Yus, 'nother Sparrington oneshot.
Title: Wheel of Fortune
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Pairing: Sparrington (Jack Sparrow x James Norrington)
Length: 4,330 words
Status: Complete
Warning: At World's End Spoilers
Wheel of Fortune
“Jack…” Ah. Oh dear. He knew that tone. It never did bode well.
“Jack. Jack. Jack! JACK! JACK SPARROW!”
“WHAT?!”
Elizabeth Swan shot him A Look, still fiddling with her son’s hair in front of him. He sent a wary glance at the kid, who blinked at him innocently. He hoped against hope she hadn’t named him what he thought she’d name him. It had taken her 5 years, but she’d finally managed to track him down, a stupid snot-faced brat tugging on her sleeve for most of the way. He glanced at her again. At least she had bigger breasts now. Keep the mind on the job, mate, the Angel reminded in his left ear. The Devil was still staring at her chest. He wiggled his hand at them absent-mindedly, still glaring at the little kid sitting beside her. “Have you ever had the urge to do the right thing?”
Bloody hell. “Not this again!” he grunted, staggered up and swayed across the room. “Rum… rum… rum... rum…”
Elizabeth handed him a bottle, eyes trained out of the window. “I know you haven’t had the best experience, but I - ”
“No.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide. “What?”
He simply looked at her. “I know what you’re going to ask, and I already know I don’t want to know.” He frowned. For some reason, that hadn’t made sense. With a shrug, he pulled the stopper off the bottle.
“Jack, you’re being silly again. And I really wouldn’t drink that if I were you.”
He looked at the bottle in his hand, yelped, and threw it on the floor. Milk? How the bloody hell had that happened? The brat giggled at him, but they both ignored him. “Refusing to do something that got me killed the last time round isn’t silly, it’s remarkably sensible, so if you don’t mind, I’d really like to be off.”
“James is in the locker.” Jack froze in the doorway, the correct bottle clasped in his hand.
“You what?”
“James Norrington. He’s in the Locker.” Jack raised an eyebrow.
“And what, we feel sorry for said Commodore - ”
“Former Commodore - ”
“Who has also tried to kill me on several different occasions.” He looked at her. She looked at him. She sighed, stood up and walked across to the window.
“If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have won, you know.” Jack rolled his eyes.
“Dunno about you, love, but the way I see it Norrington didn’t exactly make things peachy.”
She glared at him. “So, you call rescuing us from that goddamned island - ”
“To completely ignore what I said to him.”
“ - then taking the heart of Davy Jones - ”
“To save his own sorry behind.”
“ - and sacrificing his life to ensure I got away ‘not making things peachy’?” They stood and stared at each other for a while, before he rolled his eyes and fiddled with the various straps on his belt. She looked pointedly at the compass. He pretended not to understand her gaze for a while, before flipping it open with a melodramatic sigh and watching the needle twirl.
“You know, if it’s to go to the locker, it’s not going to stop anywhere.”
Elizabeth smiled evilly. “Exactly.” He looked down at the compass in his hand, which looked back at him. He blinked and shook his head, and the little eyes vanished. The dial, however, was still spinning chaotically. Jack rolled his eyes.
“I suppose dear William could do with the company.”
“Will. Will. WILLIAM TURNER, PUT THAT DOWN RIGHT NOW!” Dear gods, she had called him William. He sighed and shook his head, and the two smaller Jacks patted him sympathetically on the shoulders.
“Two William Turners were quite enough to deal with already,” he muttered sullenly. He was overcome with the sudden childish urge to ask whether they were there yet, before stretching and swaggering over to where a wailing William Junior and a scowling Elizabeth were standing. “Is that the waterfall?” he asked innocently. He had, after all, never been to the Locker this way before. Elizabeth’s eyes widened comically and she swore under her breath, running to clasp the wheel.
“Tie William down to something!” Jack looked distastefully at the whelp beside him, before grabbing his arm and flinging him into a cabin and tying himself to the mast. There was a rather strange sensation - something between a multitude of whelks eating his ears and his brain doing the conga - before everything went green. That was funny. He was used to it all going white, black, or even red. But no, on second inspection, it was most definetly green he was looking at. He blinked and untied the ropes, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
It was like asking someone to draw a lawn and then giving them a green crayon - they had just coloured in half of the paper green and buggered off. He blinked again; white sky, green earth. He was waiting for the fluorescent bunny rabbits. Elizabeth seemed to be a little thrown as well. “This wasn’t the Locker when I was here last.”
Jack was still looking around. “Diff’rent perspectives, love,” he said cryptically, before climbing into the rigging to peer at the green land in front of him. “How did you find me?”
She looked around, rather baffled. “I’m not sure… you were just sort of already there.”
“I probably wanted to be found. God knows what’s going through James’ poor little mind,” he muttered, looking around. “Then again, he was never the shiniest dagger stuck into my back, was he?”
Elizabeth shot him another Look before wandering below to find William. Jack sighed and swung down, preparing for docking. How they’d managed to sail this far on their own was really quite a miracle - but then, he was Captain Jack Sparrow, evader of death on countless occasions and one of the last true renegade pirates in the world.
He was much too good for this bollocks.
