milliways_bar | (no subject)

He leans forward, pointing things out to her. "Look, there's the aviary. Second time we fed the lava birds. You can see them covering Beth. It's a cup of apple juice in her hand. They like to drink it and they're pretty tame. You can't reach out and pet them randomly, but they land on you when you have the nectar. She's got..." He stops, counting the number of tiny birds. "...eleven of them on her in that picture. They're only about this big." He holds out his hand, finger and thumb about 3" apart.

"If you look really close, you can see all six wings on this guy over here."

Elaine looks. So many colours. She can almost taste them. Beth looks happy.

Six-winged birds and so very small. "They're so beautiful, Spike. That must have been a wonderful day." She smiles, her mind full of bright colors and fluttering tiny birds.

He grins, shuffling the photographs for her. "A couple more pictures of her with the birds. First time I ever saw lava birds, I was a kid. It was on Mars at this tiny aviary. I fed them then. Always wanted to do it again. It was fun."

A few more bird pictures, and then... "Ah. That's Lake Orion, and there's Beth getting ready to go parasailing. See, she's got that t-shirt on under the life vest, the one I told you about the other night." If she looks closely, she'll be able to make out at least what looks like a bit of lettering on Beth's shirt.

In the picture, Beth is smiling. Very broadly.

Elaine looks and thinks the whole set up looks terribly...fragile. "She's brave. It definitely doesn't look quite solid. But...it also looks fun. The lake is lovely."

"Yeah." The purple water of the lake is evident in the background, along with some strikingly tall mountain ranges that look as if they're covered in pink snow. It's really pretty.

"There's the boat. She was called The Martinique for whatever reason. Nice boat.

The next picture is from the air. Again, it's of Beth and it's a close-up and she looks pretty damn thrilled. At least Spike thinks so.

Beth's kind of smiling before she even reaches them. Sharing vacation pictures with friends just seems like such a normal thing to do.

It's just that Spike's a bounty hunter from the future and Elaine's from way in the past and the vacation was on Venus.

She drapes an arm over Spike's shoulders and looks down at the picture they're looking at, and it's still kind of strange seeing herself with the scar.

But she doesn't smile any less. "There are lots more pictures of me than of Spike. He won't be so lucky next time."

Elaine beams. "Hello, Beth! I expect he took so many pictures because he was so happy to see you smile."

She looks at the purple water, the mountains, and tries to imagine what that must have looked like from the sky. "Parasailing looks fun but scary. But it must have been amazing to be up there."

"Oh, it's great. Not all that scary... at least I didn't think so. How about you, Slim?" Spike rests his arm around Beth's waist. "You know, I still have one of the cameras. When we're done looking at these, I'll take some pictures of the two of you."

He points to the next picture. "There's the open-air market."

There are signs and banners in all languages, and all sorts of strange-looking things on tables. It stretches out for an entire city block.

Elaine takes the picture. She looks at them all closely, getting the feel of the foreign landscape. Elaine couldn't even begin to identify the things on the tables and booths, or read even a few of the many languages on the banners, but it looks at home under the multicoloured pastel sky.

"Amazing. It's hard to believe this is all real, but it is. Is this where you bought the watercolors?"

She feels some sort of pang of joy at the thought of all of that being real. All those colors, all the variety. It was incredible.

Spike laughs a little bit. "Yeah, it's real." He nods to Beth. "You two stand together so I can take a couple pictures of you both."

Seems like a damn good plan. The camera's not fancy, but it works. And it still has about four or five pictures left on it.

Beth ducks her head down and presses a kiss to the side of Spike's face before she moves away from him.

She can't help it. He's just there and sweet and seems to be in such a better mood than he has been lately.

He had good reason to be in a bad mood, though, as far as she's concerned.

She steps around him and moves to stand beside Elaine. "Need us to back up?"

He holds the camera up to his left eye: he uses that one because it can estimate distance and sharpness and focus and all that shit, being part camera itself. And it does it all automatically: it isn't like he sees the calculation in some computer readout or anything. It just... tells his brain.

"Nope, that's good."

Click.

Automatic focus, automatic developer: a picture spits out into his hand. "Hang on, one more."

Click.

And another. He glances down at the nearly-identical photos and hands one to each of them. "There."

Elaine blinks as the flash goes off, and she takes the picture of the two of them from Spike.

"Is that really what I look like?"

The black and white one that she'd had taken in Los Angeles looked a lot different. For one thing, her smile had been tight and worried.

This one is a lot more natural. And happier.

"I like it. You look nice, Beth."

