author's note: Season 5 was so mean to Spike, but I am worse.
It had been hours of torture before he weakly gasped out the words: "Enough of this. I'll tell you who the sodding Key is."
Of course, Spike had no such intentions. He'd been continuing to stall, doing his best to buy time and try to figure out an escape, or at the very least, keep Glory off Dawn's scent until the Slayer got home to protect her. He figured if he could hold out until sundown the next day, he could let the hellbitch kill him, and Dawn should be okay. There was a small fantasy he was clinging to of Buffy bursting in to save his sorry arse, and nursing him back to health, then inviting him to spend the rest of his unlife making cocoa with the Summers women, but he knew that wouldn't happen. Was just nice to dream, is all. He could still remember the taste of her kisses from that bloody fake engagement spell the witch had put on them, and damn if he didn't spend his days craving it more than even blood.
Blood, which was trickling down his face and into his eyes from the beatings he'd received so far in his stalling attempts. Glory held a cup of water to his lips, which he sipped greedily.
"Better now? Think you can talk?" She asked angrily. When he nodded, she smashed the glass across his face. "Good, because I'm tired of the games. 'I need time, I need a drink'. You're a very needy little bloodsucker, you know that? And it's not a very attractive quality. So get to talkin'."
He glared at her, taking a deep breath. "Yeah, okay. The Key. So here's the thing. It's that guy… On TV… what's his name?"
Glory frowned in confusion. "On the television?"
Spike nodded. "On that one show… you know, the one where they guess what stuff costs?"
One of the little scabby blokes piped up: "The Price is Right?"
Another: "Bob Barker!"
The first one clapped excitedly, "We will bring you Bob Barker! We will bring you the limp, beaten body of Bob Barker, your most–"
Glory snarled and rose to her feet. "The Key is not Bob Barker, you scabby morons! The Key is new to this world. Bob Barker is old as grit. The vampire… is lying to me," she finished with a smile, stalking towards him.
Spike choked out a laugh. "Yeah, it was fun though," he taunted, attempting to twist his wrists free. "And guess what, bitch?I'm not telling you jack. You're never gonna get your sodding key, 'cause you might be strong, but in our world, you're an idiot."
He imagined she was nearly foaming at the mouth as she spat the words out: "I am a god!"
"God of what? Bad home perms?" Spike asked. He knew he was testing his luck, but he had an idea he hoped would allow him to get free. And if not, it was nearing sunset, and the Slayer should be home soon. Dawn was safe as she could be.
Her hand flew to her hair as she shouted in outrage. "Shut up! I command you,
shut up!"
"Yeah, okay, sorry, but I just had no idea that gods were such prancing lightweights. Mark my words, the Slayer…" he stopped, panting as he twisted his wrists in a particularly painful direction, "...is going to kick your skanky, lopsided ass back to whatever place would take a cheap, airheaded fashion victim ex-god like you."
That was the final straw for Glory, apparently, as she whirled and landed a roundhouse kick to Spike's chest, sending him flying backwards. As he'd hoped, the chains that bound his wrists broke on the impact, though he landed in a heap in the hall outside the apartment in a great deal more pain than he'd bargained for.
Groaning, he started to pull himself up. "Good plan, Spike," he told himself sarcastically. When his legs wouldn't support him, he decided that inching along the floor on his stomach toward the open elevator would have to do.
To his dismay, the doors closed as he reached the elevator, and he could hear it descend to the lobby. With the demons and Glory following, he decided he had no other choice.
"Fucking hell," he groaned, using what remained of his strength to pry the doors open with his hands, and heaved his broken body into the elevator shaft, falling into the darkness below.
When she and Giles arrived home, she found the gang gathered in her house waiting. "Hey, uh, group hang time?" At their grim faces, she stopped and dropped her bag. "What happened? Is Dawn okay?"
Tara held her hands up in reassurance. "Dawn is fine, she's upstairs. This is about something else."
Xander stepped forward, and Buffy was alarmed to see the dark bruises that had formed across his face and neck. "Buffy. Glory has Spike," he told her.
Willow spoke up. "He knows about Dawn, Buffy."
"Grab weapons. Lots of 'em. I'm gonna have to kill him before he can tell Glory anything," Buffy said. Something felt sharp in her chest as she said it, but she pushed it down. Death was her gift, after all.
Spike had crashed onto the roof of the elevator and lay there stunned for a moment, before he opened the emergency hatch and rolled inside, landing on the floor just as the bell dinged announcing its arrival in the lobby. The doors opened, revealing more of Glory's scabby demons.
"You do not insult Glory by escaping," one of them said.
At that moment, the demons turned, distracted by the lobby doors being kicked open by none other than Xander Harris and the Slayer herself. With a sigh of relief, Spike sagged back against the elevator wall and collapsed.
The fight was a blur to the vampire as he tried to keep up through eyes swollen shut from his beating, but he knew his Slayer was kicking demon ass. He must have lost consciousness, as the next thing he remembered was staggering down an alley between two men– he assumed Harris and the Watcher– in the direction of the cemetery.
He faded in and out of awareness, but at some point he'd been placed into his armchair in his crypt, and he sank gratefully into its familiar embrace.
