lucetilogs | we have found our solace here in this unexpected place

Buffy pressed closer and probably transfered some shadow-and-liner smudges onto the art's perpetrator. She fitted her body next to his and knew that the vines would be the first to get disassembled. But she angled her shoulder away -- she would protect the sparrow as long as possible. Keep its lines from running and keep it safe and crisp from interference.

She kissed him -- sweetly and tender in the same vein as the night he had returned from the ocean.

The pirate was actively trying, now, to take some of that kohl and shadow onto his body. The skull and crossbones---the legitimate tattooed one, on his stomach--became blue and green and gray like a bruise as he pressed against her. The kiss preoccupied him for some moments, but soon he was working on removing the last barriers that her clothing had to offer.

Eagerness and help was provided in spades. She had been the sole possessor of pants for a little too long and so she was quite obliging in the removal of them. Buffy's primness and reticence in public translated rather poorly past watersheds and closed doors -- a healthy dose of hedonism that she mistakenly believed she could hide well in day-to-day affairs but most likely wore on her sleeve.

When they were clear of the clothing, Jack tried to nudge her legs apart so he could push inside of her. It felt like an urgent matter of right now and he didn't want to put off this reclamation of Buffy any longer. Drawings and touches and kisses were wonderful and he loved them, but he'd thought he had come so close to losing her over the past few days

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to something harder and more unfeeling--that slayer she was, the one that wanted to push him away---and he needed union. Desperately.

She would never realize how close she often came to losing herself in that role. But the transition was starker in Luceti -- with fewer direct threats under her care, she could spend more time outside of the Slayer. This had lead to a social network of friends and acquaintances wider than she had ever had in Sunnydale. While the Scooby Gang had always been large, it had also been a group of people brought together by the hardships of the town. Arguably, some would never have made the cut if not for the muscle they could contribute -- like Spike. And unlike most friends in Luceti, the gang was well aware of her exceptionally dual nature. Luceti knew she was a Vampire Slayer but most of them didn't know quite how deeply that ran.

Jack knew, though. Having met the Slayer in a state of high rage and righteousness, he would have to know. Been hit by the Slayer and chased by the Slayer and kept prisoner for a time. It meant less play-acting around the pirate. This was a valued confidence and she had been long taking advantage of it even before her opinion on Jack had begun to change.

Since defeating Derek's infection, rediscovering Buffy Summers had been hard. Every step since walking into Good Spirits had been towards proving how unnecessary it was to play Slayer once the bad guy was beaten. To remind herself how to switch back on. So she welcomed him in and slid a knee along his leg and wrapped steadying hands around his upper arms. She didn't feel desperate; she felt happy.

And Jack, for his part, relaxed into their rhythm when he found himself with a happy girl. The days when this woman had been his enemy seemed like another lifetime, now, but that didn't mean he wasn't wary of the Slayer when she made her appearance. Jack hadn't survived for so long because of a lack of caution around dangerous people. Right now, though, he pressed close to her, craving every inch of contact he could get.

The easiest part to accept was the one where she knew that, eventually, Jack would bring that part out in her once again. They usually did -- these men. A great deal of the thrill came from those double-edges. She needed someone to challenge her or else she would take that someone for granted.

But that didn't mean that it always had to be a challenge and right now she worked with Jack Sparrow. Collaborating and allying on a level more rewarding than Buffy maybe-maybe-not sharing all of her plans with him. Together, they were gradually learning the quirks of their two particular bodies in sync and it paid to be a quick study.

Together--and that was the most important thing. The General's locket hung between them, and he fought to ignore it. He didn't want to see it filling that space, or resting against her skin. Instead, he focused on her: watching her mouth, her breathing, and the expressions that crossed her face. When it seemed like he couldn't hold on for much longer, Jack dug his fingers into the sheets and whispered her name, very much asking if she was ready.

