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The Scythe's Song	By : hallowedmaiden Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (All) > Het - Male/Female > Jack/Elizabeth Views: 2816 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own POTC or the characters and I do not make any money from this story.

Chapter List
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At which point was he going to start feeling like he belonged?
It was the question that he asked himself every day, every time he spoke, every time someone looked in his direction, every time he put one foot in front of the other, or when he didn't move at all, when he just laid there and stared at the ceiling, making up scenes in his head where he didn't tear down everything that could be good in his life, scenes where he knew the right thing to say, the right expression to have...where he knew how to feel comfortable investing in something, putting emotion into something...but those scenes felt alien, like they were some kind of alternative universe, a film that was leagues above his understanding.
He still remembered...a lot of things, things he wanted to forget, things he should forget but couldn't, and then the things he didn't want to forget but couldn't help watching them slip away, like ash through his fingers. Not that anyone would know what he did or didn't remember, or knew, or wanted to know, or wished he didn't know...his only talent was shutting everyone and everything out to every side of him that...every side that was breakable, combustible, able to be shattered just from a fast gust of wind, or by the after-effects of another mistake, another fuck-up...the wrong word, or the wrong reaction...or being an eight year old kid that forgot to blow a candle out.
At which point was he going to start feeling like he belonged?
Did he want to belong? Did he want to feel...like he was a part of something? Or did he want to continue holding everyone at arm's length, pretending he didn't have a real soul or a real heart...sometimes he deluded himself into thinking that he enjoyed feeling like an anomaly, like a pariah...even to himself sometimes, like he could turn his skin inside out and read everything that was wrong with him on it like a...like he read the newspaper announcement about the fire, like...it was right there on the front page, the main story, a bold headline proclaiming the end of his life as he knew it for the entire city to see.
A strange image came to him then...he pictured someone asking him to describe the momentum of his life, whether it was a fast-paced run across the unknown landscape, a languid float through the ocean...but he would stop them there and tell them that it was neither of those things, rather a slow trudge across a never-ending highway, not caring to look for cars that were coming directly at him, because if they hit him, he couldn't make any more mistakes.
People always watched tragedies on the news, school shootings, car crashes, building collapses, and they always wonder what they would do if they were part of it, what their reaction would be...almost as though they wanted it, wanted their life to come crashing down around them like they never had anything nice to begin with.
But they had no fucking idea.
Because life doesn't come crashing down, your life barely shifts, barely budges. Other life moves on, leaving you there in the middle of the floor screaming as the world keeps spinning, spinning until you're forgotten about, but your life goes into a standstill, because you're only eight years old and you have barely started losing your fucking baby teeth and you don't know how to deal with death, loss, pain, or any of those things.
He was only eight. Just started the third grade, with his brand new backpack, new shoes, new teacher...he waved goodbye to his mother as he had gotten on the school bus...should have looked at her face a second longer, should have…perhaps the cruelest treatment in the world is having your world implode when you are a child, because you don't even understand what is happening, cannot comprehend the enormity...but eventually, doors start opening in your mind as you get older, you start learning, understanding, and it's like the pages in a book are being turned, a new layer of awareness on each one, akin to the levels of hell, only there are so many more than hell could ever conceive of.
Had he ever belonged?
Memories had a funny of working, sometimes they had missing pieces, sometimes only the echo of them is left behind, usually the good ones, the ones you want to remember, the spots of joy and happiness in an otherwise dark and stormy sky...but the bad memories, the darkest clouds in that sky, their colors and their smells and their fucking sounds all remain, swimming in and out of thoughts like...like the bright lights of the ambulances and the shiny red of the fire truck glowing in the light of the moon, or the burst of water from the hose, and then the shouting, the screaming…
...but the sound that haunted him the most, the sound that he still found reminders of to this day, was the sound of the fire, the burning and crackling, the sound of wood falling, turning to ash, the sound of the collapse, a blunt and uncaring representation of life giving up, on him, on itself, on everything.
He had only been eight and just forgot to blow the candle out after staying up a few minutes too late to watch cartoons. An innocent mistake that shot through everything like a bullet, leaving a path of destruction that even a hurricane might find it hard to compare itself to.
They hadn't told him right away...it had been the day after that a police officer explained to him carefully, but in that way where they act like they are talking to a person standing on the edge of a building, that a terrible accident had happened, that his parents were in a better place, and that he was going to be brought somewhere nice, where nice people would take care of him.
That officer hadn't had the balls to tell him that it was his fault, that he was a stupid little kid that had been too careless, too...that he had killed his parents.
It had been a long car ride to Detroit, where his foster home had been, but the moment that the car had pulled up...the family's faces as they stood there had been too happy, too...they were almost warped, like a painter had tried to make someone look happy, but it was just on this side of fake...too wide smiles, an eye roll just behind their expression...a fight about not wanting another kid...a burden on the family etched into their faces.
But despite everything looking wrong, he had stayed with that family until he was fourteen, until...until he had reached the point where he could no longer pretend that he wasn't starting to feel the guilt pouring into the cracks in his mind, the maturity of his mind doing its damnedest to ruin him.
He had become the cliche runaway kid, the fuck-up, the weird kid that hung out on sidewalks and bummed cigarettes off of people, that did odd jobs here and there to pay for food...the kid that Detroit would point to if cops ever went looking for someone to pin a crime on, despite volunteering at a children's home as a companion...a fill-in sibling for them when they had no one else. The only bright spot, the only thing that he couldn't ignore, couldn't shut himself away from, seeing the smiles on those little kid's faces when he came by, when they demanded that he played with them, when they wanted to watch cartoons...it was like he was watching what he had been before…
Learning to dance on the surface of the world, learning to treat everything like it was a shallow puddle rather than a depthless ocean, was a hard lesson to absorb, but one that he had started to ingrain within himself...the idea of getting too deep into something, of putting his toe in, then his foot, then wading completely into the water of life, it was asking for a monster to come out and drag him under...only that monster was him, because he also had the talent of being the one best at fucking his own life up.
