Delirium - 2 of 3
Neither of them fit anywhere anymore. Spike wasn’t willing to be party to some grand new regime - ‘I didn’t become a vampire to carry a fucking union card’ was his current catchcry. Nor did he have any desire to fight. To him, Xander was a final fragment of a life long gone. His ego the more wounded that his legend had vanished into obscurity - ‘William the Bloody’, killer of two slayers, second-string vampire with a soul, was no longer the biggest of bads, not when the world was ending.
Xander was little more than a wraith now, a sketch of an idea of who he once might’ve been. He had no desire for the company of people, for the plight of the resistance - all he’d ever had to fight for was already lost. He definitely had no wish to be sired - with nothing to live for, why live forever?
So there they were, clinging to each other in the wreckage. Each merely served as a reflection to give the other an identity. Something punchdrunk to pick at, Xander’s blood barely enough to keep coursing through the both of them.
Spike had the capacity for beauty in him at times, like the quiet of an ocean between squalls. Some mornings when Xander’s husk hardly drew breath, he’d see him sat naked, smoking and reading. A carved white angel, for want of a better word, drinking coffee enlivened with whatever whisky he could find, provided it wasn’t Irish. It was easy to forget he’d been a starry-eyed young artist once and as hard to imagine him being brutalised by Angelus, as fierce a thing as he’d come to be.
~
“Why North?” Xander tried again, crumpling up the map Spike had thrust at him hours ago. It was early evening and they’d been driving most of the day.
“Stays dark longer, doesn’t it,”
“I thought you didn’t wanna mingle,”
“I don’t, but the longer it’s dark, the more in the way of breathing room I have to make my own arrangements,” Spike’s voice became exasperated, he loathed explanation.
The engine made screeching noises of complaint akin to those in Xander’s head, then it died. The car coasted to a reluctant, sputtering stop.
“Looks like we’re walking then,” Spike muttered while cursing.
“Seriously?” Xander sounded incredulous, his whole body feeble.
“Oh no, you’re right, perhaps we should try hitchhiking.” Piercing eyes settled on him, “Just see if it’s dark enough yet,” he ordered.
They set off up the road at a steady, trudging pace, Xander tottering from side to side and using the rifle as a cane as best he could. The chill wind whipped fresh snow all around them, his body soaked from feverish sweat before it could make a blind bit of difference. As it grew darker they could make out lights up ahead, buildings and the distant promise of noise. Closer still and they could make out the silhouettes of sentries. They stood openly in the street, unphased by the inclement weather.
“I’d toss that if I were you,” Spike nodded at the rifle.
“Why?”
“I don’t think they’ll approve of pets being armed, do you?”
Sure enough, those stationed at the town entrance were vampires. Well dressed and equally well armed. The strip beyond them looked like any other bustling little town on a Saturday night, free of carnage or burning wreckage. One of them eyed Xander closely as they approached.
“Evening gents,” Spike opened.
“If you’re looking to sell or peddle…that, you’ll need to take it down to Freemont,” One of them spoke to Spike as if Xander wasn’t even there.
“Freemont?” Spike asked
“Where the feeding houses are, we try to keep this place as clean as we can but we gotta give the whores somewhere to operate,” the other one put in, leering at Xander and seeming to scent his crusted blood on the air.
“Of course,” Spike agreed flatly.
“You planning on staying long?” The lead guard questioned him as Spike went to move past them.
“No, no. Just passing through. Need to pick up a little travelling money and a fresh set of wheels,” He grinned savagely and clapped a hand on Xander’s shoulder. The iron grip dragged and steered him on into the town, leaving the guards chuckling behind them.
“Keep out of trouble,” one of the guards called after him.
“Do I ever,” Spike muttered under his breath.
“Why don’t you just get me a collar and a leash?” Xander coughed, his chest racked with the onset of a cold, or possibly death. They were most likely the same thing, weak as he was.
“Don’t tempt me,”
“What’s the plan?”
“Plan? Well I for one intend on getting myself a decent meal, ‘borrowing’ another automobile and then getting the fuck out of dodge,”
“Meal?”
“Yes dear, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’re starting to get a little gamey,” Spike taunted him as he strode that cocksure swagger down the street. He stopped on a dime to ask a pair of passing vampires directions.
