Will was only moderately drunk when he and Jack
sloshed up on the Pearl’s deck. Jack headed
immediately for the helm (unmanned and tied off).
Somehow, they both tried to mount the stairs at the
same time, their limbs tangled and they went down in a
heap.
    “Ow, Jack, get off!”
    Jack chuckled and grabbed Will’s privates. Will
slapped his hand away. “What the hell are you doing?”
    “Checking, whelp! Checking to see if yer a eunuch.
Eunuchs ain’t much fun in bed but they have a hell of
a singing voice. How’s yer singing voice, whelp?”
    “I am NOT a eunuch,” Will snarled and managed to
disengage himself. He put the wheel between himself
and the pirate. “I’ve been told by a number of fine
ladies that I’m nicely and fully formed down there.
So, hands off!”
    “’A number?’” Jack blinked and leaned forward to
rest his chin on his hands on the wheel, narrowing his
eyes. Something about the look in those dark orbs made
Will wonder just exactly how drunk the pirate really
was. “What’s that mean?”
    Will blushed and cursed himself. He couldn’t hide a
damn thing from Jack. “At least a dozen.”
    He didn’t meet Jack’s eyes and the pirate grinned
crookedly. Like old Bill, the whelp was transparent as
a spyglass where it came to Sparrow. “Tell the truth,
lad. This is Captain Jack Sparrow ye’re talking to.
Dishonesty is me stock in trade. Come on.”
    Will glanced away and Jack moved silently around
the wheel to come up on the boy’s starboard side. When
Will looked up, Captain Jack was so close he could
feel the heat radiate off him. Will started and
stepped back but his shirt caught on one of the spokes
of the wheel. Jack took advantage of the delay and
slid an arm about his waist then drew the young man
tight to him. “Well, I-all right, I may have
exaggerated a little.”
    “A little,” Jack repeated, studying Will’s fine
features in the moonlight. He did look a lot like
Bootstrap but Sarah’s genes had smoothed out the
edges. Instead of a diamond in the rough, this was a
finely cut gem.
    Will wanted to push away from Jack, knew he should,
in fact, do so immediately. Jack was a bit shorter
than he and not as strong as a blacksmith but the
pirate’s proximity seemed to sap Will of his strength.
Finally, as Jack’s lips brushed across his right
earlobe, Will gurgled, “Very well, one, one woman. She
was a very nice whore in Tortuga that first night.”
    Jack stopped kissing. “I’m hurt, lad. You coulda
had _me_ that night if you’da asked. I thought you
were too consumed by yer passion fer ’Lizabeff or I
woulda made this offer then.”
    “Don’t stop,” Will blurted out then covered his
mouth with his left hand. After a second, he had
recovered enough to speak again. “I mean, I _was_
consumed with passion--for ’Lizabeff-I mean,
Elizabeth.  At least, I thought I was . . .”
    When Will trailed off, Jack grinned, showing all
his gold teeth. He had him now. “But it wasn’t
‘Lizabeff, love, was it? And it ain’t the sea and it
sure as hell ain’t the _Pearl_, is it, lad? What’s
left, I wonder?”
    Jack set Will away and walked to the rail. He
stepped up on it, hooked a hand in the rigging, and
leaned out as far as he could. “Couldn’t be old
Captain Jack now, could it? Why, yer a
blacksmith--better yet, a swordsmith. A manly man,
aye, who’s only interest in pirates is like that
Nor-Norling-Northing--”
    “Norrington,” Will supplied and Jack whirled about
to look at him, trading handholds without thinking.
    “Arrgh, that be the one,” He laughed. “Killing
pirates, ye said. Let me give you a clue about that,
lad. There’s a mighty fine line between lovin’ and
hatin’. I seen the look in Norrie’s eyes, too. If I’da
sweet-talked him proper, ye’d be in the arms of yer
bonnie lass right now and the Commodore wouldn’t be
wearin’ that fancy wig. He’d look good with an
eyepatch, don’t ya think?”
    For a moment, Will’s heart hammered in his throat.
He thought he meant something special to Jack, not
just another conquest. He swallowed hard, “But I
thought-I mean, you and-and I . . .”
    Jack leaped lightly off the rail to the deck.
“Shared something special? Aye, whelp, and don’t you
forget it. You’re _here_, he’s not. That does mean
somethin’, even if ye’re too blind to see it. You must
understand, love, the only one I’m ever faithful to is
the _Pearl_. I never want another ship because this
one is my soul. But my heart? There’s room in there
for a few. Bootstrap was one. Ye’re another. My cock,
on t’other hand, can’t mind its own business to save
me life. I’ll bed anything and ever’thing. But my
heart will always be yours, whelp. That’s why I came
back to Port Royal to kidnap you. I had to have me
heart back ‘cause I’m going to need it for my next
venture. I’ll need you too.”
    “Why?” Will said, shivering as a chill breeze blew
up from the north. Jack saw him shake and drew him
back into his arms.
    “We’ll be sailing for some tiny islands between
here and Brazil. I’ve decided to go after a treasure.”
    “Gold?” Will asked. He drew back slightly. “It’s
not cursed, is it?”
    Jack grinned. “Not anymore, I hope. Lad, how would
you like to meet yer da?”
    “Bootstrap Bill Turner?”
    “The one and the same, love.” Jack reached into his
sash and drew out the compass that Norrington had
mocked. “See where it’s pointin’?”
    Will looked at the compass to see it pointed to the
southeast. “Why does it do that?”
    “Because, lad, it points to the thing that its
possessor most desires. I have my ship and I have you
now. Only one thing left to make me happy.”
    “Bootstrap.”
    “Aye, Bootstrap.” Jack shut the compass and
returned it to his sash. “C’mon, my fair whelp. I
wanna bugger you ‘til you can’t walk--and then some.”
    Will gulped. “Um, can we discuss this? I’m not at
all--.”
    Jack shook his head then rounded on Will. He ripped
loose a line from the rigging, snagged the boy by the
waist and swept him off the poop to the deck below. As
they landed, his lips locked on the boy’s, silencing
any potential protests before hoisting him over his
shoulder, kicking the door to the captain’s cabin open
and carrying him inside. He kicked the door shut with
the back of his foot. A few seconds later, a hand--a
blacksmith’s hand--slid out to hang a shrunken head on
a lanyard from the door latch. Legend among the _Black
Pearl’s_ crew had it that the owner of that head had
disturbed a conference between Captain Jack and his
first mate, one Bootstrap Bill Turner, late one night.
It was warning enough. And, in the morning when Gibbs
saw it, he grinned knowingly and went about the
business of loading and storing supplies.