ahh, this was very good, I loved it.

This is absolutely perfect. Though the show is wonderous, of course, there's always enough lightness to keep it vaguely cartoonish, and mask how deeply disturbing its realities are. The interplay you have woven is decadent and fascinating - rich in subtext and possibility, as well as truly reflecting on our favorite "baddies". I love all the implications, all that is left unsaid, as well as the truly menacing edge you kept in Drusilla's madness. Bravo!

“Does the poppet want to hear a story?”
- Because ‘I have found - and truly believe - that there is nothing so bad it cannot be made better with a story.’ Seriously, there just is no better way to open a story, especially when someone insane is asking the question, and phrasing it so that there are dolls in. Work in a music box and I may well faint for pleasure.

“She liked to lose, because she got to have another go.”
- Because… Dru and games and sex and blood and Angelus. Fun times ten.

And then the peonies. It’s too precious. God, this whole thing is so delightfully creepy and twisted and THEM. Good times.

“Once upon a time…”
“This better not have a happy ending.”
“Ooh, never.”
- Perfect. Fairy tales and Dru. It is a good mixture. And of course it can’t have a happy ending, or at least only mixed-blessing happy and only for them. Because Angelus does come back. Just, whether that’s happy or not… and then, the fact that it doesn’t last and Spike helps to end it… ‘…and I’ll kill them all. See? I told you it had a happy ending.’

“There was a silly bugger who managed to find himself a soul. And he left behind two innocent, helpless, doe-eyed…”
“You’d been eating humans for fifty years, by then. And William had learned enough.”
- Snorfle. And also, he misses the point! They’re innocent and helpless… in a different way. Because she says so, damnit. And because they’re so very not that they come around the other side.

“I can hear you.”
- Poor boy.

“Got me birdies to sing, and then more to sing anew, and then ghoulies and ghosties to keep me company down in the dark dark black.”
- Because it’s pretty and poetic and literal and so very Dru.

“Your voice is a stone!”
- I adore that line beyond all reason. Grubs… I can just hear her saying it, and it fits. And “Sits in the stomach like one” doesn’t hurt either.

“I can still hear you. No matter how low you pitch your voice.”
- Also love that one, because it’s so adorable that he thinks he’ll care, and that he states the obvious like that, and all lovely.

“Angelus’ hand, the one wrapped around Drusilla’s waist where she couldn’t see, made a rude gesture right at Spike.”
- So lovely and petty and them, and also, mostly Dru’s POV and she can’t see, but of course that has nothing to do with it because she knows these things. I love that. Like when it goes off on their conversation later while she’s crazying. There are many layers.

“What a pretty dichotomy.”
- Icon calling…

“Spike’s mouth writhed momentarily, because the pillows would throw his hair into disarray, and he liked his hair.”
- Snorfle again. Not the hair! Never the hair.

“Should’ve seen him. Pining away, wondering after you.”
- Cue me melting.

“And after he saw you again. Like you’d betrayed us both with that trollop, but worse for him because he looked up to you.”
- And she didn’t. More realistic footing, there. If realistic can have anything to do with Dru without withering and dying.

“Aww, how cute, that changes my entire approach to our relationship.”
- LOVE. You have to love Angelus just for the snark.

And Spike’s reaction - “Destiny”-esque, with the kind-of-true shoveling of the blame, and being hurt because it was bad enough having her say that stuff, but then of course Angelus had to go and react like that because he’s a psychopath, which Spike will just never get because he cares about everything so much, all at once, in so many different ways.

And then with the rhyme, and their reactions… it is too good to say.

“You made her into that.”
- From which vantage point, everything is his fault. Had to make Dru a vampire, Spike a monster, kill a Gypsy girl, fall in love with a Slayer and sleep with her and show back up like this… Plus, the “Destiny”-shivers. It’s too much. ‘Drusilla made me a vampire, but you made me a monster.’ Always he is with the making of things…

“Good.”
And that is the best of all possible responses.

“I stayed with her for a-bloody-fucking-hundred years. You’ve no idea.”
- Because I’ve always adored beyond measure that they acknowledge that yes, he loves her, but it’s still not fun all the time, looking after a crazy person. [Would have been nice if they’d fessed up to this during the last bit of season five with another couple, as well, but I dunno how far you are and so avoid spoilers.]

Ah, and god, the kiss. All violence and pettiness and performance and because they are in love, damnit - just like the rest of their relationship.

“…furious as a snake that wishes it could hold without crushing a thing.”
- Awards. Because Christ, if there’s one thing he can’t hold without… actually, getting crushed… well, there’s Buffy, and then there’s Angel/us. And crushing them would render it pointless.

Dru’s thing… so lovely, again, and more so now as this stuff gets wound in with worms-rant…

Plus, the snake. You have to sporfle for the snake.

“You won’t. Not for long. You’re just put out because I left, but I’m back, and you’ll get over it.”
- Seriously psychopathic. And having of the charm to pull it off, and the whole blood connection thing, and also Dru on his side, so Spike is screwed. Literally and figuratively.

“Spike, you know the rules.”
- … and with the pants. I have no words. It is too wonderful.

“And so they all fell asleep.”
- And lived happily ever after.

Someone had to say it. But seriously, all tangled up and bloody and sandwiched betwixt each other. Perfect.

Ooh interesting... Man, how rare is it to find a well-written Scourges threesome of any shape or size...