If my curiosity wasn't already piqued, I dare say the way Pryce's eyes drop as he shifts slightly away from the door would have done the trick. Not that the look in them as they travel over me, from what I can tell, speaks of anything but suspicion.
And confusion, undoubtedly. Considering the state Pryce is in, I'm uncertain he even sees me as he begins speaking to himself. Or, more accurately, to persons only he believes to be present in the room with us. He wanders away from the door, almost stumbling over something in his path. I follow after, just a few steps into the office. Noticing, as I glance down at the book that tripped him, that Pryce isn't wearing any shoes.
I'm preoccupied with this discovery...and an appreciation for the anarchy that went into making this office the disaster area it is currently...when Pryce asks me if Angel knows of my assignment. Before I respond, he goes on to question my duties - and Eve's before me.
"As liaison, my job is to keep communications open between Angel and the Senior Partners. And to assist in rectifying any...miscommunications," I say. 'Of the kind that led to my landing this assignment,' I think. When I was offered the opportunity to step in, in Eve's wake, one thing was made very clear to me. There are a number of interpretations that can be made of a liaison's integral duties. My primary duty is to remember that allowing personal agendas to interfere with the Senior Partners' own plans...isn't one of them.
And neither is seducing Angel to the Senior Partners' side literally. Holland Manners tried that trick when he resurrected Angel's dusted sire. The resulting drop in headcount was an embarrassment to the firm that the Senior Partners are not likely to forget.
As if reading my mind, Pryce brings up the infamous sofa incident.
"Not anytime soon," I say.
Pryce's next comment nearly surprises the smirk off my face.
But then he's going on about tea again, leaving me no time to linger on the subject.
"I'm certain I don't have your tea. But I believe I did offer to find your secretary for you, if you need her to bring some to you. And if she isn't...indisposed, of course."
Pryce is humming a jaunty tune I can't help but think carries a somewhat less than cheerful connotation for him.
"You didn't shoot her, did you?" I ask, simply to see what he will say. The gossips have mentioned that Pryce's taken to shooting subordinates who displease him. I doubt that could have happened without my having heard about it by now. But it isn't impossible. Secretaries are hardly high enough up on the corporate food chain to make waves by getting shot at by their bosses.
Why can't he get me my tea? Seriously, is that to much to ask for? We British communicate via our tea, isn't that his job? I think this is a rather big case of miscommunication. "Barbarian," I muttered under my breath, tossing him a glare. He's making light of my tea, just like Angel used to do.
Just because they're big, broody, hulk like, looming types they think they can just get away with anything. I don't think so. No way, no how and all that. Then I paused when I some of his natterings filtered through my mind.
"Not any time soon?" Frowning, I blinked at her, wondering for a moment how soon this soon was going to be. "I don't think Angel is going to fall for that twice, my dear fellow," I informed him. Then I waved my hand up and down his form. "No matter how good you look. Right, where was I?"
Turning back to my desk, I shoved a load of scrolls off it to get my pen. Wearily, I stared as the ancient papers hit the floor. There was something wrong with what I'd just done, I had no idea what though. I'm sure it'll come to me soon enough, it usually does. After a time. A week, a day, an hour, a minute.
And why would I shoot my secretary?
Whirling around, I pinned him down with a glare. "Why the hell would I want to shoot my secretary?" "Jennifer? Send anyone who's not on the Burkle case my way. Would you?" "I don't think she did," I muttered thoughtfully. "I ought to fire her." And she's not bringing me my tea either. How very incompetent.
"Why in the bloody blazes," I started, poking my pen into his chest. Small blue stains appearing on a crisp white shirt. "Would I want to shoot Jennifer? Where do you get such a ridiculous notion, Mister Marcus Hamilton? I most...Oops."
Slapping my hand in front of my mouth, I giggled as a large blue ink-stain appeared on his shirt from my leaking pen. "Terribly sorry about that," I said, not sounding very sorry at all. "Let me clean that up for you." Getting my handkerchief out of my pocket, I started to swipe it over the stain.
An accusation of barbarism was not, perhaps, the response I expected to my question. He's no longer demanding tea from me, however, so I assume we're making progress.
A miscommunication is definitely in the works, as he fails to interpret my meaning of 'not too soon'. I imagine the word "soon" does carry an entirely different connotation for the average mortal. I see no need to clarify this matter...which is fortunate, as he's speaking again before I would have had the chance.
