Once you go Jack Part 1
Title: "Once you go Jack . . ."
Author: linaerys
E-mail: linaerys@yahoo.com
Fandom: PotC
Rating/Classification: PG, J/E/W, angst.
Disclaimer: Although I work for a Disney subsidiary, I do not own these characters
Summary: Elizabeth and Will try to leave Captain Jack, but how long can they stay away?
She approached him one sunny day as he stood at the helm. Elizabeth knew Jack was happiest there, the time-smoothed wheel of the Black Pearl clasped in his roughened hands. Elizabeth did not want to dwell too much on those hands, which knew her as intimately as they knew the curve of that wood, hands that didn't need a compass to find every part of her body, and make it willing.
Jack smiled his half-smile as he saw her approach, "What is it, luv? You've been roamin' aimlessly on deck all morning . . . you want some more of your Jack, hmm?" he slurred, and rolled his eyes toward her, "Don't quite know how to ask in the heat of the day?" His words were casual, and bantering, as always. She well knew, the only side Captain Jack Sparrow was ever on was his own. Luckily, or unluckily, that side had been her's and Will's as well for the last few years. Now, however, she felt it was time to end it.
The night before, Jack had a wish to watch over his ship at night, so Will and Elizabeth were left alone. Husband and wife, they were alone together sometimes, but on this night, the wind stirred and blew through their cabin, and as they shivered and drew together, Will found to courage to say something to Elizabeth that had been in his heart for a long time. "I think we've been here too long," he said quietly to Elizabeth's head buried against his chest. Her hair was still soft and fine, even after years at sea, and the curls adhered to the sea mist condensing on his body. She looked up at him, and even through the gloom he could see tears glistening in her eyes. "We don't really belong," Will continued, "our past is too respectable, and I think about the future too much, for a life like this.
"Piracy is a better life for those with nothing to lose," he continued, staring earnestly at her through the gloom. His eyes held that concerned look so often lately, and she wanted to smooth the furrows out of his once-clear brow. "Like Jack," she said, dully, "you mean like Jack has nothing to lose." Will had to look away. Elizabeth wondered if they were thinking the same thing, that if only Jack needed them the way they needed him, they could stay, and not feel this gnawing loneliness, even when they were all together. Then, Elizabeth wondered, would he really be Jack?
"We have each other!" Will exclaimed, some of that old fervor entering his voice, as it once had when he defied the law and Elizabeth's father to rescue her. Elizabeth nodded, some long-buried excitement surfacing, as she realized that this would change their lives again, perhaps starting a new adventure, a new course toward a new horizon.
In the light of day, Elizabeth felt a little less certain. Jack's rag-tag elegance and rakish beauty stirred her in a way that was so very different than Will's boyish charm, and the woman she had grown into was loath to let that go. She summoned her calm reserve, honed by countless storms and battles, that icy emotionless state necessary for dragging a dagger against a man's throat, or worse, she thought, in this case dragging it across her own. She put on her practiced demeanor as a governor's daughter: important, and higher class than a mere pirate. Her voice was clear and low and untroubled when she said, "I think Will and I will disembark in Tortuga and find our own passage back to Port Royal."
Jack cocked his head like a parrot, and his brown eyes were wide, but could have been looking at anything, not the woman in whose bed he'd spent the past five years, "Time for a family life, eh, luv?" he asked lightly, "I allus said you and Will would make loverly babies. 'Course you'd better make sure he works as well on his own as he does with company." He waggled his tongue at her.
"Okay, then," she said frowning, then turned back, "and then there's our share of the treasure to think about. We haven't been at this as long as you, but I'm sure we've amassed a share." Jack inhaled the breeze deeply with his eyes half closed, then, out of step with the rhythms of ordinary conversation, he replied, "of course, that would be the question. You would even never know to be a pirate without me, and your precious William Turner would still be a black smith . . .." He sagged deliriously against Pearl's helm, hair, clothes, eyes and limbs all seeming to follow the movement on their own schedule, "that's got to be worth something now. Luv," he concluded with a drunken, half-lidded smile.
