Dawn's teeth cracked together painfully as she was slammed from two different directions at once and went flying through the air. When she landed with an agonizing crash, hitting her head hard against a metal garbage can someone had set out at the curb, her vision blurred and began to go gray around the edges. The sounds of some horrific scuffle reached her ears as if from a great distance, echoing, nightmarish, but not real. Squinting through the darkness and her mental haze, Dawn glimpsed an impossible tangle of images: white-blond hair, sprays of crimson liquid slinging against the star-sprinkled sky like paint, shiny fangs, ragged, ripping claws, terrible red eyes, a large hulking figure with death on its breath, and oh God, Spike, Spike, Spike!
She struggled to stand up, fighting the urge to close her eyes and let the gray overcome her. "Spike!" she called out weakly.
"Get away, Bit! Run!"
Snarling, gashing, pummeling … he could hold his own in a fight, there was no question. But what Dawn could make out of this monster in the dark sent violent chills up her spine and filled her with a wild panic. Clinging stubbornly to consciousness as it danced tauntingly away from her, Dawn whipped her head around, frantically searching for something she could use as a weapon. Buffy would have no problem there; she could kill a demon fifty yards out with a pebble, but Dawn didn't have the Slayer's resources to draw on. Something wet and cold hit her arm, and she realized with sick horror that it was blood, and that Spike was losing this battle. Funny, she'd never thought he had it in him to lose. Never thought he could. Secretly she harbored the belief that not even Buffy could take Spike down. But that was a child's blind trust, and there was no time to ponder the ramifications of fallen idols.
The trash can lay on its side at her feet, deeply dented now from her skull's impact. She picked it up and raised it over her head and approached the blood-soaked confusion of demon on demon, and neither paid her any mind because they were too busy trying to end it, to end each other. Her heart pounded sickly in her ears as she waited for a clear shot; God help them both if she hit Spike by mistake.
CLANG!
She brought the can down with all the strength she could manage and then some, hitting the monster square on the back of the head and losing her balance as she did so, swaying on her feet and then falling to her knees. Time froze as the thing slowly, slowly turned beady, murderous red eyes on her; its pustule-mottled, snoutlike mouth twisting in what looked oddly like a very human expression of angry surprise. Dawn didn't breathe; the thing towered over her and seemed infintely steady on its cloven feet, and she had failed and now they would both die … As it reached for her with a misshapen, talon-tipped hand, Dawn squeezed her eyes shut and waited—and then Spike's fist shot out of nowhere and with a nauseating squelch punched all the way through the monster's chest to the other side.
The thing let out an inhuman moan of pain and rage as it died and sank backward. It was going to fall on her, ew, the huge dying demon thing with the hole in its chest was going to fall on her and she couldn't move fast enough, but then Spike's hand caught her arm and yanked her up and away, and the disgusting creature landed with an earth-shaking crash right at her feet.
The vampire and the girl stood there silently for a few long moments, staring at the gory pile of demon on the ground that had nearly killed them both. Dawn finally tore her gaze away from it. She opened her mouth to make some half-hearted smart-ass comment for bravado's sake, but all that came out was a choked sob. Expressionless, his eyes not shifting from the demon corpse, Spike held his arm out to her. The teenager gratefully accepted the silent invitation and moved into his one-armed embrace, hiding her face in his chest as tears of relief began to flow. They stood that way until her sobs dwindled to the occasional sniffle.
"Better?" he asked. When she nodded against him, he said, "Let's get you home, then." They moved as one away from the blood-spattered pavement and started down the street toward the Summers' house. Dawn finally regained enough composure to remember Spike's injuries. She looked up at him and gasped at what she could see in the dim light cast from the streetlamps.
"Spike, your face!" She stopped walking and tugged at his arm to make him stop too. "All this blood; where's it coming from?" She looked him over worriedly, not seeing the source of the blood that was covering them both.
He made a dismissive noise and kept walking. "No matter," he said. "Flesh and blood; it'll heal." Stopping short, he turned toward her, anxiety clouding his eyes. "What about you? Are you hurt? Let me see you." He pulled her over to a pool of light from the closest streetlamp and eyed her cuts and scratches critically. She hoped he wouldn't notice the huge lump forming on the back of her head that felt strangely sticky, which probably meant it was bleeding.
"I'm fine, Spike. It's you who looks like you went through a meat grinder."
"Let it go, I said," he snapped, jerking his head for her to follow as he resumed walking. Without warning, he seemed to remember that he was angry, and he began to chew her out, characteristically working himself up more and more as he spoke until by the end he was just a few decibels shy of yelling. "Anyway, what the hell were you thinking about, you foolish little bint, trying to play the hero? Did you hear me tell you to run? I say run, you damn well better run! You don't grab the closest trash bin and try to make believe you're a match for a monster like that just because you're the Slayer's baby sister, you understand me? You could have been killed. I should have let the damn thing have you, you're so thick-headed."
Stung by the unexpected tongue-lashing, Dawn slipped easily back into her trademark huffy mode. "Well you're welcome for saving your ass! Geez, next time I won't bother." She picked up her pace so that she was directly in front of him.
"GOOD!" Spike roared, making her flinch. "I didn't need your bloody help, I needed you to get the hell out of there like I told you to do so that I could fight without glancing 'round every few seconds to make sure you were all right. You're a liability, Niblet."
"You're an ass, Spike."
"Yeah? Tell me something I don't know."
"I was trying to help."
"Well help you did, didn't you. Nearly helped us both into the grave."
Dawn slowed her pace a little. "I—I've never seen you struggle in a fight like that," she said, trying to keep the tough, irritable edge to her voice intact but helpless to stop the emotion from seeping through. "The blood … I thought …"
Something in her tone melted his anger a bit, and he reached for her hand and pulled her to a stop beside him. "I'm immortal, love," he said softly. "Takes more than a flesh wound to do me in, you know that."
Dawn met his eyes and he saw that hers were shimmering with unshed tears. When she spoke, her voice was thin, high-pitched and trembling. "Knowing that doesn't help, Spike. I see vampires get dusted all the time. All the time. It happens so quick, you know? Blink and you miss it. Seems to me vampires are more fragile than us that way, just poof and they're gone. I can't—you were losing, Spike! I've never seen you lose before."
Been left too much, this one, Spike thought as Dawn's big wet blue eyes drilled a hole right through his heart that should by all rights be impenetrable. He took her face between his hands and did his best to dispel her deepest fears. "I'm not going anywhere, Bit. Think I'd let something as stupid and slimy and lumbering as that nasty fellow back there make dust of me? Not a chance. Especially not before I'd even finished telling you what's what for the stunt you pulled tonight."
Dawn took a deep, shuddery breath and squared her shoulders, trying with a visible effort to be strong for him. "I'm just saying. Good thing I was there."
"You ought to have been home in bed in the first place, and we'd've avoided the whole business."
She smirked slightly. "But since that wasn't the case … don't I even get a 'nice hit, Bit'?"
He gave her his most severe scowl. "No. Now come on, we've got to get you back to Buffy before she calls the bloody Sunnydale P.D. nancies to come and find you."
As they fell in step again, Spike struggled to banish the memory of that thing lunging for Dawn, the paralyzing jolt of fear, of certainty, that he wouldn't be able to push her out of the way in time, that he would be damned to an eternity of torment, never able to close his eyes without seeing once more the horror in his sweet bit's eyes as he failed both of his girls for a second and final time.
xXxXx
Well, I seem to be drifting away from fluffy, don't I? I just couldn't get this scene out of my head, so now I can rest easy. Does anyone want more, or should I put it to rest? Thanks so much for the reviews; they are MUCH appreciated.