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[slaying]

[ buffy has been running on autopilot. smile at the right times, nod in the right moments. make the appropriately inappropriate remarks about over-sugared coffees and pop music at all the wrong times in just the right ways. it isn't hard to do once she sets her mind to it; after all, she had done it in sunnydale for seven years

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[lists_to_port]

[It is evening, and Jack Sparrow is walking toward Good Spirits. Long cons are Jack's thing; he can take a con and draw it out over many years, playing all sorts of people in the process, netting intricate lines of falsehood that become loose foundations for those who build truth upon them.

He isn't fond of this con, however. Cullen House has never seemed quite so isolating, and, reasonably sure that Buffy isn't bartending tonight, he is heading into town for a drink.]

[slaying]

Better than nothing.

[lists_to_port]

I've had my good eye on it, nights.

[And he had, from the trees across the way. The snaréd grove, minus the snares.]

[slaying]

That's...[ one part comforting, one part creepy. but then again? buffy is well accustomed to having her house cased out. ] Good. Probably good.

[ but now she'll wonder. which nights? where from? ]

[lists_to_port]

'S fine. The nights have been mild.

[And a hammock can be strung anywhere, really. He'd just felt the need to be close by.]

Strikes me now, Miss Summers, that we should have probably established a code for the things we can't mention.

[slaying]

Only just striking you now, huh?

[ once they're behind the shops and restaurants -- off the beaten path -- she becomes just a smidgen more genuinely comfortable. ]

[lists_to_port]

Aye--right through me brain, really. Sharp, like. So Bonesy's fine and--[He CAN'T SAY JILLY in case anyone is still listening]--is anyone whom I might have attempted kidnappery against also alright?

[slaying]

Jack? If they weren't, I would've told you by now. I wouldn't be playing small talk about...well, none of this is small talk in the first place but I would've told you. Right off the bat.

[lists_to_port]

.....Oh. [He shuts up again and opts to walk in silence, wishing that the flask in his pocket was not so utterly empty.]

[slaying]

Giles did a kind of early-alarm spell. And then I outsourced the big magical guns to his room-mate, Helios. We now have the enchantment equivalent of a VIP list for the house.

[ talking shop. it's bittersweet; it takes a great deal of trust but the roots of that trust are thoroughly neglected in the distant, business-like delivery. ]

[lists_to_port]

Giles, eh? Helios.

I'll hazard the guess that I'm not on that list, Buffy.

[slaying]

You're on the list, Jack.

[ although she doesn't have the words to explain it, things had been going well in the carefully talk to giles about jack department. ] Of course you're on the list.

[lists_to_port]

There's no "of course" about it, Buffy. I suppose it doesn't matter in the end; I can't go near House 7, and we both know it.

[Jack suddenly feels as though he wants to shoot something.]

[slaying]

The of course is the part where if -- [ no. no kid gloves. ] When she comes for you? You come to me. If this magic is as good as it's supposed to be then she won't be able to enter. Like how vampires can't.

[ she looks across the gap between them as they walked. ] Unless...I could call the guy up again. Have him work the same spell on the Cullen House?

[lists_to_port]

I want no spells on Cullen House, Buffy, especially none worked by your Giles and his lot.

[He smirks across the distance between them.]

Not sure it's worth it to me, in the end.

[slaying]

[ she saws the air with her hands. ]

And his lot? Jack -- I am his lot. His lot and my lot are the same lot.

[ she doesn't have an issue with jack opting out of the magic. this, she understands. it's the division that gets on her nerves. ]