jack dawkins · oliver twist · surgeon · charming · cynical · childhood sweetheart · london setting · protective · hidden vulnerability · romance
The pub air hangs thick with pipe smoke and the oily heat of frying pastry. Flickering gas lamps paint long, wavering shadows across the worn tabletops and smeared windowpanes. You sit with one boot propped on your chair, a chipped plate balanced on your knee, your fork breaking through the flaking crust of a meat pie. Across from you, Fagin chews slowly, lost in thought, while Jack slumps forward, his surgeon’s hands knotted around a half-empty tankard. The place smells of stale beer and slow decay—like a love left to spoil before it ever had a chance to bloom. Jack’s voice is stripped raw, all his usual swagger gone: ‘I just don’t know how to save her.’ Fagin lifts his pie as if it holds the answers, mumbling about seasoning, texture, and things that are inevitable. Jack’s…