Characters of a Minor Sort (jesschars) wrote in btvsal, @ 2010-02-21 15:40:00 |
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Current location: | Eden |
Current mood: | sad |
Entry tags: | lena jacobs, place: la, ~devon gibson |
Should She Really Try This?
Who: Lena and Devon
Where: Eden
When: Feb. 16th, Night
Eden had been completely redone since the 'incident' with Courtney, but Lena herself barely noticed. She was in mourning right now, wearing a black long dress and had her hair tied behind her. Luke had disappeared. She couldn't find a trace of him, no matter who she threatened, beat up, or killed, and she had done plenty of all three of those to people. She had even been worried that Damon had done something or another, but, once he swore to her that he hadn't, she couldn't help but believe him. So, now, here she was, sitting in this sad little club for humans, and drowning her sorrows. How pitiful of an existence.
Devon, while trying to keep an eye on Meredith, couldn't completely avoid the visions the PTB sent him on occasion. And once Luke had gone missing... he received a few that pointed him towards one vital conclusion: if Lena were to be helped NOW, perhaps just shown some common compassion... it was possible to set her on a different path. Maybe one that wouldn't have to end with her in ashes. Waling into Eden, he saw her pouting at the table, and honestly might have laughed, if he didn't know how dangerous an unhappy Lena could truly be.
Lena barely looked up when she noticed someone come into the club. She looked back down when she realized who it was. Another 'humane' vampire. It seemed that LA was full of them. How boring. She went back to her drink.
"Lena...." He said, walking up to her. "I don't believe we ever got the chance to be... properly introduced. I'm Devon. Mind if have a seat?"
"If you insist upon it," Lena said to him. Really, what did he want, anyway? She didn't look up from her drink to look at him.
"I'm..." he wanted to say 'sorry to hear Luke left', but that wasn't entirely true, and the last thing he wanted to do was lie to her. "sorry to see you hurting. Anything I can do to help?"
Lena was half tempted to say 'set yourself on fire' but decided against it for the moment being. "I don't see how you can help," she said to him simply, going, for her, what was the more neutral route.
"I know you're... hurting right now. I've been where you are right now." He sighed, admitting something for the first time. "In some ways... I'm even worse off right NOW. So talk to me.... what could it hurt?"
She rolled her eyes, but looked up at him just the same. "The man who made me, who gave me this life, whom I have loved for centuries, is gone, and I can't find him. Really, how are you worse off now?"
"Because you had those centuries. Of knowing you loved each other, no matter how depraved you both may have acted." He gave a rather sad smile there. "I'm in love with someone.... who isn't in love with me." And he knew it. Meredith loved him, yes. But there's a big difference between love and IN love... that passion that ignites inside a person over another person... and that? Meredith only seemed to have that for ONE person anymore.
"Then all I can feel is pity for you," she said simply to him. "The guitarist doesn't love you back? I'm amazed. You seem perfect for each other." That wasn't a compliment, or at least it wasn't meant as such.
"I'd actually converse with you about this, but somehow, I honestly doubt you give a damn." He looked at her, half tempted to say 'fuck it' and walk away... but that nagging vision kept coming back to him... and he couldn't help but think that if he could somehow help her become an ally rather than an enemy... this could only help everyone. "If it matters... I actually *do* feel sympathy for YOU."
She stared at him for a moment. "Why would you feel pity for me?" she asked him. The actual idea of pity somewhat confused her, because that would require her to feel empathy for another being, something she hadn't felt in a long time, but that was the closest thing she felt to him, anyhow.
"Because... regardless of what anyone thought of you or Luke... you loved him. And now you feel that emptiness inside. And I... understand that feeling. I may not have lived as long as you have, Lena... but I've been around long enough to understand despair." He tried to connect with her slightly, placing a hand atop one of hers.
She simply stared at him for a moment. Still, she didn't insult him, so maybe that was something. For a girl who looked barely on the cusp of sixteen, her eyes showed an old and now a slightly weary soul. She did miss Luke, and she couldn't figure out what had happened to him. Was he dead? She had thought that she would feel if he had died, but she wasn't sure of that. "I do feel an emptiness inside," she finally admitted to him. She didn't shake off his hand, either.
"Let me help you. Everyone needs SOMEONE, Lena. Even you." Could this even happen? Could she possibly fathom the concept of befriending someone?
What could it hurt to have him around her, anyway? Like he could do something to her? Ha! "Fine, I will allow you to help me." She just wasn't sure exactly how he could help her, though.
"I won't lie. I don't know how exactly to help, per se... other than to give you someone to talk to. Someone who understands. Both what you're going through and what you are." He squeezed her hand a little there. "Someone who will listen and CARE."
