Not All Treasure is Silver and Gold

Not All Treasure is Silver and Gold: The High Seas


William Turner stood on the deck of the Interceptor with his hands braced against the smooth wooden railing. Looking out over the vast expanse of blue ocean as far as he could see to the horizon. Port Royal now far behind them and no sign of any ships in pursuit.

Not that that was really surprising. They had `commandeered' the fastest ship in the British navy, and there was no way that Norrington and his soldiers would have gotten the Dauntless ready to sail in time to follow them. Even if they had the Interceptor would have easily outrun her larger, slower, yet much better armed, sister. That is if Norrington didn't simply shoot them full of holes
instead…

But they had made it. Jack's crazy plan had actually *worked*, and they were now out on the open ocean.

Will glanced over his shoulder at the grungy pirate who always seemed half drunk whether or not he had been actually drinking. Seeming somehow more… steady and at ease now than he had been on dry land. Or perhaps it was the swaying of the ship that made the `captain's' constant swaying (as if he would fall over at any second) seem less pronounced.

That swaying was starting to get to him. Not Sparrow's, the ship's.  He was not sea sick, but he was not used to the constant motion either and it was making him a little queasy. Though certainly he would never have admitted as much to the ragged looking pirate. He certainly didn't need to invite the elder man's laughter or teasing. He got more than enough of it as it was.

With a sigh, the young blacksmith pushed away from the railing and walked over to the pirate who seemed all but oblivious of him at the moment. A blessing really. He would have considered himself lucky if he didn't have to speak with Jack at all during the voyage. Yet, though he had resigned himself to the fact that he needed the pirate for the time being to help him rescue Elizabeth, he was not about to leave everything in the hands of Jack Sparrow. Whether the man had given his word or not.

What exactly was the word of a pirate anyway?

He wanted to know where they were going and what the plan was… if there even was one.

"I don't think we are being followed. What now? Where are we going?"

Jack stood, one hand on the ship's wheel looking out towards the Eastern horizon. Young Mr. Turner, if not the farthest thing from his mind was at least as distant as the far-off yellow eye of the sun which edged in gradual inclination, degree by degree, across the sky.

Instead, Jack was thinking of the Interceptor, of how she felt under his hands. He liked her well enough, the smoothly sanded walnut wheel beneath his fingers, her polished timbers shining and warm in the mid-morning sun. She was fine indeed, and fast. He would have known her speed even without the bumbling testimony of the Redcoats to confirm it. He had –felt- it from the moment he stepped onto her deck, from when his hands had first settled on her railing. He liked her well...but she was not the Pearl. Not –his- Pearl.

The Interceptor's sole other occupant figured into his plans for regaining his stolen ship, of course, had even initiated his long-awaited expedition to do so, but Will Turner was a means to an end.  Jack wanted the Pearl.

Mr. Turner could have his Miss Swann and woo her to his little heart's content—though it was likely to no avail, and in truth Jack considered the young blacksmith's proclivity to do so a waste of a good pair of hands and a potentially sharp mind. Connubial domesticity would only dull him. A shame, really, but none of my concern.

"I don't think we are being followed. What now? Where are we going?"

The dark-haired head careened around with the awkward grace of a poorly steered ship, and Jack's kohl-lined eyes regarded the young man with a slightly uncentered sway as though words were taking a moment to settle.

He opened his compass and regarded it for a moment before snapping it closed and secreting it away into the fabric of his coat. "We must, of course, procure ourselves a crew, mate, if we are indeed to succeed in the rescue of your bonny lass...wouldn't you say?" the jilted voice answered after a brief contemplative pause.

There was a slight detachment in the pirate's tone, as though his attention were yet on something else. In truth, he was disguising a testing, a curiousity, and a measured deliberateness that underlay every word he'd yet spoken to the boy.

"Now then, where would you imagine we're like to find said crew?"

Will frowned, crossing his arms over his chest with a soft sigh of annoyance. He should have known better than to expect a straight answer from the pirate. He wondered if the older man was asking him if he truly wanted his opinion, because he had no idea himself, or simply to rub it in his face his ineptness in this situation.

