Weakness
For the first time in weeks, Xander has a motel room to himself, one with a single king-size bed rather than two doubles covered in ugly psychedelic comforters. He's been sharing with Giles sometimes, but mostly it's Dawn and Buffy in one bed and him in the other; he's still not sure if he's glad or offended that he's considered safe. Either way, it's distracting and he's glad it's done.
Faith and Wood are gone, and they took a few of the new Slayers with them. The traveling cavalcade of girl power is slowly diminishing. Soon it will just be them again, the core Scoobies. Or so he hopes.
He's settling in for a night of cheesy Skinemax porn and stale minibar snackage when someone knocks on the door.
Cross in one hand, holy water in the other, he opens the door. Dawn bounces into the room and flops onto the bed.
So much for his plans.
"I thought you and Andrew--"
"Pfft. Andrew. He's geeking out over the Star Trek marathon. You know I can't stand Captain Kirk."
It's true. Dawn is an ardent supporter of Jean-Luc Picard. She jokes that women in her family have a thing for older guys, and at least he's not dead, only fictional.
He sits on the bed, which suddenly feels way too small with Dawn lounging across it. "I--"
"It's okay, Xander," she says. "We can watch the bad porn together."
Buffy will kill him. "Buffy will kill me."
"Nah, she won't." Dawn grabs the remote and turns on the television. He glances over and swallows. Two women are soaping each other in a shower. He looks back to see Dawn dangling the remote above her head. "If you want to change the channel, you'll have to come and get it." The way her arms are raised makes her breasts bounce and he did not just notice that. He didn't.
"Dawnie--"
"Xander." She smiles and he lunges for the remote, which she drops behind the night table. When he reaches over her, she wraps her arms around his neck, cradling his body between her legs.
"Dawn, what are you doing?" His voice is low and raspy and this is wrong on so many different levels he's not sure he can count high enough to number them all.
She raises her chin. "I know you miss Anya."
He stills, the sounds of moaning and bad synthesizer music from the television rubbing his ears the wrong way as Dawn rubs her body against his in exactly the right way.
"Where did you learn that?" he manages.
She shrugs, and he tries not to think of her practicing with any of the boys she went to school with.
"I could hear you, at night. In the shower."
He blinks and realizes she's not answering the question he asked.
"Is it ever me?" she asks, running her fingers through the hair that curls over his collar, stroking his neck gently. "Is it always Anya or Buffy or Faith?" She slides a hand around and runs her thumb along his lower lip.
"No. I mean, yes. I mean, no, and then yes." And also Amy Yip and Britney Spears. But it may be Dawn in the future if this keeps up. He has to get out of this without hurting her feelings. "Dawn, you're a very attractive girl--"
She laughs, rolling her hips. "I can tell."
"But you're too young." She won't stop moving, which is distracting.
"Buffy slept with Angel when she was my age."
"And look how well that turned out," he shoots back, realizing his hips are thrusting against hers, and stopping.
"Neither of us is going to go evil and try to end the world."
"You never can tell," he says, but on some level, she's right. They don't have the power the others do, and it binds them together.
She raises her face to his. "Kiss me, Xander," she murmurs against his lips, and so he does. Her mouth is warm and soft beneath his, her tongue tentative when he slips his into her mouth.
The women on television are moaning and Dawn is rocking up against him, her body curved in all the right places as he relaxes into her.
It's so very, very wrong, but it feels so good to tangle his hands in her hair, which smells of the heavy floral motel shampoo, to slide his lips along the silky skin of her jaw and neck as she arches and gasps beneath him.
"Xander," she whispers, her lips against his ear, his temple, ghosting over one eyelid and pushing the patch up to kiss the other, her gentleness making him shiver.
"Dawn."
The name jerks him out of the heated reverie he's sunk into, and he pulls away, easily breaking her hold on him and jumping to his feet.
"Oh, God. Buffy is going to kill me."
Dawn rises from the bed slowly, with a grace he's never noticed before, and wraps her arms around him again.
"But you'd have a lot of fun before you died."
"That's true," he says before he can stop himself. Triumph gleams in her eyes and smile and she tries to draw him back to the bed. He takes a deep breath and removes her hands from around his neck. "This isn't going to happen, Dawn."
She purses her lips and then nods once, as if making a decision. At the door she turns and says, "But it will."
The door closes behind her with a click, and he promises himself it won't.
On television, one of the women thrashes as the other goes down on her. Xander turns it off.
He heads for the shower, and while the hot water pounds on his back, he jacks himself, thinking of Dawn until he comes.