Voodoo Child
By FluorescentCooties
A.N: So… This is my first Pirates of the Caribbean fanfic, I am not an expert on the fandom, but I'm doing my best. This is a resurrection fanfic, and I suppose it is an A.U because, after this chapter, everyone will be in the present (but not in an high school).
Also, there will be Jack/Will slash.
English is not my mother language, and even though my beta, Alexis4, really helped me, there will probably be some mistakes. Let me know if you catch them.
POTC does not belong to me. Baron Samedi is not my creation (I did embellish him a bit), he is a deity of Vodoo, and you can read more about him and Vodoo at: en./wiki/BaronSamedi
Please, read and review.
Prologue – Dealing with Gods
He's a very old man.
Nobody expected him to survive through so many years, not even himself, but yet, here he is. A sober shadow of his young years, a man with skin dark from thousand suns, or maybe dark from the dirt he could never wash away. As the years passed, the trinkets had slowly disappeared from his hair, and now it was just a long white cascade that ran down to his hips. He has changed, he's not a colourful legend any more, his bones pain him when it rains and he feels old, used, tired.
Why did he have to live enough to see this?
That was what you bargained for, wasn't it, Jackie Boy?
William Turner's corpse is lying on the ground, together with his lifeless heart, quiet inside it's wooden box. Jack can't look away from it, from the body and face he dreamt about for all his life, from his one true love. Will had not age a day, still as young, as beautiful as ever, and the weight of age crawls into Jack's mind. What a terrible thing it is, to be old and in love. One of the multiple voices in his mind answers his thoughts, with a hoarse woman voice, saying that being in love is always tragic.
Magic stole and gave him years of life, but it had also given him company, those voices in his head, gods and spirits.
He could almost forgive Lizzie for everything, when he thought of her all alone in that island, kept away from the love of her life, without even the company of the voices of the dead. But he couldn't forgive her for having cancer, for dying, for being guilty of Will's death.
Jack couldn't understand how it could happen, how could a heart simply stop beating, just because it didn't want to do it any longer, just because it was no longer worth it. Elizabeth's grave was cold and lonely, and Jack could only imagine what Will had felt when he found out that she didn't managed to wait for him. He supposed it was the same feeling he was experiencing now, while looking at William's cold, dead body.
Only he would never be strong enough to just stop his heart from beating.
Time to work, Jackie, you have a tribute to pay. Part of.
He took the shovel and started digging, his muscles tense under the black shirt, until he hit something hard. He's awfully strong for a hundred years old man, but, again, he's Captain Jack Sparrow, and that thought sends a small smile to his lips, but that soon dies out, as he remembers the task he has to perform.
First he uses the shovel to help him, but then he starts ripping the wood with his bare hands, until there's nothing left of the top of the coffin. He catches his breath for a moment. There is Elizabeth, untouched by decomposition (he cannot remember if he was the one to cast that spell), an ancient woman with pale limbs and a peaceful smile frozen on her face. For a second, and only for a second, he wonders if he's doing the right thing, taking Lizzie from her deadly sleep just to look for a miracle. A selfish man's miracle, a second chance.
But it's only for a second, and after that, he takes her corpse from the hole in the ground and carefully places it beside Will's. Jack is, again, an outsider to that relationship, and jealousy is a spike in his heart, a different sting from the physical ones that attack him. It's a sensation he often gets, when he thinks of Will and Elizabeth, and it hasn't disappeared with death.
But they need you. Magic is a work of three.
Jack doesn't like the word magic. For him, it's a matter of tricks, simple tricks, and prayers to the right gods. He learnt it from Tia Dalma, at first, reading the ways of the world in the curves of her body, talking to higher powers through a shared smoking-pipe. After the plan started to form in his mind, he started to play with the tricks alone.
It was necessary.
He wanted a new chance, a new life, he wanted to make things right, and, deep down… He wanted Will. And after Will was cursed, this life wasn't enough for him to get what he wanted, it was obvious to him that he had to get a new one.
He's left arm is starting to go numb, and the stings of pain in his heart would be unbearable if he was a weaker man. No, he says to himself, not now, I can't die now.
Then move faster, little old boy. Move faster.
The rum bottle is taken from the bag and is opened with a satisfying sound, the smell of it seems more intense than ever, sweet and hot. Jack gives a big swallow, and then soaks Will and Lizzie in the liquid. He needs two more bottles before he manages to get every piece of skin wet, and a third to soak himself in rum. The voices on his mind are silent now, and Jack doesn't mind, he can use a bit of peace and silence before he calls out the only one he needs. Of course, he's already here, but nothing is ever easy when one needs the help of Baron Samedi.
Sweets are next, balls of sugar, glued together by honey. Jack chews slowly on the sticky mix, trying not to gag with the flavour while he closes the hole where Elizabeth used to rest, making it look has it had never been moved in first place.
After he manages to swallow all the sweets and rum, he makes a circle of sugar and gunpowder around the three of them and lies down next to Will.
He can't feel his left side of the body, and a sigh of relief washes over him, as he realises, he made it. He's still not dead, he still has time. Slowly, he pulls a cigar, having to try three times before he manages to light it. The smoke fills his lungs and the magic of slow fire makes him cough. It takes less than a minute to rum catch on fire and less than that before they are swallowed by flames.
Jack screams in pain, as he feels himself leaving his old body behind, and all sensations to vanish.
"Is this dying?"
"No, it is not."
There's a man in front of him, in the middle of the flames, and his skin is as black as sin, too dark to be human, but still, there's a certain glow, a certain pulse beneath that darkness. His face is hidden behind a skull mask (or perhaps it is a skull), but there's a large cigar hanging between his teeth, and the holes where his eyes should have been are of a malevolent shade of purple that almost over-powers the light from the fire. Jack can't quite understand if the man is naked or in a tuxedo, and it doesn't matter. He wears white top hat.
He's Baron Samedi, and Jack would be proud of himself, if he wasn't so scared. He called upon the highest Voodoo God, the god of perversion and resurrection, of rum, sex, and slow fire. And he got answered.
"You have my sacrifice, boy. It's not a typical pirate thing to do, keeping a deal."
"I've stopped being a pirate a long time ago."
The laughter of the man fills the air with the smell of rum and ashes, and it makes Jack's essence shiver for a moment, almost disappearing into thin air.
"One can never stop being, Jack Sparrow."
"But one can try."
With a small, slow, shake of his skull the man agreed with Jack, making him feel stronger, more powerful. The fire is high, in the physical world, but it doesn't pass the circle of sugar and gunpowder. It burns less than the short silence of the dark man. When he talks again, his voice his filled with perverse laughter.
"She'll still be there, Sparrow. You tied her to both of you, forever. He can still choose the same path he did before."
"I know."
"Your debt with me will run deep."
"I'll pay it."
"Maybe you won't be able to pay, when the time comes."
Pain and then darkness, and then, an endless fall.
When the last forest star vanishes with the sun, the rain comes. It washes away the ashes and the shreds of a rum bottle. It leaves the simple tombstone glistening, the words "Elizabeth Turner" shining in a strange shade of purple, in the dim morning light.