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"Uh, Nina?"

This wasn't right. He knew the hotel — his hotel — like the back of his hand. He could walk the corridors blindfolded, even those in parts of the building that they had barely inhabited before the great move to the Law Offices of Wolfram & Hart. And while the Hyperion had managed to avoid sustaining heavy damage or infestation like a majority of the buildings in Los Angeles, hell wasn't nearly this well-kempt. Especially not where his former mailing address was concerned. The carpets were vacuumed, the floors had carpets, mirrors and glass polished to a glare-free shine...

Not only did he appear to be in the wrong hotel, but the wrong dimension, and that was a problem. A big one.

This was the last thing he needed, whether it be an actual case of dimensional displacement or some trick the Senior Partners were pulling on him in retaliation for overthrowing the Lords. Not that they needed an excuse to meddle in his life. They were the masterminds behind his newfound liveliness in spite of what the heavy glamour that hid his humanity from everyone had to say about him. Angel was alive, but it was important that everyone still believed he was a vampire.

It's like he told Wes; there's only one way to get out of hell. Act like nothing's changed.

Which was why he stared at what he could see of the buffet table across the way, but made no move to approach it. Eating actual food in public? Dead giveaway. (No pun intended.)

He should probably find shoes. Somehow, walking out of his room in nothing but a t-shirt and sweatpants had topped his list of poorly thought out life choices this morning.

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He sits up, mindful of his side. "Sunday, I think. Or was that Tuesday? Is today Tuesday? I don't know. The days sort of started bleeding together after the first few weeks, especially with the whole sun/moon, day-and-night thing. Please tell me that's not what's going on outside."

Angel should feel worse about the possibility of not being in hell than he does, but the truth is he's tired. He's wore out and exhausted, sore in ways he's never been sore before. Everything hurts, though some hurt considerably more than others — like his side and hand, that spot below his left shoulder blade where the She-Skip got in a good blow. It's his fault Los Angeles is in hell, but he's no good to them if his guts are hanging out.

Shower, whiskey, and stitches first, getting back to hell later.

He sees to the first part of that while she's getting the whiskey, washing off the grease, dirt, and various types of slime and goo off his body and out of his hair. The hot water feels good against his skin, turning his pale skin a deep shade of pink. Blood and grime mingle in the water at his feet and he washes until it runs clear. It's amazing how accustom he's grown to things like soap and shampoo, given that he grew up in an era where bathing wasn't something you did very often and certainly not the degree people did now. Yet it feels good to do so, and he emerges from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, hopefully looking less ragged than he did before. Although, he's willing to bet the bruises are more apparent now that all the dirt's been washed away.

"Buffy?"

"Nope. Not what's going on outside. It's...more space-ish, but we've got a sun and night and it seems pretty regular most of the time. I'll get you something to eat."

She steps out into the hall, shutting the door behind her and going several feet before she sits down on her heels against the wall. She pushes her hands into her hair, holding her head. Angel was human. Angel was here and he was human. He'd been in Hell and human. There's so much she's trying to deal with that she's not even sure how to cope with it. She's not even sure where to begin. The last time she'd seen Angel, he'd killed Giles. He hadn't been himself and she knew that. She's not sure how she feels about that. After all, she'd certainly contributed to him not being...him. In any case, it doesn't sound like it's happened yet to him and she's not sure what to do with any of that. If she's very honest, she's not sure what to do with any of this. It's going to require a good deal of her own brooding to work through it and right now, she doesn't have time for that. Right now, Angel is hurt and seriously injured and she's about to sew him up like he's Mr. Gordo losing stuffing.

She pushes herself to her feet and heads down the hall to gather up what she needs: whiskey, pants, sandwich. A book entitled Stitches for Dummies wouldn't hurt, but she didn't think the library had that. She could insist that he call the clinic, but after what he's been through she doesn't expect him to trust anyone. She's proven (rather painfully) that he can trust her and she's not going to let him down. Not right now.

She's just stepping back into the room, letting the door close behind her when he steps out of the bathroom. She swallows, momentarily speechless at the sight of Angel in a towel. Somehow, she'd forgotten how beautiful he is, even with the bruises and the injuries, he's beautiful. She used to think that his name was apt. She still does. After a moment of staring (quite ungracefully probably) she recovers, giving him a sheepish smile.

"Pants." She holds them up. They're scrub pants, but they'll do until he can pick something out on his own. More importantly they'll be comfortable to sleep in and shouldn't rub against anything. The bruises on his skin are far more apparent than they had been, but there's really no reason to comment on them. She knows why he's got them even if she doesn't know how.

