Title: (name this fic and win a prize! not really. but if you think of a title I'd be happy to steal it from you)
Author:Hermit9 ![[info]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tPciMyhG6Nw206jao0E4URggUb4VygA-JkbItmydDOE5BDiPVEoJ8tyx4Z188gw0UI6UUrxh5GBpAut9QTBmHGSthcbgXgJ6Ky2XLPwcZQeg=s0-d)
herm42
Rating: PG
Fandom:PotC, Jack/Will
Warnings: lemon *snort*
Disclaimer: Not my characters, this never happened, just for fun. No offense intended toward skinny naked island native peoples.
A/N: This is my first PotC fic. It was supposed to be my first Viggorli. *shrug* That's the way it goes. I was totally expecting to get some bizarre obscure set of lyrics that I wouldn't even recognize away from the music, and then I ended up with one of the most common lines from one of the most common songs and I didn't know what to do with myself. I thought about trying to trade them in when Vig and Orli were laying there yawning, waiting for me to do something with them, but instead I traded in Vig and Orli. And the second attempt...came out a bit better. I think. I've only seen DMC and AWE twice each I think, so if I screw things up, that's why. That's really a whole lot of plot to hang on to. Also I sometimes confuse fanon and canon. And I apologise for the silliness. I'm sorry. I like my pirates funny. Prompt: Say you don't want no diamond ring, and I'll be satisfied. Tell me that you want the kind of things that money just can't buy. from Can't Buy Me Love, off A Hard Day's Night
It has been two months since Will took the helm of the Dutchman. Two long and lonely months. He has collected a good many sailors since then. That is what he does. The Dutchman does as he commands, but inevitably finds death wherever it goes. Will hasn't figured out yet if the Dutchman is the tool of Calypso and he is merely along for the ride, or if he is her puppet and the only reason he finds the lost souls everywhere he sails is that she is telling him where to go. Either way it's a rotten life, and it isn't long before joining the crew that the death-belayed mates discover it for themselves. No plunder, no payday, no purpose, no future. Two months after this new way of life began for him, Will and his crew find a small merchant vessel adrift in the shallows of a tiny archipelago bathed in a young sunset with a bright citrus palette. It bumps against the reefs, spins slowly, arching around to bottom out on a sand bar, then gets dislodged by a large swell and scrapes the reef again. It's masts are gone, trailing in the water behind it attached by the main lines like dangling innards. All is quiet. The small crop of islands appear virgin and indifferent. The Dutchman, seawater pouring from its scuppers, anchors along side the ship, and lines are tossed to bring it to. The dead are collected and lined upon the main deck of the Dutchman for their interrogation by its captain.
Most people don't know that Jones is dead, even months after the fact. Certainly the rumor had spread, but as Jones himself was more myth than man (and more fish than myth), the story of his demise was widely regarded as a new spin on the old tale. Entertaining, yes, but not to be regarded as fact, so that fact has gone unremembered. So it can be tiring when drowned and dead men line up on Will's deck, shivering in fear in the cold night, only to look up at their new captain and cock their heads in confusion. The most common retort is, 'You're not Davy Jones.' How can they be so sure? It is doubtful they were ever acquainted with that mollusk-faced rogue. If they lined up a handful of men plus Davy Jones and asked them to pick out the one most likely to captain the ship that sails to hell, they would probably guess correctly, but that doesn't mean that everyone in that occupation has to be so conspicuous. Will answers with as much patience as he has at the given moment. 'Yes, I know that. I am Will Turner. Jones is Dead, and I am his successor.' Or some permutation of that. This is good enough for some of them, and they continue to cower in fear. Some have questions. 'Well, am I dead?' To which he replies, 'No, not yet." 'Where do I go?' they ask then. Will gives them a choice if he can. 'Do I have to sign anything?' is oddly the next most common question. Will guesses it arises out of a familiar feeling of dread associated with signing one's name. Most times the men of the sea, pirates and the like, only have cause to fear like this (when someone isn't immediately trying to kill them) when they have to sign something; a contract that will bind them to their captain for seven long years, a marriage certificate to the wench he has inadvertently got begotten, learning to write his name under the threat of the sharp rulers of a man of the church or local headmistress, signing a confession under the threat of torture, only to be hanged the next day. 'Your word is your bond,' he tells them. Still some of them are not content to thank good fortune for allowing their souls to become the guests of such a compassionate shade. This minority, most often not sailors but statesmen and traveling officers of the court, demand they be returned to land at once, demand to speak to the Royal Navy officer in charge, accuse Will and his sneering crew of kidnapping, treason, anything lewd and dishonorable they can come up with because the fear in their hearts makes them fling the only weapons they have blindly at what they know to be true but cannot accept. They are dead. Will doesn't offer those men a choice. He isn't obliged to. The moment they begin their tirade Will simply walks away. They collapse on the deck, lifeless, and spend the remainder of their voyage in a pile in the brig.
After two months, Will knows what to expect. His sailors return with ten frightened men in bloody rags. What he wasn't expecting that day was the outline of a familiar ship to circle around the nearest spit of land silhouetted against the dying sun. The Pearl approaches at a worrying speed, and he hears a shout arise from the deck of the Pearl and a great splash as the anchor is tossed onto the reef. Will's crew scrambles to drop sail and attempt to turn away from the impending collision. Will does nothing but watch.
The Pearl approaches, and the sound of creaking boards can be heard as the anchor chain goes taut. The bowsprit's of the ships miss each other by a fraction, then glance and scrape as they come together. A shattering crash, and most of the crew are swept off their feet with shouted curses. Someone falls overboard.
Jack teeters up the bowsprit of the Pearl, leaps to the deck of the Dutchman, and is immediately surrounded by several angry undead sailors with drawn weapons. Will can only stare at him heavily. The Dutchman crew wait impatiently, creating a pointy circle around the pirate. Will takes a steadying breath and then approaches with malicious sloth. His crew stand down partially to let Will into the circle, but for a long tense moment no one says a word.
Jack breaks it, of course. "Lad," Jack rumbles with a silver grin and outstretched arms.
Will is torn. He knew this day would come. Though he didn't expect Jack's to be the first familiar face he would see upon the Dutchman, he knew he would see him again and have to make a decision. A sharp sour pain creeps into the corner of his jaw, his mouth waters weakly and he bites down on it. Two months without a heart in your chest and no comfort but watered down rum make the decision quicker and easier than he ever expected.
"Jack," he says weakly, and grabs him.
Jack laughs, smacks him roughly on the back several times. A few of the Dutchman crew titter nervously until Will finally lets him go.
"Elizabeth, is she aboard?" He suspects she is not. Will looks to the Pearl but all he can see is a few crew leaning, more sort of peeking over the bow. Ragetti spots him, grins, and waves shyly.
"Who?"
Will blinks.
"Oh! Elizabeth. You're um..." Jack makes a vague hand motion in the air. "No I'm afraid not, Lad."
"What news do you have of her then? Is she well? Where has she gone?"
"Oh don't worry about a thing, Love. She's all taken care of. Saw her just last week. Looks well enough. Color in her cheeks. Keeping herself fit."
"Did you bring a message from her?"
"Em. No. Except that....she had a wonderful time...on your um...honeymoon, as it were, and she can't wait to see you again," Jack says with little credibility.
"Jack," Will says, holding him by the shoulders. Jack seems more interested in his surroundings than in the person holding on to him. "Did you really see her?"
"Hm?" His attention is drawn back to Will's face. "Of course! Like I said. She's...um...well." Jack can't help but conjure the unfortunate image of poor Elizabeth hunched over a fence post, retching. He grimaces.
Will lets him go and wanders in thought, down the steps from the bow. "Two months and not a word from her yet Jack. I thought she probably wouldn't want to be on the ship, but I thought she might visit, just once, or write."
"She's busy these days, Will. And you're not the easiest bloke to find." Took Jack two months even with a compass that takes him wherever he wants to go. He just didn't like it when he would open the compass and it would spin and spin and spin, until he turned it on it's side whereupon it would simply point down.
Will stares out to sea, the dead men waiting on the deck on their knees forgotten for the moment. The three ships bump against each other in the lapping waves.
"And I didn't come to commiserate, really." Will turns and looks up at him. "I have something for you," he says with a gleam in his eye that Will has seen before. It's worrying, but endearing all the same.
Jack bounds up the bowsprit of the Dutchman, slips on the wet wood and catches the Pearl. He scrambles up onto the bow of the Pearl and returns a moment later with a sack over one shoulder. As he walks one foot in front of the other across the bowsprit again, he points to the same on the Dutchman. "You should clean that. S'dangerous." Jack jumps and lands on the deck with a clatter. "Just a few things I found in the woods on my last business trip," he says gruffly, and upturns the sack to dump it on the deck. A shimmering pile of silver, gold, and precious stones now clutters the deck and the eyes of the Dutchman crew grow wide and feral.
"What is all this Jack?"
"Just a little something to chase the clouds away."
"You never used to grant me any favors before."
"You never used to be the Devil of the Sea before."
"Captain."
A two toned "Aye," escapes the throats of Jack and Will and they turn to the source of the hail, then to each other with matching scowls and then back again.
"What do we do with this lot?" the quartermaster gruffs impatiently.
Will nods with fatigued resignation. "Line them up."
