Pirate Dreams 3

Pairing: J/W
Rating: NC-17 overall
Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean is owned by Disney, etc. No infringement intended.
Originally Posted: 2003
Summary: Will joins the Pearl's crew after Jack becomes a privateer, leading to many adventures, including the most dangerous adventure of all: romance.

One month after the battle to free Port Royal, Jack felt fit enough to return to the Pearl. His main concern was that his new commission to harry the Spanish ships as bona fide privateer might make him unwelcome in Tortuga.

"Best collect a few things there before word gets round," he told Will as they boarded the ship. "Be a sad day indeed to be booted out."

"They can't do that." Will followed him onto the deck. "There's no law there, so how could anyone boot you off?"

"Simple. By making me feel unwanted. If everyone there shunned you, it wouldn't be long before you went in search of friendlier climes."

Will wasn't entirely sure this would be such a terrible fate. While Tortuga had some intriguing aspects, he felt no desire to spend much time there. His brief exposure to its rough ways had left him wary. But he said nothing, knowing Jack had a certain fondness for the island.

Jack took command once more of the wheel, gave orders to hoist sail, and they slowly made their way out of the harbor...

*Jack did stop in Tortuga to shut up the mansion and pick up some coinage from his treasure haul, to use to purchase any supplies they needed whilst off on their mission. The Pearl then sailed off to attack its first Spanish ship, with great success. When they returned to Tortuga to celebrate, however, they did encounter a decided chill in the air, aimed more at Captain Jack then the crew. The crew opted to stay there anyway to continue celebrating, while Jack and Will repaired to the Captain's cabin on the Pearl to avoid further unpleasantness...*

"Ungrateful bastards." Will had drunk two pints of ale at the tavern before they chose to depart, and now he needed something stronger. The islanders' behavior angered him beyond reason. Jack had brought a good deal of wealth onto Tortuga, and had been generous in spreading it around. Yet they had turned on him in the blink of an eye. He crossed to a cabinet where Jack kept his rum, and filled two large tumblers. "You wouldn't think there'd be any love lost for the Spanish here."

"There isn't." Jack took a glass from him. "They don't care about the Spanish one way or another. They do hate the British, though. And we're helping 'em."

"We're hardly the law. It's not as if we've come here to harass them or arrest them. What do they care? I thought all anyone on Tortuga cared about was fighting, gambling, and getting drunk." He took a good swig of his rum.

"Oh, right." Will wondered if Jack had entertained some plans in that regard. He'd certainly heard the rest of the Pearl's men talking about it.

Jack gestured towards the cabin door. "Don't reckon they'd kill you if you went back, mate. If you needed some female company, that is."

Oddly enough, Will felt no particular urge to follow through on this suggestion. He was in a peculiar mood tonight. Angry, protective, preferring Jack's company to anyone else's. And with a strong desire for drink he'd not known before. He shrugged. "I'm too drunk." He raised his glass.

"Or not drunk enough." Jack grinned. "You don't want to be looking too closely at some of those women." He sank into his favorite chair, high-backed, well-padded. "Mind you, beggars can't be choosers."

"'spose not." Will relaxed on a cushioned bench set in to the hull, half-sitting, half-lying on a propped-up elbow, drink in his other hand and the rum bottle within easy reach. He looked at Jack, and suddenly found himself wondering how often Jack and his own father had shared this kind of easy camaraderie. He knew they'd been good mates, but how close had they truly been? Would they have risked their lives for each other, the way he and Jack had done? And there was another question sheltering in the back of Will's mind, something he had trouble voicing. Perhaps if he approached it sideways... and kept drinking the rum.

He cleared his throat. "So, um, I'm curious. There are plenty of women in the ports, but what happens when you're at sea?"

"Well, I mean, Anamaria doesn't seem like the sort of woman who would take kindly to unwelcome advances."

No doubt. And even if she welcomed a few advances now and then, Will doubted she'd been a regular crewmember on the Pearl. Or that there had been women on the other ships Jack and his father sailed on. As Gibbs was so fond of saying, it was bad luck to have a woman on board. "What I mean is," Will said tentatively, "what do the men do when you're at sea for weeks at a time, without women?" He immediately took a huge gulp of rum.

