Ghosts

I squinted in the mild illumination of Lex's bedroom, unsuccessfully trying to make out the features of the painting on the wall in front of me. It was darker in here than it had been before, but the darkness was a blessing. My head was pounding, I was terribly thirsty, and nearly every part of my body ached. I felt as though someone had run me through a blender and then put me back together rather sloppily. Bright light would be a torture at the moment. Perhaps, I thought, I had slept until night and it wouldn't be an issue. I tried to move, but my limbs felt like dead weights, and it was difficult. Finally I succeeded in rolling on my back and stretching my legs out. Breathing was a little hard; my lungs ached, possibly from all the gasping for breath while I struggled and sobbed beneath...no. I tried to shove the thought aside, but things were coming back to me. Around orgasm number four, time had started to get really distorted, but based on my current physical state he must have actually fucked me for hours.

"Jesus," I muttered, and my throat felt very sore and strange. Had he choked me, at some point? Or maybe it was just from all the...sounds I had been making. I wasn't certain. My eyes fluttered shut. It could be that more rest was in order. But just as I was about to drift into oblivion, a stronger pain began to thrum against the inside of my skull, and a familiar wetness trailed down my face. My eyes snapped open. Shit. Now I had to get up. I succeeded in pulling the covers off myself, and glanced down at my naked body- pale and thin, flat-chested, with quite a tapestry of bruises and scrapes.

"Move," I told the body.

I felt the spark within me that I had been searching for, and animated myself to stand, locate and pull on the robe I had been wearing before, and stumble to the bedroom door. I paused and leaned my forehead against the cool, solid wood. I took a few deep breaths, ignoring the pain. The pain was irrelevant- the only thing now was calming my short circuiting brain before the situation became disastrous. Brent had always been anxious-looking and reluctant to give a direct answer whenever I asked if the headaches could be causing actual physical brain damage, and I considered that pretty worrying. As my hand grasped the doorknob I paused, apprehensive, wondering if Lex was waiting for me on the other side. But this also was irrelevant. I would have to face him eventually.

I opened the door, and was immediately greeted with a blinding shaft of sunlight that went straight through my eyes and into my brain like a fiery hot knife. I slammed the door shut, leaning my head against it again, and let out a long stream of curses as my nose dripped blood onto the tops of my feet, making gross little splat sounds. I opened the door again, and stumbled through the living room with my eyes open as little as possible, shielding them with my hands. By the time I got to the refrigerator my legs started to give up, but that was fine. This was as far as I needed to go. I pulled open the door as I knelt on the floor, savoring the cooled air that rushed over my face, pulled out a bright green bottle and popped off the cap. I shut the door and nearly fell backwards so that I was sitting with my back against the side of the kitchen counter and my legs stretched in front of me. I kept my eyes closed as I savored the first few sips, the chilled liquid easing the soreness of my throat, and then forced myself to chug the rest of it.

Damn, esterwine was definitely an improvement on human alcohol-you could get drunk and rehydrate at the same time. I waited for a moment, and felt the very first tendrils of a buzz coming on, but I wasn't sure it would be enough. I remembered the relative mildness of the drink I'd had the night before. I could definitely remedy my situation if I added pot to the mix...but getting back up, going into the bedroom, loading up a bowl...this seemed an impossible endeavor at the moment. So I scooted back over to the fridge door and grabbed bottle number two, which I sipped slowly until I'd consumed half of it, at which point the headache was starting to abate, and it seemed my nose was no longer dripping blood. As soon as the pressure in my head lessoned, the fatigue overtook me. I made an attempt to get up and go back to the bedroom, but my body disagreed with me, and I ended up pushing the partially full bottle away from me and stretching out on my side, my head resting on my arm. I felt like I could sleep more now, and maybe I would. Why not- the apartment appeared blissfully empty. Except for the prominent sounds outside that alerted me the fire escape window was open, I couldn't hear anyone moving around. I began to strive for the peace unconsciousness would provide, and I drifted. And then the bathroom door opened.

My eyes snapped open, all thoughts of rest escaped me, and I struggled to sit back up. I was partially successful. I ended up leaning in a lopsided way against the counter again. I looked with bleary eyes to the bathroom, where steam billowed out and a cheerful-looking Lex emerged, naked and damp, toweling off his head and hair as he walked towards the bedroom, not even glancing at me. Yet, he addressed me as he walked across the living room.

"I'm surprised you're up already. I thought you'd still be passed out when I left."

I said nothing, and then he paused at the open bedroom door. Perhaps he smelled the blood, because he turned on his heel and actually looked at me. I imagined I was a rather pitiful sight to behold, somewhere between sitting and laying, with a little puddle of blood on the floor, blood on my face, covered in bruises with rather cut up looking lips, straggled hair, and generally miserable expression. His cheerful expression faltered slightly, and he gave a put-upon sigh, then turned and walked into the bedroom.

Alright, then. I discontinued all efforts to stay remotely upright and collapsed back to the floor, studying the ceiling, which was painted a weird but not-ugly shade of brown. I was probably getting blood in my hair. I didn't care. I found myself trying to imagine myself somewhere different, somewhere nice, but the truth was, I just didn't have any nice memories to build that on.

I heard footsteps approaching me, but kept my eyes on the ceiling, until Lex's searching face appeared over top of me as he stood, fully dressed now (black t-shirt, black jeans, go figure). He had his damp towel clutched in his hand, and he sighed at me again.

"Is this really going to be a regular thing? Christ, what a lemon of a slave you're turning out to be."

But he didn't sound angry, and his lips quirked slightly. He knelt beside me and gently helped me back into a sitting position, and then began wiping off my face with the towel in the same manner a mother might clean a off a child after they'd eaten something particularly messy. I let him do it, saying nothing, trying not to look directly at him. Even if I'd felt capable of conversation, I had no idea what to say. He walked over and opened the door to the closet-type area by the bathroom that contained a small washer and dryer, and tossed it onto a pile of clothes before coming back to me. When he moved near me too quickly to snatch up the bottles of esterwine I couldn't help but flinch, and he glanced at me briefly, but didn't acknowledge it. He tossed the empty bottle into the trash and held onto the other as he turned at studied me for a moment.

"You look like shit," he said matter-of-factly.

I just stared at him. He knelt again and rolled up the sleeves of my robe, studying the bruises on my arms and wrists. As he loosened the ties of my robe with his free hand and exposed me, I turned my head to the side and closed my eyes, but he just ran his rough fingertips lightly over the front of me and then closed the robe over me without tying it. When I looked at him again, he was frowning, and seemed troubled by something.

"I really didn't think you'd be this damaged," he muttered, almost to himself. "Maybe it's because you're so malnourished...hmmm."

I was actually mildly surprised at how shitty I felt too, given my enhanced healing abilities. But the injuries also seemed within the realm of possibility for the rather rough treatment I'd received last night. Not that I could really blame anyone but myself for that. I'd provoked him...again. I wondered briefly what the fuck was wrong with me, but immediately discarded the question. It would be simpler to ask what wasn't.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose and swallowed, and it felt like I was swallowing over a cactus. Then I jerked, because the vampire had his face in my neck, and he was inhaling deeply...sniffing me. He abruptly stood up and swore.

"You're sick. How is that even fucking possible?" He sounded exasperated.

I was sick? I swallowed again painfully, assessed my over-warm state, and my general feeling of awfulness that didn't seem directly connected to the bruises that covered my body, or even my brain going haywire. Oh, ok. This was being sick. And I even knew where it had come from.

"Oh," I said, my voice resembling the vocalizations of a toad. I swallowed again. The vampire raised his eyebrows.

"The girl I slept next to at The Center...caught something, the last time she was rented out. She had to go to the medical-corrections section for a bit. I don't know what it was. But I must have picked it up."

Lex was still looking displeased, which made me uneasy. I didn't want him displeased with me. I didn't want him...anything with me, or near me. I was clinging to the indication he'd made earlier that he was leaving soon.

"Hmmm," said Lex, still staring down at me. "Still. That really shouldn't be possible. Maybe I should wait to go until tomorrow. I don't suppose it's that urgent..."

My heart sank, and I shook my head. "I'll be fine," I said, but my voice was hoarse and garbled by my increasingly swollen throat.

Lex laughed at me and shook his head. "I might be able to fix you up by tonight, but you're in no state to be left alone today, that's for sure."

He just kept watching me for a while, with unnerving intensity, as if he were searching for something, or mulling over a decision. He was still holding the half full esterwine bottle by the neck, circling his thumb absently around the rim. Finally he seemed to come to some internal consensus, because he relaxed, looked away from me, and set the bottle on the table. He stretched himself and yawned, showing fang and moving his body in a way that was so weirdly snakelike and wrong that I had to look away for a moment, rattled. But just as quickly he resumed his relative humanness and braced his hands on the table, one on either side of the bottle.

"I wasn't really planning on starting this yet, but you're just so...pitiful."

He crinkled his nose at me before his face turned serious, concentrated. I watched with mutual apprehension and fascination as he held up his hands and sharp, black claws began to emerge from underneath his fingernails. I'd never seen anything like that before, or even heard of it. I would have probably been more freaked out if I'd had the energy for it. When they'd reached about half an inch long they appeared finished, and I could only stare as he positioned his left wrist directly over the bottle and used one claw on the opposite hand to cut a clean line across it. I took a sharp breath, expecting blood to come gushing out of the wound, but instead it trickled in a fine, neat stream straight down the neck of the bottle- it was almost as if he could control it. I was mildly transfixed as the red blood mixed with the lighter fluid, churning and bubbling in an unnatural matter, as if a chemical reaction were taking place. As he continued to bleed into the bottle, the churning liquid began to darken and appear thicker, until it was the deepest black, and it looked like a bottle of boiling oil. Occasionally tendrils of the liquid would begin to creep up the neck of the bottle of their own accord, as if it were alive, and Lex would flick a claw lightly against the glass a few times to disrupt their ascent. When the bottle was a little over three quarters full he appeared satisfied and turned his wrist upright, at which point the blood flow stopped almost entirely. He raised his wrist to his mouth in a delicate gesture and licked it several times as an animal might lick a wound, and when he stopped, it appeared completely healed. He brought his right hand to his mouth and licked clean the claw he'd used to make the cut. The claws receded back into his fingertips until his hands appeared human again. But the mix of blood and esterwine was still churning and trying to climb up the sides. Lex pressed his palm against the top of the bottle, snagged a chair with his foot, maneuvered it behind him and sat. He watched the bottle intently and appeared to be waiting for something. After a moment he glanced up at me.

"It just takes a little while," he informed me.

I really didn't know what the fuck was going on.

"What takes"-

He made a gesture to cut me off. "Yeah, you shouldn't talk, your throat is really fucked up and you don't want to make it worse."

I stayed silent. After a while the turmoil within the bottle almost stopped, and the fluid was barely moving- though it did slowly swirl and slosh from side to side a bit very mildly, just enough that it was still eerie. But this was apparently the state he had been trying to achieve, because he removed his hand from the bottle and got up, grabbed a large glass from the cabinet, and proceeded to fill it with ice. Only then did I allow myself to acknowledge what he actually intended, and I began to feel nauseous.

He poured the drink over the ice, and the way the ice popped and fizzled and dissolved almost immediately, so maybe the bubbling had indicated boiling after all. However, what caused it to boil or climb up the side of the glass was a mystery. I really didn't want to consume something that seemed to defy normal physical properties. I watched as Lex added a bit more ice to the glass, and then a bit more, until it had cooled substantially and the ice could float around without being dissolved immediately. The liquid looked a lot more calm now- I couldn't see it moving, and it had been diluted with the melted ice...though the black liquid and the water from the ice didn't seem to be mixing very well. And...well, maybe I did notice a strange, unusual swirling of the black contrasting with the clear water. I really did not feel good about this.

"I'm not drinking that," I croaked.

He seemed utterly unimpressed by my declaration as he concentrated on the contents of the glass. "Mmmmhmm," was all he said. I didn't know what the hell that meant.

"What the fuck is that stuff? Is it alive?" I blurted.

He turned his full attention and focus on me and it was palpable, and his intense stare made me feel more naked than I was underneath my robe.

"I thought I told you not to speak."

I shut up. Talking was difficult anyway. I felt like shit. The fever was rising, and I was starting to sweat, and I really wanted to get out of this robe, but that would mean getting naked in front of him, which I was determined not to do willingly.

