They said it was the heat that drove him mad, which he thought was rather daft.

He'd already been mad, obviously. The heat just loosened things up a bit, like the furnace at the heart of a forge. The island was the anvil. He'd been furious red-hot metal, sitting on that beach getting himself almost fatally wasted while the sun melted him down and hammered him into something shiny and new.

That was perhaps what sparked that look in William's eye so many years later, when they faced each other in his dark forge. It wasn't lust... exactly... but it wasn't hatred, either, no matter how the boy blustered. Jack wasn't sure what it was, and that fascinated him. Maybe he recognized a fine piece of workmanship when he saw it? Jack liked to think so. He'd even suggested it to the lad once, in a drunk and poetic mood.

Will's reply was an offer to spear him across the room, see how far he could stick him in the door.

Damned cheeky blacksmith.

Still, he'd come back, hadn't he? When the lass set him loose on the world (good lass... knew which way the winds blew), it was Jack he came back to. There must have been flaws in the design. The balance was off. William was a craftsman, and a damn fine one. He'd seen it with his da's keen eyes. And he set about putting it to rights—remelting and reshaping. Lucky lad, to be the only one with calluses hard enough to handle Jack Sparrow with his bare hands.

That summer night, they'd managed to drag each other back to the Pearl from the tavern they'd found each other in, though Jack was at least a sheet and a half to the wind and Will couldn't walk more than ten steps with out clutching him and kissing him breathless. It was well after sundown but still hot enough to melt bone. The cabin was an oven. A furnace. William's tanned skin ran with sweat and he was gasping for air in the heavy, sweltering dark. He couldn't get their clothing off fast enough, which Jack would have found flattering if he wasn't already so bloody desperate to get naked for a totally different reason.

He could walk the Pearl's black planking barefoot in the dead of noon. He could caress her helm when the polished wood was hot enough to blister skin. But five minutes in a cabin alone with the boy and he didn't have a snowflake's chance in hell.

There was no secret spot of coolness to find in the sheets as they rolled together, and Jack felt himself going molten in the crush of the blacksmith's arms. Will's tongue seared his inner thigh like a brand. He struck sparks off the boy's shoulder with pointed eyeteeth. Their bodies came together, hard, and Jack thought he smelled the tang of metal on the flesh under his mouth. Will's hands running up his sides, over his back, stung like the first burn of melted wax on the skin... oh, lovely idea... white-hot for the second before it cooled smooth and slick. Only this burn never cooled.

"Dunno... uhnn... dunno if this was... such a good idea... luv..."

Will froze, panting, to look down at his captain through lashes beaded with sweat. "W-what?" Will tightened his grip on Jack's wrists where he pinned the pirate's hands to the mattress above his head, ignoring the man's frantic squirming. "What do you mean?" Jack could see the panic starting to bloom in the boy's eyes. Fear that Jack had changed his mind, that once their little interlude was over, he'd be set back out on the moss-slick dock where he came from, and oh, bloody hell, but if he didn't bloody move right now he was going to set the bedding afire. Jack surged against him wildly and gasped, "Bringin you aboard like this... ohgoddontstop... the damn ship's made o' wood... Ah!!"

He watched as Will's lips slowly curved into a smile, then a smirk, the likes of which he'd never seen on that fine, fine face. And the last hardened part of Jack melted in the heat. He arched against the sheets, grinning wildly as William thrust hard, and again. And again. Wound himself around his blacksmith and let himself be remade.

The heat hadn't made him mad. The heat had made him. Again and again. And again.