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who: Buffy Summers
what: Coffee shop ,patrol, blood donation, exploration of the area
when: March 21-27
where: Perimeter, clinic, general area
warnings: TBD

Morning is spent working her shift at the coffee shop. Being a barista is something that worked out for her at home and something that she chose to do here. As far as jobs go, she likes being a barista. Once her shift is done there, she'll head out for an early afternoon patrol.

The brownouts had made Buffy a little nervous, but when the blackouts started she got even more nervous. The assurances that the perimeter fence will hold don't do much to assure Buffy. She prefers patrol as a means of assurance. Besides, it's something she knows how to do. She can be found patrolling along the fence with a stake in hand. She looks casual and relaxed. In fact, she might not look like she's paying any attention at all, but especially where Buffy is concerned, looks can be deceiving.

She'd read the announcement about needing blood donations both for injuries and for food sources. It hits close enough to home that she stops by the clinic and donates blood (but not any tissue because she's a little weirded out by that). She gives some warnings about her blood possibly being like crack to vampires and maybe stick to using it for an injury since it could also help with some speedy healing.

Between afternoon patrol and evening patrol, Buffy does some exploring around town, checking things out and not only trying to get the layout of the town, but get an idea of how people are reacting to the power issues as well.

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He still can't really believe that he got here with both Derek and Buffy. He keeps looking for Zee for that reason, hoping she'll show up and he'll have all of his little makeshift pack he'd formed in that other place they were in before finding the portal into the Quarantine. He gets sad about it, about the lack of Zee. But then he also counts his blessings: Derek and Buffy. Eventually, he won't be so paranoid about losing them here. But until then, he's probably a little too present in their lives.

Wearing jeans and a tee, the cheapest thing he could find at the shop, he's the asshole that walks into the coffee shop a minute before closing. He goes over to the counter and rests his elbows on it, leaning in as he watches Buffy cleaning up with closing preparations. The less asshole-ish part of this is that he doesn't intend to stay.

Her back is to him when he speaks up. "Ain't really here for the coffee. But can I walk you out when you're done?"

In all honesty, it really depends on what the asshole walking in at the last minute wants whether Buffy is irritated or not. If he just wants an espresso, well the espresso machine isn't that hard to clean. If he wants something with steamed milk or really anything else at all...yeah, asshole. Of course, she doesn't say that, just tells the person in question she'll be with them in a moment.

When he speaks, Buffy recognizes his voice so she turns around with a smile on her face. She sees Alcide a lot, especially since they've already moved into the loft with Derek together, but somehow that never makes seeing him again any less happy-making. Funny how that works. But she's not falling in love with him, nope. Definitely not (really, she's kidding no one; she was falling in love with him before they even arrived here).

"Well, if you're here to walk me out I don't see how I can be angry face at you showing up. Want an espresso before we go?"

Really, Derek saved the both of them some heartache by getting his loft here. He not only let them come live with them, getting Alcide out of a situation where all of his roommates know each other already and he and two other guys were watching the shenanigans unfold, but also giving Alcide something to do with himself on the nights he can't sleep. Fixing up the loft is going to be good for him if Derek lets him keep it up.

Plus, there's the fact that he has two of his 'pack' right with him. Like it or not, both Derek and Buffy are his pack. But then even back home his pack was almost always made up of a small group of hodge-podge kinds of people... not your typical wolf pack in spite of the Alpha blood that runs in his veins.

"Nah, I'll never get to sleep drinkin' it this late." He has coffee every morning if it's available. Only after noon if his intent is to stay awake all night. Although Buffy and coffee brings about other memories. "Mostly I'm just here to see the blond barista runnin' the joint."

Buffy had been coping a little better with her communal living quarters; she'd met a couple of her room mates and they all seemed fairly unfamiliar with each other, but she's still incredibly grateful to narrow those room mates down to the two people who have become more like family to her with their shared history. Buffy probably isn't nearly as much help when it comes to fixing up the loft, but she does try to help when they're all up late at night. With all her powers intact, Buffy doesn't need more than about four hours of sleep a night.

With Buffy living in the same house, there is coffee available. The first thing she did without a doubt is buy a coffee machine. It's not as nice as the one at work, or the one she had back home, but it gets the job done. Alcide's words make Buffy smile even wider, a light flush coming to her cheeks. "I'll tell her you're looking for her. She'll be done in just a minute. You know, if she stops flirting with the cute guy that came looking for her."

