Room 121, Sunday evening after the beach.
Xander pulls the door shut behind himself as he follows Bridge into his room. The click of the latch catching is familiar. Normal. Casual.
...really loud, for some reason.
"Well, here we are then..." Bridge says, bouncing a little from foot to foot.
"Yup," Xander agrees, not stepping very far from the door. "I'd be kinda worried if one of us wasn't, because then the other would be talking to himself."
"And that'd just be weird," Bridge agrees solemnly.
"Jeremiah would probably fear for somebody's sanity," Xander says, nodding towards the tank on his desk. "Or at least he'd wonder where his next meal was coming from if I was either not here or busy being crazy."
"And we wouldn't want to worry the frog," Bridge says. "So, uh..." he flails a little.
"So... uh," Xander agrees, with differently-placed ellipses. His non-splinted fingers tap on the doorframe and he glances away, into the room, for a second. Like he's thinking, which he is. "So I guess we should get started, huh?" he says when he turns back, his voice a little more purposeful.
"Yes!" Bridge says brightly. "That's a good plan, I like that plan." He moves a little closer to Xander.
Which is... utterly usual and familiar by now and shouldn't cause somebody to, for instance, move away. So it's possibly a tad unexpected when Xander does, heading for the little half counter next to his kitchenette. On which a toolbox sits. "Ratchet or screwdriver?"
There's a moment of silence, and then... "What?"
Xander walks over to the pile of stained wooden shelves still stacked in the corner where the counter meets the wall, and lifts one up. "Well, they bolt into place, but you really need to tighten it on both ends, and..." He waves his healing left hand. "...I've only got the one hand free."
"I knew that," Bridge says, because he *did* know that. He just didn't know that that was what they were going to be *doing*.
"So--" Xander grins enthusiastically. "Nut or bolt?"
"Uh, bolt, I guess." Bridge shrugs.
"Screwdriver it is, then." Xander sets down the shelf, reaches into the toolbox and holds one out.
"Yeah, okay," Bridge says, taking the offered screwdriver.
Xander grabs a bolt, nut and bracket from the toolbox, then picks up the board again. "Frame first, and then we put the shelves in," he says, laying the long board out on the floor, then crouching to square it up with one of the shorter ones. "Already drilled the holes, so just have to bracket the corners."
Putting the bracket on the inside of the right angle he's made, he lines it up with the holes in the wood and slides a bolt in. "And now I need screwdriver. Or actually just fingers first, 'cause I can't hold the bolt and the boards and put the nut on at the same time. That'd actually take three hands."
He crooks a finger at Bridge to come closer.
"Good thing you've got some help, then," Bridge says, as he moves over to give Xander a hand- or, well, two- with the shelves.
"Just hold the bolt still for a sec while I thread the nut on," Xander says, leaning closer as he fiddles with the hardware on the inside of the shelf join.
Bridge reaches over to do just that.
Xander tightens the nut by hand, slips the ratchet on it and gives it one ch-ch-ch-ch-t turn, then looks up. Not very far up, since with both of them crouched over the shelves, their faces are about four inches apart. "Bridge?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm kidding. I totally meant sex." Xander darts forward and kisses him before he even has a chance to respond.
And Bridge totally forgets any response he *might* have had to that revelation because hey, kissing.
Admittedly kissing is a little awkward while leaning over a bookshelf with a tool in your hand, not-dirty-except-kinda. Which is why Xander drops the ratchet, and it clunks loudly onto the floor as he slides his good hand down the side of Bridge's neck. He almost notices.
Bridge... actually does notice. Which is why he reluctantly breaks the kiss to make a suggestion. "Bed?" he says, waving in the direction of same.
Xander blinks, then nods, a little dazed, then finally grins and waves at the shelf as he backs up towards the bed. "Sorry. Tension breaker. Had to happen."
Bridge snorts. "You're very weird," he says affectionately. "And also wearing too many clothes."
__
[Continued in not-work-safe filtered post here]