All These Hyper Little Thoughts

The sunlight - the first real patch of sunlight he’d known in months - felt good on his face. Like a fleet of great ships, the first rays of morning plowed through the fog, sending it scattering into the trees and air. And even here, in the dense and black forest, a few strays found their way to the third floor deck of Tuna’s compound, bathing it in warmth and brightness that had been lost to Xander for eons, it seemed. Sitting on the quickly-warming steel platform with his back to the railings, eyes closed and mind wandering, his face was turned up to the fleeting clouds passing over the treetops far above.

The shadows would come, he knew. Twilight would fall and this comfort - this calming and numbing warmth he hadn’t known he’d missed - would fade for another night. He would return to what he’d made of his life. He would return to the night, to the arms of a lover who waited for him just behind the shadows, just outside of the sunlight. And Xander knew that was where he belonged, where he wanted to be. But just for now… he thought, surfacing from his thoughts for a moment. Just for now, I want this.

He could feel the protective glare, the worried energy practically vibrating from the open double doors where Spike leaned against the frame, watching him. Silent, unmoving, Spike had been his sentinel as Apollo journeyed westward. Unable to approach, yearning to help and to understand and to protect, his face was contorted into a solid mask of anger and frustration while his eyes spoke volumes of worry and fear and hope. I know it’s killing him…I just can’t right now, Xander thought before delving back inside himself.

Her dry, chalky hand felt weak in his. So brittle, Xander thought to himself as he stared down at his mother. With his free hand, he stroked the hair that framed her ghostly face. One eye was swollen over, bruises shading the entire side of her face. The other was almost peaceful, relaxed but frozen. The breathing machine ticked and gasped beside her as her chest heaved and collapsed, giving the only assurance that she was still alive. The florescent tube over her bed cast a funereal tint and reminded Xander of too many morgues he’d spent his adolescence in.

“Mom, what happened?” he whispered, wanting so desperately for her to wake up and tell him. “How did this happen?”

The door to the room opened with a crash as Nurse Candy sashayed into the room, Jessica’s chart in hand. She gasped and clutched her bosom, seeing Xander standing beside her patient. Her already scarlet cheeks darkened. “Gosh, I thought you’d gone, darlin’.”

“No, uh…I noticed…” He tried to swallow the boulders that had crept into his throat. “I was leaving and saw her. I didn’t know-”

“I’m sorry, hon, but you really can’t be here unless you’re family.” Candy’s crimson cheeks faded back to pink as she glanced nervously from Jessica to Xander to the chart in her arms.

“Please,” Xander turned his gaze back on his mother, “I’m, I mean, I know her.”

“Are you,” Candy glanced back down at her chart and back to Xander, “Alex Harris?”

“No!” Xander squeaked, not entirely sure why he didn’t want this woman to know who he was. For some reason, it just felt safer. Candy’s eyebrow raised in suspicion. “Bondsworth,” he offered. “Alex Bondsworth. I went to Sunnydale High with Xander, er, Alex.”

“You don’t know where we can find him, do you? We’ve been trying to contact him regarding her.” Candy nodded toward his mom.

“He’s uh,” Think, Xander, think! “Dead.” Smart. Real smart.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know-” Candy rambled, visibly startled.

“A month ago,” he explained, trying to give just the right amount of details. “He was on his way to Chicago with a friend…Terrible accident. I don’t think his parents even knew.”

“I’m so sorry,” Candy repeated, finally approaching the bed and looking rather pointedly at the various monitors reading out vital signs. She plucked a pencil out of the pocket of her scrub top, flicked the tip of it against her tongue and made a few notes. “Sure seems like that family is cursed.”

“What do you mean?” You don’t know the half of it, lady.

“It’s just, this woman, I mean. From what I heard…” The nurse hesitated, trying to decide whether it was okay to give away the information or not.

“Please, these people…” He sighed for emphasis. “They were the closest thing to family I had. I only just got back from Chicago a while ago. I was dealing with Alex’s things.”

Candy apparently decided Xander was trustworthy, because she pretended to take more notes on her patient while in a hushed voice laid out the whole story for him.

“Well, a couple of months ago, Ms. Harris, here, called 911. She was screaming something awful, from what I heard. She said ‘He’s going to kill me!’ and was yelling at the top of her lungs for them to help her, all kinds of terrible things. The call was disconnected before the dispatcher could find out who it was or what was going on. Didn’t even get her address!”

Xander listened, wanting desperately to know the truth, but he could feel himself pulling away from the gruesome scene playing out in his head. His dad must have finally snapped…I’m so sorry, Mom. So sorry I left you there with him.

“Anyhoo, they have that GSP or GPS or whatever it is on all the 911 calls now, so they were able to find her pretty quick. ‘Course, it was too late by then.” Candy looked up at him, glanced behind at the open door and back down to her patient, smiling sweetly. “The police report said the house was a wreck, tables overturned and the television set in pieces. I guess it was real bad. They found Ms. Harris in the kitchen…she was hurt pretty bad. Cop I talked to said it looked like she’d been hit with the tea kettle quite a few times, and that’s the least of it.” Candy shook her head solemnly. “Once they got her stabilized and on the ambulance, they went looking around the house. They found her husband in the bedroom unconscious, clutching a loaded shotgun! The story is supposed to be that someone attacked her, then went after the husband who was hiding in the bedroom, but found him unconscious and thought he was already dead, not knowing that he had really come down with that Deep Sleep thing. And on top of all of that, Alex - your friend - had disappeared! And now you say he’s died. It’s all very strange.”

“Strange…” Xander mumbled, still trying to block the parade of gruesome images that was marching forcefully before his mind’s eye.

“Cops think Alex did it and then took off,” Candy explained with a roll of her eyes.

“He would never!” He found himself suddenly very emotional and very protective of both himself and his mom. “He couldn’t have!”

“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” She leaned towards Xander conspiratorially. “Got my own theory, though. See, I sort of knew her.”

“What do you mean?”

“I knew her. Kind of.” Candy glanced nervously at her watch. “A bunch of years ago, probably fifteen at least, I was an ER nurse. One night she came in.” She nodded towards his mom. “Her face looked almost as bad then as it does now. I tell you, it looked like someone had used her as a punching bag… It was awful.” Candy seemed to be lost in the memory.

“What happened?” Xander asked, and the nurse shook herself back to the present.

“Well, she wouldn’t tell me, exactly. Not at first, anyway. She had her little boy with her, Alex.” At this, Xander met the nurse’s glance, afraid she was implying that she recognized him. “Cute little boy, chatterbox he was. Had all the other nurses laughing up a storm in the waiting room. Anyway, when her and I were finally alone as I was stitching her up, she told me what happened. She said she came home from work and caught her husband beating up on the little boy. She tried to get him to stop, but it just made him angrier and he turned on her. Laid into her something awful, let me tell you, judging by those cuts. I tried to get her to press charges, but she wouldn’t. She said it wouldn’t happen again…”

Xander gave a dry laugh, as brittle as the hand he held. He cleared his throat again, realized how thirsty he suddenly was. “So you think…”

“I think the fact that Mr. Harris fell asleep when he did saved this woman’s life. Such as it is… Who knows if she’ll wake up? We may not know anything about this sleeping thing, but comas are pretty well-researched. The longer a victim is in one, the less chance there is of coming back.”

“So the doctors don’t think, um, that’s she’ll…” Wake up? Mom, wake up, please…

“No one knows. I’m trying to keep the faith, though.”

They both jumped as Xander’s cell phone started ringing. Taking it out of his pocket, he saw it was Spike calling. He silenced it and returned it to his pocket. I really do need to go…He looked back down at his mom, trying to think of something, anything, to say. Prayers seemed useless, and words seemed trivial. He settled for squeezing her hand one more time before turning to face Candy.

“Could you, uh, could you let me know…if her condition changes?” He fished a receipt out of his pocket and jotted down his cell number with a pen from her pocket.

“Sure thing, darlin’. You’re probably the closest thing to family she has left.”

Xander only nodded and walked toward the door. He was stopped by her melodious whisper.

“Funny things, scars.” She seemed to be thinking aloud.

“Huh?” He turned back to her, not sure he had heard correctly. “Scars?”

“See, before I helped her, I patched up the little boy too. He had a pretty bad cut just over his eye.” She stroked her brow pointedly. “I always figured it’d leave a pretty nasty scar. Kind of like the one you have there over your eye.”

“Uh…” His cell phone started ringing again. He turned quickly, giving a quick “thank you,” over his shoulder as he bounded out the door and to the elevators, leaving the nurse behind to look after his mother.

“Xander, where are you?” Spike growled through the phone when Xander answered it, pressing the button to call the elevator.

“I’m at the hospital,” he answered, aware that his voice sounded strangely alien, even to him.

“What is it, love?” Impatience shifted quickly to worry.

“It’s my mom…I found her, Spike.”

“Sweetie, you need to eat something,” Tuna was saying. Xander snapped back to the present, realizing his friend was kneeling next to him and rubbing his arm gently, trying to get his attention. He had apparently brought a tray of food out onto the deck for him. Xander looked at him, but couldn’t bring himself to speak. “Honey, you gotta keep your strength up.”

“Love, eat something,” Spike murmured from where he still stood in the doorway. The shadows seemed to have grown. Indeed, the shrinking circle of sunlight Xander was sitting in had grown warmer. What time is it? “Please?”

Tuna’s hand was solid on his shoulder, reassuring. Xander let his gaze wander, to the large, iridescent, multi-colored eyes of his demon friend, to his demon lover’s stone face of worry, then gliding to the pine haven surrounding him and finally coming to rest on the fleeting clouds far above them.

