Nightshade: A SimLit | Chapter 111: Chains That Bind

 

There are endless things to do on the weekend. For most people, it's time spent with family, catching up on chores they fell behind on during the week, or going out for a night on the town with their friends. And then, on the very bottom of the list of popular weekend activities, is what Tiffany and Damon do: 

Spending all night getting drunk and high in the weird neighbors' creepy secret druggie basement.

Criminal activities aside, their love-hate relationship with the neighbors was a long story. It started with the first pair to take residence in the house next-door: Briar Thorne, a femme fatale vampire with a part-time job at the local strip club, and her girlfriend Calliope Corisande, or Callie for short; a man-hating Siren seductress. As the weeks passed, more roommates joined them to split the rent cheaply enough for anyone desperate enough to live in Evergreen Harbor's trashiest neighborhood. Next was alien Oort Tektite, who was quite possibly the worst neighbor anyone could be cursed with. No one was safe from their wrath, especially not their enemy -- and the fourth roommate -- Abraxas Hemlock, a wizard who honestly wasn't all that bad, just depressed and perpetually stuck in his emo phase well into adulthood. The most recent and fifth addition was Dagger Payne, who no one knew well enough to form much of an opinion about, but he was suspiciously hairy and had a bad habit of chasing squirrels, according to eyewitnesses. Birds of a feather flock together, as they say, and this group was no exception. Tiffany and Damon got along with them terribly at least half the time, yet somehow they all seemed to considered each other best friends. Or perhaps worst enemies. That was honestly unclear. 

"Empty already?" Damon grumbled, shaking a measly drop out of the bottom of his beer bottle, which also happened to be the last bottle they had. "Dammit..."

"I think you've had enough, unless you want to be so incapable of walking I have to carry you home," Tiffany laughed, no less tipsy than he was. "Not that I'd do that, though. I'd leave you here in the basement and make you spend the night with Oort..."

He rolled his eyes. "You're soooo nice to me."

"She's nicer than I'd be. If you were my boyfriend--"

"You know I don't like that term," Tiffany snapped.

"--Sorry. Boy-whatever," Briar corrected before continuing, "I'd just let Oort have you entirely. Especially with a face like yours."

Calliope's hand went to her mouth and failed to muffle a laugh. "If he was mine, I'd probably just drown him."

"You'd drown any guy," Briar remarked.

"Absolutely!"

Oort's penciled-on eyebrows raised. "What makes you think I would want a pathetic creature such as him?"

"He does kind of suck," Dagger said, leaning against the worn brick wall behind him. "Literally."

A drunken grin spread across Damon's face. "You bet I do..."

Oort wrinkled their nose in disgust. "I do believe that was an insult."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Damon muttered with a dismissive wave of his hand as he grabbed a lighter and a cigarette from the tabletop he was seated on, "screw you guys too." He stood and stumbled over to the corner of the room, firmly planting himself on the floor beside of the only person here that didn't drive him crazy and ignoring the smug snickers from the rest of the group. 

Abraxas averted his gaze as Damon lit the cigarette and lifted it to his lips. "Hey."

"Hey," he slurred after a few puffs. "S'there a reason you're over here moping in the corner by yourself?"

Abraxas shrugged. "When am I not doing that?"

"Good point." He leaned back against the wall and exhaled slowly, staring blankly at the cloud of smoke.

"I don't think you suck, for the record," Abraxas said quietly.

"Yeah, I know," Damon replied. "I'm pretty sure you're the only one."

Silence fell between them for what felt like ages, but maybe that was just the alcohol-induced haze that was slowly skewing Damon's brain all out of proportion. Abraxas wasn't a talkative person -- that's probably why he was easy enough to get along with -- but even when he didn't say a word, it wasn't hard to tell that his head was flooded with thoughts.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth. "Something on your mind?" 

"Yeah I guess so... like," Abraxas began, "do you ever... wonder what the point of living is? Why you're still here, when all you do is waste your worthless life away?"

Damon sighed, fumbling with the cigarette between his fingers. "I wonder... why you get all existential when you drink too much."

"Depression and self-hatred," he deadpanned. 

"I do know how you feel." He was at the verge of vulnerability. "But hey, you're not worthless to me. We're friends, right? I don't consider many people friends. You're special."

"That's because you don't like people," Abraxas teased, though his cheeks flushed at the sentiment.

Damon smiled -- a rare genuine smile -- and their eyes met for a fleeting moment. "Guess you're the exception to the rule."

"Y-Yeah? Why's that?" 

Because he knows better than to let people get too close.

