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]

"THAT smudging, Annie, was some of the best smudging I have ever smudged."

And that was probably saying something. The pirate gave her a squeeze, running his palm up and down her side.

[herotypical]

"...Careful, my ego's listening."

Buffy took this opportunity to thumb away the edge of his rather unappealingly unclean shirt and gain a little side-skin access for her fingertips. "I'll get all inflated-in-my-sense-of-self and big-headed and then you'll be sorry."

[all7seas]

"And then we'll float right out of here, won't we? Buoyed up by Buffy's floating ego. Not the plan I'dve first put to paper, but it'll do."

A little side-skin access in Jack's ticklish spot made him squirm slightly, though he didn't try to pull away.

[herotypical]

"So the grand escape plan comes down to this, hmm?" That just about earned him another pointed caress. "Shower me with compliments until you've got your very own Slayer Spitfire."

Buffy fell quiet for only a few seconds to consider the peculiar image she had advanced. Perhaps this would need a little qualifying: "Which is a plane, by the way. A Spitfire's a plane. I'm not going to actually spit fire. I'm not going to turn a dragon." A beat. "Though, those fly too -- but then it kinda lacks the necessary alliteration and I have a verbal legacy to live up to, you know."

[all7seas]

"Buffy, please let me never lade you with enough compliments that you turn into a dragon. Not that greedy for them, are you?"

This time the pirate DID pull away, slipping sideways out of her grip. It wasn't that he didn't adore it; it didn't become a fierce pirate lord of the Caribbean to betray his ticklish sides.

[herotypical]

"I don't think it's possible even if I was. People? Don't turn into dragons. Dragons kind of just are." A-ha. She sounded so very certain of herself and not in the least bit troubled by the fierce pirate lord's evasion. She would recapture him -- just not yet.

Instead, Buffy adjusted her purse's perch on her shoulder and then stuffed her hands into her pockets. Trying just that little bit too much to appear nonchalant.

[all7seas]

"Fine. People don't turn into strange creatures. Ever. Have it your way, Slayer."

That might have been the most annoying tone Jack had ever taken with Buffy. He walked along, paralleling her steps. Smiling, but wary.

[herotypical]

"Strange creatures? Yes. Dragons -- no. Except experiment-wise 'cause Giles turned into one and..." Actually she should just stop right there.

Buffy had no sweet clue whether she was right or wrong. She had never seen a dragon outside of Luceti and while she had heard of a few troubled Los Angeles, it had never been her kettle of fish.

[all7seas]

"Giles turned into a what now? A dragon, did you say?"

[herotypical]

"When I was trapped under at least five metaphorical feet of robot coding, Giles was a dragon. A surprisingly endearing looking dragon, actually. Kinda like the sort of dragon you'd wanna take home and keep as a pet."

[all7seas]

"The sort of dragon who drinks rum?"

The smile was gone; the wariness had trebled.

[herotypical]

"I never asked. I was a little too busy being a creepo robo-girlf--...wait, rum?"

Why would he even -- hmm. "You talked, then. When he was all dragonriffic."

[all7seas]

"I...we talked. And drank rum.



Bugger."

[herotypical]

"And you didn't know it was him? God, Jack."

Buffy had to laugh. "I was a robot programmed to mindlessly obsess over a vampire and I still managed to figure out who it was."

[all7seas]

"Oh, funny, is it? She's laughing, is she, at her Captain Sparrow what drank rum with a dragonish Giles?"

[herotypical]

Buffy affected the style of speech, if not the accent: "She's laughing at her Captain Sparrow what drank rum with a dragonish Giles and somehow managed not to immediately know that he was Giles." Another chuckle. "All that stuffy British Watcherness is kinda unmistakable."

[all7seas]

"Well I mistook it." Captain Jack Sparrow, scourge of the Caribbean, who had sacked Nassau Port without firing a single shot, was pouting. Hard.

[herotypical]

"How much of the rum had you already had, huh?"

Buffy always knew when it was Giles. He had gone demon that one time and a look into his annoyed eyes had been enough. "Because maybe I can forgive the ridiculousness of the mistaking if you were suitably smashed. Maybe.

A pout? Oh. She counted that as a win.

[all7seas]

"A little bit. Maybe." There was more pouting. Jack did not want to even think that he had become friendly with the Watcher, even as a matter of mistaken identity. It was rather like the time he had accidentally kissed John Hart, really---something he would rather forget.

[herotypical]

Buffy now tried to bite down upon her smirk. Her teeth dug into her lip but her eyes didn't lie. "Okay. Fine. How many little bits? Enough little bits to equal up to a lot?"

[all7seas]

"Dunno; perhaps you and me, Slayer? Perhaps we should go drinking. And I'll show you how many bits, if you're still awake enough to see them."

[herotypical]

"Mm, not too sure about that." She hadn't had a drop since night she had put him to bed in the back room at Good Spirits. "I'd hate to have so much that I ended up mistaking you for a someone you're not. That'd just be embarrassing."

[all7seas]

"I'M not embarrassed, am I? I'm perfectly not embarrassed about chatting up your dragon. Giles. Rupert. Thing." Jack forged on ahead down the trail, arms sweeping about to punctuate these remarks about embarrassment.

[herotypical]

"He told me he saw you out by the lake during that experiment. He forgot to mention the part where you had a chat and and didn't even know it was him."

She took this as her chance to strike. Not hard or quick or violently but Buffy walked close up behind him and for the first time since before his death, she reached up high and tried to pluck his hat from his head.

[all7seas]

"Oi---Buffy. THAT wasn't very nice, was it." He made a swipe to get that hat back.