Drabble: 'Give Him An Inch'

[dwgm]

Here's my entry for the drabble theme of the week, angsty and unbetaed, but exactly a hundred words...



~ Give Him An Inch ~


The blade'd been broken, but it'd been deadly sharp and only an inch away.

Yet the moment was too sweet. He'd had to gloat. "Heady tonic, holding life and death in the palm of one's hand."

"You're a cruel man, Jack Sparrow!"

Lord, that was rich, coming from Jones. "Cruel is a matter of perspective," Jack had replied, with gentle malice.

"Oh, is it now?"

The scene played behind Jack's eyes, over and over, on the way to Tortuga. Almost as bad as the Locker.

One inch to immortality, and happily ever after.

Might as well have been a mile.

~.~

Comments

[sharklady35.livejournal.com]

Jack shouldn't regret that delay too much- as it was Will's destiny to be the Captain of the Dutchman, things worked out just as they were supposed to. And, there's always that Fountain of Youth to grant immortality sans any responsibilities.

But I can believe he felt like this for a little while. Nice work!

[geekmama.livejournal.com]

I expect Jack would eventually assuage any discomfiture or guilt by siting that destiny thing -- what's a poor little pirate to do in the face of Calypso's will? And sure there's the Fountain of Youth, but I think there'd always be a bit of guilt about Will and Elizabeth's fate. After all, it was his fault they were involved with Davy Jones in the first place.

Glad you liked this -- thanks for letting me know!

[sharklady35.livejournal.com]

> After all, it was his fault they were involved with Davy Jones in the first place. <

But again, there's that Destiny argument. It covers a multitude of sins!

[geekmama.livejournal.com]

But was Will's destiny sealed before Jack chose to make his deal with Davy Jones?

[sharklady35.livejournal.com]

Who's to say it wasn't? Jack can certainly tell himself that, anyway.

I would certainly want him to find some means to remain his happy, hopeful self, certain that any setbacks he encounters are only temporary.

The saddest Jack fics, IMO, are not the ones where he dies, but the ones where he's robbed of that essential opptimism.

[geekmama.livejournal.com]

It's pretty obvious he was able to come to terms with it, for the most part. He looked pretty content headed out toward Florida in that little boat. That's Jack: the past is past, and that horizon is always calling.

[sharklady35.livejournal.com]

And may it always be so!

[tiamary.livejournal.com]

Well, hmm. Yes and no. If Jack hadn't sold his soul, and if he hadn't dragged Will to Davy Jones' ship, Will "might" not have gotten mixed up with Jones, but if Beckett hadn't threatened to hang Will and Elizabeth with the ultimate goal of getting Jones' heart, they wouldn't have had to go running to Jack in the first place. If Jones weren't going around sending Kraken after people to collect souls, that would have been a help as well. Jack was dishonorable in DMC for awhile there due to his fear of the Locker (and in his shoes, if MY greatest fear were to happen for eternity, I'd be dishonorable too!) but Beckett and Jones were evil in action and intention, so they bear the most responsibility.

If Jack had acted differently and said "here's the compass, Will, now let's get going to save Elizabeth -- we'd better hurry because Davy and the beastie are after me and by the way your dad is on Jones' ship," they'd might still have been followed around by Davy Jones and the Kraken, and Will would still want to rescue his father. Beckett still would have been a threat to Will and Elizabeth, and to the world. Things could have ended up the same way.

I haven't seen this opinion from anyone else, but I feel that Will was as big a commitmentphobe as Jack. If he had "really" wanted to get married he wouldn't have risked his relationship with Elizabeth to save a man who didn't care a whit about him while he was growing up. In a way, Will subconsciously brought this on himself, too.

None of this is meant to justify Jack's behavior in DMC, which I'm sure even he would agree was reprehensible. But he paid for that during his time in the Locker and he became a better person.

Thanks for giving me a chance to mull this over!

[geekmama.livejournal.com]

One could argue that the whole thing was Beckett's fault, for burning the Pearl and branding Jack a pirate. Certainly Beckett seems more a "devil" than Jones, entirely unsympathetic and amoral. But it really boils down to Jack's choices. He chose to work for Beckett, chose to free the shipment of slaves, chose to make a deal with Jones to regain the Pearl. He chose to go after the Aztec gold, and presumably chose Barbossa to be his first mate. His errors in accurately judging Beckett's and Barbossa's characters might be chalked up to youth and naiveté, but he had to have known his Faustian bargain with Jones was a terrible risk, to himself and to others, for as a ship's captain he would be responsible for the welfare of his crew. As it turned out, his choices affected every major character in the movies, and his choice to flee Jones and the Kraken cost the lives of a great many "redshirts" before he finally accepted that there was no way to avoid paying his debt. I personally think he came back to the Pearl to go down with his ship, and that Elizabeth's actions were unnecessary. His anger with her after he's rescued comes from hurt pride rather than a sense of injustice.

Of course, that's just how I saw the films. Your mileage may vary.

Will subconsciously brought this on himself, too.

It seems so. Others have commented elsewhere about the illogic of Will becoming so obsessed with saving his father that he'd sacrifice his relationship with Elizabeth and his own freedom to do so. It doesn't make sense -- and yet, people do things like that. It's crazy, but its realistic, too, I think.

[tiamary.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you about Jack's behavior in DMC. I watched the scene where he returns to the Pearl many times before realizing that his eyes target one of the bodies and he doesn't look away until Elizabeth calls his name. He was "finally", though too late, facing the consequences of his actions.

The responsibility issue is a dilemma I grapple with often. Many say responsibility rests exclusively with the perpetrator. They might say Jack didn't send out the Kraken, Jones did. Jones didn't bring Will to the Flying Dutchman, Jack did. So they each bear sole responsibility for those respective acts.

However, I also believe, as you do, people's bad choices and character flaws lead to tragedies as surely as do evil intentions. So I distinguish between responsibility and blame: to me, the only one to "blame" for the Kraken attacks is Jones, but Jack shares a chunk of the "responsibility."

I like Jack better than Will but Will is a foil to Jack when he says "I've doomed us all" when the Kraken attacks the merchant ship. Will takes responsibility, although he's far less culpable than Jack, if he's even culpable at all.