I think we've seen enough

Eloise

Darling, you take the high horse
and I'll take the high road

Gods it was hard to feel especially clever when someone could just root about in your thoughts and find every nook and cranny left undusted or untended. Still, confidence rippled away from Eloise on this particular morning, much as she did her best to hide it. It wouldn't do her any favours to come across as cocky, but gods she felt like she had Jack by the balls for once.

Jack was up and out of their cabin already, leaving Eloise time to think and try and school her thoughts into some semblance of order. "Oh Jaaaaack." The illusionist called, leaning against the doorframe in full view of anyone walking by. And what a view it was: her hair was loosely tousled (but intentionally so, lets be honest), and she wore almost nothing but one of Jack's shirts, left almost entirely unbuttoned. The crew would think Eloise was in the mood for a morning quickie, but the captain wouldn't.

If you're too good for us,
you'll be good riding solo

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

The bitch was up to something; Jack had gotten that inkling from the way she seemed to actually... act as if she had plans, purpose, whatever you wanted to fucking call it. There was very little to do, honestly, with Deepfrost rolling in, but the captain enjoyed mornings aboard the Ark, and people watching was a favourite pastime of his. So it would be that Eloise's call drifted across the ship, followed by more than one catcall.

Glancing over his shoulder and tossing the peel from the orange he'd just finished eating into the slapping waves, he gazed at her flatly over the sunglasses he wore, wondering what this was supposed to be. She did have him by the balls, though it wasn't in the way the crew might expect (or he might, in retrospect), but he did give her the courtesy of a very decent look up and down, tongue running across his teeth.

"Get outta that shirt," he said as he crossed the deck to her; one meaning for the men - strip off, darlin' - and another entirely for Eloise - stop wearing my fuckin' clothes.

Eloise

Darling, you take the high horse
and I'll take the high road

"Make me." Eloise purred happily, all fluttery lashes and sultry stares as she backed up into the sunlit chamber. As soon as the door was closed though her smile turned decidedly less sexual and far more combative.

Moving towards Jack's bed, Eloise sank down and patted the spot next to her. "Why don't you take a load off captain?" She asked, her tone innocent and doting. Her thoughts however were of an entirely different nature. You're gonna wanna sit down for this, sugar

If you're too good for us,
you'll be good riding solo

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

Don't tempt me. It was a shame Eloise couldn't read Jack's thoughts in return, because his expression was less and less impressed behind his sunglasses, which he took off once he was back in the shade of his cabin. "Why don't you tell me what this shit's all about first?" he asked, his magic sharp for any tricks or traps, though he had to admit that his navigator was keeping her thoughts suspiciously neutral.

And oh, he needed to sit down for this? Resisting the urge to roll his eyes all the way out of his skull, the captain sank down onto his bed, staring at the perfectly good desk in the middle of the cabin that would have served just the same purpose. "Go on," he drawled. "Dazzle me."

Eloise

Darling, you take the high horse
and I'll take the high road

It was easy to keep her thoughts neutral, Eloise had learned, when she didn't mind if they were read. And soon enough, she'd be counting on Jack to be inside her thoughts if only so he could see for himself the truth of what she was about to say.

"Well." Eloise turned towards him, the shirt she wore scandalously close to revealing her nipples but not quite there yet. It hardly mattered though; even if Jack chose to look, her body wouldn't be what held his attention. "I had a bit of a think about all that you've told me and taught me. About not trusting, about not just running into danger." Reaching out with a single finger, she'd try and place it against his jaw to draw his gaze towards her instead of the furniture.

"So I did something, Jack. Something I think in other circumstances, you'd quite approve of." Eloise knew she was on thin ice, that the captain's patience wouldn't last, and so, holding his gaze or not, she'd let her thoughts ring out loud and clear.

Five letters. The preamble hardly mattered. All that did was that written in large letters in the center of each page was the following: Jack Barclay can read minds.

If you're too good for us,
you'll be good riding solo

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

Jack wasn't looking at her body, no. And only when her hand reached out to turn his head in her direction did he deign to look at her at all, hearing the smugness dripping from her words. His expression started to formulate his unspoken question - what the fuck are you playing at - when the letters sprung up in his mind's eye, the ink still fresh, the words stark and clear on the parchment. Jack couldn't spell, Eloise had said, but he made out the message with startling clarity.

The captain breathed in through his nose and out again; slowly, deliberately. From the outside it would look as though that strange stillness had dropped over him, just as it had on the beach or whenever she asked a particularly probing question; like everything physical had been sacrificed to whatever his magic and his mind were trying to comprehend.

