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Affectations
by Chrystler
Disclaimer: The following characters are the property of Joss Whedon, David
Greenwalt, Mutant Enemy Productions, 20th Century Fox, etc., etc. They are
used without permission, intent of infringement or expectation of profit. 'A
Streetcar Named Desire' is by Tennessee Williams (and is a beautiful, brutal
work of genius).
Summary: 1952. While Angel is hanging - literally - in LA, his sire is an entire
continent away. And hating every New York minute.
Rating: R - for disaffected darkness and murder.
Spoilers: None really. Set as a parallel to 'Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been',
and the resonance is greater if you are familiar with Darla's story from 'Welcome
to the Hellmouth' through to 'Lullaby'.
Author's Notes: This fic is something of an experiment. Darla is not a character
I've written before and the present tense is not my natural choice. Therefore
constructive criticism and advice is greatly appreciated. I've taken the liberty of
making assumptions about the familial relationships between certain vampires
but nothing that stretches credibility. Please allow for geographical inaccuracies.
I'm not a native New Yorker, I've only passed through.
Distribution: If anyone wants it, please ask.
Dedication: To the city of New York, for the inspiration. (Please note Darla's
opinions in no way reflect those of the author - who, incidentally, has loved every
single second spent in that incredible city). Also to Eve, for the reading, the
encouragement and the lgoic.
Feedback: To chrystler_wolf@yahoo.co.uk
Affectations
Over three centuries have passed since she set foot upon the soil of her homeland.
Her homeland. Did she ever really have one? The country she finds herself in now
did not exist when she lived upon these same shores. It wasn't even in its infancy,
was but barely a gleam in colonialists' eyes. Her memories are dim, but it matters
little. Whatever the land of her birth was like then, she knows it has long ceased being.
Everything in this city is new. It shines and shimmers and soars; seemingly into infinity,
cutting immense sharp swathes into the cold December air. It is modern, spacious,
uncluttered. It is coordinated, sleek, functional. Its grid pattern streets should be a
welcome relief after the intricate mazes and chaotic clusters of European cities, where
the differing needs and aesthetics of age upon age have created dizzying collisions of
architectural styles amongst their rat-tunnel streets.
The darling of the modern age she finds herself in now should thrill her to her very core
with its size, its scope, the population it pumps through its avenues and cross-streets
like blood pulsating through arteries. She should revel in the discovery of a city which
mirrors her own habits and never sleeps at night. She should be intoxicated by the
potential for an existence better suited to her kind than anywhere else in the world. By
the sewer systems and subways, by the anonymity of everyday existence. A place where
questions are rarely asked and answers even more scarcely offered. She should be in her
element in this glittering metropolis. She knows this. She should. Yet she isn't. It could be
the noise, or the snow, or the way the arrogant shmuck of a clerk at the hotel summed her
up in one sweeping glance, a sleazy smile spreading slowly across his pig-like face. It could
be all and none of those things. All Darla knows is that the winter of 1952 is one of the
coldest she's known, the city of New York her frosted locale, and she is hating every minute.
It unsettles her. She has always been one to make the best of situations, to find new
challenges, new pleasures, even in the most unpromising surroundings. Her surroundings
have never been more promising, so why is it she is unable to tap into the old resources?
Her will is weak. She hates weakness. Hates her own most of all.
She paces Fifth Avenue, her expensive fur coat - stolen in Moscow - wrapped closely around
her tiny frame. She watches the fathers and husbands in their work suits and wide-brimmed
hats, hurrying homewards clutching the Christmas gifts for their nearest and dearest, for their
wives and mothers. Tokens of the kind of affection which is chosen and wrapped by the
prettiest young girl in the store. She notices their turning heads as she passes, ignores the
doffed hats and occasional wolfish whistles, regards them only with cool scornful eyes. Such
pathetic creatures, like children wanting to possess the pretty doll. Would they be so keen if
they knew this doll could snap them in half as easily as the women back in their homes, in
their beds, could hang their shirts?
