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curiouswombatIt is one of the great mysteries of life - the way that a cat can tell, from the other end of the house even when slumbering, the difference between the sound of vegetables being chopped and the sound of chicken being chopped. One of the other mysteries is the speed at which said cat can get from said slumbering place to the kitchen within less than a nano-second of the first knife stroke through said chicken!
Anyway, to 'Ten Years After', this is the first chapter in which there is some sex - although probably not any that you might have been expecting - so there!!
It is probably enough to make it a 15 rating.
Chapter Nine.
In the end Spike stayed for another couple of hours. Dawn reassured him that she wasn’t ‘too squicked’ by his description of his dealings with dealers; she said that, after all, he had never been an angel – in any sense of the word! She also reassured him that she didn’t think Giles would withdraw his apology – it had been an apology for his own failure to understand that Spike was able to keep his demon in check – and nothing Spike had told her made her doubt that this was still the case.
They drank coffee, and more wine, and he left a somewhat inebriated Dawn in the small hours of the morning, with plans to meet the next evening after she had done some daylight sight-seeing. She held him tightly when they said goodnight, and Spike wasn't that surprised to feel his body respond to her proximity.
After he left Dawn’s hotel Spike made his way, a couple of miles across the city, to a fairly large hospital. He walked confidently past the security guard at the entrance as he flashed a security card that identified him as Doctor Williams. Acquiring this had been no problem; ten minutes flirting with a female staff member a month or two ago, and she probably hadn’t noticed it had gone for hours. His dealer ‘friend’ had not queried why he’d wanted it adapting for his own use; and the security guy had now seen him, and it, often enough that he could probably walk in even without it. But he was a good visiting doctor and always wore his pass!
However, when he was shagging his pretty, French, night-shift blood technician, despite being even more enthusiastic, physically, than usual, his mind wasn’t really there. As his hands cupped her breasts and he thrust into her from behind, his mind was imagining nipples that still pointed skywards; as she panted and then bit her lip, so that she only muttered ‘Oui, oui!’, he imagined a voice that was Californian overlaid with English yelling ‘Yes, yes!’.
This didn’t cause him to pay any less attention to the niceties of what was a fairly regular interruption to the young lady’s, otherwise fairly boring, night-shift; and she still looked flushed and satiated before he collected his ‘extra three or four units, to help with his research, that would just be thrown out otherwise’.
Having checked her shifts for the next week, Spike left, whistling to himself. He asked himself whether he felt guilty, about either the use of sex to get what he wanted, or the wandering thoughts during it...
Of course not! She’d enjoyed it hadn’t she? And, c’mon, vampire here – a vampire has more than one driving urge to satisfy.
Back in his ‘appartement sous-sol’ (he loved the French for basement flat – ‘apartment without sun’), he warmed himself up a unit of A+ and put on the television. He didn’t really watch it; just let the ebb and flow of all-night news, and soap opera repeats, form a background for his thoughts.
The conversation with Dawn had confirmed what he had concluded the night before as he had sat in the same way; Dawn was, as far as anyone could tell, some sort of immortal. Like him, really. She’d also grown and matured beautifully. Well - she’d matured just to the point of physical perfection, anyway, if his knowledge of biological development was accurate.
She was bloody good company, easier to talk to than her sister ever was; but then she always had been, even all those years ago when she was little more than a child. This grown-up, university educated, Dawn was someone he wanted to get to know better. Someone he rather thought he could get very attached to.
Could he be around her for long without falling in love with her? Could he cope with the possibility of falling in love with another Summers girl? Would Dawn be shocked if she realised he found her sexually attractive?
On the other hand could he live with himself if he just cut and run, when Dawn had asked him for his help with something which was very new to her?
Spike had spent most of the one hundred and thirty three years since he was turned, and much of his adulthood before that, being in love with someone. Cecily, then Drusilla for so many years, and then Buffy. Only in the last few years had he not been emotionally involved with a woman.
Both spineless William and soul-less Spike had always been in love. Odd, then, that souled Spike – an amalgam of both his predecessors – should be the one who had, eventually, managed without emotionally charged relationships.
Not that he was indifferent to the women who were, or had been, part of his life over the last few years. But the one he’d got closest to was not the sort of woman who encouraged deep romantic devotion; nor gave it. No, Ilona Costa Bianchi was more what good old Anya had called an orgasm-buddy.
After his time spent in South America his personal quest had taken him to Europe, where he’d looked up the former CEO of Wolfram and Hart, Rome - now the senior partner in Costa Bianchi e Soci, and happy to acknowledge that she owed it all to Spike. Well, to Spike, Angel, Wes, Gunn, Connor and Illyria; mainly Illyria. But the one who’d come knocking on her office door was Spike.
