turned_captain | (no subject)

The first thing Will is aware of is a steady throb that's both silent and deafening. At first he has no idea what it might be, then he thinks it must be his own heart beat, because it starts in his chest and seems to fill his every vein with life.

But when his fingers reach up to the hole in his shirt, her remembers that his heart shouldn't be beating at all. Further exploration yields a fresh, red welt where he dimly remembers a knife cutting into his chest, after the sword had been removed.

Then Will realises. That sound that isn't a sound, it's not really a heartbeat at all. It's more the rhythmic waves of a lively ocean. And he notices that the body he feels it pulsing through doesn't end at his fingers and toes. As Will carefully draws the first breath since what was meant to be his last, he realises he's feeling the entire ship as it rocks in the swell.

Cautiously, he opens his eyes.

A crew is standing watching him, apparently apprehensive, and Will recognises his father near the front, a familiar knife in his hand. The man standing near might be Jimmylegs, the boatswain who takes a cruel pride in cleaving to the bone when he has to flog a crew member, but like the men surrounding him, he no longer looks like a hideous piscine monstrosity, but like an awed, hopeful, human man. In his hands he carries a chest Will recognises instantly, even before he hears the faint beat of his own heart within it, audible only in the silence of the watching crew

No one on the deck in this still, stagnant underworld says a word as Will stands, and not even his father offers a hand when he proves a little unsteady. They're all watching him, to see what he will do.

Will takes the chest off the boatswain before he says a word of his own.

"To stations," he says flatly, uncertain of his own authority, and they disperse. Only his father lags behind, but Will can't face him now. He continues across the deck, towards Davy Jones'... towards his cabin.

Threaded | Flat

His cabin is not empty.

True, there is still the wreckage of it's last occupant--the madness of Davy Jones shattered everything it touched, dragged what was left into the great green deeps of delirium and vengeance, and the wood is dark, waterlogged. At the far end, the great organ lies silent. There are the splintered remains of table and chair; there are the small pound cannon sitting dormant, no longer guarding anything at all.

And there is someone else, someone unseen for the moment, whose touch lingers on shattered keys which make no sound.

Along the planks, a few crabs scuttle.