MCA #0. Tuesday Night.

[needsaparrot]

Xander was expecting to have to deal with all kinds of fallout from this weekend; he knew minor property damage was likely to be the least of his worries. What he wasn't expecting was that it would somehow end up being his broken door he was currently fixing. Diligently. With every tool in his travel case, now moved out of his former room at the Arms, spread across the floor in front of the glass doors, just in case he might need them.

Trying to occupy himself so he didn't leave yet another voice-mail message, or start thinking too hard about why he hadn't had a response to any of them? Or thinking too hard about anything, really?

Why no.
___
[OOC: For do we really need to say? Why no.]

Comments

[needsaparrot]

"For you." Xander pursed his lips and gestured with his free hand. "Want...maybe not. Need might be another story. She left it with me on purpose because she knew I wasn't around to get it to you. Makes me think she knew that if she did talk to you..."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I'd try and stop her?" Bridge says quietly.

[needsaparrot]

"Well I'm hoping it was more like she knew you'd succeed."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I'd do *anything*," Bridge says seriously.

[needsaparrot]

He'd had one recording to listen to for years, and he'd heard the others when he got here, but Xander had still managed to forget that tone of utter hopeful sincerity, somehow. Or... not forget, but store somewhere in the back of his head where he didn't drive himself crazy thinking every day about how it used to apply to him.

So he had to swallow and blink for just a second, before he said, "You're a good friend."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Maybe I should bring Cam-Mollusc, if- *when* we go," Bridge musees.

[needsaparrot]

Xander laughed, in spite of the seriousness of the situation, when he remembered Cam-Mollusc. "You want to carry a squid in a ball around in LA?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I'm sure he'd want to see her!" Bridge protests, smiling just a little. "Which reminds me. I kept my promise."

[needsaparrot]

"...Narrow that down for me a little? You tend to keep most of them."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"The one about the frogsitting," Bridge clarifies.

[needsaparrot]

".....Jeremiah."

And yes, he had honestly - despite everybody's age, despite knowing it had only been months since he left them, despite talking about Callisto's pet - not realized what that meant until just now.

"I guess I had it in my head for a long time that... Well, frogs don't live all that long."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Bridge says. "I've still got him. And he's still purple, in case you were wondering."

[needsaparrot]

"Wow."

He started to admit that he still had the other frog, then realized what else he still had. Xander paused longer than he really ought to have before saying, "Which reminds me, I, ah, guess I should give you--"

Then he stopped entirely, staring at Bridge, because he hadn't noticed until now.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"What?" Bridge asks, confused.

[needsaparrot]

"You got a new badge." He was so used to the image in his head of Bridge wearing it that - despite having had it for the past six years - Xander hadn't thought anything of the fact that Bridge was, well. Wearing it.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Z got me one, for my birthday last month," Bridge explains. "I would've been fine without it, but there was this whole big thing with Cruger yelling at me."

[needsaparrot]

"Sorry I missed that," Xander said on auto-pilot. "The birthday, not the yelling." And by that he meant sorry he'd missed the last seven, except he hadn't, except he had, except he found himself not saying what he'd started to say, because...

Because there was Bridge with a badge, looking like he always had, and he was okay without the one he'd pressed into Xander's hand six years and five months ago.

"Glad she thought of it, though," he said instead.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"She's a great teammate, and an even better friend," Bridge says, and he *wants* to add that he was okay with not having a badge because *that* one belonged to Xander, except it's been almost seven years and he doesn't even know if Xander would have even kept it this long.

[needsaparrot]

"I lost... a lot, when we had to leave Sunnydale," Xander said, which wasn't a real lie, except that it sounded like he was explaining, and he wasn't. Bridge didn't even know about that part yet, Xander realized just after that, if he hadn't checked his e-mail. "I don't mean when they sent us off to school; about three years ago we really had to leave. The Hellmouth collapsed. No more town."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I'm sorry," Bridge says. Because even though he's always got the impression that Xander's only real attachment to Sunnydale is a particular handful of people who lived in it, and not the fact that he'd grown up there, what *else* does one say to something like that?

[needsaparrot]

"No more Hellmouth is a good, though. Well, no more Hellmouth there. Still one in Cleveland."

Xander stood up. "I do have something for you, though." Because he did. And not at all because he was covering in case Bridge remembered that he'd mentioned giving, a while back.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Yeah?" Bridge says curiously, to cover the disappointment over the sudden lack of a Xander next to him.

[needsaparrot]

"Bunch of stuff, really, that I picked up for people over the years. Most of it's in storage, though." This one he'd kept with him, for some reason; it was small, easy to carry. Sort of felt like a good luck charm.

"Be right back." Xander walked back to the master bedroom, where he'd stowed his luggage, though he'd not really unpacked much of it into the closets and shelves in the room. He spared a glance for the stuffed frog sitting on the bed, but ... yeah. No. Instead, he went to his carry-on bag and pulled something from the pocket, then returned to the den.

"Saw this in a little shop in Kenya, thought of you." He dropped a small wooden figure, about an inch-and-a-half tall, into Bridge's gloved hand.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"A giraffe," Bridge grins, turning it over in his hands- and resisting the urge to take off his gloves and *really* look at it. He looks back up at Xander. "It's perfect."

[needsaparrot]

He'd forgotten how blinding the wattage on that smile could be, too. It made Xander a little twitchy, for reasons he couldn't put a name to, though he grinned back, as he leaned over to pick up his hammer again.

"I should, um." He gestured at the door, which was boarded but not quite fixed in the frame. "Was doing a little damage control."