Hope's Sister part 2
Title: Hope's Sister II: Faith’s Daughter
For: pigeongirl99 because she is a lovely, lovely human being and bloody ages ago bought me paid time. So here’s her sequel.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Unbetaed. Takes place after “Hope’s Sister” and is therefore CotBP era and has nothing to do with DMC at all.
*~*~*~*
If Hope and Belief are sisters, then Faith is an estranged cousin who eloped at a young age and hasn’t been seen about the family for years. Patience is Faith’s daughter, the bastard child of a virtue and one of Pandora’s boxed monsters.
Or, at least, that was the conclusion Will reached after almost two months aboard the Pearl acting as Jack’s valet, for lack of a better word. It was something he came up with one night while he was trying to convince Jack that not only was going up into the rigging a bad idea at any other time, but doing it while he wasn’t just three sheets to the wind but so far into the wind that he’d married the woman who makes the sheets, was what one might term suicidal.
Will had yet to get a strong grasp on nautical terms, or analogies for that matter. His levels of competence might not have been highest in witty repartee, or in know-how of the seafaring life, but Will was unfalteringly patient with Jack and it had become a rare sight to see Jack without Will trailing along behind; a ready blade and a steady presence. So thus it was that Will, almost two months after joining the crew of the Pearl, wasn’t causing a scene of any description. He just put one hand on Jack’s bare shoulder, leaned in so closely that no one else would be able to hear, and said; “Can it wait ‘til tomorrow? I wanted to go over the maps with you again before bed, and I’m awfully tired,” both of which were lies.
It wasn’t that Will was in the practice of lying to Jack. In fact, it was more of the other. Will could be counted on to inform Jack of any misstep, any foolish thing he might have done as result of his blindness and was never one to mince his words. “Jack, you look an ass,” was something that only Will could get away with saying as Jack’s supply of calm, collectedness - once rather extensive - was in short supply. And he said it with regularity. It didn’t mean that he wouldn’t lie to Jack, especially when Jack was so far in his cups that he thought climbing into the shrouds was a good idea.
It didn’t even take that much persuasion. Jack just flung an arm around Will’s neck and tipped to the side so his nose was right up against Will’s jaw, rum breath washing over Will’s face and grinned. “’F you say so, darlin’.”
Jack didn’t take much persuading, not from Will. With just about anyone else, Jack could be counted on to be his usual stubborn self, full of his own mad plans and schemes. With Will, Jack usually just nodded and went along with it. Will wasn’t sure he liked it. In front of the crew Jack was almost exactly as he’d always been, or as much as he’d been that Will remembered. But with Will, or when Jack didn’t think anyone was looking, he seemed so much less than how he’d been before. Worn a little thin, perhaps, and there was a tired slump to his shoulders that his coat couldn’t quite hide.
They went back to Jack’s cabin and when Jack went to fetch the maps - since Will had rearranged the entire room, Jack now knew precisely where anything he might want would be at any given time - Will caught him by the elbow and nudged him towards the bunk instead. The absurd bed Barbossa had installed was gone now, replaced by a regular bunk. Well, mostly regular, if not unusually wide.
“Do you want me to read to you?” Will asked, shucking his shirt and putting it over the back of a chair. His boots went into the corner, by the door.
Jack frowned, confused. “I thought you wanted to look at the maps.” He settled back on the bunk anyway, dirty bare toes wiggling contentedly. Then he grinned, sloppy and drunk. “Too much rum?” he teased.
“Something like that.” Will was almost entirely sober. He didn’t get drunk any more, not since he’d joined the Pearl; he needed to look after Jack. He did or didn’t do a lot of things because of Jack. Jack drank a lot, but Will had spoken to AnaMaria and Jack had always drank a lot.
“Don’t bother.” Jack yawned widely. “Jus’ come to bed, lad.”
And there it was.
The leviathan in the room.
Will slept in Jack’s bunk every night and Jack would sprawl out over him, dirty, or sweaty, or drunk, or damp, or whatever state Jack was in and Will would lie awake for an hour or so. He’d become quite well acquainted with what the timbers in the ceiling looked like. He would listen to Jack snore and mumble in his sleep and try not to think of anything more than the knots in the wood above.
He was not a good person. He Will, William Turner the second, was not a good man.
Jack was a gentleman. He wanted someone to hold in the night who he trusted not to stab him in the back. Jack wanted someone to wake up to who wouldn’t let on if he sometimes took a moment to remember he was blind, or if he remembered all too painfully and had to put his head in his hands and mourn for a while. If Jack wanted a whore, he would get AnaMaria to pick one out for him when they were ashore, or so he’d remarked to Will with a wink and a lewd grin. Will had declined to press the issue any further.
Most mornings, Will would slip out of the bunk and go stand by the window before Jack was awake. He would stare out at the sea and, as he hadn’t done in years, he would pray and ask forgiveness for his sins. It wasn’t so much that he was feeling religious, it was more that Will had discovered that this ritual worked almost as well as either a cold dunking or a vigorous practice with his sword for curing any shameful stirrings of his prick.
Will was no gentleman. Will was no real man. A good man, a real man, would not find dark, secret places in the ship to go when he couldn’t stand it any more and abuse himself while he thought about another man.
But Will slept in Jack’s bed, because Jack needed him there and Will did, or didn’t do, a lot of things because of Jack.
He sighed and crawled in next to Jack. It was too warm in the cabin and Jack’s skin was damp with sweat. The sheets clung and twisted around them and Will’s skin kept sticking to Jack’s before one of them would shift and they would peel apart uncomfortably. Will lay on his side, one leg tucked over so he could hide his straining prick and watched Jack slowly pass out. Jack smelled delicious, in a filthy sort of way, and Will had lived in a port town more than long enough to know exactly what he wanted to do.
Will had also been listening to Jack’s theories about Life and all she entailed and he had his own ideas to go with them. He didn’t think to hope Jack might return his affections, because hope can break a man, and Will was far too tired of that to try again. He believed, quite firmly, that telling Jack would ruin their arrangement beyond any repair. He had faith, but it was wearing thin, that he could get past his unnatural feelings. Will had faith but it was in poor repair indeed and he had no doubt it would abandon him, much as hope had. So, he clung to all he had left; patience, a virtue, at least.
“What’re you all thoughtful about?” Jack asked, half slurred and half asleep. “Never seen a man with such a steady life have so many secrets.”
Will shrugged one shoulder, choosing to disregard the comment about a steady life. “How drunk are you?”
Jack yawned and, despite the heat, curled in closer to Will. “No fear for your secrets, I’ll forget ‘em in the morning.”
“How have you been so patient, through everything?” Will asked.
“I ain’t patient, sweetheart,” Jack said into Will’s shoulder, breath warm against Will’s skin. “Never have been. I jus’ know when to bide my time and when something’s worth waiting for. It’s not quite the same thing. Patience never much suited me.”
Will wasn’t sure how those things were so different, really, but he nodded as though he understood. “Well, what if you’re not waiting for something? What if you’re just…being patient?”
Jack cracked open an eye, automatically, and while he couldn’t see Will to give him a skeptical look, all arched eyebrow and amused twist to his mouth, it didn’t lose any of its power. “You’ve got to be patient for something. Or you’re not doing anything at all.”
“With life then. What if I’m waiting, patiently, for something to change?”
“Ah,” Jack said. “This is that thing that you won’t talk about then. That’s no patience, William, that’s nothing at all, an’ nothing at all is what you’ve got when there’s not even anger or sadness. Nothing at all is despair.” He propped himself up on one elbow and stretched dirty fingers across the space between them to brush over Will’s cheeks and eyebrows, down over the curve of Will’s lips. “What wants changing, Will?”
Will batted Jack’s hand away and rolled onto his other side. “Go to sleep, Jack, you’re drunk.”
Jack pressed up behind him, the sweat-damp skin of his chest sticking to Will’s back, hand sliding slickly across Will’s shoulder. “Not that drunk.” Despite the fact that they were both lying down, Jack was still swaying slightly, which gave lie to his words. “An’ I’m captain here. If something needs to be changed, I ought to know of it.”
“I didn’t love Elizabeth enough. Can you change that?” Will snapped, irritable from the heat and Jack’s infuriating and persistent tendency to invade his personal space.
Jack’s arm curled around Will’s waist and he settled in. “No. What more could she ask from you?” His breath stirred the hair at the nape of Will’s neck, cooling the sweat there and making the small hairs there stand on end.
Will squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think about the way Jack felt. “That’s none of your business.”
“You brought it up,” Jack retorted.
In the time that it took Will to think of something to say in reply to that, Jack started to snore and the weight of his arm indicated that he was out for the count and was likely to be well and truly passed out for the rest of the night.
Will, robbed of his usual view of the ceiling, stared out into the dark of the room and thought very hard about unpleasant things rather than the torment of Jack’s body, so wonderfully pressed against his own.
*~*~*~*
“How’s he?” AnaMaria asked, over a large, mostly empty, tankard of ale.
The brothel and pub they sat in was still relatively quiet, considering it was only five in the afternoon, most of the clientele gathered about the bar, propping it up. The Pearl had docked around noon into a miserable little port town and Jack, AnaMaria and Will had spent their time in the fuggy heat slapping at insects and haggling with fences over their haul before settling down for a drink in the little brothel. With their purses heavier and the crew sent ashore for the next three days, there was little for Will to do but follow Jack around. As it happened, where Jack was going was also where AnaMaria had decided to take herself - and the two seemed entirely uncoincidental to Will - which meant he had to worry about her needling, and her prying.
It was about as pleasant inside as it was outside, and though there were fewer insects, the air was decidedly thicker, not only with rotting vegetation, but with the greasy reek of fatty lamps, women with too much perfume, rotten straw and boarding and the lingering odor of cheap sex and cheaper gin.
Jack had insisted on buying the round, and after a good ten minutes of discussion he had got up on his own, walked across the bar and was standing, waiting to be served. It left Will to AnaMaria’s clutches and he was ill prepared to deal with her questioning.
Will sipped at his own drink. “In what way?”
“You think he want a woman tonight?” She gave him an arch look and Will wasn’t sure what to make of it. “You think he want something else?”
The girls were all hovering about the edges of the room, talking amongst themselves due to a distinct lack of interest from the patrons. Their hair, piled high, was mostly limp from the heat and sweat was making streaks in the powder of the women who had used too much of it. One group of girls had started a game in the corner with grimy, curled playing cards and they were playing for pebbles. As for the something else, it didn’t seem to be that sort of a brothel and Will couldn’t see any sodomites, though he was decidedly unsure about the sex of one or two of the girls. He suspected they were just mannish and not actually men.
Will shrugged and drained half his rum in one swallow. Despite Jack’s quest for more liquor, Will had been intending on dragging his first drink out for the rest of the afternoon. However, if he was going to be subject to questioning on someone else’s relations with loose women, he would prefer to be at least a little tipsy and damn the consequences. “Bollocksed if I know. I’d ask him.”
AnaMaria sighed. “That’s your job. I ain’t supposed to ask, you an’ me, it’s our job to know all this shit. T’was my job, it’s your call now.”
Will scowled into his mug. “It’s been a while,” he said grudgingly. It had, by his estimates, been about three months since Jack had had relations with anyone. Not that it was any of his business. “I suppose we ought to offer.”
AnaMaria scanned the room then pointed out a pretty girl, cleaner than most and all golden curls and soft, round curves. “Her?” The whore’s lips were rouged a pale pink and her skin was flushed rose in the grimy light.
Will hated the girl on sight. “No,” he said.
AnaMaria nodded. “You’re right.” Off at the bar Jack was fumbling with the coins, obviously trying to tell by feel which were which and Will gave himself a mental kicking for not remembering to give Jack exact coinage. “Her?” This time AnaMaria was pointing out a slender, darkskinned girl, all long lashes and hard lines under the corset.
“I’ve no idea,” Will snapped. “Just ask him what he wants. I’m not a mind-reader; I can’t pick women for him. For all I know he’d have both, or neither, or just enough drink to make him pass out.”
Jack came swaying back to their table, balancing their drinks. He slid into the seat next to Will and Will could see the beads of sweat on Jack’s forehead from the effort it had taken him. “No problem,” Jack lied and Will slipped a subtle arm around his waist to anchor him, tucked between Jack’s coat and his shirt, out of sight of anyone who might care to notice. Jack grinned at him and raised his fresh mug. “You’re falling behind, lad. Drink up.” Will pretended, for Jack’s sake, that he didn’t notice how grateful the smile was.
“Ana wants to know if you’re interested in any of the whores,” Will said, instead of what he’d meant to say, which had been little more than, “Cheers.” He took his arm back and stared into his mug as though it was the cause of his runaway mouth.
Jack licked ale out of his moustache. “P’rhaps,” he said cautiously. He glanced over, a few inches to the right of where AnaMaria was sitting and gave the empty air near her head a significant eyebrow waggling. When this didn’t produce the desired result, whatever that was meant to be, Jack sighed and sipped from his mug again. “P’rhaps this is something Ana and I ought to discuss.” Again there was a silence. “Between us. Alone.”
Will’s nails cut into the soft, rotting wood of the table. “Better not,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “Just in case of, you know…the unexpected.” What the unexpected was, Will had no idea. The brothel was quiet and its patrons all sleepy and stupid in the heat. But, if anything, Jack looked even less sure about the whole situation than before. “Besides,” Will continued, “my sensibilities won’t be offended; I can assure you of that.”
AnaMaria rolled her eyes and sighed. “I’d rather you two discuss an’ I go find a companion of me own.” She tipped her mug back and drained its contents. “I’ll see you back on the Pearl,” she said, and abandoned Will.
Jack glanced sidelong at Will, managing to actually look right at him. “What about you, lad?”
Will pretended not to see AnaMaria sit down to join the whores at cards. Ana was subtle, he had to give her that. He suspected she’d learned that the hard way. Unless someone was looking, they might not even notice that she was flirting to see if any of the whores would be willing to entertain her. It didn’t make him feel better about his own decidedly unchristian feelings. He was sure he’d heard somewhere that two women together were a beautiful and natural thing. Will wasn’t sure if he’d heard it in a pub though, in which case his source was sure to be suspect.
“No thank you,” Will said politely.
“I ask,” Jack said, “because - between you an’ I - I’m not feeling altogether steady about the idea and I thought it’d be easier to figure out how to manage everything without the benefit of sight with a bit of help, as it were.”
“What?” Will’s stomach clenched uncomfortably.
Jack grinned crookedly at him. “To rephrase; d’you want to share?” Will choked on his mouthful of drink, but Jack continued as though he hadn’t heard. “Most of these girls wouldn’t mind, we’re neither of us bad looking blokes an’-”
“No.” Will stared at the wall and tried not to think of Jack, naked, fucking a whore in front of him. It wasn’t working. Will, despite all evidence to the contrary, had a rather vivid imagination. “Thank you, no.”
Jack’s grin turned decidedly wicked. “No need to be prudish,” he said, teasingly. “And let your captain finish. I was about to say that most of the girls wouldn’t mind…seeing as you’re a eunuch an’ all.”
Will smacked him on the arm. “And you’re an ass,” he said crossly. “I don’t think you’re going to need help figuring out what goes where. I’m sure you’ve had plenty of practice, in the light, in the dark and every which way.”
“Aye, fair enough,” Jack said. “But…”
“But?”
“I don’t want to bollocks it up,” Jack said softly. “I can’t get things wrong, not this, not anything. Then it’s winning an’ I’m done for.”
Will shut his eyes. “Alright, Jack. But not here.” Because he had nothing at all, and nothing at all is what you’ve got when there’s not even anger or sadness. Nothing at all is despair. “And not until tonight,” he said and finished his rum so he could start in on the ale that Jack had brought him.
Jack cocked his head to one side. “Whereabouts were you thinking?”
Will took a huge swallow of ale and tried not to heave as it sat heavy on his roiling stomach. “Somewhere…” he looked away, “somewhere where they won’t care if someone mistakes us for sodomites, otherwise word will get out if we’re touching overmuch. I don’t fancy being arrested for something I don’t intend to do.”
Jack was quiet in a way that meant he was thinking much more about the situation than Will wanted him to. “Fair enough, lad,” he said finally. Then; “If you’d rather not, then I’m not fussed.”
“I said yes,” Will snapped, then regretted his tone. He thought about apologizing but drank his ale instead; afraid he would say something else foolish. He’d heard that bad luck came in threes and he’d already started the conversation and then said yes. He didn’t need to be saying anything else. Jack, mercifully, let the matter drop.
*~*~*~*
Will was drunk. Not so drunk that he was liable to start confessing all his secrets to Jack Sparrow, or so drunk that he would fall over, or asleep, or so drunk that he couldn’t manage himself with a woman, but certainly drunk enough to lean into Jack as they sat in the third tavern of the evening, giggling foolishly at some anecdote Jack had told. He couldn’t really tell what kind of a place the tavern was because the entire room was crammed full of people, laughing and talking and flirting. Once night had fallen locals and visitors aplenty came out of the woodwork to drink and carouse and Jack and Will had found themselves in good company. The third and last tavern they had visited was certainly prone to those of the less than heterosexual clientele and while it certainly was no molly house, no one so much as batted an eye when Will, drunkenly affectionate, wrapped his arm around Jack after one tall tale, rested his head against Jack’s shoulder and told him he was full of shit and that wasn’t how the story went at all.
That wasn’t to say there weren’t whores aplenty. There were more even than the brothel since between the actual whores, the serving maids who would probably sell their virtue for the right price, and the young men obviously not simply there for drinking, Will would have a job and a half choosing the right whore for the job. It wasn’t something he was looking forwards to.
Jack put his mouth to Will’s ear and said, “P’rhaps we should stagger back to the Pearl, it’s getting crowded and you ain’t sober.”
Will leaned back so he could glare at Jack. “Maybe not,” he agreed, “but I’m sober enough to stand, and there’s still only one of you so I would argue a strong case for near sobriety.” He slurred a little on his ‘s’es and Jack laughed. “I am! And I said yes.”
“You did at that.” Jack put his hand on Will’s thigh, a little above his knee and put his mouth back to Will’s ear. “See anyone you fancy?” His voice was rough and low and it was making Will decidedly hard.
Will cast a bleary eye around the tavern and saw a blur of rouged cheeks and painted lips. He didn’t want any of them. He wanted Jack, all shining and smoky in the flickering light of the tavern. “There’s a girl not five feet from us,” he said instead. “Shall I ask her?”
Jack’s hand crept a little higher on Will’s leg, and Will was thankful it was dark so no one could see the straining front of his breeches. “What’s she like?” Jack asked. “There’s a lot of girls here.”
“Redhead. Tall. Slender.” The girl’s hair was dyed red, a horrible, lurid hue that clashed with the pink of her dress but she didn’t have any visible pox sores and, in the long run, Will didn’t particularly care what she looked like. “About a foot to the left of us,” Will added.
“An’ she’s the one?” Jack asked but he turned his face in the direction Will had specified and smiled his crooked, golden smile at the whore and winked. Will watched, the room heeling slightly, as the whore came over and perched on Jack’s knee. “Hello, sweetheart,” Jack said, and offered her some of his drink. His hand stayed on Will’s knee, though for what reason, Will couldn’t quite fathom.
Will couldn’t bear to watch the girl tap the baubles in Jack’s beard to set them aswinging, wrap her fingers in Jack’s hair, kiss him on the mouth so his lips were as wet and pink as hers. He couldn’t bear to, but he couldn’t look away either, sidelong, fingers clenched around his mug. She gasped and slapped at Jack’s arm and Will realized he couldn’t see Jack’s other hand for a moment, before it reappeared, Jack clearly trying to look angelic and only managing to look wicked. The hand on Will’s leg moved to tug Will closer and Jack muttered something in the girl’s ear that caused her to turn and look at Will. She pursed her lips, appraisingly. She wasn’t bad looking, Will decided, for all that she’d done to her hair, she had most of her own teeth and was only wearing enough perfume to make his nose itch, not his head ache. The whore leaned over and kissed Will until Will turned his face away.
Jack, Jack sitting there, one hand on the girl, one resting against the small of Will’s back. Jack with his wicked grin and beautiful, blank eyes. Jack’s mouth on the whore’s neck, her hand on Will’s shoulder, Jack seeming to look at Will.
Will knew how this would go; Upstairs, onto a dirty, unevenly stuffed mattress that, if they were unlucky, would be host to fleas. Her body, soft and full, her pink mouth on Jack’s, on Will’s, her hands on them. Jack’s gold teeth glinting in the bad light, sweat and scars and tattoos and his body there, and there, and Will would touch the whore and watch Jack.
Will was so tired of watching things he couldn’t have. He was so very tired of being patient.
“I can’t,” Will said, standing abruptly, nearly knocking the whore off Jack’s lap. “I have to go.” He nearly tripped in his haste to get away, pushing past the other patrons in a blur of angry faces and strong perfume.
Outside it was no less smoky and noisy. The air was decidedly cooler but still humming with mosquitoes and still fetid. Will leaned back against the outside wall of the brothel and thumped his head against the wood. It didn’t help the spinning his head was doing and it didn’t help settle his stomach. He walked the dingy, narrow street, up and down, tripping over the uneven boards that made up the firm ground in all the mud, until a goodly amount of time had passed. Then he took a few deep, unsobering breaths and pushed back inside.
His plan was simple. Sit down at their table. Get drunk. Wait for Jack. Take Jack back to the Pearl. Pass out. Never mention it again.
Will stopped at the bar to get more rum and then wove his way through the crowd back to where he had Jack had previously been seated. Jack was still sitting at the table when Will came back. He didn’t look over when Will clambered back onto the bench. “Seat’s taken, mate,” Jack said. “Bugger off.”
