CLOSED ♔ YOUR PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE

[slay]

WHO || Buffy Summers & Spike
WHAT || Buffy and Spike play more Mario Kart
WHERE || Knights HQ, Game Room
WHEN || July 30
HOW || Prose

A girl like Buffy shouldn't have been spending the sunnier part of a summer day inside. And she hadn't been -- for most of it. She'd had plenty of hang around outside and enjoy the sun time. It was just that, well, it was muggy and gross and the sun wasn't even that sunny, more of a partly cloudy, and who ever thought England was that great anyway? Even when it wasn't foggy, it was icky in one way or another.

Anyway. She'd wound up inside, pacing the halls, restless, and found her way to Spike's door. We're not discussing how she knew which bedroom was his. Theirs is a forbidden love. She hung around outside of it for what felt like a great long while, tongue pressed against the inside of her cheek, warring with herself.

He was probably sleeping was the primary excuse she used to try and convince herself not to knock. It was better than addressing the million other actual reasons she might not have wanted to, like the fact that even when they were friends it felt baggage-y. And it did nothing for the twitchy feeling in her spine and she was starting to think it was just ... Spike-sense. Which was a whole 'nother ballpark of don't wanna acknowledge.

She reached out decisively and rapped her knuckles on his door with a few hurried knocks.

Comments

[slay]

Courtesy of Spike's failure, Buffy managed to come in the top five, which left her sitting back and watching his failure over and over again until everyone but him had finished the race and his place in last was secured. She gave him a slow, raised-brows look, clearly trying not to say anything that might hurt his fragile ego but overwhelmingly judge that he'd been so determined to check that she was sure about trying this course.

Finally, she opted for a delicate approach. "So about that mushroom course."

[bigbad]

Spike scowled at her. "I'm out of practise. I was better before." He could still kick ass at Angry Birds, at least.

[slay]

"I didn't even say anything!" She defended quickly, turning to face him more, pulling her legs up on the couch and resting one elbow on top of the couch's back, resting her head against her hand. "Come on, you were a total champ about losing before, where'd sore loser guy come from?" Wait. That probably didn't help. "Maybe you just need a warm-up."

[bigbad]

"I thought I'd show you up in the next round!" And she'd acted so happy about winning. She hadn't won this time. She just hadn't lost as terribly as he had. He scowled, slumping against the couch. He glanced up at her and tried to stop looking so put out. "Maybe it's cause I only just woke up. You know. Tired reflexes."

[slay]

"You just assumed you'd beat me? How totally full of yourself is that?!" Buffy scowled suddenly, straightening indignantly as he sat back. "I am perfectly capable of beating you! You can't just -- just assume--" She huffed, having nowhere to go after that. She reached out and punched him in the solar-plexus instead (atk 19).

[bigbad]

Unfortunately, with his leather coat off, his defence was only 18. At least he was fully healed from his ordeal with Lan by now. Still, no matter how much damage she ended up doing, he was taken by surprise. He grunted in surprise and pain, curling forward a little. "Hey! You did pretty thoroughly prove me wrong, didn't you?" Anyway, it had been more confidence in his abilities than lack of faith in hers.

[slay]

"And you're blaming it on being tired." She returned stubbornly, keeping her fist balled for a moment before loosening it and settling back down, grumbling. "This was your idea, you know."

[bigbad]

He rubbed at his solar plexus, massaging away the pain. It was his idea, but he'd thought he'd win. He also thought it'd be fun, and his sourness was making it less fun for Buffy. He couldn't have that. "Hey." He sat up and reached over to touch her leg, mustering up a smile. No more being a sore loser for him. He'd have fun either way. "It was my idea. And I want to try that mushroom course."

[slay]

Buffy's gaze lifted up towards him for a moment, wary and reproachful, then her eyes rolled harshly and she turned her face away, reluctant. Then her gaze, but not her face, turned back towards him, relenting.

"Fine. Mushroom course. But if I beat you, you're not allowed to whine about it." She turned to pick her controller back up, shifting on the couch to lean her back against the arm rest on one side, stretching her legs across his lap.

[bigbad]

He grinned at her and patted her leg. "I promise. So long as you can say the same, mind." He grabbed the controller and started pressing buttons until he started the mushroom course. "I'm feeling good about this round," he announced, promptly jinxing it. (computer use 5.)

[slay]

His jinx apparently applied to the both of them, because despite her impressive performance on the Rainbow Bridge, Buffy failed abominably at the talked-up mushroom course. She swerved and spun out multiple times, and crawled in at last place (computer use 4).

