In The Deep

Archived: ask if you want it
Pairings: M/M Jack/Will M/F Will/Elizabeth some implied desire between Jack/Elizabeth
Feedback: review and commentary greatly appreciated—I have no other way to pay the muses for their hard work!!
Characters: Jack, Will, Elizabeth, Norrington…whoever chooses to pop up
Beta’s: No one, currently. Alas.
Author Notes: This is the second half of “Weakness in Me”, which DOES NEED TO BE READ FIRST. Please see that here. This is pretty much AU, since it does not take DMC into account.
Disclaimer: Chapter titles on this one are coming from “In the Deep” by Bird York. I don’t own it. Neither do I own POTC or related characters. Those belong to Disney.
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In The Deep

Chp. 1 Out There Living

Jack leaned against the helm, chewing a piece of food he had picked out of his teeth with his tongue. The process had taken him around twenty minutes, and it wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as he had hoped it would be. He had hoped the parcel would be a left over from a better meal, instead it was a shred of seagull meat lost behind a molar. He gave up on the small piece, so easily lost in the grip of his teeth, and spat it out on the deck. It was hardly visible on the dark, lacquered wood. Worthless.

Odd, he had a sudden empathy for the scrap of seagull meat now lost to him. Worthless. It was a word that he felt applied to him just as aptly as the shred. He was worthless, a piece of meat stuck in the teeth of the sea. As far as he knew, he would sail the Pearl until the day he died, chasing after the ideals of piracy. Freedom to do what he wanted, when he wanted, to love who he wanted, to have anything that he wanted in the world.

Anything that he wanted. Anyone he wanted to love.

He spat again, shifting on his feet and looking out towards the horizon. It was hard to chase after ideals that he wasn’t even sure existed anymore. He had been forced to leave what and who he wanted out of that damned empathy. He didn’t want to ruin Elizabeth’s preciously constructed marital life. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her in anyway. Really, he hadn’t thought about her at all until he was really forced to. The fact that she’d witnessed him with Will in the street and confronted him about it through her window and forced him to acknowledge her existence, and her feelings about the matter. Being locked in a cell with her for a night had driven the point home.

He couldn’t have Will, he knew that. He couldn’t be a part of the young man’s life without causing Elizabeth pain. Causing Elizabeth pain would then cause Will pain… and it would just be a terrible mess that he frankly didn’t want to deal with anymore.

He could think about not wanting to deal with it as much as he liked, but his mind always returned to Will and his current dissatisfaction with life. Dissatisfaction with life was something he had not experienced in years. Not since he was Will’s age himself, at least. Even when things went sour with Bootstrap at times, there were other things he could enjoy. Now, rum didn’t even taste quite right. It always brought him back to that time on the Interceptor.

“Dammit.”

“Captain?” Gibbs asked from somewhere to his right, “Somethin’ on your mind?”

“Hn?”

“I said, ‘somethin’ on your mind?’.”

“Ah. Yes. No. Gibbs… I need something to distract me.”

“Y’look plenty distracted, captain.”

“Something to distract me from being distracted.”

“Ah. Tortuga.”

“That sound about right.”

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Jack leaned his head back, passing the back of his hand over his lips, allowing his eyes to hood. Upon his arrival in Tortuga, he’d headed off to his favorite pub, successfully avoided Scarlet’s anger and found a young man that looked quite a bit like William. The eyes were off, too narrow, and the cheekbones too. That didn’t really matter in the dimness of the room. He had blown out the lamp just to avoid seeing the faults in the boy’s features. Not that that really mattered now that the boy was between his legs. He reached down with his other hand, tangling his fingers in the boy’s dark hair. Even his hair was wrong. Too course, too greasy. Jack dropped his hand, not wanting to ruin the effect.

“Will…” he let the name slip from his lips before pressing his hand harder against his mouth. The boy stopped what he was doing and Jack could feel his hands on his thighs.

“My name isn’t Will. It’s Edward.”

“I don’t care right now, love. Just…keep doing what you were doing.”

“But my name isn’t Will, Captain Sparrow. It’s Edward.”

“….That important, is it, that I know your name?”

“Yes.”

Jack sighed and sat up, squinting at the boy that was resting between his legs. Any excitement he’d found in the experience was gone with the utterance of Will’s name, and this young man insisting that Jack call him by his actual name.