Once... I could overlook. Twice I could overlook as well, I suppose. But while it does not escape my notice that this is not the most mentally stable of Angel's little band of do-gooders... Pryce is still a member of the do-gooding team. I have to wonder if the man would be as comfortable referring to how "good" I look - twice in one conversation, no less - if he were having somewhat of a less schizophrenic day. Or week. Or, possibly, year.
I don't have long to consider the matter before Pryce is turning. Having made short work of the no doubt delicate, and irreplaceable, scrolls that had been lying on his desk... He advances, wielding an ink pen like a miniature sword.
It isn't often I've met someone who's dared to initiate a physical confrontation with me. Even more rarely have I been unauthorized to kill the someone initiating said confrontation. I've certainly never been confronted with an ink pen as my opponent's weapon of choice. So I'm undecided as to how I should react when Pryce begins poking me in the chest with his pen.
Little splotches of blue ink appear on my shirtfront everywhere Pryce's pen tip touches. He's apparently unsettled by the casual accusation that he's shot his secretary. As if it would be the first time an executive in this building took such... uncompromising measures of dealing with an unsatisfactory assistant. It wouldn't even be the first time in this department.
I'm less concerned by Pryce's irritation, and the irreparable damage he is doing to an expensive shirt, than I am about the sudden change his mood takes.
A large stain - large enough to make the others looks like small spots - forms thanks to Pryce's leaking pen. And Pryce begins to giggle. He covers his mouth and begins babbling an insincere apology before fishing a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbing at the stain. Spreading it out more than anything else.
My hand closes around his without a conscious decision on my part, and I take a step closer. Ready to catch him should the movement cause him to stumble on his already unsteady feet. If he fell and cracked his head open on the corner of his desk, while I was in the room, there's no way Angel would accept a simple 'It was an accident' from me. And I'm hardly going to jeopardize my position with Angel, and thereby the Senior Partners, over an inkstain.
"Tell me, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce," I say, "Do you do anything in this office besides not shoot your secretary and flirt with visitors you then attack with writing utensils?"
Oh dear god. Cordelia would've skinned me alive if she'd caugth me spoiling an expensive looking shirt like that. Is that silk? Leaning in, I peered at the fabric, running a hand over it. No, not silk. Well thank god! Not all is los then. Still. cordelia would've really tore my head off. Several times over, in fact.
I blink when there's suddenly a hand closing around my wrist. Stumbling back a bit, I look up at this chap confused. Why did he do that. I wasn't done cleaning! Well, if it doesn't come out, it's his own fault. He can't blame me for it. End of story. I've a battery of lawyers at my disposal, this is a lawfirm after all. Hell, I'd call Gunn. Unless he's still mad at me for stabbing him.
Naw, I don't think so.
"Kindly unhand me," I say coldly, ripping my wrist out of his grasp. "I do not approve of getting manhandled in my office." A small frown appears as I run that sentence over in my head. "Or anywhere else for that matter,: I add quickly. Strange follow this Hamilton.
Sighing, I walk over to my desk, staring down at the scrolls on the floor puzzled. "How'd that happen?" I wonder. Quickly I squat down and carefully start to pick them up. Really, good personnel is so hard to find these days. Quite annoying. And if he starts about me shooting my secretary again, I'm going to do something nasty.
"Flirting?" Snorting at that, I burst out laughing for a moment. "Mu dear fellow. I don't even know how to flirt."
"What did I tell you about those dirty looks, Wes?"
"Lilah, will you please shut up? Can't you go haunt someone else?" Christ. If it's not her, it's Cordelia. Or Fr-... I suppose I should count my lucky stars Cordy didn't show up when I stained the man's shirt.
Putting the scrolls back on the desk, carefully, I turn back to this chap. "Where was I?" I asked brightly. "Oh! Right. Flirting." Nodding at that I cross my arms over my chest and lean against my desk. "I'm not at all good at that," I tell him conspiracionaly. "After all, were I any good at it. It wouldn't have taken me five years to get...to get..."
Fred.
But I never really had her did I? We had about two weeks before they tore her away from me. Two weeks of happiness before she died painfully. Her body taken over by some former goddess who refers to Fred as her shell. And now I'm doomed to watch the body of the woman I love but died, day in day out. Taking a shaky breath, I swallow hard, as I look up to find a man in my office. Startled I look at him.