Ilona was a pleasure to bed. Well - a pleasure to desk, or to office floor as well, but mostly a pleasure to bed. Spike let his mind drift off his present problem, forced it to skim past the problem that had taken him to Rome in 2006 (‘Pah! We will think of that no more!’ a voice in his head said), and let it linger instead on the voluptuous Signorina Costa Bianchi.
Ilona with the long black silken hair. Ilona with the voice that could make a laundry list sound suggestive. Ilona with the knockers that mere breathing mortals could suffocate between! Spike liked Ilona. She was good company.
On the whole, Spike usually liked the women he had sex with, including Yvette the blood technician. Had all the night shift workers in the blood-bank turned out to be boring, middle-aged, or male, he would have simply stolen the odd unit once he’d got a pass into the hospital. He brought Yvette flowers and chocolates, he only dashed away after sex if she was busy; but he wasn’t even the tiniest bit in love with her.
The same was true of Ilona. She had contacts. In 2006 she had given him the information he had wanted (‘No, not going there, leave it!’ he admonished himself), and she had also provided him twice with valid EU passports. He laughed out loud at this point, and thought that he must show them to Dawn – she would appreciate Ilona’s sense of humour; the first had shown him to be a Dutch born EU citizen called Willem van Pyre; the second, current, one was in the name of William Aurelius.
But if he hadn't liked her, he would only have asked Ilona for help, on the grounds that she ‘owed him one’ for giving her her own law firm, and left it at that. As it was, he visited her in Rome for a couple of weeks once or twice a year, they ate out, drank excellent wine together, went dancing and even, on one occasion, went to La Scala together. They looked good together – both men and women gave them obviously envious glances. And they enjoyed sex together.
Despite the pretty satisfying sex with Yvette, only an hour or two ago, the thought of sex with Ilona had Spike’s cock straining at the zip of his trousers. Hands and mind wandered together as he remembered highlights of his last visit to Rome, between his trip to Belgium and his arrival in Paris... Ilona in intricate and expensively engineered black lace underwear; Ilona spread out on cream silk sheets; Ilona who could give a tit-fuck that would make a succubus cry with envy.
It took only a few minutes of mentally picturing Ilona’s breasts enveloping his cock, her dark hair brushing against his body, her muttered words of endearment before her mouth dipped down between her tits and licked the head of his cock, before Spike reached orgasm.
He sat quietly in his chair, and let the sensation drain away, clearing his mind. Now he could think with his brain not his groin.
What to do about Dawn? The more he thought about it the clearer it became.
He had always felt that he had returned after Sunnydale, and survived the Wolfram and Hart episode, for some reason; even though he often told himself that he was flattering himself by thinking it was anything more than dumb chance. Doing some damage, in a small way, to those humans who preyed on other humans in one way or another might, just, be helping him find some sort of redemption; but it wasn’t really what he thought he was being kept around for.
Now, though, he thought he had his chance.
He had once promised to protect Dawn till the end of the world; but he’d thought that promise had become redundant.
Until a few days ago, as far as he knew, she was doing a perfectly good job of protecting herself, or being protected by her sister and her friends; she didn’t need Spike to honour that promise. Except - Dawn did need him. Dawn would need him to be there for her in a way that no-one else could. This was his chance to mean something; to make a difference. He would be the Guardian of The Key.
If he chose to be.
He reckoned he actually had three choices.
The first was to wish her all the best and run away; get on with his life as he had been leading it until last week. The second was to acknowledge the attraction he was already feeling and let himself fall in love with her. The third, and hardest, was to become her faithful protector and guardian, whilst flattening down any sexual attraction in case she couldn’t see him that way; be a brother figure and a place of safety for her.
If he was being presented with this as a chance to redeem himself – save himself from ending up in a permanent hell eventually – only the third option could possibly be right.
But - was thinking ‘Wow, the Powers That Be saved me to be a Guardian, throughout time, to The Key’ being a bit presumptuous? He, Spike, was not really that important in the scheme of things; he was flattering himself if he thought that any higher power cared about his existence.
He continued to let his mind drift, as he considered the possibilities he had just laid out for himself... He had the distinct feeling that, even if he set off to stick to Option Three, he would find himself drifting into Option Two, and maybe scaring Dawn off.
Suddenly things didn’t seem quite as clear as he’d thought. His mind went round and round the same circle until...
"Shit!" he said, out loud, "I’m no good at bloody profound thought – I can’t answer the soddin’ questions! Guess I should leave that to the bloody Watchers Council. All I can do is take it a day at a time!"
He glared, yellow-eyed, at the television and then switched it off. He laughed to himself and went to lie on the bed where he eventually drifted into sleep. His last coherent thought was 'She’s bound to ask me sometime what I was doing in Columbia in the first place. Have to tell her. How can I tell her? Can’t be any good to her if I keep things like that to myself. What will she think? Fuck - I don’t even bloody know what I think.'
