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+---- Thread: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus (/showthread.php?tid=12528)
call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - Jack - 02-16-2026
[say]"Now the last card's turned over. This one's called the river,"[/say] Jack is explaining patiently to The Ark, as if they've got all the time in the world and he isn't in the middle of a game of poker in a seedy, floating little bar on the fringes of the Castaway Exchange. A cigarette hangs between his lips and one of his arms is slung easily around her in his seat, the Captain having invited her to perch on the arm of his chair to learn. [say]"Now you've got one last round of bettin', an' you can use your cards and the five cards on the table to make the best hand you can get."[/say]
Around them the rest of the poker table looks, at best, nervous. All but the dealer, of course, who is impassive to these sorts of things, even the curious gargling noise that seems to be echoing up from beside Jack's chair. He takes a long drag on his cigarette before offering it to The Ark and exhaling, picking up his hand to examine it. [say]"See, I should fold with this,"[/say] he tells her with a sigh. [say]"Shitty cards. But I dunno, love - I reckon my luck's in. What'd you think?"[/say]
This question is not directed at The Ark, but at the source of the choked gurgling next to him. It's caused by Jack's foot pressed firmly on the throat of some poor fuck whose name he's forgotten, and he cocks his head as if to better hear him. [say]"Mm, I thought so too,"[/say] he decides, nodding at the table. [say]"I'll raise."[/say]
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - The Ark - 02-16-2026
The Ark settles onto the arm of Jack’s chair, her hip angled toward him, one hand braced lightly at his shoulder as she leans in to examine the spread of cards. The lanternlight hanging low over the felt catches along the red silk at her bodice and slides downward in a warm gleam, pooling in the generous curve of her cleavage as she bends forward with apparent concentration. She studies Jack’s hand as though this is all new to her, as though she has not watched men wager cargo, blood, and breath across her decks for years uncounted, her dark gaze intent, lashes lowered, mouth parted slightly in thought.
Plucking the cigarette from his fingers, she inhales slowly, red lips sealing around it, before exhaling in a languid ribbon that drifts across the table and into the faces of the men watching her far more closely than the river card. Their attention moves like tide toward exposed shoreline; she can feel it without looking, the way their focus loosens, the way their thoughts begin to snag on the line of her throat, the slow rise and fall of her chest, the possibility of silk sliding lower. She does not actively push her magic on them, only tilts herself slightly further forward so that the lanternlight gilds her skin and lets imagination do the rest.
[say]"Well, I think you've already got all the luck you need,"[/say] she says softly, as if she is simply following the lesson. Her fingertip hovers over his cards without quite touching, tracing the air above them as though she is mapping something delicate. [say]"So many A's for Ark."[/say] She gestures toward his hand with a bright, satisfied smile, as if she has just said something adorable rather than revealing the strength of Jack's hand. She does understand, of course. The cards are poor; the man is not.
As Jack addresses the wet, choking agreement beneath his boot, she lets her gaze drift across the table, meeting each pair of eyes in turn with a look that is curious, warm, and just shy of invitation. Thoughts coil and loosen under that attention; hands that should be steady feel a faint, distracting pull, as though something beneath the surface has brushed against their ankles. She leans back toward Jack at last, smoke curling from her lips as she returns the cigarette to him, her shoulder settling against his with proprietary ease while the men across the felt try to remember what game they are meant to be playing.
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - Jack - 02-16-2026
Jack leans in to accept the cigarette back between his lips, deft fingers closing the fan of his cards to set the stack face down on the table. Exhaling another grey-blue whorl of smoke and raising an expectant brow towards the other players, he lets the silence stretch long enough that he can feel their muddy thoughts suddenly swim with questions. Why's it so quiet? Shit, did I miss somethin'? I wonder if her carpet matches the drapes and so on.
Eventually, though, the men seem aware of the game again - the gurgling one under Jack's boot has never forgotten, he's pleased to note, because that has been the point - and, one by one, they predictably fold. [say]"I reckon you were right about that luck, love,"[/say] Jack announces, satisfied. He removes his boot at last and the poor fellow scrabbles back with a wet and wheezing gasp; the Captain ignores him to reach forward and sweep his winnings across to his side of the table.
The knife gleans, wicked sharp in the air as it plunges down towards the felt. The dealer flinches, chairs scrape and knock against the ground as the majority of the table lurch to their feet. Only Jack and the assailant remain seated, the Captain's hand turned casually up and away from the blade that rests, cold and unforgiving, right where his palm had been only seconds before. Where, by all rights, it should have been still.
