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

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It's better than the alternative," comes the flat reply, but he feels something in him begin to roil beneath the surface. Some choice. It was a significant step up from feeding on rats in back alleys, but the temptation to drink from the living was always there, barely latent and beating against his skin. Sometimes, he was almost able to ignore it, but now, in the wake of what Faith had given him--

She'd reawakened something that refused to be put back to rest, no matter how much he tried to will it away.

"I don't drink people. Not anymore. I don't trust myself."

Her gaze flickers up towards his, Rose staring at his eyes as opposed to into them. Like she's waiting for the light to shift in a way that makes the red shine across his irises. Even as she does it however, she shakes her head. If he were Strigoi, he wouldn't be standing in the kitchen having a casual conversation, certainly not with her in the room. The blood of a Dhampir might be nothing compared to that of a Moroi but it was to human blood, what human blood was to pigs blood.

"You're worried you'll kill somebody?" Posed as a question and yet it's really more confirming. "Never heard of a Moroi with a drinking problem before."

"Moroi."

It doesn't quite come out as a question, but he echoes the word as if waiting for some further explanation as to what it means. He pauses for a moment, shaking his head as he forces his hands into his pockets, stilling himself.

"Killed plenty of people in the past. It's not a road I want to go down again. Not who I am anymore."

"Moroi..." Offering no more explanation than that. Rose just expects that all vampires must know the names for everything but this is Rose... who has yet to realize that the rules of her world, really don't apply to here.

The change in her is immediate, Rose taking a step back. Inhaling sharply as she foolishly reaches for a weapon that she's not actually carrying with her. It takes her another moment to register that his words don't really fit with all that she knows but he'd be able to tell. From her quickened breaths and the rapid beating of her heart that she's more than a little on edge right now.

"You say that... like it's a choice." Arguably, it is a choice for the Strigoi but a sociopath is what it is. "Last I checked, there isn't a 12-step program for bloodthirsty killers..."

He puts a hand up; the way her heart picks up speed is impossible to miss, same as her shortened breath, and he shakes his head, willing himself to relax, trying to shake the volatile reaction his body had had to his trying to feed it. That situation in itself was something singular, complicated-- he knew it was unlikely to make anyone feel more at ease around him if he went into detail.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he says calmly, his tone careful, even. "It's a long story, but I promise. I'm not interested in hurting anyone. It's not a choice for most vampires, but I'm different."

Having a soul was supposed to be a curse, but it had given him the power to choose. He doesn't go around telling his backstory to everyone on their first meeting, but she's more like him than not, and she's familiar with a brand of vampires all her own. If they're going to proceed peacefully, he needs to say something.

"Killed the wrong girl more than a century ago. A gypsy. Her clan cursed me with a soul. To be haunted by everything I'd ever done, everyone I ever hurt. It made a difference. It made me want to change."

It’s unfortunate that the voice in her head, urging her to run happens to have a Russian accent. Dimitri might have trained her well but his lessons were only serving to piss her off as she stood in the middle of what would have been, with just about anyone else, a very bad situation.

“Damn straight you’re not. Way I hear it, around here? The dead don’t stay dead and you won’t get lucky enough to find me without a stake a second time.” Pushing as much bravado into her voice as she can manage as Rose inches closer towards the door. Her gaze sweeping the kitchen as she searches for a weapon that while it wouldn’t kill. Might at least buy her a little time.

Before she can scoff at his insistence that he’s different, the words keep coming and there’s a shift in her features. An uncertainty in her eyes as she breaks the first rule of being a Guardian: Don’t hesitate. The simple fact that she had, and was still breathing was enough to give her pause at least. Rose’s weight shifting from one foot to the other. Tension still running through every inch of her body.

“Want to change...” Nitpicking at his choice of words. “Exactly how many times have you fallen off the wagon in the last century?”

A second hand follows the first; it doesn't mean much, showing her that he's unarmed, not when he's sure she's well aware that he doesn't need a weapon to do damage, but he stands there with his fingers spread regardless, as collected as he can manage to keep himself, even-keeled.

"A few," he tells her, in the interest of transparency, but there's definite disappointment in his tone, in his eyes. "I won't say that it's been easy."

Even less so since Faith fed him, insisted on doing so to keep him from going mad with hunger.

"After awhile, you get used to pig's blood."

No, the show of hands does nothing to reassure her, which perhaps confirms what he's been able to gleam just from what she's said so far, Rose all but scoffing at the action. Borderline insulted that he'd think she was so naive as to find that helpful in their current situation.

"Yeah that's really comforting..." A few. A dryness in her tone that would have been pure sarcasm if she weren't so clearly on edge. Just because what she sees and what she hears should tell her this is different, the fact that it is keeps her from trusting him.

"Maybe you should reconsider... if it keeps you from going on a killing spree I mean." More judgment than a stranger deserved but again? Vampire. Soul-having Vampire, maybe but that was assuming she was buying that line.

"I can't."

If there was some other compromise, some way to take human blood without unleashing a creature that he would never be able to forget lived beneath his skin, he would have found it by now. God knows he'd tried countless other solutions before now. This was the one that worked-- until Faith fed him.

"If I let myself drink human blood, I'll lose control of myself. I'll become something else. I don't want that. Nobody wants that."

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

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