Or so his little Jacks told him under their breaths as they helped him to untie some rather tricky knots, and he watched as the ropes fell into the green gloop that had a slightly different texture to the rest of the green, allowing Jack to presume that it was probably some form of water - not that he was going to drink it or anything any time soon. Elizabeth came and stood behind him, looking pointlessly out to the horizon. “Well, I guess we’re here.” Jack didn’t feel that had earned a reply, simply swinging himself out of the rigging and landing with a disturbing squelchy noise onto the green floor, simply looking up and seeing -
James looked at him. He looked at James. “Oh, God, no.”
James looked at him again. “Hello,” Jack grinned, and Elizabeth smiled at him.
“It’s so good to see you again,” she said, and gave him a hug. “How do you feel?”
“I’m dead.”
“No fun, is it, mate? You haven’t even got a whole crew to keep you company.” Norrington simply looked at him. Jack knew that look. got that look a lot. Especially from Norrington. Well… before James had died… but Jack didn’t want to think about that. Jack didn’t like thinking about that.
“Forget about that,” Elizabeth snapped, tugging on James’ arm. “Come on, we should probably go.”
“Did we win?” A bedraggled James asked Jack as they were pulled away.
“Yeah,” Jack muttered, ignoring him for the sake of it.
“Oh.” James seemed to frown for a moment. “But if we won, how come there’s still a Davy Jones’ Locker? Surely it shouldn’t exist?”
“Bloody hell!” Jack yelled, and broke into a sprint. “Elizabeth! He said it!”
James looked incredibly confused. “Said what?”
“Forget it and RUN!” Elizabeth yelled back at him, and he complied, before recognising that something very, very bad was happening. The sky should definitely not be black like that. “Help us cast off!” she called, and screamed, flinging herself to one side as she swatted at the air. “DO IT!”
James and Jack looked at each other, before preparing the ship faster than either of them had ever been able to in their life. “What the hell is going on?” James called, and Jack shook his head, gesturing that they should continue. “SPARROW! I WANT ANSWERS!”
Jack simply glared at him. “Just shut the hell up and hold onto something!” They both fell to the floor at a sickening jolt, and Elizabeth spun the wheel so that they were soaring through the black sky towards a blue hole in the centre. “Hold on!” Jack yelled, and he grabbed onto something. Something warm. Something that made his skin tingle, and his throat dry, and all the blood rush from his brain.
The other hand clenched his hand back, and the former Commodore beside him screamed his name as they shattered the dimensions and sailed clear.
James took another, long swig of rum. “So what you’re telling me is that the Locker didn’t know that Jones was dead?”
Jack nodded. “An’ by saying what you did, you told it, and it had a crisis and basically collapsed inwards on itself.”
“Ah. I see.” James really, really didn’t. Jack snorted and took another gulp of rum, with James eagerly following suit.
“Kiss him!” Jack shot up in his chair, flailing around wildly for a moment, before locating the small voice as his ‘devil’ Jack who was perched on his shoulder, grinning wickedly and pointing at Norrington across the table. “Go on, kiss him!”
Jack ignored him pointedly. “Do you have these things?” he snapped at James, who followed his gestures to his shoulders with baffled amusement.
“What things?”
“These little voices in your ear! Always telling you what to do!” James chortled.
“Oh. I think you’ll find that’s called your conscience. And yes, I’ve had one for most of my life.” He felt the grin spread across his face a little more as the bewildered pirate appeared to glare at his shoulderblade.
“Well, whatever it’s called it’s bloody annoying!” he snapped, and James’ eyes widened as he appeared to pinch thin air and bring it in front of his nose, blowing at the air irritably.
“Stop it! Stop it!” squeaked Devil-Jack, flailing miserably under the death-grip of his larger self.
“Oh, shut it,” he said irritably, and placed the little figure down on his shoulder, before gasping and pointing at James’ own shoulder. He followed his finger, but found nothing.
“What?”
“You do have ‘em! I can see ‘em! They’re everywhere!” James peered at his shoulder, both baffled and intrigued at what the pirate was seeing. He swore and nearly fell of his seat to discover that he did indeed have someone small perched on his shoulder, who with folded arms was surveying the scene rather calmly.
“You should kiss him, you know.”
James looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”
The little him rolled his eyes. “You. Jack. Kiss. It’d do you good.”
James’ eyes bored into him. “You are joking.”
Across the room, Jack was having a similar conversation with the little version of himself he was attempting to quell by jumping on, and missing. Several times. “Will - you - shut - up!” he yelled, trying to land on the little figure yet again.
“Go on, just kiss him!”
“ALRIGHT!” he yelled, and marched across the room, stopping the fellow crew member’s argument with his own mini-me very effectively. Too effectively. James whimpered slightly, his hand hovering next to Jack’s head as the other nibbled very lightly on his lip. Oooooh, lip nibbling. Mmmm. That felt nice. His hand began to sway towards Jack’s head, but the pirate drew away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Completely ignoring the former Commodore, he took a long swig of rum and began to stagger towards the door.
James watched him go with a rather bleary mind, before sighing. “Oh, sod it,” he snapped, and stood up, paced across the room and slammed the pirate into the door, eagerly rejoining their previous activities. He ignored a muffled grunt against his mouth which he presumed was probably his name, and simply tried to lodge his tongue somewhere in the general vicinity of Jack’s tonsils. He managed to carry out this plan very effectively for some time, before finding he had to pull away, one hand over his mouth.