"Also whiskey and a peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich. The restaurant didn't have much in the way of takeway right now and I wasn't sure what you liked so you got my favorite."

She moves to set the whiskey and the sandwich on the nightstand before walking up to him, clothes held out. There's a white undershirt as well, but it won't be any good to him until she's gotten him sewn up. She looks up at him, eyes holding his with that look of wonder that she so often wore as a teenager around him. She'll stop gawking eventually, but right now his humanity and his reappearance in her life is far too fresh.

Angel doesn't mind the staring. It's a good sort of staring, ogling even. And being ogled, openly and shamelessly, is preferable to the hateful, malicious stares he receives day in and day out from all those out to get him. All those who blame him (rightfully so) for the predicament they're all in.

Scrub pants are definitely ideal in this situation and far more comfortable than the dozen or so pairs of jeans he's been cycling through since he raided that one clothing store downtown. The extensive wardrobe he'd had upstairs in the penthouse had been taken out along with the rest of that floor when it was grazed by the wing of one of those flying, faceless, plane-shaped... things. He hasn't really tried to identify them yet, just knows that they stay the hell away from the building — or did, before someone blew it up — after he sent the dragon up there to grab himself a snack or two.

He disappears back into the bathroom long enough to exchange the towel for the pants. Having got blood on the towel, he drops it in the trash. If this really is a full service hotel, there's more where that came from.

"At least you didn't bring me potatoes," he says in an effort to break the ice when he reemerges, reaching out to take the rest of the clothes from her. His fingers brush against her own and he makes no move to draw back. "Pretty sure no one even knows how to make cál ceannann like I remember it anymore."

Ogling was always preferable to being glared at. She could understand that. She didn't have a whole city angry at her, but there was a gang of slayers that weren't happy.

He could pick up pretty much anything he wanted later. He might have to start small, but he could add to it, particularly if he didn't have to worry about it getting ruined.

When he comes back into the room, she's sitting on Dawn's bed, organizing the things she'll need to stitch him up. She looks up when he comes back out of the bathroom and smiles. She may not understand why potatoes were a thing with the Irish, but she knew they were linked. "I'll mark those down on the do not want list." She swallows hard when his fingers brush against hers. It's an entirely unfamiliar feeling and yet, even warm, he feels like Angel. There's that tingle-tangle that races through her body, that feeling that has always raced through her in his presence, like pressing her tongue to the active end of a battery.

"Uhm...you can ask the kitchen for Carlie Simon...but you might have better luck finding a disco door?"

Her misunderstanding and mispronunciation gets a warm chuckle out of him, likely the first laugh that hasn't been bitter or at the expense of his enemies in well over half a year.

"Cál ceannann," he repeats for her, slowing the words down and drawing out the broadness of the vowels. "It's a type of mashed potato with kale — white-headed cabbage. I'm sure they've got an English term for it by now, but I haven't really had a reason to look into that."

Not when he's been on a strict liquid diet for the past few centuries. He does remember liking peanut butter, though he doesn't dare think back to the day in which he discovered that he did. That had been his first brush with willfully altering time and tampering with the memories of others for the greater good of it all. The last thing he wants is to further sour whatever's going on here by taking a trip down a memory lane only he has access to.

Although, in some ways, experiencing that one day had better prepared him for life as a demon fighting human being. He already knew what his limitations were going into it, thanks to that day. If only he'd clued into the whole suddenly human thing before he leapt off the top of that building. That would've saved him a few months worth of excruciating pain and hallucinations.

The pile's set aside for later, after she's done sewing him up. Grabbing the whiskey, he pops the bottle open and sits on the edge of the bed with his back to the headboard. "I should warn you, I didn't have the best tolerance for this stuff when I was alive." He was completely blitzed with Darla turned him, having stumbled out of a tavern with drunken ambitions of robbing his own father blind.

What a winner of human he'd been.

Edited 2014-03-10 16:12 (UTC)

She's pleased to have provided it. In fact, that may have been part of the point. Sure, she couldn't have pronounced it the way he could, but she might've been able to make a better stab at it than 'Carly Simon'.

Oh. Sorry, she got lost in the whole listening thing. It takes her a moment to respond. "I don't...know? I mean, maybe if you explained what it was to someone they could fix it?"

Yeah, it's best not to tell her about that. If she ever finds out she will punch him and be incredibly hurt that he didn't consult her, that he messed with her memories, that he's the only one who remembers that day.