The soft creaking of the crypt door woke him some hours later, he assumed, as he'd healed enough to be alert, though bruises and broken bones would need days or weeks– and a good deal of blood– to heal. He cracked one eye open to see a thin stream of daylight filtering in, though whoever had entered had been careful to keep it from reaching his chair.
Quiet footsteps made their way to his mini fridge, and he didn't have the energy to care or fight off an intruder, so he let his eye fall closed and his mind drift off again. He was brought back to awareness by the scent of warm blood, and forced his eyes open once more to see a faintly steaming mug of blood with a straw being held inches from his face. The part of his mind that would normally tell him this was a trap was oddly silent, seemingly wrapped in confusing thoughts of sunshine and honey and hot cocoa, so he obediently wrapped his cracked lips around the straw, and ignored the pain in his body as he took a sip.
It was pig's blood, of course, a far cry from the delectable sweetness of human blood, but his body cried out for it anyway and he took another greedy pull, coating his mouth and throat with the liquid. And then the straw was pulled away. "Hey, what's this all about then?" he asked petulantly.
"I've got to know, Spike. What did you tell her? Glory, I mean. What did you tell her about the Key?" Buffy's voice was grim and filled with urgency, and Spike forced down the hurt that he felt at her questions, because Dawn's safety was more important.
"Nothing, Slayer, I swear it," he promised, taking a breath and raising his head so their eyes could meet. Icy blue eyes met soft green as he spoke. "Told the bitch the Key was sodding Bob Barker."
That threw the Slayer off guard and she cracked a smile. "Did you seriously?" she giggled.
Despite the pain it caused as it split his lip open again, Spike grinned crookedly. "Bloody right I did. Earned myself a load of broken bones for it too, but you should've seen her face," he chuckled.
"Okay, you get some extra blood for that," Buffy said, holding the straw to his lips again, and he smiled around it as he sipped.
"In all seriousness though, Slayer, I swear to you, I would never tell her. Was ready for the bitch to dust me if it meant keeping Dawn safe," he said, pouring every ounce of his feelings of protectiveness for the younger Summers into his words. "For a moment there, I thought she was gonna, 'til I saw you and Harris barge in."
There was silence for a moment as Buffy thought about his words, and she continued to hold the mug in Spike's reach. Then she leaned in closer and tenderly, careful not to injure his bruised and broken skin, placed a feather-light kiss on his cheek.
"I believe you, Spike. And thank you. For what you did for Dawn… and for me. I won't forget it," she said softly. Then she reached for his hand where it sat on the arm of his chair, and wrapped it around the mug to replace hers. "Drink up, vampire. We need you at your strongest if you're gonna be on our team."
She stood and left him sitting there in stunned silence, holding his mug of blood with a bright pink straw in it, wondering if perhaps Glory had dusted him after all, and maybe everything everyone knew was wrong, and some vampires did go to heaven.
There was something in those eyes that made it impossible not to believe him. Which was why she'd left that day, and headed straight to Willy's to locate some of the contraband donor blood she knew the little weasel sold. She, of course, insisted on a "Slayer discount", otherwise known as "give it to me for free so I don't kill your clients". When that was safely in the fridge at home, she made her grocery trip, fetching what she and Dawn would need for the week, and she tossed an extra box of Weetabix into the cart at the last second.
With Tara and Willow on Dawn duty, she loaded up a grocery bag and made her way to Restfield once the sun was set.
Spike was napping when she arrived, and his bruises looked only a teensy bit better than before. She was careful to be quiet as she crept over to the microwave and heated the blood to the right that I know the temperature vampires like to drink blood at,she thought, shuddering. She sprinkled in some of the cereal and grabbed a spoon from Spike's stash of stolen kitchen goods before making her way to his chair.
As she approached, his eyes shot open in alarm and he grabbed at his chest. "Bloody buggering fuck, Slayer, you're going to give a man a heart attack sneaking up while he's sleeping like that."
"Can't have a heart attack when your heart doesn't beat," she replied cheerfully, holding the mug out for him. "I brought you something– sort of a 'thank you', mixed with a 'get better soon' gift."
He lifted the spoon from the mug and sniffed. "A neg? Slayer, you shouldn't have. I'm touched," he said jokingly, though Buffy could swear she saw a tear in his eyes for a moment.
"Once again with theew, Spike," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I still think it's nasty, but I figured you'll heal faster on donor blood than pig, so there are more bags in your fridge. Like I said, you're the best fighter next to me, so I need you at your strongest. Glory's already figured out to watch the people I spend time near, so how long before she goes after the one person I actually live with?"
Spike nodded. "I understand, Slayer. We'll keep her safe, yeah? I promise."
They were going to take her away. That's what Principal Stevens had told her as soon as Dawn had left the room. If Buffy couldn't get Dawn to come to school, she wouldn't be considered fit to be her guardian, and Dawn would be taken away.
To their Dad, to foster care, either way, it couldn't happen. No one was equipped to deal with protecting Dawn from Glory except Buffy– and even then, most days Buffy wasn't even sure she was up to the task.