Jack stared at the officer in front of him, who was looking rather pale, and yelped when he suddenly bent over double in front of him. “Jack,” he panted, and he squatted down beside him. “Jack, d-don’t go anywhere.”
He blinked. “Why?”
“Because I think I’m going to throw up.” Jack’s eyes widened, and he tried to scrabble away, but there was a hand firmly clamped around his waist, and James’ eyes looked up to his desperately. “Jack, please, don’t go, please tell me you’re not, please don’t, please -”
“It’s alright.” He didn’t know why he said it, when the situation was far from it, but he did. It felt like the right thing to say. “I’m not going anywhere.” James looked at him with relief before collapsing down on the floor. Jack lowered him into a more comfortable position, before heaving himself upright and staggering off to find Elizabeth. She was easily located, standing her turn on the wheel, with William playing near her foot. She glanced at him as he strode out of the underdecks and swaggered to the edge of the boat. He looked behind him, slightly worriedly, but World’s End was far behind them. He sighed, slumping back onto the deck, and looked up at the stars for a moment. The compass had come out before he remembered pulling it out, but it was there, and he was looking at it, and the arrow was pointing to where James lay, collapsed, inside the cabin. “Oh bugger.” He glanced over at William, who was looking decidedly twitchy.
“What’s the matter with you, then?”
William looked at him for a moment, before casting his eyes back to the deck. “Keeping an eye out.”
“Oh. And what are you keeping an eye out for?” Jack asked, bemused.
William didn’t look up. “Undead monkeys.”
Jack snorted. “Undead monkeys? But why - ” He looked out to the horizon again. “Oh bugger.” He quickly pulled away again, staggering across the deck to call up at Elizabeth. “It’s him!”
James peered up through the hatch. “Him?”
Elizabeth looked at him. “Oh, bugger, him. Jack, what did you do this time?!”
“I didn’t do anything, I swear! I just buried the map somewhere, I was going to give it to him, I swear!” “Jack!” Elizabeth yelled, before ducking as a cannonball smashed through the wood to the left of her head.
“RUN!” Jack yelled, and Elizabeth began spinning the wheel frantically, barking orders to William, and Jack sprinted back across the deck, to where James was standing. “Are you alright to work, or would you prefer to stay below?”
A cannonball whizzed past, knocking Jack’s hat into the water, but he didn’t break eye contact.
“It knocked your hat off,” James stated, and Jack rolled his eyes.
“Yes, I know, now will you answer me?”
James winked at him, and dived off the side of the ship. Jack swore under his breath, rushing to the side and peering over into the dark water. Another cannonball ricoched past his head, but he kept his eyes trained on the water below him. “James…” he whispered, his eyes still searching, before yelping as a pair of wet hands clamped around his waist out of nowhere, and his hat was back on top of his head. “That is possibly the stupidest thing you have ever done,” he snapped, and James smiled behind him; he felt the twitch of his lips against the nape of his neck.
“I know,” he murmured, and Jack leant forwards onto the rail, forgetting the predicament for the moment, just living the relief that flooded through him. Eventually, he remembered that they were being fired at, and that Elizabeth probably needed a hand.
Staggering into the middle of the deck, he looked up at the very annoyed woman steering the ship. “Finally,” she snapped, and glared at him. “Make yourself useful and help William with the guns!” He glanced at James, who suddenly looked rather pale in the flash of light from the enemy’s guns. He winked at Elizabeth, before lurching over to James and pulling him across his body.
“I’m fine,” he muttered, but he could hardly stand, and that was not a healthy shade of green in his cheeks. Jack ignored him, hauling him through into the cabins and finally locating the brig, shoving him inside and chaining the door shut. James slumped back, but his eyes bored into the other pirate. “Jack…” he muttered, but the other had already swaggered off, and he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness. “I’m coming!” he yelled to Elizabeth. “I’m coming, just a second!” He burst out onto the deck, to realise two things; firstly, the gunfire appeared to have stopped. Secondly, Elizabeth wasn’t calling for him any more. These two added up quite nicely to the third standing very plainly on his deck. “Ah.” The other looked down at him, his mouth stretched into a long smile.
“Hello, Jack,” he said with a smile, and Jack tried his best to smile back.
“Hector.” He saw the other wince slightly at the name, but the smile was never broken.
“I believe you’ve got something I want, Jack,” Barbossa said, and Jack did his best to sidle towards the lifeboat, but a crew member soon gripped hold of his arm and forced him to stand still.
“Don’t I always,” he muttered sullenly, and Barbossa grinned at him. A clink from the direction of the cabins took both of them by surprise, and with a jerk of his head he ordered two crew members to flank the doorway. Jack was hoping, hoping, hoping -
“Jack?” He winced. He knew that voice far too well. He heard the gasp, the yells, the footsteps rather than saw them. He couldn’t bear to look. Eventually, James was standing beside William and Elizabeth, and looking at Jack with a very placid expression on his face - but although his face was stoic, his eyes burned with fear, and when Jack looked back at him he knew James would see the same in his own eyes.
“How nice of you to join us, Commodore,” Barbossa spat nastily, and the crew gave a chuckle. “I thought you were dead, but you appear to be as good as escaping his clutches as this scoundrel over here.”
“Scoundrel, eh? We never been called a scoundrel before. Sounds good, don’t it?” Jack tried to ignore him very, very hard, but it was difficult. Imagine trying to ignore yourself - not a pretty picture, by any account.