She shook her controller as her car idled over the finish line as if that would somehow push it forward, more or less growling her dissatisfaction with the outcome. "Stupid --" She huffed, dropping the controller back to her lap. "I'm never letting you pick the track again."

[bigbad]

Spike didn't do much better, only beating her by a few places. But he still beat her, so he looked over at her with a shit-eating grin. "What happened to no whining about losing?"

[slay]

"Hey, in case you didn't notice, you lost too." She pointed out, lightly kicking him in the thigh with her heel. "Bad course. Bad, bad course."

[bigbad]

"Not as much as you did!" Though the fact was, he didn't mind her whining nearly as much as he enjoyed giving her a hard time. "Getting the hang of bouncing from mushroom to mushroom's not as easy as I thought, I guess." He held his controller out to her. "You pick, then. Or do you want to go back to the Rainbow Bridge?"

[slay]

"I don't think your ego can take an encore." She turned her nose up at the controller, then looked at the screen. "You pick. You're still losing, in case you forgot. You're Mr. I-Need-to-Warm-Up Guy." Buffy's eyes flickered back to him before long though and she canted her head a little to the side as she admitted. "I guess neither of us are very good at this. Fighting, yes. Video games ..."

[bigbad]

"Let's hope we never need to save the world through video games." He flipped through the options, then paused and glanced over at her instead. "I think that's okay. Real fights are a hell of a lot more important than pretending to race on the telly."

[slay]

"Guess they are." It was inarguable, of course. But Buffy got that distant look on her face anyway. It'd be nice to be good at something other than destroying things, though. Maybe it was taking her talents for granted, but failing to help Rafael and Jade was really hammering it in.

Was she good at anything that wasn't pain and fighting? Maybe she wouldn't be as good of a knight, but maybe she'd make a better person if she had mysterious strangers meeting her in dark alleys to tell her about her destiny to fight video games instead of demons.

"We could race for real," she pointed out, looking over at him. "I don't think there's enough road to use cars and we're lacking for little blue shells, but there's plenty of land for the horses."

[bigbad]

He glanced pointedly at the window. "Gonna be a very short race unless we wait until evening." He looked back at her. "Have you ever ridden before?"

[slay]

"Not really. I mean, I went out to the stables a couple times before we left, and we saw got to see Rafael's horses." She looks at the window, getting up to go peer out where a crack of light is coming through, considering the waning afternoon. Then she pulls it more tightly closed. "We can wait."

[bigbad]

It was a nice gesture, considering what sun can do to him. It wasn't anywhere near him, but it made him smile nonetheless. "Tonight, then. Though I have no idea if I can ride or not." One of those things he didn't remember from before, maybe, though he'd had no particular interest in riding. He doubted it was something he did often, if he'd ever done it at all.

He stood up and walked over to her, standing next to her in the shadow of the curtain. "We can find out together."

[slay]

"Can't be that hard," she turned and found herself surprised to see him standing right there. Quiet bastard. But she swallowed the shock in her expression, looking up at him. "I mean, the horse does most the work." She hesitated, weight shifting, trying to figure him out and analyze the closeness. She gave up and backed off, turning to pace closer to the couch again.

"Sunset's been pretty late," she made herself comfortable on the couch. "What do you wanna do until then?" A beat. "Or -- Should I be letting you sleep. As this is definitely the hour of undead sleeping."

[bigbad]

He shook his head. "I slept enough. There are a lot of hours of daylight. Ever noticed?" He wandered over to the video game cabinet and started flipping through them, trying to see if there was another option. Then he tossed the games aside and turned back towards her. "If it doesn't gross you out too much, I do need some breakfast. We could go down to the kitchen."

[slay]

She watched with a certain fondness as he flipped through the games, but her eyes widened and she looked startled when he started to talk about breakfast. Because when a vampire says 'if it doesn't gross you out too much, I do need some breakfast,' it can easily come off as turning her into his breakfast. But her expression grows more neutral as she lets out a barely present breath of relief when he quickly follows it with the kitchen. Right.

A flicker of a smile crosses her face and she gets to her feet.

"Yeah, that's fine. I think I've seen enough blood the past six months to not be squeamish about it. Besides, I should probably eat something too. … Something less blood-like."

[bigbad]

He smiled, a bit relieved since for a moment it looked like she was going to say no. Of course, she might change her mind once she saw his food prep. He pushed himself to his feet and started towards the door. "The kitchens it is."

[slay]

Standing, she shut off the TV and followed him out the door, winding down through castle hallways to the kitchen. The castle may have been expansive, but the walk wasn't too far. As they entered the kitchen, Buffy immediately pulled open the fridge to nose through it, leaning on the opened door so there was room beside her for Spike.