Getting close to the end, guys. Review review review reviewwwwwww
-Han
Something akin to thunder borne from the depths of magic itself tore through the walls, rumbled in the voice of ancient gods until it filled Anna's thoughts from the inside and set them to the tenor of broken skies. She shifted to ground herself, fingers grazing Jack's in the half-light, closed-in chill of the cave and warmth spread between them, her breathing picking up with a crescendo of sound like the seas splitting from the bottom.
Water chased the sky, ran up in delicate veins, caught the dull glow of torchlight and sparkled like tendrils of diamonds spun out on the ceiling of the cave in glittering trails of splendor. Anna watched them spiderweb across the rock with wonder in her eyes, the blue in them a shock of sky and lightning wrapped into awe, split and framed by lashes that nearly brushed her cheekbones when she blinked.
Jack watched her, no interest for the silver pool forming over their heads, or the strange way its rounded edges looked elevated, drawn away from the surface like the water was still reaching out, begging for their touch, something to slip against in more perfect rain drops, tracks of tears, splash of the sea. He watched her eyes reflect the platinum shine on the ceiling and her skin absorb torchlight and reflect it back in soft gold, watched her lips twitch into a small, secret smile. Her fingers danced against the handle of her sword reflexively, as if the action was the only thing keeping her on the ground as earth-splitting thunder ripped through the scattered collection of pirates and left them weak at the knees.
The Cabin Boy caught the bare edges of her gaze, and her smile grew, broke into a grin full of light and the sound of warring angels and a strange sort of music felt through their veins, swelling up from the center of them and whispering warmth across their souls. The little boy smiled back, hesitant and vulnerable and Jack thought about how it felt to have that grin turned on him, like breathing for the first time and she was telling you something so special, only you deserved to know, you were brighter than the sun, the air itself as it wrapped around her and breathed life into her body, the sunshine as it laid gold onto her skin.
You were everything she could ever need for a moment, so special the rest of the world faded away.
Jack hoped the boy remembered that smile, hoped he pressed it deep inside the folds of his heart and kept it safe, like pressed flowers between the aging pages of his favorite poetry books.
The sound faded away with the last whisperhum of the walls and the last drop of silver water pooling over their heads. Peace broke in their hands, crumbled away in pinched ash and the fevered expressions on every pirate's face, Phillip at the back wearing interest and an aching sort of sadness that seemed to bleed through the air immediately surrounding him, that same look that haunted Anna's steps even after they'd crossed back into the real world. Jack thought of the dark way Anna was when she found him, kept a promise with a stain on her heart and a black void she refused to talk about, even in the months that followed.
He asked her, once, what it was like after he died, and the blackness that swept up her eyes in response, the grim twist of her mouth and the way she grew far and away, like the veil still separated them. It made him drop the question, pull her into his arms and listen to their heartbeats mingle in rhythm and remind them that they were still alive.
The frenzied silence consumed, infected, drove them back to reality, where a pane of water-glass hung above their heads and Blackbeard's eyes struck hard with cruelty and impatience. Something snapped into place, the urgency back in their systems, twins at the soul in the way they responded, a quick meeting of eyes and a smirk that pulled the corners of his lips.
She dropped to her knees, wetness of the floor seeping into the fabric of her trousers, scum and grime staining them with the vile flavor of the earth, but the small smile on her lips remained, her eyes even with the maroon scarf tied loosely around his thin waist. She leaned back to meet his eyes, winked at the flushed look his cheeks almost took, the whisper of shame lost so long ago amidst the waves, and the heat, tangible in the air around them, crawling up his spine. Her fingers linked in a steady cradle, ready to let Jack take the first step, to sink again beyond a veil and she wished, with everything she was, that they could go together.
His boot smeared dirt across her open palms, catching on the calluses and making her feel seeped in the cold, dank water of the cave. He hovered for a moment, full weight on the floor and his sword raised high and ready to prick the expanse of water-sky.
"On the other side, then?" he asked softly, gold caps catching the flickering torch light.
"The other side," she agreed softly, her eyes fractured and splintered to Jack's gaze.
What wasn't said went unspoken.
