Summary: "You were going to talk with your sister about the vamp she was
parking with when, Buffy? Oh, right after I screw my own vampire in a dark
alley, resolve my issues with resurrection and find a job. Yeah, any day
now." That's the basic version, set right after we fade on Buffy clutching
a cross and garlic.
Rating: PG: they mention sex, Buffy says Hellmouth
Distribution: ask and ye shall receive
Disclaimer: Joss' toys, I only play
Feedback: Go ahead, make my day!
Parking in Cars with Vamps
The irony is that I don't even like spicy foods. That was always more Dawn's deal, dump the whole clove of garlic in the fahitas Dawn. Mom used to laugh at her: beware Dawn of the killer clove. Which still doesn't explain why I bought out Whole Foods with money I don't have and changed my décor to early-victimized.
Besides which, Spike likes garlic.
I stare at the cross in my hand wondering if it's possible to bludgeon yourself to death with a holy object. I need a Taser, a chip, something to make me go "arraaaggh" every time I start thinking of that vampire in any way other than Dustbuster fodder. Come on, Buffy, Spike likes garlic? Pathetic much? And when did I start noticing what he likes and what he doesn't like, I can't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday and I forget to pay the power bill every other month. But here it is, twirl the mental Rolodex and we have the life and times of Spike. Serious, serious, serious trouble.
I think I need a support group. Next week on Jerry Springer, Slayers and the Vamps who love them. And he does love you. Serious, freaky, sweater- sniffing, total end-of-the-world love. So do you Buffy love the bloodthirsty evil fiend you are sworn to kill in return? No? Then why did you sleep with him? Slut much? World of sluttyness. Sleep with a vamp, in an abandoned house, multiple times, slut.
For a moment I wallow in fantasy-perhaps it was a spell, a lingering effect of the Ira Gershwin demon? Every story ends on a kiss and god knows there can't be anything more appropriate to my screwed up story than Spike- because when you hit the very bottom of the lowest gutter in the deepest sewer of the darkest hell dimension, Spike is, of course, there. So, a spell. Heck, the past couple of spells' I've married Spike, kissed Spike, fought demons with Spike, protected Spike, and, no-we-won't-think-of-what- Joan-felt-for-Randy, and that leaves me with a serious bone to pick with Willow. So it's a spell. The skanky sex spell. The spell of squidgy amazing sex. The wide-eyed-where-did-the-floor-go sex spell. The he-can't- be-crying-cause-he-covered-it-in-an-instant sex spell, the I-haven't-felt- so-safe-since-I-died sex spell. Serious, serious, serious trouble.
"Urgh Buffy, what died in here?"
Ah, and there is Dawn, to make the uncomfortableness and totally staggering guilt complete. For an instant I entertain it, telling her the truth. Something like: "Hi sweetie, remember your friend Spike? Well, you know he has this storybook unrequited love for me and suffered terribly and I've been using him, well now I just manipulated him into cheap and tawdry sexual intercourse while withholding emotional intimacy. Oh, and what I said the morning after? Well, let's just say that Angel after my first time could have taken lessons in pouring salt into an open wound. And now I have redecorated in cloves and crosses in order to avoid facing up to my actions and even worse my totally heinous treatment of the evil, bloodsucking fiend whose been my only link to the living world. and how is Kevin? And school? And did the blue Teletubby finally come out of the closet?"
But instead I, queen of the wimp people, offer the following model of responsiveness: "Dawnie, I know this looks a little weird."
"A little weird?" She comes bouncing over to the bed, scattering my carefully placed cloves to the four winds, "mixing pink and orange is a little weird, this is card-carrying psycho."
Here it comes: take a ride on the guilt-trip, all expenses paid courtesy of Dawn Summers. Now she's going to tell me how wrong I am, and how I don't love her, and I don't think I can take that because its true, sometimes, and yet, I tell her I love her all time, and the person I just slept with I only tell him I hate him, and he's evil, and poor Dawnie, I am such a self- absorbed mess. And I swear that garlic smell is seeping into my hair.
"So what vampire are you trying to avoid?"
"Vampire, what vampire, what-makes-you-think-I-am-avoiding-a-vampire?" Great Buffy, in case of emergency try coy.
"Well the crosses and garlic don't exactly say make yourself at home creature of the night, and besides vampires need an invitation and oh, Spike."
"Spike? What Spike?" If my voice gets any shriller I'm going to have to replace windows, again, and the Glass Doctor and I are already on a first- name basis.
"The-only-vampire-with-an-invitation-Spike?" Dawn had that look now. It hasn't changed since I was in high school and first met Angel. She just knew something was up and badgered me about it for days wearing that same look until I confessed and swore her to secrecy; a vow she actually kept because it was so tragic and totally cool. And despite the fact that none of these memories are at all real, and the Dawnie of two years ago is a figment of monk-y imagination, I still trust these rotten inescapable fake memories enough that I can't lie to her. Not completely.
"Dawnie, I know you want to know the whole story. But I can't, I just can't deal with telling anyone what's going on right now. But I'll tell you what I can, and its confused, and I'm confused, but I don't want Spike around right now, and I can't revoke his invitation. So it's the garlic and the crosses and all until I can deal with this and I know you like him, but he's not going to be around for a while, 'kay?" Lovely Buffy, way to channel clarity and adult rationality. Any more incoherent and you could double for Giles.
