Re: [Jester's Court: Cat & Jack]
Jack caught the tail-end of the Sasha remark. Christ, he hadn't thought about Sasha in months. There was no one - barring, perhaps, Leena - who Jack had an idea could claw past Cat's old, groomed exterior to the viscera underneath. It was messy, Sasha, he knew that much. Messy and complicated and what wasn't, in Cat's life? He didn't linger long on Sasha, didn't know her, and contempt for how she'd treated Cat was far easier if he didn't consider Sasha in and of herself as anything other than an extension of Catalone.
But Eddie. "All right, Eddie's lost. And finding himself. I'm picturing India, by the by. Bells, robes, a lot of romantic red dust." He had no idea his interrogation technique re-established the points in the world that made up navigational handles for Cat: Jack's were simple. Newt, to a large degree was steadfast. And Cat, Cat was or always had been the map to chart a course by. But Cat took the lighter, and Jack accepted it back without comment.
"Probably," Jack examined the end of his own cigarette, "So they couldn't be accused of disappointing a woman when it came to comparisons." He flashed a grin and he followed along the midway and pulled in a direction toward the lights and the screams and the creaking metal of the rollercoaster. And no, he was wandering in Cat's wake - and he caught a catch, a little and then Cat was speaking more frankly than he could remember in history.
He wasn't sober. He wasn't clear-headed enough to think or rationalize or tread glass to find the precise combination of words that wouldn't fuck it up. "Who you are is different. You were different when you lost two or three decades. You were different after, you're different now. Who's judging you?" He breathed in smoke and he exhaled as he tucked the lighter into his pocket, the former owner long since left in the wake. "Fuck them. You're who you are. Whoever you are," it wasn't avuncular. Christ knew he couldn't stretch to avuncular when it came to Cat, even clad in hipster-boy and trailing confusion and indecision and 'so fuck it, then' in her-his wake.
No, Jack stood at her shoulder, having caught there in long strides and told the world to get fucked. "Everyone doesn't really get a say," and he looked toward the advert for the Hall of Mirrors. "You do. Do you want to look at a fucked up version of yourself, or scream?" He meant the rollercoaster.