Who are you (Ripper and Faith)

[watchmerip]

Fighting against one's destiny was a tricky business; while Ripper knew he had a slightly easier time of it than, say, a slayer, since he didn't have any mystical forces compelling him to become a watcher, he also knew how difficult it could be to rebel against something that the whole world seemed to be pushing you into. He was doing pretty well so far, but he couldn't help but be curious about whether or not it would last.

Looking into the future was imprecise and not completely trustworthy, but it was also not guaranteed, so he still had a chance to avert it if he didn't like what he saw. Theoretically, the spell he had found ought to show him a glimpse of whatever future event he chose to look into. The spell had warned against trying to look into your own future, but Ripper had dismissed that as over-cautious nonsense.

It wasn't difficult to set up the spell, the hardest part had been finding a large enough bowl, it needed to be filled with water so he had something to watch the vision in, in the end he'd gone with a child's paddling pool. The cheerful dancing sea creatures on the sides didn't exactly scream occult mysticism but they would have to do.

Everything seemed to be going to plan until about halfway through the spell, he started to suspect he should have read a little more of the fine print right around the time the dizziness hit. His vision was going blurry and he was quite sure that wasn't meant to happen, but the spell had taken hold and he couldn't stop it now even if he wanted to.

He felt like he was pitching forward, the surface of the water rushing up to meet him, and then suddenly he was plunging through it, deeper than the plastic container had any right to be, bubbles streaming around him and obscuring his vision even further.

Then, just as quickly as it had started, it was over. His vision cleared, the dizziness dissipated and he was left, lying on his back in soaking wet clothes and staring up at an unfamiliar sky.

"What the bloody hell just happened?" he asked the world at large.

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The world did not deign to answer.

A young woman, though, let loose a filthy string of curses before hitting the ground beside her new friend with a heavy thud. Almost as fast, she was getting back to her feet, sparing her guest a wayward glance.

"Gonna have to deal with you in a second, Skid Row." She wiped blood from her cheek, grabbed a stake from her boot and surged forward toward her opponent again.

[watchmerip]

Ripper sat up abruptly as the woman fell beside him, watching her with surprised eyes as she leapt back to her feet within seconds. He opened his mouth to give a smart-arse response but for once was sadly lacking in anything to offer. He'd asked for a glimpse of his future, what he currently appeared to have got instead was an unscheduled swim and an unceremonious dumping into the middle of what appeared to be a fight between an attractive young woman and a... Ripper's eyes widened further.

"Is that a vampire?"

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"Nope!"

Yep. Faith sounded pretty darn comfortable denying the existence of vampires, considering she was currently pressing one back inch by inch into a corner. It hadn't exactly been a fair fight for the poor newbie until Faith was caught off guard by a guy randomly appearing behind her.

Fortunately she'd dealt with plenty of weird, and recovering from the situation hadn't taken her too long. Faster than should've been possible, Faith was on top of her quarry, stake buried in its chest and out again.

[watchmerip]

Ripper was genuinely intrigued whether or not the woman would continue to deny the existence of vampires as the one she just staked burst into dust before his eyes, and for a moment it was enough to distract him from trying to solve the mystery of what had happened and where he was.

Now that the fight appeared to be over, he pushed himself to his feet and tried to dust off his jeans until he realised that, with how soaking wet his clothes were, it was a completely pointless endeavour that only served to get his hands dirty.

"Here's a question you might be able to answer. Where the bloody hell am I?"

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"East Cleveland Township Cemetery." Faith's answer came with ease. She tucked the stake back into her boot and stood in a fluid motion, the way someone who's done it ten-thousand times before might.

She rounded back onto Sid Vicious, moved toward him with something more akin to predator than inquirer. "Who are you?"

Translation: do I need to take care of you?

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"Never heard of it..." he shot back, sassing almost more out of habit than any real hostility. It took a moment for her words to properly sink in, and he frowned. Cleveland. Wasn't that a place in America? Her accent certainly seemed to back it up... but how had he gotten to America in the few seconds his unexpected dip had taken?

"Name's Ripper," he introduced himself, his expression wary as he took in the predatory nature of her movements "Who are you?"

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Sass and wariness? Faith totally knew that language. She'd been speaking it her entire life, and now she was hedging less toward throwing a punch and more toward that talking thing.

Hey look, she's grown.

"Faith. What are you doing here? Not really a great place for punk wannabes this time of night." She held her ground, arms crossing in a defensive but not wholly dismissive action. She sure wasn't about to just leave the dude here, even if he did just call himself Ripper.

[watchmerip]

"If I knew, I'd-" he stopped, bristling when he caught up with what she'd called him "Wannabe?" he scowled "Like you'd know what punk was if it kicked you in the teeth." he shot back dismissively. Groping for his pocket, he pulled out his cigarettes, pulling a disgusted face when he realised the pack had soaked through with the rest of him and they were all ruined.

"Fuck's sake..." he muttered, shoving the sodden packet back and turning his attention back to her, while he wasn't particularly fond of her after that little wannabe crack, she was also the only person anywhere around who might be able to help him, or believe him when he explained what happened "I tried to do a spell, it brought me here... "

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"Here."

She'd already reached into her jacket pocket and produced both items he'd need to help calm his nerves. It was barely a second thought to hand both the pack of smokes and the lighter over. If this was some kind of weird trick to try to get on up on her, he kind of earned it. Don't ask where that logic came from.

It also gave her a reason to get closer to him. Faith was always more effective close up.

"You a witch or something, Ripper?" His name carried with it maybe just a teeny bit of mocking. Faith couldn't help that his name was kinda cheesy.

