Bleeding Rose
We all have a lack of faith sometimes. That one event in someone's life, the shinning moment that tests them to the limits. Be it a baseball game, getting an A on the chemistry final you studied so hard for. Or the loss of a deeply loved one.
We all have moments like these. Some small, easy tests of self, some hard, and almost soul breaking to live through.
The key is to know that there will always be a tomorrow, no matter how many people you loose on the way...
The bed sheets twisted around his body, holding him fast to the mattress, locking him firmly in the nightmare he was walking through within his mind. >From some distant place, he could feel the fresh, cold sweat rolling off his body, soaking his t-shirt through, making it stick to his skin.
His mind was a rolling countryside of darkness and decay. Turning one way within the dreamscape led him back to a cornerstone of filth and the burning stench of death, turning another showing him a future he wouldn't even wish for the vilest creature in all the dimensions that he didn't care to name.
A hand, reaching to him, gnarled finger nails and cracked, long stopped bleeding digits baring down for his shoulder. He tried to pull away, twisted and jerked his body from the thing that had no face. A silent scream leaving his lips, yet not shattering the silence around him.
He watched in apt fascination as the hand grew nearer, startled somewhat by the shedding of the wasting skin and blackened fingers, until the hand became white, human, familiar. Shattering the dream around him into small wisps of grey and black matter. Like dust being wiped away from a grubby surface.
Xander shot up in the bed, feeling the cold, penetrating grasp of his lover on his shoulder. The grip almost painful as he sat shaking in the sweat sodden bed.
His eyes danced around the room, noting the familiar surroundings of their bedroom. The dresser opposite the bed. An old and fading rocking chair in the corner, black shirts throw over the back of it, shoes by it's side.
And the pictures. Thousands of them, adorning the walls around him. His parents, Willow, Buffy, Riley, Dawn, Joyce, even a few of Faith. A picture of every mile his life had taken. Some of the pictures old and yellowing with the age they had seen, some taken only months before.
Buffy's 29th birthday. They had thrown her a sunlit party in the backyard of her house. Dawn had come home from college to be there, with her boyfriend. Faith having come back from Africa with her watcher for the occasion. The picture was barely even dry before it had been placed inside a frame and hooked onto the wall.
His eyes found the one picture that his mind almost naturally found it's way back to.
It stood in a frame of silver, adorning the very center of the wall opposite the bed. The man inside holding a mug of tea half way to his lips as he looked at the camera and laughed at the joke the person taking the picture had cracked.
He could see the room behind him. The fireplace mantle having an array of pictures scattered across it's surface, the huge landscape picture of the entire group, huddled underneath a tree, squashing together for the picture, hanging proudly across the wall above it.
Giles.
He dropped his eyes, looking down at his lap where his hand lay, his thumb softly shifting the golden ring around his wedding finger. Small cross engraftments ran around the edges of the ring, puckering the metal downwards slightly, and giving the jewellery a little more character than just plain.
He knew the inscription that ran along the inside of the ring, as if he were born to know it. It was burned into his memory like wild fire, streaking across his mind as if forever engrained upon his cerebrum.
'There are no happy endings. Only the moments before'
He could feel the shuddering sob rising within his chest, but he swallowed it quickly, sighing out a chest full of air before shaking his head slightly, to clear the tears from his eyes. Blatantly refusing the cry for the third night in a row.
He slid across the bed, feeling his lovers' fingers dropping from his shoulder as he pulled the sheets from his legs and threw them back onto the bed. He walked across the room, stopping having reached the window, and folded his arms across his chest. Wide from years of building work, toned to almost perfection.
It had been almost five years since he died. So why, as he looked down into the back yard, did it still feel like it happened only yesterday?
"I'll be back in a little while." Xander softly whispered into Angel's neck. Knowing that the vampire would meet him outside the cemetery later anyway, but enjoying the brief moment of closeness before he pulled away and looked into almost black eyes. Tortured from so many years of distruction.
"I know." The half smile that reached Xanders lips was weak to say the least, displaying how very little he wanted to do what he knew he'd do anyway. He stepped back out of the front door, turning and slowly made his way down the porch steps, before turning around and hearing the clicking of the door.
