Work Text:
Author: Lucinda
rating: pg13
main characters: Nathaniel, Dru
disclaimer: I hold no legal rights to any characters from 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' (creation of Joss Whedon & a whole lot of other people who aren't me). Nathaniel is the creation of Laurell K Hamilton, in her Anita Blake series.
distribution: Jinni's Quickfics, Paula, anyone else please ask.
notes: response to Jinni's Weekly Poetry Challenge (week 3, Poetry Quote below). Set after season 5 BtVS, and post-Blue Moon for AB.
"SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies."
-- She walks in beauty, Byron
* * * *
I know that she's probably very bad for me. She's occasionally cruel, and sometimes vicious, but she's got a sweeter side, and there are times that she'll just want to snuggle and cuddle for hours...
Those times are a definite contrast to the times when she screams because Daddy doesn't love her anymore and her tarnished knight has betrayed her and grandma is a stupid, self-sacrificing tramp. Those are the times when she scratches at my face, or throws things, or chains me up and whips me.
And it's all okay with me. The pleasure, the pain... it's all good. That's what Anita never understood, never tried to understand. She always looked at it as something wrong with me, something that needed to be fixed.
Drusilla just accepts that it is. That sometimes, pain is good. That I need someone else to help me get through things, to give me direction and a purpose and a goal. My goal is keeping her happy.
It's not easy, sometimes. She's not used to places like this, places where people notice and remember. Places that aren't twisted and corrupted by a Hellmouth.
Makes me glad that I've never met her Daddy, it doesn't sound like he took very good care of her. A vampire's Sire is supposed to teach them, teach them how to cope with the politics and the rivalries, and how to be as blatant or discreet as the situation calls for. But he didn't teach her all of that. I'm not sure he taught her any of that.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one guiding her, making certain that she doesn't break the laws, doesn't do anything that crosses the blurry line of what is acceptable behavior for the vampires now. Sometimes it feels like I'm protecting her.
If she breaks the laws, they'll file with the courts, and then Anita will come and try to shoot Drusilla. It might not be as easy as she expects, my dark Princess isn't dead during the day like Jean Claude. I don't quite know why that is, but she can be as active as I am, and she'll have tea parties with her doll, Miss Edith. With lemon, sugar, cream and those funny little English cookies. That's sort of weird.
But I keep hoping that it won't come to that. That Drusilla will keep inside the laws, that she won't have a Writ of Execution served. Because if that happened... I don't know if she would be able to kill Anita or if Anita would kill her, but I do know that one of them, if not both of them, would be dead. And that would rip me up inside.
Anita saved me - saved all of us, really - from Gabrial. She wanted to help me, even if I wasn't certain that I needed her help. She... she cared. She wanted to protect me from the big, scary world.
Drusilla understands that I need to belong to someone. She understands the need for a little pain with the pleasure. I don't know if she cares about me, not really. She likes having me around, thinks that I taste delightful and makes frequent enjoyment of me in the bed, on the couch, against the wall... But I don't know if she really cares. I'm afraid to ask, really. She needs me, and that's almost enough.
It's all about the compromises, really. Everybody makes them, between what they want, and what they can have. What they want to do, and what's legal to do. Who they want, and who they can have. I have what I need, maybe hoping that she cares, that I matter as Nathaniel is too much to ask for?
Doesn't everyone have to compromise?
end Dark Princess.