Faith surrenders.
As her body brings death, her gift, to those who surrounded her, the Slayer gives up control--or, more accurately, the girl gives up control. It is the Slayer who is in charge of Faith's body, breaking necks and spreading viscera, her shiny new knife cutting through the flesh of her enemies, ending human life after human life, while the little girl named Faith lets go in a glorious act of submission.
It is a beautiful sight.
Drusilla does not surrender. To kill, to bring death, is for her an equally glorious act of will and domination, deliberate and controlled. Or at least she is in as much control as she can be when the pixies whisper and the stars sing, when the world is a mirror crack'd to be seen through darkly. Her submission, her surrender, happened such as they were long ago--she had surrendered her weakness, her piety, her life, her sanity, her humanity all at Angelus' knee, letting go as the vampiric demon entered her blood and took charge over her dead body and transformed her into the woman she is today--but today she stands the victor nonetheless, she and Faith, vampire and Slayer, two lost girls who have at last found their way.
Dru hears the sounds of necks breaking; she smells the scents of blood and Faith's musk hanging in the air; she feels the lives of men and women come to their ends in her hands. Every sensation is a symphony; every taste a tintinnabulation. When the fight ends--it was ended before it even began, really, for even so many humans are no match for a vampire and a Slayer--she kneels and drinks. The blood of the fallen is dark and rich on her tongue, with just a taste of pomegranates and buttermilk.
Faith is the only one left in the room alive. She looks at Drusilla, who gives the girl an encouraging grin. Still so lost, this poor little Slayer, so uncertain, but Drusilla will act as her guide, her sybil on the trip through Hades. A golden bough to find one's way through the blackberry patch. Faith is breathing heavy, fresh from the exertion of the fight. Drusilla does not breathe at all.
Faith looks at Drusilla in a way that good pious girls do not look at other girls, and the Slayer wants, the Slayer takes, the Slayer has. Faith rips open the bodice of Drusilla's dress, tearing and shredding the leather and muslin and velvet. She pulls Dru closer, her hands explore the contours of the vampire's body as she grinds her body against Drusilla's with a frenzied enthusiasm.
"My little girl," Drusilla whispers into Faith's ear, and the Slayer abates, the little lost girl left in the vampire's strong arms. "Such a good little girl."
"Now, girls," says Richard Wilkins III (a thing is always identical to itself, but may have a different name) as he enters the room followed by his highest advisors and administrators and mercenaries and minions. Some have fancy titles, words of power that give them authority over other men: Superintendent of Schools or Deputy Mayor or Commissioner of Public Works. Others work in the shadows, secretly and unnamed: the mayor's personal sorcerer, his liaisons to the various vampire gangs, the town soothsayer. He has brought them to demonstrate to them what happens to people who displease him, to show off his new weapons, these two lost little girls each with her own drive to kill. "You did an excellent job retrieving the Blade of Breknighl for me, but don't you think such displays of affection are just a little unseemly for public?"
Faith is about to point out that they were not in public before the Mayor entered with his lackeys, but he keeps on speaking as he bends down to pick up the Blade, pulling out a white cloth so he doesn't have to touch it. "And really, Faith, I understand that experimentation is natural at your age," he adds. "But a vampire? I'm going to tell you the same thing I told your friend Buffy--"
Faith arms shoots outs and grabs the mayor's wrist, twists it around and pushes it back toward him, forcing the blade of the Blade into his abdomen. He keels over, crying out in pain, and a beam of light bursts out of him where the cut was made.
"See, I'm guessing the reason why you were so anxious for us to get that Blade thing for you was because it's one of those things that can still hurt you, even with that invulnerability thing," Faith says, as she watches as the light surrounds the mayor. Soon it is gone, and so is he. "And now I'm guessing I was guessing right."
"My smart little girl," Drusilla says with a nod.
"Me and Dru, we're running things now," Faith says as she slips her arm around the vampire's waste and pulls Dru closer to her, looking at the assembled group of the former mayor's goons. "Anybody got a problem with that?"
Nobody does.
A/N: If you find the version of this story on my livejournal, you'll be able to listen to me read this story.