Bennett Neely Bale (bennett_bale) wrote in btvsal, @ 2010-03-29 11:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | ash kowalski, neely bale, place: la |
So, You Might've Seen This Scene Coming...
Who: Ash and Neely
Where: Chloe's Sugar Shack
When: Saturday Afternoon, March 27th
Neely honestly couldn’t remember the last time she’d come to the Sugar Shack. It was funny how, thinking on it now, things might have been different if she didn’t think the name of the place was cute. Why, she would never have met Rachelle, or fallen in love… Hell, she’d be the same person, except… less, somehow. Incomplete. She laughed to herself as she remembered Chloe threatening her… oh hey, that was the last time she was here. Imagine that. She made her way to the counter, practically pulsating with desire for a coffee in a pair of jeans and (sweetly) a clingy Van Warren t-shirt. "Mooooouse, I’m dyyyying. I need coffee. Stat."
Ash had been sitting at a small table near the counter when Neely walked in. He was, as usual, dressed in all black, yet for once his face seemed... happy. He couldn't help but grin at Neely and her bright, almost Lucy-like nature. "Try the french vanilla. It's pretty amazing."
The young woman turned to him and placed her hands on her hips, before narrowing her eyes in a pseudo death-glare. It didn't last long though. She could never keep a straight face. “Yes, that sounds perfect, actually!" … Of course, it was possible that she’d had far too much coffee already, but shh. Hyper!Neely is rarely seen and highly amusing.
"There you go. Not a lot I'm an expert on a lot of things, but I know my coffee." He laughed as he raised his in salute. God knew he'd drank enough coffee in his time to avoid sleep.
Neely chucked, paid for an accepted her drink before taking a seat opposite him. Sure, he might have been busy or waiting for someone, but she wasn't the type to ask for permission. "Thanks," she grinned, blowing the hot drink before taking a sip. Mmm, coffee.
While Ash wasn't nearly as... forward, he could appreciate her overall personality. Plus? Hey, what guy told a cute girl to get lost? "I'm guessing you don't come here often?" He asked with a laugh, realizing HE was here far more than one would suspect.
"Not often enough," Neely admitted with a lopsided smirk. Remarkably, she hadn't come across anyone who would rather not be in her company (apart from Gwen, but that was a random event…), which… did explain the lack of etiquette. "I’m guessing you come here often enough to know what’s good," she added, raising a slender eyebrow.
"My girlfriend's sister owns the place. So... I'd have to be a fool to pass up all the free coffee and stuff that I want, you know?" He offered a hand to her. "I'm Ash."
It didn’t take much for Neely to connect the dots. While she occasionally made some foolish decisions, she was a smart girl. "Oh, so you’re Lucy’s boyfriend? Cool." She gave his hand a firm shake. "I’m Neely. Er… dating Lucy’s almost-sister?"
"Ohhh! You're with Rachelle? Damn. You must be a hell of a strong woman. Cheers." He said with a chuckle as he raised his cup in mock salute. "I say that with all respect. She just seems like a real handful."
Neely laughed and rolled her eyes, "Naw, she's not a handful at all. For the most part she's a fluffy kitty." She said it in such a way that it was hard to tell whether or not she was joking. Hrmh, wonder where she picked that up from.
"The best part? I've met Rachelle all of ONCE, yet I'm protective of her just because I know much my Lucy adores her. I get the impression she's in good hands though..." He gave that wicked grin that most people either found charming or scary, "I sense real power around you."
Incidentally, she found the grin charming. "You're not wrong about the power. Can you guess what kind? And I'm protective of Lucy, as well. Although I've never met her, but I remember ... more than most everyone does." She wasn't going to spell it out.
"Yeah. I had a feeling you did. Seems most of us that are... more than normal remember. I'm just glad she's back. God... I was so broken without her." He honestly looked nauseous just thinking about it. "Life without her... was total darkness." As if attempting to change the subject, he shook his head and went back to her question. "And... doing some basic deduction, I'm going to guess werewolf. Don't be impressed... Lucy mentioned Rachelle was dating one of the Bales."
She pat his hand kindly, since while she didn’t have world ending power, she would certainly implode if something ever happened to Rachelle. "Damn, there goes my secret identity," she chuckled weakly.
"Don't worry, Supergirl, your secret identity is safe with me." He chuckled, finding the girl to be simply adorable. Much more cute and sweet than he pictured a werewolf being. "So you live right above Avarice, huh? That's gotta be freakin' SWEET..."