"So its not because I'm the younger sister and not important enough to clue?"
"Trust me Dawn, you are packing more of a clue than the rest of the Scoobs put together. Willow didn't even notice it smells like a terrible accident from the pasta dimension in here."
Occasionally, and I am talking the on-occasion sort of occasionally, think once in an apocalypse sort of occasion, though that metaphor doesn't pack the punch it once had-occasionally, Dawn pulls through in a totally cool, channeling the mature sister-friend person, sort of way. She was doing it now, taking her time, twirling a hank of hair around her finger (Hank hair all nice and shiny and brown, rather than Joyce hair, which needs a monthly hit from Miss Clairol in order to remain blond after the age of eleven) not pressing me, not jumping down my throat. Just thinking. And then she dived in:
"Buffy, I'm like so totally not going to push here, but do you remember Justin?"
"Justin, as in Halloween Justin?" Ah, the familiar pain as yet more brutal evidence of my neglect shines forth. You were going to talk with your sister about the vamp she was parking with when, Buffy? Oh, right after I screw my own vampire in a dark alley, resolve my issues with resurrection and find a job. Yeah, any day now.
"Yeah," Dawn goes all quiet and becomes deeply involved in picking purple nail polish off her big toe, "I had to stake him, you know."
Suddenly, for the first time since I swan dived off the platform, I, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, know what it is I have to do. The salvation of the universe, the answer to everything, is in my top left hand dresser drawer-- nail polish remover and my coveted bottle of last season's Hard Candy in limited edition "Slattern" red. We are saved! Who needs watchers when you have Sephora? Giddy, I drop cotton balls next to garlic cloves, place the cross in easy smiting distance, and commence stripping Purple Passion from Dawn's big toe. I smile at her as color begins to seep into the cotton ball.
"It really sucks, you know, when you find out. And then when you have to, you know, do what's right."
Dawn grabs the clue and scores. "That's why you ran away, isn't it? That summer? Mom totally went CIA and practically put a leash around my neck until you got home. But that's why you left. Because all of a sudden Angel wasn't Angel anymore, and we were all scared, but then Giles said you'd handled the problem, and I guess that means you killed him, but then he came back and we all thought it meant you fixed him instead. But you did, didn't you, you killed him, because that's the only reason why you would have to run away."
Dawn manages to knock three ropes of garlic off the dresser reaching for my hairbrush but I really don't care, because she's starting to brush out my hair from its braid, and it feels like normal, like before. And I am on such a roll, I move to the next toe and actually realize that I want talk about the worst night in my life for the first time in three years.
"Yeah. He got his soul back right before.He looked at me, and they were Angel's eyes, the eyes of the man I loved and then I just pushed the sword right through him, it was so easy, like warm butter, or sand, it was so easy and he went away. No more Angel. Even when he came back he wasn't the same. He left, I'd changed. It was that moment, that one easy push, no more Angel, no more love, no more Buffy. So I ran and became somebody else for a while."
"You shouldn't have, you know."
"Yeah, you're much stronger than I was. But what was I supposed to do? Say, 'Hey, Mom, my evil vampire lover turned good again but it was too late, he'd raised the apocalypse demon and I still had to kill him. Yup, destroyed my soul mate after I told him to trust me, but don't worry, learned that pre-marital sex lesson nice and good?'"
Dawn's eyes grew huge and her hand stopped on the brush, "You went all the way, with Angel? A vampire?"
"Yeah, on the night of my seventeenth birthday and in the morning I work up and he was busy killing my friends because he had lost his soul and became a monster so don't ever, ever, ever have sex until your fifty, or married, or fifty." My hand stops on her second big toe as it hits me, "You weren't going there with Justin, were you?"
Dawn laughed, "Geeze, Buffy, Dawson's Creek much? I'm only fifteen and we just kissed." Softer now, hiding behind her hair so I know it's important, "It was my first, you know, my first.."
"Kiss?"
"Yeah." Dawn's eyes get all dreamy and I know she's got it bad. Vamp lips, the Summers curse.
"So that's why you didn't notice he was all."
"Cold?"
"Yeah, cold." Don't shudder, don't think of those cold lips in those warm places and how good they felt, how natural and how right because Riley was always a little too warm wasn't he and he didn't look at you like that, like you were his warmth, heating him up from the inside and especially when you're all fight-y and hot and he is so cool, like some forbidden ice. Nope. Shudder free Buffy. Color me denial. And now all the old polish is gone, and I am starting with the Slattern red, doing it right, pooling the color at the base of the toe and brushing it up. Its nice, I'm in control of this. I am doing this simple thing and not obsessing over vampires.
Dawn is giving me that look, like she can read my mind, and I've got to hurry and distract her and so I ask her, "Was it good?"
She giggles, and her toes curl under, almost ruining my polish job. I grin then, really smile because I am happy and I want to-- a new one for resurrected me. "I take that as a yes."
Dawn giggles again. I playfully tap her big toe, and she stops with the curling enough to let me move on to the next one. Dip, swipe, brush, and I'm still smiling.
