"Hey! We're back!" Dawn calls out as she comes through the door, dumping her bag as Willow and Tara haul in the shopping bags full of school supplies and Tara slips out of her coat. She catches Buffy's panicked expression standing at the top of the stairs before it's carefully rearranged in front of her eyes.
"Hey! Uh... you- you have a successful trip?" Buffy stammers, bouncing down the steps. Dawn gives her a suspicious glare as Buffy joins them in the living room. She leans against the sofa, watching her.
It feels like she's growing more and more invisible to everyone, so she's been taking moments to really watch her sister. She seems slightly less exhausted than she has been. But there's definitely a new tension taking its place...
"Very. There was even a sale at the candle supply store. We stocked up!" Tara answers, heaving a bag onto the coffee table that clunks softly. "You're looking better! You've got a bit more color in your cheeks."
Willows' head whips up, ready to leap in and take the credit. "You slept some more? Caught up on all the Buffy slumber?"
"Absolutely. Slept like the dea- like a log." Buffy replies full of faux enthusiasm and Willow smiles, but the smile doesn't reach her eyes. The Linden Root charm shouldn't have worn off for hours yet...
Need to make it stronger tonight. She thinks, unpacking one bag full of new candles. Hope I have enough Valerian...
"Yup. Mega rested, that's me." Buffy smiles back, tugging her false cheer into place. She settles in the armchair opposite the sofa that Tara and Willow have occupied, carefully keeping her eyes averted from the window. Still feeling the cold fingers of the dream holding onto her mind.
"Anyone else want a soda?" Dawn asks, kicking up from the arm of the sofa to a chorus of no's as she heads for the kitchen.
She freezes in the doorway. An empty food bowl has been dumped on the kitchen island. She lets loose some of the tension she didn't know she'd been holding in for days. Buffy's finally eating. Thank God.
Wait. Bowl-S. Plural.
She spies a skillet on the stove with the remains of spiced rice-
Oh my God.
Dawn jumps as Tara's voice calls from the living room.
"H-HEY DAWN? Changed my mind, can you grab me a drink?"
"SURE!" She calls back, as she shoves the skillet and bowls into the sink and grabs the cans from the fridge. She notes the lack of a blood bag at the back. She'd been keeping it in case Spike dropped round.
Just in case.
Since Buffy had been back, the Scoobie's attention to her had stuttered and died. Not that it was a burning beacon of support and solidarity to begin with, but she missed having a friend around. A grumpy, angry, grieving friend, but one that fit in so well with her own misery.
She's about to walk out of the kitchen and back to the living room, when there's a soft little sound. Minuscule but present. The slightest little noise. Maybe a foot treading on the carpet above her...
She hands off the can to Tara, listening to Buffy and Willow chat inanely. They're both getting so good at talking without saying a damn word. It's sort of heartbreaking, sort of pathetic. Like watching little kids try to fix a broken leg with a bandaid.
She eyes the stairs, thumbing the tab of her can with little tak-tak-taks. She's certain she hears a second little shuffle from upstairs.
"Hey Buffy-" she interjects the vague pleasantries Willow and Buffy are filling the air with. "The three of us were thinking about catching a movie this afternoon. You wanna come?"
"Oh... uh-" It's rapid but unmistakable. A miniscule flicker of Buffy's eyes up the stairs. "I- I think I'm gonna hang back. Catch up on... sleep."
"Uh-huh." Dawn replies, almost not interested in the answer. "Well, I wanna wear the dark red sweater. Remember you borrowed it a couple of days ago?" She watches Buffy's face drain of color. "You mind if I just run up and get it?"
"...Uh.."
Dawn gets up from the sofa, still tak-tak-tak-ing her soda tab.
"I can just run up and get it."
"It's- it's in the laundry." Buffy fumbles.
"Oh, well then I'll put a load on." Dawn parries, turning towards the stairs.
"Dawn-"
"I mean you're always telling me to help out more-"
"DAWN DON'T YOU DARE GO IN MY ROOM!"
She sprints up the stairs. Buffy lunges for her legs but misses.
"DAWN!"
Willow raises an eyebrow at Buffy's scrabbling attempt to stop Dawn as they both tear up the stairs.
"You know," she smirks, "sometimes I wish I had siblings, and then other times I thank Goddess my dad got a vasectomy."
"I wish mine had," Tara mumbles into her soda.
Spike slumps down on Buffy's carpet, hands buried deep in his hair, elbows on his knees as he listens to her make pleasantries downstairs. Half-formed conversations float up to him, isolating him entirely as he sits trapped in her room.
He was already painfully addicted to her. Had been before Glory was even a threat. And as such had acted like an addict. Recklessly. Thoughtlessly. Risking daylight to be near her, or breaking into her house to try to consume her by proxy. It was like his need for blood had shifted onto her and the craving was far more agonizing. He'd tried to fill his mind with violence instead, tried to claw back a little self-control by fighting his own kind, but it was about as effective as a nicotine patch. Just a flicker of satisfaction for less than a heartbeat before the tumbling need for her filled him back up again.
Not even a plastic stake through his chest had been enough of a deterrent.
The smell of Buffy permeating around him and suffocating him in tandem with her absence is making the demon in him pace. Shredding his patience to pieces.
Fucked up. Pushed too hard and now she's downstairs playing happy families instead of up here with me.
He groans, low and as quietly as possible. Takes a hard angry breath in. His grief during her death had been agonizing, but with her back, it was becoming a deepening greedy misery. And it was only getting worse and worse.
Wasn't lovesick just supposed to be an expression? Were you really supposed to feel plagued by it? He couldn't unpack whether it was the demon making it worse or if it was just him. Decades and decades ago he could vaguely remember pining for Cecily and wanting her deeply. A soft love, saccharine and unrequited.
That rejection had stung. It had ached. It was normal to ache, right? Normal to feel stretched out and bruised all over? He'd risked humiliation for her, and God had it been humiliating, but would he have let a hell god nearly rip him inside out for her?
Maybe he would've for Dru... probably. She would've found it entertaining. If she'd even noticed.
Is love always going to cut me to pieces like this?
Is it supposed to always burn and consume and destroy?
I don't know how to live like this-
He hears running footsteps outside the door and relaxes his grip on his hair. He smoothes it down frantically-
Thank God-
-and rises quickly to his feet.
Apologize, say it meant nothing. Just get her to stay.
"Buffy, I-" the apology dies on his tongue as Dawn stands in the doorway.
Oh fuck.
They both freeze.
A/N: THANK YOU to everyone that's been reviewing and commenting on my work, sorry this is such a short chapter but it just felt naturally ended and I don't believe in pushing things just to make them a heftier word count. Thanks a whole mega bunch to RavenLove12 and alittlemoretime for beta-reading and suggestions!