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - The Ark - 02-16-2026
The scrape of steel against air splits the moment open and The Ark flinches, her body recoiling a fraction as the knife strikes where Jack’s hand had been, silk pulling tight across her as she straightens sharply from her lean. The movement is instinctive, a reflex born of splintering masts and cannon fire, and for the barest heartbeat her waters roil with the sting of it, an inward churn of embarrassment that she, of all things, had startled at a blade in a room full of men. It is a brief squall, no more than wind skimming the surface, and it passes almost as soon as she feels it, because the current beneath is already shifting toward something far more substantial.
The air cools without visible cause, the lantern flames guttering low as though a pressure front has rolled in from the open sea. She shakes her head once, a sharp motion that sends her red hair snapping back from her shoulders in a bright arc, and the sound she makes is a soft, disappointed tsk that carries more weight than a shout. The waters of her mind, which Jack knows better than any charted channel, are no longer embarrassed; they are rising, darkening, pulling away from shore before the crash.
[say]"Aw, Jack,"[/say] she says, and his name is warm in her mouth, her tone pitying, though something vast presses behind it. [say]"He thought that was his big moment."[/say] Her eyes flick briefly to the knife embedded in the felt, then back to the man who drove it there, and her smile returns, no longer playful but edged, like the white line where a wave begins to break.
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - Jack - 02-16-2026
One of Jack's hands remains upturned on the felt, but the other spreads warm fingers against The Ark's hip, as if her flinch has shot right up the length of his arm and he needs to adjust for it. But the waters of her mind still, at least against their initial unease, and when they start to churn again it's with the rising tide of a storm on the way. Jack smiles; indulgent, amicable almost as he regards the man whose hand still grips the hilt of the knife, his face pale with a mix of anger and unease.
[say]"Maybe I should've let him draw blood,"[/say] he considers in a soft voice, glancing up towards her in the suddenly dim lamplight. [say]"Been a long time since someone tried to stab me at a poker table."[/say] The scent of ozone spikes through the air only a fraction of a second before electricity crackles up the blade of the knife and into the thug's hand. He screams and has to peel his fingers away, but they're already smoking, and as the thunder of footsteps fills the bar - some running away, some closer - Jack finally gets to his feet himself.
He's slow about it in comparison, though, taking his time and helping The Ark up as well, ensuring that she's set and steady on her feet. [say]"A'right,"[/say] he says. [say]"I guess this is a fuckin' bar brawl now."[/say]
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - The Ark - 02-16-2026
His hand spreads against her hip and the contact is like a ballast; the churn inside her eases at once, storm-tide settling under the steady weight of him. What had begun to rise sharp and dark smooths into something deeper, heavier, no less dangerous. She feels the warmth of his palm through silk and lets it anchor her there on the arm of his chair, her gaze never leaving the man with the knife as Jack considers aloud the virtue of blood at a poker table. The faint scent of ozone prickles through the dim air and when lightning cracks up the blade she does not so much as blink, though she does lean subtly into Jack as the thug screams, drawn not only to the violence itself but to the power that coils so easily in his hands.
[say]"Tch,"[/say] she murmurs under her breath as smoke curls from the man’s fingers. [say]"They haven’t had the benefit of your company long enough."[/say] Her tone is almost indulgent, as if she is discussing unruly deckhands rather than fools who have just invited ruin. A year in King's End should have been long enough for them to know better, but there was no account for stupid.
When Jack rises she allows him to help her up as though he is escorting her from dinner rather than into chaos, fingers sliding into his for a moment before she steps neatly to his side. Around them the bar explodes into motion, boots pounding across uneven planks, chairs toppling, curses flung like broken bottles. The waters of her mind do not settle this time; they flare alive with white forks of lightning and sudden swells that crash against the edges of the room. She will not cage Jack in a hurricane's eye of calm—that would be boring—but nor will she let him be heeled by being outnumbered.
So it is that a table will skid abruptly sideways as if struck by an unseen hull, clearing space at Jack’s side so that he can step away from an incoming blow. A chair will lift and clatter against the far wall in a sharp gust that seems to come from nowhere, leaving an open path at his feet. When one of the braver—or more foolish—men attempts to circle behind Jack while the Captain already has three men at his front, he'll find himself met by a concussive blast of air that slams into his belly and steals the breath from his lungs, sending him staggering backward with a wheeze.
