seductress darla slash

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Of the Beast
By Kita

``So, you ever have that wolf dream, B?``

Startled by the conjured half-memory, she shook her head. ``No.`` Too fast, too obvious, and Faith caught it. Raised one dark brow, licked her over-red mouth.

Thwarted from her attack of sarcasm by an attack of the fanged variety; the conversation and the company blessed dust for the evening.

She hasn`t thought about since then. Buried under the avalanche of Apocolypses and College Calculus, the Initiative and Insta-sister, it remained, an untouched icon.

(((She was in a forest, and it was a night without a moon. The trees were so thick she could not even find the stars. She was not afraid.

In a small clearing she saw them, circling a large fire. There were at least eight of them, in every size and color she could imagine. Their paws shuffling along the fallen leaves made a noise like the rustling of large, soft feathers. They made no other sound, but she heard it anyway. They called to her. They called her by name. She wasn`t afraid.

She walked toward them, to the warmth and the light of the fire, and she shed her clothes. Leather jacket, blue jeans, white tee, cotton underwear. She pulled her boots off last, and dropped them as she went. The biggest one lifted its head and scented the air as she came closer.

When she stood before them, she knew what they were. Not werewolves nor witches, not men in shapeshifter`s clothes. Wolves. They weren`t even pretty to look at, really, except in that distinctly predatory way. The way that fear looks pretty on the face of an enemy. Thin, almost bony frames covered in fur matted by blood and dirt, with eyes ranging from yellow to orange in the fire`s glow.

He lifted his head once more and looked right at her, his teeth covered in shiny spittle; the scent of blood, rotted meat and the hunt on his jowls. And she wasn`t afraid.

She laid down there, by the fire. And when they took her, one by one, it was she who howled. )))

She thinks about it often now, alone in the darkness with no male arms around her, and the sound of chopper blades repeating in her ears. She thinks about it all.

(((How Faith wore her sex like armor. Daughter of fire and flames, kisses like hot, wet silk. Just once; before he returned from Hell. Buffy remembers feeling almost clumsy next to that self-assured need. Grave soil and bits of crisp, broken flowers in their hair, taste of salt and buttered popcorn on their skin. But loneliness was never assuaged in that embrace. It was doubled, multiplied with every breathy moan, every stolen graze of fingertip on flesh. She thinks about that too now, and realizes it could have been different..could have been...comfort. But she was too afraid to lose, and Faith was too afraid to win. And then it was just too late. )))

(((The first time with Angel, tender and sweet and glowing like copper pennies. She watched his face when he came; his eyes pressed shut, his soft mouth open, expression strangely unguarded for one fleeting moment...and she still remembers thinking, ``oh..*that`s* what this is...`` Thinking that the next time they made love, she would be less nervous, less self-aware, and she would feel that as well. )))

There was no next time with Angel, at least not the one she thinks of as...hers, and the irony of it is not lost on her. Least of all the fact that she had her first climax in his arms only after she goaded his half-conscious alter ego into feeding from her.

(((Laying there on cold stone, beneath his weight pressed full upon her, listening to the wet sounds of her life being suckled away. The scent of burnt leaves. Taste of his sickness and poisoned sweat.

There were cruel fists in her hair, and a sharp knee between her legs, and the hands that stripped her from the waist down were cool and implacable. His first thrust forced her back into a bow.

And she wrapped her legs around him, and she howled. )))

Since then, since those bittersweet nights of secrets long kept, there has been only the wolves.

Once or twice, she had come close with her new lover. When Riley would accidentally hold her wrist too tightly at her side, or nibble too earnestly at the soft flesh of her shoulder. Not the neck. No, never there. Sacred ground and icons.

But she would never tell him, never dream of whispering those words. (Please can

you..won`t you...please...harder...)

How could she phrase such a need? Blond, gentle, eager Riley. He would never have

understood. She stopped faulting them all for that a long time ago. For wanting her to

carefully tuck away the darkness when she was finished walking inside of it, for needing to be shielded from the complete reality of who she Is.

//Keep your Slayer friends out of our dreams//

//Willow wanted me to tell you to kick his ass//

Yes, yes, save us from the boogiemen won`t you, but please cover their faces when it is done, and not too many war stories in our presence, ok?

Yea. Truth be told, it still burns a bit.

Still, she can`t fault them. Because even she can`t wrap her mind around the Primal of it, except inside the gateway to half-sleep, when she is only twitchy Id.

Because she loves them all, she does; and so she lets much go. Lets it go because Willow smiles like sunflowers, and smells like white sage, and dresses like the Salvation Army exploded. Lets it go because Xander has the softest eyes, and the biggest hands, and he makes her feel safe by standing next to her, even though he can never offer her any sort of real protection. Lets it go because Giles had stepped into her life with a seamless grace, and she never had time nor inclination to mourn the lack of a true Father when she had one in him.

She loves them.

But they are so fragile.

Their bruises remain purple and yellow, their flesh criss crosses with silver scars, their bones shatter and take months to heal, and...the delicate bodies which house those she loves, they are all just so damned easy to break.

And she has read all the books which Giles thought he had so carefully hidden; she knows she is destined to die young, knows she is already the oldest walking Slayer. But next to her kith and kin, why, she is practically invincible. And to love them too deeply means to mourn their loss when they pass, and she just...there just isn`t time. No time for her to weep or to sow.

