sink to the bottom

[madimpossibledreamer]

Andrew briefly considered buying Xander a pack of smokes and went ‘that’s not going to help’.

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Constantine|Hellblazer
Summary: Living and surviving are two different things.
Word Count: 1515
Rating: Teen, with the warnings. because it wouldn't be constantine or hellblazer without the warnings
Warnings: general Constantine warnings, including but not limited to survivor's guilt, Xander's self-hatred and self-destructive tendencies, public restroom horror (kinda akin to the Justice League Dark movie scene if you've seen it), blasphemy, implied rape and/or murder, potentially unhealthy attitudes toward sex

 

         Xander stares. The broken reflection stares back, look in the eye hollow. Fitting, he thinks, sneering. “Mate, you’re a bit of a vampire,” he tells his reflection. Quiet, no need to disturb the others every time he has the slightest twinge. His reflection just echoes his words, doesn’t respond. It’s not exactly a given, these days, what with the whole hell on earth they’d only just sidestepped. Mayhap some poor sap before him hadn’t been so lucky, explaining the mirror shards that might well be due to getting punched. Someone hadn’t liked what they’d seen, or heard. His breathing is shallow. He could rot away here, almost respectable-like. If he breathes in just a little too deep, a little too bold, it’s petrol, cigarette smoke in utter contempt of the no smoking sign, alcohol probably released from its confines in the shards of glass on the floor, bodily fluids sticking around in defiance of the overpowering bleach and Febreze, and at the top of the loser’s potpourri the sick he’d just had in the stained toilet. It’s only a minor bloody miracle no one’s left a gun, though probably best for the state of things as this disturbing parody of a bathroom’s mere existence could sap one’s will to live. His hands shake as he places them on the sink, propping himself up. He doesn’t particularly want to touch the stains, but it’s probably better than curling up on the floor and probably catching fifteen different diseases, courtesy of the traveling public.
         “Curse doesn’t cover the entirety of me, does it?” His stomach lurches, and he curls up a little, resting his head against the chipped, stained porcelain, hair picking up water and soap and who knows what the hell else in the process. So much for avoiding disease, but some part of him would welcome that flagellation. Hair shirts are so last century. “Oh, Daddy Above, if you’re still up there and bloody care about this failure, I’d like to confess the sin of daring to think I was allowed to be happy for a single minute.” This is...dangerous, and he knows it, but a part of him doesn’t particularly care about the open blasphemy, either. He waits a moment, but he’s not struck dead on the spot. Probably as it’s not worth the effort. If it was, well, he would’ve died, wouldn’t he? Not like there wasn’t a perfectly good chance to rid the earth of him not too long ago. They deserve better, all of them, than to have been reduced from perfectly happy, alive, vital humans to the purgatory of existence only in his memories. Hell, he barely deserves that, and look at him.
         He glances back up to the mirror, turning his head rather than attempting to straighten up. Too afraid his legs will just buckle.
         Thoughts flit through his mind, thoughts he knows better than acknowledge in the light of day, but he’s at the end of his rope. Just a broken neck left to go. Maybe they’ll just leave him here to rot. He matches the décor, all empty and half-dead, putrefying and more than worth burning down with a little hellfire. No foundation to build from, here.
         He’d managed to keep it together up until the stop. Waited politely for everyone else to have a go before he excused himself for a piss. Manages not to make a mad dash for it. They won, didn’t they? No reason to go raining on everyone else’s parade, just ‘cause he’s a right raincloud.
         And then he realizes he’s gone and made himself a little too open. It’s the vulnerability. Usually a mistake, he knows, but here—it’s unisex, it’s outside the store, and despite ‘having to ask for a key’, it’s false advertising. The door doesn’t lock. A darkness lurks here, lone travelers attacked. He can taste it on his tongue, feel it bleeding into his eyes. Feebly he tries to push himself up, but he can’t anymore, joints locked in place. He can’t even scream. They’d noticed, sensed the danger, stationed one of their own outside, just to keep an eye on the place, but it’s not near enough.
