That bloody dingy is still there.
I sat on the docks with my feet inside it. The tide moved it under my boots. The horrible little skull and crossbones, that Jolly Rodger flag that had been tied there, probably in an ill-mannered attempt at a joke, waved at me. Probably Barbossa, his jokes have never been any good. I looked at the knots that tied them there. It was meant only to be a glance, but it spiralled in to more.
Who tied them?
I took a large swig from the bottle next to me.
Did they want to tie it there? Or were they just following orders?
I breathed. If they were taking orders that they didn't want to follow they could have just not followed them. Chosen another Captain. I took another swig, slightly bigger than the last.
Did they find it funny too?
"Thinkin' of going somewhere, Jack?" Gibbs interrupted my next swig and I felt myself bristle with annoyance. Will I never be rid of you?
"Nowhere to go," I replied and swung one of my feet up to kick the blasted Jolly Rodger. Missed.
I saw Gibbs's shadow on the water. It shrank down as he sat next to me. I looked at him and saw that the emptiness of my rum bottle seemed to worry him. If you're worried about it you can always go and fetch me another, mate. It would be much appreciated. He sighed in the way that he had been doing a lot of lately. My annoyance grew a little more, marinating in the rum that diluted my blood. I looked back to the blasted Jolly Rodger in my mind I saw hands tying it on, but I couldn't focus on whose they were. I heard laughter. Lots of it. Lots of people.
"Not the Pearl then?" he said with a slowly dying hope in his voice.
Another swig slipped down my throat and a solid, "Nope," slid out with my sigh once I was done with it. There was a silence.
He wants rid of me.
Just like everyone else.
I drained the last few drops of rum from the bottle, stared at it for a second and then threw it as hard and far away from me as I could. As I watched it fly in a high ark away from me, I felt a little bit of my soul latch itself on to the bottle. The both flew for a few seconds and then begin to plummet towards the waves. When it finally hit the sea and sank down the splash was pitiful and I wished I had thrown it somewhere it would smash into a million pieces. Instead, that bottle of rum and the part of me fixed to it sank and drowned beneath the tide. The arm I had used to throw it felt more tense. I need something else to throw. More rum?
Gibbs?
Myself?
I stared in to the depths and wondered. Gibbs cleared his throat. I knew he wanted to speak. I also knew I didn't want to hear it.
I swung my legs back onto the dock and stood up. I only stumbled once. "My rum is gone," I told him. And it's not the only thing. "Time to get some more."
I didn't look to see if he was following me or not. I walked straight in to the Faithful Bride and slammed my money down in front of the bartender. He didn't even bother asking me what I wanted; he just gave me my usual nod and slid it across to me. The barstool beside me filled. I didn't have to look over to know that it was Gibbs. I could tell from his incessant sighing. Is sighing a new language that Gibbs has started learning and forgotten to tell anyone about or give them a translation book for? "Shame about the Compass, huh," he said and I filled my mouth with rum, wishing that it would fill my ears as well so that I wouldn't have to hear him. Or anyone else. Or myself. Especially myself.
Do you want rid of me too, Gibbs? Is that why it's such a shame that my Compass is effectively useless?
My mouthful of rum also meant I couldn't reply to him, which was an added bonus. Every word in my brain felt far too heavy to come out of my mouth. I glanced away from Gibbs and towards a Jolly Rodger that hung on the wall.
Urgh. You again.
Who tied you up?
I narrowed my eyes at it and wanted to learn its secrets. I saw hands and heard laughter again.
Who?
I thought I could feel my feet moving like they had on the dingy, but maybe I was just a little more drunk than I thought I was. Good. I wasn't even really sure what time of day it was. Still daylight. Afternoon? Probably. Gibbs said something else, but it was muffled behind the thick, sweet rum that was pounding through me every time my heart took a beat. If only the sea was made of rum. I could swim in it all day and never come up for air. I looked in to the empty eyes of the Jolly Rodger and wished for a skull as empty and quiet as his, although I couldn't tell if his teeth were bared in a happy smile or a painful grimace. I'll take my chances. It has to be better than this. Anything does. I tried to focus on it to see if I could decipher his exact expression and then it became all that I saw. The wall it was pinned on and the bar around me blurred slightly and spun into a haze, but the flag did not. The voices of everyone in the tavern became a slow and dull murmur, like the horrible growl of something angry circling me where I sat. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.
Who tied you there?
The skull's painted smile seemed to widen. I don't like you, Mister. Mister Rodger. What kind of name is Jolly, anyway? Who called you that?
Not anyone who's ever met you, that's for sure.
You're just a skull. You're dead. Can a dead man even be Jolly?
I know I wasn't Jolly that time I was dead.
Nope.
And why are you everywhere?... Is that why?... Is that why you're so supposedly Jolly despite being dead? Because you can be everywhere… even in that bloody stupid dingy?