"Justin was so, well, he was so sweet. He gave me his jacket because he said it was cold, and when we were hanging out and doing things, he was always like, "Are you okay with this, Dawn," just really looking at me, really listening. And then, we kissed and it was, well, Wow, it was wow, and he wasn't grossed out or anything, he liked it and he liked me, and we were kissing and then he went all."
"Bumpy?"
"Yeah. And I couldn't believe it, and then he found out I was the slayer's sister and he couldn't believe it and its like being the slayer's sister was as much of a big for him, but he seemed kindof turned on by it anyway which was just ewww, although the vamp thing but anyway, there was chasing and woods, and then he was on top of me, and tender and kissing me, and I just did it," A sob escapes but she keeps on. Good girl, Dawnie, just like big sister, rip out your heart and keep on talking, ".just staked him and then he was gone."
I pass Dawn the Kleenex. Bad financial planning Mom, between Dawnie and I and the Scoobs you should have known to invest in Kleenex. Love on the Hellmouth, every day a new heartbreak. What did Willow say, "Doomed to badness?" Yup, doomed.
I hold Dawnie close while she sniffles into the Kleenex and her toes dry. My hair is pooling down my back and its going to be a bitch in the morning, but that's okay because I reek of garlic and need a shower and best of all, Dawn is really here. Not running away in tears, or screaming, but here. I just want to freeze this small moment of time, trap it in a mirror or a garlic clove to look at later, to flavor my next week of darkness and silence and cold-shoulder and cluelessness, because this is it, what I've been searching for. And that's when he sticks his head through my bedroom window.
Dawn sees him at the same moment I do and goes rushing over to the window. Riding the mood swing, she breaks into a smile, laughs, holding up one foot like an elongated stork, "Spike! See, I'm all slattern-y!"
Spike, flustered by this attack of estrogen and trying desperately not to show it, climbs through the window and stands for a moment, wafting in garlic, looking totally clueless, another victim of hurricane Dawn. Dawn regained full contact with the floor only for the moment necessary to fling herself at Spike's neck, and now she's hanging off him like some exotic pink-pajamad monkey, and no, I'm not at all jealous to see my baby sister embracing my vampire in my bedroom, and whoah? Wasn't I supposed to be avoiding him? Yup garlic. Yup, crosses. Yup, Spike still standing in the middle of my bedroom floor. So totally doomed to badness.
"You better watch it with the slattern, luv, in my day that's not something you say about a nice little bit like yourself."
"Duh, Spike, get a clue, its Hard Candy and the best color ever, and Buffy's been hoarding that bottle since birth and now I am going to look completely wow in my new platforms and hey, umm," Dawn finally realizes that she has a full grown vampire standing totally unfazed in the middle of "ode to garlic and crosses" décor.
Spike clues in at exactly the same time. I hate him. I hate him because instead of saying something inappropriate and embarrassing and humiliating to make me hate him, he throws a look at Dawn and figures the whole stupid mess out.
"Umm, luv, its great to see you and the nails and all, but I don't think I picked the best time to be dropping by and umm.."
And now its with the fake cough, and wouldn't you know a guy whose coated the inside of his lungs with the LaBria tar pits wouldn't be fazed by savory spices? But he's trying valiantly to hack and back toward the window and avoid my eyes all that the same time,
"Umm. Well, I'm not feeling so great, vampire and all, this scary garlic makes me all upset and flighty so I'll just be going."
The one nice thing about post-resurrection Buffy is that I've gotten really good at flipping the switch in my head that turns off all logic, rational thinking, and intelligence. Flip. Bye-bye Buffy brain. It makes it easy to hold up a rope of garlic, smile and say, "Hey, Spike, do you know anything you can make with like, twenty pounds of garlic?"
He turns around and I swear he would have been less fazed if I held up a cross in his face and spat holy water. Dawn is throwing me the totally- shocked and incredibly grateful look and somehow its all okay, because I've just made her happy twice in one night and she's not even crying anymore. And Spike is looking at me again, and his eyes have opened back up like they were before I totally bitched out on him this morning. And he can't be scary-perceptive enough to understand that I'm trying to make it better, but maybe he can, because he's grinning, and explaining to Dawn how to can chopped garlic and a great recipe for manicotti, "I ate Italian all the time when I lived in New York." And the fact that he's not referring to food doesn't even bother me anymore; I'm just laughing right along with Dawn and he's telling us one of those wacky gruesome stories and when was the last time I actually found humor in vampires and slaying and eating mob bosses in the twenties? Only never, only often, only in my crazy life.
The kitchen is filled with light and Dawn and Spike are rattling the pots in the cabinet and he's peeling garlic and dicing it rather neatly while Dawn digs around for pasta sauce. She's telling him about art class and how she doesn't get the Great Gatsby, and Spike is reaching for the spoons as if he's lived here forever, which I guess he has, and then Dawn turns to me, and I'm telling her about my English class in college, and we're laughing at the taste of Mob bosses, and I guess that garlic wasn't such a bad investment, now was it?