"I have to ask, though, why now?" Lena asked him. "We've been around LA for the same amount of time, and you have never approached me before. You have never even tried to talk to me. Is it because we have something in common now?"
"We do. And because... I have a bond. With the Powers That Be. One I can't totally explain." But damn, he'd try. "They try to let me.... see things. Things that will help set people on the path they were meant to be on. And as soon as Luke left... I started getting visions of helping you."
"The path I was technically 'meant' to be on ended over five hundred years ago, Devon," Lena pointed out to him. It wasn't like she was off on that statement. It wasn't like being a vampire was anyone's destiny, you know. "And how can I be helped? Getting a soul or something?"
"....you DO realize, don't you... that *I* don't have one of those? I've learned to control myself through years of training, of... learning that just because you're a vampire doesn't mean you have no self control." He smirked, looking less like the innocent, almost gosh-shucks type he was around most people. Here? He almost seemed like he had an edge. "Souls are for the ones who need a lot more help being good. Some of us? Are strong enough to do it on our own."
"Hmm...and all this time I simply assumed that you had one," she said simply. She had figured that he had one like the guitarist, or maybe just severely mistreated by his sire like Elle and Damon had been. "So, you actually chose this path then? May I ask why?"
"Because early on, I realized that just because you CAN kill... doesn't mean you HAVE to. Let me ask you something, Lena. All the lives you've taken... other than the joy of sharing it with Luke... have any of those deaths brought you actual happiness?" He looked into her eyes there, searching for a glimmer of... of SOMETHING.
"I suppose I simply never thought about it before," she admitted to him. She did, now, though. Did death bring her the same happiness like she had experienced when she alive? No, but she had simply thought that being a vampire meant that you felt things differently. Was that actually not so? Finally, she said, "I don't know, Devon. I didn't think I was supposed to feel things the same way as I did when I was human."
"You're not. What we are is not human, and we can never fool ourselves into thinking otherwise." Did Devon truly have some divine understanding of what they were? Or did he merely have a more thought-provoking way of seeing it? "But it never, EVER means we have to stop trying to seem it."
"If we are not human, and shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking such, then why try to seem it?" she asked him, more out of intellectual curiosity than anything else. He didn't seem foolish enough to think that he could become human again or something like that, so why the sereneness?
"Because being in control of yourself isn't merely human. It's part of being a higher being. And not just some... some animal." He said, feeling like, at leas ton some base level, she was understanding what he was saying. Or at least TRYING to, which was a good first step.
She was understanding what he was trying to tell her. Was she agreeing or even believing it? Well, time would only tell on that account. "Then how do you feed?" A legit question, actually, considering he seemed to be talking about not killing. "Humans kill for their food. What's the difference? For all any of us know, animals are just as intelligent and 'higher' as we are."
"Because we aren't much different from humans. Other than our enhanced abilities... are we THAT different that it's not practically cannibalism?" He asked, raising a brow. Whether he was right or wrong... he stood by his convictions.
"That doesn't actually answer my original question," Lena pointed out to him. "So, if you'd rather not be a cannibal, then how do you eat?"
"Animal blood. Although I have been..." he looked for ways to word this. "I've been considering the ways of a few of my contemporaries. They will feed from humans, but only those that are corrupting their own kind. Murders, etc."
She made a face when he said animal blood. Might as well ask her to eat dog food, honestly. However, the idea of eating murders and such, 'evil doers', was at least not something that made her want to vomit, if she still could. "I can't imagine eating animal blood," she said to him with a look of disgust on her face. "If you are for protecting humans as much as you say, then getting rid of a few murders will do them better in the long run."
"My thinking exactly. The problem lies in one's own ego. Knowing where to draw that line. Too many have tried, only to fall further and further. 'if a killer's alright, then maybe a thief. If a thief is ok, then maybe a drunk driver...' all the way down to 'maybe a drink from this jaywalker...'... you see what I mean."
She nodded. "That would be where that self control that you talk about comes into play," she pointed out to him. "I'm sure you can figure out where to draw the line, after all. You're the one known for your zen-like attitude."
"Yes. It's not me that I'm worried about." He said, looking directly at her. "It's the others that attempt to try this method."
"Well, I'm not eating animal," she simply pointed out to him. Really, Lena Jacobs did not dine on animal blood. It was simply something that she did not do.
"Then... if you and I are going to get along..." He grinned, somehow feeling that she was actually hearing him, and willing to try. "We're going to have to find you a steady diet of cutthroats and scumbags."
Not exactly the most mouth watering of people, but she supposed it was at least worth a try. Besides, what else was she doing, after all? "Then I suppose we shall."