Bound Priest

Archived: ask if you want it
Pairings: Jack/original characters
Feedback: review and commentary greatly appreciated—I have no other way to pay the muses for their hard work.
Characters: Jack (credited as Jonathan), original characters
Beta’s: No one, currently. Alas.
Author Notes: This is a story that originated as an idea of a possibility for Jack's past and how he got the Pearl/really got into pirating. It will later on be part of a series on Jack's past that I am writing. At that point, it will be edited. It already has been edited from the original version to better align with facts from my fanon/historical crap, bits of soot and some of what his life really would have been like. Jack is a nickname for "Jonathan", that is why I chose the name. There is a quite graphic rape seen, just as a warning.
Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean and associated characters do not belong to me, they belong to Disney. I am in no way profiting from this fiction.

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Bound Priest

Jonathan looked at himself in the tarnished mirror, adjusting the unfamiliar garments. He didn’t fancy himself in the stuffy black robes of a priest (only an acolyte, really)—even if that was what he was doomed to. He sighed and adjusted the collar, squinting at his reflection. Perhaps it wasn’t that bad. It was better than anything else in the church, that was for sure. He lifted his cross from where it was hung on the mirror and lowered it over head.

“There we go, the finishing touches. Heh, wouldn’t pa be proud of me now?” he laughed to himself, smoothing the robes, “His devil of a son a priest. Well.”
It sounded as if there was a commotion out in the church itself. People were yelling… scolding one another. His brows scrunched as he listened to the sounds, his hand unconsciously clutching at the crucifix around his neck.

“…you bleeding trollop! ‘and it over if ye know whas good for you!” a rough voice reached his ears, very near his chamber. It was followed by the scent of smoke. Not the light, pleasant smoke of incense but the heavy smell of fire.

Jonathan cracked the door open, peering out at the rectory. A dozen men stood amongst the pews, lighting fire to the church. Women, and children cowered in the center while the men stood around them, looking destitute and helpless.

“Help us, Father!” one of the women cried, and for a moment Jonathan thought that she’d caught sight of him. Then he saw Father Martin standing amongst the men, looking as stern as he ever had.

“You heathens have no place in His church. Get out, damned creatures, leave!” Martin shouted, his hands clutched into feasts. One of the men laughed, and there was a loud sound. Martin dropped to the ground like so much dead meat in a black robe, his crucifix making a tinking sound against the hard wood floor. One of the women screamed and Jonathan shut the door. He had to get out. He didn’t picture himself dying in the confines of the church that served him as a prison.

The rooms were connected to the confessionals via a very narrow passage that Martin rarely used due to his girth. It was hidden behind a tapestry, and let out into the confessional booth, cleverly worked into the basic craftsmanship of the wall. Lifting the tapestry of Madonna and child aside, Jonathan was suddenly very thankful for the secret passage. He could squeeze himself in there and remain hidden until the trouble passed. For a moment, as he struggled with the door, he felt like a coward. He was doing nothing to help the people awaiting their deaths in the church. He was saving his own skin.

His own skin seemed more important at that moment, and he swung the tapestry back down, shutting the door. The rarely used passage was musty, dust swirling up as he moved along it to the center. That was his best chance to stay hidden. Get to the center and stay there. A rat worked it’s way along the wall, twitching it’s whiskers at him. He felt a certain sympathy with the creature as he crouched down, covering his mouth with both hands so his breath couldn’t possible be heard. The rat continued on it’s path, scurrying beneath his robes and appearing out the other side. It paused, ears pricked forward.

The men were in his chambers, throwing things to the ground, cursing. The smell of smoke followed the sound of their voices and Jonathan felt suddenly vulnerable where he crouched. The rat turned and ran the way it had come, disappearing at the other end, into the confessional.

“Brother LeMoineau, you French bastard…we know you’re in here somewhere,” one of the men growled, and Jonathan could hear him tapping against the wall, “one of your lambs told us about you. Young Frenchman, new to the priesthood. Slight thing. Could fit anywhere, couldn’t you, you rat?”

