FIC - What Were You Thinking (expansion from drabble)
Title: What Were You Thinking?
Characters: Spike, Dawn
Rating: R for language
A/N: I did a drabble for open_on_sunday and several folks asked for an expansion. So, here’s 2K words or so. Hope it’s what y’all wanted to see :)
Making her way upstairs, down the hallway and toward her bedroom, she planned to drop her heavy bookbag and come up with ways to get out of doing her homework. She really needed to call her friend Marcie, because Good Lord, did anyone else notice those horrific shoes that Becky was wearing today?
Instead, Dawn found herself stopped dead in her tracks. Spike was standing there, right outside her doorway, looking pissed and holding something tightly in both his hands. It was a small wooden box, and it looked like…oh, shit. It was. She’d spent enough time looking at it to know for sure. She’d never used any of the items inside, only held them up to admire them, and herself, for a moment, before hiding it in plain sight on her nightstand. Because she was stupid and figured no one would become suspicious of a simple little box just sitting there out in the open.
Clearly, she had been mistaken. In just a moment, Spike shifted the box into his left hand and placed his right around Dawn’s arm, pulling her into the bedroom. A private conversation, then. All right. He wasn’t going to do this in front of their friends. Still, she flushed and frantically tried to come up with some kind of believable cover story. It was ridiculous, because Spike would never fall for a lie, not from her, but she couldn’t help the overriding instinct to protect herself.
The door slammed behind them, hard. Dawn was fairly certain she’d never seen Spike quite this angry (which was saying something, because he didn’t usually try to hide it when he was feeling pure rage), and most certainly not at her. But there it was, right there in front of her. Spike’s jaw was clenched hard enough to grind his teeth together, and his mouth was a rigid, straight line pulled tight against his face.
Once inside her room, he let go of her and stepped away from her, toward her bed. Then he dumped out the little box of stolen trinkets; a bracelet, a tube of mascara, some earrings, a few tiny charms.
“I’m going to give you thirty seconds to explain how you legitimately came into possession of these little prizes”, Spike said, his voice low and much more quiet than she was expecting, “but I don’t think you can.” Thirty seconds, thirty seconds, that wasn’t long enough, oh Jesus, okay, she had to try, she had to come up with something. “Uh…they were…I was just…um…Spike, I-”
And then her time was up. So now there was yelling.
“What the bloody hell were you thinking, Dawn? That no one would notice? That I wouldn’t notice? You’re a smart girl. You had to know you’d get caught. If your sister were here-”
“Well, she’s not, is she?” Dawn retorted angrily, even as she processed the fact that Spike had addressed her by her proper name, not one of the many endearing nicknames he’d made up for her.
“No. She’s not. Which is why this is my sodding job, thanks. I don’t want an excuse. I want an explanation. Now.”
The only weapon she had in her arsenal was a weak one that would likely get her nowhere. She had to at least make an attempt, especially now that her dead sister had been mentioned. So, righteous indignation it was.
“Why were you in here looking at my things, Spike? Snooping? That’s not fair, I’m entitled to some privacy, you know, I’m not just-”
Spike cut her off there. “You absolutely are entitled to your privacy. Unless I had reason to believe something was wrong. I’d never go through your things unless I absolutely had to. And in this case, I did have to. You still haven’t given me the explanation I just demanded from you. Out with it, then. Why the mother- why the hell would you do something like this? Unless some insane shift in the economy has occurred, which I don’t believe to be the case, you could easily have purchased these things. I supply you with more than enough spending money, and you could have gotten these” - he picked up and then immediately threw back down a pair of earrings made of vermeil in the shape of a pentagram enclosed in a circle , “for no more than a few dollars.” Spike was no fool, he knew Rupert gave her spending money too. Certainly enough, between the two of them, that if Dawn wanted these little trinkets, she could easily have just purchased them. So, this was not about having or not having enough cash in her gaudy purple pocketbook.
At this point, Dawn couldn’t think of anything to say in response, so she just stared a hole into the floor. She was putting a valiant effort into not crying, but she could feel the tears welling up in spite of herself.