A waterlogged and wounded man trembles violently on the boards, the first in line. The quartermaster, a man with a great crescent scar through the middle of his face, sepia teeth and an animal smell to his huge brown body, approaches the terrified sailor and steps both boots squarely in front of him. "Welcome to the Flying Dutchman," he barks loudly. The sailor doesn't look up, but his face crumples a little. "The captain wants to speak wif you. You'll face him and do as you're told." The man nods, still looking at the deck. Will approaches and unsheathes his sword slowly, deliberately. Meanwhile, Jack has crept down to the deck and stands just next to William like a smiling viceroy. Will lets the point of his sword touch the wood in front of the sailor and the man finally looks up. He's shaking badly, but his eyes go from fearful and repentant to just fearful and confused as they reach Will's face. Then his head cocks to one side. Will has been doing this only two months and he is already sick of it. The man opens his mouth to speak and Will puts the edge of his sword very close to that mouth.
"No. You are not yet dead. Davy Jones, on the other hand, is. I am Captain William Turner, his successor. You have a choice to make as Calypso has bestowed a gift upon all men who die at sea. You can die now and this boat shall carry you to your final resting place, or you can join my crew and work aboard the Dutchman until such time as you feel you are ready to leave this Earth."
Jack turns with his hands behind his back and faces the other direction, leaning in to Will to mutter in his ear without being seen doing so. "He was quite dead 'alf an hour ago. Why did you tell him he wasn't?"
Will whispers back, "Pirates are not known for their grasp of the metaphysical, Jack. It's easier to explain the choice if they think they're still alive." Jack nods in understanding and turns back around.
The man is shivering again and looking at Will, then Jack, then at the quartermaster and back to Jack. Jack smiles cheerily and shrugs at him.
"N-n-n-o. I'll work."
"Right then. We can use a mate in the galley. Don't get in Javier's way and don't ask for anything." The rest of the sailors also choose to delay the inevitable and Will leaves it to the quartermaster to assign work for them all. Their mortal wounds close behind tight scars and the crew summarily ignore the kneeling men and return to their work as if nothing particularly odd had happened. The new recruits stumble to their feet, look at their whole flesh and wander dazedly toward the cabin. They have a full crew now with the addition of these men, more than they need to run smoothly, and not a single empty bed. Anyone who wants to stay now will have to earn their limbo and send another man to hell.
"You know Lad, that naive navy man back there caused me to think of something. I think I know why you're not enjoying this role as much as you could. Will Turner's Locker. Doesn't exactly strike fear in me 'eart, Lad. If you know what I mean."
Will scowls at him as he makes his way slowly back up to the wheel. "What are you suggesting?"
"Why not pick up the torch, seamlessly?"
"Call myself Davy Jones?"
"Why not?"
"If that doesn't invite mental instability I don't know what would."
The Dutchman soon releases the small merchant boat and sinks her, and the crew make ready to haul anchor with speed and efficiency. Not a grumble or complaint audible above the breeze, not a misplaced look of gall from the crew under the heavy yellow sun.
"You run a tight ship, Lad. I have to say I'm impressed," Jack says from somewhere behind Will. His voice sounds oddly echoey. Will turns to see him peering curiously into a barrel, the lid of which he holds in the air above his head.
"It's no real mystery. Any offense that would get you thrown of at the next port on any other ship is punishable by death here, since you're either here or dead. They either behave or die. Or at least learn not to get caught."
"I shall have to remember that," he says absently, as if he wasn't listening enough to remember that he is having a conversation at all.
Will stands a moment, unsure what to do, then finally finds his tongue. "Did you want to stay a while, Jack?"
Jack abandons the barrel and starts delicately lifting a sheaf of canvas to examine the rigging beneath. "Em. Does it still go..." Jack turns back to Will and moves a flat hand across an invisible sea, and then plunges it down into the depths.
"Yes."
"I see. I would have thought that would be less comfortable now that the crew doesn't have gills."
"It's intention was to keep the mortals out of our hair." he says pointedly. "It's still just a ship. If we were boarded by too many men, the ship could be taken. Down is the only safe place for me."
"Oh," he says again and continues his weird investigation of the premises. "But us breathers, can, below the waves?"
"If necessary," he says warily. "Why?"
Jack looks up, wide-eyed and innocuous. "Oh, no reason. Just curious, mate. Fascinating ship, The Dutchman."
Will reconsiders his offer and decides that since Jack didn't accept initially that maybe he should just forget it. "Well, Jack, it was nice seeing you."
"Aye, Lad," he says and straightens, brightens. "I suppose I'll be getting on my way and letting you get on yours. See you soon though!"
And with that Jack bounds back up to the bow in a few long strides and slides down the bowsprit of the antsy, rocking Pearl. Will didn't get the chance to ask him what he meant by 'soon' nor consider why that implication disturbed him. The ships knocked heads again before both crews nervously and without prompting steered them to opposite directionals and opened sail.
