Day 39: Intercom, Evening

[damned_intercom]

The Head Doctor seemed a little rushed as he spoke on the intercom, not taking as much pleasure as he usually did in describing the delicious food that would soon be served

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M2

[theroadsofar]

The nosebleed was mostly under control by the time Dean was escorted back to M2. As usual, he was the first one back. Seeing as there was no trash can, he passed off the bloodied tissue to Lurch; might as well, seeing as the orderly was just standing there watching him and he probably should look more busy than that.

Dinner tonight was turkey, but he didn't start digging in just yet. Instead, Dean took Angel's chair and dragged it into the center of the room, where he judged they'd have the most space for the exorcism. The hunter stood up on the chair and fished Sam's strawberry-scented crayon from his pocket, testing it on the ceiling. It worked, sparkles and all, but he still made sure to draw the lines on the Key of Solomon nice and thick, not wanting to risk a break in the devil's trap: all it took was one line to be uneven or incomplete and the whole thing would be useless and the "captured" demon not powerless, like it was supposed to. It took a good ten minutes to draw out the Key of Solomon on the ceiling because he had to move the chair every now and then to get more space, but, stepping down and looking up at his handiwork, Dean judged that it would do.

Fruity crayon and all.

That done, Dean moved Angel's chair back where he found it, and hoped Chippendale wouldn't do something as simple as just look up. He hopefully wouldn't look down either, and notice the meticulous salt line on the carpet by the door either. Then again, if he was a hunter like he suspected he might be - or knew his way around the territory - then maybe he'd know what both of those meant. Either way, Dean just wanted to avoid awkward questions right now, and concentrate on eating his dinner and prepping himself up for tonight. Dean sat down in his own chair and dug in, starting with the turkey and salad. Going hand-to-hand with a demon, even the oddball one like Punk-Ass, wasn't going to be a walk in the park. For all he knew, he was gonna end up looking and feeling a lot worse than he had this morning if he didn't get the drop on the demon. Still, wasn't like he couldn't deal, especially if it got them answers.

[blurred_divide]

Food was not something Angel paid particular attention to, but he was still capable of easily distinguishing one scent from another and he was fairly sure that the faint, fruity sweetness he could catch in the air had nothing to do with the turkey. It might've, had Cordelia done the cooking, but that was one fortunate occurrence avoided while here. Nor could he tell where it was coming from. It just kind of-lightly settled over the room, as if someone had sprayed perfume.

That didn't make sense. His roommate wasn't the type, he was sure of it. Angel was not that hopeless when it came to understanding people.

He frowned, but his attention was distracted from that when he caught sight of the-was that? He was pretty sure that was salt. What? He shot a look at Brian, unable to help his surprise. It wasn't that the line was there that surprised him. Or, yes, because it was there, but it was more that he recognized what this meant about his roommate. Even if the substance was bizarre. Binding powder, he'd used more than once himself, but that required several ingredients. This was simply...a condiment. The way it was placed, though, made it clear what its purpose was.

Still, if it was there, then Brian obviously knew more than he'd originally let on and Angel was willing to consider that perhaps Brian came from a different world with a different set of rules. It was hard to forget Edward and Emmett, both of whom were clearly vampires, but...not the same kind which Angel would've said was impossible before here.

And this did work in his favour. If Brian was expecting the line to keep out demonic entities...

Angel was going to have to tread even more carefully. Gunn had put several holes in him before coming around in the end. The soul thing was near impossible to explain and even more difficult to swallow. Plus, there was always the issue of the back story to the curse and there was never going to be a way to make I ate the wrong girl sound good.

After a beat, Angel stepped gingerly over the line. "Is there something I should be aware of?" he asked, not necessarily accusing. He didn't begrudge his roommate for keeping something like this a secret. It was the only logical thing to do given where they were and he was actually surprised that Brian had decided to give such an obvious indication now, of all times.

Though maybe he hadn't expected Angel to recognize it for what it was.

[theroadsofar]

Damn. So he had looked down.

"What, that?" Dean asked casually, looking at the salt line as if just seeing it now. He debated telling him the truth, the whole truth, but decided against it. Angel noticing the salt line didn't mean he necessarily knew what he meant. "Just a precaution. Or you could treat it as a personal tick, whatever floats your boat. I'd leave it alone if I were you though."

At least now he knew for sure Angel was no demon, at least, judging by the fact he'd made it over the salt line. Dean went back to his dinner, sniffing a little through his healing nose; seemed to be fine, nothing broken (again), and he definitely felt better than he had this morning, the "fight" with Slappy aside. He didn't know where Angel went during the night-shifts, but so long as he was outta the room for the majority of tonight, then it wasn't his business.

