"You're not staying ashore?" the captain asked Jack as he climbed back over the starboard taffrail. "Did you not know I've given all hands shore leave?"

"No, sir," said Jack. He had drunk enough to make everything around him glow, including Captain Gould with his yellow hair and amber eyes. "'D rather be aboard."

"Thought you'd have been as ready for ... female company ... as any of the lads," the Captain observed.

Jack hadn't been in the mood for female company since ... he shook his head, trying to remember when he'd last fancied a woman. "Not really."

"Not a man for the ladies, eh?" said Captain Gould, looking askance at his new purser. This is what he saw: a man of no more than average height, lithe and muscular, with wicked dark eyes and gold in his earlobes. His thick black hair was tied back untidily, and his sun-darkened skin bore a moderate array of scars. Might have been a soldier, if not for the tan and the tattoos; might have been a lord, with the unconscious arrogance in his expression, the way he forgot to address his Captain as "Sir", the grace of his movements. He could read, too, and write neatly and legibly: clearly an educated man, and a better bargain, all in all, than the rum-sodden fraud who'd absconded in Singapore.

"I've had enough of women. Sir."

"Pox, eh?" Gould chuckled. "See the surgeon. He can—"

"Begging your pardon, sir," said Jack, grinning. "It's not that. Just..." He left the sentence unfinished.

Interesting, thought Gould. He watched Jack Sparrow—an assumed name, for sure—saunter along the deck, down the ladder and so, no doubt, to his solitary bunk.

Interesting.

* * *

Twenty-seven days west of the Cape the wind dropped, and did not rise again. The men were all on deck, sail-mending or polishing the brasswork or whatever else the first mate could find for them to do, when Captain Gould sent for Jack.

It still didn't feel right to be at another man's beck and call; Jack doubted it ever would. Still, he needed to live while he honed his skills for the day when he'd have a command of his own. The Passat was as good a place as any to learn seamanship, and better than many merchant ships; the men were content, the officers fair and often lenient, and the work seldom hard.

Jack was in his cabin, fingers smudged with ink, peering at the muster-book. Reading and writing came easily to him, though he couldn't remember having learned his letters. The purser's work alone wouldn't have kept him from prodding at the empty space in his memories, trying to remember what had happened to him before Singapore: but he was learning his way about the ship, too. He'd done his share of hauling on ropes while there'd been a wind to catch, and he'd swum, and scrambled, and raced aloft to the crowsnest to stand his watch. It was a sort of balance.

Now, in the heavy still air, the purser's cabin was stiflingly hot. Jack had been thinking of going out and putting his hand to whatever might keep him above deck for the rest of the afternoon. Gould's summons—Captain Gould, damn it—was not to be ignored, though. He finished totalling the men's pay before he put down his pen and headed for the captain's quarters.

"You wanted to speak to me, sir?" Jack kept his tone as respectful as he could.

"You and I might get along very well, I fancy," said Gould. He was a tall man, deceptively thin: Jack had seen him lift a chest that two men had struggled to carry. He was smiling at Jack, and his mouth glinted with gold.

That smile...

"Sir?" said Jack, nonplussed.

"Not a man for the ladies, you said." Jack had said no such thing, but he kept quiet. Had a feeling that it would be best not to argue, yet.

"Now, does that mean you're a man who prefers ... shall we say, the company of your own kind?"

He hadn't been mistaken about the smile. Should've seen this one coming, Jack.

Jack thought fast. "Maybe I do," he said, playing for time. "Or maybe I've renounced the pleasures of the flesh."

"That'd be a waste," the Captain said, grinning.

"Maybe I never enjoyed them very much?" offered Jack, trying to think. There were all those women. So many. They'd crowded around him—or they hadn't, really, but their likenesses had appeared to torment him, back ... back there.

Jack shivered. "Maybe the Turks got me," he suggested, "and made me a eunuch?"

"Easily checked," said Gould. "Come, Jack, say me yea or nay. I'll not force you to anything."

Something reckless surged in Jack's blood. "You'd like the truth, then?" he said.

For the first time, Captain Gould looked interested. "The truth? Yes, I'd like the truth."

"I don't remember," said Jack.

"You offered me the truth!" Gould snapped.

"The truth is that I don't remember," said Jack, smiling. He'd stopped calling Gould 'Sir'. "I woke on the beach with no memory—" Flash of flame, grip of stone, circling women, falling Jack. "—no memory of what had gone before. I don't care for female company, but I don't know if I loved women, or men, or just my own sweet self. That's your truth."

He bowed, with a flourish, and smiled sweetly at Gould. A brief, prudent impulse told him not to make the smile too sweet.

"Maybe I'll help you to remember. Would you care for that, Jack?" Gould gestured at the door. "Or you may go, and we'll speak of this no more."

"And if I stay?" Jack ventured. He meant: what do I get? Will you pay me, promote me, make much of me?

Gould leant back in his chair and gazed up at Jack. His eyes seemed darker than usual, and below the sunburn his face was flushed. "We shall see," he said quietly. "We shall see... So, Jack. Are you with me?"

Something contrary in Jack—and maybe it was as simple as the hope of triggering a memory—said "Yes," with his mouth.

Gould had not offered him a seat. Now the Captain rose, stooping slightly in the low-ceilinged cabin, and came around the desk to where Jack stood. Just that, Gould's approach, made Jack's blood surge again. He met the other man's smile with a grin of his own, though it felt forced.

