Wool Over My Eyes ~ (1/1)
Here's the next fic in my series of prompt-inspired shorts. I decided to be a bit experimental on the POV in this one, which accounts for my use of the second person. I've seen girlpire do it before (with great skill, I might add) and wanted to try it myself. You can let me know if you thought it worked well. Jury's still out on my end.
Title: Wool Over My Eyes
Author: ClawofCat
Timing: Post-NFA (by several years, at least)
Rating: R
Pairing: Dawn/Xander
Warnings: Light BDSM, including bondage, forced orgasm and sexual situations
Summary: Dawns discovers that pain can work both for and against you. The question is: can she channel her loss into strength?
A/N: Written for snowpuppies on the prompts "fabric art" and "a dark place where you have to be quiet." Snowy recently posted a lovely ficlet called The Scarf, which served as inspiration for this piece. Hope you like it, darling.
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You and Xander are never in the same place twice when you do this. That’s key. There’s always a big question mark about who might know or has their suspicions. Frankly, it’s no ones business. You’re an adult and you have your reasons for doing what you do, just like anyone else. Buffy had her reasons for her own clandestine meetings, too. You get that now. Taking a deep breath, you close your eyes and send the past to a far corner of your mind. This doesn’t work if you’re not in the moment.
You kneel, crouched on the floor of the coatroom, burrowed under furs and trenches, shawls and hats that fell off the top rack. You feel the designer coats bear down on your shoulders and brush your hair; the static cling forces a few strands to stand on end. You get shocked more than once when you shift and settle.
Like massive fir trees, the looming blockade of outerwear crowds you into this tiny space. But you’ll take it over the grand ballroom fundraiser any day, which is well underway at the end of the hall. The Council’s assets and its stodgy donors and benefactors don’t interest you.
You’d been caught in conversation with one lady who reminded you of Ms. Kroeber. She was all curves and plump softness. This woman had never had to fight a demon in her life. She didn’t know what it was like to lose colleagues or family to the dark things that the Council tried to protect people like her from. Dislike didn’t even begin to describe how you felt about this portly woman with the mink throw, who wouldn’t shut up.
When Xander came up by your side and laid his left hand against your lower back, you breathed a sigh of relief. His thumb pressed into the knobby bumps of your vertebrae, inched up and over the nerve endings that climb your spine. When his hand slid to your hip, you decided he had the best timing of anyone you’ve ever met. He has a real way of pulling people back from the brink. You try not to think about Willow.
He pushes you up so that you’re facing the wall, knees jammed against the cool plaster. Your cocktail dress is somewhere over your hips, bunched in the dip of your waist. Earlier, you warned him not to tear it or it’s his hide. At least there’s no chance of having to get canapé out of it like that time in the dumbwaiter.
“It’s hot in here,” he says behind you. You nod in agreement when he wipes his hand under your hairline against your sweaty neck. It’s not like you’re going for comfort or anything, though.
“This too tight?” He tugs on the neck tie that he’s wrapped around your wrists. It was hard getting over that part - being restrained. Bad things have happened to you when you’ve been bound. He knows you tense up when you think about the bad things. That’s why his hands are rubbing your inner arm, and then brush your belly and neck. That’s where you’ve been hurt before. You still have the scars.
“If you can’t do this, just let - ”
“I’m fine.” You turn to look over your shoulder where you think he must be. Everything is a dark, indistinct shadow through the hand-knit scarf he’s tied over your eyes. But it doesn’t make you feel weak or scared. It makes you feel like a superhero. A half-naked superhero crouched on the floor of a coatroom, but a superhero nonetheless.
“Okay,” he whispers, against your neck.
Okay. You steal yourself.
You twist suddenly, unprepared, when his hands come down between your thighs and he presses the Butterfly against you. This is new. He hasn’t done this before. It’s like being connected to a live wire and there’s nothing you can do to suppress the moans or the shaking. You squirm away, but he holds you down and presses it more firmly against you and into you, rotating it in such a way that you think you might scream and bring the coat check guy barreling in.
His hand is over your mouth when the scream decides to break free, and he shoves it back down your throat, dampening the sound with his palm. When you begin to pant like a marathon runner, Xander forces his fingers between your lips. Your pitch jumps and then his hand is over your nose, too.
“Dawnie, shut up,” he whispers fiercely, still working his hand against you. You try to hold your breath to the count of ten and, in that window of silence, you hear it, too. Someone’s moving around outside the door chatting with another someone.
“I - I can’t,” you stutter and gasp for air, shaking your head.
“Try,” he asks, softly now, despite the little warning shake he gives you without lessening the intensity of the Butterfly. As it vibrates against you, you focus on the pinpricks of light that seep through the itchy wool of the scarf around your eyes. You can’t be quiet when you’re coming like this - again and again that it’s almost too much and hurts. Except that it doesn’t hurt. So, you give in and continue to tremble and squirm along with the current of sensation as its winds its way up and through you and into your extremities. You wonder if you’ll vibrate into another dimension. That’s what it feels like, this unending pleasure overload that doesn’t even feel like pleasure, just more. More, more, more. More than anyone could ever want. It’s overwhelming.