Probably the latter.

He was a blacksmith, not a pirate. Why would he know where to procure a `pirate' crew?

"You're the pirate, Jack, not I. How should I know where to get a *pirate* crew?" The young man said with a slight touch of bitterness and annoyance in his voice. Then sighing again as he turned away from the `captain' and walked over to the railing at the bow of the ship. Resting his arms against the smooth polished wood once again and looking out over the ocean. Resigning himself that the dark haired man would not give him any kind of answer.

He didn't think that the man had given him a straight answer since the first moment they had `met' in the smithy. When the pirate had stumbled in on run from the city guards, looking for a hiding place yet meeting the tip of his sword instead.

William frowned at the memory.

He would have won that fight too if the pirate hadn't cheated.  Jack hadn't given him a single straight answer *then* as well. He also hadn't passed up the chance to humiliate him in any way he could, even when they had been fighting.

Oh this was going to be a long voyage and it had barely even begun…

But he would endure anything if it meant getting Elizabeth back. He would rescue her. He would…

The young man looked back over his shoulder at the pirate briefly before turning his attention back to the sea. The other man was giving him a headache, which certainly was not helping with his mild case of seasickness. If this kept up he might have to consider skipping dinner, or really humiliating himself by pitching it over the side later. He was sure the older man would have a good laugh at his expense then.

"Since we've been heading east for some time now, I'm guessing you have some idea of where to look for this crew?" Will tried the pirate's own tactic of answering a question with a question.  Though it might simply give him more aggravation rather than the answer he sought.

Jack smirked smartly in response though the effect was unfortunately rather lost upon Will's back, "Well, I don't imagine I'd be much of a pirate if I didn't, now would I?" There was a deliberate coyness behind the words, an effect that only reinforced the sensation that everything Sparrow said was masked in double-speak. It was, in fact; all orchestrated for the pirate's greatest advantage.

"Though you, my boy; if you're like to be sailing in pursuit of a pirate's wake, it might prove advantageous that you learn a bit more o' pirate ways. Or at least," Jack added as an afterthought, "learn to listen to all-what your gut already knows of `em. Savvy?"  He paused only briefly, not really expecting an answer.

"Now then, as you seem disinclined to do the latter, it is a good thing indeed that you have Captain Jack Sparrow to learn you in the fine ways of buccaneers and privateers the world over.

"The first thing you must understand, boy, about all manner of scalawags and rapscallions alike, is," here Jack bowed with a flourish and a slightly exaggerated and dramatic exhale, "-why- They do it." The lilted voice paused.

In fact, Jack stopped speaking all together, letting the gentle billow of the ship's sails fill the otherwise silent space between himself and Will. He meant to give nothing away; he was not in the business of charity. (In fact he'd once heard tell that charity was the antithesis of piracy, and though he wasn't entirely sure what `antithesis' meant, it contained the word anti, and anything that was anti-piracy, well Jack was anti- that.)

Let the boy ask if he wanted to know. With an infuriating nonchalance, the pirate waited for his pupil to turn to him once more, waited to see that expectant look in the young man's eyes which would prove he had piqued young Mr. Turner's curiosity.

Will didn't need to see the pirate's smirk to know it was there, he could hear it in the older man's voice clear enough and the young man had to force himself not to sigh. Well he had practically asked for it, hadn't he? No sense in complaining about it now.

It was not lost on him that the other man had once again side stepped his question and was once more talking in circles. Drawing him into a conversation he really hadn't wanted to have with the pirate to begin with.

He was good at talking, the young blacksmith had to give him that. The younger man would have wondered if that's all what Jack Sparrow was good at and his reputation was all that, just talk. But he had already fought the older man and he could not deny his skill with a blade.

