DISCLAIMER: They Athenea-ed out of Joss.
SUMMARY: PG. Some birthdays bring surprises, others bring friendship and this one
brings some confusion into Dawn's world.
WORDCOUNT: 3873
NOTES: Slight references to Bending the Rules and Out of the Norm.
THANK YOU: to Kristi and Becky for the support. *SMOOCH*
DEDICATION: for Red Wolf , because without her this story wouldn't be half as good.
Thankyou, sweetie.
Repeatable Award at The Potential Awards
TESTING THE WATERS
by Leni
Spike heard the girls' giggles long before they came into sight.
He had arrived in Boston hours ago and came directly to Dawn's apartment building. Dawn
hadn't mentioned any plans when he called her the day before, in fact, she'd said her
birthday would be quiet, spent going over some assignments she'd neglected in the last
weeks. Spike said that he'd be there anyway, but Dawn told him not to worry and then
quickly hung up when one of her dorm mates demanded the telephone.
Spike scowled, flipping his zippo open and concentrating in lighting his cigarette. He'd
almost worn a track as he paced out the front of the building, until the landlord took
pity and let him in. Of course, the man had escorted him to the second floor, right until
Dawn's door, wanting to make sure Spike was indeed waiting for his friend. He came back
periodically, shaking his head in bemusement every time he saw the blonde man pacing
impatiently along the narrow corridor. Spike had never gotten used to wearing a watch, but
his internal clock was surprisingly accurate and he estimated he'd been waiting for a good
four hours. He planned to give Dawn a good, long earful about making friends wait outside
her apartment in vain.
Three girls stumbled off the staircase, huddled together and supporting each other. They
were still whispering and giggling enthusiastically; the chirpy sound annoyed Spike even
more. He dismissed them, waiting for them to walk up the next flight of stairs. Instead,
they gravitated towards Spike, openly staring at him. He saw as the only brunette slipped
her hand in her purse and took a key out. Dawn's friends, he guessed. But, as he glanced
toward the tight group, he didn't see Dawn amongst them.
Instead, a tall blonde recognised him. Spike vaguely remembered her in passing from a
previous visit. What was her name? Babette? Cosette? Annette? He quickly gave up, habit
and disinterest prompting him to light another cigarette before Dawn and her rule of 'no
smoking in her vicinity' came upstairs.
"Spike, right?" Babette-Cosette-Annette asked.
He nodded.
The girls' eyes widened as the blonde told her friends in hushed tones that he was the
mysterious man who came to visit their newest roommate two months ago. Spike chuckled, he
wasn't mysterious, was he? But the girls and their crazy giggles thought otherwise. He
eyed the group warily, noticing the looks the trio was giving him. If Dawn didn't turn up
soon he'd be trapped in a conversation he couldn't possibly avoid without insulting one of
her friends.
But no sound of footsteps came from downstairs.
He sighed, taking a long drag from his cigarette.
"Hey, Brigitte, tell your 'friend' to put that cigarette down, will you?" the
cute brunette said crossly.
Spike ignored her. "Where's Dawn?" he asked instead before Brigitte could begin
her Twenty Questions game.
The long scrutinising look the trio gave him made Spike impatiently wonder if scowling
would make them answer faster.
They silently discussed the matter amongst themselves in a manner known only to girls,
exchanging raised eyebrows and quick glances between themselves and Spike. Finally they
shook their heads in unison. He threw the cigarette impatiently onto the floor, not even
bothering to stub it out. The brunette glared in disapproval.
"Look, just tell me where the Birthday Girl is and I'll get out of your hair,
okay?"
The girl spotted the unopened pack of Marlboro peeking out of his coat's pocket and
groaned. She looked at her roommates, rolled her eyes in his direction and nodded. The
other two just shrugged.
Brigitte stepped forward and pointed down the stairs.
"She was still outside when we came in," added the brunette, obviously wishing
him gone.
"But you don't want to interrupt Dawn right now," the third girl snickered.
"Why not?" he barked even as he passed them.
He only received answering giggles in return as he made his way downstairs.
