Digressions - Nihilistbear's Writings

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Malibu Author’s Note: Written for Meg in the Dawn/Spike ficathon. She wanted Dawn and Spike, romantic pairing, how they got together, some angst, happy ending, no Buffy bashing. So here ya go. This is one of those future fics with the evol roaming flashback scenes. Because I suck. Set post AtS. Spike/Dawn. Story title and lyrics from Malibu by Hole. Rating: PG 13, I suppose. Sexual references are made, but no explicit sex. I think that’s PG-13; or is that R? ~~~~~~ How’d you get so desperate? How’d you stay alive? ~~~~~~ Looking back, it’s hard for Dawn to remember a time when Spike wasn’t a part of her life. Hard to remember that for eleven years of her life, she had no idea who Spike was. None. Of course, then she reminds herself that for the first eleven years of her so called life, she didn’t really exist. When she thinks like that, she usually curls herself against Spike motionless side and sleeps instead. Because Spike is always her haven from thought, her moment in time where it’s just silence. Spike is peace. Spike is her port in this troubled life, and all that other maudlin stuff she thinks about after four years as an English major. Spike is always inextricably tied in with the idea of safety. And so she doesn’t think about it. ~~~~~~ Dawn huddled in the corner of the girls’ bathroom and tried really hard not to breathe too loud. Really, really hard, because there were these scary people outside that had smashed right through the windows of the school, and somehow she’d lost her mom, and now she was all alone and trying not to breathe to loud and hoping that whoever was supposed to fix this was going to do it soon. Stupid Buffy. She always got them all in trouble like this. “Come out, come out wherever you are…” someone singsonged outside with an accent that sounded a little bit like Buffy’s librarian’s voice. “Gonna find you… and then… I’m going to kill you.” And she was trying so hard to be quiet, but when she heard that voice, so calm and confident and enjoying itself as it plotted murder, she couldn’t stop the whimper. The footsteps paused outside the bathroom door, and she wished frantically she’d had one second to hide in a stall, one moment to curl herself up and hide her feet rather than be in a tiny ball under the sinks before the door banged open and Mr. “I’m gonna kill you” was standing there. He had the strangest face… all ridges and stuff, but it must have been a trick of the light, because suddenly she was looking at really hot guy with blue eyes and bleached hair and omigodJohhnyDeppcheekbones. Not hot like Buffy’s friend Xander, who was the cutest boy ever, but definitely a close second. “What’s a pretty morsel like you doing all by herself when there’s scary things wandering the halls, pet?” he asked in that funny accent. “I lost my mom,” she whispered, and okay, he was the bad guy, but if he was a really bad guy, and if she was the one he was looking for, wouldn’t he just have killed her already? “Ah… got an older sib in high school, hmm?” he asked as he kept staring at her and she could tell he was debating something in his head even as he had this conversation with her. “Yeah, and my mom doesn’t think I’m old enough to stay at home alone,” she said, just the slightest hint of bitterness in her voice. “I’m like, eleven. I can so be alone in the house.” Mr. “I’m gonna kill you” chuckled. “Be that as it may,” he said, “this is no place for a sweet thing such as yourself.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Marie!” he snapped. “C’mere. I got a job for you. And come here looking normal.” A thin girl with long brown hair was at the doorway before the guy was even done talking. “You’re gonna walk this one home. And you are not going to try and get inside, and you are not to hurt her in any way. Got it?” The girl looked distinctly unhappy. “But… the Slayer…” she whined. “It’ll be worth your while, pet.” He smirked at the skinny girl. “And there will be no Slayer death before you return. I promise.” “But…” The guy’s face lost the smirk. “Don’t argue,” he said darkly. “Or I’ll just kill you myself and be done with it.” The girl sighed. “Yes, Spike,” she muttered. Spike. Mr. “I’m gonna kill you” was named Spike. ~~~~~~ She used to wonder about things like that, back in the days before she formed an opinion of any sort. Why her memories of Spike were always so positive. Why she remembered him chuckling at her when she swatted him with a pillow the day Buffy brought him home, remembered wrapping her thin arms around his neck when his drunk ramblings about Drusilla woke her up and telling him Drusilla was stupid to ever leave someone with such omigodJohnnyDeppcheekbones. Everyone else remembered Spike as the scary killer, but she’s always remembered him as the good guy, as the guy who made another vampire walk her home and not eat her, as the guy who saved her that weird night. But she’s given herself the time and space to really think about it, to dwell on the possibilities and decipher the past, and she thinks that Spike kind of called her into existence. Oh sure, the monks had supposedly made her to hide Glory’s stupid key, but why not hide it in something less fragile? Something that didn’t bleed, something that couldn’t be opened. Like Mount Everest. Why hadn’t they made her into Mount Everest, for example? But those are usually even more aimless thoughts, and rather then let herself dwell to deeply, she just nudges Spike awake and covers his mouth with hers, and he lets her stop