"You're joking." Jack shook his head. "You lived in a naval port, and you never heard its unofficial motto? 'Rum, sodomy, and the lash'?"

"I've heard it." The rum's warmth coursed through him, making Will feel calmer, and a little bolder. "I just didn't know how true it was, that's all I'm asking."

Will kept forgetting how canny Jack Sparrow was beneath his offhand exterior. He'd been caught out, trying to get to the truth about a few things in his rather roundabout fashion. He thought perhaps more rum was in order. He held the bottle up. "Top you up?"

"Right. Sorry." Will refilled his own and took a few large gulps. Fire filled him, a comforting warmth that drove out the last bit of constraint. "I admit I didn't really care what the men of the Pearl did at sea. I know what they do, same as any group of men cooped up alone together for a long time." He took a big breath and let it out slowly. "I really wanted to know if my father ever... you know...."

"No, he didn't. He had eyes only for the women in port." Jack paused. "I can't say the same for meself." He gave Will a rather disconcertingly intense stare.

Ah, well that answered both of Will's questions. After all, he was still sharing Jack's bed, having never seemed to find his way down to the crew's quarters despite being made a full-fledged member. It wasn't so much about being more comfortable, though Jack's cabin certainly overdid itself there. It was simply that he felt very close to Jack, and wanted to maintain that feeling. Will felt an unusually strong bond to him, going back to the attempted hanging, when he'd been willing to sacrifice his own life to save Jack's. Something had changed inside him that day.

"Nothing. Sorry." Will looked at his glass of rum. "Not used to drinking so much." He didn't truly know what it all meant, this bond he felt. He didn't have a clue what he wanted it to mean, if anything. He'd felt very confused ever since the day he realized he didn't love Elizabeth. And that was, not uncoincidentally he knew, the same day he realized he had a bond to Jack Sparrow.

"You wouldn't tell me about him," he tried to explain, having trouble making his words make sense. Maybe he should put the rum away. Or maybe not. "My father—after that little I learned in Port Royal, you shut up again, remember? All the rest of the time you were recovering, you wouldn't talk about him, 'cept to tell me about some of the places you traveled to, as if a description of exotic lands would satisfy my curiosity. You know?"

Jack just stared at him. "Know what? You might want to put that bottle down, mate."

"No." Will kept a firm grip on it. He'd wanted to have this chat for some time now, just never had the nerve before. Their short-lived celebration on Tortuga started to loosen his tongue, and the rum was completely freeing him. "I like the rum."

Jack hesitated, studying Will intently. Then he smiled. "That sometimes it's all right to be a bloody fool." He raised his glass. "Cheers." He finished it off in one go, and leaned over, holding it towards Will. "Top it off, mate. I can see you're in a hopeless state. Might as well join you."

"'bout time." Will leaned over precariously to refill Jack's glass, then settled back on the bench.

"Regret it in the morning." Jack leaned back in his chair, and took the second glass more slowly.

"Oh. Right." Will's head felt muzzy. What had he been talking about, anyway? Oh, yes. His father. He wasn't going to let that topic die, not before he knew everything that Jack knew. Bill Turner's only child surely had a right to know about his life, to know more than anyone else. Didn't he?

"You won't talk about him," he went on. "So I thought, there must be a reason why not. There must be something you don't want to tell me. Something you don't think I can take. So I wondered what that could be, and I thought of all sorts of things it could be, and like that. You know." Will frowned. Had his words been at all coherent? He wasn't sure it mattered at this point. "Anyway, that's why."

Jack tilted his head to one side, gazing lazily at him the way a cat does before it pounces. "That's why," he repeated. He made a little 'tsking' sound. "You thought maybe him and me had a bit of a romp together, eh? In bed?"

"Ah. Well, I won't say the thought never crossed my mind. But I told you, he only liked women. More's the pity."

It took a while for Will's befuddled brain to fully comprehend what he heard. When the words finally made themselves fully understandable in his foggy mind, Will's eyes went wider. "You like men."

