voyagers | ( rp ) look at this heart-shaped wreckage. what have we done?

"... Oh."

Elena was all geared up and ready to charge at him, tell him what's what. She is a lioness, hear her roar, etcetera etcetera. She wasn't expecting the deer-in-the-headlights look. She wasn't expecting him to have the kind of sound reasoning that she would've regretted not listening to if she'd gone ahead and snatched the bottle right back from him.

"I guess I wasn't paying attention," she murmurs. It's been a very, very long day, after all.

"I recognized the label, and hospitals, we're sort of short on. I think there's a clinic, but I'm not sure if they came pre-staffed."

An awkward silence falls in place then, accenting the fact that talking to people without a specific goal in mind is not Angel's forté. He can make smalltalk with the best of them when it comes to scoping out a source of information ~~(or prey)~~, but smalltalk for the sake of making smalltalk? He's forgotten how to do that. He used to know, back when he signed his name with an L instead of an A, but that was a long time ago.

"You're Elena," he blurts out. "I saw, on the journals. Your handwriting. I'm—"

He fishes a pen out of his pocket and grabs a napkin. He signs his name with flourish in green ink and holds the napkin up for her to see. Angel it reads.

"I wouldn't trust a ghost staff if it was," Elena says wryly.

It's supposed to be a joke, but she knows that she can fall short of humor herself. Elena is charming when she needs to be - she understands people, how to read and talk to people depending on how they're like. It'd become such a power play, but there can be so much earnestness, too.

Her frown of confusion immediately softens once he holds out the napkin for her. Elena takes it with curiosity, the faintest smile on her lips as she glances from him to the napkin, and immediately recognizes it. His is not a handwriting she would confuse with anyone else's; the elegant style matches the one she'd been writing to not too long ago.

"You're the champion," she says once it all comes back to her. "Are you still on duty?"

It really doesn't sound any better in person and only sounds as awe-inspiring as it ought to when spoken by the fallen Oracles, but it's something he's proud of — a role he takes seriously. Angel spent over a hundred years lost without a purpose, unable to fit in with the humans he originated from or the vampire race that spawned him after he was cursed, but being a Champion not only gave him that purpose, it meant something. Sometimes, that something didn't mean anything at all beyond the act of trying to accomplish it, but that was enough. Sometimes, that was all a person needed.

Thus, it's with unabashed pride and a goofy smile that he announces, "I am." (Cordelia's right, he really is the biggest dork sometimes.)

Seriousness bleeds into both his tone and features when she asks if he's still on duty, some of that playful edge most don't know is there ebbing to give way to the warrior within. "I'm always on duty. That never stops. Day, night, alternate dimension — still a Champion, Powers or no Powers. Just because they can't reach me doesn't mean I'm not going to stop trying to help. Helping is... It's what do. I'm sorry if my helping came across as intrusive. I'm working on the not coming off as intrusive part. Emphasis on working."

Elena is someone that is still finding her purpose.

Beyond the purpose that had been laid out for her by the Powers That Be in her own world, or the equivalent of them. Whereas she had once been more passively accepting of the idea, Elena has now firmly fought against it. She doesn't let an old worn prophecy define her. She has had enough distance and time from Mystic Falls to know there is more to the world, more to any world, than what seems to be written in stone. The universe doesn't dictate her fate; it can't.

She can feel the corners of her mouth tugging into a smile, however briefly, at the sight of his.

"It's okay. I know now where you were coming from, and I don't ... really feel like experiencing alcohol poisoning," Elena says, frowning softly at the bottle she was about to imbibe from. "I do appreciate it, though I imagine you're used to helping in a different way."

And on a much larger scale.

"Wouldn't recommend it."

Angel can't say for sure whether or not he's ever had alcohol poisoning, but there was one weekend — or was it during the week? He can't remember — back before he was a vampire where he spent several days puking his guts out. One of which was spent blacked out to the point he was babbling incoherently at his just as drunk friend about finding a priest to read him his last rites during brief moments of consciousness. (That request had been met with a solid no in the name of vomiting on his good shoes.)

He nods, confirming that yes, he's very used to helping in different ways. Larger scale? Most definitely.

"Usually with more violence and less bottle switching."

Edited 2014-05-09 05:03 (UTC)

Elena had brought herself to her feet the moment Angel stepped into her line of sight from seemingly out of nowhere. Now that the tension has broken, she lets herself sit back down on the stool across from the bar. The napkin remains within her hold, now flattened against the counter.

"What exactly is it that you do?" she asks curiously, once she decides what to ask.

He mentions violence and Powers That Be and being a champion, but what exactly does that entail - and who exactly is he protecting the world from?

"What I do isn't as simple as what I do. I help the helpless, those who cannot defend themselves. Oftentimes, it's those who are unaware of the supernatural world around them, those who have no idea what's looming in the darkness. Others, it's preventing a woman from being hit by a car or shot by her psychotic ex-boyfriend. I help, and that's really what's important, not the scale of which I do."

Hint, hint, Elena. This one isn't exactly human.

Elena listens to him quietly, without interrupting.

She can tell he takes this duty seriously. It means something to him. Elena isn't a hero. She isn't someone that thinks of bettering the world and making it a better place for everyone, despite the fact she cares deeply about it. For most of her adolescent life, she could only focus on the group of people she loved and making sure they survived. The bigger picture was often (selfishly) lost on her.

"It's a part of you," she says after a moment. Not something he does, like a job, but maybe more like something he is. Like a Calling of its own.

He thought it was a touch ridiculous at first, had brushed off Doyle's insistence and tried to maintain the solitary lifestyle he'd adopted in the wake of departing from Sunnydale. But he hadn't been able to, because Doyle got him out there and made him open his eyes to the bigger picture, to see more of it than he was willing to see before. Whistler had put him on the right path to getting there, had directed him to Sunnydale knowing he wouldn't find solid footing there, knowing he would flee to the City of Angels and find his calling there.

Angel's at a point in his life where he wouldn't change it for the world. This is what he does, and he'll keep doing it for as long as he manages to live.

"Yeah. I guess it is."

"It suits you," Elena says with a smile quirked faintly to the side.

She doesn't know him, of course, but there's just something about him and the way that he says it. She can tell that it suits him. It's his purpose, and he commits to it faithfully. She can admire that in a person. Elena isn't someone that's lacked conviction in her own beliefs, but she'd hardly call them so selfless.

"And I'm sorry, for earlier. I didn't mean to bite your head off. It's been a long day."

"I assure you, I've nearly had my head bitten off by bigger and badder things. Literally."

Honestly, being snipped at by a girl with a lot on her mind is the least of his concerns. He can take it. He's got a high tolerance — he lives with Cordelia, after all.

( rp ) look at this heart-shaped wreckage. what have we done?

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