Title: Sort-of Decent Proposal
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Rating: PG
Length: 500w
Content notes: mention of violence (they're pirates)
Summary: Spanish Jackie makes Jim an offer. Set between 1x08 and 1x09.


"So what do you say?" Spanish Jackie asked. Her jabot was loosened, its lace askew.

Jim contemplated their empty glass. Rolled it between their palms; through its bottom, the view of the table below warped and bunched, then stretched like something alive. "It's a generous offer."

Jackie's laughter spluttered as she slapped the edge of the table. Everything shook under the impact. A salt cellar overturned. "Hell, yes, it is! Jackie doesn't make these kind of deals."

Jim pressed their lips together. Jackie certainly did not. Which raised the question: why now? Why here?

When Jackie sucked on the butt of her cigar, the ember brightened, picking out the lines in her face and sheen of sweat over her skin.

By this point in their life, Jim had killed eighteen men, crewed on three ships (survived one boarding and one sinking), and stalked a crocodile through the swamp for ten nights in order to retrieve Nana's favorite rosary. They ought to be able to haggle with Spanish Jackie.

Instead, they found themself stuck fast by indecision.

"Make an honest woman of me?" Jackie asked, pressing against Jim, shoulder to thigh to knee. Her wooden hand rested heavy in Jim's lap. Her cigar's smoke wreathed around their heads.

"21st time's the charm, huh?" Jim replied. Against their neck, Jackie rumbled with laughter.

"Something like that, sure."

Jim was tired, that much was true. Their heart had flipped on revenge: this time yesterday, it was all they could think about. The longing for it, the hunger for yet more, filled their nose and coated their tongue. Drove their hand.

Now, however, sitting here with Jackie, all that hunger seemed little more than a fever that had long since passed.

"It's tempting," Jim said.

"Jackie knows that."

"And I'm flattered."

"You better be."

A life on land, in one place, running Jackie's various concerns was probably exactly what Jim needed. Once past revenge, freed from its demonic grip, who wouldn't welcome the opportunity to settle down?

Not that life with Jackie would be quiet or boring—and that, too, was part of the offer's appeal. Jim knew they couldn't go from the life they'd been living to something still and safe. They might as well walk off a pier or go dance with gators.

"Need to be moving on," Jim said at last. Jackie's cigar was burnt all the way down to its damp, bitten end and her hair was slipping free from the grip of its pomade. In the candlelight, as the early morning birdcall sharpened and grew louder, she looked momentarily beautiful. As regal and imposing as ever, but softer, too. Jim cleared their throat. "I'm sorry—"

Jackie backhanded them across the face. "Don't you dare apologize."

"Right, right," Jim said, clutching their throbbing nose and tasting blood in their throat. "That's on me, that was stupid."

Jackie kissed them one last time, bit at the split in their lower lip, then shoved them away. "That jolly whapper of yours is still with Hands. Heading for Port Royal."

She didn't have to tell Jim any of that. Jim nodded, gathering up their hat before hurrying away into the damp dawn air, toward the sea and Olu.