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fermataheart · 3 years ago

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A BUFFY SITUATION | silas & cass

TIMING: current. LOCATION: flaming mo’s. PARTIES: @fermataheart & @stolensiren SUMMARY: cass & silas meet up for a dance-off, but end up getting way more than they bargained for in true white crest fashion. CONTENT WARNINGS: brief mention of past drug use.

The music was pulsing in that low, pounding kind of way that made you feel it with every beat of your heart. Cass moved with it as she moved through the crowds, hands in her pockets to keep them from instinctively slipping into anyone else’s no matter how easy it would’ve been. She wasn’t here to lift wallets tonight. She was here to dance.

Specifically, she was here to show up the dancing man. Her eyes scanned the crowd, stalling when they reached a man who was just a little taller than most of the people in it. Long hair? Check. Goth vibes? Check. This had to be the dude. Cass ducked through the crowd, stopping next to him. “I heard you do a mean robot,” she greeted with a grin. “You gonna show me, or what?”

—

As it had become uncommon for Silas to be found out and about without Milo at his side, stepping into the familiar club without the vampire in tow almost felt like returning to his roots. After arriving in White Crest a little under a year ago, the musician had spent many an evening getting to know the nightlife scene, which was surprisingly vibrant given the fact that it was a smallish rural port town. Not as rural as he’d assumed, it turned out, filled to the brim with non-humans like himself, and even openly catering to them. The denial that ran through most of the population was so deeply ingrained that it somehow made the whole thing sustainable, and Silas wasn’t about to complain.

All that said, Mo’s was fairly mundane, at least in a supernatural sense. Still, it was a place that Silas felt immediately comfortable, and being able to bounce between a bar and club separated only by a door was a welcome respite for the times his introverted nature had him feeling overwhelmed.

Grinning when the woman sidled up beside him, he couldn’t help but laugh at the way she playfully goaded him, nodding in agreement. “Sure, cher, so long as y’prove t’me that you’re such a dancin’ queen.” Downing what remained in his lowball glass, the zombie put on quite the display for her, and truthfully, it wasn’t that bad. The least convincing part was probably the way he couldn’t stop snickering at himself with each jerky movement.

“Allons, your turn!”

—

Her suspicions that she’d found the mysterious dancing man were confirmed when the guy didn’t look at her like she was nuts as she approached him, and Cass grinned at his display. Honestly, he’d kind of undersold his dancing talents. He was pretty decent, even if he was doing the robot and laughing all the while. Cass couldn’t help but laugh right along with him.

It felt light, the whole situation. After everything lately, with the tree and with Metzli’s disappearance and with the hard, heavy, endless concern that lived in her chest and ate her alive, standing in a club and watching a near-stranger do the robot between giggles felt light and easy and good. She’d needed this, she thought. She’d needed something simple. And maybe he had, too. If he’d been in this town for very long at all, Cass found it hard to believe he hadn’t seen rough times lately, found it hard to believe he hadn’t been struggling just as much as she had. The woods came alive and tried to eat everyone just a few weeks ago, and that was hardly the first wild and dangerous thing that White Crest had to offer.

When he turned to her, she flashed a grin and nodded. Deciding it was only fair if they do their dance off in the same style of dance, Cass broke into her own version of the robot. It was a decent play on the style, though hardly a traditional robot dance. And it was pretty good, if she did say so herself. Without much else to do over the years, she’d spent plenty of time practicing dance moves by herself in crappy bedrooms and alleyways.

Finishing the dance with a theatrical, over-the-top spin, Cass pointed a pair of fingerguns at the man. “And that’s how you do the robot.”

—

If he could have read her thoughts, Silas would have been agreeing wholeheartedly—while his own life had been relatively anguish-free for a short while, the people around him certainly found plenty of ways to make themselves and their friends miserable, and he was glad for the escape. Besides, seeing how things often went around here, he could only assume that the reprieve wouldn’t last much longer. If nothing else, White Crest certainly took the phrase ‘all good things must come to an end’ pretty seriously.

