Smoke and Mirrors

Authors note: This is you, the reader, if you wish. Or if it's not your thing to be paired with positively the most vicious pirate in the Spanish Main, kick back, put your boots up (but watch the upholstery, please ^^) and speculate on my take. Try it, you might like it. I put it not in the second person, as is traditional for main character/you formats, but rather in the first person perspective of the collective character. Thanks, and please enjoy!

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He doesn't know it yet, but when he leaves this afternoon I'm going with him, because I adore him, because he is everything I want to be. Jack Sparrow, Captain Jack Sparrow. We've been together four days now, since the morning his ship pulled into port for supplies, and he has avoided the subject of coming, or going. Or staying. I doubt he'll ever be staying anywhere, or ever could be expected to clip his wings, even for the love and comfort of a woman.

I sit alone in the room I've been sharing with him that is lodged between two other floors above me, and the pub I own below my humble flat. Two rooms, a bedroom and what I have labeled my sitting room, all with a grand count of about two pieces of furniture. Jack doesn't seem to mind; all he cared for was the bed in any case. I can't say I've minded either. My fingers twine into the thinning threads of my homemade quilt draped over the feather mattress I was able to afford just last year, and I keep catching myself glancing over at the satchel in the corner.

I've packed what matters most to me, and what would seem useful: an extra dress, a long dagger left on the bar counter several weeks ago that no one has come to reclaim, and several other things I managed to throw in there. I'm only waiting on him now.

Outside my window, over the bay, the sun is beginning to sink into the water – the blue mixing with the fire-red light and somehow dissipating into purple and gold. At the sound of my door creaking open I shoot to my feet, and cannot even repress a smile: when the sun sets, right on time, Captain Sparrow.

He gives the sparsely furnished room a quick glance, the movement of his head as it jerks gracefully and clumsily all at once from one side to the other has still not settled with me yet. I hold down a delighted laugh, and he seems to sense it, focusing those depthless dark eyes on my face. His brows lift in silent inquiry.

"You ready to have at drink down below before the day ends, love?"

A smile spreads across my face quicker than I can control it, and before I'm consciously aware of my actions his hand has already enveloped mine. Warm and rough it is, and a simply divine texture against the soft surface of my skin. Captain Sparrow is very good with his hands. He can hold me, mold me, touch me, kiss me – and the other night when I got him drunk enough, he drew me. A sketch of coal on coarse eggshell paper came out to be one of the most beautiful creations I have ever seen.

And yet he denies ever drawing it, despite the deep indention of his signature at the corner. Either he's embarrassed of his talent, or has never honestly attempted to draw while sober, but either way he wouldn't admit it to save his life. I smile ruefully. Perhaps to save his life…I'm quite certain at this point that he would do anything to save his own skin.

He stops pulling me along when we reach the door, and rather than leading me out he closes it almost all the way – only a little crack remains, a view of the dimly lit hallway that remains still and silent. I frown, and turn to him curiously. Jack's eyes strip me bare for a fleeting second, and I'm standing alone before him, unaware of anything though my mind scrambles for something to do. He has that effect on me, that dark gaze and the simplicity of it. He sees something in me with them, and it drives me back a pace.

"What is it?" I ask him softly, and his cocks his head at me. His decorations rattle, those ridiculous beads slapping against the red scarf keeping his black snaky locks at bay. "Jack, why are you looking at me like that?" My voice doesn't keep the smile I offer him. I sound nervous even to my own ears, but it all begins to dither away as his palms slide over the bare skin of my upper arms.

"I think something."

"What do you think?" My voice falls into a flirty whisper as his lids lower ever so slightly, quieting the deep brown storm in them. I tuck my chin and smile. "Jack?"

"I think you just might love me."

"Indeed?" My smile widens, and I blush despite myself. Jack nods slowly, and I laugh, pretending that I'm not so willing to let him do with me as he pleases. "How presumptuous, Mr. Sparrow. Tell me now, why after four days would I have gone so far as to love you?" There is a glint of steel, a flash of light, and the slurp of a sword leaving it's holster – and suddenly Jack's cutlass is balanced right before the tip of my straight nose, drawn and ready to strike. I don't realize how I'm looking at it with such surprise and fear that even my heart wants to leap up my throat and run for safety. My eyes shift back to Jack's, and a little smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

"Because. Because of this." He waves the cutlass once before taking it away from my face. Jack twirls it around his index finger once, and briefly glances at me long enough to wink a glimmering black eye, and suddenly the sword is gone. His lazily positioned hands are empty, and he shrugs nonchalantly. "And because of that."

