you're goin' off the deep end again

JACK

Jack raises an eyebrow at that, glancing over his shoulder to Vesper as he kneels by the riverbank, and a smirk kicks up one side of his mouth. "Flatterer," he drawls, though the tone is warm and his voice his steady; it had been unlooked for, but whatever the boy has said has hit the mark. And though he can all but sense it as the young demigod stills behind him, can hear all the things he isn't saying even without telepathy, nothing about the Captain bristles at it. He knows how it seems, knows how something like this screams of fragility, desperation, even, of trying to dam up something that had broken.

"I dunno," he says slowly, scooping some of the mud into the jar and capping it before it can escape, though it does writhe and swirl as if trying to climb out to rejoin the larger mass. "Same as she is as a ship, I reckon. Wild, bold, unapologetic." Swift, flexible, sometimes ruthless and biting and unforgiving.

Sighing, Jack rises to his feet. "I know," he mutters. "It's fuckin' crazy. But much as I hate to say it, Flora broke somethin' in me in the time we were together. Once I could've sailed the world alone and not looked back. I ain't that way any more."

we've gone way too fast for way too long
and we were never supposed to make it half this far

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!