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Raleigh spends most of his days in the hotel now. He pops back in to his own world from time to time to see what's going on and to suit up but the door has been blocked for him for a week or so now and he doesn't know how to get it un-stuck. It's a little troubling. While he's enjoyed his little breaks here and there, he's not the kind of guy to just blow off duty and especially not something so important as being a Ranger.

So tonight he's at the bar, nursing a scotch and contemplating just tossing it back and ordering another. He isn't drunk enough yet to forget how guilty he feels and the more he drinks, the guiltier he gets. He runs a finger along the edge of his glass and decides just to throw it back, letting it burn a path down to his stomach.

The truth is, he likes it here. He has friends and stability and a girlfriend in Buffy and he's so much happier here in the Nexus than he is back home. But being back home is important. It's not happy all the time, sure. It's usually dangerous. But it's his purpose and it's what he's meant to be doing and now he can't get back there.

Maybe he can figure out how to get back later but for now, he'll drink.

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Buffy does much the same thing, popping back occasionally to make sure that her world hasn't gone apocalyptic (and she knows it's a real possibility), but for a long time she wasn't able to get back home. It had taken nearly losing Dawn to find that door back home. The truth was, until then, she hadn't been searching for her door that hard. Because of that, she's well acquainted with the guilt that Raleigh is feeling.

Buffy is doing her usual patrol thing. Yes, her usual patrol thing takes her past the bar. In her experience, bars are generally where most of the trouble starts, or the trouble lives, or something like that. In any case, she's on patrol and decides to peek inside the bar, expecting to possibly see Faith in there. She's a little surprised to see Raliegh. Her brow creases with concern as she walks further inside and sits down. He doesn't look like he's doing very well.

"Hey, Slugger, someone kick your puppy? 'Cause I will go kick their butts. I'm anti puppy kicking."

"Just having a little door trouble," Raleigh says. He summons up a smile for her and while it's effort, he thinks she deserves it. Buffy is half the reason he likes it here in the Nexus so much and part of why he feels guilty about being stuck.

"I haven't been able to get home in a while."

She takes a sharp breath at his words and nods sympathetically. "I'm beginning to understand both the kicked puppy look and the drinking." She flags down the bartender and orders a fruity, froo-froo drink. No, it won't do much to her inebriation wise, but she's here for moral support.

"How did you leave things?"

"In a mess. We're still trying to figure out how to get a nuclear warhead through to the kaiju homeworld. Which...probably means nothing to you," Raleigh says, trailing off. "But yeah, they need someone to go on a suicide mission. I'm the guy, more or less, since I have a reputation of nothing to lose but I'd been putting it off for various reasons and now I can't get back to do what they need me to do."

It's hanging over him like a dark cloud and he doesn't want Buffy to think he's a coward but...part of the reason he hadn't gone back was because of her.

"No. I mean...yes, but..." she sighs, taking a moment to decide what she actually means. Generally Buffy just charges ahead, letting words fall out of her mouth, but this is important and she'd like to get it right. "I mean, I understand what it's like to leave your world in a mess, to know that you ought to be there instead of here and to feel guilty about it." She does frown at the suicide mission thing and nudges him with a shoulder.

"I'm glad you're still here." Now that that's out of the way. "Anything I can do to help? I mean, when you get the door open. Preferably something that would end up less suicide-y and more survivor."

"You could help take my mind off it?"

Raleigh has been accused of being a puppy before and he's shrugged it off but he does his best puppy eyes now. He thinks he can pull that off. He is incredibly loyal and resilient.

Oh like she can resist that look. A grin tugs at the corners of her lips. "I've got it on good authority that I'm an excellent distraction."

She reaches up, twining a strand of her hair around her finger. "Did you have ideas on this distraction?"

"We could go swimming?" It's kind of a weird suggestion, honestly, but there's a pool in the hotel and it's been a long time since he's been able to go swimming without thinking about a kaiju wrecking his day. It's nice and normal and, bonus, means some semi-naked time with Buffy.

