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Becalmed / for Jack
July 28th, 2020
It's late, but not so late Anne's begun to worry. She keeps her own odd hours, and when she knows Jack's gone to visit Eliot, she expects a bit of unpredictability. Jack coming home late, or in some particular mood. Perhaps not coming home at all. An outcome she can imagine, wouldn't even mind, and still has room to doubt. She knows Jack, but she still doesn't know how well he can see himself, if he understands the reasons he does things or the motions of it all. She wishes she were better at laying it out herself. Between the two of them, she thinks, they might make a whole person: someone who watches and can explain what they see.
She's settled on the floor when he finally does arrive home, her back propped against the couch, patiently sharpening one of her blades in the light of a single lamp. She looks up, some of her hair falling across her eyes, and gives him a studious glance. There's some agitation about him, but she can't tell what kind yet. Not that she needs to suss it out herself. He'll tell her.
"Evening," she says, setting her work aside and hoisting herself up onto the couch. She pats the cushion beside her in wry invitation. "Had a nice time?"
It's late, but not so late Anne's begun to worry. She keeps her own odd hours, and when she knows Jack's gone to visit Eliot, she expects a bit of unpredictability. Jack coming home late, or in some particular mood. Perhaps not coming home at all. An outcome she can imagine, wouldn't even mind, and still has room to doubt. She knows Jack, but she still doesn't know how well he can see himself, if he understands the reasons he does things or the motions of it all. She wishes she were better at laying it out herself. Between the two of them, she thinks, they might make a whole person: someone who watches and can explain what they see.
She's settled on the floor when he finally does arrive home, her back propped against the couch, patiently sharpening one of her blades in the light of a single lamp. She looks up, some of her hair falling across her eyes, and gives him a studious glance. There's some agitation about him, but she can't tell what kind yet. Not that she needs to suss it out herself. He'll tell her.
"Evening," she says, setting her work aside and hoisting herself up onto the couch. She pats the cushion beside her in wry invitation. "Had a nice time?"
no subject
He leans down, humming an affirmative while he pulls off his boots one by one. Nice isn't really how he'd describe the whole evening. Certainly it had been nice, but altogether it feels more difficult to parse. He'd enjoyed his time there, but it had unbalanced him in ways that he's not entirely sure how to explain.
"He told me how he became high king." He sighs and leans back heavily into the couch, his shoulder pressed to hers and a thoughtful expression on his face. "They sought out a monster- a thing that the former king had become, but they were outmatched. They fought with...magic, and..." he huffs a breath that's an approximation of a laugh, feeling ridiculous for even repeating the facts. He knows that they'll feel as strange to Anne as they did to him.
"They had demon servants that had been placed within them, and once released they fought and died, which was little help. A friend of his sacrificed herself to kill the monster, his other friend was injured, dying, and Eliot carried him to safety. For that, I suppose, he was made king."
"It seems outlandish, but you know...I believe him." He thinks of leaning forward and meeting Eliot's eyes as he brushed tears from his face. He's going to continue worrying for a while, about how little Eliot seemed to understand his own strength and nobility. "I think he sees it as a failure, but it seems to me like he did the most noble thing available to do."
He looks back at her and smiles wryly. "He liked the cake."
no subject
Eliot's story doesn't interest her so much as Jack's interest in it, but it is interesting in its own right. The mention of demon servants, especially, which compels her to pull back and look at him with mild disbelief. Jack says he believes Eliot, and she believes Jack — she can't even say it's the most unbelievable thing she's heard of or experienced since coming to this place. But it's still a sharp adjustment.
She matches his smile, however, at the mention of the cake. "Knew he would," she says with all confidence, and nudges Jack companionably before her curiosity regains control. "Sorry, when he said demon servants—the fuck does that mean?"
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"His world- both of them- It all seems too impossible to believe." He huffs out a laugh and rubs a hand down the length of his thigh to rest at his knee, then pulls it back and scratches his hand back through his hair. Some parts of the stories Eliot tells sound so horrible, and some like a fairy tale come to life, but all of it is fantastic in a way that fascinates him.
"Eliot said they used to throw him parades for his birthday." He grins and looks away a moment, trying to catalogue the emotion that the thought gives him. He has a mental image of a crowd moving down a street in view of a castle balcony where Eliot might stand waving. It's good, to think of Eliot where he belongs, but at the same time, he knows that Eliot is at a loss here without his kingdom. A single friendship with a pirate doesn't make a good substitute.
He pulls his bottom lip into his mouth to wet it, then looks back towards her. "He didn't elaborate much about the demon, but I saw the tattoo. I touched it." It feels important somehow, that he tell her that he touched the tattoo- like otherwise it might feel like he'd hidden something from her. "Eliot said that when the demon had been in there it had felt cold...and I expected...I don't know. It didn't feel like anything." It felt warm, though he doesn't say that.
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After a moment she hums in acknowledgment and tips her head back down, leaning on his shoulder. She doesn't know what to say, or if she should say anything. Sometimes he talks to sort through his thoughts; sometimes he talks because he wants something in return. Understanding. Advice. Permission. She can't tell which it is, or if he even knows he's doing it.
"Why'd he tell you all this?" she asks at length, her voice even. No judgment; no skepticism. She asks it in earnest, even if it is by some measure rhetorical.
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"Because I asked." He pauses a moment, considering just how hard it had been for Eliot to tell the story, and how he'd talked about feeling at a loss without his kingdom and his people. Talking about his home must be one of the only ways for him to feel close to it again.
"None of us belong here, and Eliot has more reason than most to want to return to his home. He was a king in a place where kings are what they're supposed to be, and now he's here." There's awe in his voice, but also sadness. He enjoys Eliot's company, but he can offer so little. It doesn't feel like enough.
Jack shifts and rests his head against hers. "I don't think many people ask him about it. They don't see the loss. But it must feel like he's lost a great deal and gained nothing in return." It's not hard to imagine. Even with their world, where going back might mean being captured and hanged, there is a great deal that he wants to return for. For Charles' sake, and for his own, he wants to make a difference for Nassau, even if he dies trying. Eliot, who swore an oath to his kingdom, must feel the same.
no subject
Jack doesn't see that, though, and she's not sure how draw attention to it, or if it's her place. She just recognizes what's gnawing at him from inside, the same thing that's governed his thoughts since some of their earliest days here, the same thing that has so often governed hers. That there is something else you want, if you only knew how to take it.
"Don't know that he gained nothing," she says softly, shifting her weight gently as she leans against him. "He's got you."
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It's easier to focus on how Anne thinks he's worth that much. "That's very sweet, but I imagine one man's company is small consolation for the loss of a kingdom."
He sighs, nuzzling against her hair for a moment, then slowly extricates himself and stands. He doesn't really want to continue talking about Eliot, and the visit had agitated him in ways he hadn't been expecting. "I'm going to bed. But, ah-"
"Tomorrow, I want to test the sea barrier." He slips his coat off of his shoulders, then folds it over his arm, and rolls one shoulder idly, as if testing the stiffness of his sword arm. "I rented a skiff. We've tried walking out, I want to try rowing out."
no subject
His suggestion about tomorrow catches her by surprise, and she looks up at him as he sheds his coat and rolls his shoulder. "All right," she says, no sense arguing, even if she doesn't think it'll amount to anything more than any previous exploration did. It'll just be nice to get on the water again. Maybe that's all it has to be.
It ain't, of course. Timing's off. That this idea would come to him now, that he'd set it in motion after the last pair of days he's had, that he'd voice it to her now. She knows him well enough. But there's nothing to be said, not now, at least.
"Tomorrow, then," she says.