whattingawhat | The end's not near, it's here

While Angel is away in HelLA, Dawn has steadily been getting weaker and weaker. Buffy has found herself having a hard time remembering specific memories of Dawn, things that she once cherished are fading. There's not a lot of time, but Angel's research is their best hope for getting Dawn back.

He came back.

Angel could've stayed. He could've gathered the necessary materials from the hotel, loaded them up on the dragon's back and instructed him to take it and Faith back to the door they left propped open, but he didn't. He returned alongside her, carting weapons, references, and invaluable resources that likely no longer existed in the version of the world Buffy, her sister, and Faith belonged to. Angel didn't know if he, as he existed now, would ever be a part of that divergent stream of time, but he did know that helping to restore balance to that world currently took precedence over dragging Los Angeles out of hell.

Oftentimes, what one wanted to do was not what they needed to do, and that's a lesson in life that the former vampire's intimately familiar with. Even though he wanted nothing more than to remain in LA to fight the good fight against a force that was determined to keep them down (literally), he was needed in the quest to restore magic. He could set that aside from now, abandon his city willingly, and return to the hotel in order to assist with a cause that was, at the moment, greater than his own.

His choices were not the easiest in life. (Or death.)

It's with an armful of ancient texts, some frayed around the edges from the wear and tear they've seen, that he steps into the conference room in the lobby they've commandeered. He takes a seat a the head of the table out of habit, half expecting Harmony to pop her head in the room to ask if she should send whatever demon clan was waiting for him in the lobby inside.

He almost misses those days. Almost.

Buffy had half expected him to send a bag full of things, drop it off with a see you later, and dart back to his own world. She would have even understood if he had done that. He had a life and a world and people back in his world, just like she had Dawn here. She will never be able to repay him for coming back, because while Angel is focusing on the world, Buffy was focusing on Dawn. As far as she knew, her world was coping just fine without magic. Yes, Angel had told her how bad it was, but she'd yet to see any sign of it, not until Dawn started fading.

It's a lesson that they've both had to learn. Buffy tends to disregard it more often than he, but in the end, when it comes right down to it, she'll make sure she does what's best for the world. She just tries to do it her way rather than anyone else's way.

Their choices were never going to be easy. It was the burden of being a hero.

Buffy is seated to his right, exhausted and on edge. She needs this to work. She doesn't know what she'll do if Dawn disappears entirely.

"I don't guess there's a cliffnotes version?" It's said without a lot of humor though. She's too worried for humor.

"CliffNotes would imply there's an easy way to do this. There's not."

Angel's blunt and to the point while in research mode, operating almost on autopilot as he flips through various volumes, jotting down notes on a pad of yellow paper. His penmenship predates the text he's looking through now, his pen continuing to move across the page in loops and curls that were long abandoned in favor of modern writing practices.

Then again, while human, he's something of a living fossil; a rare specimin of untainted DNA from centuries long past. No vaccinations, no medications, no new age dietary crazes... Just a thick coat of primordial glamour that would likely kill him before the common cold or chicken pox did.

"...does this look like a J to you?" He flips the book around and pushes it towards her. There's a rip in the page towards the bottom, and a piece of the corner is missing, cutting off the text at the end of the paragraph.

"Okay, then we do it the hard way."

Buffy had a much vaguer idea of what they were looking for. She flipped through the books, squinting at pages, occasionally turning them upside down to see if she could find anything that made any sense to her. She's actually quite grateful when Angel asks her question. She leans over the table, studying the book with intensity.

"Uhm...yes? Or an L with a curly thing on the end of it."

"L?" Angel turns the book back around, drawing up so he can inspect the edge closer. "That is an L." Oh. "That's an L."

The book's dropped and the pad of paper drawn closer as Angel scratches out one translation in favor of replacing it with another. That being an L and not a J changes everything. A text he was about to deem worthless just became an invaluable temporary fix to the problem of Dawn disappearing. Translated properly, it tells him exactly what he needs to know: That his hunch is more reality that not — and more importantly, that it's possible.

