Her eyelids feel heavy, so she doesn't try too hard to open them. The effort she does expend affords her little more than narrow slits of black with pinpricks of light sprinkled here and there. Flickering candles, maybe. But that's all she wants to know, thank you very much, because something is wrong, again, and she's so frickin' tired of wrong, and all she wants to do now is rest her eyes and be out of mortal peril. Not so much to ask, right?
Wrong. Wrong, because she's The Key. Wrong, because she's Buffy's sister, because she's Spike's cross to bear, if you'll forgive ill-advised vampire punnage. Because, bottom line, she's Dawn Summers. Mortal peril follows her around like a rabid little puppy. And, okay, so she's been known to seek it out, when it's having trouble finding her. It can be a nice distraction from The Bad, which is also a frequent visitor in The Life of Dawn. You know, The Bad: like, for example, losing your identity. Or your mom. Like losing your sister, because she's the hero and you're just, deep down, a scared little kid. You would have jumped, sure, but you weren't as devastated by not having to as you should have been. You're evil, no matter what he tells you. If there was good in you, you'd've found a way to Die For The World, like she did without a second thought. So sometimes, just because it seems right in its wrongness, you do stupid, stupid things.
"Woulda served you right if he'd left your scrawny corpse rotting away in the gutter, you fuckin' half-wit!"
Ouch, that's familiar. Dawn lets her eyes slip all the way shut again, and it's something of a relief, postponing the sparkling darkness of the here and now that's neither here nor now, and she's greeted by a long-past confrontation that even in memory form is rich and churning and rancid with emotion. There they are, projected on the movie screen behind her eyelids, she and her erstwhile bodyguard. He is glaring down at her and she at her feet, donned in sleek black leather boots that she remembers now had worn blisters on her heels that night. She also remembers, as she watches the scene unfold, the uncomfortable way the carved knobby things on the back of the dining room chair dug into her spine, and that she was determined not to shift or fidget so he wouldn't misinterpret her discomfort as any kind of remorse.
It's kind of cool to watch herself from outside her body. It's also easier to acknowledge his side now, without the handicap of actually being the resentful target of his wrath.
"Well then why didn't you let him?" Ago-Dawn snipes not-very-wisely, not looking up because she can't bring herself to meet his glare, and who knew eyes that cold and blue could burn?
Her proactive flinch is no match for vamp speed, and they're nose to nose, his hand gripping her chin so she can't look away. If it's possible to sneer words, that's what he does. Both Dawns cringe.
"Because if anyone is going to bring your life to an early and painful end, Dawn, it's not going to be some pants-pissing fledge you happen across the third night of his unlife and decide to have a dance with. It's going to be ME, and it's going to be on MY terms, not yours. And maybe sooner'n you'd like, you don't straighten up."
Ago-Dawn fights the tears that have flooded her eyes, and waits until he has released her chin and retreated from her space before responding.
"Go on and do it, if you want. Save me the trouble of finding another way."
He is furious, Observer-Dawn notes with a slight shudder, but her counterpart doesn't see because of her preoccupation with the boots. She's probably lucky he doesn't take her up on the challenge then and there, chip be damned. His jaw clenches and unclenches rhythmically as he visibly reins in the part of himself that defaults to violence out of long habit. After an eternal, tense silence, he reaches for her hands. She tries to jerk them away, but he isn't having that. She blows out a huffy, put-upon breath that ruffles a lock of long brown hair.
"You want to die, Niblet, you're going to have one raging bitch of a time doing it as long as I'm anything but dust. Whatever this is, whatever you're trying to prove to yourself, or me, or them … or to Buffy … it ends here. Do we understand each other?"
Dawn doesn't answer, but her shoulders slump, and she's defeated because she knows. She knows that his devotion to her isn't just a rider to his Buffy-obsession. That they're lost now, without her, but that they're lost together, which in itself makes it a cut above unbearable. And if Dawn checks out, if she takes this deathgame too far and actually wins, or loses, whatever—Spike will be right behind her.
When she finally meets his eyes and nods, he offers no reaction. His stony expression budges not an inch, and he simply stands and reaches for the glass of whiskey he'd almost smashed against the wall at the start of this ordeal. He drains the glass, fixes her with another glare, albeit one that seems a bit less murderous, and tells her to get herself upstairs to bed.
She stops in the doorway and stares at his back, her mouth hanging open and a reluctant question forming on her lips. Her fingers drift up to delicately explore the telltale marks on her neck, two neat holes with ragged tears trailing down, the latter caused by Spike's unexpected and violent intervention in the alley next to The Bronze (that vamp even Dawn could tell was wet behind the ears, newly risen, formerly a football player at her school, locked to her in a nauseating but exhilarating kiss, suddenly ripped away in a red-hot flare of pain and exploding in a cloud of dust even as Spike's obscenity-laced derision began).
"No," Spike says, startling her. "I won't tell them. This is between us, and as long as you keep yourself out of trouble from now on there's no need troubling the others."
The scene fades out as if indeed it were some disturbingly realistic television program, and Dawn struggles once more with the cumbersome task of opening her eyes. Those flickers of light again, floating chaotically in a patch of darkness. And then a voice cuts through the static of semiconsciousness, and she's fully awake—and she's chained to a wall. Directly in front of her is the creep wearing Spike's body. The one who, if it is in fact The First, should by all accounts not be able to touch her, but who had—an hour ago? Longer?—come pretty damn close to killing her. Missed the mark on that one, Giles.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Bit." He offers a half-smile that reminds her of Spike's formerly evil existence. "At least temporarily."
Yeah, she's getting really sick of mortal peril.
xXxXx
Willow keeps her eyes fixed straight ahead as she runs, breathless but determined. Each time she begins to feel discouraged, she catches another glimpse of her target, a flash of yellow, blurred in the darkness of this maze of alleys. She will catch up. She will.
It's the echoes of her own footfalls that makes her think Dawnie's still in step behind her. She doesn't turn around to check. Later, when she reflects on that, she wonders if it would have changed her course, realizing that Dawn was missing, or if she would have continued her dogged pursuit of those flashes of yellow and the unspeakable promise they dangle before her. Of course I would have gone back for Dawn she will tell herself, then. But she wonders.
xXxXx
"Dawn!"
"Willow? Dawn! Where are you?"
"Niblet! Answer me!"
"Spike, if they could hear us they'd yell back. Where the hell could they have gone?"
"I don't know."
Her eyes flash irritably in the darkness. "Why not?" she snaps. "Isn't this your turf? Your mind? You're not that complex, Spike, there couldn't be that many hiding places."
"Oh, witty, Slayer. And helpful. Keep up the running bitchery while I track down your sister and your friend."
"Maybe we should split up."
"'S not your worst idea ever."
"Okay, then, you go that way, and I'll—"
He rolls his eyes, catching her arm as she starts away from him. "'S not the most brilliant one ever dreamed up, either, pet. I'm not letting you out of my sight, not when we don't know what we're dealing with."
"Oh please, Spike. I think I can handle myself without a big strong man around to get in my way."
"I mean it, Buffy. I don't like this. I got a bad feelin', and you charging off into who-knows-what when Red and Bit have already gone missing is not what's gonna make it better. Now come on. I'll lead."
He fully expects her to argue some more, but she surprises him by falling in step beside him—an obvious affront to his "leading" efforts. They continue deeper into the labyrinth of dark alleys, occasionally calling for Dawn and Willow, but more and more letting the eerie silence wash over them as they strain for the slightest meaningful sound. The nothing they get in return is, in itself, terrifying.
xXxXx
To be continued…