He was thirteen. Sitting on the steps outside his junior high school with his tattered backpack at his feet. He glanced at his Star Trek watch again: almost six o’clock. I guess I might as well walk home again. The campus had been deserted for an hour as even the teachers and the poor unfortunate souls who’d stayed after for detention had fled another school day. Four times in as many days he’d been forgotten, and he briefly wondered if his mom was at home, passed out again. She’d recently taken to staying up all night and drinking during the day. A little at first - she’d forgotten to pick up him a couple of times here and there - but lately it seemed like it was getting worse.

Hefting his backpack and slinging it over a shoulder, he started his long trek across town towards home. Maybe I’ll swing by Jesse’s house on the way, see if he’s still willing to give up that skateboard. Besides, his mom always has leftovers. And maybe by the time I get home, Dad’ll already have left for work.

He noticed the shadows were getting longer, and he quickened his pace. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the dark, really; he wasn’t. There was just something about Sunnydale after dark that had always made him feel a little wiggy.

Xander was vaguely aware of a female voice speaking somewhere nearby. She was asking someone a question. Whoever she was talking to only grunted back at her. Were they arguing? He couldn’t tell…couldn’t quite bring himself to care. There was another woman’s voice, quieter, that seemed to soothe the others. There was a hush, and he felt for a moment like he was on display. But he still wasn’t able to take notice as another memory overcame him.

He’d just returned home from patrolling with Buffy and Willow. They’d spent the whole night trawling through the cemeteries and he was wondering if he’d ever get up the nerve to ask Buffy out. Does she like me too? he wondered. They’d been friends a few months now, but he still couldn’t tell. The Slayer always seemed like she was a little preoccupied. I’d probably be preoccupied too, if I’d been chosen to protect the whole world.

Xander inched the front door closed, thanking whatever gods there were that it hadn’t given its usual squeak. He tiptoed through the front hall and the living room, throwing a nervous glance towards the couch where his mom was passed out with all the lights burning. There was an empty box of wine tipped over on the floor beside the couch. Wonder what time she started today, he thought bitterly, making his way silently towards his bedroom. He left the light off as he carefully closed the door.

God, when am I going to get out of this house? he wondered, taking off his clothes and tossing them onto a heap in the corner of the room. He plopped down onto his bed and slid under the wrinkled sheets.

His thoughts turned to Buffy once more as he waited for sleep to come.

There was a sharp breath of frozen air skimming across his skin as the twilight wind picked up and swept around him. Xander shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs of memory that still clung to his vision. He was still staring up at the sky, though it was no longer that innocent shade of blue. Instead the sky was on fire, as the Sun God had begun his final descent into Hades for another night. The shadows of the surrounding evergreen towers inched closer around him, and he was aware of four pair of worried eyes watching him.

“Xan?” Spike was closer now, just out of arms’ reach. The sunlight lily pad he was resting on was quickly being swallowed by the night. He closed his eyes again. “Pet? Are you with us?”

“Xander?” Buffy’s tentative voice, somewhere nearby. There was another hand on his arm. “Xander, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Could you maybe explain how you knew his dad was found asleep with a shotgun but not know his mom was in a coma? I smell Eau D’Nile.” Tuna. He would go up against Buffy the first time they met.

“Look, I told you guys we didn’t know, okay?” Buffy exclaimed. “We knew she was in the hospital, we just assumed…”

“All right, you two, I think that’s enough.” Tara was obviously tired of always, being in the middle of people. There was a hardness to her voice that Xander had never heard before. “We are not here for that. We’re here for Xander…”

“Well, I guess assuming makes a superficial bitch out of-” Tuna wasn’t going to let it go.

“Shut up, sushi-breath!” she screamed back at him. “What the hell are you, anyway? And what makes you think you know anything about my friend?”

“Oh, excuuuuuse me, your friend?” Tuna accused. “It seems to me-”

“Shut up!!” Spike bellowed, closer still to Xander, startling everyone into silence. “Will all of you gits just shut the fuck up? It is not about you.” Softer, now. “Xander, love? Are you in there? It’s me, baby.”

The words wouldn’t come. They died in his throat, burning into bitter ash as he tried to voice them. What could he say? There was nothing. Mom, oh god. That son of a bitch! I’d kill him if I could.

And again the floodgates opened as the tears stung his eyes like pins. All the beatings, all the nightmares, all the fights from his childhood seemed to squeeze their way from his memory, racing through his body and finally pouring out of his eyes. The only thing he could feel was pain spreading, burning like gasoline fumes in his veins. He opened his mouth to speak again, but only a howl escaped, a long and twisted sob.

Xander knew he would tell Spike what had happened on the way home. He just didn’t have words right now for what he had found four floors above. He’d asked Spike to meet him at the hospital. He just couldn’t face his other friends right now. Mom’s upstairs, at death’s door…I could have stopped this, he thought as he stepped off the elevator into the deserted hospital lobby. Could have stopped this all…

In a blur, he’d made it to the parking garage and into the passenger seat of the Jeep. In silence, he’d waited for Spike to meet him. He felt like a black hole, full of nothing. There was no sound, no smell, a complete absence of every emotion and thought. There was not even numbness, only nothing as he sat. He could see only his mom’s bruised face in front of him.

He was vaguely aware of Spike finding the Jeep and sliding into the passenger seat and throwing his arms around him. Trying to get his attention, trying to ask him what was wrong. Was there something wrong with his mom? What was going on? Where was his cell phone; it was ringing? Xander only stared ahead, unable to focus on anything.

Xander dug the phone out of his pocket like a man without a soul and outside of time. Slowly, with no show of recognition or thought, he gave the phone to Spike without looking at him. The vampire answered it, growling in place of a greeting.

“What? No, he can’t come to the phone. What the fuck-” Spike stopped. Xander felt his eyes on him, and was only remotely aware of the vampire inching back out of the Jeep and closing the door.

Minutes passed - or maybe hours - as Xander reconstructed the night’s events. And working backwards, his life.

Suddenly Spike was next to him, holding his hand. With his other hand, he turned Xander to face him, though Spike’s face was only a blur to him, accentuated by two bright blue punches of light. Spike was talking to him. He knew what he was saying, could hear the words, but couldn’t process them. Not yet.

“Xander…she’s gone,” and suddenly the entire world fell apart.

He felt the arms around him, though he still couldn’t open his eyes completely. The warmth of the sun on his face had faded, the light behind his eyes had gone. The tears were still raining freely, and the sobs were still wrestling out of his chest like thunder. Spike, he knew. The other voices were there - his friends - asking him if he was alright, wanting to have some kind of assurance, wanting to help in some way. Please just go away, he thought.

“Everyone, get the hell out,” Spike commanded, as if reading his mind. He just knows me that well.

He was being carried, he knew. He heard doors closing, the sound of footsteps on stairs. Felt the warm bed beneath him finally, as the arms that held him moved so that they trapped him against a body he knew well. Soft scent of stale smoke and something richer, spicier, near him. Hard lips that felt like frozen silk against his temple, hand stroking his head.

“S’okay, Xan, love,” he heard through the sobs. “You cry all you need. Take what time you need, pet. I’ll be here, I’m not goin’ anywhere…”

By the time they split into groups and left the flat, the rain had finally tapered off. The mist and fog that had followed Spike and Xander into town shrouded Sunnydale in a hazy false dawn, though daybreak was still hours away. The dampness surrounding them seemed to absorb sound too, casting an eerie silence over the town. No sounds of traffic or splashing of puddles. Normally a constant white noise, there was not even a whisper of the ocean waves. The sloshing beneath their feet could barely be heard.

“Okay,” Buffy explained, “Spike and I will make our rounds and see if we can get some info from his demon bud - er - contacts.” Spike, standing beside the Slayer, rolled his eyes and let out a groan. Ignoring him, she went on. “Riley, you take the cemeteries and Xander, check out the hospitals and see if you can figure anything out.” Tara had opted to stay behind to continue researching and keep an eye on Giles.

“So we’ll meet back here in a couple of hours?” Riley asked.

“Right,” Buffy confirmed. “We’ll say…five? Xander, will that give you guys enough time to get back?”

“Should be fine. The way Spike drives, it’s only a ten minute commute.”

“You’ll pay for that, pet.” Spike glared as Xander stuck his tongue out at him.

“Anyway,” Buffy said, sighing. “We’ll meet back here five-ish and compare notes.”

“‘Five-ish‘ does not mean sunrise,” Spike insisted. “I don’t fancy being a pile of ash, thank you.”

“Alright! Five on the dot. Jeeze!”

Spike nodded with a smirk and winked at Xander. Xander grinned back at him.

Everyone got their cells?” Buffy asked, glancing at the round of nods. “Alright, stay in contact. If anyone finds anything, pass it along. I think we’re good. Riley, Xander, be careful.”

“Careful, luv,” Spike said, tossing the Jeep keys to Xander. With that, the two blondes escaped into the fog, leaving Xander and Riley looking awkwardly at each other.

“Well, uh…” Riley rubbed the back of his neck, looking towards the direction Buffy and Spike had just stalked off in. “I guess I’ll head out too.”

“Yep,” Xander nodded, looking down and kicking a pebble into a puddle. “Good luck!”

“Yeah, you too.” Riley laughed nervously. After a beat, he gave a half-hearted wave and started jogging in the direction of the nearest cemetery.

“Gotta love the military types,” Xander muttered as he made his way towards the Jeep. He clicked the button on the key and was rewarded with two short chirps as the door locks disengaged. “Everyone knows they’re the gayest ones of all.”

