Truths, Lies, and Legends: Jack the Hero
Another look at The Return of the Flying Dutchman, this time from Jack’s point of view.
Can be read on its own or as a late sequel to my Truths and Lies stories.
Characters: Jack, Bootstrap, Elizabeth, Small William
Rating: NC-17 slash with shedloads of ANGST
Author: p0wdermonkey
Disclaimer: Not mine. I do not profit. Quite the opposite.
Beta: viva_gloria
Note: If you want this to fit with the earlier Truths and Lies series, you have to either not look too closely or use the Truths and Lies AWE Compliance Patch.
Truths, Lies, and Legends: Jack the Hero
Jack hadn’t really asked himself why he’d gone down to the beach. Probably, he’d wanted to assist Elizabeth.
Yes, that was it: assist Elizabeth. So why was Elizabeth carrying Small William on her own to meet Will? Or rather, since Will was obviously staying behind the line of surf, Will’s crewman?
Ah.
Jack was suddenly on intimate terms with a pair of his father’s floozies whose stature and ostentatious headgear allowed him to keep out of sight while viewing that all-important stretch of shoreline framed between their shoulders, rouged cheeks, and hat brims.
William-the man Jack really ought to be calling Bill by now-fumbled presenting the sword, almost dropped it, and apologised. (Jack couldn’t hear, but he didn’t need to.) Elizabeth tried to cut matters short by just taking the damned thing, but couldn’t resist a flourish.
Jack winced and had to look away. Irresponsible bloody pirates! Was a miracle Small William still had all ten fingers and hadn’t been dropped in the water.
Just as Jack was starting to think he’d have to go down there after all, King Lizzie the First settled Small William into a safer carrying position and started back up the beach. Large William-Bill-fished the sword out of the breakers, sheathed it. And followed her.
Jack grinned at his strapping floozies as he pinched their lower (presumably un-rouged) cheeks to adjust for the optimum combination of privacy and line of sight. He’d barely caught a glimpse of… of Bill since the sorry occasions of the Black Spot incident and the non-stabbing of Davy Jones’ heart, or rather the stabbing by non-Jack’s hand because the whelps were looking so tragic and he couldn’t bear the hurt in those blue eyes… Oh, bugger! It was never a good idea to think about those.
Starfish! That was what came to mind, and bladderwrack and pallor. Full fathom five-fifty-five, more like. Grief, sorrow, anger, curses, and things broken beyond… Barnacles! He’d lost the barnacles and the starfish. Well, that was definitely an improvement. And not so much deathly as slightly sallow. Young William’s regime on the Dutchman clearly had the edge over Jones’, if only in matters of presentation.
Jack was debating whether a quiet comment to this effect was more likely to cement his relationship with the camouflaging floozies or draw unwanted attention, when Bill Turner’s left foot came down just inland of the drying weed left by the last tide.
The green flash was different from the outside-both brighter and further away-more like lightning than the green St Elmo’s fire Jack remembered being caught up in. When he could see again, the man standing by the tideline wasn’t recently-barnacled Bill: he was William. Older, true, and with skin that clearly hadn’t seen much sunshine, but living, breathing, and warm. (Obviously, he was warm. Jack didn’t need to touch him to know that.) The breeze fluttered his soft, dry hair. Jack knew he’d be wanting someone to gather it off his face and tie it back in a ribbon.
His reverie was cruelly interrupted by the sting of the dark floozy’s palm.
“Don’t you mess my coiffure, Jack Sparrow,” she hissed. “Or I’ll have your bollocks for a chignon.”
“Captain Jack Sparrow, luv,” he replied, but didn’t pause to point out she’d still look like a manatee, albeit a manatee with a remarkably fine hairdo, because his bloody father was holding forth again, telling everyone how this bloody miracle was-of course-Not Permitted By the Code.
It was just as well Jack’s incognito’d been blown to buggery because he wasn’t letting that go unchallenged. He surreptitiously adjusted his own hair before breaking cover to stride across the open ground between himself and Elizabeth. He knew all eyes-especially the ones that mattered-would be on him, but was careful not to look at William, and to show him his best side. A low bow to Her Nibs allowed him to demonstrate that his behind was pert, round, and inviting as ever.
Da was off again, poking fun just because William didn’t go through life with a troop of overfilled petticoats and underfilled heads to giggle at his every remark. The smug git had a point, though. Only one thing could bring a man back from the Flying Dutchman, and that’s… Fuck. That’s Jack.
Words are tumbling out of his mouth without apparently passing through his brain first. No worries. He’s good with words.
True, for instance. He searches for some obscure meaning that allows its application to himself over the last ten, no-bugger ten-twelve years. Failing utterly to forget someone, in spite of swiving, swallowing, and generally doing everything and everyone to drive him out of your mind? Yup. That’ll be the one.
He’d quite like to know what he’s saying because the crowd seems to enjoy it. Not his father, though, who’s gone purple (never a good sign) and pulled out a pistol. Well, two can play at bluff and bluster. Jack’s aim’s as good as the old man’s ever was (or would be if his hand would stop shaking). He shot Barbossa for parting him from William and he can damn well do the same to Teague. It hardly registers as a shock that this last statement is actually, for once, true. He has just enough awareness left to feel a tiny spike of relief when Elizabeth pulls his father away.
Now it’s just him and William, and words can’t help him out of this one. Words can only mess things up. More than they are already, that is. If that’s possible. He wants to tell William he’s beautiful again. Tell him he missed him. That he was true in his own way. That he wants William more than anything else, that he’ll go anywhere, do anything. But he knows how that ends. He’s had over a decade to figure out that, of all the terrible mistakes he made, the worst by far was not letting William go free.
“I won’t try nothin’ to keep you,” he hears himself say.
When did he slip back into double negatives? Needed saying, though. It’s only now, watching William’s sea-coloured eyes flicker from him to the boy in the slightly less sea-coloured sea, that he understands his new promise is about to be tested. Too soon.
He takes William’s hands, just as he did before, when they vowed to be two halves of a whole. He looks into William’s eyes until he’s sure they can see Jack means this promise every bit as much.
“Never again, I swear.”
William nods, and Jack knows he’s guessed right. There follows a terrible few minutes-or possibly hours, or days-in which William shuffles and hesitates, and Jack has to push him to do what they both know he needs to.
Frankly, Jack wouldn’t care if the whelps waited another eight years-or indeed forever-for their blissful reunion, if only he could have William back the way he once had him. He’s merely terrified that, if this goes on much longer, he’ll blurt out the truth and lose even the little piece of William he still seems to have. They mustn’t part as enemies, not this time…
What did William just say?
