entrancelogs | [open/closed]

Entry tags:

[open/closed]

Who: Faith Lehane, Lydia Martin, open to all!
Where: Library
When: 04-Aug
Rating: PG+ (language)
Summary: Faith Lehane arrives by destroying 3 stacks of books in the library
The Story:

i came in like a wrecking ball (closed: lydia martin)

Faith would swear the library is where people go to nap in vacuum-sealed silence. Bring a pillow, find a corner -- it's good in a pinch when you've got nowhere else to go. As long as you're clean and not smattered with blood.

Or flying through the air.

Into one of the impossibly tall stacks. Why do they even position the shelves like this? Now Faith has to fight to stop the entire row from Domino-ing all the way down. The second stack starts to go down and she's only just getting up from where she landed after thudding into the first one.

"Four!" OK probably not the best thing to shout but it's all that comes to mind as Faith tries to at least warn whoever might be in those rows. She's already in the air again, arcing up and over the still-falling shelves. When she hits the ground, it's just as the third stack kisses the fourth, sending it teetering precariously. She holds her breath, hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

But the fourth stack stays upright, allowing Faith to re-position the one she's holding. Well, at least the books didn't get crushed. Finally, she blinks, swiveling her head back and forth. This is not London. This is definitely not an alleyway. And her friends are also not present. So, uh.

"Where the hell am I?"

don't you ever say she just walked away (open to all)

Most of her first hours in Wonderland have seen Faith re-shelving books. She's done the whole alternate dimension routine and hopped through a portal or two, so really it's not worth it to make a whole big deal out of the event. Well, aside from the whole actual Wonderland detail. She'd have been happier winding up in a universe of shrimp than have to deal with queens and rabbits or whatever.

"These aren't even alphabetical," she grumbles. Seriously, who organizes this stuff? Why does she have to keep referencing a number?

She's less than gentle, taking only enough care not to damage a paperback or jam one of the hardcovers. Reading them? No. Not that Faith can't get down with some research but it needs to apply to something and the only thing she cares about now is getting home.

If a book is going to tell her how to get home, she knows damn well she's not Fred Burkle levels of smart enough to make it work. So, re-shelving. And lots of scowling.

Maybe it's a little bit denial, but she's not ready to check out the digs yet. Just because they got a room waiting for her doesn't mean she's just jumping right in to get all domestic on it. Until she finds out about the food. Girl could devour a hoagie right about now...

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"I'll take 'less pissed,' even if it's not quite 'better.'" He's not sure he's aiming for the latter, anyway. He can offer explanations, but he can almost guarantee she won't actually like any of them. Most people don't. It is what it is.

"At first? Yeah, I did." A lot of his cases were wrapped up in a matter of days, sometimes less. He'd certainly managed to find his way back from an alternate dimension on more than one occasion-- and in pretty short order. "Maybe closer to days than hours, but-- it didn't work out that way. I've been here awhile."

'Awhile' is pretty relative, even if he weren't well over two and a half centuries old.

Faith does something then that's rare for her, but that she's been working on pretty determinedly the last couple of years, and stops. And thinks.

"Shit." She breathes, trying to fight off the creeping realization that she's farther out of her depth than she can actually comprehend. Faith replays the events she experienced just prior to arriving here: bringing Fred to Zane Pharmaceuticals, running the tests and reassuring Angel that science doesn't always equal evil and then eating her fucking words when Illyria popped back out to say hello with her fists and weird grammar.

"Shit." Yeah, it's a double shit moment. "You didn't just come from the alley, did you?"

No kidding. It's a double shit moment if he's ever seen one, at least from her perspective.

"I didn't just come from anywhere," he tells her grimly, folding his arms across his chest. The alley part was true-- at least, it lined up with what he remembered, even if they were thinking of different instances. He'd seen a lot of alleys in his time.

"Been stuck here coming up on two years. Seen people come and go with no control or say over either. Last thing I remember from back home was swinging up onto the back of a dragon, but that fight feels like ages ago now." Even if two years was a drop in the bucket to a guy like him. "We've got a lot of catching up to do."

It's starting to feel like Faith is standing at the edge of a canyon, and all the way on the other side stands Angel. They might as well be blowing smoke signals for all the sense she's making out of this so-called conversation.

"Yeah..." Dimension slips aside, Faith knows it's tricky to mess too hard with this stuff. Not that she gets the full scope of how time differentials work (or even wants to), but with how bad their plan with Giles had turned out she doesn't entirely trust herself to keep it together around him anymore. Maybe her judgment's still off.

