Fic - Wayward Saints

Jan 28, 2007 19:14

Title: Wayward Saints
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Elizabeth
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Previously they belonged to Disney, but Jack has since plundered the entire PotC franchise (including himself) and was last seen somewhere off the Barbary coast.
Summary: Coming into port after a very long voyage. Written as a birthday gift for erinya, who has brought us so much Piratey loveliness, and who wondered if the Black Pearl ever put in at San Diego (my apologies for any geographic inaccuracies).


The fog was rolling back from the coast now, soft grey lifting over the rough, green-strewn land. The island in the middle of the bay seemed almost to float on the glint of the sea, trailing flatly away to the south where the horizon faded into the great blue sky.

The blackened wood of the wheel had already absorbed some of the morning sun, warm and smooth under Elizabeth's palms. The smoke from Jack's pipe leant a sharp seasoning to the air as he exhaled slowly, half perched on the rail and surveying the curve of the coast that ran out before them. They'd been sailing leisurely south for some days until rounding the peninsula at their back into the low, wide bay. Further inland she could see a few grey buildings, perhaps a church tower, rising amongst scattered trees and scrub.

"We ought to make port here," she remarked, turning the wheel a little to starboard. They'd found islands here and there for supplies since leaving Japan, the odd native tribe from whom Jack had charmed fruits and fresh water, but the little oases of the Pacific were strange lands for trading, and even a Spanish port would be agreeably familiar.

Jack nodded, taking another puff on the pipe. "We'll have to be careful though- place is full of missionaries. Terribly uptight lot. And whilst I may have the complexion for it I doubt you would pass as a good Spanish girl, mi corazón."

"Because of course you present as a perfectly respectable gentleman merchant," she replied, smiling as Jack affected a noble pose, pipe poised thoughtfully in one hand.

"Deeply and most eminently respectable. Respected by all whose respect it is, respectively, worth having. Amongst the respectable." He tapped the stem against his lip. "Though it might be best to just send Gibbs ashore, and anyone else with a little Spanish. Don't particularly want to run into the chap whose confession I heard here a few years back."

She snorted, raising her eyebrows.
"I thought you impersonated a cleric of the Church of England?"

Jack waved a hand dismissively.

"That too. I'm not a man for such petty theological divisions... though the Papists have far more complicated robes, bloody uncomfortable. And the wine's not as good either, if I remember correctly." He blew a blurry ring of smoke out towards the coast. "But it's not a bad little place."

He twisted the pipe about idly with elegant fingers for a few moments more before straightening, crossing the few feet of deck to stand beside her, one arm slipping lazily about her waist. She rested her head gently on his shoulder, breathing in the scent of tobacco smoke and sea, rough cotton against her cheek and the warmth of his skin below. Somewhere inland a bell rang out brightly.

"It's been a long journey."

Jack made a small, contented sound in the back of his throat, his hand stroking down to her hip, one finger tracing a slow pattern there.

"Gets longer every day."

The great rush of the Pacific receded behind them, sails turned to snatch at the wind that fluttered tunelessly through the beads of Jack's hair. A pair of ghostly white birds winged lazily eastwards over the shore, sweeping upwards on the warm morning air to some distant destination; the vastness of a continent spreading out before the heart-like beat of wings.

type: fic, relationship: jack/elizabeth, fandom: pirates of the caribbean

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