| It's who you know. |
[22 Oct 2007|11:57pm] |
"You have got to be joking me."
"Mere, honey, if I were in the mood to be telling you jokes, I would have started this conversation with the words 'Knock, knock', and I would have followed it up with some equally ludicrous punchline." Lorne could already feel his headache forming. Within the back recesses of his prescient mind, that dull throbbing began to work it's way to the forefront. The demon was going to need a fourteen pound aspirin to fend off this one.
Meredith sat on the edge of the Pylean's desk, palms flat on the mahogany, feet dangling above the carpeted floor. She'd come in to the nightclub that evening at Lorne's insistence. Sometimes his flair for dramatics had to be experienced in person, and could not be relayed via telephone. At least, according to Lorne.
"That's the most ridiculous thing ever," she went on to answer, her tone flat. "Okay, it's actually not. "That outfit is, but still." An outstretched index finger was pointed in the direction of Lorne's leopard print shirt, which looked especially gaudy as he'd chosen to pair the garment with a bright purple blazer. "I think you've been hitting the gin too hard or your clients are fucking with you."
Lorne rolled his red eyes at Meredith's first comment, sighed, and then spread his hands in a shrug. "I read what I read, Cherrybomb."
"Well, whatever," the brunette went on, "Fearsome Vampire Slayer or not, I just can't see our Elian out there being some big bad ass killer. For Christ's sake, this is the guy who was addicted to the Gameshow network and wore a scarf with board shorts."
"Pumpkin, I never said he was fearsome," the demon corrected her. "The vampire population of this city has merely been chit-chatting about the big hunk with a hate-on. I never said anyone was scared of him. They know he's clearly not an honest-to-goodness Slayer."
"He doesn't have the right bits and pieces for that," Meredith cut in with a smirk.
Lorne leveled his gaze at her and cleared his throat. "To put it crudely," he added. "Anyway, I don't think though that one way or the other, anyone with fangs and an allergy to sunlight is going to give a rat's tuchis if Boy Wonder used to strum the harp on Cloud 9. As far as they're concerned, he might be a minimal threat for the time being, but they'll want to take him out eventually. And that's what has me concerned."
Meredith squared her jaw and looked across the room at her demon friend, who sat casually in a leather arm chair, left leg crossed over his right. The toe of his white Gucci loafer idly rounded circles in the air. "Yeah you're right," she conceded finally. "So if this is true, if he's out there exercising his own one man fight club, he could get seriously hurt. Or killed. Again."
"Bingo, Kitten," Lorne agreed. Long green fingers stroked the length of his clefted chin. "I never knew that boy could be so damned stubborn, I honestly didn't think he even had it in him. I kind of liked him better when he was playing practical jokes on me. Even then I could have strangled him, but now? I'd love to whack him a good one and knock some sense back into him, even if he doesn't remember that he had some to begin with."
A long silence passed between the two of them, the only sound in Lorne's office the ticking of the clock on the wall. "Well we obviously can't let him find out the hard way that he's no longer invincible," Meredith stated.
"I don't think it has to do with him thinking he's invincible," Lorne corrected her, frown lines creasing his mottled brow, "I think he just doesn't really care. And that's what makes him all the more dangerous."
Meredith perked a brow. "To himself, or to others?"
"Both," came the answer. "But unfortunately for our good boy Elian, I know a lot of people in this town who owe me a hell of a lot of favors."
"So what's your plan then?" Meredith asked curiously.
Perfect white teeth protruded slightly to bite a lower red lip thoughtfully, and Lorne fixed his gaze on his friend. "I'm going to make some phonecalls," the demon told her, finally. "I certainly can't go out and stop him from making a big mistake, but I am most certain I know someone who can."
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