She watches such women, admiring themselves in the sparkling glass of shop fronts,
readjusting the seams of their stockings, checking their lipstick, pushing back wayward
strands of hair. All exercises geared to extract the same reactions from their male counterparts
that Darla regards with such contempt. She doesn't have a window reflection. Doesn't need one.
Darla is confident her hold on that power remains undiminished by time. Her hair under her fur
headpiece is curled and set into sensuous waves. The extravagantly camp Murven demon,
catering exclusively for the beauty needs of the underworld, had sworn the previous day that
she was the very image of Veronica Lake. Darla would prefer to mimic the style of a new up
and coming starlet, Grace Kelly perhaps, rather some washed-up has been like Lake, but the
Murven had burst into harsh mocking laughter, telling her, "Darling, Grace is a little out of your
range. Veronica is much more *you*'.
She had felt like ripping the demon's condescending head from his fey shoulders, and when he
had finished teasing her last few newly blonded hairs into place, she had done. The looks she
receives reassure her that the cascading curtain is still a hit on the streets of New York, despite
the fickle whims of Hollywood.
Underneath her coat she wears exquisite Dior tailoring acquired in Paris. Darla takes pride in the
knowledge she is probably the best dressed creature to venture through the city's shallow
snowfall this evening. In three and a half centuries she has yet to miss a fashion trend, she isn't
about to start now. She may be no longer be a woman but her femininity is still her deadliest
weapon. More subtly effective than fangs or fists. Once chosen, she reels in her victim with
darkened eyes, perfectly pale skin, saccharine-coated vocal chords, sly glances, light touches,
flashes of shapely legs. All part of an ageless game they are all too stupid to learn to resist.
Affectation has always been at the heart of Darla's success. It has served her long and faithfully.
It is the only thing that has.
She watches the children, huddled into scarves and mittens by overprotective parents who
remain blissfully unaware it's not the cold that poses the greatest threat to their progeny.
Watches as they scream and squirm as they engage in energetic snowball battles. A smile
curls her lips as she muses on the myriad ways she could bring their screams and squirms
to ear-splitting peaks. Darla has never been maternal. Not in the human sense. Drusilla
harbors mothering fantasies. She indulges her twisted version of child care upon her dolls.
Sometimes the impulse drives her to adopt flesh wards, but her interest lasts barely longer
than their lives. To Darla, Dru's fondness for children is merely another facet of her insanity.
A child's blood has never held the allure for her it does for some. Darla's proclivities lie
elsewhere. Still, as she passes the deco splendor of the Rockefeller Plaza, she pauses for a
moment to observe a young pair. Brother and sister, no doubt. Their thin high shouts and
giggles carry on the numb air, as they drag each other by the hand around the artificial ice
rink. Darla remembers skating on the Thames many lifetimes ago. She remembers being
swung around until she was dizzy much the way the boy swings his sister. She remembers
laughing. She remembers him. She distracts herself from the recollection, concentrating
solely on the present. The children are removed from the other crowds of skaters. Darla
scans the immediate area, sees no guardians. It would be so easy. To put an end to their
mocking shrieks. Taunting her with memories, with ghosts she has sworn by Lucifer himself
to think on no more.
//She begins to move, the swaying stealth of a natural predator. The smile stretches further,
the glint of anticipation in her glassy stare increases. She picks up speed, hones in on her
target. The girl is only inches away, too caught up in her play to notice the slight yet vice-like
grip on her wrist. One fluid motion brings her close, brother with her. His panic is absorbed
by the hand crushing his throat as his sibling's body crumples to the ground. The last thing
he sees is a flash of grotesque animalistic visage powered and rouged by the best French
cosmetics available. The young corpses form an exquisite composition. The trails of bright
scarlet splashes against the hard white frozen sheet, are striking she thinks. Beautiful. So
very beautiful.//
She snaps back to the present. A few feet away the children are gathered into a pair of
embracing adult arms. They fight for her attention, attempting to prove by volume of their
hollers which is the better loved. Darla remains rooted to the spot, her reverie banished.
