The Leech & The Whore [10]
Yadda yadda, this is going to end up having taken me a year to finish when it only took a month to write 50,000 words, I know, I know. Just in case anyone is lurking my LJ that I don't know, yes, these are original characters and no, this is not fanfiction. This is mine and no you may not use it XD
“What the fuck did you do?”
It had been going so well. Phoenix had let himself into the apartment with hands that hardly shook at all and had made his way through the rooms in a manner approaching nonchalance, as if he didn’t know Blake was in. As soon as he entered the living room he had been fixed with a baleful yellow stare that glowed in the darkness and it had taken all of his will-power to approach.
Blake was sitting on the balcony, legs stretched out carelessly in front of him. The balcony was covered in bottles, more than half of them empty, and broken glass. Phoenix had been planning on waiting for the leech to speak first but hadn’t been able to stop himself from speaking as he saw the blood.
It clung to Blake’s skin, black in the shadows and a dirty brown in shafts of pre-dawn light. There had been blood before, in the cell. All down one arm. This wasn’t from the same wound and covered both arms as well as his hands and neck.
And so he had spoken. He hadn’t wanted his words to be so angry. It was the only way he knew how to express his fear.
Blake didn’t move, sat watching him with a blank expression. The weak light dyed strands of his hair a deep copper.
“Why do you care?” he said at length. His words were carefully pronounced, breaking through the alcohol induced haze with difficulty. Phoenix took a step closer.
“Is that your blood?”
“Most of it.”
“Did you-“
“Fuck off, Phoe,” Blake snapped suddenly, expression snapping into a mask of rage. “The sun’ll be up in an hour. Let me have it to myself.”
“Not if you-“
“If I what? Killed someone? That’s what you’re worried about, right?”
As Blake struggled to his feet, using the balcony as a support, Phoenix could find nothing to say. Once the leech was standing, he leant down and grabbed a half-empty bottle, raising it to his lips and drinking deeply before continuing.
“You’ve been living with me no problem all this time. You were never afraid to touch me, in any fucking way you liked. You trusted me, right?”
Phoenix’s eyes widened and he answered quickly, noticing Blake’s choice of tense too late.
“Of course.”
“But one fucking word from that nephilim bastard and you start asking me questions like that. It was very special then, your trust.”
Phoenix stepped forward again, bringing him within two metres of Blake. He’d never seen the leech like this, the raw emotion shining in his eyes that he had always suspected was buried somewhere beneath the apathy. Phoenix had first noticed it when Kari had asked about Blake’s past, New York, numbers.
“Will you just get the fuck out of here?” Blake spat, raising the bottle to his lips again and emptying it. “If you’re not going to say anything then leave.”
Realising he had been staring without speaking, Phoenix shook himself a little and took a deep breath. Silhouetted against the slowly rising sun, a bottle clutched in one hand and eyes burning amber, Blake put him in mind of a cornered animal, a puma waiting to strike.
“I don’t want to leave,” he said softly.
“Why not?”
“Because we’re friends. Aren’t we?”
Blake shrugged. “You tell me.”
“I don’t know.” He’d answered before he thought about it but he realised it to be the truth. “Not anymore. I used to think that-“
“Shut up. I don’t wanna hear it. I want you to leave me alone.”
“So you can do what?”
“I dunno. Drink. Break something.”
“Like a person?”
“Maybe. Or myself. Whatever the fuck I want. You got a problem with that?”
“Would you kill someone?”
Blake was silent. He closed his eyes in case he cried for the first time in years. Mistaking this reaction for a reluctance to agree, Phoenix licked his suddenly dry lips.
“Kari said you were dangerous.”
Blake turned, looking out towards the distant hint of a rising sun. His eyes burned even though his eyelids.
“If I had asked, he would have answered,” Phoenix continued. “But I didn’t. I want to hear it from you. What happened in New York?”
Silence. Phoenix took another tentative step forward.
“Why were you going to die there?”
Another step. The silence wavered as Blake shifted his weight to his other foot, his muscles tense.
“What does ‘Zero’ mean?”
Blake turned quickly, sending two bottles rolling under the balcony railings. They crashed to the pavement far below, the sound pale in comparison to the crash as he brought the bottle he had been holding down on the top of the railing. He stepped forwards, one foot now inside the room and raised his arm. Phoenix’s eyes widened as half a broken bottle was held out towards him for the first time in his life.
“It means he was right,” Blake hissed, eyes narrowed. “It means I’m fucking dangerous. It means that shit happened in New York that you can’t even begin to understand. It means that if I was human I’d have died hundreds of times already.”