~
Xander slumped against the brickwork and slid down to the ground, no longer really feeling the cold seeping into him from all sides. Spike had deposited him outside something that resembled a tumbledown crackhouse, produced a wad of bills he’d taken from a gas station register and disappeared inside.
Xander sat there, feeling pangs of something like abandonment or resentment, or maybe even jealousy. He didn’t know how long he sat there before she came, or before he was aware of her. She looked like her in the dark, little and toned and blonde. Of course the nose wasn’t right.
“How much?” She asked.
He shook his head wordlessly and craned his neck to the side, offering the less mutilated of his arteries. She didn’t need a second invitation. And then he was up and flying, cradled in her arms, his mind slipping away and lost forever in the smell of her hair.
“Oi! Fuck off slag, that’s mine!” A voice rang from a light year away. And then he was falling back to earth, and she was gone again and forever dead. He lay in the gutter, looking up through the slit of an eye.
“It offered it up!” the vampire railed at Spike.
“That your thing is it, love? Picking up bled-dry, back alley castoffs for free?”
“I got rights here! We started a transaction that…”
“A tran…what?! I don’t know what the fuck you lot have going on here, but I do know that I’m not about to stand here and debate the finer points of the legality of dinner. I’m taking my…that…and we’re leaving. Now, unless you’d like to spend the rest of eternity as grit on this particular sidewalk, I’d fuck off,”
“Y’know what? Fuck you! I’m calling the enforcers!” With that she took off toward the main street.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” Spike spat at him as he cast up and down the grimy little back road. Settling on a nearby pickup, he smashed the window with his elbow.
Xander lay still, in full expectation of watching him drive away. Instead he strode back across the street and hefted his ragdoll form into the cab before climbing in himself. Keys fell jangling from behind a sun-visor and the familiar constant of a throaty engine roar returned to Xander’s mind.
“Of course, now we’ll need to find something better on up the road. One without the benefit of open air ventilation and we’ll need more paint…” Spike began rattling off as they tore out of the town, hounded by shouts and the whistle of projectiles. Xander couldn’t keep from laughing, as much as it hurt. “What could possible be funny?”
“You…planning your survival…” he wheezed as stars wheeled past and his mind went blank.
Delirium - 3 of 3
Xander was little more than a wraith now, a sketch of an idea of who he once might’ve been. He had no desire for the company of people, for the plight of the resistance - all he’d ever had to fight for was already lost. He definitely had no wish to be sired - with nothing to live for, why live forever?
So there they were, clinging to each other in the wreckage. Each merely served as a reflection to give the other an identity. Something punchdrunk to pick at, Xander’s blood barely enough to keep coursing through the both of them.
Spike had the capacity for beauty in him at times, like the quiet of an ocean between squalls. Some mornings when Xander’s husk hardly drew breath, he’d see him sat naked, smoking and reading. A carved white angel, for want of a better word, drinking coffee enlivened with whatever whisky he could find, provided it wasn’t Irish. It was easy to forget he’d been a starry-eyed young artist once and as hard to imagine him being brutalised by Angelus, as fierce a thing as he’d come to be.
~
“Why North?” Xander tried again, crumpling up the map Spike had thrust at him hours ago. It was early evening and they’d been driving most of the day.
“Stays dark longer, doesn’t it,”
“I thought you didn’t wanna mingle,”
“I don’t, but the longer it’s dark, the more in the way of breathing room I have to make my own arrangements,” Spike’s voice became exasperated, he loathed explanation.
The engine made screeching noises of complaint akin to those in Xander’s head, then it died. The car coasted to a reluctant, sputtering stop.
“Looks like we’re walking then,” Spike muttered while cursing.
“Seriously?” Xander sounded incredulous, his whole body feeble.
“Oh no, you’re right, perhaps we should try hitchhiking.” Piercing eyes settled on him, “Just see if it’s dark enough yet,” he ordered.
They set off up the road at a steady, trudging pace, Xander tottering from side to side and using the rifle as a cane as best he could. The chill wind whipped fresh snow all around them, his body soaked from feverish sweat before it could make a blind bit of difference. As it grew darker they could make out lights up ahead, buildings and the distant promise of noise. Closer still and they could make out the silhouettes of sentries. They stood openly in the street, unphased by the inclement weather.
