Digressions - Nihilistbear's Writings

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Bittersweet Symphony – Chapter One Author’s Note: This chapter dedicated to Meg as her Christmas present. ~~~~~~ “Where the hell have you been?” Angel heard Spike ask. “Jesus Christ, Dawn, I’ve been insane looking for you.” “I heard,” she said distantly. “So I came by. Just to let you know.” “Let me know… let me know what?” Spike asked, but Angel already had an idea of what Dawn was here to say. You didn’t hide from the only person you had left on the planet for two fucking years when you wanted to see them. “I’m leaving,” Dawn said. Angel had known she was going to say that, and he knew there wasn’t going to be a happy ending to this conversation. “I’m going to go for a walk,” Angel announced, getting off the bed and pulling a shirt over his head. Neither person acknowledged him. ~~~~~~ “Leaving?” Spike exploded as soon as Angel closed the door. “What do you mean, you’re leaving.” Dawn narrowed her eyes. “I mean I’m leaving, Spike. Did you get stupid living in L.A. for so long?” “You’ve been gone for two goddamned years, Dawn, and now you show up to say you’re leaving. Leaving what? Going where?” Spike crossed his arms and glared at her. Dawn closed her eyes for a moment, and Spike was suddenly terrified she would just turn around and walk out. Walk away and leave him with worthless spells and even more regrets. He stepped towards her to stop her, but she opened her eyes and held up a hand to stop him. “No, Spike. I can’t… I can’t live in this world anymore. In this…” She spread her arms wide and looked around. “In this place were there’s demons and vampires and everyone I love just gets killed. I’m done with it. So I’m leaving it behind, and I’m going to go live a nice normal life… somewhere.” “There’s - ” and he didn’t want to say the word vampires so he swallowed it. “There’s things such as those everywhere, Dawn. You can’t run away from it.” “I know that! Hello? I’ve lived that my entire life!” Dawn snapped. “But at least I can go somewhere quiet, and ignore them, like everyone else does, and – and let someone else die because of them. Someone I don’t know or give a damn about.” “Dawn…” this wasn’t the girl he remembered. A thousand memories, the tiny girl huddled in a classroom, before he’d known who she was; eyes looking at him between the slats of the stairs; legs curled underneath her in his crypt; sprawled in his arms that awful summer; glaring at him icily and swearing she’d kill him if he touched her sister. And she wasn’t the sophisticated London girl he’d seen on all those trips to England with the Slayers, in the few moments he wasn’t with Buffy and Dawn wasn’t with a crowd of girls like herself, long limbed and sensual, and so very carefree. The last two years had worn her down, whittled the flesh off her body. Always so spare to begin with, and now she was barely skin and bone. Shadowed eyes, slumped shoulders, and she hadn’t smiled in months, he’d wager; her mouth had that tight look about it that her sister had always had in those early months, when Buffy’d first come back. “Take me with you,” he said suddenly, not sure where the words came from but knowing he’d been looking for her so he could say them. “Wherever you’re going, take me with you.” Dawn laughed bitterly, a harsh sound that seemed to scrape her throat. “Newsflash, moron. You’re a vampire. If you come with me I’m dragging it all along.” Spike’s eyes darkened. “Newsflash, girly. You’re a giant ball of energy, and you can’t shed that, can you pet?” He stepped forward again, right in her face now. “Stuck with yourself forever, aren’t you?” “God, you are such an asshole!” She shoved him back and headed for the door. “Fuck this. I don’t even know why I bothered. It’s not like you were ever really around after you showed up alive any way.” Spike reached the door before she did, slammed a hand against. “Not leaving yet, pet. Obviously you have some issues you need to work out, and we’re going to do some of that before you set one foot on your road to normalcy. Understand?” Dawn crossed her arms and glared at him, and for moment, Spike thought she might stick out her tongue at him, like all those nights he’d watched her and made her go to bed on time. But she didn’t - of course she didn’t, the girl was twenty-eight now, not fifteen - and he dragged himself back to reality. “Now, I’m sorry for the comment before. It’s not something I should have said. But you can’t just walk away from me with some trumped up excuse such as that after you show up here. You must have something you