Deathly Moon:
Buffy stares up at the white ceiling of her room. Cross like shadows from moonlight shining through the window panes make their home on her white walls. A single white sheet covers her naked form as she lies with Spike on his back beside her. They’re both still awake, and they lie resting beside each other waiting to regain their strength for what must be done next. Buffy turns her head to see the alarm clock beside her bed. 9:23 the numbers read in a collaboration of blinking red lines. Buffy then turns around on her other side to face Spike and he turns to face her. They take in each other’s features and Spike runs his fingers across her cheek. A single tear rolls down her face creating a river across her golden skin and Spike wipes it away. Then silently Buffy gets out of bed.
Buffy starts to get dressed, however as she’s about to put her white shirt back on she stares down at it and decides that she’d rather wear something that won’t be stained by her blood. Then for a moment that thought seems so odd to her, to think that she's worried of the fasion statement her corpse will be making once she's dead. Buffy walks over to her closet as Spike finishes getting dressed behind her and looks through her shirts. She realizes that she’s not surprised of the morbid thoughts about her own death that are floating through her mind.
“I suppose you were right all those years ago about being the one to take me out,” Buffy says with dry humor as she pulls a black blouse from her closet.
“Kinda was wishing I'd been wrong about that love,” Spike replies.
Buffy chokes back tears and does her best to suppress all her feelings. She buttons up her black shirt and turns back to Spike whose standing in the center of her room facing her. Slowly she walks past him and sits on the edge of her bed. Spike sits down next to her mirroring their positions from when they first entered Buffy’s room. Again Buffy turns to Spike, but this time she doesn’t plan to ask him to make love to her and they both know it.
“How do you want… what do I need to do?” Buffy asks trying to keep her voice from shaking.
“Nothing pet, works all on me,” Spike says, then notices that he needs to say something else to calm her fears. “Just try to relax, I’ll lead you through this.” Spike hopes that giving her some instructions will help her feel like she has some control over this situation.
“Okay.”
Spike leans into Buffy, his face is still that of its human form, and he looks her straight in her eyes wanting to relay all the love he has for her. Spike then nears her neck and allows his face to change. Buffy can feel his smooth skin turn bumpy and as she does her Slayer senses are telling her to run from the close proximity he has to her neck. She tries to keep her body from tensing up, but despite her best efforts she does anyway. Spike waits a moment until Buffy is relaxed again. He places one hand on her shoulder and with the other intertwines his fingers with hers. Buffy notices the cool feeling of his skin more in this moment then she ever has before. Spike’s skin against hers feels like ice and she is all too aware of it. Buffy closes her eyes and grips his hand tight as Spike quickly drives his fangs into her neck.
His teeth, sharp as hypodermic needles, drive deep through her skin and Spike wraps his arms around her small frame tightly as pain flows through her body. Her blood tastes like nothing Spike’s has ever had before, it’s better then the Slayer in China, and the second it reaches his taste buds he’s thirsting for more. Buffy’s nails dig into the leather of Spike’s coat as the sweet and strong liquid that is her life drains from her body.
Spike drinks deep wanting this to be over as fast as it can so Buffy doesn’t have to suffer longer then need be. Silent gasps of pain escape her mouth and then Buffy finds her body trembling and growing weak. As her grip on the vampire before her weakens and loosens Spike lays Buffy down on the bed, his fangs remaining deep in her neck the entire time. He hears her heartbeat slow, its pitter-patter becoming more spaced, and he knows that soon she will be slipping away. Silent tears fall down Spike’s face as he pulls away from her body.
Spike stares down at the barely conscious Buffy with a surreal sense of dread as he sinks his fangs into his own wrist. Knowing what she must do Buffy opens her mouth with what’s left of her strength and Spike holds his bleeding wrist out before her. Tiny droplets of blood fall from the vampire into the dying Slayer’s mouth. Then Spike lowers his wrist to her and she drinks.
--
Downstairs the potentials, including Kennedy, are settling down in the living room where Anya has fallen asleep on the couch. Dawn, Willow and Xander, however, are still wide awake and wait for some word on Buffy’s condition in the kitchen. They all sit still as statues around the breakfast counter with grave faces.
“Think everything is going okay?” Dawn asks.
“Yeah, I’m sure everything is just fine,” Willow says reassuringly then gives a pointed look at Xander to suggest that maybe Dawn’s fears hold some validity.
“Don’t worry Dawnie, if Spike’s not back down soon I’ll go up and check on them okay,” Xander says wanting any reason to go upstairs.
