Comfort and Joy

[noprevaricating]

Who: Come one, come all! ...In formal attire.
What: A Christmas ball, old world style.
When: December 1st, beginning around five in the afternoon and ending when the last person leaves.
Where: The rec center.
Summary: Earth's eighteenth-century peeps are throwing one hell of a party.
Rating: Well, considering no one is serving water? Probably PG-13 for

Comments

[slaying]

She was focused on one single ornament. A little bird cage with an inhabitant possessing plummage just about as red as her own wings -- wings that fluttered and flicked every few moments. This movement was just about the best measurement of her mind's genuine state. Another telling twitch and she touched the corner of the cage; it spun lazily, leftwards. Colliding with an inch of garland. One half of her mouth quirked upwards and she watched it only for an extra second or two before lifting her attention to the room. Someone she recognized passed by and so she smiled her recognizable smile and saw them on their way through the crowd.

It didn't match beyond the gold chain but she still wore his jade, dragon-smothered ring around her neck. In fact, she had slipped it onto a new chain; she had slipped it onto a longer chain. One that fell to a more complementary length with the dress's neckline. But the ring remained.

Soon, she was on one of her eventual forays away from the tree she had picked out of the forest using Jack's compass. An ingenious application of the magic, she thought. But now she left it behind in order to cross the room and collect a mug of spiced hot chocolate.

[lists_to_port]

Buffy, Jack reasoned, would not necessarily want to see him as a great piratey smudge on the party. He gnawed on a fingernail as he watched her, wanting nothing more than to go to her, but not wanting to embarrass her. The slayer was so particular about her dress and her manners at social gatherings. Dawn's birthday party had been an utter case in point: when occasions were had, Buffy Summers rose to them.

So he simply continued to gaze at her, following the line of that gown and the crowning glory of that golden hair. Grace and goodness and light.

[slaying]

Her fingers curled around the mug with the same delicate dedication that had characterized her interaction with the tree decorations. While it was all certainly very graceful, it was undeniably unnatural. She was trying to inhabit the dress; she was an actress trying to fill a costume. None of this was a particularly horrible notion. After all, the gown was gorgeous and she was very much indebted to Archie for singling it out for her. And she was, she admitted to herself, finding a peaceful time of it in spite of the nagging concern in the back of her mind.

Is he okay? Has he been left somewhere -- broken and tired? Maybe I should knock off early, go grab the compass. Patrol.

She raised the drink to her lips and turned away from the assorted beverages. And it was exactly then that she lifted her eyes and snagged her gaze on him. The very him of her thoughts -- right there, in the doorway.

Her face lit up.

[lists_to_port]

Annie. He lifted a hand in greeting and took a few steps further into the room. Jack Sparrow had been left broken and tired exactly where he needed to be. There didn't need to be any worries on that account.

[slaying]

His few steps were matched with a great many of hers -- wide-striding and balancing that still full mug of very hot drink in her hand. Not a drop was spilled.

"...Welcome home." She pronounced the words without a hint of agitation over their implication.

[lists_to_port]

"Love."

Was there a slight urge to run? There was. It was difficult for a man like Jack Sparrow to settle in after such an unsettling week---and not just in body, but in mind as well. His desires were plaguing him again. Not to madness--not that far; but to second- and third-guessing himself and his motivations. That was always an unhealthy mental space for the pirate to inhabit.

"You---" Jack tried to collect his thoughts on her, and on this place or the occasion. "Exquisite."

[slaying]

And all at once, her own shuffling and uncertain pieces fell neatly into place. Whatever alienation she felt from her own clothing dissipated with the compliment. Buffy's fingers curled around the mug and allowed her nails one satisfying drum against its sides.

"And you? Alive. Always the state I most like to see you in." Though, she couldn't deny that the alive-state still held some complications. But what she saw wasn't an embarrassment or even, necessarily, a mess. She took in his state as a compatriot should and she saw his appearance as concrete commentary on the mission.

Difficult and troubling.

[lists_to_port]

"Alive. There was never a question of it, Annie. Not for a moment. Captain Jack Sparrow is not about to get himself killed by moving many large, heavy boxes."

Jack wanted nothing more than to take hold of her right there and then, but he realized that doing so might mar this creation. Instead, his arms dropped to his sides, fingers tapping nervously against the pockets of his coat. One of these pockets held a small object that suddenly felt as though it weighed just as much as the crates he'd had to unload from the cargo ship. His reward.

"I missed you."

[slaying]

"The feeling's mutual."

They were stuck, then. Two very happy-to-see-each-other people hovering in that eerie realm of not quite reuniting. Buffy decided to blame the hot chocolate and so attempted to drain it in one tongue-scorching go.

This ended in a considerable amount of sputtering and coughing.

[lists_to_port]

"Oi---you alright? You're going to drown yourself in it, woman." He hurriedly patted himself down for a napkin.

There had never been a more fruitless search for anything. Ever.

[slaying]

"Don't--" another cough "--call me that."

The spell was broken or perhaps recast. Her glance recovered its sharp edge and wiped her mouth with the side of her hand, happily abandoning the mug to the seat of a nearby chair. Let someone else deal with it.

[lists_to_port]

"Then what shall I call you? 'Girl'? Hardly appropriate." Jack relaxed slightly as things found a different footing and managed to locate a napkin for her from a nearby table--too late, it would seem.

[slaying]

"...Since when are you ever hardly appropriate?"

Oddly enough, she still accepted the napkin. It simply seemed like the thing to do; although, in the end, it was only yet another barrier to what she really wanted to be doing.

[lists_to_port]

"Hornblower and Kennedy have outdone themselves, it would seem. I'm thinking I should...possibly bathe." A face. "And return less hardly appropriate myself, and less like a nasty beggar." Thoughtful, Jack touched one of the tears in McCoy's coat--gifts from Third Party swords. Of everything that had happened over the past week, it was these wounds that bothered him the most.

[slaying]

"...Possibly."

She took that additional step closer. "I'll come with you. You don't have to go far -- just back to Seven?"

[lists_to_port]

"Mmhmmm. Back to Seven." He reached for her, stopped himself, and offered to take her napkin instead.