// i'm a little girl boiled into a mature little piece of [clock] work [closed]
Who: Dawn Summers girl_unlocking, Spike samianscar [closed]
When:Just after this post, and this message
Where: Outlander Block.
Format: Paragraph/action?
What: Reunions.
Warnings: Tears. Angst. Disbelief. Cheekbones. And derp.
( you got to know/i'm always in the way/upside down to you/open to all/these tangled knots of living/finally caught me too/don't leave me alone )
When:Just after this post, and this message
Where: Outlander Block.
Format: Paragraph/action?
What: Reunions.
Warnings: Tears. Angst. Disbelief. Cheekbones. And derp.
( you got to know/i'm always in the way/upside down to you/open to all/these tangled knots of living/finally caught me too/don't leave me alone )
Spike!!
---and then, when no sound had come, she'd just given up, given in and given over to the sobbing. It was a veritable and literal floodgate and she could do fuck-all to stop it.
Didn't know if she heard footsteps, didn't know if the light had shifted along the hall, or if somehow she smelled cigarettes,
cigarettes?
She only knew that the voice ---even the illusion of it over the forge---
You heard what they said, Dawnie. What you ...read in that little Welcome to Anatole handbook for the recently Scorched? People disappear. Into the Mist. Hallucinations. Nightmares. Dreams.
...Tricks. I mean, in all fairness, Little Bit, you never really were ten, were you? It's not ...real.
(I'm not)
Dawn starts to sink, she can feel it - her legs buckling beneath her, all water and weight(less) and heartsick - knees on the floor and unable to see past her own hair, or stop the second wave of sobbing that rips upward and out of her throat until it's raw.
She hasn't done this since she got here. Since she was pulled here.
Since you were ...thrown away.
But she stops for just a moment, because it's hard to breathe. And as she stops, she hears him. And when she hears him, she lets herself ---forces herself--- to look up. She can't find words. And she's sinking again, only this time it's on the inside.
She's clutching at his shoulders in an instant, fighting for breath in between a darkness in her chest that threatens to drown her.
Reply
-but perhaps exactly as strong as an anchor has to be-
-he grabbed her in both arms and held her tight.
He stayed quite still, keeping the calm for her for when the storm blew out; but as she sobbed into his (pulseless-breathless) chest, he bent his face into her shoulder, too.
Reply
"I-it's really you? It's not a ...trick? You're here? H-how?"
Tears sliding down her cheeks again as she pulls slightly back, but not letting go.
Not letting go.
Reply
Keeping her firmly enclosed, he held her shoulder with one hand and almost but not quite touched her face with the other. He looked at her intently. Something was weird, here... aside from the everything that was weird. (But let's face it: that's normal.) "How long have you been here? Last I heard you were in Rome, studying pastels or lacquering fruit or something..."
Reply
She stared up at him in utter confusion - the kind of confusion you can really only get in situations like this. Warm, snuggly confusion, all comfy and blanket-like and why did this feel just like home?
"I...um. I drew a banana in my art class two weeks ago. Several bananas, actually. A-and then I ate them. We weren't supposed to do that..."
Wait. Rome. What?
"My ...Dad's in Rome. Still. With ...what's her face." She looked back, just as intently, her eyes searching his face for --I don't know what. Hair? Something's. Um--
"Did the Mist make you forget? W-We were waiting. Don't you remember? For the ...fires to stop? There were demons ...on bikes. The bad kind. Of demon, not bike. I ...think it's been a week. Maybe two. I don't know."
She stopped, opened her mouth and---
"I..."
---stopped again before she forced the words out, her gaze away from his and steadying itself on his shoulder. "I ...don't think that I was supposed
to ...know. But Willow ---Willow and Anya--- they were talking about..."
Her fingers press just a little tighter and she takes a deep breath before she says it. The "it" she didn't really want to know the answer to.
"...about bringing her back. Bringing ...Buffy back."
Did it work?