'Soon' turned out to be about a month later. Not an unreasonable estimate of 'soon' to be sure, especially on the ocean, but Jack neglected to mention frequency, and roughly monthly became habit after that. Jack prowls the Caribbean like a vulture these days, but he isn't scavenging. He's an ambush predator. And Will of all people seems to be his prey, though he can't imagine why. The Dutchman sails, plucking the dead from the sea. A bad storm, a stranded vessel on a coral reef, fallen sailors that bleed in the water from gunshot or blade; wherever Jack finds death, he lays in wait, anchoring the Pearl just off the beaten path. Then when the Dutchman rises to collect her cargo, Jack pounces. He swaggers on deck like he owns it and talks Will's ear off for an hour or so, makes a nuisance of himself poking curious fingers where they are uninvited, leaves behind a selection of goodies from his latest ventures, and then he's off again, and Will doesn't see him again until the next time tragedy strikes.
It's faintly annoying. Will finds it irritating that he, as the captain of a mythical ship empowered by destiny and what have you, cannot fulfill his role fast enough to escape the continued impositions and molestations of one lucky pirate. How he finds these disasters before Will, is the real question. He's obviously not creating them. Jack, for all that he is a pirate, doesn't go around killing innocent people just so he can have a chat with his old friend.
If he could get a handle on Jack - that is, if he could find a way to avoid him a little more often, he'd be a little more content, he thinks. Maybe if they can get a break sometime soon, a day or two free of death. And maybe if he could get Javier to stop putting lemon in everything. He likes lemon, and he's acquainted with the idea of citrus preventing scurvy, but really. Lemon curry?
Though maybe not. He keeps gnawing at these little irritations because they seem like they might be movable, he might have a chance of changing them, whereas the hard core of his unhappiness is simply not plastic. His life is missing. Every day is the same out here except when Jack shows up, but it really serves only to remind him of how slowly the days pass between visits, and how infinitely the time he has left stretches out before him. If he didn't come maybe the days would fade in and out and together more smoothly, and he wouldn't notice the passage of time.
Time does pass though. He can't say even in hindsight that it went quickly, but it's still hard to believe that as Will calls for the ship to breach the water's surface this afternoon, it has been over a year since he left Elizabeth on that beach.
~*~
A year has passed, and a lot has happened in that time, but the sea never changes, nor the sky. The Caribbean is every bit the glorious beauty Jack has loved his whole life. The sun begins to sink like it has done since the beginning of time over that water and behind a pale frock of translucent clouds that look juicy and pregnant with yellow light. The only thing marring the natural beauty before Jack is the giant ship sat low in the water, covered in sickly green seaweed and bone-like ribs of ancient wood. Too bad that monstrosity is his destination and not the decadent horizon.
The Dutchman is dead silent. Suppose that shouldn't be all that surprising. Considering. Jack climbs the ladder looking up at every rung, then peers ever so carefully over the line of the deck through a scupper big enough to lose his helmsman through. No one on deck in visual range. Granted there is a bucket not two feet away from the scupper obscuring most of his view, but for that view, the coast must be called clear. Over the railing as quiet as he can, he hangs his baggage off the side out of sight and tries to conceal himself as well behind the nearest scrap of wood. The crew is there after all. They move into Jack's line of sight now in quiet sloth, retying the unfurled rigging, as if just woken and rubbing their eyes, but their eyes, though tired, are not eyes that have slept. A few new faces today, a few that have been here for much longer. He thinks that's Bootstrap's back end he sees doubled over the deck scraping barnacles. Though the idea of sailing a ship that can submerge completely is high on Jack's list of 'Things to Do Before I Get Married', he thinks he will probably not attempt it with the Pearl. Barnacles on the deck? Poor Will. This really is hell.
Jack creeps off toward the stern.
Around the corner of the cabin there is more activity, and Jack is perilously close to it. The dead-eyed mates all heave sullenly at the capstan. He might be too late if Will was just getting ready to shove off.
"Jack." Will says behind him and Jack jumps a little. He always says it that way. An accusation.
Jack feels he should throw up his hands and admit to being Jack. He does. "Yes!"
The rest of the mates turn their attention to the exchange. A few of the newer men look a little nervous at the sudden appearance of a gaudily dressed and decorated pirate but take their cues from the veterans and go back to work.
"I thought I would see you soon. It's been over a month."
"Yes. Well. Been busy." Not, 'I've missed you, Jack' or 'How are you, Jack? Feeling well?'
"Jack." Will scowls and scans the ocean. "Where's the Pearl?"
"Out...on...maneuvers."
"Jack..." he says again, "We must be 20 miles from anywhere. How on Earth did you get here?"
"How do I get anywhere, Love?" he says with a grin and a flourish, hoping to dismiss it.
Will scowls again and goes to the starboard railing and looks over the side. Jack does the same just to reassure himself that his craft is still there. Far down below, a bony, brown, almost naked island native sits grinning a gap-toothed grin in the bottom of a flimsy-looking sea canoe. Will looks at Jack. Jack smiles and says nothing.
Will spots his bag of goodies hanging over the side next.
"Jack, really. I don't know why you want to give me these things, but I don't need them."
