Shackled - An AWE Rewrite
Title: Shackled - An AWE Rewrite
Chapter 1 - What Shadows Can See
Author: sage_laurel
Rating: range from a heavy PG-13 to very NC/17 in later chapters
Pairings: Jack/ Elizabeth, with other charachters as canon/fanon dictate
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the smut in my brain.
Author's Notes: Sorry this has been so long in coming, next chapters will come as they come to me, but bits and pieces of another 3 are already down.
A bit of essential information: Since I am human and only one woman, I have decided not to redo every scene, instead focusing on the key ones from the film that I felt were overwhelmingly mis-done, and adding the scenes that I felt were painfully absent.
Major/minor general info: in this 'verse, I've omitted the majority of Sao Feng. No offense to him, I just found him clumsy in my brain, and couldn't channel him at all. So for simplicity's sake, Sao Feng doesn't exist in the capacity he did in AWE, and the scenes in Singapore will be redone accordingly in future chapters.
This would not have been possible without Djarum99, and her endless beta assistance and patience and support during this pretty crappy time in my life. Thanks, love.
Title refers to this song by Vertical Horizon, which I find to be one of the most Sparrabethy songs I've heard. Lyrics below.
Vertical Horizon - Shackled
For so long my life's been sewn up tight inside your hold
And it leaves me there without a place to call my own
I know now what shadows can see
There's no point in running 'less you run with me
It's half the distance through the open door
Before you cut me down
Again...
So let me introduce you to the end
And I feel the cold wind blowing beneath my wings
It always leads me back to suffering
But I will soar until the wind whips me down
Leaves me beaten on unholy ground again
So tired now of paying my dues
I start out strong but then I always lose
It's half the distance 'fore you leave me behind
It's such a waste of time
'Cause my shackles
So you won't be
And my rapture
So you won't believe
And deep inside you will bleed for me
So here I slave inside of a broken dream
Forever holding on to splitting seams
So take your piece and leave me alone to die
I don't need you to keep my faith alive
And I know now what trouble can be
And why it follows me so easily
It's half the distance through the open door
Before you shut me down
Again...
Let me introduce you to the end
'Cause my shackles
So you won't be
And my rapture
So you won't believe
And deep inside you will bleed for me
So though you know you care
'Cause my shackles
So you won't be
And my rapture
So you won't believe
And deep inside you will bleed for me
And my laughter
You won't hear
The faster
I disappear
And time will burn your eyes...
Ch.1 - What Shadows Can See
Davy jones's Locker was empty.
Jack had always imagined the Locker would be full - of seaborn detritus, remnants of lost ships, and fetid corpses of such souls as himself, doomed to this particular Purgatory for eternity. Perhaps there'd be some lost mates of his, someone with whom to talk and sing shanties with to pass the time... He'd had plenty of time to assess the possibilities, over thirteen years. But no, there was nothing here - save for himself, and his Pearl, who had made the journey blessedly intact and seemingly none the worse for wear. Once Jack had made certain that he himself was not a fetid corpse, he'd run his hands over every surface of his ship, checked every hold, every cranny for damage, or stowaway fish-men, or maybe a forgotten cask of rum. Naught remained, save for himself. His ship was empty as a tomb.
Jack lay prone on the deck, arm thrown over his face to shade his eyes, listening for any slip of sound in the silence. But his own breathing was the only thing breaking through.Can't just lay here listening to nothing, mate. 'Tis liable to drive a man mad..er. He picked himself up off the deck, and swung nimbly (quite nimbly, especially for a dead man, he thought to himself, blandly pleased) to the ground from the deckrail's rope.
Salt flats reached as far as his eyes could see in every direction, littered with an occasional smooth stone. Nothing broke the horizon. He knew better now than to try and walk, searching for a beach, a tree, anything. The first while after he'd been here, he'd tried walking, and returned burnt and parched from the effort. The marks he'd toed into the salt would disappear as quickly as he made them, the stone cairns toppling as soon as he'd turned his back. The sun was merciless, never setting, never moving. For a man who told time by the sun's faithful movement across the sky and took his direction from celestial bodies in the firmament, not having the luxury of either was agonizing. Jack had no idea how long he'd been here. He had nothing by which to guide himself, nothing to gauge his bearings. He felt that he didn't know up from down. And no wind, no wind ever. The lack of wind made him want to peel off his skin, crawl out of it. “My soul I do swear for a breeze, a gust, a whisper, a lick...,” Jack swore, an oath unheard by absent gods.
