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Bootstrap was just an implied character in the movie. He doesn’t even really exist. But what do you bet they steal my idea and have him come back in a sequel? Filthy little thieves, we hates those Disney mens, they’ve stolen our… oh, sorry, it seems I was the one who stole the characters, plot etc. – but not really stole, more like borrowed with intent to return. Slightly soiled but none the worse for the wear. ‘Cept for that not-quite-so-virginal Will. It is with great reluctance that I’m reluctantly him putting back where he belongs. Hmm, maybe I’ll keep him a little longer, now that I think of it… and what’s a Will without a Jack? Well, a Jack without a Will is pretty darn depressed, but things are looking up…
oops, getting ahead of myself.
The Tale of Bootstrap
Strong arms encircled Captain Jack Sparrow in an enthusiastic bear hug, and it was all Jack could do to not cry.
Bootstrap was not only alive and well, but standing right in front of him, holding him up, as it were.
“Easy, mate, you’ve had a wee bit much to drink there, Captain.” Bootstrap hooked one arm around Jack’s waist and steered him down the lane. “There’s a well just around this corner. We’ll get you a nice drink of water.”
Jack allowed himself to be half-carried to a town square. The pirate slumped down onto a low wall while Bootstrap lowered a wooden bucket down into the deep well.
“My goodness, now isn’t this a coincidence, us running into each other here. I always knew you’d find a way off that island. I said to meself, if anyone can survive that godforsaken spit of land, it’s Captain Jack Sparrow.” Bootstrap seemed totally oblivious to Jack’s state of complete shock. “You’re looking a bit peaked though, Captain Sparrow. Here, this’ll help.” He handed him a cup of the cool, fresh water.
Jack took the proffered tin cup from Bootstrap and took a long, deep drink. Then promptly spewed the foul liquid out all over the street.
“Good God, William, are you trying to kill me, eh?” He sputtered, wiping the pure liquid from his face. “Haven’t you got any proper drink?”
“Sorry, Jack. Forgot. Here,” he produced a sliver flask from his vest pocket and handed it to the pirate.
“Tha’s much better. Ta much.” Jack squinted up at the form of his old shipmate and lover standing next to him. Unbelievable.
“Will,” he murmured. “William, I mean. Of course. Bill. Bootstrap Bill Turner. How in the name of – ”
Bootstrap let out a huge laugh. “Wondering when you’d ask that!” He sat down on the wall.
“You look bloody fantastic!”
And he did. Bootstrap’s hair was long and shiny, falling in gentle waves around his handsome face. He was tan and healthy, just a tad thicker at the waist than he used to be, but obviously fit and in fine form. His eyes sparkled with pleasure at seeing his old lover.
“You mean, ‘for a dead man’, don’t ye?”
No, Jack didn’t mean for a dead man. He meant for any man alive or dead in the history of all mankind. Softer lines than Will, with a few more wrinkles around the eyes. He was a more mature version of the young blacksmith. More confidence, less bravura. When he smiled, he showed clean white teeth. Bootstrap had always had phenomenally white, even teeth for a pirate. Jack wanted to feel them graze his nipples and nip on the soft skin of his inner thigh. Now they almost glowed between ripe, soft lips Jack yearned to kiss, but he let Bootstrap go on with his story.
“Well, I don’t know how much you know about the curse…”
“I know of it.”
“Yeah, well, I suspected it all along. And I wanted to punish Barbossa. You know, Jack, I never would have let them do that to you - if there was any way to stop them I would have. Anyway, I knew we was cursed before the others caught on to it, I could sense it right off, like. And I thought we deserved it, yes I did. I sent a piece of the treasure to my son. I wanted the curse to last. But here I am, so the curse must have been broken somehow.”
Bootstrap’s eyes shone in the moonlight. Rich, dark chocolate brown, just like his son’s. Jack wanted to see them glimmer at him in the lamplight of his cabin, as Jack kissed his way down Bootstrap’s torso, licking and sucking on every square inch of skin.