[watchmerip]

Well, that move definitely endeared her to him a lot more, and he took the offered items with a mumbled thanks, lighting up a cigarette and taking a long drag, offering her the pack back.

"Something like that," he shrugged "I dabble, this and that..." like summoning demons for a high, or worshipping chaos gods for fun (well, okay, maybe that one was more Ethan), occasionally they fought vampires, but more out of desire for the thrill of the fight rather than any attempts to actually help people.

"What about you?" he glanced at the dusty remains where her adversary had previously been, then back to her "Slayer?"

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She had just got the pack pocketed when he casually pegs her as a vampire slayer after saying he dabbled? Shit.

"OK, what's the deal, here? Buffy send you to check up on me or something? Cause I gotta say, I get enough helicopter momming from Captain Cardboard. So you can screw off back to Scotland and tell the General Slayer her little pawns are all doing just fine here." And with that, she turned to start stomping away back to her apartment where there was a nice warm shitty TV dinner waiting in the fridge.

[watchmerip]

Had it been anybody else, any other time, Ripper might have let her stomp off, but here? Now? When he was alone and she was the only person he'd encountered so far? A person who luckily enough didn't think him crazy when he talked about magic? He wasn't about to let her get away with her misconceptions.

"Hey, hey, hold up," he jogged after her "I don't know who 'Buffy' is, what kind of a name is Buffy anyway? I don't know what you're talking about, I do know I'm not from fucking Scotland. Look... I can guess you're the slayer because I was at the watcher's academy, okay? But I dropped out, don't have anything to do with them anymore, it just means I know what's what, right?"

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Watcher's Academy. Sigh. Great.

Faith's going to go ahead and work off of the assumption that he'd been working with the Watcher's Council when it went down and is fishing to get back in now that the revolution is over. Which is great for Ripper, because that decision makes Faith change from stomping to just normal old walking.

"C'mon. I'll drop you off at HQ, then." She's just the muscle, people. Stop trying to give her actual responsibilities.

[watchmerip]

"HQ?" Ripper questioned, slowing to walk beside her. He was glad she'd decided not to storm off, but he didn't like the sound of what she was saying.

"What HQ is this? I just want to get home again, that's all. My spell didn't work, now I want to get back to London." the last thing he wanted was to get mixed up with watchers and slayers and destiny, not when that was what he'd been running from since he left the academy, not when that was the opposite of what he'd hoped to see when he cast his spell.

OH CRAP i lost this i'm so sorry!

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"Yeah well, I'm the go to for dirty deeds done dirt cheap, not Watcher drama. That stuff's for Watchers, i.e., HQ..."

Faith picks the pace back up, before scowling and turning to take another look over Ripper. "What uh, what spell were you trying to do, anyway?"

Re: OH CRAP i lost this i'm so sorry!

[watchmerip]

"Look, I don't want any watcher drama, they're just going to send me back to the academy." He'd put considerable effort into staying away from any watchers, slayers or anybody asssociated with either, and while he'd dabbled in a bit of demon hunting (well, and demon summoning) or vampire slaying just for the rush of it, there was no way he wanted to be dragged back in to the stuffy destiny brigade.

"I was trying a spell to see how my future would turn out," he admitted, a little sullenly.

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It gives her a little pause, but it's not enough to connect any dots just yet. As they walk further toward the city, signs of life take up space in the streets. More traffic, more people, fewer warehouses and freight containers. Cleveland's not so bad, as long as you're not hoping for Los Angeles.

"Maybe you're gonna wind up in Cleveland someday, then." Seems ... sort of legit. If not self-fulfilling.

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"I don't really care where I end up, as long as I'm not a watcher," he shrugged, though he had a horrible feeling that might be what the spell was trying to tell him. It wasn't just that he landed here, he specifically landed right by a slayer in the middle of fighting a vampire...unless it was trying to tell him he was going to be a vampire, which also wasn't a particularly attractive prospect. Especially because, if he was a vampire, why would he choose to live out his immortality in Cleveland? It didn't look all that special to him.

"I dunno though, it was supposed to show me the future in the surface of the water, instead the water pulled me in and took me here... no idea if this is something to do with my future or just a completely random result. Not sure why it would fling me halfway round the world of course, but that's magic for you."

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She hates it. Faith hates the fact that she's interested and curious-- enough that she stops herself dead in their tracks, with no warning.

"OK, hang on. Are you hungry at all?"

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Ripper stops up short behind her, nearly falling over at the suddenness of his but managing to catch himself just in time.

"Hungry? ...Sure, I could eat." he agrees, relieved that she seems to be changing her mind about taking him to the watcher's council. No doubt they would have a lengthy lecture for him about improper use of magic as well as sending him back to the academy, that's something he's more than happy to avoid.

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She waves him around the corner, and into the door of a dive bar. Dark, damp, and near-empty, the only other customers are loner types that have planted themselves at the bar at calculated distances from each other.

"OK, so you don't wanna be a Watcher but you like screwing with magic." Faith plops herself into a small rickety table in the corner, waving her new buddy to take the seat opposite her. She then nods to the bartender, eyes flicking to Ripper and back.

"What year is it where you came from, again?"

[watchmerip]

Ripper barely even blinks as they walk into the bar, it's pretty clear that he's used to this kind of place. Well, that or he's really good at pretending he's used to this kind of place.

"Yea, that about covers it," he agrees, dropping into the seat opposite. The question makes him raise an eyebrow, it's the first time he's really stopped to consider the possibility - sure everything looked a little odd here, but this was the states, it stood to reason that things might be different to how they were back home, the thought that he'd moved in time hadn't occurred to him. Now that she said it, it made sense, maybe he was here to see his future...

"...1978" he said slowly.