Partnership

by

Princess McPhee

Disclaimer: Drusilla's not mine. I'm not sure if you could pin anything else on me, but it's all not mine, actually.

Author's Note: I like Dru. I like to write her, and I like to read her, if it's done well. And I just saw this when Riley took off after 'Into the Woods'. So it's an old idea, that I'm just typing up now.

Summary: An odd partnership between a human and a vampire, both alone, both just trying to make life worth living again. Riley/Dru

Rating: R

A raven black-haired head nuzzles into the side of the man's neck. He moans, not in pain, but in pleasure as his life fluid drains away, taken by this creature, who sees it as sustenance. She suckles longer, and his face gets paler and paler, but he doesn't complain.

Finally, when he's gasping for breath and his heart is pounding, she pulls away, her ridged face covered in blood. She licks the wound she left behind once, and it starts to close. She spits the rest of the thick saliva she secreted to close that wound on the ground, and morphs back into her human guise. The human she was feeding from smiles weakly up at her. She grins back.

"Time to go home," She sing-songs, and picks him up without any effort. Trudging off into the woods at their side, they disappear into the night.

The figure that was watching them secretively from behind a boulder fifty feet away waits until they're gone, then creeps from his hiding place and runs the other direction.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Night after night, the black-covered figure watches them. They go all different places, the man accompanying the female vampire on her hunts when he's strong enough. He doesn't seem to recognize, or perhaps simply doesn't care, that the humans he helps her kill are his own species. He simply grabs them and holds them as they struggle, and lets her take her fill.

She feeds on him simply because she can't think of any reason not to. She has no minions, they won't listen to her and she has to stake them quickly, so she's stopped bothering with them. But this man, he wants nothing but for her to take his blood and leave him alive so that she can do it again. It's not her regular mode of feeding, but she can't see why it matters. As long as she lets him recuperate a little between times, she always has a handy source of warm blood, one that doesn't fight. And when he's too weak to feed from, he helps her find others to satisfy her need. It's an odd little partnership, but the vampire can't figure out why it has to be. It works, after all.

He stays with her because he's ill, has some kind of psychosis that insists he find out what his ex-lover saw in vampires. And she lets him explore, play with her, in fact, so long as he helps her feed and protects her from harm, she sees no reason why he can't do anything he wants with her. He's human, not strong enough to hurt her, so she lets him get away with a lot.

For his part, he's learning why his ex couldn't stay away from vampires. The bite is seductive, and it makes him come half the time. The sex is strangely different, though he can't say if it's better or just different. And the life, the power is crazily intoxicating. He never thought he'd enjoy taking another human life, and he still doesn't like to do it personally, but watching her feed is a sight worth living for. She's so seductive, and yet so childlike, and she likes to talk to her prey, to fill their blood with fear before she drains them.

When the two partners stalk across a graveyard in the wee hours of the morning, they make quite a picture. He, strong and tall when he's taken a break from being fed on, clothed in black and leather, she, willowy and thin, weaving with the steps of a seductress, raven-black hair flying in even a gentle breeze. Those dark, dark eyes shining so beautifully in the moonlight. And she always wears white lace.

No one who ever lays eyes on them survives. Except for him. He hides well, and the vampiress is a strange one, which is lucky for him. Sometimes she sniffs the air and he knows she smells him, but doesn't care. So long as her belly is full, he can do anything he wants, because he's just a human, and no danger to her. He's careful not to watch too closely when she's hunting, because that's when she's the hungriest. He figures he's pretty safe otherwise, but just the same, he always carries holy water, and wears five crosses, strapped to different parts of his body.

She talks about turning the young man she runs with sometimes, and he always shrugs and tells her, if she wants to. But then she couldn't satisfy her hunger with his blood, though she would probably still drink it. And there would be two of them to feed instead of one. Oh, sure, the young man eats, but it's all people food, bread and tortillas and things she can get easily. If she turned him, then they would have to kill twice as many people to satisfy their hunger, and might be noticed and hunted themselves.

She won't turn him, not until he becomes too weak to be a help to her anymore. Then she'll take him out of the country, and they'll begin a new reign, a new reign of the dark queen and her childe. And this one will turn out, she's sure. This one, she can raise right. After all, now she has two childer, even if one is her grand-sire. It's all rather confusing, but she loves it. They are truly equals, now, though her grandmum doesn't seem to think so. But Drusilla knows better, so she doesn't care.

She's getting bored with this place, and he's getting weak. They'll move on soon, to a place with better food, to get him perked back up. She loves to feed off his blood, but she's sane enough to know that he has to get stronger before she can do so again, so she takes him hunting instead.

After feeding, in the last hours before sunrise, they steal away towards the closest dock, and hide aboard a freight liner bound for Europe. She's taking her soon-to-be childe to her home, to show him the sights, and though he doesn't seem overly excited right now, she's sure he will be when he can see them through a vampire's eyes.

But that will be months later. For now, she enjoys their lives as they are. She no longer runs almost any risk at all of getting injured while hunting, the two of them secure prey easily, and since they're only feeding her, it's simpler still. She doesn't have to wait when she gets hungry, either, there's always been him, and there will be him again when he's regained a little strength.

Yes, she will turn him, but not just yet. Right now, she likes him the way he is.

Back to A Little Part of the Buffiverse

Back to A Little Part of the Buffiverse Fanfiction