Lovely shaped brows framed them, really lovely. But there was no crease between them, not a trace of it. Whatever had befallen Bootstrap had made him stop his worrying.
“Barbossa, that scabrous hound, he thought he’d have the last laugh sending me to the bottom of the ocean like that. It was deep, Jack. Deep and cold, but I didn’t feel that, being cursed and all. I kept going down, further and further. It got darker and soon I couldn’t see anything. But I didn’t die. Couldn’t die, could I? I don’t really know how long I was there. Hungry, thirsty, lonely…”
You poor thing, Jack thought. If only I could have been there to help. I would have fed you, given you something to drink, held you tight so you weren’t lonely anymore. I would have taken your lovely face in my hands and kissed the life back into you, stroked all over your luscious body with my hands and my tongue to bring the warmth back. He reached up a hand and laid it on Bootstrap’s shoulder. Flexed his fingers, felt the rounded muscles and heat under his shirt.
“But you know, Barbossa. He was never a good sailor. Good pirate, sure. Decent enough navigator, but a terrible sailor. And he tied the knots himself, wanted to punish me for being so close to you. He always had it in for me, ye know.”
Jack thought of the last time he’d seen Bootstrap. They were lying tangled in the sheets of the captain’s bunk on the Black Pearl. Half-naked and sweaty, exhausted from a long and satisfying session of sweet lovemaking. When Barbossa and his mutinous crew burst into the cabin, Bootstrap had instinctively reached out for Jack, and Jack had fought the leprous dogs with all his might. The memory of Bootstrap’s hand slipping out of his as they were pulled apart made Jack’s fingers ache.
“I just lay there on the floor of the ocean for the longest time. Gave up all me hope. I couldn’t fight the despair of it. I figured you were long gone, I was cursed, nothing to live for. That was a blessing though. I mean, you know me better than any soul on earth or ocean, so you know my terrible fear of drowning. But the curse helped me there, took away all my fear so I could bear it. So, one day, or night, who can tell? I noticed the bonds were loose. The knots were coming undone. Barbossa never could tie a knot to save his life.”
Or to end yours, Jack gloated.
Joy surged through him. He was sitting next to Bootstrap. He could feel the heat pouring off the man. He could smell spices and salt and the inescapable musk of his old lover. He breathed deep and held the scent in for as long as he could.
“So I got up, savvy? Just got up and started walking. Didn’t know what direction I was going in, I had no bearing, I just walked. And pretty soon things got lighter, as the surface got closer, and next thing I knew I was walking out of the water up to a beach. Oh, gorgeous beach it was, all white sand and glittering water. Palm trees and grasses blowing in the salt air. Not that I could really appreciate it, being cursed and what have you, but it was a joy of a kind after all that dreary time under water. I thought perhaps it was the same spit where they left you. And I searched it all over, scared I’d find yer carcass, but needing to know, you understand.”
Jack smiled and lifted his hand again to stroke the side of Bootstrap’s face. How dare Barbossa cause such agony for his lover? If he could have he would have killed the mutinous scallywag again, right then and there.
“Some rumrunners showed up a while later, but it was a moonlit night. They got one look at me and hightailed it back to sea. I don’t think they ever went back to that island again.”
Jack laughed. Things were starting to make sense, which always unnerved him a little.
“So after a while I left too. I just walked. Down to the bottom and along until it rose again and I came up on another beach.”
Wandering from island to island, staying in one place until someone discovered the curse, fleeing angry mobs and the like, it was a sad tale. But it must have ended with a happy ending. How could it not be happy when Bootstrap was here, in the flesh and in the moonlight and unquestionably uncursed before him? Jack slung his arm around Bootstrap’s shoulder, and felt his body flush with heat at the sensation of being so close after so long.
“It was a bleak existence, but what could I do? I had to keep going.”