Jack wished desperately for rum, for ale, for sleep - for anything that would empty his mind of the images that seemed to be carved into his brain. The gaping maw of the Kraken, dripping mucous and reeking of a thousand deaths as he was swallowed, sword first. The sound of his own bones snapping, flesh rending under powerful jaws, the feel of being pierced by row after row of monsterous teeth...that was the last he remembered of being alive, before he sunk into merciful blackness, only to awaken in this bleached white abyss.
He'd much rather think of before, before the beast had taken down his ship.
Her lips had been sun- and wind-burnt, but soft as a sigh against his. As she pressed forward, small hands on his shoulders, her mouth became insistent, hot, demanding, coaxing his lips to return in kind, not shying away when his tongue had brushed hers. Through he'd guessed she was up to something, for that few moments, he was lost in the intensity. The clink of the shackle closing on his wrist was the slap that roused him.
Should have seen that one coming, mate.
But oh, the way she'd pressed up against him, sweet hands and lithe body flush against him for those brief moments. If she'd had any idea how many long hours she'd occupied his mind, vexing him beyond anything he'd ever encountered, she'd have truly thought him insane. Long hours at watch in clear seas were spent running his mind over every word of every conversation, how her fine lips had formed the words, the sound of her breath pushing out behind her teeth. Hours alone in his cabin were taken by images of the way her boy's breeches clung to the curve of hip and buttock, the slight thrust of her breasts under shirt and tunic. Alone, he could close his eyes and let his imagination sail away with him - picturing his dark hands sliding over her white thighs, parting their secrets to him; the taste of her skin as he circled her nipple with his tongue.He'd fantasized doing everything to Elizabeth that he knew was possible to do, and Jack was nothing if not educated in those respects. These thoughts were indulgences he allowed himself only when he was alone in his cabin, for he was never a man who liked having it obvious what was on his mind. Though now, as he circled the Pearl for the hundredth time, he found that anyone looking at him now would know exactly what was on his mind. Bugger.
All alone here, after all, so nothing to worry about, eh? His words got the better of him, so Jack slumped down onto the ground, leaning against the Pearl's hull, pressing back into the scant bit of shade she afforded him.
Closing his eyes, he tried to remember her face - laughing, singing, anything except how she had looked when she came towards him, a kiss on her lips and murder on her mind. She had the look of someone who'd known her mind, who'd puzzled out a truth, and that truth meant an eternity in purgatory for him.
"But wasn't it worth it, mate? Just for that little taste? Thats all you wanted, all along, was a taste.." A voice, strangely like his, cut through the reverie, and Jack cracked one eye open into the sun's glare. Next to him sat...him. Jack Sparrow. Only this Jack was stripped of hat and weapons, and was as naked as an infant. "You're right lucky you got anything, mate. She's nigh untouchable for a filthy pirate like you. You're not worthy to pull her carriage." This Jack stared off into the distance, looking insecure and unsure and seemingly unaware of the absurdity of the situation. But as Jack looked at himself his only feeling was one not of shock or surprise, but relief. "About bloody time I started talking to myself," he growled to no one in particular, " since I am, in fact, dead for one, and insane for a second." Jack assessed this self, musing. So thats what I look like these days in me altogether, then.
"I'll tell you what you are - a bloody rotten fool." Another voice, his again. Another Jack stood next to him, stripped to the waist, barefoot, taut with tension like a jungle cat poised to leap. His hand was pressed against the erection evident in his breeches. "You should have taken her when you had the chance, back on that cursed spit of land where Barbossa left you. You had her right in the palm of your hand, right there, and she was drunk. Would have been as easy as picking a dead man's pocket. Who bloody cares if she loved Will Turner..you could have made her a woman. See if she'd ever go back to the whelp after a good swiving from Jack Sparrow. She could have been yours, free at hand to fuck from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean. Now that would have been smart, mate."