His sense of humor was a 'fuck you' style, where he acted like he might strike out and bite someone if they got too close. The snake tattoo that he had gotten...snakes were disliked by the majority of the world because they were seen as nuisances, as pests, contributing nothing...yet they were incredibly focused creatures, focused only on the important things...feeding and moving, much like him. He rarely truly laughed, laughed like it wasn't a thing he needed to feel like he still possessed emotions. His laughs were always like personal tests, where if he laughed hard enough, for long enough, he might still be human.
He felt like a criminal, most of the time, like he was on the wrong side of the world, the side of misfits, the half where all the people who never got the world go, who see things differently, who were molded by things that no one else understood, like flames consuming the only place where he had ever felt like he was home.
It was fitting then, that the first meaningful person to come into his life since...at the age of nineteen, was, in fact, a real criminal, stealing a car from the mechanic shop that he worked at, where had finally found a skill, a talent worth perfecting.
The memory was very distinct, seeing Jack almost...glide into the shop, not seeing him standing in the corner...it was early in the morning and the sun was just starting to come up half-way over the horizon line. He had had half a mind to try and stop him, but his work boots had become glued to the cement floor, and he just watched Jack work his way inside the car, watched him hotwire it, and then he had just happened to scan the shop through the windshield, and saw him…
It was interesting, seeing someone decide whether or not to kill another human being, and it was quite another to watch someone with that decision made...in the form of Jack Sparrow pointing a pistol at him as he back stepped out of the garage onto the tarmac in a panic, waving his hands in front of him like that was going to stop him from getting shot. It was also an unfortunate circumstance that whatever a person is holding when they get scared shitless is dropped, and even more unfortunate that he had been holding a blowtorch. Blowtorches and gasoline don't mix well.
He had been helpless, standing there as Jack had turned around to watch the car he had just been trying to steal explode. The look on the man's face was something he would never forget, the perfect physical representation of "you little punk kid fuckhead, you just blew up my car". He would also never forget the feeling of a pistol barrel digging into the side of his head, with Jack explaining in no uncertain terms that he had better come up with a good reason for him not to shoot, and fast, because he was very angry and felt very much like pulling the trigger.
Of course, the only thing he had been able to come up with was "I can fix cars", to which Jack had responded with "Oh really? I thought you were a birthday clown...no shit, you idiot, you work at a fucking car shop".
"No no...I mean like...I can do whatever you want to cars, like custom shit, I can put NOS in, paint jobs, whatever you want...I won't tell anyone...I'll even steal cars with you just please don't shoot me…"
By some miracle, Jack had retracted, at least his gun did, and the rest of him for a second, before his fist came barreling forward. The fucking guy had a vicious swing, but he had only hit him once, leaning down to whisper "that was for my damn car" in his ear as he shouted in pain. Once he had regained the ability to remember that he had a jaw, he had started apologizing to him spastically, part of him had still been fixated on the pistol, convinced that Jack might still shoot him.
But he hadn't. The next thing Jack did was put his gun away and dig a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket. "Here, shut up and tell me what the fuck is wrong with this car."
For the few seconds that it had taken to figure out whether Jack already knew what was wrong and testing him, or if he really had no clue, he had looked down and read the scrawled handwriting.
"It's the head gasket, check the head gasket," was all he had managed to get out, still shaken from nearly getting killed twice, and in that space of five seconds, in the time it took to get those eight words out, Jack Sparrow had decided to employ him, with an appraising look and a quiet "nice".
Which he responded to with a still spastic breathless "what?", earning him a dramatic eye roll, and "I have asked, oh I don't know, maybe ten people to figure out what the hell is going on with that car, and none of them...and you did it in five seconds. You can work off making this car explode unless you have better things to do…"
"No, no, nothing better to do...what uh...what should I call you?"...like he was talking to a damn alien species.
"Jack. Call me Jack...and you? Let's see, you look like a Brandon-"
"Nope, it's Shawn,"...immediately lecturing himself for interrupting.
"Shawn. Hm. Not a Brandon then. So, how do you feel about the U.K?"
"...the what?"
"The U.K., you know, Her Majesty's Land, England, Britain, the place with the cool accents...what, didn't you pay attention in Social Studies?"
It was a precipice then, between telling Jack that he hadn't gone farther than ninth grade, tumbling into his entire life story, and just quipping some smart ass comment.
"I know what the U.K. is, but we're in Detroit, why-"
"Because I live in the U.K. So if you're going to work for me, you're also going to live in the U.K."
"...oh."
He hadn't thought to protest, hadn't even considered questioning him further, both from fear of him asking more questions, where are your parents?, are you leaving anything behind?, where do you live?, and because the prospect of getting the fuck out of Detroit sent his brain into hyperdrive. He would have agreed to move to fucking Antarctica in that moment.
"So, sound good?"
"I don't know if you know anything about Detroit, but this city is...yeah, I'll come with you."
And just like that, he was Jack Sparrow's new resident mechanic.
If he were telling this story, the story of his life, to someone, they might buy that it was that simple, but he had found that perhaps being a blind double agent between Russia and North Korea with ADHD and a weak bladder might be less complicated than working for Jack.
It was ironic, he thought, that a new chapter in his life had started because of fire, like both times in his life where he felt semi-okay were bookends to a time not to be spoken of, the first ended by fire, and the second one beginning because of fire. It also didn't slip his notice that destruction seemed to follow him everywhere.
They had left Detroit four days later, and he hadn't looked back. Not that he wasn't looking forward, because the fact that he was going with someone who had just tried to shoot him, before just punching him in the face instead, put him slightly on edge. Jack, being his incredibly perceptive self, far more than people might give him credit for anyway, of course noticed that he was acting like someone had told him that demons were following him around.
"Jesus, relax, you look like a crack addict in need of a fix, you're all twitchy. I'm not gonna hit you again if that's what you're worried about."
"Right...you just strike me as someone unpredictable...like one minute you like your cheeseburgers with everything and the next you hate ketchup and mustard."
