It had been a long, long drive over...
Who: Angel, Spike and Wesley
Where: Angel's hotelroom?
When: Shortly after Fred, Wesley and Spike arrived by car.
What: The Brits meet up with the boss.
Status: Incomplete
( It had been a long, long drive over. )
Where: Angel's hotelroom?
When: Shortly after Fred, Wesley and Spike arrived by car.
What: The Brits meet up with the boss.
Status: Incomplete
( It had been a long, long drive over. )
While part of Spike was so cheering that on? That soul he now had as well, was very much protesting against it. Bloody soul. It hadn't been his greatest wish and it hadn't been what he'd asked for in that damn cave. At least that was his he thought. It was his story and he was stickin' to it!
"Like you got room to talk," scoffed Spike at Angel's words. "You're tearin' down the road like you're in a formula one race or sumat. 'Specially with the loads of cars you can pick back at the evil firm."
Wesley inwardly rolled his eyes at the pair. They sometimes reminded them of Cordelia and himself. Only less mature of course. Although Cordelia sometimes lacked the maturity he himself possessed he thought. Not, mind you, that he would say that out loud in front of anyone in fear of Cordelia hearing about it.
"Drunkenly grope-- why would-- is there a feast going on here I'm not aware of?" While Wesley had looked into the history of the town somewhat, he had of course focused on the more-- unknown things. The supernatural, the voodoo legends, the myth. Not the actual social and cultural history as a normal person would do were he to come here.
"You're a bleedin' dork," Spike snorted, flicking Wesley against the back of his head while he pulled a package of smokes out with his other hand. Shit he had missed this. Smokin' and drinkin' and sex! Once he was done pesterin' Angel he was so gonna go into this town and find himself somethin' to fuck! He wasn't picky at all.
Wesley glared at the blond vampire. "Stop that, I've told you that more then once when we were on the road, *William*," he said, a smirk sliding on *his* face at the look on Spike's when he said the name that shalt not be used again.
"Right, the vision. I've been looking into it while we were driving over here. Well, as much as I could, which wasn't much," he added, once again glancing at Spike who stuck his tongue out at the former Watcher. "I'll have to continue here. Oh ah, Faith called and..."
"Oh yeah, firecracker," Spike interrupted just as he had interrupted the talk Wesley had with Faith, "was worried about the happenin' here. And our Buffy robbed a bank. You been drivin' her to crime with your broodin'," he said, pointing a finger at Angel.
Wesley quickly stepped in front of Spike and turned to Angel before dust would fly. "Ah, you've been here longer and... a vampire. What have you noticed of the differences with the vampire populace here?"
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"Wes, Bourbon Street is where people in their early twenties go to drink and party," Angel pointed out to Wes. Really, did he NOT know that? Even Angel, who tended to hide from all things current pop culture, knew that one. Then again, Angel had lived above ground for the past couple of years. Wes seemed perfectly content to live between two covers of a book. Good for him, but it made him miss a lot.
"Wait, Faith called?" Was that good or bad? Even though he personally liked Faith, he was never sure if hearing from her was a good or a bad thing. When Faith called, the best thing you could hope for was that she needed some kind of help with something. Things didn't usually go that well, though.
Of course, he immediately forgot about Faith when he heard about Buffy. "Wait, Buffy robbed a bank? What the hell?" Now this was something that had to be made up, especially with what Spike said next. "No, you probably drove her to crime with your fake accent and fake hair. Oh, I remember what you used to sound like, William," Angel snapped. Sure, neither his accent nor his hair had anything to do with anything, but he knew that Spike was sensitive to the fact that someone might remember who he originally was, a bad poet with a soft spot for Mommy.
"And I haven't ran into any vampires here, yet," Angel said, still eying Spike with menace. "They tend to avoid me." He wasn't exactly Mr. Popular with vampires.
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Wesley meanwhile looked at Angel and rolled his eyes. "Don't look at me as if I'm some laboratory experiment, Angel," he sighed, "I cannot know everything. I am not, no matter what you and everyone else seem to think, a walking encyclopaedia alright?" Wesley *hated* it when people looked at him like that. It made him feel inadequate and small, as if he knew nothing of the world. Just because he thought that some things were more important then others.