“He won’t begrudge me the one day on land.”
Jack can’t speak because his mouth is all over William’s. He’d never thought about the one day ashore being separate from the life regained if your true love waits (or whatever the deal is-he’s still not entirely clear).
If he wasn’t too busy right now, he’d go find all the people who ever said William was, well, a bit slow, and bang their bloody heads together. Listen, (he’d say when they could focus again). He doesn’t have to give all of it to the boy: only the actual lifetime, but not the one day ashore. He spotted that all by himself! And he’s giving it to me!
The thing about kissing William is it’s damned hard to stop. (As a matter of fact, several things are damned hard.) But they need to get off the beach before Jack’s bloody father comes back for his bloody awning. Jack takes his mouth away from William just long enough to suggest relocation to a more secluded spot. (He thought about borrowing said awning and using it as a blanket but that would mean unwrapping their arms from around each other and there isn’t an awning in the world-or even a paternal tantrum-that’s worth that.)
So they stagger towards the rocks, slowly and clumsily, because that’s better than letting go or breaking the kiss. What with the way their legs tangle and Jack’s crotch keeps bumping up against William’s thighs-sometimes by accident-they really aren’t covering much ground.
“I’m not going to make it,” moans Jack into William’s shoulder, clutching him close and rocking his trapped cock against firm muscle.
“We’d best do something about that.”
William shifts his arms and, for a moment, Jack thinks he might be picked up and carried the rest of the way. He wonders if William can really do that. But the arms are snaking between their bodies, and William’s clever fingers get to work undoing the placket of Jack’s britches, and…
Fuck. William’s fingers. Fuckfuckfuckfuck…
If he was with anyone else, Jack’d be mortified to’ve shot his wad prematurely, as it were, at the first touch, with his breeches not even-ah-breached, and he’d make a clever joke (like that one, only cleverer) to cover his embarrassment. Of course, if he was with anyone else, it wouldn’t have happened. (Or if it did, he’d be sure to have a bloody good excuse for it.) But this is William and, being William, he cups Jack’s deflating cock ever so gently in one hand as he strokes his face with the other.
“Oh, Jack.”
Jack shuts his eyes, listening to the words over and over inside his head. William’s voice carries nothing but longing and wonder, without a grain of mockery. And all for Jack.
“I need you,” moans Jack, clinging on tight. That might sound like he’s asking William to stay forever, so he specifies. “Need you right now. Inside me.”
William throws gentleness to the winds. With a throaty roar that shivers Jack down to his boot-soles, he scoops him off said boot-soles and half carries him, half hurls them both towards the jumble of rocks.
~
Jack’s mostly naked on top of his spread coat when he realises the crucial pocket is horribly flat. Of all the times to get caught without lubrication, why, oh why, today? He pats down his other pockets, but he already knows there’s nothing useful in there. William will think he’s taken to chastity in his old age.
William, bless him, is patting down his own pockets, which rarely harboured anything sinful, not even when he was sinning with Jack on a blessedly regular basis.
“Thought I might’ve had something here for cleaning that sword.” He gives Jack one of those apologetic half-smiles. God, but Jack remembers those-the way the brows draw together, and the little creases at one corner of the mouth (not so little now), and the sparks dancing in the eyes…
“No worries,” Jack assures him. “I can clean swords with all kinds of stuff.”
William chuckles at that and the smile spreads to his whole face. Not that Jack gets to watch it for long, because William lunges in for a crushing kiss and Jack lunges right back.
Next thing he’s clear about, he’s on his back with his legs on William’s shoulders and his hands guiding William in. With a good helping of wet from the kissing and a slick of the seed he spent in his britches (knew there was a good reason for that), things are, if not exactly gliding, then rubbing along in a very promising manner.
Soon it’s all push and squeeze, grasp and thrust, hard and fast, Williamwilliamwilliam and Jackjackjack. Gods! He’d forgotten how perfectly they fit. Not forgotten, no, but the memory can’t compare to the shining glory of William filling all five senses and every hungry cavity of Jack’s sadly weather-beaten body and soul. Jack’s prick is hard again. He wonders how long they can last, how many they can manage…
He pushes away thoughts of physical-or temporal-restrictions and flings everything he’s got at the perfection of having this, here, now. He can hear himself moaning and crying out as he clutches at sweat-slick, shuddering, beautiful William’s back, and they come together in a blaze as bright and fierce as the very first time.
He’d thought the tears might come now. They have a way of catching him in the aftermath. But, as it turns out, he’s shaking with laughter over that ridiculous phrase: beautiful William’s back. Funniest thing he’s heard in years.
They lie curled around each other, running their hands over one another’s skin as if they still can’t believe this is real. (Or possibly, to make the most of the short time they have together; but Jack’s not thinking that. No.)
“Your hair’s longer,” says William, playing with it.
“I cut it all off,” Jack tells him. “Then it grew again.”
William’s hand slides slowly down a dreadlock and Jack knows he’ll be measuring and dividing by twelve. How many inches for each year apart?
“You’ll not cut it again? Not when…”
“Course not!” Jack puts a finger to those lips before they can finish. “Not unless I need to make meself look respectable some day-God forbid.”
“Let’s hope it don’t come to that, eh?”
It seems they still have their shirts more or less on. This is soon dealt with. William’s eyes linger on scars and tattoos acquired since… since he last saw Jack naked. But he doesn’t ask; just kisses Jack all over. Jack does the same (except to William’s body, obviously). William’s older and paler, but otherwise completely unchanged. As if he’s been locked away in a box since the night when Jack drew a map of the Isla da Muerta on him in kohl and grief.
Every curve and line of that body is burned into Jack’s mind, but he looks deeper, wanting the older, happier memories…
Sitting snuggled side-by-side as William showed him how to carve buttons out of bone. (Jack would have preferred undoing buttons, but was still under the misapprehension that Bill Turner wasn’t interested in boys.) William laughing into salt spray as Jack set the Pearl leaping after some fat merchant ship. William tipping him into their hammock, all hunger and heat. William muzzy with afterglow, cradling Jack’s face in his hands: I love you, Jack. More than anything in the world.
Jack looks up and sees remembered love clear in William’s eyes. Wordlessly, they smile at each other, touch hands to lips.
“Jack,” whispers William, wide-eyed. “Still so beautiful.”