Phoenix raised one hand as if to deflect a blow and opened his mouth to speak. Blake ignored him, taking another step forwards so that the jagged glass edge was close to the redhead’s throat.
“It means that I’ve killed people. And yeah, you know what? I could do it again. It’s a lot easier than you’d think.”
Phoenix blinked, his heart in his throat and he was too frightened to hear the words Blake spoke with his eyes only.
But not you. Never you.
“I didn’t think you were like this,” Phoenix said, voice barely above a whisper.
“Well, you were right, back there. You know fuck all about me. This...all this friendship shit was never going to work. I lied to you. There are monsters Phoe. And you’ve been fucking one.”
It’s more than that. It’s always been more than that.
The words died in Phoenix’s lips. It was impossible to even think of broaching that topic, the final thing they had yet to share with one another, when Blake was pointing a weapon at him however crude it might be. It wasn’t the right time. He supposed that now it would never be the right time.
“You want me to leave, then?” he asked. His voice shook less than the bottle grasped tightly in Blake’s hand.
“Yes.”
“Fine. I’ll go. But if I do, that’s it. This place is yours.”
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“You know when the rent needs to go out and how much it costs. I know your wages would cover it.”
“Yeah, but-“
“I won’t be coming back.”
For a moment, it looked as if Blake was faltering. The bottle wavered down to the level of Phoenix’s chest and he lowered his eyes to the carpet. There was any number of things either of them could have done or said to keep it that way. But that was gone now, they’d said too much.
“Fine.” The word was little more than a whisper, followed by an unnatural laugh. “That’s just fine, Phoe.”
“I’d be better off,” the redhead said, not sure why he now felt the need to defend his decision. “I’ve got five more scars since I met you. It’s not good for...for work.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“So I’m going to go.”
It took an age for him to turn, his feet having turned to blocks of ice that were melting slowly under the heat of Blake’s stare. Phoenix wasn’t sure whether he was angrier than he was anything else. He was sure Blake was more drunk than anything else but that was his fault. All of it was his fault. If only he...
“Why won’t you tell me?” Phoenix asked suddenly, half-turned towards the door. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Blake lower the bottle to his side and close his eyes. “Would it really be that difficult?”
“Yeah. It’d kill me. Is that what you want now?”
“No. I just-“
“Ah, forget it. Just go.”
Phoenix remained motionless. The moment spun out and stretched, the sounds of the world outside sounded strangled and distorted. This was the real world, these words hanging in the air. The words being thought so loudly they lanced through the air like screams weren’t real, couldn’t be answered until they were spoken.
So they didn’t hear all you have to do is ask me to stay. They didn’t hear all you have to do is admit you don’t want to leave. Somehow, they both heard the silent plea of please, god, don’t leave me alone, not again. Neither answered.
The silence was broken by Phoenix’s heavy tread leaving the room and approaching the bedroom, followed by shuffling sounds as he pushed some clothes into his workbag left by the door. He didn’t hear Blake approaching because the leech hadn’t moved and was still standing just inside the living room, eyes closed and teeth sunk so far into his lower lip he almost choked on blood.
The front door was pulled open gently but the sound was unmistakeable. As he heard Phoenix hesitating on the threshold, Blake spat blood onto the carpet and raised his voice.
“If you think that I’m gonna remember you, you’re wrong.”
“I don’t.”
The door was pulled softly shut until it kissed the frame with a distinct click. Blake counted footsteps in his head, knowing how many Phoenix would need to take, waiting until he would be halfway down the stairs. The bottle had had been holding crashed into the floor, flung with enough force to break the neck off and leave both ends jagged. He turned and tripped onto the balcony, grabbing onto the rail with white fingers and staring down at the street.
There was an ‘if’, somewhere. Something like ‘if he looks back’ or ‘if he’s learnt how to cry’ or even ‘if he hesitates’. When Phoenix left the building, crunching broken glass beneath his feet, and turned left away from the balcony so Blake couldn’t see his face the leech was sure it was meant to be some sort of sign from a god who had only just decided to admit he existed.
And it still hurt. The only ‘if’ left now was ‘if I can drink enough so that I never have to wake up’.
He turned away from the light that was now bright enough to prickle his skin and slipped on an empty bottle, sending him flying into the living room and slumping to the carpet. He started to roll onto his back, pushing the edge of the broken bottle into the soft flesh of his upper arm. After a pause, he continued rolling, staring defiantly at the ceiling as the glass sliced through skin and tissue and his blood stained the pristine carpet.
It was his carpet now. What did it matter?
Once he was lying on his back and his breathing was ragged with hurt, he twisted over and brought his other fist down on the bottle with strength that could only come from a pain sharper than that which was ripping through his nerves. The bottle splintered and broke under his fist, shards and lumps of glass digging into his fingers and knuckles. The edges sticking into his arm were now freed from the whole, the sudden pressure having also pushed them in further.
As Phoenix doubled back on himself and saw that Blake was definitely not waiting on the balcony for him to come back, Blake sat up and raised fingers studded with tiny glass knives to his arm. He began to pull the fragments out slowly, gripping each one with firm fingers that didn’t shake and twisting them to the left like this before removing them.
Phoenix walked under the balcony in the direction of the club and learnt to cry.
The doorman was surprised to see Phoenix approaching in the early morning light. He commented on the strange time of the redhead’s arrival so that he wouldn’t have to comment on the blood still matting the hair at the nape of his neck or the tear tracks through the alley-floor grime on his cheeks.
It was quiet in the bar but not empty, there always being someone with too much money and time needing their attention. Phoenix had never been to work this early, having laughed outright when he’d been offered the five to ten shift. He scanned the room with eyes that felt raw against his eyelids and realised he didn’t recognise anyone working the floor. A few girls, young, and some older guys were milling around in his usual spot under the clock. They were clustered around the first customer of the day, four in the morning being counted as night, and all turned to face him as he almost fell down the stairs.
Ignoring them, he headed for the closest chair and sank into it, clothes squeaking against the shiny leather. It felt wrong, too pristine and artificial after the last forty-eight hours. He closed his eyes and tried to put it out of his mind. Nothing was going to change by going over it again and again, like watching a movie with an end he wished he could change. He felt sober now, too sober, but more tired than he could bear. Surely no one would stop him from sleeping here. He’d been a good worker for years and was probably owed a favour for putting up with Diana for so long.
He almost smiled. There it was, a normal, everyday thought. A thought that had nothing to do with the world he had fallen into when he pushed Blake into sharing with him. Since his mother had told him about his real father at seventeen he had craved knowledge and understanding of that world, something that could excuse his behaviour and colour his surroundings with something more than everyday concerns. Not being able to find any information himself, he had filled this void with physical sensation, always pushing the boundaries and putting himself into situations others wouldn’t want to imagine, just to assure himself he was different.
And now he knew he was different. He had never wanted to fade into the background as much as he did that morning. When a light voice interrupted his thoughts it seemed that this wasn’t possible.
“Excuse me, but you work here right?”
He opened his eyes to see a blue-eyed blonde watching him closely. She was dressed in something resembling a school uniform and so obviously worked at the club herself. He blinked slowly at her and nodded.
“I thought so!” she chirped, her voice far too happy. “You’re Phoenix, right? We thought we’d never meet you since you always take the afternoon shift.”
“Uh, yeah,” he said stupidly, not sure where this was going. “Who are you?”
“My name’s-“
“Let him rest, Siobhan. “
Phoenix opened his eyes to see Andre coming to his rescue. As always around the grizzled barman, he felt a wave of calm begin to erode his anxiety. Andre sent the girl away with a few choice words and she returned to her gaggle of colleagues who shot Phoenix confused glances for the remainder of his stay. Andre moved to sit in the sofa opposite him, putting a glass filled with clear liquid down on the table between them.
“What’s that?” Phoenix asked, forcing his voice to sound casual.
“Water. You look like you need it.”
Smiling a little at how inverted his life seemed to have become, Phoenix leant forward and took the glass with a grateful nod. The water was cold enough to burn his throat but he could feel it doing wonders already. He glanced back over to the blonde and her companions.
“Who’s she?”
“Your alter-ego. She’s the one that draws what little of a crowd we get this time of day.”
“Oh. She’s cute.”
Andre waited a moment and then raised an eyebrow. “That’s all you have to say? She’s even blonde. What’s up, kiddo? Why the hell are you in so early?”
Phoenix waved the hand that wasn’t holding the glass vaguely in the air between them.
“Necessity. Why are you here? Do you never stop working?”
Andre shrugged and leant back in his chair, watching Phoenix’s expression and not the state he was in. The redhead was more grateful than he knew how to handle. Any insensitive comments would pierce right through his ego-barrier that was for sure.
“Sometimes. I like the morning shifts though. Less idiots.”
“Is that ‘cause I’m not there?”
“How did you guess?”
They lapsed into soft laughing, drawing more than a few confused stairs from across the room. Silence swept over them after that and Andre waited until Phoenix had finished his glass of water, brief smile completely faded, before speaking.
“What happened, Phoenix?” His voice was low. “I’m not asking for details. I’m not even asking for the truth. I just want to know if you’re going to be okay. You’d never be here unless something had happened. You’re normally so eager to get home.”
Phoenix didn’t answer, resting his head back against the chair and closing his eyes. Even in the midst of a conversation, he felt the need for sleep. He just wanted to fade out for a while, dream of everything normal in the world and wake to a life that made sense. As skewed and dodgy as his life had always been, he’d never felt this lost before. He was murmuring before he had considered it.
“I’ve got no home,” he started. “Barely any of my stuff. I’m hungover and my head is killing me from where some bastard knocked me out. I’m lucky to still have my life, Andre. And do you know what bothers me the most? That I could deal with all of that. But there’s something else. It’s so pathetic.”
“The American.”
Andre spoke in a voice just above a murmur, certain in his assumption. Phoenix almost laughed, dragging himself back into a proper sitting position and watching the bartender through red-rimmed eyes.
“Yeah. How did you...how have you always known stuff like this, old man? You even know what he-“
“Yes, I do,” Andre cut in. “And I know about you, too. Don’t ask me why, I’m not going to explain. I’ve got a good life, working here, as good as I’m going to get. I don’t want to be involved any more than I have to be. Look at yourself, kid. You understand that, right?”
Phoenix blinked and nodded, not having to check. Idly, he wondered just what made Andre so special. Had he just been around people like them for too long? Or was he...different? Either way, Phoenix was too tired to care.
“Yeah. I understand. Thanks. Sorry if I crossed a line there. I mean...I just lost my best friend, Andre. I’d never had one before. Turns out I’m not as cool as I like to pretend, huh?”
Andre offered him a warm smile and reached across the distance to lay a large hand on Phoenix’s shoulder. The touch was warm and friendly. Simple. It cast Phoenix’s mind back to days he was sure he’d never get back. Simple touches, simple words. He’d been pushing for the truth but what did that matter when the world turned out to be this cold?
“I need sleep,” he said quietly, eyes unfocussed. “I need to sleep to make my brain shut up. I’m starting to sound like...hah. Like him. Typical.”
He was teetering on the edge of delirium and knew it by the way he couldn’t concentrate on anything. The hands of the clock swam and blurred as he looked at them, the faces of the other workers twisted. Andre’s hand on his shoulder was the only thing anchoring him.
“My shift’s almost over,” the bartender said. “Come back with me. You’ve got nowhere to stay, I have a sofa. As long as you find somewhere else to stay on Friday nights, you’re welcome for as long as you need.”
Phoenix nodded, too sleepy to question anything. He rose to his feet with a little help, the familiar action triggering a familiar question. What’s Blake doing right now? Phoenix bit back on the question. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going home.
“Lead the way,” he said with a sigh. “Just get me out of here.”
The flat was dark.
Once the sunlight had grown bright enough to turn his skin red, Blake had dragged himself up from the floor and pulled the heavy curtains across. Not that it mattered since he’d left the living room anyway. In the daylight, the broken glass was too sharp, the blood too bright. He’d wandered to the bathroom without any difficulty, wishing he was limping.
Clothes torn and skin smeared with dried blood, the leech did not have a scratch to show for his actions. He wasn’t grateful. Sometimes, he didn’t want to heal. Sometimes, he wanted the wounds to cut deep and to last forever. The scars could keep the deeper ones in his heart company.
It was even worse when he was clean. He stood in the shower, water turned to freezing. Not to combat the burning from the sun but just because he could. If it wasn’t going to kill him he might as well push his body to every limit he could find. The thick blinds in every room were drawn, as they always were when Phoenix had been out. They’d made the flat virtually sun tight. Blake wondered if he’d have bothered closing them had they been open.
He stood beneath the water with his eyes closed, not wanting to see the red spirals escaping down the drain. Half an hour, fifty minutes...he didn’t know how long he’d been there. If he started to freeze solid, maybe he’d move. Maybe he wouldn’t. It didn’t matter. No one else would be using the shower, after all.
“If I had asked, he would have answered. But I didn’t. I want to hear it from you. What happened in New York?"
The leech’s eyes opened slowly, amber orbs burning in the shadows. And for the first time, he tried to imagine himself telling Phoenix everything. The words he’d choose, the examples he’d give, the way he wouldn’t be able to sit still. He tried to picture Phoenix’s reactions. It wasn’t hard. For all his faults, the redhead was a good person, a normal guy with a normal heart. There was only one way a normal person would react.
Fear. Disgust. Pity. Blake didn’t want any of those things. He already had two of them, anyway. The pity would be more than he could bear.
Closing his eyes again, he turned the water back to hot, to scalding. Maybe his skin would just disintegrate under the heat. He might as well find out.
