come_sailaway | I admit defeat, then I move my feet

Entry tags:

I admit defeat, then I move my feet

Who: Jack and Siffleur, or Jack and YOU
What: Jack coping in various ways, or keeping himself too occupied to remember his history of taking orders.
When: Varying parts of early december
Where: Tommy Bahama, the sports deck, Playback
Warnings: Violence and/or sex for Siffleur's thread, nothing so far for everything else, but warnings will come as needed.

1. Siffleur [closed to siffleur]

Shortly after a conversation with the Captain and a follow-up with Skulduggery, Jack finds himself walking through the ship, his thoughts pacing between two points like an animal in a cage. Sympathy and horror that the Captain was controlled in some way, maybe as directly as Jack was, or maybe not but close enough... But also the reminder that Jack could still, at any time, be forced under someone else’s control again, that while he removed the puppet strings programmed into him in Rapture, that whatever happens on the ship could be purely external, and there’s nothing Jack could do to stop it.

He thought about numbing himself by dipping into the stash he rebuilt since his room exploded, but not only could he see himself wasting half of it to stay consistently drunk long enough for this to fade, he feels kind of awkward about the idea? Like, that’s maybe not a healthy response he should turn to every time he feels complicated about his -- past? Origins? Nature?

So instead, he rides the elevator up to the Promenade and texts Siffleur en route:

Hey, if you’re up for a hunt I’ll be around. Not sure if I feel like trying to completely fight to kill, but you follow your heart (or stomach! 😂) on this one! 👍👍

And just doing that lifts a weight off his shoulders. With his hands in his pockets and his mouth whistling a cheery little tune, he strolls into the Tommy Bahama, right up to the nearest checkout. He takes his pistol and puts it on the counter, as well as his wrench. After a second to think about it, he puts his shoulder bag on the countertop too. No need to waste EVE hypos on this, definitely no need to waste his only health kit, and no need to risk the drinks he brought along either.

Armed with only his plasmids and the need to burn energy, he walks deeper into the Tommy Bahama, and keeps walking until something interrupts him.

2. Fight Club

But earlier in the month, before all that-

Alright, about a month and a half ago, he discovered a tennis ball machine buried under the sports equipment, dug it out, set it up, and stood empty-handed at the end of its serving range. It was nostalgic, in a way, to catch and drop the incoming tennis balls with telekinesis, but eventually the practice was less in his reflex catching and more in perfecting carefully dropping a tennis ball instead of accidentally releasing it like a misfired bullet. Which, you know, still an important skill to have, but not as engaging as he’d like his practice to be.

So early in the month, he shows up at one of the Fight Club meetings with a sign asking people to ‘Throw Literally Any Object At Me’ pinned to his shirt, standing next to a pile of balls and pucks (though he’ll accept any improvised projectile).

3. Sports Deck

The other time he plays with balls - phrasing, pardon him: the other time he practices with telekinesis comes after those awkward conversations, and it isn’t really a concentrated improvement of skill as he does it. He’s just lying on the sports deck, staring up in the sky, and firing a tennis ball into the air. It comes down more or less in his line of sight enough that even if it’s not going to directly fall on him, he can reach out his hand and his mind and draw it back to his palm before it comes close to hitting the ground.

Then he holds his arm straight up into the sky and does it again. And again. And again. Just mindlessly killing time, lost in thought but not thinking at all.

There’s an open bottle of rum beside him, but telekinesis doesn’t use that much EVE, so there’s only a mouthful of it gone so far, and Jack doesn’t really feel like sitting up yet.

4. Playback

Jack predates arcades, so it’s been a reliable place for him to keep himself busy. There’s decades of technology and games to explore in there, and enough variety to keep it fresh for him, for now.

And yet, despite sampling a variety of styles of game through the arcade, today Jack is going through any game with a gun.

They’re not shaped the same and they don’t even come close to the same weight, but the adjustment is easy to make and within the first half dozen shots he adapts to the game’s idea of accuracy.

At that point, it’s over for enemies on the screen. Be they zombies, or aliens, or dinosaurs, Jack hits them as soon as they spring up, again and again and again. The thing is, it’s hard to tell if Jack’s enjoying it.

He’s got a stern, focused look on his face as he works, no hint of a smile at all as he methodically clears through stage after stage of whichever game he’s on. While he doesn’t get a perfect clear every time, he makes it pretty far through each game before he has to start the process over.

Do you think he needs a break? He might need a break.

5. Wildcard
[Jack can also be found getting food pretty much anywhere on the ship that serves it, wandering around the Tommy Bahama, or wandering the decks at night, or anything else you can think of!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Erin hasn't spoken to Jack since...

...God, Never Have I Ever, how time flies. He'd had an interesting answer to her question, one that gives her a curious interest in this game of Chuck Shit At Baldur The Bright. Still, going for a weapon toss here like she might with a Lost making a cocky offer like this might be both A. rude and B. a bit fucking much, so when she stops her drills to get a snack she comes over, tips Jack a wave, and then whips a cookie at him like a frisbee.

Jack's honestly so food motivated he almost wouldn't need the telekinesis to catch the cookie.

But at the speed it's going at, better safe than sorry - the cookie hard swerves through the air and stops directly in front of his palm. His fingers wrap around it and he switches the telekinesis off, and grinning, he gives Erin a grateful salute with the cookie and takes a bite out of it.

Even if she wasn't actually intending to violently give him a cookie, it's his now, he earned it, finders keepers.

"...Alright," Erin laughs. "That's fair enough, but why are you asking people to wing shit at you? Just flexing the ol' telekemuscles?"

Jack shrugs, swallows his mouthful of cookie, answers: "Yeah, pretty much. Tennis ball machine is too predictable, this adds a random element. And it's more fun, honestly."

Well, probably; other than the couple of occasions up here where he was able to ask people to do this, most projectiles fired or thrown his way weren't doing it for a laugh, at least not one meant for Jack to enjoy.

"Well then. No more snackrifices, mister." Erin collects up a great deal of pucks. "Now, how you want it? I can give ya light tosses, limits of my natural muscles, or 'if you fuck this up you will die instantly'. I don't suggest that last one but it's available if you're really, really sure that your proper name is Long-Dick Johnson."

Jack grins at Erin, and starts backing away so she has more distance to work with.

"Y'know what? Why don't we start natural and work our way up? I'll tap out if I think I'm going to miss too much." Jack says truly believing that, and since Erin doesn't know him well she might believe it too.

"Aight, fair enough."

Now, Erin is not a baseball pitcher. Her unaided muscles can't cause a bird to explode (or at least she's pretty sure they can't), but she does throw knives at people to kill or disable them for a living. Just one puck to start but it's coming at Jack's heart, straight and true.

Now we're talking!

Automatically, Jack turns his body as he lifts his hand and swings his mind out for the puck. It's over halfway across the distance between himself and Erin when his mind snaps around it, and then snaps it to his hand.

Grinning, he lifts it for Erin to see, before he shuts the telekinesis off and lets it fall into his palm.

"Nice!" he tells her, and underhand lobs the puck back.

Unlike Erin, his isn't a perfect throw by any means, as it lands short and bounces. But hey, she's not the one running the challenge here, it's fine.

"Does it have to be coming right at you or can you like, protect others with this?" The question is curious and interested.

It also comes with a flurry of four pucks next, whipping through the air in rapid succession.

"I mean-" oops never mind, multiple projectiles incoming.

Back in Rapture, Jack would run for cover or failing that just take the blows he couldn't catch, but with him issuing the challenge there's a little pressure to perform. He makes the attempt: one puck stops in front of one palm, and another stops in front of the other - and that alone feels impressive since he's used to only having one hand free for this. But the other two-

One puck drops to the deck normally, and it's hard to tell if Jack catches the third puck naturally or with his mind. The puck in his other hand shoots from his hand like it was fired out of a taut slingshot, bouncing against the deck, while the fourth thrown puck thumps against his chest.

"Oof." Jack says, though it doesn't really hurt. He fumbles catching that puck too, and just watches it roll on its side on the deck before it flops over.

He looks from the downed puck to Erin.

"... Right, it's more of a - it's moving things with my mind, so no, it doesn't have to come for me." Jack says, and to demonstrate he uses telekinesis again to pick the puck up off of the deck. "This is more to keep my reflexes in shape."

