Lorne, formerly the Host and Master of Ceremonies of all he surveyed, stood with hands on hips as he looked around the room he had come to call home over the past few years. Liquid red eyes, a shade darker than usual, saw the wreckage left behind by the latest battle that had been fought and won on his premises. Both Angel and Wesley had saved his life that evening. That brought the total count to... something in the high teens, and what exactly did it say about you when you lost track of how many times a vampire with a soul and a slight, bookish mortal saved your pretty demon hide?
He should be grateful. He was still standing - shouldn't be standing after the ugly things they had faced, and yet the weight pressing on his chest just wouldn't shift. This club may not have been much, but it was his home. His home, his place of work and the unrealised, unimaginable dream he had kept in his heart for all those long, bitter years in Pylea.
And it had been destroyed. Again.
It wasn't really Angel's fault. He couldn't help when and where the bad guys decided to attack, and it wasn't as though the detective agency was exactly raking in the cash, but they'd just left him there. Left him there to deal with it as they limped home to lick their wounds in the comfort of that big ol' hotel. Left him there. Captain of his very own sinking ship. There was simply no more money after the last set of renovations had cleared out his not insubstantial savings, and it was rather more difficult getting a small business loan when you had green skin and horns, even if you did live in L.A.
And money wasn't exactly growing on trees around here. Wrong dimension.
He tried to take a deep, purposeful breath and was annoyed, yet not surprised when it stuck in his throat and refused to budge. So this was what he was reduced to. All alone and crying in the middle of an empty nightclub at 4am in the City of Angels. A dozen blocks from the bad part of town. Wasn't he a still a demon? Didn't people scream when they saw him, no matter how unthreatening he actually happened to be?
Shouldn't he be stronger than this?
The sound of footsteps crunching lightly across the debris that had once formed part of his ceiling made him jump. This just wasn't fair. Now he couldn't even have the luxury of being alone. He made a show of waving imaginary dust out of his face and rubbing at that self-same dust that had somehow managed to work its way into his teary eyes.
'I'm sorry, but we're closed pending yet more expensive refurbishment. How's about you check back in a week or two?' He paused and looked around. 'Actually, you better make that a month or two. But, ah, all are welcome... just as soon as we get new and actually useable furniture.'
Lorne didn't look up at the visitor to Caritas. Either he'd forgotten to lock the front door again and there was still one of his regular patrons left in the city who hadn't heard about the amount of trouble his club had been attracting recently, or someone was trying to rob the place. In either case, there was nothing to drink and nothing left worth stealing.
'All are welcome?' he heard a girl's voice ask softly.
'That's our policy,' he said, turning with a well-worn smile, 'but like I said, we're most definitely closed for business just at the mo'.
Glass splintered underfoot as he gingerly picked his way through the debris of the latest Angel Investigation's adventure/debacle towards the girl.
'Are you... are you him?'
Lorne quirked an eyebrow at the hint of wonder he heard in the girl's voice.
'Am I him who?'
'Are you the one who can read people?'
'That's me, sugar dumplin'. In the flesh.'
Hopping over the last obstacle, he landed with a slight flourish beside the girl and took his first good look at her. She was a pretty little thing. Wide, dark eyes and an innocent air about her. Long, shining dark hair framed a perfect, ageless face and her body language told him only that she was oddly impressed by the aftermath of destruction in his club and that she was very... proper.
Unfortunately, she was also a vampire. An old one.
'I liked dumplings, once upon a time,' she confided, 'but not with sugar. Soaked in brown gravy and eaten with chicken legs and green beans. Green. Your flesh is green. Like a toad. It's awfully pretty.'
'That it is,' he agreed, tears bundled away until he could be indulgently alone with them later. For now he let himself be captivated by her delightfully abrupt change of subject and the unabashed way she was staring at him. Never one to misjudge on odd first impressions, Lorne plucked a mostly solid-looking stool from the floor and sat on it.
'I take it you're not here for a drink, not that we have much on offer at the moment, so the question remains: why the late night visit?'
The girl walked in a slow circle around him, her eyes wide as she took in the state of his poor ravaged nightclub.