“No doubt you’ll be the reason that the Locker closed up recently, eh? And before we could make off with Jones’ plunder… that’s criminal, ain’t it, boys?” The crew gave a low murmur of agreement, and it was times like these that Jack really regretted the fact he’d never been able to relocate Gibbs, Cotton or Marty. He could do with the back-up right now. “Now, if you think about it, that wasn’t strictly our fault, seeing as - yah!” Jack attempted to make excuses, but having his arm twisted up his back was clouding his judgement. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw James tense, but he tried desperately to ignore it. Never give Hector anything to play with. He likes to break his toys.
“Let the man speak,” Barbossa said, striding over and peering at Jack with a grin on his face. “So what do you have to say for yerself this time, eh?”
“Ah…” Jack began, but he’d completely lost his train of thought, and Barbossa let out a long, barking laugh. “The trickster out of magic words, who’dve thought of it! They’ll be singing my praises for a long time, no doubt!” He laughed for a moment, before turning back and frowning at him. “Now, I’ll be blunt with you. I want the map, and I want it now. And you’re going to give it to me, or I’ll throw her over.” His eyes flickered to Elizabeth, and the crew dragged her over to the edge of the boat. She didn’t let out a grunt, but William had begun to cry silently. His face remained impassive. Barbossa grunted with impatience. “Well, what about the whelp?” He gestured again, and the boy joined his mother beside the side of the ship. Jack didn’t flinch. Elizabeth could take care of herself, and the boy too, from what he’d seen of him. He was more worried if they decided to - “Well, while, we’re at it, might as well throw Commodore here over too.” It happened before he could stop it; in one moment, his eyes filled with fear, he struggled against his captor and he uttered one word.
“No.”
It was so quiet he prayed that Barbossa hadn’t heard it, but from the way that he paused in his stride and locked eyes with Jack he could tell that he had heard it loud and clear. “Ohh… Jack.” His eyes twinkled with glee, and Jack flashed him a quick smile, eyes flickering hurriedly towards the three of them, balanced on the edge of the map. The crew laughed. “Jack, I thought you’d grown out of that silly phase!”
Jack flashed a quick grin. “Well, you know how it is, old habits die hard,” he said, but his eyes flickered over towards James again.
“Indeed they do,” Barbossa said with a smirk. “Throw them all overboard! And then we’ll see which one he saves first!”
Jack’s eyes widened. “No!” he whispered, but it was too late; they tumbled off, one by one, and he broke hold of the grip, ignoring the cackle of the crew behind him as he jumped blindly into the water. He ignored its sting as he swam desperately down, finding William first, floating as he sank below the waves. He pushed him upwards, allowing buoyancy to take him back to the surface, but he could tell for the other two he’d have to swim further down. Ignoring the burning in his lungs, he kicked further, eventually discovering Elizabeth, who was already struggling back up on her own. He gave her a push, and when he pointed down she shook her head, before rising out of view. He tried swimming further, but his brain was screaming against his lack of oxygen and he reluctantly kicked his way to the surface, breaking the water with a huge gulp of air. He looked around, panicking; Elizabeth was clutching William tightly, and looking at him with wide eyes.
“Where’s James?” she gasped, and he shook his head, saving his breath for his next dive. “Jack, don’t go back down! Jack! JACK!” He ignored her, taking one final gulp of breath before rocketing back down. He managed to get further without his earlier distractions, but he still couldn’t find him. When his eyes were stinging and his legs were turning weak he gave up, kicking back up towards the surface, coming up beside Elizabeth, who was treading water furiously and glaring up at the men on their ship above them. “If they turn the Pearl’s guns on her, she won’t stand a chance.” Jack looked at her, nodding, but his heart was numb with fear for James. He contemplated taking another dive, but Barbossa strode over to the edge and peered down at him.
“Jack… couldn’t you save him?” Jack felt his throat close up. No… don’t remind him… don’t remind him… he couldn’t take it… he couldn’t lose again - He glared up at his former subordinate, trying to concentrate on staying above the surface, but the waters were cold here, and he was so very tired.
The click of a safety catch snapped him back to attention, and his eyes widened as he saw James pointing his pistol deep into the base of Barbossa’s skull. “I’d sincerely prefer it if you didn’t do that,” he said calmly, and the crew yelled an uproar. “You,” he said, referring to the man who had been holding Jack earlier. “Throw them a rope.” He looked at Barbossa for confirmation, and he nodded minutely. The man glared at James, before casting three ropes down to the water. Jack was up his faster than his monkey counterpart. He was looking at Barbossa with the smallest of grins on his face.
“Now, Hector, I’d appreciate it if your men left my ship. They’re dirtying it again.” Barbossa opened his mouth, but Jack cut him off with a wave of his hand. “But it looks like they’re already off my ship,” he said, and Barbossa’s eyes widened as he realised that indeed all of the crew had deserted the Pearl, which was wallowing in the water behind him. Another glance confirmed that Elizabeth and William had quite disappeared, presumably to take the Pearl again. Jack smiled evilly, grabbing the pistol off the crewman beside him. “Now, by your leave, Hector,” he said, bowing with a smile and winking at James he belted it across the deck, James following suit, and they both jumped into the sea together. They didn’t hear Barbossa’s angry roar, or the attempt of many of the crew members to get back to the Pearl, because under the water wrapped around each other the only thing that mattered was the other’s beating heart.