"I—" he began, and then the Captain's mouth was on his, hungry, devouring, nothing like a woman's. Jack, unaccustomed to being kissed by someone taller than himself—unaccustomed to being kissed so fiercely by anyone at all—swayed, and Gould took hold of him, not at all gently, to keep him upright.

That somehow made it better. Jack let himself relax into the moment. He returned the kiss as well as he could, feeling the Captain's teeth against his lip, the Captain's fingers twisted into his hair to hold him still. Maybe this was how women felt, when he kissed them. (He never kissed women, not any more). He was off-balance, distracted by detail (the heat of Gould's hands, the sound of someone counting shot on the deck above, the sting of pulled hair); it was remarkably like being drunk.

Then Gould was pulling back—Jack smiled to hear his ragged breathing—pressing on Jack's shoulder. "Down." And it was difficult to misunderstand that. He'd been the recipient often enough. How hard—

It wasn't the time for levity. Jack swallowed nervously, trying not to react as Gould took out his erection. Something else he wasn't used to from this angle. ... And that hand on the back of his head. He wanted to slap it away, to take this at his own pace, but then again 'at his own pace' probably involved an abrupt change of direction, straight out of that door and not stopping until he reached dry land. Dry land with rum, for preference.

But he was hard, too, and more importantly he was curious.

It was huge, it tasted foul, he was going to choke—

The hand in his hair eased, and Jack made himself remember what it felt like when a woman did this to him. (It had been only women, after all. He was sure. Almost sure.) The little noises Gould made, not at all like he'd sounded earlier ... that hand, urging him on or pulling him back ... not so very difficult after all. Jack was beginning to think about congratulating himself—and beginning to dread the moment of climax, when he'd have to deal with the results—when Gould pushed him away from his cock.

"You'll do," he told Jack, and was that a glimmer of laughter, of complicity? Jack thought it was. He was wondering whether Gould would want this from him again. Wondering who the Captain had been getting it from up to now.

Then Gould was pulling him upright, kissing him despite the acrid taste that lingered, turning him. He palmed Jack's cock deliberately, and Jack groaned. What a noise! Loud and low and animalistic. God, it felt good to have someone else's hand on him, unpredictable and firm; Gould was pushing him forward over the desk, and Jack braced himself on his forearms, still half-hypnotised by the feeling of Gould's hand through the rough cloth of his trousers. Then the Captain was unbuttoning him, letting the trousers fall, pressing against his bare skin. Jack could feel the dampness of his own saliva—though not just that—on Gould's cock.

"Did you swim, earlier?" Gould muttered in his ear.

Jack nodded. Even the men who couldn't swim had splashed about with one hand on the lubbers' rope. The salt water stung sunburn, but it kept infection at bay and killed parasites: before the Cape, they'd ducked one fellow whose fleas were not particular about who they bit. But why would the Captain—

He gasped when one wet finger pushed into him. Clean. He wants me clean. The feeling was so strange (I've never done this before) that he puzzled over whether it hurt or not.

The second finger made him swear, and Gould said "Shhh" into his ear, and kissed his neck. The kiss made Jack squirm, which didn't help with the fingers. Gould's other hand was wrapped around Jack's cock, stroking languidly, and Jack wanted to tell him to go faster but he was afraid Gould might move his fingers faster too. Greasy fingers. They felt slick and slippery against him. Inside him. Maybe it didn't hurt. Maybe—

He swore again when Gould twisted his hand. Gould's boot nudged his own bare foot, gently enough, making him move his feet further apart. Opening up, sparks and lights from something inside ... Was this what women felt? He wanted to be kissed, wanted something to occupy his mouth, to stop him screaming or swearing or sobbing ...

He could taste his own skin on Gould's palm as it pressed over his mouth, as Gould pressed into him, huge and hot and fucking hard, this was fucking agony; if he'd made woman feel like this he'd deserved Hell, but what was Hell, they'd never done this to him in—

"Stop fighting it," Gould advised, calmly. He moved his hand away from Jack's mouth. His other hand, still greasy, was simply holding Jack's softened cock. "Breathe," he said. "Relax."

Jack panted and scowled. Gritted his teeth against the pain. Didn't waste breath telling Gould that it was easy for him to say that.

He'd never fuck a woman again if it felt like—

Something opened, unfolded, inverted inside, and suddenly instead of agony he could feel Gould's cock, hard and hot and thrilling inside him, not even all the way inside, filling him so well. Jack pushed back, trying not to moan ("one and seventy, two and seventy," counted the shot-counter overhead), trying to take more. Excruciating but exquisite. He hardly noticed the ache of his returning erection, or the roughness of Gould's callused fingers against the soft skin.

Heard Gould's chuckle, though, and wanted to laugh himself. But it was dizzying, like too much ... too much. Jack wanted to purr, to laugh, to stretch himself out and let Gould push all the way through him. Cross-eyed with bliss, he pushed back against the other man's thrusts, trying to remember to breathe. The feel of the Captain's hips, the scratch of his pubic hair against Jack's buttocks as he pulled Jack back against himself, the tightening in his balls, the whistle of Gould's breath as his thrusts became shallower—

The cabin was full of light.

Gradually he realised that he was shaking, and not just from the aftershock. Gould was saying something, laughing (the bastard) as he helped Jack stand upright again. His body ached, but that was nothing: not pain, just something small and insignificant and—

Hell. He'd been in Hell.

He'd come out—he'd escaped—from Hell.

Jack began to laugh, and Gould, not understanding, laughed with him.


-end-