In bed with Captain Jack Sparrow, she became far far less edited. She became unedited in other parts of her life, too. But nothing quite like the abandonment of composure and careful construction that took place when she was brimming with pleasure. Her lips remained parted -- giving way to breath and moans. At some point she remembered that this house was empty and a kind of safety-switch flipped off, completely surrendering any form of self-policing.

Ready was such a laughable word at a moment like this. If asked aloud, she might have even laughed amidst whimpers and tight, audible breaths. Ready sounded like a choice but what Buffy felt now was something inevitable. Unchoosable except to choose and get lost. Her body tensed and her muscles clenched and her grip was borderline-crushing. A soft oh, God and Buffy was passing far beyond ready.

House Two seemed to encourage that kind of vocal abandon in Jack as well. There was no one to wake up or alarm or anger here. It was private; it felt even more private than Cullen House, in a way, which with its gigantic windows and occasional houseguests/intruders had always felt open, if remote.

Those tightened muscles brought Sparrow the rest of the way and brought him hard. When the pirate finally collapsed against her, his shuddering frame slick with sweat and the remains of the artwork they had just shared, he took care to rest against the side that did not bear a little sparrow in kohl pencil. He kissed her shoulder and murmured loving things he only half-understood and began to wonder how many bruises he would have up and down his body from her insistent hands.

Edited 2011-04-22 04:05 (UTC)

It wasn't until moments later that she began to feel the cooler air on her comfortably warm skin. Buffy's arms relaxed around him and she pulled him and his heat closer, softly drawing her palms across his back. In this glorious haze, Buffy decided she wouldn't trade much of anything else for this kind of tranquility. She kissed the top of his head and didn't feel the least bit wary for any field-mice families. Could every problem that ever cropped up between them be solved thusly? Because in this wake, she felt as though she could give more than fair terms on anything. Make any promise. Satisfaction got the better of her and twisted all her motives up.

An after-shiver rocked her body -- delightful and surprising and the sigh that followed it is almost musical. "I give in," she whispered. "I am officially sold on Singapore."

"A dangerous thing indeed, that." Jack let his whole weight rest on her for a moment, soaking up every reaction transmitted by the lovely body beneath him; then he shifted so he could curl around her instead, pulling the comforter over them both and tucking it firmly.

The pirate wasn't entirely used to this: the afterward part. The times before when he stayed with a girl until dawn had never been like this. They'd been more for convenience, or for satiation, conning her into a warm bed, trading affections for gold.

No, now his battered soul was quietly set singing and surrendering and he thought about what more he could do for her. Anything. He'd do anything. It frightened him, this thinking about another over himself. Jack pulled her almost roughly against him and kissed her.

"I laugh in the face of danger," she sad. It could have sounded quite hard but in the odd little safe-cocoon of after, it held no heroic edge. No double-meaning. No underlined suggestion of her trade.

Buffy gratefully accepted the curl of him around her and returned his kiss in kind. She was no stranger to the afterwards -- but it had never felt quite so poignant with anyone else. Riley had a habit of drifting off quickly and she, in turn, had developed a habit of sneaking out of his bed and exhausting herself on patrol. For the most part, she had always rushed to leave Spike. Even in Luceti, they had been more friendly about it than..than whatever this was becoming. It was Jack's very active kind of surrender, she thought. The way he sought out her touch and her lips.

Broadly -- with a whole hand and not just a few fingers -- she smoothed back a mess of dreads and gently held the side of his head while they kissed. Her thumb rested behind his ear.

Jack's heart was perhaps thudding more insistently now than it had been through everything that had gone on before. He drew back from the kiss, trying to even out the suddenly-ragged breathing. This felt like the face of danger, somehow; like he was settling all of his weight on a bridge that might just be ready to collapse into the gorge below.

And he couldn't help but continue along that route, one foot in front of the other. It wasn't Buffy's betrayal or treachery he feared, really; it was the possibility that he would lose her that was emerging as a very real fear.

"And I laugh behind danger's back. Different, aren't we."

"You know what they say about opposites."

