AU; Jack/Cal. A 'what if' or divergent sort of scenario, set after the Rose and Cal breakfast scene.
Alright, I like Cal. I know, he's a horrible brattish excuse for a human being, but there you go. I'm not trying to justify him. Like, at all. But he's also interesting to me. So is this pairing.
If you don't like the idea of this pairing...well. Best not to read on, eh? :)
88
88
Impractical
88
88
Cal rolled the wine glass in his hand.
It was an unwise coffee substitute at 7.30 in the AM, but between the thunderous sound of his own heart beating in his ears, and the rage pulsing to reach trembling fingertips, he didn't much care.
And decent coffee was so hard to come by, even on the most luxurious of ships, apparently.
He watched, dispassionately, as Trudy finished cleaning up the mess on the promenade. Her eyes darted in his direction every now and then, as if he wouldn't notice.
Stupid woman.
She was frightened of him. Perhaps not in the way Rose had been, but it was obvious now.
Cal leaned back against the door frame and massaged his temple, absorbing the realisation with a bitter smile. He took another shot of the so-so wine.
"Where is she?"
Trudy flinched as she looked up at him.
"In the bedroom, Mr. Hockley. With her mother. They're dressing for morning service."
"Of course."
Sir," said Trudy. "She-"
"You're dismissed."
It wasn't deliberate, but he sounded venomous even to his own ears. Trudy avoided his gaze as she excused herself from the promenade.
And then he was alone.
He rubbed at the tension between his eyes again, and began to wonder when it was that he'd lost sight of his fiancée's rebellions. Or had she always been like that, and he'd just never noticed it before?
Hell if he knew. And it was a little late now.
Rose and her emotionally deadened face whenever she looked at him. How she seemed to become another woman, how quickly she transformed, whenever she looked at the steerage boy.
Cal curled his lip.
Dawson came together in his mind much more vividly than he would have liked. Or expected.
"Rather early for some alcoholic merriment isn't it, Mr. Hockley?"
Cal turned around.
"Good morning, Ruth."
Ruth, the mother-in-law desperately in-waiting, offered him a smile that could have cracked apart at any moment.
"Cal. We do hope you'll be joining us for morning service. I'm sure Rose will be in better spirits, then."
"Of course."
"Excellent. We'll see you there," her lips turned a crocodile-smile, like she could have placed her and her daughter's world upon his shoulders, and he was going to carry it all for them.
A weight so crass and heavy as the blue diamond he'd put too much stock into. It wasn't enough, and it never would be.
It was strange. How such sudden realisations made him smile, despite everything.
"See you, Ruth."
A real man makes his own luck.
He swilled the wine around again, knocking back the last of it with an incredible lack of etiquette. Perhaps the closest he'd ever get to his own petty rebellion.
He wondered then, why his own luck seemed to have entirely deserted him.
8
8
He left the deck without telling Lovejoy.
He didn't tell anyone, and only began to doubt himself as he ducked down; into dim, yellowish lighting and narrow corridors. So many levels, quite literally, beneath him.
The engines sounded louder in the steerage dining hall, a humming vibration that was a constant but not intolerable background noise.
Cal was far more distracted by other things, anyway.
The eyes that tracked him, the murmurs of curiosity that passed between wary and suspicious steerage folk. As if he might have been the filth that had dared to desecrate someone else's fiancée.
He put it out of mind and nodded. A practised and polite smile he'd learnt long ago; something that came part and parcel with high society, that he'd never had any trouble with before.
"Hey. You seem kind of lost."
Cal forgot his smile, and turned round.
Jack Dawson was standing off to the side, hands in his pockets, like he'd been watching for a while.
He didn't look much different out of a tuxedo, really; still so earnest and open and friendly, and everything that infuriated Cal and gave him the strongest desire to hate him.
And still Cal had come looking for him anyway.
He could have laughed at himself.
Fool.
"Morning, Dawson."
Someone jostled past them both, knocking Cal's shoulder.
Jack smirked. "You look nervous."
Cal forced another smile, as stubborn as his pride was.
"Can we talk somewhere...quieter?"
"You mean with fewer witnesses? No thanks."
"It isn't like that."
Jack didn't look convinced. He folded his arms and leaned back a bit against the wall. Strands of blond hair hung about his face, framing it in a way that should have looked unkempt, but wasn't quite.
"Surely you can afford me a little of your precious time, Dawson," Cal said, intending a sarcastic smile.
Jack hesitated.
"So what brings you to these parts?"
"I-" Cal stopped himself.
He tried to consider his words as if he might have planned them, but he hadn't, obviously.
Instead he was doing something quite unimaginable; he was being spontaneous, god help him.
