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The Pirate's Life For Me
BY: TheWriter*** Author's notes: **-- Signifies Jack's POV --** "I've convinced him to let you go, Will. It was the best I could do." I could not believe my ears. But indeed, it was the ears that told the tale. My bonnie lass, the love of my life, bore a small hoop earring at the top of her left ear. Elizabeth Swann had sold herself to Jack Sparrow, the Captain of the Black Pearl. And now I was to be sold at a Tortuga slave auction on the morrow. And it was entirely my own fault. It had started two months ago, when a small fair on the docks had turned into a bloodbath. The fair was an annual creation of the military's, and my wife and I, so newly married, had decided to go for a nighttime stroll to see the spectacles. We had been happy, Elizabeth and I, if a little strained, in our first three months of marriage, but things were leveling out now, and I was indeed, a happy, happy man. At the whistle of the first cannon ball, we both looked out to sea. What ship we had expected to see, we did not ever say, but to see those long remembered black sails brought my heart to my mouth, and my palms began to sweat. Jack was back. Elizabeth and I had never really talked of Jack upon our return to the port. There didn't seem to be much of a point. And I truly did not want to speak of him. And I had thought that perhaps Elizabeth had felt the same, even as I hoped desperately that she did not. For the thoughts that I had on Captain Jack Sparrow where ones that a man could grow old, and mad with, in very short time, were I to dwell on them. Yet, it was not the Jack Sparrow I had remembered. No. Gone was the lovable fop who had stolen my heart on the Interceptor. This was indeed a true pirate. Ruthless, cold, heartless, and hungry for anything he could get his hands on. And he knew the riches of Port Royal, and indeed, felt he had a score to settle with her. Elizabeth and I fought bravely, but in the end, we were both taken. It was my fault. I had thought Jack would hold us with at least a little esteem, and so I asked for the right of Parley, and to my own personal surprise, I received it. And Elizabeth and I were once again taken aboard the Black Pearl. What a disastrous venture. He was not surprised to see either of us. Yet, no amount of begging, cajoling, or calling up of old debts could content him, and both of us were thrown in the brig. Jack Sparrow, Captain of the Black Pearl, made Barbossa look like an angelic choirboy, and the new crew he had taken on were as ruthless, and as cruel as he was. That long first night, we were thrown in together, and he paced briefly, and then sat down across from us. He never said a word all night, just watched as Elizabeth went to pieces in my arms, and I glared at him until I fell asleep. **--How do I get them out of this? I cannot save them both. Will's first concern has always been Elizabeth, and so for his sake, I will concern myself with her. If I don't look after her, he will kill me, no matter what else happens.--** When I awoke, he was gone, and in his place were two crew members, building a smaller cage opposite me. For the life of me, I could not see the point in this. Elizabeth and I talked quietly under the sound of the work. We tried to figure out what Jack was going to do with us. But nothing could have prepared us for the future. We did not see Jack again until the other cell was completed. He swaggered down the hold, two men at his side, and ordered them to take Elizabeth out. At first, when he said it, I was relieved, and then I saw the look on his face, and I tried, I did try, to get to him, to kill him. But he had starved us both well, and there was no fight that I was capable of against him, nor Elizabeth. And eventually, I would hear her screams from above decks, even over the sounds of the waves against the ship. **--I will hate myself until the day I die for this, but if I don't, we will all be killed, and that will do no one any good. No, to spare Elizabeth, I must sacrifice her, however temporarily.--** She was returned, in only her long white shift. One side of her face puffed and bruised, her body bloodied, and carried along by one of the crew men, who would give her limp, and unconscious body a long bruising kiss before dumping her into the smaller cell. And as I screamed and ranted at him, he only thanked me for the use of my wife, and strolled his way back up to the decks. Every night for a week, she was taken up on deck, and by the end of the week my feisty and beautiful bride was broken. The screaming had stopped, and she walked of her own accord up those stairs, trembling, crying still, but with resigned countenance. Neither of us had seen Jack apparently, since that first night, and neither of us wanted to. Elizabeth had quit talking as much, but she did still talk to me. But that too, would soon cease, and I would be left completely in the dark. And now, all I can tell is what I saw. At the end of the second week, Elizabeth looked healthier, and it appeared to me that she was eating better. I supposed that the crew would be giving her scraps I did not receive, but there was no way I could be sure of this, and at the end of the third week, when she appeared below in a new dress, a low cut, navy apparition of thin material, certainly not anything a proper lady should wear, I began to wonder. **--Captain's right. I took her from under the crew, told them I wanted my own personal attentions. And they believed me. Now, if only I could get Elizabeth to trust me again.