and we are vagabonds; we travel without seatbelts on
ediblestars did it! So must I!--
The Work-in-Progress Meme! When you see this, post a little weensy (hah, are we kidding? This is me here) excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.
The Office. Dwight and Oscar. In which Oscar is sneaky, and Dwight has a subsequent epiphany about his relationship with Jim.
So, this is one of those ones that doesn't actually get any narration yet, and it solely exists in fragment-y dialogue form. But I am sort of fond of it, and almost feel like maybe I should continue it. Aaand I believe this is set sometime shortly after The Return.
“Oscar,” “Welcome back.”
“Oh, hey, Dwight,” Oscar says, looking over at him with a smile. “You too. It’s good to be back, isn’t-”
Enough small talk. “Question.”
“Oh.” “Okay.”
“How did you find out that you were sexually attracted to others of your gender?”
“Really? That’s seriously your question?” _. He can feel Angela’s eyes piercing disapprovingly into him, but he steadfastly ignores her. This is necessary business. “Wait. You know, it’s actually a pretty cool story. At the place I worked before here, there was this guy. And we didn’t really get along, and he spent all of his time making my life hell.”
“Interesting,” says Dwight briskly. “Continue.”
“You know,” “He’d move my desk a couple of inches every time I got up to go to the bathroom, or try to convince me that it was Friday on Thursday. Stuff like that.”
“Really,”
“Oh, yeah,” “It would piss me off. I really thought I hated this guy, you know?”
“Well, you did hate him,” Dwight points out reasonably. “He was a menace to society.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” “But then one day, I realized that all of the antagonism was just masking this really, really powerful sexual chemistry between us.”
“You’re lying,”
“Swear to God.”
--
“Hey, Dwight,”
“Hello, Jim,”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m not looking at you in any way,”
“No,” “I’m pretty sure you are.”
The Office. Kelly contemplates What Not To Wear.
--
Sometimes, when she’s super-bored at work - which is actually more like all the time - Kelly looks around at the other girls in the office and fantasizes about making those submission tapes for What Not To Wear.
She doesn’t mean this in a bitchy way, although most of them would probably take it like that. Especially Karen. And Angela. Knowing Angela, What Not To Wear is probably against her religion or something, because Stacy wears a lot of bright colors and Clinton is gay. The idea of a life without Clinton makes Kelly really sad. He’s everything that Oscar should aspire to be, which she keeps meaning to explain to him the next time they’re both alone in the kitchen. It’s been tricky, because for some reason that doesn’t happen as much lately.
But the point is, she has a really really hard time trying to figure out who she’d submit, because honestly - and seriously, she’s just being honest here. Not mean. Just honest - she is pretty much the only girl in the office who isn’t some kind of fashion criminal. She guesses Pam dresses kind of cute, in a depressing way. Angela’s look sort of works for her, and it would be a shame if they threw all of her clothes away, anyway, because it must be really hard to find sweaters with tiny cat buttons and blouses from like the 1700s. She usually winds up torn between Meredith and Phyllis. If she’s being fair, Meredith definitely wins. It’s just that sometimes Phyllis drives Kelly crazy, with her newfound marriedness and her sparkly ring and her constant smiling. Phyllis and Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration are totally cute for old people and everything, and their wedding was super-fun, but it’s just not fair, you know?
The Office. As the summary so charmingly phrases it, 'Oscar/Angela. In The Biblical Sense.'
There are like 1400 words of this one, but I'm sort of afraid of it. I seriously do not know where it came from or why it exists.
“You’re deplorable,” she snarls.
Their faces are like two inches apart, which he doesn’t realize until she abruptly moves away. She lingers just long enough to shoot one last glare at him before turning and storming off toward the kitchen. Oscar realizes he’s got his hands balled into fists under his desk.
“Why do you guys have sexual tension lately?” Kevin asks. A confused frown creases his forehead.
“I’m gay, Kevin,” Oscar reminds him, again.
“But you’re single,” Kevin points out.
Oscar stares at him. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m gay.”
Kevin shrugs, and goes back to watching Pussycat Dolls videos on YouTube with the sound off.
Harry Potter. Something Remus/Sirius-y and angsty and bizarre.
Don’t think there weren’t near misses, either, because Moony almost killed him once. Sirius Black has always made a hobby of tempting fate, likes the feel of it nipping at his heels; this tells you everything you need to know.
