MCA#0, Monday Night

[needsaparrot]

After a day of realizing Fandom was almost as good as Sunnydale at taking away and giving back in the same breath, Xander was relaxing with a bowl of popcorn and a DVD. Which was in no way the Princess Bride docudrama because dude. Guys don't watch that alone. Unless they're studying the swordfighting.

Okay, maybe he was studying the swordfighting. Yes.
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[OOC: for a phone call.]

Comments

[needsaparrot]

"I'm sure." He still wasn't laughing. At all. Much. "Just .... I've met your vocabulary. The worst I've ever heard you say about my dad is that he's 'not all that great.' "

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I could call him a dick too?" Bridge offers.

[needsaparrot]

"I think you should probably wait til you meet him to make that call. Not that he's not; it's just more satisfying to know you're right."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I'll keep that in mind," Bridge says, noticing the use of "until" rather than "if".

[needsaparrot]

Not that Xander did. "Hey, talk about meeting people," he said, remembering that he'd intended to mention it the next time they talked, "You'll never guess who I saw this morning."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"That one barista at the Perk who can never get anyone's order right?" Bridge guesses.

[needsaparrot]

"Well, yeah. There was cinnamon in my caramel macchiato." Xander paused a moment before adding, "Also Anakin."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"...there was *who* in your caramel macchiato?"

[needsaparrot]

"Anakin. Except not so much in it; I like the guy but we don't know each other that well. But near. Like sitting at a table."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Seriously? But he's... *dead*," Bridge frowns, not that Xander can see it. "Was he a vampire? Or a ghost? Or something?"

[needsaparrot]

"He was out in the daylight and drinking coffee, so I'm going with no on both." Xander shook his head, not that Bridge could see that. "I guess his kid...went back into the past to get him? His past, anyway. Anakin's a couple years older than he was when he left."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Huh," Bridge says thoughtfully. "That's... weird, well, not the older thing exactly 'cause that's what happened to you too so obviously it's possible, but the coming back from the dead except not really because he came back from before he was dead."

[needsaparrot]

Yay for Willow-honed sentence-parsing abilities. "Yep."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Must be weird for Rory, I guess." Bridge says. Like it was for me, when you came back goes unspoken.

[needsaparrot]

"Yeah, I thought about asking if he'd seen her yet, but... that river kinda felt way too deep to stick my foot in." Xander frowned. "Has to be weird for him, too." A lot of things went unspoken.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Weird, but right," Bridge decides.

[needsaparrot]

"Right?" Xander asked, though he didn't necessarily disagree.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Rory missed him... a lot," Bridge says. "It's kinda one of the reasons things wouldn't have worked out between her and me."

[needsaparrot]

"It's hard to compete with somebody's ghost," Xander said quietly. He wasn't sure what made him quiet - that was one problem he'd never had himself. By the time the memory of Angel was hanging over Buffy's shoulder, Xander had known he wasn't ever in the running.

This was more like... a twitch at the thought of something that shouldn't be making him twitch.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Bridge says, just as quietly, thinking of Faith and how she'd promised to be there for Xander, and how she *had*, right until she'd died. "It is."

[needsaparrot]

Xander didn't miss that he wasn't the only one being quiet, but he couldn't be sure what had prompted it on the other end. "But hey, he's not a ghost. So... weird, but good, yeah."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Bridge says, again. "Anyway, it's... getting pretty late. I should let you go," he says awkwardly.

[needsaparrot]

"Yeah, I...guess. Yeah." Awkward or no (and no would be the losing answer here), Xander was a little reluctant to hang up, but he probably should. "You should get some sleep and recover from your horrible ordeal."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

Bridge sticks his tongue out at the phone. "I'll talk to you later."

[needsaparrot]

It was almost like Xander could hear the tongue sticking out. Something made him smile, anyhow. "Night, Bridge."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Night, Xander." Bridge says, before hanging up.