The Weakness in Me

Chap. 6: I Mean to Hold You

“…and they were all staring at me, from every direction, with all three of their eyes.”

“Really, Jack, does this have a point?”

“You have to wait, love, for there ever to be a point to anything.”

Elizabeth sighed and readjusted her skirts. Jack had started to ramble the moment that he had their attention, as he was wont to do. He had started talking about the Black Pearl and when Barbossa was his first mate. He’d gone over how they had staged a mutiny, and left him stranded on the rumrunner’s island. Now he was on about some three-eyed creature staring at him. From her experience, there was nothing more unusual on that island than broken rum bottles.

“I reached up to one of their furry brown faces and—“

”You mean coconuts?” Will butted in, leaning his chin on his knees, his arms wrapped around his legs. He seemed like he was fascinated by the story being crafted… as pointless as it seemed.

“There’s a glimmer of his father. Wonderful reader of tripe, he was. Anyways, I was pulling a coconut down and I got this sinkin’ feeling in my gut. I’d been there two days already, and I was certain that Barbossa had gotten the Pearl to the island and back to a port by then. It was later that I learned they’d gotten there the night they’d left me for dead, sailed to a port the next day and started spending their loot. William spoke up about the mutiny after making a trip to the post, got to play the gunner’s daughter for thirty rounds and then got dumped overboard, still tied to the cannon. Hearing that he was at the bottom of the ocean, and feeling it in my gut… I knew I’d lost something fine. He was a good man, and a good man before the mast,” Jack’s words trailed off as he chewed on one of his nails, looking inward.

Elizabeth moved closer to Will, and took his hands. The fingers that wrapped around hers felt cold, as if they carried the cold fate of his father with them unknowingly. She raised the hand to her lips, and thought of the horrible way that Will’s father had died.

“He was a good lover, too,” Jack rumbled, completely ruining the sadness of the moment.

“You… you slept with my father?”

“Well, I did more than just sleep with him. But, aye, I did. I loved him, too. If he could speak for his part now,” Jack pressed his palms together, “I’m sure he would.”

“You’re chasing after Will because you were having sex with his father? That’s terrible!” Elizabeth hissed, laying her hand on Will’s shoulder, “And not a very valid reason at all! A man is not his father. Not at all.”

“Amen,” Jack smiled crookedly, “but you have to let me finish, love, before you get heated up about the matter. The most important thing to me through those ten years, between the time that Barbossa mutinied and Elizabeth and I became acquainted in our own way, was getting the Pearl back. When I was trying to get the chains your friend Norrington put me in off I ran into Will here. Spittin’ image of his father. Made my heart jump. Thought I was seeing ghosts. I wasn’t ready to be sure until I got his name. When that was all confirmed and packaged neatly… I knew that I could use this lad to my advantage in getting the Pearl back if everything about the curse was how it should be. And he’d get you, of course, Elizabeth. Maybe. Turned out that way. I didn’t think he was going to be anything like the William I knew. Especially with all his rants about the evils of pirates, ‘oh how bad they are’, ‘my poppa was a merchant’. That fodder. It wasn’t until things started rolling, started moving… that I started seeing more similarities. And there was rum.”

“I should have known,” Elizabeth sighed, frowning at the pair, “well, what of the rum?”

“Norrington has bad taste. The ‘rum’ I found on the Interceptor wasn’t worth much if anything at all. Regardless, it freed spirits and allowed certain actions, which I’m sure dear William enjoyed as much as I did… all things considered.”

Elizabeth’s breath caught and Will turned bright red. She had had no idea that they had done anything of any sort other than kissing. She dropped her hand to her lap, feeling suddenly soiled by the pirate who sat across from her, pursing his lips. He’d… oh, the scoundrel!

“I did,” Will said quietly, and she looked at him, taking her other hand away. She was feeling less and less certain about how well she knew the man she had married.

“What… what did…”

“No worries, love, it was nothing serious,” Jack said, nodding at Will and sucking on one of his own forefingers in parody of an act that Elizabeth herself had performed on Will. She didn’t particularly enjoy it, and now she was glad of that fact.

“Why?” Elizabeth was breathless with frustration, unsure of what she should say, “And is there anything else you’re keeping from me?”

Will shook his head and Jack said, “The ‘why’ is easy. He’s attractive. He has some of those qualities that his old dad had. He was easy to fall in love with, as I’m sure you know, though no one will ever replace his dad in that sore spot in my heart where he lived. Bastard shot me a few times. I suppose those scars will never forget, either.”

They both looked at Will who said, “There was nothing after that… after what Jack did on the Interceptor. I was scared. I was mad at myself because I felt like I’d turned my back on you. So, I focused everything on getting you back.”

“I came back this time ‘round because I’d sailed with the Pearl and her crew for a few months, absolutely in love with every single bit of her… but something didn’t seem quite right. She’s held everything I’ve loved about life for a long time now, and it just seemed like Will should be on her, too. I missed him, real bad. I think that about brings us up to date.”

Silence fell between the three. Will could feel them both staring at him, expecting him to resolve the matter. As if he could choose, or even sort out his feelings about something like this. He still didn’t know what it was that he felt for Jack. He supposed it was a kind of love, but not the kind of love he had for Elizabeth. He raised his head and looked into her soft, brown eyes that looked all the way down to his soul. The worst thing about her gaze was the doubt that he could see in her eyes. Will had never seen that in her eyes before. Turning his head to look at Jack, he was greeted by another pair of soulful brown eyes. Jack’s gaze, however, was unreadable.

