Somewhat Familiar
My first ever Jack/Will fic--how many years since CotBP?
This is the appetiser. The main course will be posted tomorrow, for tessabeth's birthday. Dessert will be served by the end of the week.
Summary: Has Jack threatened Will before?
Pairing: Jack/Will.
Rating: this one is PG-13 (G by Jack’s standards)
Disclaimer: pilfered
Beta:
viva_gloria
Somewhat Familiar
The lad came clattering down the stairs while Jack was still working on that stubborn bloody lock and thinking about bones, moonlight, and curses. He didn’t know it was the lad, of course, though he was fairly confident it couldn’t be an execution escort because those usually had more dignity as well as more than one pair of feet. Perhaps it was the commodore, frantic for information about the Black Pearl. Whoever it was, Jack knew just the pose to be discovered in.
“You! Sparrow!”
“Aye,” drawled Jack, not rising from where he’d thrown himself, mind lingering on frantic commodores.
“You’re familiar with that ship-the Black Pearl?”
Aha! So they still linked Captain Jack Sparrow with the Black Pearl in Port Royal-not that familiar even began to cover it.
“I've heard of it.”
“Where does it make berth?”
What kind of a bloody fool question was that? The Pearl’s a pirate. She makes berth wherever she damn well likes! Jack’s mental commodore vanished in a puff of gormlessness.
“Where does it make berth?” he echoed as his eyes focused and he recognised the lad from the smithy. Pirate honour aside, though, it had to be admitted that Jack’s lovely girl was a tad eyecatching for your more law-abiding anchorages. Which was one of many reasons why Jack had a bloody good idea where Hector kept her tucked away when not out and about spreading devastation and terror. Ten years had been more than enough time to work that one out, ten years of following a compass needle, looking out for a glimpse of her, listening to the rumours-rumours he was inclined to start taking very seriously indeed given the recent turn of events…
“Have you not heard the stories? ‘Captain’ Barbossa and his crew of miscreants sail from the dreaded Isla de Muerta. It's an island that cannot be found except by those who already know where it is.”
He thought he was making it sound as mystical as Tia had when she’d told him, but the lad didn’t seem impressed. That was the trouble with young people today: no proper respect for supernatural claptrap.
“The ship's real enough. Therefore its anchorage must be a real place. Where is it?”
Jack made a show of examining his nails. Some of them were almost clean. He’d never found ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ to be particularly useful concepts. The lad appeared to be labouring under the misapprehension that real was the opposite of magical, but he was right about one thing: the Pearl existed, and so did the island. So, unfortunately did Hector and the others, and they were perfectly capable of killing people-even the ones who didn’t believe in… in whatever you called something that turned to carrion by moonlight. On top of which, it was beginning to look as though the boy might not be aware of Jack’s past after all.
“Why ask me?”
“Because you're a pirate.”
Jack smiled his fourth most infuriating smile. He was quite put out. Whoever was writing the hanging speech had better be provided with considerably more detail.
“And you want to turn pirate yourself, is that it?
“Never!”
Oooh, that was more like it! Look how fiercely it rattled the bars. Pretty too, now that Jack was looking properly. He was glad he’d decided to hold this conversation lying on his back.
“They took Miss Swann!”
So the lad was in love with the governor’s daughter; well, Jack didn’t fancy his chances there. What really spoiled the mood, however, was the liklihood that persuading the boy to trade down from an unattainable, aristocratic maiden with a nice line in corsets to a depraved-and thus highly attainable-pirate old enough to be his father was liable to take more time than Jack currently had at his disposal. For some reason, this annoyed him more than it should. Best get shot of the lad quick so he could work on that lock.
“Oh, so it is that you've found a girl! I see! Well, if you're intending to brave all, hasten to her rescue and so win fair lady's heart you'll have to do it alone, mate. I see no profit in it for me.”
Pity. Back in the smithy, Jack’d been sure the lad was gagging for it. Prob’ly only a matter of time before he tried it with the donkey.
“I can get you out of here,” said the lad.
As if a landlubber’s apprentice could succeed where Captain Jack Sparrow had, so far, well… not succeeded.
“How's that? The key's run off.”
Jack suspected the dog’s keys were a cruel joke, and would turn out not to fit the lock. But he’d never been one to leave possibilities untried. The boy, however, seemed more interested in the doors. Now that he turned away from Jack, there was something about his face, in profile…
“I helped build these cells. These are half pin-barrel hinges.” He'd begun dragging furniture around, suddenly focused and purposeful. It wasn’t just his face-the set of his shoulders, the way he used his hands…
You seem somewhat familiar…
Intensely, intimately familiar, in fact. Jack knew just how it would feel-had felt-to press his mouth against those shoulders, to be clutched and caressed by those hands… Bloody hell! What was it Jack’d said next? Have I threatened you before? How the devil? No wonder he’d hesitated to shoot the lad!
“With the right leverage and the proper application of strength, the door will lift free.”
Getting me clapped in irons just the once ain’t enough for you Turners, eh? he almost said, but changed tack just in time.
“What's your name?”
If it wasn’t William Turner, Jack was a chorister.
“Will Turner.”
Fuck.
“That’ll be short for William, I imagine. Good, strong name…” He was babbling now-stuff he used to say to the first William. He needed to get a grip. “No doubt named for your father, eh?”
Dead cunning, that, thought a part of Jack. After all, it wasn’t such an unusual name and it was best to make sure of these things.
Crap, thought another part. I know who he is and I’d still know if he was calling himself Wenceslas O’Duckbuttocks.
