A/N: Shorter chapter this time. I originally was going to handle this slightly different, but then this idea suddenly came to me and I just had to write it, especially since it helps build the friendship between Spike and Dawn, which I wanted to focus on. I don't know if this idea has ever been used before by anyone, but I'm pretty sure this little aspect of Dawn is technically canon, when you consider the events in the show that she references here.
V. Legacy
Spike jolted upright abruptly in alarm, sitting up in the bed and darting his eyes around the room frantically before he'd even fully awoken. He smelled blood. Dawn's blood. Frozen with fear, he stared at the vacant spot beside him on the bed, terrified that she wasn't there when the smell of her blood was so close and overpowering. Had his heart been beating to begin with, it would have stopped.
Was he imagining the smell? It was so horrifyingly vivid and clear that he found it hard to believe it was all in his head, and he hadn't dreamed that anything bad had happened to her, having protected her from being hurt in his dream as he always did. Images of her being cut as she cried on the tower surfaced at the thought, causing him to tremble uncontrollably. Did something come in and hurt her? If it had, how hadn't it woken him up until now?
The vampire scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to calm down enough to think rationally as the rest of his mind began to wake up and catch up to his other senses. He was then aware that could hear someone approaching from the hallway, their heartbeat and breathing sounding normal, and he didn't see any signs or sounds of a struggle anywhere, no screaming or growling, no blood visible anywhere around him. Maybe he'd been too quick to panic.
"Spike? Oh geez, I'm sorry...I didn't mean to scare you."
Dawn's voice. Spike looked up and saw her standing in the doorway, giving him a concerned and apologetic look. The vampire heaved a great sigh of relief at seeing her unafraid and unharmed, relaxing and letting the worried tension ease away a bit. The chemical smell of antibiotics drew his gaze to a gauze bandage wrapped around her hand, and it occurred to him that she must have just accidentally injured herself or something. " 'S alright, Niblet," he replied a bit shakily, shifting so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed and facing her. "Jus' thought somethin' happened to ya. Y' are okay...right?"
The young girl nodded, lingering in the doorway hesitantly and looking sheepish. "Yeah, I am." She looked down at the floor, shuffling her feet a bit and remaining silent for a moment before nervously telling him, "I...wanted to give you something. Please don't freak out, okay?"
He furrowed his brow in puzzlement, unsure why she would say that, then he belatedly noticed that she was holding a cup in her hands and clutching it protectively close to her, preventing him from seeing what was inside it. "...Wot's tha'?" he asked suspiciously, indicating it with a slight nod and tilt of his head.
"Won't tell unless you promise not to freak out first," she insisted, pouting. "Please? Promise me."
Although those words served to resurface Spike's feelings of unease somewhat, the girl was obviously very determined about this, and he definitely knew how stubborn she could be. "A'ight," he finally acquiesced, drawing in a deep unnecessary breath to force himself to be calm. "Won't freak out. Promise."
Dawn searched his face for sincerity, then finally she crossed the room slowly to stand right in front of him, still holding the cup close to her. "O-okay...well..." She paused, trying to find the right words. "You're always hurt lately, and...well, you passed out on patrol last night when that demon clawed you, and you said you were okay later, but..." Tears shimmered in her eyes as she trailed off and looked at him imploringly. "I don't know what's going on, but I...I remembered...something B-Buffy told me..."
She sniffled, trying not to cry at the memory of her sister, and Spike reached out to gently stroke her arm in a comforting gesture as she tried to regain her composure. He wasn't sure if he liked where this was going, but he gave her the benefit of the doubt and remained silent while he waited for her to finish.
"Sh-she told me...that the monks made me out of her," Dawn continued, looking down, "and that's why she...she was able to save me. She had my blood, and I have hers." Her gaze lifted again to look into Spike's eyes, pleading with him to trust her and not be upset. "So...that means my blood is really strong like hers, and it'll help you get better."
At that, Spike suddenly put the pieces together—he realised exactly what was inside that cup, why Dawn's hand was bandaged, and why he could smell her blood so strongly. His eyes widened, and he recoiled slightly from her in horrified alarm. Dawn looked hurt at his reaction, reminding him, "You promised. Please...I know what I'm doing. Really."