Indeed there was probably quite a bit that Sparrow could teach him about pirates and piracy and all manners of unsavory things. He doubted however that there was anything about it he would actually *want* to learn. But the elder man had a point. If he wanted to rescue Elizabeth, from *pirates*, it might be beneficial to learn a little more about them than he did. At least learn more about the
pirates they were chasing.

Though he was a little confused, well more than normal anyway, by
something the elder man said. Learn to listen to what his gut already
knows about them? What on earth did that mean exactly?

It was that, more than Jack offer to `teach' him about pirates, that made him turn around after the lengthy silence that had followed his words and look at the older man again.

"What would that be, Captain Sparrow?" He asked with a slightly raised eyebrow, leaning back against the railing.

The pirate gestured the boy towards him, the motion displaying slightly long and uneven fingernails stained the color of smoky ivory, nails which, though far from manicured, gave their owner's hands an elongated and almost delicate look.

He waited, noting that the gesture of his fingers apparently wasn't enough to do the trick, as Will still stood staring at him, and so he motioned more vehemently with his whole hand. He was pleasantly surprised by how quickly the lad had taken to calling him `Captain,' (have to make sure he kept that up, `e would), now if he could just get the boy to respond a little faster to his summons they would be in fine shape indeed.

Jack waited patiently until his `pupil' arrived by his side, slinging his arm around the boy's shoulder, his hand hanging there casually, wrist resting by the open collar of the young man's shirt as he began his explanation. "Well son, pillage and plunder are well enough, and riches are grand, true. But, have you e're heard of a pirate buys a villa or a manor house with his booty? Nay, and ne'er will you. Who would want one?

"Static places they are, all manner protocol to go with `em.  Stuffy and proper. There's no -freedom- and there's no -fun-. That, lad, is the -point- of all this pirating--I mean, what is life without its bodily pleasures, without its...sensuousness," the pirate's forefinger here traced idly over the exposed contour of Will's collarbone, running all the way up to edge along the red sash the boy had tied around his neck.

"The point of treasure is the adventure of the getting it and the pleasure in the spending it--the food and the drink and the welcoming arms of...hospitable companions," Jack's voice had become low and sultry with these last words and he favored Will with a slight glint in his eye and a flash of a gold-punctuated smile.

"`S all very Dionysian, you see. So then, if you want to find pirates, mate, you best look in places that welcome such disreputable pastimes as drinking and whoring, that don't bother too much with rules...oh, and of course that have an ample stock of rum, savvy?

"Ergo our destination. Perhaps you've `eard of it; called Tortuga."

Will looked at the hand that the pirate had held out to him as one might a poisonous snake. His eyes drifting from the elder man's kohl lined one's to the dirty yet strangely delicate looking fingers that beckoned him.

Not that he was afraid Jack would actually harm him if he came closer… But because he could not understand what the pirate was going to tell him that *required* him coming closer. It was not as if someone else would overhear them. They were alone on a ship out in the middle of the ocean. And unless fish suddenly learned to speak, anything the elder man told him at this moment was guaranteed to remain between them. Even if shouted at the top of his lungs.

But when it seemed the pirate was not going to say anything further until he came closer, the young blacksmith gave an exaggerated sigh and a slight rolling of his eyes, and walked over to the elder man. Though he certainly was not prepared for the arm that was suddenly and rather roughly thrown over his shoulders, making him practically stumble into the elder man with a muffled `oof'.

And before he could protest Jack began speaking again, practically oblivious to anything else but his own words. Asking him questions which had the young man parting his lips to answer but then continuing before he could get a word out. Resigned the young man sighed again and just listened. At the same time watching the almost erratic movements and gestures of Jack's free hand. The sway and
tinkling of the beads that had been woven into the elder man's dark hair.

It really was quite fascinating, in a morbidly curious way. As if the elder man were running on a constant supply of sugar. Like a child who simply could not sit still and was always fidgeting, having to move constantly or they might just literally burst at the seams from all the energy contained in their body.

Jack Sparrow seemed very much like a child sometimes. A very spoiled and very dangerous child, yet still containing that charm that every child seemed to possess that seemed to draw people to them like a fly to honey. That charm that usually got them exactly what they wanted, whether you were willing to give it to them or not.