“Thank you, love. You can go.”

“Captain Sparrow?”

“Hm?”

“Did…did I do something wrong?”

The look on the young man’s face was so tragic, so full of self-disappointment that Jack could help but reach for him, pulling him up beside him.

“No, mate. I did. Take the money, it’s yours. Go get something decent to eat.”

“But… it’s not the money. It’s you. I want to be a part of your crew. I want to--” the young man’ voice faded into the background as Jack closed his eyes, trying to force any thought of the blathering young thing beside him out of his head. There were easier ways to join a crew than to let the captain bed you. There were easier ways to get the things you want in life than this.

“Take the money, get out of the room,” Jack sighed, standing and pulling his britches back on, “if you want to be a part of the crew, you’re not sharing my bed. Go talk to Mr. Gibbs and…there are other ways, love.”

He made his own way out of the small bedroom, walking slowly down the stairs in his bare feet. It didn’t matter that his boots were still on the bedroom floor--n he would be there again soon, Scarlet at his side. She was a sure fire cure for anything that ailed him… well, besides pirate itch. She never really helped with that since she had a tendency to pick it up sometimes. Giselle had the same basic deficiency, as did most of the ladies of the evening in Tortuga. Little else could be expected with the amount of sailors that came through, with the amount of customers that they each serviced. He was almost in the mood just to buy all of his favorite women dinner… but that would still leave him unsatisfied, as the boy had. What had occurred between himself and the young man that didn’t quite look like Will amounted to the simplicity of Jack buying him dinner.

The pirate made his way through the clamoring drunks, pausing at the bar to lift a bottle of rum. The pub’s owner was usually far too drunk himself to realize that something had been stolen right from under his nose. Thinking about it, Jack waivered back, plucking up a few pieces of bread and cheese before continuing on his way.

Scarlet could be found outside, either on the balcony or the street itself if she wasn’t with another man. Jack looked up towards the balcony, searching for the bright glimmer of the dress that seemed irreplaceable on the woman. Perhaps she really loved it, or perhaps (and probably closer to the truth) she couldn’t afford anything else to clothe her frail body in. She was nowhere to be seen on the balcony, so he continued on his way outside until he found her, sitting on an abandoned crate next to some men swilling in beer and rum. They took no more notice of her sitting there than a dead dog takes of a crawling across its fur. Jack smiled and made his way over.

“Scarlet…”

“Captain Sparrow. Haven’t seen you around in awhile. Heard you were off with high society in Port Royal,” Scarlet replied, not moving from where she sat. Normally, she would come to Jack… even if it was just to slap him. He nimbly pushed a drunk off the crate beside her and sat down, handing her the bread and cheese.

“High society, eh? Is that what they’re saying?”

Scarlet nodded, taking the food from his hands. She was soon taking healthy bites of bread and cheese together, consuming the food as quickly as possible less the offer be retracted, or someone else should come along and take it from her. Jack had seen such behavior in animals that had been caged for a long time, without easy access to food. Anything put before them was quickly consumed, ferociously guarded… Jack put his arm around her slender shoulders.

“I wouldn’t say they were high society, really, Drawl, to be truthful,” he murmured, nuzzling her red hair. The dye that she used was of her own design, he was sure. It was a hue that almost matched the dress that she wore, and had that slight pungent tone about it that hinted at a composition that he really didn’t want to know about. The scent was deftly covered with her perfume and easily put out of mind. He sighed and kissed her ear.

“Something on your mind, captain?”

“Just you, love.”

“Never just me, Captain. You took the boy in only a bit ago. I saw that much. Edward? That is name?”

Jack’s shoulders tensed and he pulled back from her. Why was everything coming back to bloody Edward? Now he really wished he’d never picked the young man up.

“Aye. I did.”

“Looks a bit like that whelp you had awhile ago, the one that as looked like a fish out o’ water. What was his name again?”

“Will.”

“Ah, fancy that.”

“Aye, fancy it.”

The silence yawned between them as she finished the bread and cheese, picked the rum out of Jack’s hand and took a deep drink.

“Look, Scarlet, love… are you coming back with me or not?”

“Not.”

“Why not?”

“Pirate itch.”

“You’re on the street, Scarlet.”

“I know you better than you think, Captain.”

