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

"A few days, I guess," Cordelia replies, moving the bottle in her hands around so the liquid inside will swirl. "I spoke to him after the whole tunnel event and he seemed fine, but a few days ago..." She shakes her head. "God. The way he looked at me, like I was a stranger... I'll never forget it."

And it's probably one of the things that deeply struck her, with this glitch.

Fred gives Cordelia a look of sympathy, knowing how hard that's got to be- or imagining it, anyway. "Well, that shouldn't be the case for too much longer, then. And as soon as he's back, he'll be headed straight for you. You know that, right? And then it'll be better again."

Of course, waiting until then is the hard part. Waiting is always the hard part. Fred, scratches at a spot on the table with her nail, then seems to remember she has a drink.

Now, Fred doesn't often drink much, and certainly not tequila. So when she tries it, she takes a sip. And then immediately makes a 'bleh' face. And then coughs. "Oh god, that's disgusting," is her poignant description, once she can speak again.

Oh, she knows that, Fred. And she honestly can't wait for it, because one whiff of in-love-with-Buffy!Angel will probably drive her batshit crazy. "Soon, I hope," Cordelia says. "The sucky thing about this is that he's got to be feeling so... lost right now, and I can't even help him. I want to, don't get me wrong, but I'm just... not sure if he'll accept my help, considering how he knew me when we were in Sunnydale."

She sighs, then looks at Fred - in time to see her take a sip of tequila. Cordelia laughs. "It's better with salt and lemons, but I'm punishing myself so I'm taking it straight. We can order something else, if you want?"

She frowns as Cordelia talks about not being able to help. That she really knows about. She can just hope that Cordy's not going to have to wait too long. "I guess you can just be ready when he comes to you. Who knows, maybe he'll be smart enough to figure out this glitch thing." She gave Cordelia a wan smile, though, because...well, yeah. She wasn't expecting it.

Fred laughs at herself a little when Cordy says they can get something else. "Why you're punishing yourself, I'm not sure. But yeah, I better move to something else. I can get us both something better-tasting, if you want?"

"Oh, that'll be great," Cordelia replies, pushing her bottle away. Why is she punishing herself with yucky-tasting tequila, anyway? Oh, who knows.

In the meantime, she places her hand on Fred's arm. "How're you holding up?" she asks gently.

"Um..." she says, looking to the side when Cordelia questions her. "I'll go get something else for us. Something strong. Just- maybe not that strong."

She gets up and walks off, knowing that this is the very definition of avoiding the question. But it gets her a little more time, at least. She ends up ordering them both a mudslide, making sure they don't skimp on the glass. When she comes back, she sets the giant alcoholic milkshake in front of Cordelia. "I sure hope you can taste this, after all the tequila," she says. "I sort of thought chocolate wouldn't be a bad idea right now."

She raises a brow, but doesn't say anything. Cordelia narrows her eyes at Fred when she returns, but in the meantime she'll take the milkshake and take a tentative sip from it. "Mmm," she says. "Well, I can safely say my taste buds aren't dead yet, and also? Quit avoiding the issue. We both know I'm not the only one hurting here."

She sighs a bit, and takes a long sip of her drink before she answers Cordelia, thinking about what she wants to say. "It's like- my life is on pause right now. I can't- I don't know what to do, other than wait. And you know how much I love waiting. I couldn't wait to head into that other city, on the off-chance it'd tell us more about what's going on."

She makes a quiet noise that's a little too bitter to be a real laugh. "Funny thing is, we sorta did. And it wasn't worth it. And that's before the possibility that going down there means we didn't get Wesley to a doctor in time." She should've told him to stay. She should've insisted, with that headache, and she should've stayed with him.

Cordelia shakes her head. "You didn't know," she says. "About Wes. You couldn't have known about his condition beforehand." She places a hand on Fred's arm. "Besides, you both agreed to exploring the tunnels together. And I'm sure as hell Wes wouldn't even dream about you going there on your own. He's... stupid and gentlemanly like that - which I'm sure you know, too."

Fred nods, but also shuts her eyes tight for a moment. She's glad that Cordelia's trying to help, even with everything going on with her. "He said he had a headache," she eventually says, finding her voice croaks on the words.

She can feel the tears threatening to emerge and doesn't work overly hard to stem them right now. "I found him some medicine, thought maybe it was the oxygen or something, but- he'd never complained about that sort of thing before. We should've both stayed here. I could've kept him here, if I really tried. It was r- reckless and dumb."