So. Nothing to do but classic denial, then.

"You just gotta go and brag about the dragon off the bat, don't you?" She finishes loading books onto a shelf before turning back to him with a smirk about the same wattage he got on approach. "Couldn't just be about LA going to hell?"

Classic denial was a tried-and-true method-- maybe a little too timeless, because Angel has always been difficult to fool even on his worst days. He watches her for a moment, eyes narrowed slightly as she slides the last of the books back onto their shelf, watching for any familiar tells, seeking for what's off.

"Couldn't have known whether or not you'd take it literally. It's come close enough on more than one occasion. Had to be specific," Angel remarks, his own smirk a faint, uncertain mirror of hers. "Look, I don't wanna brag, but the dragon sticks out."

So that explains where he's at in the timeline. Now for her.

"What's the last thing you remember, before here? It's-- different for everyone. Rare that two people come from the exact same place and time."

She shakes her head, no hesitation and trying to leave very little room for argument.

"Not so sure that's such a good idea." It's her turn to cross her arms, mirroring Angel the way a kid might copy their parents' movements. At first, just because the adult was the only one they had to take cues from, but after awhile it either falls away completely or becomes a habit. Some of what Faith had picked up while she was faking it stuck once she'd "made" it.

And though she wants to affect the image of a mountain, unmovable, she fidgets. Her hands flit together as she cracks her knuckles in preparation for the argument she assumes is imminent. It hurts a little, being faced with Angel before all the shit had hit the fan and being unable to see anything but who he'd become in Magic Town.

"Not details, anyway. Unless Magic Town means something to you and this is a second dragon you're bragging about?"

"So you're ahead of me."

At least he catches on quickly. He frowns, managing to be firm where she fidgets, his brows drawing downward as his brow creases. He's used to being the one ahead of the rest of the herd-- even after Spike had gone home and come back following Fred's death, he hadn't quite been caught up. He's never been the one left behind.

There's potential for an argument here, but he also knows how delicate these things are. Even if they won't remember this place when they leave, if they leave-- that may not always be the case, and consequences back home aren't the only damage that too much information has the potential to do.

"Sounds like we made it out of the fight with the Senior Partners, at least."

His words are careful, terse. Asking for more without asking, as he's been known to do.

"Yeah, you did." There's no part of Angel's last statement that can be taken as true in any straightforward sense, but the general idea is there. "Jesus, this is weird. It's 2007 for me, Angel. A lot's different. I don't wanna--"

She moves, suddenly, arms swinging up to push back her hair. Faith takes a step back and sucks in a deep breath. She can do this, she can navigate whatever new awkwardness this is turning into.

"--I don't wanna let you down." Again. He can probably hear it, some creepy preternatural sense of his. Hell, he's always been weirdly attuned to her feelings anyway (when he could spare the attention) and she'd never been great at hiding them from him. Not this him. Did it make a difference? Was she the problem again?

Edited (clearly it is past my bedtime) 2015-08-18 03:38 (UTC)

"2007?" He exhales, bracing his hands against his hips. Good to have a date to go by, he guesses, but there was potential for a lot to have happened in those years he missed-- or more accurately, hadn't experienced just yet. The way their lives usually went, those years were guaranteed to be more tumultuous than most. "Three years. I really am behind."

He frowns, his brow creasing-- she's right, he can hear it, he can see it. Practically smell it rolling off of her. Anxiety, concern. She was a much different Faith than the one he'd first met back in Sunnydale. She might have been ahead of him, but he still knew her better than most. He could still read her.

"Faith," he begins evenly, his expression grim. "You could never let me down."

The fact that she's worried about it at all says so much more about her progress than anything else.

"You think if you tell me, I'm gonna be disappointed in you?"

At first, she shores up and even takes a step forward with the intent to set this straight and be done with it. But then she looks up at Angel -- really looks at him. And she deflates.

He doesn't look physically different, and it's too weird. He's three years younger; he should look like it (logic be damned). There should be cues for Faith to be able to rely on -- lack of wrinkles or brighter eyes or whatever. But he's just ... Angel. He'll always be Angel. The only difference is the way he's looking at her now. Not with concern for their situation but for her. She hadn't even realized she'd missed it until now. And yet, having it shoved back into her face like this makes her feel wrong, somehow. She should be past needing the hand holding -- hell, she's been doing the hand holding all around for a year now.

When is she just going to be her? Not the wrong slayer, an adopted evil daughter, mercenary, or babysitter of lost souls. Just Faith. Can anyone exist in the world separate from all input?

