prodigal sons

JACK

The Ark does not arrive back in Torchline with any grandiosity or expectation. No, she kisses the docks and drops anchor at sunrise like she was always there, half camouflaged against the bloody morning light, and for those who know her, that will be enough. All but a skeleton crew leave her deck before the port is even properly awake, streaming out into the marketplaces and alleyways alike to spread the news: The Ark is home, and this time she's back for good.

Jack, however, has a different trajectory this morning, and he has the Feverlands to thank for it even all this time later. The healing wine from the Hollowed Grounds had done the job to nudge him back onto Mort's good side, but their time constraints had meant a great deal of fighting off infection and healing up by himself, and after a voyage from the very top of Caido down to the bottom, suffice to say the Captain is about done with it.

"No rain yet," he remarks of the cloudy skies above interspersed with slices of blue. "Gotta be a good sign, right?" Slanting a smile towards The Ark, he reaches to turn up the collar of his Kingmaker coat, pretending it's the chill of the morning instead of the mild fever now baked into his bones. Jack is pale despite the jaunt through the desert, drawn and underweight even for himself, but there's something right burning in his blue eyes as they approach the healing fountain.

The hard part is over, no matter what healers or queens might have to say about it. They've done it. They're home.

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i see nothing better, i'll keep him forever, like a vendetta

If The Ark spends more of the voyage south on deck than she normally would, no one comments on it. She braces herself beneath the rigging and pours steady currents of air into her own sails, keeping the canvas full even when the natural wind falters, until the miles stream away beneath her keel and the water begins to turn turquoise again. There is no need to explain the haste when Jack’s fever has settled into him like cargo they haven’t been able to throw overboard, and Torchline’s healing waters have been waiting at the end of their course. Her crew knows their ship well enough not to question why she is so eager to reach harbour.

Dressed in fitted leather pants, tall boots, and a billowing white shirt that catches the morning breeze almost as greedily as her sails, The Ark glances up at the clouds and lifts one shoulder in an unconcerned shrug. "It can rain all it likes, now that we’re home." The word sends a flush of warmth through the waters of her mind, spreading swift and deep until even the fever she can feel clinging to Jack seems less threatening. Home. She casts him a sideways glance and lets her gaze travel over the pale lines of his face and the leaner shape of him beneath the Kingmaker. He has certainly looked better, but with Torchline behind him and its light catching in his eyes, he looks all the better for having finally been returned to the proper shore.

Her attention shifts to the fountain and the statue of Safrin rising from its centre, and The Ark’s mouth curves as she looks up at the goddess with the amused appraisal of one figurehead regarding another. She lowers her hand into the clear water, letting it close cool and clean around her fingers before she lifts them and flicks several bright drops in Jack’s direction. "How d’you want your medicine, Captain?" she asks, turning her smile coy as the water slips from her fingertips. "Internally, or externally?" He can drink it, naturally, or he can climb into the fountain and let the water take the rest of him.

i see how this is gonna go, touch me and you'll never be alone

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

"However you wanna give it to me, love." Jack flinches at the drops of water sent his way out of nothing more than instinct, the cool purity of it flecking across his feverish skin and causing a smile to hook at one corner of his mouth. The fountain is empty at this time of morning, the Captain stepping up to perch himself at the lip of it, gazing down into the sparkling waters like he's seeing them for the first time in his life.

Without delay he reaches out to plunge his hands into the cool, clear depths of the fountain, his sleeves soaked and the still lingering wound on his forearm soon submerged as he gathers the water into his cupped palms. The first kiss of it is already enough to soothe something that has been festering in him since the swamp, and he lifts his hands to splash his face with the tension visibly draining out of him.

"They should consider hookin' this up to the canals," he mutters, mostly to himself as he cups a little more water to bring it to his lips. "Save us all the walk."

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i see nothing better, i'll keep him forever, like a vendetta

The Ark flashes Jack a wolfish smile, as though he’s threatening her with a good time rather than offering her free rein. "It’d be my pleasure." She waits until he lowers his cupped hands before stepping in behind him and reaching for the Kingmaker's collar, peeling it back from his shoulders with the clear expectation that he’ll let her help him out of it. The fountain’s waters remain sterile no matter what’s placed in them, and while she’s sure someone might eventually object to Jack bathing in the middle of it, they’ll have to get through her before they can offer up their opinion.