As if Angel had any right to look at him that way. The vampire barely know how to switch on a computer! It was bad enough that Cordelia and Gunn and at times even Fred looked at him as if he were some stranger foreigner (which was basically true but... did they need to rub it in?). But Angel doing it was like-- having your best friend turn against you, since the vampire was about as socially awkward as Wesley the former watcher had always felt some soft of kinship there.
While Spike was still looking around the room - and Wesley was quite certain the blond was making far more of a mess then needed - Wesley stored over to one of the large comfortable looking chair. "Yes, she called me while you were on your way over here. There is definitely something not kosher with the vampire's here." Hell, Wesley was still basking in the fact that his Slayer - former, whichever - had called *him* for advice.
"Ohhh burn," Spike snorted at Angel's attempted to annoy him. It was fun but neither Angel nor Angelus had ever been very good at it. Especially not around Spike. "Least I changed," he pointed out, making an aha sound when he found a box of matches, "you still look like you did 500 years ago. Do even use the same sticky wax? I mean, how else you got your hair lookin' like that?" Yeah, again with the hair, but it was an easy target!
"Could you two stop bickering like a couple of old maidens and focus on what is important?" Wesley sighed at the two vampires and got up from his chair. "Faith told me that Buffy robbed a bank because they needed money. What they needed it for I'm not entirely clear."
"Either way," he continued, taking the matches away from Spike mid lighting and tossing them in the bin. Spike gave him a foul look and scowled as he turned around to dive after his precious matches. "She's on a wanted list right now. Police, FBI, I'm not certain. Perhaps something for Gunn to look into if you wanted. She is here as well so Faith tells me. She and the-- rest." Ah yes, the Sunnydale people. How much would enjoy not meeting them.
"Avoid you?" Spike snorted, coming up with the matches again, "Can't imagine why. You bein' such a prince charming handsome devil an'all. You wouldn't know how to get answers from a gnat, Angelus."
Wesley rolled his eyes as he took the matches again and put them in his pocket this time. He gave Spike a challenging raised eyebrow before turning back to Angel. "We really need to find out what's going on with these vampire's here. There's this blood substitute Faith mentioned called Tru Blood or some such. Does that ring any bells... Actually, did you leave this room at all since your arrival here?"
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Wesley was right, though. They needed to focus on the matter at hand, and not annoying the hell out of each other until it turned into a brawl. Ignoring Spike's comments about, well, everything, he tried to block the annoying vampire out of his brain and focus on more important things right now, like Cordy's vision and why Buffy would really feel the need to rob a bank when she could have just came to him and asked for money.
"I really don't know why these vampires are in Louisiana now, Wesley," Angel told him. "Unless they've got a penchant for Anne Rice." He made a face at the mere mention of that woman's name. Almost all vampires hated her. That was even something that Angel could agree with other vampires with. The only good thing about her in most vampires' minds was that she had made getting willing prey a little easier. Still, ugh. The woman obviously had no idea what she was talking about.
"Tru Blood?" Angel nodded. "Yeah, it rings a few bells." He ran a hand through his hair. "Actually, the makers of it approached me to do an ad for them. 'Wolfram & Hart CEO drinks Tru Blood.' I turned them down." He had no interest in being on TV. He was already recognizable enough without putting his face on some fake blood drink. "And no, I haven't left this place yet. Haven't been here that long, though."
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"Bein' the boss of this bloody firm is makin' you fuckin' lazy, poofster," Spike pointed out, unlike Wesley having on qualms about voicing his opinion in a very untactful way. When it came to that he and Cordelia should get along just fine.
"Yes, thank you, Spike. That was very helpful," Wesley sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, "as was your mention of Anne Rice, Angel. Thank you for sparing us your usual rant though." Angel's hate for the woman was widely known. Wesley hoped that vampire never got the idea to go after the woman now that he was the boss of a huge law firm.
Angel's next words had Wesley blinking though. Then frown in confusion for a moment as he *ran* those words through his mind. Wait. Someone had approached Angel about this Tru Blood stuff? When? And why had he never mentioned this before damnit!