--** At the end of the fourth week, she did not return to her cell. And for three days, I went mad. I had no idea what had happened to her. The scurvy dogs whom I had to ask, the men who brought me my food, which had greatly improved over the last two weeks, would say nothing of her whereabouts, only chuckle at me lecherously, daring me to ask the Captain for the same fate. And so I did. I still thought, that somewhere in Captain Jack Sparrow was a good man; the same good man that my father had been. I didn't think that Jack would really hurt me. We had been friends. And so when he came down for our "chat" I had a moments shock once again, as those cold eyes looked me over, asking me if I was sure of this course of action. And when I could only nod my affirmative, his laugh sent chills down my spine. **--I could not believe that he would do that, to save his woman, just to be with her. And that he wanted to be with me. And I almost allowed it, just for the eventual opportunity to touch, to taste... But I couldn't. I could not send him to that fate, no matter how badly the crew wanted him, no matter how badly I wanted him. He deserved at least to have love, or nothing at all.--** I was bound to the riggings, upon deck, and stripped of every article of clothing I wore. As I had come up, I had noticed we were anchored, and that both my wife, and Jack seemed absent. Jack was still no fool, it would appear. He knew better then to let Elizabeth know the truth of this matter. And no matter how many times I swore that I would not scream, even biting into the rigging in front of me, it did not help. The Pearl had 23 crewmembers, not including her beloved Captain. And by the time my raw and bleeding ass was taken back down under the decks, I was intimately aware of each and every one of them. It was another three days before I saw anybody. I had no food, and no water. It is not surprising then, When Elizabeth came to me, I thought I was delusional. Yet there she stood, in a blood red dress, her hair pulled back to reveal that newly pierced ear, and she told me I would be a sold as a slave, but at least it would get me off the ship before the crew again asked for my presence on deck. It was only near the end of our brief conversation that I noted the dilation of her eyes, the soft and unusual manner of her. And that was when I knew that I had to kill Jack Sparrow, you see. For no woman as beautiful and innocent as my Precious Swann should have been bought with the price of whoring and opium. **--I had to get him off of the ship. I had killed two men, and almost killed Elizabeth over my rage at what had happened. It was her idea to sell him, and to get him away... away from the pain. And I could not face him. If I looked at him now, I would be lost. Better to send him away.--** I asked her why though, before she left. I asked her why she let herself get to this point. Her only response as she headed back up those stairs was just that little song that she always sang... the song that I hated above all things. All she said to me was "A Pirate's life for me." I was sold the next night. 100 silver, almost a Tortuga record. It was a slave ship, hauling silks from India back to England, and I did well there. No man touched me, and any man who came close I killed. Over time, I was released. Well, not so much as released, as freed. That is what happens when another pirating crew sinks your ship, and you wash up on shore a few hours later. It took me almost a month to recover from those injuries though, another month lost. But the man who took me in, was a good man, and his wife even kinder. They patched me up, and sent me back on my way with coin in my pocket, and a sword at my side, feeling more a capable man then I had since that horrid night in Tortuga that reconfirmed everything that I had always believed about pirates. **--When I found out that the ship had been sunk, I locked myself away for three days in my cabin, with Elizabeth. We cried together, took the opium together, and tried to forget that the man we both loved, would now be at the bottom of Davy Jones' Locker. And that was the day I gave up the ship to her. She was the more capable one now.