"One more minute," Lex informed me. That minute creeped by extremely slowly, but then Lex was walking over to me with the glass and presenting it, just as I had expected it. Slowly I raised my hand and grasped the glass. It was neither hot or cold. I started at the swirling black, and it almost looked like tiny, liquid snakes swimming around in the glass. I closed my eyes.

"What is this going to do to me?" I asked, again breaking his no-talking rule, but he answered me anyway.

"Help make you better."

I swallowed. I would definitely like to feel better. Whatever this was getting worse rapidly enough to worry me, and it probably didn't help that I had no memory of being sick before this. I looked again at the black liquid snakes in my glass. They were forming rather intricate patterns. There would have been something beautiful and enchanting about it, I admitted to myself, if I was not faced with the prospect of gulping it down.

"Will it harm me? Will it change me in some way?" My voice had turned to a sort of choking whisper.

"Ohhh," drawled Lex, in a tone that suggested I was being silly. "I guarantee it won't hurt you more than anything else that's been done to you."

That was not reassuring, but I guess it was all I was going to get. I still held the glass in both hands, the bottom of it resting on my lap. I swirled it around tentatively.

"Will it give me superpowers?"

"Oh, now you're just stalling," Lex said, but he laughed. He knelt near me again, and pulled my left hand away from the glass, massaging it slightly. Then his fingers slowly slid, searchingly, sensuously, down my arm, until they were running over the ridge in at the breaking mark of the bone, toying with it, circling it with his thumb.

"But in the end, none of that matters, does it? Because you're going to drink it now."

I supposed that was true. I raised the glass to my lips, and drank.

I had to suppress the immediate, reflexive urge to spit if everywhere. I didn't even register the taste- all my attention centered on the fact that it squirmed inside my mouth, writhing over and under my tongue. I forced myself to swallow it, and looked at the remainder of the glass miserably. I glanced at Lex, who crossed his arms and gave me an irritated look.

"What."

"It moves," I whispered, desperately hoping he would sympathize. He rolled his eyes as if I were being ridiculous, even as he bent and took the glass from my hands, inspecting it.

"It's got to be at least 95 percent inert, and that 5 percent isn't going to hurt you."

Oh, God. He was going to force me to drink it.

But he didn't. Instead he set the glass on the table and dropped a few more ice cubes in it. Then he opened the kitchen drawer nearest the counter-which apparently did not contain kitchen supplies, because he produced a cigarette and a lighter, and began to smoke.

A peculiar consequence of the Vamp invasion was a complete revival of the tobacco industry. Perhaps nicotine did something for them, but Vamps seemed utterly uninterested in the electronic devices that had almost entirely replaced cigarettes. Mostly, they just seemed to enjoy the novelty of breathing fire- and it wasn't as though it could actually hurt them. Lex's pleasure was obvious as he took long drags on the cig, occasionally blowing smoke rings. A couple minutes ticked by, in which I kept glancing nervously between Lex and the mysterious, volatile beverage. Not until he finished the cig did he retrieve the glass and hand it to me.

"Alright, no more being a baby about it. Drink."

I looked at it. The black liquid still seemed unable to merge with the water, but it was no longer moving in a way that seemed unnatural. I took a sip, and to my relief it no longer felt like I was drinking tiny, live worms. I was reminded of a thick, chocolaty tasting beer- but strangely tangy and spicy, as though someone had stirred in some siracha sauce. It was not so unpleasant. It was drinkable.

I sipped it slowly while Lex poured himself a bowl of cereal and ate standing, leaning against the counter, crunching loudly. When he finished, he slurped down the leftover milk. It was just weird when he acted so human and...normal. I drained the last of the glass around the same time, and my throat was already feeling slightly better. I guessed it was working...whatever the hell it was.

"Can you stand?"

I assessed myself. I was hot and sticky and generally felt gross, and I still ached all over. My ears felt as though someone had stuffed warm cotton into them, and I had to pee. Yet I wasn't as nauseous or dizzy as I had been. I slowly got to my feet and took a few experimental, wobbly steps. Lex steadied me, and began to lead me out of the kitchen.