🏴‍☠️ IC contact; Duplicity

[calicoat]

INBOX text / audio / video / action "Captain Jack Rackham. Leave a message, or speak to me face to face like an adult." code credit

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[calicoat]

My GLORY DAYS, as you so disdainfully put it, were not even under that banner, or the city would not have given it to me to hurt me, John. I have proposed it in tribute to the man from whence this scheme was born in the first place, but I have never been opposed to a new one, providing that the messaging is clear and coherent.

I would rather impress the fucking kraken than make a decision based on what might offend Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, an institution which does not exist here, has done more damage than every pirate crew combined from Avery’s to mine, and would have killed you too, had Hickey not beaten them to it.

｟ 1/2 ｠

[extramuralise]

Well you're certainly MORE than welcome to offer me feedback that's actually helpful next time, rather than demand I construct you an entire blessed Mythos about it!

Oh and lest I neglect to mention, get rid of the dove but leave the Skull - I'm not going to redesign for you another Pirate Flag!

Exactly what is so incoherent about it in the first place??

｟ 2/2 ｠

[extramuralise]

[ But then... a long sequence of the typing bubbles bouncing and then disappearing follows, carrying on that way for a few minutes before it disappears again, and stays gone.

Then, several minutes later still: ]

Do not speak to me that way.

[calicoat]

Oh, please. I’m not asking you to write the fucking Iliad, just tell me how the two relate, and if you can’t, find a pairing that does!

What way is that? Like I know where that poison in your head comes from?

[extramuralise]

Fine then, I WILL.


I beg your pardon. The what in my head.

[calicoat]

The poison. The same shit that makes you ashamed of what you really want, and kept you from being honest about you who are, even to yourself, that makes you still uncomfortable in your own skin.

You're not pissed off at me about the fucking skull, you're upset because England shipped you off to your death for just the chance that a handful of rich men might get richer for it, and you can't muster up the balls to be angry at them for it. You don't like that there are men who can, you don't like that it upsets the balance of things, and you don't like that I am proud to be among them. You are so uncomfortable with it that you would rather cling to those things which do not even exist here than fly a symbol of the rebellion that you, more than most, are owed.

That poison.

[extramuralise]

[ At least this conversation isn't happening in person, so Jack is denied the potential satisfaction(?) of getting to see Irving's jaw drop upon reading all that. It hurts, but probably especially because, though he'd deny or disagree with most of it, he can still recognize an uncomfortable amount of truth there, too. ]

Is that really what you think of me.

[calicoat]

[ It wouldn't be satisfying, to see him look like he's been slapped, because he's not saying it to hurt him, or to shock him, even if it does. He's saying it to wake him up. He's had so much patience with this shit, but right now, with the clock ticking and Anne still asleep, he doesn't have the time. It goes beyond the damn flag, but reflects on how they're going to run this ship together. They need to be on the same page, and as Jack's the only one here who has captained a ship of any kind, it is, by necessity, his page. ]

I think you're afraid to let go of that conditioning, because you know no other way to be.

Tell me I'm wrong.

[extramuralise]

We are not discussing this, Jack.

I refuse to have this conversation with you as long as you continue to behave like such a surly little ruffian.

[ Which is not to say that under regular circumstances he would be opposed, at least, to considering it. To beginning to circle the idea. But right now he's Big Upset. ]

[calicoat]

I'm not being any surlier than you are.

[extramuralise]

You wrote that I haven't the b**** to feel angry with the Royal Navy, and that they'd have killed me if not for Hickey having already murdered me first. That my head is filled with poison. I think you owe me an apology.

[calicoat]

They would have. Your entire crew is dead. In the eyes of the Royal Navy, and of England herself, you were expendable. They told you to go where no man should go, refused to heed the signs urging them otherwise, never came to your rescue, and couldn't even be arsed to feed you anything but lead. Your death, Jopson's death, all of them, are on their hands.

Why the fuck are you not angry? Poison is the only way I can even attempt to explain it.

[extramuralise]

No, Jack. Whatever circumstances might have led to and fostered it, my death is still on Hickey's hands. My hunting party had found help, and food, just before it happened. Some of us might still have lived if not for him, no matter how bleak our situation had been before.

And stop saying that!

[calicoat]

Is that really why you're not angry? Because SOME of you MIGHT have lived, if the stowaway you had mutilated hadn't acted up?

I'm not saying that he is without fault, but that he made it onto the Terror in the first place is just another way the Navy failed you.

[extramuralise]

The stowaway that I had mutilated.



Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you don't always KNOW how I feel, Jack.

[calicoat]

Tell me, then. The truth, not the company line.

[extramuralise]

I don't have to tell you everything.

[calicoat]

And I'm the surly one.

[extramuralise]

I'm not being surly. [ Okay, well... he is. ] Some things I prefer to keep private within my poisonous head.

[calicoat]

It isn't your fault. It was put there from when you were a boy, like any good Englishman. But you can cast it off.

I'm headed back down to my flat. Let's talk face to face.

[extramuralise]

Fine. Then I'll see you there.