--
“This isn’t going to work,” Remus said, head bowed, ink blots pooling on his half-finished Transfiguration essay. He was levelheaded and noble and self-sacrificing, qualities Sirius had always meant to take on with time but hadn’t quite got around to yet, and he had a bad habit of turning Sirius’s mistakes into his own.
“Don’t be stupid,” Sirius instructed, and reached, insisting, for his hand.
“I’m not,” Remus said, finally meeting his eyes, looking far older than Sirius could quite imagine either of them ever being.
“We’re both fine now, aren’t we?”
“I don’t know about that,” Remus protested, but there was the ghost of a smile on his face. Encouragement enough.
That was the first time Sirius kissed him.
--
Here’s the last:
Sirius wakes up to the sound of Remus getting ready to go out. He pulls himself out of bed, puts on a shirt without bothering to button it, gets a cup of lukewarm coffee from the kitchen. Doesn’t say good morning, because they rowed last night and he holds a grudge.
“I’m getting milk,” Remus tells him briskly. “Need anything else?”
“Don’t think so,” Sirius grumbles into his coffee cup.
“I’ll be back soon,” Remus says, and kisses him in that quick, thoughtless way couples have when they’ve been together too long.
Pirates of the Caribbean. Jack/Elizabeth, immediately post-AWE.
“Right,” Jack says, upon their reunion. “You are not the Fountain of Youth.”
As a greeting, it is decidedly lacking.
“Excuse me??” Elizabeth demands, and is perhaps slightly impatient in doing so - it is, she feels, a justifiable side effect of being stranded on an island for five and a half days when one was supposed to have been retrieved by a certain ship after sharing a decidedly bittersweet goodbye with one’s husband and true love.
“Nothing,” Jack says hastily, and makes to walk away. “I’ll just be moving along, then. Do keep in touch, dearie.”
“Oh, no!” Elizabeth cries, scrambling to her feet. “Don’t for a second think you’re getting away that easily, Jack Sparrow! You abandoned me!”
“I believe, Miss Swann, you are mistaking me for that charming, honorable, and newly heartless (I am, of course, speaking literally) husband of yours.”
“Oh, really?” She places her hands on her hips. “Are you sure you’re not speaking about the fact that you stranded me on this deplorable island five days ago without a second thought??”
“Unless I recall incorrectly, ‘stranded’ is, in fact, an exaggeration. You had-”
“A dinghy,” Elizabeth finishes in a hiss.
“If you’ve an issue with that, luv, then I doubt it’s my help you’re wanting at the moment.”
“Oh, really?” Elizabeth narrows her eyes at him. “Why is that?”
Jack eyes her wryly for a moment before dropping into a swaggering parody of a gallant bow.
“Behold,” he grandly announces, “My ship.”
Resting on the sand next to the contemptible little mockery of a sea vessel they’d abandoned her with is . . . another contemptible little mockery of a sea vessel. At least this one has a flag.
Still.
“Ah,” she says faintly.
“Mmhmm,” Jack agrees nonchalantly. He glances at her. “Say - care to help me wrangle the Pearl out of Barbossa’s detestable clutches once again?”
She contemplates it for a fraction of a second before realizing that she really hasn’t much to do for the next ten years. “Yes, all right.”
“Excellent.” Jack grins at her. “Shall we?”
She nods her agreement and follows him across the sand; she feels a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth as she watches him saunter in a way that’s familiar and ridiculous and comforting.
“Jack?”
“Hm?”
“How did you find me?”
He’s quiet for a split-second too long.
“Pure luck, darling.”
“Ah,” she says, and pretends not to notice as he slips the compass into the folds of his coat.
--
Thump.
“It’s eerie.”
“Stop that.”
“No.” Thump. “Y’know, I’ll never sleep again, after this.”
“Oh, really. Stop being ridiculous. You’re a pirate. You’ve seen all sorts of violence and mayhem - you’ve caused it yourself - and this is what frightens you?”
“Yes, well, we knew him! His heart used to be in his chest, beating merrily away, and now it’s . . . in a very different sort of chest, beating merrily away. Meanwhile, chest the former is unfortunately bereft of said heart, and chest the latter isn’t the right kind of chest at all to be carrying a heart around in it.”
Thump.
“Coward.”
Thump.
“Heart-carrier.”
“This conversation is ridiculous.”
Thump.
“No argument there, luv.”
