Becalmed / for Jack

[annebonny]

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?"

Comments

[jackrackham]

"I asked the same." Jack nods to her, communicating that it's a question that should be asked, then scoots down a little further against the couch. "When they finished their schooling, they were forced to take these enormous tattoos on their backs, and the demons were locked into the tattoo somehow. He described it like a creature, a vicious little thing to release in the case of emergency. To attack whatever might threaten his life. Imagine-" He sighs out a breath and shakes his head minutely. He's still disturbed by the idea that the people at this school forced this thing into Eliot without really letting him know what was happening. "-living knowing something like that is stored away inside you."

"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.

[annebonny]

She stares up at him as he explains, trying to get her head around it. All of it sounds too fantastic to be believed, and no sooner has she had that thought than Jack says it aloud, and her incredulity softens into a small smile. She doesn't know what to think about the story — the idea of a demon stored in the body, as he puts it, or of parades being thrown for him. But Jack is fascinated. When he admits to her that he touched it, the tattoo, she feels like she can see a shape to all this, emphasis or confirmation of what she'd already long suspected. Because it does feel like an admission, the way he tells her. She looks at him, though her expression remains blank apart from rote curiosity.

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.

[jackrackham]

He sighs as she rests her head on his shoulder. He feels relieved, and also vaguely guilty for feeling that way. He has to remind himself that he's not getting away with anything— that there's nothing to get away with. Everything that happened at Eliot's tonight was in service of curiosity or friendship, and his feeling of uncertainty must be just that he hasn't had a friendship that works like this before.

"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.

[annebonny]

It's a kind, thoughtful answer he gives, and it answers more than she thinks he realizes, but not for the question she asked. Perhaps he's right, and Eliot is bursting at the seams to tell his story, only no one asks him for it. It wouldn't surprise her, the way Eliot hides himself behind smiles and good humor. But being asked is not the reason why a man bears his soul. Sometimes being lonely's not even enough. That Jack recognized it is part of why he wanted to ask, but it's not why Eliot answered.

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."

[jackrackham]

"He's got me. Darling..." Jack huffs out a soft laugh, but the thought makes something twist in his gut. The idea of being important enough to Eliot that he could make up for the loss of his home at all feels too big, too much to consider. He likes Eliot, and Darrow has been made bearable for his company...but anything here mattering equally to people and things back home feels dangerous. He wants to go back and do what he's supposed to be doing. Temptations and comforts here are the opposite of what he needs.

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."

[annebonny]

Anne smirks, a small, gentle thing, more of an acknowledgment than a dismissal of his rejoinder. A man don't make up for a kingdom, but she thinks even kings can be lonely, no matter what their circumstances. It's not an argument she can push, not a point she wants to force, so she just nods and shuts her eyes, enjoying the familiar closeness and warmth of him. It feels precious and diminishing, like it's something she stands to lose. Maybe she does, if things don't go right, if something gives way and it's something she can't control. She doesn't want to think about that.

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.