"I think I just figured out a way to save your sister."

The relief on Buffy's face and in her body language practically shouts it's so obvious. She's been terrified since Dawn started disappearing that she'd lose her sister forever, and worried about it even longer than that.

"Please be all share time before I go crazy pants and start insisting."

"Binding spell. It's not a permanent fix, but it should stop the disappearing act and re-solidify her corporeal form."

Angel drags a different book closer and flips it open to one of the middle chapters, scanning the text as he continues.

"The monks who gave Dawn a human form did so by sampling your DNA. There's already parts of you in her, so making you the anchor shouldn't be too hard. All you'd have to do is not die again." Joke? Joke. Bad joke, but a joke. "That is, if you're okay with me binding your sister's life directly to yours. I could bind her to someone else, but making an anchor out of nothing, so to speak, would take time we might not have."

Since when did he become the magic-user of the group? From resident vampire to resident warlock. Go figure.

At this point, Buffy doesn't care if it's a permanent fix. They can work on reinvigorating the seed of magic once Dawn is solid. There's a great deal of hope in her expression, also some tension and anxiety, but those will be dealt with in time.

She leans forward on her elbows, moving close enough that she can look over the book as well, her shoulder pressed against Angel's. She might not understand all the writing in the book, but she wants to see it. She looks at him, smirking at the very bad joke. "No. I want you to use me." She wouldn't want Dawn's life tied to anyone else's. That would quickly turn her into a basket case. "What do I need to do? Besides not die again."

Hell if she knows, but she's surprisingly comfortable with it. She trusts Angel, even now after everything, she trusts him and she wouldn't want to willingly put her sister's life in many other people's hands.

Angel hasn't cast binding spells before, but he's assisted in setting them up more times than he can count. Those spells involved binding a person to a plane or an object, not a person to a person, but it was the same principal. He'd done something similar recently with the talisman that the vampire glamour perpetuating his still undead lie was bound to. The spell to it and it to him.

He just had to modify it to be person-to-person. That wouldn't be too hard. Tricky and difficult, maybe, but not impossible. And not any less complicated than the primordial magicks he's been dabbling in for months.

"Your blood."

Buffy was just grateful that Angel had any experience. Without Willow here, they were flying blind on the magic end of things and maybe, Buffy should try to remedy that, but for the moment she was content to let Angel be the magic user.

"My--" She stopped. She didn't know why she was surprised. It always came down to blood, didn't it.

"Of course you need my blood. How much of it?" Did she slice across her arm or did she tap a vein? Honestly, she wasn't particular about either one if it saved Dawn.

When he was in Sunnydale, he had the magical knowledge, but not so much the experience or the ability to wield it properly. Magic was a fine art, and one that often didn't get along with the evil-inclined demon within. A vampire could cast spells, but not with the efficiency of a human's hand. There was something about being literally dead inside that didn't spin the spells quite as well as a lively touch.

Now that he was human, the knowledge became experience with all the casting he's done from behind the walls of the crumbling Wolfram & Hart building he'd been bound to before someone got it into their head to demolish it. He would've come back with more resources than he did if that hadn't been the case, for the firm's collection of magical artifacts and resources was impressive, to say the last. And, quite frankly, the only reason he was still alive after he leapt from the top of a skyscraper without realizing he was human.

It wasn't his best moment. Nor were the subsequent months he spent healing. At least his side was scaring nicely, now, thanks to Buffy's quick stitching in lieu of his usual magic tricks.

"About a vile's worth, for starters. I think I have one somewhere..."

Angel turns away from her to dig through one of the bags full of stuff he and Faith brought back from Hell on Earth. He pulls one out, uncorks it, and hands her one of the daggers he grabbed out of the weapons cabinet in the lobby of the hotel — his hotel.