Of course *they* fear the darkness, of course they loathe the pain. For them, it heralds only endings.

It used to mean the same to her. She thinks she remembers...

No. She cannot recall for certain when her paradigm shifted so irrevocably that her nerve endings began to equate pain with pleasure. She is only aware that by now the need is shamefully familiar. She wonders sometimes if it is braided into the loops of her DNA, whether right next to the gene for Leaping Tall Buildings and Executing Flawless Roundhouse Kicks lies a chromosome made up entirely of thorns.

Born to slay monsters, hardwired to stop world destruction. Her legacy on this Earth not of creation, but annihilation. Why should bedroom be different than boardroom?

//Death is your art. You make it every day with your hands.//

Damnable crushing accuracy.

//I can lie to everyone else, but I can`t lie to myself. Or for some reason, to Spike...//

As much remains true, but it is the old half-truths and double entendres she dwells on now. In her empty bed these nights, with the time to roll them each around on her tongue. Their thick, unfamiliar flavors, sometimes, almost too much to bear.

Spike`s sucked in cheeks and fluttering dark lashes, his dropped tone and clipped, accented speech. Familiar flirtation to her now, but then, directed at another, she had missed its significance. In what remained of her innocence, it hadn`t even dawned...

//It don`t work that way no more, *Peaches*//

She had watched Spike and Angel fight one another and fight alongside one another,

effortless grace and violent polish, never once acknowledging the whiplash of blood through her veins at the sight.

//Where`s the Great Pouff?//

Their shared history, so long and so hungry; how could she have *missed* it? What must once have been, without posturing or pretense between them. Sharp-toothed, punishing kisses and long, muscled limbs entwined. And it is the vision of them of fastened together, it is the image of their faces twisted in ecstasy, which raises the strangled cry in her throat when the only hands between her thighs are her own.

She knows there was a time when such fantasy would have horrified her. When in sleeping dreams she saw windmills and party dresses, not wooden crossbows and piles of ash. When intimacy meant sloppy kisses and groping hands over the mis-buttoned silk of her blouse.

But she *knows* so much more now, she knows so much more than she *wanted* to, and how can she be expected to UN-know it all?

Her righteous anger at Angel upon seeing Faith in his arms. Her ritualistic maiming of Spike. Cover the darkness, hide it away. //You are not the source of me.//

A masquerade of light.

Angel thought that his leaving would force her into the Sunshine, but he hadn`t understood. That the darkness inside of her would not be banished by his sacrifice, by his will. That there are certain covenants which warmth and light simply cannot displace.

Angel. Faith. Spike. Herself. They have all shared what becomes the ultimate intimacy. And she knows now that it has nothing whatsoever to do with embraces, be they chaste or lust-filled. It is neither about saving lives nor souls. It is not about love, or friendship.

It is about the fellowship of Brutality.

//That final gasp, that look of peace//

It is about being The Bringer.

//The bloodcry, the penetrating wound//

They have each wrapped their arms around Death`s neck and they have..//danced// with Him. They have slept and cuddled and kissed and *fucked* on that godamn bed of bones.

So she will not kill Spike.

Because he is Angel`s familiar, and hers.

Because when he fights alongside her, guileless and savage, maybe for one single instant of grace, she feels just this much less the animal.

Because he is right, he has always been right, about every accursed thing.

Because she can love honey colored tussled hair and strong shoulders to lean on, she can enjoy ice cream flavored kisses and the most reverent of caresses. Because, oh, an adoring touch will lead her to the abyss, a fervent whisper of her name from between clenched teeth will make her crave the leap...

But it is only ever the invitation of violence that will make her *fall*.

OF THE BEAST II: SPIKE

He has never liked the silence. Silence to him is lack of sound, and lack of *anything* in his opinion, cannot be good. He likes things to be filled. Space with furniture, stomach with fast food, throat with beer and blood, lungs with smoke. Silence with words.

It`s not the talking that he misses so much as...being talked to. Having conversations occur around him. He remembers the decades when their house was never still. When even in sleep he could hear small feet stomp in protest, a low voice rumbling with anger or pleasure, and wicked, gleeful giggles.

Now there is silence. Broken only on occasion by the ludicrous babblings of the blond fledgling he has not killed simply out of...apathy. And now he is certain the old adage is true. The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference.

It is silence.

It is void.

He keeps the television on all the time now. Even when he lays down to rest. It had worked to keep the dreams at bay for a while. But lately he finds himself needing to turn it up, louder and louder...

//``Are you certain this is the one you want, Drusilla? He`s rather...small.`` Hands lifted his arms, testing their weight and measure. Finding them lacking.

``Oh, Daddy, look..look at his eyes. So blue. Like berries in summertime. `` Soft, cool fingers on his cheeks.

``Dru, his eyes are closed. He`s half dead for godssake.`` Larger hands in his hair, tugged back his head, inspected the wound. ``Must say ya did a fine job though, lass. Best decide soon then. He hasn`t got much longer.``

``I want him Daddy. I want *him*.`` Fingers twirled through his sweat soaked hair. And bells. He thinks he remembers bells.

