Title: The Pirate Code
Author: Tiffany Adams
Summary: Willy and other people reflect on his friendship with
Deadeye, and his sexuality. Slash companion piece to "Next" (gen
fanfic).
Rating: PG
Pairings: Willy/Mark, Willy Scott implied
Spoilers: not really

WARNING! This piece contains discussion of homosexuality, even if very
mild discussion. If this is not your cup of tea, please do not read
this fanfic.
______________________________________________________

~Willy~

	Pirate chiefs don't marry. 

	And neither do their best friends.

	Well, to be honest, the latter isn't an established tradition -
it's just something that happened. And I am married, but only in
Hawaii and Vermont. I've never looked up my status in the aniverse. 

	I probably shouldn't compare us; Deadeye wouldn't want it that
way. He never settled down because of some ridiculous law stating that
the chief of the pirate clans should never "tie himself down to one
lass." And it actually says that, to those words, in an eight hundred
year-old text known as the Pirate Code. When I was a kid, and Deadeye
mentioned it, I thought he was joking around. The idea that a bunch of
sober corsair canards would sit down and write a serious list of laws
seems strange, anyway. It seems to stand in direct opposition to the
lawlessness of their lifestyle. But when I got older, Bucky mentioned
in passing that it was a real work of literature, and I read it. It's
a silly, anachronistic text to be sure, but it provides evidence that
even pirates can be self-righteous, stringent sticklers of the law. I
also learned something else about what was acceptable to pirates,
something that kept me in the closet until I was dragged out kicking
and screaming.

	The aniverse is remarkably cool about this sort of thing. The
Aldeberans, for all of their outright racism and reverse misogynism,
are remarkably uninhibited about which way they swing, which can vary
from day to day. And Bucky could give a fuck. He was a little shocked,
to be sure, but nothing else. Bruiser, when he was alive, never said
anything, something I took to be a good sign. Blinky we won't even
discuss - "be a homophobe" is just not in his programming. Christ,
even the ultra-Orthodox Warners have done nothing but make jokes about
how nice it is that I've settled down with a nice Jewish boy. 

	Which brings us to the one person left on the crew of the
Righteous, who I cared about, respected, even looked up to as some
sort of idol, in all of his swashbuckling glory.

	And he wouldn't speak to me for a week.

	It's odd, but I think the only person who's complete rejection of
me would actually make me think about dropping the whole idea was
Deadeye. Granted, I didn't change my orientation, but I can assure you
that I was standing on some thin ice for the first few weeks of
getting the cold shoulder from Deadeye Duck.

	I guess I had a thing for Deadeye. Now, before you gag, it wasn't
a *sexual* thing. It was a role model thing. Not that Deadeye was a
good role model or anything. Maybe in comparison to other pirates, he
was on the straight-and-narrow, but he was always the rebel of the
crew, drinking heavily between flights and getting into brawls in the
bar while the Righteous was being gassed up. I was a kid, and then a
teenager, so I was really into that whole rebel thing, even if I
wasn't one myself. Hell, maybe it was because I was a huge geek that I
admired his whole drunken devil-may-care attitude. There were other
members of the crew who also had issues - Bucky, to be sure, had some
sort of serious death wish to be walking into all of those traps, and
a lot of people look up to that, but he wasn't *cool* the way Deadeye
was. 

	All of my fears that had developed since Scott had become more
than a friend became realized, and it broke my heart, more than I
expected it to. The nightmare that had become my friendship with my
crewmate was never-ending - after the first week, we did resume
speaking to each other - or, more accurately, him speaking to me. But
it was really only at Bucky's request, and the damage was long-done.

	A reconciliation of beliefs was not attempted. It would have been
fruitless. Deadeye was under enough pressure from the rest of the crew
to stop being a jerk without surrendering his code, and I was mentally
exhausted from Scott's betrayal and the fun of trying to navigate
working with someone who looked at you with one eye that rejected
every fiber of your being.

	So it began. We resumed speaking, and eventually, being friends.
But, to use the inappropriate term, the magic was gone from our
relationship. He still calls me "matey" and all that crap and invites
me to Rigel Seven to hang out, but there will always be an impassible
gap between us. There will always be issues, no matter how hammered we
get, that we can never share. I'm not the type to kiss-and-tell
anyway, but I've never been able to do that guy thing where they blab
about what relationships they've been in and what conquests they've
had, successful and unsuccessful. Some would say that's a level of
maturity, to not be talking about that sort of thing. I tend to think
differently.


~Deadeye~

	Ach, matey - I wish ye weren't so serious sometimes. Ye gotta
learn ta take life in stride. So yer a frellin' slag**. Ye don't thin'
I'm over it? Ya thin' I would talk ta ye if I cared? 

	Yeah, so I was o' bit shocked. Out o' me bloody mind, ta be
percise. It was sorta a big bomb ta drop, aye? Mybee my reaction wasn'
th' best. I'm only - wha's tha term ye would use? - hyoo-man?

	And there's th' Pirate Code. Bloody thing. Isn' worth the paper
'tis printed on, fer the most part. Now, don' let that get out ta th'
clans; they'll keel-haul me. But sometimes I wish I could find th'
frelling canards tha' wrote it and shove their blasters up their
arses. 

	See, there's somethin' ya don't understand about tha Pirate Code,
Willy me boy. Sure, there's some harkhra*** in there 'bout slags, an'
all that. An' then there's 'bout forty pages on mates, and how
important they are. An' ont th' technical term, I mean tha pirate term
fer friends. 

	Ye know why ya could never be a corsair canard, Willy? 'cuz ye
don' understand that ta a canard, a mate is tha most important thing
inna world.

	And ye'll always be me mate.



~Lanel~

	You think I'm an idiot, Deadeye? You think I don't know?

	Granted, you males sometimes aren't too swift. I would hardly
think that Red Jack or Blackbeak would possibly be as observant as I
can be, or they would have said something about your friend Willy.
Willy DuWitt, still very much the starry-eyed youth he was when I
first met him. He probably doesn't appreciate how close you keep him
while he's the guest of honor in your home, how much you try to shield
him from criticism and the prying eyes of the clans. 

	Gossip can be a nasty mistress, but so far, I haven't heard any.
You've been lucky that way, lucky that the only person who's noticed
the peculiar things about your hyoo-man friend is good at keeping her
mouth shut.
	
	You really think I haven't noticed how Willy never talks about
girls, no matter how graphic the tales of conquest can get around the
drunken table of the clan chieftain? How he just sits there silently,
while Deadeye wiggles uncomfortably and changes the subject quickly
whenever his guest gets dragged into the conversation? How he's
wearing what Jenny has informed me is a wedding ring?

	And I did ask her, despite my general disdain for the witch. As
one female to another, during the reception for your being named
chief, I corned her about it. And if anyone can cover something up,
it's Jenny O'Hare. Fortunately, her silence spoke more than words ever
could have.

	Don't worry, Deadeye - I won't tell. I wouldn't do that to you,
but especially not to Willy. Just between us, he's a good guy, and the
Code can go frell itself.   


End.

** pirate slang for homosexual
*** shit