Title: Oblivion
Author: SparrowLass
Summary: "Jack had flirted with Death many times before. . .The metal blade, for example, was coldcleancrisp. It was a whisper in the wind, a wintry caress of ice . . . and Jack's fingers came away stained as red as the clouds at sunset."
A/N: The plot bunny bit me and wouldn't let go until I wrote this little ficlet. I came up with this when I was doing my precalculus homework of all things. What does that say about my feelings for math? ;) All I can say is that my mind sometimes works in strange ways, and yes, the weird tense changes are intentional.
Feedback is always appreciated.
In his thirty and some years of life, Jack had flirted with Death many times before. The profession in which he engaged had necessarily brought him into contact with that phenomenon which so many feared and a few, at times, welcomed. The forms in which Death visited were as varied as the seashells washed upon a beach, and each brought with it its own sensation.
The metal blade, for example, was coldcleancrisp. It was a whisper in the wind, a wintry caress of ice that slid through skin and muscle as easily as butter. The moment of penetration was never one of pain.
It is felt only as a brief, sudden chilling in the blood. Then the warmth of crimson liquid wells around the invading object, and touching the point of entry, Jack's fingers come away stained red as the clouds at sunset.
But Jack knows that this is nothing as ephemeral as a sunset because a sharp pain has lanced through him like lightning and he instinctively curls his body around the wound, shielding it from any more harm. The sight of the injury is almost worse than the feeling it brings, the red blood starkly contrasting with the unblemished white of his shirt, bringing a faint feeling of nausea. Jack's head swims slightly from blood loss and he presses a hand to the wound to stop the flow of life from his body. Fortune is with him, though, and he has never yet suffered a mortal blow.
The noose, now, was the complete opposite. It was hotroughburn. It was the grittiness of sand in a blazing desert, the burn of noonday sun on unprotected skin. It jerked and pulled and choked, demanding as a petulant child, wresting what it wanted. One could always feel it, always know it was there.
Even before the platform falls from beneath Jack's feet, he feels the heavy weight around his neck, the coarse rope fibers rubbing against his skin, always reminding him of its presence.
And when the fateful moment comes and the platform drops, it tightens abruptly around his neck with a stranglehold as tight as any constrictor's. His mouth opens in a gasp as burning lungs seek for air, the inevitable panic flooding his brain as he realizes that no air will come, and his vision begins to blacken around the edges. He has only had one such close encounter with the noose and that time a well placed blade from a blacksmith helped him narrowly escape.
Drowning was another manner of Death different from either the blade or the noose. It was slickwetcool. It was the slippery, silky skin of a selkie, the slide of raindrops down a silver sword. It subtly invades, surrounding and entering silently as a thief in the black night of the new moon, or it forcefully rushes in, irresistible as the tide. Jack experiences both.
Once, he is diving in deep water and stubbornly pushes himself to reach the bottom to retrieve the prize that has fallen there. He kicks for the surface, but his lungs are beginning to protest the lack of air and as brightly colored bursts of light begin to swim in his vision, he relents and breathes, giving a soundless gasp as water slides into his lungs. It feels as if the essence of the sea he loves is filling him inside as it surrounds him outside, and he wants the exhilarating feeling to continue, but hands grab his shoulders and pull him choking and gasping from the sea's embrace.
Another time he is thrown overboard in a storm into the wild, raging ocean. Every time he breathes, merciless waves pound him, filling his mouth and nose with water as they plunge him under again and again. Liquid is forced into him and he is only half-conscious when he is finally washed up onto a small island, coughing and retching water out of his lungs as he crawls painfully on all fours up the beach to the cover of the trees. He is intimately acquainted with the Sea, but has never yet been bested by her.
These and others were the forms of Death that Jack encountered, but he had never come across this new form of Death, one of which he had been completely unaware. It took him by surprise, sneaking upon him so slowly that he didn't even notice it at first. He had lost himself piece by piece, been carved away bit by bit, and until now he didn't know it had happened.
It was the warmth of fire in the winter, the cool of shade in the summer and it tingled and sizzled through his being, making him giddy as he hadn't been in uncountable years. Experience and time had hardened him, made him resistant, or so he thought, and he never expected such a Death to happen to him. He had been changed, for another person now laid claim to part of his very being.
That cold, barren part of himself that he had expected to be immune to such things had died and was replaced by glowing joy. At times this Death scared him more than all the others, but then that person would smile at him from across the deck of the ship, a flash of even, white teeth, luminescent against the tanned skin. A mischievous smile that crinkled up the corners of the other's eyes, and then Jack would know that it was worth it. It was the strangest of all Deaths, but then again, Jack Sparrow had never expected to fall in love.
A/N: This could be slash or not, depending on how you look at it. I made it so that the person at the end could be anyone you want it to be. Could be Will, could be Annamaria or some other woman.