The Right Direction
Sneakers were not meant for three inches of melted snow. The mounds of white stuff had melted in a sudden blast of moderately warm weather, and now Avery had to traverse several puddles that could double for small lakes. He had a black Hefty bag full of trash, and he was attempting to reach the bank of garbage cans behind his building. A commotion across the way caught his attention. It seemed someone was being thrown out of the little Thai restaurant that resided on the street behind the vampire's. The owner and two fry cooks were firing away rapidly in some other language, gesturing for someone to leave out of the back door.

"It wasn't bloody cooked! Ya think I'm gonna let your patrons get salmonella!?" Whistler struggled to put his jacket on as he was unceremoniously escorted through the back door of the restaurant. For all intents and purposes, they believed him to be a shady city inspector, checking for health violations. But the underground rumor said they were covering up worse than a filthy kitchen; the owner was accepting 3am 'meat' deliveries that was said to be of the lupine stock. While the Agent expected such shady (and disgusting) dealings from a five-star restaurant, for a hole-in-the-wall take-out?

They screamed more obscenities in their dialect which the hatted man returned in kind. "Ya haven't seen the last of me, you sons of bitches!" he bellowed, brushing off his hat as the trio retreated behind the steel door. He made a mental note to check in with Rhiannon at the first opportunity. First and foremost, bestow the information Jill had passed on regarding the dragon and mutants underground at Lincoln Park, and to help keep an eye on this place.

Avery watched the scene unfold, bag still in hand. He had even forgotten the way his feet were squishing inside of his shoes. It took a moment, but recognition dawned on him, especially when he saw that hat. "Whistler?" The vampire tossed the bag into the bin, glass bottles clinking together. He took a step toward the agitated man. "I would have recognized you sooner, but your pants are up."

Okay, that came out wrong, but looking back on it, he wasn't sure there was a right way he could have said that.

Double-take. Just to make sure there wasn't anyone else in the street. That kind of comment could get a hybrid a very bad reputation. And he didn't need the absence of a heartbeat or a tiny buzz in the base of his skull to remind him, that he was in the presence of a vampire.

Carrying a trash bag.

Full of... trash. Regular, every-day garbage. No body parts, no dripping blood (though there was a tiny hole spilling something that had turned to liquid).

"My god, boy, doesn't yer sense o' smell warn ya to take that shit out when it's still fresh?" Whistler smirked.

The younger-looking man frowned, glancing back at the bin. "For your information, garbage pick-up was suspended for three days due to the holidays, and the bins were full. Overflowing, actually. If you think that's bad, you should have been around on Christmas." Avery took his reputation of cleanliness seriously. He was usually very prompt with trash disposal. "Besides, I'm not the one eating at that place. Even I wouldn't snack on the rats that scurry out of there."

He broke into a grin. "This is where I live." He said it proudly, as if it were an amazing feat. And maybe it was, for a vampire: paying rent, making an honest living. "Erm, inside the building, I mean."

"Glad you cleared that up," the Agent chuckled. "Considerin' what they might be servin' in that eatery, you made the right call."

Whistler pulled out his Sevens and shook out the pack. He couldn't remember if Avery smoked but held it open as he crossed over the street, avoiding the puddles. While he was happy enough to break in the new footwear, Whistler wasn't going to take many chances.

Another stray thought hit him. A vampire renting an apartment. It wasn't completely unheard of, especially now that the secret was out. But most tended to stay close to cemetaries and crypts, or abandoned buildings. Was that hard-wired with the demon who took over the body when resurrected? Or did things happen because they were expected to be that way?

"I'm lookin' for a place myself," Whistler continued as he lit up his cigarette. "How much're you payin' if I may ask?"

"600 for a one bedroon," Avery replied. He nudged the ground sheepishly with the toe of his shoe. "But that could be because I know someone who knows the manager. You know, a friend. They've helped me out with a few things. I used to live in cellars." He didn't mention that during his tenure with his sire, he had occupied much classier digs; the consequence of targeting the rich as prey. Margot had called it 'reparations'.