"Oh that's neat. Sorry about the hit, my dude." Erin's having fun, and she bounces up and down on her heels. "This one's gonna go about five feet to your right, I wanna test the one that would uh, kill you. Get ready."

|Stone? All the way to the edge of the world.|

And Stone, the might of the living world, sayeth: On it.

Erin winds up and throws, well away from Jack and anyone else who might wander into the path.

The puck shatters the sound barrier.

Jack watches through the fingers of his outstretched hand, held steady in the direction the puck vanished in, nowhere near fast enough to snag it. There was less than a second, maybe, where his mind brushed the shape of it, but not enough to grab it, let alone hold it in place.

Jack flexes his hand, and then lowers his arm and turns to Erin.

"Alright, so... Maybe we should dial back from that one." Jack says, although he really sort of does want another stab at that, just to see if he has better luck if he knows what's coming, just to see if he can. Focus, focus.

Erin offers an apologetic smile and a little laugh. "I can dial it down but once it's down I can't dial it back up for like...an hour. Longer if I keep notching it down slowly. 's not a muscle, it's a pact, it can only do as agreed. But on the plus side I don't have to exercise it like a muscle either."

Erin tosses a puck in her hand, looking thoughtful. "...Think about the speed of a pistol shot might be better?"

Jack holds his hand flat and waggles it a little.

"Maybe if you didn't aim it at me? The thing with this is, they got the telekinesis working, but enhanced reflexes were sold separately, so to speak." Jack says.

He doesn't entirely know what she means by 'pact', but figures it won't be a problem if he does or doesn't know it. (Plus, though it doesn't occur to him yet, he didn't exactly explain where his powers came from either.)

"So to speak, huh. This like a cybernetics deal...?"

While she waits for that answer Erin takes a deep breath. Her body changes...subtly. Her hair becomes less tempestuous, resolving into distinctly human hair that blows in a wind that is not present. Her moving tattoos slow, resolve into a single song that plays on loop, the red of her lips pales to a human color rather than that of lipstick.

Dialing it down has some side effects, it would seem.

Jack has fortunately plowed through enough sci-fi schlock in the library to know what 'cybernetics' means, so he shakes his head.

"Genetic modification, commodified." Jack explains.

The process Erin goes through is... curious. It's like watching someone step out of costume, only Jack isn't sure if that's true or not. There's enough people with strange hair and eyes and so on that it can't really be called 'out of the ordinary' anymore, so he hadn't given much thought to the way Erin's hair behaved or its colour or anything, just when it started behaving differently.

Anyway he flexes his hand and waits for any cue to get ready.

"Well, that's fucking horrifying. I say, with a large chunk of my soul carved off and replaced with fairy bullshit, but, y'know."

(How many people from horrifying supertech capitalist hellscapes are on this ship?)

Listen. Why are we and Darcy the only ones from magic Earths?

(...Not sure how that relates but okay.)

Erin gives Jack a nod, points in that same direction as before (about five feet off to his right), winds up, and throws.

It's subsonic, at least.

Jack gets back a thumbs up emoji from Siffleur.

And he waits in the usual spaces, watching as Jack enters and decides which items he's bringing with him, and what he's leaving behind. No physical weapons, so it's another fight with powers and brute force. Jack must be feeling reckless and ready to lose.

Siffleur will be happy to indulge him. He has learned well by now that Jack wants to be pushed to his limits, and he certainly isn't expecting mercy. That's what Siffleur really likes about him. He knows what he wants, and that's what Siffleur wants most in his prey/partner at the moment.

He waits until Jack is firmly deeply in the midst of the infinite sprawl before he chooses his point of attack. And as soon as Jack passes underneath, Siffleur pounces on him from on top of a winter display for men's fashion, throwing the full weight of his form into Jack's back to bear him down to the ground.

Jack's danced with Siffleur enough times by now to turn himself around the moment he hears a sound, before he even knows where that sound came from.

At the same time, he's clenched his fist and picked a plasmid - no fire this time, electricity while the cat's on him is a bad idea, so instead he's caked his fist in ice.

But rather than icing Siffleur over, he just uses the ice like a gauntlet and a weight, swinging the compacted ice into the cougar's face in the second before he lands.

