The Key
The house was dark when she got home. Dawn was out dancing. Buffy had seen her, before leaving for patrol, though she had probably plumped up her bed pillows, as a decoy. She had lounged nonchalantly, assuring her older sister that she would get to bed on time.
Buffy always knew when Dawn was going out. She never curled her hair unless she had plans to sneak out to the Bronze with her friend Michelle. Funny, how teenagers never realized just how obviously there actions spoke their intent. Buffy wondered, briefly, if she had been so obvious when she was younger. Certainly her mother had never said anything, but then Joyce had been looking for signs of "normal" teenage activity, and had no idea what really had been going on. For a moment, Buffy thought longingly of the normal teenage life that she had begun so long ago in Los Angeles. Sighing, she headed out the door to the Bronze, to retrieve her sister.
Caught in the daydream, she wondered how things might have been different if she had never become the Chosen One. Would her mother have died the way she did, or would Buffy still have her, in a normal mother-daughter relationship? Would she have stayed in Sunnydale, or would she have gone away to College? Would Dawn...she stopped.
Dawn would never have existed, at least not in Buffy's world. Or, what if she had? What would each of them have been, if not for the ties of blood and magic.
Shaking her head, she turned the corner towards the Bronze. The NEW Bronze, as it had been renamed. She wondered for a moment when it had stopped being a fun, familiar place for her. Was is after Sweet, and the musical spell nonsense? Or after all the drama with Spike? Long before the name change. Buffy paused at the door.
"Three dollar cover tonight, we've got a live band," said the guy standing at the table by the door.
She paid him absently, looking around in astonishment. It wasn't just a new name, it seemed. The new decor echoed the name. It was shiny, but the warm kind of shiny that you just don't get from silver colors. Yet it still was filled, somehow, with pockets of darkness. Some things never changed. The doorman stamped her hand in red, an image of a shining coin. As she stepped farther in, her vision suddenly swam a bit. "Huh. More tired than I thought," she mumbled to herself.
Suddenly, she caught sight of Dawn. Except that Dawn was... shining. Wreathed in flames, and dancing like one, too. Buffy shook her head, blinking. She looked around the dance floor. No one else was shining. Her eyes were drawn back to her sister. She looked fine, aside from the fire. In fact, she looked beautiful: a lithe young goddess, a vital element of life. She moved gracefully among the other dancers, who parted for, and surrounded her, instinctively. On the dance floor, smoke billowed decoratively in low, burgundy clouds.
Buffy felt pulled toward her, the fire in the darkness calling to her. She rubbed her stamped hand absently. It felt damp, and a little cold. As if she felt Buffy's eyes on her, Dawn turned, her face bathed in golden light. Silently she called out warmth, with a smile at her sister.
Making her way closer, she reached Dawn's side. Her brain fumbled uselessly, the words she had intended to say lost. She simply stared, fascinated as the flames continued to tumble and roil around Dawn. Dawn smiled again, and reached out her hand to touch Buffy's cheek. "Are you O.K.?", Buffy finally managed. "I'm Fine," assured Dawn, smiling. "What's Up?"
Buffy floundered, knowing there was something, but unable to wrap her brain around it. "We... we've got to go," she blurted. "O.K.," smiled Dawn. She took her sister's hand, and let Buffy lead the way. Flames erupted at the edge of Buffy's vision, and her hand tingled with warmth. Yet she felt strangely at peace, as if an unknown part of her world had just slid into its destined place. She smiled euphorically as she led her sister out the door.
Outside in the darkness, the flames around Dawn were even more pronounced. Buffy shivered, watching her. "Are you cold," asked Dawn. Buffy nodded her head, numbly. "You don't... feel anything strange? See anything strange?" she asked.
"I feel good," said Dawn, simply. "Everything looks normal, but I guess I do have the feeling, that some thing's... different, tonight. Ever since I got to the Bronze." Her brows drew down in concern, as Buffy shivered again. She reached out to touch her sister's forehead. "Buffy, you're freezing!" Moving closer, she wrapped her long arms around her sister.
