Date: July 18,2003.
Length: 500 words.
Challenge: The first time.

Will clenched his teeth and glared at Jack, who was standing off to the side of the room, smiling, the bastard.

"You bastard," Will said. "You’re enjoying this."

Jack looked over one shoulder, then the other, despite the fact that he was leaning against a wall, and then widened his eyes in that ‘who me?’ way that he had.

"I’m not enjoying anything, whelp." Jack steadied himself against the wall, because all that moving around had unbalanced him. "I’m doing this for your own good. For your professional development."

Will grimaced. Whether it was because of the words or because the tattoo artist chose that moment to dig a little more deeply with his needle, the world would never know. Instead, Will glared at Jack, and then he looked to his right, to where the tattoo artist was sitting and glared at him for good measure, and then he took a swig from the bottle of rum in his hand. He didn’t glare at it. As far as he was concerned, the rum was his only friend in the room.

"But you already said that I was a pirate," Will said. "There’s absolutely no need for… any of this." He waved the hand with the bottle in it, careful not to move the rest of his body. Not that he could, with the grip the tattoo artist had on him. He was awfully strong for such a short man.

"A long time ago," he added. Jack wasn’t notoriously good at remembering things he’d said in the past. That much Will had learned from his two months aboard the Black Pearl, anyway.

"No," Jack said after a moment or two. Then he pushed himself away from the wall and swaggered across the room, towards Will. "No, I said that you were on your way to becoming a pirate. I didn’t say you were one."

Then, his point made, he turned on his heel, swaggering back again.

Will sighed. Then he winced, this time very obviously from the pain. Another swig of rum.

"But I don’t see how this is supposed to help my professional development. It’s on my shoulder. No one’s even going to see it."

Jack stopped where he was and turned back around very slowly. He looked rather horrified, but whether it was because Will had just uttered a travesty or because he hadn’t thought of that, Will didn’t know.

"You said that you wanted to be a pirate," Jack said. "All pirates have tattoos." He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and displayed his own, as if Will wasn’t intimately familiar with it.

Then, Jack stalked towards him again, leaning very close to Will, his mouth only millimeters from his ear.

"Besides," he whispered. "We’ll both know it’s there. That’s what counts, in’it."

Then he stepped away from Will and moved back across the room, leaning against the wall again. He raised an eyebrow in Will’s direction.

"Savvy?" he asked.

Will couldn’t help but smile slightly. "Savvy."