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Fic: Love and Blackmail (2/3)
About a thousand and a half years ago, I posted the first part of a fic for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
good__evil"s Art-a-thon. You may or may not remember it. I subsequently got completely distracted by a million other things and I've only just recently returned to it. I apologize profusely that it took so long; I've had a blast writing it, and with some encouragement (*coughangeariacough*), I'm back with the next chapter! And I'm already working on the one after that!
So! On to the next chapter of Dawn-worship!
Title: Love and Blackmail
Fandom: Buffyverse
Written for:good__evil's Art-a-Thon
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: post-"Not Fade Away"
Characters/Pairings: Dawn, Buffy/Spike, Andrew, the Immortal, OC Slayer
Warnings: Dawn worship. You heard me.
Installment: Two of three.
A/N: Title and summary quote come from "The Pomegranate" by Eavan Boland, one of my favorite poets. Artwork by the talented![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amyxaphania. And many, many thanks to angearia for characterization thoughts, polka suggestions, and understanding my Immortal (hee!) even better than I do. Most of his better lines (and some of Dawn's!) in this section are her handiwork. Thanks so much!
Summary: "Love and blackmail are the gist of it." Dawn knows exactly what her sister needs in order to move on after Sunnydale--and exactly how to make it happen.
Previous chapter here.
Part Two
The thing Dawn had forgotten about London was just how rainy it is. Sure, if you’d asked her back in Rome, she would have said that Roman weather tended toward the warm and sunny and London’s toward the cool and rainy. But the blue and gold Roman days had softened her memories of the first few weeks the Scoobies spent in Merrie Olde (as Spike called it) after the closing of the Hellmouth. In Rome, the memories of London took on a softened hue until the dampness was more atmospheric than anything.
But she’s painfully aware of London weather now with freezing water dripping down the back of her neck and weighing down her already-heavy hair.
“Alba-mia, I hate you,” Lessie sniffles in a stage whisper.
“Sssh!” Dawn hisses. “This place echoes!” But she almost wants to apologize; Lessie had never been outside of Italy and Greece before this trip, and she’s been appalled by the weather since they arrived. Their current location certainly isn’t helping much.
Lessie huffs and tugs her jacket closer around her. “This is the worst place you could have chosen for this. The absolute worst.”
Dawn shrugs and takes a look around the abandoned church, then glances up at the holes in the roof that are dripping rainwater on the Slayer and the two Watchers-in-training. They could move to another part of this balcony, but it wouldn’t help; the whole roof is, as Andrew said earlier, more holey than it is holy (and boy did that ever earn him groans and a swat upside the head). They can’t move downstairs, either; this balcony is the only place in the church that will allow them to see everything that goes on below. And Dawn is going to see everything. She’s put too much hard work to miss anything. Even if it means shivers and moldy clothes.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she whispers finally.
--
And it had.
Turns out that when Buffy makes up her mind, things happen fast. The Immortal dumped her Saturday night, she started packing Sunday morning (after a cappuccino and biscotti, of course) and bought plane tickets for Monday afternoon.
It was a good thing that the one place Dawn needed to visit before they left was one of the few places that was guaranteed to be open on Sunday.
After finishing her own breakfast, Dawn hurried to her room to gather what she’d need for Phase II of Mission: True Love (she hates Andrew for using that phrase so often that she thinks of it that way now).
“Have you settled on a place yet?” Lessie asked, flopping down on Dawn’s bed.
“Yeah. There’s an old abandoned church I stumbled on when we were in London before. Probably someone will restore it soon, but for now it’s all boarded up.”
“If it’s boarded up,” Andrew asked, “how will everyone get inside?”
She rolled her eyes, stuffing some folders into her bag. “They both have super-strength, Einstein. You think a few pieces of wood are going to stop them if they think the fate of the world is at stake? Besides, I figured out a way in through the cellar of the bell tower.”
“Why this place, though?” Lessie asked.
“Guaranteed empty. Plus, it’s old and historical enough that some bad mojo could feasibly go down there—it’s supposed to have been built on the site of a temple of Mithras during the Rome period. And there’s this great balcony thing where we’d be able to keep an eye on things. Oh,” she added, zipping up her bag and swinging it onto her shoulder. “It’s close to Giles’s enormous house for ultimate convenience.” She winked at Lessie and the other girl giggled.
“Convenience?” Andrew echoed. “Convenient for what?”
“So they can hurry there and have reunion sex, you idiot. You don’t think they’ll do it on the floor of some abandoned, half-collapsed building, do you?”
“Oh.” Andrew’s eyes went very wide and his cheeks very red. “Oooh.”
“You stay here,” Dawn said, pointing at him. “C’mon, Lessie.”
Andrew pouted. “Why can’t I come?”
“Because this is going to be a very delicate meeting. You’ll be sure to say the wrong thing at the wrong time and blow it all.”
--
“I think these pigeons are possessed,” Andrew says suddenly, eyeing the cooing birds that have taken up residence in the beams above them warily, his voice sharp in the silence of the church. “Their eyes are red and scary and…what are you looking at, tiny demon bird?” He kicks some dust at the pigeon at his feet, who cocks its head, coos, and hops towards him. “Save me!” he yelps, grabbing Lessie by the shoulders and shoving her in front of him. “I think it’s trying to suck my soul out through my eyes!”
Dawn looks around frantically making sure no one has entered the building while he was complaining. Then she slips her hand into the pocket of her bag, eases out its contents and waves the object in front of Andrew’s face. “What did I tell you? If you don’t be quiet, I’m going to let Lessie make you be quiet. Got it?”
Lessie grins her badass Slayer smile as Andrew stares, horrified, at the duct tape and then gulps. “I—I’ll be quiet.”
“Good.”
Blissful silence reigned for a few moments, then Lessie glances at her watch.
“Are you sure he’s coming?”
“Yes. He’ll be here.”
“It’s just that L.A. is a terribly long way for him to come.”
“He’ll be here. He’s got almost as big of a hero-complex as Buffy, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. I made him an offer he can’t refuse.”
--
She and Lessie stood for a full seven minutes in front of the big building, staring up at the beautiful edifice and squirming.
“Are you certain this is the only way?” Lessie asked again. “I don’t like being involved with these…people.”
“Me, neither. But, yeah. It’s the only way.”
As they walked toward the doors, the sun nearly blinded her as it glinted off the gold words above the entrance: Wolfram e Hart.
