Playing with knives

Disclaimer: do I really need to tell you that I own none of the rights to these characters and make no money from shamelessly twisting them to my evil will? Nope, didn’t think I did. On with the show…

A/N This is pretty much a one-shot to give me a chance to delve a little into Elizabeth’s character (and attack her with knives). Lots of fics seem to end up portraying her as a vile wench or randomly pairing her off with Norrington or indeed anything just to get Will and Jack alone and I sort of felt sorry for her. if you think my interpretation’s *off* in any way, do review and let me know why.

I will gladly accept any constructive criticism but please don’t bother flaming me. It’s a waste of my time and yours

Please ask before archiving this anywhere

********************************


“Jack”
Elizabeth gasped as the pirate’s hands slid over her body. She raised her arms slightly to assist in Jacks removal of her gown. As it fell to the floor, the rocking of the ship caused her to fall, sprawling across the bed. Jack grinned, and leapt to take advantage of the situation. As he straddled Elizabeth, Jack reached for one of his knives to slit open the front of her gown.
Elizabeth’s eyes widened and she grabbed Jack’s wrist
“Jack, no!”
“Relax missy, ol’ Jack won’t hurt you”
His eyes grew darker
“Unless of course you ask him to”

Elizabeth felt her breath catch in her throat. This wasn’t like Will – making love to him had always been just that, making love. Will had always made Elizabeth feel protected, safe. Lying in Will’s arms, legs entwined, she had felt the entire world could fall down around them and they would not be harmed. But all that was behind her: Port Royal was far away and Will, Will was gone. Elizabeth wrenched her mind away from the past; Jack still had her pinned to the bed and was now sporting a devilishly dark look.

Elizabeth let her gaze wander over Jack’s upper body taking in tanned skin, twisted scars -so many scars!- and taut muscles and couldn’t help thinking of another body – paler, silky smooth, and, apart from his forearms and hands, perfectly unmarked. She reflected that the distance between the two men’s bodies mirrored uncannily her relationships with them: with Will she had been protected, cushioned by her status and their shared naivety. As each other’s first lovers they had begun with a blank slate and the opportunity to inscribe the experiences of the years to come on each other.
Jack one the other hand…Jack’s body spoke of painful memories best forgotten, of adventures both grand and dangerous, of a life lived recklessly and relentlessly to the full. Jacks past sang out through lines of twisted silver, some fantastically warped and random, others neat, almost obsessively ordered. Compared to Will, Jack was adventure, Jack was mystery, Jack was running a cold hard blade down her throat…
Dragging her mind back to the present Elizabeth looked up into a pair of morbidly amused black eyes.
“Tha’ got yer attention didn’t it? Stay wiv me luv – yer going to need yer wits about yer to survive a tangle wiv Captain Jack Sparrow”
Elizabeth swallowed, suddenly not so sure she could handle this.
“Jack, where did you get all those scars?”
The pirate looked to where Elizabeth was pointing, the collection of straight, deliberate looking scars that ran down the outside of his forearm. “Ah. Those”
“That one” said Jack, pointing to the scar closest to his wrist
“That one marks the day I first set foot one a ship. That one” he gestured to the next one up “marks the first time I made love to a woman”
He smiled at the memory “she cut that one herself. Laurelei, her name was. Sweetest lips in the Caribbean but bloody hell was she deadly with a blade…”
“How old were you?”
“Younger than you are now lass, though just as wet behind the ears
Elizabeth pouted at the implied insult but persisted, determined to disprove him. She’d make a pirate and a lover yet.
“So they’re memories?”
“More than that, luv – they’re stories. Me body’s the only thing I carry wiv me through me whole life so it stands that it should show what I’ve been through.”
“You’ve never heard of diaries Captain?”
Said Elizabeth with a small smile
“What use is paper to me luv? The only things I’ve managed to hang on to over the years are the Pearl, me ‘at, Barbossa’s pistol an’ me compass. ‘Sides, pain speaks louder than words, I don’t ‘ave to read a book about me evil deeds, I can still feel them.”
Elizabeth gestured to one scar still faintly pink
“And that one Jack? What grand adventures have you been getting up recently?”
Jack laughed
“Why that one was too commemorate meeting you and young William an’ getting me beloved Pearl back”

Something inside Elizabeth clenched at the mention of Will, but she held her composure, holding out to Jack her left hand, still bearing the mark of her own encounter with Barbossa.
“This is the only scar I have. I feel like I hadn’t lived until then, like I was protected, wrapped up in cotton wool until…until the day you saved my life”
“I want to be like you Jack. I want to live my life as if I’ll die tomorrow, I want to know pain, I want to know pleasure– will you help me?”


