taxonomites | [ location: bronte beach ] let that igloo cooler mark your piece of paradise.

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[ location: bronte beach ] let that igloo cooler mark your piece of paradise.

Word has it, Taxon, that there's going to be a party. These rumors are not untrue, for one

slaying has arranged something of a get together for the Fourth of July. Unfortunately, the Extras have caught wind of this soirée and are already in the presence of crashing it, rocking those holey jeans and chilling with some Lynyrd Skynyrd and good ol' Hank Williams. This is their kind of party.

Don't let them have all the fun. The sun is getting low, so get on out here and get your party on before fireworks start lighting up the faux night sky.

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"What?" Buffy speaking up and pulling away snapped him out his thoughts, dragging them back into reality from being so entranced by the feel of human skin on against that of another human. She felt the same, yet different. It was fascinating, but-- "Oh. Right. Uh, sorry."

Angel recoiled somewhat, taking a step back and shifting the can from one hand to the other, instead focusing on how cold it was and not other things that really aren't meant to be pondered anymore. Those doors had been shut long ago, regardless of not being shut properly. The last thing Angel needed to do right now was try and open them again.

He looked up, slightly wary. "Did you cook it?" It wasn't his fault her cooking skills, or lack thereof, were a touch infamous.

With a slow smile that was at least sincere in its arrival, Buffy took an escapist's swig of root beer. Banish that dry, uncomfortable feeling in her mouth with the bubbles and the dull sugary ache that was so very delectable about a good soda. Except in drinking it she only managed to remind herself that Angel will get to experience this now, too. Had he drank it, she wondered, during his undid year? Had he taken the time to sink into his senses and enjoy even a moment of it?

No. She doubted it.

"...What? Do you think you actually have the right to be picky? It's not like it's that easy to ruin a hot dog..." She rolled her eyes -- friendly-like. "But no. I kept my fingers out of that to-do list item."

Nope, he hadn't. She knew him far too well. Even if he hadn't been in hell at the time, Angel hadn't been in the right frame of mind for indulging in the plus sides of being a human again. He'd spent most of that year wishing he was still a vampire to the point where when things got really bad, he'd actually almost let Spike resire him. ...he'd never tell her that. She didn't need to know that things got so terrible at one point that the prospect of dealing with Angelus had been the lesser of two evils.

"I'd rather not die of food poisoning, just because I'm human again," he told her, teasingly. "Don't think I don't remember how bad they used to say your cooking was. I paid attention more often than you think I did."

"H-hey. I've never food-poisoned anyone, you know."

Playfully huffy; she drank deep of the soda and crossed one arm over her chest. "Just because I'm no Martha Stewart, it doesn't mean I'm that bad. I can manage pancakes from a mix, you know."

"Who's Martha Stewart?"

Home improvement and craft television, he really didn't watch it. Angel's viewing of modern television was severely limited to sports and things about cars. Old as he was, he still exhibited some of the typical male tastes in programming.

"And I can manage them from scratch, among other things - while I was still dead and lacking the proper taste buds for any of that. The others never complained. In fact, they seemed to like my cooking."

She ignored the Martha Stewart question in favour of some self-indulgent griping.

"Oh, how supportive. The undead guy can cook better than me. You know, it's not like I had a whole lot of time to learn how to inspire domestic bliss."

"You were never suited to it," tumbles out of his mouth before he can better phrase that. One of his classic panicked looks when he flubs words crosses his face as he tries to correct himself. "W-what I mean is, you're not the kind of person meant for that sort of boring, stay-at-home lifestyle. You were meant for greater things than homemade pancakes. Which is why there's mixes, so you can still have your pancakes and slay, too?"

Oh.

She breaths deeply. The hot, iron-heavy reaction to such a flub is hard to suppress; never suited to it sounds a lot like can't cut it. And Buffy is a woman who prides herself on being competent. But you can't be competent at everything and the Slayer often found herself flexing other muscles.

But then Angel corrects himself and her shoulders relax. "You can be kinda stunningly pep-talkish when you wanna be, Angel."

