lucetilogs | Reminds me of a warm, safe place where as a child I'd hide

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Reminds me of a warm, safe place where as a child I'd hide

Who:

lists_to_port
What: A quiet talk
When: Thursday Night (post-this.)
Where: A Nameless Boat by the Western Lake
Summary: Jilly and Jack get to know each other a bit better. After all, this is True Love.
Rating: PG/PG-13 (As a warning, there MAY be sensitive topics discussed re: abuse)

Jack Sparrow had never been more in love with a girl--he was sure of that. The pirate had spent the day waiting--counting each hour, each minute---until he could be by Jilly Coppercorn's side again. Their last meeting had been interrupted by a jealous Kirsi, but tonight he was determined not to be sidetracked again by the possessive little doll. Once was certainly enough.

Jack could have found his way blind to the sailboat that rested on top of a wooden frame at the edge of the lake. Tonight, however, there was the aid of a bright full moon overhead, which was only occasionally obscured by the cloud wrack. Spring smelled close, like it might be ready to melt away everything painful and wearying about that winter. All around them everything seemed more alert, listening, waiting; he fancied he could even hear the sap running in the silent trees once more.

He glanced down at the small shadowed figure pacing beside him. Jilly seemed to carry the scent of wet earth in that dark hair, the deepest sea in those blue eyes, and under that shapeless coat she was so fond of--promise.

Promise of better things. He counted on it.

"Here," he said softly, pressing a palm against the damp wooden hull of the boat. "Here she is."

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The exclamation is strong enough to draw her eyes up, startled blue meeting dark as he returns to her.

It's not the words that help. He's barely said any, yet. It's the gentleness of his hand as it lingers close...without actually reaching for her. It's the fact that he didn't immediately ask for space or time to think.

He came back, first.

She stays folded, carefully protected behind layers and knees, but one hand drops from where it's wound around her legs, her smaller hand slipping into his.

Sparrow opened the little hand and pressed a soft kiss into Jilly's palm, then lifted it to his cheek. "I love you, Jilly. I'm a villain, a pirate; I've dodged the noose more times than I can count and felt it around my neck on occasion as well. I've been dead and tormented. I've betrayed innocents. I've seduced women who needed a protector." He drew a breath, raggedly. "But I'm a good pirate, too, darling. And I only want to be worthy of you. Of you."

Edited 2011-02-19 21:13 (UTC)

For a long moment she's silent, just feeling the warmth of his skin under her palm. Then her thumb ghosted over the line of his cheekbone, as gentle as his kiss had been.

"You are."

I just get so scared.

Sparrow licked his lips, leaning into her touch. He wanted her badly, to be with her right now in this bunk. In part it was habit, a lifetime of impulsive desire and fulfillment and pleasure that had suddenly run up against a wall of someone else's fear and pain, and his own concern, worry, and love.

And yet, it was not lust.

Was it lust to want to be hers? To give himself over to her completely? He didn't know quite what to do with it. It was a new thing, to want to rewrite history with this beautiful artist. To give himself as her blank canvas. To offer to share the power that had been stolen from her--from what he could understand--since as far back as she could remember.

It didn't occur to Jack that any of this could be an experiment. The love felt real, the most natural thing in the world, and the yearning was just as real, or else his body had turned into just as much a traitorous liar as his tongue habitually was.

It also didn't occur to him that his body was anything but a blank canvas. Swirls of text covered his skin, strange poetry from a wanderer who had picked him up one night and left him just as suddenly the next morning. Her name spiraling down his arm. Other inked pictures--a stinging wasp, a falling sparrow--were joined by old bullet wounds and scarred flesh. This was what he had to offer her.

The pirate found himself amazed that the words spilling from his suddenly dry mouth sounded so calm and quiet.

"Jilly. I give my word, love, that I won't touch you tonight. But I want you to learn not to be afraid." He took hold of her hand, moving it down to cover his chest, to feel the steady, quick beats beneath the skin---a gesture that recalled a summer night months earlier with Buffy. The meaning now was different. There was no seduction in it, only hope.

"Stay with me."

Edited 2011-02-20 14:16 (UTC)

It was the most amazing thing.

She hadn't lied about being scared. She was terrified. Old fears slipped and skidded under the surface and over the surface of her thoughts, tangling her up until she was half Jillian Carter, half Jilly Coppercorn.

But, in spite of all of it, she loved him. Trusted him. As uncertain as this all made her, she was realizing that the idea of living without this raggedy pirate (with his marauding and his impish smiles) was worse by far.

She'd expected him to leave once he knew, or at least had known it was a possibility. She was damaged goods. No scars, maybe... at least not on the surface... but she was as marked as he was in some ways. It would have broken her heart to see him go, but he had the right to know every bit of her, past and present.

Except he hadn't gone. He was still there, kneeling in front of her, and she could feel the pulse of his heart beneath his skin. It was comforting and connecting and she found she didn't want to leave him. Not tonight. Not ever.

"I trust you." It was amazing, really, how easy those words came. It was something she'd told Geordie, those years ago, but then Geordie had never looked at her like this. "I'll stay."

She paused, then, words lingering on her tongue as she tasted the weight of them, making sure they were true before they slipped into the air. "I want to stay."

She kissed him then, unfolding limbs to lean forward at brush warm lips against his. There wasn't a promise for more. They both realized that would be impossible, tonight or for some time to come. But it was a promise, all the same.

Edited 2011-02-20 18:12 (UTC)

Jack responded happily, lips slightly parted, but consciously holding back. This was going to be harder than he thought.