When she looked up, Spike was still standing there with mostly the same look on his face but with an added component: disappointment. Dawn was crushed then, unable to fight back any longer. Spike got angry, lots of times, and for lots of reasons. But with Dawn, even at the times when she’d really fucked up, Spike had never reacted with more than a disapproving look or a quiet lecture about acceptable behavior for a girl her age. She’d always thought he’d been tolerant because he understood about her grief after losing Buffy, that maybe people didn’t always make the right decisions, especially when they were struggling just to keep going from one day to the next. Spike certainly hadn’t always made the right decisions. Somehow, Dawn knew this wasn’t the time to bring that up. It wasn’t going to help her, and it wasn’t going to get her out of this. She was in trouble, serious trouble.
So she gave him all she had left. “I’m sorry, Spike. I shouldn’t have taken these things. It won’t happen again.” Still, she was looking at the floor, unable to meet his eyes for fear of what she’d see there. It wasn’t going to be that easy, though.
“Look at me, girl. Now.”
Dawn knew Spike wasn’t in any mood for stalling tactics, so she forced herself to raise her eyes, and what she saw there was so much worse than she expected. He was clearly angry, but the look she’d seen earlier, the raw display of his disappointment in her was almost too much for her to take. She was crying, not even trying to hold back the tears anymore, but there was no sympathy on Spike’s face.
“You’re right, you shouldn’t have taken these things. But you’re not crying because you’re sorry for having done it. You’re crying because you’ve been caught out for it. I don’t think you’re sorry for your petty theft, even though most of it was done at the expense of someone who’s supposed to be your friend.”
Oh. Yeah, okay, things were starting to come together now. Spike had looked because someone had told him to. Someone suspected she’d been taking things, probably Anya, and he’d gotten stuck with the task of confirming or denying those suspicions.
“Spike, please, I know it was wrong, I’ll give everything back-”
“Damn right you’ll give everything back. You made me look like a fool, Dawn. Oh, no, what a silly idea, just ridiculous, not the Bit, she would never…Christ, I’m a bleeding idiot. You will give everything back, you will take every single one of these stupid things back to the Box, and you’ll apologize, and you’ll spend however long it takes sweeping floors and organizing books to make up for your fucking theft.”
Theft. It sounded so much worse than shoplifting. “I know, yes, I know, I will, of course, I’m so sorry. Please, don’t be angry with me. Please?”
“Too late for that. I’m already angry. Isn’t that obvious? And where’d you get the mascara? It’s in the same box, so you stole that too, right?” Stolen. Shit. Once again, it just sounded so different than ‘shoplifted’. Logically, Dawn knew it was the same thing, but the semantics…she guess that’s what had made it easier.
She took a deep breath before she responded. “Yes. I stole that too.”
“Where did you get it?”
“The drugstore by the school.” Her eyes had dropped to the floor again.
“All right. We’ll go there first. Soon as it’s dark enough. You’ll bring that makeup right back, and hand it over to whoever is in charge there, and we’ll see whether or not they decide to call the police and report you for it.”
Dawn’s eyes jumped up from the floor, wide and terrified. “Police? It’s mascara!”
“It’s stolen mascara. So, we’ll do that, and if I don’t have to bail you out of the county lockup, we’ll make another stop at the Box so you can return the rest of it. Understand?”
“Yes. Yes, I understand. Do you think they’ll ever forgive me?” And that - no matter what else had happened - that was genuine, and Spike knew it.
“You mean Giles and Anya? Of course they will. Hell, I already have. Doesn’t mean you haven’t got an obligation to make up for it. To them. Not to me.”
Dawn was shocked, just for a minute, then realized she shouldn’t be so surprised. Spike had been so good to her these past months, looking after her and trying to make sure she was handling the loss of her sister, especially under these specific circumstances, with a bit of guidance. And she’d been entirely ungrateful, pushing away his attempts at comfort, offended by his constant presence. It hit her all at once, how awful she’d been. Not just because of what she’d done wrong, but because of her lack of ability to see that Spike was just trying to take care of her. He’d lost someone he loved, too. She hadn’t given it a moment’s thought, what everyone else had lost.