Dawn disliked Ilona Costa Bianchi as soon as she saw her (Dawn’s never been very fond of stereotypes, and this woman is every one she can think of), but the CEO of Wolfram and Hart’s Rome offices was all hugs and effusion, and when Dawn told her why she was there, she grew even more excited, bouncing and gushing and causing Lessie to roll her eyes.
“Spike! Of course! He is the very definition of handsome!”
“Yeah,” Dawn agreed. “My sister, the Slayer, sure thinks so, too.”
Something flashed in Ilona’s eyes at Dawn’s remark, but her façade of enthusiasm didn’t waver. “Ah, yes. He mentioned something about the Slayer when he was here.”
“He did?” Well, that was promising.
“Yes, yes. The Aurelian line was always so given to romance.”
“Yeah, and the one Spike has with my sister? It’s the most romantic of all.”
“Ah, but I believe this Spike is in Los Angeles with the great Angelus. And your sister is here in Roma, is she not?”
“Temporarily. But they’ll be together soon. And you’ll get partial credit for reuniting them.”
Ilona arched a brow. “I will?”
“Yes. Because you’re going to do me a favor.”
“I am?”
“Yes. You are. You’re going to forge a document. Old. Preferably in some archaic demon language that hasn’t been used in a millennia. I want it to be full of gory details about how the world is going to end when some demonic cult does some big ritual. Those details don’t matter, just as long as they seem authentic. Here are some suggestions.” She handed Ilona a folder. Since she wouldn’t let him come along today, Andrew had insisted on being allowed to come up with some ideas, but she hadn’t really had time to look over them; she just hoped they were half-way decent. “But the date and the place do matter. This church—“ She slid a piece of paper on which she’d scribbled the name and address of the location of her plot— “built on the ruins of a temple to Mithras. At midnight, one week from today. Got it?”
“Why should I—“
“You get this document into Angel’s hands, do you understand me? Make it absolutely clear that this is vital, apocalypse-y, world-ending big, and that only a souled vampire can stop it.”
"Assuming that I do, in fact, carry out your instructions—an assumption which has yet to be confirmed—Angelus himself will want to carry out this mission; you know this to be true. In the end, either he will arrive at this rendezvous of yours or both of the vampires will. This is not your aim, I think."
Dawn couldn't keep herself from smirking. "Exactly. Which is why you're also going to arrange some sort of minor threat to Connor Reilly. He's a student at Stanford, and Angel has a bit of a soft spot for him. Trust me, he'll take off after Connor and let Spike take care of saving the world." Dawn had never been as excited by a piece of information as she was when she found out about Angel's son. She would never reveal just how she came across it, but it was the ultimate tidbit, and she was incredibly proud of herself for discovering it. Of course, Ilona had no need to know what his true relationship was to Angel; at this point, Buffy didn't even know, and Dawn sure as hell wasn't going to be the first to tell her. In fact, she hadn’t told anyone—not Lessie and definitely not Andrew. She could only imagine what kind of danger Angel’s son would be in if word got around that he had one, and if Andrew ever found out? Everyone in the dimension would know within the next fifteen seconds.
Still, she wasn’t above using her knowledge of Angel’s son as leverage when it was necessary, and making Buffy happy was definitely necessary.
"And why should I do any of this for you? You are a sister of the Slayer, and she has never been an ally of ours."
This was the question Dawn had been dreading, and she could feel her cheeks warming already. But her voice was steady when she said, "Because the Immortal says so."
Ilona paused in the motion of tossing her hair over her shoulder. It would have been funny, if Dawn wasn't trying so furiously to keep from blushing, and if Lessie wasn't staring at her in stunned silence. "The Immortal?" Ilona echoed.
"That's right. You call him and ask him. He'll tell you to do everything I say." She lifted her chin, trying to project confidence instead of little-girl self-consciousness. He had said so, and for some strange reason, she trusted him to keep his word. Of course, when he had told her he would do whatever she wished, she had sworn to herself that she would never, ever take advantage of his offer. But this was Wolfram and Hart. How else would she get them to do what she told them to? They were the biggest evil there was, and there was no way blackmail would work on them, not even epic blackmail of the kind she'd thrown at the Immortal. Not when they knew that they were the most powerful organization on earth. No doubt they could blackmail her right back.
But she desperately, desperately hoped that Ilona wouldn't call the Immortal. He would back her claims and convince Ilona to follow her instructions, but the last thing Dawn wanted was to have him know that she was actually taking him up on his offer. Instead, she was playing this like a bluff, and she thought she was doing it pretty well. Spike had taught her to play poker during that long, awful summer when Buffy was gone, and even he had to admit that she was far better at bluffing than he was. Then again, he'd always been a really bad liar.
So she scrounged up every bit of skill she'd learned (and perfected since then in hours of winning shower time and the last cookie in the box from the Potentials that last year in Sunnydale) and shoved the small, desperate girl aside, instead radiating cool, indifferent confidence. She quirked a brow at Ilona (yet another trick she'd learned from Spike), as though to ask, "Do you really want to test me?" She slowly reached over to Ilona's desk and picked up the phone, then waved it in front of the buxom woman's face. "Well? Do you want to call him?"
Ilona gave her a look like she knew exactly what Dawn was up to (maybe she wasn't as clueless as she seemed; she was in charge of the Rome branch, after all, and you probably didn't get there by being stupid. Well, unless you were Angel) and her smile was toothy and unpleasant. "No need. I will follow your every instruction."
And that, as they say, was that.
--
“I really don’t think anyone’s coming,” Andrew says mournfully, tugging his London Fog raincoat closer around his shoulders. He looks kind of endearingly silly all dressed up in his Watcher-wear. At least on his days off, he still wears his Darth Vader t-shirt. “What if something went wrong? What if Angel does show up? What if Spike was on a plane and the sun came up and he dissolved into dust in the wind?” And then, proving that he really is the most annoying person alive, he starts to nervously hum the Kansas song under his breath. “Dust in the wind…”
“Okay, first of all, be quieter,” Dawn commands. “Second, there’s still ten minutes before midnight. They’ll be here. Third, Angel’s much too busy taking care of other things. And fourth, Spike is not an idiot; he’s been traveling for centuries now. He knows how to book a flight without turning into the Human Torch, and oh my god, I have been hanging out with Andrew too much.”
“All we are is dust in the wind….”
“And last of all,” Lessie continues. “Stop singing!” She holds the duct tape directly under his nose, and he immediately ceases his anxious singing.
Satisfied, Lessie runs a hand through her damp curls. “But perhaps it will be Buffy who does not arrive. What if she sends another Slayer in her place?”
