Reasons
by Shella
* *
Summary: An alternative motive for Will's determination to rescue Elizabeth, & the results as they pertain to Captain Jack Sparrow. Blatant, gratuitous, highly enjoyable slash.
Genre: Romance / Comedy
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: SLASH, BABY!! ie, male relations of a homosexual nature
Archive: Anywhere you want it, just let me know - I'm eager to find out stashes of PotC slash
A/N: Captain Jack Sparrow is possibly the most fun, most interesting character I've ever encountered or had the enjoyment & privilege to attempt writing. Love him. All hail Johnny Depp for bringing him to life.
Jack stared at Will. The lantern in the captain's cabin of the Interceptor danced on his tanned skin like firelight, throwing the darkness of his eyes and the kohl around them into sharp relief. His voice, when he spoke, was as haltingly eloquent as always, smoky and indecent. "You're telling me," he said, "that we've sailed hundreds of miles ... through storms and savage seas ... promised away a ship that isn't ours ... gotten me slapped far more than I deserved ... for duty? Some girl, whom you love like a sister, saved your life when you were a lad, so you see fit to put me through all of ... all of that to return the favour?"
Will swallowed. He hadn't wanted to tell Jack the true reason for their endeavour, but the Captain's insinuations about the young blacksmith's intentions towards his 'bonny lass' had been making him increasingly uncomfortable. A lying scumbag of a pirate he might have been, but Will was honourable, and felt bound to tell the truth.
"...More or less."
There was no rule that stated he couldn't cringe while he was doing so. Jack's eyes were exceptionally disconcerting, despite or perhaps because their owner was, like always, most of a bottle of rum worse for wear. Someone as frequently inebriated as Jack shouldn't be able to hold such a steady stare, and that might have been what intimidated Will. What kind of a man could act so sober when so drunk?
The Captain hadn't reacted to Will's affirmation of his admittance any more than a solemn blink. The lad looked away, waiting tensely for the arm-waving theatrics sure to result.
"...Oh. Well, it's not as good a reason as true love, but I guess it'll do."
Will blinked. Slowly he turned his head to where Jack had, a moment ago, been leaning forward in an overbearing, almost threatening manner. But now the Captain was leaning back in his chair, tilting it so that only two legs were on the floor. How he managed this on a moving ship, Will wasn't sure.
But that wasn't important. What was important was that the pirate wasn't displaying the sharpness of his cutlass.
"You're ... okay with that?" Will asked cautiously. An amiable sound of confirmation was his response, as the lips of said pirate were more concerned with the remainder of the rum bottle held loosely, lovingly in the hand of said pirate. "What about your crew? They won't mind?"
Jack chuckled as he lowered the bottle. "Mate, they weren't told that we were sailing for true love in the first place! See, the good thing about a mad crew - as you so aptly described them - is that they're all in it for the adventure! They're in it for the feel of a deck beneath their feet, for drama and danger, for the call of the sea!" Now came the arm-waving theatrics Will had anticipated, but instead of anger, they were an expression of the pirate-minded reasons he was stating so passionately. Will found Jack fascinating when the Captain was talking on a subject he was passionate about, and found his own fascination uncomfortable.
"And the profit they'll make at the end of it," he added cynically.
"Yes, there is that," Jack conceded. This, naturally, put him in mind of his promise to Anamaria. He sighed, looking around him mournfully. "My oath, but it'll be a wrench to leave this behind." The gesture he gave, typical in its undirected vagueness, somehow managed to encompass the whole ship and emphasise the cabin they were currently in. "It is such a lovely room, after all. Very romantic. Far more fitting to the likes of Captain Jack Sparrow than, say, that dinky little dungeon you rescued me from." He nodded acknowledgment and thanks for that act to Will.
The blacksmith, for his part, had been sidetracked by the fact that his brain had, on one level more concerned with the interesting and fantastic than the factual and mundane, focused on three words. 'Romantic', 'Jack', and 'cabin' wandered through his mind. Presently, they connected.
"Are you all right, mate? You've hardly drunk at all, there's no reason to choke like that."
Will shook his head violently and took a swig of rum to cover his discomfiture. He gasped, feeling the searing heat of alcohol scorch his tongue and throat, and coughed. Struggling to breathe, he gasped, "I think - you should keep your word - and give the ship to Anamaria."
Jack watched him closely until it became apparent that Will had recovered from his attack of alcohol. Then, returning with surprising clarity of memory to the topic of conversation, he sighed. "Yes, I suppose I shall ... besides, I'll have the Pearl back, and be master of the seas once more!"