Clapping one hand against his wrist as his fingers tightened around the empty glass, the musician gave her a low bow of respect. “Ça c'est bon! Y’gonna put a little gris gris on me with moves like ‘at.” Whatever he’d said, it seemed positive given the grin on his face. “Knew you was boutta come in here n’ show me up. Shoulda bet, could be up a couple bucks right now,” the zombie joked before looking down at his empty glass. “I gotta refill. You want somethin’?”

—

Cass had no idea what he was saying, but it sounded positive enough to bring a bright grin to her face and she nodded her head. “Well, see, I’m too nice to take advantage like that. I knew I’d show you up, too. I couldn’t come out here and take your money. That’d be theft.” Which was, of course, how she made her actual money anyway, but she wouldn’t say that aloud.

Glancing to the bar, Cass nodded. She’d bypassed it entirely when she’d entered in favor of finding him, but places like this were always more fun when you were at least tipsy. And pretty much everyone here was absolutely plastered. There were at least a few people stumbling with every step, and she could have sworn she saw a guy passed out under one of the tables. “I want something pink,” she decided, forcing a serious expression onto her face. “Doesn’t matter what it is, so long as the color’s right. No pressure or anything.”

—

“Pink, pink… ah yeah, they got a cocktail for that. Think it’s even called the flamingo.. little prosecco, pink lemonade, n’ somethin’ else. Damn good. You got it!” Motioning for her to follow, Silas led the way over to the bar, snaking between the folks at the edge of the crowd while making sure the woman was still behind him. Ah, shit, introductions, right. Where were his manners? “M’Silas, by the by,” he leaned in and said once they’d reached the bartop. One of the several bartenders caught his eye and he waved them over, getting a refill on his whisky and ordering her cocktail.

It was while they were waiting for their drinks to be served that Silas set his gaze on one dancer in particular—dude was flailing around in a way that screamed he’d over-indulged, and it made the zombie smirk. It was difficult for him to get drunk as it was, took a lot more these days (hence the straight alcohol rather than anything mixed), and sometimes he missed being able to get that sloppy. Pointing the guy out to Cass, the two shared a mirthful laugh. That is, until they both watched him stumble his way off the dancefloor toward a shadowy part of the room that led to a side exit door that was standing ajar. When the man reached the door, he was suddenly jerked sideways and out of sight. Silas perked up, brows furrowing. “The fuck?” He threw a worried glance at Cass, wondering if she’d seen it, too. Maybe he’d just fallen over, but it’d looked way too fast for that.

—

“Sounds perfect,” Cass grinned, trailing behind him to the bar. It was easy for her to duck through the crowd at her size, easy to slip between people, and she wondered, absently, if it was harder for him. Maybe being tall had some disadvantages. Glancing up as he introduced himself, Cass’s smile turned a little sheepish. Right. It’d be nice if they, like, exchanged names here instead of just dancing at each other. “Cass,” she replied, holding out her hand for him to shake. “I guess this means I don’t have to keep calling you Dancing Man in my head anymore… but I might still want to.”

For a little while, Cass just watched the crowd. Big groups of people like this were a con artist’s dream. Everyone was so focused on having fun that they forgot to watch their pockets, forgot to keep their guard up. There’d been nights, back when she was desperately trying to scrounge up enough cash to get off the streets, where she’d come to a club like this one and work the crowd like putty, walk out with enough cash to put her forward a step or two. Silas pointed out one man in particular, and Cass snorted at the sight of him. He was beyond wasted, and when he headed towards the side exit, Cass was pretty sure it was to puke. But… something happened. He got to that door and it was like watching a puppet’s strings yanked to the side. It certainly wasn’t the kind of stumble that happened naturally, even with how intoxicated he’d clearly been. “Oh, shit,” Cass breathed, grabbing Silas’s arm suddenly. “That’s — somebody just grabbed that dude.” And then she was moving, the bar abandoned as she dragged Silas behind her towards the door.

