Title: "Leading Strings"
Author: mala
Fandom: PotC
Rating/Classification: SAC, slash, Jack/Will, ficlet.
Disclaimer: Who, me? Shyeah, right! Disney owns our souls!
Summary: Will needs to look lively...else Tortuga will swallow him whole. *g*
"One man washed on an empty beach,
one man betrayed with a kiss."
--U2.
The sights, sounds, smells, of Tortuga are brighter and louder and...far
more ripe...than anything he has ever known. Somewhere in the darker regions of his memory, he remembers bits of England and Mum and similar clutter. Clutching his old medallion like a talisman as he navigated the shipyards. Similar...but totally different. Not nearly so wild. So filthy. Now, the cackle of whores is like a discordant noise, filling his ears and Jack tugs, emphatically, on his arm.
"Look lively, William," he warns, waspishly, "Else these gals will think
you're in need of some education." And dark eyes flit his way, speculative. Almost girlish, with that thick kohl-lining them, but that is something he'll never tell Captain Jack Sparrow. "You *aren't* in need of education, are you, Lad?"
"No!" he assures, quickly. *Too* quickly. Curse his tongue! And he
glances somewhere between a heaving bosom and a drunk stumbling from a pub amidst the shattering of glass. Three hours a day of swordplay and twelve
hours of horseshoes, with more hours of intricate metal craft after dark and by candlelight rarely leaves time for courting. Simply for dreaming. Of Elizabeth's soft, white, skin. The curve of her lips in a smile.
"You *are* a eunuch!" Jack crows, with altogether too much amusement, his teeth glinting in the light shining down from the lamps that line the street. "Least you may as *well* be!"
"I am not!" he snaps, irritably.
For perhaps the hundredth time since leaving the safe haven of the forge, he questions the wisdom of taking up with pirates. With *this*
pirate...who cannot be trusted and clearly has his own agenda. It is entirely possible that he will never find Elizabeth. That Captain Jack has him by the leading strings and intends to strand him in Tortuga while going off for the Black Pearl.
That will not happen.
Oh, he can look lively all right.
As they turn the corner and the shingle of the pub Jack spoke of on the
Interceptor swings, less-than-invitingly, in the early evening breeze, he sticks out his foot. And the pirate, caught up in the sights and sounds of his element, catches and trips...falling against the cobblestones.
From there, it is a simple series of motions. His knees on either side of
Jack's hips. Pinning him down. Unsheathing his sword and holding the blade to the base of his throat. The silver gleams against the darkness of beard, urging a close-shave, the spilling of blood. And he shivers. He is no murderer. He is no pirate. But he *is* determined.
"Why, William...you surprise me," Jack chuckles, completely unconcerned about his predicament. "You can't go whipping out your sword every time someone challenges your manhood."
"Have that problem often, do you?" he retorts, noting how the denizens of Tortuga move past them without pausing, without blinking. For them, this is
every day. This is normal. For him... for him this is madness. "If you betray me...if you betray me, Jack Sparrow..." he begins, through gritted teeth.
Jack's eyebrows quirk. The scent of opium and smoke and sweat rises,
heavy, from his skin. "You'll what?" he wonders. "You'll kill me? Won't happen," he assures, pompously. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, remember?"
Remember? He can't seem to forget.
"Worse. I'll do worse," he counters, hotly.
As the blade of his sword dances a thin red line, he leans down...silences
the cacophony, blocks out the flurry of colors, and everything about Tortuga that makes him feel young and scared and foolish. And it is Jack who finishes the journey. Who leans upward, taunting the sword to go deeper even as their mouths clash and he tastes gold and rum against his tongue.
"Mmmm...definitely not a eunuch," the pirate murmurs, tugging at his lower lip, teasingly, before knocking the sword out of his hands and flipping him
so it is *his* back colliding with the hard stones. "If this is 'worse' to you, William, you've got a lot to learn."
For the second time in as many days, he finds himself lying stunned and
senseless in the middle of a public thoroughfare. And as Jack skips away,
humming a nonsensical "yo, ho, ho", he hears the whores again. Their raucous laughter.
Yes, he is in need of education.
And he's just been taught his first lesson.
The sights, sounds, smells, of Tortuga are brighter and louder and...far
more ripe...than anything he has ever known.
He can't wait to leave.
To find Elizabeth.
And return to where it's safe.
--end--
July 10, 2003.