Sailing Strange Seas

Disclaimer: I clearly don't own either of these brilliant series, else I'd be swimming in cash and wouldn't be a poor grad student posting fanfiction for pleasure...

Warnings: No real warnings apply, except possibly discussions of death and the possibility of an Afterlife. This is meant to be a Gen fic, but there are very obvious undertones for my PotC OT3, and One Piece isn't One Piece without ridiculous amounts of nakamashiping and bromance.

Timeline: This is post-canon for PotC, taking On Stranger Tides canon with a pinch of salt, and right before the Dressarosa Arc in One Piece, as Law is mentioned and was possibly left behind on the Sunny while Luffy and Zoro get lost at sea in the middle of a storm. This could be considered a filler arc of sorts, in keeping with anime canon.

In the years since Will Turner had become the undead captain of the dreaded Flying Dutchman, he had seen many strange sights. Some wonderful, some horrific, all mind-bogglingly unbelievable and sights he nary would have believed existed back when he'd still been a simple blacksmith's apprentice in Port Royal. But, he certainly wouldn't deny that it had been an exciting adventure every step of the way.

However, nothing could have prepared him for the sight of the young man that had just been lifted out of the misty waters of the Locker. He couldn't have been a day older than twenty, twenty-one at the most. A deep red shirt buttoned up midway, though it did nothing to hide the cross-shaped scar on his chest, and a pair of rolled up trousers made of some strange blue material that wasn't immediately recognizable. What was most eye-catching was the odd straw hat placed at a jaunty angle atop his head.

The man looked around with wide, sparkling eyes and didn't look frightened or unnerved in any way - another unexpected sight. In the years he had spent doing the thankless job of ferrying the souls of those lost at sea, there hadn't been a single person who hadn't been at least a little afraid of his men, or the ship itself. Well, except in one recent case, and that had been another unique situation all on its own.

But, when the wide and oddly innocent brown eyes locked on his form, Will knew that there could be no other situation similar to this. There couldn't be anyone else in the world that could look at an undead captain and still look so very amazed, excited and cheerful.

"Your ship's cool!" the man declared in a loud and completely unhesitant voice. Will had to blink, understandably startled. There wasn't anything distinguishing him from the rest of his crew, but the man's words had been directed unerringly at him.

"Ah. Thank you." I think, he added silently, though the wide grin that spread over the younger man's face said that the unspoken words hadn't made it across.

The snort of laughter that escaped one of the two men standing close behind him was ignored without a thought. Undoubtedly his father, since Norrington was more likely to deliver a bitingly sarcastic comment in an undertone.

Sighing in exasperation, he stepped forward and waved the rest of his men back, silently ordering them to get back to work. He stared down at the man, though he was tempted to call him a boy, solely on grounds of the naïve way in which he was looking around, taking in everything with a childlike enthusiasm.

"Do you understand where you are?" he asked bluntly, having become better at hiding his awkwardness over the years. He hadn't felt truly awkward in a very long time, not after all he had been through, and any kind of exposure to one Jack Sparrow tended to boot out any kind of hesitation as far as propriety in speech was concerned, but informing souls lifted from the Locker about their situation was never pleasant. Or easy.

The man gave an indolent shrug, not looking very interested.

"I'd been taking a short trip along with my friend, but something went wrong, and it was like we suddenly disappeared from where we were, and ended up here. Did you see my friend?" he added, tilting his head to the side. Will frowned.

"Well, there is the distinct possibility-"

His words were abruptly cut off when voice called out from behind the rest of the crew that had stayed back, eager to get new information.

"Luffy," the voice called out, sounding relieved.

When the speaker stepped out from between two men, Will found that he really shouldn't have been surprised. The oddly intense swordsman had been picked up by their ship a whole two weeks ago, and more than one person on the ship had been amazed by the sight of what looked to be moss green hair growing on his head. Never in the three and twenty years that he had been captain of the Flying Dutchman had a stranger sight graced their deck – until now. The man had simply yawned when young Fitzgerald had attempted to explain, rather haltingly, that he numbered among those dead at sea, and that he was bound to the Flying Dutchman until he was allowed to move on.

