[Visual] EVERYONE I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE [also location: birdhouse]

[smecker]

For a moment the screen is at a crazy angle, and fingers smeared with blood scrabble over the glass, leaving red messy trails on the broadcast

Comments

[location]

[tin_hearts]

If there's one thing you can say about Cain, it's that he's stopped taking his life for granted. That includes his friends.

However, that doesn't mean he's any less shell shocked to see one of them bleeding out on the other end of a city wide tablet feed.

Another thing that can be said about Cain is that he doesn't always think things through before rushing right into them.

He's running before Paul gets halfway through his transmission. And he's bringing his gun.

[location]

[smecker]

When Cain arrives and bursts through the door, he'll see Paul lying on the ground still, one hand holding his tablet, the other keeping pressure on his injury with the handkerchief.

Without apparently looking up, he says with maybe half of his usual sarcastic bitchery, "If that's Dawn back to finish the job, get it over with it, will you?"

That's for show, because being a sarcastic jerk makes him feel more like himself-- he's been watching the tablet like a hawk the last few minutes, just to make sure Dawn isn't coming back to finish the job, and knows full well it's Cain who just came in.

[location]

[tin_hearts]

The sarcasm is more than welcome. Truth be told, he'd half expected something worse - shock or death, either of the two. He knows too well how easily shock induced by uncontrolled blood loss leads to death.

So, to reiterate: Snark is more than welcome, and something he can very easily deal with.

"Do I look like jailbait to you?" A beat as he hurries over, dropping to his knees beside his friend. "Please don't say 'yes'."

[location]

[smecker]

"Oh, I don't know, you do have a very youthful face," Paul mumbles, and sets his tablet down on his chest to shoot Cain a weary look.

"All my fucking planning and I get waylaid by a goddamn teenage girl," he says flatly. "...or a goddamn teenage vampire or... the-fuck-ever."

Paul closes his eyes, takes a few breaths. "You think you could maybe hatch me something with sugar, or even some water? I'm doing okay lying down but I think if I sit up it's going to be a different fucking story."

[ visual ]

[slaying]

Okay. Buffy Summers is concerned for Smecker's well-being. Something clearly went down -- something bad. But she needed to know for sure, first.

"You're certain it was Dawn? Dawn Summers."

Dawn had been missing for a while, now; Buffy had been upping her patrols, inquiring with those contacts she had managed to develop. Nothing had panned out. Buffy had been beginning to think that perhaps her sister had up and left. Back home. Hasta la vista.

Now? She nearly wished that were the case instead of the horror that Smecker was proposing.

[ voice ]

[dreamsinwhich]

Ugh, seriously? No, it was another Dawn.

[ now that her cover's blown and everything hurts, trolling it is. ]

[ voice ]

[slaying]

...The absence starting to make a bit more sense.

[ it's hard to sound slayer-hardened when you're simply so upset. ]

[ voice ]

[dreamsinwhich]

Kind of hard to remain lo-pro when the whole Slayer tingles are working against you.

[ visual ]

[ironfright]

[ Puck watches the display with a rather impassive look, taking in anything that can be seen through the tablet's skewed angle, and only after the man goes silent that he remarks, ]

There's a good Queen lyric for this.

[ visual ]

[smecker]

"What, Don't try suicide?" Paul snaps, forcing himself to focus on the screen despite the fact that he mostly wants to sleep for a week and hope this was a bad dream.

He doesn't know the goth kid on the other side of the screen, but the flippant way the punk's treating this grates on him.

"Who the fuck are you, another member of the teen bloodsucking for fun and profit squad?"

[ visual ]

[ironfright]

"There are plenty of ways you can hurt a man // And bring him to the ground," Puck quotes dryly. "How appropriate that it's from 'Another One Bites The Dust'."

His smile widens as he provokes a strong reaction from Paul, like it was what he was aiming to do. "Not me. I'm merely a spectator this time around."

Despite the easy casualness, he's definitely filing away the information that vampires are present within the city. Again, the phrase beings of note comes echoing back to him.

"So the Dawn chick was your girlfriend or something? Bad breakup, man."

[ visual ]

[smecker]

While Paul's still learning the ways of myth, legend, and things that go bump in the night, he's known more than enough juvies to recognize the smirk of someone who's seeking to press buttons and is happy they succeeded.

He responds to the 'question' with a bared-teeth-grin of his own.

"Not fucking likely, I go in for dick. Much like Freddie Mercury. Go play your Ashton Kutcher Punk'd bitching on someone else, kid-- I'm so not having the day for it."

Paul reaches to turn off the transmission.

