There's screaming outside my window, and I turn up the TV to block out the
noise.
There's a buzz on the intercom, and I flip the release button, thinking
it's the pizza guy.
There's a knock on the door, and I open it, my attention focused on
grabbing my wallet from the hall table.
There's a silence, and I turn back around. And it's not the pizza guy. And
he's staring at me, head on one side, for a long moment before either of us
says anything.
Probably should have never answered the door, but old habits die hard. You ever notice how hard it is to ignore a ringing phone? Same difference, really. Definitely should have known better than to invite him in, but then, self destructive, so there's a logic. Not good logic, but some.
"What's happened to you?"
First words, straight to the bone, while I was still clinging on to the reassuring rules of social interaction, wrapping myself in 'Spike, come in. It's been an age - how are you?' And he cuts straight through that, as he steps in to the room and swings the door shut. As he looks me over again.
And I ought to have been reacting - getting outraged, lashing out with some clever reply. Getting the knife in first, so to speak. And all the reply I could think of is
"What?"
Not angry, or even really confused - hell, I get the question, it's just I'd never expected to be asked it by anyone other than myself. Get some good arguments going with that internal voice sometimes on the subject. In fact I was trying not to when I went to collect my pizza from the door. And then, there's Spike, a real blast from the past, in his eternal unchanging Spike-ness, reading lines from my brain.
He just gestured at me, taking in the whole grubby apartment. It was just a place - no real personality to it, and I never really got it geared up for guests, so there was just the one tired sofa, the TV, and the stacked up dishes on the counter in view. And me. Wishing I'd thought to put my shirt back on before answering the door, and realizing that I may not have cared what some snotty delivery boy thought of me, but apparently I did care, at least a little, what Spike thinks. Something about that long slow look that made me feel very exposed. A little armor would have felt good.
It had been a long day; most of it spent barricaded in the site office trying to make some headway on the paperwork for the last phase of the job. By the time I got back, all I wanted to do was peel off my work clothes and melt under the shower, summon food, have a drink, and just stop. Which is what I was doing - mindless moving wallpaper on the TV, beer in hand, expecting my pizza - when I'd answered the door. Four years, three hundred miles and he'd just walked in, taken one look, and picked up my internal script book.
And while I was still trying to figure out how and why this was, what the answer should be, which one of my carefully crafted rationales he was most likely to swallow, the buzzer went again. actually pizza this time, and broke the spell. Let me step safely back into the social pleasantries while I tried to figure it out.
"You want to join me? Afraid I don't carry blood these days"
"Fair enough - wouldn't have expected you to"
And let him follow me back down the hall, set the pizza box on the counter, snag a t-shirt off the pile and return to the kitchenette, offering a beer.
'Never had you tagged for a home-drinker"
"Four years and a lot of miles Spike, things change"
Or rather, I wish they would - it's like he's brought Sunnydale and that whole nest of memories and feelings with him. And in those terms, say five years ago, when that was still home, I'd have thought the idea was pretty unlikely too. And we turn our attention to the pizza, eating in a silence that's not exactly companionable, but isn't any more uncomfortable than say, bathing in lemon juice. Packing up the last couple of slices into the fridge - breakfast - signaled the end of the cease-fire though.
"You know why I'm here?"
"Actually, not even sure how you found me"
"Come on Xander, you can do better than that - you've got to know Willow's got a locator spell burning on you the whole time - always has"
Actually I didn't know that - I'd sort of hoped she might still, but after the last visit . No, that was news to me.
"Doesn't explain how you found me though, or why"
Even I could hear that came out sounding - sulky. No other word for it. Sometimes I really do despise myself - what was I expecting? That she ought to camp on my doorstep let me yell at her and lash out, plead with me to come home. Again. Until I couldn't be anything but convinced that she meant it? Well, yeah, actually, but that's not really the point.
"Yeah it does - I was passing through SunnyHell, she was worried, and a goal gives a road trip focus"
. "So you're just checking in, reporting back, and passing through?"
"Something like that - thought I might crash here a night or two"
I wonder about that too - what might have happened if I'd made the effort to chuck him out. But I didn't - I took the path of least resistance, surrendered the sofa to him, and took myself off once the silence got too awkward for the TV to cover.
And that's pretty much the last point I can worry over - the last point where I can even pretend I could have done something different, made things turn out differently. Any one of hundred events before that, but from then on, I wouldn't change it.
