thismaz | Bewitched, Chapter 12

Quick post, then I'm away for the weekend. Have fun, folks. I'll catch up with you all when I can.
And on that thought, could anyone on my flist maybe arrange to get more hours inserted into this day thing? I just can't seem to find enough of them.

Title: Bewitched, Chapter 12
Pairing: S/X
Rating: This chapter PG-13
Summary: When Valentine's Day arrives, Dru dips her finger in the brew and gives it a stir.
Word Count: 1,865
Betaed by

sparrow2000 and DJ, for which, many thanks. Thanks also to Sparrow for her help, conflabbing on plot twists and forms.
Comments: Are greatly appreciated, loved and cherished.
Disclaimer: here.

Prologue here, with a link to the other chapters, or you can find the whole thing, in reverse order, in tags, or in the correct order, in memories. There's a menu of links on the right hand side of my main journal page.

Chapter 12

Pretending to still be stuck in the blasted wheelchair, when he was quite capable of going hunting, was frustrating. Spike reflected, with some cynical amusement, that patience had never been one of his few virtues. In spite of which, he seemed to have been practicing far too much of it over the past few weeks.

Angelus was scraping at his nerves, with his sly allusions to boy-toys and his monopolising of Dru's time and energy. The charade that he was still crippled was the only advantage Spike had in the subtle game of one-upmanship he found himself playing.

The new place was Angelus's most significant move in that game, to date, and he'd scored more than a few points there, priming Dru to fall in love with the stupidity of huge windows for the sake of a courtyard garden that she'd never do anything with. Moving into Angelus's house had caused a shift in the balance of power, tearing away the last vestiges of Spike's authority over the minions.

Spike didn't believe that Angelus would have him staked if he found out that Spike was no longer crippled, but he did know that if he was going to keep an eye on Dru, he couldn't afford to be thrown out on his ear. Lulling Angelus with the continued belief in his helplessness was all that kept that from happening.

Meanwhile, Dru was slipping through his fingers. The fact that she slept every day with Angelus didn't bother him. That was just family and Angelus was her sire. Spike had learnt that lesson early in his death. It was the way she'd stopped looking to him for guidance that rankled. Two weeks before, when Angelus brought down fiery vengeance on their heads, Dru had deserted her sire in order to get Spike to safety. He wasn't so sure that she'd do the same again.

Then there was the blasted boy. Spike wanted him and his instincts screamed to just take what he wanted. But Spike was no fledge, no matter how Angelus persisted in regarding him. He'd learnt to master his instincts, far more thoroughly than Angelus would credit, if he ever took the trouble to look.

Xander was constantly surrounded by minders or out of reach in his house, and it gnawed at Spike, but that wasn't the major obstacle. It was because he wanted Xander to come to him willingly that he was straining his reserves of patience, and recognising that bit of unrealistic truth went no way towards reconciling his inner conflict. Such contradictions were unnatural in one who was usually so certain of his actions and Spike resented it. Sometimes he wished that he wasn't cursed with such a clear understanding of his own motivations. If he could live like Angelus, who was busy fooling himself that he just wanted the slayer dead, he thought he could be happier. Unfortunately, that wasn't what he was. And in spite of his difficulties with Dru and his anger at his situation, looking at his cursed grandsire, he couldn't honestly say that he'd swap his own clear thinking for the mass of muddled-headed stupidity that was Angelus.

And so his thoughts came full circle, back to his grandsire and his sire and his own sense of frustration. His occasionally successful verbal darts salved his underlying anger, slightly, but Angelus was as skilful as Spike at placing barbs and Spike was still burning from the latest taunt. Angelus's self-disgust took out some of the sting and Spike had enjoyed watching his grandsire in his futile attempts to scrub away the memory of his possession by a lovelorn ghost. Angelus's admission that he'd been, how did he put it? Oh, yes, 'friggin' violated', still brought a smile to Spike's lips. But Angelus always got the last word and his comment that Spike wouldn't understand, given as how he was so human it was embarrassing, still had him seething with impotent fury, as did the more mundane taunt that he'd only slow them down.

Spike remembered a time when he was Angelus's companion of choice, when he felt the need to indulge in a really vile kill. He'd never trusted Dru enough to rely on her constancy. Now, he didn't hesitate. Nor did he thank Spike for the fact that it was a hundred years with him that gave her the steadiness under fire that she'd lacked when Angelus had the raising of her. Once again Spike felt frustration rise in his throat.

Sitting, fuming, in the empty mansion, he considered the idea of ditching the chair and going out; there was still more than an hour before sunrise and he could be back before Angelus returned. If Angelus was really determined to wreck his vengeance on some passing bystander, he might not even make it back before dawn.

Spike was more than half way to his feet when the sound of a door banging shut in the distance and her voice issuing an order to one of the minions heralded Dru's return and he sat back down, quickly, before she appeared.