"So I've been told." For a guy who was often the least verbose person in a room at any given time, he was sure handy with words when he wanted to be.

Angel finally opens the top to his soda and takes a small sip. The face he makes after is difficult to pinpoint, and he eyes the can almost warily. "That was... That was not what I was expecting. Very... bubbly? And really sweet."

She tries for a friendly smile.

"You should try it with ice cream. Root beer float. Kinda fab."

Edited 2011-07-10 17:42 (UTC)

Ice cream. Angel's expression falls. He remembers, vividly, eating ice cream with her the first time he was gifted with humanity. She didn't and never would, and he has to blink and look away from her to get the image of her only wearing his shirt and holding out a spoonful of ice cream for him out of his head.

"Uh, yeah. I've heard good-- good things about ice cream."

Oblivious, Buffy chugs another decent amount of soda and takes a casual seat on the closed lid of the cooler.

"Well, duh. Anyone who'd tell you anything otherwise about the stuff deserves to have their taste-buds burned off and then replaced with newer, better, cleverer taste buds. You know -- someone might've thought to bring some down for the bash. If I find some? We are floating it up."

"It tasted like sawdust when I was dead," he offers, lamely. What should be simple conversation is extremely awkward on his end. "Then again, everything not blood tasted like sawdust when I was a vampire."

Half paying attention to her and half paying attention to his own thoughts, he catches the tail end of her words and misinterprets. "Floating. Like, in the water floating? I don't swim."

"Root beer floating. Sawdust free." She corrects him -- gently. Swimming would genuinely be a bad idea. The last time swimming had been involved...

Well, now it's Buffy's turn to feel awkward.

The last time swimming had been involved, they'd been running for their lives and ended up back at his place. It's hard not to connect those dots to that night that changed everything, the one that had first rendered him soulless and set Angelus free. It's even harder not to connect the dots further to the day he was human and the time they got to spend together, or the constant reminder of his current human state without the risk of soullessness and what that meant once and could mean again. There were a lot of unresolved things between himself and Buffy, things they never discussed, topics that were easier to avoid than deal with out of fear that the conversation would get heated or spark something new out of something old.

"The sun's hot," he says, pulling himself out of his thoughts and squinting up at the faux star in the taxon sky. In hindsight, black on black and longsleeves, for that matter, were a bad idea. As was the lack of sunscreen. Someone's super pale ass is going to be red in the morning.

Edited 2011-07-10 19:27 (UTC)

"...That's what happens when you have a working body temp and you go out on a nice day, Angel."

By comparison, Buffy is her usual lightly bronzed self. The moment the sun had reappeared in force, she had sought to regain her California stamp. "You're gonna get heat stroke if you're not careful."

Without giving it much thought, Angel grabs the hem of the long sleeved black shirt and pulls it over his head. He tosses it aside in a pile of discarded clothing and shoes that probably belong to Extras, but it matters not. He's got plenty of identical shirts back at the hotel, and can always hatch more. And he already feels less like he's roasting inside his own clothing without it.

"There. More beach-worthy, don't you think?"

She begins initially by averting her gaze -- troubling herself with twisting the tab off the top of the soda can. Easily wrenching it free and warping the metal like it were something much, much more warpable. She can see skin from the corner of her sight and it is, of course, a very familiar thing to see indeed. Old-time familiar.

When she finally looks up, it is with a controlled and blank expression. Betraying little else except her supreme desire not to betray anything.

"...D-definitely. Very, very beachy. The beachiest. In fact, I'm pretty certain that if a contest of beachism were to the held..." she trails off. This is stupid.

Buffy clears her throat. "You're gonna burn."

"I won't catch on fire," the former vampire replies, misunderstanding her meaning. It's been a long, long time since a sunburn was a threat.

"No," she laughed -- laughing with Angel had become a rather customary thing since her arrival in town. They were close, now. Close in a different kind of way than they'd ever been before. "But you'll feel like you have, tomorrow morning."

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[ location: bronte beach ] let that igloo cooler mark your piece of paradise.

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