October 31st, 2006

[nomorekaraoke]

Ahh, the late October evening air is crisp and sizzling with the bustle and excitement permeating 6th Street. Just an hour or two ago, the streets lay quiet and calm, like before a storm. And what a storm it is. Tonight is the biggest night of the year for Lorne - the only night he can go out with a bang (so to speak), and glam it up without having to worry about mobs and pitch forks and torches and all kinds of peer pressure. He can be lean and green and having a fabulous time. For any other demon with a sense of dignity, Halloween is the be all and ban all of faux pas-es. It's a night where silly wannabes co-mingle. It is just not done.

But Lorne will do it and do it well for every year he can muster. He'll be in his hundreds, old and wrinkly and hunchbacked, and he'll still come here for the big event.

***

And when the darkness has fallen over the city, and the parade lights up the city streets with eerie lights and chilled merriment in equal doses, Lorne dances down the line like it's 1999, all feathered up, glammed up and having a ball.

You never know who you'll bump into, and the best part? You can pop into a coffee shop or a restaurant on the way, get to know someone better anytime you want to. If he should be so lucky tonight, it would be the icing on the cake and the cherry on top.

Comments

[nomorekaraoke]

He chuckles, a low, murmuring sort of sound at the bottom of his throat.

There's a pause, as something rather depressing occurs to him. Wolfram & Hart, and contracts that reach beyond death.

"I don't think you're ever allowed to quit. Lawyers and their fine print..." He groans, disgusted.

[sunnydalealum]

She shakes her head silently.

And if he hasn't already guessed, that'll probably confirm it for him: that that's why she ran. Why she's running.

[nomorekaraoke]

"...this is probably gonna sound real weird - and I mean weird as in crazy - but would you at all mind humming a tune for me?"

He's not yet sure what all this means, this seemingly random encounter, but he's already cursing his bleeding heart. He's like the cliché kid dragging stray animals home, begging momma to let'im keep'em.

"Doesn't have to be fancy. I need to know you're legit, sweetie, nothing personal."

[sunnydalealum]

She twists around again to look at him.

"...humming a tune?" Her voice is bewildered, and incredulous.

(And a touch wary.)

[nomorekaraoke]

"It's what I do. Call me a fancy lie detector test with an added pinch of attitude."

He shrugs, meeting her eyes as squarely as he can. He's hating the mask more and more every second, but if she needs it, he won't knock it.

"Some people read tarot cards, others jiggle a bag of bones around. Some people just read people, one way or the other. Me, I'm in the last bunch."

[sunnydalealum]

The clutch of panic is physically painful, almost enough to make her gasp. This is it, this is how they get her, she'll hum something for him and then he'll know everything, what she did, where she lives -- and even if everything he just told her was true, he could be with the Council, or willing to give them or sell them information about her --

She swallows hard, makes herself breathe.

For all he knows, I never stopped working for them. Either of them.

"What kind of a tune?"

[nomorekaraoke]

Hey, at least he gave her a fair enough warning. Most people don't even get that much. Even though he keeps his shields up, always, fear is the hardest emotion to keep away. It always slips and slides through his defenses.

"Hey... You don't have to. Forget I asked, it was a stupid idea, and way too much to ask of you."

It really, really was. But, maybe a handshake isn't too much. "--I'm Lorne. Shoulda told you that ages ago, huh?"

[sunnydalealum]

A long beat, and then she takes his hand.

"I'm Emma."

Thin and bitter, the knowledge pricks deep. So much for someone I'm not lying to.

[nomorekaraoke]

"Emma."

He nods, his handshake firm and slightly warmer than your average human being. "It's good to meet you, pumpkin. It's a whirlwind of all kinds of impressions, but I got a good feeling about you, right off the bat. You know, even if I did act like such a drama queen back there."

He smiles, a tad self-conscious. "Sorry about that."

[sunnydalealum]

Her hands are cold.

"It's okay," she mutters. "You weren't ... it's okay."

[nomorekaraoke]

"Jiminy Cricket me, your hands!" He chuckles, leaving his cig dangling from his bright red pucker, bringing up his other hand to aid in rubbing some warmth into the pretty little paw.

"Frosty the Snowman, eat your melty heart out. What is it with girls and not wearing gloves, honestly. Ya gotta take care of your mitts."

Forgive him; some of these things just come naturally. Like the crazy not-profanity, the random curses and the blatant disregard for people's actual names. And, it would seem, being a gent to anyone who'll let him.

[sunnydalealum]

"It's not that cold," she protests -- but she's not pulling her hand away.

Part of that's a certain light-headed fatalism she's starting to feel about this whole encounter, a sense that if he means her harm, he's already had the chance a dozen times over. Part of it's the other thing she's starting to feel: a wary, reluctant liking for him.

After a pause: "So what do you know about the Watchers' Council?"

[nomorekaraoke]

It goes both ways; if she wants his head on a platter (for anyone), she could have cut him down any time during their little boat ride up a certain creek. Except maybe for the subway ride.

Funny, though, it doesn't feel that bad, if only because Lorne's spent the better part of his life paddling his way to shore like his boat's about to sink. He's got paddles to spare.

Enough with the morbid analogies. There's a question that needs answering, and he isn't sure how. "Assumedly ancient organization helping Slayers to be Slayers since forever. They have droves of info on everything concerned with the world beyond the veil. Slayers, vampires, demons, secret societies, different dimensions, everything. Kind of like W&H, but without the lawyers and the Evil Agenda. ...though I can't say exactly what agenda they've got." Bastards.

He shrugs apologetically. There isn't really all that much he knows, and some of it, he is not about to tell just anyone. "I was head of the department of entertainment, way back when. The Watchers' Council never made my Top Ten list of entertaining stuff."

[sunnydalealum]

"All I know about their agenda," she says, "is that they want all the Slayers in the world working for them. And -- and someone said they want to wipe out everything else supernatural in the world. They tell it a little different."

With a tug, she reclaims her hands and folds them together in her lap, looking down at them.

"Doesn't make much difference in my case. I screwed them over, big."

[nomorekaraoke]

"Yeah..." he agrees quietly. "Everyone sings a different tune, hard to decide which one to listen to."

No more rubbing hands? Fine by him. One rests casually over his knee, the other goes to his cigarette for a deeper drag and exhale, and flicking ashes off the tip.

"The Voyeurs screwed me and mine over, once. We hit Wolfram and Hart like the fist of an angry deity, and I don't mean that like the teenie queenies mean it."

...sharing is caring, obviously. Tit for tat, eye for eye and so on.

[sunnydalealum]

"The Voyeurs?" she asks, uncertainly.

[nomorekaraoke]

"Watchers." He grins wryly. "Bad habit of mine; can't stop making up new names for anyone and anything."

[sunnydalealum]

"Oh." Tentatively: "They put you up to attacking Wolfram & Hart?"

[nomorekaraoke]

"Nope. It's..." He considers how to word this particular can of hocrap, staring resolutely at the wisps of smoke rising skywards from the tip of his cancer stick.

"It's more complicated than that, sweetie. Me and my friends? We used to trust the Watchers' Council. Then we kind of got involved with the big double-u age crowd, and then they didn't trust us anymore."

He shrugs. "But why would they, really? So they screw us over, and one thing leads to another, and all of a sudden, we've decided to tear the place down and then some."

Heavy stuff, this. "And we did."

[sunnydalealum]

She draws up one knee, wraps her arms around it, tries not to shake.

Her voice is slow and unwilling. "When was this?"

[nomorekaraoke]

Poor thing, Lorne muses, so on edge, like a little birdie fallen out of Momma's nest.

"Over a year ago, pumpkin. Not the local branch, of course, but you don't need to know more. Not from my lips, you don't."

[sunnydalealum]

Not the local branch. And over a year ago. So this ... doesn't have anything to do with the attack she saw. Not that she saw very much of it, from her vantage point of hiding under a desk and praying for it to be over soon.

Then we got involved with the big W-H crowd, and then they didn't trust us anymore.

"So," still slowly, "how do they feel about you now? The Watchers' Council?"

[nomorekaraoke]

"As far as I know, all they know is that I left it all behind me. Everything." Everything from his precious little smashed up bar to his biggest mistake of all time. Everything.

"And I intend to keep it that way."

[sunnydalealum]

She swallows. "Yeah."

It's that same note of fellow-feeling, of right there with you, that started this whole conversation.

"You ... you got on the wrong side of both of them. How did you get them to leave you alone after that?"

[nomorekaraoke]

How in the world does he even begin to answer that question? How does he even begin to recall it, lost and not-yet-found in the haze of his alcohol-soaked memories.

"Let's just leave it at 'I got connections and ain't afraid to use 'em'." Yes. Let's leave it at that.

"I brought my skills and my network, collected favors from people, the usual. Lots of hard work on a lot of people's behalves. Only lately, it looks as they might be on to me. Or, alternatively, they may find me while snoopin' around for someone else entirely. Not. Good."