'Ooo, they done a good job here. That's terribly naughty to throw a party and then leave without paying their bill.'
'Never a truer word was spoken,' Lorne agreed, not sure what to make of this girl. He swivelled awkwardly in his seat to follow her as she walked around him. 'Uh, not that I don't appreciate this little chat, but is there something I can do for you? Otherwise I am kind of busy and I-'
'Nightingale.'
'What's that?'
'Your voice. You sing like a nightingale. That's what they say. That's what they all say.'
'Really? Nightingale, huh? Usually my fans just call me Florence.' Lorne sat back a little on his stool with the beginnings of a broad smile. 'People have been talking about me? Really? You know somehow I never get tired of hearing that. Usually these days it's all about the readings. "Lorne - I need some advice, Lorne - show me my path, Lorne - baby-sit for me while we all go out to the opera".' He rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. 'It just never ends.'
The vampire listened carefully, with her head cocked to one side, her gaze wandering slowly over his face.
'Sometimes it's just nice to hear people say, "hey Lorne. Nice song, buddy. Great set of pipes you've got there." You know what I mean?'
The girl nodded absently and took a step towards him.
Without thinking, Lorne leant further back on his stool taking her out of his personal space. Those eyes... He could feel a sharp headache forming in the centre of his forehead, right between the horns.
'Can you see into me?'
I don't want to.
Her eyes had taken a hold of him and he wasn't sure if he could look away. Not without her permission. But then, why would he want to? There was so much to see. If only he leant in a little closer. He could take just a little peek. That much would be acceptable. What possible harm could it do? That was what she wanted. She wanted him to come closer. Merely reach out and touch. A little taste. That's all it would take.
Please. I don't want to. Don't make me look.
Dimly, he wondered what the thing was hovering in the air between them. With a start he realised it was his own hand, reaching out to touch her milk white skin, exposed along her delicate collarbone and down to the swell of her breasts. He gasped and she practically glowed at the sound. A sinful smile and she released him from the spell just as suddenly as she had captured him. Lorne snatched his hand back as though she had burned him.
'Well? Can you?'
'I-I'm afraid not, princess,' he said with a slight frown, watching her warily. 'I read the soul. You sing for me and the picture's distorted. All I get is a jumble that even I can't work the knots out of.'
She pouted at this. He wasn't playing her game when she'd asked so nicely.
'Will you try? I'm tired of being a solid shape when everyone else is tissue paper.'
'It's not easy being green,' he said with a modicum of understanding.
'No,' she agreed sadly. 'Do try, won't you? I'll be a bluebottle buzzing for you. That's the proposal. Or at least it was when they told me to come to you...'
'Who? The ones who liked my singing?'
'Yes,' she nodded seriously, 'the stars. They told me in whispers, but the moon... she is your greatest fan. She insisted that I come to see you. She lit the way for me.'
Lorne's face fell. So those were his fans. Figures. This girl was a tangle of something great and bizarre. And completely insane. Yet standing here, calmly asking him to read her. Quite the enigma. He was intrigued and yet very sure that her being here was something he should put a stop to. Quickly. His head and his gut were telling him in no uncertain terms to put as much distance between the two of them as he could.
And yet...
'Insisted, huh? In that case, I guess you better sing for me.'
She seemed pleased at the suggestion, smiling slightly and clapping her hands together. Lorne's eye for detail noticed her nails, once immaculately painted in a rich two-tone, now chipped and broken, the pads of her fingers burnt black. Try as he might, he couldn't sense her intentions here and he felt uncomfortably restless in her presence. And her aura? A shadowy rainbow. Perhaps it was a good thing there were so many potential stakes lying all around him, masquerading as pieces of his once tasteful wooden fixtures and fittings.
'What should I sing?'
'Anything you like.' He spread his hands. 'What's your favourite song?'
The tiniest tremor passed through her as she arranged herself to perform for him.
'Most of the songs I know don't have any words,' she admitted.
'I don't need the words,' he explained. 'Just give me the music.'
This she seemed to understand. 'You need to take a peek within. You need me to break in half and show you my insides.'
