The Devil's Temptress: Dead Man's Chest || Jack Sparrow

IX. Jones

"I don't like this..." Nicolette breathed. "Waiting." Waiting in the pitch dark and silence especially. It had only been minutes since Will took his leave but it felt like days. She had took to pacing the deck until that became not enough to calm her, then she took to pacing near Jack which he did not appreciate. So she tried to still, taking a spot at his side and tapping her finger nails against the dark wood of the Pearl in a quick rhythm.

"Will you please cease your incessant drumming!" Jack hissed through tightly gritted teeth, slapping the back of her hand lightly with his spyglass. The caused her to jump and stare at him wide eyed for a moment before she settled again and began clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

Jack, unknown to her, closed his eyes with a pained expression and almost reached out to grasp the woman by the hair. But at the last minute he curled his hand into a tight fist and bit his tongue, swallowing the words he so desperately wanted to scream at her.

"Do you want to keep that tongue?" Again, his tone startled Nic and she stopped...for a while. Then she began to shuffle and fidget, her foot tapping against the deck accompanied with a long sigh.

"I don't like it." Beside her, Jack inwardly groaned and told himself calmly that this was not the time to throw the girl overboard.

"I'm well aware." He bit out though his voice was strained as he took the spyglass away from his eyes just long enough to glance at her. The minute he lifted the instrument back up, Nicolette asked between chewing on her lip.

"What can you see?"

"Nothing yet." Jack sighed his reply.

"Do you think they're close?" Again Jack removed the lenses from his eye, only this time he stared at Nicolette long and hard with pursed lips and a furrowed brow.

"I think it'll be you over there in a minute if you do not stow it." The spyglass was clapped closed in time with Nicolette's jaw dropping. She wanted to smack him, but she thought it would be unwise to get into a scrap now when tensions were already high. That was what had her so restless in the first place after all. So, after a while of bombing her mouth open and closed, she turned back to the ocean and muttered almost silently under her breath.

"At least I'm not Kraken chow."

Jack's mouth dropped open to snap back with another threat in the same moment there was a large eruption of water right behind the small ship they had been scouting out. The movement struck them both still and the deafening noise shushed them, halting their childish bickering. Both watched as The Flying Dutchman reared up out of the water. After only one or two violent touch downs upon the oceans surface, she drifted through the water as if she had always been there. As if she hadn't just sprung from beneath the waves like a sea creature.

Had it not been for the circumstances, or the Captain, the Dutchman would have been a ornate and beautiful ship. The detailing looked like coral, it truly looked as if it had lay on the ocean floor for years and then suddenly arisen. The wood looked rotted as if it shouldn't be able to float and the netting and sails were tatted. The more Nicolette looked at it, the less impressive it actually got. The darkness did a good job of hiding the neglect and although the carvings were gracious, down to the gun ports carved into the faces of screaming men, it was a wreck.

Through the darkness, some movement could be seen but it looked like an illusion. It was as if the whole ship was alive, moving and twisting. It was only after the Dutchman sailed a little closer, that it became clear the distorted movements were the crew, detaching and ripping themselves from the ship exterior.

"A part of the ship, a part of the crew." Jack muttered beside her and they each shared a sullen look, both no longer interested on the bad habits of the other.