thinking. ~~~~~~ “I hate her,” Dawn growled as she sat in Giles’ living room. “As if I can’t help mash potatoes. She is such a control freak.” She glared over her shoulder at Buffy, who was caught in an argument about the ghosts that made Xander really sick. “Preaching to the choir, Bit,” Spike said as he hungrily eyed her neck, which should have freaked her out, but he couldn’t bite her anymore anyway, so she chose to ignore it. “She’s got me tied to a chair when there’s nothing I can do to harm a single living thing.” “At least she knows you can do stuff. She doesn’t even think I can tie my own shoes.” She glowered at the coffee table. “She thinks I’m a little kid.” “You are a little kid,” Spike said exasperatedly. “You’re what? Thirteen?” “Almost fourteen,” Dawn said grumpily. “Well, in the summer anyway.” “It’s November,” Spike replied. “The summer is a long way off.” “That’s so not the point,” she said. “The point it, Buffy thinks I’m useless and that’s so unfair, because there’s lots I can do.” “Well, she thinks I’m useless too,” Spike said calmly. “Which is why we’re stuck here in the living room while she and the Brat Patrol try and figure out how to save Thanksgiving.” “You’re not getting it!” Dawn yelled. Buffy looked over at them from the kitchen and frowned. Dawn smiled quickly. “I’m trying to teach Spike about Cat’s Cradle.” She said loudly. “Just keep it down,” Buffy snapped. “I ask you to do one little thing. Occupy Spike who is tied to a chair while we get this done and you-” “I get it!” Dawn snapped. “Just go back to whatever you’re doing okay?” She turned back to Spike. “See what I mean? This is what it’s always like.” “Well I have a plan, and you’ll feel useful and I’ll get fed. How’s that sound?” Spike asked. Dawn eyed him suspiciously, but the knots Buffy had tied seemed tight. “What plan?” And Spike outlined The Plan: Sneak into Giles’ room, get money, get blood, feed Spike. The fact it went off with hardly any hitch just made it all cooler. And it was something she never told Buffy. Because Buffy preferred not to know some things, like her little sister’s fascination with a vampire who had nearly killed her on Parent/Teacher night. ~~~~~~ But Dawn’s not like Buffy. She can’t just sweep the insensibilities of her life under the rug and pretend they don’t exist, pretend everything makes sense just because it does. So sometimes she doesn’t curl against Spike, sometimes she doesn’t wake him up and kiss the thoughts away. Sometimes, once in awhile, she lets herself really think about her reality, about her life and existence, about her reason for being. And in the end, it always comes back to Spike. ~~~~~~ “Dawn? What’re you doing here?” Spike looked at her blearily as he climbed the ladder from the basement of the crypt. “I can’t sleep,” she muttered. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered a little. “I had nightmares.” Spike walked towards her slowly, and she could tell by the careful way he was placing his feet that he was really, really drunk. Which didn’t shock her all that much; ever since Buffy died, Spike had been in a state of drunk, almost drunk, or recovering enough to drink again. It was almost comforting, really; what with Willow and Tara moving into Mom’s room, and Giles staring out the window of the Magic Box, and Xander and Anya acting… well, she couldn’t describe it, but it was weird, it was nice that Spike was pretty much the same from day to day. He stopped a few feet in front of her. “Nightmares,” he muttered. “Tell me, were the stars telling you the world would end in fire before falling into the ocean and making all the waters bitter?” “Um, no,” she replied. She shivered again and Spike grabbed his coat and draped it around her shoulders. “Why?” “That’s what Dru had nightmares about,” he said with a shrug. He led her to the couch and settled on it, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her against his side. “Want to tell me about yours?” She drew her legs up under her and curled against him more tightly. Light and pain and then I wasn’t real anymore…“Not really,” she whispered. “Can you tell me a story?” He never questioned her, and he never told the same story twice. And she’d usually fall asleep against his side as he spoke, comforted by his voice, soft and rough, the accent less harsh, and by his unmoving body. ~~~~~~ See, she’s let herself develop the theory in the moments when she’s not too afraid to really look deep, and she gets it. Sort of. The monks hadn’t been allowed to her into something strong because Spike needed her. Because somewhere in his newly chipped, newly Drusilla-free world, he’d needed someone to worry over. Someone to take care of, protect. Something to define himself. So the Powers, or God, or whatever was really in charge, took over part of the planning. And instead of making her something really big and tough like Mount Everest, they made her a scared fourteen-year-old girl so Spike could feel useful again. And then they’d taken her sister away from her, and made her realize how unlike everyone else she really was so she’d gravitate towards Spike. Or something like that, and after thinking that, she tries not to think anymore and just goes to sleep, curled against Spike, still comforted by his stillness in a way that she’s sure Buffy never really was. ~~~~~~ Two years after leaving Sunnydale, Buffy died. Again. And no one was going to bring her back. Dawn hadn’t even told anyone she was gone; she was saving that for another day. A day a long time from now, when they wouldn’t be able to find Buffy’s grave, because