Change in the House of Flies

::Change in the House of Flies::


*~Chapter Four~*


If every port must show similitude to every other port, then so too must every taveo ito its brethren. Professional women in careworn gowns display their fleshy wares and promise a glimpse of heaven through a tollgate of hell. Men whose souls have been forfeit since the tender years of their adolescence take upon themselves further Christian sins. Alcohol flows without drought as long as one has coin, and in every face the next nameless, forgotten corpse resides.

Of course there exist exceptions. Some of the men will die with names to be remembered till the ones remembering pass on themselves killed, whether naturally or through the agency of another; and some, those lucky few who ply the stage of life with exceptional vigor and ingenuity, will find their lives safely locked away among dusty tomes to be resurrected every time a scholar gets an itch. Captain Jack Sparrow would like to think his part in the drama will find a place in the latter sphere.

Captain Jack Sparrow immortal on the written page, imagine that!

“What d’ye be needin’, love?” a buxom brunette purrs the moment he takes a seat amid the burgeoning turpitude. He gives her a lazy grin, eyes shifting restlessly between her dark eyes and the sun-speckled swells of her impressive bosom. Her tone implies the offer of more than the bar-served vices.

“Bring me a drink to start and we’ll go from there.” A suggestive wink and a smart pat on her bottom sends her tittering, which, in turn, moves her breasts in the most delightful undulations. He devotes a few more moments to watching her hips sway provocatively as she walks away with his order and his coin.

The noise in the smoky, ill-lit business does not rise in swells of shouts and disagreements. Instead there is an ever-prevalent chorus, sharply broken by the occasional triumphant or indignant shout. This place lacks the panache of Tortuga’s endlessly riotous establishments, but that is only to be expected in a town where authority still commands a degree of restraint. Disagreements have a greater tendency to be limited to the individuals involved and not simply anyone with an eye to fight. This means that Jack can get what he wants without unnecessary pauses to wait out the latest bout of misplaced prideful violence.

With the return of the brunette he begins the unhurried process of setting out baited lines of anecdotes. With wit and levity, and just a dash of gravity, he knits the fine threads of conversation into a reticular whole with which to ensnare the ponderous and enigmatic kraken he seeks. He gathers about himself the less syphilitic wenches and slowly spins them up in his fantastic recounts, all the while coaxing forth the course of discussion leading to the kraken’s heart-cord.

“So wot brings yerself ‘ere?” a blonde hussy coos as she leans over the table, pressing her bosom against the wood to deepen her cleavage. Effortlessly Jack slides into the character of an aggrieved man greatly misused by the world. With a melancholic sigh, which causes the maids-who-are-not to giggle and exchange glances, he shows them the sad condition of his sword.

“My good friend here’—he runs a ringed finger down the hilt suggestively—“has suffered a right terrible accident and must needs retire from a career of dutiful service. So I brought meself to this lovely town to see about arranging for a replacement.” He waits out the affected titters of sympathy with a keen eye.

“So you came all this way for a smith?” one pouts. He offers her a winning smile, gold teeth glittering in the lambent light.

“Don’t go to Gow. He’s alright wit’ a kettle, but I wouldn’t trust him wit’ a sword.” The jaded women nod their heads in sage agreement amid peals of high pitched laughter. Jack manfully resists the urge to clap his hands over his ears.

“So is my fate then, sweet ladies”—amused snorts and giggles meet his endearment—“to wander the oceans defenseless? Is there no one here with skills fit to furnish a poor sailor?”

“Not if ye be poor, honey.” His serving-wench winks coyly and sways off to serve other less amusing patrons.

“Poor in spirit, not wealth,” the pirate amends with a sweeping bow while still seated and a quick fondle to his companion to either side. “So tell ole Jack why he'd be needing to be rich.”

“Black don’t work fer just nobody. He’s got himself standards.” Agreement all around.

“Indeed.” The pirate hardly finds it in himself to be surprised at this announcement. He has always known that Will would never allow himself to fall below the high moral bar that rules his life, no doubt carefully nurtured by his Catholic mother.

