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Dangerous Injections

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Summary: Response to "The Accidental Were" Challenge. Dawn takes the Lycanthropy Vaccine and becomes infected, now she is on the run and hiding out in St Louis.

Categories Author Rating Chapters Words Recs Reviews Hits Published Updated Complete
Anita Blake > Dawn-CenteredStephanieClareFR1511,417091,5292 Jul 112 Jul 11No
Inspired by “The Accidental Were” Challenge, although I don't think I will meet all of the requirements set out in it.

This is an Anita Blake crossover, I have no rights to Anita Blake or to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Laurell K Hamilton and Joss Whedon are responsible for the creation of the characters and plot lines used and referenced in this fic.


The bus was cliché, stealing away in the middle of the night. The fact was though that it was cheap and that Cleveland's bus stops weren't well lit and with any luck the few cameras wouldn't pick up anything too specific about her appearance, or what bus she boarded. Dawn sighed, the roads blurring past her. At best efforts Dawn estimated she had a month before Willow found her, and she needed to have answers before then, needed to have a case to plead. Things between her and Buffy weren't just strained right now, they were now 6 hours and a midnight bus ride past breaking point. It was hard to tell someone that had died to protect you that they were being unreasonable, that they couldn't protect you from the world by controlling your access to it or that it wasn't your fault that Angel and Giles had lied.

The supernatural world was out of the closet and their glittering PR representatives and civilized manners greeting her sister every day from the TV or the newspaper had only served to drive the betrayal home. She wasn't one girl in all the world now, and the lines of black and white were now so very very blurred and gray. Somethings had stayed the same, Buffy patrolled, whether she was needed or not and Dawn was strictly forbidden from attending any similar activities. Dawn was again required to abide by a “live as I wish I had not as I do” philosophy that grated against her very being. Buffy never mentioned Dawns betrayal of her in Sunnydale but it hung over their heads like a fat swinging elephant and with no Xander shaped buffers or end of the world level apocalypses to distract them things had only grown more and more tense.

The first signs that things were not going to change had been when the arguments about college had started. The first Dawn had realized that Buffy hadn't been listening when she had talked about her plans for her Gap Year where when acceptance letters for colleges started arriving at the apartment colleges she had never applied to and had no intention of ever applying to writing to accept her. Willow and Xander were so far away now, both busy with their lives, Giles caught up in the bustle of creating a new council (and on Buffy's no talk list), but they would tell her she was over-reacting that she was blowing things out of proportion, and maybe she should consider that her sister was doing what was best for her. At 18 she was still the baby and there was no chance any of them would be seeing her differently any time soon.

It was Buffy who had insisted that Dawn take the Vaccine, and at the time it had been one of the smaller battles, she had conceded when her sister had looked her in the eye and said she wouldn't allow her to become a monster. It had made her wonder about Oz and the other monsters that had been their friends and when if ever Buffy had stopped considering them as anything but Monsters and if she even remembered that Dawn had been a glowing ball of energy before she became someone who needed protecting. Dawn wondered if Buffy had been aware of the risks, if she would have forced her to if she had know what would happen. The injection had been two weeks ago and it was almost another thirteen days to the next full moon, but Dawn knew, her body had changed, she was running hot, her temper at the surface and deep inside her something paced, it's fur brushing the inside of her skin. Running away probably wasn't her brightest idea, but all Dawn could hear in her mind was the word monster and the look her sister had in her eyes when she had said it.

Her plans weren't very well thought out much further than the actual getting away portion of the evening, she had some cash and a set of the chains they had used for Oz in her bag, but the finer points were still a bit hazy. She had changed buses twice, died her hair in a bus stop bathroom and swapped clothes with a brunette girl headed for Canada. Maybe the whole thing was overkill but she needed time to work things out on her own, to learn the control Oz had found in Tibet, to try not to be a monster. Part of her wanted to keep moving, knowing that she would be found if she stayed in one place for too long. Exhaustion had other ideas, her control weakened she dozed lightly on the bus and in her dreams she ran free, not the hunted, but the hunter running through a forest she had never seen her prey just out of reach. She wasn't alone, in the distance a howl went up, echoed by the calls of the pack as they raced together. Branches whipped by, leaves caught in her fur as her paws pounded the earth with only one goal in mind. The world was different like this, everything sharper and more intense, she could smell her prey's fear. Her own howl joined that of the pack, they were close, she ran harder the prey now in their sights, its sides slick with sweat the doe ran faster. Dawn awoke as her teeth had pierced flesh, her mouth watering with the taste of blood. The other passengers had looked at her briefly and she changed buses again at the next opportunity. If she kept running her beast would have more control and things like this would keep happening. If she lost control they would find her and she couldn't let that happen yet. She needed more time and she needed to stop running and she had to find somewhere safe and she had to do all this on a budget and out of sight.

The sun was setting as she crossed the University Campus heading to the library, after all there was no better place for a random teenager researching preternatural biology to blend in, she was well fed and still out of a place to sleep, but the research had been the easier of the two problems to solve. Jogging up the last few steps, she smiled at two students heading in the opposite direction, doing her best to remember what Spike had told her once about hiding in plain site. Here she was, a runaway newly infected werewolf in St Louis with no place to go, no one to ask for help and just two weeks to try and come up with some answers before she changed for the first time. This was certainly not the way she had pictured things going, but she smirked to herself as she realized that Buffy had at last got her way, here she was studying at university, being enrolled was just a minor detail to be overlooked. Hitting 'Enter' she waited for the search engine to start returning results on her query “Preternatural Community St Louis” she should probably get to know who and what she might come across, the best way to protect yourself was with knowledge and with this in mind she clicked on the first link “Anita Blake Vampire Executioner wines and dines with Vampire Master of city” Dawn rolled her eyes, what is it with Slayers and Vampires.

Apologies to anyone who is waiting on an update to Shepherding Faith, I have really been trying but I just can't seem to take the story in any sort of direction. I am still trying to work on it and I will continue to try to complete that story.

This fic is a bit of a work in progress, I'm still trying to iron out the time line for AB, but be assured that I am already working on the next update I just wanted to get this out so I could get some feedback and ideas going from anyone who reads it. Enjoy!

The End?

You have reached the end of "Dangerous Injections" – so far. This story is incomplete and the last chapter was posted on 2 Jul 11.

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