Title: Follow 2/2
Author: Scynneh
E-mail: scynneh@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Wish they were mine. There would be some wardrobe readjustments. And more leather.
Rating: R, same as last. But more.
Author's Notes: This is beginning to look as though I am going to be exploring Dawn's head some more, and how screwed up she is in there. *sigh*. I just have these images of a lonely little girl and Dru *so* wants to mother someone that she just might take it to be her job to take care of the little one..
September 2001

*
If one is open to the possibility of something else, then they will be more likely to find those things which are unseen by close-minded individuals.

Thin body that isn’t a nourishing image, but something dead should not be so vibrant, she glows in the right light the kisses of the moon that is.  All of the pain that has shaped Dru is evident, but she has moved inside of all that suffering and made it part of her beauty, mutable her agony is, and sharp but at the same time fiercely appealing, the metal out of the flame, heated but not dulled.  Never mind how wrong all of this is, her watching the creature that is a demon, her guardian, his promises to her dead sister shining in the air and wet with spit of immortals.  Teeth and claws and *hiss* from Dru that makes him back down for a moment, if just so that she can grab him by the nape of his neck, where the chip hides her fingers briefly touch, and then she wrings him back and froth like a mother scolding her offspring. 

  Which she is, Dawn realizes, seeing the way that Spike relaxes under her, not resentful, maybe relieved that someone is taking control of something for once, no one in the Scoobies has done anything for the entire summer, and that is probably part of the reason that Dawn is beginning to shed what little baby fat she had become a *figure* beside Spike as they patrol the streets.

    A lot of wanting to have fun in that expression that is making Dawn wonder how old Drusilla was when she was turned, and she probably didn’t have a whole lot of fun during that time, because that was the years when the world was kind of laced, and women wore a lot of skirts and underwear that was hot and uncomfortable, and something about the way that she twirls and bares her tummy at odd moments says that this is some kind of liberty that is new and still savory in her mind. 

  A murderer, or is there an ‘ess’ on the end, or is the word asexual, and these thoughts are taking longer than usual to process, mostly for the sake of Dawn’s already mushed up brains as she tries to decide why she isn’t really worried about life ending as she knows it, because there is no life as she knows it, just separate incidents that others call days held together by alcohol and she is beginning to genuinely like getting drunk with no parents around and only a really old adult that likes to tell slaughtering stories when she asks for them.

  All the heroes are dead, that has been said the most of almost anything she can remember, along with lies about *fine* and *okay someday*, and now that she’s outgrown all of that, she might want something more mature, dangerous, knowing what is out there, what she is going to get into. 

  And this is the beast for it, Harmony, not her, she was too young and vapid, and whenever Spike talks about her, there is nothing like when he has mentioned Buffy and this Goddess.  Dark, power of hurt and mind and wonder at the big open sky of midnight, all in her eyes and smile as she gleams down at Dawn where she is huddled inside the open sarcophagus, one hand inside her little haven, *come here child, alright, I understand, under the bed is better than in all of those blankets. * 

  Each word unspoken and yet she hears it between her ears in a miracle that she doesn’t question.  Just agrees, hand in the outstretched fingers, long in ways that she doesn’t have the vocabulary for, and she can tell that they aren’t just touching, but probing at her mind, whisker-licks of that ancient madness, and she stares back, resolutely not weirded out, and gets the closure of digits on her wrist and she is pulled out to face the pair of them.

  Thinks maybe, this woman was meant to be a great healer, and instead she looks at people and figures out how best to take them apart.  But there is some comfort that someone else has been royally broken apart by the universe, and she thinks that she and Dru may bond over their mutual soiling.  Sometime in the future when they are far from this place where she has been taught and sheltered, but never able to *run. *

  That’s what Dru wants, to see if she can hold up, no coddling or swathing bandages of rules, just their eyes and grins and what will be teeth she can tell by the twitching of pale lips. 

    “Mmm?” an arch of dark brows that might be questioning, threatening, or any number of things that she is just not ready to think about, not in any universe that she might have existed in, but maybe, in this one.

  Someday.  Very soon.

  Fin

Feedback, that which makes me do pirouettes.  scynneh@yahoo.com