--
Spike stands over the deceased Slayer. One of her legs hangs limply off the edge of the bed and her fingers are clasped from digging her nails into Spike’s coat. He stares at her for the longest time as her dead eyes stare back up at him, they look at Spike lacking the glimmer and life he’d come to love seeing within them, now they are empty and lifeless. Spike thinks to himself that he has finally done the one thing that he will never be able to forgive himself for. Then Spike gently takes his hand and closes her eyes. He adjusts her pale body so that she’s lying straight on the bed, pushes her legs together and rests her arms at her sides. Then Spike slumps to the ground below the window. He collapses there resting his head against the wall staring blankly at nothing, because at that moment nothing is there with him, at that moment she’s just gone.
--
“Alright, that’s it. I’m going up there,” Xander says as he gets up from his spot in the kitchen and walks into the dining room. Willow and Dawn follow him knowing that he intends to see what’s going on. As he makes his way through the dining room and turns the corner to go up the stairs he sees Spike walking down them. Xander stops in his tracks at the sight of the blonde vampire as do Dawn and Willow who come up behind him. At first Spike is oblivious of Xander’s existence, but as he reaches the last step he acknowledges the young man’s presence as well as that of the two young women beside him. Looks of fear and uncertainty adorn their faces and all of them are looking to him for an answer.
“Is she… did you… how did everything go?” Xander says through jumbled speech.
“She’s dead,” Spike says flatly and attempts to walk away, but Dawn rushes up to him.
“But she’s… she’ll rise right, everything went the way it was supposed to?” Dawn asks with worry in her eyes and Spike simply nods at her. Then he continues to move toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Willow asks.
“To get blood… she’ll be hungry when she wakes,” Spike says as he adjusts the collar of his leather duster and walks out the door avoiding eye contact as much as possible. The door slams behind him and Willow, Dawn and Xander just look at each other not quite sure of what to do next.
--
For a brief moment Dawn, Willow and Xander went into Buffy’s room to gaze upon her corpse. She looked almost peaceful, as if she might have been sleeping, that is with the exception of the gaping wound on her neck that was the cause of her stillness and ashen skin tone. It felt surreal to see her lying there like that. Seemed fake and bizarre, but they all knew it was real, very real. They stood in her room completely silent as they gazed upon her corpse, then finding that there was nothing more to do Willow and Xander exited the room, Dawn however, stayed.
Now Dawn sits with her back against Buffy’s mirrored closet staring at the end of the bed. Her room feels weird to Dawn; it simply isn’t Buffy’s room anymore. It’s a death room, a room that has been taken over by the darkness and while sunrise will be coming soon sleep is far from Dawn’s mind. Dawn just sits in silence as the cross like shadows travel across the walls - the walls of the death room - as the moon moves through the sky. Time seems still and yet completely unimportant all together in the moments she spends against the mirror. Dawn is so dazed that she doesn’t even flinch as Buffy’s door opens again and her killer enters the room.
When Spike had returned home he placed the blood he bought in the fridge then proceeded upstairs wanting to wait with her until sunrise. As he walked through the door of her bedroom he was caught off guard seeing Dawn sitting on the floor. Spike stops dead in his tracks for a moment then walks toward the fragile girl sitting on the floor.
“She looks like she’s sleeping… but she’s so cold,” Dawn says absentmindedly. Spike says nothing, just sits down beside her. They don’t look at each other; they simply stare into the oblivion that is the end of Buffy’s bed before them. “When will she rise?” Dawn asks.
“Tomorrow night, right after sunset.”
“Spike?”
“Yeah, niblet?”
“When you got your soul… you did that because you knew what you… tried to do to Buffy was wrong?”
“Never meant to hurt your sis… demon just had more control over me then I could help… I know there’s nothing I can say to make up for that, but I got my soul to try, I wanted to be a better man.”
Dawn is silent for a moment then, as if analyzing his words.
“I’m sorry… about when you came back, how I acted… I didn’t know… it’s just that last year… you just left, I was mad at you for leaving us.”
“I’m so sorry Dawn,” Spike says with true sympathy in his voice. He hadn’t realized how much he’d hurt her by leaving. “I love you and your sis… have for a long time, and I shouldn’t have left like I did.” Dawn takes note that he doesn’t promise never to leave again, but for the moment she’s happy with his apology.
Dawn says nothing, but she does turn and look at him for the first time since he’s entered the room. She looks him straight in the eye and then rests her head on his shoulder. Spike brings his arm around her shoulders recognizing her silent acceptance of his apology, and for the first time that night sleep stops escaping Dawn and she finds herself drifting off as she nuzzles up to Spike.
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Chapter End Notes:
This fic is getting posted fast because I want to nominate it at the Spuffy Awards for best Buffy with Bite, so expect quick updates since I need to finish it before the 15th and please review review review. Special thanks to cordykitten and PhotographyNut.