Jonathan crept further down the passageway, following the rat’s example of heading for the confessional. By the sound of things, all twelve men were searching for him in the chamber. None would be in the confessional. There, he could stand on the bench and pull himself up on one of the ceiling beams.

The church was burning, though. He would fall to his death in the flames. He could hear the tapestry scraping against the wall as it was swung.

“Eh! There’s a door!”



Jonathan closed the confessional door behind himself, leaning against it to catch his breath. His heart wasn’t content to stay where it belonged. Beating rapidly, it had climbed into his throat, bringing with it a nauseating taste.

“Brother LeMoineau…” a soft voice spoke, and his heart leapt. He scrabbled against the wall, searching for the edge of the door… until he laid eyes on the nun huddled in the corner, hiding in the same terror he felt.

“Sister Sheryl,” he gasped, moving to her side, “we have to get out… we could make a run for it. They’re in the passage.”

“They want you, Brother. They want the French,” she whispered, looking at the doorway that he’d emerged from, “they heard there was a French priest…”

“I’m not bloody French,” Jonathan hissed, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the door of the confessional, “follow me.”

“The other Sisters,” Sheryl protested, pulling against his hand, seemingly determined to stay in one spot, “what will happen to them?”

“They will die and so will you if you don’t come on,” Jonathan flung open the door and dragged her out of the confessional. He stopped abruptly. The whole church was ablaze, bodies slung over the pews. A few woman, nuns mostly, were tied together in the center, their mouths crudely gagged with ragged shreds of their habits. Sheryl pulled away from him, running towards her sisters as if to untie them. A beam above them creaked, and Jonathan found himself following out of concern for the young nun.

She was working her fingers bloody, trying to untie the writhing sisters even as cinders fell on her from the burning beams ahead. A reek began to fill the church as bodies caught fire. Jonathan grabbed her hands and forced her away from the struggling women, pulling a knife from his booth and taking it to the ropes. Sheryl moved away from him, tugging at the gas to get them free. The women gasped as they were given their voices again, praying in unison for this horror to end.

“brother! Behind you!” one screamed, and Jonathan had just enough time to look over his shoulder before a club hit him squarely in the cheek, knocking him cold.


“Are you awake, Brother?” a woman’s voice spoke beside his ear, soft and fearful. His head swum with the pain radiating from his cheek, and the voice seemed to send him reeling.

“I’m… ohhhh…”

“They hit you hard… we all thought they’d broken your neck,” the woman continued, a soft chorus of agreement behind her, like doves cooing on the eaves. He opened his eyes and saw Sheryl peering at him, her hair loose and falling around her face, her habits torn into shreds. Behind her were the other Sisters, some watching him, some crying in one another’s arms. All of them looked sooty, battered, and bloodied.

“Where…are we?” Jonathan asked, daring to sit up. He held one hand to his face, feeling the sticky moisture of blood where his cheek had been.

“On a ship. They’re Privateers… or so they claim. They’ve been told to attack French forces. When they heard of a French priest at our church…well,” Sheryl touched his cheek as she spoke and he shied away from the pain it caused.

“I’m not French,” he replied, wiping his bloodied hand on his pants, “I’m British.”

“LeMoineau is a French name, Brother, and that is what they have gone on.”

“LeMoineau is my mother’s version of my surname because my father wouldn’t let me go by that anymore out of his disappointment in me. Another reason I’m in the priesthood,” Jonathan couldn’t help but feel some resentment for his father. If he hadn’t forbade his use of a proper English surname, he wouldn’t be where he was right now. Sheryl and the other sisters wouldn’t be where they were.

“And besides,” he continued, “if they’re Privateers what are they doing on land, burning down a church? Aren’t Notes of Marque limited to the sea or was I mistaken?”

“Yer not mistaken, lad,” a man growled from above, “but the cap’n was so outraged when he heard of yer filth in a church that, well… he had to go burn the thing down to clean it up, as it were.”

