Pairing: implied Jack Sparrow/Bootstrap Bill Turner, implied Jack Sparrow/Will Turner
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jack's thoughts about his curse, Will, and the memories that haunt him.
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue
Feedback: Gladly appreciated!
Author's Notes: Not too particularly shippy, but was feeling in a random place after seeing Edward Scissorhands again. Not related to that film of course, but retaining a sense of melancholy. Obscure and visual. Just the way I like it. ;)

Jack looks at his hand. He has rather nice hands, for a pirate. They're long, tanned and rough. From the handle of a cutlass, to touching the boy's back gently, to swirling the tips of his mustache. Remembers standing face to face with him, the boy, eyes locked, body not. He feels eternal movement. Matches his hands with the waves in his mind. The salty spray of ocean splashes his face, leaving drops and rivulets on carved wood. Hands grip the wheel of his ship, black sails, rugged crew.

They gripped rum bottles, traced patterns in the sand. On flesh, on whores, on pirates. Bootstrap himself didn't mind it. Sparrow relishes those loud jokes and spilled wine. Those arms, lithe, strong, wrapped around his own. Pirate, William Turner was, but a good man, caring friend and?

Jack curses the day he was left to die. The darkness flooded and sucked Bootstrap in, blinding oblivion. He felt his heart lurch, a staggering, numb thing, his body bolting up, eyes bright in the dark. Jack peered out to view the beach, rum bottle slipping from tired fingers. The ocean battered the sand, a cacophony that buzzed between his ears. It mixed with drums, with pistol shots. Blades hacking into flesh.

Down went dark orbs, the soft crush evaporating. Old memories faded and yellow turning bright, blazing blue and black color. Kohl smudged eyes opened wide. Saw the wound there, his chest, the blade protruding out of it. The world fell away, and he falls back himself. Waves crash against his skin, invisible, pushing him up once more, supporting him. Life falls away, and the moonlight rises on his skin.

Jack looks at his hand. Cave walls touched by moonlight greet his eyes between the desiccated flesh. The emerald ring from Gilbratar, the other one from New Orleans. Remembers the treasury and house he took each, respectively. Their owners and guardians had been frightened by the sight of him. A young man, open shirt, flashing bandana, gold teeth glinting.

They didn't know he was the captain of the ship with black sails. He took his rings from them before they could find out.

Their baubles glint on bones for fingers. Cants his head, and out of the corner of his eye he sees him. The boy.

He cannot help but smile.

"That's interesting."

The boy smells of leather and embers, old and young. Fire dances in his eyes, flecks burning in them. They dance and weave about, on his skin, on his words, a fusion of determined ferocity and sweet innocence. He lifts his eyebrows after 'comandeering' - "Nautical term" - the Interceptor, barking pirate words, lifting a sword and walking with the stance of one. It runs in his veins, pirate blood, but he doesn't know how to master it. Not yet.

Doesn't know his father and the ripples.

He leans on the rim of the boat, wind blowing and battering. It is amazing how this marble remains unbreakable. Years, decades on sea, and a pirate would look wearied. Bootstrap didn't. Unkempt, bloody, clothes ripped, and he smelled like fire and spices. His son, the same, if not less exotic. The boy sighs, closing haunted eyes, and there it is. There. A smile. Faint, but growing.

The ocean slams through his veins. And high above, holding a compass that doesn't point north, Jack smiles.

He's confused now. Wondering. His brow furrows, and the perfect picture of marble is broken, only for a moment. And then his back arches, body twists, arm lunges forward. The sword shines, like the ocean, his blood, silver, red, dust falls. Cuts through ragged scraps of clothing, past sickly flesh and rotten bone. Clean through, and the vile opponent lurches back, skeleton fallen.

The boy keeps fighting down below. The pirate's blood keeps pumping up above.

He cannot feel. He cannot taste the rum on his lips, nor the wound in his gut. Vices and deaths. The wound fades, and it clicks. The click, the bright snapping sound in the cacophony arises. Jack lowers his head towards the darkness in front of him.

He remembers Barbossa. The air hangs heavy in his wake, darkness, a glint unfamiliar. Mutiny, savagery, cruel and bitter actions mark the air of this man. Searching, bright blue-cold poison-wonders the state of his adversary. And the cogs dust off, twirling and twisting when Jack lifts his other hand.

The pirate glances at bony fingers, flesh decimated, rags and glinting silver. A flash, gold, dark, gold flips on skeletal digits. Jack flips the coin, viewing it plainly, then turns to Barossa. Smiles, leaning back, then forward.

He doesn't smell leather and embers now. But he won't let that get in his way.

"Couldn't resist, mate."

Gold and bright white flash in the dark, teeth set in a skeletal face. The smell of the boy fades away, as he pulls the sword from bones and flesh. It clangs now, against Barbossa's sword. It sings a sweet song of misery, of pain, dead life and quiet nights. The wind slips, he moves forward, and Jack is whole again.

High above, the moon shines her face to avoid the suffering and complaint. She lays her loving arms upon her dashing rogue, and his skin fades to bones at her touch. The air goes through his midsection, a whistling, howling, and terrible thing. Ignores it. Can't be. Can't be the wind, can't be the rum, the blood crashing through his veins, ocean water and blood mixing, sinking-

An explosion behind him. Jack turns, baubles and leather shake in his hair. Frowns once, then fights once more.

Keeps on.

Once you've mastered the art of patience, Jack thinks, then you've nothing to worry about. Ten years on adventures, rabble rousing and stealing. Made friends, enemies. And he sailed through it all, that Sparrow, with a broken compass and a sway in his walk. That pistol remained, and the hatred did too. Longing as well. He missed the Pearl, lovely lass, and would get her back. And so Jack waited.

He waits once more. The echo of a pistol shot has long since faded. A last breath from a cruel pirate, knees buckle, and Barbossa falls. Life has given way to the darkness he so loved and built about himself. And it hits.

Feeling.

Jack glances up to see the boy, the knife, the gold. Blood. He watches, offers a nod to Will, a questioning glance on the boy's face. Then relief floods an innocent countenance. They lock glances for a moment, and then Will starts to move towards the girl. Elizabeth. A twitch of a smile is Jack's reaction.

She was there. For Will. Right. Damsel in distress and all.

The chiming and shush of the boy's boots against treasure and coins snaps Sparrow into reality. Serious, Jack was, if only for a moment. He seemed to be ageless, dauntless, and the like. In control. But for that moment, he wasn't. When he couldn't feel. Jack thinks about the dark reality of the curse, the bones and desires.

The acquaintances and lost friends.

A flash of gold greets his eyes. He thinks, and then realize the enormous amount of wealth around him.

Always wanted to be a prince.

Fingers twitch and he puts a crown snugly on his head. Jack smiles. He drifts then, and cannot remember what he'd been thinking so much about only a moment before.

END

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