He wanted to laugh again, maybe to quell his nerves. Or admit his own insanity.
"It's a matter of necessity," he decided, unable to think of any other reason. "...you owe me an explanation."
Damn it all, Dawson was right.
He was nervous.
Jack looked intrigued.
"Have you come here to threaten me, then? You know that Rose didn't-"
"Don't assume, Dawson," Cal snapped.
As if it mattered.
Strangely, Jack's mouth curved up a bit. He raised his hands, in a quiet sort of assurance. "Okay. Fine. I won't assume."
Cal nodded, at a loss of what else to do. He was caught in a foreign feeling. Something like gratitude, maybe?
"...good."
"Good."
The silence would have been far more uncomfortable, if not for the steady thrum of the ship and the conversational sounds of steerage all around them. People weren't really looking at Cal anymore.
They didn't really care. It was an odd sort of relief.
Cal cleared his throat.
"You were easier to find than I expected, Dawson."
Jack laughed.
"Do you know, you're the second person to request my attention in as many days? I'm not sure why I've suddenly become so in-demand," his eyes reflected something more thoughtful, when he looked at Cal. "With the first class passengers, especially."
Cal sneered. "Popular with all the classes, I suspect. Though I certainly can't imagine why."
He looked Jack properly up and down, noticing the scuffed edges of his boots, the tattered seams on the sleeves of his jacket. He looked messy and dirty and unfit for purpose as a human being.
Somehow he managed to pull it off, though.
Jack grinned some more.
"What can I say? I'm a charmer," he combed a hand through his hair. "Forgive me if I'm 'assuming' again, Cal. But I figure you're not here to invite me to another dinner party this evening?"
Cal's smile twitched. "You figured right."
"Cal, listen. Rose was just-"
"Don't defend her actions, Dawson. Your attempts at chivalry are of little use here, I can assure you."
Jack shrugged, like it didn't really matter anyway. There was the tiniest pause, and then he blew out a sigh.
"I just thought you should know, that's all. Nothing happened between us. Nothing at all, Cal."
Cal looked at him blankly.
Maybe it was supposed to be some sort of consolation. But it was more like knives, stabbing at the back of his throat.
Nothing happened, indeed.
The insinuation, the mere possibility of it, was unbearable enough. It was like confirmation of the deceptive path he and his fiancée would be treading, even before their married life had begun.
What a mess.
"Cal, I didn't-"
"Don't patronise me, Dawson."
"I'm not-"
"Shut up," Cal snapped, but it sounded brittle in his ears.
He swallowed hard, and closed his eyes for the briefest moment.
When he looked at Jack again, he felt his nerves unravelling.
"I know very well that Rose does not reciprocate or have any interest in my own affections for her."
He'd acknowledged the doubt before, of course he had.
But saying it aloud was different. Like a dream that had become real, and Jack Dawson, of all the wretched people that had stepped so inconsiderately into his life, was his sole witness to it.
"Cal-"
"But practicality is important," it was a weak reassurance, more to himself.
The sort of reasoning that he could hear himself saying in the dead of night, when the bed was lonely, and Rose had not come to him. She never did.
Dawson's stare was resolute as stone, never wavering, and Cal felt transparent.
For a few moments it was as though the steerage boy could see right through him, or else see all of his locked up thoughts. Those that were as well guarded as the fortunes in his safe, that nobody had any right nor reason to see.
It was more effective than any words might have been, as well.
Cal clenched his fists, nails biting redundantly into the palms of his hands. He glared at the ground. Those awful scuffed boots again.
"Practicality?" Jack repeated, tonelessly.
Then he scraped a couple of chairs forward, and looked between them and Cal as if he had no choice but to take one.
You wouldn't understand," Cal muttered.
He took the seat. His legs felt heavy, like he'd been running for far too long.
"I'm sure I wouldn't," Jack pulled a cigarette from behind his ear. He lit up, before offering it to Cal. "What's a lowly steerage guy know, anyway?"
Cal glared at the cigarette. He was still angry, but not in the way he wanted to be anymore.
It was tiring; a relentless and dull sort of ache. Something that had probably been dwelling within him in the form of unforgiving migraines for a few weeks now. It would explain heated words, and the tiny shards of broken glass that still glittered across the promenade decking.
It would explain why Rose looked at him like a ghost, and then looked at Jack as though he were bringing her to life...
Cal snatched the cigarette, and took a long and desperately needed drag.
"I want to kill you," he said dully.
"Oh," Jack looked amused. "I see."
His eyes were very clear and blue as summer sky. They did not disguise kindheartedness very well. It was a fatal sort of weakness, so Cal thought.
Ironically he found himself completely weakened by it now.