“I would like to speak with your captain, sailor. Perhaps this can all be sorted out…you see--” Jonathan stopped short as he was greeted by harsh laughter. He squinted up at the men who were peering down into the hold at him and the nuns. They were hard to see in the dimmed light, but there was no mistaking how they were looking at the group of nuns that cowered behind him. The look reserved for him was some kind of vague hatred.

“He wants t’see the cap’n!” one of them shouted, “I’ll show ‘em the cap’n!”
The man dropped his drawers and Jonathan found himself reflexively covering Sheryl’s eyes. The other nuns gasped and cowered, crying out at the vulgarity of the man’s action.

“Thas the only cap’n you’ll see!”

The men laughed and slammed the hatch, leaving the priest and the nuns in darkness. The women began to cry as the ship creaked and rocked on the sea.

Jonathan woke as he felt someone pushing against him. Cracking open his eye, he discovered Sheryl prodding him gently, in the act of settling herself down next to him. Her body was pressed close, her head coming to rest on his shoulder, her arms clutched close to her breast. He could see a vague glimmer in the darkness as he lips moved, reciting her rosary.

He put his arm around her, his other hand going to hers. They counted the beads together, whispering in unison, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you…”
As soon as the moon rose, they prayed, for three nights. The other nuns would join, reciting the rosary together, and a strange peace would settle over the prisoners. Some would cry as they pressed the crucifix to their lips in a prayer that wasn’t spoken but was shared by all. Save us…oh, Lord, have mercy on us…


The hatch opened on the fourth day, and the sailor found himself face to face with a haggard looking priest in ripped robes. The man looked up at him with dark eyes and set features, “Parley. I wish to invoke the Right of Parley. Take me to your Captain.”

The ship rocked sickeningly, sea spray washing over the bow as the sailors stood and watched. Jonathan looked down at his bound hands, moving them slightly. The rope was too tight, biting into his skin. The movement made it worse and he ceased, looking up at the pirates around him. They all stared blankly at him, then one moved forward. The man looked like he had seen more years than anyone Jonathan had every known. He held a knife in his hand, and a grim smile on his face.

“Under Parley you cannot harm a prisoner,” Jonathan said, looking the man in the eye, “until I speak with your captain, lay down your knife.”

“I’ll not harm ye, Frenchman. I’m just doin’ the cap’n a favor. He’d be full o’ bile in a moment if we let him see ye as such,” the man pulled at one of the shreds of Jonathan’s robes, then began to cut them off with the knife. He felt his crucifix drop against his chest, cold and heavy. The knife pressed against his throat, cutting his collar last. He looked down at a wound on his chest that he hadn’t realized had been there as it seeped through a scab disturbed by the knife. His eyes met the man’s again briefly before the sailor disappeared back into the crowd that stood around Jonathan.

“An’ what is keepin’ all y’dogs from yer work?” a rough voice spoke from behind them, and they parted. Jonathan’s lips peeled back in disgust as he laid eyes on the man that walked through. He looked like the old descriptions of lepers, wrapped in dirty clothes and walking with a pronounced limp. His jaw hung limp, a rough beard growing around his cracked lips. Hateful eyes peered out from beneath a dirty rag that held his greased, matted hair away from his face.

“God save us,” Jonathan whispered as he watched the man approach him.
“God’s not ‘ere anymore, Priest. Do y’understand what tha means, lad?” the voice that came from the man was the equivalent of a dog’s growl, captured in a moist throat that was unwilling to give it birth.

“I…I…”

“I’ll be takin’ that as a yes, then,” the captain grinned, catching the crucifix that Jonathan wore with the gleaming hook that served as his right hand, “har…yer faith is weak. It has no place aboard me ship.”

The chain snapped and Jonathan watched it coil around the hook before following the crucifix to the deck. The sound of the cross hitting the wood seemed deafening to Jonathan. He understood what the captain meant all too well.