—

At first, Silas assumed the hand clutching his arm was a fear reflex, which honestly he couldn’t blame her for. But then she was pulling, and his eyes widened in response. “Whoa, what—Cass!” he hissed, trotting along behind her as she tugged him through the crowd. The music was so loud it was impossible to know if she’d even acknowledged his protest, and his head began to spin as the bright lights pulsed around them, adding a strange sense of surrealism to the fact that they were potentially chasing after something… inhuman.

In a place like White Crest, it was more ‘probable’ than ‘potential’.

“We can’t just go out there,” the zombie worried once they’d made it through the throng and quickly approached the door, eyeing it nervously. “I don’t wanna be dinner for whatever it was that took that fella!” Still, in spite of his verbal objections, he didn’t actually attempt to pull away from her. He just wanted her to know that he was not happy about this decision. Once they made it out the door, a worrisome sight met their eyes. There was something tall and lanky pinning the drunk man to the wall, mouth at his throat. Silas gulped, aware that it obviously wasn’t a regular vampire like Milo or Metzli, but… he didn’t know what the fuck it was.

—

Cass wasn’t one to sit by and do nothing when someone needed her help. It was a big part of who she was, a big aspect of her personality. It was why she spent most nights running around White Crest in a superhero costume with half her face covered up, why she’d hurled herself into the world of the supernatural long before she’d realized she was a part of it. Sure, she could have yelled for help or called the police or let someone else handle it, but doing that would mean risking that whoever stepped in to help might step in too late. The difference between winning and losing, between living and dying, it could come down to a second in White Crest. Cass knew that.

So, she ignored Silas’s protests. She dragged him along behind her because if she was going to do this, she should at least have someone there to call for help if things went wrong. “We’re not gonna be dinner,” she promised, though she knew it was hardly the kind of thing she could uphold. “Relax, okay? We’re just gonna make sure he’s all right.” Shoving the door open, she stepped out into the alley behind it and pulled Silas with her. Immediately, her eyes settled on the sight of the man from before, pinned against the wall by… something. It didn’t look much like the vampires Cass had seen, who mostly appeared human, but it was definitely drinking the drunk man’s blood.

“We gotta get that thing off him,” she hissed, turning to look at Silas with wide eyes. “It’s gonna kill him.” She glanced around the alley, stopping when she spotted a loose rock on the ground. Picking it up, she tossed it at the creature as hard as she could. It hit the thing on the head, bouncing off and hitting the ground. There was a loud pop as the creature pulled away from the drunk man and turned towards Cass and Silas instead, looking… displeased at the interruption. “Shit,” Cass said, “that worked.” Just… maybe not entirely in their favor.

—

When Cass turned to him, Silas’ brows shot up in a silent ‘well what do you want me to do about it?!’ sort of way, eyes widening as he watched her pick up the rock and hurl it at the thing. “Fuckin’ hell,” he groaned, taking a step back. The creature snarled silently at them, bloody teeth bared as it turned to face them, letting the drunkard slowly slip to the ground. At least he was alive… for now. The thing took a few steps forward and then wobbled, like it was.. unsteady? Reaching a hand out, Silas gripped Cass’ shoulder and pulled her farther back to where he was. “Somethin’s wrong with it,” he stage-whispered, eyeballing the distance between it and the opposite wall. “Maybe we can juke it, grab the guy, n’ get the fuck outta here.”

A solid plan, if not for the additional drunk person now stumbling out the exit to do what they’d assumed the first had been trying to—throw up all over the pavement, hair pulled back from her face. The… thing, whatever it was, seemed attracted by this (ew) and stopped its slow pursuit, instead whipping around to face the new snack. The woman’s eyes went wide and she screamed so loud Silas wished his hearing had been among the senses he’d practically lost after dying the first time.