He didn’t hear the rustle of grey wings as a creature slipped out of the room and shut the front door behind them.
“What the fuck did you do?”
It had been going so well. Phoenix had let himself into the apartment with hands that hardly shook at all and had made his way through the rooms in a manner approaching nonchalance, as if he didn’t know Blake was in. As soon as he entered the living room he had been fixed with a baleful yellow stare that glowed in the darkness and it had taken all of his will-power to approach.
Blake was sitting on the balcony, legs stretched out carelessly in front of him. The balcony was covered in bottles, more than half of them empty, and broken glass. Phoenix had been planning on waiting for the leech to speak first but hadn’t been able to stop himself from speaking as he saw the blood.
It clung to Blake’s skin, black in the shadows and a dirty brown in shafts of pre-dawn light. There had been blood before, in the cell. All down one arm. This wasn’t from the same wound and covered both arms as well as his hands and neck.
And so he had spoken. He hadn’t wanted his words to be so angry. It was the only way he knew how to express his fear.
Blake didn’t move, sat watching him with a blank expression. The weak light dyed strands of his hair a deep copper.
“Why do you care?” he said at length. His words were carefully pronounced, breaking through the alcohol induced haze with difficulty. Phoenix took a step closer.
“Is that your blood?”
“Most of it.”
“Did you-“
“Fuck off, Phoe,” Blake snapped suddenly, expression snapping into a mask of rage. “The sun’ll be up in an hour. Let me have it to myself.”
“Not if you-“
“If I what? Killed someone? That’s what you’re worried about, right?”
As Blake struggled to his feet, using the balcony as a support, Phoenix could find nothing to say. Once the leech was standing, he leant down and grabbed a half-empty bottle, raising it to his lips and drinking deeply before continuing.
“You’ve been living with me no problem all this time. You were never afraid to touch me, in any fucking way you liked. You trusted me, right?”
Phoenix’s eyes widened and he answered quickly, noticing Blake’s choice of tense too late.
“Of course.”
“But one fucking word from that nephilim bastard and you start asking me questions like that. It was very special then, your trust.”
Phoenix stepped forward again, bringing him within two metres of Blake. He’d never seen the leech like this, the raw emotion shining in his eyes that he had always suspected was buried somewhere beneath the apathy. Phoenix had first noticed it when Kari had asked about Blake’s past, New York, numbers.
“Will you just get the fuck out of here?” Blake spat, raising the bottle to his lips again and emptying it. “If you’re not going to say anything then leave.”
Realising he had been staring without speaking, Phoenix shook himself a little and took a deep breath. Silhouetted against the slowly rising sun, a bottle clutched in one hand and eyes burning amber, Blake put him in mind of a cornered animal, a puma waiting to strike.
“I don’t want to leave,” he said softly.
“Why not?”
“Because we’re friends. Aren’t we?”
Blake shrugged. “You tell me.”
“I don’t know.” He’d answered before he thought about it but he realised it to be the truth. “Not anymore. I used to think that-“
“Shut up. I don’t wanna hear it. I want you to leave me alone.”
“So you can do what?”
“I dunno. Drink. Break something.”
“Like a person?”
“Maybe. Or myself. Whatever the fuck I want. You got a problem with that?”
“Would you kill someone?”
Blake was silent. He closed his eyes in case he cried for the first time in years. Mistaking this reaction for a reluctance to agree, Phoenix licked his suddenly dry lips.
“Kari said you were dangerous.”
Blake turned, looking out towards the distant hint of a rising sun. His eyes burned even though his eyelids.
“If I had asked, he would have answered,” Phoenix continued. “But I didn’t. I want to hear it from you. What happened in New York?”
Silence. Phoenix took another tentative step forward.
“Why were you going to die there?”
Another step. The silence wavered as Blake shifted his weight to his other foot, his muscles tense.
“What does ‘Zero’ mean?”
Blake turned quickly, sending two bottles rolling under the balcony railings. They crashed to the pavement far below, the sound pale in comparison to the crash as he brought the bottle he had been holding down on the top of the railing. He stepped forwards, one foot now inside the room and raised his arm. Phoenix’s eyes widened as half a broken bottle was held out towards him for the first time in his life.
“It means he was right,” Blake hissed, eyes narrowed. “It means I’m fucking dangerous. It means that shit happened in New York that you can’t even begin to understand. It means that if I was human I’d have died hundreds of times already.”
Phoenix raised one hand as if to deflect a blow and opened his mouth to speak. Blake ignored him, taking another step forwards so that the jagged glass edge was close to the redhead’s throat.
