oo4 ↔ [location: various] i don't care about clever, i don't care about funny

[fuckyouripper]

Aside from harbouring Tara last week, Ethan has responded to the chaotic reaction on the part of people he thinks of as friends and family primarily by laying low - and it doesn't look like that is set to change in a hurry. It was what Dawn said to him that undercut his natural inclination to simply be defiantly who he is until they accepted it,

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[location: cafe]

[beenthroughhell]

Tara, for her part, is doing better. Between the sympathy of friends, her own temperament, and the prospect of something to do other than sit around dwelling on it, she's coping. Oh, there's still the occasional nightmare about being shot, about what happens after, but for her, it's not memory. Just conjecture based on what she was told. It's easier to block out that way.

She wondered if her father had cried, at her death. If he even knew.

But today she's ignoring all that, mostly successfully, at the prospect of helping Ethan pick out a shop front. She's more excited than she lets on, at the idea of a new Magic Box in Taxon. It's something she feels she can be useful at, and getting to know Ethan better will be a bonus as well. She's heading for the cafe, then, with a bit of a smile: if not quite her old self, then heading that direction.

[fuckyouripper]

The prospect of opening a business here in Taxon is a lot of different things to Ethan; a useful occupation that isn't sulking about what the hell is going on with everyone he knows, a bittersweet thought to imagine it without Anya. Still, tragic nostalgia aside, it's a good idea and it's good for the both of them.

"There you are," he says, touching Tara's elbow and kissing her cheek as he joins her.

[beenthroughhell]

Her smile grows as he appears. Even if she doesn't remember him from before, he's quickly becoming a good friend now, and she'll always be grateful for how much he helped when she first found out about her death. Much as they probably were in his timeline, it's nice to have someone from home that feels like her friend directly, rather than via Scooby gang, much as she loves them. "Good morning. How are things?"

[fuckyouripper]

"Still being blamed for the very sad lack of hideous elbow patches in Rupert's wardrobe," he says brightly, sliding into the seat opposite while he waits for his coffee. "I can't imagine why. How are you feeling?"

[Location: Random Taxon Street?]

[a_pretty_fire]

Drusilla had spent the last few weeks with her head firmly in her own clouds. Mourning her father - even though she knew that he'd return one day, as he always did - had taken up far too much energy. She hadn't realised the Ethan had been glitched, although that probably wouldn't have prevented her from gliding over - hugging the shadows and smiling like a shark - to greet him.

[ location: A STREET WOO ]

[fuckyouripper]

...Drusilla. Ethan pauses, guarded, when he realizes she's coming towards him; the chip is comforting (if inexplicable), and he's always had mixed feelings about this particular slice of vampiric history. Mad brunettes always kind of did it for him, you know, and even when he has a thousand reasons not to want to be anywhere near her, something about Drusilla has always appealed to the cruel and power-saturated parts of Ethan that even decades of playing nice haven't actually eroded.

But he still behaves. It's worth it not to make those mistakes. (He just doesn't dislike her quite as much as he should.)

"Our false sun not agreeing with you?"

[a_pretty_fire]

"I don't trust it."

She'd spent a long time hiding from the sun. It was still difficult to step into it. She held out a hand as she closed the distance between them, feeling the false sunlight wrapping around her fingers, brief and sharp, before she snatched them away.

[fuckyouripper]

"Lulling you, you think?" Ethan stays, quite decisively, right where he is under the light - his hands in his pockets, his demeanour devil-may-care.