It's quite possible that I go over the line in this chapter, straying too far from the humorous adventure story this thing started out as. There were a lot of difficult things to write in this story, but the one contained herein is by far the worst. It was painful. And I knew that it was bound to send off warning bells in readers' heads.

I don't fault you for reeling at the contents of this chapter. Gods know I would if I hadn't been the one to write it. Sometimes, though, you have to knuckle down and write what the characters would do, regardless of what you know about their pasts or how you wish to treat them. In the end, the characters take precedence over your own beliefs and feelings.

I didn't change the rating on fanfiction.net because I didn't think the contents of one chapter, so drastically above and beyond the rest of the story, should kill its chances for exposure. So I beg your forgiveness or, failing that, your pardon. I don't recommend skipping this chapter out of dislike for its contents, because they affect later aspects of the story, but as always, you're free to do what you like.

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Ocean Soul

Chapter XI - In Which the PG-13 Rating is Compromised
 
 

    The Black Pearl and her two compatriots sailed from Freetown without pausing to resupply. They sailed South along the Sierra Leona coast, keeping only barely within sight of land, while the Turner siblings were sent off on their errand.
    Excepting brief skirmishes over food, which was running low, the pirate ships sailed peacefully, or at least in a state of maintained, high-keyed tension.
    Jack, Inigo and Granuaile all came down hard on their crews and, often, each other. All games were prohibited; anyone caught gambling was strictly punished, especially when the things being gambled were the hoarded remains of food. The Tirghráthóir banned sex after an incident on the Black Pearl involving Anne Bonney, Mary Read, Jack Sparrow and another case of mistaken identity. (Curiously, it was Inigo that had started a row over it. Jack hadn't really minded.)
    Two of the Cottons died out of crew protest. Growing sick of the conditions, some of the Pearl's crew soaked pieces of bread in soda and fed it to Cotton Three and Cotton Seven. The gas made their stomaches explode quite messily, to the brief entertainment of everyone on deck.
    Jack had the perpetrators keel-hauled.
    Only Captain Kidd, by nature a calm, unflappable gentleman, seemed unaffected by the anxiety shared by his fellow captains. He was twice cast as a mediator to handle disputes among the pirates, not counting the time between Jack and Granuaile when negotiations fell through and the two shouted at each other in Gaelic until they had run out of insults.
    When they had put in to Turtle Island, the designated meeting place to resupply, and Delphine and William had still not turned up, the crews' unease only deepened. They waited a full day and night anchored in an inlet on the small, Tortuga-like island, and on the start of the second day, Jack, who hadn't spoken with his co-captain for the majority of the past few days, approached Inigo and said, "You don't 'spose we should've sent more men with 'em?"
    "We couldn't spare it with our casualities," Inigo said wearily.
    "Supposing they can't make it back?"
    "Will's a capable young man," the Spaniard said, without much conviction. He added, "And you have been teaching that valet of yours how to navigate, yes?"
    "Weren't you teaching yours?"
    "Ah. Please tell me you at least sent them an astrolabe and a map."
    "Er..."
    "Oh dear God."
    "Map, yes," Jack said quickly. "Astrolabe, no. It shouldn't be too necess'ry in short distances anyway."
    "They'd likely drift here with the current, if nothing else," Inigo agreed, which earned him a sour look. "I do not suppose there would be any other reason to account for their absence..."
    "Well," Jack said, seeming uneasy, "I 'spose there are the traps..."
    "Traps?"
    "Well, it is buried treasure, mate. You can't have buried treasure without traps. It's probably written down somewhere."
    "For you? You, who outmatches any sorcerer in the Western world?" Inigo asked, with only a small measure of distasteful sarcasm.
    "It's not sorcery if you just pick up things and use 'em," Jack said defensively. "Anyway, it's half-arsed magic. Traps, though, you can't go wrong with traps."
    "How bad of traps are we talking here?"
    "Nothing the children of Will Turner can't handle, m'sure."

