The Perk - Wednesday Morning

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

Before going up to the school, Aly stopped at the Perk for a bagel and coffee.  She sat at a table by the window to watch the people go by for a minute before pulling out a sheet of old fashioned paper and started writing a letter.

[OOC: Open for all your Perky needs]

Comments

[needsaparrot]

That'd be someone with Perky needs coming through the door. Actually it'd be someone with Perky needs stopping outside the door and staring at it for a good three minutes, before finally wandering in to.... stare at the inside.

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

Aly had noticed the man when he stood outside the the Perk for several minutes. But when he came in and continued to stare, she was a bit interested. "Is it the vast amount of coffee present that's shocking?" she asked with a bit of a smile and a raised eyebrow.

[needsaparrot]

"I...need some. I think." Sentences? Still a challenge. Also still with the staring. In an unavoidably focused way, since there was only one eye to stare with. Xander shook himself a little, because hey, pretty girl, some things are instinctive, and added, "Me speak English good. Clearly."

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I believe you. Really." She said with a wink. "The coffee here is really good. Get some and come have a seat."

[needsaparrot]

"I know. I've been here before." Xander noted absently that apparently he hadn't given his driver every bit of hard cash in his pocket, at least, since he was able to pay the conveniently unfamiliar NPC girl behind the counter for his Plz To Be Putting All The Espresso You Have Inna Cup Now KTHX mocha without a problem.

He walked back to Aly's table with one eye on the coffee and... oh yeah. One eye on the coffee. Which helped the staring problem for a bit at least.

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

She'd wondered about both the staring issue and the fact that he'd been here before issue, but instead chose to focus on the immediate one. "Apparently before my time then. I'm Aly."

[needsaparrot]

"Xander." He sat down across from her with his coffee and took at tentative sip. Oh yeah. Cafffffeine. It might not make Instant Sense of what his brain was telling him, but it sure as helped with the attempt. "Yeah, it's... been a long time."

How long... was anybody's guess. The first time he'd come here, he'd jumped six years into the future, after all.

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

"It looks like it's a bit of a shock," she said, sympathetically but with a bit of amusement. "Or is it more of a 'wow, this place hasn't been overrun yet?'"

[needsaparrot]

"It survived zombies, snowmonsters, vampires, mummies and jello while I was here. Only thing I've ever seen overrun it and win is new students." Some part of him had been away so long that it was waiting for her to stare back at him like any normal person would, at that.

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

"We've just gotten a bunch of those," Aly said with a laugh. "I think they're just starting to lose that shiny new look of shock." She'd grown up around knights and spies, a patch over an eye wasn't anything she felt the need to stare at. To think he was attractive with? Quite probably. "What brought you back after so long?"

[needsaparrot]

"Beats the hell out of me; wishing didn't work the first couple of thousand times I tried it." That answer slipped out before Xander could process the fact that there actually was a correct one, and that wasn't it.

"I was supposed to come find somebody, I mean," he corrected himself, not going into more detail on that than he needed to, considering this was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission at this point. Not that she looked young enough to be a brand new Slayer, but nothing else about this day was turning out to be remotely normal either.

"But I wasn't expecting it to be here. I wasn't expecting here to be here."

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

Aly let the comment about wishing pass without comment or more than a quirk of an eyebrow.

"You weren't expecting the person you want to find to be here?" she asked flippantly. "Or you weren't expecting the island." She thought she had an idea who this was from the yearbooks of last year, but the comment about finding someone put her more on guard. "Anyone in particular?" she added as if it were an afterthought.

[needsaparrot]

"Wasn't expecting the island to be here, wasn't expecting her to be on it." Xander took a small chance, since not only not the right age, but she just didn't ping him as the Slayer type. Not that he hadn't ever been wrong, but after three years he had a decent eye for it, at least. "Somebody in particular, yeah, but I don't know her name. You haven't seen a girl running around with a shiny red axe, it is totally an axe, dammit scythe, have you?"

[nadiathesaint]

After her first period class, Nadia decided that what she needed before trying to call Veronica and getting back to work on the "who attacked Cally" question, and oh, hey, figuring out what the hell was up with Marty apparently getting stood up, last night and then skipping out on class today was a very large cup of coffee.

Or possibly three.

[needsaparrot]

Talking with Parker, no matter how much more settled it had made him, was definitely an occasion for needing more coffee. He could also use a shot of non-alcoholic courage before braving any more of his voicemail, he suspected. So after they parted ways, Xander retraced his steps and headed back to the Perk.

He'd thought - possibly hoped - he might see Aly again; what he wasn't expecting to see when he was halfway to the counter was a much more familiar face.

"Hey, you."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia hadn't checked her email. To be honest, she'd barely thought about Xander in the last month or so.

Not that she'd ever tell him that. She spun around, startled, and then grinned. "Xander?!"

[needsaparrot]

"Had a couple moments of doubt about that today myself, but pretty sure, yeah."

[nadiathesaint]

Were Nadia's hugs recorded and on record, the fastest one recorded on the record from decision to hug to actual huggage was something like .014 seconds.

This was maybe half that amount of time.

"Madre del dios, you came back! And you're kinda old! Did you get stuck in a time thingy like I did this summer? Is that why you never called or emailed? Did it totally suck? Because it totally sucked when I was gone for a year, and you look like you've been gone for longer and madre del dios I can't believe you're here!"

[needsaparrot]

The nice thing about having a BFF who lived in Sao Paulo and spent half her time in Rio was that when somebody started channeling said BFF with bits of non-English mixed in, there was actually a reasonable chance you'd understand what was being said.

"Yes, yes, yes, and sometimes."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia spent a moment trying to match answers to questions, then gave up. "Are you back to visit? To stay?"

She was dying to ask what happened to his eye, but every time she opened her mouth, she thought she smelled wine and heard an American southern accent, so that was distracting her.

Also, she hadn't let go yet.

[needsaparrot]

"I ... have no idea," Xander admitted. Not that he'd let go yet either. "I came for a job, and I didn't know it was gonna be here until hey look... I'm here."

[nadiathesaint]

"What kind of job? Are you undercover? . . . as a pirate?"

[needsaparrot]

Xander burst out laughing. "No. I tried to join the Pirate's Union, but they wanted references, and all my bottles of rum addressed to Barbossa kept getting returned to sender."

[nadiathesaint]

"Well, you need a parrot. Because those count as three references in the Pirate's Union."

[needsaparrot]

"See, I keep telling people that, and they keep saying how I'd have to feed it and water it and get its name tattooed on my arm and nobody thinks I'm ready for that level of responsibility." Frowny face. "No, I came to pick up a girl, except phrased in a way that sounds less like I need to be arrested now."