Two Little Dogs

Two Little Dogs
2
By Cs


Will Turner was closer to tears then he had ever been in his entire life. He could actually feel the drops just waiting to trickle down his face and splatter onto the deck. He sniffed –manfully- tightened his face for a moment, and glared off into the sunrise. Then, he closed his eyes, and let a single tear of depression and unreciprocated affections drip slowly down his cheek. He was awash in misery, positively rolling in it. And perhaps if he cried a few more tears he might even drown in it. In short, he was feeling *very* sorry for himself.

Will had just been told rather firmly, and not for the first time, but perhaps the most adamant time – that Elizabeth did not love him in the way he wished. That she would never do so. That he should give up once and for all. And, that if he persisted, there was a very distinct possibility that their friendship wouldn’t be able to stand the strain.

The worst part, was that everything said had come directly from her lips. So he knew it was all painfully true. He wondered how he could have been blind for so long. He’d always somehow assumed…known…but now it was all coming apart at the seams and everything had turned out wrong.

Will let a few more tears escape and then wiped at his face and decided to go visit Jack. If anyone could somehow help him forget the pain of refusal, it would be Jack, and possibly Jack’s rum. Probably it would be more the rum than Jack.

“Will Turner?” A sun-browned hand grasped his forearm as he was stepping from the little ship Quatre had hired. Will followed the hand to the arm it was attached to, and then slowly he looked at the face. It seemed familiar, though he had trouble placing it.

“I’m Duo, we met last night. On The Black Pearl?”

Will stared at the boy’s smile, it was positively dazzling. And if he hadn’t heard the voice, he would have just assumed the boy was a girl. The face was so fair, and those eyes… “I’m sorry, I…last night I was a little distracted.”

“I know. Er. That is, yes. So I hear.” Duo grinned up at him and then tightened the hand that still gripped his arm. “Rough night?”

“No…no,” Will stared vacantly back at the ship, he felt a traitorous tear start to well up in his left eye and nearly poked his eye out trying to make it stop. “I,” he cleared his throat, “I’ve just had…some bad news.”

“Ah,” the boy nodded knowingly. “Perhaps you could use a drink?”

“I could use several.”

“I had a feeling,” Duo murmured.

“What?”

“Oh, uh, this dock, needs sealing.” He stamped on the dock and gave Will a disarming smile. “It was something about the eyes,” he added in a soft voice.

“What?” Will looked horrified at the thought that Duo might have realized he’d been crying.

“Nothing, you’ve got fantastic thighs.”

The look on Will’s faced changed only slightly, and managed to hit horrified fascination. “Oh.”

Duo turned around and grinned to himself before ambling towards town. It was a beautiful day, sunshine, seagulls, and only the occasional wispy, dehydrated little cloud. Tortuga was a bit dead because of it. Fair weather often meant it was a good day for a ‘sale’. Pirates regularly got things cheaply by use of a five-fleet discount.

Even the whores were relaxing, hanging out laundry that seemed to consist entirely of undergarments. They chattered and laughed amongst themselves. A few greeted Duo happily as he passed below, eyeing Will with interest.

At last the tavern came into sight and Will let out a long suffering sigh of pure misery, slumping in to the small weathered building, and collapsing at the nearest table. His eyes roamed Duo’s profile as the boy turned to order from a passing serving wench. It was a perfect profile, almost a bit like Elizabeth’s in that way. The line of the brow smoothly merging with the sharp cheekbones, the full lips that had a special way to which the corners turned. Will blinked, startled to find Duo watching his facial investigation with avid interest. But instead of a sharp reprimand or raised eyebrow, Duo merely smiled slightly. Will felt his cheeks become hot with a blush and wiped at his forehead in the hopes that it would fool the strange cabin boy. “It seems hotter here than in Port Royal,” he added hopefully and then blushed even harder when Duo only grinned in response.

Their mugs arrived, and much to Will’s surprise they weren’t filled with ale or beer, but were instead filled with a dark golden rum. It seemed to almost smell like the Caribbean itself, fragrant with coconut and the tang of salt and lime. As it slid down Will’s throat it seemed to reach out fingers of fog that numbed his very brain. The lines in his forehead that he’d not even been aware of, eased, the frowning edges of his mouth relaxed, curving upward slightly in bemusement. When he looked up after another long drink, it was to meet Duo’s strangely amethyst gaze from across the table. “Why does Jack need a cabin boy?” he blurted out, and then wondered at himself for it.