"Do you... or should I?" Tap the vein. Cut her. He doesn't want to assume she'd be okay with him doing that for her, even though they both know that he has the precision of a doctor with his background in the refined art of torture.

Later, she might ask more detailed questions about the experience, but she's already gathered from what little he has told her, that he got some experience casting spells, at least of a certain sort, while in HelLA. Right now, she's focused on this one spell and this one incident, casting glances over at Dawn to assure herself that she's not gone yet. Right now, she's just grateful that Angel has the experience.

His question draws her attention away from Dawn and back to him. She nods a little. "Please." Her hands are shaking and she'd rather he do it. This way, she's less likely to have a scar and it's more likely to be right.

Wordlessly, Angel takes her hand in his, holding it so her fingers are splayed. He drags the blade against her skin, a quick, sharp movement meant to be as painless as possible. Angel knows how to make it hurt, but he also knows how to do the opposite.

The blood pools in her hand as he reaches for the vile.

"Make a fist."

He waits for her to do so, then guides her hand over the vile and holds it steady with his own so her blood drips directly into it.

She holds her breath a little when he takes her hand, choosing to watch him rather than what he's doing. She exhales when he slides the knife across her skin. Pain is something that Buffy learned how to deal with a long time ago so she doesn't even wince.

She does as he asks, letting the blood drop into the vile, still watching him. This Angel is still a mystery to her. He's something straight out of her daydreams and despite the fact that he's been here and human for a while, it's still hard not to stare at him.

The staring isn't exactly comforting, but he's growing used to it. Of course she's staring, even though there's hardly anything different to be scene beyond the glamour's faux vampire visage. The sun/moon situation in hell meant that he was still as pale as ever, the sun's rays affected by the presence of the moon, and most of his battle scars have faded thanks to the magic he used upon himself.

Magic that he was about to use on Dawn.

"That should do it." He holds the vile steady between his knees while he reaches for a strip of gauze, urging her fingers to open so he can press it against the slash across her palm. "I'll let you know if I need more."

He shouldn't, though. Instructions are easy to follow and Angel's gotten really good at following magical instructions these past few months. As long as he follows them to a T, this spell should go off without a hitch.

Angel caps the vile and adds it to the pile of things he needs in order to pull this binding spell off.

Nothing different to see, but something entirely different none the less. She knows he's human now and that does make all the difference.

She opens her fingers easily, allowed him to put pressure on the wound. It'll heal quickly enough, not immediately, of course, but enough that she's not bothered by it.

"Okay. Thank you. A million times again. I don't know if--she's everything to me."

And somehow, she knows that Angel gets that because of Connor. They both have someone created from parts of them that mean more than the world.

"Don't thank me just yet," he tells her.

There's still a complex spell to be performed, something he doesn't necessarily have the right mojo to do. It's risky, and being coated in as many layers of glamour as he is, it's even riskier, but he's willing to take the chance. Because someone has to, because someone ought to. None of this is Dawn's fault. The monks gave her sentience and she doesn't deserve to have that sentience ripped away from her, shouldn't be reduced to a mass of swirling, lifeless energy. If he can stop that, then he's going to do something about it.

He's lost too many people he cared about to see someone he loved lose someone they love, too. Especially to something like this.

"I know. I get it." Because of Connor. She knows now what he did for his son, so yeah. He gets it.

[The spell has to be done, there are slayer turned vampires to fight because apparently, word has gotten out that there's some magic hoo-doo about to go down. Guess who's interested in magic hoo-doo? Slaypires and her army of zompires.

Ooops. They might be attacking the house in an effort to stop the magic hoo-doo or get in on the magic hoo-doo. It's unclear which one. Have fun, Faith! ]

Edited 2014-04-14 18:17 (UTC)

She doesn't cast spells, and she doesn't burn herbs. Faith's not too hard to figure out: punching and stabbing are her fortes, but recently she'd added some fortification and defense skills to her repertoire. She'll have to add attempted negotiation skills to the list soon.

All in all, it means she ain't too shabby with wood that comes from trees. It had been hasty work, and a few windows only had two boards crossing to give them some extra durability, but Faith doesn't let it daunt her -- some's better than none.

There was always something of a crackle in the air, when magic that shouldn't exist is being manipulated. Faith had noticed it a few times in her recent past -- resurrecting Giles was the most severe, but considering Alasdair had been swimming in magical items, she's ready for the feeling when it comes. Unfortunately, apparently so does a small army. Faith has planted herself right out in the open, legs shoulder-width apart, arms crossed over her chest. Every bit the brash and arrogant slayer she's being developing into ever since she was called.

"Hey, so my parents aren't gonna be back until tomorrow night. There's seven minutes in heaven upstairs and Bobby's bringing the keg around later. Gee, he's swell." OK so maybe her impression of spoiled suburban kid is kind of out of date, but hey. A girl can try, right?

Negotiations go about as well as is expected, and Faith has to quickly retreat. Ducking into a calculated backward roll, she maneuvers just 10 feet backward and popping back up again, confidence back in place. Instead of rushing the house, the zompires only go so far before bouncing backward off of an invisible barrier, rage and confusion making them hit it again and again, harder each time. While she figures nobody can be spared, she won't turn down whoever decides to help her hold these suckers off.

"It's holding for now! You've got about 6 minutes before it's down, but I'll hold them off for as long as I can after that!" She hollers back into the house, though she isn't sure anyone is listening.

Faith doesn't cast spells, but she knows people who can make some for her these days.

Prior to the whole magic thing, which is still odd to Buffy considering there shouldn't be any magic, Buffy is doing the whole stake and bake thing as well. She tends to go 'round back, letting Faith draw the attention of most of the zompires.

By the time the barrier goes up, Buffy is inside, setting the scythe aside and moving toward Angel. This is his show, after all. Buffy is just here to be told what to do. It's not her usual position and she's not incredibly comfortable there, but she's willing to do whatever it takes to save Dawn. This is the best option they've got.

It's not chaos the whole time, there's Peter trying to coax Dawn back into being a little while longer and Buffy desperately trying not to forget why they're doing a spell, why she's alternating between helping Faith fight zompires and slaypires and doing what Angel needs her to do for his spell.

Edited 2014-04-14 18:19 (UTC)

Peter feels like the odd man out, the one that has no clue what's going on, but he's also the only one who's memories of Dawn aren't degrading. He's the one most qualified for sitting with Dawn on the couch and keeping her rooted here. Any solid form she had that he could hold onto has disappeared. Right now, he's sitting on the couch next to Dawn, his knees to his chest, arms wrapped around them as he talks to her about the things they've found in the hotel, the things they're still going to find, trying to give her a purpose and reason to hang on a little while longer.

At this point, Dawn is trying so hard not to panic. Not only is she barely visible, she's turned intangible. No one can touch her, their hands go right through her. Most of them are having problems even remembering her. She's past the sobbing point. But a steady stream of tears just silently slip down her cheeks at random intervals. As much as Buffy thought she should have the long normal life, this was not how she thought she would go.

"I thought maybe the hundredth apocalypse with an accidental sword through the gut or something." She says randomly after a long bout of silence. "Or maybe a world-savey spell gone wrong. You know, something more heroic."

"Hey, you're not going anywhere," Peter responds quickly. Unfortunately, it's looking like an empty protest. She's more gone than here.

"Okay, so remember the first time I met you? I plowed over you with my skateboard. I still need to teach you how to skateboard. I think I promised to make an attempt that day, didn't I?"

Dawn is very much afraid that she's going to disappear before they can figure out what to do to save her. It's seemed this dire before, back when Glory had her chained on top of that tower, and that's probably the only reason that she's sitting so still while they wait. Otherwise she might be screaming and pacing and generally undone. Right now she's just worried and sad.