Oh right. Marcus Hamilton. The new Liaison.
"Why, if I may ask, are you in my office? Was there anything specific you wanted?"
He stumbles in my grasp before pulling away. He talks of 'manhandling' now and I find myself smiling. If a little hand-holding gets this reaction I think it's safe to say that Pryce doesn't know the meaning of the word.
If it were anyone else - well anyone not currently cleaning up the mess they'd just made and grumbling to ghosts about who made it - I might make this mention.
Instead one of the names he keeps using finally catches my interest, and I realize 'Lilah' is Lilah Morgan. Wolfram & Hart's CEO at the time of the Beast. Immediately before Angel's appointment.
At the same time, Pryce is claiming an inability to flirt.
I slip my hands into my pockets, ignoring the inkstains beginning to feel sticky through the fabric of my shirts, and watch Pryce fold in on himself as he speaks to his ghosts. He almost seems to have forgotten that I'm here.
"Hmm. Well. There's no accounting for taste, I suppose." I'd have thought he'd have no trouble getting the little girls around here to play house with him, if that's what he's after. He's certainly no trouble to look at. I can name one reason, if none other, that Angel keeps him handy - employee-shooting tendencies and manic mood swings aside.
"I was just passing by. Thought I'd drop in and see what Angel's Head of Research has been doing with his valuable time."
Taste? Taste? What is he going on about now then? Hopefully my tea, which he still hasn't gotten me. I'm going to have to have a word about that with Angel. Come on now, I've asked him several times over if he'd fetch my tea. Did he? No. I'm still standing here empty handed, and very tealess.
Sacrilege, that's what it is.
Humming, I glanced at my watch. Funny, it seemed to have moved since the last time I checked. Was it supposed to do that? Was time supposed to move on when the world around you had stopped moving? I don't think that's entirely fair. Frowning, I shook the watch and held it up to my ear. Maybe it was some technical fault, one never knew.
"Tick tock, time is slipping," I mumbled, shaking the wrist with my watch again. Valuable time. Wait, that was an echo wasn't it? I now have an echo in my room?
Confused I looked up from my watch and noticed this fellow was still here. The one who'd not brought me my tea. Even though I'd asked nicely. Sort off. Oh wait, he was the one who mentioned time.
"Well," I said, shaking my watch again confused as it kept on moving, "As head of research, I've been doing just that. Research." Crossing my arms over my chest, I leaned back against the desk and rolled my eyes at him. "What do you think I'm doing here? Have tea?"
I paused at that, giving him a small glare. "Which I could've had, if you hadn't been so stubborn in your refusal of getting me as such. Mister Hamilton, Marcus." Git, how much trouble would it be to get some tea? I'd have invited him to have some with me. He seems like a....erm....interesting sort of fellow.
And confusion, undoubtedly. Considering the state Pryce is in, I'm uncertain he even sees me as he begins speaking to himself. Or, more accurately, to persons only he believes to be present in the room with us. He wanders away from the door, almost stumbling over something in his path. I follow after, just a few steps into the office. Noticing, as I glance down at the book that tripped him, that Pryce isn't wearing any shoes.
I'm preoccupied with this discovery...and an appreciation for the anarchy that went into making this office the disaster area it is currently...when Pryce asks me if Angel knows of my assignment. Before I respond, he goes on to question my duties - and Eve's before me.
"As liaison, my job is to keep communications open between Angel and the Senior Partners. And to assist in rectifying any...miscommunications," I say. 'Of the kind that led to my landing this assignment,' I think. When I was offered the opportunity to step in, in Eve's wake, one thing was made very clear to me. There are a number of interpretations that can be made of a liaison's integral duties. My primary duty is to remember that allowing personal agendas to interfere with the Senior Partners' own plans...isn't one of them.
And neither is seducing Angel to the Senior Partners' side literally. Holland Manners tried that trick when he resurrected Angel's dusted sire. The resulting drop in headcount was an embarrassment to the firm that the Senior Partners are not likely to forget.
As if reading my mind, Pryce brings up the infamous sofa incident.
"Not anytime soon," I say.
Pryce's next comment nearly surprises the smirk off my face.
But then he's going on about tea again, leaving me no time to linger on the subject.