………………………………
Back in L’Hotel du Vieux Saule Dawn was asleep hours before Spike; but she had also been doing some thinking before sleep claimed her. She had not been as inebriated as Spike probably thought she was.
'A twenty year old is at peak performance when it comes to holding their alcohol,' she thought, only slightly giggly, remembering a biology lesson, sometime in the past, where she had learnt that ‘after the age of twenty your nephrons start to die off and can’t handle the alcohol as efficiently’.
'At least I’ll always have tip-top nephrons...' she thought with amusement.
Dawn was not too drunk to notice the bulge in the front of Spike’s trousers when they hugged at the end of the evening. She had elicited the same response, from other men, in the past; but she was rather pleased that she could have that effect on Spike. As long as he wasn’t shocked that she’d had that effect – neither of them had actually mentioned it - but she didn’t think he’d responded as if he was particularly shocked.
Dawn was well aware that with those blue eyes, chiselled cheekbones, and well kept body, Spike could have his choice of women – vampire or no vampire – and so she was flattered as well.
Sex and seduction had been pretty much at the furthest back recess of her mind when she’d decided that she needed to see him. It was there, granted, but no more so than if she’d had the chance to meet a favourite movie star or football player; probably even less.
She had realised that the teenaged crush had not gone away, but could easily develop into a much more grown up thing, by the time they had finished that first meal together.
Then came the fear that any flirting might freak Spike out as being positively incestuous - or that he might still see her as about fifteen. However, the way he spoke to her made it clear that he had easily adjusted to her being an adult; and both the slight smirk as his gaze had lingered on her chest, to check out whether her nipples really did still point upwards, and the trouser bulge, tended to confirm that he didn’t see her as totally sister-like!
Dawn was happy with this – it made her feel good. She wasn’t sure it would make Willow or Giles feel good – and she was positively certain that it wouldn’t make Buffy, or Xander for that matter, feel good – but hell, she was an independent woman, she could flirt with whoever she liked!
If it went further than flirting then she, Dawn, would be a very happy woman.
She considered these feelings in the light of what Spike had told her of his life over the past few years. The Watchers’ Council always taught that everything was absolute black and white when considering vampires, demons, and humans. Vampire or demon was in the black column, human was in the white column.
However Dawn had worked for The Council long enough, and had access to enough of its records and historical documents, to know the reason behind such teachings.
Throughout centuries-worth of historical documents the subject of 'evil humans' cropped up quite regularly. Should Watchers use The Slayer against such evil? Occasionally non-aggressive demons were mentioned; should Watchers stop The Slayer from killing them?
Every time the first question cropped up decisions had been based solely on one over-riding principle; a Slayer must never be allowed to harm a human. However the records made it clear that this was not because the Watchers thought that humans were intrinsically good; rather, they feared that any Slayer who realised that she could use her power in this way, without being struck down in some fashion, might turn to evil herself.
Or as Andrew had put it, whilst looking at one of the documents with her on one occasion, “Beware the Dark Side, Luke... or even Leia!”
On the subject of non-aggressive demons the decisions had been equally firm – a Slayer must never be admonished in any way for Slaying. A Watcher must never advise his Slayer against killing any demon in case she hesitated, at another time, when called to do her duty. This primarily was to keep the Slayer alive as long as possible... not to mention her Watcher.
It had to be said that this did not appear to be for any Slayer-friendly reason, but more because the time between the death of a Slayer and a Watcher reaching the next could be quite long; especially if the next Slayer turned out to be a girl of whose potential the Council had been unaware. This left the Council less powerful for a time, and also increased the risk of the new Slayer’s powers being abused; either by herself or, more likely in most societies in years gone by, by some male.
There was also the acknowledged fact that a ‘Field Watcher’ who kept his Slayer alive, for three or four years, was more likely to make it to the top in the Council (where the real power lay) than one whose Slayer had died, fighting a demon, within months of being called.
So - Watchers Council Rules were very clear for good, historical, reasons. But they existed for The Slayer or, these days, The Slayers. They did not exist to be obeyed by members of the category ‘Vampires with Souls’.
‘Be a great name for a group that, must tell Spike’, Dawn thought, momentarily side-tracking herself. Then ‘Hmm – interesting that the first person I thought of was Spike, not anyone else!’
‘Back to the subject in hand,’ she admonished herself.
There was no reason to insist that Spike live by Slayer rules – after all he was a bloody vampire – albeit a somewhat less bloody vampire than he had been! The Watchers Council had already invented a codicil to the ‘no exceptions can be made for non-aggressive demons’ rule, to cover Spike and Angel, and it didn’t seem to have caused the death of any Slayers.
If Dawn were a Slayer, she thought, she would not be able to cope with the concept of ‘a souled vampire who occasionally eats bad people’. It was too grey, and Spike was right, stopping to weigh things up was not a survival trait for Slayers.
