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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: R.
Pairing: Will/Jack
Feedback: Good lines, typos, etc.
Disclaimer: These characters don’t belong to me.
Notes: The term ‘barbecue’ is of Caribbean origin, and the practice of barbecue is generally thought of as originating in that region.
Summary: Jack attempts to create conducive conditions. Will invents the rum-based barbecue sauce in self-defense. Humor.
***
“Jack.” Will crossed his arms over his chest. “Jack.”
Captain Jack Sparrow, scourge of decent folk everywhere, nemesis to the great Commodore Norrington, blasphemer and defiler extraordinaire, terror of the Caribbean rum industry…rolled over and tried to bat his eyes at Will. Then he seemed to notice how encrusted his lashes were with salt and sand. Frowning, he reached up and—and peeled off his eyelashes. For a moment, Will gaped.
Then he noticed that while Jack’s luxuriant, sinfully long lashes that had inspired as many rhapsodies by soused mariners as threats had considerably thinned out, they were still present where they should be. A salt-and-pepper and rather revoltingly gritty fringe was now pinched between Jack’s forefinger and thumb. He made a face and threw it away, then removed a second one from his other eye. “Present from the Emperor of China,” he announced. “Trade concession. Wonderful invention—it’ll be the latest thing in smuggled ladies’ cosmetics come a year or so, mark my words.”
“Jack. We’ve been marooned,” Will said.
“Did I ever tell you of the time I did the grand tour of the Orient, Will? Ah, it was a wonderful adventure of…”
Will sighed and bent over to pull up Jack’s jaw. He sniffed at Jack’s lips, which still carried a trace of rouge. Which were pursing, and even with the dry cracks and the fleck of what Will devoutly hoped was food in the corner, they were full and kissable. They’d been the surreptitious focus of Will’s interest for some months now, only they always seemed to be occupied elsewhere with bottle rims and whore’s lips and…
…belching today. Sneezing and snorting, Will quickly scrambled backwards. He wiped at his face, then buried his nose in his sleeve. His shirt was filthy and smelled like Gibbs’ pig-pen, but even that was more tolerable than Jack’s booze-breath. “For God’s sake, Jack—”
Jack was out. Gone to the wind. Flopped over with his shirt rucked up and his arse in the air so a golden stretch of skin was exposed from mid-back down to the first swells of his shapely buttocks, and mostly what Will was thinking was that the man would have a hell of a sunburn in a few hours. Well. After he’d admired the curves.
Then his annoyance took over and Will turned away, muttering all the useful curses he’d been picking up lately. Kissing Jack was at best asking to play cards with the devil’s deck, but right now the sheer volume of fumes that’d accompany that act would guarantee Will a horrible hangover, blistered skin and probably a ship of vengeful French buccaneers heeling over the horizon for no particular reason. Best just to deal with the fact that last night they’d been in Nassau and today they were in…in…damn it, Jack. Will started off to investigate their island.
He briefly considered pulling Jack into the shade, but got over that twinge of moral conscience once he’d glanced out to the reef that encircled the island and spotted the splintered planks sticking up. Crispy sparrow was a well-renowned delicacy in these parts, and one of Will’s favorite foods.
* * *
The island was very small. So small, in fact, that Will suspected the only reason it managed to support the expected stand of coconut palms was because some Code somewhere had decreed all maroonees got a pistol, a bag of salt and a tree for keeping a notch-calendar of days. Pity Will had lost his knife while hauling Jack ashore.
Will blinked, then hurried back to where he’d left Jack. The other man either was dozing and talking in his sleep or still drunk to the point of senseless babbling; when it came to Jack, telling the difference between the two usually required a group of highly educated scholars, the latest in alchemical equipment and a coin for tossing. At any rate, he didn’t notice when Will carefully rolled him over and began digging in Jack’s billowing sleeves.
“Hmm…ladies, ladies, rest assured—Jack’s got plenty for the lot of you,” was mumbled to the blue, unsympathetic sky. “No need to rip at the finery.”
“No, since you go about half-dressed anyway. It’s a wonder you never ended up being mistaken for a harem boy.” Yet another compass, Will discovered when he held up the oddly-shaped object. A compass in the shape of a pagoda. That was the thirtieth one so far, and no two were the same. He tossed it aside and kept digging. Occasionally his fingers brushed smooth skin and Jack shivered, but he inevitably murmured someone else’s name. It was wonderful for keeping Will focused on his exasperation.