But, momentum being what it is, Siffleur still lands on him, if perhaps not at the angle he originally planned. Jack honks out a wordless noise as he's knocked to the floor of the Tommy Bahama.

Siffleur gets punched in the face, something he's used to experiencing in human form, but never before as a cougar. It completely messes up his pounce and he slams bodily into Jack, the both of them rolling over the floor. He scrambles to get his paws under him, and his senses back, staggering behind one of the round racks.

His jaw aches as he moves it and tries to get his bearings. "Hell of a punch, Jack."

By the time Jack's able to process what's happening, he's already rising up to his hands and knees - or, knees, hand, and a block of ice over his fist.

"Thanks, thought I'd try something new." Jack says with a smirk, turning himself towards the voice.

He wonders if he can get away with that a second time? Though honestly, just the first time was a surprise already.

Aw, hell - as he gets to his feet, he lets his other hand ice over, too, and gets into more-or-less a boxing stance.

Siffleur glances around the corner once he has his brain a little more intact, and he lets out a soft chuff at the sight of Jack's fists encased in ice.

"It worked." He says, and then goes quietly as he slips through the clothes to circle around Jack. It gives Siffleur a chance to appreciate how Jack looks. It would be nice to see him box sometime.

He thinks about how to approach Jack and decides to come in from the ground. As he circles around Jack, he waits until he sees Jack's head move to look to the other side, and then darts in to do a running slash at the back of Jack's legs, aiming to hamstring at least one of them before darting back out.

Jack hears something, maybe the rustle of fur or the faint click of a claw on the floor, but it's enough to make him keep turning. Not enough for him to clear this attack, though.

Jack cries out as the claw cuts through his muscles, narrowly missing that critical tendon but still causing enough immediate pain and damage for him to buckle and stagger, and suddenly it seems completely bricking up his hand isn't that great of an idea after all, because he nearly knocks himself further off-balance by swinging them out.

"Fuck!" he spits as his knee hits the floor.

Siffleur circles around Jack, narrowly dodging the swinging blocks of ice. He can smell Jack's blood and he knows he didn't finish hamstringing him, but he certainly did some damage. Under other circumstances, he might end the fight here and now.

But Jack isn't here for a quick death, he's here to work things out, and so Siffleur just gives his shoulder a hard nip to draw more blood and then darts back off into the clothing to hide himself and give Jack more time to regroup and come after him.

As he prowls through the racks, he calls back to Jack. "Electricity. Ice. Fire. So many talents, Jack. So many elements under your skin. Show me all you have."

Jack pants the pain in his knee away, but even then, even as he feels the blood trickling over his neck, he's almost laughing at the edge of it. A breathy sound, and he switches gears.

Siffleur's seen a lot of what Jack has to offer, so this is really just flattering banter on his part, but that doesn't mean Jack isn't going to try. So he switches out, and as the ice melts, he raises his hands and pounds them against the floor.

The one on his right hand shatters, and Jack swings his freed hand up to reach for a rack of clothing, one right where Siffleur's voice was last. He's either about to steal the big guy's cover, or trip him up with the now-moving scenery, either way, maybe it'll keep him on his toes.

Jack's spot on - Siffleur's cover goes flying and he's left exposed with an almost humanlike expression of surprise on his face as Jack just yanks away the rack as if he had it on a string.

He darts to the right, back towards cover, just a little too slow.

Jack grins at the look on Siffleur's face. It's always hilarious to see a cat looking undignified, after all.

And indeed, that surprise has cost Siffleur, because all Jack has to do is let go, an action that's a fraction of a fraction of a second, and that rack will hit the cougar in the hips. It'll crack bone for certain, and Jack knows that won't mean an end to the fight with the way Siffleur drags it out, it would definitely be a major shift in the balance of it.

Jack shifts his fingers slightly, and the rack clips Siffleur's tail before it disappears behind a larger display.

He's barely missed by the rack, his tail smacked by it, giving him ample time to dart away and into the clothing, once again out of sight.

And for a moment, he's confused. Siffleur was fully exposed. It would have been easy for Jack to hit him - and to hit him hard. Instead it only got his tail.

He slows his run into a trot and creeps low on his belly to peek out between the racks at Jack. Should he say something? ... hmm. That might ruin the game entirely. No one enjoys being told they aren't playing right.