Puff of air by his cheek. ``Well, boy, consider yerself fortunate then. Myself, I`d have just killed ya. Must be yer lucky moon.`` Bitter liquid forced between his lips, teeth clamping down of their own accord, and shadows swaying...

Then, lost inside the thicket of black and crimson, her voice like carousel horses, colors and revolution... ``Not luck at all. No, my pet,`` she whispered by his ear, `` you see, wounded animals always know who to come to for mercy.`` //

He breathes. Opens his eyes to the inky darkness around him, runs a hand through his hair.

The owl is out there again.

He doesn`t need to get up and look outside to sense its presence. Years of laying with Moon majik and witchery and fuck all Catholic archetypes have left him with the taste if not the desire.

So he knows the continued presence of the godamn bird probably *means* something. But Dru isn`t here, and Angelus isn`t here, and he couldn`t give a fuck-all about mystical symbolism. Owls. Supposedly great hunters, nocturnal and swift, killing skillfully and without remorse. But noone is actually *afraid* of owls. A medium sized harmless black snake draws more girlish terror than a full grown Great Horned Owl, and really, how is that fair? In Spike`s opinion, the gods gave owls a shitty deal in the whole predator department.

Symbolism be damned.

The owl is out there and it will *still* be out there whenever he gets up off this slab of

concrete and opens the crypt door.

(((Whenever he can shake off the cobwebs of black lace gloves, and swallow down the taste of flames and blueberries. Whenever he can blink and not see visions of red velvet waistcoats and well-polished riding boots. )))

Let it wait.

Two weeks ago he awoke with hairs standing on end, the thrill ancient and strangely

reminiscent.

It was being thirteen, caught with Elsibeth in the alleyway by her mum. It was the hiss of his Sire`s leather belt being slowly stripped from its casings. It was Dru singing nonsense as she cut small stars on his naked flesh with her pearl handled blade.

He threw open his door expecting none and all of them, and there it was. A bird the size of a large dog, sitting motionless on the grave which passed for his front porch and staring at him with eyes the color of lemons.

He hadn`t stopped to consider whether the thing owned a soul before he threw his boot at it. When no blinding headache greeted him he assumed it did not. The owl effortlessly dodged his well placed toss, with a small rustling of feathers and a long, slow blink. He shrugged, and closed the door.

(((Dreamed of an alleyway in London. Of shredded papers and petty, mortal tears. Of small,cold hands around his throat and down the front of his trousers, of the sharpest eyes on his, and the sharpest teeth in his flesh. Of living shadows watching him die. He heard himself screaming, a far away sound, the wail of a giant bird.)))

(((Dreamed of a brutal coupling in the back of a carriage, as it rumbled down the back alleys of Ireland. Of Blood and mastery. Saw dark brown eyes melt into the color of sunshine as the handsome face lowered to his. Searched the amused countenance half-hidden in shadow, felt the breath warmed by a recent feed tickling his ear. Whimsical promises, words of lust.

Whisper. ``William.``)))

He awoke with the taste of soot and Irish Whiskey in his mouth. When he spit on the dirt floor, his saliva was tainted with blood.

He opened his door again later that night and the owl was yet by his crypt, perched on a tombstone, staring at the darkness. On the dry earth beneath it was the remnant of some small animal...a partial pelt of matted fur, viscera covered in red, still blood.

He froze. Swallowed. Muttered a few choice words in its general direction, and stalked off in search of something to hurt. He did not come home that night, returning instead just before the sun rose, in time to watch the owl take off into the pink and gray sky. Its wings beat a steady, sedate measure in the stillness.

He stood beneath the owl, and watched it rise. That day, he did not sleep at all.

He paced and he cursed and he drank. And the voices were so loud, they were so damn loud...and the volume on the TV wouldn`t turn any higher...

(((They were four, and he was a part, they were Pride and Pack

fuck the vampires as solitary hunters crap. Forever is long. Forever is lonely. Forever is so godamn fucking *quiet*.

fuck the pain that came with it all. It doesn`t hurt nearly so bad when the hand that beats you caresses you afterward. Doesn`t shame nearly so much when the words that fall as easy as the whip are so pure, so sweet, so full of love...

``You bleed so pretty, William. So godamn pretty.``

fuck that the constellation didn`t revolve around him.. let Angelus have it, damnit, let him be the fucking Sun.. it`s too much work and it`s too much bloody responsibility. It was comfort enough just to be within the gravitational pull....

It was hearing a voice in the night. It was knowing what came next. It was rolling over and there was always someone there. It was being full..... )))

His teeth were still humming when he broke into Giles` house and pinched a well worn text on Animal Spirits. Owls. Some rubbish about them being the harbingers of death if they called your name. And he found that oddly amusing, because noone is afraid of owls. Death by Owl. He got a good laugh, and realized he couldn`t even remember the last time he had laughed aloud.

Some voice inside, ((deep inside))..Which one of his names would the owl know him by?

In the end, he couldn`t find anything of greater interest in the book, so he sold it to some demon for money to buy beer, blood and cigarettes.

Ran into the Slayer. Let her hit him. Once. Twice. Again. Only the fists did not uncurl into caresses afterward, and the curses that fell from her lips were not tainted with any sort of lust or affection. Just contempt. Thinly veiled boredom. Indifference.

