Fic: Crossing the Bar (20/?)
Aug. 25th, 2006 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
honoratAuthor: Honorat
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Jack Sparrow, Anamaria
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria somewhat. Jack/Pearl most definitely
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!
Summary: The arming of the warrior. Every epic needs one. Jack and Anamaria prepare for a fight. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does?
Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
geek_mama_2 for the beta help.
1 Ambush
2 No Regrets
3 The Judgment of the Sea
4 The Sea Pays Homage
5 Risking All That Is Mortal and Unsure
6 Troubles Come Not Single Spies
7 To Dare Do All That May Become a Man
8 Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
10 For Where We Are Is Hell
11 To Beat the Surges Under and Ride Upon Their Backs
12 One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts
13 Though the Seas Threaten, They are Merciful
14 He Jests at Scars Who Never Felt a Wound
15 To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield
16 A Kind of Alacrity in Sinking
17 A Fine-Baited Delay
18 To Watch the Night in Storms
19a The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 1
19b The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 2
* * * * *
20 To Disguise Fair Nature with Hard-Favour'd Rage
The rising of the sun had done nothing to discourage the lowering clouds from a steady, persistent drizzle. The gentle undulation of the ship and the whispered patter of rain on her decks would have been soothing under other circumstances. However, the rough seas of fever kept alternately submerging Anamaria in struggling sleep and casting her, unrested, on the shores of consciousness. Pain broke her apart on the shoals, grinding her into fragments in the breakers of exhausted memory.
Gathering the pieces of her disconnected mind, Anamaria fought her way once again to the surface of wakefulness, drawn by a scuffling sound in the cabin.
In the light filtering through rain and broken glass she could make out Jack Sparrow pawing through a chest in the corner. Some time since she’d last seen him, someone must have helped him out of his coat and vest and boots, because he was in his shirtsleeves and barefooted and obviously on the hunt for a change of clothes. Already he had a growing pile of sartorial treasure around him.
“Goin’ courtin’, are you?” Anamaria asked, pleased that her voice came out as something more definitive than a croak.
Jack’s head appeared above the edge of the chest, grin sparkling. “Aye, love. There’s a bonny wee brig just beggin’ for a pirate captain to have his way with her. Wouldn’t want to disappoint the lass.”
Anamaria rolled her eyes. “And just how does your lovely Pearl feel about that?”
Jack smirked. “She don’t blame the Defender at all. Thinks she has rather good taste in men!” His mess of dark hair disappeared again. From the depths of the chest his voice echoed hollowly. “She knows she’s my one true love, so she don’t mind sharin’ the wealth.” He popped up again clutching a pair of breeches. “’Sides, it wouldn’t seem respectful-like t’ commandeer a ship of the Fleet in all me dirt. Got to observe decorum. This ain’t just any plebian merchant vessel after all. This one is a real lady.”
“And you want to impress the hell out of them,” Anamaria said dryly.
“Can’t hurt, darlin’.” Jack nodded. “We’re not exactly holdin’ the upper hand here. Wouldn’t do to look too much like I’m already half-killed if I want those Navy boys shakin’ in their boots, eh?”
He pounced into the chest again. “There you are! I knew you were in here somewhere!” A problematically white shirt waved like a flag above the edge.
“You surrenderin’?” Anamaria laughed at him. It was good to see Jack back in spirits again, though where he’d found them was a mystery.
“Merely lookin’ t’ parley, ma’am,” Jack said, gathering his chosen effects and lurching to his feet with a pained huff. “Though if it’s surrender you want,” he leered at her, “just say the word.”
“If I were the Pearl,” Anamaria suggested pointedly, “I’d be hittin’ you upside the head with the spanker.”
“Why ever for, love?” Jack asked with wide-eyed bewilderment. “There’s plenty of me t’ go around.”
Anamaria snorted. “Unprincipled rake,” she accused.
With a superior look, Jack said, “Those what can, does!”
He laid the clean garments on the table next to a tin basin of salt water, fresh water still being severely rationed, although they had now realized some success in collecting rain as the weather calmed.
The front and sleeves of the shirt he was wearing were dyed a shocking crimson, still wet with rain but growing darker rust as the fabric dried against the heat of his body. His forearms were red, and, although his hands were rain-washed, his nails were dark with old blood.
“Much as I hate t’ admit it, I might be in need of a bit of a bath.” Jack looked dubiously at what he could see of himself. “’Course a good swim’d take care of some of this blood, but not before it messed up me clean shirt.”
“And you reek like a pirate,” Anamaria observed, wrinkling her nose, although to be honest she was fairly sure she smelled just as bad. Rain and the wash of the sea only added a humid and salty pungency to the adamantly ground-in odour of dirt and tar and sweat and blood.
Jack preened. “Ain’t it grand, love?”
He made an abortive attempt to remove his stained shirt, then froze, breath hissing through his teeth. “Damn it all to hell! I bloody hate havin’ broken ribs!” He turned to Anamaria. “I don’t suppose you would be so kind?”
Since even she couldn’t argue with his reasons for luring her into undressing him yet again, Anamaria nodded shortly.
Positioning himself beside her so that she could reach his shoulders without sitting up, Jack leaned forward and allowed her to gather up the fabric and work it over his tangle of hair.
Anamaria’s fingers felt like lumps of soggy salt horse, and she had to force herself to handle the gory material. Some of that was her blood, she knew, but the rest . . . there was so much of it. It stained the bandage on his chest as well.
“Whose?” she asked as she drew the shirt down his arms.
Jack’s face shuttered instantly. “Number of people,” he said, his voice clipped and emotionless. “Diego’s mostly. He was too ripped up. I had to give him grace.”
Anamaria felt a sickness that had nothing to do with her swollen leg or the accompanying fever. That Jack, of all people, should have been forced to do such a task—there would be ghosts perching on his shoulders the minute he had time to slow down enough to rest. Her hands lingered of their own accord on the backs of his for an instant before she finished peeling the wet sleeves from them.
Jack shook his head, as though trying to clear it of some unsought vision.
After that, both of them shied away from any mention of the past, tacitly coming to an accord. Some things were too raw to be spoken.
“You’ll have to replace that too,” Anamaria said, changing the subject, pointing to the soiled bandage. “It’s as much a mess as your shirt.”
Jack just groaned a protest.
“None of that,” Anamaria told him sternly. “Help me untie it. Then, as soon as you’re clean, we’ll put it on again.
The arch of bruises, revealed by the removal of the bandage, rioted in a rainbow of colour across his chest. Anamaria cringed at the sight.
“Are you sure you can’t just let the men do this without you, Jack?” she asked, her hand tracing the marks without touching. “You’re not in any shape for a swim, much less a fight.”
“No, love,” Jack said decidedly. “It’ll require too much ticklish negotiation, since even in the best case we’ll have the brig’s crew hostage only at the expense of that Navy captain holding my crew over here hostage. I’d rather not give him the leverage of having me captured as well.” His eyes focused somewhere in the future, the frown creasing his brow into dark tracks of worry. “Besides, I’m the one what has the right to say how much I’m willing to let this cost us if it comes to firing on the Pearl. I don’t know if the men could do it, and I wouldn’t ask it of them.”
Anamaria wondered that Jack thought he could do it.
“Just what kind of bumble-brained plan have you hatched up to get aboard that ship?” she asked as Jack stood up and stepped to the washbasin. “You can’t climb.”
“Oh, no worries,” Jack said lightly, pulling a small dagger from his belt and beginning to scrape away at the blood caked under his nails. “Tearlach’s got a rope and he’ll haul me on and off one way or another.”
Nothing Anamaria could envision about that combination seemed pain-free in any way. But she imagined Jack knew that, so she didn’t bother to point out the obvious. Nobody better at trying to kill himself than Captain Jack Sparrow, after all. There was a reason the man was a legend.
Jack cursed perfunctorily as he tried to work up some kind of lather from the hard grey soap with the cold salt water. “Who makes this stuff?” he complained. “We’ve got to waylay a few more French ships and try to get us something with some quality.” Finally he managed to create an unenthusiastic grey sludge.
Anamaria started not to watch as Jack scrubbed the rusty stains from his arms. Then she decided they’d both had a rotten enough day and night, and harder was yet to come, for her to allow herself the indulgence of “enjoying the view”, as Jack would say, and him that of knowing he was admired.
There was nothing superfluous about him—no height, no mass of muscle or bone. Only the plain clean lines of a body deceptively slender, pared down to a fine edge of pure function. Anamaria knew she would never get enough of just looking at him, even though she seldom got the chance and even more seldom took it when she did. But in the back of her mind hovered the shade of knowing her margin of chances was shrinking. Either one of them might not survive the coming conflict.
