rapacityinblue (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rapacityinblue) wrote2012-01-02 06:22 pm
rapacityinblue) wrote2012-01-02 06:22 pm
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Title: Time Past
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Spoilers: Jack Sparrow: Sins of the Father
Rating: G
Summary: James gets into trouble. Jack gets him out of it.
Pairing: Gen (James is 6)
Word Count: ~2300
Notes: Written for 500Themes @ LJ. Prompt 30: A Life of Lies
His earliest memories of his father are actually memories of Nurse. The first was when he was two, when his father returned from the tour that had kept him asea since before James’s birth.
Ordinarily, Nurse was strict but gentle, and disinclined to scold him for what she called “A boy’s pursuits.” If he dirtied his clothes, he was simply changed into a fresh set. Besides insisting he be appropriately clothed to sit at dinner, his mother didn’t involve herself much at all. James had never doubted that she cared for him -- he distinctly remembered her staying by his bedside through the night, after their crossing, when he contracted a tropical fever -- but as he approached marrying age himself it became increasingly apparent that she had married young, and never thought to act beyond what society expected of her. Having produced an heir, it would be unseemly to be overly involved in the boy’s upbringing.
And so it was Nurse who fussed over him the morning he would first be presented to his father. Somehow, he’d creased his jacket. The memories were mostly vague, he only recalled that they’d still been living in England then, and how Nurse was so fretful at his father’s return that she’d accidentally burned his neck with the iron as she tried to smooth his collar. He’d spent the entirety of the day twisted with anxiety, wanting to play but half understanding how important it was that he stay neat and presentable. And twisted with fear, too, the idea of “father” looming over the entire household.
In the end, the man kissed his mother brusquely on the cheek, looked over and dismissed him in one fleeting glance.
“He’s small,” his father had said, and he tried to push himself taller.
“He’ll grow,” his mother said without concern.
And so he had, so fast that the next time his father had come home, he’d voiced concerns to his wife over the household spending on food. It was one of the rare nights James was allowed to join them in the dining room, instead of eating in the nursery, and he pushed the peas around his plate, trying to make them look smaller.
At six, he was still smaller than many of the other boys, but quickly shooting up. Nurse marked his height with a bit of coal on one wall of the nursery, and every year the distance between the lines grew larger. When his mother entered to say, curtly, “See that his warmer coat is pressed,” he hadn’t understood why Nurse cried.
His mother stayed behind to oversee the transit of their household, and James boarded the ship a half step behind his father. He peered around to see everything. He had never been on a ship before -- had never really gone much beyond their townhouse, living his life entirely in the nursery and walled gardens of their home. The docks were so filled with people that they seemed to breathe, a steady expansion and release like the roll of the ship deck beneath him. His father was tall and broad beside him. He hadn’t said anything to James besides that they were making the crossing, an it was time James began his education.
He knew that “the crossing” meant they were going across the ocean, to the colonies where his father worked. Nurse had told him all about that, how his father was a hero, an Admiral in His Majesty’s Navy, just like James would be when he grew up. He didn’t know why he was allowed on board, this time, or why they were making the crossing without his mother or Nurse. When he’d finally summoned the courage to ask, at tea, one afternoon, when Father had encouraged him to ask questions with a broad and stiff smile.
“Go ahead, boy, speak up. Quit mumbling like a woman,” his father said, filling up the air with his words. But once they were aboard the ship his father seemed to have little time for or interest in him. There was a great deal of work aboard a navy ship, that had been made clear from the very beginning. “Stay quiet and stay out of the way, James,” his father said, and he’d nodded silently, and done his best to comply.
His father brought him up on deck to view the execution and he tried to protest, but he couldn’t find his voice. The words were frozen in his chest until the battle began, and he tried to break for his father’s side but the pirate was always there, between them, and instead he found himself backed against the balustrade.
The younger pirate, a smaller, identical copy of the father except for having more teeth, rushed him then, and with his last step back, his foot landed on air instead of the deck of his ship.
Nurse had told him stories of men at sea, tossed overboard by storms or pulled under by sirens. In those stories, the cold ocean water hit like a thousand needles. In actuality, it was more like a hammer, knocking James’s wind from him. His lungs filled with water and then the needles hit his skin. He’d never known cold could burn.
