Tara's Dorm Room, UC-Sunnydale, Wednesday Afternoon

[life_inshadow]

So Willow was off doing Scooby stuff again, but Tara wasn't all that jealous. Willow clearly adored the whole hanging out with the Slayer whiz-bang of it, and Tara was happier when she wasn't almost getting killed

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[not_a_parakeet]

Warren was feeling... well, pretty darn good, today, as he stopped by Tara's room, a book in hand and a grin on his face.

"Tara?" Knock knock, Tara! "Tara, are you home? I mean, you have to be home. I got it, I got the new book!"

Yes, the same one she was reading. It could be, like, a book club! A Jonathan book club!

[life_inshadow]

Tara was off her bed like a shot and over to open the door. "Oh my god, you have to read it," she said. "It's about what happened that time Jonathan was a spy inside the kremlin during the cold war."

Back before they were born. What?

[not_a_parakeet]

"Oh, wow," Warren breathed, his voice all awe and his expression very much the same. "It makes me want to book a ticket to Portalocity to back then, to see if I can witness it for myself."

Because that wouldn't be a horrible idea or anything. No way.

[life_inshadow]

"That would be the most amazing thing," Tara nodded. "Even better than watching him dust vampires! More -- special, you know?"

And it'd one-up Willow for sure. She waved Warren toward her bed. "Sit down. I just barely started reading."

[not_a_parakeet]

Warren gave Tara an excited little grin, making his way across the room, careful about how he arranged his wings behind him as he sat on the edge of her bed. Normally, he'd be a little more irritable - he was just starting his molt and his back itched and everything was uncomfortable. But it was impossible to be anything but giddy when he had Jonathan's newest book in hand and he was about to finally open it up and read.

"Would you mind starting it over again so that I can catch up? I mean, if it's anything like all of his other ones, it'll be a first chapter worth reading over and over and over..."

[life_inshadow]

"Of course not," Tara said, flipping the book back to the first page. "Like you said. I was going to reread it a hundred times anyhow, right?"

She frowned at his wings, noticing the molt. "Do ... you want some ointment or anything?"

[not_a_parakeet]

"I'll be fine," Warren promised, "... unless you have some of that hand cream that Jonathan patented. It would do a lot of good for the itching. I'll make sure to pick any stray feathers up before I go."

Because, really, what would Tara do with feathers that varied in size from a few inches to a few feet long, exactly? Warren was still at a loss for how to discreetly dispose of them without just taking them somewhere and burning them, so he'd just been tucking them away under his bed, along with his textbooks and sometimes his dirty laundry and pretty much anything that wasn't Jonathan-related.

[life_inshadow]

Tara frowned, went over to her makeup kit. "I might," she said. "I don't normally need it, so -- oh! Here it is."

She passed along the mostly full tub triumphantly.

"I c-could start reading out loud while you, um, cream up," she offered hopefully. Also as if she thought 'cream up' was a little disgusting as a thing to say.

[not_a_parakeet]

The look Warren gave her seemed to be more or less in agreement about that.

"That sounds way worse than it really is," he informed her, opening the tub and dipping two fingers in, leaving little gouges in the cream from his claws. "I don't even need that much. I just... might have taken a little extra... in case."

Because it was Jonathan hand cream.

"I'll probably end up using most of it on my hands, anyhow. Go on and read? Talking about my wings is officially getting weird now."

Bodily functions were bad enough. They were worse when they weren't typically human ones.

[life_inshadow]

"Yeah, the word wings is going to sound bizarre to me if we say it a couple more times," Tara told him matter-of-factly, then opened her book to the first page.

"The Russian bar was smokey and loud that winter night in 1987, just the way I liked it. I bounced the weight of my .45 against my hip as I watched Svetlana Ivanova Smirnov make her luscious way across the bar. She was a black-haired beauty whose lips were as deadly as her knife collection, and I desperately needed her on our side.," she read. "Maybe I just desperately needed her..."

[not_a_parakeet]

"He's so romantic," Warren sighed, listening to Tara read, a rapt look on his face as he folded one wing around himself and quietly, idly preened at his feathers with his fingers. "And... and brave. Imagine, wanting somebody so dangerous."

Er, not that Karla was chopped liver or anything. It's just, this was Jonathan.

[life_inshadow]

"I know," Tara said, eyes far-away and dreamy as she glanced up. "And the best part is, he went in alone. Even Buffy always has back-up."

[not_a_parakeet]

"Buffy, and... I mean, we have a cavalry for things that go on with other people from Fandom," Warren agreed. "I wouldn't dream of doing half the things that Jonathan thinks of as easy."

Said the guy who was running off to war to be with the woman he loved, and who got his kicks by jumping out of the windows of skyscrapers.

[life_inshadow]

"I guess not everybody can be like Johnathan," Tara said, a little sadly. "But -- we have our good points! We're cool! ... kind of."

[not_a_parakeet]

"We have our cool points," Warren decided. "I mean, Jonathan would want us to acknowledge that, right? I mean, you're a witch. And I'm..."

He needed a moment. Rich? Mutant? The wings were less awesome at the moment than usual, so that wasn't quite right, either.

"I'm probably cool, too. But, I mean, I'm no Jonathan. My hands smell like his now, though. I can live with that."

Warren, that was creepy.

[life_inshadow]

"Jonathan's a witch too, but you can fly," Tara pointed out. "Jonathan needs a jet pack for that."

See? Warren was better in one way! Even with moltiness.

She added, keenly, "And can I smell your hands? Karla would understand."