The fourth in my intended group of five. No real order necessary though. Gibbs' POV. Set in the mystic's shack at the end of DMC. Spoilers.
Characters, setting and the odd quote all belong to someone other than me. I just like writing about them.
Reviews welcomed!
Spiders
Gibbs had always said it, always would say it too.
"T'is bad luck, 'avin a woman aboard."
They twisted things. They twisted men's thoughts and passions until experienced sailors were forgetting which way was starboard. They got in the way, and had opinions. They thought funny.
Cotton may be a mute, but Gibbs was not a blind man. He had seen what this particular woman had done. Seen how she'd interfered. Seen how she'd twirled and twisted even Jack Sparrow into her clutches.
Seen the manacles hold him back as she pulled away.
She'd always been so innocent, too. Head full of pirates and fancy, but innocent in a general way. But ever since she'd come aboard this time… ever since she'd got a hold of that compass, in fact… she'd changed. Maybe the compass corrupted. It had betrayed Jack to Barbossa years before, and now even Miss Swann, the innocent governor's daughter, had succumbed to it.
No. No mere compass could trick a woman.
Gibbs had seen Will as they rowed away. It was not a face he wished to see again. Women, he thought to himself, quietly. Wicked, wilful and full of wiles. Even Jack had grudgingly accepted that. But this one, Gibbs watched her, this one was something else.
She spun her lies like a spider. She ensnared the crew as she had ensnared Will, then Jack. She wound some story about Jack staying behind. Gibbs' mind stirred, a dim memory of foreign parts. Then he remembered.
The Black Widow Spider.
She had captured the two of them, Will and Jack, winding their hearts until she was in control. And then she killed both of them. Metaphorically, Gibbs muttered into the mug he was handed as the mystic passed by.
Will was not the man he was before. Some part of him had died with that kiss, and Gibbs feared that nothing could be done for him. As for Jack… Gibbs remembered the splintering timber, the roar of the beast. Maybe more literal than metaphorical.
He watched her from across the room. Unsettled, no web to cling to here. She was a little spider in the nest of a bigger spider. A more experienced spider. A master of its art.
Tia Dalma lacked the usual eight eyes, but Gibbs knew well that she needed only two to see what the little Black Widow had done that day.