Pirates of the Caribbean and the Daughter of Thieves
Ch.6
Will's Dilema
After hurried and obedient shuffling around his cabin by members of his crew carrying a tin basin, large enough to fit a large dog or a medium sized man, and the constant closing and opening of the door, caused by those same men carrying buckets to fill the bath's capacity, Jack closed and locked the door for the final time, and placed the key on his cluttered desk. He removed his trusty bandana, the plaits and story-worthy trinkets that adorned his hair.
He then stripped himself, hissing from time to time as strain and shooting spasms of pain coursed through his sorrowful muscles. He eased into the water, moaning as he felt the effect the warmth had over his body. It was like a good kind of numbness. The feeling spread from his unruly hair to the tip of toes and he greeted it as he fell into the void of long awaited relaxation and pleasure.
He grabbed the soap and began scrubbing himself clean but lathered more gently around the scraped and bruised parts. He thought back to what had passed that day and he realized that he had fulfilled something he had vengefully coursed through his entire life.
He was dead. Gone. And now he had avenged his parents deaths. They could rest in peace.
A tear streamed down his eye, and as he went to wipe it away, he felt a peculiar stinging in his eye. He rubbed at it, hoping to stop the pain, but it seemed all he was doing was making it worse, for the stinging increased.
He looked down at his hand and noticed the source of the problem. The suds were a dead give away.
He had gotten soap in his eye.
Searching fervently for a towel, a piece of cloth, something that would stop this insistent pain that would not diminish, try as he might.
He leaped out of the tub, while still rubbing ferociously, hoping that the feeling might change. Tears sprung hot in his eyes, and becoming half blind, he ran into his desk chair with his hip, causing him and the chair to topple over.
Shooting off a stream of curses, he clambered up off the floor, and then suddenly a knock resounded off his door.
Hopefully someone with a blasted towel, he thought thankfully, still rubbing his eyes, but this time, he was trying to clear his blurriness.
"Oh, um...well your uh...busy," came a stuttering voice from the doorway of Jack's room.
"I'll just go."
"Close the door whelp, your lettin' in a draft." Jack said as he clambered into his trousers.
"Sorry, didn't mean to make you jealous. I know how ye seem to be, uh, 'sensitive' about things."
"What are you talking about?"
Jack took a glance up and down Will's physique, giving him a glance over. With a keen smile, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, " Nothin'."
"Ok, anyway, um, Jack, sorry for um interrupting your bath or whatever you were doing," referring to the fact that he had entered the room whilst Jack was scrambling from the floor, cussing like...well, like a sailor. Or in this case, pirate.
"Oh, uh, no problem. I was just...searching for a towel." The simplest way was Jack's way to get out of any question or suspicion, and this statement was no different. This one was extremely passive to what had actually occurred on Jack's frantic rampage.
Jack almost chuckled to himself.
Soap. Jack's dark nemesis.
To think, Captain Jack Sparrow, was almost actually defeated by Captain Suds and Bubbles. Ha! Well he handled calmly and effectively. As always.
"So whelp, what is that you wanted to talk 'bout?" Jack said, as he walked over to the rum cabinet and pulled out a bottle of rum, and skillfully pulled the cork straight out I its containment with his teeth.
"Gibbs told me that you wanted to talk to me." he answered, staring with puzzlement at his captain's either excuse for ADD or absentmindedness.
"Oh right right..." Jack mumbled as he walked purposefully back to the cabinet and pulled out another bottle and handed it to Will, before sauntering over to the table, sitting in his chair, which he leaned back on two legs and swinging his legs onto the table, to give a certain, unstable stableness.
"What's this for?" Will asked, indicating to the rum bottle.
"Well, I could be mistaken, but I firmly believe that that," he said pointing a ring-clad finger to the bottle sloshing with amber-liquid, "is for drinking. But then again, even the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow, could be wrong sometimes
"I don't drink." Will stated defiantly, furious with the audacity that Jack contained to even think that he would even want a drink.
"Well, we're gonna be here for a while, so your gonna need that. But if you really don't wan' it, I'll drink it. After I'm done with this one o' course." Jack said ruefully as he raised his rum bottle to him in mock salutation.
Will just stared at him, speechless, and unable to think of anything that would cause Jack to become annoyed and just let him go.
Finally he said, after his throat had finished double-clutching on him, "Is that all? You asked me to come in here for a drink."
Jack chuckled humorously. The whelp still never thinks outside the box for anything. If he didn't want to be here, why did he come in the first place? And where was his bonny lass, Lizzie.
Realization struck him.
Could they not be together anymore? No, that absurd. The last time he saw them they were inseparable. Literally. I mean, you had throw them in the ocean, and only then would they remove themselves from each other.
No, it had to be something else...
Couldn't it?
"Son...there is always a reason for havin' rum. Remember tha' when ye're in me presence. I always have a reason. It may not be a good one, but it's a reason."