"Jilly---wait." The pirate stood and extinguished one lamp, turning the other down low before returning to sit beside her on the bunk. He cleared his throat, palms lying relaxed and open on his knees. Not passively, but open; ready. "I'm glad you want to stay."

She trusted him, but she couldn't help her pulse ratcheting up when he sat. Something unspoken lingered, pregnant and heavy in the air between them. "But-?"

Edited 2011-02-20 19:15 (UTC)

He took a deep breath and released it. She expected a catch, or some kind of penalty. He probably should have foreseen that. It was all he could do to remain still and quiet. Go placidly...

"No 'but.' I'm yours; all of me. Whatever you're willin' to have of me, and I hold to my promise."

His fingertips twitched slightly at the last, but he refused to take from her the chance of making the first move--a move of HER deciding--or none at all. Some balance had to be restored.

It takes her a minute to realize what he's offering. The full surrender.

She can't chase away the memories just yet. They've been too much a part of her for too long. But she can push them aside enough to lean close, pulling one of his arms around her as she curled to his side. This was warm and comforting. This was safe.

"Thank you."

She knew he probably wanted more. If she'd been able to step further back from herself, she would have wanted it too. But tonight she just wanted to be close, with no strings attached. Him offering that meant the world.

The pirate relaxed immediately as she took that step, obliging her by drawing her in carefully. Protectively.

"You shouldn't thank me, darling, for giving me what I want." He ducked his head slightly to nuzzle the top of hers, but no more than that. It hadn't been demanded of him.

Edited 2011-02-21 05:14 (UTC)

"Yes, I should." Because so few people would have responded the way he had, let alone a pirate.

"You're a good man, Jack." There was a soft release of breath as she actually settled, letting some of the gathered tension seep from her shoulders.

"'S just a stubborn honest streak, is all," Sparrow replied in a low voice. He could feel the response of her body, could see it as he watched her in the low light. It was hard not to feel a sense of wonder at the fact of her, the feel of her--her presence beside him. And above all else: curiosity. He was eager to give her more, even if the ghost of Gibbs's voice insisted "Give nothin' back." That had been their favorite piratical rule, and he felt a bit at sea without it.

Her head resting under his chin, one hand moved to press lightly over his heart. She could feel the steady beat under her palm and feel the rhythm of his breaths. She felt drained, stretched thin and dazed with the stunned relief of him staying, and the rise and fall was soothing in the wake of their talk. Without really thinking of why, she matched her breaths to his.

"Where will you sail?"

It was a return to the topic that had led them down this path, a quiet circle back to safer waters.

"Well they won't let me get far, will they." He laughed softly, leaning his cheek against her curls. "I've a friend who's a Navigator; between the two of us we should be able to get up some charts of their ocean."

He paused, flattening his palms against her body. "It might be best to wait ashore, Jilly, 'til we've got it mapped out some. I--we still don't know what's out there."

She tensed then, at that, but it wasn't his touch. It was the words.

"Then I'm definitely not staying behind."

She wouldn't let him risk his life and be left wondering what had happened.

"So we can go down to the bottom together, then?"

"Better than apart."

"Jilly...there are a thousand ways I could lose you here. I don't want to add another to the pot."

Edited 2011-02-21 06:01 (UTC)

She ducked out from where she'd curled against him, still in his arms but far enough away to really look up at him. Lifting her hand from his chest, she set light fingers against his cheek. "So you'd make me lose you instead?"

"I've a way of coming back, darling. And here, you'd only lose me for a week."

How had Jack never noticed before this week how bewitching this girl was?

"Only a week, though I suppose that would be far too long for everyone here. Far too dull without Jack Sparrow in the place." As he finished this partly-cocky but still somewhat self-deprecating statement--there were plenty of people in Luceti who would be happy to see him dead--the temptation was there to kiss her, but he admirably resisted. "Just a week, eh? A small thing," he finished softly.

"Much too long." His long hair drew her, fingertips curling lightly around his ear as she brushed it from his face, her brow furrowed just slightly at the thought of losing him. Even a day was too long.

"The women bear it better than the men. The men go mad." He frowned; if Jilly had revealed dark patches in her life to him, it might be best to reveal...things...to her, as well.

"You could love a madman, Jilly? Admittedly, a handsome, dashing, brave, fierce pirate of a madman, but a madman none the less?"

"They say with magic you come back mad or a poet..."

There's a lightness in the way he speaks, the way he jests at everything, but she's remembering their first meeting in the snow. There'd been a haunted look in his eyes then, and she's watching him carefully now. Not because she's afraid of what he'll tell her. She could never be afraid of him. But because she wants to be there for him.

A troubled look chased briefly across Jack Sparrow's face at that statement.

"What if one comes back with a bit of both?" he murmured. There were too many words on his body of the poetical type. Perhaps that had been who he was once--at least in physical terms. He had a natural grace of movement; uncanny skill as a sailor or fighter, if it came to it. Lately, it seemed like the madness had taken pride of place from the poetry. Maybe returning to the sea would help change that.

"On my back, he gave me a poem."

"Then you've seen more than most."

The snippets he was giving her were like fragments of a larger conversation...one she wasn't privy to. But she'd seen her share of madness, in those touched by magic or not, and this was more familiar territory for her. The broken girl...the onion girl...pulls back, layers sliding back into place until she's Jilly Coppercorn talking to someone who needs her- someone who she loves and who loves her and needs her- and her words are as gentle as the fingers that slide through the strands of his hair.

"What kind of poem?"

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