nomorekaraoke | Milliways, third strike

Entry tags:

millicanon,
plot

Milliways, third strike

Friday night. Thank goodness it is Friday night and Lorne's got nowhere to be but his dreary little office, and no one to chat up. He's all dressed up and got nowhere to go.

Nowhere but Milliways, and there's nowhere he'd rather be. He walks in like he always does (or, well, almost always), with a bounce in his step and an appreciative glance at everyone around. It's good to be here, among friends. And dear lordy, all the beautiful people, let's not forget about those.

"Bar, darling, fix me up with something good. I'm thinking hard liquor tonight, but something sweet?" Ta dah, Melon Bomb. "Thanks a bunch, love."

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He considers refusing to answer, and decides against it.

"Since a couple months after you stopped. Longer than that, if you count that night, but we didn't join forces with him on an ongoing basis until later."

"I don't. Only reason you collaborated with us was so you could follow whatever agenda it is you do, doesn't matter who you double cross in the process. Wouldn't be surprised if that's why you joined forces with him after the big hit."

Why no, he isn't bitter. He's also very carefully not hostile, or Bar will start sending him angry napkins, or worse. "I take it all you care about is action, am I right?"

Andrew snorts. "Oh, have you ever got the wrong end of the stick. I don't mean the night we came to take Dana, I mean the night we came to stop Wolfram & Hart's demon armies from grinding Angel and Spike and the others into hummous. Once it became clear which side they were really on."

A beat. "But you don't so much do sides, these days."

Sinking realization is a bitch. He wouldn't put it past a stranger to lie him in the face; he does it on a daily basis, sugar coating everything ever... But if there's so much as a modicum of truth to what Wells is telling him, it changes things.

"I never did, really. But we've covered that ground, haven't we." He's down to half his cigarette now, a long column of ashes holding on precariously at the end of it.

"So...how is everyone?"

A blink. "...What, everyone everyone? Only Angel knows how he is, and he's not talking. Gunn's gone all moody, Spike's ... I think Spike's worried, but he's not saying much either. It’s all Brood Central back home right now." His voice goes a touch disconsolate on the last words.

"And Jonathan ... I don't think you ever met Jonathan."

His eyebrows furrow slightly beyond the ever present frown. "Are you telling me Wes left to play happy family with Blue Face? Somehow I don't buy that."

It's something he hasn't wanted to think about, where everyone is, how they're doing, what they are doing with their lives these days... It's something he still doesn't want to think about. Thinking about it means you still care.

"Never met him. He a fellow Watcher?"

Andrew's face goes very, very still at the mention of Wesley. "Yeah, Jonathan's a Watcher. Out of Sunnydale, both of us."

A long beat.

"Wesley's dead."

He thought about it. He thought about it, and that means he cares. He cares so much the entire world goes black before his eyes, his entire torso constricts, his mental shields go up so fast and so hard he can feel the way his inner core screeches to a halt. Just the possibility has him by the throat.

But Wells isn't lying. The Watcher was right making the assumption, that night at Belvedere Castle. Lorne can tell if you're lying, and he isn't. "That night?"

He nods, just once. "Illyria too." It's quiet. "We couldn't get to them in time."

"I..." Grinding his cigarette butt into the ash tray Bar so kindly supplies for him, he clears his throat quietly. Oh, so quietly.

"I met Illyria here. I assumed they were okay."

Andrew shakes his head. "Different timeline. Wesley's here from her world too, but ... he didn't make it that night either."

Cordy dead. Fred dead. Dead Fred. Wesley, dead. Everyone dies, unless they're dead already. It's either that, or attempted suicide. Silently, surreptitiously, Bar conjures up a tumbler of Scotch. Two fingers. Complimentary pink umbrella.

"...You know me too well, darling."

Sipping his drink, Lorne hides away behind his wall of numb nothingness. "I don't know what to say."

He studies the green face, the averted red eyes.

"You and Wesley were close?"

"I'd like to think we all were." Lifting the tumbler, balancing it neatly from the tips of his long fingers - funny, how his hands are still steady. Maybe it makes sense, the way his heart's stopped beating.

"But that was a long time ago." He tips his head back, downing the Scotch. If his eyes look watery, he can always blame the liquid fire burning right through him.

Andrew's voice is barely audible, and sounds shaken.

"What happened?"

He shakes his head; it's too much. It is too much, and if he stops to think about it, he won't be able to breathe anymore, and he can't have that. Wouldn't that be rich, him, having a fit in the middle of the bar. Him? The guy who's never at a loss for words, the guy who's never shook up, who always has a smile at the ready for anyone who needs it and everyone else too.

"I can't talk about it." He shakes his head; if he wasn't rooted to the spot, he'd be off the stool and running already.

"Sorry," he says, only slightly louder than a whisper. "I'm sorry."

"Wolfram & Hart happened. The Powers that Be started screwing us over, and then people started going evil, or trying to off themselves between apocalypses. Then Wolfram & Hart happened again, and then people started dying."

He isn't sure why he's telling Andrew this, why he's telling him anything that matters. "And I didn't see it coming."

But that's a lie too.

Well, he's finding out things now, that's for certain.

Quietly: "Didn't see which coming?"

"All of it." But he did see it coming, and he saw all of it... It's just that W&H tentacle raped his brain and took it all before he had a chance to tell anyone else. And from that point on, he never saw a Big Bad Rising again. Not until...

"Not before it was too late. Not before the sister I never had spewed blood all over her lover man's face."

He stands up, barely aware of it himself. "I should go."

"Wait," he says, not entirely sure why, turning on his barstool to face Lorne directly.

"For what? Redemption?"

"...No."

He can’t read Lorne's tone at all, doesn't know whether that's sarcastm or just bitterness, but there's only one way to answer that question.

"Redemption isn't something you just wait for."

"I'm not up to philosophy, darling, if there isn't anything else you want me to tell you..."

He will not have a fit in the middle of the bar, he will not have any sort of fit in the middle of the bar, he will not make a fool of himself.

There's a lot he wants Lorne to tell him, but he's pretty sure he's not going to get those.

Andrew shakes his head, and makes a palm-out gesture that says go ahead.

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nomorekaraoke - 2009-04-17 11:53 (UTC) - Expand

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