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Buffy carefully slid out of Spike and Drusilla’s bed, slow as she could go. While Spike thankfully slept like the corpse he was, Drusilla was a more finicky creature, and she needed to get dressed and get out before one of them woke up. She had responsibilities — Dawn, first and foremost. Willow. Her jobs, eventually. So hanging around in a crypt, and lounging about in bed, and... and sleeping together all day... like she was one of them? Totally not acceptable.
She needed to be gone, like, yesterday. Literally.
As she began to back away from the bed, Drusilla suddenly whined, arms stretching toward the heat that Buffy had left behind, face scrunching as she awoke. Buffy sighed. There went her easy escape.
Manicured hands began to knead at the black sheet, as though the action would magically make her warm body reappear. After a bit, Dru cracked open her eyes when she seemed to realize all she was touching was rapidly cooling blankets, and frowned at the empty spot. Buffy took the opportunity to swoop down and tug on the first shirt she could nab before she was noticed. Drusilla’s pale blues were locked onto her when she stood back up.
“You’ve gone all dim again,” she said, sadly. “Sweetest melodies and even lovelier warmth, smothered by that perpetual downpour. Doesn’t the noise fill up your head?”
Buffy turned away and began the hunt for the rest of her clothes before choosing to respond. She’d been around the vampiress long enough to get a feel for her kooky way of speaking, and that wasn’t exactly her most difficult cipher to de-. “Falling asleep here instead of going home. Coming here at all. Then, I wasn't thinking straight. Now? Head’s clear. I’m good, thanks for the concern.” Didn’t mean she liked what Dru was saying, though.
Drusilla shimmied her way to the end of the bed, arms crossed and elbows hanging off the edge, legs pushing against Spike and further onto the other side. He grumbled but didn’t wake. Buffy finally realized the shirt she was wearing was his when she found her own torn to tatters, shreds dangling from the collar she was holding. Damn those stupid vampires. How did that even happen?
“But you’re so cruel,” Drusilla sighed, and Buffy’s hands jerked, ripping apart whatever was left of the fabric. “Normally, we’d consider that a spot of fun,” she continued, taking a playful bite of the air before turning somber again, “except you’re not playing right.”
“I’m not playing at all,” Buffy said. She wished her voice sounded less defensive. Less guilty.
When all Dru did in response was give her a long, slow blink, Buffy turned away from the bed entirely.
Fully dressed in a mishmash of everyone’s clothes and searching for her shoes is when Spike finally snorted awake, shooting upright and startling Buffy into glancing over her shoulder. Drusilla rolled herself parallel to him, cooing when he looked lost at the sight of only her before him. Dru then gestured over to Buffy with her chin, pouting, and Spike followed suit when he saw her.
“Don’t,” Buffy said before he could even open his mouth. She knew how this went. Could even guess what came next, though she hoped he would just let her go. God, if they could ever make it easy, even once.
Spike’s pretty lips twisted into something nasty. “Well. Alright, then,” he sneered. “If that’s how you wanna be.”
He tried to nudge Dru out of his way, but she made him climb over her, giggling to herself. Spike didn’t look half-amused with either of them as he reached the end of the bed, sheets covering his lower half precariously, tangled between his legs and Drusilla. Dru let spindly fingers begin to tug, an unrepentant grin peeking out from behind him, and Buffy snapped her head forward before it could go any further. Spike scoffed.
“So dainty when the sun comes up. So different in the dark. It’s like there’s two of you.” He paused, and she prepared for something awful to come from his mouth. “’Course, we both know that’s bollocks. No matter the rot your former likes to spew, you’ve not suddenly lost your precious soul with us, have you? It’s all you, sweetheart. Why pretend otherwise?”
She whirled around then, only to find him standing in front of her without even the sheet on. She firmly kept her eyes on his. “Because,” she spat, and then choked on the fact she couldn’t immediately think of anything to say. Spike’s icy blues flashed at her stuttering, a raptor locating a weakness in their prey, as Dru let out a high, humoured noise from the bed. Buffy barely refrained from simply decking him back toward her.
“Because?” he mocked, cocking his head. She gave in and struck his nose.
Drusilla hissed, excited, and crawled so that she could clutch Spike, getting herself closer to the scene. Spike bared his teeth in a grin as he staggered back upright, letting Dru cling to him even as she off-set his balance. Buffy glowered at the both of them with something that felt like lava bubbling up inside of her — a slow-building, all consuming hatred for the creatures in front of her.
When no one said anything after, Spike begun to laugh. “Is that it? Can’t make a solid argument, so you’ve got to use your fists instead?” He huffed. “Typical.”
Swiping under his nose, he pulled it back to admire her handiwork, appraising the red sheen that coated the back of his hand. Drusilla leaned over his shoulder, taking his hand and bringing it to her mouth, lapping at his blood. Spike shuddered at the sensation. Buffy curled her lip in disgust, but found she couldn’t look away from the display.
“A pretty fire you’ve lit inside our girl. Brought out her scorching radiance to sizzle all that horrible rain away,” Dru said when she was done, delighted. “My clever Spike always knows how to bring her back to us, hm?” She nuzzled into the crook of his neck, and he hummed. Together, they turned their heavy-lidded gazes onto Buffy, gauging her reaction. Waiting.