“So perhaps we could stop-”
“And you really have to carry that around everywhere you go, then? No convenient loophole? No allowing it to accidentally slip into the ocean? No passing it along to a dearly trusted friend, myself unfortunately excluded?”
“Yes, I have to carry it around everywhere I go! I promised Will.”
“Right. How romantic.”
“It was.”
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The first time they meet, Liam is almost six.
They’re standing out on the beach; the stranger has his back turned to them at first, and Liam can tell right away that he’s the sort Mum’s stories are about. When he turns around, Mum’s grip on his hand turns so tight it hurts a little.
“Darling,” she says, her voice very steady, “this is Jack.”
“How d’you do?” Jack says, and bows grand, like a king. Liam likes him right away.
“Jack’s going to be staying for a few days,” Mum continues, sounding different somehow. “He’s an old friend of Mummy’s.”
Liam scrutinizes him for a moment. “Do you have a parrot?”
“Mmm,” Jack says, and feels up and down the pockets of his coat. “Ah-must’ve left it in me other coat. Sorry, mate.”
“But you’re a pirate,” Liam says, to be sure.
“Right you are.” Jack grins.
“Really bad eggs,” Liam contributes proudly, and looks to his mum. She smiles down at him, but it’s different, too - her eyes don’t get bright like usual.
“Ah. Your old mum’s taught you right, I see.”
Jack says it to him, but he’s looking at Mum. She won’t look back, though.
“Do come inside,” she says instead, in a high unfamiliar voice, and brushes her hands on the front of her dress. “You must be hungry.”
“Famished, luv,” Jack answers. “Lead the way.”
She lets go of Liam’s hand and hurries on ahead of them. He takes a few steps on his own before a hand comes to rest on his shoulder.
“Right,” declares in a confidential whisper in his ear. “that’ll be Uncle Jack between you and me, lad.”
His teeth glint gold in the sunshine. Liam grins back.
--
“Y’know,” Uncle Jack says before supper a few days later, “Contrary to what your mum might say, you and I, we’ve met before.”
Liam’s eyes widen. “We have?”
“Jack-” Mum begins to protest, but Jack ignores her.
“We go way back,” he continues, leaning forward on his elbows. “Why, I paid a visit to you and your mum when you were nothing more than a wee little beastie.”
“Are you Father?”
Jack chokes on his tea. Mum drops the rolling pin. It collides angrily with the floor.
“No!” They say it loud, and at the same time.
They act very strangely around each other, Liam decides. “Could you be?”
“Listen closely, young William,” Jack says, waving a finger at him and looking at him very seriously. “What use have you for a father when you’ve got a perfectly good uncle already? Because an uncle’s like a dear old dad, see, but without the nasty but inevitable reality of punishment.”
“Punishment for what?” Liam asks, wrinkling his nose.
Jack lowers his voice after casting a shifty glance at Mum. “Take, for instance, the unfortunate incident this morning when you told your mum you were out searching for your misplaced hat, but really, you were engaging in a ghastly swordfight with the tree out by the garden.” Liam’s breath catches in his throat. Jack continues. “See, if I was your dad, I’d have to call you out on it. Knock a bit of sense into you. Send you to bed without supper - a lamentable fate, as it smells wonderful, Elizabeth - however, being your uncle, I feel free to turn a blind eye and let you go on participating in your frowned-upon-by-fathers youthful shenanigans. Savvy?”
“Yep,” Liam says wisely, and then adds, after a moment’s thought, “Uncle Jack.”
“And don’t be forgetting it anytime soon,” Jack says, and winks. Liam commits it to memory, just in case.
--
Liam hears them talking when he’s supposed to be asleep.
“I don’t know why you came back here.”
“Might it have ever crossed your mind, my lovely and enchanting ex-pursuer in piracy, that I might have been concerned about you?”
“Don’t try to charm me, Jack Sparrow.”
“Why? Scared it’s working?”
“No. I just know you better, that’s all.”
“Fair enough.”
They go quiet for a minute.
“Did you find it, then?”
“I did at that.”
“And . . .?”
“Wasn’t right.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’ve got my whole life ahead of me before I have to start worrying about and-then-somes. I figured I didn’t fancy looking into eternity just yet.”
“Jack-”
“Thought maybe I’d tie up a few loose ends.”
“You had no business coming here.”
“Much like you had no business turning your back on everything you were just to pine faithfully for your literally-heartless beloved. You are a king, recall.”
“That was my choice.”