—

The creature — it had to be some kind of a vampire, right? Cass knew there were all different kinds — stumbled as it pulled away from the man, movement uncoordinated and unsteady. It was almost as if… “Is it drunk?” Cass hissed, turning towards Silas in hopes that he might know more than she did. Unfortunately, he looked just as perplexed, but he did offer a solution. They could probably grab the drunk guy and get him away, but if they wanted to stop anyone else from getting caught up in this, they’d need to…

…stop more people from coming out the exit. The thought had barely entered Cassidy’s mind before the door opened again, a woman stumbling out into the alley to puke all over the sidewalk. Cass made a face, though her expression quickly morphed from disgust to horror when the vampire launched itself at the woman instead. “Oh, gross,” she groaned. “Fuck. We’re gonna have to — dude. We gotta fight that thing! What, um, do you — I mean, you’re not, like, totally freaking out here, so I’m assuming you know that White Crest has a whole, uh, Buffy situation going on, right?”

—

Fight it? She wanted to fight it?! “Wha—I—” The question was extremely fair, but it just caught Silas off guard. Sometimes he forgot that the weird shit in town was, in fact, weird to a lot of people. “Yeah, I’m aware,” Silas breathed, his eyes still fixed on the bloodsucker as it feasted on the drunk woman’s throat. “You can’t seriously expect me to fight that thing, I’m not… like… trained!” Fuck, he really needed to get someone to teach him how to defend himself, didn’t he?

The vampire creature dropped the woman to the ground, seemingly satisfied with its meal. It turned to them again and its eyes flashed with anger—ah. Hadn’t forgotten the rock then, had it? With a sloppy sort of screech, it suddenly sprinted toward them. Even though his fear usually overrode everything else, Silas managed to have the wits to quickly shove Cass out of the way and take a step back, knowing that whatever this thing did wouldn’t hurt him as much as it would hurt her, and it’d heal pretty damn fast. Plus it almost certainly wouldn’t like whatever blood still sat dormant in his veins.

The collision sent him flying backward, landing hard on his back. He felt a rib snap and groaned, shielding his face with his arms as the creature snapped and hissed and tore at his sleeves, its fangs smearing with his black blood.

—

It was something of a relief to hear that he was aware of the whole ‘supernatural underworld’ aspect of White Crest, if only because it would save Cass some time. She still barely understood the supernatural herself, and she certainly didn’t understand it well enough to explain it to someone else. “You don’t have to fight it. But I’m gonna fight it, and it’d be really cool if you didn’t, like, ditch me while I do.”

Before she could continue with anything more, the vampire looked up, and — okay, yeah, it was pissed. Cass was fresh out of rocks, but even if she weren’t, it didn’t seem like the best idea. The rock hadn’t gotten them very far last time. Frantically, she glanced around the alley, searching for anything laying around that might help them out. Her eyes had just landed on a broken chair next to the door when, suddenly, she was being shoved to the side. It took her all of a second to understand what was happening. Silas pushed her out of the way to keep the vampire from jumping her… and took the tooth-shaped bullet himself.

Cass surged forward, faltering a little as she caught sight of the blood on the vampire’s fangs. Black. So, when Silas said he was ‘aware’ of what White Crest was…

In any case, it meant he probably couldn’t be killed by the vampire, so Cass ran to the chair, stomping her foot on it to break off one of the wooden legs. She really hoped that this vampire played by the same rules as the normal kind. “Hey!” She waved her hands, trying to catch its attention. “Yo, Batman! Look what I’ve got!” She held up the wooden chair leg, broken into a sharp point at the end. “Sure would be a shame if this went into your heart, huh?”

—

So she knew about stakes. To be fair, fucking everyone knew about stakes, but not everyone knew that they were actually effective for killing vampires and not just a crock of shit conjured up by popular media. Really, it could still go either way with this girl, but seeing as how she’d been the one to ask if Silas was privy to the inhuman underbelly of the town, something told him Cass’ information was based on actual knowledge.

He just hoped that didn’t mean she was a slayer, too. If she was, he was really going to have to reassess his friend-making abilities and figure out why he only seemed to attract people who wanted to kill him.

