Title: Music
Author: Culumacilinte
Rating: PG
Length: 608
Characters: Will Turner, implied Tia Dalma/Davy Jones
Summary: When Will goes to steal the key to the Dead Man's Chest from Davy Jones, he realises something about the Captain, and the organ music he hears at night on the ship which he would not have suspected.
Disclaimer: I own nothing! Nothing!
Like every other man on board the Flying Dutchman, Will heard the music. It was an organ; he recognised the sound from his youth in England, attending church with his mother on Sundays. It seemed utterly impossible to reconcile the image of the great conglomeration of gleaming brass pipes and the hymns they played with this rotting hulk of a pirate ship in the middle of the Caribbean, but there it was; music, frightening and powerful and dark, almost painfully beautiful, echoing through every timber of the ship.
He asked his father about it the first night, but all he got from Bootstrap was a cryptic "It's the Captain." He would say no more.
No-one approached Davy Jones when he was at his organ. It was an unspoken rule, but one of which Will soon became aware, and which only increased his almost unspeakable apprehension when he resolved to steal the key to the Dead Man's Chest.
When he snuck into the cabin to see Jones asleep, it did take him aback. He had known that he would be, of course, or else he could not have dared to enter, but it was still strange to see Davy Jones, the immortal terror of the seas, looking so curiously vulnerable. He was slumped at his organ, a terrifying construction which matched his crew and ship; the pipes looked more grown than constructed, and the whole thing was covered in a layer of corals and mollusks. In any other setting it might have been merely bizarre, but here it commanded the room with the feeling of an altar to some strange pagan god.
He knew where the key was, but it was going to be a task retrieving it from the inner pocket Jones kept concealed behind the expansive mass of tentacles which served as a beard. He crouched by his side for a moment, before slowly, oh-so-carefully, seizing a pair of quills from the organ-shelf and beginning his attempt.
Will froze as he heard the music box start to play, his eyes flicking down to find it on the shelf of the organ; a small, heart shaped locket wrought of silver metal, encircled with the claws of a crab. The sound was strangely incongruous against the backdrop of hissing waves and the moan of timber and rope, and it took Will a moment to realise that the sweet, tinkling melody was the same as the pounding, furious organ music he heard night after night.
There was something else though which was niggling at him: something about the music box itself which he could not quite place. Into his mind there suddenly flashed an image. The locket lying on a darkly stained wooden table amidst jewels and baubles and under the flickering, smoky light of crude candles; slender brown fingers trailing over it on their way to something else; just acknowledging its presence; and a voice, rich and low; "Him fall in love wid' 'er; but de pain was too much to live wid'- it was not wort' feelin' what small, fleetin' joy life bring. An' so, he carve out him 'eart, lock it away in a ches', and hide de ches' from de world."
Something clicked in Will's head then, and for the first time, he looked at Davy Jones with something like pity; seeing the pain in his strange, inhuman face. He might have carved out his heart, but Will doubted that it had been quite as effective as Jones had hoped.
But even as Will stared, the Captain gave a small, grunting snore, the tentacles of his beard twitching and curling against the grimy keys of the organ. Will snatched the key and fled the room.
