Jack could feel himself sinking into Will, that familiar dark heat that warmed him quicker even than rum.

He could feel him.

He could feel Will.

Every gorgeous bit of the lad.

He stroked slowly in and out, his eyes shut tight against the sensations Will always sent racing through his blood. He was so close to the edge, so close, but there was something wrong. It wasn't right. Will wasn't writhing beneath him, wasn't rising and falling to meet his strokes. He wasn't crying out in the obscene way he had that drove Jack to the brink. Only he, Captain Jack Sparrow, could bring such foul curses to William's lips and as they fell from that divine mouth they were even more perverse than if they had been screamed by a nun. Will wasn't crying out Jack's name, he wasn't moaning or breathing deep into his lungs as if as much as he tried he just could not draw in enough breath to keep himself and Jack afloat.

Nothing.

No sound, no movement, no long sinuous limbs wrapping around him like sea serpents.

It was all so very wrong.

This was not like his William at all.

So Jack opened his eyes.

He instantly cried out in shock as he looked down at Will and saw him covered in blood, his arms flung out to his sides at awkward broken angles.

And he was crying.

Silent tears that poured from angry eyes filled with bare seething hatred, the kind of which Jack had never seen in all his years of sailing and walking amongst the scourges of the earth.

He was crying.

William never cried.

Never.

He was far too proud, too strong. Jack knew this about his William, he knew it and he took pride in it himself. He'd swagger and show Will off, his fine boy that was fierce of heart and spirit... more so than anyone else Jack had ever met.

Jack knew all this yet he didn't stop the movement of his hips as he continued to push in and pull out of Will. It was as if he couldn't stop so lost was he in the pull of William. He tried over and over to stop, or to call out Will's name. He needed to speak to him, he needed to know how it was they had gotten here. He would never hurt Will like this and he ached as he saw the pain throbbing beneath the anger in his dark watery eyes. It was as if his voice were stuck in his throat, he couldn't speak or stop his movements despite the way he was quickly becoming ill with the fear and guilt pouring through him as he kept his eyes focused on Will.

Suddenly his hands moved from holding down Will to wrapping their way around his neck, the fingers slowly and deliberately squeezing, crushing Will's windpipe.

They had played this game before. Jack had nearly done a jig of joy when one night Will gave him a look as he brought Jack's hands up to his neck. He remembers with absolute clarity the way the silky skin of Will's neck felt underneath his fingers as he squeezed just enough to make Will gasp and come in burning hot waves against his stomach. He had never suspected it of the lad. Not for all the rum in the Caribbean would he ever have guessed that his William would take such a darling, daring turn in bed.

It was one of the many never-ending delights that was William Turner.

Now. Now it wasn't a game. Now it was something real and sinister.

Jack panicked as the hands squeezed even tighter. Will's mouth opened in a choked silent cry as his eyes widened in terror, tears sliding from their corners. Will was turning red with the strain and he was fighting as much as he could as his arms lay useless and broken at his sides.

Jack kept trying to let go, kept trying to cry out to Will. This wasn't him. This couldn't be him. He needed Will to know that. This wasn't him taking away Will's last breaths.

It wasn't.

William.

Oh God, William.

Slowly Will stopped fighting, stopped gasping for air.

Slowly his eyes started to glaze over with the demon death that was creeping into them.

Jack was losing him yet his fingers didn't loosen their hold around that golden neck, the neck they had once caressed. The neck his lips had once tasted like a feast.

Jack could barely stand it, he was shaking and losing his own breath as if it were leaving along with Will's.

William.

As Jack's fingers squeezed one last time Will's eyes blinked and the glassiness disappeared for a split second as a brilliant brightness filled them instead and a strangled, 'Jack,' fell from Will's lips. Jack finally was able to let out a broken sob when he saw the love burn in Will's eyes as he said his name in that wisp of time before his eyes went dead.

And everything stopped.

Jack could feel the scream of sorrow building up in him, filling his throat like thick wet sand. It was then he heard laughter, dark and deep, surround him. It echoed through the room mocking his pain. He looked down into Will's still open eyes, the ones that would no longer see, and finally he was able to let go of his neck. He jerked his hands away and looked at them, glared at them, at the hands that had just taken away the only thing that had ever mattered.

They were not his own.

Gone were the scars and marks Will's lips had kissed.

Gone were the rings that Will had teased him about.

Gone was the ever present scarf wrapped around his wrist that Will would bite down on from time to time.

All gone.

The hands were not his.

His hands hadn't taken William.

Jack cried out in a brief burst of relief, but the cry quickly fell out of the air like a sparrow shot from the sky when he looked past the unfamiliar hands to William's still body.

His William.

Gone.

Finally the wet sand that had been lodged in his throat burst free and poured from his mouth as a screaming cry so full of sorrow and pain it burned everything it touched. The cry bounced and skidded off of the walls and furniture leaving behind only blackened ashes where it touched.

He couldn't bear it.

Couldn't bear the unbearable...

He choked and awoke with a start. He was panting heavily and was soaked in sweat. He frantically looked to his left only to find Will sound asleep beside him. He sighed with relief and flung his arms over his face as the violent trembling worked its way through his body. Once he had managed to calm his breathing and the shaking of his body he turned to his side so he could watch Will breath.

Safe and sound.

When he was sure Will was breathing in and out at a steady and even pace he threw back the sheet and got out of bed to go fumbling for a bottle of rum. His hands were shaking so much he could barely get it to his mouth despite his proficiency at getting bottles to his mouth with his often less than stable hands. He took long gulping swallows seemingly unable to get enough of it down into his gut.

