Make a Wish - Criminal Minds/ Buffy the Vampire Slayer One-Shot
Title: Make a Wish
Series: Catch a Falling Star
Fandom: Criminal Minds/Angel
Wordcount: about 1600
Summary: Drusilla told her she'd do it. And that she'd have fun. But Elle refused to believe that she'd ever become a monster. Until the day it happened. Real-family story.
A/N: Elle and Dru look way too alike for me not to do a family story with them. Spoilers up to season two, episode five/six of Criminal Minds. Not really any for Buffy or Angel, I don’t think. First in the Catch a Falling Star series.
“You’re wrong, Dru. I won’t do it.”
Drusilla’s grin was small, mischievous. For Elle, it was almost like looking in a mirror. As much as she knew she shouldn’t take her eyes off the other women, she had to turn away.
Drusilla hummed, letting her eyelids drift shut a moment. “Yes,” she said, as if she’d just received confirmation, “you will. And when you do, all the little angels and demons in your head are going to dance together.” Her voice lowered, guttural and raw, her accent lost in the theatrics. “It’ll feel so right.”
Elle shook her head. The simple motion caused her entire torso to ache. How was it that one wound could hurt so much? She turned away, tried to hide the pain. It would still be weeks, maybe months before she’d return to work, but the woman, the being, beside her didn’t need to know how weak that made Elle feel.
“Not going happen,” Elle bit.
“The stars,” Drusilla whispered. She paused, swaying slightly to unheard music. Icy fingers reached out, touching Elle’s hair. “The stars say otherwise.”
~#~
His breath smelled like coffee. The stench was revolting. Even more nauseating, though, was the fact that hers probably smelled the same. It was the same coffee from the same pot, from the damn department the two of them had just left. Elle had to stop the scowl from forming on her face.
She tried to push it down. Tried not to let the monster out.
But Lee leaned even closer.
“Thank you,” he said. His wide eyes were sincere, as if he truly believed the words coming out of his mouth. Elle knew he did. Rationality had left him long ago. “You’ve made a lot of women very happy.”
So sincere. So untrue.
Elle felt it inside. Squeezing her intestines. It was rage. It was hate. It was fingers digging into her chest wound for another dab of red ink. Her body trembled once at the memory and then grew stony. A sort of calmness rolled over her.
She was right. It was the only thought Elle could form. The rest was not thought; it was instinct. Dru was right.
“Hey, Lee!” Elle called. Casual. Fun. Because, for a part of her, it would be. Fun.
The gun was already drawn. He looked, with those sincere eyes--as if he thought, maybe, just maybe, she had called his name to confirm his theory, to accept his thank you--and Elle pulled the trigger. One round pushed him back. Number two did the deed. The third was just for fun.
Fun. No, that was wrong. Elle tried to chide herself. Nothing was fun, only satisfying and unsatisfying. And this definitely fit in the satisfying category.
When she looked away from his body, a falling star caught her eye. Elle made no wish. She didn’t need to…not anymore.
“Do you want to paint a picture with him?”
The voice made her jump. Drusilla stepped out from her shadowed hiding spot, a ghost of Elle’s past. “Like that burned daddy did with your pretty insides?” Drusilla asked. “Do want to make a fingerpainting with him?”
Elle thought she might vomit. She told herself the urge was caused by the memory of fingers digging into her body. Not by the dead man laying on the ground.
“I have to call this in,” Elle said. Her lidded gaze found Dru’s. The vampire was giving her a mocking pout. “You should leave.”
But she didn’t. Drusilla stepped forward and wrapped her icy arms around Elle’s torso. And hummed, and swayed. This was as close to comfort as the creature could provide.
Elle couldn’t help but melt against her. It was illogical. It was foolish. A killing machine was holding her like a mother, but Elle wouldn’t pull herself free. She’d felt this creature, this…even now, after all these years, Elle had a hard time admitting to herself that Drusilla was a vampire. A real vampire, not some delusional mental patient with a taste for blood, but a supernatural being from an age long past. The agent shivered and the cold flesh against hers didn’t help.
The cold.
That was her clearest memory of the first time she’d met Drusilla. It had been only days after her father had fallen in the line of duty. Elle had always had a temper. Always been a strong willed child, a trait she knew she’d inherited from her Cuban mother. She’d wanted to see his grave again, even though the rain was heavy and it was nearly midnight. So, she’d snuck out.
