Frustration and Conversation

By: Bagel

Disclaimer: Joss is god, and I am not. Such is the sad way of the world.

Notes: Set a few months after "The Gift". Spoilers, obviously, for that episode. I wanted to explore the way Spike and Dawn relate, and this is what I came up with.

Dedication: This one goes out to sophie, cause she's British and blonde like Spike, long-haired and witty like Dawn, and an awesome bud. I "heart" you, soph!

~*~

When he came up the stairs, she caught his eye immediately. Long brown hair thrown carelessly over her shoulders, she stared thoughtfully off into space, completely oblivious of the five other people who currently occupied the same space she did.

He came upon her like this a lot lately. Half the time, the vampire was sure he was the only one who noticed it. Three months since, and still…everything was so different. People were quieter, more reserved. Everyone seemed to think a whole lot more. Spike supposed he understood, given what had been lost, but frankly, it was rather annoying. No one ever said anything, not really. But it wasn't his place.

Except, he felt, when it came to her. The vampire rather liked the little one, and had never really made a secret of it. He heard every sigh, saw every faraway glance. She looked like one did when they lost a puppy or something. It was unnerving. So, he leaned against the wall near her table, and tried to look nonchalant.

"Niblet? What nasty thing's got a hold of your head?"

"Hmm?" she raised her eyebrows slightly, not bothering to lift her head from the table.

"I said," he repeated, getting up and shifting his position so he was opposite her along the circular table, "What's bothering you?"

Dawn lifted her head and glanced about the magic shop, noting Anya behind the counter, Xander sitting on the floor behind her, Willow and Tara re-stocking shelves, and Giles paging through a book in the loft above. They all stuck together pretty tightly nowadays.

"Nothing. School, I guess." She supplied him with an answer and a shrug, hoping he'd leave her alone.

"Rot. That's not it, and we both know it." Spike leaned back, apparently feeling that this was persuasion enough, and lit a cigarette. He held it between his first two fingers and looked at her expectantly.

She stared back, not willing to divulge even the slightest bit of information to the vampire across from her.

"It's not rot, or whatever you call it. I'm worried about my grades and my homework and…"

He cocked his bleached head to one side and interrupted, "Oh come on, pet. You're going to have to do much better than that to fool me. Wait, you know what? Nevermind. I don't care anyway, really." He got up and began to maneuver his way around the table and toward the exit.

"Wait." Dawn halted him with a word. She hated how he always got to her. "I'm just….frustrated." She looked up at him, expecting him to understand.

"Right. Come on, then." Spike tilted his head slightly toward the door and began to walk toward it again. This time, Dawn followed closely behind. The rest of the gang looked up as they left, Willow giving a slight nod of her head to the others.

~*~

"Spike, where are we going?" She panted, struggling a bit to keep up with his steady gait.

"No worries, pet. We're almost there." He waved her on, not slowing his pace in the slightest.

Ten minutes later, they stopped in the middle of a line of storefronts that stretched across an old part of town. In the dark, it was hard to read, but Dawn thought the sign said "Bernie's Bagel Bakery".

"You dragged me all the way over here for a midnight snack? I'm not hungry, and anyway…I hate bagels." She crossed her arms in disgust and glared disbelievingly through the darkened windows.

Spike rolled his eyes at her. "No, Niblet. Just shut it for a second, will you? I'm trying to concentrate."

He walked back and forth, appearing to study the door intently, as if looking for a way in. A few seconds later, he stopped short and shot a hand through one of the windows, shattering glass. Reaching an arm through, Spike unlocked the door and walked in, fully expecting her to follow.

"Really classy, Spike." He heard her call from outside, "You should be a professional thief, you know?"

"Come off it. Just come inside."

"Fine." Dawn stepped gingerly over the broken glass and entered the store as well.

If the place had once been a bakery, you couldn't tell. It was completely gutted. Tiles had been very obviously pulled up from the floor, leaving only cement and several layers of dust. The wallpaper was faded, yet extremely bright in oddly-shaped places where a picture had hung or a shelf had been. It smelled like no one had been inside for months, maybe even years. The smell was vaguely unpleasant; but mostly, she ventured, it just smelled abandoned.