“So tell me, loves, about this standards-man.” An exchange of glances and silent communication flitter about him between each female. Having a cock, he is excluded, much to his veiled annoyance. Jack is a firm believer in a secret, insidious confederacy of all woman-kind; said confederacy does all in its power to completely bewilder and bother men. If it wasn’t for their sumptuous curves and soft skin, Jack wouldn’t bother with them. Too many complications with women. They always want more than he can give, and when he can’t, he gets slapped. Quite unfair and undeserved, if truth—his—be told.

“Well…” The women exchange more glances, which Jack is finding a bit trying on even the saintliest man’s nerves—and he is as far from a saint as a mortal man can get.

“Ladies, you’re causing a bit of a stir with the other gents in the room.” A matronly woman of advanced years and handsome features weighs down upon the pirate’s audience, and the pirate himself, with a disapproving glare. Fists on full hips and starched apron stretched tight over her imposing figure, she possesses every facet of gracefully aged female authority. Jack has the oddest urge to stand and salute.

The harlots sulk off with wistful glances back at the dashing rogue. Jack finds himself pinned under a gaze oscillating between annoyance and intrigue. It takes the man a moment to realize that the woman, for all the sheer force of her personality, stands almost a head shorter than he. She’d make one hell of a captain, he thinks wryly and takes a healthy drink.

“I don’t mind their presence here; they know no other way to live, but I won’t them causing a riot with the patrons. Monopolizing the girls upsets the other men.”

With a dignified sniff, as if his lack of response—not that she allowed for one—shows his culpability in said monopolizing, she takes his tankard and knocks back the rest of its contents, much to Jack’s evident dismay. She catches the pirate’s mournful gaze upon the empty cup and signals the serving wench.

“Now, lad, what are you trolling for in my tavern? It has to be more than a replacement for that broken sword of yours.” She casually prods his blade despite his black look. Honestly, why do females always feel a need touch another’s personal private property? It’s downright indecent. Men know not to do that. Smart they are, know when to leave well enough alone.

“I am here for a sword,” he tells her, as he moves the broken edge out of her reach. The brunette wench silently places a fresh tankard by his elbow. He takes an affectedly nonchalant drink under the proprietress’ censuring eyes. The rest of the boisterous environment sinks into the background. His focus rests upon the woman, though he is not unaware of the rest of the moving room.

“If you want to waste my time with evasions, then we have no further use for each other. If you want information, then ask. I’ve lived too long in this den of lies to value wordplay.” The pirate holds out a placating hand and a coin. The matron’s stern countenance takes on a more forgiving mold. Gingerly she takes a seat to his right and smoothes out her unwrinkled skirts, then she takes the coin and tucks it away out of sight.

Honest, blunt truth, words unclogged by superfluous phrases, an absence of dissimulation; Jack finds this inordinately intriguing and a bit daunting. The life of a dissembler has trained him well to twist and veil truth until it might as well be a lie. He has spouted unvarnished verisimilitude enough times to be counted on one hand with several fingers free. Bare, cold, ugly truth, what a frightening thing!

“Might I ask for you name first? Just to be polite like…ma’am.” He has this creeping sense that offering her cheek is the surest way towards more than a mere slap. He suspects that she knows her way around a fist fight.

“You have no need of mine, dear, and I have no desire to know yours. Now tell me your purpose.”

“Black.”

“The doctor’s boy? What is your interest in him? You’d best not be planning on harming him, or I’ll take payment on your little sailor.” She smiles with such utter benignity that the pirate cannot help but feel as if an incorporeal stiletto has been pressed against his throat—and a pistol to his groin. He grins ingenuously, but shifts away from her a smidgen. Better safe than sorry.

He takes a gulp of ale with a shaking hand. He likes his little sailor where he is, thank all.

“Just want to know a bit about the man who might be making me a new blade.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I want to—”

“Lad, I’m nigh approaching the latter portion of my half-century mark. I don’t have long to go, and, if you remember what I said, I don’t have time for evasions. Lay what you have in the open or finish that drink in silence.”

