Title: The Past Never Lets Go.
Summary: When William Turner the Elder turns up will young Will lose his lover?
Chapter 11?
Writer: Azure K Mello
Distribution: ask.
Rating: R for now.
Warning: angst
Thecaptain's chambers were dark save for the one lantern Will had lit. There was a slight shine of moonlight, reflected off the water, coming through the window. Will sat and watched the shadows on the floor, the flickering flames, the blue water. He needed something to capture his attention and keep him from thoughts of his father. Silently, he stripped naked and slid into bed. He smiled sadly as he reflected on how Jack had rubbed off on him. There was just something about the feel of silk on flesh that made him feel content and safe as the boat rocked him like a child in his mother's womb.
After a little over a half hour Jack entered silently, "Will?" he asked softly, "You asleep?"
"No, Why are you not at the party?"
"You weren't there. I got bored easily without you."
"I'm not doing anything, just thinking: you will bore of me soon."
"Never," he ignored the accusation as he undressed and laid himself behind his young lover. "Happy, Will?"
"Always when I'm with you."
Jack heard the lie in the melancholy tone but went on, "I meant, are you happy with your father here?"
"He isn't what I expected."
"In a good way?"
"It's late, Jack. Let's go to sleep."
"He's only 'ere for you."
"No, the way he looks at you," Will shook his head unable to verbalize the confusion and resentment he felt towards his father.
Seeing where Will was going, Jack interrupted. "Not the reason he's here, then. The reason he's suffered to be here." Upon seeing that Will was still confused he continued. "There is no room on The Pearl for mutineers. I don't care what their reasons were: they aren't welcome. He's only allowed to be here because you wanted to know him."
"I wanted to know him," echoed Will. Slowly, he rolled over to face his captain, "Thank you."
Jack placed his hands on Will's face, "Beautiful," he stared into the young pirate's eyes, "lovely boy."
He continued to search Will's eyes and finally the boy asked, "What?"
"Nothing, I just like looking at you."
Laughing fondly Will said, "Fool, go to sleep."
It seemed like only moments between when he shut his eyes and when he found himself being awoke by strange noises. Someone was stumbling around the cabin. "Wh-" he started but Jack's fingernails bit into his hips warning him to be quiet.
"This isn't your room. Get out." The captain's voice was calm and commanding.
"It's me," said the older Turner's voice.
"I know. Leave."
"I came to see you. Is there someone with you?" he squinted through the dark.
Will rolled over to face his father, "He told you to leave." The man's eyes flashed with anger and Will almost recoiled as he realized they were bright green.
"My son. You bedded my son? You're perverse. That is disgusting. And you," he turned his vitriol on Will, "what profit did you seek from this unnatural coupling? To come a step closer to me? To out do me? Why?"
Will's tongue felt heavy; he couldn't swallow, couldn't talk. In the face of his father's anger Will couldn't think. Thankfully, Jack spoke for him, "How dare you? Get out!" he shouted, getting out of bed, and pulling on trousers as he went. "Back in a moment, beautiful," he kissed Will, gently and slowly, making damn sure the elder Turner saw. Jack pulled the man out of the room.
As soon as they left Will got up and dressed quickly. He followed the men on silent feet. The sound of Bootstrap's angry voice acted as Will's guide. The man's tirade ended as they stepped out onto the deck, "You wanted me so badly that ye went fer me son! "Will hung back in the shadows. Jack was looking down at the planks and Will felt sick thinking that Jack was ashamed of the truth.
But Jack's eyes were made of fire as he looked up, "I don't want you, haven't wanted you since the day you-" he broke off his own words. "I lied to him. When we met he thought you to be a good man. And he was so beautiful and he hated me so much that I didn't want to be the one to tell him that you didn't want him, would never have seen him if I hadn't forced you to, that you never did anything to benefit anyone but you. He asked me why you went with Barbossa," he laughed bitterly. "I told him that you were worries about him. I said, you didn't stand up for me because you wanted to get back to him and his mother.
"And the really pathetic part is that I convinced meself the same thing when I was waiting to die on that bloody island. I decided that you only acted … as you did so that you could be totally free, even if it was just from me. And I thought you would go back to them. But, even then you hadn't seen them in a year. I didn't tell him the truth that you weren't watching them hurt me- that you were doing it. You enjoyed it: me supplicated to you like you had been to my father. I loved you and you beat and raped me on the deck of me own ship. I told him that Barbossa led the mutiny, he claims he does and the crew lets him out of fear. I didn't tell him that it was you who forced me at sword point to walk the plank, that you only grew a conscience later, that Barbossa overthrew you not me. No one knows the truth; they all think Barbossa was the prime arse in the game.
