He could think of several dozen places that met those criteria in his neighborhood alone, so he settled on the closest of the lot. The food was decent, though not exceptional, but the service was prompt and the patio had an unobstructed view of the street. Overall, it was as good a choice as any.
"You should eat something more than just salad," he chided.
"I've been living on pizza for weeks. Salad is better for me." She poked at the lettuce and gave him a sheepish look. "And I might have lied about the number of cookies eaten."
"More than two, I take it?" It was somewhat startling to realize this almost approached light conversation. Even more startling to realize that outside of his visits with Angel, it was the most social he'd been since she'd moved in with him. He'd have to make certain to rectify that situation before Lorne and the others decided he was overworking himself again.
Buffy held up four fingers. "A couple more."
She didn't eat very much of her salad, but she looked as though she wanted to eat it, which was a significant improvement from when she'd arrived. Even after their late night, the shadows under her eyes were less noticeable, and the pinched look had softened.
"Is there anything else you'd like to do?"
"Not really feeling like pushing my luck," she said. "Besides, you're starting to do that thing where you look at me like I'm a science experiment."
After they got home, he took the first opportunity that presented itself to place the diary back where she had hidden it. She had tidied the room, leaving no trace of the previous night's activities. At some point, they would need to discuss those. Not, he decided as he returned to his own quarters, immediately, however.
He opened yet another volume on binding and protection, then checked its contents against the information in one of the few remaining Council histories. Lovely. More contradictory text. Wesley rubbed his temples; he was acutely tired of cross referencing prophecies and investigating spells to no good effect.
Still, he reminded himself, as much as he might wish it to, the answer wasn't about to appear before him without the inevitable hassle of false starts. An inelegant snort escaped him as he realized how much he sounded like his Sunnydale self, a sure sign he was in over his head.
Oh, Plei.
WOW. This:
One on her neck, faded and almost invisible, another below her ribs, short and jagged like the knife that had made it, the same knife that gutted Faith while he watched, too far away to do any good, and the rest of them, still red and ugly, marking her hips and thighs.
guh.
You know what, in that entire thing, only one thing made me blink in the wrong way (there was an astonishing amount of blinking in the right way) - the use of the word "prurient" to describe Wesley wanting her. I sort of felt that, after the levels of hell he'd been through and, more, the levels of hell he knows that she's been through, he'd know there was a level to his need for her that went well beyond prurience. Unless it was sort of a Wesley-kickback moment,in his head? It would make perfect sense for for that word to pop into his head then.
Waking up. Man, that floored me. Keep it coming, please; I can't wait to see how it ends.
Ahem. Damn, online time too short! connie, I'll read and comment on that when I get to your LJ.
While I'm here, though, there's HH/FF crossover. Pure, unedited, unreread, as it tumbled out of my brain.
- - -
“Even dyin’ don’t go smooth, seems,” he said, and was a little startled to find that when he looked up at the buildings on the horizon, they were moving, gently waving up and down.
“Sir?” Zoe said, over to his left. “Is it just me, or is something very strange here?”
“This is scary,” Wash put in, from further along the beach. “Zoe—can you please stop being a penguin?”
Before Mal could formulate a reply, a calm female voice announced, “Two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against and falling.”
River giggled. “Infinite improbability drive. Shiny.”
Mal looked right, past River, past Jayne, to Simon. “Doc,” he said, “if your sister knows where we are…”
“One to the power of…” the voice went on.
Simon had to shout to be heard over it. “I don’t think she does, captain. Not really.”
“Right,” Mal said, and watched his arm slowly reappear.
“We have normality,” said the voice, cheerfully. Various members of the crew made noises expressing deeply held cynicism. “I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem.”
“Okay.” Mal stood up, and took stock of his surroundings. They were in a small, luminous pink cubical, similar in shape and size to an airlock.
Jayne had his gun out and was standing by Kaylee, alternating between glancing round for anything attacking and watching Mal’s reactions.
Kaylee, in turn, was standing by Inara—in fact, Mal noted, they were holding hands—and trying to look confident.
River was leaning on one of the walls, listening to something behind it and muttering to her brother, who clearly wasn’t understanding a word, although he was trying.
Zoe and Wash were kissing passionately, apparently glad not to be penguins, and Book was on his knees, head bowed in prayer.
“It’s real shiny,” Kaylee said, staring at the sparkling clean walls. “All clean, like it was new.”
“It’s only been around for six lousy months and already there are more visitors,” drone a voice that sounded strangely like a man with his head in a metal bin. “Brain the size of a planet and all I ever get to do is escort visitors. Useless organic habit.”
They all looked around wildly for the source of the voice, and after a couple of seconds, the door slid open and Marvin appeared. Every jaw dropped simultaneously.
Wash’s was the first up, of course. “Hi,” he said. “Err… are you a *robot*?”
“I’m a cybernetic companion with a personality prototype. You can tell, can’t you?”
“That’s not possible,” Kaylee said, gaping.
“There are more things in heaven and earth,” Book told her, but added, “Robots aren’t mentioned normally, though.”
“I assure you, I am depressingly real,” Marvin said. “Now if you’ll be so kind as to follow me, which I expect you won’t, we’ll be going.” He turned and started to leave, glaring at the door as it opened with a happy sigh, but noone was following.
“Where ‘xactly are we goin’ to?” Mal asked.
“The bridge, of course, the current dwelling place of the other humans on this ship. If you don’t like that, frankly couldn’t care less, so pardon me fore breathing which I never do anyway so…” His voice droned on as he dragged himself up the corridor.
Mal looked around at his crew, decided it couldn’t get worse, shrugged, and gestured for them to follow the… whatever he was.
