diedinnewyork | Assignment 001. [Audio] [Locked to Buffy/Dean.]

Assignment 001. [Audio] [Locked to Buffy/Dean.]

[There's a crackle over the audio post and a voice. An older male. The comedian has been here for a couple of days now, watching your excuses and all the shit you kids are doing. And he's decided it's time to get off.]

Please...Help me. I've-I've fallen.

[he sounds pathetic. Hurt and in pain. There's a groan.] What kind of place is this? Where an- [There's a grunt] An old man falls and nobody's around to help him? what kind of a rest-home is this?

[There is a clatter and the sound of a voice, some of you might recognize it as Hoffman.]

...Oh thank god. Thank god. Yes-sir?

[And the audio cuts]

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Hey.

You got this one, Mark?

No. Old fucker's really heavy. Can you come and give me a hand? He says he can't walk.

I'm your girl. ..Since when do we have handicap senior citizens as inmates? [Weird. ....Oh well. Whatever.] Where are you?

Edited 2012-05-19 04:34 (UTC)

Level One room 20. You're telling me. Wish this fucker would stop bitching.

Edited 2012-05-19 04:43 (UTC)

[Sigh.] On my way.

[Spam]
[And so she is. Even if she's not quite sure why Hoffman is using text to reply to her. Maybe to drown out the alleged complaining of the crippled old man? Which, by the way, still not seeing the reasoning on that one.

Still, she arrives shortly, letting herself in the room, leaving the door open behind her.]

Edited 2012-05-19 04:53 (UTC)

[The room's small. There's a bunch of forties nostalgia photos on the walls except they look-cracked. Broken. It was a hell of a fall as evidenced by the man lying face down on the floor.

Lying atop the remains of a smashed table, the figure is totally still.]

Edited 2012-05-19 05:05 (UTC)

[She enters the room cautiously, eyes scanning around her, a strange feeling tingling down her spine. Then.. She sees a scene she wasn't expecting in the slightest.

The inconsistencies from before and the suspicions she had are now pretty much resurfacing in a big way. Everything about this is screaming trap. Although she's normally big on the charging right in anyway thing.. Now she's got someone else to worry about here who worries about her. He'd want to be called.

She sends out a text to Dean, so as not to alert anyone waiting to spring the trap that anyone's coming.

[Text | Private to Dean]
this isnt right, hoffman's either dead or really hurt. check network then come to 1.20, bring weapons. left door open

[Once the text is sent, she pockets the communicator and moves forward, taking one more glance around the room before rushing to Hoffman, turning him over and checking his pulse to find..

Nothing.]

[Infirm? Feeble? No. The Comedian slides out of the shadows in a bright purple bathrobe. There's a pin-pinned to his lapel.

And in his hand is a stake of wood, torn off from the broken table.]

[She's reaching for her communicator again, letting out a frustrated sigh-like noise.

Why didn't she bring weapons again?

Buffy gets her communicator out of her pocket, then senses a presence behind her. She pretends she has no idea, waiting for the right moment to turn around. This could be anyone, any thing. Might not even be an inmate or a person at all.

Buffy spins around when she feels the presence close enough.]

[Jesus she's just a kid does not begin to cover it.

Not that that ever bothered him. In the jungle they strapped the kids with bombs and sent them to hug servicemen. In thanks.

She's an enemy combatant.

Without hesitation he wraps an arm around her shoulders and plunges the stake deep into her chest. The other one had fought-put up a struggle. Lucky him he broke a table.

[This is one of those moments Buffy has always been afraid of. A moment, a second, when someone or some thing gets lucky. Told to her in detail by Spike many years ago, a Slayer is always an inch away from death, toeing the line, waiting for it all to end.

Buffy has already died twice. Neither of those times in the way that guaranteed she'd come back. This time it's different. But that doesn't mean it's nice.

The quick, skilled, strong grab and stab is too much. Sure, she's got the reflexes of a Slayer, more strength than a human could ever hope to overpower, but as superpowered as she might be she's still just a girl. Bleeds, has weaknesses, can die.

The sharp, dull pain explodes in her chest. She feels a rib or two snap, wet and quiet. Splinters. Wood. Buffy coughs up a splatter of blood instantly, horror in her eyes as she stares at her murderer.

She stares until the light starts to go out of her eyes. She knows his face. And just before everything goes dark, she wonders just how much irony the universe can throw at her at once.]

Edited 2012-05-19 06:04 (UTC)

[Dean had been going to reply, anyway, but first Hoffman is on it and then Buffy. He hesitates a moment because three is probably a crowd and it's just a brittle old dude.

But something's not right here, and though he can't put his finger on it exactly, he's done pretty well trusting his gut before now; it won't kill anyone if he shows up, too. Maybe the oddity of texting while trying to help someone isn't that strange for other people. He was headed for the dining hall, anyway, so he'll just leave his room on level four now and swing by on his way.]