“Is that what you were thinking?” Duo asked curiously, then nodded as if to himself. “I think he wanted a companion, someone to drink with.”
“But why you?” Will felt like shoving the mug into his mouth. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out why he was asking these things. It wasn’t as if he really cared. It was only Jack after all. It was Elizabeth that mattered. Well, it had been her, but now...Will sighed and finished the rest of the rum in one swallow, coughing and turning red as it seeped into his system like water through a leach field.

“Why me?” Duo laughed softly, “I’m sure he’d be delighted if you chose to take my place.”

“What do you mean?”

Duo’s mouth snapped open and then shut more carefully, a considering look moving across his face. “It’s not for me to say, I think. More rum?”

“Yes, I don’t think there’s enough in the world at the moment.”

“That bad was it?”

“You ask as if you know something.”

“I’m sorry...but I do, somewhat.”

Silence covered the table for a moment, the serving maid bustling over in that time and refreshing their drinks. Will took several gulps of his rum without feeling it. His gaze seemed incapable of remaining still, and it was becoming harder to remember what he was doing in this place with a virtual stranger. Albeit a friendly stranger. “How?” he asked at last.

“I overheard most of it,” Duo admitted with grimace of embarrassment.

“Oh no.” Will wanted to hide under the table. It was bad enough this boy might have seen him crying. But that he’d also overheard the thing which had forced him to cry. The words...she’d been so cruel and yet so kind. Typically Elizabeth. “So sweet and so savage.”

“Miss Swann you mean?”

Will nodded miserably, wondering why his mug was empty again. Hadn’t it just been filled? And why was the table tilting like that? The ceiling was lower too. And...Will’s head suddenly clunked loudly against the table, the empty mug falling from limp fingers.

The serving maid stopped at the table and glanced from Duo to Will questioningly before shrugging and wandering away.

Duo eyed the passed out boy across from himself. He was *not* carrying this one. He reached out and brushed the hair off Will’s face wondering what it was Jack saw in him. Certainly he was good looking enough, but he seemed to whine an awful amount. And, he was completely enamored of Elizabeth Swann. What *was* Jack thinking?

“Will you be needing help?” the serving maid asked as she circled back over to their table, grinning at Will’s already loud snoring.

Duo nodded and gently closed Will’s mouth as he began drooling onto the rough wooden table. “And a bottle to go home with.”


*******


It was late when Will’s eyes opened again. Or else, he was in a jail, or maybe a bilge. He could smell the ocean, up close and personal, so he knew it was near. He lifted his head and then immediately collapsed back. Well, it was a bed he was on, and not hard wood and water. Not a bilge then, and not a jail. But something infinitely more disturbing, a bed. Whose bed?

“You’re up.” a husky, slightly recognizable voice said from the side.

Will turned his head, and began to wonder why it was so dark, and where he was. And why, oh god why, did his head feel like the top had been sawn off? “Flffth?” he managed to ask, and then wondered why he seemed completely incapable of forming real words at the moment.

“You drank most of a bottle of rum, by yourself.” the voice answered, as if it could understand exactly what Will was asking.

“Ungh,” Will responded, rolling over and wishing his head wouldn’t wobble open the way it was.

“Yes, it was Old Hall’s rum too, so I imagine you’re feeling like utter dung at the moment.”

“Mph?” Will tried, and slid his tongue around inside his mouth, tasted what smelled like rotten cabbage, and retched a little. A smooth, slightly cool object was placed against the side of his face, sliding down until he felt the rounded lip of a bottle pressed against his mouth.

“Hair of the dog, as it were.” the voice sounded as if it were suggesting this was a good thing.

Despite the involuntary shudder, Will took a sip, then another. It at least tasted better than the current flavor raping his mouth. “Thank you,” and he was surprised to hear his own voice without a slur in it.

The bottle drifted away, and Will found he could see now, just a little, as he watched a stray glint of light catch off the bottle. Slowly he began to remember what had happened, the crushing of his heart, Elizabeth’s kindly cruel words. That boy, Jack’s new cabin boy. “Duo?”

“Yes?”

Will nodded, and then brought a hand up to clutch at his still spinning forehead. “Where?”

