drown the urge for permanence and certainty; crouch down and scrawl my name with yours in wet cement

[herotypical]

Who: lists_to_port & slaying
What: carpentry; catharsis; cutting a deal
When: october 17th; noon onwards
Where: house seven
Summary: buffy wants to build something for jilly's return. buffy also wants to borrow a boat.
Rating: clean enough to start but it's these two so don't be surprised if the rating climbs a couple hundred tags in.

Today looked just a little bit brighter. Not by much, granted. But enough to make a difference and enough to sweeten the sense of industry that was unfolding her backyard. The heat helped; the day was warmed than the ones before it and strangely warm for a late October afternoon. Buffy had quickly given in to summer's last hurrah and was hoarding her last chance to wear shorts before autumn established its firmer grip on the month and on the village. Misery and grief were very, very slowly opening up to allow silver linings and miniature blessings. And one such something was working just a few feet away from her. Not quite so silver, though, and she suspected his lip would curl if she referred to him as miniature anything. Buffy worked the plane across her chosen soon-to-be-planks of wood and she watched Jack Sparrow from the corner of her eye. Perhaps a tarnished, coated kind of silver that resisted polish like two too similar poles on a magnet. Blessing was a harder one to pin down. The word seemed as though it should be anathema to a rough-reptuationed pirate. But then again? In a number of ways, Buffy knew that Jack was less rough than she was.

The afternoon's project was a simple porch swing and it was a little bit of home improvement to impress Jilly with once she returned. And it was a way to keep busy while they waited for her while they waited out their grief. Keeping busy, she found, helped her focus. The work tricked her now and then into smiling when she hadn't intended to. Silly little mistakes would take place -- fumbling with a tool or trying very hard (without much success) to remember carpentry terms once taught to her by Xander Harris -- and somehow these mistakes weren't discouraging. They were comedic. They were okay. And Buffy knew that none of it would be possible had she been left at the house alone, this week.

So she worked diligently at Sparrow's side and took moments now and then to appreciate his work ethic before it inspired her to press forward with her own. And she soon had another plank smoothed and sanded. Buffy pushed it aside and sat back with her palms crushing into the grass that was just a little too long. It wasn't as though the place was crawling with lawn-mowers, after all.

"What colour, Jack?" She asked as she blew a fine stream of breath up and across her brow. Fluttering bangs and clearing her vision. "We should paint it. It should be painted. What colour?"

Comments

good night!

[herotypical]

O-okay. A little trickier but not so bad. Not so bad at all. It only took a bit of a lazy spring to reach the frisbee at its most catchable point. Reaching low and quick -- snatching the frisbee out of the air and waving it at the pirate with a triumphant gesture.

"You know -- actually, do you know what a cymbal is? They're pretty frisbee-able. I decapitated a vamp with one, once. Kinda like this."

One very hard and fast throw. Straighter and truer than the throws that had come before it.

[all7seas]

At the very last second, Jack caught the disc that was spinning toward his throat--two-handed. The hard plastic didn't do a lot of damage to calloused hands, but the throw sort of froze the pirate nevertheless. Then he very gently tossed it back to the slayer.

"You've never told me that story before, Annie," he offered quietly.

[herotypical]

Her fingers snapped shut around the frisbee's edge.

"Had to be creative -- before the scythe. It's not like I could always walk around with a weapon in tow. People'd ask uncomfortable questions. I had to use what was around me."

[all7seas]

"And they don't ask uncomfortable questions now?" He waited for another head-chopping toss.

[herotypical]

"Oh, no. They ask. I just don't care anymore. About the asking or the hiding."

She returned the disc; gentler, this time. Her application of strength was tempered by the disquieting way Jack had taken the fact.

[all7seas]

He caught it; examined it; and then made a rush for her goal, hoping to fake Buffy out to the right while he really intended on ducking left.

[herotypical]

"H-hey!"

She was surprised, although she shouldn't have been. She had invited him to try, after all. But it came at such a surprising moment that she first dove for the right to try and stop his projecting advance. Her arms reached to catch up fistfuls of Jack Sparrow and to drag him close. One part defensive, one part affectionate.

But then he feinted and breezed by on her left and she had to whirl around. She rushed through the first few steps that he had gained on her and stumbled after him. Hands extended and concentration piqued.

[all7seas]

The pirate launched himself through the air over the goal, landing belly-first with a satisfying thud on the grass. He rolled over and held the disc high.

"I WIN."

[herotypical]

"You so do not," she growled as she landed on top of him with an equally satisfying thud; although, Buffy grasped at a very different kind of satisfaction. Her knees sank to either side of the pirate's waist and she tried to wrestle the frisbee free.

[all7seas]

"Winner! Winning, me! I am winning and have won!"

His longer arms came in handy for swerving that prize just out of her reach at every turn.

[herotypical]

"This is frisbee, not football."

She played along with the possibility of not being able to take the disc back from him. Buffy could have reached around his arms and crushed them close with only one arm of her own and she could have plucked the pink frisbee easily out of his hands but he was smiling and she liked it when he smiled.

"Therefore? Disqualified."

[all7seas]

"But you said, Annie, that the disc must cross the goal line. And it did. Which means that I win, I do."

And he knew, of course, that she could very easily relieve him of the object, but the pretending was fun.

[herotypical]

"Yeah, sure. After being thrown. You're not supposed to quarterback your way through this game."

She planted one palm on his chest and reached up and up to catch Jack's wrist in her hand.

[all7seas]

"And you shouldn't give a man rules after he's won, Annie. Sounds a bit...desperate to my ears." He let himself be caught, though.

[herotypical]

"Oh, come on. It was practically too obvious to be a rule." Buffy pulled the frisbee free and tossed it gently to the ground beside them. She left it abandoned in the face of a better prize.

"Admit it. You cheated."

[all7seas]

"Never. Not upon pain of...of horrible, horrible things, woman! Never shall I admit anything of the kind!"

[herotypical]

"And what about on pain of less horrible, good things? Huh? Will I get a confession then?"

[all7seas]

"Painful good things?" Hold on--he needed to think about that one.


But not for very long.

"You're bluffing."

[herotypical]

"Do I lie, Jack Sparrow?"

Yes. She did. Frequently -- just not always very well and more often about herself then about any strategic maneuver. "Are you calling me a liar?"

[all7seas]

"Bluffing. Not lying. Bluffing. Difference. You're a bluffer is what you are, Buffy Summers. Or---should I call you---Bluffy Summers?"

1/2

[herotypical]

[herotypical]

"Y'know, that's the first time anyone's made that joke. Ever."

[all7seas]

"Ha! Hahaha ha! I was your first?" Delighted at all of these jokes, Sparrow laid a hand over hers--shifting it just slightly away from Blackbeard's mark. It had been paining him, lately. "You're highly beautiful when you lose to me, Buffy."

[herotypical]

"As flattering as that is? I still haven't lost. So maybe you're just mistaking all this victory as loser-beauty. It wouldn't be the first time."

She conceded to having her hand moved -- aware of what she was being directed away from and trying not to frown at that realization.

[all7seas]

"I could never be mistaken about your loveliness." Jack sat up in one quick motion, settling his hands on her hips. "I think, possibly, we are done playing for the moment. I wouldn't want to see my record tarnished, would I?"