Coma Mad

By Little Elflet

Pirates of the Caribbean et al do not belong to me. I do this for love, not money.

PG

General/Angst

Slight Jack/Will

Will reflects on Jack in a missing scene from DMC, when Jack allows sleep to come.

This story really had no point whatsoever except that I ran into a quote that seemed to fit Jack Sparrow and had to explore it a bit.

Warnings: Spoilers for Dead Man’s Chest.

+ means it is direct from the movie

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Will sat in the captain’s cabin, gazing intently at a sleeping Captain Jack Sparrow. He didn’t know much about this man, despite the adventure they’d gone on more than six months ago. And Jack didn’t know much about him, despite the fact that Jack thought he did. Much had changed since they saw each other last. Lessons hard learned, ridicule endured, innocence lost. No, despite the fact that Jack thought Will was naively following along, he wasn’t.

“How much do you know about Davy Jones?”+ Jack had asked him.

“Not much.”+ Will had answered, testing the waters. He had wanted to see if Jack indeed was the mere acquaintance he’d told Cutler Beckett that he was or if, like Will had concluded the day he’d sprung Jack from the jaws of death, he was a friend.

“Yeah. It's gonna save her.”+ He’d answered. Will had learned these months past to hold a poker face. He was glad that he had, then, when he finally learned that Jack was indeed just a mere acquaintance. It was true, he knew next to nothing about Davy Jones, but it was also true that he was quite intelligent… no mere key would save Elizabeth.

Jack was using him… which was to be expected he supposed. Jack was using him but he had no idea how it was going to happen. He knew when and where though – at the Flying Dutchman. But he had to do this – it was the only way to save Elizabeth. And deep down, he still really wanted to believe that Jack would not betray him, that – like with Barbossa and the Cortez Curse – he had an elaborate plan that involved seemingly betraying Will but not really. However, he wasn’t overly optimistic. They were, after all, dealing with Davy Jones – a soul stealer, king of the sea. How could anyone cheat the Devil himself?

Will shook his head of those thoughts and went back to gazing at Jack. There was a peculiar throb in the region of his heart when he thought of Jack selling him out. He hesitated on naming it, or indeed, even contemplating it. It would do no good. A pirate is a pirate and loyal to nothing but himself, the sea, his ship, and treasure.

A sigh escaped Will as he once again turned his thoughts away from betrayal. It did no good to ponder the inevitable. So he turned his mind to the literature he’d been introduced to by Elizabeth’s father these past months.

He continued to watch the dead weight of Jack’s unconscious body while he pondered the joys of Shakespeare. Really, it was amazing the change that sleep can put into a man. Completely different from the constant swaying and his madcap movements while awake, Jack was still as a dead man. His breathing even slowed to the point where his chest hardly moved at all. Will even checked his pulse a few times just to make sure he was still alive. It was quite the strange occurrence.

A specific quote floated through his mind at that moment, one he’d thought applied to Jack the second he’d read it, months ago. ‘Most men are in a coma when they are at rest and mad when they act.’ Spoken by one of those dead Greek guys… Epicurus was the name. He didn’t agree with the ‘most’ part, but the rest was right on the dot.

Jack was mad when awake and when awake acting. In sleep, though, he was in a coma. Nothing seemed to wake him. Coma mad. That’s what he was. A coma mad actor… and that’s all he would ever be. Will should just stop thinking he was anything like a good, reliable man, who could make him very happy… because he’d just get betrayed by the coma mad actor.

Fini.