“Yes.” Determined, honourable, puzzled, and seething with repressed urgency. Which didn’t leave much for Jack’s inner voices to argue about, so they shut up.
“Uh-huh. Well, Mr. Turner, I've changed me mind. If you spring me from this cell I swear on pain of death I shall take you to the Black Pearl and your bonny lass. Do we have an accord?”
Next thing, they were shaking hands through the bars. Turned out Jack hadn’t known how they felt after all; the muscles and calluses were all wrong-not sailor’s hands. But the real difference was the eyes. If he’d had blue eyes, Jack’d’ve got it straight off, soon as he’d stepped into the smithy, but they were dark, dark brown-almost as dark as Jack’s own. He tried to remember what colour Peggy’s eyes used to be; realised he had no idea. All he could conjure up of Peggy was a vague blur of calico and marital smugness, fronted by an ample cleavage. If the boy took after his ma, Jack wasn’t the one to notice.
Luckily, young William-Will-had his da’s practical nature. Already, he’d got himself organised and was prying at the hinges in a way Jack would never have expected to work if he hadn’t been standing there watching the heavy door totter in its frame. With a thoroughly satisfactory (if not entirely surreptitious) clatter, Jack’s cell was wide open. It was lucky his effects were stowed handily close by. Luckier still that the first place they needed to get to was also the last place people would look for them.
*
With William’s local knowledge, it was child’s play to scramble over the rubble and through silent alleyways to the beach across from the Navy ships. This was just as well since Jack’s thoughts were fully occupied by other matters.
If there was a curse-and clearly there was-then all Hector’d be thinking about would be trying to lift the thing. This was cheering indeed: Jack liked a spot of desperation in an enemy, especially when said enemy had robbed him of his ship, his crew, his plan, his William, and left him to die.
The compass told him the Pearl was heading back to the island so, evidently, Hector already had whatever he’d come here for...
“We're going to steal the ship! That ship?” asked the boy, breathless with his own boldness, and not lacking for ambition either because the one he’d got his eye on was the Dauntless, the commodore’s flagship.
“Commandeer,” corrected Jack, distractedly. “We're going to commandeer that ship.” The Interceptor: smaller, faster, altogether more piratey-not that the boy took his eyes off the Dauntless long enough to see what Jack was talking about.
The way Jack had heard it, the curse could only be lifted by returning all the treasure of Cortez, plus the blood of those who stole it. One of the gold coins must have been somewhere in Port Royal. Perhaps Hector’d had some notion of using the governor’s daughter as leverage but, since he’d not lingered to make demands, the girl was probably shark food by now. It seemed wiser not to mention this to young William until Jack had a ship.
“Nautical term,” he explained, not really caring whether the clarification was necessary, or, indeed, understood.
So Hector’d got a coin-the last coin, very possibly-but what about the blood? This had always been Jack’s favourite part of the curse stories (and therefore, the main cause of his reluctance to give them much credence: Jack knew all about self-delusion, thank you very much). For, if it was true about the blood, then Hector was doomed. He’d never lift the curse because he lacked the blood of one man, the man he’d forced, bribed, cajoled, driven mad, tricked, or… somehow… prevailed upon by underhand means-for Jack was (fairly) certain William wouldn’t have done it if he’d had a free and informed choice, so clearly skulduggery was involved, and skulduggery was Hector’s middle name-to betray Jack: the original and best William Turner. The same William Turner who’d later spoken up for Jack (too bloody late, but still, it was a happy thought)-and got himself murdered by bloody Hector for his pains, the only bright spot in all this being that Hector must now be regretting that murder as bitterly as Jack was-possibly more.
Futile self sacrifice seemed to run in the family. Jack didn’t know what the lad had done during the raid on Port Royal, though clearly he’d failed either to stop the Pearls taking his beloved or to die trying. Now that there really wasn’t the slightest chance of a successful rescue, here he was, doing his damnedest with not a thought of maybe taking a few years to savour the remarkable good fortune of not being dead yet. All that pent-up heroism just waiting for Jack to tell it what to do. No doubt about it: he was William’s son.
Oh.
Oh.
“One question about your business, boy, or there's no use going. This girl-how far are you willing to go to save her?”
Would the blood of a descendant-sole descendant-be enough to lift the curse? Not that it mattered as long as it was enough to give Hector a glimmer of hope. It was amazing what a man’d trade for a glimmer, especially when that man was facing an eternity of living death. He’d surely let Jack have the Pearl, for starters.
And for afters? Well, if the curse were lifted, Jack could see about killing them all properly, making sure bloody Hector got as good as he gave William (or, in fact, by this point, very probably Williams, but Jack wasn’t comfortable dwelling on the plural). If the curse held, Jack’d have to let the heathen gods do his smiting for him. They seemed generally very thorough about that sort of thing (although he’d never been entirely clear on the logic of punishing those who inflict slaughter and mayhem upon you by forcing them to go on inflicting more of the same on others). Still, as long as Jack had his Pearl, things wouldn’t be all bad.
Anyway, maybe he could double-cross Hector-never reveal the boy’s whereabouts, steal him away at the last minute, offer only a small flask of blood-Jack’d think of something. Probably. If not… well, it wasn’t like he owed William’s legitimate family anything, was it?
“I'd die for her.”
Just like your da, thought Jack: wonderful loyalty; godawful timing.
“Oh good!” he said. “No worries, then.”
Now if that didn’t constitute fair warning, Jack really didn’t know what did.
*
Next story in this series: Better Acquainted