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text; un: harbinger
welp
looks like we found the new october
[Immediate kill bill sirens at the lack of sunrise tbh.]
if you're not stocked up on supplies do it sooner rather than later
before the other shoe drops and it gets too dangerous to go outside
last time the sun didn't come up it it came with everyone's running water all turning to blood and nobody could sleep while monsters were prowling around anywhere you could get food and attacking your place if you ran out of incense
just because it's quiet now doesn't mean it's gonna stay that way
be careful
[About ten minutes later, the post gets edited with an addendum:]
also i guess if you can't fight and end up needing shit, lemme know
[Look he can't just offer help publicly and not act at least a little grouchy about it. Who do you take him for, Ruby?]
looks like we found the new october
[Immediate kill bill sirens at the lack of sunrise tbh.]
if you're not stocked up on supplies do it sooner rather than later
before the other shoe drops and it gets too dangerous to go outside
last time the sun didn't come up it it came with everyone's running water all turning to blood and nobody could sleep while monsters were prowling around anywhere you could get food and attacking your place if you ran out of incense
just because it's quiet now doesn't mean it's gonna stay that way
be careful
[About ten minutes later, the post gets edited with an addendum:]
also i guess if you can't fight and end up needing shit, lemme know
[Look he can't just offer help publicly and not act at least a little grouchy about it. Who do you take him for, Ruby?]
perma private voice
Can't go wrong with more fighters around when shit hits the fan.
[. . .]
[He hesitates a moment, then sighs.]
--Look, if it's not safe where you are, you might as well crash with us til the sun comes up. We've got spare couches, at least.
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More worried about Tara, really.
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She was here with Willow for a while, right? Is it that she wouldn't want to come back 'cause of Oz, or...?
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[That's only a small part of it, but she doesn't feel comfortable discussing Willow and Tara's relationship problems right now.]
So she's been staying with me since Willow died. I think she'd be fine if she goes back there for a month, though convincing her would be... hard.
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Well...if she's fine with Oz, he is a vileblood, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind letting her crash in his study for awhile. The rest of us can keep our distance. What's the range on 'em, does she know?
[A beat.]
Plus...Oz was a Headmaster at a school for training people in that kind of thing, you know. Maybe he could help.
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Luckily, her reasoning is with the animal this time.]
It's... a bit more complicated than that. She wouldn't worry about hurting Oz but she'd worry about being judged. I'm a vileblood too, and also a horrible person, so she feels okay around me. [Absolutely NOT the wording that Tara uses, but it's what Faith thinks!] If you've got a room we can use, we can just roll up some bedrolls and I can look out for her.
But I think Oz and Willow [How did she just notice that Oz is the name of Willow's ex...], Ozpin and Willow are probably two of the best people to help her, yeah. As for range, it's just if it's skin contact. So. No screwing.
[The biggest problem in Tara and Willow's relationship...]
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...Yikes. [Genuinely, he looks mortified. What the hell kind of Pthumerian Bullshit is that?]
Well, for what it's worth, nobody's gonna judge Tara for having a dangerous power.
[The fear that Willow would was what had driven Qrow to storm out of the house during the vampire debacle in the first place. Qrow keeps that one close to his chest, though. It's too vulnerable a topic for someone he still has a fairly thin alliance-via-mutual-friend with.]
Like I said, Oz has experience in this kind of thing. He's seen just about every kind of dangerous power under the sun at this point.
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She feels like she's... wrong.
[Faith knows the feeling.]
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...No, that's it, that's about the size of Qrow's entire state of mind upon hearing that, because Faith has managed to stumble upon the one thing he can absolutely never ignore, no matter how much he'd rather stay guarded with a person.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.]
Like nobody in this world could ever really want her around, and if they did it was because they didn't understand what she was. Like anyone who decides to care about her anyway is making a mistake that they'll regret eventually.
[He lets out an exhale that carries a bone-deep exhaustion, and it's clear this isn't just any platitude. He has lived the pain she describes as long as he can remember.]
I get it.
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There's something rotten inside of her, more rotten than anything Tara can really conceive of because... even in her misery and guilt she's still thinking of other people, still trying to put them first. Faith is selfish, she's cruel, she's not good like Tara, or Buffy, or Ruby, or any of the friends she's made here.]