Jack was still for a time; seemingly ponder how best to respond. When he spoke it was quieter than before, more thoughtful.
“Elizabeth” he said carefully “I knew from our first encounter – when I watched you stand up to all those men, me own self included, even though you were cold, shaken,” he smirked “not to mention barely clothed, I knew then that you were more than your status would ever allow you to be. But love, me life hasn’t all been grand adventures, there’s plenty o’ marks on this body I’d rather forget.”

He took Elizabeth’s hand and placed it over the two healed bullet holes on his chest, then moved it to his back, allowing her to explore the marks left by countless encounters with the cat. And lastly pulled her hand non-too-gently down his mangled left arm, his obsidian eyes sublimating a memory of pain and horror too intense for mere words to communicate…

“I don’t care Jack, any amount of pain, any amount of danger, even an untimely death and a watery grave has to be better than my life before. In Port Royal, my entire life – even my husband – was planned out for me the moment I entered this world as a girl, not the boy my father wished for. I might as well have been dead for all it mattered to them.”

Jack looked at Elizabeth with the first twinkling of respect.
“Well said fair lady. So! Where shall we start you on your journey to adventure, notoriety and dishonour?”

Elizabeth walked her fingers up Jack’s arm pausing at his first scar.
“Well I’ve already been aboard a pirate ship, and have the scar to prove it.”
She walked her fingers further, this time stopping to run her fingers over the scar left by Laurelei then looking up at Jack with one eyebrow raised and eyes full of dark promise

“Was she as deadly with a blade as you are Jack?”

The pirate needed no more encouragement than that. He picked up the throwing blade he had let fall and in a flash had slit open the ties of Elizabeth’s corset.
“Shall we find out?”

Elizabeth took an involuntary sharp intake of breath when her corset released her. She looked up to find Jack kneeling astride her legs, busy with his blade. With a sharp ripping sound, a long strip of Elizabeth’s chemise was cut away and deftly applied to her wrists.
Elizabeth was bewildered. Jack had tied her wrists together, but far too loosely – she could pull them several inches apart. What’s more, Jack was backing away from the bed! That had to be wrong.

“I’d hold those wrists away from yer face if I were you luv” said Jack

Elizabeth looked up to see him raising his throwing arm and barely had time to duck her head and squeeze her eyes shut when a cold breeze and a dull thudding sound confirmed her horrible fear – she was pinned to the side of the Pearl by a blade thrown by an utter madman. Suddenly a living death in Port Royal seemed rather tempting.

“God, Jack!”
Elizabeth was surprised and slightly disappointed to find herself breathless with arousal. She had thought about this moment for so long, had rationalized it so many times, but no amount of thought could, it seemed, have prepared her for the bare reality of the act. She had wanted this to be about more than just sex, this was to be about her finally severing all ties to her “proper” self, about taking Jack on and coming out as an equal. Now, at the first hurdle, she was well on the way to proving herself just another wench to fall under the thrall of Captain Jack Sparrow.

As she realised Jack was waiting for her, Elizabeth took a long and conscious decision to suspend her emotional asides and devote herself wholly to present sensation. Although this was about more than mere pleasure, she was about to tumble with the most notorious womanizer in the Caribbean. It would, perhaps, be more surprising if this didn’t arouse her. She would just have to make sure that wasn’t all she felt. Rationalizing this could wait ‘til later; she owed to herself, and to Jack to give herself to him fully.

She looked up, expecting Jack to divest himself and her of their clothes without further ado but she hadn’t allowed for Jack’s understanding, perhaps better than her own, of the situation. He knew what this meant to her and knew that however much she thought she was in control of at least her own actions, he would have to lead the way, at least for the first time.

He grinned roguishly and started towards the bed, climbing onto it and straddling the girl’s body. Taking up a blade, he ran it suggestively down her throat, between her breasts and over one suddenly firm nipple. When he reached the side of her ribs, he changed the angle of the blade, piercing the thin cloth of her chemise and, oh so slightly, the flushed skin that lay beneath. Suddenly with a quick motion he drew the blade lightly downwards and across, slitting he chemise and exposing the underside of one trembling breast. Her skin he had also slit, though barely enough to draw blood – but no matter, it was prudent to be cautious at least at first – there was still plenty of skin to be uncovered…

Wriggling himself slightly further down Elizabeth’s body, he was pleased on more than one count to feel her unconsciously grind her pubic bone against his. He set himself to work. Another cut, slower this time, went from hipbone to hipbone. This time, a thin line of red welled up and bled through the linen. Elizabeth gasped at the sting, but held herself well. Emboldened by this, jack slashed quickly down from right shoulder to navel. As he looked down to survey his work Jack’s pupils widened at the sight:
Elizabeth lay on her back, pinned to the Pearl by her wrists. Her chemise hung off her in tatters and scarlet blood welled from cuts traversing her body; from collarbone to navel, between her now heaving breasts and across her belly, where the blood was beginning to trickle enticingly downwards…