But, it was obvious to her, that Watchers over the years had been much more aware of shades of grey than The Slayers ever realised. They had employed ‘The Wet Team’ for hundreds of years to cope with shades of grey – well, also to cope if a Slayer started to bend the rules...
Dawn was a Watcher – her training actually was designed to make her weigh things up - and it was pretty obvious that Spike did not need to live by Slayer rules... and neither did she. As a Watcher she should weigh all the available evidence carefully and make a balanced decision; and that was what she had done.
Slayers could not become involved with vampires, even souled vampires, without their ability to function being compromised. That way lay badness, and possible Slayer death, not to mention possible ending of the world. She knew that that was the main reason that Giles had always been so disproving of Buffy’s relationships with both Angel and then Spike.
Well... that and the fact that Buffy was only seventeen when she’d slept with Angel – which Dawn still thought was a bit squicky – physically he had been a bit too old for Buffy then!
Having made sense of her own decisions, Dawn felt happy. Giles would probably agree with her, if not immediately, then after some calm discussion!
She curled herself up into a ball under her duvet and her last thought, before finally succumbing to sleep, was ‘I wonder what he was doing in Columbia anyway?’
......................................................................................
The characters in this story do not belong to me, but are being used for amusement only and all rights remain with Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the writers of the original episodes, and the TV and production companies responsible for the original television shows. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER ©2002 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer trademark is used without express permission from Fox.
Previous chapters are all in memories
Ten Years After, Chapters One to Eight
The next chapter is here.
Anyway, to 'Ten Years After', this is the first chapter in which there is some sex - although probably not any that you might have been expecting - so there!!
It is probably enough to make it a 15 rating.
Chapter Nine.
In the end Spike stayed for another couple of hours. Dawn reassured him that she wasn’t ‘too squicked’ by his description of his dealings with dealers; she said that, after all, he had never been an angel – in any sense of the word! She also reassured him that she didn’t think Giles would withdraw his apology – it had been an apology for his own failure to understand that Spike was able to keep his demon in check – and nothing Spike had told her made her doubt that this was still the case.
They drank coffee, and more wine, and he left a somewhat inebriated Dawn in the small hours of the morning, with plans to meet the next evening after she had done some daylight sight-seeing. She held him tightly when they said goodnight, and Spike wasn't that surprised to feel his body respond to her proximity.
After he left Dawn’s hotel Spike made his way, a couple of miles across the city, to a fairly large hospital. He walked confidently past the security guard at the entrance as he flashed a security card that identified him as Doctor Williams. Acquiring this had been no problem; ten minutes flirting with a female staff member a month or two ago, and she probably hadn’t noticed it had gone for hours. His dealer ‘friend’ had not queried why he’d wanted it adapting for his own use; and the security guy had now seen him, and it, often enough that he could probably walk in even without it. But he was a good visiting doctor and always wore his pass!
However, when he was shagging his pretty, French, night-shift blood technician, despite being even more enthusiastic, physically, than usual, his mind wasn’t really there. As his hands cupped her breasts and he thrust into her from behind, his mind was imagining nipples that still pointed skywards; as she panted and then bit her lip, so that she only muttered ‘Oui, oui!’, he imagined a voice that was Californian overlaid with English yelling ‘Yes, yes!’.
This didn’t cause him to pay any less attention to the niceties of what was a fairly regular interruption to the young lady’s, otherwise fairly boring, night-shift; and she still looked flushed and satiated before he collected his ‘extra three or four units, to help with his research, that would just be thrown out otherwise’.
Having checked her shifts for the next week, Spike left, whistling to himself. He asked himself whether he felt guilty, about either the use of sex to get what he wanted, or the wandering thoughts during it...
Of course not! She’d enjoyed it hadn’t she? And, c’mon, vampire here – a vampire has more than one driving urge to satisfy.
Back in his ‘appartement sous-sol’ (he loved the French for basement flat – ‘apartment without sun’), he warmed himself up a unit of A+ and put on the television. He didn’t really watch it; just let the ebb and flow of all-night news, and soap opera repeats, form a background for his thoughts.
The conversation with Dawn had confirmed what he had concluded the night before as he had sat in the same way; Dawn was, as far as anyone could tell, some sort of immortal. Like him, really. She’d also grown and matured beautifully. Well - she’d matured just to the point of physical perfection, anyway, if his knowledge of biological development was accurate.
She was bloody good company, easier to talk to than her sister ever was; but then she always had been, even all those years ago when she was little more than a child. This grown-up, university educated, Dawn was someone he wanted to get to know better. Someone he rather thought he could get very attached to.
Could he be around her for long without falling in love with her? Could he cope with the possibility of falling in love with another Summers girl? Would Dawn be shocked if she realised he found her sexually attractive?
On the other hand could he live with himself if he just cut and run, when Dawn had asked him for his help with something which was very new to her?
