child abuse tw – Ocean Archive

Warning; The content of this headcanon contains mention of child abuse that, while consistent with the period of Horatio’s upbringing, may be disturbing to some. Please read this only if you are comfortable. Elements include physical, emotional and mental abuses.

This is something that ties in with Horatio’s convoluted sense of emotions – and in particular his father’s stringent training of him to feel nothing. Or at the very least, to display nothing.

Horatio was never a rambunctious child. Most of his play tended to be very quiet, either listening to ( and later reading ) stories and poems, drawing or focusing on his studies. Even when he was very, very small, Horatio loved the written word and the art of mathematical equation. He was in many ways an ideal child – but, like most children, he possessed an incessantly inquiring mind and a somewhat horrific obsession with why? and how come?

Eventually, answers would run out and with them, patience. He was often cast out by those he harried, but there was a notable incident which took impression upon him. The first, was when he was struck silent by his schoolmaster when ( despite being asked to desist ) he continued to interrupt with queries. Having never been struck before, Horatio made – a scene.

Needless to say, Geoffrey taught him very well to never, ever make a scene again. Afterwards, he apologized to his schoolmaster and his fellow students, and asked no question out of turn. If he still had questions after class, he would stay an hour or more and write them down, then, seek the answers himself. What he could not find, he would present mutely in written format to the schoolmaster who would, in turn, provide either answers or potential reading material in which to do so. This lesson was gleaned at the age of eight.

When Horatio was ten, he got into an argument with several other boys in his class, which swiftly devolved itself into fisticuffs. Though he was the one outnumbered and sorely beaten, his father took him from manor to manor to apologize to the boys and their parents, and was sent to serve each household for a week in recompense. A month and a half in servitude to those of much more entitlement than himself – and the looming danger of further repercussions – taught him very loudly the dangers of being nothing to society and most importantly – to lock his jaw.

The final incident through which Horatio’s father shaped his understanding of the ‘crime’ of emotion came when Geoffrey made to dismiss the butler in exchange for a man whose hands shook less, and whose venerable age did not slow him down so. Horatio begged his father not to let the man go, knowing that the butler could not afford such a fate. When Geoffrey ignored his pleas, Horatio took a drastic measure upon himself and gathered all the coins he had saved from his allowance, and tucked it away in the man’s bags – knowing his pride would not let him take it.

The coins were found, and the man was accused of theft. Horatio quickly intervened when he learned of the arrest, insisting that he had given the man the money himself and begging his father to have the man released. Seeing a valuable teaching opportunity, Geoffrey refused and told him to think about the consequences of disobedience and allowing one’s self to be ruled by senseless emotions.

Horrified, Horatio ( even at the tender age of twelve ) was not prepared to give up so easily. He made an attempt to free the butler himself – first by speaking to the guards, who chased him off – and later by sneaking in. He was caught and celled, and his father upon hearing of matters, requested that he be taught a lesson and left him in the care of the jail for two weeks. By time of his release, the butler had died for his crime and Horatio’s emotions were finally placed under lock and key. He learned the importance of using logic and fact rather than impassioned pleas, and to never make a decision when heated by emotion – or so he thought. Jack Simpson, unfortunately, was precisely the kind of monster to break open those locked jaws – but that, of course, has already been seen.

Childhood (

1690-1704, age 0-14 )

Jack’s childhood is a tumultuous affair in which interaction is not courted – headcanon may cover matters, but for the most part this portion of Jack’s life is utterly untouchable. These are the formative years and all that he went through – both good and bad – are the framework of who he became.

Jack is intimately familiar with abuse; he was thrashed within an inch of his life three times by his grandmother, locked in her brig when he was eight, and knows the nature of her violent temper all too well. He is intimately familiar with both her cane and the sword within it, and from her wrath there was no protection.

What is, perhaps, most notable about this was although she was called Grandmama, Jack did not know if this was due to them being related or due instead to her venerable age and insistence upon the matter. As far as he was concerned, Grandmama was a title, not an indication of familial relation.

Jack wondered if Captain Teague was his father, but did not know for certain and had no evidence to prove whether he was or he wasn’t. Internally, Jack saw him as the man who might be father, and obeyed him primarily because not doing so was costly, but also because Teague was the only one who took any sort of responsibility toward him – in a manner of speaking.

Jack was Teague’s cabin boy, he learned the life of sailing alongside the man, memorizing terminology and learning his way around a ship from the time he was just able to clear the man’s boots in height. There was no fondness between them, no obvious care on Teague’s part beyond brisk corrections that would, eventually, prove to be lifesaving skills once Jack was old enough to understand the lessons.

Only rarely can Jack recall Teague doing anything fatherly, though in each instance the act was one of protection that Jack dismissed less of a matter of the man caring if Jack was harmed and more Teague being offended that someone would dare lay a hand on his property. This sense of thinking was made all the stronger in later years, but is important to note was registered early on – Jack did not believe he had parents, but he did know he belonged to Teague by some measure.

The violence of his young life was compacted by the violence all around him. Growing up among pirates and within pirate cities, Jack was exposed to so much of it that in many ways he was desensitized – but in every other, he was angry. He hated this life, was enormously bitter about his own treatment, and yearned for something better. He yearned for freedom – a concept he read about, and understood in his heart as the way men ought to be. He used what he knew of the Pirate Code as an excuse to run away from home – and in so doing, begin a life of adventure that would forge him into the man we eventually come to know.

Important Notes:

Jack learned to read at a young age; he was taught fundamentals by various parties, and figured the rest out on his own. By the age of seven, he could read most anything he got his hands on ( which while not much, is notable considering both his lifestyle and how uncommon such education was in the times. )

By the time he was seven, Jack was able to identify ships based on their size and design as well as determine the amount of guns they were carrying, to the point he genuinely impressed Gibbs so much the man complimented the boy to Teague.

By the time he was fourteen, Jack was fluent in English and had a passable understanding of Cantonese, French and Swedish. He cannot yet speak Spanish, but he can understand if it is spoken slowly, the general gist of an idea. He has a rudimentary understanding of Bantu – very rudimentary, but more than enough to insult people in it.