"I wanted him to have a happy picture of his father and I didn't want to remember the truth. You were dead, there was nothing to lose, and everything to gain. I hadn't trusted anyone since you and then there he was- everything you never were and so bloody much more. He would never slaughter children for a case of good wine, he would never destroy his own lover, never think power was more important than life.
"I went with him on a fool's errand to see if he was like you. He isn't, not at all, he's just devastating. I love his eyes, there's not even a slight trace of there, I've fallen desperately in love with him. And I can't tell him because he'll leave when he realizes that I lied. He'll run when he realizes I'm a stupid, lecherous old man." He shook his head slowly. "I thought that you were like him once. But you're the reason people loathe pirates." He turned to go back to his bed, to his boy. "Tomorrow we will dock and you will find a valid, believable reason to leave. You'll tell Will that you're proud of who he became. You'll send him a letter at Christmastime. If I see you again I will kill you. There are a hundred reasons for him to leave but I won't lose him over you, I'm not losing anything more to you. Tomorrow: you leave."
Will quickly returned, undressed, and crawled under the covers. He couldn't stop the angry, bitter, frustrated tears from falling. He hadn't cried since he was a small child. Yet he had, only a few nights prior, dreamt of tears. And it felt odd and foreign. His father had never wanted anything to do with him. His father had hurt Jack and was the source of all the captain's trust and mental stability problems. Jack loved him, not his father not a replacement of his father, he loved him. Jack had lied to him. And the man honestly thought Will could leave him because he had told the boy exactly what the youth had been longing to hear? The confusion engulfed him and he stopped crying but didn't dry his face: he was too tired to put in an effort.
When Jack returned he saw the tears and sank down at Will's bedside. Assuming that they were caused by the earlier scene he said, "He's drunk and confused: it's been a long day. I think he really likes you."
"I followed you."
"Oh," he was withdrawing into himself right in front of Will's eyes. The boy reached out for his lover's hand.
"Thank you," he said softly, "for giving me a lovely father. . ." not knowing what to say he finally asked, "How could you let him on your ship?"
"For you," Jack replied looking out of the window at the water beyond the boy.
"I would have killed him had I been you." Jack gave him a tight, forced smile. "You love me?" asked Will so softly Jack almost could have missed it.
"Yes. But that was a given."
"Not for me," he saw Jack's confusion and smiled sadly at the fool he'd been. "I didn't know why I was here or why you kept me. I thought it was out of a sense of duty or because I really did remind you of him. I thought he'd hurt you too badly for you to love me. I thought. . . that if you ever did it would be for who I reminded you of. I felt more stupid and useless every time I told you that I loved you knowing that you weren't going to say what I wanted to hear." He had slipped into his memories and wasn't talking to Jack, he was simply talking, "When Norrington offered me my old life back I told him that my place was with you; I felt the whore to willingly turn that down for you. And I came back here and you ad the letter, which I knew was from my father, and I went with you. I went to that tavern, positive you would leave me, I went because I wanted every minute I could steal." He looked up suddenly and remembering himself was deeply embarrassed and laughed weakly.
Jack just stared at him, never one to be embarrassed by admissions of emotions: he was a pirate, a man of passion. But he was still shocked by the story. "I love you," he thought it had been obvious. He pulled the boy close and he felt the youth trembling. All the time he'd been worried about the boy's melancholy attitude he had been too thick to see he was the cause. "I love you baby boy." He kissed Will's neck and shoulders deciding he had better make up for lost time. "I love you for putting up with me, for your honesty, for your kindness, for your loyalty, and your laugh, and mirth, and sarcasm, you actually listen to my stories, you'd never hurt anyone, your patient with small children. Love you for your innocence and your sense of justice, your self-righteousness which isn't annoying because you're so earnest, for your steadfast grasp on Christianity even when faced with irrefutable proof of other gods, for that place behind your ear, the way you indulge me when I'm acting mad, the fact that you read when it's sunny, for your beauty, and your self-depricatingness, your trust, for your talent to create beautiful things." Will wasn't shaking anymore. "I love you."