[visual]

[littlestcastle]

Alexis is staring with a look of dawning horror at the visual feed. She'll process the whole 'vampire' thing later, but for the moment her only concern is for the fact that one of the few people in Taxon she knows is bleeding to death on the screen.

"Oh God." She stares for a handful of heartbeats, mere moments, and the tablet jostles as she picks it up along with a messenger bag. "Somebody please help him!" She's not sure who she's talking to, but she has to say something, hope an adult somebody will hear it and get there and help.

But just in case they don't, she's going to head down there anyway.

[visual | locked, because Cain's slightly paranoid in times like these]

[tin_hearts]

Cain's taking the flight of stairs two at a time as he ignores the mostly useless comments (to his mind they are). It isn't until he hears a familiar voice trembling with fear that he raises his bracelet to his wrist to respond. It's easier to keep his tablet there, like some kind of sadistic wristwatch.

"I'm on my way there." He doesn't like the thought of anyone, especially someone so young, to be out running right into danger. "Listen to me, Alexis," he says, using every last bit of authority he can muster while running to the nearest hatch. "I want you to stay indoors. Lock every door and window and stay put. Whatever you do, don't invite anyone in. Can you do that for me?"

She shouldn't risk her life, no matter that she thinks it's the right thing to do. No matter that he thinks so too. She doesn't need to see the blood any more vividly than on the tiny screen on the tablet.

[visual | locked, because well... she's panicked and following an adult's lead seems safe]

[littlestcastle]

The door to the apartment had already slammed shut by the time Cain responded, but at his words Alexis hesitated, her hand on the door. The sure authority in his voice seemed to quell some of the panic she felt and Alexis caught her lower lip between her teeth as she looked from her tablet to the hallway and back again.

Mr. Smecker's mention of vampires was starting to percolate through her mind, and the long, empty hallway started to feel irrationally sinister. She nodded, still clearly worried. "Y-- yes," she answered, backing up against the door. "Is there anything I can do to help from here?"

[visual]

[smecker]

Paul couldn't hear the locked transmission between Cain and Alexis, but he can see Alexis scrambling and that jerks him back to attention, even though he'd been wanting to just turn the tablet off and lie down for a week or so.

Quick button mash for a reply.

"Alexis-- no, you-- stay wherever you are," he says through a grimace. "I appreciate the fucking sentiment,"(apparently Paul stops self-censoring when injured) "--but the best thing you can do for me right now is stay put, okay? I'll be alright, not the first time I've been banged up on the job."

Paul hazards what he hopes is a 'reassuring' smile at the tablet and the young woman on the other end of it. Reassuring really isn't his strong suit. How are you supposed to do that? Tell them it'll be alright? Oh yeah. There's vampires, but it's gonna be peachy, kid.

"....shouldn't you be telling me vampires don't exist, little budding miss science?"

[ visual ]

[dreamsinwhich]

The side of Dawn's face is smooth and unmarked again, with nary a trace of the painful burning Holy Water brings about; but she does looks pissed. You blew her cover, Paul. Bad form.

"Well, there goes the sweet and innocent act. You couldn't have just died?"

[ visual ]

[smecker]

Paul doesn't like the feeling of panic that jerks through him at Dawn's voice-- he doesn't like feeling panic period, he's spent a lifetime playing at big strong FBI man and trying to out-macho all the fucking homophobes, to whom admissions of fear are like throwing meat at a starving dog.

It takes him a second to realize it's only the tablet-- that she hasn't come back. He takes a long breath, stares at the ceiling, trying to strive for sarcastic bitching and nothing more in his tone when he answers-- no hint of how shaken he is.

"I'm allergic to death. It's a character flaw. Fuck off and let me bleed in peace." Oh, he sounded mostly calm.

[ visual ]

[dreamsinwhich]

"You want to test that one? Because for the record: Holy Water for me feels a little bit like what someone pouring acid on your face would feel like for you. I could hatch you some, return the favor..."

Right now, Paul is the very safest person in Taxon. She can't go back, not after the whole of Taxon got a glimpse at her in action. But that doesn't mean threats are off the table.

[ visual ]

[smecker]

"Not particularfuckingly." Paul grits his teeth as he half-sits-up, glancing over at the spilled weaponry. Could he get anything ready, aim the crossbow at the door, something? In case she comes back? He's not sure he's feeling up to it.

You could pray, he imagines Connor saying, or Murphy, and the way they'd grin after saying it.

"Wouldn't, say, scalding hot coffee be--" grunt, ow-- "more-- apro-fucking-pos?"

Apparently Paul's releasing all that self-censored swearing now that Dawn is revealed to be evil. (Or so he thinks.) He reaches out past the edge of the camera's recording, gets his fingers on another bottle of the holy water just in case.