taxonomites | xiii [ location: hyperion hotel, basement ].

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xiii [ location: hyperion hotel, basement ].

[ ooc | backdated to after this thread, handwaving dawn's performance of the ritual. sarah, if you'd like faith in on this, jump right on in-- same for anyone else who feels their character would be present. :> also, we can treat this like a party post with jumping around/threadjacking, etc. whatever works best for y'all. ]

Everything's foggy at first and there's shapes that, while still somewhat caught in the tail-end of the ritual's affects on him, he mistakes for others, relying on what little of his sight is working and unable to access the other senses that would give him a surer sense of who's around him. He doesn't remember Taxon. Not yet. What he thinks is happening is an echo of the past for him, of another time when his soul was ripped from him the 'wrong way'-- but then it had been of his own consenting, where here it had been a game, something out of his hands and entirely in someone else's control. To the blurry figure in the cage with him (Godric) he ventures, "Connor?" Then, turning his head towards the equally blurry figure outside the bars (Cordelia), he commands in a tone that isn't as loud or commanding as he thinks it is, "Faith. Stop. He's just--"

But then his sense of smell flares back to life with an intensity that makes him shut his eyes, shallow hard and slam his head back against the stone he's chained to with a sickening crack that would've damaged him, had he been human. It won't even cause a bump; it'll just hurt for a while, but the pain is tangible. Pain is always tangible. He understands pain, especially the self-inflicted. Right now, it's all he understands.

The scents are wrong. It doesn't fit the picture of what's supposed to be happening in his head. Connor. Where is Connor? He wants to ask, but his lips won't move and instead, the unvoiced question receives an answer in the form of a memory of a woman he can barely stand; light brown hair, twinkling hazel eyes and a smirk he would have liked to-- quite literally-- rip right off her face.

"Hits you where you live, don't it?"

"..."

"Of course I know. You lost your son. Well, gave him up."

"To save him."

"Which you did. He's happy and well adjusted now that he has no memory of you-- and the rest of the world, including your best friends, never even heard of Connor."

But, he'd spoke of him. He remembers now. Sitting in his office at Wolfram & Hart, smirking and laughing as he told Buffy of the son whose existence he'd hidden from the world. ...yet, he doesn't know why he did it. What should be an obvious answer is just a big, gaping blank in his memory; the reasoning that it wasn't him, but Angelus, not within his grasp. He hadn't done that when he was Angelus last. He'd killed a bunch of people, terrorized Fred (Fred, he smells Fred in the room and his eyes snap open as he turns his head and looks at where she's sitting on the stairs, vision still not fully back yet), gave Wes a run for his money and bit Faith, but he hadn't spoke so...callously of his son. And Connor had still been his then and not the family the Senior Partners had reassigned him to. It didn't match up like trying to fit two pieces from different puzzles together to form a picture he didn't even have the box art to.

"I-- I don't--" He tries to stand, but finds he can't. Yes, he'd been shackled then, but he hadn't been bound to anything. "Why am I chained to the wall?"

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Fred is just as confused, despite her experience- and a little surprised to hear Gunn's name out of his mouth. She comes to the same conclusion just before Cordelia does. He doesn't remember yet. When he does....

She rubs her arms, as if she were cold, and finally stands from the folded-up position she'd taken on the stairs. It wasn't hiding, exactly, she's just used to taking up small amounts of space when she feels she has to. She takes a couple steps toward the cage and weighs whether she should jog his memory by mentioning Godric or not. She decides against it, ultimately. His presence will do that job soon enough.

Not knowing what to say isn't a new sensation, but it's one she dislikes when it comes to her friends. Eventually she does realize what she can say- "Glad to have you back, Angel."

While the words are sincere, the smile that accompanies it is also fairly weak. That might be the sense of deja-vu from back in LA, when Angelus pretended their first attempt worked. Things here are definitely different, as there's no skull or smoke or instant apologies. She's glad for the differences, because it means this isn't fake- she just can't help but remember when it was.

Edited 2010-04-07 15:37 (UTC)

Godric, for his part, had retreated to the shadows when it became clear that Angel was disoriented, and now he lingers there. He's right within reach if he's needed, but it's Angel's loved ones who Angel needs now, so he respectfully keeps out of the way.

