"That's one great bleedin big conflagration, Whelp."

"Thank you... I think..."

"I mean, one of the best I've ever seen."

Laughing, William sprawled out on the warm sand, propped up on elbows, watching his captain as he swayed on the other side of the flames, the Pearl's dim form rocking gently on the nighttime horizon over his shoulder. Sloshing bottle in hand. Moving to some internal music all his own, like the flame.

Jack liked fire.

"I'm a blacksmith, Jack. If I can do one thing well besides make a sword it's build a fire."

"Aye..." Jack stopped his absentminded dancing, and dark eyes found Will's through the dancing red tongues. "I'd noticed."

Will felt the heat of Jack's gaze melt the grin right off his face. Jack took another absentminded swig at his bottle, corked it, and tossed it down into the sand with a muffled thump. Will has to resist the urge to scramble backwards across the sand as Jack strolled around the fire, his bright, gaudy sparkling form going dark, crossing into silhouette like the moon across the sun. And still his eyes burned bright.

Not ten steps away, he dropped to his knees. Breath ragged, Will stared and thought he had never seen a sight as mesmerizing as Jack Sparrow crawling across the beach to him, wearing that expression on his half night-shadowed face.

Behind them, something in the fire popped and sent a whirlwind of red sparks into the air.

William fell back with a gasp as Jack slung one leg across his waist, straddling him, and dug his fingers deep into the white sand on either side of Will's head. He sucked in a heavy breath and let it out in a hitching, "Ja-aack..." as hips thrust against hips, pinning the blacksmith hard and grinding him into the sand.

Will had a fleeting memory of the last time he'd let Jack ravish him on the beach and flailed weakly, trying to distract the pirate currently sucking wildly at his neck. "Jack..."

"Hmm... I'm busy..."

He writhed, chest heaving. "Sand... trousers..." Jack scrabbled at the buttons on his shirt, popping off at least two in his haste to get Will bare."...Blanket... over there... Oh... Damn ...Ah!!"

Jack reared back and pulled his shirt free, tugging it off in one swift arc, and Will forgot entirely about his sandy trousers. What had he been thinking before, about the most mesmerizing thing he'd ever seen...?

"What was that you were saying, there, William?"

Will opened his mouth. Shut it. Groaned.

From the fire behind them came a crack, and a sizzle.

Then a deafening POP.

William had no idea what happened. One moment he was lying pinned underneath his Captain, stupid with lust, and the next, Jack was gone and he was alone in the sand, trying to blink away the bright afterimages floating before his eyes.

"What in the name of all the Saints...????????!!!"

From somewhere off to his right came a moan, and a spluttered cough. Will rolled over and squinted at Jack where he lay in the sand, clutching his head. Scattered around him were the charred remains of... something... "Jack!!"

"Sod off!!"

Will was insanely relieved. Whatever it was couldn't be so bad if the man could still swear at him. He scrabbled across to the prone pirate and hovered, trying to decide if anything was broken. Jack had soot on his face. There was a strong scent of singed hair.

And he was glaring bloody murder.

"Er... Jack? What happened?"

"You used coconuts, didn't you? Thought they'd burn just a TREAT, didn't you?"

William thought for a moment.

And blinked.

"Oh."

"Oh!!!"

"I didn't think."

"That's painfully obvious!!!"

"I am bloody stupid..."

"Yes, you are! Bloody Stupid Will, as I've said on more than one occasion! Bugger it, boy, you're not a blacksmith, you're a damn fireship!!"

"I am so sorry."

Jack struck like a snake. Like fire. One moment he was a disgruntled puddle on the beach, the next he was flipping Will and pinning him back to the sand where they'd started. He smoldered down at the boy, who gazed up at his captain with wide, nervous, abashed... dark... liquid eyes...

Jack licked his lips, bent his head, and with his burning tongue licked a path from Will's navel to his chin, up his jaw, to his ear. Where he growled, (his most ominous piratical growl), "Not as sorry as you're going to be, I promise you..."

Which didn't fool the boy one bit, if the hands yanking down his trousers were anything to go by.

When the second coconut exploded, Jack laughed. When the third went, (flaming pieces shattering Jack's rum bottle and turning his breakfast into a small fireball), neither of them seemed to care.