"I'm certain I don't have your tea. But I believe I did offer to find your secretary for you, if you need her to bring some to you. And if she isn't...indisposed, of course."
Pryce is humming a jaunty tune I can't help but think carries a somewhat less than cheerful connotation for him.
"You didn't shoot her, did you?" I ask, simply to see what he will say. The gossips have mentioned that Pryce's taken to shooting subordinates who displease him. I doubt that could have happened without my having heard about it by now. But it isn't impossible. Secretaries are hardly high enough up on the corporate food chain to make waves by getting shot at by their bosses.
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Just because they're big, broody, hulk like, looming types they think they can just get away with anything. I don't think so. No way, no how and all that. Then I paused when I some of his natterings filtered through my mind.
"Not any time soon?" Frowning, I blinked at her, wondering for a moment how soon this soon was going to be. "I don't think Angel is going to fall for that twice, my dear fellow," I informed him. Then I waved my hand up and down his form. "No matter how good you look. Right, where was I?"
Turning back to my desk, I shoved a load of scrolls off it to get my pen. Wearily, I stared as the ancient papers hit the floor. There was something wrong with what I'd just done, I had no idea what though. I'm sure it'll come to me soon enough, it usually does. After a time. A week, a day, an hour, a minute.
And why would I shoot my secretary?
Whirling around, I pinned him down with a glare. "Why the hell would I want to shoot my secretary?" "Jennifer? Send anyone who's not on the Burkle case my way. Would you?" "I don't think she did," I muttered thoughtfully. "I ought to fire her." And she's not bringing me my tea either. How very incompetent.
"Why in the bloody blazes," I started, poking my pen into his chest. Small blue stains appearing on a crisp white shirt. "Would I want to shoot Jennifer? Where do you get such a ridiculous notion, Mister Marcus Hamilton? I most...Oops."
Slapping my hand in front of my mouth, I giggled as a large blue ink-stain appeared on his shirt from my leaking pen. "Terribly sorry about that," I said, not sounding very sorry at all. "Let me clean that up for you." Getting my handkerchief out of my pocket, I started to swipe it over the stain.
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A miscommunication is definitely in the works, as he fails to interpret my meaning of 'not too soon'. I imagine the word "soon" does carry an entirely different connotation for the average mortal. I see no need to clarify this matter...which is fortunate, as he's speaking again before I would have had the chance.
Once... I could overlook. Twice I could overlook as well, I suppose. But while it does not escape my notice that this is not the most mentally stable of Angel's little band of do-gooders... Pryce is still a member of the do-gooding team. I have to wonder if the man would be as comfortable referring to how "good" I look - twice in one conversation, no less - if he were having somewhat of a less schizophrenic day. Or week. Or, possibly, year.
I don't have long to consider the matter before Pryce is turning. Having made short work of the no doubt delicate, and irreplaceable, scrolls that had been lying on his desk... He advances, wielding an ink pen like a miniature sword.
It isn't often I've met someone who's dared to initiate a physical confrontation with me. Even more rarely have I been unauthorized to kill the someone initiating said confrontation. I've certainly never been confronted with an ink pen as my opponent's weapon of choice. So I'm undecided as to how I should react when Pryce begins poking me in the chest with his pen.
Little splotches of blue ink appear on my shirtfront everywhere Pryce's pen tip touches. He's apparently unsettled by the casual accusation that he's shot his secretary. As if it would be the first time an executive in this building took such... uncompromising measures of dealing with an unsatisfactory assistant. It wouldn't even be the first time in this department.
I'm less concerned by Pryce's irritation, and the irreparable damage he is doing to an expensive shirt, than I am about the sudden change his mood takes.
A large stain - large enough to make the others looks like small spots - forms thanks to Pryce's leaking pen. And Pryce begins to giggle. He covers his mouth and begins babbling an insincere apology before fishing a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbing at the stain. Spreading it out more than anything else.
My hand closes around his without a conscious decision on my part, and I take a step closer. Ready to catch him should the movement cause him to stumble on his already unsteady feet. If he fell and cracked his head open on the corner of his desk, while I was in the room, there's no way Angel would accept a simple 'It was an accident' from me. And I'm hardly going to jeopardize my position with Angel, and thereby the Senior Partners, over an inkstain.
"Tell me, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce," I say, "Do you do anything in this office besides not shoot your secretary and flirt with visitors you then attack with writing utensils?"
