Whoot! Accomplishment! Two days in a row!!

Yeah... We're getting into less angst and more sop for the moment. I don't want to say the chapters are filler, per say, but... They're not too terribly action-ridden.

Waki 41

Jack's lips were warm. Not hot, like he remembered them. Just warm. Silky, not rough. The damage wrought by years at sea had been healed by a couple of months of good personal hygiene. His hands slid easily through the man's strangely fluffy hair. He could barely imagine what it would have been like trying to duplicate the gesture with the captain's thick dreadlocks. He suspected that particular voyage would be one from which his hand would not return. Just one more victim to Jack's out-of-control braids.

As it was… the man felt too small beneath his arms. Jack had always been so large, his monstrous ego shining through and making him as a giant among men. The reality was much less impressive. He was only a few inches taller than Elizabeth, and probably weighed about the same. Underneath all the puffy clothes and the outrageous demeanour, he really wasn't that big at all. Skin and bones, really. No wonder they had such a hard time keeping him in shackles. They didn't make them in petite.

He had expected Jack to fight back. Once the shock wore off, he expected some sort of battle. A good slap up the side of the head, at the very least. He wouldn't have put it past the irritable man to shoot him right then and there.

But he didn't. He just stood there, letting Will kiss him. His hands had automatically come up, ready to defend himself if need be. They appeared to be rather undecided as to what they wanted to do. Part of them seemed to think they should be curling up into fists and launching themselves at Will's face, and the other seemed to want to take a grip of his shirt and hold on like his life depended on it. They settled for making fists against his chest.

The rest of his body appeared to be making similar concessions. His back was stuck halfway between curling outward, and thus away from the smith, and relaxing into him. It decided to tense in the opposite direction, therefore pushing the man closer to him. Whether that was part of the plan or not was a mystery.

Slowly, regretfully, Will pulled back, keeping his arms wrapped around his captain and quietly vowing to never let go, even if Jack really did shoot him. The captain opened his dark eyes, looking up at him with a strange expression somewhere between shock and amazement.

"You… You just…" The captain stammered, blinking owlishly.

"Yes, I did." Will sighed, smiling a little sadly.

He twirled a piece of the man's dark hair around his finger, loving the silky feel of it. Loving it, and at the same time wishing it were different.

"Why?" Jack gaped at him, apparently not noticing that the man was playing with his hair like one might play with the fur of a dog.

"Isn't it obvious?" Will smiled, the same smile he used to always give Elizabeth, back in the days when she was still Miss Swann. "I love you, Captain Jack Sparrow. And I always have, ever since I first met you."

Jack stared at him, dark brows knitting together in the single most adorable expression Will had ever seen. His mouth worked silently, struggling to come up with words to express the confusion running rampant behind his black eyes. Will didn't mind. He knew the feeling.

He would wait. He would wait for Jack to figure out what he wanted to say. No matter how long it took, no matter what finally came out of his mouth.

He wasn't going to let them make the same mistake twice.