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"If you don't mind me saying so Jack, Commodore Norrington seems to be a little... obsessed with catching you." Will said, as they walked through the surf, enjoying the sunset.
"Hmmm, I suppose he is."
"Is there any reason for that?"
Jack grinned. "Yes, but you'd have to get me very drunk to find out what it is."
Will remembered that a few weeks later, when Jack turned up on his doorstep at midnight with two full bottles of good Barbados rum, and one mostly empty one.
"Where did you get those, or shouldn't I ask?" Will said, steering Jack towards the table.
"That depends. Do you really want to know? Considering that I'm a pirate, and never pay for anything, and often poke people with swords if they have something I want." Jack drained the last dregs from the first bottle and hurled it at the fireplace.
Will jumped up and intercepted the bottle before it landed, not wanting to wake Elizabeth. "All right, I don't want to know. Just wipe any blood off before you open another bottle, and I can pretend they washed ashore and you found them." Will tried not to notice the way Jack rubbed his sleeve over one of the bottles, and went to fetch a couple of small tankards.
"Here, you can have this one. There's definitely no blood on it." Jack said, handing over the bottle he'd been cleaning. "I checked."
"Lovely. Thank you." Will eyed the bottle with something less than enthusiasm.
Jack grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. "Drink up, lad! Nothing like a spot of rum to put hairs on a man's chest."
"Elizabeth has opinions about rum."
"Oh Hell, I remember." Jack pulled a face. "She burned my rum. It was a terrible terrible thing to do to a godless man. Women and fire are a bad mix." Jack glared at his bottle and wrenched the cork out. "She's not getting her arsonist's fingers on this bottle!"
Will poured himself a short measure. "Best drink it before she wakes then?"
"Excellent idea, Will." Jack slapped him on the shoulder again, and drank straight from the bottle.
Will blinked as the volume decreased alarmingly fast. "Uh, Jack? She doesn't normally wake before ten."
Jack's only answer was a belch.
Half an hour later and Will had managed to avoid drinking more than two measures, by swapping his bottle for Jack's. Jack was barely able to focus on the bottles, let alone know which one he'd been drinking from.
"So what's the story with you and Norrington?" Will asked, affecting a casual air.
"Heh, he'll never catch me." Jack snickered. "And he knows it too. I was always the better seaman, even when we were lads."
Will's eyes widened. "You knew him when you were young?"
"Oh yes, we were midshipmen together. On the Demeter, back in... oh God, I'm getting old. Must have been at least twenty years ago."
Will sat closer, deciphering the slurred words. "Were you friends?"
"Oh yes." Jack crossed his fingers and waved them in front of Will's face. "We were like that." Then he rolled his eyes. "I should say, we were more like that."
Will blinked. Jack was now poking his left index finger into his right fist, in an unmistakable gesture. "You two were..." he trailed off, not knowing how to word the question.
Jack pulled himself up from his slump over the table and looked Will in the eye. "Sodomites."
"Oh." Will certainly hadn't been expecting that. "I thought the Royal Navy didn't approve of that sort of thing?" He said hesitantly.
Jack slid back down onto the table, like a puppet with its strings cut. "Yes, and that was the problem really. Bloody stupid: you have all these young blokes, full of juice, and you stick 'em on a ship and tell them there's no women and you can't bugger your mates. It's like telling people not to breathe!"
"Um." Will downed the rest of his rum and poured himself another.
"Anyway, Norry was always going to go far. He was very good at the 'yes sir, no sir' and looking freshly starched and eager. We had a close call one night when the Captain practically tripped over us. It was lucky for us he was drunk and thought we were badly stowed rigging. Norry decided then and there that he didn't want to risk his future on being caught with my knob up his arse. Or his knob up my arse. Or any combination of knobs and arses... and fingers and mouths." Jack smiled at the memory. "We were quite versatile."
"I'm... sorry. I think." Will said; the rum had started to kick in and was softening the shock. "That must have been hard on you."
"Too bloody right it was hard. I stuck it out for another six months, and it was hard all the effin' time!" Jack slammed his bottle down on the table. "So I jumped ship and became a pirate. I got my end away on a regular basis, but Norry never forgave me."
"And now he wants to catch you and hang you? That's terrible."
Jack grinned up at Will. "Well... he chases me. But not normally for the hanging." Jack managed a lascivious wink. "Sometimes I even let him catch me." And then he passed out.
The End