Jack muttered and rolled over onto his back to give that position one more try. Tonight, not even the soothing coos of the pearl nor the comely tumbles of the evening tide could bring him solace.
"Do you ever truly sleep, Jack Sparrow?"
Unbidden, Will's voice appeared in Jack's head, authentically dripping with mock indignation.
"Not since we parted you bloody whelp," he shot back.
Jack growled in frustration, knowing the sleep deprivation was acute when he started conversing with a phantom Will. He turned onto his side and right one cue, a lock of hair in which a golden ring was ensconced fell over his face.
"Bloody Elizabeth gets to sleep with bloody Will tonight and I'm sure they're havin' a right bloody time at it." Jack grumbled off a stream of colorful curses and pushed the fallen hair back into place.
It had been a rotten day for pirating with no wind to fill the sails all day and no rum to fill the emptiness at night. No wind and no rum and no whelp. Jack had to admit he hadn't slept well since he and Will had parted ways some weeks ago. More recently, the flow of rum had turned to a trickle and then dried up all together. It was understandable that these set of circumstances made for an irritable captain. Damn but the boy was habit forming.
Stretching out on his back again, Jack closed his eyes and decided to let his restless mind head out to pasture for a bit. After a moment of random conjecture, his thoughts finally settled on an image of Will. 'How very original," he mumbled to himself, but his mind rolled on heedlessly into memory.
It was the Will of three years ago that strode into his imaginings—young, wide-eyed, and hopelessly devoted to one Miss Elizabeth Swann. Still, his hands bore one marked improvement. They were as yet bare of meddlesome rings…
-flashback-
"You're up early, Whelp," Jack smiled broadly at the dirty look he earned from the lad and emerged fully from the main cabin of the Interceptor, prancing across the deck to the jingle of his own baubles.
The pirate was glad to get any reaction from the boy who had spent the past two days stubbornly ignoring him altogether. The nature of the reaction was of secondary importance. That Will immediately returned to his mopping didn't bother Jack either. He knew the boy had heard and he was in high spirits. Deciding to press his luck, Jack placed one heavy boot on the moist head of the mop.
Will yanked the handle, but it refused to budge. Finally, he was forced to acknowledge Captain Sparrow, who was leaning solicitously into his personal space with one eyebrow cocked. When the pirate didn't budge despite the annoyed glance Will leveled at him, the boy finally answered:
"I am used to getting up early to work. It's only in the early morning and late at night that a blacksmith can get anything done in this blasted Caribbean heat. The deck will be insufferable soon. And besides, toil begets character."
Will was gratified to see Jack pull away and walk over to the storeroom where several other mops leaned among buckets, scrub brushes and other cleaning devices. He chose a long-handled implement and dipped it into the bucket, proceeding to write 'Jack' across the deck in great salty loops.
"Lunatic." Will muttered under his breath, surprised at the fondness that crept into his voice.
The jab did not, however, escape Jack's keen ears, and the pirate turned his attentions to Will once more. He stepped closer again and was now running his discerning eyes over Will, "You've self-appointed to swab this deck every morning in the wee hours despite the fact that the royal navy handed it over to us as spick and span as Queen Charlotte's knickers, and you're calling me a lunatic?"
Jack leaned in close and punctuated his logic with an eyebrow raised curiously in Will's direction, causing Will to look down at the water swirling around his shoes sheepishly. The spark of anger Jack had been heckling was abruptly snuffed, to the pirate's great annoyance. He rather enjoyed the spirited Will and the only way he'd yet managed to coax it out was by annoying the boy to no end. Well, there was one other way…
Abruptly, Jack raised his mop and jabbed his unsuspecting companion in the face. Will fell back onto the seat of his pants with a grunt and glared daggers up at the pirate, wiping a mask of briny seawater from his face.
"What in God's-" Jack silenced Will with a merciless downward stroke which the blacksmith deftly halted by bringing his own 'weapon' up before him.
