A/N: Okay, I got way overexcited this weekend when I stumbled upon a cache of insanely good Spike-centric videos put together by the amazingly talented Spikey Lover. And there was one in particular that made me giddy, because it's the only one of its kind I've been able to find: A Spike/Dawn friendship vid! It's set to, of all songs, "Ben" by Michael Jackson, which works surprisingly well for these two, if you can suspend the rat connotations temporarily. Anyone who has a soft spot for these two lovable misfits will adore it. Unfortunately, after three failed attempts to put a link here, I've come to realize that this site hates me, it refuses to incorporate the link I keep trying to put in, and that I should quit while I'm ahead. If you're interested in this fabulous and adorable vid, just PM me and I'll be happy to send you the link that Will. Not. Cooperate. on this site. Now that that's out of my system, please keep reading and ignore my psychotic fangirlish ramblings. Oh yeah, and review, if you can find it in your heart.
xXxXx
So the spell had begun ordinarily enough. Ordinary, that is, if you belonged to a group of people whose use of magic was as commonplace as a trip to the neighborhood coffeehouse. For Dawn, ordinary. She watched as Willow, Buffy, and Anya made the necessary preparations, sprinkling unidentified substances from little crystal jars around in a circle on the floor, lighting candles, smearing something dark and smudgy on both Willow's and Spike's foreheads. Par for the course, spellwise.
Through it all, Giles looked on from the sidelines, ready to step in and make adjustments as warranted (but that didn't seem likely; the girl who had once looked to him for guidance in her magical education had long since surpassed him in some frankly frightening ways). Xander stood near the bottom of the stairs, arms folded across his chest. Anxiety was pouring off him in waves, and Dawn certainly could empathize with that, even if their fears came from different places. At one point, she drifted down to stand next to him in a silent show of support, but was immediately ordered back to the top step by impressively synchronized barks of authority from Spike, Buffy, Giles, and Xander himself. She retreated obediently enough, but wished like hell they would just get started, already. The waiting around was excruciating.
And then Willow sat down cross-legged in the circle the girls had created on the floor. She nodded at Spike, who slowly but resignedly did the same, kneeling first and then settling down smoothly within the curve of the circle. The chains that secured him to the wall stretched to their limit, allowing him no slack. Willow reached out and took both of his large rough hands into her small, delicate ones.
"Well, wish me luck," she said, and they all heard the tremor in her voice.
"Good luck, Willow." Everyone looked at Anya, mildly surprised by her tactful offering. Xander gazed at her affectionately from across the room, some of his tension evaporating, and then Anya added sincerely, "I hope you don't lose control and get all power hungry and try to destroy the world again." Catching the exasperated glances coming her way, she hastily explained, "Well, that was bad, remember?"
"You'll be fine, Willow," Giles said over the awkwardness. The calm confidence of his tone seemed to be just what Willow needed. She glanced over at him and gave him a wobbly but sincere smile.
She looked back at Spike, and her next words were solid, strong, commanding. A shiver jittered down Dawn's spine.
"Close your eyes."
xXxXx
An alley. A dark alley. A dark alley with cobblestones under his feet, and where the hell do they even have those anymore? Where is this place?
"William?"
He spins around in surprise at the name and the voice and sees her, and sees what she's holding, and abruptly wants to sink to his knees or open his eyes, but they're open, aren't they? And then he does drop down beside her, and she strokes his hair and offers a blood-stained smile and it is the grinning face of Death before him but he kisses her because it has been so long, so long. And because he once loved her.
"I saved some for you," she tells him, and he pulls away and looks at the child in her arms. Unconscious, blessedly so for her and for him, but not dead yet, still clinging.
"How did I get here?" he asks, and she laughs and it hurts his ears.
"You never left. You'll never leave. This is your place."
Transfixed by the half-lidded eyes and the pale parted lips of the sleeping but not peaceful child, he tilts his head and addresses his dark lover. "I tried," he says. "Ran as fast and far as the chains would allow, but it never works. I always come back."