Remembering that night now, it seems unreal, like if I wasn't sitting here, in this car, rattling south again I'd think I must have dreamt it. At the time it panicked me. I mean, have you ever woken up in the early hours to find your houseguest watching you? Always assuming your houseguest is a vampire you now remember may or may not still be chipped. See - you panic. And while I was panicking and yelling at him to get the hell out of my bedroom, he dropped the bombshell.
"Nothing I haven't seen before Xander - been watching you a few days now"
And then he just smirked a little in the dim orange glow from the street light outside and let my rant on privacy, and spying and bastard lying vampires break over him like water.
"Why do you think I picked that moment to knock on your door, then?"
And I looked back over my evening and honestly had no clue. Blinked back the immanent headache and just shrugged.
"This isn't you, you know. What's happened to the white knight?"
"Yeah well the damsels are doing a pretty good job on their own, not much need for a toy knight in rusty armor these days"
"You really believe that, Xander?"
And ever since he started talking he'd been moving towards me, stalking slowly past the discarded laundry. And that question /really believe that/ was spoken so close to my ear that I could feel his breath behind it - movement without heat. And before I could answer, while I was still stuck on just how weird it was to hear those words spoken outside my head, in someone else's voice. Before I could answer, he'd swung around behind me on the bed, kneeling up with one leg either side of me, his hands on my shoulders, his lips moving millimeters above my neck, cool fingers stroking my hair off to the side.
"I was watching yesterday, and then again when you came back here tonight. Watched you set yourself up for numbness. Watched you shutting down. Watched you hear that cry for help and turn away. And Xander, that's not you."
And I wanted to say something, wanted to argue back, scream that it was me, the me that's moved on and survived the past few years. But those lips, so close to my skin, feather kissing down my spine as he spoke held me prisoner, whispering down to my shoulders and back up into the hairline.
"You know what's out there Xander. How hard is it to keep on pretending that you don't? Pretending not to care. Because you do care, don't you. Slayer's Heart."
And really, it's been so long since I've been touched like this, caught in the headlights of all this focussed attention, and I don't want it to stop - the right answer is yes, isn't it? So I nod, and I think I say yes, but maybe I just whimper a little.
"That's what it's about, isn't it. About shutting yourself down, pet, keeping everything numb so you don't have to face it. I've run a lot further than you Xan, and it doesn't work if you're carrying it around with you. Can't run away from yourself, pet, only dig down and hide. And it's comfortable being numb, isn't it? Just so long as you can stay there, all small and still and not thinking."
And that voice, surprisingly quiet and calm, breathed along my skin. And those fingers skimming my shoulders, the tops of my arms, stroking and calming working his words into my muscles.
"It's so hard to stop thinking though. Hard not to let yourself care. Hard to do without something to help. Drugs and distractions, love, drugs and distractions. Lets you forget how hard it is to keep everything locked down, numb and still. And it has to be everything, doesn't it love - can't let your guard down for a few of the little feelings, or you'll be washed away in the flood. Isn't that right pet?"
And I think I'm whimpering again, little moans that hopefully he'll take as whatever the right answer is, and let him keep talking, keep touching, floating over my body now, keeping me anchored here in his focus.
"That's hard, isn't it Xan. Working so hard to keep things still inside. Doesn't leave a lot of energy for anything else. But that's not moving on, luv, is it? That's entropy pet, it doesn't get easier, just gets harder and harder to stay there, more and more energy to lock down pet"
And those hands touch a bit more firmly now, running circles across shoulder blades, and arms and sides. And making me oh so painfully aware of this body. Always did feel oversized and clumsy next to the super-gang, and this touch, drawing boundaries on the air: noticing every pound I've added since Sunnydale, every scar, every scratch. Noticing but still touching, still talking.
"Shhh pet, it's ok. I know how hard it is pet, seen you shut yourself down, haven't I? But I've seen you dream too love"
And there's something in my chest that's rising up under those words, that touch, this cherishing. Harder to breath now, and I'm fighting just to keep still here, keep quiet so he won't stop, keep myself focussed on those puffs of air and brushes of skin, not let those words worm in to far. Where did he pick up a copy of '101 things I don't let myself think' anyway?
"Watched you last night, Xan, watched you sleep, watched you dream. Do you still dream of them luv? Dream of belonging somewhere? Something you want, I can tell that, something you want so bad it hurts that it's just a dream. That right pet?"
