Barb
Disclaimers: The usual. All belongs to Joss and Mutant Enemy, and naught to
me.
Setting: Post "The Gift", spoilers for everything under the sun
Feedback: Why not? rahirah@earthlink.net
Author's Notes: Thanks to L.A. Ward for the plotting help, the Bloody Awful
Poet Society and the Redemptionista Writers list for beta reading, and Aurelio
Zen for the Latin. All the magic rituals are stolen from the show or made up
out of my very own head, so don’t try raising the dead at home. That trick
never works.
The rain had stopped, but the sky overhead was still
mantled with clouds that reflected the city lights and threw an eerie reddish
glow over the midnight landscape of downtown Sunnydale. "Come on, you
bloody bastard," Spike crooned. "I know you're out there. I can
smell you." He hefted the battleaxe. "Come on, Daddy's got a lovely
prezzie for you..."
The only answer was a soft,
rumbling growl, so low that he felt more than heard it. He slunk
noiselessly along the ally, axe at ready. Spike preferred hand–to–hand
fights when he could get them, but his previous run–in with a Ghora demon had
convinced him that a big hunk of metal would be a valuable asset in dealing with
them in the future.
He hadn't expected to have to
deal with Ghora demons ever again, actually, though he supposed that the eggs
should have been a clue otherwise. Should have smashed the lot of them
while we were down there the first time. Unlike their massive,
sedentary mother, the young were quite mobile, and extremely hungry. This
was the second one he'd tracked down tonight, and he was still limping from the
damage the first one had done. Apparently their favored method of attack
was to hamstring their prey. He halted, fingers tightening on the haft of
the axe. He could see its eyes blinking redly down at the end of the alley
now, reflecting the neon light from the run–down hotel across the street.
A male, from the glimpses he'd gotten earlier of its coloring. About
pony–sized. A lot smaller than its mother, a little smaller than the
sister whose body was going to provide a big surprise for the opening crew at
the gas station on the corner of Fourth and Main. Piece of...
The young Ghora exploded out of the pile of
rubbish, all six taloned feet leaving gouges in the pavement. Faster than
its sister, too. Cardboard boxes and wilted lettuce flew wildly across the
alleyway. It covered the twenty yards between its nest and the vampire
with the speed of an onrushing diesel engine, giving vent to a hair–raising
bellow. "Oh, sh–!" Spike leaped back and to the side, swinging the
axe in a vicious arc which intercepted the charging demon's path at about the
level of its knees. The blade sank into demon–flesh with a thok!,
embedding itself in bone. A spray of blue–violet blood spurted across the dank
cement and the Ghora's left foreleg buckled, sending it lurching into Spike and
driving the axe–handle into his stomach.
It hurt
like hell; he could feel the bruise spreading, but he had no breath to get
knocked out of him. Spike retained a death–grip on the axe as the demon's
momentum barreled the two of them into the brick wall. He'd injured it
badly; the left foreleg hung uselessly, and its blue–and–yellow–striped sides
heaved in agony. Unfortunately, it still had five working legs left.
He braced himself against the crumbling brickwork behind him, tearing the blade
free of its mooring. The wounded Ghora stumbled away, then wheeled with
astonishing agility and charged him again. One of the three blunt heads at
the end of the long snaky necks opened its gaping maw and champed madly,
displaying rows of serrated ivory teeth. The vampire crouched, snarling
right back.
"I," he whipped the axe up, "am bloody
sick," he flung himself sideways, not quite swiftly enough to avoid the
razor–sharp teeth as they clamped down on his already wounded thigh, "and
TIRED," he brought the blade of the axe slicing down with all his strength on
the juncture of the Ghora's neck and primary shoulders, "of fighting things
which're FASTER THAN I AM!" The demon bellowed again and Spike wrenched
the axe free and hit it a third time. This time he felt bone crack beneath
the impact, and the creature's bellow became a gurgle and then died away as it
collapsed segment by segment onto the pavement.
Spike collapsed on top of it and lay there panting. He didn't really need
to pant, but at times like this it seemed to be the right thing to do.
After a bit he sat up and gingerly began to pry the Ghora's jaws out of his
leg. Bloody hell, I go through more clothes this way... The teeth
were loose in the cartilaginous jaw, like a shark's, and several of them
remained embedded in the muscle of his thigh. Damn. He'd have to pry
them out before he healed right over them.
