(Untitled)

[nobler_things]

It always comes back to this. To a woman. Always about a girl. It doesn’t matter, he could justify himself six ways to Sunday, and it would always come back to a girl. Everything he’s ever done, everything he is, could all be traced back to one of those bloody women. They’ll be the death of him, one of these days. Had been the death of him, more

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[chasinghumanity]

"Jesus." He saw it coming, a man-shaped thing in black, or at least something bipedal screaming like a human. But Mitchell saw it exactly a second and a half before it crashed into him, and no one was that fast, not even Mitchell back home on a good day. He never stood a chance.

"Fuck!" He tumbled back under the weight of him -- definitely a him -- and might have somersaulted but got mixed up in a tangle of limbs regardless of the acrobatics. "Jesus, mate, calm the fuck down!" he shouted, trying to protect his face from a meeting with the ground.

[nobler_things]

"Fire! I'm on fire!" Spike shouted, his voice breaking with the very force of his distress, and he continued to scramble for a moment more, when suddenly he froze, his head popping out from under the collar of his coat.

He blinked. "I'm not on fire?"

[chasinghumanity]

Mitchell cowered for half a second more, arms over his face, but at the question rather than the mad shouting, he let his arms dropped and blinked as well.

"No!" he shouted, just the once, though there was a strong tone to the rest of his words. "You're not on fire. What the hell? Why would someone set you on fucking fire?"

[nobler_things]

Sitting back on his haunches, Spike prodded gingerly at his head, rolling his eyes and waving a hand up toward the sky. "Sun allergy," he muttered, brushing sand from his jacket and then looking down at the man like he'd been the one to come charging down the beach like a raving lunatic.

"Who the bloody hell are you?"

[scoobys_heart]

With his coat over his head, it probably would have been better for Spike to run into a tree. But instead, he managed to trip over the legs of the Scooby who was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree and trying to carve an animal out of wood that would remotely look like the elephant in the book next to him. Xander had been so caught up in the trunk that he didn't notice the ex-vamp appear out of no where until he was practically in his lap.

And then all he could do was stare, completely and utterly horrified.

Hadn't Deadboy been bad enough? Really? REALLY?!

[nobler_things]

He had just enough time to let out a very manly yelp before he went down in a graceless heap, face first in the sand all over again. It just kept getting better and better.

There was a startling lack of smoke and searing pain, however, which had to be a plus. He sprang up, rolling up onto his knees and looking for all the world like he hadn't just eaten a mouthful of sand. Then he noticed the git who'd been so carelessly in his path, and that was when things officially got weird.

"Harris?"

[scoobys_heart]

This wasn't fair. This just wasn't fair! Yet this was Xander's life, always the butt of every joke. And wasn't this the worst cosmic joke of all. Not even two months...and Spike was back.

And despite everything...seeing him there brought a familiar pang to Xander's heart. And it hurt dammit!

When he finally was able to reply, his voice came out in low, raspy growl, "You asshole! You shouldn't be here. You CAN'T be here!" Well, it wasn't exactly the most sane thing in the word to say but then, Xander never had been one to think before he spoke in the best of occasions.

[nobler_things]

"You're damn right I shouldn't be here. You know, I've got half a mind to think this is all your fault," he said, jabbing a finger in Xander's direction.

"I happened to be in the middle of something, I'll have you know."

[overprotects]

Lightning was already having a strange enough day without screaming people rushing past her. She stared after him, wondering if it was a good idea to intercept, but before she could the man - it was presumably a man - crashed into a nearby tree.

She walked over, unhurried, and looked down at him.

"Hey. You okay?" she asked, after a moment. She didn't appear too concerned. Just curious.

[nobler_things]

He slumped to the ground, groaning pitifully and letting his coat right itself around his shoulders.

"Ow, my head," he muttered, cradling it in his pale hands and cracking open an eye to look at the source of that voice. "Will be when the room stops spinning, luv. Give us a moment."

[overprotects]

"This isn't a room," Lightning pointed out. "It's a jungle." She looked up, but he didn't seem to have been pursued by anything, which meant he'd run into a tree for no particular reason.

She wondered if he was new. He seemed about as confused as Lightning had been when she'd first 'arrived' on the island, over a week ago. So he was either new, or just...weird.

