[POTC challenge fic] - "Flee:The Dark" - 2/2 - rated R
Flee: The Dark
(Part Two)
Elizabeth nearly reaches Jack, whore snug under each arm, when she hears it. He leans into the girl at his left, a saucy redhead barely twenty, and says, “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” Anger pools crimson in her peripheral vision. His eyes never leave hers, and he grins, gold teeth bared in a crescent snarl. She breathes low and shallow, hand at the hilt of her sword.
Reaching him, she halts close enough to smell the acrid scent of rum and sex saturating him. The redhead and her brunette friend each nibble on his neck, but Elizabeth focuses on Jack, boot-to-boot with him. She cocks her head.
“Well, just look what the tide dragged in. Elizabeth, darling, what a surprise to find you so dry and handsome, what after your terrible ordeal and all. Fine morning, though, is it not?” He slips a hand beneath the brunette’s dress, cupping her breast casually. His arm dangles around the girl’s neck like a noose.
“Perfectly fine.” Her voice echoes flatly in her head.
“And oh, where are my manners. Elizabeth Swann, meet Maria - this lovely, buxom bit of Spanish treasure to me right - and the fetching redhead is Mary, the very fire of Ireland, aren’t you, love?” Dipping his heads towards Elizabeth, he winks and whispers conspiratorially. “And quite a flame she ignites in the bedroom, if you can imagine such a thing.” He leans back again, head tilted. “Ladies, this here is my cabin boy - of a sort - Elizabeth Swann.” They purr something along the lines of a greeting, laughing and squirming against Jack. Elizabeth ignores them, narrowing her vision to encompass only him. She feels a very thin, very delicate sheen of rage moistening her brow.
“Actually, I came to thank you, Jack.”
“Is that so?” Something mysterious flashes across his face but is gone too soon for her to read it.
“Yes, it is. You see, I wanted to thank you for being such an ultimate failure.”
“And how do you figure, hmm, Dolly-belle?” His voice is gritty, brittle, as he removes his arms from the girls’ shoulders, crossing them over his chest. “Please do tell.”
“Oh, it’s very simple, really, but considering your inferior station, I’ll speak slowly so you can understand. When I killed you, I really killed you. Finished the job quite neatly, of course. And then, easy as breathing, I led your crew and fetched you back.” Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she smiles coyly. “But you - oh, I really do pity you, Jack - because when you tried to kill me, you forgot one simple fact: I’m Elizabeth Swann, savvy? I brought about my own end, and you know something else?”
“Oh, do enlighten me, Your Highness.”
She tapped the brim of his hat and leaned in, mouth nearly brushing his. “I brought myself back.”
“How very droll, Lizzie-love. Now, if you’re through rambling, I’d appreciate it if you scampered off to attend to whatever it is you mighty Swanns bore yourselves with to pass the time. As you can see, I’m rather busy.”
“By all means, Captain Sparrow. Do enjoy yourself.” Pivoting, posture as proud and regal as she can manage, she walks away, pretending not to hear his last, desperate retort.
“Oh, I have - and I will again. Being so deprived of a real woman all these long, dull years has roused quite an appetite.”
She snorts, but does not slow her pace. Turning the corner, Elizabeth breaks into a sprint, uncertain of why her legs pump so frantically but certain that she cannot move fast enough to satisfy herself. One thought races through her mind: run, run run.
And she is a bird suddenly, a bird trapped in a box, flapping madly from wall to wall, from roof to floor. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to banish the sensation. By the time she opens her eyes and sees the soldiers, it is too late.
Elizabeth crashes, full speed, into the tallest of four sentries guarding the local jail. By the time she begins to scream, they’ve recognized her as a pirate and are dragging her towards the entryway, her boots kicking up dust and gravel as she thrashes. The shortest fellow laughs and yanks her hair, kneeing her low in the spine. She quivers, seeing stars, and she lashes out blindly, clamping down on the hand pressed hard against her lips. Briefly, the copper tang of blood floods her mouth. She hears her victim curse, but the men remain iron fisted, pinning her arms behind her.
The stone in her stomach plummets when she realizes that they are no longer hauling her into the prison but are instead pushing her into the adjacent alley. She convulses desperately, a fish tangled in netting, but the men throttle her and then she’s trapped against the wall. Uneven bricks dig into her scalp, and she feels no pain, only the sticky dribble of blood matting her hair.