That treacherous word, still, with its festering undertones of not for much longer-not for another ten bloody years, at any rate… Accursed word catches him unawares, and sounds slither up his throat before he knows they’re coming.
He’s rocking against William, clutching at him, sobbing, howling. His mind, cutting and running for safety, fixes on the time he saw something like this in Greece and was told the women were professional mourners who’d hardly met the deceased. Maybe he’s missed his vocation because he reckons he could make good money in Greece.
“I don’t want to lose you, not now, not ever!”
Luckily, the words are mangled beyond comprehension.
William holds him tight, rocks with him, steadying, soothing.
“Let it go, lad. Better out than in. That’s what Peggy used to say.”
Jack wails and thumps his clod-brained darling for mentioning Peggy just now, but the blow’s wild.
“Sorry, Jack. Didn’t think. You cry all you want to. I know it were hard on you. Terrible hard. I wish I could’ve made it easier. I do love you, Jack. Always have done. You deserve better.”
Jack doesn’t want better. He wants William. But there always has to be something more important, some notion of duty, or sin, or family, or… Jack won’t be caught dead saying this, but he can’t help what he’s thinking, and he’s thinking it isn’t fair.
He fumbles for his boot and pulls out the Spanish stiletto, fiercely pleased when William gasps and grabs his wrist.
“Don’t be daft, William,” he says, when he’s had his fill of alarm, and anyway needs the use of his hand. “You know me better’n that.”
William understands then, and it’s a beautiful thing to watch him gently take the knife and cut through assorted scraps and adornments to uncover Jack’s tattooed wrist. His own is already bare. Jack presses them together: his W for William against William’s sparrow in flight whose lines form J for Jack if you know how to look.
He brings their joined wrists to his mouth, William’s face beside his own. He shuts his eyes and just feels their heartbeats. Joined. He won’t hold on to William, not this time, but he’ll claim this. No-one else has this. He dives deep into the moment, letting it soak through his memories, willing it to be more than just skin and ink.
It helps. After a while, Jack’s mind stills, and his body (which is occasionally wiser) takes over, twining itself around William like a mermaid round a drowned sailor. To his own amazement (and quiet pride), his cock’s filling for the third time today. William’s body (which always had more sense than the rest of him) is making it equally clear that it wants Jack.
Sunlight gives way to moonlight but, even when they’re both sated and worn out, Jack keeps caressing William, holding him close, memorising him all over again. Better still, William never stops caressing Jack. He murmurs endearments in his ears, swirls slow kisses along his spine, and generally does all the things he hasn’t done since a long time before that final, terrible night.
The thing inside Jack that’s been broken all these years begins, if not to heal, then at least to knit together. It’s a good feeling and some of it stays with him even after dawn becomes an undeniable fact.
~
William, in his marvellously restored state, can’t return to the Dutchman the way he came, i.e. underwater. So Jack lends him Teague’s favourite dinghy, which is tied up to the jetty.
William shuffles a bit, the way he does when he’s trying to say something and doesn’t know how.
“Will thinks I tried to help you,” he mutters at last. “In the mutiny.”
“Course he does. No sense getting pedantic about the details, eh?”
“Thank you. For what it’s worth, if I could change one thing, that’d be it.”
“I know,” says Jack.
He cuts out a lock of hair with a jade bead in it, hands it to William, who presses it to his lips and tucks into a pouch on his belt. William’s low on ornaments, but he pulls off his shirt and presses it into Jack’s hands. Jack bundles it up and stows it in his cleanest pocket where it won’t lose its William smell.
Oddly, William’s the one weeping.
“You do have a choice here.” Jack’s learned not to fight William’s incomprehensible urge to self-punishment. Doesn’t mean he has to encourage it. “You don’t have to go.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. There’s only what a man can do and what he can’t-you were right about that. I can’t choose what I can’t do.”
Jack suspects he himself has just become living proof to the contrary.
“You had a choice though, Jack. And you chose right. I’m grateful.”
“Great. I mean…grateful, how marvellous! I’m so happy you’re grateful. I’m bloody well over the moon to know that you’ll be out there thinking about me and… Look, just go, will you? Before we cock this one up too. May not get another.”
To Jack’s considerable disappointment, William nods and does exactly that.
~
Jack suspects he’s not looking his best as he makes his way over the dunes to the inward-facing beach and rows to the town that rises from the middle of the lagoon like the contents of a badly stowed hold after a storm. Luckily, the inhabitants of Shipwreck tend not to rise bright and early to great the new day (and those who haven’t noticed the night is over won’t notice Jack either).
The second thing is to get news of Will’s impending return to Elizabeth, preferably without running into his father or anyone else liable to make remarks on the lines of ‘On yer own, Jack? Bill tired of you already, is he?’
The first thing, naturally, is to find the right angle for delivery and viewing of said news. By the time he taps on the stern window of her apartments (lamentably lax security for a pirate monarch), he’s almost got it.
“Jack?”
As the mother of a small child, King Elizabeth is one of very few people awake at this hour. She’s curled in a wing chair with Small William and a picture book, so Jack signals her to stay where she is while he lets himself in. Her eyes are red and puffy, but he pretends not to notice-which is no mean feat given the way she’s staring at him with them.
“Oh, Jack! Where’s Bill? What happened?”
How the devil...? Oh. Right. Puffy red eyes. Bugger. She probably wouldn’t believe him if he said he’d got salt in them diving off the reef.
“Never mind that,” says Jack (wishing he didn’t). “I came to tell you something.”
“Oh, Jack! You don’t owe me anything. If it was Will who’d come back, you wouldn’t see me for weeks.”
They smile at each other as only two thoroughly miserable people can.
“How many weeks, exactly?” he asks, because, after all, she did raise the subject and it happens to be rather relevant.
“As many as you like, though if you still want to be around for Small William’s first steps, you’d better hurry.”
She sets Small William down on the floor to demonstrate. He shuffles on hands and knees towards Jack and hauls himself to almost standing by climbing Jack’s boots. Jack takes his arms, but the best he can manage is a controlled flop onto his backside, the sort of thing Jack himself might do after a lot of rum has gone.
Jack sweeps him up into a hug. He’s as keen as everyone else for the child to be Will’s, but he can’t help noticing that his skin’s quite dark and he has the most un-Will-like button nose.
“Reckon I could fit in a run to Singapore, then, seein’ as my Queen’ll be otherwise engaged.”
He’s quite pleased with that. Subtle, but Lizzie’ll work it out in a minute. As it turns out, she’s quicker than that: he really must look a fright.
