fashion wears out more apparel than the man (for eliot)

[jackrackham]

Jack looks down at the phone screen, frowning as he tries to figure out how to navigate the map that Eliot had sent him. In the end, he pulls up a static map instead and finds the appropriate street there. Eliot had said to leave his sword behind and, while he knows that is probably the most prudent decision given how few people in Darrow seem to be armed on a daily basis, it still makes him feel a little wary. This place is strange and he doesn't know what dangers to expect.

He keeps his dagger tucked into his belt. Hopefully Eliot won't object to that.

As he leaves, he tucks the scarf that Eliot had lent him around his neck. He'll have to return it today, but it proves useful on the walk over to the mall. He's familiar with the large building where Eliot had said to meet, but hadn't given much thought until now about what might be inside of it. Whatever is there, he feels better about having a little guidance at navigating it.

He spots Eliot and gives a brief wave to catch his attention before shoving his hands back into his coat pockets. Eliot looks just as put together as he had the last time Jack met him, but he notices the addition of a dark sweater under his coat. He thinks that he did make a good choice in asking Eliot for help with this. He could have found a warm coat on his own, but Eliot will know which coats are more fashionable than others. That, and he would like to learn a little more about him and his magic. He can still barely believe that magic exists, and he has a hard time picturing the sort of world that Eliot comes from.

He rounds his shoulders forward a bit and looks over at Eliot, nodding towards the building rather than stopping outside in the cold. "Thank you for your help," he says. "I appreciate it."

Comments

[eliotwaugh]

“Oh,” Eliot’s voice goes a little high as he straightens up at the realization that Jack has presumably been staring at his face while he looks at the selection of denim. It’s not entirely unexpected, he supposes, and the question isn’t rude so much as...startlingly direct, when most of the people Eliot’s met in Darrow seem too polite to ask about the deformity. And if he’s a little uncomfortable, well. It’s nothing serious.

“No it’s always been like that,” he answers after a moment. “I like to think that somewhere back in the family tree there’s a Habsburg bastard, but if you were to ask my parents or other similarly small-minded churchy folk, they’d probably say it was all down to God-“ and here Eliot rolls his eyes, just to make it clear where he stands on that point, “-as some sort of means to teach me humility. But obviously that’s bullshit.” He snorts in amusement and smiles at Jack just a little, to show there’s no hard feelings. There’s no angst about it, certainly, and he pivots smoothly back to what he’d been wondering before Jack asked.

“Anyway,” Eliot says, “there’s fitting rooms nearby, that’s no trouble, but can you really do your own alterations?” He looks at Jack with interest, not necessarily as a useful resource, but it’s not what he expected. “Of course I imagine there’s a certain amount of mending you need to do when you’re living at sea but, huh, that’s a bit more specialized, what you’re talking about. Where does a pirate learn to do that?”

[jackrackham]

Jack returns Eliot's smile cautiously, aware of the pause and moment of indecision that his question caused. It was a straightforward enough question, but perhaps too invasive for Eliot's liking. Maybe, given how he talked about his parents, it's something connected to deeper things than bone structure.

When Eliot moves on, Jack allows the shift, but wonders idly how much worse Eliot's parents really were. Whatever they were, he at least knows that they were wrong on this particular count. Humility is an overrated virtue, and it never did him any good.

"Very few pirates start out that way," he says, coming around near Eliot to join him in looking over the denim. "My father was a tailor." He pulls a pair of jeans out enough to read the tag and decipher the sizing, but his focus is more on what he's saying. "When he died he had debts that fell to me, and my options for remittance were limited, to say the least. So I left. But if circumstances had been different, it's entirely possible that I would be stitching together shirts right now instead of standing here trying to decipher fashion two hundred years past my time."

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot's relieved to get past the brief moment of awkwardness, and intrigued by Jack's explanation of where he'd come from. "Well that sounds like a sensible decision, given the circumstances. And now you're famous, so there that. Huh," he says, looking over Jack's clothes again. It still doesn't mean anything coherent to Eliot but if there's a knowledgeable aesthetic sensibility behind the look, so much the better. "Okay, so then is this like, very fashionable, where you came from? You want to look that stylish but for modern times?" Eliot considers the selection and hands him a pair of darker wash jeans. This at least is easy to explain. 