It was half past one in the morning; the stars were out over his head and a soft summer breeze filtered over his bare arms. The streets, as always was the case at this time in the morning, were bare and empty. No college students prowled the town, no clubs were still open. Even the crickets had packed up and gone home.
But he knew, just like he always did when this day came every year, that sleep would not come, and peace would evade him.
Like it always did.
"Xander, for heavens sake! It's a blender! You don't put stake in to it!" an exaggerated voice called from the kitchen doorway. He turned and smirked at Giles, a sheepish grin spreading over his features as he saw the look of scorn crossing the elder mans face.
"Well I don't know how to do this! I press the microwave button for popcorn, I don't.. cook."
The evening had started well. Coming home from work, kissing his husband on the lips, dropping his coat to the chair next to the front door, and gratefully falling into the over stuffed leather chair in the front room.
Until Giles had suddenly dropped a brightly wrapped gift into his lap and sat on the edge of the coffee table. Did he miss his own birthday? Was it Christmas, and no one bothered to remind him? Valentines day?
Oh. Crap.
"My present is cooking." She shrugged sheepishly as the watcher rolled his eyes and sighed softly, knowing all to well that his young husband wouldn't know what day of the year it was if he didn't have to constantly remind him of it.
"You got me a new pocket watch." Xander watched as Giles pulled a small box out of his pocket, it too also wrapped in stupidly bright wrapping paper, and handed it to him.
He looked at the box, turning it over in his hands, before handing it back and bouncing slightly in his chair.
"Well open it then!" I really gotta remember anniversary's one of these days. It'd be funny to see Giles flip if I actually got him something myself
He waited patiently as Giles opened his present, almost painfully aware of how slow his other half opened them, as if to keep the paper and use it for another gift in the future. He'd constantly told Giles that presents were supposed to be opened quickly, so you can get to the good stuff inside.
The watch was dangled in front of his face, and he reached up and ran his fingertip across the face, before focusing his eyes further away from it and seeing the slight smile across his husbands face.
Quickly dropping his own, as of yet unwrapped, gift to the floor beside his chair, he dropped to his knees, in between Giles' legs, and pulled him into a hug. Leaning back slightly, he pressed his lips to Giles', displaying exactly how much he had been missed during the day, despite it only being eight hours since they last saw each other.
Trailing his fingertips softly over the fabric of Giles' sweater, he pulled it up and quickly unzipped his pants, pushing his hand inside. Without waiting, he wrapped his hand around the already hard cock he found waiting for him, and slowly started to move his hand up and down his shaft.
Pulling away slightly, he looked into Giles' eyes and smiled almost wickedly as he pushed him back with his other hand, making his lay down on top of the coffee table, despite it being littered with books and dusty volumes that, no doubt, his husband had been reading through out the day.
Pushing up his sweater, he softly ran his fingertips down the center of his torso, before bending over and tasting the flesh of his stomach with the tip of his tongue. A slight musky, salty taste erupted over his taste buds, and he idly wondered when Giles' had begun to taste so good.
Shifting his hand slightly, he pulled Giles free of his pants, reaching down and popping open the button of the black slacks and pushing them open as far as they would go, before stopping the almost torturously slow motions of his hand, and softly tugging the pants down over raises hipped, until they couldn't go any further because of the shoes he encountered.
He licked, kissed and nibbled his way from the knee of Giles' left leg, all the way up towards his hip, before veering downwards again and slowly, with the tip of his tongue, licking the full length of his cock.
He took the tip of it in his mouth, swirling his tongue in a small circle around it, before closing his lips around the throbbing muscle and gently suckling the flesh.
He heard Giles groan in the back of his throat, causing a wave of pulse racing arousal across every inch of his body, and making his suck that little bit harder, taking more of him in his mouth.
Swallowing, he tasted one of those small, pre-drops of come hit his tongue and slowly travelling down the back of his throat, causing him to swallow again, hopefully trying to gain a little bit more of the taste he craved like he did water.
He pushed his mouth further down over Giles' shaft, taking him in up to the hilt, and feeling his hips jerk softly underneath him, at being deep throated. Pulling back slightly, he did the same thing again, before releasing him totally and once again looking up at his husbands face.
His eyes were screwed tightly shut, and his fingers were gripping the edge of the table on either side of him. A slightly sheen of sweat had broken out over his forehead.
God he looked good.
Xander once again wrapped his fist tightly around Giles' cock, starting a quick, and almost bruising up and down motion, as he crawled up the body that was laying in front of him, and capturing the elder mans lips in a possessive and loving kiss.
He transferred his lips to his neck, nipping gently just below Giles' ear, and speeding up the motion of his hand as he felt his hips come up of the table slightly, giving a small amount of leeway to start pumping into Xanders fist.
Giles quickly reached up, grabbing the back of Xanders t-shirt with in his hand and almost ripping the piece of clothing, as his body went completely ridged and a deep groan erupted out from his chest.
Xander suddenly felt the sensation of something wet and warm spreading out over his fingers, curling around his digits before seeping in between them. He closed his eyes, slowly down the pumping of his fist, as he gently milked every last drop of come from his husbands cock.
They led on that table for almost an hour, letting the kisses they shared tell each other exactly what they needed and wanted to know, with Xanders hand still holding the now limp dick of his husband in his hand, his come drying on his hand.
Xander shuddered slightly despite the mildly warm air that surrounded him, as he remembered that day. It wasn't really anything special. It hadn't been written down. No major political events happened, no wars broke out, and it wasn't even a date of the year that anyone really took any notice of.
But the gentle memories of that one day lay dormant in the back of his mind, until once again, he found the year had grown shorter, making this trip seem inevitably nearer.
He quickly cut across the high school playing field, heading for the furthest cemetery from the center of town, and the one place he dared not visit any other time of the year. He could feel the other three, as they were also pulled towards the exact same spot he was headed for.
Like a moth to a flame.
"Giles, this is just stupid!" his voice echoed down into the basement as he sat on the top step, listening to the sounds of heavy weaponry clanging from the chest down there, into one of the many carry bags that were piled up in the corner of the dank room.
No answer came up to him from the room below, and he rested his cheek on his fist as he stared down into the seemingly never-ending blackness below.
Faith had called little over an hour ago. She was on her way back from India, tha place she said she was this time, and would be there in about three hours. Giles, Buffy and Taylor were all to meet at her apartment at the same time.
Taylor being Taylor King. The newest slayer. Called after Faith had had an extremely nasty run in with a body snatching spirit in China. See, what makes the girl the slayer, is not only the heart, soul and mind, but also the body they were born into. Once that soul has left the body it was meant to be in, then they're dead.
If even just technically.
However, Faith enlisted the help of a half demon guy in the area, got back her body, but found out from her watcher that she had been, technically dead for over twelve hours. What with not being in her body and all.
All three of the slayers had had exactly the same dream the night before. Not exactly too clear, but they knew where they had to be, when they had to be there, and exactly how many weapons they needed.
His husband was currently running around in their basement pulling together the last of the supplies.
"My husband, the guy with a death wish." He shook his head, getting up from his seat, and wandered into the study where the plans were for the new apartment complex were.
He reached up and angrily brushed away a tear, as he recalled the months and weeks after that night. Hours of laying in bed, not moving and hoping that somehow time would steal him from reality and let him drift in a world that held no pain, where death wasn't a reality that he and his friends faced everyday.
The 'what if' questions continually banged through his mind, hammering away at his sanity in the sleepless nights, keeping him from the nightmared filled sleep he didn't want to endure anyway.
What if he hadn't let him go? What if he'd gone with him? What if.. What if.. What if.
He rounded the huge iron gates to the private cemetery and quickly weaved his way between the headstones. Gater, Penning, Tonner, Stanley, Harding, Mckenna, Hayes and..
Giles-Harris.
He recalled being ripped from his dreamless sleep that night, feeling the scream vibrating through his body, and yet knowing that he wasn't the one to release it. A sense of foreboding racing around his torso, colliding into his stomach, making him dry heave as his mind flashed with the ultimate fear of lose.
He felt a tear slide down his cheek at the memory of opening the front door to Buffy and Faith. Taylor leaning heavily on Faith, with her arm around her shoulders, as the other two slayers carried, almost cradled, the heavy body between them.
A huge slash carved its way down Faiths neck, and he followed the line of it almost down to her stomach, through her shredded clothing. She'd also lost two fingers on her left hand. Taylor's right leg still had a huge knife sticking out of it, and her left arm was hanging limply by her side. Buffy was favouring her right leg, a huge row of jagged teeth marks slashed through her thigh, and a stream of blood falling into her eyes from three claw marks across her forehead.
And the body they carried. Chest, legs and arms mauled till unrecognisable, the head having only one small cut across the cheek. Teeth marks indicating where the flesh had been ripped from the body, claw marks etched into the rib bones he could see sticking out of the blood red sweater. It had been blue when he left.
He let go of the door, spinning around and leaning over the chair as he lost his supper.
He felt a hand gently land on his shoulder, another one wrapping around his waist, and a third hand laying on the back of his neck. He didn't need to look away from the grave marker of his lost husband to know that the hand on his shoulder belonged to Taylor. The arm around his waist to Buffy, and the arm slung over Buffy's shoulders, hand on his neck, to Faith.
They were drawn here every year, at the same time. Perhaps in mourning, perhaps in remembering such a great man. One who had spent years moulding them into being the adults the world would accept, despite their nightly habits of saving said world on a weekly basis.
Three of them missing the elder gentleman as the father they never had, one missing him as the husband only a few short years were enjoyed with. Years which would, no doubt, be wrapped up in Xander's mind until the day he passed from this world, and journeyed into the next.
Without a word to any of them, Taylor dropped her hand from Xander's shoulder, walking forwards and placing a white rose underneath the writing on the white headstone. Without looking at any of them, she stood back and read the words from the marker over in her head, despite knowing them off by heart anyway, before turning around and slightly limping off into the night.
A few moments passed before Faith slide her hand from Xander's neck, giving her girlfriend's shoulder a quick squeeze before moving forward and placing another white rose down, right beside Taylor's offering of grief and sorrow.
As soon as Faith stepped back she walked away, not having to read the writing to know what it said, or to feel the stabbing pain of lose they brought her. She would feel it every day for the rest of her life. Like they all would.
Buffy stayed a bit longer, knowing her girlfriend would wait for her at home, as she shared the night with her long time best friend. Whom she knew was heartbroken by the lose of someone so great, despite having found comfort in another lovers arms.
She sighed, walking forward and placing another white rose on the grave, before moving away, giving her best friend a gentle hug before she fully left.
Xander stood there for almost another forty minutes, reading the words over and over again to himself. Perhaps hoping that they'd fade from his memory, as well as the last vision of his husband. Maybe making sure they wouldn't be forgotten in the years to come, when he got too old and too tired to keep reliving the heart break of years long past.
He carefully pulled the rose from his back pocket, holding it up in the moonlight and roaming his eyes over the green thorns that he'd asked the florist to leave on. Taking it out of his eye line again, he curled his fist around its stem, feeling the popping of his skin as the thorns dug into his flesh.
He could feel the wetness of his own blood pooling in the palm of his hand, and he tilted his fist, letting the droplets of his own, deep red, life blood fall to the grass in front of the grave marker, before laying the rose down with everyone else's.
He pulled a white cloth out of another pocket and wrapped it around his hand, before turning away from the grave and walking out of the cemetery, silent tears running down his cheeks and gently sobs heaving his chest slightly as he went to meet Angel at the gates to the private cemetery.
He took a quick look over his shoulder, as he always did as he left, and smiled through his tears as he saw a grey, cloudy apparition of his former husband bending over his own grave and smiling at the roses they had once again left for him.
He straightened up and looked over to Xander, smiling as he put his hands in his pockets and slowly faded from view. But not from memory.
Because like a chalkboard, you can wipe away the words, but there will always be that ever present cloud of chalk dust left behind.
Just like Giles had long since left his fingerprint on each and every single person he met.
- Rupert Giles-Harris
- Birthday: 4th April
- Guiding Friend
- Loving Father
- Beautiful Husband
- There are no happy endings
- Only the moments before