Please be right behind me.
I'm not leaving you.
She shifted abruptly, before Jack could read the pain there, heaving as suddenly and forcefully as she could, and lifting him up towards the cave ceiling. For a moment, singular in its perfection, Jack looked like he was flying, dancing in the palms of Anna's hands with his sword raised, slicing through the cold air until it just pierced the water.
And he was gone.
Swallowed by the veil and they were separate again. Jack tried not to think about the way the water-not-water glided across his skin like the cold touch of a Death easy to fall into, how warm and small he felt in the hands of magic, of eternity. How insignificant.
When he landed, it felt like breathing after his head had been held underwater, and the mist wrapped tightly around his heart and made him think of every moment he'd ever loved, every morning he'd ever watched the sun rise and thought it beautiful, every midnight when the stars mapped out the infinite, and every touch of warm skin on skin, every heartbeat held in tune against his own. He thought about the times his dirty fingers left trails over Anna's skin, and her scars felt like magic and history and all the imperfect pieces of her that made her diamond, perfect and pure.
He thought about the cold touch of death avoided once and how skin would turn cold, lips blue and unyielding to his, when her heart would fall silent and that grin would freeze into something dark and-
dead.
The years would go faster than he could handle, they would slip in a flurry of sweet nights and color-burst mornings and raids and gunshots and he couldn't stop the time. Couldn't slow it down and breathe it in, savor the scars and the lack of lines around her eyes, the way her lips twitched before they kicked all the way up into a smile, the way her calluses felt when they dragged against his own, the way her fingertips mapped out his own history and the way her lips always paused over the two bullet holes over his heart.
And one day there wouldn't be anyone to hold anymore.
He choked on his air, the cold, desperate way mist clung to him, suffocated him, and stumbled forward with only the ghost of grace, sword at the ready and praying for the Fountain, for Anna to drink from it and be whole, be untainted for just a little while longer. Be safe.
The oasis lived in shadow, darkness cast on mystery made it up in small rays of sunlight and the outstretched hands of twisting vines and the trunks of trees that must be ancient, bigger than anything Jack had ever seen and curving, bent towards a center, where water twined between arching roots and rocks in vein-like patterns. Clear and pure and attracting everything in the enclosure, until the vines seemed to be aching to touch it, moss growing down onto the bottom of the creek and the trees bent as if in prayer to just skim the surface.
He walked, took small steps because a rope around his chest urged him on, bade him to jump lightly from perch to perch, where his boots smeared dirt on the pristine surface of blue stones and his sword caught the small fractions of light and cast the glare on the rock wall. If he looked up, he knew the sky wouldn't be there, too swept up in mist and tree tops. Nothing else existed. And something cold wrapped around him, yanked him forward with the same, horribly fascinating, insistence that a hundred and eighty pieces of Aztec gold had, more than two years ago.
He walked, because he had to.
Because he couldn't stop the want.
And there was possibility, there, just beyond the horizon of thought where humanity would evolve and he alongside it, watch callused hands rise from tyranny and build castles that scraped against the sky, discovered what lie inside of stars and sing anthems of the people. And he could watch it all, if he cast of the shackles of a Death imminent.
In some corner of his mind, he recognized Anna's sharp intake of breath, knew the way her lips would form around the invasion of air and her chest would stutter around shock, awe, some kind of religion inside of it all.
He turned, and wondered what she saw in his eyes, what strange new light glimmered inside the darkness, for her to walk to him so quickly, run her fingertips across his jaw that way, look so desperate.
"That life, that eternity, cannot be gained like this," she whispered, too low for anyone else to hear, as more pirates invaded the suspended oasis, the noise of their frenzied breathing shattering the tranquility. "It would make us no better than the scum of the earth, just longer lived. If we are to take that, what would be the point of living?"
He grinned, leaning just so into her touch, and allowing the warmth, the certainty, to seep into him. She was happy like this, she didn't need eternity.
"You."
"You compliment me so, Captain Sparrow," she whispered, a smile hovering on the corners of her lips. "But I'm afraid your priorities are not in order."
"Is that so?"