And so she let her eyes linger, a pirate gazing on treasure, on the light and shadow rippling across the movement of his back, the old silvery lines of scars lacing the gold skin. In the dim cabin, he was like bright metal on sullen ground. And she imagined how if this were another time and place, and they were two completely different people, what it would feel like to trace reverent fingertips over those lines and feel the soft skin shiver under her hands.
Jack flinched and swore under his breath at his own touch as he swabbed at the blood that had seeped through his clothing onto his chest. But finally he was satisfied that the task was complete, and he wrung out the cloth in the water now gone murky.
Then he started to remove his breeches.
Anamaria squeaked in startled indignation. “Jack Sparrow! What do you think you’re doing?”
Jack looked at her with puzzlement and a devious glint. “A bright girl like you should be able to figure it out. These breeches are a disaster!” He gestured to his bloodstained thighs. “I’m changin’, love. You’re in my cabin. You don’t want to watch? Close your eyes.”
Since he didn’t stop, Anamaria frantically slammed her eyelids down.
She could hear the unshed laughter thick in Jack’s voice. “Though if you’d like to peek, I promise to make it worth your while.”
“Oh you wretch!” Anamaria wished she had something to throw at him. She could hit him with her eyes closed. Usually. At least when her head was working. How dare he ignore the unwritten rule that men on a ship with a woman aboard did not undress where she might see them? It was a matter of respect. It was a matter of the survival of her own control as well as theirs. How dare he tempt her like that?
But she resisted temptation, not opening her eyes until the shuffling and pained breathing told her that Jack was donning his clean garments. “All clear, love,” he assured her. “You can look, now. Nothin’ showin’ anymore to scare an innocent lass.” He paused thoughtfully. “Nothin’ to scare you, either,” he finished with a smirk.
Anamaria glared at him. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass you with odious comparisons,” she said, as haughty as any society miss.
“I’ve had no complaints,” Jack said loftily, fishing his shirt and vest out of the clean pile. Then he added the leather splint and more bandaging.
“Silver will buy anything, won’t it?” Anamaria said, commiserating.
Jack raised an eyebrow and shot her a look that did disturbing things to her stomach. “Just how much silver are you askin’, darlin’?”
“Bastard!” Anamaria spat at him. Really, no man had ever possessed the talent to make her as furious as Jack Sparrow did, the silver-tongued villain.
“So there are some things it won’t buy, eh?” Jack shrugged. “Just checkin’.” He held up his shirt with a pleased chuckle. “Look! Buttons!” he said with satisfaction. “Much easier t’ get in and out of.”
And just that swiftly he was on another tack. Anamaria regularly sprained her brain trying to keep track of him.
The captain eyed her warily, then looked at the articles in his hands. “Is it safe to ask you to help me put these on?” he asked.
“No,” Anamaria retorted.
“Oh good,” said Jack. “I seem to be developing a taste for life-threatening adventures.” He sauntered over to her, alighted on the edge of the bed, his hip brushing hers, and dumped the entire pile in her arms.
She couldn’t stay mad at him when he was this close to her, smelling clean for once—a mixture of lye and linen and faint camphor and tar, mixed with the eternal salt of the sea that permeated everything aboard ship. Heaving a resigned sigh, she dragged a wad of padding from the pile.
Between the two of them, the captain was re-splinted and wrapped, clad again in a shirt with pretensions to whiteness, and inserted into one of his faded vests.
There was something that eased the storm-snapping tension in this calm, silent working together, Jack supplying any needed grip, Anamaria providing the range of motion he lacked. In the middle of the bloodstained and shattered splendour of the cabin on the crippled and sinking ship, something was being restored.
When they had finished, Jack rose reluctantly, tied on a clean sash and cinched it with his two grimy leather belts that jangled with his collection of odd tools and mementos. Then he retrieved his boots from where he’d left them by the door.
“You might need help with those,” Anamaria suggested.
But Jack sat down and proceeded to work his feet into the soft leather, turning the air of the cabin a pale indigo but finally succeeding.
“No I don’t,” he said triumphantly.
“Stubborn, mad-headed ape!” Anamaria said fondly.
“Spleenish weasel!” Jack retorted with a grin. He got to his feet, arms outstretched, and pirouetted. “How do I look, darlin’? Like a villain and the veriest son of darkness?”
Anamaria scrutinized him. “Your clothes look as fine as fivepence,” she decided, “but you need some work.”
“What?” Jack tried to scan himself.
“Your face,” Anamaria snickered. “You look like a . . . like a . . .” Words failed her and she wave her hands helplessly. “You look a right mess, Jack Sparrow.”
Jack’s eyes crossed as he attempted to observe his own nose. With a thwarted grunt, he gave up and glared around his cabin. “Now where’d that mirror get to?” he asked, since it was not on the washstand where it had been.
Wordlessly, Anamaria pointed to the debris by the port bulkhead. The mirror was definitely scuppered.
With a disgusted curl of his lip, Jack searched futilely through the fragments for one large enough still to serve.
“Seven years bad luck, that is,” Anamaria warned.
“We didn’t break it, so it’s their bad luck,” Jack said firmly. “Ow! Blast!” He sucked at the small cuts on two fingers. “So much for that idea. I’ll just have to remember where me face was.”
He did try. But since he couldn’t see what he was doing, the results were not remarkable for their success.
Anamaria eyed him critically. “There’s still a big smudge under your starboard eye. And a bigger blotch on your port cheek. And up on your forehead, and on your neck. Oh, get over here y’ lunatic peacock, an’ let me get that.”
“Thought you’d never ask, darlin’,” Jack said with his most annoying smirk.
Ignoring his antics, she beckoned him over.
Jack pouted rather unconvincingly, but he sat down beside her again, positioning the water on the bed next to her.
With stiffened fingers, Anamaria tried to wring out the cloth. After her second fumble, Jack wordlessly took it back, wrung it out and handed it to her. “Takes two of us, don’t it, love?”
Carefully, Anamaria cleaned the swollen area around the gash on Jack’s head, working the matted blood out of his dark locks. She could feel Jack tense as she neared the wound and hear the slight quickening of his breath, but he didn’t make any other sound. As she dabbed away the rivulets that had run down the side of his face and neck, he relaxed a little. The blood came off easily enough with the cold water.
The grey and black traces of kohl took a little more work to remove. She scrubbed at them with the unenthusiastic soap until Jack’s skin was red. This he did complain about. “’M not a bloody washboard, wench.” He ducked out of her reach.
“Stop squirming,” Anamaria ordered smugly, returning his head, with a smart tug on a lock of his hair, back to where she could resume her chore.
“You’re just gettin’ revenge,” Jack grumbled. “I think I’m clean enough.”
“Stop behavin’ like a little boy gettin’ his ears washed, Jack Sparrow,” Anamaria scolded. “You’re worse than Jip.” Her voice fell away suddenly and she bit her lip, the memory all the more painful for having been so briefly forgotten.
“I keep expectin’ him to come boundin’ ‘round a corner,” Jack said softly, eyes cast down to where his hands played restlessly with the frayed end of his sash. “I look up. And he doesn’t.”
Anamaria felt her eyes sting. Fiercely, she rinsed out the cloth in the basin, and this time she wrung it out without Jack’s assistance. When he simply endured the rest of her ministrations without protest, she wanted to hit something.
“If those whoreson bastards board this ship, I will kill them,” she said with hoarse conviction, twisting the cloth one last time as though she had a Naval neck between her hands.
“I’m hoping no one will get killed this time,” Jack said. “Us or them. I’ve told the men I expect them to offer our enemies mercy if it is within their power to do so.”
“You are impossible, Jack Sparrow!” Anamaria exclaimed angrily. “I don’t understand you at all.”
“These aren’t the men who shot Jip,” Jack said gently.
“No.” Anamaria could hear a wild edge to her voice. “They’re the men who shot you! And Matelot, and Diego and all those others.”
“I know.” He looked down at his hands, spreading the fingers, rotating his wrists as though seeing again the blood he’d washed off them and scraped out from under his nails.
“Jack, you bloody well know they’d not do the same for us!” Her voice tangled harshly with choking cords of emotion.
“Oh, aye,” Jack said mildly. “They’d like to hang the lot of us and nail my head to their bowsprit, I’ve no doubt.”
“Then why . . .?” she began plaintively.
