[OPEN] Sometimes your friends bring out the best in you.

[vampdetective]

Who: Angel & you!
Where: Angel Investigations & the kitchen.
When: 4/19 (for Faith) & 4/26
Rating: R? Blood, severed hands and potential for violence.
Summary: Faith offers Angel a Slayer-flavored protein shake with potentially disastrous results.
The Story:

4/19, CLOSED to Faith

He's lost track of how many hours it's been since he asked Faith to lock him in, leaning heavily against the bars of the cage he'd made sure Wonderland's replica of the Angel Investigations office held for situations just like this. It had started to prick at him the night before, the hunger he knew would come when all his supplies were exhausted-- the Infected posed as much a threat to him as anyone else, but he was just as fast as they were, maybe faster, and it made getting bitten easy enough to avoidable. The spores weren't a concern for someone who didn't breed, but the lack of supplies and the fact that the closets were giving out less and less?

That was a problem. He'd thought that it might be, when the additional stock he'd grabbed for himself after the announcement had disappeared. There had been enough blood stored in the fridge in his office to last him through most events, provided Wonderland didn't take it away, but this one seemed to be longer than most, and he wasn't willing to risk what could happen if he decided to let himself roam free and just hope it ended sooner rather than later-- not when he was this hungry.

The request for Faith to lock him in and make sure he stayed there had come paired with a gas mask. Physically, she could handle more than her share of assailants just like he could, but he wasn't going to risk her getting infected by inhaling something she shouldn't on his account. He'd been grateful when she'd agreed, but that had been hours ago-- it felt like days, the way hunger was beginning to gnaw at him, and he irately pushes himself away from the bars of the cage so that he can pace along its length, hands clasped behind his back.

He'd planned for alternatives in the event that Wonderland came up with an event that kept him from being able to eat, but the current method was equal parts exhausting and maddening. He sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck as he paces.

"We should, I don't know, play charades or something. Poker?" No need to be dying of both hunger and boredom. "Maybe Uno."

4/26, OPEN

A full week after the event, and Angel was still feeling the effects of the favor Faith had done him. A part of him had hoped that they would have burned themselves out of his system by now, that they would have vanished without a trace and he would be able to go back to his usual routine, but that had been wishful thinking, almost painfully optimistic.

He knew better. He had been through this enough times to know that it wouldn't work that way-- it never did, whether because of a slip he'd made all of his own accord or because someone else had intended to sabotage him. However human blood got into his system, it didn't matter. The results were always the same, except he worried that this time might actually be worse. A Slayer's blood was a different story entirely, more potent.

It had been a difficult habit to kick the first time he'd tasted it, too.

He spends most of the morning in his office on the fourth floor, thumbing through research without really reading what's on the page in front of him, reorganizing the weapons cabinet twice before he decides it's all wrong and leaves it unfinished, unsatisfied with anything he puts his hands on, restless. For a short stretch, he only paces back and forth near the front desk, unable to focus himself on anything at all-- until he gives up and decides he needs a change of scene. There are only so many places he can go, at least during the day, but the insistent hunger that's been nagging at him for days now makes the decision easy enough. The replenished stock in his office hasn't been doing him any good, cold and unappealing, but he privately hopes that the kitchen will treat him a little bit better, that maybe something fresher will help to quell his appetite.

He's both uneasy and impatient as he waits for the microwave to finish, leaning against the counter with both hands, tapping his fingers unevenly against the surface. He only gets halfway through his first mug before he feels his own body reject it-- as if it's tired of him trying to force down pig's blood instead of human, and the reaction is almost entirely involuntary as he spits out what he hasn't managed to swallow and inadvertently throws the mug against the nearest wall, causing it to break and splatter blood across the tiling.

He grimaces. Well, crap.

Comments

[vampdetective]

"The event got a little hairy towards the end."

That was putting it mildly. The difficulties he had faced had been different from everyone else; the other residents were afraid of what the infected might do to them, of the infection itself spreading. He had been worried that he might snap and do something far worse than get into a fight he couldn't win. If he'd turned and lost another life from his Wonderland count, he could have handled that, but if he lost himself and gave in to the hunger that had been gnawing at him during those last, seemingly endless days?

It would have been unforgivable. Then, of course, there was Faith. Faith, who'd thought she was helping, and in turn might have made things much, much worse.

He exhales slowly, despite his not needing to breathe in the first place.

"Ran out of food. I had Faith lock me in," he explains grimly, gesturing vaguely towards the far corner of the office, where the bars of the steel cage he'd put in place for himself can be glimpsed through an open door. "Seemed safer for everyone."

[interpersonal]

Elena follows Angel's gesture, her eyes landing on steel bars and a startling realization. The blood brings out what's inside of me.

Isn't that what Stefan had said when she'd tried to rationalize his brutality away? She'd never seen him so unhinged before. They were never going to wake up from the nightmare and go back to ferris wheel rides and hand jives and the simple dates where they could reinvent themselves all over again. She never understood that and she still doesn't; she hasn't freed him of his own cage, of the Stefan she'd compartmentalized away from the monster. (The longer you keep a monster in a cage, the hungrier he gets. Why do they not understand this of hunger?)

"Have you fed enough since?"

(What is enough?)

[vampdetective]

He hesitates. It's a pointed question, a good question, and one he's not quite sure how to answer-- but there's something about Elena that makes it easier to be honest with her, with himself. She knows what he is, and she's known others like him.

He can tell her.

"Faith fed me," he says carefully, and he knows that Elena is well-versed enough to realize what he means. He hadn't asked Faith for anything, had told her to keep away from the bars, from him, but she'd insisted. She hadn't wanted to see what would happen to him if he starved himself. Now, he can't decide which would be better.

"It's been-- difficult to keep anything else down since."

[interpersonal]

Elena swallows thickly. Nods, while remaining in place.

He's right that she's well-versed enough. She doesn't come to him blindly or naively. This isn't uncharted territory for her, though she isn't going to assume it's exactly the same, either. Angel isn't Stefan, and he certainly isn't Damon. Dimly, she realizes she ought to be alarmed; a part of her is, but mostly? She feels worried and sad. Angel is one of the good ones. She believes that.

"Is there anything that helps with the cravings?"

[vampdetective]

He shakes his head slowly, swallowing hard. Cravings felt like such a kind word for what it was. It was a hunger that had never really left him, had continuously beat against him from the inside, living just beneath his skin, but one he had learned to tame over the years, to suppress in the interest of viewing people as people and not food.

He'd slipped, here and there. This wasn't the first time-- but Slayer's blood was different. Stronger. Everything else paled in comparison.

"Willpower," he says tightly, and his eyes betray how weary he is, how difficult it's been for him to weather this unforeseen change. "Time, maybe. Once it's been out of my system awhile, it might forget what it wants, but until then--"

He cuts himself off, shaking his head again before he launches back into pacing, letting the steady repetition of it help to focus him.

"Her blood is different from everyone else's. Stronger. It makes things harder."

[interpersonal]

Elena would like to think that she understands, but the truth is she doesn't. She can't, unless she's a vampire herself, and she has no idea what awaits her in the future. She doesn't realize that she'll tell herself the things she needs to believe and call them the truth. She doesn't realize that she'll need to believe if you just want something bad enough, love someone hard enough, then it's enough.

As though it's ever worked that way.

His weariness reaches her, Elena's own expressing tempering into something gentle.

"I could try distracting you," she offers tentatively. A beat. "If you're up for it."