lean on me

when you're not strong, I'll help you carry on. – tin/jett.

"I'm all alone in this world," the alien tosses her hair back like she's casually commenting on the weather.

Tin stares at the waves of red-gold, imagining them to be like quivering fire. A sea of fire, a frontier only the bravest pirates would dare to challenge. Jett is brave. Jett is strong. In order to keep up appearances, she's hiding what she is feeling. Everyone looks at her and thinks, wow, Jett is so tough. She can go on no matter what.

It's not good to be hiding an injury without treating it even if you're brave, though. The injury may get infected if denied any aid.

As a member of the crew Tin feels obligated to help her. "Are you alright?"

"Hm?" Jett the pirate looks at him, eyes wide. "Of course I'm alright. Why wouldn't I be alright?"

Well, her former best friend and partner died after redeeming his actions in the few seconds before he perished, leaving her the only person from her world here. Her voice is filled with tears and her eyes look like they'll turn into leaky spouts any second.

Oh, and let's not forget – like she said, she's alone.

Or not. Jett is, after all, a part of the crew, along with Kyrin and Valerie and Atarre and Black Bark and everyone else and pirates, contrary to popular belief, do not just abandon their own.

Tin sits next to her. "I don't know," he says instead, "you tell me."

"I have nothing to tell," Jett states, pulling her hat's brim down over her eyes. "Where's that monkey of yours?"

She's trying – desperately – to change the subject. "It's okay."

"What's okay?" she's a stubborn lass, this one.

"You know, to cry."

"Who says - !"

"I won't tell anyone," he promises.

She glares at him with those stubborn baby blues before the corners of her hard-pressed lips begin to quiver. A tear leaks out of one, then the other eye. "Promise?" she hiccoughs.

"Like I said, sweetheart," he pats her back and offers her both a shoulder to lean on and a handkerchief. "I won't tell anyone."

She sure doesn't cry like a helpless damsel in distress. Her sobs are controlled – if sobs can be controlled, Jett's got the way to do it – and she weeps silently.

"That's a lot of tears," he says, squeezing out his handkerchief after she returns it to him. "You were bottling it all up in you, weren't you?"

Jett wipes the last remnants of her tears away with the corner of her cape and manages to glare at him. "You promised," she reminds him.

He raises a hand and puts it over his chest. "Cannoneer's honour," he says solemnly. And he means it, too.

Jett is underappreciated. One day I shall write a fic for Burke/Jett. Title and summary's source comes from 'Lean on Me', by Bill Withers. Apparently the fan name for the Cannoneer dude is Tin. I like that name.

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