The tallest one punches her in the stomach, sneering, and the dagger tucked into her belt slices her belly. Not enough to be fatal, she knows. But her stomach throbs the worse for the blade’s incision, and her blood runs warm, the heavy silk of her tunic clinging to her stomach. At some point, she realizes she’s screaming wildly, but the crowd of merchants and vendors passing the lip of the alley simply speed up when they see her.
Where are all the Wills of the world, she wonders absently, the pain in her stomach replaced by a fierce heat in her right eye as the tallest of the four punches her squarely in the face. He hits her again, this time aiming for her jaw, but she shifts at the last moment, his fist connecting with her lip. A molar loosens.
Groaning, she feels the familiar tickle of bile in her throat, and she vomits for the third time in less than twelve hours, her knees buckling. The world twirls mercilessly. One of the men laughs. Another curses and fiddles with his belt buckle. Somewhere high above her, small birds swoop and sing. She smells her blood, their perspiration, the scent of flaking brick and the odor of burnt bananas. One of the men - she cannot discern which one through the tangle of pain and nausea consuming her - begins to slip his hand into her breeches, the hem of her tunic jerked aside.
She turns her head skyward, willing herself upwards. She swears vengeance, silently.
“Look at me, bitch,” the grubby-handed, loose-wigged ringleader commands.
Steeling herself, Elizabeth levels her gaze slowly, fixing him with her most dangerous stare. She rears back and spits, imagining herself a cobra - deadly, venomous. Underestimated. The man smacks her with his fat palm, her spittle foaming down his cheek. Tears spilling over her lashes, she despises herself as she begins to cry - not in simpering sobs, thankfully, but in proud, elegant streams.
And that’s when she sees him: Jack, passing the alley’s entrance, head hung low and pensive. Inhaling deep, she opens her mouth and screams, careful to maintain the recognizable timber of her voice without actually saying his name. His head snaps sideways as expected. And for the first time in days, she can read his eyes again. There is fury, shock, and the quicksilver glint of calculations being tallied, odds sized up. And above all other impressions, this: Hold on, love. Be ready.
Cow-eyed and chuckling, the men are oblivious to Jack’s sly approach. His back to the wall, he inches towards her, careful to slide closer only when one of the men laughs or smacks her or promises a rough ride. It does not take long for him reach her.
And then it’s his pistol cocked at the back of the short one’s head, his cutlass balanced at the throat of the tallest. He smiles crookedly, half-golden mouth catching the sunlight.
“That’s my Doom you’re attacking, gentlemen. Big mistake. Now, if you’ll just tuck your tails up your asses and run like the dogs you are, I just might let you live, savvy?”
It’s all the distraction she needs. They loosen their hold on her when they pivot to refocus on Jack, assuming she’s too weak to fight.
A cobra again, she strikes, her sword unsheathed and hacking through the middle of their grubby-handed leader seconds before Jack unloads his shot into the shortest man. The two men remaining turn and run, no doubt rushing to locate backup.
“Can you walk?” His voice is lower and less colorful than usual, and she’s sure, then, that he’s worried for her. He touches her elbow tentatively, as though her skin burns him, and she steps back, cradling her arm.
“I’m fine, Jack. Thank you.” It is a convenient lie quickly revealed when she takes several steps forward and promptly tilts into the wall with a thud. Ears ringing and skull throbbing, Elizabeth nonetheless scoots away from him as he attempts to slip her arm across his shoulders. “I said I am fine, Jack. Just a little dizzy is all. Go on and find your friends again; I’m sure they’re missing you rather fiercely.”
“Oh, bloody hang it, Elizabeth!” This time, he offers no choice, sidling under her arm and grasping her firmly round the waist. He smells of rum and patchouli. “Now come on, Bess. Step to. Don’t want to be loitering when those coats come ‘round the corner with twenty of their closest friends.”
“What about your companions, Jack?” Her head rolls back against his shoulder, causing her voice to warble, and the rooftops seems to bend inward, melting towards the ground. “Thought you’d -“
“Goddamn it, Elizabeth! For the love of God, will you put one foot in front of the other and come the hell on. Forget those bloody whores. As you can clearly see, I am not with those swiving whores.”