"Oh I've brought with me only liquid assets this time, Will," he says with a grin and pulls the bag up to the deck. It clunks and clinks against the wood in a familiar way and Jack pulls out one of several lovely bottles filled to the rim. He didn't even have any on the way. Will seems not only just disinterested but wholly despondent.
Jack tries to change the subject a little. "Say. Shouldn't you be ferrying?" When Jack's compass pointed North by Northwest for the first time in ages instead of down, he thought it was odd, but decided to take the opportunity.
Will blinks once, slowly. "The sea is calm," he explains in a voice as soft and melancholy as the breeze.
"Captain."
Jack opens his mouth but stifles the automatic reply when Will glares at him.
"What."
The bosun approaches Will, and Jack looks the hearty man over once. Last time he was here the bosun was a tall gaunt man with red hair, not this chap. "Do you want me to drop anchor again or should we keep hauling?"
Will pauses a moment.
"Come on Lad," Jack says softly. "One year down. Let's have us a little brannigan."
Will sighs and nods. "Drop it," he tells the bosun who stalks off and barks the order.
Will gathers a truly mammoth coil of rope over one shoulder near Jack and starts to walk away with it towards its hook on the gunwail.
Jack follows at a skip. "What happened to the old bosun. The one with his head on fire."
"Left," Will says as he drops the rope with a grunt and continues his work.
Jack stops and thinks about that a moment. "You mean voluntarily?"
"Yes."
He doesn't say it because he knows when he's only being tolerated, but what he got out of that is that the red-headed chap felt he would be better off dead than on this boat. Jack scratches his head. It's not a pretty boat but it has to be better than dead. Will looks at him out of the corner of his eye as he passes by him again headed toward the bow.
Jack leans over the railing of the Dutchman, puts a finger to his mouth, and whistles. The tiny brown man climbs aboard spryly, carrying his little boat on his back, dripping seawater. Will stops what he is doing to watch him climb aboard and assess the strange little man who is still grinning. The entire trip as he rowed the boat he grinned at Jack until all Jack could do was stare back at him and the spaces where his teeth were missing in mild horror.
"This, is my helmsman, Beckalicky," Jack says in an official manner.
The man turns his broken smile to Will and repeats his name which sounds only vaguely like what Jack said. "Bvackalikini," he says.
"Bavakili," Jack returns.
"Bvackalikini."
"Bacadikidi."
"Bvackalikini"
"Baknik-Bavinik-Bikini-"
"Jack," Will interrupts.
"Hm?" He looks to Will with cheerful inquiry.
"Open the rum."
"Right!"
~*~
What Will is lacking in celebratory spirit, his crew make up for. They dig up a great iron stand and a platter and build a fire right on the deck from bales of dry seaweed and old broken timbers. Jack reminds himself that it's for the greater good and passes the rum around freely, keeping back only two bottles of the finer stuff for Will and himself. The boys have a grand time kicking their heels up for the first time in who knows how long. Someone nips into Jones' old chamber and starts playing drinking songs on the pipe organ with debatable success. They are accompanied on pots and pans by the galley crew. Bvackalikini finds a spot to sit on the deck and does so the entire night, grinning at no one an no thing in particular. In fact he does not even seem aware of the ruckus around him. No one witnesses him eating, drinking, or visiting the head, which makes Will nervous. Will glances at the little man many times during the evening, just to keep an eye on him, and only once did he catch him not grinning. When he did, however, Bvackalikini looked him straight in the eye and grinned big and bright and yellow. He had half a lemon stuffed behind his lips. Will could only shudder internally, lick his own gums, and turn back to his own business.
As the darkness becomes complete and the stars start to streak before their drunken eyes, the crew begin to dance and roughhouse dangerously near the fire and the rails, though the only one on board with life or limb to lose stays back a bit, watches, laughs. Will doesn't participate even that much, and after eating and drinking and cheating at cards with few of the drunker mates, Jack gives in and sits next to him at the stern with a beam between his knees.
Jack squeals and jumps up. In the spot where he had chosen to sit down was a perturbed looking star fish slugging itself into a crevice.
"I thought the curse was gone."
"Try telling that to the sea life," Will breathes.
Jack pries the slippery, suckery thing off the deck and tosses it into the water before sitting down again, cautiously letting his feet dangle above the black waves.
After a moment or so in companionable silence, listening to the men tell butchered versions of bawdy stories, Jack clears his throat and speaks. "I lied," he says and digs in his pocket.
Will looks at him with his sad, dispassionate eyes, and watches his busy hand. Jack pulls out a beautiful gold brooch that looks like it is worth more than everything else Jack has plundered in the last year. He hands it to Will.
Will sighs, knows it won't do any good, and says, "I don't really need any of it Jack. None of us do. I mean..." he hands it back to him and flicks an industrious little snail from the wood into the water, "They can't take it with them."
