sunnydalealum | (no subject)

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Just keep an eye on that card every now and then, he said. You'll know where to go when the time's right.

Beth's entirely aware that probably means it's magic. Which means there's any number of other things it could be doing. Which means she seriously considers not taking it home with her, in case it could be used to track her -- but the only other place she could keep it is at the shelter, and she won't do that. It'd endanger everybody else there, the ones who come in for food, the ones who work there, Peter --

She won't, that's all.

So she sticks it to the fridge with the same magnet Spike left for her back in May, and that's where it is the Monday after Thanksgiving, when she sees that it's changed. There's an address there now, in that same elegant typeface, like it's been there all along.

Aequitas. She's looked it up. Latin for justice.

It's with a certain sense of fatalism that she steps off the bus a block from the address on the card, five days later, and walks toward the building.

(It's also with the same black wig she wore that night, as a sole concession to paranoia.)

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There really is no conceivable reason why she shouldn't let the music sweep her away. Paranoia is all well and good out there on the streets, but in here is the perfect atmosphere for letting go of one's everyday vendettas.

Leave your troubles outside, as they say in Cabaret. Of course, the Emcee says a whole lot of other things as well, but nothing so fitting as that.

Out there it may be winter, but in here and so on and so forth. Not to mention Lorne is silently encouraging, leading Emma through something less and less like a fox trot and more and more freestyle.

But the thing is --

Just let go, the music whispers. Dance. You can if you want to.

She's starting to follow his lead, starting to move on her own, an unconscious grace sliding into her limbs, a breathless half-smile starting to spread on her face.

And all around her are people dancing, people with unlikely skin tones and unusual numbers of fingers or eyes, people with feathers and scales, people with fangs, we're all just people, even her --

Just dance.

Even her, but --

Just let go.

-- but the thing is --

You know you want to.

-- it's not just paranoia.

Beth stumbles to a halt, her mouth moving -- soundlessly, in the roar of the music.

The hint of a smile warms his spirits, sets them soaring to see the darling young woman let loose and ease into her natural elegance. He didn't expect it, even if he knows he should have knowing what she is, also by birth. Slayers all have grace about them, and a deadly one at that. But there has never been anything dangerous about dancing, in his not so humble point of view. Dancing is freedom when you let it be, it is a rush of good feelings and high spirits and bliss - even if he hasn't felt it in a very long time.

When she falters, he falters too, bumping into her smaller frame with a hesitant, apologetic mumble. Maybe he can't read lips, precisely, but the message comes across nonetheless, and he gently guides her off the floor to one of the empty tables.

"Might take a while for your ears to stop ringing, first time around." He pulls out a chair for her. "I'm sorry, sweetie. I didn't mean to... drag you in at the deep end."

Her cheeks are blotched red as she sinks into the chair -- I need to sit down was what she said, but there's no way he could have heard her, she couldn't even hear herself -- and she can feel her ears burning.

"Sorry," she mutters. "Sorry, I'm -- it's not your fault, it's me."

"Can I get you anything?" He crouches beside her, keeping his voice down; in the dimmed light he can't see her blushing, but he knows that look in her eyes. Something out there got to her, and now it stings like getting too close to the fire.

"Nothing to apologize for, I promise."

"No, I'm okay," she insists, "I'm okay. I just, I just needed to sit down."

A watery smile. "And be No Fun Girl for a while."

"Oh, please. Too much fun kills people." He mock shivers, and takes a seat opposite Emma with a small smile. She's fast becoming something more like a potential friend than an acquaintance, and maybe he's getting soft, or plain lonely. Maybe he's just got a soft, mushy spot for strays. Maybe he just doesn't care. Maybe the chance of having a friend outweighs the consequences.

"Wanna tell me about it?"

Her own shiver at too much fun kills people isn't mock at all. She tries to suppress it, or failing that, camouflage it with a shrug.

"There's not much to tell," she says, almost truthfully. "Just a kind of, what do you call it, phobic reaction. That I get sometimes."

He always says the wrong thing, and if he doesn't, he will at one point or other. If it isn't about his own relatively awkward anatomy, it's something else. You can count on it.

"Too crowded? I know that feeling."

"Kinda." Even though it isn't that at all.

"But this is okay," she adds hastily, indicating the table where they're sitting now.

In Lorne's book, 'kinda' is good enough. It's been a long time since he's actually read read someone, and he isn't about to start anytime soon. What he does these days isn't reading, it's screening, and that's worlds apart.

'Kinda' is by far good enough.

