Brunch Gone Wild(e) [closed]

[eliotwaugh]

Well, his magic is still a little iffy sometimes, and he still doesn't know how/if he'll get home, and he really only has two friends so far, but god damn it, his apartment is an overdone neo-victorian salon set up, and he can have a fucking party again. This is so important.

Eliot's on his second Bellini when Sunshine arrives, early as agreed, with muffins as promised. He gives her a kiss on each cheek with a flamboyance usually reserved for Janet (Sunshine is sort of his replacement Janet, he guesses, and so far she doesn't want to sleep with him, which is kind of a step up), takes the bag and trades her a cocktail. She has catching up to do.

Sunshine is great in the kitchen, no surprises there, and she gets tipsy really quick, and she is adorable tipsy. This is gonna be great. Eliot feels good. For the first time in... kind of a while.

He's just checking the time on his phone when the buzzer goes, so he gives Sunshine reign of the omelettes for a moment while he goes to buzz Johnny in, then waits at the door, feeling maybe a little nervous. But only a little.

Comments

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine cracks up, both at Eliot's reaction to Spike and his account of Aziraphale. Yeah, that sounds like the angel. Gods, stealing from a library, though, they're going to have to have a talk. But later. Because right now, hilarious revelations about her boyfriend are happening.

"Well, he's barely a vampire," she says with an unlikely but expertly-done blend of fondness and derision. "But. But. He's a pretty good boyfriend." She pulls her phone back and smiles at the photo for a moment before dismissing it. "Hang on, I gotta text him about this, because this is insane." She giggles to herself as she composes what will probably be the first of many missives to Spike.

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot snorts into his drink. "Barely, yeah I can see that. He always did seem to be a big softie under that 'ooh I'm so punk'...thing--oh my god yes text him, ask him if he's Buffy Spike or Angel Spike, like I don't even know what season he'd be from."

He is maybe way too excited about this development, but seriously how often does this kind of situation come up in your life? He would clap giddily in encouragement of drunk texting (drunk texting: always the right thing to do!) but that would mean putting down his glass, and that's so not going to happen.

[rae_of_sun]

"Wait wait wait," Sunshine slurs as she laboriously attempts to text properly. Autocorrect has done her a few favors so far, but she doesn't trust it entirely. "What's the Angel thing about? Oh, gods." She slumps back against the couch and gives Eliot the most serious look she can muster. "You have to tell me everything. Wait! No. Yes. All the things. Starting with the Angel thing."

[johnny_truant]

Oooooookay.

By now Johnny has shrunk somewhat, pulling away from Eliot and pressing deeper into the back of the couch like he thinks he can phase through it. Something ridiculous, or incredible, or horrifying - all three? - is happening here, and he has nothing to do with it, which is pretty much fine by him. For now he just pulls his legs together and rests his hands on his knees, looking a bit like an obedient schoolboy, and watching them as he might a tennis match.

[eliotwaugh]

He slumps back against the couch, exhaling shaky with laughter. "Oh man, hah, okay, where to fucking begin? Like they did a spinoff show about Angel, who ugh what a fucking Neanderthal forehead, I don't know how anyone would want to get on that, but there's just no accounting for taste."

Eliot pauses a moment, self-conscious of his little personal rant. Technically that's part of the Angel thing but probably not what Sunshine was asking. "Shit I'm sorry," he says with a smile. "Fuckin, I can't start with the Angel thing it came after, let me see if I can remember how it goes, like," He clears his throat, and attempts to say with a straight face:

"Into each generation a slayer is born, she alone will have the...whatever, the strength to fight the vampires and the demons and the mayor who turned into a giant snake and ate their principal, it was like wacky high school dramedy like 'oh no I have this mystical destiny burden and I gotta worry about algebra?' Totally tropey magical girl stuff but I mean, it was funny shit, they made it work.

"So like, back in Ye Olde Englande in olden times or whatever there were some vampires, and one of them was frowny mc forehead and the other one was...what's her face, husky whispervoice vampire and they like turned this dweebus milquetoast William into a vampire and it was crazy and there were explosions and ponytails, and then in the 90s he showed up in Sunnydale all Sex Pistols and shit with the, with the hair," Eliot makes a vague wiggly-fingered gesture intended to represent truly awful dye job.

"You know the hair, and he had a crazy girlfriend who liked dolls and like, like he started out as this pretty badass villain and he ended up as more of a sidekick, kind of like, the guy they bring to punch demons in the face and shit, and, okay I didn't really watch Angel because ugh what a bland sad sack but like he was a vampire who got his soul put back so he's all angsty and tortured like 'oh the burden I bear is so heavy I have to use my powers for good,' and Spike showed up at some point? And I remember seeing part of an episode on TV and there was a puppet."

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine boomerangs between attempting to text and listening with increasing amusement and bafflement to Eliot's rundown of this show - shows? - that Spike was apparently on. A lot of it is nonsense, but just enough of it makes sense for her to start to believe this actually happened (not that Spike's being very cooperative on his end of the conversation).

"So hang on," she says, having just a little bit of trouble following all this for so, so many reasons, "who's Buffy? The magical girl? Is Buffy a person's name? Because it sounds like something you'd name your frigging... bearded collie or something."

