I Just Want To Be Normal

"The duck pond?" Isabel asked with a raised eyebrow. And then she remembered Rory's laptop, and the number dispenser outside Angel's room. "It couldn't just dispense M&M's or something?"

From:

"Well, it *does* dispense jellybeans," Bridge informs Isabel. "But yeah. Security feature. Just... avoid the keypad."

From:

"Is the doorknob okay?" she asked. A visit to the duck pond was not on the agenda tonight.

From:

"Yeah... yeah, it is." Bridge says after a moment.

From:

"Good, I'll keep that in mind. No duck pond."

She glanced at the bag Xander had brought back to the room. "So Xander, flowers?"

From:

"Uhhh...yeah." Having pretty much inhaled his burger, Xander was halfway through the fries, and took a moment to wipe his fingers off before opening the bag from Blackadder's shop.

"Like I know from flowers, right? But I figured I couldn't go wrong with white." He pulled out a cut carnation with a small ribbon in white and pale green twisted around the base, and another, almost identical, with white and gold-wire in the bow.

From:

"No, white is definitely good," Bridge grins at Xander.

From:

"Definitely," Isabel agreed as she nibbled another french fry.

From:

"Yay, I don't lose at colors. Uh, for once," Xander adds, waving at his closet and snickering.

From:

"Yay you!" Isabel laughed as she put her dinner aside and reached for the bags she'd gotten earlier and All & Sundries. "I'm going to head upstairs and set up Cal's room if she's gone. I'll get changed when I get back. I'll see you in a bit," she call over her shoulder as she left.

From:

Bridge waves to Isabel as he finishes inhaling the rest of his dinner.

"So, um, getting-ready time, yay," he says, bouncing nervously and waving vaguely at the garment bag containing his tuxedo.

From:

Xander grins, not a lot less nervously. It' s not that he hasn't done the tux thing before, it's that he hasn't done... this thing before. As if that doesn't go without thinking.

"Yeah. You, ah, want the bathroom?" He points to the door. "And I'll just... lock the roomie out for a few. Which'll work so well with her alien door-opening powers, but anyway."

From:

"Sure, dude," Bridge says, grabbing his stuff and heading in.

A few minutes later, he re-emerges.

"So?" He asks, "whatcha think?"

From:

Xander is just buttoning up his own jacket when he turns around.

And then kinda forgets how buttons work.

"Uhhh..."

Also fingers.

"Tux?"

From:

Bridge nods. "Yes. You have one too, I see."

From:

"Yeah, but I knew I had one." Xander stares some more. His jacket? May never get buttoned.

From:

"Well, I, um... may have gone shopping, yeah." Bridge says.

From:

"I was thinking you'd go with the. Um."

Xander shakes his head, smiles, and wonder of wonders, comes up with a complete sentence. "You look good."

From:

"I thought about it, yeah." Bridge says. "And- you look nice too. Though we might get some interesting looks if you show up with your jacket all unbuttoned, like."

From:

Xander snorts at that and finally manages to stop staring. "I figure we'll get some interesting looks anyway." He looks down and buttons his jacket up, though.

From:

Mission completed, Isabel returned to the room. And stopped, momentarily befuddled by the locked door. Whammying the lock was a possibility, but she wasn't sure what she would walk in on. Boykissy might be pretty, but it wouldn't be nice to cause Xander to have a heart attack from flail before he to to the prom. Instead she knocked.

From:

Xander goes to open the door, and blinks for a second when he remembers that it's locked. Hey, that was two tuxes ago!

"Hey," he says, opening it to let Isabel in.

From:

"Oh my!" Isabel grinned. "I'm dead of the handsome. You guys look great."

From:

"Thanks," Bridge says, blushing a little. "Hey, could you maybe, um, take a picture? Of us?" He asks, holding out his phone.

From: