A/N: You really must read the story Trust by CaptainMeds if you're reading this, because it's awesome, and don't you want to know what dear Hector is doing while Bootstrap's all trapped on the Dutchman?
I completely forgot to say that this is based partly on a wonderful RP I'm doing with her, didn't I? Urk. Well, yes. It is xD
Oh, and again, I apologize for any mistake I might have made with the actual scenes from the movie, again I'm going mostly on memory, and filling in pieces which weren't actually shown.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Don't sue me. Again, I don't even own the title.
To the Ends of the Earth: Without a Hurt, the Heart is Hollow
Three boys search for a gem.
Their ship is named the Treasure, and she's small and old but they love her. Took her themselves, they did, walking up the gangplank as sons of aristocrats and sailing away as pirates. Jack stands at the bow of the ship, his new compass clutched tightly in his hand, and watches the dial spin and steady, feeling palpably the desire in his heart. And Hector behind him, on the raised platform which isolates the wheel, holding it steady, his eyes lost to the sea. William watches him because he always watched him, even then, and tries not to hear Tia Dalma's words echoing in his head, this hiss of her voice in his ear. Don't give up on him. Don't give up.
She looks at Hector and warns him not to be greedy after giving Jack the compass in exchange for the promise that they'll find it, this gem, so William steps forward and asks for his own bit of wisdom, and this is what she hands him, stooping low and breathing warm and wet over his cheek. Don't give up on him.
A fantasy:
"Yeh were mean' fer more than this..." Hector speaks quietly to him, trailing his fingers over the slight stubble on Bootstrap's cheek as they lay beside each other, bare legs intertwined. Bootstrap laughs, shaking his head. "More than this? More than here, with you? No. You're all I am." Hector looks at him as if he knows it isn't true, so Bootstrap kisses him, and for a long time there are no more words.
He wants it, when he's young. To be nothing else, nothing but love for him, to compress and vanish into his heart. To shed his body and all he is and to be allowed to really love him. To catch every thought, every feeling, every stray impulse. To know and understand him entirely, why he pulls away and why he hates to dream at night.
There's this cave they come to in their quest, dark and cold and surrounded by water, and there's a voice that holds them apart, each alone with their fears. Their dreams. William doesn't know what Hector sees, but he sees Hector, watches him as he falls cringing on the floor, eyes dark, crying out soundlessly, and it speaks to him that he will give up. That there will be a time he looks at Hector with fear and hatred, sees him as the world will; as a monster.
William doesn't know if this is threat or prophecy, but when it releases him he runs to Hector, to comfort him in the only way he knows Hector will accept, clasping his hand over the shaking boy's shoulder, and knows by the way his stomach flips when Hector's hand finds its way up to hold it there that it cannot possibly be the future.
Damn it, Hector. We were so blind. Come back. You can't be gone.
It's raining. Hard. The water drips down Bootstrap's face and into his eyes, his hair plastered to his forehead, but they are above water nonetheless, so who is he to complain? That he cannot learn not to care about, cannot be struck into it even by the loss of the one thing which made his life worthwhile. He hates being underwater. He still does.
So he ignores the smoothed-faced men who have just joined the crew, ignores the guilt which says he is happy to have stopped to destroy their ship and kill them, because it means they'd had to surface. Not to mention that every ship they sink which is not the Pearl seems almost a relief to Bootstrap.
He didn't see it himself, though he hears whispers that the Pearl was there, and Jack himself, that he made a deal with Davy Jones, another one, to save his life, but they still follow Jack, just out of sight, so he knows it must be some sort of trick. He'd told his friend he couldn't talk his way out of this. Should have listened.
The music of Davy Jones' organ pounds away distantly, and by now Bootstrap knows every note by heart, along with every other member of the crew. The rope is rough and slippery under his fingers as he pulls it along with the other men.
There was a time you laughed at me for not knowing how to do this very thing.
Well. I've learned.
I miss you.
"Secure the mast tackle, Mister Turner! Step to it!"
Bootstrap looks up, releasing the rope he holds as well as the memory. He scrambles up to it, to take this rope as well, ready to preform the same tasks over and over for still nearly one hundred years.