"Low tolerance is good. Drunk is kind of what we're going for here." She wants to hurt him as little as possible. She hesitates before going to the other side of the bed and sitting down next to him, legs stretching out along side his. She might as well be some what comfortable while she waits for him to get drunk.

Everyone has their less than heroic moments.

"Drunk is what got me killed and turned in the first place," Angel says by way of distracting himself as he takes the first swig. It burns. He forgot how much good alcohol could burn like that, as it has a different sort of effect on the vampiric palate. "What sober man tells some strange woman in an alley to show him the world?"

You died in an alley, remember?

Wow, so distracting just became depressing. All the more reason to take another good swig.

"Got me dead and vamped, got me kicked out of my house. This stuff and I," he shakes the bottle at her, "a good history, we do not make."

Edited 2014-03-11 01:16 (UTC)

Buffy makes an O with her lips, the sound just barely slipping out. She isn't sure how to respond to any of that. She knows virtually nothing about Angel's human life. She takes a deep breath then responds quietly.

"If it makes you feel better, at least this time you're with someone who can literally sit on you and hold you down to keep you from making any horrible decisions."

No, that wouldn't be awkward at all.

"Good point."

He's starting to feel it, the weightless, sluggish feel of alcohol settling into his system. His body is unaccustomed to it, so it's only natural that it would start taking hold within the first few shots. Angel sets the bottle between his legs, drags his hands down his face. The broken one doesn't feel as resistant to the movement as it did before. That's a good sign, because being sewn up without anesthesia is going to hurt, unusually high tolerance for pain or not.

"I'm just going to go ahead and throw out a blanket, all purpose apology for anything I might say or do."

His previous lifestyle certainly would impact his tolerance. She watches him curiously, trying to judge how drunk he is and whether or not it's time to begin stitching him up. She shakes her head at his apology.

"Don't worry about it. I won't hold anything against you."

That doesn't mean that whatever he says won't hurt, but she will try not to hold it against him. She's been drunk before. She knows how it takes away your inhibitions and better judgement.

At least Angel won't be going one-million-years-B.C. as a result of his drunkenness. And with another few swigs of the stuff, he can sufficiently say he's drunk. If this isn't what drunk feels like — it's been so long, and it was different as a vampire — then he's pretty damn close to it.

"That's enough of that." The bottle's set aside on the nightstand after he nearly drops the thing off the side of the bed. "More than enough. Time to get your stitch on."

She tries to lean across him to catch the bottle should it fall, but he manages without her. She rights herself and slips off on her side of the bed to walk around to his, going down to her knees.

"Okay, Roll on your side so that I can see it," she directs him as she gathers up the things that she'll need. She's got a long lighter with a candle for sterilizing the needle and fishing twine for doing the actual sewing. It's not the most ideal tool kit, but it'll do.

It's better than anything they had in hell, that's for sure. Of course, on his list of people in on the know... a ghost and a dragon weren't exactly ideal candidates for putting him back together. There was more than one reason they went the magical route when it came to fixing him up after a fight. Had to put Humpty-Angel back together again somehow.

He does as he's told, pillowing his head against both his arms. "Don't feel like ya need to go easy on me," he says, his voice slipping back into tones from days of old thanks to the alcohol thick on his tongue. "I've been through and done far worse than this."

Okay, so there are definitely benefits to being corporeal and to having opposable thumbs. She isn't a professional, but she's got that going for her.

The emergence of that accent has her stifling a smile. It's not so thick ~~yet~~ that she can't understand him. "Ooooooh permission to cause pain. If I were any other girl you might be in trouble."

She uses the lighter to heat the needle up and puts it to the side so it can cool. She sprays the wound with antiseptic spray one more time then threads the needle with fishing twine.

"Talk to me while I do this," she tells him, hoping to provide him with a distraction more than anything. The first stitch is the hardest. She holds her breath, wincing as she does it, muttering 'sorry' under her breath.

He grunts, gritting his teeth as the needle pierces his skin. It hurts more than he thought it would, though considerably less than it would of if he didn't have all that whiskey in his system. His fingers curl into the pillow, giving him something to grip that isn't the imaginary throat of the demon that did this to him.

"About what, how I ended up mortal and falling apart in the first place? Messed up, like I said—" A grunt, a hiss between clenched teeth. Doesn't hurt nearly as bad as the time his father had to reset his shoulder after he fell from a horse shortly after his thirteenth birthday. "Stopped a worldwide apocalypse, but damned the entire city of LA in the process. HelLA's more like it these days."