He
got to his feet, limping more than a little now, and raked one hand through his
rain–wet hair. He bent over and began working the axe free of the Ghora's
backbone. The adrenaline high of the kill was fading already. There
wasn't much satisfaction in killing a Ghora; they were little more than
animals. Big, dangerous animals who would eat a human, or a vampire for
that matter, if they got the chance, but tackling one was like going after a
mountain lion. You couldn't take it personally. Couldn't hate
it. Very quickly the rush of violence drained away, leaving...
Not the raw, aching misery of the first week,
when he would have let the sun take him without a whimper if the others hadn't
taken it in turn to see that it didn't. Not the self–destructive rage of
the weeks after that, when he'd gone out looking for death in less obvious
forms. By now, four months after they'd lowered her into the ground, the
pain was chronic rather than acute, a wound that would never completely heal but
which had dulled enough to allow him to get up in the evenings and go through
the motions.
He straightened up, turned to the
brick wall, and very deliberately slammed his fist into it. Brick crumbled
and chips of brick and mortar flew, and Spike doubled over with a hiss of
agony. He didn't want to get over her, damn it. Time had no business
healing some wounds.
"Hey," a voice said from the
mouth of the alley. "Not bright."
He looked
up. He couldn't remember the name of the vampire standing there, though
he'd seen him around Sunnydale before––at Willy's, in the days back when he'd
been welcome at Willy's, and before that at the Master's old digs. Not
likely one of the Master's get. Old Bat–Nose, by all accounts, had been
fussy about his progeny, turning only select individuals at certain propitious
times. This fellow was dark and broad-shouldered and Byronic–looking, so
he was probably one of Darla's. She was always turning chaps who reminded
her of Angelus. Spike considered anyone reminiscent of Angelus a git of
the first order. He wondered if he should try staking this particular git
now or wait till his leg healed a bit. Lacking a heartbeat, he didn't
bleed as profusely as a human would have from the same wound, but if the other
vamp ran he might not be able to keep up just yet.
"Still carrying on the Slayer's good works,
eh, Spike?"
Spike shrugged, yanked the axe
free, and straightened up, slinging it over one shoulder. He flexed his
injured hand. He'd probably broken a knuckle. A van drove by on the
street behind the newcomer, tires humming on the wet asphalt. "A bloke's
got to kill something," he said mildly. "Any reason it shouldn't be you?"
The dark vampire studied him. "Daniel
never came back to the lair yesterday."
Who
the hell was Daniel? He'd never known many of the Sunnydale vampires very
well, even during the few months four years back when he'd been Master, before
the Slayer had gone and dropped an organ on him. Christ, the Slayer dropping
an organ on me now qualifies as a fond memory. He'd completely lost
track of who was who in the last year. They were all interchangeable,
anyway, a rabble of raw fledglings punch–drunk with bloodlust and not a
thimble's worth of personality among the lot of them. "I think you've got
me confused with someone who cares, mate."
"Oh, you've got reason to care, Spike," the dark vampire said softly. "Now that
the Slayer's gone, it's normally your fault when one of us goes missing.
Lissette and Trina disappeared tonight, and I decided I needed to have words
with you."
Spike snorted. Was
tall–dark–and–boring there what passed for a Master in Sunnydale these
days? Couldn't have been more than a third Spike's age, and Spike was
overweeningly proud of the fact that he was one of the youngest Masters on
record. The dark vampire continued, "But..." he waved at the Ghora
carcass, "You've got an alibi. I must say I'm surprised. But
pleased." He smiled, showing his fangs. "If someone else in
Sunnydale is taking out elder vampires, I can't imagine they won't get around to
you sooner or later."
"As it's bloody
definite you won't?" Spike sneered. "Note how I'm trembling in my
boots. If the entire demon population of Sunnydale can't do me in, I'm not
going to worry about some johnny–come–lately vampire hunter. Now if you
don't mind..."