Even being faced with Will himself had done nothing to disquiet the strange man. He'd simply ducked his head in a brusque show of thanks, and said that he would do his part on the ship until he could return to his own crew. Uncertain as to how to convey to the man that it was very likely that his crew had either sailed on or was waiting in the Locker to be hauled onto their ship as well, he'd given his acquiescence to the man's words.

"Zoro," he'd said. "My name's Zoro. I don't know much about navigation or cooking, but I can help with cleaning and lifting anything heavy. Or in a fight," he added, voice nonchalant in a way that had surprisingly reminded Will of one of the very rare instances in which he'd seen Jack without the mask of the drunken cavalier he preferred to affect.

"Zoro!" The new man they had just picked up couldn't have sounded more delighted if he tried. Drawing out Zoro's name in a way that had some of the crew wincing - clearly remembering the few instances that a brawl had broken out amongst them a week past when some of the newer crewmen had been dissatisfied with how little effort Zoro was making to interact with them. Will was surprised to see a wide grin break out on the face of the swordsman, reaching out to patiently accept the exuberant leap and embrace that the younger man foisted upon him. The sight would once have alarmed Will, but his years first as a pirate and later as the undying Captain of a ragtag crew of undead misfits had enured him to the sight of men that were more affectionate to one another than most would accept in polite society. Seeing the simple joy on the face of the man, who was beginning to appear more childlike than not in his mind's eye, Will couldn't bring himself to believe affection of this sort was in any way unseemly.

Hanging off of Zoro's shoulders, the man-child erupted into peals of gay, strange sounding laughter that nonetheless brightened the faces of every man that heard it.

"Shishishishi! Hey, you're really a nice captain! You found my swordsman for me!"

"Oi, Luffy, I'm not the only one he found. What would you have done if Will's men hadn't pulled you up from the water?! You dumb-" interspersing this strange statement with a hard whack around his friend's head, Zoro quickly ducked into a far more appreciative gesture of thanks than the one he'd given after his own 'rescue'. Lips pursed in a moue of displeasure, Luffy looked up at the swordsman and then also ducked his head down.

"Thank you for saving me from drowning!" he declared, the loudness of his voice making up for the lack of any real gratitude in the tone. Will watched the two, speechless, and a little sad.

"…you're welcome, but I'm afraid it's far too late to thank me for rescuing you from a watery death," he said, waving away the rest of the crew. His father still had a look of unholy amusement on his face, but he stepped away without hesitation, closely followed by Norrington, who only paused to shoot him a look that warned him to remain watchful. The rest of his men slowly drew away, still interested in the new faces that had come aboard. Any new face was worth waiting for, they so rarely interacted with anyone they weren't already familiar with. Will had had dealings with all sorts in his years as Captain, as had the crew, but they tried their level best to stay away from other supernatural beings. They had learnt over time that the last vestiges of their humanity was quick to depart the longer they immersed themselves in the world of spirits, demons and witchcraft, and this didn't always mean that they would pass on peacefully once their days on the Flying Dutchman had been served. And, new faces such as these, such as young Luffy who seemed larger than life even in death, were a very rare sight indeed.

"Ehhh. But I'm here. And Zoro's here! So you saved us." The equation of cognizance and life seemed rather firm in the young man's head, Will had to say. Zoro, surprisingly, had a rather sharp gleam in his eye. Will would have assumed the man to be rather boorish, much like any other member of the crew, but these flashes of intelligence that the man seemed to show had kept both him and Norrington rather wary of him. Any man that could drink, sup and laugh as brazenly as Zoro could and then dive into a fight against the demons of the sea with a smile as rapturous as it was feral was worthy of great caution.