Harmony arrived that evening. Wearing something flimsy, bearing a bottle of cheap wine, and a fresh kill. Empty stare and cold thighs, but oh so eager, and she always cried out his name.

She let him eat first too. And the blood was almost warm. He drank until he thought he might be sick. It had been so long...And when Harmony came to him, cooed words of comfort and concern, he whirled around, fists in the air, and hit her so hard, she split her head on the concrete.

That night, he slept without dreaming.

The bird re-appeared the next night. And the next. Each night less and less cautious of him. Each night closer and closer to his crypt. On the fifth day he tossed some Mcdonald`s hamburger in its general direction.

Then, it stared at him. Wary, still.

The thing cocked its head to one side, as if in silent debate. Spike watched unblinking as the bird apparently made its choice, and picked up the handful of cooked meat in its sharp beak.

Something broke inside of him, just then, something old and terrifying, and he fought the horrible urge to cry. He threw another shoe at the owl instead, ignoring its unflinching gaze as he returned to the darkness of his tomb. Harmony`s dried blood still stained the side wall.

(((//Congratulations. Looks like you`re finally one of us.//

How gorgeously ironic that of course, by then, there was no longer an *us* to be a part of. It had already fallen to dust and ashes and ruin, and he was left with unwilling spoils. And no matter how desperately he worked to piece the sandcastle back together again, it was never quite..perfect. It was never how it *was*. Never a legend like Angelus. Never a champion like Angel. Never a lover like Daddy.

And now.. too light for his Princess, too dark for the fucking Slayer, the television blaring day and night and night and day and it`s not enough either...it is never fucking enough. What he says, what he does, what he *is* will never be *enough*, godamnit.... And this bird, this stupid, random animal, taking him to pieces, and there just isn`t that much left to take...)))

And now it is out there again. Or still. He has lost track.

He stomps to the crypt door with a sigh, throws it open. Looks to the tomb it has claimed as perch for a fortnight. Nothing. Scans the grass, the dirt, the distant darkness. Nothing.

Then he hears it. A small, simple sound. As if whatever is making such a noise cannot summon any other from its throat. He looks down.

Sees it laying there, impaled clean through the shoulder with a large, wooden arrow, its wing fluttering uselessly against the brass point and the dark blood, its eyes glazed and distant. That noise coming from its chest, still nothing at all like a cry.

``Shit,`` scoops it up and carries it inside, listening to the unsteady //thump thump//. Finally, the sound it makes, almost like a wail.

``Well, I`m gonna fix you, ya stupid thing. So shut up and be still.`` Lays it on the flat

surface of the crypt, and cocks his head. ``Gonna fix you.``

He binds the sharp beak with a bit of tape and inspects the wound closer. The arrow has pierced muscle and bone, and it doesn`t really occur to wonder who the hell shoots birds with arrows nowadays, because it`s not as if this is the single strangest thing that has befallen him in this stinking town.

He presses his fingers into the wound. The bird won`t be able to fly again, that much is certain. Assuming it lives once he removes the shaft, its hunting days are come and gone...

But hell, apparently it has a taste for McDonald`s, and it seemed bloody well content to hang around before it was injured. It will just have to get used to hanging around after. And to eating take out...

It watches him calmly. It knows.

//Wounded animals always know who to come to for mercy.//

``Gonna fix you,`` he says again. Reaches down, grasps the base of the arrow`s shaft. Holds the animal still. Closes his eyes.

And breaks the owl`s neck.

He doesn`t bury it. Dru would have done that, but he does not. He tosses the body out into the darkness, and lays down on his coat to sleep. He dreams.

Of glass enclosed rooms and the stench of alcohol and ether. Of pain that comes without pleasure. Of screaming without voice, of cries unheard and unheeded. Of starving. He looks up to the tiled ceiling, waiting for the blood bag to fall.

The trap snaps open, but no plastic bag tumbles out. Feathers. Dozens of brown feathers drifting in the airless space, coating his hair and clothing. Tries to stop them, to brush them off, to keep from smothering ...

Looks down and the steel floor is covered in the bodies of owls. They drop from the hole in the ceiling, one after the other, until he is buried to his ankles in their twisted, bloodless corpses. And still they come, raining down on him, while he stands, arms at his sides. Not even trying to stop them as they fall.

OF THE BEAST III: ANGEL

There is time to think now. In the silence. He has gone back to the Olde ways, to the cycle of nightwalk-daysleep. In daysleep there is not much dreaming. He prefers it that way, now.

Too many years on beds too soft, with people too soft around him, and he had almost forgotten..almost let himself forget. He knows, and the knowledge is powerful and bitter. It was the Forgetting that paved his way to Hell the first time. He will not return there on that same path. This time, if he goes, it will be in a shower of fire and metal, not in the arms of a schoolgirl.

No dreams, and no jelly-filled cakes and noone to whisper goodnight before closing his door. No dreams.

Too long, and he is out of practice. He has forgotten how to be..alone..inside his skin. Forgotten ((almost forgotten)) how much he hates the decor. Runs to the point of exhaustion, does chin-ups til his undead muscles remember how to cramp. Nothing changes. His body looks the same. It will ever look the same. And inside, he is still neither one, nor the other.