Because he destroys everything he touches.

Because he loses everyone he loves.

"...because if we both hate ourselves, we might as well like each other."

---

Tiffany's legs gave out the moment they made contact with the mattress, sending her falling onto her back beside Damon with a wheezy chuckle. "Tonight was fun..." 

"Yeah," he agreed with a delirious laugh, "I always feel waaay better when I'm wasted..."

"You feel better?" she sneered. "And here I was, thinking you didn't have feelings..."

"Sometimes I do have feelings," he muttered.

"Really? You never seem to talk to me about them." Tiffany's interest in this was unusual, but he wasn't in the state of mind to question it. "Actually, you don't talk to me about anything..."

"Well, you're not exactly an open book yourself..."

"I hate opening up to people," she confessed, "but I've opened up to you plenty of times, haven't I? You know all about my... stupid, miserable life... but I hardly know anything about you." 

He hesitated before answering. "...you know enough."

"Do I really?"

Damon shifted uncomfortably. She could feel his unease, and it only made her curiosity grow. "What is it that you want to know?" 

She considered all of her options; each of the questions she'd never get a straight answer to if he was sober. She settled on the one thing that he still didn't want to, even as drunk as he was. "What's the worst thing you've ever done? Like... is there, maybe, something you regret?" 

Silence. She was met with silence, with every muscle in his body tensing in anticipation for his answer. "D-Do you have any regrets?" 

"No," she stated. "But I'm asking you."

"...one," he finally replied, his slightly trembling voice barely raised above a whisper. "I-I... have one regret."

"What is it?"

"The worst thing I've ever done."

She glanced at him expectantly, and he knew it was an unspoken invitation to continue, but his mouth went dry and the words fell off his tongue before he could speak them. Reluctantly, he dragged himself from the bed and over to the dresser, blindly rummaging through the bottom drawer in the dark. She didn't ask; he didn't explain, not until he felt his fingers grasp what he was sure was what he'd been searching for, buried underneath a pile of meaningless junk they'd accumulated. He pried the lid off of the small box of trinkets he'd uncovered, locating the item at the bottom quickly and pulling it from the drawer. "C'mere," he said to her, dusting it off with his hand. 

As she made her way across the room, she noticed it was a book of some sort. "What is it?" 

"A photo album," Damon gently replied, opening it and flipping to the last page with photos on it -- about halfway through. 

She crossed her arms, eyes skimming over the pictures. "...what does this have to do with my question?"

His fingers brushed over the old polaroids littered across the page, tracing every wrinkle and crack on their yellowing surfaces longingly.  "Everything."

"That's you?" Tiffany guessed, pointing to one of the photos.

"Yeah," he nodded. "Back in eighty-nine. I was nineteen." 

"And not nearly as badass," she teased. "But who's--"

"Jesse," Damon interrupted. "He was my boyfriend. N-Not just my boyfriend, he was honestly... the love of my life, I guess you could say. I know that sounds stupid, we were young and there were a million other people I could have been saying that about, but when I met him -- everything changed for me." The emotions and words were spilling faster than he could contain them. "My dad was a drunk. He beat my mom, he beat me... it was like his whole purpose in life revolved around making sure I was miserable. He'd always been abusive. When I was a kid, mom told me I was an accident. She wanted an abortion, but he wouldn't let her. He threatened her. And that's how he kept her trapped -- how I kept her trapped -- for the next eighteen years. She hated me for that, and dad hated me for no reason. I was never good enough. I was never man enough. If I cried, he gave me something to cry about. So I didn't. I bottled it all up, I convinced myself I was okay and as I got older, I started drinking and doing drugs and having sex and... doing whatever else I could find to cope with it all. In eighty-eight, I met Jesse. He was the first person that ever loved me. He was the first person that I ever loved... before him, I never even knew what it was. But he made it come so easily..."

She stared, dumbfounded, at the photos in front of her, absorbing the information she'd just heard about as well as a soggy paper towel could absorb the whole sea. There were so many questions she could ask, but for some reason, she only needed the answer to one. "If he was the love of your life, why aren't you still with him?" 

Damon pursed his lips, forcing himself to look away from the page as he spoke. "...it's a long story." 

"Lucky for you, I have all night."

With a sigh, he closed the album, taking one last glance at the happy memories held inside of it before he plunged headfirst into the bad ones.

---

October 31, 1989

"Do you really have to work late tonight?" Damon's arms snaked around the other man's waist, his hands idly toying with the tie on his pajama pants. "Wouldn't you rather just stay in bed all day?" He purred, chin coming to rest on his shoulder. 

