all_inclusive | Like shadows in the faded light, we're invisible.

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Like shadows in the faded light, we're invisible.

As if not being home wasn't bad enough, Dawn has been getting sicker and sicker by the day. She'd barely even been out of bed in a week. This morning she had rolled out of bed feeling just a little bit better after having slept for twenty-four hours straight. She had shuffled her way through a shower that only added to her feeling better. Wearing a white tank top with a purple glittered star on it and some purple pajama pants, she combed through the tangles in her hair and picked up a blow dryer to start working the heat through her hair. Today would be a straight hair sort of day, no curls because she didn't have the energy for it. As her hair dried, the steam slowly filtered away from the mirror, giving her a better image of herself in the reflection.

She dropped the blow dryer. Blinked. Looked again. Blinked again. Squinted her eyes. How could she see things behind her? Through herself? She looked behind her, just to check and make sure that she was seeing what was behind her through herself. Then she looked back to the mirror. She lifted her hand, seeing the bathroom counter through it. Her heartbeat thudded loudly in her chest. So loud that she swore she could feel it throughout her entire body inside and out.

And this is what had her barreling barefoot through the hotel hallways looking for Buffy or Angel or Peter or yes, even Faith who had no idea who she was. The ghostly see-through girl calling out as she ran from one place to another until she couldn't run anymore. "Buffy?" Each time she rounded a corner or hit a new floor or corridor of the hotel she called out. "Buffy!" She might run into people and apologize before she hurried on her way to find her sister. Or she might stop to talk if anyone wanted to.

Eventually, tired and spent, she would end up plopping down on one of the couches in the lobby, a box of kleenex beside her and a book in her lap. The couch could be seen through her and every once in awhile she lifted her hand to look through it at things, trying to gauge whether it was getting better or worse. Her eyes were puffy from crying. Her nose was red from sniffling. She was generally a train wreck of a person right now. But she figured anyone would be if they were slowly disappearing.

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Ok, so the big brother in him might grin a little at the big sister hovering Dawn describes. He was a little protective of his brother in his day.

"Everyone knows that, huh?" He grins a little bigger. "How do you know they all didn't change the rules just to throw you off?"

The grin immediately fades when her fingers pass through the paperwork in his hand. That doesn't look like something that would fall under the 'good' heading. At all.

"Which side should I be on then?" he asks, a little alarmed. And don't ever let anyone try to say that Harvey Specter takes the 'safer' anything.

"Well we're the side of world save-y goodness. But..." Her palms press flat to her stomach and she looks down at herself, just making sure she's still here. Strangely, in spite of her transparency, she can feel her heart beat ricocheting in her chest and up into her throat and ears.

After a moment, she relaxes again as much as she can and looks back up to Harvey. "But good things don't always happen to the side of good."

And here's the moment where she starts to tell Harvey the things she isn't supposed to talk about. "I've only really been in existence for just under five years. I mean I was created... almost five years ago. I'm not... real. And now the world is setting things back the way they should be, I think. By taking me out of it." She can't help it. Tears are in her eyes again. She wants a hug so bad it aches and sorry Harvey but she's going to try with you. Only when she reaches out, her hands go through him. And that's when she starts to panic again. Her breath short and her eyes wide.

He almost rolls her eyes when she talks about 'saving the world' - that is stuff of television shows and movies. Then she keeps talking...

...and says that she's not real. His face falls into a deep frown, because if what she's saying is true, then he is now the proud owner of a retainer agreement signed by his imaginary friend. And he's about to tell her that he's going to leave when she tries to hug him.

That look on his face that used to be a frown, now it's an almost-terrified, confused version. "What...?" Then there's the panic attack.

Now he sighs and gives her a stern look. "Dawn," he says, "calm down."

"Calm down? I'm about to be a green ball of energy again and I can't... I can't..." She shakes her head, a frantic movement. "Deep breaths. Deep breaths...." She'll just be pacing back and forth in front of him trying to slow her breathing down.

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" She says. "I probably am."

He sighs as she rants.

"I think you're a lot like my associate," he mutters. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is still undecided.

"Now, take the drama down a notch and tell me what's this about you being not real?" Because that part still doesn't make any goddamned sense and he's going to fucking stand here and talk to her and get information until it does. Or until he wakes up at home in Manhattan in his own goddamned bed.

"Oh so your associate's a fake person with a fake life and fake memories and fake friends and fake everything?" She might be a little touchy about it right now in spite of the fact that she now has almost five years of real everything. So over dramatic it is. But this is nothing new with Dawn. She tends to be pretty volatile and over the top as far as any emotion goes.

