My Aching Veins

Disc: Nada

B/F, Season Six-ish, Chappa two

Thank you to all who reviewed. Answers, soon.

Cut back to two years before. Two years before the drugs, the sleepless nights, and the desire for death because it was merely something new I hadn't yet experienced. The human body, the mind, was strange that way. After you had tried every substance, hurt every bone, felt every emotion, life was gone. Done. Boring. You could be seventeen when this happened, or eighty-nine. Either way, either person, you were done.

The night before she arrived I discovered everything there is to know about the world. I was alone in the Stockton Women's Correctional Facility's gym, destructing every piece of equipment like it had been placed there for me. At least I think it had. I was kicking, punching, elbowing, killing this punching bag and there was nobody there to stop me. I was free, dissolved from the daytime world I lived in which was steel bars and bitches and sludge for breakfast. I was free.

I was punching, feeling my arms lengthen and meld as each raw nerve was ruptured, like the malleable play-doh substance I had turned into. My mouth was hot and dry, sticking together with the thick tongue that took up too much space behind my lips. I would punch and punch forever and no one would feel the blows. I was forever defenceless when training in this way.

My lungs were bulging beneath my chest. I imagine them looking like a balloon looks right before they pop.

It was becoming clear to me now, as I threw myself at the hanging bag of sand, not strong enough for me to fully take it on. Not that I would. But anyway, it was becoming clear, every ridiculous thing in the world. Smokeless tobacco, doesn't matter, you'll still get mouth cancer anyway, alcoholic beer, it will always contain .5 and someone will find a way to get wasted off of less than 5, the fact that becoming a saint only comes from the amount of press you receive. I wasn't getting any smarter with each hit, but the false perception was appearing remarkably and I couldn't place why.

Slayer thing.

Could be.

Doubt it.

All things supernatural, all things Sunnydale ended here.

In Stockton.

One hour, seven minutes in, hadn't stopped, and by then my heart was threatening to break into my wind pipe. My breath was escaping like hot puffs of steam from boiling water. Wouldn't stop.

I was adapting here. And that's what this was all about. I felt I was burning away every wrong thought that didn't belong in this whining body I carried around. I was cleansing myself through the curls of sweat dangling on the tip of my nose and the all of my back.

I was being forced to change myself in every way possible and live among the other changed. I was being pushed to adapt to my new accommodations of a plastic mattress and a three-way light bulb. I was encouraged to nurture and care for the body that would help the mind would help the soul would help Me.

I was doing it, and learning all these new things, all at the same time.

Until the punching bag exploded off its hinge and landed on the floor with a thump. I gave up then. It was lucky I had. My legs, barely machines in which I travelled on, rugged and rough terrain stuffed and suffocating in too small tennis shoes, took me back to my cell. She was there when I arrived, waiting? Or did she know who her new roommate would be? No, she couldn't have known. It was pure coincidence that brought us together, no matter how much that hurts. If it weren't coincidence, fate would have happened by now and what needs to happen would be happening and Buffy would return back home. No coincidence.

She was sitting on my bed, looking at me even before I had arrived. I looked her in the eye for a couple of seconds, then looked away. I didn't need to see her to know she was there. I should have known days ago. Should have smelled it, sensed it, something. Why didn't I? Fate?

Her hair was oily, like I'm sure I was.

She smelled of cheap knock off perfume and dust.

I smelled of sweat and sand.

Her eyes couldn't decide whether to stick open or to close.

I was always awake those days.

She wore no makeup and her face was a sad looking paste, dripping onto the floor. I had never seen this expression on her before. An emotionless smile, brows lowered to the tips of her sleep deprived eyes, and a soft sigh on every corner of her lips.

I had storm infected eyes, bee stung lips, and the permanent "Eat Shit" grin.

"Hi." She whispered.

Get out get out get out get out get out get out, I'm here to change, not you. I need it, not you. I'm changing you're not get out get out, "Hey."

Her state administered uniform confirmed that she wasn't here for a short visit.

"I killed someone." At least she was admitting it. Unlike me. Too unlike me. She will NEVER be like me and I will make sure of it.

"No, you didn't." I argued.

"If I didn't, I've still got reasons to be here." What's that supposed to mean?

…

"That's my bed." I pointed to where she sat, ready to attack, still in pouncing position.

"Names not on it."

Doesn't need to be. This is my life, my quarintine, get out. I'm fixing myself for you and I'm not ready to be seen yet. An unfinished prototype. Get out. You don't belong here.

"Didn't have a marker."

You belong in Sunnydale, California with your sister, your friends, your mom, and your boyfriends, whomever it may be today. You belong safe in your bed worrying about apocalypses, not murder. You didn't do this. You couldn't have.

She got off and climbed to the top bunk, resuming a supine position, facing the ceiling. Maybe we would talk in the morning. Maybe not.

For now, I put my huffing body in bed, enjoying the scent, albeit cheap, yet hers, she left. I fell asleep easily that night, as I usually did. But I could hear her sobbing wet cries of anguish into her poly-cotton blend pillow even in my dreams. She wasn't crying for herself, she wasn't crying for her friends and family who would miss her. She was crying for the mistakes she had made, the recklessness she had performed, and the salvation she would be forced to receive to redeem it.

I know, because I did the same thing. I listened to other people do the same thing well into the night. It only hurt now because I didn't know how to stop it.

The faux wisdom was returning as I lay stationary in bed, glaring at the ceiling.

Palindromes, eternal metaphors, infinity and every event, every moment that could be chaos defying you. There was no such thing as chaos, just patterns. Just unique patterns that led us through time and every event that would never be unique, always repeating itself because infinity goes both ways.Frontwards, and backwards.

It was disgusting.

-

-

-

-

To be continued.