Dawn shakes her head. “She won’t. Buffy still handles a lot of the big apocalypses herself. Remember that one a couple of months ago in Venice?”
Lessie and Andrew both wince. “Oooh, yeah,” Andrew says. “That was a mess. Who knew demons could summon a death-bringer by dancing the polka? Truly the evilest of dances…”
“It wasn’t the polka,” Dawn corrects exasperated.
“It looked like the polka,” he insists.
“Andrew,” Lessie growls and pulls off a length of duct tape. Andrew’s mouth shuts with a click, and he sits back down.
Lessie turns back to Dawn. “It was the Immortal who got her there in time, was it not? On his private jet? Perhaps he is not entirely useless after all.”
Then Andrew drops his walkie-talkie (the one he’d insisted on bringing with him), and Lessie starts to berate him for his carelessness, but Dawn doesn’t hear them. Instead, she’s all too aware of the blush that’s stealing across her cheeks, the one she can’t fight no matter how hard she tries.
--
The ring the Immortal sent Buffy as a breakup present had an emerald the size of a golf ball and was accompanied by a note that said something cheesy about the jewel paling in comparison to her eyes. Buffy laughed when she opened the box: “I can’t wear something like this! It would drag me down if I tried to stake anyone! Death number three, here I come!” She then tossed it on the dresser in her room at Giles’s and mentioned something about selling it to fund Dawn’s education.
Dawn found herself strangely pleased that the Immortal had actually listened to her suggestion about buying Buffy jewelry and just wished she’d advised him to buy something Buffy could actually wear. She was rolling her eyes at how off he was about her sister (just further proof that it was Spike that Buffy deserved to be with) when Giles mentioned that something had come for Dawn as well and that he had put it in her room.
Puzzled, Dawn hurried in to find a package waiting on her bed. She picked it up slowly, her heart starting to thud as she noticed that the return address was in Rome. She opened the box and peeled the brown paper away slowly, her hands trembling a bit, and somehow she wasn’t surprised at all to find another black velvet box nestled inside the brown paper.
The necklace was stunning. Intricate and yet crafted in such a way that it could be worn with the fanciest of gowns or dressed down for a night of clubbing. There was no doubt whatsoever that the stones—fiery opals and stunning sapphires (and no, she didn’t miss the fact that the latter were exactly the same shade as her eyes)—and the white gold were all real. The vine-like swirls of metal were intricate without being ostentatious, and the jewels nestled gently inside them like captured stars.
It was perfect.
So was the note.
My Venus,
I have possessed this necklace for a great many years, keeping it laid away in the seemingly vain hope of finding someone who is worthy to wear it. Its fragility is deceptive: its flawlessness lies not only in its exquisiteness but in its strength as well. Let it be a reminder to you whenever you wear it that that which is finely wrought is all the rarer for its strength and beauty.
Yours always.
Dawn was infuriated.
She stormed over to her purse, wrenched out her cellphone, and furiously punched buttons, scrolling through her contact list to find the number she was looking for (and yes, there was a perfectly good reason that she had the Immortal’s number in her phone; Buffy-the-Overprotective-Big-Sister had insisted back while they were dating, and Dawn had just never gotten around to deleting it).
He answered on the second ring, and by that time, she was breathing fire.
“Buongiorno.”
“How dare you?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then, “Little Venus?”
“Howdare you? You slept with my sister, you big perv! Along with half the population of Rome—over the last three thousand years!”
“Bella, please—“
“And now you’re sending me perfectly perfect jewelry and notes about how flawless I am? What. Is. Your. Problem?”
“Cara mia—“
“Don’t call me that! I’m sending you back your stupid necklace and you can give it to whichever woman you seduce next! I’d throw it away, but I’m sure the cost could feed a third world country for a decade, so I’d feel guilty.”
“Dawn.”
She paused. She’d never heard him say her actual name before. “What?”
“I did not sleep with your sister.”
After a few moments, Dawn shut her mouth, realizing that he couldn’t see her gaping. “What?”
“Your sister was exquisite company—a golden delight. But she would not allow me to make love to her, or to truly see her heart. She just wanted to—how did she put it?—‘have some fun.’ And no one is better at showing fun to a lady than I am. I was patient with her, convinced she would one day put her grief behind her and offer herself to me. You see, I have had many lovers—human, vampire, many kinds of demons—but never a Slayer. I believed she could be what I have waited for. She had captured the attentions of two vampires—two souled vampires, no less. I thought she might be extraordinary. But you brought our time together to an end before I could find out.”
A long pause. Then: “…You really didn’t?” Dawn winced at how tiny her voice sounded.
“No, cara mia. I did not. And as for my other…conquests, my reputation may be a bit…exaggerated.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m just sure you’re a total monk.”
“I would never claim that, little Venus. But neither am the god Cupid incarnate, doomed to live among mortals now that the power of the gods has disappeared along with man’s faith in them, as so many say. I am merely a man…albeit a man with several millennia’s worth of practice in the arts of love.”
“So you didn’t have an affair with Marilyn Monroe?”
“No, no. She was very lovely, but the rumor of her undying love for me ruining her for other men – it is baseless. The tragedy of her heart should not be lain at my door for a single night of amore.” He paused, releasing a soft indrawn breath Dawn hesitated to label as a sigh, continued, “Such a tragic girl. She was broken long before we crossed paths. And she knew that my life is dedicated to the pleasures of the flesh, not what I had come to believe was the useless pursuit of some ideal of eternal love. As all my lovers have known.”
“Oh, I get it. You’re not a complete Lothario. You’re so misunderstood. You haven’t slept with ten thousand woman over the past millennia or so. It’s only been, like, a couple thousand. We’re talking low ballpark figures, right? Because that makes it so much better.”
“Why judge past delights with a harsh eye that would strip away the beauty of the moment? True passion is a gift, bella. A gift I have spent a millennia searching for. Unfortunately, I have never found it, and so have been forced to settle for the surface delights of the flesh, pursuing them to relieve my ennui. If my search has been in vain, then you would be right to judge me. But only as a fool if my past indiscretions had prevented me from attaining what I truly sought—or as a coward had I not the courage to pursue it once I found it. Would you make of me a tragic fool, cara mia, or a coward?”
“I’m not making you anything.”
He chuckled softly. “No, not yet. Or has it already begun?”
She jerked the phone away from her ear. What the hell? Who did he think he was, sending her jewelry, saying things like that to her? She was seventeen! He was…like thousands of years old! He was older than Spike, Angel, and Anya combined!