---
Now, standing at the front door and staring at the Toyota parked in front of it, Spike
understood why Dawn wouldn't want interruptions.
She was practically sitting on the car's hood, every thought of his visit obviously
forgotten. Spike rolled his eyes. With her arms wrapped around the boy's neck, Dawn was
too busy shoving her tongue down his throat to notice Spike staring at them.
He was right. Had Dawn believed he'd be waiting for her, she would never have let Andrew
drive them home, much less hold this steamy make-out session with him. As much as she
complained, Spike had taken back his protective attitude after they'd resumed their
friendship, generally berating her and unsubtly threatening the few guys she'd let him
meet. But right now Dawn was still unaware of his presence and, besides, Andrew had a
couple of really interesting tricks up his sleeve.
Spike watched the couple for several seconds, not caring how inappropriate it was. But
when the guy's hands began to creep under Dawn's shirt Spike decided that he'd seen
enough.
"Hey, you two. This is a public place."
His voice startled Dawn out of the kiss. Spike was here? She turned slowly towards the
source, ignoring her partner's insistent tugging, and smiled widely when she confirmed her
suspicions. "As if you're one to talk," she laughed as she disentangled herself
from under Andrew and ran towards her friend.
Spike fought to keep himself upright as Dawn practically bowled him over. The smell of
alcohol reached his nostrils and he frowned; but the girl was hugging him tightly, the
arms around his midsection effectively binding his to his body and distracting him from
any lecture he could have given her.
"You came," she said with a grin when she finally let him go.
"Told you I would, didn't I?" He put a proprietary arm around her shoulders and
glared at the boy who was still waiting for Dawn to finish greeting her friend and come
back. "Lose the boy, love," Spike whispered. No way was he letting that bundle
of hormones spend another second with an half inebriated Dawn.
Her eyes widened, as if she just remembered she'd left Andrew behind. "Of
course," she giggled and loosened herself enough to turn to her abandoned escort.
"See you tomorrow, Andy!" she shouted, not bothering to explain.
Andrew wanted to protest but the newcomer's hard glare dissuaded him. He got into his car
and started it, still watching the couple enter the building. He'd met Dawn that night at
the party her friends had thrown for her and had been hoping to get a fun night with her.
Whoever the blonde was, he was a hell of a lucky guy.
---
Inside, Dawn was still attached to Spike's body, wobbling a bit on her feet but still fine
enough to insist they stayed in the common room downstairs. "The girls will kill me
if we wake them up," she whispered as she sat down on the sofa and patted invitingly
the seat next to her.
Spike chuckled. He could still hear giggles and steps above them, but if Dawn wanted to
avoid her girlfriends, it was okay with him.
"Didn't think you'd come," she murmured as she settled against him. "Nobody
else has."
He petted her hair soothingly, as he'd done when she was fifteen and scared. "There's
a big Apocalypse going on," he explained, "plus a Slayer trying to best Faith at
her worst."
"Yeah, Buffy told me." Dawn tucked the back of her head against his chest, lying
on the sofa with her feet dangling at its end. "Then why are you here?"
"It's your birthday." Spike shrugged, still playing with her hair. "You're
my favourite girl of this decade, remember?"
Dawn laughed. She remembered and was surprised he did. Spike had been so drunk the night
he told her that! "Yes, my birthday," she said with a roll of her eyes.
"Welcome to your second decade, Dawn Summers," she sing-songed.
"I take it you didn't enjoy it?"
Dawn groaned and lifted her head enough to glare at the vampire. "Please don't cheer
me up." She'd had enough of that from her hyperactive friends.
Spike looked down at her amusedly. "Wouldn't dream of it, Nibblet. Seems you had
enough cheering from your boyfriend."
"Boyfriend?" Her eyebrows furrowed. "Oh, Andy? No, he's just a guy."
"Just a guy..." Spike parroted staring at her. He was sure that what he'd just
witnessed wasn't what a girl should do with 'just a guy'. Especially when he could still
remember said girl's giggles over the phone when Marie told the details of her first kiss.
