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]

"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."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Right," Bridge says, gaze following the direction Xander indicated. "And... yeah, I've got class tomorrow."

"I'll see you later?" Bridge says hopefully as he stands up.

[needsaparrot]

There was only so much you could ask of a guy trying to make sure things stayed not-fucked-up, and not seeing Bridge was way across the international borders of the Land of Too.

"Well, yeah. L.A. Plus if you've got time sometime soon--" Xander gestured to the boarded door again. "--I was hoping you could take a look at the alarm on the door. Undead-me did a real number on it, and this security system's way beyond anything I've ever helped install."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I can do that," Bridge says with a grin, as he turn to head out the door. "It's good, having you back," he adds over his shoulder as he leaves.

[needsaparrot]

"It's good to be here," Xander said. He waited until the door closed, though, to add, "I missed you."

Then he walked into his - the - bedroom and picked the stuffed frog up off the pillow. He stared at it for a while, touched the badge that had been pinned to it for so long the fur was worn down around it, then carried it across the room and placed it on a shelf.