[Visual] EVERYONE I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE [also location: birdhouse]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

For a moment the screen is at a crazy angle, and fingers smeared with blood scrabble over the glass, leaving red messy trails on the broadcast.

Paul Smecker rights the tablet, gives Taxon a visual of his face, paler than normal, dotted with sweat. The hand not holding the tablet is clutching at his neck, and blood is visibly welling out from between his white-knuckled fingers. His shirt collar is damp too, but the astute-eyed may see that it's mostly water, and not quite as bad as it looks.

He's sitting on the floor, leaned back against an overturned table-- a shambles behind him, signs of a struggle however brief. Paul sags against the table, tries to focus. Blood loss, his mind tells him, it's blood loss making him weak, shaky-- (not shock, not panic, not shameful fear over someone he trusted turning on him-- no, not weakness like that), but he has to focus, has to tell people.

"Dawn--" His voice is a croak, he clears his throat, tries again. "Anyone who's watching-- Dawn Summers's... a vampire. Attacked-- bit me..."

Yeah. Yeah, bit him, and the mere thought of that makes him start wanting to hyperventilate. Keep it together, Smecker-- but all he's seeing is an innocent face twisting into a smile out of hell, fangs gleaming. The strength, the speed-- how the fuck do you fight that? All his planning, and... he'd trusted her. Trusted-- stupid, fucking stupid.

"...hey.... Buffy?" Paul rasps. "So's you know-- holy water... works pretty goddamn well."

And then he closes his eyes, leans back against the table and tries to think. The tablet's heavy; he lets that hand lower it to his lap. His other hand is still keeping the pressure on the punctures on his throat; he tries to think, figure if he'd be better lying down or not. Elevates the wound, yeah, but doesn't let blood get to his brain either, hell. Handkerchief-- he's still got one somewhere, right? Pocket-- yes-- he folds the cloth, gets it over the holes in his throat, then lies down on the floor, taking deep breaths.


[OOC: So, I MADE A BOO-BOO, some miscommunication on my part. Paul's not as seriously injured as the initial tags would have suggested-- he won't be unconscious, and will be able to update people as to the situation. Anyone needing to alter their tags in light of that, I will offer you chocolate. Sorry!]

Comments

[location]

[hasaheart]

If there's one thing you can say about Cain, it's that he's stopped taking his life for granted. That includes his friends.

However, that doesn't mean he's any less shell shocked to see one of them bleeding out on the other end of a city wide tablet feed.

Another thing that can be said about Cain is that he doesn't always think things through before rushing right into them.

He's running before Paul gets halfway through his transmission. And he's bringing his gun.

[location]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

When Cain arrives and bursts through the door, he'll see Paul lying on the ground still, one hand holding his tablet, the other keeping pressure on his injury with the handkerchief.

Without apparently looking up, he says with maybe half of his usual sarcastic bitchery, "If that's Dawn back to finish the job, get it over with it, will you?"

That's for show, because being a sarcastic jerk makes him feel more like himself-- he's been watching the tablet like a hawk the last few minutes, just to make sure Dawn isn't coming back to finish the job, and knows full well it's Cain who just came in.

[location]

[hasaheart]

The sarcasm is more than welcome. Truth be told, he'd half expected something worse - shock or death, either of the two. He knows too well how easily shock induced by uncontrolled blood loss leads to death.

So, to reiterate: Snark is more than welcome, and something he can very easily deal with.

"Do I look like jailbait to you?" A beat as he hurries over, dropping to his knees beside his friend. "Please don't say 'yes'."

[ visual ]

[herotypical]

Okay. Buffy Summers is concerned for Smecker's well-being. Something clearly went down -- something bad. But she needed to know for sure, first.

"You're certain it was Dawn? Dawn Summers."

Dawn had been missing for a while, now; Buffy had been upping her patrols, inquiring with those contacts she had managed to develop. Nothing had panned out. Buffy had been beginning to think that perhaps her sister had up and left. Back home. Hasta la vista.

Now? She nearly wished that were the case instead of the horror that Smecker was proposing.

[ voice ]

[dreamsinwhich.livejournal.com]

Ugh, seriously? No, it was another Dawn.

[ now that her cover's blown and everything hurts, trolling it is. ]

[ voice ]

[herotypical]

...The absence starting to make a bit more sense.