Because she can't even deny that she's flirting anymore. Sometimes she still feels a pang of guilt over Spike, over knowing that she does love him and back home they're in a good relationship, but Spike isn't here and he hasn't been around in awhile, not since she was first pulled out of San Francisco. She's feeling less guilty all the time. She has to wonder if that makes her like Alcide's ex; she pushes those thoughts away because they're not going to do anyone any good.

Alcide doesn't need much sleep either. He works during the day and wolves are nocturnal by nature. But when he does sleep, he sleeps harder than most people. It's a sleep of the dead, really. He's hard to wake up until he does so naturally. Not that he can't, it's just harder for him. In this way, at least, the lack of needed sleep, they're the same. Although since coming here, Alcide spends his waking nighttime hours as a wolf, running in the forest just because he can. Someday the newness of having it back will wear off, he's sure.

With her reply, Alcide puts up both hands in an 'I surrender' gesture as said 'cute guy' backs away from the counter so that the 'blond barista' can finish up her work. "I'll wait." He shoves his hands in his pockets and ambles around the place while she does her work. He would offer to help but he doesn't know the first thing about being a barista.

That guilt of flirting with one another when they both had people back home can creep up at the strangest times. Alcide always pushes it away because he's gotten over it for the most part. Sookie lied to him and ran off with Bill, resulting in his death. That's got a certain finality to it in and of itself, the way it ended. Buffy has no such luxury, which is why he's very patient with her. She'll come around, as long as Spike doesn't show up. And in that case, he's used to being with girls who don't really want him as much as they want something or someone else.

Buffy can't blame him for appreciating having his wolf back. She certainly appreciates having her powers back.

She grins at him, shaking her head a little as she returns to cleaning the kitchen up and putting away things. She doesn't mind that he doesn't help. She knows how to do it all herself. Besides, she's probably quicker on her own. Every once in awhile, she sneaks looks at him while she works. Once she's done, she washes her hands, dries them on a towel and locks up the money in a safe.

"Ready to go?" she asks as she comes around from behind the counter, two hot to-go cups in her hands. "Sleepy time tea," she tells him as she hands one over. "It's relaxing," she promises. Oh Alcide, that's part of the reason she's stalling. She doesn't want to be that girl. When she's with him, she wants to want to be with him more than anything or anyone. Buffy is trying very hard not to be the kind of girl that Alcide has fallen in love with in the past.

They haven't really talked about it yet, but Alcide has noticed that they've both become more in arriving here. Without Zee, Alcide is still trying to decide if the tradeoff is worth it. But at the same time, deep down, he knows he wouldn't trade either. For his own part, he can both smell and feel the power rolling off of Buffy now - in a completely different way than before. He wonders if she can sense his other-ness.

When she's ready to go, he nods and goes to the door, holding it open for her as they step outside into the evening air. The tea is a surprise and he takes it with some kind of skeptical hesitation. Tea isn't really something they have a lot of in his parts of Louisiana unless it has ice and an excess of sugar in it.

As they walk, he lifts the lid a bit and sniffs at it. "Tryin' to put me to sleep, huh?" He's trying to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Buffy wasn't as close to Zee as Alcide was, but she wishes that she were here for his sake. They're all missing someone from the Complex. Perhaps it was the conditions or the clear divides between alphas, specials and the computer, but bonds with others were formed fairly quick. She, Derek and Alcide are proof of that. As for being able to sense Alcide's wolf, she can, though she wouldn't be able to pinpoint that he's a werewolf if she didn't already know. It feels a little like goosebumps all over her body, a part of her screaming at her to either kill him or run away. There's a certain kind of adrenaline rush in it (which may be part of the reason she dated vampires). She would be lying if she said she didn't like it.

She murmurs her thanks when he opens the door for her, hands curling around her cup of tea. She'd gotten used to the whole idea of tea with Giles around. Now, it's something she actually really likes, though something she couldn't really get in the Complex.

She smiles at his comment and shakes her head. "Just relax," she tells him with a soft smile.

He's lucky, really, that she'd told him right off the bat that she doesn't kill indiscriminately. If it had been any different, they wouldn't work, not even as friends, not even with his wolf and her slayer powers dampened. For Alcide it's been a long lesson, from everything he was taught in a pack growing up to meeting people like Bill and Sam, Jessica and Sookie - All others that make his skin bristle with discomfort, but who aren't necessarily all evil either. Nothing is black and white. No group of people can be a blanket statement.