"Damon," Jesse giggled, his hand finding its way to rest on top of his, "you know I have to. My boss said there's no one else able to cover for my coworker tonight. You'll survive, my shift's only a few extra hours -- and it's paid overtime." 

"Call in sick."

He rolled his eyes at his boyfriend's antics. "I can't do that, I'm perfectly capable of going to work."

"I could change that," Damon teased.

Jesse's cheeks heated up. Flustered, he pried himself free of his grip, turning to face him with a half-hearted scowl. "Y-You're unbearable, you know that?"

"Really?" Damon moved closer, until their torsos brushed together. He put on the most innocent smile he could muster and his eyes found Jesse's. "Then why do you love me so much?"

"Because you're also irresistible," he sighed, lightly trailing his hands up Damon's bare chest.

 Their lips met softly, their bodies pressing closer together as Damon almost succeeded in his efforts to get Jesse to stay -- but, reluctantly, the kiss ended, leaving them both breathless and longing.

"I'm sorry, baby," Jesse said, "I promise we'll spend as much time together as you want this weekend..."

Damon smiled. "I'm looking forward to it... have a good day at work, babe. I love you."

"I love you too. I'll see you tonight, okay? Behave yourself," Jesse teased, then planted a kiss on his forehead before letting go. Grabbing his work clothes from the embarrassingly large pile in the corner, he took off to grab a shower, leaving the other alone for the day.

"Working overtime wasn't unusual for Jesse, but I guess that's true for most people with a crappy boss and a crappy minimum wage nine-to-five. I understood, I mean, how else were we supposed to pay rent? Our apartment wasn't the best place to live, but it beat living at home. And it was a short walk from a great place to waste my nights away when Jesse wasn't around to fill them --

-- the local bar, which is somewhere I hung out often. We did a lot of things together, but I preferred getting pathetically plastered in solitude.

That's when my memories of the night get a little hazy. I got drunk enough to lose track of time, and drink some more, and some more after that. I'm surprised I walked out of there standing on two feet, but, y'know... my tolerance for alcohol wasn't built up recently. I was a drunk then, too, just like my dad, before I was even legal -- I had my ways of fooling the bartenders.  

I remember walking, maybe stumbling, home, figuring Jesse would be back unless his boss had made him work a full double-shift. It must have been around ten. The alley behind our apartment was always empty save for the dumpsters, especially at that time of night. San Myshuno never sleeps, but there was a chilling silence in the air... until there wasn't.

Someone followed me. I don't recall anything about her, except the inhuman way she snarled and the red glow of her eyes piercing the darkness. I was scared, but I didn't run -- I couldn't. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. 

I never stood a chance."

Damon screamed when the vampire's fangs sank into the flesh of his neck; deep, deeper, until they were fully buried, but no one heard him. The pain was searing, the blood poured from his veins and he felt every drop of it. He struggled in vain -- the vampire was far stronger than he was, and every movement only worsened the pain. When the corners of his vision blurred and his legs threatened to buckle beneath him, he sobbed, silently mouthing pleas for his life, too weak to voice them. He thought of Jesse, of the weekend they were going to spend together, of the future that they could spend together. He thought of overcoming all the things that held him back in life, of making a new one with the only person who loved him enough to see past his flaws, of a nice suburban house they didn't rent and a nice job with a nice boss that didn't make Jesse work late; he thought of a family, of getting married and growing old and living --

-- and then he let that life go.

"I didn't realize it for a long time, but I died that night. Everything faded to black. My heart stopped beating. I took my last breath on the cold, hard concrete I crumpled onto.

 Yet I suffered from a fate far worse than death. 

I'll never understand why I was the one she chose. Why she drained me. Why she turned me. But even in death, the curse that I was given -- of vampirism, of eternity -- persisted.  Normal vampires turn slowly, over a process of hours to days. But there was no transformation to take place, no man left to turn -- the man was dead, and in his place was born a monster.

I woke up in dark form, cold and numb. I couldn't think, I couldn't feel. I had no conscience, no control of myself -- there was nothing inside of my hollowed soul but the unquenchable thirst for blood that still has its vice grip on me today."

The creak of the floorboards underneath his feet didn't rouse Jesse from his slumber. The room was pitch black, yet he could see -- not that he needed to anymore. He could smell the blood that pumped through Jesse's veins; pungent but sweet when he breathed it into his nostrils, leaving his mind and body unable to resist the debilitating need to feed. A low growl erupted from his throat as he prowled closer to the peacefully sleeping figure on the bed. 