“What do you mean, ‘otherwise engaged’? What’s the matter, Jack? I’m not blind, you know.”
Jack takes a deep breath, full of the warm scent of Small William’s fluffy hair, and launches into his big number.
“Thing is, Lizzie. Me and William, Bill I should say, if only for clarity-it was never going to work between us. Twelve years is a long time. We’ve both changed. I was just a lad before, first time in love an’ all that.” He gives her a roguish grin, the lop-sided one that shows two gold teeth. “Bit beyond that stage now, savvy? An’ William, well, he’s found his son, an’… an’ he’s... we’ve… grown… um…”
Jack knows he’s losing the thread here, floundering near the rocks of memories he’s no wish to revisit.
“Barnacles?”
Bless Lizbeth for breaking the spell!
“The word I was looking for,” he says with exaggerated dignity and secret relief, “was apart. Though I’ll concede that recent outbreaks of crustaceans may have been a contributory factor.”
“What happened?”
“A very enjoyable night, the details of which I prefer not to divulge to a respectable married monarch.” (She rolls her eyes, reminding him for a moment of Hector.) “At the end of which we concluded that, since I’ve no intention of settling down to married respectability, and he’s never been one for life on land, the rest of Calypso’s gift would be better bestowed on the next generation.”
“Will?”
“Aye, love. So he’ll be needing his heart back as soon as you can manage.”
She opens and shuts her mouth, squeaks a couple of times, and drops heavily into the chair. Jack feels he should proffer sal volatile or loosen her stays, or perform some such damsel-succouring manoeuvre, but he’s fully occupied trying to separate Small William from his own hair. In the end, he cuts off a braid with a particularly shiny bead in it and the child lets himself be put down on the floor, clutching his prize. (This is clearly Jack’s day for sacrificing portions of his hair. He hopes Elizabeth isn’t going to want one too.) He thrusts the picture book at Small William with an encouraging “Look! A crocodile!” and turns to Elizabeth.
“But the green flash,” she objects, hands clasped to her fetchingly heaving bodice. (Small William having wrought considerable improvements in matters bosomy.) “Bill came ashore. You spent the night together. They can’t just take turns!”
“Ah!” says Jack, privately thrilled that she hasn’t spotted what clever William noticed at once. “Last night was the ‘one day ashore, ten years at sea’ bit. Entirely separate from the part about bein’ allowed back if your true love stays true. Bill took the day ashore for himself; gave the coming back to young Will.”
“Will’s coming back?”
He doesn’t really want to explain it again. And he certainly doesn’t want to think about the mechanics: how Will’s heart somehow gets put back; how right at this moment somebody might be plunging a knife…
Small William, bless him, jabs the picture book into Jack’s groin and demands “popapie!” Jack duly points to the crocodile and makes blood-curdling, munching noises.
By the time he’s worked his way through elephants, monkeys, giraffes (fuck knows what they sound like-Jack opts for a strangled squeal) snakes, and parrots, and persuaded the boy to line up his wooden animals along the edge of the rug, ready to have a shouting contest later on, Elizabeth is more or less coherent.
“But you said Bill was the love of your life. You were true to him for ten years… Well, true enough, apparently.”
Too bloody coherent by half, thinks Jack.
“So why would you...?”
“So I was,” he agrees to forestall further questioning. “Twelve years as a matter of fact, since that’s how long it took before he stepped on dry land. But can you honestly see me settling down? With anyone?”
There’s a lot of truth in that, as it happens. Just so long as she doesn’t ask why he and William couldn’t sail away on the Pearl and not settle at all.
“Course, I told him I might feel differently in another ten years.”
“Thank you, Jack.”
He doesn’t like the way she’s looking at him, all sucked-in cheeks and careful consideration, but at least she’s stopped asking questions.
“You know,” she continues, “between them, Will and his father have put in at least fourteen years on the Dutchman. It might only need another six.”
Creative accountancy! Jack likes that in a woman.
“Aye, well, we thought we’d keep going to that beach every now and then.” He jerks his head in its general direction. “Just to check how we’re doing. An' I'll be keepin' a watch on Small here as he grows big.”
She throws her arms around him and sobs into his coat. Jack’s eyes are perfectly dry, which makes a nice change. Small William, however, disapproves, and expresses his disapproval by hitting them with a rhinoceros. Elizabeth scoops him up and shushes him.
“Thank you!” she says again. “And you’re always welcome at the Cove, you do know that, don’t you?”
“Course I do,” he tells her (though he hadn’t been sure till she said). “But does my dad?”
“He will!”
Jack rather likes the threatening sound of that.
“Anyway, I’ll not be goin’ anywhere till after the party.”
“What party?”
“The one to welcome the King’s new, um queen, to Shipwreck. I know you’ll be busy with the heart and so forth, but somebody needs to be arranging the most memorable carousal in the history of the Cove at only a few hours’ notice. Who better than yours truly, eh?”
Elizabeth narrows her eyes. “How memorable?”
“Well obviously not quite as memorable as the one that burned the north side to the waterline.” (Should have guessed she’d know about that.) “I was a lot younger then.”
She takes the cellar key from her belt and presses it into his hand.
“Organise whatever you like, Jack. You’ve earned it. Just promise me no-one will have to camp out on the reef tomorrow unless it’s by choice.”
“Done!”
“Get on with it, then! Unless you’re coming to the beach with William and me?”
“Best not,” Jack assures her. “Lots to be done. Time, tide, and impressive, large-scale catering waits for no man.”
He’s about to close the door behind him when she calls, “Jack?”
“My liege?”
“He can’t set foot on land, but land’s not where you spend most of your time, is it? You’ll find a way. Just don’t forget to visit us in between.”
He’s been thinking along similar lines himself, and is framing a reply to that effect when she plants an almost entirely chaste kiss on his lips and shuts the door in his face. Bloody Pirate Kings.
What Jack needs now is a really good night’s sleep preceded by a really, really good piss-up, the kind of piss-up that doesn’t come cheap or organise itself. Rum, wenches, catamites, ox roasts, pigs with pineapples in their snouts, goats-for those who like that kind of thing-apples-always tricky in the tropics, but if Hector’s coming… It’s going to be a busy day.
He’d better start by making sure Mercedes from the New North Inn’s willing to keep him company for the duration. There’s a good chance she’d do it for free, but it’d probably save face all round if he paid her handsomely for her time.