Grimacing at the sight of his forearms all mangled and dark, Silas was relieved when Cass’ taunts encouraged the beast to let him go. That relief was short-lived when he considered the fact that the thing would be going after her now, and he had no idea if she was… heal-y in the same way that he was. Grunting and scrambling to his feet, he threw her a frantic stare before starting to make a wide circle around the pair to go and try to break off his own chair leg, so at least he wouldn’t be defenseless for the next round.

—

The vampire did seem to think it would be a shame if the chair leg found its way into its heart, the taunt doing wonders for drawing it away from Silas. Cass was pretty relieved about that, even if it meant the creature was now sprinting towards her. There was every possibility that she didn’t think this through very well because while undead creatures with black blood might not stand to lose much through a creepy vampire-like thing biting at their neck, Cass couldn’t say with much confidence that sirens could boast the same. She really had to get back to that book Marley had given her.

“Ooooh-kaaay,” she said, quickly darting to the side as the vampire launched itself at her. She barely managed to miss being nabbed, feeling the wind from its movements in her hair. “Look, buddy, we can talk this out! It doesn’t have to be a —”

The vampire pounced again, and Cass was less ready for it this time. She went down, connecting with the concrete in a way that stole all the air from her lungs. Her hand tightened on the chair leg, and she quickly brought it up… only to miss the chest and stick the thing through the vampire’s shoulder as it came down on her. “Shit, shit, shit!”

—

Naturally, everything turned to shit. Silas thought he really ought to be used to it by now, but he still sucked in a horrified breath as he watched the vampire tackle his dancing partner to the ground, and was once again reminded of the uncomfortable stillness in his chest where his pounding heart should have been. “Cass!” he hollered, kicking violently at the chair as he tried to manifest his own weapon from its broken frame, eventually resorting to picking it up and slamming it against the brick wall. Finally the sturdy leg broke free and the zombie scuttled over to the pair as fast as he could, seeing Cass’ ‘stake’ protruding from the creature’s shoulder.

He wasn’t confident he had the strength to get a hunk of wood through the thing’s rib cage from the back (or the front) to pierce the heart, but there was one easy entry point he was aware of, a happy byproduct of researching how to help Milo get high with a particular drug that mimicked the sensation of being alive. Under the ribs, up toward the head and slightly to his right. Of course that meant that he had to get it off of Cass and on its own back, which he doubted was going to be easy.

With nothing much else going for him save his own invulnerability, Silas leapt on the vampire’s back and wrapped his arms around its neck, realizing with a touch of amusement that this was definitely not the way he’d expected this night to go. The creature hissed again as Silas wrenched them both backward as hard as he could, wrapping his legs around its hips to try and pin it… well, on top of him, at this point. One arm loosened its grip so he could poke the sharp tip of the broken chair leg in the spot he wanted, but there was no way he was driving it deep enough from this angle, especially not with this thing violently thrashing and trying to get away. “Here! Take it and stab it here, push straight up!” he called to Cass, angling the stake so she’d follow the correct path. The vampire yowled, twisted its head and clamped down on Silas’ neck with its massive fangs while the weight of its body slowly crushed him. Thank God he didn’t actually have to breathe, or this would suck a lot more. Still didn’t feel great, though.

—

There were hands holding her down, teeth snapping at her neck. Cass shoved and kicked and squirmed, but this thing was a lot stronger than she was, a lot angrier. Were she closer to something resembling her right mind, she might have tried to compel it, might have used the only power that had always worked for her to talk it into getting off her, into going away, but her heart was pounding so hard that she couldn’t hear herself think, couldn’t focus on anything other than the growling and the snapping and the weight on her chest. She clamped her eyes shut, trying to figure out how to get the upper hand here, hands tugging at the stake still protruding from the wrong spot on the vampire’s torso.

And then, just as quickly as the weight had appeared on top of her, it was gone. It didn’t take Cass long to figure out why. Her eyes snapped open to find Silas hanging off the vampire’s back, his legs wrapped around it like he was getting a piggyback ride. It was such a sight that she might have laughed if not for the whole ‘mortal danger’ of it all.

