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[whattingawhat]

Buffy has been here long enough to settle in, to come up with some sort of routine. She considered getting a job at the coffee shop for a while, but ultimately has decided to treat this like the semi-vacation she's never actually gotten to take. She sleeps in, cleans house then spends her afternoons wandering around the town.

Today, she's doing some shopping, going into the many stores Itinere provides and coming out laden with shopping bags. Mid-afternoon, she stops by the cafe, grabs a cup of a coffee and a crossiant then sits in the sun to do some people watching. Despite being settled and hopeful about this place, she hasn't figured it out. There has to be a catch because there is always a catch. Once she's done with her coffee, she carries her bags back to the Summers house, drops everything off and spends a little time with the others living there.

Once evening has fallen and has officially become 'late' night, Buffy grabs her scythe and goes out to patrol. She doesn't expect to find anything out of the ordinary. She doesn't expect to slay anything at all, but years of conditioning and soemthing in her slayer makeup drives her out there anyway. She gets restless if she doesn't patrol. Besides, if anything did happen, she'd feel guilty for not patrolling.

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[rouxgaroux]

Buffy has a stalker as she's patrolling. It's a stalker in the form of a white wolf with shining yellow eyes. Alcide knows that Buffy doesn't need protection, certainly not his protection, but the nighttime with the faux moon hanging above them in all its glory is the ideal time for Alcide to shift and run a bit so it works out. Yes, he knows the moon isn't real. His wolf can't feel the moon and he's never really needed a full moon to shift. But it still feels right to go out at night - and he does, for a little while, almost every night.

Sometimes he's alone, but he's made it a habit of tracking Buffy down toward the end of her patrol and he likes to think that Buffy starts looking for and expecting him when she's preparing to head back to the house. It's a routine they're building. Hopefully Buffy will tell him if it annoys her.

It's well into Buffy's patrol when the wolf spots her from an alleyway in the town. Alcide watches her for a moment, instinctively stalking her. Then he makes himself quit treating her like prey and pads out into the street with her, a spring in his step as he moves alongside her.

[whattingawhat]

Alcide can't get away with stalking Buffy any more than she could get away with stalking him. She feels him, a tingle-y sort of hair on the back of her neck standing up feeling. She's gotten used to that feeling and when she feels him stalking her, a smile teases her lips. She doesn't mind that he follows her, or joins her, on her patrols. Some part of her thinks it's romantic and she knows that's messed up, but she's never claimed to be normal when it comes to relationships and romance.

She likes their routine. She likes what they're building here and if he were annoying her, she would tell him. She likes her alone time and her space, but she also likes spending part of her night with him.

She doesn't indicate when she realizes Alcide is following her and she doesn't feel prey, mostly because Buffy is far too much predator to ever feel like prey. However, she is glad when the wolf comes out from hiding and moves along side her. She smiles and reaches down to scritch at the wolf's ears.

"Hey. I was starting to wonder where you were at. Good night so far?"

[rouxgaroux]

His fur is thick and soft beneath her fingers. He radiates warmth, always running just a little bit hotter than the average human. The wolf yips and lifts his snout to flick his tongue over her fingertips. This means yes, he's having a good night. After so long of being unable to shift at the Complex, he revels in shifting anytime he wants to. It feels right and good.

He continues along beside her, padding along until he stops, ears twitching and golden eyes narrowing. Then, without warning, the wolf bounds off toward a street lamp. A squirrel scurries up it to the top and the wolf looks up, circling the light post a few times before getting bored and moving back toward Buffy. Wolves will be wolves.

When he reaches Buffy he pushes the top of his head affectionately against her hip. Yes, he's a wolf. But he can also be like an oversized dog. That's the nature of his type of wolf.

[whattingawhat]

Buffy hadn't ever realized how much she'd like that warmth. She'd always thought Riley was too warm to sleep next to, but she hasn't had that problem with Alcide. She realizes now it's more about the right person and her accepting her past and herself than it was about Riley. She grins, just checking a giggle when the wolf licks the tips of her fingertips. She correctly assumes this is a positive answer. She understands how shifting can feel good. She'd reveled in having her strength back for weeks after they'd arrived. She still does sometimes. Her slayerness is such a part of her, just as his wolf is, that she misses when it's gone, which is ironic since she's spent over half her slayer life wishing for normal. Somehow, normal never included losing her slayerness. THis place is the closest to normal she's probably ever gotten.