"Mmm," she hums at his suggestion, only to snort softly as she glances toward the channels threading through the city. "Wonder if Flora’s got a suggestion box." She steps out of her boots, though it hardly matters, and swings one leg over the lip of the fountain before the other follows, the clear water closing around her calves. Reaching for the sleeve of Jack's good arm, she gives it a sharp, playful tug, fully intending to bring him in after her rather than let him continue sipping delicately from the edge.

"It’d add a bit of extra weight and slow me down some," The Ark begins with a crooked smile on her lips. "But we could always repurpose one of my lower compartments into a holding tank." Her gaze drops to the water shifting around them as possibilities begin arranging themselves through her mind like routes drawn across a chart. Infection, blood loss, broken bones, whatever fresh horror the sea decided to throw onto her deck; there were plenty of situations that would become considerably less dire with a store of healing water below, rather than just a few bottles or barrels. Lifting her eyes back to Jack, she shrugs. "Might save us all more than a walk."

i see how this is gonna go, touch me and you'll never be alone

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

"I thought you'd say that," Jack says with a smirk that already comes easier than any expression he'd conjured on their way back south from Hak Etme. He shrugs out of his coat without protest, managing to toe off his boots as well before The Ark is tugging at him to join her in the cool depths of the fountain. Normally he'd have shrugged it off and claimed it unnecessary, but as the fog finally starts to clear from his mind, the reality of where they are begins to take hold, and suddenly nothing feels better than drowning himself in these Safrin-kissed waters.

"If she doesn't, she's got a court and a home address. No reason why someone couldn't shove an anonymous note under the door," he mutters, not bothering to try and stand and letting the fountain claim him to the chest instead. "Mm, we could," he agrees of her suggestion. "Or we could practice that new skill you discovered. Or I could get myself a fancy healing item. No need to weigh you down just yet, mm?"

Winking at her, Jack won't have time to hear her response just yet, the Captain leaning back to let the water swallow him completely now, little more than a stream of bubbles flowing to the surface in his wake.

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i see nothing better, i'll keep him forever, like a vendetta

There hadn’t been time for this in the cold waters of King’s End during Deepfrost, nor in the warmer currents of the Spillway when they’d briefly passed north with Jack’s infection worsening beneath his skin. Gods, though, there are few things sweeter than being in the water with her Captain. Even if this is only a fountain, shallow and public and carved in honour of someone else rather than the open ocean, The Ark delights in it all the same.

"Or tie it to a rock and toss it through a window," she suggests with a mischievous shrug before feigned innocence smooths her expression. "It really is a good idea. She’d probably want to know sooner rather than later." And surely that would justify a bit of broken glass?

The Ark lets herself sink until the water closes over her shoulders, her maroon hair loosening around her in long, drifting ribbons. Her smile widens when Jack leans back and disappears beneath the surface, because there is something deeply satisfying about watching the water claim him completely. It feels right in a way she doesn't think too hard about, as though Torchline itself has reached up to take hold of him and wash away everything the Feverlands tried to leave behind.

So many options, she thinks before dipping her mouth to the surface and takes a cool sip for no reason beyond the simple pleasure of being able to.

i see how this is gonna go, touch me and you'll never be alone

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

Hearing The Ark's words even from beneath the fountain's surface, Jack doesn't bother to hide his wry smile at the thought of mischief and spite for the sake of it, without anything bloody attached. Still, in the long list of things to do now that they're truly home again, Flora (probably to her horror) falls right near the bottom of Jack's priorities. At present, for instance, he's not thinking much past this, breakfast and walking the port to get up to speed with all he might have missed, and the beauty of it is that there's no rush this time.

