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Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to the Pirates of the Caribbean or its characters, which solely belong to Disney, et al, but that hasn't stopped me from writing about them.

Warning: This story contains the themes of heavily implied male/male relationships, a.k.a. slash/yaoi, mild to severe bashing of the conventional use of Original Characters, and fluff. If any of these may offend you, then stop reading. If, however, you do read this, in spite of my warnings, and find it offensive, then I have to say it is your own fault.

Note: I will not accept any flames, however, comments and criticisms are welcome. I am under the assumption that anyone reading this has a clear understanding of the difference between flames and criticisms so I don't have to explain it. Here are some reason why I don't accept flames: 1) they generally include an attack on the author's character without regard to previous or future works that may or may not be in the same vein, 2) not only are they childish, but they make the writer of them sound immature and not old enough to read the material contained herein, 3) flames help neither the author nor the flamer to improve the work and, therefore, are not constructive, 4) if something is so offensive as to elicit the impulse to flame then it is better forgotten and not dwelled upon, 5) you waste time writing it and I waste time reading and then deleting it, 6) it won't do you any good to point out my lack of scruples, morals, intelligence, sanity, etc., because not only don't I care, but I won't listen.

Thank you for your kind regards and any reviews (not flames) that you will allocate to me.

From Your Sight,

Yxonomei Ayuahteotl

::Tell Me a Tale::

Forty-eight. William Turner, former blacksmith and reputable non-pirate young man, counts forty-eight times that Captain Jack Sparrow has sung his favorite yo-ho-ho song without once singing it correctly. He has resignedly given up pointing this out around the twenty-first time. After all, the man drinking rum and hitting notes Will never thought humanly possible is a notorious pirate prince (or so he would have others think) and can do whatever he damn well pleases, thanks kindly. However, young Will has a plan to distract his captain without using his body, which is still recovering from the wrong end of a sword.

Besides rum, sex and singing, there is nothing Jack loves more than to tell a tale, the taller the better. If Will can just quiet the pirate long enough to hear his request, he won't have to listen to the bloody song for the rest of the night.

"Jack." The man in question continues to sing and then hum when the next words escape his mind. "Jack. Jack!"

Jack sways dangerously and turns to give the bedridden boy a questioning, slightly unfocused look. "What's that, love?"

"Would you tell me a story?" The swaying becomes more pronounced as a mildly confused look settles over the inebriated pirate's exotic features.

"What's that? A 'story'? My dear boy, pirates don't tell 'stories,' that's for the nursery."—drink—"Now, if what you want to be hearing is a tale, then I'd be happy to oblige you."

Will pats the empty space on the bed and motions for Jack to come over. The pirate captain, always willing to indulge a pretty face and body, especially that of a certain retired blacksmith, sashays over and plunks himself down. The boy winces slightly as the soft bed shifts and the wounded abdominal muscles pull. In a tinkling of a moment the flighty, unpredictable pirate is replaced by a mother hen of the most overprotective sort.

The boy bats away Jack's frantic hands and profuse apologies for jostling him. The man has been smothering him nigh unto death with all his fussing. Actually, Will finds this all quite endearing. Fussy Jack is as adorable as possessive Jack, and both warm the cockles of his heart.

"Jack."

"I didn't hurt you too bad?"

"Jack."

"Do you need another pillow?"

"Jack!"

The pirate pauses in his attempt to stuff another pillow under the amused and exasperated boy's back.

"Yes?"

"Stop, please. I'm fine. It's just bit tender." Dubious black eyes survey white bandages wound about Will's stomach. Slowly the older man's hands creep back to rearrange the pillows and bedding. "Jack, if you don't cease this infernal fussing I will hurt myself while throwing you out."

The captain pouts until Will takes his elegant hands in his own and nuzzles them affectionately.

"Just tell me a tale, captain-mine-own." Small kisses and the occasional nip and lick pepper Jack's hands.

"It be bad luck to tease a man when he can't be doing nothing about it, Will lad."

"But you can, just not yet. Soon, though. When I'm healed we can find a nice little port to dock in, then make our way to some tavern and commandeer their nicest room and…the captain can has his wicked way with the cabin boy." A low, needy groan rumbles from the pirate's throat and he looks to be on the verge of sexually frustrated tears. "But, for now, I need some less taxing entertainment or cabin fever will surely take hold."

"Fine, fine, I'll tell you a tale…"

"Good."

"Well, several years ago…"

~~~~

"Stop. Stop, no more!"

"What?" Jack gives will a severely affronted look as he breaks off from his tale of cross-dressing in order to infiltrate a well guarded Portuguese fort in Brazil to steal some valuable gold trinket with an unpronounceable name. "Don't you like it?"

"It's a very nice st—tale, but I was interested in something a bit different."

"How about the one where I dressed meself up as a cleric and—"

"No. No tales about dressing up in ridiculous outfits." Will stoutly ignores Jack's comment about looking quite dashing in a maroon silk skirt. "Tell me about something with a bit of romance."

"You be wanting romance, eh? Let me think…"

~~~~

"She did what?"