"Do you want to see inside?" It had been awhile since the vampire had a visitor, one who had been invited in, anyway. He was sure Thea breaking in didn't count.

Do I wanna... Uh. That was a good question. It wasn't beyond the hybrid's ability to make friends with all manor of demon, but in his experience vampires weren't one to return the idea. Whenever one asked you upstairs for a drink, you provided the mixer. Literally.

Whistler took a drag of his cigarette. "Uh, sure." Exhale. "If you're still, ya know, uh, on yer diet?"

Avery frowned, remembering his stint inside Connor's body and the sudden unexpected possession of a borrowed soul. "Of course I am. It's not like some New Year's Resolution thing. I've been doing this for seven years." The vampire led Whistler around to the front of the building. "Sorry," he said over his shoulder. "A little touchy lately. It's been a weird week. Weird by a vampire's standards, so you know..." He waved a hand vaguely.

Fishing out his keys, he opened the security door and punched the call button on the elevator. It was a restored vintage Rogers Park building, not as modern-looking as the other mid-rises, but it still retained a certain charm.

"When you hit a weird decade," the Agent remembered the 1890s with a shudder, "you lemme know." The lobby had a throwback feel, as if slightly lost in time. He appreciated that the owners didn't feel the need to glass and steel up the interior. "And you can't blame a bloke fer askin'."

"What, the 60s and 70s weren't weird? It was crazy when I was a human, let alone when I was turned," Avery shot back. "You don't have to worry. I won't bite you. I didn't bite my gir --" He broke off, stepping into the elevator and holding the door for the other man. "The girl I'm seeing, when I made her dinner here." Oh, jeez. "As in, I cooked her pasta, not like...yeah. I hate vampire innuendo."

He pressed the corresponding button, and the lift rattled upward. "So what does an odd, possibly psychic guy do over the holidays, anyway?"

"The 60s weren't so bad... okay they were, try findin' a called Slayer in Vietnam. That experiment didn't last long." Whistler climbed into the elevator as the doors closed. He was about to press Avery's floor for the hell of it but was beaten to the punch. He'd have to find another way to sell the possibly psychic angle. It was better than revealing exactly who he was, at least for now. Given present circumstances -- with the constant worry of Lincoln Park bleeding out into the rest of the city -- Avery might need to know a lot more before the year was done. The vampire could be a valuable asset to the white hats. If he controlled his aim, that is.

Whistler rested against the back wall of the elevator, cigarette still lit. "I went to IHOP and poured gravy over my pancakes, if ya must know. And here's a hint: they don't go well together." It wasn't nearly as exciting as holidays past. Nothing could top the time spent with Rhiannon. He hated not even seeing her Christmas Eve, but it was probably for the best. Give her time to be with Joseph and all. "So... pasta?"

Avery gave him a blank look. "Is that...slang for something? Because I only look like a teenager, you know." As they exited the elevator and made their way down the hall, the vampire gave Whistler a genial pat on the back. "Nah, I'm kidding, I know what IHOP is. They have good omelettes, judging by smell and presentation. Couldn't tell you much about the taste."

He opened the door, gesturing for the hatted man to enter the blue apartment. "And this is me." During the holidays, he had picked up a few more classic movie posters to decorate the walls. Alongside the Paul Newman were posters for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Citizen Kane.

"Yeah, pasta. Spaghetti and meatballs, to be exact. I got the recipe from mom, mom got it from Life magazine."

It wasn't at all what the Agent expected. Furniture, movie posters, painted walls. A domestic vampire? In Chicago? Take him now Powers, he'd seen it all.

Scratch that. They might take him up on it. "You're an odd bird, Avery. What else do I need to know about ya?"