She continues to pace back and forth, translucent hands fidgeting in front of her. "There was this key in the form of ancient mystical energy that could tear down the gates between every dimension... which is a crazy amount of dimensions. To use the key it would pretty much unleash hell on Earth." She decides that's as good a description as any. Yes, the key is bad. "In the twelfth century, The Order of the Dragon was founded to keep the key safe from evil people and from this other group called the Knights of the Byzantium who just wanted to destroy the key and be done with it." She's done a lot of research on herself.

"And then in the five years ago kind of present tense, there was this hell goddess stuck in our dimension who decided to find the key and give it a twist to use it to get back to her hell dimension." She pauses there because she wanted to give him a chance to catch up. "You can imagine that both the Dragon people and the Knights didn't want her to get her hands on the key. It was pretty much an almost everyone's gonna die kind of scenario."

He rubs a hand at the back of his neck. "Fake law degree," he says half out of the edge of his mouth. Whether or not she hears isn't really relevant.

But he is listening as she goes on with the story. Now, Harvey's a lawyer and he's heard some fantastical bullshit stories before - even some fantastical non-bullshit ones - but the yarn she's spinning at him right now is downright head-spin-inducing.

There's a chair in here right? In the room? Because Harvey's going to need one really soon or he's going to be sitting on the floor. This is a bit much for even his Trek-filled brain to roll together into sense.

He blinks at her, hand pressed against the wall or a piece of large furniture for balance. "I'm sorry, what?" Because, yeah, none of that actually made any sense to him - something about keys and locks and gods - what?.

She caught that muttering and filed it away for now. Mostly because he looked like he might be getting sick. There are chairs and a couch in the room. "Key. Ancient mystical energy. Tears down walls between dimensions. Hell goddess wants. Dragon order protecting. Byzantium Knights hinting down to destroy."

She pauses, shrugging. "Cliffs notes version."

He rubs a hand over his face, mostly to avoid giving her the 'you have got to be fucking shitting me' look he can feel creeping over his features. He mumbles, "What the hell have I gotten myself into?" behind his hand.

The hand comes down and he looks at the young woman across the room. "You know this makes you sound insane, right?" At least it would in his world. "I've been here a few months and seen some wacky shit, but most of it was still in the realm of reality - at least for me. But now you're telling me that you're not a person, but some mystical energy entity?" He scratches at the back of his head. "Did I die and wake up as Captain Kirk?"

She can't refute any of that. Harvey had just gotten himself into some weird stuff. Yes, to normal people who had lived normal lives this would all sound so very insane. And she was some mystical energy entity. There was one thing though. "As far as cool military type leaders though, you strike me more as an Agent Coulson."

But Dawn had experience with this. She knew some people couldn't handle the wacky shit. The fact that Harvey was still standing here said a lot though. And that's why she continues. "So they did a spell. They as in the Order of the Dragon. Their spell took some of the Slayer's blood and used dark magic to make the key mortal. They knew that the Knights and the Hellgoddess and anyone wouldn't think to look in a person." She lifts one hand and waggles her fingers. "That would be me."

He arches an eyebrow at her. "Are you saying that I'm not cool enough to be Kirk?" Besmirching the good Captain is never a good idea in Harvey's presence. It isn't that he doesn't know who Coulson is, but that he's really more of a Trek fan.

He's not sure he's quite sold on the whole 'magic' angle, but Dawn seems to believe all of this to be true and he is seeing a translucent person in front of him, so, 'not' believing is kind of off the table at this point. His face bends into a frown. "So, because you're made of Slayer blood and mystical energy, you think you shouldn't exist and now you're disappearing?" he asks. "Have you considered that believing that you should exist would reverse this?" Belief in a thing makes it real, right?

"Sure you are, but what would you wanna be when you could be a Coulson?" She answers without missing a beat. "I mean both have the cool factor, just different brands of cool. You're definitely a Coulson."

She gives him a look, hands going to her hips. "I am not Tinker Bell."

He leaves the Kirk v. Coulson debate for later. It's not actually the most important aspect of what's going on at the moment.

Forgive him for laughing entirely out loud at both the look and her statement. He really can't help it. That wasn't the angle he was taking at all, but it's more fitting than expected.

"Does that make the suggestion wrong? Or just embarrassing?"

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Like shadows in the faded light, we're invisible.

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