armedagainstlove | (no subject)

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faith,
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He has been drinking for some time.

Apparently, in this city of bright lights, gold coins go a very long way. Athos hadn't travelled very far from the door, sitting himself upon a stool and beginning to make his way through as much wine as he possibly could. Two bottles in, he has made a great friend of the bartender, who does not mind that Athos has little to say to him. There are gold coins for the taking and Athos has no care for money. He has plenty of money. He is a Comte living in a hovel. He has more money than he knows what to do with.

The wine of the future tastes empty, though, as though it lacks in strength. He has been given many odd stares for his weaponry, but Athos will not dismiss them, knowing that he is not so dangerous when he is drunk. After all, he can still shoot from five paces away and if Porthos can shoot a melon off Aramis' head when drunk, then Athos can wear his weapons.

When he looks up, after another glass, he now realizes that he is not alone. "How long have you been here?" Athos asks of the beauty beside him, puzzled and rather worried that he is lapsing time.

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"I want to atone for killing my wife," Athos says steadily. "Unfortunately, it seems I can only really drown myself in the remorse of it." He's become something of an addict, and he's utterly aware of it, but he cannot stop himself. "And I do not believe that Anne is in the habit of stopping any apocalypse." He makes a face, draining the remainder of his drink. "Perhaps starting them. That would be the sort of chaos she appears to like."

"You didn't really kill her. You just attempted, technically. Not a huge deal if she's such a crap person." Not that Faith wants to brush his guilt under the carpet or anything. She's going to carry her guilt around with her forever. She thinks she can understand, having her own monkey on her back.

"Then again, I've never been married. That part of the deal? You take on her crap?"

He thinks he might kill her again if it comes down to her or him. He thinks he might be the one to pull the trigger rather than give the orders to the hangman and Athos is hardly sure how to feel about that. "I believe part of our vows was until death do us part. Given that she is alive, I do think I owe her some of my suffering. And perhaps I bear her sins, as well. Never get married," he instructs.

She laughs, a loud and sharp noise that seems to practically fight its way out of her throat. Faith stands and opens her arms, to give Athos the ease of taking a real look at her.

Faith stands somehow more male than her form should allow. She takes up space in the opposite way she's supposed to, with legs splayed apart shoulder-width and ready to take any hit that might come her way. Her red low-cut tank top shows off the dangerous parts of her: muscled arms, plenty of cleavage, and a curved torso down to thick legs wrapped in torn denim. For all intents and purposes she is what the kids these days might call trailer trash, from the top of her unkempt hair to the worn combat boots that cover her feet.

"Do I strike you as the marrying type?" And the culmination of all that armor and facade: her words drip out with sarcasm. Faith Lehane is made for cutting. Not for taking home to dinner with mom, dad, and little brother.

"No," he says, after a long moment's look upon her, though he feels rather shamed to be staring for so long, as though it is not something that is inappropriate for him to do. However, he has known many odd folk to marry and be happy. "However, I am not the marrying type, either. Not anymore," he opines, very clearly. "And I do not believe one can tell as such by looking at me."

After all, with his surroundings and his taste for the drink, perhaps he would seem more the type to marry over others.

"Well there goes my dowry." Faith smirks, enjoying the fuzz in her head that means jokes like that leave her without second thought or over analyzation.

Though on the matter of Athos' marriageability, she's not entirely convinced. Biased, maybe, someone might argue. She'd hung by Angel's side for the past year, sword at the ready for if he ever crossed the line. "I dunno, you seem like a stand up guy. Kind of person that puts the bigger picture over everyone else. I can get behind that."

He does not laugh. Athos has not laughed in five years, but his lips pull somewhat towards his ears, a faint hint of a smile that might have been more pleasing some time ago. "I assure you, I am a drunkard with sins on his conscience and honour at heart only because it is my role," Athos informs her, staring at his steady hands despite all he's drank. "I would like to think the bigger picture is at hand, but I fear I might not see it for the blur of brandy."

"Nuh uh." A protest to pause, so that Faith doesn't spill her drink all over herself trying to both drink and speak at once.

"Are you trying to say you're pretty much a sellsword to the law or something?" Maybe money doesn't figure into it, but as a modern American, Faith interprets role as job and might possibly in this instance not be capable at swimming from the middle of her inebriated thoughts.

"I am rich. I do not need to work to earn my keep," he confesses, which is rather an argument that he does what he does from love of the law, but it is more that it keeps him occupied. "Perhaps I am serving justice after I took my wife's life, or I thought I had, because I am trying to atone."

"Oh. Well, I've learned that guilt is a pretty strong motivator." Her life's motto, if Faith is honest. Still, she learned a little while ago that it's not necessarily a good motivator. Which is why she keeps talking. "But you gotta be careful, don't you? Otherwise you might end up somewhere you don't expect, worse off than when you started. Like, chasing Mohra demons and trying to resurrect the guy you killed."

Yep. The drink sure is settling in, breaking down that filter she usually has pretty firmly in place. "Then you accidentally resurrect him from when he was a horny little 13 year old and things get real messed up."

He is drunk.