--** But Jack had been right about one thing. There was pirate in my blood, and someday, I would have to square with that. And that would be why, when I slowly made my way back to Tortuga, and heard that Anamaria was taking on a new crew, I offered my own arm as long as she promised me one favor: That should we find the Pearl, I would be allowed to run him through myself - him, and my treacherous wife. It was with a serious face that she nodded to me, and said with a dark look of long healed over pain, that we had an accord. Yes, I killed men during that time. However, it always was something that I was good at, and the sailing did come naturally to me. Ana ran a tight ship, and she never held with a lot of unnecessary roughness or cruelty. She was in the employ of the French government, sinking only other pirate ships, and anything from Spain and England. So we ran under French colors, and it kept us safe, most of the time. And it would be almost six months before we would meet with the Black Pearl on the high seas. But this was not the first time she, or I, had faced the Pearl in battle, and we had learned things since last time. We didn't try to out run her, we simply turned, and loaded the canons. The point was, to simply fire as many as possible, as fast as possible, and sink her, before she sank us. Of course, things didn't quite work that way, not this time. This time, we were dealing with a Captain who had grown fat, and content onboard his ship. We were dealing with a crew who had not been expecting us, and were heavy with drugs and alcohol. **--I couldn't speak, and I couldn't move upon seeing him, like a ghost twice over, Bootstrap and himself. I couldn't have fought for my ship if I had tried, I couldn't have even fought for Elizabeth. And what was the point? I was only holding her for Will, after all. And now he was here, and I was lost.--** Indeed, the only one who put up much of a fight was Elizabeth herself. Dressed as a man, her hair clipped up to her shoulders. Her face hard and tanned, her body lean and looking almost starved for lack of food but too much lust for the drug, she attacked, and it was all I could do in the end to keep from killing her. I wanted to, but I simply couldn't. I still loved this woman, whether I wanted to or not. Most of the crew, we tossed overboard. Useless, over drugged sots, it would be weeks before any of them would be of any use to us. The Pearl, Anamaria gave, rather grandly, to me, and donated a handful of a crew to keep me started. And Jack, I threw in the smaller cell. My wife, I bound in my quarters. **--Too much like his father. All noble pride and lean, sinuous muscle. I wanted to... No. I deserved death, and even now, he couldn't do it. He was too honorable... too good... too good for me.--** It would take weeks before either one of them could talk sense. Weeks after that before either of them could even hold down water. The drug, as it leached from their systems did its best to kill them, and eventually, even Elizabeth's screams would tire me, and I would again put her below, in the larger cell. It was a mistake, I see that now, but I was still learning at this point. **--I never thought I could hate him, but the pain as I came out of my drugged daze was almost enough to do it, and upon seeing him so cold, towards both Elizabeth, and myself. It broke the both of us. And now, all the Swann and I had now was each other.-- ** Neither of them would speak to me. Neither of them would give me so much as a glance. They did speak to each other, however, and their eyes locked whenever I was not standing in the way. In the nine months of my absence, they had only each other, until they truly did love each other, and for whatever reasons, that maddened me far more then anything else that had happened yet in my life. I would dare even to say, that it was their love that made finally, a man out of me. Upon our return to Tortuga, I would sell Jack, rather privately, to a madam who had always fancied him. I left him spitting and snarling at me on the edge of the docks, determined that he would come for his woman. He sounded remarkably like myself, only a bit more then a year ago, and I laughed at him; a long, bitter laugh. **--I couldn't let him know how scared I was. I couldn't tell him how much he hurt me. He would have 23 men. I would have hundreds in my nine- month stay at Madam's, and honestly, the women were worse.