[SE] walk right in the sight of a gun

JACK

Jack spreads his knees automatically for Flora to stand between them. He looks far-away - at least to those who don't know him as well as the Doubletake - the captain evidently weaving the strands of her plan through his own mind, examining it for gaps and weak points and finding far, far too many of them for comfort. He doesn't say that, though, merely glancing up at her as her fingers tease through the longer sections of his hair.

"What if she takes your body away, somewhere they can't get you back in time?" he asks, sounding quietly reasonable in the dead air between them. "They ain't stupid, they know how we work. They won't keep takin' chances just 'cause they find us mildly entertainin'. We're reachin' the point of no return here."

But Flora already knows that, a fact Jack is intimately aware of, especially as her next words filter through his magic and into his head. "And it has to be you?" He raises his eyebrows. "It can't be someone else?" Deimos, Sunjata, any other demigod on offer? The fact that Hadama - skilled, immortal, Safrin's favoured, hyper effective against the void - had sent Flora on her way with a pat on the butt and a flimsy ring is something that catches in his throat; something he doesn't hide in his expression either.

sometimes we put our hearts in the wrong places
(what the fuck is it doing between your teeth?)

Code stolen from Queen Sky