“It’s me, Jack.” He took a sip of the rum and decided it wasn’t much good fortifying himself against the whole bloody mess when all the rum was doing was loosening his tongue and making him dizzy.
Jack’s shoulders relaxed into a slump. He turned to glare at Will, leaning in to hiss, “Where the fuck did you go? I thought you left me here.” Jack grabbed onto Will’s arm, fingers digging in tight enough to hurt. “I didn’t know if you were coming back and I don’t know where I am.”
Will felt a little like he wanted to throw up. “I thought you’d…with the girl…” he trailed off, feebly. “I didn’t think.”
Jack didn’t let go of Will, but now it felt as though he was afraid Will would bolt off again. “You could’ve just said you’d rather not have.” He took a drink, his hands were shaking. “Sometimes you really do beat all. Maybe now’s the time to talk about that thing you never want to talk about, because it’s all to do with the same thing, I’m not so foolish, Will. An’ if you’re going to run off when it comes up, then I ought to know about it, so’s I don’t get left sitting on my arse wondering if I’m in over my head.”
“I…what?” Will wished he was a little more sober. “I’m sorry. Let’s just go home.”
Jack took Will’s drink and drained it. “Come hell or high water,” he muttered. “I’ll hear that story in the end.”
They pushed back outside, Jack keeping Will on his feet, Will leading the way. It was a mess of careening hips and stumbling feet, broken footboards and drunks passing by too close. They stopped down an alley next to a closed bakery and a smithy, still in the thick of the night’s amusements but out of sight, so Will reoriented himself and Jack could relieve himself.
“I’m going to do something stupid,” Jack announced. He’d made no move other than to lean back against one of the walls, arms crossed, an odd look on his face. “An’ since that’s usually your area of expertise I’ll expect some degree of tolerance from you.” He reached out for Will and Will obligingly came closer. Jack’s fingertips traced over Will’s face, mapping out his forehead, the curve of his mouth, the corners of his eyes. “Jus’ remember, we’re both drunk an’ you really like me, an’ I like what teeth I’ve got.”
“What?” Will asked. It seemed to be all he could say because between Jack and the rum he had no idea what was going on.
Jack kissed Will. He smelt like the whore’s perfume and all Will could taste was the rum on his own breath but Jack’s hand was warm against his throat and for one wonderful moment it didn’t matter that Will was stinking drunk, or that they were in a filthy little alley, or that everything might be ruined. For one moment, Will got exactly as he’d wished.
Jack leaned back, but only barely. “Ah, right,” said Will, which was only marginally more intelligent than ‘What’ had been.
“I’ve a proposition for you, Will.” Jack’s eyes were a glittering pitch, dark, dark, dark in the half light. “What say, once we’re back at the Pearl, forget the whore an’ keep things simple? Between us.”
And that was the end of the moment. Will pulled away; staggering into the opposite wall and leaning back against that. He had to remind himself that running for it wasn’t an option. “No thank you,” he said faintly, hating every word that came out of his mouth. For one horrible second, Will hated Jack, just a little. “I don’t want to be your practice.”
Jack snorted derisively. “Will, darlin’, I know you. I’ve slept next to you, every night, for two months. I don’t need any help finding you an’ all that. If you’re going to say no, then say no. But don’t put words in my mouth.”
Will bit his tongue rather than say, “What” again. “I don’t understand,” he said instead.
“I don’t see the sense-” Jack cut himself off and chuckled bitterly. “There ain’t no sense in whoring when I know you, an’ I like you, and if I recall correctly you’re fair easy on the eyes an’ you feel delightful. So if you’re up for it, I can’t fathom why we wouldn’t just-”
“Together?” Will blurted out. “You want to…to bugger me?”
Jack made a face. “What a charming turn of phrase.” He waved an expressive hand. “If you like, or you to me, or I can think of half a dozen things, jus’ now, off the top of my head, that we could do that might feel nice. But if the answer’s no, then we’ll say no more on the subject an’ I hope you’ll forgive my moment of foolishness.” Jack took a few uncertain steps across the alley, one hand out, until he found Will and pressed himself up against Will again. “Or you could say yes and we could do all those lovely things that I can think of offhand and, given a night’s sleep and a spell of thinking time, I’m sure I can think of an hundred others.”
Will swallowed hard. He meant to say something along the lines of, “Yes,” but what came out instead was, “I love Elizabeth.” Jack started to pull away but Will grabbed hold of him. “No, listen, Jack, I love her but there was nothing, when I looked at her, there was nothing. So I left, rather than humiliate her. Then there was you, and I want you, and oh I’m drunk and I don’t care, I don’t care because, Christ, Jack.” There wasn’t anything he could add to that, for all that it didn’t feel finished. He kissed Jack instead, rum and perfume and the best mistake of Will’s life.
“Ah,” Jack said. “Right.”
*~*~*~*
The great cabin was hot, though all the windows were open, and the sheets stuck to Will’s skin. Under him, gold teeth glinting in the bad light, Jack was sweat and scars and tattoos and his body there, and there, and Will could watch him, touch him. The candles were a hazy glow from the drunken film over Will’s eyes but Jack was there and solid, his voice a low rumble, purring obscenities into Will’s ear. The oil smelt of wax and coconuts and Jack moaned and squirmed when Will licked his throat and twisted a finger inside him.
Will held himself up on one elbow, his other arm wedged between them, hand fast and rough on Jack’s prick, Jack, wonderful flexible Jack, one leg over Will’s shoulder, the other over Will’s hip. Now Jack’s breath caught on his words and he panted against Will’s lips and twisted his hips up to meet Will’s thrusts. One of Jack’s hands tangled around the damp, curling hair at the nape of Will’s neck, the other traced over his face, smearing black trails through the sweat, tracing them with his tongue.
Jack came, wide eyed and breathless, shuddering under Will. He arched his back and bit under Will’s jaw and Will shoved him back, watched him sigh and gasp, held Jack still and came with a low groan.
*~*~*~*
“Good morning,” Jack said carefully.
Will tumbled out of bed and only just made it to the wash basin before he was sick. “Good morning,” he mumbled, wiping at his face with a cloth. “No more rum for me. Ever.” He washed his mouth out with rum though, because there was nothing else on hand.
Jack pulled the sheet up over himself but not before Will caught sight of the bruise on his hip that Will somewhat smugly recalled putting there. “Well, that’s something then.” He started getting out of bed, but Will came back over and kissed the corner of his mouth.
“Shore leave’s for three days, we’ve got two left.” Will climbed over Jack back into the bunk. “I don’t see why we have to be up at the crack of dawn. And I’m horribly hungover.” Actually, throwing up had made him feel a thousand times better. “You should do something to make me feel better.”
Jack looked confused. “You’re not…”
“Rum means Will throws up in the morning,” Will said, laughing, pulling Jack to him. “No rum doesn’t mean I don’t want you to tell me about those half a dozen things that might feel nice.”
“That was a lot of double negatives, lad.” Jack said, but one of his hands was creeping down over Will’s stomach and hip. “Better clarify.” He grinned wickedly. “A demonstration might be in order.”
If Hope and Belief are sisters, and Patience is Faith’s daughter then Getting What You Want might not be a virtue or even a member of the family at all, but she was by far Will’s favorite.