"Truth be told I don't think I've ever had tea that didn't have ice and a shit ton of sugar in it." Careful Alcide, your deep South is showing. He doesn't even think about it, really. Not with Buffy. She's never judged him and he doesn't expect her to start now.

He takes a sip of the tea and the warm liquid doesn't burn down his throat, but it's warm and soothing, like coffee but without the coffee flavor he likes so much. It's alright. "Not bad. But if I fall asleep on you, it's your fault. I sleep like the dead most of the time." Once he gets there. It's the getting there that's rough on him.

She can totally understand why that would be a make-or-break deal. It's hard to have any kind of relationship at all when that person is trying to kill you either actively or otherwise (trust her, there's a different between actively trying to kill you and just hoping to kill. She and Spike have run the gamut of that. Hell, she and Angel have run the gamut. Okay, maybe she has a type. Maybe it's not impossible to have a relationship. Clearly, this is why romance is difficult for Buffy). No, nothing is black and white. It's a lesson that Buffy had learned early and one she'd fought the Council over. Now, she's the council and everyone plays by her rules.

Buffy smiles at that. Yes, it is his deep South showing. "When I had all the slayers living with me in Scotland, there was one from the South, Anna Marie, she would only drink tea iced with a lot of sugar." No, she's not going to judge him.

Warm and soothing is the point, she thinks, rather than the taste. She laughs a little at that. "It's okay. Now I could actually drag you back to the house if I had to," she tells him. She's also aware that he has a hard time going to sleep, hence the tea.

Buffy is a take charge kind of woman, that's really unlike anyone he's ever been attracted to. Debbie was a follower. Sookie was stubborn as all get out and fell somewhere in the middle of take charge and not. Buffy is completely in charge of herself and Alcide is actually surprised to be attracted to that. Buffy has never needed to use him for anything. She stands on her own without needing him at all. So far, it's just that she seems to want him around and that's something Alcide thinks he needs. He needs to be wanted every bit as much as he wants.

That they've yet to define anything between them is a non-point. Alcide knows how to be patient. (No seriously, he knows.) He also knows that whether they define it or not, there's something unnamed between them that's more than friends territory. He's fine with knowing that.

He likes hearing about her life from where she's from. Each time she gives him a tiny bit of information it's like he gets to peel back another layer. The Slayers in Scotland, for instance. "You've been to Scotland? I bet that was... an adventure." He won't say it was nice because if all the Slayers were there, from what she's told him, there was probably trouble afoot.

"So how's that goin'?" He asks after a moment. "Havin' your powers back, I mean. You doin' good with it?" He just asks cause he knows Derek is struggling a bit. He has to wonder how Buffy's handling it.

She really always has been, even before she became a slayer, but being a slayer definitely amped that personality trait up. Some people would call her a control freak and lots of people have called her a bitch, but she prefers being called independent and 'take charge'. Alcide's summation of her is a good one, and she's glad for that. He's precisely right in his thinking; Buffy doesn't need him for anything, but she does want him around. She likes his company, some days more than she thinks she probably should. The nicest thing about wanting Alcide in her life is that he doesn't make her weaker by being something she wants; in fact, she's pretty sure that having him in her life makes her stronger.

His patience is charming and endearing, something she's come to appreciate about him. It's also necessary if he's interested in anything beyond friendship with her because of the relationship she's in back home, because of his romantic history, because of hers. Patience is key to it all. Hell, even if they do get together romantically, patience will probably be needed. She's incredibly aware of the fact that there's something more between them than friendship, and that's what it is: fact.

She likes hearing about his life as well. It's a world she can't even imagine, a place she's never visited even in her own world. It not only lets her see a part of the world she hasn't and a life she hasn't experienced, it lets her know someone that she's come to care a great deal about as well. "We lived there for several months in a castle," she responds. "It was very wet and cold most of the time. It did not measure up to my Californian expectations," she tells him. "Also we were pretty remote so it's not like I was experiencing the night life or the day life or any sort of---you get the point." There was definitely trouble afoot. Trouble and training and an attempt at trying to shoulder the responsibility she'd given herself when they'd made the slayers.

At his prodding, she smiles. "Good. It's--I feel more like myself, you know? I mean...I spent years fighting what I was and who I was, but not that long ago I just accepted it, and not having it made me feel...less." She knows that Alcide gets it because they'd discussed how they felt less back in the complex. "What about you? I know you're doing the wolfy thing a lot at night. Which, by the way, if you get the urge to play fetch or snuggle, I'm totally down with it. I've never had a dog," she teases him, but she's also serious about that. The wolf part of him doesn't bother her and she really likes that he's still him when he's a wolf.

