{ The Meme }
Jack gave Salazar a look at this act of coddling, but in the end succumbed to it. The Spaniard was not wrong in his assessment – in fact, “I think you’re selling it a bit short there, mate.” It was colder than a the heart of a siren out on the deck this evening. Glancing up, he wagged his brows curiously, “You going to join me, then?”
{ Random Acts }
“I will shoot!” Jack insisted hotly, even knowing he was caught out. He kept his pistol level for a moment more, staring into those wide eyes and trying not to feel disconcerted by how unaffected they were. There was no fear in that gaze, but it didn’t come from Beckett’s certainty that Jack was harmless. Rather, it came from the sort of deadness only the truly shattered could properly achieve, and it was an eerie sight on a man who was so fucking sure of himself.
Clicking the safety back in place, Jack lowered his weapon with an irate growl. “Oh – bugger off,” He stepped back, not wanting to be any closer than he had to be to the man. “Crew’s ordered not to touch you,” He reminded him gruffly, “So get out of my sight, if you please.”
{ Little Dark Age }
Looking down at the man before him, Jack cannot help but feel – responsible for the state of him. Without his wig, he had sprouted a halo of soft near-curls that were strangely cherubic on his porcelain features. It presented an innocence he knew for a fact this man did not possess a whit of, but there was no denying that he looked small here.
Divested of his riches and his grandeur, Cutler Beckett was but a delicate man in a world too rough for him to navigate without dent or damage – and while he may not be innocent, there was no denying that he was vulnerable. Which – despite all that had come to pass – Jack found to be a distasteful outcome.
Perhaps if he had held on to some of that customary arrogance, it would have been easier to accept, but as it was Jack found himself glancing around and taking in the tiny empire this man had built for himself with naught but a tent in the sand. There was no questioning how he was getting by, that much was certain – but Jack did not think for one moment that the means of survival was the source of the humility before him now.
After a moment of consideration, Jack offered out his arm. “They say misery loves company,” He offered, sporting a charming grin a moment, then, “Last I was here, I may have caused a bit of a situation.” That was one way to word sacking an entire city without firing a single shot, alright. “Folks won’t cause me any trouble, but they also won’t be making very good company. I could use some entertainment about as much as you could stomach a meal, I wager.”
It wasn’t that Jack wasn’t used to paying for company – so much as it wasn’t so much the company he tended to be shelling out for. In this case, however, he felt it fair to make a small exception.
“You’re talkin’ rogues, mate,” Eyes narrowed as surely as his voice had taken grasp of a darker cadence, Jack considered detailing precisely what it took to be a pirate, but in the end he opted to step in close and sway forward, pitching his words low to better ensure that Becket clung upon every word. “And you best be thanking whatever it is a grubby little monkey like you prays to that it be pirates were the ones to fish your rotten flesh out of those waters, mark me.”
He leaned back then, his arm raising up sudden and sharp, as if to slap – but he turned it, stopping shortly before Cutler’s very nose with the hideous rise of flesh in the shape of a P bared between them. “In my experience,” A false brightness, a dangerous sort of pleasantness seeping into his tone now, charming as a snake, “All it takes is a man with a dark heart and a wicked disregard for people’s lives to make a pirate.”
“You’re in no position to negotiate, mate,” Jack waved his hand, and in an instant, Ragetti and Pintel had Beckett’s arms pinned to his sides. There was a nasty grin on Pintel’s face that left Jack more than a little uneasy – the man was still too much Barbossa’s for comfort – the sooner the Pearl was docked with Greene’s fleet, the better he would be for it. An honest crew would be quite the sore and welcome thing after so much of this mutiny business.
“You want us to gut ‘im for ya, boss?” Pintel inquired, all too eager with the idea of spilling guts across the deck of the Pearl. Jack wrinkled his nose at him, “What? No! Deck’s just been swabbed,” He pointed out as reason enough, “Toss him over – he’s gotten a bit ripe.”
As if uncertain, Ragetti leaned in and sniffed at Beckett, rearing back with a look that was comically startled. “See?” Jack’s tone was pleased, warm from amusement and vindication. “And you know what I think of that, don’t you lads?”
Ragetti started to chuckle, knowing where this was going, and Pintel stared, his face twisted in an impression set to make a gargoyle cry. Jack rose his brows, leading the older of the two to groan, “You don’t mean for us to go with him, do you captain?” Suddenly it didn’t sound as fun as it had a moment ago.
In answer, Jack made a shooing motion, and Ragetti began pulling Beckett toward the edge. “Its a good day for a swim,” The musing was remarkably good natured, and Jack smiled a little – though he was certain to Beckett, it brought absolutely no comfort to see paired with a little wave as Pintel hauled as well to get the reluctant man on the edge of the ship.
“Have fun!” He chimed, just as the deck rocked in the wake of a wave, and all three of them tumbled in. Judging from the yowl of outrage, Pintel had not been at all ready for it. Jack looked around, before waving over Moriarty, who was kind enough to bring the bucket containing cloths and a small chunk of soap and lower it, too, over the edge of the ship.