“It is. Free drinks, good music, moooostly good company. I don’t go down there too often, though. Or, lately, anyway. What with the wedding to plan and promotional whatnots. Can’t say I know what you do, honestly…" Possibly because she hadn’t heard much about him beyond his tendency to wear black.
"Well, depending on who you talk to," he said with a little smirk, that low, lazy drawl to his voice, "I'm either a watcher, an evil warlock, a ticking time bomb, or something in-between."
"I choose to think of you as 'Man-who-has-good-taste'." She wasn’t just talking about the coffee, but for once she had the decorum not to say that Lucy was a smoking hottie that she’d do unbearable things to. …She might have hit her head recently.
Ash started to laugh then, harder than he probably should have. He got what she meant, and somehow? He found it cute coming from her. "Believe me... I agree wholeheartedly. Lucy's... the sexiest girl I've ever met."
Wow, was he a guy in love. She smiled then, since if anything else? That was something they had in common, and hey? Wasn’t she just talking to Rachelle recently about making friends? Hrrrrmh, those wheels were turning. “I feel the same way. Only… with the redhead,” she grinned. “Would you be up to hanging out sometime? Or an awkward-yet-adorable double-date?” Which would, likely, make Rachelle explode with joy.
"Why not both?" He asked, feeling an odd yet immediate kinship with this girl. As was evident by his next statement, which he'd shared with NOBODY. "You know... if I can find time what with having Meredith staying with us..."
“Seriously?” One of Neely’s eyebrows shot up and an impressed little grin crossed her face, “Dude, no wonder you need coffee. Gotta keep the energy stores up!” …Yeah, bye-bye decorum.
"Shhh. For now we're all sort of... Keeping it between us." So why was he trusting her already? Again... that odd kinship. "It’s odd... and confusing... but damn is it awesome."
“Oh, I don’t doubt that for a second,” Neely chuckled, before taking a sip of her delicious coffee. She was finally in a place with Rachelle in which she couldn’t imagine being with anyone else… beyond the random threesome. Ahem. “Long term or… undecided?” Yes, because these were questions you asked a virtual stranger. Still, she was curious and she liked him, which was saying a lot.
"We don't know. Right now all we know is we both care for Meredith a lot." He tried to be as non-piggish as he could be there. "I must feel a real bond to you, girl..." He said as he blushed a little. "NOBODY knows about us yet."
That blush? Was possibly the cutest thing ever. She grinned and crossed an ‘X’ over her heart. “I’ll keep it to myself,” she promised. She was starting to get good at keeping promises. Good for her. “I … honestly can’t remember having a conversation with a man I wasn’t directly related to,” she laughed.
"Then consider me honored. I'm about the furthest thing ever from an optimist... but somehow, I think maybe this is the start of a great friendship." He raised his coffee to her with a smirk.
She raised her coffee as well and giggled. “I don’t disagree. Of course, I do have to wonder who’ll be the bad influence on who,” she replied, smirking right back.
"Well. If you believe most people... I'm a bad influence on everyone." Because Ash was pretty much the devil to most people, after all. "I just know that all things considered, for the first time in my life, I feel like a lucky, lucky man."
Neely chuckled, “I admit… I listen to ‘rumours’ more often than I should, or let people bring me down… but even coming from the horse’s mouth? I don’t believe that for a second.” She smiled faintly at his second statement, and much like him, said something she hadn’t told anyone: “… I was lucky once before, but it didn’t… end well. Rachelle doesn’t know that, but… right now? For the rest of my life? I am completely, irrevocably hers.”
"You were lucky once before?" He asked, unintentionally giving that same arching of the eyebrow that Neely so often did. "What happened? And... I'd say you're pretty lucky now, too."
“She, uh… she died. It was unexpected, y’know? Well, how can you anticipate death, right?” She made a face. “After she died I told myself I’d never fall in love again, but… three years later, I met Rachelle and it was kinda hard not to, y’know?” No one knew the story. Not even Ben. She wasn’t about to divulge the details to Ash, but… he knew more about why she was the way she was than most people, which included Rachelle. “It’s… almost four years now.”
"I guess we really DO have a lot in common." He said softly, as death had touched his life far too much as well. "When Lucy...." He still couldn't say it. "When she was... gone... I couldn't take it. I almost ended it all. Meredith saved me. Without her... neither me nor Lucy would be alive right now. So, if you ever need to talk about anything?" He placed a hand atop hers gently, "I'm here."
She smiled bittersweetly. It was clearly one of those things that she didn’t like to talk about, hadn’t thought about for a while. It was just too … painful. “I don’t think I would have reacted any differently if something were to happen to Rachelle.” She blinked and looked away briefly, since even talking about such an eventuality was too hard to bare. “Thank you.” She raised an eyebrow. “You know that goes both ways, right?”