“Doesn’t mean it was the right one.”
“Who are you to talk about what’s right-”
“Ten years is a long time.”
“Yes, well, eternity’s much longer. And I never tried to stop you.”
“Fine. If you’d like me to let you be, then so be it. Sorry to interrupt-”
“Oh, don’t.”
“All right then.”
“. . . I’d like someone to talk to, that’s all.”
“Did I suggest otherwise?”
“You’re impossible.”
“Likewise, Lizzie darling. Irrevocably, maddeningly, eternally likewise.”
--
The weeks slip by. They begin to tell him stories. At first, they only listen when the other speaks, watching with glinting eyes, but it doesn’t last long. Soon, they’re weaving in and out of each other’s tales, one of them finishing the sentence the other’s started.
One night, they all sit in cozy candlelight after supper, dirty dishes sprawled around them, elbows resting haphazardly on the table. It’s easy to feel like one of the grown ups, or maybe like Mum and Jack are just kids along with him.
“Say, Liam my boy,” Jack says, his words sliding into one another, as he takes a sip from his goblet, “I don’t believe I’ve ever told you the one about me and the kraken, now, have I?”
Liam shakes his head eagerly.
“Ah yes,” Jack says, dragging out the words. “There’s a gruesome tale for you.” His gaze flicks to Mum. “Don’t you think so, Elizabeth?”
Her eyes look hard and angry. “Don’t, Jack.”
House. House/Wilson. I'm not really sure beyond there.
Surprisingly, it’s Wilson who pulls away first.
“Um,” he says, gigantic eyebrows furrowing, “what the hell was that?”
“I have to explain it to you?” House shakes his head incredulously. “Man. No wonder you’ve been divorced three times.”
“House,” Wilson says, really slowly, like he’s struggling not to spontaneously combust. “You just kissed me.”
House scoffs. “You wish.”
“No,” Wilson says, still somewhere in between stunned, exasperated, and not-exploding(-yet). “That wasn’t me wishing. That was just me stating a fact.”
“Why would I kiss you?” House asks, rolling his eyes.
“I was hoping you’d be able to tell me,” Wilson retorts.
House pretends to contemplate this for a minute. “Maybe I’m secretly in love with you.”
Wilson just stares at him for a couple of seconds, then starts to choke on syllables that don’t seem like they’re ever gonna turn into actual words.
“Or maybe,” House continues blithely, “I just like to mess with you. You decide.”
Lost. Jack's mysterious week in Otherville!
“So this is it, then.” And if he is asking, then the question is hollow. He feels old and faceless and doesn’t think anything’s capable of surprising him anymore. “We just . . . play house.”
Some slight movement in her eyes or face or maybe, maybe just the air around her. (He never really bought that thing about women being mysteries until he met her.) “Something like that.”
-
The thing is, these are people. It’s one thing to keep prisoners, to stay cryptic and inhuman standing on the other side of the glass.
But then there’s here.
Tom is a decent football player and when he laughs, he’s the kind of guy that means it. It’s easy to kick back in front of the TV and ignore the label on the beer cans.
And sometimes, before he can stop himself, he likes Ben, too: the random stabs of humor, the way he looks at his kid.
Lost, post-s3 finale. Poor epic seriously failed fic that attempted to explain every single mystery about Lost ever. Featuring much angsty Jack!
So, the Lost finale broke my brain so much that I decided to do fic about it. Serious fic. Where I actually theorized, extensively. I think I had an explanation for just about every crazy island mystery worked out. However, it just plain made my brain hurt too much. And now I've actually forgotten all of the stuff I figured out. Oh, Lost. Will you ever not break brains?
13.
When he dreams, he’s in the cell again, and Juliet is right there standing on the other side of the glass.
“I thought we were in this together.” Her mouth twists into a wry, humorless smile.
“It’s not my fault,” he protests. “This is something I can’t control.”
“You control everything,” she reminds him, methodical and soulless, like she’s reciting facts from manila files (his life in pages). “You’ve always controlled everything. How is this any different?”
“I made a mistake,” Jack says, pressing his hand against the glass. “I thought it would be fine. I didn’t know I was gonna leave you.”
“Yeah, well, you did,” she responds dryly. “Getting kinda sloppy, aren’t you, Dr. Shephard?”
“You never needed saving,” he reminds her.
She shrugs, coy. “There’s a first time for everything.”
And, okay, I think original stuff is going to need a post of its own. Oh, me with my zillions of abandoned stories!