Jack rubbed obscenely at the sand around him, grinning mindlessly. “Sultan’s a very accommodating man. Aye, Shahrazad?”
Will winced and promptly erased the entire scene from his head. He’d gotten rather good at that, thanks to all the dinner parties Elizabeth had forced him to attend. It was amazing what people thought they could say as long as the host hadn’t put a limit on the number of glasses of Madeira.
Several minutes later, Will sat back and stared at the heap of objects he’d removed from Jack’s clothing. Then he looked at Jack. Then he looked at the heap.
The size disparity was at least two times. How on…
Never mind, if Will wanted to break his mind, he knew he only had to peek in on one of the Navy’s “chastisement of officers” sessions. Wigs were meant to sit on heads and make men look like puffy fat geese, and nothing else. Nothing else.
Though fifty-two compasses…what did Jack do, collect one from every port he’d ever been to?...some nice jewels, a set of lockpicks Will had palmed—he’d make up his own set and return Jack’s later, so it wasn’t really stealing—a couple rusty firearms, not loaded, and not one knife of any size. Even when Jack was doing nothing but baking to lobster-shade in the sun, he was incredibly frustrating.
Will sighed. His stomach growled in sympathy, then growled again in demand.
Jack said something about famine in Mexico and no limes to go with the agave…something. The corners of his mouth turned down as he did, and he started to curl up on himself. Concerned, Will stretched out and put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Jack?”
“Turner?” A broad smile broke out on Jack’s face. “You know, been wanting a talk with you. Y’see, don’t care how nice Ely—eliss—that Greek heaven place must be, but you’ve got to come down and talk to your son. Do something ‘bout that rod up his—”
Will pressed his lips together. Then he poked Jack hard in the small of the back, right where the pinkish tinge started, and watched Jack wince. “I think it’ll be another few hours till you’re done,” he muttered. “Why don’t I go see the cook about some sauce?”
* * *
This was a really odd little island. Admittedly, Will had just been pacing around the perimeter and hadn’t actually walked through the palm stand, but he still thought it was odd. He could’ve missed seeing things the first thing, but the fact that they were even there…
He stared at the haunch of pork hanging from the one tree. Then he turned around and stared at the small stack of rum bottles. He walked up to the pork and poked it much as he had Jack so a tiny trickle of blood splattered the ground below it. Relatively fresh, too.
Will’s stomach rumbled again, and as that noise trailed off, he heard something else: Jack calling. He stiffened and listened—no, Jack was still drunk. He’d never compliment Norrington so…intimately…otherwise. Wait. Norrington? And Jack? And Jack was complaining about a rod up Will’s arse?
Elizabeth was right, Will decided. Rum was evil. And there was quite a lot of it, and if Will didn’t do something soon, Jack would be even more drunk. The situation looked bleak enough without making himself suffer days and days of incredibly drunk Jack. But what to do…if Will carried them down to the sea, Jack probably would spot him. If he poured the rum out here, Jack would smell it and affronted Jack was nearly as bad as drunken Jack.
Will looked from the bottles to the pork again, and suddenly he had an idea. His stomach heartily approved.
* * *
“God’s blood, are you taking lessons from Miss Elizabeth’s stories again? Will, haven’t I told you—” Jack came roaring in like a fury. He quieted down considerably once he figured out what Will was doing. “Will? You…y’aren’t setting the trees on fire?”
“No.” Will hastily drizzled the last of the rum over the pork haunch he now had smoking over some branches, which in turn were set above a smoldering fire-pit. He’d managed to put some clam-shells and flatter rocks down to catch the juices, and those were now overflowing with a thick, brownish liquid that smelled fantastic and looked wonderfully edible.
Puzzled cough. “Are you…burning the rum?”
“No.” Well, not really, so that wasn’t precisely a lie. Precision, as Jack had taught Will by example many times, was very, very important. A light poke with a stick dented the pork a bit too easily, so Will settled back into a sitting position and prepared himself for a little more waiting.
“I don’t suppose you have any kind of drinking song in mind?” Jack asked, rather plaintively.
Most of the time, Will strictly avoided any attempt at making sense of Jack’s thought processes, but something about that rang very familiar. “I’m cooking, Jack. It’s not very appropriate.”