That was the last thing he remembered before it went black, and he came to with his back against the boards of the deck. The pirate was kneeling over him -- he flinched back -- but it was his father who roared at him, spit flying from his lips as he raged at his son.
The pirates left, swinging by rope to the ship alongside theirs, and he spent the rest of the voyage in his cabin, avoiding his father’s angry glares and fists until they docked in Tortuga.
By now he knew that their time in port would, preforce, be brief, so that his father could deliver him to his mother and their new house in Barbados. But until that time, before his life could return to some semblance of normalcy, he was trapped here. Tortuga was too loud, too wild, and from James’s six-year-old perspective, seemed to resemble nothing so much as hell.
His father wouldn’t leave the ship and he made it perfectly clear James wasn’t to, either -- not that James had any desire to venture into the madness he saw outside. After two months aboard a naval vessel he didn’t know all of the vices pirates indulged in, but he’d seen enough of the crew and heard enough from his father to imagine the worst. Beyond the docks was a whirlwind tarantella of alcohol and worse depravities.
But being on the ship was little better. The crew had disembarked to join the revelries beyond, and only the officers had stayed aboard, turning a blind eye to what was happening outside. There were rum stores laid away (knowing now how a naval ship functioned, he more than suspected that his father was withholding rations to build the stock) and they laid into it with relish, his father especially. James let himself be caught only once, cornered between his father and the ship’s wheel. He didn’t even know what he’d said to anger the admiral, but the man’s hand met his cheek with a heavy, unbalanced weight. He was too drunk to put any real force behind it, but it was still enough to knock one scrawny, terrified six-year old to the deck. James fled with tears gathering at the corner of his eyes.
He didn’t go far. Even terrified, he didn’t dare to go down any of the muddy streets, passed the taverns and brothels that faced on every Tortuga road. He wove through the taller, broader bodies and lost himself in the crowd a few docks down, and when he looked over his shoulder, if his father was following, he couldn’t see him.
James turned back to face front and found himself staring into the swell of a generous bosom, edged with red silk and lace. He looked up into a heavily painted face, then down at full, but embarrassingly short skirt. It was hiked up to show her ankles and a fair portion of calf. He stumbled back.
“Hey now.” The woman’s smile showed off the gaps where she’d lost teeth, and he shied away again. “Skittish-like, ain’t ya? Alone, too, I’d say. I would indeed.”
James began to uncurl a bit, leaning toward her like a flower unfurling it’s petals, and then a heavy weight came down across his shoulders.
“He’s not alone,” said the youth from the pirate ship, the one who’d made to push James overboard. “He’s with me.”
The woman pulled back, crossing her arms over her cleavage. “Never known you to take tag-alongs, Jack Sparrow,” she said.
“He’s my cousin,” the teenager said, completely without apology, the pressure of his arm stopping James from squirming away. James attempted to break from him, and he bore down harder. He wanted to go with the woman -- despite the abominable state of her dress, she was still better qualified to care for him than his drunkard father the admiral. Jack lowered his voice to add, “Have to excuse him, a bit turned around in the head. ‘Special,’ you know?”
Whether she believed him or not -- and it was hard to believe she could, looking at his dress next to Jack’s -- she pulled back further, and the teenager went right on glaring. Eventually, she decided James wasn’t worth the effort, turned and left, taking the last of James’s hope with her.
As soon as she was down the street, Jack turned him by the shoulders. “You’re that admiral’s kid,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “Your pop’s not just dragging you into battle, now he lets you run around dockside?”
James drew himself up to all of six years of height. “He doesn’t know where I am,” he said, which was more or less true.
“Inherited the family stupidity, then,” Jack snorted. “Old Nell there had two kids, and she sold ‘em both. Reckon she thought you were all of the profit with none of the effort. James, right?”
He changed topics so fast that James’s mind stuttered as it tried to keep up, and he swallowed down his indignation and settled just for nodding again. Sold to who? In everything his father had told him of pirates, he’d never mentioned anything like that.
Jack watched him with bemusement. “You’re just a pack of troubles waiting to be unwrapped, aren’t you? Not my pack, thank you.” He put a hand between James’s shoulder blades and propelled him back toward where his father’s ship was docked.
James dug his feet into the dirt and found his voice again. “You can’t make me go back!” His voice was higher than Jack’s, especially childish by comparison, his vowels crisper. “I won’t.”