“It means that I’ve killed people. And yeah, you know what? I could do it again. It’s a lot easier than you’d think.”
Phoenix blinked, his heart in his throat and he was too frightened to hear the words Blake spoke with his eyes only.
But not you. Never you.
“I didn’t think you were like this,” Phoenix said, voice barely above a whisper.
“Well, you were right, back there. You know fuck all about me. This...all this friendship shit was never going to work. I lied to you. There are monsters Phoe. And you’ve been fucking one.”
It’s more than that. It’s always been more than that.
The words died in Phoenix’s lips. It was impossible to even think of broaching that topic, the final thing they had yet to share with one another, when Blake was pointing a weapon at him however crude it might be. It wasn’t the right time. He supposed that now it would never be the right time.
“You want me to leave, then?” he asked. His voice shook less than the bottle grasped tightly in Blake’s hand.
“Yes.”
“Fine. I’ll go. But if I do, that’s it. This place is yours.”
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“You know when the rent needs to go out and how much it costs. I know your wages would cover it.”
“Yeah, but-“
“I won’t be coming back.”
For a moment, it looked as if Blake was faltering. The bottle wavered down to the level of Phoenix’s chest and he lowered his eyes to the carpet. There was any number of things either of them could have done or said to keep it that way. But that was gone now, they’d said too much.
“Fine.” The word was little more than a whisper, followed by an unnatural laugh. “That’s just fine, Phoe.”
“I’d be better off,” the redhead said, not sure why he now felt the need to defend his decision. “I’ve got five more scars since I met you. It’s not good for...for work.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“So I’m going to go.”
It took an age for him to turn, his feet having turned to blocks of ice that were melting slowly under the heat of Blake’s stare. Phoenix wasn’t sure whether he was angrier than he was anything else. He was sure Blake was more drunk than anything else but that was his fault. All of it was his fault. If only he...
“Why won’t you tell me?” Phoenix asked suddenly, half-turned towards the door. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Blake lower the bottle to his side and close his eyes. “Would it really be that difficult?”
“Yeah. It’d kill me. Is that what you want now?”
“No. I just-“
“Ah, forget it. Just go.”
Phoenix remained motionless. The moment spun out and stretched, the sounds of the world outside sounded strangled and distorted. This was the real world, these words hanging in the air. The words being thought so loudly they lanced through the air like screams weren’t real, couldn’t be answered until they were spoken.
So they didn’t hear all you have to do is ask me to stay. They didn’t hear all you have to do is admit you don’t want to leave. Somehow, they both heard the silent plea of please, god, don’t leave me alone, not again. Neither answered.
The silence was broken by Phoenix’s heavy tread leaving the room and approaching the bedroom, followed by shuffling sounds as he pushed some clothes into his workbag left by the door. He didn’t hear Blake approaching because the leech hadn’t moved and was still standing just inside the living room, eyes closed and teeth sunk so far into his lower lip he almost choked on blood.
The front door was pulled open gently but the sound was unmistakeable. As he heard Phoenix hesitating on the threshold, Blake spat blood onto the carpet and raised his voice.
“If you think that I’m gonna remember you, you’re wrong.”
“I don’t.”
The door was pulled softly shut until it kissed the frame with a distinct click. Blake counted footsteps in his head, knowing how many Phoenix would need to take, waiting until he would be halfway down the stairs. The bottle had had been holding crashed into the floor, flung with enough force to break the neck off and leave both ends jagged. He turned and tripped onto the balcony, grabbing onto the rail with white fingers and staring down at the street.
There was an ‘if’, somewhere. Something like ‘if he looks back’ or ‘if he’s learnt how to cry’ or even ‘if he hesitates’. When Phoenix left the building, crunching broken glass beneath his feet, and turned left away from the balcony so Blake couldn’t see his face the leech was sure it was meant to be some sort of sign from a god who had only just decided to admit he existed.
And it still hurt. The only ‘if’ left now was ‘if I can drink enough so that I never have to wake up’.
He turned away from the light that was now bright enough to prickle his skin and slipped on an empty bottle, sending him flying into the living room and slumping to the carpet. He started to roll onto his back, pushing the edge of the broken bottle into the soft flesh of his upper arm. After a pause, he continued rolling, staring defiantly at the ceiling as the glass sliced through skin and tissue and his blood stained the pristine carpet.
It was his carpet now. What did it matter?
Once he was lying on his back and his breathing was ragged with hurt, he twisted over and brought his other fist down on the bottle with strength that could only come from a pain sharper than that which was ripping through his nerves. The bottle splintered and broke under his fist, shards and lumps of glass digging into his fingers and knuckles. The edges sticking into his arm were now freed from the whole, the sudden pressure having also pushed them in further.
