Cravatte

Title: Ties That Bind aka Cravatte

Characters: Jack, Will, mentions of Elisabeth

Author's Notes: Part one is written for my prompt "Cravat" given to me for the One More Day- challenge at raise_the_dead at Livejournal. The rest will be just for the hell of it :)

Feedback: Would be most gratifying, really.

Part one


“Jack.”

A voice, just above a whisper, dropped bluntly into the dusty air, stirring a wrinkle of a nose from the indistinctively-distinctive form splayed on the floor.

“Jack Sparrow.”

The voice was more urgent, bordering irritation. And it sounded oddly familiar. Better keep still for a bit longer, listen, remember…Oh, right…

“Jack!”

Definitely irritated, served with a nudge of a foot, clad in a decidedly sharp-toed shoe. Buckled shoe, more probably than not.

Jack couldn’t stop a smile spreading on his lips. Worth a retort, that one.

“Hmm..”

“Jack, what are you doing?”

“’M sleeping. Well, I was, before you decided to kick me viciously. What did I ever do to you to be kicked like that anyway?” The soot had apparently grouted his eyes shut and opening his mouth enough to mumble revealed that the mortar had probably been mixed in said body cavity.

“That much I can see. What are you doing sleeping here?” Worried now, the colour of the voice. How touching.

Jack rubbed his eyes with both hands before even trying to open them. “It felt like a good idea at the time, and as often happens with brilliant ideas, I tend to go along with them.”

He managed to open his eyelids a fraction and was squinting up to Will Turner, who was, in turn, squinting back down to Jack quizzically.

Jack pushed his coat, which he’d been using as a cover, away and turned to his side, propping himself up on an elbow, seemingly trying to figure out what it was he was seeing, and not exactly believing it.

“Where are you going? Why are you dressed like that?”

The shirt alone was too white to be worn by a blacksmith, and the embroidery of the vest was altogether too fancy to be worn even by the noblemen at a hanging. Jack didn’t much like it. It made him feel perturbed, what with all the talks at the ports and all that.

Concluding that if the pirate was able to move about like that, he couldn’t be terribly hurt, Will straightened his back. The relevance of the question in this situation escaped Will completely.

“I’m going to a wedding. Jack, why are you here?”

Jack perked up. “Who’s wedding? Yours?” He held out a hand so that Will would help him up. The look the young man gave him didn’t help much with anything, and did even less for getting up.

Clambering onto his feet, all by his onesies, mind, Jack picked up his possessions and threw them on a nearby anvil before making a brief survey of his surroundings. Never before he’d slept so well while on land, as far as he could remember. Fascinating turn of events, to say the least, to feel safe like that, in a place like this, after a time like that. Would be difficult to find another place like it.

“Certainly it’s your wedding, it’s been over three months since I last heard of your engagement, surely everything has been arranged by now.” Jack seemed to be talking to a horseshoe.

“No, a friend’s.” Will watched distempered as Jack picked up a hammer next, smiled at the thing and put it away again.

To find a pirate captain slumbering in the corner of a smithy with a stack of hay as a pillow was something Will had not expected he’d do any time soon. Ever, if he was being honest. That is, if Will had expected to meet a pirate captain ever again in the first place, anywhere, after an unmentionable pirate captain had left the last time, this would have definitely been the last of the places. For some reason he’d pegged another port for the chance of running into pirates, or unmentionable pirate captains. Not that he’d given it that much thought anyway. And that had nothing to do with honesty.

A pair of tongs were under scrutiny when Will picked them from Jack and put them back on the hook on the wall to make the man concentrate on him. “Jack, really, you’re not safe here.”

It was like Will hadn’t said anything. At least it had no effect on Jack whatsoever. Or was that a hint of another smile in the corner of his mouth?

“A friend’s, you say. Anyone I might be acquainted with?”

Will had a sudden urge to grab the man by the shoulders and shake him profusely. Suppressing that, he settled for an indignant response. “Are you familiar with the shoemaker’s apprentice? Any other people to meet while you‘re here, Jack? The hangman perhaps?”

