As fine a Pirate

The sound of cannons being readied and the yelling of orders filled the air. "Fire!" Jack Sparrow stood surveying the scene and trying to work out what was wrong with it. Everyone was in place, except for...

"Where's the whelp?" he muttered to himself. "Got to get him before he does anything... stupid."

A lean body swung over to the other ship before anyone else did, having either ignored Jack's orders or not heard them.

Jack gestured with his hands. "Like that." Taking a long swig of rum before tucking the bottle safely away, he adjusted his hat then grabbed a rope and flew over the space between the boats. He accidentally knocked a merchant guard off into the water as he landed; his lady luck still holding.

"Excuse me," he said to a gun-toting stranger as he stabbed him in the back, shoving him out of the way so that he could try and find his missing boy. Having ended up standing on the middle of the upper deck, he squinted his eyes and took a good look around. The view was not promising; enemies closing in on all sides with scarily intent looks on their faces.

He held up his hands in surrender, letting his sword dangle a little. "Now, don't do anything rash. You just hold your fire and I'll be on my merry way, savvy?"

The blade whipped up as soon as one got a little too close, and he pulled out his pistol with his other hand, killing two men within seconds. He made a mad leap to the side as a canon ball smashed through the deck precisely where he'd been only seconds before, sending the guards down into the depths.

"Well, they were inconsiderate buggers anyway."

Will was backed into the hold by a group of extremely grim men who seemed to be holding a grudge against him for attacking their ship, feeling less than sure of himself. It was the first time he had gone after another ship that wasn't full of evil, cursed pirates, and it felt strange not to be doing this out of honour.

Quite aside from the fact that he was beginning to fear what they would do to him once he was shut in – he'd lost his sword in heated battle up on deck – he was also feeling tremors running through him at the thought of being trapped below decks while cannons were firing. It wasn't until now that he'd remembered the horror of being so close to drowning as the Black Pearl had taken the Interceptor.

The sword hilt that bashed into the head of the man in front of him was just as much of a surprise to Will as it was to the victim. He caught the weapon handily though, and started fighting again. Finding himself face to face with Jack a minute later came as something less of a surprise. For some reason he had started to expect the crazy pirate to be there, guarding his back, all the time.

"We might want to get off right quick, savvy? Apparently the boat is sinking."

Soon the trade ship was naught but a distant smudge in the water, and Jack was telling rousing tales of his adventures to any of the crew who would stand still long enough.

"You see the only way to get someone stupid out of a stupid situation is to do something even stupider. So there I stand with nothing but my charm and ravishing good looks to get me through; and sure enough they all step aside.

"I thought it was the cannon ball what had that effect, Cap'n."

Jack pondered for a second. "Aye, well, that just added weight to me argument."

After he'd consulted with Gibbs and Anamaria on where he wanted to head next, he moved below. The strings of pearls and sapphires that he started pulling from his sash were not something that he planned on sharing with the rest of the crew; they hadn't done half as much work as him. It had been a rich haul, what they'd managed to pull off before the ship sank into the pretty blue waves anyway.

He was intercepted halfway there by the very miscreant who had almost caused them to lose the whole venture.

"William, my boy, you and I need to have a little talk."

Seeing the ominous look on the Captain's face, Will looked worried and contrite. "Parley?" he said questioningly.

"Very funny, whelp." Jack put a hand on the boy's back and steered him to his quarters.

The young pirate's eyes went wide as he watched the incredible amount of booty Sparrow had managed to stash within his clothing pour out all over the floor. Jack caught the fixed gaze and couldn't keep a savage grin from escaping. Will Turner was just too easy to provoke at times. "See, completely obsessed with treasure."

The boy blushed a bright red, which amused Jack greatly, and spluttered. "I am not. I was just thinking how dishonest you are!"

"Pirate." The exchange reminded Jack of the first time they had met, the day that he had become fascinated with young Turner's inner fire. He wondered if the best way to get what he wanted from Will wasn't to cheat. "And being now a pirate yourself, you have an... obligation to appreciate the finer aspects of shiny things."

