the story is old by now, & ever-changing --
it wasn't always this way; leander didn't expect to always be "just getting by," but really, who did? every teenager had wild-eyed dreams; rampant hopes, and "when's" instead of "if's." something snapped: as something will usually fray and bust apart with anyone else .. it's simply a matter of how it's handled.
and for leander, coping was never one of his better mechanisms.
he had been a drifter-child for as long as he could remember; mistaken for having difficulties all through school, simply because he didn't have any desire to pay attention. while the rest of the kids learned about the North vs. the South, leander was entertaining a child's euphoria in his head. as the years went on, his second-world grew more intense; in depth: not unlike the teenagers who get sucked into the internet and cannot exist without it...
leander couldn't exist without his mind.
the years passed; school passed. girlfriend's came and went; buddies to chum around with came and went. most people couldn't stand the plethora of barriers the boy had and, after a while, grew tired of trying to reach inside. leander was completely unphased, and decided to reach higher; farther, on the wings of drugs .. the perscription variety. at first, faking an illness or ailment to acquire oblong pink tablets, or whites, was not a hard task; that is, until the insurance and practice caught on, and the boy was cut off from both. what was supposed to be easier than acquiring street-drugs then, wasn't so much anymore. though he was known to burn a needle down, now and again, it just wasn't the same...
it's always the most beautiful, the most alluring in the beginning. the blue-scream of the needle was quick to leave his pulse screaming silver for more; and in this beginning, it wasn't so difficult. it was not harrowing, it was not tragic: it was easy, and it made the time pass quicker (but slower, too; sinking in a too-thick, underwater-feeling, even though he was light-years beyond our atmosphere), made work less menial -- it made the "have to do's" worth it all, in trade for the "want to do's."
but after a few months this started to shift. that better-place, those slow-writhing nebulae and star-busted remnants became obsession: which in turn became wistfulness for what he'd had before. there were days that leander couldn't reach this place; days that re-entry burned more than just happiness and (faux) contentment -- there were days it boiled his blood: slick like mercury and screaming hot.
leander's menial job in a local pawn-shop became desperation: compassion for the sellers giving up life-pieces for their own devices was replaced with a silver-pulsed need. though, sometimes, the boy could not escape the twist of disgrace in his gut, in the wan-light of his eyes, when it became more common-place that he pocket partial-money for items they'd buy. when he'd softly murmur a price below what a memory was worth, just so he could clutch the difference in trembling hands.
and, sometimes, even the work-lies weren't enough. some nights, the boy had to face the wrenching-pain of withdrawl alone. he grew tired of needles and longed (burned-blue) for the clutch of vicodin, or darvocet or codiene.. but some nights, nothing (dramamine and sleep-aids), no one (he could reach from beyond the sky) could fix it.
and whether or not it was the physical burn of addiction, or the mental .. nobody on the outside could ever tell. oftentimes, leander himself could not tell, either.
leander drifted in the most harrowing way possible: he was not the typical violent addict; he was not the over-emotional poet, artist or musician biding his time until the next cash-flow came to take the ache away. no .. he didn't have these sorts of specialties to float him from needle to needle when that was the choice, or perscription to perscription (which was the need). sometimes, it was weeks .. and while that could have sufficed for an old-fashioned, old-school detox, that wasn't the case with this boy.
he would rather die, than give up chasing the atmosphere. luck always had it that the next blue-rush came just when he thought he truly would coil up and die screaming. but luck, as they always say, has a funny way of running dry.
leander's luck had been about to do just that -- that is, until he stumbled into the scene of one Dr. Calder Jackson ...
with bonds born by a past purified by fire and
a boy woken by blood, Leander (an escapist gone arsonist..) and the Doctor were
i n s e p e r a b l e.
Calder & Leander Jackson : wedded August 31, 2003.
recently, his job at the pawn-shop was willingly sacrificed for an education; training that involved both classroom and jumping into the field head-first and hands ready. with his true fetish-love burning literally beneath his veins in secret, leander would spend the next two years studying to be a paramedic, working in the same hospital as calder. and oh, he had no qualms about leading a secret life of fires & blood beneath the veneer of a caring, responsible emergency room employee.