Spike had spent most of the one hundred and thirty three years since he was turned, and much of his adulthood before that, being in love with someone. Cecily, then Drusilla for so many years, and then Buffy. Only in the last few years had he not been emotionally involved with a woman.
Both spineless William and soul-less Spike had always been in love. Odd, then, that souled Spike – an amalgam of both his predecessors – should be the one who had, eventually, managed without emotionally charged relationships.
Not that he was indifferent to the women who were, or had been, part of his life over the last few years. But the one he’d got closest to was not the sort of woman who encouraged deep romantic devotion; nor gave it. No, Ilona Costa Bianchi was more what good old Anya had called an orgasm-buddy.
After his time spent in South America his personal quest had taken him to Europe, where he’d looked up the former CEO of Wolfram and Hart, Rome - now the senior partner in Costa Bianchi e Soci, and happy to acknowledge that she owed it all to Spike. Well, to Spike, Angel, Wes, Gunn, Connor and Illyria; mainly Illyria. But the one who’d come knocking on her office door was Spike.
Ilona was a pleasure to bed. Well - a pleasure to desk, or to office floor as well, but mostly a pleasure to bed. Spike let his mind drift off his present problem, forced it to skim past the problem that had taken him to Rome in 2006 (‘Pah! We will think of that no more!’ a voice in his head said), and let it linger instead on the voluptuous Signorina Costa Bianchi.
Ilona with the long black silken hair. Ilona with the voice that could make a laundry list sound suggestive. Ilona with the knockers that mere breathing mortals could suffocate between! Spike liked Ilona. She was good company.
On the whole, Spike usually liked the women he had sex with, including Yvette the blood technician. Had all the night shift workers in the blood-bank turned out to be boring, middle-aged, or male, he would have simply stolen the odd unit once he’d got a pass into the hospital. He brought Yvette flowers and chocolates, he only dashed away after sex if she was busy; but he wasn’t even the tiniest bit in love with her.
The same was true of Ilona. She had contacts. In 2006 she had given him the information he had wanted (‘No, not going there, leave it!’ he admonished himself), and she had also provided him twice with valid EU passports. He laughed out loud at this point, and thought that he must show them to Dawn – she would appreciate Ilona’s sense of humour; the first had shown him to be a Dutch born EU citizen called Willem van Pyre; the second, current, one was in the name of William Aurelius.
But if he hadn't liked her, he would only have asked Ilona for help, on the grounds that she ‘owed him one’ for giving her her own law firm, and left it at that. As it was, he visited her in Rome for a couple of weeks once or twice a year, they ate out, drank excellent wine together, went dancing and even, on one occasion, went to La Scala together. They looked good together – both men and women gave them obviously envious glances. And they enjoyed sex together.
Despite the pretty satisfying sex with Yvette, only an hour or two ago, the thought of sex with Ilona had Spike’s cock straining at the zip of his trousers. Hands and mind wandered together as he remembered highlights of his last visit to Rome, between his trip to Belgium and his arrival in Paris... Ilona in intricate and expensively engineered black lace underwear; Ilona spread out on cream silk sheets; Ilona who could give a tit-fuck that would make a succubus cry with envy.
It took only a few minutes of mentally picturing Ilona’s breasts enveloping his cock, her dark hair brushing against his body, her muttered words of endearment before her mouth dipped down between her tits and licked the head of his cock, before Spike reached orgasm.
He sat quietly in his chair, and let the sensation drain away, clearing his mind. Now he could think with his brain not his groin.
What to do about Dawn? The more he thought about it the clearer it became.
He had always felt that he had returned after Sunnydale, and survived the Wolfram and Hart episode, for some reason; even though he often told himself that he was flattering himself by thinking it was anything more than dumb chance. Doing some damage, in a small way, to those humans who preyed on other humans in one way or another might, just, be helping him find some sort of redemption; but it wasn’t really what he thought he was being kept around for.
Now, though, he thought he had his chance.
He had once promised to protect Dawn till the end of the world; but he’d thought that promise had become redundant.
Until a few days ago, as far as he knew, she was doing a perfectly good job of protecting herself, or being protected by her sister and her friends; she didn’t need Spike to honour that promise. Except - Dawn did need him. Dawn would need him to be there for her in a way that no-one else could. This was his chance to mean something; to make a difference. He would be the Guardian of The Key.
If he chose to be.
He reckoned he actually had three choices.
The first was to wish her all the best and run away; get on with his life as he had been leading it until last week. The second was to acknowledge the attraction he was already feeling and let himself fall in love with her. The third, and hardest, was to become her faithful protector and guardian, whilst flattening down any sexual attraction in case she couldn’t see him that way; be a brother figure and a place of safety for her.
If he was being presented with this as a chance to redeem himself – save himself from ending up in a permanent hell eventually – only the third option could possibly be right.
