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[whattingawhat]

Buffy was lost. It wasn't a metaphorical description for her life; It was a literal state of being. She was supposed to watching some big wig that Kennedy had paired her with. She'd been certain said big wig's room was a step out of the elevator, one left turn and down the hall. She spun in a slow circle, regarding the hallway she was standing in.

"I don't think this is even the right hotel..."

Which meant something hinky was going on. It wasn't that unusual in Buffy's world. Something weird was always going on. Her hand slipped beneath the leather jacket she was wearing to slip the stake secured at the small of her back out. Her fingers curled around the stake, the wood warm in her hand. Despite the inherent nerves that came with finding oneself in an unfamiliar place, the stake made her feel better.

"Come be a security guard, Buffy. It'll be boring, they said. There'll be run of the mill demons, they said. You'll make money, they said. You'll get to travel, they said, but no one said anything about using some weird magic elevator as a mode of traveling. All the sudden, this is looking like some weird British TV show, or something Keanu Reeves would be in." She paused, considering that option a moment.

"I could do worse than Keanu..."

Comments

[malachai]

Nick was on his way from his room to the gym in case anyone wanted training today. He looked up when he saw someone talking to...no one and grinned. "You talking to yourself? Or have a little friend that only you can see?"

[whattingawhat]

She didn't jump or start, but she was wary. New place, unfamiliar circumstances and no idea of what was going on, not to mention the fact that previous experience had taught her to be concerned.

"Myself. Does that happen here? The little friends only one person can see and does it involved anything you smoke, snort or drink?"

[malachai]

"Not to me," Nick answered with a wide grin, "but we get all kinds here. There's at least one guy who I'm sure hasn't been sober, or straight, for longer than five minutes while he's here. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure I've ever talked to him when he's not altered on something," he laughed.

[whattingawhat]

Buffy's eyebrows arched up a bit. "And no one's called an intervention? This definitely isn't Kansas. Or home, which is not Kansas. I was being--Right. People come here often?"

[malachai]

"Since he's pretty harmless about it, I don't think anyone's losing a lot of sleep about it," Nick shrugged and gave his head a quick shake after the exercise in circular logic. "They do, yeah. Drop in, drop out. Some are stuck here, some can go back and forth. Fun place."

He waited a beat before continuing. "Speaking of fun, should I be worried about the pointy piece of wood you're carrying?"

[whattingawhat]

"Good information to know," she responded, although she wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that.

Right. The stake she was still holding. She looked at it as if she wasn't sure how it had ended up in her hand before tucked it into her waistband. "You appear to be entirely attack-less, so...no? I mean, unless you're planning on changing your attack status to full-of-attack."

[malachai]

Nick was suddenly glad he had decided to lock his shortsword back in his closet in New Orleans for the time being. Safe, sorry, and not staked. All good things to be.

"Not at the moment, no. Unless you're planning on poking the toothpick there through innocent humans, in which case, we might have to have a serious discussion."

[whattingawhat]

They were good words to have in a list. She really wasn't as stake happy as she might've once been. Buffy's world was grey and it had taken her a while to learn that. However, her world has also taught her that one should never be without a stake. It was her ultimate 'just in case'.

"I operate on a stick no human killing policy." Innocent or not. Humans had their own justice system. They didn't need her, not to mention that there was a fine line between slayer and monster. She'd seen Faith (not to mention a couple other slayers) cross it. Nope, she was staying firmly on the side of the 'not killing humans' line.

[malachai]

"Then we should get along just fine," Nick nodded and then regarded her quizzically. "So. You're a hunter of some kind, but you're not one of Artemis' unless I'm really off my game. Care to enlighten me?"

[vampire_shield]

Bella heard the woman's voice long before she turned the corner and saw the blonde woman. It wasn't anyone she'd seen before, and definitely not a scent she'd encountered. She slowed her approach to human speed and put her hands behind her back as she approached. "It would definitely improve things if Keanu Reeves showed up, but I haven't seen him here. Well, not yet anyway."

[whattingawhat]

"Honestly not sure how I feel about the possibility that he could," Buffy answered. "I take it you live here?"

Because Buffy wasn't ready to count herself among the residents, not yet.

[vampire_shield]

"Stuck here is probably a better way to describe it," Bella answered with a warm smile, "but yes, for now I live here. There are quite a few of us now, actually."

She took a few steps forward at her best human pace. "I'm Bella Cullen. Welcome to the Nexus."

[whattingawhat]

Buffy's automatic response was 'we'll see about that'. She'd been 'stuck' before and it hadn't, for lack of a better word, stuck. However, Bella was being nice and Buffy didn't see any reason to point out that she'd be leaving as soon as she could possibly manage it.

"And there weren't to begin with? The quite and the few, I mean."

Introductions were great, and Bella was kind enough to answer one of the questions Buffy's brain was being so kind to bombard her with: where they were.

