Treasure Island: Gemmy 🏝️ Fanfiction His eyes were of the d..

Treasure Island: Gemmy 🏝️ Fanfiction

His eyes were of the deepest brown in the world, so much so that they made me drop dead nervous. They were more expansive than the ocean we sailed across and were only surpassed in taking away my breath by the night sky itself. Even then those two things had something in common; the twinkle of starlight. He himself was mysterious and handsome, but it was his eyes that finished me off.

From the same beautiful palette of God, his dark hair fell down around his shoulders and cut across the jaw bone of his deepened cheeks. There he stood next to me, a picture of heaven on earth, looking out across the never ending water. His demeanor was every bit the description of his profession; a pirate.

“If you would, Madam, allow me the pleasure of your satiating my curiosity. Tell me Lass, why be a gentle thing like you sailing with the likes of us? Take no offence, but ye look quite the flower girl to me,” Sliver inquired.

I turned my face to the side, a questioning look in my eyes.

"Flower girl?"

Silver looked upwards towards the heavens for a moment as he thought. I chose to stare at his red-lined vest with the golden buttons intently, finding it quite unbearable to make eye contact. Silver eyed me up and down just as he had the stars above before answering me.

“Shouldn’t ye be with yer parents sewing petticoats and finery for the sea town’s homes?” he finally asked.

Should I tell him the truth?

“I’m an orphan,” I finally admitted.

The empty feeling from the pit of my stomach crawled up and radiated unpleasantly from the spine of my meagerly clothed back. The stars up in the sky served as no refuge for the look in my eyes, for the heat of blatant arousal ignited in my tender body in spite of the sensitive topic.

“I’m sorry to hear that, lass. Coincidental to say the least, I were eight when my father died."

He leaned against the ship’s sticky wooden railing as he spoke to me.

“The salt of the sea stings the fresh cuts of the flesh. The salt of memories stings the ancient cuts of the heart. I guess we have a lot more in common than I thought.”

He tried to lighten the mood, but we both stood farther apart than I would have liked, so I took a step closer.

“I was five when I lost my parents... How old are you now?” I asked with confidence.

Noticeably amused, he looked down at me with a small smile.

“I'm fifty-seven, Jennifer. And yourself?"

I rung my hands together, nervous to tell him.

"Eighteen"

His eyes were incredulous.

“But don’t worry, I can do the work of two boys my age,” I blurted out in the awkwardness, not even having a justification as to why.

“Oh lass, I'm not worried. Not much unnerves old Long John anymore. By the stars I tell you what, why don’t I show ya to you yer room?”

He rallied me to follow him and I did but at a distance. I followed in the shadow he cast on the deck as he led me to the galley of the massive ship.

“Here we are, Jennifer,” Long John alerted me.

There we were back in his work space with the yellow lantern hanging calmly from the low ceiling. There was a bed in the back side room of the galley, not terribly large, but adequate for one maybe two people.

I looked at the bed, then him, and then back at the bed.

“I can’t sleep with you,” I said, almost to myself more than him.

We had just met and he was 57 after all.

“Well of course you could sleep in the bunks with thirty other men,” Long John stated with a smirk.

I thought for a moment, panicking. Clearly I hadn't planned this treasure map business out well enough.

“I will sleep on the galley floor tonight if all is fine with you," I said finally.

With an indigent huff I gathered one of the cream colored blankets on his bed into my hands, and turning on my heels scampered off to the galley.

“Go 'head, lass. I wish you a good night’s rest. Just ya remember, if cold air or nightmares come to yer sleep, the bed is still open to you,” Long John said with a slight heat in his words.

"Oh, I think I'll be fine, thank you," I shouted back from the other room.

Laying my head down on the hardwood planking, thin blanket in hand, I took to my undertaking of well needed rest.

Long John came out into the galley with me, extinguishing the lantern soon as I was situated. He flashed me an amused little smile at my bedding arrangement as the light flickered out. His uneven steps on the hardwood floor grew quieter as he left. I heard him climb into his own bed in the other room. Silently, I went over the events of the day in my mind for quite some time before finally falling asleep.

Around one in the morning I woke up. The lantern had been re-lit. The blanket I took to bed with me was wrapped tightly around my body, but I was freezing and unable to sleep. Heat radiated off the glass dome of the lantern, but still my body shivered and shook. I didn’t know what to do about the cold other than bed down with Silver. He was asleep anyway, so it wasn’t too bad of an idea. Anything seemed better than my current condition.

I crept as quiet as I could over to Silver’s bed. The freezing floors cut at my bare feet. I looked back at the lamp that had been re-lit. That was funny, I thought I remembered him extinguishing it before I went to sleep. Distinctly I recalled the image of his face and the shadows that the yellow light had cast on him.

Now there he lay beneath the covers. His brown hair in a tangle on the ever so inviting sheets of the bed. I breathed as quietly as I could as I slipped beneath the covers. The heat of the bed was intoxicating as I slipped in further.

“Gemmy? Caved so easily?” His voice quietly mocked me.

“You did this on purpose,” I countered.

He turned in the bed to face me.

”I be a decent gentleman to you, Gem. Lit that old lantern just so you might stick easier to yer standards.”

It took me aback that he lit the lantern just for my own comfort.

“I’m sorry, Silver.”

“No harm done. What are ya doin’ way over there? Ya look half froze. Come here. I won’t bite,” he said pulling me closer.

My body slid across the cotton sheets as he yanked me in. Now I was nestled against his body with my leg obscenely across his. My face was mere inches from his and all was silent for a moment as he stared at me with deep eyes, until suddenly he let out a roar of laughter. He found the whole thing funny for some such reason that he laughed so hard he shook the bed and gave off such a commotion that my reputation was certainly all but ruined aboard the ship already. He wrinkled his nose and snapped his teeth together in the air teasingly. He could sense my concern at the situation, but I dared not move back away from his close embrace.

"Oh, don't worry Gem. I won't lay a hand on ya. Bright as flames yer cheeks are though. Oh, haha, bless me soul," he laughed, "Oh, get to bed, Gem. We has a long day 'head both us; even going to make you a bed for yerself tomorrow if ya like."

At that he pulled me in a little closer. It was oddly comforting somehow. He smelled of leather and deep, dark alcohols and I liked it.