I smirk, and as he steps forward I step back – the backs of my shoulder blades brush the door and I stop. "You think I love you because you can do a few magic tricks," I say sultrily, trying my best to sound unimpressed. I shift my weight to my other leg. "You think I have fallen in love with the glitter and glamour rather than the man."

Jack frowns at me, his brows furrowing into a curious almost child-like expression. He nods at me, again sending his decorated hair into a panic of chiming and knocking. "Prove me wrong, then, love."

This time I reach out with my own fingers, only realizing how cold they are when his skin beneath his coarsely short beard brushes the tips. I move in, slowly, and the closer I get the stronger I smell the rum surrounding him. I allow myself to kiss him, taking his lips with mine and pulling gently, urging him to respond. Jack moans low in his throat, the sound deep and reverberating down into his chest. He takes my offer, and returns my kiss with several times my spirit.

Finally, I break away. Breathless, my voice leaves me a shallow whisper. "You," I say softly. "Are a pirate. And I love you for that."  I move in to kiss him, but as my lips brush against his he pulls his head back and frowns at me again.

"Smoke and mirrors," Jack finally speaks, his voice deepening at first and then graining out to a slur. I try to make sense of his words, and begin to mouth a request for him to maybe explain his outburst, but he beats me to it. Jack holds a finger up, unsteadily as it is; his eyes have never looked so certain. It is as if he is trying to speak to me, and I can't hear him. "Smoke and mirrors is all there is to this business, m'dear lady. It is all I am, all we are, and all you will ever find in us."

His brown palm is open before me like a blossoming flower, and sitting in the creases of slightly paler skin is a trinket made of gold with quite possibly the biggest red stone I have ever seen embedded in it. I am unable to resist, and with an immature curiosity reach up to take it. Another flash and quick movement of his hand, and his palm is empty. I meet his eyes, and he raises both dark brows as me. "You see it now, don't you? It was there, you could have reached out and touched it with your little fingers, and in the time it took for you to decide you wanted it, it vanished."

I know the expression on my face is utter bewilderment, and my jaw hangs open slightly as I stare at him. I want so desperately to understand him, to know what he is trying to say to me, but all I receive is the trinket before my eyes again. I look at it carefully, and then back to him. Jack's expression remains the same, but the light in his eyes alters itself. He nods. "Smoke. And Mirrors."

"Smoke and mirrors," I repeat in a small voice, and smile uncertainly as he holds the gold chain out to me. My fingers close around his hand this time, and it's oddly reassuring to feel the cold of the trinket beneath my palm. No more tricks, I think, and he finally smiles back at me. Jack glances up at the ceiling first, for reasons I suppose I'll never understand, and he advances on me again, seizing my lips, as greedily as any pirate should. He is rough, and he is gentle, and he is magnificent.

I lean into the kiss, and his hand snakes up my arm to cup the side of my face. His passion deepens the kiss, and it almost burns with intensity. Vaguely I am aware of his hand turning mine over, and suddenly my back is against the wooden door. The kiss is broken.

"Jack?" The pirate has stepped just out of my reach, and he has his bottom lip between both rows of his gold-specked teeth. He nods in the direction of the doorknob, and as I look down I realize the trinket has turned into iron. There is no trinket, just an iron chain and clamp that has me bolted to my own door handle. My head whips around to stare at him, incredulously. "Jack!"

"Smoke and mirrors, love." Jack says softly in a voice made of gravel but as smooth as rum. He regards me quietly – not cruelly, as if this is a big joke and I'm the punch line, but almost pitying. He bends down and lays the trinket on the floor, sliding it over to me with the tip of his boot. "There. Something to remember me by." At the frustrated whimper I'm too frazzled to control, he tips his head apologetically. "We had fun, didn't we? Now you'll only be here an hour or so, at the most. I won't lock you in, but ya can't yell till I'm clear out the building, savvy?"

"Jack…" I moan, miserable and becoming sick with hurt. Hot tears prick my eyes, and I swallow hard. "Why?"

"Because, mate," Jack balances one of those dirty brown hands on the hilt of his sword, and the other is palm up to the sky, careless but practical. He does see something I was blind to. Jack nods to the window behind me, to the mist that blankets the evening sea. He grins. "My only love is out there. She's waiting for me."

I scowl, and twist around myself to get a better look, thinking he means an actual girl. When I see the sea I quickly turn back, but Captain Sparrow has vanished. The part of me that isn't hurt smirks wryly, and I laugh, once. "Smoke and mirrors, then, Captain Jack Sparrow. Go on, go to the sea."

~end~