"So these started out as like, utility clothes for laborers, hard-wearing twill, copper rivets and all, but most everyone wears them these days. And the higher-quality ones can get very expensive and very fashionable. I'd recommend a darker shade unless you want to look like a farmer." Eliot gives a dramatic shudder. "I myself like to look a little more formal, but that's just..." Just a mix of his age-old aversion to anything from his rural youth, and missing the splendor he'd enjoyed in Fillory. But that's a more complicated subject than he really wants to get into right now. "I'd gotten used to the sort of magical-medieval style garb in the world I came from but I can't exactly go around wearing leather pants every day here." He smirks at the thought. "With my ass? I'd cause a scene."

[jackrackham]

"Is that why you wear long coats, otherwise you wield to much power over women?" Jack snorts a quiet laugh and looks down at the pair of jeans, feeling the fabric. It's fairly rough, and he's not sure that he likes it, but he does imagine they would be hard-wearing.

"Fashionable might imply that I have any interest or care about what people in London are wearing. This is-" He wavers a moment tilting his head first to one side and then the other as he tries to decide how much he wants to explain and if he even can explain in a way that Eliot might understand. "I had a thought to be a refined version of an image one might find printed on a broadside. Something romantic and dangerous." He gestures down to himself, without looking up from the clothing on display. "Behold, the villain." He catches Eliot's eye briefly, his lips lifting up into a smile that holds a touch of something tight, like grief. "It was never an effective impression on other pirates." In the beginning, he'd wanted to look the part, but it quickly became something else. A way to be memorable, and to be himself. He'd thought that, once and for all, he'd been done with trying to impress people, but Teach had looked at his fine clothes with such disdain and immediately he'd wanted to explain himself.

He looks away, and huffs out a laugh. "Sometimes it's only about wearing very nice things" He kneels down, trying to change out the pair of black jeans that Eliot had handed him for a pair in a smaller size, but once he's pulled one out he realizes that this pair is different. "...If I'm wearing boots, should I be wearing boot-cut jeans?"

[eliotwaugh]

For a moment Eliot's too startled by the assumption to respond, other than a rather nervous laugh. He feels annoyed, and then irritated at himself for feeling annoyed, because of course it isn't Jack's fault that he doesn't know these things. It's just a little absurd that Eliot now has to explain himself, here and now in this retail space, when he thought he was safely past this sort of horseshit at this stage in his life.

Jack keeps talking, though, and it takes Eliot a bit to catch up, managing a grin as Jack describes himself as a villain. There's an insecurity, he thinks, something more than just the temporal displacement, that's familiar to Eliot even if they go about it differently. A desire to be seen and understood, and Eliot feels the need to offer reassurances.

"Well," he says, trying to sound light, "you certainly look like the Platonic ideal of a pirate to a modern audience, anyway. You could do a lot worse than romantic and dangerous, though I'd...steer away from a boot-cut. They're for a completely different type of boot," Eliot explains. "And they're just generally not good, makes for an odd silhouette and a lot of fabric bunching up around your legs if you tuck them in."

It's a natural point at which to move on, to take stock and direct Jack to the fitting rooms and consider this leg of the quest, as it were, complete. Eliot fidgets for a moment before he speaks again. "Just to be clear," he says, hating that he has to do this, "because this is one of those things that people in the current day just seem to be able to tell about me and obviously you're at a cultural remove, but...I've only ever been attracted to men." He smiles, trying to be polite and hopeful, but it's a brittle thing. "And, well. It's really nothing personal but I don't know what the...the social norms were like in your time. And if the thought of associating with a sodomite bothers you, I'd prefer to know now and we can just...go our separate ways. I'd rather not try to carry on a friendship with someone who thinks I'm a degenerate sinner, you understand."

Eliot feels a little sick after he's said it, and part of him wants to apologize for issuing such a sudden ultimatum, but for his own peace of mind he needs to know where they stand. He risks a glance at Jack, hoping that it'll somehow just...be all right.

[jackrackham]

Jack smiles at the idea of being someone's ideal pirate, and takes in the advice about the jeans. He shoves the bootcut jeans back into the little shelf and reaches up a little higher to find a pair of jeans that match the pair Eliot had picked out. He's still kneeling on the floor when Eliot changes the subject and he's concentrating more on picking out what he hopes is the correct size than what Eliot is saying.