"Come on, don't be so naïve!" Dawn laughed at his baffled look and then put her
hand to her mouth to muffle the sound. Spike didn't understand why she'd laugh. In fact,
Dawn - or anyone, really - finding a good reason to call him naïve wasn't amusing at all.
"I'm twenty today," she continued, laughter still colouring her voice, "You
must remember what my sister was doing at my age."
Spike remembered it all too well; actually, he was taken aback by Dawn mentioning it. His
relationship with her sister was something no one ever discussed. She giggled again. This
time he was sure that it was due to his perplexed expression. "At least she had full
use of her five senses while she was doing it," he muttered a bit crankily.
That shut Dawn up. "Ewwww," she said after some seconds, "I'm not
discussing my sister's sex life with you." She stopped. "Wait. That means I'm
not in my five senses?"
Spike smirked.
"Oh my God, you actually believe I'm drunk!"
He took in her bloodshot eyes and her carelessly sprawled body. Even their cosy position,
mirroring the time when he'd tried to take care of her and she'd trusted him to do it,
told him that she wasn't fully aware of her actions. It had been years since the last time
they'd sat like this. "Well, Nibblet," he drawled, smiling when she poked her
tongue out at the childish nickname, "sober you are not."
Dawn slapped his hand out of her hair. "I'm so sober I bet I can walk a straight
line. In fact," she pushed her hands against his chest, making to stand up, "I want
to."
He stopped her, his hands tight around her waist. "Of course you can do it." His
head shook in disbelief. "It was the first trick I taught you to fake being
sober."
She had the grace to look sheepish. "Okay, maybe I'm a little tipsy."
Spike laughed but then added seriouly, "You shouldn't go with unknown guys in this
state."
A glare in his direction was her indignant answer.
Of course he ignored it. "Heck, you shouldn't even go out if you're gonna be like
this."
Damn it. Would he always treat her like a fifteen-year old? "I was with my
friends," she defended hotly.
"Pet, sorry to break the news but the Barbie trio upstairs makes Harm look like a
genius."
Dawn sniggered at his accurate description of her roommates. Then she remembered that he
was treating her like a child. "At least they didn't try to convince me that a
strip-tease would be fun."
"I would have never-"
"I was in my bra when you stopped me."
Spike laughed at the memory. "I only told you it was too hot in there, even for a
vampire. Then I went to grab more beers and when I came back you were already getting tips
from the other men."
Dawn scrunched her eyebrows. "That's not how I remember it."
He winked. "But you weren't sober then either, were you? How would you know what
happened and what didn't?"
"I can't even remember what we were celebrating," Dawn complained.
Spike shrugged and shook his head.
"You mean you came all the way from L.A. and six months later you can't even remember
why?" She giggled. "Problems in your old years, Spike?"
"Careful there, girl. Besides, you asked first." He twined her hair around his
finger, trying to remember why he'd come to Boston back in February. "You had passed
all your finals... or something like that."
Dawn nodded slowly. "Oh yeah, my article was published by the on-campus
newspaper."
Spike smiled, remembering her giddy voice over the phone. "Yeah, it was something
nerdy lik- Ow!"
She rolled her eyes when he made to rub the 'sore' arm. "You big baby," she
muttered under her breath.
He only glared and didn't say anything. Instead he focused on her hair. She had grown it
shoulder-length again. Before he'd even consciously decided it, he was separating it with
his fingers, selecting three equal threads. She had never breathed a word, but he'd taken
to make little braids on her hair when they spent time together in Sunnydale. Spike didn't
know how it began, she had once asked if he'd done the same with Drusilla and he'd gone
and lied. But he never had, it was the simple fact that he needed something to do
while he was sitting with the girl, be it watching videos or hearing her talk.
"I was making a point before we got sidetracked," Dawn murmured sleepily. Spike
glanced over the almost asleep form over his lap. Now he remembered his other reason for
the braids, the movement had always calmed Dawn better than any of the sedatives Willow
gave her.
