all that mushy stuff
eros

Okay so you are probably wondering why I am sending this to you and not him. Or you probably already know. Doesn't matter.

Um...I sorta need you to tell him something for me. Well firstly...I miss him. A lot. A helluva lot. He's been crying everyday for a while now, and he's dropped out of college. I can't let that happen to my baby. He can't become a bum.

See, I thought that...death would be simple. You die and that's it? Right? Not that simple. Seems that they let you review your life first and...fuck my life was not righteous. In that less-holier-than-thou way. I don't regret the things I've done simply because I've seen much worse. But there was this point when everything became so much better. When my baby came to me. And I sorta need you to tell him this for me.

Tell him that I hold on to the memories with an iron fucking grip. These fuckers up here want me to take them so I can "began my next journey". Fuck them. Fuck that journey. I like the memories. I like the way they make me feel. But I can feel them flowing. Fuck I can't remember anything before my eighteenth birthday. But I remember him. I remember the times. And its not just the sex I remember. Though that's a big part of it. It's the way my life like got meaning when he came.

Tell him I remember the first kiss behind the Bronze. How...nice it was. How different and original and fluffy it made me feel. Gentle and just plain nice. How much the chastity of it made me want him so much more.

Tell him I remember the first time we had a date. Hell that was my first date that ended without sex. Imagine it Oz, me buying dinner and not cashing in on it at the end of the night. And again with the gentle kisses. He drove me crazy, Oz. God, so gentle.

Anyway, tell him I remember the first time we had sex. Now THAT was a night I will remember no matter what happens up here. It had to be like a whole month since I had had sex. ME! But it was worth it. I remember how worried he looked, his first time and all. I was worried too, didn't want to hurt him. Real slow, and very smooth, and it was the best night of my life. If you could just see the expression on his face, so open, vulnerable, almost achingly sweet. I remember the kissing every available part of his face, his neck, and shoulders. And I remember the post-orgasm snuggling. I miss that most of all. Not being able to lay my head on the small chest and listening to that heartbeat, letting it rock me to sleep.

Tell him I miss the way that he would grip my back or my shoulders during the times when the sex was intense and fast, the little marks they would leave. I remember especially one of our special nights, his nineteenth birthday, when I sorta introduced him to bed games. I teased him a lot, pissed him off, and drove him insane and as we finally coupled he bit me so fucking hard on the neck, he drew blood. I don't think he meant it to hurt me, and it didn't, but I loved him for it. It was then I felt him open so completely. Kinda like that spiritual shit you told me about Willow. It was just how you described it, like shit was spinning and you just know it was right. Now that I think about it, THAT was the best night of my life. He doesn't know this, but tell him that before the bite healed, when he left for classes, I would go into the bathroom and stare at it. And I would remember that night, the night he opened up and I would make play with myself thinking about it. And then I would drag him to bed as soon as he came home. He may never know how much it meant to me, that mark, his brand, but he doesn't have to. I wore it proudly, even though he would wince at it.

And tell him...I didn't mean to leave that way, that soon. Tell him that I wish I would have gotten us the hell out of Sunnydale. I knew how it was, the dangers, and we could have moved, I would have given it all up if I knew that the danger would catch up with us. That we would be separated.

Tell him that I was there during the funeral, that I stood right behind him and I went through a fucking second death not being able to touch him. To tell him that I was safe, that he didn't have to cry like he did, to soothe his fears, to tell him I wasn't worth it.

Tell him that I was there, in the room with him when he tried to raise me from the dead. Tell him that I wanted it just as much as he did, that I would have moved heaven and earth had it been enough. Tell him that I was there the first time, the second time, and the third time; that I was there afterwards too, when he cried the rest of the night because it didn't go right. Tell him I cried too.

Tell him I slept with him for months, that I whispered into his ears when he was sleep, that it really was me in his dreams holding him, kissing him. The only reason I stopped was because of what it did to him when he woke up. And I wasn't there.

Tell him he's my polar opposite; that he is everything I wasn't, couldn't ever be, but aspired to. Tell him that up here they say we will see each other again. And I hold on to that. With all of my heart. In this life and the next.

And, Oz, please take care of him. Go see about him. Get him back into school. They keep saying that he has a really important task in the future, that he will change a lot of lives. He already did change mines, and maybe its selfish to want him to myself, but I have to do the charitable thing and share him.

Just tell him...that I love him. And all that other mushy stuff that's better left for the poets like you. The rest of you, Eric, Trev, and all, you know how I feel about you guys. And though I told him like fifty billion times, I still don't think I told Jon that enough times. I love him.

Yours truly,

Devon McLeish

 

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