Author:Darkenrose

Rating: teen

Pairing: Dawn&Spike

Warning:none.

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Buffy open the door to her dimly lite house with a click, the Scoobies followed behind with Angel. He had arrived from LA a few hours after dark claiming he needed to speak to Giles about something, he had just brushed the group off when asked. Sunnydale had be quiet lately only a few vampires lurking in the shadow, even Spike hadn't been terrorising the group. It was almost too quiet for Buffy and the gang, surly somethings big will happen soon.

When Buffy entered the living room she stopped dead at the scene in front of her, causing a mini pileup of her friends, as the others scrambled around her looking around the room to see what had stopped her. They saw two figures curled together on the sofa. Both very familiar in the Summers house hold, it was the slayers younger sister Dawn and the sometime resident vampire William the Bloody, aka Spike, both of them fast asleep, with the TV playing low in the background, casting moving shadows over them. Dawn had her legs curled beside her, her head on Spike's black T-shirt covered shoulder, his arm was around her shoulders and his head was resting on top of hers, his tight denim legs kicked out in front of him.

Buffy remember seeing a scene like this on TV once about a young married couple. She had once dreamed of herself in a similar position with no worries and a chance to relax with someone you love.

Buffy heard Willow sign with exhaustion

"I thought they had stopped doing this." she said softly a small smile pulling at her mouth as she watched the pair.

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked half turning to her best friend but still watching her sister, however it was Xander who answered her

"That...erm...summer. We would come back from patrolling. I mean, we had to have someone Dawn sitting and " he nodded his head towards the sleeping pair " we'd find them like this." Buffy felt a pull in her gut, something else she didn't know, something she had missed when she had died.

Anger, Sadness and frustration bubbled with in her. How could they leave Dawn with a Vampire ? Said vampire had threatened them on a daily basic, so what if he had been "neutered " he could still hurt her and Buffy didn't believe that the chip in his head would last forever. He was far to stubborn to let it stop him long.

Buffy moved towards the pair intent on waking them, pulling them apart. How dare they look so comfortable with each other. As she reached out for Dawn she heard the others including Angel, who she had forgotten was with them, shout "No! don't !" they tried to stop her.

In a flash she was on her knees in front of the sofa with a hard thud, her left arm twisted awkwardly in front of her, to keep her from breaking it. Her Slayer muscles reacting before she even thought about it, trying to save her from a oncoming threat. Numbing pain shot like lightening down her arm and up her spine.

A loud angry snarl filled her ears like a revving motorbike beside her head, it was the only thing she could hear as it drowned out the sound of her own heart. She blink up confused at angry yellow eyes and sharp white teeth. Truly it was a thing of nightmares, at least for a normal person as the strings of terror pulled at your stomach like knitting needles.

"What do you think your doing Slayer?!" Growled the creature between it splintery teeth, the hand on her arm tightening showing the pure strength he had with little effort.

"Spike!" Angel growled shifting forward, to pull the other vampire away from the girl he once loved. Spike let his eyes snap to his grandsire and felt his lips pull into another snarl before he snapped his eyes back at the Slayer.

"Should know not t' creep up on a dead man!" Spike squeezed the hand again showing that Buffy's arm could break as easily as if it was a twig and he wanted to break it into pieces, before he felt movement on his shoulder. He let go of the Slayer with a push and curled his arm around the slowly waking young woman. " 't's alright Bit, go back to sleep". With a slight frown at being woken, bleary eyed the dark haired young woman simply nodded and cuddled back into the vampire, she didn't even seem to notice the demonic face above her.

Buffy swallowed her shock like it was a large gulp of water, and denied the thrill of fright that rolled in her stomach like a wave in the ocean. She open her mouth to speak but Spike was already growling at Angel, now very wide awake but still letting Dawn cuddle into him as if it was the most natural thing in the world, had they always been sleeping like this? Buffy felt a familiar sting scratching away inside her, when had they gotten so close? Why did they look so at peace together? It wasn't fair

"What you want peaches? Can't find yeh nancy boy hair gel? 'Cause i doubt the whelp has any and nether do the girls" He smirked over Dawn's head. Angel growled low in his throat before moving towards the sofa intent on beating his grandchilde into showing some respect, but before he could pull the younger man free from the young human, she mumbled in to her pillows dark t-shirt, her small hands creating fists in the lose clothing.

"don't want peaches," she mutters.

The look on Spike's face was a cross between loving and amusement as he gazed down at the dark hair teen before he smile quite smugly at Angel.

"That's my girl."he cooed at her as he ran a hand in her dark hair and kissed the top of her head, a pleasing gleam in his ice blue eyes.