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot raises an eyebrow. "I mean yeah, it was a different time, people named their kids shitty things, but also, yes, Sunshine, that was her name." Because she's really one to talk on the crazy name front, but that is not the point here. Eliot's trying to retain his grasp of what the point actually is. Buffy. Right. Oh shit.

"Soooooooo," says Eliot, with all the drawn-out hesitation of someone who is not certain whether he should be saying what he is going to say and also not certain the person he's saying the thing to is going to start throwing shit at him or not, "So Buffy, uh, yeah she and Spike had a thing for a while, and it got weird."

Eliot takes a moment to debate with himself whether he really wants to continue in this vein, but Sunshine is his friend and friends tell friends potentially deal-breaking information about their boyfriends, right? Right.

He turns to Sunshine and looks at her with the utmost seriousness. "This is important dating information, has he built you a shrine yet? Has he taken any of your sweaters? Also I hope there is not a robot that looks and sort of acts like you walking around because if there is he might like, keep it and play house with it. Because that's what happened. With the Buffybot. 'Cause there was this robot, I forget who made the Buffy robot but Spike ended up with it? Freaky shit, man."

[johnny_truant]

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine gapes at Eliot. Oh, gods, this is taking a turn. Ye olde Englande and ponytails are hilarious, but shrines and freaking sex robots? Nooo, thank you. She fires off an increasingly frustrated series of texts, then gives Eliot her undivided attention for a moment.

"Are you shitting me?" she asks, eyebrows raised. "He seriously built a shrine and fucked a carthaginian robot?" Her horror sits for a moment, like a boulder on the edge of a cliff… then, with inexorable grace, it topples over said metaphorical cliff and slides down into the--the pond (or whatever) of drunken hilarity. "Are you shitting me?!" she asks again, cackling. Then her phone buzzes. She squints at it, then holds it aloft as if it's an announcement that she's won the frigging nobel prize. "He wants to come over!"

[eliotwaugh]

"YES," says Eliot, almost before Sunshine's finished talking, because this is amazing and robot fucking aside there is no way this day could have gotten any better. "Oh my god this is a train wreck, I want to meet him in person, please tell him to come over, we've got booze and muffins!" For a minute the possibility of seeing real live Spike in his own home is too much for Eliot, and he turns away, gasping helpless giggles into Johnny's shoulder.

A sudden thought occurs to him and he snorts, and tries to sit up. "Oh fuck I just remembered," he begins, one hand over his stomach, wow he's getting an ab workout today, who would have thought? "There was, there was this one episode, and everyone lost their memories and he thought his name was Randy!"

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine texts Spike the address, and this point she's giggling with about as much regularity as she's breathing. Hopefully he gets here quick, because if he's here, she'll be able to tell from his shadows if any of this nonsense is true or not. Also, he'll be here! That's exciting. All this talking about him has made her miss his face.

"I told him we have booze," she says, because that's the only part of the booze-and-muffins duo that she expects him to be all that interested in. She cackles appreciatively at 'Randy' - better text him about that, too - then leans her head back against the couch. Wow. Wow.

This has been a hell of a brunch.

Her phone buzzes again, and she tips her head back up to read it. "Awww, look, he called me 'pet.' Isn't he cute? I mean, sexbots and clothing theft aside." She snorts out another laugh, then asks, "Wait, why'd he think his name was Randy?"

Eliot's grasp on tv trivia grows shaky and starts slurring its speech

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot puts a hand over his face and just keeps it there for a while. "Oh my god I don't even know, I think it was, he wound up with somebody else's coat, it was Giles! Man, Giles was great. And he had his initials in it and like, memory loss, and I guess they decided he looked like a Randy?"

He has to admit that Sunshine is taking this news remarkably well, though who's to say how she'll feel once she's not heinously intoxicated and giggling.

"I might need some water," Eliot admits shamefully, "if I'm gonna be able to appreciate whatever happens when he gets here." He looks back and forth at his guests, and gives Johnny a smooch on the cheek since he looks so lost and bewildered by all of this. "Anyone else want water? You good?"

[johnny_truant]

Johnny perks up a little at the sweet but slightly sloppy kiss. This has been a wild and crazy adventure and he's enjoyed it at a safe distance, but it is nice to be acknowledged again. "Uh, yeah, water sounds good," he says, and reaches out to set his emptied glass on the table, slowly, like it's a stick of dynamite.

"So, uh," he says, but there's really nothing he can contribute at this point. He ends up just letting out a puff of air and throwing up his hands, flopping over onto the arm of the sofa, sprawling out. "Yeah I got nothing. This is some fuckin'... Twilight Zone shit."

[rae_of_sun]

"Nooooo shit," Sunshine agrees. "And… yeah, I should have water, too." But booze! But this means there will be some left for Spike, and he's probably going to need it a hell of a lot more than the rest of them.

Eliot spends the next twenty minutes or so regaling them both with half-remembered and dubiously-reconstructed plotlines from these two frigging shows ('Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Angel,' respectively). It's a good thing Sunshine doesn't generally bother with makeup, because she ends up weeping with laughter at some of them. Gods and frigging angels. This is ten different kinds of high-caliber crazy.