Avery shrugged, gesturing to the black Ikea cast off. "You can have a seat. I don't have beer or anything manly like that. I tend to get carded, and I don't actually have, you know, documentation." He sat on the opposite end of the sofa, drumming his fingers on his knee. "Well, let's see. I'm a Princeton drop out, not by choice. I hail from New Jersey, and no wise guy jokes, please. I don't eat people, but you knew that. My best friend is a witch, and I date a girl who works at a movie theater." He shrugged. "What else do you want to know?"

Whistler searched for an ashtray lest he drop ashes onto Avery's floor. At his own flop, that wasn't a concern. "Uh." Ha. At a loss for words. The Agent, struggling for a narrative. More than a few friends and acquaintances would pay to see that.

"Did ya win yer fight? The one you were preppin' for in the park when ya nearly gave me an interesting piercing?" Good start. Ease into it.

He frowned a little. "It never went down. I saw...well, I saw something that threw me off guard. I thought Grace was a typical vampire, you know, hell bent on destruction. Then I met her...well, I guess she was her girlfriend. I'm still new to this whole thing, modern times and all. A human, one that she had been seeing for awhile and hadn't bitten her or anything. Maybe I thought I was the only one who did that, I never met anyone else besides my sire that held a relationship with a human."

Avery laughed a bit nervously. "It's a tad disconcerting when your first girlfriend ends up killing you."

"Ya never read Bram Stoker's Dracula then? 'Cuz he had a henchman -- okay a man one, eatin' bugs and all and sure they've got protein and in a pinch can keep ya goin' when you're in the middle o' butt-fuck Louisiana and yer car's broken down and there ain't a gas station for 40 miles --" Whistler paused and took a drag of his cigarette. The ash was getting longer than a Geisha's fingernails. "Where was I? Oh yeah. Can't judge a book by its cover. Or Keannu Reeves' acting. Wait, that you can judge." Shudder.

He shook his head slowly, not sure he had followed all of that. "Okay, well...I'll take that into consideration. Except that part about Louisiana, because I came upon something like that when I was researching an insult somebody had called me, and some things I wish I could un-see." Avery nodded decisively.

"Still, she isn't good. She ran Faith through with a knife, put her in the hospital. I already have to accept that the people I come to care about now eventually...well, someday they won't be here. I wasn't ready for her to leave yet."

Faith. The Agent had a file on her in his mental rolodex. Called when Buffy Summers was momentarily among the departed, went rogue, eventually reformed. And apparently she was in Chicago, as Avery indicated. "Then best ya learn how to fight by her side, 'cuz I'm gettin' the sense you let her do all the swishin' with the weapons?"

"That's not true," Avery replied indignantly. "I know my way around a stake. I even killed a demon awhile ago, before I got whammied into Connor's bo - " He broke off, once again, midsentence. "I blurt things a lot, that's another thing." The vampire stood and paced around the room once before stopping. "Okay, it's like this. Faith showed me a few things I didn't know before, more effective punching, for instance. I can hold my own just fine, have been for forty-eight years. But Grace was intent on destroying me for awhile, and then next thing I know, she's in a sandwich shop acting almost friendly."

He threw up his hands. "Then some weird stuff goes down and I'm inside Connor's body and he's in mine. And I suddenly feel awfully bad about what I used to do, like slaughtering this ballet company and not telling my parents I was dead in a ditch somewhere. Then they died and it was too late. The cheeseburger wasn't worth it at all. It may as well have been a guilt sandwich."

The vampire sighed and sat down again.

The ash dropped onto the floor. Whistler quietly crept his new boot over to cover it. His jaw falling was a bit more obvious.

Body swapping. Vampires with a revolving blood vendetta. People in two-twos. And he thought Searchlight was strange...

"Did... did it have pickles at least?" he asked.

"I don't like pickles," Avery said sadly. "They make me rashy." He picked at a hole in the knee of his jeans. "Also, I think I caused Connor to gain about five pounds, and this doctor tried to convert me to Christianity, I think. I said no because, well, if all indications are correct, I have a one way ticket to hell when this body finally turns to dust." He shrugged resignedly.