Fury battled with embarrassment and manifested itself in shouting. “Don’t call me again!” The bad thing about cellphones was that you couldn’t slam them dramatically down in the cradle to hang them up. Pushing a button furiously wasn’t nearly as satisfying. So Dawn opened her door and slammed it again, instead. She’s always been very, very good at slamming doors.
Then she collapsed onto her bed.
--
"Somebody's here!"
Andrew’s voice startles Dawn out of her thoughts (thank God—they were leading her to the last place she wanted to go). Lessie slams her hand over his mouth to muffle his exclamation, but Dawn's too busy staring down at the boarded-up front door. There's a creaking, ripping sound of old wood giving way, and then a flash of gold slips through a newly-made hole, like a sunbeam gliding through. Buffy straightens, then brushes splinters off of her dress before looking around.
"Whoa. She looks like an angel." Lessie's obviously released Andrew, but Dawn doesn't care. Because he's right.
She's never seen her sister look quite so beautiful. She must have decided to go out dancing after stopping this apocalypse—which, really, when you think about it, is kind of Buffy in microcosm—and that’s playing perfectly into Dawn’s plan. Thank God for Buffy's recently rediscovered need to look hot while she kicks ass.
The iced gold dress she's wearing glints in the light from the candles Dawn had set up in standard ritual formation near the altar, and her hair looks like a halo in the moonlight streaming through the holes in the stained glass windows. Buffy's gained some weight since Sunnydale was destroyed; though she'd kept up her normal slaying duties and is in perfect fighting shape, she's lost that hollow, run-down look she had those last few years in Sunnydale. Gelato and pesto will do that for you. Dawn couldn't be more pleased with her sister's appearance; Spike's going to be so star-struck that maybe things won't devolve into yelling. Dawn crosses her fingers.
Buffy's started toward the altar, a stake in one hand, scythe in the other, but she spins around at the sound of more ripping boards and muttered curses. Even though she's practically bouncing with excitement, Dawn still manages to roll her eyes: Spike has always been such a drama queen.
He's still cursing as he stumbles through the gaping hole in the door, brushing furiously at his duster—which looks a lot less worn than Dawn remembers, strangely enough—and running a hand through his hair to dislodge the splinters there.
But then he snaps to attention, and Dawn can't help but grin: he's smelled her sister. Or sensed her. Or something vampire-y. A clatter of stake and scythe falling to the floor immediately follows, and then: "Spike?"
Buffy's voice is tinier than Dawn's ever heard it, and the hope there nearly breaks her heart. She'd known that Buffy still felt this way. She'd always known it.
Andrew makes a noise like he's going to swoon at any moment, but Dawn just grabs Lessie's hand and holds on as tight as if she's the one with Slayer strength. Because Buffy and Spike are standing just a few yards apart, Buffy all golden, Spike all black and ivory in the candlelight. Those two have always had a weird sort of connection, like they don’t have to speak to communicate, like they could just look at each other and say everything they wanted to say. But this is taking it to a whole new level: it's almost as if there's something physical, a thread in the air between them, connecting them, vibrating with energy and something way too big for words.
Buffy takes a few tentative steps forward, then a few more, though Spike stays stock still, just staring at her with an intensity that makes Dawn feel like she should leave—or at the very least, cover Andrew's eyes. Buffy finally reaches him, and her trembling hand steals up to touch his cheek. As soon as her skin brushes his, she jerks back as if shocked, and, if possible, her eyes grow even wider.
"You're you?" she rasps. "You're not the First?"
Spike has to clear his throat before he speaks, and he still sounds like he's losing his voice. "It's me, Buffy."
The next moment his arms of full of trembling but dry-eyed Slayer, and Buffy's jerked his head down for a feverish kiss, and in the candlelight-dappled shadow of the church, they're nothing more than a tangle of gold, ivory, and black.
Andrew sighs happily. "It’s so romantic." And Dawn can't help but agree.
But then Buffy pulls back, and even though Spike just transfers his mouth from her lips to her neck, she manages to gasp out, "What about the apocalypse? Is it you? I mean, because you're back? The mojo? I always knew this hair was one of the signs of the apocalypse." But she doesn't sound as concerned as she probably should; she's too busy raking her fingers through said apocalyptic hair.
"Not me, Slayer," Spike murmurs between kisses, and it's only the crazy-good acoustics of the building that allow the watchers in the balcony to hear him. "I'm here to stop it."
Buffy allows him to distract her for a few more moments, letting him tug her even closer, lifting her up to wrap her legs securely around his waist. Then, "I don't see anybody. Just candle-y ritualness. Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of demon cult? Wanting to exterminate all life? The prophecy said that, but I hadn't heard of them. Something about Daleks?"
Dawn and Lessie whip their heads around to glare furiously at Andrew. "I knew we should not have let him write the suggestions for the prophecy!" Lessie grits out, looming threateningly over a cowering Andrew.
"Never run into them myself, Slayer," Spike admits while nibbling at her collarbone. "But they sound familiar. Bit strange, that."
"Andrew Wells," Dawn announces calmly, keeping her voice low enough that it won't echo down to the couple on the floor. "I am going to kill you."
Andrew throws his hand out and opens his mouth to protest—or beg for his life or whatever—but his motion disturbs the demon-eyed pigeons, and they take off with a squawk and a wild flap of wings, soaring like ungainly bats down past the still-embracing Slayer and vampire on the floor and out through the hole in the door.
At the sound of flapping wings, Buffy and Spike jerk apart and fall into fighting stance, back to back, weapons suddenly back in Buffy's hands, Spike in game face, and as lovely as they were before, Dawn thinks they’re much more beautiful now. Beautiful and deadly.
Beautiful and deadly and…
Uh-oh.
Because Spike’s sniffing at the air, and Dawn knows that underneath the smell of pigeons, rotting wood, candle wax, and Buffy, he’ll at any moment be able to discern….
“Niblet?”
His tone is just edgy enough that Dawn can’t tell if he’s furious or amused, but at his word, she sees Buffy press her lips together.
I’m dead.
“Dawn Summers, you better show yourself!” Yeah, that’s Buffy’s authority-figure voice, alright.
Lessie and Andrew have both backed up into the shadows, but Dawn takes another step forward until the light from the candles hits her. Come to think of it, it’s probably a better idea that Buffy never figures out that Andrew and Lessie were ever involved in this thing. Spike probably won’t bother to tell her, and Dawn isn’t going to, either. She waves her hand behind her back, letting them know that they need to slip out.
She’s going to handle this one on her own. It was her idea after all.
“Hey, Buffy,” she says sheepishly. “Hey, Spike.”
“Get down here right now!”