Hopefully, she'll get a rhythm going and it will be easier on him somehow. She's going to try not to apologize every time she makes a stitch. She keeps sewing as she talks.

"Sometimes we don't have good choices. We just have bad and a little bit better." She knew about that. Shoving a sword through his heart had been one of those bad or a little better choices.

"I was sort of talking about human you though. I mean...before. In Ireland." She figures that'll hurt him less and distract him just as easily.

Oh. She wants him to talk about that. Before. His first time as a human. Not too many people ask him questions about that. Perhaps it's because they feel the topic is off limits, or maybe they just assume he's forgotten. A lot of them do forget, after a while. Maybe he would've, had he not been cursed with his soul, but being in possession of it meant that it was hard to forget about what he'd been before he was a soulless, re-ensouled monster.

Darla had forgotten. He didn't even know her name, never thought to ask. By the time he did, she could barely recall being that girl who was dying of a sexually transmitted disease.

"Wasn't drunk all the time, if that's what you're wondering." He laughs at his own bad joke, perhaps a little longer than needed. It's the alcohol, makes it seem funnier than it actually is. "I could've been a lot of things, but I liked to drink. A lot. Not all the time, but drinking was easier than dealing with... other things. My father, the family business, the soldiers. It was fun and that... not so fun."

She hits a spot that's more sensitive than the others and he flinches, his body instinctively jerking away from her fingers. Hopefully he didn't rip out any of the stitches she's already made. Apologizing, he settles back down into the comforter, reaching out to grab the bottle and take another awkward, sideways drink of the whiskey.

It burns less.

"Why is it the only questions you ever had about my life in Ireland were about the sort of girls that lived in my time?"

She's always assumed that he remembers. It's the little things that he has said that made her think that. The mostly failed history tutoring sessions they'd had when she'd been in high school had confirmed for her that his memory was good.

"I should hope not. Alcoholism isn't a good look for anyone." She's teasing him mostly, bantering with him, giving him something to respond to while she sews up the wound. "What sort of family business? And why were there soldiers?" They hadn't gotten that far in history. Obviously.

She apologizes as well when he flinches, examining the stitches carefully. He hasn't torn any of them. She lets him get a couple of drinks in, lets him rest for the moment.

"Because I wanted to impress you. I wanted you to like me and think...I was sexy, I guess. I was also a little jealous and afraid I wouldn't measure up to girls in your time."

Which is why she'd put on that ridiculous dress.

"I found a picture in one of Giles' journals of a girl from when you were human. She was wearing a dress kind of like the one I wore that Halloween. I just wanted...I don't know. It seems silly now."

No, it doesn't, but it's easier to say that.

"I didn't like the girls in my time. Not the ones I was supposed to be courting, anyway. Simpering fools, the lot of them. Too interested in their dresses and the beads woven into their hair to care about much else. Always hated when Darla insisted we to go to court." He's also glad he wasn't born noble, else he would've had to deal with courtiers more often than when his sire wanted to sink her fangs into a well-powdered neck.

A hand snakes out, leaving its resting place beneath his head. His finger tips graze the edge of her jaw, curling in against her cheek. "You didn't need corsets and crinolines to do that. I liked you just fine without them."

His hand falls away, dangling off the side of the bed.

"My father was a silk merchant. The soldiers have— had, had been there since Cromwell stormed in and started slaughtering us by the thousands in the century before. They pushed off our land, denied us our faith."

Edited 2014-03-11 05:15 (UTC)

Her eyes cast down, presumedly to look at the half-stitched wound on his side, but mostly so she's not having to look him in the eye. It's amazing how close things can cut after all these years. Her attention is back on his eyes, expression startled when he touches her face. It's not a bad thing; it's just a surprising thing. In any case, he did offer a blanket apology for anything he might say or do so she pushes it out of her mind, not making anything more of it than the whiskey's affect.

"Well that was fortunate. They were a little difficult to fight in." Although, some slayers had done it. She'd read Giles' journals about them.

"Oh! We talked about him in history. I don't think they mentioned that though."

"Of course they didn't. Your textbooks are an-claonta." Very biased. Don't tell him he didn't say that in English. His drunken mind thinks he did.

That hand that's dangling off the side catches her sleeve, and he toys with the fabric between his fingers. It's not so much an affectionate gesture as much as he's momentarily fascinated by the feel of the smooth cloth against his calloused skin, by how the heat radiating off her skin just below it matches his own. She used to feel like a sauna compared to him, like he was a block of ice left out in the sun whenever he touched her.