Angel looks to Fred, noting how her clothes are different and aren't syncing with what his mind thinks she should be wearing, but Fred's attire isn't the only thing that's off. Cordelia wasn't down here, Connor and Faith are absent, Wes and Lorne aren't standing at the top of the stairs, and Gunn isn't here. Someone else was though, someone he assumed was Gunn in the picture his mind had painted for him as a way of explaining a situation to him while his memory was still riddled with holes. Blinking in confusion at the women, he turns his head to look at the not-Gunn figure and is startled and confused to see Godric of all people.

"What is--"

Something in his mind clicks into place and the memories come flooding back with an intensity that's almost painful, one he makes painful by slamming his head back against the stone for a second time and harder than before, closing his eyes and letting out a noise that's almost like a whine. He wants to cover his face, but can't. His hands are still bound. When he does finally open his eyes, expression full of anguish and tears on the verge of spilling over, he looks down and off to the side, away from Godric and the girls. His throat works and his lips move, but he makes no sound-- at least, not any sound Fred or Cordelia will be able to hear. "No, no, no, no, no," he chants, seemingly soundlessly, shaking his head slowly. "Not again. It's not-- I didn't-- No, no, no..."

The silence is telling. Cordelia watches Angel like a hawk, but she can't see everything - not from where she's standing. She moves from her position to the front of the door of the cage.

"Let me in," she says to Godric. Then, realizing that her tone is hardly fit for someone who managed to help save them all, she lowers her eyes to the floor and adds, "Please."

Fred is incredibly grateful to Godric, considering all he's done for them today, and his attitude during this time makes her even more so. She flashes a small, wan smile back at him before her attention's caught by Angel banging his head against the stone again.

"Angel, please-" Tears are in her eyes, too. She knows this is going to hard for him, but she wasn't expecting...she doesn't think she expected anything, to be honest. She'd just been trying to help people get to this point.

She takes Cordelia's place by the bars and looks on, worried.

Now that Angel is no longer Angelus, Godric finds he possesses a deep sympathy for the other vampire. To be compelled to become a monster after years of living as kindly as one can, and then to be forced to confront that...Godric would react no better, and the whole situation makes him oddly uncomfortable.

He's at the door before Cordelia is quite finished with her last syllable, opening the cage door. Angel is no longer a threat. When the door swings open, he retreats again, turning to head up the stairs. He's no longer needed here.

Angel remains in the same position as before, head bowed and now-blurry eyes locked on the ground. He's glares at the ground halfheartedly, not at all angry with it, but seeing as he lacks a reflection and thus cannot glare at himself as he so desperately wants to, the ground is a good enough substitute. He hears Godric's footsteps as he leaves, hears Fred's voice--

"Don't," he says suddenly, to Cordelia. "I don't-- Just...don't."

She pauses mid-step, but only for a second. "Since when did I ever listen to you?" Cordelia says, injecting enough of her old attitude to remind Angel that it's her in the cage with him. Not Connor, not Faith. Her.

Another moment more and she's in front of him. Cordelia gently cups his face, before focusing her attention on the chains that bound him. She then gets the key from her pocket and begins the task of getting him free.

Fred leans against the cold of the bars, turning for a moment to watch Godric head upstairs. As Cordelia works with the chains, she debates joining them inside the cage. But she doesn't want to crowd him, and- well, one of them probably should listen to him.

So she stands outside, leaning on the bars as if she were on the inside of them. She sort of hopes that the best thing to do in this situation will present itself, eventually.

The comfort in her touch is welcomed, yet unwanted at the same time. That selfish part of him wants to revel in it and hide away from the pain and the memories in the distraction it provides, but he can't be so parsimonious after all that he'd done as Angelus. While Cordelia works at the chains, he gives Fred a pleading sort of look that, eyes shifting to Cordelia, then back to the other girl; it's a silent request to keep Cordelia from following, for he wants to run. Needs to run, to get his bearings on his own (though the pessimist in him highly doubts that he will) and away from apologies and sympathetic looks that he doesn't feel very deserving of at the moment.

Cordelia works slowly on the chains, keeping her hands occupied and hoping, in turn, that it'll keep her thoughts in line. No such luck. Her mind is just a mess right now - she's a mess, and barely able to hold everything together. God, she's so tired. So, so tired. Of being on her feet the entire time Angelus was out, of feeling so damn afraid and useless and worthless--

She's relieved that that's all over - yet not so stupid as to believe that the whole ordeal itself is. The aftermath has barely begun, after all.

