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Jack and Will belong to Disney,
which is a crying shame because they are being so underused by that corporation…
Heaven
Captain Jack Sparrow gradually grew more aware of a light, brighter than any light he had ever seen in his life. It surrounded him, bathed him with its profound glow, warmed his chilled limbs.
He was comfortable. Lying on a bed, soft as a cloud, his naked skin caressed by coolness while his whole body seemed suspended in the warm air, he was completely at peace.
Except for that damned light. It was far too bright, really. Why would anyone be shining a light that bloody bright when he was finally at peace?
At peace.
Jesus, he thought. This must be heaven.
There was a faint rattling noise and the light dimmed to a manageable level. That was better. In fact, it was exactly what he wanted, exactly what he’d wished for. Interesting.
A weight settled next to him on the bed. He was lying on a real bed, or so it seemed. The cover was being pulled down, and he noticed the phenomenal cleanness of the sheets. It was the coolness he’d felt on his skin, which now slipped down his torso, exposing his chest to the warmth of the air. The sheets were crisp and smelled of the fresh sea air.
In fact, wherever he was smelled of salt air and the ocean. And the whole place was swaying gently as if rocking with the waves, and he could even hear water lapping against the sides of a ship.
This heaven was wonderful. It knew he was most comfortable at sea. Remarkable.
A hand settled lightly on his stomach. It was a small hand, narrower than Will’s hand, the fingers not as long, and softer as well. He could tell that without looking, because he knew exactly how Will’s hand felt on his stomach. He knew precisely where fingertips would be in relation to palm, and just how the roughness of Will’s fingertips would feel if they were gliding gently over his skin, which is what these narrower, shorter, softer fingertips were doing.
In circles. Slow, careful, soothing circles.
Where was Will? Jack thought anxiously. He wanted Will. The last thing he could remember was the terror in Will’s eyes when Jack fell over the cliff.
No, that was the last thing he remembered imagining. The last thing he actually remembered was that Will did not put in an appearance at his hanging. The last time he saw Will, Will’s face was covered in dirt and he was looking rather miffed that his sluggard of a master had taken the credit for apprehending the notorious Captain Jack Sparrow.
Damn, he thought. That’s what he should have done; he should have shouted from the scaffold that it was really Will Turner who’d beat him in a swordfight, or could beat him in a fair fight, and that Will should get all the credit for his capture. It wouldn’t have changed Jack’s outcome, but it might have helped Will, given him a little status, some well-earned appreciation. Anything to help Will.
Humming. Definitely not Will. That was a woman’s voice, soft and sweet, humming a tune Jack remembered from his childhood.
Jack thought about the sneer plastered across Norrington’s face in the gaol. Damn, if Jack’d said Will was a hero, then maybe Elizabeth would marry him and Norrington would be left out in the cold where he belonged. Too late now. And it was nicer to think of Will not marrying Elizabeth, when he thought about it more.
Unless the dream was real, and then he would have left Will on that cliff with… while Will was catching Elizabeth and tending her wound, Nagaraj had taken he time to hiss a few things in Jack’s direction. Things he wanted to do once Jack was dead. Things he wanted to do to Will. If Will was lucky, he would be dead too.
The rubbing on his belly stopped abruptly. The hand, warmed by the vague friction against his skin, rested delicately on his forehead, smoothing the deep creases there. “Shhhh.”
The rubbing on his belly started again, soft and sweet. Jack dared to open his eyes.
Breathtaking she was. She had long, waving dark hair, gleaming black eyes and the softest, sweetest smile he’d ever seen, which went well with the soft sweet humming. She rubbed in larger circles, fingertips trailing over his belly lightly. Such fine, porcelain skin. Eyebrows arched so elegantly. Little bit of a pout to the lips, which only served to make them seem fuller and richer, a deep, ruby red. Like rose petals. Or that other red flower that used to grow in the garden past the hedge. He could never remember the names of mother’s flowers. The circles gradually decreased in size, until they hugged his navel, then slowly grew again.
His mother.
She was dead too. That made sense, that she’d be here in heaven.
It must be odd, he thought, for her to rub a grown man’s belly like that. It was harder than it used to be, with more ridges and scars. Then there were the tattoos, and he was sure she couldn’t entirely ignore the hair. But it was so very soothing.
Jack opened his mouth. He tried to speak. He tried to say, ‘mother’. But all that came out was a hoarse croak.
“Poor dear,” she said. “Let me get you some water.”
She got up in a rustle of skirts and Jack looked around.