``Shadow,`` Drusilla said.

(((Shadow, Doyle said.)))

The memories still come. He cannot stop those. Shadow. Nothing real. Nothing tangible. Nothing of substance. Ironic that the undead cast no reflection, yet still create shadows.

(((An alleyway in Manhattan in the early 1960`s. Homeless men hovering around a steel canister, carefully caressing the fire leaping from within. Flames painting the filth and the grime with fragile beauty, rats the size of small dogs in the trash. He held up his hand to the wall, watched the casting of the firelight on brick make the image of his fist appear twice its size. The shadow there, the last remnant of himself. A reflection, for just one moment. ``Me. That`s me.`` he whispered. ``I`m here. I`m here.`` )))

Forty years later, and he has proven his existence with truer flames and battle scars, with errors in judgment and blind folly, with precious few moments of grace. Then one morning he awoke and saw Cordelia covering dark blue circles under her eyes with pancake makeup. Saw the three day stubble on Wesley`s cheeks. Saw the widening crease in Gunn`s brow. And he recognized it this time, and oh, faster than the last. Shadow. He had walked vicariously in the light again, and his shadow had come once more for its due.

Payment had come first in the form of demons` blood; incest and rape which he had been forced to witness.

Later in the form of human loss and human tears, harsh words and empty rooms. High heels clicking and doors slamming. An empty desk at the front of his hotel. An empty house.

So he shed his coat and his broadsword, and went to face Them with just his hands. He had made Them what they were with these hands. He could unmake.

//But Angelus, she`s...she`s insane.

Aye! *Now* am I learnin`, Darla?//

//How did you *think* this would end?//

Little girl voices, little girl hands, women`s bodies, demons` blood. Adoration and hexes.

((``Daddy,`` she had whispered. A query, a plea, a jubilation finally, when he shut that wine cellar door. When he confessed his sin aloud. The most grievous sin. That he no longer cared. ``Daddy.`` ))

It`s not the soul, is it? No, no, it`s the heart, and once that is gone, there is no Caster who may retrieve it. It doesn`t float in some unnamed ether awaiting return to its host. It is rended and burst and trampled on by the palest of white horses...

(((``Daddy!`` she screamed as the flames licked her ghostly face, danced like bumblebees along her slim form, wrapped in the most flammable of velvet and silks. Peppermint kisses, she used to say. I give my Spike and Angel peppermint kisses. ``Daddy!`` But he did not turn around.)))

He knows they still walk, he knows they will be enraged. He has scarred Darla`s face, and that simply will not do. But there was fear in her voice...in his..//Sire`s// voice..

//That wasn`t Angel. That wasn`t Angelus. Who was that?//

And he had finally laughed. Christ, Darla, if *you* don`t know...Something inside ((deep inside)) whispered at the blasphemy of laughing while such deathless beauty burned. But he did not stop.

Later that night, he thought of sleeping on the floor. Of casting aside the silk pillows and warm coverlets, the final, dishonest trappings of all that had come before. Then he remembered that monks did that. Slept on wooden plats, to show their humility before god. Some of them even slept in coffins...

He laid down fully clothed on his bed, and he cried.

For the first time since she stopped coming to him with narcotic powder clenched in her small fists, he dreamed.

//thumpthump//

Of dim, flashing neon and gray sheets. Warm flesh and scalding tears. His clothes tore into the skin where the burns remained. Holy Water burns. They would take longer to heal than most injuries. But he didn`t mind.

Because under it all was the *sound*. The lull. The comfort. The beat. Laid his head against it, cradled there by the soft, human hands. Just listened. Felt it move through him, almost his..almost...

``You`ll never be alone, I promise..`` and he didn`t know whether the words were spoken for her, or for himself.

//I should have heard them, should have smelled them coming.//

Especially her. In times past he could discriminate her scent through the inferno of riots and the stink of death. But it had been too long, and he had become too weak, and he had..forgotten. And there is always a price for the forgetting.

Splintered wood and broken bone. Tasers on already burnt flesh and kicks to already

cracked ribs. Helpless. Helpless, and that was the worst of it. The fists in his hair and the *watching*.

Framed by the doorway and the moon. She was still beautiful. How silly that he was

surprised by that. She that is Unchanged. Weightless grace. Silent death.

Silent. No beat.

Focused, listened to Darla`s beat. Rabbit beat, faster, faster, run ...blood running, but feet were still. Listened as it sped, skipped, faltered..

thrumming stronger for one triumphant moment....He remembers. He remembers *that* moment...from both sides. The human heart refusing surrender /Iwillnotdie Iwillnotdie/.

Slow, wet sounds.

Silence.

Awoke to the scent of her, the scent of blood, the scent of death. Bound with wire around his wrists to the bedpost, silk scarf over his eyes.

``Dru.`` Put as much authority as he could into his cracking voice, wishing for nothing more than an instinctual response from her. But she could differentiate. She knew.

//Not Daddy.//

``In the Once Upon A Time, the King was the Land,`` she told him.

``Dru, I--,`` Harsh slap to his face with those long claws unsheathed, and he was silent.

