All About Falstaff; he came up with a lot of this dialogue.

hill on wheels

 

Know what I never thought I'd be doing?

Looking up demons in some dude's apartment, while two very attractive girls lean over the counter, peering anxiously over more books.

You know what fucking SUCKS about the setup?

They're together. They make out and shit in front of the guys. They touch each other casually. They're so cute.

And I might as well not have a DICK.

See, I loved my baby. I was really devoted. But DAMN, man, if I don't have every guys' wet dream leaning over the counter in front of me, in the *flesh*, and can't do a fucking thing about it.

This is one ugly demon, dude. This is definitely what we saw running behind the house last night.

"Okay, yo, I think I got somethin'. Pekoth demon."

"Ah, no, Augustus, I believe we're looking for something a little more... non-extinct."

He's so sure of himself. Fuck.

I pause for a bit, secretly studying the drawing. Nope, that's it. I've learned quick, how to navigate these boring books... I think it's given the English dude a little case of librarian-envy. Between Bob'n me, we can find twice what he can. I tell him, "Giles, this is the fuckin' thing we saw, okay, so don't be tellin' me this ain't it."

"But they're all quite dead --"

"Yeah, says who, the Watcher's Council? Good idea, G-Man, listen to them for a while, it worked so good the last time..."

It's a lowdown thing to say. Whatever. He's not even very good for a laugh anymore -- whatever sense of humor has quickly dried up in the last week. We've gone and ruffled his boat something fierce. Xander says he never really *was* very good for a laugh, actually.

I like the gawky kid.

I think I like him best. These two are very sweet, but they make me a littl e... homesick. And the rest are thundering loonies, if you don't count the fact that we're all fuckin' crazy. We're fighting vampires.

Me, I just wanna get a job at a Vons, maybe enough money to buy a--

But I can't drive no more. Damn. That beaut of a car I've always had my eye on, it don't matter anymore.

"At least I don't have to hire a machinist to grind off 'Property of Oswald State Penitentiary' from my only means of transport." He's snotty whenever he mentions the prison. It's because he's a snot. But it was funny. So I'll let it pass without letting him know how much it stings.

I'm never gonna get hired at Vons. I don't even have a birth certificate.

"Listen, that was the fucking demon, okay? I'm done looking stuff up. I'm gonna watch some TV."

"Mr. Rebadow's in there."

From the couch, I hear him say, "Call me Bob, Rupert."

Giles shifts uncomfortably, as if getting too close to any of us makes him uneasy. Hell, I don't really blame him, but it's starting to get on my nerves. I know we ain't the model citizens that his little band of troopers are, but -- oh, wait! They aren't either.

Wake up call, G-man.

I say quietly, "I'm gonna tell you what I did to get in prison, okay? And you're gonna shut the fuck up and listen."

He shifts even more, says, "That's really not--"

"Yeah, it *is*. If we're actually gonna be working together, G-man, you gotta know that I'm not gonna kill you in my sleep."

He tries not to look startled, answers, "It never crossed my--"

"Yeah yeah, and the swords and daggers under your pillow aren't a new thing."

We don't discuss how I know -- how last week, I stumbled on that particular secret. Instead, a look crosses his face. It's one that says, 'You don't know the first thing about it, mate.' He's cold. "Actually. They're not."

There's a life in that face he gives me. It says that all was not sweetness and light and fearless even before we showed up.

I say, "I'm married, you know. There was a bust on my apartment. I was making love to my wife." I see him grin. "Yeah, laugh if you want. I love her to death. They came in, and I was high. Completely and utterly. No, I'm not a great, all-around guy. But I shot a cop in the heat of the moment -- if it hadn't been a cop I woulda never gotten life -- and that's all."

I see his face relax. "That's all?"

"Honest to God, G-man. In OZ, I got clean, no drugs, nothing, just trying to stay alive and sane, and stuff."

He sighs, and rubs the bridge of his nose. I've noticed that he does that whenever he's tired, frustrated, or thinking about whatever it is that he really doesn't want to think about. That thing that everyone's got in their mind, that thing that tickles and they have to concentrate so hard on not thinking about that it's all they can do to even breathe.

He looks up from the pages, watches me carefully flipping through a sports magazine. There's no basketball players I really follow anymore... Giles is trying to convince me that soccer is the way to go. 'British football, now that's a real man's sport.'

Hah. I remember real men. They got shanked in the showers. Wonder if I'll tell him that story, or the one about the crucifixtion. Let's see. Um. No.

He takes his glasses off, and says suddenly, without any explanation, "You know what you said before? About loving her to death?"

I nod, shrug. "Yeah, sure."

There's a cute little grin on his face, and dark circles under his eyes. There's that look, and there's that guilt. This man, he carries a hell of a lot of guilt around. He continues, "I wouldn't, ah, I wouldn't say that. If I were you."

I don't get it.

Sometimes I don't think I ever will. These guys are whacked out. He adds, "It has a tendency to come true, you see."

Oh.

That kind of guilt.

I wish I didn't get it.

A million years pass by as we stare at each other, and both really get it too well for comfort. I shrug casually, movement cracking ice in the atmosphere. I ain't ever fallen in love with someone on the inside. Why the hell would I ever go near the insides of those idiots with a ten foot emotional pole.

He looks rather lost about how to deal with the situation. I grin at him; it's easy for me to get back to the joker's vein. It's just another addiction coping mechanism, replace a needle or a hit with a smile and a brush-off, and you've got the perfect barrier.

I've got it down, man. I am the king. "Well, superstitious I ain't. I didn't change my socks for a month, and did my team win? Hell no!"

He doesn't really know what to say to me, I'm sure. He doesn't know what to say or where to say it, and I can just see him wishing that there was another place to put us, like back behind our cages. The animals we are.

Because we don't have any real worth.

He asks me, tired, "Augustus, are you capable of taking anything even the least bit seriously?"

You'd think after all those years of pretending to be the king of jokes --hell, I laughed when that orange was flung at my face, and it horrified me, still does -- you'd think that I would get used to being accused of being a little shallow, a little callous.

But I haven't. And, see, there's my flaw. I can get all Zen and ironic-dealing, and understand all of that. But I can't get enough distance to make it do any good.

So what he says hurts. I reply, anger showing in my tone, "If I take this bullshit completely seriously, I'm gonna remember my wife's on the other side of a wall I can never get back through. And I can't deal with that. So here I am."

He regards me. I regard him. There's a whole lotta staring going on. From the other room, I hear that kid Xander come in, bitching about whatever the hell is wrong with his life. I start to get that automatic oh-don't-tell-me-your-problems-cause-you-don't-have-any reaction brewing, when I remember.

His friend died last year. He was almost killed last *week*.

He's in prison, only those bars, they ain't visible anymore. He's been there all his life. That's what comes from living in this town.

Or maybe that's just what comes from living. I can't tell anymore.

 

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