The van which had driven by a
moment before rolled slowly back into view and came to a stop directly athwart
the entrance to the alley. The rear doors opened and several men in dark
coveralls hopped out. One of them was carrying what looked like a
tranquilizer gun. For a moment Spike thought it was a set–up. But
the dark vampire's face showed a flash of surprise, and more briefly,
fear. The gun went off with a paff of compressed air, and the dark
vampire flinched and staggered as the dart struck him, then came to a wobbly
halt. He looked stupidly about him, swaying on his feet but not
falling. Without circulating blood any drug took longer to diffuse through
a vampire's body.
"Is that another one?" one
of the overalled men called, pointing in Spike's direction. Spike
considered pretending to be an innocent tourist, though the axe, the dead Ghora,
and the fact that he was standing on a leg injury that would have had a human
fainting on the pavement from blood loss might possibly poke a few holes in his
web of deception.
The second overalled man,
who'd led the now–docile dark vampire over to the van and was scribbling notes
onto a clipboard, shrugged. "He's a witness. Take him down."
The man with the trank gun began
fitting another dart into it. Spike flashed on a memory of coming to
strapped to a cot in a plain white room, and the impersonally curious faces of
military doctors bending over him. No. Not that. Not that,
never, ever, ever, die first-- The men in coveralls were advancing on
him confidently. The man with the trank gun raised it and braced the stock
against his shoulder, taking careful aim.
Spike flung the axe at him. It cartwheeled into the gun and took a slice
out of the man's forearm; he screamed, dropped the gun, and grabbed his
wrist. Spike screamed at the same time as the chip embedded in his skull
went off, sending punishing shockwaves of electricity through his brain.
The lovely rich scent of the wounded man's blood hit him at the same time and
his stomach cramped with a mixture of nausea and hunger. He stumbled
forward, bowling the second man over and getting another shock for his
trouble. He kept his feet through sheer willpower, and by the time he
reached the mouth of the alley he was running all out, heedless of the pain that
ripped through his leg at every step.
The
dark vampire lunged drunkenly for him, fangs bared and eyes flaring
yellow. Spike smashed him in the face with his good fist, all the fury and
terror in him fueling the blow, and felt bones breaking. The other vampire
went down, out cold. Still at a dead run, black leather duster billowing
behind him, Spike dodged around the rear of the van as the driver gunned the
engine. The rear doors of the van were open, and in the dark interior he
caught a glimpse of two huddled, unbreathing forms. Lissette and Trina,
most likely. He spared one glance at the license plate, and took off down
the deserted street.
A vampire could move
across a room almost faster than the human eye could follow, but he couldn't
keep that up level of speed for any great distance. After a block or so he
was reduced to a pace any merely–human Olympic sprinter could have kept up
with. He could hear the roar of the van's engine behind him, and took a
sharp left into another alley. Wheels skidded on the slick film of oil and
rainwater, and brakes gave a banshee squeal as the van rounded the corner.
A chain–link fence blocked the end of the alley; beyond was a vacant lot full of
weeds and rain–soaked trash. Spike put on another desperate burst of speed
and launched himself upward, grabbing the top rail of the fence with both hands,
kicking off of the chain–link with his good leg, and vaulting over the top with,
dare it be said, supernatural grace.
He
landed less impressively, his injured leg buckling beneath him, and clamped his
teeth shut on another scream. The van roared fit to beat the late Ghora
demon. It wasn't slowing down. Spike hauled himself to his feet and
took off again. Behind him there was a spectacular crash as the van
barreled into the fence and ripped it right out of the ground. Shearing,
grinding metal noises ensued. Spike turned round and saw the van shudder
to a halt, front end smashed in and dragging a tattered cocoon of chain–link.
"I wouldn't try that again with a car built
after 1975, ducks!" he yelled, waving at the driver, who was pinned to his seat
by the expanded airbag and struggling futilely. Spike gave him a
two–fingered salute, turned his back, and sauntered off, limping as little as
inhumanly possible until he was out of sight.
He
had a few people to talk to before sunrise.
She woke at any little thing these days, so when
something rattled at her window Dawn's eyes snapped open. She lay there in
bed listening tensely for another noise. It was around five in the
morning, and the eastern sky was starting to grow pale. After a moment she
heard another urgent tapping, and then someone said "Bloody hell."