"Never," The first Jack mumbled, "You could never have done that. That would have been truly dispecable. She's a virgin, a governor's daughter, and betrothed to good, noble William Turner.."
"Bloody eunuch, you are," The shirtless Jack kicked the naked Jack in the leg, making him whimper, "Too old and withered to manage a decent cockstand, eh? Mmmm, just think about it... Burying yourself in a piece like her...she'd be as hot and tight and wet as..."
"To Hell with William Turner, and to Hell with that vile traitorous bitch." This voice came from another Jack, leaning against the hull, scraping under his fingernails with the tip of his dagger. He wore the usual hat, coat, vest, tunic and breeches, but fairly bristled with malice. "You saw her coming at you with that look about her. Should have slit her throat till her head rolled across the deck before she got to you, murderous wench. But you were weak," he spat venomously into the salt at Jack's feet, "too weak to save your own life. Too weak to kill a pathetic little girl who fancied herself a pirate."
"Grmunkpssff bloody cracking empty." Jack looked out into the sun, finding yet another Jack, this one scrabbling in the ground in his hands and knees, muttering. "Freginxayaz muddy ratline map bleegarzal yackam." He watched in morbid fascination as the Jack dug frantically in the salt, stopping only to shovel fingerfuls of it into his mouth. This Jack wore only bits of sail wrapped around his hips like a savage, covering nearly nothing. Laughing maniacally, the apparition jumped to his feet and begun running in haphazard circles. "Crabs! Crabs! They're skeenxlopy bloody crabs! Shwheyrehjdy!" The Jack threw himself to thr ground and rolled onto his side, clasping himself, and began weeping mournfully, howling like his soul was being pulled from his body.
This was far, far too much, even for a madman. Jack turned back to his ship, only to find himself face to face with one version of himself. This one had his mouth twisted into cruel smile and his pistol drawn, the butt of the muzzle pressing against Jack's forehead. "Its time for you to go, mate." Behind him lay the scattered bodies of himself that he'd seen before, bloodied and silent.
"Too right, you are," Jack muttered, and as the other Jack pulled back the hammer to fire, he ducked, twisting his body out of the pistol's range. He ran out into the emptiness, caring not about sunstroke or getting irrevocably lost, only about putting as much distance between himself and.. himself, as possible.
But as Jack ran, voices and faces ran alongside him. Here was Bootstrap's face, clouded with regret as he watched Jack ascend the steps to the Pearl's plank. The faces of the human cargo in the Wench's hold, shining like ebony in the sun as he threw open the doors, keys clinking. The face of Beckett, leering in near-lust as he pressed the red-hot iron against the flesh of his wrist. Voices raised in lilting spirituals, voices calling for mercy, voices requesting the gallows be readied. Faces of sailors as he boarded their vessels, unsure if death by cutlass or thirst awaited. A voice reading the list of his crimes, slow and clear. But overtop everything was her voice, her voice, low and sweet even as she chastised him. Whether dead or alive, he couldn't escape her.
You're a smart man, Jack, but I don't entirely trust you.
I always knew you were a good man.
A curious scrabbling sound broke through his haste, and Jack skidded to stop. At his feet, the small gray stones littering the ground were moving. Rather, they were sprouting legs and eyestalks, and crawling in a curious crabby way en masse back the way he'd come. Jack's eyes followed their progress, and when they fell onto the Pearl, his face quirked into an expression of staggering confusion.
The crabs had congregated underneath the Pearl's hull in such large numbers that they'd lifted the vessel off the salt flats, and it was moving slowly but inexorably forward. The mass of crustaceans rolled and foamed like the surf, and for an instand Jack experienced the horror he'd felt watching Barbossa sailing off with his ship, lifetimes ago. But his reverie was cut short with the realization that his ship was becoming gone, quite quickly now. If I can get my ship back from bloody Barbossa, I can bloody well get it back from deranged seafood bent on theft.
So, culling all the energy he had left in his deceased body, Jack ran after his ship.
xxx Ch.2 to come...xxx
A/N: Hopefully, life will leave me be for a while and let me use my energy to finish Ch.2, in which Elizabeth and Will have a little chat, and the journey to the Locker commences. Much smut will come in the laterlater chapters.