"I guess you have every chance of getting away with murder on a ship like this."
Cal blinked. "...what?"
"Well. It's a big ship. Plenty of places to hide a body. Or even better, just chuck me overboard. I don't think anyone would notice, really," Jack's mouth quivered, like he wanted to laugh.
"Something amusing about the prospect of that, Dawson?"
"Not really," Jack leaned over, taking the cigarette off him. He took a long and drawn out drag, allowing Cal time to observe the almost constant serenity that lurked behind the blond's eyes. Like nothing could phase him.
How annoying.
"Dawson-"
"Is that really what you want, then?"
"What are you taking about?"
"Something...practical. That's what you said."
Cal smiled sardonically. "Like I told you, you wouldn't understand."
"Right," Jack rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "I'm just thinking. Maybe that's not what certain people want. You know?"
Cal scoffed.
"You presume yourself an expert on relationships now, do you, Dawson?"
"Not at all," Jack said quickly. "Just a thought."
Cal snatched the cigarette back off him.
"So keep your unchecked thoughts to yourself."
"Right. Fine."
"Fine."
Cal clenched his jaw; the tension running through his body was set rigid, but not entirely unwanted, in the same way another silence lingered. In some ways Cal could have embraced it, or accepted it as the unspoken standoff it was between them.
He couldn't resist his indignation though.
He bit his lip, and shattered the silence;
"I didn't say I wanted that, Dawson. I said it was important. There's a difference."
"Oh?" Jack's mouth curved again. "And does it really make a difference to you?"
"Of course it does."
"I see," Jack nodded.
He didn't look very surprised.
He was good at looking like he knew everything, Cal realised. His youthful face was deceptive. It didn't quite reveal all the experience he'd probably had.
A pang of jealousy gripped at Cal's chest. He tapped a finger, in anxious habit, on the cigarette, and watched as the ashes fluttered dead to the floor. He smudged his shoe into the mess, with some grim satisfaction.
"Anyway, Dawson. We can both count at least one person who would notice and certainly mourn your absence on this ship."
Jack's expression sobered, only because he couldn't argue it.
He shifted in his chair. Even awkwardness suited him better.
"You still haven't told me exactly why you're here, Cal."
"Oh. How inconsiderate of me."
Cal exhaled hard, cigarette smoke snaking around them, as he tried to remember reason.
He was so close to a necessary resolution. The one in which he would warn Dawson off his fiancée, say his iced farewells, and that would be the end of it. Never have to look at the steerage boy again.
He could even see himself doing it, so automatically, within his mind's eye.
Could picture the stairway leading back up into the familiar comforts of first class, the commotion of clinking wine and brandy glasses, the encumbering fog of cigar smoke that made everyone's questionable smiles move into soft-focus, and become even more questionable still. And then the inevitable mingling into the beat of everyone else's conversation.
Conversations which Cal didn't much care for, nor even cared to remember.
And then trying to remember why he should care was suddenly the hardest task in the world.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and blotted out the most reasonable answer.
"I know what Rose's intentions were that first night, Dawson," he spoke, through a beat of his own heart. "I know damn well what she meant to do."
He ignored Jack's startled face and swallowed the nausea that crept up his throat.
"Propellers, indeed. Of all the ridiculous excuses."
Jack just stared at him.
Cal smirked. He got a strange kind of satisfaction in watching Dawson's expression drop, like Cal had just revealed himself to be the most incredible monster.
Funny, he was almost getting used to that.
"...you knew Rose was suicidal?" said Jack.
Cal shook his head at the ground. "Of course not."
"Then how...?"
"I knew she was out of sorts, that's all. But I can put two and two together from there," he took a breath that was uncommonly fraught, and could feel his sneer breaking apart, when he met Jack's gaze again. "I'm not completely delusional, Dawson."
He rubbed his head, tempering another familiar pang that was already settling there. How overwhelming everything was, all of a sudden.
"But I tried my best with her, Dawson. I tried."
He could barely recognise his own voice in his ears; so depleted and shaken by unintended emotion. It should have been embarrassing, but for once it didn't matter.
It was as if the man sitting next to him held final judgement and fate in his hands, and it was hopeless, of course.
Cal knew that Jack wouldn't believe him.
Jack didn't give anything away, though. He had a good poker face, despite his kind eyes.
"She just feels trapped," Jack said quietly, after a moment. "That's what it is."
Cal laughed, unable to help himself.
"Aren't most of us?"
He flicked some more cigarette ash away, and stared past Jack's shoulder, noticing the bustle of people around them properly, for the first time.
The way a blissful and ragged couple laughed and linked arms with each other, just a few metres away. Still very appealing, even set against the off-colour and dull walls of the steerage hall. Their tatty clothes moved like lively ribbon as they danced, and their eyes glittered tears that were not unhappy.
