taxonomites | 026: [ voice | location: caritas ] A bingin' we will go

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026: [ voice | location: caritas ] A bingin' we will go

[ guess who's now seated at a secluded corner in caritas, with her head on the table and nursing a huge bottle of alcohol on her own.

no, really. guess. ] Oh, who cares about... broody, stupid vamps when I've got you... [ she grabs the bottle and reads: ] Mr. Voodoo Tiki Tequila. Mmm. You're now my new best friend, 'kay?

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"It wasn't exactly real," Lorne admits, taking another healthy dose of potion-enhanced tequila. "Turns out the Cup of Torment they were fighting over, the one the Champion Vampire of Soul was supposed to drink from, was full of Mountain Dew. Not that I'm 100% sure there's much difference between Mountain Dew and torment." He makes a face. "They still made a big deal out of it. Testosterone poisoning."

"Probably took any excuse for them to have a go at each other, the big dumb babies," she says, shrugging. "Poor Angel, though. Him losing to Spike is just... I don't know. I can't seriously believe it."

"Makes sense to me. Angel had nothing left in him. No Connor. No Darla. No you. Spike had a reason. Spike had a lot of reasons. He had the fire." Lorne frowns. "That's what worries me about Angel, you know? In my time, he's so far from the fire it's like he'll never get it back."

"You guys working for Wolfram & Hart instead of against it probably - hell, definitely - killed that fire." Cordelia pushes herself off of Lorne. "I've heard Angel's excuse, I've heard Fred's excuse. What's yours? Why did you do it?"

Lorne gives a long sigh. This calls for another serving of tequila. He drinks long and deep. "I won't deny the celebrity cred was a draw. Hobnobbing with the glamor set - definitely a lifelong dream. You know how that is. But more importantly, wherever Angel went, I couldn't help but follow. When Lilah made the offer, I somehow knew he would say yes. Angel's not one to say no to power, especially not after he's lost everything. I got pulled into his orbit, and I couldn't not go with him. Makes me wish I stood my ground, but even if I did, he wouldn't have listened. I know that now. He did it to save Connor, and nothing any of us said would've changed his mind."

Cordelia bites her lip and nods. "That's what he said. He did it to save Connor." She looks away, focusing her attention on the extra singing badly right now. "To be honest? If I'd been there, I'm not sure how long I would've stood my ground either. Despite how disgusted I am at the idea... I would've given in." Because it's Angel, and how could she not?

"Or I would've run off to Antartica, or something. Build myself a nice little igloo and rot. I don't know which option sounds worse, right now."

"I gotta say, most of the time at W&H? I would rather have been in Antarctica. No lawyers down there." He stares glumly into his empty glass.

"But they're really snappy dressers, aren't they?" she says. "All evil and soulless but donning designer suits. So unfair."

Edited 2010-07-17 02:33 (UTC)

"Oh yeah. You shoulda seen Gunn as a lawyer. He was wearing Armani a lesser man would cut off his arm for."

"Get out," Cordelia says, after a few seconds of silence. "Gunn's a lawyer?"

"Yeah. The Senior Partners gave his brain an infodump full of lawyer info." He pours more tequila and says, brokenly, "For a price."

"And I'm guessing this price wasn't pretty, was it." Cordelia frowns, her stomach doing odd flips at Lorne's tone.

Lorne adds a drop of potion the tequila. "There was something held up in customs. A sarcophagus. Gunn used his lawyer know-how to let it through." He sips at the tequila, then looks up at Cordy. "That's what let Fred get taken over by that - that thing." His voice breaks a little on that word. "Illyria. It was trapped in that sarcophagus, and when it got through customs to Wolfram and Hart, and Fred touched it, it..." Lorne's hands are trembling so hard some of the liquid overflows onto the table.

She covers her mouth with her hands. "Oh my--"

Cordelia didn't bother disguising her horror at what she heard. "I never... oh god. That thing, I never bothered to find out about how she came to be, because I... I thought--" She shakes her head. "Poor Fred. What happened to her, that's just... oh god."

"The worst part was that there was nothing she could do about it," Lorne barely manages to say. "That thing was eating her from her from the inside out, and she worked and worked, and nothing she did could help. That's not Fred. She always saves herself. That's the last thing Illyria took away, besides her life. It took away her...her dignity."

Cordelia places her hand on Lorne's arm. "And you saw that happening," she says quietly. "What about the others, Lorne? You guys are working for such a rich, evil law firm. Don't tell me nothing in there worked to save Fred? Not even an incantation or some... some evil wizard?"

"We all tried to help. Angel and Spike went all the way to England to try to figure out what was going on. Wes set his entire department on the case - he even shot some guy in the kneecap 'cause he wasn't working on it. He was scarier than the collected works of Alfred Hitchcock, let me tell you." He shakes his head. "But it was no good. In the end, all we could do was watch her die. We didn't even have the consolation that she'd end up someplace better. Her soul was..." His throat works. "Consumed. By the...the thing."

Edited 2010-07-18 21:08 (UTC)

And this is what she can't ever understand about Angel and Spike actually defending that thing. They've seen how Fred suffered because of crazy blue lady, and they're acting as though she's a friend? Talk about completely stupid.

"Fred didn't deserve that," Cordelia whispers. "Hell, none of us does."

Edited 2010-07-19 12:25 (UTC)

Lorne slumps in his seat. "All those people going out into the tunnels, and I don't want to leave. Because you and Fred are here," he says in a small voice.

She pats his arm again. "You're not alone," Cordelia tells him. "Why do you think Angel and I both stayed?"

"Gotta say I'm glad you did. Sounds like the place beyond the tunnels is a real Twilight Zone." He finishes off his glass of tequila.

"Was it? I never really asked." Because those she could ask, came back in a coma, and near-coma with the worrying about the one in a coma. "What did they find in there anyway?"

He shrugs. "Not sure, exactly. There's another city down there, but I guess it must be abandoned. Ghost town."

Cordelia throws her hands up. "Oh, I knew it. I knew it'll be pointless to actually go there," she says vehemently. "Who knows, maybe that whole thing with the tunnels is just them trying to trick us. Not like they've been straightforward to us about anything."

"I don't think they wanted us to go down there," Lorne says slowly. "Remember when there was that broadcast with the nice soothing Morgan Freeman voice? They seemed to think of everything that happened as a mistake. Something they didn't want to happen." He shrugs. "Maybe it's just another lie, who knows."

026: [ voice | location: caritas ] A bingin' we will go

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