Jack met her eyes, absolutely serious now. “Ana, you know why. Those men are doing what’s right by them—obeying their orders and doing their duty. I’ll not murder a man for that.”
Anamaria had always known that she would never understand Jack Sparrow, but she had underestimated the magnitude of that incomprehension. When a man trespassed upon whatever code of honour he himself professed, Jack could be as implacable as the sea in his vengeance. But give the captain an honourable foe, and the daft fool would tie himself in bowline knots trying to grant quarter. At times like this, that sodden-witted chivalry of his terrified Anamaria.
He sat there, head cocked, eyes bright and quizzical now in his freshly scoured face, looking like a boy dressed up as a pirate.
“Your kohl,” Anamaria said suddenly. “You forgot that.” For some reason it was now imperative that he not look small and vulnerable and human. She needed him behind the mask of the legend—enigmatic and frighteningly lucky and nigh uncatchable.
“Oh yes,” Jack agreed. “Wouldn’t do to be unrecognizable, now would it? They’ll need to know whose name to put in the stories.” He got to his feet, emptied the grimy, bloody water out the cannon hole and tossed the basin with a clang onto the heap on the port bulkhead. “Now where did I put that?”
A short, noisy quest through the drawers of the washstand turned up the small, flat-bottomed pot with its wide, tiny rim and flat, disk-shaped lid, the jar of olive oil, and the finger-length stick with its rounded ends. Jack glanced first at the items in his hand and then at the mirror fragments.
“Alas, love,” he sighed. “I’m going to have to presume upon your good nature. Have you any good nature?” he asked puzzled. “Never mind. I’ll loan you some.”
As Jack settled himself beside her yet again, Anamaria considered retribution for his comment, but decided that would merely prove his claim. She settled for pointing out, “I’d be careful how I insulted the person who was about to be poking a stick in my eye, if I were you.”
The captain raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m really almost entirely certain that other captains don’t have to put up with this kind of insubordination in their first officers.” He looked thoughtful. “On the other hand, their officers are really much uglier, so I don’t think I’ll trade.”
“Jack!” Anamaria warned.
“Right,” Jack agreed to himself. “Don’t provoke her into anything rash that we’ll both regret.”
He removed the lid of the jar and set it on his leg; then he unstoppered the bottle, immersed the stick into the oil, wiped it off on a relatively unscathed bit of sheet, and dipped it into the dark powder.
“Here.” He handed Anamaria the tiny stick.
She smelled the odour of burnt almonds and copper and frankincense.
“Now,” he instructed. “Hold the stick horizontal to my eye, place the front end of it on my eye, at the inside corner, and move slowly outwards, keeping it between the two lids and still touching the eye.”
Anamaria eyed the object doubtfully. “You want me to stick this in your eye?” she asked incredulously. “As in touching?”
“Yep,” Jack grinned.
“Are you mad?” she yelped. “Never mind. I know the answer to that one. But Jack, I can’t! My hands aren’t the steadiest right now.”
“You’ll do fine, love,” Jack soothed. “I promise to squawk if you do anything dreadful.”
He leaned towards her. He really wanted her to do this. Anamaria would rather have gone another round with the chamber pot. With great trepidation she took hold of his face in one hand and brought the stick to the corner of his left eye with the other. Then she stopped, unable to bring herself to actually do it.
“Go on,” Jack encouraged. “I’m quite enjoying myself.”
“You scurvy ass,” Anamaria snapped, and set the tip to Jack’s eye. When he didn’t scream or go blind or hit her, she drew courage and began to trace the curvature of his eye with the dark substance, watching it cling to Jack’s lashes as it passed. To her surprise, she completed the task without incident. Withdrawing the stick, she watched as he blinked several times in rapid succession to clear the dark powder from his eye. He looked lopsided now, with one darker eye.
“Couldn’t have done it better myself,” Jack said, with what sounded suspiciously like relief. “Onward, me hearty. I’ve got one more eye.”
“Not after I’m done,” Anamaria groused. But she turned his face to the correct angle and began on his right eye with much less hesitation.
Finishing, she removed the stick and dropped both hands from Jack’s face. He didn’t look damaged. Except for the blinking, he didn’t even look uncomfortable. Anamaria sighed with relief.
“Don’t get comfortable, darlin’” Jack warned. “You’ll need to clean off whatever powder floats to the corners of my eyes and then do the outlining.” He handed her a cloth.
Carefully, Anamaria dabbed at the black clumps in Jack’s eyes. “Is this really worth it?” she asked.
“Keeps down the sun’s glare and they swear it guards against eye infections.” Jack shrugged. “And you have to admit, it’s rather striking.”
Anamaria did know that, but she didn’t have to admit anything. “Close your eyes, you vain thing,” she ordered. Reapplying kohl to the stick, she began to gently define the contours of his eyelids with with the dark powder. This was much less nerve-wracking business, and she had time to notice the sheer elegance of the man whose face she was handling.
How had this peacocky, two-thirds mad, annoying pirate managed to become so necessary for her peace of mind? And now he was off to risk all that was mortal and unsure on the thread-thin chance that he could save his ship and a few of his crew.
Her hands, freed from their task with the kohl at last, unconsciously traced the fine lines of his cheeks as though she were memorizing him with her finger tips.
Jack’s eyes flew open. Their faces were so close she could feel his breath on hers. Like candles in the night, his eyes glowed more fiercely framed with the dark shadows.
Unguarded for an instant, Anamaria whispered, “You’re beautiful.” Then she flushed hot and embarassed, biting her tongue and mentally cursing herself for stupidly letting that come out aloud. It must have been the fever.
But Jack made no snide riposte nor took any lewd advantage. His rare, slow, pleased smile lilted the corners of his lips and his teeth glinted briefly like sun behind clouds. He lifted one hand and drew a fingertip along the curve of her jaw.
“We’ll make it through this, love,” he said softly. “I promise.”
* * * * *
Although Anamaria couldn’t comprehend it, Jack Sparrow had ordered mercy for the crew of the Defender. Which was why she was surprised when he came in from the final preparations, soaking wet again, shaking rain like diamond drops from his face and hair, to give her the knives. They were long heavy knives, beautifully balanced for close and dirty fighting or for throwing.
“Haven’t had much call for these,” he mused, drawing one from its scabbard and watching the play of candlelight on its blade. “But these are works of art.” He handed her the naked blade, hilt first.
Works of art, indeed. Anamaria had always been attracted to knives, daggers, the lesser blades. They suited her smaller build, were easier to conceal than a cutlass, and they were her weapon of choice in a fight. But she’d never held a blade like this one. Wonderingly she ran a reverent finger along the silken folded steel. Hefting the knife, she swung it slicing through the air. Almost, she heard it sing.
“Pretty, innit?” Jack said, clearly satisfied at her reaction.
Anamaria looked up at him bewildered. “Yes, but why?”
Jack was silent for a space, drawing the other knife, and staring at it pensively. Then he looked up at her again. “Because I’m leavin’ this ship and allowin’ her to be boarded by men who may or may not be honourable. Because you’re goin’ t’ be a lot outnumbered in here, and you can’t walk. I don’t want you to have no way to defend yourself, Ana.”
Touched, but still confused, Anamaria pointed out, “Two knives ain’t goin’ t’ make much of a difference in the end if it comes to fightin’. Those marines’ll take us down.”
“Aye, I know,” Jack said. “But they’ll make a difference to you.”
Anamaria realized that he was right. Already, with that knife in her hand, she felt better about the oncoming confrontation. She might still die, but she wouldn’t die helpless. And she wouldn’t die alone. She’d be sure of that. The smile she turned on Jack had more than a hint of canine teeth in it.
“You’ll need to hide these. Their only use is as a surprise,” Jack said. “It’s a good thing this bed is already scuppered.”
Together he and Anamaria worked out the swiftest angle for her to draw the blades, one for each hand. Then Jack maneuvered them through the bedding and into the mattress. “No one’ll notice these in this mess,” he decided, wrinkling up the coverlet under which the hilts rested.
“Remember, love. As little bloodshed as possible. We can’t win this if it turns into a fight. Even if we succeed in commandeerin’ that brig’s firepower, there’ll only be different levels of losin’ if there’s fightin’ on the Pearl.”
Anamaria shivered at the thought of Jack having to give the orders to fire on his own ship. “Right,” she agreed. “No surrender; no fightin’. I think I can manage t’ keep that straight.”
She watched as Jack settled his sword at his right hip. The effect was strangely unsettling, as though he were a different person. Then he shoved two pistols into his belt. At her raised eyebrow, he commented, “They won’t work, but it’s the thought that counts.”