That at least got the man’s attention, even if it didn’t come with the answer Will was waiting for.

“Not that I know of…So when’s yours then?”

Deciding that trying to press the matter would lead him nowhere, Will turned and walked to his room adjacent to the actual smithy. He didn’t have time to try to decipher Jack’s insanity, let alone his reasons right now, not when it was obvious it would take more than a simple question or two.

Jack followed Will to the room and sat on the edge of the bed like it was something he did every day, observing Will‘s every movement. After spotting a jug of water and a mug and drinking his fill, Jack sprawled on the bed, fluffed the pillow up a bit, to no avail other than to send a different kind of dust flying from the stuffings, patted it, visibly satisfied with his handiwork, and tucked his hands under his head to continue to watch as Will gathered his hair to tie it back. Fascinating, indeed.

Will tried his best to act as if Jack wasn’t even there.

Both kept silent, even while Will felt the thrumming of important questions behind his forehead. If there was one thing he had had the chance to learn about Jack, it was of asking questions; Questions could be asked, but the answers provided usually varied from evasive riddles to omitted truths, if Jack wasn’t in the mood to divulge. Apparently, judging from his behaviour so far, he wasn’t. Maybe Jack could stay here, and hopefully stay safe, until Will came back.

The reason, for what the option of just telling Jack to leave was not really an option, was brushed away the second it popped into Will’s mind. It was not important.

Will reached for a silk scarf that was folded neatly on the drawer next to the bed and started putting it around his neck, when Jack was suddenly on his feet, alarmed by something Will could not see.

“You can’t wear that to a wedding, ‘specially when it’s not your wedding. Don’t you have a white one?”

Continuing on tying the scarf, Will only raised his brow in confusion.

“I’ve worn this for weddings before, why would it be a problem now?”

“Why would it be a problem, you ask? And you’re going to marry the governor’s daughter! I’m appalled by the lack of cultivation you‘re showing here, Will.”

The theatrical clasp of a hand over Jack’s chest and the shocked gasp with it, made Will want to hear the rest of it. The silence in the room was far from pleasant, and Jack’s eyes roaming over Will’s figure had been almost intruding. It was truly a relief that the moment had passed.

Jack rocked back and forth on his heels, hands hovering over Will’s, indecisive if to push them away from the scarf or no. As Will showed no intention of stopping of making the apparent mistake, Jack grabbed his wrist and forced them down, swiped his hands on his breeches and started to pluck on the knot. “I’ll tell you, let me do this, eh?“

The strict posture of the pirate made Will smirk and relax. He hadn’t seen Jack in that many different situations to begin with, but this was definitely one of which he’d never even dreamed about seeing.

The mockingly educational tone was something Will couldn‘t remember hearing before either, not even back on the Interceptor, where Jack had definitely been the teacher.

“First of all, this here cravate is altogether too formal for this sort of an occasion. It’s too starched, too stiff, too edgy, sharp enough to cut bread with, and I’d imagine that’s not the kind of a message you’d want to give out about the marital bliss of this friend’s of yours.” Jack flicked his eyes up to meet Will’s, who was fighting not to snort. The glint and the tiny wrinkles around Jack’s eyes betrayed his own amusement, giving Will a soundless permission to fall back to the unspoken comfort they’d shared long months ago.

After a passage of time that was a second too long not to be regarded as something meaningful, Jack dropped his gaze back to the band of cloth, untying it and pulling it from Will.

“The colour’s wrong too. It’s obscene, to say the least.”

Jack held the cravat up as if for an inspection, seemingly not at all pleased with it.

“This colour is most improper for a wedding. Yeux de fille en extace, is something the groom isn’t supposed to see until later in the evening, and the moment of that is something you‘re not going to participate in.” The telltale wrinkles had disappeared from around Jack’s eyes. “Or if you are, you‘ve changed a lot more than I‘d ever even thought possible.”

Jack crumpled the scarf into a ball in his fist and shook it open again, eyeing it with obvious dismal before shrugging what ever thought it was that had him frowning, and tossed the cloth around his own neck.

