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The Mark that Tells the Tales
BY: Sparrowhawk*** Silvery moonlight streams into the cabin where
Jack lies wakeful,
watching over Will as he sleeps. Smooth and unmarked the boy's skin is, tanned brown as nutmeg on his face, his throat, the v of chest exposed where his shirt tends to fall open. But he is pale beneath his shirt and paler still beneath his trousers, this Jack knows for certain. That flawless skin feels like the finest Chinese silk under Jack's rough hands, and it never fails to quietly awe him that the boy bears not a single scar or blemish or mark of hard-won experience. It's the marks that tell the tales, Jack thinks, bearing witness to what a man's done and where he's been. Some of his marks he wears with pride, like the ebony galleon sailing regally across his upper back, but others were not of his choosing. He lifts his hand and scowls at the outline of the letter "P" on his right forearm. He hardly notices it anymore and rarely spares it a thought, but tonight Will had asked him about it, grave and earnest as only Will Turner could be. Will is the only person who has ever heard the story from Jack's own lips. The scar is almost fifteen years old now, faded by time but still lighter than the surrounding skin, slick and shiny, the fine black hairs that once grew there forever burned away. Jack recalls that day vividly and the memory causes the brand to tingle and itch. Deliberately he resists scratching it. It was a blistering hot afternoon in a prison yard outside Bombay, with the metallic tang of blood in his mouth and seething rage threatening to burn him from the inside out. He'd gritted his teeth and not given the bastards the satisfaction of hearing him cry out or beg, but the bite of the heated iron -- that he'll remember for the rest of his days, and the gut-twisting stench of seared flesh along with it. He'd spent most of the next year at hard labor before he seized his chance and bid India a hasty but none-too-fond farewell. Next to him Will sighs and turns over, not quite waking, and drapes a well-muscled arm across Jack's chest. His fingers brush over the pair of circular indentations near Jack's right shoulder and Jack quickly captures his hand and holds it. Even now he dislikes having the wounds touched, though the darkened skin and damaged flesh have healed as well as they ever will. He'd been well and truly caught with his guard down that time, and his pants too. A cathouse in Curacao, a lovely tawny whore straddling his lap when over-eager Dutch mercenaries burst into the room with muskets raised and firing. Contrary to rumor, Jack did not take cover behind his companion and the two shots that hit him were fortunately some inches from his heart. The third bullet missed him but caught the lady in the back of her head. Sometimes in his dreams Jack still sees her shocked expression as she went limp an instant before he scrambled out from beneath her. Leaping naked from the second floor window had saved his life, though at the cost of a certain amount of dignity. "Jack?" Will whispers drowsily, looking up at him. "Right here, luv," Jack murmurs and lifts a hand to brush long strands of chestnut hair away from Will's eyes. Will catches Jack's hand to press a kiss to his palm, then his long fingers trail along the inside of Jack's forearm and up the curve of his bicep, following the paths of still more scars. Oddly enough it's those marks that seem to fascinate Will the most; many times has he mapped out the jagged reminder of Jack's unexpected encounter with a Portuguese man-of-war. Jack doesn't mind the scrutiny; that scar bears no weighty memories and he was drunk enough at the time that even the biting ache of the sting didn't register until much later. When Will turns his head to trace the welts with his tongue, Jack watches him. Will's eyes are closed and he laps at the puckered skin as if to soothe it. Though his touch cannot erase the scar or the memory of that long-ago pain, there are other old hurts, less visible ones, that Will's caring presence is beginning to heal. With a sigh Jack glides his free hand over a perfect shoulder, down one wiry arm. Not a mark on him. Jack hopes that will always be the case, although he doubts it. The life they share will age a man beyond his years and strike him down without concern for whether he's a cutthroat or a good man. Will is a good man in ways Jack will never be; that is the greatest difference between the two of them, of far more import than the near twenty-year span in their ages or the old wounds that write the tale of Jack's life on his skin. Will's soft lips and tongue leave a damp trail as he works his way up the inside of Jack's arm, across his shoulder, and along the angle of his collarbone. Though the Caribbean night is not cold Jack shivers. He runs gentle hands up and down the long expanse of Will's back, over flesh smooth as satin, warm as sunlight. If Will's skin tells a tale it is this: I am unmarked but not untested, young but not innocent. In the darkness Jack smiles. |