"I love ketchup and mustard, it's horseradish that I can't fucking stand. Disgusting shit."
Jack was the kind of person that exuded depth, like the human version of a damn onion, yet it always seemed like everything but the outermost layer of him was guarded by armed cavalry with a side of fortress and a dash of turret gun. Get too close and you'll get blasted to smithereens.
But even despite that, and even despite how he felt like he was on the cusp of learning that every new car problem that Jack presented him with came with a helping of 'I know you're just my mechanic but today you're going to learn how to break into a bank', he really enjoyed what he did.
The man was smart, far too smart, scary smart, like he could destroy a room of politicians in a debate and leave them scratching their heads smart, or con half a damn country and be moving on to the next one before they figured it out smart, or even just being able to deconstruct a person from across the street smart.
He also knew that the man's trust was not just thrown out into the world, multi-colored trust confetti being spewed out for everyone from Jack Sparrow was never going to be a thing, so the fact that he was trusted by Jack was nothing short of a miracle, and he still hadn't figured out why. One day he had asked him, asked why he had hired him…
"I already told you, you figured out-
"Jack, I'm more sure that you could have figured it out on your own eventually than I am that Earth is round. Why did you actually hire me?"
It had taken him a second to answer, but it had been like he was waiting for the question.
"Because I knew you were never going to...feel at liberty to try and dig at me...try and figure me out or fix me. You're as fucked up as I am, don't know why, but you are."
"And you figured that out from me blowing your car up?"
"No. When you...took the paper, you didn't look at me, didn't try and question it, you just took it and read it and figured it out. I could tell that you...you're used to doing things efficiently and quietly, you don't draw too much attention to yourself, and...if you try as hard as I think you do to seal yourself off, you might see the same behavior in me, and accept it as something that you're never going to change."
"So...you think we're alike?"
"Maybe, we at least have the same regard for the rest of the world...like if we don't take a second to look where we are going, or think about what we're doing, or consider every move, we'll have the rug pulled out from under our feet."
And he did do that, did think carefully about everything he did, except when he didn't.
He had wondered why Jack never had a girl around, or girls, or really any kind of female companion, and being an idiot, like he usually was, he had asked him that one day too, in such an eloquent way that he was still slapping himself for it.
Sitting at the kitchen table, counting money, just minding his own business, chasing a string of thoughts that had no relation to each other, and then one just broke through the wall of his brain-outside world barrier like the proton torpedo that hit the Death Star.
"Do you like...ever get any?"
Jack had been distracted by something, so he hadn't really been listening.
"Any what?"
That was the moment that he should have shut his mouth, but his intelligence had apparently taken a temporary vacation.
"Do you ever bang?"
He was 95% sure that it was the second time that Jack ever thought about punching him in the face.
"...Why?" except it was said with a 'choose your entire train of thought from this point on very carefully' tone of voice.
"I mean...you're not exactly ugly," making Jack's face sink deeper into a 'keep talking you stupid fuck' expression, "so, where are all the girls?"
But then he had stopped being angry like someone had flipped the switch off on him or something, like he had been angry about the subject way too much already and didn't have the strength to keep doing it.
"There are no...girls. As in plural. Before I tell you this, you're going to swear to me that you will never bring it up again unless I bring it up. Clear?"
"Uh...yeah, I guess."
"...There was one girl, and I say was with all the emphasis in the world, because she isn't anymore. We never even...were never even together, and I still managed to fuck it up...said some things to her that I shouldn't have, I don't know what else I did wrong really, but there must have been something...haven't seen her in a couple of years."
Of all the things he could have said Jack Sparrow was, being permanently in love and heartbroken was right below cereal being advertised without milk on the possibility scale.
"...have you tried talking to her?" earning him a tired sigh and a forehead rub from Jack.
"No...don't think there is much of a point. All she's going to tell me is that I crossed the line and I can't come back from it."
"...Did you?"
"Yeah…yeah, I did. And there isn't a second that goes by that I don't hate myself for it. Not like...I don't hate all of myself, I just...it left a stain on me, you know? The kind of thing that always comes back to remind you of its existence when you're trying to sleep. 'Oh hey, I see you're trying to sleep now, so allow me to remind you of how you pushed the woman you loved away."
"And she hasn't tried talking to you?"
"No, like I said, she hates me probably. I would hate me after what I said to her...I have no misconceptions of the reality of what happened between us, but I just...I wish words weren't permanent sometimes. I wish I could make her understand that...but it's useless because I said the things I said and I can't take them back, regardless of how much I didn't mean them."
The subject was never brought up again until after Jack told him and Chris about his history, and it was a few days after that even, that the connection had been made.
"Hey, Jack?"
Once again distracted by something, like he usually was, "What's up?"
"It's Elizabeth, isn't it? That girl you talked about," of course forgetting that he had sworn to not bring it up unless Jack did first, but he technically did when he mentioned her name.
After a heavy sigh, "Well, I called her Lizzie most of the time, but yeah, that's her."
Imagining Jack with a girl had been...interesting. Just picturing him being...sweet, or whatever, was like picturing Satan surrounded by a litter of kittens. Not that Jack was like Satan…
What he hadn't imagined happening was royally shitting on his first time meeting the woman Jack loved. Of course, he partially blamed Jack because when he was almost about to puke Jack Daniels all over the person sitting next to him at the bar, it was difficult to retain any kind of information, like "Hey, Shawn, friendly reminder that if you come anywhere near the house tonight, I'll tattoo horrors on you. Good talk. See you tomorrow."
Had he been sober, he would have put two and two together, because the only reason Jack would want Chris and him out of the house would be to have someone else in the house. But he hadn't been sober and had promptly forgotten anything about it when he woke up in the morning on his futon with a mean headache and another empty Jack Daniels sitting next to him.
It was like a string of unfortunate circumstances that had led to his near-death, with the first being the flat manager calling him about some problem or another, then his phone acting like a piece of shit, which is why he had collided with Elizabeth on the way in the house.
"Fucking watch where you're going!"
