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This is just fiction, based on some characters other people created,
I’m not paid so there’s no harm done.
The Gaol
Captain Jack Sparrow’s head hurt. He moaned and clenched his eyes shut to block out the feeble rays of sun penetrating the dusty air. He felt like he’d been hit on the head with a bottle of rum. He smelled like it, too.
He reached out and felt rough stone under his hand. Dry rough stone. Not water. Not the ocean. Not drowning. He opened his eyes.
He was in the gaol.
He could handle that, for the moment. Been in plenty of them, always survived them so far. He looked around. This was a familiar gaol. Wait a minute; this was Port Royal! He moved toward the window, even though every fibre of his being was telling him to stay away from the light, and peeked outside. Quiet harbour. There was the Interceptor at the dock. That was odd.
Then he looked around the cell. The walls were solid, thick rock hauled from the quarry he knew lay west of here. They’d done an excellent job of repairing them, he thought absently. There was no sign at all of where they’d been patched up after the Pearl’s cannonballs ripped through them.
Now why had he thought he should be drowned?
He heard whistling from the next cell. A dog sat in front of the cell with a key ring in its hairy mouth. The men in the next cell were trying to get it to come near. That dog was never going to go anywhere near them.
He sat on the cold, hard stone ledge and tried to think. He thought of water and rocks and falling. God, yes, he’d fallen off a cliff. That was it. It was a miracle he’d missed the rocks. But what was he doing in the Port Royal gaol?
Nagaraj! Where was Will? He jumped to his feet. Bad mistake. The pain was dizzying. He rubbed his forehead and grimaced.
Will, on the watch hill, with Nagaraj. He had to find out what happened.
He heard the door open and the shuffling of a soldier standing at attention. Norrington. That bastard. There he was, in full uniform with that ridiculous wig on his head, strutting along as if he owned the place.
“Mr. Sparrow,” he said in his most officious and irritating tone.
“Captain Sparrow, if you please,” Jack said automatically.
Norrington gave an uptight laugh. “It matters not what you choose to call yourself, pirate, you’ll still hang in the morning.”
Hang. Now, wasn’t that just like Norrington?
“Well, you seem to have recovered just fine…” Jack muttered.
“Recovered? I am not the one who was knocked out cold, pirate!” He spun on his heel and started to leave.
But where was Will?
Jack reached through the bars, clutching at the air. “Where’s Will Turner?”
Norrington looked back at Jack. “Will Turner?”
Jack nodded frantically. “Yes, where is he? Is he safe?”
Norrington smirked. “I hardly think it’s any concern of yours, Sparrow. His master apprehended you. You barely scratched the lad.”
Norrington had never made much sense to Jack.
“But Will… is he alright?”
“I’m sure he’s already back working at his forge like a good apprentice. He’s hardly going to waste any time over the likes of you, is he, now? I shall see you at dawn, Mr. Sparrow. I trust you will not be late.”
Jack sat back down. Forge. The likes of Jack. Didn’t scratch…
“What’s the date?” he hollered.
The men in the next cell told him to bugger off. It was the day before his hanging, what else did he need to know?
Jack wracked his brain, trying to figure it out. He was in Port Royal. He’d been hit on the head. He stank like cheap rum. Norrington seemed to think Will was still a blacksmith.
A horrid idea began to ooze through Jack’s mind.
Slowly, carefully, he raised his hand and slid it under his shirt, up over his shoulder and down the back to feel… nothing. Smooth, unblemished skin. No scar from the rocks, no double brand. Just plain skin.
He frantically reached to the other side. Maybe he was mistaken about the side. Always had a bit of a bother with left and right. But no, if he stretched his arm back as far as he could, he could trace the outline of an exit wound with his fingertips. But that was old. He reached around the front. Two entry wounds. Everything was where it was supposed to be, except for Will Turner.
He was back in time. It was impossible. Tonight, the Black Pearl, HIS ship, would attack Port Royal.
That must have been some conk on the head, he thought to himself, to have made him imagine all that. All those people, who didn’t exist. Tessie and Kay and Alphonse and Charles… Bootstrap. Bootstrap wasn’t alive. Or he was still cursed. Even Charlotte the Harlot didn’t exist. And his sister… he had no idea where she was. His son. He probably didn’t have a son.