St. Michael’s was proving to be as devoid of leads as the other three hospitals Xander had snooped through in the last couple of hours. One long hallway after another, filled with the same bored and tired nurses and sick and tired patients. Between the three of them, the other hospitals housed only a few dozen patients suffering from the mysterious ’sleeping disease’ which none of the nurses or doctors seemed to be able to explain. Question after question, and the answers all came up, “they’re just sleeping.” One young resident at Community General had gone so far as to note that some her patients were “just sleeping to death.”

Xander had been up and down nearly every hallway here too, glancing through open door after open door at patients sleeping normally or staring at silent TV screens, caught up in the muted infomercials or old M.A.S.H. reruns. At this time of the night - or morning, depending upon which side of the sunrise you slept - most of the nurses’ stations were completely abandoned or manned by a yawning trainee. Even on-call residents were scarce, off trying to catch some sleep or finish their paperwork before the next shift plowed in the front doors. He was about to throw in the towel and give up, having come to the last stop at St. Michael’s, the east wing of the fourth floor. He was surprised to find an actual nurse manning the station here, humming along with the golden oldies that churned statically out of an ancient radio propped on a stack of binders behind the desk.

“Hey!” he called out excitedly, realizing he should probably bring it down a couple of notches. “What do you know, there are nurses working here!”

The short and pudgy - er… round - nurse startled, her turquoise half-glasses wobbling precariously on her wide nose. She gasped, clutching her expansive chest with a meaty hand. “Heavens to Betsy, but you scared me!” A thick southern accent stretched her words and for just a moment, Xander thought she’d been drinking.

“Sorry, Nurse - uh, Candy,” he apologized, glancing down at her seemingly dwarfed name tag. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Oh, you’re fine, darlin’,” she assured him, reaching across the desk and turning down the radio. “I’m just not used to people sneakin’ up on me around here.”

“Again, sorry. I was wondering, though, if maybe you could help me? I just have a couple of questions, and hopefully you can answer them…”

“I s’pose I could try, couldn’t I? Now what are your questions, hon?”

“I’m actually wondering about this, uh, ’sleeping disease’ that’s been going on.” Xander prayed she knew something, anything.

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about it, hon. Around here the docs call it the ‘Super Sleep.’ Otherwise, it’s pretty much…”

Xander felt his hopes drain away again as Candy filled him in on all the details he’d heard three times already tonight. Nothing new. At least he’d gotten to see a few of the patients at the last hospital. Most of them were contained in one large wardroom. It had been eerie to see them all lying in exactly the same position, their lips moving silently at precisely the same time. In unison, all eleven slumbering patients had rolled from their right side to their left, like synchronized divers. Xander had guessed that Giles had probably just rolled over in his own bed as well, and that thought haunted him even now. He shivered, realizing Candy was continuing, apparently not registering that he had checked out for a few minutes.

“Anyway, since it seems to be some kind of epidemic or something, the doctors starting putting them up here in my ward with the other coma patients. I guess they figure it’s close enough, but I gotta tell ya, hon, it’s getting a little cramped around here. They just keep piling them in. I went from five patients to nineteen just this week!”

Xander nodded, pretending that he was absorbing the information, but it was the same here as all the other places he’d been. It was obvious to him that Candy didn’t get many visitors on this shift in this ward. He started inching away from the desk, smiling and nodding politely.

Like an answered prayer, the pocket of his jeans started jerking violently and singing the theme to Scooby Doo. Thank you, Buffy! Xander gave a mental cheer as he dug his cell phone out of his pocket and glanced at the incoming caller ID.

“Hopefully they’ll figure out something soon! I gotta take this, but thanks for all of the information, Candy.” What the hell, Xan, turn on the charm. “You’ve been a real peach, and I appreciate it!”

“Anytime, sugar!” Candy called after him. “You come on back and visit me if you’re ever…”

But he’d already spun and all but darted back down the hallway as he flipped open the phone and answered.

“Xan Man at your service,” he answered, passing under bank after bank of flickering “lowlight” fluorescent tubes.

“Xander it’s me,” Buffy’s voice screeched into his ear. In the background, Xander could hear a familiar thump thump pshhh as the deafening beat threatened to swallow her voice.

“Hey, Buff!” Xander shouted back and immediately remembered his surroundings. Softer, “Are you at the Bronze?”

“No,” Buffy replied. She certainly didn’t sound happy. “We’re at this creepy weird demon club. Your favorite club, apparently-”

“Hey, kitten!” Tuna yelled around a tussle of noise and rattling. Oh, shit.

“…break your face,” Buffy was practically growling, apparently wrestling the phone back from Tuna. “As I was saying, me and Spike got nothing, and Riley just checked in and said he didn’t have any luck either. So we’re headed back to Giles’ and calling it a night.”

“Sounds good to me; I’ve had enough of hospitals for one night.” Lifetime, even.

“Alright. As soon as I can pry this drink from Spike, we’ll meet you there.” The thumpa thumpa was fading out in the background, but Buffy was still shouting. Spike’s voice could be heard yelling obscenities at the slayer, and Xander laughed to himself.

“I’m on my way.”

“Hey, Xander? Don’t think we’re not going to talk about this.” Her tone shifted from annoyed to serious in the blink of an eye.

“Hey, Buff, it’s cool…” Xander couldn’t think of anything else to say. Even his mind was stuttering.

“See you at Giles’.” And before he could respond, she was gone.

He sighed, sliding the phone back into his pocket. Great, looks like another ‘Come to Jesus’ conversation…fantastic.

He was about to round the corner to the elevator alcove when one of the rooms he passed caught his attention. Room 418 had no name on the door but, unlike the other rooms on this floor, there was only one steel chart propped up in the document holder next to the door. Simple white surgical tape adhered to the front bearing the name, written in black Sharpie, “Harris,J.” Xander’s feet halted beneath him, and he felt his knees quiver for a moment. It can’t be! but even this thought blended with another: It has to be.

His mind flashed back to the conversation he and Spike had had with Tara back in the club that had convinced them to come back in the first place:

“There’s…there’s other stuff, too, Xander,” Tara said, dropping her head again.

“More?” he asked.

“Your parents…” She trailed off. “They both fell asleep, too. At the beginning. Your mom is still sleeping, but your dad…I guess his heart couldn’t take it. He’s gone…”

Xander’s hand shook fiercely as he reached out and slowly unlatched the door. It swung open silently, revealing a room awash with shadows and blue sodium vapor light from the parking lot outside. There was a steady humming and eclectic mix of electronic beeps and chirps from inside the room, the familiar and revolting sounds of machinery measuring a body’s will to live.

His hesitating footsteps led him into the room, past the small bathroom and tiny closet next to the doorway. His eyes instantly snapped to the figure in the bed. He felt himself melting to the floor when he finally registered what he was seeing. A breathing tube was stuck between her pale and cracked lips and bandages graced her bruised and cut cheeks and forehead. Even after several weeks, one eye was still bruised and swollen shut, and the other was closed as if in peaceful sleep. Hands folded on her stomach, with an IV streaming from one arm and a cast covering the other, she looked calmer than Xander could remember her ever being. Having seen the other victims, he knew she wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t under this strong spell. This was something worse.

“Mom?” he whispered, as the floor rushed up to catch his fall. He heard the door click behind him as he fell on hands and knees on the cold tile and the tears sprang forth from somewhere deep inside.

Twilight never came. It was replaced by still-voluminous curtains of rain and a thick fog that rolled through the trees and swept over the house like a silent tidal wave. And even though the pitch black was now only a mere milky inkwell, it was still impossible to tell whether it was night or day. Pressed against the glass, the smoky fog made the room feel like a tomb, and though the room was warm, a spontaneous shiver wracked through Xander’s body. The steady and familiar weight of Spike’s body lying next to him in bed grounded him, however, and he knew - somehow, deep down - that he was safe.

Searching through the subtle shadows within shadows of the room, he felt around the floor for his clothing, unwilling to turn on lights and risk waking the slumbering statue in his bed. Finding only the wrinkled and travel-weary pair of jeans he’d worn the previous day, he swung them over his bare shoulder and padded - sneakily, silently, and nakedly - down the steel staircase and without a breath slipped through the suite doors into the hall below. Once in the semi-darkness of the hallway, he slipped into the jeans. The hallway floor which led from one end of the complex to the other was flanked with cinema style running lights along the baseboards, loosening the hold of darkness but stirring the space with still more shadows.

Thinking for a moment, trying to visualize the layout of the complex in his mind, he turned right from the suite doors and made his way down the hall toward the center of the house. Coming to an intersection, he took another right and then an immediate left, following this hallway to a spiral staircase leading down to the main floor. A gentle glow wound its way up the stairs. He gave a silent hurrah! as he stepped off the final rung and into the extravagant kitchen that would make any top chef simultaneously weep and orgasm. Finding the switches to the right of the entrance, he chose one at random and was rewarded as the under-cabinet lights popped to life. The room was instantly filled with a demure blue-white light that didn’t completely dissipate the shadows but also didn’t make his eyeballs melt back into his brain. This kitchen alone was bigger than their suite in Chicago had been.

On auto-pilot, Xander gravitated toward the fancy coffee maker on the stainless steel island. Next to it was a large glass jar of fresh coffee grounds, against which rested a note that bore his and Spike’s names. Note in one hand, he fed the hungry machine scoop after scoop of the grounds with the other. It took quite some time and many stabs of the index finger to figure out the correct combination of buttons, but finally the room began filling with the rich scent of bold java. Eyes finally focused, he read the note while waiting for the sludge to brew.

Morning, Kids!

Hope you slept well - I happen to know that you did because my ear was pressed against the door all day and heard nothing! I’m disappointed in you two! The honeymoon isn’t over already, is it? Because Spikey, honey, they make pills for that now! You don’t have to be embarrassed, a man your age…It’s only natural you’d lose your touch.

Anyhoo, I’m off to work. Glayke called in so it looks like they needed Miss Thing here to come keep the beasties at bay. You boys (mis)behave and make yourselves at home. Me casa es su casa.

Hugs and blowjobs,
-T

P.S. Xander, the coffee maker is preconfigured to how I know you like your coffee. All you have to do is put some grounds in and press START. And Spike, fresh O-Poz in the fridge. Just throw it in the nuker and press POPCORN.

“Damn fancy machine,” Xander muttered, slapping the note on the counter and glaring at the machine.

“Oi!” Spike yelped from behind him, causing him to scream like a manly girl. Xander wasn’t sure, but he might have pissed himself too. “Haven’t lost my touch, wanker!”

“Jesus, Spike!” He swiveled, not even pretending to be surprised to find the vamp completely naked.

“Sorry, Xan.” The smirk was anything but sorry. Nor were the cold hands suddenly trying to pry Xander’s jeans off.

“Spike…what…are…you…doing?” Xander asked as Spike began kissing him, pressing him back against the counter. The wandering hands found their prize as the denim slouched to the ceramic tile and another - better - yelp escaped Xander’s lips.

“Just following orders, love,” Spike mumbled against his neck and he sank to his knees, curling his lips around Xander’s suddenly swollen cock.

“Fuck, Spike!” he screamed, causing Spike to pull back.

“Oh, we’ll get to that, pet, don’t you worry. Show that git who’s lost his touch.” After that, Xander wasn’t sure what happened. He was only aware of soft lips and a slippery tongue sliding over his cock and that his eyes had, apparently, rolled into the back of his head. He never did get to that pot of coffee.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it rain so much in Sunnydale!” Xander exclaimed, looking out the passenger window of the Jeep as they coasted through the lake that was downtown Sunnydale. He had, for some unknown reason, agreed to let Spike drive them back to Giles’ place. This trip had been even more nerve-wracking and stunt-laden than the drive to Tuna’s. Thanks to the rain, whole sections of the forest floor were under water, including the winding gravel drive. More than once, Xander was sure they were about to wind up on the wrong end of a mudslide. But thankfully, Spike’s vampire reflexes - or so he said - had been able to navigate them back to town in one piece. At least the fog had kept to the forest.

“Maybe we should start gathering demons, two by two,” Spike joked, clicking the windshield wipers up another notch, as far as they would go. The rain still fell, pinging off the roof and slapping against the windows as they turned right on Casa Blvd, towards Giles’ complex. “We are the chosen, after all.”

“Um…I think that’s a different kind of Ark, Spike. Didn’t SciFi do a crappy movie about something like that?” Xander wondered as they passed another abandoned stalled Lexus. “I sure love them, but man, their movies are bad.”

“Well it is SciFi, love.” Spike grabbed the wheel hard as they slid through the next turn onto Giles’ street. “This rain doesn’t let up, we’re headin’ into the mountains.”

“Only if you promise we can play Mountain Man,” he replied, throwing a seductive glance Spike’s way. He was rewarded by a low growl and an arch of eyebrows.

“Down, boy,” Xander teased with an exaggerated lick of his lips. “I somehow don’t think the girls would appreciate it if we showed up with sex-smell.”

“Why not?” Spike snorted. “They all have.”

“I don’t even want to know.”

“Although I gotta give some props to Soldier Boy; he sure can-”

“Not another word.” Xander insisted, glad that they’d finally splashed to a stop in front of the complex. He stepped out of the Jeep and into water that came up to his shins. He mentally sighed, wishing he’d thought ahead and brought an extra pair of pants.

“Shite!” he heard Spike curse, followed by a lot of splashing on the other side of the SUV. A very wet, very drowned-looking, very pissed off Spike rounded the Jeep, stomping - or rather splashing - past Xander towards the stairs to the courtyard.

“Vampire reflexes, eh?” Xander called after him. Spike’s only response as he stepped down out of sight was flipping him off with a dripping middle finger. Giggling more than a grown man should, he hurried after him, navigating the series of waterfalls and lakes that had become the stairs and landings.

Spike was leaning against the door under the overhang and cursing under his breath at a soggy pack of smokes when Xander finally waded his way down and through the courtyard. The vampire was sulking, his face a mask of pout and rage.

“Damn rain,” Spike muttered. Xander leaned in and kissed him softly just as the door behind him opened.

“Ew!” Buffy exclaimed, throwing her hands up and going back into the flat. “That is the last time I open this door.”

“S’matter, Slayer, never had a snog in the rain?” Spike asked, shaking his head like a bleach blond Schnauzer once inside.

Tara watched him, laughing softly, from where she sat on the arm of the chair. Buffy leaned against the back of the sofa, looking slightly annoyed, and standing behind her was a face Xander hadn’t seen for some time: Riley. With arms crossed and a duh I don’t know what’s going on look gracing his face, he was nevertheless a sight for sore eyes.

Xander looked back at Spike and rolled his eyes. He bent down, slipping off his shoes and socks and rolling up his pant legs. A loud thwack echoed through the room and he felt a hard sting in the shape of a hand on his ass. Yup…I just got spanked by my undead boyfriend in front of my estranged friends. Fantastic.

“A good screw is better, though,” Spike proclaimed.

“Spike!” Xander squeaked, jerking up to find three pair of eyes on him and three perfecte ‘O’s where mouths should have been. They’d obviously all been practicing their fish faces.

“What?” Spoken so innocently. Oh, those eyes…damn that face.

Glancing back and forth between Spike and the other three, he finally just gave up and shrugged. “Hey, Riley! How’s it going, man?”

“Hey, Xander,” Riley managed to get out, struggling to make his mouth move, though his feet did not. His eyes kept roaming from Xander to the floor to Spike and back again. “It’s…going.”

“Oh, come off it, kiddies.” Spike rolled his eyes, sloshed past Xander and Buffy and threw himself down into the chair. He made a squish sound as he settled into the comfy chair and glared up at Riley, who was returning the favor, sans squish.

Buffy and Tara exchanged glances and then looked dejectedly at Xander.

“Research?” he asked in a squeaky voice.

“Research!” they both agreed.

“This,” Xander sighed, slamming closed the book he’d been skimming for the better part of two hours, “is fucking pointless.” He all but threw the book back on the coffee table, wheezing slightly as a plume of dust shot up into the air. “Whatever this is, it’s not here.”

“Agreed,” Buffy admitted, tossing her own book into the pile of “zippo leads” they’d already looked through. So far, thirty-one books in the “zippo” pile and not a single paragraph in the “a-ha!” pile. “And I don’t mean that in a ‘we’re really just tired of reading and searching’ way like usual, either. I honestly don’t think any of these are going to help.”

“I got nothing here, either.” Riley laid his text on the floor next to him where he sat at Buffy’s feet.

“Same here,” Tara agreed, placing hers neatly on top of the wobbly pile of “zippo”s.

“Christ almighty,” Spike muttered, coming out of the kitchen carrying two mugs. Handing the less-bloody one to Xander, he took a sip of his own before saying simply, “You all know what’s doing this; you just don’t want to say it.”

A few awkward minutes of silence passed, full of unwilling glances and embarrassed thoughts as they all realized they did know what this was.

“Willow,” Tara finally whispered, bowing her head and covering her face with her hands. Buffy went to her, throwing a supportive arm around her trembling shoulders.

“I don’t get it, though,” Riley said, pulling himself up to his feet.

“That should be your catch phrase, boy,” Spike shot at him, turning his nose up to the chorus of “Shut up, Spike.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Riley persisted, pacing from chair to chair.

“Why not?” Xander asked. “I hate to say it, but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me about this.”

“I just mean, you know…” Riley thought for a minute, trying to find the words he needed. “Okay, so, she was upset about Xander and…uh, Spike. Admittedly, gross-”

“Sod off, you camo-crony,” Spike growled, placing his free hand on the back Xander’s neck and taking another sip of blood. Riley only gave him a dirty look before continuing.

“Like I was saying, I can understand being upset, but Willow… I mean, she’s Willow. Yeah, sure she’s powerful, but it’s not like she could actually hurt someone. Right?”

“I don’t know, Riley.” Buffy’s eyes had gone distant again, there but not there. “You didn’t see her that night.”

“She was pretty… She wasn’t exactly herself,” Xander explained, trying to ignore the flame of guilt and hurt that had fanned itself up inside his chest. Spike’s hand squeezed a little harder, and he looked up to find the vampire smiling sweetly down at him. Not your fault, his eyes seemed to say. But wasn’t it? It had all started when she’d found out about him and Spike.

“I’ve never seen her like that,” Tara said, having regained her composure, though she looked like she could start crying at any second. “She was just so…lost.”

“Like something was, I don’t know, broken,” Buffy finished the thought.

“That’s really the only thing I can think of to explain this,” Xander admitted, staring intensely into his cup of tea. There was a silent agreement among the group. “And it’s all our fault…all my fault.” He instantly felt Spike’s arms close in around him, the mug of blood forgotten, and temporarily warm lips against his temple.

“S’not true, love,” came the words, soft and deep against his ear.

“Absolutely not,” Tara insisted. “There’s no way what happened between you could have caused something like this.”

