Pictures For Eyes: Wolfram and Hart
by ArdyBoBardy
Winfred Burkle's, or more appropriately Amy Acker’s, tiny little mouth pursed once again as the lights flickered above. She seemed absolutely lost and yet here, there, and everywhere. It was the oddest thing. Cringing to the hot water which enwrapped my feet, she huffed in a humorous manner. "Don't take offence. Angel's bark is worse than his bite" she unscrewed the cap to a bottle of pungent disinfectant. Soaking up almost every drop with an ample supply of cotton wool. Dabbing at my forehead, Billy Joel played low in the background. ---Some folks like to get away, take a holiday, from the neighbourhood. Hop a flight to Miami Beach or to Hollywood. But I'm taking a Greyhound on a Hudson river line... I'm in a New York state of mind.--- I have never been near the Hudson, let alone within a Greyhound. But it soothed me somehow, to hear something from years ago.
Closing my eyes, the colours flooded in.
"Where did you say you were from Ardin?" her southern accent suited my name. Just hearing it put my situation in perspective.
At least I was somewhere
dry
warm
and high.
"I didn't... New Zealand." pushing up her spectacles Fred paused for a moment.
"I bet it’s pretty…” she smiled “I'll take you to see Wesley and Gunn tomorrow...you will meet them at the office, they will help you get home" she fussed about for a minute, then paused again as if in thought "I wonder why Angel didn't take you to the police? It does seem appropriate" she sighed with barley a rise to her shoulders. “He can be so silly sometimes”
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Pushing my face into the pillow, mascara smeared over the clean white linen. Pain wracking through out, not from my feet, forehead or ribs, but my heart. Staring at the picture frame mounted beside the bed. Flowers of vivid gold swayed from side to side, sighing like a woman's breath. Back and forth, back and forth, the thorns they bore ached within my pupils. Colours and rain, wind and just a shimmer of light. The petals shuddered with droplets of dew, which sung with each and every quiver. Opening my mouth the rain gushed down, coursing over my breasts and arms, and with a crack the ceiling flashed in brilliance as heaven broke it's bridges. Pressing the flowers into my face, pollen ripped threw every pore, gorgeous and magnetic. I was bathed in red, a sudden glow as the door flung itself ajar. "Ardin? Ardin!"
Bolting up from the mattress, Fred filled the room. She looked sincerely worried, yet perhaps just a little annoyed to be awake once again. "My god..." she retracted "Your soaking... the bed, it's soaking. I... I'll get a towel..." Pushing the sheets back, a shiver galloped along my spine, the flowers beginning to slow their dance. Tugging at the belly of my borrowed gown, Fred sharply glanced up from the dinning room table. "I have the towels" she gestured weakly "Here, you can change into something else of mine." For a moment the light lingered forgotten around her head, the walls throwing hazy shadows over and over. It was an indescribable feeling, and one that I didn't wish to repeat.
"I think I knocked my water glass..."
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Sunlight didn't shine in the streets of LA, it peaked. The forever-aged blighter above attempting fruitlessly to penetrate the overbearing buildings which schooled us. I suppose in the ways of progress and productivity. With my forehead pressed to the passenger window, I tried to ignore the bubbles of song that Fred produced every few intersections. The time was presently eleven-thirty am, and I was exhausted.
Sitting upon a small blue sofa in an oddly shaped room on the 32nd floor, I waited, and waited... and waited. Tick tock, tick tock... The clock chanted to certify that indeed one PM had come and gone. Listening to the sound resonate I began, for the first time, to consider my place here. Was I really trapped within my own head, amongst the bio-caverns of images and music? If indeed this was correct, then precisely how does one go about locating their ‘biological’ exit. Were they in my head, or was I in theirs? Pushing the hair from my eyes, heat rocked within both temples, wham wham wham, the clock sung like a trooper.
At last, the heavy brown door swung open, and a man and woman entered the quarters. The man was, unmistakably, Wesley .W. Price.
"When can you get me home?" I rose.
"And a hello to you as well." his mood shined through "It's not exactly a Wolfram and Hart issue sorry, as I have mentioned before. I don't understand why you haven’t been taken to the federal department. This is an immigration matter." Fred held her silence, a foot behind her cohort.
"I didn't immigrate!" he held his indifference "I woke up and these men were chasing me! Then your man Angel turned up and I got dragged to and fro, to and fro till eventually I am standing where I am standing." The sofa sighed beneath me. "I appreciate this. But I just want to go home"
"I will get a cab to take you to th..."
"I want a word" a creditable voice broke in. "Wesley, Fred..." I hadn't been in the face of a headmaster for many years, but as of now… that meant Jack. Closing the door behind them, Fred and Wesley’s footsteps faded till, awkwardly, it was just me and a man that uncannily resembled the ‘big bad wolf’.
"Out of curiosity, how did you know my name?" He removed both hands from his pockets "And what does 'Boreanaz' mean?"
"I don't..." he frowned to my hesitation "Look I don't know what to say. I don't know how to explain it in a way that won't have you come to the conclusion that I am absolutely and undeniably crazy-eight-bonkers."
"Try" I considered lying, attempting a believable farce, some kind of heroic fantasy where I stood upon the shoulders of men. A story that if I willed hard enough I could simply desire my oppressors to dust, instruct them out the door. Wish them ba...
"Well?" my daydream split.
"If it's easier, you can send me to England, I have a cousin there."
"You didn't answer the questions."
"I know." I regained my height "Okay, so you want it in a nutshell eh?”
“In so many words”
“Fine, not that you will believe, but… here it is. I’m dreaming, I know it sounds weird, but I’m dreaming. This door, wallpaper... it's not real” He stood unfazed. “Last thing I recall was hitting my head and then I waking up in some LA street" Angel processed this for a moment before responding.