"Got it in one, mate. And I just told you that, not five minutes ago." He paused. "So to be quite accurate, you got it in two."

"Oh." Fancy that. Will stared at the golden liquid in his glass. Jack was right. It made a man stupider. Not that he minded that too much at this moment.

"I like women, too," Jack said. "I like a good romp either way. Warm and willing, that's all I need."

"Nice," Jack agreed. He looked away from Will, somewhere far off. "Not always so simple."

"I wouldn't know." Will felt the last shreds of sensibility fade away. "Don't know anything at all." He tried to set his empty glass down on a table, and missed. He lost his balance, dropping in an uncoordinated heap on the floor.

"Come on, then." Jack rose to help him up. "Time for sleep." He guided Will to the bed chamber and sat him down on its edge. "Get those boots off, eh?"

"'course you do." Jack tried to shove him against the inner wall, struggling to reposition him lengthwise. "So do I, so move over, you great lug."

"Trying..." Will managed to help a bit, turning this way and that. He finally got straightened out, head on the pillow, feet pointing the right way.

Jack put a hand over Will's mouth. "You don't know what you want, son. Trust me." He gently pushed Will back down on the pillow.

"I do know...." Why did his head feel light as the clouds? "Maybe..." Light as the air, free as the wind. "I don't know."

"Go to sleep, Will." Jack blew out the candle on the bedside table. "And don't go remembering any of this tomorrow, either, 'cause I won't. Savvy?"

The clouds had all gone dark and heavy. "Savvy..." Will repeated drowsily. What kind of a word was that, anyway? "Don't remember," he muttered into the darkness. He didn't remember... what was it he didn't remember? Something about men, and women, and having a good romp... oh, what the hell.

"I don't know anything," he said quite clearly, and then Will dropped completely into Morpheus' waiting arms.

"Oh, God." Will moaned, and not for the first time that morning. What have I done?

When he woke, Jack had gone, daylight streamed through the windows, and the ship moved at a brisk pace. Will tried to rise, wanting to go topside, but the effects of the ale and rum kept him firmly planted on the bed. He leaned back against the pillows, swearing to never touch spirits again.

"Stupid," he muttered. What had he been thinking? A rush of images and words came back to him, of things he'd said, of Jack looking alternately amused, bemused, and sharp-eyed. And then Will remembered trying to kiss Jack, and he groaned. "I'm a fool." Jack had been nowhere near as drunk, he would remember everything.

He lay there for another hour or so, not happy with the way the ship rocked, until he finally managed to get out of bed and get dressed. He staggered out of the cabin and down to the galley, where he got a bowl of tepid broth and a piece of stale bread from the cook. He nursed this meager breakfast for another hour, and began to feel slightly more human. Not enough to go in search of Jack, though.

He hid out in the lower decks for a while, until the need for fresh air became overwhelming, driving out his need for privacy. He sighed, knowing he'd have to face Jack sooner or later, and headed up the companionway. Once on the upper deck, he took a few lungsful of the bracing sea air and salt spray before making his way to the wheel.

Jack was in full captain's rig, complete with bandana, hat, and coat. "It's noon," he replied cheerfully.

"Well, you know—" Will paused, his mind snatching at something Jack said last night. Something about not remembering what was said or done. "Um, well, nothing, I guess." He gave Jack a hopeful look.

Jack was quite focused on the wheel, and the sea ahead of them, so he didn't seem to notice Will's expression. "We've got a ship ahead."

Jack passed him the glass. Will held it to his eye and studied the horizon dead ahead. Sure enough, there were white sails in view.

"Cotton saw it through the glass plain as day, from atop the foremast. Can see a lot farther from up there."

"We've been gaining all morning. Should reach her a good hour before we lose the light."

Another hunt was on. Will felt the same thrill as he had on their first encounter with the Spanish, mingled with the same fear. It drove out any regrets about his behavior last night, aided by the fact that Jack didn't seem to care a whit about anything he'd said or done. Now the only thing on his mind was the coming fight.

"Go below and help Gibbs with the guns. Loading takes time, and we've not got a full crew."