“You won’t,” Jack repeated. “Can’t say I blame you, with a gentlemanly man like your pop there. I’ll just go fetch Nell back, shall I?”
“No!” James cried again. He froze, very real fear in his eyes, and to his surprise the older boy stopped to.
“Have to do something with you,” he muttered, scratching in his heavily matted hair.
“Why are you here?” James said, crossing his arms like Nell had. It made him feel braver as he faced down the older boy. “You knew we were coming to Tortuga. Are you here to hurt my Father? I’ll tell him you’re here and he’ll arrest you --”
He stopped, because Jack was laughing. “And you’re a spitfire to boot,” the older boy said, clapping him heavily on the shoulder. “Good man.”
Bitterly, James said, “What would you know about that?”
“More than him.” Now it was Jack’s turn to look affronted. “Surprised I have to tell you that, after what he put you through.”
“At least he didn’t try to push me off the ship,” James muttered, his lower lip sneaking out into something that looked suspiciously like a pout.
“Neither did I! I was trying to stop you from falling,” Jack countered.
James regarded him warily, looking up with a frown on his face. It looked natural, like it had grown there, and Jack saw many wrinkles in his future. James considered it for a moment, but eventually he said, a little doubtfully, “You did not.”
“Did too,” Jack replied automatically, glaring down at the tiny boy and daring him to challenge him.
“Did not!” The response came almost promptly. Jack ruined it by laughing.
“Alright, sprog,” he said, reaching down to ruffle James’s hair. He combed it back behind his ears nervously, and when he looked up, the older boy was already moving. With a quick, nervous glance for Nell, James jogged after him.
He was silent most of way back down the pier. Jack wasn’t, but he didn’t speak to James. He seemed to know the name of every person they passed, and he hollered out to each of them, gesticulating wildly, his hands flying into James’s face.
Eventually they stopped in front of the ship, and Jack jerked his head at it. “Back up with you.”
James looked up the gangplank and back at the youth as if torn between the two, but eventually he took a few small steps toward the ramp. “Thanks,” he said finally, his voice small.
Jack doffed his hat to him in an elaborate bow, and received a small smile for his efforts. The boy scampered up to the ship and popped over the railing to wave, and then he was gone.
Good kid, Jack thought. Bit gone in the head, but you couldn’t blame him for that. Probably be a tailor or something when he grew up.
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Spoilers: Jack Sparrow: Sins of the Father
Rating: G
Summary: James gets into trouble. Jack gets him out of it.
Pairing: Gen (James is 6)
Word Count: ~2300
Notes: Written for 500Themes @ LJ. Prompt 30: A Life of Lies
His earliest memories of his father are actually memories of Nurse. The first was when he was two, when his father returned from the tour that had kept him asea since before James’s birth.
Ordinarily, Nurse was strict but gentle, and disinclined to scold him for what she called “A boy’s pursuits.” If he dirtied his clothes, he was simply changed into a fresh set. Besides insisting he be appropriately clothed to sit at dinner, his mother didn’t involve herself much at all. James had never doubted that she cared for him -- he distinctly remembered her staying by his bedside through the night, after their crossing, when he contracted a tropical fever -- but as he approached marrying age himself it became increasingly apparent that she had married young, and never thought to act beyond what society expected of her. Having produced an heir, it would be unseemly to be overly involved in the boy’s upbringing.
And so it was Nurse who fussed over him the morning he would first be presented to his father. Somehow, he’d creased his jacket. The memories were mostly vague, he only recalled that they’d still been living in England then, and how Nurse was so fretful at his father’s return that she’d accidentally burned his neck with the iron as she tried to smooth his collar. He’d spent the entirety of the day twisted with anxiety, wanting to play but half understanding how important it was that he stay neat and presentable. And twisted with fear, too, the idea of “father” looming over the entire household.
In the end, the man kissed his mother brusquely on the cheek, looked over and dismissed him in one fleeting glance.
“He’s small,” his father had said, and he tried to push himself taller.
“He’ll grow,” his mother said without concern.
And so he had, so fast that the next time his father had come home, he’d voiced concerns to his wife over the household spending on food. It was one of the rare nights James was allowed to join them in the dining room, instead of eating in the nursery, and he pushed the peas around his plate, trying to make them look smaller.
At six, he was still smaller than many of the other boys, but quickly shooting up. Nurse marked his height with a bit of coal on one wall of the nursery, and every year the distance between the lines grew larger. When his mother entered to say, curtly, “See that his warmer coat is pressed,” he hadn’t understood why Nurse cried.