He was so distracted by the elder man's words and gestures he almost didn't feel the finger that had run across his neck until the caress was almost complete. His gaze snapping down to the hand that touched him and then back to the kohl lined eyes. His own eyes now wide and questioning the gesture that he somehow felt was not proper but he couldn't say why.

Then the quick touch was almost forgotten as the elder man began speaking yet again. The pirate's words and gestures distracting as they always were but it was easy enough to follow what he was saying and the young man nodded in understanding. At least he thought he understood…

Of course the look Sparrow had given him was completely lost on the naïve young man.

"Tortuga?" Will repeated the name of the port that he was indeed familiar with, though he had certainly never been there. Nor would any `respectable' member of society. Well, Jack was certainly right about one thing. If you were looking for the lowest dregs of society, such as pirates, Tortuga would be the first place to look.

"Will it take us long to get there? That's not where the Black Pearl is heading is it? How long will it take to get from there to where the pirates are taking Elizabeth?" The young man asked as he made to step away from the older man, yet Jack still hadn't released his hold on him yet.

Will looked like his father, Jack reflected for not the first time as he slid his arm free from the young man's shoulder, allowing the boy to move away. But his looks, apparently, seemed to be the extent of the family resemblance. The elder William Turner had smelled...well much like any mariner--of sea salt and ocean air, though a faint sweet scent of old tobacco generally clung about him as well.

But not so the younger. He smelled of smoke of an altogether different sort, of the sooty billows of the forge and the acrid burn of slowly-heated steel. Given time, the wind and the water would cleanse him of the odors, Jack was sure, but for now they were still almost pungent in the pirate's nostrils. It was a smell that reminded him of the moment when they met, and try though he might, he couldn't decide if he really -wanted- the aroma washed away in the ocean breeze.

Furthermore, if Jack was allowing himself to make comparisons (and it seemed he was) William senior had been, mostly, the quiet and intuitive type. -He- certainly would not have been assaulting Jack with this endless barrage of questions. And while Jack did not exactly -mind- answering them, he felt that the conversation would certainly be more interesting if he were able to steer its course himself. The boy had an unfortunate single track to his thinking.
Jack was going to have to see that remedied.

"Well, usually it takes near fourteen days to make the Windward Passage, mate, but seeing as our Interceptor here's such a fast ship, I'd say we might make it in ten...give or take. And as far as the Pearl goes," Jack looked at Will for a moment in what appeared to be uncharacteristic lucidity before the customary roguish glint reappeared in his brown eyes, "we will catch her. I made you a
promise, did I not?"

Will stepped away when Jack finally released him, watching the elder man a little strangely as he seemed lost in his own thoughts. He would not have thought the words `Jack Sparrow' and `quiet contemplation' would ever be spoken in the same sentence together.

He couldn't help but be curious about what the pirate was thinking.  Though if he had to guess it was probably nothing more than the aforementioned whores or rum he would indulge in once they reached Tortuga.

Ten days… That still seemed like a frightfully long time to the young
blacksmith. Elizabeth would be held captive by those fiends for ten days… longer, because the elder man still hadn't told him how long it would take to actually catch up to the Pearl once they got their `crew'.

The young man closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. There was simply nothing that could be done about it… not even the `famous' Jack Sparrow could alter time and reality to make them arrive at their destination any faster.

Will opened his eyes to stare out over the ocean once again longingly.

"Yes, you promised…" He said softly, almost absently, and then paused. Remembering that promise quite clearly.

Well Mr. Turner, I tell you what. I've changed my mind. If you spring me from this cell, I swear on pain of death, I shall take you to the Black Pearl and your bonnie lass. Do we have an accord?

The young man turned around to look at the elder man again with a small frown.

"Why? Why did you promise `On pain of death?' If all pirates are after is treasure and pleasure as you say? What is in this for you?"