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - Jack - 02-16-2026
It's far from Jack's first bar brawl, but it's been a fair while since one has broken out so quickly and with such intensity over something as innocuous as a poker game. Alright, so maybe he'd pushed it a little far by standing on a man's throat while he played his hand, but even so - in the Captain's vast repertoire of nastiness, this is barely scratching the surface. But if a brawl is what's wanted then it's what he's happy to deliver, and whilst he and The Ark find themselves at the eye of this particular storm, they're far from alone in it.
Granted, Jack can only feel Bassian's savage glee as something in his periphery compared to the sweet, dark rush of The Ark's mind close by, but he doesn't let himself lose track of the big man as he steps forward. The world rushes and changes around him in a way that's beyond his control but at the same time not, and if he'd had the time, he might have cast a glance over his shoulder towards the redhead watching his back.
Maybe later, though - for right now, there are three men rushing him and the Captain has to decide whether it's a night for murder or just maiming. The crack of lightning decides for him in the end, singeing hair and leaving a few very nasty burns, but ultimately leaving the trio alive for now. For now being the operative word, of course, because Jack has also opted to strike the floorboards of the floating bar, and they're starting to take on water now at an alarming rate.
[say]"Ain't suppose anyone'll believe that was an accident?"[/say] he drawls, stepping back from the wash of saltwater and taking his cigarette from his lips at last to let it sizzle out in the growing puddle.
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - The Ark - 02-16-2026
As on sea, so on land, the Ark rises to him without calculation, without chart or compass, answering the shift of his body and the crackle of his power the way she answers wind in her sails. She does not yet know the subtleties of bar fights the way she knows the angle of a squall or the groan of timber before a mast gives way, but she knows this, Jack is still standing. The floorboards split and drink saltwater in greedy gulps, the bar tilting almost imperceptibly as brine snakes across warped planks, and to her that feels like a beginning rather than a loss. A structure taking on water is only a tragedy if it is hers.
She watches the swell creep inward with a slow, approving smirk, lanternlight scattering in broken reflections across the spreading sheen, then moves without hesitation to Jack’s side. Her hand reaches for the lapel of his coat, fingers curling with possessive certainty, and she drags him toward her as if hauling something hard-won back onto deck. Electricity still hums faintly through the air, through him, through her; she feels it like static along rigging, sharp and intoxicating. Since he has acquainted her with sex, she has taken to it the way open water takes to storm, without restraint, without apology. The sight of him now, resolute in the chaos, cigarette dying in salt at his feet, power sparking at his command, pulls that same tide forward in her.
She kisses him hard, mouth claiming his with a tidal hunger. The chop inside her does not ease; it roughens, whitecaps flashing through her thoughts as bodies scramble and curses fill the air in the other room. When she pulls back, her cheeks are flushed, breath warm against his skin, eyes bright with something far from done. A laugh huffs from her, low and exhilarated, as another wave of water slaps against a table leg and sends it skidding. [say]"I don’t care about this rickety barge,"[/say] she says, voice threaded with salt and mischief, glancing down at the pooling brine before lifting her gaze back to him. [say]"This isn’t a ship you’re going to go down on."[/say] Her brow arches slowly, the double meaning cresting clear and unapologetic in the stormlight of her mind.
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - Jack - 02-17-2026
The Ark pulls him and Jack goes willingly, though his eyes only leave the trio of men picking themselves up from the increasingly slick boards as he feels that familiar heat knife through her aimed directly for his throat. He turns just in time to meet her lips, tongue hungry and hands unapologetically greedy for her body, one hand grasping the curve of her ass to grind her hips forward and against him. The water is starting to sluice about the toes of his boots by the time they part, and at that point the Captain doesn't care if it's on the poker table or in the salt-sweet dark beneath the sinking bar - he's in full agreement that they are far from done here.
[say]"There's only one I ever plan on goin' down on,"[/say] he tells her, voice rough but his tone all too reasonable, and it's true however you choose to layer the meaning. Behind The Ark, Bassian's voice calls out to them; the big man has cleared a path to the doorway and is holding it ajar for their swift getaway. More accurately he's holding it up for them, because without the brace of his hands from his position on the pier outside, the exit would be listing slowly downwards.
[say]"Ladies first,"[/say] Jack says, gesturing for The Ark to go on ahead. Static continues to jump around him every now and then; a silent warning that, if provoked, he might easily lance it directly into the water and cause a lot more damage.