“Parley…negotiations…leave the nuns alone!” Jonathan’s voice was shrill as he found himself bodily shaking in front of the captain. The man smiled wickedly at him.
“An’ how did you come up with tha’ lil’ one, Parley? I won’t be accepting no calls of Parley from a rat as yourself, Frenchman. An’ I’ll be doin’ with the prisoners, includin’ yerself, what I want. Savvy?”

“I’m not French, for God’s sake, you monster! I’m British! My name is Jonathan Sparrow, son of Joshua Sparrow! You must know of him.”

“Aye, he’s a bastard that as married a Frenchwoman and has himself some bastard sons… Joshua, Jonathan and wha? A daughter, aye. I know all about Joshua Sparrow, I do,” the man leaned close as he spoke, “but I cannot as use me notes to take out in me personal debts, can I? Joshua Sparrow owes me an’ my lads a great deal, so, when we go knockin’ on his door and sees his pretty wife and daughter…he says don’t burn the place down. I can pay. I can pay. Aye, we says, how is that. He says, he has a son in the Carribbean and as we can have him as a slave. Fine young lad, we hear. Goin’ by LeMoineau. So, we take advantage of the French and we’ve come to get our debt. As a nice bonus, there be unspoilt women that we’re free to spoilt. Good ol’ Sparrow. This ‘as worked out to be a good deal, aye Jack?”

Jonathan stared at the man in a state of shock, further impressed by the use of a name he hadn’t heard since he’d left Britain. Jack was the name he took for himself there, because it suited him. His father would yell, ‘Darned Jack!’ whenever he’d done something wrong so he’d taken to it since he heard it more than his real name. He’d become fond… the priesthood had required his real name. He gave them his first, but had lied about the last since his father had forbade him to use Sparrow. The thought that his father had been plotting using him as a tradeoff for debt all the while he’d been paying for his education and being sent to the colonies flashed through his mind. That’s why he’d been told to use the French name… and his mother had looked so sad…

“What is to become of me?”

“I’m always in need of a good hand aboard, lad. I’m sure we as can find some use fer ye,” the captain turned away from him, moving slowly and deliberately back to his cabin, “put ‘im back in the ‘old.”

Jonathan allowed himself to be jostled back towards the hold of the ship, hanging his head in shame. How could he have trusted his father? Ignored the tears in his mother’s eyes? He looked around him and the captain’s words rung in his ears. ‘Unspoilt women that we’re free to spoilt…’

Sheryl looked up at him with a smile as he walked through the hold. The smile dropped off her face as soon as she realized that it was defeat that he carried on his shoulders, with harsh realizations of the truth about the world he lived in. She opened her arms and he slumped into her embrace, feeling tears stinging at his eyes.
“The Lord will protect us, Brother,” she whispered, soothing his hair, “I have no doubts in my heart that He will protect us.”

“The Lord… he has abandoned me,” Jonathan replied, and felt her hand freeze in mid-stroke. The other nuns fell silent as they heard his words. He looked up at them somberly, “I am a trade for a debt my father owed, and so are all of you. Say your prayers and put yourselves to bed, Sisters. Tomorrow will not be so pure as today.”
The Sisters stared at him with wide eyes, crossing themselves. Sheryl was the only one who did not echo the gesture, instead squeezing Jonathan’s hand.

Jonathan stared blankly ahead of him, allowing himself to lean forward in his bonds. The men had tied him to one of the masts as the first order of business, laughing and jeering as they did so. He did not respond to any of their taunts, staring straight ahead with grim features. Now the ropes were cutting into his flesh, the mast hard and smooth against his back, and screams of torture in his ears.
The deck was lit in red by a dozen weak lamps strung along her sides and mast. Her sails were down, leaving her stationary on the night waters, rocking gently with a calm sea. Men laughed and jested, drinking and delighting themselves in the screams of the women they had stolen away from the sanctity of the church.