Yes but I need you to hang on to it, Jack thinks behind his solemn face. We're going to need it later, and a friendly ship that never docks and that can hide under water is a much safer place for buried treasure than even an island that can't be found unless you already know where it is. But that is nothing Will needs concern himself with. "Will, the only thing any of us has that is worth anything at all, is time. And that is something I played a part in separating you from. If there is one debt I owe that I fully intend to repay, it's that one. With interest."
"Jack you can't give me my life back. And it's not your fault that this happened."
Jack doesn't believe either of those things but has no rebuttal. "What do you want then? Surely there's something you...miss?"
"Of course there is. Everything! I miss everything. I miss real food, and I miss my forge, I miss music, and I miss the company of people who aren't dead. And I miss Elizabeth."
"I daresay she misses you too lad."
"Everyone I've cared about is gone. I'm alone. I've come to realize in just a year out here that Davy Jones was not evil, unless I believe myself to be evil. It is so easy to become bitter out here...Why hasn't she come?"
"Elizabeth? She's been busy, Lad." Jack bites his lip. "Very busy," he mutters to himself remembering the creative ways she snarled demonic curses at him and caused typically safe and inanimate objects to fly across the room at him just a few months ago. Poor Bakadooki. He didn't deserve the kick in the teeth, not that it could have ruined his smile, but still, he was just trying to help with the contractions. "It's just that she hasn't wanted to burden you, Lad."
"How would you know?"
"I've been checking in on her, keeping the home fires burning, as it were."
Will's face changes and he looks like he could spit fire. "Jack so help me if you-"
Jack puts up a defensive hand. "You've nothing to fear from me with your darling missus, Will. Last time I strayed that way I ended up digested, remember?"
A voice rises behind Jack and Will and they both look. Recognition sparks across Bvackalikini's face suddenly and he looks at Will and starts jabbering in an island dialect that Will clearly and luckily doesn't understand a word of. Sparrow's eyes get large and he turns to his helmsman and slices a finger across his throat. Bvackalikini stops talking and Jack gets up and takes him aside and says lowly to him, "I thought I told you to keep your mouth shut about you-know-what. He doesn't know and that is the way the missus wants to keep it for now. And I happen to agree with her, this time. So just you be quiet!"
Jack checks in on her and the little one a lot. Elizabeth's eyes are always sad when he sees her, but they warm up after a while. His own heart aches in that direction just a little. But more in other directionals. He can make her smile at least now and then. And the boy, well, he's a pushover. Or he has gas.
Jack wobbles back toward the railing, glancing back at the traitorous native now seated again on the deck placidly grinning.
"It's only been a year Jack. I don't know if I can survive. And what if it happens to me too? If ten years go by and I go to that beach and she isn't there? What if she finds someone else, what if there is already someone else in her life, Jack? I'd never know. Why won't she see me? You manage to get here. And what happens after that day? Another ten years? I can't do it. I just can't."
Jack smiles a little whimsically thinking, there is someone else in her life. His name is Will. It's funny that the fact that he is doomed to sail the sea endlessly and deathlessly only seeing his wife one day every ten years is secondary to the idea that Elizabeth might love someone else. He's so dumb. So adorably dumb. It hasn't even occurred to him that the reason he hasn't seen her might have to do with their wedding night. Then it occurs to Jack that maybe no one ever told him where babies come from...best not to ask though. "Lad I told you I owe you and that I intend to pay up. And I have a plan, if you must know. I don't know how long it will take, but the one thing you've got right now is time."
"But Elizabeth doesn't."
Jack tosses his head in silent semi-agreement and takes a large gulp of rum to fill in for what should have been a reply. Will guesses that whatever it is Jack isn't saying has something to do with his ulterior motive for all these visits. He doesn't know what it is, but he doubts it is purely to make up for Will's loss.
Jack is starting to feel the drink weighting him down and pulls his legs from the rail and reclines against a tall coil of cable in a nook behind the wheel. Will watches him and looks like he is missing his mother with the look he gives Jack as he tucks himself into his cubby.
Will shivers suddenly. There is a cold wind sweeping in from the gulf. There will be a hurricane in a few days, this lull will be over for Will, and Jack will need to find shore much sooner than that. Jack is looking glassy-eyed, but sincere, for Jack. He stares Will in the eye for a good many minutes and then undoes the buttons of his big coat. A graceful hand reaches up and twirls once in gentle entreaty. Will twists to look him more squarely in the face, almost directly behind him, but his head spins a little and he has to put down his own bottle. Almost empty anyway, and then it's very easy with two free hands to crawl to him. Jack pats the wood gently next to where he sits. There isn't actually room for Will to sit there, so he crouches at first, in front of him, and to his surprise, Jack puts down his bottle too, actually lets it go, (Will wonders if he's ever left rum unfinished before) and takes Will's hands, spreads his knees and pulls Will down to the deck to sit in front of him between his legs.
