Iris Dickinson (Formerly Iris Phillips McConnell) (telekeneticspaz) wrote in btvsal, @ 2009-02-10 12:47:00 |
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Current location: | Jeremy's House |
Current mood: | scared |
Entry tags: | iris dickinson-lewis, jeremy lewis, place: la |
What the Hell Are You Doing?
Who: Jeremy and Iris
Where: Jeremy's House
When: Monday Night
Jeremy had honestly wondered if seeing a ghost in his home was a sign. A sign, perhaps, that this would be the night his little ritual would finally come to an end. As he closed his bedroom door, he slowly opened the drawer of the end table near his bed... and pulled out a small revolver. Sitting on the end of his bed, with almost no emotion, he took out one bullet. Sticking it in the chamber, he rolled the barrel, letting the bullet end up where it may. He'd done this every night for the last two years since his love had been killed: one bullet, one pull of the trigger. If it was his time? The bullet would end up firing. It had become a sick, but sad, nightly ritual for him. He held the gun to his head, and his finger slowly wrapped around the trigger, preparing to see if tonight was indeed his night.
Iris decided to test the boundaries to a specific point in the front yard. It seemed that the closer she walked to the edge of the front yard, the more and more of a tug that she felt in her lower abdomen to go back. She lifted her foot and tried to step off onto the street, only to pop back into the bedroom...and into one of the more frightening scenes she had seen in a while. "DON'T!" she screamed, and the gun suddenly went flying from Jeremy's hands and across the room. She hadn't done that part on purpose, but it seemed to serve the need at the time.
Blinking in shock, he spun his head to look at her, stammering a bit. "....what are you doing?"
"Apparently, if I try to walk off the property, I turn back up in here," she said, sounding breathless. "That's not the point. What were you doing with a gun? Do you know how much it completely and utterly sucks to be dead? Trust me on this one."
"I do this every night. Every. Night." He sad, no emotion to his voice at all. "If it's meant to happen... it'll happen."
"No....walking off of a sidewalk and getting hit by a bus is something that might be meant to happen. Playing Russian Roulette is tempting fate in the worst way. Why are you doing this?"
"Look... I... I don't want to talk about this. I just..." He hung his head then, shame setting in at having been caught like this. "I have nothing left."
Iris sat down on the bed beside him. The bed didn't move or sink in like with a regular person, though. "You're wrong about that. Death isn't the answer to anything. It's not even a finality." He could certainly trust her on that.
The scary part was... he wasn't upset. He didn't look sad, or trembling, or anything. Just... resigned. "I only met one person in my life who ever really cared about me. REALLY cared about me... and she's gone. And it's my fault."
"How is it your fault?" She couldn't really picture this guy hurting anyone, so it had to be one of those cases where he blamed himself for something that wasn't his fault, right?
"We were training. It was supposed to be just Camilla and her potential, out alone." He closed his eyes, finally starting to tremble a little at the memories. "I tagged behind them, because I was worried about her. But they were attacked, and the vamp came after ME. And Camilla threw herself at the vamp to protect me. If I hadn't been there... she would still be alive."
She put her hand on top of his, although it felt more like a gentle breeze than anything solid. "What makes you think that it would have went better if you hadn't been there? What happened to her potential?"
"I would guess she's a Slayer now... I kind of.... went into shock for quite a while. This is my first assignment since the Council deemed me mentally stable again." He pointed to the gun, across the room. "How little they know, hm?"
"Well, now you've got another girl depending on you. What's she going to do if one night that bullet ends up in the wrong chamber?"
"Catherine's a good girl. She'll be fine whoever gets assigned to her." He stated almost too quickly.
"But how do you think she'll handle it?" Iris asked. "She might take it the wrong way and think that you blowing your brains out might have something to do with her."
His next question was stated simply, not as a sarcastic remark... only as a sincere inquiry. "...why do you care?"
"Besides the fact that I don't want to see anyone stuck like I am?" Iris asked. "You seem like a nice guy, and what happened, whether or not you can see it, wasn't really your fault. You shouldn't do something like this to yourself."
"Figures... I finally meet someone who seems to give a damn about me... and she's already dead." He smirked, silently cursing every god he could think of.
"Well, I'm sure that your Slayer cares about you a little as well," Iris pointed out. "I may be dead, but it seems that I'm at least sticking around for a while. Could be a lot worse."
"I...." he couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't unintentionally sound insulting, so he just smiled, and layed back. "I'm sorry... after everything you've been through, this kind of had to seem like a slap in the face."
"No! It's not anything like that at all," Iris told him, reaching out to caress his face. For all she knew, maybe this was why she was around: to keep him from hurting himself. She'd rather be able to be alive and doing it, but maybe this was the only way.
He wished he could actually feel her touch, as it'd been so long since he let anyone past his defenses at all... but for now? This would definitely do. "You're a good woman, Iris."
"You're a good man, Jeremy," she told him back. Maybe she could make him see that one of these days. "We've got to get rid of that gun, though."
"You're not really giving me a choice, are you." He said with a sad smirk.
"Not in the least." She gave him a smile back. "That's not a good thing to keep around."
"Well..." He sighed, and finally gave a resigned nod. "I'll get rid of it in the morning."
Iris was pretty sure she could get rid of it before then, but she nodded just the same. "Sell it to a pawn shop or something."
He nodded with a sad smile. "You know... you remind me a lot of her. Camilla, I mean."
She kept smiling at him. "What was she like?"
"She cared about me. And when she cared about someone... she wasn't afraid to be a little bossy if she knew she was right." He laughed, smiling sincerely for the first time in as long as he could remember. "And... she was beautiful." He said, looking up to gaze into her ghostly eyes.
"She sounds like she was a hell of a woman," Iris told him, returning his smile. "I'm sure that she'd want you to stick around now, though. I know I'd like you to stick life out."
"Well..." He forced a little laugh, at the very least, feeling for once like he actually might want to keep on keeping on. "I think I could get used to having my very own ghost hanging around..."
"Not like I"m giving you a choice here," Iris said. Not like the fates were giving either of them a choice. "I'm here for a while."
"Well... I guess.... welcome home, Iris." He said, relaxing again, and trying to prepare for a new day... and a new outlook.