Dawn whimpers.
Continued in Part Three.
good__evil"s Art-a-thon. You may or may not remember it. I subsequently got completely distracted by a million other things and I've only just recently returned to it. I apologize profusely that it took so long; I've had a blast writing it, and with some encouragement (*coughangeariacough*), I'm back with the next chapter! And I'm already working on the one after that!So! On to the next chapter of Dawn-worship!
Title: Love and Blackmail
Fandom: Buffyverse
Written for:
good__evil's Art-a-ThonRating: PG-13
Timeline: post-"Not Fade Away"
Characters/Pairings: Dawn, Buffy/Spike, Andrew, the Immortal, OC Slayer
Warnings: Dawn worship. You heard me.
Installment: Two of three.
A/N: Title and summary quote come from "The Pomegranate" by Eavan Boland, one of my favorite poets. Artwork by the talented
amyxaphania. And many, many thanks to angearia for characterization thoughts, polka suggestions, and understanding my Immortal (hee!) even better than I do. Most of his better lines (and some of Dawn's!) in this section are her handiwork. Thanks so much!Summary: "Love and blackmail are the gist of it." Dawn knows exactly what her sister needs in order to move on after Sunnydale--and exactly how to make it happen.
Previous chapter here.
Part Two
The thing Dawn had forgotten about London was just how rainy it is. Sure, if you’d asked her back in Rome, she would have said that Roman weather tended toward the warm and sunny and London’s toward the cool and rainy. But the blue and gold Roman days had softened her memories of the first few weeks the Scoobies spent in Merrie Olde (as Spike called it) after the closing of the Hellmouth. In Rome, the memories of London took on a softened hue until the dampness was more atmospheric than anything.
But she’s painfully aware of London weather now with freezing water dripping down the back of her neck and weighing down her already-heavy hair.
“Alba-mia, I hate you,” Lessie sniffles in a stage whisper.
“Sssh!” Dawn hisses. “This place echoes!” But she almost wants to apologize; Lessie had never been outside of Italy and Greece before this trip, and she’s been appalled by the weather since they arrived. Their current location certainly isn’t helping much.
Lessie huffs and tugs her jacket closer around her. “This is the worst place you could have chosen for this. The absolute worst.”
Dawn shrugs and takes a look around the abandoned church, then glances up at the holes in the roof that are dripping rainwater on the Slayer and the two Watchers-in-training. They could move to another part of this balcony, but it wouldn’t help; the whole roof is, as Andrew said earlier, more holey than it is holy (and boy did that ever earn him groans and a swat upside the head). They can’t move downstairs, either; this balcony is the only place in the church that will allow them to see everything that goes on below. And Dawn is going to see everything. She’s put too much hard work to miss anything. Even if it means shivers and moldy clothes.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she whispers finally.
--
And it had.
Turns out that when Buffy makes up her mind, things happen fast. The Immortal dumped her Saturday night, she started packing Sunday morning (after a cappuccino and biscotti, of course) and bought plane tickets for Monday afternoon.
It was a good thing that the one place Dawn needed to visit before they left was one of the few places that was guaranteed to be open on Sunday.
After finishing her own breakfast, Dawn hurried to her room to gather what she’d need for Phase II of Mission: True Love (she hates Andrew for using that phrase so often that she thinks of it that way now).
“Have you settled on a place yet?” Lessie asked, flopping down on Dawn’s bed.
“Yeah. There’s an old abandoned church I stumbled on when we were in London before. Probably someone will restore it soon, but for now it’s all boarded up.”
“If it’s boarded up,” Andrew asked, “how will everyone get inside?”
She rolled her eyes, stuffing some folders into her bag. “They both have super-strength, Einstein. You think a few pieces of wood are going to stop them if they think the fate of the world is at stake? Besides, I figured out a way in through the cellar of the bell tower.”
“Why this place, though?” Lessie asked.
“Guaranteed empty. Plus, it’s old and historical enough that some bad mojo could feasibly go down there—it’s supposed to have been built on the site of a temple of Mithras during the Rome period. And there’s this great balcony thing where we’d be able to keep an eye on things. Oh,” she added, zipping up her bag and swinging it onto her shoulder. “It’s close to Giles’s enormous house for ultimate convenience.” She winked at Lessie and the other girl giggled.
“Convenience?” Andrew echoed. “Convenient for what?”
“So they can hurry there and have reunion sex, you idiot. You don’t think they’ll do it on the floor of some abandoned, half-collapsed building, do you?”
“Oh.” Andrew’s eyes went very wide and his cheeks very red. “Oooh.”
“You stay here,” Dawn said, pointing at him. “C’mon, Lessie.”
Andrew pouted. “Why can’t I come?”
“Because this is going to be a very delicate meeting. You’ll be sure to say the wrong thing at the wrong time and blow it all.”
--
“I think these pigeons are possessed,” Andrew says suddenly, eyeing the cooing birds that have taken up residence in the beams above them warily, his voice sharp in the silence of the church. “Their eyes are red and scary and…what are you looking at, tiny demon bird?” He kicks some dust at the pigeon at his feet, who cocks its head, coos, and hops towards him. “Save me!” he yelps, grabbing Lessie by the shoulders and shoving her in front of him. “I think it’s trying to suck my soul out through my eyes!”
Dawn looks around frantically making sure no one has entered the building while he was complaining. Then she slips her hand into the pocket of her bag, eases out its contents and waves the object in front of Andrew’s face. “What did I tell you? If you don’t be quiet, I’m going to let Lessie make you be quiet. Got it?”
Lessie grins her badass Slayer smile as Andrew stares, horrified, at the duct tape and then gulps. “I—I’ll be quiet.”
“Good.”
Blissful silence reigned for a few moments, then Lessie glances at her watch.
“Are you sure he’s coming?”
“Yes. He’ll be here.”
“It’s just that L.A. is a terribly long way for him to come.”
“He’ll be here. He’s got almost as big of a hero-complex as Buffy, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. I made him an offer he can’t refuse.”
--
She and Lessie stood for a full seven minutes in front of the big building, staring up at the beautiful edifice and squirming.
“Are you certain this is the only way?” Lessie asked again. “I don’t like being involved with these…people.”
“Me, neither. But, yeah. It’s the only way.”
As they walked toward the doors, the sun nearly blinded her as it glinted off the gold words above the entrance: Wolfram e Hart.
Dawn disliked Ilona Costa Bianchi as soon as she saw her (Dawn’s never been very fond of stereotypes, and this woman is every one she can think of), but the CEO of Wolfram and Hart’s Rome offices was all hugs and effusion, and when Dawn told her why she was there, she grew even more excited, bouncing and gushing and causing Lessie to roll her eyes.
