Fic: Sweet dreams are made of this

[oneiriad]

Disclaimer: Neither PotC nor Sandman belongs to me.
A/N: AU, takes place sometime after the first movie - the sequels never happened.
A/N the sequel: Written for concertigrossi  who requested "Sparrington, crossed with either the Good Omens universe, or the Sandman universe. :)" Hopefully this meets her expectations.
***


I am dreaming. I know that it is a dream. 

If it wasn’t a dream, Jack would be on his feet by now, pistol in hand. He wouldn’t be sitting ramrod straight in my bed, and I wouldn’t just be lying here, head cushioned against a narrow hip, arm slung across his lap.

“Time to come home, little dream,” says the dark, dark voice, and oh, it is a dream, because Jack would never bow his head like that, would never simply submit. Not my Jack, as wild and free and untameable as the sea herself.

I look up into his downcast eyes and, even though it is just a dream, I can feel my heart breaking.
 

***
 

I am dreaming. I know that it is a dream.

But he looks so very real, standing on the beach, looking out at the storm-tossed sea. Real enough to touch, to kiss, to make love to.

Oh, my Jack.

“Why did you leave? Did your games grow dull so quickly? Did I?” and he is reaching for me, telling me no, telling me never, telling me sorry, but I back away. Lies, all lies. He wouldn’t be saying them if this wasn’t just a dream.

“At least you could have told Miss Swann and Mr. Turner where you were off to. They miss you as well. If you couldn’t be bothered to tell me, couldn’t you at least have told them? I thought that you cared for them, if no one else.”

I turn my back on him, on his words and his eyes and his lies. In the distance a scarecrow is painting the sky blue. I know that when I wake, my pillow will be wet.
 

***

I am dreaming. I know that it is a dream.

Only in a dream would he dare be the one accusing me, only in a dream would he presume.

“Yes, I married her. Why should I not? You left us, both of you.”

The tall man with the strange ears frowns, making me duck my head. Then he disappears among the bookshelves.

“Is he with you, I wonder? A pair of matelots on the high seas and not a care in the world for the scandal it would cause when the Governor’s daughter’s fiancé disappeared the night before the wedding.”

Jack shakes his head, reaches out to touch me, and I could almost pretend that this was real.

Almost.

“Is it so very wrong that we should seek a little comfort? Do you truly hate me enough to begrudge me that tiny bit of happiness?”

And he’s kissing me, as I dream, lying in bed next to my pregnant wife.
 

***

I am dreaming. I know that it is a dream.

But the tea is sweet and our host is gracious, if nervous and stuttering, and Jack sits across from me, head cocked.

“He had been shanghaied, you know, by a merchantman heading out that very morn. It took him years to make his way home, and then to find the love of your life the mother of another man’s children? Little wonder he was angry.”

I touch the scar, tentatively, vivid memories of the feel of the sword cutting into my flesh and the brief brilliant flash of light before the eye went dead lurking just beneath the surface.

“The Governor arranged for my transfer. My promotion, I suppose I should say. Full admiral with a squadron stationed at Gibraltar. She followed me six months later, and six months after that she died in childbirth. Died giving birth to, to my child. My son. My little Weatherby.”

I peer at him through the rising steam from my mug, ignoring the screams coming from outside that sound suspiciously like our host.

“I found your Mr. Cotton, you know, chained to the oars of a Barbary galley. Is that what happened to you, Jack? Are you lost somewhere among the corsairs? Are you even alive anymore?”

I wonder if I’ll ever run out of tears.
 

***

I am dreaming. I know that it is a dream.

How ironic, though, that the dream is so very bright and clear, quite unlike the haze and confusion of waking life.

“I fear young Mr. Turner might be going mad.”

Jack’s fingers hesitate for the briefest of moments before resuming their threading through my hair. I look up at the swaying branches, green and impossibly heavy with flowers and fruit.

“For one thing he insists on being called Jonathon and he insists on calling me grandfather. And then there’s the stories he tells me. Such preposterous stories. As if a great city like Lisbon will ever be brought low by an earthquake or the colonies will ever take up arms against their lawful sovereign? His latest fantasy is of the French cutting off the heads of kings and queens with some strange contraption.”

Beneath me the grass is so soft. I reach out and grasp Jack’s hand.

“Really, Jack, sometimes I worry about him.”
 

***

I am dreaming. I know that it is a dream.

It has been a very long time since last I felt this well in my waking hours.

I stand quietly, looking down at the man – the body – in the four-poster bed. He is all covered in wrinkles and liver spots, the few remaining tufts of hair as white as his nightshirt. The face is marred by a fearsome, jagged scar.

He looks small, somehow.

I turn to look at the pale young woman in the outlandish clothes standing next to me.

“I miss him. I miss him so very much,” I tell her, though I think she already knows. She offers me her hand and I accept, as a gentleman should.

There is a sound like wings.
 

***

I am dreaming. I know that it is a dream.

Beneath me the deck of the Pearl feels deceptively solid and I can practically taste the salt on the wind.

I wish I didn’t know that this is just a dream.

I turn around, leaning back against the rails, shading my eyes with my hand, looking at him.

Oh, my Jack. Wild and free, braids dancing in the wind, hands on the helm, larger than life itself. My Jack, unchanging and forever, like he always is in my dreams.

I walk up to him, wrapping my arms around him, embracing him from behind, my head on his shoulders, my nose buried in his hair. It smells like salt and tar and rum, and I can feel the tears running down my cheeks.

Oh, but it breaks my heart that this dream must end.

Comments

[order_of_chaos]

That was beautiful. *is melancholy*

Loved the format - all those fic-bits strung together by I am dreaming. I know that it is a dream.

[kseenaa.livejournal.com]

That was.... Unbelievably beautiful.... *sighs* I don't really know what else to say.

[were-lemur.livejournal.com]

*wibbles*

Way to break my heart.

[ladymouse2.livejournal.com]

Beautiful, melancholy and it feels seamlessly part of the Sandman narrative. I like our meeting the beings of that universe obliquely by inference and I suppose that verdant green glade is Fiddler's Green before the Furies killed him/it.

Perhaps at last this last is not a dream from which he must wake?

[concertigrossi.livejournal.com]

That was heartbreaking... in a good way.

Dealing with the Endless almost never means getting a happy ending, does it... :)

Thank you so much for writing it. I am amazed. :)

[jedipirate.livejournal.com]

...

Wow.

I haven't read all of the Sandman series yet, but just, wow. This was beautiful. It makes me want to cry.

[sharklady35.livejournal.com]

Poetic, haunting. This isn't quite like anything else I've read- I suppose that's the Sandman influence?

If so it ought to come around more often.