He took swallow after swallow as he remembered what William had looked like beneath him.

Covered in blood.

Broken.

Dead.

At his hands, well not his own hands, but ones that were attached to him in his dream. Ones that he felt closing around Will's neck in a way meant to squeeze all life out of him. Ones that were meant to kill.

Jack believed in things other people dismissed. He believed he could talk to the Pearl and that she could talk back. He believed in curses that could keep you alive long past your expiration date. He believed in the creatures of the deep. He believed in his own crazy mind and the things it told him before they were known to the world. He had a way about him. He knew where to find that which was lost. He knew how to interpret the mysteries and riddles, the prophecies, laid before him.

He believed in his dreams and what they whispered to him in the night.

He believed them so much that he continued throughout the night to get up and check on Will's breathing even though he could hear him snore lightly from where he was sitting across the cabin.

He had just seen Will's future, his demise. He had been given a glimpse as to how William would be taken from him, he had experienced it so to feel its dire truth.

Because he had stolen William from the safe life he had been assured on land, he had put him in the way of people... not even people, but creatures that would do those kind of things to him. Creatures that would laugh as they squeezed the life out of him. They would be so full of glee to take life from one such as William, one so full of life that to take it would be their own form of delirious rapture.

Because he wanted William he had doomed him.

His eyes bore into Will from across the cabin. All he wanted was to touch him to be sure he was alright, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. The memory of Will's neck in his hands, although they hadn't been his own, was still too real. He didn't trust himself to touch.

And right now he didn't trust himself to be able to keep Will safe from whatever nightmarish demise the fates had decided for him.

"Jack?" a raspy, sleep-laden voice whispered.

Jack jumped at the sound of Will's voice calling him. It sounded choked and he shuddered. "I'm here, luv."

"What's wrong?" Will asked as he slowly sat up, the sheets pooling around his waist.

"Nuthin's wrong luv, go back to the fairies."

"Liar."

"Tis the middle of the night William, no pickin' a scrap wit' me now."

"You're the one lying to me Jack Sparrow."

"Not a lie 'as crossed my lips darlin'."

"Another lie."

"Quit being obtuse William, you're far too simple-minded to pull off obtuse."

"Being simple-minded is being obtuse Jack."

"Exactly."

"Jack."

"William."

Jack watched in fear as Will rose from the bed, the dingy white sheet slipping from his body. The moonlight shining in through the cabin's windows made Will's normally honey-hued skin glow a frightful blue. As he walked toward him Jack began to shake again because he looked so like death coming towards him. Too much like his nightmare to keep his shaking hand from holding the bottle of rum steady.

Will's fingers reached out and gently pulled the rattling bottle from Jack's hand as he slid down to his knees, between Jack's thighs. "Tell me."

"Already did luv, tis nuthin'."

Will's hands ran along the tops of Jack's thighs, caressing the naked skin. He leaned down to place a kiss on the inside of Jack's knee. "Tell me Jack," he whispered, his breath ruffling the coarse hair on Jack's leg.

Finally Jack could move his limbs and his hands reached out in desperation towards Will, they touched first his fine cheekbones, then his deceptively delicate collar bone before rising up to run through all that hair that fell around Will's face. Once his fingers were tangled in Will's hair Jack used them to tilt his head back so he was looking up at him. "You will not die William Turner. I'll not allow it."

Will felt a sudden and unexpected shiver of fear run through him at the serious tone in Jack's voice. Any other time he could tease Jack about such a proclamation, but not now.

Not now.

Now Jack's eyes burned as the terrible light of the moon shone in them.

"Everyone dies Jack," Will whispered.

"Not you William," Jack stated with a strange and manic determination. "I will spend the rest of my days finding a way to keep you from yours."

"I want an end Jack. Every story has an end."

"William," Jack's voice rasped as he fingers slid from the tangle of Will's hair to ghost across his brow, his eyelids, his lips. "My fault William."

"What's your fault Jack?"

"I killed you," Jack replied with eerie simplicity.

Will raised his hands from Jack's thighs to grasp his hands. "No, you didn't. I'm here Jack."

"I saw it, tis how you'll die luv. Because I wanted you. You'd not die otherwise."

Will's hold on Jack's hands tightened. He felt Jack slipping away from him even though he was right there in front of him, the insides of his thighs warming the skin at Will's waist. "Jack please," he whispered. "Stop this."

"I'll sink every ship in the sea until I find those hands... " Jack's voice drifted away as he looked past Will.

Reason started to filter through Will's mind. A nightmare, one of Jack's nightmares, those that he mistook as prophecy. Will let go of Jack's hands and reached for his face, turning it back towards him. "I will die at no one's hands Jack," he insisted.

"Because of me you will, you'd be safe if it were not for me."

"Safe how?"

"Safe on land, far away from the darkness here."

"There's dark everywhere one goes Jack, that is why I follow the light."

Jack focused on those words and clarity momentarily returned to his eyes as he addressed Will again, "You're my light William."

"Yes. As you are mine."

"Don't burn out."

"I won't."

"Will," Jack released his name on a sigh.

"Come to bed Jack, it was only a nightmare."

"So real... "

"This is real," Will's lips slipped across Jack's, his hands pulling Jack's arm around him. "I will always burn."

"Like a phoenix rising out of the flames."

"You will rise from me and I will rise from you."

"We will never meet that way William."

"We're here now, are we not Jack?" Will asked quietly.

"We are."

Jack pressed his forehead to Will's, then Will brought them both to their feet as his hands moved across warm skin and his lips pressed kisses against hair and beads.

"Come to bed Jack."

He hesitated for a moment, but nothing more for William's voice was calling...