For: pigeongirl99 because she is a lovely, lovely human being and bloody ages ago bought me paid time. So here’s her sequel.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Unbetaed. Takes place after “Hope’s Sister” and is therefore CotBP era and has nothing to do with DMC at all.
*~*~*~*
If Hope and Belief are sisters, then Faith is an estranged cousin who eloped at a young age and hasn’t been seen about the family for years. Patience is Faith’s daughter, the bastard child of a virtue and one of Pandora’s boxed monsters.
Or, at least, that was the conclusion Will reached after almost two months aboard the Pearl acting as Jack’s valet, for lack of a better word. It was something he came up with one night while he was trying to convince Jack that not only was going up into the rigging a bad idea at any other time, but doing it while he wasn’t just three sheets to the wind but so far into the wind that he’d married the woman who makes the sheets, was what one might term suicidal.
Will had yet to get a strong grasp on nautical terms, or analogies for that matter. His levels of competence might not have been highest in witty repartee, or in know-how of the seafaring life, but Will was unfalteringly patient with Jack and it had become a rare sight to see Jack without Will trailing along behind; a ready blade and a steady presence. So thus it was that Will, almost two months after joining the crew of the Pearl, wasn’t causing a scene of any description. He just put one hand on Jack’s bare shoulder, leaned in so closely that no one else would be able to hear, and said; “Can it wait ‘til tomorrow? I wanted to go over the maps with you again before bed, and I’m awfully tired,” both of which were lies.
It wasn’t that Will was in the practice of lying to Jack. In fact, it was more of the other. Will could be counted on to inform Jack of any misstep, any foolish thing he might have done as result of his blindness and was never one to mince his words. “Jack, you look an ass,” was something that only Will could get away with saying as Jack’s supply of calm, collectedness - once rather extensive - was in short supply. And he said it with regularity. It didn’t mean that he wouldn’t lie to Jack, especially when Jack was so far in his cups that he thought climbing into the shrouds was a good idea.
It didn’t even take that much persuasion. Jack just flung an arm around Will’s neck and tipped to the side so his nose was right up against Will’s jaw, rum breath washing over Will’s face and grinned. “’F you say so, darlin’.”
Jack didn’t take much persuading, not from Will. With just about anyone else, Jack could be counted on to be his usual stubborn self, full of his own mad plans and schemes. With Will, Jack usually just nodded and went along with it. Will wasn’t sure he liked it. In front of the crew Jack was almost exactly as he’d always been, or as much as he’d been that Will remembered. But with Will, or when Jack didn’t think anyone was looking, he seemed so much less than how he’d been before. Worn a little thin, perhaps, and there was a tired slump to his shoulders that his coat couldn’t quite hide.
They went back to Jack’s cabin and when Jack went to fetch the maps - since Will had rearranged the entire room, Jack now knew precisely where anything he might want would be at any given time - Will caught him by the elbow and nudged him towards the bunk instead. The absurd bed Barbossa had installed was gone now, replaced by a regular bunk. Well, mostly regular, if not unusually wide.
“Do you want me to read to you?” Will asked, shucking his shirt and putting it over the back of a chair. His boots went into the corner, by the door.
Jack frowned, confused. “I thought you wanted to look at the maps.” He settled back on the bunk anyway, dirty bare toes wiggling contentedly. Then he grinned, sloppy and drunk. “Too much rum?” he teased.
“Something like that.” Will was almost entirely sober. He didn’t get drunk any more, not since he’d joined the Pearl; he needed to look after Jack. He did or didn’t do a lot of things because of Jack. Jack drank a lot, but Will had spoken to AnaMaria and Jack had always drank a lot.
“Don’t bother.” Jack yawned widely. “Jus’ come to bed, lad.”
And there it was.
The leviathan in the room.
Will slept in Jack’s bunk every night and Jack would sprawl out over him, dirty, or sweaty, or drunk, or damp, or whatever state Jack was in and Will would lie awake for an hour or so. He’d become quite well acquainted with what the timbers in the ceiling looked like. He would listen to Jack snore and mumble in his sleep and try not to think of anything more than the knots in the wood above.
He was not a good person. He Will, William Turner the second, was not a good man.
Jack was a gentleman. He wanted someone to hold in the night who he trusted not to stab him in the back. Jack wanted someone to wake up to who wouldn’t let on if he sometimes took a moment to remember he was blind, or if he remembered all too painfully and had to put his head in his hands and mourn for a while. If Jack wanted a whore, he would get AnaMaria to pick one out for him when they were ashore, or so he’d remarked to Will with a wink and a lewd grin. Will had declined to press the issue any further.
Most mornings, Will would slip out of the bunk and go stand by the window before Jack was awake. He would stare out at the sea and, as he hadn’t done in years, he would pray and ask forgiveness for his sins. It wasn’t so much that he was feeling religious, it was more that Will had discovered that this ritual worked almost as well as either a cold dunking or a vigorous practice with his sword for curing any shameful stirrings of his prick.
Will was no gentleman. Will was no real man. A good man, a real man, would not find dark, secret places in the ship to go when he couldn’t stand it any more and abuse himself while he thought about another man.
But Will slept in Jack’s bed, because Jack needed him there and Will did, or didn’t do, a lot of things because of Jack.
He sighed and crawled in next to Jack. It was too warm in the cabin and Jack’s skin was damp with sweat. The sheets clung and twisted around them and Will’s skin kept sticking to Jack’s before one of them would shift and they would peel apart uncomfortably. Will lay on his side, one leg tucked over so he could hide his straining prick and watched Jack slowly pass out. Jack smelled delicious, in a filthy sort of way, and Will had lived in a port town more than long enough to know exactly what he wanted to do.
Will had also been listening to Jack’s theories about Life and all she entailed and he had his own ideas to go with them. He didn’t think to hope Jack might return his affections, because hope can break a man, and Will was far too tired of that to try again. He believed, quite firmly, that telling Jack would ruin their arrangement beyond any repair. He had faith, but it was wearing thin, that he could get past his unnatural feelings. Will had faith but it was in poor repair indeed and he had no doubt it would abandon him, much as hope had. So, he clung to all he had left; patience, a virtue, at least.
“What’re you all thoughtful about?” Jack asked, half slurred and half asleep. “Never seen a man with such a steady life have so many secrets.”
Will shrugged one shoulder, choosing to disregard the comment about a steady life. “How drunk are you?”
Jack yawned and, despite the heat, curled in closer to Will. “No fear for your secrets, I’ll forget ‘em in the morning.”
“How have you been so patient, through everything?” Will asked.
“I ain’t patient, sweetheart,” Jack said into Will’s shoulder, breath warm against Will’s skin. “Never have been. I jus’ know when to bide my time and when something’s worth waiting for. It’s not quite the same thing. Patience never much suited me.”
Will wasn’t sure how those things were so different, really, but he nodded as though he understood. “Well, what if you’re not waiting for something? What if you’re just…being patient?”
Jack cracked open an eye, automatically, and while he couldn’t see Will to give him a skeptical look, all arched eyebrow and amused twist to his mouth, it didn’t lose any of its power. “You’ve got to be patient for something. Or you’re not doing anything at all.”
“With life then. What if I’m waiting, patiently, for something to change?”