“Spike! Of course! He is the very definition of handsome!”
“Yeah,” Dawn agreed. “My sister, the Slayer, sure thinks so, too.”
Something flashed in Ilona’s eyes at Dawn’s remark, but her façade of enthusiasm didn’t waver. “Ah, yes. He mentioned something about the Slayer when he was here.”
“He did?” Well, that was promising.
“Yes, yes. The Aurelian line was always so given to romance.”
“Yeah, and the one Spike has with my sister? It’s the most romantic of all.”
“Ah, but I believe this Spike is in Los Angeles with the great Angelus. And your sister is here in Roma, is she not?”
“Temporarily. But they’ll be together soon. And you’ll get partial credit for reuniting them.”
Ilona arched a brow. “I will?”
“Yes. Because you’re going to do me a favor.”
“I am?”
“Yes. You are. You’re going to forge a document. Old. Preferably in some archaic demon language that hasn’t been used in a millennia. I want it to be full of gory details about how the world is going to end when some demonic cult does some big ritual. Those details don’t matter, just as long as they seem authentic. Here are some suggestions.” She handed Ilona a folder. Since she wouldn’t let him come along today, Andrew had insisted on being allowed to come up with some ideas, but she hadn’t really had time to look over them; she just hoped they were half-way decent. “But the date and the place do matter. This church—“ She slid a piece of paper on which she’d scribbled the name and address of the location of her plot— “built on the ruins of a temple to Mithras. At midnight, one week from today. Got it?”
“Why should I—“
“You get this document into Angel’s hands, do you understand me? Make it absolutely clear that this is vital, apocalypse-y, world-ending big, and that only a souled vampire can stop it.”
"Assuming that I do, in fact, carry out your instructions—an assumption which has yet to be confirmed—Angelus himself will want to carry out this mission; you know this to be true. In the end, either he will arrive at this rendezvous of yours or both of the vampires will. This is not your aim, I think."
Dawn couldn't keep herself from smirking. "Exactly. Which is why you're also going to arrange some sort of minor threat to Connor Reilly. He's a student at Stanford, and Angel has a bit of a soft spot for him. Trust me, he'll take off after Connor and let Spike take care of saving the world." Dawn had never been as excited by a piece of information as she was when she found out about Angel's son. She would never reveal just how she came across it, but it was the ultimate tidbit, and she was incredibly proud of herself for discovering it. Of course, Ilona had no need to know what his true relationship was to Angel; at this point, Buffy didn't even know, and Dawn sure as hell wasn't going to be the first to tell her. In fact, she hadn’t told anyone—not Lessie and definitely not Andrew. She could only imagine what kind of danger Angel’s son would be in if word got around that he had one, and if Andrew ever found out? Everyone in the dimension would know within the next fifteen seconds.
Still, she wasn’t above using her knowledge of Angel’s son as leverage when it was necessary, and making Buffy happy was definitely necessary.
"And why should I do any of this for you? You are a sister of the Slayer, and she has never been an ally of ours."
This was the question Dawn had been dreading, and she could feel her cheeks warming already. But her voice was steady when she said, "Because the Immortal says so."
Ilona paused in the motion of tossing her hair over her shoulder. It would have been funny, if Dawn wasn't trying so furiously to keep from blushing, and if Lessie wasn't staring at her in stunned silence. "The Immortal?" Ilona echoed.
"That's right. You call him and ask him. He'll tell you to do everything I say." She lifted her chin, trying to project confidence instead of little-girl self-consciousness. He had said so, and for some strange reason, she trusted him to keep his word. Of course, when he had told her he would do whatever she wished, she had sworn to herself that she would never, ever take advantage of his offer. But this was Wolfram and Hart. How else would she get them to do what she told them to? They were the biggest evil there was, and there was no way blackmail would work on them, not even epic blackmail of the kind she'd thrown at the Immortal. Not when they knew that they were the most powerful organization on earth. No doubt they could blackmail her right back.
But she desperately, desperately hoped that Ilona wouldn't call the Immortal. He would back her claims and convince Ilona to follow her instructions, but the last thing Dawn wanted was to have him know that she was actually taking him up on his offer. Instead, she was playing this like a bluff, and she thought she was doing it pretty well. Spike had taught her to play poker during that long, awful summer when Buffy was gone, and even he had to admit that she was far better at bluffing than he was. Then again, he'd always been a really bad liar.
So she scrounged up every bit of skill she'd learned (and perfected since then in hours of winning shower time and the last cookie in the box from the Potentials that last year in Sunnydale) and shoved the small, desperate girl aside, instead radiating cool, indifferent confidence. She quirked a brow at Ilona (yet another trick she'd learned from Spike), as though to ask, "Do you really want to test me?" She slowly reached over to Ilona's desk and picked up the phone, then waved it in front of the buxom woman's face. "Well? Do you want to call him?"
Ilona gave her a look like she knew exactly what Dawn was up to (maybe she wasn't as clueless as she seemed; she was in charge of the Rome branch, after all, and you probably didn't get there by being stupid. Well, unless you were Angel) and her smile was toothy and unpleasant. "No need. I will follow your every instruction."
And that, as they say, was that.
--
“I really don’t think anyone’s coming,” Andrew says mournfully, tugging his London Fog raincoat closer around his shoulders. He looks kind of endearingly silly all dressed up in his Watcher-wear. At least on his days off, he still wears his Darth Vader t-shirt. “What if something went wrong? What if Angel does show up? What if Spike was on a plane and the sun came up and he dissolved into dust in the wind?” And then, proving that he really is the most annoying person alive, he starts to nervously hum the Kansas song under his breath. “Dust in the wind…”
“Okay, first of all, be quieter,” Dawn commands. “Second, there’s still ten minutes before midnight. They’ll be here. Third, Angel’s much too busy taking care of other things. And fourth, Spike is not an idiot; he’s been traveling for centuries now. He knows how to book a flight without turning into the Human Torch, and oh my god, I have been hanging out with Andrew too much.”
“All we are is dust in the wind….”
“And last of all,” Lessie continues. “Stop singing!” She holds the duct tape directly under his nose, and he immediately ceases his anxious singing.
Satisfied, Lessie runs a hand through her damp curls. “But perhaps it will be Buffy who does not arrive. What if she sends another Slayer in her place?”
Dawn shakes her head. “She won’t. Buffy still handles a lot of the big apocalypses herself. Remember that one a couple of months ago in Venice?”
