Title: Niche
Author: Calex
Rating: FR-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, I'm just playing around with characters that are already there. Dawn's Joss's and Elektra's Mark Steven Johnson and Frank Miller's.
She had roamed the world alone, fighting her fight and trying to find her own place in the world. It wasn't easy, oh hell it wasn't easy but she was determined to succeed. She would not be the pathetic person she thought she was, she would not be the add on to the Scoobies, she would not be a hanger on, known only as "Buffy's little sister" or "that freak whose sister blew up the old high school". Buffy might be… weird, but she had her own little niche in the world. Hello, oldest living Slayer (although that was debatable, since she'd died a couple of times) and all that. Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies had their own places, they'd carved out their places and their right in the so-called "Good Fight". What was she if not just someone who was more trouble than she was worth? Being the Key was well and good, if it didn't mean that harm could come upon her loved ones because of what she was. Since it did, so not fun. So not right. So Dawn was determined to go and find her own place in the world.
Buffy'd understood, all of them did. Not to say they were happy with it and everything, cause Buffy still played "overprotective big sister" pretty well. They'd let her go, though she expected it was probably due to Giles pleading her case. Maybe he was one of those that knew best that she needed a vacation, a little time off that would perhaps clear her mind, make her see her worth. Her worth. Dawn's mouth curved a little in a smile that was closer to a grimace. What worth? Book-knowledge, she was pretty sound, she could speak her fair share of languages, but what use was that? What use was all that in the fight? Nothing. She was, as ever, useless. So useless… she couldn't even die, had to have Buffy die for her that one time. No. No more, she wasn't going to beat herself up over that anymore. Even while she though that, she knew it was a lie, a lie like everything else in her life, a lie like her very existence. She hated the lies, even while she lived them and sometimes that hurt the worst.
Dawn stood, staring out of the window and her arms were wrapped around herself, fingers digging into her clothes, pulling it tighter around her body, pressing into her curves, denting smooth skin in a way that made it hurt… almost. Just a small percentage, a miniscule amount of pain that attempted to repay the pain she had caused so many others by her mere existence. It was then, lost in her dark thoughts, did she feel the shift in the air. She didn't move, didn't make a sound, but her body stilled, her fingers tightening reflexively. Then she relaxed. The silent figure almost didn't get out of the way of the knife hurled in her direction. Oh, Dawn might not be as good at the fighting thing as a Slayer, but she was still made from Buffy, still had something a little extra. Or perhaps it was a natural talent, something the monks slipped in as an extra line of defence against anything the monsters might set on her. She was quite handy with weapons, namely knives and bows. She was pretty damn handy with a gun, too, but Buffy and the others didn't know that, she'd taken the lessons in private, she knew that there were other monsters in the world other than the ones that the Slayer had to fight off. No, sometimes the worse monsters were the ones that cloaked themselves in normality, in their humanity.
Dawn whirled with her knife, crouching down to a defensive position that also allowed her to move in any direction with ease. She contributed her weight evenly on each leg, her body held still and years of training prevented her assailant from seeing which way she would move. She didn't let out any hint that she would have to. She took that time to survey the woman, for it was a woman who had creeped upon her. Dressed in miniscule red leather with flashing double sided blades strapped to her hip, a short sword in her hand. The woman stared at her coolly, something almost like vulnerability and caution in her dark eyes, long brown hair an ironic echo to her old style.
"Who are you?" Dawn kept her eyes steady on the other woman, making sure that she wouldn't be making any sudden movements. The woman simply stood there, staring at Dawn, an almost faraway look in her eyes. Then she shook her head.
"I never expected you to be so young."
"What?" Dawn sounded shaken at the soft voice, at the words. One hand went for the knife strapped at her wrist sheaths. "Who are you? Who sent you?"
"My name's Elektra." She didn't smile, just watched as Dawn sucked in a shocked breath. Her body betrayed nothing, as did her face, but Dawn knew she betrayed everything. Elektra… here.
"I… I thought you died."
"I did."
"Oh." It was a small sound, echoing the confused child she had been, she still was. "Always thought that was Buffy's speciality." Elektra didn't smile, her eyes ever sad. Dawn gestured to the clothes she wore. "What's with the full assassination regalia? Oh god, don't tell me I've actually pissed someone off bad enough that they'd pay your exorbitant fees to kill me off."
"I thought you didn't know I was alive again."
"I heard rumours," Dawn let out an explosive sigh. "Oh, did I hear the rumours. The ghost who can kill everyone and anyone, they call you The Plague in some places, did you know? Because you're like some cloud of invisible death that kills off everything in your path. You're dangerous."
"I know."
