sunnydalealum | (no subject)

"Books?" He thinks he has an idea who, but he hasn't the faintest clue why. Then again, he's very probably wrong. "I'd ask what sort of books if I had even an inkling who it was leaving them for you."

She shrugs. "Some romances, some men's adventure novels ... some kids' books, even. Once a book of crossword puzzles. It was better than just doing nothing."

"Uhuh... So, it's someone who doesn't know what you like to read. Or if you like to read, period." Long fingers just barely touch the hot cuppa refill, but his eyes don't stray far from his enchanting brunch date (brown eyes, he still can't believe it, doesn't feel any different unless he happens to touch his own skin, human skin, and the teeny tiny hairs that go with).

"I think you got yourself a secret admirer, sugar."

"At the Academy? I doubt it." The corners of her mouth tuck in, not quite wry, not quite bitter.

"Maybe someone just felt sorry for me."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'll take that before I take outright contempt any day. Someone cared enough to leave you books, that counts for something, right?"

She's got every right to feel bitter, or so he'd say if anyone were to ask him, even if he doubts anyone will think to ask... But, like everyone else he's ever talked to, she needs to talk. That much he can do, and he isn't half bad when it comes to listening, either.

"No, absolutely, it counts for a lot." Her eyes are wide and earnest, for a moment, before they lower to her plate. "I just don't think anyone there's got any reason to admire me."

She trails the tines of her fork through a smear of syrup, leaving tracks, crosshatching them.

"Maybe not." He shrugs, raising his cup for a sip - the very unassuming silver ring on his thumb making a clnk-y sound that he can't ignore.

"Stranger things have happened. Trust you me, they have."

"I don't just mean cause of what I did," she says, soft. "I mean... all of them there think becoming a Slayer was the greatest thing to ever happen to them. Getting stronger, faster, all the rest of it."

"I know that feeling. Not feeling like the rest of the big bad beast hunters." He arches his eyebrows in something approximating wry self deprecation.

"You're different."

Beth looks up at him.

"Hunters?"

"My kith and kin." The good thing about a verdant complexion is that when you blush, most people can't tell. This is not the case when you're whiter than the driven snow.

"...Your family?" Small-voiced. "I, I didn't know..."

"Don't fret, my sweet darling. I'm just saying I know the feeling. I did not fit in. Ever. And...let's not even get started on how much, okay?"

He reaches out to pat her hand, to show her it really is fine. "I know what it's like not to belong."

She smiles a little, reassured, and sobers again. "And it's not like I even want to fit in with them. The only... there was only one of them I ever thought I could maybe be friends with, if, if things were different."

The crosshatches have turned into little curlicues, spiraling across the plate.

"And that was Jordie, and, well. You saw how that ended up."

"Yeah. Sometimes, things just don't work out for the better. But hey, plenty more fish in the sea, right?"

As far as he's concerned, curlicues beat crosshatches by a very long shot. For one, they're a lot more peaceful, friendly thing to draw in what's left of your syrup and butter.

"And how weird is it," she says suddenly, looking up, "how weird is it that I fit in better with the staff at the club?"

"It's just as weird as me, fitting in better in an entirely different dimension than my home one." He smiles, even if his voice is tactfully lowered, so as not to seem like a complete lunatic to whoever is seated at their neighboring booths.

"Sometimes you're just...thrown haphazardly into something completely new, and it feels better and more right than anything that's come before it. That's the when and where you know you've found home. You feel it in your butt."

... ... ...

"Gut! You feel it in your gut!"

Beth's been studying him with a pensive gaze while he speaks, right up until that last sentence.

Then she covers her mouth with both hands and bursts into giggles.

It's quite the spectacular view, the way his face goes bright red and twists with embarrassed mirth; he covers his eyes, chuckling helplessly. Then, with a groan, "I never learn!"

"Sorry," she's saying through her giggles, "sorry, I just -- sometimes I'm twelve."

"No, no it's fine," he reassures his twelve-year-old friend. "Usually people just stare at me as if I'm insane when I go into the Freudian zone."

Sighing, content with everything from not spilling or spraying coffee over anyone or anything to the fact that it feels so good, unbelievably good, to be sharing this moment with someone who doesn't stare at him.

"It's just...anatomy." He's still smiling, and just a tad sheepish.

"That's where your heart is," she says, sobering again, "isn't it."

"I, yeah." He shrugs, tilting his head down and to the side, and for the love of peaches he can't figure out why he feels shy of all things.

"Yeah, it is."

Her turn to blush a little.

"They had me sit in on a lot of the classroom lectures, at the Academy," she says, skewering the last bite of waffle on her plate and pushing it through the syrup. "Demon anatomy was one of them. I... I wouldn't have even remembered that if, if Tricia hadn't kicked you there."

"Yeah. Girl packs a punch and then some." For all the things that he survived that night, his voice is surprisingly full of something a lot like admiration.

It's something to do with the fact that all the girls back home kicked more ass than the boys, and he liked that about them. He's always had a thing for strong women, be it physical or otherwise. But mostly physical.

"We have to come here again, these waffles are just too good not to."