“Didn’t realize you thought cooking was very ‘propriate.” Jack sat down with an audible huff. He was rather red. Spectacularly red, in fact, and it looked quite painful.
“I lived by myself for several years, and smithing’s hungry work. Anyway, I figured I might as well not waste all that heat cooling down the coals at the end of the day,” Will replied in a studiedly absentminded tone. He shifted the pieces of pork around so they would drip into some of the less full shells. “You look a bit raw, Jack. Maybe you should splash some seawater on yourself.”
Offended, Jack drew himself very straight and glared down at Will. “Maybe you’d like to explain why you robbed your poor, defenseless—”
“—soused bastard who got us marooned the day before Elizabeth was to visit—”
“—captain and then left him to burn his tender skin,” Jack finished, looking very stern. The kohl helped with that. The sand peppering his hair didn’t, as it made him look rather blondish.
“It’s the same color as this nicely done pork.” Will flipped up the piece in question, speared it with a sharpened stick he’d had standing by, and then handed it to Jack. Then he snatched it back. “Hang on a second, I forgot—” he dipped it into the sauce that’d collected in the shells, then gave it back “—try it.”
Jack did open his mouth, but the pork was nowhere near it. Sighing for God knew what time, Will shoved the food between Jack’s lips. Pulled out the stick, sat back and watched as Jack started out chewing around an outraged protest and ended chewing around a blissful expression. He even fluttered his eyes in a way that wasn’t calculated and thus meant a hell of a lot more to Will. “Rum.”
For a second, Will just…sat. Then he mentally gave up that battle and accepted the personally flattering parts of that statement.
“How’d you do it? Don’t think I’ve tried anything quite like this before,” Jack added, snatching a second piece off the makeshift grating. His eyes comically widened and he frantically tossed it from hand to hand while Will desperately tried not to laugh.
In the end, Will had to stuff some in his own mouth. He thought a bit, then decided it was differently delicious from any of the other varieties of cooked pork he’d ever tried. The rum was still there, only the sourness of the alcohol had been boiled away to leave a sweet, slightly pointed taste. But…hmm. Could use some hot peppers, maybe. “Secret recipe, Jack. It’s a family treasure.”
“Treasure? Well, you know I’ve always treated those nicely. Freeing them from bondage and all that,” Jack airily said. With hand waving and body swaying dangerously near and everything. Even with a sunburn, he looked like something Will wanted to lick all over.
Will shoved another piece of pork in his mouth and got sauce all over his chin. He absently wiped it off, then sucked his fingers clean. When he looked up, he saw that Jack had in fact tilted too far and was basically on his lap. And staring. “Jack?”
“Hmm?” And putting his thief’s hands to work inside of Will’s trousers.
“Is this the island where you and Elizabeth were marooned?”
Jack’s hands didn’t exactly stop what they were doing, but they did develop considerable inhibitions.
“And were alone for a night, which was extremely improper for an unmarried girl and an infamous pirate, and got quite drunk—”
Well, now Jack’s hands stopped.
“—and did rather disappointingly nothing?”
Jack’s brows beetled. “No, that last one you’ve got a bit wrong—”
“Not according to Elizabeth. And I’m flattered, Jack, but not according to me either.” It hurt to pull Jack’s hands one by one out of his trousers, and not just in his frustrated, half-raised prick. In his gut too, and behind his breastbone. Thankfully, there still was enough pork left on the grate for Will to grab and thus cover up his reactions.
Will stood up and started to walk down to the beach. A second later, he cursed and stumbled and nearly lost his pork because he’d forgotten about his loosened trousers. He snatched them up and stomped the rest of the way down. By all respects this should have been just as amusing as the fact that the wind had shifted some of the beach’s small dunes, uncovering a very large stack of wood, but somehow Will couldn’t think of it that way.
* * *
The pile of odd curios Will had pulled out of Jack’s sleeves earlier was still where he’d left it. He brushed off the remaining sand from the signal firewood, pulled off the net that had held it together, and then used the flint from one of Jack’s pistols to light it up. When the bonfire was going good and strong, Will walked back several yards and sat down. The smoke column wasn’t anything near a thousand feet high, but something Will had learned was that at sea the horizon often wasn’t nearly as far as it seemed.