Not for the first time, Anamaria wondered how much of Jack Sparrow was put on for show.
Curious, she tried imagining what the Defender’s captain would see when he looked at the pirate captain. Jack had so many masks he wore, so many varied roles he played, but he was submerging into that rare manifestation when he was at his most dangerous. Gone was any acknowledgement of those broken ribs. He might not be moving with the feline grace he exhibited when uninjured, but there was still that taut bowstring tension to him, that sense of coiled potential violence, that iron-hard implacable strength.
As he raised his well-worn blade in his left hand, he quoted soberly, “Here draw I a sword, whose temper I intend to stain with the best blood that I can meet withal in the adventure of this perilous day.”
Somehow the grand words suited him in this moment, even though his mouth twisted with distaste after he had said them.
“Somehow, I doubt the Navy is going to appreciate that sentiment,” he said sourly, “or stand around to admire the gesture.”
Then, although Jack hadn’t seemed to move, his blade sliced the air in the beginnings of a shadow dance against an invisible opponent. Lunge, parry, riposte—thought becoming action like the flare of a shot. As he tested the less familiar reach of his left arm, he was a picture of perilous, swift motion.
The wild savagery of his wet hair, jangling with bizarre curios, flung about his head, interwoven with the twisting blood-dark strands of his scarf, as he feinted with the deadly blade. The rain-wet white fabric of his sleeve clung to the curve and flex of muscle in his arm, the shadows of tattoos showing like dim dark ghosts. He would not be wearing his heavy coat nor the hat because of the swim, so he was entirely sleek lines and sharp edges, slender and lethal like the sword he wielded.
In his darkly-outlined eyes, the light of humour had leached away, the softness of compassion had frozen solid, and all was deep, midnight storm struck through with flashes of lightning.
He was, she thought wonderingly, frightening and magnificent, barbarically splendid and completely the captain of the Black Pearl, the most fearsome pirate ship in the Caribbean.
This was not the face of the man who had ordered his men to show mercy. This was the face of the man who had given a gift of knives.
She considered that gift— how she could kill two men, if she threw them, but then she would no longer be armed. Or if she wished to hold on to a weapon, how a man would have to choose to come close enough for her to strike a killing blow, though why any one would do such a thing, she couldn’t . . . oh. Anamaria felt the skitter of claws up her spine and her pulse went from a pace to a gallop. That was why Jack wanted her to have concealed knives. She reached into the folds of fabric to feel the comforting weight of the hilts.
The captain was sliding his sword back into its scabbard with a ringing slice of steel. She could see that he was already out on the deck with his men, already striking out on that hazardous swim, already waging that desperate, last-ditch attack on the Defender. He was scarcely with her at all by now. But she wanted to tell him one thing before he was gone.
“Thank you,” Anamaria said quietly, as Captain Sparrow headed for the door.
He looked back, and for a minute he was just Jack again, tossing her a last word with a smirk. “Some men give their womenfolk diamonds. I give her knives and say go get your own diamonds, love.”
And then, like a flicker of shadow, he slipped out the door. Anamaria watched the spot where he’d vanished for a long time. Perhaps it really was true that on sheer force of personality alone Jack Sparrow could talk a man who held all the cards into surrendering the game.
* * * * *
TBC
21 Valour's Show and Valour's Worth
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Jack Sparrow, Anamaria
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria somewhat. Jack/Pearl most definitely
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!
Summary: The arming of the warrior. Every epic needs one. Jack and Anamaria prepare for a fight. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does?
Thanks to
geek_mama_2 for the beta help.1 Ambush
2 No Regrets
3 The Judgment of the Sea
4 The Sea Pays Homage
5 Risking All That Is Mortal and Unsure
6 Troubles Come Not Single Spies
7 To Dare Do All That May Become a Man
8 Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
10 For Where We Are Is Hell
11 To Beat the Surges Under and Ride Upon Their Backs
12 One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts
13 Though the Seas Threaten, They are Merciful
14 He Jests at Scars Who Never Felt a Wound
15 To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield
16 A Kind of Alacrity in Sinking
17 A Fine-Baited Delay
18 To Watch the Night in Storms
19a The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 1
19b The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 2
* * * * *
20 To Disguise Fair Nature with Hard-Favour'd Rage
The rising of the sun had done nothing to discourage the lowering clouds from a steady, persistent drizzle. The gentle undulation of the ship and the whispered patter of rain on her decks would have been soothing under other circumstances. However, the rough seas of fever kept alternately submerging Anamaria in struggling sleep and casting her, unrested, on the shores of consciousness. Pain broke her apart on the shoals, grinding her into fragments in the breakers of exhausted memory.
Gathering the pieces of her disconnected mind, Anamaria fought her way once again to the surface of wakefulness, drawn by a scuffling sound in the cabin.
In the light filtering through rain and broken glass she could make out Jack Sparrow pawing through a chest in the corner. Some time since she’d last seen him, someone must have helped him out of his coat and vest and boots, because he was in his shirtsleeves and barefooted and obviously on the hunt for a change of clothes. Already he had a growing pile of sartorial treasure around him.
“Goin’ courtin’, are you?” Anamaria asked, pleased that her voice came out as something more definitive than a croak.
Jack’s head appeared above the edge of the chest, grin sparkling. “Aye, love. There’s a bonny wee brig just beggin’ for a pirate captain to have his way with her. Wouldn’t want to disappoint the lass.”
Anamaria rolled her eyes. “And just how does your lovely Pearl feel about that?”
Jack smirked. “She don’t blame the Defender at all. Thinks she has rather good taste in men!” His mess of dark hair disappeared again. From the depths of the chest his voice echoed hollowly. “She knows she’s my one true love, so she don’t mind sharin’ the wealth.” He popped up again clutching a pair of breeches. “’Sides, it wouldn’t seem respectful-like t’ commandeer a ship of the Fleet in all me dirt. Got to observe decorum. This ain’t just any plebian merchant vessel after all. This one is a real lady.”
“And you want to impress the hell out of them,” Anamaria said dryly.
“Can’t hurt, darlin’.” Jack nodded. “We’re not exactly holdin’ the upper hand here. Wouldn’t do to look too much like I’m already half-killed if I want those Navy boys shakin’ in their boots, eh?”
He pounced into the chest again. “There you are! I knew you were in here somewhere!” A problematically white shirt waved like a flag above the edge.
“You surrenderin’?” Anamaria laughed at him. It was good to see Jack back in spirits again, though where he’d found them was a mystery.
“Merely lookin’ t’ parley, ma’am,” Jack said, gathering his chosen effects and lurching to his feet with a pained huff. “Though if it’s surrender you want,” he leered at her, “just say the word.”
“If I were the Pearl,” Anamaria suggested pointedly, “I’d be hittin’ you upside the head with the spanker.”
“Why ever for, love?” Jack asked with wide-eyed bewilderment. “There’s plenty of me t’ go around.”
Anamaria snorted. “Unprincipled rake,” she accused.
With a superior look, Jack said, “Those what can, does!”
He laid the clean garments on the table next to a tin basin of salt water, fresh water still being severely rationed, although they had now realized some success in collecting rain as the weather calmed.
The front and sleeves of the shirt he was wearing were dyed a shocking crimson, still wet with rain but growing darker rust as the fabric dried against the heat of his body. His forearms were red, and, although his hands were rain-washed, his nails were dark with old blood.
“Much as I hate t’ admit it, I might be in need of a bit of a bath.” Jack looked dubiously at what he could see of himself. “’Course a good swim’d take care of some of this blood, but not before it messed up me clean shirt.”
“And you reek like a pirate,” Anamaria observed, wrinkling her nose, although to be honest she was fairly sure she smelled just as bad. Rain and the wash of the sea only added a humid and salty pungency to the adamantly ground-in odour of dirt and tar and sweat and blood.
Jack preened. “Ain’t it grand, love?”
He made an abortive attempt to remove his stained shirt, then froze, breath hissing through his teeth. “Damn it all to hell! I bloody hate havin’ broken ribs!” He turned to Anamaria. “I don’t suppose you would be so kind?”
Since even she couldn’t argue with his reasons for luring her into undressing him yet again, Anamaria nodded shortly.
Positioning himself beside her so that she could reach his shoulders without sitting up, Jack leaned forward and allowed her to gather up the fabric and work it over his tangle of hair.
Anamaria’s fingers felt like lumps of soggy salt horse, and she had to force herself to handle the gory material. Some of that was her blood, she knew, but the rest . . . there was so much of it. It stained the bandage on his chest as well.