He was in his cabin. The captain’s cabin aboard the Black Pearl. But not. It couldn’t be, there had to be some mistake, because everything was very incredibly clean.
The beams, the walls, the table – they were all scrubbed and gleaming in the sunlight that was filtering through clean white curtains. The mugs on the table shone. The hardware on the doors and furniture sparkled. The frosted panes of glass in the doors reflected the sunlight back at him. Candlesticks, a lantern, his compass on the dresser; all spotless, with the faint scent of lemon and soap in the air, and no smell of rum, or lingering male sweat.
There was no dust. Not soot. No salty residue. It was a little too perfect, like someone’s idea of what his cabin should look like, in a painting or a romanticized memory.
Sometimes you remember someone as perfect. Your memory of them includes the colour of their eyes and the shape of their face, but it ignores the imperfections that make a person real. He was full of imperfections. He expected his cabin to be as well.
He inched his fingers to the side, then inched them further. This was his bed. The bigger bed. The better bed. With crisp clean fresh sheets and the mattress plumped and un-lumped to within an inch of its life. Even the pillow was perfect.
What kind of a sick god would do that? What sort of perverse, evil deity would give him a heaven that included a perfect captain’s cabin, the best bed ever built, and intense memories of the most perfect man who ever existed, and then not give him the actual man?
It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate being with his mother. She was most comforting at this time of distress. But he couldn’t help feeling that Will would have been more of a reward for all the trials he’d suffered over the years.
Rustle of skirts and there she was again, with a cup of water and a kind smile. “Drink, Jonathon,” she said, and helped him raise his head.
Her hair fell in inky waves over her shoulders. He’d only ever seen her with her hair down at night, when he was sick or scared. She used to come to his room to comfort him, with a thick brocade robe wrapped around her slender body and a white cap on her head, but her hair used to spill out of the cap. She used to let him touch it, pet it. The silky texture gave him solace. He had always very tactile, even as a child. Then she would rub his tummy, which is what she was doing now.
Strange heaven, he thought.
She got up.
“Don’t leave,” he said. He was going to say ‘mother’, or maybe even ‘mama’, like when he was a very little boy, but he was strangely choked up. He didn’t want her to leave him alone in this place. It wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right. He might get used to it eventually, but now he felt small and scared.
She gently pressed his shoulders into the soft bed. “Hush, Jonathon. It’s not as if there is anywhere I can go, is there? I’m only going to fetch someone who’s been waiting to see you.”
Jack sank into the bed. He couldn’t imagine who might want to see him in heaven. Unless she was referring to his father. Oh, no, that was the last person he wanted to see. He shut his eyes. Maybe if he pretended he was asleep, his father would go away. Maybe if he pretended his father didn’t exist, he wouldn’t exist. Not that he really did exist. Nothing really existed in heaven, did it?
“Jack.”
Not Jonathon.
“Jack, wake up.”
That didn’t sound like his father.
Jack opened his eyes.
Will Turner. Glorious Will Turner. Tall and strong and beautiful. His hair was shining, glowing with golden highlights. His eyes were wide and soft, framed by heartbreakingly long dark lashes and little crinkles at the corners because he was smiling. His lips, curved into that tender smile, were pink and moist and looked so kissable it was scandalous.
He sat on the bed next to Jack and put a broad, long, rough hand on Jack’s chest. It felt heavy, but Jack didn’t care because now he really was in heaven.
“So perfect,” he whispered.
Will just smiled at him.
“How did you? Why? Are you really Will?”
Will didn’t love him. Will hadn’t even liked him enough to rescue him from the hangman’s noose. This had to be some kind of illusion.
“You had me worried, Jack.”
No kidding, thought Jack. Me too.
“But you’re all right, now.”
Was he?
Jack just stared at him. He did look as if he’d been worried. His eyes were a bit red. The skin under them was darkened. There was a little raised part on his lower lip, just to the right of center, where he must have been biting it enough to raise a bruise; it was a touch darker than the rest of his lips, swollen. How utterly perfect.
“I’m dead,” Jack said.
“Far from it,” Will replied. “Although, Okonkwo was starting to fret a bit.”
Okonkwo? What was he doing in heaven?
“Me too,” Will said. “I was getting frantic. Tessie had to slap my face to calm me down, at one point.”
Tessie. Tessie DeMaurier? There was no way in hell his heaven would include Tessie bloody DeMaurier. This had to be real. Somehow.
Jack looked around. It didn’t look real. It was far too clean.
He looked back at Will. Flawless skin, except for the rather fetching shadows under the eyes and the little, kissable bump on his lip, which were the most perfect flaws he’d ever seen. Rich, chocolate eyes, a little damp with emotion. Lustrous hair. Angelic cheekbones. Far too beautiful to be real.
Wait a minute… Will always looked like that. Even when he was dripping wet in a rainstorm he looked angelic. Even when he was filthy and tired from work or injured from a fight he looked that perfect.
You can’t judge if it’s heaven by how good Will Turner looks.
“I’m not dead?” What if this was some sort of trick? Maybe they made you think you were alive when you were in heaven, and you got to live your life the way you really wanted to when you were living, but you couldn’t because the bloody navy and interfering relatives wouldn’t let you. That would explain how he had this perfect Will and his mother at the same time.
“No, Jack.” The amusement that flickered through Will’s eyes seemed real enough. Of course, if Jack had been hanged, then this illusion of Will would be in on the joke, wouldn’t he?
“This isn’t heaven?”
Will’s eyes roamed over the bed. His hand crept along the too-crisp, too-fresh, too-clean sheets. That wicked glint in his eye did not belong in heaven. “It’s felt like heaven, on more than one occasion,” Will said quietly, and then the hint of a blush warmed his perfect, angelic cheeks.
Heaven!
“I’m only allowed to visit for a few minutes.”
Not heaven!
“I’m not supposed to tire you.”
Please, tire me, exhaust me, Will, make me tired and boneless and completely drained - I won’t mind at all, Jack begged silently.
“I’m going to tell Jonathon that you’re awake. I’ll be right back.”
Then he was gone.
Jack stared up at the ceiling. Well, that was… inconclusive.
Really, there was no way to tell where he was. If he was in heaven, and that was really Will, then perhaps Will had not survived his fight with Nagaraj. Or maybe he wasn’t really Will, he was Jack’s dream of Will come to life. Or death. The hand had felt real. He could still feel the shape, the heat, the texture of it on his chest. And he’d said he was going to talk to Jonathon. That would be his son, Jonathon. Why was Jonathon dead? Did Nagaraj take the Pearl?
Unless this wasn’t heaven, and he had survived the fall off the cliff. He stared up at the ceiling. There was the beam. The same beam he’d held onto the very first time he ever…
Jack, slowly, carefully, rotated his body on the bed. As soon as he moved, it hurt. He hurt all over. It wasn’t supposed to hurt in heaven. He was almost sideways on the bed. He bent his knees and pushed his heels into the mattress. They slid on the too-crisp sheets, but then his heel caught on a lump.
Ah, a flaw - now he was getting somewhere.
He pushed so that he slid back and his head, now suffering from a pounding ache – which Jack took as a very good sign, albeit an excruciating one – hung off the edge of the bed.
There were scars in the wood, eight long scars where his fingernails had dragged across the soft grain. The wood was clean, soot and grime from lanterns and candles and dirt and the long years scrubbed off it, but the scars remained.
He rolled back to the middle of the bed again and wondered if it were possible for a god to know a detail as intimate as that. That would have to mean the god was watching as he gripped the beam and Will did that incredible turn while still impaled on Jack’s cock, and then slammed his legs down to wrap them around Jack’s waist… randy bloody gods. Can’t even get away from them in heaven.
Jack reached up to his chest. There were two bullet holes. Did you carry things like that to heaven? He slid his hand across his chest to the opposite shoulder.
It wasn’t a fair test. If his heaven included Will, even if his Will was imaginary, then it would include the wound he got when he and Will washed up on that shore. And the brand that Will had made with his own hands, the one Mr. Bertram had seared into his flesh.
And it did.
He ran his fingers over the rough and crinkled skin. Real or not, it was there.
The door opened again and there was Will. Still perfect. No big surprise there, Jack thought.
“This is real,” Jack said.
Will gave him one of those looks, like when Jack wanted more rum and Will wanted him to stop. “What do I have to do to convince you?”
Jack looked around the cabin, trying to find something that would convince him.
”Jack, you’re on the Pearl. My father pulled you out of the water himself.”
“But I woke up in jail. They were going to hang me. Norrington was there.”
“That was ages ago, Jack. I rescued you. Sort of. It didn’t go exactly according to plan, but you did swim to the Black Pearl.”
“Your father?”
“He’s at the helm.”
“And Elizabeth?”
“She’s recovering.” Will looked relieved.
“And the island?”
“Which island?”
“You and me. On the island. Naked in the surf.”
Will nodded, pink showing on his cheeks at the mention of the naked surf-romping.