He’ll have no trouble borrowing the wherewithal. By his reckoning, the Pirate King owes him a lot more than one night's worth.
~
Can be read on its own or as a late sequel to my Truths and Lies stories.
Characters: Jack, Bootstrap, Elizabeth, Small William
Rating: NC-17 slash with shedloads of ANGST
Author: p0wdermonkey
Disclaimer: Not mine. I do not profit. Quite the opposite.
Beta: viva_gloria
Note: If you want this to fit with the earlier Truths and Lies series, you have to either not look too closely or use the Truths and Lies AWE Compliance Patch.
Truths, Lies, and Legends: Jack the Hero
Jack hadn’t really asked himself why he’d gone down to the beach. Probably, he’d wanted to assist Elizabeth.
Yes, that was it: assist Elizabeth. So why was Elizabeth carrying Small William on her own to meet Will? Or rather, since Will was obviously staying behind the line of surf, Will’s crewman?
Ah.
Jack was suddenly on intimate terms with a pair of his father’s floozies whose stature and ostentatious headgear allowed him to keep out of sight while viewing that all-important stretch of shoreline framed between their shoulders, rouged cheeks, and hat brims.
William-the man Jack really ought to be calling Bill by now-fumbled presenting the sword, almost dropped it, and apologised. (Jack couldn’t hear, but he didn’t need to.) Elizabeth tried to cut matters short by just taking the damned thing, but couldn’t resist a flourish.
Jack winced and had to look away. Irresponsible bloody pirates! Was a miracle Small William still had all ten fingers and hadn’t been dropped in the water.
Just as Jack was starting to think he’d have to go down there after all, King Lizzie the First settled Small William into a safer carrying position and started back up the beach. Large William-Bill-fished the sword out of the breakers, sheathed it. And followed her.
Jack grinned at his strapping floozies as he pinched their lower (presumably un-rouged) cheeks to adjust for the optimum combination of privacy and line of sight. He’d barely caught a glimpse of… of Bill since the sorry occasions of the Black Spot incident and the non-stabbing of Davy Jones’ heart, or rather the stabbing by non-Jack’s hand because the whelps were looking so tragic and he couldn’t bear the hurt in those blue eyes… Oh, bugger! It was never a good idea to think about those.
Starfish! That was what came to mind, and bladderwrack and pallor. Full fathom five-fifty-five, more like. Grief, sorrow, anger, curses, and things broken beyond… Barnacles! He’d lost the barnacles and the starfish. Well, that was definitely an improvement. And not so much deathly as slightly sallow. Young William’s regime on the Dutchman clearly had the edge over Jones’, if only in matters of presentation.
Jack was debating whether a quiet comment to this effect was more likely to cement his relationship with the camouflaging floozies or draw unwanted attention, when Bill Turner’s left foot came down just inland of the drying weed left by the last tide.
The green flash was different from the outside-both brighter and further away-more like lightning than the green St Elmo’s fire Jack remembered being caught up in. When he could see again, the man standing by the tideline wasn’t recently-barnacled Bill: he was William. Older, true, and with skin that clearly hadn’t seen much sunshine, but living, breathing, and warm. (Obviously, he was warm. Jack didn’t need to touch him to know that.) The breeze fluttered his soft, dry hair. Jack knew he’d be wanting someone to gather it off his face and tie it back in a ribbon.
His reverie was cruelly interrupted by the sting of the dark floozy’s palm.
“Don’t you mess my coiffure, Jack Sparrow,” she hissed. “Or I’ll have your bollocks for a chignon.”
“Captain Jack Sparrow, luv,” he replied, but didn’t pause to point out she’d still look like a manatee, albeit a manatee with a remarkably fine hairdo, because his bloody father was holding forth again, telling everyone how this bloody miracle was-of course-Not Permitted By the Code.
It was just as well Jack’s incognito’d been blown to buggery because he wasn’t letting that go unchallenged. He surreptitiously adjusted his own hair before breaking cover to stride across the open ground between himself and Elizabeth. He knew all eyes-especially the ones that mattered-would be on him, but was careful not to look at William, and to show him his best side. A low bow to Her Nibs allowed him to demonstrate that his behind was pert, round, and inviting as ever.
Da was off again, poking fun just because William didn’t go through life with a troop of overfilled petticoats and underfilled heads to giggle at his every remark. The smug git had a point, though. Only one thing could bring a man back from the Flying Dutchman, and that’s… Fuck. That’s Jack.
Words are tumbling out of his mouth without apparently passing through his brain first. No worries. He’s good with words.
True, for instance. He searches for some obscure meaning that allows its application to himself over the last ten, no-bugger ten-twelve years. Failing utterly to forget someone, in spite of swiving, swallowing, and generally doing everything and everyone to drive him out of your mind? Yup. That’ll be the one.
He’d quite like to know what he’s saying because the crowd seems to enjoy it. Not his father, though, who’s gone purple (never a good sign) and pulled out a pistol. Well, two can play at bluff and bluster. Jack’s aim’s as good as the old man’s ever was (or would be if his hand would stop shaking). He shot Barbossa for parting him from William and he can damn well do the same to Teague. It hardly registers as a shock that this last statement is actually, for once, true. He has just enough awareness left to feel a tiny spike of relief when Elizabeth pulls his father away.
Now it’s just him and William, and words can’t help him out of this one. Words can only mess things up. More than they are already, that is. If that’s possible. He wants to tell William he’s beautiful again. Tell him he missed him. That he was true in his own way. That he wants William more than anything else, that he’ll go anywhere, do anything. But he knows how that ends. He’s had over a decade to figure out that, of all the terrible mistakes he made, the worst by far was not letting William go free.
“I won’t try nothin’ to keep you,” he hears himself say.
When did he slip back into double negatives? Needed saying, though. It’s only now, watching William’s sea-coloured eyes flicker from him to the boy in the slightly less sea-coloured sea, that he understands his new promise is about to be tested. Too soon.
He takes William’s hands, just as he did before, when they vowed to be two halves of a whole. He looks into William’s eyes until he’s sure they can see Jack means this promise every bit as much.
“Never again, I swear.”
William nods, and Jack knows he’s guessed right. There follows a terrible few minutes-or possibly hours, or days-in which William shuffles and hesitates, and Jack has to push him to do what they both know he needs to.
Frankly, Jack wouldn’t care if the whelps waited another eight years-or indeed forever-for their blissful reunion, if only he could have William back the way he once had him. He’s merely terrified that, if this goes on much longer, he’ll blurt out the truth and lose even the little piece of William he still seems to have. They mustn’t part as enemies, not this time…
What did William just say?