Scrambling back up, she launched herself forward and grabbed the ‘stake’ just before the vampire began to crush down on Silas, eyes wide. The angle was right, the placement all set up. All Cass had to do was push it forward with all the strength she had in her. She held her breath as she did it, exerting every ounce of energy into the motion and, thanks to Silas’s angling of the position, the wooden chair leg found a home in the vampire’s chest. The world seemed to pause for a moment before the thing burst, exploding into dust all over both Silas and Cass. Cass exhaled as the dust settled, plopping down into a sitting position beside Silas. “That,” she said, “was so fucking cool.”

—

Sprawled on the cobblestone, Silas stared up at the sky in what appeared to be shock. As the dust settled around them and Cass took a seat beside him, his dark eyes slowly crawled over to look at her. Cool? That was cool? Holding a hand over the part of his throat that had been nicely shredded, the zombie blinked a few times before surprising himself by letting out a soft laugh.

“Yeah, it was pretty cool,” he agreed, realizing that being so fucking scared all the time hadn’t done him any kind of service, and he was alright, wasn’t he? He grunted and pushed himself up into a sitting position, dusting away the ashes from his torso with the hand that wasn’t pressed to his neck.

“Um… you’re not a slayer, right?”

—

For a moment, Silas was quiet and Cass was worried that she’d said something wrong. It probably wasn’t great manners to talk about how cool something was immediately after the other person who’d witnessed it had a vampire try to chew their throat off, but Silas was fine, wasn’t he? She’d seen his blood, all black and… goopy. Physically, the vampire couldn’t have hurt him too badly. But… maybe there was some emotional damage from the whole experience.

She opened her mouth, ready to stumble through an apology, but then Silas spoke, agreeing with her assessment, and she relaxed. “Are you okay?” She motioned hesitantly to his hand pressed against his throat, smile apologetic. At his question, she made a face, suppressing a shudder. “No. Definitely not. Those guys are scary. And mean.” And the mere mention of them still made her heart pound, the memory of the ranger who was still out there with a probable vendetta against her enough to make her nauseous. “I, um…” She paused for a moment, a little hesitant. She didn’t often admit to what she was, but… It seemed a little unfair that Silas hadn’t gotten much of a choice in her having at least some idea as to what he was. And he had saved her ass a little. “I’m a siren.”

—

The damage to his arms was already mostly healed (the same couldn’t be said for the shirt, of course), and as he tentatively released the grip on his neck, beneath the smear of black blood, the flesh there was already stitching itself back together. “Oh, yeah, I’ll be fine,” Silas assured her, wiping his hand on his pant leg. The wound felt weirdly hot, but it wasn’t unbearable. When she confirmed that she wasn’t a slayer, the zombie allowed himself to relax. “They are, aren’t they?” he chuckled, Emilio’s sour attitude springing to mind.

“A—” He didn’t know what that was, honestly. “Siren? Like… like the ones in pirate movies? You sing?” Eyes widened as he realized that was probably a rude thing to say, and he lifted a couple fingers to his lips. “Fuck, sorry. Uh. Don’t know much about those, I don’t think. I’m.. a zombie, but that was probably pretty obvious,” he offered, chuckling nervously.

—

At least Silas seemed to be healing quickly. For all that Cass knew about the undead, some of their skills were still a little lost to her. Just because she knew a little bit more about them than she knew about most supernatural creatures in town didn’t mean she knew a lot. She was still very much a beginner in this world. “Good,” she breathed a sigh of relief. Grimacing, she nodded. “I kind of try to avoid them.” Especially given the fact that pretty much every supernatural person she knew had at least one poor experience with them, on top of her own ordeal.