So Faith just shakes her head, finally answering his question. Not me, she wants to say. The weight of it seems to bow her shoulders, make her break eye contact. She has to shove her hair out of her face again. But the nervous energy needs an outlet and only the lack of popping cartilage makes her realize she's already cracked the cricks out of her knuckles.

"We haven't really talked in awhile. Like this." She hasn't played this part in their relationship in years, and Faith is definitely out of practice. She huffs out a raw laugh. "Is it warm in here or am I just having a serious existential breakdown?"

"We haven't?"

He frowns, his brow creasing; that troubles him as a general statement, makes him wonder what he's been up to since hell came to Los Angeles. He imagines he spent a hell of a lot of time being knee-deep in demons, but even that's not enough to account for their staying out of touch, not if it's been three years, and it sounds like they've seen each other since then.

Which means he has no choice but to believe her when she says that a lot's changed. He shifts his weight uncomfortably, arms finding it difficult to settle against his chest while crossed, leaning from one foot to the other as though that would be enough to make him feel grounded, to feel like there's nothing out of place about this conversation to begin with.

"This is really grounds for some kind of existential crisis?" he goes on to ask; he raises an eyebrow, but worry pulls at either corner of his mouth. "Faith, fill me in. You need to tell me what's been going on. I need to be on the same page as you."

Edited 2015-08-28 14:46 (UTC)

Were this a combat situation, Faith could handle it better. It would be easier or at the very least simpler to find her footing and move forward. When someone's life is on the line, she could clear out everything out and just make a choice.

Where the hell is she supposed to start?

Oh, you killed Giles but don't worry we resurrected him. Yeah it went sideways so he's a kid but he's got all his memories. He also ditched me for B again isn't that awesome?

Right.

Hey, so Fred's alive and she and Illyria are fighting for control of her body.

Sure, easy.

I was babysitting you and balancing our relationship against the bond I was building with a bunch of juniors that were bent on getting revenge against you cause spent a year trying to wipe out all of the slayers then banged Buffy to bring a new universe into existence. Also Harmony's famous and vamps are out of the coffin.

Maybe lead with that.

"Harmony's famous." No one would ever blame Faith for being a thinker, at least.

Of all the things to lead with.

"Harmony's--"

Harmony. Harmony Kendall. His former assistant, ex vice-president of the Sunnydale Cordettes. A vampire so bad at being properly evil that she'd had to join a pyramid scheme to find a sense of self-worth, even if it hadn't panned out in the end.

"She's famous? For what?"

Not singing. He'd heard her 'perform' at Caritas, unfortunately.

"We're talking about the same Harmony here, right? Harmony Kendall? My assistant?" Come to think of it, she hadn't been all that great at that, either, right down to double-crossing him and handing information over to Hamilton-- although he'd always expected betrayal, at least. She'd followed through on one thing.

Oh good that's much better. Faith can totally handle this situation. Even if it means watching Angel have a stroke in the middle of the library.

"Oh, she's just you're average vampire reality TV star." It's pretty succinct and has the added benefit of automatically describing just how ridiculous the entire situation is. And hopefully believable enough to then delve into the really ugly stuff afterward. "Bit a famous dude, traded it up for fame."

"Somehow I'm not surprised that even undead, she's still a social climber."

For the time being, the stroke seems to be on hold, although his expression stays fixed in a state of perplexity-- Harmony, famous. Some part of him resents that her high school dream actually came true, given all the crap she'd put them through, but he feels better knowing he'd never trusted her to begin with.

"Reality TV. That stuff is garbage." He's pretty sure they can agree on that.

"Good platform for denouncing slayers, though." Faith can't help it, and she laughs at how absurd it is to actually say the thing aloud. Not that Faith necessarily 100% disagreed with her, considering Faith's own personal history, but it was still in comparison to vampires. Who she claimed didn't always kill people, sometimes just drank some from them or, even better, turned them.

"Apparently she and Spike have a history?" That had been weird, too.

"Denouncing slayers?" That part might bear some elaboration, but Faith's next question has his expression shifting, contorting until his mouth is twisted into a disgusted scowl that lasts all of two seconds. They'd all been subject to Spike and Harmony's drama at Wolfram & Hart's offices, even years after they'd broken up.

"They dated," Angel tells her, frowning, and it sounds ridiculous when he says it out loud, even to him, even having seen the fallout. "I'm not really sure how it started, but there was some ugly fallout while she was working for me as a result. They, uh-- weren't exactly well-matched, far as I can tell."