“He won’t begrudge me the one day on land.”
Jack can’t speak because his mouth is all over William’s. He’d never thought about the one day ashore being separate from the life regained if your true love waits (or whatever the deal is-he’s still not entirely clear).
If he wasn’t too busy right now, he’d go find all the people who ever said William was, well, a bit slow, and bang their bloody heads together. Listen, (he’d say when they could focus again). He doesn’t have to give all of it to the boy: only the actual lifetime, but not the one day ashore. He spotted that all by himself! And he’s giving it to me!
The thing about kissing William is it’s damned hard to stop. (As a matter of fact, several things are damned hard.) But they need to get off the beach before Jack’s bloody father comes back for his bloody awning. Jack takes his mouth away from William just long enough to suggest relocation to a more secluded spot. (He thought about borrowing said awning and using it as a blanket but that would mean unwrapping their arms from around each other and there isn’t an awning in the world-or even a paternal tantrum-that’s worth that.)
So they stagger towards the rocks, slowly and clumsily, because that’s better than letting go or breaking the kiss. What with the way their legs tangle and Jack’s crotch keeps bumping up against William’s thighs-sometimes by accident-they really aren’t covering much ground.
“I’m not going to make it,” moans Jack into William’s shoulder, clutching him close and rocking his trapped cock against firm muscle.
“We’d best do something about that.”
William shifts his arms and, for a moment, Jack thinks he might be picked up and carried the rest of the way. He wonders if William can really do that. But the arms are snaking between their bodies, and William’s clever fingers get to work undoing the placket of Jack’s britches, and…
Fuck. William’s fingers. Fuckfuckfuckfuck…
If he was with anyone else, Jack’d be mortified to’ve shot his wad prematurely, as it were, at the first touch, with his breeches not even-ah-breached, and he’d make a clever joke (like that one, only cleverer) to cover his embarrassment. Of course, if he was with anyone else, it wouldn’t have happened. (Or if it did, he’d be sure to have a bloody good excuse for it.) But this is William and, being William, he cups Jack’s deflating cock ever so gently in one hand as he strokes his face with the other.
“Oh, Jack.”
Jack shuts his eyes, listening to the words over and over inside his head. William’s voice carries nothing but longing and wonder, without a grain of mockery. And all for Jack.
“I need you,” moans Jack, clinging on tight. That might sound like he’s asking William to stay forever, so he specifies. “Need you right now. Inside me.”
William throws gentleness to the winds. With a throaty roar that shivers Jack down to his boot-soles, he scoops him off said boot-soles and half carries him, half hurls them both towards the jumble of rocks.
~
Jack’s mostly naked on top of his spread coat when he realises the crucial pocket is horribly flat. Of all the times to get caught without lubrication, why, oh why, today? He pats down his other pockets, but he already knows there’s nothing useful in there. William will think he’s taken to chastity in his old age.
William, bless him, is patting down his own pockets, which rarely harboured anything sinful, not even when he was sinning with Jack on a blessedly regular basis.
“Thought I might’ve had something here for cleaning that sword.” He gives Jack one of those apologetic half-smiles. God, but Jack remembers those-the way the brows draw together, and the little creases at one corner of the mouth (not so little now), and the sparks dancing in the eyes…
“No worries,” Jack assures him. “I can clean swords with all kinds of stuff.”
William chuckles at that and the smile spreads to his whole face. Not that Jack gets to watch it for long, because William lunges in for a crushing kiss and Jack lunges right back.
Next thing he’s clear about, he’s on his back with his legs on William’s shoulders and his hands guiding William in. With a good helping of wet from the kissing and a slick of the seed he spent in his britches (knew there was a good reason for that), things are, if not exactly gliding, then rubbing along in a very promising manner.
Soon it’s all push and squeeze, grasp and thrust, hard and fast, Williamwilliamwilliam and Jackjackjack. Gods! He’d forgotten how perfectly they fit. Not forgotten, no, but the memory can’t compare to the shining glory of William filling all five senses and every hungry cavity of Jack’s sadly weather-beaten body and soul. Jack’s prick is hard again. He wonders how long they can last, how many they can manage…
He pushes away thoughts of physical-or temporal-restrictions and flings everything he’s got at the perfection of having this, here, now. He can hear himself moaning and crying out as he clutches at sweat-slick, shuddering, beautiful William’s back, and they come together in a blaze as bright and fierce as the very first time.
He’d thought the tears might come now. They have a way of catching him in the aftermath. But, as it turns out, he’s shaking with laughter over that ridiculous phrase: beautiful William’s back. Funniest thing he’s heard in years.
They lie curled around each other, running their hands over one another’s skin as if they still can’t believe this is real. (Or possibly, to make the most of the short time they have together; but Jack’s not thinking that. No.)
“Your hair’s longer,” says William, playing with it.
“I cut it all off,” Jack tells him. “Then it grew again.”
William’s hand slides slowly down a dreadlock and Jack knows he’ll be measuring and dividing by twelve. How many inches for each year apart?
“You’ll not cut it again? Not when…”
“Course not!” Jack puts a finger to those lips before they can finish. “Not unless I need to make meself look respectable some day-God forbid.”
“Let’s hope it don’t come to that, eh?”
It seems they still have their shirts more or less on. This is soon dealt with. William’s eyes linger on scars and tattoos acquired since… since he last saw Jack naked. But he doesn’t ask; just kisses Jack all over. Jack does the same (except to William’s body, obviously). William’s older and paler, but otherwise completely unchanged. As if he’s been locked away in a box since the night when Jack drew a map of the Isla da Muerta on him in kohl and grief.
Every curve and line of that body is burned into Jack’s mind, but he looks deeper, wanting the older, happier memories…
Sitting snuggled side-by-side as William showed him how to carve buttons out of bone. (Jack would have preferred undoing buttons, but was still under the misapprehension that Bill Turner wasn’t interested in boys.) William laughing into salt spray as Jack set the Pearl leaping after some fat merchant ship. William tipping him into their hammock, all hunger and heat. William muzzy with afterglow, cradling Jack’s face in his hands: I love you, Jack. More than anything in the world.
Jack looks up and sees remembered love clear in William’s eyes. Wordlessly, they smile at each other, touch hands to lips.
“Jack,” whispers William, wide-eyed. “Still so beautiful.”
That treacherous word, still, with its festering undertones of not for much longer-not for another ten bloody years, at any rate… Accursed word catches him unawares, and sounds slither up his throat before he knows they’re coming.