Buffy hated them. Hated them, hated them, hated them.
“Because,” Buffy seethed, “it’s disgusting, what I’m doing here. Because I shouldn’t be here in the first place, should never have let you two touch me at all. Because I should’ve staked the both of you ages ago and it’s...” She shook her head as she tried again to find the words of what she was feeling. How they made her feel like her ruined shirt, torn in a million different pieces the more she was with them. How being with them made her feel at all, how much worse it was to be cognisant of how bad of a job she was doing with her third life. How she felt isolated, closer to creatures of the dead than her family of friends — and how wrong was that? How she didn’t know how much longer she could keep going like this, and how they both made it easier and so much harder.
But she didn’t say any of that. She just sighed.
Spike’s face had closed off the longer she had went on before though, leaving only a hard mask in place of his usual vibrance. Dru looked wounded in a way that only sought to kill Buffy quicker.
“Guess you found your words, after all,” Spike said lowly. Buffy ducked her head. It wasn’t near the harshest thing she’d said to him, she knew, but the fact she had seemed to have upset Dru was his issue.
“I need to go,” she murmured. Spike clenched his jaw and simply watched her, finally letting her escape without a fight.
Drusilla whimpered, falling away from Spike to crumple back onto the bed. Buffy froze, waiting, as Spike whirled around to catch and lower her more gently. “The secrets you curl close, pouring out from the cracks between your fingers and screaming to me,” she said to Buffy, though she spoke into her palms. Spike blinked slowly, and turned to look at Buffy as well, the anger he’d been holding having been washed away and replaced with a cautious intrigue. “You tell us empty words like mirrors, but I hear what you keep hidden.”
She reached out toward Buffy with one, terrible hand, and Buffy felt herself sway. If it were Spike who was asking for her... But it wasn’t Spike. It was Dru, asking for her perhaps as clearly as she could in the midst of one of her fits, however minor it was.
Buffy shut her eyes and willed away the shame that begun to choke her. With a defeated breath, she let herself be pulled back into their orbit, and dragged her feet until she could feel Drusilla’s clawed fingers curl around her arm.
For a moment, the room seemed to still as she did. Then, only when she opened her eyes again to stare at black and red nails, painted to look like the blood the vampiress could not spill any longer, did Dru tug her back down onto the bed.
She fell.
Going limp, she mentally prepared herself to simply shut off her mind, to let them have their way, convince her why she should stay... But Spike simply crawled toward her feet, tugging at the jeans she’d only just put on, and Drusilla gathered her into a bony embrace.
“Oh, sunshine,” Dru cooed, in a tone that sounded so much like love Buffy thought she was going to be sick. “We can clear away the noise, for a time. There’s no need to be rushing out just yet.” And with a small grin that brought to mind a sort of fae, she told Buffy matter-of-factually, “Not a Tuesday.”
In response, Buffy buried her face in Dru’s neck, and the body beneath her wiggled, pleased.
With a dip in the mattress next to them, Buffy felt as Spike wrapped his arms around Dru between them, pulling her into him and having Dru drag Buffy along with her. She heard him mutter something, something sweet enough to make her want to burrow into Drusilla so fully that he couldn’t see her any longer, before he switched back around, and tossed a blanket atop the three of them.
Curling up behind her, he draped one arm so as to be able to hold onto Dru’s, as the other slithered its way under the dip in her waist. They’d trapped her between them instead of letting her be held on the edges. Pushing his face into her nest of hair, she felt him breathe her in, long and deep.
Scenting her like a predator. Always reminding her of what he truly was, what they both were.
Dru shushed her, even though Buffy hadn’t said a word, letting her sharp nails poke into Buffy’s tan skin just enough to hurt. With a distant hum, she told Buffy, “Other way around, sweet Slayer. Burn us up ’til there’s nothing left. Not enough ashes to even let us cling to you.”
Buffy quivered at her plain words, and felt as two pairs of arms tightened around her.
She knew she needed to leave. That she should’ve ignored Dru and went home. She knew that she had responsibilities, people to take care of. She knew that if she lied there long enough, she would never want to get back up again, and then it’d be all her fault when the world ended.
Being there, it didn’t make her feel better. Not really. They couldn’t fix what must’ve been wrong with her, not when they were part of the darkness themselves. But Dru had promised her peace for a little while longer, and Buffy... wanted to believe her. Just enough to stay, now that she’d already gone down.
At some point, she realized they’d definitely meant they were planning to have sex with her again. Drown out the noise Drusilla had peeked into with pleasure. Except that Buffy had woken them when it was getting to be late for the two of them, and the furthest they’d had gotten with her was Spike’s hand resting under the shirt she’d taken from him, and one of Dru’s thighs snuggled between her own.
With each inconsistent exhale, Spike hummed something that almost sounded like a purr, a rumbling coming lightly from his chest and filling its way into hers. Drusilla appeared just as peaceful, curled around her.
Sleep did not welcome her again like it did her vampiric companions. But nothing else seemed to other than them, anyway.