"C'mon whelp, soon I'll be swabbin' the deck's with your handsome mug again!" Jack shouted, crossing and recrossing his blade with Will's.
"You didn't beat me last time, you cheated!" Will had managed to rise and began to insert his own blows in between Jack's merciless assaults.
"I think you're confusing cause and effect William." Jack lunged and made several quick jabs, all of which Will knocked aside in quick succession, "You see cheating was the method by which I secured my victory. I preformed the former which led to but was in no way in contradiction with the latter and consequently-."
This time Jack was interrupted as he ducked below the arc of a long, wooden handle which almost took off his head. Will grunted in satisfaction and struck again, locking their mops together and struggling against Jack. The pirate was the smaller of the two but regardless, Will received no quarter. They broke without a victor and continued to traverse the deck of the interceptor, the air filling with sporadic claps that rolled like thunder as their mops clicked together with each dynamic soirée.
-
The sun had climbed high when they finally collapsed onto the deck, shining with sweat and enthusiasm, exhaustion commandeering their bodies from adrenaline. The duel had ended in a stalemate, but Jack could see that Will was smiling and he knew he had been victorious. They sat shoulder to shoulder against the side of the cabin, reveling in the meager shade it offered.
When his breathing finally began to normalize, Jack casually peeled off his shirt, which was soaked to the point of transparency anyway, and tossed it away. Will turned to him and glanced with equal nonchalance at the lean, tanned form. Jack's body was a mass of mechanics, sinewy muscles and tense, callous skin. Jack's body was utilitarian, but speckled with tattoos and scars like an Appaloosa. Jack's body was intriguing.
"Gettin' a good eyeful luv?" Jack smiled and Will busied himself with removing his own shirt to hide the blush creeping up on his face. He turned his attention over to a log that was bobbing in and out of sight as the sea bore it along. The lad was forming an annoying habit of looking at anything other than Jack whenever the pirate berated him. At the moment, he looked downright boyish with his errant eyes and the soft red resting in his cheeks.
His chest was perfectly formed—statuesque and in all the right proportions. It could well have been part of a marble sculpture, and Jack tried to recall whether Bootstrap had ever mentioned having any Greek in him. Against the dark pirate's it looked especially fair, like porcelain beside earthenware, but his arms were dark and rough, already branded by the hot metals and leaping flames of the forge. This was one quality Jack and Will shared— the audacity to temper unforgiving elemental forces—fire and water—and both had the nicks to prove it. The same pursuits had given Will deeply cut muscles which, along with two inches of vertical height, leant him a slight size advantage over his companion.
Out of nowhere, Jack produced a flask, which Will flatly refused when it was offered him. Jack could be quite the magician when he liked, mysterious and, much as Will hated to admit it, entertaining.
Unperturbed, the pirate drank deeply, thinking that he rather liked this 'small crew' scheme. It was close— intimate. Well, just the two of them was impractical, but there could be more. The whelp would just have to be one of them. He noticed that Will was ignoring him in favor of an inanimate object again, this time his mop.
"Don't believe whatever lies that mop's tellin' you regarding myself. All vicious falsehoods, I can assure you," Jack said conversationally.
"Actually Jack, I was just thinking that you must've gotten the idea for your hair by staring at just such a mop too long in the afternoon sun." Will quipped, giving his attention back to the pirate.
"ACTUALLY, it was by staring at my lovely locks that a young swabbie conceived of the mop," Jack countered, happy to receive it.
"Ah, so that means you must be far older than even I could have predicted." Will nodded in grave understanding.
Quick as a whip Jack jumped up, grabbing the bucket, and Will had just enough time to leap partially out of the way as a torrent of saltwater soaked his side as well as his former location. Laughing gleefully, he seized Jack's forgotten rum and splashed the remainder onto the pirate, who shrieked as if wounded, dodging away and yelling that Will oughtn't to be so careless with the rum.
Will ran after him and seized at the bucket. They wrestled for it briefly, shouting at the top of their lungs with abandon and reveling in the absolute remoteness of the open sea. Soon though, the blistering heat of the sun forced them to retreat back against the side of the ship. Though Will didn't yet know it, the uninhibited pleasure of the moment was one he would begin to associate with Jack alone.