Elizabeth huffed and crossed her arms and exclaimed, "Who knew parlay before going on Barbosa's deck, who nearly beat the Pearl in a sea battle, who . . . who . . . rescued you from the gallows? I knew plenty about piracy!"
Jack came up a little too close, as always, and she could smell his sweat and the incomprehensible mixture of perfumes and spices he wore, and looked at her with wide-eyed innocence. "I'm quite certain I could have managed that all on my own. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Don't forget it, savvy? And, I think I recall your first attempt at parlay getting you taken prisoner and . . . rrravished by a pirate on a dessert island."
Well, at least it wasn't turning emotional, Elizabeth thought, as she stalked away. Damn him, nothing was decided, and did nothing ever bother the man? Penetrate through his perpetual haze? She never scored any points off him, he took everything in stride, and she was never sure, when he paused before answering, whether he really needed the time to think, or he just liked the sound of his silence filling the air.
When Jack came that night to their bedchamber, Will turned to Elizabeth with a hurt look. "Didn't you . . .?" he said under his breath.
Jack removed his battered tricorn hat and swung round to regard them, recriminations written clearly on their faces. "Don't mind me," he drawled, "I just sleep here." He collapsed on the bed without even his habitual swig of rum, and started snoring ostentatiously. Then he stopped abruptly and opened one eye, "this is the captain's chamber, after all, and last I checked . . . I'm the captain."
The next day Will and Elizabeth moved their things into one of the passenger chambers. Will embraced Elizabeth gently that night, as they lay in bed together. The silence descended thickly, and before they fell asleep, Elizabeth pulled away to the other side of the bed. She promised herself she would not cry. She and Will were rarely together without Jack. He brought the spark and interest, and Will seemed plain and dull without a foil in Jack.
Elizabeth awoke to the sound of Anamaria singing. It was not a sound she heard much before, and her heart sunk with the thought that Jack might have gone to her bed already. Not that he didn't dally with anyone who took his fancy, but this was different, no longer a game, no longer merely foreplay for the moment when he would spin his stories for Will and Elizabeth as they imagined him with trollops and youths, and ONCE, he claimed, "a very insistent sheep."
The next night when they came together in the guest room, Will was ardent, covered her hair and face with kisses, and caressed her breasts with hands that were still rough as when she'd met him. Now, of course, it was from the ropes rather than the hammer, but it felt much the same. Then she gave a jump as a rope splinter scratched her skin unexpectedly. Of course, that was no match for the bruises she often got from a night of lovemaking between her Will and her Jack. Will laid her down on the bed (too soft, too empty) and entered her. She looked up at the dark cross beams of the ceiling (too quiet), and although Will held her after.
Luckily, the ship landed in Tortuga the next day, to replenish their supplies, and give the crew a chance to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. Elizabeth had her hands full deciding, with the rest of the officers, what to hold, and what to sell, and what needed to be spent on repairs for the ship. They were still undoing some of the cannon damage from their last run-in with the British Navy, but it was mostly cosmetic at this point. Elizabeth hadn't been able to get Jack to agree about how to portion off the plunder, and also had not announced their plans to leave to the crew.
"You know," Elizabeth mentioned to Will while they were dressing for town in their chamber, "Tortuga might not be the best place to transport to a respectable British outpost. Maybe we should wait until we hit St. Martin." Will got that sad look on his face again, furrowing his brow, that way she usually wanted to smooth, but now . . . now Will whispered, low and ugly, "it's because you want to spend more time with him, isn't it."
"We agreed, Will," she responded, even and sure, "we agreed to try it alone. Now lets go get good and drunk with the crew in Tortuga, but think about it, will you? This may not be the best place to depart."