Again, since his entire memory of the warning from Jack was chased away by alcohol, it had never even occurred to him that she was...well, not that accusing her of being a slag was appropriate regardless of who she was...but his proclivity for saying inappropriate things without taking a second to think about them was astonishing, and the moment he had read the horror in Chris's eyes, right before Chris told him her name, and only a few seconds before Jack had walked in the door, all the worry about losing, about having to start over again came flooding back.
If there was ever a time that his life flashed before his eyes, it was then. Almost even more so than the mechanic shop. He figured that calling Jack's girl a slag pissed him off even more than blowing his car up. And of course, it only took Jack about four seconds to suss out what had happened.
It was by some mercy that Jack acknowledged why he hadn't remembered that there was going to be a guest in the house, and he figured that was the only reason that he was still alive, and he also liked to think that Jack had too high of a regard for him to throw him out.
He should probably apologize to him for that formally.
But seeing Elizabeth with Jack, really seeing them together, it was like Jack was an entirely different person around her, like he had never really been alive before, just...living. Just going from day to day, and it had made him wonder that if they could be happy together, if...they could trust the world enough not to take that away from them, despite everything that they had been through, then why couldn't he do the same thing?
The thought had terrified him, like someone that he had just met proposing to him, or like a train screaming across tracks just an inch from his face, it made his world speed up and swirl, and he had retreated again, when just before he had been so close to getting comfortable with his life. It was because he hadn't thought much about shutting himself off before, and the change had come gradually without him noticing, but as soon as the subject was brought back into focus…
Maybe one day he wouldn't be afraid of falling again, wouldn't be afraid of starting over the game of life he was playing where the only options were to go forward or not move at all, but it wasn't this day, and he doubted it would be tomorrow either.
"...Shawn."
His head snapped up to find Jack hovering over him with a raised eyebrow. "Are you coming or are you thinking about proposing to the fireplace? You've been staring at it for ten minutes."
"Yeah...yeah, sorry, just spaced out I guess."
Maybe the only thing that was stopping him from belonging was himself.
Apparently, while he had been watching his life movie in his head, the four of them had decided on braving the new escape room in Bath, and Jack seemed particularly enthusiastic about the prospect, probably because he enjoyed anything that was challenging, that required intelligence.
"Jack," he started, thinking back on a memory that was both hilarious and horrifying as they waited for the room to be ready. "Remember that awful corn maze that you convinced Chris and me to go to...where was that...somewhere in the states. I got lost, then when I finally found Chris, we couldn't find you. When we did find you-"
"We realized that he had been sneaking around us for the entire hour scaring the shit out of us, rustling corn stalks, making noises, I think at one point he even cocked his gun," Chris finished for him. "He nearly made me shit my pants when we found him. See, it was pitch black out, Shawn left out that detail, and Jack suddenly appeared out of nowhere with a flaming corn stalk in his hand, walking directly at us. He had set one on fire with his lighter, and he was also wearing this long black coat with a hood that day, so he literally looked like a grim reaper who had traded his scythe for fire corn."
Lizzie sent a 'seriously' look at Jack, which only earned her a shrug and "they just scare too easily, I thought it was funny".
"Well, don't get any ideas about scaring me in here."
"Can't promise anything, darling. Besides, the looks on their faces made it all worth it."
"Uh huh, I'm sure."
Ringa leaned over to Jack and whispered "I'll scare her for you", earning a snicker and a conspiratory look from him and an eye roll from Lizzie.
"I'm just glad that he didn't like...break out his Joker impression at any point during that because I would have turned around and sprinted out of that damn maze," he said, shuddering.
He did find it a bit disconcerting how well Jack could embody that character.
"Ok, guys, ready?" the little blonde attendant said, paying particular attention to Jack. He and Chris were used to girls always checking Jack out, but clearly, Lizzie was not, as the girl had gotten an immediate 'keep staring and you might lose your eyes' look from her.
When they entered the first room, all they found was plain cement walls, four open doorways, one in each wall to the left and right, and two in the far wall, and a pedestal with a strongbox sitting on it, a single keyhole on the front panel.
"What do you suppose is in there?" Lizzie asked no one in particular, then looking to her left to find Jack missing.
"Probably the 'open the exit' button," came his voice from behind them, but it echoed strangely, and they all twisted around to see him holding or rather wiggling a walkie-talkie in front of his face. "I'm willing to bet," he continued, "that everyone that tried this challenge failed to find these, at least right away. I would further the bet and say half of them went straight through one of these passages immediately, and the other half wasted a substantial amount of time inspecting the box before they even thought to turn around. People never look at where they started, only at what's in front of them."
There were four more hanging on the back wall, and they all claimed one.
"So, looks like the main goal is to find a key for that," Chris said, marching up to the pedestal.
"Yeah, maybe," came Jack's uncertain response, and got narrowing eyes from Chris, who was twitching his head back and forth between the box and Jack.
"Maybe? What else would the-"
"The most obvious solution is often a deliberate decoy to waste a person's time. I wouldn't be surprised if there is no button inside there...there probably isn't even a key to open it."
He suspected that whoever had designed this challenge had not designed it up to par for Jack Sparrow.
"...Ok, so what should we do?" Chris asked, crossing his arms over his chest in annoyance. "Split up?"
"That seems to be the intention since they provided these for us," came Lizzie's voice from the right side of the room as she peered around the corner of the passage there, holding up the walkie-talkie in their direction.
"Four passages, five of us. I'll take Lizzie and we'll go straight and right, Chris, you go straight and left, Jack, you take the right wall, and Ringa, you take the left," he said, then faltered when he caught Jack's raised eyebrow. "What? You and Chris were just going to start arguing, and we were going to get nowhere."
"I wasn't concerned about you playing team leader, I'm concerned about why you want my girlfriend with you."
Even he had to dramatically roll his eyes at the immediate flare of protectiveness. "There is seriously more of a chance of me chopping my own dick off then there is of me coming onto her-"
"By my account, you already did come onto me."
