BINDING
BY:  Kanzeyori

***

He clasped Sparrow's hand, and turned it over; they'd been swept
apart as soon as they boarded the Dauntless, Jack's gold and jewels
replaced by irons, and he never had a chance to properly bind the
wound. It had opened itself wider with the rough handling, broad and
deep where Elizabeth's had been shallow and his had been but long.
They are men and a woman marked by the experience, and it might have
held them together were it not for the shackles weighing down the
wrist he clasped. Were it not for the lacings suffocating Elizabeth
anew somewhere lost in the decks above him.

Were it not for the men guarding the door, stairs, and decks, both
above and below.

He notes, absently, that Jack's fingers are a small bit shorter than
Elizabeth's. This doesn't seem quite right, but he supposes that Jack
presents them to greater effect. He brushes aside the old wrappings
and reached toward the waiting closely clean rags he'd gathered and
grasped the canteen he'd brought. Jack caught his eyes before he
could pour it.

Smiled, arched his head back, and opened his mouth.

So he leaned over more and held the rim to Jack's lips, as he tried
to judge how much drink to allow him, watching Jack's eyes and the
smooth brown ripple of his throat. He found himself leaning forward,
yet more; jerking himself back only caused Jack's mouth to leave with
a soft wet sound. And spilled the rum.

He quickly pours the rest of it over the open cut, shifting whatever
comment Jack had readied into a drawn out hiss. Dabbing the cut
softly, it's soon clean enough to be rewrapped. He tries to keep the
bindings flat and mostly succeeds as he bent his head over their
hands, breath held lightly, and vaguely wishes that someone other
than the ship's medic wrapped his own. Not that the medic wasn't
quick and efficient but. He ignores the thought as he slowly smoothes
down the last layer with both hands and gently binds it tight. He
releases a breath of air and tries not to think of it as a
benediction. He lifts his head up.

He clasps Jack's hand fleetingly, then leans back, releasing it. Jack
sweeps his hand to his knee. He pronounces into the space between
them,

"Don't worry, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, remember?"

Will swallows and nods and can see in Jack's eyes that he feels, too,
the tremble of swarming uniformed boots through the ship's bones,
knows that Norrington's noose can just as easily hang from a crow's
nest as from a proper gallows.

He gets up to go to the door.

Sparrow's already returned to carelessly lounging, eyes-closed, on
the cot. He clenches his hand and it disturbes him that, of the three
of them, Jack's might be the only one to scar, if it ever gets a
chance to.

He carefully doesn't consider why his hand stretches and splits his
own wound in response.



***

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