tamingthemuse | Prompt 154 – Polysemy – Love Has Many Meanings (1/1)

Title: Love Has Many Meanings
Fandom: BtVS
Pairing/Characters: Spike, Dawn
Warnings: none
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I wrote it, but it was only because Joss gave us the gift of this 'verse. Thanks Joss, and thanks for letting us play in it.
Summary: Post 'The Gift'; Dawn's struggling with her homework and needs assistance. Spike helps out, but really, she's helping him to forget.
Prompt #154: Polysemy
Word Count: 1263

Thanks to seductivembracefor tidying up after my careless fingers. Any mistakes are mine alone, so point them out and I'll fix. Thank you.

LOVE HAS MANY MEANINGS

Spike pushed back the chair and stood up, his feet heavy and clonking on the polished wood floor. He rubbed his eyes as he made his way into the kitchen, grabbing a cold beer from the fridge –courtesy of Red, despite Harris' objections – flipping the top and draining it dry in one long gulp. It had been a lifetime or two since he'd studied, but he was determined that Dawn would get a passing grade in at least one subject, and since the subject in question was his own native language, he'd figured it wouldn't take too much work.

How wrong could a vampire be?

It seemed like, you know, like way too much, like...

Yeah, that was what he was up against. Valley speak. Every time Dawn added a 'like' or a 'way' he cringed and tried not to vamp out. When he was growing up, every syllable he uttered had to be perfect or it was a rap across the knuckles with a cane. He learned early on that pronunciation and selecting the correct word was the way to escape punishment. He had a harsh teacher, but he was grateful. It meant that he came to love the English language in all its strange, nonsensical, unpredictable glory, a love that he hadn't lost despite all of his outward demeanour.

The mangling of the language, therefore, not only puzzled him, but made him feel physically ill. And he would have her speaking, if not correctly, at least intelligibly by the end of the summer.

“Spike!” Dawn whined, “I don't get this part. You'll have to do it.” In the kitchen Spike disposed of his bottle and reached for another. The Bit was going to kill him.

He slugged it down in one and tossed it in the trash can, heading back into the dining room and purgatory. She was driving him to drink.

Of course, when he marched into the dining room, intending to tear a strip off her, she flashed him the Summers' eyes and he was helpless. Little minx added in a lip wobble and he was doomed to be her grammar slave for at least the rest of the evening. He took his seat beside her and reached for the book she was viciously thumbing through.

“What's the problem now? I thought we had homophones and similes done. You know, sounds and meanings? What's left.”

Dawn sighed and let her head flop onto her folded arms, her long brown hair cascading over the scribbles and crossings out in her workbook. Spike struggled to hear her mumbles, even with his enhanced hearing.

“Poly-somethings. Polishme? I dunno – here.”

Dawn slid her book over to Spike and turned her head to watch him as he sat back, brow furrowed, and nibbling on his lower lip. She loved to watch him when he was concentrating. He looked kind of cute, not that she'd ever tell him. His eyes went soft and sometimes he sort of hummed.

The distraction that caught him up never lasted long, though. She could see his body tense up again when he thought of her. Of Buffy. When he remembered that she was gone, and never coming back. That was why she was asking him for help with her homework, more than she needed if truth be told, because just for a few moments he forgot. And if Spike forgot, that meant she could too.

“Oh, this is easy, Bit,” Spike rumbled as he slid his chair nearer to her. He reached one arm around her back and rested it on her shoulder, pointing out the text to her in the book that she lifted her head to look at. “See, it's polysemy. Means a word that has more than one meaning, you see?”

Dawn did, but he looked caught up again so shook her head and opened her eyes wide as she blinked slowly at him. Spike mumbled something about the 'soddin' education system in this bloody country' under his breath, then sucked on his lip for a time. “Right, well – look; this is a leaf of a book, and these,” Spike said as he flicked over a number of pages together, “are leaves, yeah?”

Dawn nodded, loving the light in his eyes as he tried to show her what he meant. She missed the light in his eyes...

Oh! He was speaking and she'd totally zoned out...

“-and they're the same word but different meanings. Polysemy. Get it?”

“Erm...say that again. Please?”

Spike rolled his eyes and repeated that there were leaves of a book, but that the action of exiting a room would be that someone leaves it. Same word, different meaning.

Spike was looking at her, his eyes on her intense, head tilted and Dawn couldn't suppress a smile. He almost looked like the old Spike, the one who used to teach her how to play kitten poker behind her sister's back, the one who would become animated and do all the voices when he was telling her tall tales of gruesome slaughter. Spike, before his world was torn away.

“What?” he asked, closing the book and shoving it away.

On a mad impulse, Dawn launched herself at him and hugged him tight, almost toppling him over backwards. Spike wrapped his arms around her and stroked her hair. It had been 37 days so far since he'd started on keeping his promise to Buffy and the more time he spent with Dawn, the more she became lodged in his heart. She drove him mad and she frustrated the hell out of him, especially the way she wasted her brain, but she was his to take care of.

Until the end of the world.

He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat, remembering ...

The barrier at the door was removed with three ordinary words: 'Come in, Spike'. His face would betray how overwhelmed he was, so he looked down at the floor and moved past her to grab the weapons.

“Um, won't bother with the small stuff. Couple of good axes should hold off Glory's mates while you take on the lady herself.”

He rifled through the chest, stopping and holding up what he'd grabbed as Buffy spoke softly.

“We're not all gonna make it. You know that.”

Spike knew, but was determined that Dawn and Buffy would. “Yeah,” he said, slow and low. “Hey. Always knew I'd go down fightin'.” He even risked a small smile, trying to lighten Buffy's burden.

Buffy turned and fixed him with a fierce look, her hands balled into fists, her voice harsh with emotion. “I'm counting on you ... to protect her.”

Without hesitation, Spike promised, “Till the end of the world. Even if that happens to be tonight.”

And it had been. His world had ended that night – except he couldn't let it. He had to keep his promise.

Dawn pulled back from him slightly, her arms still wrapped around his neck in a loose hug. “Thank you, Spike. For your help, with the grammar. And everything. Don't know what I'd do without you.”

Spike leaned forward to drop a kiss on her forehead before he got up to reach for his cigarettes. “Never gonna have to, love. You know that.”

She did. He would never let her, or Buffy, down. She started gathering in her books to put away, studying over for the night. It was time, as it was every night, to sit with him on the back step and maybe share their favourite memories of Buffy Summers, who saved the world a lot.