Cordelia keeps her mouth shut, especially since she agrees with what Fred had said. The two of them should have stayed in Taxon - then again, Fred and Wesley wouldn't be Fred and Wesley if they didn't go and investigate those damned tunnels.

"Not your fault, Fred," she says. "And making yourself feel bad accomplishes nothing. Let's just... let's just try to focus on the positive, 'kay? Wes is a survivor. He survived a shot to the gut; I'm sure he'll pull out of this really, really soon." She throws Fred a huge smile. "I'm a seer. I know these things."

It's a lame attempt at humor, but at least she's trying.

This happens to be the exact right thing to say to Fred right now- especially the part about making herself feel bad. She nods and tries for a smile, but with the tears on her face, it doesn't exactly get through. "He'd better, if he knows what's good for him," she says, her voice wavering, but no less trying to keep that lame attempt at humor going.

But there's something that's still bothering her, and after a few moments, she can't keep it in. "Do you- um, do you know what we found down there?" It's something she's thought a lot about the past few days, even while trying to avoid it.

Cordelia reaches for some tissue and hands it to Fred. "That's the spirit," she says.

Her smile drops, and she reaches for her mudslide. "You know, I never really did ask anyone what they saw down there," Cordelia tells her. "What did you guys see, anyway?"

Fred's still not sure she should talk about this, but it's been eating her up inside. Maybe later she can blame it on the tequila- heck, maybe she should, anyway. "It was Taxon. The same city, just with some extra stuff. And...well, we were there. All decomposed and everything, but it was us. I found myself, and Wesley, too. We were hugging each other. Reminded me of the documentaries I've seen of Pompeii, just- y'know, a billion times more terrible."

Fred takes a giant gulp of her drink then, because she needs to pause or she'll lose her breath. Or tell Cordelia the conclusions she's drawn from all of that. She'd rather neither of those things happen, at least for the moment. "So I guess I've seen myself dead all sorts of ways now," she eventually says. It's meant to be a joke, but doesn't come out sounding like one. "Other people found people they cared about, and we- we ended up burying them. There wasn't enough of us to bury everyone there, but...I think we needed that, anyway." It was a gesture of respect, for whoever they all were down there.

Cordelia wishes she was drunk enough to miss this part of the conversation, but alas her ears are still functioning, damnit. "...dead people? Us? How did--" She feels herself blanching at those words. "But-- but that's impossible! I mean, aren't we still alive here? We are, aren't we?"

She sinks into her chair. "...oh god," she whispers. "I don't... oh god, what could that mean? Is that... is that what our future will be? You think... you think we're all going to die here?"

Fred's mouth pulls into a line as she weighs the options of telling versus not telling. "I don't think so. I think the point is that we don't die here, although I couldn't tell you for sure. Lorne saw everyone fighting, right? What if that was the past and not the future? A glitch gone wrong in the old city or...something like that. And the ghosts were warning him what was possible."

She shakes her head, trying to wave that off a little. "I don't know. There's too many possibilities, considering what the hamsters are able to do."

She crosses her arms and mulls it over. "And my vision was the one where everyone's dead," Cordelia mutters. "Is that in the past, too? And-- does that mean we... or other versions of us, anyway... have been in Taxon far longer than we thought?"

Fred's right - the possibilities are almost endless - and her brain hurts from trying to grasp them all.

...though that can be from consuming too much alcohol; it's hard to tell.

"I don't know," she repeats, biting her lip. She plays with the end of her hair, obviously thinking over this again. "All I know is there were bodies. It could've been set up for us, but they could've been separate- well, versions of us, like you said."

She can't even admit that to herself, but she hopes it's the latter. It means that her fate isn't yet written.

"I think...maybe it's best if we don't think about it too much. Especially tonight," she finally says, taking another large gulp of her mudslide. "It's more than I even want to think about."

It's no use - the seed of doubt has been planted, or however non-drunk people phrase that nowadays. It's hard to ignore it, now.

Still, Cordelia makes an effort to, anyway. She grins at Fred, picks up her mudslide and drinks from it. "Uh-huh," she says. "Tonight is for getting ourselves shitfaced drunk. We can go back to worrying about our sucky lives tomorrow."

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

[ Location: Caritas]

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