Love to you all for being so patient.
- Laurel
Chapter 1 - What Shadows Can See
Author: sage_laurel
Rating: range from a heavy PG-13 to very NC/17 in later chapters
Pairings: Jack/ Elizabeth, with other charachters as canon/fanon dictate
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the smut in my brain.
Author's Notes: Sorry this has been so long in coming, next chapters will come as they come to me, but bits and pieces of another 3 are already down.
A bit of essential information: Since I am human and only one woman, I have decided not to redo every scene, instead focusing on the key ones from the film that I felt were overwhelmingly mis-done, and adding the scenes that I felt were painfully absent.
Major/minor general info: in this 'verse, I've omitted the majority of Sao Feng. No offense to him, I just found him clumsy in my brain, and couldn't channel him at all. So for simplicity's sake, Sao Feng doesn't exist in the capacity he did in AWE, and the scenes in Singapore will be redone accordingly in future chapters.
This would not have been possible without Djarum99, and her endless beta assistance and patience and support during this pretty crappy time in my life. Thanks, love.
Title refers to this song by Vertical Horizon, which I find to be one of the most Sparrabethy songs I've heard. Lyrics below.
Vertical Horizon - Shackled
For so long my life's been sewn up tight inside your hold
And it leaves me there without a place to call my own
I know now what shadows can see
There's no point in running 'less you run with me
It's half the distance through the open door
Before you cut me down
Again...
So let me introduce you to the end
And I feel the cold wind blowing beneath my wings
It always leads me back to suffering
But I will soar until the wind whips me down
Leaves me beaten on unholy ground again
So tired now of paying my dues
I start out strong but then I always lose
It's half the distance 'fore you leave me behind
It's such a waste of time
'Cause my shackles
So you won't be
And my rapture
So you won't believe
And deep inside you will bleed for me
So here I slave inside of a broken dream
Forever holding on to splitting seams
So take your piece and leave me alone to die
I don't need you to keep my faith alive
And I know now what trouble can be
And why it follows me so easily
It's half the distance through the open door
Before you shut me down
Again...
Let me introduce you to the end
'Cause my shackles
So you won't be
And my rapture
So you won't believe
And deep inside you will bleed for me
So though you know you care
'Cause my shackles
So you won't be
And my rapture
So you won't believe
And deep inside you will bleed for me
And my laughter
You won't hear
The faster
I disappear
And time will burn your eyes...
Ch.1 - What Shadows Can See
Davy jones's Locker was empty.
Jack had always imagined the Locker would be full - of seaborn detritus, remnants of lost ships, and fetid corpses of such souls as himself, doomed to this particular Purgatory for eternity. Perhaps there'd be some lost mates of his, someone with whom to talk and sing shanties with to pass the time... He'd had plenty of time to assess the possibilities, over thirteen years. But no, there was nothing here - save for himself, and his Pearl, who had made the journey blessedly intact and seemingly none the worse for wear. Once Jack had made certain that he himself was not a fetid corpse, he'd run his hands over every surface of his ship, checked every hold, every cranny for damage, or stowaway fish-men, or maybe a forgotten cask of rum. Naught remained, save for himself. His ship was empty as a tomb.
Jack lay prone on the deck, arm thrown over his face to shade his eyes, listening for any slip of sound in the silence. But his own breathing was the only thing breaking through.Can't just lay here listening to nothing, mate. 'Tis liable to drive a man mad..er. He picked himself up off the deck, and swung nimbly (quite nimbly, especially for a dead man, he thought to himself, blandly pleased) to the ground from the deckrail's rope.
Salt flats reached as far as his eyes could see in every direction, littered with an occasional smooth stone. Nothing broke the horizon. He knew better now than to try and walk, searching for a beach, a tree, anything. The first while after he'd been here, he'd tried walking, and returned burnt and parched from the effort. The marks he'd toed into the salt would disappear as quickly as he made them, the stone cairns toppling as soon as he'd turned his back. The sun was merciless, never setting, never moving. For a man who told time by the sun's faithful movement across the sky and took his direction from celestial bodies in the firmament, not having the luxury of either was agonizing. Jack had no idea how long he'd been here. He had nothing by which to guide himself, nothing to gauge his bearings. He felt that he didn't know up from down. And no wind, no wind ever. The lack of wind made him want to peel off his skin, crawl out of it. “My soul I do swear for a breeze, a gust, a whisper, a lick...,” Jack swore, an oath unheard by absent gods.