“Hmph.” She feels her face swelling, her right eye puffed shut.
They barely make the street before her legs begin to give, and Jack’s cursing then as he hoists her over his shoulder, rather like a sack of potatoes, and begins to run. Or trot, more likely, as she dangles rag-like down his back. Envisioning the scene they must make - dirty pirate struggling to run with a bloody, blonde-haired, Chinese warrior-women jiggling over his shoulder like a bucket of water - she begins to laugh.
“What…the bloody hell…is so funny…Elizabeth?” He pants. The road rushes by in a brown blur.
“Jack?”
He huffs, and clearly humoring her, responds, “Yes, love?”
“Love now, is it?”
“Mother Mary and Joseph, what the hell-“
“Why did you - good God, is that a donkey on top of the barrel?”
“Focus, Elizabeth.”
“Right. Sorry. Why did you - Jesus, Jack! Could you stop the bouncing, maybe?”
“Not really.”
Elizabeth snorts. Flexing her fingers towards the sandy road, she tries to regain her composure. “Why did you put in at the wrong harbor? Pearl’s supposed to be at the far end of the bay.” Slurring now, the pain in her head pulling her under, she misses his response.
~
Jack had watched her sleep, the fierce lines of her face softened by the evening light that had hovered low in the cabin, the warm glow of sunset vaporous: like clouds capping a mountain, curling round her as she’d slept.
She had fought him hard when he’d laid her in his bed, screaming and cursing as he pressed rum-doused rags to her face, the back of her head, the gash across her belly. They had not spoken, and he’d been glad of it at the time. Daft, stubborn wench that she was, she’d likely have started another row had she not been exhausted and half-drunk on the rum he’d forced her to swallow under the pretense of chasing the pain.
In the morning, when he’d awoken to Gibbs’s loud curses above deck, he had felt her absence beside him like a knife, and had rushed out of the cabin half-dressed. “She’s gone and gotten into the crow’s nest, Captain,” Gibbs spat, clearly frustrated. “Tried to stop her,” his first mate had said, brows furrowed, “but she just wouldn’t listen.”
Now, as he climbs up the rigging, squinting in the glaring light of mid-morn, he feels oddly anxious. He reaches the flat base of the nest, pulling himself up to sit, dangle-legged beside her. She kicks the air like a child, and her head is thrown back in the wind. Turning to him, her right eye swollen shut and her whole face purple and puffy, she sighs and flexes her arms.
“Truce, love?” he says, feeling his heart in his chest. Unlooping Gibbs’ flask from around his neck, he offers her a drink which she accepts, blank-faced. For the second time since she’s returned from her stint at sea, he notices the ring on her left hand and cringes, its twilight-tinted silver catching the sunlight. He takes a long pull of rum. The sugarcane’s cloying burn is welcome, clearing his head.
They sit in companionable silence - or at least what he hopes to be companionable silence - for some time. Brisk fingers of wind comb through his dreadlocks and braids, his bandana shifting higher on his forehead to reveal - he is sure from her sudden smile - his well-defined, thoroughly ridiculous tan line. His hands prickle and itch, yearning to touch her, to soother the nicks and punctures and splotches of indigo mottling her face and neck. And he almost does touches her but thinks better of it as her left ring finger begins to trace the outline of her scraped knees. Turning away, his eyes roam frantically until they find the approaching slip of land on the horizon. Not the same as those bastards, he thought to himself, twisting and untwisting the flask’s cap. She wanted worse for herself, and it was an accident that she fell in any case. He rubs his wrist, swinging his legs absentmindedly. Bloody becoming more like the whelp every day.
His hand wanders to the cord around his neck of its own volition, and he finds himself rolling the waxy leather between thumb and forefinger. The ring threaded through the string swings pendulously, steadily, the cool metal bouncing off his stomach vigorously. He wonders if he’ll tell her how he’s hidden it for so long, waiting and waiting for the opportune stone, the opportune moment. He knows he will not tell her that he found that “stone” - if it could be called that - lying unceremoniously on his table when they put into port the previous night; that he had pocketed it, shivering slightly, thinking of a long-ago request to dear, supernatural William. And so Jack had been only slightly surprised when he’d spotted Turner’s ship from the docks.