“Ah,” Jack said. “This is that thing that you won’t talk about then. That’s no patience, William, that’s nothing at all, an’ nothing at all is what you’ve got when there’s not even anger or sadness. Nothing at all is despair.” He propped himself up on one elbow and stretched dirty fingers across the space between them to brush over Will’s cheeks and eyebrows, down over the curve of Will’s lips. “What wants changing, Will?”
Will batted Jack’s hand away and rolled onto his other side. “Go to sleep, Jack, you’re drunk.”
Jack pressed up behind him, the sweat-damp skin of his chest sticking to Will’s back, hand sliding slickly across Will’s shoulder. “Not that drunk.” Despite the fact that they were both lying down, Jack was still swaying slightly, which gave lie to his words. “An’ I’m captain here. If something needs to be changed, I ought to know of it.”
“I didn’t love Elizabeth enough. Can you change that?” Will snapped, irritable from the heat and Jack’s infuriating and persistent tendency to invade his personal space.
Jack’s arm curled around Will’s waist and he settled in. “No. What more could she ask from you?” His breath stirred the hair at the nape of Will’s neck, cooling the sweat there and making the small hairs there stand on end.
Will squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think about the way Jack felt. “That’s none of your business.”
“You brought it up,” Jack retorted.
In the time that it took Will to think of something to say in reply to that, Jack started to snore and the weight of his arm indicated that he was out for the count and was likely to be well and truly passed out for the rest of the night.
Will, robbed of his usual view of the ceiling, stared out into the dark of the room and thought very hard about unpleasant things rather than the torment of Jack’s body, so wonderfully pressed against his own.
*~*~*~*
“How’s he?” AnaMaria asked, over a large, mostly empty, tankard of ale.
The brothel and pub they sat in was still relatively quiet, considering it was only five in the afternoon, most of the clientele gathered about the bar, propping it up. The Pearl had docked around noon into a miserable little port town and Jack, AnaMaria and Will had spent their time in the fuggy heat slapping at insects and haggling with fences over their haul before settling down for a drink in the little brothel. With their purses heavier and the crew sent ashore for the next three days, there was little for Will to do but follow Jack around. As it happened, where Jack was going was also where AnaMaria had decided to take herself - and the two seemed entirely uncoincidental to Will - which meant he had to worry about her needling, and her prying.
It was about as pleasant inside as it was outside, and though there were fewer insects, the air was decidedly thicker, not only with rotting vegetation, but with the greasy reek of fatty lamps, women with too much perfume, rotten straw and boarding and the lingering odor of cheap sex and cheaper gin.
Jack had insisted on buying the round, and after a good ten minutes of discussion he had got up on his own, walked across the bar and was standing, waiting to be served. It left Will to AnaMaria’s clutches and he was ill prepared to deal with her questioning.
Will sipped at his own drink. “In what way?”
“You think he want a woman tonight?” She gave him an arch look and Will wasn’t sure what to make of it. “You think he want something else?”
The girls were all hovering about the edges of the room, talking amongst themselves due to a distinct lack of interest from the patrons. Their hair, piled high, was mostly limp from the heat and sweat was making streaks in the powder of the women who had used too much of it. One group of girls had started a game in the corner with grimy, curled playing cards and they were playing for pebbles. As for the something else, it didn’t seem to be that sort of a brothel and Will couldn’t see any sodomites, though he was decidedly unsure about the sex of one or two of the girls. He suspected they were just mannish and not actually men.
Will shrugged and drained half his rum in one swallow. Despite Jack’s quest for more liquor, Will had been intending on dragging his first drink out for the rest of the afternoon. However, if he was going to be subject to questioning on someone else’s relations with loose women, he would prefer to be at least a little tipsy and damn the consequences. “Bollocksed if I know. I’d ask him.”
AnaMaria sighed. “That’s your job. I ain’t supposed to ask, you an’ me, it’s our job to know all this shit. T’was my job, it’s your call now.”
Will scowled into his mug. “It’s been a while,” he said grudgingly. It had, by his estimates, been about three months since Jack had had relations with anyone. Not that it was any of his business. “I suppose we ought to offer.”
AnaMaria scanned the room then pointed out a pretty girl, cleaner than most and all golden curls and soft, round curves. “Her?” The whore’s lips were rouged a pale pink and her skin was flushed rose in the grimy light.
Will hated the girl on sight. “No,” he said.
AnaMaria nodded. “You’re right.” Off at the bar Jack was fumbling with the coins, obviously trying to tell by feel which were which and Will gave himself a mental kicking for not remembering to give Jack exact coinage. “Her?” This time AnaMaria was pointing out a slender, darkskinned girl, all long lashes and hard lines under the corset.
“I’ve no idea,” Will snapped. “Just ask him what he wants. I’m not a mind-reader; I can’t pick women for him. For all I know he’d have both, or neither, or just enough drink to make him pass out.”
Jack came swaying back to their table, balancing their drinks. He slid into the seat next to Will and Will could see the beads of sweat on Jack’s forehead from the effort it had taken him. “No problem,” Jack lied and Will slipped a subtle arm around his waist to anchor him, tucked between Jack’s coat and his shirt, out of sight of anyone who might care to notice. Jack grinned at him and raised his fresh mug. “You’re falling behind, lad. Drink up.” Will pretended, for Jack’s sake, that he didn’t notice how grateful the smile was.
“Ana wants to know if you’re interested in any of the whores,” Will said, instead of what he’d meant to say, which had been little more than, “Cheers.” He took his arm back and stared into his mug as though it was the cause of his runaway mouth.
Jack licked ale out of his moustache. “P’rhaps,” he said cautiously. He glanced over, a few inches to the right of where AnaMaria was sitting and gave the empty air near her head a significant eyebrow waggling. When this didn’t produce the desired result, whatever that was meant to be, Jack sighed and sipped from his mug again. “P’rhaps this is something Ana and I ought to discuss.” Again there was a silence. “Between us. Alone.”
Will’s nails cut into the soft, rotting wood of the table. “Better not,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “Just in case of, you know…the unexpected.” What the unexpected was, Will had no idea. The brothel was quiet and its patrons all sleepy and stupid in the heat. But, if anything, Jack looked even less sure about the whole situation than before. “Besides,” Will continued, “my sensibilities won’t be offended; I can assure you of that.”
AnaMaria rolled her eyes and sighed. “I’d rather you two discuss an’ I go find a companion of me own.” She tipped her mug back and drained its contents. “I’ll see you back on the Pearl,” she said, and abandoned Will.
Jack glanced sidelong at Will, managing to actually look right at him. “What about you, lad?”
Will pretended not to see AnaMaria sit down to join the whores at cards. Ana was subtle, he had to give her that. He suspected she’d learned that the hard way. Unless someone was looking, they might not even notice that she was flirting to see if any of the whores would be willing to entertain her. It didn’t make him feel better about his own decidedly unchristian feelings. He was sure he’d heard somewhere that two women together were a beautiful and natural thing. Will wasn’t sure if he’d heard it in a pub though, in which case his source was sure to be suspect.
“No thank you,” Will said politely.
“I ask,” Jack said, “because - between you an’ I - I’m not feeling altogether steady about the idea and I thought it’d be easier to figure out how to manage everything without the benefit of sight with a bit of help, as it were.”
“What?” Will’s stomach clenched uncomfortably.