His suggestion makes her smile. She nods after a moment. "Swimming is good. I like swimming. Meet you back down there after I change?"

Nice, normal and semi-naked time sounds like a lot of fun.

"Awesome. That was a much easier sell than I was expecting," he says, flashing her a smile and going to change quickly before heading down to the pool. This is so deliciously average that he craves it, just spending the day with a girl he likes.

Not willing to wait to jump in, Raleigh arcs into the pool in one smooth dive and pops up with a grin on his face.

Buffy walks into the pool area a little later. She's got a bright bikini on, a towel around her waist like a skirt. She takes a moment to just watch Raleigh, a fond smile on her face, before she takes the towel off and folds it carefully, putting it to the side before she wanders over to the side of the pool and sits down, her feet in the water.

"You're like a fish, minus the gills, scales and cold-bloodedness." Don't laugh. There were fish-boys at school who'd had the gills at least.

"I've always lived near the coast," Raleigh points out. "It used to be a great place to live back before the whole sea monster thing but now it's just the cheapest place to live. I wouldn't recommend swimming up in Anchorage where I'm from, though. The water never gets warm there and half the time it's frozen."

She shudders a little at the idea of swimming in Anchorage. "No thanks. I'll stick to heated pools and California beaches. Though I could be persuaded to tan on a tropical beach somewhere." She cocks her head to the side a bit. "So if you couldn't swim in the ocean in Anchorage, where did you learn to swim?"

"San Francisco," Raleigh says, face lighting up at good memories. "And I spent some time over in Europe as a kid too. Yancy and I got stationed in Cabo for a while and that was great before there was a kaiju attack. I got a serious tan down there. It was gorgeous."

Listening to him talk about obviously good, childhood memories makes Buffy smile. "That's where I came from. Most recently. San Francisco, I mean. I've never been to Mexico. Where in Europe? Because I've been a few places there."

Not that she'd done much in the way of tourism. It had been all slay and very little play, but she'd been there.

Honestly, Dawn was looking for Buffy. Because how better to work off restless energy and pretend she isn't as worried about her own state of affairs than to poke at her sister? Dawn's pretty sure that that's the number one option until she comes up on the bar and spots her sister with some guy who is probably, most definitely Mr. Ab-licious. She sighs and starts to back out so as not to interrupt girlfriend and boyfriend times. Or whatever they were. Were they girlfriend and boyfriend yet? She didn't know. All she knew for sure was that her sister liked him.

She shifts her weight from foot to foot before finally deciding to approach. She'd interrupted her sister's boy times plenty of times before back when she was younger. Why should it be any different now that she's older?

"Hey." She shoves her way in between her sister and Mr. Ab-licious. "So what's going on here? Party time I wasn't invited to or... publicly intoxicated sexy times that I should never ever know about ever? Cause... ew. And get a room."

"Uh, not so much on public sexy time," Raleigh says, eyeing the girl carefully. He's guessing this is Buffy's sister, though there's not much of a family resemblance aside from also pretty and also sassy.

"I try to keep that behind closed doors. Not everyone can handle seeing what I'm packing."

Buffy is just going to facepalm at that. She'll probably cue Raleigh into the sister thing (if he hadn't figured it out sooner) by screeching "Dawn!" She looks up at Dawn then to Raleigh. "There are no sexy times. Public or...it's more of a drink having thing with drinks." She lifts up her glass as evidence to that.

And then. "Raleigh, this is Dawn. Dawn, Raleigh. And now you know that foot in the mouth disease is a Summers trait and not just a Buffy trait."

"Ooooo what he's packing..." Eighteen year old Dawn says in her most sing-songy thirteen year old Dawn voice. She's teasing, mostly. Because still: ew... and now she's curious about what he means by 'packing'. Hopefully Mr. Ab-licious is referring to his abs.