[ it's hard to sound slayer-hardened when you're simply so upset. ]

[ visual ]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

Paul fumbles for the tablet and this time sets it on his chest, the easier to speak at-- even if the visual is just displaying the ceiling. Buffy's voice.

"Yeah," he says, sounds dull and tired even to his own ears. "I know Dawn as well as I know anybody in this... goddamned city... it was your sister. Yea-high, into books, all that."

[ voice | locked to angel & buffy ]

[undoing.livejournal.com]

If you need me...

[ angel trails off, unsure how to phrase that, but confident buffy gets what he means. this is dawn. any other person turned vampire and he'd be already trying to lead the hunting party, but this isn't something he feels comfortable getting involved in, and buffy's more than capable of handling a vampire and her sister. ]

[ visual ]

[ironfright.livejournal.com]

[ Puck watches the display with a rather impassive look, taking in anything that can be seen through the tablet's skewed angle, and only after the man goes silent that he remarks, ]

There's a good Queen lyric for this.

[ visual ]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

"What, Don't try suicide?" Paul snaps, forcing himself to focus on the screen despite the fact that he mostly wants to sleep for a week and hope this was a bad dream.

He doesn't know the goth kid on the other side of the screen, but the flippant way the punk's treating this grates on him.

"Who the fuck are you, another member of the teen bloodsucking for fun and profit squad?"

[visual]

[littlestcastle.livejournal.com]

Alexis is staring with a look of dawning horror at the visual feed. She'll process the whole 'vampire' thing later, but for the moment her only concern is for the fact that one of the few people in Taxon she knows is bleeding to death on the screen.

"Oh God." She stares for a handful of heartbeats, mere moments, and the tablet jostles as she picks it up along with a messenger bag. "Somebody please help him!" She's not sure who she's talking to, but she has to say something, hope an adult somebody will hear it and get there and help.

But just in case they don't, she's going to head down there anyway.

[visual | locked, because Cain's slightly paranoid in times like these]

[hasaheart]

Cain's taking the flight of stairs two at a time as he ignores the mostly useless comments (to his mind they are). It isn't until he hears a familiar voice trembling with fear that he raises his bracelet to his wrist to respond. It's easier to keep his tablet there, like some kind of sadistic wristwatch.

"I'm on my way there." He doesn't like the thought of anyone, especially someone so young, to be out running right into danger. "Listen to me, Alexis," he says, using every last bit of authority he can muster while running to the nearest hatch. "I want you to stay indoors. Lock every door and window and stay put. Whatever you do, don't invite anyone in. Can you do that for me?"

She shouldn't risk her life, no matter that she thinks it's the right thing to do. No matter that he thinks so too. She doesn't need to see the blood any more vividly than on the tiny screen on the tablet.

[visual]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

Paul couldn't hear the locked transmission between Cain and Alexis, but he can see Alexis scrambling and that jerks him back to attention, even though he'd been wanting to just turn the tablet off and lie down for a week or so.

Quick button mash for a reply.

"Alexis-- no, you-- stay wherever you are," he says through a grimace. "I appreciate the fucking sentiment,"(apparently Paul stops self-censoring when injured) "--but the best thing you can do for me right now is stay put, okay? I'll be alright, not the first time I've been banged up on the job."

Paul hazards what he hopes is a 'reassuring' smile at the tablet and the young woman on the other end of it. Reassuring really isn't his strong suit. How are you supposed to do that? Tell them it'll be alright? Oh yeah. There's vampires, but it's gonna be peachy, kid.

"....shouldn't you be telling me vampires don't exist, little budding miss science?"

[ visual ]

[dreamsinwhich.livejournal.com]

The side of Dawn's face is smooth and unmarked again, with nary a trace of the painful burning Holy Water brings about; but she does looks pissed. You blew her cover, Paul. Bad form.

"Well, there goes the sweet and innocent act. You couldn't have just died?"

[ visual ]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

Paul doesn't like the feeling of panic that jerks through him at Dawn's voice-- he doesn't like feeling panic period, he's spent a lifetime playing at big strong FBI man and trying to out-macho all the fucking homophobes, to whom admissions of fear are like throwing meat at a starving dog.