"To me. To you."
"The killing's never done."
And then she is on top of him, his head pillowed on the cold mossy cobblestones and her hands are everywhere, lips drawing blood, fingernails slicing skin and he wants it, needs it, needs her. He thrusts and claws and breathes even though he doesn't need to but—but what about—
"Buffy?"
Drusilla draws back and licks blood-blackened lips and laughs again, hollow, scraping. "She was never yours, my love. She wants the bright, the white and the silver." Her tongue finds his lips and traces them, smearing blood like paint. "And you're all dark and dripping red."
He half-pushes her off him, propping himself up on his elbows on the cobblestones and tries again. "Dawn, then."
Her eyes flash and he sees anger there, and that's unusual because she is above (below?) such base emotions but it's there, and he doesn't understand.
"The daughter you never had?" she drawls, and he can't remember contempt ever coloring her words before. "Your child, your burden?"
"My bit," he whispers.
"Do you want her to suffer?"
"Never."
Drusilla's eyes drift casually downward, and Spike follows her gaze and utters a strangled wretched shout. The unconscious child is in his arms now, and it's her, and he almost lets her slip from his lap to the ground under the force of shock but instead he presses his palm to her neck where she's been bitten and tries to stop the relentless flow of life as it trickles and drips and stains his hands.
"What have you done!" he shouts at Drusilla, and his sire giggles and twirls away from his seeking, grasping, punishing hands.
"Silly William," she says giddily. "Don't you understand? It's not me, it's you. You're their end. You'll finish this."
And again he follows her gaze as it comes to rest just behind him, where he crouches with his dying sweet bit clutched in his arms. No. No. Nononononono—
The crumpled shape sprawls brokenly just beyond his reaching fingers, but it's too late, he sees that plainly enough even through the shimmering haze of anguish. Silky tangled wisps of gold obscure her beloved face, but it's matted, that gold, and clotted with blood. Buffy is dead, Dawn is fading in his arms.
There is no place for him, in a world without them.
xXxXx
"What's happening?" Dawn asked in a small, childlike voice, and this time when she slipped down to the bottom of the stairs and threaded her arm through Xander's no one yelled at her for moving from the "safe" spot. Xander simply maneuvered her behind him slightly and gave her hand a tight squeeze of reassurance that she was pretty certain he didn't feel.
"Giles? Is—is this okay?" Buffy asked, and the open fear in her eyes and voice did absolutely nothing to calm Dawn's own. "Should we do something?"
Giles frowned at the spectacle in the center of the room and struggled to pull himself into the old comforting-adult niche he'd always filled for this group of not-quite-children. "I'm not—I think—it could be dangerous, to intervene at this point." He tried to offer Buffy an authoritative look that would inspire confidence, but it came across as a grimace. "Let's wait and see."
"I think they're going to die. Giles, are they going to die?"
"Shut up, Anya!" Dawn screeched from the other side of the room. Anya looked surprised, slightly wounded. "They're not going to die. Right, Giles?" Dawn asked desperately.
The Watcher took a deep breath and wished not for the first time that Buffy had reconsidered her sister's participation in this. "No, Dawn," he said more calmly than he felt. "Everything's going to be all right."
It sounded empty even to his own ears, paired as it was with the hypnotically disturbing sight before them. Everything within the circle had taken on a reddish glow, some kind of mystical barrier that radiated power so strong the entire room hummed with it. It bathed the two who sat at its center in eerie light, but that wasn't the worst. Where their hands were joined, muscles in both sets of arms straining with some horrible force like pain, but no one wanted to consider that possibility. Tears flowed freely from their unseeing eyes, their features twisted in identical expressions of grief and horror.
And blood, dyed black in the redness, poured in miniature rivers from some unseen wound, gushing in a rapidly spreading pool between them.
Nothing the others could do but watch, wait, and hope that Willow could bring them out.
xXxXx
I update like crazy when I get reviews. Without them, my muse tends to wither and die. Thanks in advance for any feedback you take the time to offer.