Mauvaise Chance Lobby/Office, Thursday [2/1] , all day

[needsaparrot]

There's a frog-tank on the counter.

...there's also a Xander, yes, poking at the computers in between making phone calls and searching through desk drawers trying to find anything that looks like blueprints for the brand-new floors that suddenly appeared in the sub-basement. As such things do

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[once_a_king]

And there was a Peter who was definitely, definitely very tentative about coming in here. He opened the door carefully. "Good afternoon?"

[needsaparrot]

Jeremiah croaked at the newcomer, and Xander looked up from a set of building plans that definitely didn't include hidden apartments in the basement.

"Peter, hey!" It'd been long enough that his first thought wasn't of the last time he'd seen Willow's boyfriend; more that they hadn't spoken yet as themselves, since he'd been back.

[once_a_king]

Peter grinned at Xander, happy to not talk about the last time they'd met. "Xander. Welcome back. How do you do?"

[needsaparrot]

Xander rubbed his forehead, then tapped the blueprints in front of him. "Apparently I do pretty well, since I suddenly have a hallway. Also an apartment building, but the hallway is suddener."

[once_a_king]

"It's the new thing to give for the person who has everything?" Peter asked, glancing towards the blueprints. "Where does the hallway go?"

[needsaparrot]

"Not on these blueprints, for one thing." Xander pointed towards the stairs. "It's in the basement. There was a fake wall behind the boiler."

[once_a_king]

"A fake wall blocking off a hallway?" Peter repeated. "That's...a bit strange. Any rooms back there?"

[needsaparrot]

Xander nodded. "Well, I think so. There's doors; I haven't looked in them yet. Call me crazy but in the Jeopardy category of Unexpected Things Discovered In Basements, most of the big-money answers tend to also be found under Things That Eat Your Soul And/Or Possess Tentacles."

[once_a_king]

"True, but we already had the tentacle demon," Peter pointed out. "This being Fandom, it's probably some new and special unexpected thing awaiting."

[needsaparrot]

"This would be my point," Xander said, nodding. "Thus I wait until I have somebody around who can wave a hand at Evil and know it's there. And maybe also somebody who can banish it or at least shake smelly herbs at it, if it is."

[once_a_king]

Peter grinned. "Bridge and Willow then?"

[needsaparrot]

"If I can get 'em both here at the same time, yup. Well, them and the smelly herbs."

[once_a_king]

"I can possibly help with the smelly herbs bit," Peter said. Blushing, he pulled a number of folded bills out of his pocket and went to hand them to Xander. "I'm so sorry. I -errr - meant to give it back before and errr, hadn't got to town. Recently. At all."

[needsaparrot]

Okay, now Xander thought of the last time they met. And coughed. "Oh yeah, it's that money I lent you to go on vacation with the weekend before last. While I napped for two days."

[once_a_king]

Peter ducked his head. "I had a very nice vacation. There was lots of, err, reading."

[needsaparrot]

"Yeah? Did you go home to..." Had he ever known the name of Peter's country-that-wasn't-England? "Um, Closetland?"