The Song Of Rain (Pirates Of Caribbean Fanfiction)

Flesh

(Trigger Warning for very brief suicidal thoughts - they last only for a paragraph, but beware if it is something that you are not comfortable with. Stay safe y'all!)

~3 days later~

Mark was absolutely exhausted. Working on the Dutchman did not give much place to sleep, however much his little body wanted and needed it. On top of that, Jones had used him to destroy two ships the past few days. His throat was parched and sore and his voice felt painful. Mark was not used to use it so frequently, and it was taking its toll on him. It seemed that Jones had a way to track the ships he wanted to drown. Maybe it was the beast. Even the hands were afraid of it. The young man still had not seen it in the flesh, though he could feel its presence deep under them, moving against the infinite wall of water and displacing currents. If he was indeed the son of Calypso, Mark could make sense of so much things about him. The effect his voice had on water. His longing for the ocean and his need to be the closest possible to it. How he could feel changes underwater. But on the other hand, it was still a fact his mind could not wrap totally around; he had not had much time to do so.

Bootstrap Bill was doing his best to help him. Mark had never experienced a father outside of Dolman, but he felt that this barnacle-covered man had been a father. He never talked about it, never talked about his past, but some things were clear from his little attentions. Bill was the only grounding thing on this damned half-sunken ship.

But Mark was exhausted. And the deck was always covered in salt water. There would come a point where he would trip and fall. This point seemed to be today. Mark fell down, dropping the heavy crate he had in hands. All the bottles of alcohol inside fell with him, a good portion of them breaking against the drenched wood. One of his hands fell into the glass debris, blood oozing from his palm and wounds hurting like wildfire with the salt sipping in. But his mind was elsewhere; he could hear the mocking laughter of the crew, and the steps of the quartermaster. Someone got him up on his feet, facing the coral-like figure, and his heart sank to the bottom of the ocean.

He was going to die.

With a devilish smile, the quartermaster took him by the collar and dragged him to his favourite spot for a good whipping session, belly against a barel. His hand was hurting like crazy and he could feel the glass lodged inside his skin, but he didn't care.

'Y-you don't have to do this' he said peevishly. 'I can let you fuck me if you want.'

Mark hated how his voiced cracked and wavered under the use and his terror. The quartermaster only laughed. Not a single one of the crewmembers had even tried to lay with him. He knew it wouldn't be effective, but his mind was spiralling and he needed to try and get himself out of hit.

He was going to die.

His shirt was ripped from his trembling back as he started sobbing. But there was no use crying, or screaming, or pleading. Kneading his good hand into a fist, he concentrated on his bloody one, hoping he would gather enough of his sanity to not push the glass further into his palm.

And then the hit came.

The power of his scream woke a storm up in less than an instant. The Dutchman was rocked back and forth, and some fishmen stumbled on their feet, but the quartermaster remained balanced. An other hit. The scream got caught up in his throat. Mark could feel the skin and meat and flesh oozing away from his body. He sobbed heavily, unaware of the gazes and laughters of the other around him, and unaware of the pressure on his right wrist to keep his bad hand from closing. A third hit. Then a fourth one. His vision was nothing but white flashes of pain and it seemed as if his body was just a bundle of exposed muscles. The fifth hit was the last and Mark would have fallen to his knees if Bootstrap Bill had not been already keeping him up by the wrist.