"I ought to have killed you when I had the chance," he said, all coolness and quiet to her animated gestures. But his hands had clenched into white fists, and it was willpower alone that had prevented him from lashing out, from striking her right across the face. "Get to your point, then."

Eloise

Darling, you take the high horse
and I'll take the high road

The ice was shattering beneath her feet, she well knew. But as long as Jack was next to her, he'd go under if she did. That was the entire fucking point. They were tied together now, in all of this.

Nodding, her cocky games finally at rest, Eloise sat a touch straighter trying very hard not to look at Jack's clenched fists. "Five letters, addressed to the rulers in Halo and the Hollowed Grounds, as well as your new plaything the Governor here. The other two you'll not know. " She began, spelling it out clearly for him (and for her own safety really, given she'd only have one chance at this). "Should I disappear or be found dead, those letters will be sent and everything you've built here will come crashing right the fuck down."

Eloise's heart was thudding so loudly in her chest she was sure it was drowning out her words, but she pushed ahead just the same. "So all of this? This sleep on the floor, Eloise, this heel when I tell you to, Eloise? It's done, Jack. It might have taken me a while to figure it out, but this secret of yours cuts both ways. You want to treat me like a godsdam dog? That's fine. Only now instead of some bitch beneath your boot, I'll be a fucking show dog that you'll do your damndest to keep safe." Because if you fucking don't, everyone will know your secret.

If you're too good for us,
you'll be good riding solo

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

Well, well, she was certainly breaking out the big guns wasn't she? Jack took in the information with eyes that were fixed somewhere out of the cabin window, forcing his hands to relax so that the little cresent moons he was creating in his palms didn't become cuts, or aggravate the knife wound he'd dealt himself in their little training session. "Understood," he said quietly, rising to his feet and sidling away to sit at his desk. He propped one foot up against a trunk sitting beside it, unrolling a scroll of parchment as if intent on devoting his time to it.

"If that's all, you can get out. You're perfectly safe on this ship and we're both aware of that. Kaiholo knows you well enough to stay out of your way by now too - nothin' to put this little bargain of yours in jeopardy. And put your own damned clothes on before you go." The shutters came down, and she was nothing to him. Within, of course, plans upon plans began to form.

Eloise

Darling, you take the high horse
and I'll take the high road

"No."

Eloise crossed her arms, scooching back slightly on the bed as if daring him to physically remove her. Which, given his mood, was probably a terrible idea. Still, she tilted her chin upwards, trying not to grind her teeth together.

"I'm the best navigator here, jokes from you and the men aside. And I'm not going to just be thrown out because you couldn't watch your mouth and I finally managed to be smart enough to wiggle out from under your boots." This was not at all how she thought this would go. If anything, she thought perhaps Jack might just chuckle, tell her she was clever but to watch herself, and she'd be allowed to sleep in the bed for once.

"I'm good with the books, you've introduced me to your connections, and I"m good at it. Getting better every day."

So let me fucking stay, Jack.

If you're too good for us,
you'll be good riding solo

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

"And that will continue to be the case. I said get out of my cabin, not my business," Jack said in a tight voice, his eyes firmly on whatever was on the scroll without actually seeing it at all.

"That's precisely the problem with you - it never goes how you think it's gonna go, because you never think past your own fuckin' nose." There was very little venom in his words, but everything about him was coiled like a spring; like a snake preparing to strike.

"Get out of my gods damned sight, please," he said, giving up on whatever it was he'd been pretending to do and turning in his chair to gaze out of the window and out into the deep depths of the waves.

Eloise

Darling, you take the high horse
and I'll take the high road

"What, and let the men think you're really that quick?" Eloise said in a strained effort at using their 'sex life' as a way to cut through some of the tension. She couldn't just...go.

"Yeah, I do Jack, and I'm usually pretty good at it when I don't have to think around a murderous tinderbox like you." She snapped back, her own hands making much less intimidating fists than his had earlier. Scooching herself forward off the bed, Eloise tore open the shirt of his she wore, with little concern for the buttons that were thrown onto the floor. Balling it up, she threw it at his head. "You're a fucking child." She jeered as tears prickled the back of her eyes.

Storming for the door, wearing only her underwear, Eloise braced herself for all sorts of comments from the crew, but they'd be far kinder than anything Jack might have to say. Opening the door, Eloise called loudly over her shoulder, "Don't worry about it Jack. I"m sure it happens to lots of men." Before slamming the cabin door loudly behind her.

~FIN

If you're too good for us,
you'll be good riding solo

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!