I've really never been very good at people being nice to me. Verbal put downs, I can swat right back at you, and all out abuse I can weather, and I can hold my own, more or less, in a fight, and I know when to run. But that unexpected, undeserved, unwanted gentleness. That lullaby of truths, that seduction of sense-memory, that forcing me to feel. That I couldn't fight - trapped in 'I want to don't want to, get away, sink into it, stop it, ask for more'.
And I came apart under those hands, that cool weight pressed against my back. Drowned in that tsunami of feeling and wanting and guilt and hoping. Cried silent tears, and shock with the horror of it. And he held me - whispering kisses on my skin still - and that was coming home and forgiveness and a hundred more reasons to weep. And after a while he moved from behind me, let me crawl back into the bed, and when I tried to say something, to explain, apologize, he silenced me with fingers on my lips, and cool kisses on my burning eyes.
And I think I must have slept - woken up by the tilt of the mattress as he came back to hold me, in a surprisingly pitch black room. Forced to just feel rather than watch as a lithe cool body wrapped itself around me again, lips pressed to my back as he spooned me, and the gentle circling strokes started up again. Couldn't watch the pale fingers exploring once-familiar flesh, just trace their movements by the shivers and tingles of my skin. Home and wanting and hope. And I must have stiffened as the screaming thought 'No, Not right. Don't deserve this' slammed back into me. That or he was reading my mind, and to the best of my knowledge that's just one of the myths. I'd have believed it right then, his reassurances were so spot on - or maybe I am that predictable. And he wove his spell of skin and motion, and hard words softly spoken. And lost in that spell, I have no idea how long we lay there like that. Just words in the dark, and his hands are so busy, gliding up to tangle in hair I haven't been bothering to cut, the line of neck that it's pure instinct to offer to him. Slipping down over waist and flank and belly that's been threatening to get itself reclassified as a gut. Tracing the line down my back where our bodies join - a rich seam of contrasts there, cold and hot, pale and tan, hard and soft. And he ought to be wriggling with disgust, he's been plenty vocal in the past about what he likes, and it's not this, not me, not now. But he's still whispering and stroking, fingers trailing and leaving a tingle in their wake.
"Will you come with me this time, pet? This isn't the place for you; you know that, right? You can't hide forever, Xan. I've missed you - we all have."
And I can't help but shake my head again, for all that I can't seem to persuade my body to pull away.
"No love, I do. That's why I came hunting you. Let Red think it was her idea, of course, but I was planning on her asking. It's hard without you, Xan."
Probably should have never answered the door, but old habits die hard. You ever notice how hard it is to ignore a ringing phone? Same difference, really. Definitely should have known better than to invite him in, but then, self destructive, so there's a logic. Not good logic, but some.
"What's happened to you?"
First words, straight to the bone, while I was still clinging on to the reassuring rules of social interaction, wrapping myself in 'Spike, come in. It's been an age - how are you?' And he cuts straight through that, as he steps in to the room and swings the door shut. As he looks me over again.
And I ought to have been reacting - getting outraged, lashing out with some clever reply. Getting the knife in first, so to speak. And all the reply I could think of is
"What?"
Not angry, or even really confused - hell, I get the question, it's just I'd never expected to be asked it by anyone other than myself. Get some good arguments going with that internal voice sometimes on the subject. In fact I was trying not to when I went to collect my pizza from the door. And then, there's Spike, a real blast from the past, in his eternal unchanging Spike-ness, reading lines from my brain.
He just gestured at me, taking in the whole grubby apartment. It was just a place - no real personality to it, and I never really got it geared up for guests, so there was just the one tired sofa, the TV, and the stacked up dishes on the counter in view. And me. Wishing I'd thought to put my shirt back on before answering the door, and realizing that I may not have cared what some snotty delivery boy thought of me, but apparently I did care, at least a little, what Spike thinks. Something about that long slow look that made me feel very exposed. A little armor would have felt good.
It had been a long day; most of it spent barricaded in the site office trying to make some headway on the paperwork for the last phase of the job. By the time I got back, all I wanted to do was peel off my work clothes and melt under the shower, summon food, have a drink, and just stop. Which is what I was doing - mindless moving wallpaper on the TV, beer in hand, expecting my pizza - when I'd answered the door. Four years, three hundred miles and he'd just walked in, taken one look, and picked up my internal script book.
And while I was still trying to figure out how and why this was, what the answer should be, which one of my carefully crafted rationales he was most likely to swallow, the buzzer went again. actually pizza this time, and broke the spell. Let me step safely back into the social pleasantries while I tried to figure it out.