He catches me when Dawn runs to pee post pasta-party. I can tell he's nervous, and I'm bothered I can read him that easily, but its kindof cool too, because I am so open-booky to him anyway. He shuffles his feet and jogs his head toward the porch. Two consecutive hours without a cigarette plus the courtesy not to smoke in my mother's house deserves a little slack. I follow him.
The stars are glowing in the sky, and I'm reminded of the last time we sat here, just being quiet in the darkness. He turns to me, and I can tell I'm totally gone, because I'm not even expecting a move, and I should, with the dark and the stars and the dark and maybe it's me. Maybe he needs me to hit him because being nice isn't what he wants, and I'm not what he wants, just the Slayer, just vulnerable-Buffy, or unhappy Buffy, or Slayer-Buffy, and not Buffy-Buffy.
"I do want you, luv," and he reaches up a hand, almost to my face before he stops himself, "more than ever. But I won't beg. You can't treat me like dirt and expect me to crawl for crumbs."
"So why did you come by? Stalk much?" I smile to take the sting out of it.
"I was, umm.." He's flustered. I can tell because he's focused on his ugly boots as if they are the only solid thing in the world. ".waiting, I wait, sometimes, outside, but I heard crying and so, make sure you were alright, and no nastys but it was all fine, and you know you don't need the vamp-be-gone regalia. I'll stay away from you, have to protect you and the 'Bit, but otherwise I'll stay away."
Oh God, is it always going to be this hard? Why can't he just hit me, or say something horrible, call me wrong, or an animal or something, anything to give me an excuse to hit him, an excuse to kiss it all better, an excuse to turn off my brain again and just be, for a few minutes, without this hole in my stomach nothing can fill.
I'm going to be pathetic, I can tell, because its all I can do lately, throw myself on the kindness of strange vampires, not-real-sisterly-balls- of-cosmic-energy, heartbroken lesbian witches. He's looking at me in the darkness and it would be so much easier if he wasn't beautiful and confident and vulnerable and totally different from Angel and Riley and Parker and everyone I've ever known. Flip. Okay mouth, we are a go to spill our guts to the evil dead on our doorstep. I can't look at him though. There is no way I'm not going to talk, but there is no way I'm looking at him:
"I don't want to use you, but I am, and I want you to hold me anyway, to prove that we don't always need to hurt each other and that I'm more than just slutty Buffy, hurting everyone, even you, you aren't supposed to be hurtable but I'm hurting you. And why didn't that vamp just eat Dawn, why did he have to be nice and break her heart? And why can't I help her? Why can't I tell her they are all monsters and she did the right thing, the thing I always told her to do? What's wrong with me? With vamps?"
And even though I tell him not to, he holds me anyway, puts those tender hands on my shoulders and leans me back into his arms. The stars are swimming through tears and then Dawn is standing in the doorway, and she sees us, sees me crying, and God I don't want to think about what she just heard. But she is moving anyway. Taking my hand, leaning her head against my shoulder, offering me Kleenex. The healing power of Kleenex. And she nods at Spike over my head, telling him its okay, its nothing she hasn't thought of before. And she'd rather know than wonder.
"It's the demon," his voice is all rumbley in my ear, and its nice, lessons from Spike without all the colorful bruising, "when we vamp, the human soul in us dies and a demon takes over. The memories of the human remain, in the blood, the bone, but the demon is in charge. And it's hungry, and it kills." He fumbles with his free hand and fishes out another cigarette. I find it comforting, the smoke blowing up to the stars. Dawn is staring at him as though he has all the answers, and maybe he does, 'cause he's still talking and it makes sense.
"So the demon moves in, but all demons are different, luv, like all humans are different. There's a lot of vamp mumbo-jumbo about it, the demon picks the human soul most akin and all that rot, vamps bodgy as humans sometimes, but we were all human and we all get a demon. Some turn worse, like the torture, pain, some grow strong, some get crazy, Dru's demon supposedly helped her cope. According to Gramps she was solid loony before she woke. He should know, the ponce did it to her. So Dru's demon made it better and it liked kiddies. Mine liked the fight. Nice spot of violence, the rush, the challenge. And my human? Always had a thin skin I did, and I kept that. Hard not to get angry, lash out at what hurts me. 'fore I used to run away, but demon's strong, so now I fight."
"Now your boy had a demon, and I bet his human was a nice bloke but the demon's still in charge. Problem with the young ones, the fresh turned, is that they can't control it. So yeah, 'Bit you did the right thing-he probably didn't want to hurt you, but he would've one way or the other. Probably happier knowing he didn't have to give in."
Dawn lets out this breath like she's been holding it for a thousand years. He did it. Spike actually made it better. How crazy is that? Another day in the life of Buffy. But it doesn't seem so bad for a moment. Even though I know I'll screw it up again, and Dawn will shout and Spike will toss those words at me like fire, and we'll hurt each other and more buildings will fall and more hearts will shatter. But right now we are all sitting on the stoop, and Spike is smoking and my arms are around Dawn's shoulders and Spike's arms are around me. Right now the world is something to be photographed, captured, trapped, pressed under glass. And I am content to wait, to sit and wait for sunrise.