The grand-gestures-and-speeches mood had overtaken him once more as the Captain got to his feet. "None shall stand before me! Me and my crew shall be legendary, terrors of the Caribbean!" He pointed at Will with alarming grandeur. "And you'll be my first mate - Blacksmith Will who plays with swords three hours a day because he can't find a place to sheathe his own!"
Will spluttered, indignant fury and embarrassment colouring his cheeks. "Jack!" he shouted angrily. "You - you rude, uncouth, despicable ... pirate!"
The Captain laughed. "Takes one to know one, matey!"
"It does not! I am not a pirate!" fumed Will.
"Oh, come on!" said Jack, the laughter still in his dark eyes. He dragged a chair over to sit beside Will, staring at him and grinning because he was convinced of his own viewpoint and because he knew such proximity discomfited the other. "You sprang a man from jail, commandeered a vessel of the Fleet, sailed under the greatest and most infamous pirate in history-"
Again, the level of Will's mind that concentrated on the interesting and fantastic ahead of the factual and mundane had engaged its selective hearing. Thus, the idea of being under Jack imposed itself on the blacksmith's other trains of thought with startling promptness.
He flushed.
Jack continued as if he hadn't heard, but there was an added crease around his kohl-rimmed eyes that spoke of knowing amusement. "In fact, you even look the part." Without warning, he grabbed Will's arm and dragged him over to the mirror, taking his own hat and placing it on the other man's head. "See? Very handsome, if I may make so bold."
The compliment was disregarded as Will was forced to stare at his reflection, at himself as a pirate. I'm not ... I don't ... I never ... He ripped the hat from his head and shoved it at Jack. "I am not a pirate," he snapped, "and I never will be. I'm not like you, Jack."
Jack smirked, utterly nonplussed. "On the contrary, young William. You and I may be more alike than you realise." He stepped closer, suddenly regarding the younger man with sober intensity. As though separate to its owners actions and unwilling to intrude on or disturb the interaction between the two, his arm crept away to deposit the hat on the table. Its counterpart reached up to run over Will's hair and settle at the back of his neck.
Will felt his heart beating much faster than usual. He couldn't speak. Jack's face was close before him, smouldering eyes holding his own captive, motionless lips nonetheless managing to promise so much he didn't understand and wasn't experienced with. There was heat between them, heat that made his stomach flush hotly and his pulse race in his fingertips.
"Jack? How much have you had to drink?"
He had forced himself to speak, scared beyond reason by the knowledge that whatever he felt for Captain Jack Sparrow, he knew nothing. His throat had closed, his mouth had dried up, his lips had numbed, and even his mind had tried to reason him out of it, but he had spoken. Broken the heavy silence. Distracted the possibilities hanging over his head and spoiled the moment. And his heart lurched and demanded an explanation he suddenly found he didn't have.
Jack recognised this. He paused just a moment, just long enough to convey his disappointment with Will, before abruptly releasing him and pulling away.
"Not enough," he said. Reaching for the bottle, he cast another look at his companion, a sort of 'last chance, are you sure?' look. "Care to join me for a swig or two?"
Will ached. He felt stupid with indecision. It was wrong, so wrong to want to do ... those things ... let alone want to do them with a man - and yet part of him was trying, faintly and desperately, to convince him that two wrongs might possibly make something extremely right. He couldn't take his eyes off Jack.
The pirate captain looked at him. It was a searching look, one that made Will feel like he couldn't have hidden anything from the other man if he'd tried. And suddenly he decided that he very much wanted Jack to understand his predicament, to understand that Will did want him that way, so much, to understand that he was afraid and, for once in his life, incapable of being brave.
"On second thoughts..." said Jack slowly, and put down the bottle. "Maybe I have had enough to drink..." He approached Will and took the other's face in his hands. And everything Will had felt before, the heat and the promise and the possibilities, returned so suddenly and forcefully his knees threatened to buckle. Jack's lips were inches from his own and the pirate's breath was warm and rum-fragranced. His eyes were half-lidded, enjoying their closeness and looking like he had Will exactly where he wanted him. "Seeing as there's no such thing as too much..." Smoky breath and steaming words and lips moving so sensuously...
Damned if Jack was going to have all the initiative.
Will leaned forward and somehow stopped short of smashing their lips together. He settled for a wet sexy smush that was exactly everything he hadn't known it would be. Their mouths were open, a pair of lips moving together and around and over each other, relishing every nuance of tactile contact for itself and for the impending 'more' implied by each moment.
There was a mutual, unspoken decision to pause, during which Jack hummed soundlessly in satisfaction and Will felt like he was going to faint. What the hell had he just done?
"Aah," Jack breathed. "That'd explain the lack of romantic interest in Miss Swan."
