[closed] throw your soul through every open door / count your blessings to find what you look for

[hasasoul]

Characters: Angel and Darla, closed.
Location: Other apartments on Coruscant. You know the ones everyone starts out in? Well, not those.
Planet: Coruscant.
When: After this log!
What: Angel and Darla are reuniting. 8|
Rating: your mom. no idek.

Comments

[wellpastsaving]

[She didn't call to him in words, or even with a clear image of where she was. She knew she just had to let him sense her presence, and it would be enough to draw him there eventually.

And she knew he'd come alone. Because that was the way of this game between them, and some things never changed.

Plus, she knew he both wouldn't want to get someone else involved before he knew what he was getting into, and also that the part of him that suspected it could be her wouldn't want to share that with the class.

Not yet.

She was banking on that.

She could sense his approach when he drew near the building, and smiled slightly to herself as she moved towards the door and brushed fingers across the panel that would disable the locks. She drifted back across the room to stand near the transparisteel windows, looking out at the lights that shone in a full spectrum of colors, making it seem much less like nighttime than it actually was.

Her shoulders were slumped forward awkwardly, her hands knotted together, and her hair an unbrushed mess. Without the layers of fashion and makeup piled on, she looked very uncharacteristically small indeed, rather than her usual larger than life motif, and her voice was just as small when she heard the door slide open, though she didn't turn to face him.]

... Angelus.

You came.

[There was a note of relief in her tone, but it was cracked through with something so bitterly sorrowful that it hardly sounded as if she were sure how she felt either way about his showing up. If anything, it sounded as if she felt she were coming to the end of something inevitable, and was somewhat relieved that the chase was over.]

[hasasoul]

Darla.

[His voice held a mixture of shock and disbelief, but there was something else, too. Something underneath. He was angry, more at the circumstances of her death than at her. Well, here was his chance to kill her. To get it all over with, even though it would kill him inside. Re-kill. Whatever. So he tried to step in through the door --

-- And it pushed him back. There was an invisible threshold blocking him from entering. Which had to mean something. Namely ... ]

You're still alive? [And then there was the kicked puppy face.]

[wellpastsaving]

[She turns her face very slightly, so that he can see the humorless and bitter shadow of a smile flicker at the edge of her lips.]

Sorry to disappoint.

[There's a silence that hangs there for a fraction of a moment before she adds:]

You can come in. Get this over with.

[hasasoul]

[He shuffles in. Now what the fuck is he supposed to do? He wasn't prepared to deal with this. How could he have expected it? He wasn't even prepared to deal with here being here, forget the living part.]

Do you still have a soul?

[Yeah, that was probably a stupid question. But his brain is experiencing a meltdown right now. Kind of like LiveJournal ... ]

[wellpastsaving]

[And she'll look right back at him now, her face and hair a total mess as if she just checked out of the Betty Ford Clinic, and fix him with a 'seriously, you dumbass??' stare.]

Soul. Heartbeat. Mortality.

I have all of them. [She looks away again, her eyes dead as they sweep the room, which has been fucked up a few times and even sports some nice broken mirrors, because she's all about the detail work. Even more bitterness creeps into her tone.] At least until that last one gives out.

[hasasoul]

[He comes closer, still unsure of how to deal with this hot tranny mess of a Darla situation. But -- she'd died. She was supposed to be a vampire now. He knew how this worked.]

So you're not -- you're alive, but you're still sick. [thoughtful pause] What's the last thing you remember?

[wellpastsaving]

[Sick.

So he knew.

How long had he known? How did he find out? Even she didn't know until she got here and... She'd have to find that out later.

For now, she shakes her head.]

You tried to tell me. [An empty laugh escapes her throat, that sounds somewhere on the borderline of sanity.] You said I'd feel it. All of it. Every last one of them. [The dark smile on her lips fades, and she turns her head away, looking at nothing, her tone turning mocking.] But you were wrong.

There's not enough room. Not enough room to feel all of them, not in this fragile human body. [Her lip curls in derision for a moment, but it drops again] They won't all fit.

[Her arms wrap around her mid-section, as if she's trying to hold her frame together, like all those people she'd killed are threatening to overflow within her and rip her physical frame apart.

