Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine, nothing is mine
~~~~~~~~
She died for me, she told herself. She died for me. She was my savior. Dawn looked toward the mirror, a cold glare stared back, the face of an ungrateful victim. Thoughts misted her in clammy coldness, fogged the mirror, wrote cynic messages with thin nails.
Blood dripped through her veins though she did not feel it. Buffy was dead and a day and there was nothing she could do. Molded of flesh a perfect fit for the treasure she hid. Now tarnish and bent she no longer fit into the lock for which she was meant. Her purpose was stolen, her family dead.
"Dawnie," came the call from the kitchen. It was time for dinner, or maybe breakfast. Dawn looked toward the windows but the blinds blocked the outside world from her sight. She couldn't remember when she had pulled them so tight, when she had shut the world off.
"Dawnie."
"Coming," she called back her voice hoarse from disuse. Willow was trying, why couldn't she try too. But Dawnie didn't need another mommy, she'd already had one too many. She walked down the stairs, one foot carefully placed in front of the other, preserving the life they held in their steps. One wrong twist and Buffy was gone in a futile attempt to save a klutz. Dawn smirked at her thoughts. Wouldn't that be ironic, Alanis? Maybe someday there would be a song about Sunnydale.
She was at the table. She didn't know how she got there without the interference of Willow. Usually she was all in her face about everything. Today she was just allowed to sit. Sit and stare, stare and sit. Spoon to the mouth. Jaw moves up and down. She wasn't capable of these everyday tasks anymore, the pain got in the way. It wasn't as easy as people thought, living, that is. Death, that was easy, easy to imagine, easy to love, easy to forget. Life…it was just the opposite.
The last flake pushed through her lips and she pulled it down through the lump in her throat. The bowl of cereal she had just swallowed was swimming whole in her stomach, sloshing like water in a shoe. She pulled herself from the chair, her fingers digging into the cherry wood. She could feel Willow's concerned gaze follow her as she stumbled toward the bathroom. She could hear the footsteps outside in the hall as she grasped the porcelain and each flake made its way back through her throat. She would have tried to hide it if she had enough sense left to think of it. She would have tried if Willow hadn't already known.
Dawn ended up on the street. She was floating through her day, not looking for anything to do, not looking for anything to think. Just being was hard enough. Just be. She looked around. Be what? I'm not flesh and bones that can cry and feel. She looked again. Buffy's grave lay beneath her feet. The smell of maggots eating flesh bombarded her nostrils, though she knew it was just an illusion. She couldn't smell the worms any more than she could feel them crawling beneath her feet. She couldn't smell it any better than she could forget the girl who loved her and left her for the dirt that stuck to her shoe.
"Dawn," a voice growled. "What you doing here, pet?"
"She left me," was her answer. "Why'd she leave me?"
He paused for a moment. She could hear the sharp intake of air as he took another drag of a cigarette. She welcomed the burn of the second-hand smoke as it reached her lungs. Buffy would have admonished him for letting the dark gray fumes into her lil sis's body. But Buffy wasn't there, Buffy was six feet under and deeper.
"Because life's a bitch, luv." She turned, red rimmed eyes staring into his black lashes. She searched for a better answer, but knew that was the only one available. Because it was the truth. "She knew that, I know that," pause, "you know that."
His arm draped over her shoulders, the leather soft and cold against her neck. Little hairs bristled and sent little shivers through her. She welcomed the sensation, the feeling of uncontrolled movement. Controlled, timed, unresponsive. Her body couldn't live without the brain, without the sense to fill her lungs each second and let out the air before the carbon dioxide poisoned her limbs. If she could just let go it would be easier. But the monks had made her an imperfect human in a perfect body. She'd let it keep going until she had the will to change everything.
Spike led her to his crypt, sat her in the corner and let her be still. Be still, that's how I'll be. She watched as he climbed to the basement. She welcomed the familiar feeling of alone. But it was too much. The cold air and the stale smell made her limbs ache for motion. She wanted to die, but when death faced her she just wanted to scream. She wanted to be protected and loved and told that everything would be all right.