Lessie and Andrew both wince. “Oooh, yeah,” Andrew says. “That was a mess. Who knew demons could summon a death-bringer by dancing the polka? Truly the evilest of dances…”
“It wasn’t the polka,” Dawn corrects exasperated.
“It looked like the polka,” he insists.
“Andrew,” Lessie growls and pulls off a length of duct tape. Andrew’s mouth shuts with a click, and he sits back down.
Lessie turns back to Dawn. “It was the Immortal who got her there in time, was it not? On his private jet? Perhaps he is not entirely useless after all.”
Then Andrew drops his walkie-talkie (the one he’d insisted on bringing with him), and Lessie starts to berate him for his carelessness, but Dawn doesn’t hear them. Instead, she’s all too aware of the blush that’s stealing across her cheeks, the one she can’t fight no matter how hard she tries.
--
The ring the Immortal sent Buffy as a breakup present had an emerald the size of a golf ball and was accompanied by a note that said something cheesy about the jewel paling in comparison to her eyes. Buffy laughed when she opened the box: “I can’t wear something like this! It would drag me down if I tried to stake anyone! Death number three, here I come!” She then tossed it on the dresser in her room at Giles’s and mentioned something about selling it to fund Dawn’s education.
Dawn found herself strangely pleased that the Immortal had actually listened to her suggestion about buying Buffy jewelry and just wished she’d advised him to buy something Buffy could actually wear. She was rolling her eyes at how off he was about her sister (just further proof that it was Spike that Buffy deserved to be with) when Giles mentioned that something had come for Dawn as well and that he had put it in her room.
Puzzled, Dawn hurried in to find a package waiting on her bed. She picked it up slowly, her heart starting to thud as she noticed that the return address was in Rome. She opened the box and peeled the brown paper away slowly, her hands trembling a bit, and somehow she wasn’t surprised at all to find another black velvet box nestled inside the brown paper.
The necklace was stunning. Intricate and yet crafted in such a way that it could be worn with the fanciest of gowns or dressed down for a night of clubbing. There was no doubt whatsoever that the stones—fiery opals and stunning sapphires (and no, she didn’t miss the fact that the latter were exactly the same shade as her eyes)—and the white gold were all real. The vine-like swirls of metal were intricate without being ostentatious, and the jewels nestled gently inside them like captured stars.
It was perfect.
So was the note.
My Venus,
I have possessed this necklace for a great many years, keeping it laid away in the seemingly vain hope of finding someone who is worthy to wear it. Its fragility is deceptive: its flawlessness lies not only in its exquisiteness but in its strength as well. Let it be a reminder to you whenever you wear it that that which is finely wrought is all the rarer for its strength and beauty.
Yours always.
Dawn was infuriated.
She stormed over to her purse, wrenched out her cellphone, and furiously punched buttons, scrolling through her contact list to find the number she was looking for (and yes, there was a perfectly good reason that she had the Immortal’s number in her phone; Buffy-the-Overprotective-Big-Sister had insisted back while they were dating, and Dawn had just never gotten around to deleting it).
He answered on the second ring, and by that time, she was breathing fire.
“Buongiorno.”
“How dare you?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then, “Little Venus?”
“Howdare you? You slept with my sister, you big perv! Along with half the population of Rome—over the last three thousand years!”
“Bella, please—“
“And now you’re sending me perfectly perfect jewelry and notes about how flawless I am? What. Is. Your. Problem?”
“Cara mia—“
“Don’t call me that! I’m sending you back your stupid necklace and you can give it to whichever woman you seduce next! I’d throw it away, but I’m sure the cost could feed a third world country for a decade, so I’d feel guilty.”
“Dawn.”
She paused. She’d never heard him say her actual name before. “What?”
“I did not sleep with your sister.”
After a few moments, Dawn shut her mouth, realizing that he couldn’t see her gaping. “What?”
“Your sister was exquisite company—a golden delight. But she would not allow me to make love to her, or to truly see her heart. She just wanted to—how did she put it?—‘have some fun.’ And no one is better at showing fun to a lady than I am. I was patient with her, convinced she would one day put her grief behind her and offer herself to me. You see, I have had many lovers—human, vampire, many kinds of demons—but never a Slayer. I believed she could be what I have waited for. She had captured the attentions of two vampires—two souled vampires, no less. I thought she might be extraordinary. But you brought our time together to an end before I could find out.”
A long pause. Then: “…You really didn’t?” Dawn winced at how tiny her voice sounded.
“No, cara mia. I did not. And as for my other…conquests, my reputation may be a bit…exaggerated.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m just sure you’re a total monk.”
“I would never claim that, little Venus. But neither am the god Cupid incarnate, doomed to live among mortals now that the power of the gods has disappeared along with man’s faith in them, as so many say. I am merely a man…albeit a man with several millennia’s worth of practice in the arts of love.”
“So you didn’t have an affair with Marilyn Monroe?”
“No, no. She was very lovely, but the rumor of her undying love for me ruining her for other men – it is baseless. The tragedy of her heart should not be lain at my door for a single night of amore.” He paused, releasing a soft indrawn breath Dawn hesitated to label as a sigh, continued, “Such a tragic girl. She was broken long before we crossed paths. And she knew that my life is dedicated to the pleasures of the flesh, not what I had come to believe was the useless pursuit of some ideal of eternal love. As all my lovers have known.”
“Oh, I get it. You’re not a complete Lothario. You’re so misunderstood. You haven’t slept with ten thousand woman over the past millennia or so. It’s only been, like, a couple thousand. We’re talking low ballpark figures, right? Because that makes it so much better.”
“Why judge past delights with a harsh eye that would strip away the beauty of the moment? True passion is a gift, bella. A gift I have spent a millennia searching for. Unfortunately, I have never found it, and so have been forced to settle for the surface delights of the flesh, pursuing them to relieve my ennui. If my search has been in vain, then you would be right to judge me. But only as a fool if my past indiscretions had prevented me from attaining what I truly sought—or as a coward had I not the courage to pursue it once I found it. Would you make of me a tragic fool, cara mia, or a coward?”
“I’m not making you anything.”
He chuckled softly. “No, not yet. Or has it already begun?”
She jerked the phone away from her ear. What the hell? Who did he think he was, sending her jewelry, saying things like that to her? She was seventeen! He was…like thousands of years old! He was older than Spike, Angel, and Anya combined!
