chicago ♔ beside you in time

[romanticidal]

♬ Right Where It Belongs - Nine Inch Nails

WHO || Buffy, Spike, Finnick, Myri, Dawn, Archer, Elena, Kat, Gar, Mark, Isabella, Burt, Des, Rafael, Violet, Francesca, Luthir. [closed]
WHAT || The events directly following the day of Jade's death
WHERE ||Various, Chicago
WHEN || July 5th, 2013 to the funeral
HOW || Actionspam

[ Following a long night after returning from the hospital where Jade finally passed away, there remains a lot to be said and done.

As Burt struggles to deal with the legal side of things, Francesca begins to head that way across the ocean in order to help the Knights do the same, and to help Finnick leave his celebrity life behind somehow. Violet takes the full weight of responsibility for planning the funeral into her hands, and the others continue to try to cope with what's occurred, and slowly put the pieces of information that they have together.

But many of them are still reeling from the revelations of the last few days, or carrying their own emotional burdens. Des continues to keep the truth about Jade's last words to himself as he deals with losing a woman he'd come to love, and faces up to a now uncertain future, thanks to a deal struck with Iscariot. Myri worries deeply about the potential fate of Violet, who's been considering hunting down Keijen Blade on her own, and her concern causes another small rift in her relationship with Finnick. Buffy finally reaches a point of breaking down over her conflicted feelings for Rafael, as Elena assists Archer in completing a giant fireworks bomb for reasons unknown.

This log covers the events leading up to the funeral, which means it will most likely cover a day or two or three. We will use it to make threads for any and all events occurring during this time. ]

Comments

des, buffy, rafael ♔ closed

[romanticidal]

[ there are things there hasn't been time to discuss, but as the gang goes their own directions the morning after jade's death, des will finally have some time to speak to buffy about a few matters, largely concerning a certain pointy-eared italian, who is still holed up in jade's room. ]

[nothingsodivine]

[Des is standing outside Buffy's room, dangling the keys to his 'vette from his fingers and jingling them obnoxiously. When that fails to get a reaction, he knocks on her door.] Up and at 'em, Blondie.

[slay]

[ buffy's awake, sitting on her bed under the covers, looking despondent and not really entertaining herself with anything. she's found lying in bed is pretty much preferable to dealing with the world right now. when des comes in, she looks up, a little alarmed. ]

Why?

[nothingsodivine]

Because breakfast is the most important meal of the day, after that weird period between lunch and dinner. And the room service in this hotel sucks. They overcook the bacon. [He gives her a grave look, because overcooked bacon is the worst thing in the world, Buffy. WHY DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND.]

Also we need to talk, but we can talk over properly cooked bacon.

[slay]

[ against her better judgment, she gets out of bed and starts getting ready to brave the outside. which means shifting some clothes around and putting on footwear. ]

I don't see what's left to talk about.

[nothingsodivine]

You'd be surprised. [He breathes a sigh of relief, because he almost thought this would be as hard as convincing Rafael to leave his jail cell.] Thanks for indulging me, by the way. I'd hate to have to try and carry you out, but I don't wanna swallow any more teeth this week. You don't hit like a man. You hit like a freight train.

[slay]

Or even like a girl, seeing as a girl is the only one of us who can hit like that.

[ she's just sayin. she pulls on her second ankle boot and gets to her feet, following him out of the room. look she doesn't need to know slayers are a purely female line to know that nobody else is throwing super strength like hers around. spike's close, admittedly. ]

[nothingsodivine]

What are they feeding the girls on that side of the Veil? [He rubs edge of his jaw as she passes. HE AIN'T HEARD OF NONE OF THIS SUPERPOWERED CHEERLEADER SHIT, OKAY. All he knows is that really hurt. And he did swallow a tooth. Or four.

As soon as they have exited stage hotel room and made it to the elevator, he lowers his voice.] There's something you need to know about Fluffy.

[slay]

And you can see how I might really not want to know.

[ she stops walking, standing outside the elevator and stubbornly refusing to budge. ]

[nothingsodivine]

[He holds the elevator door open stubbornly.] Trust me. This? You wanna know. It's good news... and bad news, but considering the bad news we've been stuck with, it's more like 'disappointing news.'

[slay]

Coming from the guy who considered selling his soul to Iscariot good news, I'm not sure I trust that assessment.

[ n o p e not budging. ]

[nothingsodivine]

It's good news if we win, which is gonna happen. I'm cautiously optimistic about that. [Des sighs in exasperation, still leaning bodily on the door to keep it from closing.] I punched him twice, so give me some credit here. And I told him to quit foolin' around with your heart. Do you wanna know what he said? [He doesn't pause] The answer is "yeah, Des, I actually do," because it's not what you think.