Will stood still, not sure what to say. Somehow, while he was comfortable, he also felt reluctant to tell Jack more than Jack was telling him. Again.

“Eyes of a girl in ecstasy. Where did you come up with that?”

“Do you have a white cravat or no?”

Will went to the drawer and pulled out a slightly wrinkled band of cloth. Jack snatched it, turned Will around to face him again and begun to wrap the cloth around his neck.

“Isn’t it obvious? France, of course. The French are famous for their accomplishments in the field fashion, and even the English have been known to adapt to the quirks, particularly when it comes to the peculiarities of the more lordly lot. And you are going to marry the governor’s daughter, are you not? You need to start learning these things, the sooner the better, William, mingling with the noblemen while haphazardly dressed will only cause you trouble. Not to mention the trouble it‘s going to cause your wife.”

Will wanted to groan out of frustration. Not only did he find himself dancing around direct questions, he was parrying them with questions of his own, the reason for such behaviour clouded even from himself. It made him wonder why he’d ever even thought about going to find Jack so he could talk, properly. Parry. Thrust.

“Have you been to France?”

Jack looked at Will pointedly and tugged the cravat tighter around Will’s neck, worried his lip between his teeth for a moment as if pondering Will’s question thoroughly and opened his mouth to talk about something entirely different.

“See here, Will, a white cravat is more appropriate for a wedding, even more so, when decorating a fine gentleman such as yourself. This isn’t, unfortunately, the shiny, pure, blanc d’innocence virginale as it should be to entirely match the propriety and the good will we’re trying to reflect here, but it’ll have to do.”

There would’ve probably been more to say about the colours and decency, if Will hadn’t interrupted the flow of words. “You’re avoiding my question about France.”

Jack looked surprised before he caught his composure again.

“You’re avoiding my question about Elisabeth. Do you have pins? Any kind of pins? No? Wait here, don‘t move.” Will’s hands were firmly adjusted to hold on to the ends of the scarf before Jack disappeared to the smithy. Will barely resisted the wave of exhaustion taking over him with holding a deep breath in. Why was Jack here?

And then here he was again, pushing two silver pins through the fabric of the cravat and Will’s shirt before starting to form small bumps and hollows to the scarf with accompanying explanation. A glimmer revealed two more pins that were prodded to his own sleeve.

“The way the cloth is tied is called the Ball Room Tie, and is not to be confused with the Hunting Tie. It’s all about the positioning and the number of dents formed to the fabric, which, to a trained eye, tells a lot about the wearer.”

Feeling absolutely ridiculous, Will rolled his eyes, threw all caution to the wind and asked one more question. “How do you know all this?”

To his amazement Jack stopped poking the cloth and sighed rather meekly, followed by a lopsided grin.

“I’ve been to France.”

Will just stared, waiting for Jack to go on before realising that it was not going to happen. Will nearly chuckled at the echo of a memory of Mr. Gibbs saying something about Jack keeping things close to the vest. The man could not have been more right with his assessment. “You’ve been to France. Am I to presume that this knowledge of cravats and the art of folding them is something one learns the instant he steps on French ground?”

The grin on Jack’s face didn’t quite reach his eyes anymore. “Something like that, yes.”

Right there, before Will’s eyes, the grin then turned to a genuine smile, much like the one Will had witnessed right before waking Jack up not so very long time ago. He felt a hand on his shoulder and shuddered at the heat of it. If Jack felt it or not, he didn’t show it in any way. Jack looked like Will had just delivered a thrust, cutting open something unpleasant.

“It happens a great deal more often if one is sold to a house of a genteel nature and is assumed to learn little tricks and gimmicks, such as the proper way to tie a cravat, and to learn it quickly.”

The hand left Will’s shoulder to neat out an invisible wrinkle in a wrong place. Will shuddered again when the warmth was replaced with a brush of relatively cool air.

Will took a deep breath and placed his hand on Jack’s to stop him from his doings. It was Will’s turn to throw some breadcrumbs to the starving.