And there it was, the moment where everything broke into a million pieces, Dawn sitting down on her bed, weeping with her head in her hands, and of course, Spike was right there. Instantly, he dropped to his knees and put his arms around her, patting the back of her head and trying to calm her. “It’s all right, Niblet, it’s all right, it’s all going to be all right.”
Barely coherent through her sobs, she responded, “I miss her so much, Spike. Why couldn’t she have just let them take me? You’d all be better off, everything would have been fine, I’m not even real. I’m not even real, Spike.”
“You’re as real as anyone I’ve ever known, Bit. You’re real to me, and to Xander, and to Willow, and everyone else, and you were real to your sister, no matter what. Promise me you know that. Please, promise me you won’t ever think of yourself that way. You’re here, and you’re real, and we love you. I love you. Do you understand?” He pulled back and pulled her chin up so they were eye to eye. “I love you, Dawn. And I get it. I do. I miss her too.”
All Dawn could do was nod, incapable of forming words now. By this time, Spike was shedding his own tears, and it took every bit of strength he had to haul her up to her feet.
“We’ve got places to go, Niblet. Let’s get you cleaned up and we’ll do what we’ve got to.”
Dawn sucked in a few deep breaths, then nodded before heading toward the bathroom to wash her face and calm down a little. So, this wasn’t going to be a fun evening. But before it was over, everything Spike had said had been proven true. Buffy’s friends were her friends, and they loved her. And Spike loved her. And he would never walk away from her, not even when he had to stand behind her while she apologized to a drugstore manager for swiping mascara. Not even when she had to hand over things she’d taken from The Magic Box without paying for them, and offer to do anything it would take to make up for it. She thought there was probably nothing she could ever do that would diminish the protective and genuine love Spike gave to her, though it wasn’t a theory she wanted to test. Dawn was just grateful. Really, truly grateful.
Characters: Spike, Dawn
Rating: R for language
A/N: I did a drabble for open_on_sunday and several folks asked for an expansion. So, here’s 2K words or so. Hope it’s what y’all wanted to see :)
Making her way upstairs, down the hallway and toward her bedroom, she planned to drop her heavy bookbag and come up with ways to get out of doing her homework. She really needed to call her friend Marcie, because Good Lord, did anyone else notice those horrific shoes that Becky was wearing today?
Instead, Dawn found herself stopped dead in her tracks. Spike was standing there, right outside her doorway, looking pissed and holding something tightly in both his hands. It was a small wooden box, and it looked like…oh, shit. It was. She’d spent enough time looking at it to know for sure. She’d never used any of the items inside, only held them up to admire them, and herself, for a moment, before hiding it in plain sight on her nightstand. Because she was stupid and figured no one would become suspicious of a simple little box just sitting there out in the open.
Clearly, she had been mistaken. In just a moment, Spike shifted the box into his left hand and placed his right around Dawn’s arm, pulling her into the bedroom. A private conversation, then. All right. He wasn’t going to do this in front of their friends. Still, she flushed and frantically tried to come up with some kind of believable cover story. It was ridiculous, because Spike would never fall for a lie, not from her, but she couldn’t help the overriding instinct to protect herself.
The door slammed behind them, hard. Dawn was fairly certain she’d never seen Spike quite this angry (which was saying something, because he didn’t usually try to hide it when he was feeling pure rage), and most certainly not at her. But there it was, right there in front of her. Spike’s jaw was clenched hard enough to grind his teeth together, and his mouth was a rigid, straight line pulled tight against his face.
Once inside her room, he let go of her and stepped away from her, toward her bed. Then he dumped out the little box of stolen trinkets; a bracelet, a tube of mascara, some earrings, a few tiny charms.