"Wow." He replied, trying to lighten things a little. "Our first time hanging out and you're talking about going both ways. I really AM a lucky guy..." Because honestly... he could tell she was like him: always wanting to push the badness down, away.
She chuckled and leaned across the table to give him a playful punch in the shoulder. “Smart ass.” Although he did have a good idea. Changing the subject… “What music do you like? And, almost as important, what do you think of ventriloquist dummies?” This was Neely, after all. Queen of random.
"Rock, some metal... I think I'd be the worst brother-in-law ever if I didn't like Broken Sunrise..." He snickered, shrugging. "Overall though my favorites are Marilyn Manson and Alice In Chains. And... I've travelled to an interdimensional battle arena, fought demons, helped train a vampire slayer... and yet, none of that is scarier than ventriloquist dummies. NONE of it." Charmingly, he seemed to take her randomness casually, with a grain of salt.
Neely just looooved Alice in Chains, she gave him extra points for that (apparently he got points now, for some arbitrary reason), to the rest of what he had to say? Her eyebrow shot up again and she laughed, “You know what I think? That has to be the best answer you could have come up with.”
"I'm still undecided about whether or not they're scarier than clowns though. Although, dummy clowns could be the beginning of the end." He laughed, before thinking for a minute. "You know... I'm fairly certain watching you and Lucy converse would be better than cable."
She gave him a mock-dubious look as she considered that, from… everything she’d been told about Lucy, she didn’t doubt that statement. She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Possibly, although it’s better fuelled by copious amounts of coffee. …And I’d say something about charging you to watch that, but…” she wrinkled her nose, “that doesn’t sound right.”
"At this point in my life.... I don't think there's anything I could watch that's better than...." he stopped there, shaking his head. "You know what? Forget I even started that sentence. And hey... maybe if you girls are free, we can try to get together over the weekend or something..."
She laughed and shook her head, willing to pretend she hadn’t heard the first part of the sentence. “Yeah, absolutely. We were gonna get a puppy, but beyond that we’re pretty free. Of course, I’ll have to get your number. What are your thoughts on mini-golf?” Okay, maybe a little too much coffee for the tiny blonde. Her randomness wasn’t usually so... well, so random.
"My thoughts? You and Lucy, sugared up and holding metal clubs, can only lead to tragedy. But hey. I'm nothing if not a risk-taker. Let me run it by her, but otherwise, I'd say it sounds pretty hilarious." Funny enough? In his 19 years, this was the quickest Ash had EVER bonded with anyone, friend-wise.
“‘Tragedy’? Pshaw, I like to think of it as leading to awesome,” Neely giggled. It was funny, really. Neely wasn’t exactly a ‘friend’ person, as previously stated... she mostly slept with women. Guys? She gave no real thought to, but right now? She decided she was going to keep Ash.
"How cool is it, really, that our girls are in a band together? We can stand by and brag while they impress the hell out of everyone, and then laugh when people drool over them." Not that Ash had thought about this at all. Nope.
“Y’know, it’s funny. I still haven’t seen her perform yet. Practice, sure but... I’d probably explode with joy-slash-pride seeing her being all hot and... distracting... and, erm. Sorry, what were we talking about?” She blushed. Awr, even talking about Rachelle got a reaction out of her.
"Yeah, I know the feeling. I still haven't seen Luce perform a real show yet. But god... just watching her practice kind of makes me sweat." And then, not being a jerk, but just being HONEST, "And good GOD... how can either of you get anything done with the other looking so good?"
“I wonder that all the time,” Neely replied, equally as honest. “I mean, we’ll be doing something completely harmless then... five minutes later there’s nudity!” She laughed. “Not that I’m complaining. I totally caught her coming out of the shower the other day and I just wanted to take a bite out of her... and you probably didn’t need to know that.”
"You know? I can relate. The first couple days Lucy was back, we didn't even leave the HOUSE. Seriously. I can't believe we didn't cripple each other." Ash almost laughed here. He was practically having a 'one-of-the-guys' chat... with a beautiful young girl. How odd.
“Oh god,” she put a hand to her head and just laughed. She had the visual and it... might have broken her a little. “Well, I get we’ve got to come up for oxygen sometimes, right?” She smirked.
"Exactly." He shrugged and chuckled as he came to a realization. "Huh. No offense, but I can't believe I'm finally really bonding with someone, and it's a BALE. Except for your uncle David, I haven't been the biggest fan of most of your immediate family."