“The Pearl, I suspected you wouldn’t want your love to see you in such a state.”

“Not my love.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not any more,” Will felt his chest seem to clench and empty all at once. He groaned and slid lower onto the bed, clutching at his eyes as he felt the stinging of tears.

There was a silence that matched the darkness of the room, and then the bed dipped at the side, the scent of rum and ocean drifting over Will. It was familiar and yet not. It was like home, and it wasn’t. “What will you do?”

Will honestly didn’t know. He’d spent most of his life assuming that he’d be a blacksmith, that he would somehow end up with Elizabeth, that they would...but no. It hadn’t happened like that at all. “I don’t know.”

“Have you ever considered becoming a pirate?”

“No!” Will sat up so suddenly that he banged the back of his head against the headboard. “Nng,” he fell again to the coolness of the sheets. They smelled like Jack, sun drenched, rum drenched, salt and wood.

“Not a pirate’s life for you then?” Duo chuckled, the bed springing back into place as he left it. There was a soft scraping and then a small spark as a candle flickered to life. Will squinted at it and watched as Duo became illuminated with the flame.

“What about you?” Will tried again to sit up, this time managing to do so without hurting himself in the process. He noticed the rum bottle sitting beside the bed and eyed it both longingly and with abhorrence.
“It will always be a pirate’s life for me,” Duo grinned and then added a softly laughed, “yo-ho.”

“But you’re just a boy, wouldn’t you do something more with your life?”

“A boy? I am your age Will Turner, didn’t you know that?”

“What?” Will felt his view skew to one side, coming to terms with this information. “But...”

“What? I’m too small? Too young? I’m you, only I chose the path of a pirate. That’s all.”

“No,” Will’s head was feeling as if it would burst. “You can’t be me, you’re Jack’s cabin boy.”

Will was surprised at the way he spit that phrase out, as if it burned his mouth or tasted bitter. Surely he wasn’t jealous? No, of course not. Why would he be? And yet...the idea seemed somehow nice. To be a mere cabin boy, the freedom, and Jack. Well, Jack was always entertaining, adventurous. Not a father, not a brother, something else...A friend. Will suddenly realized, he’d never had any friends other than Elizabeth. And she had been a friend stationed far above him in life. Where as Jack, well, Jack was Jack.

The bottle of rum was pushed into Will’s hand, and he drank automatically, barely shuddering at the burn that slipped down his throat. “Where is Jack?”
“On deck, waiting for you to wake up.” Duo took the bottle and drank a bit himself before handing it back to Will. “Want to try and move now?”
“No.” Will’s forehead was throbbing in the most uncomfortable of ways, and even as he slipped his feet over the edge of the bed he knew standing up would be a bad decision. He clutched the smooth roundness of the bottle in his hand, and wished it weren’t so hard to concentrate. “I’m in Jack’s bed.”

“Yes, he doesn’t mind though, I assure you.”

Will just managed to catch the slightly lewd expression that crossed the boy’s face. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing at all.”

“What time is it?”

“Shortly towards morning I believe. The sky is lighting towards the east as we speak.”

“Then, doesn’t he need his bed?”

“No.”

Will tried to stand up never the less, determined not to usurp Jack’s bed for the entire night. His feet wobbled, spilling him back towards the edge of the bed. Duo caught him before he managed to crack his skull against the polished sides of it. “I really wouldn’t be in a hurry to stand up, if I were you.”

“He’ll never listen to you,” Jack’s voice said from the door.

Will stared.

“It’s a good look for me, eh?” Jack said with a twinkle in his eyes, smiling down at Will.

“Guh,” Will said.

Gone was the matted hair and scruffy clothes. The dirt that had always seemed to be a part of Jack had been scrubbed off, the dark hair cut shorter and combed back. His clothes were black, but not the dust covered black they’d been. The kohl was still there however, ringing Jack’s dark eyes and making them stand out against the tanned skin of his face. He looked younger somehow, years apparently having washed off with the filth and grime.

Will tried again, “You look like a lord of the pirates.”

“Oh, that was mighty poetic, Will.” Jack said with some admiration. He flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his sleeve and grinned, gold teeth flashing.

Will felt flustered for some reason, nervous. He’d never seen Jack looking quite so...human. And then Jack swayed a little, and Will found himself grinning back up at him in response.

