Debts VII: Tribe Thing
by Te
July 1999

Disclaimers: If I owned them, I'd hand over the
leash immediately.

Spoilers: None.

Summary: Redecoration, etc.

Ratings Note: NC-17 for language, smut, violence,
and imagery some may find disturbing.

Acknowledgments: To Rae for continuing to put 
up with me against all reason *and* audiencing, 
and to Spike for working me like the cheap slut 
like I am with her stories. Again. And to Hal for 
timely word-choice help. And to Dawn Sharon for
many helpful suggestions...

*
When the glitter fades in morning
Turn away and you will find my empty eyes
Your beauty blinds.
*

The first thing I did when I finally left Drusilla's 
home for more than just take-out was to start 
looking for someplace new. 

It wasn't that I didn't like the place -- it really 
did feel like it could become a home for me, too -- 
it was just...

Well, for one thing it fucking *reeked* of a 
vampire that wasn't us, and therefore had to 
be her ex. Spike. So obviously he knew the place,
and since Dru was sure she hadn't killed him...

So I'm out there, and I'm not even trying to 
figure out whether Dru would go where I'd 
take her, because that's just way too simple a
question. Not because I can answer it, but 
because... well, I talked with her last night. Or
she talked to me while I was going down on
her.

And I think it's like she's one of those crazy 
expensive locks they're making now. Not the 
electronic ones -- the mechanical ones the 
manufacturers are getting all crazy with to
keep people from buying the electronic ones. 
You can't use just any pick on those things. 
It'll break off on you, probably set off a few 
gazillion alarms while it just sits there 
gumming up the works.

I don't want to ask Dru too many questions. 
I'd rather just do and learn by doing. I know 
that's probably more likely to fuck things up
but... well, it feels right. 

Dru has too many things coming into her 
head to worry about the small shit. She hears
things. Knows and can do things... She's 
revising my attitude toward witchcraft hugely. 
I mean, I knew they couldn't *all* be like 
Willow but in Sunnydale... it's like they were 
all gonna try to be like her *anyway*.

I never got that. No, I know everyone wants to 
be a Good Person at least once in their lives. 
That I understand. 

It's just those people who aren't built for it 
but keep *trying* that I don't get. They fuck up, 
they get punished for it, and then what do 
they do? Try again.

Yeah, I know you're supposed to try, but it's 
just fucking *stupid* to think that you have to 
try *everything*. More than once. It's human 
nature to kick out the ones who don't match.
People want to think it's different now, just 
because we don't *officially* group up people 
anymore, but I see...

I see that all this "different... but the same!" 
crap has just made it easier for us to find who
we *really* belong to. We're all reorganizing 
our tribes and the only time it sucks is when 
you can't find yours. 

Or when your instincts lead you *right* to a 
tribe member who has decided she's really
something *much* different. And better.

Huh. If I'd known vampires could be bitter I 
might have tried to kill them faster, more
humanely. 

I come across one draining some old woman 
in an alley. It's only then that I realize I've
been carrying a stake in my jacket. Well, it's 
not really my jacket. It smelled like Spike 
until Dru and I fucked on it a few times... 

I remember running the sleeves up between 
her legs and making her slide on it like a 
stripper.

And fuck but she got into it. Ripped the jacket 
out of my hands and got off that big ass bed 
and whirled it around her, rubbed and just.... 
danced. 

When she spun, her dress would flare out 
toward me. I'd grab, tear off a scrap, and get 
this... this flash of her bare legs beneath. 
Imagine her bare sex. 

I thought her hair was black on that roof but
it's really this brown... The only word I can 
come up with for it is "rich." Her hair is this
thick, silky mass of... I can't. It's red and 
mahogany and this blond that isn't so much 
yellow as it is... like the inside of a living tree. 
Fuck, that's just more wood. I'm bad at this. 

But I don't care what I say when she's fucking
me. Taking me. She's got a fucking strap-on. I 
wasn't sure whether I was shocked or not, and 
she didn't give me time to really figure things
out, either. She'd had me on my knees, shoulders
pressed down into the mattress. 

The sheets were silk and doing crazy things to
my nipples and she had her tongue up my ass
and I realize *everything* is like the first time
with her, only now I know just how good it's 
gonna be so I can feel each little wet thrust 
almost before she does it.

And then I have a second where she's gone and
then there's something hard and cold against 
me and before I can think anything else she's 
slipping in me. Some kind of lube on the thing, 
too. 

Then her wrist is pushing up under my face, 
wet and sticky. She'd ripped herself open to 
bleed on the dildo for me. I wanna laugh and 
I wanna scream but all I do is try to keep the
wound open while she's fucking me. Fucking
the hell out of me...

I was screaming by the end. All that came 
out was "oh god oh yes please Dru" and 
fuck-drunk shit like that but Dru curled up 
beside me after and told me what I'd really
said. Need, love. Devotion, she said and I think
that's the one she liked the best.

Told me I shouldn't say things like that if 
she "wasn't to be my sweet."