Laughing, Cass shrugged. “I think it’s a little different than the pirate movies,” she admitted. “But, it’s, uh… Kind of new to me. I mean, I’ve always been one, I guess, but I didn’t know I was one until, um… Recently.” She grinned. “Well, I’ve been known to really kill it at karaoke. I just always thought it was more ‘natural talent’ and less ‘accidentally compelling the audience.’ But I guess that’s life, huh?” A zombie. The only other zombie she had experience with had been Macleod, and that had been… a good deal less pleasant than this. “I figured you were either a zombie or a vampire, ‘cause of…” She trailed off, motioning to the black blood staining his fingers. “But to be honest, I don’t really know much about how to tell the difference just by looking. I don’t know much about zombies, either, though.”

—

Grinning, Silas was glad to see she’d taken his faux pas in stride. He was pretty good at making those, so it was nice when people didn’t get offended. The fact that she hadn’t known she was different was surprising, but considering how little he knew about sirens, he couldn’t really make a passing judgment on it. “Hey, maybe it’s a little bit of column A and column B?” he offered with a laugh. Glancing at his hand when she gestured toward it, he nodded. “Yeah, makes sense. Mm, well…” He paused to haul himself to his feet and hold a hand out to help Cass up, “My boyfriend probably smells better than I do, and he can’t come out with me durin’ the day… plus when he’s hungry, his eyes turn a fun shade of red. I just get fuckin’ stupid.”

Looking around them, the stirring moans of the two drunk folks behind them caught his attention. “Oh, shit. Right. We should probably get those folks to the hospital.”

—

“I mean, I guess technically you could call the compulsion a natural talent,” she joked. “It is all natural. And technically genetic.” In the past, of course, she’d referred to it as a superpower. Sometimes she still did, still clung to that definition even knowing it was untrue. It was easier for Cass to call herself a superhero than it was to admit that she was something other than human, but… she was getting better. With the help of other people who weren’t quite human, people like Silas himself, she was getting better. “Yeah, I’m pretty good friends with a vampire… and I’ve fought one or two, because, uh, you know. White Crest.” She wasn’t sure if the average White Crest citizen fought vampires quite as often as a wannabe superhero roaming the streets in a mask and cape, but… Well, she was willing to venture the guess.

Taking Silas’s hand, Cass hoisted herself to her feet and glanced down on the ground to the groaning drunks, wincing slightly. “Whoops. Yeah, they’re probably gonna need some orange juice. And, like, the strongest hangover cure ever.” She turned back to Silas, humming softly. “You wanna grab him, and I’ll take her?”

—

She’d fought other vampires, he’d eaten another zombie… no one was really safe from doing some fucked up stuff, not in a place like this. You did what you had to do to survive. At least that’s what he’d been told. Silas didn’t particularly like it, but the universe cared not for his moral quandaries, his hangups, his weaknesses. As Vonnegut would say… so it goes.

“I’ve argued about ownership of fingers with a fae on the internet, so yeah, I definitely get the ‘because White Crest’ sentiment,” the zombie answered with a smirk. As they took in the sorry sight of the less fortunate victims of the… whatever kind of vampire that had been, Silas shook his head. Stupid, senseless violence, everywhere he went. Everywhere anyone went, probably. This place was nuts. Part of him wanted to just pack up his shit and leave, but now there was more than one thing keeping him here, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit glad. Besides, where the hell else would he go?

Nodding, Silas moved alongside Cass to gather the humans up and get them somewhere safe where they could recover. “Hey, uh… sorry we had to meet like this. Maybe we can try again sometime, and hopefully something terrible won’t happen?”

—

Cass laughed, half relief and half amusement. Of course he’d argued with a fae about the ownership of fingers on the internet. Of course. White Crest was, if nothing else, a one of a kind place. And despite all the weirdness of it… Cass had met some pretty great people here. Silas, she figured, was easy to include in that number. Not a lot of people would take on a scary vampire-creature targeting drunks outside a bar for a near stranger, after all.

Helping the woman to her feet and letting herself take most of her weight, Cass shot Silas a small smile. “Not your fault,” she assured him. “But… you’re so not getting out of that dance off. Next time, I’ll wipe the floor with you. Promise.”

#. para ;#. para ; a buffy situation #wickedswriting #drug tw

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