Pictures For Eyes: Rational Panic
by ArdyBoBardy
Spike, even his name sounded absurdly irrational, yet here he now stood as an indispensable champion. ‘Walking the Bad Lands with nothing but his cunning’, as they say in the few articulate hotspots of America. Stooping slightly the amended vampire shoved both hands within his chasm-like pockets, proceeding to look on with quiet amusement. Where as I, swelling to my full height, merely attempted quiet fruitlessly, to appear in at least some way imperious. Casually lifting his chin as if about to continue, I quickly made a hasty dash for the one thing we all aim to posses in such a situation. The wonderfully glorious and hopefully droll comeback.
"I wasn’t spying…"
"Not what it looked like to me luv’" he disputed.
"Spying would entail a view, I think you meant to say, ‘ease dropping’" Grinning, in a manner that was most uncomfortable, Spike spun to lean against the wall.
"Alright" his duster rose and fell "Seen as you ‘ave time to get snarky, perhaps you ‘ave time to explain” he paused “… before I tear you a new one" The threat was spoken in such a manner that it was almost impossible to take it seriously.
"Well 'ease-dropping' is..."
"Oi"
"Look I don’t have to answer to you" I scoffed "You don’t even work here, technically"
"Technically, that doesn’t matter." he answered dryly.
"Oh course it does" I argued lowly "It’s a technical situation, and if I am going to be accu--"
"Bloody hell." He cussed "How about I technically throttle that tiny neck of yours, at least that would save us all some time."
"Push off" I quipped on my attempt to stroll past. Taking a wide pace right, Spike fanned out his coat like a mid-park flasher.
"Not so fast bite-size. You wouldn't want to be rude?" He smirked. "You’ll have to spruce up your security old man" Spike rose his voice "anything seems to wander in here"
"Good point." The elder retorted "You did." Disregarding Spike’s exhibition of mock hurt, Angel poured out an angered sigh.
Staring down the corridor I watched as my stomach crawled around the final bend, shrieking like a child. The heat in me throbbed like a thousand hearts, flushing both cheeks raw. I couldn’t turn around, all those eyes and downward mouths, oh god. Caustically moving my eyes in Spike's direction, an authoritarian hand suddenly cast out the light.
Sinking into one of the peculiar red chairs within Angel’s office. I mentally squinted as the spotlight zoomed in. Glancing off to my right, Spike slouched with a bored expression, while Lorne and Gunn stood beautifully luminous amongst the standing lamps. I had never felt so diminutive and I wasn’t that big to begin with. Biting my thumb I ran both eyes across Fred and Wesley, who lounged upon the sofa with their faces to match the room’s stoical atmosphere.
Engaging centre stage, Angel leaned against his costly tyrannical desk, with nothing that resembled merriment. I could feel myself shrinking, the cushions growing larger and larger till almost ready to pop. Resting both hands within well-trimmed pockets, Angel exhaled an unessential, still desired, breath.
"I told you to stay in the room. This isn’t the kind of place you just, stroll around." he advanced ominously "We don’t appreciate being taken advantage of, especially seen as enough time has been wasted on this ridiculous issue!" My body blushed with dilemma and dejection. Feeling the acid rise and tears swell, Angel clutched his brow.
"I’m not an issue" I wiped my face. "I thought you were sending the dogs or something."
"With every right." Wesley announced. "You revealed some fairly private information, we had a basic right to be suspicious."
"It wasn’t that private…" I muttered "anyone could have found it all out"
"I beg to differ." Angel stated with about as much compassion as a box of nails. "Furthermore..." he paused "what happened in Fred's apartment." I shrugged in reply. "She said that it appeared to have rained, indoors."
"I don't know what your talking about... I simply knocked my water glass" I glanced at Fred. "...I was probably dreaming at the time. Miss Burkel woke me, I don’t know anything else." I lamented “It's lost on me"
"Dreaming?" Wesley sat up straighter. “About what?”
"Excuse me" Spike interrupted with little sincerity "But is any one else wondering, who’s the snitch?" I shot the revamped-vamp a glare.
"Spike stay out of it." Angel retorted abruptly.
"Hey! I think I’ve earned the right to know." Letting the silence linger almost a moment to long, a forgiving voice finally explained the predicament in a rather tiny nutshell.
"She… Ardin," Fred gestured "Appears to know Angel somehow, or at least about his past, and well future" she stated in a peculiar manner.
"Like a gypsy." Spike answered candidly.
"More of a Physic sunshine" Lorne added, "Gypsies are all hoop earrings and hazardous patch-work" he winced.