The rest of his sentence was still running around inside his mouth as he tried to figure out whether she was angry again about it, or if she was joking with him, then he shifted his attention to Jack's grimace.
"Please don't ever talk about emasculation again."
"Right, sorry."
He started forwards and heard Lizzie following behind him, waiting for her to ask questions. She didn't disappoint.
"Why did you want me with you?"
"...Because, I haven't had much of a chance to erase our unfortunate meeting, and it's going to be real awkward if...well, if we continue having that awkwardness between us."
Her head tilted up in acknowledgment. "Makes sense," she said as they made their way through the short hallway, emerging into a room with…
"Is that a gravestone?" she exclaimed, stopping to stare.
Indeed it was, sitting right in the middle of the room, and just behind it was several more, five or six of them, all with names on them. "And a mannequin…a creepy one."
Annoyance shot through him when she snickered at him. "You're afraid of dolls, and clowns, aren't you?"
The mannequin was kneeling in front of the middle gravestone, a bouquet of red roses sitting next to it, but it looked like whoever had designed the mannequin had done a rush job. The eyes were different sizes, the lips were just a smear of red that barely had a shape, and it looked like someone had taken a brown Sharpie and dotted some freckles on, and that was nothing compared to the dollar store bright orange wig that looked like it belonged in a bargain bin witch Halloween costume.
"No, I'm not afraid of clowns or dolls, but these things are just weird."
There was nothing else in the room besides the little scene, just the same cement walls and fluorescent ceiling light.
"Jack, is Shawn afraid of clowns or dolls?" she asked into the walkie-talkie.
"Umm, not that I'm aware of. Pretty sure he has a phobia for my Joker impression though. Always gets a bit twitchy around me when I've been quiet for awhile. By the way, what's in your guys' room?"
"A weird mannequin scene. It's kneeling in front of a gravestone, grieving or something, or at least it would be if it was alive."
"Huh, I have a mannequin thing too. I'm in a pretty accurate recreation of a hospital room. There are a doctor and a patient in the bed, both mannequins. Painted like shit though. What about you Ringa?"
"Same thing, maniquí. Though my scene is what looks like a customer service desk, with a receptionist sort of person and a customer I guess. Chris?"
"I've got a living room with what looks like a husband and wife arguing. There's a broken vase on the floor and the table is overturned. Apparently one of them was pretty pissed about something, or both I guess."
Interesting.
"So, what are you afraid of?"
He turned towards Lizzie to find her staring at him, a gleam in her eyes.
"I'm not afraid of anything."
"Right, you sound like Jack," and then she raised the walkie-talkie again, "Jack, what's Shawn afraid of?"
"Ahh, I see, this is going to turn into a bad decision on his part, taking you with. Don't torture him too bad, love. And he's afraid of roller coasters, puking, and getting stuck underwater. Kinda strange about the puking thing though, considering how much he drinks."
"Oh come on, I don't drink that much-"
"That's a bunch of bullshit and you know it. You drink more than I do and that's saying something."
"Well, from what I've gathered, you used to be a constant drunk, so-"
"Fuck off, I relaxed my drinking after awhile, especially when I figured out that operating a motor vehicle really doesn't go well with a bottle of rum in me."
"And captaining a ship did?"
"I managed to sail to an island that can't be found except by those who already know where it is without a crew...don't ask, I managed to destroy Cutler Beckett's ship, with the help of Will Turner, I did plenty of honest pirating...ha, oxymoron, and, I sailed to the Fountain of Youth."
"Whatever."
"Haha, I'm not torturing him, Jack, I am just making the experience entertaining for him."
He rolled his eyes at her but was internally glad that they seemed to be getting along.
"Why roller coasters and getting stuck underwater?" she asked, switching the walkie-talkie off for a second.
"Well...long story short, when I was seven, I had a prank played on me at school in the swimming pool where they held me underwater. It was more the experience rather than the water. And roller coasters are far too risky as far as their engineering quality and upkeep."
"I see. I'm afraid of being restrained in any fashion, suffocating, and well, not much else really."
"Not much else…"
"What can I say, I'm almost fearless. By the way, in case you were wondering," she paused to hold down her button again, "Jack is afraid of cold weather, allergic to it almost, afraid of running out of rum, and he is damn near petrified of...um, nothing, nevermind-"
"I am not afraid of running out of rum, thank you very much."
"Oh really?"
"No, because that scenario is literally impossible-"
"Hey, idiots," Chris cut in, sounding like he was talking to a group of misfits. "What do you say we try and figure out the mannequins."
"Sorry Chris, we'll start behaving now. Until we stop again, anyway," Jack said, an obvious smirk in his voice.
In five seconds, probably.
As Lizzie walked around the room, searching, he reflected. She really didn't seem to fear much, except for one thing, and he wagered it was the exact thing that she had hesitated about revealing. Both of them were terrified of losing each other, but he also knew that they would both do everything in their respective powers to prevent that from happening. Russia certainly knew all about it.
She also seemed very intelligent, as if Jack would ever go for anyone that wasn't at least equal to him, but her intelligence was more of an internal kind, almost like she preferred to keep it to herself, where Jack liked to...not quite brag, but show off, more like, which made her next move even more surprising.
"Chris, you said you had two people arguing right?"
"...Yeah?"
"And Ringa, you have a customer service desk?"
"Si amiga."
"We have a gravestone...and Jack, you have a doctor and a patient."
"Yeah, have an idea?"
"I think there is a common thread between all of them. That's our clue."
"I mean, they're all plastic, painted stupid-ow!"
"...Lizzie, did you just hit Shawn?"
"...No, my hand just wandered onto his shoulder and then acted of its own volition. I take no responsibility for the swatting of his person."
Now he was glaring at her, challenging her to swat him again, and she sent the glare right back. "In fact, maybe I'll let Shawn figure it out since he wants to be a smart-ass."
"To be honest, love, I think he learned that from me. He wasn't that bad when I first met him-"
"Of course, how could I have missed that connection?" came her sarcastic reply.