His mother stayed behind to oversee the transit of their household, and James boarded the ship a half step behind his father. He peered around to see everything. He had never been on a ship before -- had never really gone much beyond their townhouse, living his life entirely in the nursery and walled gardens of their home. The docks were so filled with people that they seemed to breathe, a steady expansion and release like the roll of the ship deck beneath him. His father was tall and broad beside him. He hadn’t said anything to James besides that they were making the crossing, an it was time James began his education.
He knew that “the crossing” meant they were going across the ocean, to the colonies where his father worked. Nurse had told him all about that, how his father was a hero, an Admiral in His Majesty’s Navy, just like James would be when he grew up. He didn’t know why he was allowed on board, this time, or why they were making the crossing without his mother or Nurse. When he’d finally summoned the courage to ask, at tea, one afternoon, when Father had encouraged him to ask questions with a broad and stiff smile.
“Go ahead, boy, speak up. Quit mumbling like a woman,” his father said, filling up the air with his words. But once they were aboard the ship his father seemed to have little time for or interest in him. There was a great deal of work aboard a navy ship, that had been made clear from the very beginning. “Stay quiet and stay out of the way, James,” his father said, and he’d nodded silently, and done his best to comply.
His father brought him up on deck to view the execution and he tried to protest, but he couldn’t find his voice. The words were frozen in his chest until the battle began, and he tried to break for his father’s side but the pirate was always there, between them, and instead he found himself backed against the balustrade.
The younger pirate, a smaller, identical copy of the father except for having more teeth, rushed him then, and with his last step back, his foot landed on air instead of the deck of his ship.
Nurse had told him stories of men at sea, tossed overboard by storms or pulled under by sirens. In those stories, the cold ocean water hit like a thousand needles. In actuality, it was more like a hammer, knocking James’s wind from him. His lungs filled with water and then the needles hit his skin. He’d never known cold could burn.
That was the last thing he remembered before it went black, and he came to with his back against the boards of the deck. The pirate was kneeling over him -- he flinched back -- but it was his father who roared at him, spit flying from his lips as he raged at his son.
The pirates left, swinging by rope to the ship alongside theirs, and he spent the rest of the voyage in his cabin, avoiding his father’s angry glares and fists until they docked in Tortuga.
By now he knew that their time in port would, preforce, be brief, so that his father could deliver him to his mother and their new house in Barbados. But until that time, before his life could return to some semblance of normalcy, he was trapped here. Tortuga was too loud, too wild, and from James’s six-year-old perspective, seemed to resemble nothing so much as hell.
His father wouldn’t leave the ship and he made it perfectly clear James wasn’t to, either -- not that James had any desire to venture into the madness he saw outside. After two months aboard a naval vessel he didn’t know all of the vices pirates indulged in, but he’d seen enough of the crew and heard enough from his father to imagine the worst. Beyond the docks was a whirlwind tarantella of alcohol and worse depravities.
But being on the ship was little better. The crew had disembarked to join the revelries beyond, and only the officers had stayed aboard, turning a blind eye to what was happening outside. There were rum stores laid away (knowing now how a naval ship functioned, he more than suspected that his father was withholding rations to build the stock) and they laid into it with relish, his father especially. James let himself be caught only once, cornered between his father and the ship’s wheel. He didn’t even know what he’d said to anger the admiral, but the man’s hand met his cheek with a heavy, unbalanced weight. He was too drunk to put any real force behind it, but it was still enough to knock one scrawny, terrified six-year old to the deck. James fled with tears gathering at the corner of his eyes.
He didn’t go far. Even terrified, he didn’t dare to go down any of the muddy streets, passed the taverns and brothels that faced on every Tortuga road. He wove through the taller, broader bodies and lost himself in the crowd a few docks down, and when he looked over his shoulder, if his father was following, he couldn’t see him.
James turned back to face front and found himself staring into the swell of a generous bosom, edged with red silk and lace. He looked up into a heavily painted face, then down at full, but embarrassingly short skirt. It was hiked up to show her ankles and a fair portion of calf. He stumbled back.
“Hey now.” The woman’s smile showed off the gaps where she’d lost teeth, and he shied away again. “Skittish-like, ain’t ya? Alone, too, I’d say. I would indeed.”