[Sorry it's short, gonna have to jet to get medicine D:]

[blurred_divide]

Angel cast the line of salt one last glance before sitting down in front of his dinner. Which reminded him that he did need to find something to eat tonight, though half the time, he lost as much blood as he got trying to wrestle down his meal. It defeated the purpose somewhat.

With the evasive way Brian was acting, Angel would've left it alone under any other circumstances, but he didn't think it was fair to pretend as if he didn't know anything when he actually did. Especially since he'd have to keep the story up and there was only so long he could pretend to be someone normal while hiding a fighting axe beneath the mattress. It didn't matter that much to him, anyway, as long as the vampire part didn't come up.

He watched his roommate for a moment. "Where did you learn that?" he asked finally.

Vampire hunters existed, but they weren't common. The job was usually left up to the Slayer. But knowing how to protect yourself didn't have to mean anything more than just that-those who discovered the truth didn't always put themselves in the line of fire; occasionally, they simply opened up occult shops or something of the sort and otherwise lived their lives.

Or became lawyers bent on destroying his city, and possibly the world. He wasn't sure about that yet. He only knew that Wolfram & Hart didn't like him very much.

[no worries~]

[theroadsofar]

Okay, looked like he wasn't dancing around it anymore.

Dean gave up on finishing his dinner, leaning back in his chair. "I picked it up. Kind of runs in the family," was all he'd offer. "You know what it means?"

It sounded like he possibly did. Maybe Angel didn't sense any demons when he'd been taken, but it looked like he'd recognized the salt, and not just as a condiment that some "nutjob" thought would be a cool idea to go leaving around on the floor. Dean had his suspicions about how many hunters were around here - aside from Sam and himself, there were possibly three - but he knew that just 'cause they might all share the same job and its "benefits" (if getting your ass handed to you a lot could even be called a benefit), didn't mean they were trustworthy. Not after Gordon. And Dean was doubly wary about hunters after that time Sammy got possessed. Granted, the hunter he'd killed? No one knew it was Sam, but Dean was paranoid all the same. Angel so far seemed normal, but then again, so had Gordon.

But he supposed better a hunter as a roommate than a demon or some other monster.

[blurred_divide]

Angel glanced up, a little surprised. He almost never heard of anyone doing this as a generational thing. That tended to be limited to those in the Watcher's Council for...some reason. Angel had never deeply explored their inner workings; he knew Wesley and Giles, of course, but in general he chose not to have any ties with them. They were good people with good intentions, but there was a lot they didn't seem to understand, either. After what'd happened with Faith, especially, he'd stopped trusting them much.

Brian obviously didn't fit the profile, though; Angel didn't even consider the possibility. He was clearly American, for one.

He paused, considering. "I know. Though to be honest, I've never seen salt used in place of a proper binding powder."

But if he thought about it, it wasn't completely irrational. Throwing salt over your shoulder was a common enough superstition, misconception though it was.

It still rang as a bit bizarre.

[theroadsofar]

Dean raised an eyebrow. "You're kidding, right? Salt's a lot easier to come by than trolling around for some ready-made binding powder. It's not exactly like they sell that stuff wholesale."

What kind of hunter was he? Any hunter worth his salt - ha ha, whatever - would just know, he assumed, that salt kept out more than demons and you could pick it up anywhere, any time. And it wasn't like you'd get a lot of weird looks buying it either, so it was inconspicuous to boot. Dean frowned a little at Angel; the fact he knew about binding powder at all screamed "Hunter" of some kind, but how couldn't he have seen salt used? Now, he didn't know how he got into the business. Not everyone was born into it like Sam and him, and it was wasn't out of the question that Chippendale here might've had to self-teach himself about this kinda crap. Maybe he hadn't discovered that yeah, you could use binding powder to juice up a line and throw in stuff like cat's eye shells, but salt was usually good enough to save your ass, especially if you had only a few seconds to lay a line down.

He polished off the turkey, wondering if Angel really knew what he was talking about or if this was all hearsay for him.

[blurred_divide]

Angel's eyebrows furrowed slightly. If Brian hadn't mentioned being raised into this, he wouldn't have found it strange that he didn't know. You did have to dig around to find this type of information. Either you devoted your life to studying all of this or you had a couple of centuries on your hands to read a lot of books and make a lot of contacts. And unless you knew where to look, occult shops with genuine supplies were difficult to locate. A lot of them were made for tourists.