Will went below to do as instructed. The Pearl caught up with the Spanish ship just when Jack predicted, an hour before sunset. But his excitement at the chase was short-lived, for the ship turned out to be a merchantman, poorly armed and manned. She ran up the white flag after only three shots from the cannons, all aimed deliberately over her bow. Jack had no trouble at all taking her.

They put her captain and officers in the brig, disarmed the rest, and set a skeleton crew to man her. She followed in the Pearl's wake all the way back to Port Royal, a full night and another day's sail. There Jack turned the Spanish ship over to Norrington, who arranged for him and the crew to get the prize, a handsome reward for such little effort.

"We've had word of a Spanish man-o-war causing trouble near St. Thomas," the Commodore told them. "Be a good sight more challenging than this merchant sloop, if you're interested."

Of course Jack was interested; any time he got to dry land he was keen to get away again. He let the crew have a few hours of relaxation, and then the Pearl set off once more.

"What's the longest time you've ever been at sea without making landfall?" Will asked him that evening.

They were taking supper in Jack's cabin, with fresh food from Port Royal—beef brisket, roasted pork, and an onion pie. Jack contemplated the question, then said, "Three months."

Will found it hard to imagine being at sea so long, especially without knowing if you'd ever make it to land again. "What about food? Water?"

"Oh, we ran short of both." He bit off a large chunk of beef. "One more week, we'd've all been dead." He seemed to particularly savor the meat.

After Bill was murdered, Will mentally finished the sentence. "It's all right, Jack. It's been long enough, I'm used to the idea now. The things you tell me, the images I have of him, they don't hurt as much as they did at first. I can take whatever you can tell me about him, and I wish you'd tell me everything."

"Why not now? I may be young, but I'm a good deal older than I was a few months ago." He pointed at his head. "In here." Then he pointed to his heart. "And here. I've changed." He felt as if he'd matured beyond his years from his experiences, since meeting Jack. "You may be older." Old enough to be my father, he thought, not that you look or act it. "That doesn't make you wiser, or better. And yes, you've probably had more experience of life and the world than ten men put together, but that doesn't mean you know better than I do about what's right for me. No, I don't know what I want from life yet, not entirely. I do know where I want to spend my life, though, and with who. I'm only asking for a little trust." Will waited, unsure how Jack would take this impromptu speechifying.

Jack slowly finished chewing a large piece of pork, then carefully washed it down with wine. "It's 'with whom'."

Will blinked. "What?" He tried to figure out this seemingly unrelated reply, then remembered his own words. Where I want to spend my life, and with who. Jack had corrected his grammar. "Oh. Ta."

Will felt he was rapidly losing control of this conversation, if he'd ever had any to begin with. "Aren't what?"

Will sighed and returned to eating his dinner. "Good mates?" he asked between bites.

"Pretty good mates." Jack shoved his empty plate aside and leaned back in his chair, wine glass in hand. "Early days, yet."

"I know." Will ate a few more bites, finishing up his meal. He picked up his glass of wine. "Better not drink too much of this."

Will smiled, at ease now with the events of that drunken night. He sipped a little at the wine, taking it very slowly. "Tell me about the trip across the Pacific. I'd like to hear it." Even though it had nothing to do with his father, he found he wanted to know everything he could about Jack Sparrow as well. Everything and anything that might help explain this rather complicated man.

"Right. As you wish." Jack picked up the wine bottle to refill his own glass, then relaxed back in the chair. "Must have been six, seven years ago. On board the Nighthawk, pirate ship, out of the Solomons "

"No." Jack gazed solemnly into his wine glass, swirling the red liquid round before taking a sip. "Only ship I ever captained was this one. The Nighthawk sailed under Captain Nate Flynn's command."

Will waited patiently, letting Jack tell the tale in his own good time. He couldn't help noticing that Jack's expression had gone distant, his eyes looking into the past.

"He was a good man," Jack said. "Taught me a lot. He had his own code, one I didn't mind living with."