Jack’s flaming skin demanded attention; every pore of his being longed to press himself against this flushed and bleeding beauty. He ran his hands through the blood gradually covering her body, smearing it up her neck into her hair and lay heavily on her, feeling her warmth, her breath shaky against his ear, tiny shockwaves of arousal sweeping her body. He bent and kissed her neck, sucking, nibbling, releasing it upon hearing her tiny cry of pain only to repeat the action an inch lower. Elizabeth strained against her bonds, wanting, needing, to reciprocate but maddeningly unable. When she felt jack wrap his tongue round a nipple, she arched off the bed, her exclamation somewhere between a groan and a purr. Without lifting his mouth, Jack reached for his knife and sliced a long shallow cut across her ribs, deep enough to bleed but not enough to scar; there would be plenty of time for that in years to come. He brought his hand, covered in Elizabeth’s ruby blood to his lips, finding it salty, but also almost cloyingly sweet. He offered some to Elizabeth, but she didn’t yield her lips to him, instead whispering breathlessly one word:
“yours”
Jack almost passed out from the waves of emotion and arousal traversing his body. He looked deep into Elizabeth’s eyes, betraying his gratitude and desire in a way that was now far beyond the power of mere words. Sitting up, he dragged the blade down his pectoral muscle, throwing his head back and shivering deliciously at the thin, razor sharp pain. Slowly, caressingly, he stroked a hand down his chest, covering it in his life’s blood, then slowly, lovingly, brought his hand to Elizabeth’s lips to let her taste his. Both moaned aloud at the sensation: he of Elizabeth’s pouting lips, her clever tongue lathing his finger in a manner he intended to exploit further at a later date, and she the sensation of Captain Jack Sparrow, heavy on her body, moulding her to his will, cutting her, cutting him, holding her very life before her eyes and tasting it as a rare delicacy.

The desire in the air was palpable and the look in their eyes required no words to clarify; Jack knelt and peeled down his trousers, smiling slightly at Elizabeth’s gasp, then gently removed the scant remains of Elizabeth’s undergarments. He brought a hand to her entrance, feeling it already damp with desire, then dragged his other hand hard across her chest and belly, cracking open wounds that were clotting in the air and eliciting a sharp cry of mingled pain and pleasure. Repeating the action on his own chest, he brought his hand with their mingled blood to his hard member, the better to smooth the way.

Elizabeth looked into the obsidian depths of Jack’s eyes and knew there would be no turning back from this night. He had plumbed depths even she hadn’t known existed when she’d first propositioned him. She melted to feel Jack at her entrance, expecting him to thrust, to impale her quickly, viciously but then keened with pleasure to feel him instead press in steadily, but slowly, oh-so slowly, until he was sunk to the hilt, then carry on pressing, rubbing, grinding, a hand at her centre of pleasure sending waves of colour through her mind and down her body; first black, then red, then blinding white…Elizabeth bit her lip and arched her back, climaxing powerfully, then collapsed, sobbing with pleasure as she regained her breath. Recovering, she looked up to see Jack cradling her body and looking at her with suche the that she sobbed again, turning it into a gasp as she felt him resume his grinding rhythm.

The effort required of Jack to make him stop and allow Elizabeth her pleasure had been almost too much to bear. His thrusts became almost brutal for a time after, but he forced his mind back from the purely animal, reminding himself that this was more than just a fuck. Although his wound still stung him, his body was heading for a sensual overload; numbed by the pleasure already wrought upon it. He knew he would need more than this to push him over the edge. Leaning forwards he pulled the blade holding Elizabeth’s wrists to the ship, the slashed the bindings leaving her hands free. He gave her a moment to work some feeling back into her stiff arms, then pressed the blade into her hand, whispering
“ Your turn”
Elizabeth slowly traced the knife across his chest, familiarizing herself with its weight and the resistance of Jack’s flesh. Meanwhile the pirate trembled on a knife-edge. Finally he felt the blade catch below his ribs and burning pain crossed his stomach to his groin followed by the heat of orgasm. He leant back, his hands on Elizabeth’s hips, pulling them burningly close as he spent copiously into her then allowed the darkness to take him…

After a time, he gently shook Elizabeth from her haze and sat them bot, cr, cradling her still trembling body.

“Now love, there’s something we have to do.”

He wrapped both their haarouaround one of the blades and brought it to her arm, letting her choose the spot. As they pulled the blade through her flesh a final time (for this night, be as it may the first of many) she kissed his jaw and whispered sleepily into his ear

“Thank you, Jack”