"when brimstone wraps around your sheets like soft rose petals
and the clocks on main street are calling out in
orgiastic abandon, then,
really, truely, that's the day
the closer we race
we learn that, for each deed he performs, the more we wait, the more
waiting gives the devil time."
~
Sunset never had the same appeal after Toby's throat got slit.
~
"Toby, Toby. Talk to me. Keep your eyes open, baby."
Slaps Toby, sharp, to make sure those eyes don't shut. He's pushing back the inevitable, with a stunned Muslim, a girl who seems helpless and is stronger than the three of them put together, and a disgruntled bleach-blond punk. A gurgle sounds, and Tobias Beecher coughs up blood.
"Toby, come on. Remember when that fucker shanked you? He's not gonna win."
"Keller. I don't think--"
"Just shut up, Said. Not now."
It's easier, oh so much easier, to fall in love when the object of your affections is dying.
A hand raised, covered in blood. How fucking poetic, Keller snarls in his brain, and keeps pressure on the side of Toby's neck. Blood's not slowing down, not nearly fast enough. Not fast enough by far.
They're losing him.
And Chris, he's suddenly retching, heaving, slightly. Finding this all too amusing, as well, since Toby's the one bleeding, he's taken over the ritual vomiting. Luckily, none of the others have noticed, because they might think that Chris was going soft.
"Come on, baby."
Come on.
~
They'd had a day in the park, while Spike paced around making a mess of their filthy apartment, waiting for a time when he too could walk around under the open sky. Looking back on it, Chris feels desperate, just for that day, wishing the sun could stay in the sky, that just for that day, they could live normal. Just a day. But then, they only had a day, and the sun was going to set whether they wanted it to or not, and that was that.
Questioned later, Chris would claim that there was nothing he could have done to stop it. And he would be telling the absolute truth, really and truly, he would. But some little part of him would always whisper otherwise. Deep in that place, the same place that knew he never deserved to be forgiven at all, he knew that wherever Toby was in the afterlife, he wasn't doling out redemption for men like Christopher Keller. Not now, not ever.
Each time he thought about it, where is he now, a new white scar line appeared on Chris' arm the next morning, as if by magic.
Magic was the normal in this town, though, in this life. He shouldn't think too much about it, and in reality, he didn't. He was going through life, same as always. Death, it didn't affect him. And love, he had less to do to even the score. Vern was gone, Toby was gone. There wasn't nothing to touch him.
He almost didn't miss it.
~
"You tried, Keller."
"I know."
"Nothing would have stopped him. We all tried."
"I should have been here sooner..."
And then, immediately, all eyes turn to the Slayer, little nineteen year old girl hoping to save the world, one vampire at a time. Chris is left in the dust, because he's able to cope, and Said puts a hand on the bitch's shoulder, and murmurs in her ear.
Keller stands up, wipes Toby's blood off on his new jeans. Fuck, man. Those were brand new.
Toby's eyes stare up at him from underneath closed eyelids, and somehow manage to ask all those things that he never did while he was still alive. Murder, yeah, Keller was there. Lying, yeah Toby. When you asked if I loved you, half the time I was lyin' to make you feel better. Using you -- we all use each other. But.
To get to know you better, people should use you.
Something else Toby had quoted from someplace or somewhen or a time that still made sense in his life, and right now, Chris is clinging to it, just a little, because hey, he used Toby every single day. But that meant that he knew Toby in and out, too, right? Right.
Just something from a book. Right.
His eyes still stare up at nothing when Chris slips away, watching Said and the blond chick talking about revenge.
~
The first time Chris ever realized how much Toby meant, the bastard wasn't there, and wouldn't be there for quite some time. In the hospital; Toby was always in the hospital when Chris needed him most. There's just nothing for it, nothing to be done. Everything depends on Toby getting out of the hospital so Chris can become whole and make sense, again.
He's not getting out of the hospital this time; he's not in the hospital, this time. Toby found his way into a nice, metal, box, and no doctor can fix this ache. Not that Chris has the medical coverage to even try.
So, he's left alone again, waiting for a better job, a better lover, a reason to die. He's left in a town that hates humans, and a place that hates him; all these places hate him, because he's an integral part of the healing process, but there's still nothing to be done.
Ain't nothing to be done, now or never, to cede this ache. It comes from waiting, and Chris knows the more he waits to die, the more waiting is digging him a pit in hell, to name his own. Toby's body ain't standing in the way anymore, and now he's waiting for anything to change.
But, he knows, it won't. Nothing's gonna change anymore, so he might as well just wait on the devil himself.