He grunts as he stands back up, just in time for Eliot to get to his point. He focuses on Eliot's crooked smile and opens his mouth to say something, but before he can think of anything to say or ask why he's telling him this now, Eliot continues on. It seems that these days not much has changed for general attitudes about men fucking other men, if Eliot is this worried about what he thinks of him.

"I don't care who you fuck, Eliot." He looks down at the clothes in his arms and chuckles, feeling awkward with the topic and not entirely sure why. Maybe it's just that it seemed to come out of nowhere. "And If one of us is a degenerate sinner, I doubt a predilection for buggery would tip the scale in your favor." Jack doesn't imagine that Eliot is very prone to violent crime, especially not the sort that happens aboard a pirate ship.

He glances back at Eliot, checking in before turning to look at a pair of pants that aren't made of denim. "...in London you could have been hanged for it if you angered the wrong person, but plenty of men on-ship have ah- arrangements." He shrugs. "It's decidedly not for me but- It's not uncommon. If the crew functions better for it and it's not causing problems then I don't give a shit what they get up to."

[eliotwaugh]

It's a uniquely terrible feeling, the waiting, and Eliot studies Jack for a reaction of shock or revulsion or outrage at the admission, to see if he's just killed this friendship in its cradle. 

But there's...none of that, he realizes, and he lets out the breath he'd been holding with a little laugh of relief. Jack's a bit awkward about it but he's just...maybe a bit awkward in general, Eliot thinks. He honestly seems more concerned about finding the right size of jeans than reevaluating his opinion of Eliot, and that's...something. Something good, Eliot decides, even if it's rooted in avoidance out of discomfort it's a better place to start from than outright hostility. He can work with that. 

"Huh," he says, both at Jack's relative nonchalance and the tag on the pair he's holding. How thin is he? But he keeps talking, and the explanation he offers sounds a bit like the old rote 'I have gay friends,' but Eliot realizes it's more that Jack just...doesn't care. Which is wildly fucking refreshing, and he quirks an eyebrow at the mention of arrangements; that's certainly something to follow up on. 

"Well that's...good to know, I suppose." Eliot takes a moment to fuss with his coat, folding it over his other arm since he's starting to get too warm. It gives him something to do while he works out what to say. "I have to say I'm surprised," he says eventually, careful. "Not about England, of course, they've always been rather terrible about that sort of thing but...well. I guess I just didn't expect pirates to be that accepting. My mistake."

He doesn't know much about real pirates, truth be told, though he was always rather enamored of the pirates in the Fillory books. The ones in The Secret Sea Eliot remembers fondly, though he supposes even they weren't real pirates but nobles masquerading at piracy to avoid their enemies. He'd liked the captain in particular, an exiled duke seeking justice for a crime he didn't commit. Very compelling stuff, the sadness behind the facade; romantic and dangerous, just as Jack's said. 

"Wonder if I could have made a go of it," Eliot muses, looking at a shelf of skinny velvet jeans. He picks out a pair in dark berry red for himself. "What do you think, mixing swashbuckling and sorcery? That would probably get results, right? Anyway," he looks around, spotting the doorway to the fitting rooms not far off. "You've got enough things to try on for now, if you'd like." Or if they need a change of subject; Eliot wants to make sure the option's available. 

[jackrackham]

Jack considers his armful of clothing and nods to the idea. He still needs a coat, but paring down this collection will make him feel a little less ridiculous walking around the store. He heads that way, trying to organize his armful as he goes.

He's amused at the idea of Eliot aboard a pirate ship, either as a crewman or any higher rank, and for a moment he tries each position in turn, thinking of Eliot trying to live that life. He's a smart man, clearly, but Jack can't imagine Eliot willing to kill a man to obtain a prize. "Depends what the sorcery is in aid of." Eliot did say that battle magic exists, but the last time they talked Eliot seemed like he didn't enjoy the idea. Jack glances in his direction and raises his eyebrows, questioning. "I thought you didn't like getting your hands dirty."

[eliotwaugh]

"Well that's true of course, I don't," Eliot agrees as they approach the fitting rooms. "But I wouldn't need to get into, you know, the thick of battle if I could simply strike someone with lightning from a ship's length away." He's done it before, during the quest for the keys, to give Bingle and the other fighters a bit of an advantage. But that sort of intimidation play is only really useful at the start of things, Eliot's found, because once a fight turns messy it gets harder to be precise. "Still, I find it's preferable to resolve things peacefully before it comes to that. Better for everyone, wouldn't you say?"

