Chapter Text
"This be your fault." It's said as Hector slaps down the bucket into the ominously growing waterline in the longboat, straightening from his crouch to pick his way to the other side. He's done bailing, it's Jack's turn, and he won't hear anything differently on the matter, as the bucket rocks around before slowly bobbing in the other pirate's direction.
"My fault. Oh, no, there, mate. You'll not be pinning this on me." Jack reaches out with one wet-booted toe and gives the bucket a gentle little nudge, sending it back in Hector's direction. "As I recall, it weren't me that riled the lovely little natives of that island back there."
The island behind Jack, that's grown smaller in the distance as the two had made a mad dash back out to sea after that disasterous run-in that will never be spoken of again, if Hector has his way about it.
The bucket comes closer, and Hector doesn't break stride at all, pushing it back at Jack with his own foot. "Aye, and nary would we have ended up on that little island with its lovely little natives, had Jack Sparrow not tried to claim that ship - which, I'll gladly add - we were only supposed to be using to get back to Tortuga, not attempt a mutiny on." Which is why they're even in the mess with the longboat in the first place. They were highly lucky it was a trader ship, and not another pirate's, or they'd both be sitting on a deserted beach somewhere fighting over a pistol.
The bucket bumps into Jack's leg, and he sends it once more in Hector's direction, giving it a sour look. "I was only tryin' to get us there a bit faster, mate."
"And we see how well that's worked out for us, don't we." Hector reaches up and yanks off his hat, at the same time pushing the bucket back at Jack before propping said hat on his knee, squinting upward. "And have I mentioned, then, we're both sittin' here in a longboat that's going down, and fast, and we'll both be in the Locker come nightfall thanks to your foolishness, unless you figure out a way to plug that hole."
Because Hector's thought about it, and he'll never admit it, but he simply doesn't have an answer to the problem. Everything they both own is back on the Pearl, and what they have on them now simply won't do the job. It's shameful, they're supposed to be Pirate Lords, and they're going to die because of a massively leaky longboat and Jack's own stupidity.
But Jack simply narrows his eyes at Hector for a long moment in thought, not answering, and quick as a flash snatches the hat from Hector's knee and plunges it through the murky water in the bottom of the boat. Finding the hole, he shoves the crown of it down as hard as he can, feeling it slide in and catch. And really, that should do it, at least until they can get picked up again. The oiled felt is, after all, waterproof.
Which is why he straightens, waving his dripping hands triumphantly at the fix. "There. All better." But that wide, gold-lined grin starts to droop, when he focuses on Hector across the space between them, because he knows what murder in Hector Barbossa's eyes looks like.
And that look he's giving Jack now is suspiciously similar.