At the sound of that familiar North London
growl, Dawn relaxed and rolled out of bed, grabbed a robe, and tiptoed over to
the window. She fumbled with the catch in the dark for a moment and pulled
the window open, glancing nervously in the direction of her father's room as it
screeched. He'd always liked to sleep in on weekends, so maybe he'd sleep
through this.
Spike was hanging off her
windowsill, his pale face pressed against the screen. "Be a love and let
us in, Niblet," he whispered. "Sun's up in half a mo'."
Shit. She'd forgotten he didn't have an
invite to her father's apartment yet. "Come in, come in, come in!" she
whispered, struggling with the screen. It hadn't been intended to
open. Spike, having less compunction than she... make that no
compunction... about casual vandalism, took the expedient route of ripping it
out of the frame entirely, and heaved himself over the sill and into the room
like a salmon fighting its way upstream.
"Curtains!" he hissed.
"Stop spazzing!" Dawn
hissed back. "It's not even over the horizon yet." She pulled the
curtains tight anyway. "Hey. Are you all right?"
Spike was fairly obviously not all right; he
stood there in the middle of her room clutching his left hand to his chest,
looking even paler than usual. There were a couple of big ragged tears in
the right leg of his jeans, and she could see the trembling in the muscles of
his thigh when he put weight on it. "What happened to you?" Dawn whispered
furiously. She didn't really have to ask–-he'd gone out and gotten into
another fight, pissed off some creature far higher up in the demonic hierarchy
than a mere vampire, and gotten beat up. Again. As if any of that
would bring Buffy back, as if her being gone in the first place was his fault
and not hers. Damn him. He'd been better the last two
months. She'd thought they were through this part. At least this
time he hadn't been keeping company with Jack Daniels on top of it. "Don't
tell me. Sit down and I'll get the first aid kit."
The vampire collapsed onto her bed and Dawn
shook her head once, angrily, and stomped out into the hall towards the
bathroom. Suddenly she didn't care if her father woke up. Let him,
she thought viciously, yanking open the medicine cabinet and pulling the little
kit out. I'll just tell him the strange guy in my room was Buffy's
boyfriend, hah, no, MY boyfriend, a hundred and forty–some year old punker
boyfriend named Spike, that'll teach him–
Spike was lying flat on his back on her bed when she returned with the first aid
kit. "You're such a fucking IDIOT!" Dawn snarled, slamming the kit down on
the bedside table and pulling out a roll of bandages and iodine and
Neosporin. She didn't know if vampires could get infections, but it never
hurt to take precautions. "And you're getting blue demon–goo all over my
bedspread."
"Language, Niblet. I'll
front you a quarter for the laundrette," Spike mumbled without opening his
eyes. Dawn bit her lip. She had perforce become an expert in vampire
first aid over the last few months; Spike's normal
impulsive–to–the–point–of–self–destruction streak didn't mix well with grief and
guilt. She swabbed out the big wound in his thigh first, using tweezers to
pull the remaining Ghora–teeth out of the already–healing flesh, then went to
work on his hand.
"I can say fuck if I
fuckin' want to," Dawn snapped. "And you deserve the idiot. What did you
do, punch a brick wall?"
"Would I do
something that stupid?" Spike said, wincing as she wrapped the bandage around
his swollen hand. Broken bones took a while to heal, even for him.
Only a matter of days for something this minor, but... Dawn glared at him
and ripped off a piece of adhesive tape with her teeth. She was getting
the snarl down pretty well, too. But when she looked at him again the
expression on his lean face was so utterly lost that she had to blink back
tears.
"I thought you were over trying to get
yourself killed," she said huskily.
Spike
managed a grin. "Sorry, pet, suicidal tendencies are essential to my
charm. But I wasn't trying this time, honestly. Some blighters tried
to trank me and shove me in a van, and I objected. Oh, and a couple of
baby Ghora tried to nibble on me, but I don't hold it against them."
Dawn gave him a long, sharp look. She
could generally see right through him. Spike didn't look good; his face
was all drawn and he had dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks were too
hollow. But the despair that had lurked in the depths of those blue, blue
eyes since Buffy's death was... not gone, but not near enough the surface to
really worry her. She nodded grudgingly. She tossed her long brown
hair back over her shoulder and began stuffing Band–Aids and scissors back onto
the first aid kit. "Is your leg gonna be all right?"
