sinking

JACK

hellraiser
risk taker

"Oh, fuck off," Jack says quickly, surprising himself with the heat in his words. "When didn't I care? When I peeled you out of the fountain and stayed with you all night? When I let you drag me all over The Climb for the hell of it? When I'd have killed that lanky Ancient if you hadn't turned up in the Labyrinth?" He raises his eyebrows. It can absolutely be argued that Jack hasn't always cared - because he hasn't - but certainly in recent seasons, the ability to keep Flora safely at arm's length has eroded until he finds her, as she is right now, pressed right against his heart.

And yet, considering he can literally read minds, once again the captain finds himself blinking in the dazzle of incomprehension as he tries to make sense of her thoughts. "What does havin' me mean to you?" he asks, a mix of exasperated and attempting patience, only for her laughter to cut through it entirely.

He nearly shakes her, as if that might loose the rising hysteria from her mind like shaking spare change out of a discarded pair of pants. Nearly - but he doesn't. "They're just words," he reminds her. The things he'd said to Safrin, things she really ought never have had to witness. Not knowing whether to release her and let her whirl away across the coast like a brewing storm or to keep hold of her and risk whatever other wrath that might provoke, Jack eventually forces out a long breath and reaches out to tilt her chin back up towards him.

"I'm gonna kiss you now, and I really don't want you to slap me for it. Okay?"

full speed ahead
'til i'm dead