Archie Kennedy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
simplestgift) wrote2012-12-19 01:44 pm
simplestgift) wrote2012-12-19 01:44 pm
Entry tags:
Thirty-Eight Bells: [Written/Action]
Elizabeth Swann has gone home.
[That's pretty much all he can manage. People needed to know. He won't answer any messages until very late tonight. In the meantime, he is pretty much going to wall himself up in his house. Not in his room, though. His room still smells like her.
He found her wedding ring. It was lying on her night stand yesterday morning when he first woke to find her gone.
All things considered...he's not doing as badly as he might be. At least, he's convincing himself of that. Trying to. They always knew this was a probability, after all.
But that didn't make much of a difference in the end, did it?]
[That's pretty much all he can manage. People needed to know. He won't answer any messages until very late tonight. In the meantime, he is pretty much going to wall himself up in his house. Not in his room, though. His room still smells like her.
He found her wedding ring. It was lying on her night stand yesterday morning when he first woke to find her gone.
All things considered...he's not doing as badly as he might be. At least, he's convincing himself of that. Trying to. They always knew this was a probability, after all.
But that didn't make much of a difference in the end, did it?]
no subject
In a blink, Buffy had her journal out and was scribbling a note with some ferocious speed. Making an arrangement. Clearing out a space. Calling in a favour. When it was done, she finally glanced up and purposefully met Archie's eyes.
Her heart cracked.
no subject
Is she going to make him...do something? He doesn't feel like doing anything.
no subject
Buffy reached for the doorknob, pausing only to wonder whether she should arrange for a change of clothing. A thermos of something. Such arrangements would be responsible. Grown-up. Useful. But being those things required time. And right now, she knew, time only meant more agony for her dear friend.
So the door was opened. "After you?"
no subject
no subject
Much like any other conversation, really. So they walked to the barracks-based teleporter in silence, unless at any point Archie saw fit to speak up.
no subject
no subject
She did, however, resume conversation come the other side of teleportation. As she ducked her way out of the ruined fort: "This won't make you feel better. But...it'll make you feel something else. If you're really lucky, it'll last a whole split second.
Do you trust me?"
no subject
He doesn't look very trusting.
no subject
One -- grab my hand.
Two -- run like the dickens across the snow-strewn sand all the way to the end of the pier.
Three -- pause ever so briefly to remove your boots and jacket at the very least, all else is up to your own discretion and how many of Jack's drier castaways you want to borrow from Cullen House.
Aaaand four -- jump. Don't think. Just jump. Plunge. With me. Don't even say anything. Just...nod if you understand. And I'll count to three..."
no subject
1/3
2/3
"Two!"
She blew air past her lips and only now realized that this side of the mountains felt...chillier, somehow. Perhaps it was the ocean. God. She knew this was going to be a terrible freeze. And she was glad she'd warned him, now, because it meant she couldn't chicken out.
Buffy stomped her feet. She slid a glance sideways at her lonely, left-behind friend.
3/3
The countdown had built into a shout. She grabbed his wrist with a firm grip and kicked off the sand. It gave such poor traction; she practically stumbled on her first step.
Her momentum pulled him along. Her insistence egged him forward. This was a no-man's land and she was inviting him to cross it alongside her. It brought them nowhere near closure, nor within sight of healing. But it brought them somewhere.
no subject
We're not going to jump.
Two.
And that's my final word!
And three!
I CAAAAAHN'T SWIIIIIM!
His legs were pumping beneath him. Nowhere close to the freezing shores of the Luceti enclosure, but now in the Caribbean blues and greens of Samana Bay. Probably the very last happy moment of his life.
Because he was dead. It was something he forgot often now, especially with the new false memories. But he was dead, and at any moment could be so again. This rush, this sudden fear as cold as the water up ahead, was something to live for.
At the end of the pier, he pauses to yank off his coat and gloves and shoes before reaching to grab Buffy, making sure that if they were going in, they were going in together.
guh sorry didn't notice a typo until this morning
What she hadn't -- and wouldn't -- tell Archie Kennedy was that the last time she'd recklessly jumped into off-season waters was the day she and Jack had learned Elizabeth Swann had blown into town. Although that simple truth connected the two moments, she'd not brought him out here for that reason. Instead, it was the recklessness that was important. She and he had spoken once about how they might've once treated their lives -- perhaps with too little value. Perhaps with too much expendability. This was not one of those moments, but it took a wide step to the left of the same concept. A mad dash. A sudden absence from responsibility.
Surrender. Of a sort.
She felt his arms tangle with his and -- in spite of herself -- let out a surprised holler as they fell. Buffy braced for impact and soon, frigid water was all around her. It squeezed at her lungs and sliced to the bone.
It overwhelmed her and wiped her clean.