-
Jack was pleased with the rum and the good company and an easy smile paused on his lips. That lad really was an awful lot like Bootstrap, though he needed a bit more encouragement to get going. Still, Jack found himself steadily loosening the lad's tight strings. He had a knack for that kind of thing. He and rum could do it like nobody or nothing else.
But a shade of consternation crossed his face when he looked at Will again. The boy's brow was already recreased with worry, and was that a touch of guilt as well?
Jack leaned into the boy and raised his eyebrow, which seemed to have become his sign that Will's behavior was concerning him.
"I shouldn't act so silly. Not with Elizabeth in the hands of those villainous pirates," the lad explained, looking away again, shamefully.
"What are you talkin' about, lad? You're here on a ship commandeered from the royal navy, with a rogue of a pirate that you sprung from prison, headed towards her at top speed. She couldn't ask more of you." Jack's voice was surprisingly gentle and Will had to recover his adamancy:
"And here I am, enjoying myself like I'm on some kind of a pleasure cruise."
Jack knew he had to act fast; the lad looked like he was on the verge of self-inflicting. And he supposed he owed it to Bootstrap. If the man hadn't been off plundering he'd surely have nipped this emotional dysfunction in the bud.
"That's your problem luv. You're too damned flustered about constantly putting one foot in front of the other. Not a very Caribbean attitude," he replied, patting Will's back in a conciliatory way.
"We can't all stumble through life like you Jack," Will replied bitterly. He didn't seem opposed to Jack's hand though, so the pirate let it rest there on the warm, bare plane of his shoulder blade.
"Ah, but what of your surefooted living? You're so bloody fixed on that image of you and Elizabeth in wedded bliss that you can't see anything before or after. Every breath up 'till then is just a footnote in a preface and afterwards…well they might as well just stuff the two of you and put you in a glass case so you can gaze into each other's eyes happily ever after. There's more to life than just that horizon you've latched firmly in front of you." There was an edge to the pirate's voice, a note of seriousness that made Will anxious.
"Surely even pirates like you can understand endeavoring for a distant horizon," he warily replied, unsure about this side of Jack.
"To be sure, we understand it better than anyone. But if you weren't always trudging along with blinders across those lovely eyes you'd get a chance to look around, and then you'd see that there's a different horizon everywhere you look. There might even be another one as promising and lovely as yours but you've never stepped foot far enough off of the straight and narrow to have a good look see." Admittedly, Jack was making sense at the moment. The pirate was slowly plucking at the strings of Will's longing, surprisingly precise in conducting his beautiful words.
"What is there to see Jack?" Will dared the pirate to convince him.
"There's you and me. Here. Now."
Throughout the course of their conversation, Jack had been running entirely on his instincts, as he always did when navigating such alien waters. When they advised him that a gentle hand on the boy's back couldn't do ill, he had reached out and received only warmth in return, so when they told him to lean forward and press his lips to the boy's, he hesitated not a moment before complying.
Jack bestowed the kiss like a gift: generously and sweetly. His lips didn't wander from Will's and neither did his tongue. Will, for his part, received it with grace, silently admitting he had no experience in the matter and handing control over to Jack without resistance.
Encouraged, Jack turned and wrapped his other arm around Will's waist, allowing for more comfortable access while Will, unsure, rested his idle arms over Jack's shoulders timidly.
Then, urging Will's mouth open, Jack threw his tongue into the mix, wondering mischievously how the boy would react to such an intrusion. He did not expect Will to let out a muffled chuckle, but laugh the boy did, and Jack playfully scolded him with a bite to the lip. His eyebrow went up, and this time, Jack had to lean back slightly to allow the boy to see it.
"Lecherous pirate." Will mumbled thickly, but Jack was pleased to find that though the boy was flushed with color, his eyes didn't wander from Jack. The pirate had finally earned the blacksmith's full attention.