'Welllll, that's a little more graphic than the description I'd use... but yes. The arrangement is I need you to bare your soul. Or in your case, your essence. So you sing. Then I can see you and read you. Although I think you, princess, are likely to give me quite a headache.'
'You are too kind,' she told him with a sly twist of her lips.
Clasping her hands together in front of her bodice-encased chest, she took a breath and closed her eyes. Lorne leant back against the bar and waited. After a quiet moment, she began to sing. Like a physical blow, he was struck immediately by her thoughts and her memories. It was as though she had torn down her mental defences to sing for him and he was hit with a barrage of images and emotions.
Where are you, girl?
She didn't so much sing for him as hum, letting her voice play with the melodies of the nameless tune she had chosen, the sound flowing from her lips. Her hips swayed as her voice in turn hit odd combinations of crystal clear high notes and rumbled deep in her throat. Each lilt of her voice batted against him like a kitten toying with a string. He had read those of dubious sanity before, but never had he seen anything like this.
He saw a hundred thousand days and nights of waiting alone in the dark. Sinister colours and blood. A lot of blood. Rivers of it. Children, so precious to her, possessions to be hoarded and coveted, then discarded and forgotten in an instant. Leather and lace and broken fingers. There were dolls. Too much attention paid to the dolls. The dolls held in the highest regard, who spoke her own thoughts back to her as though from another mind. A clearer mind, but not more vicious.
Where are you? Are you hiding from me?
Never more vicious than this insane daughter of Angelus.
Her voice swept like a gale through his mind.
Can I not have a child of my own? Must I wait so long?
'Oh Drusilla,' Lorne murmured. 'You poor girl.'
There were too many dark murky swirls for him to hold on to. There was no future here. Only false memories of what she once was and a family she never truly belonged to. And love... the love she felt was all encompassing. It burned her from within, but it was crooked and snapped at her unbeating heart with jagged fangs. She lived within her own mind, existing to understand and to become one with those who broke her and hastily glued her back together as a warped shadow of what she once was. Now she had nothing. Nothing at all.
Damn it all, come here when I call you.
She had thrown away that which loved her above all else, and lost that she wanted most of all.
Drusilla. Where in the hell are you? Drusilla!
'Angelus! I'm coming!'
A rushing stab of pure delight at the sound of his angry voice. Slippered feet running madly over polished wood and carpeted floors to find him.
'Angelus!' Breathless giggles. 'My Angel. I found you. Now it's your turn to hide.'
Doesn't look like Daddy wants to play.
'Drusilla, what the hell is this?'
Pity and confusion. A towering vision of a gentle, snarling demon pointing at the boy. The boy who is naked and tiny and cowering in the corner of the room.
'Oooh, so that's where I left him.' From behind a hand, she giggles again at her own carelessness. 'I forgot.'
Wide eyes as she stares down at the boy. He's a demon too. Just like them. She gave him a kiss and just a little crumb of her life and he belongs to her now. She has made her own fairytale, but her modest frog didn't turn into a prince. Not yet. That part was going to take a little time.
'He's my baby boy.'
'He's your what?'
A loud crack. Burning pain slicing across her cheek, sliding down her throat and into her belly to curl up like a sleek cat in front of a roaring fire.
'My... my baby boy. I need him, you see. When all the love goes away. I'll need him then. I don't suppose I should have. Not considering the consequences. It was a bold move, but I wanted him.'
'You... wanted him.'
He exchanges glances with the other who was older and wiser and colder and prettier than she'll ever be. Blonde hair being twirled thoughtfully around a forefinger as Darla watched her little family squabble.
Should she speak or stay silent? Sometimes she doesn't speak for weeks on end. Sometimes the words never stop falling from her lips. Always such difficult decisions, but these are her choices after all.
'Yes, I wanted him. Just for me. I could have the boy for you, but you won't ask. It'll never be me because you don't love me enough.'
Flash of amber that fills her suddenly with the greatest hunger. Iron fists on her arms, shaking her until her head snaps back and forth like a dandelion.
'For the love of... I don't want the boy! We're supposed to be laying low here. We are not welcomed in this town. The Master here is powerful. I told you. I expressly told you. No games here.'
Shakes and slaps to punctuate his words like bullets.