"Some tasty bit comes to you with the offer that you recommend totally fake blood," Spike snorted, finally able to light his smoke with some lighter he had found somewhere, "and you don't find this the least bit weird? Cause unless you work for the new management," and that was said with a snort, "of bloody Wolfram and Hart, you don't go 'round drinkin' fake blood. Swear, Angel, you *are* as dumb as your look."
An explosion was eminent, Wesley was certain. He quickly stepped between the two vampire's again and put his hand on Spike's shoulder. The vampire glared at the former watcher as Wesley guided him toward the door. "Thank you, Spike, that was also most helpful. I can't help but point out that you're no longer a ghost again. So why don't you go around and explore instead of-- wasting your time here."
Tact. It was a talent. "Waste your time, y'mean," Spike growled. And sometimes tact was completely see through, Wesley realized. "Fine, not like I wanna stay here with Captain Forehead and the dumbness that is his hair- or his brain," the blond ranted on. "Why don't I go out and do *his* job. Find us some info." Mostly about Buffy, but that wasn't something Spike thought either man needed to know.
"Right, you do that," Wesley agreed seriously, flashing the vampire a smile and closing the door after he had left the room. Then he turned around and narrowed his eyes at Angel. "Just when have these people come to you to advertise this blood? Upon till my phone-call with Faith about a week ago I had no idea it even existed. Nor the fact that vampires are, apparently, turning good here."
It went against *everything* Wesley had grown up with. Just as he was still coming to terms with 'one girl in every generation' turning into a thousand Slayers running around. That just wasn't how it was supposed to be! But then, he'd been working for the most notorious vampire in history for how long now?
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“Yeah, I did find it weird, that was why I didn’t take it,” Angel said. “It was only about a week or so ago. I didn’t think it was an important thing, though. Why would I? It’s just synthetic blood made in Japan. I didn’t think it had anything to do with anything. I don’t know why vampires are coming out into the public all of a sudden.” He also hated that phrase ‘out of the coffin.’ Really, who actually slept in coffins? Well, Dracula might, but he was nuts!
“And he’s right, you’re not a ghost,” Angel said, glaring at Spike. “If you don’t want to go through that window, you should either leave or shut your mouth, and, well, since we know that you can’t shut your mouth, I suggest you also leave.” Angel’s blood was literally boiling at this point, he was completely ready to just tear Spike to pieces. How was one person able to make him so angry? And why hadn’t he put him out of his misery such a long time ago?
“I don’t know what to think of vampires turning ‘good’,” Angel said to Wesley. “I think it’s some sort of ruse, but, at the same time, vampires don’t usually get along in such big groups well enough to pull off something like this.” It was the truth. Look and Angel and Spike. The two of them could barely be in the same room with one another without sniping at one another.
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Wesley knew that it was guilt in Angel's case. Guilt and something he couldn't put his finger on since Angel wasn't the one who had turned Spike. Or William then.
Spike just had daddy issues, as Cordelia would say. And Angel was the daddy. The one he would always rebel against yet wanted respect from. The first seemed to be working just fine, the latter... Eh.
"Are you done?" Wesley asked dryly, giving his friend a bemused look. "He's already left, Angel." And hopefully they wouldn't run into each other soon. The peace and quiet they had when the two had been apart was obviously not going to last long. Blast it.
"Right, well," Wesley decided, rubbing a hand over his chin, "since we wont find any answers here,"he continued, raising an eyebrow at Angel, "why don't we follow your child's," and there was a word which highly amused the former watcher, "example and go out to find some answers. Only we'll go in the complete opposite direction," he mumbled the latter before giving Angel a quizzical but hopeful look.
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"Fine, let's go and find some answers," he said to Wes, grabbing his coat and throwing it on. He probably looked ridiculous in New Orleans wearing the long trench coat. Anyone with a remote sense of temperature was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, or, if they were more like Wes, probably sweating half to death. Really, why Wes constantly insisted upon wearing more clothes than necessary all the time was something that Angel couldn't figure out. Must be a British thing.