``The King and the land were one. And whatever happened to the King, happened to his land,`` she continued, running her cold hands over his bare chest, still reddened and tender from the Holy Water. She punctuated each sentence with another rake of claws over the sore and aching flesh. He willed himself not to flinch.

``When the King was content, the water was plentiful, and the crops grew to the stars. The people were fat and happy.`` She was tugging at the waistband of his trousers now, and his wrists felt the unrelenting bite of the barbs as he struggled for freedom.

``But when the King was naughty.....,`` Pants around his ankles and her soft thighs straddled his waist. She leaned forward upon him, strong, sure hands closed around his throat, and squeezed. ``When the King was naughty, the people and the land suffered....``

Her mouth found his, and he remembered.... Kisses with the lash. Kisses with the belt. Kisses with his lips. Until at last, she could no longer set them apart. Suffering and desire, and she had long ago forgotten the difference.

No. She had *learned* there was no difference.

``They hurt, and so they cried unto the Heavens. They asked for salvation, but none came. There was plague, and misery and death. For years, and years uncounted, there was nothing but sadness and grief.``

She whispered against his face, his neck, her words dancing over his skin while her fangs pierced random patterns. His flesh had not healed from the earlier wounds, and he would scar now.

He thought maybe that was fitting.

Breath against his belly. ``And then the Wizard conjured a plan...a plan to restore the health of the King, and the bounty of the Land.`` She licked in long, slow strokes along his abdomen until he trembled beneath her. Her fingers dug into his sides, a silent warning of her strength and his weakness.

His surrender.

``The King was brought to a giant cauldron, where a white mare was bound. And the wise Wizard told him, `My King, I have come upon a method to heal you, and by so doing, heal us all.` ``

She was silent for a moment, but he could feel her breath against his thighs. Tiny fingers closed around his cock. He jumped, groaned, was still.

``Do you know what the plan was, Daddy? Do you?`` The once term of affection laced with derision, the question wholly rhetorical.

He knew. Of course he knew.

``This was the most perfect mare in all the Land, priceless in beauty and breeding, worth the dowry of countless maidens. The King was to mate with the mare, Daddy. To rut with it, and to claim it, to own it. In front of all the town`s people, so they would see that he was once more the King, and that he could do as he pleased.``

He groaned again as her fist slid easily over his length, down and up to the cadence of her sing-song voice and his nonexistent heart beat. To the tempo of his sighs and whimpers. To the primal rhythm of some archaic and long dead rite.

``Dru, don`t- please-,`` fangs in his thigh and he arched off the mattress. Of course. To her, //to them all// begging is commensurate to foreplay.

She drank until he was weeping, but she never loosened her hold on him. And he was arching against her, into the caress and the small scrap of pleasure it offered, because he too had long forgotten the difference.

And when her mouth closed around him, he could see them, the palest of horses running beneath the silver light of the Winter Moon.

(((The Cauldron sits atop a pile of wood, and the townsfolk have gathered, young and old and in between, in silent witness. The King has done his Duty, and the Chosen Horse awaits, in the Cauldron large enough for them both to enter. She is bucking wildly and keening, until the King slits her throat. Then her blood runs free, over the rim of the copper bowl, into the Earth, over the Land.

The first bite is for the King, and her raw flesh is bitter and sweet. It is all and it is

nothing. )))

He came in her mouth with a strangled cry, and she bent once more to kiss him, so he could commit the taste to memory. Essence of Nothing. Memories and dreams and archetypes that no longer walk.

Shadow.

And later, much later, when the sun is in the middle of the sky, and he has been bled and torn and there is no more salt to give, he heard it.

A steady beat, a familiar //thump thump//.. and the scent of warrior and dust and junk food.

``Shit, Angel, Angel man, you alive?``

Shredded wrists loosed from their bonds, cover thrown over his waist, and dark, troubled eyes that would not meet his.

``Gunn...`` he managed, blinking swollen lids in the harsh light.

``Yea, yea. Come on, we gotta get you out of here and patched up.``

``WAIT.`` Both startled at the harsh tone. Frozen for the moment on the blood soaked bed.

``What? What is it?``

``I--I have to know which one I am. I have to know.``

Gunn stared at him not quite patiently, threw one of Angel`s arms around his broad shoulder, hefted him off the bed. ``Ok, well, we`ll figure that out in the car.``

``NO! No, *now*, godamn it now!`` And Gunn didn`t flinch at the growl, just kept on

walking toward the door with Angel slung around him and the woolen blanket over them both to shield him from the rays of the sun. Until Angel used what strength was left to grab the splintered doorframe, and turned to face the man half carrying him from the stinking room. His eyes were yellow but shining, and for the first time, Gunn realized he was seeing the vampire cry.

``Ok, Ok, man. What? What do you need to know?``

Angel held himself steady with fist around the large man`s lapel, looked into his eyes....no innocence there, but kindness, kindness and understanding, and maybe, something akin to affection.

``Gunn,`` he whispered.

``Yea. Angel, yea.``

``Am I the King or the horse?``

And Gunn had no idea what the correct answer was, so he did the only thing he could think of doing. He held Angel tighter around his waist, listened without flinching to the sickening crunch of shattered bone inside his chest every time he shifted, and whispered, ``It`s Ok, man. It`s Ok. I`m not gonna let you fall.``

OF THE BEAST IV: DARLA

Drusilla is whimpering softly in the next room, a kitten seeking its mother. It is far better than the screaming. Three days of screaming, and weeping, and tearing out fistfuls of hair.