"Luffy, did you see the others when you were out there?" he asked, and Luffy looked up at him, wilting in apparent dismay.

"No. You got lost in a storm. Mini-Merry got turned over too, and then I fell in the water. When I woke up, I was floating in the water with blue fire all around me. I thought Marco had found me, but why would Marco be lost in the same storm as us?"

Will might have considered stepping in at this point, to try and explain yet again that being on the Flying Dutchman at all was a sign of having passed away violently while at sea, but the shock on Zoro's face silenced him before he could speak.

"You were floating?!" he demanded incredulously. Luffy laughed, and crossed his arms behind his head.

"Cool, right? Hey, do you think Toraou would also float in the water here? Or Chopper? Ne, ne, how about Robin or Brook? Brook would look so cool floating with blue fire everywhere, he already looks like a ghost in his spirit form - he would scare everyone away from him if he floated in the water like that!"

"Luffy, that's not important right now. What's important is that you, a hammer, were floating in water."

To Will's mingled bemusement and disgust, Luffy's response to that was to stick his forefinger up his nose and look away.

"It's mysterious water. So I floated mysteriously."

Zoro somehow managed to twitch in place for all of a second before he sagged, exasperated, and gruffly ruffled the hair on the back of his head.

"Okay. Mysterious water it is. Oi, Will, do you have any way of finding out if the rest of our crew is out there somewhere? I don't think they were caught in the storm, our navigator's good enough to turn the ship away in time, but if Luffy and I managed to find ourselves here they must be searching for us."

Will eyed them both, and clapped a hand over his eyes, not sure if he should appreciate the show of faith in him and the loyalty the man had to his crew, or if he should be annoyed by how unwilling the men were to accept that they had passed on. He assumed that he should be grateful, most of the disbelievers they had seen over the years tended to be far more violent in their disbelief, but the violence that Zoro had shown himself to be capable of had left Will more than a little cautious while attempting to convince him of his death.

Deciding to humour them, he gestured for them to follow him up to his room. Standing on the deck in the darkness of the Locker and discussing such things while simultaneously trying to ignore the attempts of his crew to eavesdrop on them would quickly lose its potential to amuse.

"First and foremost, the likelihood of your ship as a whole sailing within the Locker is unlikely, as few ships other than the Flying Dutchman can make their way here. There are secret paths, most of which the living are not privy to, but there number some among them who would be able to lead your crewmates here. This would entirely depend on the willingness of your Captain to follow you into the gulf, of course."

He didn't mean to imply that they weren't important to their captain, but Will had found that there were very few men willing to brave Death and His Dominion to win back members of their crew. And of the living who knew the art of finding the Flying Dutchman, far fewer would be willing to risk their own lives to direct such a man.

Thinking back on the desperate attempt he'd made alongside Elizabeth, Barbossa and the rest to rescue Jack all those years ago, he tried to ignore the hollow ache he felt within his chest. The supernatural and the lands of the dead had left him with no fond memories. His crew were his family, but his promise to sail the seas eternally in service to Calypso had barred him from ever seeing those he loved among the living. There were only so many times that Jack and Elizabeth could come and visit him while he was still abroad, after all. Elizabeth had been increasingly tied down in her duties as Pirate King, and in minding the son and daughter he'd sired on the two occasions he'd had to meet her on land. He could never understand why Calypso was affronted by the thought of Elizabeth coming to visit him, but apparently the willingness of two living souls to follow him unflinchingly into his half-life gave the Goddess much cause for bitterness.

Jack had found some means of lengthening his lifespan other than the Fountain of Youth, though he never shared what exactly those means were. He didn't look a day older than he had when Will had first met him. It apparently had to be replenished every once in a while, as Jack would seemingly disappear off the face of the Earth for years before he reappeared, hale and hearty once more.

Norrington had sneeringly mused that if Jack were so insistent on following him around, he should just give up his life to the sea and become a member of the crew. The suggestion had angered Will enough that he'd confined his first mate to months of being bonded into the wood and ivory that made up the figurehead of the Flying Dutchman. It wasn't the suggestion so much as the possibility that Jack might actually consider it viable someday that angered him so. And if Jack could consider such a method viable, Elizabeth wouldn't be far behind. And the thought of her and their children being confined to a life such as this…

"Well, it's less the willingness of the Captain and more the willingness of the crew in this case," Zoro said, crossing his arms and frowning down at the floorboards. Will's brows rose inspite of himself.

"Would they be so willing to commit mutiny? I was under the impression that you found your Captain worthy of respect," he asked, surprised. This statement gave him the pleasure of watching the usually unflappable man turn alarmingly red and splutter, while Luffy's lips parted in a grin of frightening proportions.

"Oh! I like you too, Zoro!" the deceptively childish man declared, slapping Zoro hard on the back cheerfully.

Will stared from one to the other, then slowly raised a hand to press his fingers against his temple.

"…you mean to say…" he began, and let his voice fade away, unwilling to continue. Zoro nodded, half-miserable and half-defiant, face still flushed red with embarrassment, but the look in his single eye dared Will to say anything derogatory. Will merely shook his head. He'd seen stranger sights, and if Jack could be one of the most brilliant captains he had ever seen in spite of his idiosyncrasies, there was nothing that prevented this man-child from being a similarly gifted candidate for captaincy.

"Well, then. If you truly believe that your crew would follow you in here, I have nothing to say to the contrary. It's you actually returning with them that I would question."

Ah. That was interesting. Luffy had possessed a childlike aura of innocence and glee, despite the fairly obvious scars on his face and chest, but all of a sudden, he found that he could understand why this man could count Zoro as such a loyal member of his crew. He had, upon hearing Will's words, abruptly gone still, and Will felt as though he were being viewed with a completely alien gaze. The atmosphere within the room thickened to the consistency of the dense fogs that had sometimes drawn down over his childhood home, and Will was almost completely certain that the fellow Captain's regard would have been capable of freezing the very breath in his lungs had he been anyone but himself.

Will matched him gaze for gaze, expression mild. Whatever the man might have been in life, he was a guest on Will's ship now. He was willing to give them both time to settle down, but he would lose patience over time. Death waited for no one, and all he could do was soften the blow before they were immersed in their duties and the afterlife.

Luffy seemed to draw back whatever it was that had filled the air around them, the blank expression on his face softening back into a smile.

"You're a good captain," he said again.

"And you're serious about this. About us being dead."

Will's eyes darted back to Zoro, unnerved by the fact that somehow, during his exchange with Luffy, he had completely forgotten to pay attention to the swordsman. He looked strangely contemplative, seemingly poring over the fact of their death, before shaking his head.

"I don't think we are. Dead, I mean."

Will blinked, surprised.

"I'm sorry to say that you are, there's no other manner to enter the Locker. At least, not the way that the two of you did."

"Really?" Luffy asked, his eyes comically wide with glee, and starting to rise up, hands fisting in front of him.

"No. Stop that, Luffy. Sit down."

Their ship must have been a sight to see, Will mused, watching as Zoro punted the younger man back in his seat. Luffy rubbed the top of his head, lower lip sticking out in a particularly childish show of sullenness.

"So, the Locker, is it some kind of other place? That connects to your land of the living? You said that it was possible for people to sail here if they knew how."

"Yes. The Locker exists outside of time and space, though it also coexists with the seas of the earth and the living, else the dead would not be able to make their way here. It lies atop the land of the living, like a mirror."

Zoro nodded, his brows lowered in an expression of deep concentration. Luffy was already disinterested, looking about Will's cabin in curiosity.

"So… is it possible for other worlds to connect to the Locker too? By mistake?"

Will stared at him.

"…Like in the middle of a storm, you mean."