I turned over and tried to hold her, crush her
into me like... like some sort of fruit I could 
just squeeze everything I needed out of, but 
she just draped herself in my arms. Like that 
was exactly the way I should hold her. 

It took forever before I could make myself 
release her for long enough to fetch dinner 
from out of the wardrobe. I'd cleared it of 
Spike's clothing but it still smelled like him. I 
figured food storage might fix that.

I would've kept some of his things but they 
were too small for my hips, my breasts... 

My. It such a joke. Nothing here is mine... or it
wasn't, but Drusilla... she makes everything so 
right. I'm ripping every dress she owns to shreds 
one at a time. I've got this jacket of her 
ex-lover's that smells like nothing but the two 
of us fucking and Spike's burnt clothing and 
posters. 

I've got all of these wonderful things and I'm 
wondering when I start paying for it, but that's
a lie, too. I'm not thinking about payment, I 
just think I *should* be.

Because this vampire I'm beating now is no one 
I know, and he still smells like fucking grave 
dirt, and the old lady is dead on the ground and 
there is *nothing* stopping me, or trying to. 
There's not even the buzz I woke up with. There 
hasn't been since Dru... since she did whatever 
she did. 

There's nothing here but I what I make and what
I take. And when I bury the slim metal spike 
that was in this jacket in the stupid bastard's 
chest he *still* looks surprised. The blowback feels 
as good as it ever did. 

And I slam the old woman, too, before she can do 
more than snarl up at me. 

When I get back home I see Dru's been out 
hunting, too. She smiles up at me with her 
whole face, her whole body, before turning back to 
the remains.

Cracking, ripping sound and she has removed
the lower half of the face entirely. What's left 
stares up at me. Seems to still be pleading. I 
close its eyes, hold them there until they stick on 
drying tears. I wonder if I need silver for this and 
then I just give up. 

Lean in and nuzzle Drusilla's face until I almost
get lost in the slide and bump of my too many 
bones against her perfect smoothness.

Would she prefer me human-looking? I think the
old ones must stop caring after a while. Me, I 
think I'm stuck with the ridges until at least 
tomorrow night. I didn't bother hunting for food 
after my kills, just looked at likely buildings Dru
and I might be able to use for our own. I used 
the spike to scrape X's on the older ones I knew 
would probably have bomb shelters.

After that I just went home to Drusilla, and even 
though it was fear and insecurity and all that 
other shit that led me back here so early it still 
felt *good*.

When she smiles it hits me like I'm some kid at
the beach for the first time, blindsided by a wave. 
I remember getting freaked that the waves never 
stopped moving. I guess I would've been freaked by
Dru back then, too. 

I'm watching the light on her hair again. I'm 
addicted to it, and this whole scene makes me
think of the day the Boss showed me my new
apartment and those few moments I thought
he'd might stay before he shut down *that* 
train of thought. 

Dru... I'm right here with her and I'm still 
fantasizing about her. I see her before a wall 
of switches and buttons just setting 
everything to *on* and beaming...

She's pure moonlight and I'd be stupid if I 
didn't admit how badly I'd needed to get out of
the sun before... before any of this. I know and
she knows and her brightness is the kind that 
just reassures me that there's nothing but 
darkness all around.

I look over at her from the mussed up bed and
she's got this needle and thread. She's stitching
the new body's upper jaw to the old one's lower 
jaw... it's... it's really pretty disgusting. 
The old one... well, it's old. 

I'd been wondering why she hadn't let me clean
it up a little more. 

I guess I started this one, though, so I just watch.
It's just bones with a little meat left, but the 
teeth... There's something so ridiculously human
about human teeth. And the lopsided grin Dru's
stitching through those bloodless gums is just...

"You shouldn't let it grin at you like that," and I
don't know where that came from, but it's the 
sort of sentiment that feels right at the 
moment. 

Her response is to frown at her creation for a 
few moments before jabbing it viciously -- but
carefully -- several times with her needle. 

Then she just goes back to stitching and soon 
she's done. I don't know what I'm waiting for,
really, but when she picks the thing up by the 
hinged up back and turns the dead grin on 
me I can't keep myself from shrinking back a 
little against the headboard. 

I have a moment to wonder where they found 
a headboard in *this* neighborhood and then
the jaws open.

"Faaaaiiiiith...." 

My skin crawls, but it was Dru's own voice, 
not... anyone else's. I snort laughter and 
rummage for something to throw at her but 
then I see Dru's eyes and they're so blank I 
want to scream. 

The jaw opens wide again:

"Nothing ever forgets, Faith..."

I do scream a little that time and then I'm up
and moving, knocking the damned thing to the 
floor, watching it lose a few teeth. I've got 
my boot up to stomp it to powder but Dru 
catches me by the hair and yanks me off 
balance.

"Ah ah ahhh... you mustn't break the prezzies
until you break the birthday-girl."

I twist out of her grasp and search her face 
but she's back to herself, I know it inside me. 

I push her away from the jaw, back to the bed.

We're getting out of here *tomorrow*.

End. 

Endnote: Title stolen from "Born To Get Busy" by
Cypress Hill, lyrics stolen from "Boys On the 
Radio" by Hole.