He does not think that he is so drunk that he is not comprehending her words. So he believes that she has begun to speak of demons and resurrection and Athos can do nothing but gape. "I have had much to drink," he confesses, "but please forgive me if I do not believe you. I do not think I am hallucinating, but you are making a very strong case for my lack of sanity at the moment."

She cannot be truthful. Such things cannot exist. Can they?

"No, you're plenty sane. It's the world that's crazy. Sometimes I just kinda forget, you know? Who's down with the vampire talk and who's gonna run off in the other direction screaming." Especially when she's this drunk, apparently.

But Faith doesn't seem too bothered by the whole prospect. Considering that vampires and vampire slayers are known and accepted (generally) commodity, it's actually kind of nice having someone point out that it's also completely ridiculous-sounding.

Athos has not laughed in years, but when she says 'vampires', he raises his brow. "You realize that the moment you implicated vampires into this, you owed me an explanation. Sitting here in neon gaudish lights of terror, with a woman of the future, and more drink than I normally know what to do with..."

"Come," Athos coaxes, tugging the bottle. "We should walk and you can tell me about your world."

It's a good idea; Faith could use some air, herself. Her smirk is knowing, but she waits until they are outside and moving along before offering up more information.

"Werewolves, too," she says. This has never been her purview: introducing newbies to the world of the supernatural. For good reason too, since it's only recently she's taken up the mantle of mentor to her fellow and younger vampire slayers. "Not all are bad, though. Which was the craziest part to me, back in the day."

He inhales sharply and nearly accuses her of deliberately trying to set him off balance, given that what she says is so wild and odd that he has a hard time believing it, but he has seen much beyond the pale of what he expects to be true. So why not? Why not werewolves? Why not mad things?

"If I had to cope with such evils, I might drink more, a feat I did not think humanly possible," he jests wryly.

"I keep telling people it's a miracle I'm not an alcoholic." No she doesn't. It's a miracle she's not still a murderer if anything.

But she never had quite that reaction. If she were prone to telling her story it would include how being called as a slayer had been the best thing to ever happen to her. How learning about the things that go bump in the night had been better than what went on in her own household.

"Not gonna lie, though. I like the gig. Always have."

"Even though all the trials and the tribulations, even through the unknown and the demons and monsters," Athos echoes, raising his brows in disbelief. He has been known to fight losing battles in his time, but this seems gargantuan in the size of the continuous task. "Perhaps I ought to be asking whether there is an untold damage you have yet to tell me about. Perhaps in your head?"

"Well, you know I did time. I was kind of dangerous for awhile." And like an alcoholic, it's something she struggles with on a daily basis. It has seeded deeply into her view on the world and of herself. And while she refers to prison humorously as Murder Rehab, she takes the uprooting of those old habits so very seriously.

"Look, it's like this: You give a little girl more power than the biggest dude on the planet, her whole life changes. She comes from a crap home life, and it changes even more. But drawing the short straw on life doesn't really give anyone the excuse to stomp around and use that power to hurt people." So yeah, super damaged. But new sprigs are starting to grow fresh in the places where Faith was carved out.

"I knew the most dangerous woman in France," Athos informs her with an edge of implication that she cannot be worse than Milady, she cannot be worse than the woman he'd thought he'd known. "You were given power. She was given nothing and she let that darkness consume her, allowed it to drive her to horrible things, and doing it to the people she claimed to love."

She had murdered Thomas and for that, Athos can never forgive her.

"Did she take over her friend's body, spend her credit cards, flirt with a vampire and then sleep with the friend's boyfriend? While in her body. Because I'm still thinking I got your wife beat."

Stupid alcohol. That is a thing Faith has never actually talked about aloud. Ever.

Though intoxicated, Athos still recognises only a fraction of those words and the confusion shows upon his face. "It seems that for each ounce of guilt I bear, you understand it," he says, feeling a refreshing wave to experience someone who does not judge or pity him. It is wonderful, to a point he cannot express. "Despite the many years that part us."

Faith laughs at that, a sound that nearly forces its way out, and surprises her a little. It's safe to say that even with Athos' fancy language, he does have a talent at summing things up nicely.

"Yeah, well. At the very least we have the same crap taste in partners." She's got sum-up skills too, but they're largely lame. And while she still thinks he's not nearly as bad as he says he is, Faith's not going to argue with him.

"And here we are together," Athos says, as charming as he can be, a subtle smile upon his face that's as wide as his happiness ever gets. "Well," he remarks, with a bow of his head and a look towards the exterior. "I am afraid this is a strange land and I am a stranger in it. Would you happen to know somewhere safe to retire for the evening?"

As rare as his smile is, it's certainly worth the wait. He's not unpleasant to be around -- in fact, Faith might say she doesn't totally hate hanging out with the guy. The least she can do is give him somewhere to bunk.

"Well, it depends. Bellagio's pretty swanky. You don't have anyone looking for you, do you?" Cause if so, she figures it'll be more important to hide out somewhere unexpected.

"If Porthos and Aramis come looking for me, I fear for Porthos' wallet," Athos says, a severe look of worry. "However, being the small hours as they are, they are likely still in Paris and passed out in whatever quarters suits them." He digs in his pocket for the money that had replaced his gold when he'd arrived, a rather large sum of it. "I'm not short of money," he assures. "If that's what you're implying with 'swanky.'"