Here's Luck to You (4/6): Doing Something Stupid
By Honorat
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: Aye, Disney doesn't allow anyone else to make a profit, but we're not tryin' to make a profit, are we?
Summary: Bill Turner is cursed and vengeful. Angst alert. Fourth in a series of significant events in the lives of Bootstrap Bill and Jack Sparrow with a cameo by Will. This was supposed to be a drabble for the "lucky charm" challenge at Black Pearl Sails. There will be six installments to this drabble sequence. None of them is a drabble.
Thanks to the peerless beta editing of geekmama2, this is much better than it was
4. Doing Something Stupid
Bill Turner contemplated the moonlight glittering on the mouldering bones of his hand. No matter how familiar the sight was becoming, he couldn't repress a shudder of horror. His other hand crept to the cursed medallion chained to his neck. One finger made a chilling click as bone brushed gold. Nightmares. That's what we are. That's all we deserve to be.
He wondered if Jack was dead yet.
There had been no water on that island. It had been too long. Barbossa had made sure there'd been no opportunity for any secret partisans to jump ship and mount a rescue. And Jack had been so badly injured when they'd driven him off his ship. The rusty stains where they'd dragged him had refused to come out of the Pearl's deck. Bill always refused to step on them.
He could no longer feel the warm wood under his feet, no longer sense the direction of the wind, no longer stroke the smooth page of his last long ago letter from his wife, with the wobbly line from little Will at the bottom. But he could feel anguish like molten lead consuming his bones. And he could feel guilt like blocks of granite crushing his lifeless heart. He could never go home now. He had failed every person he had ever loved.
Tomorrow they would make port again searching for the gold to break the curse. Tomorrow he would find a way to send this medallion so far away Barbossa would never find it. Tomorrow he would have his vengeance.
Then he would find a way to sail to that island where they had marooned Jack—to say good-bye. He pulled out a flask of rum he could no longer taste and splashed it onto the deck of the Black Pearl. For Captain Jack Sparrow. Here's luck to you, Jack.
If Jack was dead, he'd probably already talked his way out of Hell and was driving the angels to pulling out their feathers in Heaven. And at least one of the Pearly Gates had gone unaccountably missing. If there was a heaven.
Bill knew for a fact there was a hell.
TBC
Ooh! Captain Tish. I'm flattered to be compared to Adams. It's been a long time since I read him, but I liked his work. I'm glad you enjoyed this.
Sands-agent. Thanks for the review. I'm happy you liked my daft Jack. Here's the update.