The Work-in-Progress Meme! When you see this, post a little weensy (hah, are we kidding? This is me here) excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.
The Office. Dwight and Oscar. In which Oscar is sneaky, and Dwight has a subsequent epiphany about his relationship with Jim.
So, this is one of those ones that doesn't actually get any narration yet, and it solely exists in fragment-y dialogue form. But I am sort of fond of it, and almost feel like maybe I should continue it. Aaand I believe this is set sometime shortly after The Return.
“Oscar,” “Welcome back.”
“Oh, hey, Dwight,” Oscar says, looking over at him with a smile. “You too. It’s good to be back, isn’t-”
Enough small talk. “Question.”
“Oh.” “Okay.”
“How did you find out that you were sexually attracted to others of your gender?”
“Really? That’s seriously your question?” _. He can feel Angela’s eyes piercing disapprovingly into him, but he steadfastly ignores her. This is necessary business. “Wait. You know, it’s actually a pretty cool story. At the place I worked before here, there was this guy. And we didn’t really get along, and he spent all of his time making my life hell.”
“Interesting,” says Dwight briskly. “Continue.”
“You know,” “He’d move my desk a couple of inches every time I got up to go to the bathroom, or try to convince me that it was Friday on Thursday. Stuff like that.”
“Really,”
“Oh, yeah,” “It would piss me off. I really thought I hated this guy, you know?”
“Well, you did hate him,” Dwight points out reasonably. “He was a menace to society.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” “But then one day, I realized that all of the antagonism was just masking this really, really powerful sexual chemistry between us.”
“You’re lying,”
“Swear to God.”
--
“Hey, Dwight,”
“Hello, Jim,”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m not looking at you in any way,”
“No,” “I’m pretty sure you are.”
The Office. Kelly contemplates What Not To Wear.
--
Sometimes, when she’s super-bored at work - which is actually more like all the time - Kelly looks around at the other girls in the office and fantasizes about making those submission tapes for What Not To Wear.
She doesn’t mean this in a bitchy way, although most of them would probably take it like that. Especially Karen. And Angela. Knowing Angela, What Not To Wear is probably against her religion or something, because Stacy wears a lot of bright colors and Clinton is gay. The idea of a life without Clinton makes Kelly really sad. He’s everything that Oscar should aspire to be, which she keeps meaning to explain to him the next time they’re both alone in the kitchen. It’s been tricky, because for some reason that doesn’t happen as much lately.
But the point is, she has a really really hard time trying to figure out who she’d submit, because honestly - and seriously, she’s just being honest here. Not mean. Just honest - she is pretty much the only girl in the office who isn’t some kind of fashion criminal. She guesses Pam dresses kind of cute, in a depressing way. Angela’s look sort of works for her, and it would be a shame if they threw all of her clothes away, anyway, because it must be really hard to find sweaters with tiny cat buttons and blouses from like the 1700s. She usually winds up torn between Meredith and Phyllis. If she’s being fair, Meredith definitely wins. It’s just that sometimes Phyllis drives Kelly crazy, with her newfound marriedness and her sparkly ring and her constant smiling. Phyllis and Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration are totally cute for old people and everything, and their wedding was super-fun, but it’s just not fair, you know?
The Office. As the summary so charmingly phrases it, 'Oscar/Angela. In The Biblical Sense.'
There are like 1400 words of this one, but I'm sort of afraid of it. I seriously do not know where it came from or why it exists.
“You’re deplorable,” she snarls.
Their faces are like two inches apart, which he doesn’t realize until she abruptly moves away. She lingers just long enough to shoot one last glare at him before turning and storming off toward the kitchen. Oscar realizes he’s got his hands balled into fists under his desk.
“Why do you guys have sexual tension lately?” Kevin asks. A confused frown creases his forehead.
“I’m gay, Kevin,” Oscar reminds him, again.
“But you’re single,” Kevin points out.
Oscar stares at him. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m gay.”
Kevin shrugs, and goes back to watching Pussycat Dolls videos on YouTube with the sound off.
Harry Potter. Something Remus/Sirius-y and angsty and bizarre.
Don’t think there weren’t near misses, either, because Moony almost killed him once. Sirius Black has always made a hobby of tempting fate, likes the feel of it nipping at his heels; this tells you everything you need to know.
