The Cost of Rescue
by elfin


The memory of horror sliced through him as he reverently held Jack's face between his hands; his eyes momentarily overlying the image of what he saw when he stepped back aboard the Flying Dutchman at World's End.

He shivered, and Jack in turn shivered.  The pirate captain had been unusually quiet throughout the long journey back to the world and to the relative safety of the Bayou; recovering in his cabin and then keeping to himself once Tia Dalma's potions had worked their magic.

After sitting with him for the first two, rough nights, Will had been shooed from his presence with a few strangely begging words, locked out of it and forced to stand by helplessly as an eerie silence befell the cabin, punctuated only rarely by the sounds of things breaking under extreme duress.

Aboard the longboat from the retrieved Pearl, now anchored just offshore and watched over by a loyal crew made so by the recall of events at world's end, Jack had sat up front, alone and unspeaking, framed by the solid strength of Gibbs and a strangely tamed Barbossa as Will rowed them through the dark Bayou - the cessation of the candlelit vigil following like a dark ribbon.

Despite their victory, Will's heart had grown heavier with every stroke, and although they had rescued Jack from Davy Jones' clutches, it seemed more and more as if too much of him was already lost and he would never truly return to them. 

But as they'd stepped into Tia Dalma's home, Jack had turned to Will and simply asked him in a voice rough with disuse, "Stay with me?"

Now he and Will knelt together, face to face, on the low cot at the back of the wooden dwelling, no words passing between them still. 

Eyes the colour of rich almond, big and round and as fathomless as the depths of the ocean, stared back at him; those same horrors that were in his own mind lurking just below the surface.

And slowly, soundlessly, as he watched with an aching heart, those eyes filled with tears and Jack's slender frame started to tremble.

Pressing one arm around the narrow, linen-clothed shoulders, and one palm to the back of the tumbling head of hair, Will pulled Jack toward him, feeling strong arms close weakly around him as the crook of his neck became wet with hot tears.

Still no sound came.  All he could hear was restless movement on the other side of the cloth affording them this privacy.  In the front of the tiny Bayou dwelling; Gibbs, Barbossa, Elizabeth and Tia Dalma waited - all as exhausted as Will but like him, unable to find peace until their captain's safety and sanity was assured.

Tia had offered and was now protecting this seclusion for Will and Jack.  Jack's fragility was for Will's eyes only; for Will, who had already saved his soul and claimed his heart, to now bring back his mind.

He smoothed his hand over the disparate textures of Jack's hair, silk and wool, the soft knot of his bandana, the carved wood and hard smooth metal of his beads. 

He closed his eyes and for a moment saw again the tiny sea creatures eating through his beloved's flesh, the jelly fish corpses wound into his hair, the ocean-grey of his face and cobalt-blue of his lips.  Arms, once and again sun-kissed, criss-crossed like his back by the bloody bites of a lash, with their shrivelling pale skin.  Only the infamous tattoo marking him as Jack Sparrow still as bright and as clear as ever it had been - a constant reminder of what he was never supposed to be again.

Will's embrace constricted suddenly, impulsively, and Jack responded by clasping Will tighter.  His shoulders and back hitched once, but the keening sound that Will expected never came, and instead the silent weeping continued.

Those memories of Will's, made sharper by rage, were only memories.  Jack knew the real pain and the cold, the terror of a fate truly worse than death.  To be one moment a free man - Captain Jack Sparrow - and the next a captive of the sea's own devil.  His own horror, Will understood well, was just a shadow of what Jack had experienced; the monsters that would step into his nightmares naught compared to the demons that would live in Jack's.

No mere words could do battle with the terror still dimming the usually bright light in those large caramel eyes.  Will could offer his body, his soul, his love - stronger than anyone's for this wayward Pirate - but he could not know if they would be enough.  He could only hope.

Jack at last stilled, and after a time he let his arms drop to Will's sides and sat back on his heels, eyes red from weeping, cheeks wet, chapped lips swollen.

"You came for me," he stated, rough voice thick with awe.

"I came for my heart," Will murmured, "for I cannot live without it and since it is in your possession, I had little choice but to find you."

Jack's hands came up to grasp his arms, not lightly, but nor with any sign of violence.  Instead he stared at Will's face and, presumably finding no malice there, he said very quietly, "Best you hold on to both our hearts, William, for safe keeping.  Savvy?"

Never had Will heard the word - the infamous, usually rhetorical question - so gently asked.  Fingers still tangled in Jack's hair, Will smiled. 

"I will keep your heart safe with me at all times.  But mine remains where it rightfully belongs - with you."

For a short while Jack was silent again, and Will could do nothing but give him the time he needed to give some order to his thoughts.

Finally he said, "I didn't break my promise t' ye, Will."

"I know you didn't.  Elizabeth took you from me and gave you to Davy Jones.  But he has no claim on you now.  And neither does she."

"She never had." 

Still-trembling hands moved to cup Will's face as if with the intention of following his words with a kiss.  But he didn't otherwise move.  Tears gathered again in the corners of his eyes and Will gasped as he believed he saw for a single moment the vivid memories of Davy Jones' harsh and humiliating treatment flash across that glistening surface of those brown depths.

