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*********** It hurts. She's tired. She can't sleep. Tick. Tick. Dawn wonders why she never noticed the sound the grandfather clock made before. Tick. It fills the living room. Endless, ceaseless. But when a person dies, aren't you supposed to stop all the clocks in the deceased's home? Should *she* stop it? Tick. Dawn crosses her arms over her chest and pulls her knees closer to her body. The sun is throwing a patch of bright warmth over the couch where she is sitting but she feels goosebumps ripple up her arms despite that fact. Or in spite of that fact. Whatever. Tick. *How* didn't she ever hear the clock before? It's so loud. It's so...unsettling. Like it's questioning. Like it's...calling out. "Where is every one?" She doesn't like it. She almost gets up, at that thought, to open the clock and stop the pendulum, but she doesn't. The clock's the only sound in the house. The house has never been this silent. Even in the middle of the night when she stayed up to read a book it wasn't like this. Deathly silent. The phrase suddenly makes sense to her and she shivers again. No, as much as she dislikes that lonely ticking, she'd rather have it that nothing at all. Tick. Tick. Tick. A cadence: beating out words in her overtaxed mind before she can stop it. Tick (Your) tick (fault) tick (all) tick (yours) tick (death) tick (your) tick (the) tick (cause). Accusations. Dawn draws a breathy sob and lurches away from the couch. She wants out, wants away. She trips over the backpack at her feet, filled with clean clothing and random necessities. Dawn lays on the floor a moment, the breath knocked from her body. She can feel the rough carpet against her face. See her mother's favorite plant from her angle on the ground. Hear the clock. Tick. She sighs and sits up, gathering her backpack into her arms. She wants a nap. She's tired; always tired. Tick. Dawn shuts the door behind her but doesn't lock it. Maybe someone would come; come and steal the clock with its accusing ticks, calling out for the family that belonged here. No wonder she felt so uncomfortable in her home. Because, it wasn't, was it? Her home that is. Tick. No, it wasn't. It was simply a place that she was responsible for killing. A dead house. No laughter to be heard here now, no life, no breathe, no hopes or dreams or plans. Just the sound
of one weeping clock.
*****
Con -- 1. To fraud; dupe; swindle. 2. A prisoner. Condemn - 1. To pronounce hopeless; give up as incurable. 2. To close up, or to withdraw from public use. Vampire - 1. A living corpse that rises from its grave at night to feed upon the living by sucking their blood. Note that the
definition of vampire, as defined by the Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary,
does not include the words con or condemnation in the entry.
*****
It hurts. He's tired. He can't sleep. He can't find the remote, either. It hurts. So he withdraws. Normal escape. *Human* escape. Spike's done it before. Time and time again, actually, but who's counting? He'll drown himself in the flashing lights and fickle standards, only to become sick when the age has ended and society once again changes its design. An overdose of caring? Of giving a damn? Fix it with an addiction to apathy. Fuck blood, fuck sex (ha ha), fuck the speed and power of being what he is. Small and petty compared to the heroin spit out through the cables that run underground and up above and draw him in despite the shaking and mewling and desperation. Anything to forget for even a moment that he knows how to care. Dots. He's addicted to the dots, you know. Whether it's newsprint or video screen, up close all you can see are the dots. Pull back, and there it is. Life. Warmth. Without needing to care. Without needing to *love*. They show the sun. On the beach, the woods, the cities. Off the arms of nubile young things driving fast down the freeway, light reflecting off their sunglasses. And does Spike give a damn if it's false security? He's false. He has your face. He bleeds human blood, after a manner. So be it. So let yourself be drawn in so you can last another day. Tell yourself you can't watch the sun rise without first wearing those new shoes or seeing who wins "Survivor." Live vicariously
and don't think about it, thinks Spike, as he finally fishes the remote
from under the battered, musty couch.
*****
Blood, also,
is just a multitude of dots if viewed closely.
*****
"Don't touch
the bloody door
Slightly disturbing, thinks Dawn. Of course, everything is now. She turns the
radio off. Sits in the silence and stares at nothing.
