|
Heavens no, this doesn’t have anything to do with Disney.
Warning: There is some unpleasantness here of a not-entirely consensual nature, in memories and flashbacks. More begrudging than non-con, actually.
Note: It’ll take you a lot longer to read everyone’s thoughts than it takes for the actual action to happen. Keep in mind that, except for dialogue, it’s almost all taking place at once…
A Duel for Honour
Charles and Will stood facing each other with swords crossed. There was just the hint of steel scratching on steel between them.
Nagaraj beamed. This was the most perfect thing he’d ever seen. His prize, the result of years of training, up against the real thing. Will was magnificent, and Charles would fight him to the death to prove his worth. How fitting. How exciting.
Jack gritted his teeth. This was not at all what he’d had in mind when he’d suggested shore leave. No battles, no duels were looked for. He’d wanted to come ashore, have a meal, have some rum, show every other pirate in the place that he had Will and they didn’t. And while he was at it, show every harlot in the place that he had Will as well. Let them stew. It was a simple wish.
But Nagaraj had to show up and try to make his lad look better than Will, so now the duel had begun. There was no going back.
He wished he’d run into Nagaraj on his own. It would be much better to have this out with his old captain, just the two of them. He’d like the chance to avenge himself, to pay back Nagaraj for all he’d done to the young Jack Sparrow.
For stealing the honour of the young Jack Sparrow.
Jack had trouble thinking of the young man so many years ago as himself. He’d separated the two of them long ago. There were three of them, actually. There was Jonathon, the son of a violent and spiteful nobleman. He was so long gone Jack could barely remember him. Young, sheltered, artistic, romantic even. Living a life of careful luxury, as long as he avoided his father. He would spend hours painting a picture, or writing a sonnet, or lingering in the fields and admiring all the beauty around him. So foolish.
And there was Captain Jack Sparrow, rogue and rapscallion, notorious pirate, brutal when he had to be, but a good man at heart. A man of many desires who had finally found the one person who seemed to be able to satisfy most of them. Hedonist, true. But a hedonist with exquisite taste, as was evidenced by that one person.
In between, in the time and space between, was young Jack. He had been desperate for a place to belong. He had been desperate for approval. He’d needed to shed his early upbringing and learn the harsh realities of the larger world. He’d made his way to Paris, and joined a crew leaving for the East. It had been a torturous voyage, but he survived it and landed in Singapore, only to find himself adrift once more.
He’d had no desire to follow the lead of several of the other young men, the ones who attached themselves to an older pirate for protection. He would see them go to their masters in the night, and creep back to their beds ashamed in the morning. Or at least he assumed they would be ashamed. He didn’t want to have anyone take care of him. He fought his own battles, and not a day went by that he wasn’t challenged over one bloody thing or another. But he worked hard and made it to port. However, his final refusal to the captain left him penniless on the dock of a frightening city.
There it was that Captain Nagaraj had found him, penniless and homeless and alone and not speaking a word of the language. He’d offered him a place on his crew. He hadn’t seemed to want anything more than another pirate for his crew. So Jack had taken the offer and begun a four year apprenticeship that came to involve more than just sailing and fighting and pirating.
Sword training. He got better at that fast. Navigation. Rigging and ropes and all the everyday things a pirate has to do. But it didn’t stop there. Two weeks out, the captain offered him a different kind of apprenticeship. And Jack knew he didn’t have the right to refuse.
“Pretty boy,” Nagaraj cooed, bringing him back to the present. He gestured at Will, who was still standing firmly between Nagaraj and Jack. “I wonder, is he that fiery between the sheets?”
Will’s eyes flashed anger and something else at the dark pirate.
“Ignore him, Will. He’s a crude man who says crude things to put you off your guard.” Jack couldn’t unsheathe his sword without risking all-out war, but he was calculating the angles, looking for a way to disarm the poised lad in front of him.
Charles recognized his own resemblance to Will immediately. It was startling, and he didn’t like the way his master was looking at the other man. This was the boy Nagaraj always mentioned, when he was off guard, when he was drunk, when he was maudlin. “I should have had him,” he would slur, and sometimes slap Charles, for what Charles couldn’t tell but he assumed it was for not being the other lad. It would make Charles try harder, train harder, prove himself to be better than any hazy memory that Nagaraj would only admit to when there was sufficient rum in his system.
So here he was - Charles’s phantom rival - the man whose image he’d been trying to live up to and surpass for years. He didn’t look so special. Not to Charles. He wasn’t nearly as pretty as Charles. His skin wasn’t as smooth, his hair was a mess, his jaw was far too square. His scruffy beard was unkempt, not neatly trimmed like his own. His eyes were wild, where Charles expended a good deal of energy hiding his emotions, the way Nagaraj always demanded of him.