Jack dropped his head down to his knees. How could it be possible? It seemed so real.
When he closed his eyes, he could see Jonathon and Will sparring in a clearing. Laughing with each other. He could feel Will’s hair slipping through his fingers. He could taste Will’s lips. He could smell nutmeg and vanilla and the scent of Will’s sex mixed with the smell of the Black Pearl, fresh sheets and sweat and salt air and some godawful stew cooking below and Will Turner’s golden skin under his nose, his lips, his body.
There was nothing for it. He had to escape. Tonight. When the pirates struck. He had to get out, and go find Will. He would stop Will from fighting them, keep him from going after Elizabeth. It was the only thing to do. He had to keep Will safe. His mind filled with images of Will fighting pirates, fighting Charles, fighting Nagaraj. Will injured on the beach, Will going over the side of the Interceptor II… which didn’t exist, since he had not commandeered the original Interceptor..
He went to the window. Yes, that was the original Interceptor in the harbour.
He thought about the ship. She was fast. He’d enjoyed sailing her while it lasted, even if it was only in his imagination. But more than that, he’d enjoyed being anchored in the harbour at Tortuga, with Will Turner down below. The first time he ever touched Will. The silkiness of his skin. The soft soft trail of hair on his belly. The rippling of stomach muscles under his fingers. Even the feel of Will’s fist connecting with him and throwing him back against the post.
He had to feel that again. For the first time.
But Will wouldn’t want him. Will didn’t know. He didn’t know that he loved Jack, and Jack loved him. He had no idea how much in love they were. Will probably still thought he liked girls. Or at least one girl.
Jack tugged at his beard and scowled. Bloody Elizabeth. If it wasn’t for her, Will would know what he really wanted.
Jack. Will wanted Jack. Except he’d tried to kill Jack. And, Jack had to admit, he might have succeeded with a little luck. It was certainly the most fun Jack had ever had when someone was trying to kill him. He thought about the way Will’s trousers stretched over his thighs when he took up a fighting stance, and the bulge of muscle in his forearm. The way his hair was always trying to escape, be set free.
Will’s hair set free, blowing in the wind. Will’s whole body set free, splashing in the surf off an uncharted island. Will, naked in the sun, golden and limber and perfect in every way. He would never see that again. He had never actually seen it. This was wrong. It was insane. How could he have imagined all that?
Jack sat back on the ledge and let his head loll back to bang against the stone wall.
When he opened his eyes again it was bright. The sun beat down on him and the smooth, weathered wood of the Black Pearl’s wheel caressed his palm. The wind blew even his heavy dreadlocks back from his face. Salt. Fresh. Perfect.
He was having another dream. That had to be it. He turned to the side, and there was Will Turner. Ridiculous, he told himself. Never happened. Will was smiling at him, and that was absurd because Will Turner would never smile at a pirate.
A tall man mounted the stairs from the deck. Lean and beautiful, he was, with high cheekbones and a sensual mouth, dark smooth skin and glossy black hair. “Do you have a moment, father?”
Jonathon. All grown up. Jack tried to beat himself on the head to knock some sense into it. This never happened. He had to stop torturing himself.
But there was Jonathon with a serious look on his face. He was talking to Will now, and Will was pulling him over to Jack, encouraging him to speak frankly. Jonathon fixed Jack with his black eyes. “I want to know… I want to tell you…”
Jack raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t wait to see what his dream would come up with next.
“I think I like men.”
Jack griped the wheel harder.
“I mean I fancy them. Not all of them, but I’ve never met a girl I really liked. I mean, I’m friends with Little Tessie and all that, I like her a lot. But not like that.”
“Well, it would be highly inappropriate, at any rate. She’s your cousin.” Jack liked this role of father. Authority sort of role. Hmm. He could be a father.
“I know that,” Jonathon stuttered, “but what I want to know is how I can tell. For sure. That I fancy men. How did you know?”
Jack coughed. He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. This wasn’t even happening.
“Jack, tell him,” Will said. He had one hand on Jonathon’s shoulder in a friendly fashion, and he was urging Jack to be serious with the crease, loveable lickable adorable crease, between his eyes. Jack could ignore the question and simply lick the crease. That would answer everything. Instead, he thought about the question.
