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]

Buffy felt a little all dressed up with no place to go. Or, rather, she had a place to go but no one to go there with her. The meal, of course, was delightful. The music? Magical. The tree was perfect and the Slayer seemed to spend most of the post-meal evening near it; the scent of fir enveloped her. She was by no means shyly sitting or waiting for anything. More like anxiously standing and waiting for someone..

But when friends and acquaintances stop by to chat she will be all bright smiles and scintillating socializing. Although she did seem rather self-conscious in the fine period-appropriate dress -- she alternated between smoothing its rich fabric beneath her fingertips and fiddling with the small pearl earrings filling only two of her five ear piercings. Ever a fashionista, she still could not manage to feel at home in this style. Eventually, she attempted a card game or two to take her mind off quieter troubles of the evening. Inevitably, she still always found herself back by the tree.

Buffy was a woman who was used to

[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.

[slaying]

"We could..."

She dodged his attempt to take her napkin. The napkin he gave her. Why did that make it somehow more than what it is? And instead she snagged onto his hand and began to fuss and scrub over the space of skin between his index finger and thumb.

"I don't think I'll be missed. Not for a little while. And then we could come back and--" A nod of her head back to the room at large. "Dance."

[lists_to_port]

It took a lot for Sparrow not to pull away from her. Carrying powder and shot didn't exactly lend itself to having clean hands. Much of his tiredness fell away at that suggestion.

"Dance," he agreed. "You know how?"

Because Jack was fairly certain that Buffy had once told him the dancing in her day was very different.

[slaying]

"...Uhm. I was watching Archie and Elizabeth teach everyone else. I've got pretty good watch-and-pick-up quick study habits." But she didn't sound too convinced.

"I don't like all that...group dancing stuff. Too complicated."

She just wanted to dance with him.

[lists_to_port]

"How's this, then? You wait here for me. And you learn it. And I'll clean up and..." Jack's gaze drifted to Kennedy. Hornblower. Aubr----what the hell was Aubrey wearing? Maturin.

"And I'll find something to wear. And I'll come back and you can teach me, savvy?"

She belonged at this party, shining thing; not off giving a scruffy man a bath.

[slaying]

A suggestion of disappointment clouded her face. He was just now returned -- she wed So very disinterested in giving him up to the cold outside and waiting a moment longer. Patience had been a difficult virtue to master this past week and now that it had been rewarded, she wasn't at all certain that she could lapse back into it.

"I dunno..." She hesitated.

[lists_to_port]

"You don't know?" he prompted.

[slaying]

"Me? I've already done enough waiting." She lifted her chin; defiant. "Let me just get my coat..."

[lists_to_port]

"No. Stay, lovely." Jack Sparrow sounded very much like a man with his mind made up. "Swore to help you have fun once, didn't I? What sort of man would I be, letting you leave a party? And I told you when I got back, you'd have me. Give me one hour. Wait under the mistletoe."

[slaying]

"The sorta man who..." But she trailed off -- shaking her head. She didn't want to fight. Not right now. Not so soon. And certainly not with a dozen other prettily-gowned women whirling about.

"Fine. Forty-five minutes. And I wanna make sure complete dissatisfaction with waiting -- mistletoe or no mistletoe -- is noted."

[lists_to_port]

"Noted and witnessed." He couldn't kiss her, didn't want to mar her; so Jack tipped his hat in a salute.

[slaying]

Then he would be the victim of a ploy. Because Buffy Summers would not be content with just a salute. Similar to how she had strong-armed the napkin away from him, Buffy snatched at the hat and stepped closer as she did so.

"And I get a hostage. Just in case it's more than forty-five minutes."

[lists_to_port]

"Bugger." Frowning at that, solely because he didn't know what sorts of dirt the hat itself might contain, Jack took the slightest step back, pushing the sudden tangle of dreadlocks back from his face. "You certainly know how to throttle a man into being punctual, sweetheart. Very well--I accept your terms." How could he do anything less?

[slaying]

He stepped back -- Buffy frowned, as well. A little annoyed and a little sad. She scrunched the hat up in her hands and well-manicured nails bit into is shape.

"Go. Get. Clock's a-ticking."