"There were a few rebellions. I wanted to fight in some of them, but my father— Oh, my father, he didn't want any of that. He bowed to the English oppression, told me I was a fool. 'You're a fool, Liam,' he used to say. Among other things. We didn't have the best of relationships."

He's not sure if his relationship with his own son is any better. Likely worse, considering he's damned his kid to hell twice. He's certainly not going to be winning father of the year any time soon.

Honestly, she assumes it's a curse word in Irish, so she doesn't comment on it. She'll tell him he's not speaking English if he continues.

It's almost distracting the way he toys with her sleeve. However, she picks the needle back up and starts in again.

"I think all kids fight with their parents, even today. My mom and I fought too." She smirks a little. "Liam, huh? Was that your name? I mean, before Angel."

"I remember." He's drunk, but not blitzed enough to comment further on Buffy's dead mother. Angel might not have gotten along terribly well with Joyce, but her understood her motherly concerns for her daughter and her daughter's future. Even more so now that he had a kid of his own. Connor dating Gwen is a significant step up from his cradle-robbing ways when Buffy was younger than his son is now. Physically, Angel was a good ten years older than Buffy when they started dating, nevermind the couple centuries he'd gained since his death.

Odd to think they're probably about the same age now.

"Yeah," he nods against the pillow, still absentmindedly playing with her sleeve. "Didn't think I was born Angelus, did you? We used to change our names, back in the day. Sometimes. The Master gave Darla hers, I picked mine. Dru..."

He makes a noncommittal noise. Drusilla kept her name, but that's a whole other can of worms of his own twisted construction.

Edited 2014-03-11 06:05 (UTC)

Buffy appreciates that. That she talked Angel into leaving is one of the secrets Joyce took to her grave. Honestly, the fight that Buffy is remembering most acutely is the one the night she sent Angel to hell. Joyce hadn't known that she was a slayer. They'd fought about Buffy going out and Joyce had told her that if she walked through that door not to come back. Buffy had stepped through the door and gone to send Angel to hell. It remains one of the single most horrible nights of her life for many reasons, that fight being one of them.

She'd never looked at Angel that way. It wasn't as if Buffy had a normal teenage life or as if a normal boy would have fit into that life. She knows. She tried. It didn't work and maybe some of those reasons were because she'd had her heart broken so thoroughly by Angel, had her idea of a relationship so incredibly twisted by her first love, but it had also been because she could kick normal guy's ass, even when normal guy wasn't exactly normal. It was because Normal Guy had issues with Buffy being stronger, faster, better. She had to hide things like her kill count and her strength from him in order to make peace. Riley had loved the girl she was and he'd been excited by the idea of the slayer. The reality of it had been something else entirely.

She's twenty-five, so yes, they're about the same age now and it is odd. Angel has always been so much older than Buffy that (in her eyes) it'd ceased to matter.

"Hey, maybe people named their kids Angel back then," she says with a bit of a shrug. Her eyes narrow as she focuses on stitching up the wound. It's about three fourths the way done right now.

"So are you going by Liam again? Or is it still Angel?"

And she can't help but think how weird it would be to call him anything but Angel. It's a name that's been on her lips for so long in some way or another that she can't imagine changing.

"We named our children after saints, not religious beings or concepts."

He could've named his son after a saint and honestly, he'd thought about it, but in the end he'd settled on Connor, a more modern form of the Old Irish name Conchobar. It was a name bore by some of the old, great kings of Ireland. Fitting, he felt, in addition to the ties it's meaning had to wolves. His parents were both vampires; he and Darla were the wolves.

"No, still Angel."

He hadn't even thought about circulating his name back into usage if this humanity took, if he ever shanshued properly. He'd been to guilt-ridden after the gypsies cursed him to go back to it, and now Angel was just... It was him. It was the name everyone knew him by, the name that struck fear into those who dared to cross his path. He was feared as Angel. Liam was nothing more than an echo, a man he still was but nobody remembered. The only person who had knew that lost Irishman in any way shape or form staked herself to dust in order to give life to their child.

"Nobody around anymore who uses it." Wait, no. That's not true. He rolls his eyes. "Well, except for Spike. But that's more... He's a brat."

Uncle Spike says a lot of things.

Spike had better be keeping a good eye on Connor or he was going to trick the bleached blonde into throwing himself into the nearest lava pit. (Which happened to be just down the street from the Hyperion, he knew for a fact.)