I ran my hand along the rim of my drink and thought about throwing it, but there was still stuff in there and I didn't want to waste it. It would have been nice to hear it hit something and see it smash. It would have been nice to feel it leave my hands and break in front of me… well, maybe nice wasn't the right word. Satisfying. I noticed that my hand had started to shake. I closed my fingers, they felt lighter than usual, but my joints were somehow harder to move. I balled my hand into a fist and stared at it. It had stopped shaking now. Good.
I breathed in through clenched teeth and held it for a moment.
Tell me a secret Jolly Rodger, who tied you to my dingy? Did you see them?
I stared at the darkness of the empty eye sockets of the skull of the Jolly Rodger and let the blackness they held overcome me. I heard those ringing peals of malicious laughter and looked up through the skull's eyes, feeling betrayal run through my crossbones. The last time I felt like this I was stuck on that godforsaken spit of an island.
I exhaled.
They didn't even have the courage and decency to face me when they made me walk the plank.
They had all gathered on deck to see it happen- to see me marched from the brig of my own ship to the plank that was waiting for me. Some of them managed to make eye contact with me, but I believe it was an accident because they never bothered to look back. Others didn't even try, they just stared at the deck, but I could feel their eyes on my back once I'd walked past them. Would they have been able to look me in the eye the second time around?
Was it easier for them to betray me now? The second time around?
Was it easier for me? The second time around? Let's compare. The first time I had had to spend a night locked in my own brig and walk slowly past the crew that had mutinied against me towards the First Mate who I had trusted above the rest and had planned all of it. The second time I hadn't had any warning and had turned around to find my ship was gone with nothing but an insulting little dingy in its place. The first time I had been left alone on a godforsaken spit of land with nothing but a pistol loaded with a single shot. The second time I'd been left in a busy Port and allowed to keep all of my effects and as many shots as I wanted, but my Belle was gone along with my ship. There was a horrible twist in my stomach and a question that bubbled up from it. I grabbed for my drink to silence it like always and panicked when I found it was empty. What do I do? What do I do? That question was there, in the darkness of the back of my mind and I had absolutely nothing to wash it away with anymore. I could feel it bubbling in my body, so viciously that I could actually hear it shaking all of my blood vessels. No. No. No. Stay back down there. I gripped my glass in my hand so tightly that it shook. No. Nonono QUIET. If I didn't have a drink soon, something to quiet my terrible thought, I would never be able to hold it in. Please. Please. NO. I raised my glass off the table. Fill it, fill it someone please. Or fill me, it doesn't matter, we're both empty. I raised it further than I meant to. NOnoNO.
Stop it.
Hold it in.
Don't-
"Did she play a part?!" my words smashed against the wall along with my glass. I don't know which crash it was that stopped the conversation around me and made Gibbs put his hand on my shoulder. I looked at him and he was fuzzy.
"Jack," he said with that tone I had grown to hate. I didn't know if I hated it more than the silence, there was too much hatred inside me to distinguish where it should be distributed to.
Leave me alone.
Alone.
I want you all to leave me alone.
I stood up, kicked my chair and it fell over in to the crowd. I picked it up by the legs and threw it blindly in to the crowd towards the nearest wall. Anything to break the silence. There was uproar from the people around me and a swirling mass of bodies surged forwards. Fists. Teeth. Skulls. I felt none of it.
Eventually I stumbled out into the street, or maybe I was thrown out by someone, it all felt the same to me now. Cold air mixed with blood. Is it mine?
Does it matter?
I turned towards the sea and the quiet of the docks. No people. Perfect. I walked towards it, but it took me a few attempts. I kept hitting the ground and couldn't work out why. Tortuga was so noisy at this time, I liked it, and it made me quieter. It was almost enough to drown out that terrible question. Almost. I hit the ground again, tasted dirt. I glanced over to my left. That dingy. I hate you. The Jolly Rodger looked back at me, full of secrets. I sat up and looked at him. "Well," I asked him. "Did she play a part?" I swung my legs back in to rest my feet in the dingy. "See, the way I see it…" I stopped to wipe somebody's blood away from my mouth. "The way I see it is that either Belle just happened to sneak away with George on the very same day that my crew mutinied against me. Again. Or…" I reached out and pulled the Jolly Rodger flag towards me, ripping it sharply from the mast. I draped it across my shoulders and wrapped myself up in it. "She used the mutiny and played a big part in orchestrating the whole thing just to get away from me."
I covered my face with the flag and closed my eyes.
I can't do this anymore.
I thought I smelt her on the fabric, but I couldn't tell whet whether that was because some of her scent lingered on it after she had tied it up to spite me or because I wished more than anything that she was wrapped around me.
Did you do it, Belle?
Did you finally follow in the footsteps of everyone else and pick someone else over me?
Are you just as bad as the rest?