((``Blacksnakes, Grandmother!``))

Then Darla called Lindsay, and he came with little bottles of little pills. Held them to

Drusilla `s lips, told her they were the sweetest candy to make the pain stop. That failed to do the trick, so Darla held Drusilla down and forced a handful into her mouth. That was eight hours ago. Now there is only the whimpering.

Lindsay is gone, Drusilla is unconscious, and Darla is alone. Alone with the night, the soft mewls, and the pain. Lindsay told her she could take some of the pills as well, to ease the sharpness of it. Rest awhile, let the fog overtake the searing heat of her ruined skin, the stench of her charred flesh, and the knowledge that she is no longer whole.

But she does not take the pills. Because she will heal, because the scars will not last. Because she is immortal.

Immortal means your clothes can melt into your body and your hair can fall out in clumps, your skin can peel away from your bones like the finest of paper, and your muscles can be raw and weeping, but you will still walk. Immortal means that you can be reduced to nothing but gore and sinew, but still remain conscious. Immortal means you will eternally possess awareness.

Darla doesn`t take the pills, because Darla doesn`t mind the pain. Because the pain is clear. The pain means she is here. The pain means she *exists.*

She existed before, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and then she almost did not. She was almost snuffed out in the most undignified manner, all bruised flesh and ugly sores. But He came to her, and she did not die. She lived and she lived.

She lived for centuries, clothed in silk and fangs. Then one day, there was Angel, a

cheerleader and a sharp piece of wood. Then she was no longer alive. Then, there was nothing.

She simply...ceased. And this gap, this *hole* where her life used to be is what plagues her even now.

More than the petty agony in her limbs and her tissue. More than the fact that it was her favoured Childe who did this to her, who reduced her once more to Less. More than the fact that she was brought back from the Nothing by humans. On a whim, as a toy. These are inconsequential nuisances compared to that..space.

The fact that she simply was Not.

Now that she Is, there will be no pills, no drink, nothing to make her lose awareness. Instead, she peels away the long strips of charred flesh on her thigh, grits her teeth, and *knows* she is here. Finds the clarity in the pain.

In the silence, and in the darkness, the memories are tinted gold with the pain.

(((``Ohh...kill me....kill me...why won`t you just kill me?`` the dark haired girl was

screaming now, clawing at her own face and howling in distress. Baring a level of horror and madness even Darla herself had never quite been able to arouse in a victim. But he had done it, and at less than a century old...

Darla stood, straightened her skirts, extended a hand to the half-nude Angelus, laying atop the girl. ``Yes, darling. Let us just kill her. The game is done.``

But he would not. He would Turn her, despite the fact that she was insane, despite the fact that she would need constant care, despite the fact that this was just *not done*. He would do it, because this way, he said, `the pain will last forever`.

The girl had prayed while they rutted like dogs in front of her, had cried and screamed while Angelus raped her, had begged for death while he marked her with his blade, and his teeth.

But when he buried his fangs into the side of her neck, and slowly, solemnly drank his fill of her, she simply murmured one thing, over and over...``Snakes in the woodshed...Snakes in the woodshed...``)))

Snakes in the woodshed and mice in the teakettle. Essence of Drusilla: Fairytales and ruined archetypes. Power belied by lunacy. Certainly Darla will listen to her more carefully the next time she speaks of `dancing flames and beautiful pain`. Strange that she forgot to mention it would be *their* pain.

And now they are bound by it. Drusilla, who for centuries raised little more in Darla than ire and claws, lays helpless and moaning on the bed. No longer calling for her Knights, no longer scratching at her blisters til the blood soaks into the bedsheets. She sleeps, she tosses and she turns, and the raw agony pouring off of her in waves makes Darla...love her.

How ironic that Angel`s warning shot created rather than severed this bond. Has he been gone so long, lived among *them* so long that he has forgotten the nature of their beast? Nothing quite so attractive as pain.

And if he did remember, would it matter? No, not likely. Angel, Angelus, Liam...they are all the same in that regard. They choose their path and they walk it blindly, damning the consequences and any fool who dares to cross before them.

Arrogance, sheer and pure; it was what Darla saw in him that night in the tavern that sealed her choice, and his fate. Certainly one could argue that it was she who chose his path *for* him, that night, and many others. She seduced him when he was drunk, she Turned him. She led him to that Gypsy girl, and the curse which recreated him. The biblical Serpent and Temptress, she had damned him once and once again.

But the truth is, he is a man. He is weak. And it is warmth he seeks even when he is

undeserving of it, it is passion and chase he desires. And he will take it in the arms of a stranger in an alley, he will take it in the arms of a child who should have been his mortal enemy, and he will take it, and he will take it....whether it is given willingly, or not at all.

She chose him for his weaknesses as much as his strengths, chose him because she foolishly assumed they would make him easier to control. And for a while, it was so. He was ruled by his need and his hunger, by the flesh between his legs rather than between his ears, and in the name of sating that fierce desire, he was quite malleable.