"Mmmhmmm." His fingers still moved swiftly until the first finished braid fell
onto the rest of Dawn's hair. She took it and smiled. Exactly half an inch wide, just like
the one he was working on now would be. Spike could be a perfectionist in the weirdest
things.
"What was it?" he finally asked in a louder voice. Dawn was so close to asleep
and Spike didn't feel like carrying her to her apartment. "Your point, I mean,"
he clarified, still working on the tiny braid.
Dawn frowned. Oh yes, her point. "I'm not a little girl
anymore."
Spike remembered her little strip-tease at the bar. No, Dawn definitely was not a little
girl.
"I'm a grown woman."
His eyes rolled. There she went again, he'd been hearing that speech since she was
thirteen and he was too chained to a bathtub to escape her.
"I can go out with my friends if I want, coming back home tipsy is not a crime
either."
Spike's brow lifted.
"Okay, so I'm officially a minor. But who knows how old I really am. It's not as if
anyone knew when the Key first-"
"Six," he deadpanned. Dawn watched him with a confused look. "Glory was in
Sunnydale in '00, that'd make you six years old."
"Crap." Her piqued expression was actually funny to watch. "That's not
fair. Besides-"
"Besides," Spike interrupted, "even if we counted your years as Key, you're
still Little Dawnie." She wanted to protest but he didn't give her time. "And
I'm not the only one who thinks so. Ask the others or, better yet, open their gifts to a
'grown woman'." He chuckled. "Harris got you a pink dress, didn't he?"
Dawn nodded with a grimace. "I tried to switch it for a leather skirt," she
confessed, "but they wouldn't take the dress back."
He smirked. He had told Xander not to get her that. "I'll get you that skirt
tomorrow," he promised, stroking her hair after finally finishing the third braid.
"The matching jacket too?"
He laughed out loud and yanked on her hair just a bit. "Don't push it, Nibblet."
She shrugged. "Had to try it," she said even as she knew that he'd get her both
items anyway. It was not as if he lacked the money. And if he didn't want to... Suddenly a
slow smirk appeared on her lips.
"Oh no, you aren't getting me into V's Secrets this time."
Dawn actually pouted. "But we had so much fun!"
Spike tried to glower. "Yeah, you and the other twenty women in the store."
Dawn giggled, she still didn't know how she'd convinced the vampire to step into the
strictly female territory. Oh, but did she treasure his lost, dumbfounded expression in
the fifty seconds she managed to keep him there! "You escaped like a scared
rabbit," she chuckled.
Spike chuckled too. That had happened almost a year ago. Dawn had called him in tears,
saying that she and Dennis were over. He hadn't even known the guy but it had been Dawn's
first serious relationship. So he came to Boston and treated her to a night of shopping.
None of the gifts he'd showered her with had made her smile nearly as wide as him entering
the forbidden territory. Even now, as he heard her soft snickering, Spike knew that he'd
made the right decision.
Besides, she couldn't tell anybody. He still had the strip-tease stunt over her head.
"We are a fucked up pair," Dawn sentenced as she cuddled closer to him.
Spike thought about the unlikeness that was them simply talking and spending time together
in this living room. "That we are, Little Bit."
She looked at him reproachingly. "Don't call me that."
Spike rolled his eyes. Would she never understand that he made up nicknames for everyone?
Hers was actually one of the nicest he'd come up with.
"It's so childish!" she continued. "Haven't we just gone over how I'm not a
little girl?"
His head shook in amusement. "Right," he drawled, "because you're so old
now."
"I'm twenty!"
"And I'm over a hundred, so what?"
Dawn glared and proceeded to sulk in classic Dawn-form. "You cheat," she finally
accused.
Spike smiled, relaxing back into the sofa. Suddenly he was attacked by a very determined
Dawn. He had taught her well, Spike thought dispairingly, finding himself trapped between
the sofa and her body. He didn't even have time to protest before Dawn sealed her lips to
his. She tasted like liquor. Something soft and girly, with pineapples. No, make it
strawberries, Spike corrected when she decided to show him her French kissing skills.