Yet, this man had his master’s full attention. Nagaraj was drinking him in, like fresh water after a week in a lifeboat. It was an indecent thing to do when Charles was standing right there. He had given everything to his master but it would never be enough, not while this other man still stood.
Charles felt anger boiling up inside him. All he had to do was strike hard, strike down this illusion of what his master wanted, to show Nagaraj that it was Charles who was everything he wanted.
Will could feel the oily gaze of Nagaraj flowing over his body. It made him want to recoil, but he held his ground.
After meeting Jack, after discovering how he felt about Jack, Will had thought back to the time when he was still young and innocent, and the dark, dour man had appeared begging for shelter. At the time, he hadn’t been capable of understanding that the man could have wanted anything else. He’d given food and a place to sleep and companionship.
Now that he knew all he’d learned with Jack, he understood what that the man had really wanted Will in his bed. He knew what it had meant when the man’s hand had lingered on his a little too long, when he’d pressed himself up against Will’s thigh while teaching him how to fold the steel.
And now that he was here, in front of that same man, Will was repulsed. This was not about someone who loved him. This was about someone who wanted to use him.
The younger man in front of him was so much like Will it was like looking in a mirror. He was better dressed and groomed than Will, and he had a prettiness Will did not possess, but Will could see it. It was like looking at an idealized version of himself. An idealized version of himself that hated him. For the hate glowed in the other man’s eyes.
Will couldn’t think of any reason for hatred. There was obviously some bad history between Jack and the dark pirate, but Will had done nothing to provoke hatred, other than defend Jack from an unfair attack. The slow slide of steel brought his attention to focus on the blade in front of him. If this man really was trained by the same man who trained Jack, Will would have to be on his guard.
He saw Charles’s eyes flick over to Nagaraj. For approval? To see if Nagaraj was watching him? He was trying to impress his captain. Then it all fell into place for Will. The young man saw Will as a rival. That would make him doubly dangerous. He was fighting for more than his honour.
He was fighting for a permanent place in his captain’s heart.
Will forced his emotion to fall away. He had to concentrate.
Nagaraj took advantage of Will’s confusion to slip past him, beside Jack. “You see the resemblance?” Nagaraj hissed in his ear. The man had the most unnerving habit of slinking up behind you when you weren’t expecting it, like the snake he was named for. “It was after I left the employ of the Caliph. I made my way across oceans, but it seems the Caliph made some sort of a deal with the British over a trade route, and I was on a wanted list. Your young man put me up for a few nights. Awfully accommodating, he was.”
Jack bristled. This was not an insinuation he could take lightly.
There was no change in Will’s suddenly stoic expression. Not even a flinch.
“Don’t listen to him, Jack. Crude man, remember? I gave him a place to sleep, nothing more.”
“‘Methinks he doth protest too much…’” Nagaraj quoted.
Jack huffed. “You’re off the map, mate.” There was no way anything had ever happened between this snake and his Will. Not in a million years. Will had been far too virginal. Jack shifted to the left, to get Nagaraj in his line of vision. He only had Charles in his peripheral sight now, but he felt he had more control over the situation.
“True, he was never as accommodating as you…” Nagaraj smiled a wicked smile and reached to touch Jack’s hair.
Will saw Jack flinch. He’d never seen Jack flinch at anything. Something crept over Jack’s face. Shame. Ignominy. Will was shocked.
Nagaraj smiled. “He was pretty, you know.” He addressed this to Will, in a slippery voice. “He was eager to please. Such an accommodating boy.” His fingers wrapped around a hank of black hair. “This looks so different. He had the loveliest, silkiest black hair. I used to run my fingers through it for hours. It was so wonderful to hold onto, wasn’t it, Jack?” His fingers tightened and pulled. He yanked Jack’s hair back, pulling his head with it, baring his throat. Hot breath poured over Jack’s cheek. “I would grab it and he would do whatever I told him to do.”
Jack didn’t resist, and Will wondered why. He couldn’t help, because he had to keep his eye on Charles, who was widening his stance slightly and getting ready to thrust.
Jack didn’t want to do anything to distract Will from his opponent. And he knew that, sooner or later, Nagaraj would be off balance and Jack would be able to drop him to the floor. That was Nagaraj’s weakness. He played games very well, fought well with a sword, could judge a room and the people in it at a moments notice, but he always left some part of his body open to attack. As if he was so intent on being clever or manipulative, he didn’t have enough time or energy left to pay attention to what all of his body was doing.
“I’ve missed you, Jack. I wonder if you’d be so kind as to give me a bit of what you used to give me?”
Jack swallowed, but didn’t move, let Nagaraj bend his head back a little more. He was trying to goad Jack into making a mistake. It wouldn’t happen. Nagaraj would make the mistake.
