CHAPTER EIGHT: WAKE-UP CALLS

Rubbing her temples, Chloe groggily dragged herself up the steps, groaning as the early sun harshly shone down upon her face. Shielding her eyes from the offending light, her gaze roamed the deck in an attempt to spot a familiar face. For a slight moment, worry settled itself in the pit of her stomach when all she could see were dirty-faced pirates, but then a loud voice caught her attention. Turning towards the helm, she could see her roommate barking orders at the crew, hands tightly secured around the vessel's wheel.

Closing in the distance between herself and the other woman, the blonde muttered darkly under her breath. The fact that she was not in the least a morning person, that could be dealt with in a number of ways, but to have several foul-smelling men bump into her or roughly glide past her was enough to spark her irritation to a greater extent.

"Goddamnit!" she hissed loudly as yet another body collided with hers, almost having her lose her balance completely, a good amount of swaying already having been present thanks to the ship's less than gentle rocking. "Get a fucking pair of glasses, you prehistoric proto-loser!"

Glancing up, she found herself face to face with a wide-eyed teen, mouth opening in what she assumed to be an attempt to form a somewhat decent response to her outburst, which, naturally, never came. Instead, his brows furrowed as confusion set itself into his young features.

With a heavy sigh, Chloe couldn't bring herself to sympathise with the boy as she pushed past him, resuming her previous course.

Anamaria noticed the approaching figure and gave her a slight wave in a way of greeting. Mr Gibbs, who was also standing at the helm, managed to surpass the dark-skinned woman's kindness and actually bothered to speak up. "G'morning, Miss Chloe. Ye had a fine night's rest, I hope?"

"Freakin' fabulous," she huffed, unconsciously tugging at the hem of her red tanktop somewhat. The not-so-subtle stares she received from the crew didn't really disturb her, but were now starting to get on her nerves, like many things that fine morning.

She considered herself to be a fairly hygenic person and prided herself on the time she, much to her own surprise, found to shower each morning (and preferably night) before heading off to school. And to not even be able to clean herself after taking a swim in salt waters, it was truly bothering her. She didn't at all enjoy the stringy quality her hair had adapted, nor the grain-like feel of her own skin. It felt like a plastic bag was tightly wrapped around her face and it was itching all over. And… well… she smelled like a rotten oyster. 'At least I fit in now.'

Lost in her own musings, she fell quiet, eyes focussed on a spot far beyond the horizon. It was Gibbs' voice that snapped her out of it again.

"Say, where be Jack?"

Anamaria only shrugged in response. "Haven't seen 'im."

"Strange. He usually beats the sun in risin'."

"Probably still exhausted," Chloe piped in, ignoring the looks the other two shot her. She knew that didn't have a clue as to what she was talking about, since the seamen's festivities had lasted longer than that of Jack and Lex, which was a hard feat in itself.

"Well," Gibbs continued. "We still need to be knowing it we'll be takin' the same route as last time or no', so someone'll have to wake I'm up, then." A grimace settled onto his aged features.

"What are ya waiting fo'?" Ana quipped, ignoring the dirty look she received. "An' invitation? Ye ain't be getting one."

"I got to wake the blighter last time," he responded, obviously having less than pleasurable memories of the experience.

Chloe just stood there, watching the exchange with disinterest. That was, until the man's eyes landed on her, a gleam in them she wasn't quite comfortable with. "What?" she demanded indignantly, shifting her stance from one foot to the other.

"Why don' ye go wake up the Capt'n, lass," he told her more than asked. "An' I'm sure yer friend'll want to rise too."

Her mouth almost dropped to the floor. "No fucking way!"

"C'mon, Miss Chloe, it's no' that bad."

"Then you do it!"

"Miss-"

"When I say no, I fucking mean no. I'm not gonna wake them up, if they're not awake already! God only knows what they're doing in there! I refuse! No way in hell! If you're gonna make me, you better throw me overboard right now! Or better yet, just do nothing! I bet I could kill myself on half the shit lying around here!!"

"They didn't actually have to dangle me over the side," Chloe grumbled as she stood in front of the Captain's cabin, hand poised over the door. Pausing, she scraped her courage together before knocking. As the sounds echoed in the silence on the other side of the door, her breath hitched, anticipating a response of some sort. A small frown appeared and annoyance coursed through her as nothing came, and she decided that a different approach was necessary.

Hand dropping to the doorknob, she tried to twist it, slightly surprised that it gave into her motions quite easily. 'The guy's on a freakin' pirate ship where everyone's armed with either a cutlass or bad breath. You'd at least expect him to make use of something as simple as a lock.'

Slowly pushing it open, she winced as agonizing squeeks filled the air, reminding her of one too many horror flicks. After only having taken two steps further inside the cabin she froze, gaze resting on the broken bed, mouth hanging wide-open.

