simplestgift | Twenty-one Bells: [ACTION/VOICE]

Entry tags:

Twenty-one Bells: [ACTION/VOICE]

[Archie has barely been around town lately, but he does appear in town this afternoon, dashing about to various shops and stores and picking up various one-use items and lots and lots of groceries. He seems to have one thing on his mind.

Later, he'll sit at the fountain and send out the voice message:]

This is Mr. Kennedy. If anyone is in need of me, I shall be at the beach house for most of the week. You can reach me there or on the journals.

Moreover, Mr. Hornblower and I are wondering if anyone would be interested in helping to build a ship. A sloop-of-war, to be specific, with room and ports enough for eighteen or twenty-two guns. I cannot claim we have a practical use for itm besides exploration, but it would be something to do. We have the plans drawn up, and all we need is enough hands to make it possible. We would be grateful for any help at all.

[After this, he'll be walking back to the beach house, where he's been babysitting Jack Sparrow since yesterday.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Another chuckle.] People might look at us a bit less like we're antiquities if we do.

Please. You're not the only ones not from modern day Earth. Loads of the other-worlders are familiar with even less.

People still look at us like antiquities. Tell the truth, Buffy, if you met an admiral in your time, you'd understand he went through a great deal to make it so far and treat him with respect.

I've met the army's equivalent and I've held a crossbow to his throat. So, y'know, not so much.

Well, that's the army. That's entirely different.

A Navy boy'd say that. Point is? I don't really care a whole lot about the ranks thing, Archie. I want to see a man's mettle for my own eyes and not by how much metal he's got on his lapel.

Buffy, medals and gold braid are so you can see for your own eyes. To be an officer in the navy in the first place you have to pass the most rigorous examination known to mankind, which you should note is not the case in the army. It doesn't tell you whether or not he's a good man, but it'll give you more than an idea of his mettle.

US Army, incidentally. Whole different beast. Not that I'm saying it's better -- [ she still is very much not a fan of the initiative. ] -- but it's all I can speak on. I had a lot of dealings with one branch, a few years ago. I was left feeling less than impressed.

Of course you were. It's the army, Buffy. You can buy yourself a commission with enough money and having just a little blue blood doesn't go amiss, either.

I'm not so sure you can buy your way onto a top-secret special task force with money or blood, Archie.

There you go again.

There I what again?

[He'd spoken without thinking. He'd have caught himself before then if Dawn were still around, but he's gotten careless since she left. He doesn't like Buffy talking about her experiences as if they're the only ones that matter. It's not her most overwhelming trait, but it's annoying.]

Nothing.

...That's not a nothing voice. That's a something voice.

[ a sigh. ]

Out with it.

[A beat, then he decides she's asked for it.]

Do you think anyone's experience counts, besides your own?

...How could you even ask that?

[ dear lord buffy summers this is the worst time to have this out. ]

If you think about it a moment, I'm sure it'll come to you.

[ silence.

not guilty, though. hardly even penitent. she may in fact be silently raging. most of her wants to buck up and remind archie that she does what she does -- has done what she has done -- because everyone else's experiences are just that much more important than hers.

at least...that's how she sees it. whether she communicates it effectively is a whole other story. ]

[She's being quiet, and he doesn't blame her if he's angry. But he's a little fed up with the collective experience. So he speaks, not sounding angry, exactly, but clipped.]

It's either that or you actually do know better than I do on every possible subject, including the military, which I've been in for fourteen years now.

I know what I know, Archie. I have never -- never -- claimed to know anything about what you know. Since when was sharing my side things an automatic white-wash of everything else? It's called divulging. I do it.

But maybe now I kinda wish I hadn't.

[ ...a tough edge on her voice. being in such a precarious, de-Sparrowed position hasn't helped her sense of stability. and she's combative at the best of times. ]

You don't claim to know anything about what I know, no. But when I start to tell you, you won't listen and instead talk about what you know. [Archie sees any lovers' quarrel as being blown out of proportion, and he doesn't have a lot of patience for things that are being blown out of proportion.]

It's not my fault if your time's steeped in a little too much wait and be asked instead of grabbing the sharing bull by the horns. If you wanna talk about something? Say it.

When I talk about what I know, I'm being candid. You can be candid too. Go on. I dare you.

[ the problem sits in the part where half of it has nothing to do with love at all but with business. jack and buffy's relationship was forged in an odd little business transaction. a kiss for a locket. they'll never be divorced of it.

she'll never be divorced of it. buffy is the slayer; the slayer is buffy. never the twain shall unmeet. ]

Oh, I'm lost as to what I was just doing, then. [Because Archie is not confrontational. He'll quietly rage or push someone else to do the talking, but he doesn't like being part of it. This is candid for him.]

Very well. If a man bears the title of captain in the navy, he deserves some respect. Not to mention refusing to call him by his title is a bit like calling a woman miss after she's married. You're very brave, fighting a war we know nothing about, but that still leaves us with the other wars, the human demons if you will, including the ones within our ranks, and that also deserves some respect.

I'm still hung-up on the part where someone who's not in the navy has to call someone who is in the navy by their navy title.

[ as brusque as this retort is, it betrays a very genuine confusion. ]

You don't call Leonard Mr. McCoy, do you, despite not being a physician yourself?

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]

[voice; filtered 70% ]