[nobler_things]

Cracking open both eyes, he took it all in. All that green, the sunlight filtering down through the leaves, sparkling and warming the underbrush at their feet. The ocean in the distance. Monkeys and birds chattering away. He'd seen a program on the telly just like this, once.

"Figure of speech," he murmured distractedly, a hand falling to a chest that was rising and falling with each breath, blood pounding overwhelmingly loud in his ears. "Well, that's not right."

[hbicheer]

Quinn shrieks, and it is only the years of balance training, cheers while standing on handrails and standing on top of a ladder with a beach ball balanced on her nose, that keeps the guy from knocking her flat on her ass-- or worse, her front. She clutches her stomach protectively.

"What is your problem?" she demands. "I could have--" Quinn stops, and looks closer. "It's like you go to the same hairdresser as Mr. Schue."

[nobler_things]

Luckily, he found a patch of dense shadows, just along the treeline, and he skidded to a stop, standing doubled over with his back against a tree.

"Well, nobody made you stand there, did they? Look at that," he said, waving a lazy hand in the direction of the beach stretching out around them, and he was just now beginning to realize how heavily he was panting. "All that nice, lovely space, not an inch of it in my way."

He was starting to feel a bit woozy. He frowned, wobbled, said, "Mr. What?" and then promptly crumpled to his knees.

[hbicheer]

"Oh, for the love of God," Quinn says, and she supposes it's her maternal instinct when she walks over to him and sits down. "Did you bleach your brain or something?" Eventually, though, she digs a water bottle out of her purse, and hands it over. "Drink something. If you die, it's probably bad luck."

[nobler_things]

Even half conscious and wavering on his knees, he still had it in him to give her brightly blonde hair a glance, roll his eyes and mutter, "Oh, like you're fooling anybody with those highlights."

Still, he took the bottle from her, cracking it open and chugging it practically all in one go. He'd never been so thirsty in his life. Not for water, anyway.

[todoright]

Day Three of Angel's new life as a human. It was taking longer than he'd originally thought to adjust - his sleep patterns were still very much nocturnal, this breathing thing was new and...there was Buffy. The girl who complicated things and yet simplified them at the same time

[chose]

"There's a serious chocolate shortage on the island," Buffy warns Angel, dipping one chunk of said chocolate into a small tub of peanut-butter, "so you're kinda just gonna have to savor this amazingness and engrave the taste in your mind for future reference. It's not Godiva but chocolate is chocolate."

She took herself for a hand-feed-your-boyfriend kind of girl, but she's holding her hand out to Angel's mouth now and it just feels right. Maybe that's expected, when said boyfriend used to be un-feedable due to a strict diet of animal blood. By this time, Buffy is aware that she's referred to Angel as her boyfriend twice in her mind already, and she should really tame her thoughts. They aren't dating. Are they? God, this is confusing.

A madman interrupting their quiet afternoon, however, is more than enough to distract Buffy from the question at hand. Angel leaping up and attacking at once even more so. That's when she finally gets a clear view of just who Angel has by the collar.

"Spike?!This is too much. No one on the island gets

[nobler_things]

It happened so fast, he didn't have time to process. He didn't have time to think, even if he'd bothered with it... which, knowing him, wasn't likely. He acted, which meant that as soon as his head snapped back with the force of that meaty fist, he was throwing his own, aimed right at that big, self-righteous mug.

"Hot pokers? Are you out of your mind?"

But then there was Buffy, beautiful and shining in the sun, and you couldn't really blame a bloke for taking a moment or two to stare. This was, after all, the closest he'd been to her in months.

It would have been glorious if it weren't for Angel blathering on about who the hell cares.

"Wait, I know what this is," he said, his eyes narrowing in his grandsire's direction, "You thought you could distract me and then swoop in and be the big hero while I wasn't looking. Make me look like a fool with your fancy, Wolfram and Hart mojo. Well, it's not going to work."

[todoright]

No. Oh no. Spike does not get to stare at Buffy like that. Spike, who thought she was 'cute when she's hurting' and was probably just trying to come up with another way to torment her. Despite having to step back once he was punched, Angel took the moment or two that Spike was distracted to retaliate.

He had still felt pain as a vampire, but as a human it was more...real, somehow. Sharper. But that would hardly stop him from beating Spike to a pulp, if that was how he wanted to play it.

"Cute, Spike. But don't play games with me, because I don't know what the hell you're talking about. You, on the other hand probably just forgot about the Gem of Amara. That's likely."