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Pairing: Sparrington (Jack Sparrow x James Norrington)
Length: 4,330 words
Status: Complete
Warning: At World's End Spoilers
Wheel of Fortune
“Jack…” Ah. Oh dear. He knew that tone. It never did bode well.
“Jack. Jack. Jack! JACK! JACK SPARROW!”
“WHAT?!”
Elizabeth Swan shot him A Look, still fiddling with her son’s hair in front of him. He sent a wary glance at the kid, who blinked at him innocently. He hoped against hope she hadn’t named him what he thought she’d name him. It had taken her 5 years, but she’d finally managed to track him down, a stupid snot-faced brat tugging on her sleeve for most of the way. He glanced at her again. At least she had bigger breasts now. Keep the mind on the job, mate, the Angel reminded in his left ear. The Devil was still staring at her chest. He wiggled his hand at them absent-mindedly, still glaring at the little kid sitting beside her. “Have you ever had the urge to do the right thing?”
Bloody hell. “Not this again!” he grunted, staggered up and swayed across the room. “Rum… rum… rum... rum…”
Elizabeth handed him a bottle, eyes trained out of the window. “I know you haven’t had the best experience, but I - ”
“No.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide. “What?”
He simply looked at her. “I know what you’re going to ask, and I already know I don’t want to know.” He frowned. For some reason, that hadn’t made sense. With a shrug, he pulled the stopper off the bottle.
“Jack, you’re being silly again. And I really wouldn’t drink that if I were you.”
He looked at the bottle in his hand, yelped, and threw it on the floor. Milk? How the bloody hell had that happened? The brat giggled at him, but they both ignored him. “Refusing to do something that got me killed the last time round isn’t silly, it’s remarkably sensible, so if you don’t mind, I’d really like to be off.”
“James is in the locker.” Jack froze in the doorway, the correct bottle clasped in his hand.
“You what?”
“James Norrington. He’s in the Locker.” Jack raised an eyebrow.
“And what, we feel sorry for said Commodore - ”
“Former Commodore - ”
“Who has also tried to kill me on several different occasions.” He looked at her. She looked at him. She sighed, stood up and walked across to the window.
“If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have won, you know.” Jack rolled his eyes.
“Dunno about you, love, but the way I see it Norrington didn’t exactly make things peachy.”
She glared at him. “So, you call rescuing us from that goddamned island - ”
“To completely ignore what I said to him.”
“ - then taking the heart of Davy Jones - ”
“To save his own sorry behind.”
“ - and sacrificing his life to ensure I got away ‘not making things peachy’?” They stood and stared at each other for a while, before he rolled his eyes and fiddled with the various straps on his belt. She looked pointedly at the compass. He pretended not to understand her gaze for a while, before flipping it open with a melodramatic sigh and watching the needle twirl.
“You know, if it’s to go to the locker, it’s not going to stop anywhere.”
Elizabeth smiled evilly. “Exactly.” He looked down at the compass in his hand, which looked back at him. He blinked and shook his head, and the little eyes vanished. The dial, however, was still spinning chaotically. Jack rolled his eyes.
“I suppose dear William could do with the company.”
“Will. Will. WILLIAM TURNER, PUT THAT DOWN RIGHT NOW!” Dear gods, she had called him William. He sighed and shook his head, and the two smaller Jacks patted him sympathetically on the shoulders.
“Two William Turners were quite enough to deal with already,” he muttered sullenly. He was overcome with the sudden childish urge to ask whether they were there yet, before stretching and swaggering over to where a wailing William Junior and a scowling Elizabeth were standing. “Is that the waterfall?” he asked innocently. He had, after all, never been to the Locker this way before. Elizabeth’s eyes widened comically and she swore under her breath, running to clasp the wheel.
“Tie William down to something!” Jack looked distastefully at the whelp beside him, before grabbing his arm and flinging him into a cabin and tying himself to the mast. There was a rather strange sensation - something between a multitude of whelks eating his ears and his brain doing the conga - before everything went green. That was funny. He was used to it all going white, black, or even red. But no, on second inspection, it was most definetly green he was looking at. He blinked and untied the ropes, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
It was like asking someone to draw a lawn and then giving them a green crayon - they had just coloured in half of the paper green and buggered off. He blinked again; white sky, green earth. He was waiting for the fluorescent bunny rabbits. Elizabeth seemed to be a little thrown as well. “This wasn’t the Locker when I was here last.”
Jack was still looking around. “Diff’rent perspectives, love,” he said cryptically, before climbing into the rigging to peer at the green land in front of him. “How did you find me?”
She looked around, rather baffled. “I’m not sure… you were just sort of already there.”
“I probably wanted to be found. God knows what’s going through James’ poor little mind,” he muttered, looking around. “Then again, he was never the shiniest dagger stuck into my back, was he?”
Elizabeth shot him another Look before wandering below to find William. Jack sighed and swung down, preparing for docking. How they’d managed to sail this far on their own was really quite a miracle - but then, he was Captain Jack Sparrow, evader of death on countless occasions and one of the last true renegade pirates in the world.
He was much too good for this bollocks.