Apparently, she was serious about him finding the answer because she crossed her arms over her chest and started tapping her fingers in an 'I'm waiting' motion.
Well, they were plastic, and they were all...talking.
"They are all talking…"
"Nope, the gravestone mannequin isn't doing any kind of talking...I mean, unless this is 'I see dead people' world now," Jack said.
Some of Jack's sarcasm had, in fact, rubbed off on him, because he could have said the same thing. The Sixth Sense was a great movie.
"Right, but they are all...communicating in some way. The husband and wife are arguing, I guess that could be called communicating...shitty communicating...the doctor and patient are communicating, the customer and receptionist, and gravestone mannequin is trying to communicate, so-"
"That's the clue," Jack cut in. "It's the walkie-talkies."
"The...walkie-talkies?"
"Mhm, love. I'm guessing that they've engineered these somehow to contain the answer to our escape. Some kind of passcode, button combination, hidden compartment, something, and I'm guessing we need to use all of them to figure out whatever it is."
"So we need to search the rooms to...work out how to use the walkie-talkies," Ringa finished.
"Yeah, I guess. Give Shawn a high five, darling, he deserves it. Let's all reconnect in twenty minutes."
She switched her walkie-talkie off and started looking around the room again, as he did the same.
"What, no high five?" but he didn't expect one, especially when she turned around and gave him a 'not a chance' look.
They searched the room high and low for a good ten minutes, running their hands over things for hidden...anything, pushing on things, inspecting the mannequin, inspecting the walls and floor, and found nothing of interest.
"They meant for this puzzle to be solvable, right?" she complained, making a huffing noise.
"It must be something...something we missed, didn't think of…"
"Well no sh-"
They had looked at everything, smelled everything, touched everything, but there was something, some technique they didn't try, something that hadn't considered…
"Numbers. We didn't think of numbers."
The look of annoyance stayed on her face for a few seconds, left over from him interrupting her before it transitioned into an almost appraising expression. "You're right," she said, before doing the same thing he was doing, counting the gravestones.
"With the one in front, there's seven."
"Jack," she said through her walkie-talkie, "Shawn might have figured out the next clue. Find some kind of number in your room. We counted the gravestones in ours, there are seven."
"Funny, that, I was just looking at the heart rate monitor here. Obviously not a real one, but the sticker they have looks real enough. Our poor mannequin's heart beat four last times before it flatlined."
"Seven and four. Chris?"
"I don't see anything here that could be a number unless they want me to count the pieces of the broken vase on the carpet-oh, wait, the girl mannequin has a phone in her hand...well, apparently the husband is a real asshole. She's dialing the emergency number, nine."
"Ok, so we've got seven, four, and nine. Ringa?"
"Mine's easy. The clock above the desk is set at exactly three."
"So we have four different numbers-"
"But five walkie-talkies," Jack finished for her, and then it sounded like he was tapping his lip. "Wait, the starting room. There was only...ah, the last number is one. Only one thing in that room. So we have seven, four, one, nine, and three. That sound right?"
"Sounds good to me, love...hmm, now we just need to figure out which order they go in…"
"Is there anything that in common between the mannequins? Besides the communication?" Jack asked.
"...Um," he started, racking his brain for the answer. "Two of them involve death?"
There was silence for a moment, and he reflected on his suggestion like a kid might in math class when the teacher looks at them with that 'how stupid are you' expression.
"...Shawn, have I ever told you that you are much smarter than you give yourself credit for?"
A small amount of relief and pride surged through him. It was a rare thing, Jack complimenting him, but when it happened, he knew that Jack meant every word of it.
"Why do you say that?"
"Think about it," he answered.
Death, two of them had to do with death...one of them could have to do with death, and two of them had very little to do with death.
"Proximity? To death, that is. The gravestone, that one is obviously the closest. Then the doctor and patient, then the husband and wife, since almost 30% of all male and female murder victims are spouses, then the customer service...could involve death with a few tweaks, but highly unlikely, and the middle room has nothing to do with it."
"So for the grand finale, what is the order of the numbers?"
"Ummm….seven...nine-no, wait...7, 4, 9, 3, 1."
"Excellent, Lizzie, since I'm guessing you didn't bother with that last high five, you really better give him one now. Go on."
She rolled her eyes and kept the walkie-talkie switched on as she smacked his hand so Jack could hear. "Good job, you know. You are pretty smart, not that Jack would hire someone stupid."
"I was just going to say, I knew there was a reason I hired you. Ok, let's all meet back in the middle."
"Ok, now that we're all back together, the last clue points to the order of the walkie-talkies-"
"Hate to cut in Jack, but I've already figured that out, and allow me a moment of pride here, because I thought for sure you would have noticed this already, but apparently not." Chris flipped his walkie-talkie over and revealed a raised number five on the back. "I'm guessing that the rest have four, three, two, and one on them."
They all checked, finding that he was right.
Jack sent a glare at him, followed by a middle finger, followed by an 'I'll let you have this one".
"That's all bien y bien, but it still doesn't tell us the order-"
"Sure it does," he said, feeling extra confident. "The theme here seems to be death, and death doesn't normally make one think of counting higher, does it? Obviously, we are supposed to go backward from five, down to one."
"So." It came from Lizzie this time, who was giving him another twinkling look like she was being pleasantly surprised by him. "Let's see, we have two sets of numbers with a particular order, from top to bottom. I figure each number corresponds. The first number in the set matches the first number in the other set, and so on. That means, Chris, you have number five, so you would bring 7 up on your little screen. Ringa, you have four, so you would get...4, Shawn, you have three, so you get 9, I have two, so I would get 3, and Jack, you have one, so you get...1."
Once they got it all worked out and written down, they brought their numbers up on the screen and then heard a door click...behind them.
"Clever, the entrance is also the exit. Well, looks like this escape room wasn't designed to beat us, hm?" Jack said, grinning.
