water you doing? ~ open
The idea hadn’t really been something he or Mal had actively considered as plausible. After all, the Wizard of Oz was fiction. It was a make believe children’s novel and movie. But there was plenty of lore about witches and water (mostly running water, but they had to explore all of their options here) and it couldn’t hurt to test out the ideas at events such as these. Kids could be bought with cotton candy and a hot dog so that Will or Mal ever actually caught heat for it. All they had to do was stick close enough to see what happened when one of their suspected witches got nailed with an ice cold water balloon. Unfortunately… it didn’t seem like much besides a very pissed off northerner who Will knew mostly from the profile he’d built and because Dev had mentioned Jada Harris a few times at work. He wasn’t sure of her ties to Emily, but Dev knew Emily and Dev knew Jada so he figured the three were connected somehow.
The kid he’d bribed with two cotton candies and a pretzel had the common sense to skedaddle the moment Jada had whipped around yelling. Which was the moment Will entered the scene. “You okay? Those kids have been running around allll night doing that shit.” He shrugged out of the flannel long sleeve he wore over a white t-shirt, offering it to her. “You can borrow this if you’d like. I’ve got plenty. And I’m Will, by the way.”
Angel spotted the culprit by the deer-in-headlights look he gave her before scampering off. “Yeah, you better run.” She called after the kid,her words a bit more than an empty threat. She had half a mind to spray the little cretin with a can of soda. It was a fruitless effort, but she fanned her shirt in a halfhearted attempt to will it to dry faster but she stopped once she realized someone was addressing her. “Jesus. How is it not past their bedtime by now?” Angel turned her gaze to the speaker, eyes zeroing in on his outstretched hand and the shirt it offered. The condescending ‘I bet you do’ was loaded on the tip of her tongue but she didn’t let it slip. Flannel seemed to be a requisite for most of the folks around here. Angel had never worn flannel in her life,but if it was good enough for Beyonce it couldn’t be that bad. Besides the sun had thoroughly set and she was not keen on starring in her very own wet t-shirt contest. She could ignore the fashion alarm bells that were ringing in her head for one night.
Angel accepted the shirt, letting an amused smile slide on her face. “Well, I do declare,” she couldn’t help but do her best impression of a southern belle, mocking the whole white-knight thing he had going on at the moment, “that’s mighty kind of you, William.” Though his gesture was appreciated, it didn’t do much to quell Angel’s tendency to be a smartass or her annoyance with all things Fairburn. It was still a bit disconcerting when people were overly helpful, at least by a New Yorker’s standards. A couple of months of being down south and Angel still wasn’t used to it. “The southern hospitality around here is no joke.”
