Usual disclaimer and thanks: Nothing is mine, Sweeney belongs to Sondheim, Will Turner and his father, Bootstrap Bill and the Flying Dutchman (aka, Pirates of the Caribbean) don't belong to me either, etc., etc. Incredible amounts of thanks to my beta, DorisTheYounger (check out her Lord of the Rings stories). And many thanks also to my future reviewers—I really love reviews!
Yes, it's true, here's Sweeney Todd in a situation he never expected to find himself in... This idea was inspired by Johnny Depp and my own twisted imagination.
Chapter 01 He Never Saw It Coming
The man who called himself Sweeney Todd never saw his doom coming, never saw the cannonball that broke the ship's deck and flung him into the air. He barely had time to register that he was going to die before he hit one of the fallen sails and tumbled from it onto a piece of decking, now tossing and tumbling in the turbulent sea.
Water filled his ears, but couldn't drown out the explosions and screams of dying sailors. He tried to gather himself together, but the effort was almost too much for him as the sea water stung his body like acid. The throbbing pain in his head made him wonder if the cannonball had hit him, and droplets of blood were steadily dripping down his face and over his eyes.
No matter, what I must return to my family – Lucy, I will find you. He forced himself to stay conscious and afloat. He had to stay alive, he had to make it back.
Wiping the blood from his face – oh please, no sharks – he gazed at the destruction around him.
The merchant ship Dove he'd been traveling on – now that was a laugh, the ship was barely a rum trader – was tilting to one side, its two masts broken and its sails dragging into the water. Not even enough cargo for the pirate ship to want the ship whole. Or maybe the pirates had no desire to keep the crew of the ship alive. What hope did Benjamin Barker – no, Sweeney Todd – have, then?
You must have hope. He would stay alive and make it back to London. He would not give up. Benjamin Barker hadn't given up in the fourteen years it had taken him to escape that pesthole of a Botany Bay prison colony – he hadn't given up in almost a year of painstakingly making his way across the world. He would not give up now.
Should he declare himself, and submit to the pirates? He watched as the first mate was caught by them, watched as one pirate used his cutlass to slit the man's chest and stomach until his innards escaped, watched as they unceremoniously dumped the screaming man into the ocean. He couldn't help himself – he started to move toward the screaming man who was thrashing weakly in the water, even though he knew there was no hope for him. The only hope for the first mate was a quicker death – which he could not bring himself to provide.
Suddenly a wind gusted, the waves rose, and the smell of ancient seas, storms, and the reek of shipwrecks filled the air. He clung to his pathetic piece of wreckage as the water churned and boiled. Terrified, the pirates screamed and fled to their own ship.
Then a ship appeared out of nowhere, a ship from an older age, its hull decorated with bright and polished carvings of grotesque creatures and screaming men. The white sails on its three high masts were opened by a wind that seemed to blow only for it, and the gun ports on two levels opened to reveal demon faces that spat cannonballs at the pirate ship. The old ship seemed like something out of a dream or a nightmare.
The pirates had no chance. Their small ship foundered almost instantly as the cannonshot punctured the hull. The ship convulsively shuddered and the masts with the pirates' colors came crashing down. And then the pirate ship slipped under the waves, so suddenly that the men aboard were trapped and dragged under.
Should he hail that ship? He felt in his bones that the vessel was not meant for him, yet it was his only chance to survive. Barker had started to raise his head to scream for help when the first mate shuddered, lifted his head, and stood up in the water, his intestines spilling from the gash in his stomach. "Sorry, mate," the dead man said in a hollow, remote voice. "It's the Dutchman. You might as well give up now – it's time to go." With that he began to move across the water to the ancient ship.
At the corner of his eye he saw that more sailors with arms hacked off or bloody heads or torsos crisscrossed with red were still somehow moving toward the ship. The sight filled him with horror. Was that a rowboat coming for him from THAT ship? He tried mightily to escape – he couldn't be trapped in that hell. But the pain in his head wouldn't let him move, and he was growing steadily weaker. His grip loosened from the piece of decking and he began to slip into the water. He hoped he'd drown before the rowboat arrived.
The New Recruit
As the small rowboat silently cut through the water, Bootstrap Bill Turner, first mate of the Flying Dutchman, peered across the waves. He was trying to spot one form amongst the wreckage. Finally spotting it slipping off a piece of decking, he grabbed at the body and called back to the ancient ship. "Ah, there you are. Cap'n, we've got 'im, and it looks like he's alive." After a moment's examination, he shook his head.. "Naw, belay that – he just passed." Then he waited for the apparition to appear. It never took long – there weren't many who wanted to delay their voyage to the afterlife.
