Prison of the Mind

Blindsided

Warning: There is a non-con scene in this chapter. Proceed with caution. You have been warned.

"He's crumbling," Sin stated plainly, her silver hair hanging freely past her shoulders.

The human psyche was a complex thing. It could transform itself suddenly, with one ripple, one twist, one mistake. The human conscious thinks that it understands itself, thinks that it knows what reactions it will have, and what actions it will perform. But all it takes is that one shadow in the timeline, that one stain that blindsides it and turns everything that a person thought they knew into a terrifying joke. Their new reality becomes a poison that taints the very core of their thoughts.

And the subconscious sits and laughs like a merry fool at the tragedy of it all, reveling in the final release of all of its secrets. The deepest recesses of the mind see and know all, but refuse to depart with the knowledge, not because it doesn't want to, but because it doesn't care.

He was sure that had poor Elizabeth known just how much she was going to propel Jack towards a shade of what he once was, she might not have sent him to his death. Had she known how angry he would be with her, she would not have made claims that she wasn't sorry. And had she known exactly how much Jack Sparrow loved her, there was no doubt in Lucifer's mind that she would have flung herself into the Kraken's maw before she shackled Jack to the mast of his ship.

But she wasn't privy to any of that knowledge because her mind only let her see the surface of it all. Her mind only told her that Jack was too risky to bet on, romantically or morally, with the stakes she had behind her. Her mind told her that he harbored nothing for her besides marginal lust. And her mind convinced her that everything she feared Jack Sparrow to be was true.

Her mind was so very wrong.

And that moment, that one convoluted moment of misinformation and misdirection, had changed both of their lives.

"I am aware," he replied, his voice echoing off of the cold stone walls.

"And you are giving up?"

He had decided to retreat to the background, to observe, to re-evaluate his position, but now he saw a new window of opportunity.

The piece of Elizabeth's soul that she had traded would have allowed her to soldier through the guilt and mental exhaustion, but now the Locker had it, and she had no defense mechanism.

She may be putting on a brave face for Jack, but beneath the surface, a hundred fears had manifested themselves as pinpointed weapons, parasites that attached themselves to her thoughts, warping them inside of her mind until they were no longer recognizable.

"No."

Sin stared at the demon, the air feeling cold and void around her.

"What are you going to do?"

His head turned to look at her slowly, his face holding a grin that did not move his mouth at all. It was the kind of expression that chilled her very countenance.

"It isn't a question of what I am going to do, it is a question of what I am going to continue doing."

Jack was beyond his reach. He had accepted that nothing was going to shake the connection he had to Elizabeth. The man was just too damn stubborn. But because of Elizabeth's fragile state of mind, he saw a glimmer of possibility.