Each fading cry of 'Mommy!' slashes across her super-sensitive ears. She is disturbed by
her own behavior. She is Darla. She doesn't dream. She acts. Is her will so diminished?
She refuses to examine. She keeps up to the times, but this century's obsession with
psychoanalysis is one bandwagon she is not about to jump upon. She is a vampire. The
superego is gone. Everything should be simple. Didn't it always use to be? She will force
it to be simple. Confusion is just another name for weakness. Darla hates weakness. Hates
her own most of all.
With a dismissive shake of her head, she retraces her steps back to the Avenue, and
continues her southerly journey. Across the street, a department store window has attracted
a small crowd of spectators. A couple of office workers, a pair of plain young sisters, an
insouciant delivery boy - doubtless taking one more unscheduled break - his bicycle
sprawled carelessly across the sidewalk. Darla finds herself drawn across the street,
propelled by an vague, absent-minded sense of curiosity. As she nears the window display,
the flickers of gray, black and white become decipherable and dully familiar. A bank of
shiny, modern television sets are sputtering out in grainy monochromes the latest
inquisition of the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Her interest evaporates.
She has seen this game too many times.
She walks on, allowing herself a smile at the irony. Neither side, either capitalist or
communist, needs the other for an enemy when the governing bodies are all too willing
to terrorize their people themselves. She wonders idly if any of the humans realize that
the stench of paranoia, fear and mistrust which lingers in the alleys, the squares, the
apartments and meeting clubs of Moscow and Leningrad, mirrors precisely that which
permeates the cabs, the high-rises, the bars and streets of New York, Washington and
Los Angeles. Humanity is so myopic, so predictable. As she moves away through the
snow, her accentuated senses catch the mocking mimicry of the delivery boy as he adopts
an exaggerated accent and mouths in time with the gray suited figure upon the tiny screens,
"Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?" Her smile
stretches a little further. Behind her the watching crowd disperses. They know how this
theater of cruelty will end.
The snow fall is heavier now than before. The flakes cling to her stockings, settle into the
waves of her hair and rest lightly upon the planes of her face. They chill her skin, but do
not melt. It has been a while since the blood in her veins ran hot. She feels the first pangs
of hunger begin to rise within her. A hunger which has yet to be truly satiated in three and
a half centuries and now as familiar to her as the unchanging lines of her hands, the width
of her wrists, the unblemished milky translucence of her skin. A body in stasis and a craving
without cessation.
Her hotel is a little below 23rd Street, off Broadway. It's hardly the most stylish area of
Manhattan, hardly the most reputable establishment, but it is fit for her needs, suited to
her purpose well enough. A few corpses in the closet this far downtown will garner less
attention than in the penthouse of the Plaza. Besides, it has a view. The vista from her top
floor suite takes in both the Chrysler and Empire State buildings. Dazzling spears puncturing
the skyline, the wounds never allowed to heal. The elegantly cruel progeny of a marriage
between Mammon and Muse. Darla should find their aspect more pleasing than she does.
Her eyes marvel, her dead heart remains untouched. Just as it has all century. It's not the
winter chill which freezes her being.
She heads towards her lodgings. Steering, like all visitors to this city, by the art deco
monolith which rises, towering and grandiose, from the center of Manhattan Island. The
greatest symbol yet of man's desire to touch the heavens with his own hand. To reach
beyond his grasp. A twentieth- century temple to Promethean ideals. She has to wonder
why men are so keen to go further, faster, higher, when they are unable even to cope with
the world they already inhabit. The fools. They hate and fight, scheme and destroy, rape
and pillage, and still believe one day their righteous rhetoric will allow them to enter the
most hallowed of halls and justify the all the corpses the human race has left in its wake.