"Yeah well they matched pretty well in our bathroom." The words roll off of Faith's tongue naturally, the result of having an actual rolling conversation with Angel. She hesitates at first, the 'our' a word she wishes she had substituted for something more innocuous and vague.

"But I mean, seemed like a casual thing or whatever. No fallout too ugly, I mean."

He catches that slip, his eyebrows immediately shooting upwards, though whether or not it's because of the matching or the bathroom itself remains to be seen. Probably a bit of both, to be honest.

"Guess I'm not too surprised. She was still carrying a torch for him for awhile." Even if it was just a casual encounter-- not that it was any of his business. Some part of him might have been jealous of them having the emotional and non-cursed capacity for a casual encounter, except for the fact that it was Spike and Harmony immediately turned him off entertaining the idea of jealousy for more than half a moment.

"You said 'our.'" Like he's letting that go untouched. "We working together?"

While her smile doesn't completely falter, Faith's eyes aren't crinkled quite as tightly as she nods in answer to his question. At this point, she figures she should try to keep driving the conversation again.

"In London. Working on helping people there." People they were kind of mostly responsible for hurting in the first place. "It's actually a couple blocks there, called Magic Town now."

"The name could probably use a little work."

He guesses it's fitting, but come on. Originality never goes out of style.

"Guess I had to get out of Los Angeles eventually. Couldn't stay in the City of Angels forever," he surmises, his brows knitting together for a moment as he shifts his weight, re-crossing his arms across his chest, trying for all the world to keep from all-out fidgeting. He's always been terrible at that. "I'm guessing we make good partners."

He'd always thought they would-- except Faith doesn't seem quite sold on that fact, judging by her body language, subtle as the shifts in it have been.

At the comment on the name, Faith chuckles, a genuine and light thing.

"Yeah, we were all right." The smile lingers as Faith sifts through her memories of the past year. A lot was bad, but the good times were pretty good. "Took awhile to get a stride, though. Culture shock for me wasn't all that bad, though. Guess Giles wore off on me after awhile or something."

The fondness toward the Watcher is plain in her smile, but also in the way Faith's voice softens at his name. Another rocky relationship (what other kind has she ever had?), Giles had been the most solid father-figure she'd ever known. Traveling Europe together with purpose had been exactly everything Faith had needed since making the choice to try to own her own life again.

"Plus, you're a damn quiet roommate." Some of the fondness transfers now, as Faith meets Angel's eyes again. Mischief takes over her eyes, glinting as she speaks. "Even if your favorite hockey team is garbage."

"Giles?"

Angel raises an eyebrow; it's been a long time since he's heard Faith say anything good about any Watcher, though he'd seen her relationship with Wesley begin to mend with his own eyes. If they could come back from where they'd once been, he guesses anyone can-- and it means a lot to know that Faith is out there fixing things, letting people into her life where she once shoved them out and away, insisting she was better off that way.

She wasn't. Just like he wasn't. They both needed the reminder, sometimes.

"I really have missed a lot." He smiles carefully, his own gaze fond as he meets hers. Whatever distance there is between them, whatever has changed that he doesn't know about, he glad to see something he recognizes when he looks at her. Camaraderie or mischief-- maybe it's the combination of both that hits him close to home.

"Like your team's any better."

"Pff," she waves a hand toward him, continuing her dis only vaguely. "Sorry, West Coast. You got nothing on the Atlantic."

It feels a little more natural, this. Almost like she's shoveling dirt into the crevasse between them, slowly building that common ground back up. Her smile keeps coming easily, the good memories she had before everything went to shit bolstering her mood.

It's enough that her guard drops a little, and Faith turns to keep shelving books haphazardly. Sure, she'd sort of paid attention to the bossy chick's instructions but when it came down to it, Faith was pretty sure she should be thanked for putting them back at all. And it's a good way to enjoy this moment for a bit, to not accidentally ruin it with details of Angel's future and of how unsure she is about her own life.

"You really just gotta deal and move on at some point, here."

"I don't know. I mean, there are plenty of things I can move on from," Angel begins, crouching down just long enough to pick up an armload of books and help her put them to rights, unwilling to let her handle it alone even as they talk. On his end, it's almost comforting-- it's been a long time since he's had anyone from home around who remembered what he did, even if Faith actually knew a hell of a lot more. As unsettling as that had the potential to be, it was nice, not to have to worry about catching someone up.

Cordelia had been so far behind that she hadn't even known what she'd meant to him, and she'd been too angry for him to even begin to tell her.

"I forgave Buffy for sending me to hell, but this is hockey." Favored sport among vampires, thanks to the games being indoors and at night. "Pretty serious business."

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