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"Loki."

Even if York hadn't intended to name that bridge, Jack had come to see him with the specific intent to do so. He speaks the name without any particular tone or inflection, just a sober statement of fact - though maybe on him, sobriety is its own tell.

He remains tucked close, looking up at him as he continues.

"He came back from the dreams a bit of a mess. I finally asked him what was wrong, and . . . he told me. No details, and no names, but when he just stopped mentioning you at all? It wasn't that difficult to put together."

"..." He'd wondered how long it would take to get around. Delta knew. He'd told D when it'd happened, locked up tight in the safest space of his own mind, his refuge after all that cold blue fire. No small part of him is grateful that Loki at least didn't shove him under the bus.

The rest of him is caught up in wondering why? Why wouldn't he? It'd been a terrible thing, what he'd done, and he's just- cutting off contact, ignoring it, ignoring everything to do with him and not saying anything. That's positively kind- but he's under no illusions at all that it's for his sake. It can't be. Not after how he'd looked at him before he'd bid him leave.

For Delta, then. For Jack. Maybe this is supposed to be a goodbye, then.

His fingers curl tight in Jack's shirt for half a second before they smooth the fabric down. HIs arms drop away and he steps back. Okay. He can- he'll deal. Jack is Loki's first. He's slowly settling into the idea that Delta is becoming so too. He'll be fine. He's always managed. Any doubt, any upset, anything other than a low thrum of guilt he tucks away entirely. "So- you gonna shiv me in the side or the back? Just avoid the kidney- it's new."

York stepping away is expected, and Jack manages to keep himself from reaching after him, though his hands still curl reflexively at his sides. He knows - Christ, he knows that it's not easy to be the cause of someone's pain and look at even the people close to them afterwards. He has a good, solid-heart-wrenching steam of empathy going.

Then York opens his mouth. Whatever his expression had been doing then? It flattens.

"I'm not going to shiv you, York. Unless you have a special organ that's responsible for you making way too many assumptions about people and being a tit for it. A stab in that one might do you some good."

"My therapist would agree." He waves a hand, scrubbing at his scar. "I'm working on it. Alright- no assumptions."

He's made a few already but he's- setting them in that little locked box he never looks at or opens for so many fucking reasons and goes back to just. Worrying about Loki. Because that? That isn't something you just bounce back from.

And Jack is concerned enough to be somber- so that's. Not good. NOt that he expected sunshine and rainbows on Loki's end but- yeah. Fuck. "I'm not gonna ask how he's doing, because it's likely shit and that's- not a place I"m gonna put you or Delta."

"You can ask."

God, Jack wants there to be a way to make this easier. Lighter. A way to smooth over all the explicit and implicit horrors and make things halfway all right. But the situation is, as they say, well and truly fucked. and he'd known coming in here that the best he could do probably wasn't going to fix it all the way. Not in one go.

"You're not putting me anywhere, all right? I'm totally, one hundred per cent here of my own free will. So if you want to ask about Loki? Ask away! I'm not sworn to secrecy. I came over because . . . well." His voice drops a pitch, going softer. "I know that I'd be going crazy if I'd hurt someone like that. And if there's anything I'm sure of about you, it's that you want things for the people you love to be fair, to be right, every bit as much as I do. Even if we don't have the same way of going about it."

"It's not something I get to know." It seems innocent enough, asking after him. But it'll lead to asking Jack to intercede on his behalf or asking what he's doing or where he's going and it's less of a benefit to anyone and more of a drain on Jack than he's willing to put up with. He's been down that road once before, and that'd been more than enough. Not doing it. Not now. Not here.

Not after this.

"There's only one way for this to be made fair- and it. Kinda already happened." All that blue fire. All that calm truth, that utter certainty, the horror that could've been done to him- and he'd only been bid to leave. "There's no way to make this right. Not without making him do something he's sworn not to. IT's bad enough that I-"

He shakes his head. Jack knows. Jack has to know. "That it ended the way it did. There's no right here, Jack. There's him. There's me. And what I broke because I was an idiot."

"I know there's no right."

Jack is soft, but insistent, following him at a distance, hands worming into his pockets for lack of anywhere else to be. It tucks him into himself, makes him look smaller. Younger. He holds his ground, all the same, and doesn't look away from York, all the edges in his gaze softened down by concern.

"Hey. You're not sparing me anything by pulling back, all right? It's true - when I look at you, I see someone who really, really hurt the man I love. But that's not all I see. And I don't think for a second that if the situation hadn't been so absolutely weird, or if you'd known what you were doing, you would have done it. That's what makes the difference, to me."

"It's better to leave it. It'll get sorted if it gets sorted- and that's up to him as soon as I sort out how to apologize. HE doesn't want to hear from me and I don't mind that. When I do something it has to be able to give him the option to see what I have to say or not. That's not mine to push on him." If he writes the letter out and it goes in the trash? It goes in the trash. He's done more than enough. A little distance for his own sense of mind until he stops hating himself quite so much for doing it.

A little space for them to settle in and help him feel steady. He deserves that much.

Honestly he'd rather just- drop it. And Jack keeps talking. Because Jack cares and can't not care but fuck if it isn't exhausting. "It's done. Neither of us can take it back. That's the end of it."

"Okay. All right." It's a clearly-stated point, harsh as it is, and Jack doesn't follow him any further. He's said his bit, York's said his, and . . . that's it, maybe. He leans back against the door, nodding slightly.

"I just wanted to make sure it wasn't the end of us." Which. Maybe it is. But tiresome or no, he's never presumed to know these things until he asks.

"What?" Oh- well that's a valid enough question. He lifts a shoulder, scrubbing a hand across the back of his neck, itching at the small scar just above his top port. "Your call on that, Jack. You and me, we're good from my point of view. What you choose to do is up to you. I won't fight you on it."

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