Jack grinned crookedly at him. “To rephrase; d’you want to share?” Will choked on his mouthful of drink, but Jack continued as though he hadn’t heard. “Most of these girls wouldn’t mind, we’re neither of us bad looking blokes an’-”
“No.” Will stared at the wall and tried not to think of Jack, naked, fucking a whore in front of him. It wasn’t working. Will, despite all evidence to the contrary, had a rather vivid imagination. “Thank you, no.”
Jack’s grin turned decidedly wicked. “No need to be prudish,” he said, teasingly. “And let your captain finish. I was about to say that most of the girls wouldn’t mind…seeing as you’re a eunuch an’ all.”
Will smacked him on the arm. “And you’re an ass,” he said crossly. “I don’t think you’re going to need help figuring out what goes where. I’m sure you’ve had plenty of practice, in the light, in the dark and every which way.”
“Aye, fair enough,” Jack said. “But…”
“But?”
“I don’t want to bollocks it up,” Jack said softly. “I can’t get things wrong, not this, not anything. Then it’s winning an’ I’m done for.”
Will shut his eyes. “Alright, Jack. But not here.” Because he had nothing at all, and nothing at all is what you’ve got when there’s not even anger or sadness. Nothing at all is despair. “And not until tonight,” he said and finished his rum so he could start in on the ale that Jack had brought him.
Jack cocked his head to one side. “Whereabouts were you thinking?”
Will took a huge swallow of ale and tried not to heave as it sat heavy on his roiling stomach. “Somewhere…” he looked away, “somewhere where they won’t care if someone mistakes us for sodomites, otherwise word will get out if we’re touching overmuch. I don’t fancy being arrested for something I don’t intend to do.”
Jack was quiet in a way that meant he was thinking much more about the situation than Will wanted him to. “Fair enough, lad,” he said finally. Then; “If you’d rather not, then I’m not fussed.”
“I said yes,” Will snapped, then regretted his tone. He thought about apologizing but drank his ale instead; afraid he would say something else foolish. He’d heard that bad luck came in threes and he’d already started the conversation and then said yes. He didn’t need to be saying anything else. Jack, mercifully, let the matter drop.
*~*~*~*
Will was drunk. Not so drunk that he was liable to start confessing all his secrets to Jack Sparrow, or so drunk that he would fall over, or asleep, or so drunk that he couldn’t manage himself with a woman, but certainly drunk enough to lean into Jack as they sat in the third tavern of the evening, giggling foolishly at some anecdote Jack had told. He couldn’t really tell what kind of a place the tavern was because the entire room was crammed full of people, laughing and talking and flirting. Once night had fallen locals and visitors aplenty came out of the woodwork to drink and carouse and Jack and Will had found themselves in good company. The third and last tavern they had visited was certainly prone to those of the less than heterosexual clientele and while it certainly was no molly house, no one so much as batted an eye when Will, drunkenly affectionate, wrapped his arm around Jack after one tall tale, rested his head against Jack’s shoulder and told him he was full of shit and that wasn’t how the story went at all.
That wasn’t to say there weren’t whores aplenty. There were more even than the brothel since between the actual whores, the serving maids who would probably sell their virtue for the right price, and the young men obviously not simply there for drinking, Will would have a job and a half choosing the right whore for the job. It wasn’t something he was looking forwards to.
Jack put his mouth to Will’s ear and said, “P’rhaps we should stagger back to the Pearl, it’s getting crowded and you ain’t sober.”
Will leaned back so he could glare at Jack. “Maybe not,” he agreed, “but I’m sober enough to stand, and there’s still only one of you so I would argue a strong case for near sobriety.” He slurred a little on his ‘s’es and Jack laughed. “I am! And I said yes.”
“You did at that.” Jack put his hand on Will’s thigh, a little above his knee and put his mouth back to Will’s ear. “See anyone you fancy?” His voice was rough and low and it was making Will decidedly hard.
Will cast a bleary eye around the tavern and saw a blur of rouged cheeks and painted lips. He didn’t want any of them. He wanted Jack, all shining and smoky in the flickering light of the tavern. “There’s a girl not five feet from us,” he said instead. “Shall I ask her?”
Jack’s hand crept a little higher on Will’s leg, and Will was thankful it was dark so no one could see the straining front of his breeches. “What’s she like?” Jack asked. “There’s a lot of girls here.”
“Redhead. Tall. Slender.” The girl’s hair was dyed red, a horrible, lurid hue that clashed with the pink of her dress but she didn’t have any visible pox sores and, in the long run, Will didn’t particularly care what she looked like. “About a foot to the left of us,” Will added.
“An’ she’s the one?” Jack asked but he turned his face in the direction Will had specified and smiled his crooked, golden smile at the whore and winked. Will watched, the room heeling slightly, as the whore came over and perched on Jack’s knee. “Hello, sweetheart,” Jack said, and offered her some of his drink. His hand stayed on Will’s knee, though for what reason, Will couldn’t quite fathom.
Will couldn’t bear to watch the girl tap the baubles in Jack’s beard to set them aswinging, wrap her fingers in Jack’s hair, kiss him on the mouth so his lips were as wet and pink as hers. He couldn’t bear to, but he couldn’t look away either, sidelong, fingers clenched around his mug. She gasped and slapped at Jack’s arm and Will realized he couldn’t see Jack’s other hand for a moment, before it reappeared, Jack clearly trying to look angelic and only managing to look wicked. The hand on Will’s leg moved to tug Will closer and Jack muttered something in the girl’s ear that caused her to turn and look at Will. She pursed her lips, appraisingly. She wasn’t bad looking, Will decided, for all that she’d done to her hair, she had most of her own teeth and was only wearing enough perfume to make his nose itch, not his head ache. The whore leaned over and kissed Will until Will turned his face away.
Jack, Jack sitting there, one hand on the girl, one resting against the small of Will’s back. Jack with his wicked grin and beautiful, blank eyes. Jack’s mouth on the whore’s neck, her hand on Will’s shoulder, Jack seeming to look at Will.
Will knew how this would go; Upstairs, onto a dirty, unevenly stuffed mattress that, if they were unlucky, would be host to fleas. Her body, soft and full, her pink mouth on Jack’s, on Will’s, her hands on them. Jack’s gold teeth glinting in the bad light, sweat and scars and tattoos and his body there, and there, and Will would touch the whore and watch Jack.
Will was so tired of watching things he couldn’t have. He was so very tired of being patient.
“I can’t,” Will said, standing abruptly, nearly knocking the whore off Jack’s lap. “I have to go.” He nearly tripped in his haste to get away, pushing past the other patrons in a blur of angry faces and strong perfume.
Outside it was no less smoky and noisy. The air was decidedly cooler but still humming with mosquitoes and still fetid. Will leaned back against the outside wall of the brothel and thumped his head against the wood. It didn’t help the spinning his head was doing and it didn’t help settle his stomach. He walked the dingy, narrow street, up and down, tripping over the uneven boards that made up the firm ground in all the mud, until a goodly amount of time had passed. Then he took a few deep, unsobering breaths and pushed back inside.
His plan was simple. Sit down at their table. Get drunk. Wait for Jack. Take Jack back to the Pearl. Pass out. Never mention it again.
Will stopped at the bar to get more rum and then wove his way through the crowd back to where he had Jack had previously been seated. Jack was still sitting at the table when Will came back. He didn’t look over when Will clambered back onto the bench. “Seat’s taken, mate,” Jack said. “Bugger off.”