She looks over to Peter, remembering their hallway collision. What she wouldn't give for a collision right now. For something to hurt instead of feeling nothing. Unable to touch. "You did. When that happens there's gonna be less heroics and more clumsiness. Cause wheels and me aren't mixy things."

Peter is really afraid of it too, but he's determined to try and keep her here for as long as possible. It had been suggested that reminding her and recounting memories of her would help, so that's exactly what he's going to do. He hates that he can't hold her hands and touch her while he's recounting their memories.

"Sometimes heroics start as clumsiness. You have no idea how many times I fell when I was learning. I broke my arm once and my wrist. You'll learn."

"You're a professional skateboarder now. So you'll be the best teacher that ever teachered. Or taught. Or will teach." Dawn rambles in all her silliness right now. It's stress. She learned from her sister that bad times are easier to get through of you ignore they're there or poke fun at them. Jokiness and snarkiness were the Summers way. The scooby way.

"I can't remember if I've ever broken a bone. Sprainged my wrist super bad when Willow, our witch friend, forgot that she was on our side of the good and evil spectrum." That had been one of the scariest nights of her life.

"Professional, huh?" he says it with a smile that's a bit more put on than usual because he is worried. "We'll make that call once I get you up on a board, no broken bones."

He nods a little along with her, encouraging the rambling. "Well, hey, sprained or broken, that's a lot more interesting story than mine.I'm guessing she came back from evil? Good to know that can happen. Really. I mean, they don't tell you that in the comics or even in the movies very often. People change."

"Oh yeah. People can always come back from evil, I think. Redemption is a thing. It's about if they want to or make the choice to or whether they're just done trying." Dawn says this because look at Angel, all he had done and he still tried for redemption. It was one of the things she liked about him. He got knocked down but he didn't stay down for long.

"But Willow, she... she misused the magic. And then when she lost the person she loves, she went off the deep end and almost got all world destroy-y." Dawn said. "But she came back. And now she's better with the whole magic thing."

"I like the idea of redemption, you know? The idea--the idea that no matter how bad you mess up, you can come back from it," his brow furrowed a little. "Because I think--I think a lot of people are just like your friend, Willow. Bad things happen and no one--no one knows how to deal with it, you know?"

He was probably revealing more about himself and his life than he had ever originally intended, but his focus wasn't on keeping secrets right now. His focus on was keeping Dawn here, keeping her engaged and wondering and thinking and hopefully she couldn't--wouldn't disappear.

"Oh yeah. Bad things happen and we wouldn't be people if we didn't react to them. Some of us write names and draw lines through them in journals. Some of us go evil and try to destroy the world." Dawn says. "Either way, you can always come back. Redeem yourself. Do the right thing. Put on the white hat. Be the change."

But she does get that Peter might be revealing more about himself than he means to. She looks sideways to him. "Have you done the journal thing?" It's a round about way of asking if he's gone evil and tried to destroy the world.

It's good, the redemption thing. It's what he tries to remember when he disables his victims. It's what he likes to think about Dr. Connors. At the same time, he's not sure there is such a thing as redemption for some people. How do you redeem yourself once you've killed people? How do you ever make up for taking a life, for removing a person from the world? It's the sort of thing he spends more time pondering than he'll probably ever admit.

His eyebrows raise at her question, taking a moment to figure out what she's saying. "Do I--I--uhm...no. I'm not--not much of a jour-journal sort of person." He shakes his head. "I just--just--nah. I haven't--don't journal. Not that I think--that I mean, I know some people do. Have, but--" he shakes his head again.

"I've always done --..." She pauses and shakes her head. "I mean the monks who made me created all these journals and once I was made I just kept on writing in them like a doofus. Then I burned them all when I found out ninety-nine point nine of them were fake. Then I picked it up again to have real journals with real experiences and knowledge in them."

She glanced at Peter. "If I asked you to would you write something for me? You know, since I can't pick up the pen."