wanted to say to me, so say it, and be done, and we’ll discuss the rest after. Yeah?” He held out a hand to her, and long, tense moments passed before she took it. He pulled her in for a rough, brief hug, then flung an arm over her shoulders and lead her to the ancient couch. “Now tell me what brought you here,” he said softly. “And I’ll listen all quiet like, and not interrupt.” Dawn leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes. “I… after Buffy died. You were there. You remember the funeral, right?” she didn’t let him answer, but kept speaking. “Well, after you and Angel left, I went back to my apartment - I’d had my own place for so long, but there was always someone drifting in and out, and after… after everyone else, Buffy was there almost all the time. “ She sighed. “It was so empty. So damned empty. And I looked at all the pictures of people I’d never see again, all those girls I’d helped train who went out and died, and all my – my family, who were all gone, too. And I cracked. I threw everything I could into a couple suitcases, liquidated my account, and booked a plane ticket.” “Go on,” Spike murmured, and knew she barely heard, because all the words just had to come out of her or they’d poison her. “I don’t even know where the ticket was going. I got off when they told me to, and I holed up in a hotel room for three months and thought. And I thought and I thought, just got caught inside my head… you remember how it was sometimes that summer?” She looked over at him. He nodded, remembering how Dawn would get caught inside her head, caught in some thought and unable to get free unless someone dragged her from it, either himself or Tara. But there was no Tara with her, and he hadn’t been with her either. He never felt so worthless as he had at that moment. He wanted to apologize, say something to make it better, beg her forgiveness, but all he did was nod again. Because listening to her anguish for the last two years would be enough penance. He hoped. “Yeah well, after that, I figured you would start looking for me, if you hadn’t already, so I contacted one of Willow’s girls in Brazil - The ticket ended up being for Rio, which was a blessing. I made her teach me some spell, something to hide myself from locator spells and all that, and I ran. I just… I ran.” She shuddered. “I had to think. Or something. So I bailed, and I hid. And I wanted to come here, just to let you know, but I wasn’t sure I really could. I had no idea what I was really going to do, and if I’d ended up her, I would have crawled behind your back and let you handle it all, and you would have. Because that’s you when it’s me.” She looked at him again. “You know that, right? You always… you always used to take whatever it was that was making me unhappy on yourself. Saved me from the bad stuff.” “Yeah,” he said softly. “But that’s my job, innit? Getting rid of the monsters that plague you?” She smiled a wobbly little smile and Spike held back the urge to kiss her. He’d wanted her for so many years. It was always an undercurrent to what he felt for Buffy, but it was there, shimmering under the surface, and so many of those trips to Europe he’d just wanted to tell Buffy to keep Angel, and let him go off after Dawn. See if maybe she wanted him a little. He could live with just a little of her; it wasn’t as though he’d had all of anyone before. But that was one of those pipe dreams, because she was still Buffy’s baby sister, and he didn’t have it in him to cause such a rift in what little family those two had left. Nine years of hurried weeks with Buffy and the briefest glimpses of Dawn, a hug here or a cuppa there, when each of them had a free moment. And those bits had been enough, but now she was to take even that from him. “Spike?” Dawn said softly. “What are you thinking about?” “So you came to a decision, and that decision is to never let yourself cower behind me again. Is that it?” He tried to keep the hurt and the frustration from his voice, because seeing her after Buffy died hadn’t been about wanting her, it had been about them comforting each other and she’d been gone. “That’s a little harsh,” she muttered. She moved to stand but Spike’s hand pressed back against her shoulder. “No. We’re not done, and I’m sorry again for my words. You just don’t see how hard it’s been. Not knowing where you are. You’re – you’re family. We are, of sorts.” He shook his head a little; what the hell was he trying to accomplish? “And I would have liked someone around who remembered your sis.” “You had Angel.” Dawn said calmly. “If anyone remembers Buffy, it’s him.” “Ah, Angel.” Spike