Reply
Universe playing silly buggers and got her wrong. Fool me twice you shapeshifting incorporeal parroty bastards...
--only without having fooled me the first time?
Had to admit, that was a pretty damnable thing for a mindreading astral possessing superevil to get wrong. As mindreading astral possessing superevils went, it'd have be pretty lame.
His hand changed direction after all and grabbed her chin. He leaned abruptly forward on his heels and peered even more narrowly into her face.
She was substantial under his hand. Blood circulated inside her skin. Pulse echoed through her bones. Her smell, her bloody soul...
(It's her. It's absobloodylutely...)
...wasn't quite the same.
Not since last time he'd seen it.
But he hadn't always been able to see it.
"How," he repeated, his voice so deeply unreadable it said volumes, "long have you been here?"
Reply
She winced out of reflex, and because she knew it should hurt, but it didn't, really. It was hard to speak with his hands the way they were, and her heart'd gone all trip-hammery. That made it hard to speak, too.
"I don't know," she said, confusion - desperation - coloring her voice, fresh tears welling up in her eyes. "A couple weeks, I think. I-I told you!"
Turning her head against his grip, the sobbing came again, this time angrily. Her eyes stayed on the far wall -- away from his, away from him -- afraid that it was all just this place again. More tricks. More---
---accusatory all at once -- fear giving way to self-pity, "Did you see it happen? Did I just ...disappear? Did. Did anyone notice at all, or was I just ...erased like I never existed? So I guess the spell didn't work at all, did it? Did it? Is that why I'm ...here?"
Reply
Sinews played ring-a-rosy in his jaw until he got a grip. I found you at the end of that night. You took Buffy home. You never disappeared. He'd been dead for a bit, and slipping dimensions a bit after that, but by linear measurement that was still over three years ago.
But this wasn't that Dawn; the one who'd grown into a power that had nothing to do with Slayers; with whom the last real conversation he'd ever had, she'd been kicking him out the house. Or possibly threatening to set him on fire. Why hadn't he noticed...? (You don't just look at someone and say, "Hey, you got younger!") This was the Nibblet-who didn't know what he'd done-or what he'd done after that-or...
"I'm sorry," he said, to absolutely everything. He met her eyes. "You weren't erased. I remember you. But I was... But I'm here now, too. And..." He couldn't say I won't let anything happen to you, 'cause if he'd learned anything since last time, it was: that was a promise that couldn't be kept. It was just tempting fate to say. With more perfect earnestness, he said, "We can stick together. Fight beasties and rob monsters... be just like old times. Maybe-" find out if you really are who you think are, and then- "find a way home."
Reply
I'm not erased not erased not era--
"Spike..."
His hands have pulled back, and she's suddenly, painfully aware of how much he was holding her up, even if it (not quite) hurt.
"You ...remember? D-did you see? If the spell worked? Please please tell me. It's okay if it didn't. Or if that's why I'm here." Her eyes lower for a barest moment, but she can't not look at him. Her fingers tremble against his, wet with tears, pressing into his palms.
"O-of course we can. And it'snot old times it's just like it was, and god - Spike - I'm so glad you're real, so glad that it's you--" Tears again, but she doesn't care -and she's hugging him so hard - so goddamn hard -
If I let go you'll fall back through. I can't. Won't.
He was the first person she'd called out for when she'd woken, bleeding and terrified and ...well, terrified pretty much covered it.
"Home. Yeah. Home. Here comes the hugging again, and she's sniffling against his ear before she pulls back to look at him in earnest admiration. "Thank you for finding me. Thank you for coming. Even if it was an accident."
Reply
Distinctly not looking at her, "Yeah, the spell worked."
He painlessly grabbed the back of her head, leaned in, kissed her forehead, then let go and swung back on his heels to push himself to his feet. "C'mon, Bit. Let's get out of here. Gotta hope there's a better place to haunt 'round here than this."
Reply
Stumbling once, she steadies, swallowing hard - following his lead, her fingers searching for his in the half-light. "I-it worked."