"So you've kept a journal for as long as you can remember," Peter tells her with a crooked smile. He knows enough about the monks and the fake memories and how Dawn feels about it. He wants her to feel as normal as possible.

"Of course. Yeah," he nods. "I'll find you some paper and a pen." He gets up to do just that.

"There's lots of notebooks and journals in the book bags under my bed. And pens." She calls after him. "Sorry. They're glitter pens."

"I think I can handle a little glitter," he assures her as he gets up and goes down the hall, opening doors until he finds one that he's convinced is Dawn's. He comes back with a notebook with pink lined paper in it and a purple glitter pen. He sits down on the couch next to her, certain that he's not going to like what she asks him to write, but knowing that he'll write it anyway.

"Consider me your transcriptionist."

"Okay..." She pauses, waiting a bit to collect her thoughts before she starts speaking. "Dear Buffy, So here we are at the end of all things... not really. I just tried to go all Tolkien on you. Google it. Anyway, mostly at the end of my stuff, not yours. The way I see it, you'll live forever and be all invincible and super cool and generally amazing at everything into your fifties. Then you'll retire and live your life out on a beach somewhere and perv on much younger men cause that's what old ladies do when they retire, right?

"So I just wanted to say... I love you. I'm sorry you got saddled with all of this, with me. I know I kind of grew on you like mold does on cheesy goodness. But I like to think I'm the healthy kind of mold that's good for you. I know you didn't have to come around to being forced to have a sister. I know you didn't have to care. I know I got incredibly lucky that you were the Slayer when all that went down, when I was created. Another person probably wouldn't have... I just know I got lucky.

"I also know I was incredibly annoying sometimes. But what can you expect of a person who's only one or two years old. I grew out of it, mostly. But I'm sorry I was annoying. I'm sorry I stepped in gum when I borrowed those boots you really like. And I'm sorry I spilled ketchup on that pink off the shoulder silk top you like too. Oh. And I confess that I was the one who stole your silver dangle earrings back in the day and then lost them. It was me. Surprise!

"And here's what I don't always say to your face cause who in their right mind would boost the ego of someone so generally good at everything? You're amazing. You're the best superhero. You're the best sister. You're the best stand-in mom. You're the best caretaker. You're the best nurturer. You're the best everything to me. And I love you a lot even if you won't remember me in however long it takes for me to fully disappear. You chose to keep me in your life and keep me safe. You went to bat for me time and again when you really didn't have to. You love me even though you don't have to. And I love you too. You're my sister."

She's crying now and she wipes at her eyes, he shoulders shaking with each breath. "But you have to do something about the conditioner you use cause you hair... it has a thing." She sniffles. "Your bratty sister, Dawn."

Peter writes quickly, but legibly. He's had a lot of practice taking notes and it pays off here. By the time he finishes, he's fighting tears as well, jaw tightening up. He puts the notebook and pen on the table, looking over at Dawn.

"Come here," he says, beckoning her closer. "We're going to pretend I can hold you while you cry so that I'm not entirely useless. I mean, beyond my fascinating ability to be a scribe."

Dawn inches closer to him, seemingly pressed against, and some parts of her overlapping him since she can't help it. She rests her head on his shoulder... kind of. "She probably won't get the Tolkien reference. She doesn't read all that much." And for some reason, that fact just makes her cry harder.

He really, really wishes there were more he could do, but he'd tried working on this from the science front and unfortunately, he knew zip about magic. He could probably fight the zompires with Buffy and Faith, but right now, everyone is more interested in him staying with Dawn. It makes sense. He's the one person with memories that are entirely real, so while Faith, Buffy and even Angel are forgetting Dawn, Peter can't forget her.

"Maybe after this you can convince her to listen to them on audio."

Come on

The end's not near, it's here

Research

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Action!!

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Spell doing + Dawn sitting

Spell doing + Dawn sitting

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Celebration time