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

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck slides back out of his seat and trips along towards the aperture in the wall, glancing back at Havelock over his shoulder.

"'Twere better you should be first," he says.

Havelock is bigger. After everything he's escaped in the past day, Puck's not gonna risk dying now by getting crushed by an assassin.

[oneman_onevote]

Oh, now, Havelock would never crush him.

(There are so many more efficient and less risky ways to kill someone, after all.)

But Havelock only shrugs and swings himself up and onto the little platform, folding up gracefully into the small space.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck pauses, then follows, negotiating the remaining space with great gingerness.

He doesn't actually have to do much but clamber round him; there's room enough here that they can both fit side by side. (As long as the sides are very close indeed, and as long as Puck braces himself slightly to hold himself back.)

It is quite something, to be so near the heat of another body and the beat of another heart. Puck glances to the mortal's face, brief and wry.

[oneman_onevote]

Havelock obligingly shifts himself as need be, keeping flat against the sides of the shaft as far as he can - for politeness' sake.

Not that politeness holds much sway just now, and trying to hold to it too rigidly is both foolish and impossible. Still, Havelock waits a moment for Puck to settle himself - light and warm and very close - and looks back as calm and impassive as ever before reaching to shut the hatch and plunge them into near-darkness.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

He would.


Puck is hardly afraid of the dark, his kin being betimes more familiar with it than the sun. However, there is little love among the fairies of the wood for metal cages.

His breath sounds loud to him on this descent, huffing off the close walls. Even the gearish creakings don't seem enough to mask it. Havelock is near and alive, and his own breathing clearly audible; Puck resists an urge, childish if he had ever been a child, to bury his face in his chest.

Admittedly, in the dark and the close, that particular tangent offers its own distractions.

[oneman_onevote]

Havelock appears blithely unaware of any such possible tangents, simply holding still and waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

The air flickers between warm and cool as they travel between floors (the number of which seems to be prodigious) and slowly Puck appears through the gloom, in dim silhouette.


Perhaps he should have drawn a weapon before shutting the door? It is certainly too close in here to do so now.

But he thinks... maybe not.

With a rattle, the cage begins to slow, nearing the bottom of the shaft.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck can't quite tell what is happening; the mechanisms of the thing all seem to whirl at once, disguising their direction. When the thing gives a bump and a clank, his fingers clench abruptly over-- nothing.

But a hiss escapes his lips.

[oneman_onevote]

Havelock looks over, but can still make out nothing of his face. He hadn't thought, but perhaps it makes sense - it's hardly a natural environment for a faerie. It's odd, because Puck always seems... not necessarily at ease, but fitting in any situation.

With one last jolt, they stop moving, but Havelock pauses to listen intently to the silence.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck stops his breathing from speeding, but there isn't much he can do about the bumping of his heart.

[oneman_onevote]

"I think so," says Havelock, very soft, and moves carefully forward to listen against the front of the cage, ignoring the way their legs knock against one another, and shoulders bump as he shifts in the confined space.

It would not do to walk into a gaggle of those undead creatures, after all.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck is really having trouble focusing on the task at hand.

He would like to listen against the door himself, but that might bring him a little too close to Havelock's shoulder and his side.



... Puck presses forward to peer and listen out, with what he personally considers to be reckless abandon.

[oneman_onevote]

Havelock really wants to look round right now, but doesn't because a) it is still completely dark and b) that's fairly irresponsible behaviour when in the middle of reconaissance.

Instead he remains as still as he can - and that is considerably.

Is there movement out there?

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck thinks he can hear-- something.

Something, that is, that is neither their breaths nor their two hearts nor the arrant scampering of mice and associated vermin in the dark.

[oneman_onevote]

There is- but nothing definite.

And nothing close by, that is for certain.

(Also, Havelock absolutely does not jump a little at the soft sound of Puck's voice so near behind him.)

"Let's find out," he murmurs back, and releases the lock on the hatch to slowly slide back the doors.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck experiences a temptation, so strong he thinks he's really going to do it, to grab Havelock's arm and pull him back.

But nobody is so alluring that they're worth getting eaten alive for, and for only a kiss.

So instead he slides past him and out, taking in their new surroundings.

[oneman_onevote]

That is probably for the best at this stage.

Havelock lets Puck slip out past him, gazing intently over his shoulder and across the room. Being a kitchen, it is fairly large and open - with any number of corners and bulky equipment where danger could lurk. Hardly ideal, but at least the light is marginally better.

He drops down himself - stretching out one cramped arm - and draws his sword again, cautious.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck pops up onto one of the tables, a long one strewn with cutting boards, abandoned produce, and knives.

It looks as though there was some kind of struggle, but nobody's here.

"How perfectly dreadful," he murmurs absently, kicking at a half-head of lettuce.

[oneman_onevote]

"Untidy, certainly," Havelock agrees, absently picking up a kitchen knife in one hand and weighing the balance.

(What? They look like they have a decent edge.)

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck had considered taking one, but figures he'll wait until a sign of trouble.

It isn't as if they're going anywhere, after all.

"The corners, then?"

He's already picking his way along the tabletop towards an unpromising patch of darkness. The growing chill in the air denotes either demonic presence or a meat locker.

[oneman_onevote]

Havelock nods and obediently falls in behind him - just enough in reach to lunge at any sign of trouble.

There are still sounds just at the edge of hearing, which are making him feel even edgier than he has all day. Not knowing for sure whether they are a legitimate threat is just insult to injury.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck sadly does not know the rule that there are Always Zombies in the Meat Locker.

He does know that he's still hungry, which is why, when he spots the colander of strawberries, he picks it up and begins to pop them voraciously into his mouth (leaves and all) as he approaches the metal door.



"... Do you hear a tapping?" he inquires of Havelock, mouth slightly full.

[oneman_onevote]

Tragically, Havelock doesn't either, but he does know that small confined spaces are at their most dangerous after a period of tense but falsely reasssuring quiet.

(You don't survive long in Ankh-Morpork, or indeed anywhere in Havelock's world, without certain instincts.)

"Yes," he says, even softer than before, and follows just a little closer.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck rises on tiptoe to peer in the window, but can't quite manage it.

A hop carries him to the right height; after the first one, he hastily eats a few strawberries and tries it again.


"I see there may be some of our creatures," he tells Havelock, "as well as a quantity of meat."

But hungry as he is, he'd rather eat lettuce. Icky dead dudes getting their icky deadness all over perfectly beautiful food.

"Perhaps we should be best served to leave them to it."

"Graghdadk ..."

"Oh dear," Puck mutters, with the intonation one typically expects of an expletive.

[oneman_onevote]

"Shut the door," says Havelock, still low but with extreme urgency, and shoves at it himself.

They can do without multiple attackers.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

Puck, perceiving that Havelock seems to mostly have it covered where the big metal door is concerned, reluctantly parts with the strawberries and takes up a knife to follow the new source of guttural groaning.

"Gragh ... nngh ... god dammit ..."

The fairy blinks.