"Rum, Captain, rum for an eternity of horizons," she said seriously.
He laughed, full and breathless, and his hand stained her shirt as he held onto her.
"Aye, certainly the only reason to continue on in life," he said strongly, chuckles breaking through the veneer and for a moment, they were alone. For a moment, they were whole.
"It's so beautiful," Angelica whispered, shattering their peace with the soft ebb and flow of her Spanish lilt. As one being, Jack and Anna found the fountain, the delicate stream of water flowing eternally from an unbroken circle of rock, an overarching symbol of all lives touched by its infinite. They moved like they were made to be there, like all their lives added up to the moments between them and the Fountain of Youth.
When Jack touched the small, vulnerable stream of water with the tip of his finger, he felt soaked in something clean, sweet and sharp on the edges with its ability to take life, just as much as give it. His hand came away spotless, unsoiled by time and the skin itself seemed younger with the delicate golden hue of young adulthood.
"I'll be the first to taste those waters, Sparrow," Blackbeard barked, as he moved gracelessly towards them, the air around him bending to his movements, shadows receding into other shadows, and his path forged by brute force, lacking the faerie grace Anna and Jack possessed when they moved with their surroundings. It seemed a trait accumulated through water, belonging to the sea made you a drop in its swell, dancing around rocks and whispering against the shore.
A moment, passed with the bated breath of exhausted sailors and the slow, acknowledging glance between two lovers, a gentle orientation around the other. And then.
"Father," Angelica warned, voice colored with a fear that seeped deep into her bones.
"The one-legged man," Blackbeard said without turning, his head bowed in preparation, for blood staining the waters of purity. "And our dear friend—Bonny."
"How ever did you know?" Anne drawled, her sword catching the interspersed rays of light. Jack watched the older woman smirk, thought he recognized the way her lips twitched before the smile broke out.
"You led them here!" Angelica accused, snarling into Jack's face with all the fury of a woman scorned, lip curling in disgust.
"Why would we do that?" Anna asked, voicing Jack's opinion with a carefully blank look settling over her blue eyes, blotting out the sun inside of them, the spark of mischief that wouldn't play here.
"Edward Teach!" Barbossa's voice echoed hollowly inside the haven, as he emerged slowly from the wall of fog, stepped out of the mist with a band of British soldiers, Groves walking confidently beside him with his powdered wig left long behind in the embrace of jungle. His uniform was ripped, dirtied and soiled by the touch of insanity the mission had infected his heart with. His eyes were wild, a grin spread across his face with all the vicious glee Jack recognized in himself.
Anne Bonny stood on Barbossa's other side, her eyes trained on Blackbeard with the feral intent of a predator, what felt like life-long hatred culminating in one look that seemed to tear through the illusion of magic, of fey-touched ground. Left it scorched and broken.
"For crimes committed on the high seas, by the authority granted to me by His Majesty the King, with a goodly amount of personal satisfaction, I hereby place you in the custody of the court, and declare you to be my prisoner," Barbossa declared, a twisted smile on his aging face.
"My trick's out, is that it?" Blackbeard asked, his ringed fingers dancing lightly on the hilt of his sword.
"Such crimes do include but are not limited to: piracy, treason, murder, torture of the most heinous sort, including the brutal theft of one used, twisted, hairy right leg!" he shouted, brandishing his sword with the exquisite slide of metal, the poisonous steel trained on its greatest enemy.
"You dare face this sword?" Blackbeard asked quietly, that soft deadliness lingering in his voice as he slowly drew his own weapon, the heavy mass of lethal sword acting as an extension of his arm.
"This far away from your ship? Aye," Anne spat without fear, all traces of it burned away with the hot anger of maltreatment, injustice. "You are no more than us, here."
"Aye. That be the cold breath of Fate I feel down my nape. But - I'll have one last fight, by God! Kill them all!" he screamed, shouts echoing off the rock walls as weapons were raised, war cries shouted, profanities screamed.
"Whoah, whoah, hang on a minute!" Jack shouted, hands raised in surrender.
Men stopped, so close to their first steps and the beginnings of bloodshed that would always stain the heavenly altar of immorality. Maybe even destroy its magic.
