A Private Lounge at a Mainland Club, Thursday Evening

[brat_inslayage]

Kennedy was supposed to be home in New York tonight, helping with the last few days of moving preparations. In fact, that was what she'd been doing, but apparently all her well-meaning offers of assistance were really just wreaking havoc on Willow's carefully constructed System. So, she'd been persuaded (like that was hard) to go out and patrol, or hang out with her friends, or do anything at all that wasn't helping, please. She was cool with that, but that sort of left the question of what to do with herself: now that their departure date was looming she was more nervous about the whole thing than she'd realized, plus trying to stave off melancholy about leaving Fandom again. She needed to stay busy somehow.

What convenient timing, then, when she got a call from Raven asking for suggestions about a way to cheer Karla up, or distract her, or something like that. Simultaneously constructive and fun thing to get take-charge-y about? Sign her up, especially if she could turn it into an impromptu end-of-summer, totally-not-saying-goodbye thing.

A few phone calls and some credit-card flexing had scored the private lounge complete with its own private open bar in which she was now relaxing, helping herself to occasional hor d'oeuvres while she waited for her friends to show up.

Not bad work for the last minute. What, did you think Kennedy wasn't gonna make a huge production just for a girls' night out? Please.

[[for the girls' night out (and the token guys, hey) cohorts! up early for great sp justice, and nfb for distance, of course.]]

Comments

[brat_inslayage]

See, this was why Kennedy liked Jono.

"He was a pretty good guy, yeah," Kennedy said, her voice a little rough. (She hadn't known him before, so she felt pretty secure in her assessment.) "He, uh, didn't make it out of Sunnydale."

[furnaceface]

Oh. Jono winced a little. Of course he'd gone and stepped right into it, there. Bloody hell...

"I'm... sorry to hear that."

And the thing of it was, he actually was. Vampire or no, he'd been a friend of Kennedy. That was worth enough.

[brat_inslayage]

Oh, that was hardly the worst sore spot, Jono. It was okay.

"He went out the way he wanted," Kennedy went on, managing a small smile. "Helping to save the world. That's pretty much what I want, too, so I can't say I'm not proud of him."

[furnaceface]

"There are worse ways to go," Jono agreed, offering her a little smile in return. Really, he ought to know. He'd almost lived out a few of them, over the years. "Perhaps we'll get that chance someday, ourselves. To have it mean something when we go."

[brat_inslayage]

The only thing that kept Kennedy from glancing across the room toward a certain ex of hers was Slayer reflexes reining the impulse in.

That didn't keep the regretful note out of her voice, though, when she nodded and said, "It'd be nice if we could all be that lucky, huh? God, I have no idea how I started getting all deep."

Maybe it was the whole Slayer thing. You couldn't help being morbid sometimes.

[furnaceface]

"It's something that happens," Jono replied, "to people who know how lethal being alive really is."

How was that for philosophy, Kennedy? Wearing an X was almost as good as being a Slayer, for that.

[brat_inslayage]

This was probably another reason she got along with you and Bobby, Jono.

"Huh." She raised her glass to him, a sardonic sort of toast. "Well, yay for us then."

[furnaceface]

He raised his bottle right back. Sardonic toasts were totally his sort of thing, really.

"Yay for us, indeed." A beat. "It's probably for the best that not everybody out there is half as lucky as we are."

[brat_inslayage]

See, he and Spike would totally have gotten along.

"I kinda like it, if you put it that way," Kennedy mused, one corner of her mouth half quirking up. "You sort of have to be pretty and badass to pull it off right."

[furnaceface]

Either they would have gotten along, or they would have driven one another to homicide. One of those.

"And some people never do get the hang of it," Jono pointed out, reasonably. "I suppose we'll just have to make up the difference where others have failed."

... Not that Jono thought for a moment that he was pretty. But badass, he could live with.

[brat_inslayage]

Well, badass was a big part of pretty, if you asked her.

"Our lives are so hard," Kennedy said with a melodramatic sigh. "And this is why we're sitting around drinking."

[furnaceface]

"If our lives were easier, we would hardly have any reason to," Jono rationalized, before taking a mouthful of his lager. "And we wouldn't be able to appreciate it half as much, either."

[brat_inslayage]

"Damn right." Kennedy swirled her drink around and stared into it, then took another gulp. "Oh, and the drinks are pretty good, too."