"More like an excuse, you mean." it wasn't a question, it was a statement, and Jack narrowed his eyes in almost what looked like anger. Will gulped loudly.
He had seen Jack, on a fair amount of occasions, where he had that exact same scowl and roguish anger on his face. Usually it was for only a few seconds before he was his smart-alack drunken self again, but sometimes it'd stay like an unwanted storm, billowing quickly and quietly to the service. Until suddenly...it hit. And you were left with a bigger problem on your hands that you had expected or wanted.
However this wasn't that situation, for Jack suddenly smirked at Will, in that devillish smirk, which either meant, that you had amused him, or that he was up to something. But, Will thought, being Jack, it's probably both.
"Perhaps Will, but its better to think, that I'm not using drink for sorrows and more for pleasure. An excuse is findin' an escape from whatever your runnin' from. A reason, is why you doing it. And as for me, I'm drinkin' because I'm not a bloddy pansy, who, in signs of trouble, or problems, refuses to indulge myself, and perhaps escape for a little while. Well, actually that would be you case," Jack said pointing a finger thoughtfully at Will as he continued, " Anyway, I drink cause I can. And no one can tell me otherwise. Savvy?"
"Yeah."
"Well, now that ye're done wit your little charade, would ye like to sit down?"
Will didn't answer but he found himself obediently sitting anyway.
"That's it. Now pull the cork out." Jack said encouragingly, as if teaching a four-year-old how to read.
"I'd prefer not to Jack."
"Well suit yerself." he said as he took a healthy drink, taking half the bottle with him.
"Ah, much better."
"Now Will, I have a few to ask ye, and I want you- and mind you this is coming from a dishonest man, so I'll now if your lying-to answer them as honestly as you can. Savvy?"
Will nodded.
"Good." Jack got up and wandered over to his desk. Will noticed that when Jack talked, he always ended up standing. I guess it made him feel like he was in control of the situation.
"My first question I guess is...What are ye doing on me ship."
Jack POV
He's hesitating. I notice that.
The only reason I can possibly think of, is that he came on me ship for my help.
But why does he need my help?
Original POV
"Well-I...um."
"Will, it's not a brain teaser. Just tell me why you're here. What did you want that you sailed 40,000 miles, on me ship no less, which, let me remind you happens to be a pirate ship, to an island to free me from captive. Don't tell me you just felt like it, because, although I'll be touched, you'd just be findin' and excuse."
Jack sat back down and stared at Will, what seemed patiently. Or was it anxiously. Will didn't know.
Just tell him. What's the big deal? You came to ask for his help, now ask it!
"They took Elizabeth."
The ring that Jack had been playing with, slipped from his hand and rolled on its silver band to the floor, where it scurried under the bed. But Jack hadn't noticed, and if he did, he really didn't care."
"Wha'?"
"They took Elizabeth."
"Who?"
"Well if I knew I would have told you."
Jack sighed, placing a ring-encrusted, minus one, over his forehead in exasperation.
"I told ye you would need that." he said pointing at the bottle, still clutched in Will's now shaken hands, "Take a sip, if will help."
Will stared skeptically between Jack and the bottle. One sip wouldn't hurt.
So removing the cork, he took a sip.
Spluttering and coughing.
Yeah great help Jack.
"You'll get used to it." Jack said reassuringly after Will''s coughing spasm had ended.
"Now," Jack said, leaning forward, "Tell me everything."
Two hours later
Well, one bottle, became two, and then that became three, and then Will simply just lost count. And even if Will was drinking him out of stock, Jack was patient, and surprisingly sober, and he stared at Will's five to his two.
Will need's it, he thought it.
He had just relayed his sorrow to the captain, and Jack couldn't help but feel bad for him. I mean, this had happened to him twice already. Jack knew what it was like to lose a love. He meant the Pearl. And, coincidently, he had lost it twice. So understanding his situation, he nodded his head and said pleasantly, " I'll help ye find your bonny lass," a wave of deja vu swept over him, and he added, "again."
"Really?" Will said, cracking his neck as he removed his hands from his tearing face and quickly lifting his head up, hope lighting his eyes.
"Of course. What are friends for?"
"Well how are we going to find her?"
"Way ahead of ye mate." He said getting up again, and turning to face Will, flamboyantly moving his hands to superfluously convey his point.
"The way I see it, we need more information, because, let's face it mate, your story had left something to be desired when it comes to info. So," clapping his hands enthusiastically once," where else to get information, then none other than..." he left the rest blank, stairing expectantly at Will, as if daring him to guess.
A little light bulb went off in Will's head, but it was far from an ingenious "Eureka!"
"Oh no," Will groaned as if in agony.
"Oh yes. So, get some rest, because we dock in Tortuga tomorrow."
Turning back in the doorway, as he was about to leave, he said to Will.
"Tortuga's the only way mate. One step for lustfull pirates, One huge leap toward Elizabeth.
And with that, Jack left his cabin, with Will cursing animatedly, behind him.