    "I meant to ask you," Will said, rubbing the blood from his forehead with the back of his hand as he and his sister walked, "what do you make of that watch I showed you?"
    Delphine, who was walking with the slightest of limps, said, "Well, a watch, s'my guess."
    "Doesn't seem a bit funny to you?"
    "Only funny in that a rat bastard like Jack would care t'send something like that all th'way home with you an' not tell. Half the jewels are missing, the glass is cracked. All over s'a pretty shoddy piece o' work." In a moment of spontaneity Delphine swerved off the path, ran into the wall of the cave, and stayed there, clutching to the rock, until she had stopped coughing up blood. "That goddamned Sparrow. What was he thinking with bloody giant boulders an' venomous snake pits an' things poking out of walls?" As she said this, Will trod on a stone in the floor that compressed and caused two-foot spikes to protrude from the walls around Delphine's head. She backed away from the wall slowly.
    "Well, it is buried treasure," Will reasoned, oblivious. "Anyway, if you weren't so set on walking in front--"
    "We've been over this," Delphine grunted. "If you went in front you'd just get yeself dead. Now what's next?"
    Will glanced down at the map he'd been provided with. "Something called the Zoo of Death."
    "Oh, that should be simple."
    "It's further down, though. We still have a ways to walk. Delphine?"
    "Aye?"
    "Honestly, now, what does 'unconsummated' mean?"
    Delphine glared at him over his shoulder. "Will, we're gonna play a game."
    "A game?"
    "Yes. It's called 'Let's Find the Etymol'ical Root'. S'very simple."
    "Is that so."
    "'Goes like this: if you don't guess the meaning of the word after three very obvious hints, I'll put you inna 'eadlock until y'pass out so's I don't have to put up with your insufferable questionin' no more."
    Will gave this due consideration. "But then you'd have to carry me."
    "Drag you, more like."
    "Oh."
    "Yeah."
    "Shall we just drop it, then?"
    They did drop, in fact. Quite literally. They'd just reached the Zoo of Death.