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I blink when there's suddenly a hand closing around my wrist. Stumbling back a bit, I look up at this chap confused. Why did he do that. I wasn't done cleaning! Well, if it doesn't come out, it's his own fault. He can't blame me for it. End of story. I've a battery of lawyers at my disposal, this is a lawfirm after all. Hell, I'd call Gunn. Unless he's still mad at me for stabbing him.
Naw, I don't think so.
"Kindly unhand me," I say coldly, ripping my wrist out of his grasp. "I do not approve of getting manhandled in my office." A small frown appears as I run that sentence over in my head. "Or anywhere else for that matter,: I add quickly. Strange follow this Hamilton.
Sighing, I walk over to my desk, staring down at the scrolls on the floor puzzled. "How'd that happen?" I wonder. Quickly I squat down and carefully start to pick them up. Really, good personnel is so hard to find these days. Quite annoying. And if he starts about me shooting my secretary again, I'm going to do something nasty.
"Flirting?" Snorting at that, I burst out laughing for a moment. "Mu dear fellow. I don't even know how to flirt."
"What did I tell you about those dirty looks, Wes?"
"Lilah, will you please shut up? Can't you go haunt someone else?" Christ. If it's not her, it's Cordelia. Or Fr-... I suppose I should count my lucky stars Cordy didn't show up when I stained the man's shirt.
Putting the scrolls back on the desk, carefully, I turn back to this chap. "Where was I?" I asked brightly. "Oh! Right. Flirting." Nodding at that I cross my arms over my chest and lean against my desk. "I'm not at all good at that," I tell him conspiracionaly. "After all, were I any good at it. It wouldn't have taken me five years to get...to get..."
Fred.
But I never really had her did I? We had about two weeks before they tore her away from me. Two weeks of happiness before she died painfully. Her body taken over by some former goddess who refers to Fred as her shell. And now I'm doomed to watch the body of the woman I love but died, day in day out. Taking a shaky breath, I swallow hard, as I look up to find a man in my office. Startled I look at him.
Oh right. Marcus Hamilton. The new Liaison.
"Why, if I may ask, are you in my office? Was there anything specific you wanted?"
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If it were anyone else - well anyone not currently cleaning up the mess they'd just made and grumbling to ghosts about who made it - I might make this mention.
Instead one of the names he keeps using finally catches my interest, and I realize 'Lilah' is Lilah Morgan. Wolfram & Hart's CEO at the time of the Beast. Immediately before Angel's appointment.
At the same time, Pryce is claiming an inability to flirt.
I slip my hands into my pockets, ignoring the inkstains beginning to feel sticky through the fabric of my shirts, and watch Pryce fold in on himself as he speaks to his ghosts. He almost seems to have forgotten that I'm here.
"Hmm. Well. There's no accounting for taste, I suppose." I'd have thought he'd have no trouble getting the little girls around here to play house with him, if that's what he's after. He's certainly no trouble to look at. I can name one reason, if none other, that Angel keeps him handy - employee-shooting tendencies and manic mood swings aside.
"I was just passing by. Thought I'd drop in and see what Angel's Head of Research has been doing with his valuable time."
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Sacrilege, that's what it is.
Humming, I glanced at my watch. Funny, it seemed to have moved since the last time I checked. Was it supposed to do that? Was time supposed to move on when the world around you had stopped moving? I don't think that's entirely fair. Frowning, I shook the watch and held it up to my ear. Maybe it was some technical fault, one never knew.
"Tick tock, time is slipping," I mumbled, shaking the wrist with my watch again. Valuable time. Wait, that was an echo wasn't it? I now have an echo in my room?
Confused I looked up from my watch and noticed this fellow was still here. The one who'd not brought me my tea. Even though I'd asked nicely. Sort off. Oh wait, he was the one who mentioned time.
"Well," I said, shaking my watch again confused as it kept on moving, "As head of research, I've been doing just that. Research." Crossing my arms over my chest, I leaned back against the desk and rolled my eyes at him. "What do you think I'm doing here? Have tea?"
I paused at that, giving him a small glare. "Which I could've had, if you hadn't been so stubborn in your refusal of getting me as such. Mister Hamilton, Marcus." Git, how much trouble would it be to get some tea? I'd have invited him to have some with me. He seems like a....erm....interesting sort of fellow.
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