“Kay and the children? Charlotte? Matthew? Shimura and Juni? The village, and that randy heathen god? I didn’t imagine all that?”
Will grinned. “You must have hit your head very hard, Jack.” Will sat on the edge of the bed and touched Jack’s temple. His voice softened. It had been soft to start with, now it was so soft it was a mere breath. “You’ll have a scar to match the old one, but Rina sewed it very neatly.”
“Rina, you mean the healer’s wife? But she hates me, why would she sew my wound?”
“She doesn’t hate you. And she’s the best seamstress on board. Next to Tessie, but she was far too upset to be sewing up a head wound.”
Now why would Tessie be upset? Oh, because Will and Bootstrap were upset, of course, because Jack was injured close to death and they wanted him to live. Apparently, he had. Lived. Jack’s head reeled. This couldn’t be happening, could it? He wasn’t this lucky.
But then, he was Captain Jack Sparrow.
“You’re sure I’m not in heaven?”
“Jack, why would you think this was heaven?”
“Well, I did fall off a bloody great cliff.”
Will got the worried crease between his eyes. “I know. I watched you fall. I wanted to jump off after you. I was so scared.”
“And there were nasty bloody rocks at the bottom.”
“It was a miracle, Jack. My father saw the whole thing. A huge wave came right when you fell. Matthew swears the gods made it happen. It carried you right past the rocks to the Pearl.”
“But the Pearl was leagues away.”
“Tessie had a hunch. She insisted they return. And it’s a good thing they did, because it saved your life.”
“But the cabin, it’s so clean. It’s not right.”
“That was Tessie as well. She was so panicked about the attack, worried about Alphonse and Jacob and Marina and Franklin and Matthew and me… she was making everyone nervous. She started cleaning everything in sight. Finally, my father locked her in here to keep her out of the way. She had to do something to occupy her time, but not before she’d yelled loud enough to convince everyone to turn back.”
“But… my mother.”
“What?”
“She was right here.”
“That was your sister, Jack. When you started breathing deeper and muttering in your sleep, Kay told me it proved you would recover. She insisted I go outside for a few minutes to get something to eat. Alex came to sit with you while I was gone.”
“But she was rubbing my belly and humming that song, just like when I was a little boy.”
Will caressed Jack’s cheek fondly. “You don’t think your mother did the same for all her children?”
Jack blinked.
“Jack, you’re alive. What more can I do to convince you?”
Jack sucked one side of his moustache thoughtfully.
Will concentrated, which gave his brow the loveliest crease yet. Will pursed his lips, which made them look ridiculously appealing. Then the wicked gleam came into his eyes That was just stunning.
He got up, and Jack strained his head to watch him walk across the cabin.
Oh, yes, that was Will Turner’s arse. There was no mistaking that.
Will bent over to open the linen chest.
Gods, yes, that was Will Turner’s arse! Jack had to stop looking before he felt faint. Fainter. Fainted.
Will stood beside the bed. He held up his boots.
The boots.
“You found them,” Jack said.
“When I was looking for clean sheets.”
“That doesn’t prove a thing,” Jack said defensively.
Will sat down and pulled one long, supple boot over his bare foot and up over his lean, long calf. “Heaven is a spiritual place, Jack.” There was a clunk as Will forced his heel fully into the boot. “A place where things are ethereal and pure.” He pulled the other boot on. “Untainted and wholesome.” He stood up and walked to the middle of the cabin.
He turned around.
“Do you really think they would allow something this real and this decadent and this utterly wicked into heaven?”
Jack stared at the boots. On Will’s legs. Will’s long legs. Legs that went all the way up to Will’s slim hips, which were nestled under Will’s snug trousers. Slim hips bracketing the flat, silky skin of his belly, above the solid ridge that was now hidden under Will’s snug trousers, tucked to the left side, tucked against what Jack knew was a delicious, firm, lightly-haired, golden inner thigh, a thigh that was supremely partial to the rasping touch of a flattened tongue. Which was just below thick chestnut curls and the soft trail of hair that led up to the most tongue-fuckable navel on earth. Which was below the nipples, wide pink discs, the plucking of which never failed to bring forth a soft rolling purr. He felt his cock twitch a little.
“Everything I want,” Jack croaked.
Will was beside him in a second. “Everything you want and more,” he purred.
And then Jack felt Will’s lips on his, soft and sweet. And Will’s tongue flicked daintily across Jack’s lips until they opened and Jack sucked it into his mouth, wet and slippery.
Heaven indeed.
Next: Part XIII Jack And Will Forever
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