Bleak. Aye, bleak for Jack too. He’d missed his lover horribly over the years. Took ages for him to even accept Bootstrap was gone. Dreamed of him every night, called out his name every time he stroked himself to orgasm, imagined him every time he felt alone or amorous. And then, that day in the blacksmith’s shop, the day when the world turned upside down; Jack drew in a pained breath when he thought of it.
“I heard tales, tales of the Pearl, tales of shipwrecks and devastated towns. I know they attacked that ship to get the medallion from my son.”
Jack felt a rush of guilt. His son.
“Poor lad, he didn’t deserve that. I had hopes he’d find me, but the Pearl wasn’t leaving any survivors in those dark days. I knew better than to expect he’d survive.”
Jack fingered his moustache and pondered the point. To tell or not to tell. Devil of a question.
“Then one day I was walking underwater, nearing a beach or port of some kind, it was getting shallower all the time. It was night time, and there was a full moon. I was worried about surfacing where someone could see me. Then all a sudden me lungs were full of water! I was choking and sputtering and it burned, it burned like the fires of hell in my chest. The curse must have been broken at that moment, and I swam with every bit of strength I could muster, swam up to the surface.”
Jack stared down at his boots, horrified. What had he been thinking when he broke that damned curse? He could have killed Bootstrap!
“And I floundered to shore, somehow. I don’t really remember. But it was moonlit, and I was flesh and blood, and I ached so much I knew the curse had to be broken for good.”
Jack looked back up at Bootstrap’s glorious face. So perfect and handsome in the pale light of the moon. So kissable. He leaned forward, had to taste those lips, had to feel that tongue in his mouth again.
Bootstrap leaned back suddenly, causing Jack to fall flat against his chest. His half-opened shirt gave Jack a close-up view of smooth, tan skin. Jack breathed deep, savouring the delicious scent.
“Hold on there, Jack, let me finish. This is the island I walked to. Someone found me washed up there on the beach and took me home. And I’ve been here nigh on two years. I’m fully alive and human now, I feel everything again, Jack, everything except for the call of the sea. Guess I pretty well had my fill of it, all those years walking on the bottom of it.”
Jack turned his head to the side and nodded so his cheek rubbed against the exposed skin of Bootstrap’s chest. He considered sticking his tongue out for a quick taste, and had decided it was a wise course of action, when he found himself being pushed to an upright position. The loss of Bootstrap’s skin against his cheek stung as if he’d been slapped.
“I was saved on the beach, by a woman. She took me home and nursed me back to health. She took me in and cared for me. I was sure you were gone, and I had to make a new life for meself. So I’m no pirate anymore. I live here now, Jack. With her.”
Jack looked up into the eyes of the most beautiful man he’d ever met. Well, maybe the second most beautiful man he’d ever met. He didn’t know who was more beautiful, father or son. They were so much alike. In so many ways. And so different as well. And here Bootstrap was, living on this island.
With her.
What ‘her’? Who was ‘her’? How could there possibly be a ‘her’? He reached for Bootstrap’s shoulders, pulling him close, eye to eye. Her?
Bootstrap smiled sheepishly. “No one was more surprised than me, I can tell you that for free. But just wait until you meet her, you’ll understand. She’s really wonderful.”
Meet. Her? Preposterous!
“Come on, Jack, we’ll go to my place and you can see for yerself. It know it’s a bit of a shock, but it’s been a dozen years, like. I am sorry, but it’s not like I betrayed you. I mean, we were both dead, like. Savvy?”
Jack nodded. Head spinning.
He’d lost the love of his life, sunk at the bottom of the ocean. He’d met the man’s son, the most incredible, gorgeous creature on earth. And lost him. Then he’d found his lover again, miraculously. But he didn’t want to reunite with Jack and travel the seas and share glorious days of adventure and nights of passionate sweaty sex in the captain’s cabin of the fastest and finest ship on the ocean. He wanted to live in this sleazy little nowhere town with his wife.
His wife, for God’s sake.
Damn.
Next: Chapter 14 Decadence
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