Set somewhere in PotC1, crack, no spoilers. Rated for bawdy dialogue. I make no claims of ownership to any of the characters from Pirates of the Caribbean.
It took a lot to get Jack drunk.
Will found this out the hard way, when a late night of passing a bottle between them went on long enough that he found himself able to appreciate the intricacies of the rum's flavor. It hadn't been a competition of any sort, wasn't like he'd actively tried to outdrink the bloody pirate, not at all—but it'd still ended with him flat on his back on the deck with Jack sprawling beside him, helping watch the stars.
It might take a lot, Will figured, but it wasn't impossible. As for Jack . . . He flourished a bit more extravagantly as he drawled on, and Will found the gesture endearing. Or nauseating. He wasn't sure which.
"No, they didn't call him 'Hook' for what he'd attached to his wrist. He jumped off the boat with his pants down and came back with the bloody fish impaled right through the gills, he did . . ." Jack's eyes widened and eyebrows arched as if in recollection of disbelief, his mouth falling open in mock shock, then closing to a disturbed frown. "Though I'm not sure why anyone'd want to eat it afterwards."
His sense of disbelief had strengthened as the tales progressed, leaving Will to fuzzily wonder if there was ever any grain of truth in Jack's stories.
"But if I was going to be on their crew, I had to catch fish with the best of them. And I didn't know what to do then, really, but then . . . I saw them." Jack's hand jerked skyward, pointing to some distant memory. "In the distance: whales."
That did it. "You did not!" Will accused.
"Are you calling me a liar? There were whales." Then, almost as an afterthought: "With horns."
"You did not!" Will insisted. His thoughts were pleasantly sluggish at that moment, so instead of worrying about new words to explain why his companion was full of it he instead swung at Jack with the nearly-empty rum bottle.
Almost as if sober, Jack lurched upright to catch the bottle before any of its remnants could spill. The man was an enigma, Will decided: mind-blowingly capable one moment, utterly hopeless the next. "You mean after everything we've seen"—a be-ringed finger pointed at Will's nose, close enough that he had to pull back before his eyes crossed—"you won't believe me when I tell you they were whales with horns?"
"I won't believe that you buggered one, you—"
Jack sputtered. "B-buggered? Of course not! I'm a pirate, not a . . . a . . ."
A thought struck Will and he rolled to his side, howling with laughter. "I bet it slapped you the next time you saw it, too!"
Jack was silent for a moment, his lower lip stuck out petulantly. Then he took a deep swig from the bottle and set it to his opposite side with a thunk. "They don't all slap me."
By then, Will had stopped laughing in favor of paying more attention to how the ship wobbled under him, and could care less.
He might have slept for a few seconds, he wasn't sure. He drifted back to the present as Jack's shoulders impacted against the deck, the pirate still rambling on; this time about treasure and the future, and all the good that would befall them once things went right.
Despite himself, Will listened, and found it more intoxicating than the rum. Velvety-rich and impossibly vivid, the images took shape: Sand between his toes as he and Jack looked out over their own fleet of ships, finery and feasts, that wretch Norrington at their beck and call, adventure and the pure, salty freedom of the open sea . . .
He only closed his eyes for a second, to try to imagine things that much more fully—and opened them again to a splitting headache and the morning sunlight glaring down on him. The crew stepped over and around him as if he was an ordinary obstacle—and off by the wheel, Jack glanced over and grinned, his gold teeth glinting like medals for bad pirate hygiene.
Things leaked back into his conscious mind as he stood—images of a utopia, of perfection. Then the pitch of the ship hastened his dash to the railing, and he retched miserably at the waves below.
It served him right, he told himself. Trying to out-drink a bloody . . .
Jack at least had the decency to not laugh—instead, he made a moue at him. And as Will staggered over to the wheel, his stomach threatening to rebel again at the reek of old rum on them all as well as the sharp stench of tar, Jack simpered like nothing'd changed in the least bit.
But Will . . . Will felt cheated.
It was then, through the rum-soaked fog, that things fell into place. The women that slapped Jack were whores; having him pick their pockets afterwards would practically be part of their job description. They'd also have the sense to not believe any offhanded promises a pirate would make . . .
But the sharing of the ideas, the dreams—then having that snatched away by reality? And finding that Jack'd decided to let him face this alone?
His hand connected with Jack's face hard enough to spin the man halfway around. It felt even more satisfactory than he thought it would—until Jack faced him again, his expression one of utmost horror. The older man pointed almost hesitantly and mouthed the word as if he feared it: "You?"
The implications shocked him halfway past his hangover. "No! And you can't even remember anyway—"
Jack's hands fluttered anxiously, reaching out as if to soothe, then jerking back as if Will'd snapped at them. "I swear, Will, even though if I'm sure—"
"I'm never drinking with you again!"
"—If it was only the one time—"
"Ever!—What?"
"Well, if I don't remember, which I think I don't recall anything, then surely it's as if whatever you're offended about certainly never—"
The verbal knot Jack's words started to tie was too much for Will to handle, and he halted whatever else would come by taking another swing at him.
So maybe Jack didn't deserve it, he decided, as the man proved himself lightfooted enough to dance out of the way of this strike—but the attempt certainly felt good . . . until the unnecessary movement made his stomach start roiling again.
Far better to retreat, he decided, than to vomit on anyone's boots.
He glanced over his shoulder to find the rest of the crew staring, and snarled something about "Damned bloody pirates" at them for good measure before stalking off to find a better place to sleep.