A post for threads that fall outside journal or log posts for Jack Sparrow at luceti. Threads must be tagged with the date and the following: [written], [voice] or [action].
It was the sort of habit that alarmed her deeply. After all, hadn't she always near-proudly owned up to her own scars and marks in front of him? Even long before they'd gotten close to this us, she had shown him her stomach. It had practically been a fresh scar, then -- in comparison to now. A long ago memory of a kidnapping that was well over a year and half in the past.
She traced the outline of his shoulders and arms and sides with her fingertips but gave in and avoided what he didn't want her to see. Indulged that new habit.
"The way you tell it? I sound so much better than I really am. Like some kind of telephone-game version of me."
Sparrow attempted to return the favor and deprive Buffy of her shirt. But he paused when she said that. "What's this? It's you, Buffy. Not some...some version."
Even for a Slayer -- the stopper of countless apocalypses and the thing that monsters have nightmares about -- there was something terribly vulnerable about being half in and half out of a piece of clothing. She was hung up on a sleeve when his protest got voiced and she would have looked rather comical had it been any other two people.
But her and Jack? Well -- the serious amidst the ludicrous and vice versa was almost like a comfortable old reclining chair.
"It's me," she agreed. He at least had a fuller, closer-to-reality version than most. The benefit of having been a one-time enemy.
"Well. Let's not forget that, eh? I like to think...I like to think I know reality, now." Slowly he began helping her the rest of the way out of the shirt. "And the part holding you most of all."
...Oh. So that had been what had given him pause? She had, of course, never intended the statement as a comment on reality. Or his grip on it in particular. So she tugged free of the top with his aid and stood before him in a camisole that was just on the far side of too-feminine-for-a-warrior. Her favourite.
"How've the voices been, Jack? Since you returned?"
She tried to figure out if 'Teague, now, mostly' was to be taken as a good thing or a bad thing. And then she remembered her mother's voice in the Battle Dome and had to hold back a full-on shudder. It was a completely different circumstance for a lot reasons -- she knew that -- but the alarm settled in all the same.
"Good," she murmured and played her fingers lightly across his whiskered chin. That, she found, was still a novelty. "Not so bad is good."
He wanted to persist on the original topic. "Do you even have any concept, Buffy? Any idea? Because it was clear enough to me from the first time I saw you, how wonderful you are."
"That's..." She looked to be at a loss. The Slayer backed away and took a seat on th edge of the mattress. "That's pretty gosh-darned sweet of you to say. Toothache worthy, even."
And simple enough to believe that he believed it; a little harder to take as pure gospel.
Soon enough, he claimed the seat beside her. "Perhaps not such a grand or impressive thing to be told by a madman who hears voices, hmm? But it doesn't change the fact of it. And Teague--" He hesitated. Teague was always a strange subject to tackle with people who didn't know the man. "Teague's always been in my head, since I was a boy."
"Hey. It's not you. It's me." She felt almost cruel using that wording; however, it tumbled out before she had a chance to correct herself. Lamely, in the aftermath: "...And it's certainly not how I see you. Not a madman."
Not anymore.
She took the next round of silence as a space to contemplate Teague. It wasn't such an odd thing, she suspected, to imagine the voice of a parent. It only sounded alarming in the context of Jack's other imaginings. It didn't mean, she supposed, that this one was just as lacking in the sanity department.
He didn't feel he was a madman anymore---at least not the same way he'd been right after the Locker. Things were under so much better control, now. He knew more about what he wanted. Skill and brilliance had taken the place of most of the madness.
That didn't mean it was totally gone, of course.
"At least I'm not obligated to listen to him, here." A wry smile chased those words and Jack opened his arms to her.
The strangeness of that sentence sent her into a guarded smile. But Buffy leaned toward the pirate and locked his arms securely around herself.
"You're a grown man, Jack. Here or there? You're not obligated." Said the grown woman who would happily put herself right back into the position of live-in, doting daughter.
He couldn't hold back a low, throaty laugh as he let his lips drift across her soft hair. "You only say that because you do not know Teague, Buffy. But--you know that if the madness set in again, I'd take measures..."
She stiffened and turned in his arms. More going away? He seemed to always be going away. That was what he had done last time and back then she hadn't found herself able to tell him how much she didn't want him to go away at all. Now, though. Now could be different.
She traced the outline of his shoulders and arms and sides with her fingertips but gave in and avoided what he didn't want her to see. Indulged that new habit.
"The way you tell it? I sound so much better than I really am. Like some kind of telephone-game version of me."
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But her and Jack? Well -- the serious amidst the ludicrous and vice versa was almost like a comfortable old reclining chair.
"It's me," she agreed. He at least had a fuller, closer-to-reality version than most. The benefit of having been a one-time enemy.
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"How've the voices been, Jack? Since you returned?"
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"Hmmm? Voices?" Gently he traced the shoulder straps of the camisole. His favorite. "They've......not so bad. Teague, now, mostly."
Angel had brought out a Fetch or two, but they had been easily quieted.
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"Good," she murmured and played her fingers lightly across his whiskered chin. That, she found, was still a novelty. "Not so bad is good."
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And simple enough to believe that he believed it; a little harder to take as pure gospel.
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Not anymore.
She took the next round of silence as a space to contemplate Teague. It wasn't such an odd thing, she suspected, to imagine the voice of a parent. It only sounded alarming in the context of Jack's other imaginings. It didn't mean, she supposed, that this one was just as lacking in the sanity department.
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That didn't mean it was totally gone, of course.
"At least I'm not obligated to listen to him, here." A wry smile chased those words and Jack opened his arms to her.
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"You're a grown man, Jack. Here or there? You're not obligated." Said the grown woman who would happily put herself right back into the position of live-in, doting daughter.
Different circumstances, still.
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She stiffened and turned in his arms. More going away? He seemed to always be going away. That was what he had done last time and back then she hadn't found herself able to tell him how much she didn't want him to go away at all. Now, though. Now could be different.
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