Still... He calls out - "What do you call that one?" and then keeps moving, not letting himself be easily exposed this round.

Edited 2023-01-01 08:38 (UTC)

"The power, or the move?" Jack asks, since it's not the first time he used telekinesis, but he doesn't often announce his powers mid-fight, so maybe Siffleur doesn't know the plasmid name yet?

Speaking of which - Jack yanks at the racks where he heard Siffleur's voice again, only this time the cat has clearly learned to move quicker, since Jack finds nothing but more racks and displaced clothes. He keeps the rack in his mental grip, though, loaded and ready for Siffleur's next attack.

"The power name." He calls back from a different point. Siffleur has his eye on the rack that Jack pulled away. Now that he's watching, he can see how it's not quite still anymore, held by an invisible hand or force. Held by Jack's will.

He slinks to another rack, and throws out another question, waiting to see if Jack will chuck the rack right at him. "Can you lift me with that?"

Jack has to turn to face that rack, and also hold onto the one in front of him while talking about his powers, so...

"Ah. Telekinesis, and no; for some reason I can't lift anything alive and moving. Or maybe just moving?"

Jack shrugs, and no, he doesn't throw the rack right back. Seems he's distracted.

Hmm...

This is terribly stupid on Siffleur's part, but he's never been one to resist his instincts, and they're all telling him right now to test exactly where the line is with Jack, and what he won't do.

So despite the rack in Jack's hand, he saunters out into the open and flops on his side, looking at him. He's a sitting duck like this. "Can you move me now?"

Ah ha!

Jack turns as he sees movement but- but stops abruptly, because Siffleur isn't moving fast, isn't even slinking low to the ground. He's just... walking, right out in the open, a move so antithetical to their usual fights that Jack nearly lets go of the rack his mind is holding. In fact, he leans forward, almost stumbles from having it nearly slip, and by the time he's straightened up, Siffleur is lying on the floor.

It's a clear shot, but it feels wrong to take it. So, he just... He just shuts his eyes to shut off his plasmid, the rack clattering to the ground like its strings are cut.

And then, since Siffleur asked, Jack opens his eyes and points his hand out to Siffleur, just to let him see what it feels like.

True to Jack's words, there's the feeling of formless pressure on Siffleur, something invisible trying get purchase, perhaps like mouthing an unknown object.

Looks like he's right - Jack doesn't want to hurt him, not like before.

He waits patiently to see if Jack can drag him around. He can't, but Siffleur does feel the telekinesis on him. It's trying to move him but can't seem to get a good grip. And the moment he sits up, he feels the pressure fade.

"Nothing living then." He says and trots over to rub against Jack's legs. Siffleur purrs as he does, and thinks deeply on if he should tell Jack that the killing instinct is gone. Does he feel off, or is this something deeper? And does Jack know? He might not. They have not talked about it, but Siffleur is certain he is the first person Jack has been intimate with regularly. He's been plenty of men's first man, but rarely anyone's first anything. Jack would not be the first man to fail to keep casual sex completely casual.

Also Jack did use a lot of emojis in his text. That means it could just be other things. He left it in Siffleur's hands to decide what to do, and so he decides that he doesn't want to kill and eat Jack right now. He'll do it later, when Jack won't hesitate to smash Siffleur into small bloody bits.

"Show me all your powers." He knows Jack needs a distraction and he doesn't need Siffleur prying at his mind for answers. This is an even better distraction than half-hearted killing.

Jack's mouth opens, but nothing comes out as Siffleur just casually walks over and starts rubbing against him? His hand, automatically, finds Siffleur's head and scritches around his ears. Jack's mouth shuts eventually but he's still at a loss for words, even after Siffleur's request.

When he finally speaks, it isn't to answer him, exactly:

"What's - did you change your mind?" Jack asks, the only thing he can think to say. "Are we not - fighting anymore?"

"Yes." Siffleur answers easily. "I do not want to kill or eat you, I want to watch you show off and then I want to lie on top of you for a few hours, maybe fuck, maybe not. Then maybe I will fight you later."