When the wolf initially stops, Buffy goes on the alert too. In all the nights she's been patroling, she hasn't found anything to worry about, but she knows how quickly that can change as well. Once it becomes clear that the wolf is just chasing after a squirrel, she relaxes, grinning broadly as she watches.

She runs her hand over the wolf's snout and head then massages her hand through the fur on the wolf's neck. She likes that he's like an oversized dog. She's never had a dog and she likes this kind of dog better. Maybe it's weird (she's pretty sure it's weird) but she's learned to accept weird and embrace it. She likes wolf!Alcide. "I swear, I'm going to start carrying a tennis ball with me on patrol."

She's only half joking.

[rouxgaroux]

Alcide has found a few scary looking things in the forest and mountain areas, inhuman things, things that would probably freak most people out, but they've never been anywhere close to the actual city part of Itinere. The city and the wooded areas are two entirely different animals, from what he's seen. In the woods, he can feel the magic there. It vibrates on a frequency that his wolf senses pick up on. It's also just plain weird.

Logically, he knows that wolves in his world are like big dogs. That doesn't mean he enjoys being compared to one. It's pretty much an insult to his kind. It's also not the first time he's heard that joke and he knows that Buffy wouldn't say it in a mean way, to be insulting, so he lets it slide. People who aren't wolves can't be expected to know wolf etiquette.

The wolf huffs out a breath of air and shakes his mane quickly from side to side, starting at his head and ending with the tip of his fluffy tail. That's all he has to say about that.

They near the Summers residence and Alcide remembers to wait until they're up in Buffy's room to shift back just in case Dawn and Spike are up and about. Spike, he knows, is a nocturnal creature as well. And he's catching on that Dawn naps before nighttime so she can hang out with him at night. Best to be careful about the nudity so as not to make things awkward for Buffy.

He shifts at the foot of her bed after the door is closed. "You're gettin' easier to track, Summers." He says, slipping an arm around her waist and bringing her close to kiss her. He likes that he's allowed to do this.

[whattingawhat]

Some night he'll have to take her on a tour, though as long as the things are sticking to the forest, Buffy's got no intention of slaying anything. She'd just like to see them. For the most part, she's stuck to the town simply because that's where people need protection.

She would never say it in a mean way or anyone but Alcide. It a term of teasing affection, a confession of her acceptance and even fondness of the wolf. If it ever bothers him, all he has to do is say the word and she'll cut it out.

That response makes her laugh softly. "Xnay on the ennistay allbay." Everyone knows and uses Pig Latin, right?

Buffy appreciates that. She's pretty sure that Alcide full on nakedness is not something Dawn needs to see. She refuses to acknowledge that Dawn has seen naked men before. That's her baby sister. Besides, even if she has, Alcide is Buffy's boyfriend. In any case, it's appreciated.

The casual nudity is something that Buffy is getting used to and it's definitely something she doesn't mind. She grins as he pulls her closer and slips her arms around his shoulders. "I think you're just getting to know my routine. I'll have to switch it up. Maybe I'll start wearing different perfume." Technically, she probably shouldn't wear perfume at all while patrolling, but she likes to smell pretty and Buffy rarely does what she 'should' when it comes to slaying.

[thefeckingmega]

There's another person in Itinere who spends her nights patrolling the city. She's not a Slayer, but she is a super hero in her own right, or she tries to be a super hero. Night has fallen and the city is quiet, only lit by the lamp posts and light from sporadic windows shining from the inside out. Which makes it all too easy to spot any movement at all in the streets from Dani's vantage point high up on the rooftops.

For awhile, she follows the blond girl with the awesome weapon from up high, moving from rooftop to rooftop and keeping an eye on her. She's good at moving fast, quiet, at not being seen. The blond girl is walking through the dark like she knows it well. Most people aren't that confident of the dark.

She finally slips down to the ground and runs fast past Buffy, fast enough to make the stray whisps of Buffy's hair move, fast enough to make the air around Buffy move. Then, a few yards in front of Buffy there she is, jeans and sneakers, long black coat, sword hanging at her hip, flaming red curls hanging wild around her face. She grins at Buffy, all teeth and freckles but in a way that's pleasant rather than awkward.

"Hey, what'cha doin'? Walkin' about in the dark ain't for just anybody." She says in her thick Irish brogue. "You ain't afraid of what goes bump in the night?"

[whattingawhat]

Buffy can't shake the feeling that she's being followed. The follower isn't really threatening so she's not getting that 'danger, Will Robinson' feeling, but she's still pretty sure she's being followed even if she can't ever catch a glimpse of the person.

The dark is very familiar to Buffy. Back in Sunnydale, at one point, she spent far more time in the dark than she ever did in the sunlight.

The nonexistent breeze (or nonexistent a minute ago) blows Buffy's hair and she goes on alert, flipping the scythe from a relaxed position to something more defensive, her entire body language follows. Incredibly suddenly, there's a woman in front of her. Buffy pulls up short and shifts her weight back a little. Despite that, Buffy's first impression of her isn't threatening.

Then she speaks and her words sound threatening.

"I am what goes bump in the night," she responds, eyes hard. "Why? Aren't you?"

[thefeckingmega]

Yeah, she is a woman, not a kid anymore. The Silvers had kept her lost within their hellish depths for almost 6 years of her life, making her twenty years old. She's still Dani though, still not all that threatening unless she feels threatened, which she doesn't, not until Buffy's eyes go so obviously hard. This is either a big misunderstanding or she's about to be in a fight.

Feck. She wasn't in the mood for a fight tonight. But if this girl is what she says she is 'what goes bump in the night' then she's evil. Only evil things go bump in the night in Dani's world. Well, evil things and Ryodan (and company). She misses Ryodan.

"Oh, don't you talk all big!" She says, hands going to her hips and her lips twisting from the pleasant grin she'd been sporting into something a little more snarky. She's shifting gears into preparation for battle mode. Dani kills what goes bump in the night. That's her M.O. these days. This will be no different.

She bends at the waist, leaning in a bit even though there's still several yards of space between the two of them. "Probably best not to go advertisin' the bump in the night thing around the likes of me. I got a feckin' bad arse sword with your name on it if you're bringin' trouble for the folk here and that's the truth!" She pauses, leaning back to stand upright again, her features scrunching up thoughtfully. "Erm... that makes no sense since I don't know your name. But you know what I mean!"

[whattingawhat]

Plus, kid is sort of relative. At twenty, Buffy didn't think she could have been called a kid either. Hey, in her defense, she thought she was being threatened first!

She is not evil. Totally not evil. Buffy is one of the good guys. One of the ones that fight evil. This is definitely a misunderstanding.

Buffy quirks an eyebrow up. "It's not talk." Buffy watches Dani's body language and while her own appears to be relatively relaxed, she's got the scythe held wooden point to the ground, blade behind her so that she can swing it if necessary. She's shifted into battle mode as well.

Dani's threat makes Buffy laugh, she tilts her chin up a little then shakes her head. "You've got it all wrong. I'm not here to make trouble. I'm the opposite of making trouble. I'm the one who takes care of the trouble. Besides you got all threaty with me first."

She's not quite ready to give her name.

[thefeckingmega]

"Well now you're just bein' all contradictory like. Can't be both the thing that goes bump in the night and the opposite of makin' trouble. Trust me, I killed lots'a things that go bump in the night. Got a feckin' PhD in bump in the night types of things. They're always about to cause some trouble." She explains.

What is this girl getting at. AND WHY IS SHE LAUGHING AT HER? Dani is supposed to be scary, not funny. Evil things are always so rude, always trying to get the last evil word in, always trying to get under Dani's skin. Rude.

"Askin' what you was doin' and whether you're afraid of the dark weren't a threat. Trust me! I can be threatening! I know when I'm threatening." Dani counters quickly and points one slim finger in Buffy's direction. "You're the one who got all threat-like when you bragged about bein' the thing that goes bump in the night."

Her head cocks to the side and she arches a brow. "So which is it?" She asks that as if she already knows the answer since the blond chick already announced her bump in the night status. Evil things are afoot. She hasn't even tried to reach for her sword yet. She can do that faster than a blink of an eye if she needs to.

[adamparrish]

It's lunchtime and at Parrish's Garage it's Adam's turn to go out and grab everyone some lunch. He and Leo and Dean have fallen into a sort of routine where they take turns getting things for lunch, sometimes from the deli, sometimes from the cafe, sometimes from The Houndstooth, and bringing the food back to the garage. Adam likes working with Leo and Dean. He likes that he has budding friendships with both. Plus Dean has a cool car that he occasionally lets Adam admire - not drive, but admire.

Adam has just placed his order and has stepped outside of the cafe to make room for other customers and wait for them to call his number. By his side is a golden metal spider looking thing that impatiently taps one of its metal legs against the concrete sidewalk. Leo has insisted that Adam needs the creature to carry drinks and Adam wasn't in the mood to argue. How Leo creates the things he creates is beyond Adam. He's spending way too much time trying to figure it out though.

He spots the woman sitting on the bench, the croissant and the coffee. "You know I've heard people say that the best coffee in town is at the book store. Subtext over there? But I can't really taste the difference between it and the coffee from the coffee shop, or from here."

[whattingawhat]

The golden metal spider thing definitely gets Buffy's attention, but it's also not the weirdest thing she's seen. After all, there was a metal dragon flying around during the whole harpies invasion and that dragon seemed to be helping them out. Despite that, it does get a double take from Buffy when they step out onto the patio. It's just not enough for her to comment on.

She looks up when Adam speaks to her and smiles. "I'll have to try it. I know my sister likes it. This is pretty good coffee though. I used to work in a coffee shop in San Francisco." She nods at the chair next to her. "Have a seat if you like. I'm Buffy."

[adamparrish]

Yeah, that golden Dragon, Festus as Leo calls him, sits on top of Parrish's Garage every day when Leo's there. Dean and Adam have marveled at it many times and yes, it is very impressive. Leo can make all kinds of things like that. Again, Adam has no idea how. He's determined to figure it out though... eventually. Adam knows magical things exist, after all. He goes to bed with one every night.

At the offer, he moves to sit next to Buffy to wait for his food. "A coffee shop is one place I've never worked, and I've worked a lot of places." He admits.

Then he holds out a hand to her. He notices there's grease under his nails only after the fact. "I'm Adam. Sorry. I mean, nice to meet you. Sorry." He pulls his hand back, realizing the conversation, which had started out so well, is going downhill pretty fast. He's never been good at meeting new people. He'd thought he's been getting better about it though, growing in confidence thanks to Ronan, but he still has a way to go, obviously.

[whattingawhat]

Well, she hadn't known if it was like a guard dragon for the whole city or if it belonged to someone. Either way, she'd been grateful for it during the harpies thing. If Buffy knew it was man-made she'd be equally as puzzled by the how. She'd assumed it was...born that way, or something? How's she supposed to know. The only dragons she's seen are flesh and blood sorts of things. However, she's definitely on Team Magic. Not that she goes to bed with one...well sort of. Alcide is a werewolf so...NOT THE POINT.

"Yeah? I think it's my favorite place I've worked. I've sort of done the round of crappy jobs myself. I'd been at the coffee shop the longest, but I'm not doing much here. I'm sort of in vacation mode."

She doesn't blink at the hand or the grease, she's starting to reach out to shake his hand when he pulls his back. "It's nice to meet you Adam." She gives him a slightly confused look. "What are you sorry for?"

[adamparrish]

Lifting his hands, he twists them back and forth for Buffy's perusal. The problem isn't that they're rough or calloused, which they are, it's that they're not as clean as they could be. He should have scrubbed under his nails better, into the crevices of the callouses. "Dirty hands." He says simply.

Logically, he knows this is nothing to be ashamed of. Logic has never come into Adam's social economic status though. He always gets embarrassed in some way when meeting new people. Always. Sometimes he wonders if that will ever change. Sometimes he just accepts that it won't. He is who he is. He's from where he's from.

"This is a vacation mode sort of place. I'm just not good at vacations." Adam agrees with a nod. If he were any good at vacation mode, he'd be doing that as well. But Adam is the kind of person who doesn't know what to do with himself if he isn't doing something productive. He has to work. He has to continue learning. He has to better himself at every turn or he's terrified he'll be that dirty kid from the trailer park who isn't worthy of anyone's attention, mainly of Ronan's attention, but that's a whole different thing.

"My... boyfriend doesn't do a lot either." Adam gestures down the street. The garage is a block down. The golden dragon is perched on top of it. "I work at that garage. So if you ever need something fixed and don't wanna use the wish magic, you can come there."

text;

[the_dawnster]

So, it's possible that I dreamed up blackout curtains for the entire house. Unless you put them up? Cause I can't see that being on the 'update everything' list Alcide has for the house and I don't see Spike doing it for himself. But this morning I woke up and they were on all the windows. You don't mind, right? I didn't mean to actually wish something, I swear! I didn't even say the words!