But something he’d learned before that was that on land, it could be very far indeed. He settled himself down to wait out his bad mood. In the shade, thank you.
“Will,” said a voice behind him.
“Jack, Elizabeth may read pirate and ghost stories, but that hardly means that she wants to be in one. At least, one as they’re popularly written—she used to talk my ear off about how much more clever she’d be if she had been the heroine. And—well, I don’t even have much of a taste for fanciful stories.” A small white dot was coming over the horizon line, Will saw. He squinted and shaded his eyes with his hand, and then he could make out three sails. Not quite near enough to know what kind of ship she was yet, though. “I’ve been traveling with you long enough for you to know. I like watching you—” Will’s thick tongue almost left it there “—go around being the great Captain Sparrow, but I’m not you. Leave rum and a pork leg hanging around and I won’t use it to start some miraculously absurd adventure involving moonlit seductions and ghosts and Spanish ladies and whatnot. I’ll use it to cook dinner so I don’t have hunger distracting me when I figure out how to get home.”
The sand whispered as Jack sat down beside Will. The ship on the horizon got big enough for Will to be able to tell it was one of Norrington’s.
“I really haven’t tasted anything like your sauce before,” Jack finally said. He sounded dead sober.
Will laughed. “It’s a sauce, Jack. Not that special.”
“Oh, not that unusual, I’ll grant you, but special it certainly is. Some sauces you use once, on a rare meat made from a rare species of Himalayan beast, and some sauces you like on everything from rat to beef. Er. That was meant to sound complimentary, Will.” Jack fiddled with his sleeves. They looked more limp than billowy now that they’d been emptied of all their secrets. “I’d have asked you in Tortuga, and Port Royal, and on the Pearl and in your damn sooty smithy if I’d thought you’d be all right with it in those places.”
That required a little bit of thinking, and not the least because Will wasn’t used to Jack being so…straightforward. He needed a while to realize the meaning was right there and didn’t need any translating to get at. The ship out at sea got bigger, and Will could see a little dot of blue and a dot of white at the bow end. “Why does the place matter?”
“Well, some folks are a bit odd in that way. See, a beach in a fanciful story’s not really a real place.” Jack stopped fiddling with his sleeves and stared straight at Will.
They were in the shade, but Will’s cheeks were still burning. “I suppose those are people who’d never tried to get sand out of their nether regions, so what would they know?” he said. Sharply and quickly. He swallowed and tasted rum in his mouth.
The breath Jack took was just as sharp and quick. His eyes were dark and his mouth was sweet and where his hands touched Will, they left prickling red scorches. Will put out his leg past Jack, then pushed so he went over on his back, and Jack rose over him so the sun gilded Jack’s face and the smoke of the bonfire merged with his hair, looking like some pagan god. But when Will pulled him down, rubbed a thigh between his legs and soothed his skin with a careful tongue, Jack gasped and clung and twisted like any mortal man. Any mortal man, but in particular it was Jack and it did something different for Will than anyone else ever had. Or would, he thought.
* * *
“I don’t want to know,” Will said once they were safely aboard and once Norrington had finished running through his ‘I should arrest you but you’ve a letter of marque now and instead I need a consultation because well, my officers don’t know how to deal with local informants that well and I need the local pirate gossip please’ speech. “I don’t want to know how I got from Nassau to there, or what Jack said, or even what Norrington said.”
Elizabeth pouted. “Well, I want to know.”
“It’s not really something I can tell you.” Will waited till the flush had gone past Elizabeth’s cheekbones and the sparkle in her eye had turned lusty before he went on, grinning inside. “We’ll have to wait till there’s a pig roast. Oh, and I have to remember to throw in chiles this time.”
“Chiles?” Elizabeth asked, confused.
Nodding, Will pushed past her and casually followed after the rumpled, fantastically dressed figure that’d just disappeared down the stairs. “For the sauce.”
He trailed Jack into one of the cabins, then shut the door behind them. Jack looked momentarily surprised, then lazily wicked. “Already? Bit risky, isn’t it?” he remarked, glancing meaningfully up at Norrington’s heavy tread.
“Well, trying something new always is. What if the sauce had turned out bitter?” Will raised his eyebrows and leaned against the door.
“I still would’ve eaten it,” Jack said, and then he took a chance on something.
***