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Title: Untitled Fic For mr. monkeybottoms
Author: Devil Piglet
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: All characters of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ are used without permission.
Author’s Notes: Post 'Angel' S5, 'Buffy' S7.
Feedback: Reviews are welcome: devilpiglet@yahoo.com.

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Part 2: The Maddening Shroud

It's been a week. Dawn’s getting dangerously comfortable, even though Spike clearly isn’t thrilled about her presence here.

At least she doesn’t think he is. It’s hard to tell, to be honest. They skirt around each other, Spike gone most of the time and tired when he does show up. So Dawn sometimes leaves him a sandwich, or soup he can heat up, or Chinese food - paid for out of the wad of cash he left on the bed her first day here. He eats it and thanks her, and then crashes on the chair across from the couch (even though she's left plenty of room next to her) while they watch 'Most Extreme Elimination Challenge'. They've started calling each other Kenny and Vic, after the show's hosts, but that's the extent of their rapport.

At first she's surprised that Buffy hasn't called, and then she realizes that Buffy probably doesn't know how to reach Spike. He lets slip that he's moved a couple of times, and Dawn thinks that he used it as an excuse to lose touch with them. And maybe Buffy used it as an excuse, too. She wouldn't tell Dawn that kind of thing.

She wouldn't tell Dawn anything, now. At night when Dawn closes her eyes all she can see is Buffy's tear-stained, horrified face. Buffy, shouting "What did you do?" and then sick shame overwhelms Dawn, the darkness accusing her until she goes out to the living room again. Sometimes Spike joins her if he hears the television going.

He doesn't take her around to meet his friends, or Angel (if Angel's still around) but Dawn doesn't mind. She's comfortable inside, safe; even when Spike's not in the apartment she can still feel him there. From the eighth-floor windows she can look out and see the city, but no one (he) can’t see her.

"Are you dating anyone?" she asks Spike one night. It's only fair; she's the relationship-killer, literally, and she doesn't want to ruin whatever Spike's got going.

"Not really."

"What does that mean?"

"Means I won't be bringing anyone back here."

"Oh." She feels inexplicably hurt by that. Is he ashamed of her? ‘My ex's kid sister. Couch-surfing 'til she gets up the nerve to go home.’ Which will be, like, never.

So she's doubly relieved when he slinks home one night and tosses a stack of papers on the coffee table in front of her. "Still good with languages?"

She picks up the reams of materal. "Sure.” Actually, she’s pretty rusty, but she can get it back. “Do you need help? Can I do something?"

"Those have to be translated by Friday. There’s a Frovlax in Culver City pays double for rush jobs." He hands her the black case he'd been holding under his arm. "Laptop. Yours for as long as you're working for me."

She can't help the giddy grin that crosses her face. She kneels up on the sofa, almost eye-level with him. "I'm working for you?"

"Might as well."

If he's giving her stuff to do, he's not ready to kick her to the curb just yet. She can't bear the thought of that, for reasons that go beyond the obvious; if Spike had been with her he'd have stolen better stuff and scared them into nightly motel rooms, but intimidation has never been Dawn's forte. She remembers waking up in bus stations, in parks, huddled deep within her filthy rags and trying not to be noticed (by him, lurking around corners and alleyways, the ghost of the life she stole).

She’s the little match girl circa 2005, with thousand-year-old blood on her hands.

She looks down, expecting to see it there still. And then she feels Spike’s eyes on her, and they both know what she was looking for.

“Do it myself, sometimes,” Spike tells her. And that shouldn’t make her feel better, but it does.

***

He should ring Buffy.

Rupert would know how to reach her, would know the state she's in. But Spike's not her lackey anymore, and he doesn't want her to think he's riding the coattails of her latest tragedy. And besides, he promised Dawn. Stupid thing to promise, of course, but years apart haven't changed her sway over him.

He'd felt the old, unfamiliar rage (unfamiliar because it was personal) rise in him at the sight of her - dirty and hollow-eyed with the bones poking out of her skin. She'd always been a coltish child, but never like this - skeletal, pasty, worn out and used up. He hopes (foolishly?) that Buffy is in better shape; it’s a toss up as to whether guilt or grief is the more destructive force. He took advantage of both, once.

It's tempting to toss Dawn out just to avoid the guaranteed upcoming confrontation with Buffy. He doesn't want to see her again, not like this, not with more pain between them. Privately he'll always believe that if Dawn really has killed the Immortal it's not a moment too soon and the bastard was likely begging for it, anyway. Buffy will know that the moment she sets eyes on Spike.