***
Jack was singing, drunkenly, with Mr. Gibbs in the Rusty Wicket. He paused, frowned into his beard and said, "Wot's a wicket?" to no one in particular, before refilling his mug again, toasting the air, and quaffing the drink. Elizabeth sat down the table from him. There was a loud party going on around them, but it seemed like everything Jack said or sang, every mumbled, incoherent bit of wisdom was poured directly into her ear. That sibilant, throaty, seductive voice was speaking directly to her. Abruptly, she got up, not sure where she was going, but she needed to get away from his obliviousness, and her own awareness.
Will watched from another part of the pub, as Elizabeth got up, and Jack smirked into his drink. Will sat heavily in the stained wooden chair, and contemplated the scarred surface of the table, and the fact that he didn't know where half a litre of rum had gone. Then he felt a heavy arm, clad in slippery silk settle on his shoulder. "Crying into our drink, are we, mate?" he heard Jack ask, "You haaave the lady now . . . the shhtrumpet." Will groped desultorily for his sword, but all he found was Jack's leg.
"Ahhhh," said Jack, leaning his head back, "so that's what we're wanting now. Best talk to your lady about that."
"It was my idea to leave," Will said, more tired now, than jealous or angry. Jack grabbed his crotch and made a face. "Not an idea you're real happy with, mate. A man can tell." The room spun briefly in front of Will's eyes and before he could think of an appropriate response, Jack had loped off elsewhere.
Jack found Elizabeth outside, cooling off against the stone of the pub. She was hidden in the shadows, but she knew, if Jack was looking for her, he could find her. The animal part of him seemed stronger than in most men, and he could probably track her by scent. Three days, denying herself her Jack, and already she couldn't stand it. And Will didn't seem much better off. Before, when they came together without Jack it was a treat, a stolen moment of childish delights; now it just felt like work.
As if she had conjured him with her thoughts, Jack materialized out of the shadows. Without any of his characteristic mocking words, he pressed her up against the stone wall with a kiss, softer and smoother than usual. "There now," he said, wiping at her tears with a stained finger, "that was a proper goodbye kiss. Go to your husband now, there's a good lass." And he melted off into the shadows again.
To be continued . . .
Title: "Once you go Jack . . ."
Author: linaerys
E-mail: linaerys@yahoo.com
Fandom: PotC
Rating/Classification: PG, J/E/W, angst.
Disclaimer: Although I work for a Disney subsidiary, I do not own these characters
Summary: Elizabeth and Will try to leave Captain Jack, but how long can they stay away?
She approached him one sunny day as he stood at the helm. Elizabeth knew Jack was happiest there, the time-smoothed wheel of the Black Pearl clasped in his roughened hands. Elizabeth did not want to dwell too much on those hands, which knew her as intimately as they knew the curve of that wood, hands that didn't need a compass to find every part of her body, and make it willing.
Jack smiled his half-smile as he saw her approach, "What is it, luv? You've been roamin' aimlessly on deck all morning . . . you want some more of your Jack, hmm?" he slurred, and rolled his eyes toward her, "Don't quite know how to ask in the heat of the day?" His words were casual, and bantering, as always. She well knew, the only side Captain Jack Sparrow was ever on was his own. Luckily, or unluckily, that side had been her's and Will's as well for the last few years. Now, however, she felt it was time to end it.
The night before, Jack had a wish to watch over his ship at night, so Will and Elizabeth were left alone. Husband and wife, they were alone together sometimes, but on this night, the wind stirred and blew through their cabin, and as they shivered and drew together, Will found to courage to say something to Elizabeth that had been in his heart for a long time. "I think we've been here too long," he said quietly to Elizabeth's head buried against his chest. Her hair was still soft and fine, even after years at sea, and the curls adhered to the sea mist condensing on his body. She looked up at him, and even through the gloom he could see tears glistening in her eyes. "We don't really belong," Will continued, "our past is too respectable, and I think about the future too much, for a life like this.