“And what do you think you’re doing?” It was about as effective as talking to a jailhouse dog. Beckett was not only tired, he was feverish and too beyond himself to consider being afraid, let alone obedient.
Jack was of the mind to stick him on the floor regardless, and just stuff more blankets around him so he could sweat out the fever without being troublesome about it. Still, considering the man’s constitution that was as like to kill him off as not, and far be it from he to kill a man through something so impersonal as negligence. He supposed it served him right for ignoring the signs of symptoms up until now, anyway.
Huffing irately, Jack stepped over and grabbed the smaller man, lifting him up and tossing him over one shoulder like a sack of grain. Tearing all his own blankets off the bed, he unceremoniously dropped the man back onto it, before stomping off to shove his bedding onto the chair behind his desk. That done, he grabbed the pillows off the floor and started chucking them with a vague sense of amusement and malice at the tired man, considering it a right treat each time there was a satisfactory plap to Beckett’s face.
That done, he picked up the blankets and drew them over, tossing them across the small fellow and tucking him in so tightly it would be a wonder if he could move. “I’ll check on you later,” He grumped, turning with every intention of transforming his desk into a bed for the night.
{ Truth Serum }
“Why? So I can make myself more like you, mate? More like those other dastardly, cowardly souls which care not for the state in which they leave this place for the next?” Jack knew too much about the other side to want to face it with the amount of corpses on his conscience that were known to weigh down men like Beckett, men like Christophe, “When I kill, mate, you can understand this – the consequences of not killing that person weigh heavier on me and mine than the curse that death will set upon me. You’re a treacherous little worm, a right snake in pretty frills, but it won’t be me who kills you. You make enemies everywhere you go and I would hate to deprive them such a delightful opportunity. As for me – there’s nothing more you can do to me, mate. You’re harmless. Killing you would be a waste of my time and a chain my spirit doesn’t need to walk with.”
{ Odd Eye Circle }
“It would seem that once again you remember things differently,” Jack scathed, laying his palm against the desk and leaning forward, “Allow me to remind you that when we met, your impression upon me was so abysmal I was perfectly content to walk out of your office and seek employment elsewhere. What a pity for us both that I didn’t.”
A lie – Jack didn’t regret finding Kerma and he sure as hell didn’t regret doing all it took to ascertain Cutler Beckett and all those like him would never lay eyes on it. But the presumption that he had been prepared to circumvent Beckett from the start was as preposterous as it was insulting, if only because –
“You think too highly of yourself, mate. Always have.” He really couldn’t stand a self righteous prick. “Now – either we have business or we don’t, and in the case of the former it had best be good, seeing as I’ve worked with snakes more conscionable than you, and in the case of the latter, well you’ll have to excuse me, as I’m not particularly interested in conversation with a man of your ilk.”
“Oh do you listen to yourself?” Jack had dealt with his fair share of liars and thieves but never had he met a man so adept at conning himself as this man before him now. “We had a partnership that was formed on one stipulation – one single and solitary rule and that is I don’t transport slaves. I told you no, you gave me a ship anyway, and then told me to do the thing I previously said no to, and now you’re whining on about trust as if you actually believe a man would go against his morals just cause you bat your pretty lashes on him. I’ve got news for you mate – the world has never managed itself in such a manner, and it never shall. It may feel like it does, but I assure you – it really doesn’t.”
It was a reckless thing, to trust someone so intimately as to not only bare ones whole body before them without an ounce of shame – but to go so far as to allow that person to bind ones hands above ones head, making that vulnerability all the more intent in the danger that entrapment posed – was a heady and wild matter the likes of which Jack could only consider the height of madness.
There was no doubt in his heart that he loved James Norrington more than could ever be counted as wise or even particularly sane. They had crossed every line imaginable for each other – had challenged the impossible for one another – had been both Orpheus and
Eurydice in their dance toward the life they lead now aboard the Pearl, as captain and first mate, as friends and lovers, as husbands for better and worse.
And yet still there were moments like these when Jack found himself boggled by how deeply and irrevocably assured their mutual destruction had become, if only for the fact that two men who trusted one another this completely could in turn only truly be ruined by the other.
In that particular moment, James was quite determined to ruin him in most delightful fashions indeed. A gasp was torn from him – as were the last of his ruminations – as he found himself drawn deep into a familiar heat. His hands tightened their grip on his bonds, twisting in the leather in search of purchase as his back arched above the cot in a strange mixture of pleasurable frustration, seeking more – seeking anything to ease the tightness of his own arousal.
“Jem,” There was a low rasp in his voice, a hint of warning that he was growing frustrated with this inability to run his hands all over the damn man and be the one driving him insane, “You – “ Whatever he had been about to say was lost in the wake of a single idiotic error. Looking down, he found himself pinned by the stormy gaze of his beloved – which on any other occasion could be distracting enough – but to see those beautiful lips stretched over himself – in truth, Jack lost all capacity to think of anything beyond that particular visual.
Ocean Archive 