These Are The Soul Cages

[byhisbootstraps]

It's quiet down here. It's been quiet for a while now, since the cannons stopped.

Since the screaming stopped.

Bootstrap Bill Turner sits in the tangled seaweed that strews the sodden floor of the Dutchman's brig, knees drawn up (there isn't room to stretch out his legs), and watches a tiny crab make its way down the opposite wall.

Comments

[dutchmancapn]

The crew's long scattered, intent on being in any location but the same bit of deck as Davy Jones.

Some, however, cannot hope to be so lucky.

A loud thump jars the hull and knocks the crab loose. Spooked, it skitters underneath the seaweed. Sea flora along the brig's ceiling immediately closes, pulling in on itself, as the thump's followed by several more in steady rhythm.

Jones comes into view, and the steady malevolence of his gaze is offset by how violently his beard thrashes.

[byhisbootstraps]

Bootstrap looks up, a beat slower than he once might have.

There should be fear, he knows. Instead there's only a dim distant wondering what Jones has to be angry about.

[dutchmancapn]

Thump. He hauls himself closer.

Hissed, between teeth clenched nearly too tightly to get the words out:

"On. Your. Feet, Turner."

[byhisbootstraps]

It's only the long habit of obedience that makes him pull himself up, but the fear's starting to well up through the numbness by the time he's on his feet.

It's not over.

[dutchmancapn]

As Jones leans toward the bars, mouth pulled back in a snarl, two tentacles reach out and anchor themselves to the metal, several more snaking between as if trying to grab hold of Bootstrap.

Still in a low, deadly sibilance, he says, "I will not stand for treason aboard my ship."

[byhisbootstraps]

Something's not right here.

There was treachery in helping Will escape with the key, yes, but Jones knew about that already. And was angry then, and may well be still angry, but....

The vicious satisfaction, the pleased malice Jones was wearing last he saw him, is gone.

Bootstrap opens his mouth to say something like what do you mean, captain?, and closes it again with some last lingering vestige of self-preservation.

[dutchmancapn]

Perhaps he has a spark of wisdom in him after all.

"When Jack Sparrow learns of the key, and sends your boy to me to retrieve it for him -- "

Sunken, vein-blue eyes flash with hatred, and still the tentacles clamber against the outside of the brig.

"I have to wonder, Turner, what it is you and he discussed, last you saw him."

[byhisbootstraps]

"...what?"

It escapes his mouth before he can clamp it shut.

[dutchmancapn]

Or, perhaps, not.

Jones slams his right hand against the bars, and the long tentacle on it whips through, wraps around the coral growing from Bootstrap's shoulder, and yanks him close.

"The chest," he tells him, "is empty. No one touched the key besides the young Master Turner and your former captain, and none knew about it besides m'self. What did you tell him?"

[byhisbootstraps]

The coral's grown down through flesh and into bone; the pull on it wrenches him forward, reeling with the suddenness of the pain.

-- and, wait --

-- the chest is empty?

"Nothing," he manages to gasp out, and he's aware that that's a bad thing to say, but keeping silent would be worse.

[dutchmancapn]

"Liar!"

The same accusation once bound this man to the Dutchman; now, it can be nothing but an infuriated demand. Jones wrenches the coral again, hard enough to strike part of it against the sediment-encrusted bars, and sends the tentacle unwinding to make a grab for Bootstrap's throat.

[byhisbootstraps]

A fragment of coral snaps off, and a muffled cry forces itself past Bootstrap's teeth before the tentacle snakes around his throat and tightens mercilessly.

The wild hope shakes him, all in a moment: if Davy Jones is angry enough, he might just go through with it.

[dutchmancapn]

He wants to. He very nearly does, as he watches Bootstrap struggle, gasping, against his hold.

The tentacle heaves tighter for one last instant...and then slackens, withdrawing to coil against his palm.

And Davy Jones smiles.

"Your son lives yet," he drawls. It's almost a whisper. "He was seen not an hour ago on the deck of the Pearl. And when I find him..."

He pushes himself away from the bars, long filaments of slime stretching from discolored skin to metal.

"You will both wish he'd perished along with Jack Sparrow."

[byhisbootstraps]

Bootstrap staggers as the tentacle releases him, catching hold of the bars to keep from falling to his knees.

If the loss of hope was like the last moments of drowning, then its return is like the agonizing burn of air in water-filled lungs; choking, retching, the body struggling for life in its strong blind stupidity, unable to recognize when it should just give up.

My son lives.

Seen not an hour ago on the deck of the Pearl, and ...

...wait.

It's barely a gasp: "Jack Sparrow?"

[dutchmancapn]

"Aye."

And if his eyes still burn with anger, at least he speaks with cruel pleasure: if nothing else, he will have Sparrow's death, and that will give what satisfaction it can offer.

"Reclaimed by the sea along with his precious ship."

[byhisbootstraps]

"But Will."

Grief for Jack Sparrow's death ... is there, certainly, but tempered heavily by three things: one, Jack went down with his ship, and Bootstrap understands what that would have meant to him as few others could. And two, death means Jack will be spared the locker.

And three:

"He survived the Kraken?"

Beat.

"Twice?"