“I want to understand Black.”

‘I want to understand this Will’

The proprietress pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs gustily. “Black is a strange one. He’s something more than a gentleman and something less than a man. He never comes here or any other place to partake of, well, anything. He offers nothing more than the bonds of distant friendship to anyone. He spends all his time working for the doctor and working in his private forge. He rarely leaves Smith’s property, and when he does, it’s to walk the sea cliffs to the north of town.”

“But how did he come here?” Jack casually flips another coin in the air and catches it. Heads.

“What makes you think he hasn’t always been here?” Jack shrugs. “Well, you’re right. He appeared around five years ago. One day Arthur, that’s the doctor, he mentioned he had a long-term patient staying with him. Neither has seen fit to say more, and people here generally keep questions to themselves.” The matron catches the coin on the next toss, ges aes at it and then tucks it away with its brother. “Spirits or devils, who knows. And that’ll be all I or anyone else can tell you.” She stands and levels a calculating stare at him. Her eyes travel from his battered leather tricorn to the glittering rings on the hand resting upon the worn table. “If you hurt that boy…” With a melancholic shake of her head, she leaves Jack to his drink and rolling thoughts.

Ah, Will, such a labyrinth of shadows and secrets.

Jack has learned nothing and yet he senses the matron has given him a half of a coordinate to guide him on his course. He has drawn the kraken to the inky depths only to discover that what he has is only the smallest portion while the rest remains submerged below. To confound matters, he is not even able to ascertain what part lies before him. Truly, he should simpfferffer his hands up in surrender; and he would too, except for a small itch at the back of his mind. Curiosity has always been his greatest weakness and strength. He knows not what capacity his inquisitiveness is fulfilling, but he hopes it favors the latter.

Tossing back the last dregs of his ale, he lets the noise of the room flow back into his consciousness. He hadn’t thought it would be easy, but he never imagined he would find such a paucity of information. Well, it is only the first night. More are to come and Jack is tenacious if nothing else. His restoration to the Pearl is proof of that.

Spirits lacking, he takes his leave of the establishment. North cliffs…he ponders the probability of finding Will there. The odds have been stacked against him by the dishonest hand of Fortuna, but only a craven weakling flinches from a bad hand. Adjusting the cuffs of his jacket with all the importance of a great lord, as if he is pleasing some invisible audience, he makes his way down the street as bold as you please.

The westerly horizon blazes with dying carmine glory. Distorted porters’ shouts puncture the air and follow the curses of dissolute sailors. At the threshold of night, underneath a sky only just pricked by the first stars, the fey pirate angles himself along a diagonal just touching upon north. Perhaps, by placing himself in the atmosphere Will bleeds into, he will come upon some small, nearly unappreciable insight.

Gilt candlelight slides through the closed casements of the shop-houses and drafty tavern-inns. Disembodied voices and odors without fixed source ride swiftly with the sticky Caribbean breeze. Out of habit Jack minces around the scattered and infrequent slashes of escaped light. He is the unknown darkness that good mothers warn their children about; the pied piper luring them into the night of human condition; h a p a pirate.

The bloody suns falls into the ocean and the world seems to pause and hold its breath in preparation for the night. From the wharves jutting impertinently into the boundless ocean a rising tide of noise flows up. A few dogs yap their complaints. The world goes on; and Jack has sashayed his way to where jungle still fights back against human encroachment. Here the rich, almost cloying fragrance of rotting vegetation and living earth overwhelms the odor he often associates with the occasion of many people living together. The potency of the smell of life is always stronger on a ship, especially after many weeks away from land, but one never encounters the headiness of primal Earth. He finds it repulsive on the level of ancient, mariner instinct. Better to breathe in the deep brine than choke beneath dirt and stones. He has nightmares of being buried alive, crushed and confined within the Mother’s bowels.

