whattingawhat | Chinese Therapy, like retail therapy but with food. [RP for <lj site="livejournal.com" user="stillac

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Current Location: NYC Danny's place

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Chinese Therapy, like retail therapy but with food. [RP for <lj site="livejournal.com" user="stillac

After Buffy got off the laptop she got up and pulled a pair of jeans on. She grabbed a black sweater and pulled it over her head. The neckline was elongated and just hovered on the edges of her shoulders. She'd forgone a bra and threw her toothbrush and change of clothes into a small bag. She pulled her hair up in a ponytail, slipped her feet into a pair of fantastic lime green heels. She called the Chinese place on her cellphone as she click clacked down the stairs (elevators were for losers and people less claustophobic than her). The doorman grabbed her cab and she slipped into the backseat as she finished placing the Chinese order. She was worried about Danny mostly because it was the first time she was dealing with badday!Danny and she wasn't sure what the protocol was for that just yet.

The cab let her out at the Chinese place and she told it to go on, she'd walk the rest of the way. She picked up an extra pair of chopsticks when she grabbed the food because she'd left her stakes back at the hotel room. She didn't know how to explain them just yet. She hoofed it over to Danny's place, took the stairs up and then knocked on the door. She waited a minute and then used her key, poking her head inside before she walked all the way inside.

"Boyfriend! Dr. Summers is here with Chinese and Buffy, as ordered."

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"Food is good," Buffy nodded. She slid her hands down his arms then turned so her back was to him. She slipped her hands over his, entwined their fingers and started to lead him off the balcony into the living room.

Danny laced his fingers with hers and followed her. "Hey..." He squeezed her hands in his. "Thanks for not leavin'."

"I wanted to stay," Buffy told him with a brief smile. She shrugged as she sat down on the couch, tugging him down beside her. "Besides, I don't leave people when they need me." She released one of his hands and reached over to ruffle her hand through his hair. "I'm stick 'em girl."

Danny sat down next to her when she pulled him down to the couch. Instead of reaching for the food, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, just holding on to her. "You should stay more often. I mean... when I get off work I can come see you or you can come see me. Like a lot."

"Hmm I think that could be arranged," Buffy grinned at him. She pulled her feet up on the couch with her and leaned back against Danny, her head on his shoulder. She dipped her head a moment and brushed her lips across his arm then leaned back against him again. Her hair spilled over his chest and shoulder.

"When I move here, you'll get tired of me. You'll lock the door and hide under the bed when I come knocking or you'll plead you're too exhausted to come over." She tucked her toes in the crack between the cushions of the couch.

"There might be the occasional exhaustion plead, not gonna say there won't be. But my door's always open to you. Always." Danny answered. "So it all evens out, right?"

He traced his fingers through her hair on his shoulder. "'Sides, whoever's claimin' exhaustion, the other one just has to try and get to the other's place."

Buffy grinned and stretched her legs out, feet going to curve against the far arm rest. "That works for me. I go through these phases where I'm perpetually exhausted but I function pretty well for the most part. I'll just fall asleep on you a lot. Giles says he thinks it's normal. It's related to the stress in my life. High stress and I run on adrenaline until it's over, low stress and I'm catching up on all the sleep I missed during the high stress. I don't know if I believe him or not but there are phases. For like three years solid I was exhausted all the time it seemed like but I think that was part grief. It was after my Mom died."

She took a deep breath and then let it out evenly. "And I'm rambling. Sorry."

"Naw, don't worry about the rambling. You're always apologizing for it. You don't gotta." Danny said, fingers continuing to trail through her hair. "Death of a family member is hard... 'specially if you were close to them. I get it.

"I don't know. Mom and I had our ups and downs. I guess we were close though?" Buffy said, relaxing almost bonelessly against Danny. She put one hand on his thigh, absently drawing shapes on his sweats. "Dawn was fourteen and Dad didn't even show up at the funeral, much less want anything to do with us so I got custody of her. I was trying to be Mom and I failed so very badly. I almost lost her once. Dawnie I mean. Child protective services almost took her."

His fingers continued to comb through her hair as she spoke. "That's hard though. Her bein' a teenager when you had to step up."

Buffy shrugged lightly, her eyes closing as she took a deep breath. The feel of his fingers combing through her hair was relaxing, almost like a drug. "Like you said, losing a family member is hard. Losing anyone is hard. It never gets easy. Ever. You just...try to deal and some days it's easier than others."