"You want to join me? Afraid I don't carry blood these days"
"Fair enough - wouldn't have expected you to"
And let him follow me back down the hall, set the pizza box on the counter, snag a t-shirt off the pile and return to the kitchenette, offering a beer.
'Never had you tagged for a home-drinker"
"Four years and a lot of miles Spike, things change"
Or rather, I wish they would - it's like he's brought Sunnydale and that whole nest of memories and feelings with him. And in those terms, say five years ago, when that was still home, I'd have thought the idea was pretty unlikely too. And we turn our attention to the pizza, eating in a silence that's not exactly companionable, but isn't any more uncomfortable than say, bathing in lemon juice. Packing up the last couple of slices into the fridge - breakfast - signaled the end of the cease-fire though.
"You know why I'm here?"
"Actually, not even sure how you found me"
"Come on Xander, you can do better than that - you've got to know Willow's got a locator spell burning on you the whole time - always has"
Actually I didn't know that - I'd sort of hoped she might still, but after the last visit . No, that was news to me.
"Doesn't explain how you found me though, or why"
Even I could hear that came out sounding - sulky. No other word for it. Sometimes I really do despise myself - what was I expecting? That she ought to camp on my doorstep let me yell at her and lash out, plead with me to come home. Again. Until I couldn't be anything but convinced that she meant it? Well, yeah, actually, but that's not really the point.
"Yeah it does - I was passing through SunnyHell, she was worried, and a goal gives a road trip focus"
. "So you're just checking in, reporting back, and passing through?"
"Something like that - thought I might crash here a night or two"
I wonder about that too - what might have happened if I'd made the effort to chuck him out. But I didn't - I took the path of least resistance, surrendered the sofa to him, and took myself off once the silence got too awkward for the TV to cover.
And that's pretty much the last point I can worry over - the last point where I can even pretend I could have done something different, made things turn out differently. Any one of hundred events before that, but from then on, I wouldn't change it.
Remembering that night now, it seems unreal, like if I wasn't sitting here, in this car, rattling south again I'd think I must have dreamt it. At the time it panicked me. I mean, have you ever woken up in the early hours to find your houseguest watching you? Always assuming your houseguest is a vampire you now remember may or may not still be chipped. See - you panic. And while I was panicking and yelling at him to get the hell out of my bedroom, he dropped the bombshell.
"Nothing I haven't seen before Xander - been watching you a few days now"
And then he just smirked a little in the dim orange glow from the street light outside and let my rant on privacy, and spying and bastard lying vampires break over him like water.
"Why do you think I picked that moment to knock on your door, then?"
And I looked back over my evening and honestly had no clue. Blinked back the immanent headache and just shrugged.
"This isn't you, you know. What's happened to the white knight?"
"Yeah well the damsels are doing a pretty good job on their own, not much need for a toy knight in rusty armor these days"
"You really believe that, Xander?"
And ever since he started talking he'd been moving towards me, stalking slowly past the discarded laundry. And that question /really believe that/ was spoken so close to my ear that I could feel his breath behind it - movement without heat. And before I could answer, while I was still stuck on just how weird it was to hear those words spoken outside my head, in someone else's voice. Before I could answer, he'd swung around behind me on the bed, kneeling up with one leg either side of me, his hands on my shoulders, his lips moving millimeters above my neck, cool fingers stroking my hair off to the side.
"I was watching yesterday, and then again when you came back here tonight. Watched you set yourself up for numbness. Watched you shutting down. Watched you hear that cry for help and turn away. And Xander, that's not you."
And I wanted to say something, wanted to argue back, scream that it was me, the me that's moved on and survived the past few years. But those lips, so close to my skin, feather kissing down my spine as he spoke held me prisoner, whispering down to my shoulders and back up into the hairline.
"You know what's out there Xander. How hard is it to keep on pretending that you don't? Pretending not to care. Because you do care, don't you. Slayer's Heart."
And really, it's been so long since I've been touched like this, caught in the headlights of all this focussed attention, and I don't want it to stop - the right answer is yes, isn't it? So I nod, and I think I say yes, but maybe I just whimper a little.
"That's what it's about, isn't it. About shutting yourself down, pet, keeping everything numb so you don't have to face it. I've run a lot further than you Xan, and it doesn't work if you're carrying it around with you. Can't run away from yourself, pet, only dig down and hide. And it's comfortable being numb, isn't it? Just so long as you can stay there, all small and still and not thinking."