Jonathan looked down at one of the torn and bloodied habits that lay at his feet, refusing to look at the carnal act that was happening before him. He could hear the sailor grunting, pushing himself against the woman who could only gasp because her throat had long ago given way from screaming.

“Oh, Lord…” she whispered hoarsely, followed by the sharp sound of a slap. Jonathan forced himself to look up. Sheryl was holding her hand over her bloodied mouth, crying silently as the sailor grabbed her legs, shifting her pelvis to his liking. Her whole body, bruised and bloodied, naked on the deck, convulsed with her silent sobbing. The man thrust into her, pushing her back against the rough deck, leaning over her to bite one of her breasts. She shrieked and Jonathan closed his eyes, trying to shut the scene out of his imagination completely.

“Ye fancy him, d’ye?” he heard the sailor speaking, but resisted the sound, “do’ye bitch?”

Jonathan was forced from his solitude as his head was jerked back and something hot was poured down his throat. One of the sailors was laughing, “Ave some rum in ye! Get him right drunk, mate. This should be fun.”

He tried to spit the drink out, opening his eyes to look around him, but the hand held his head backward. For one brief moment he caught site of Sheryl, forced to stand by the sailor who was ravishing her only moments before, Her eyes were huge and glassy, watching him in the same detached way that he had looked upon her until he could not bare it anymore.

Time passed and the world swam. They continued to pour the rum down his throat and he was feeling the effects strongly. He hadn’t had rum since he’d entered schooling to become a priest, and he was quickly regaining the taste for it. His head swam and the people around him became blurs. He came back into awareness for a moment when he felt the lashes that held him to the mast being cut. He fell forward on the deck, and one of the men seized him, making short work of his breeches. The feeling of his bare body against the wooden deck was odd, but the warm sensation of the rum running through his body compensated for it. He reached out and his hand was greeted by a flask which he gladly took and pressed to his lips. Then he was on his back, rough hands having turned him over. The rum stuck in his throat and he coughed, curling on his side while the men laughed and jostled about something he couldn’t understand.

“Lay down, bitch, there ye go,” one of the men spoke amongst the laughter and Jonathan was vaguely aware of a familiar presence next to him. He looked over his shoulder, still wretching and saw Sheryl laying down on the deck beside him. She looked back at him numbly, her lips trembling. One of the men was kneeling beside him, jerking the flash out of his hand and grabbing him roughly in the same gesture. Jonathan felt himself twitch at the touch. The hand was pushing and pulling too roughly to really be enjoyable. The last person who had touched him like that had been a sweet young maid in his father’s household, who he thought he was utterly in love with. Finding them in the pantry, caught in the throws of passion with just a bit too much stolen rum, his father had immediately fired her and sent him to the priesthood—a threat which had long been spoken but never acted on. Jonathan found himself thinking of her, phasing in and out of conciousness as the man touched him, grabbed him by the hips and turned him over.

He felt soft breasts press against his chest, a sharp contrast to the rough hands that held him and moved him seemingly through space. A soft sound followed the touch, and he opened his eyes, looking down at Sheryl. His hands were on either side of her head, her bruised face swimming around him in duplicate. He felt her thighs brush against his and saw the tears spring into her eyes as those soft thighs were spread apart. He mutely struggled against the positioning with his legs, but was too inebriated to really make an effort at resistance.

He felt another hand on him, while one pushed down on his lower back. Sheryl cried out, and he felt something beyond that hand, a tender softness. Then he was emersed in that feeling, the hand gone, Sheryl’s legs pressed against his. Other hands were pulling at his hips, making him move even as he realized what he was doing… and how his body was responding, picking up the movement on its own.

“Sheryl…for…forgive me…”

She closed her eyes and turned her face away, crying into the arm that was held above her head. Jonathan felt as if he was about to lose his lunch, the hands returning to his hips when he tried to pull away and get up. He was forced back down, a body laying roughly against his, moving in a way that forced him into mimicry.