"Oh! Right. I'm Buffy Summers. Is there someone here in charge? I'd like to discuss kidnapping as being gateway crime"

[vampire_shield]

"When I first came here, there weren't, no." The name rang a vague, distant bell in Bella's brain, but it was buried in the hazy, human memories. She'd only focused on a select few of them in the moments after he transformation. Her family, her friends, her life leading to that point. Whatever had made that name memorable wasn't one of those things.

"You can try," Bella laughed, the sound like a wind chime, "but you won't have a whole lot of luck. The front desk can explain the basics, and give you a room, that kind of thing. If you want more answers than that, you're going to come away disappointed.

[whattingawhat]

So Bella had been there a while, or at least that was what Buffy took from that sentence. A part of her wanted to pepper Bella with questions about what had changed and why and how long Bella had been here. However, she got distracted by a laugh that was too perfect to be real, and yet it was entirely real as far as she could tell.

"Front desk. Check. I'll make it my next stop. And here I thought everyone knew that knowledge is power." Her brow furrowed and her nose scrunched a bit. "Maybe that's the problem."

[vampire_shield]

"Maybe. Especially when you get a lot of knowledge that doesn't answer any of the questions you really want answered and just get a bunch of crap about how to get a job you don't need to get food you can't eat."

Bella laughed a little when she heard herself babble out that little rant. "Sorry. I'm get a little punchy sometimes. It's not so bad, and there are some really great people here and doors that lead to some amazing places. I guess it's all in how you look at it?"

[whattingawhat]

Oh, Buffy caught that. She raises an eyebrow. "Why can't you eat the food?" The assumption she's going to jump to is that the food is rotten or drugged. However, she is a slayer and she can't help but wonder if Bella is some sort of non-human that needs a different diet. She certainly looks human, if humans were airbrushed and perfect, and she's nice in a way that vampires rarely are, even ones with souls. Hence the reasons she's not jumping to that immediate conclusion.

"So we're in a hotel that kidnaps people and has doors to other places." She frowns at that, considering it a moment. "I can see how that'd make someone punchy in the non-hitty sort of way."

[freezedout]

Isaac's getting used to this place. He's getting used to being pitied by the bartenders and the waitresses, getting used to feeling guilty for not going back to Beacon Hills, and he's even almost used to the weird doors to the weirder places. He's not entirely sure he was ready for a blonde girl rambling on a Stiles Stilinski level five of rambling holding a stake in her hand.

"Uh," is all he manages. "What did Keanu do to you?" he asks, hoping this story doesn't end with him bleeding from somewhere.

[whattingawhat]

Buffy is pretty sure that someone famous once said a human being could get used to most anything. Possibly it's one of those irrefutable facts. She's not sure. Either way, she doesn't understand the pitying bit. Perhaps once she gets to know Isaac, she will.

She turns, stake coming up automatically then stops when she sees the conversationalist in question is just a guy, or at least he looks like just a guy. Her hand goes back down to her side in a much less defensive stance. She shrugs at his question.

"The second and third Matrix weren't enough?"

[freezedout]

Okay, so they weren't exactly the height of cinema, but Isaac's pretty sure that Keanu hasn't done anything on the level of Nic Cage to deserve that kind of scorn. "If you promise not to stab me, I'll agree with anything you say," he swears, instinct when it comes to sharp pointy things wielded at him kicking in as he remembers being stabbed like, twenty times.

[whattingawhat]

He's right and really, Buffy doesn't hold much of a cinematic grudge. She likes 80's movies and kung fu movies. She's in no position to hold a cinematic grudge. At his words, her eyes go wide.

"Oh! No. Sorry. No." She slips the stake into the waistband of her pants. Sure, he could still be dangerous, but it's looking less and less likely. "Boy scout. Always be prepared. It's my motto and theirs as it turns out."

[freezedout]

"I'm pretty sure none of the boy scouts in the town I live in are trying to kill me," Isaac says, not entirely sure that Allison counts as anything but an over-enthusiastic Brownie. "Are you expecting trouble?"

[whattingawhat]

"You've got very good boy scouts then?" Buffy offers. She starts to slip into a ramble about the halloween that boy scouts and every other trick or treater in Sunnydale tried to kill everyone but thinks better of it. This is probably not story time.

"I was just in a hotel in San Francisco. I walked out of an elevator and I wasn't anymore. I don't know what to expect."

[freezedout]

"Actually, I don't know," Isaac says, stuck in the confusion of wondering how you even rate a system of boy scouts. "I didn't have much time for boy scouts when I was a kid. I was more into comics," he explains with a nod of his head. "I was in a motel in a little nowhere town in California before I got here, so maybe this is a Cali thing?"

[whattingawhat]

Buffy isn't sure either. Sometime she says words just because she likes the way they sound, or just because they seem to fit the moment. They don't actually have to make sense.

"You and my friend Xander would have loads to talk about."

That makes her pause a moment. It's not that far out there, the Cali idea. "Is everyone here from California, or are we the only ones here?"