“I don’t really know, Jonathon. It was a long time ago, long before I met Will. I don’t think I can remember.” More like he couldn’t answer a question when he didn’t know what was real.
“What about you, Will?”
Will’s face broke into a smile. “That’s easy. I knew when your father broke into the smithy one night. He kissed me, and pressed his body up against me, and I just knew it was right. That it was what I really wanted - a man…” Will blushed. He still had the decency to blush, even in a fantasy, how charming.
Jack noticed he’d left out the part about meeting up in the whorehouse. How very discreet of him. And the part about Will spreading his thighs and Jack fitting between them as if he’d always belonged there, because he did belong there.
“One man,” Will added. “I think I knew then that I loved your father.”
Jack felt a wrenching in his heart.
“When did you know you loved Will, father?”
Jack felt a strange prickling in the backs of his eyes. “I broke into the smithy…” he faltered.
Jonathon grinned. “I think I heard this story before…”
“It was empty, but then he came in. He was angry with me. And the moment my sword touched his…” The faint grating of steel on steel as he ran his blade up Will’s. Wide brown eyes full of anger. Spirit. “I’m pretty sure it was love at first sight.”
Jack opened his eyes and peered into the gloom of the jail cell. It was late. Dark. The Black Pearl would be attacking any moment now. He moved to the window to look down at the still, empty waters of the harbour. The pirates had to come soon. Maybe he couldn’t break out but that was fine, he would manage. The hanging would be delayed by the invasion, and Will would show up all distraught and sweaty. He would make a deal with Jack, and then Jack would know for sure.
He hadn’t known, in the smithy, who Will was. He only new he was in love. But when Will said his name, Jack suspected. And then when Will agreed to break him out, and their hands touched for the first time - lightning.
Then Will bent down to pick up the bench and Jack got his first really good look at his arse and that was when Jack knew who he was for sure. And he was hopelessly in love, no matter how much he tried to convince himself he was only reacting to Will’s ridiculously good looks. No matter how much he tried to tell himself he was only reacting to his dead lover’s image, come alive before him like a dream. A dream.
He was in the cabin of the Black Pearl. It was different. There were some things in it he couldn’t remember. But it was his cabin. His table. His bed. The wide one. The one he shared with Will.
Will. He was sitting at the table fussing with a lantern. He had some sort of tool in his hand. He was bending metal with it. He was stunning. His hair was long, halfway down is back, pulled back loosely so if fell in tendrils around his high cheekbones. The chestnut was shot through with streaks of grey, and there was a little bit of grey in his beard, still scruffy after all these years. The lines around his eyes were deeper, and the worry line in his forehead was there, faintly, even though he wasn’t worried. He was just fixing a broken lantern.
He looked up at Jack and smiled.
“You look a bit lost,” he said in that maddeningly gentle voice. It was a bit gruffer than Jack was used to, not harsh, but it had some texture at the edges that didn’t used to be there.
“I am,” Jack replied. “I’m feeling… misplaced.” He had to be honest. He did. But the feel of Will’s warm hand on top of his was reassuring.
Jack looked up when the door opened. Who was this? He’d never seen her before. Tall and graceful, lustrous dark skin and eyes. She was clad in a simple shirt and trousers, and she wore a sword at her side, naturally, as if she’d been born with it. “Father,” she said. And she was looking right at Jack. Jack nodded, mute.
“What is it, Seraphina?” Will asked.
Seraphina had inherited Anamaria’s lovely skin, and the determined set of her mouth. Her hair ran down her back in thick, shining braids. She had gentle hands, though, as she laid them on Will’s shoulders and bent to give him a kiss.
Will grinned, and Jack wondered what was going on.
The door opened again and a man walked in. A young man. A young, beautiful man. Jack thought it might be Charles for a moment, but he was more angular, less delicate. He had lighter eyes, too, and his hair was smoother, not so curly. Plus, Charles would be older now as well, wouldn’t he? He smiled at everyone shyly. “Hello, Jack,” he said in a friendly manner. “And father.” He bent to kiss Will on the cheek.
“We have news,” Seraphina said. She reached for the man’s hand and clenched it tightly.