"The point is, lad, she wasn't one, a 'she' that is. Honestly, you're harder to please than AnaMaria's granddame. Small thing, monstrous temper. Gives ole Jack chills just thinking about her rolling pin." The man shudders dramatically to emphasize his point. Will makes the appropriate sympathetic noises.

"Jack, do you know any normal tales? Ones where the woman isn't a whore or a man?"

"What? You be wanting virgins in chastity belts and proper-like kisses under the moonlight or in rose arbors? I'll tell you now, boy, a pirate doesn't have time for that. Not half as interesting as you may think, any the way."

"Oh please, are you honestly telling me that you haven't cut a swathe through a good portion of the world's maidens?"

"Look, William, virgins might sound all tempting and whatnot, but they're a bloody nuisance. Tell me truly, why would an honest, hard working pirate"—Jack ignores Will's derisive snort—"Go and try to carry off some screaming maid? Why go through all the trouble of planning to kidnap the lass; avoiding all the guards virgins seem to have around them; kidnapping the virgin; taking her out from underneath the noses of previously mentioned guards; getting her struggling body onto your bloody boat—ship; keeping her from pitching herself over the side to escape; enduring her vaunted lung prowess; restraining her so she stops trying to claw your eyes out; and finally getting to the petal plucking? Seems a mite unreasonable, doesn't it?"

"So you've never had a virgin?" Jack gives the boy a pointed look. Will flushes and shifts as much as his wound permits. "You know what I mean."

"Aye, male virgins are much preferable to their female counterparts. You get the blushing without the vapors, not to mention slapping, and they rarely scream at you before or afterwards. During is a completely different matter, of course." The captain slowly nibbles his way up Will's tanned arm. "And the temperaments and actions of men are far more on the predictable side."

"I can never predict what you're going to do next," Will answers a tad breathlessly. Jack grins rakishly and plants a small kiss on the boy's shoulder.

"It's not easy to be unpredictable. I've had many a year to practice, I have."

"No doubt. Such an old man, truly."

"Insolent boy!"

"Indeed. Now tell me a proper tale of romance or I'll tell AnaMaria where you hide the good rum."

"You wouldn't!"—pause—"Would you?"

"I would." The stubborn boy refuses to back down in the face of the pirate's more than evident displeasure. Eventually the man relents. "Perhaps you could read me something? That is, if you have any books and can read them…"

"I can bloody well read, pup. I've learned me letters, never you mind, thank you very much." The boy smiles with patient expectation and releases the pirate's warm hands in favor of clasping his own in his lap.

Grumbling that a jaded whore is far more of a challenge to seduce than any bloody virgin, Jack stands and stalks to a corner of the cabin hidden behind an assortment of illegitimate gains. Will listens with furtive amusement as the prince of rogues knocks about and makes many a reference to a certain exasperating lad. The boy conceals a wide grin behind his hands as Jack emerges holding a thin, badly worn book. Looking immeasurably pleased with this accomplishment, he sits back down and cracks it open.

"What's that one?"

"Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole[1]. It's got your bleedin' romance." With his delightful, rough silk voice, the captain begins to read.

~~~~

"Wait!" The book snaps closed and Jack levels annoyed black eyes upon the frowning cabin boy. Will has interrupted after only the third page.

"What now, love?"

"Where did the giant helmet come from?"

"It's a miracle, lad. It's not the point to know where it be from."

"So I'm just supposed to accept the fact that a giant iron helmet crushes this poor boy without further explanation? How did it get there? African swallows[2]?"

"It just is, boy. Some things defy the explanation of men."

"Like randomly falling helmets that kill the heir in the first few pages?"

"Precisely, love. It's about faith and fate."

"Faith and fate? Sounds ominous"—pause—"Giant falling helmets aren't that romantic, Jack."

Tight smile. "Would you like me to find something else for your pretty little ears?"

"Yes, please."

Jack mutters many an imprecation just below his breath as he once again goes off to search for some literary entertainment.

"Now, lad," the pirate declares as he reappears with a stack of cheaply bound novellas, "I hope there's something among these that doesn't raise your objections, or I'll be going mad, hear?"

"You're not mad already?" A menacing growl elicits a hasty apology. "Carry on, captain-mine-own. I shall try and reign my tongue."

"I'd like to reign your tongue," the man mutters as he sits down and proceeds to read from the work entitled On the Waves of Hope by Agnes Reddingfield[3].

_

"A white-gold beam of morning light streamed through the loft window and gilded the suspended dust motes. Slowly, as dawn grew to adulthood, the shaft swept lower and lower till it came to rest upon the face of one Emmarella Melifluez. The girl—or rather young woman—had just reached her nineteenth year not a fortnight ago, and with another year gone by her beauty had only increased.

"Her eyebrows were like—"

_

"The author describes the lady's eyebrows?"

"Yes. Now shush."

_

"Her eyebrows were like two delicate lines of gold ink. Her hair was winter sunshine crystallized and spun into silken threads. Beneath the delicate, porcelain veil of her eyelids dwelt two jewels of deepest, most vivacious sapphire. Her cheekbones were proud and high, her nose aristocratic and perfect. The red of her full lips would shame the ripest autumn apple. All of these perfections failed to overshadow the sheer exquisite sublimity of her heart-shaped face, which was always likened to that of an earthbound angel—"

_

"How long does this description go on for? I think I have comprehended that the heroine is of rare symmetry."

"Would you like me to skip the description?"

"Very much so."

"Let me see…'Proud bosom…Willowy and elegant body…ankles.' Look the chit even has perfect ankles."

"Yes, yes. She's perfect in every conceivable way."

"Oi, she's got a birthmark on her 'creamy thigh' and it's shaped like 'the flaming sword guarding the entrance to Eden.' I'll wager it is!"

"Jack!"

"The birthmark is important, love. It's an obvious device to further the plot. No doubt it will spring up with some strange relevance later on. She may be a secret princess or something along those lines."

"Fine. Can we move on then?"

"Surely, my heart."

_

"'Emma!' a harsh, feminine voice screeched from down below. 'Get yer lazy arse downstairs this instant, you ungrateful child!'

"The young woman's luminous eyes snap open and she jerks awake. She blinks against the light shining her eyes and hastily scrambles to her feet.

"'Coming, aunt,' she calls down to the irate older woman waiting her. Quickly she dresses in her tattered cotton dress and runs her hands through her hopelessly tangled hair.

"How she hated her aunt. The woman did nothing but order Emma about box her ears when she didn't work fast enough. This had been going on since the young woman could remember: ever since her parents had been killed by pirates on their way back from England—"

_

"Jack?"

"Will lad, if you don't cease these infernal interruptions I'm not reading another word!"

"This tale is boring me."

"What?" One kohl-smudged eye twitches.

"Two pages of physical description and now the beginning of the girl's tragic circumstances, at least the previous work killed someone after the first few pages."

"Oh, now you be wanting action with your romance?"

"No, just…When does she meet her romantic interest? Can we read that part, please?" Velvet brown eyes meet the pirate's pleadingly.

"Fine. Fine."

_

"'Y-You're a pirate!' she gasps, sword dropping from her nerveless hand. The dashing rogue smiles enigmatically.

"'No, love. I be—'"

_

"'Captain Jack Sparrow!'"

"It doesn't say that! Jack!"

"It does, see?" Jack flashes the novella before the boy's eyes before whipping it away.

"Wait. Give me that."

"'Captain Jack Sparrow?' Emma repeats in shock and awe. She had heard many a tale about that rakish blackguard."

"It does not say that. Let me see that page."

"I just showed it to you."

"For a bloody second only!"

"It's not Jack's fault that you never learned to read with haste."

"Give it."

"No."

"Jack!"

"Either you accept that it says Captain Jack Sparrow, or I stop reading, savvy?"

"Fine. I yield—for now."

~~~~

"'She couldn't be falling in love with a pirate, could she?' Amazing. The girl uses denial like a flawed sword."

"You and your swords, Mister Turner. I'd be saying you might have a bit of a fixation."

"Oh be quiet"—pause—"As if you aren't, as well."

"True. I don't mind a bit of dueling with swords…tongues…cocks."

"Fixation, Captain Sparrow?"

"Have I ever left you in doubt?"

"I suppose not."