Beth looks down at her own picture. Her eyes go from her own face to Elaine's, both of them smiling, and for the first time in a while, she's completely aware of the kind of tight feeling across her nose and cheeks when she grins widely.

And it doesn't bother her.

"We don't look half bad, do we? Spike takes good pictures. It's one of his hidden talents."

She kind of wishes she had a picture from the first time she met Elaine. There's a big difference in the Elaine standing beside her right now and the Elaine she met months ago.

"Hey, Elaine, do us a favor." Spike hands her the camera. "You see how this works? Look through this little window until you see what you want, then click the button on top. That's all. I just realized there aren't any pictures of me and Beth together."

And he really, really wants one. He holds out his hand to Beth. "Okay by you, Slim?"

She promptly gives Spike the kind of half-smile that only he gets from her, and putting her hand in his, she nods.

There are no pictures of them together. She's got that really damn good drawing Elaine did, and it's a great sketch. An amazing one.

But things don't get much more realistic than a photograph.

"Ready when you are, Elaine."

Elaine nods and takes the camera from Spike, looking at it and making sure of which button to press.

Her drawings take a long time to make--and it's strange that a little machine such as this can make a picture in almost no time at all.

Elaine looks through the little window, and backs up a little so that she gets all of them in the picture.

"Okay," she says, and when expressions are right, she snaps the picture.

She stays still, unsure of whether to move the camera or not.

"Thanks." Spike turns and kisses Beth on the cheek, reaching out for the picture just barely attached to the lip of the camera; it flutters into his hand.

Autofocus, autodeveloped.

"Nice picture, Elaine." He shows it to her: they both look pretty damn happy. "Do us one more, would you?"

He holds Beth close to him this time, and gives her that kind of smile that he never, ever gives to anyone else.

Elaine beams and nods, holding the camera up again.

If it didn't have such a lack of tactile sensation (no paper, no pencils, no blending with the fingers), she might actually get used to this method of picture-making.

She clicks the button and another picture, flawless, perfect, comes out.

She's so close to laughing, so close, and she knows without even seeing it that she's going to think of this picture as some absolutely priceless treasure.

She reaches to take the picture before it falls from the camera. "Thanks, Elaine."

It's perfect: Spike's got her wrapped in his arms and is giving her one of those satisfied little smiles that never fails to make her heart jump.

Perfect.

"Thanks," she repeats.

He looks at the picture and kisses Beth again: completely unabashed in that don't-give-a-shit-who-sees kind of way. Then he reaches out and takes the camera from Elaine and examines it: 2 more pictures left.

They can save those for another time. Unless they get back sooner than he thinks to Venus or Mars and one of the hundreds of little tourist shops lining the streets of every damn city on every planet and moon and asteroid.

He'll take her there. He will: he promised.

"So. How do you like this little camera, Elaine? I should have gotten a few more."

Of course, maybe the bar can make some cameras just like this for them; he'll find that out later. For right now, he lifts his iced coffee to Elaine, to Beth, and takes a sip.

"It is an interesting way to make a picture, indeed. They're so perfect and so quick."

It is most curious. People making paintings sometimes labor for months for their imperfect portraits.

"I must admit to still liking my pencils and paper, though." She smiles.

Beth leaves one arm around Spike's narrow waist. It's just comfortable there.

"I like your pencils and paper, too. That sketch you did of us a long time ago is one of best things I've gotten since I've been here."

She's always thought so. But she can't help glancing down at that last picture again.

Like the real thing isn't right there beside her and they can't look at each other just like that whenever the hell they feel like it.

She's still smiling when she finally moves to take a seat at the bar.

He looks at her again just like that. And gives a different sort of smile to Elaine: just as genuine, but calmer, more serene.

"I like that sketch a lot too. Pictures are pictures, but art is different." He tucks the photos into his chest pocket for safekeeping: wouldn't do at all for someone to spill a drink on them or any of that shit, and they're going up on the wall in Room 8 just as soon as he and Beth get back upstairs.

"I always thought that any guy with a camera could take a picture. It might not be great, but it'd be there. But it takes something kind of special to be able to draw." It's something he's never been able to do. Even the schematic he sketched out for Beth way back when kind of sucks. It really didn't need to be art to make its point, but still.

Although Beth never seemed to mind.

Elaine smiles. "Well, I suppose that there are ways to take a bad picture, as well."

She enjoys watching Spike and Beth interact with each other. They are so nice together.

"I am glad you have had such nice adventures together. Thank you for showing me the pictures."