"I just...I just need to understand something," he said lightly, taking off-kilter steps towards the center, Anna following almost unconsciously. "Right, so. You will fight against them," he said slowly, pointing from Barbossa to Blackbeard.
"And you will fight against them," Anna added, pointing from Blackbeard to Barbossa and Anne.
"All on account of-"
"Him wanting to kill him," they said together, pointing towards opposite sides with incredulous expressions.
"Where is the sense?" Anna asked Jack.
"Exactly. I say, let them fight each other!" Jack added, taking careful steps towards Scrum, who nodded vigorously. Anna smiled, swept her hands to encompass the whole of them.
"While we lay back, and watch," Anna said with a smile, sweeping her hands to encompass the whole of them.
"And have a drink," Jack added seriously.
"Place some wages?" Anna suggested, looking to Jack for confirmation with that fire burning in her eyes.
"Eh?" Jack asked the crowd.
"Aye." Scrum said after a moment, lowering his sword with deliberate slowness.
The silence consumed, and Anna edged towards the break in the crowd, where she could avoid the first onslaught of inevitable attack. Jack followed, with all the brazen confidence she loved in him, each step rebounding off the stone and absorbed by the Fountain itself.
"Anna, this is not your fight," Bonny said tersely, her lips a thin line and a parental strictness in her stance, one Anna had seen reflected in her father when anger took him at the soul. "Step away."
"Your battles will cost the lives of everyone in this room before you give up a petty feud," Anna snapped in response, eyes narrowed. Jack flanked her, kept a charming smile fixed on Barbossa as the women distracted, bought more time even if they didn't know it.
"He took everything from me! If it wasn't for him, maybe I would have been able-" Bonny stopped abruptly, swallowed down her words. They tasted like bile and fear, all the words she never said, could never say. Her face hardened, all traces of sympathy erased, and her back straight, sword raised and a snarl curling her lips. She turned back to her crowd, Barbossa a solid presence beside her and the privateers at the ready. "Kill them!" Bonny shouted, her voice a frenzied scream and a desperate prayer and need.
"No quarter!" Blackbeard roared.
Three swords clashed, the force of it sending waves through privateer and pirate alike, and it made them vicious, made them bloodthirsty and animal.
The battle began.
Anna wished the enemy was of the same nature as Davy Jones' men, where the twisted, malformed bodies didn't seem human, and their empty faces seemed more like a blessing than the curse of dead men trampled by the living, faces open and yearning for another breath, just one more breath.
They were too real, too warped with agony and human pain, unmistakable in every single line of their faces, men with eyes that saw nothing but so horrible in their last moments, felt something so painful, that the fear was etched into the lines around their eyes and the anguish eternalized in their slack jaws and splayed limbs.
And she couldn't pretend them to be enemies, couldn't slide them into a pocket of monsters, where ugly, twisted things could be faced with virtue at her back. Where her choices were right. Where her and Jack did what they had to do and no one had to get hurt, no one that was really human, really alive.
Not like this.
Never really like this, with eternity on the line and a feud that should be personal. A battle that should be between three, without this many bodies, the stink of death hung heavy in such perfect air.
"I fear the result of this," Anna whispered to Jack, as their bodies coiled with the familiar energy of a fight, battle, where the rules were simple and the consequences immeasurably steep. The goal was easy: stay alive. But she didn't know if they would make it this time.
"I cannot say I don' share your worries," Jack answered truthfully, his dark eyes tracing the chaos, screams, writhing of bodies trying desperately to make it to the next sunrise, to see the red and gold shoot across the sky and feel immersed in life, and breathing. To drink again, to laugh.
"Till the end, then?" she asked, knocking shoulders with him lightly. Her eyes looked haunted, as she followed Bonny in the center of the fray, all snarling lip and wild eyes, hair a tangle around her face and her movements unrestrained. Chaos. Dangerous.
Jack nodded, lips pursed slightly, and bumping her back. It wasn't a kiss, the twine of fingers, or even the press of foreheads braced against each other. But it would do.
"Till the very end."
