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A night to ourselves. Fancy that.
Jack could hardly believe such a thing, really. Captaining a ship, he’d come to recognize, can take up a good amount of one’s free time. He was always busy with something, which wasn’t an inherently bad thing, but it did tend to get on his nerves when he wanted a moment of peace. Luckily for him, though, an opportunity for a moment of peace happened to open itself up to him on this very night.
The sky, for the first time in a good few days, was completely clear of any cloud cover, which meant a good view of the stars. It was quite a perfect night for stargazing, which was the exact argument he used to tear his overly-dedicated first mate away from his duties. Unlike Jack, who eagerly accepted the notion of a break, Hector had always been eager to fill his time with work and make sure that everything was running completely smoothly. He admired Hector’s drive, truly, but the man never seemed to stop and rest!
In truth, it tended to worry him.
Still, Jack knew just how much Hector liked the stars, and with a good amount of persuasion he’d beckoned him up into the crow’s nest. Now, with his back against the mast, Jack watched as Hector leaned out over the side and gestured eagerly at the night sky with a wave of his arm. He’d been enthusing about the stars for about an hour now.
“—And, really, we’ve gotten lucky with such a clear view of the sky!”
“And to think you were going to stay at the helm and miss it!” Jack shouldered him.
“I know, I know,” he muttered, “I just… Don’t like to leave things unattended.”
“Mind you, nothing is “unattended”,” Jack reminded him, “Bill is at your post. We’ll be fine.”
“Aye, I know. I just worry. Ye know that.”
“Yeah, that’s ‘cause you’re a worrywart,” Jack noted.
“I am not,” Hector scoffed, his voice rising indignantly. "That's a childish way of putting it, anyway."
“Is not, and are so.”
“Shut up,” Hector muttered crossly, lightly shoving Jack, though he couldn’t manage to keep a grin off his face.
“You shut up,” Jack mirrored that grin, shoving him back.
“Piss off.”
“Make me!”
“Alright, maybe I will.” Hector leaned closer, their faces now a meager few inches apart.
Jack’s breath caught in his throat, and for a few moments, he stared dumbly into Hector’s eyes. Upon closer inspection, he realized that, now, in the dark, his eyes seemed to shine more than usual. Perhaps it was because they reflected the starlight on such a clear night, or maybe it was because their very particular shade of light blue stood out from the black sky. Maybe a bit of both. After all, he had only seen such a vivid shade of blue anywhere else in the sky or the sea themselves, often when the sun was at its peak.
At those times, during long days under the Caribbean sun, it almost felt like things blended effortlessly together, as if there was hardly a difference between minutes and hours. Time stretched on in a haze. The clouds would shift at a snail’s pace as the wind pushed them by, and the sea beneath them would effortlessly rock the ship as they somehow made great distance across what could feel like a meager pond on some days, and an endless stretch of water on others. Maybe it was just easier to lose focus in those kinds of conditions, when everything felt slow-moving and dormant yet still somehow loudly alive. After all, a whole crew of pirates tended to cause enough of a ruckus to keep one either distracted or relatively active on an otherwise-barren ocean, and the odd blend of leisure and pandemonium that he’d stopped finding jarring after a while was easy to lose yourself in. It became a rhythm, and anyone who spends a decent amount of time at sea could become enthralled.
Now, everything was at a standstill; the sea was unusually quiet and oddly devoid of strong waves, likely due to the lack of wind, and the stars seemed almost formidable, positioned above their heads as if they could come tumbling down if the breeze were to pick up again and shake them loose. There was no shouting or bickering on deck, the very few crewmates still awake at this hour keeping to themselves so as not to cause a disturbance. It was as if the world had reached a sudden stunning clarity, the blurry routine of exhaustingly busy days and ever-active nights being put on hold for a moment of peace and quiet under the moonlight.
Jack swallowed, wondering if Hector’s eyes had always glittered like stars and he just hadn’t noticed it while caught up in that haze, or if something had only just changed tonight. Since when was blue such a pretty color? he thought dizzily, acutely aware of his quickened pulse.
Either way, the moment didn’t last long. Hector’s face seemed to fall as he noticed Jack’s expression go blank, and he quickly pulled away. Jack immediately lamented losing himself in his thoughts, wanting back that clarity, just for a second more. Hector blinked wordlessly at his captain, before clearing his throat, looking a bit embarrassed.
“Erm, sorry,” he managed, laughing nervously.
“Huh? Oh— for— for what?” Jack blubbered out, his mind still whirling too quickly for him to settle on a cohesive thought.