“Whose?” she asked as she drew the shirt down his arms.
Jack’s face shuttered instantly. “Number of people,” he said, his voice clipped and emotionless. “Diego’s mostly. He was too ripped up. I had to give him grace.”
Anamaria felt a sickness that had nothing to do with her swollen leg or the accompanying fever. That Jack, of all people, should have been forced to do such a task—there would be ghosts perching on his shoulders the minute he had time to slow down enough to rest. Her hands lingered of their own accord on the backs of his for an instant before she finished peeling the wet sleeves from them.
Jack shook his head, as though trying to clear it of some unsought vision.
After that, both of them shied away from any mention of the past, tacitly coming to an accord. Some things were too raw to be spoken.
“You’ll have to replace that too,” Anamaria said, changing the subject, pointing to the soiled bandage. “It’s as much a mess as your shirt.”
Jack just groaned a protest.
“None of that,” Anamaria told him sternly. “Help me untie it. Then, as soon as you’re clean, we’ll put it on again.
The arch of bruises, revealed by the removal of the bandage, rioted in a rainbow of colour across his chest. Anamaria cringed at the sight.
“Are you sure you can’t just let the men do this without you, Jack?” she asked, her hand tracing the marks without touching. “You’re not in any shape for a swim, much less a fight.”
“No, love,” Jack said decidedly. “It’ll require too much ticklish negotiation, since even in the best case we’ll have the brig’s crew hostage only at the expense of that Navy captain holding my crew over here hostage. I’d rather not give him the leverage of having me captured as well.” His eyes focused somewhere in the future, the frown creasing his brow into dark tracks of worry. “Besides, I’m the one what has the right to say how much I’m willing to let this cost us if it comes to firing on the Pearl. I don’t know if the men could do it, and I wouldn’t ask it of them.”
Anamaria wondered that Jack thought he could do it.
“Just what kind of bumble-brained plan have you hatched up to get aboard that ship?” she asked as Jack stood up and stepped to the washbasin. “You can’t climb.”
“Oh, no worries,” Jack said lightly, pulling a small dagger from his belt and beginning to scrape away at the blood caked under his nails. “Tearlach’s got a rope and he’ll haul me on and off one way or another.”
Nothing Anamaria could envision about that combination seemed pain-free in any way. But she imagined Jack knew that, so she didn’t bother to point out the obvious. Nobody better at trying to kill himself than Captain Jack Sparrow, after all. There was a reason the man was a legend.
Jack cursed perfunctorily as he tried to work up some kind of lather from the hard grey soap with the cold salt water. “Who makes this stuff?” he complained. “We’ve got to waylay a few more French ships and try to get us something with some quality.” Finally he managed to create an unenthusiastic grey sludge.
Anamaria started not to watch as Jack scrubbed the rusty stains from his arms. Then she decided they’d both had a rotten enough day and night, and harder was yet to come, for her to allow herself the indulgence of “enjoying the view”, as Jack would say, and him that of knowing he was admired.
There was nothing superfluous about him—no height, no mass of muscle or bone. Only the plain clean lines of a body deceptively slender, pared down to a fine edge of pure function. Anamaria knew she would never get enough of just looking at him, even though she seldom got the chance and even more seldom took it when she did. But in the back of her mind hovered the shade of knowing her margin of chances was shrinking. Either one of them might not survive the coming conflict.
And so she let her eyes linger, a pirate gazing on treasure, on the light and shadow rippling across the movement of his back, the old silvery lines of scars lacing the gold skin. In the dim cabin, he was like bright metal on sullen ground. And she imagined how if this were another time and place, and they were two completely different people, what it would feel like to trace reverent fingertips over those lines and feel the soft skin shiver under her hands.
Jack flinched and swore under his breath at his own touch as he swabbed at the blood that had seeped through his clothing onto his chest. But finally he was satisfied that the task was complete, and he wrung out the cloth in the water now gone murky.
Then he started to remove his breeches.
Anamaria squeaked in startled indignation. “Jack Sparrow! What do you think you’re doing?”
Jack looked at her with puzzlement and a devious glint. “A bright girl like you should be able to figure it out. These breeches are a disaster!” He gestured to his bloodstained thighs. “I’m changin’, love. You’re in my cabin. You don’t want to watch? Close your eyes.”
Since he didn’t stop, Anamaria frantically slammed her eyelids down.
She could hear the unshed laughter thick in Jack’s voice. “Though if you’d like to peek, I promise to make it worth your while.”
“Oh you wretch!” Anamaria wished she had something to throw at him. She could hit him with her eyes closed. Usually. At least when her head was working. How dare he ignore the unwritten rule that men on a ship with a woman aboard did not undress where she might see them? It was a matter of respect. It was a matter of the survival of her own control as well as theirs. How dare he tempt her like that?
But she resisted temptation, not opening her eyes until the shuffling and pained breathing told her that Jack was donning his clean garments. “All clear, love,” he assured her. “You can look, now. Nothin’ showin’ anymore to scare an innocent lass.” He paused thoughtfully. “Nothin’ to scare you, either,” he finished with a smirk.
Anamaria glared at him. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass you with odious comparisons,” she said, as haughty as any society miss.
“I’ve had no complaints,” Jack said loftily, fishing his shirt and vest out of the clean pile. Then he added the leather splint and more bandaging.
“Silver will buy anything, won’t it?” Anamaria said, commiserating.
Jack raised an eyebrow and shot her a look that did disturbing things to her stomach. “Just how much silver are you askin’, darlin’?”
“Bastard!” Anamaria spat at him. Really, no man had ever possessed the talent to make her as furious as Jack Sparrow did, the silver-tongued villain.
“So there are some things it won’t buy, eh?” Jack shrugged. “Just checkin’.” He held up his shirt with a pleased chuckle. “Look! Buttons!” he said with satisfaction. “Much easier t’ get in and out of.”
And just that swiftly he was on another tack. Anamaria regularly sprained her brain trying to keep track of him.
The captain eyed her warily, then looked at the articles in his hands. “Is it safe to ask you to help me put these on?” he asked.
“No,” Anamaria retorted.
“Oh good,” said Jack. “I seem to be developing a taste for life-threatening adventures.” He sauntered over to her, alighted on the edge of the bed, his hip brushing hers, and dumped the entire pile in her arms.
She couldn’t stay mad at him when he was this close to her, smelling clean for once—a mixture of lye and linen and faint camphor and tar, mixed with the eternal salt of the sea that permeated everything aboard ship. Heaving a resigned sigh, she dragged a wad of padding from the pile.
Between the two of them, the captain was re-splinted and wrapped, clad again in a shirt with pretensions to whiteness, and inserted into one of his faded vests.
There was something that eased the storm-snapping tension in this calm, silent working together, Jack supplying any needed grip, Anamaria providing the range of motion he lacked. In the middle of the bloodstained and shattered splendour of the cabin on the crippled and sinking ship, something was being restored.
When they had finished, Jack rose reluctantly, tied on a clean sash and cinched it with his two grimy leather belts that jangled with his collection of odd tools and mementos. Then he retrieved his boots from where he’d left them by the door.
“You might need help with those,” Anamaria suggested.
But Jack sat down and proceeded to work his feet into the soft leather, turning the air of the cabin a pale indigo but finally succeeding.
“No I don’t,” he said triumphantly.
“Stubborn, mad-headed ape!” Anamaria said fondly.
“Spleenish weasel!” Jack retorted with a grin. He got to his feet, arms outstretched, and pirouetted. “How do I look, darlin’? Like a villain and the veriest son of darkness?”
Anamaria scrutinized him. “Your clothes look as fine as fivepence,” she decided, “but you need some work.”
“What?” Jack tried to scan himself.
“Your face,” Anamaria snickered. “You look like a . . . like a . . .” Words failed her and she wave her hands helplessly. “You look a right mess, Jack Sparrow.”
Jack’s eyes crossed as he attempted to observe his own nose. With a thwarted grunt, he gave up and glared around his cabin. “Now where’d that mirror get to?” he asked, since it was not on the washstand where it had been.
Wordlessly, Anamaria pointed to the debris by the port bulkhead. The mirror was definitely scuppered.
With a disgusted curl of his lip, Jack searched futilely through the fragments for one large enough still to serve.
“Seven years bad luck, that is,” Anamaria warned.
“We didn’t break it, so it’s their bad luck,” Jack said firmly. “Ow! Blast!” He sucked at the small cuts on two fingers. “So much for that idea. I’ll just have to remember where me face was.”