         As usual, like the coward he is, he panics. Not a minute ago, he’d wanted this, this destruction. This pain. Now he’s being digested, though, he’s desperate to keep inflicting himself on a world that doesn’t deserve it.
         “Hey, leave my sweetie alone!” Andrew yells, kicking open the door. Music to his ears, saccharine tint to the warlock’s words notwithstanding. Suddenly his world’s on fire, literally, like he’d been half-fantasizing, but his flesh doesn’t so much as bubble. Hellfire. Comforting, somehow. He catches just the hint of a strand of pride for his little warlock sidekick even as he coughs, the previous smells all grown stronger with the little barbeque. And suddenly he’s free, but Andrew catches him before he can fall to his knees, propping him up, in more than one sense of the word. Starts to pull him outside as he coughs and gags. “I, um. I’m pretty sure we all had a breakdown in here. It wasn’t just you.”
         Even Buffy? His touch seems to be failing him. Time was he’d catch that. He’d thought the fearless leader was doing better, for the first time in a while. “Sorry to hear that,” he mumbles, pressing a sloppy kiss to the back of Andrew’s neck, only to have him giggle and push lightly.
         “We are not having sex in a gas station bathroom that just tried to kill us,” Andrew states firmly.
         Xander’s laugh sounds weak and feeble to his own ears, but it’s...kinda like that tiny sapling struggling to make a living, surrounded by the concrete like that. “And if it hadn’t been a little on the murderous side?” He sits gratefully on the hard, grey fruits of so-called civilization. Drinks in the smell of fresh petrol, rather than the stale, ancient variety.
         “We’re hitting a motel, apparently, at which point we’re going to ensure we get several noise complaints. After we have showers and maybe don’t smell like vomit and everything else in there,” Andrew informs him sincerely, smiling and patting his arm when he finds that vaguely hysterical. “You didn’t let me finish, and it’s not like we even really had the time, but...it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t manipulate her into saving me or anything. I know your brain’s trying to tell you it was on you, because it was your ex saving your current partner, but your brain is wrong. Okay?” Xander shivers. “I won’t say it was selfish, on her part, and it’s hard to explain, but...I think it was for her. Not like she thought she was being a hero, but—she’d been so scared of dying uselessly. I think all of us were worried about that.”
         It just papers over the gaping wound, but maybe someday it’ll be a scar. Survivor’s guilt, eh? Naming it’s the first step in magic, innit. Maybe they can conjure up some self-esteem between them yet.
         Andrew helps him up, hands intimate, and then seems content to hold his hand all the way back to the bus. He hadn’t particularly thought that Andrew was lying, but the truth reflects in their eyes. Not a distorted reflection, either, honest and genuine. Sympathy. Not pity, no matter how his brain tries to twist it to fit. Perhaps his breakdown had been the worst, but none of them are taking this well. “To the dead and the living,” he states quietly, raising an imaginary glass, and Willow giggles. It’s been a long time, actually. They’ve all been suffering, and his gaze has been a little too self-pitying, narrowed to a single point, to so much as notice.
         “Agreed.” Giles goes along with it, mimicking the gesture, and Buffy stretches, making a face.
         “Yeah, but I’m really, really happy the First isn’t going to be mocking us with wearing their faces anymore.” The silence that follows hurts a little, the sting of loss, but at least it’s not that same all-consuming emptiness.
         “I called ahead, and a friend will be giving us enough to stay in a motel for a night,” Giles elaborates—so they deserve being in on the plan all of a sudden, it seems.
         “A friend, huh?” Faith teases just to watch him get flustered.
         Xander wars with himself only briefly before deciding to lie down on Andrew’s lap, eye beginning to blink when Andrew starts to run a hand through the blond hair.
         “I get the feeling our hostage is your responsibility now, Xander.” Dawn’s voice is fond, not judging, from where she’s perched her chin over the seat facing them. Like they’re not equally likely to get something from the bus, when little brats are little germ factories.
         “Nothin’ new there, then,” Xander yawns, consciousness stuttering. Hostage is a bit of an exaggeration to begin with, when Andrew had practically volunteered as sacrifice.
         Breakdown timer reset, check back in in another few hours. Longer, if he’s earned any luck through the past days.