After gazing at the enigmatic forest-shadow, he catches sight of a well-worn trail. He clutches his superstitions close and enters as one would enter an unknown strait. His feet follow the lighter dirt wending its way among vine-shrouded trunks. Night has bled the colors and all that remains are shades of gray. Strange creatures disturb the foliage and insects croon their eldritch songs. After falling asleep to the tender creaking of the Pearl’s timbers, such foreign sounds are unnerving. However, the lulling thunder of breaking waves soothes him.

There is subtle thinning of the forest to let one know of its imminent cessation. One moment Jack is caught in rich, pungent darkness and the next finds him embraced by briny mist and wind. He straightens, surprised to find that he had instinctively hunched against the oppressive presence of the forest, and inhales deeply of his favored mistress. He casts a glance over the cliff’s edge and observes waves bodily hurling themselves to their destruction below only to be reborn again and again.

And then there is Will sitting with long legs dangling over the side and escaped locks tangling about his matured face.

This is a heart stopping moment where the words “don’t jump” almost tumble off numb lips and escape to embarrassment. For one thing the lad is sitting and for another he appears quite content to remain so.

Jack finds himself strongly reminded of a collection of prints created by a man later hung for murdering young children. Each print holds a captured instant of a child moments away from doom. One particular picture comes to mind: a young boy sitting on a swing hung from a breaking branch that juts out from a sheer cliff face over a collection of jagged rocks. The expression on the child’s face is of profound sorrow, but not for his current situation. He seems to be mourning for something far removed.

To the pirate watching with palpitating heart, Will has become a manifestation of the macabre print. Perched upon the crumbling edge, the lad surrounds himself in voiceless grief. He is caught in a critical moment, but he is no inanimate print content in petrification. When the bonds of the moment chatter, Jack senses that the lad will plunge into shadows far deeper than those moving through him—unless someone is there to drag him back. The pirate flinches away from the responsibility. Will’s sorrow is a living chain seeking to wrap itself around anyone daring to enter his world; Jack’s liberty was too hard won.

And yet…

To drag the kraken to the sun he might have to fall into dark. The honor the little doctor assured him of moves through him. His own reluctant affection and respect demand no lesser sacrifice. Perhaps then the dreams will cease?

Perhaps a sweeter reality will supplant them? The physicality of warm flesh instead of phantasmal pressure.

But there is nothing he can do this night. Merely seeing the boy lost in dark thoughts has stolen his courage. Jack will not be saving him—if that is even possible—this moment. Another shall rise up and then, and only then, will he take the necessary step forward. Will wants him too, without words, and it is up to Jack to find the resources to breach the walls containing the young smith and the tragedy of five years past.

Silently he leaves young Turner to his meditations and turns his boots back to town.

A rather anti-climatic turn of events, if truth be told.

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I am deeply sorry for the long delay. I encountered various personal and academic issues that needed to be addressed and so this fic was placed in the background. Fortunately things have been resolved enough to allow this addition. Thank you all for your support; I am profoundly grateful.

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Personal thanks to those who are so gracious as to take time to review:

Crevette, Dami, Cashiel, PJ, I am elated to find that are are enjoying this story despite its numerous flaws. I am quite thankful you are able to perceive something good in my efforts. Thank you most kindly.


Elven-Eyes, Truly, what would I do without your enthusiasm? I shudder to find out. Your reviews keep my spirits up without fail! Thank you.

Night, I know, too short again. I am sorry for the abruptness and lack of movement of this part, but I felt it needed to be written. I hope this part was not discouraging. For you I shall promise a graphically slash-full next chapter.

JediGurrl, Violent Underscore! rabbit, I am immeasurably grateful for the continued devotion you show in regards to this story. I am aware of the many failings and whatnot, so it is a rare and beautiful respite from my own censuring thoughts to find that others regard this story with kind eyes.

Smiigel, I agree completely with your sentiments on dark fics. I find myself drawn towards the darker aspects of human nature. I enjoy pushing characters to and past the breaking point and then sitting back to see how they pick up the pieces and move on—if even that. Thank you for your encouraging review!