Fury battled with embarrassment and manifested itself in shouting. “Don’t call me again!” The bad thing about cellphones was that you couldn’t slam them dramatically down in the cradle to hang them up. Pushing a button furiously wasn’t nearly as satisfying. So Dawn opened her door and slammed it again, instead. She’s always been very, very good at slamming doors.
Then she collapsed onto her bed.
--
"Somebody's here!"
Andrew’s voice startles Dawn out of her thoughts (thank God—they were leading her to the last place she wanted to go). Lessie slams her hand over his mouth to muffle his exclamation, but Dawn's too busy staring down at the boarded-up front door. There's a creaking, ripping sound of old wood giving way, and then a flash of gold slips through a newly-made hole, like a sunbeam gliding through. Buffy straightens, then brushes splinters off of her dress before looking around.
"Whoa. She looks like an angel." Lessie's obviously released Andrew, but Dawn doesn't care. Because he's right.
She's never seen her sister look quite so beautiful. She must have decided to go out dancing after stopping this apocalypse—which, really, when you think about it, is kind of Buffy in microcosm—and that’s playing perfectly into Dawn’s plan. Thank God for Buffy's recently rediscovered need to look hot while she kicks ass.
The iced gold dress she's wearing glints in the light from the candles Dawn had set up in standard ritual formation near the altar, and her hair looks like a halo in the moonlight streaming through the holes in the stained glass windows. Buffy's gained some weight since Sunnydale was destroyed; though she'd kept up her normal slaying duties and is in perfect fighting shape, she's lost that hollow, run-down look she had those last few years in Sunnydale. Gelato and pesto will do that for you. Dawn couldn't be more pleased with her sister's appearance; Spike's going to be so star-struck that maybe things won't devolve into yelling. Dawn crosses her fingers.
Buffy's started toward the altar, a stake in one hand, scythe in the other, but she spins around at the sound of more ripping boards and muttered curses. Even though she's practically bouncing with excitement, Dawn still manages to roll her eyes: Spike has always been such a drama queen.
He's still cursing as he stumbles through the gaping hole in the door, brushing furiously at his duster—which looks a lot less worn than Dawn remembers, strangely enough—and running a hand through his hair to dislodge the splinters there.
But then he snaps to attention, and Dawn can't help but grin: he's smelled her sister. Or sensed her. Or something vampire-y. A clatter of stake and scythe falling to the floor immediately follows, and then: "Spike?"
Buffy's voice is tinier than Dawn's ever heard it, and the hope there nearly breaks her heart. She'd known that Buffy still felt this way. She'd always known it.
Andrew makes a noise like he's going to swoon at any moment, but Dawn just grabs Lessie's hand and holds on as tight as if she's the one with Slayer strength. Because Buffy and Spike are standing just a few yards apart, Buffy all golden, Spike all black and ivory in the candlelight. Those two have always had a weird sort of connection, like they don’t have to speak to communicate, like they could just look at each other and say everything they wanted to say. But this is taking it to a whole new level: it's almost as if there's something physical, a thread in the air between them, connecting them, vibrating with energy and something way too big for words.
Buffy takes a few tentative steps forward, then a few more, though Spike stays stock still, just staring at her with an intensity that makes Dawn feel like she should leave—or at the very least, cover Andrew's eyes. Buffy finally reaches him, and her trembling hand steals up to touch his cheek. As soon as her skin brushes his, she jerks back as if shocked, and, if possible, her eyes grow even wider.
"You're you?" she rasps. "You're not the First?"
Spike has to clear his throat before he speaks, and he still sounds like he's losing his voice. "It's me, Buffy."
The next moment his arms of full of trembling but dry-eyed Slayer, and Buffy's jerked his head down for a feverish kiss, and in the candlelight-dappled shadow of the church, they're nothing more than a tangle of gold, ivory, and black.
Andrew sighs happily. "It’s so romantic." And Dawn can't help but agree.
But then Buffy pulls back, and even though Spike just transfers his mouth from her lips to her neck, she manages to gasp out, "What about the apocalypse? Is it you? I mean, because you're back? The mojo? I always knew this hair was one of the signs of the apocalypse." But she doesn't sound as concerned as she probably should; she's too busy raking her fingers through said apocalyptic hair.
"Not me, Slayer," Spike murmurs between kisses, and it's only the crazy-good acoustics of the building that allow the watchers in the balcony to hear him. "I'm here to stop it."
Buffy allows him to distract her for a few more moments, letting him tug her even closer, lifting her up to wrap her legs securely around his waist. Then, "I don't see anybody. Just candle-y ritualness. Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of demon cult? Wanting to exterminate all life? The prophecy said that, but I hadn't heard of them. Something about Daleks?"
Dawn and Lessie whip their heads around to glare furiously at Andrew. "I knew we should not have let him write the suggestions for the prophecy!" Lessie grits out, looming threateningly over a cowering Andrew.
"Never run into them myself, Slayer," Spike admits while nibbling at her collarbone. "But they sound familiar. Bit strange, that."
"Andrew Wells," Dawn announces calmly, keeping her voice low enough that it won't echo down to the couple on the floor. "I am going to kill you."
Andrew throws his hand out and opens his mouth to protest—or beg for his life or whatever—but his motion disturbs the demon-eyed pigeons, and they take off with a squawk and a wild flap of wings, soaring like ungainly bats down past the still-embracing Slayer and vampire on the floor and out through the hole in the door.
At the sound of flapping wings, Buffy and Spike jerk apart and fall into fighting stance, back to back, weapons suddenly back in Buffy's hands, Spike in game face, and as lovely as they were before, Dawn thinks they’re much more beautiful now. Beautiful and deadly.
Beautiful and deadly and…
Uh-oh.
Because Spike’s sniffing at the air, and Dawn knows that underneath the smell of pigeons, rotting wood, candle wax, and Buffy, he’ll at any moment be able to discern….
“Niblet?”
His tone is just edgy enough that Dawn can’t tell if he’s furious or amused, but at his word, she sees Buffy press her lips together.
I’m dead.
“Dawn Summers, you better show yourself!” Yeah, that’s Buffy’s authority-figure voice, alright.
Lessie and Andrew have both backed up into the shadows, but Dawn takes another step forward until the light from the candles hits her. Come to think of it, it’s probably a better idea that Buffy never figures out that Andrew and Lessie were ever involved in this thing. Spike probably won’t bother to tell her, and Dawn isn’t going to, either. She waves her hand behind her back, letting them know that they need to slip out.
She’s going to handle this one on her own. It was her idea after all.
“Hey, Buffy,” she says sheepishly. “Hey, Spike.”
“Get down here right now!”
Dawn whimpers.
Continued in Part Three.
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