“I don’t know how else to explain it.” The words were bitter in his mouth, dry and ashy. But really - how else could they explain it?

“You can’t think like that, Xander,” said Buffy, her half-smile full of pity. “Honestly, I don’t think it was that. There has to be more to it.”

“Doesn’t matter, I guess…” The guilt had risen and the pain had come with it. It itched behind his eyes, and he could feel them watering. Breathing heavily, he tried to gather all his strength. I will not lose it here. I won’t…oh God, Giles! After more intense quiet, he asked the question they’d trying to answer all night. “What are we going to do about it?”

I can’t resist saying a few words about the perverts protesting…wait, what are they protesting again? Yes, I am talking about the ever-laughable right-wing-ish conservative-ish “teabaggers.”

First, allow me to say how ecstatic I am that finally there is a movement sweeping through the country again. How proud I am that Americans are finally getting angry again, and demanding some accountability. Afterall, every great change in this nation has began from one single person standing up and saying “Hey, wait a minute!” This was true for Slavery, for women’s sufferage, civil rights, and the ongoing battle for equal acceptance for LGBT rights. All of these things came about by first one, then a dozen, then a million people standing up and demanding to be heard and demanding to make their presence known. It is, in a spectacular way, one of the greatest things about living in this nation. It is in our blood, our history, and our origins as a country. Because, as Americans, when we get angry, we get loud. And it’s only when we are seething and shouting that our various points reach the ears of those we elected to represent us. So with every shout, we know in a an abstract way, the anger we are announcing is directed towards not only the masses surrounding us, nor towards our representatives two thousand miles away, but towards ourselves. I believe this to be the reason we are in a place in history never before seen, with a president who won against all odds in a country that as a whole still sees anything but a white protestant male as less-than, as unequal. We finally got angry and rebelled against what we’d been taught, been shown, and been made by ourselves and our peers to bear witness to. Even in my albeit short tenure as a human being, I’m nevertheless astounded by the true resistance we have when we finally wake up and pay attention to something larger than reality TV and griping about the latest operating systems. It is in our resistance and our protest and our outrage that we, as Americans, have our greatest strength. And it has been too long since we’ve shown that strength to our representatives and to the world around us.

However, even in our greatness of stregnth and resistance, we are not always the brightest group. This current “movement” is only a mass-produced show of support for the very representatives that are working against the the members of our nation that fuel it, that make it run, that experience the every day life of what it means to be a true American. True Americans are people like myself - even with a college degree, twice laid off in twelve months and struggling to keep it together - and people like my parents and grandparents who struggle to stay afloat and keep their house and somehow manage to pay increasing medical bills. They are people that make minimum wage when that value was blown out of the water by rising costs of living in even the ruralist of towns. They are the people take three different uniforms with them when they leave in the morning, because one job or two jobs just won’t pay the rent anymore. We make the fast food, we pump your gas, fix your cars, clean your homes, teach your children, run your prisons, build the roads you drive on and the buildings you live and work in. We are the voice of a failed economy, failing health and education system. We are the children that went to college in search of a greater life - the new vision of of the Great Migration to America. We are the current generation, the next generation, and the generation before us who have seen better times and lived through harder times.

I, like most of my peers, was outraged at the prospect of “bailing out” corporation after corporation who lined up for taxpayer dollars like depression-era bread seekers. I, too, am seething that those dollars have been wasted, it seems, on still more greed and countless benefits for those at the top who already live the benefits of having reached the top - whether by true grit or by true gift. I do understand the sentiment of “STOP REWARDING FAILURE” because I, like most of America right now, am living it day by day as the bills pour in and the cash flows out. But proclaiming an end to fail-safe rewards like AIG and Citi-Corp and countless other banking and manufacturing institutions does not qualify an end to TAXATION, nor an end to the stimulous spending we so vitally need. Without taxation, there would be no streets paved, no prisoners kept from the public, no children taught, no airports or bus stops. We all look longingly at the FICA line on our paychecks, wishing it wasn’t there, and we all disdain the check we are writing out the IRS, but the educated and rational among us realize that it is a necessity to keep the country running or at least limping, as it seems to be. To protest taxation is to protest growth or even sustainability. It means that you are advocating more failing American systems, and more insiduous irresponsibility and unaccountability. And I have to ask - and wonder myself - can we afford this? Can you explain this path you are advocating to your children, when they no longer are granted public education or healthcare. Can you explain this idea to your ailing parents and grandparents when an already slow-moving system of care and treatment stops altogether? Can you explain this philosophy to yourself when your already steep losses continue to increase?

Please, be as angry as you like at those who wrongfully recieve the taxes you pay from money you have worked so hard to earn. By all means, be outraged, as I am and countless others are, by the inept irresponsibility of those who have mishandled and unsuccessfully gambled our fortunes. But don’t let yourselves be fooled any longer. Stand up and be counted - but stand up for the right reasons. Educate yourselves on the facts before screaming for vengence and shouting for justice. Know your enemies before seeking them out, for they are not who you think they are. They are not who you have been led to believe they are. You have been douped again. Look only as far as the accusers to see those responsible for your anger. Look to those who have recieved gifts and donations and kickbacks from the very companies they reportedly “had to save for our own good.” Understand that the chants and shouts you want heard are not your own, but are the product of those who want to distract you from their own guilty misdeeds. I urge you - look deeper than the surface, read more than the headlines, listen to more than your usual “conservative news show.” Open your eyes.

I was at first amused by the fact that this “movement” itself was named teabagging. I thought, perhaps, that the orginators of this concept didn’t fully understand the meaning of the term. And perhaps they do not, nor do the thousands of Americans ranting about teabagging Washington. But the more I think about it, the more I am horrified by the fact that they themselves are being teabagged by the very people supporting the idea. The representatives and congressmen and right-wing leaders who created and drafted these giant problems are now passing the blame to our current administration, not by pointing their own dirty fingers, buy by riling up the masses and directing them to do their dirty work for them. And they don’t even know it. So even this massive protest is only people supporting ideas they do not understand. They are allowing themselves to be led blindly into Idiocracy yet again. So in essance, to “teabag” is be “teabagged.”

The town of Sunnydale is situated in a geographical vacuum, sleeping cozily on the coast of the Pacific and nestled perfectly between the La Granadas to the north, desert to the west and giant redwood forests leading into the foothills and canyons to the southeast. Too far north from Los Angeles to be a suburb, and too far south of Napa to be a destination town, a hellmouth couldn’t have picked a better place to call home - just the right size population to victimize and just few enough visitors to spread the word. This was where Xander had grown up.

As they turned off Sunnydale Way and headed east out of town toward the foothills, clouds began spreading in like cracked plaster over the pre-dawn sky. Spike punched the accelerator of the rented Jeep Cherokee, shooting the speedometer past 90, and the SUV lurched.

“What is it?” Xander asked, noting Spike’s sudden urgency.

“Storm coming in,” Spike answered, not taking his eyes off the road as they careened around a sharp bend in the road, leading them into the encroaching forest. In a flash of time, they were sailing through a sea of evergreen that drowned out the approaching storm-clad dawn. Spike never eased off the accelerator even as one steep turn splashed into another.

“Where did he say to - there it is.” He stamped on the brake with his left foot, never taking his right off the gas, and jerked the wheel hard to the right. The jeep responded with only a minor fishtail and spray of gravel as they launched off the paved highway leading towards the mountains and onto a one lane gravel road snaking into a much denser part of the forest.

“Uh, Spike?” Xander mumbled from the passenger seat, eyes squinted and body folded into a seated fetus position. “Human in the car!” he squeaked, peeking his eyes open for a moment and regretting it. “Human in the car!”

“Relax, Xan,” Spike chuckled. “I’ll get you there in one piece.”

“Will that piece be alive?” he asked. “Naturally?”

“I make no promises, pet.”

Another ten minutes of the most uncomfortable, nauseating, and prayer-filled ride of his life, and Xander felt the SUV slowing down.

Finally comfortable enough to open his eyes, he gasped as the Cherokee rounded a final bend and came into a tight clearing in the blackest part of the forest.

Most of the clearing was occupied by a massive wood, steel, and glass complex nestled literally against the trees so that, looking up, they could find little or no sky peering down at them through the crush of green. The jeep startled to a stop, slipping slightly against the gravel, parked between two towering redwood trees. There was no garage to be seen, and really, no driveway or parking. Only gravel spread out about a hundred yards in front of the complex.

“This looks like the place,” Spike confirmed, peering through the windshield towards the structure.

Towering three stories above the forest floor, the ultra modern complex somehow fit into its surroundings. Built, it seemed, to look like large steel and glass boxes stacked beside and atop each other, it embraced the trees surrounding it. Most of the plate glass windows in the building were lit up, a beacon of light in the dark of the trees. Expansive, the main floor appeared to be no less than a couple thousand square feet.

In front of them lay the entrance, massive steel doors with rivets the size of Xander’s fist and set squarely into a mahogany frame. There was something about the contrast of this building’s stark coldness - its hard lines and extremely smooth finishes - set against the environment that complimented both itself and its surroundings. It was, undeniably, the coolest home Xander had ever laid eyes on.

“When he said ‘buried in the forest,’” Xander noted, “I didn’t think he actually meant, you know, buried in the forest.”

“Well, come on then,” Spike insisted. “All the lights are on; he’s probably waiting for us.”