"Worlds apart. Barbossa was as bad as Pritchard. Worse. Cruelty for the sake of having a laugh, kill anyone in the way, man or woman, even children. Nate Flynn filched from those who could afford to lose a few baubles, and he was clever at swindling fools, and he enjoyed kidnapping folks who had grand ideas about themselves and holding 'em to ransom. He didn't kill 'less defending his own life, and he didn't take from people with little to give."

A regular seafaring Robin Hood. Will wondered what had happened to him, for it was clear from Jack's far-away look and the tinge of sadness in his voice that Nate Flynn lived only in the past tense. "How long did you sail with him?"

"Three, four years, thereabouts. First mate, after a year. Plying the East Indies, Philippines, Singapore, Japan, Guinea, Society Islands... and all the space between. That's a big ocean."

"You left here, then, after Barbossa took the Pearl?" Will tried to construct the chronology in his head. Ten years ago, Jack lost the ship, was marooned, was rescued by the rum-runners... and then what?

"I left." Jack paused, came back from that far away place to give Will a sharp look. "You want to hear all this? I was only going to tell one story...."

"Will you now?" Jack slowly shook his head from side to side. "They tell much better stories in books."

"They're not true, though." Will knew the things he and Elizabeth had read about pirates when they were younger were exaggerated, fanciful. "I want the truth."

"I'm sure. And I'm sure you helped contribute to your own myth whenever you could."

Jack smiled. "I may have told a few stories in the right ears now and then. With a few embellishments here and there."

"Still, I know how the fanciful versions go, so try telling me what really happened. All of it."

"Not all of it, son." The sun was setting, light faded through the windows. Jack lit the candles on the table top. "I don't fancy being up all night."

"Fine. Why didn't you go after Barbossa ten years ago? We can start there. There's more than one night ahead."

Jack let out a small groan. "Bound and determined, aren't you? Never saw the like."

Will continued working on his first glass of wine, while Jack made his way through his second. "Barbossa," Will prompted.

"Not anywhere for several months, and then I ran into someone on Tortuga who was a mate of one of the crewmen, friend of Twigg. Told me he'd run into Twigg a few weeks earlier, and got at least part of the story of the gold. And he'd heard what happened to Bill. That he was dead." Jack took a large swig of wine. "Somehow I didn't feel like staying around those parts anymore."

Will found that hard to credit, that Jack would leave. "Not even for the Pearl?"

"Not then. Thought I'd get out for a bit, new climes, new faces. Come back when things looked brighter."

He was leaving something unsaid, Will could tell, but he let it go. He was happy enough to get this much. "And in the Pacific, that's where you met up with this Flynn fellow?"

"Eventually." Jack frowned. "I wound up in Singapore, and had a lot of rum. A year later, I stopped having a lot of rum."

"That's a lot of drinking." Had Jack really been that unhappy about losing the Pearl? Or had he been that unhappy about losing Will's father? Will wasn't sure how to ask that question.

"In those stories you read," Jack said, "those thrilling tales of derring-do, your 'gentlemen-adventurers', the heroes always win, don't they?"

"Right. Not real. Hero always saves the day, rescues whoever needs rescuing. Not meant to fail."

But you failed, Will thought. Or at least, that's how you see it. Failed to save his best mate's life. "The stories lie, Jack."

"Then why did you go off on a year-long drunk? Barbossa killed my father, not you."

"You couldn't have known what he was like. You couldn't have seen where it would lead. No one could blame you. I know my father wouldn't have. I know I never would."

"'spose not." Jack's second glass had emptied faster than the first. "Easier to believe now. Harder back then, that's all." He reached over to the table to grab the bottle.

Will studied his wine glass and decided perhaps two glasses weren't such a bad idea after all. He quickly finished the wine he had left and held the glass out. "More, please."

"Left. Drifted round the islands there 'til I ran across some smugglers. We got on well."

"No, they had a ship called the Royal Swan. Sailed with them near on two years, 'til we were sunk by a British man-o-war in the straits of Malacca. They didn't bother collecting survivors. Just as well, they would have hanged us if they had. Still, not good. We didn't all make it to shore." He waved his hand idly. "No good mates aboard, that time."