"I'm sorry," stammered Will, but his body put the lie to his words by refusing to move away from its companion, whom it liked very much.
The Captain sensed his nervousness. "Mmm ... I'm guessing you don't practice that for three hours a day," he remarked dryly, a smirk on his lips but a smile in his eyes.
Will flushed. "I should leave," he blurted.
He hadn't even started to move before one of Jack's arms moved like a striking snake to curl around his waist and pull him close, effectively preventing any movement. "Oh, no ... no no no no..." he murmured, "don't do that ... we haven't gotten to the interesting bit yet..."
And then Jack was kissing him, stronger this time, passionate, and Will did so enjoy it when Jack was passionate about something...
Naturally, the next morning Jack was roughly nine-tenths hangover-free, having selflessly accommodated close on two whole bottles, whereas young William, having more or less accidentally taken on no more than two glasses himself, might as well have been dead.
Jack examined the prone form in his bed with mild curiosity. The boy's face was furrowed with the pain of a headache felt even through the numbing veils of sleep, and his mouth was slightly open in a decidedly disenchanting manner. Nevertheless, and more importantly, he was pretty much as naked as the day he'd been born, and the blankets had been dragged down to the point where the slight sway of his (extreme) lower back became visible. Given that Will had one of the more delicious bodies the Captain had laid eyes (and hands) on, this was very much a positive thing. So perhaps that made up for the fact that his face had seen better days.
Funny fella, that Will character. Very noble and upstanding, with a rather endearing if foolish tendency to stick to those 'moral' thingies he placed so much value on. And yet his actions and reactions last night had proved beyond doubt that, even if he wasn't a pirate by the financial definition, he was a dirty scoundrel in bed.
Quite insatiable, too. It wasn't often that Captain Jack Sparrow bottomed, but his first encounter with Will's enthusiasm and talent had convinced him that maybe, with education, the kid would make it worth his while. And, as always, he was right. In fact, he was proved right several times. His muscles were already letting him know that sitting down was going to be damn uncomfortable, and he felt more exhausted than he had in ... oh, ages ... but by Heaven (aka Will Turner's naughty bits), it was worth it.
There was a groan from the bed, and Jack promptly floated over with a mug of water (care when walking was also necessary, but luckily everyone knew Captain Jack Sparrow walked like he had a fish in his trousers anyway, so it probably wouldn't be noticed).
A distinctly miserable-looking Will opened one bloodshot eye, but the midmorning sunlight sneaking in through the drawn curtains of the captain's cabin was too much. Almost whimpering, he squeezed both eyes shut again and buried his face in the pillow.
Jack was nimble, Jack was quick, Jack found it all terribly amusing, the prick.
He grinned, flashing gold teeth and unholy eyes, and settled on the bed beside his most recent (and most delightful) conquest. "Come on, luv, wake up," he whispered, compromising between the cheerful humour he felt at having bedded Will Turner and a rare moment of consideration for the boy's volume-sensitive hearing.
"Nmnuh," explained Will, and Jack nodded seriously.
"An excellent point," he agreed, and tipped a tiny bit of water on Will's back.
An involuntary muscle twitch ran up the boy's spine, well developed from years in the smithy and tanned from exposure to heat, sun, and Jack. Definitely a nice view to wake up to. For the brief few moments when he'd been out on deck, checking what raucous mischief his crew had been up to and applauding their taste in crooked/obscene/downright dodgy card games, he'd missed it. Jack ran his palm up the smooth skin, warm to the point of being nearly toasty, and felt the shiver and relaxation caused by his touch. Will was a very satisfying person to coax reactions from. Like the reaction he made when Jack leaned down and licked that bit of water off.
"Mffrggunum!!!"
Jack considered this. "Well, I suppose that's reasonable enough, when you put it that way..." He eyed the recently rearranged blankets, somewhat disordered from their occupant's latest reaction. They looked like they were making a bid for freedom. Well, even the fearsome Captain Jack Sparrow had his moments of charity.
The squawk his bunkmate let out this time was, alas, inexpressible by means of mere phonetic symbols, but that was all right, because Jack was far too distracted by the bare skin practically staring him in the face to form a reasoned and intellectual response as he'd been doing thus far. Instead, again alas, he was forced to continue applying cool clean water to that delicious expanse of tanned silk and enjoying the taste and reactions he got from removing it with his tongue.
Eventually, he managed to coax his victi-err-no, wait, victim is the right word - into drinking what was left of the water in the mug, and then proceeded to discard the object and snog him silly.
"Mate, we've got to build up your alcohol tolerance," he muttered, in between taking bites of the other's mouth with his tongue and lips.
"Shgnck," grumbled Will.
"Yes," said Jack, and that was enough.