Or so his little Jacks told him under their breaths as they helped him to untie some rather tricky knots, and he watched as the ropes fell into the green gloop that had a slightly different texture to the rest of the green, allowing Jack to presume that it was probably some form of water - not that he was going to drink it or anything any time soon. Elizabeth came and stood behind him, looking pointlessly out to the horizon. “Well, I guess we’re here.” Jack didn’t feel that had earned a reply, simply swinging himself out of the rigging and landing with a disturbing squelchy noise onto the green floor, simply looking up and seeing -
James looked at him. He looked at James. “Oh, God, no.”
James looked at him again. “Hello,” Jack grinned, and Elizabeth smiled at him.
“It’s so good to see you again,” she said, and gave him a hug. “How do you feel?”
“I’m dead.”
“No fun, is it, mate? You haven’t even got a whole crew to keep you company.” Norrington simply looked at him. Jack knew that look. got that look a lot. Especially from Norrington. Well… before James had died… but Jack didn’t want to think about that. Jack didn’t like thinking about that.
“Forget about that,” Elizabeth snapped, tugging on James’ arm. “Come on, we should probably go.”
“Did we win?” A bedraggled James asked Jack as they were pulled away.
“Yeah,” Jack muttered, ignoring him for the sake of it.
“Oh.” James seemed to frown for a moment. “But if we won, how come there’s still a Davy Jones’ Locker? Surely it shouldn’t exist?”
“Bloody hell!” Jack yelled, and broke into a sprint. “Elizabeth! He said it!”
James looked incredibly confused. “Said what?”
“Forget it and RUN!” Elizabeth yelled back at him, and he complied, before recognising that something very, very bad was happening. The sky should definitely not be black like that. “Help us cast off!” she called, and screamed, flinging herself to one side as she swatted at the air. “DO IT!”
James and Jack looked at each other, before preparing the ship faster than either of them had ever been able to in their life. “What the hell is going on?” James called, and Jack shook his head, gesturing that they should continue. “SPARROW! I WANT ANSWERS!”
Jack simply glared at him. “Just shut the hell up and hold onto something!” They both fell to the floor at a sickening jolt, and Elizabeth spun the wheel so that they were soaring through the black sky towards a blue hole in the centre. “Hold on!” Jack yelled, and he grabbed onto something. Something warm. Something that made his skin tingle, and his throat dry, and all the blood rush from his brain.
The other hand clenched his hand back, and the former Commodore beside him screamed his name as they shattered the dimensions and sailed clear.
James took another, long swig of rum. “So what you’re telling me is that the Locker didn’t know that Jones was dead?”
Jack nodded. “An’ by saying what you did, you told it, and it had a crisis and basically collapsed inwards on itself.”
“Ah. I see.” James really, really didn’t. Jack snorted and took another gulp of rum, with James eagerly following suit.
“Kiss him!” Jack shot up in his chair, flailing around wildly for a moment, before locating the small voice as his ‘devil’ Jack who was perched on his shoulder, grinning wickedly and pointing at Norrington across the table. “Go on, kiss him!”
Jack ignored him pointedly. “Do you have these things?” he snapped at James, who followed his gestures to his shoulders with baffled amusement.
“What things?”
“These little voices in your ear! Always telling you what to do!” James chortled.
“Oh. I think you’ll find that’s called your conscience. And yes, I’ve had one for most of my life.” He felt the grin spread across his face a little more as the bewildered pirate appeared to glare at his shoulderblade.
“Well, whatever it’s called it’s bloody annoying!” he snapped, and James’ eyes widened as he appeared to pinch thin air and bring it in front of his nose, blowing at the air irritably.
“Stop it! Stop it!” squeaked Devil-Jack, flailing miserably under the death-grip of his larger self.
“Oh, shut it,” he said irritably, and placed the little figure down on his shoulder, before gasping and pointing at James’ own shoulder. He followed his finger, but found nothing.
“What?”
“You do have ‘em! I can see ‘em! They’re everywhere!” James peered at his shoulder, both baffled and intrigued at what the pirate was seeing. He swore and nearly fell of his seat to discover that he did indeed have someone small perched on his shoulder, who with folded arms was surveying the scene rather calmly.
“You should kiss him, you know.”
James looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”
The little him rolled his eyes. “You. Jack. Kiss. It’d do you good.”
James’ eyes bored into him. “You are joking.”
Across the room, Jack was having a similar conversation with the little version of himself he was attempting to quell by jumping on, and missing. Several times. “Will - you - shut - up!” he yelled, trying to land on the little figure yet again.
“Go on, just kiss him!”
“ALRIGHT!” he yelled, and marched across the room, stopping the fellow crew member’s argument with his own mini-me very effectively. Too effectively. James whimpered slightly, his hand hovering next to Jack’s head as the other nibbled very lightly on his lip. Oooooh, lip nibbling. Mmmm. That felt nice. His hand began to sway towards Jack’s head, but the pirate drew away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Completely ignoring the former Commodore, he took a long swig of rum and began to stagger towards the door.
James watched him go with a rather bleary mind, before sighing. “Oh, sod it,” he snapped, and stood up, paced across the room and slammed the pirate into the door, eagerly rejoining their previous activities. He ignored a muffled grunt against his mouth which he presumed was probably his name, and simply tried to lodge his tongue somewhere in the general vicinity of Jack’s tonsils. He managed to carry out this plan very effectively for some time, before finding he had to pull away, one hand over his mouth.
Jack stared at the officer in front of him, who was looking rather pale, and yelped when he suddenly bent over double in front of him. “Jack,” he panted, and he squatted down beside him. “Jack, d-don’t go anywhere.”
