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

[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.

[herotypical]

She stepped quickly backwards and held the hat out to the side -- brim up and fully intending to wear it after her fair round of winding. Buffy was riding the high of Jack's pout and had no intention of giving in. If she was going to deliver him to Cullen House then she would do it in good, harmless spirits. She was beginning to realize that she owed him that much; after all, she had made him wait four days.

[all7seas]

"And this is her game, is it? Steal the pirate's hat? Make him try to retrieve it?" Jack grinned. Then he dove for her.

[herotypical]

"I'm just playing his own game back at him. Sunglasses. Stilettos. I'm pretty sure I'm missing a few other things, too."

Buffy hadn't used her speed since the fight -- it was freeing to use it so non-violently, ducking to the left and snapping the hat lightly against the back of his head as he passed her.

[all7seas]

"And if you think THIS is going to work to get those treasures back? You're wrong, Annie." He dived toward her again, aiming to tackle her around the knees.

[herotypical]

"What? No -- not at all. This is just fun. Remember? That think you didn't believe I could have?"

This time? After Buffy avoided his tackle, she nudged him lightly with her knee. And she waited for him to look at her once again before settling the hat smugly onto her head.

I should not be watching Hush right before bed. : |

[all7seas]

"Fun."

Oh, God; she was wearing it.

gav and i just watched potc numero one. /quietly enables him

[herotypical]

"Fun," she confirmed with a smile not too far off from the one that had turned up somewhere around him realizing that the dragon had been Giles.

HA.

[all7seas]

He took a few very slow, measured steps toward her. "I like fun. Very much. Very much like it, me. I do. Fun."

[herotypical]

"How incredibly borderline incoherent of you."

Buffy still held onto a corner of the hat -- the only outward sign of tension and preparedness. Otherwise, her opposite hand was perched nonchalantly on her hip.

[all7seas]

Jack tried to get close enough to grab not the hat, but the girl---or at least to thread his arms around her waist. Because...hat.

"Hat."

[herotypical]

It wasn't all that tough to wait until the last second and knock his arms aside, grabbing onto his elbows and holding him just that much away from her.

"Mine, now. See? I'm wearing it. Possession is nine tenths of the law, apparently. Did you know that?"

[all7seas]

"But I'm a pirate, love; and pirates, we like to take." Said pirate made absolutely no effort to take, however; in fact, he wasn't struggling at all. He was very placidly being held and just drinking her in. "And we think nothing of the law."

[herotypical]

She was surprised to realize how gratified she felt -- hearing him own that occupation like that. Pirate. Things had seemed a little touch-and-go after he had revealed his penalty to her; however, Buffy wasn't taken in to the extent of feeling no conflict over it. Pirates, as he said, thought nothing of the law and she frequently considered herself to be the law. It was a conflict she was keeping carefully under wraps because she didn't want it to interfere with how good the most of this felt.

"And I'm a Slayer, love; we're a whole different kind of law." It was heady to parrot him like this -- that l word sneaking its way onto her voice in a way that felt just about kosher.