He watched them as they all left the room, hoping to catch Jack on the way out. When a window of opportunity didn't present itself, he literally walked in front of him and stopped him, turning to give the rest of them a 'go ahead' gesture. He saw Lizzie's eyebrow raise, and then her eyes flicked over to Jack, who reassured her with a nod of his head.
"What's up?" he asked once they were out of earshot.
Of course, he knew something was up, but he was surprised that he didn't sound annoyed.
"I...ahh, I wanted to apologize...more coherently for what I said to Lizzie that day...I really didn't mean to meet her like that...just another stupid Shawn moment…"
Jack looked at him, really searched his face, and apparently realized how much the mistake had been bothering him.
"Yeah well...look, it was kinda half my fault for not warning you again, but that's beside the point. I just told you in there," he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, "that you aren't stupid, far from it, in fact, so stop putting yourself down every time you make a mistake. Do you realize how fucked I would be if I acted the same way you do every time I fuck something up?"
"But you don't really-"
"Oh Christ, if you're actually about to suggest that I don't make mistakes, just stop. I pushed away the love of my life for 44 years, I'm an alcoholic because I have no defense against addiction, or at least very little, I was oblivious to the fact that Lizzie loved me for...fuck, almost three centuries, and I'm a reckless fuck most of the time when something doesn't go my way."
"But-"
"She forgives you for what you said, trust me, if she didn't, you'd know it. If I didn't you'd know it, and you've known me long enough to know that."
"...Yeah, I guess…"
Apparently, Jack wasn't satisfied yet, judging by the fact that his head made a whole half circle, stopping to glare at the parking lot, a few of the cars, the street light, and then the sky when his eyes turned upwards.
"I...we don't exactly have...fuck...I don't think you realize just how much I value you and Chris. I mean, I was wading through fucking Nothingville until I met the two of you. Without Lizzie around, you guys are the only reason I stayed sane. I may not show it all the time, but don't ever think that...that...you're not like brothers to me, ok?"
He raised his head at that declaration, feeling a strange lifting emotion for a second, before his past, his dark ugly past, came racing in to crush it down, siphoning any ounce of happiness he might have been feeling away.
"Yeah, I hear you...just...there are some mistakes that stick around...that make all the other ones amplified, and they just build and build until they just make you feel like a piece of shit every time you make one."
He got a pair of narrowed eyes, like they were honing in on something, and it made him shiver.
"...Some mistakes? Something you want to talk about?"
The damn man was too fucking smart.
"No...I mean, maybe...but not right now…"
Jack stood there for a few more seconds before sighing and shrugging. "Alright...just don't worry about the Lizzie thing...it was just a fuck up due to miscommunication and unfortunate circumstances. Come on, we need to catch up."
Catch up...except he still felt like he was being left behind.
"You guys going back home?" Jack asked the three of them while she perched herself on the seat of his truck, wondering what it was that Shawn had cornered Jack for.
"Yeah, probably. You and her are going out to dinner right?" Chris responded, opening the door of the Maserati.
"Casamia again, I think. Lizzie liked the pasta there," causing her to look and smile.
"It was very good."
"Alright, I guess we'll see you when you get back. Say hi to Christian for us."
The Italian car's headlights lit up the parking lot as Chris turned the key, and they drove away, the car turning out of sight as she watched it go, and then her vision jerked and blurred when Jack tugged her out of the truck, pushing her against it with his arms around her, not even giving her a chance to speak before his lips crashed against hers.
Then he just kissed her, didn't put his hands anywhere else, didn't try to sneak them under her clothes, didn't even slip his tongue in her mouth, just kissed her tenderly, and it made something flutter inside of her, the fact that they could share moments like this and be just as content.
"That was fun, hmm?" he purred when he broke away, planting one last peck on the corner of her mouth.
"What, the kissing or the escape room?"
Even if it was just a kiss, it still left her heart jumping and a flush on her cheeks.
"Well, both I suppose."
"Mmm, maybe you should kiss me again," and then he closed the distance between them once more, his body pressing a little tighter against her.
"Are you sure you want to go to dinner, or do you want to just make out in a parking lot against your truck?" He gave her a breathy little laugh, laying his head on her shoulder. "I am pretty famished. Though I do still expect a quickie in-" he leaned around to peer inside of the truck, "-well, this is the wrong vehicle, but this would do."
"Don't worry, the McLaren isn't going anywhere love."
A wolfish grin spread across his face. "Neither am I, darling, neither am I."
She mirrored his grin, reaching out to stroke a finger across his jawline. "Well, that isn't entirely true. Remember we are both going to be on a plane to Lima in two days-ish."
"Of course darling, how could I have forgotten? Mmm, palm trees, walks on the beach...plenty of rum," he purred, every single item punctuated by another soft touch of his lips. "Can't wait. Speaking of, we should probably pack tomorrow."
"Probably. Maybe when we get back, I can finally show you my house. I would even venture a boast and say it is prettier than yours."
There was an indignant expression on his face when he pulled back a few inches. "Prettier than my house? Now, this is something I have to see."
"I mean...your ship was prettier than all of the other ships on the water, so I feel like it makes us even."
His arms tightened around her, his beard scratchy against her neck when he buried his head there. "The Pearl was pretty, wasn't she," he whispered, sighing.
Suddenly an acute emotion invaded her, like a strike of lightning, at the reminder of her half-plan to restore the ship, and she had to rein herself in from stamping her foot on the pavement because of the frustration of being so close yet so far away from it. "The prettiest, love."
They stayed there close to each other for a second longer before he pulled away, jingling keys at her. "Let's go get something to eat, hm?"
"Alright," she replied, then lunging forwards with a giggle, trying to knock the keys out of his hand and failing when he jerked them away too quickly, sticking the tip of his tongue out at her. She gave him a glittering smile and climbed up into the passenger seat.
"Arturo, so nice to hear your smoker voice."
"Hola, Suzuki. We've acquired lodgings in London. I trust we are still meeting in the parque...Hedgemead or something wasn't it?"
A call was placed through to Suzuki as soon as they had checked into the hotel, even though he had also called her when they landed in this dreadful city.