"Hardly. I meet one on a…"
"Look!" Angel loudly asserted. "He’s right. Just save us the time and tell us who you are and what you want? It would be far simpler." The vampire’s voice ached with fatigue, but nobody else seemed to notice. In fact it appeared that Angel’s entire soul was exhausted. "Hey!"
"God!" I growled, annoyed that he’d startled me so. "I already told you who I am, why are you asking me again? I’m up to nothing! I just wanted you to believe me! That’s all." I motioned "It’s not ‘that’ bizarre?" I exclaimed, to be practically answered by the wind. "Call my home" I calmed "I can’t understand why you haven’t? If you call my aunt, she will validate who I am… I don’t want to be here." Spinning on his heels rather casually, Angel advanced upon his desk with little but a word. Lifting up the receiver he dialled a few digits before looking up again.
"Well?"
"…The number is, well I think the international code is double zero, six, four."
"I know that. What is your home phone number" he answered curtly.
"Sorry. Nine, three, six, one… two, nine, forty-four." Proceeding onward, I wrung my hands profusely in watching Angel continue. Lifting his chin again, I could faintly hear that low, steady, signature ring, one, two three, it chimed till finally we all heard that all knowing ... ‘Click’.
"This is Wolfram and Hart, LA… Sorry." Angel glanced at the desk clock, "I have a woman here called Ardin Henderson." A slow mummer resonated "She said this was her home phone-number, apparently she has a relative that resides at this address… An Aunt... Am I correct in this being nine, three, six, one, two, nine, four, four?" his eyes reduced slightly "Yes… right, right. I will." placing down the receiver, Angel’s expansive hands spanned themselves on the darkly polished desk. "Besides angering some middle aged woman half way across the world that phone call merely proved that there is more to your story than you have given. She knew no one by your name, and knows no one that does."
"Y-you must have dialled the wrong number?"
"Try again" he straightened his back.
"You must have, that's my number! Maybe it was the wrong international code" I whipped my eyes over the ever changing faces. "I’m not lying, honest!" my blood pumped and surged "That is my number!"
"It's okay..." Fred soothed at my right, with an innocent face. Staring to the ceiling the way Angel sometimes does, he deliberately moved back towards the phone when quiet suddenly, and with apt timing, everything stopped.
Appearing like a noxious flower from out of Angel’s private elevator. The tiny doom-merchant known as Eve glanced over every face with unobtrusive disdain. She was a tiny little thing, with small hands and feminine ways. Yet like a spider I suspect she could do so much, while using so little.
"Isn’t this a quaint little gathering." She waltzed passed Spike and his wandering attention. "Hope you didn’t mind me using your elevator Angel?" she queried intrepidly.
"Eve I mind you living" Angel growled. "I’m in the middle of something if you don’t mind."
"Oh I don’t. By all means continue." She shrugged in a seductive manner. Glancing her eyes over Gunn and Lorne, Eve abruptly flipped her hair in my direction.
"So, who’s your friend?" she inquired flatly.
"Well... we were hoping perhaps you could tell us the same thing" Wesley replied as the door clicked shut.
To be cast within the same estuary-of-evil as Eve was highly offensive and yet, bizarrely flattering. Amusing how two emotions, so contrary in definition, could also lie so close. Folding her delicately laced arms the woman’s fine eyes reduced like a cat's. Her carmine lips curling upward as if finally ready to pounce.
"Do you honestly think you have any power over me?" she scoffed "Open the door before I inform the senior partners about this. I have places to be"
"Guys, I think this is best done alone." Angel spoke frankly and with little effort. "It could take a while" In reply to the mono-toned statement, came a ‘Are you sure Boss’, a ‘We’re here if you need us’ and ‘Your call pumpkin’. Exhaling a small growl from her dainty lungs, fury fanned itself across Eve’s powdered cheeks. The woman was ready to combust.
"I won’t be badgered like this" She exclaimed, yet wisely made little effort in escape. “You wait until I tell them Angel.” Holding the door ajar for Fred and company, Wesley snatched a flash of eye contact with his elder comrade. A brief exchange took place where upon, once again, the ex-watcher simply took his position upon the vivid red sofa.
"You know what they say. Two heads…" Wesley stated in his customary, formal, manner. Just as customary and as formal as his parents before him. I stared at the man for a moment, the intrusion unnoticed. His eyes were very narrow, nevertheless good-hearted. You could almost see the courteousness and loyalty tumbling out of them, two emotions that had been tried to their brink in recent years.