He'd like to get into more detail, maybe, or perhaps ask Jack about his own combat experience, but a salesperson in an ill-fitting uniform blazer perks up at the sight of them. "Is there anything I could-"

"Oh, yes," Eliot cuts him off, smiling and adjusting his coat so the logo on the collar lining is clearly visible. The brand names might be slightly different in this world but it's still Balenciaga, for all intents and purposes. "We'd just need a room? And my friend here is new to the city, you see, so he'd need to wear some selections out. That won't...be a problem, will it?"

"Oh." The underpaid Dacy's associate pales a little, and retrieves a key from a row of hooks. "N-no, of course not, if you gentlemen would just follow me?"

[jackrackham]

Jack pauses, processing the fact that Eliot just claimed that he can command lightning down from the sky. Simply, he says, like that isn't a power out of myth and legend. He's not entirely sure if he even believes him.

Eliot's moving on quickly, and Jack follows, not really paying attention to the attendant or Eliot's interactions with him too closely. They're walked back into a short hallway with a short bench sat to one side, a mirror at the end. The attendant slots the key into one of the handles and opens the door for them, then nods awkwardly and leaves to return to his post. Jack enters the room and starts divesting himself of the pieces they'd picked up so far, hanging up what he can and setting aside what he can't.

"A ship's distance away is close enough for canon fire. You would need your peaceful solution before then." Jack slips off his coat and vest and hangs them up on the opposite peg. He goes to close the door between himself and Eliot, when a thought occurs to him. He pulls loose his borrowed scarf as he asks, "Why not hit the sails with lightning instead? Killing a man with weather is a good show of force, but unless it's the captain you wouldn't get much more out of it." Jack shrugs. No doubt it would set the sails alight and the opposing ship would have no maneuverability in the fight. Plus the distraction of it - It would depend on the crew caring enough about the ship to put out a blaze, which you could depend on most of the time.

[eliotwaugh]

Jack follows along easily enough, though for a moment Eliot can only blink at him, wondering if he's somehow failed to grasp the concept of a fitting room and intends to simply stand there and change clothes with the door open. Eliot ought to say something.

But he doesn't, can't, really; Jack's talking away at a tidy clip and between that and the knife he’s carrying and the way he visibly diminishes in bulk as he loses his outer layers it takes Eliot a moment to even register what he's saying.

"Well, it's..." It's a hypothetical, Eliot wants to say, feeling a little indignant, but Jack raises an interesting point. He might as well play in the space; more pleasant than wondering how he might have to explain a weapon to mall security, anyway. "Okay," he sighs, "that's fair, I was thinking more along the lines of covering an assault on a beach but yes, the captain, then, or whoever's at the, you know, the helm." He's sure he knew the proper title at one point, but it hardly matters now.

Eliot sets his things down on the bench and paces a bit, envisioning the logistics. None of the other booths are occupied, thankfully, so he has no qualms about brainstorming aloud. "So really I'd want to disable the whole ship," he says, glancing back in the direction of Jack's door for a moment. "What's the objective here, are we trying to...steal from them, or like just defend ourselves from attack? Because that rather changes the parameters. If I were trying to sink it, I mean I'd probably need another magician's help if it were really big, or terribly far away, but...no, no I think I could sink a ship if I had to." He frowns to himself. It would be messy work, and cruel, but if the situation was that dire he thinks he could live with it.

"Freeze the water around it," he says, one hand working through the basic forms for the thermodynamics, before he curls it in a fist. "Crush some of the hull with the ice. Easier with another pair of hands, certainly, and I suppose if I'm engaging in magical piracy I'd have the proper materials onboard. Really, most of what I could do in the heat of the moment doesn't lend itself to much finesse, I'm afraid."

[jackrackham]

"I was assuming you meant the ship as a prize. If you're waging an attack, or covering for one-"

Jack shifts on his feet as he watches Eliot crush a theoretical boat in his hand, and for that moment he remembers standing on the deck of The Revenge again, his heart in his throat as he watches Rogers' men winning in a battle that he convinced Teach to fight. He blinks, and he's back under unfamiliar lights in an unfamiliar place.

"Right. Well, that would certainly work - if sinking the ship was the goal in mind." The entire idea has Jack floundering a little, not sure if Eliot is really capable of such a thing. If he can turn the sea to ice with magic, if he can call down lightning, what else can he do?