"Right as rain in no time." He patted
the blood–stiffened black denim. The wound had been closing, slowly but
surely, even as she worked on it. Beneath the bandage there would be a
jagged six–inch weal standing out lividly against the pale flesh. By
tomorrow night it would be gone as if it had never been. Spike ran a hand
over his forehead wearily. "Probably ought to let Will and the
others know about this lot. They don't show enough discrimination in
victims for my taste."
"I'll give them a call
later this morning," Dawn said. She yawned. "You'd better stay here
today in case those guys are still looking for you."
"What about..." Spike cocked his head
meaningfully at the door. Dawn glanced in the same direction, her mouth
hardening.
"I'll take care of Dad. You
get some rest. You can probably wash up some without waking Dad up if
you're fast. There's blood in the fridge if you're hungry. I told
Dad it was a science project."
His look of
surprised gratitude was almost too much to bear. "I'll kip on the couch,
then. Best not put more nasty thoughts in your dad's head than we can
help." He gave her that devilish grin and got up, limping out of the room
and down the hall.
Buffy was so an
idiot, Dawn thought, and then wiped her eyes furiously. Which had made
her sister pretty much even with Spike. They were both idiots.
They'd deserved each other.
Which made it
even worse that they'd never gotten each other, except for that dumb spell of
Willow's last year.
She crawled back into bed
and burrowed under the covers, wondering what she was going to tell her
father. Spike's appearance didn't exactly inspire confidence in the best
of circumstances, and his attitude sucked, and... Hey, Dad, this is my best
pal Spike, and he's a vampire and if I really asked him to, he'd probably kill
you in a hot second, even if it did make his head explode. Well, no,
he probably wouldn't kill her father without permission from Buffy, and since
that wasn't likely to be forthcoming any time soon... OK, Dad, you're
safe.
Dawn shivered a little, though the
room was warm enough. The fact that she could think up stuff like this,
even as a joke, made her uneasy. Am I supposed to be Spike's conscience now
Buffy's gone? I don't even know if I can be my own conscience.
No more jokes like that, she decided. She couldn't deny there was a
certain secret satisfaction in pondering whether such total be–atches as Shawna
Finney in geography would have quite so many cutting things to say about last
year's nail polish with Spike's fangs buried in their throats, but what made the
thrill a marginally acceptable one was a reasonable certainty that Spike
wouldn't go through with it, not all the way, not really, and not just because
of the chip.
And it didn't matter if he would
or not, he deserved way better of her than to think of him as some sort of
personal attack pit bull.
Dawn sighed and
glanced at her clock. Almost six, and she wasn't going to get any more
sleep this morning. She flung the covers off, crawled out of bed and began
getting dressed.
Spike was fast asleep on the
couch, curled up under his duster, when she came out into the living room an
hour or so later. From the condition of the bathroom sink it looked as if
he'd cleaned off most of the demon goo first, and he'd left one of those
super–sized plastic soda cups with a congealing film of blood in the bottom on
the coffee table. That was about half the supply she'd had on hand, but he
always needed more when he was injured, and pig's blood, while apparently
providing the minimum daily requirements of whatever it was vampires needed,
wasn't exactly what they throve best on. He'd also helped himself to the
jelly donuts and the last of the milk. And left the near–empty milk jug in
the fridge to fake people out, naturally. "Pig," she muttered fondly,
settling for a shredded coconut donut and orange juice. Buffy would wind
up hanging out with the only vampire in creation who still liked human food.
Since it was past seven and technically not too
early any longer, she called Willow and relayed what little she knew about
Spike's midnight adventures. The witch promised to come over as soon as
she could.
Dawn was just hanging up the
phone when her father emerged from his bedroom, weekend–scruffy in the old
plaid bathrobe he'd owned for as long as she could remember. Mom had
told her once that it had been the first Christmas present Buffy had
gotten him with saved–up allowance money when she was seven. It made
her feel funny to realize how worn it looked. He hadn't noticed the
immobile Spike–shaped lump on the couch yet. He came over and smiled at
her, tousling her hair with one hand. "Da–aad," she complained,
twisting away from his hand.
"All right, you're far
too old for displays of parental affection. Who're you calling at this hour,
Sweetie?"
Some parental affection, Dawn
thought mutinously, clenching her teeth. You couldn't even get home for Mom's
funeral. Or Buffy's. "Willow," she said with all the indifference she
could muster. "She's coming over later."
Her
father pursed his lips and began dumping spoonfuls of instant coffee into a
mug. "Willow seems like a very nice girl," he said carefully, "though I'd
always been under the impression that she was more one of Buffy's friends."
"She was." Dawn didn't elaborate. "Is
this a 'you should have friends your own age' speech? Because I do, you
know. You've just never met them because you're never here." She
could hear her own voice going all sullen and bitter and didn't particularly
care. The Scoobies weren't just friends, they were... blood
brothers. Or sisters. Friends were for sleepovers and talking about
the Backstreet Boys.
"Dawn..." Her father
came over and sat down at the little Formica–topped table and sipped at his
scalding coffee. Dawn stared at the tabletop and silently hated it the way
she hated all the rest of the tacky furniture in the temporary apartment.
Nothing here was right. She wanted to go home. But home was closed
up with a 'For Sale' sign pounded into the front lawn. Her father gazed at
her, perplexed, uncertain. Faded hazel eyes, lines in his face she didn't
remember from six years ago, flyaway brown hair starting to go grey.
Starting to get old. Only human. She didn't care. "Dawn, I know this
has been very hard on you, but your sister..." He stopped in the face of
his younger daughter's hostile glare. "Your sister had a very
troubled few years. I'd thought... I'd hoped... she'd turned her
life around since college..."
The worst part of it
was, of course, that there was a catch in his voice and the hint of tears
in his eyes, and if she were even halfway honest with herself Dawn would have to
admit that her father had loved Buffy too, and loved her even now, even if he
hadn't shown it very well sometimes. But she didn't want to be honest and
she didn't want to admit there were any points on his side; she just wanted to
hate him with a clean conscience. So she just sat there in
contemptuous–teenage–lump mode, watching him flail.
"...I just think that it might be best for you to make a clean separation.
We'll be moving back to L.A. soon––"
"What!?"
Dawn didn't even try to hide the edge of panic in her voice. She gripped
the edge of the table, feeling the ridged aluminum biting into her
fingers. "Move to L.A.? Why?!"
Her
father rubbed his eyes. Obviously this wasn't a discussion he'd wanted to
get into at this point. "Hon, don't tell me this is a big
surprise. You know I have to go back to work soon."
"But... but all my friends are here!"
Her father was acquiring the
adult–assailed–by–twisted–teenage– logic look. "Sweetie, you'll make new
friends."
"JASON'S here!" she wailed. Not
that Jason knew she existed at the moment, but he was going to any day
now. And there was the Scooby Gang and they were just starting to see her
as something other than Buffy's bratty kid sister and there was Spike whom she
had to take care of. He was her responsibility, damn it!
"I can't move here, sweetie. And I can't just
leave you here..."
"Why not?" Dawn raged, leaping
to her feet. "You did it before! You left all of us and Mom's dead
and Buffy's dead and I wish I was dead too!"
Hank
looked helpless. "Hon..."
She jerked away and
strode into the living room. "Don't call me hon! You just
waltz in here and ruin my life, you don't get to call me hon."
He got up to follow her and maybe it was the coffee
kicking in at last, or maybe it was that Spike was sleep–breathing and starting
to snore slightly, but for the first time his gaze lit on the couch and
registered that there was someone lying on it. He froze, coffee–cup in
hand. "Dawn, honey," Hank Summers said through his teeth, "Who is this,
and why is he sleeping on our couch?"
Dawn tossed a
casual glance in the direction of the couch. "Spike. He's a friend
of Buffy's," she said dismissively. "He ran into some trouble last night
and needed to crash, and I told him he could stay here."
Hank looked at the limp figure on the couch, taking
in the unruly shock of bleached–blond hair, ripped clothes, and general air of
dissolution. "A friend of Buffy's," he repeated. He reached for the
curtain–pull.
"DON'T OPEN THOSE!" Dawn shrieked,
leaping after him and grabbing his hand. Her father stared at her as if
she'd gone insane.