"…Are less than three" Angel replied with an altogether frustrated breath. "Spike." he shot.
"Technically, I don’t work here"
"Then get out!" Angel snapped.
"Not playing favourites are we, besides wh..."
"Spike!"
"Oh keep your knickers on Belle" he kicked himself forward "It was getting boring anyway" Striding across the room Spike grabbed the door like a relentless adversary. "Bon voyage!" he slammed.
Strange, even though the room possessed considerably fewer people than before, my uneasiness was already in the red. I suppose due to the fact that there was less hope in fobbing off unwanted attention toward others. Gathering the material upon my thighs, everything cramped within. I wanted to cry my heart out or scream until my lungs' bleed. But I’m fairly assured that no body would even look down.
"Perhaps you now might be persuaded to tell us what you know Eve" Angel spoke slowly but firmly to the woman six feet north-east of him. "But if that doesn’t work… I know a few things that will"
"Oh.” she exhaled “That might’ve been threatening in other circumstances, but the fact is I’ve no clue who she is and have no clue as to why you’d think I do" She motioned casually.
“A hunch”
“Oh how human of you.” Her eyes compressed.
“Pot calling the kettle black”
"…I’m not required here." She strode two steps forward only for Angel to block her path with a lengthy stride right.
"On the contrary" Wesley stood up "It’s amazing what that shrewd little head of yours is able to hold" he stopped two feet short of Angel.
"Charmed" her voice dripped with animosity. “But I don’t do ‘collaboration’”
“You’ve been known to change your mind” Angel’s voice shook in it’s attempt to remain civil.
“Aren’t we all slightly fickle.” She smirked like an all-to-wise seductress. "But look Angel.” Her voice returned to its previous acerb nature “Perhaps if you and wonder boy gave me at least one shred of information I might be able to help” she reached to lean on the corner of my chair. “But even that seems too hard" Resting my head in my hands, their steady and systematic banter continued to fill the room like a swarm. Back and forth, back and forth they quipped and jibed, my head aching with memories and thoughts, ones, which spat and sparred with like bull-headed divorcées. From within heat ravaged, causing every part of me to pulse and throb. Closing my eyes' tears pushed past the noise as Eve’s voice flooded in, her tone far to gentle to remain, under any circumstances, unnoticed.
“Max” she stopped, removing her hand from my chair “Maxwell .D. Henderson…”
“And besides the obvious, who’s Max?”
“Angel?” she paused, and lowered her voice “He’s one of them. He’s a senior partner”
“They’ve names.” Angel stated with indifference.
“Of course they’ve names” she sped just as Wesley removed the clutch on his chin.
“Why would they send his daughter?” He glanced between them. “They’ve access to every section of this building… the entire firm” he motioned in his own confused manner.
“This has nothing to do with the firm.” Eve whispered quickly. “She shouldn’t be here”
“Stop calling me she!” I stumbled accidentally on rising “And I’m not what’s-his-names daughter, my father was a school teacher…” numbness ebbed across my chest “Alright.”
“Miss Henderson we ju…”
“I’m not going to be written into this bloody... thing!” I tried to find my way between Wesley and the chair. Feeling a tight brace about my wrist I yanked my arm only to feel the brace pull back. Glaring over my shoulder, Angel’s dark eyes stared down at me.
“Sit down” he lifted my arm high, too high, causing my back to hurt as he forced me to return to the recesses of my assigned seat. Grabbing the rough red arms tightly, wrath spawned itself across my gut. “At least until we understand a little more about this” he finished.
“Must be an implant, or a memory spell” she said a little to light heartily.
“It’s not an impla-!” I began only to be promptly interrupted.
“--Miss Henderson, please” Wesley accentuated in that irked English tone. Lowering my arms I bound them tightly with both legs crossed, simply trying in anyway to look entirely unapproachable. “Thank you”
“Tell us everything.” Angel demanded “I want to know everything”
“It’s classified. I can’t say anything” She answered systematically in a slow and methodical manner. Like a business document read one too many times. Neither Wesley nor Angel spoke in return, nor did they move when she did. Uncrossing my legs I leaned forward, intrigue as she quickly scribbled somthing upon her delicate palm. “Now if you don’t mind I’ll be going, and don’t think I’ll forget about this…” she opened her hand to them with a starched expression “They’re going to hear every word of it.” Gulping like a child, I stared ahead in quiet distraction as the words ‘Project A’ in black ink, scowled back at me. Closing her fingers, Eve lowered her arm with loose candour. “Like I said… every single word.”
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TBC
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