“I haven’t seen him smile since I’ve met him,” Duo said from somewhere to Will’s right side. A clink accompanied him followed by the sound of liquid pouring into a glass.

“Aye, he’s not a smiling man, our Will.”

Our Will. What a nice ring that had to it. As if he did belong somewhere, as if there were some purpose for his being here, instead of at home in the smithy. Without Elizabeth. Alone. “Rum,” Will croaked, feeling the tears begin again at the back of his throat and behind his eyes. His smile melted away as if it hadn’t been.

Jack grimaced and his lips moved in a manner that indicated he had something to say, but that it was also something he knew wouldn’t be well received. He waited until Duo had passed Will a large glass of amber rum, and then said rather solemnly, “it wasn’t meant to be.”

Both boys stared blankly at Jack, Will sipped cautiously at his rum and then tilted his head to one side. “What wasn’t?”

“Will and rum?” Duo asked.

“Will and Elizabeth,” Jack clarified.

The saddened look that had been steadily creeping over Will’s features stopped and went in a new direction. The corners of his mouth still turned down, but now his eyes filled with flames instead of tears, and he nearly shouted, “What?”

“I said,” Jack began.

“I heard what you said! But how can you mean it?”

Jack waved his hands vaguely. “It’s not so much a matter of meaning it, it’s a matter of saying it to you.”

Will’s face managed to look like a question mark and then screwed up into another sort of punctuation mark as he took a long drink from his glass. He coughed and an accidental tear slipped down his cheek unnoticed.

Jack sighed and sat down beside him, one hand still moving in a flying pattern. “Why did you follow her this time, Will? This time when it wasn’t that she had been stolen but had gone of her choice?”

“Because..”

“Did she ask it of you?”

“No,” Will pouted and poured another ounce of rum down his throat. “I..I thought she wanted..”

“But she doesn’t, does she?”

“No,” Will slumped down, his skull knocking unnoticed against the headboard. “She said she wants freedom.”

And she had gone on about it as if she’d memorized a speech that she’d long been composing. Freedom from him, from her father, from marriage. A woman never got these things, never could ask for them. She’d been shown before what freedom could mean. No more corsets or pinching shoes, and a significant lack of manners and curtsies. It had been terrifying and exciting to be dragged aboard a pirate ship. An adventure she’d not have had otherwise. She’d developed a taste for it.

In her sweetness she’d explained that his kisses didn’t fill her with anything. Her eyes had held an undying affection for him and her hands had gently wiped at his cheeks. But the kiss goodbye she’d given him had only been two for his cheeks, one for his forehead, and a pat of his shoulder. “I do love you, Will, but it’s the wrong love. It’s not the one you ask of me.”

Just thinking of those words made his heart clench in his chest all over again, and the pain swelled up, threatening to choke him. Without even realizing it he suddenly found himself clutching like a lost man to Jack’s shoulders, tears soaking the black material of his jacket.

“Aye boy, I know,” Jack whispered, an awkward hand patting him. “The sea is like a woman, in her wisdom she both destroys and provides.”

“Destroys and divides,” Will sobbed, completely forgetting himself and ignoring the nasty little tears that positively rushed like a river from his eyes. He sniffled, wiping his eyes and nose on the black cloth so near, unaware of the smear he left behind on Jack’s shoulder.

Jack made a face and pulled back, holding Will by the shoulders. It didn’t seem right that a man should look so attractive when he cried. Lashes all clumped together, nose and cheeks reddened by rum and tears. He looked up to find Duo leaning against the wall, sipping contentedly at the bottle of rum. And just as he turned back to comfort Will some more, he found to his complete surprise that he was being kissed.

Not very well however.

It tasted of salt.

It was nice, though, a bit clumsy. Then Will’s mouth slipped to one side, and like a ragged little doll, Will passed out.

Jack sighed and looked up to meet Duo’s amused expression. “He’s going to really regret that rum tomorrow,” Duo muttered.

“Luck be with us he won’t remember that kiss.”

“You will though, won’t you, Jack?”

“All too well, I think.” Jack rubbed at his mouth. “Best find something for him to expunge his innards into come morning.”

Duo shuddered melodramatically and made a face. “Did you have to put it like that?”

Jack smiled, standing up and carefully tucking the covers around Will. “Let us hope he reaches the bucket.”


-tbc-