And surely, he will never tell her this: after glimpsing her step lithely out of the Dutchman’s longboat and onto the Pearl, he did not immediately seek out the nearest brothel. Instead, he had cashed in a favor with a jeweler of long acquaintance, trading several fine pieces of Mayan gold in order to have the setting completed.
A ring that, of course, didn’t likely matter for much of anything. Not anymore.
And he will certainly, absolutely, never tell her that he knows the silver band curling around her finger is from Will. Even bloody looks like the whelp, all eerie and blue like that. Damned ghosts and their damned magic.
Thus, Jack will never explain what it felt like to enter the bodies of those women and to find himself enraged because his only thought was of Elizabeth’s face. Proper Miss Swann’s neatly groomed, arching eyebrow. Feisty Elizabeth’s naïve, frustrated pout. Angry Lizzie’s liquid eyes, and the curve of his Bess’s cheekbones as she slept. Every version of her had flashed before his eyes, and he’d felt as though he was in the mouth of that monster again, teeth thick as saplings plunging into him. Pull yourself together, Jack, he’d told himself, thrusting angrily. It’s not like you thought she would stay forever. The redhead -Susie or Lucy or Hazel or somesuch - had prattled on and on afterwards, talking of some nephew or other as though he’d been interested.
And he had thought of his Doom then as well. Conjuring every plane and angle of her face, he’d tried to picture their faces combining, tried to imagine a wee little Lizzie with coarse black hair and rum-colored eyes. He had smiled then, and the whores - Bernice and Lucinda, was it? - had continued to talk, encouraged and unaware.
Elizabeth’s voice breaks his reverie.
“I only want to know one thing, Jack.”
“Name it.”
“Last night, when I jumped ship, you - you said something when I was standing on the railing. What was it?”
He considers his options carefully, internal scales shifting between the unpleasant truth and a more gratifying lie.
“I told you to get the hell down.”
“Oh.”
“You were expecting something more gallant, I take it?” He shifts, bracing his weight on his palms, and the ring slips across his belly on its slippery cord.
“No.”
“Then why ask?”
“I couldn’t hear it properly, is all.”
He thinks of the moments after she’d leapt, when he’d sworn and spat and tied a length of rope around his waist, the cold water stinging his eyes. This is another truth he will not speak - because he knows that if he tells her that he searched until his legs cramped, pausing only twice to feel out the tug of the riptide, some small part of him will crackle, will be crushed. He touches her hand cautiously, trying to forget his panic as he’d sent out the longboats, as he’d practically run the ship into the dock, barreling down the gangway in search of other vessels to aid him.
Jack touches Elizabeth’s hand. Running his index finger over Will’s ring tucked so tidily around her finger, he feels something like anger again, boiling in his low in lungs.
He takes several swigs of rum.
“And how are you feeling, Lizzie?”
“A bit smashed and swollen, actually. But a bit freer than I’ve ever felt, if that makes any sense.” She turns then, smiling as best she can with two fat lips.
“You look like hell.”
“Mmm.”
Silence descends, and his eyes seek the crumble of light on the waves filling the horizon. He feels himself coming apart at his fault lines. Feels his heart jump and quake.
“What’s happened to us, Bess?”
“Time, I think. Nothing more than time.”
“So, it’s unmendable then?”
Her brows knit thoughtfully. She does not look at him. “I don’t know.”
“Would it be worth it to you?”
“I could ask you the same.”
“Ask me then.”
“Well?”
“You were my mate, Bess.”
She laughs mirthlessly, and he wonders for a moment if he’s ever known her at all. “Yes, I’ve been excellent in the mating department.”
“That’s not what I meant, Elizabeth, and you know it. I mean, beyond all that, we were friends.”
“We are friends, Jack” she replies, and she’s gentler, more familiar again. “It’s just - well, I keep thinking about what it would be like to have my own ship. And I think to myself - I mean, I wonder if I would survive it.”
He nods his head, realization unfurling like a flag, revealing an emblem he’s always known was there. “And so you’re wonderin’ what would happen if you were alone - without your father or Will or ol’ Jack to stand beside you.”
