if you try and chase the sun you're never gonna catch it
Vesper watches Jack cross the cabin with a guarded stillness, and when the Captain nudges the duffel aside and sits, his pale head tilts a fraction, a narrow line drawing between his brows at the opening remark about his alleged stupidity. That earns Jack nothing but a long, pointed look before Vesper’s head angles further, the expression somewhere between incredulous and dryly unimpressed, because that is absolutely the sort of phrase someone uses right before they call a man stupid. The glance lingers for a beat, blue eyes sharp with silent commentary before he exhales and lets the accusation ease into something quieter. Jack is right about Colt. As much as Vesper wanted to disappear, as much as he wanted her to lose her grip on him before things got worse, the odds of her simply letting him vanish had been slim at best.
"Well," he mutters, a shrug rolling through his shoulders like a man trying to rearrange the weight on his back, "I made it so she fuckin’ hates me now, so..." The sentence unravels before it reaches its end, tapering into a tight silence. He hadn’t wanted things to end—not really—he’d only wanted to pull out the detonation wire before they blew each other apart. And instead he’d managed to shatter everything in a way he can’t unsee, can’t unfeel, can’t untangle.
Jack drawing down his shields shifts the air in the cramped room and Vesper straightens instinctively, bracing for fire, for knives, for the sharp edge of a mind forged in darker seasons. Instead he finds something else; a controlled, simmering steadiness, sections of danger clearly marked but pulled back, tempered into something deliberate. A peace with teeth, but peace all the same.
It takes him a moment to realise the breath he’s holding is one he hadn’t meant to save, and then, with the smallest flicker of reluctance, he lets his own shields soften. They don’t fall—he’s never been wired to let anyone fully in—but they wilt just enough for Jack to see the edges of what he’s carrying. The images he can’t scrape out of his head. Colt’s channel tearing him out of himself and leaving him hollow in her wake. The way she’d looked at him in the Glade, hurt written across her face in a way that had cut sharper than any blade. And beneath it all, the quiet thought she’d never meant him to hear, raw and ringing and lodged in the centre of his chest like shrapnel. I loved you.
He tries to organise it—tries to sort the images into neat order, tries to steady the emotional chaos into something less humiliating—but nothing cooperates. The mess is the mess, and he’s barely holding the seams together as it is. His lip curls faintly, the smallest, frustrated attempt to reshape the ache into something less vulnerable. When he speaks, the voice that comes out is thin and careful, as if he’s afraid the sentence might splinter on the way out. "It fuckin...hurts," he murmurs, the admission bewildered more than pained, like he still can’t quite believe anyone else has the ability to strike him in a place he didn’t consent to open.
"Well," he mutters, a shrug rolling through his shoulders like a man trying to rearrange the weight on his back, "I made it so she fuckin’ hates me now, so..." The sentence unravels before it reaches its end, tapering into a tight silence. He hadn’t wanted things to end—not really—he’d only wanted to pull out the detonation wire before they blew each other apart. And instead he’d managed to shatter everything in a way he can’t unsee, can’t unfeel, can’t untangle.
Jack drawing down his shields shifts the air in the cramped room and Vesper straightens instinctively, bracing for fire, for knives, for the sharp edge of a mind forged in darker seasons. Instead he finds something else; a controlled, simmering steadiness, sections of danger clearly marked but pulled back, tempered into something deliberate. A peace with teeth, but peace all the same.
It takes him a moment to realise the breath he’s holding is one he hadn’t meant to save, and then, with the smallest flicker of reluctance, he lets his own shields soften. They don’t fall—he’s never been wired to let anyone fully in—but they wilt just enough for Jack to see the edges of what he’s carrying. The images he can’t scrape out of his head. Colt’s channel tearing him out of himself and leaving him hollow in her wake. The way she’d looked at him in the Glade, hurt written across her face in a way that had cut sharper than any blade. And beneath it all, the quiet thought she’d never meant him to hear, raw and ringing and lodged in the centre of his chest like shrapnel. I loved you.
He tries to organise it—tries to sort the images into neat order, tries to steady the emotional chaos into something less humiliating—but nothing cooperates. The mess is the mess, and he’s barely holding the seams together as it is. His lip curls faintly, the smallest, frustrated attempt to reshape the ache into something less vulnerable. When he speaks, the voice that comes out is thin and careful, as if he’s afraid the sentence might splinter on the way out. "It fuckin...hurts," he murmurs, the admission bewildered more than pained, like he still can’t quite believe anyone else has the ability to strike him in a place he didn’t consent to open.
And now it's turning out to be the worst of my bad habits
☆ has a pale star tattoo beneath his left eye, and freckle-sized constellations move across his skin
☽ hair changes from bleached blonde to brown
☆ telepathic: Sunlit Shadows | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
☽ hair changes from bleached blonde to brown
☆ telepathic: Sunlit Shadows | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
