Unsung
By Emily
How did this happen to me? I'm not too clear. I never meant for this to happen to me. I didn't think I'd be lonely, or sad, or aching. Most definitely not for Spike. He loves my sister. My *dead* sister.
He doesn't even see me. I wish he could, but he doesn't. He won't. I know that but I don't even try and change. I don't try and stop. I keep wishing he'd see me and somehow even if he did he wouldn't *see* me. He'd see her. That's all he fucking sees - and at risk of sounding like the bratty fourteen year old everyone still sees me as - I hate it.
And it's wrong, but I kind of hate Buffy too. For having the opportunity to have everything I've ever wanted and turning it down. Time and again she turned him down, and now she's gone and she's still there, haunting him. I kind of hate her for that. She's my *sister* and she's freaking *dead* but still, sometimes I hate her. I know I shouldn't, after all she died for me. Was stupid enough to jump into that vortex and die for a girl she didn't even really know. Who wasn't even her sister. But see bottom line is, it wasn't really about me. It was about her. She wanted to jump, to die. I saw it in her eyes when she turned away from me. I hate her for wanting it too. Like maybe I was part of the reason she wanted it.
I wish I hated Spike but I don't. I can't. Not even back when he cried for her and wept in my arms. I tried and I wanted to and I couldn't. He won't see me, I can't hate him, I can't stop feeling this way and here I am trapped in this circle I *won't* get out of.
Things couldn't get more fucked up.
* * *
"Break me neatly
Numb me sweetly"
* * *
I'm playing the fourteen year old I used to be. Spike's somewhat drunk and this is nothing new. It's been happening ever since she died. Hell I would ask for some of whatever it is that he's drinking if I didn't already know that it would make no difference.
"When are you gonna stop that?" I demand, walking over to him, sounding petulant and angry.
"I'm not." Spike says and takes another sip.
I grab the bottle from his hands and throw it to the floor, like I know what I'm doing.
He glares at me, finally giving me his full attention." What was that for, Bit?"
"I'm tired of this." I tell him.
"Nobody asked you to come here" He says.
"Maybe I have nowhere else to go."
Spike walks across to me and his hand comes down hard on my shoulder. "You have everywhere else to go, Dawn. You're sixteen. Go to school, go to parties, hang out with the damn Scoobies. You don't need to be here."
"I want to." I say and I didn't mean to but there it was, and I did.
He peers at me and I don't know what he sees but then Spike laughs softly. "You should go home Nibblet"
His words are soft and dangerous and I don't move. His hand presses down harder on my shoulder and it hurts and then there are teeth and lips hard and bruising on my neck and I reach for him and he pulls away briefly to look at me. I don't think it's guilt he's feeling, he doesn't stop to tell me to go or yell at me for being a stupid little girl who doesn't know any better. He just nuzzles at my neck and then he tugs at my clothes and I help him.
It doesn't last as long as I expected. It hurts but I knew it would. It hurts and at the end I'm left somewhere between his bed and the stone floor and if I was her then I'd be curled in his bed with his arm strong around my back and I'm not her and I'm only here.
Here isn't enough. This can't be all there is.
* * *
"She can't, she won't, she must, rinse him"
* * *
Now, now I know how this has happened to me but it doesn't make it any better. I don't even try to stop. I sit here and I wait for him. If he doesn't come then I know my feet will end up taking me to his crypt. I can't sleep if I don't see him. Yes, this is all of those stupid clichés, but they're twisted and bent out of shape. It's not supposed to be this way. At least I know that. It's not gonna be any other way -- I know that too -- so screw how it's supposed to be because I can't live without this.
Sure enough the familiar sounds of him climbing up into my room reach my ears and I breathe a sigh of relief. I run a nervous hand through my hair knowing he won't give a damn what it's like. I lie down on the bed and pull open a magazine, then I start to read -- knowing he won't be fooled for a second. The window swings open and he steps into my room.
"You're screwed up Spike" I just want to see if anything I say could hurt him. Affect him. I didn't plan on saying it, but I did, and now I need to know.
"What's that Bit?" He asks offhandedly, not really paying attention to a thing I say. Guess it couldn't and it *won't* - but I carry on all the same, as if it will make a difference.
"You're fucking a sixteen year old and you're in love with her dead sister. How much more screwed up can you get?" I demand and flick to the next page of the magazine.
He grabs my arm, roughly pulling me off the bed. I let him. I always let him.
"Maybe you're the one who's screwed up Dawnie." He says slowly, his hand cold and -- not enough -- on my leg. "Fucking a dead vampire who's in love with your dead sister." Spike slowly repeats my words, changing them so they twist and rip at my insides. Most everything he says does.
"Stop it. I don't want to." I say weakly and wish I meant it.
Then his hand is between my legs and pulling my panties down. He slips his fingers suddenly inside of me and makes me yelp.
"We both know that's not true" Spike says softly, a slight smile curving on his lips. I close my eyes as his hands slide teasingly up my body. They stop at my breasts, his fingers moving slowly across a nipple. I shiver.