“I’d toss that if I were you,” Spike nodded at the rifle.
“Why?”
“I don’t think they’ll approve of pets being armed, do you?”
Sure enough, those stationed at the town entrance were vampires. Well dressed and equally well armed. The strip beyond them looked like any other bustling little town on a Saturday night, free of carnage or burning wreckage. One of them eyed Xander closely as they approached.
“Evening gents,” Spike opened.
“If you’re looking to sell or peddle…that, you’ll need to take it down to Freemont,” One of them spoke to Spike as if Xander wasn’t even there.
“Freemont?” Spike asked
“Where the feeding houses are, we try to keep this place as clean as we can but we gotta give the whores somewhere to operate,” the other one put in, leering at Xander and seeming to scent his crusted blood on the air.
“Of course,” Spike agreed flatly.
“You planning on staying long?” The lead guard questioned him as Spike went to move past them.
“No, no. Just passing through. Need to pick up a little travelling money and a fresh set of wheels,” He grinned savagely and clapped a hand on Xander’s shoulder. The iron grip dragged and steered him on into the town, leaving the guards chuckling behind them.
“Keep out of trouble,” one of the guards called after him.
“Do I ever,” Spike muttered under his breath.
“Why don’t you just get me a collar and a leash?” Xander coughed, his chest racked with the onset of a cold, or possibly death. They were most likely the same thing, weak as he was.
“Don’t tempt me,”
“What’s the plan?”
“Plan? Well I for one intend on getting myself a decent meal, ‘borrowing’ another automobile and then getting the fuck out of dodge,”
“Meal?”
“Yes dear, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’re starting to get a little gamey,” Spike taunted him as he strode that cocksure swagger down the street. He stopped on a dime to ask a pair of passing vampires directions.
~
Xander slumped against the brickwork and slid down to the ground, no longer really feeling the cold seeping into him from all sides. Spike had deposited him outside something that resembled a tumbledown crackhouse, produced a wad of bills he’d taken from a gas station register and disappeared inside.
Xander sat there, feeling pangs of something like abandonment or resentment, or maybe even jealousy. He didn’t know how long he sat there before she came, or before he was aware of her. She looked like her in the dark, little and toned and blonde. Of course the nose wasn’t right.
“How much?” She asked.
He shook his head wordlessly and craned his neck to the side, offering the less mutilated of his arteries. She didn’t need a second invitation. And then he was up and flying, cradled in her arms, his mind slipping away and lost forever in the smell of her hair.
“Oi! Fuck off slag, that’s mine!” A voice rang from a light year away. And then he was falling back to earth, and she was gone again and forever dead. He lay in the gutter, looking up through the slit of an eye.
“It offered it up!” the vampire railed at Spike.
“That your thing is it, love? Picking up bled-dry, back alley castoffs for free?”
“I got rights here! We started a transaction that…”
“A tran…what?! I don’t know what the fuck you lot have going on here, but I do know that I’m not about to stand here and debate the finer points of the legality of dinner. I’m taking my…that…and we’re leaving. Now, unless you’d like to spend the rest of eternity as grit on this particular sidewalk, I’d fuck off,”
“Y’know what? Fuck you! I’m calling the enforcers!” With that she took off toward the main street.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” Spike spat at him as he cast up and down the grimy little back road. Settling on a nearby pickup, he smashed the window with his elbow.
Xander lay still, in full expectation of watching him drive away. Instead he strode back across the street and hefted his ragdoll form into the cab before climbing in himself. Keys fell jangling from behind a sun-visor and the familiar constant of a throaty engine roar returned to Xander’s mind.
“Of course, now we’ll need to find something better on up the road. One without the benefit of open air ventilation and we’ll need more paint…” Spike began rattling off as they tore out of the town, hounded by shouts and the whistle of projectiles. Xander couldn’t keep from laughing, as much as it hurt. “What could possible be funny?”
“You…planning your survival…” he wheezed as stars wheeled past and his mind went blank.
Delirium - 3 of 3