MCA#0, Monday Night

[needsaparrot]

Xander was trying Isabel's number again - the twinkiephone had a pretty amazing range, after all, and he could hope - but just like the first time, it rang and rang, until at last it kicked over to voicemail. This time, though, he didn't leave a message, just thumbed the End Call button in frustration.

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[OOC: For Bridge]

Comments

[needsaparrot]

Xander caught at least part of that, but not enough to make sense of it. "You what now?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"The way I feel about you- it... hasn't changed, since you left." Bridge says.

[needsaparrot]

And Xander's been pretending about this for so long that he's not even sure what he's pretending anymore. That he didn't see it coming, maybe.

"Bridge..."

Yeah, he said that once before. He didn't finish the sentence that time either.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Xander..."

[needsaparrot]

He'd said it the once, like it was obvious, and had held his breath hoping Bridge got it. He'd thought Bridge got it. Or...made himself believe, or...something.

"You know it can't be like it was before, right? I mean...I thought you did."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

Bridge snorts. "I'm not *stupid*, Xander," he says. "I know it can't be exactly the same."

[needsaparrot]

"I don't think you're stupid." That's the last thing Xander thinks. Be a lot easier if you weren't so smart. Maybe he thinks *that*, somewhere away down where he doesn't have to look at it. Xander opens his hands wide. "But I...don't know what it is you're thinking, I guess."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"That... that I want there to be an *us*." Bridge says quietly. "More than anything, I want that."

[needsaparrot]

"Bridge..." Okay yeah, wow, that continues to suck as an answer to anything. "We are an us. We're friends. Aren't we?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

Bridge just gives Xander the "bitch, please" look. "That's not what I meant, and you *know* that's not what I meant."

[needsaparrot]

Yeah, you could spot me about 50 IQ points and then maybe I'd have a chance of getting both of us out of this conversation intact...

Xander looks down. "Yeah, I know that's not what you meant. But... you know we can't be that kind of us. Don't you?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"No," Bridge says stubbornly. "I don't know that. Because I don't know why *not*."

[needsaparrot]

"You're seventeen? I'm twenty-six? Special Special Hell? Tell me when the bells start ringing here."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I know how old you are," Bridge says. "I *don't* see why it should matter so much."

[needsaparrot]

"...because it's illegal? For starters?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"...like it wasn't when you were 19 and I was 16?" Bridge points out.

[needsaparrot]

"And we were both in school? Come on, Bridge, you're not stupid. There's a huge difference." Xander stands up and turns around, staring out the glass patio doors and trying not to raise his voice. Trying to understand why he had to make that effort, to keep it down. "They've got words for guys who date teenagers. They're not nice words."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Well it's none of *their* business, whoever "they" are," Bridge insists stubbornly.

[needsaparrot]

"They're...everybody." Well, maybe not everybody, but the only people Xander's ever seen argue hard in the opposite direction aren't people he wants to be on the same planet as, much less the same side. He turns around to face Bridge again. "You could hop a plane and find someplace where it's legal. I've been to those places. That doesn't make it right."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I've never known anything *more* right than you and me being together," Bridge says quietly. "You keep insisting it's wrong, but you haven't actually said anything about how *you* feel about *me*."

[needsaparrot]

And if Bridge weren't Bridge, Xander realizes even while he's closing his eye and trying to find an answer, he could take one of those gloves off and never have to ask. Maybe know better than Xander does.

"The idea of you getting hurt makes me crazy." It's an answer.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Not what I meant," Bridge says for the second time that night. "Just... tell me you *don't* love me, and I'll stop pushing you on this. I promise."

[needsaparrot]

Xander's quiet for... a long time. Probably too long, but it's just that he's only quiet on the outside. In his head, there's a couple thousand voices that won't shut up, including some of the ones he used to imagine scuttling off into the shadows when Bridge did have his gloves off.

But the loudest one is himself, saying I've been keeping a running list of Worst Possible Ways Xander Could Screw This Up since, oh, a couple days before our first date? And lying to you is #3.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Xander?" Bridge says tentatively.

[needsaparrot]

"I can't say that." Though it'd sure as hell be simpler if he could. "You think I'd be so scared of hurting you if I didn't? But it can't be the same way as before."