"Look. I can assure yo--" a small tap erupted itself upon the door.
"--Angel, boss..."
"Harmony, not right now"
“OKay, but do I…”
“Go away Harmony!” He instructed loudly, before continuing "As I was saying, you're not dreaming.” He unfolded his arms “I think you should go to the infirmary. This bump on the head” he gestured “may have something to do with your delusions" Wandering to the other side of the room, I touched the wall. Each and every bump sending the appropriate messages. Glancing back toward the reformed Vampire, I felt my stomach twist... here goes nothing.
"B-back home this is just a TV show, a ridiculous black comedy" His chin rose. "Ok sure, it sounds stupid. But if so then just how would I know that you were turned a vampire in seventeen fifty-three, you're real name is Angelus and you were born in Galway, Ireland over two hundred years ago." I counted off
“Anyone could have looked that up” he lowly growled.
“Originally” I continued “your one love was the Slayer, Buffy Summers from the Sunnydale. But now… ironically, Cordilia Chase is here” I tapped my chest. “Coma or not." his fist clenched "I'll mention the fickle Drusilla. Who, horribly, you tortured into insanity before turning just after her holy vows." superiority flushed through my veins. "Now as for Spike, or more so, William the Bloody, he was never really under you, he loves the rivalry, always has. Yet now that he is here in LA, and reformed, you know he is better in some respects. He earned his soul, you... you fell to your knees and..."
"Quiet!"
"I told you! I told you it was true." My heart thudded like a jackrabbit, cheeks burning with excitement and probably just a little carnality. It was the most delicious feeling.
"You're physic, that's all."
"It’s not spiritual" a thought suddenly hit me "..Have you had cyborgs in the office recently..." he glared unaffected. "What about a Selminth parasite?" Glancing to his left, as if half expecting company, Angel grasped the door handle.
"Our talk… it’s over.”
“Wait. Has he lost his hands yet? Spike, has he?” I argued.
"I’m sure he can handle himself. He has so far" Angel proceeded to leave. "Stay here, I will send some people for you." And at one-twentyfive PM he was gone. Standing before the door I watched as my hands quivered and shook… it was true, and like hell I was going to wait around.
Outside the heavy wooden barricade which we all called a door, the room opened up. To the right Harmony handled the phones with a continuous look of worry and confusion on her face, and to the left was my 'escape'. Trying to act as calm and collected as possible, I casually walked along the corridor. Only two of the eleven people that passed actually looked me in the eye, and I think it was some kind of stare tactic anyway.
Sighing a breath of relief as I rounded the corner I was suddenly sighing a breath of frustration. A dead end, but for one door, which upon closer inspection, read in gold 'Head Office'. I didn't know whether to enter with gusto and demand that Angel take me seriously, or wait until someone who was less intimidating arrived. Biting the last nail I possessed, a soft mummer prodded the thoughts in my head. They were in there, lord knows how many, two... three... all of them? Pressing myself to the wood, Angel's quiet and yet commanding voice resonated clearly and without his usual cool manner.
"Perhaps your right, anything can be found on the net these days?"
"But she mentioned the Selminth parasite?" Gunn added. "Yet again, that could simply be explained by unknown connections in Wolfram and Hart?"
"Eve" Angel muttered.
"But why Eve, what for?" Fred inquired.
“Why not, and what else”
"Is anyone else intriged by this television aspect. You say she said we are all just fictional characters" Wesley ridiculed "It’s fairly humorous you must admit." A couple shiffed, as I can imagine Angel shot him the 'this-isn't-funny' expression "Yes well, if she ‘is’ mentally impaired..." teeth clenched "That still does not explain how she managed to end up in LA. Alone, penniless, and with no previous knowledge of ever mustering her way through a twenty-one hour flight."
"Schizophrenia" Fred suggested, "It wouldn't be far fetched... Perhaps the actions of the separate personalities are not co-linked, sort of like black outs"
"But that doesn’t explain the information she disclosed" Gunn quipped "I purpose that we keep her under close observation. See what else she knows."
“I agree” Angel concluded.
"Remember we have no idea what she has planned or may be planning, if anything. Don't let her meek appearance fool you" Wesley added. I had no idea that they would take what I said to Angel so seriously. I was beginning to wonder if I had done the right thing. Maybe I should have simply kept my damn mouth shut. Resting back against the door, Lorne made himself known.
"Has anyone even paid consideration to the possibility that our little frequent-flyer might be telling the truth." silence, but for the odd cough "…Kill joys" Lorne sighed.
"All I can say is at least, so far, it’s merely all talk." Angel stated.
"Oh!" Fred exclaimed "Last night... something did happened, I think?" she paused. "Ardin woke from a nightmare. But she was soaking wet and so was the bed."
"Too much cocoa?" Lorne questioned mockingly.
"No." Fred answered with an embarassed tone "I am not talking a few damp patches but dripping wet. The carpet, walls… my books were sodden." she paused "Sorry guys, it slipped my mind."
"That ‘is’ weird?" Wesley added.
“Okay I am willing to go back on the ‘merely all talk’ aspect. Gunn…”
“Yes”
“I want you to check flights, stopovers and direct, from New Zealand to LA. See if you can get any contact details from her, maybe there’s family that can be reached. Fred, she mentioned that she hit her head, I am not sure how long ago, but an examination may be wise…” As they continued to talk about me and then onto other projects and cases, which soared into the regions of little interest, I was quiet suddenly forced breathless, all due to the impact of two stiff fingers within my ribs. Wincing for a moment, a bleached object slowly entered my prolific vision.
“Well, well, well. It looks as if we’ve caught ourselves an idsie-bitsie spy.”
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TBC
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