Title: A Bird in the Hand
Author: Carmarthen (lacorneille@earthlink.net)
Fandom/Pairing: Pirates of the Caribbean; Captain Jack Sparrow/Bootstrap Bill Turner
Series: Idiograph (I)
Disclaimer: It belongs to Disney, not me. Sadly, 'cos I want a swishy gay pirate boyfriend. I make no profit, please don't sue.
Rating: PG for home tattooing and a bit of queer subtext.
Spoilers: For small parts of the movie.
Warnings: Home tattooing, piracy, and a bit of homosexual subtext.
Summary: Jack Sparrow gets his tattoo, the stingray spine in his hair, and an idea.
Archive: My personal site (http://thewritegirls.populli.net/carmarthen); others ask.
Notes: I concluded, second time through, that the white pointy thing in Jack's hair is a stingray spine. I couldn't find any decent pictures to check (all the pictures I found were either a) on the ray, and thus not useful, or b) embedded in a bloody portion of some poor sod's anatomy, in medical discussions of what to do for people who've stepped on stingrays), but I did find this nice site, which talks a little about historical uses of stingrays spines. And somehow I got to thinking about Bootstrap Bill, and Jack's tattoo, and I wrote two pages longhand during my archaeology class. Somewhat inspired by ladybee's trilogy about Jack's hair trinkets.
with thanks to Adri and pearl_o for lightening betas
Bootstrap Bill wouldn't get a tattoo because the respectable merchant his wife believed him to be would not do such a thing.
Jack Sparrow didn't get a tattoo because he didn't trust people that close to him with sharp objects. But one night, drunk on fine dark Dominican rum looted from a Dutch merchant vessel, Jack went to Bill's cabin.
"A bird," he said, rolling the words out and gesturing vaguely at his arm.
"What?" Bill asked, looking up from the charts he was using to plot the next day's course.
"A bird," Jack said again, enunciating more carefully, "on me arm. A sparrow. I want you t' draw it." He leaned over the table and put his pretty dark-eyed face in Bill's. "C'mon, mate. I'll let you look down me blouse." He winked one dark eye and grinned, and the lantern light flashed off his gold-capped teeth.
"Jaysus, Jack," Bill said, wrinkling his nose and shoving a few dangling locks of Jack's matted hair out of his face. "How much have you had to drink?"
Jack shrugged, a graceful, almost elegant roll of his shoulders. "Not enough, mate."
Bill sighed. "What's this about a bird, then?"
Jack pulled a stool over and sat down across the table from Bill. "I want a tattoo," he said, "of a sparrow."
"Wait until we make Tortuga," Bill said. "There's better men than me to give to you. Any bird I draw is liable to end up looking like a whale."
Jack didn't laugh. He shook his head, setting the coins tied in his hair jangling. "I want you to do it, William," he said, the effect of the sudden intensity of his dark eyes slightly marred by the husky, very drunk slur of his voice. He hadn't called Bill by his Christian name since he'd first asked him to join the crew. You don't have to join, he had said, since you're married. We need a navigator, seeing as our last fell overboard in a storm. It's your choice, William Turner. And Bill, knowing both that his fortunes were souring and that his wife would be heartbroken if she ever found he'd turned pirate, had weighed his options carefully and held out his hand.
"Very well," Bill said, sighing. "You'd best take off your shirt." Bill busied himself finding the supplies he needed among his effects; although he wasn't an expert at this, he had done it before. Stingray spine, sharpened to a fine point, alcohol, ink, a few rags to soak up the blood. He tried not to watch Jack out of the corner of his eye.
Jack was lounging on Bill's bunk when he turned around, as comfortable as if he owned it. Bill tried not to think about it too hard, and growled, "Bleed on me bunk and I'll kill you, captain or no."
Jack smirked. "Aye aye, mate."
"Where d'you want your sparrow?" Bill asked.
Jack held out his right arm. "There," he said, pointing to his forearm, near the elbow, just above the brand he'd got from the Dutch East India Company. "I want a sparrow flying over the ocean. Maybe the sun behind it."
"I ain't Michaelangelo, Jack," Bill said.
Jack shrugged. "Do your best, mate. I'm sure it'll be good enough for me."
Bill swallowed hard, took Jack's arm, and set to work. Jack winced a bit, but didn't make much noise, just watched with a faintly unholy look of fascination on his face.
When the blood covered the part he'd already cut, Bill got a rag and poured some alcohol over Jack's arm. Jack swore, very creatively. "Are you trying to make me arm fall off?" he hissed, glaring at Bill.
"Shut your gob and let me work."
Finally, Bill finished, but he didn't release Jack's arm right away, because Jack was staring at him with a queer expression in his eyes.
"You're a good man, Bill Turner," Jack said, and fisted his hands in the front of Bill's shirt. "Maybe too good for this life."
"I don't regret joining you, Jack," Bill said quietly, and covered Jack's hands with his.
Jack opened his mouth as if to speak, then winced in pain.
"I guess we'd better bandage that arm o' yours," Bill said, and stepped away. His knees hurt from kneeling on the planking, but he was more concerned that Jack could see his flush, even in the dim light.
"Sure," Jack murmured to himself as he took his bottle of rum from the table and contemplated it. "Ye do good work, Bill," he said loudly, as Bill carefully bandaged his arm with a mostly-clean rag. "It 'ardly looks like a whale at all."
Bill laughed. "You're daft."
Jack shrugged. "Not I, mate. 'Tis the rest of the world that's mad."
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