On the Twelfth Day...
The band was bloody brilliant.
Letting the music roar over him, the harshness of the singer's yells, the pounding beat of the drum, Spike knew this music was going to last. Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, The Sex Pistols. Names that spoke of violence, darkness, youth gone mad.
He liked that.
Observing the crowd of young, grimy, sweaty, stoned youth, he decided that he wanted a safety pin through his ear and to dye his hair.
Bleached blonde this time he was thinking.
He started to nod his head along with the drummer's clashing cymbal and grinned. God Bless The Queen.
On the Eleventh Day...
Spike listened to the sound of bagpipes, trying not to wince at their atonal sound. The Scots were barbarians.
But, Drusilla enjoyed them so every Remembrance Day she insisted on being one of the crowds listening to the pipes wail their melancholia across England. As he stood, one arm around her slender waist, holding her as still as he could as she swayed, he knew she was lost in memories of feeding on the nearly dead soldiers spilling out of the trenches of Flanders.
Those were good times for vampires.
Surely they were due for another good war sometime soon.
On the Tenth Day...
Madness, utter madness! William laughed in delight as a very drunk and terrified lordling leapt to his death from the second floor balcony. As he leaned over to spy the boy sprawled on the white stone terrace below, he heard Angelus' answering laugh behind him and turned to see his sire grab another young turk and dig his fangs into his neck.
Three others lay dead at his feet, bleeding all over the Aubusson carpet, and the remainder of their guests cowered in a corner, probably debating choosing their own death over becoming dessert.
House parties were a brilliant idea.
On the Ninth Day...
Lazing on the bear rug in front of a roaring fire, William watched Darla and Drusilla dancing together, their hands in places that would scandalize even the most debauched London elite. Minions turned precisely for their musical ability played a pleasing tune and the women moved with sensuous skill, their skirts belling around their ankles. Across the room, Angelus sipped from a goblet of blood and watched them from beneath hooded eyes.
And William knew how the dawn would find them--all sprawled in a naked, sated heap in his sire's massive bed.
Life could not get better than this.
On the Eighth Day...
Spike heartily approved of this return to mother's nursing their own babies. That period of time between the wars and into the 1950s had been almost enough to turn Drusilla off of infants. They tasted stringy and full of chemicals and their mothers' blood was nothing special. But, now they were in the 1970s and the hippy and women's movements had reignited the desire of mothers to feed their children breast milk.
So, the babies tasted better to Drusilla and the mothers...well, Spike always had enjoyed suckling at the teat. Blood mixed with mother's milk was a sweet treat.
On the Seventh Day...
"What is that on your head?" William gaped at Drusilla, who looked lovely in a white and silver gown that molded to her slender form and ended in an elegant train she had hooked over one arm. But, on her head...
Smiling, Drusilla twirled and William feared the thing would take flight. "It's a swan, silly. The latest fashion."
"The whole bird?"
"The larger and more intricate it is indicates ones social status. I am a princess," she pouted.
William refrained from reminding her she was only pretending to be a princess this winter in Paris.
"Your dark princess."
Well...true.
On the Sixth Day...
Goose shit. The world was covered in goose shit.
Spike hated Canada in the summer. There were mosquitoes and every goose in the world and idiot cowboys and wannabe cowboys. And their flag was a big leaf. And they spoke funny.
Really, he hated Canada.
And Angel, the prick, knew it.
"'Go fetch this really important medallion, Spike,'" he muttered, imitating his sire, "It's in the middle of a goose covered lake on a goose shit covered island, won't take a tick, Spike'. Prick."
As he stepped on another fragrant pile, a goose honked at him. He cursed again.
On the Fifth Day...
"You pierced your ears." Spike smiled at the delicate gold hoops in Drusilla's ears.
"I know the holes never last, but the rings are so pretty." A sly look crossed her face and her fingers went to the buttons on her blouse. "They're not the only things I pierced."
Spike's puzzlement disappeared as soon as she peeled open the blouse and he saw the matching rings in her nipples. His cock twitched and his mouth went dry. The blouse drifted to the floor, her skirt following it, leaving her naked.
When her legs parted, he saw the fifth gold ring.
On the Fourth Day...
With the patience of Job Spike replaced the dead bird in the cage with a live one and tried not to wince as it cheeped in his ear. Drusilla clapped in delight and he sighed softly, then smiled as she kissed his cheek.
"Thank you, Spike. I don't know why they keep dying."
He murmured reassurances until her momentary stress turned to joy, all the while silently wondering how long this one would last. It was so bad, he had a tab at the local pet store. He bet the owner was beginning to think he ate the blasted things.
On the Third Day...
"This is a farm."
Rolling his eyes, Spike tossed feed out for his very expensive, very delicious tasting French guinea hens.
"Do you wear overalls now and ride a tractor?" Buffy snickered, then ran with a laugh. Laughing as well, he chased her, tackling her into a haystack.
"A..." snort "haystack, it's a haystack!"
Pinning her beneath him, he kissed her until she stopped laughing, then, infected by her humor, grinned down at her and helped her up. "Wanna see the pigs?"
"You have Wilburs?"
"I have no idea what you're talking abo ut. I have blood on little hooves."
"EW!"
On the Second Day...
It was their tenth Christmas together when he gave her two turtle doves, one male and one female. He put them in a pretty golden cage and placed them in front of the tree.
Buffy looked at the birds and then at Spike and then at the birds again before raising one eyebrow at him. "Pigeons?"
Spike rolled his eyes at her. "Turtle doves." He then muttered something about the American education system.
"Like the song?" Buffy smiled now and he stopped muttering.
"They represent true devotion."
"Awwww." Smiling even wider she kissed him and murmured ''thanks' into the kiss.
On the First Day...
William Addington, youngest son of the Baron Addington, took his final bite of a truly exceptional partridge in wine and current sauce, wiped his lips and gave a polite belch, then turned to his companion, an equally dissolute son of a minor lord.
"Whist?"
"Apologies, Addington. I promised to meet Bassingthwaite at that new pleasure parlor. The doves there are barely soiled."
William snorted. "Highly unlikely, but enjoy yourself."
After his companion departed, William drank the rest of his wine and left Whites, not knowing the partridge would be his last meal until he drank his first blood.
End