[slay]

[ a part of her - a bigger part than she'll admit - is furious with him for that, because it wasn't his place to talk about her feelings. certainly not with rafael. but, he's trying to be her friend, trying to be good to her, and she can't begrudge him that. after all, he punched the guy for her. she deflates a little, and steps inside the elevator, though the stubborn set of her jaw doesn't budge. ]

[nothingsodivine]

[Des releases the door and it refuses to budge for a few more seconds as if anticipating being shoved back in place again, until it finally closes, carrying them down to the lobby. Only then does Des start snickering. It's not funny. Nothing about this is funny at all, but he can't help himself.] The truth is he's a lot of things, but the biggest thing? He's an idiot. When I told him that, he looked at me like I'd grown an extra head. Said he valued your friendship too much to hurt you. [He grits his teeth to fight off the rest of the giggles and shakes his head.] Blondie, he didn't screw you over. You're his best friend.

[slay]

[ a long silence spans between them as the elevator descends. buffy looks at him, incredulous and offended, and then finally turns stubbornly away from him to face the elevator doors. n o p e. ]

I'm glad someone finds that funny.

[nothingsodivine]

[Des finally calms his ass down.] I'm sorry- I'm... Look, it's not funny because of what it means for you. It's funny because he doesn't know. He's not rejecting you or playing you... He just doesn't know you have a torch the size of the statue of liberty's for him. That's all it's amounted to. And I can't believe he's that freakin' blind.

[slay]

It doesn't matter if he knows or not, Des. If I ever meant anything to him, he wouldn't have used us, and lied to us all so he could -

Do you know how many times I tried to talk him down from doing that to Jade? Do you even realize that? And he sat there, and he listened, and he did it anyway, knowing that there was no way she could say that that's what she wanted. Knowing that it meant endangering all of us, her most of all, and breaking our trust.

I don't want to be his best friend, I don't even want to know him - not if that's how he treats his friends.

[nothingsodivine]

But he didn't. [Ding goes the elevator. He holds it open again.] Look, I'm fully on team That Was A Stupid Move doing it there in front of her mom and everybody, but you don't know the whole story.

[And this part wasn't supposed to catch him off-guard, but it does and he sits there with his fingers dug in the grooves of the elevator door.] Jade would've died if he hadn't given her memories back. That's why she was getting weaker. She couldn't have survived outside Nightscape like that. When it blew up... she was on borrowed time. Yeah, he did screw up. He'll probably screw up a lot more. But he thought he was saving her life.

[He turns his head away, refusing to look at her.] He and I have got in that common- we think a lot of things that ain't true.

[slay]

You know what?

[ she spins on her heels as she exits the elevator and rounds on him, stopping in the waiting area. ]

I don't care. I don't care what he did it for; if he had a good reason, he should have talked to us - warned us. Instead, we got sprung with that, and if you think for a second that wasn't just one more justification for him to try and get his girlfriend back, you're more gullible than I thought. The only person Rafael was thinking about was himself.

[nothingsodivine]

[Des releases the elevator again and runs a hand through his hair. There's not much to debate. He's not sure where he stands on this beyond the fact that he needs Rafael alive and out of the life to fulfill some sort of unspoken debt to Jade.] Like I said, he's an idiot, not a mastermind. [He pulls his car keys out of his pocket as he takes the lead again towards the parking lot, expression grim.] And the reasons don't matter anymore. We could debate it forever, but she'll still be dead and we'll still be in a mess. The only thing we can do is move forward and like it or not, he's part of that forward. If they find him guilty-

[He trails off, since he can't really use the fact that Rafael's freedom is now tied to his as an excuse for playing nice. It's his fault that things are that way.] Look, soon it'll be over and he'll be another pretty face you'll forget about. [He jingles the keys at her, forcing himself to grin through it.] For now, how about pancakes?

[romanticidal]

[ ♬ Things Don't Always Turn Out That Way - the Calling ]

[slay]

If they find him guilty, we lose you too, because of your genius plan to be the debatably-human bargaining chip. [ she's happy to finish his sentence as she heads for the hotel garage, relenting to his pancake plan. mostly because as pissy as she is, she's also hungry. ] Did I mention yet that you've completely lost it? 'Cause you have.

[nothingsodivine]

[He cringes at the debateably human bit. Ouch, Buffy. Ouch. But he did laugh at her, so he probably deserved that, even if it was just a faux pas and not an... insult.] I know what I'm doing. I always know what I'm doing. They're not gonna win.

[slay]

No! You don't! You take a shot in the dark and you hope it works out okay. If Iscariot gets you on their side, then what the hell are we supposed to do? [ more importantly, and obviously the intent of her lecturing, what is she supposed to do? they've lost jade, rafael's iffy at best, the thought of losing des too is just too painful to consider. ]

[nothingsodivine]

[Des keeps walking and doesn't say anything until they're past the sliding glass doors that lead into the garage.] I wasn't even supposed to be here in the first place- neither was Rafael. Jade- [He cringes.] Jade wasn't supposed to be a person we could lose. So you'll get by, because you're knights and we're just bystanders that got caught up in this gory mess.

[He stops again, turns to face her, and adds pointedly.] And you're not gonna have to find out, because we're gonna win. End of story.