But - was thinking ‘Wow, the Powers That Be saved me to be a Guardian, throughout time, to The Key’ being a bit presumptuous? He, Spike, was not really that important in the scheme of things; he was flattering himself if he thought that any higher power cared about his existence.
He continued to let his mind drift, as he considered the possibilities he had just laid out for himself... He had the distinct feeling that, even if he set off to stick to Option Three, he would find himself drifting into Option Two, and maybe scaring Dawn off.
Suddenly things didn’t seem quite as clear as he’d thought. His mind went round and round the same circle until...
"Shit!" he said, out loud, "I’m no good at bloody profound thought – I can’t answer the soddin’ questions! Guess I should leave that to the bloody Watchers Council. All I can do is take it a day at a time!"
He glared, yellow-eyed, at the television and then switched it off. He laughed to himself and went to lie on the bed where he eventually drifted into sleep. His last coherent thought was 'She’s bound to ask me sometime what I was doing in Columbia in the first place. Have to tell her. How can I tell her? Can’t be any good to her if I keep things like that to myself. What will she think? Fuck - I don’t even bloody know what I think.'
Back in L’Hotel du Vieux Saule Dawn was asleep hours before Spike; but she had also been doing some thinking before sleep claimed her. She had not been as inebriated as Spike probably thought she was.
'A twenty year old is at peak performance when it comes to holding their alcohol,' she thought, only slightly giggly, remembering a biology lesson, sometime in the past, where she had learnt that ‘after the age of twenty your nephrons start to die off and can’t handle the alcohol as efficiently’.
'At least I’ll always have tip-top nephrons...' she thought with amusement.
Dawn was not too drunk to notice the bulge in the front of Spike’s trousers when they hugged at the end of the evening. She had elicited the same response, from other men, in the past; but she was rather pleased that she could have that effect on Spike. As long as he wasn’t shocked that she’d had that effect – neither of them had actually mentioned it - but she didn’t think he’d responded as if he was particularly shocked.
Dawn was well aware that with those blue eyes, chiselled cheekbones, and well kept body, Spike could have his choice of women – vampire or no vampire – and so she was flattered as well.
Sex and seduction had been pretty much at the furthest back recess of her mind when she’d decided that she needed to see him. It was there, granted, but no more so than if she’d had the chance to meet a favourite movie star or football player; probably even less.
She had realised that the teenaged crush had not gone away, but could easily develop into a much more grown up thing, by the time they had finished that first meal together.
Then came the fear that any flirting might freak Spike out as being positively incestuous - or that he might still see her as about fifteen. However, the way he spoke to her made it clear that he had easily adjusted to her being an adult; and both the slight smirk as his gaze had lingered on her chest, to check out whether her nipples really did still point upwards, and the trouser bulge, tended to confirm that he didn’t see her as totally sister-like!
Dawn was happy with this – it made her feel good. She wasn’t sure it would make Willow or Giles feel good – and she was positively certain that it wouldn’t make Buffy, or Xander for that matter, feel good – but hell, she was an independent woman, she could flirt with whoever she liked!
If it went further than flirting then she, Dawn, would be a very happy woman.
She considered these feelings in the light of what Spike had told her of his life over the past few years. The Watchers’ Council always taught that everything was absolute black and white when considering vampires, demons, and humans. Vampire or demon was in the black column, human was in the white column.
However Dawn had worked for The Council long enough, and had access to enough of its records and historical documents, to know the reason behind such teachings.
Throughout centuries-worth of historical documents the subject of 'evil humans' cropped up quite regularly. Should Watchers use The Slayer against such evil? Occasionally non-aggressive demons were mentioned; should Watchers stop The Slayer from killing them?
Every time the first question cropped up decisions had been based solely on one over-riding principle; a Slayer must never be allowed to harm a human. However the records made it clear that this was not because the Watchers thought that humans were intrinsically good; rather, they feared that any Slayer who realised that she could use her power in this way, without being struck down in some fashion, might turn to evil herself.
Or as Andrew had put it, whilst looking at one of the documents with her on one occasion, “Beware the Dark Side, Luke... or even Leia!”
On the subject of non-aggressive demons the decisions had been equally firm – a Slayer must never be admonished in any way for Slaying. A Watcher must never advise his Slayer against killing any demon in case she hesitated, at another time, when called to do her duty. This primarily was to keep the Slayer alive as long as possible... not to mention her Watcher.
It had to be said that this did not appear to be for any Slayer-friendly reason, but more because the time between the death of a Slayer and a Watcher reaching the next could be quite long; especially if the next Slayer turned out to be a girl of whose potential the Council had been unaware. This left the Council less powerful for a time, and also increased the risk of the new Slayer’s powers being abused; either by herself or, more likely in most societies in years gone by, by some male.
There was also the acknowledged fact that a ‘Field Watcher’ who kept his Slayer alive, for three or four years, was more likely to make it to the top in the Council (where the real power lay) than one whose Slayer had died, fighting a demon, within months of being called.
So - Watchers Council Rules were very clear for good, historical, reasons. But they existed for The Slayer or, these days, The Slayers. They did not exist to be obeyed by members of the category ‘Vampires with Souls’.
‘Be a great name for a group that, must tell Spike’, Dawn thought, momentarily side-tracking herself. Then ‘Hmm – interesting that the first person I thought of was Spike, not anyone else!’
‘Back to the subject in hand,’ she admonished herself.
There was no reason to insist that Spike live by Slayer rules – after all he was a bloody vampire – albeit a somewhat less bloody vampire than he had been! The Watchers Council had already invented a codicil to the ‘no exceptions can be made for non-aggressive demons’ rule, to cover Spike and Angel, and it didn’t seem to have caused the death of any Slayers.
If Dawn were a Slayer, she thought, she would not be able to cope with the concept of ‘a souled vampire who occasionally eats bad people’. It was too grey, and Spike was right, stopping to weigh things up was not a survival trait for Slayers.
But, it was obvious to her, that Watchers over the years had been much more aware of shades of grey than The Slayers ever realised. They had employed ‘The Wet Team’ for hundreds of years to cope with shades of grey – well, also to cope if a Slayer started to bend the rules...
Dawn was a Watcher – her training actually was designed to make her weigh things up - and it was pretty obvious that Spike did not need to live by Slayer rules... and neither did she. As a Watcher she should weigh all the available evidence carefully and make a balanced decision; and that was what she had done.
Slayers could not become involved with vampires, even souled vampires, without their ability to function being compromised. That way lay badness, and possible Slayer death, not to mention possible ending of the world. She knew that that was the main reason that Giles had always been so disproving of Buffy’s relationships with both Angel and then Spike.
Well... that and the fact that Buffy was only seventeen when she’d slept with Angel – which Dawn still thought was a bit squicky – physically he had been a bit too old for Buffy then!
Having made sense of her own decisions, Dawn felt happy. Giles would probably agree with her, if not immediately, then after some calm discussion!
She curled herself up into a ball under her duvet and her last thought, before finally succumbing to sleep, was ‘I wonder what he was doing in Columbia anyway?’
......................................................................................
The characters in this story do not belong to me, but are being used for amusement only and all rights remain with Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the writers of the original episodes, and the TV and production companies responsible for the original television shows. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER ©2002 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer trademark is used without express permission from Fox.
Previous chapters are all in memories
Ten Years After, Chapters One to Eight
The next chapter is here.
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Date: 29/06/2005 08:53 pm (UTC)So, Spike and Ilona? Hee! Makes perfect sense.
This is all very intriguing, and I am enjoying following it. Thank you for sharing.
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Date: 29/06/2005 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 29/06/2005 09:04 pm (UTC)Love the internal negotiations both Spike and Dawn are carrying out: Spike clarifying exactly what his choices are and predicting his own reactions to life with Dawn in it; Dawn analysing the watcherly reaction to Spike's mode of life in the past years.
All sorts of commiserations with running out of buffer; I'm writing almost all of each chapter within the twenty-four hours before I post. You know the song in "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" called "A Book Report on Peter Rabbit?" "I work best under pressure and there'll be lots of pressure if I don't get started tonight..." it describes me all too well.
Julia, and thanks for the link to memories!
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Date: 29/06/2005 09:18 pm (UTC)Only trouble is memories are currently unavailable!! I'm sure it won't last long though.
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Date: 29/06/2005 09:06 pm (UTC)Cats obviously inhabit and intersection of dimensions in the multiverse, wherein space and time do not necessarily follow a linear path. This co-habitation accounts not only for how cats know something will happen before it does (i.e. chicken cutting) but also accounts for bafflingly abrupt mood shifts (in another universe, you made some tasteless remark about how you thought a dog on TV was cute, thus justifying the cat's position in scratching you in this universe even though, to you, it seemed like you'd just been happily petting the cat) and the cat's reactions to seemingly non-existent phenomena (since every cat in the history of ever has walked across a room, jumped for no apparent reason, and then resumed their path as if nothing happened; the smooth walking was the cat in your universe, and the 'jumping cat' was the brief appearance of the cat from one of the other universes it cohabitates, which had just spotted a very large interdimensional raccoon). Cats thus not only cohabitate multiple dimensions, different multi-dimensional aspects of the cat are also able to 'phase' into our dimension, making the cat's behavior seem baffling to we humans with our limited senses. It's seriously the only explanation that makes sense. *thinks about these things waaaaay too much* :P
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Date: 29/06/2005 09:16 pm (UTC)This is the explanation of the phenomenon often observed whereby Shaka does not have an absolute and fixed number of limbs. There are occasions when he is asleep where he obviously has only two or three legs, whereas on other occasions it is clear that he has at least five, sometimes all front ones, or all back ones as well!!
We have put this down to problems when travelling through the space time continuum to always be at the right place at the right time. Such as the kitchen when there is chicken in the offing, or yowling at the bedroom door at EXACTLY the wrong moment!
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Date: 29/06/2005 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 29/06/2005 09:21 pm (UTC)Really enjoying this. A whole new dynamic for me.
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Date: 29/06/2005 10:16 pm (UTC)You got it in one!!
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Date: 29/06/2005 09:48 pm (UTC)And for the chapter, Spike just doesn't realise that the decision he's spending all this time on has already been taken out of his hands. Poor naive vamp... and he's normally so good at reading people, too!
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Date: 29/06/2005 10:18 pm (UTC)Women seem to sometimes bamboozle him a bit!!
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Date: 29/06/2005 10:00 pm (UTC)Of course, I must ask: What WAS Spike doing in Colombia?
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Date: 29/06/2005 10:19 pm (UTC)All will be revealed at the right and proper time - to quote someone, although I can't quite remember who!!
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Date: 29/06/2005 10:24 pm (UTC)*does happy dance*
Ilona with the gigantic, lethal boobies!!
I love you.
I will now go back to catching up and may even leave more sensible feedback later.
Hee.
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Date: 29/06/2005 10:31 pm (UTC)Seems fine to me!
Glad you approve of where Spike's been getting his leg over!! And under, and around etc.!!
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Date: 29/06/2005 10:36 pm (UTC)I know, and it's such a very visual mental picture isn't it?
Our cat is just plain odd! He firmly believes that standing in the middle of the living room and making a squarking sound (he's part siamese) will result in you immediately recognising that he wants you to go to the kitchen to feed him. Unless it means please throw my mouse up in the air for me to catch, or I do not like the damp universe currently outside my catflap, pleae have it changed! All are signified by exactly the same squark!
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Date: 30/06/2005 07:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 30/06/2005 01:16 am (UTC)Silly vampire. He thinks he has a choice.
And I want to know how my cat can sense that I have put some article of black clothing down in another room and promptly sneaks in there to lie on it.
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Date: 30/06/2005 07:30 am (UTC)Well he could just make a run for it......!
As you may have seen from the photo of him in my earlier post on Sunday, our cat is 95% black - he still leaves white hair on black clothes whenever he finds them!
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Date: 30/06/2005 02:53 am (UTC)I second Cass; I heart you with the heart-y Spilona love!
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Date: 30/06/2005 07:34 am (UTC)I heart you with the heart-y Spilona love
Told you it wouldn't quite be the sex you might expect!
I liked the mental picture - her tan, his paleness, her dark hair, his blond hair, and so on! She seemed a very sensible place for him to get passports etc. as well, so why not have a bit of fun as well?
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Date: 30/06/2005 08:55 am (UTC)And Spike/Ilona! Yay!
Also a neat look into the workings of the Council. (And of course I'm also curious about Colombia!)
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Date: 30/06/2005 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 30/06/2005 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 30/06/2005 05:17 pm (UTC)Why he left the US for Columbia will be explained in the next couple of chapters - honestly.
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Date: 30/06/2005 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 30/06/2005 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 30/06/2005 06:04 pm (UTC)I seldom thought of Dawn and Spike together before reading this (I think I've read one other fic awhile back that made it work) but I think it works.
As for cats - my oldest cat is amazing in his ability to read minds. I can sit for any length of time and not be able to get him to sit on my lap but the minute I begin to think of getting up and doing something else, he comes over and curls right up. Of course I can't get up then!
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Date: 30/06/2005 06:49 pm (UTC)Yes - they didn't have the makings of a grand affair of the heart but an occassional dalliance.....
As for the cat - mine has the same knack - he can sense the point exactly 30 seconds before our daughter is going to say 'I'm going to bed,' to suddenly appear to have been sitting on her knee for hours!
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Date: 30/06/2005 11:30 pm (UTC)I really like this story, especially in how you're not painting Spike as a perfect saint. I particularly liked him chucking out his pondering and deciding to take things a day at a time. That's definitely Spike for you.
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Date: 01/07/2005 07:17 am (UTC)Thank you, I have found it an interesting challenge - keeping him within character, not making him Mr. Perfect because of the soul, but not forgetting it either!
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Date: 01/07/2005 09:16 am (UTC)This made me laugh out loud: Ilona in intricate and expensively engineered black lace underwear, Ilona spread out on cream silk sheets, Ilona who could give a tit-fuck that would make a succubus cry with envy. How very true of Ilona but very Spike-like at the same time :D
Can't wait to hear about the mysterious Columbia mystery and enjoying the way you're transitioning the relationship. Good luck with the next bits! :)
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Date: 01/07/2005 11:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 31/07/2005 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 31/07/2005 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 07/11/2006 08:42 pm (UTC)Karen