Oh my lordy lordy am I actually going to FINISH A STORY!? OH MY GOD!! Ok, people, it's almost the endgame here. Like... This isn't going to break 70 chapters. Not unless my muses pull a Three Word Phrase on me and put in another plot twist or something. BUT OH... I'm so excited. SO excited.
"So, you see, it's ok! Because it's two completely different things! Like… Like… Asparagus and coral!" Jack whirled to face the older pirate, walking backwards and grinning from ear to ear. "They're not even comparable, really, not at all."
"Yes, yes, of course."Bill mumbled, having stopped paying attention to what the boy was saying some five minutes ago. He loved the boy, he really did, (in a completely platonic manner, of course) but he could talk the blubber off of a whale, and his side was really starting to ache. "Not at all."
"I knew you'd agree with me!" Jack almost squealed with glee and launched himself at his friend/mentor/love.
Completely forgetting he was injured, of course.
Jack crushed his lips against Bill's, moving with the fervour and passion only a young sex-starved boy can achieve. He'd been dreaming of this almost since before he entered puberty. Bill had saved him, Bill loved him, Bill took care of him. And he took care of Bill, too, as best he could. They were meant for one another. Age difference be aside, they loved one another, and be damned if Jack was going to let a couple of years get between them.
Bill was trying to say something. A protest, no doubt, judging by the hands pressing increasingly weakly against his shoulders. And then he wasn't resisting at all. He lay there, letting Jack ravish him. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but Jack would really have liked a little participation. If Bill kissed him back, there wouldn't be any more doubt between them.
He slid his hands over Bill's chest, remembering how it felt to be held naked against it, rocked gently while Bill sang in whispered French. He wanted Bill to hold him again, to wrap his strong arms around him and pull him close. He wanted him to do something, anything.
He moved his hand down, feeling the other man's ribs through the fabric of his shirt. Down to his stomach, the hem of his pants, across to the laces… And then proof, proof of what he'd known all along, proof of what Bill was never going to admit unless Jack made him. There would be time enough for hesitation and shaky hands later.
And then something wet and hot and sticky under his fingers, soaking through the already stained shirt.
"Oh bugger."
Jack had ripped his stitches.
Not only was it his fault he'd been hurt in the first place, he'd made it even worse by ripping out his bloody stitches.
It wouldn't have been too bad. The wound wasn't all that serious, and they had quite a capable doctor on board. It'd leave a pretty nasty scar, but that was about it. Simple.
Or at least, it should have been. Bill had lost a lot of blood, both before arriving at the doctor's and after. The doctor patched him up, gave him some water and all the rum he could drink, and that was it. There was nothing else he could do. Just wait and pray.
Wait and pray.
Jack had been forbidden to enter the infirmary. He was forced to wait outside, leaning up against the bulkhead next to the door and trying not to cry. He was the captain, and be damned if he was going to let the crew see him bawling like a babe. He had to be strong. For the crew.
For Bill.
"Tis a shame, inn' it?"
Jack looked up, understandably startled. Barbossa had found himself a seat on the other side of the door, his outrageous hat temporarily at rest on the floor beside him. He tilted a little silver flask to his lips, looking at Jack out of the corner of his sly eyes.
"Poor Bill. He ain't deservin' of this sort of suffering."
"No, he isn't." Jack shot Barbossa a wary look. Although it had been almost four years since the tall man had started sailing with them, he still didn't completely trust him. He wasn't the sort of man you trust. "What do you want?"
"Me? Nuthin'. I be but a lowly first mate, Cap'n Sparrow. Tis your prerogative to be wantin'." Barbossa put his gangly hand over his heart, as if offended by the very suggestion, all the while grinning beneath his raggedy beard.
"What do you mean?" Jack found himself frowning, leaning forward, frightened and worried and all too vulnerable. "Wanting what?"
"Why, Bootstrap, o' course." Barbossa grinned his sly grin, nodding his head towards the locked door. "Ye be wantin' him alive, don't cha?"
"Of course! " The boy scrambled around to face the older pirate, caught in Barbossa's clever net from the moment he opened his mouth. "But there's nothing I can do! Nothing anyone can do!"
"But what if there were?" Barbossa leaned forward, and somehow the scene changed.
It was no longer a boy and a man sitting against a wall in a tiny little hallway in the middle of a rocking ship. It was close, and secretive, and mysterious, and above all, adventure. It didn't really matter what came out of Barbossa's mouth next, it would be prophecy.
"Tell me." Jack whispered, barely able to breathe. "What do I have to do?"
"What do ye know about the Aztecs, Jack?"