It's an act, but it's one born from her vivid memory of the first few days she was here. She remembers what it was like, how it felt.

Talking about it again is more difficult than she'd like to admit to herself. She's pushed this all down, and liked to imagine she'd found a way past it, but revisiting those memories brought pangs that made it all too easy to re-enact. Even that momentary realization sickened her. As long as she stayed angry at herself for even having those emotions, she wouldn't have to slip into feeling guilty over them.]

You were wrong, Angelus.

[hasasoul]

[It was hard to watch her suffer, even after everything they'd been through. Even after killing her, he still couldn't look at her without feeling something. When you spent as long as they did being attached to each other's hip, it was hard to stand there and not feel anything. So he worked his way even closer, this time stopping in front of her and softly planting his handa on her shoulders.]

I didn't want you to go through it alone, like I had to. And I won't. [This is his second chance. His chance that won't get fucked up by Wolfram and Hart.]

[wellpastsaving]

[Her eyes meet his, steeped in uncertainty and emotion. There's so much determination in his tone, and she can't help but compare it to the last conversation they had, where he was full of accusations, anger, and warnings that he seemed to take some kind of glee in, after what she'd done to him.

Interesting.]

Go through it? [A manic burst of laughter bubbles in her throat and dies at her lips] And what's on the other side, exactly?

[hasasoul]

More suffering. It doesn't get easier. [He bows his head with the weight of his admission.] But you can learn to manage it.

[wellpastsaving]

[That heaviness under his words fills her with frustration, and a pang of something else too. Did he really think this was managing it? Accepting that this suffering was eternal and there was nothing you could do about it?

It makes her angry, and she focuses on the sharpness of that anger, trying to shove the other feeling aside, trying to ignore it for whatever it may be. Fear? Empathy? Pity?

She shakes her head and says very firmly, her eyes desperate, as her hand grabs onto his arm:]

Kill me.

[hasasoul]

[He feels her anger so clearly, but he can't bring himself to act on it. He can't kill her. When she was a vampire again, he was ready to go. But if she's human, with a soul ...

Even if he did want to punish her -- which he's not sure that he does anymore -- leaving her alive would be the right way to go about it.]

I won't. [He considers saying "hur hur aren't you dying anyway" but doesn't want to ... get thrown out a window. She could probably still do it. She's Darla, man.]

[wellpastsaving]

You won't? [Yeah, she would have. Watch your tongue, boy. Her words get sharper, her eyes narrowed.] You didn't seem to have a problem doing it before. And it certainly seemed to be what you wanted the last time we talked.

[She shoves her hair back, tilting her neck in that Buffy pose we both hate, except minus the stupid face.] You won't even have to feel guilty for enjoying it, Angelus. How long have you gone without fresh human blood? Don't try to tell me anything else measures up.

Just get it over with.

[Darla has no desire to actually die, but she also doesn't believe Angelus will do it, either. Even though he did kill her once before, she knows he's too namby-pamby now to just take a souled human life just like that. This seems like a pretty safe gamble to her.]

[hasasoul]

[SCREAMS NOT THAT ICON. X( Angel isn't Spike, okay. He can resist. He is good at ~resisting temptation~. Sometimes. ... But he's going to let go over her and take a step back. He ain't fucking Jesus.]

I'm not going to do it, Darla. You can't make me kill you.

[wellpastsaving]

What? Now you're too much of a coward? [She spits the word out harshly, and as she does, everything in the room... shakes. o__o Like a mini earthquake just went through. That's weird.]

Kill me, Angelus. [She steps closer to him again, her features flushed with anger] I want it to stop. {With that last word, she grabs either side of her head, and abruptly that huge window against the far wall? Bursts out. The glass sprays throughout the whole room. Or transparisteel. Whatever it is. She's adept enough to subtly control the shards so they don't cut her deep, but one glances off her cheek, leaving a thin trail of blood. She's not worried about him. He has +5 against broken window glass.]

[hasasoul]

[He keeps his footing even though the earthquake. Was she doing that? And oh my god now she was shoving blood in his face. It's even more hurtful than that ugly icon. But the ~Force~ takes hold of him and he Force-shoves Darla away before he can sink his teeth into her sexy sexy neck.

And then is left staring wide-eyed because he can't believe he just did that.]