Baileigh Solis

They were roomies.

It didn't seem to matter that they'd technically been together for over a year, or that they were getting married next month, or that they would have a baby in six months--they were roommates. Getting anything out of Julian when he was in these moods still took a team of wild horses. She tried not to let it bother her, tried to remind herself that it was how he'd been brought up, how he had to be, but dear God--a year. And he still failed miserably at communication.

Part of her wanted to snap and lash out and yell, still. She couldn't promise herself that she wouldn't, but she was going to try talking first.

She scooped Irina-the-puppy up in her arms--a feat which was getting harder every day and would be impossible soon--kissed the top of her fuzzy head in apology before sitting her down on the floor and taking her place beside Julian on the couch. In typical dog fashion, the puppy shook it off--literally--and trotted off into the kitchen, most likely to eat. "What's wrong?" she asked simply, settling against the cushions and throw pillows and propping her chin in her hand. Not much point in beating about the bush--especially after the snideness and the slamming doors and the nearly two bottles of wine.

The first touch of citrus against her lips burned. It was a terrible habit she had, biting her lip when she was tense or nervous, and that habit had continued even through the time her mind had been nothing but a sucking black hole. She'd bitten off the top layer of skin in several places, and the acidic juice that slipped over her lower lip as she bit into the pulp of a lime slice was quick to point it out to her.

She loved tequila. Especially expensive, good quality tequila that went down like water. She liked the way the salt balanced out the burn and the citrus enhanced the flavor on her tongue. It was definitely her poison of choice, but she didn't allow herself to have it very often. But tonight, she needed it. The sting and the salt and the burn and the way her inside went lax after the first five or...ten shots. "Don't try to keep up with me," she'd warned Sark before they'd started to pour their shots, because it took much more alcohol to break through the durability that being a Slayer blessed her with. But oh, she could feel the beginnings of it, relaxing the tension in her shoulders and neck, coating her mind with a thin haze, pushing blood and heat to her cheeks.

She needed this. Anyone that thought alcohol wasn't a healthy way to work through stress and tension could go straight to hell.

She sighed and toyed with her glass with one hand, sucked the sharp tang of lime juice from her fingertips and settled her back against the headboard. Her smile came easier as she watched Julian lean over and pour another shot. She waited until he'd swallowed the burning liquid before she rolled to her side and rested her head against his shoulder. They'd been near silent for most of the evening, and she hated it. She was trying hard to hold together for him, but that he could barely stand to touch her or even look at her, was hardly even talking to her...she was having trouble not breaking down crying. "Hey," she said quietly, tentatively, closing her eyes and humming softly as the room seemed to rotate slowly. "You know...I don't think we've ever done this before."

It was probably really stupid, since they were just going for a walk, most likely to the park as Searchlight was in the middle of scenic nowhere, but she wanted to look pretty. Mainly because according to Hank, she'd very much resembled a dead fish for the last week. As if things hadn't sucked enough with the dreaming and the brain hijacking, she'd also looked like hell. Yay.

So she prettied up. She put on cute capris and a pretty sparkly top and fussed with her hair until it was frizz free and shiny. She put on a little makeup to give her features some color, since for some reason that pastiness was trying to hang around. She seriously considered sneaking down to the kitchen and snagging a shot or two of the brandy Denny kept stuck back (alcohol induced rosy cheeks were better than pastiness any day of the week), but eventually decided against it. Alcohol might make her sleepy. Sleep was the enemy for at least another week.

"Terry, Spike, anyone else that cares!!" she called as she hopped past the library, still trying to put on her shoes and retrieve a stake while tucking her cell phone into her pocket and oh yeah, walking. "Going out, be back later, have cell in case the world tries to end and all that, and PS, someone borrowed my turquoise slides while I was gone and unless I get them back the punishment is death if I find out who it was!"

"Nobody touched your sodding shoes, pet!"

"LIES, death I tell you!" she yelled back, at least half-teasing, sifted through a backpack full of stakes that stayed parked next to the kitchen door until she found one of the 'good ones.' She might be off active duty for a bit, but really, what kind of idiot vampire slayer left home without a stake? Now where was that boyfriend of her's...

An airport bathroom’s lighting, Baileigh had decided, would not do even the likes of Catherine Zeta Jones any favors. It would turn even someone as va-va-voom gorgeous as her a delicately putrid shade of yellow and blue and green at the same time and somehow reveal every flaw and imperfection on every layer of skin right down to the dermis.

It just didn’t seem possible for her to look that pale and waxy, not with the Nevada sun keeping her skin a perpetual dusky bronze. It was both fascinating and revolting, and wow, had she reached a new and impressively pathetic level of 'flighty, ditzy and easily amused'.

Well, she was nervous, which lead to babbling, even if it was internal babbling. She was also extremely irritated that she’d stepped in gum in the parking lot and only just realized it about fifteen minutes before Julian’s plane was supposed to land. Supposed to land being the operative words, since it seemed those little arrival time numbers they threw up on the big board were really just an elaborate game of Bingo and no one had caught on to the joke yet. Whoever was behind that needed to be shot (and people that chewed gun also needed to be shot--not lethally, just in the arm or leg, but still: shot) because even after she got the mess scraped off the sole of her Marc Eckos and made a mad dash back to the gate, the now five minutes turned into thirty, then forty, then forty five, and she being so very lacking in the forward thinking department had not even brought a damned book. Sending goofy text messages to Annie and quietly mocking other people’s questionable fashion sense only entertained for so long, and the one person she’d tried to strike up a conversation with apparently only spoke Caveman Grunt. It was a bit like trying to talk to Callahan, only even less stimulating.

All things considered, marveling at her corpse-like appearance in the bathroom mirror had been so much more fun. And since the chances of finding a nun to discuss how The Walrus and the Carpenter had made her believe all religion was evil were slim to none, she supposed she’d just…keep sitting here and keep picking invisible lint off of her capris until the damned plane landed.

God, she hated being bored...but hey, at least she wasn't really nervous anymore.

...Yeah, not a fair trade.