“Most, or just one member specifically?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. Although, to be fair, there were days when she wasn’t a big fan of her immediate family, so she couldn’t begrudge him that. “And Uncle Dave’s a sweetheart. I don’t think there’s a person in the world who doesn’t like him.”
"You know... I'll give you that. Truthfully, I don't KNOW most of your family. I think I've judged them mostly on Ben." And because he was trying to be totally honest here, he sighed and finally admitted what he was feeling. "And Ben's never done anything to ME specifically. It's a mixture of how bad he helped hurt my friend Gwen, and the fact that when she first got here, he made a play for Lucy."
Neely rolled her eyes and thought ‘lalala’ at the mention of Gwen, since... yeah, that wasn’t someone she wanted to talk to anytime soon. Heh. “Well, Ben’s a cad. Or, he was, anyway. Of course he’d make a play for an attractive blonde.”
"Something about him just makes me blood boil. But anyway." He shook that off, not wanting to get this off to a bad start. "So... Rachelle knows what you are now? I know she was kind of... in the dark about all this stuff for a while."
Eh, she adored Ben, but she could understand that not everyone had to like him. “Yeah, she almost got attacked by Vamps a while back; she was saved by some green lantern looking guy?” She made a face. She didn’t like Ethan, even though she’d never met him. She was just... protective of what she had. “Then everyone started filling her in. She makes werewolf jokes like you wouldn’t believe now.”
"Good. Lucy... was spooked at first. Actually left town for a few months to come to grips with it all. She's still adjusting, but she's handling it really well now." Yeah, especially with dying and all, right? He tried not to think about that, and continued. "You know? This is the most fun I've had without Lucy or Mere around in AGES."
It was funny, really. For all the talking she’d done with Rachelle’s friends and as much as she liked them, this was the first time she felt she actually made a friend of her own. How sweet. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I like it.” She grinned.
"I just feel like I can tell you anything. Which is STRANGE, considering there's people I've been close to for years that I don't feel that way with." He couldn't help but laugh there. "Damn you Bales and your charms..."
“Yes, I have my ways and means,” Neely replied, before giving him a big shit-eating grin. “But yeah, I know what you mean. I’ve totally decided I’m going to keep you, by the way.” She nodded.
"Well, good. I'd hate to be just given away like some prom night baby." He smiled though, finding her little proclamation to be about the cutest thing anyone other than Lucy had ever said.
“Pssh, you’re too adorable for that.” She leaned across the table to ruffle his hair a little. Okay, she couldn’t help it, he was just so... well, fun!
"I should probably get your number or something, so I can call you after I talk to Lucy..." He felt a little weird asking for her number, but dammit, that's what friends DO!
She chuckled and flagged down Mouse, borrowing a pen from the shy girl, and wrote her number on a napkin. She flashed the girl a grin and gave it to him, "if all else fails, at least you know where I live.”
"True. Although from how it sounds... Stopping by unannounced could result in embarrassment all-around." He grinned and winked. "Although it'd be a hell of a sight."
"Puh-lease. I have no shame," Neely laughed. "I ran downstairs in a bra for Christ's sake."
"You did NOT." He said with a loud snort, having, honestly, the most fun he'd had just hanging out platonically with a girl since he used to hang out with Gwen in high school.
"Oh, I totally did. Scored a twenty from Patience, too," she added with a laugh. "It seemed like a perfectly normal thing to do at the time." She gave him a sweetly innocent expression, as if to say 'oh me'.
"Jesus. Only my sister..." He said with an embarrassed facepalm. "She's... an interesting girl."
"I like her. She's getting so big, too! I just wanna cuddle her. Lookin' forward to being an uncle?" She waggled her eyebrows.
"I am. She deserves it, too. She's been through... more than you could imagine. We both have." God, the shit they'd been through. The abuse, the death...
She reached out and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "If you ever wanna talk about it, you can always talk to my bodacious self about it." Good ole' Neely, could never be completely serious for long.
"I might take you up on that." He sighed, trying not to let his eyes go black. "My sister... thinks I should talk to someone, but I can't just sit there and spill my guts to some doctor who doesn't know me from Adam, you know?" He gave her hand a grateful return-squeeze. "You're kind of awesome, anyone ever told you that?"
"...Eh, I'm on the fence about therapists. I guess it helps some people, but..." She squirmed a little in her seat and made a face. "And duh, of course I'm awesome. I'm surprised it took you so long to realise," she smirked lopsidedly.
"What can I say?" He asked with a dark laugh. "I guess I'm a little slow on the uptake at times."