"Piracy is a better life for those with nothing to lose," he continued, staring earnestly at her through the gloom. His eyes held that concerned look so often lately, and she wanted to smooth the furrows out of his once-clear brow. "Like Jack," she said, dully, "you mean like Jack has nothing to lose." Will had to look away. Elizabeth wondered if they were thinking the same thing, that if only Jack needed them the way they needed him, they could stay, and not feel this gnawing loneliness, even when they were all together. Then, Elizabeth wondered, would he really be Jack?
"We have each other!" Will exclaimed, some of that old fervor entering his voice, as it once had when he defied the law and Elizabeth's father to rescue her. Elizabeth nodded, some long-buried excitement surfacing, as she realized that this would change their lives again, perhaps starting a new adventure, a new course toward a new horizon.
In the light of day, Elizabeth felt a little less certain. Jack's rag-tag elegance and rakish beauty stirred her in a way that was so very different than Will's boyish charm, and the woman she had grown into was loath to let that go. She summoned her calm reserve, honed by countless storms and battles, that icy emotionless state necessary for dragging a dagger against a man's throat, or worse, she thought, in this case dragging it across her own. She put on her practiced demeanor as a governor's daughter: important, and higher class than a mere pirate. Her voice was clear and low and untroubled when she said, "I think Will and I will disembark in Tortuga and find our own passage back to Port Royal."
Jack cocked his head like a parrot, and his brown eyes were wide, but could have been looking at anything, not the woman in whose bed he'd spent the past five years, "Time for a family life, eh, luv?" he asked lightly, "I allus said you and Will would make loverly babies. 'Course you'd better make sure he works as well on his own as he does with company." He waggled his tongue at her.
"Okay, then," she said frowning, then turned back, "and then there's our share of the treasure to think about. We haven't been at this as long as you, but I'm sure we've amassed a share." Jack inhaled the breeze deeply with his eyes half closed, then, out of step with the rhythms of ordinary conversation, he replied, "of course, that would be the question. You would even never know to be a pirate without me, and your precious William Turner would still be a black smith . . .." He sagged deliriously against Pearl's helm, hair, clothes, eyes and limbs all seeming to follow the movement on their own schedule, "that's got to be worth something now. Luv," he concluded with a drunken, half-lidded smile.
Elizabeth huffed and crossed her arms and exclaimed, "Who knew parlay before going on Barbosa's deck, who nearly beat the Pearl in a sea battle, who . . . who . . . rescued you from the gallows? I knew plenty about piracy!"
Jack came up a little too close, as always, and she could smell his sweat and the incomprehensible mixture of perfumes and spices he wore, and looked at her with wide-eyed innocence. "I'm quite certain I could have managed that all on my own. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Don't forget it, savvy? And, I think I recall your first attempt at parlay getting you taken prisoner and . . . rrravished by a pirate on a dessert island."
Well, at least it wasn't turning emotional, Elizabeth thought, as she stalked away. Damn him, nothing was decided, and did nothing ever bother the man? Penetrate through his perpetual haze? She never scored any points off him, he took everything in stride, and she was never sure, when he paused before answering, whether he really needed the time to think, or he just liked the sound of his silence filling the air.
When Jack came that night to their bedchamber, Will turned to Elizabeth with a hurt look. "Didn't you . . .?" he said under his breath.
Jack removed his battered tricorn hat and swung round to regard them, recriminations written clearly on their faces. "Don't mind me," he drawled, "I just sleep here." He collapsed on the bed without even his habitual swig of rum, and started snoring ostentatiously. Then he stopped abruptly and opened one eye, "this is the captain's chamber, after all, and last I checked . . . I'm the captain."
The next day Will and Elizabeth moved their things into one of the passenger chambers. Will embraced Elizabeth gently that night, as they lay in bed together. The silence descended thickly, and before they fell asleep, Elizabeth pulled away to the other side of the bed. She promised herself she would not cry. She and Will were rarely together without Jack. He brought the spark and interest, and Will seemed plain and dull without a foil in Jack.
