I feel so sorry for Bill. Jack is a total minx.

ALSO! Further reminder! Looking for artists! Give me a shout, eh?

With love, Jiia

AMKNHTHOEITHOIDNTOINH
I'm SO SORRY!! Yesterday's chapter? Totally not yesterday's chapter. THIS is today's chapter, and yesterday's chapter has been fixed so it is, in fact, yesterday's chapter.

I'M SO SORRY!!

"You're not angry with me, are you Bill?"

Bill blinked, taking a moment to shamefully glance about and remember exactly where he was. The young man beside him looked up at him, dark eyes filled with concern. Jack pouted up at him, full lips turned up in a perfect worried frown that was just a little too good to be real.

"What for?" It was Bill's turn to frown. "Have you done something that would deserve my ire?"

Jack giggled in a way which did absolutely nothing to comfort the sudden rampant paranoia digging its way through Bill's mind.

"No... You just don't seem to be... Paying as much attention as you used to."

Jack leant back against the balustrade, as casual as any captain on his ship. Looking at him standing there, Bill would never have guessed he was the same tragic imp he'd picked up all those years ago. Ever since they got on the Pearl, he'd been changing at an increasingly rapid rate. They'd only been on the ship for a few weeks, and already he seemed to have grown a couple of inches. His hair was longer than Bill remembered it being, as well, brushing his lean shoulders in increasingly thick clumps held together by seasalt and sweat. His tricorn hat and newly acquired coat, a 'gift' from the Pearl's previous captain, were slowly starting to fit as he grew into them. He was still just a boy, but with every passing day, he was becoming more of a man.

"Wh-what do you mean?" Bill stammered, shoving a hand quickly through his hair in an attempt to hide their sudden nervous tremors.

"Well... you don't look at me anymore." Jack looked at him, drifting somewhere between bored and curious. "And you never start conversations anymore. It's like you're suddenly nervous around me. I can't imagine why."

The rather mature grin the young man gave him said he knew exactly what Bill was suddenly nervous around him, and that he was not at all repulsed by the idea. Bill flushed and turned away.

"It's nothing, Jack."

"No, it's bloody well not!" The boy slammed his foot into the deck, suddenly rocketing back to twelve years old. "I don't know what to do with you anymore, Bill! I don't know what you want from me!"

Bill looked back at him, blinking in mixed shock and confusion. Tears welled up in the young man's eyes, even as he struggled to keep his face from crumbling. Suddenly, everything the pirate had conveniently forgotten about this boy came surging back. Of course he would be confused, of course he would be worried. Of course he would be afraid that he was losing him, that Bill was starting to drift away, to abandon him. Of course he'd do anything to make sure that didn't happen, even if that meant exploiting the weakness that Bill refused to admit he had.



"Don't leave me, Bill." Jack whispered, crossing his little arms over his chest protectively and looking off to the side, out over the open ocean. "Don't leave me."

Without even realizing he was doing it, Bill dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around the little boy and pulling him close. Jack wrapped his arms around the other's neck, sobbing quietly into his guardian's strong shoulder.

"I won't, petit oiseau. I already promised, remember?" Bill rocked him quietly, the warmth surging though his chest totally disparate from whatever sick desire he had felt before. "I'll never leave you, petit oiseau. Never."

Jack's little arms held him so tightly, like a shipwrecked waif holding to a piece of driftwood. Bill smiled gently.

Jack wasn't just a little boy. Jack wasn't just a random piece of flotsam washed up on his beach. Jack was as much his son as William. As long as he remembered that, as long as he remembered his honest love for the boy, the dishonest love he would never, could never allow himself to feel would no longer be important.

On the other side of Bill's shoulder, Jack let himself smirk. Although he didn't often show it, he was an incredibly patient boy. He could wait to grow up a little before pulling Bill's pretty lies down around them and making him do what both of them wanted.