If the whole world's on fire then I'm holding the lighter

She leans dramatically against one of the thick wooden posts that jut up along the dock’s seaside edge. Her hands hang from the hook of her thumbs in either side of her jean pockets, the picture of leisure with her head tilted just enough to obscure her eyeline under the brim of her pale hat. A peppermint stick rolls from one end of her mouth to the other every so often, the chew an act of defiance, and perhaps the only subtle tic giving away the unease that’s actually brimming beneath her surface calm. Well, maybe the only thing that’d give her away to the ordinary man anyway, not expecting any telepaths, much less the wrong one.

Golden strands of hair lift in small ribbons with the sea breeze, the same one that’s gathering the storm clouds overhead, the rain kind enough to just drizzle once in a while and not dump, though it doesn’t seem the kindness means to hold all day. Her tan duster is pulled up high on her neck, under the spill of her loose hair, to keep back the worst of the wind that ripples over the water.

Ahead of her, a nervous courier is flitting about the dock, yelling orders back and forth amongst the men who seem to be a handful of goat ranchers confidently disobedient to the mailman’s demands, and some rogue passersby who felt they couldn’t miss this sight and opted to help as an excuse to linger. Between the men, a herd of goats, a very large herd of goats, meanders without hurry. Cloven hooves are already making their steady way up the gangplank to where the Ark is anchored, and the only thing that leads the small sound of their clips and clops would be their boisterous baaing. Trails of piss darken the wood in their wake, and round nuggets of shit scatter like the devil’s candy, painting the trail they've already made to here.

 

Colt

i want to taste you again

Now, see, Jack already knows he's the GOAT. He doesn't need to be told, or shown metaphorically, or given dozens of shitting, pissing mascots as evidence of the fact. And if Colt had chosen a slightly quieter method of revenge(?) for gods only know what slight has been done to her via The Ark, they might have even made it to the deck of the ship. As it stands, though, the top of the gangplank suddenly erupts in a thick wall of ice - ice that spreads, sleek and deadly, down the length of the boards and back onto the dock.

More than one rancher loses his footing, going sliding at speed right back where he started, and the goats also - naturally - begin to panic, hooves failing to find purchase on the suddenly slick ground, a couple of them scrabbling dangerously close to plunging into the water entirely, one colliding with a rancher so they both go slip-sliding away. That's not Jack's problem, though. None of this is Jack's problem, in fact, no matter how much Colt is trying to make it that way.

He appears at the side of the ship, the collar of his Kingmaker coat turned high against the biting wind, eyes like shards of the sky as he narrows them down at her. "Gonna give you five seconds to explain this shit 'fore I make a real mess of the dock," he tells her, voice carrying enough to be heard despite its relatively quiet volume, undoubtedly aided by a ribbon of air magic sent her way.

like a secret or a sin

JACK

She came here looking for a fight. She'd never admit to anyone, least of all herself, but this stunt is all an excuse to see Vesper. An argument is better than all the nothing he's left her with, and while she isn't in the market for arguing with Jack, that is the problem of them having a shared home address. Probably something she should have better considered, but she's got some thick blinders on at the moment that's keeping her from her usual caution and sense—even now, in part because she's sure the one she wants is just a misty step away.

The curve of her hat lifts over the wide smile on her face, looking briefly like she's grinning twice. "Jaaaack!" she greets sweetly, as though reclaiming an old friend and not a spitting alley cat. She's forced to straighten as the dock erupts into a measure of chaos, the glittering ice wall drawing her gaze briefly before the Captain takes it in full. Her casual stance has her hooking a safe arm around the wooden post now, seeking balance as goats and men alike slide and run amuck around her. "Oh, these are for Vesper." That she falters, then pushes through around his name with an extra pulse to her smile is a stumble she ignores, like any good stage mishap. "He told me he needed a note for every time he made me cum. Now, I told him I'd give him a gift basket instead, but then I figured he deserved better than that."

Bright as a summer's day still, she persists, her other hand holding her hat against the wind. "One goat for every orgasm I got 'cause of him. I admit, I didn't keep count of every time I masturbated to him, but after a year or so, I reckon this hundred head is more than generous." Her smile bites into her cheeks, utterly shameless, scorn worn like armor. Around the neck of each goat is a ribbon and a tag attached that reads:

To: Vesper
Love, Colt

She wrote them all out just the day before, when she noticed the Ark had come back into town. She made her moves then to trade some steers for goats, to get a courier involved, nervous as the man was given the reputation of the Ark, but she'd assured him the event would be fine since it wasn't for Jack. That courier has long since left, his duty to his job abandoned for the sake of self preservation, papers needing signatures for ownership scattered under the wayward hooves now. Some of the more curious, or hungry, goats have chewed the tags and ribbons off their herdmates, but the message comes across clear just the same. "Just call him, and I'll be out of your hair."