Will snorted.

"Though you did prove yourself in one way today – you showed all that you are completely mad. Since according to you that's necessary for being a part of the crew, I think you must be starting to feel at home here. Maybe we'll give you an official title." Jack leaned in close and swung an arm about Will's shoulders, pulling him in close. "How about Cabin Boy?"

"Cabin Boy!" The younger man's voice was laden with scorn, but somewhere buried inwas was a hint of curiosity.

"Aye,"confirmed the Captain cheerfully. "It means that you do everything you have already been doing, but also take it upon yourself to make sure that I am always supplied with rum." He turned his head to the side so that his lips were brushing Will's ear. "Very important, that." He felt a shiver go through the young man's frame, and smiled to himself.

"I thought cabin boys were younger."

"Oh, and you're so very old yourself now are you? A grand score. Minus two. Anyway, I know a fellow, good man, who was a cabin boy until he was thirty five. Course, that may have been for other reasons," he muttered to himself as an afterthought. "But, lad, it's nothing to be ashamed of."

Looking into the strangely earnest face of Jack Sparrow, Will nodded. It didn't feel like the Captain was making fun of him, or at least no more than usual.

Jack bared all of his teeth in a face-splitting grin, and shook his head so that the strings of beads jingled together. "Good, good. My first piece of wisdom to give yer then is this: don't ever do what you did t'day again. You wait for my orders, or we lose the ship and you end up dead. Savvy?"

Will went pale, head bowing slightly in shame, and nodded. "It's just, I could see what they were doing and one of them had brought out a barrel of gunpowder; they were just about to sling it over onto our deck!"

"That's a long way," drawled Jack.

"They had some sort of thing that..."

"Easy boy, easy!" He tightened his hold around the other man and twisted him slightly so that they were facing. "I believe you."

Will went still, and they listened to the other's rasping breath in the candlelight. "You do?" he said at last.

"Of all the people least likely to lie in the world," Jack waved his free hand above his head, nearly knocking his hat askew. "You are one of them. Got honesty branded all over you. We really should try and work on that actually..."

"I can lie!" Though said defensively, as if Will thought to uphold his honour as a pirate, the confession seemed to deflate the new cabin boy. "I can lie."

Feeling the younger man slump in his arms Jack tightened his hold on him, then dropped them both to a heap on the floor. "What did you do that was so terrible then?" Jack sighed, bracing himself for a tale of torture and woe.

"Elizabeth. I lied to Elizabeth." The self hatred in Will's tone took Jack by surprise. His attention was captured by what the young man had said.

"Your dear, sweet girl? Why could you possibly have lied to her?" the captain said with exaggerated shock. Expecting to hear about how William had been cheating on his love, he was taken aback by the real answer.

"When she showed me the medallion, I told her that I thought I'd lost it," he breathed. "But I lied. I knew that she had taken it, I had just never spoken of it. I never really wanted to believe that she would steal something from me; she was so perfect!" His voice ached with remembrance.

"Ahh, no such thing as a perfect woman. If a woman was perfect then she could no longer be a woman, as to be a woman you can't be perfect. You see, savvy, women aren't happy 'less they have something to complain about, and a perfect woman wouldn't complain. It's really not possible."

Will digested thtoretore it apart, reconstructed it and, when it seemed to make some form of sense, rejected it.

"No, she was perfect," he said sadly. "Just not for me. She said it would have been horrible if I was a pirate; she couldn't accept me."

"Then she's well forgotten lad." Jack began to run his fingers through Will's wild hair, using the comfort as an excuse to touch what had long fascinated him, ever since he'd seen it loose and curling. The locks felt like silk to his touch; he'd never come across hair so soft before, not even on a women. Though that might have something to do with the women he knew rather than anything else.

"I'll never forget her!"

"You will, lad, you will."