As Phoenix doubled back on himself and saw that Blake was definitely not waiting on the balcony for him to come back, Blake sat up and raised fingers studded with tiny glass knives to his arm. He began to pull the fragments out slowly, gripping each one with firm fingers that didn’t shake and twisting them to the left like this before removing them.
Phoenix walked under the balcony in the direction of the club and learnt to cry.
The doorman was surprised to see Phoenix approaching in the early morning light. He commented on the strange time of the redhead’s arrival so that he wouldn’t have to comment on the blood still matting the hair at the nape of his neck or the tear tracks through the alley-floor grime on his cheeks.
It was quiet in the bar but not empty, there always being someone with too much money and time needing their attention. Phoenix had never been to work this early, having laughed outright when he’d been offered the five to ten shift. He scanned the room with eyes that felt raw against his eyelids and realised he didn’t recognise anyone working the floor. A few girls, young, and some older guys were milling around in his usual spot under the clock. They were clustered around the first customer of the day, four in the morning being counted as night, and all turned to face him as he almost fell down the stairs.
Ignoring them, he headed for the closest chair and sank into it, clothes squeaking against the shiny leather. It felt wrong, too pristine and artificial after the last forty-eight hours. He closed his eyes and tried to put it out of his mind. Nothing was going to change by going over it again and again, like watching a movie with an end he wished he could change. He felt sober now, too sober, but more tired than he could bear. Surely no one would stop him from sleeping here. He’d been a good worker for years and was probably owed a favour for putting up with Diana for so long.
He almost smiled. There it was, a normal, everyday thought. A thought that had nothing to do with the world he had fallen into when he pushed Blake into sharing with him. Since his mother had told him about his real father at seventeen he had craved knowledge and understanding of that world, something that could excuse his behaviour and colour his surroundings with something more than everyday concerns. Not being able to find any information himself, he had filled this void with physical sensation, always pushing the boundaries and putting himself into situations others wouldn’t want to imagine, just to assure himself he was different.
And now he knew he was different. He had never wanted to fade into the background as much as he did that morning. When a light voice interrupted his thoughts it seemed that this wasn’t possible.
“Excuse me, but you work here right?”
He opened his eyes to see a blue-eyed blonde watching him closely. She was dressed in something resembling a school uniform and so obviously worked at the club herself. He blinked slowly at her and nodded.
“I thought so!” she chirped, her voice far too happy. “You’re Phoenix, right? We thought we’d never meet you since you always take the afternoon shift.”
“Uh, yeah,” he said stupidly, not sure where this was going. “Who are you?”
“My name’s-“
“Let him rest, Siobhan. “
Phoenix opened his eyes to see Andre coming to his rescue. As always around the grizzled barman, he felt a wave of calm begin to erode his anxiety. Andre sent the girl away with a few choice words and she returned to her gaggle of colleagues who shot Phoenix confused glances for the remainder of his stay. Andre moved to sit in the sofa opposite him, putting a glass filled with clear liquid down on the table between them.
“What’s that?” Phoenix asked, forcing his voice to sound casual.
“Water. You look like you need it.”
Smiling a little at how inverted his life seemed to have become, Phoenix leant forward and took the glass with a grateful nod. The water was cold enough to burn his throat but he could feel it doing wonders already. He glanced back over to the blonde and her companions.
“Who’s she?”
“Your alter-ego. She’s the one that draws what little of a crowd we get this time of day.”
“Oh. She’s cute.”
Andre waited a moment and then raised an eyebrow. “That’s all you have to say? She’s even blonde. What’s up, kiddo? Why the hell are you in so early?”
Phoenix waved the hand that wasn’t holding the glass vaguely in the air between them.
“Necessity. Why are you here? Do you never stop working?”
Andre shrugged and leant back in his chair, watching Phoenix’s expression and not the state he was in. The redhead was more grateful than he knew how to handle. Any insensitive comments would pierce right through his ego-barrier that was for sure.
“Sometimes. I like the morning shifts though. Less idiots.”
“Is that ‘cause I’m not there?”
“How did you guess?”
They lapsed into soft laughing, drawing more than a few confused stairs from across the room. Silence swept over them after that and Andre waited until Phoenix had finished his glass of water, brief smile completely faded, before speaking.
“What happened, Phoenix?” His voice was low. “I’m not asking for details. I’m not even asking for the truth. I just want to know if you’re going to be okay. You’d never be here unless something had happened. You’re normally so eager to get home.”