'No. More. Children. No more foolish talk of babies! I told you. Yet you take it upon yourself to go and do this!'
Gasping now, it's difficult to suck in the air she needs to push out the words he's waiting for, the words she needs to explain, but it's an unappreciated task as it won't be the words he wants to hear.
'But I-I 'ad to! I'll need him when you leave me! I'll never have your babies, so I had to make one of my own. I could have been mother to you all and I could still be. You-you don't understand my reasoning, you never did!'
Laughing now, her guardian angel, but the sound is hard and lifeless.
'Reasoning? You preach to me now of reason? You?'
She's left alone. A cold lump on the floor. Worthless for today. Her Angelus (but he's never truly hers, no matter how much she wants him to be) goes to older, wiser, better Grandmamma to whisper secret words he knows she can hear.
'... needs a lesson she might actually remember this time.'
'Mmm. Do it now so I can watch. But don't be long. Remember, we have a pressing dinner engagement.'
Little wet smacking sounds and she knows that he's giving his lips away to her. He always defers to her. All those little eternities the two of them share when they forget all about their poor lonely Drusilla.
She raises her head and he's there, watching her with silent eyes. The boy still tiny in the corner, he wants to shrink away into nothingness. He doesn't yet know what he is. What she's made him and what he'll become. He doesn't realise his strengths. She'll teach him. She'll be a good mother to her baby. He'll be a good pupil. She knows it. He could be the one she's been waiting for. She can tell that much already because something has changed. The boy is looking at her. At her. Wide eyes, blue as the forgotten morning sky, that pierce through her, right down until it chips the bone and it all suddenly makes sense because she can tell that he knows. Her boy understands how it's going to be and she smiles at him from behind a curtain of hair knocked out of place by the slaps from her dark Angel. Knocks and slaps and spanking and all those wonderful little wet smacking sounds.
And hadn't she just better make use of the good times, because they won't be around forever.
And sometimes even the bad times are the best times.
The room swings. Hefted to her feet only to be knocked back again.
'Are you listening, Dru? Have you got the message yet? Have you learnt to obey?'
She sees through a haze of red now, and one of her arms feels like it isn't there anymore. She's vaguely aware of a soft plashing sound and looks over to see her boy smacking the heels of his hands into his eyes. She's reassured by that. He doesn't want to see her being hurt but doesn't know what to do to stop it. He still thinks he's weak. Silly boy. So much to learn. So much to teach him about pain and just how sugar-sweet it could be. How sometimes it's the very best thing to have. Sometimes it's all there is.
'I asked you a question, girl. Have you learnt?'
Eyes take too long to open and her dandelion head feels very heavy. Gummy lips crack and bruise the words she wants to speak.
'I... have learnt.'
'What have you learnt?'
'I... I have learnt to keep m-my secrets. I have learnt that I shouldn't have.'
'Shouldn't have?' Another shake. 'Shouldn't have what?'
She feels stronger now. Her words have given her splints for her bones and ice chips for the flowering bruises of her skin.
'Learnt that... learnt that I shouldn't have. Not... not considering the consequences. A bold move, but I wanted him.'
His hand raised in the air then. A hand that raised her. Moulded her and loved her. Hands that have beaten her and nourished her. Hand of the beast. Hand of her dearest love.
A hand laid on his arm. A different hand. Slender and white like eggshells. Restraining. Dominant. The pain dulls. No more cracks. Fury in those beloved amber eyes when Grandmother halts his games.
'What are the consequences, Dru?' she asks sternly. 'Tell us what you mean. In English, this time.'
Terror then. Terror stripping her down to the bone. The conversation she'd had nightmares about for years. It was finally here. She finds her legs and stands before them, raining cherry red droplets onto the newly misbegotten floor.
'You.'
She uses the word like a staff to beat them with, throwing all her waning strength behind it. She looks at each of them in turn and remembers to take the time to include her newly born son in her scolding.
'You all live and die and live and are reborn. Nothing but love and hate and change and the others. Always change. You'll all grow old and die and leave me all alone. Never ending. I'll always be alone.'