Angel wasn't even sure who they would be talking to in New Orleans, though. He knew that the vampires here went by some sort of court or something like that. They were much more organized here than they were in California, at any rate. Still, they could probably just wander the streets long enough and figure out at least one person to talk to. Probably what Spike was doing at any rate.
"So, other than the opposite direction of Spike, do you have any idea as to where we should actually start looking for some answers?" Angel asked Wes. He surely didn't have a clue as to where to start, after all.
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A bemused expression rolled over Wesley's face. Seriously, those two were like small children. He was aware what they said about him and Cordelia bickering in the past-- and still. But Angel and Spike were no better if not worse. After all those centuries you'd think they'd have grown tired of it. And Wesley knew that deep down, somewhere; they must like each other or at least have some form or respect. Otherwise one of the two would be long dust by now.
You don't get on each others nerves for centuries on end without there being something that keeps drawing one back to each other. Interesting. Quite fascinating, Wesley found. Something to look in later, right now they had vampires with other strange behavior to figure out.
"Of course I do," Wesley nodded, pulling on his thin coat. The weather didn't bother him in the slightest. If anything he'd probably be the first to complain about it being cold rather then it being to hot. Growing up in dreary, wet and cold England made one appreciate the warmth and sun.
"There are several locals we can contact as well as several establishments we can visit," he explained to Angel as they walked out into the night. Of course Wesley had done his research before he came here. Didn't he always? Preparation was the key. Storming in and asking questions later - if one was still alive - he left to Gunn and Angel... Though he wasn't happy about it as he had told them often enough.
"I'm not in the mood for busy crowds today. That seems more a thing for Spike," whom he had told about the establishments - or Clubs as the blond vampire kept calling them - so Wesley had no doubt Spike would go there. If his plan worked.
"Let see," he muttered as they walked. A piece of paper and his glasses were pulled out of his pockets so he could read what was written. "Grzzlgghmaghah."
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"Crowds are more Spike's thing," Angel agreed with him. What he wanted to do was hide away for a few more days while he got comfortable with the city, but apparently that wasn't going to be what happened for him. Wesley seemed to want to go out and do things now, and, while Angel couldn't really argue with the sentiment, it seemed that he wasn't all that excited about doing the actual going out at this moment.
"I don't think that's what that says," Angel said when Wesley said 'something' that he had written on the paper. Well, he hoped not, because that actually was a word in a certain demonic language, and it wasn't a good one. Hopefully, it was more along the lines of Wesley miswriting something or maybe just having terrible handwriting than anything else.
He looked over Wesley's shoulder to see the paper. "No, it doesn't say that. It says 'gzzrlggamaghan." Or maybe it was something else. "Do you typically write this badly?" Might as well have been written in gibberish for as well as Angel could read it.
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As a former Watcher Wesley prided himself with his immaculate, precise very neat writing. He had to be able to write like this *because* he was trained as a Watcher. One wrong slash or dot or hyphen... One curl to many, one line to long, and a ruler would correct that mistake. In fact Wesley could still feel the sharp burning pain on the back of his hand where the bloody thing had landed until his father had thought it adequate enough.
Suffice to say, Wesley had learned to write *precise* and *immaculate* at a very early age. So why Angel would suddenly, not only point out that Wesley's handwriting was bad, but also found it necessary to correct the name of the demon was beyond him.
"No, Angel, it says *exactly* what I just said. Please don't insult one of the few things I'm actually good at," he murmured with a frown. Maybe Wesley ought to blame Spike for Angel's mood. With the lack of Spike, Wesley *was* the nearest easiest target for an irritable vampire. The fact was, however, that despite sharing a Mother Country, Wesley was *not* Spike.
"You've known me and my writing how long? And now is the time you feel the need to critique it? I used to be a Watcher, Angel, please give me some credit. Grzzlgghmaghah is the name of a demon species that has a clan here who might help us out. Shall we go an meet them now? Or wait until you're done getting rid of your frustrations. Because the last thing we need, honestly, is you being hostile in any way to a possible ally in any way. If I wanted that I'd have brought along Spike."
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