Cal thought he could have stared at them forever, and it wouldn't have been such a terrible fate after all.
"Are you?" said Jack, and sounded like he already knew the answer. "Trapped, I mean?"
The hum of sound around them had faded away into nothing, and Cal thought that Jack could have been the only thing that existed in the world, for just a few ludicrous moments.
Cal tried to smile again, as their eyes locked together.
"Imagining another life...that is...impractical at best, Dawson."
He took a final drag on the cigarette, and then offered it back.
Jack's gaze softened.
"Cal, I-"
"Do you ever care about what anyone thinks of you, Dawson? Anyone at all?"
Jack's face barely flickered. Just a flash of recognition, but it was enough.
It was an unspoken thread of understanding that might have existed between them. Something that was familiar, and it made Cal's heart feel like it might not have to turn so black.
In his moment of weakness, he felt the hand covering his own, and couldn't pull away from it.
"No. I don't care," Jack said. "Not at all."
His fingers curved a bit, and Cal stared bleakly down at them.
There was dirt under fingernail, and smudges of it on skin that was such a coarse contrast to his own. The stereotype of every working class man that Cal had ever cared to imagine.
And still their fingers twined together, in a grip that was far too urgent, and within that moment Cal knew that Jack was so much luckier and far more enviable than he would ever be. With or without Rose on his arm.
"Neither should you."
"..what?" Cal said, his voice was too hoarse in his ears.
"You shouldn't care, Cal."
"...I don't."
Jack's smile was sad. "You're a good liar, aren't you?"
Cal opened his mouth, though words had deserted him, quite inconveniently.
Someone else spoke for him, anyway;
"There's a guy looking for you up top, me lord."
An Irishman's hand slapping his shoulder, accompanying a sarcastic comment, seemed a fitting interruption.
Cal and Jack's hands broke apart like skin burnt by fire, and the rest of the world seeped back into existence.
Cal snapped out of his seat, ruler straight.
"Forgive my general lack of articulation, Mr Dawson," he cleared his throat. "I'm not entirely sure why I came to see you, after all."
He held out his hand in a tired and automatic formality.
"All good intentions, I suppose."
Jack nodded, and they shook hands.
"You didn't kill me, at least."
"Regretfully, Dawson. I just don't have a very good aim."
"Hah. I see," Jack smiled at him.
Cal realised, in a detached sort of way, that he liked looking at it.
It allowed him a clarity he knew he would soon have to forget.
"Goodbye, Dawson."
He turned away, and there was the figure of Spicer Lovejoy, standing at steerage entrance. Cal started toward him.
"It's Jack, by the way."
Cal froze mid-step. His stomach coiled as he looked back round.
"Pardon me?"
"Please. Call me Jack."
The blonde's smile was hopeful. Or perhaps Cal was the one being hopeful about it.
How ridiculous.
8
8
"Is everything alright, sir?" said Lovejoy.
Cal scoffed at the absurd broadness of the question.
"Wonderful," he said, a default response.
It rang true, for just an imagined instant. A snapshot of clear eyes and heartbeats that became much faster against careworn skin. Only if Cal thought about them for too long, though.
How scandalous it would have been, too.
The reception was full of pristine faces and voices blurring together, and Rose was standing with her mother at the edge of the room. She looked at him, and then past him, as if he'd never been there at all.
Cal continued to greet and wave to the unending ebb of couples he couldn't remember the names of. The most appropriate levels of decorum shared out between them all, and still the glaring sadness of space that loomed between himself and his unhappy fiancée. His mother-in-law's disapproving face, always hovering in the background.
'You shouldn't care.'
He pressed the nib of a burnt out cigarette between his fingers. Another tiny rebellion.
'...I don't.'
He was a good liar, though.
"Sir, would you like some refreshments before service begins?"
Cal looked listlessly through his valet. "No. Thank you."
'...I don't.'
It was somehow easier though, when he remembered the laughing steerage couple.
An imagined life.
He turned, and Lovejoy's voice and everyone else's faded away, as he walked out of the reception room.
It was a flight of insanity, his better judgement might inform him.
Luckily, he had no need for that right now.
Jack was waiting for him at the top of the stairway.
Cal's mouth cracked into a smile that didn't come often enough.
Impractical, at best.
"Hello, Jack."
88
88
an: i would be tempted to do more of this, but you know. the fandom is probably 0.01, and i'm pretty sure i'll go down with this ship by myself. sob. but if this was interesting to anyone, anyone at all, hit me up a comment or something. i need peace. gotta feel at ease...as all saints said, that one time.