“Yes, I suppose it’s something like that.”
“Well, you’d be fine at it. You are fine at it, Lizzie.”
“Mmm.” Silence echoes between them until gradually, after a time, she extends her hand. He passes her the flask wordlessly, watching her throat work as she drinks.
“And, darling Doom, tell me - do you ever wonder what it would be like to settle a bit, to have a bit of a legacy? You know, young ones running about your coattails?”
She sighs, rubbing her temple. “Sometimes, though not so much as I used to. There was a time when I’d dream about Will and I - what our children would have looked like, what kind of home we would have had. But I left that all behind, and it feels proper now.”
“Yes, of course.” Jack tells himself that its relief he feels in his bone marrow. His neck feels burdened, yoked to scales that are tipping.
“You know, Lizzie, there’s something I’ve been thinking on a good bit,” he cannot look at her as he reaches into his shirt again, worrying at the smooth ring. Oh to hell with it, he thinks, swallowing reflexively. It’s just another occasion to accumulate more jewelry if she’s agreeable. If not, well, then…. Yes, well then. No real contingency for that, but no matter. Plan A it is.
“Imagine that. Jack Sparrow’s been thinking.” Elizabeth winks - or tries to, her good eye twitching. “That explains the flying pigs.”
“Ah yes, very droll, Elizabeth. You should consider a career as a professional comedienne.”
“And you’ve strayed off topic, as always. Besides, I wouldn’t want to steal all your thunder. Now focus, Jack. There was a miracle because you were thinking….”
“Saucy, horrible woman ye are, Elizabeth. Really. Don’t know why I -“
“I’m tired, Jack,” she said, standing. She closes her eyes and shakes her hair in the wind. “Can we finish this later?”
“I - well, you see - the thing is it’s sort of a pertinent matter and all.”
She sighs heavily. “I suppose I’ll have no peace if you don’t speak yours.”
“You’ve a witch’s intuition, Bess.”
“Well?”
“Oh right. Of course. Yes, well, I was thinking that - I mean considering our conversation last night - if you can call it that, really - well, what I thought was - I mean, what I got to thinking is that,” he tugs the cord from his neck, swaying backwards and frowning pensively. “Oh hang it,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “I figure we should be married, is all.”
“What?” Elizabeth looks almost green - or greener - and she stares at him wide-eyed, like a bull on branding day.
“I mean, it would be fun. You know: giving us an excuse to laugh at Gibbs’s attempts at reading scripture, giving you an excuse to gift me with a proper bit of flash and dazzle. Wild merriment. Rum by the barrels. Could even carry you over the threshold and pretend at plucking that flower of yours. I could even - you know, bathe and dolly up as you like.”
She stares at him a moment, brows furrowing, and then she turns away, unreadable, watching the gulls swoop to the sea’s surface with something like sadness in her eyes, in the tilt of her body. “No, Jack - although it sounds lovely, it’s not what either of us needs. No, I’m not going to patch everything together like that.”
“Right. Yes, of course you’re right.” The sunlight flares in his eyes, as though he’s Icarus venturing to close. He feels his wings melt, the gold in his hand burning him. “Take this anyways. No need to waste a perfectly fine ring.” He thrusts the ring into her hand, turns on his heel, longing for the feel of coarse ropes beneath his hands. Sneaking a quick look at her, he sees that she’s holding the ring delicately, turning it back and forth in the light. The massive black pearl at its center - a Tahitian, he’s fairly certain - transforms in the daylight, its color shifting from solid black to a cobalt and emerald glazed gray. She puzzles over it, puffy lip twitching, before finally sliding it onto her finger, directly above Will’s. Smiling as if to herself, she turns her face to the sun.
“It’s beautiful, Jack.”
“Yes, well, of course it is. Big Black Pearl, noon-bright gold. I am Captain Jack Sparrow afterall.” He begins his descent. “Careful comin’ down, Lizzie. One good eye and all.”
“You know, Jack, I think I’ll be fine.”
“And when you leave one day, you’ll take it with you?”
“I’ll give it back,” and she smiles before turning her back and spreading her arms wide, bird-like.
She calls after him as he begins to shimmy down the ropes. Pausing, wind in his ears, he strains to hear, but her words do not reach him.