"Excuse me-" He gestures to the room behind him, and then closes the door between them. For a moment he stares at the blank surface, wondering if Eliot had ever killed a man with magic. If destroying a ship is possible, then who's to say he couldn't freeze a man to death as well? It's a disturbing thought given how little he knows Eliot. If any of it is true, he definitely doesn't want to get on his bad side.

He redirects his attention to something more immediate- and starts undoing his belt.

"Could you really do that? Freeze the ocean?" he asks through the door. "What sort of materials does something like that require?"

The clothes are strange, but they make enough sense. He tears through the odd plastic of the package and pulls out a pair of the underwear to try on. Not uncomfortable, but he does feel a little silly in them. They seem like a strange alternative to adding fabric to a shirt, and he fiddles with where to place the waist band for a moment before moving on. Over the top of those, the more familiar pair of pants, though even these are cut closer than he would be expecting. They definitely won't work with his boots, but it seems that he chose the correct size- they sit at his waist and seem to be long enough for his legs. He notes that they have loops for a belt, but only a very narrow one. Definitely not his belt, which is a shame.

He grabs a white t-shirt and pulls that on, wincing a little as the seam brushes over the fresh stitches on his right shoulder. This shirt, too, feels a little silly and unusual. He's not sure if it's supposed to fit so closely or not.

He tucks in the shirt, then opens the door and steps out so that he can see himself in the hallway mirror. To his sensibilities he looks a little ridiculous, but he does look more like the people he's seen around town. He frowns and turns to the side, pulling his arm forward to see if the shirt will pull up if he makes a broader movement. It does, a little, but not enough to pull it out from the waistband.

He glances to Eliot. "Is this how this is supposed to fit?"

[eliotwaugh]

“Well,” Eliot considers it, pacing a little. “I don’t mean to imply that it’d be easy.” he does like to brag of course, but the hypothetical is interesting enough on its own that it deserves serious consideration. “If it were prepared in advance, something to store the energy in, like a crystal or a stone or a coin. And it would probably be--well, exhausting, really. And dangerous, if one weren’t careful.” An easy way to burn yourself up, firing off big magic in the heat of battle like that. It brings unpleasant memories to mind, and his jaw feels tight.

“Anyway I haven’t been here that long, haven’t had the opportunity to try an large-scale magic because the odds are good it would behave unpredictably here rather than at...at home.” He had more to say surely, but it’s gone, replaced by a quiet little sound of surprise when Jack steps out looking…really nice, actually.

For a moment Eliot just stares, and he feels a bit bad about that but it’s just that Jack’s so very lean, he can’t help being a little startled. It takes another moment for Eliot to register the question, and he clears his throat and takes a couple steps closer.

“Yeah,” he says, doing a fairly good job of sounding casual, “you look all right to me.” It’s almost silly; he honestly could have just given Jack some of his own clothes and simplified whole process, they’re similar enough in build. Eliot almost makes the offer but thinks better of it. He knows he’s staring, and even though Jack asked him to look, at this point it would just sound...untoward.

It is gratifying, though, to realize that Jack’s not emaciated, just apparently nothing but wiry muscle, so Eliot doesn’t need to worry if he and his partner are eating well enough. He smiles a little at Jack moving his arms about, because his arms look very nice, only--

“Uh hey,” Eliot frowns, seeing how red Jack’s bicep is against the sleeve of the tee. He draws closer and points at the spot. “You doing all right there? Isn’t that where you got cut?”

[jackrackham]

"Oh, it's alright." Jack pushes up the sleeve of the shirt until it exposes his shoulder. The actual wound itself is tender and red, but not enough to concern him. It had been stitched up well and so far it's behaved more or less like any other sword wound he's sustained.

He points a little higher on his shoulder to two other wounds long since scarred over. "These were the same. The color is fine." He tilts his face back up towards Eliot, a faint smile at his lips. The concern is kind of him, even if it is unnecessary. "If it turns green you can start to worry."

[eliotwaugh]

For all Jack’s cavalier attitude, Eliot can’t help his alarm at the sight of the wound. There’s surely a lingering infection if it’s still this red and puffy after what, weeks? A month? He scowls, and sucks in a sharp breath when Jack reveals the other scars terracing his shoulder. They’re not even that extreme but it’s a shock to see them, all the same.