James began to uncurl a bit, leaning toward her like a flower unfurling it’s petals, and then a heavy weight came down across his shoulders.
“He’s not alone,” said the youth from the pirate ship, the one who’d made to push James overboard. “He’s with me.”
The woman pulled back, crossing her arms over her cleavage. “Never known you to take tag-alongs, Jack Sparrow,” she said.
“He’s my cousin,” the teenager said, completely without apology, the pressure of his arm stopping James from squirming away. James attempted to break from him, and he bore down harder. He wanted to go with the woman -- despite the abominable state of her dress, she was still better qualified to care for him than his drunkard father the admiral. Jack lowered his voice to add, “Have to excuse him, a bit turned around in the head. ‘Special,’ you know?”
Whether she believed him or not -- and it was hard to believe she could, looking at his dress next to Jack’s -- she pulled back further, and the teenager went right on glaring. Eventually, she decided James wasn’t worth the effort, turned and left, taking the last of James’s hope with her.
As soon as she was down the street, Jack turned him by the shoulders. “You’re that admiral’s kid,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “Your pop’s not just dragging you into battle, now he lets you run around dockside?”
James drew himself up to all of six years of height. “He doesn’t know where I am,” he said, which was more or less true.
“Inherited the family stupidity, then,” Jack snorted. “Old Nell there had two kids, and she sold ‘em both. Reckon she thought you were all of the profit with none of the effort. James, right?”
He changed topics so fast that James’s mind stuttered as it tried to keep up, and he swallowed down his indignation and settled just for nodding again. Sold to who? In everything his father had told him of pirates, he’d never mentioned anything like that.
Jack watched him with bemusement. “You’re just a pack of troubles waiting to be unwrapped, aren’t you? Not my pack, thank you.” He put a hand between James’s shoulder blades and propelled him back toward where his father’s ship was docked.
James dug his feet into the dirt and found his voice again. “You can’t make me go back!” His voice was higher than Jack’s, especially childish by comparison, his vowels crisper. “I won’t.”
“You won’t,” Jack repeated. “Can’t say I blame you, with a gentlemanly man like your pop there. I’ll just go fetch Nell back, shall I?”
“No!” James cried again. He froze, very real fear in his eyes, and to his surprise the older boy stopped to.
“Have to do something with you,” he muttered, scratching in his heavily matted hair.
“Why are you here?” James said, crossing his arms like Nell had. It made him feel braver as he faced down the older boy. “You knew we were coming to Tortuga. Are you here to hurt my Father? I’ll tell him you’re here and he’ll arrest you --”
He stopped, because Jack was laughing. “And you’re a spitfire to boot,” the older boy said, clapping him heavily on the shoulder. “Good man.”
Bitterly, James said, “What would you know about that?”
“More than him.” Now it was Jack’s turn to look affronted. “Surprised I have to tell you that, after what he put you through.”
“At least he didn’t try to push me off the ship,” James muttered, his lower lip sneaking out into something that looked suspiciously like a pout.
“Neither did I! I was trying to stop you from falling,” Jack countered.
James regarded him warily, looking up with a frown on his face. It looked natural, like it had grown there, and Jack saw many wrinkles in his future. James considered it for a moment, but eventually he said, a little doubtfully, “You did not.”
“Did too,” Jack replied automatically, glaring down at the tiny boy and daring him to challenge him.
“Did not!” The response came almost promptly. Jack ruined it by laughing.
“Alright, sprog,” he said, reaching down to ruffle James’s hair. He combed it back behind his ears nervously, and when he looked up, the older boy was already moving. With a quick, nervous glance for Nell, James jogged after him.
He was silent most of way back down the pier. Jack wasn’t, but he didn’t speak to James. He seemed to know the name of every person they passed, and he hollered out to each of them, gesticulating wildly, his hands flying into James’s face.
Eventually they stopped in front of the ship, and Jack jerked his head at it. “Back up with you.”
James looked up the gangplank and back at the youth as if torn between the two, but eventually he took a few small steps toward the ramp. “Thanks,” he said finally, his voice small.
Jack doffed his hat to him in an elaborate bow, and received a small smile for his efforts. The boy scampered up to the ship and popped over the railing to wave, and then he was gone.
Good kid, Jack thought. Bit gone in the head, but you couldn’t blame him for that. Probably be a tailor or something when he grew up.