Ack. I am not loving this history paper. If Mike had corporeal form, I would thump him for dragging me into this class. You, seducing me into History of Northern Ireland with your Flyboy sexiness and West Belfast accent! See if I write you any sex! No, no, you're going to be a lonely little pilot with nothing but your Spitfire to keep you company at night.
So, because having something I'm supposed to be working on always makes me very productive at working on
something else, here's an OT3 drabble for
fabu.
It was a sad fact of life that the bunk in the captain’s cabin of the Black Pearl was not large enough to fit three people into, no matter how hard one tried. Two people was a stretch, necessitating creative cuddling and entanglement, especially when one of them was Jack, who seemed to grow extra limbs in the middle of the night and use them to take up twice as much space as he should logically be able to. Three was simply… out of the question.
Not that they hadn’t tried. They’d tried repeatedly, and with great enthusiasm. But after the third time somebody had ended up falling out onto the floor, Jack had hung a hammock in the corner of the cabin and announced that they were going to “take it in turns.”
She and Will had gotten the bed the first night, because they were, as Jack had a habit of pointing out every time the opportunity arose, a lawfully wedding man and wife. She’d shared it with Jack the second night, and somehow her hair had gotten caught on one of those groups of beads he wore in his own hair, resulting in a long and painful disentangling process which had made Will laugh until tears came into his eyes.
Now it was Elizabeth’s turn to take the hammock, and try as hard as she might, she simply could not fall asleep.
It wasn’t uncomfortable, despite the somewhat odd-feeling lack of sheets. The slight rocking motion as it swayed with the Pearl’s motion was actually rather soothing, and after a day spent wrestling with ropes and struggling to acquire the sort of sailing skills necessary in a pirate-which was what she was now; a pirate-she was more than tired enough for slumber.
It was simply that, well, it had been so long since she had slept alone. Seven months of marriage had accustomed her to the feel of Will stretched out next to her, his body heat warming her and his back a solid presence to snuggle against. The few times he’d been gone from Port Royal, she had stayed awake reading long into the night before finally sleeping.
Sharing a bed with Jack was a newer thing, less familiar and still slightly exotic. Decently married women did not sleep beside pirates. Of course, some of the exotic thrill vanished after you woke up with said pirate’s arm flung across your stomach and his hair in your mouth, but still…
And while Jack might have sharper elbows than Will, he was still a warm body next to one’s own. Without either of them, the hammock felt cold and lonely, despite the tropical heat.
Elizabeth rolled over onto her side, setting the hammock to swaying again, and stared across the cabin at the bed that she so very much wished she were in.
Jack and Will were tangled together like a puzzle composed of tanned, moonlight skin. In the dim light, it was hard to tell which limbs belong to whom. Was that foot dangling off the edge of the bunk Jack’s, or Will’s?
Will’s, she decided after a moment. Jack’s feet were darker, more callused, the soles seemingly permanently darkened by tar. That arm was definitely Will’s, though, carved with blacksmith’s muscles and bare of scars or tattoos. Well, mostly bare. The tiny burn marks left by sparks and shavings of hot metal were too small to see from this far away, too small to see unless your eyes were only inches away from his skin.
Jack’s scars, like everything about Jack, were much less discrete. The cobweb of scar tissue trailing down the underside of his left arm, hidden now because the arm in question was currently draped over Will. The pale, shiny burn scar on his right. The thin, raised lines cutting across his back, silvered by the moonlight and clearly visible against his deep, weathered tan. And then there were the tattoos, dark patches to match the pale swatches of the scars. Each one a story, often several stories, depending on what mood Jack was in when you asked him about them. A serpent for wisdom-or maybe it was a sea monster, for mystery-a compass, so that he’d never lose his way, a sparrow, for himself. A skull, for a memento-his word-and because everything, especially gold and vengeance, had a price.
Will didn’t have any tattoos, wouldn’t if he got his way, though she and Jack had managed to talk him into an earring. Hopefully, he wouldn’t collect any more scars, either, because even though Jack’s were intriguing and strangely appealing, she didn’t like to think about the pain that must have gone into them, and didn’t want any of it visited upon Will.
Will was not allowed to suffer, not after she had almost lost him twice.
Jack seemed to agree with her on this, judging by the way he rested an arm over Will’s chest, almost protectively, as if to lose to contact would mean to wake and find him gone. It was almost… cute, in a way. If he were awake, and aware of what he was doing, he would have stopped immediately, if Will hadn’t elbowed him in the ribs and ducked away first. He didn’t always appreciate Jack’s habit of draping himself over them as if he and Elizabeth were pieces of furniture.
They looked so peaceful asleep together, a quality that she knew from experience would evaporate the moment they awoke. For now, though, they were all laid out like a painting for her to look at, a matched set of lovers, blacksmith and pirate, just for her.
Maybe, given time, she could get used to the hammock. As long as they kept taking it in turns.
In other news, Luke Davenport of Dream Team is going to go for the risky eye surgery to try and fix his vision. His entire career is hanging in the balance, as is Harchester United's shot at the finals. And since I'm going home in a week and will probably never watch Irish TV again after that, I'll never find out what happens to him. Teh Angst! Teh Woe!