He’s rocking against William, clutching at him, sobbing, howling. His mind, cutting and running for safety, fixes on the time he saw something like this in Greece and was told the women were professional mourners who’d hardly met the deceased. Maybe he’s missed his vocation because he reckons he could make good money in Greece.
“I don’t want to lose you, not now, not ever!”
Luckily, the words are mangled beyond comprehension.
William holds him tight, rocks with him, steadying, soothing.
“Let it go, lad. Better out than in. That’s what Peggy used to say.”
Jack wails and thumps his clod-brained darling for mentioning Peggy just now, but the blow’s wild.
“Sorry, Jack. Didn’t think. You cry all you want to. I know it were hard on you. Terrible hard. I wish I could’ve made it easier. I do love you, Jack. Always have done. You deserve better.”
Jack doesn’t want better. He wants William. But there always has to be something more important, some notion of duty, or sin, or family, or… Jack won’t be caught dead saying this, but he can’t help what he’s thinking, and he’s thinking it isn’t fair.
He fumbles for his boot and pulls out the Spanish stiletto, fiercely pleased when William gasps and grabs his wrist.
“Don’t be daft, William,” he says, when he’s had his fill of alarm, and anyway needs the use of his hand. “You know me better’n that.”
William understands then, and it’s a beautiful thing to watch him gently take the knife and cut through assorted scraps and adornments to uncover Jack’s tattooed wrist. His own is already bare. Jack presses them together: his W for William against William’s sparrow in flight whose lines form J for Jack if you know how to look.
He brings their joined wrists to his mouth, William’s face beside his own. He shuts his eyes and just feels their heartbeats. Joined. He won’t hold on to William, not this time, but he’ll claim this. No-one else has this. He dives deep into the moment, letting it soak through his memories, willing it to be more than just skin and ink.
It helps. After a while, Jack’s mind stills, and his body (which is occasionally wiser) takes over, twining itself around William like a mermaid round a drowned sailor. To his own amazement (and quiet pride), his cock’s filling for the third time today. William’s body (which always had more sense than the rest of him) is making it equally clear that it wants Jack.
Sunlight gives way to moonlight but, even when they’re both sated and worn out, Jack keeps caressing William, holding him close, memorising him all over again. Better still, William never stops caressing Jack. He murmurs endearments in his ears, swirls slow kisses along his spine, and generally does all the things he hasn’t done since a long time before that final, terrible night.
The thing inside Jack that’s been broken all these years begins, if not to heal, then at least to knit together. It’s a good feeling and some of it stays with him even after dawn becomes an undeniable fact.
~
William, in his marvellously restored state, can’t return to the Dutchman the way he came, i.e. underwater. So Jack lends him Teague’s favourite dinghy, which is tied up to the jetty.
William shuffles a bit, the way he does when he’s trying to say something and doesn’t know how.
“Will thinks I tried to help you,” he mutters at last. “In the mutiny.”
“Course he does. No sense getting pedantic about the details, eh?”
“Thank you. For what it’s worth, if I could change one thing, that’d be it.”
“I know,” says Jack.
He cuts out a lock of hair with a jade bead in it, hands it to William, who presses it to his lips and tucks into a pouch on his belt. William’s low on ornaments, but he pulls off his shirt and presses it into Jack’s hands. Jack bundles it up and stows it in his cleanest pocket where it won’t lose its William smell.
Oddly, William’s the one weeping.
“You do have a choice here.” Jack’s learned not to fight William’s incomprehensible urge to self-punishment. Doesn’t mean he has to encourage it. “You don’t have to go.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. There’s only what a man can do and what he can’t-you were right about that. I can’t choose what I can’t do.”
Jack suspects he himself has just become living proof to the contrary.
“You had a choice though, Jack. And you chose right. I’m grateful.”
“Great. I mean…grateful, how marvellous! I’m so happy you’re grateful. I’m bloody well over the moon to know that you’ll be out there thinking about me and… Look, just go, will you? Before we cock this one up too. May not get another.”
To Jack’s considerable disappointment, William nods and does exactly that.
~
Jack suspects he’s not looking his best as he makes his way over the dunes to the inward-facing beach and rows to the town that rises from the middle of the lagoon like the contents of a badly stowed hold after a storm. Luckily, the inhabitants of Shipwreck tend not to rise bright and early to great the new day (and those who haven’t noticed the night is over won’t notice Jack either).
The second thing is to get news of Will’s impending return to Elizabeth, preferably without running into his father or anyone else liable to make remarks on the lines of ‘On yer own, Jack? Bill tired of you already, is he?’
The first thing, naturally, is to find the right angle for delivery and viewing of said news. By the time he taps on the stern window of her apartments (lamentably lax security for a pirate monarch), he’s almost got it.
“Jack?”
As the mother of a small child, King Elizabeth is one of very few people awake at this hour. She’s curled in a wing chair with Small William and a picture book, so Jack signals her to stay where she is while he lets himself in. Her eyes are red and puffy, but he pretends not to notice-which is no mean feat given the way she’s staring at him with them.
“Oh, Jack! Where’s Bill? What happened?”
How the devil...? Oh. Right. Puffy red eyes. Bugger. She probably wouldn’t believe him if he said he’d got salt in them diving off the reef.
“Never mind that,” says Jack (wishing he didn’t). “I came to tell you something.”
“Oh, Jack! You don’t owe me anything. If it was Will who’d come back, you wouldn’t see me for weeks.”
They smile at each other as only two thoroughly miserable people can.
“How many weeks, exactly?” he asks, because, after all, she did raise the subject and it happens to be rather relevant.
“As many as you like, though if you still want to be around for Small William’s first steps, you’d better hurry.”
She sets Small William down on the floor to demonstrate. He shuffles on hands and knees towards Jack and hauls himself to almost standing by climbing Jack’s boots. Jack takes his arms, but the best he can manage is a controlled flop onto his backside, the sort of thing Jack himself might do after a lot of rum has gone.
Jack sweeps him up into a hug. He’s as keen as everyone else for the child to be Will’s, but he can’t help noticing that his skin’s quite dark and he has the most un-Will-like button nose.
“Reckon I could fit in a run to Singapore, then, seein’ as my Queen’ll be otherwise engaged.”
He’s quite pleased with that. Subtle, but Lizzie’ll work it out in a minute. As it turns out, she’s quicker than that: he really must look a fright.
