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

[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.

[needsaparrot]

Xander's mouth falls open. "...Uh. Yeah. That would be be..." He reaches up to scruff his hand through his hair, forgetting it's not exactly his hair, and tangles his own fingers in it. Which draws a snort of laughter, followed by another, and another.

And suddenly he can breathe again and this whole thing isn't scaring the crap out of him. ...As much.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

And Bridge is grinning back at him, because Xander's laugh is just one of those things that always brings him joy (even when it's the teasing kind of laughter that means he's being made fun of). "So, you know, now that that's out of the way, we should, um..."

[needsaparrot]

"Eat dinner?" Xander suggests, and maybe it's that exact kind of laughter this time. Even though there is food on the dining room table, cartons from Ching Tai because pshyeah, like Xander was going to try not to frak up cooking tonight while he's trying not to frak up everything else?

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I... sure?"

[needsaparrot]

Xander just looks at him.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Oh, you're- oh." Bridge looks sheepish. Like he can tell when it's that kind of laughter, honestly.

[needsaparrot]

"So fucking stupid in love with you," Xander says, and leans over to kiss him again.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Yes, well, it's... it's totally mutual, you know?" Bridge babbles in between kissage. "You're amazing and wonderful and I love you so, so, much, and I know how much you *weren't* in love with the idea of this happening to you randomly so going and actually *doing* it is just... you keep surprising me and I love *that* about you."

[needsaparrot]

"Well, see, that thing where you might not ever do the funky bookshelf building with a real girl because you spend the rest of your life with me?" Xander says, pulling back a little to look at Bridge carefully. "I really like that idea."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Yeah?" Bridge beams at him. And it's not like he didn't know this, really, after meeting Bronwyn and those few precious days when they'd kind of almost been a family, and then everything that'd happened in the year since, but hearing it out loud...

[needsaparrot]

Xander nods. "Yeah. That's what I want. Best plan ever."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I am in complete and total agreement. There is absolutely nothing else I'd want more than that," Bridge says.

[needsaparrot]

"Not even Kung Pao chicken with those little crispy noodles on the side?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Not even that," Bridge says. "Though the idea of sharing some with you, I'd be up for that."

[needsaparrot]

"Now? Or later. Because I hear tell it's pretty good re-heated at like, three in the morning..."