onlythebranch | (no subject)

Mad Sweeney has been quiet lately.

Quiet for a man like him is different than it is for most people, something that amounts to fewer fights and more nights spent at home -- or Spike's flat, as it were -- and more drinking. He's still a loud mouthed pain in the ass to anyone who cares to speak with him, that'll never fucking change, but he's not been found out and about as often in the past few weeks as he usually is.

There are memories troubling him lately. Not memories. Places where there should be memories. It's this that keeps him quiet and indoors.

But something tells him to go out tonight. Never one to ignore the signs, or rather, never one to ignore the signs he prefers, he listens to whatever sense is telling him to go and he goes. His denim jacket is yanked on over his shirts and he presses a cigarette between his lips as he steps through the front door of the apartment. When it's lit, he sets out, not entirely sure where his feet will take him, but assuming he'll know it when he gets there.

With his cigarette glowing in the deepening dusk, he sees Lisbeth's small, familiar frame, and realizes he's changed direction without consciously doing so. He heads for her, finishing his cigarette, then tilts his head and gives her a small, twisted grin.

"Lookin' for some company, darlin'?" he asks, hoping the answer is yes. This is where he was meant to go tonight. He's not sure how he knows it, only that he does. The same way he knows other things. Something else he pulls from the hoard.

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He doesn't have much of a tribe any longer, certainly doesn't have any army to his name these days, but there's something in the way she asks the question that makes him feel like it could be possible. That, or something very much like it.

"Think it might've been inevitable, lass," he answers. "And I'm a leprechaun, remember. All I fuckin' know is luck and light. You can trust me on that bit of information."

Looking at her, he knows why she doesn't think the word would've been used to describe her, but he remembers their first meeting, the tiny woman with electricity in her hands, and he doesn't know how he can be expected to see anything else.

"Well, if the fucking leprechaun says it, then I believe it," she says, but not even the way she ducks her face keeps the smile hidden. She feels better, she feels good. She'd expected to feel better for having said it, but the rest of the conversation-- she tries to imagine a world where someone would have recognized why she'd turned that car into a bonfire, or a world where she didn't have to worry about these men putting themselves over her.

"Thank you," she says eventually. "For all of it. It's never been like this for me. People I can talk to without feeling like I'm completely fucked."

"Make friends with a couple more immortals," he suggests with a grin. "You'll find we've seen too much shit to think much of anything is fucked."

He doesn't know Sam. He can't promise Lisbeth that he won't react like a complete fucking prick, but he's got a fairly good feeling that's not going to happen. Whoever he is, Lisbeth cares for him a great deal, probably even loves him, and with the shit she's just told him, he has to figure that doesn't always come easy. If she cares about him, if she loves him, he won't be a shit about this.

And if he is, Sweeney will crush his fucking head.