Time passed, but nothing happened. "C'mon, hurry up," Bootstrap muttered. Still nothing. "Ah, you're gonna make it hard on yourself." He hauled the body into the boat and started rowing back to the Dutchman.
Moments later, Bootstrap hauled the slight form onto the main deck as he nimbly climbed back aboard near the bow. "Cap'n, we've got a problem." The motley crew of the Flying Dutchman peered curiously at the scene, but did not approach until the Captain indicated that they could.
"What kind of problem?" asked Captain Will Turner. Slim, young-faced, and mild-speaking, he held the fate of the crew of the Flying Dutchman in his hand. Yet at Bootstrap's announcement, he couldn't help but shake his head and admonish him. "You know you don't have to call me Captain. You of all people."
Bootstrap grinned and shook his head, a fond, wry smile on his tired face. "You're Captain on this ship, son. That's the way it has to be." He gestured at the body lying on the deck. "He's dead, but I don't think he's going to move on. Don't know how you want to handle that."
They both looked at the dead man. The old scars on his back attested to a hard life; the newer scars on the man's chest spoke of a hard escape. The blood on his face created a macabre half-mask under absurdly lush brown hair. The gentleness of his face seemed to indicate that violence should have been a stranger to him, but the lines on his forehead, the determined set of his jaw, and the dark circles under his closed eyes indicated that he would never give up, would never surrender.
Bootstrap carefully examined the dead man's face. "Wonder who 'e is. Doesn't look like a pirate or a sailor, does he? Although 'e might look a bit like Jack Sparrow."
"Captain Jack Sparrow," Turner replied absentmindedly with quirked lips. "You're right – he doesn't seem a sailor. Although you might be right about him looking like Jack." He peered closer, shot a grin at Bootstrap, and finally shook his head. "Maybe, but I just can't quite see it. I can't imagine Jack being that clean-shaven. Or that clean."
Muffling his own laugh, Bootstrap stepped back and watched as Turner grabbed the limp hand and concentrated his will. His son's power was always impressive to Bootstrap – Davy Jones, if he had owned it, had never used it while Bootstrap served under him. "Wake up, sailor," Will Turner commanded.
Moments stretched before the man shuddered, took a breath, and slowly opened his eyes. Dark brown eyes gazed around the ship, looking sharply at Turner and Bootstrap before the man pulled himself in, as if he were expecting a blow. "What, where..." he croaked painfully in a voice that came from a hoarse and ravaged throat.
Bootstrap tried to reassure him as best he could.
"You're on the Flying Dutchman –" he started, before the man's eyes opened in fear.
"Yes, that's not always a help," Bootstrap continued wryly.
"The Dutchman! But that's the ship of the..." the stranger's voice trailed off.
"The ship of the dead," Will Turner finished the sentence for him. He gazed thoughtfully at the man, and shook his head. "You're a sailor. You have a decision to make – to stay here or go ahead with your comrades. While you are deciding, I have work to do."
Captain Turner strode to the bowsprit of the ship, his eyes closed in concentration. The crew faced the bow respectfully, waiting at attention. A glow slowly formed around Turner as power gathered around him and then shot like a searchlight to the horizon. Apparitions of the slain sailors gathered in the water below him, waiting, watching. There was a sudden green flash, and a light shone from the far horizon. "Go to your rest," the Captain of the Flying Dutchman called, his voice majestic and kind. "The way is there."
Bootstrap heard a low sigh from the slain in the water. With reverent quiet, the forms turned, their awful wounds disappearing as they drifted to the light, faster and faster until they disappeared. The eerie light lessened, and the normal light of the normal sun reappeared.
The crew of the Dutchman watched as the souls found their way. Some shook their heads, some looked with yearning toward the light, and some simply stood at attentive respect until the normal light reappeared. No matter how they chose to show it, they all agreed that it was good to have a purpose again.
The new man gazed yearningly at the light, then closed his eyes and resolutely shook his head. Apparently we have a new recruit, Bootstrap decided. It took a special type of man to refuse to go on.
The eldritch power lessening until it was almost unnoticeable around him, Captain Turner returned to the main deck and breathed a sigh of relief before casting a worried glance at the stranger. "Mr. Turner, get him fixed up, then bring him to my cabin." Shaking his head, he then departed to the captain's quarters in the stern.
"Poor sods," Bootstrap muttered. "All the other sailors are at rest, anyways. This shouldn't have happened to them, though. It's not like the old days – pirates now are just a bunch of murdering thugs. Well, not that we didn't do that... but ya don't need to kill everybody, and you don't need to go after a tiny little cargo like that."
Bootstrap looked at the new recruit, whose eyes were cast down to the polished wooden deck. "Might as well get you fixed up, or settled, or whatever."