A Pirate's Boy

Chapter Nine- Blood

Author's Note- The author wanted to try something different this time around. However, she could not, for the life of her, come up with some witty way to remind you all that she doesn't own anything. Heck, she's dirt poor. So please, do the starving artist a favor and do not mistake her for Jerry Bruckheimer.

Hello again, dear readers! Look, everyone, look! My chapter! It's almost on time! I'll have you all know that I typed this little chestnut in all of its entirety on a six hour flight. That's how dedicated I am.

So dedicated, in fact, that I haven't the patience to pen an extremely intellectual and thought-provoking author's note, so I'll get to the point. Reviewers, you are, as per usual, the highlight of my otherwise mundane lifestyle. Your heartfelt responses are at the end. Oh, and to those of you who braved the world of emoticons in attempts to glimpse the next chapter, I was amazed. I, for one, had no idea that a Cookie Monster made of hyphens and asterisks could be so lifelike! Your artwork is now being displayed in some grand, foreign museum. That's how good it was.

As always, here's the incentive for those reviews that I crave more than a peanut-butter-chocolate dessert (which, unsurprisingly, I am craving at the moment). Write me a very prolonged, detailed comment and answer the following question to the best of your ability: If nothing were to consist of a lack of everything, then what is the definition of anything?

I have no idea regarding the answer to that one. I shall choose a winner based on originality.

Oh, I've almost forgotten! REVIEW! Dear me, I'm terribly sorry. The review werewolf hijacked my keyboard and typed that.


Now, there are an infinite number of trivial details that make up the infamous murderous thieves that have come to be known as pirates. One such attribute is, unsurprisingly, the sea. Another is dishonesty. But among all of these innumerable technicalities, one that rises above the majority of the others is this; never admit that you are frightened.

Therefore, Captain Teague, a pirate in every sense of the word, had convinced all but himself that he had readjusted their course on account of his sagacity. Heading for Tortuga, he had clarified, was to be expected, and the Royal Navy would, no doubt, be anticipating their arrival. Ergo, it had been with all haste that the incongruous trio had turned their compact vessel away from the pirate-riddled port and toward an obscure little fishing municipality, with confidence that none of their undesirable adversaries would be expecting them in such a little-known town.

Ever trusting, both Bill Turner and Jack Sparrow had accepted the knowledgeable captain's proposition, partially because of his vast circumspection, and partially because neither of them knew what they were doing. It never crossed their minds that the pirate lord had suggested the modification out of fear.

But, in fact, fear was the most prominent reason for altering their route. Tortuga had seemed like an acceptable destination, however, a pestilential voice of a particular pirate's wife had echoed unrelentingly through said pirate's mind, stubbornly voicing her opinions on the villain-suffused village. Teague grimaced as he envisaged the deleterious wrath of his dearly beloved that would befall him, were she to discover that her six-year-old son had visited the abhorrent corsair haven.

And so it came to pass that, two days longer than anticipated and with noticeably thinner stomachs (having exhausted their meager food supply), the unconventional party docked in the quaint harbor of Port Toujours.

Teague deftly hauled himself out of the now leaking skiff, and extended a hand to the fatigued child. Jack stumbled onto the deck and teetered slightly, not being accustomed to solid ground. A firm hand steadied him, and kneeling on one knee so as to meet Jack's eye level, the murderer addressed his son in a solemn tone.

"Alright, Jackie, I know you're not stupid. You've seen what happens to the both of us when people find out who you are. Let's keep that little bit of particulars to ourselves while we're here, shall we?" Smiling at the boy's vigorous nod, he continued ominously as he stood up. "Just imagine how much trouble you'll be when you're grown."

The threesome made their way down the nearly vacant dock. They were quite a sight to behold to any disassociated passerby. A young sailor, clad in a secondhand, tattered Navy coat with curling brown hair; a tall, unsmiling man with dark dreadlocks framing his face, creased by premature wrinkles that made him appear twice his age; and a thin, sun-browned child, his tangled dark hair curiously reminiscent of his eldest companion. It was a peculiar scene, what with the three unkempt, malodorous figures silhouetted against the clear, blue Caribbean horizon.

The apparent leader of the unconventional contingent strode toward a portly man, who was the seeming steward of that certain portion of the docks. "Good day, sir," Teague began with artificial etiquette, only to be discourteously interrupted.

"Désolé, parlez-vous français?"

The pirate stifled an exasperated sigh, and rephrased his greeting. "Oui, bonjour, monsieur. Nous allons dock ici?"

"Salut, ce sera trois pièces pour mettre à quai votre bateau," the rotund man replied stiffly as he eyed the two disheveled boys with ill-concealed disdain. The pirate captain nodded, choosing to ignore the caretaker's skeptical glances, and responded cautiously, using a wide miscellany of hand gestures to convey his point. Despite their incognizance of the language, both Jack and Bill were capable of deducing that whatever their translator had offered; it had been deemed acceptable judging by the stout man's wide grin.

"Vous êtes trop aimable, monsieur!" the Frenchman exclaimed as he enthusiastically pumped Teague's gnarled fist up and down in a hearty handshake. The overseer tipped his hat once more to the pirate as he bustled past the group and busied himself with the unstable dinghy.

"What'd you say to 'im?" muttered an impressed Bill Turner.

"Found you a way back to jolly ol' Scotland, for one. And I, being the exceptionally magnanimous man that I am, gave him the boat." Teague lowered his voice to a gravelly murmur, "I must've neglected to tell the poor chap about the leak."

Due to the majority of the unheralded town's population consisting of sailors, it was not onerous to locate a nearby tavern. Teague mentally winced at his what his wife would have had to say about such a scenario, but he reasoned that, being the son of a pirate, Jack would have ended up in such an establishment at some point or another, and resolved that Rosalynn need not know about occurrence.

Jack stared about the dowdy pub in awe, while Bill Turner did so in dread. All qualms about the questionable façade of the pungent-smelling inn were abruptly forgotten as plates of indeterminate food items were ungraciously dropped in front of each of the ravenous escapees. The serving maid wrinkled her freckled nose in distaste as the three boorishly shoveled the mess into their mouths, not to be bothered with silverware. For a fleeting moment, the six-year-old child felt a pang of guilt at his lack of table manners for the sake of his mother, but any remorse was quashed as a warm biscuit found its way to his gravy-coated lips.

After each of the dishes had been emptied and tankards of rum drained by all (another inconsequential detail that Rosalynn need not find out about), the deckhand and child looked expectantly toward the pirate lord, unsure of what they were to be doing next. This was, undeniably, the first episode of their young lives in which they were fugitives from the law, and as the thieving captain was, unequivocally, highly experienced in homologous circumstances, it seemed appropriate that he serve as the educationist to the two.

Sensing the boys' inquisitive stares, the criminal removed his boots from the tabletop and directed his attention to the patient sailor. "All right, boy, like I said, I found you a ship heading for Stranraer that'd be happy to have you, so long as you earn your keep. I suppose you'll be able to find your way back to wherever 'tis you live from there, aye?"

The young crewman's face brightened. "Absolutely, Cap'n, sir. Thank you, sir-"

Waving off the man's stammered gratitude, Teague proceeded. "If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Turner, it's me what should be doing the thanking. Your ride'll be docking tomorrow morning eight miles from here. I suggest that you start headin' that way."

Bill stood, securing his tricorne atop his dark curls. "Thank you kindly, Cap'n Teague," he said sincerely, shaking the murderer's hand. "You very well might've made a pirate outta me." The wrinkled man smiled and offered a curt nod of approval.

"Much obliged, Mr. Turner."

Jack, who was valiantly striving to remain indifferent and businesslike, could not suppress the faint pout contorting his face at being ignored. To his childish delight, the newly proclaimed pirate turned his gaze toward the petulant boy.

Determined to remain phlegmatic, he extended his miniature hand and said, quite somberly, "Thank you, sir, for entertaining me in my time of indisposition." Bill was rather dumbfounded at the lad's vocabulary; he certainly didn't know words like that. The boy's insouciant demeanor was instantaneously broken upon observing his older friend's bewildered expression, his moue stretching into an amused grin. "Thanks, Bill," he said genuinely.

The deckhand mirrored his young companion's smile. "I wouldn't be surprised to see you again, Captain Jack Sparrow."

Now, William Turner was by no means a psychic, or for that matter, even an intellectual thinker. Consequently, he had no attestation of what the future would hold for both he and the pirate's son. He didn't know that he was destined to wed the girl of his dreams. He didn't know that he would selfishly abandon his wife and four-year-old son. He didn't know that, in little over two decades, he would be referring to the child before him as 'Captain.' The fact that he would take part in an unmerited mutiny, designed to dispatch his future commander; that he would be callously lashed to a cannon and left to spend eternity silently rotting beneath the tumbling waves; that the boy who cherished fairy tales would sacrifice his own immortality and choose to save his, William Turner's, only son, his namesake…

He didn't know.

"Goodbye, Jack."

The former Marine-turned-pirate walked out of the tavern, for the first time in his life, brimming with hope. The setting sun bathed him and his surroundings in gentle, golden light, its lingering rays affectionately caressing the landscape as it kissed the tips of the glistening ocean waves adieu. A single reluctant shaft of luminescence dawdled in the young man's brunette locks, apparently quite content to illuminate his thick curls for at least a moment longer. But night was impatient, and the beam gradually faded to join its brethren beyond the horizon. When the welcoming darkness finally blanketed the picturesque seaside village, Bill Turner was already gone, not unlike the final fingers of that day's sunlight.


"So, if Bill is going to Scotland to marry what's-her-face, are we going home?" Jack asked with such straightforwardness that only a child could achieve, his dark eyes innocently inquiring.