Ignorant of whatever message Angel was giving Fred at the moment, she finishes with setting one hand free and shifts to do the same to the other one. When that's done, she moves closer - in case Angel needs to hold on to her. "We have to get you cleaned up," she says.

Fred doesn't necessarily like what he's asking, but she gets it. She understands needing to run, and needing to be alone. They can't let it go on too long, but- maybe he should have the time right at the start. She nods back at him.

...man, Cordelia is probably going to be pissed at her. Fred bites her lip and moves closer to the doorway.

Angel appreciates it more than he's capable of expressing right now; he'll make it up to Fred (and Cordelia) later. He's still a bit dazed, but manages to get up to his feet all on his own. Once he's up, he gives Cordelia an apologetic look, knowing what she wants that he can't give right now and then steps around her and out of the cage, bound for the stairs and the door at the top of them.

Of course the sudden movement surprised her; Cordelia thought he was weakened, and certainly not springy enough to pull off that movement.

"Angel!" she calls out. "Angel, wait!" Cordelia makes a move to follow him upstairs.

Sure enough, Fred steps in the way. She's tiny, but she can make a decent roadblock if she wants to. "Cordelia, give him some time. Just a few minutes, he has to sort through this without us pulling on his memories." She says this quiet and quick, as if rushing through stage lines. Her expression is desperate.

If Cordelia wants to push her away and continue upward, that's fine. Fred's probably delayed her long enough for him to get away...somewhere. She hopes he'll be able to come to terms with it all eventually.

"What?" Fred blocking her way is almost as shocking as Angel actually getting up and running away from her. What was this, a conspiracy? "What are you talking about? Angel needs--"

...except she has little idea on what Angel needs right now, save for those that friends can - and should - provide. She shuts her mouth and glares at Fred, because it's easier to be mad at someone else than admit to her own weakness.

"I'm sorry," she says, glancing down at the floor before looking back up.

And she is sorry. Cordy has been her one friend through this, through losing Wes, through everything that's going on. They helped hold each other up. This isn't a betrayal, but it sure feels like one. "He'll need us soon, but right now- right now, I think he needs to be alone," she adds meekly.

"Fine," Cordelia says through gritted teeth. What Fred says makes sense, but... damn if she's going to admit that.

"Just a few minutes, and then I'm going up there. You won't be able to stop me."

At this, Fred gets out of the way. Angel would've had plenty of time to run off now, and- well, she doesn't want to keep it up. "I wouldn't want to," she replies, still mostly looking at the ground. "He's going to need you soon."

She wrings her hands together, thinking about it. "God, I hope he's going to be okay." She knows he's strong enough, but it was hard to fully believe it after seeing him like this.

"Going to need us," she corrects Fred firmly. "He's going to need all the help he can get. Angelus made a hell lot of enemies here in Taxon, so Angel would need all his friends to support him."

Cordelia rubs her arms, but still doesn't step out of the cage. If she did, she'll head straight to the stairs, and she did promise to wait. "He will be," she says. "Now that Angelus is gone..." But still, the problem persists. There's still the aftermath to deal with - and sometimes, that is even more difficult to do so.

And in this way, Cordelia reminds Fred that she can't just run off here. Fred's felt so useless these past few weeks- even beyond the usual, because her normal methods of researching something until she made some sort of progress weren't going to help.

She's felt like running away herself, getting out everything that happened the past month in one long run, and maybe finding somewhere small to hide, for good measure. But she can be here for Angel, now that he's Angel again.

She nods at Cordelia. "We'll help get him through this. We've gotten this far, right?" she asks, with a weak smile.

"Right," Cordelia replies, with more confidence than she actually feels right now.

She silently counts to twenty, before throwing her hands up. "All right, that's it. I'm going up." Cordelia glances at Fred, daring her to speak up and do something to thwart her plans.

Fred just backs up a step, swinging her arm out to clear the way for Cordelia. "Good luck," she says sincerely. They're probably going to need all they can get.

She's going to stay down here for a few minutes, she thinks, and just soak up the quiet.

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xiii [ location: hyperion hotel, basement ].

[ location: hyperion hotel, basement ] last edit, I promise >_>;;

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