"Good. So...time for me to be the validation hussy I am. How do you dig the digs so far?"

"This place, you mean?"

Her smile's back, and it's only partly for his benefit.

"It's ... kind of awesome."

"Of course I mean this place. If I'd meant my outfit, I'd say duds, not digs. Me, I don't see why you have to stop using certain kinds of slang just because you find new ones. Where's the fun in just replacing words when you can use them all indiscriminately?"

Yes, he's so tangential tonight, isn't he. Words, like music...few other concepts amuse and intrigue him as much. Stating the obvious, much?

"Thank you, sweetheart. I'm glad you like it." He is. So happy he's brimming with it. "Do you know what aequitas means?"

"Justice," she says at once. "Or, or equality. It's Latin."

She hasn't really thought about the name since first stepping in. For the first time, it occurs to her to wonder why it's called that.

He nods, remembering for the first time in a good long while the first time he met someone else entirely. This little slip of conversation reminds him of another, very similar exchange.

"Smart and cute..."

But that's in the past, and in the past is where it should stay, or he's certain it'll drag him right along with it. Wouldn't be the first time someone gets lost in the past.

He lifts his head, catching the eye of one of the waiters. They need refills.

She ducks her head at the compliment.

"I looked it up," she admits, half-apologetically.

The waiter comes over to take their drink orders with a smile - devastatingly handsome this one, like all of them - and is on his way within moments.

Lorne shakes his head and raises his hand to wag not one, not two, but his entire set of fingers at her. "Don't sell yourself short. You looked it up, and that's more than most would've bothered with. All right?"

Getting out his trusty pack of Camel brand cigs, he lights up and takes a deep drag. If he can't have a drink right away, nicotine makes for the best substitute in the world.

"What do you think it means, in this here context? Aequitas."

Uncertainty spreads across her face again. "...I don't know. Equality? In the sense of everybody here being treated the same?"

"Equality. Everyone here is treated the same because we are all the same. We're all sentient beings with lifelong experiences of the good, the bad and the downright unmentionable. We've all known success and hardship, frustration, anger, pain... Happiness and friendship and so on. Most of us are made of organic material of different kinds. Maybe we have different ranks outside, but in here?"

He spreads his hands, his small gesture symbolizing the vast expanse of the club, the very essence of it. "In here, anyone can speak to royalty. Humans can mingle with myths, lords dance with commoners, and if you should say the wrong thing, the very spirit of Aequitas forbids holding grudges.

"Justice, because justice is served here without discrimination. You break the rules, you have no place here. Minor transgressions are met with minor penalties, but if you done a really bad thing? You're out."

It sounds ... well, let's not mince words: it sounds like heaven. Somewhere this thing she is doesn't matter. Somewhere she won't be attacked, or expected to attack anyone else. Somewhere we're all just people; and she believes him when he says it.

She chews her lip. "What," she starts, a touch unsteadily, "what kind of really bad thing?"

"Harassment, abuse, telling outsiders about the club. Ripping people off. My guests are to be treated like celebrities and royalty, the lot of you, but with that privilege comes responsibilities."

He smiles, taking in the look on her face, because he knows how good it sounds. He knows how good it is, and he'll take pride any day in building this little enterprise of his from the scratch. Honestly, it's only these past few months that he's starting to see genuine results of his efforts. It's unbelievably gratifying.

"Like respecting the other guests, and the employees. Like following the rules, including not drinking the blood of other patrons, no fighting, no mind controlling, no telepathy. Respect, if not common sense. Is there even such a thing?"

"As common sense? I dunno."

The waiter's returning, with two glasses on a tray. He smiles as he sets the glasses down, one in front of each of them, and slips away again.

There's alcohol in this one; she can smell it from here. And suddenly the idea of having something stronger than fruit juice and club soda seems incredibly attractive.

"I think..." he murmurs, starting to form a theory of sorts. "I think there might just be such a thing as common sense. Only problem is, it's all too often--"

He frowns, pausing for another drag of nicotine and tar. "Well, it's a bit common. Not to mention it's subjective, and that's downright scary."

She picks up the glass, but doesn't drink yet.

"Scary how?"

The very air they breathe is ripe with tension, isn't it.

...no, not really. Just a tad thick with (un)worldly experience. "You can never count on your common sense to match everyone else's. Which means no matter how much you trust someone, you can never trust them to be on the same page. Well," he changes his mind, the frown easing into mild amusement. "The same page isn't that difficult. The same paragraph, though? Never. Same sentence, and we're talking telepathy. Not shitting Sherlock."