It's interesting, because Alcide isn't that good with people - at least not until he's had some time to know them. He can both scent and sense certain emotions, a talent his wolf has given him. But analyzing and understanding people, it's not his strong suit. With Buffy, he does think he has a pretty good read on her, which is different for him. He can't explain why it is, but it just is. He hopes he can maintain that.

He understands that sometimes you just can't control how you feel about someone or who you feel those things about. He'll never understand why Sookie could never fully get over Bill and Eric, both vampires, even while she was with him. Neither of them were good people. He knows nothing about the guy Buffy is with back home - except that he's a Fanger. Alcide isn't sure he wants to know, because his experience with Vampers isn't all that good and he doesn't want to imagine Buffy with someone like that. Also, it's such a close parallel to his last relationship that he can easily get things all twisted up in his head. He doesn't want that. He knows what he feels and who he feels it for. He can wait.

"So it's not like you were sight-seein' or anything. I get it." As he suspected, trouble. Sometimes as much as you might try to avoid it, it's unavoidable. And that's from his end of things. Buffy, it sounds like she couldn't avoid it even if she wanted to.

Alcide watches her in profile as she talks about her powers. He knows what a relief it is for him to have his wolf. He'd fought so hard for it in the Complex. He nods at her and then busts out laughing when she mentions playing fetch and compares him to a dog. There are only very few who could get away with that. She's one of them. "Just stay away from collars and leashes and we're good."

He shrugs and nods. "Yeah, I feel like me again. Being able to shift is... everything. You know I used to hate the wolf parts of me. I thought it was a curse. Never wanted to have kids or anything cause it's passed down through the bloodline. It's different now. It was different even before I got here. Grew to accept that I'm not like other wolves and that it's okay to be me. So I get it. Bein' without it was... hard."

Buffy is complicated, at least she thinks she is. She's been told she's complicated, but she's also upfront. What you see is what you get with her and she's reached an age and confidence level where she refuses to apologize for herself (except for the foot-in-the-mouth thing that she still does, and really she thinks that deserves an apology). On top of that, she wants Alcide to know her, she wants to know him. Maybe that's why Alcide gets a good read on her.

Assuming that Buffy stays here (and she's got no reason to think that whomever or whatever brought her here will send her away), she knows that one of these days Spike will become someone that she loves the way she loves Angel, someone that she will always love, but not someone she's in love with anymore. It's pretty clear to Buffy that if Alcide continues to be patient, continues to be Alcide, he's the person she's going to be in love with and when she's in love with him, she won't want anyone else but him. It's the way that her heart works.

"Nope," Buffy admits, her voice drops a little as she continues to speak, "we were kind of staying on the downlow. I sort of ended up wanted by the FBI, but Willow fixed that," she assures him, her voice going back up to a normal speaking level. Buffy would love to be able to avoid trouble, but it finds her.

The laughter is a good reaction; it's the one she'd been going for. "Got it. No collars. No leashes. It's okay, I don't like to be tied up either." A split second later, she realizes what she just confessed and blushes scarlet. Well, there's really no fumbling her way out of that one, is there? She's just going to stew in her embarrassment and wish a hole would form in the ground to swallow her up.

She watches him, a slight smile tugging at the corners of her lips as she listens to him. "And now you want to have kids? Eventually, I mean."

Alcide would say that people are complicated in general. He's always thought so anyway. It's probably why he always ends up with the wrong ones - why he keeps thinking he can help them, fix them, be good enough for them, etc. Alcide has a lot of issues when it comes to being good enough for other people.

Sometimes, not very often, but sometimes, he wonders if that's why Buffy isn't with him yet - or if maybe he's a bad person for already being there, for falling so hard so quick. Then he reminds himself of the glaring differences between their situations. Sookie had run off with Bill after lying to him. Buffy is happy with whoever she's with back home. Spike, Alcide thinks his name is. Yes, very different circumstances. Apples and oranges.

"The FBI? That bad, huh?" She's alluded to it before but now that it's out there so plainly, he puts it all together pretty quickly. "People are afraid of what they don't understand, what they can't control. It's why shifters have stayed hidden for so long. People wouldn't understand." Except now everyone knows about them back home and those concerns have been proven true. "They don't understand."

However, at her response, Alcide looks at her, amused in every way, grin on his lips and eyebrows lifted. Yeah, he heard her clearly and all the innuendo sits there between them as he decides how to respond. "I mean if you're sure about that. I'll be sure to keep it less kinky, more straight and simple." Now he's just teasing her.