This feels intensely strange. This sudden closeness. Not that they haven't been in close quarters before, but it isn't the body contact that is different, and it certainly isn't the rum. There is just something odd about having your back pressed up against another man's crotch. Granted it is Will's back and not Will's crotch that is involved, so he doesn't think he has that much right to complain, but Jack doesn't complain either, and Jack is the one that got them into this position. Will is rather drunk, he is realizing, and he gives up thinking about it because Jack is warm and Will is comfortable against him, which is a rare thing.
It starts out plainly like this. Will's feet throb vaguely in his boots from standing all day. His legs stretch out flat against the deck in front of him. Jack has picked up his bottle again and rests it on Will's hip. Jack brings the bottle to his own lips and then it sloshes down in front of Will, who takes a drink too. Jack sighs into the back of Wills head. Will feels Jack's breath through his hair, then he feels the soft end of his nose rub twice left and right, then more hot breath. Will in charge of the bottle now, Jack's fingers get curious again, and he can feel Jack looking over his shoulder as his hand comes up to touch a ring on Will's little finger.
"Dad gave it to me to give to Elizabeth when I see her. Not sure it will fit," he says in unnecessary explanation.
Jack doesn't respond. His thumb leads the way then and its rough pad scrapes gently over a burn scar on Will's wrist and another large one on his forearm. Will almost feels compelled to explain each one, as if Jack is appraising him, but he stifles the urge realizing it is just the rum that wants to talk, and he doesn't want Jack to think he wants him to stop. It's actually nice to be touched. Even if it is Jack. He hadn't realized it until now, but no one ever touches him, not even his crew, if they can avoid it. They don't need to for the most part, but they will touch each other. Camaraderie develops even in the dead, but not for him. Perhaps they think his curse is contagious, or maybe he just doesn't let them get any closer. Now that he stops to think about it, he doesn't mind at all laying here with Jack, and he feels himself relax down those last few notches and sag against him. Jack sighs again.
A thought occurs to Will suddenly. "Did Hector steal the Pearl again? Is that why you came in a canoe?"
"Oh no no no. We buried the hatchet as it were," he says with a little wry in is eye. Oh how Hector wailed, he remembers fondly. "Patched things up, you might say." He tests out the new ache in his right shoulder from the little lead ball that sits there still. Keeps forgetting to get that removed. "He was doing quite well last I knew. Has his own ship now, one he likes even better than the Pearl."
"Better than the Pearl?" Will says with unveiled skepticism.
"He seem to think so."
Jack's voice rumbles beneath Will when he talks. This too is comforting in a way. Jack is touching him again after another swig of his drink. His hand idly comes up and leads his arm tightly across Will's chest which is just nice in so many ways, fingers tucking beneath Will's other arm. His fingers are cold there but warm up quickly. A few dizzy moments later, the fingers are walking back up and find the open front of Will's shirt. Will tenses a little, but the brush of his fingertips on that skin is heavenly and he can't capitulate at all. Jack's knuckles brush the long scar once, then sensitive fingertips go back to it, and finally a hesitant palm lays there, warm against his air-cooled skin. Feels good and melancholy at the same time. How many nights has he spent with his hand there over that aching spot?
"It's not there, Jack," Will says just loud enough for Jack to hear him and no one else.
Jack's fingers curl a little, his thumb moving over the scar once more. Then they travel up to his shoulder and rub gently as if rubbing away a regretted blow. "Just hard to believe. You look alive."
"I think I am alive."
Jack hesitates before saying it, but lacks the self reflection to judge not to say it in the end. "I can't imagine not being able to feel my heart race when I sail, or skip a beat, or pound in my ears." As he speaks, his fingers go idly to the cord around Will's neck, twirling it around a finger. His other hand brushes the hair away from the back of Will's neck. Will feels Jack's moustache on his neck and the resulting shiver up his spine. "I can't imagine having a part of me missing." His lips brush Will's neck at the hairline and Will knows that his heart is racing though he can't feel it in his chest. Wherever it is it is responding to these unaccustomed touches and making him dizzy on top of the rum. The lips move up, and part, and then kiss his neck which begins to weaken Will to a slump, and at the same time, Jack's fingers are tracing lower down the line of Will's necklace. Another soft and electrifying kiss, another stroke of fingers on his deeply rising chest, and suddenly Will tenses completely, becomes alert and unyielding.
Will narrows his eyes and looks at the hand so generously caressing his skin and then takes the wrist in his own. The action causes the fingers that were tangled around the necklace cord to pull up and reveal the key dangling below. "Jack." Will holds his wrist hard and does not allow any sudden movement from Jack who stops breathing behind him. Sourness rises in Will's chest at the thought that this was his motivation this whole year. That every kind word and generous offering has been a trust maneuver, that the rum is meant to dispel his inhibitions and care, and that the gentle hands were meant only to mould him into supplication. He fears suddenly and hotly for Elizabeth, for himself.
It is a slow movement, but Jack's fingers release the cord carrying the key, and Jack's other hand comes up to participate finally, smoothing the hair away from the side of Will's stony face.
"I'm just trying to make you feel better, Love. Not steal your heart."