Jack picked up a cup from the table. He wasn’t sure what was coming, but he knew he’d want a drink to prepare.
“Stephan and I, we’re going to have a baby.”
Jack spewed rum all over the table.
Will leapt up and rubbed his back. “Jack,” he whispered. “You should be more polite. You were encouraging enough before.”
Jack looked up at Will, befuddled.
“I know you talked to Stephan about it, about how you and Anamaria…” he made a little gesture with his eyes, which Jack found utterly appealing. “And I know you told him about how his mother and I…”
Jack looked sharply at this Stephan. Good god, no! but he looked a bit like Elizabeth. How could he? How could Jack allow such a thing?
Then he remembered. Alex had come up with the idea, clever girl. Two huts on the edge of the village. Jack and Will in the first one, Alex and Elizabeth in the second. His lap was full of squirming, nervous Will, nipping at his neck and face. Will sucked Jack’s lower lip into his mouth. His hands were frantic, everywhere at once. Jack just had to get him ready, but that wasn’t enough, he wanted all of Will, right now, right there. It wasn’t fair that Will was going to go next door to spill his seed inside that wench, but everyone had convinced him to let it happen, and what harm would it do, really?
There were moans from next door, high pitched and girlish. Then Alex’s voice. “Get him over here right now, Jack!”
Jack smiled at the memory. It hadn’t been so terrible. He’d stood outside with Alex, listening. They should have felt ashamed, brother and sister listening to their lovers rut together like that. But they were grinning at each other. Because they both understood what it was, and Jack knew that as soon as he was done, Will would be back in Jack’s arms begging for more. They could hear Elizabeth frantically talking, talking about Jack. About seeing Jack and Will together. The details, oh, the girl had a knack for story telling. Jack was aching in his trousers as he listened to Elizabeth tell Will what it was like to watch Jack slide his cock into Will’s tight arse.
There were moans from Will. Grunts. Panting and gasping. But no purrs.
Jack smiled when he remembered Will’s moan of completion, and then how he appeared in the doorway, haphazardly dressed and wild in the eyes. He’d dragged Jack up the path, toward the springs. He insisted on bathing but Jack couldn’t wait. He didn’t care. He tackled Will in a clearing half-way up the hill, yanked off his clothes roughly. He didn’t care what Will tasted like, he just wanted him right away. He could ignore the scent and the taste of Elizabeth, because Will’s musk was strong underneath it all, and he was so hard in Jack’s mouth, the instant Jack’s lips surrounded him Will was hard and straining and purring like that bloody cat and her kittens.
Jack shut his eyes. He could even remember what the cat looked like. Fat and self-satisfied as she arranged herself in her nest with the litter of kittens crawling all over her. Will kneeling down to offer her some fish. She licked it off his fingers, lazily.
Now Jack was licking Will’s fingers. Will was lying next to him in bed, and Jack was licking the taste of Will off Will’s fingers. It was one of his favourite pastimes. Jack could see, out of the corner of his eye, that his own hair was white in places, and Will’s hair was grey, and that Will had a little scar over his eye that Jack had never seen before. How old were they? What kind of a dream was this, that went on for decades as if it really happened?
Jack felt the cold stone against his back, and saw the first rays of the morning light seep through the barred window. Dawn. The Black Pearl had not attacked in the night. He had not broken out of jail, and broken into the smithy and swept Will away from this awful place that made Will think he had to be good and honourable and decent and like girls. Or at least one girl.
How would he convince Will, show him that he really loved Jack? The usual seduction techniques wouldn’t work. Will wouldn’t drink rum. He probably wouldn’t even drink wine. And he wouldn’t want to go dancing, so that sort of groping and flirting and teasing with vaguely naughty songs would be out of the question. He would have to be wooed, with poetry and sweet words of love. But he wouldn’t accept them from a man. Jack had to face facts – the boy was a bit of a stick. He supposed they could have another sword fight. That had certainly worked to get Jack’s blood flowing. He pictured the power and passion in Will’s eyes. Lovely. Perfect. He wanted it for his own.
But it appeared he was going to hang, and fairly soon. He could hear the guards opening the doors. They would come to fetch him any minute now.
Next: Chapter 95 Appointment With The Hangman
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