"Yes, Hedgemead Park. 11:00 P.M...I...actually have a question. Forgive me if I am overstepping my boundaries, but I trust you are keeping the details of all this to yourself?"
He laughed, both impressed and annoyed by her ability to needle him. "All they know is that we're here to get the evidence. They do not know from whom...they don't even know you're here. I'm guessing they think that Jack still has it, from their limited knowledge."
A relieved sigh could be heard on the other end of the phone line. "Good, can't have this compromised in any way, and the possibility of a loose mouth…"
"Precisely why I didn't share the information with them. But I'm curious, who do you think they might be talking to?"
"I didn't say they would. But when you have something as important as Gabriella on the line, any negative outcome is magnified. I just hoped you were smart enough to take precautions."
"Si, si, I understand. I'll see you at 11, alone."
The line went dead, and he put the phone back in his pocket, thinking about what she had said.
This did need to go as smoothly and efficiently as possible, the evidence going from Suzuki to them without interruption, Gabriella going from them to Suzuki, then both parties going their separate ways without interference. It was a simple enough plan.
Turning, he walked back through the sliding glass door into the main room of the hotel.
"We have a plan?"
"Si, Rafael, we have a plan. We'll get the evidence by tonight, and leave by tomorrow night. Rápido y eficiente."
"Good. Think I can go get a beer?"
"...I don't see why not. London is a big enough city. Just stay close to the hotel."
Aiko Izumi had been beautiful, a kind of frail beauty, delicate like the lace that had adorned her wedding dress, like she was one with the sunlight when she would walk down the beach at their home in Tottori, gazing at the sky as though she expected it to open up and consume her.
Maybe one day it would have, for as sure as the days had stretched in without her, she was the only one he could fathom being accepted by the heavens so readily. A kind, gentle woman, who would stop and smell the flowers she saw, raise her hands up and smile like the world was perfect, and just the way she would wipe that little bit of ice cream off her face when she finally closed the lid…
She didn't eat ice cream anymore.
Neither did he.
It was as though she had taken the good side of him, the better side, the side that had fallen in love with her, to the grave, like a fragment of himself lying beside her in that smooth blackwood coffin, as what was left behind stared down with everyone else, stared at the ugly representation of death, at the empty shell of a person still looking like that had in life, but without the light of the soul shining through.
What was left behind?
Who was he now?
He was a man sitting in a bar in London with a full glass of beer that he hadn't even touched, wearing an expensive suit, watching the rain start to fall outside.
Or maybe he was a man imagining all the ways that he could torture the woman that had gotten his wife murdered.
Did it really matter?
To part of him it did, the part that still wanted that title, that power of the position that was dangling in front of him, the part that was willing to risk coming to another country to fix a problem, rather than resolving it comfortably from the couch of his flat in Tokyo.
It was a cruel twist of irony that the fracture in the fabric of his reality would be in London, the same place that had the dark stain of his wife's death on it.
Liz. That was her name, or at least all he knew of it.
Aiko had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. At least, that was what Sasaki had kept saying over and over. Aiko had just gotten in the wrong person's way, it was just an unfortunate circumstance, it hadn't been personal.
He had acquired an item of considerable value, a rare original Italian painting, for the head of another Yakuza sector, but he hadn't known that there had been more than one set of eyes directed to it, and the woman named Liz hadn't been prepared to let it go.
On a rare occasion, for reasons that he preferred not to remember, he had been out of the country, and he had left two guardsmen to watch over Aiko, as she had been staying in his personal home alone without him.
The only details he cared to remember about...was that the guardsmen that he had chosen were no longer capable of doing their job, so two others had been appointed from the Yakuza sector that the painting was going to without his blessing, and when Liz had slipped into his home in the dead of night to interrogate his wife about the painting, they had walked away with the assumption that she was a traitor, working against the Yakuza, and against them specifically.
She had been taken to their bosu, and despite her pleading, wasn't believed.
Human error was all it had taken, a misunderstanding of what had been going on, misinterpretation, or whichever word could be assigned to it, and a woman too ruthless in getting what she wanted to stop and consider the consequences.
He couldn't take revenge on human error, couldn't make it pay, not that the guardsmen responsible for accusing his wife of Yakuza treason were still living, nor were the men that had executed her. The entire lot of them had been sentenced to death by Sasaki the moment he had found out what happened.
But he could take revenge on Liz, on the woman that had threatened his wife, because if she hadn't been there, if she hadn't taken it upon herself to break into his home, Aiko might still be alive. The executioners and messengers to the executioners were all dead and buried. The architect was the only one left.
First, before anything could happen, this evidence problem needed to go away, and for that, they needed information.
"Izumi-san?"
"Gomen'nasai, Koji. Just thinking."
"I see. Do you have a plan?"
He stared at the man over the rim of his beer mug. "We need to know something first, anything about what is going on, or we're entering the situation buraindo, blind."
"Not going to be easy to get information...not with these circumstances. The police are watching everything very closely with the way that the evidence was stolen, and-"
But he wasn't listening to Koji anymore, wasn't even looking in his direction anymore, because all of his attention had been drawn to the man that had just entered the bar, the man with the very distinct hand tattoo, the Sinaloa shield...he was cartel.
The Cartel was in London, for the same reason they were in London, to fix the problem.
"I think we just found our way in. Kōun no megami, lady luck is on our side tonight, gentlemen."
The other two turned to look at the man, the same targeting expression crossing their faces that was on his, like a sniper finding their victim far earlier and with much more ease than expected.
It should not be too difficult to extract a little bit of knowledge from him, and he doubted that anyone would notice that he was missing too quickly.
Sending a look at Koji and Tsubasa, a look that outlined the entire plan silently, a plan of efficiency, a quick drag into an alley with a knife and a threat of death for noncompliance, not that they were going to let him live afterwards, he got two quick nods back, and then nothing else in the bar mattered besides what that man was doing with every second that passed until he got up to leave.
All he needed to do was call Sasaki to get the go-ahead for interrogation and elimination.
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The Scythe's Song