Eventually Dawn falls asleep and so do I. I wake to find the sun flooding the backyard and Spike gone. He threw his duster over Dawn, and I'll tell her to return it so I won't have to see him and remember being vulnerable. And I won't talk about last night with Dawn or with anyone. But it's here, behind glass. And for a moment I don't mind waking up. For a moment I am looking forward.
Parking in Cars with Vamps
The irony is that I don't even like spicy foods. That was always more Dawn's deal, dump the whole clove of garlic in the fahitas Dawn. Mom used to laugh at her: beware Dawn of the killer clove. Which still doesn't explain why I bought out Whole Foods with money I don't have and changed my décor to early-victimized.
Besides which, Spike likes garlic.
I stare at the cross in my hand wondering if it's possible to bludgeon yourself to death with a holy object. I need a Taser, a chip, something to make me go "arraaaggh" every time I start thinking of that vampire in any way other than Dustbuster fodder. Come on, Buffy, Spike likes garlic? Pathetic much? And when did I start noticing what he likes and what he doesn't like, I can't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday and I forget to pay the power bill every other month. But here it is, twirl the mental Rolodex and we have the life and times of Spike. Serious, serious, serious trouble.
I think I need a support group. Next week on Jerry Springer, Slayers and the Vamps who love them. And he does love you. Serious, freaky, sweater- sniffing, total end-of-the-world love. So do you Buffy love the bloodthirsty evil fiend you are sworn to kill in return? No? Then why did you sleep with him? Slut much? World of sluttyness. Sleep with a vamp, in an abandoned house, multiple times, slut.
For a moment I wallow in fantasy-perhaps it was a spell, a lingering effect of the Ira Gershwin demon? Every story ends on a kiss and god knows there can't be anything more appropriate to my screwed up story than Spike- because when you hit the very bottom of the lowest gutter in the deepest sewer of the darkest hell dimension, Spike is, of course, there. So, a spell. Heck, the past couple of spells' I've married Spike, kissed Spike, fought demons with Spike, protected Spike, and, no-we-won't-think-of-what- Joan-felt-for-Randy, and that leaves me with a serious bone to pick with Willow. So it's a spell. The skanky sex spell. The spell of squidgy amazing sex. The wide-eyed-where-did-the-floor-go sex spell. The he-can't- be-crying-cause-he-covered-it-in-an-instant sex spell, the I-haven't-felt- so-safe-since-I-died sex spell. Serious, serious, serious trouble.
"Urgh Buffy, what died in here?"
Ah, and there is Dawn, to make the uncomfortableness and totally staggering guilt complete. For an instant I entertain it, telling her the truth. Something like: "Hi sweetie, remember your friend Spike? Well, you know he has this storybook unrequited love for me and suffered terribly and I've been using him, well now I just manipulated him into cheap and tawdry sexual intercourse while withholding emotional intimacy. Oh, and what I said the morning after? Well, let's just say that Angel after my first time could have taken lessons in pouring salt into an open wound. And now I have redecorated in cloves and crosses in order to avoid facing up to my actions and even worse my totally heinous treatment of the evil, bloodsucking fiend whose been my only link to the living world. and how is Kevin? And school? And did the blue Teletubby finally come out of the closet?"
But instead I, queen of the wimp people, offer the following model of responsiveness: "Dawnie, I know this looks a little weird."
"A little weird?" She comes bouncing over to the bed, scattering my carefully placed cloves to the four winds, "mixing pink and orange is a little weird, this is card-carrying psycho."
Here it comes: take a ride on the guilt-trip, all expenses paid courtesy of Dawn Summers. Now she's going to tell me how wrong I am, and how I don't love her, and I don't think I can take that because its true, sometimes, and yet, I tell her I love her all time, and the person I just slept with I only tell him I hate him, and he's evil, and poor Dawnie, I am such a self- absorbed mess. And I swear that garlic smell is seeping into my hair.
"So what vampire are you trying to avoid?"
"Vampire, what vampire, what-makes-you-think-I-am-avoiding-a-vampire?" Great Buffy, in case of emergency try coy.
"Well the crosses and garlic don't exactly say make yourself at home creature of the night, and besides vampires need an invitation and oh, Spike."
"Spike? What Spike?" If my voice gets any shriller I'm going to have to replace windows, again, and the Glass Doctor and I are already on a first- name basis.
"The-only-vampire-with-an-invitation-Spike?" Dawn had that look now. It hasn't changed since I was in high school and first met Angel. She just knew something was up and badgered me about it for days wearing that same look until I confessed and swore her to secrecy; a vow she actually kept because it was so tragic and totally cool. And despite the fact that none of these memories are at all real, and the Dawnie of two years ago is a figment of monk-y imagination, I still trust these rotten inescapable fake memories enough that I can't lie to her. Not completely.
"Dawnie, I know you want to know the whole story. But I can't, I just can't deal with telling anyone what's going on right now. But I'll tell you what I can, and its confused, and I'm confused, but I don't want Spike around right now, and I can't revoke his invitation. So it's the garlic and the crosses and all until I can deal with this and I know you like him, but he's not going to be around for a while, 'kay?" Lovely Buffy, way to channel clarity and adult rationality. Any more incoherent and you could double for Giles.
"So its not because I'm the younger sister and not important enough to clue?"
"Trust me Dawn, you are packing more of a clue than the rest of the Scoobs put together. Willow didn't even notice it smells like a terrible accident from the pasta dimension in here."
Occasionally, and I am talking the on-occasion sort of occasionally, think once in an apocalypse sort of occasion, though that metaphor doesn't pack the punch it once had-occasionally, Dawn pulls through in a totally cool, channeling the mature sister-friend person, sort of way. She was doing it now, taking her time, twirling a hank of hair around her finger (Hank hair all nice and shiny and brown, rather than Joyce hair, which needs a monthly hit from Miss Clairol in order to remain blond after the age of eleven) not pressing me, not jumping down my throat. Just thinking. And then she dived in:
"Buffy, I'm like so totally not going to push here, but do you remember Justin?"
"Justin, as in Halloween Justin?" Ah, the familiar pain as yet more brutal evidence of my neglect shines forth. You were going to talk with your sister about the vamp she was parking with when, Buffy? Oh, right after I screw my own vampire in a dark alley, resolve my issues with resurrection and find a job. Yeah, any day now.
"Yeah," Dawn goes all quiet and becomes deeply involved in picking purple nail polish off her big toe, "I had to stake him, you know."
Suddenly, for the first time since I swan dived off the platform, I, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, know what it is I have to do. The salvation of the universe, the answer to everything, is in my top left hand dresser drawer-- nail polish remover and my coveted bottle of last season's Hard Candy in limited edition "Slattern" red. We are saved! Who needs watchers when you have Sephora? Giddy, I drop cotton balls next to garlic cloves, place the cross in easy smiting distance, and commence stripping Purple Passion from Dawn's big toe. I smile at her as color begins to seep into the cotton ball.
"It really sucks, you know, when you find out. And then when you have to, you know, do what's right."
Dawn grabs the clue and scores. "That's why you ran away, isn't it? That summer? Mom totally went CIA and practically put a leash around my neck until you got home. But that's why you left. Because all of a sudden Angel wasn't Angel anymore, and we were all scared, but then Giles said you'd handled the problem, and I guess that means you killed him, but then he came back and we all thought it meant you fixed him instead. But you did, didn't you, you killed him, because that's the only reason why you would have to run away."
Dawn manages to knock three ropes of garlic off the dresser reaching for my hairbrush but I really don't care, because she's starting to brush out my hair from its braid, and it feels like normal, like before. And I am on such a roll, I move to the next toe and actually realize that I want talk about the worst night in my life for the first time in three years.
"Yeah. He got his soul back right before.He looked at me, and they were Angel's eyes, the eyes of the man I loved and then I just pushed the sword right through him, it was so easy, like warm butter, or sand, it was so easy and he went away. No more Angel. Even when he came back he wasn't the same. He left, I'd changed. It was that moment, that one easy push, no more Angel, no more love, no more Buffy. So I ran and became somebody else for a while."
"You shouldn't have, you know."
"Yeah, you're much stronger than I was. But what was I supposed to do? Say, 'Hey, Mom, my evil vampire lover turned good again but it was too late, he'd raised the apocalypse demon and I still had to kill him. Yup, destroyed my soul mate after I told him to trust me, but don't worry, learned that pre-marital sex lesson nice and good?'"
Dawn's eyes grew huge and her hand stopped on the brush, "You went all the way, with Angel? A vampire?"
"Yeah, on the night of my seventeenth birthday and in the morning I work up and he was busy killing my friends because he had lost his soul and became a monster so don't ever, ever, ever have sex until your fifty, or married, or fifty." My hand stops on her second big toe as it hits me, "You weren't going there with Justin, were you?"
Dawn laughed, "Geeze, Buffy, Dawson's Creek much? I'm only fifteen and we just kissed." Softer now, hiding behind her hair so I know it's important, "It was my first, you know, my first.."
"Kiss?"
"Yeah." Dawn's eyes get all dreamy and I know she's got it bad. Vamp lips, the Summers curse.
"So that's why you didn't notice he was all."
"Cold?"
"Yeah, cold." Don't shudder, don't think of those cold lips in those warm places and how good they felt, how natural and how right because Riley was always a little too warm wasn't he and he didn't look at you like that, like you were his warmth, heating him up from the inside and especially when you're all fight-y and hot and he is so cool, like some forbidden ice. Nope. Shudder free Buffy. Color me denial. And now all the old polish is gone, and I am starting with the Slattern red, doing it right, pooling the color at the base of the toe and brushing it up. Its nice, I'm in control of this. I am doing this simple thing and not obsessing over vampires.
Dawn is giving me that look, like she can read my mind, and I've got to hurry and distract her and so I ask her, "Was it good?"
She giggles, and her toes curl under, almost ruining my polish job. I grin then, really smile because I am happy and I want to-- a new one for resurrected me. "I take that as a yes."
Dawn giggles again. I playfully tap her big toe, and she stops with the curling enough to let me move on to the next one. Dip, swipe, brush, and I'm still smiling.
"Justin was so, well, he was so sweet. He gave me his jacket because he said it was cold, and when we were hanging out and doing things, he was always like, "Are you okay with this, Dawn," just really looking at me, really listening. And then, we kissed and it was, well, Wow, it was wow, and he wasn't grossed out or anything, he liked it and he liked me, and we were kissing and then he went all."
"Bumpy?"
"Yeah. And I couldn't believe it, and then he found out I was the slayer's sister and he couldn't believe it and its like being the slayer's sister was as much of a big for him, but he seemed kindof turned on by it anyway which was just ewww, although the vamp thing but anyway, there was chasing and woods, and then he was on top of me, and tender and kissing me, and I just did it," A sob escapes but she keeps on. Good girl, Dawnie, just like big sister, rip out your heart and keep on talking, ".just staked him and then he was gone."
I pass Dawn the Kleenex. Bad financial planning Mom, between Dawnie and I and the Scoobs you should have known to invest in Kleenex. Love on the Hellmouth, every day a new heartbreak. What did Willow say, "Doomed to badness?" Yup, doomed.
I hold Dawnie close while she sniffles into the Kleenex and her toes dry. My hair is pooling down my back and its going to be a bitch in the morning, but that's okay because I reek of garlic and need a shower and best of all, Dawn is really here. Not running away in tears, or screaming, but here. I just want to freeze this small moment of time, trap it in a mirror or a garlic clove to look at later, to flavor my next week of darkness and silence and cold-shoulder and cluelessness, because this is it, what I've been searching for. And that's when he sticks his head through my bedroom window.
Dawn sees him at the same moment I do and goes rushing over to the window. Riding the mood swing, she breaks into a smile, laughs, holding up one foot like an elongated stork, "Spike! See, I'm all slattern-y!"
Spike, flustered by this attack of estrogen and trying desperately not to show it, climbs through the window and stands for a moment, wafting in garlic, looking totally clueless, another victim of hurricane Dawn. Dawn regained full contact with the floor only for the moment necessary to fling herself at Spike's neck, and now she's hanging off him like some exotic pink-pajamad monkey, and no, I'm not at all jealous to see my baby sister embracing my vampire in my bedroom, and whoah? Wasn't I supposed to be avoiding him? Yup garlic. Yup, crosses. Yup, Spike still standing in the middle of my bedroom floor. So totally doomed to badness.
"You better watch it with the slattern, luv, in my day that's not something you say about a nice little bit like yourself."
"Duh, Spike, get a clue, its Hard Candy and the best color ever, and Buffy's been hoarding that bottle since birth and now I am going to look completely wow in my new platforms and hey, umm," Dawn finally realizes that she has a full grown vampire standing totally unfazed in the middle of "ode to garlic and crosses" décor.
Spike clues in at exactly the same time. I hate him. I hate him because instead of saying something inappropriate and embarrassing and humiliating to make me hate him, he throws a look at Dawn and figures the whole stupid mess out.
"Umm, luv, its great to see you and the nails and all, but I don't think I picked the best time to be dropping by and umm.."
And now its with the fake cough, and wouldn't you know a guy whose coated the inside of his lungs with the LaBria tar pits wouldn't be fazed by savory spices? But he's trying valiantly to hack and back toward the window and avoid my eyes all that the same time,
"Umm. Well, I'm not feeling so great, vampire and all, this scary garlic makes me all upset and flighty so I'll just be going."
The one nice thing about post-resurrection Buffy is that I've gotten really good at flipping the switch in my head that turns off all logic, rational thinking, and intelligence. Flip. Bye-bye Buffy brain. It makes it easy to hold up a rope of garlic, smile and say, "Hey, Spike, do you know anything you can make with like, twenty pounds of garlic?"
He turns around and I swear he would have been less fazed if I held up a cross in his face and spat holy water. Dawn is throwing me the totally- shocked and incredibly grateful look and somehow its all okay, because I've just made her happy twice in one night and she's not even crying anymore. And Spike is looking at me again, and his eyes have opened back up like they were before I totally bitched out on him this morning. And he can't be scary-perceptive enough to understand that I'm trying to make it better, but maybe he can, because he's grinning, and explaining to Dawn how to can chopped garlic and a great recipe for manicotti, "I ate Italian all the time when I lived in New York." And the fact that he's not referring to food doesn't even bother me anymore; I'm just laughing right along with Dawn and he's telling us one of those wacky gruesome stories and when was the last time I actually found humor in vampires and slaying and eating mob bosses in the twenties? Only never, only often, only in my crazy life.
The kitchen is filled with light and Dawn and Spike are rattling the pots in the cabinet and he's peeling garlic and dicing it rather neatly while Dawn digs around for pasta sauce. She's telling him about art class and how she doesn't get the Great Gatsby, and Spike is reaching for the spoons as if he's lived here forever, which I guess he has, and then Dawn turns to me, and I'm telling her about my English class in college, and we're laughing at the taste of Mob bosses, and I guess that garlic wasn't such a bad investment, now was it?
He catches me when Dawn runs to pee post pasta-party. I can tell he's nervous, and I'm bothered I can read him that easily, but its kindof cool too, because I am so open-booky to him anyway. He shuffles his feet and jogs his head toward the porch. Two consecutive hours without a cigarette plus the courtesy not to smoke in my mother's house deserves a little slack. I follow him.