“I’m going to give you thirty seconds to explain how you legitimately came into possession of these little prizes”, Spike said, his voice low and much more quiet than she was expecting, “but I don’t think you can.” Thirty seconds, thirty seconds, that wasn’t long enough, oh Jesus, okay, she had to try, she had to come up with something. “Uh…they were…I was just…um…Spike, I-”
And then her time was up. So now there was yelling.
“What the bloody hell were you thinking, Dawn? That no one would notice? That I wouldn’t notice? You’re a smart girl. You had to know you’d get caught. If your sister were here-”
“Well, she’s not, is she?” Dawn retorted angrily, even as she processed the fact that Spike had addressed her by her proper name, not one of the many endearing nicknames he’d made up for her.
“No. She’s not. Which is why this is my sodding job, thanks. I don’t want an excuse. I want an explanation. Now.”
The only weapon she had in her arsenal was a weak one that would likely get her nowhere. She had to at least make an attempt, especially now that her dead sister had been mentioned. So, righteous indignation it was.
“Why were you in here looking at my things, Spike? Snooping? That’s not fair, I’m entitled to some privacy, you know, I’m not just-”
Spike cut her off there. “You absolutely are entitled to your privacy. Unless I had reason to believe something was wrong. I’d never go through your things unless I absolutely had to. And in this case, I did have to. You still haven’t given me the explanation I just demanded from you. Out with it, then. Why the mother- why the hell would you do something like this? Unless some insane shift in the economy has occurred, which I don’t believe to be the case, you could easily have purchased these things. I supply you with more than enough spending money, and you could have gotten these” - he picked up and then immediately threw back down a pair of earrings made of vermeil in the shape of a pentagram enclosed in a circle , “for no more than a few dollars.” Spike was no fool, he knew Rupert gave her spending money too. Certainly enough, between the two of them, that if Dawn wanted these little trinkets, she could easily have just purchased them. So, this was not about having or not having enough cash in her gaudy purple pocketbook.
At this point, Dawn couldn’t think of anything to say in response, so she just stared a hole into the floor. She was putting a valiant effort into not crying, but she could feel the tears welling up in spite of herself.
When she looked up, Spike was still standing there with mostly the same look on his face but with an added component: disappointment. Dawn was crushed then, unable to fight back any longer. Spike got angry, lots of times, and for lots of reasons. But with Dawn, even at the times when she’d really fucked up, Spike had never reacted with more than a disapproving look or a quiet lecture about acceptable behavior for a girl her age. She’d always thought he’d been tolerant because he understood about her grief after losing Buffy, that maybe people didn’t always make the right decisions, especially when they were struggling just to keep going from one day to the next. Spike certainly hadn’t always made the right decisions. Somehow, Dawn knew this wasn’t the time to bring that up. It wasn’t going to help her, and it wasn’t going to get her out of this. She was in trouble, serious trouble.
So she gave him all she had left. “I’m sorry, Spike. I shouldn’t have taken these things. It won’t happen again.” Still, she was looking at the floor, unable to meet his eyes for fear of what she’d see there. It wasn’t going to be that easy, though.
“Look at me, girl. Now.”
Dawn knew Spike wasn’t in any mood for stalling tactics, so she forced herself to raise her eyes, and what she saw there was so much worse than she expected. He was clearly angry, but the look she’d seen earlier, the raw display of his disappointment in her was almost too much for her to take. She was crying, not even trying to hold back the tears anymore, but there was no sympathy on Spike’s face.
“You’re right, you shouldn’t have taken these things. But you’re not crying because you’re sorry for having done it. You’re crying because you’ve been caught out for it. I don’t think you’re sorry for your petty theft, even though most of it was done at the expense of someone who’s supposed to be your friend.”
Oh. Yeah, okay, things were starting to come together now. Spike had looked because someone had told him to. Someone suspected she’d been taking things, probably Anya, and he’d gotten stuck with the task of confirming or denying those suspicions.