Twin glint of amber and flash of fangs that fills the room with more than just fear. There's nothing but terror and longing. There hasn't been anything else in a long time. Until now. Now there is the whisper of love. But it's an ill-timed love and it shall never truly be.
'You'll be alone if we beat you half to death and leave you out to greet the sun!'
More lies from the Angel Beast and she's not sure if she can bear it for another night. It's too long to wait and too heavy a burden. This should be asked of no one. Cold, wet tears streaming down her face.
'Promises, promises.' She's daring now. Rolls her eyes at them even as they hold her puppet strings. They think she's finished, but she hasn't even truly begun. 'But you'll break them all. All the rules. Smashed to bits. Everything we were promised. You... you coward!'
The bravest thing she's ever said and for one earth-stopping moment she's sure it will be the last thing.
Grandmother stepping forward, insinuating herself between Angel and the poor, stupid childe Drusilla, slipping her face into the light. Eyes icy cold and stabbing just as always.
'Drusilla. Go to your rooms, and take the boy with you.'
Makes no sense. None at all. Grandmother should sit back and watch the party, clapping her hands at all the pretty fireworks. Not kind words and saving graces. Things aren't right, but then, things haven't been right for a long time. They may never truly be right. She had grown used to that, but she's not used to the shock of it all. She feels very fragile. Ever so delicate.
'Drusilla!'
She's halfway to the door before the voice slaps her again and makes her freeze to the spot.
'You were told to take the boy with you. Are you deaf now, too?'
A preposterous thought. Don't they know she can hear their thoughts? But it's best not to answer Angelus when he's cross. Unless he expressly asks for it. She holds out her hand to the boy, watching his eyes dart back and forth from her to their two elders across the room.
'William. Don't be daunted. You belong to me now. Come.'
She can hear Darla's chuckle at her stern tone, but she pays them no mind, because this is more important. Her boy has to learn how to love her. It all starts tonight. They'll all understand soon enough. The boy scampers suddenly across the floor to her, grabbing for her hand and squeezing it tight with both of his. She leads him from the hard room and closes the door with a click behind her.
It's then, in that dark corridor, that she hears her one and only baby boy speak to her for the first time since she murdered him and gave his body over to a demon.
'I-I never told you my name. How... how did you...?'
'Shh, boy. It doesn't matter now and I have so much to show you. Just know...'
His face was so open to her, so expectant and she knew that he would never see another as he saw her.
At least, not for a lifetime yet to come.
'Just know you are loved.'
She welcomed his shuddering form into her embrace and let him hold on tight. They stood there, kissing softly, the first kisses of millions, holding their ground for a private infinity as she hummed soft, wordless songs into his hair.
William. Just know you are loved.
Lorne opened his eyes.
The silence in the room was deafening to him. Long moments passed where the two demons stared at one another, blinking eyes the only movement in the room, apart from the water dripping from the leaking tap behind the bar that Lorne had been planning on getting fixed, but had never got around to. Didn't seem to matter much in the grand scheme of things now.
Drusilla.
Drusilla, Drusilla, Drusilla. His head swam with her. He'd watched as Angel - his good friend Angel - beat her bloody only for daring to be the demon that he had created. Felt the blows raining down. Tasted the blood of her split cheek and lip. He'd seen Darla as she had once been. Strong and proud and purely evil, just as he had imagined her, not the torn spirit he had met only months ago in this very bar.
Drusilla's grandmother (and in turn, as fate would have it - her daughter) had stolen that which she wanted more than anything else. To make a new life, whole and pure, out of two impossible halves.
Drusilla hadn't known what would happen when her elder became her childe. She wasn't to know that Angel would reach a new depth and look for comfort in that place so familiar to him. Not this time. She still hadn't seen with her own eyes, still hadn't been told by their lips. Connor. The human child born of two loveless demons in the heavy night rain. But now she knows. She had always known.
She learnt it in a dream over a century ago. She learnt it all.
It was a horrible vision she had been given. To know your fate and know there was nothing you could do to change it. Lorne knew in his heart that she deserved the pain for the evil she was and yet it broke his heart because she was only and forever a child. She could never be any more than that. She didn't understand why she couldn't have a child. Why she could give only death and never birth. She didn't understand maternal love and devotion. She didn't understand that when Angelus killed her, he took all these things away from her along with her sanity and her humanity. She didn't understand that when her life ended, so did her song.
