we have found our solace here in this unexpected place

[herotypical]

Who: slaying & lists_to_port
What: there is a tradition that needs to be upheld on the eves of horrors.
When: sunday night.
Where: good spirits, at first. then elsewhere.
Summary: debriefing and de-traumaing and all kinds of good stuff.
Rating: danger danger high voltage -- things get r-ratedish. fair warning!

Back on Friday, Buffy had scribbled a tense little note to Captain Jack Sparrow:

Need some time. Don't worry. Mission accomplished -- no deaths. Just gotta look after me for a bit. Good Spirits on Sunday night?

-- Buffy

After returning to the village, Buffy had wanted nothing more than to find the pirate and curl up next to him. But the fight with Derek had been harder than she would care to admit and she wanted to scrub as much of that from herself before rejoining the rest of Luceti. She had Giles to look after and she had her own mind to tend to and she spent hours focusing on those meditation crystals -- begging for peace. Peace was so far away.

But on Sunday, Buffy took a long long bath. She put loose, fashionable curls in her hair and she took the luxury of all the time in the world to dip into her make-up drawer and line her eyes and mascara her lashes and pick a natural, light lip gloss. The aim was to look healthy if she couldn't look happy.

She walked into Good Spirits with apprehension in her step and looked around for the man she had asked to meet with her there.

Comments

[all7seas]

The note frustrated the hell out of Jack Sparrow, which meant that to all appearances he was as happy-go-lucky as he ever was. Anyone Jack met between the receipt of that note and Sunday evening would probably be envious of how chill the pirate acted. Not a care in the world for Sparrow, not a one.

In fact, he had so little care that he found himself back out at the beach, walking barefoot along the shore. Cold water? What cold water?

'Look after me?' Look after me. He could give her time and space. It wasn't such a long time to wait, except it was. Those threats Derek had leveled at him were fairly grisly and chilling and Jack relied on Buffy's good sense to not let anything that the hunter-turned-vampire said about him mar her judgment in the fight.

At least she was alive.

So on Sunday, Jack made sure to return from the seaside well before the appointed time. A visit to Cullen House only served to strengthen that roguish smirk even as his insides twisted around. Sick. Bloodstains? Furniture askew?

I never want to live here again.

And yet Jack knew he'd have to stay there for at least a bit longer, until other matters were straightened out. So he cleaned. Polished. Scoured. Wondered whose blood it was, and then tried NOT to wonder such things. He spent so much time trying to get one particular stain out that he realized he was going to be late.

By 8:30 a disheveled hatless-and-coatless Jack Sparrow pushed open the door of Good Spirits and tried not to look like he was looking frantically around for Buffy Summers.

Not fussed. A very calm pirate indeed. OH! Peanuts!

[herotypical]

Buffy had been there for a good hour before him. After she didn't find him upon entering, she chose a table and hid away from the crowd. Settled with her journal and pretended to be engrossed in it when really she was engrossed in the comings and goings of the bar doors.

Perhaps, she began to worry, he had changed his mind. He couldn't handle the proximity to a woman who could so easily enter battle with one of his friends. One of her own friends. Except it hadn't been easy at all -- it had taken preparation the likes of which she hadn't experienced since stabbing Anya or, before that, killing Angel.

But then he entered and her heart quickened and that was just as confusing as the rest of it. She stood from the booth and raised one hand. I'm here, it said. I'm right here.

[all7seas]

The only indication that he might have noticed the blond girl at the far table was the slight nod of Jack Sparrow's head. The pub was his environment, and he moved through it easily, greeting those he was friendly with with friendly remarks, dealing passive-aggressive insults to those he did not like. He stopped at the bar for a bowl of peanuts and a bottle of rum. While he waited for these, the pirate tucked in his sloppy hem; straightened his cuffs; rebuttoned the hastily misbuttoned shirt.

Finally, the rum. Finally, Jack turned casual steps toward a certain secluded table and, upon reaching it, looked just as casually at the beautiful woman sitting there.

"Excuse me---is this seat taken, darling?"

[herotypical]

"Only by you? It's taken by you. Or -- it will be, when you sit in it." Her voice was hopeful. It might also be considered too warm and welcoming for the situation -- but that was classic Buffy. The real feelings were buried under the performance; however, it didn't make the source of the performance any less sincere.

"Please sit in it?"

[all7seas]

"I suppose I will--yes, yes, I've got a bit of time." Jack made sliding into a booth beside a beautiful girl in a pub look so natural. "I'll warn you: I haven't stepped into a shower or used any of your fancy Chinese hair treatment and sudsy things in nearly four days, now."

[herotypical]

"What? Didn't have the time? Or -- oh...there was the whole part where I was commandeering your house and therefore your shower but...but I left on Friday. That left two whole days for potential showering."

She nudged her journal shut.

[all7seas]

"Boat," he offered by way of explanation. Anyone wanting to reach that boat by conventional means could only do so by swimming a good distance through decidedly brisk waters and climbing aboard. Since Jack could only be on board the craft for a short time before becoming very ill, he had made this swim many, many times over the past two days.

