Fifth Tide Turning ☠ Action | Voice

[lists_to_port]

Comments

unsurprising suprose

[slaying]

Buffy was slicing up lemons. Lemons and limes. Lots of lemons and limes. All in thin, pretty little slices. She was good with a knife. Knife-skills? Definitely on her resume. Maybe it was a creative skewing of what knife-skills were but so much of her resume required creativity. Like the parts where she was also good at whittling and held a museum curator's ability to identify ancient weaponry.

Up until the last year, bartending had really not been one of those skills -- and Buffy found herself surprised to enjoy the gig. It wasn't so much about the booze as the ability to sit back and chat. To get to know the village. To pick up on gossip and hearsay. It was no wonder that in the old days she'd always gone to Willy the Snitch's bar for information. Of course, she was a little less beat-uppable than Willy the Snitch.

She finished off another lemon and sucked tart juice from the side of her thumb. She pulled a face. Maybe they'd need more -- if Jack was handing out open bar invitations, as she had heard from her journal (propped up against a beer tap), then she might need to keep the slices well-stocked.

: O

[lists_to_port]

"Annie!" The jovial greeting was just loud enough to be heard over the usual chatter of Good Spirits after a horrible shift, or whatever that Moon thing had been.

"No Screech tonight, she-who-slays! Nothing what will boil my tongue out of my mouth, savvy?"

[slaying]

She could meet jovial with jovial. That was simple enough. Time and space had given her enough come-to-termedness that Buffy Summers could smile and manage normality -- her version of it, at least.

"I'm still not convinced that it shouldn't be boiled out of your mouth," she said even as she reached for the 'good stuff'.

[lists_to_port]

"Nonsense! I haven't seen a tongue boiled out in years!" He'd already had quite a bit of liquid cheer, from the look and sound of him, but Jack was trying not to seem fussed. He slid into his usual seat at the bar.

[slaying]

Then they would pass around the pretty lie together. Buffy nudged a tumbler nearer to the pirate and poured out an amount that was less than what Jack would have wanted but more than what she wanted to serve. Compromise.

"You never forget the first time you witness a tongue being boiled. February, 1999. Love spell gone horribly, freakishly wrong."

I need to read more carefully

[lists_to_port]

"Love spell, hmmm?" He took what was served to him and kept his mouth shut. If Jack required more, he could always steal it later.

"A fall into love spell or a fall out of love spell?"

The second sort was certainly of more interest to him today.

/GETS OUT THE RED PEN

[slaying]

"...You know, I'm starting to figure out that every love spell is both of those things."

And for the lady? Well -- Buffy poured a can's worth of Coke into a taller, ice-filled glass. She even gave herself an umbrella. And a lemon slice. After all, she'd gone through the trouble of cutting them all up.

[lists_to_port]

"That's a lot of lemons and limes. Have you been experiencing any suppurating sores of late?"

[slaying]

She gave him the face -- not tearing her unimpressed-with-your-comment gaze off of him while searching blindly for a straw with her left hand.

Upon its discovery, she dropped it easily into the glass. "Nuh-uh. And if I do? Believe me. You'll be the first to know."

[lists_to_port]

"HA! Hahah! You, Annie---funny." He took a long sip of the drink, and now, with no bloody children to prevent him from doing so, Jack could enjoy it again. Just himself to be responsible for! He sighed in contentment.

[slaying]

She leaned back against the inner counter of the bar -- lower, with a sink at the far end.

"Please. Hold your applause."

[lists_to_port]

"I'll do my damndest, gorgeous."

Jack swung around on his seat so he could get a better view of who was in and who was out, tonight. He leaned back against the bar and observed over the rim of his glass. It was just the sort of distraction the pirate needed.

[slaying]

"You know, the traditional night for inviting everyone down to Good Spirits and making the bartenderess be run off her feet? Thursdays. Not Tuesdays."

It had been a tradition started by Goroh; Buffy had always grumbled amiably about it. Now, though? Now she was just glad to be back behind the bar. Out of the house. No longer the babysitter. It was hard to keep herself distracted at Seven.

[lists_to_port]

"Well bollocks to that tradition! I can do this any night I choose. I can do it EVERY night if I choose. But if you're not up to it..."

A shrug.

[slaying]

"Oh. Don't even. I'm up to it. I'm very up to it. I'm about as up as they get. Uppity, in point of fact."

Wait. No. A frown. She buried her that didn't come out like I wanted it to in a long sip of Coke.

[lists_to_port]

"In point of fact? Aye." Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out whatever he happened to have on him.

The results were deposited on the bar: a peanut; an ace of clubs; a small, bouncy rubber ball; a shiny quartz stone; a child's hair ribbon (Jillian's, forgotten); and a slightly crushed carnation, stemless. This he pushed toward Buffy.