When he surfaces the waters have chased the pallid tone from his skin, his dark hair made darker still and slicked back out of his face. His blue eyes are clear and sharp again and the deep breath he inhales is a clean one, and he finds The Ark again without even needing the use of his magic. "I'd say it was worth the wait, but I'd really rather not have a repeat performance of that," he rumbles, reaching out to snag her around the waist beneath the surface, drawing her flush against him.

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i see nothing better, i'll keep him forever, like a vendetta

The Ark watches him break the surface with an attention too sharp to pass for casual. Colour has already returned beneath the water shining on his skin, his eyes have lost their fevered haze, and the breath expanding his chest no longer catches against whatever the Feverlands left festering inside him. Only then do the waters of her mind ease, the restless pull beneath them going quiet now that her Captain looks like himself again.

Her mouth curves when he reaches for her. She lets his arm draw her in, though there is hardly any effort required on his part; she is already flowing into the space against him, answering the pull like a current drawn toward shore. Her arms settle around his neck, and her fingers comb into his soaked hair before closing around a handful of it. The small tug she gives is deliberate, measuring how long it has grown.

"Haircut after breakfast?" The Ark arches a brow at him, amusement warming the thought even as her fingers remain tangled at the nape of his neck. Jack’s name carries far enough through Torchline that he doesn’t need to arrive looking respectable to remind anyone who he is. Still, there is no reason to advertise that he has recently been gnawed on by oversized swamp vermin and nearly carved open by a walking skull equipped with knives.

i see how this is gonna go, touch me and you'll never be alone

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

The Ark wraps around him with the same cool immediacy of the fountain waters, and Jack accepts her as though she's an extension of both them and himself. Around them the call of hels is distant but near musical, the sunlight just starting to kiss the Court of Stars and the first sprays of water over their heads. The arms around his neck and fingers in his hair he expects - even the playful tugging is little to raise an eyebrow about - but her comment has a laugh spilling out of him, honest and almost boyish in its surprise.

"What're you tryin' to say?" he asks, even as the sun-bleached tips of his hair drift just as ribbon-like through the water as her own fiery tresses. "I could see it arranged," he continues with a careless shrug. "How'd you want me? Buzzcut season? A mullet? I'll start a trend on the ship if I do anythin' too different, fair warnin'."

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i see nothing better, i'll keep him forever, like a vendetta

The Ark leans away just enough to put Jack properly beneath her scrutiny, her spine curving while his arm remains firm around her waist. She studies him with narrowed eyes and exaggerated concentration, as though somewhere in the depths of her mind she possesses a catalogue of fashionable hairstyles rather than charts, currents, and every useful way to sink an enemy vessel. Each suggestion briefly reshapes him in her imagination until the sight of the last has a wolfish smile spreading across her face. "Not a buzzcut," she decides, sliding her fingers from his temples through the wet length of his hair. "I like having something to pull."

Her hand closes at the base of his skull to prove the point, tightening until his head tips back beneath it. The Ark follows the movement at once, stealing a kiss from his upturned mouth. When she draws back, wicked amusement gleams in her eyes. "Besides, Bassian might cry if he's peer-pressured into cutting all his off too."

i see how this is gonna go, touch me and you'll never be alone

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

"Buzzcut's out then. Perish the thought," Jack mutters, as if the idea of The Ark not having anything (and everything) she wants is tantamount to mutiny from the crew. A sly smile curls across his lips as he feels her fingers tighten once again at the nape of his neck, the Captain's head tipping back obediently enough to catch the kiss she aims against his mouth. His free hand has joined the other around her waist by the time she draws back, Jack forced to continue his affections against the column of her throat instead.

"He'd get a wig and we both know it," he mutters, scoffing and finally inching back towards the lip of the fountain so they might let the sunshine start to dry them off before magic finishes the job. "I'll see what I can do, though. Longheat's just 'round the corner, so it's a good time for it." Maybe he can even refresh his wardrobe now that they're back on tropical shores, though the Kingmaker will remain a staple of course.