"Good."

~~~~

Jack closes the book and regards Will with quirked eyebrows. The boy looks a bit green about the gills.

"That…That was horrible. The whole premise of the—the thing was…" Will groans and rubs his temples as his mind attempts to articulate his thoughts. "The girl hates pirates, repeated more times that you can count—"

"Oi!"

"And then gets kidnapped by one who is simply interested in a little petal plucking, as you said before. I…I think I'm beginning to agree with you about virgins." Jack grins wolfishly. "The pirate's only intention was to bed her when he captured her, yet one poorly defended young lady manages to thwart him by refusing him. He could have simply raped her."

"Where would the fun be in doing that? Isn't life about conquests and treasure, darling?" Jack coos as he nibbles on the boy's bare shoulder.

"Well, it wasn't like she was important: a niece of a shoemaker? Why kidnap her? To ravish her, which he doesn't do? I always thought pirates plundered for objects of value."

"They do. But she was a blood-heiress of a vast fortune."

"Yes, but no one knew that until the end."

"Didn't you find her rescuing him from the gallows at the end to be a bit nostalgic? Risking life and love to save him from the final fall?"

"Perhaps if she hadn't spent the majority of the book before that slapping and screaming and insulting. Young woman? She was a child in an adult's body—perfect, flawless body."

"So judgmental. This has really stuck in your craw, hasn't it?" The captain humors the seething boy.

"If I had been him, I would have dumped her off in the middle of the deep."

"The pup has teeth. It's just a bit of fiction, love."

"Captain Geoffrey LeShaw!" Will pushes the novella in Jack's face and points with smug vindication at the hero's name. "You lied."

"I'm a pirate; we're a dishonest bunch."

"About everything?" Will's voice is pleasant enough, but Jack senses the verbal traps lurking in the question.

"We-ell, not about the important things." Gently he traces the boy's bottom lip with his dark finger. "We're deadly serious about them." Mindful of Will's injury, he leans in and kisses him reverently. Reluctantly he pulls back well aware that they cannot continue.

"The question really is, love, why you're so keen on reading about fluff and flowers? If I didn't know better, intimately, I would say you'd be a eunuch."

"Are you saying a man can't desire softness and tender expression?"

"No. Though why now? Feel the absence of something?" Will bites his lower lip and gazes at Jack's hand gently massaging his upper arm. Shifting with discomfiture he mumbles something too lowly for the man to hear.

"Will love, what was that?" Tenderly he tilts the boy's face up. An embarrassed blush colors his cheeks a wine red.

"It's nothing, truly, Jack."

"Will, I told you to tell me if something was bothering you, or if there is something you want me to do."

"Well…" Will picks at the embroidered coverlet and ducks his head. "You've never given me flowers."

"Flowers, lad?" Jack throws back his head and laughs deeply. The boy glares darkly at him.

"If you're just going to laugh, then you can leave, Captain Sparrow." The man instantly sobers at the boy's angry words. He brushes his fingertips against the upset furrow between Will's brows.

"I wasn't laughing at your request, precisely." He holds up a placating hand to forestall any further outbursts by the irate cabin boy. "It's simply this, Will-mine-own, you could ask for anything within my power to grant, jewels, rare treasures, exotic animals, daring feats, and I would expend my last breath to give them to you. But out of every conceivable desire in the world, out of everything that possesses a man's fancy, all you be wanting are a few flowers." He chuckles softly and kisses the boy's soft cheek. "Just flowers."

"Well, I like flowers," Will grouses, though a small smile curves his lips.

"Then flowers you shall have, my word upon it, mate."

"Is this the serious kind or the not serious kind."

"Ah Will, with you I am always serious. Unless it's some rot about not touching you. Then I'll have to regretfully renege."

"'Regretfully', I'm sure." The pirate hums in response, which, to tell the truth, isn't much of one, but Will lets it go graciously.

"Now, would you like me to read you another book?" Mischief lights Jack's dark eyes and he grins slyly.

"Dear Heavens, no"—pause—"Jack, why exactly do you have these? You don't…read them, do you?" It's hard to tell, but Will swears he can see a slight blush beneath the sun-color of the man's face. "Jack!"

"Well…Maybe I, too, have a spot for things romantic-like."

"You are a deep man, Captain Sparrow. Fathomless."

"And don't you be forgetting that, boy."

"Aye-aye, Captain."

*~*~*~*

[1] Castle of Otranto was originally written in 1764. I am fully aware that this is several decades after the time period of PotC (1720's). However, I believe that I am allowed to take some literary and historical license for the glory of the Parody and the majesty of the Satire. I guess you could say this is merely an endnote for the nitpickers out there.

[2] I couldn't resist a reference to Monty Python. My apologies.

[3] The book and its author are fictitious to my knowledge. However, if they both exist, then I, by no means, imply that what I have written to be true or authentic.

Final Note on OCs: This story is not meant to be a personal or impersonal attack on the writers of OC characters of the Mary Sue variety (invented character serving a role as a major character and becoming romantically involved with a canon character. The pairing looks like this Jack/OC, Will/OC, etc.). I myself have written quite a few when I first started out writing in eighth grade (I remember those days…Everything seemed so much simpler…no taxes, no budgeting for food and other expenses…). I am, also, not attacking the use of OCs, merely parodying and exaggerating them. This whole piece is meant to be a bit of fun. I personally do not enjoy reading OC pairings, but that is all. I never flame. I take the philosophy that, if I don't like something, I try not to involve myself in it.

I find it more of a challenge to write a romance between canon characters (especially of the slash variety) and find that, sometimes, not all the time, an OC is merely a perfected characterization of the author writing the fic. At least, that was how it was for me. I liked a character and I wanted to have some part of myself become romantically entangled with aforementioned character. Thus, I gave birth to a girl who could play me within the confines of the world of fiction. I don't know if this is true for other writers, but I just felt like putting this out.