...Yeah. Me too.
[She's violent and unstable and broken, and any time she falters she explodes and catches whoever's unlucky enough to be in the radius.]
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Tara and Faith are not family. He should not feel obligated to do much more than offer. But the ghosts of the people who reached out their hand to him when he was young and lonely and miserable haunt him, and he can easily picture Summer's disappointment if he'd have shrugged and given up. He imagines Oz in that grand office, taking out the time to have cocoa with a kid who was desperate to have someone look at him.
He thinks, if they had met Ozpin before the vampire issue, this would've been easier. Oz had a comforting presence, the kind that put people at ease. He is all unpolished and jagged edges, and he does not want to cut in reaching out a hand.]
...When I was seventeen, I met Oz. I went to his school as a spy, to learn how best to kill his students by the time I graduated. He knew, but insisted on believing in me anyway, no matter how much I tried to hate him. How much I tried to show him he was wrong not to give up on me. He was the first one to ever think I could be something worthwhile, instead of garbage on the side of the road.
[On his end, he closes his eyes a moment.]
That's what I mean, when I say nobody'd judge her. It's a safe place to feel like that. Consider it a favor, if that helps. You guys can owe us one.
[There will be nobody who will collect. But sometimes framing it in terms that aren't merely kindness can help.]
Don't try to tough this one out alone out of pride. It's not safe.
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She wanted that. From Buffy, from Wesley, from Giles. Even from Willow. Someone to believe in her even after she's done everything in her power to prove them wrong. She's not sure if she's jealous or glad that Qrow found that.
But Faith also found that. Not in someone on a pedestal, kind and soothing, but in someone who was even worse than she was, once upon a time. Angel never gave up on her. He was willing to shelter her from the police, the government, the Watcher's Council, even Buffy. Even Buffy refused that, when her bodycount was a whopping one person, because of a stupid mistake. She wanted to turn Faith in, because she was scared, and she needed Faith to admit that it was all her own fault so she could rest easily with none of the blame. But Angel's not here, and now she's been finding her way on her own.
But she'd rather die than go begging Ozpin for scraps. So she's shifting the focus back to Tara.]
Look... I appreciate it, man. But it's not me you have to convince. I've been trying to talk Tara into getting some help from people who can actually help her since I got here.
Girl's stubborn in her self hatred. It's hard enough for her to open up to me. But I think I can sell her on staying at the house for the month, at least.
Probably best to ask Ozpin and Willow about it first, though.
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You've got a better shot at convincing her than me. Just thought some context might help, since all you guys really know about us is the vampire incident.
[Which was not anyone's finest hour, really.]
And Oz wouldn't turn either of you out under these circumstances, but what do you mean about Willow? I thought you guys were friends.
[An uncomfortable beat passes]
Or is it more an awkward breakup thing?
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But still, he probably (?) wouldn't.] Me and Willow are complicated.
We're alright now. Kinda. I mean, her girlfriend feels better confiding in me than she is with her, so I think there's some... obvious tension there. [Especially because she did take her long time comphet crush's virginity.]
We never got along back home, and that was before I betrayed her. Them. Which, y'know, naturally turned passive dislike into active hatred. But we were figuring it out before she died, and now we're... figuring it out again. [It helps, now that she knows they have common ground, and doesn't feel like Willow's looking down her nose at her.]
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Makes sense. That kind of thing takes time to sort out. But she'd still understand, I think. Dunno if she was there for October, but she was around last time we had to hole up for weeks because it got too dangerous to go out.
[And in his opinion if she did have a problem with it she should just deal? He and Oz weren't even on speaking terms that first October, and he invited his sister to their safehouse too, just for protection in numbers, making a truce even after having tried to kill each other the last they'd met.]
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She was never even holding it, though, was she?]
She won't kick me out and feed me to the wolves over something petty. She just might be a little uncomfortable if I suddenly burst into her home and kick my feet up. [Like Buffy did. Or like Buffy was with her general existence as another girl in all the world.] So it's probably best she gets a heads up.
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I can let her know I invited you.
[If she's annoyed about it, at least it'll fall on him and not the others.]