The stars are glowing in the sky, and I'm reminded of the last time we sat here, just being quiet in the darkness. He turns to me, and I can tell I'm totally gone, because I'm not even expecting a move, and I should, with the dark and the stars and the dark and maybe it's me. Maybe he needs me to hit him because being nice isn't what he wants, and I'm not what he wants, just the Slayer, just vulnerable-Buffy, or unhappy Buffy, or Slayer-Buffy, and not Buffy-Buffy.
"I do want you, luv," and he reaches up a hand, almost to my face before he stops himself, "more than ever. But I won't beg. You can't treat me like dirt and expect me to crawl for crumbs."
"So why did you come by? Stalk much?" I smile to take the sting out of it.
"I was, umm.." He's flustered. I can tell because he's focused on his ugly boots as if they are the only solid thing in the world. ".waiting, I wait, sometimes, outside, but I heard crying and so, make sure you were alright, and no nastys but it was all fine, and you know you don't need the vamp-be-gone regalia. I'll stay away from you, have to protect you and the 'Bit, but otherwise I'll stay away."
Oh God, is it always going to be this hard? Why can't he just hit me, or say something horrible, call me wrong, or an animal or something, anything to give me an excuse to hit him, an excuse to kiss it all better, an excuse to turn off my brain again and just be, for a few minutes, without this hole in my stomach nothing can fill.
I'm going to be pathetic, I can tell, because its all I can do lately, throw myself on the kindness of strange vampires, not-real-sisterly-balls- of-cosmic-energy, heartbroken lesbian witches. He's looking at me in the darkness and it would be so much easier if he wasn't beautiful and confident and vulnerable and totally different from Angel and Riley and Parker and everyone I've ever known. Flip. Okay mouth, we are a go to spill our guts to the evil dead on our doorstep. I can't look at him though. There is no way I'm not going to talk, but there is no way I'm looking at him:
"I don't want to use you, but I am, and I want you to hold me anyway, to prove that we don't always need to hurt each other and that I'm more than just slutty Buffy, hurting everyone, even you, you aren't supposed to be hurtable but I'm hurting you. And why didn't that vamp just eat Dawn, why did he have to be nice and break her heart? And why can't I help her? Why can't I tell her they are all monsters and she did the right thing, the thing I always told her to do? What's wrong with me? With vamps?"
And even though I tell him not to, he holds me anyway, puts those tender hands on my shoulders and leans me back into his arms. The stars are swimming through tears and then Dawn is standing in the doorway, and she sees us, sees me crying, and God I don't want to think about what she just heard. But she is moving anyway. Taking my hand, leaning her head against my shoulder, offering me Kleenex. The healing power of Kleenex. And she nods at Spike over my head, telling him its okay, its nothing she hasn't thought of before. And she'd rather know than wonder.
"It's the demon," his voice is all rumbley in my ear, and its nice, lessons from Spike without all the colorful bruising, "when we vamp, the human soul in us dies and a demon takes over. The memories of the human remain, in the blood, the bone, but the demon is in charge. And it's hungry, and it kills." He fumbles with his free hand and fishes out another cigarette. I find it comforting, the smoke blowing up to the stars. Dawn is staring at him as though he has all the answers, and maybe he does, 'cause he's still talking and it makes sense.
"So the demon moves in, but all demons are different, luv, like all humans are different. There's a lot of vamp mumbo-jumbo about it, the demon picks the human soul most akin and all that rot, vamps bodgy as humans sometimes, but we were all human and we all get a demon. Some turn worse, like the torture, pain, some grow strong, some get crazy, Dru's demon supposedly helped her cope. According to Gramps she was solid loony before she woke. He should know, the ponce did it to her. So Dru's demon made it better and it liked kiddies. Mine liked the fight. Nice spot of violence, the rush, the challenge. And my human? Always had a thin skin I did, and I kept that. Hard not to get angry, lash out at what hurts me. 'fore I used to run away, but demon's strong, so now I fight."
"Now your boy had a demon, and I bet his human was a nice bloke but the demon's still in charge. Problem with the young ones, the fresh turned, is that they can't control it. So yeah, 'Bit you did the right thing-he probably didn't want to hurt you, but he would've one way or the other. Probably happier knowing he didn't have to give in."
Dawn lets out this breath like she's been holding it for a thousand years. He did it. Spike actually made it better. How crazy is that? Another day in the life of Buffy. But it doesn't seem so bad for a moment. Even though I know I'll screw it up again, and Dawn will shout and Spike will toss those words at me like fire, and we'll hurt each other and more buildings will fall and more hearts will shatter. But right now we are all sitting on the stoop, and Spike is smoking and my arms are around Dawn's shoulders and Spike's arms are around me. Right now the world is something to be photographed, captured, trapped, pressed under glass. And I am content to wait, to sit and wait for sunrise.
Eventually Dawn falls asleep and so do I. I wake to find the sun flooding the backyard and Spike gone. He threw his duster over Dawn, and I'll tell her to return it so I won't have to see him and remember being vulnerable. And I won't talk about last night with Dawn or with anyone. But it's here, behind glass. And for a moment I don't mind waking up. For a moment I am looking forward.