He was lying on his back, eyes closed, legs crossed. Dawn knew he felt her standing there, knew he could see her through his eyelids, but he didn't move or acknowledge her presence. She walked towards his motionless body.
"It's ok, luv," he said as she sat a few feet away from his boots. She couldn't see his mouth moving and if it had there was no way of knowing by observing the rest of his body. He was a dead man, and she envied him. "I won't bite."
"Very funny, Spike." She laughed a little bit, the tension in her shoulders relaxing just a bit. She hadn't even known that she was tense. Her body felt limp, muscleless, boneless. Her substance flowed and melded to whatever it happened to touch. She longed to feel whole again, to feel as if her limbs were connected in their sockets and not just jelly floating and detached. Or maybe she just longed to be nothing. That all flesh would evaporate from her fragile skeleton and the rest would crumble, a burned log turned to ash.
She would have both. First she'd piece herself back together. Then she would disappear. She inched closer to him, her leg now touching his side. She looked down at the sleeping dead. She felt as if he were calling her. His mind and body called to her blood. And her substance longed to flow across his muscles, molding themselves back into shape. When she leaned in and brushed her lips against his she wasn't a fifteen-year-old girl too young to know better, she wasn't a hormone driven teen running after her first puppy love. When she knelt and kissed his mouth she was a thousand-year-old energy bubbling and boiling within a human shell waiting for some spark to burn and sparkle and destroy her from the inside.
"Dawn, pet," Spike murmured a protest under her kiss. She pushed harder into him willing him to take her offer. He grabbed her waist and laid her back on the stone floor. Dirt swirled around her head, a cloud to float on, a cloud to take her to the end. He pulled away from her. For a moment she thought he would leave her there sprawled on her back like a defeated animal. But instead he pulled himself over her. He was trying to tell her who would be the authority though she knew each breath she took dominated him. Because her breath was her sister's as well.
She sat up a little, her lips parted, eyes begging. He answered her, his hand slipped behind her to hold her up. He pressed his lips into hers. Clothes flew with lips hungrily meeting in between gaps in fabric. Everything blurred and melted together as Spike pushed her to the ground. Shoulder blades ground against stone, bruises creeping around her arms and waist adding to the heat. Dirt stuck to sweaty flesh, the smell of mud and desire stretched to all corners of the crypt.
Bones crushed and bent as bodies grated against one another. Dawn didn't wince when he entered her; her eyes stared him in the face and her body rose to meet each blow of his pelvis. He pushed her to the limits, pushed her back through the floor. She let her body stiffen, let the pain of his weight bring her back to life. She let the rhythm take her over, she reset her brain to his movements and converted all thought to match his kiss.
His toy, she labeled herself. Hers, she labeled him. She pushed her small nails through his flesh trying to leave a mark. But she knew his wounds would never last, she'd forever be broken, he'd heal tomorrow. Tomorrow she'd be gone and he'd forget.
But she didn't care. She toyed with the idea of pulling his fangs to her neck and digging them into her arteries, she licked at the idea of holding him to her while he cried in pain. She wanted to kick him down and crush his skull the way she let him bash hers in. But she let him pound into her and when he came she cried out. Her body burned and she hoped for the flame to touch him, to char his skin black and gray. But he'd already been burned and lit matches can't light again, not when there's no wood left.
Buffy'd taken it all through the hell gate with her and Dawn was left with nothing but broken shells and vain tears splashing against hollow cheeks. Dawn never climaxed, she had reached the top long before. She could still remember what it was to be happy, and until she could forget, bliss would never be hers again. Dawn remembered life, remembered reality. This was all a nightmare, a horrible hell. Her sister had made no sacrifice, she had made an escape. Dawn wished she had pushed Buffy down and made the last run herself. Then her energy would not have been wasted.
She lay next to Spike dwelling on the gritty feeling of the dirt in her hair, on her back, in between her fingers. She lay there thinking about the blood caked beneath her fingers and the sticky sweetness that was smeared between her thighs. She sighed as he cleaned it with his tongue. She gazed at the curve of his hip and the contours of his muscles as he kissed her stomach, her breasts, her face. Dawn lay their euphoric and angry. It gave her a freeing feeling to know she had given up all the control she so desperately wanted.
She stood up slowly her body cooling quickly. She didn't look for her clothes, didn't try and clean the dust from her body. She towered above him smiling cynically. Suddenly she started laughing. It was a laugh tainted with disgust and disappointment, cynic and lustful. Her voice rose until it almost reached a scream. Spike rose and pulled her close, stroking her hair. He tried to comfort her, but he knew she was beyond consolation. Buffy had killed the lil bit instead of saving her and he hated the bitch for it.
He watched as she broke down in front of him, watched as she fell to the ground and stood up again and again trying to find a balance. But her center had been tilted and as long as she stood up straight she would forever collapse. She would find this.
Dawn plunged to her knees realizing her attempts were futile and empty. She relinquished her control and begged for death. She tore at her own flesh as she had Spike's and breathed silently as little rivulets of blood dripped down her front. She watched fascinated.
She let herself remember what it was like, standing on the pier, blood dripping, quietly through skin. Drip, drip, the sound of a leaky faucet, but a faucet could be fixed. Dawn's blood never stopped running, it dribbled through her days, a river flowing behind her entrenching itself into the earth, returning to where it belonged until she was free of warmth, free of life.
She looked up to find a knife in his hands. She thrust her chest forward begging for him to sheath it within. "No, pet," he admonished. "This is your murder." Murder. The word sounded foreign to her ears. Yet it sounded sweet and full of revenge. Revenge against her sister, revenge against the hell that had created her. This was her legacy to the books that Giles held so dear. The key, the one…not even it could handle life.
She took the handle from his hands. He gripped it tighter as her small hand slipped over his asking her if she was sure. She looked to his face and then back at his hands. He let go and she stumbled a bit. Her life was in her hands now. All she need was the courage to take it. But the knife was heavy in her hands but her pressure was too light. She couldn't make an incision deep enough to draw blood. She pulled the blade again and again. It became almost therapeutic, but then it became a force to drive her insane. Dawn threw the knife and it landed with a clink and a thud on the floor of the crypt.
Spike picked it up and walked back over to Dawn. He helped her hold the knife this time. He helped her pull it across her milky wrist. He watched hungrily as fiery red followed the knife to the end. He kneeled, his tongue outstretched as the plasma made its slow descent to the cold floor. She turned her wrist, watching the blood stop and go as if watching light from a bracelet illuminate the corners of a room.
She bled and he drank. Death gives to life. Drip, drip it sounded off his tongue, rang off the walls. She had screamed for her sister as the energy opened, she had cried for Buffy as she swam through the lightening. Now she stood silent, stone within stone. She would be the statue that would adorn his palace. She would be Spike's memorial. She would be his life source. Then she fell to the floor and all was black.
Spike lifted Dawn's limp body from where she had fallen. He carried her up the ladder and laid her just outside his door in the soft grass while he found his pants. He thought he heard her stirring while he buckled his pants. He paused a moment and watched her. There was nothing. Wishful thinking was all.
He picked her up again. She seemed heavy to him, such a small fragile body, but too full of emotion. He brought her to Buffy's grave and rested her in the newly turned soil, her back against the headstone, knife in hand. He brushed his hands together sprinkling her with dried dirt and blood. They would find her there, the Scoobies. They'd cry and moan and then they'd move on and try not to remember. He'd hole himself up in his mansion of death and try not to forget. They deserved remembering, both the Slayer and the lil' bit.
"I took care of her," he whispered. "Until the end of the world." Buffy had been dead and a day. And the world, at least for the Summers, had ended.