For veronica_rich, "The Freedom to Live," by hatofhornigold

[placeofinsanity]

Title: The Freedom to Live
Author: hatofhornigold
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jack/Will
Warning: Character death, but not in the sort of way that makes that character stop walking, talking or doing other things. Notes: When a hero’s journey ends, first comes the refusal to return home, but the return brings mastery of death and a freedom of its own.

Comments

[ladymouse2]

What a lovely reversal on the usual story of this premise! I am glad to see Will finally set free. Moreover, it seems appropriate that it's Jack who sounds the siren call rather than Elizabeth. She may be over beyond that horizon from another point of entry for him to find at last. But As Jack was the one to set both of them to sea, to the call of adventure (I swear I'm hearing the brass bay of horns in the air!), it's fitting that it's him.

Nice touch to sometimes use, that conferring eternal youth doesn't confer invulnerability.

Love Jack's unflappability, immediately busily scurrying around the ship like a curious mouse (more than a sparrow).

I'm not especially a fan of slash but I don't mind it either when it's well written as this is. I agree with others that it FEELS genuinely two men, rather than being written as disguised romance literature. The way they relate to each other feels masculine in general.

Will's assumption first that Jack would want to sail with him the hundred years, then his secret dismay and almost palpable loneliness welling up, brought a lump to the throat.

I really like Jack's analogy to Odysseus's voyage home.

>“A whole new horizon over there, and one that leads nowhere you or I’ve ever been. Hand the helm over to your first mate or some other likely lad, and let’s see what we find upon the horizon in Ithaca.”<

Like everyone, I think the last line is killer, but as I often say about killer last lines, it is so because you've built carefully up to that peak throughout the rest.

And there are a couple of others I have to pull out:

>Destination’s been reached, Will. Time to see what’s to be done in Ithaca, and if you recall, the story don’t end when he steps ashore, and I doubt mine will either.”<

Jack's motive and philosophy in one.

And this one seems to me so poignant because it speaks so clearly and hopefully to Will's own yearning and loneliness:

>the journeys of two men, though they start in different places and intersect but all too infrequently, might still intertwine at the horizon