The bruises around Spike’s eyes had turned from muddy cobalt to faded green; almost the color of a pear. Somehow the healing made his face look worse; at least the dark marks had character. The fading blemishes just made his skin look dirty.
In that time Buffy had been getting progressively more exhausted. The doctor had diagnosed her with anemia and prescribed extra supplements to go with her vitamins. The pills made her nauseous; the only foods she could keep down were saltine crackers and peanut butter cup ice cream. Buffy’s weight was dropping and she was a thin woman to start. Spike hated that she worked the night shift. If he could be honest with himself, he hated that she had to work at all when she was so sick. Buffy was trying to get on days but there was a waiting list. More than once he’d woken up at two in the morning after instinctively groping for Buffy to find her side of the bed empty. He’d get up to discover her collapsed face-down on the living room couch in her scrubs, her utilitarian, plastic shoes on her feet. After the first few times he came upon her that way, Spike had taken to sleeping on the couch so he could care for Buffy when she tumbled through the door. Initially, she bristled at his attempts to molly coddle her but soon she met him with gratitude.
Spike felt thin, like whisky that had been watered down and salted to cover the dwindling taste. He was holding on until summer break when he could see to his girl properly without any diversions, like work. They hadn’t opened up the boxes or set aside time to decorate the baby’s room. They hadn’t had sex, either, and that shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did, but Spike wanted her more than he wanted a cigarette and he wanted a cigarette more than he’d ever wanted almost anything in his entire life.
And then there was Dawn.
Dawn hadn’t been to his class in a week and a half. When Buffy came to pick her up from school the girl was monosyllabic and surly, which bothered her mother to no end. Dawn was upsetting Buffy and Spike couldn’t have that; not now when her health was so delicate. Aside from his concern for Buffy, Dawn was angling to fail. Spike was responsible for that and it plagued him; his thoughts on the matter were burrs and thorns.
It was fifth period and he knew just where Dawn would be; outside of the gym with the rest of the kids nicking a smoke between classes. The little rebel had a burgeoning nicotine habit.
When Spike swung open the double doors, the other kids scattered like rice spilling from an open bag. Not Dawn, though. She was leaning against the brick wall in her too-short, plaid skirt and her white, dress shirt tied saucily at the waist with a look in her enormous, blue eyes that seemed to say, “What took you so long?”
Spike crossed his arms over his chest and she smirked at him, pinching her coffin nail inexpertly between red, glossy nails. Spike snatched the cigarette from her hand.
“These will kill ya, pet,” he said.
Then he took a drag. There was a delicious burn through his chest with an unfortunate aftertaste. Grape Lip Smackers. Yuck.
“Why do you care?”
He exhaled a white plume through his nose and smiled at her.
“You’ve been skipping your lessons, Dawn. Gone from my best student to my worst,” Spike said.
Dawn put her foot against the wall, parting her legs slightly, dangerously close to flashing her knickers. He wondered if she had any idea what she was doing. Spike kept his focus on her angry, blue eyes.
“Why.Do.You.Care?”
She was just short of stamping around like a toddler, it undermined whatever she was trying to accomplish with her big-girl clothes. Spike took another sip from the cigarette.
“You know I care about you, Dawn, not just ‘cause of your mum. Fell for her because I liked you so well,” Spike said.
The retort Dawn had at the ready got stuck in her throat.
“It’s true. You’ll still pass even if you don’t show for the rest of the semester, but you’re missing out on one of the best novels of the Twentieth Century. Also, without you in class Abby Triester’s getting a bit too big for her britches,” Spike said.
“You know she didn’t even read ‘Of Mice and Men,’ she just watched the movie?” Dawn asked with a silly, grapey grin.
“Yeah I know, had to read her essay on it, didn’t I?”
Dawn laughed and then seemed to remember she was talking to Spike. She flicked her long, shining hair behind her shoulder.
“My dad was the one who gave you those black eyes,” Dawn said.
“He was indeed,” Spike said, sucking out the last,
luxurious drag from the crumbling cigarette. He dropped
the butt and crushed it out with the heel of his scuffed, brown, dress shoe.
“Good,” she said.
“Don’t mind if you hate me, pet, I can take it, but you’re killing your mother. She hasn’t been eating, she’s barely slept,” Spike said.
“So this was all about her, then, of course,” Dawn said with a shrug of her shoulders.
“Not all but most. I’d have started dogging you last week about missing class if you’d been anybody else,” Spike said. He slid his hands in the pocket of his dark green, corduroy pants, wishing they were occupied with another smoke.
“You don’t care about me at all,” Dawn said.
He sighed.
“Why should I matter, pet?”
“Don’t know,” Dawn said.
Mercifully, Dawn put both of her feet flat on the ground and tugged her skirt flat. She pulled her face into a pout, aping a gesture he found irresistible when her mother did it. On Dawn it just pissed him off. Spike took a deep breath hoping to contain his temper.
“If I gave you something, something that would prove to you that you I care about you, would you drop this bad girl stuff? Don’t expect you to forgive me and your mum overnight, but I do need you to stop hurting yourself,” Spike said.
“You want to pay me off?” she asked with a sneer.
Spike laughed.
“You’ve seen my car, pet, you know I’m not exactly flush,” he said.
Dawn swallowed a smile.
“What then?”
Spike looked down at the asphalt and toed the curled filter of his discarded cigarette.
“Remember when I told you a writer’s life was one of poverty and rejection?”
She nodded yes.
“Was speaking from experience. When I was twenty-three I got my first book published; turned out to be my only published book. Wasn’t so good, sold about two-hundred copies and then died a death un-mourned. I’ll let you read it, let you tell me what you honestly think if you promise to ditch the ciggies, show up for class and smile at your mother at least once a week. The skirts are your business,” Spike said.
“Why would that prove anything?”
“Haven’t shown it to anyone in more than twenty years, that’s why. Your mother doesn’t even know I wrote a book,” Spike said.
Dawn’s eyes took on a look of awe and her goopy lower lip gaped.
“Why haven’t you told anyone? If I wrote a book I’d probably have it turned into an amulet so I could have a copy on me all the time,” she said.
“Told you, wasn’t very good. I’m embarrassed of it now,” Spike said.
“There’s lots of sex stuff in it, isn’t there?” Dawn asked with a measure of eagerness that made him uncomfortable.
“Teenagers, always got your minds in the gutter,” he said, rocking on his heels.
“But there is, isn’t there?” Dawn asked, bringing her hands together in a silent clap.
Spike tilted his head and teased the back of his teeth with the tip of his tongue.
“Of course. So, have we got a deal?” Spike asked.
“Deal,” Dawn said. She stuck out her hand; Spike laughed and shook it.
Spike opened his leather briefcase and produced a slim volume. The dust jacket was gray with a picture of a spiral staircase in black and white. He handed it to the girl and then zipped up his case. Dawn flipped the book over and read the title aloud.
“The Stairwell? What’s it mean?” she asked.
“Just read it,” he said.
“What if I don’t show up to class tomorrow?” Dawn asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Then I know what your word’s worth,” Spike said.
That got Dawn’s attention, like he knew it would.
“I’ll be there, I’m not a liar,” she said, stressing the last word.
“I know you will, pet,” Spike said.
He turned and went back inside, out of the afternoon sunlight. Spike smiled with satisfaction when he heard Dawn’s footsteps behind him.
***
Dawn had stolen up to her room with brief smiles toward Riley and Sam who were sitting at the kitchen table chopping vegetables for the dinner salad. Her dad was making meat loaf and the scent of roasting hamburger followed her upstairs as she cloistered herself in bed with Mr. Pratt’s book.
***
She was shaking, Buffy was shaking in his arms. The trembling woke them at the same time.
“Spike, Spike there’s blood,” Buffy said from lips that were turning blue.
***
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
“The Wasteland,” by T.S. Eliot
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