"The house was..."--horror--"a bit messy, Annie."

[herotypical]

"...Y-yeah, about that? Sorry."

She wasn't sure yet whether to tell him about Giles or not. "I probably should have stayed to clean, shouldn't I?"

[all7seas]

"No. No, bugger it, it's just a vam--no." Jack's sang-froid exterior crumbled and he took a long drink of rum. "Was it yours? The blood?"

[herotypical]

Right. A long sigh. She she shook her head. "Only some of it. Like -- only a bit of it."

Most of her blood was outside. "And even still, that was just the post-fight bleeding. You know...the kind where you're still very much alive but still kind of bleeding because that's what happens in a fight. You bleed."

[all7seas]

"You bleed." Agreeably; Jack did not let any of the horror roiling under the surface reach his eyes. He casually waved to an acquaintance across the room and took another drink.

alone in your house, Sparrow, she was alone and bleeding in your house and you on that blighted ship

"Didn't spatter anything on Kennedy's fairy draperies, did you? He'll be gutted."

[herotypical]

"I tried to be as non-splattery as possible."

Buffy tapped the top of the table and kept her voice in that careful, let's-joke-about-pain-and-death tone. She was very good at it.

[all7seas]

"Good. Did you know, Annie---did you know that the boy bested me in sword practice?"

Jack smiled at her, then took another drink--a rather desperate drink. He did not want to change the subject. He wanted to know every detail and ensure that she was, in fact, whole and well and unharmed beside him. But her own joking unnerved him. It was a strange double standard.

[herotypical]

"Bested? As in bested bested? As in you were trying your darnedest and he won?"

She wanted her own drink to distract herself with. But instead she just kept drumming her fingers. Tap tap tap.

[all7seas]

"He was a different man up in the rigging. I suppose I were an inspirational teacher, Buffy."

He wasn't about to spill the fact that his "inspiration" had been the hypothetical compromise of Dawn Summers's honor. No sir.

Jack covered those tapping fingers with his palm, trying to still them. "Alright, Annie?"

[herotypical]

She started off smiling. Inspirational teacher? Yeah, right. If she knew what he had used? Oh, forgiveness would be long and hard to find. But Jack couldn't know the kind of nerves that were there.

But then his hand was on hers and she looked up -- smile lost but a sincerity in her eyes. "The good guys won this one, Jack. I'm okay. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you I'm happy or feeling particularly triumphant over this one 'cause I'm really not. But I took him to John and that was the plan. Not his plan. But mine."

[all7seas]

Hypothetical, Buffy. Jack knows what strings to pull with Archie; tell him his woman is in peril, and the man will be more likely to play the game. On many levels, the pirate was more afraid of DAWN finding out than Buffy.

"Good...girl, you mean. Good girl. Woman. Good woman won this one." He took her hand comfortably in his larger one and dipped their joined hands under the table. Still discreet. More rum.

[herotypical]

She tucked her fingers into his, curling them against his palm. This was the first physical contact she'd had since the fight. It was electric in its own right.

"You talked to hi--it. It told me. You -- whatever it said, Jack..."

[all7seas]

A rough, calloused thumb stroked the skin of her hand reassuringly. "Just passed the time of day with it, is all, Annie. Curiosity, you know. I have it."

[herotypical]

Curiousity killed the Slayer; Derek had told her that. But she was alive and he would be, too. Soon.

"Tried telling me it'd go after you first -- break the promise Derek made to me. But it didn't. Oh, thank God it didn't."

Indication the first that the fight had been a grueling one.

[all7seas]

"Aye--I know." The threat had been made to Jack as well. "That---that didn't compromise you, did it?"

[herotypical]

"No," she shook her head. "I could feel heading for me. He was aiming for a rise and didn't get one. Turns out even spineless, mind-screwball infections still manage to keep their word."

She edged closer to him in the booth. Close enough for elbows to bump and legs to touch. Casual-like. Close but not in a way that looked purposeful.

[all7seas]

Beneath the table, Sparrow hooked a foot behind hers, supporting it. He otherwise appeared very busy aiming one of his peanuts at someone who looked a little bit like Smoker seated at the bar, a rather feral grin on his face, before turning back to the slayer.

"And when he comes back? Derek? Surfing, me and him. It'll be alright, Buffy--you'll see."

[herotypical]

"You and him. Surfing. Sunlight. Tans and no freakish sense of smell."

Buffy relaxed a little more genuinely...but there was still a problem: "And he can get a head start on hating me. Betrayer. That's me -- he never wanted to go to John and of course I only get the cold feet after the deed's done and an infectiony demon can keep a promise but I can't."

[all7seas]

The deepest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers.

A smile. A light squeeze of her hand.

"It's Derek, Buffy." As though this will explain and simultaneously solve everything.

Jack was convinced that once Derek came back to them rid of his infection, or as near to it as he could be, he'd see the rightness of Buffy's choice and thank her for it. He simply could not understand why this was eating at her so insistently.