“If it--” Eliot huffs, almost apoplectic at the piss-poor reassurance Jack gives. “This is absolutely not fine, are you kidding?” He struggles to keep his voice low as he rounds on Jack and presses the back of his hand to his forehead. “For fuck’s sake,” he hisses, “you should have seen someone about this, you could have--I don’t know, fucking sepsis, it shouldn’t take this long to heal.”

[jackrackham]

Jack's brow furrows at Eliot's immediate reaction, and he tolerates the hand at his forehead for a moment before pulling away.

"I did see someone about it, did you think I stitched it myself?" He takes half a step back and brings the sleeve of the shirt back down to cover the wound. He feels a little exposed, being scrutinized while standing in unfamiliar clothes. Eliot is angry at him- why? Because he's not used to seeing this kind of cut?

It has taken longer than normal to heal, but he feels fine. He certainly doesn't have sepsis, whatever that is. In the back of his mind, he'd more or less put the extended healing time down as another strange thing about this place rather than something diseased within him.

He wants to go grab his coat and put it back on. Instead, he takes a breath and lets it out in a huff. "I'm not ill."

[eliotwaugh]

Jack pulls away and everything about him is suddenly prickly, and Eliot feels a lurch of discomfort. He’s crossed a boundary; they don’t know each other like that, or perhaps Jack just doesn’t like to be touched. So Eliot lowers his hand and frowns. At least he doesn’t seem to have a fever.

“Not that you know of.” Eliot knows he’s mostly angry with himself for failing to consider something as important as modern medicine, but he shouldn’t snap at Jack for not knowing about it. He sighs, feeling ragged and tired. “Look, there’s been a number of advancements in healthcare since your time, you don’t have to--to put up with something like that. You’ve likely got germs under the stitches, and--” He stops talking for a moment, horrified by the sudden certainty that Jack isn’t even aware of germ theory. So many things were after his time, it’s a wonder he’s even alive. He should see a doctor, surely the medical facilites in Darrow wouldn’t bat an eye at the host of weird shit people come in with. But Eliot’s probably already pushed his luck this afternoon, and he doesn’t want Jack to be frustrated with his meddling.

“In any case,” he says after taking a breath to try and calm his tone, “Once we’re finished here we can find a pharmacy and get some things to help keep it clean and...help with the pain, at the very least?”

[jackrackham]

Jack feels at a loss, not entirely sure how to respond. He doesn't understand most of what Eliot is even talking about, or why he's so adamant about something that Jack had figured would eventually sort itself out. It seems like if he keeps saying no Eliot will only hound him on the subject further, so he nods.

"If you like." He returns to the changing room and puts on the jeans instead of his linen breeches. He prefers the other pants, but his boots will only fit over the legs of the jeans. To this, he adds the blue shirt that Eliot had picked out for him and tucks it in. His belt he has to sling around his hips and he takes a moment to make sure that his dagger won't be clattering to the ground before he throws his old coat over the top.

With the tags from what he's wearing in hand, along with the rest of the items and what he had been wearing, Jack makes his way to a checkout. It'd do some good to have a bag to carry the bulk so far.

That done, they head in the direction of outerwear.

[eliotwaugh]

“Now I don’t know exactly how cold it gets here in the winter, I haven’t been here long enough for that…” Eliot surveys the variety of coats, largely to avoid outright staring at Jack. He does look quite nice in those jeans, something of a punk vibe going for him, but there’s more pressing issues to focus on.

He hefts his own coat back onto his elbow and looks for a bench to set the bags upon. “It doesn’t look like there’s a lot of big puffy down-filled numbers, though, so hopefully it won’t be too terribly bitter.” Milder than the winters up in the Hudson valley at Brakebills, he thinks. “So,” he says brightly, turning to Jack. “You really can’t go wrong with a good wool overcoat. Camel would look closer to what you have now, and be warmer and generally more expensive than plain wool, but then black goes with everything.” Eliot peers at the racks and runs his hands over the sleeves of various coats to find the softest weaves. “I suppose it depends on how much you want to spend on a coat in the first place?” He turns to look back at Jack, studying the length and color of the one he’s wearing. “It could be argued that I paid too much for mine but with my wardrobe I really only need the one piece of outerwear, anyway.” That, and it wasn’t real money in the first place.