*****
Q: What do
songbirds dream about? A: Singing diet of reassurances
Questions or comments? Spike blinks at that last, then continues to flip through the channels. He doesn't stay on any given station for more than a few moments, as if looking for some omen concealed there. The TV is old. So is the remote. The buttons make a tired, overworked noise as he ceaselessly prowls through the profuse information chittering on the screen before him. Tick. Tick.
Tick.
*****
Dawn follows the sound of a TV through the darkness. She enters Spike's "living room" to find the TV on; but no Spike to be seen. A sitcom is unfolding on the screen. A popular series involving a woman and her gay roommate. As she watches, the gay man and his friend are at a bar. There's a little old lady with them that apparently is a friend's mother. The friend sneaked away, leaving the mother with them... Dawn approaches the couch facing the TV. She'll just sit down and watch TV until Spike returns. "Yeah? What are you doing here?" Dawn squeaks and steps away from the couch. She hadn't noticed Spike stretched out there, away from her view. Dawn collects herself--calm down, girl--and sits down on the chair next to the TV. She can't see the screen anymore, but she can she Spike laying prone on the couch. He looks comfortable. Looks like he isn't planning on moving any time soon. One arm dangles over the edge; knuckles scraping the floor with the remote within reach. "So?" Spike isn't even looking at her. She notes he looks tired. A lot of that going around, it seems. She shrugs. "I-I haven't seen you recently." "So?" Dawn shrugs again. "I don't know...I just wanted. Wanted. Oh. Crap." She runs her hands through her hair and falls silent. "That's nice," says Spike. In the sickly light cast by the TV, his features seem to have more of a pallor than usual. His eyes have a white look to the edges. A trick of the light? Maybe. But Dawn knows what causes the skin around a person's eyes to be that white, that drained. She's grown accustomed to seeing eyes like that in the mirror every morning. It's caused by crying. Lots of crying. Trick of the light? She'll pretend, why not? Dawn takes a deep breath and tries to talk again. "Spike? Do you remember when the portal opened?" Spike rolls his eyes in her direction, but says nothing. So Dawn continues. "And, um, all those things came out? Well, I was thinking, that maybe...well...there was that dragon." "And?" Spike says this very carefully, to Dawn's ears. "And...with Buffy gone..." Spike sits up then, and hisses, "You're not the bloody Slayer, bint. You can't take *her* place. She died for you. What, you gonna make that meaningless?" Dawn recoils at his words. "No! I-I mean...I came here because..." She gives up, finishing lamely with, "What's a bint?" "Go home Dawn." His eyes are once again latched onto the screen in front of him. Dawn stands up without thought and moves in front of the TV. "No!" "Dammit, Dawn--" "I don't *have* a home, Spike! I have--I have *shit*!" Spike looks at her then; really looks at her. Dawn realizes she's crying, a slow stream of tears down her cheeks and around her nose. Spike starts to say something, and stops. He tries again. "Nice language, love." "Whatever." Dawn rubs an arm over her sore eyes and stalks towards the exit to the room. "Dawn, these things...these things aren't your responsibility." Dawn turns and sees Spike standing next to the couch. "Yeah, well, too bad. They need to be someone's. I thought you'd help me. Guess I was wrong." "The bloody dragon probably isn't even in Sunnydale anymore." A last ditch chance to absolve himself. Dawn looks Spike coolly in the eyes. "Exactly." Understanding blooms between them then. "We'd have to leave Sunnydale, if we wanted to find the dragon," says Spike. "Might take awhile." Dawn nodded. "Yeah. We'd be leaving everyone and everything we know behind for a while." "To hunt the dragon." "Yeah." Spike and Dawn stared at each other a moment longer. Leave Sunnydale for a week. Or two. Or more. Leave all the places that had *her* clinging to nooks and dark corners. No ticking clock for awhile. No fear of looking up from mindless entertainment because of the pain that will result from the memories. "Think we'll find the dragon?" Dawn says at last. "Yes. No. The older one gets, the harder it is to narrow down your answer to a black or white shade. It all comes out gray. In shades of "Maybe" and "Perhaps." Dawn isn't sure what Spike is talking about, but she knows it has nothing to do with the dragon. But as long as he agrees to help her, he can say whatever he wants. She will find the dragon. She *needs to*. Dawn smiles wanly at Spike. He smiles back. Both smiles are more false than real. Planned simulations. But it's a
start.
****** |