Ari has completed the enchantment of a very nice sword for his client. After some cooing over him being cute about a boy and some distress about him being cute about a vampire, Sally taught him the window enchantment (it's actually quite simple, you just jargon jargon wizardry words that don't make sense) and sent him on his merry way. The sun has finally set, and he's strolling past the Magic Box deliberating over whether to go in and see if they'd like some shiny rocks.
Then he ruins it by bursting out into extremely undignified giggles. "Shit, I can't do that long enough for it to work. Sorry Mark, you're going to have to make do with vague implications about beds."
"Is there anything you want?"
Except when they do. As in this case, in which several firetruck-red horned musclemen wearing leather jackets are strolling down the street towards Ari and Mark (who are likely still holding hands, because Ari is ridiculous).
Ari tenses. "Ss'alhat. These guys are usually not nice. They will probably try to kill us. Their joints are really brittle and you can kill them in all the usual ways, if it comes to that. Which I suspect it will."
The demon looks at his hand and begins screeching in the unpleasant language. His companions charge. Ari smacks his forehead and shouts "Wrong species! Still kill them!" to Mark, before turning to face the charge.
All in all, it's a very quick fight.
When the last horned demon has stopped moving, he looks at Ari and smiles. "I like how you fight."
There are also other uses for the vanilla-scented oil Ari purchased from the Magic Box. Ari is known for his creativity with spell components.
Ari squirms energetically. "That is- sensitive. God. Oh my god, oh my- god, okay."
In defiance of the narration, Ari leads Mark out of the alley and towards the 24-hour Bed Bath and Beyond. (Most establishments in Sunnydale are 24-hour, for reasons their managers are reluctant to discuss.)
Ari escapes, after a kiss. And then he goes to the windows and starts painting lavendery sigils on them, babbling on as he does so. "The north wall I'm linking up to the creepy old apocalypse temple thing on the cliff overlooking town. East looks into this cool flowery garden in the first Bradford graveyard. The last two I don't have any ideas for yet, you can tell me if you see somewhere in town you'd like a window to."
Ari turns. "Now. What were you saying about sex?" he asks, running his fingers over the bite mark and shivering a bit.
After some consideration (and licking), he decides on the second thing. And shifts his face and drags his mouth a little lower on Ari's neck and bites him again. Mmmmmm.
Right, yes, he's supposed to be experimenting here, how the hell does he make it 'nice', what does that even mean, hmm, what if he just... yeah, that, that feels right. Like drinking love.
Ari wasn't complaining. Now, he doesn't think he could if he wanted. It's- blinding. There's so much, he's drowning in an ocean of yes, please. It's so good, he goes off in two seconds and it just keeps happening.
It is very unlikely that he's going to be able to say when to stop.
Ari shudders. Well, he's been shuddering more or less constantly for the duration of the biting, but- he shudders more, and then stops doing so.
He opens his mouth to speak, then decides it would be better to kiss Mark with it. Much better. So much better.
He is very sticky now. He'd clean himself up, but he doesn't actually mind.
He actually catches himself almost dozing off once or twice, while Ari sleeps. That's surprising. But even if sleeping near Ari is inexplicably possible, if Mark starts sleeping on a human schedule he'll just be awake and bored all day...
About two hours in, contemplating his delightful qualities turns into crying on him. Mark isn't even sure he knows why. He's not exactly unhappy about loving Ari so much. It's just - the scope and depth of his emotions are totally beyond his understanding or control. And even though it is blatantly obvious in innumerable ways, it doesn't make sense that Ari loves him back. Things that nice don't happen to Mark. Somewhere in the back of his mind he expects someone to show up and drag him away and start doing awful things to him with a shock-stick. Okay, maybe that's a legitimate reason to be crying.
"I can make do with instant, generally. But if I had my way there'd be a Starbucks in every graveyard in the United States."
let go. And rifle through his bag for a mid-sized bottle advertising vanilla scent. And raise a questioning eyebrow. (Questioning eyebrows. Individual eyebrows stubbornly refuse to cooperate.)
He decides that his mouth is not being useful at the moment. It should be kissing. Kissing seems feasible. (It matters less when his jaw suddenly goes slack if all he's doing with it is interfacing with Mark, rather than trying to say words.)
"It would! Jobs are terrible, freelance witchery is far better. I just make an enchanted sword or axe or something and hand it over to some rich demon for a couple thousand dollars, it's great. And I can just do that on commission every few weeks and not have to worry about anything!"