Lifetimes of living bestows a clarity of vision mortals lack. The sons repeat the sins of the
fathers and every generation is visited by consequences. And still they never learn. They
still insist on building airy castles of empty ideals, yet their capacity for evil never diminishes,
and the seductive, corrupting whispers of power never lose their allure. Age follows age;
different faces, different names, different methods; same story: And throughout Darla
remains - eternally amused by their endless follies.
~~~
The incessantly gnawing hunger takes an extra bite. She knows a bar. A block away from
her hotel. It's not the kind of place frequented by expensively attired single women, but
then she's not one. The lights are flatteringly low and the clientele suicidally stupid. It
shouldn't take more than twenty minutes to flush out the ice in her veins with hot, sweet
newness. She knows how to get what she wants. Did even before she became the creature
she is now. Affectations. Play the dream. Be the nightmare. Anything else is weakness, and
Darla loathes weakness.
The bar is damply tepid, but the Martini deathly dry. Her human teeth toy daintily with the
olive, whilst her vampiric senses evaluate the options. Ten men, maybe twelve, of differing
attire and ages. She wears a practiced coy smile over the seething rage which flares with every
knowing smirk sent her way, every proprietorial head-to-toe appraisal. They think they have
the measure of her. Think she is dressed for them, by them. Think they understand what she
signals with the glances she casts upwards through heavy, painted lashes. Every last one of
them thinks they can own her, use her, discard her as they please. And she will prove every
last one of them wrong.
//Darla has been cast off for the last time. (A weakness, that's what it was). Darla belongs to
no man. They shall bow to her. And break beneath her hands. All because they set such store
by affectation.//
Her gaze settles on the form of a heavily built, slightly uncouth youth downing shots at the far
end of the bar. He is handsome in a primitive way, dressed carelessly in tight once-white t-shirt
and scuffed denim. There is the shadow of rough European peasantry about his features and
wide, stocky frame. The descendant of Polish or Russian immigrants, Darla guesses. Through
his alcohol haze he registers her attention. His lips curve into a lascivious grin. She knows the
type. He begins to swagger towards her, self- assurance molding every step. Oh yes, she knows
the type well. This will be almost too easy. Externally, her features slip automatically into smiles
of simpering softness and coquettish blushes. Inside, Darla sneers her weary contempt. She
knows how to play this. She knows how to play them all. This one is obvious. Blanche DuBois
to his Stanley Kowalski. She forgets just then how the play ends. It matters little.
"You know what? I gotta ask, what brings a fine piece of ass like you to a joint like this?"
She forcibly has to prevent her eyes from rolling heavenwards. Instead she looks down through
long lashes, pours into her voice the customary honeyed trap, and recites the line learned so long
ago. She meant it once, it is only a hollow echo now. "Maybe she's lonely."
"Lonely, huh?" A large, clumsy finger runs up the cool skin of her pale, eternally perfect arm.
"Well, I guess it's your lucky day, doll, because Mikey makes it his business to make sure no pretty
lady goes lonely."
"Why thank you, sir. I've always depended upon the kindness of strangers."
~~~
He reclines upon the bed, watching her with desire-drugged eyes. One by one, pieces of
delicate fabric fall softly upon the floor. She takes her time; teases with practiced art. The
longer the adrenaline pumps the more sweetness will be added.
"Do you want me?"
The final flimsy covering slips downwards, revealing a body as pale, smooth and immutable
as marble. He can only nod dumbly. She allows herself a condescending smile. Don't they
always? So predictable. So easy. There to pick and devour like fruit from the vine. Lithe,
cat-like, she begins to stalk her slow crawl across the bed. Pinning his body between the
mattress and her own. The power is all hers, yet the covetous grin upon the man's face
indicates he still thinks she is within his control. Deluded, as they all are. He will learn. Fast.
She traces a nail across his rapidly rising and falling chest. He tries for a grab at her waist.
With lightning speed he finds his wrist pinned to the bed by delicate fingers of surprising
strength.
"Don't tease me, baby," he warns, agitatedly. He never asked her name. It makes no
difference. Empty endearments are all the identity she's ever had. Baby, sugar, sweetheart.
Dear one. They are all the same.
"What do you feel?"
"Huh? I ain't got time for screwy games, kitten."
"No, you really haven't. So I'll tell you. You feel want. Lust. Desire. They cloud your mind,
blind you to the reality before your eyes. Don't worry. You're not the first. You won't be the
last."
The nails of her free hand dig sharply into his chest. He screams in pain as the gouges are
furrowed across his flesh. Precious scarlet liquid oozes eagerly from the wounds. The
performance is nearly over but she can't resist returning to her initial inspiration for the
closing. The words of Williams twisted into the perfect paraphrase.
"Do you know what the opposite of desire is, Mikey?" He only stares into her morphing face
with suddenly fear-crazed eyes. She roughly pushes his head aside to reveal an expanse of
jugular, and - first with a softly whispered word, then with a brutal skin-ripping
demonstration - provides him with the answer.
"Death."
//Teeth latch firmly into the wall of the wide vein. Tongue laps urgently at the thick, flowing
liquid. It courses down her throat, sloughing the sugary affectations off the chords, filling her
being with fire, with life. A one word refrain hammers through her mind. Warm. Warm.
Warm. The icy vice surrounding her stilled heart is dissolved by the flood. She feels. She burns.
She destroys. She thrives. She is Darla.//
~~~
The smoke of her cigarette curls against the frozen window pane. She pulls the mink of her
coat closer to her otherwise naked body. If she cranes a little, from this angle she can see the
scalloped silver surgical outline of the Chrysler pinnacle as it incises the velvet night. She
shivers. The image is a cold one. She turns to survey the interior of the room. The corpse
sprawls clumsily across the bed. The dark patches on the linen sheets deepening from rich
red to rust brown. Only half an hour dead and already chilled by the merciless winter air. Only
half an hour fed and her lifeless form is no warmer than the other. She is sure the rush used
to last longer. The blood would stay hot in her veins for hours, sometimes days. Maybe it was
something other than blood which kept the warmth in her being. No. She refuses to entertain
such notions. She depends on no-one. She is just older, more world weary now. Too used to
the thrill of feeding for it to effect her as once it did. Familiarity breeds contempt. Or at least ennui.
It is a cold night in a cold city, that is all. The heat disperses more quickly. All she needs is to
feed again. She dresses quickly. Tidies her hair. Retouches her lips and lashes. No easy task
without a reflection in the dressing table mirror, but years of practice makes perfect. She pauses
on her way out the door. She will dispose of the body in the morning, or leave it as a present for
the maid when she checks out. One more homicide case to be filed unsolved. She doubts anyone
will take much notice. The suite door closes as noiselessly as she moves down the hallway. The
doorman will notice she is now alone if she uses the main entrance. Instead she heads for the fire
escape. She could make the leap, but it's a long way down and why break a heel if you don't have
to? The window is jammed but she forces it easily. The full blast of the below-zero temperature
hits her cheeks and stings her eyes. The sooner she feeds the better.
The descent takes time. The metal steps are coated with ice and snow, but the white filigree
flakes no longer fall from the sky. The final twenty feet are sheer drop into a dimly lit alley. She
recovers from her crouched landing, straightens, and turns to be greeted by broad, tombstone-like
chest mere inches from her face. Her extra senses recognize the presence immediately. Her eyes
wander slowly upwards to meet the face for confirmation. To her intense chagrin her suspicion is
correct.
She jerks her head away with overt irritation and skirts past the immense form, throwing over
her shoulder a vexed, "What do you want?"
A deep, resonating, yet strangely mellifluous voice answers her. One not heard for many a year.
"To talk to you."
"We have nothing to talk about, I can assure you," she returns smartly, affecting to continue on
her original quest, undeterred.
"Now, now, sister, is that any way to greet a long-lost relative?"
There is a familiar smirk in his voice. He knows he has already won. She will remain. She will hear
him out.