Phoenix didn’t answer, resting his head back against the chair and closing his eyes. Even in the midst of a conversation, he felt the need for sleep. He just wanted to fade out for a while, dream of everything normal in the world and wake to a life that made sense. As skewed and dodgy as his life had always been, he’d never felt this lost before. He was murmuring before he had considered it.
“I’ve got no home,” he started. “Barely any of my stuff. I’m hungover and my head is killing me from where some bastard knocked me out. I’m lucky to still have my life, Andre. And do you know what bothers me the most? That I could deal with all of that. But there’s something else. It’s so pathetic.”
“The American.”
Andre spoke in a voice just above a murmur, certain in his assumption. Phoenix almost laughed, dragging himself back into a proper sitting position and watching the bartender through red-rimmed eyes.
“Yeah. How did you...how have you always known stuff like this, old man? You even know what he-“
“Yes, I do,” Andre cut in. “And I know about you, too. Don’t ask me why, I’m not going to explain. I’ve got a good life, working here, as good as I’m going to get. I don’t want to be involved any more than I have to be. Look at yourself, kid. You understand that, right?”
Phoenix blinked and nodded, not having to check. Idly, he wondered just what made Andre so special. Had he just been around people like them for too long? Or was he...different? Either way, Phoenix was too tired to care.
“Yeah. I understand. Thanks. Sorry if I crossed a line there. I mean...I just lost my best friend, Andre. I’d never had one before. Turns out I’m not as cool as I like to pretend, huh?”
Andre offered him a warm smile and reached across the distance to lay a large hand on Phoenix’s shoulder. The touch was warm and friendly. Simple. It cast Phoenix’s mind back to days he was sure he’d never get back. Simple touches, simple words. He’d been pushing for the truth but what did that matter when the world turned out to be this cold?
“I need sleep,” he said quietly, eyes unfocussed. “I need to sleep to make my brain shut up. I’m starting to sound like...hah. Like him. Typical.”
He was teetering on the edge of delirium and knew it by the way he couldn’t concentrate on anything. The hands of the clock swam and blurred as he looked at them, the faces of the other workers twisted. Andre’s hand on his shoulder was the only thing anchoring him.
“My shift’s almost over,” the bartender said. “Come back with me. You’ve got nowhere to stay, I have a sofa. As long as you find somewhere else to stay on Friday nights, you’re welcome for as long as you need.”
Phoenix nodded, too sleepy to question anything. He rose to his feet with a little help, the familiar action triggering a familiar question. What’s Blake doing right now? Phoenix bit back on the question. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going home.
“Lead the way,” he said with a sigh. “Just get me out of here.”
The flat was dark.
Once the sunlight had grown bright enough to turn his skin red, Blake had dragged himself up from the floor and pulled the heavy curtains across. Not that it mattered since he’d left the living room anyway. In the daylight, the broken glass was too sharp, the blood too bright. He’d wandered to the bathroom without any difficulty, wishing he was limping.
Clothes torn and skin smeared with dried blood, the leech did not have a scratch to show for his actions. He wasn’t grateful. Sometimes, he didn’t want to heal. Sometimes, he wanted the wounds to cut deep and to last forever. The scars could keep the deeper ones in his heart company.
It was even worse when he was clean. He stood in the shower, water turned to freezing. Not to combat the burning from the sun but just because he could. If it wasn’t going to kill him he might as well push his body to every limit he could find. The thick blinds in every room were drawn, as they always were when Phoenix had been out. They’d made the flat virtually sun tight. Blake wondered if he’d have bothered closing them had they been open.
He stood beneath the water with his eyes closed, not wanting to see the red spirals escaping down the drain. Half an hour, fifty minutes...he didn’t know how long he’d been there. If he started to freeze solid, maybe he’d move. Maybe he wouldn’t. It didn’t matter. No one else would be using the shower, after all.
“If I had asked, he would have answered. But I didn’t. I want to hear it from you. What happened in New York?"
The leech’s eyes opened slowly, amber orbs burning in the shadows. And for the first time, he tried to imagine himself telling Phoenix everything. The words he’d choose, the examples he’d give, the way he wouldn’t be able to sit still. He tried to picture Phoenix’s reactions. It wasn’t hard. For all his faults, the redhead was a good person, a normal guy with a normal heart. There was only one way a normal person would react.
Fear. Disgust. Pity. Blake didn’t want any of those things. He already had two of them, anyway. The pity would be more than he could bear.
Closing his eyes again, he turned the water back to hot, to scalding. Maybe his skin would just disintegrate under the heat. He might as well find out.
He didn’t hear the rustle of grey wings as a creature slipped out of the room and shut the front door behind them.