A few stray drops of rain filtered down through the trees as the wind picked up, rustling the branches and whistling around them. Without another word, they retrieved their few pieces of luggage from the cargo hold in the back and walked the few yards to the giant steel doors. As they approached, one of the doors swung inward, and in the silhouette of the light inside, a familiar form stood with one hand on his hip and the other dangling a cigarette.

“Hey, kids!” Tuna called, tossing the cigarette into a small square box next to the front door and reaching out for them. “I was hoping you’d make it before the storm hit!”

“It is so good to see you!” Xander beamed, dropping his bags and hugging the demon tight. “I missed you!”

“And what about you, Billy - I mean, Spike?” Tuna asked with a wink and a smile, pulling the vampire in for a hug of his own. “Did ya miss me? You know you did!”

“Oi,” Spike huffed, smiling, nonetheless.

“Alright, let’s get you in here out of that rain! I’ll give you a tour of Chez Poisson.” Tuna giggled and began humming a familiar tune from The Little Mermaid.

“It’s hardly raining,” Xander noted as they crossed the threshold. Before the words were even off his lips, a sudden faucet had been turned on and the entire forest began weeping as waves of rain sliced through the dense cover all at once, pinging off of the glass and steel. Xander looked at Spike, who just shrugged his shoulders.

“Told ya,” Tuna smiled and turned his back, walking out of the foyer and into the house. “Leave your bags here, and I’ll give you the grand tour. Remember to keep your hands and feet inside the cart at all times, and your cocks in your pants unless you intend to use them.”

Spike wiggled his eyebrow at Xander who in turn licked his lips seductively. Laughing softly, the vampire took him by the hand and they trailed after Tuna, who was calling them from the next room.

“And this,” Tuna explained as they reached the top of the stairs in the uppermost section of the complex, gesturing with a wide sweep of his hand, “will be your sweet suite. We’ll just go ahead and call it the lovers’ lair. Hmm… No, too easy. The fucker’s flat? I don’t know, I’ll come up with something. For now, this is where you’ll be sleeping and screwing.”

Xander’s face was a perfect imitation of a tomato. “Uh…thanks?”

“Thank Lucifer,” Spike mumbled, looking longingly toward the bed. “I thought we’d never get off that damn tour.”

“No problem, darling.” Tuna winked. “Bathroom is through those doors over there, and I showed you where the kitchen and everything is.”

The house was a maze. At once open and spacious while still built with levels and layers of rooms that for at least a while would need a map to navigate. Every room in the house had a full view of the forest surrounding them, and this room, being the crown of the house, had several ten by ten foot sections of the ceiling inlaid with expansive skylights.

“And Spike,” he added, “don’t look so spooked by the windows. Don’t get much sunlight this deep into the forest, and even if we do for some strange reason, all the glass this house was built out of is special. It’s nympho-tempered.” At Spike and Xander’s raised eyebrows, Tuna thought for a moment about that. “I’m sorry, I mean necro-tempered. Anyway, it just means in here the sunlight won’t light you on fire.”

“How…” Xander’s question trailed off, as he looked around the room, more inviting and more luxurious than any hotel he’d seen in the modern architectural magazines.

“I’m not sure. They mix some kind of potion into the glass or something.” Tuna shrugged.

“No, I mean how can you afford - er, this is a pretty expensive place, Tuna,” Xander stammered.

“Well, a lady never talks about money,” Tuna said, feigning offense. “But seriously, folks. Let’s just say gay demon divorce laws are pretty strict. I got this house, all of his American funds, and a boat. I’ve never actually seen the boat but I’m told it’s somewhere down at the harbor.”

“Wait, what?” Spike looked confused.

And very, very, sleepy, Xander thought to himself.

“Oh, I played house for about twenty years with a lawyer from LA. He’s a douchebag. He worked for this massively wackadoodle firm,” Tuna explained. “Anyway, he rolled in the dough. This was a summer home. And now it’s mine. Has been for a few years now.”

“I’m kind of surprised. I thought you’d live closer to the club,” Xander wondered.

“I’m sorry, honey.” Tuna shook his head, laughing silently. “Are you over- or under-medicated?”

“Mate, I’ve been asking that for years now,” Spike chimed in, kissing Xander on the cheek even as the human glared at him.

“Sunnydale is where I work, and I love my job, I do. But you couldn’t pay me enough to live actually on the hellmouth. I may have an extra-long shelf life, but I’m not stupid.”

“Anyhooo,” he singsonged, “I’ll leave you to your shenanigans. I’m beat from work, and I’m sure you two are tired from your trip.” And with that, he spun on his heels and made his way down the stairs. A moment later, they heard the double steel doors at the bottom clunk shut behind him.

Spike glanced longingly from the bed to Xander and back again. “You wanna-”

“God, yes!” Xander yelped.

And in moments they were both stark naked, tangled in the silky-soft black sheets of the king sized bed, warm body pressed tightly against cold, asleep.

Xander was awoken by flashbulbs exploding in his eyes and the sound of the mountains falling down on top of him.

Eyes shut tight against the bright flash of the storm, he instinctively rolled over to snuggle against Spike. Instead he got a mouth full of pillow and an arm full of cold blankets. “Spike?” he whispered into the suddenly too-dark room, sitting up and struggling to make his eyes adjust. It can’t be night already!

The soft-hard rhythmic drumbeat of rain against the skylights above him seemed to reverberate throughout the room, and he shivered.

“Spike, where are you?” he asked, his voice still hushed. He threw back the bedclothes and swung his feet off the bed and onto the freezing hardwood floor.

“Spike, are you here?” he asked a little louder, standing on legs wobbly from the pitch blackness.

He was suddenly blinded by another brilliant Kodak flash of lightening, and in the microsecond of splendid clarity, he saw Spike on the other side of the room. Naked, leaning with his palms and forehead pressed flat against the glass wall, his white back turned towards Xander. As the earth crashed and crumbled around them again, Xander hesitantly toed his way through the dark towards the vampire, trying to remember the layout of the room as best he could.

Several minutes passed as he crossed the large room, with only the rain against the walls around them and the windows above them to break the eerie silence and calm of the space. When, finally, he could feel Spike was only inches away and he reached out, haltingly, cautiously, his fingertips only grazing the smooth skin of Spike’s bare shoulder. When there was no response, the fleeting touch became a hard grasp, anchoring the two together. “Spike…?”

“I’m here, love,” the vampire muttered, unmoving.

“What’s…what is it?” Xander asked, voice barely above a whisper. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything?” Such pity in that question. Such unaccustomed misery. “Everything that isn’t you.”

“What do you mean?” Xander spread his arms around him, hugging him tight from behind and laying his chin on Spike’s shoulder.

“I mean,” the vampire sighed, like he couldn’t find the right words, “this place. This place, Xander…”

“I know.” And he did. He could feel it around them, pressing against them like pressure and pins. “I know, baby.”

“Xander?” Xander could hear the weakness, could almost smell the tears that wanted to come, could almost feel the scream that threatened to escape.

“Yeah, Spike?”

“Don’t think we’re going to make it…”

“Who knows?” Xander mumbled, forcing himself to be honest. “I know I’m damn well going to try. We only just found each other.”

“I can’t lose you too, Xan,” and there it was: a silent sniffle, a soft slope to the shoulders, a heavy, unneeded breath. Spike’s entire body softened against his touch. “I won’t.”

“Then you won’t,” he breathed against Spike’s ear. Kissed it softly, hugging him tighter, harder, closer. “Then you won’t,” he repeated.

“Love you,” so softly, so silently Xander wasn’t sure he’d even really heard it.

“Love you, Spike,” he sighed against the shoulders he held. “Love you so fucking much.”

With no more words needed, the touch was sufficient. With his head poised on Spike’ shoulder, his cheek against the vampire’s and his arms locked around his chest, they watched the blackness of the forest in the storm, occasionally blinded by flashes or shaken by thunder that made the floor beneath them and the walls against which they leaned quiver. Sunset - true sunset - would come soon, and with it maybe they would find the strength they needed to unlock themselves from their embrace.

“You sure you’re up for this, pet?” Spike asked, looking back at Xander as he led him by the hand. They were shuffling slowly down the stairs into the courtyard of Giles’ complex. Same old sandstone steps, same old rickety table. Same old Sunnydale. But not the same old me, Xander told himself.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, tightening his grip on the white hand in his. “I mean, it’s Giles. I have to be.”

Spike stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to Xander, pulling him in and wrapping his arms reassuringly around him. Kissing Xander’s forehead gently as the brunet turned his gaze to the stone slabs beneath them, he whispered, “He’ll be okay, love. He’s not going anywhere.”

Xander gave a bitter chuckle, slowly looking up first into the eyes of the man who held him, and then towards the silent, answerless heavens. “Spike,” he sighed. “If I had a dollar for every time I thought someone wasn’t going anywhere but they did, I would be one hell of a wealthy man.”

“Well, then, Xander,” Spike’s eyes glittered as he pulled Xander’s face back to him, “I guess you owe me a dollar. Actually, two,” he smiled at Xander’s blank face. “One for the Watcher, and one for me.”

“Do you take checks?” Xander grinned, leaning his forehead against Spike’s. A warm breeze passed through the courtyard, making him shiver.

“For you? I’ll take it on credit.” Spike wiggled his eyebrows and took Xander’s hands in his own again.

“Spike, you are such a dork.”

“I know.” Another laugh. “You’re rubbing off on me.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“Didn’t say it was, did I?”

“No, no you didn’t.” Xander closed his eyes and breathed deep the scent of sand and dust and lilac, which was blooming even now on the sparse trees throughout the courtyard.

They passed a few moments in silence until Spike brought them back. “You ready to go in?”