Still following, heart racing all over again, followed by a tightness in her chest that she couldn't quite describe, "The spell worked. B-Buffy's. Alive."
Buffy's alive?!
"I. Sure. There are all kinds of places. The natives. That's the people who live here. Live here and aren't pulled through doors, I mean. I don't think they like us. But. Oh my god. Buffy's alive. And you're here. And Buffy. Willow. Wow. I---"
She's sniffling as they make their way out of the building, and her grip on his hand is as tight as he will allow.
Reply
If there's any going back. Maybe not a good goal to set for the kid. Maybe we are dead, after all.
Shut up. Didn't track. Didn't account for details known and too many un-.
It was just tempting.
Reply
"You didn't read the text-thing, did you? Okay. So when people get here, there's this building they usually appear in? That's where we just were. Nobody knows why people just ...show up here. They just do. Sometimes they just ...disappear, too. Poof. Back through the door, I guess."
I'd like to think they go home.
"This Mist? That we're standing in? Well, it's evil. Kind of. Not evil with a personality or anything, but ...it plays tricks. And if you go out too far into it, where it gets really ...misty? Blood everywhere. Yours. Also, there are monsters in it. But that's like, farther out. At least, that's what I've heard. And seen a little over the forge." Warning Spike about danger? Probably not the best idea, nd her expression backs up this sentiment 100%.
"There's a city. Anatole. Where we are. All kinds of stuff in it. Market, bars, a ramen shop, a clinic. There's a dojo and a police-headquarters-place, and way more places than that. The text-thing might be helpful, because there are maps, too."
Heart still pounding in her chest, a flood of relief making her legs tingle, and a shiny new bundle of confused emotions - more questions. Questions that she swallows, for the moment, and continues on with her (hopefully helpful) speech. "Underground is Dismas. It's ...well, not usually the kind of place I'm supposed to go. Um, casinos, brothels, that sort of thing. But there was a fair there. Everyone went. And I got these shoes. Tunnelmen made them. They pretty much make anything. Mechanical butterflies. Motorcycles."
She frowns slightly at this, "I guess ...powers don't work there? Not that I'd know any different. I don't know what that means for a vampire, though. Maybe a heartbeat?"
She's following him, not really paying mind to where they are, half-dazed at the impossibility of this - the whole thing, and not wanting to let go of his hand.
Maybe that's how they disappear. Maybe they don't have anyone to hold on to. So if I hold on to you, you can't disappear.
"Oh! Miss Kitty Fantastico's here. Alphonse found her in town. Alphonse. Um. Al is a boy I live with. Not live with live with. Just live with. We both thought it would be safer, and I felt bad taking Miss Kitty away. He's really nice, and he's looking for his brother, like me. I mean we were both looking for, you know. Family.
I was looking for Buffy.
"Some people from his world are here, too. Riza's one - she's super brave, and she's sweet, and she reminds me of---"
Again with the Buffy. And I don't think you want to talk about that.
"Well, her name's Riza Hawkeye. It kind of sounds like a superhero name, doesn't it?" There's another silence, which she deliberately ignores. "When you meet Al, don't say anything about the way he looks, okay?"
Screw you awkward silence, I'm just gonna keep on going.
"What else did you want to know?"
Reply
Some part of him recognised her description of the Dismas as his onetime home away from home. Which only made him simultaneously interested in going there and bored/annoyed with it.
If he said aloud his current thought it would only upset her and hamper his ability to eventually do it-try the borders of the oh-look-scary-killer-Fogginess for himself-so instead he said, "What's this texty thing you go on about?"
Reply
She reaches into her back pocket and after a moment of fumbling with the buttons on her forge, makes a small 'hm'-like noise, nods, and holds it out to him.
"It's right here. You might be less depressed by it than I was. Initially, anyway."
Her nose is clearing a little (maybe the Evil!Mist has rapid decongesting properties? Who knew?!), and she adds, just a little softly, fingers still pressed to the edge of his coat. "I'm glad you're here."
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment