an: edited chapter. not anything drastically different but i deleted the other by accident. thanks for your patience!
this is the action!chapter, I guess. Oh and here I go again with all the clichés. Someone save me. Intentional/lacking-imagination callbacks to the film are also included.
88
88
Imperfect
88
88
He usually won, so it never crossed his mind that he might not.
Perhaps it was that which ultimately made it easier to ignore everything else; the water that was already seeping onto the ship's listing decking, and the cries and sobs that intermittently disturbed his deft march through the crowd.
You won't lose anything, I promise.
Cal's march turned into a run.
He reached the entrance hall, where crew staff were still handing out life jackets to anyone who'd take one, or trying to calm those who were asking the obvious questions.
Where they really sinking? What were they to do? Might they perish...?
Cal had hardly considered it himself. He thought that if he did, he might change his mind.
Mr. Andrews, who Cal only knew as a possible ally to Rose's rebellion, was also there.
"Mr. Hockley," Andrews said, and dropped a life jacket into his hands. "Please, I urge you to rejoin the others on deck."
Cal dismissed the words with an impatient wave of his hand.
"I need directions to the crew quarters at once."
Andrews shook his head. "That area...it will be submerged by now. I wouldn't try your luck there."
"It's a matter of urgency."
Andrews smiled empathetically at him, and then turned to offer a woman another life jacket.
"Surely any valuables might be replaced, Mr. Hockley? Rather that than your own life."
"You misunderstand me," Cal grabbed his arm, pulling him forcefully back round to face him. "I'm not asking for your assistance, Mr. Andrews. I'm telling you."
Andrews' expression dropped, into the sort of coolness that Cal had seen all too often on Rose's face. Or anyone else's that might dare to cross him for that matter. He was used to it, and he didn't much care what anyone thought of it in that moment.
"Tell me quickly, Mr. Andrews."
"...very well."
The instructions were concentrated and clear enough, and Cal murmured the curtest of thank yous before rushing into the reception area, where the elevators were still in questionable service.
An attendant approached, but Cal was used to dealing with small bothers, and he pushed the young man aside, stepping into the elevator before any other sort of warning could reach his ears.
The elevator began to descend, and with it the water began streaming in. By the time he'd reached the appropriate level it was up to his knees, and the corridor ahead was a long and narrow pool.
Cal looked over his shoulder, where the elevator was slowly rising back up again.
He wasn't brave, he could admit it to himself, at least.
But he could be determined if need be. Even if it was only to save pride or reputation, or anything else so useless and intangible.
Besides, Rose would have laughed in his face, disappointed in him as usual.
He wiped the wetness from his forehead, and took a small step forwards. The water lapped up his leg, far too cold, like ice clamping his joints.
He took another step anyway, and the lights flickered and then went out, blanketing everything in darkness. It must have only been a few seconds, though it seemed much longer.
Cal froze, breath halting with it.
With nothing but the dark to distract him, a myriad of images flashed into his mind, urging him to take notice of his better instinct.
An inner circle of fellow and precious socialites, gossiping and staring at him. All the judgemental baggage that came with high society living.
It wasn't for Cal to decide what anyone thought of him, though he knew that his reputation had always teetered on disapproval, no matter how well he played the game. The Hockley fathers had always been hard to please.
And then there was Ruth, standing in front of himself and Jack, understanding and knowing everything.
She wasn't a fool, and it should have been damning enough. Enough reason to turn back, certainly.
And it wasn't too late.
Cal pressed his back to the wall, scrunching his hands into fists of tension.
Rose's disappointment might have been a blow, but he could probably endure it. And her name wasn't anything to cling a reputation to. She'd never liked him, anyway.
He closed his eyes, lingering in a moment of what he thought was absolution.
But Jack's face returned to him, much more easily.
Every small detail of him was there; the shape of his lips to the subtle arc of his brows. It was like finding a lost photograph.
You won't lose anything, I promise.
And he could swallow his pride for once, too.
Cal opened his eyes, and bright light was bathing the corridor once again.
He took a braced breath, and the water was almost more tolerable, or perhaps he was just getting used to it.
"God dammit, Dawson..."
He stepped down into the corridor. No need to swallow his pride when it was entirely forgotten.
8
The water had reached to his stomach before he'd begun to slow down; a strident walk turning into one of those awful dreams, in which running was a losing battle through quicksand.
It was so cold, though.
"Dawson!" he yelled, voice carrying down the flickering corridor.
The ship bounced his voice back at him, and ominous creaks followed it.
And then Jack's voice;
"...Cal? I'm here, Cal!"
He sounded so shocked, and Cal was stunned by his own relief.
His ice-seized joints snapped into gear, and he ran the rest of the way to the cabin door.
He gave it a hard push, but it was unyielding.
"Jack," he said, and leaned heavily against it, attempting to catch his breath. "...I'm here."
A pointless acknowledgement, perhaps.
"I'm glad," Jack sounded like he might be smiling.
"I'm not."
Jack laughed, and Cal's chest quivered with the sound of it. He took another breath, and then reeled back a bit, before forcing his shoulder at the door again.
Water poured out the room as he tumbled into it, almost falling into a table.
"Cal!"
Jack was perched on the edge of the table, compromised by his hands, which were handcuffed to some piping. His face was alight, and he looked as fearless as Cal remembered and had come to expect him to be.
It made everything appear less dire, and Cal waded the rest of the way to meet him.
"...can't believe you're here," Jack said.
"I-I have the key..." Cal frantically pulled out his pockets. "It's here...I have it..."
"...I didn't think anyone would come..."
"Dammit!"
Cal took off his jacket with a sound of frustration.
The key was not there.
"Cal?"
"I had it!"
But he didn't.
He must have dropped it.
Temporarily, it was the worst possible thing that could ever have happened.
Cal dragged a hand through his hair, muttering a string of curses. He might've frozen to death before admitting to such a stupid mistake...
"Goddamn it!" he slammed his hands on the table top.
"Cal."
Cal blinked up at once. Jack still had the ability to grab him, even without having use of his hands, apparently.
"I lost it," Cal said, bleakly.
Jack's smile didn't waver.
"Why did you come back?" he asked. As if, ludicrously, it were the most urgent question.
Cal shook his head in confusion.
"What...what does that even matter, Dawson?"
"I dunno," Jack glanced out the porthole window, which was levelling with water. "I just wondered."
Cal sneered, at nothing in particular.
"...I...I came back because of Rose, of course," he fumbled around again, quite uselessly, in his empty suit pocket. "She wouldn't leave the damn ship without you," he heard himself laugh, despite everything. "Ridiculous..."
"Oh," Jack said.
He sounded unusually hollow, and Cal couldn't help but look at him again.
"We are...she is my fiancée, Dawson."
Like it might be something that either of them were going to forget. Or maybe Cal needed to remind himself.
How absurd.
"I understand," Jack said, as if he didn't understand at all. "...I just can't believe you came back, that's all."
Cal attempted a sarcastic smile, but his throat felt too tight.
"Well. I must be mad then, mustn't I?"
Jack's mouth arced up some more. "Thank you, Cal."
They sat in the shortest and most torturous of silences, broken only by the occasional groan of the ship. For a few moments it was mere background noise and nothing else.
Then Cal rubbed an arm roughly over his eyes. He sighed, and imagined walking away.
"I'll find it," he said instead.
"...what?"
"The damn key. I must have dropped it somewhere along the corridor, that's all."
He walked through the water, eyes narrowing on the surface of it.
It was a little murky, but not too difficult to see to the bottom. It would be easy enough to spot the key if it was lying there.
"I won't be long, Dawson."
"Wait-"
Cal batted away his words, and pushed out, into the corridor.
The lights had noticeably dimmed, but he tried not to think about that. He strode through the water, ignoring how it lapped too close to his chest.
"Cal-"
Jack's voice turned into muffled ambience, as Cal took a deep breath, and dipped down, under the water.
It really was murky, and he almost missed it.
Between contending the cold that stabbed tiny knives all over his body, and trying to gather his sense of direction, the glint of silver shone along the strip of the corridor.
It wasn't very far away, and Cal surged to it with a short burst of relief. He scrambled to pick it up, and when he surfaced he realised the ceiling was much closer than it had looked before.
Jack was still sat on top of the table in the cabin quarters, though.
"You are mad," Jack confirmed, as Cal clambered back, and onto the table.
"Lucky," Cal corrected.
"Hah. I thought you didn't believe in that sort of thing."
"Perhaps you're rubbing off on me."
His hands were annoyingly unsteady, fingers trembling, as he pushed the key into the cuff lock.
Jack's arms swung free, immediately curling around Cal's back, and finding him in a rough and unforgiving embrace.
"Jesus, Cal...you're freezing."
"Enough of that," Cal said.
But the contact was a startling relief, and Jack's heart was a hammer, crushing into his own.
Cal pushed it away.
"We need to get the hell out of here."
8
As the adrenaline passed and they began stumbling up flooded stairways, Cal realised he wasn't particularly well equipped to deal with disaster, and that he might actually have made an insane life decision.
"We're going to die," he realised, as the lights flashed and went out for another excruciating few seconds.
When they came back on, Jack's hand was on his arm. "No, we're not."
Most people would have panicked; maybe yelled and swore a lot. Or maybe even have given up. All the things that Cal had been doing and then trying not to do. Most people were normal like that.
But then there was Jack, and he was obviously not Most People. He was probably perfect.
"Come on, not much further," he kept saying, like an optimistic mantra that Cal was supposed to believe in.
It was funny how he did want to believe it, though. That insane decision, again.
The ship made some more dramatic sounds, like an animal in the last throws of a drawn-out death, then the lights momentarily became a bit brighter, revealing a closed door in front of them. It was straining dangerously with the influx of water behind it.
Cal started towards it, anyway.
"Not that way," Jack said, holding him back.
"But that's the way out."
"Then we'll have to find another way."
"There is no other way!"
Jack was not fazed. No surprise. "Then we find one."
Cal stared at him.
It was infuriating to look at; Jack splashing through water as if they might be kids in a recreational pool, the calm aura of his face a contrast to Cal's own terror. Designed just to wind him up some more, perhaps.
Still he followed Jack back the other way, hand reaching for, but never quite touching Jack's own.
"...I didn't mean what I said," he heard himself say, in an indignant voice.
"What?" Jack sounded distracted.
It was understandable, considering the circumstances.
"What I said before," Cal cleared his throat. He wondered why he was still talking, or thinking about irrelevant things that shouldn't matter anymore.
But he carried on, regardless;
"I-I didn't mean to call you filth. I didn't mean that," he took an uneven breath. "Just so that you're aware, Dawson."
Jack stopped shortly, and then turned slowly around. His face softened into something like amusement, and he placed a hand on Cal's.
"We're not gonna die yet, you know. Save stuff like that for when things get really bad."
Cal glared at the water. "I just wanted you to know."
"I already knew."
Cal blinked. "I thought-"
In the same breath, the doors gave way, and a rush of water exploded towards them.
It would have been terrifying, if not for how quickly it all happened; no time to react, as they were both swept along the corridor and crashing into another stair gate. It shuddered with their weights, but didn't buckle.
"Are you alright?" Jack said at once.
Cal groaned, rubbing the side of an aching rib.
"Can we call things 'really bad', now?"
"They don't seem to be getting better," Jack smiled grimly.
"We should have gone the other way."
"We would have drowned."
Cal cursed and prised himself away from the gate bars; the water was still flushing rapidly through it, and though it was only at their knees, it was getting higher by the second.
Lights went out again, as the ship made another terrible wailing sound.
"Well. Now we get to drown anyway, Dawson. Just slightly more slowly, and with more time to regret everything. I hope you realise-"
Jack pressed a finger to his mouth. "Ssh. I think I got an idea."
"Fantastic."
Cal slouched back to the wall, trying to inject a bit of feeling into his seized up limbs. He watched, in some despair, as Jack ran back down the stairway, and then made a victorious sound.
"Here. Come help me!"
Cal peered down, to see Jack standing next to a wooden bench that was pressed up against the wall.
"What now, Dawson? Sit down and accept our fate?"
"It's loose. Help me pull it off the wall."
"Oh..."
Reluctantly, Cal stepped down. He got a hold on the other end of the bench.
It took a few intrepid attempts, but eventually it peeled back from the wall, and Cal allowed Jack another inappropriate moment of cheer.
"See, we did it."
"Wonderful. So now what?"
"Now we need to ram it, against the door."
"...that's your idea?"
"I never said it was a very good idea. If you have any better ones, please, be my guest."
Cal hesitated. He could feel the water creeping up and past his knees. There wasn't much time left.
He hoisted his end of the bench back up with a grumbled curse.
"Fine. But if we die, I shall kill you, Dawson."
"That's fair enough."
They drove the bench with a desperate edge into the gate, and it buckled just enough, warping metal bars so that they curled and bent apart. It gave room to a small gap along the side. It would be a real squeeze, but it was manageable.
Cal dropped the bench, and almost fell into the gate as the water suddenly began gushing at great speed through it.
"We have to move, now," Jack said, and pressed his hands to Cal's back, nudging him forwards some more. "Ladies first."
Cal scowled, but didn't decline.
He scraped through the narrowing gap, suit tearing at the gate, but hardly stopping him. The water helped push him along, and he heard a fierce 'clanking' sound as he slipped through to the other side.
There was light shining up the stairway, and he stumbled up the steps, at once gathering the slightly surreal sight of upset tables, chairs and drifting plates.
The clear night sky was visible through a nearby window, and he could see the tiny sharp dots of stars in the distance. A small advertisement for freedom, or whatever fate had in mind for him. At least it wouldn't be this...
"Dawson..."
He turned expectantly back around, to see water still rushing through the warped and almost entirely covered gate. Then Cal realised that it was shut again, and there was no sign of Jack at all.
"Dawson!"
Jack suddenly bobbed up, gasping on the other side of the doorway.
He flicked hair out his face, and shook his head at Cal.
"It's no use. It's stuck...I can't get through it."
It was insulting; how resigned he looked. Or even defeated.
That wasn't what Jack Dawson was supposed to be, and it wasn't fair.
And Cal wasn't prepared for how furious it made him.
He ran back down the stairs, and rattled the gate rather uselessly.
"What do you mean, Dawson? Of course you can get through, you idiot!"
Jack smiled at him, because he must've been insane.
"So charming, Cal," and he pushed back a bit, putting a marked distance between himself and the shattered gate. And Cal. "You came back for me. That's enough."
Cal shook his head furiously.
"No. No it's not," he reached through the bars, grasping at Jack's sleeve and pulling him in. "I-I can't let this happen."
"It's okay. Rose will understand. She'll know you came back."
"What-"
Then Jack slipped the handcuffs the rest of the way off his wrist. He passed them through the bars, to Cal.
"Show her them. She'll know you tried."
Cal stared at the cuffs, trying to process Jack's words with a telling confusion.
The water was still roaring around them, lashing through the gate at such speed that it was hard to stay very steady, though Cal barely registered it anyway.
He blinked at Jack, and shook his head in irritation.
"...no, she won't," he said, more to himself. "Rose won't believe me."
He dropped the handcuffs, and curled his fists properly around the gate.
It'd been indented by the fast flow of the water, but there was a small and clear advantage from where he stood. With a little leverage and push in the right direction, it might come loose just long enough...
Cal's knuckles whitened and his eyes locked on Jack's.
"This...it isn't about Rose anyway, Dawson."
It wasn't even a revelation, because he'd known it for a little while now.
Of course he had.
"Cal-"
Cal didn't need to think, as he shoved at the gate's weakest point with all the strength he had left. It juddered, then gave way momentarily to a fresh wave of water. There was no time to brace against it.
As Jack slipped through, Cal slammed back into the wall, and something painful bloomed at the back of his head. A white mist overtook his vision for some agonised seconds, before he remembered where he was and what was happening. And Jack's voice.
Dazedly, he followed the sound, body recovered enough to navigate the stairway.
He staggered up it, recognising the swirling and sodden patterns of the first class dining room carpet with a detached sort of elation.
"...stupid, Cal..."
Jack's voice sounded broken, and it didn't suit him. Or so Cal thought, as his legs began to feel too weak, and then seemed to buckle beneath him.
That didn't matter, since arms were soon around him, knocking him backwards and onto the nearby table.
"Stupid," Jack repeated, and kissed him hard and messily on the mouth. Again, and then again.
Cal might have laughed, but he felt strange, and there was something sticky and warm about the back of his head.
"You're bleeding," Jack said.
"I'm alright..." Cal tried to get up, but it was very tiresome for some reason.
Then he felt an arm, looping tighter around him.
"We have to move. Come on, Cal. Please..."
Cal opened his eyes (that was odd, he couldn't remember having closed them) and saw Jack's face.
He looked stricken with actual anguish, almost as if he didn't know what to do for once.
Cal wanted to sneer at it. So Jack wasn't always so perfect, then.
He blinked, and the constant tilt of the flooding dining room seemed to reflect his own dizzied mind.
Then he realised that Jack was holding him much closer, and there were nonsensical but soothing words in his ears. It was fitting, though. Nonsensical seemed to have become the theme of the day.
Cal wondered, distantly, how a day could change so many things.
You won't lose anything, I promise.
It seemed like he was going to lose this one, though.
"...I'm sorry," he said, and smiled.
As darkness crept up on him, and a mouth pressed delicately to his own, he thought perhaps that winning was overrated anyway.
88
88
an: I don't much like this chapter, and I don't have much confidence when it comes to writing action sequences. And I feel like I'm writing myself into a horrible corner here...oh well. -bites nails-
to be continued...?! tell me if you would like to see more of this stupidity.