Tingling warmth coursed through Buffy's body, spreading out from the places where their skin touched. She relaxed against Dawn, suffused in warmth, as it seemed she'd never been before. Wonderingly, she realized, how very cold she was; how very cold she'd been for such a long time. Surrounded by death for so long, she had begun to take on its very temperature. A kind of protective camouflage, perhaps. She had locked life, and the living, out. Her head nestled between Dawn's warm, small, breasts. Dawn stroked her hair very gently. "Let's get you to bed," she said. Not releasing Buffy's hand, this time she led them off toward home.
Inside the dark house and up the stairs they went. Dawn continued to hold her hand, and to stroke her head as they made their way into the bedroom. "Stay with me," whispered Buffy, her lips cold. Dawn nodded, smiling at her, and stroked her face.
Though the room was dark, it was lit in Buffy's eyes with that strange fire that glowed around Dawn. It pulled feverishly at her. Drawn irresistibly forward, Buffy touched her cold, cold lips to Dawn's warm ones. Warmth bloomed through the skin of her face. Dropping Buffy's hands as they kissed, Dawn's hands began instead to move up under Buffy's shirt, sending tremors of shivering warmth through Buffy's torso.
Buffy stepped back, breaking the contact. Instantly, she was freezing again. Dawn smiled beatifically at her, and stepped forward to close the gap. "Oh, no you don't," she said. Her hands reached for the edge of Buffy's shirt, and pulled it, ruthlessly, off. Her fingers felt scorching to Buffy's chilled flesh. She drew Buffy closer, then leaned down and nuzzled a nipple. Dizziness assailed Buffy's mind. Dizziness, and pleasure at the warmth that returned wherever Dawn touched. Dawn put a hand in the middle of Buffy's back, drawing her closer still, and bit hard on the breast. Buffy gasped at the sensation, and at the line of fire that traced from the bitten nipple to her suddenly wet cunt.
Stepping half a step back, Dawn watched Buffy's reaction. Her hands slid down Buffy's sides, and around the front to the top of the button-flys, and with a quick flick of one wrist, she popped all five buttons apart. Buffy's pale skin and slightly darker, damp, hair showed in the triangle of space created between denim flaps. A quick dart of her head forward, and she had the other nipple between her teeth. Her lips then traced delicately down Buffy's belly, to join her hands. A yank, and the jeans were down. Dawn reached out and pushed against Buffy's chest until she was against, and then sitting on, the edge of the bed. A tug of shoes, then the jeans pulled off, from the ankles, and Buffy was naked in the glowing darkness.
Dawn kneeled at the edge of the bed and slid up Buffy's legs, starting at the ankles. The warmth made Buffy dizzy again, and Dawn's hands continued to travel upwards, around her hips and to the small of her back. Her hair falling in dark curls around her face, Dawn slowly leaned forward, pressing into Buffy's thighs, pushing them slowly apart, as her tongue traced its way upward. When she reached the damp curls, she pressed her tongue in with excruciating slowness. Buffy's back arched against Dawn's hands, cunt pressing upward into her mouth. Buffy groaned at the warmth, the pleasure that engulfed her.
Dawn met her sister's thrusts with her tongue, pressing deep, then stroking out and up and over the firm pearl of Buffy's clit, swirling tongue and hungry lips spreading wet heat, filling her, beginning a thaw in ice that had grown, all unknown, in her soul.
Buffy inhaled with a hiss as Dawn's hands drew around and across Buffy's belly, short, well-groomed nails dragging, trailing sensuous fire. Then she gasped explosively and thrust down when Dawn's hand gripped hard the muscular turn of her backside and slipped a hot finger into her ass, slick from the enthusiastic wetness of her cunt. At the source of that wetness, with her other hand Dawn slowly pushed one long, thin, finger inside her sister, the thumb teasing Buffy's lips, and all the while the tongue taunting her clit with flicks and strokes, light and firm, and warm; all warm.
Buffy moaned, thrusting and rocking her hips against her sister's hands and face. Her head rolled from side to side, her fist grasping at the sheets. Another finger joined the first in her cunt, then a third. Dawn fucked Buffy with long strokes of her fingers, her lips caressing a clit grown turgid with desire. With each stroke Dawn pressed her knuckles firmly against Buffy's cunt, fucking hard and slow, one by one adding the fourth finger, and then the thumb, stroking and pressing, until finally Buffy sighed and cried out as Dawn's entire hand vanished into the silky, wet folds of her cunt.
Slowly, inside her, the Key turned, and the cold lock on Buffy's soul burst open in a shower of burning stars.