JACK
Flora's mind rains within and without, and as they're doused by the illusory downpour of her grief, Jack forces himself not to drag his mental shutters down around it. Where once it would have been easy to pinch and cauterise that particular strand of telepathic pain, if this is the last thing he's ever going to get from the Doubletake that belongs inexorably to him, he wants to feel it.
I told you not to cry, he almost wants to say, but Flora is already speaking, her lips soft as they brush against his own, and Jack's answering smile is a barely there thing reserved for her alone. "If love was all it took, we'd have been unstoppable," he murmurs. "You'll have always been the first to have mine. Maybe the only one." Because if years of trust and effort, of peeling back those first ironclad layers of himself to offer what he thought love meant, if that had still led here?
Well, Jack knows a lost cause when he sees one, even if it's in his own reflection.
He kisses her back like the clouds might part and the sun might shine if only they hold on for long enough, his fingers gliding through her hair and his lungs screaming, though not entirely from a lack of oxygen. When, finally, the captain does step back, it's with the slightest frosty imprint of his fingers on her skin, before he shoves his hands into his pockets to hide the way his magic has betrayed him.
"I think I'd better go," he says, before the room shatters entirely under the weight of Flora's mind. "This was my first grand gesture, an' it didn't really go how I planned. You'll be a'right, stayin' here until you're ready to go back?"
I told you not to cry, he almost wants to say, but Flora is already speaking, her lips soft as they brush against his own, and Jack's answering smile is a barely there thing reserved for her alone. "If love was all it took, we'd have been unstoppable," he murmurs. "You'll have always been the first to have mine. Maybe the only one." Because if years of trust and effort, of peeling back those first ironclad layers of himself to offer what he thought love meant, if that had still led here?
Well, Jack knows a lost cause when he sees one, even if it's in his own reflection.
He kisses her back like the clouds might part and the sun might shine if only they hold on for long enough, his fingers gliding through her hair and his lungs screaming, though not entirely from a lack of oxygen. When, finally, the captain does step back, it's with the slightest frosty imprint of his fingers on her skin, before he shoves his hands into his pockets to hide the way his magic has betrayed him.
"I think I'd better go," he says, before the room shatters entirely under the weight of Flora's mind. "This was my first grand gesture, an' it didn't really go how I planned. You'll be a'right, stayin' here until you're ready to go back?"
no more than I was or than I want to be
when you fall on me like night, I wanna kill the lights
when you fall on me like night, I wanna kill the lights
- Secret Telepath
- Functionally Immortal (Forever 35)
- Two small star tattoos beneath his left eye
- Click for The Ark!