"Not long after. What a beauty she was, too. She was an East Indiaman—a Dutch merchantman no less than seven hundred tons, hundred-sixty feet, thirty-four at the beam. Forty guns, well over a hundred crew. She owned the ocean. How could I resist?"

"Oh, far better, to be honest. And with a good captain at the wheel. No pirate ran a tighter ship than Nate Flynn."

"You got on well, then, if you made first mate. Thought you had given up on friendship?"

"Easy to say you won't, harder to keep to your word." Jack had that far-away look in his eyes again. "Besides, he knew how to have a good time."

Will reckoned that went without saying, if he became a mate of Jack's. "Pirate ship, you said. How much was he a pirate, and how much a smuggler?"

"Oh, I just wondered. Governor Swann told me there wasn't much piracy on your records, more of the other. Yet if you sailed on a pirate ship for four years, then how can that be true?"

Jack raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "Swann was a generous bloke. Just 'cause it wasn't on my record doesn't mean I didn't do it. They don't find out about everything, you know. Me, I always followed Nate's motto—If you can't be good, be lucky. Seems to have worked right nicely."

"Be lucky," Will repeated, thinking this advice over. He made some more progress on his wine, feeling a little uneasy. "You want to go back to it someday?"

"Don't know yet," Jack admitted. "This little set-to with the Spanish won't last forever, son. What did you think I'd do when it was over—buy a nice plot of land somewhere and become a gentleman-farmer?"

Jack laughed. "Escort? Protect the British merchantmen from pirates?" He shook his head, still smiling. "That'd be a rich sight."

Will stared into his near-empty glass. Maybe three glasses of wine wouldn't come amiss. "Sorry." He reached for the bottle to top off. "Don't want you facing the hangman again, that's all. I've gotten to like you."

Will gulped at his wine. "You were going to tell me about the becalming in the Pacific."

"Was I? Oh, yeah, I was. Not that much to tell, really. We sailed from Tahiti heading west, got caught in a storm that threw us far off course, turned us right round southerly. We ran so far we nearly went off the maps. Then clouds set in so solidly we couldn't see the stars, and our compasses were going round like spinning tops. One day we spied land, but not like any we'd any of us seen before, dry and harsh without a habitable spot in view. Captain thought it might be the Great South Land, where legends said if the sharks didn't get you, or the desert didn't starve and burn you, then there were natives who would kill you to serve up for their supper. Not seeing anything like water, trees nor brush, nothing but that great stretch of gold-red sand, we thought we ought to go, though some argued for going ashore. But then sharks were spied, and we hauled off fast as we could fly. Only we didn't know where we were, nor where we flew to. We sailed blind for days, and then the calm set in, holding us firm, not a breeze stirring, all the sails hanging dead as shrouds. And there we stayed, no land, no wind, no hope, only the blistering heat'o'the sun for company. Food and water ran low, men got restless. We caught some fish from time to time, though never enough to go round, least not to fill a starving belly. We tried the oars, but they couldn't get us far, and never out of the calm. All we did was drift, slow and circling to no good gain in that unnatural sea, waiting for God or the Devil to sort us out, and putting bets on one or the other."

Will sat entranced and horrified. His desire to visit the exotic places Jack spoke of suddenly lessened. "The ones who bet on the Devil—if they won, how did they plan to collect?"

"Aye, when near three-quarters of the hands lay too weak to hoist sail. Took all the strength we had left in us just to reach friendlier seas where the compass worked again, and another three weeks it was 'til we sighted land, most of us half-mad and all of us half-dead. Hand it to Nate, though, he didn't lose a man." Jack studied his empty glass. "Have I had three of these?"

"Yes. I think." Will diligently worked at his own third glass of the soothing wine. "What happened to him?"

"Hm?" Jack still studiously examined his glass, then eyed the near-empty bottle.

"Oh. He died." He picked up the bottle and drank the last dregs directly from it. "Caught off Macao. Hanged for piracy." He stared at the bottle. "That was the last of Swann's Bordeaux. We should have restocked."

"Next time." Will gently took the bottle from him and set it aside. "Might be getting late."

Jack sank down in his chair, head lolling against its high back. "I'm feeling comfortable here. Warm. Relaxed."