[calicoat]

[ Yes, he has been arguing back and forth via text from Anne's bedside all evening, what about it? Better that than just stare at her like a creep, his only hobby for the past few weeks. But Orla's home from work, so she's going to relieve him, give him a chance to wash up and attempt to eat something. So, why not invite Irving over? He'll figure out if he wants to kiss him or strangle him when he gets here.

The door swings open seconds after Irving knocks, Jack only wearing sweatpants and the water he's splashed on his face. It's only just enough to keep his expression neutral, instead of letting the jittery irritation show. Rather, it manifests in his hands, tapping quickly and erratically against the door moulding.

He doesn't say anything, just holding the door open for Irving to come in. If there's going to be yelling, he doesn't need Grace to hear it. ]

[extramuralise]

[ Rather than neutral, Irving still looks nearly every bit as livid in person as he would have seemed over text, his face flushed and eyes wild, jaw tense, hands opening and closing restlessly into loose fists at his sides. His anger has cooled slightly during the walk over, the parts of him still not entirely blinded by irrationality aware enough that, yes, he will actually want to make up with Jack rather than remain furious and hurt -- he loves this man, after all, doesn't he? -- but for the moment, he's still not quite thought that far ahead yet. Irving feels things very strongly, when he feels them at all, it's difficult for him to ever think past what he's currently feeling until he's already found a way of moving on emotionally.

Right now though, he's still angry. Still hurt. He clenches his jaw, staring Jack down as he closes the door behind him, and tilting his chin slightly upward in making a pointed effort not to let his gaze sweep down over Jack's bare upper body. ]

Well, let's hear it, then, [ he says brusquely, gesturing with his arm as if prompting Jack to go on. ] Apologize for what you said about me.

[calicoat]

[ He crosses his arms defensively in front of him, taking a breath as soon as he sees the steam practically coming out if Irving's ears, waiting to be told off. On exhale, he realizes that isn't happening (yet), and relaxes only the smallest bit. The arms stay crossed, suddenly feeling vulnerable in a way he doesn't like, though he didn't mean anything by his state of undress besides the fact he's trying to relax in his own home.

Jack meets his eyes, and doesn't back down from them, full of fury as they are. There's a fire in his too, more controlled, but only just. ]

No. You needed to hear it, and frankly, it's long overdue. You should apologize, for spending so much time trying to avoid  who I am, as if it were beneath you.

[ It doesn't occur to him for a minute that they wouldn't work through this and make up. His love is not so fickle, and he knows that it isn't something Irving takes lightly, either. Even so, for the other to be so staunchly against something so minor in the grand scheme of things, but important to Jack, might as well be a rejection. ]

You don't get to dismiss parts of me that are inconvenient for you. That isn't how this works.

[extramuralise]

I-- [ He blinks, falters for a beat, heart racing, momentarily at a loss for words. Then, like Jack: ] No.

[ Maybe this was a mistake. Irving isn't quite sure what he expected to happen here, how he thought this all would go, but that Jack would actually refuse to apologize to him for the truly hurtful things he'd written -- most of which Irving would still deny or disagree are true, therefore making them all the more inflammatory -- and then also demand that Irving apologize instead, was certainly not it. The accusation Jack levels back at him makes Irving bristle and immediately become defensive, all the usual openness to his demeanor which he offers freely to Jack only locking down all at once with the abruptness of a door slamming shut.

(He does know, though, that it's not really a mistake, obviously he wouldn't want them to just stay angry with each other indefinitely, or Heaven forbid, fall out over this, but--

But he shares none of the same confidence that Jack holds in the strength and commitment of his love, he has no context with which to know if a fight like this is normal, if everything that's finally been dragged out into the open are things which love can actually recover from. What does he know, really, about love? Almost nothing.)

After a drawn-out silence, spanning maybe 30 or 40 seconds as he's caught briefly within his own speechlessness, Irving clenches his jaw and tenses his shoulders, looking appalled as he keeps his wide-eyed glare level with Jack's. When he does speak again he keeps his voice low, but for once it's stern rather than soft, something grave and unyielding about it. ]

Aren't you one to talk. As if I can't tell how you really feel now, as well. [ He touches his chest, over his heart, before closing his hand like a claw around a handful of shirt. ] You think I deserved it, don't you. What he did to me.

[ The stowaway that you had mutilated.

It seems so obvious, but then, didn't he also know this already? Suspected it, at least. There are reasons, after all, and good ones, too, for why Irving has shoved all his memories of that dream down as deep, deep inside himself as possible.

Yes, there is much of Jack's piratehood which Irving finds quite unsavory, much of it he does prefer to avoid, or at least avoid acknowledging, but is that really so wrong? He doesn't see what the difference is between that and Jack's own vocal disrespect for the Royal Navy. ]

I've defended you, time after time from the only other man in this whole city whom I couldn't bear to lose now. And from-- [ Actually, he reconsiders bringing up Victor. ] From... others who might accuse you. But can you really blame me, Jack, if there are still parts I would also rather be able to just forget about?