"Dawn, I've had about enough of
you this morning," he said, very firmly. "We're going to wake... Spike...
up and he's going to leave now." He reached down and took hold of the
nearest leather–covered shoulder and shook it. A moment later his
determined expression became one of uncertainty, perhaps even a little fear, at
the stillness of the body, the lack of human warmth. His hand twitched
slightly. Then he moved to shake Spike's shoulder again, harder. No
response. Dawn began to feel a little uneasy herself. She knew
first–hand that the thing about vampires being comatose in the daytime was a
myth; sleepy and snarkier than usual, yeah, but...
"Dad..."
Her father's fingers tentatively brushed
against Spike's now–motionless chest. "Dawn," he said, very quietly, "Call
911."
A set of hard cold fingers clamped immovably
around his wrist. Dawn bit her lip nervously, but it had to be OK; the
chip hadn't gone off so Spike wasn't intending to cause any damage. One
winter–blue eye flicked open. "Bit premature," the vampire said.
"And mind the coat."
Her father jerked back and
Spike sat up in one boneless motion, making no attempt to keep hold of
Hank's wrist. He smiled up at her father. Not one of his more
endearing smiles, Dawn noted, but a far piece from his 'you're about to
die in the most painful way I can think of on short notice' one.
Seeing the two of them there together, the living man and the undead one,
brought home just how accustomed she'd grown to Spike, how much she took
him for granted. He was the most human vampire she'd ever met, even
more so than Angel in some ways, sitting there sleep– ruffled and
chipped–harmless, with powdered sugar from the purloined donuts all over
the front of his shirt. Yet something in that nowhere– near–his–nastiest
smile made her father start back, breathing hard.
To his credit, he did no more than that. "I'm afraid you'll have to
leave," Hank said firmly. "Dawn's got a busy day ahead."
"Ah?" Spike began his usual automatic rummage
through his coat pockets for cigarettes. "You'd be the prat who walked out
on Joyce, then? Can't say I'm pleased to meet you." He pulled a
not–too–crumpled pack out, shook his head sadly, and straightened it out, eyeing
Hank up and down with the air of someone sizing up a steak and finding it
wanting. "What was she thinking?" he murmured. "Well, don't let me
keep you. I could do with a bit more shuteye." He leaned back with
both hands laced behind his head, still smiling serenely. "Got a light,
mate?"
Her father blinked. "I'm afraid I'm
going to have to call the police."
I should tell
Dad he was MOM's boyfriend. "Dad, stop it!" Dawn stamped one
foot. "He can't go outside now!"
"He most
certainly––"
"Dad, he's a vampire! He'll burn
up!"
There was a long pause wherein Spike finally
found his lighter and puffed his slightly damaged cigarette to life. Dawn
favored him with a disgusted glare; she hated it when he smoked but it was sure
to annoy her father, which was a plus. Mom had never let him smoke in the
house, maybe she could put her foot down about it later. "Dawn..." her
father said at last.
"Are you going to claim Mom
never told you about the vampires, or Buffy being the Slayer?" Dawn
exploded. "We've known for years! Why do you think they put
all those crosses up in the house, huh? Sunnydale's on a Hellmouth,
it's crawling with vampires, and he's one of them!" She waved
furiously at Spike. "Check his pulse, Dad! You thought he was
dead, didn't you?"
"No need for Daddikins to get
that personal, pet," Spike observed, blowing a smoke ring. His brows knit
in concentration for a moment, and he shifted into game face and bared his
fangs. "Grr," he said. He didn't sound awfully enthusiastic about it
and Dawn was suddenly struck by the fact that she couldn't remember the last
time she'd seen him do that. The next moment he was human-looking
again. "Convincing, innit?"
What had she felt
the first time she'd seen a vampire do that? Scared, she was sure,
but the exact flavor of the emotion was long gone. Dawn watched
emotions cascade across her father's face: shock, fear, disbelief. But his
immanent explosion--or possibly collapse--was averted by a knock on the
door. With one last confused look at Spike, he went to open the
door. Willow and Tara were standing there on the landing, laptop in tow.
"Hello, Mr. Summers," Willow said,
sounding apprehensive. She peered round his shoulder. Tara,
standing behind her, waved at Dawn. "Dawn said––Oh, hi, Spike.
Is this a bad time?”