they wouldn’t be able to find Dawn. The second time Buffy died was harder than the first. Well, actually it was the third time Buffy died, but Dawn tried really hard not to count the first time since she was one, not real and two, not there even if she had been real. A night funeral. Their lives seemed defined by funerals these days, and Buffy’s had been at night before so Angel and Spike could come. Not this time, though. No one really knew where Spike and Angel were, or even if they were alive. There’d been some kind of war in Los Angeles last summer, some huge battle that was over before they'd evenheard about it on this side of the Atlantic. No one had heard anything from them since Andrew had nervously blurted out that they'd both visited Italy. But Dawn had a feeling Spike would show up. Spike was always there when she needed him, and she really needed him right now. She knew Spike would look past all the crap she’d put him through last time she saw him and be here. Because she’d never needed him so badly. So, another night funeral for a sister that wasn’t really hers. “Ashes to ashes…” so hard to find an English priest in Italy. How could that be so hard? Priests were a dime a dozen here, but finding one who spoke English and didn’t go all hardcore with the ritual had damn near killed her. Not to mention the funny look he’d given her when she’d asked for a night ceremony. She lifted one hand to her face and wiped away the tears. She wouldn’t sob in the cemetery at night. She wouldn’t. She could handle this. She could do it. She’d been raised by two of the strongest women on the planet. She could handle it. She was a Summers, goddammit. She didn’t cry. She collapsed on the ground by Buffy’s freshly turned grave, wrapped her arms around her legs, buried her face in her knees and sobbed. Sobbed for everything and everyone she lost, sobbed for her sister like she hadn’t when she was fourteen and standing between Spike and Angel and making Angel back down. She let herself be weak, even if no one was there to catch her. When the sobs were finally slowing down, she felt it. A long jacket draped over her shoulders, an arm slung over the jacket, pulling her against someone who wasn’t breathing. Spike. “What’s wrong, Dawn?’ that voice from that awful summer, the one voice that made the nightmares go away. “I had a nightmare,” she said, her voice still heavy with unshed tears. “Did the world end in fire as the sun channeled its way through your soul?” he asked lightly, helping her to her feet. “Um, no,” and how easily they fell back into this pattern. It was comforting. “Why?” “That’s what I have nightmares about,” he said with a shrug. “Want to tell me about it?” The arm around her shoulders tightened briefly. She huddled closer to his side, and she realized half-dazedly she was almost as tall as him. I dreamed I buried Buffy and you weren’t there. “Not really. Tell me a story?” “Well, that will have to wait until we’re somewhere more comfortable,” Spike replied. “Let’s get home and then I’ll tell you the best story yet.” “Does it have a dragon?” she asked. “All the best stories have dragons,” and it felt strange to be so light-hearted, but she was going to blame it on giddiness and the fact she hadn’t let the truth sink in too deeply yet. “As a matter of fact, it does,” Spike replied. “And if you’re lucky, it might even have a princess. Well, a demon warrior goddess, but that’s just semantics, innit?” And that night he told her the story, between kisses and caresses, between her door and her couch and her bed, between taking her him inside for the first time and realizing that it was what had been missing, that Spike was always what had been missing from her life. ~~~~~~ They went back to California. And now they live in Malibu, in a house near the beach with gorgeous windows that are always covered in heavy black drapes. She can look out, but no one can look in. And the sun can’t get Spike. Sometimes people walk by and stare for a while trying to figure out why anyone would live on the beach with floor-to-ceiling windows and keep them draped. Why anyone would live in California and not enjoy the sunshine. Dawn’s thought about that herself. Why this house? Why California? They could have gone anywhere, but they came back here, close to their roots. Maybe because, after a century of wandering, like Spike, or millennia as energy, like her, they need something they can call home. Something that’s theirs, something they can come back to. Something no one can take away. She gets off the couch and heads to the bedroom. Spike’s waiting for her to wake him up; it’s a ritual. So much of their life is ritual, from her making breakfast and heating his blood, to him telling her a story after they have sex, before she drifts off to sleep, curled against his side. It’s giving Spike a reason to keep on keeping on. And that’s what she’s here for. And sometimes she lets herself extend the theory a little bit, and she thinks maybe Spike was made for her, too. Thinks that maybe this was something planned before reality even had a name, before gods and demons and humans and even before giant balls of universe destroying energy. One of these days, when she has the theory all hammered out, she’ll call someone from the old gang, and she’ll tell them a story about a vampire and a key, about two people who weren’t meant to exist but did anyway. About two people who made something that made sense out of this world. It’ll be the best story yet. ~~~~~~ Go and part the sea, yeah, in Malibu ~~~~~~ Go Back to Other Stories 09 December 2004