Breaking Skin
- Put me above the boy
- The one I love I should destroy
- - Hole "Hit So Hard"
- First the good news
- It's gonna feel very nice
- Then the bad news
- You gotta pay a heavy price
- Rip-tide, we slide we ride on a deep forbidden sea
- Under we go- so slow
- And you're hanging onto me
- And I say
- Oh oh one more addiction in my world
- Oh one more connection to let go
- - Natalie Imbruglia "One More Addiction"
Sweat trickling down the small of his back, the music loud and good, it hasn't been this good for a long time, the music. But he was feeling hell inside. He moved with the rhythm, the pulse beating in his ear like his heart in his chest. He screamed, screamed and let everything out.
Anger. Fear. Frustration.
This was the first night he was legally single again. Divorces took the living soul out of people and it showed with Xander. He had gotten skinny like those waif-like models that got his attention, the veins in his arms clearly visible even under the light of the this run down place. His pale skin, smooth yet unhealthy, hair unwashed for days on end.
The music slowly faded, the crowds movement dying down slowly, he turned to find a familiar, but he didn't.
Everyone here was a stranger, you could see it in all their eyes, all wishing to be somewhere else, somewhere safe and warm. His eyes were like that when he'd stare deep into the mirror, into his reflection, he'd find nothing but the man that he was.
All he is now was an empty shell. A single empty shell.
Xander made his way through the sea of bodies half his age, pierced, tattooed and violated. A girl whose eyes told otherwise flashed and smiled at him and he smiled faintly at her but moved on. Past everyone else whose mind now gently floated in a cocktail of alcohol and the latest and best of designer drugs, he found a corner and a chair to sit on.
He rubbed his temples and giggled briefly, that laughing gas was really working, he sighed when he lapsed to lucidity the next minute. "Xander? Is that you?", a voice, far and familiar. He looked up and saw the pale, blond who stood before him, Spike, and he hadn't changed a bit. "You look like hell."
"Spike, nice to see you to," he told in a flat monotonous tone, like a machine, Willow once said over the phone. "What are you doing here?"
"What does it look like, I'm on the guard. Looking for evil where it lurks and beat the bloody hell out of it."
"That's nice," Xander mumbled as he stood up. "Well, I gotta go and get a drink. Say hi to Buffy for me."
"Buffy?" the vampire asked a little puzzled.
"Ooohh, right. She threw you out after you slept Dawn."
"She seduced me," Spike paused thinking about the whole thing that came down months ago. "You really must be baked if you can't remember that, let me take you home." He held on to Xander's arm and lead him to the bar instead, after much talking.
"I heard about you and Anya, I'm sorry about that. I really am," William the Bloody told him over the second shot of tequila.
"Don't waste your breathe on her, she's a horrible person. She's a demon, that's what she is, a stinky demon," he mumbled over his fourth. "I hope she never finds another man!" he toasted to the sixth one. By the tenth he was reduced to slobbering idiot of a man and the vampire had to half-drag and half-lead him back to his house.
Inside, he dropped him on the couch and proceeded to the sink to freshen up. "Let me tell you something about women," he started to say, clearing away empty Jack Daniel bottles to make space. "We don't need them."
It was another bar, a month after the divorce and his body told more than he did. His eyes, glazed with the mixture of too many alcoholic drinks and much more joints, kept on the small glass of scotch in front of him. This was now his world, and he thought that Andy Capp was funny. If only he could laugh at himself. Despite these thoughts, despite the great desire to stop smoking pot and drinking, he could not. He was human, just human.
Devon, beside him and pretty much like him, wasted, asked again. "Hey, how's Oz?"
"I don't know man, I really don't," and he didn't care, next to Spike, he hadn't seen anyone for almost a year now. After all he's still stuck in fucking Sunnydale.
"Xander, bloody good to see that you're drinking again," it was him again, Spike, who never failed to show up wherever he choose to get drunk.
"What is it? Do you have eyes on me or something?"
"I'm just looking out for a friend," the vampire said taking a seat on the empty stool beside him.
"Hey, you're the vampire dude, right? Angel or something?" Devon suddenly blurted after giving Spike a good long stare. Xander on the other hand had stood up, paid for his drink and left them. "Hey, can I see your fangs?"
He paced away from the dealer, it was just like in the movies a street corner and two guys, he bought the cheapest stash they had. That was all he could afford, Xander patted the zip lock on his coat pocket, saw the smoke floating from his cigarette.
"Hey there," it was him again, Spike following him everywhere he went, every time. The wine store, the strip joints, he was like the shadow that talked back to you.
"Get the fuck away," he almost screamed as he turned to a corner. The alley was abandoned and the easiest, but not the safest way to get back.
"You know that stuff's bad for you," The vampire began with his usual tirade on the evils of drug use.
"Oh this fucking good," Xander turned to him, fist clenched. "I'm hearing this from the guy who drinks blood!"
"At least it's cleaner than yours. God knows what the hell you put in yourself."
In that instance he snapped, months of pent up anger venting in that moment. and he wanted to hit something, hit it so bad that he'd see it crumbled slowly to pieces. And at that instance there was Spike. And he hit him, first in the jaw and it sent the vampire falling down to the damp pavement, he got on him, put the entire wait of his body on his face and started beating. He hit the face, that was the easiest thing to see crumble. He screamed in delight as drops of blood hit his cheeks, his lips. He could taste it. Smell it.
And he was howling in joy.
The vampire was quiet on the couch, Xander could not tell what was worse the beating he gave him or the feeling he had doing it. He was happy. He dampened the towel and carefully cleaned the wounds, now he was crying. And he didn't know he was, his face was straight and stoic and yet the tears rolled.
"God," his voice cracked. Xander leaned toward the bloodied face and kissed him. His lips touched the frail, swollen lips of Spike. "I'm so sorry."
Then he stood up and took out the zip-lock bag in his pocket and headed for the toilet. He picked up a half-empty bottle of scotch off the floor on the other hand. Standing in front of the toilet, he opened the bag and emptied it to it, then he unscrewed the bottle cap and poured it in. "Help me," he whispered and pushed on the lever.
The swirl started, blue water and dried leaves and scotch, swirling, being pulled down. He watched this in silence.
He looked at him, the frail creature in his arms and he knows the truth. That he could not save him, just this way. But it was enough for now. For now, he leaned towards him and kissed him softly on the lips, let his tongue pierce the space of his mouth and confided to him.
The mortal pulled away, took a small paring knife from the bedside table and took it to his hand. He held his forefinger next to the blade and made the cut, Xander didn't wince. He was used to it now. As the blood rolled of his fingertips he held up to the vampires lips. "Take me," he whispered, and he did.