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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: G, but darkish.
Pairing: Gen.
Feedback: Sure. Good lines, bad ones, etc.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: First half for unen2gemismasin, second half for fabu.
Summary: Anticipation is not always eager.
***
The sailing life leaves little room for time-keeping. Oh, there's the drive for the longitude, but even the most accurate clock's still twenty-four hours round and round. Sky and stars are all right, if one's a mind to stay in one place all of the time. Go south, and a new jeweler's decorating the night.
Jack's calendar is his scars. He counts his years by the long snaking ridges on one arm, the two blackened dents on his chest, the rough patch under his jaw. Where the rope caught.
He smiles when he touches it. Because duty and justice aside, seasons come in circles. He can afford to be amused, because he knows he'll have his reckoning for that, sooner or later.
***
Every second and movement of James' life is strictly regulated, down to the length of his very breath: too short, and his collar will choke him when he climbs stairs-but too long, and the world will whiten out before him, as it is said it does for hanged men in the last moment.
He smiles when he sees the Turners, because he does like them, young foolish lovers that they are. He nods pleasantly to passersby, and is stiffly polite even with criminals, because he has a reputation to uphold, and a conscience to satisfy. But when there's an execution, he no longer watches the face. It's the rope that holds his attention.
Its phantom brother wraps about his own neck, crossing leagues and miles to end on Sparrow's. And as he feels his face pale, he wonders who will jump off first.
He wonders if he'd push.
***