It takes him a second to realize it's only the tablet-- that she hasn't come back. He takes a long breath, stares at the ceiling, trying to strive for sarcastic bitching and nothing more in his tone when he answers-- no hint of how shaken he is.

"I'm allergic to death. It's a character flaw. Fuck off and let me bleed in peace." Oh, he sounded mostly calm.

LATE TO THE GAME DON'T MIND ME. Also. [visual]

[stepintoshadows.livejournal.com]

The squawking, weak voice that penetrates his thoughts gets his attention, and for a moment Rorschach is relieved.

No, not relieved. It's not quite right, the source is more in validation that the corruption he knew had to be there was, hidden just under the surface, not that he's grateful for it. He is never glad to be proven right, it never sends a thrill of accomplishment through him to know that the degenerate scum that walk amongst the innocent and good will, inevitably, spread their filth like a cancer, devouring everything in their path.

It's not the man's plight that gets his attention so much as the blood itself, bright red and gleaming from nearly every surface and the broken furniture that speaks to a struggle. Rorschach dislikes blood, finds no satisfaction in its appearance unless there are broken bones underneath and it's of his own doing. He's less concerned with the man and more with the cause (there are others, they will come, but even this thought doesn't come until later), and he latches on to the few words the man has said about the matter, demanding answers.

"Vampire? Describe."

*minds you* [visual]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

For a second Paul thinks he's hallucinating, because the tablet gives him only a shifting mess of black and white. He decides to close his eyes and just focus on the voice.

"Look like everyfuckingbody else," he says with a grimace as he tries to better center the handkerchief over his neck. "Except for when they whip out fangs and go about fucking biting you. Who the hell are you?"

[ visual ]

[undoing.livejournal.com]

Dawn was a vampire. A glitch, Angel instantly rationalized, knowing fully that he hadn't turned her (to his knowledge, as the culprit was an alternate, unsouled version of himself), Drusilla couldn't while that chip was still in her head, and Godric would never. Rose, he barely knew, but gut instinct tells him that someone who intends to remain secret wouldn't do a thing so foolish as to turn the sister of a known Vampire Slayer.

"It's effective, but only for so long."

[ visual ]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

"I wish those of you who know all this stuff would tell those of us who don't before we need it to defend our goddamn lives," Paul says, but he can't muster any actual anger to his tone, he just sounds tired. At the moment he doesn't know he's talking to one of the very vampires he's so paranoid about.

"It got her to stop biting me. If she comes back, I either try another bottle or I die, I fucking guess."

[voice]

[slayersidekick]

Dawnie-?

[ oh god. ]

A-are you okay? Where is she?

[visual]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

At the moment Paul can't place the voice, another young woman-- why is Taxon so full of young women? Through the slight surreal haze of minor blood loss Paul tries to track that mental pathway down, but he's not making much progress on it.

"I'll live," he says tiredly, "...unless you don't, after getting bit. How's that work anyway? No, don't tell me right now, ugh. As for Dawn-- don't know."

A terse edge to his voice. "At the moment don't care, either, as long as she's not in here with me trying to drink my blood."

[ voice ]

[lajolieblonde.livejournal.com]

Oh my Lord, are you all right?

[ cue uncomfortable memories of having her throat ripped out. D: ]

[ visual ]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

Paul doesn't know this voice, but he thinks in vague morbid amusement that if he'd known all it took to get a whole bunch of the people in Taxon that he hasn't yet met was to get bitten by a vampire, he'd have-- no, he wouldn't have arranged for it to happen earlier. Not worth it.

He focuses on the tablet, but there's no face to match the woman's voice.

"Thanks for asking," he says with a throat clearing. Ow. "Friend's on the way, bleeding seems to've stopped. Have we met, miss?"

[Voice]

[allthatlife.livejournal.com]

Paul? Paul, it's Doctor Jones. I need to tell me where you are. I'm going to come and treat you.

[Voice]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

Paul had started to close his eyes-- he opens them again, focuses on the tablet.

"Doctor Jones," he rasps. "Birdhouse. The structure I was..." he trails off, starts laughing a bit, just a touch hysterically, and has to grind down on that before he can continue.

"...the structure I was trying to fortify against vampires. Ugh. Just.... I'm on the map, you'll see me."