you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody
She doesn’t realize he’s taken her hands until the warmth of his fingers begins to seep into her skin like sunlight filtering through storm-drenched clouds, chasing off the chill she hadn’t noticed sinking into her bones. It startles something loose in her chest—not in fear, but in sudden, trembling recognition—and for a moment she forgets the illusion of ocean light and open sky. She forgets the walls of the House of Midnight and the way her body aches. All at once, she remembers him.
It’s been so long since Jack touched her gently. Longer still since it had felt like comfort and not aftermath, like kindness rather than the sharp recoil of anger or grief. Her fingers close around his on instinct, slow and uncertain but with a softness that feels more honest than any word she might’ve found. When she lifts her gaze to meet his, her eyes linger—not on the lines across his forehead, not on the faint tension in his jaw, but on the sea-dark clarity of his stare. She searches him like a girl reading a message in a bottle, hoping for something familiar between the lines, something salvaged. Something real.
Because the man standing before her now, who speaks as though he would’ve taken her place—despite everything, despite her—doesn’t feel like the Jack she’s known. He sounds like a version of him that lived in the corners of her memory, softer and quieter and impossibly hard to hold. And maybe that’s why the attempt at humour escapes her in a whisper, almost too quiet to be heard, too fragile to be believed. “You can take the next hit,” she murmurs, trying to chase the horror away with a curve of her lips that never quite arrives.
When he offers to take her home, something shifts in her expression—not quite a flinch, not quite surprise, but a hesitation that tugs her features into something more delicate. Her eyes drift past him toward the far side of the room where the illusion of Torchline’s coast unfurls like memory, the blue horizon blooming against salt-white sand. It isn’t real, but it was safe for a little while. Safe enough to feel like stillness. Safe enough to pretend that she hadn’t felt claws inside her body, dragging her soul toward something dark and endless.
But when she looks back to Jack, her throat tightens, and she shakes her head—slowly, gently, like the movement itself aches. It’s not refusal. It’s not surrender either. It’s just her, trying to make space for the truth without crumbling under it. “I don’t know,” she breathes at last, her voice threaded with uncertainty, as though speaking it aloud might somehow unmake it. “I don’t know where I’m supposed to be. I don’t know what I want. I don’t even know who I’m meant to be anymore.” She’d lost her ability to dance through life unscathed, had risked more than she’d ever have wanted to lose.
It’s been so long since Jack touched her gently. Longer still since it had felt like comfort and not aftermath, like kindness rather than the sharp recoil of anger or grief. Her fingers close around his on instinct, slow and uncertain but with a softness that feels more honest than any word she might’ve found. When she lifts her gaze to meet his, her eyes linger—not on the lines across his forehead, not on the faint tension in his jaw, but on the sea-dark clarity of his stare. She searches him like a girl reading a message in a bottle, hoping for something familiar between the lines, something salvaged. Something real.
Because the man standing before her now, who speaks as though he would’ve taken her place—despite everything, despite her—doesn’t feel like the Jack she’s known. He sounds like a version of him that lived in the corners of her memory, softer and quieter and impossibly hard to hold. And maybe that’s why the attempt at humour escapes her in a whisper, almost too quiet to be heard, too fragile to be believed. “You can take the next hit,” she murmurs, trying to chase the horror away with a curve of her lips that never quite arrives.
When he offers to take her home, something shifts in her expression—not quite a flinch, not quite surprise, but a hesitation that tugs her features into something more delicate. Her eyes drift past him toward the far side of the room where the illusion of Torchline’s coast unfurls like memory, the blue horizon blooming against salt-white sand. It isn’t real, but it was safe for a little while. Safe enough to feel like stillness. Safe enough to pretend that she hadn’t felt claws inside her body, dragging her soul toward something dark and endless.
But when she looks back to Jack, her throat tightens, and she shakes her head—slowly, gently, like the movement itself aches. It’s not refusal. It’s not surrender either. It’s just her, trying to make space for the truth without crumbling under it. “I don’t know,” she breathes at last, her voice threaded with uncertainty, as though speaking it aloud might somehow unmake it. “I don’t know where I’m supposed to be. I don’t know what I want. I don’t even know who I’m meant to be anymore.” She’d lost her ability to dance through life unscathed, had risked more than she’d ever have wanted to lose.