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - The Ark - 02-17-2026
The Ark grins against Jack's mouth, wolfish and bright, teeth grazing his lower lip as his hands roam and claim without hesitation. The mischief in her eyes deepens at his answer, pleased by the layered truth of it, by the way his voice roughens when it’s meant only for her. Water curls around their boots, licking at leather and pooling against the legs of overturned chairs, and still she feels nothing like retreat. If anything, the rising tide feels like applause. When Bassian calls out she breaks from Jack as the room lists more sharply now and the bar groans in protest. She kicks through the water as she moves, sending up little splashes that catch the lanternlight, her boots careless against the spreading flood. Passing the doorway, she flashes Bassian a blinding smile, all white teeth and wicked gratitude.
Outside, the night is loud and raw, the fight having spilled onto the pier where fists still fly and glass shatters against warped wood, the Exchange alive with the reckless joy of men who have not yet learned when enough is enough. That's when a bottle arcs through the air, careless and imprecise, not aimed with purpose at Jack or any of his crew but thrown in the heat of it all such that his telepathy will have no reason to latch upon it. It whistles past shoulders and swinging arms, missing its intended target by a country mile before catching the dim light and striking The Ark square at the hairline with a sharp, ugly crack.
For a heartbeat nothing changes. The waters of her mind remain white-capped, still churning with the leftover froth of lightning and laughter and salt. She does not stumble immediately, or even cry out. The broken glass falls away from her and the noise of the fight continues before everything inside of her stops. The swell that had been crashing against her shores goes utterly still as if the sea itself has forgotten how to move. It is a stillness so complete it feels wrong, a horizon frozen mid-storm. Her smile remains on her lips as she turns back toward Jack, but the colour has begun to drain from her face, pulling pale beneath the red of her hair. [say]"Jack?"[/say] she says, and the word is distant, as though spoken across fog.
A sudden spurt of blood breaks from her hairline, bright and shocking, beading instantly down her temple and over her cheek, the same vivid red as her hair but thicker, heavier. It runs in quick, warm rivulets, tracing the curve of her jaw and dripping from her chin onto the wet boards below. Her knees soften, and the frozen sea inside her holds for one more impossible second before everything goes dark and her body gives, the strength leaving her all at once as she collapses toward the listing planks and the salt-slick night.
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - Jack - 02-17-2026
Jack watches her towards the slowly shrinking doorway with equal parts appreciation and satisfaction, and he's about to follow when he remembers his winnings still on the poker table. Not wanting to forget the very thing that had caused the fight to break out in the first place, he turns back towards the table and the water lapping at its legs and spends a little time getting everything neatly into his pockets and squared away. Only once he's satisfied does he follow, and by that time he practically has to wade across the bar.
Bassian can barely keep hold of the doorframe when Jack clambers out, the Captain clapping the big man on the shoulder to tell him to let the barge sink at last. Around them the chaos of the night is something loud and turbulent and deliciously familiar, through it's nothing compared to the islands he came from, and he has just enough time to sit with it when a tinkle of broken glass reaches his ears and the sound of his name hits the air.
There has been no pain or shock for him to orient himself towards, no violent intent or underhanded thought that might have led to this outcome. It's the worst of offences for a telepath - bad luck and worse timing - and as his eyes land on The Ark it's to see the blood starting to coat her pale face, falling in thick droplets made black in the night. Jack doesn't know if he swears out loud or just inside his head; what he does know is that the shouts of mayhem and revelry suddenly turn to alarm, to fear in some cases.
Lightning cracks the pier and ice cakes the slapping waves, crunching against the docks beneath and groaning ominously, and Jack is there before The Ark ever gets close to hitting the ground. His orders to Bassian are delivered in a tone of dangerous calm, and before anyone else so much as gets near them, both men retreat into the shadows and are gone.
When The Ark comes to, whenever that might be, she'll find herself back aboard the ship. Jack's cabin door is open, the sound of voices distant but not too far, and she'll awaken cradled in the comfort of the Captain's bunk. Her face will be clean but her clothes will still be bloody, the cut on her hairline will be disinfected and dressed, and there will be no trace of glass in her red tresses.
She will, however, be alone, though Jack's voice is one of those audible out in the corridor, soft and low and serious.
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - The Ark - 02-17-2026
Murphy will feel a strange absence threaded through the galleon, a hollowness where current ought to run. The Ark lies quiet in her berth, too quiet based on what the first mate will have come to expect from her over the years. The usual flicker of presence that hums along her rigging and through her planks is dulled; the flare and bite that make her more than timber and sail feel banked, smothered beneath something heavy and formless.
When awareness returns it does not arrive cleanly. It seeps in, thick and reluctant, and the first thing that greets her is pain. Not sharp in the way lightning splits air, not hot like friction and desire, but dense and pulsing, as though something is knocking from the inside of her skull. Jack will feel it before he hears anything, the sudden fog rolling through her thoughts, a muted swell of confusion and hurt that has no salt-sweet edge to it. A soft gasp escapes her before she can stop it, breath hitching as she shifts in the Captain’s bunk and the world lurches unpleasantly. She presses her palm to her forehead in reflex and immediately recoils, the tenderness there shocking and foreign, her fingers coming away to find the dressing instead of blood.
Pain, like pleasure, had been, is new. Pleasure she'd taken to like a rising gale, devoured and understood in instinctive tides. This is different. This is an unwelcome weight, a dragging undertow she does not yet know how to navigate and does not like.
She sits up slowly, every movement deliberate, as though testing whether the world will tilt again if she moves too quickly. Though she can feel the crew, boots crossing her deck in measured rhythms, the low murmur of voices through timber and corridor, there is no panic in it. No frantic scrambling. If not for the ache in her head and the dried stiffness of blood in her hair, she might have thought she'd imagined the whole thing.
As she swings her legs over the side of the bunk and stands, a muffled cry slips from her throat and she bites it back hard, jaw tightening as if stubbornness alone might master the sensation. She steadies herself with one hand against the desk and reaches for a bottle of rum on Jack's desk. In the past, she's felt the way Jack had medicated himself with it in moments like these, and if it worked for him, perhaps it will work for her.
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - Jack - 02-17-2026
[say]"Easy, love."[/say] Jack's voice is low and calm as still water, the Captain suddenly in the doorway as if he'd always been there. He'd felt her return to consciousness in more than just his magic; the way the crew had shifted their feet tells of it too, the way Murphy quietly excuses himself to go back to the deck to check everything is as it should be, despite there being no reason why it shouldn't.
Having given his quiet orders, the rest of the men are gone now and, other than Jack leaning against the doorframe and the package of medicine tucked casually under his arm, they are alone. [say]"Might dull the pain for now, but it'll make your head hurt a lot more later,"[/say] he continues, stepping into the cabin further now and clicking the door shut behind him. [say]"Here - try this instead."[/say] Setting the package down and opening the box, they'll find a variety of painkillers and sedatives and even a little baggie of dreamdust, in case she wants to just not be there for a while.
[say]"You got hit hard with a glass bottle,"[/say] he explains. Quiet, clinical, logic in a way that utterly belies the storm churning inside him. [say]"Knocked you out cold."[/say]
RE: call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus - The Ark - 02-17-2026
The Ark's eyes lift at the sound of Jack's voice, wide and dark as deep water under clouded sky, and though he leans against the doorframe she feels him nearer than that, like a steady pressure along her side. The rum pauses halfway to her mouth before she lowers it without argument, setting the bottle back on the desk with care rather than defiance. For all her flare and will, when it comes to the tending of her seams and fractures there has never been anyone more meticulous than Jack, no one who knows the grain of her quite like he does.
She exhales, and though she means it to be smooth there is a tremor in it, a thin note of pain threatening to ripple through the sound. Her gaze drifts over the contents of the opened box—pills in careful rows, small folded packets, the strange shimmer of dreamdust caught in lamplight—and then returns to him with a small, helpless shake of her head. She doesn't know the difference between them, does not understand their strengths or their risks, only that they are tools and he is the one who knows which to use. [say]"Whatever you think is best,"[/say] she says quietly.
At his explanation, she nods once, absorbing the words as fact. The logic of it lands, but the sensation inside her does not resolve so neatly. She stands there in the dim cabin, one hand hovering uncertainly near her temple as though she might test it again and then deciding against it. The pain pulses, thick and intrusive, and beneath it something heavier swirls; black water where her thoughts should be clear tide. As a ship, she has been struck, split, scorched, pierced; she has taken on water by accident and by malice, had been hit by cannon fire and had her hull ground against reefs. But this feeling, this darkness over and above the pain, makes her restless in her own skin, makes her want to bare her teeth, to lash out at the memory of the bottle and the faceless hand that threw it. At the same time, it pulls something softer from her, an urge to step closer, to press herself against him and let his steadiness absorb the strange turbulence. The two impulses collide awkwardly, leaving her suspended between violence and vulnerability, neither fully cresting.
[say]"I'll be fine,"[/say] she says in the end.