He did try. But since he couldn’t see what he was doing, the results were not remarkable for their success.
Anamaria eyed him critically. “There’s still a big smudge under your starboard eye. And a bigger blotch on your port cheek. And up on your forehead, and on your neck. Oh, get over here y’ lunatic peacock, an’ let me get that.”
“Thought you’d never ask, darlin’,” Jack said with his most annoying smirk.
Ignoring his antics, she beckoned him over.
Jack pouted rather unconvincingly, but he sat down beside her again, positioning the water on the bed next to her.
With stiffened fingers, Anamaria tried to wring out the cloth. After her second fumble, Jack wordlessly took it back, wrung it out and handed it to her. “Takes two of us, don’t it, love?”
Carefully, Anamaria cleaned the swollen area around the gash on Jack’s head, working the matted blood out of his dark locks. She could feel Jack tense as she neared the wound and hear the slight quickening of his breath, but he didn’t make any other sound. As she dabbed away the rivulets that had run down the side of his face and neck, he relaxed a little. The blood came off easily enough with the cold water.
The grey and black traces of kohl took a little more work to remove. She scrubbed at them with the unenthusiastic soap until Jack’s skin was red. This he did complain about. “’M not a bloody washboard, wench.” He ducked out of her reach.
“Stop squirming,” Anamaria ordered smugly, returning his head, with a smart tug on a lock of his hair, back to where she could resume her chore.
“You’re just gettin’ revenge,” Jack grumbled. “I think I’m clean enough.”
“Stop behavin’ like a little boy gettin’ his ears washed, Jack Sparrow,” Anamaria scolded. “You’re worse than Jip.” Her voice fell away suddenly and she bit her lip, the memory all the more painful for having been so briefly forgotten.
“I keep expectin’ him to come boundin’ ‘round a corner,” Jack said softly, eyes cast down to where his hands played restlessly with the frayed end of his sash. “I look up. And he doesn’t.”
Anamaria felt her eyes sting. Fiercely, she rinsed out the cloth in the basin, and this time she wrung it out without Jack’s assistance. When he simply endured the rest of her ministrations without protest, she wanted to hit something.
“If those whoreson bastards board this ship, I will kill them,” she said with hoarse conviction, twisting the cloth one last time as though she had a Naval neck between her hands.
“I’m hoping no one will get killed this time,” Jack said. “Us or them. I’ve told the men I expect them to offer our enemies mercy if it is within their power to do so.”
“You are impossible, Jack Sparrow!” Anamaria exclaimed angrily. “I don’t understand you at all.”
“These aren’t the men who shot Jip,” Jack said gently.
“No.” Anamaria could hear a wild edge to her voice. “They’re the men who shot you! And Matelot, and Diego and all those others.”
“I know.” He looked down at his hands, spreading the fingers, rotating his wrists as though seeing again the blood he’d washed off them and scraped out from under his nails.
“Jack, you bloody well know they’d not do the same for us!” Her voice tangled harshly with choking cords of emotion.
“Oh, aye,” Jack said mildly. “They’d like to hang the lot of us and nail my head to their bowsprit, I’ve no doubt.”
“Then why . . .?” she began plaintively.
Jack met her eyes, absolutely serious now. “Ana, you know why. Those men are doing what’s right by them—obeying their orders and doing their duty. I’ll not murder a man for that.”
Anamaria had always known that she would never understand Jack Sparrow, but she had underestimated the magnitude of that incomprehension. When a man trespassed upon whatever code of honour he himself professed, Jack could be as implacable as the sea in his vengeance. But give the captain an honourable foe, and the daft fool would tie himself in bowline knots trying to grant quarter. At times like this, that sodden-witted chivalry of his terrified Anamaria.
He sat there, head cocked, eyes bright and quizzical now in his freshly scoured face, looking like a boy dressed up as a pirate.
“Your kohl,” Anamaria said suddenly. “You forgot that.” For some reason it was now imperative that he not look small and vulnerable and human. She needed him behind the mask of the legend—enigmatic and frighteningly lucky and nigh uncatchable.
“Oh yes,” Jack agreed. “Wouldn’t do to be unrecognizable, now would it? They’ll need to know whose name to put in the stories.” He got to his feet, emptied the grimy, bloody water out the cannon hole and tossed the basin with a clang onto the heap on the port bulkhead. “Now where did I put that?”
A short, noisy quest through the drawers of the washstand turned up the small, flat-bottomed pot with its wide, tiny rim and flat, disk-shaped lid, the jar of olive oil, and the finger-length stick with its rounded ends. Jack glanced first at the items in his hand and then at the mirror fragments.
“Alas, love,” he sighed. “I’m going to have to presume upon your good nature. Have you any good nature?” he asked puzzled. “Never mind. I’ll loan you some.”
As Jack settled himself beside her yet again, Anamaria considered retribution for his comment, but decided that would merely prove his claim. She settled for pointing out, “I’d be careful how I insulted the person who was about to be poking a stick in my eye, if I were you.”
The captain raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m really almost entirely certain that other captains don’t have to put up with this kind of insubordination in their first officers.” He looked thoughtful. “On the other hand, their officers are really much uglier, so I don’t think I’ll trade.”
“Jack!” Anamaria warned.
“Right,” Jack agreed to himself. “Don’t provoke her into anything rash that we’ll both regret.”
He removed the lid of the jar and set it on his leg; then he unstoppered the bottle, immersed the stick into the oil, wiped it off on a relatively unscathed bit of sheet, and dipped it into the dark powder.
“Here.” He handed Anamaria the tiny stick.
She smelled the odour of burnt almonds and copper and frankincense.
“Now,” he instructed. “Hold the stick horizontal to my eye, place the front end of it on my eye, at the inside corner, and move slowly outwards, keeping it between the two lids and still touching the eye.”
Anamaria eyed the object doubtfully. “You want me to stick this in your eye?” she asked incredulously. “As in touching?”
“Yep,” Jack grinned.
“Are you mad?” she yelped. “Never mind. I know the answer to that one. But Jack, I can’t! My hands aren’t the steadiest right now.”
“You’ll do fine, love,” Jack soothed. “I promise to squawk if you do anything dreadful.”
He leaned towards her. He really wanted her to do this. Anamaria would rather have gone another round with the chamber pot. With great trepidation she took hold of his face in one hand and brought the stick to the corner of his left eye with the other. Then she stopped, unable to bring herself to actually do it.
“Go on,” Jack encouraged. “I’m quite enjoying myself.”
“You scurvy ass,” Anamaria snapped, and set the tip to Jack’s eye. When he didn’t scream or go blind or hit her, she drew courage and began to trace the curvature of his eye with the dark substance, watching it cling to Jack’s lashes as it passed. To her surprise, she completed the task without incident. Withdrawing the stick, she watched as he blinked several times in rapid succession to clear the dark powder from his eye. He looked lopsided now, with one darker eye.
“Couldn’t have done it better myself,” Jack said, with what sounded suspiciously like relief. “Onward, me hearty. I’ve got one more eye.”
“Not after I’m done,” Anamaria groused. But she turned his face to the correct angle and began on his right eye with much less hesitation.
Finishing, she removed the stick and dropped both hands from Jack’s face. He didn’t look damaged. Except for the blinking, he didn’t even look uncomfortable. Anamaria sighed with relief.
“Don’t get comfortable, darlin’” Jack warned. “You’ll need to clean off whatever powder floats to the corners of my eyes and then do the outlining.” He handed her a cloth.
Carefully, Anamaria dabbed at the black clumps in Jack’s eyes. “Is this really worth it?” she asked.
“Keeps down the sun’s glare and they swear it guards against eye infections.” Jack shrugged. “And you have to admit, it’s rather striking.”
Anamaria did know that, but she didn’t have to admit anything. “Close your eyes, you vain thing,” she ordered. Reapplying kohl to the stick, she began to gently define the contours of his eyelids with with the dark powder. This was much less nerve-wracking business, and she had time to notice the sheer elegance of the man whose face she was handling.
How had this peacocky, two-thirds mad, annoying pirate managed to become so necessary for her peace of mind? And now he was off to risk all that was mortal and unsure on the thread-thin chance that he could save his ship and a few of his crew.
Her hands, freed from their task with the kohl at last, unconsciously traced the fine lines of his cheeks as though she were memorizing him with her finger tips.
Jack’s eyes flew open. Their faces were so close she could feel his breath on hers. Like candles in the night, his eyes glowed more fiercely framed with the dark shadows.