The barnacles had gone from Jack's body, but like Will be bore the marks of his short time aboard the Dutchman.  The boatswain did indeed take pride in stripping flesh from bone with his lash.  Jack's arms were red ribbons and his back still bled through the hurriedly applied dressings and dirty linen shirt.

There was fallout yet to be seen from his days of slavery - but for now pain and the lingering remnants of fear transcended the anger that would eventually rise to the surface to be assuaged as needed.

"Come, Jack."

Carefully, Will moved to lie on his back on the narrow cot, taking Jack with him, setting the adorned head down into the crook of his shoulder, putting his own arms tight around the slender form, mindful of Jack's injuries.

Arching his neck and lifting his face into the crown of black hair and red bandana - a replacement for the one lost, tied in place by Will's own hand - he breathed in the wood, the smoke and the damp.  Tilting his head, Will saw Jack's eyes closing and felt the subtle trembling slowly subside, watching until sleep claimed him, holding him with all the possessiveness of a lover who has plucked his mate from death and would not let go ever again.

~

"Time to rid you of your worldly trappings, Jack."

Tentacles like eels moved restlessly at his waist whilst slimy fingers worked his belt buckle, removing his effects.  Jack swallowed back the rising bile in his throat, forcing himself to ignore the clatter and shatter as compass and pistol hit the barnacle-laden deck.

Leaving a sticky trail over his shirt, that inhuman hand worked its way up, over his belly and chest, around his throat and into his hair, plucking the red bandana roughly from his head.  He stood very still, wincing as strands of hair were taken with it, almost laughing at the insignificance of that pain compared to what was to come.

One hand, with its appendages slithering into his hair, touched one cheek while the other was framed by a hard claw, and his face drawn closer to Davy Jones' blubbering hole and dull, milky eyes.

"So fucking pretty...." 

The acrid smell of burning flesh teased his nostrils as searing ink took the skin from his cheeks....



"Ssh...."  Will was a awake in a moment, arms snaking around Jack's trembling body, riding out the panic, listening to the harsh, rapid breaths coming on the back of the terrible cry which had disturbed his sleep.  "It's over, Jack, you're safe.  I won't allow anything to harm you."

Jack didn't speak.  Very slowly his breathing calmed and he settled back into Will's embrace. 

His eyes were starting to feel heavy once more when he heard Jack's soft voice break the eerie silence of the Bayou at night.

"What did ye give Barbossa in payment for his costly guidance?"

Bringing himself back to full wakefulness, and with a private smile, Will stroked one hand long down Jack's arm, soothing as he replied, "Nothing I'll miss, Jack, and nothing you'd have wanted."

"Not The Pearl?"

"I would never bargain with something that didn't belong to me."

Quieter - "Not you?"

"As I said, Jack, I would never bargain with what isn't mine to offer."

For a time silence fell back upon them and Will had believed his love to be asleep when his voice again broke into the gloom.

"I lost hope, Will.  Couldn't see an end to it and I could feel 'em - those things eatin' through me.  Eatin' me alive."  Will had to physically hold himself still, not wanting his reaction to upset Jack further.  "I've been face to face with death enough times I know the family, savvy?  But before it's always been quick - one minute staring him in the face, the next runnin' away from him while his back's turned.  But this time... this time it was different - it was for eternity, and that's a very, very long time.  If you hadn't come...."  Will combed his thumb between two woolly dreadlocks, stroking the diamond cut of Jack's skull, "...let's just say there were ways of endin' it and they weren't the pleasantest but they were a much better prospect than the life I was starin' at."

Will's heart threatened to break a-new with Jack's pain.  "I'll always come for you."

It was testament to Jack's state of mind that the second, cruder meaning of Will's statement wasn't commented upon.

There was a pause before he heard, "Sorry I woke you, mate."

Despite him making 'mate' sound like an endearment for his ears only, Will teased gently, "'Mate'?  Surely you can do better than that, Jack."

Hesitation.  "Luv...."

"See?"  Seeing Jack's faint smile, he dropped an almost chaste kiss to the black crown.  "You're a rare prize, Jack.  A pirate king in my arms, as calm as the eye of a raging storm.  I'll always stand with you, whatever the future brings we'll weather it together."  He felt the tension leave the narrow shoulders, the head settle heavier against him.  "The nightmares will fade, I give you my word, and they'll be replaced with a greater strength in knowing what you've defeated."

Gently gathering a handful of silk and wool and beads, Will closed his eyes and listened for a time to Jack's soft snores.


"Why should I offer you a kind word, Jack Sparrow, after you tricked my son on board this hellish vessel to do your dirty work?"

Jack retched as salty water spilled from the corner of his mouth.  He spat it out into the gloom of below deck.  "I apologised to 'im for that, Bill, and he accepted my apology."

"He's grown into a good man, a kind man.  Too kind if you ask me."

A fission of anger sparked in Jack's belly.  "Which no one did, did they?" 