    The captain's cabin aboard the Black Pearl had undergone some notable changes since the incidents in Port Royal. It was no cleaner, though the addition of a second bunk --placed as far away from Jack's bed as possible-- had served only to dislodge more of the accumulated junk onto the surrounding floor. There was a clear dividing line between the two captain's designated living space, although neither was any cleaner than the other, and the separation was due mainly to the number and former contents to the scattered liquor bottles. There had been no changes to the decoration, excepting the incidental (drunken) sort, mainly because neither occupant stayed in the room long enough to start thinking the right way to be spiteful was to offend the other inhabitant with strange wall hangings.
    On the morning of the fourth day docked at Turtle Island, Jack Sparrow and Inigo Montoya had for the first time in a long while found themselves in the cabin together, both lacking sleep or booze to compensate for this, which resulted in a very jittery pair of pirate captains indeed. Inigo sat on the edge of his bunk, wringing his hands, while Jack paced his part of the floor.
    "They're not coming back," Jack said, chewing the end of a fingernail until realizing it probably wasn't safe to be inadvertedly eating the crud found underneath it. "Prob'ly dead or run off t'keep the gold for themselves..."
    "You should never have trusted that Delphine woman," Inigo said.
    "I won't have you speaking ill of that girl, you hear me?" Jack warned, stopping in his fervent pacing for a moment. He held his head in pain as he resumed walking. "God be damned. They're about to mutiny and there's not one bloody thing we can do..."
    "This is the fault of your quartermaster," Inigo insisted. "I'll never understand why you were so lenient of her."
    "I was drunk, all right? And I'll never drink again."
    Inigo, skeptical, asked, "Is that a promise?"
    "Not so much as a bottle of rum is to come aboard this ship again for as long as she sails under Jack Sparrow. Not one bloody drop of it."
    "You can't make rumfustian without gin and beer, Jack."
    "We can't make rumfustian now, we're so low on supplies!" he said, throwing up his hands for a moment before crossing them over his chest, his pace increasing as he walked. "What the hell are we gonna do, Inigo?" His feverish stomping took him behind the massive junk heap that was his desk, and back around, glancing at the still and silent Spaniard for a moment before turning away and pacing another path, massaging his forehead. When Jack tired of waiting for a reponse, he turned on his heel and appeared in Inigo's view again. "Well?"
    "You just said Inigo," his co-captain said, stunned.
    Jack froze. "Aye."
    Slowly, with great difficulty, Inigo stood up from his bunk. "I would not think you would remember that name. I only spoke it once."
    "You'll fault me for good memory, will you?"
    The Dread Pirate Roberts walked up to him, stepping over scattered, broken treasure and useless old bottles. "You do not have a good memory," he said. "Why did you choose to remember my name?"
    "Blackmail?" Jack tried. It struck the pirate then, standing in close proximity to his counterpart and neither of them with their boots on, that Inigo was noticably taller than him. By all accounts, this revelation shouldn't have been as startling as it was. After all, many women were taller than him.
    "That's hardly your style," Inigo pointed out, not lifting his scrutinizing gaze.
    "Perhaps you don't know me as well as y'think," Jack told him, growing nervous over the gradually diminishing space between them.
    "I'd like to think I know you quite well," Inigo said silkily, leaning in close. "If not, I would care to change that."
    They didn't know who started it. Possibly both. Either way, in a matter of moments both men were on the floor rapidly undoing each other's clothing, kissing and biting and groping and--
    Jack awoke with a jolt, staring up at the cabin ceiling. He glanced quickly to either side of him. He was in his bunk. More importantly, he was all alone in his bunk, fully-clothed with no hard-to-explain aches or pains anywhere, which was always a good sign. As extra verification he patted himself down.
    Still breathing heavily, he looked over across the room at Inigo's bunk, presently occupied.
    A few moments later, Inigo stirred to being hit on the head with a golden soup pot.
    "Ow!" he yelped, clutching at the sore spot on his forehead as he snapped his eyes open at Jack. "What? What?" he demanded.
    "You and me are not drinking ever again," Jack told him. He leaned forward and gripped Inigo's black shirt with both hands. "Is that perfectly understood? Never again!"
    "All right, all right," Inigo said, baffled. "Jesus."
    Jack let go of his shirt, making Inigo fall back down onto his bunk mattress.
    The black-clad man sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed, and began pulling on his boots. "Might I inquire as to the meaning of such an abrupt about-face turn of opinion?"
    Jack, who had stomped off back across the room and stopped about halfway, near the desk, with his back turned and his hands on his hips. "It's complicated," he said hotly, not looking around. "Inigo-- Your name is Inigo, right?"
    "Yes," Inigo said, annoyed.
    "I'm never, ever going to call you that, is that clear?"
    "Whatever you like, Jack. I'm not especially picky." He winced, rubbing the mark on his forehead. "This wouldn't happen to have been brought on by another one of your nightmares?"
    "I don't get nightmares."
    "I'm scarcely in the mood to initiate another argument with you," said Inido dully, straightening the collar of his shirt. "If you are to persist in the belief that my interest stems from some prurient agenda--"
    "You're doing it again."
    Inigo cleared his throat. "If you think I'm asking because I want to get my rocks off, you're slightly mistaken. Is that plain enough for you, English boy? For God's sake, I am not native to this language and I speak it better than you."
    "First of all, I ain't English," said Jack, half-turning to glower at Inigo. "Not ever been to England but to steal from it, and damned if I ever salute to any bloody crown. Secondly--"
    Inigo never found out what that second article of interest was, because at that moment the cabin door shuddered beneath two thunderous, booming knocks. The two captains looked up.
    A moment later, Jack and Inigo emerged blinking in the morning sunlight, looking up into the face of Jack's second mate, a man with comparable size and strength to Fezzik and far less lovable.
    Jack gave him a nervous smile.
    "The crew an' me been discussin', Jack," the second mate said. "An' we decided we ain't takin' this no more. We're through, captain."
    "Well, Mister Redtail," Jack said patiently, "when one is on a quest striving for the future self-preservation of one's people, strife and hardship are part and parcel with the--"
    "We ain't here for your bloody crusade!" Redtail roared. "Don't you make th'mistake of thinkin' any one of us gives a damn 'bout noble causes you not gotta prayer o' winnin'. We want our money, we want our food, an' we want our booze. Right, boys?" The crew cheered behind him. "You cough it up right now, or, so 'elp us, we'll pillage the town for it."
    Jack held back an exasperated sigh. "Mister Redtail, Turtle Island is a pirate village. There wouldn't be any point in stealing from it."
    "Kapitän! Kapitän!" Inigo and Jack looked back and forth, and then up, to witness the young Goethe waving down to them from the crow's nest. "Blick dort!" he said, pointing off the port bow. "Es gibt ein Boot, das in Richtung zu uns kommt!"
    "What's he saying?" Jack muttered to his compatriot.
    "He says--"
    "Captain! There's a boat coming in!" Anamaria yelled, from near the bow.
    "Yes, that," Inigo said lamely, as the crew surrounding them dropped being menacing and rushed to the portside railing to view over the edge. Jack and he joined them, peering over the heads of the other pirates to see, coming through the morning mist, a small skiff with the mast lowered and the oars extended to paddle slowly toward the Black Pearl's hull. The contents of the boat were covered in the canvas sail, but were nevertheless distinctively chest-shaped.
    "Help get 'em aboard," Jack told Redtail, who immediately left his side to gather a team to set to this very task. Leading Inigo away from the railing, he said to him, "We'll have to ask what kept them so long."
    "I have a bad feeling about this," Inigo said warily. "And I'm usually right about these things."
    "You worry too much."
    "No, I worry just enough. Listen, Jack--"
    "Come on, Roberts, you've got absolutely nothing to be concer--"
    He was cut off by a cutlass, driving itself half a foot into the deck plank inches from his boot. The two captains stared at it as it vibrated where it stuck, and turned their gaze upward into the steely cold eyes of Delphine Turner. Her face and hair were caked with blood, her clothes were shredded almost to the point of indecency, and the cloak she had taken with her was wrapped high around her shoulders, obscuring the bottom half of her face so that all attention was drawn to those glowering, furious eyes.
    Her brother Will stood at her side, just as battered and vehement, but somehow less imposing.
    Behind them, by the port railing, the crew was busy hauling up chest after heavy treasure chest. One of these, landing upon the deck, broke its lid and spilled its tinkling gold contents across the board, to the awe of the lifters.
    "Mm mnm mnnm," Delphine told Jack and Inigo.
    "What?"
    "She said," Will interpretted, "'we get half.'"
    Jack barked out a laugh. "Bollocks to that!"
    "Mm mnnn mmn mn mnm m, mm mnm nnm nmn," Delphine insisted.
    "Says 'we went through the trouble to get it, we get our cut,'" Will provided, without being asked.
    "Why is she talking like that?" Inigo asked.
    Seething, Delphine reached up a bruised and bloody hand and pulled the collar of the mantle down from around her face, to reveal a very long, upward-arcing cut across each cheek, still fresh and bright red, starting at the corners of her mouth.
    "Zoo. Of. Death," she growled.
    "Zoo of Death?" Inigo repeated faintly, turning pale. He turned to Jack. "Why do you have a Zoo of Death? Get rid of the Zoo of Death!"
    "What's your problem," Jack muttered, far from phrasing it as a question. He returned his attention to Delphine. "Look, I really thought that you--"
    He was on the floor in a second, curling up with his arms clutching his stomach. Delphine walked directly over him, past Inigo, stomping angrily toward the stern.
    "We need to work on that girl's communication skills," Jack groaned. He sat up and turned around in time to see Delphine enter the captain's cabin and slam the door shut behind her. "Now what's she up to?"
    "Nevermind that. What are you doing with a Zoo of Death anyway?" Inigo demanded.
    "Later, all right?" said his companion, climbing to his feet with difficulty. "You wait here. I'm gonna see what she's on about."
    "Jack," William cautioned, "I don't think that's such a good idea."
    "Don't you try to protect her for being yer sister," Jack snapped. "She'll get what's coming to her for that contentious display, same as any other aboard my ship." He left the two of them, walking in strides toward the captain's quarters, and without so much as considering to knock, opened the door and stepped inside.
    "Miss Turner," he said, closing the door before turning around, "might I ask what prompted that--"
    He'd turned around to see Delphine bent over a pile of spare clothes and junk, only in trousers and boots. One look at her in this state and he immediately turned away, but spun too fast, banged into the wall, and ended up in a heap on the floor.
    "What the hell are you doing?!"
    "Me shirt's torn to bits, so I'm borrowin' one of yours," she told him simply, pulling a more-or-less clean shirt from the pile, examining it a bit at arm's length, and then throwing it over her shoulder.
    "But why don't you have a shirt on right now?"
    "I told you, s'no good. Anyway, not like you mind," she remarked, casting him a sour look.