Unguarded for an instant, Anamaria whispered, “You’re beautiful.” Then she flushed hot and embarassed, biting her tongue and mentally cursing herself for stupidly letting that come out aloud. It must have been the fever.
But Jack made no snide riposte nor took any lewd advantage. His rare, slow, pleased smile lilted the corners of his lips and his teeth glinted briefly like sun behind clouds. He lifted one hand and drew a fingertip along the curve of her jaw.
“We’ll make it through this, love,” he said softly. “I promise.”
* * * * *
Although Anamaria couldn’t comprehend it, Jack Sparrow had ordered mercy for the crew of the Defender. Which was why she was surprised when he came in from the final preparations, soaking wet again, shaking rain like diamond drops from his face and hair, to give her the knives. They were long heavy knives, beautifully balanced for close and dirty fighting or for throwing.
“Haven’t had much call for these,” he mused, drawing one from its scabbard and watching the play of candlelight on its blade. “But these are works of art.” He handed her the naked blade, hilt first.
Works of art, indeed. Anamaria had always been attracted to knives, daggers, the lesser blades. They suited her smaller build, were easier to conceal than a cutlass, and they were her weapon of choice in a fight. But she’d never held a blade like this one. Wonderingly she ran a reverent finger along the silken folded steel. Hefting the knife, she swung it slicing through the air. Almost, she heard it sing.
“Pretty, innit?” Jack said, clearly satisfied at her reaction.
Anamaria looked up at him bewildered. “Yes, but why?”
Jack was silent for a space, drawing the other knife, and staring at it pensively. Then he looked up at her again. “Because I’m leavin’ this ship and allowin’ her to be boarded by men who may or may not be honourable. Because you’re goin’ t’ be a lot outnumbered in here, and you can’t walk. I don’t want you to have no way to defend yourself, Ana.”
Touched, but still confused, Anamaria pointed out, “Two knives ain’t goin’ t’ make much of a difference in the end if it comes to fightin’. Those marines’ll take us down.”
“Aye, I know,” Jack said. “But they’ll make a difference to you.”
Anamaria realized that he was right. Already, with that knife in her hand, she felt better about the oncoming confrontation. She might still die, but she wouldn’t die helpless. And she wouldn’t die alone. She’d be sure of that. The smile she turned on Jack had more than a hint of canine teeth in it.
“You’ll need to hide these. Their only use is as a surprise,” Jack said. “It’s a good thing this bed is already scuppered.”
Together he and Anamaria worked out the swiftest angle for her to draw the blades, one for each hand. Then Jack maneuvered them through the bedding and into the mattress. “No one’ll notice these in this mess,” he decided, wrinkling up the coverlet under which the hilts rested.
“Remember, love. As little bloodshed as possible. We can’t win this if it turns into a fight. Even if we succeed in commandeerin’ that brig’s firepower, there’ll only be different levels of losin’ if there’s fightin’ on the Pearl.”
Anamaria shivered at the thought of Jack having to give the orders to fire on his own ship. “Right,” she agreed. “No surrender; no fightin’. I think I can manage t’ keep that straight.”
She watched as Jack settled his sword at his right hip. The effect was strangely unsettling, as though he were a different person. Then he shoved two pistols into his belt. At her raised eyebrow, he commented, “They won’t work, but it’s the thought that counts.”
Not for the first time, Anamaria wondered how much of Jack Sparrow was put on for show.
Curious, she tried imagining what the Defender’s captain would see when he looked at the pirate captain. Jack had so many masks he wore, so many varied roles he played, but he was submerging into that rare manifestation when he was at his most dangerous. Gone was any acknowledgement of those broken ribs. He might not be moving with the feline grace he exhibited when uninjured, but there was still that taut bowstring tension to him, that sense of coiled potential violence, that iron-hard implacable strength.
As he raised his well-worn blade in his left hand, he quoted soberly, “Here draw I a sword, whose temper I intend to stain with the best blood that I can meet withal in the adventure of this perilous day.”
Somehow the grand words suited him in this moment, even though his mouth twisted with distaste after he had said them.
“Somehow, I doubt the Navy is going to appreciate that sentiment,” he said sourly, “or stand around to admire the gesture.”
Then, although Jack hadn’t seemed to move, his blade sliced the air in the beginnings of a shadow dance against an invisible opponent. Lunge, parry, riposte—thought becoming action like the flare of a shot. As he tested the less familiar reach of his left arm, he was a picture of perilous, swift motion.
The wild savagery of his wet hair, jangling with bizarre curios, flung about his head, interwoven with the twisting blood-dark strands of his scarf, as he feinted with the deadly blade. The rain-wet white fabric of his sleeve clung to the curve and flex of muscle in his arm, the shadows of tattoos showing like dim dark ghosts. He would not be wearing his heavy coat nor the hat because of the swim, so he was entirely sleek lines and sharp edges, slender and lethal like the sword he wielded.
In his darkly-outlined eyes, the light of humour had leached away, the softness of compassion had frozen solid, and all was deep, midnight storm struck through with flashes of lightning.
He was, she thought wonderingly, frightening and magnificent, barbarically splendid and completely the captain of the Black Pearl, the most fearsome pirate ship in the Caribbean.
This was not the face of the man who had ordered his men to show mercy. This was the face of the man who had given a gift of knives.
She considered that gift— how she could kill two men, if she threw them, but then she would no longer be armed. Or if she wished to hold on to a weapon, how a man would have to choose to come close enough for her to strike a killing blow, though why any one would do such a thing, she couldn’t . . . oh. Anamaria felt the skitter of claws up her spine and her pulse went from a pace to a gallop. That was why Jack wanted her to have concealed knives. She reached into the folds of fabric to feel the comforting weight of the hilts.
The captain was sliding his sword back into its scabbard with a ringing slice of steel. She could see that he was already out on the deck with his men, already striking out on that hazardous swim, already waging that desperate, last-ditch attack on the Defender. He was scarcely with her at all by now. But she wanted to tell him one thing before he was gone.
“Thank you,” Anamaria said quietly, as Captain Sparrow headed for the door.
He looked back, and for a minute he was just Jack again, tossing her a last word with a smirk. “Some men give their womenfolk diamonds. I give her knives and say go get your own diamonds, love.”
And then, like a flicker of shadow, he slipped out the door. Anamaria watched the spot where he’d vanished for a long time. Perhaps it really was true that on sheer force of personality alone Jack Sparrow could talk a man who held all the cards into surrendering the game.
* * * * *
TBC
21 Valour's Show and Valour's Worth
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 08:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 09:37 am (UTC)“Some men give their womenfolk diamonds. I give her knives and say go get your own diamonds, love.”
i can hear jack saying that line perfect
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 12:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 12:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 12:44 pm (UTC)i can hear jack saying that line
*bounce* It's always good to know his voice comes through. One of the great things about Jack Sparrow is how he never underestimates women.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 02:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 02:50 pm (UTC)Your writing is fantastic and certainly matches your beautiful pictures.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 06:50 pm (UTC)Now I'm off to go read more about shirts, soap and cosmetics of the 18th century ;-)
no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 03:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 05:07 am (UTC)She could order him to hand her something. At least I wouldn't put that beyond her.
I like the banter between them and the unenthusiastic soap.
littlebird
no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 12:31 pm (UTC)That you'd call me a favourite author is so very kind of you. I'm feeling very bashful and honoured.
Love the interplay between Ana and Jack, the intimacy and still the fierceness of each of them comes through most elegantly.
That's good to know. I do enjoy this relationship between these two elemental characters. They're like two tropical storm systems. Where they brush each other the weather is thrilling and dangerous.
Anamaria is definitely the sort of girl one gives weapons rather than roses. And she is definitely the type to prefer going down fighting.
Thanks again for the lovely comments.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 12:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 12:37 pm (UTC)I'm glad you enjoyed their repartee and that historically awful soap. Thank you so much for commenting.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 01:36 pm (UTC)I think you've written Norrington really well; I can't remember what chapter it was, but I really love how Norrington felt somewhat disgusted with himself for attacking someone while they "limped away."
Oh! And I love the pic of Jack holding the boy. I'm less impressed by the ones done from pic references (anyone can do that), but the one with him holding that kid... Really cool. :D
no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 02:00 am (UTC)The last 24 hours or so are written all over that shirt.
"Oh, no worries," Jack said lightly, pulling a small dagger from his belt and beginning to scrape away at the blood caked under his nails. "Tearlach's got a rope and he'll haul me on and off one way or another."