“Y’know, uh, that.” he gestured a bit vaguely with his hands, “I sort of just—”
“Oh, no, it’s fine! You’re fine, you got me,” Jack said quickly, shrugging it off with as much certainty as he could manage (which was, admittedly, not much). The pair of them were always bantering, anyway; the push-and-pull had just become a part of how they interacted. What made it feel so different this time? He wasn’t sure he wanted to think about it too hard just yet, considering the fact he felt like he was one wrong move away from saying something completely stupid.
The pair of them now stood silently, shoulder-to-shoulder as they looked to the horizon. Jack tried to focus back on the stars, but he couldn’t help but zone out, his mind still stuck in that moment. His eyes are so pretty…
He snuck a furtive glance over at his first mate, who had gone back to intently watching the sky. He smiled to himself. Those eyes mirrored the stars that he watched so adoringly, and Jack found it hard to look away.
-
But, oh, it ached to look into those eyes now.
“How in the blazes did you get off that island?” Barbossa asked with a sneer.
Jack tensed, eyes narrowing. That’s all you’ve got to say to me? After all these years, after everything that’s happened, that’s the first thing you say?
Part of him was unsurprised — after all, what should he expect from the man who left him to die ten years ago but a harsh greeting such as that, if not harsher? What else would he say? Still, another part of him was hurt. He’d still been clinging to a few tiny shreds of hope that Barbossa would perhaps regret what he’d done, but that simple callous greeting was enough to rip those from his grasp. He wasn’t remorseful. He wasn’t pained. Not due to what he’d done to Jack, at least.
He stared into those eyes, wishing that things had gone differently, desperately willing the person he thought he’d known so well to show the smallest sliver of who he used to be — brazen and strong-willed and intelligent, and still with enough decency to be loyal to the people who cared about him, the way he’d been all that time ago. The way he’d been before he left Jack on an island with nothing but a pistol and one bullet with which to shoot himself. For a moment, Jack considered pulling out that very pistol — which he’d saved for all those years — and firing the shot straight into Barbossa’s head. After all, it’d been his plan since that very first night to find the bastard again and kill him, but he didn’t know whether he even wanted that anymore. He was torn between feeling hatred and despair, both overwhelmingly awful feelings raging in his heart. Either way, Jack had already come to the conclusion that said plan was off the table before he’d gotten here.
He’d personally seen proof that Barbossa and his crew were cursed, which meant that any attempt to kill any of them would be in vain. He looked the man up and down, his anger simmering down to aching frustration. Why, why did things have to go the way they did? Things were good, great even, Jack had loved him with all his heart, what could he possibly have done wrong? Why did he ruin it? He thought miserably.
By the looks of it, Barbossa was hardly content with his current situation, either. He looked awful. Despite the passage of time, Jack knew that he’d recognize Hector no matter what, but now, it was like looking at a completely different person. This wasn’t the effect of ten years of aging, he just looked blatantly miserable. His face was twisted into a scowl so intense that Jack felt like he was staring through him rather than at him, and his clothes seemed disheveled, as if he’d hardly put a thought into getting dressed, which came as a bit of a shock. Jack remembered watching the man spend ages perfecting his appearance, always intent on outdressing anyone in his vicinity. Now, he wore his heavy attire with much less grace and ease, as if it was a chore to lug the large coat around on his shoulders. His nails, Jack noted, were gnarlier than he remembered, and he grimaced at the thought of what kind of nasty infection they could inflict if they were to scratch skin. In all aspects, he’d let himself go, which wouldn’t have been so surprising if it had been anyone but Hector fucking Barbossa , the most stuck-up, pretentious pirate Jack had ever met. Even his eyes — the only feature of his face that Jack thought would never truly change — looked starkly different.
Once a bright, vivid shade of blue, they now looked dull and were tinged a sickly yellow, more sunken into his unwashed face. Jack suppressed a shiver, noting that they looked dead, akin to the uncanny eyes of a corpse. The light in them had clearly been long-since snuffed out. They weren’t the same eyes he’d gazed into on clear nights under the stars. He looked so… Tired.
Whether that was a product of the curse or of suppressed guilt was anyone’s guess, though Jack found himself hoping for the latter. If anything, it could be both, or even neither — maybe he was just destined to end up a wretch. The thought of fate glaring down upon Barbossa after what he’d done brought him a wicked sense of satisfaction. Jack forced a grin, contempt lacing his voice as he made his response.
“When you marooned me on that godforsaken spit of land, you forgot one very important thing, mate,” he leered.
May you and your stars rot in the depths of hell. He thought bitterly.
“I’m Captain Jack Sparrow.”