jack_f_twist | (no subject)

(no subject)

The problem with working with horses, mostly, is that you end up smelly and sweating and unwilling to go back inside, even though it's more comfortable there. But you get used to the open space, and the work, and somehow going in to sit by the fire just seems stifling. Not to mention people look at you kinda funny when you smell like horse and hay.

Which is a long way of saying that Jack has opted to sit on outside this evening, smoking slowly and taking a few sips from a flask of whiskey that he'd smuggled out of the bar proper, watching the gray clouds roll slowly over the lake and forest. Feels like rain.

Fuckin' damp Scottish weather.

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She's got an umbrella, just in case. And a hat. Can't go wrong with a hat.

This happens to be one of those days where she's strolling by the lakeshore, skipping rocks every now and then.

"Hey, cowboy."

Jack glances over, catches his cigarette between the knuckles of two fingers and swings that hand down to his hip. The other comes up to tip his hat to her.

"Ma'am."

The umbrella, the hat catch his eye, and a corner of his mouth lifts in a smile.

"See you're well prepared. Looks like rain t'me."

"Could be. Never can tell, sometimes."

She gestures with the umbrella to the spot of ground next to him. "May I?"

"Not here, anyway. Always seems t'look like rain." It isn't really all that bitter, but Jack can no sooner stop bitching about things he's got no power to change than he can stop eating.

A nod, and he puts the cigarette back to his lips.

"Sure. Wouldn't mind some company."

The battered pack of smokes is taken out of his shirt pocket, and he tips it towards her. "Smoke?"

She plops down, setting the umbrella to one side and tipping back her hat.

Considers the pack of cigarettes. "Sure, why not?" Usually it's Desire's that she smokes, when she does. She takes a cigarette, taps it against the back of her thumbnail, and brings it to her lips.

"Got a light?" The cigarette bobs in her mouth, white-on-black-on white. There might be the upquirk of a smile.

There's a chuckle.

"Wouldn't have much use for smokes 'f I couldn't light 'em."

Jack produces a lighter from the pocket of his worn jeans, clicks a fluttering flame into existence and holds it up to light the cigarette for her. They aren't quite as good as Desire's, but Jack's never been much for fancy cigarettes, anyway.

"Thank y'kindly."

She draws the smoke into her mouth, letting it hit the back of her throat before it rolls out.

"Mmm. S'been a while." She flicks the teensy bit of ash off the cigarette. "So. How long have you been here?"

Jack squints up at a cloud, turning the days over in his head.

"Prob'ly 'bout a month, all told. Maybe more. Was here for a few weeks, left, came back again bout two weeks ago." He shrugs, takes a puff off his cigarette and lets the smoke out slow and contented.

"How 'bout you?"

"Oh. About forever. But I come and go as I please."

There's a small, secret smile on her face. The kind a cat has with canary feathers still stuck to the whiskers.

Jack's familiar with the smile, and it sparks an answering one on his own face. The reference to 'forever' he waves away as being metaphorical.

He has yet to realize that, if you think something is metaphorical here, it's probably more literal than you really want to know.

"Must be handy. I c'n leave, takes me a while to find this place again, though."

He puts a hand out to shake.

"Jack Twist."

She takes it. Not in a professional sense.

Her handshake is cool, and hard, like gunmetal.

"Death."

There's a pause, and he looks at her, hard.

Her hand in his is small, but not frail.

"That ain't a nickname, is it?" It isn't really a question. After all, Desire isn't a nickname, either, so Jack's learned.

She smiles.

It's beautiful.

"Nope."

It's the loveliest smile Jack's ever seen, a curve like that of the moon rising over the lake.

He nods, swallows.

"Didn't really think so."

Smoke, drifting out of her mouth, floating up in the air.

"Not here for you, though. If it helps."

He grins, a bit.

"Ma'am, I figure, if you was here for me, I'd a known it by now, wouldn't I?"

"Well, you never know. There could be some great damn bird that falls out of the sky and directly on your head. And then I'd have to be there."

She's grinning back.

"You let me know 'f that's gonna happen," he chuckles. "Though I guess it wouldn't rightly matter much, either way."

He glances back at her.

"Least I'd go lookin' at a pretty smile. Kinda do hope it ain't a bird gets me, though."

What a way to go that would be.

"Aww, you're sweet."

She takes one final drag on the cigarette before crushing it out.

"Gotta tell you, though, I've seen weirder."

"Yeah, I c'n bet."

His smile fades, slightly, and he fiddles with his own cigarette. He's seen Death before, but usually she's looked like a bull mistepping and crushing a luckless rider, or sounded like the sharp report of a gun and the crash as an elk falls to the ground.

He much prefers this.

She is what she is.

"I could tell you stories. But, somehow, I don't think you'd appreciate it that much."

"Can't say as I would, ma'am."

He turns his head to look over at her, smiles a little.

"You ain't so scary, like this."

"I'm glad."

He nods, half to himself.

"Shit. Really do got just 'bout every one, here."

That's half to himself, too.

"You got that right. Talking cars and sentient music and an intelligent rock... it's quite amazing."

She grins, a little.

"You wouldn't have any more of that whiskey, would you?"

"Sure do," he says, and passes the flask over with a lopsided sort of smile.

"Kinda growing on me, though. This place."

It helps, really, that Ennis is here.

Actually, that's likely the entire reason why.

She takes it, with a grin, and raises it toward him, a little. "Thanks." She sips, and makes the requisite whiskeyface.

"Mm. Yeah. It does that. It does that rather a lot, I find."

Jack grins at her. The whiskeyface is, like the rest of her, bewilderingly cute. Which isn't really a word that exists in his vocabulary.

"When it ain't shovin' you off your feet with surprises, anyway," he adds.

"You know..." she's regarding the flask, now, as if it holds secrets of the universe. Or episodes of South Park. "...there's not that much that shocks me anymore."

Sadly, it's just whiskey. And not even good whiskey, at that.

He snorts a light laugh.

"C'n believe that. Don't see how anyone could surprise you, ma'am."

She takes another sip. Whiskeyface! Again. And passes it back.

"It's rather difficult. I mean. Once in a while, it happens."

"Guess I prob'ly don't want a know what could do that, either."

He takes the whiskey back, takes a swallow of it himself. His whiskeyface is near nonexistent.

"You probably don't. Mostly, it involves my family. Which is rather an odd bunch, anyway."

"Ain't they always?"

Jack looks mildly amused.

"'Course, yours is prob'ly a hell of a lot stranger 'n most."

"Whooooooboy. Kiddo, you have no idea. None."

Well, he's met Desire.

But, yeah.

NO IDEA.

He chuckles, a bit, looks out at the lake.

"They all here, too?"

"Not all of them. But about half the family pops in from time to time." She grins. "You should meet Del. I think you'd like her."

Honestly, Jack probably would like her.

Del would totally understand the invisible bull-riding.

"Yeah? I'll keep an eye out. What's she look like?"

"Really, it depends on what mood she's in. She's rather hard to miss, in any case."

((ooc: My brain is dying. Slowtime?))

Well, that don't make much since to Jack, exactly, but he's been here long enough to figure out that maybe it's best not to question, and he only nods, lights another cigarette and smokes slowly, watching the cigarette smoke float in a gray cloud out towards the lake.

Strange, ain't it, how he can feel so warmed just by a smile, and maybe when he looks again, maybe the girl's still there and they chat for a while longer, talking nothing important, really--family and rodeo and life and what a funny thing it is.

Or maybe there's nothing but the curve of the moon rising over the lake.

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