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

[all7seas]

And Jack Sparrow was a man who was very happy to be dragged.

"Unethically high, eh? Have I mentioned I'm a pirate, Annie?" Then another thought occurred to him. "Can Slayers not jump remarkably high?"

They had the super strength, after all. Why not flea-like jumping abilities?

[herotypical]

"...I can jump higher than you'd think but not as high as you'd throw a frisbee in order to cheat." A non-answer for an answer. Buffy had leaped her way over school gates and fences, before. But it was always easier when you had something to jump over rather than jump at. And she was better at jumping distance than at height.

[all7seas]

Talking about jumping with Buffy Summers while knowing what he knew about her was always a ticklish thing with Jack Sparrow. But he strode gamely on beside her, tucking her arm in his once more.

"What if, Annie," he suggested, "we play on the same team for once. Hmm?"

[herotypical]

"...Same team?"

She took the time to consider such an offer. "Where's the competition? The strategy? The winning? I mean -- I guess we could just throw easy, catchable throws. But..."

A glance. "Fine. Same team." Although she fully expected it to devolve into something different.

[all7seas]

And it very likely would because her competitiveness and his so often clashed, and because he so very often enjoyed winding her up. But today there was a lot on Jack's mind, between missing Jilly and missing McCoy and resurrected-and-put-back-to-sleep ghosts of his past.

"I suppose I could just throw you high into the air to catch the worst of them?"

[herotypical]

"...Okay. We're really going to be starting at square one with this frisbee lesson, aren't we? It's like playing catch, Jack. But with a...disc. A plastic disc."

[all7seas]

"Sounds highly exciting. I throw this disc to you, and you to me, and back again?"

[herotypical]

"...It sounds dull when you put it like that. You're missing out on all the running and jumping and diving and miraculous last-minute saves."

[all7seas]

"Sounds positively heroical. What would I be saving you from, though?"

[herotypical]

"...You? Saving me? More like me saving the frisbee from getting past me. After you throw it."

[all7seas]

"Ah. Buffy? I'm going to slaughter you at this."

....don't let me tag on my phone while drunk ever again, saralinda.

[herotypical]

"You think? Cause I'm pretty sure I'm the more athletically inclined. Super strength. Amazing, super aim? Easy."

GOTCHA. XD

[all7seas]

"Erm---are we forgetting that Captain Jack Sparrow is also athletically inclinated? Hmm?"

[herotypical]

"...But you? You were never on a cheerleading squad."

Her pace was quick. Ignited. Excited. So much was riding on the fun-ness of this frisbee game.

[all7seas]

"Fair enough." And it was, even though he had no idea what cheerleading had to do with frisbee. He'd rather thought, from her description of it, that it was something different entirely.

"Where is this plastic disc I'm meant to trounce you with?"

[herotypical]

"...Back home. Somewhere. The coat closet, maybe? O-or my room. Somewhere. Frisbees are always in some unexpected corner. That's another rule."

It would be something normal. She hungered for it.

[all7seas]

"Not sure I like all these rules, darling, but---alright. Find the unexpected disc and I'll think about showing you a bit of mercy once we get going with it."

[herotypical]

Every rule she had provided him with thus far had, of course, been made up. Wholly, totally fabricated. And so there was something particularly smug about Buffy Summers on the way back to Seven. A quiet smugness that translated as confidence.

Upon making the house, Buffy waved him off to the back yard. "Go. Set up two goals. I'll be back soon."

[all7seas]

"Two......right. Two goals."

Jack might have been grumbling something in his Buffy-imitating-voice about goals and the setting up of them and what the bloody hell was a goal meant to look like and so forth.

By the time she reached the backyard with the frisbee, she would find him sprawled out lazily on the grass. A rake had been carefully laid out at one end of the yard, and an empty, overturned bucket at the other. Jack did not look like the unconventional style of his goals bothered him in the slightest.

[herotypical]

After a few minutes of searching, she found what she was after -- it was tucked under the couch. Buffy tapped the frisbee against her open palm. The window would be the quickest way to the back yard. Easy as pie. Just climb through it like she used to.

Nah. She headed for the front door and took the long way around. All the way around until she was standing over him -- fanning herself with the frisbee in one hand.

"....A rake and a bucket? Seriously?"

[all7seas]

"I'm the rake. Guess that makes you---"

A shrug. A grin.

[herotypical]

"Shush. You know, I could step on you. It wouldn't be pleasant." Who was she kidding? It would hardly make a difference.

now I wish it had been a rake and a hoe. /sad forever

[all7seas]

Jack rolled to his feet and brushed bits of grass off his coat and breeches.

"I sense that this is devolving into threats, Annie, and that simply won't do. Come. Frisbee me."

oh my god. xD

[herotypical]

Buffy could have been helpful. She could have backed up to a fair distance and she could have tossed off the first frisbee throw with ease. This would have given Jack something to work off of -- a model. An example.

Instead, she flashed him a brief smile and pressed the frisbee against his chest. "You're up, Captain."

/sigh

[all7seas]

"I suppose I've got to land this in your bucket to score a point?" He pulled back and actually had decent frisbee-throwing form, his elbow and arm angled properly.