Dawn looked down, hands splayed out and looking at long, neat, i clean /i fingers. How clean. Sometimes they felt dirty, though, dirty from things clinging to her skin that the eye couldn't see, things that left its mark from it's previous tinting. Sin-filled hands, said a psychic she had met in New Orleans, sin-filled hands and eyes that sought redemption. The woman had screamed when she'd touched Dawn's hand, she hadn't known the woman had been an empath. She had huddled in a corner, her hand hugged tightly to her body and her eyes terror filled as she stared at Dawn.
"Your hands."
"What's wrong with my hands?" Dawn looked panicked. "What's wrong with them, what do you see?"
"I…" the woman gulped. "I can't.. I… Death." She closed her eyes, screwed them shut tightly. "Death and murder and terror. Pain and love and then back to Death." She lifted her head, lifted her eyes to Dawn and the girl reeled back in shock. The eyes were clouded over, now, and the irises were gone. "Sin-filled hands on a heavy soul. Eyes that fill of the need of redemption, even while the hands taint that chance into oblivion." The eyes suddenly turned back to normal, and the woman looked shaken. "You should go."
"But I-"
"I said go!" the woman had screamed. "Get the fuck out. Go away and leave me. Meurtrier!" Dawn had taken one last look at the cowering woman, then had fled the pretty house in the French Quarter. She didn't look back, couldn't look back, tears blinding her and falling in a hot waterfall down to her cheeks.
"People have told me that I'm dangerous, too," Dawn said softly, her own voice making her blink awake from the half-daydream she had been in, before. She scrubbed a little at hands that even now held the evidence of blood to them…no matter that no other mortal or immortal eye couldn't see them. She scrubbed at her hands harder, nails rubbing raw skin that had once been untainted. "I left because I wanted to find myself. I think I lost my soul in the process."
"Stop it."
"I don't really know how or when it happened," Dawn ignored Elektra's softly uttered command. Almost like a request, really, and requests are easier to ignore. "I mean, one day I'm normal ol' Dawn. Next… next I'm standing over yet another body in some kind of dirty back alley. Blood on my hands. Sin in my hands." She lifted eyes gone bleak. "I tried to use those moves Buffy and Spike taught me to find redemption. I staked a normal guy 'cause I thought he was a vamp, in my first week. I didn't stop. Why stop killing when you've already begun, right?" Desperate laughter bubbled out of her throat and she clasped hands rubbed red raw to her mouth, cupping it closed to stop the sounds from escaping, to stop the sounds from turning into helpless sobs.
"Stop it!" Elektra strode forward, grabbed the girl by her thin shoulders and shook her, forcefully. "Dammit, snap out of it. Stop it right now."
"I don't know if I can," Dawn lifted hollow eyes. "Is this how you feel?" She searched Elektra's eyes and what she found in them made her laugh shortly. "What you felt?"
"Maybe." Elektra dropped her hands, mimicking Dawn's earlier pose as she wrapped her arms around herself, hugging herself tightly because no one else would, no one else could. "Maybe."
"I used to envy you. Want to be like you. Now I hate myself for ever wishing it to happen. For not being happy with what I had. I tried finding my niche, but that didn't happen. Oh goddess," Dawn's knees, weak as jelly now, crumpled under her and she fell to the ground. "Oh goddess." The tears came easily, falling past her tightly screwed eyelids and tracing a hot path down her cheeks. She let out big gasping breaths, pulling her knees under her chin. She knew that once the tears came, it felt like it would never leave. "Meurtrier," she murmured. "Murderer."
Elektra dropped to her knees, gathered the girl close to her. She rocked her, while her mind travelled to herself as a child, alone. Travelled to Abby, motherless. The three of them had that in common, at least. Motherless girls, trying to find their own way in the world. Special. In danger. Blood on their hands. Maybe the old man wasn't so crazy after all.
"Stick sent me," she said, gently. "I'm supposed to take you to him." Dawn nodded numbly.
"I can't go back, not like this. Not when I've fallen this low. I…" her voice broke. "I know they won't care, but I will. Oh lord." She easily took the comfort that Elektra gave hesitantly and clung to the older woman. "Please, help me."
"I will." For the first time since the Millers, she would help another girl, another person. "I will." Elektra clung at Dawn just as hard as Dawn clung to her. Maybe Stick had a bigger plan, not only on healing and teaching Dawn, but perhaps healing her as well. It worked, she was going back to that place, wasn't she? It worked. She smoothed back Dawn's hair and felt like she was hugging herself. She wouldn't let this one fall as deeply into the darkness as she had, she wouldn't let it happen. Not again, not ever. She would do whatever she could to ensure that Dawn Summers kept some of her light intact.