Will Turner might not have known it at the moment, but he had just succeeded in doing something that few people ever managed to achieve. He had given Captain Jack Sparrow more than a moment's pause and left him, at least temporarily, at a loss for words.

'Knew you were smart, lad, but I'd not figured that, the pirate reflected silently. It would seem that he had been underestimating young Mr. Turner's wit and would now have to remedy the situation forthwith.

Jack favored the young man at his side with a slightly raised brow, his eyes shifting away and over the sea a moment to cover up the discomfort of not yet knowing what answer to give. Certainly he had no intention of telling the boy the truth in the matter--that he had agreed to this venture because he meant to return from it the reinstated captain of the Pearl, that if he failed in the attempt, Barbosa would almost certainly kill all of them. And certainly he did
not mean to tell Will that he intended to disclose the boy's parentage in exchange for Miss Elizabeth Swann's freedom and the return of his ship.

The pirate wasn't sure as of yet whether he'd be able to find a way to save Will's life and still accomplish his other two objectives, but then the boy -had- said he was willing to die for the lady, so Jack wasn't spending too much worry over that particular detail.

"Well, I'll tell you, lad..." he was forced to another pause here, having not yet figured out just -what- to tell the boy, though he disguised it more as a long drawn out sigh as though he was being forced to divulge a secret he'd just as soon keep. But presently, the strong cool contours of the wheel beneath his palm gave him all the answer he needed.

The pirate brought his face close to Will's for a moment, his eyes bright and dark, the trinkets in his hair jingling slightly with the movement as one corner of his lip turned in a sideways smirk.  "For one thing, I've already gotten this fine ship here, which, I'll admit to you, I'd `ave `ad a great deal more trouble commandeering were I all by me onesies.

"And for second, you saved me from the gallows, did you not? Were it not for our accord I'd like as not now be dancing the hempen jig, me cold bones set out on the gibbet to sway in the breeze as warnin' to others. So it seems appropriate, wouldn't you say, that I swear to you on just such pain as that which you saved me from?

"And for third, I'm a pirate, mate. Would you really have taken me at my word had I sworn you no oath?" Jack leaned near a moment longer, his crooked smile now flashing a hint of gilt tooth as watched the young man's reaction with avid interest. He liked looking at him, he decided quite suddenly. Young Mr. Turner had a pleasant, if hopelessly naive, dashing quality about him that made him fascinatingly easy on the eyes.

Perhaps, Jack began to hope, he wasn't a eunuch after all. And perhaps there was indeed pleasure to be gained from this expedition.

Will Turner was rather surprised how long it was taking for the pirate to answer his question. Even in the short time he had known Jack Sparrow, he never would have described him as a man who easily became at a loss for words. And as the silence stretched further, the young man became more certain that he had hit on something important.

Jack was hiding something from him, not that he would have expected a pirate to be completely `free' with his information. But if he was being secretive about *this*, there was a good chance whatever he was
hiding would likely get either him or Elizabeth killed.

The young man scowled, his lips parting, intending to prod the elder man further for the information he wanted, just when Jack turned back towards him and leaned close. His mouth snapping closed with an audible click and his eyes widening a little in surprise and even a bit of nervousness at the older man's rather close proximity again.

He was not sure if he completely believed the tale Jack Sparrow was weaving for him now, even though it sounded completely reasonable, Will hadn't forgotten how long it had taken the elder man to respond. Though he was right about one thing. If the pirate had sworn to him on anything less, he probably would not have broken him out of jail.

Self-interest and preservation. Another `pirate' trait Jack had failed to mention, but Will already understood is what truly motivated all men like Sparrow. Giving aid to another who needed it, even if it gained you nothing in return, because it was the right thing to do… Sacrificing your very life to the one you loved…

Of course such concepts were foreign to pirates.

"No, I wouldn't have." The young man said simply. Taking a few steps back to put considerably more distance between him and Sparrow than there had been before. The familiar look of mistrust now firmly back in place as he stared at the older man for a few moments. Finally nodding, accepting his explanation. For now at least.

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