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. She left it at that regardless. She had her own fears to wrestle with. Like whether this was the kind of thing that could survive their definite differentness -- so far, all Buffy knew was that she was decidedly not going to present Jack Sparrow with a list of needed changes. He was what he was and she was what she was and neither of them were going to change each other. Too set in their ways...perhaps Jack had lived longer but she had lived just as much, albeit condensed into fewer years. They had their patterns.

"They yearn to be near each other and they care very deeply about one another and they need each other. That's all I know."

If she had presented him with such a list, Jack would very likely have set about trying for her. "A Better Man in Seven Days" had been a frustrating book to read, but he'd tried to put into practice all the rules for improvement. It had not been a rousing success.

"Are we staying here, tonight?"

"Well -- I was just gonna go with they attract but..." Buffy folded her hand up in his. "But what you said sounds way more Hallmark."

The Buffy who would present lists was the Buffy she was in the day-to-day. Fastidious and touting standards much, much higher than her own height. But her boxes weren't actually that tough to tick.

"I don't know." She turned her head. "For a little while, maybe?"

"I'll stay," he answered, nuzzling her temple, "for as long as you'll have me." He was never more honest with her than during times like this---another deep change she had somehow brought about in him. This was meant to be the time for false promises and assurances and thoughts about moving on. Not for thoughts like these, of permanence and true promises.

"Skipped the lesson on supply and demand, huh?" The best way to deflect such open-ended promises was to fall back on this kind of humour. She didn't know how to take this pronouncement. She didn't even know if she wanted it.

Buffy would dwell on the time passed here for a little while, yet. "I wonder if this place'll get snapped up next month or if it'll stay empty for a little longer."

"Dunno; I suppose that all depends on who gets dragged here next." The joke cut. That was, he knew, one of the many risks of laying himself open and bare; one slat in the slender bridge breaking free and tumbling down into the depths. "You like it, then? This place?" His hands came to rest just below where her wings joined the skin of her back.

"You'll be beach-bound soon." And Cullen House was now out of the question. "It might be nice, you know? To have another option outside of skulking behind Bones' back."

"Skulking..." It wasn't the word he would ever use for what they'd done in that house, but--"I can see your point. I believe we've staked our claim on it, at any rate."

Thoughts of the beach should have made him happy; they DID fill him with a sort of unanswered longing. The time he had spent there, even while ill, had helped to fill that little hole in his heart that had been made the first day he woke up in Luceti and wondered whose trousers he was wearing and why there was a beautiful woman talking to him from a book.

He wondered how hard it would be on her to be apart.

"What shall we call it? You know---coded." Skulking. Journal booty calls. Whatever they were to her? He didn't care. But he could play the game as well as any other pirate.

If Buffy had any idea how poorly her word choice could have been taken, she would have regretted it. The real key was in how she usually downplayed the things that mattered to her because caring too much practically guaranteed that it would get taken away. Somehow. Good things never lasted. She cuddled closer and tried not to over-think it.

"...Do we need a code?" She sounded unconvinced. Over the past month, just as many of their meetings had ended no where near this conclusion. As far as she was concerned -- although she did such a terrible job at voicing it -- they were no friends with benefits. Perhaps Buffy would hesitate to call the pirate a boyfriend but she wouldn't shy away from calling it a relationship. How had she said it, once? In her heart.

"Dunno. I only thought you wanted, you know--" He shrugged and wrapped around her more firmly, stroking her back.

"Jack?"

She wasn't whispering anymore. "If I want to go for a picnic? I'll ask you if you want to go for a picnic. And if you want to go swimming? You'll ask me if I want to go swimming. And if I want to watch a chick flick? I'll probably lie to you and tell you I've just made peanut butter cookies."

At this point, she decided she needed eye contact. "And if you want to get thrashed in a game of darts? You'll try and challenge me but you'll still get thrashed.

And if I've bargained away my own window-climbing so said window won't be nailed shut against other window-climbers? Then you shouldn't worry."

Buffy took a deep breath, now. This was her own convoluted version of a promise.

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