Xander’s hand, clamped between your thighs, is wet from you and the stifling heat that only intensifies the longer you huddle between all these winter coats. His silk tie slides against your wrists and when he begins to rock you forward, you know this is it. Your head hits the wall and a cry erupts, and then it doesn’t when your mouth is filled with something thick and cottony and dry. The yarn soaks up your saliva like a sponge, but it misses out on all the moisture down below that’s turning your pussy into a bog. Tears wet the fabric around your eyes. He must see them because he pauses to stroke your hair. This is what he does. He pushes you there each and every time, so that each and every time he can bring you back safely.
Anya always seemed like the toppy type to you, but now you wonder if you’d been wrong all those years ago. Whoever Xander’s been playing with since Sunnydale fell, they’ve taught him how to go hard and fast. You don’t mind hard and fast, though. Hard and fast is all you get when you have a life like yours.
You try not to think of Priscilla, who lived hard and fast like any good Slayer. They buried her on Tuesday and it was all you could do not to break down when you saw how distraught Willow was, how she never can seem to keep her girls no matter how hard she tries. Xander stood beside both of you during that rainy morning at the grave, his strong arms holding you and Willow close on either side of him. It’s why you’re here together now. You never have to face the grief alone anymore. No more. No more. Not ever. You’ve had your fill.
Behind you, you hear the sound of him undoing his pants and the scratching clink of the metal hangers as the coats get shifted this way and that. All of a sudden, his hand and the Butterfly are gone, and you sink limply against the wall with relief. He rubs your neck, your scalp. He gathers you up close, his right hand splayed across your chest, so you don’t fall forward. He is your eyes and your hands. You trust him and know that he’ll have a care with that responsibility. He always gives you the power back at the end of the night without ever taking it away in the first place.
Xander presses you forward and all at once he’s inside, hard and soft. You’re not really sure how he manages that. He kisses your shoulder over the straps of your cocktail dress. The gloves in your mouth are now a saturated mess of fabric. You feel bad for the kid who’s gonna have slobber all over their mittens.
Through the wall, there’s the faint sound of the auctioneer announcing bids, but it’s drowned out by the squelching and huffing and panting that rises up like smog and settles over your heads. Your cheek goes from one hard surface (the wall) to the next as he pushes you to the floor and pounds hard, breathing through his teeth. You can feel your own knot of desire wrenching and twisting alongside his.
When he grasps your wrists and pulls back, his hips shudder, flush against your ass, and you relax into your own climax, sighing quietly. It feels good and easy, not like the forced, hard ones from before. That’s Xander for you. He took those from you like a thief in the night, but he gave you this one to hold on to for the rest of the evening. You won’t have to force any more smiles. They’ll come naturally now.
He reels you up as he softens inside you and the blindfold immediately falls away. So does the gag. There’s still lint in your mouth, though. He undoes the tie next and you sink against each other, the big giant coats surrounding you like bodyguards. You rub your wrists; he smoothes down your hair. Your shoulders are cradled against his chest. The starch in his shirt and his open tux are stiff and crunchy.
“Are you still thinking about it?” he asks. You think that he must be even though your own thoughts have quieted down. They’re not clamoring for attention anymore. That corner of your mind where you put the past holds its hand out to gather in Priscilla and that look on Willow’s face that you never want to dream about ever again. You can put these memories away now because this is how it is for you. This is the life you lead. This is how you cope.
“No. But you are.” Xander just smiles and adjusts his eye patch. It’s like him to say nothing, so you turn and press your lips against his because if he doesn’t want to talk about it that’s okay, too. He will eventually and you’ll be there to listen.
“Lets head back in. I’ll bet you five dollars that Andrew’s asked at least four people if they’ve seen us.” Xander’s probably right, but you sink against him heavily, a weary sigh drifting from your mouth.
“Yeah,” you whisper. You can’t escape forever. The very nature of escape is only temporary. You have to go back sometime, return to your life and its sorrows. But, you won’t return empty-handed. You’ll return hand in hand, tucking that warm feeling of respite away into the chambers of your heart, the part of you where Xander and Buffy and mom live.
Straightening clothes and hair pins, ties and jackets, you pause to bend over and pick up the scarf that was tied around your eyes. Every time you do this with Xander, the place is different, but the scarf is always the same. It’s the one that Tara knit for your sixteenth birthday. She said it bound you two together even when she was far away. Looking down at it, you still think of it that way - it’s your ever present reminder of her love covering your eyes. Wrapped snuggly around you, Tara always helps you stay in the moment with Xander. She never fails to keep the monsters at bay.
Bad things used to happen to you when you were restrained, you know. But, no more. No more, no more, no more.