Author's Note – I lurve songfics: a good songfic can make your heart leap out of your chest and patter on the desk in front of you. Pleasantly. Songfics cheat because they play on emotions on two ways - music has its own emotion. Stories have their own. What a sucker-punch.

This song is Change (in the House of Flies) by Deftones. Such a beat, such a sexy beat. And sexy beats make me think of sexy beasts. This story, however, is a change for me and not for the faint-hearted. All shades of review are well-received and always returned.

Geheimnis's House of Flies

When night deepened, Tortuga was a darker place.

Everything was black: the eyes of strangers on the roadside. Gaping holes that mouths became, braying with laughter. Drifting, thinning curls of tobacco-smoke against the sky. Strong-smelling liquid sloshing inside opaque bottles. Angry words. Sudden, polished metal.

Thick, pooling blood.

The black blood made Will think wildly of ink as he slung Jack's slender frame over his shoulders. I should write home more often, he thought. He clenched his teeth together to keep from laughing crazily, desperately: he felt that if he started, it would quickly become a shriek. Wouldn't Elizabeth love to hear about nights like these? Will was surrounded immediately by the smells that made up Jack Sparrow as he stood under the man's slight weight, straining momentarily to find balance. First, sharp, tangy copper. Second, warm tobacco braided with Jack's cologne from India. Lastly, but there – but there – bitter ale. Mercifully numbing ale.

As best as he could manage, Will ran.

He winced as he moved, feeling the slick on his skin of both his sweat and Jack's blood. He could not tell how much of the wet on his back was due to one or the other, and there was no sound from Jack, only the rasping of his own breath. He played out scenarios in his mind, but he did not know where the majority of Jack's crew was, or how much help they could offer. Will ducked through the door of the first bar to come into view, the Dashing Rabbit. He glanced around hurriedly: relatively quiet, well-lit, and, as far as Tortuga went, upscale. But that only meant that it was farther from the port than other establishments. He strode up to the counter and barked for the barkeep. A thin, older woman entered from the kitchen with hard eyes. They did not change when she saw Will.

"Out."

"Ma'am, my friend – "

"Well he ain't my friend, and if he ain't drunk, he's hurt. This ain't the place." Tersely, after a moment, she gave him directions and he was back out onto the street.

He found it – the black door of the place gaped, and Will allowed himself to be swallowed.

The House of Flies. They took him in. They didn't ask questions. They only held out open palms.

I watched you change
Into a fly
I looked away
You were on fire

Fire erupted on Will's cheek and he reeled from the slap he had been dealt. His back hit the wall, and the man who had hit him turned back to Jack's figure on the bed. "I told you, my fee has just gone up. This man is very ill, near death." He turned to fix Will with a glare over his shoulder, and in the dim of the small room, his eyes flashed like the alien eyes of a crow. "I could let him die, you know. I could, in fact, perform a mercy, and help this poor fellow along." The man turned again to Jack, and lightly placed two white, boney fingers on the side of the pirate's throat. "Hell's never far from a pirate's grasp in life, and this man's got his fingers curled around it now."

Will's breathing was ragged and he wanted the doctor to answer for his blow. Monster. But he had to be careful. Jack was at the mercy of this monstrous place, and at the mercy of the shadow-fiend bent over him. "Make him live. You'll be paid," he said.

The doctor's voice was smiling and streaked with oil. "I thought you'd understand the importance of my work. Now lose yourself."

Wordlessly, Will eased himself up and vanished through the door. The mark left on the wall by his wet, sweat-soaked back was nearly that of a spreading pair of wings, pressed unseen in the darkness of the House of Flies. Formed with blood that was not his own.

I watched a change
In you
Like you never
Had wings
Now you feel
So alive
I've watched you change

Jack mumbled, and Will knelt automatically. A ringed hand reached out tentatively, and Will took it.

"Where … ?"

"A place with medicine and bandages – the House of Flies." Will frowned. "Why do they call it that?"

Jack did not open his eyes. " 'ave .. 'ave you ever been 'ere in high summer? Ye'd see th' reason then." The pirate coughed, and a thin red line crept from the corner of his dry lips and inched down his cheek. "What 'appened?"

"You were stabbed."

" 'ow many times?"

"Six."

Amber eyes fluttered open in surprise and flicked blearily to Will. "New record. Beats th' old one out by at least … five." The young blacksmith tried to smile. His heart was beating fast.

"I've got to go for a little while now, Jack. They've been taking good enough care of you here." He stood and returnedJack's hand carefully to his chest.

"Where're you going?"

