melt your silver down / kiss your lover's face / the sirens start to sound

[herotypical]

Who: [Bad username or site: lists_to_port title= @ livejournal.com] & [Bad username or site: slaying title= @ livejournal.com]
What: a battle dome date
When: july 9th
Where: the battle dome
Summary: one part training exercise, two parts tourism
Rating: r -- for violence. and then who knows what. better to be safe than sorry idek?

Buffy Summers asked Jack Sparrow to meet her at the battle dome. It was a plan that had been discussed before the pirate had disappeared and now that he was back? Well -- she cared very little for dawdling. They had dawdled before but now was the time for seizing. She had yet to overcome the horror of waking up alone for yet another morning when she had expected to be the furthest thing from it.

People change. And Buffy mused quietly upon the changes to be found in Jack as she waited just outside the dome's entrance. She had a bag-o-weapons at her feet and a plastic bottle filled with some sort of over-sugared juice in her hand.

Comments

..........<3

[all7seas]

Who would set roots in rotten ground?

Jack kept that thought silent. There was a place here that Annie loved, and he didn't want to spoil it or...or intrude on it, strangely.

"Not everyone is," he agreed.

\o/

[herotypical]

Loved was a complicated word. Most days, she had felt trapped by Sunnydale. Even declining her first chance to get out of the town was a tough, tough call to make. Or an easy one with a lot of tough emotions attached to it. And there had been other reasons to stay. Duty and people.

"This way..." she pulled on his arm, bringing him away from the cemetery and down a little residential street.

07

[all7seas]

Sparrow was very easy to lead this night, and very willing to give her the lead in everything.

Well, except for the car. And he secretly hoped he'd be able to drive it again.

"Quiet," he remarked. Their feet on the pavement made soft sounds but nothing else seemed to stir.

[herotypical]

"...That's suburbia for you." Revello Drive was a few more winding streets away. "Quiet. Supposedly safe. And all excellently priced with reasonable down payments 'cause the housing economy was never very expensive in a town like Sunnydale."

[all7seas]

"You make it sound so tempting, love. We could buy a little place here, eh? Start a family. Be eaten."

[herotypical]

"You could mow the lawn on Sunday afternoons and I'd throw a fit every time I found a sword in not-it's-proper-spot," she joked and hoped that he was joking as well.

[all7seas]

He was, of course. "Positively pastoral, this fine neighborhood. You'd shunt us all out in the afternoons I expect. And drag us all in before dark."

[herotypical]

"...Well, duh. Patrolling? Not really a family affair."

There might have been a few more jokes to be had but Buffy fell silent as they turned onto a street she knew very, very well.

[all7seas]

"No. Not really, eh?" Thoughts of corralling running children drifted away on this quieter street. Jack tried to picture the teenaged girl he'd met while recovering from Giles's attack living here---doing her nails inside one of these houses.

[herotypical]

Speaking of one of these houses? Buffy stopped at the bottom of a driveway that lead up to this house. She held her breath to see it -- somehow, it's dining room lights on and warming the darkness. That familiar door. The wide, welcoming porch.

"...Hey. There it is."

[all7seas]

The first sight of Buffy's house was initially a disappointment to Jack. He had come to associate her so closely with House 7 and Cullen House and the idea of the Scottish castle, that this modest bungalow just didn't seem to fit her.

So he elected to look at her, reading her reaction to it, rather than looking at the house for very long.

"Welcome home, Buffy Summers."

[herotypical]

She smiled. And then she stopped smiling because she wondered if she really should smile at all. The last time she had seen this little house had been over three years ago. And nearly every detail resonated perfectly with her memory. Except...except the colours were somehow paler and the lines were somehow a little too straight. The simulation, she supposed. This was, after all, a recreation.

Buffy began to walk up the drive.

[all7seas]

"Buffy? Not such a bad thing, eh? Even if it's just here---still trapped in Luceti." Keeping pace with her, Jack sought out her hand once more. Anchoring.

[herotypical]

She grabbed on -- an electrifying excitement catching deep in her muscles and expressed in fidgety fingers.

"I bet the door's locked. It's cool. I know where I used to keep the spare."

[all7seas]

"And if there's no spare? You've Captain Jack Sparrow. And he has a lock pick."

[herotypical]

"Go break into all the other fake-houses for all I care -- but you're not breaking into mine."

She swooped down and picked up one of those fakeish key-hiding rocks from the front garden and used one hand to pluck the key free. Her other hand was still too busy being agitated in his.

[all7seas]

".....Fake rock." He squeezed her hand, running his thumb across her slender wrist.

[herotypical]

"Mom's idea." And she hadn't the heart to ever change it. Buffy tugged him up the few steps onto the porch. Through the thin curtains, she could see the dimly lit dining room. Familiar chair shapes and colours bleeding through. She felt almost heady with it all -- enough to try and convince herself out of worrying over another attack. There would have to be one, of course. It was mostly a matter of when.

She twisted the key in the lock and then paused. Reverent.

[all7seas]

Jack had been glad to finally name his boat; he felt even better about the choice of name at this moment. Patiently, he waited for her to push the door open.

[herotypical]

And when it opened, it opened with the slightest of creaks. There -- immediately -- Buffy saw the staircase. The hall into the kitchen. And she breathed in a scent that wasn't really there but that was being supplied by her memories. She took the first few steps inside tossed the key onto the entryway table with a gentle clatter.

There were details missing, of course. Empty picture frames. Once inside, the simulation was far less perfect that it had been out on the streets. In public.

[all7seas]

To his credit, Jack Sparrow resisted....resisted....pocketing things in the house. They weren't real, anyway, he reasoned, but he knew this would hurt Buffy more than an ordinary larceny. There was a small silver picture frame with a blond woman smiling out at him, and this he scooped up and peered at.

"Who's this, love?" But as soon as the words were out, he knew. The resemblance to Buffy was there.

[herotypical]

A small, sad-but-happy-but-conflicted kind of smile. Buffy didn't need to look at the picture and so she didn't. Not yet. Instead, she reached for the bottom of the staircase's railing and leaned against it. Peeking into the living room from this angle.

"Mom."

[all7seas]

He carried it with him as he followed her. Jack had opened his mouth to comment on the beautiful woman but then he decided that a) that would probably upset Buffy and b) it might not be appropriate. Possibly. Finally:

"I can see why you're so lovely now, Annie."

[herotypical]

"...She was beautiful." She agreed with his unspoken compliment as she wandered into the living room -- a room all dressed up in soft beiges and warm woods. The large front windows had their curtains drawn and Buffy tugged them apart. She wanted to see the street. It was a strategic move.

There was artwork and little statues and wall-hangings everywhere. Things from Joyce's gallery.

[all7seas]

No nicking ANYTHING, Jacky! the pirate sternly warned himself. Artwork and statues and wall hangings, though? They weren't his typical targets anyway.

Jack took a moment to examine one statue, which might have been a woman dancing...or something else entirely. "Beautiful," he repeated absently.