-end flashback-
Jack finally banished his thoughts of nostalgia and rose, pulling up his trousers and leaving the dark cabin to step out into the deeper darkness of the world. Tonight, raggedy clouds stretched over the moon and the stars causing the little black ship to be clutched in a strangling gloom that may well have stretched to infinity. One lonely lantern stubbornly lit a small orb around the wheel, where the man on night duty sat on a barrel snoring loudly. At least the night watchman was getting a few winks.
Sleeplessness nurtured Jack's fiendish side, and the captain crept forward, tracing a winding path across the most soundless planks a ship such as the Pearl had to offer. As he reached the outer echelons of the light a wicked grin spread across his face and he held out his hands, prepared to leap. This man wouldn't be neglecting his duties again soon…
"Cap'n, that'd be an unnatural cruel thing ta do ta the boy, don't you think?" Gibb's soft, disembodied voice floated over.
Jack immediately straightened and squinted his eyes in his first mate's direction, as if they might pierce the fog of night and discern the figure. Gibbs could see the captain just fine in the illuminated aura of the lamp, and he noticed that beneath the smudged kohl was baggage borne of sleepless nights.
"Not sleepin' well are ye Cap'n?" he observed.
Jack felt a bit nervous in the spotlight of the lantern with the source of Gibbs' voice hidden from him. He didn't entirely trust a mind that was able to recreate Will's voice so clearly. And so motioning Gibbs to follow, he stepped into the darkness and out to the far railing of the Pearl. There, on equal terms, they began to talk of the lack of wind, and commiserated about the absent rum. For a while at least, they avoided broaching the subject of what else was missing from Jack's life.
They had talked of everything inconsequential and a grim silence settled between them. When Jack spoke again, it was as much to the timber of the Pearl beneath his feet as to any human soul.
"I'm tired of spending days and weeks away from my pearl and then returning like a wraith to wander through the days. I'm tired of lying there knowing Will's going to slip out before the sun can gild his gorgeous face. I'm tired of wanting to switch places with the daughter of the governor of Port Royal. All in all I'm bloody exhausted," he said pointedly.
"Well cap'n, I suppose the ends'll have ta justify the means," Gibbs replied, taking out his flask and swigging water with dissatisfaction. He did wish the Captain's vigor would return, but the fact was that Jack got worse the longer he went without seeing Will. He didn't see any solution that was any better than what they'd come up with.
"I lost this ship for 13 years. Now she's finally mine and I can't even enjoy her. I'm tired of this game Gibbs," Jack's voice actually shook in the night air, and his hands gripped the rail of the Pearl tightly enough to leave bruises.
"C'mon Cap'n, ya know that's just the sobriety talkin', we'll pull into a port pretty soon here and-"
"I won't play anymore." The tremble was gone from Jack's voice, replaced by cold resolution.
Gibbs half choked on his water and blinked, looking at the darkness from which Jack's voice was projected. He would've given anything to see Jack's face at that moment. Anxiously, he waited for Jack to laugh at his own joke, though the captain seemed satisfied in the silence.
"But Cap'n, what about Mr. Turner?" The first mate finally ventured, as though Jack might have forgotten the purpose of his excursions.
"He needs this as much as I do, he just doesn't know it yet," Jack replied simply.
"You'll break his heart Jack," Gibbs cried, dismayed.
"I've put him through worse before. William is strong."
Gibbs just stood there mystified. To think that he, who had known Jack since forever, could've so gravely misread the pirate was quite a blow. How could Jack give up so easily?
There was sadness in Gibbs' voice when he spoke again. He was fond of Bootstrap's boy and had rather hoped that someday, Will would give up his charade and answer the summons of the sea as his father had. Additionally, there was Jack to consider, and Gibbs expected the Captain's withdrawal would be painful for everyone around him.
"Then yer resolved never ta see the lad again?"
This time it was Jack's turn to be perplexed. He scrunched up his face and gave Gibbs a look, which of course his first mate couldn't see.