Elizabeth awoke to the sound of Anamaria singing. It was not a sound she heard much before, and her heart sunk with the thought that Jack might have gone to her bed already. Not that he didn't dally with anyone who took his fancy, but this was different, no longer a game, no longer merely foreplay for the moment when he would spin his stories for Will and Elizabeth as they imagined him with trollops and youths, and ONCE, he claimed, "a very insistent sheep."
The next night when they came together in the guest room, Will was ardent, covered her hair and face with kisses, and caressed her breasts with hands that were still rough as when she'd met him. Now, of course, it was from the ropes rather than the hammer, but it felt much the same. Then she gave a jump as a rope splinter scratched her skin unexpectedly. Of course, that was no match for the bruises she often got from a night of lovemaking between her Will and her Jack. Will laid her down on the bed (too soft, too empty) and entered her. She looked up at the dark cross beams of the ceiling (too quiet), and although Will held her after.
Luckily, the ship landed in Tortuga the next day, to replenish their supplies, and give the crew a chance to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. Elizabeth had her hands full deciding, with the rest of the officers, what to hold, and what to sell, and what needed to be spent on repairs for the ship. They were still undoing some of the cannon damage from their last run-in with the British Navy, but it was mostly cosmetic at this point. Elizabeth hadn't been able to get Jack to agree about how to portion off the plunder, and also had not announced their plans to leave to the crew.
"You know," Elizabeth mentioned to Will while they were dressing for town in their chamber, "Tortuga might not be the best place to transport to a respectable British outpost. Maybe we should wait until we hit St. Martin." Will got that sad look on his face again, furrowing his brow, that way she usually wanted to smooth, but now . . . now Will whispered, low and ugly, "it's because you want to spend more time with him, isn't it."
"We agreed, Will," she responded, even and sure, "we agreed to try it alone. Now lets go get good and drunk with the crew in Tortuga, but think about it, will you? This may not be the best place to depart."
***
Jack was singing, drunkenly, with Mr. Gibbs in the Rusty Wicket. He paused, frowned into his beard and said, "Wot's a wicket?" to no one in particular, before refilling his mug again, toasting the air, and quaffing the drink. Elizabeth sat down the table from him. There was a loud party going on around them, but it seemed like everything Jack said or sang, every mumbled, incoherent bit of wisdom was poured directly into her ear. That sibilant, throaty, seductive voice was speaking directly to her. Abruptly, she got up, not sure where she was going, but she needed to get away from his obliviousness, and her own awareness.
Will watched from another part of the pub, as Elizabeth got up, and Jack smirked into his drink. Will sat heavily in the stained wooden chair, and contemplated the scarred surface of the table, and the fact that he didn't know where half a litre of rum had gone. Then he felt a heavy arm, clad in slippery silk settle on his shoulder. "Crying into our drink, are we, mate?" he heard Jack ask, "You haaave the lady now . . . the shhtrumpet." Will groped desultorily for his sword, but all he found was Jack's leg.
"Ahhhh," said Jack, leaning his head back, "so that's what we're wanting now. Best talk to your lady about that."
"It was my idea to leave," Will said, more tired now, than jealous or angry. Jack grabbed his crotch and made a face. "Not an idea you're real happy with, mate. A man can tell." The room spun briefly in front of Will's eyes and before he could think of an appropriate response, Jack had loped off elsewhere.
Jack found Elizabeth outside, cooling off against the stone of the pub. She was hidden in the shadows, but she knew, if Jack was looking for her, he could find her. The animal part of him seemed stronger than in most men, and he could probably track her by scent. Three days, denying herself her Jack, and already she couldn't stand it. And Will didn't seem much better off. Before, when they came together without Jack it was a treat, a stolen moment of childish delights; now it just felt like work.
As if she had conjured him with her thoughts, Jack materialized out of the shadows. Without any of his characteristic mocking words, he pressed her up against the stone wall with a kiss, softer and smoother than usual. "There now," he said, wiping at her tears with a stained finger, "that was a proper goodbye kiss. Go to your husband now, there's a good lass." And he melted off into the shadows again.
To be continued . . .