There the two men lay, limbs entangled around each other, their faces only mere inches apart. It was a shocking sight, to be sure, but that wasn't what had captured her undivided attention.

Arousal burned in her veins as her eyes took in Lex's half-naked form, clad in a pair of mere silk boxers, drinking in his delicious form. The fact that his boxers where a deep purple didn't manage to escape her attention, and she grinned. God, he really was beautiful. All she nights she spent dreaming of sliding her hands down his perfect body, the real-life thing didn't disappoint her in the least.

Entranced, she found it almost physically impossible to tear her gaze from him, but when she moved it to the second occupant of the bed, she felt like gasping for air. Sleep had taken all the rough edges out of Jack's face and the desire to pounce this God's gift to the seventeenth century only increased as she trailed her eyes down. She could almost feel his smooth, muscled chest under her fingertips and the dark smudges of dirt marring his skin didn't help calm down her racing heart.

The urge to just crawl on the bed between them gripped her like a vice, and she'd already taken a few more steps towards them when reality hit. Hard. The two looked like the cover of some sleazy romance novel. If only they were bi-sexual, but with her luck, she could dismiss that without a second thought.

'This is great! Just freakin' terrific!' Abusing her bottom lip with her teeth, Chloe pondered over the best way to wake the two men. Loud insistent yelling and screeching always seemed to get the job done, but only produced grumpy individuals in the end, which made the whole thing considerably less fun. Ditto for the throwing water on them tactic. 'Maybe I should just rouse them physically. You know, just place my hands on a non-sexuel part of their anatomy and shake a little. That's innocent enough, right? Nothing harmless about that. A purely innocent way to reach a totally innocent goal. Of course. Now, who should I wake first?'

Taking her sweet time to further study the figures on the bed, she decided on Jack, since he, at least, still had his pants on. Approaching his side, she found out she had to kneel down in order to get on the same level as the collapsed bed. Images of the two grinding against eachother filled her mind, and a shiver ripped through her. Damn, that really wasn't helping anything!

"Stop it, stop it, stop it…" she muttered under her breath, reaching out to lay her hand on his shoulder. Before she could stop herself, she grazed her fingers across his flesh, revelling in the heat coming from him.

She'd touched someone before, and definitely in more sinful ways, but those were boys. Lex and Jack were men. Extremely sexy men whom she felt attracted to.

Breathing in deeply, she gently grasped him and shook. To her amusement, he only attempted to shrug her off, so she applied more force. Finally, one eye cracked open. There was a pause as the realization that Lex's face was almost pressed against his had yet to register in his mind. The second eye opened, they narrowed, then seemed to pop out of their sockets.

With a choked shriek, he threw himself away from the other male, failing to notice Chloe until he fell off the bed, and therefore, right onto her.

The blonde had no time to react and the two tumbled to the ground in a heap. "Oof," was the only thing she could bring forth, trying her best to stop the pounding in her head after having it crashed against the hardwood floor. There was some rummaging above her, which she decided to ignore due to her current migraine. "Where's an advil when you need one," she mumbled, groaning slightly.

"A what, luv?"

Looking up, she noticed that Jack hadn't moved from his position ontop of her, but had, instead, placed his knees around her waist and hands on either side of her head so that his weight wasn't pressed up against her anymore. Her mind blanked as she just stared up at the pirate, the sight of him hovering above her doing unimaginable things to her self-control.

As no answer came from her, a frown marred his features. "Yer not lookin' too good. Didn't hit yer head too hard, did ye?" The honest concern she found in his slurred tone of voice brought her back to the present somewhat, and she managed a weak smile.

Still, he didn't look convinced. Resting his weight on his left hand, he lifted the other to her forehead, checking the temperature. "Yer not hot," he commented.

'You are.'

Chloe had to bite her tongue not to say it out loud. "I'm okay," she told him, voice too husky for her own liking, so she cleared her throat a bit. "Really." Laying a hand on his chest, she attempted to push him off her, but he wouldn't budge. "Sparrow?"

After giving her another long glance, Jack nodded slightly and slowly raised himself from the floor, pulling the blonde up with him. Still, he kept a rather protective hand on her lower back, supporting her somewhat even though it was unnecessary.

"Thanx," she mumbled, keeping her eyes downcast. The sight of Jack's chest was just too much for her restraint to handle. As the guy in question finally seemed to notice her discomfort at his state of un-dress, he grinned devilishly, rubbing small circles on her back in a way that made shivers run up and down her spine.

"Goodmorning," a gruff voice split the silence like a dull knife.

Her gaze flew to Lex, who was sitting calmly on the bed, staring back at her with a mix of betrayel and jealousy.

Her hands were rough, her knees were aching and her back was absolutely killing her. Who the hell did Jack think he was? Why did she slave herself day in and day out at school and on the Torch? To become a freakin' cleaning lady? No, worse! A deck scrubber?

After having found out that Lex had witnessed that morning's little incident and still not fully trusting herself around the two gorgeous, half-naked men, Chloe had gotten out of there sooner than she could say gay, and informed Gibbs, who she was now starting to really dislike, that her little mission had succeeded.

Not that much later, Jack and Lex followed her, bringing some bread with them, serving as breakfast. Turns out that the dinner she'd been enjoying the night before wasn't the everyday meal aboard a pirate ship. Not that she'd presumed it to be so.

The tension between her and the billionaire was almost tangible, and it only took Jack a few minutes to figure out how the two could do something in return of his gracious hospitality, as he'd so generously dubbed it. Anamaria was ordered to provide Chloe with some clothing of her own, instead of the tight-fitting garments the reporter was already wearing, while Lex just stayed decked out in his own designer suit, minus the jacket.

The young boy she'd barked at earlier had provided them with a two scrubbing brushes and a bucket, and had then scuffled off with a set of his own. Chloe and Lex had just stood there, staring dumbly at the objects, not quite believing Jack actually expected them to do the impossible task of trying to clean something on the ship.

Noticing that the spot she had been working on for what seemed like forever now was still there, something inside of her just snapped. Letting out a sound of frustration, she threw down the brush, glaring at it angrily, eyes almost willing it to start cleaning the deck on its own accord.

Beside her, also on his knees, Lex had stopped his similar actions as soon as he'd heard the object hit the floor, and was staring at Chloe with a hint of amusement in his slightly flushed features. "I think you'll need more than the evil-eye to kill it, Chloe," he commented with a smirk, wiping a few beads of sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his former white shirt.

Chloe never averted her gaze from the brush. "No, but I'm pretty sure it'll sufficate after I shoved it up the Captain's ass. Of course, it'll be a tight fit, with the stick already up there, not to mention his head."

Chuckling, he picked up his own brush and leaned down again, continuing his scrubbing. Chloe only craned her neck to direct her heated look at Jack, who was standing at the helm, making sure the ship was on its right course. Almost immediately, she caught his eye and a grin spread out across the pirate's face. Visibly, his gaze drifted down for a moment before returning to hers, and he smirked wickedly.

Chloe grudgingly picked up her brush again, mimicking Lex's movements. "You know," she told the billionaire casually. "I think your girlfriend is in for another ride. Better not tire yourself out today if you want to be able to rock the ship tonight."

Frowning, Lex was going to ask her what she meant, when he saw her throwing glares towards the helm, and let his eyes grow wide. "Excuse me?" he questioned with the most casual voice he could manage, which wasn't quite so casual.

Without relenting her attack on the spot, Chloe snapped: "Don't play Clark with me, Luthor, you know what I'm talking about. Believe me, it's nothing to be embarressed about. Jack certainly has a certain quality to him, and I'm sure Michael, who I met during my internship at the Daily Planet, would've fawned all over him-"

"I am NOT gay," he whispered vehemently, eyes darting around to see if anyone had overheard.

A little surprised by Lex's fierce denial, but not overly so, she just ignored it. "You don't have to worry about me exposing your little... Okay, big secret, or write an article about it. I may be determined and ambitious, but that doesn't mean I'm a cold-blooded bitch. And it's not like I can do anything destructive to your playboy imagine from here, right?" With a vague gesture around them, she continued her work without ever having looked up. "Besides, I it's not like you've got a bunch of groupies stashed in the hull," she paused. "Unless there's something you're not sharing with me." 'Besides heterosexuality.'

"Chloe," he ground out, forcing her to finally face him. "Listen to me carefully: I am not gay."

She just huffed. "And Jack's not checking out your ass right now either."

"He's not interested in me!" He practically yelled, before her comment actually registered. Whipping his head around, he found the Captain's eyes transfixed on Chloe's oh-so-wonderful behind and clenched his hands into fists.

Jack was just having delectable daydreams about a certain blonde, when he noticed Baldy's menacing snarl, and shook them from his mind, turning his focus on faring the ship through the waters again.

Looking back at Chloe, he could see that she hadn't noticed anything and remained to look completely unphased by her so-called discovery. How was he supposed to lure this annoying woman into falling for him if she thought him to be gay? "Chloe..."

"I know, I know, you dig brown-haired chicks and big hooters make you horny. Save it, Lex, 'cause I'm scrubbing for two here, so get the hell back to work."

Staring at her with an incredulous look on his face, he slowly picked up his brush again.

'Oh god, this is going to be one long trip.....'

TBC