All true things. Jack's heart is not into fighting right now and Siffleur can't say why, but maybe the fight will come back in a bit, so he doesn't want Jack to leave. But also Jack clearly wants to be distracted, so Siffleur will be happy to distract him in other ways. He purrs as he's scratched, his eyes closing at how perfect those fingers dig into the spots he can't reach.

The nice thing about Siffleur is that he isn't shy about explaining his thought process, which leaves any failure to understand as entirely Jack's fault.

"Really?" Jack says. Maybe it's the blood loss from that near-hamstringing and the nip earlier (which is starting to hurt now that he isn't pumping adrenaline for a fight), but he feels like he's missing something. "Are you sure?"

He's missing something, and also there's something - just - unfinished about all this. What's going on?

"Yes." Though Jack clearly isn't happy with that answer. Siffleur presses his nose against Jack's palm and gives his fingers a few licks. "I like fighting you best when you're excited to fight but you don't feel very excited right now. Unless you just want me to kill you?"

It wouldn't be the first time, though Jack usually requests that after something embarrassing has happened, or they want to avoid having to speak to some people on the ship.

"I..." Jack starts, but he's just surprised Siffleur's decided Jack isn't excited to fight. Because he's...

Well, excited isn't the right word, no, but he's not trying to avoid the fight, either. He came here for a reason, because he felt - because he's restless and - because he needs to work this restlessness out of himself, but not in a kind way. He needs the strain of survival, so yeah, sure, he was drawing it out with Siffleur.

He's not sure how to phrase that and sound it right - but even if he did, it'd rely on Siffleur wanting the same, and... What if he doesn't? What if this is just a day where he feels - affectionate? He's been affectionate after they fuck, for sure, and he's heard a little bit about how Siffleur talks about him, but this is direct and with none of the other physical stuff happening first.

Well, other than just the violence, and minor at that.

Ultimately, Jack just... sighs. And pats Siffleur's head, and maybe leans a bit of his weight on him because ouch his leg fucking hurts.

"Ah." he says. "Well, I'm not not excited, but uh..."

All that other stuff said, he's not about to lie down and ask for Siffleur to kill him, either. That's the difficult part of all this. If he just wanted to die, he could handle that on his own. This isn't about dying, it's about getting killed, but just-

Yeah, this isn't an easy answer. Jack's shoulders sag as he accepts he doesn't have one yet.

Edited 2023-01-04 17:50 (UTC)

Siffleur watches Jack run out of words to describe his feelings and he just gives Jack's fingers a nip. He'll take his best guess then.

"You still want to fight." And lose. But Jack doesn't want to ask for it. He doesn't want it to be a mercy. He wants it to be earned.

Siffleur can do that. And to signal that it's back on, he turns the nip into a bite, his teeth tearing into Jack's flesh and into the bone, jerking his head to the side as he tears off one finger and then runs back into the jungle of clothing. The taste of flesh and blood in his mouth kickstarts his appetite again and he circles around Jack, slowly chewing and swallowing.

Jack's in the middle of shrugging through an answer when the teeth come down hard.

He screams and stumbles again from the pain and from being yanked forward before his flesh and bone give out, but as he clutches his injured hand and turns towards where Siffleur darted away, the scream dies out and laughter rises in it's place.

Heart pounding again, Jack swings his uninjured hand out, grabbing at the clothes rack he hid behind again and yanking it away. Only this time, instead of holding onto it as ammunition, he switches plasmids as he pulls back, leaving the rack to keep sliding somewhere into the store depths while his hand lights up with electricity.

He arcs a bolt towards Siffleur. Breaking his hips with the rack would have slowed Siffleur down earlier, even if he could recover, and Jack wants this to be hard. And that's also why the electricity is painful, but not as heart-stopping as it could be.

There it is - Jack's laugh at the tail end of the scream that sends Siffleur's heart pumping with delight. And when his cover is pulled away, there's no hesitation on Jack's part as he shocks him. It's Siffleur's turn to scream as the pain rockets through him, his muscles seizing up. He forces himself to run, even as he feels parts of his body tear.

The blood's still thick on his tongue and his throat and he starts to change, grinding himself into a partway state as he scrambles to get to cover-

Then soon as he's got hands, he grabs hold of a rack and throws it at Jack, another right behind it.