Spike sighed in defeat, struggling to relax again as best he could and banish the irrational fear he was feeling. "Yeah, I did. Sorry...I do trust ya, Bit. Jus' shocked me is all."
Dawn gave him a sympathetic look that showed she understood why he'd been unsettled, then held out the cup to him, placing it between his hands and surrounding them with her own so that he wouldn't let go of it. She took a deep breath, then finished, "Please drink this. You seem so sick, and I really want to help." The teen smiled sadly and hopefully at her surrogate big brother. "You said you promised her you'd keep me safe, too. You can't do that if you're all beat up."
The vampire stared down at the contents of the cup, uncertain. It was a fairly small amount of blood, and he was at least grateful for that, knowing that Dawn hadn't put herself in any actual danger to give him this. That made him feel slightly better, since the last thing he wanted was for her to have actually harmed herself badly for him. He also knew that she was right, that he very badly needed to feed if he was going to be in any state to continue going on patrol—he was always injured lately, as she'd pointed out. All the same, he wasn't sure if he could stomach any of it at all, between his difficulty keeping blood down lately and it being her blood.
"You don't have to drink it all right now," Dawn told him as she noticed his hesitation. "I can save the rest in the fridge, in case you need it again."
Spike nodded slowly, that thought helping him feel slightly more at ease. He felt Dawn's hands tightening slightly around his, and he realised it was to keep the cup steady since his own hands were shaking too much to hold onto it on his own. Belatedly, he gradually became aware that he was feeling so weak and shaky from just how badly he needed that blood right now. Intentionally or otherwise, he'd been almost completely avoiding the stuff for a long time, and actually acknowledging that fact to himself flooded him with dizziness. He closed his eyes and tried hard to calm down. This was important. He had to try to drink this, whether he wanted to or not. His body was in a state of total disrepair, all the worse for the many injuries it was struggling to try to fix, threatening to completely give out on him if he denied himself sustenance much longer.
His mind made up, he lifted the container to his lips with Dawn helping him do so without dropping it, and he slowly began to drink a bit, swallowing with more force than strictly necessary to make sure it would actually stay down. To his surprise, rather than revolting him as he'd been expecting it to, the taste instead sharpened his hunger and made him feel desperately ravenous. It was as though the weeks of surviving on nothing were catching up to him all at once, making him keenly and painfully aware of just how badly he'd been mistreating his body. The feeling was so amazingly overpowering that he almost felt like outright recklessly chugging it down, but he knew he'd just immediately be ill if he did that, so he carefully held back and took it slow.
Dawn beamed at him as he drank, looking pleased with herself. Her eyes were sparkling with joy at being helpful, intensely relieved she was actually getting the vampire to accept the blood. She was well aware of how increasingly unwell he'd been lately, and she'd started to get very scared for him. She knew she couldn't force him to eat normally again and that he probably wouldn't for awhile yet, but at least she was helping him out...and keeping him from stupidly getting himself killed by fighting while severely injured.
Spike managed to down just over half of the cup before he started to feel somewhat nauseated, unable to handle much at once thanks to his poor habits of late, and he decided to stop then to be on the safe side. The hunger had greatly faded into the background again now that he'd managed to get something in him, and he could feel the extremely potent blood already starting to go to work, the revitalising healing energy of it tingling inside his veins. "Can't drink any more," he insisted with a slight grimace when Dawn still tried to coax him to finish it. "Save the rest for later, though."
Dawn nodded, reluctantly taking the cup back, then she suddenly found herself pulled into a hug by the vampire. Setting the container down on the bedside table, she readily returned the hug and clung to him tightly. "Try not to be quite so stupid anymore, okay?" she teased him.
Spike laughed sheepishly. "Sorry. I'll try. No guarantees, though. 'M a bit of a dumb git sometimes."
Pulling back from the hug just enough to look at him, Dawn smiled brightly at the vampire. "I love you, Spike."
Spike smiled gently in return, warmed by her sentiment, and leaned forward to kiss her forehead tenderly. "Love you too, Bit."