And Drusilla had found her. Been waiting for her.
Even as a child, Elle had been able to recognize monsters, and she knew, from the hair standing on the back of her neck, that the beautiful woman in front of her, the one who looked so very much like the pictures of her paternal grandmother, was dangerous. Yet, she didn’t run away. Couldn’t.
~#~
“You going to eat that, Dru?”
The man stepped out from behind a rather large statue of an angel. A lighter flashed a few inches from his face, hissing against the rain and casting his sharp features, his short, white blond hair, in an eerie orange glow. But the woman tutted, only bending down slightly, to Elle’s height.
“Who are you?” Elle asked. She took a step backwards, her brown ponytail bouncing against her neck. “I think I should go home."
“Shh, now,” Drusilla chided the man, looking over one shoulder, but not quite at the figure approaching behind her. Her voice was strange, childlike, and Elle could just recognize the accent as English. “We don’t eat family, Spike…”
The man huffed, pushing back his leather duster to pocket the lighter. “Since when?” He paused, pulling a drag off his cigarette and releasing a puff of smoke. “Wait--what? Whose family?”
“Later, my viper,” Drusilla hissed, playfully. And snapped, like an animal, at the thin air. But she kept Elle’s gaze. The child swayed, as if entranced by the woman’s lidded eyes. “Do you know who I am, my little star?”
“No,” Elle muttered, feeling lightheaded. For a moment, she thought she might be dreaming, because the woman in front of her, her eyes looked almost yellow in the moonlight. “Did you know my daddy?”
Drusilla reached out, touching the young girl’s cheek with the back of one hand. Elle wanted to pull away from the icy fingers. Cold, so very cold.
“I knew his blood,” the woman answered, smiling slightly. “I’ve been following it for so many years now. You see, my second daddy didn’t like my family very much, and he tried to kill them all. Make a pretty mess of my mummy. But my oldest sister married a fat old man when she was a girl, moved far away, to some smelly country made of spice and sweat, and she had fat little babies. And they had fat babies of their own. Who had more fat babies.” Drusilla tapped the child’s nose with one finger. “And one of those babies had you.”
Elle shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
Drusilla cocked her head to one side, in study, a pout at her lips. Finally, she straightened again, and pushed a doll at the girl. Its dress was old, nearly matching the beautiful gown the woman was wearing. “Go home, little star.” Drusilla’s voice was hushed, nearly a whisper, “and when you’re ready to burn out, I’ll come back, and we’ll play so many games together.”
Elle hesitated only a moment before taking the doll into her arms. Its ceramic face pressed against her neck. The stone felt almost as cold as Drusilla’s skin.
~#~
Drusilla’s grip tightened slightly, and Elle closed her eyes, feeling the vampire’s lips against her collar bone. It wasn’t a romantic gesture, but it was almost as soft, almost as meaningful.
“No,” Elle said, holding back the emotion, “not yet. I’m not ready.”
Drusilla pulled away, her eyes upwards, staring at the sky. She swayed slightly, as if dizzied by the view. There was a frown at her lips, an almost angry expression. “No,” she agreed, “not yet. They say, not yet. Soon, though, soon you’ll be ready to play.”
“They’re right, Dru,” Elle said, relief flooding her system. “But you should leave,” she swallowed. “I need to call the police. Clean up this mess.”
Mess.
Had she really gone that far? Was a corpse really just a mess to her? Elle realized it was. Maybe the stars were right. Maybe it would happen soon.
“Goodnight, niece,” Drusilla said, kissing her cheek. “Watch out for knights, they do love to slay us dragons.”
“I’m a good liar,” Elle replied, looking up at the stars. She saw nothing but celestial bodies. No signs. No singers. “I’ll see you soon.”
She knew the vampire was gone before she lowered her eyes. There was something else she knew as well. Elle was fine with what she’d done. No part of her worried over it, fretted at the consequence. She could allow herself to be a human monster, if she needed to. If that was what it took to feel complete. But she refused to lose that humanity, to be a real creature of the night.
Elle licked her lips. She was a good liar. There would be no future meeting with her aunt, because she would run. From this life, from the people who cared about her. She would burn up in the atmosphere before she ever let Drusilla put out her light.
READ THE SEQUEL: " Put It in Your Pocket" - Spike mistakes Elle for Dru.