FIC: Dead Ringers (BtVS, Drusilla/Faith, PG-13)
TITLE: Dead Ringers
RATING: PG-13 (language, dub-con)
FANDOMS: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
PAIRING: Drusilla/Faith
SUMMARY: Set during late season three BtVS. The Mayor brings in a ringer.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Written for femslash_minis Round 76 for aaronlisa, who wanted a Sunnydale setting, leather, and crimson, without character death or fluff.
“This Buffy Summers situation is just driving me up the wall,” the Mayor said, buffing invisible dirt motes from his manicure. “We’re bringing in a ringer.”
Faith tried not to pout. Pouting was for kids and Cry-Buffies; she was a hired gun now. Hired guns did not pout. Still, the thought passed through her mind: I thought I was your ringer.
Faith could feel the vampire coming before she walked in the room. She was getting better at that-sensing them. Probably because she was spending so much time with them, what with all the undead on the Mayor’s payroll.
“Faith, this is Drusilla.”
Faith’s lips curled up into a snarl. The bitch looked loopy, her glassy eyes rolling around in her head as she surveyed the room. Doll’s eyes-dead eyes. Drugged eyes, like someone who’d crushed up their Xanax and snorted it, rubbing the blue crumbles on their gums like it was better shit than it was.
Not that Faith knew about any of that. She was a hired gun now.
The Mayor clapped his hand on Drusilla’s shoulder. Faith was surprised the vampire didn’t snap in two; she looked like she was made of twigs, skin and bones under her dress, which was something out of a wax museum or something, the lace yellowed from age. Faith suspected the underwear situation was elaborate and painful.
“Drusilla’s a Slayer-killer, Faith,” the Mayor said. “Though I’ve told her not to lay a finger on my girl.”
He chuckled. Drusilla’s Thorazine eyes were caught in the distance. Floating.
Faith pouted.
***
“So you killed a Slayer, huh?” Faith asked.
The dew-licked grass tangled around her ankles as they stomped through the cemetery. Drusilla’s dress dragging the ground made a shit ton of noise; not exactly stealthy. Besides which, Faith didn’t exactly need the help. She could break into a tomb without the help of Psych Ward Barbie.
Drusilla’s bird-bone hands swayed in the night breeze like she was conducting a symphony. “She was lovely, that one. Sweet as honey.”
“Uh-huh.”
They came to the mausoleum. Faith used her shoulder to convince the door to open, and then shined her flashlight inside.
“Great, cobwebs. Hey, Morticia, they go with your outfit.”
When she looked back to see how her comment had landed, Faith found Drusilla staring up at the stars, and humming. Faith rolled her eyes, and pushed through the gossamer curtain into the tomb.
“Sawyer, Sawyer, Lyons-Fitzwilliam.”
Faith broke the stone with her elbow, and then directed the beam of her flashlight into the sarcophagus. Besides the dead guy, who looked pretty cobwebby himself, was the mystical whatzit the Mayor was after, about the size and shape of a Rubik’s cube, but leather-bound and with more clockworky cogs and shit. Faith reached through the cobwebs for it.
No sooner than her fingers had folded around the clockwork orange than Faith found herself thrown to the floor. She spit out dust and ash and who knew what else suddenly coated her mouth, and started to get up, but there was a weight on her back. She looked up-Drusilla.
The vampire put a crimson-clawed finger to her lip. “Shh,” she whispered. “They’re out to play.”
Faith looked beyond Drusilla, to the mausoleum wall-marble cracked. Three thin, wooden shafts extended from the broken spot in the stone. Faith looked back at the Fitzwilliam tomb, and then up at the arrows in the tomb wall.
“A booby trap? What is this, a Scooby Doo cartoon?”
Faith pushed Drusilla off her, and came to her feet, brushing dust and cobwebs off her dark jeans. Drusilla didn’t seem to mind being handled so roughly; she giggled and rolled around on the floor a bit, spider webs curling into her hair.
“You like the rough stuff, huh?”
Drusilla snapped her teeth. “I’ve been a very naughty puppy.”
Faith took Drusilla by the hand, and hoisted her to her feet. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m sure.”
Drusilla licked her nose.
***
They walked back the way they’d come, the moon hung low and pregnant in the sky. It was the same color, Faith reflected, as Drusilla’s skin. Which was creepy, but also kind of beautiful, in a way.
“So,” Faith said. “You’re not bad in a fight.”
“If you’d been alone, you’d have slept in that crypt forever,” Drusilla said. Something like wistfulness passed over her pale features. “How lovely.”
“Uh, yeah,” Faith said. “Okay.”
Drusilla froze suddenly, and Faith was afraid they’d stepped into another trap, until Drusilla began moving again-a slow and surprisingly skillful pirouette. Faith watched Drusilla dance in the moonlight, the thin layers of her skirts like a shadow whirling around her. Like Peter Pan-like her shadow wanted to escape her.
Faith knew how that felt.
Drusilla extended one thin, milky hand. In the odd light, the red tips of her nails shone like freshly spilled blood.
Faith knew how that felt, too.
“Dance with me, sister,” Drusilla crooned.
And Faith wasn’t sure if it was the light of the moon or the near death experience, but she found herself taking Drusilla’s hand.
Drusilla was strong, stronger than she looked-maybe even stronger than Faith-and she twirled them both around, her skirts flying around them both now, both the lace and Drusilla’s skin softer than Faith had imagined. Drusilla’s smile was somehow beautiful and terrible all at once, so Faith raised her eyes to the night sky. The moon bobbed; the stars smeared across the black, and Faith found herself going lightheaded. She tried to pull away, but there was no strength in her.
“Stop, enough,” she said.
“Never enough,” Drusilla moaned, and collapsed to the wet grass, bringing Faith down on top of her.
It took Faith a moment to realize they weren’t moving anymore. She squeezed her eyes closed, and listened to the obscene silence of the night, of Drusilla’s dead body. There was no breath; there was no heartbeat. Faith was red-cheeked and her chest was heaving; Drusilla was as still and cold as the tomb they’d just left. Faith realized, suddenly, that she’d never been this close to a vampire before. She opened her eyes.
Drusilla was watching her, a queer smile on her lips.
“You like to play,” Drusilla said. “But you want all the toys for yourself.”
Faith started crawling to her hands and knees. “We should get back. We have to-the Mayor-”
Her head swam, and she fell back against Drusilla. Drusilla ran her nails over the flesh of Faith’s bare arms, almost a tickle and almost a bite, like having a knife run across your skin.
“I’ll play with you, little raven,” Drusilla said. Her nails pressed into Faith’s skin, and Faith could feel pain and the hot welling of blood.
She didn’t make a sound.