"Yeah... you ever wish you could go back? I mean like... when somethin' went wrong you could go to you mom or dad or whoever and they'd make it all okay. You know what I'm sayin'?" Danny asked.

"Oh God, all the time," Buffy nodded. She shifted a little, scooting impossibly closer to Danny and turning, pulling her feet in and sticking them between his legs, her toes underneath his leg. She rested her cheek against his chest and switched to absently tracing shapes on his chest with her finger. "There are days I want my Mommy so bad it makes me almost cry. I want her Chicken and Stars soup and I want to crawl in her lap and be her little girl for just a little while. Giles does okay but he'd never let me crawl in his lap and he gets all throat clear-y if I hug him for more than five seconds. Sometimes though I'll go in his office and plop down in his chair and tell him to lie to me. He does. He tells me that good guys wear white, bad guys wear black, good always wins and everyone lives happily ever after. We have a cup of tea and I go back to my room and know he's lying but for a little while I got to believe the lie."

She pulled back slightly and looked up at Danny. "Do you?"

Danny nodded slightly. "Sometimes. Sometimes yeah I do. But then I remember everything that bein' back there would bring with it and... kinda good to be here in the now too."

"Okay...remember my foot in mouth disease and know that no matter what I say, it's not because I'm trying to hurt you or because I'm mocking or making fun or anything like that. It's just because I'm curious and my brain and my mouth aren't connected. And you don't have to answer anything. At all." Buffy looked up at him with wide eyes, breath held as she tried to anyalze whether she should ask her question or not. "Was it bad? Growing up with that kind of family? I mean...did you know? Or...On The Soparanoes the family is just kinda clueless...not that TV gets it right or anything. I'm assume you don't have an uncle named Pussy or whatever..."

She wrinkled her nose and stopped the ramble before it got out of hand.

"Naw... I mean I knew my family was different from the other kids at school's families at an early age. Caught on when I was twelve or so. People comin' and goin'... sometimes just comin' and you'd never see 'em leave. My dad was pretty harsh a lot of the time. Louie took care of me... until later when he got screwed up and then I was always takin' care of him. Family is family, you know? You don't mess with that." He shrugged, his fingers still clinging to a strand of her hair. "My mom loved me a lot. Don't really talk that much anymore though."

Buffy nodded, just listening to Danny for a minute. "At least you had her. I mean...that's a good thing." She looked up at him and bit her bottom lip. "I guess they don't like what you do very much."

"They don't. Was supposed to take a construction job with my uncle... big family business. Place breeds mafia." Danny shrugged and shook his head. "But sometimes I think that woulda been so much easier.

"Mmmm, probably would have been," Buffy told him without any apology. She shifted, turning again so that she was straddling his lap, her knees pressing into his hips. She tucked her feet under his legs though because it's just cold enough in the room for her feet to be cold. She sat back a bit, weight resting more on his legs than on her knees and watched him. She ran her fingertips along his stubbled jaw and up to the pulse in his neck. She let her fingertips sit there for a moment, almost as if she were taking his pulse but it was something deeper than that. It was blood and pulse and other things she would never admit because it doesn't sound quite human and she knew it wasn't.

After a long, quiet minute she moved again, leaning forward and resting against his chest, her nose tucked into the crook of his neck. "You wouldn't be the same person if you took the easy way out. I wouldn't like East Way Out Danny." A pause as she kissed his neck. "And neither would you"

He stared back at her as she seemed to be taking him in. Her touch was soft and gentle and he even leaned into it. His hands fell to rest at her thighs on either side of his hips where he smoothed his palms back and forth over the material of her sweatpants.

When she leaned in, he ducked his head as she buried her nose in his neck. "Then I guess I'll stick with the uphill both ways Danny. Cause I want you to like me."

A smile curved Buffy's lips against his neck. "The good news? I'm really good at going uphill all ways and I'm stronger than I look. I can pull you uphill on the really bad days and I don't mind. It's sorta what I do."

"It's what you do?" Danny's hands slid around her hips and up her back. "You gonna let me help you on the bad days too?"

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Chinese Therapy, like retail therapy but with food. [RP for <lj site="livejournal.com" user="stillac

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