, why the hell was he here? The Shanshu Prophecy had said the vampire with a soul would either save creation or destroy it after drinking from the Cup of Perpetual Torment, but Spike thought some higher power must have its signals crossed. After all, he had already saved the world . . . from here. With Buffy.
Sort of.
Spike wondered if his presence here was just part of the torment the Cup had in mind. Must be. Not that this particular point in his life hadn't been tormenting enough during the first go-round. What, with being forced to live here with Dru and—
He suddenly felt Drusilla sway over to his side and slither down to the floor in front of his chair, crouching low and placing a hand on each of his knees, her fingernails tracing lazy circles across the denim. She gazed up at him with parted lips and an expression of pure rapture. “Now, dear heart,” she murmured, “you know Mummy should scold you for keeping naughty secrets.” Glancing downward in mock coyness, she extended her arms and leaned away from him, clasping onto his knees as she bent over backward, nearly in half, her body writhing and swaying to music only she could hear. Drusilla giggled girlishly and threw her head back, then began to straighten slowly into an upright kneeling position once again. Her hands slid progressively up the lengths of his legs as she raised herself, stopping at the point where his thigh met his hip. Spike shivered very slightly at the contact.
“But,” Drusilla added in a soft coo, “Mummy does so want to know just how well her dear boy has healed.” She straightened her head and met his gaze again, laughing deeply and wickedly in the back of her throat. Her eyes were lit by a playfully sinful blaze. “Will you show her?”
Drusilla’s fingers continued their roaming and they began to dip downward into the curve of his thighs. For a moment, Spike didn’t think he’d ever felt more powerless in his life. He had always been captivated by the way she could switch so drastically from childlike innocent to villainous seductress. It was one of the things he’d always loved best about her – before. He swallowed hard and stared back into her entrancing eyes.
“Well,” a voice resounded from overhead. Biting, smug, antagonistic. Spike knew that voice. “Looks like the prodigal gimp’s come home, after all. And here we were, so afraid you’d gotten yourself caught in the morning sun. We’ll rest easy now, won’t we, Dru?”
Spike tore his eyes from Drusilla and she immediately pulled her hands away from him. She rose quickly to her feet, beaming with a kind of pride at the individual on the catwalk above them. Spike looked up as well.
The last piece to the puzzle of where he now found himself finally fell into place like the dropping of a wrecking ball. He tilted his head in acknowledgment, not even making a pretense to hide the scorn in his voice as he greeted the other man.
“Angelus.”
To be continued. . .
