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[bringmethatnpc]

You don't venture into the captain's cabin, on board the Dutchman. Especially not when there's any sort of music coming out. When it's the music-box it's especially deadly to interrupt him ... but it's almost as bad when it's the organ.

Tentacles clutch and hammer at the stepped keyboards like the hands of a madman, and the organ groans and bellows and thunders like the storm outside.

-----

Lightning flashes, wind tears at the sails; rain slams down, making the deck slippery and treacherous. The crew of the Dutchman works through the storm, hauling a cannon into its new place.

Over the noise of the thunder, the bo'sun bawls "Secure the mast tackle, Mr. Turner! Step to it!"

On the rain-lashed deck below, two Mr. Turners look up and move to obey.

Comments

[turned_captain]

Keep you head down. That's been Will's mantra since coming on the ship. Head down, do the work, stay unnoticed and unobtrusive, and fit in until he works out a way to find that key.

But his attempts at staying unmarked arent' being helped when this other crewman - just as hideous to look at and touch as any of the crew - tries to prevent him from doing his job.

"Step aside!"

[bringmethatnpc]

There was a time when Bootstrap Bill tried to befriend the newcomers to the Dutchman's crew, tried to help them keep from getting into too much trouble right off.

He's often thought he should have been quicker to learn that kindness is not repaid in kind, among the damned. It's not as though he hadn't been shown that before.

And now here's one of them getting in his way, and he tries not to look too closely at the sight of a living human face, even as their hands struggle for the rope.

"Make way, you filth --"

[turned_captain]

This is stupid. Will's just been given a direct order, and this man is deliberately causing trouble for him. He gives the rops a heavy yank towards himself.

"Hey!"

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"Let go, boy!"

He tugs back as a flash of lightning overhead illuminates the deck, the sails, the ropes --

-- the face staring back at him through the rain.

"No."

The wet rope slides from his suddenly nerveless fingers.

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And the cannon comes crashing down, scattering pirates left and right, knocking Will and Bootstrap off their feet, and smashing a hole in the deck itself.

The bosun storms over, glaring to see who's responsible.

"Haul that weevil to his feet!"

[turned_captain]

Will is, indeed, hauled to his feet by the scrabbling pirates, dragged up and tied to the rigging. The rampant unfairness of it all burns him - he wasn't the one who started this - but mostly it's the thought that his plan to fit in is failing.

He's failing.

He's failing Elizabeth.

Take it, Will. Keep strong and take whatever it is they do to you. She has faith in you.

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The bosun sneers, approaching the rigging.

"Five lashes'll remind you to stay on it!"

He raises his whip to strike.

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And the whip is caught just before the downswing.

Bootstrap's face is livid white in the lightning flashes.

"No!"

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"Impeding me in my duties!" the bosun snarls. "You'll share the punishment."

[turned_captain]

Will strains his head back to try and see what's going on. Why is this man interfering now?

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"I'll take it all," Bootstrap says hoarsely.

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"Will you, now?"

At the sound of their captain's voice, the crew instinctively parts to either side, admitting Davy Jones to the center of the circle. Rain runs in thick rivulets between the barnacles on his hat as he approaches Bootstrap.

"And what would prompt such an act of charity?"

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Bootstrap's voice falls into the sudden silence like a small stone into water; a splash, sinking, gone.

"...my son."

He turns slowly to look at Will, comprehension and pain and terrible fear all mingled in his eyes.

"He's my son."

[turned_captain]

He's his what?

All Will can do is stare, ignoring his predicament and the pirates. This man? His father? "Bootstrap" Bill Turner?

He's found him.

[bringmethatnpc]

Davy Jones looks from Bootstrap to Will and back again, expression unreadable right up until the instant he bursts out laughing.

"What fortuitous circumstances be this!" he crows, snatching the bo'sun's weapon away from him; the pirate steps back with haste to leave a clear path. "Five lashes be owed, I believe it is."

Yet when Jones raises the whip, it isn't to use it.

It's to thrust the handle at Bootstrap's face, his tentacled finger wrapped around it and squirming for purchase in the rain.

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Bootstrap stares at the whip handle in momentary confusion, which breaks and scales upward into horror.

"No," he husks. "No, I won't!"

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"The cat's out of the bag, Mr. Turner."

The siphons flex, drawing in breath, and the next flash of lightning sets off an openly pleased spark in Davy Jones' eyes.

"Your issue will feel its sting -- " and still the tentacle grasps and re-grasps the handle -- "be it by the bo'sun's hand or your own."

[bringmethatnpc]

His trapped gaze darts back and forth between Will, held fast by the other crewmen, and Jones, holding out the whip.

"No."

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Jones raises his voice without taking his attention off of Bootstrap.

"Bo'sun!"

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Anguished: "No!"

He clutches at the whip, beating the bo'sun's grab for it, and turns to face Will with his jaw clenched against any further cry.

[turned_captain]

Five. It's not so b...

Each lash cuts into Will's skin, sending shooting pains across his spine. Each snap makes him grunt with pain. Even after the first he can feel blood seeping over his back, to which the salt spray adds extra sting.

But it doesn't take long, at least.

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It doesn't take long.

One.

Rain and sea spray sting his eyes, blur his vision -- but not enough to block out the sight of the blood.

Two.

Or of Davy Jones's satisfied, lipless smile.

Three.

And the roar of the sea and the storm isn't anything like loud enough to drown out the crack of the whip against bare flesh, or the stifled cry of pain at each blow.

Four.

The water trickling down his face isn't from the rain.

Five.