"I wish we could, Jackie boy, but there's not many ships inclined to take an eight-thousand mile detour to drop a fugitive from justice at Madagascar, are there? Course, I'd make quick work of it, but I doubt you can swim that far." Teague vindicated as he steered his son toward the door, his hand planted firmly on the lad's shoulder. The pub was rapidly filling with objectionable characters, those of which were either drinking or drunk. Irresponsible and reckless as he was, the harum-scarum captain had never been keen on taverns after night had engulfed them in obscuring shadows.

Jack, on the other hand, found the buoyant, inebriated songs and the crapulous foolery of the tipsy men to be exceedingly amusing. He giggled as a highly intoxicated Frenchman stumbled into a solid wall, as though he hadn't even seen it (which he probably hadn't). The child's laugh was replaced with a justified, "Ow!" as his father tightened his viselike grip on the boy's arm. Hastening his pace so as to keep up with the infamous captain, Jack's free appendage was suddenly caught by an unfamiliar, begrimed hand and wrenched out of his father's grasp.

Startled, he found himself uncomfortably close to an unpleasant, sordid face. His captor's threatening leer was punctuated by gaping holes that yellowed teeth had vacated, his eyes glassy from his immoderate consumption of alcohol.

"Qu'avons-nous ici?" the man hissed nastily. His breath, which was tainted with the heady scent of grog, caused Jack to wrinkle his tan nose in disgust. The man clenched a fistful of the child's unruly hair in his thick hand, roughly jerking the boy's face upward and showing off his prize to his equally drunken friends as the lad gasped in pain and struggled against his captor.

"Regardez! Un peu de chasseurs, il l'est—" the feculent thug was tersely cut off by a thunderous bang.

Jack flinched as a bullet messily embedded itself just above the man's left brow, the impact sending a shower of crimson beads and bits of skull and cerebral matter to spatter both the victim and the child. The boy looked on in horror as the macabre head wound began to emanate a viscous stream of dark liquid. The man's yellowed eyes widened in surprise before they froze and clouded over, his already cooling corpse collapsing to the floor with a nauseating thud. Jack, seemingly petrified, stared as the once-animate body continued to percolate thick vermilion fluid. Blood, the child noted soberly, as though he were remarking on the weather or commenting on his preferred flavor of pie.

"Let's go, Jack," came a throaty mumble.

Evidently numb to the chaos surrounding him, the lad allowed himself to be guided between the numerous skirmishes that had broken out amongst the rum-soaked sailors and into the fortifying night air. A salt-tinged breeze playfully tousled the child's thick locks, attempting to entice him into a more agreeable disposition. The pleasant effect as a whole was rather nullified by the fact that Jack's unkempt tresses were mottled with grotesque bits of cranium and flecks of another man's blood.

The corsair's son looked up at his father, his trusting ebony eyes infused with confusion and desperate query. "You killed him." The boy said. It had not been a question, nor had it been an accusation. It had been an affirmation, simply to confirm that the grisly occurrence had been reality.

Teague bit his lip. The sight of his child dappled with blood was unlike anything the thief had ever braved, in all his years of experience. He felt horrendously helpless, and was, admittedly, not especially fond of the sensation.

"He was hurting you," he explicated simply.

Jack remained unblinking; his gaze neither incriminating nor frightened. Simply… puzzled. "You killed him," he repeated faintly.

His father's heart momentarily faltered. He'd just lost the boy's trust. Teague tentatively approached the distraught child, hoping against hope that his imprudent actions had not cost him a son. Wary as he had been of parenthood at first, he had accepted the responsibilities of a family, burdensome though they may be, and had unconsciously fallen in love with his diminutive facsimile. Jack Sparrow was, outwardly, entirely his father's child, while his ebullient charisma and witticisms, however, were matched only by his mum. And Captain Edward Teague, world-renowned malefactor, loved a four-foot-tall child more than the sea itself.

Jack barreled into his father's chest, and years from that night, if pressed to elucidate, the pirate lord would have recalled that he had never been so grateful to have the wind knocked out of him.

"Jackie, I have a terrible feeling that you'll grow up to be twice's good of a pirate as me," the villain started contemplatively.

"Three times," came the child's muffled retort.

Teague smirked. "If you're lucky. It's only right that you know that being a good pirate's got nothing to do with how many people you kill." The boy stiffened, but his father continued, regardless. "It's more about what you kill for. See now, I've snuffed anyone what badmouths my dear old mum. I've killed anyone who's wanted to hurt your mother, and the same goes for you, boy. There's a difference betwixt selfish killing and killing to protect the people that you love."

Jack squirmed out of his father's arms and smirked in a decidedly holier-than-thou sort of way. "So," he drawled knowingly, "You looove me?"

The pirate lord scoffed. "Don't get cocky, Jackie," he chastised, teasingly cuffing the self-satisfied boy in the ear.

Jack smiled. It was close enough.


Oh bother, I'm just full of short, slow-paced chapters, aren't I? I assure you, though, the next one (which I've already started, hooray for me!), is far more exciting. And dialogue is my nemesis. Especially French dialogue. Excuse me, I'm going to seethe in the corner...

You guys are as cool as... polar bears. And that's pretty cool.