Jack gets a second or two more of laughter at the sound of Siffleur shifting and the movement of the rack, but then he has to act -

He catches the first rack with telekinesis, pulling it to an abrupt stop in front of himself. It saves him from the first impact, but not the second, when the next rack hits into the one he's holding like a cue ball in pool, slamming it into him. It shakes that rack out of Jack's mental grasp, firing it wildly as he stumbles over, tangled up in the clothes and hangers knocked free of the rack.

Siffleur doesn't quite dodge it, this blindly-fired rack clipping the side of his body. He can't feel how badly he might be hit, not when all of his body is aching and screaming from the transformation and from the lightning he took to the side. It makes it easy to charge in while Jack's tangled up, one clawed hand swiping at Jack's throat and chest and the other grabbing the loose rack to swing it around again and into Jack's side.

The claws draw a raw noise out of him over the tearing of flesh and fabric. Siffleur cuts his throat, just misses anything that'd end it quick, which means Jack feels his ribs cracking under the rack swung with Siffleur's might. The rack doesn't come out unscathed either, since it's built to hold clothes rather than serve as a weapon, but hey, Jack's not in a position to use it again, so that's fine.

Fire runs the risk of igniting something, which runs the risk of summoning Friday, and he wouldn't want her to see this. He's done electricity already, and he's not in a mind or an angle to make use of telekinesis, and bees - they're off the table for this kind of thing. There's only so much he'd want to subject Siffleur to.

Ice should be off-limits too for that reason, for the amount of damage that can cause to flesh, damage which might not heal as easily as cuts or bruises... But he's made it through broken bones before, and he said he wanted Jack to show him everything he has.

Jack's hand makes it to one of Siffleur's forearms, and it's ice cold for a moment. Only a moment, because the air around his hand freezes into a puff of icy mist as he turns Winter Blast directly on Siffleur's arm, a spread of pain that only comes from a freeze so cold that it burns.

His jaw is clenched, but his face is pulled tight into a grin as he watches Siffleur.

The ice BURNS, the pain so intense it even penetrates the usual haze of pain that insulates Siffleur during the worst of these fights. He screams, high and shrill and furious, feeling his arm dying through the transformation. Frostbite in an flash.

It's impressive. He'll tell Jack that later.

He's operating on instinct though, every other part of him focused on living. Jack's got a solid grip on Siffleur frozen forearm and he knows in an instant what will happen if he pulls.

Siffleur pulls.

The forearm does not tear off of Siffleur's elbow. It shatters there at the bend, frozen bone and blood on both ends, sharp and jagged. Siffleur leaves Jack's hand full, and he brings his forearm forward, shoving the snapped bits of petrified flesh and bone straight into Jack's throat to finish the job he started.

He's grinning right back at Jack as he does it.

Somewhere inside, Jack feels something like guilt for the stump of Siffleur's arm.

More immediately and literally, he feels the jagged, solidly frozen stump of Siffleur's arm slam into his throat.

A horrible, gurgling noise comes out of Jack, mostly involuntary. Blood spurts from his neck and his mouth, the wound is jagged and clumsy even with the help of an unnaturally frozen edge. But Jack can feel it starting, the pain throbbing through the adrenaline and the numbness lapping in at his extremities. A feeling not quite like floating, full-body lightheadedness, his pulse pounding through his ears, working harder and harder with what little he has.

He's already holding Siffleur's arm, technically, but his other hand moves, clumsily tries to find some part of him in reach. His hand, absent of any plasmids, just holds on.

Siffleur yanks the stump back, hot blood dripping down the frozen chunks of flesh. Jack is shocked, shirt staining dark red, his hand reaching for Siffleur and he steps in, his healthy arm wrapping around Jack's waist to pull him in tight.

He dips him in the store, surrounded by clothes, both of them bleeding and suffering, and he brings his mouth to Jack's. Siffleur's lips have all peeled back and there's nothing but a mouthful of teeth, some cougar, some human, all sharp and hungry, and they press against Jack's mouth.

And then, they dig into his throat as Siffleur bites down and eats.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I admit defeat, then I move my feet

2. Fight Club

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1

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cw brushing up against suicide even if it's not permanent

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cw: death/violence was already in effect but doubly so here and for the next few tags

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