But Brian made it sound like he'd been surrounded by this type of work his whole life. Surely, his entire family couldn't have gone without knowing these things?

"What? No, of course not, you have to put one together. The ingredients aren't hard to come by." There was a beat or two of silence. Something else was odd about this.

"What are you trying to protect yourself from, anyway? Only certain demons can be kept contained by something like this, cases of demonic possession usually."

Wait, had Brian run into a case of demonic possession here? How had he even known? Angel was fairly certain there hadn't been a lot of chances for a patient to go around examining the foundations for plakticine and that was really the only way to tell.

[theroadsofar]

"Spirits, for one," Dean said, shooting Angel a look. Hadn't anyone told him anything? Then again, he was right on that count - salt and holy water didn't always work on certain demons, Yellow-Eyes coming to mind that time when he'd been holed up in Dad. Dad had been gone for a year now, but he still felt his absence and it hurt like hell. Some days he didn't know how he got up out of bed, only that he just did and he suspected a majority of the reason was doing it for Sammy. "But you're right about the demons. If they're high-powered enough, then crap like salt and holy water might not work. But better some defense than none, y'know?"

Definitely a hunter. Maybe not the most experienced, informed one he'd ever met but still. Dean thought back furiously to if he'd ever seen Angel hanging around the Roadhouse but considering the fact that the Roadhouse's customers tended to look like very dangerous, very well-armed truckers or bikers, he was pretty sure Chippendale would've stood out for. It wasn't like every hunter in the country stopped by Ellen's, though, so just because he hadn't seen him before didn't mean he was legit.

[blurred_divide]

Okay, now Angel was...just confused. He was usually confused to some degree or another when talking to people, so that wasn't necessarily new in and of itself, but discussions about vampires and demons and such were often one of the few times he wasn't left feeling vaguely baffled.

It would've been easier to tell himself that Brian was simply out of the loop, but someone that confident in their declarations tended to have a reason to be that way. If Brian had been at this as long as he was implying, it was hard to imagine him having gotten this far without ever being proved wrong.

Which still didn't help things make sense.

"You're concerned about spirits? They don't-they almost never bother anyone. Most of the time, you can't even tell they're there. Or they're just like anyone else. But, you know. Invisible."

Not that spirits couldn't be dangerous; they could. It was simply rare. Given everything else that was out there in the world, spirits were probably the last thing anyone should be concerned about encountering.

Plus, Dennis the ghost made a nice enough housemate, even if he was occasionally overzealous with tossing Wesley the books.

[theroadsofar]

Dean snorted. "I wish. Look, man, I don't know what you've been up to before Landels or how much experience you've got, but the second you start trying to make friends with Casper, the more likely it's gonna end bloody. Just gonna tell you right now."

The few nonviolent ghosts he'd run into were few and far between: the only ones he could even think of off the top of his head was their Mom, the death omen Claire, and Molly. Those were the exceptions, not the rule. Now, he didn't know what fairy tale world Angel lived in, but sooner or later he was gonna run into the big bad truth that those spirits "just like everyone else" weren't a dime a dozen. If he was lucky, he'd either be quick enough on the draw to put them to rest or have someone with him to do it for him. Dean couldn't believe he'd lasted on the job, though, thinking spirits were just friendly, invisible people. Oh, they were visible, alright, and they weren't at all friendly.

Dean shook his head as he went back to his meal, going through the last of the pumpkin pie. So much for hoping that Angel might have some real experience behind him - if he couldn't even treat a spirit as something that needed to be put to rest and instead something that should be left alone, then there wasn't much help he could expect from him.

[blurred_divide]

Angel raised an eyebrow. Maybe Brian simply attracted a lot of violent spirits, but just how many were there to attract, anyhow? Psychics could sense the presence of spirits, but otherwise, most of them couldn't be seen or felt.

"Some are, but...they aren't common," he said. "Ghosts in general, I mean. I've run into exactly two violent spirits, and one who's taken up rooming with an associate of mine. Spirits tend to keep to their own plane of existence. It's rare for them to cross over."

Admittedly, he didn't seek them out specifically, but if there was one actively causing trouble somewhere, Cordelia's visions would've likely alerted him to it. Generally, there was simply no need to. He had enough on his hands with the vampires and various demons.

Of course, Brian wasn't exactly wrong to be concerned about ghosts. It was just, wasn't there a lot more he should be worried about instead? If he was focusing all of his attention on what was almost never there...

[theroadsofar]

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