you're in the jungle, baby / you gonna die

[lucetimods]

Who: All draftees
What: Fighting the Third Party... and perhaps the wildlife.
When: June 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. (Characters will be pulled out at 11:59 of the 6th.)
Where: An as-yet unmapped by the Malnosso tropical rainforest.
Summary: Here are your details. Try to stay alive, won't you?
Rating: Anywhere from PG to R.

No cut for you. Most of you will know how this works by now; if you don't, follow the lead of the others, or perhaps look to the last draft's fighting post for ideas. Don't forget to use your handy dandy character tags. Go forth and conquer thine enemies!

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[all7seas]

"Because you know you could have anything of me, Annie." A dangerous admission spoken in a low voice. It was even scarier to say it aloud.

[herotypical]

She tightened her hold and buried her face in the space between his wings. Muffled.

"And you know it's not my habit to ask." Not often. Not for the sorts of things he's suggesting are on offer.

[all7seas]

"And it's not my habit to give." He reached back for her, trying to turn in her grasp.

[herotypical]

She felt the length of one of his wings as it slid across her cheek. As he turned in her arms.

"So let's just you and me take what we can and you and me give none of it back. Not for tonight."

[all7seas]

"Buffy..." He wanted to tell her again, then, just how he did feel. But then Jack figured that she knew. Instead, he carefully tried to angle bloodstained bandages away from her, sacrificing some of the closeness so he could read her face.

"At least this hammock won't be quite so dangerous." He copped out and made reference to that one time in the treehouse. Getting in and out of the hammock there had been hazardous to say the least.

[herotypical]

"...Except for the part where it's deep in enemy territory. Not so dangerous at all."

It was a joke, really. She kept a grip on him. "Need some help setting it up?"

[all7seas]

"Aye, but I'll have a Slayer on top of me, and who's scarier than you?"

In answer to her question, he kept a tight hold on her as he looped one end over a broken-off branch jutting from the fallen log and the other on a standing tree nearby. Done.

[herotypical]

A smirk.

"No one. Just ask this pirate I once punched out and then also once slapped."

[all7seas]

"Ah....I've had questions about that slap. From McCoy." He began unbuckling his sword belt.

[herotypical]

"...Huh. He never asked me. What'd you tell him?"

[all7seas]

"That it only happens when I deserve it," he answered, setting the belt and sword on the ground, then placing his hat beside them.

The desert had been on his mind in this jungle. He never dreamed his brain could feel so comparatively clear, compared with that adventure and the downward spiral of the winter months.

[herotypical]

There was the distinct temptation to take the hat; however, she left it be. This time. As exciting as the prospect was of another mini-competition spurred on by such a transparent theft, Buffy was growing ever more concerned about Jack's status. So she simply nudged the hat lightly and then moved to steady the hammock.

"...But you didn't. Not -- not that time."

[all7seas]

"Eh. I probably did something, didn't I." He hardly ever kept track, back home. Jack eased into the hammock and wriggled around a bit to get comfortable before reaching for her again. The mosquito net would have to go over them both, but he could worry about that in a minute.

[herotypical]

If there was something, then it was nothing that she held a grudge for. Although she had never taken her free hit in the wake of the last experiment. Not that he would have deserved that, either. It hadn't been his fault that he and Raine...no. Buffy set her mouth in a line and crawled gingerly into the hammock with him -- her fingers threaded with his as she did so.

Unlike the clumsy, way-too-high attempts of last time, Buffy was very careful not to exacerbate the pirate's already hurting parts of himself.

[all7seas]

A mosquito net over them would provide some protection. Jack arranged it as best he could before cradling her against him, unmindful himself of the bandaged-up shift hunter scratches.

"....Better."

[herotypical]

"...Shame we can't see the stars for all the leaves," she eventually spoke but not until she had found a workable, comfortable position to rest with him. "I wonder if we could find ours -- you know."

The constellations they had tracked and named.

[all7seas]

"Doubtful; we seem to be in some equatorial zone. The stars would be different, here."

The jungle sounds had returned, and Jack found them rather comforting. And, he realized, in their own way--at least, in their absence---they were a kind of warning system as well. The forest went quiet when the shift hunters were about.

[herotypical]

She stroked the inside of his forearm with her thumb. Ignoring what she thought might be stiff blood. Day one and already she wanted little more than a hot, long bubble bath. Buffy listened to his verdict upon the stars with a kind of appreciation; she often forgot that the pirate did, in fact, know so much. A different kind of knowing than how Giles knew or Willow knew or Dawn was getting to know. If Jack knew about equatorial zones and that the stars would be different, she decided he must know it because of his worldliness. The traveling and the pirating and the experiencing so very much. Not from books. Hard learned lessons. She could respect that.

"I've been in that village for too long. It keeps slipping my mind that there's a whole rest of a planet attached to Luceti."

[all7seas]

A whole world to explore, and they only got it in bits and pieces. Fractions. Jack tried to picture the barrier exploding and everyone he knew scattering to the four winds. Perhaps there would be people they would never see again, and others they'd be glad not to see. He imagined he would wander, rather than taking up residence. Take the boat and go, perhaps to seek out bigger and better boats to hijack. But there would be people he'd want to take with him, whom he was certain likely--at least in the cases of a few---would not want to come.

For some reason Robin Whitby sprang to mind, and fractured realities, and Jack grumbled something unintelligible as he curled an arm around her protectively. Whether that protection was for her or himself, he could not say.

"Aye---there's a horizon out there, somewhere..."

[herotypical]

"...And cities. The first field was an empty one -- I didn't go, though." Others had. And Albert had documented it as he always did. "Which makes me wonder if there are cars and malls and theme parks. Not that I want to see them. Not for fun. Not after...well, the infiltration."

It had been a very odd experience, that infiltration. Very odd indeed.

[all7seas]

The sleepy pirate pushed one hand off the tree behind him, sending them swinging before he embraced her again.

"Before my time, that infiltration."

It might have been an invitation to tell him more; but Jack was tired. He'd try to stay awake enough to see the tale through.

[herotypical]

She made a soft sound of disagreement. "The one I went on -- disguises and everything. Not the time they broke into the barrier.

In that Malnosso facility, they had televisions. And the Luceti Project was, like, headline news."

[all7seas]

The one he'd been left behind on. That was back when things had been decidedly bad between them. He lifted one of her hands to his lips. Listening.

[herotypical]

"We're a cause, Jack. It's not the kind of black and white world out there that people are expecting." Buffy felt a lot of qualms over how people seemed to mistake the nature of the Malnosso. Too often, they took them for far more potent than they really seemed to be. That was a problem. It gave the enemy too much power. "Not everyone out there agrees with what they're doing to us and not all of dissension is Third Party style fanaticism."

She spoke quietly. Perhaps it was more about working through her own thoughts on the problem. After all, she hadn't had ample opportunity to do so aloud. Either way, she would be fine with talking him straight to sleep.

[all7seas]

"So we've good-hearted champions out there, is what you're saying?"

His own exhaustion, the hypnotic sway of the hammock, the potent scents of flowers and humid air, and the not-unwelcome-in-spite-of-it all warmth and sweat of the girl lying so close to him were starting to send the pirate off, in spite of his interest in this tale. Things had ended so badly between them after that draft. She'd stumbled upon him in the forest and he'd given her food and they had argued and he'd told her to get out. It surprised him that now of all times he should get the whole story.