When the door buzzes, Sunshine let's out a squawk of excitement. "He's here!"

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot chokes on a mouthful of water in his glee when the buzzer goes, and hastily tries to cover it with a cough. "Oh man this is gonna be so great," he announces, before hurrying over to the wall and buzzing him in.

And then he opens the door and waits, not unlike a wide-eyed babe staying up on Christmas Eve to try and catch a glimpse of Santa. This is actually happening.

[erratic_hematic]

Spike has spent the ride over (via what felt like a ridiculously long bus ride and then a changeover to the subway) in a state of aggrieved distress and mild panic. Whoever this Eliot is, it seems that what he's saying is true. Or at least it might as well be true, which means he knows way too much about Spike's life. And who knows all that he's managed to drunkenly tell Sunshine in the time that it's taken him to get here. So far it doesn't seem to have made too much of an impact on her, but when she's sober will his past catch up to them both and fuck him over via some bloody alternate-reality television program?

He smiles down at the newest ridiculous text after he buzzes in, then tucks it away in his pocket.

It all sounds completely implausible, but that doesn't change how nervous he feels as he finds his way to the correct door. When he gets there, disappointingly, it's not Sunshine that's waiting for him. He glares. "You must be Eliot."

[eliotwaugh]

Oh no.

He's really real, and he's really here, and he looks so angry and it's perfect. Any remaining ability Eliot had to keep his shit together flies right out the window.

He bursts into a manic, hysterical grin. "Randy Giles!" he exclaims, arms thrown wide. "You old so and so!"

[erratic_hematic]

At this point in time, Spike might just go ahead and punch Eliot in the face for being a complete arsehole. Unfortunately, he hasn't been invited in, so that's not a possibility. Yet. Instead, he makes a show of ignoring Eliot's embarrassing welcome and peeks past him into the apartment, where he can see Sunshine waving drunkenly at him from the sofa.

"Sunshine, don't you want me to come in?"

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine narrows her eyes a little at what seems like a pretty leading question (it would take a hell of a lot more than four bellinis to make her forget Vampires 101, or to do something as phenomenally rude as inviting any vampire into someone else's home), and her wave inelegantly morphs into an unsteady point in Spike's general direction. "Are you going to be nice? Because you are on some thin ice right now, buster." No, he's not, but he'll probably be a lot more civil if he thinks he is.

Still, the impact of her threat is somewhat spoiled by the way she keels over onto the arm of the couch, whines, "I missed yoooou," and throws him a sideways pout.

[johnny_truant]

Johnny, who has defaulted to minding his own business and sipping water slowly, snorts softly and lifts his glass to Spike, or the bit of him he can see peering in through the doorway.

"Hey again," he says. "Sorry about last time. And the, uh, the existential crisis."

Why isn't he coming in? Whatever. Johnny is seriously just here for the show at this point.

[erratic_hematic]

Spike can't help but smile at Sunshine flopping over onto the arm of the sofa. Fucking adorable, that is. Even if he will be on thin ice later, he very obviously isn't now.

The other voice makes him zero in on...that guy he punched in the dream. That must be rabbit man. "I've had weirder." He takes a deep breath and lets it out, running his hand over his face for good measure. "If I promise to not punch anyone in the face, will someone invite me in?"

[eliotwaugh]

It takes Eliot a minute to parse the whole vampire-needing-invitation thing from Spike and Sunshine's (totally adorable) exchange, and when he gets it, he snorts with laughter.

"Oh wow I forgot! How could I forget?" He turns back to Sunshine, leaning on the wall for support. "Hey is he gonna be trouble?"

Eliot then attempts to address Spike as well, and ends up twisting himself around and looking an absolute fool. "Are you gonna be trouble? Because I know I can be mean and loud but I don't wanna get punched in the face. Or. Or anywhere else, actually."

[johnny_truant]

"Yeah, no punching my boyfriend," says Johnny. Oh. Oh, he definitely just said that. WHOOPS.

"Let's just say no punching anyone's boyfriend," he says, burying himself in another cocktail. Water's nice but it isn't going to help with THAT.

[rae_of_sun]

"He is gonna be on his best behavior," Sunshine says with narrow-eyed vehemence from her lopsided position (which she has not bothered to correct, because it's comfortable okay), "because it would upset me if he hurt my friends, and he already has a lot of explaining to do."

Johnny's outburst gets ignored. Well, he showed up in a frigging collar; the idea that they're boyfriends isn't all that outlandish.

[erratic_hematic]

God, he's entirely too sober to be having this conversation. He doesn't even care about the 'boyfriends' revelation. It's brunch in the East Village - he'd be surprised if nobody was gay...though that does make Johnny hitting on Sunshine earlier a little confusing.

He sets those thoughts aside for the moment to raise his eyebrows at Sunshine, who is still adorable, but it seems like it might be a difficult sell to get her so invite him into someone else's flat. "I'm not going to hurt your friends." Then, he tips his head back to look at Eliot. He voice goes flat, impatient. "I'm not going to hurt her friends. That's you."