--** And then, I made my way back to Port Royal. Elizabeth, at first, didn't understand. But I did. I had been working with the French government for months, and of the last few, every Spanish and English ship we boarded, had letters asking for the Sea Swann's arrest. A terror akin to her husband, it was said, Swann was wanted for the murder of at least 14 men, and the torture of many more, including the supposed murder of her first husband. She had apparently claimed this with pride. Near the end, she pleaded with me. And were it not for the look in her eyes, I would have believed it. Were it not for that hard, greedy glitter, I would have taken her back. But I knew that if I did that, I would be dead before the night came to pass, and Elizabeth Swann would be heading back to Tortuga for the man she now called her mate. We arrived in Port Royal in the spring. And it was Norrington himself who carried out the orders against her. There would be no rescue attempt this time. There was no point of it. Her father, thankfully, had died shortly after we had been taken aboard the Pearl, and never had to see the wreck his once fine daughter had come to. Upon her death, it was discovered that she might have been spared the gallows, had she allowed her pride to speak up. They did not hang women who were with child, not even the child of a notorious pirate. But she did not speak, and I was thankful that she hadn't. I attempted then, to go back to my normal life. The Pearl now bore white sails, and stayed in the port for an average of five months. Then, I could bear that call no longer, and under English colors, I set myself back out to sea. Once again, I set my sails for Tortuga, and for some reason, was not surprised when a far tamer Jack Sparrow asked to come aboard my ship. **--He was back, that's all that mattered, and I had to see him again, even if he killed me, even if he demanded I service his crew, even if he asked the world of me, I would give it. Anything to see those dark, rich, proud eyes take in my appearance, one last time.--** I did turn him down. I did buy the man a drink. And we spoke, finally. It was a long, long night, that night. We spoke of shoes and ships and ceiling wax, of cabbages and kings. And then we spoke of Port Royal, and the Pearl. And at long last, we spoke of Elizabeth. And as the dawn progressed, I heard his story. And I will confess, as the day went on, I did cry for him. His own fate had been, in a twisted way, no less brutal then my own. When we were first taken aboard, it had been his intent to make both of us part of his crew. When we were first taken aboard, he had counted on the act of parley, but still had to maintain complete control of a crew he hated. And when we were first taken aboard, he had not expected to get a boatload of opium less then a week later. And from that point on, again, his First Mate seemed to be running the show. Only this time, the crew was content to let their fop of a Captain do as he pleased, as long as they got what they wanted. And Jack's only request was for Elizabeth. Hoping to spare her, if nothing else, from the nightly ravages of the crew. And his ploy worked. Eventually, he had hoped to barter for myself as well, but it had not worked, and as Elizabeth became more and more part of the crew, the less and less the woman that Jack had known. And for some reason, I was not surprised to learn that Governor Swann himself, had at one point in time, been aboard a pirate ship. He had been only a cabin boy, but it had been enough. He had taken his first man already, when he discovered instead, a life of politics, but he had been a pirate, once. Elizabeth, it would seem, only carried on her own family tradition, as much as I had. In the end, it was her who had been running the ship. Jack's constant worry of my own fate, drove her batty, it would seem. And despite the love that they did indeed bear each other, eventually Jack would learn that the woman he now called his own bonnie lass, had been sleeping with the crew again, and it was entirely possible that the child she would have born, was the offspring of the First Mate, and not Jack himself. And now, with the Pearl back in his reach, and both of us drunk, at noon time in Tortuga, we took ourselves to bed, and Jack Sparrow finally received what he had been wanting from the moment he had fought me in my blacksmith's shop. I am now the First Mate, on the Black Pearl. The most dreaded pirate ship in the world. No drug is allowed on our decks, nor is any woman. Women, you see, are frightfully bad luck. Rum, however, abounds, and so does gold. We are rich men, the Captain and I. For from the first time he captured my lips, and called my name, I have been his. And now we have shared the love of a woman, a ship, and the sea, we share the love of each other. It was the only thing left for us, truly. This is my story, and should any man call me a liar, I would have his life. I have fought for too long, for too little, to be made a fool of now. Between the two of us, I would say that I am the colder man, but not a person in this world, can heat my flesh as Captain Sparrow can with a single look. I am his man as I once was Elizabeth's. God rest her soul, wherever she may be. May there be plenty of rum. For it's a pirate's life for me. |
