one more sweet boy to be butchered by men

i want to taste you again

That's the thing with a gift (curse?) like telepathy. Despite having known from the moment Finch stepped into the map room that the ledger he'd been counting on for - yep, you got it - the very course he'd been plotting on the chart between them, is missing, Jack hasn't reacted. Hearing it spoken aloud, though, is like permission to light the fuse of his temper, and a muscle feathers in his jaw. His hand, when it closes into a fist, empty, is rimed with ice from the other elements that live in his veins, and he takes a slow, measured breath in through his nose.

"And?" he says quietly, already painfully aware that there's no more to the story, but feeling the need to brand the lesson in place regardless. "What happened when you put out feelers to find out who can reach through locks to steal shit? How'd it go in Torchline's rumour mill when you planted a few seeds 'bout the ledger to see what turned up?"

Jack takes a long drag off his cigarette, his frosty hand dropping back to his side. "You don't know, 'cause you didn't fuckin' do any of that." Hissing out a smoky breath and considering, briefly, giving Finch what he's all but begging for, instead the Captain stalks to the windows of the map room, pinning the echo sharks below with the blue fire of his gaze.

"Vesper can vouch for it?" he asks, clipped now, his back to the thief.

like a secret or a sin

JACK