Aaarrrgh. That's still gonna hurt!
Since he didn't stop, Anamaria frantically slammed her eyelids down.
Limits to letting him know she appreciates the view, huh?
"I'm going to have to presume upon your good nature. Have you any good nature?" he asked puzzled. "Never mind. I'll loan you some."
Am going to run off with this line and cuddle it.
"Spleenish weasel!"
!!! Believe that's just become my all time favorite insult. *g*
The wild savagery of his wet hair, jangling with bizarre curios...
This whole paragraph is a treat, such a delight! He is beautiful, testing the sword in the unaccustomed hand, moving about in the shadows...
Ana's moment of realization about exactly why Jack gave her the knives and helped her hide them is chilling (those claws scrabbling up her back!). Says a lot about how she sees herself - pirate and fighter first, obviously - that it took her so long to think of it.
I love them, I so completely love the two of them, and the way they interact; I love watching them, I love listening to them, and it has been difficult not to grab every bit of dialog between them and quote it back. That would get tedious, wouldn't it? So let me just tell you it's marvelous, all of it, and the intimacy of it, the trust between the two of them apparent in how they are able to let their guard down, is sweet and dear and *dissolves in puddle of fangirly goo*
Apologies for brevity of comment - found it near impossible (twice!) to stop reading long enough to grab pretty bits.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 02:53 am (UTC)Again i love the character interaction of Ana and Jack you seem to have them captured prefectly and the way they banter is very natural and flowing. A great chapter overall.
I also love the including of the kohl it was greatly amusing to me how similair it is to the way I apply my own eyeliner. Guess cosmetics haven't changed so much. *grin*
no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 04:07 am (UTC)I love this... lull, for want of a better word. Perfect interplay between Ana and Jack - for a non-relationship, it's pretty hot!
And I LOVE that you know the proper way to put on kohl! *is happy*
no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 03:53 am (UTC)Even I haven't mastered drawing from pic references. They're still a bit off what I want, but are improving. However, the picture of Jack and Jip would never have been possible without all the photo-realism practice. I'm happy you liked it.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 04:10 am (UTC)I LOVE that you know the proper way to put on kohl!
I did my research. The proper way surprised me entirely!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 04:15 am (UTC)Jack and Anamaria have become rather beloved to me :D I had no idea this fic was going to take them this direction, but I'm glad to know their dialogue feels natural and their characters are working.
it was greatly amusing to me how similair it is to the way I apply my own eyeliner. Guess cosmetics haven't changed so much
There's only so many ways to colour one's eyes, but I hope you don't have to actually stick anything in your eyes! :D
no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 05:10 am (UTC)The last 24 hours or so are written all over that shirt.
Yes, Jack needs to scour that text off his body and his mind to clear it for the coming action and to keep it unreadable for his enemies.
"Tearlach's got a rope and he'll haul me on and off one way or another."
Aaarrrgh. That's still gonna hurt!
Umm. Yes. I’m afraid so.
Limits to letting him know she appreciates the view, huh?
There are some views where watching would create too many risks. It might tip Jack over an edge of seduction on which he teeters rather unsteadily as it is, and Ana doesn’t entirely trust her own convictions around him anyway. Rather like trying to eat only one potato chip.
"I'm going to have to presume upon your good nature. Have you any good nature?" he asked puzzled. "Never mind. I'll loan you some."
Am going to run off with this line and cuddle it.
The line is quite friendly and will purr when cuddled.
"Spleenish weasel!"
!!! Believe that's just become my all time favorite insult. *g*
I’m glad to have expanded your arsenal of insults :D I’d love to know who will be on the receiving end of it!
This whole paragraph is a treat, such a delight! He is beautiful, testing the sword in the unaccustomed hand, moving about in the shadows...
Guilty as charged. I couldn’t resist mate. Jack is just too lovely when he’s gone completely pirate.
Ana's moment of realization about exactly why Jack gave her the knives and helped her hide them is chilling (those claws scrabbling up her back!). Says a lot about how she sees herself - pirate and fighter first, obviously - that it took her so long to think of it.
Anamaria doesn’t think of herself as a victim, and Jack’s gift of knives is the surety that she isn’t going to have to start now. But the possibility that she will have to face that kind of fight, one that she still might not win, but one which she will now not have to surrender is a shock to her.
I love them, I so completely love the two of them, and the way they interact; I love watching them, I love listening to them, and it has been difficult not to grab every bit of dialog between them and quote it back. That would get tedious, wouldn't it? So let me just tell you it's marvelous, all of it, and the intimacy of it, the trust between the two of them apparent in how they are able to let their guard down, is sweet and dear and *dissolves in puddle of fangirly goo*
*bounce, bounce* You like my Jack and Ana! In the seas of beautiful Jack/Elizabeth fic, it’s good to know my little barque of Jack(almost/)Ana is staying afloat as well. Jack and Anamaria have such a unique dynamic, so very different from other pairings. I love writing their gradually increasing intimacy and trust alongside a fundamental wariness and refusal to be trapped. The tension is my favourite thing. But it’s not an antagonistic tension, nor even an angsty tension, really. And it hurts no one. There’s nothing ugly or bitter about it. I guess that’s what I like about it. These are two wild creatures who can only brush the tips of wings in their flight to freedom. I’m so glad it turns you gooey too!
Apologies for brevity of comment - found it near impossible (twice!) to stop reading long enough to grab pretty bits.
No apologies necessary. This was a lovely comment. Quite deliciously satisfying. And I can’t help but be pleased at your reasons for not grabbing more lines. It’s always good to know the story was that gripping. Thank you so much.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 11:21 am (UTC)Jack needs to scour that text off his body and his mind to clear it for the coming action and to keep it unreadable for his enemies.
Was probably focusing too much on how the ablutions obliterated the evidence of just how much damage the Navy had done to him, personally, and (embarrassed to say, considering how often I've read this type of thing) did not catch that it was also battle preparation ritual with assistance made necessary by the particular circumstances. Am far too literal-minded when I'm tired...
Ana doesn't entirely trust her own convictions around him anyway. Rather like trying to eat only one potato chip.
That's our Ana - absolute iron will. If she can manage to look away as Jack's dropping those breeks, a single potato chip would be child's play.
What makes your Jack and Ana relationship so wonderful is that they remain so perfectly in character and are also complete human beings, and their responses are appropriate and realistic both for the two of them and for the situation. J/E is pretty also, and I'll happily read it (cannot write it, apparently, without degenerating into total fluff), but well done J/A (or Jack[almost/]Ana, as you so appropriately put it) is rare and precious.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 11:26 am (UTC)Have become so used to your excellent research (read: spoiled) that I didn't think twice about your correct technique.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 11:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-05 07:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-05 07:28 am (UTC)This was not the face of the man who had ordered his men to show mercy. This was the face of the man who had given a gift of knives.
Something about that line caused both a squee and a shiver. Actually, it's that and the image of him as entirely sleek lines and sharp edges, slender and lethal like the sword he wielded. I love Jack when he gets dangerous. And his last words to her are perfect.
Brava!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-05 09:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-05 10:36 am (UTC)I'm glad you're enjoying the name-calling. Those epithets are such fun to come up with.
Something about that line caused both a squee and a shiver.
Squeeing myself about that :D Those two sides of Jack juxtaposed in such tension are one of my favourite things to describe. I too love dangerous Jack. And then he always has that half twist of humour such as his last words to Anamaria. Jack's lack of sentiment is another thing I love.
Thank you so much for the lovely comments.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 05:15 pm (UTC)Jack descriptions are always fun, and most especially those of him in all his piratical glory here. Very vivid. *ahem* Makes sense he would give her the knives (and such pretty knives). And I also liked this: “Some men give their womenfolk diamonds. I give her knives and say go get your own diamonds, love.”
A few other things...
...there would be ghosts perching on his shoulders the minute he had time to slow down enough to rest. Yes, probably. *shivers*
Nobody better at trying to kill himself than Captain Jack Sparrow, after all. There was a reason the man was a legend. :-)
lunatic peacock Heh! And this, which a touching reminder that he, too, is human: looking like a boy dressed up as a pirate
no subject
Date: 2008-08-05 11:32 pm (UTC)I'm glad you're enjoying the UST. It's really my favourite sort of relationship. These two are the sort just to brush wing tips on their flights to freedom.
Jack descriptions are just pure self-indulgence which is a good description of writing this chapter! :D And the diamonds have not made their last appearance.
Jack is at least fifty different people of assorted ages, all of them entertaining. Again, thanks for your insights into these characters.