The motion stopped and the weight was removed. For a long moment, Jonathan waited, pulling away from Sheryl but unable to look around him and see what was to come next.. He was grabbed and forced back down, jamming crudely against Sheryl’s leg as someone kneeled behind him and the crew began to laugh. He felt cold steel run along his side and back in a way that made his rum flooded head swim. The hook sunk into his hip, pulling him, as a hand spread him and introduced a new kind of pain.

Jonathan screamed as something was inserted into him, arching his back in an effort to get away. Sheryl screamed in response, moving beneath him until she was again pinned down by the sailors.

“There, there, lad…just be quite and pay your duties to yer cap’n,” the captain hissed in his ear, accentuating his point with a pull from the hook imbedded in his hip.

The next twenty minutes passed in an agonized blur, and Jonathan found himself sobbing against Sheryl’s shoulder. The sailors drew away from them, following the captain away. Somewhere in the distance he could hear women crying and a fight between two men. The chill air of the night closed around him, caressing his sweat soaked skin, forming goose pimples along

“Sheryl,” he whispered, moving his sore body to the side and touching her face. The skin that greeted him was cool to the touch, and too firm. His head swam and vision blurred as he trailed his fingertips down her face and throat… his fingers dipped inward, finding a jagged wound laced with warm blood. The captain had reached forward, taking the hook from his hip while he was having him… and had slit Sheryl’s throat even as Jonathan spent himself inside of her. He moved his arm beneath her body, lifting her into his arms and holding her against his chest.

The captain looked up as the door to his cabin was forced open. The priest stood there, hair matted and body smeared with blood. His breaches were put on as if in a haste, untied, one leg pulled up higher than the other. The young man’s face was set into a visage of both hate and despair.

“Aye, I see. What is it you want, then? More?” he growled, watching the man close the door behind himself. The priest’s eyes were dark, almost black in the flickering candle light.

“Do you think… it is a great thing… to rip nuns from their cloisters and priests from the altar to rape and kill them?” the voice that came from the priest was deeper than the shrill pleas of a day before, matching the set expression on the man’s face, “The blood upon my chest… Sister Sheryl’s. You slit her throat while you…raped…me and forced me… to rape her. I renounce my faith because the Lord has abandoned me to this, and because I am forced to sin. I am drunk, I have just raped a woman who died while I did so, I have been sodomized… and now, I am to take out my wrath and… murder.”

He pulled a pistol from behind his back and leveled it at the captain, staring along its length at him, “Please believe me when I say I hope you rot in the darkest depths of hell…savvy?”

The acolyte emerged from the cabin, holding the captain’s pistol shot head by the hair. He raised it above his own for the crew to see, “He’s dead! Do you see? Do you see! Take me back, or the same fate will come to each and everyone of you scabberous bastards.”

Jack walked amongst the graves in the small churchyard, searching for a particular name. The tombstones were old and as unkempt as the rest of the graveyard. The church had been rebuilt over the span of five years after it had been burnt down, only to be burned down again by some unknown. Jack paused to look at the ruins of the great building, all of its stone structure exposed beneath the fallen wooden beams. The passed seemed to overlap for a second, and he heard the faint din of screaming come from those ruins. He shook his head and knelt next to the grave he had been searching for.

‘Sister Sheryl’ was all the stone said, because that was all he had known about her. The other nuns who had lived through the ordeal refused to speak to him because they had been witness to what had happened to Sister Sheryl. He heard that one of them had taken her own life upon discovery that she was pregnant.

He strung a rosary across the stone, letting the tiny crucifix hang beside Sheryl’s name. Next, he set a rose on the ground and pressed his hands into a familiar gesture of prayer he now often used as a beseeching gesture. The power of prayer had died for him the night Sheryl had died beneath him.

“Sleep, sweet Sister… yesterday was far purer than today,” he muttered, standing again. The crucifix chimed against the tombstone as a light breeze caught it, and he turned on his heel, walking back the way he had come.