MCA0, Sunday Evening

[needsaparrot]

Okay, Xander, not usually a candlelight kind of guy, but then today's not exactly a usual kind of day. When you've been dating somebody for eighty-five years, give or take one, or possibly that's the other way around, your anniversary ought to be a little out of the ordinary, right?

Right, a little. Right. So Xander's taken the time to set up various things picked up on the mainland yesterday, as well as one retrieved from the Post Office, express mail from Brazil. The apartment's flickering with soft gold light, and Xander's waiting more than a little nervously for Bridge to let himself in.

This is a good idea, right? Right. Really. Right. Right.

[OOC: For the soon to be bewildered b-word-person. That Bridge showed up is fine for broadcast, what he finds... not so much. Eventually NWS.]

Comments

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

Bridge had been told in no uncertain terms to make himself scarce for the afternoon, and so he'd headed back to the dorms to do his own anniversary-preparations. And so, having gotten somewhat more dressed-up than usual, and with a small envelope held carefully in one hand, he's letting himself in to the apartment, the time not even a minute later than the one Xander had told him he could be back by.

Huh. Candlelight. That's... different. "Xander?"

[needsaparrot]

"Over here." That'd be coming from the darkened living room, right around the couch.

Not that dark, though.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

That's different too, actually. Bridge makes his way over to the living room as directed, and...

Yeah.

Really, really different.

[needsaparrot]

"Hey." This was a good idea. Right. This was a good idea. Right. Right.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Hey." Oh look, his voice still works. "You, um. Wow."

[needsaparrot]

This was a good idea. This was a good idea. This was a bad idea. This was Oh God, oh God, why did I do this?

"I, um. 'Cause. Um."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

Bridge's expression has moved on from shocked to, well, awe. That Xander would do this, deliberately, just because he'd mentioned...

"Um. Can I...?" he's not sure how to finish that sentence, exactly. The top three contenders at the moment are sit next to you, touch you, kiss you... but apparently all he's capable of managing right this moment is kind of a lot of staring.

[needsaparrot]

Xander just looks at him, uncovered eye wide, and not with fake innocence. More like teal deer caught in the headlights of a 747. And yeah, he's not giving up the patch, not when it was the one scrap of familiarity about himself when he looked in the mirror today.

He lacks Bridge's mind-reading skills, with or without gloves, but it's probably getting obvious by now even through Bridge's that if he doesn't do something that finishes that sentence, Xander's going to attempt to dig to China via a currently non-existent crack in the floor.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

Right. Okay. The envelope he'd been clutching flutters to the floor, forgotten, as Bridge takes a seat on the couch.

He reaches out, one hand tentatively touching Xander's hair. Xander's now much, much longer hair.

"You," he says, having finally regained the ability to speak in coherent sentences, "are the most amazing person ever. How did you even...?"

[needsaparrot]

And that's.... different doesn't begin to describe it, because the last time this happened, the one thing Bridge hadn't done, thank God or Xander would have completely lost it back then, was touch him. So maybe it's lame that this time, it makes him involuntarily shake a little. So, uh. Talking. Will distract from that, right?

"Willow. I mean, mine, the mine back home, this one's kind of mine too but she's younger and all oh that's what that song's about still so I didn't want her head to kersplode, and they're both all with the --" Gesture that ironically looks slightly less gay in this body. "--Gay Now but mine actually is, she talks more about boobs than I used to, so not so much with the kersplodey and besides she's in another dimension so I didn't actually have to look at her when I asked." Which might have been the biggest motivator there, shhh.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"You're shaking," Bridge observes, having followed all that since it's pretty similar to the way he talks, oh, almost all the time. His fingers, meanwhile, are sliding through Xander's curls, down his arm, until they reach *his* hand, at which point Bridge twines their fingers together.

[needsaparrot]

"No, I'm not," Xander says, except his grip on Bridge's hand is hard enough that you could almost imagine his own is a construction-worker's hand instead of... not. "...Okay maybe a little. It's just....this is weird."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"A little," Bridge admits, because he's not going to lie. "Can I..." and since he's already done two out of three, why not go for the hat trick? "Can I kiss you?" he asks tentatively.

[needsaparrot]

A little? A little? This is so weird. This is weird weird weird weird omigod I I I weird weird really-- "Please?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

And just like that, Bridge is kissing him. And the lips on his, the way they're Xander's-but-not, softer, smaller, different but still right, yeah, maybe it *is* more than a little weird.

[needsaparrot]

The more than a little more than a little weird thing is, when Bridge's lips touch Xander's, he suddenly knows what he's doing. This is familiar where nothing else is, this is the taste and the faint scratch of stubble against his skin, and the smell of him, that Xander's had burned into his brain for what seems like a hundred years, and maybe it is, or close. For just a second, there's nothing weird at all.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Wow," Bridge says breathlessly, for the second time that night. He just sits there for a moment, his forehead touching Xander's, his hands resting on shoulders that are, like a certain pair of lips, smaller than he's used to.

[needsaparrot]

"Wow-good?" It shouldn't be a question; it was definitely wow-good for Xander, but everything about him is upside down and inside out today, including the him part, so...

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Wow can we do that again, please?" Bridge figures that answers the question.

[needsaparrot]

"Yuh-huh." Which Xander didn't really need to say before demonstrating.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

It's only natural, then, that Bridge's hands wander down to the hem of Xander's shirt. He slips his hands underneath said shirt, and then... goes absolutely, utterly still, for a moment, before suddenly pulling away.

[needsaparrot]

Xander freezes a second after Bridge does, and he's not sure if it's for the same reason or because Bridge did, but when Bridge pulls back, it's like... getting knocked off a surfboard by a wave you didn't even see coming. Bad idea jeans bad idea jeans bad idea jeans...

"Too weird?" he says after a moment, eye flicking to Bridge's face and then away, down to his lap. Which is technically clad in size-too-big-because-he-guessed-wrong Wranglers, but they'll do.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"What?" Bridge gives Xander a puzzled frown. "Oh. Oh! No! Definitely not too weird, it's just..." he reaches underneath his own shirt for a moment, metal clinking against metal (http://pics.livejournal.com/needsaparrot/pic/000fdp6r) as he pulls off the small copper ball on a chain that Liir had given him on Friday. He reaches over and places it carefully out of the way on the coffee table. "There."

[needsaparrot]

Xander blinks at it for a second -- he'd seen the necklace Friday night, lying on the nightstand, but hadn't thought to ask about it later, when Bridge was awake -- then looks back to Bridge questioningly.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Liir's project for Inventiontronics class. It records a person's memories as long as they're wearing it," Bridge explains. "And this, tonight, this belongs to you and me. No one else." Well, aside from what had already been recorded, of course... Oops.