“No.”

Jack’s brow raised in wonder, eyes flicking from their hands back to Will’s eyes. The pity he thought he’d see in them wasn’t present. Instead there was determination. “No? What is it that we’re opposing to?”

“I’m not going to marry the governor’s daughter. I’m not the man she was engaged to be married with.”

He let go of Jack’s hand and went for the jug of water to ease the sudden drought in his throat. It was one thing to have made peace with himself, and something very different to reveal what Will considered a loss of dignity, to someone like Jack. Will wasn’t sure he’d understand.

“Not anymore.” Will weighed his words meticulously, swallowed another mouth full of the lukewarm water and decided it couldn’t go from bad to worse from here. No, he certainly wasn’t the man he had been before.

Only that he didn’t get to explain himself before Jack was infront of him again, attaching another tiny pin to hold the cravat foldings in place, with another pin between his lips, effectively making it almost impossible to understand a word he was saying.

“Ah, it’s true then. Didn’t want to jump to conclusions before hearing it straight from the source.”

Picking the pin from his mouth made Jack‘s speech a bit easier to follow.

“You know how rumours can be, over exaggerated, tales and stories, whispers of a blacksmith deserting his princess for a more demanding mistress.”

Jack lowered his voice as if he was afraid someone might overhear a great secret. “There‘s even some stories of a man so deeply disturbed by longing something he can never have, that he carved his heart out, but I guess they have you confused with someone else.”

With that, Jack stepped back to the bed, sitting on the edge again, nodding at Will approvingly. “Now, all you have to worry about is that you don’t fiddle with the cravat. Other than that, you’ll be good to go as soon as you have your coat on.”

Will stayed quiet. Whether the air in the room was getting stuffy with what ever was building up to be thrown at him next, or the band was bound too tight, either way, it made Will feel like he wasn’t able to breath.

“We‘re in the need of the services of a highly skilled swordsmith after the Pearl has been refitted, and I figured you might know someone who’s familiar of said craft and kin.”

Will had a brief moment of utter disorientation before he realised his questions were being answered. All and any of them.

Given enough time he could probably even ask about the rumours and stories he’d heard, of a pirate being drunk for a month, drowning his sorrows, before some false news had reached him, news which made the pirate carve his heart out for not to feel the pain it caused.

It was easier to breath. Just like that.

“Where are we…“ Will nearly bit his tongue in trying to swallow the hope that raised its head. “Where are you going?”

“You see this?” Jack tapped the bone tied in his hair. “We are going where this came from. Long story, unimaginable, unbelievable, mystical and fantastic tale, that. I’ll tell you all about it when you get back…“ Jack was pushing Will out of the room while talking, grabbed Will’s coat from the nail on the wall it was hanging from and suddenly halted all his movements. “When will you be back?”

Will took the coat and shrugged it on, careful not to touch the dents and folds of the scarf.

“In a few hours, I think.”

Jack opened the outdoor pushed Will into movement again.

“Good. Go, then, I’ll be here waiting.”

“Jack.” Will paused to find the exact words he was looking for. “Please, don’t do anything stupid...The”

The rest of it was muffled as the door slammed shut and Will’s nose narrowly escaped from being crushed by it.

Jack shook his hand to release a pocket watch from under his wrist guard and walked back to Will’s room, sprawled himself over the bed with a long, relieved and altogether satisfied sigh, flicked the lid of the watch open, placed it on the drawer, pulled the first of Will's attempts for a proper cravat from around his neck and started to tie a neat bow out of it.

It would be a few hours, maybe four, five, if the lad had any manner of fun at all, and he’d have the opportunity to find out how much of the rumours were actually true. The knowledge that Jack himself would have to answer to a flurry of questions as well, didn’t, even to his own surprise, much bother him.

Yeux de fille en extace did tend to be what blanc d’innocence virginale turned into, when travelled a path long enough, thus, there can’t be rumours without some truth.

Then again, at the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet anyway, so the truth had to be treated accordingly.