"There will probably be mounds of pickles and lots of Law and Order." He shuddered.

"Jerry Orbasch was a hybrid ya know." Whistler thought he'd throw that out there.

He got up, crossed into the kitchen and ran the butt end of his cigarette through tap water. Sufficiently doused, he tossed it into the empty garbage pail. "So if yer lookin' to redeem your soul, Avery -- and I ain't sayin' it's easy -- I might have a first step for ya."

"If it has anything to do with spells, I'm not sure I'm interested. Plenty of people have been telling me about these Angel and Spike characters. Especially Faith." Avery frowned, remembering how the Slayer had let slip about her dalliances with the latter. "But any other suggestions, I'm open to." He watched Whistler toss out the spent cigarette. "Were you around when they had those ads like, 'as a doctor, I recommend Camels for aiding in digestion'? Those were crazy."

He shook his head, trying to get back onto the subject. "Sorry, I have an attention problem. Dates back to before the fangs."

"Who do ya think wrote the ads?," Whistler teased. He winked, just to drive home the joke. "No spells, Avery. And no Shanshu either, which I'm guessin' if you've heard about the fang gang, you'd know about that too. But it could go to lightening the burden on yer soul."

He really wished the vampire had beer in the refrigerator. It wouldn't make much sense of course. Lack of taste and a high tolerance to getting drunk. But gods could the Agent use one.

"Nah I'm talkin' about fightin' against the dark, alongside Faith and others. Trust me, in these times," he waggled a finger, "we could use all the help we could get."

"I know. I mean, I've been trying. People question why, I don't think they understand. Having a conscience while not having a soul. But someone wise once said, and I'm paraphrasing on this, people can't understand a virtue in someone else that they couldn't imagine in themselves." Avery nodded toward the fridge. "I do have juice and soda, if you're thirsty."

Juice. The vampire had juice. And five got you ten that it wasn't tomato. Whistler needed to laugh, but that would be impolite. "I'm good; might hit the bar on my way back to the flop."

He pressed the small of his back against the kitchen counter, both hands gripping the ledge. "Who cares if they don't understand? As long as you do. And as far as one... vampire against the world goes, you can only do so much. I'm offerin' ya something larger than yourself, Avery.

"To make a real difference." The hybrid waited a tick. "Ya know, between makin' spaghetti an' meatballs fer your sweetie."

"So, what do I do then?" Avery looked at Whistler curiously, fully attentive now. Even with the passing mention of Francess. "I mean, how can you offer it to me? I thought it was something I had to do for myself." The vampire stood up, deciding maybe he'd pour himself something. When he opened the fridge, his usual mode of order was present: human edibles on one side, pig's blood in neatly labelled tupperware on the other. There were even labels in neat script, reminding when he had purchased the blood.

He pulled out a carton of orange juice and a glass from an overhead cabinet and poured. "Lead me in the right direction."

He chose orange juice over pig's blood. Whistler's brain twisted about 30 degrees. "You make the choice; that's for yourself. You join the battle, that's also your choice. You help the 'greater cause'," gods help him the Agent actually made air quotes out of bent fingers, "and again, that's something you do for yourself but it benefits a whole world. As for direction..."

He just couldn't get over it. Avery was in danger of becoming an undead Martha Stewart.

"One step at a time, Avery." Whistler really needed a drink. "As for the first... can I please suggest we go somewhere where they serve both OJ and beer?"

Avery perked up and grabbed his jacket. "Sure, but you'll have to say you're escorting me in because no one believes I'm 21. You can say you're my dad or something." The vampire grinned and led the way to the door. "Do you have an extra hat? It might help with the family resemblance." He picked up his keys off the hall table.

"Don't push your luck, kid." Whistler wrapped one arm around the vampire and ushered him out the door.