And that voice, surprisingly quiet and calm, breathed along my skin. And those fingers skimming my shoulders, the tops of my arms, stroking and calming working his words into my muscles.
"It's so hard to stop thinking though. Hard not to let yourself care. Hard to do without something to help. Drugs and distractions, love, drugs and distractions. Lets you forget how hard it is to keep everything locked down, numb and still. And it has to be everything, doesn't it love - can't let your guard down for a few of the little feelings, or you'll be washed away in the flood. Isn't that right pet?"
And I think I'm whimpering again, little moans that hopefully he'll take as whatever the right answer is, and let him keep talking, keep touching, floating over my body now, keeping me anchored here in his focus.
"That's hard, isn't it Xan. Working so hard to keep things still inside. Doesn't leave a lot of energy for anything else. But that's not moving on, luv, is it? That's entropy pet, it doesn't get easier, just gets harder and harder to stay there, more and more energy to lock down pet"
And those hands touch a bit more firmly now, running circles across shoulder blades, and arms and sides. And making me oh so painfully aware of this body. Always did feel oversized and clumsy next to the super-gang, and this touch, drawing boundaries on the air: noticing every pound I've added since Sunnydale, every scar, every scratch. Noticing but still touching, still talking.
"Shhh pet, it's ok. I know how hard it is pet, seen you shut yourself down, haven't I? But I've seen you dream too love"
And there's something in my chest that's rising up under those words, that touch, this cherishing. Harder to breath now, and I'm fighting just to keep still here, keep quiet so he won't stop, keep myself focussed on those puffs of air and brushes of skin, not let those words worm in to far. Where did he pick up a copy of '101 things I don't let myself think' anyway?
"Watched you last night, Xan, watched you sleep, watched you dream. Do you still dream of them luv? Dream of belonging somewhere? Something you want, I can tell that, something you want so bad it hurts that it's just a dream. That right pet?"
I've really never been very good at people being nice to me. Verbal put downs, I can swat right back at you, and all out abuse I can weather, and I can hold my own, more or less, in a fight, and I know when to run. But that unexpected, undeserved, unwanted gentleness. That lullaby of truths, that seduction of sense-memory, that forcing me to feel. That I couldn't fight - trapped in 'I want to don't want to, get away, sink into it, stop it, ask for more'.
And I came apart under those hands, that cool weight pressed against my back. Drowned in that tsunami of feeling and wanting and guilt and hoping. Cried silent tears, and shock with the horror of it. And he held me - whispering kisses on my skin still - and that was coming home and forgiveness and a hundred more reasons to weep. And after a while he moved from behind me, let me crawl back into the bed, and when I tried to say something, to explain, apologize, he silenced me with fingers on my lips, and cool kisses on my burning eyes.
And I think I must have slept - woken up by the tilt of the mattress as he came back to hold me, in a surprisingly pitch black room. Forced to just feel rather than watch as a lithe cool body wrapped itself around me again, lips pressed to my back as he spooned me, and the gentle circling strokes started up again. Couldn't watch the pale fingers exploring once-familiar flesh, just trace their movements by the shivers and tingles of my skin. Home and wanting and hope. And I must have stiffened as the screaming thought 'No, Not right. Don't deserve this' slammed back into me. That or he was reading my mind, and to the best of my knowledge that's just one of the myths. I'd have believed it right then, his reassurances were so spot on - or maybe I am that predictable. And he wove his spell of skin and motion, and hard words softly spoken. And lost in that spell, I have no idea how long we lay there like that. Just words in the dark, and his hands are so busy, gliding up to tangle in hair I haven't been bothering to cut, the line of neck that it's pure instinct to offer to him. Slipping down over waist and flank and belly that's been threatening to get itself reclassified as a gut. Tracing the line down my back where our bodies join - a rich seam of contrasts there, cold and hot, pale and tan, hard and soft. And he ought to be wriggling with disgust, he's been plenty vocal in the past about what he likes, and it's not this, not me, not now. But he's still whispering and stroking, fingers trailing and leaving a tingle in their wake.
"Will you come with me this time, pet? This isn't the place for you; you know that, right? You can't hide forever, Xan. I've missed you - we all have."
And I can't help but shake my head again, for all that I can't seem to persuade my body to pull away.
"No love, I do. That's why I came hunting you. Let Red think it was her idea, of course, but I was planning on her asking. It's hard without you, Xan."