Satisfied with her inspection, she finally noticed what Spike had brought her all the way over for. A blue plastic mat was placed in the center of the floor, now marked with the footprints of Spike's boots, as he was standing on it. To his left, a battered punching bag hung from an awkward suspension in the ceiling. The puzzled look couldn't keep itself off her face.

"I set it up, a few months back. Can't really use the other one…" He trailed off, not needing to explain. "It's not much, but I thought it might come in handy."

"For what? I don't fight." She looked warily from him to the equipment and back again.

"It's not for fighting, luv. Well, it is, but not in your case. It's damn good for frustration though, let me tell you." He offered her a slight smirk. "Come on, then. Let's see what you've got."

Dawn glanced down at her hands, both of which unconsciously curled themselves into fists. Frustration. "I…I can't."

Spike exhaled heavily, dropping the bag and stepping towards her. "Look. This bloody silence crap is getting old. I don't do crying, pet. I don't really do sympathy well, either. Frustration, and a good old spot of violence? That, I can do. So let's go. Let me have it. Or I've just wasted another perfectly good night I could have spent beating the crap out of an ugly or two dragging your ass up and down Sunnydale for my own bloody amusement."

He was right. Crying? They'd all done tons of that. The sympathy and pity looks she got seemingly everywhere she went drove her up the wall, too. She was tired of everyone else tiptoeing about the subject around her. No one talked, and so neither did she. It was completely frustrating, being silent. So, she walked over to the edge of the mat, picked up a worn pair of boxing gloves she hadn't noticed before now, and cautiously approached the punching bag.

Her first blow, a timid left jab, bounced harmlessly off the fabric. It didn't even move. The second one, again with the left, had a little more fire behind it. The third and fourth came in quick succession, each a little harder than the last. In minutes, she was whaling on the bulky Everlast with everything she had, never missing a beat.

"Oh honestly, pet," Spike called over the dull thuds of gloves hitting the bag, "Is that the best you can do? Where's the spirit, huh? Where's that frustration?"

"You…want to see….frustration?" she gasped, not slowing up on her attack. "Okay." Dawn seemingly doubled her efforts, even throwing in an awkward kick or two every once in awhile.

"This," she told the bag, giving it a meaty smack, "is for the kids at school who pity me, afraid to touch me because they think I'll break. This is for Anya and Xander and Willow and Giles, who never talk about anything anymore. This is for my friends, who don't know what to say to me anymore so they just stop calling. That's for my Chemistry homework, which I never understand no matter how much Mr. Williams explains it. That's for the crying I did, and the self-loathing I've been carrying around because I had no one to share it with. This is for being afraid and not knowing what's going to happen to me…whether I'm just going to wake up one day and not exist anymore. And…last but not least….this is for me. I'm sick of…of being quiet. There."

She stopped suddenly, wiping her sweaty brow with her left arm and crouching slightly to catch her breath. That felt good. To talk again. Dawn looked up at Spike, who'd come up beside her, extending his hand. Dawn removed her gloves and handed them to him, watching as he tossed them off into a corner. Wordlessly, she got up and walked swiftly out the door.

Spike hung back for a second, shaking his head slightly as he watched her go, before moving quickly to catch up to her retreating form. There's a spark in that one, no doubt. They walked in silence back to her home, listening to her still slightly labored breaths. As they strolled down the sidewalk near the Summers' home, he broke their companionable silence.

"Feel better, pet?"

She paused. "You know. I do. Anti-frustration mission: accomplished." Dawn smiled at her little joke before turning to look at him. "Thanks, Spike."

"Sure thing, lil' bit. Go on, now. It's late, and I don't want the witches to have my head."

"See you around, Spike." He just gave her a slight wave as she disappeared into her home.

He took a drag on another cigarette as he entered his crypt. He was satisfied that he'd helped the niblet out a bit, when it was obvious those other sods weren't going to do a damn thing about it. They thought she was fragile, too weak to talk about it, or that she simply didn't want to. With a sister like she'd had, he knew she wasn't weak. She just needed an outlet for her frustration.

All she'd needed was someone to talk to.