He blinked. “Why?”
“Because I think I’m going to throw up.” Jack’s eyes widened, and he tried to scrabble away, but there was a hand firmly clamped around his waist, and James’ eyes looked up to his desperately. “Jack, please, don’t go, please tell me you’re not, please don’t, please -”
“It’s alright.” He didn’t know why he said it, when the situation was far from it, but he did. It felt like the right thing to say. “I’m not going anywhere.” James looked at him with relief before collapsing down on the floor. Jack lowered him into a more comfortable position, before heaving himself upright and staggering off to find Elizabeth. She was easily located, standing her turn on the wheel, with William playing near her foot. She glanced at him as he strode out of the underdecks and swaggered to the edge of the boat. He looked behind him, slightly worriedly, but World’s End was far behind them. He sighed, slumping back onto the deck, and looked up at the stars for a moment. The compass had come out before he remembered pulling it out, but it was there, and he was looking at it, and the arrow was pointing to where James lay, collapsed, inside the cabin. “Oh bugger.” He glanced over at William, who was looking decidedly twitchy.
“What’s the matter with you, then?”
William looked at him for a moment, before casting his eyes back to the deck. “Keeping an eye out.”
“Oh. And what are you keeping an eye out for?” Jack asked, bemused.
William didn’t look up. “Undead monkeys.”
Jack snorted. “Undead monkeys? But why - ” He looked out to the horizon again. “Oh bugger.” He quickly pulled away again, staggering across the deck to call up at Elizabeth. “It’s him!”
James peered up through the hatch. “Him?”
Elizabeth looked at him. “Oh, bugger, him. Jack, what did you do this time?!”
“I didn’t do anything, I swear! I just buried the map somewhere, I was going to give it to him, I swear!” “Jack!” Elizabeth yelled, before ducking as a cannonball smashed through the wood to the left of her head.
“RUN!” Jack yelled, and Elizabeth began spinning the wheel frantically, barking orders to William, and Jack sprinted back across the deck, to where James was standing. “Are you alright to work, or would you prefer to stay below?”
A cannonball whizzed past, knocking Jack’s hat into the water, but he didn’t break eye contact.
“It knocked your hat off,” James stated, and Jack rolled his eyes.
“Yes, I know, now will you answer me?”
James winked at him, and dived off the side of the ship. Jack swore under his breath, rushing to the side and peering over into the dark water. Another cannonball ricoched past his head, but he kept his eyes trained on the water below him. “James…” he whispered, his eyes still searching, before yelping as a pair of wet hands clamped around his waist out of nowhere, and his hat was back on top of his head. “That is possibly the stupidest thing you have ever done,” he snapped, and James smiled behind him; he felt the twitch of his lips against the nape of his neck.
“I know,” he murmured, and Jack leant forwards onto the rail, forgetting the predicament for the moment, just living the relief that flooded through him. Eventually, he remembered that they were being fired at, and that Elizabeth probably needed a hand.
Staggering into the middle of the deck, he looked up at the very annoyed woman steering the ship. “Finally,” she snapped, and glared at him. “Make yourself useful and help William with the guns!” He glanced at James, who suddenly looked rather pale in the flash of light from the enemy’s guns. He winked at Elizabeth, before lurching over to James and pulling him across his body.
“I’m fine,” he muttered, but he could hardly stand, and that was not a healthy shade of green in his cheeks. Jack ignored him, hauling him through into the cabins and finally locating the brig, shoving him inside and chaining the door shut. James slumped back, but his eyes bored into the other pirate. “Jack…” he muttered, but the other had already swaggered off, and he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness. “I’m coming!” he yelled to Elizabeth. “I’m coming, just a second!” He burst out onto the deck, to realise two things; firstly, the gunfire appeared to have stopped. Secondly, Elizabeth wasn’t calling for him any more. These two added up quite nicely to the third standing very plainly on his deck. “Ah.” The other looked down at him, his mouth stretched into a long smile.
“Hello, Jack,” he said with a smile, and Jack tried his best to smile back.
“Hector.” He saw the other wince slightly at the name, but the smile was never broken.
“I believe you’ve got something I want, Jack,” Barbossa said, and Jack did his best to sidle towards the lifeboat, but a crew member soon gripped hold of his arm and forced him to stand still.
“Don’t I always,” he muttered sullenly, and Barbossa grinned at him. A clink from the direction of the cabins took both of them by surprise, and with a jerk of his head he ordered two crew members to flank the doorway. Jack was hoping, hoping, hoping -
“Jack?” He winced. He knew that voice far too well. He heard the gasp, the yells, the footsteps rather than saw them. He couldn’t bear to look. Eventually, James was standing beside William and Elizabeth, and looking at Jack with a very placid expression on his face - but although his face was stoic, his eyes burned with fear, and when Jack looked back at him he knew James would see the same in his own eyes.
“How nice of you to join us, Commodore,” Barbossa spat nastily, and the crew gave a chuckle. “I thought you were dead, but you appear to be as good as escaping his clutches as this scoundrel over here.”
“Scoundrel, eh? We never been called a scoundrel before. Sounds good, don’t it?” Jack tried to ignore him very, very hard, but it was difficult. Imagine trying to ignore yourself - not a pretty picture, by any account.