[ She's not sorry, not really, but she's as wary of wish magic as any former Sunnydale resident would be. ]

text;

[whattingawhat]

Yeah. I sort of noticed those this morning.
I don't mind, as long as they aren't drawn all the time.

[ Buffy likes the sunshine. Wary of wish magic is a good thing to be.]

Just be careful in the future, okay?

text;

[the_dawnster]

Got it, no closing them all the time. You know I can't help what I dream about! And with the wishing, sometimes your brain is there before you even realize it's there. How do you be careful with dreams and thoughts?

text;

[whattingawhat]

I just don't want the house to become tomb-ish.
Dawn, I'm just saying that we don't know everything about the wish magic so caution is a good thing.

text;

[the_dawnster]

It won't, I promise. I mean as long as it's not direct sunlight coming through the windows we won't even need to pull the curtains closed. Right?
I won't purposefully use the wish magic. I mean I wouldn't. Been there, done that, the t-shirt sucked.

[stillplaying]

It's the night after the full moon and that need to give in to the wilderness inside her has stayed strong. Even though she had been skeptical at first, it has gotten easier to pass the full moon each month. She's starting to gain some semblance of control, albeit she has a long, long way to go until she reaches anything similar to Laura's. But it's enough to make her confident that she might get there someday.

She had fought the urge to go running for hours and it's sometime around one in the morning when Katniss gives in to the temptation. It's a safe enough temptation to give into. She won't turn and if Matt wakes up, he shouldn't question her absence too much. Still, just in case, she leaves a note pinned to her pillow.

The over-sized shirt, Matt's shirt, provides an annoying drag as she runs along the ocean. She wouldn't have won't anything else though. She likes having Matt's scent on her when she runs. It helps to keep her calm and to keep her from giving in to the beast, especially on those runs. Running hadn't been something she did much before being bitten. It's something she's done a lot since.

She doesn't expect to encounter anyone else on the run. By this hour, most of Itinere tends to be asleep. So she's a little surprised when she sees Buffy. Katniss watches her from a distance, curious. Their last meeting had been confusing and almost uncomfortable. Somewhere, there had been another her. Another her who had lived a life outside of Panem as well. She had shoved those thoughts aside - there were more important things to think about - but seeing Buffy makes her consider all of this again.

Her normally quiet steps are anything as she continues to think.

[whattingawhat]

Honestly, it's hard for Buffy to get a sense of direction from her spidey sense with so many 'other things' running around Itinere. It's not that she's out to slay any of those things, but if she had to slay something, she certainly couldn't get a peg on it uses her slayer sense.

Those sorts of urges only get worse the longer you deny them. Buffy has learned that about her slaying sense. That's one reason why she's out patroling despite there not being really anything to patrol for.

Katniss may not have been expecting to see anyone, but Buffy is there and when she sees Katniss, she moves toward her. She hasn't seen Katniss latelya nd the last time she'd seen her was weird.

"Katniss, hey. It's Buffy," she identifies herself as she walks toward the girl.

[stillplaying]

"I remember you," Katniss responds, a touch of wariness slipping through her voice. She doesn't know the other woman. It's not Buffy's fault per say that talking to her brings up a number of uncomfortable thoughts. They're thoughts that had already been in place. They had been there since Prim had come back from her disappearance. The Prim that had come from an alternate world where she had lived and Katniss had died.

Alternate Prims. Alternate Katnisses. It's all very strange to think about, even after living here for the past few years.

She takes a deep breath and looks Buffy over. Her hands bunch in the bottom of her shirt, wanting something real to cling to in order to fight the uncertainty. "You know that other me."

[whattingawhat]

Buffy nods, picking up on that wariness that Katniss is laying down. That sense of 'otherness' is still there; Buffy knows that Katniss isn't human (not entirely at least). Eventually, she'll put together that Katniss and Derek feel alike to her (and even a little like Alcide does) and she'll realize that she's (probably) a werewolf. For the moment though, she just senses that Katniss is 'other'. She doesn't blame Katniss for being wary. She's aware that this isn't the Katniss that she'd known (a little) back in the Complex.

Yeah, it is.

"A little," Buffy admits. "We weren't besties, but I liked you." Mostly, she knew that Derek liked Katniss and that had been enough for Buffy.