The Song Of Rain (Pirates Of Caribbean Fanfiction)

William

~Two days later~

There was point where Mark's voice had no effect, if it was raining enough. Or, rather, some weathers were so strong that they surpassed the power of his usual speaking voice. Today was such a day. They had been in a slew of rainy days anyway, but today was the worst. The crew was getting fun how ever they could; which did not include sleeping with him. Mark did not know how to react to that fact. He knew, however, that his previous little session did him some good, and he could try going for a few more days without sex.

He also knew he was explicitly banned from playing Liar's Dice, which was what was taking place right now. He had nothing to gamble anyway, but the crew grew tired extremely quickly of his constant winning. At first, they were convinced he was somehow cheating. Then they gave up when he tried to explain how to count the number probabilities of each dice, and told him he could do nothing but watch and do his maths on the side. It was not his fault if numbers seemed to be practicing a graceful ballet in his mind and that this game was too easy to predict.

William was looking at the hands playing, too. He understood the rules – less well than Mark, the young one told himself proudly – and what was gambled. Mark wondered if Bill had already given away some years of servitude by loosing games of Liar's Dice. The answer was probably yes. He found it very sad; Bill was a good man, he did not deserve such a fate.

William, on the other hand, maybe deserved his; a wave of surprised whispers dispersed through the croud as the handsome man challenged Jones himself to a game. What was the fucking point? Jones had nothing to loose, as his years of service were so tied to the ship one could not exist without the other. Will was also extremely aware of the fact that he would be thrown overboard if he asked to be released of his imposed duty. For a reason known only to him, the captain agreed to the game.

Mark's focus became more intent, as usual when it came to anything Jones was involved in. His fear of the man, though still deep-rooted, had given way to a grotesque form of admiration. Jones was a great deal of many things: a bloodthirsty captain, a sea monster, the incarnation of death at sea, the master of a powerful Kraken – but he was also a man with feelings that sometimes leaked between the cracks of the wall he had built around himself when Calypso left him. Mark had spent enough time with him to see the cracks and peak through them to glance at what hid behind.

To the general surprise, William asked to know the whereabouts of a key drawn on a discolored piece of cloth. It sent an other shiver right through the crew. It was Mark's first time seeing said key in the real, when Jones pulled it from under his mass of tentacles. Mark knew what this key was and what it led to. He had gathered the pieces of information he had been fed about the subject and had reconstituted the story in his mind. The key led to Jones' beating heart, hidden within a chest somewhere only the man himself knew.

Why did Will want the key? Why did he want the chest? Why did he want the heart? Wyvern, one of the poor souls fused with the ship, had said at some point that the Dutchman needed a captain. It was a bit cryptic, but Mark was starting to get accustomed to curses by now, and he wondered if it was linked to the apparent immortality of Jones and his crew. Something about being bound to an immortal ship. Jones was the only one with his heart carved out but the crew was also functionally incapable of dying, so it was tied to the ship and her curse rather than the individual.

Did Will want to become the Flying Dutchman's captain? Surely he was aware of how shitty the position was. Mark did not know if gradually becoming a fish-man was part of the curse, but it certainly looked like it and Will's face was too pretty to suffer such a tragic end. Well, he supposed some would rather be immortal than pretty. Mark would choose both. Plus, the man just gambled his soul in the game of dice. Bill seemed very distressed by it, to the point that he included himself at the table in a vain hope to save his son from such a fate.