Sweet
By She's a Star
Disclaimer: Buffy belongs to Joss.
Author's Note: I wrote this quite awhile back for a challenge. It takes place awhile before Drusilla was turned.
*
He watched her.
She was frail, nothing more than a child. The innocence was nearly overpowering, and it made him want her all the more. He fantasized sometimes about how her blood would taste, how he would carefully drink; her skin would be smooth, and pale, and warm. The warmth would end. He had drunk from nuns, virgins, priests, and yet somehow he knew that their blood could never taste as pure, as sweet as hers would.
She was positively flavoured of chastity.
He followed her home every night, walking far enough away so as not to be seen, but close to the point where he knew tiny hairs rose on the back of her neck and shivers ran up and down her spine. Her eyes wide and fearful, she would glance behind her, see nothing, draw her shawl up closer around her shoulders, and pray.
Perhaps she would be praying as he drank from her. It was an exhilarating scene to imagine - his hands on her waist, knowing just how easily she could be broken; his lips at her throat, and all the while, pretty, useless holy words would be spilling from her lips like tears from naive gray eyes.
He couldn't remember any prayers, of course. He'd never bothered to learn many in the first place, and what he had known, he'd forgotten quickly. He recoiled slightly, to think of it - they had no power over him, of course. They didn't burn raw crosses into his skin or scathe like acid rain.
But there was something chilling about them, something dangerous in their purity.
So like her.
Her eyes were closed as she slid with a childish grace into the pew and kneeled. Her hands clasped carefully; an old silver cross hung from her neck.
"Drusilla," he whispered. Her name tasted like old lace and death on his tongue.
Her eyes fluttered open immediately; she whirled around, searching.
The church was empty.
"Hello?"
Her voice was sweet. Timid. He decided she must have had an exquisite scream.
"Is anyone in here?" she asked.
He laughed, quietly.
"Who's there?"
The fear in her voice was sharp, intoxicating. It reminded him of red wine.
"You're a bad girl, Dru," he told her.
She shivered visibly. "Who are you?"
"Next to nothing," he told her, and knew she couldn't see him as he kept to the shadows. "Just a little voice right in your head."
"In my 'ead," she repeated, frantically. "What do you mean? I . . . I'm not crazy, I swear it, I--"
"Oh, you wish it were only madness." He sighed wistfully. "It's so much more than that. You're mine, Drusilla."
"Tell me who you are," she demanded in a small voice pieced apart by shallow, terrified sobs.
"Why, I'm your savior," he told her, charming. "I created you. I'm the reason you see things."
"Are . . ."
She swallowed.
"Are you an angel?"
He laughed; the sound echoed throughout the church, spilling from high walls and endless ceilings, back to her ears. "Oh no, my love. I'm hell."
She gasped, softly; he watched as she swayed. Her delicate hands clutched the back of the pew desperately.
"You . . . you leave me alone," she ordered, the words barely decipherable within shaking breaths and sobs. "I'm not evil. I'm not evil." Softer that time. Desperately trying to convince herself.
"Turn to me, child. Sacrifice yourself to me, or your family will drown in their own blood."
"No," she whispered, her words like tears. "No."
"You're a creature of sin. Darkness. Every time you pray, you disgust Him so purely He's going to tear your entire life apart to punish you. Unless you stop. Unless you come to me."
She was barely standing now, soundlessly whispering - he watched her lips move.
Ourfatherwhoartinheavenhallowedbethyname--
"Drown," he reminded her, cordially.
She collapsed, and he stepped out of the shadows. He could barely hear her as she breathed - he kneeled down beside her. This was the closest he had ever been to her, and the desire was almost overpowering. Oh, if he could only sink his teeth into her neck, finally taste what he'd sensed in her for so long--
But he couldn't. Not with so much blood unspilt, so many weaknesses ignored. Slowly, piece by piece, he would tear her world apart until she was consumed by madness. Only then could he strike.
And oh, how sweet it would be, to destroy her.