--
“This isn’t going to work,” Remus said, head bowed, ink blots pooling on his half-finished Transfiguration essay. He was levelheaded and noble and self-sacrificing, qualities Sirius had always meant to take on with time but hadn’t quite got around to yet, and he had a bad habit of turning Sirius’s mistakes into his own.
“Don’t be stupid,” Sirius instructed, and reached, insisting, for his hand.
“I’m not,” Remus said, finally meeting his eyes, looking far older than Sirius could quite imagine either of them ever being.
“We’re both fine now, aren’t we?”
“I don’t know about that,” Remus protested, but there was the ghost of a smile on his face. Encouragement enough.
That was the first time Sirius kissed him.
--
Here’s the last:
Sirius wakes up to the sound of Remus getting ready to go out. He pulls himself out of bed, puts on a shirt without bothering to button it, gets a cup of lukewarm coffee from the kitchen. Doesn’t say good morning, because they rowed last night and he holds a grudge.
“I’m getting milk,” Remus tells him briskly. “Need anything else?”
“Don’t think so,” Sirius grumbles into his coffee cup.
“I’ll be back soon,” Remus says, and kisses him in that quick, thoughtless way couples have when they’ve been together too long.
Pirates of the Caribbean. Jack/Elizabeth, immediately post-AWE.
“Right,” Jack says, upon their reunion. “You are not the Fountain of Youth.”
As a greeting, it is decidedly lacking.
“Excuse me??” Elizabeth demands, and is perhaps slightly impatient in doing so - it is, she feels, a justifiable side effect of being stranded on an island for five and a half days when one was supposed to have been retrieved by a certain ship after sharing a decidedly bittersweet goodbye with one’s husband and true love.
“Nothing,” Jack says hastily, and makes to walk away. “I’ll just be moving along, then. Do keep in touch, dearie.”
“Oh, no!” Elizabeth cries, scrambling to her feet. “Don’t for a second think you’re getting away that easily, Jack Sparrow! You abandoned me!”
“I believe, Miss Swann, you are mistaking me for that charming, honorable, and newly heartless (I am, of course, speaking literally) husband of yours.”
“Oh, really?” She places her hands on her hips. “Are you sure you’re not speaking about the fact that you stranded me on this deplorable island five days ago without a second thought??”
“Unless I recall incorrectly, ‘stranded’ is, in fact, an exaggeration. You had-”
“A dinghy,” Elizabeth finishes in a hiss.
“If you’ve an issue with that, luv, then I doubt it’s my help you’re wanting at the moment.”
“Oh, really?” Elizabeth narrows her eyes at him. “Why is that?”
Jack eyes her wryly for a moment before dropping into a swaggering parody of a gallant bow.
“Behold,” he grandly announces, “My ship.”
Resting on the sand next to the contemptible little mockery of a sea vessel they’d abandoned her with is . . . another contemptible little mockery of a sea vessel. At least this one has a flag.
Still.
“Ah,” she says faintly.
“Mmhmm,” Jack agrees nonchalantly. He glances at her. “Say - care to help me wrangle the Pearl out of Barbossa’s detestable clutches once again?”
She contemplates it for a fraction of a second before realizing that she really hasn’t much to do for the next ten years. “Yes, all right.”
“Excellent.” Jack grins at her. “Shall we?”
She nods her agreement and follows him across the sand; she feels a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth as she watches him saunter in a way that’s familiar and ridiculous and comforting.
“Jack?”
“Hm?”
“How did you find me?”
He’s quiet for a split-second too long.
“Pure luck, darling.”
“Ah,” she says, and pretends not to notice as he slips the compass into the folds of his coat.
--
Thump.
“It’s eerie.”
“Stop that.”
“No.” Thump. “Y’know, I’ll never sleep again, after this.”
“Oh, really. Stop being ridiculous. You’re a pirate. You’ve seen all sorts of violence and mayhem - you’ve caused it yourself - and this is what frightens you?”
“Yes, well, we knew him! His heart used to be in his chest, beating merrily away, and now it’s . . . in a very different sort of chest, beating merrily away. Meanwhile, chest the former is unfortunately bereft of said heart, and chest the latter isn’t the right kind of chest at all to be carrying a heart around in it.”
Thump.
“Coward.”
Thump.
“Heart-carrier.”
“This conversation is ridiculous.”
Thump.
“No argument there, luv.”
“So perhaps we could stop-”
“And you really have to carry that around everywhere you go, then? No convenient loophole? No allowing it to accidentally slip into the ocean? No passing it along to a dearly trusted friend, myself unfortunately excluded?”
“Yes, I have to carry it around everywhere I go! I promised Will.”
“Right. How romantic.”
“It was.”
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The first time they meet, Liam is almost six.
They’re standing out on the beach; the stranger has his back turned to them at first, and Liam can tell right away that he’s the sort Mum’s stories are about. When he turns around, Mum’s grip on his hand turns so tight it hurts a little.
“Darling,” she says, her voice very steady, “this is Jack.”
“How d’you do?” Jack says, and bows grand, like a king. Liam likes him right away.
“Jack’s going to be staying for a few days,” Mum continues, sounding different somehow. “He’s an old friend of Mummy’s.”
Liam scrutinizes him for a moment. “Do you have a parrot?”
“Mmm,” Jack says, and feels up and down the pockets of his coat. “Ah-must’ve left it in me other coat. Sorry, mate.”
“But you’re a pirate,” Liam says, to be sure.
“Right you are.” Jack grins.
“Really bad eggs,” Liam contributes proudly, and looks to his mum. She smiles down at him, but it’s different, too - her eyes don’t get bright like usual.
“Ah. Your old mum’s taught you right, I see.”
Jack says it to him, but he’s looking at Mum. She won’t look back, though.
“Do come inside,” she says instead, in a high unfamiliar voice, and brushes her hands on the front of her dress. “You must be hungry.”
“Famished, luv,” Jack answers. “Lead the way.”
She lets go of Liam’s hand and hurries on ahead of them. He takes a few steps on his own before a hand comes to rest on his shoulder.
“Right,” declares in a confidential whisper in his ear. “that’ll be Uncle Jack between you and me, lad.”
His teeth glint gold in the sunshine. Liam grins back.
--
“Y’know,” Uncle Jack says before supper a few days later, “Contrary to what your mum might say, you and I, we’ve met before.”
Liam’s eyes widen. “We have?”
“Jack-” Mum begins to protest, but Jack ignores her.
“We go way back,” he continues, leaning forward on his elbows. “Why, I paid a visit to you and your mum when you were nothing more than a wee little beastie.”
“Are you Father?”
Jack chokes on his tea. Mum drops the rolling pin. It collides angrily with the floor.
“No!” They say it loud, and at the same time.
They act very strangely around each other, Liam decides. “Could you be?”
“Listen closely, young William,” Jack says, waving a finger at him and looking at him very seriously. “What use have you for a father when you’ve got a perfectly good uncle already? Because an uncle’s like a dear old dad, see, but without the nasty but inevitable reality of punishment.”
“Punishment for what?” Liam asks, wrinkling his nose.
Jack lowers his voice after casting a shifty glance at Mum. “Take, for instance, the unfortunate incident this morning when you told your mum you were out searching for your misplaced hat, but really, you were engaging in a ghastly swordfight with the tree out by the garden.” Liam’s breath catches in his throat. Jack continues. “See, if I was your dad, I’d have to call you out on it. Knock a bit of sense into you. Send you to bed without supper - a lamentable fate, as it smells wonderful, Elizabeth - however, being your uncle, I feel free to turn a blind eye and let you go on participating in your frowned-upon-by-fathers youthful shenanigans. Savvy?”
“Yep,” Liam says wisely, and then adds, after a moment’s thought, “Uncle Jack.”
“And don’t be forgetting it anytime soon,” Jack says, and winks. Liam commits it to memory, just in case.
--
Liam hears them talking when he’s supposed to be asleep.
“I don’t know why you came back here.”
“Might it have ever crossed your mind, my lovely and enchanting ex-pursuer in piracy, that I might have been concerned about you?”
“Don’t try to charm me, Jack Sparrow.”
“Why? Scared it’s working?”
“No. I just know you better, that’s all.”
“Fair enough.”
They go quiet for a minute.
“Did you find it, then?”
“I did at that.”
“And . . .?”
“Wasn’t right.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’ve got my whole life ahead of me before I have to start worrying about and-then-somes. I figured I didn’t fancy looking into eternity just yet.”
“Jack-”
“Thought maybe I’d tie up a few loose ends.”
“You had no business coming here.”
“Much like you had no business turning your back on everything you were just to pine faithfully for your literally-heartless beloved. You are a king, recall.”
“That was my choice.”
“Doesn’t mean it was the right one.”