Will faltered only briefly. "It's getting late. I'm going to see a few friends. They – they're helping to get you out of here alive and well. I'll be back." He shut the door quietly behind him. Jack did not close his eyes. He was barely awake, he knew, and his mind had been in deep places for a long time, but there had been something different about Will. Different about his eyes, and almost something different about his smell.

Outside the House of Flies, the sun was beginning to retreat to its nest of gold and red. And when the night deepened, Tortuga was a darker place.

I took you home
Set you on the glass
I pulled off your wings
Then I laughed

There had been a spider creeping on Jack's blanket when he woke up in the middle of the night, but pain had forced his eyelids closed and the pirate into darkness once more. In the morning, when he opened his eyes again, the spider was gone.

And I watched a change
In you
Like you never
Had wings
Now you feel
So alive
I've watched you change

Will opened the door to Jack's room. It was late afternoon, and Jack was not asleep. He tried to smile. "I don't see much of you, Will. Where 'ave you been?" The dim hid the red of Will's eyes, and the bruises on his skin, but could not hide his voice.

"I've been making sure you get to stay here," he replied sharply as the door shut. Jack frowned at him.

"I don't know much about this place, apart from the name," the pirate admitted. "But it can't be cheap to keep me room n'board 'ere."

Will sighed and sat beside the bed. Jack thought he sounded exhausted. "No, it's not cheap."

"Do you need money?"

"I did, but now – now I've found a way. Don't worry. I just wanted to make sure you'd live."

Jack was genuinely touched. "Thank you, William."

It was only when Will later rose to leave for the evening that Jack realized what the difference was. In the candlelight, Jack regarded for the first time Will's carefully – artfully – unbuttoned shirt collar, the purposeful arching of his slender back when he stretched, and the way that Will had begun to speak with his lips instead of his mouth, in order to draw attention to them. The smell on William some nights before, Jack now understood, had been the taint of alcohol and unfamiliar cologne.

Sick with shame, Jack shut his eyes as Will shut the door.

Like you never
Had wings

Jack was released – more accurately, he exited with some difficulty and Will's help at midnight – from the House of Flies after two months as its patient-prisoner. The doctor's white fingers had not touched Jack's throat again: Will had ensured the fee was paid in full.

Neither man allowed their scars to be seen.

I look at the cross
Then I look away
Give you the gun
Blow me away

Jack woke to the sound of a door closing quietly. He was still startled to find himself opening his eyes to the white walls and window of his rented room at the inn, instead of the sick pallor of the room in the House of Flies. In comparison, the inn room was heaven itself, and not only because he was free to leave when he chose.

Will's room was beside his own in the few weeks that Jack had determined they would be waiting for passage off of Tortuga. And now, in the dead of night, Jack had heard Will awake. He carefully swept his blankets to the floor, stood, and padded to his door. He opened it silently and in time to look into the hall and see Will's retreating back. It crossed Jack's alarmed mind to call to him, but he thought that he knew already where Will was going.

Instead of returning to his own bed, Jack shut the door behind him and opened Will's. The bed therein was neatly made, as though Will had not used it. Easy on his newly repaired body, Jack settled himself on Will's bed to wait until morning, when he knew the blacksmith would return.

You feel Alive
You feel Alive
You feel so Alive

I've watched you change
Like you never
Had wings

"I wouldn't think you needed to do this anymore."

Jack's voice badly startled Will, who had wearily returned to his room in the early hours of the day. He reeked of ale, but more than that, he reeked of strangers. "Jack! What are - "

The pirate ignored him. "Why?"

Will's eyes become hooded. "You're alive aren't you? Can you so quick to judge the man who saved your life?"

Jack grit his teeth. "I would have been fine if – "

"No one gives a damn if a pirate lives or dies!" Will roared suddenly. "How many have these shadowed streets birthed and slain! You can't name them! You can't even count them!" His dark eyes blazed. "I did what I had to do. For you."

Against his will, Jack found tears squeezing his throat. "I thanked you for that," he said in a low voice.

"I know, Jack. And – and that's all I wanted."

As the tears from Jack's eyes were finding their way into his voice, he found himself refusing to believe. "But why now – "

"Because I've changed." Will's voice was bitter. "And it's just another birth and another death in Tortuga's hallowed shadowed streets. The death of William the blacksmith, William the pure, at the hands of the birth of William the callboy. William the alcoholic." Will staggered slightly against the door. "I can't get out."

Jack rose and tried to grasp his friend by the shoulders. "Let me help you, Will! It's my fault!" Will shook off his hands.

"No. It was my trade. My choice." Before Jack could open his mouth, Will had opened the door and fled into the hallway.

You changed
You changed
You changed

And as best as he could manage, Jack ran.