Jack Harkness' room :: Mid-2005 timewarp AU :: Milliways

[othercaptjack]

Jack's room is mostly basic, it has to be said.

In fairness, he hasn't had much chance to make it his own - it has only been (ahem) somewhere private to go that is not the TARDIS for when he visits Milliways.

And since he is not Bound, for most of the time it stays empty, storing just some clean clothes and basic necessities (well - basic if you're Jack) and not much else.


There is this to be said for it, too:

The door may be locked, but it is not booby-trapped.

Lucky for some.

Comments

[oneman_onevote]

"Most likely."

Then again, Havelock is a contrary boy by nature.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

He smiles.

"So I do not strike you as a particularly perfidious brand of criminal, then?"

[oneman_onevote]

Havelock shrugs.

"You found reason to dislike your servitude, and you left. So far as I can tell, that seems to be the extent of it - the greatest injury I can see that causing is to your king's pride."

Which might be a crime in itself!

"And I do not set much store by kings."

...Or not.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck laughs, though only very quietly-- he has not forgotten that it is best to be stealthy for now.

"Hellebore is not so clever as some of my kin," he says.

"Belike another of the court should have put it better."

[oneman_onevote]

"I'm sure it would have been a fascinating tale," he remarks dryly.

"If possibly less believable."

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

He blinks.

"Less?"

[oneman_onevote]

"Hmmm."

Havelock is pretty sure he's got - whether Hellebore intended it or not - a fairly truthful version of events.

...Havelock reads through the lines a lot.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

"You found reason to dislike your servitude, and you left."

The voice is Havelock's, though it issues with thoughtful softness from Puck's mouth. He shakes his head and glances at Havelock, as if he'd like to laugh again or smile or snicker rudely.

Instead, he pauses.

"If I understand aright," he says, "the king shall be dreadfully busy just at present. But now that Hellebore shan't return ..."

A slight, faint shrug.

"It were one thing to track an erring servant and arrant knave ... but the murderer of a knight of the court is something else entire. I cannot say what he will do, should he come to suspect the two are the same."

And if he's honest-- though saints protect him from it-- there is part of him that wishes Oberon should come for him. Call it an ounce of vanity and a pound of affection.

Or is it the other way around?

[oneman_onevote]

"Ah," says Havelock, soft.

There is something in the way Puck speaks of the king - but perhaps he imagines things.

(It's unlikely. But one must consider all possibilities.)

"And could he not be prevented by anything or anyone here? I know the rules are enforced, but only by patrons."



Any all-powerful being crashing Milliways is everyone's problem, after all.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck's face: now entirely baffled!

"I have told you it shouldn't come to strife," he says. "Not for any other than myself. No matter who should come-- my lord, another messenger, the white-armed and dainty-footed Titania herself-- I have no friend here, nor any particular enemy to take an interest; the entire business shall be most clean."

[oneman_onevote]

And Havelock thought he was cynical.

...Perhaps in Ankh-Morpork he might have agreed, but he has seen the reponse this place has to infractions of the rules. Uneven the place's justice might be, but patrons certainly band together against interlopers.

(The current situation notwithstanding.)

And Hellebore was not the kind to make friends well among mortals. Puck... Well, he is abrasive - but he will talk to people, and has lived here peaceably enough.


Mildly, "Think you so?"

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

"I have no reason," says Puck, but he doesn't look so sure, "to think otherwise."

What exactly is the mortal getting at, anyhow?

Puck has been training himself to quash hope-- but all the same, he can't quite help feeling a little now. Brain-eating shambling corpses notwithstanding.

[oneman_onevote]

"Stranger things have happened."



...Speaking of.

The door rattles on its hinges momentarily, and there is a gutteral snarling sound from outside.

Havelock freezes, tense and ready to spring for the door should it be brought down.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck jumps, grabbing for the bottle. Upon giving the matter a moment's thought-- but no more than that-- he pops into view a few feet from Havelock, draining said bottle of its contents.

He thinks it has a rosy future as a bludgeoning tool.

Also: now he feels tingly.

"What is strange," he murmurs dryly-- though not so dryly as he might like. "That I think?"

[oneman_onevote]

"Right now?" Havelock says, blank and innocent as the emptiness of the bottle in Puck's hand; "Most everything, I would imagine."

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

"Do speak plainly," Puck mutters, very softly so that the increasingly loud groaning does not have cause to turn on them with any especial directness. "As I suspect my brains shall soon be set a-swimming."

(This is probably an exaggeration.

Probably.)

[oneman_onevote]

(That, or spilled across the floor!

Um.

Not by Havelock. Probably.)


"I try never to do that as a rule," he says, approaching the door cautiously to check the strength of the wood, and the weight of the frame against it once more.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

"I find rules dreadfully tiresome," Puck breezes.

He traipses along behind him with the bottle raised slightly, just in case the door should be brought down by the ravening undead. At the moment, all that seems to be imminent are groans and some impressive thumps.

[oneman_onevote]

"Whereas I study them with the greatest care," Havelock says, in much the same tone. "The better to know when to break them and exactly how far."

Disobeying the Guild is a very fine line, but constantly necessary.

There is a borderline obscene scraping coming from the other side, nails clawing at wood with no concern for them being torn away from bony fingertips. The assassin tightens the cloth wrapped around his fingers almost unconsciously, and eyes the door.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck winces at the screech, pleasantly.

"Do you?"

A smile flickers across his face.

"I see you are a singular sort, after all."

A moment of almost quizzical silence follows the scraping. Then, the noise redoubles, the broken-nails-on-chalkboard sounds interspersed with the same thumps against the door as before.

[oneman_onevote]

"Just careful."

So saying, he lifts the sword once more and paces a step to the side, still watching the door. It is rattling faintly under the onslaught from the other side, but seems to be holding for the moment.

But it won't forever, if that doesn't stop.

(His expression has gone vaguely calculating.)

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

"'Tis my understanding," Puck says, with a mirroring step to the opposite side (rather as if the door were some faintly shuddering creature they were stalking), "that care itself is exceeding singular."

Holding the bottle aloft, he glances about the room once more.

"Some other place," he notes, "may have a window."

[oneman_onevote]

"Yes," Havelock agrees, and goes to the wardrobe, still eyeing the door.

"Although reaching it may present a slight problem."

He opens the door to begin a search, although what he expects to find is unclear.

(Narnia, perhaps.)

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Without turning, Puck says curiously, "Is there aught of interest?"

Zombies may be breaking down the door, but he wants to know what's in the box!

[oneman_onevote]

"Hmm," Havelock responds; a vague, distracted hum.

It seems the resident of this room is quite the military man, although of a type Havelock has never before encountered.

He also has a collection of esoteric sexual devices in a case at the bottom quite unrivalled even by Rosie Palm herself. Havelock is puzzled, but mildly impressed at how complete a set it is.

He tactfully leaves those be, once he determines there is nothing particularly helpful contained within, and switches to searching the pockets of each jacket hanging above.

He feels cold metal, in a shape unfamiliar to him, and draws it out slowly.