snorted at that. “Yeah, he’s a talker, that one. Big with the tearful reminiscing. You can always talk to Angel. He’s a fucking babbling brook.” Spike shook his head. “‘Sides, last thing I wanted was to discuss your sister with her other man. That could only end in a brutal f- fight.” Almost slipped there, almost told Dawn more than she would ever need to know about his relationship with the hulking silent bastard that shared this apartment. Still, Dawn was twenty-eight now - a thought he can barely wrap his mind around - and he could tell from the way she’d stiffened when his voice had faltered that she knew what he’d been about to say. “Ah,” she murmured. “Well, I need to go. Just, I’m alive, and fine and - ” “Taking me with you,” Spike said calmly. “No!” She snapped. She got up from the couch and headed to the door again, and again Spike beat her to it. “I’ll go with you, Dawn. And we’ll say nothing of monsters and vampires and demons. But I know…” he leaned towards her a little, let her see how he wanted her, and hoped the arousal he’d always smelled on her when she got to close to him. “I know you’d rather I went with you, yeah, Pet?” Dawn’s eyes drifted shut and she moved slightly closer to him. She felt it still, which was a blessing. “You want me beside you for a bit, don’t you?” She opened her eyes again. “Yeah, I do.” She stepped away from him. “But not forever, Spike. I don’t have that left in me anymore. So this is a short little road trip, and then I’ll get settled, and you’ll come back. Got it?” And Spike might have protested that. But he could tell that at the moment she believed it. He wasn’t going to push his luck; it never worked with these Summers’ girls. He’d convince her to keep him later. He heard Angel walking up the stairs. Dawn did as well, and moved away from the door quickly. He could feel the guilt coming off her, and he wanted to tell her that Angel wouldn’t really give a damn if he left or not. Angel didn’t really give a damn about anything much these days. Angel walked in the room, and Spike saw him glance at them both before fixing them with a blank look. “Taking off?” he said, and Spike was surprised by the tension that Angel was giving off, as though Angel was worried about this. As though Angel might miss him. “Dawn, go wait in the car,” he said quietly. “I’ll be there shortly.” She slid past him and down the stairs, scurrying as fast as she could so she could skip this next scene. Spike wasn’t exactly sure what he could say to Angel at this juncture, so he just gathered up what few clothes he had and tossed them on the bed. He tried not to notice Angel’s crossed arms and forbidding glare, tried not to give in, run downstairs and tell Dawn she’d have to hang around L.A. because he couldn’t leave Angel alone. It was utter bollocks. Angel couldn’t care less; Spike knew that. He probably was just pissed that Spike wouldn’t be around to fuck, and he’d have to leave the apartment and find some other playmate. He looked up from the pile of clothes and caught Angel’s eyes. “I’m off,” he said, and there was other things he wanted to say, but Angel cut him off. “I got that,” Angel replied. “Have fun.” And beneath the cool words, Spike sensed something like… loss? Regret? Whatever it was, Spike couldn’t bear it. He wrapped his hands around Angel face, slanted a kiss across the older vampire’s unmoving mouth. He nipped at the lower lip, tasted Angel’s blood. It was powerful, and it was old. It was… family. “I’ll be back,” he swore, “I’ll come back.” He meant it. This thing with Dawn would end one day, and on that day, he’d return to Angel, because… because family was all they really had left. He gathered up his clothes and left the apartment before Angel could respond, but he still heard Angel’s parting words. “It’s not like I want you here anyway!” Angel shouted. Truth, no doubt, but Angel wouldn’t kick him out when he came back He slid into Dawn’s car and tossed his clothes over the seats. He looked at the windows. “Dark tint, pet? Sure you weren’t planning on me coming along after all?” he teased. Dawn looked at him with those shadowed, almost empty eyes. Spike let himself a moment of grief for the girl she used to be, a tiny memorial to the girl who’d always been so alive. “Hardly,” she said calmly. “I just don’t much like sunlight these days.” She threw the car into gear. “We better make some time before the sun comes up,” she added. “I want to be in Sunnydale while it’s still dark. I have some… good-byes to make.” Go To Chapter Two - Coming Soon! Table Of Contents Pick Another Series 17 December 2004