But then he thinks, hell with that. He's not Buffy’s keeper nor Dawn’s, not anymore, and he's not getting in the middle of this dead boyfriend bullshit. Not when he was never the dead boyfriend in question.

She's working now, spread out in the living room in a way he thinks can't be efficient but he's had no complaints from the Frovlax. Dawn's making damn good money these days, though she doesn't seem to notice.

She’s staring off into space, like she does at times; the introspection is unlike her and he’s sure she’s reliving the last hours in Italy. She doesn’t leave the house, when before he had his hands full keeping her in. It can’t be healthy, can it, this self-imposed exile?

“You want to go shopping?” he asks her one night after they’ve exhausted all that premium cable has to offer.

She frowns at him, jerked out of her reverie and wary. “Huh?”

“I just figured, what with your new income and all, maybe you might want to get some clothes of your own.”

Dawn looks down at her latest ensemble – fuchsia pleated skirt that ends well above the knee, and an aqua blouse with little bows for buttons. “Why? Did you, um…need these?”

“Hell, no. Harmony won’t be back for at least another month or two – takes her that long to work off a mad. And by then she’ll have bagfuls of new stuff anyway, that I’ll have to carry in even though she’s got the super-strength now –“

“Harmony?” Dawn looks down again, this time appalled. “You gave me Harmony’s clothes?”

“Well, yeah.” Spike senses he’s stepped on a landmine and backtracks hurriedly. “You look better in ‘em, you know,” he offers. “Far less slutty. And her being blonde and all, the taupes sometimes washed her out.”

“Spike, she kidnapped me.” But even as the words are spoken he can see Dawn’s disgust fading, muted by that same quiet despondency that’s marked her stay here. “I was wondering why I kept getting this weird Britney-meets-Miss Moneypenny vibe whenever I got dressed.”

“Harm had a unique style,” Spike agrees. “So what do you say?”

She pulls her stack of translations closer. “Thanks for asking,” she tells him politely, “but I think I’d rather stay in.”

He could pursue it, threaten and tease her out of her sadness, but he doesn’t. That’s not how they are anymore.

One night, though, he doesn’t have a choice.

He’s calling the house for the third Goddamn time, because his shrinking violet roommate doesn’t like to answer the phone when Spike’s not around. Finally, though, she picks up.

“Dawn, pet,” he has to raise his voice over the sound of a busted, spraying fire hydrant and the ringing in his own ears. “Be a love and come get me - the used tire place on Normandie and Eighth. Car’s in the garage, keys are on the dresser. I’m covered in bloody Y'vharrnal innards and if I walk back I’ll have every dog in the neighborhood following me home.”

Her reluctance freezes the phone line. “I – I can’t, Spike, I haven’t driven for practically years –”

“So? You didn’t forget how. I’m the one taught you. You’ll do fine.”

“Spike –”

“Dawn, I’m dripping intestines here! Quit arguing and come pick me up!”

She makes a strangled, inarticulate sound, and then the line goes dead. He tries calling back but there’s no answer, which means she’d either buggered off entirely or is on her way.

Twenty minutes later, though, the battered old Buick screeches its way to where he’s standing. Dawn rushes out of the driver’s side, teary and babbling and generally hysterical. She’s alone and uninjured, though, so he thinks she got herself into an accident. Three bloody miles at one a.m. and she managed to hit something -

“Spike – oh, God – please, you have to help me –”

Spike’s got her by the shoulders, but absently, looking over the top of her head for damage to the car. Damage that wasn’t there yesterday, that is. He can’t see any, so he shrugs inwardly and turns his attention back to Dawn. “There, Dawn. It’s all right, see? No harm, no foul. Won’t even make you drive home.” He gives her a bracing squeeze – not a hug, not really – and goes around to the back of the car to see if he’s got anything in the boot to wipe this muck off him.

“Don’t!” Dawn all but screeches. “He’s back there!”

Spike stops. “There’s someone in the car?”

“Him. The Immortal. He was in the backseat the whole way.”

Spike digests this, takes another, longer look at Dawn’s wild eyes and clenched fists. “Stay right there, then. Okay? Just going to check things out.” But he’s already got a sinking suspicion of what he’ll find, and what he won’t.

He opens the back door of the car carefully. Nothing there but Netflix DVDs he hasn’t returned, fast-food wrappers and a dog-eared copy of Auden.

Dawn edges up next to him. “He follows me,” she whispers. “He follows me everywhere. Except your place, he won’t come there.” The sobbing starts, soft and despairing. “I told him I’m sorry. I told him I didn’t mean to. Make him leave me alone, Spike.”

Spike looks again at the empty backseat, while Dawn buries her head into his jacket and weeps.

Part 3: Bones of Other Rooms

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