Wills elevated breathing starts to slow again, because he sounds honest in his ears, though he wonders how you can even tell without a heart to guide you. Jack's wrist slips from his grip and he takes Will bodily but gently in his arms and shifts him a little to one side. Gravity works against Will's wariness and presses him down against Jack's chest, and Jack doubles that pressure with his arms. Those curious fingers are at work again but stay away from his chest and scar and the key and instead thread through his hair. Will squirms a little and pulls an uncomfortable limb out from between their bodies and lets it rest behind Jack's back, and his other hand wraps around the key at his breast.
It isn't long before everything conspires, the rum, the smoke, the quiet ocean, and Jack's warm solidity beneath him to put Will under, and he starts to slip away into tenuous dreams. Jack strokes his hair continuously, thinking, and Will is asleep in his arms or nearly when he once again can't quite tell if the things he wants to say are a good idea or not. "Will..." he whispers. Will makes no indication he heard anything, just breathes softly against his chest. "I know I said that I'm going to fix this, and I have a plan, I know exactly what I need to do to give you your life back, Love, and it isn't that I don't think it will work, it will, I know it will. But if it doesn't. If, for some reason, nine years from now, Elizabeth isn't waiting for you...I was thinking that maybe you could...leave the Dutchman in the capable hands of your dad, or the even larger and much more grizzly hands of your enormous quartermaster, and I was thinking you could come join me crew on the Pearl. You can be first mate if you want. Or Carpenter if you'd prefer, never had one of them really. You wouldn't want for anything there, Love."
Jack hears the words coming from his mouth and feels hot in the face realizing how it would sound to Will. But he is asleep. The wind tries to blow Will's hair between his softly parted lips and Jack moves it back, and then bends at his middle to plant a kiss on his forehead. Will makes a funny little petulant whine and flails a hand to his face, batting Jack's little braids away from his nose. Jack smiles. "Sorry, Love," he says and lays his cheek atop his head.
~*~
Will wakes to a shock and shouts in surprise. A cold and damp shock, and he bolts upright finding himself laying atop an equally startled, wet pirate. They had slipped down in the night, slouching uncomfortably yet clinging to each other for support, Will remembers, rolling, and then finally sliding down to lay almost fully reclined in their cubby, but not enough to keep Jack's neck straight. Will slept the rest of the night with his legs over Jack's lap, head on his shoulder. Comfortable, warm. Now he is wet. Will shakes the water from his face angrily and hears a few chuckles. He looks up through his dripping hair at a handful of his crew grinning obstinately at him, none in possession of a bucket. He stares them down with every bit of malice he feels right now, interrupting his sleep, his comfort, cutting short his dream of Elizabeth. The laughter dies and his mates slink off down the deck and try to look busy.
Jack groans beneath him and blows water from his face. Will lets his anger ebb away and then turns to Jack who looks like he's still drunk. Will wipes more water from his eyes and sticks a finger in his ear to remove it from there as well. "When you see Gibbs," he says, "tell him I apologize."
Truth is Will feels better this morning than he has in a long time, despite the slight hangover, despite being wet, and he thinks he has Jack to thank for it. Will stands and helps up his friend, steadying him with a hand to his shoulder that doubles as a squeeze of thanks.
A fog has enveloped the ship in the night. It isn't heavy, but on the ocean with nothing in front of you, miles of even a thin fog is complete. It's a subtle warning.
"Jack. You need to get to shore before the weather comes."
"Aye Lad," he grumbles, and Bvackalikini already has the little boat in the water ready to go and is climbing stealthily over the side. Will turns deliberately away from the loincloth. Jack shakes cold water from his jacket. "But there's one thing I want to say before I go." Jack steps up onto the Dutchman's slippery railing. To Will's surprise he doesn't fall. "I meant what I said. I'm going to fix this." He waves a hand vaguely in the air. "So no more of this pouting and crying like a little girl." Will smiles at him and purses his lips silently. "It's time for us to roll up our sleeves..." He does. "Time for us to roll down the mizzen!" The dead-eyed Dutchman crew barely blink at him. "Time for us to take heart, if you'll pardon the expression, Lad, and roll out the barrel!" he shouts enthusiastically, arms raised. "Anyway, Lad, I'll be seeing ye again soon." Jack begins to turn and look down into the murk below.
Will has his hands on his damp hips and is about to bid the lunatic goodbye when something catches his eye. It isn't something so much as it is nothing, really, but with Jack's bare arms in the air still, for balance, looking like he is getting ready to take flight over the ocean, Will stops and stares. "Jack," he says before the pirate can turn completely away. He looks back at Will. "What happened to your scar?" Jack glances to his own tattooed arm suddenly, with a brief look of alarm. There used to be a very dramatic, very permanent white 'P' on that forearm. Will knows. He has seen it. Jack looks at Will with a gleam in his eye, and grins a silver grin, and then drops soundlessly into the fog.