When the kiss finished Spike stared at her. Dawn's eyes were wide, as if she had just
realised what she'd done. He could feel her hands clutching the sofa at his sides. She
wouldn't say anything, Spike knew, so he decided to break the silence. "Was that
supposed to show me that you're not a little girl anymore?" he asked caustically.
It was the wrong thing to say. Spike only had time to glimpse a bright blush covering her
cheeks as her eyes widened even more before she dashed to the stairs.
He got up and, suddenly worried, went after her. He reached her right in front of her
apartment's door, the key already in its place. Spike stopped her, a hand on her right
arm, grabbing it and tugging until she was facing him. There were tears brimming in her
eyes.
"You're right," she stammered, avoiding his look. "I'm drunk and I'm sorry
and apparently I'm pathetic too." Her eyes were begging him to do something, but
damned if he knew what. So Spike did what he'd always done, he ran on instinct and left
logic stranded in some corner of his mind.
He kissed her.
She tried to break it, and for a moment he felt her confusion too. But he ignored it,
taking her waist firmly and pulling her against him. He threaded one hand through her
hair, careful not to tangle his fingers in the half-undone braids. Confusion met curiosity
and hunger and for a moment Spike wondered why he'd never thought to kiss her before. When
he was sure Dawn wouldn't move anymore, he kissed her even deeper, trying to remember that
he should stop now. But Dawn moaned beneath him and suddenly it didn't really matter that
she'd been friend and confident for almost a decade now. He stopped the kiss for about a
microsecond, just enough to let her gasp for air before he took her lips again.
He pushed them slowly to the door, trapping her just as she'd done before. His lips left
her mouth to drop quick kisses across her cheek, finally reaching her earlobe and twisting
it carefully between his teeth. He heard Dawn breathing against his neck just before she
kissed his skin, her hands pulling at him tighter, going once across his chest, over the
shoulders and back down his back. Spike was about to mimic her motions when suddenly he
realised what he was doing and, most importantly, who he was doing it with.
The strawberries he could still taste told him that she wasn't in her right mind. Hadn't
he just told her the same just before? Logic returned to the driver's seat of his thoughts
and he immediately loosened her hands from around his body, taking a small step back as he
stared down at the flushing girl. Dawn's eyes were something between scared, confused but
still hungry. He should have let her go into her apartment and sleep it off. Why had he
done that? Spike scrambled for a reason, whatever could give a rational explanation to
what just happened.
He took her hands and kissed her palm lightly, taking his decision. "That," he
murmured against her skin, still looking fixedly into her eyes, "is how I kiss a
woman."
Dawn blushed even brighter.
"You ready for it?" He dropped her hand, aware of the scarce inch separating
them.
She looked at him for an eternity. He looked as hunger turned frustration turned anger
turned resignation. Then she shook her head slowly.
Spike smiled soothingly, shoving the crazy disappointment at her answer far away from his
conscious thoughts. "Thought so," he said instead, stepping back.
Dawn turned around and fumbled a bit with the key until the door finally opened.
Spike suddenly knew that she would close that door and never open it again. Friend and
confident, she was, he didn't want that to stop. "Tomorrow at six?"
She stopped on her tracks, glaring at Spike as if he was crazy. But she was considering
it. He gave her what he hoped was a confident smile. She broke the gaze to stare intently
at the doorknob still in her hand. Whatever had happened had sobered her and now she
couldn't believe what had just happened. She needed to think it through.
Dawn stepped mutely into the apartment. Spike's shoulders dropped a little behind her. He
was ready to leave when her voice stopped him.
"Okay," she said, then added a little smile. "Remember you owe me a leather
skirt."
Spike smiled back. Good, he thought as the door closed behind her, at least she isn't mad
at me.
After locking the door, Dawn leaned against it. What had driven her to kiss Spike? What
had driven him to kiss her back? And why had she responded to that kiss?
Dawn groaned; it didn't matter. Or, it did, but right now she only wanted to get into bed
and forget the last ten minutes. Maybe then she'd be ready to face him the next day.
Dawn remembered his good-bye smile and sighed in relief. At least he wasn't mad at her.
The End
12/04/04
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