Ah hah hah another lovely week in Res. Ah well. Here's teh chapterage And for those of you who picked up on it...

I'm more interested in the past at the moment. It's almost done with, though. There's only like, three more chapters to go before it's done I get back to the real plot of the story. And then all the interesting stuff currently in the past will get booted into the present, so... Yeah. They're gonna come together, any minute now.

"So, have you figured it out yet?" Will lent casually against the railing, watching the captain steer his beloved ship out of the corner of his eye.

"No. Will you stop asking?" Jack frowned, refusing to look at him.

"No." Will contemplated the busy deck below, watching the motley crew which had become his family rush about their work. "Why does it bother you so much? I've only asked twice."

Jack pursed his lips grimly, brows creasing as if in thought.

"It reminds me of what happened. Which, for reasons unknown even to me, makes me not angry. Which, in turn, makes me confused. Which makes me angry again. It doesn't make any sense."

Will chuckled quietly.

"Sense has nothing to do with it."

"Well, I don't like it." Jack snapped, tugging sharply on the wheel. "Things should make sense."

"Well, they don't." Will sighed, fiddling with his cuff. "The sooner you come to grips with that, the sooner you can stop caring and get on with your life."

"Get on with shagging you, you mean." Jack rolled his eyes, yanking the poor wheel hard enough to cause the ship to lurch uneasily to the side. "That's what this is all about, isn't it? Getting me in bed."

Will flushed, letting his eyes wander out over the open ocean, the deck full of complaining sailors, the full, billowing sails... Anywhere but at the captain.

"Of course not. Not that I don't want that too, I mean, I do. Who wouldn't? But that's not the point."

"Oh, really?" The pirate glared at him, anger replacing confused unease as his dominant expression. "Then what was all that snogging about, then, eh? I suppose it was totally platonic?"

"Well, no!" The smith-turned-sailor crossed his arms over his chest, refusing to admit to pouting in any way, shape or form. "It's a gesture! Like a handshake, only different."

"Different is right!" The man scoffed, abandoning the helm altogether to stand square against the younger man, arms crossed over his chest in a strange mirror of the other's posture. "People don't normally harass another's tonsils with their tongues during a handshake!"

"You didn't seem to mind it so much when I was doing it, Mr. Sparrow." Will narrowed his earthen eyes, trying to send all the frustration and anger he was feeling towards the obstinate man through the air at him.

Jack's black orbs went impossibly wide.

"You didn't!"

"Oh, yes I did!" Will found himself smirking rather demonically, perversely pleased with himself for getting under the other man's leathery skin. "What are you going to do about it?"

Jack's saucer eyes suddenly turned to slits, like dinner plates turned on their sides. His shoulders came up, arms tense and hands formed into shaking fists.

It took Will exactly two seconds to figure out how extraordinarily unwise it was to taunt his angry pirate boyfriend, especially when the last of those adjectives had yet to be secured. It took him another second to realize that he should have probably been running about three seconds ago. A full five seconds had passed before he actually started to move.

Jack only needed the one.

"Yeargh!! Ger off me, you black-haired buffoon!"

"CAPTAIN! It's CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW, you yellow-bellied land-lubber!! Don't you EVER forget it!"

"Well, at least dis is sorta normal." Marty scratched his bald head with the splintered end of the poor destroyed mop.

"Aye." Gibbs grinned widely, looking like someone had just offered to pay for a year's worth of booze. "Jack's startin' to act like hisself again. It's a good omen, that's for certain."

The older man clapped the midget solidly on his diminutive shoulder and then turned off to go do some of his mandatory shouting, completely ruining the effect by skipping across the deck.