“Or perhaps your lad there will be so kind as to oblige…”
Jack winced. Will wouldn’t ignore that one.
There was a clash as Will’s sword came down on his opponent’s. “Never,” he cried as he attacked with the kind of efficiency that usually led to a fatality.
But Charles was well trained and narrowly avoided the blow.
Nagaraj’s laugh was the signal to Jack that his old captain was off guard. He slid his left foot back and caught it around Nagaraj’s right heel. The older captain crashed to his knees. Jack had to pay attention to what was going on at his foot, although he remained constantly aware of the clash of steel. Will and Charles were wasting no time with fancy footwork. The blows came with deadly speed and fury.
Nagaraj twisted and leapt to his feet, in time to meet Jack’s fist with his jaw. He grimaced and fell back. “What’s wrong, Jack? Don’t feel like sharing your toy?”
Jack lashed out, catching the man’s chin with his left fist. A ring ripped at the skin there. “He’s no toy,” he growled.
Nagaraj managed a laugh. “Oh, I see how it is. Funny, I never taught you that.” He slipped to the right. “You must have gotten soft. You know you were never more than a toy.” He ducked from another strike and managed to land a crushing blow to Jack’s exposed ribs. ‘But you, dear Jack, you were a toy who wouldn’t cooperate.”
Jack’s vision blurred. The memory of that last night always haunted him.
For a long time, he hated himself for submitting, hated the way he let his captain have his way with him. He learned to take pleasure from the actual acts, but it wasn’t meant for enjoyment, it was just a way for the captain to prove he was in charge. He did it because it was the payment for his training. And he had nowhere else to go.
He’d made a deal with a devil.
Jack often thought longingly of the boys on the other ship, the ones who were chosen and taken care of by their older men. He thought it would be degrading, at the time, but he grew to understand that it was perfectly natural. He also saw that there was genuine affection between the older men and their younger men. He further saw that what Nagaraj demanded of him was a perversion of that act.
He hadn’t thought of Nagaraj in years. Was that what Will saw in Jack, at the beginning? A lecherous, greedy, filthy pirate who would force himself on a mere boy, take whatever he wanted and not care about the cost? He hoped not. He hoped Will understood that he would never, ever do anything to hurt him.
Jack came back to his senses as Nagaraj twisted him into a headlock of some sort, and turned him so he could see Will and Charles fighting before him. Nagaraj had trained the boy well, he was countering every move, wearing Will down.
“I could have your toy as well as mine,” Nagaraj threatened and squeezed hard.
Jack’s mind filled with the vision of a much younger Nagaraj, laughing and drinking. He called Jack into his cabin. Jack wasn’t expecting anyone else to be there. A naval officer. There was a menacing look in Nagaraj’s eye when he informed Jack it was his duty to contribute to the ship’s well-being. The officer had certain demands, certain requirements he needed fulfilled before he could ignore the presence of a pirate ship in his waters.
“But not you. I don’t want you.” Nagaraj punctuated this with a punch to Jack’s stomach. “Nobody wants a toy that won’t cooperate!”
Jack thrust his elbow up and back into Nagaraj’s ribs. They separated for a moment, then flew back against each other in a struggle. Jack wanted to make sure they stayed so close together, Nagaraj could draw neither sword nor pistol. They grappled for dominance, and Jack glanced over at the other two men.
Will was fighting hard, breathing hard, sweat trickling down his forehead. He had one foot forward, was leaning on it, which made his thigh go all hard. He bent at the knee, and the shift of his ankle in the boot was mesmerizing.
Those boots again. He knew they would be a distraction. He thought of warm leather hooked around his waist, and long lean thighs rising from the warm boots. The sight of Will, leaning back against the table so casually, in nothing but the boots. Stroking his cock as if he’d always done that sort of thing. Smiling. Welcoming. Enjoying his own body and sharing his body with Jack freely. Because Jack had never forced Will. Jack had never treated Will poorly. Jack loved Will.
Will shouted something and thrust a little too far, almost losing his footing.
Jack cursed and swung his knee up into Nagaraj’s gut. First, he would dispatch this snake. Then he was going to see about buying Will a new pair of boots, because, frankly, it was far too intimate to have him walking around in public like that. He butted his head against Nagaraj’s skull. It was simply as improper as Will walking around naked. He punched hard against a soft belly. And he wouldn’t let anyone see Will naked, that was for certain. That was his pleasure alone.
Will and Charles both turned to see Nagaraj fall to his knees.
Jack looked up in time to see a sword fly up into the air.
Then a slim blade was pulled from a boot, and sped through the air in a streak of silver.
Next: Chapter 76 The Whole Story
|