“Pirate itch’s name isn’t Edward, is it?”

“Might be.”

Jack stood up, leaving the bottle of rum with her and wandering down the street. He wondered, briefly, if it benefited a whore at all to be selective. Probably. To be jealous of others, though? Surely, that hinted at some kind of attachment, and that couldn’t be beneficial in the least. Becoming attached to customers couldn’t help her service others… but what did he know? He didn’t endure the same hardships as the whores and beggars who populated the ports he visited. Surely, he was no better than them… but he had the freedom of a ship. He had the freedom of a will to live, to seek out his desires.

Damned if he wasn’t back on that again.

Back inside the pub, he made his slow, meandering way back up to his room and sat down on the edge of the bed. Damned if he wasn’t back here again. Edward was, thankfully, gone from his sights as was the money that he had claimed he didn’t want. That suited Jack just fine. He laid back down on the bed, putting his hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling.

“Will,” he heard himself utter in the back of his throat, “Will… why did you have to go and marry her? Why did you have to feel that way for her but… but move me the way you have? Hm, lad?”

The sound of his own voice in the emptiness of the room would have been alien if he wasn’t already used to talking to himself. His mind quickly answered the questions he had posed to the ceiling… and the absent William. Will had married Elizabeth because of the same emotion that held Jack pinned to the bed, staring up at the ceiling with forlorn eyes. It was the same emotion that caused him to empathize with the sorry shred of meat that he had spat from his teeth. Will had married Elizabeth because she held the same strange captivation for him that he held for Jack. Simply stated, Will loved Elizabeth the way Jack loved Will… and didn’t that make things a wonderfully complicated? Briefly, his mind gnawed on the memory of the night the three of them shared in the prison, and the warm comfort he had felt from being next to Elizabeth. What a powerful, beautiful woman. He could see why Will loved her… but that still didn’t make things fair. That still left him lonely, their marriage in potential shambles… with an invitation to tea extended that he wasn’t sure he wanted to take, Or miss. Seeing Elizabeth would potentially allow him to see Will, to try and put the pieces of his life back together… or it could make things all the more complicated and horrid. In that case, he might as well drop dead right there, on the bed. He didn’t think he could deal with things being more complicated and dreadful.

The best idea was to try and forget and continue on with his life. He had to stop complicating his thoughts with empathies for bits of meat, whores, and street rats. Life was a rough thing and nothing really had much worth other than its value of sale. Even the people he knew and loved had a certain value. Scarlet had her hourly charge for her company, Giselle had hers. The crew had their division of any plunder that the Pearl carried. All of those people his life revolved around could easily be removed with the removal of monetary value. No money, and Scarlet and Giselle wouldn’t waste their time even looking at him. No plunder, and the crew was gone, leaving Jack in port without a crew to take the Pearl out to sea. If word got out that he was a “bad” captain, then the chances were slim that he’d ever get the Pearl back out to sea again. Even she would depart from him for a certain monetary value. The chances of that were slim, but his mind still worried over it. There was swag in her hold, he had a peculiarly dedicated and loyal crew, and his pockets were heavy with money. Interesting, how all of these things in his life revolved around the supply of money he had. His involvement with William had nothing to do with an exchange of gold, even though Jack had intended to use William for the value he represented. He was, in a way, cash that Jack could levy against Barbossa. Even Elizabeth had her price, really. She could easily have been confined and sold off to another pirate crew (not that Jack would ever, ever let that happen to another human whom he personally knew).

He rolled on his side. It all came down to value. Value… Elizabeth had more obvious value to Will’s life than Jack did. She was the Governor’s daughter. She came with a dowry that could help Will’s shop, she came with a small estate, and the ability to have children that would (hopefully) continue Will’s work. She had monetary value and future value. All Jack had to offer was ideals. The ideal of freedom at sea, with the ability to do anything you wanted, anything at all. The ideal of true love, which Jack wasn’t really sure existed. The ideal of endless treasures that included seeing new shores, seeing new peoples, animals, sharing experiences… he felt suddenly sentimental and closed his eyes, working to slow his mind and quiet it down. Such thoughts weren’t really conducive to the way that he wanted to live his life. Stripping his life of the only value he saw in it made him no better than that piece of meat stuck in his teeth, spat out and lost on the deck. Worthless.