But her music went on.
'Nightingale,' Lorne finally whispered, blinking away fresh tears as she stood with her hands still clasped together in front of her chest and her bright eyes filled with tears.
'Well? Did you see?' she finally asked, slightly breathless.
Lorne swallowed and attempted a smile. 'I'm sorry. I couldn't make anything out. I'm so sorry.'
'Nothing at all?'
Her disappointment was tangible. Lorne cleared his throat, squirming slightly on his stool.
'Nothing that you don't already know. Nothing you haven't known for a long, long time. Ah, I saw no past within you. No future. Only now. Only that you already have your place in this world... and the next, but you will never be happy with either.'
She didn't move, but seemed to sag right before his eyes.
'I'm sorry Drusilla.'
I-I never told you my name. How... how did you...?
Shh, boy. It doesn't matter now.
'It is Drusilla, isn't it?'
Lowering her hands until they fell limply to her sides, she stared at the floor as she nodded to him.
'They told me you'd know,' she said, her voice laden with tragedy. 'They said I'd be tissue paper here.'
The Lord has a plan for all creatures. Even a Devil child like you.
Lorne opened his mouth to speak, but found that for once he had nothing to say. Without lifting her gaze from the floor, Drusilla took hold of the long train of her dress and slowly walked out of the club.
Lorne let her go.
Alone again outside, waiting for the next morning to come. Another notch to mark off. A dark alleyway and it seemed like she'd spent half her life in places like this. Places where she can hear the water trickle and the rats scamper. It's just like home. She walked slowly along, absently kicking an empty beer can out of her path with the scuffed toe of her shoe.
It wasn't what she wanted to hear.
The Lord will use you and smite you down. He's like that.
But it's all going to be okay. Drusilla had been waiting forever. She could keep waiting. One day it was all going to make perfect sense. She had been promised. One day the world wouldn't be a jumble to her and she will be loved and coddled and she will be whole again. She has waited for so long that now it's the wait itself that soothes her. The knowledge that at least there is something worth waiting for.
She had so hoped that the green demon man would break into her. That he would worm his way inside and be able to tell her what she had waited so long to hear, but all he looked at was the beginning, when the end would be so much more interesting. They all look to the past, they always had. That was where their safety and their sanity lay. That was where their good times lay. Her Angelus, Grandmamma Darla, and even her baby boy in a time when he was still tame and quiet. When his hair didn't blind her with its sunshine and they still called him William because he hadn't yet perfected his craft. Spike, Angel, Darla. All lost to her for now. They hadn't appreciated that good times when they had them, and Drusilla knew that the good times wouldn't be around forever. She had always known that.
And sometimes even the bad times are the best times.
So the nightingale demon couldn't tell her. It didn't really matter, she decided with an airless little sigh. It was coming. That was enough. She had read it herself and the paper didn't lie. She also knew that prophecies were funny things. It had been over eighty years since she'd first read it and discovered its cryptic treasures, but it had been her secret all that time because she'd learnt to keep her secrets and she knew what was to come.
Life and death the same thing, part of a cycle, only a thing that's not alive never dies.
The vampire with the soul would become human.
Her Spike or her Angel? Poor, poor boys. All alone and so sad without their mummy to see them through the bad times. All that was required was for her boys to carry out the simple task of fulfilling their destiny. That was all. Then they could come home to her to be reborn again. Neither of them knew what was to come. They never did - that was the delightfully funny thing, another of the secrets that only Drusilla was privy to. Darla had gone back to heaven again and now that couldn't be helped. Drusilla had tried her very best, but instead it was Darla had given Angel a new baby boy - chosen because she was older, wiser, prettier, colder, better - and had to give a little piece of her life so that he could live.
That was as it should be.
Now? Now it was all about her boys, and all Drusilla had to do was wait and they would be hers again.
I could pick the wisest and bravest knight in all the land and make him mine forever with a kiss.
It wasn't what she wanted to hear.
But she could wait.
-end-