“No,” Xander responded without hesitation. “But it’s now or never, I guess.” And with another deep sigh and a heavy heart, he led them the remaining eight steps - he counted - to Giles’ door. He reached for the doorknob but halted, deciding instead to knock - I don’t belong here anymore - against the heavy door. He wasn’t sure at first whether he had knocked very hard; it was difficult to hear anything over the pounding in his chest. But there was movement inside and shadows splashed against the small windows set into the door. As the knob began to turn, he felt all his muscles tense and spasm and for just a second he thought his body was going to bolt, even while his mind was commanding him to stay.

The great door creaked open to reveal a blond witch with tired blue eyes, a somber smile, and outstretched arms.

“Xander, you made it,” Tara said, her arms folding around him and her head resting against his shoulder. “I wish you hadn’t had to, but I’m glad you did.”

“What can I say? We needed a vacation from our vacation.” Not even back a full minute and I’m already cracking jokes. What is it about this place?

As Tara stepped aside to welcome Spike, Xander looked up and noticed Buffy watching them. She was leaning against Giles’ desk, her thumbs hooked in the pockets of her wrinkled jeans, her golden hair pulled back into a loose pony tail. She was, uncharacteristically, wearing very little makeup and he couldn’t help but think how old she had begun to look. He could barely see that young girl with so much fire in her anymore. Her eyes were puffy and her lips were pale.

“Hey, Buff.” He shrugged. For a moment she only stared at him, as if she didn’t recognize him either. Before he could say anything else, though, she’d crossed the space between them and thrown her arms around him. Returning the hug, Xander rested his cheek on her head as she buried her face in his chest, sniffling quietly.

“Spike, it’s good to see you.” Tara said warmly, and out of the corner of Xander’s eye he saw Spike nodding to her, allowing her to hug him gently.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Buffy admitted, squeezing him slightly and stepping back. She rubbed her fists against her eyes, though he couldn’t see the tears. Looking past him, she added, “and I’m not hating that you’re here too, Spike.”

“Ta, Slayer,” Spike replied with almost no sarcasm. “Where’s Soldier Boy?”

“He’s out on patrol, checking out the hospitals and trying to get some leads.” Buffy’s eyes roamed upward, towards the loft where Giles’ bedroom lay.

“We still don’t know much,” Tara offered, closing the door and wandering past them into the kitchen. Xander heard the unmistakable sounds of tea preparation as cupboards opened and closed and porcelain pinged against porcelain.

“More like we don’t know anything,” Buffy muttered, making her way to one of the armchairs and curling her legs up under her as she sat. On the coffee table before her lay dozens of books spread out, some closed and some open, with notebooks on top them. He could recognize Giles’ perfect script from where he stood. More stacks of musty texts graced the end tables, covered the desk, even a few piles stacked on the stairs leading up to the loft. He felt Spike’s hand on his back, guiding him gently but surely towards the couch. He was thankful as the supportive hand found its way to his shoulder, never moving as he sat uncomfortably against the plush velvet cushions. They sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes, neither looking at the others, as they waited for Tara to rejoin them. Not another sound broke the stillness until she carried in a tray with a tea service, setting it haphazardly on the table behind the sofa.

“How - ” He cleared his throat and started again. “How is he?”

“No change,” Buffy mumbled, accepting the cup of tea Tara offered her. The rich familiar scent of it filled the space as evenly as the silence did. “Every now and again, he’ll whisper something or call out in his sleep, but we can never make out what it is.”

“Thank you, love,” Spike said, taking a cup from Tara and handing it to Xander, then taking one for himself. “Watcher always did have good taste in tea.”

Xander sipped cautiously at the drink, not really tasting anything but relaxing as he felt the warmth spread through him. “How long…”

“It’s been a couple of weeks, now,” Tara said as she sat beside him on the couch. “After he…fell asleep at the Magic Box, Riley and Buffy brought him back here. We’ve been taking turns staying with him ever since.” She nodded to the overnight bag beneath the coffee table. Apparently, it was her turn.

“Mom was even dropping by for a while,” Buffy explained, smiling slightly but staring at nothing. “Until I finally convinced her to get out of town till this blows over.”

Xander cleared his throat again but couldn’t think of words to speak.

“It’s only happening here in Sunnyhell, right?” Spike asked, glancing between Tara and Buffy. Tara nodded, but Buffy just turned her distant stare towards him. “Well, have you tried running him out of town, getting him outta here?”

“We thought about it, but Tara reminded us that it’s probably a spell of some kind.” Buffy’s voice sounded as far away as her gaze. “And we worried that if we try to leave with him, the spell will break, but he’ll be trapped…wherever he is.”

More silent minutes clicked by as they all pretended to enjoy the tea. Finally Xander swallowed the rest of his, enjoying the delicious scalding burn that trailed down his throat and into his stomach. He stood and turned towards the stairs. He could feel three sets of eyes on his back as he raised his own to the loft above them. Spike followed him closely, their hands cinched together, as he made his way to the steps and grasped the railing with his free hand. He turned back slowly, facing Spike.

“I think - ” He paused, licking his suddenly dry lips. “I think I need to do this alone,” he explained.

Spike’s eyes stared back into his. “Are you sure, Xan?”

He could only nod his response as he gathered all his strength to turn around and climb the stairs up into a new nightmare. Spike leaned in and kissed him gently, chastely, on the lips, unconcerned with their current company of spectators.

Another heavy breath, and Xander was climbing the stairs. Slowly. Inching his hand up the railing, his pulse thundering in his mind, he tried not to think about what he was going to see. One step, four, six; he paused at the landing and glanced down to find Spike still looking up at him, ready to leap up beside him if he was wanted. He looked back up and could see the top of the stairs, see the bedskirts just barely kissing the floorboards beneath the bed. Seven steps, nine, twelve, and he was there, at the top of the stairs, looking around the room at anything but the bed. Anything but the man lying in it who for so long had been more like a father than the one who was now buried only a few blocks away.

An old cuckoo clock ticking silently away towards dawn, the wrinkled drapes balanced over the leaded windows. An ancient armoire standing next to a small writing desk laden with still more books and notebooks - Watchers’ Diaries, if Xander wasn’t mistaken. He’d seen those thick tomes bound in leather many times before. Looking around at the walls which were just this side of shrouded in shadows, soaking in the amber light thrown by the Tiffany lamp on the bedside table. He was aware, as he allowed his eyes to roam anywhere but where they should, of the voices and the whispers of those he loved downstairs. Spike was speaking softly to Buffy, who was half-whispering harshly in reply; he couldn’t make out what they were saying - wasn’t sure if he wanted to. Sweet Tara’s quiet sing-song voice was trying to soothe the situation, though her words too were lost on him. At last, after everything else in the room had been cataloged by his mind, his eyes fell on the bed, on him, on Giles.

He looked relaxed, peaceful even, to Xander. It really did appear that he was just sleeping. He took a few cautious steps towards the slumbering librarian, reaching a hesitant hand out to him like a frightened child to a parent after a nightmare. Giles’ salt-and-pepper hair was spewing from his head, too long, unkempt. He looks a little ridiculous with bedhead, Xander thought to himself, smiling despite himself. His eyes were fluttering fast beneath the closed eyelids, dancing, it seemed, in the darkness. With the blankets pulled to his waist and his arms flung out beside him, the Watcher slept on, while Xander folded the man’s warm leathered hand into his own. No stirring, no acknowledgement, just the silent steady breaths and the slow movements of sleep. It was odd to him that Giles looked the same: same high forehead, same sharp cheekbones, same pursed lips even in sleep. He’d been asleep for weeks now, with no food or water to nourish him, yet still he looked healthy. That’s the magic of a spell, Xander thought. Some kind of a mystical coma, so of course he wouldn’t need nourishment.

Kneeling beside the bed, still gripping Giles’ hand tightly in his own, Xander watched him for a while. Watched, and listened for…for anything. For any sign that maybe the man inside the sleeping body was there with him, for any sign of recognition. After a time, Xander bowed his head, whispering a silent prayer to nothing that Giles be alright, that he wake up soon, that he would not float away into his dreams forever. As he raised up from where he knelt, he saw that Giles’ dark lips were moving slowly, as if in speech. Xander even imagined that he heard a whisper struggling through them as he slept. Bending his ear down closer…closer, he realized that indeed, Giles was whispering softly in his sleep. The same phrase, it sounded, being repeated over and over and over. And struggling to understand, to make out what he was saying, Xander hovered for several minutes there, unable to grasp it, until finally the whisper faded and the lips returned to rest as the sleeping man rolled onto his side.

Emitting a quiet growl of frustration, Xander turned and made his way back to the stairs, caught for a moment by his reflection in the mirror above the writing table, momentarily surprised by the man staring back at him. It didn’t look like him anymore. Hair buzzed short - he’d insisted on getting it cut off before coming back here, as some sort of “I am not that guy anymore” trophy - and shoulders a little higher than they used to be. Dressed in an expensive cerulean sweater and very dark denim jeans, he looked…grown up in a way he hadn’t before. Not old, not like he felt he should look. But older. He wondered, momentarily, how he looked to the others - could they see the changes in him? Looking past himself, he glanced at Giles’ reflection - no change ? and turned, making his way down the stairs a little less haltingly than the climb up had been.

Tara was standing in front of the couch, looking up at him as he came down, looking a little lost even for her. Buffy, too, was standing beside the chair she’d been sitting in, glaring across the room at a vampire who was returning the favor from where he was perched atop the desk. “Okay, love?” Spike asked, turning his gaze from the Slayer towards him with a warm smile and worried eyes.