Jack wished desperately for rum, for ale, for sleep - for anything that would empty his mind of the images that seemed to be carved into his brain. The gaping maw of the Kraken, dripping mucous and reeking of a thousand deaths as he was swallowed, sword first. The sound of his own bones snapping, flesh rending under powerful jaws, the feel of being pierced by row after row of monsterous teeth...that was the last he remembered of being alive, before he sunk into merciful blackness, only to awaken in this bleached white abyss.
He'd much rather think of before, before the beast had taken down his ship.
Her lips had been sun- and wind-burnt, but soft as a sigh against his. As she pressed forward, small hands on his shoulders, her mouth became insistent, hot, demanding, coaxing his lips to return in kind, not shying away when his tongue had brushed hers. Through he'd guessed she was up to something, for that few moments, he was lost in the intensity. The clink of the shackle closing on his wrist was the slap that roused him.
Should have seen that one coming, mate.
But oh, the way she'd pressed up against him, sweet hands and lithe body flush against him for those brief moments. If she'd had any idea how many long hours she'd occupied his mind, vexing him beyond anything he'd ever encountered, she'd have truly thought him insane. Long hours at watch in clear seas were spent running his mind over every word of every conversation, how her fine lips had formed the words, the sound of her breath pushing out behind her teeth. Hours alone in his cabin were taken by images of the way her boy's breeches clung to the curve of hip and buttock, the slight thrust of her breasts under shirt and tunic. Alone, he could close his eyes and let his imagination sail away with him - picturing his dark hands sliding over her white thighs, parting their secrets to him; the taste of her skin as he circled her nipple with his tongue.He'd fantasized doing everything to Elizabeth that he knew was possible to do, and Jack was nothing if not educated in those respects. These thoughts were indulgences he allowed himself only when he was alone in his cabin, for he was never a man who liked having it obvious what was on his mind. Though now, as he circled the Pearl for the hundredth time, he found that anyone looking at him now would know exactly what was on his mind. Bugger.
All alone here, after all, so nothing to worry about, eh? His words got the better of him, so Jack slumped down onto the ground, leaning against the Pearl's hull, pressing back into the scant bit of shade she afforded him.
Closing his eyes, he tried to remember her face - laughing, singing, anything except how she had looked when she came towards him, a kiss on her lips and murder on her mind. She had the look of someone who'd known her mind, who'd puzzled out a truth, and that truth meant an eternity in purgatory for him.
"But wasn't it worth it, mate? Just for that little taste? Thats all you wanted, all along, was a taste.." A voice, strangely like his, cut through the reverie, and Jack cracked one eye open into the sun's glare. Next to him sat...him. Jack Sparrow. Only this Jack was stripped of hat and weapons, and was as naked as an infant. "You're right lucky you got anything, mate. She's nigh untouchable for a filthy pirate like you. You're not worthy to pull her carriage." This Jack stared off into the distance, looking insecure and unsure and seemingly unaware of the absurdity of the situation. But as Jack looked at himself his only feeling was one not of shock or surprise, but relief. "About bloody time I started talking to myself," he growled to no one in particular, " since I am, in fact, dead for one, and insane for a second." Jack assessed this self, musing. So thats what I look like these days in me altogether, then.
"I'll tell you what you are - a bloody rotten fool." Another voice, his again. Another Jack stood next to him, stripped to the waist, barefoot, taut with tension like a jungle cat poised to leap. His hand was pressed against the erection evident in his breeches. "You should have taken her when you had the chance, back on that cursed spit of land where Barbossa left you. You had her right in the palm of your hand, right there, and she was drunk. Would have been as easy as picking a dead man's pocket. Who bloody cares if she loved Will Turner..you could have made her a woman. See if she'd ever go back to the whelp after a good swiving from Jack Sparrow. She could have been yours, free at hand to fuck from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean. Now that would have been smart, mate."