She pauses, immobile. A sigh of bitter resignation escapes from her glistening, reddened lips.
She turns back to face him, biting off an angry, "How did you find me?"
The huge bulk of her companion shifts slightly, "He always knows where to find you, Darla.
Besides, you leave clues."
He pulls a scrap of newspaper from his pocket and offers it to her. She swipes it from his hand,
eyes glinting with mulish defiant ire. She scans the fragment of text. A small column detailing
the discovery of the bodies of two young men and a chamber maid in the basement of a hotel
on the Lower East Side. Her last lodgings before these. She attempts to mask her annoyance.
"Sorry, Luke, dearest. Not mine."
The nearest expression he has to a smile creeps across his craggy features. "Why do you lie to
me, sister? I know your handiwork when I see it. You might as well have carved your name into
the cadavers."
"So you found me. Aren't we the Sherlock Holmes? What do you want - a medal? A deerstalker,
perhaps?" Her voice is hard with mockery. She fixes him with her dangerous glassy gaze. There
is no artificial sugaring in her tones now. "Why?"
Her vampire sibling takes a large, heavy stride to close the distance between them. She notices
how far his giant footsteps sink into the snow. Her light ones hardly break the now freezing surface.
"He wants you to come to him. He wants you at his side again." She appears not to react. He
continues, "You heard about the... setback?"
"The setback? Is that what we're calling it? I heard about the earthquake if that's what you mean.
My poor father, trapped between dimensions under the rumble of a collapsed church somewhere
in the wilds of California, waiting for his devoted childer to save him from his own stupidity. Well,
he has waited fifteen years, he can wait a few more. An eternity perhaps? It's not as if he doesn't
have the time," her laugh is filled with soft cruelty.
"He is your sire. He is our Master. You are one of us, Darla. You belong with him. Does family
mean so little to you?"
Her anger explodes. Her fist collides sharply with her blood brother's rough hewn jaw. "Family?
Family? I have no family!"
The much larger vampire recovers from the blow, grinning, "You still mourn the loss of the foolish
idiot childe. Shame on you, Darla. Such human frailty is not becoming in a member of our Order.
I think it's time you reacquainted yourself with what you truly are."
She steadies herself and walks to the end of the alley. The New York street is bathed in a softly
glimmering sheet of cool, cool snow. A couple of blocks north a police siren wails its baleful song
into the heavy stillness. Adrift, untrammeled, in this brand new, shiny, modern wonderland with
its boundless opportunities and yet she is hating every long, empty, bitterly cold minute. She
wonders fleetingly if she is sick. Now is not the time to admit to such speculations. She feels
Luke's presence behind her shoulder. She dismisses her previous train of thought and garners
her resolve. She speaks softly now, but each word formed is given a firm enunciation.
"I know what I am. You can tell our father, he can go to hell. One day I might see him there."
There is a long pause, before her companion lowers himself and breathes intimidatingly into her
ear, "As you please, sister. Take care."
And he is gone.
She watches the immense lifeless bulk melt seamlessly into the shadows. The heavy imprints in
the snow the only indication his presence was not imagined.
//She scoffs inwardly. The fool. Did The Master imagine she would come running at the click of
his clawed fingers? She is Darla. She cuts a solitary path, she refuses to bend, she is the mistress
of her own destiny. Those who try to oppress her will be crushed and powdered beneath her
dainty, deadly feet.//
Affectations. Merely affectations.
She closes her eyes wearily and leans against the alley wall. She knows she will go. She will
return to him. Take on one more new role in the theater of her existence - the wayward yet
faithful daughter. Daddy's little demon girl. Not yet. Not now. But one day she will go.
God, how she hates these infernal men! Hates her father. Hates her childe.
Because whilst they only ever wanted her, she always needed them. What you once were informs
all that you become. The vampire is fettered by the woman. She has always needed men to define
her. She needs them still.
So she will return.
The need to be mastered. It is a weaknesses. It is her weakness. Darla hates herself most of all.
Fin.
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