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

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!]

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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?"

Edited 2011-05-09 10:55 (UTC)

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.

"You want to test that one? Because for the record: Holy Water for me feels a little bit like what someone pouring acid on your face would feel like for you. I could hatch you some, return the favor..."

Right now, Paul is the very safest person in Taxon. She can't go back, not after the whole of Taxon got a glimpse at her in action. But that doesn't mean threats are off the table.

"Not particularfuckingly." Paul grits his teeth as he half-sits-up, glancing over at the spilled weaponry. Could he get anything ready, aim the crossbow at the door, something? In case she comes back? He's not sure he's feeling up to it.

You could pray, he imagines Connor saying, or Murphy, and the way they'd grin after saying it.

"Wouldn't, say, scalding hot coffee be--" grunt, ow-- "more-- apro-fucking-pos?"

Apparently Paul's releasing all that self-censored swearing now that Dawn is revealed to be evil. (Or so he thinks.) He reaches out past the edge of the camera's recording, gets his fingers on another bottle of the holy water just in case.

Yeah, sorry about that. [ she couldn't sound less sorry if she tried. ] You kept going on and on about wanting me to make you coffee, and I got hungry. The under the radar thing is easy when you can cross state lines if you get caught snacking, not so much here.

[ because he totally wants to converse with you, dawn. a+. ]

"Consider the request for coffee permanently retracted," Paul says, and god the tired is catching up now, with no adrenaline rush to off-set it, there's some good old-fashioned terror to fight down to try and answer her in this tit-for-tat banter bullshit when what he wants to do is hurl the tablet somewhere across the room, close his eyes, wake up back home, home, home.

Get. It. Together. Agent, he tells himself. This is an opportunity, it's information, you should be grilling her, watching her, trying to learn all you can. Treat it like a goddamn professional. Come on.

He doesn't want to look at her. Doesn't want to see her on the screen. He'd-- goddammit, he'd liked the girl, and all this time (so he thinks) she's just been playing him--

Paul fumbles for the off button, trying to end the call. It's easier to breathe when he's not close to hyperventilating. If Dawn wants to be smug that Special Agent Sarcasm is at a loss for words, she can-- she's apparently won this round, as Paul is forfeiting like hell.

Wow, I really got you good. [ ...dawn. ] And whatever, I don't really do coffee fetching. And it's not like I'm going to be around much longer.

It's that last phrase that stops him right before hanging up. For a few seconds, he just breathes shallowly.

"What do you mean, you won't be around much longer?"

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

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