"Never," The first Jack mumbled, "You could never have done that. That would have been truly dispecable. She's a virgin, a governor's daughter, and betrothed to good, noble William Turner.."
"Bloody eunuch, you are," The shirtless Jack kicked the naked Jack in the leg, making him whimper, "Too old and withered to manage a decent cockstand, eh? Mmmm, just think about it... Burying yourself in a piece like her...she'd be as hot and tight and wet as..."
"To Hell with William Turner, and to Hell with that vile traitorous bitch." This voice came from another Jack, leaning against the hull, scraping under his fingernails with the tip of his dagger. He wore the usual hat, coat, vest, tunic and breeches, but fairly bristled with malice. "You saw her coming at you with that look about her. Should have slit her throat till her head rolled across the deck before she got to you, murderous wench. But you were weak," he spat venomously into the salt at Jack's feet, "too weak to save your own life. Too weak to kill a pathetic little girl who fancied herself a pirate."
"Grmunkpssff bloody cracking empty." Jack looked out into the sun, finding yet another Jack, this one scrabbling in the ground in his hands and knees, muttering. "Freginxayaz muddy ratline map bleegarzal yackam." He watched in morbid fascination as the Jack dug frantically in the salt, stopping only to shovel fingerfuls of it into his mouth. This Jack wore only bits of sail wrapped around his hips like a savage, covering nearly nothing. Laughing maniacally, the apparition jumped to his feet and begun running in haphazard circles. "Crabs! Crabs! They're skeenxlopy bloody crabs! Shwheyrehjdy!" The Jack threw himself to thr ground and rolled onto his side, clasping himself, and began weeping mournfully, howling like his soul was being pulled from his body.
This was far, far too much, even for a madman. Jack turned back to his ship, only to find himself face to face with one version of himself. This one had his mouth twisted into cruel smile and his pistol drawn, the butt of the muzzle pressing against Jack's forehead. "Its time for you to go, mate." Behind him lay the scattered bodies of himself that he'd seen before, bloodied and silent.
"Too right, you are," Jack muttered, and as the other Jack pulled back the hammer to fire, he ducked, twisting his body out of the pistol's range. He ran out into the emptiness, caring not about sunstroke or getting irrevocably lost, only about putting as much distance between himself and.. himself, as possible.
But as Jack ran, voices and faces ran alongside him. Here was Bootstrap's face, clouded with regret as he watched Jack ascend the steps to the Pearl's plank. The faces of the human cargo in the Wench's hold, shining like ebony in the sun as he threw open the doors, keys clinking. The face of Beckett, leering in near-lust as he pressed the red-hot iron against the flesh of his wrist. Voices raised in lilting spirituals, voices calling for mercy, voices requesting the gallows be readied. Faces of sailors as he boarded their vessels, unsure if death by cutlass or thirst awaited. A voice reading the list of his crimes, slow and clear. But overtop everything was her voice, her voice, low and sweet even as she chastised him. Whether dead or alive, he couldn't escape her.
You're a smart man, Jack, but I don't entirely trust you.
I always knew you were a good man.
A curious scrabbling sound broke through his haste, and Jack skidded to stop. At his feet, the small gray stones littering the ground were moving. Rather, they were sprouting legs and eyestalks, and crawling in a curious crabby way en masse back the way he'd come. Jack's eyes followed their progress, and when they fell onto the Pearl, his face quirked into an expression of staggering confusion.
The crabs had congregated underneath the Pearl's hull in such large numbers that they'd lifted the vessel off the salt flats, and it was moving slowly but inexorably forward. The mass of crustaceans rolled and foamed like the surf, and for an instand Jack experienced the horror he'd felt watching Barbossa sailing off with his ship, lifetimes ago. But his reverie was cut short with the realization that his ship was becoming gone, quite quickly now. If I can get my ship back from bloody Barbossa, I can bloody well get it back from deranged seafood bent on theft.
So, culling all the energy he had left in his deceased body, Jack ran after his ship.
xxx Ch.2 to come...xxx
A/N: Hopefully, life will leave me be for a while and let me use my energy to finish Ch.2, in which Elizabeth and Will have a little chat, and the journey to the Locker commences. Much smut will come in the laterlater chapters.
Love to you all for being so patient.
- Laurel