What she did not count on was the intensity of his arrogance, his absurd male pride. His insatiable need to be the best. The worst. *The*.

Ever trying to prove himself to some withered, long-slaughtered ghost; the yearning and the drive created Drusilla, incapable of anything but approval, and adoration. And he was satisfied for a time. Before the realization that true regard and respect requires the capacity for some sort of linear thought.

She in turn created William, and Angelus immediately found in him an unacceptable mirror of all he fought to escape. Such arrogance, such insatiable need to be ...needed. His every weakness a reflection of his own. His refusal to surrender, to submit, infuriating.

And it never failed to make Darla laugh.

(((Had Angelus forgotten that he had to be physically restrained before he would submit to her Sire? Had he forgotten the taunts and the violence that preluded it? Had he forgotten that he refused to kneel before the backs of his knees were cut? And afterward, not one word of gratitude for sparing his life. Not one word of apology for endangering Darla`s existence by forcing her choice. His bruised face curved up into a grin, and he spit at the Master`s feet as they left. And Darla, carried along by the wave of his stunning arrogance did not once look back. )))

She watched Angelus take the riding crop to William`s soft hide nightly, and the levels of amusement had no end. She thinks he accomplished the impossible eventually. Thinks that Spike craved Angelus` affection and approval, although he has never once admitted such aloud. But she watched them, sometimes, engaged in more pleasured pursuits, and Spike`s eyes were always open. Watching the man who was for all intents and purposes his Sire, searching the handsome face for signs of pleasure, and fulfillment. For a flicker of love.

And afterward, while William lay sleeping, Angelus would stroke the white slash of

cheekbone, run his hands through the long, dirty blond hair. So, perhaps William never knew, but Darla did. Angelus could not have feigned such tender regard. Angelus would not have bothered to try.

Oh yes, he got back everything he had ever dished out, and in spades with that one. William who ensured the curse could never be undone when he slaughtered the family of the Gypsy elder who had cast it. William who betrayed Angelus to the Slayer, and in so doing sent him to Hell. William who reportedly tortured Angel mercilessly in recent years over some silly Gem which was never found, and probably never existed.

She wonders if Spike actually used his own hands against Angel, actually sliced open that fine, fine skin, carved symbols in the flesh, burned him with irons or that ever present cigarette. And somehow, she cannot imagine this. Cannot imagine Spike doing anything so careful and thought-filled. Oh, he is graceful in his violent outbursts; he fights like a cat and it was age and size and not much else that favored Angelus in their near nightly battles. But the thought of him slowly and methodically torturing Angelus, even souled, she simply finds impossible to conjure.

So, Angelus had done it, finally. He had made them all fall in love. With every weakness and every glory. With every kiss and every kiss withheld. Would she be here now, were it not for love? Would any of them?

And yes, she has raised palm and fist and demon against him. She once left him for dead in the vineyards of France, with the Hunters breathing down their necks. Her final words, ``If you survive I shall see you in Venice, my boy.`` She did what she must, and she would make similar choices again.

For Survival. To ensure that she will Be.

The fittest live, they alone awaken the next night, snap open their eyes to the world and greet the next meal. The Sire survives. Childer, even beloved such, are property and therefore expendable, but the Sire will live. You don`t raise hand to them, you ask permission and you offer your own Childe`s body in recompense before you leave them for another, and for godssake you don`t stake them over a teenager in a miniskirt. It is tradition, not justice, it is vampire, not human.

And it all used to make so much more sense. Before her own Childe raised hand and wood to her. Before she was Dead, then Alive. Before her own Sire was a whimpering lunatic. Before she was burned to crisp and ash and left to the care of humans.

And she is immortal, she will heal, she will be beautiful and whole once more. But he will suffer for this transgression, this arrogance. For choosing half assed sanctity over ties of blood and centuries. For looking at her and seeing only what he wants to see. Whore. Mother. Demon.

(((When she was human, and dying, the nuns brought a statue to her deathbed. The Virgin Mary, robed in white and the palest blue, expression of peace and contentment. Sandaled foot peeking out from beneath her skirts, stomping mercilessly on the outline of a Serpent. The Mother who saves the world from sin, from temptation, from lies.

In fever she dreamed that night. Of the serpent moving to coil sensuously around Mary`s ankle. Of the creature slithering slowly, languidly up her dress. Of the union of Virgin and Sin to create something wholly new. )))

And she doesn`t believe much in symbols, in the divine. She had no patience for such when she lived, and certainly now, after all she has seen and done, she has much less. Because she believes that the world is ruled by Tradition, not by Justice. Because the Law is: the strongest survive. Because men are weak, and temptation and the Devil are merely excuses used to justify behavior they steadfastly refuse to claim as their own.

Lindsay has a soul, yet nightly he brings her half dead streetwhores to feed from. Angel has a soul, but he sealed the fate of dozens when he locked them in a room with his Sire and his Childe. He has a soul but with a swift economy of movement and with no regard for love or mercy, he set them both on fire in some half-hearted attempt at atonement.

Darla has no soul any longer. But she sees more clearly than she has in any incarnation.

The creatures of Earth, be they human, vampire, or souled halflings have no real need of apple flavored kisses. No. Man, in any century, in any form, has never really *needed* the Serpent to fall.