[He'd been watching for forty-eight hours once he'd come to. Whatever coma they'd had him in had hit him hard and for a moment he'd thought that this was going to be a problem. He was old.

He'd spent the time convincing himself that if anything happened Nixon would do something. He'd owed him a favor for years and the wormy bastard refused to pay up. Even after he'd stolen the 18 minutes from the fucking Water Gate tapes he played that off as a "conspiracy" and that they had never existed.

He couldn't let himself get distracted-hadn't-until the thought that he was dead hit him.

No mourning. No time to mourn. What good would it have done? Besides he was dead anyway. And if this was hell-which he was pretty sure was where he was going...

He'd made his peace with that. As he'd told Moloc. He'd get shit together and show Satan just who he was fucking with. Edward Morgan Blake had come to hell. He'd go off and find Hitler and punch him. He'd go and find Todai and hit him in the face.

Get in a little wrestling before the torture began. Although what person sent small blond girls and big burly men to harass him?

He turned over the girl and flopped her body on top of the man's. Blood had splatted across his front. He shrugged it off and collected the three more stakes that he'd gathered from the table and moved to the door and into the hallway. Quite a sight. Old man in slippers and a bathrobe splattered with blood.]

[Dean gets the text from Buffy halfway up the stairway between levels 3 and 2, and he wastes about ten seconds thinking about doing exactly what it says; then he realizes she probably means the network post he'd already been responding to, and from there it's a no brainer. His heartbeat picks up a notch and he reaches for the ivory-handled Colt he pretty much always carries shoved into the waistband of his jeans. It's the only weapon he needs for about 95% of situations, and he hasn't encountered the other 5% on the Barge yet, so he doesn't stop to think.

Covering the distance down the level 1 hallway in long, quick strides, the hunter is alert and wary, gun in both hands and carried casually, muzzle down, to one side of his body. He spots the old man pretty much immediately and the pointed concern, easy readiness lining his features drains away in an instant, a moment, of hesitation because the first thing he registers is blood, and the second thing...

The second thing...

Anger slams home faster than the shock, and Dean raises his Colt, voice a bark of sound, confident and forceful.] Hey! Hands where I can see 'em!

[Well. There's the fuzz. The question about what cops would look like in hell crossed his mind. He started to turn-hands up. He faced the attacker and smiled.]

Problem? Officer?

[The voice turns his stomach; the face. He shoves it down mercilessly and motions with his chin, doesn't bother correcting him.] Why don't you back into the room nice and slow, huh? I will shoot you, don't think for a moment I won't.

[Slow, deliberate steps forward as he tries to change his angle to see into the room before he gets there, the hunter's hands are steady on the gun, his aim unwavering at center mass. The dark hazelgreen eyes tick past the man's shoulder then flick immediately back. His voice, raised, is hard-edged and tense.] Buffy!

[Edward Blake was a fighter. A soldier. His father-that rat bastard-hadn't been anything of the kind. He was a long shoreman who won reknown of sorts fighting in rings by the docks.

He fought dirty and he taught his son-the rat bastard-the same. When in doubt, go through an obstacle. So he leaps for the boy, quick as a snake despite his age hoping to knock him down and then run.]

[A moment of hesitation, Dean has known far longer than is probably healthy, is all it takes to die; he's spent that lifetime training himself out of it, connecting his brain directly to his fingers, his hands, his feet. His own father taught him to fight dirty, too, but it's no match for the weirdness of the Barge.

Dean hesitates, and the shot that should've gone through the man's heart zings past his shoulder instead. He curses but he's over it in the next instant, swings the gun hard at the man's face as he comes at him, trying to make up for lost time.]

You're a shit shot kid.

[The Comedian aims a punch to the solar plexus, his fist red.]

Don't call me kid. [Dean is backpedaling, his face a snarl, twisting to take the punch on his hip instead. His training won't let him take another shot until he's sure of it, not with the Colt anyway, but he puts all his weight and muscle behind a straight-arm left punch for the man's jaw.]

[The Comedian twists to the right-by an inch. He's grazed by flesh and feels the physical force of the blow but then he's off and running like a shot into the barge proper.]

Goddammit...! [Dean swears, harsh and loud, and twists to line up another shot as the man retreats. He knows he's going to miss when he feels his hip protesting the move, the speed with which the man ducks around the first corner, but he fires anyway even as he's reaching for his communicator with his free hand.] Fuck!

Buffy! Hoffman! [Somehow he already knows there's nothing he can do, but until it's confirmed, he can't just leave the other two wardens there to chase down some scumbag that's got nowhere to go. Brain darting in two directions at once, he bolts for the door and sends out a cry for help on the network.]

Edited 2012-05-19 23:08 (UTC)

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