 

Colt

i want to taste you again

Vesper's name stamps itself across Jack's telepathy like a brand Colt has decided to wield, a muscle feathering in the Captain's jaw, though his expression remains otherwise quietly, dangerously neutral. She might not be in the market for a fight with him, but he'll be damned if she's leaving without one if this keeps up, and the faux sweetness in her smile and her voice do very little to quell the rising tide of his temper.

"Save it for the taverns, I don't care," he says, the saccharine explanation - goats and orgasms and gift baskets, oh my! - sounding like the sort of gossip best slurred between strangers at a beer-slick bar. "I can't call him. He ain't here any more. Left the Ark, left King's End high an' dry. And yeah, before you ask, it's because of you. And no, I ain't tellin' you where he went. So this," Jack gestures to the herd of goats, unimpressed, "is somethin' you just made my problem."

Jack hasn't noticed the flickers of static and lightning that have begun to creep out beneath his hands along the railing (and the deck as a result), but the crew certainly have, giving him a respectable berth as they go about their duties.

like a secret or a sin

JACK

All pretense of being unbothered slides away the moment Jack tells her Vesper is gone. Her smile drops near instantaneously, as if nothing more than a photo prop—paper glued to a stick and held up to a call for cheese. She's already lost him in all the ways that actually matter to her, and hell she doesn't particularly want to have him in town at all, but there's something acutely final about the truth that he isn't here at all any more that hollows out something new in her. It's funny, the way an absence takes up a hell of a lot of space inside you.

Her lips press into a thin line, the edges of her mouth nearly lost as she bears down on the finality of this ruin. Goosebumps race up her neck and across her scalp, the whisper of Jack's wrath a much more deadly one than the small stampede her's had arranged. Nerves shiver in response to the impending threat, static lifting her hair in ways too wild to be mistaken for wind. Her gaze narrows, and all the steel and the spit and the fire she'd worked up drops into a cold void of sorrow trying not to break, nothing better than a river coming back to life with the top layer of ice still intact.

The goats and the men feel it too, and whether they think it's the storm that's coming above, or they know its the good Captain's patience wearing out, they don't much care except to get the fuck out of dodge. Everyone begins to reverse and turn away, the previous slow parade here unraveling into survival instinct and selfishness. Her gaze narrows on Jack, as if considering, just for a moment, if he's being truthful or bluffing to protect his son. Since he doesn't seem much the fatherly sort, she settles on honesty. "They'll be gone in less than hour. They're spooked now and always looking for food, which ain't here," she informs him flatly, shoving off her little post of safety to join the throng of bodies on the dock. She threads into the rising bleating of the herd that's beginning to panic as they scatter like flushed birds back towards town, seeking out sturdier ground than lightning-embeded piers. The ranchers are still trying their best to manage the animals, or getting their own bearings back, but the curious additions of townsfolk are hurriedly departing.

"They make great tacos!" she informs him with a lift of her voice and a wave of her hand, suggesting that he might earn something of value out of this yet as she heads to depart, no longer interested in what the Ark has to offer.

 

Colt

i want to taste you again

"Yeah," Jack says, as final as the last nail in a coffin as the smile completely drops from Colt's face. He'd expected that news to bring such a reaction, but when she turns around (literally and figuratively) and just... backs off after making her way all the way out here? One hundred orgasm-goats and all? Colour Jack surprised, if not no less irritated at the result. "They better be. I'll be countin'," he says, eyes flinty as they flick towards the slip-n-slide gangplank and the ranchers trying to corral their animals away from the cold waters just one wrong step away.

Part of him wants to call out to her again, to needle further at her vanishing silhouette, but all of that would suggest not only that Vesper had spoken to him about their imploding relationship, but that he cares enough to seek revenge about it. (Which, catch him in the doing before he gets a chance to think it through, and you'd be exactly fucking right). Instead, biting at the inside of his cheek, Jack finally pushes back from the railing and nods towards Murphy, who has already taken note of the time. If an hour goes by and there's a single goat left on the dock, this won't be over.

Speaking of which.

"You put that down," he snaps towards Bassian, the big sailor having been trying to lift one of the smaller members of the herd over the ice wall to smuggle belowdecks.

~FIN

like a secret or a sin

JACK