Title: She Leaves the Way She Enters
Author: Jessikast
Fandom: Buffy
Spoilers: None specific, takes place sometime after S6.
Rating: PG-13 for language and implied events
Pairing: None
Disclaimer: The characters and universe of Buffy the Vampire Slayer aren't mine, and I'm making no profit off this.
Authors notes: The first paragraph is a challenge from Maudlinrose. Thanks to her for the inspiration.
Feedback: Always welcome, of course.
She leaves the way she enters, tiptoed steps down the stairs. Her gown is satin, a slippery and shiny piece of fabric which slides down her breasts and drapes across her stomach. It is dark, and the stairs creak. He does not come after her.
When she reaches the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, she turns, one hand still on the banister, and looks behind her. For a moment she considers going back, but decides against it. What would be the point? He told her what he thought of her, just before he passed out, the alcohol in his system winning out over whatever it was she had once seen in him.
She pushes open the door, and walks out into the warm air. It's humid, even at this hour of the night…morning? Her small handbag, crammed with essentials, is clutched tightly in her hand. Lipstick, cellphone, mirror, tissues, pen, extra hair pins and the specially crafted 'mini-stake' Xander gave her for her 18th birthday. Small enough to fit in a handbag, with a handle carved so that it wouldn't break nails or put splinters into palms on an Important Night Out. Like Senior Prom, for instance.
She walks aimlessly. Home will be her eventual destination, she knows that, but right now, she doesn't care where she is. She walks quickly until she is out of his house, out of his street, then slows. She's patrolled these streets so many times, she doesn't need to look up. She just focuses on the perfectly painted nails peeking from her new high-heeled sandals, enjoys the way her dress swishes around her ankles, and rages quietly in her head. She doesn't even need to think about the dangers that she knows are there. Habit has her listening intently to the dark, ready to open her purse and grab the stake in a moment.
The hair on the back of her neck prickles.
She stops walking, and listens to the sure steps sauntering up behind her. She turns. Cold fills her, the hot anger caused by that…boy, the way he ruined such a wonderful evening, is gone. She feels still and dangerous and sure of herself. The vampire pauses a couple of meters before her, shaken despite itself by the look in her eyes.
"What do you want," she states. Her hand flexes around the stake, and she isn't quite sure when it got into her hand. The vampire looks at it, looks at her eyes, and ignores what his instinct is telling him, that the tone in her voice is danger. He makes his decision and lunges wildly at her. She doesn't flinch. She is cold, she is confident, she is in control. She steps aside, and stakes him in the back as he runs past. She takes another step back to avoid the puff of dust, and stands for a minute, contemplating what she has done. Time seems slowed, has been since she walked out of that house, and she wonders if this is what fighting is like for Buffy all the time – being frustrated at how slow the opponent is moving, feeling the pause in the middle of the fight, watching your instincts react and feeling both removed from the weapon and the hand that wields it, and at the same time feeling it as the most basic part of you.
She keeps walking.
A couple of hours later, going by a graveyard, another vampire approaches, seeing the easy meal in the beautiful girl with the perfect make up and elaborate hair. He sees the shoes, and thinks that she cannot run. This vampire is not stupid though, and when she looks at him, he goes. She walks on, a part of her enjoying this feeling of being dangerous.
She wants to know why she didn't feel like this earlier in the evening. She wants to know how she fell under the spell of that boy, flowering under his attention, almost simpering in response to his charms. He had asked her to the prom, and she had said 'yes', so cool and collected, but just dancing inside. And she planned for weeks, shopping with Buffy for shoes and a dress, discussing make-up with her friends, making an appointment to get her hair done. Before she went, Buffy had clasped a necklace around her throat, one of Mom's.
And that boy ruined it. He had drunk a little before the prom, which was ok, because everybody did. And they danced and laughed and she felt like a princess, felt that her long, gawky limbs were graceful, felt that her features fit her face, knew that the dress clung to her just right. But afterwards, he took her to a party, where it was dark and smoky, and the spell was broken. She clung to it, which was why when he told her, slurring his words, that his parents weren't home, she had agreed to go, almost desperately.
And when he tried to push her back on the bed in his untidy, closed-in room, tried to push up the skirt on her beautiful wine dark dress, she knew the spell was broken. Her body was no longer the perfect thing it had been, but it still knew itself, knew every muscle and sinew and bone within itself, and it knew how to get what it wanted. She stood by the bed, and felt a little shaken as he curled around himself, whimpering. She wasn't prepared for the words, the words which cut and stabbed and made her break a little inside, as he cursed her and told her he'd heard she was easy, and for the money he'd spent on the tux, he deserved a good fucking, so she should put out. Whore, bitch, cunt. She listened until he passed out, then simply turned at walked out, the confusion turning to hurt turning to rage.
She doesn't go home until the sky begins to lighten. She sits on top of a gravestone, dress carefully smoothed so the satin doesn't catch, feet bare and aching, shoes in one hand, absentmindedly picking bobby pins out of her hair, and she watches the sun rise. The anger is still cold within her, and she wants to savour it a little longer, enjoy the feeling of being entirely in control of her self. She knows that when she goes home, there will be sympathy and hugs, and she will lose this new self-knowledge in tears, become once again a teenage girl who is struggling to find herself, just like every other teenage girl in the world.
She doesn't want to forget.
She concentrates on the dawn, wishing for some prayer or rite or ceremony that she could use to bind herself to it, to remain a little like this for always.
A ceremony is not needed, she realises a few minutes later.
Dawn takes into herself the memory of the hurt, the memory of the anger, the feeling of control and power and danger, and she takes into herself the beauty of the sky and the almost stillness, the smell of dew on the grass, and the feeling of the breeze barely caressing her skin.
When she turns to go home, she is changed, although she does not much realise it. It is a look in her eyes, a surety in her movements, something that makes people notice her, makes them respect her.
And when she arrives home, Buffy sees that new look in her eye before she sees the hurt and goes to hug her. She realises that her sister is changed. She grieves a little for the loss, but she is happy for her sister, because she knows she is finally fulfilling the promise that was inherent in her intellect and long body.
Dawn sleeps later, lying gracefully on her bed. In her sleep, one hand smooths the satin dress over her breast and hip, and her lips curve up into a smile.