“No doubt you’ll be the reason that the Locker closed up recently, eh? And before we could make off with Jones’ plunder… that’s criminal, ain’t it, boys?” The crew gave a low murmur of agreement, and it was times like these that Jack really regretted the fact he’d never been able to relocate Gibbs, Cotton or Marty. He could do with the back-up right now. “Now, if you think about it, that wasn’t strictly our fault, seeing as - yah!” Jack attempted to make excuses, but having his arm twisted up his back was clouding his judgement. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw James tense, but he tried desperately to ignore it. Never give Hector anything to play with. He likes to break his toys.
“Let the man speak,” Barbossa said, striding over and peering at Jack with a grin on his face. “So what do you have to say for yerself this time, eh?”
“Ah…” Jack began, but he’d completely lost his train of thought, and Barbossa let out a long, barking laugh. “The trickster out of magic words, who’dve thought of it! They’ll be singing my praises for a long time, no doubt!” He laughed for a moment, before turning back and frowning at him. “Now, I’ll be blunt with you. I want the map, and I want it now. And you’re going to give it to me, or I’ll throw her over.” His eyes flickered to Elizabeth, and the crew dragged her over to the edge of the boat. She didn’t let out a grunt, but William had begun to cry silently. His face remained impassive. Barbossa grunted with impatience. “Well, what about the whelp?” He gestured again, and the boy joined his mother beside the side of the ship. Jack didn’t flinch. Elizabeth could take care of herself, and the boy too, from what he’d seen of him. He was more worried if they decided to - “Well, while, we’re at it, might as well throw Commodore here over too.” It happened before he could stop it; in one moment, his eyes filled with fear, he struggled against his captor and he uttered one word.
“No.”
It was so quiet he prayed that Barbossa hadn’t heard it, but from the way that he paused in his stride and locked eyes with Jack he could tell that he had heard it loud and clear. “Ohh… Jack.” His eyes twinkled with glee, and Jack flashed him a quick smile, eyes flickering hurriedly towards the three of them, balanced on the edge of the map. The crew laughed. “Jack, I thought you’d grown out of that silly phase!”
Jack flashed a quick grin. “Well, you know how it is, old habits die hard,” he said, but his eyes flickered over towards James again.
“Indeed they do,” Barbossa said with a smirk. “Throw them all overboard! And then we’ll see which one he saves first!”
Jack’s eyes widened. “No!” he whispered, but it was too late; they tumbled off, one by one, and he broke hold of the grip, ignoring the cackle of the crew behind him as he jumped blindly into the water. He ignored its sting as he swam desperately down, finding William first, floating as he sank below the waves. He pushed him upwards, allowing buoyancy to take him back to the surface, but he could tell for the other two he’d have to swim further down. Ignoring the burning in his lungs, he kicked further, eventually discovering Elizabeth, who was already struggling back up on her own. He gave her a push, and when he pointed down she shook her head, before rising out of view. He tried swimming further, but his brain was screaming against his lack of oxygen and he reluctantly kicked his way to the surface, breaking the water with a huge gulp of air. He looked around, panicking; Elizabeth was clutching William tightly, and looking at him with wide eyes.
“Where’s James?” she gasped, and he shook his head, saving his breath for his next dive. “Jack, don’t go back down! Jack! JACK!” He ignored her, taking one final gulp of breath before rocketing back down. He managed to get further without his earlier distractions, but he still couldn’t find him. When his eyes were stinging and his legs were turning weak he gave up, kicking back up towards the surface, coming up beside Elizabeth, who was treading water furiously and glaring up at the men on their ship above them. “If they turn the Pearl’s guns on her, she won’t stand a chance.” Jack looked at her, nodding, but his heart was numb with fear for James. He contemplated taking another dive, but Barbossa strode over to the edge and peered down at him.
“Jack… couldn’t you save him?” Jack felt his throat close up. No… don’t remind him… don’t remind him… he couldn’t take it… he couldn’t lose again - He glared up at his former subordinate, trying to concentrate on staying above the surface, but the waters were cold here, and he was so very tired.
The click of a safety catch snapped him back to attention, and his eyes widened as he saw James pointing his pistol deep into the base of Barbossa’s skull. “I’d sincerely prefer it if you didn’t do that,” he said calmly, and the crew yelled an uproar. “You,” he said, referring to the man who had been holding Jack earlier. “Throw them a rope.” He looked at Barbossa for confirmation, and he nodded minutely. The man glared at James, before casting three ropes down to the water. Jack was up his faster than his monkey counterpart. He was looking at Barbossa with the smallest of grins on his face.
“Now, Hector, I’d appreciate it if your men left my ship. They’re dirtying it again.” Barbossa opened his mouth, but Jack cut him off with a wave of his hand. “But it looks like they’re already off my ship,” he said, and Barbossa’s eyes widened as he realised that indeed all of the crew had deserted the Pearl, which was wallowing in the water behind him. Another glance confirmed that Elizabeth and William had quite disappeared, presumably to take the Pearl again. Jack smiled evilly, grabbing the pistol off the crewman beside him. “Now, by your leave, Hector,” he said, bowing with a smile and winking at James he belted it across the deck, James following suit, and they both jumped into the sea together. They didn’t hear Barbossa’s angry roar, or the attempt of many of the crew members to get back to the Pearl, because under the water wrapped around each other the only thing that mattered was the other’s beating heart.