So sure, she was being a little harsh, or overbearing, or whatever. But she'd rather have Dawn a little pissed off with her than risk her getting caught by Glory. Dawn was working on homework in angry silence while Buffy finished putting away dishes.
"Okay so I think the next step is like… A chart, or a schedule. I write down all the things you're supposed to do, and we mark off when you do them," she explained. At Dawn's glare, Buffy huffed. "What? You want gold stars? Because I can do gold stars."
"I don'twantany of this," Dawn exclaimed, crossing her arms.
Buffy sighed. "I'm just trying to give you a normal life."
With an eye roll, Dawn responded: "Good luck."
"This is for real, Dawn."
Dawn laughed bitterly. "No, it's not. I'm not real, so why would my exciting graph of chores be real? Who cares if a Key gets an education anyway?" She slammed her book shut and pushed herself away from the table.
"Chart, not graph. And youarereal." Buffy was quiet, her stress and panic growing more by the second.
"Yeah? Those monks put grades K through eight in my head. Can't we just wait and see if they drop nine in there too?"
It boiled over, and she slammed her hand down onto the counter. "Damn it, Dawn! This is serious, okay? They'll take you away!"
That cracked the icy exterior Dawn had adopted, and her arms unfolded to drop limply by her sides. "Take me away? Take me where?"
"I don't know. To Dad, to foster care, I'm not sure and I didn't want to ask. I can't lose you, Dawn. I'm just doing the best I can, and I need you to work with me. If I can't make you go to school they're gonna take you away," Buffy said, her voice cracking.
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
Buffy closed her eyes and sat heavily in a chair. "I didn't want you to worry about things like this. You're just a kid, Dawnie. I want you to be a kid."
She hung up the phone with numb fingers and took a deep breath to collect herself before calling up the stairs to Dawn. "Dawn! Get your sleeping bag, you're gonna stay at Spike's tonight!"
"For real?" came the excited reply from the top of the stairs, followed by a series of thumps as the teen scrambled to find her things. Despite her worry, Buffy allowed herself a small smile at her sister's excitement, and she went to the kitchen to make up a grocery bag of snack foods so that Dawn would have something to eat and drink in the crypt, other than the blood and alcohol Spike kept on hand.
Twenty minutes later, the pair stood at the entrance to the crypt, knocking. It wasn't something either of them were used to doing, but Buffy had decided that he'd resisted actual torture for their sake, so the least they could do is respect his privacy sometimes. A confused Spike popped his face around the door, frowning at them. "You never knock, Slayer. Have you been possessed?"
"I was trying to be polite, Spike. I won't do it again, I guess. I need you to keep Dawn safe tonight, can you do that?" she nodded to the sleeping bag and teddy bear that Dawn held.
There was genuine warmth and kindness in his smile as he looked at them and opened the door wider. "Sure thing, Slayer. Come on, Little Bit, let's get ya set up. Bring any movies with you?"
"Yup,andI'm teaching you how to braid," Dawn boasted, brushing past Spike.
"'Bout a century late there, pet, already know how. Probably show you a thing or two if I'm being honest," he said, grinning.
As she left her sister in the care of her former nemesis, she couldn't help but think about how, though it was chipped from his ordeal with Glory, Spike was sporting the same shade of pink nail polish that Dawn wore. And she hadn't failed to notice Dawn's black pinky nails, either. She stopped to laugh at the idea of Dawn and Spike having a hair-braiding slumber party, before she resumed her depressing trudge towards Sunnydale General, where a much more depressing scene was waiting.
"Hey. Will, I'm so sorry," she said as soon as she entered the exam room, throwing her arms around her friend. She cast a glance at Tara, who sat on the edge of the exam table with one hand heavily bandaged, staring into the distance.
There were tears in Willow's eyes when they parted, and they both looked over at Tara, who turned a brilliant smile towards them. "They kill mice," she said vaguely. Willow's tears fell freely down her cheeks.
"Oh, Tara," Buffy said, moving to hug Tara tightly. The other blonde didn't hug back, and Buffy released her, heart heavy. "I'm sorry it took me so long, but Dawn's safe with Spike, so I–I can stay as long as you need."
"I'm so scared," Willow admitted quietly, putting a hand over Tara's unbandaged one. Buffy placed her hands on her friend's cheeks, wiping her tears away.
"I know, Will. We're all scared, but we're here for you, for you and Tara, I promise."
Spike sat on the edge of his armchair with Dawn on the floor in front of him while he wove an intricate pattern of braids in her hair. "Wanna know what I'm scared of, Spike? Me. Glory thinks Tara's the Key. But I am. So anything that happens to Tara is 'cause of me. Your bruises, your limp… that's all me too. I'm like a lightning rod for pain and hurt. Everyone around me suffers and dies. I… must be something horrible to cause so much pain and evil," she finished, sobbing.
"Rot," he said simply, tying off the ends of a braid.
She sniffled. "What do you know?"
"I'm a vampire, Bit. I know somethin' about evil, and you're not it."
Dawn considered this. "Maybe… maybe I'm not evil. But I don't think I can be good," she said, looking back at him.
"Well…" he began thoughtfully, "I'm not good, and I'm pretty okay."