She walked in, looking sleek and beautiful, with a faint flush to her cheeks. Spike was still amazed by the change the spell in the church had wrought. Prague seemed so long ago; he'd become used to her weakness.

"Michael has your supper," she said, when she spotted him. "He'll bring her in, once he's put the rest away in the pantry."

Resettling himself in his chair, Spike raised an eyebrow. "Profitable hunt, was it?" he asked coolly. They'd been arguing about his supper, or lack of it, when Angelus came home and decided to scrub his own skin right off, under the fountain, and Spike wasn't sure that he was ready to forgive and forget, quite yet.

Dru drifted over to him, all sinuous grace, and he watched her come. There was a shadow of a taunt in her voice when she replied, "We found a lovely family. You should have been there." She smiled like the cat that got the cream and he knew she was enjoying her power, compared to his apparent dependency.

Her eyes drifted away to a spot behind his shoulder and her voice shifted to the airy tones that he was more accustomed to. "They reminded me of someone, someone long ago - three daughters and their mother, walking in the square."

She was very close now and she looked down, seeing him. Her voice was focused and hard when she spoke again. "Angelus took the blonde one and wouldn't let me share. He's taken her somewhere else, but I kept the rest."

He expected her to dance away, but she always surprised him and with one of her mercurial shifts, she plopped herself down on his knee and wrapped her arms around his neck. His own arms came up of their own accord and she melted into his embrace, hands in his hair and face buried in the crook of his shoulder. Her lips nibbled at the skin below his ear and he felt the pinch of a gentle nip from her teeth. "I was wrong, my Spike," she murmured. "So wrong. Your little American cookie isn't cooked yet. The mirror is still too clear. It needs to temper in the fire of betrayal and loss. Then the kitten will become a cat and he'll never be spayed."

That was obscure, even for Dru. Usually, he had little trouble understanding her ramblings, but if this was about Xander, and he strongly suspected it was, it was too serious for ambiguity. "What do you mean, pet? What do you see?"

"I killed the witch, you know. I walked into her house and I killed her."

"The witch?"

She sat up and looked down into his face. "The one who cast the spell. The one that made you love the boy. I thought it would make you happy. But it made me want him too and I didn't mean for that to happen."

"Dru," he said, carefully, keeping his eyes and voice low. "What did you do?"

"I ate her all up, but I was good. I had my knife and I made it look like I didn't do it."

"I don't mean what you did when you killed some silly bitch, Dru. This is Sunnydale, no one cares if you practice safe eating, or not. Did you do a spell with a witch?"

"She was making the air hum. It was all shivery." She smiled. "Her blood was rich with magic."

Spike fought down his impatience. There was no way to rush Dru. That only resulted in her becoming more cryptic. "But what did she do?" he asked. "Before you ate her? What did you get her to do?"

Dru cocked her head thoughtfully. "I twisted her around so you would have a playmate," she explained. "He was lost and he wants to be found, so I found you for him."

A cold weight gathered in Spike's gut. "Are you saying," he asked through tightly gritted teeth, "that the only reason we ended up in that damned hotel was because of a spell? That what I felt, what I feel, isn't real?"

Dru smiled at him. He focussed on her mouth. He was expert in reading Dru's emotions from the curve of her lips. That particular smile had none of the pinched appearance of Dru being sly. "Of course it's real, silly. You feel it, don't you?" Her mouth turned down in a pout. "But the watcher man broke the spell. I felt it. It went snap. And it was hanging by a thread, and now that thread is broken too."

He wanted to murder her. She'd played him. Everything he'd felt. It wasn't real. "Take it off," he growled, releasing her waist and moving his hands in preparation to shoving her off his lap, onto the floor. "Take the blasted spell off me."

Dru slipped to her feet and stood, bent forward with her hands still clasped at the back of his neck and her arms straight. "Look at me!" she snapped and involuntarily he did as she ordered. Immediately, he was caught, unable to look away. Her eyes were huge and demanding and he felt their pull. "Forget him," she whispered. "Angelus has big plans. Your kitten will still be here in the wreckage. I can see it. Hell opens up and your boy is right there. But now you must forget him, or it will all go wrong. You mustn't step on this butterfly."

She drew away and Spike felt his heart strain, as if it were being drawn out through his eyes as she retreated. She'd said something, but he couldn't remember what it was. Something important.... about...

A fleeting image of a shadowy figure hovered at the edge of his mind. Elusive and desirable, he tried to grab at it, but it remained insubstantial, fading from his consciousness, leaving only a desire to hold a tall, slim body. "Dru," he sighed.

Dru looked down at him. "It's not perfect," she said thoughtfully, "but it will have to do. The huntress doesn't listen to the dead."

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