    "I do mind, in fact," Jack nearly yelled, shielding the side of his vision as he climbed up onto his knees. "Good God, lass, where's your sense of propriety?"
    "Oh, not you too," Delphine huffed, standing upright with her selected shirt under one arm. She strode over to him as he was getting to his feet. "Why must you act so much older than me? It's like you think you're my father!" Jack twitched but said nothing, keeping his eyes averted. "And I don't take kindly to this façade of modesty, either, not when the first words y'ever said to me face were how you cared to invade very personal quarters. And look at me, for God's sake."
    She pulled one of his beaded strands to get him to obey. It took every ounce of personal willpower for him to keep his eyes on hers and not drift downward.
    "Listen," Jack said, pained, "Delphine, you just... don't..."
    "Not at me ruddy face, you bastard. Look at whatcha wanna look. Is it so hard? It didn't seem so difficult for you with all the women you've met in every port."
    "This is slightly different..." He held up a hand in some plea for a verbal cease-fire.
    "Like hell it's different. What are you waiting for? What've you got to be afraid of? Do I got to do it for you?" She grabbed his hand by the wrist. He jerked away instantly but she only gripped tighter, forcing his hand forward no matter how he fought against her, pressing it against her left breast. "There, that's what you want, isn't it?" she demanded. "That's the only thing you ever want with women." She pressed his hand harder as he struggled to pull away. "Does it feel nice? Do you want more? It's not like you've got to ask, 'captain' gives you every right in the damned world, doesn't it? Stop pretending you've got an ounce of respect for me an' stop pretending you've got morals an' just do it already. It's the only thing I'm here for!"
    He pulled the hand from her grasp, fighting off her restraints and lashing out blindly, striking her hard across the jaw with such force that she was knocked to the floor.
    Jack backed away, stinging hand still held in front of him as if frozen there. He was breathing heavily, staring down at her, numb and unthinking. His brain seemed to have run off some place to hide.
    Delphine knelt with her eyes on the floor. She coughed, spitting out shattered fragments of teeth amid blood and saliva. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and stared back up at him, bitter and spited but no longer the angry ball of fury from before. She spit out another bit of tooth, rasping, "I deserved that."
    "I--"
    "No, they broke off in the cave," she told him, climbing back to her feet. She didn't meet his gaze. "I was sorta hoping they'd grow back together like skin if I kept 'em still." She winced a little, for the backhanded slap had also reopened the cut crossing her cheek. She wiped the blood away. "Well, it seems I've impuned on enough of your time..." she trailed off, beginning to walk past him toward the door.
    He brought his arm up and caught her around the shoulders. She was about to look over at him when she had a shirt thrown in her face. "Right," she said, clutching it to her chest.
    Though he left her side, she didn't move, almost frozen in place while he sifted through the contents of the pile on his desk. He pulled out a long piece of navy-colored silk and began folding it lengthwise. "There's a water basin beside Roberts's bunk. Y'can wash the blood off yer face with it," he said, not looking around even as she stared in surprise.
    Not knowing what else to do, she did as he suggested, walking to the small tin basin and splashing her face with the cool water until most of the blood and dirt was gone from around her cuts and scrapes, and the basin water was a dark, ruddy brown. She pulled the shirt on as well, tucking it into her belt. When Delphine turned around, she came face to face with Jack, who held the folded cloth up to her.
    "Here."
    Delphine took it cautiously, not sure what to do with it. She glanced at the red bandana tied across Jack's forehead.
    Hands shaking, she brought the folded silk up to her forehead and began wrapping it around to the back. She tried knotting it, but her fingers slipped, and the fold started coming undone.
    Without resignation or any sign of exasperation, Jack took it back from her, refolded it, and fastened it himself.
    "For the cut on yer forehead," he explained as he did it. "It's too deep to heal fast, so this'll hide the blood."
    "Thank you," she murmured.
    "'Old on. Just one more thing." He walked around to face her, and eased her mouth open, appearing to be counting something. He let her close her mouth as he went around to the back of his desk, opened up one of the top drawers whose contents jingled, sifted them around with his fingers and picked out a handful of them. He deposited these into Delphine's hand.
    Gold teeth.
    "Go down to the surgeon and have him put those in for you," he said, as she boggled at them. Without a word or a gesture, he left her for the door.
    She caught his arm.
    "Why are you doing this for me?" she asked.
    "It's complicated."
    "Do you hate me?"
    "No, I don't hate you."
    "I don't believe you."
    "That's your choice, love. I can't do anything about that." He pulled his arm from her grip. "As for the whys and wherefores, I don't 'spect you to understand. It's prolly better that way, too. Once our job is done in these waters, you'll be on yer way back to Port Royal--"
    "I can't go back to Port Royal," Delphine said, shocked at the implication. "Not now that I've become this!" She pointed to the curved scars around her mouth. "What can I ever do about these?"
    "Nothing," Jack said simply. He forced a smile. "It looks rather nice, really."
    "R-really?"
    "Sure," the pirate captain said. He traced a finger lightly over one cut, across her mouth, and then the opposite cut. "You look like yer grinning. I expect they'll call you 'the Jackal'."
    And then Delphine's mouth really did split into a smile. "Really?"
    "If you impress upon 'em to. Incidentally, you're only getting twenty-five percent."
    "Hmph. Deal."
 

End Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter X