tampered | Log ongoing; closed

When; Dec 21st Evening
Rating; PG possibly PG-13
Characters; Buffy Summers

whattingawhat & Dominick Cobb

spinorfall
Summary; Buffy & Dom have dinner. Continued from here (An LJ Link)
Log;

"It's okay. I'm a champ at small talk. Have you--" She stops herself short of saying 'have you met most vampires' and then continuing on with a comment on their intelligence. She picks up after a brief pause. "met most boys? No offense but small talk isn't a guy thing. Most of the time anyway. And yeah...it probably does add to the complacency but it doesn't take a whole city full of un-complacent people get out of here. Just a couple."

She will now make it her mission to socialize him: movies, dinners, general goofing off, that sort of thing. That's far too long for anyone to go without casual socialization in her opinion and no one wants to turn into tall, dark and broody even if they are tall, dark and broody.

Buffy hopes he does as well; he cares and not all dad's too so it appeals to her daddy issues that he wants to see his daughter grow up.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Buffy nods as Dom speaks. She's not entirely following along, still trying to put his profession into one she knows about at home. "How do you sell a concept? Oh my god, you're a politician!"

She says this with a good deal of horror and teasing. She sobers then and smiles sympathetically. "I think things always get complicated and hard to explain-y when someone important dies. No one knows how to talk to you about it or not talk about it or be normal around you anymore."

Dom shifted back a bit as their food was brought, before leaning back towards Buffy. "...If I was, my life certainly would have been easier, I assure you." He paused, debating if he should tell her, and then, "I steal secrets. Straight out of people's minds."

A criminal. He hadn't always been that way, no. But it was what he had become.

He wasn't God. Even if he acted as one in the dreams.

At her words, though, he smiled, softly. "No, they don't. I've been on the run for two years. Telling people the truth wouldn't have made things easier. They could--they don't know what it feels like. To lose the largest part of you."

That gets some furrowed brow, more of a how than a judgment sort of thing. "So you're telepathic?"

Criminal is a loosey goosey sort of term where Buffy is concerned. She deals more in good and evil and she's just not getting evil off of Dom. Sure, she's been wrong before but in general, she's pretty good at calling it. Or maybe her idea of evil is just more movie and book evil than real world evil.

"They always want you to talk about it too. Like that's going to help and it just...doesn't. And you hope they never find out."

"No...it's complicated. It may exist in your world, but you wouldn't know--there is a drug that allows people to enter others dreams. Construct the world around them, enter the subconscious. It was originally created for military use--to train soldiers how to kill better, since you can die over and over in dreams...and most of the time, you just wake up."

Dom sighed, rubbing his face. "It's...complicated. I never meant to use it against people. But then the world changes, and you do what you have to." He wasn't a good man. Not even a great one. He was just a broken soul trying to get back to those who mattered the most.

"Or worse...they don't talk at all. They just give you...looks." What Arthur always did.

Buffy listens as Dom talks, brow furrowed and nodding every now and then. It sounds like something the Initiative would dream up. "What sort of information were you stealin' from them?"

Buffy is very sympathetic at that. She nods because she knows exactly what he's talking about. "It's like they think you're way too fragile for them to mention it."

Honestly, that had been more the problem when she came back from Heaven than when her mom died.

"Usually? Trade secrets. I worked for various corporations, stealing from competitors." Dom shrugged. "No real people got harmed." In theory. It wasn't true in practice, but he did his best not to harm innocent parties. He had some morals, still--even if they had been ripped to shreads by the past two years.

Positive trumps negative, always. Leave Fischer with good memories, even if it changes him.

"Or they blame you for it." Dom sighed, looking into his meal for a moment. "...my best friend asked me if I killed my own wife--his closest friend, as well." He looked up at her, giving a shrug. "You can understand the rift that would cause."

"It wasn't a lot of trouble to go to for a secret sauce recipe?" She didn't share the same opinion of Dom that he seems to. She liked him and he seemed like a nice guy. He definitely didn't set off her 'evil' radar anyway.

Definitely a strategy she could get behind when talking about people.

Buffy's brow furrowed and a look of concern crossed her face. She was protective of people she liked. In fact, she was protective of people period. "Yeah...that would put a kink in things. I'm sorry."

That actually got a laugh out of Dom, who simply shook his head. "It's a great deal more than that." In fact he would steal have to deal with Kobol when he got back home; if he didn't they would go after his children, his father in law, Arthur. He couldn't allow that.

Taking a few bites of food, he gave a shrug. "Don't apologize. But I appreciate it." Because, like Ariadne, she hadn't asked if he had actually done it.

He's got a nice laugh and it makes Buffy smile. "I guess it'd make business a lot more cutthroat. Or maybe just more sneaky."

It's obvious from the conversations they've had, he loves his wife. Buffy knows a thing or two about crazy killers. Dom doesn't, and hasn't ever, struck her as one. She also knows it takes a special level of evil, insane or motivation to kill someone you love. She's been there and she likes to think she could recognize someone that would do that. Dom isn't it. At least she doesn't think he is.

"You're welcome. Sometimes it's nice just knowing that somebody believes you."

Log ongoing; closed

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