Dawn picks up Buffy's glass and brings it to her nose to sniff at it. Said nose wrinkles and she sets it back down. "At least we all know I get my foot in mouth from you. Also this top." She looks down at the off the shoulder cotton top she's wearing. "I ninja'd it from your closet today."

Then she casts a large smile at Raleigh. "Also, hi. Nice to finally meet Mr. Ab-licious." The smile is gone a second later and surprise, surprise, she actually looks scary. "You hurt her, I'll beg for a door to a hell dimension and push you through it and lock the door." A pause, then the bright smile again. "Maybe I want a strawberry dacqueri."

"Not planning on hurting her. Also not planning on breaking the legal drinking age, kid," Raleigh says. Then again, what's the drinking age in a magical hotel anyway? Is 18 legal enough?

"I've got siblings, I know how it goes. You'd die before they got hurt, right?"

She's just going to ignore the packing sing-song-y-ness in favor of ..."Hey! I like that top!" She will always protest Dawn borrowing her clothes because that's what she does. It's a sister thing.

Buffy winces a little at the 'kid' bit, knowing that Dawn is going to throw a fit about that. Also, point about the legal drinking age. However, it's not as if Buffy was going to let Dawn in on the whole alcohol thing anyway. She actually did expect the part where Dawn threatened Raleigh. She'd do the same thing. She has done the same thing. "Raleigh. He has a name that is not a stripper name." Okay, so maybe she calls him Mr. Ab-licious in the privacy of her and Dawn but this is not the privacy of her and anyone!

She smiles brightly at Dawn. "Sure. You can have a strawberry daiquiri." She looks to the bartender and orders a virgin strawberry daiquiri. Point. Match.

Kid? Kid? KID? Dawn's eyes narrow briefly, staring straight ahead at the bar as Buffy protests her wearing the top and Raleigh's stripper name. She even moves right on past the virgin in her strawberry dacqueri, of which she was no one thankyouverymuch. If there was anything Dawn Summers hated, it was being treated like a little kid, much less being called one by a stranger.

She reigns her temper in and smiles sweetly at first Buffy, then Raliegh, so sweet that it's almost scary. Weird how a smile can also be a glare that says she can find all the horrible ways to retaliate. "Yeah, exactly like that. So don't hurt her."

Another glance at Buffy. See? She's trying not to be horrible. For now. She wanted to blow a gasket at being called a kid. And she didn't. You owe her, Buffy.

Edited 2014-09-23 23:54 (UTC)

"So, Dawn, what keeps you busy around here?" Everyone has some kind of little job, no matter how tedious. Buffy has her security patrol stuff and Raleigh works maintenance - he's eager to hear what Dawn's doing to occupy herself in what appears to be infinite free time.

Oh, Buffy actually flinches at that 'kid'. That's just not going to go over well. She knows it and she knows that Dawn is really angry by the way she does the sweet smile. She'll have to talk to Raleigh a little later about Dawn. She knows that Dawn acts immature sometimes, but she's also very aware that Dawn isn't a kid. She's helped advert apocalypses (and she's started a few). Buffy may treat her like she's thirteen, but she's allowed that, she's her sister.

She owes Dawn so hard. She'll find a way to pay her back. Maybe they'll take a shopping trip. There's got to be a doorway to a mall.

The infinite free time is one of the harder things about the hotel, perhaps the hardest.

"Keeping my sister out of trouble and away from skeevy guys." She answers with absolute honesty. Because yes, she tails her sister around on her patrols a lot of the time. And yes, she's seen her sister go through all of her dating woes. Don't be a dating woe, Raleigh.

"And I make sure all the books in the library are well read." She likes to read and learn new things. "What do you do?"

"Maintenance for the job, swimming for the recreation. With, of course, the occasional trip to see about the books in the library."

Raleigh has never been anything close to an intellectual but he does like knowing he has the freedom to read anything he wants whenever he wants. It's a nice luxury.

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