He stretched his creaking muscles as best he could in the cramped, dark corner in which he'd taken refuge and where Bill Turner - what remained of him - had found him.  He scratched his face but pulled his fingers away quickly when he touched the shells of the molluscs busy laying eggs in the flesh of his cheeks. 

He felt the sickness rise in his stomach and only had moments to turn away before acidic bile rushed, burning, up into his throat.  He vomited it onto the slick boards, spitting the last of it out of his mouth, wiping his cold lips with the back of his hand.

"I've... got a... confession to make..." he needed not to think about what he was becoming, what he looked like now,  "regarding your son."  Will.  The angel pirate he'd never lay eyes or hands on again.

Bill's dull eyes sparkled with rage for just a second and Jack realised he'd jumped to a wholly incorrect conclusion.  "What sort of confession?"

"Yes, Jack," the smooth, accented tones of Davy Jones slid into the conversation like sea snakes, "do tell.  What manner of sin do you have to reveal?"

Both men looked up at their captor as he stared down at them, tentacles moving this way and that, drawing invisible patterns in the rank air.  Jack attempted to force a smile on to his face but could manage only a grimace.

"Nothin' of any import, mate."

The huge claw suddenly lifting him by his throat suggested the import wasn't of any matter to Jones.  Bill rose with him, offering useless words to diffuse the situation.

"We were just talking, Captain."

"And I want to know what ol' Jack was about to confess regarding his young soprano."

Jack tried to swallow against the jagged edges at his throat, found he couldn't and choked on the sea water that began to rise in his mouth, spilling over his tongue he tasted it, spat it out, struggling with the sensation of drowning even when he knew he couldn't.

"Speak."  The claw was pulled away, slicing an untidy zig-zag across one side of his neck, tearing the skin, a stinging mix of blood and sludge oozing from the wound.  He reached a hand to it, quickly pulling it away when he touched the damage.

His first words couldn't be formed through the water that ran over his lips.  He coughed it up from his lungs, turning his head away from Jones, away from Bill, a hacking movement of his chest and shoulders and throat that felt as if he were retching up his internal organs.  It sluiced out of him, a watery salt mix, burning the inside of his mouth, the vilest tasting mixture he'd ever experienced and when it was finished he was shaking so hard he thought he might break apart.

As he lifted his head with an effort, the sharp edges of Jones' claw slashed at the base of his neck across his collarbone and he couldn't stop the yell of pain it tore from him.  "SPEAK!"

"I was... about to profess... my guilt in... young master... Turner's... appearance on board your... lovely ship."

Jones once again closed his claw around Jack's agonised throat, stepping forward, dragging Jack in close so the short tentacles either side of his mouth touched the black moustache as he spoke softly, "You're a liar, Jack."

"Prove it, mate."

It was stupid, but Jack couldn't help himself.  His streak of independence, of rebellion, was fighting for its very existence deep in his heart, refusing to lie down quietly.

"I see you're still in denial regarding ownership of your soul."  The words were barely loud enough for him to hear, but even if he hadn't known their meaning then, the slippery tentacles of Jones' hand, working their way inside the torn, wet material of his britches, would have been clear enough.  "I think you need to be taught a lesson...."

"You're really... not my type...."  But he knew his weak protest was pointless - even before it was out, the long, slimy members on Jones' face were working their way into every orifice - ears, nose, mouth - one sliding down his throat as he choked on it, gasped and wheezed past it, the horror of it nothing compared to the long, thick thing entering him from below.


This time it wasn't Jack's scream that woke Will - although it woke everyone else in the small dwelling - it was his struggle out of Will's arms, his tortured escape from the embrace, from Will's body, from the bed.

"Jack!"

Tia Dalma blocked his way, one hand out but not touching him, while Will quickly rose to his feet, catching his forearms, drawing him back even as he started to fight in earnest.

"Jack, Jack...."  He cooed the name over Tia Dalma's own verbal soothing.

Will got his arms around the slim waist as the voodoo priestess' words eased Jack's panic until he was following their ward back down to the mattress, sitting behind him, the body in his arms trying to shake itself apart.

She sat too, putting a bulb-shaped bottle to Jack's lips and assisting him with drinking, all the time murmuring phrases Will couldn't understand.  He only knew their effect on Jack's sudden and wild alarm.  Only when the bottle's contents had passed his lips did she slip back into his language.

"Easy now.  The nightmares won't haunt you for long but they must be dreamt to be purged from your soul.  Still, you need to sleep and the potion you've imbibed will make sure the demons don't disturb you again this night."

Forehead rested against Jack's shoulder, Will felt him nod, hear him whisper, "Sorry."

"Don't apologise," she gently admonished him.  "You've looked into Hell with your own eyes, felt it on your own skin.  We can't know the pain but we can be the balm.  Rest now, Jack, it's safe in the darkness."

Without protest Jack allowed her to ease him down onto his side.  Curled up like a child he closed his eyes,

Once she was gone, Will curled himself protectively around the narrow form.  He said nothing as he rested his cheek against the curtain of black hair, wrapped his arm over Jack, and leaving space between him and his love's back, he lay awake for the longest time, scared now of what might be in his own nightmares now if he slept too deeply.


fin
elfin

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