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i see nothing better, i'll keep him forever, like a vendetta

Something predatory moves through The Ark’s thoughts when Jack’s mouth finds her throat, dark and possessive as a current running beneath calm water. She eases back against his hold, giving him more room without surrendering an inch of herself, and lets the satisfaction of it spread. It isn’t merely the public display of affection; it's what the scene declares without either of them needing to say it: Jack is back, he is well enough to take whatever space he pleases, and his absence has done nothing to lighten the weight of his name in Torchline. If anything, occupying one of the city’s most valuable resources as though it were his private bath makes the point beautifully.

The image of Bassian sporting a wig like the Swede breaks through that satisfaction and pulls a laugh from her. Lowering her chin, The Ark fixes Jack with bright sapphire eyes while wicked amusement curls through her smile. "I’ve caught him in our shower before, trying to steal my hair-care routine." Poor Bassian had never stood a chance. Her own maroon waves were quite literally god-given, requiring little more than water and the occasional toss of her head to fall perfectly into place.

She lets Jack guide them toward the edge before slipping from his arms and lifting herself onto the lip of the fountain. Water pours from her clothes in clear streams, her white blouse plastered against her like seafoam clinging to rock as she settles there with all the careless poise of a siren who knows exactly what sailors see when they look at her. "Speaking of Longheat, if we’re planning to make more cross-continent trips, I might pay our favourite shipwright a visit." The Ark had been inspected while they were in King’s End, but inspection was not the sort of intimate going-over she'd need for longer and longer voyages, and there were only two sets of hands besides Jack’s that knew every timber, seam, and temperamental joint in her hull. Murphy’s were one, the other belonged to a cantankerous bastard up the coast who would complain from the moment she arrived until the moment the work was finished, which was how she knew he would do it properly.

i see how this is gonna go, touch me and you'll never be alone

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

"Have you? You never said," Jack murmurs, the sly amusement in his expression edged with something old and cool that likely tells the exact reason she'd have kept it to herself. The most loyal of Jack's crew might be akin to family - especially for The Ark - but there's a reason her captain has the reputation he does, and its not for tolerance of fuckery, put it that way. Her amusement, at least, is enough to temper the sharp turn of his thoughts, and as she perches herself at the side of the fountain Jack steps out of it completely.

Streams and ribbons of water draw from his skin and clothes with little more than a pulse of effort, the Captain teasing the element back where it belongs to leave him more or less dried off. "Oh?" Smirking back to find her drenched and delectable, Jack tosses his coat over one shoulder and closes the distance between them to offer out a hand and help her down. "Alone? Or do you want company?" He grins; said cantankerous old bastard is exactly as good as they say, but he's also especially impatient with strangers.

Not that The Ark is a stranger at all, but he won't know that from a first glance.

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i see nothing better, i'll keep him forever, like a vendetta

One maroon brow rises while The Ark gives the question the consideration it deserves, which is to say almost none at all. "Didn’t I?" she asks, lashes fluttering with an innocence too polished to survive the gleam in her eyes. As far as she is concerned, Bassian had already endured a more fitting punishment; being caught red-handed and left to drown in his own embarrassment had cut far deeper than any tongue-lashing or extra duties Jack might have assigned him afterward.

She has learned enough from watching Jack to pull the water from her clothes herself, though she is far less thorough about it. The dampness vanishes where it would chafe beneath her arms and between her thighs, while the rest remains scattered across her skin and clinging to the white fabric in bright, glistening traces. She has no particular interest in returning every drop merely because she can, clearly far greedier than Jack in that regard.

Taking his offered hand, The Ark slips down from the fountain’s edge and bends to collect her boots, carrying them rather than bothering to pull them back on. When she straightens, the look she gives him is cunning but warm, possession and affection threaded so closely through it that there is little point in separating one from the other. "You should come," she decides, her thumb brushing once across his knuckles. "I am still your ship." The truth of it has changed shape since Rae gave her flesh and a will of her own, but it has never loosened. Autonomy has not made Jack’s opinion irrelevant, nor has it erased the instinct to have him beside her while someone else puts hands to her hull. Whatever changes she might want, whatever refinements the old bastard might recommend, Jack would want to see them considered before a single plank was lifted or seam reopened.

i see how this is gonna go, touch me and you'll never be alone

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3