He pounced, sending them both to the floor beside the bed in an instant. Jesse yelped, pain shooting up his spine on impact. Confused and struggling against the weight, his azure eyes met glaring red. He barely recognized the man on top of him -- his skin had faded to pale ash, discolored veins painted the face Jesse so often admired, his eyes were empty voids that stared coldly into his own; but he knew it was something that had once been Damon.

He also knew it wasn't anymore. 

"I remember the worst moments of my life -- the last moments of Jesse's -- only as pure euphoria. We were in hell, but he tasted like heaven. It was like a dream I was lost in, that I couldn't wake up from, that I didn't want to wake up from. He cried my name, but my ears were so deafened to his pain that I only heard the rush of my pleasure. He trembled, but he didn't put up a fight; there was no point in it. Jesse couldn't stop me. I couldn't stop me. It was over before it started. His skin was so soft, so warm, and I remember his heart pounding steadily beneath my lips...

...until it stopped, and his blood ran cold against my tongue. It was only then that I let him go, my thirst finally satiated enough to release me from the prison of my dark form. The confusion that followed lasted only for a moment before the realization sank into my chest like a plunging knife.

I remember cradling his lifeless body close to mine so vividly, sobbing, begging him to wake up, telling him how sorry I was... but it was far too late to apologize. He was gone. I didn't understand what was wrong with me. I was terrified, I was confused. 

That moment, the moment I became a monster, it replays in my head even now. In my darkest nightmares, it comes back to haunt me again and again. If I could turn back time, even if I could just go back and trade our places, I would. He wasn't the one that should have died that night. I wish that it had been me. I wish that I hadn't been turned, that I'd died all alone in that alleyway, that Jesse would have lived and found happiness and love and everything that he deserved -- and I truly believe he deserved the entire world. He deserved everything, and I took everything away from him. He died with me but alone, by my hands but in my arms. For that, I'll never forgive myself. That's my regret. The worst thing I've ever done."

---

"Wow," Tiffany said as he sat down on the edge of the bed. "I never knew you actually... loved someone like that once. It really is a tragedy... I'm sorry."

His eyes fell to the floor. "Don't be. It's not your fault, only mine."

"If it isn't weird for me to ask," she began, crossing her arms, "what did you do with his body? I mean... I'm guessing you never got caught for his murder."

"I didn't really know what to do," Damon admitted, "and I was kind of in a meltdown, the last thing I wanted to deal with was getting arrested and explaining what happened to the cops when I had no idea what came over me in the first place... so I set the apartment on fire, took a few things, and ran. His... his body was too burnt to get any evidence from. They assumed it was an accident, not arson."

"How do you know?"

"The news."

She nodded, approaching him. "Look... I know nothing I say can fix it, but I'm glad you told me. You can open up to me about things, you know that, right? Maybe I'm just drunk, I dunno. I get that I don't seem very approachable, but..."

"It's not you," he said. "I just don't like talking about him. I relive that night enough as it is without reminding myself..."

Tiffany frowned, seating herself on his lap and wrapping an arm around him, lightly massaging the back of his neck. "You have to move on from him someday. He's not coming back; the past is the past and you can't change it even if you want to. Focus on what's here now, right in front of you..."

He sighed. "I wish it was that easy."

"Can I tell you something? Something that would make it easier?"

There was nothing that could make it easier, but he humored her regardless. "Yeah?"

Her fingers brushed against the underside of his chin, tilting his head up until their eyes met. "I love you, Damon."

Damon's breath hitched in his throat as her lips curled into a deceivingly genuine smile. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn't come, so he instead pressed his lips against hers, hoping it would communicate his feelings better than words could.

The kiss started out softly, for once, but Tiffany didn't let it stay that way very long. Overwhelmed by emotions he hadn't felt in years, he had no objections to the escalation, his body only leaning further into hers. His hands gripped her hips more roughly than he intended for them to, but she didn't care; just as harshly, she shoved him down onto the bed, pinning him beneath her.

"You're mine now," she rasped, "so just focus on me, and forget about everything and everyone else..."

As their clothes came off and the haze of something between love and lust overcame him, he became far more intoxicated on her than the alcohol. Tiffany had that effect on people: like a moth drawn to a flame, she was an addiction that kept him craving more so much that he didn't feel the burn until he was on fire -- and even when it burns, after a while, it destroys you so much you can't feel the pain anymore.

 He no longer felt the pain with her.

So he would focus and he would forget, if only for the night. "Tiffany," he began softly, "did you really mean it? Do you really love me?" 

"Yes," she whispered, and it was the most beautiful lie he'd ever been told.