“What do you mean, ‘otherwise engaged’? What’s the matter, Jack? I’m not blind, you know.”
Jack takes a deep breath, full of the warm scent of Small William’s fluffy hair, and launches into his big number.
“Thing is, Lizzie. Me and William, Bill I should say, if only for clarity-it was never going to work between us. Twelve years is a long time. We’ve both changed. I was just a lad before, first time in love an’ all that.” He gives her a roguish grin, the lop-sided one that shows two gold teeth. “Bit beyond that stage now, savvy? An’ William, well, he’s found his son, an’… an’ he’s... we’ve… grown… um…”
Jack knows he’s losing the thread here, floundering near the rocks of memories he’s no wish to revisit.
“Barnacles?”
Bless Lizbeth for breaking the spell!
“The word I was looking for,” he says with exaggerated dignity and secret relief, “was apart. Though I’ll concede that recent outbreaks of crustaceans may have been a contributory factor.”
“What happened?”
“A very enjoyable night, the details of which I prefer not to divulge to a respectable married monarch.” (She rolls her eyes, reminding him for a moment of Hector.) “At the end of which we concluded that, since I’ve no intention of settling down to married respectability, and he’s never been one for life on land, the rest of Calypso’s gift would be better bestowed on the next generation.”
“Will?”
“Aye, love. So he’ll be needing his heart back as soon as you can manage.”
She opens and shuts her mouth, squeaks a couple of times, and drops heavily into the chair. Jack feels he should proffer sal volatile or loosen her stays, or perform some such damsel-succouring manoeuvre, but he’s fully occupied trying to separate Small William from his own hair. In the end, he cuts off a braid with a particularly shiny bead in it and the child lets himself be put down on the floor, clutching his prize. (This is clearly Jack’s day for sacrificing portions of his hair. He hopes Elizabeth isn’t going to want one too.) He thrusts the picture book at Small William with an encouraging “Look! A crocodile!” and turns to Elizabeth.
“But the green flash,” she objects, hands clasped to her fetchingly heaving bodice. (Small William having wrought considerable improvements in matters bosomy.) “Bill came ashore. You spent the night together. They can’t just take turns!”
“Ah!” says Jack, privately thrilled that she hasn’t spotted what clever William noticed at once. “Last night was the ‘one day ashore, ten years at sea’ bit. Entirely separate from the part about bein’ allowed back if your true love stays true. Bill took the day ashore for himself; gave the coming back to young Will.”
“Will’s coming back?”
He doesn’t really want to explain it again. And he certainly doesn’t want to think about the mechanics: how Will’s heart somehow gets put back; how right at this moment somebody might be plunging a knife…
Small William, bless him, jabs the picture book into Jack’s groin and demands “popapie!” Jack duly points to the crocodile and makes blood-curdling, munching noises.
By the time he’s worked his way through elephants, monkeys, giraffes (fuck knows what they sound like-Jack opts for a strangled squeal) snakes, and parrots, and persuaded the boy to line up his wooden animals along the edge of the rug, ready to have a shouting contest later on, Elizabeth is more or less coherent.
“But you said Bill was the love of your life. You were true to him for ten years… Well, true enough, apparently.”
Too bloody coherent by half, thinks Jack.
“So why would you...?”
“So I was,” he agrees to forestall further questioning. “Twelve years as a matter of fact, since that’s how long it took before he stepped on dry land. But can you honestly see me settling down? With anyone?”
There’s a lot of truth in that, as it happens. Just so long as she doesn’t ask why he and William couldn’t sail away on the Pearl and not settle at all.
“Course, I told him I might feel differently in another ten years.”
“Thank you, Jack.”
He doesn’t like the way she’s looking at him, all sucked-in cheeks and careful consideration, but at least she’s stopped asking questions.
“You know,” she continues, “between them, Will and his father have put in at least fourteen years on the Dutchman. It might only need another six.”
Creative accountancy! Jack likes that in a woman.
“Aye, well, we thought we’d keep going to that beach every now and then.” He jerks his head in its general direction. “Just to check how we’re doing. An' I'll be keepin' a watch on Small here as he grows big.”
She throws her arms around him and sobs into his coat. Jack’s eyes are perfectly dry, which makes a nice change. Small William, however, disapproves, and expresses his disapproval by hitting them with a rhinoceros. Elizabeth scoops him up and shushes him.
“Thank you!” she says again. “And you’re always welcome at the Cove, you do know that, don’t you?”
“Course I do,” he tells her (though he hadn’t been sure till she said). “But does my dad?”
“He will!”
Jack rather likes the threatening sound of that.
“Anyway, I’ll not be goin’ anywhere till after the party.”
“What party?”
“The one to welcome the King’s new, um queen, to Shipwreck. I know you’ll be busy with the heart and so forth, but somebody needs to be arranging the most memorable carousal in the history of the Cove at only a few hours’ notice. Who better than yours truly, eh?”
Elizabeth narrows her eyes. “How memorable?”
“Well obviously not quite as memorable as the one that burned the north side to the waterline.” (Should have guessed she’d know about that.) “I was a lot younger then.”
She takes the cellar key from her belt and presses it into his hand.
“Organise whatever you like, Jack. You’ve earned it. Just promise me no-one will have to camp out on the reef tomorrow unless it’s by choice.”
“Done!”
“Get on with it, then! Unless you’re coming to the beach with William and me?”
“Best not,” Jack assures her. “Lots to be done. Time, tide, and impressive, large-scale catering waits for no man.”
He’s about to close the door behind him when she calls, “Jack?”
“My liege?”
“He can’t set foot on land, but land’s not where you spend most of your time, is it? You’ll find a way. Just don’t forget to visit us in between.”
He’s been thinking along similar lines himself, and is framing a reply to that effect when she plants an almost entirely chaste kiss on his lips and shuts the door in his face. Bloody Pirate Kings.
What Jack needs now is a really good night’s sleep preceded by a really, really good piss-up, the kind of piss-up that doesn’t come cheap or organise itself. Rum, wenches, catamites, ox roasts, pigs with pineapples in their snouts, goats-for those who like that kind of thing-apples-always tricky in the tropics, but if Hector’s coming… It’s going to be a busy day.
He’d better start by making sure Mercedes from the New North Inn’s willing to keep him company for the duration. There’s a good chance she’d do it for free, but it’d probably save face all round if he paid her handsomely for her time.
He’ll have no trouble borrowing the wherewithal. By his reckoning, the Pirate King owes him a lot more than one night's worth.
~