Title: For Show (1/1)
Author: Morgan R.
Email: Lshallot@juno.com
Rating: PG
Summary: People watching
Feedback: Yes, bolster my confidence
SPOILERS: Dad
Author's Note: Don't really know where this came from. Maybe the fact that there were things I wanted in the last ep which didn't appear. But hey, Lorne moved in. Life's full of trade-offs.
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Arlan wasn't...shall we say...fond of Los Angeles. His time there was a numbing sort of purgatory. Hadn't he given everything, even his right to death? Seven hundred years of service, and they assigned him here, to a place so foul and shiny that he occasionally forgot what beauty even looked like.
So Arlan sat in the cafe, watching people come and go, angrily categorizing each one. Of course, the categories were fewer in this hideous town than anywhere else on earth, so it was hardly a challenge. Plastic was supposed to be supple and changeable, but everyone was so completely the same...
When a couple sat down at a table near him, a bitter smile twisted his face. "Hello," Arlan murmured. "I'm sure we've met before, every single day that I've been trapped here. Lovely to see you again."
"I don't know, Cordelia. It seems a bit unlikely to me," the man said in an almost painfully British accent. Arlan smirked. "Yes, Cordelia, what a subtle stage name. Have you ever actually read Shakespeare, or did your agent recommend that name for sounding so classic? Did he promise it would give you an edge at auditions?"
"Oh, Wesley, don't say that. Just hear me out..."
"Yes, Wesley," Arlan pleaded. "Don't make me return home, where I thought I was something special back when I was younger. Don't confirm all my convictions that tell me I'm wasting my life here." He had seen her face so many times before, in so many centuries. She was old early, and that was something Hollywood would hardly forgive. There was an exhaustion in her slim figure which she tried so valiantly to hide, and Arlan wondered how much she would have to hate herself before she finally gave up.
She slapped Wesley's forearm. "Hey! I'll have you know Connor loves me. He knows I'm wonderful, even if you've forgotten."
"You do know I'm a whore, don't you Wesley? You know I'd give myself to any man for the promise of one last chance? It isn't about acting, it isn't about the craft. We both know I'm not worth anything, but fame- fame would at least mean the rest of the world could love me."
"Yes, well, Connor is destined to have rather odd preferences when it comes to friends and family, don't you think?"
Arlan almost laughed out loud. "Cordelia, you should know better than to make Wesley angry. He might be your last chance, after all. If Connor could help you, wouldn't you be begging him for favors right now?" He could smell Cordelia's fear like an expensive perfume, the scent familiar but rarely so overpowering. She must be older than she looked.
He missed whatever her next plea was, unsurprising considering how muffled her words were. "Oh dear, you'll never make it in the movies if you can't enunciate."
"How long has it been since your last one?" Wesley asked.
"Long enough to make me worry," she answered with a nervous smile, and Arlan coughed to cover his annoyance. How anyone could live a life made up of miserable rejection, he would never understand. What was an audition but a chance to be insulted in new ways?
Regardless, he was bored. Voyeurism was hardly entertaining in a place that encouraged it, and he was preparing to leave when-
"Cordelia! Dammit, I've got you-"
Arlan's eyes widened as he felt the motion of psychic energy swell around him, all of it centered on the girl's dark head. She was shuddering, her body jerking in agony, and her face contorted with the kind of pain you would never find in the movies. It was a familiar sight, but one Arlan had never seen inflicted upon a human before. She would break, he thought in a panic, she would split open and the vision would skitter around the tiled floor of the restaurant. Other patrons were staring at her in concern and distaste, disturbed that she had damaged the homogenous perfection of the scene.
The vision ended, and Cordelia slumped in her chair, still shaking in the aftermath. Wesley hovered at her elbow, holding her upright, throwing down money for their untouched food, and helping her stand. The swell of shallow conversation which painted over their hasty exit reminded Arlan of where he was, and that he couldn't stay there forever.
A seer. A human seer with expensive clothes and a weary soul, and Arlan had hated her for blending in too well.
He readjusted the short sword strapped at his back, clenched his jaw, and left through another door.
Not a stage name, then.
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finis
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