At the last question he shrugs. "Maybe. Maybe not. I thought maybe with Sookie... but, that's never gonna happen now and I know that. So I'll just play it by ear. Gotta have a decent place to raise kids in too. Home wasn't that... yet. Neither is here, from what I can tell so far. Plus... we don't know about the whole sterile thing from the Complex, if it carries over into here." Yeah, he's thought about it. "What about you? Eventually."

Buffy is pretty sure that he's right about that. She's still out on whether people can be fixed or not. She knows that people can change, that they can fix themselves. She's not sure it's possible for someone else to fix a person. As far as Alcide being good enough, he's as good a person as Buffy has ever met. Any girl, her included, would be lucky to have Alcide and he deserves to be treated right, to be loved. As uncertain as she is about what she wants with Alcide, she is certain of that.

He's not a bad person and the reason she's not with him right now is that she wants to be able to commit to Alcide completely. She doesn't want to be half in on their relationship and that's the only reason they aren't together right now. He's right though, her situation is very different from his situation. He can't compare the two, or at least he shouldn't.

She shrugs. "I cratered a town with help. Everyone had already evacuated but I'm still a terrorist in their eyes." Yeah, it was that bad. Willow had managed to get them out of the country. "No they don't and they don't take the time to find out," she sighs. "I mean...I get it. Vampires, werewolves...they're scary, but especially in your world where they're still people...they deserve the chance to be understood." Yeah, she's talking a little bit about herself, but most of the time humans aren't scared of her. She doesn't hurt them. In fact, as oblivious as they can be, they realize she usually protects them.

Yeah, she sees that amusement and she shakes her head at him. It's better that he be amused than other reactions, she guesses. "Oh, I wouldn't have any issues tying you up," she fires back, deciding that she's in this hole; she might as well make herself comfortable. It's a whole claustrophobia thing combined with control issues.

She's quiet for a while, considering his question. The whole sterile thing aside--and she's still upset about that--"I don't know. I thought I was pregnant once. Back home." It ended up being a robot thing but..."and I wanted it, but I don't know if I'd actually try to have kids. I'm kind of a bullseye back home for everything supernatural and evil. That's not going to change anytime soon. If the world were perfect..." she bites her bottom lip, holding her breath for a moment, "yeah. I think so."

Alcide isn't new to destruction or violence. In fact, he's seen quite a bit of it. But a whole town cratered? That's a new one. The sheer scale of that kind of destruction is just a little bit beyond him. Not to mention what it would take to evacuate a whole town. Alcide is assuming that as overpopulated as California is, towns in California, even the smaller ones, aren't like the backwater Louisiana towns he's used to.

Sometimes, when Buffy gives him these small snippets of information from her life back home, Alcide thinks she's lived more in her lifetime than most people do in half of theirs.

He shakes his head. "You know, I've seen a ton of crazy shit back home in my time. But I'm startin' to get that you've seen way more than your fair share too." Alcide shrugs. "But yeah, I don't get along with most others; Fangers, Shifters, Fae... even my own kind. It was kind of brainwashed into me back in my pack days to distrust the others. But with my own kind, that was learned over time. And then, more recently, guess I started to finally look at all of it on more of a case by case basis instead of a group. Took awhile to get there... but I mean when you grow up bein' told to hate this or hate that... you do it until you learn otherwise. Most other wolves, they don't try to think for themselves. They just do what their Pack Master tells them. Hell, I did for a long time too... until I got smart about it."

Actually, it took his dad being booted as Pack Master for being a thieving asshole for Alcide to finally start to think for himself. Fallen idols will do that to a person.

On the more lighter topic that Alcide is glad is there because it makes talking about the darker stuff easier, he smirks when she says she'd be fine with tying him up. "Or the other way around, right? Me tyin' you up?" He tosses right back at her around a boyish grin. "Seems like turnabout is fair play or somethin' like that." Of course now he's imagining both tying her up and being tied up by her. It's both terrifying and sexy as hell. A little fear in foreplay can be fun though, he thinks.

He glances over to her, sobering a bit. "But the world isn't perfect." Which is part of his problem with the idea too. "It never will be. Plus there's the fact that my kind of wolf is passed down through the bloodline, not by biting someone. So I'd be dooming someone to live with this for forever..." Not so bad without a pack. With a pack, it's just a heap of trouble.

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coffee shop;

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