"Yes. It's happened to us before, we've travelled through portals to other places while on the sea. The seas in our world are weird, and filled with things that people have never seen before. I've been talking to the other men while I've been here, and none of what they've said sounded familiar to me. I asked about some of the towns I know, but they didn't recognise them either, and said that I must be talking about the New World."

Luffy's head jerked back to them, eyes suddenly narrow.

"New World?" he repeated, and Will couldn't understand why talk of the New World would make any man as leery as this, but Zoro immediately shook his head.

"That's why I'm saying this isn't our world, Luffy. Their New World is completely different."

"Oh." Luffy settled back, and took to glancing about again, trusting that his crewmate would continue the discussion in his stead.

Will leaned back, thoughtful despite himself. It wasn't that he could wave away these thoughts as simple disbelief in the afterlife and death, or as delusions of some sort. Some of the tales that Jack had brought back over the years did speak of the possibility of other worlds, waiting to be explored. Whether or not Jack had crossed into these worlds during his travels across the seven seas was better left unquestioned, because the man himself would never see fit to offer a straight answer.

"Even if this is the case, I'm afraid that I have no solutions to offer you. There is only one man I know who might be able to offer you aid or information of any sort, and he comes and goes as he pleases. Until he returns, you have no choice but to wait."

Zoro nodded, easily accepting what Will had to say. He seemed far more at ease since Luffy had been drawn on board. For his part, Luffy had turned around with a wide grin.

"So, we're going to be here for a while? Cool! Ne, ne, Will, do you go on adventures here? There must be so much to see, if it's another world!"

Will couldn't help but stare back into the young man's eyes, starry as they were with sheer delight. He heard Zoro groan with dismay, but when he finally managed to tear himself away from the power of Luffy's gaze, it was to see a similarly excited grin on the swordsman's face.

Something about their expressions looked very, very familiar, he thought, caught between nostalgia and sense of creeping unease.

"Were you adventurers, then, in your world?"

The laugh that escaped the man-child captain in front of him had the clarity of a bell, ringing to welcome a new day.

"We're pirates, of course! Pirates always have the greatest adventures! And I'm the man who's going to be Pirate King! The adventures of me and my crew are going to be the greatest of all!"

Watching the two men bang fists and then throwing arms around each other's shoulders, laughing as though possessed by some strange animal joy, Will found himself thinking back to that day in the far past, when a pirate captain had snuck into his forge, and led him and the woman he loved away on the adventure of a lifetime.

Pirates always have the greatest adventures, indeed.

I'd pray that Jack, Elizabeth and Luffy should never meet. Except, I'm afraid that worlds and dimensions would conspire to bring them together, he later thought to himself, as he stood by the prow, watching the smoke-textured water of the Locker flow past. If nothing else, he had something interesting to offer the man, whenever he chose to come back.

Hearing disbelieving yells from the men and women that had gone below to eat, bellows for more food from Luffy and what sounded like helpless laughter from Zoro, he smiled to himself, and turned around to head below deck as well.

AN: This started as a device to bring the pirates of PotC and OP together in the same story, but what was supposed to be cheerful confusion as Luffy ran amok and Zoro tried to rein him in before giving into laughter while Will is caught between amusement and despair and Norrington is just done somehow turned into a character introspection piece.

As of now, this is a oneshot, but I may add to this 'verse in the future at some point. Meant to be lighthearted, and a means to get away from presentations and papers. Life as a grad student is hard.

For anyone looking for updates on other stuff: Apologies to any readers who've been waiting for updates on Serendipity, Hatori or (wonder of wonders) Menders. I still don't declare them dead or abandoned, but they do need to be edited to a very large extent because my writing style and interests have changed far too much since I began writing all of them, and I just don't have the time to do it immediately or quickly. I've begun the editing process in the case of Serendipity, with plenty of new scenes and exposition for previous readers who're still interested in coming back to it. Not too sure if these edited copies will be uploaded here, but my writing will continue to be posted or crossposted to AO3, where my alias is still Adel Mortescryche.