“Yeah,” Xander replied, reaching the bottom of the stairs and digging his hands in his pocket. He smiled back at Spike, mouthing I love you even while turning towards the women. “He looks…he looks okay.”

Buffy let out a deep breath, nodding again, while Tara just looked on.

“We should go, Xander,” Spike said with a gentle note, nodding towards the clock on the wall.

“You don’t have to ?” Buffy started, her voice cracking. She was speaking more to Spike than to Xander, it seemed. She swallowed, tried again. “You don’t have to go. It’s just…It’s just going to take some more time to get used to.” Xander figured she was responding to what they had whispered about while he was with Giles.

“No, he’s right,” Xander answered, stepping towards Spike and placing a hand against his chest. Turning back to Buffy, he explained, “It’s almost daybreak, and we still need to get to where we’re staying.”

“Oh.” Buffy looked down at her feet. As if she just thought of it - “You guys can stay at my house, if you want. It’s just me and Tara now, there’s plenty of room…”

“Ta, Slayer,” said Spike, meaning it.

“Thanks, Buff, but we talked about it and we decided it’s probably best if we stay out of town,” Xander explained. “We’re staying at a place just outside the city limits, towards the mountains. It’s not that far out, but neither one of us really feel all that comfortable being here - er, back in Sunnydale.” And it was true.

“Oh,” she repeated, a little dejectedly.

“Sounds pretty natural to me,” Tara finally chimed in, nodding and smiling sweetly at them.

“Well, as natural as it can be, anyway.” Xander winked at her, glad to see a genuine smile on a face that didn’t look right without one.

“Well, uh, I guess…” Buffy toed the floorboards with her boot.

“We’ll be back tonight,” Spike offered.

“Yeah,” Xander confirmed. “We’ll come back once the sun goes down, and we’ll figure this out, okay?”

Buffy smiled, coming towards him but stopping just an arm’s length away. Spike’s hand found its way to the back of his neck, massaging gently, firmly. “Okay.”

“Do you have my cell number? No, you don’t,” he answered himself, remembering that he’d changed the number. He turned and leaned around Spike, scribbling it down on a corner of a notebook and tearing it off the page. He handed it to her. “Here, if you need me…Or if there’s any change…”

“I’ll call,” she whispered, looking up at him again.

“Then I guess it’s time to go. For now.” He smiled again. Spike made his way to the door and opened it, looking back towards them. As Xander turned to go, Buffy closed the distance between them and hugged him tight again.

“I really am glad you came, Xander,” she whispered against his chest.

“I am too,” he half-lied, not sure whether he meant to comfort her or himself. “Don’t worry, Buffy. He’ll be okay.”

“I know,” she answered, releasing her hold on him. “We all will.”

“We always are, aren’t we?” he asked as she smiled and nodded her response. “So we’ll see you tomorrow. Er, tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Night, Glinda,” Spike called from the door, “…Buffy.”

“Good night, guys,” came Tara’s soft response.

“We’ll see you later.” Buffy, looking for all the world like a girl again, the age seeming to melt away in front of them.

“Yeah, you will,” Xander insisted, turning his back on them and walking past Spike into the courtyard as the vampire closed the door behind them, shutting away the scene inside. As Xander started climbing the steps, he felt Spike’s hand in his, pulling him back down, tugging him into another tight hug.

“Love you,” he breezed against Xander’s ear.

“Love you too,” came his response. He enjoyed it for a moment, the support and the easy silence between them, the smell of the courtyard in the predawn hour, and even the brittle, dry wind that was beginning to pick up. “Now come on. We’d better get where we’re going before all that’s left to love is what can fit in an ashtray.”

The stench of dead things assaulted his senses. It clung to his body like dust and sweat, sticky and uncomfortable. Raw earth, fresh and upturned, lay at his feet, marked by a simple concrete slab no bigger than a breadbox engraved with a stranger’s name, his expiration date, and two meaningless words separated by an ampersand: “Husband & Father.” Doesn’t even merit a “beloved,” Xander thought bitterly.

Spike was somewhere nearby watching, waiting for him, protecting him from the shadows. Xander could almost feel the throb of mine mine stay away mine that he was pumping out with his preternatural mind. If any demons were lurking around they would be wise to heed Spike’s warning; he was not happy about being here. He’d wanted Xander to wait until daylight to do this, but had understood when he insisted on coming straight from the airport. “Unfinished business.”

Standing in the darkness, the shadows of trees dancing around him in the moonlight like pagans of old, Xander tried to shed even a single tear for a man he didn’t know. Any emotion would be welcome, but he couldn’t seem to dredge one up. He wasn’t even really devoid of emotion; he just couldn’t feel for this dead man who had laughingly been called his father. Only respect for the dead kept him from turning away. “What do you want me to say?” he muttered, words fluttering in the wind to dance with the trees. “You were a crap father. The only time you thought about me was when you needed something to hit or someone to open your beer. I was never more than an inconvenience to you, Tony.” Xander paused for a moment, chewing his words like tobacco. Bitter, abrasive. “I don’t even know why I’m here. I guess I just wanted you to know…needed to say that I forgive you. Hell, I forgave you a long time ago. You didn’t ask for the life you were given. You could have tried harder…should have tried harder. But in the end, you were just a man.” Deep breath, and a cold tear finally whispered against his cheek. Still, he felt hollow. “I guess that’s all any of us are: just men. And now, I guess, you have your peace. So I’ll leave you to it.”

He stood there for a moment with his eyes closed. Breathing deeply, he allowed the moment to wash over him and seep into the very deepest of his memories, the ghastly moonlight crawling and scratching against his skin, the warm and pungent breeze dry and bitter against his lips. Dead. One more thing gone. One more thing finished. As he opened his eyes to allow one more view of his father’s grave…my father’s grave…he felt the firm and cold grip of his lover’s hand on his shoulder. Not in a nudging way to get him to move on, and not in a way that made him think he should be feeling more than he was. Total and unconditional support, like a column of stone he could lean against. Xander gave a dry chuckle at that - that a dead man was more alive to him than this man who was buried beneath him had ever been.

“Are you…?” The half question was whispered against his ear as another marble hand wrapped around his torso, pulling him back into the chill embrace he’d come to know so well, and be warmed by, even in its coldness.

“I’m actually okay,” he sighed, leaning his head back onto Spike’s shoulder and gazing skyward. Somehow-soft lips kissed his temple, grazed his cheek. “I don’t know how okay I am with being okay with it, but I am.”

“Wanna talk about it, Xan?” Slow words spoken so sweetly, and again Xander thought, This is who I am meant for. This is who is meant for me.

“Not now. Later maybe, someday. But right now there’s more important things.”

“The Watcher?”

“Yeah. I need to see him. Do you mind -“

“We’ll head straight there. Still a few hours till sunrise, anyway.” Spike sniffed the air, looked towards the horizon. “His flat’s not too far from here.”

“Buffy will probably be there,” Xander warned. “If you want me to go alone, I’d understand.”

“Are you off your rocker?” Spike spun him in his arms and blue eyes stared up into his face. “None of that matters anymore, love. More important things, right?”

“Right,” he agreed, lowering his forehead and resting it against Spike’s. Silken fingers found and tangled themselves in his. “Spike, I love you,” he whispered.

“I know you do,” with a half-smile and a spark in his eyes. “I love you too.”

Their lips found each other’s with the familiarity they’d found in all of this, and with a need as soft and tender as it was endless and unbreakable. And as the moonlight washed over the lovers’ embrace, the irony was not lost on Xander that, once again, he was the only one there with warmth, with breath, and with a heartbeat - though, truth be told, he could barely feel any of that anymore.

Spinning and lilting

     white and heat.

 Stench of wildberries

and soft linen.

  Desert pressed against my face.

Cacophony of children

laughing

         playing

   screaming.

         Rusty steel wheel

   lurching

scraping,  scratching against

vinyl mud flooring stacked beneath cinder walls.

 Cold white plastic against my fingertips.

Folding my secrets on a mint green counter.

Naked for the world to see.

Another Sunday afternoon

underdeveloped and overexposed.

When will my ship come in?

Crackling static dribbles from the stereo speakers;
the crashing wind screams and freezes through the cracked window
as I slice through the night on burning rubber.
The lights of the city glow like embers against the twilight sky behind me.
My slick palms grip the wheel, knuckles white and aching.
Every piece of me is throbbing, exhaling, humming, singing.
Laughter is pressed against my lips,
my tongue rolling against my teeth in a silent grin.
I cannot keep still the thoughts and fantasies that hopscotch through my mind,
the daydreams and longings that pierce this newly unlocked vault that is my heart,
my soul.
Even as my shoe mashes the iron pedal against the synthetic floor
I feel myself drifting, floating, sailing slowly and steadily
towards a place I feel safe, towards a place I feel normal again.
To you.

This is but one memory of a thousand
which would that I could be rid of.
Only one of a thousand sleepless nights remembering rememberings
which I only wish to forget.

I want to wake up
and know that I am me,
whomever me should be
and understand that the me I am
doesn’t have to be any one him or thing.

I want to open my eyes
and see the world changed
but still the same
with eyes clear and unglazed
by tears or sleep or pain or tiredness.

I want to touch
with fingers unmarked
by flame or bruise or blade
and feel the wet breeze against
my drowning flesh.

I want to taste
without the familiar ash
of longing and sour regret
glued against my tongue
and drink deep this life.

I want to sleep deep
and guarded against the night
without dreams of what once was
and never will be
and without this numbness creeping into me.