warnings: perfect-and-adorable!Heero

Chapter 1: Falsehood

You may think now that our first impression of the inn had somehow been deceptive and that it was much more appealing from the inside. Of course, you could have been right. Unfortunately though the inside of the Sailor's Inn was - if that was indeed possible - even more miserable to look at than the shabby outside.

A dark, smoke-filled room was crowded with twenty boisterous and clearly inebriated men, who were playing cards, drinking rum and flirting with the heavily made up but, sadly, rather unappealing barmaids. Some of the men sported ugly scars on their faces, others had lost legs, hands or eyes and wore crude artificial limbs of fantastic shapes, eye-patches, glass eyes and—I think you get the picture... but none of them had obviously found the time to take a bath in months.

Then my eyes fell on some of the symbols the men had tattooed on their chests and upper arms and I was struck by the sudden realization that the Sailor's Inn was nothing less than a pirate's nest… and quite cheerful pirates, I might add, for the room resounded with noisy chatter, roaring laughter and the continuous stamping of booted feet. There was something so horribly wrong with that picture that Trowa finally said: "Duo, I think it's time that you told us what exactly your friend Jack said about Mr. Sawdown and the gold he's supposed to have. And don't forget the part about the gold."

There was a hint of irritation in his voice.

"Alright," I replied somewhat less self-confidently, quite surprised myself by the lack of wealth and abundance of squalor we had stumbled upon. "It's just - a while ago, you know." And I certainly didn't pay all that much attention to Jack's stories, I added silently in my head. Then again, no one else ever had... He made up most of his stories and he tended to exaggerate... he even lied for God's sake.

"Let's see," I began, trying very hard to remember. "It was after I finished this... 'job' at the Cape of Good Hope... so it must have been... ah yes, it was on the Bahamas. Such a great place for a game of cards! Have you ever been there?"

My question was met by stony silence.

"Right," I said and cleared my throat. "Here's what Jack told me. He said...

'Duo, my old friend, you sure you want to play with this poor hand? I know you still have some coins from this... 'job' at the Cape of Good Hope, but—well, nevermind, you're going to lose your money anyway and it's better you lose it to me hehe. I'll tell you something, Duo - in case you'll ever be desperate enough - I once knew a man who loved to play at least as much as you do, but to give him his due he was also a pretty good thief and one day he devised a truly ingenious plan to steal a ton of gold and jewels from an English ship that was supposed to bring wedding presents to the royal court of Spain—I think... or was it France? The whole thing caused a huge breach in diplomatic relations between England and Spain, um, or France... Let me think this over for a moment... hum.. yes, yes, it might have been France - or the Netherlands. Well, I'm coming to that part, Duo... but first I have to gather my thoughts.

Ah yes... there were other men involved in the whole thing, can't remember their names though, but they aren't important. Trust me. The thief outwitted them all and got away with their share of the treasure. For a long while he was said to have met his fate somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, killed by sharks, seduced by a mermaid, stabbed in the back by his greedy friends... something like that. You still listening, Duo? You appear to be... sleeping...

Well, here's the important part, my friend! I have met the thief. Yes, I know were he is! He lives on Froog's Island, tiny spot east of the West Indies but west of the Western Isles*, full of mist and frogs and rats. Sawdown is his name and he runs a first-class inn there. The Sailor's Inn, a really fancy little bar with the best sugar-cane rum I've ever tasted, pretty strong, too. ..."

I sighed and looked at my friends, who looked back at me expectantly.

"Well...?"

"Well, that's what he said."

"That's all?" Quatre asked, sounding incredulous.

"No..."

"Go on then!"

"He said that the barmaids weren't exactly an eyesore either and his daughter-"

"Duo, tell us about the gold," Wufei growled.

"Would you keep your voice down, Wu! He didn't say anything else about the gold. Sawdown took it and disappeared and he... wait a minute!"

"What," Quatre cried out.

"I remember..."

"You remember...?"

"Oh, I should have known there was something! I totally forgot that..."

"That...?"

"That he buried his gold! He buried it to hide it from his accomplices!" For a moment I was so happy to remember the story that I started to laugh... at least for a couple of seconds, until the wrath of my friends hit me in the shape of a ruthless pull on my braid.

That's how we arrived on Froog's Island and I myself would have been angry at my forgetfulness if the noisily babbling men around us hadn't chosen this exact moment to fall completely silent and swivel their heads towards the wooden door behind the counter to shamelessly ogle the small figure that had just entered the room. It was a boy, young man really, wearing a heavy black rain cloak and an awfully oversized woollen sweater over dusty tattered pantaloons and a pair of shoddy damaged boots. You might wonder why he was such a sight to behold that everyone in the room was holding their breath and staring at the scruffy looking boy as if he were the holy grail or a barrel of rum. You wouldn't have to wonder if you had been able to see him with your own eyes—for from the top of his soot-covered unkempt hair to the pale skin of his skinny ankles the boy was beautiful. So beautiful that we all watched in rapt fascination as he put the keg of beer he had been lugging inside to the floor and slowly got up to stretch his tired body. His completely unflattering clothes did nothing to conceal the natural grace of his movements.

It wasn't long before the boy noticed the uncanny silence in the room and stopped to glance over his shoulder, a look of wayward deviance and determination in his eyes. I could look at him more closely now... at his disturbingly blue eyes and dangerously tempting mouth and the terribly soft looking mop of his chocolate brown hair.

"Jesus," I muttered but was immediately hushed by the pirates at a nearby table.

Right at that moment a rough, deep voice boomed through the silent room and startled us from our reverie.

"Stop eyeing my son like you're all about to molest him! I don't want to repeat myself—" a moment of silence, "again." The voice sounded frustrated.

A burly man in his fifties, clothed in a loose white shirt, fancy waistcoat and pants and shiny well-cared for boots had climbed up on the counter. His round, coarse face had turned almost scarlet with anger. "Now wipe the drool off your ugly faces and mind your own damn business! Drinks are on me," he added grudgingly.

"Thish ish a free ishland, Shhawdown," one of the men slurred loudly. A couple of others grumbled noisily, but turned back to their drinks.

The man, Mr. Sawdown himself, climbed down from the counter.

"Why don't you ogle my daughter for a change," he suggested, voice still a little strained.

The gathered pirates managed to actually look indignant.

Completely puzzled now, Wufei tapped one of them on the shoulder and asked gruffly: "What's wrong with his daughter?"

"Nothing's wrong," the man replied and laughed drunkenly. "She's plain ugly, that's all. Everyone on this island is. Either or, I mean... Plain ugly or uglily plain."

"No, not Heero," a younger pirate interrupted immediately. "He's the only—the only—beautiful thing around here."

"I see," Quatre muttered, discreetly rolling his eyes.

Little did we know how right that statement would turn out to be.

* Western Isles = outer Hebrides