"Pretty" Spike murmurs as he strokes gently at the thin green fabric of my top, rubbing it between his fingers. His hand moves to where the top dips down, making as though to rip it down the middle.
"Spike" I say in protest. Stop. You love Buffy. She's gone. I'm here. I want you. I'll let you. That's the only reason why. I'll let you. Take me. Oh please. I'm here. Do you even need a reason why?
"It's new" I say and gesture at my top.
"Okay Dawn" Spike says and gently pulls it over my head, taking care not to rip it.
The rest isn't gentle, it never is. I don't seem to care. I always cover the deep red purple marks on my neck, the two little holes. I hide the bruising around my waist and the faint scars of fingernails. They're still there though. Sometimes I stroke them and wish it was him, smoothing the pain away. It never is, of course.
I just lie there now as he leaves. Tugs his pants up, pulls the zipper, back facing me, reaches for his shirt. I'm still trembling as he leaves. This is what I wanted, I remind myself. Here I am, lying naked on the floor, a little bruised, trembling, cold - and missing him so bad it hurts. Oh it hurts, in a hundred jagged little ways. This is what I wanted, I think again and I want to laugh. The sound rises in my throat but doesn't come out. And now I want to cry but tears don't come out either.
I just lie there for a few more minutes and wait. What I'm waiting for I don't know, but in a couple of minutes I sit up because it won't come. I could wait forever. It would do no good. No good at all and still I'm waiting. I dress slowly and then run a brush through my tangled hair. Yank it into a ponytail and try to feel a little like Dawn. But really, I haven't been Dawn for the longest time. Dawn wasn't anyone anyway. Green energy, tears and screams. That was all and yet now it seems I'm still screaming, louder than ever. Screams did me no good before though. They didn't save Buffy or my mother let alone myself. Tears neither. People held me and said it was okay and it wasn't. And the green energy? Wasn't that the whole problem?
There must have been a flaw in this person the monks made. Some fatal flaw they never anticipated. Like what I would do after my purpose was over and done with. Some little gap in between the diaries and the long dark hair. A hole. Something empty. It must have been a flaw because I don't belong anymore. I don't belong in Spike's arms however much I want to. Maybe it's because he will never belong in mine. I don't know, I'm fucking thousands of years old and I don't understand. I just keep telling myself it was a flaw because I can't bring myself to accept that maybe this is my fault.
* * *
"Say you would, say you could
And you don't do anything"
* * *
I always end up going to him. It's so easy to be tugged into his world. Everything's easy there and for a while, oh a while, I'm okay. It doesn't last. What does?
So I go, today, to his crypt, forgetting and forsaking the times I've told myself to stop and that this won't help me. I know all that, I know, and I still go. That doesn't make me sick or screwed up or anything. I tell myself that too. Sometimes I wonder why I bother because deluding myself might be easier. I'm sure I could convince myself too. He would never be convinced though and it's this that starts me sobbing on his bed.
I don't notice him arrive but there are suddenly arms around me and he pats awkwardly at me and says it's okay and he'll make it okay. Tells me not to cry. Starts to press hard kisses against my lips and I welcome them even though it's not what I need. I have sense enough to know that his hard body and lips on top of me isn't what I need but damn it it's what I want. It's all I've ever wanted and I have it, and it's still not enough.
So he fucks me and I suddenly realise that no this isn't what I wanted. I wanted him to love me. To make love to me. To be slow and gentle and tender. In a ridiculously idealistic way I've always believed that eventually he will. Some kind of strange innocence has kept me believing that but now in this mess of tears and skin I can't believe it.
It's over too soon and Spike pulls away from me and rolls to the side of the bed. He never lingers. Never has. Never will. I understand this all too well now and I wish for ignorance again. I still play out little fantasies as I look at his back and the faint down of his hair at the back of his neck though. If he could just be tender once, just once. If he would only stay with me for a while for I know that soon he'll be getting up and leaving. Maybe slowly stroke my hair, press a brief kiss against my lips. Oh for just once because my heart is breaking anyway.
I hear him move and I lie there still. In the end I'm always the one lying there, waiting. I can't stop waiting. My eyes are closed, I can't open them. If I open them then I know he'll be able to see it. God knows it's obvious enough. Maybe he's just not looking, and that's worse than him not seeing. It doesn't matter. I could open my eyes, he could see that I love him and still nothing would change. That's why I don't.
I like to make believe that if I opened my eyes and looked at him now then suddenly everything would change. I'm too old for games of make believe though. I'm sixteen and two and thousands of years and I'm too old and too young and this is killing me. I wish I was just a little girl who didn't know any better and that I believed this was okay. I don't though and nothing's really ever been okay and I *love* him -- and that's the worst part. My eyes flicker open briefly. His silhouette is against the wall and his head is down and he's Spike and he loves my sister who's long gone and so I close my eyes again.
* * *
"I am cryin'
You aren't trying
And I am melting away"
* * *