[jackrackham]

Jack hums in response, looking over the different options. He feels at the fabric of a couple different coats, then steps away to set down his bag and pull off his coat. He tosses his coat over the bag, adjusts his belt on his hips to make sure that his dagger is secure, then heads back to the racks. Before paying attention to the coats again, he first heads back towards Eliot, pulling his borrowed scarf off as he goes.

He holds the scarf out towards Eliot. "Thank you for this. It was much appreciated."

The sentiment is genuine. For as much as Jack has been confused by how much Eliot wants to help, he does appreciate the effort itself. The scarf had been particularly helpful, both for its warmth and because it had felt like a sign that Darrow isn't an entirely inhospitable place.

[eliotwaugh]

“Oh,” he says, and stares at the scarf and feels inexplicably sad. It was a courtesy in the first place, and Eliot knows that Jack’s appreciation is sincere, but some small part of him mistrusts it. It feels, irrationally, like a rejection. Like he’s been too overbearing all this time and now that Jack’s mostly sorted he doesn’t need Eliot anymore, and the scarf is just proof of that.

Eliot tells himself he’s just being paranoid, overreacting because he doesn’t want to lose the opportunity for really interesting conversations. So he puts on an affable smile.

“It’s yours, if you like it,” he says, looking Jack over. “Honestly I’d only just gotten it and you’ve had it longer than I have at this point.” Which is true, he’d already been thinking of it as a gift, though he’s not entirely sure why. But that’s an odd thing to admit, so he continues explaining, carefully nonchalant. “Of course,” Eliot offers, “it’s good to have more than one scarf, we should look at more here, but I think this one suits you. You look rather good in gold.”

[jackrackham]

"Oh. If you're sure." Jack holds the scarf in his hand out for another moment, then places it loosely back around his neck. He hasn't been given a great many gifts in his life, and none so simply given as this. It seems exceptionally and strangely kind.

"Thank you. Though you don't have to flatter me to get me to take it, it's a beautiful scarf." he smiles as he says it, but he doesn't really believe the compliment. Hadn't Eliot said that blue suited him before? And now it's gold? Flattery seems to be just part of how Eliot interacts with people. It's entirely possible that he hasn't really meant any of his compliments, but that's fine. He's probably just trying to smooth over the situation.

He redirects his attention to the racks of coats and pulls one off of a hanger to try it on. It's a little big and front comes around double-breasted, which seems cumbersome. He takes it off again and moves on.

"I have a yellow coat back home. Brocade, embroidered. Silk Tassels." he smiles a little, more genuine, as he flips through the comparatively drab coats in front of him. "That was after we'd taken the Urca De Lima. There was plenty of gold to go around, for a while."

He pulls out another coat, black and wool but with a nice lining. When he pulls it on, it fits well and feels warm. He buttons the front up, tucking the scarf in as he goes, then pulls at his unbuttoned shirt cuffs so that they come out the arms of the coat, creating a sort of faux ruffled cuff. "Well. This isn't bad."

[eliotwaugh]

Another reaction that’s not what Eliot expected, which further cements the impression that Jack is just...rather odd. Eliot’s instinct is to insist that the compliment’s not flattery, which it isn’t, but there’s the overpowering sense that Jack might not understand because of some cultural difference, and so he only nods pleasantly and says nothing.

Eliot follows along at a short distance, conducting what feels like an anthropological observation as Jack browses. He can’t quite picture the coat Jack’s describing; the mention of tassels is disruptive enough that he can only imagine some monstrosity like a fringed-sleeved rodeo costume. But the fondness in Jack’s tone is endearing and conveys a sense that he likes nice things and has a rather adventurous sense of style, which Eliot can certainly appreciate.

The coat Jack seems to have landed on looks fine on him, and Eliot smiles to himself at the way he fusses with the cuffs of his shirt. He looks, Eliot realizes, like a vampire. Or a punk. Or a punk vampire. Which is not at all what Eliot had initially expected, but it does seem to work. “It’s nice,” he agrees, looking Jack over. “You’re not going to freeze to death, anyway.”

Eliot’s quiet for a moment, thinking about what Jack had said. “Urca de...Lima? Is that some sort of a ship?” It’s a guess, but a reasonable one based on the article and the way Jack had spoken of taking a prize back in the fitting rooms. The name doesn’t ring any bells but there’s no reason it should. Still, it would be interesting to hear about some actual pirating exploits. Eliot smiles and tilts his head, curious. “It sounds impressive.”