There's a pale body beside him, a young man, and Bootstrap doesn't look at him. He crowds beside Bill, trying to grab the rope himself. "Step aside!"
"Mind yourself," Bootstrap growls. It won't help you to seem to eager, lad. To do work which isn't meant for you. There's no special treatment here, the captain hates us all the same. Envies what little humanity we have left.
"Back!" The boy orders, shouldering him away.
"Let go, boy!" He looks up.
No.
He lets go of the rope in his shock, and Will dives to catch it, the weight of the cannon dragging him across the deck. It crashes down and the music stops and Bootstrap cannot move.
The bosun's voice is distant, barely reaching his ears. No. It can't... he can't be here... "Haul the weevil to his feet!"
The crew swarms around his son, dragging him up, and Bootstrap still cannot move.
"Five lashes, to remind you to stay on 'em."
"No!" The cry is harsh, strangled, and the bosun advances on him sharply, growling. "Impeding me in my duties? You'll share the punishment."
No. You won't hurt him. "I'll take it all," he answers fiercely, drawing himself to his full height. I'll kill you if I have to, but you won't touch him with one slimey finger. Even in shock, Bootstrap cannot freeze if Will is in danger. You won't hurt him.
But there's that sound, that slow pounding of wood on wood, and the crew parts, and Bootstrap hates himself for the edge of fear which creeps into his heart, the faltering of his resolve.
"Will you now? And what would prompt such an act of charity?" Davy Jones speaks with curious amusement, and Bill can see the question in his small, black eyes. What is it can draw Bootstrap Bill from his little pit of self-pity? What is it that can interrupt his grief?
There are times the captain watches him, Bootstrap knows, can feel his eyes on him as he works, tears drying on his cheeks, know he takes a certain pleasure in Bootstrap's grief, because he cut out his heart simply because a woman didn't love him, and cannot imagine the pain Bootstrap must be feeling to have truly lost the one he loved, but knows that it must be worse and that pleases Jones more than he'd like to admit.
"...My son." Low and disbelieving, his voice like gravel through the lump in his throat, as his eyes fix on William's face and beg for some kind of forgiveness. "He's my son."
Davy Jones' eyes widen with glee and he laughs. "Ha ha! What fortuitous circumstance be this. Five lashes be owed, I believe it is." He reaches out for the whip, tentacles curling around it tenderly, and holds the thing out to Bootstrap.
"No... No, I won't!" He stares up at the captain with horror, because he knows that although he'd been ready to kill the bosun, to take on the entire crew for Will, there is nothing he can do to Davy Jones and in the end he will do what is asked.
"The cat's out of the bag, Mister Turner. Your issue will feel its sting, be it by the bosun's hand or your own."
"No."
"Bosun--"
"No!" He grabs the whip, clutching it to him. He's been punished by the man many times, and though Will would live, that is not a fate he could willingly watch his son endure. He closes his eyes and does what he has to, feeling more the coward with every stroke. He tries to do it lightly, but the whip is sharp and when he opens his eyes Will's back is cross-marked and bloody.
"You had it easy, boy!" The bosun yells with a laugh, and Bootstrap shoves the whip back at him as the crew tosses Will to the lower deck, the boy landing in a pool of water. He rushes down, speaking his son's name as he grips the boy's shoulder, trying to help him up. "William--"
"I don't need your help," Will says angrily, shoving Bootstrap aside and staggering up unaided.
"The bosun prides himself from cleaving flesh from bone with every stroke," he explains desperately. The boy turns to him, teeth bared and growling the words.
"So I'm to understand what you did was an act of compassion?"
"Yes," Bootstrap answers, voice grave with the truth of it, because suddenly there is a small part of him which wants to live, wants to remain, and its the hatred in his son's eyes which sparks it. There, Bootstrap. Here's a reason.
He clings to it, after Will is gone, to the moment of horrible hope when Will speaks that he has sworn no oath, and Bootstrap looks at him wide-eyed and tells him to get away. Get away now, while you can, little son. There's nothing here for anyone, not even Davy Jones himself is happy on this ship. We sail and we kill and we forget who we are until we are nothing, and when we are freed we die. That isn't the life that's meant for you. This is what I deserve, along with your hatred, every inch of it.
But this is their time. The time they have. It's night and they stand in the wind on the deck because Will says he cannot sleep, but Bootstrap knows it is because of the pain from his back, and hates himself for that, too. They speak in hushed tones of Jack and the Pearl and when William tells the story Bootstrap cannot help but look at him with pain darkening his eyes and ask.
"So you... you met He-- Barbossa, didn't you?"
Will sneers in the dark and doesn't notice the slip of Bootstrap's tongue. "Barbossa? We killed him, father." Will speaks with a strange excitement, as if he believes that in killing him he was doing something noble. Something right. Strong and proud. "He's dead, trapped in the hellish depths of Davy Jones' own locker, to suffer eternally for what he did to you."
And because Bootstrap recognizes the plea for acceptance which is also there in his son's voice, he smiles weakly, gripping the boy's shoulder, and tries desperately to be proud.
Bootstrap gambles his death away, because Jones already has his life and his soul. His death, that final release, is all he can give to his son, and he gives it willingly.
You might think me a stupid old fool for doing what I did, William, Bootstrap thinks to no one once Will is gone, curled up in the silence of the hold and staring into darkness. You might think me a fool. But I did it for you. I did it for love. You're gambling your life away on Jack, and though I won't say he isn't worth it, you can't be. Jack will die, you should know that. This mess with the key and the heart is just delaying the inevitable. No one can defeat Davy Jones, not even my old friend, and you cannot kill yourself for Jack. It won't make any difference.
It's night again, and Bootstrap leans close to his son and gives him a knife, because it's all he can give the boy to protect him from what is to come.
"Now get yourself to land, and stay there." Don't go looking for him, boy. I know it's hard, but don't. He's as good as dead as it is. "It was always in my blood to die at sea. But it was not a fate I ever wanted for you." I made you a pirate without meaning to, and I can't save you from that. I'd... do anything to. But I've nothing more to give.
"It's not a fate you had to choose for yourself, either," Will answers, his voice edged with bitterness, and Bootstrap almost laughs as much as he almost cries.
"Aye. I could tell you I did what I had to, when I left you to go pirating, but it would taste a lie to say it wasn't what I wanted." To go with him. To be with him. But you wouldn't understand. I'd come back and be your father now, Will, if I could, and if you needed me. Because he's gone now, and there's no longer anyone I'd pick over you, and perhaps I shouldn't have chosen him in the first place but I couldn't do anything else. It's the first time he can think of Hector when the grief is a dull ache rather than a stab of pain and that almost hurts more. But the grief is no longer all he has. He'll never stop thinking about Hector, never stop loving him any less -- he has an eternity in which to love him, now. But as long as he knows his son is alive, he'll have something else to hold onto.
"You owe me nothing, Will. Not at all."
"They'll know you helped me."
He does laugh then, shaking his head. "What more can they do to me?"
Will looks down at the knife in his hand, and looks up at Bootstrap with a fierceness in his eyes which startles him, because it matches his own love and his own loyalty and that terrifies him.
He'd almost smiled when Will told him why he was there, that Jack sent him in the obvious hope that he'd take Will's soul for his own, because that was just like Jack, and he could already see the loyalty shining in Will's eyes. When he spoke of rescuing Jack from the noose, of risking his life for the girl he loved. Willingly sacrificing everything for the two of them. Because it's so clear that this boy is his son, this boy who grew up so far from him, the boy he dreamed about and damned with a coin. But now he wants to press his hands into Will's chest, to dig out this piece of him they share which means that he believes his own life is worth less than his love, because he can feel it burning inside himself and hates to think that this boy might do the same as he. He does not regret his own decision, but his son is worth more than that.
"I take this with a promise. I'll find a way to sever Jones' hold on you... and not rest until this blade pierces his heart. I will not abandon you. I promise."
Oh, William. When did I get so old that you can look at me with pity in your eyes and promise to save me?
Bootstrap cannot answer, so he watches silently as his son sails away, and accepts the punishment that comes in the morning as well deserved.