Will knew he should be speaking, but he didn’t know what to say to either them. He almost wanted to scream at them to leave him alone, and run from the cell… but running had resulted in a vicious beating by headwear earlier that he didn’t wish to repeat.

“I don’t know what I feel,” he murmured at last, and heard the pair sigh in unison. They wanted him to make a decision that he just couldn’t make. Could they make that kind of decision?

Will was about to say something that he was sure, in hindsight, was very profound. The thought was completely forgotten when Jack stood up and coughed, “Can’t bloody stand it anymore.”

The pirate was disappearing out the door of the cell, one hand fluttering against the bars as the other fiddled with the sash at his waist. Soon, he was followed by a blur of yellow skirts that was Elizabeth. Jack’s progress ground to a halt as she locked her arms around his hips, pulling him backwards back into the cell.

“Oh, no, no you don’t. If James finds out that I’m the one who opened the cell door for you to go meandering out of it, he’ll be absolutely mortified, never have me for tea again…oh, and I’ll be charged as an accessory to your escape!”

“You never seemed too bothered by that before, love.”

Will followed after them, grabbing Elizabeth’s upper arms from behind, trying to pull her off of Jack. He just wanted all of the fighting to stop, and this ridiculous tug of war about whether or not Jack was leaving the cell was verging on ridiculous. He pulled, mumbling in Elizabeth’s ear that she should let the pirate go ahead and leave. It would spare them the hard conversation. If anything, she pulled harder in response, and Jack’s flailing hand caught the door as he was propelled backwards.

The door slammed shut, a loud clanking boom echoing through the jail cells. Jack froze in place, his fingers curled around the bars. Elizabeth stopped pulling, her grip unrelenting even out of motion. Will was the first to act, taking the moment of frozen action to tug again. The movement pulled Elizabeth backwards, pulling Jack, and slamming the door yet again as if in testimony to the error that had been committed. Jack looked over his shoulder, catching Elizabeth’s eyes and flashing an apologetic smile.

When the door had slammed, it took advantage of one of the newer designs that Will had helped make in his shop. It locked automatically, the tumblers falling into place. Now they were all locked in, frozen parodies of themselves, and Jack grinning over his shoulder like a lunatic.

“I was hoping we’d all be staying at your place tonight, but it looks as if you are officially and irrevocably my guests,” Jack let go of the bars and turned in Elizabeth’s arms, “welcome to my humble abode.”

“You!” Elizabeth drew away from him, backing up into Will, “If you had not grabbed the door--!”

“And if you hadn’t been pulling on me, love, I wouldn’t have had to seek leverage. It’s a moot point to argue who’s at fault, really. The fact is we’re in here, the keys are gone, and I’m not being released until morning.”

Will sighed and sat down in the corner as the pair launched into another argument. Jack finally threw his hands up in the air and retired to a corner of the cell as Elizabeth tried calling to the guards who either ignored her or thought she was Anna-Maria wailing her head off. She yelled for an hour before her voice got too raw to continue.

“Elizabeth… they’re not coming,” he sighed, laying his hands on her shoulders, kissing the back of her neck, “come sit down and rest. It won’t be that long until we can get out again.”

She turned to him, leaning her head against his chest with a soft sigh, “I just don’t think I can stand it here, Will. I don’t want to be near Jack, the jail smells horrible… I just want to go to bed with you, in our home.”

He led her back to a corner of the cell, sitting down and opening his arms to her. She knelt, and then lay down next to him, putting her arms around his chest. She was right, he thought, nuzzling her hair. She was the only thing that didn’t smell absolutely revolting in the jail cell. With his arms wrapped around her, it was easier to feel comfortable and start doing the only thing there was to do in a jail cell. Sleep.

An hour passed before the couple lapsed into sleep. Jack watched them from beneath the brim of his hat, observing the steady way that they breathed in unison, Elizabeth’s head resting against Will’s broad chest. They looked as if they belonged together, taking comfort from each other as they were in these unfamiliar surroundings. And yet… there was something missing in the picture. It seemed to Jack like he should join in that warm pile of sleeping limbs and nodded heads. William had another shoulder, after all, another arm to wrap around a warm body. Elizabeth’s hand hung in the air as if it should be resting against another man’s chest. She was hot headed and strong willed and Jack was sure that she hated him… but he also felt that that hand was waiting for him. Quietly, he slunk closer, dropping to his knees as he reached the other side of Will’s body. Carefully lying down, he thought for a moment that Will was going to wake up. Instead the other man shifted, allowing Jack to squirm under his waiting arm. He gently picked up Elizabeth’s hand and replaced it where it seemed to belong, on his chest. His arm went around Will’s waist, taking full advantage of the warmth another body provided. Now things seemed as if they were as perfect as they could be in that cell.

-------------------
thank you to all
who have endured
the progress of this
chapter and all the
various forms of
that damned "door"
scene. Jack!muse may
now end his hunger
strike. *bows*
Also thank you to
all who have given
me a review. That
is really appreciated
and what keeps me
going at such great
lengths. ^^;