"…Are we having the same conversation?" he asked, leaning back as though to look for a third person on Gibbs' right, "I'm going to go see him right now."
"But sir didn't you just say…" Gibbs massaged his overwrought head.
"I'm going to get William and bring him back and henceforth keep him handy at all times," Jack explained, jumping slightly in surprise when Gibbs let out a whoop of relieved laughter.
"Very good Cap'n, shall we make for Port Royal?" he asked excitedly
Jack nodded, "As you say, Gibbs. Its time to remind Miss Swann-"
"You mean Mrs. Turner sir," Gibbs interjected, missing his captain's annoyed glace. Jack really preferred well-lit conversations. Half of his meaning was lost without gesticulation.
"Regardless, it's time to remind Elizabeth that pirates don't share well!" he said, slamming his foot down on the deck as if to urge the Pearl on.
-
"Bloody 'ell, I can't believe the Captain's makin' me swab the whole damn deck just because I closed ma eyes for one minute on watch," Gideon grumbled, giving his mop a good throttle.
"Quit yer whinin' Gideon, you're as dainty as a lass an' nigh half so pretty. In the captain's own fine words, toilin' begets character," Cookie shouted, overseeing Gideon's efforts as he cut the rotten bits out of potatoes.
"But why in 'ell do we 'ave three mops if the captain only intends on appointin' one swabbie?" Gideon demanded.
"If you weren't so dense you'd know that them other two mops ain't for swabbin'." Sure enough there was a sign tied to the other two which threatened against their use. Since most of the crew was illiterate, it featured a crude illustration of an unsuspecting swabbie getting stabbed in the eye.
"Them's the Captain's duelin' mops. Look how they're so fancy and nice. Stoled off a navy ship they was, and if you knew anything, you'd know that the captain used 'em to fight off a thousand redcoats single-handedly and then to write 'is name in the blood that soaked the deck. Very precious they are to 'im."
Gideon glanced in awe at the Captain who was a few yards away at the helm, apparently trying to teach Cotton's parrot to swear. Looking back at the mops that had appeared so pristine, he fancied he could now discern faint traces of crimson among the fronds, and quickly returned to his work. No need to arouse the captain's ire.
And so Jack Sparrow's legend lived on…
End of Part IIA.N. Thanks for your reviews mates. They are so helpful. Incredibly motivating. I'm afraid this chapter is very different from the last one. Longer and not so literary. Bugger. Also sorry this chapter is mostly a flashback, but just to give you a nice hint, Elizabeth will be in the next one, so we're movin' right along. Also, I seem to have developed a penchant for describing Jack's chest… I believe he is shirtless throughout 2/3 of this story and that's the way I likes it!
jla2snoopy- Well you were obviously disgusted enough to bring out the thesaurus. Sorry it impugned you so, and I hope you know better than to be reading this reply…
Thorinella-Many thanks for your review, and yes I dared to think it…now try watching the movies with j/w in mind. It puts a whole new spin on things. Oh and I'm sorry to ask you to wait one more chapter for that excuse I promised. I was mopping up at my place of work and got inspired. Give Mr. Turner one more week eh::Will sighs in relief:
Phoenix Red Lion- Glad to hear it. After that first comment I was starting to get nervous. Anyway, I have to say frankly that I'm not sure how this will end. I've got several scenarios outlined and we'll just have to see what happens. (I am also rather partial to happy endings) Its time to see just how much longer both men can keep it a secret…
Robin Goodlass- That's a fine buccaneer name if ever I saw one! Thanks very much for taking the time to review and I'm glad you were so accepting. I hope you weren't too disappointed, seeing as this chapter is less refined, and I wriggled my way out of that excuse (You're off the hook for now William) if not, I'd be very pleased if you continue to read, and review if you have a mind to.
FastFuriousChick- Yay, a fellow shipper. J+W my POTC OTP! I know this is a bit of a change of pace, but I hope you tag along with me and I bow down in humble gratitude for your review. I really appreciate it.
-JP