“Spike, please, I know it was wrong, I’ll give everything back-”
“Damn right you’ll give everything back. You made me look like a fool, Dawn. Oh, no, what a silly idea, just ridiculous, not the Bit, she would never…Christ, I’m a bleeding idiot. You will give everything back, you will take every single one of these stupid things back to the Box, and you’ll apologize, and you’ll spend however long it takes sweeping floors and organizing books to make up for your fucking theft.”
Theft. It sounded so much worse than shoplifting. “I know, yes, I know, I will, of course, I’m so sorry. Please, don’t be angry with me. Please?”
“Too late for that. I’m already angry. Isn’t that obvious? And where’d you get the mascara? It’s in the same box, so you stole that too, right?” Stolen. Shit. Once again, it just sounded so different than ‘shoplifted’. Logically, Dawn knew it was the same thing, but the semantics…she guess that’s what had made it easier.
She took a deep breath before she responded. “Yes. I stole that too.”
“Where did you get it?”
“The drugstore by the school.” Her eyes had dropped to the floor again.
“All right. We’ll go there first. Soon as it’s dark enough. You’ll bring that makeup right back, and hand it over to whoever is in charge there, and we’ll see whether or not they decide to call the police and report you for it.”
Dawn’s eyes jumped up from the floor, wide and terrified. “Police? It’s mascara!”
“It’s stolen mascara. So, we’ll do that, and if I don’t have to bail you out of the county lockup, we’ll make another stop at the Box so you can return the rest of it. Understand?”
“Yes. Yes, I understand. Do you think they’ll ever forgive me?” And that - no matter what else had happened - that was genuine, and Spike knew it.
“You mean Giles and Anya? Of course they will. Hell, I already have. Doesn’t mean you haven’t got an obligation to make up for it. To them. Not to me.”
Dawn was shocked, just for a minute, then realized she shouldn’t be so surprised. Spike had been so good to her these past months, looking after her and trying to make sure she was handling the loss of her sister, especially under these specific circumstances, with a bit of guidance. And she’d been entirely ungrateful, pushing away his attempts at comfort, offended by his constant presence. It hit her all at once, how awful she’d been. Not just because of what she’d done wrong, but because of her lack of ability to see that Spike was just trying to take care of her. He’d lost someone he loved, too. She hadn’t given it a moment’s thought, what everyone else had lost.
And there it was, the moment where everything broke into a million pieces, Dawn sitting down on her bed, weeping with her head in her hands, and of course, Spike was right there. Instantly, he dropped to his knees and put his arms around her, patting the back of her head and trying to calm her. “It’s all right, Niblet, it’s all right, it’s all going to be all right.”
Barely coherent through her sobs, she responded, “I miss her so much, Spike. Why couldn’t she have just let them take me? You’d all be better off, everything would have been fine, I’m not even real. I’m not even real, Spike.”
“You’re as real as anyone I’ve ever known, Bit. You’re real to me, and to Xander, and to Willow, and everyone else, and you were real to your sister, no matter what. Promise me you know that. Please, promise me you won’t ever think of yourself that way. You’re here, and you’re real, and we love you. I love you. Do you understand?” He pulled back and pulled her chin up so they were eye to eye. “I love you, Dawn. And I get it. I do. I miss her too.”
All Dawn could do was nod, incapable of forming words now. By this time, Spike was shedding his own tears, and it took every bit of strength he had to haul her up to her feet.
“We’ve got places to go, Niblet. Let’s get you cleaned up and we’ll do what we’ve got to.”
Dawn sucked in a few deep breaths, then nodded before heading toward the bathroom to wash her face and calm down a little. So, this wasn’t going to be a fun evening. But before it was over, everything Spike had said had been proven true. Buffy’s friends were her friends, and they loved her. And Spike loved her. And he would never walk away from her, not even when he had to stand behind her while she apologized to a drugstore manager for swiping mascara. Not even when she had to hand over things she’d taken from The Magic Box without paying for them, and offer to do anything it would take to make up for it. She thought there was probably nothing she could ever do that would diminish the protective and genuine love Spike gave to her, though it wasn’t a theory she wanted to test. Dawn was just grateful. Really, truly grateful.