Let's compare. Barbossa and my crew broke my trust and left me to die. Twice. William handed me over to Beckett in an attempt to get his hands on my ship. Elizabeth Swann tied me up and fed me to the Kraken to save her own skin. And you, Belle? Did it matter whether or not she had known about the mutiny? Did it matter whether or not she had played a minor part, a huge part or masterminded the whole thing? The fact was that she had left me, alive, and chosen someone else instead.
No.
You, Belle, were the worst of all.
Because your betrayal was the only one that broke my heart.
.
I think my skull is splitting in half.
Help.
I reached up on hand to touch it, spreading my fingers across my forehead, away from my thumb in an attempt to hold it together.
What if my brain leaks out?
I knew that there was only one cure for this and I reached for it in the darkness. My fingers shook a little and I couldn't stop them. They bumped against the glass a few times before they managed to close around it.
Please don't be gone, please don't be gone.
It was heavy and the muscles in my arm were still a little weak with sleep.
Oh good. This means the rum is not gone. That makes a pleasant change.
I let my arm, heavy with fatigue, lift the tankard to my mouth and took a few deep gulps. My teeth were suddenly too cold, my gums seared with a torturous new sensation and the liquid slammed uncomfortably against the back of my throat. I choked, retched, spat it out in a spray of disgust. "WHAT IS THAT?" I asked the darkness angrily as if it was the darkness who had put it there.
"Water," the darkness replied with the voice of Gibbs. I squinted for where he might be.
"Water?" I repeated. Urgh. "Water?! I don't want water."
Water is everywhere, but the rum is always gone.
"You need it," Gibbs replied shortly and I finally found his shape in the darkness as he rose to stand. "You're drowning."
"Well if I'm drowning," I said, holding the tankard of offensive water at arm's length. "Then water would be the last thing I needed now, wouldn't it?"
"Didn't mean it literally," was the snappy, gruff reply. My head hurts too much to think figuratively. "You can't keep doing this, Jack."
Someone's said those words before, I think it was me.
"Not without any rum I can't," I pointed out. Nobody's ever droned their sorrows in water, what kind of logic is that, man?
"Rum is not what you need," Gibbs said.
There was a silence, heavy and deliberate. I let him stew it.
"I can't believe you have just said that to me, Master Gibbs," I said and was pleased to hear that I sounded exactly as hurt as I felt. "Rum is what everyone needs, always and all of the time, and I would have thought that you of all people would know that."
"Capt'-"
"Quite frankly," I carried on, loudly. Oh my own loud voice hurts my own head. "I am offended."
"Capt'-"
"Offended," I repeated.
"Bu-"
"Offended!"
Good that should have put an end to it.
There was another silence and I relaxed a little bit, knowing that this would be Gibbs's usual routine of pretending that he was annoyed with me before he just went ahead and did exactly as I said. "With all due respect, Capt'n," Gibbs spoke as if his teeth were clenched, but it was dark, so I'll never truly know. Yes, yes, now apologise, hand over the rum and be on your way. "I don't care."
What?
What? Gibbs has never spoken to me like this before.
I sat up a little, propping myself up on my elbows, to stare at the dark shape I assumed was Gibbs. "I beg your pardon?"
I heard a sigh. "I'm all for people drinking rum as if it's as necessary as the air we breathe. In fact, it's better than the air we breathe. A hearty swig of rum can do great things, but it can't give you the answers you're looking for."
That was suspiciously sensible of you.
I swallowed down something that didn't taste very nice and cleared my throat. "Master Gibbs, I-"
"If you don't stop, Jack," he said bluntly. "You'll wind up dead." He paused. "Again."
I let out my own sigh and lay back down, staring up at the ceiling and wondering if I did die and ended up in Hell, as I inevitably will, what the difference between there and here would be. The dark ceiling suddenly seemed a lot closer and the room felt so small it make my skin prickle with discomfort. "What do you suggest I do?"
I had meant it to be dry and cutting and shut him up, but there was a tone in my voice I did not like. It propped my question up in the air between us and as it lingered there I realised how badly I wanted it to be answered.
"Talk to Isabelle," he said and I winced. Her name felt strange in another person's mouth. Wrong somehow. It made my veins twitch under my skin, as if what coursed through them wasn't blood at all, but her. My head was no longer the only thing that hurt, there was an overpowering and unbearable ache deep inside me. Unreachable. Un-killable. No matter how hard I tried to drown it with rum. I reached back for the water and tried to use that instead. I felt the cold flood of it pass through me, clearing me out. The ache in my head dulled, the one in my heart did not. I was sick of this water now, but I drank because I did not know what to say and when my mouth was full of water it meant I did not have to fill it with words. I held the last mouthful in, swirling it around my mouth until it became uncomfortably warm and I was forced to swallow it. I felt the mattress I was laying on dip as Gibbs sat down on the end of it. "I know it's not what you want to hear, Jack," Gibbs said and his voice was much softer than I had been expecting. I put the tankard down.
"No," I replied. No it's not what I want to hear and no I'm not going.
"Closure," he said slowly. "She's the only one who can give you closure."