“Who are you to talk about what’s right-”
“Ten years is a long time.”
“Yes, well, eternity’s much longer. And I never tried to stop you.”
“Fine. If you’d like me to let you be, then so be it. Sorry to interrupt-”
“Oh, don’t.”
“All right then.”
“. . . I’d like someone to talk to, that’s all.”
“Did I suggest otherwise?”
“You’re impossible.”
“Likewise, Lizzie darling. Irrevocably, maddeningly, eternally likewise.”
--
The weeks slip by. They begin to tell him stories. At first, they only listen when the other speaks, watching with glinting eyes, but it doesn’t last long. Soon, they’re weaving in and out of each other’s tales, one of them finishing the sentence the other’s started.
One night, they all sit in cozy candlelight after supper, dirty dishes sprawled around them, elbows resting haphazardly on the table. It’s easy to feel like one of the grown ups, or maybe like Mum and Jack are just kids along with him.
“Say, Liam my boy,” Jack says, his words sliding into one another, as he takes a sip from his goblet, “I don’t believe I’ve ever told you the one about me and the kraken, now, have I?”
Liam shakes his head eagerly.
“Ah yes,” Jack says, dragging out the words. “There’s a gruesome tale for you.” His gaze flicks to Mum. “Don’t you think so, Elizabeth?”
Her eyes look hard and angry. “Don’t, Jack.”
House. House/Wilson. I'm not really sure beyond there.
Surprisingly, it’s Wilson who pulls away first.
“Um,” he says, gigantic eyebrows furrowing, “what the hell was that?”
“I have to explain it to you?” House shakes his head incredulously. “Man. No wonder you’ve been divorced three times.”
“House,” Wilson says, really slowly, like he’s struggling not to spontaneously combust. “You just kissed me.”
House scoffs. “You wish.”
“No,” Wilson says, still somewhere in between stunned, exasperated, and not-exploding(-yet). “That wasn’t me wishing. That was just me stating a fact.”
“Why would I kiss you?” House asks, rolling his eyes.
“I was hoping you’d be able to tell me,” Wilson retorts.
House pretends to contemplate this for a minute. “Maybe I’m secretly in love with you.”
Wilson just stares at him for a couple of seconds, then starts to choke on syllables that don’t seem like they’re ever gonna turn into actual words.
“Or maybe,” House continues blithely, “I just like to mess with you. You decide.”
Lost. Jack's mysterious week in Otherville!
“So this is it, then.” And if he is asking, then the question is hollow. He feels old and faceless and doesn’t think anything’s capable of surprising him anymore. “We just . . . play house.”
Some slight movement in her eyes or face or maybe, maybe just the air around her. (He never really bought that thing about women being mysteries until he met her.) “Something like that.”
-
The thing is, these are people. It’s one thing to keep prisoners, to stay cryptic and inhuman standing on the other side of the glass.
But then there’s here.
Tom is a decent football player and when he laughs, he’s the kind of guy that means it. It’s easy to kick back in front of the TV and ignore the label on the beer cans.
And sometimes, before he can stop himself, he likes Ben, too: the random stabs of humor, the way he looks at his kid.
Lost, post-s3 finale. Poor epic seriously failed fic that attempted to explain every single mystery about Lost ever. Featuring much angsty Jack!
So, the Lost finale broke my brain so much that I decided to do fic about it. Serious fic. Where I actually theorized, extensively. I think I had an explanation for just about every crazy island mystery worked out. However, it just plain made my brain hurt too much. And now I've actually forgotten all of the stuff I figured out. Oh, Lost. Will you ever not break brains?
13.
When he dreams, he’s in the cell again, and Juliet is right there standing on the other side of the glass.
“I thought we were in this together.” Her mouth twists into a wry, humorless smile.
“It’s not my fault,” he protests. “This is something I can’t control.”
“You control everything,” she reminds him, methodical and soulless, like she’s reciting facts from manila files (his life in pages). “You’ve always controlled everything. How is this any different?”
“I made a mistake,” Jack says, pressing his hand against the glass. “I thought it would be fine. I didn’t know I was gonna leave you.”
“Yeah, well, you did,” she responds dryly. “Getting kinda sloppy, aren’t you, Dr. Shephard?”
“You never needed saving,” he reminds her.
She shrugs, coy. “There’s a first time for everything.”
And, okay, I think original stuff is going to need a post of its own. Oh, me with my zillions of abandoned stories!