Will rose and poked about in the wine cases they'd brought in from Port Royal. "There's a Madeira port hidden in here."

Will brought it round and held it out where Jack could see the label without shifting. "Good year. We'll have that."

An hour later they had killed the port and started in on a muscatel, but didn't get far before the combination of all three spirits wreaked havoc with Will's stomach. He rushed off to the head, returning some time later feeling sheepish but at least no longer queasy. He found Jack fast asleep, still in the chair.

"Silly bugger." He hoisted Jack up, and Jack roused enough to help Will out, the two of them staggering to the bed. It wasn't all that late, but a rest would do them both good.

After some wrestling about with getting their clothes off without hitting each other with tipsy, flailing arms, and after some more finagling over bed positions, they managed to reach an accord, and settled in. Will dropped off as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, he woke to the sound of banging, and found that Jack wasn't in bed. Then he heard Jack swear, and shortly after he clambered into the bed chamber, rubbing his leg. "Ruddy table. Ruddy chairs."

"Somehow I doubt that." Will tried to go back to sleep, but restlessness set in. He'd learned a great deal about Jack's past that night, and a lot of it played about in his mind, all the bits and pieces shifting about, trying to fall into place, wrapped round in images of pirate ships and smugglers and strange lands, and stranger seas. And would he have tales like that to tell, twenty years on? Who would he be telling them to? Not someone like him, he hoped. He didn't want to lose Jack, not the way Jack had lost Nate Flynn. He didn't want to be sitting in a cabin with that far away look in his eyes, telling some kid half his age about Jack Sparrow, a pirate and a good man, oh the grand times they'd had together, the fabulous places they'd been, the wondrous seas they'd sailed, until that fateful day when Jack's luck ran out. He didn't want to drink his memories away. He didn't want to ever let go.

Will shifted over enough so that his shoulder touched Jack's. "I don't want you to go back to that life."

"Shouldn't think about the future too much, mate. Ruins the time you're living right now."

"I can't help it." Will paused, trying to form the right words, not coming up with anything that sounded like something Jack would want to hear. So he gave up and simply aimed for the truth. "I care for you too much."

He was met by silence, stretching so long he feared Jack had gone to sleep. Or worse, that he was busy calculating exactly how far to toss Will out of the bed.

Instead, he felt Jack turn onto his side, knew he must be facing him, because he could feel Jack's warm breath tickling his face. "Listen carefully," Jack said. "'cause I'll not be repeating meself. You've got a romantic notion in your head, you keep it for the women, mate. With me, this is how it works. Whatever you want to do or not do while we're sharing this bed is fine. If you want to just sleep, then sleep. You want to do something more, I won't mind. Romping about in bed is my favorite thing, next to rum. But I hear a single heartfelt confession and you'll be bunking in the bilge. Savvy?"

Well, that went better than Will thought it would. He let out a relieved sigh. "Sorry."

Will felt Jack shifting again, and relaxed, thinking he was preparing to go back to sleep. He was taken utterly by surprise when Jack leaned over him instead, and kissed him full on the mouth.

He couldn't help but respond, drawn into the fire, the heat of long-repressed longing touching off the flames. He felt Jack's hands on his chest, then they drifted down his body, calling forth intense desire with the barest touch. Too intense by far. Will broke away, startled by the powerful reaction. He wanted it, and he feared it.

"I'm not sure," Will said honestly. A romp, that's what Jack had called it. "What exactly does that mean, a romp?"

"Oh, just a bit of messin' about, if you want. A little rubbing me the right way, if you catch my drift."

"Good." He could handle that, maybe, just. "A romp, then. Right." His body certainly was in favor of messing about. He didn't want to risk another one of those kisses, though. It had taken him far too fast to a place he knew he wanted to go, but not quite yet. No heartfelt confessions. Not yet.

Easy, simple, nothing heavy. Nothing more than a much-needed physical relief. Will reached out to Jack, let their bodies meet, let his mind go free and his flesh take over, and every one of his romantic notions fled safely into the shadows.

Pirate Dreams

Chapter 3