“It’s me, Jack.” He took a sip of the rum and decided it wasn’t much good fortifying himself against the whole bloody mess when all the rum was doing was loosening his tongue and making him dizzy.
Jack’s shoulders relaxed into a slump. He turned to glare at Will, leaning in to hiss, “Where the fuck did you go? I thought you left me here.” Jack grabbed onto Will’s arm, fingers digging in tight enough to hurt. “I didn’t know if you were coming back and I don’t know where I am.”
Will felt a little like he wanted to throw up. “I thought you’d…with the girl…” he trailed off, feebly. “I didn’t think.”
Jack didn’t let go of Will, but now it felt as though he was afraid Will would bolt off again. “You could’ve just said you’d rather not have.” He took a drink, his hands were shaking. “Sometimes you really do beat all. Maybe now’s the time to talk about that thing you never want to talk about, because it’s all to do with the same thing, I’m not so foolish, Will. An’ if you’re going to run off when it comes up, then I ought to know about it, so’s I don’t get left sitting on my arse wondering if I’m in over my head.”
“I…what?” Will wished he was a little more sober. “I’m sorry. Let’s just go home.”
Jack took Will’s drink and drained it. “Come hell or high water,” he muttered. “I’ll hear that story in the end.”
They pushed back outside, Jack keeping Will on his feet, Will leading the way. It was a mess of careening hips and stumbling feet, broken footboards and drunks passing by too close. They stopped down an alley next to a closed bakery and a smithy, still in the thick of the night’s amusements but out of sight, so Will reoriented himself and Jack could relieve himself.
“I’m going to do something stupid,” Jack announced. He’d made no move other than to lean back against one of the walls, arms crossed, an odd look on his face. “An’ since that’s usually your area of expertise I’ll expect some degree of tolerance from you.” He reached out for Will and Will obligingly came closer. Jack’s fingertips traced over Will’s face, mapping out his forehead, the curve of his mouth, the corners of his eyes. “Jus’ remember, we’re both drunk an’ you really like me, an’ I like what teeth I’ve got.”
“What?” Will asked. It seemed to be all he could say because between Jack and the rum he had no idea what was going on.
Jack kissed Will. He smelt like the whore’s perfume and all Will could taste was the rum on his own breath but Jack’s hand was warm against his throat and for one wonderful moment it didn’t matter that Will was stinking drunk, or that they were in a filthy little alley, or that everything might be ruined. For one moment, Will got exactly as he’d wished.
Jack leaned back, but only barely. “Ah, right,” said Will, which was only marginally more intelligent than ‘What’ had been.
“I’ve a proposition for you, Will.” Jack’s eyes were a glittering pitch, dark, dark, dark in the half light. “What say, once we’re back at the Pearl, forget the whore an’ keep things simple? Between us.”
And that was the end of the moment. Will pulled away; staggering into the opposite wall and leaning back against that. He had to remind himself that running for it wasn’t an option. “No thank you,” he said faintly, hating every word that came out of his mouth. For one horrible second, Will hated Jack, just a little. “I don’t want to be your practice.”
Jack snorted derisively. “Will, darlin’, I know you. I’ve slept next to you, every night, for two months. I don’t need any help finding you an’ all that. If you’re going to say no, then say no. But don’t put words in my mouth.”
Will bit his tongue rather than say, “What” again. “I don’t understand,” he said instead.
“I don’t see the sense-” Jack cut himself off and chuckled bitterly. “There ain’t no sense in whoring when I know you, an’ I like you, and if I recall correctly you’re fair easy on the eyes an’ you feel delightful. So if you’re up for it, I can’t fathom why we wouldn’t just-”
“Together?” Will blurted out. “You want to…to bugger me?”
Jack made a face. “What a charming turn of phrase.” He waved an expressive hand. “If you like, or you to me, or I can think of half a dozen things, jus’ now, off the top of my head, that we could do that might feel nice. But if the answer’s no, then we’ll say no more on the subject an’ I hope you’ll forgive my moment of foolishness.” Jack took a few uncertain steps across the alley, one hand out, until he found Will and pressed himself up against Will again. “Or you could say yes and we could do all those lovely things that I can think of offhand and, given a night’s sleep and a spell of thinking time, I’m sure I can think of an hundred others.”
Will swallowed hard. He meant to say something along the lines of, “Yes,” but what came out instead was, “I love Elizabeth.” Jack started to pull away but Will grabbed hold of him. “No, listen, Jack, I love her but there was nothing, when I looked at her, there was nothing. So I left, rather than humiliate her. Then there was you, and I want you, and oh I’m drunk and I don’t care, I don’t care because, Christ, Jack.” There wasn’t anything he could add to that, for all that it didn’t feel finished. He kissed Jack instead, rum and perfume and the best mistake of Will’s life.
“Ah,” Jack said. “Right.”
*~*~*~*
The great cabin was hot, though all the windows were open, and the sheets stuck to Will’s skin. Under him, gold teeth glinting in the bad light, Jack was sweat and scars and tattoos and his body there, and there, and Will could watch him, touch him. The candles were a hazy glow from the drunken film over Will’s eyes but Jack was there and solid, his voice a low rumble, purring obscenities into Will’s ear. The oil smelt of wax and coconuts and Jack moaned and squirmed when Will licked his throat and twisted a finger inside him.
Will held himself up on one elbow, his other arm wedged between them, hand fast and rough on Jack’s prick, Jack, wonderful flexible Jack, one leg over Will’s shoulder, the other over Will’s hip. Now Jack’s breath caught on his words and he panted against Will’s lips and twisted his hips up to meet Will’s thrusts. One of Jack’s hands tangled around the damp, curling hair at the nape of Will’s neck, the other traced over his face, smearing black trails through the sweat, tracing them with his tongue.
Jack came, wide eyed and breathless, shuddering under Will. He arched his back and bit under Will’s jaw and Will shoved him back, watched him sigh and gasp, held Jack still and came with a low groan.
*~*~*~*
“Good morning,” Jack said carefully.
Will tumbled out of bed and only just made it to the wash basin before he was sick. “Good morning,” he mumbled, wiping at his face with a cloth. “No more rum for me. Ever.” He washed his mouth out with rum though, because there was nothing else on hand.
Jack pulled the sheet up over himself but not before Will caught sight of the bruise on his hip that Will somewhat smugly recalled putting there. “Well, that’s something then.” He started getting out of bed, but Will came back over and kissed the corner of his mouth.
“Shore leave’s for three days, we’ve got two left.” Will climbed over Jack back into the bunk. “I don’t see why we have to be up at the crack of dawn. And I’m horribly hungover.” Actually, throwing up had made him feel a thousand times better. “You should do something to make me feel better.”
Jack looked confused. “You’re not…”
“Rum means Will throws up in the morning,” Will said, laughing, pulling Jack to him. “No rum doesn’t mean I don’t want you to tell me about those half a dozen things that might feel nice.”
“That was a lot of double negatives, lad.” Jack said, but one of his hands was creeping down over Will’s stomach and hip. “Better clarify.” He grinned wickedly. “A demonstration might be in order.”
If Hope and Belief are sisters, and Patience is Faith’s daughter then Getting What You Want might not be a virtue or even a member of the family at all, but she was by far Will’s favorite.