The Raptors of Misdirection and Waxing Gibberish - Chapter 14
Title: The Raptors of Misdirection and Waxing Gibberish
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean; Sparrington
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I have no claim on POTC or the lovely characters who populate it, even if it seems that James Norrington is making himself quite at home in my head, the snarky British bastard.
Summary: The voyage from Singapore to World’s End is a long one. Months, in fact. It’s a very long time to have to spend stranded with two sentient ships in the middle of the desert with only one other conscious person on deck; however, life in Davy Jones’ Locker is better with company. With pleasurable company, especially, it can go quite well.
Note: Jack’s story about the strawberries was taken almost word for word (except that I Sparrowified it) from Neil Gaiman’s book American Gods, which everyone should read, because is an awesome book. It just really seemed like such a Jack Sparrow sort of tale, with an equally Sparrowish lesson behind it.
Chapter Fourteen
Life in the Locker was, to both captains’ surprise, livable. There was nothing to fear and no impending doom, no threat to hunt, and no one hunting them; their lives on pause until they could leave this place. It was, in its way, serene and peaceful. Occasionally the overwhelming dullness would begin to grate on one man, the other, or both, but there was occupation to be had, if one went looking for it: the Black Pearl needed a number of minor repairs, Jack’s cabin contained a small but respectable library, there was plotting to do, Jack was a fount of odd questions and bizarre anecdotes, James was a fount of witty retorts and thoughtful musings; and there was, of course, the sex.
From the very start, both men seemed determinedly hedonistic in that respect, if only to take advantage of the opportunity for indulgence, which neither of the captains got enough of in their normal day-to-day lives. There was also temptation aplenty to inspire them into seizing the most opportune moments, due to the simple fact that the two captains seemed to find a great deal of sex appeal in both witty banter and their companion’s abilities to form complex, elegant, and mischievous plots. James might, for instance, be in the middle of explaining his next idea, another contingency and the mad-seeming plan to take care of it, and suddenly Jack would stalk toward him until James’ words trailed away because James had not expected Jack to just drop to his knees like that and, oh, was there a thrill in what followed from there.
And with such activities taking up a surprising amount of their time, it seemed there would be little shortage of repairs needed around the ship: to tables and other furniture.
They did still possess some limitations, and thus spent a good deal of time doing things other than having sex. The captains were both, after all, active men by nature; however, they had little to do that was altogether useful, and thus had the opportunity to rediscover the ability to relax. The first time James had seen Jack sprawled out on deck as though sunbathing in his shirtsleeves and breeches, the ex-commodore had raised an eyebrow. The second time, he had sat down nearby and leaned his weight against a large stack of very neatly arranged rope coils, and proceeded to join the pirate in generally being a layabout.
Of course, then, to the ex-commodore’s initial perturbation, Jack decided to use James as a piece of furniture: resting his head on him, leaning on him, half-sprawling across him on the occasion that James lay flat.
Within a number of days, not quite a week, James found himself adjusting with a hint of unease to the way that Jack seemed to almost constantly seek physical contact. Having been raised as starched and British as he had been, James was still a bit thrown off by close proximity to most people, and physical affection outside the realm of the sexual. Jack, however, seemed to require it as much as he required air. Slowly, James ceased turning instinctively stiff-spined whenever the Jack leaned on him, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, or--as happened increasingly often--draped across him like a huge and eccentrically decorated cat.
Within two weeks, James found himself unconsciously returning Jack’s gestures: leaning back a bit against the pirate, or resting a hand on his shoulder or hip. Eventually he even took to using the other man as a pillow, as well, when they chose to be lazy. There was a kind of animal comfort in it, and it was base without being savage, which was still, to James, something of a novel experience--outside the realm of things sexual. To his surprise, he quite liked it, and he also quite liked Jack Sparrow, for all that the pirate captain could be infuriatingly circuitous and teasing and ridiculously whimsical, and James could only believe about half of what the other man said about past events. Jack was colorful, interesting, intelligent, challenging, and the constant teasing just meant that they were rarely short of some manner of game between them.
James was somewhat startled to realize that he had never been as content and clear-headed as he currently was without being at sea. He did not mention it to Jack, but held a sinking suspicion that the pirate had already worked it out anyway.
The quiet was dispelled by the sound of metal on metal: a rough and clattering hiss, one sword-blade teasingly grazing another.
James only arched an eyebrow at Jack’s taunting motions, unfooled and undistracted by the ploy. “It’s about time we finally crossed blades, James.” That was what Jack had said, and that was how it had started. Now James’ body hummed with a swordsman’s sense of anticipation as they circled each other. Coats and baldrics, as well as a few of the bulkier items dangling off of Jack’s belt, had been set aside: too encumbering.
The two men moved slowly, fluidly, like a pair of big cats, but the keenness of their focus on each other’s eyes was more reminiscent of a pair of raptors: sparrow-hawk and goshawk. Jack spotted an opportunity first, and struck out. James parried, and with the first loud clash of metal, the fight was on and both men grinned like devils.
Neither was surprised by the evidence of formal and classical training evident in the other man’s style, or by the underhanded and unconventional tricks both men seemed instinctively prone toward using. James was also not surprised by the wild, distracting flourishes and inebriated-looking feints that the pirate used. Jack was not surprised at the matter-of-fact quality of James’ every move: the way that he seemed to parry sarcastically and feint with apparent boredom, only to smirk viciously on the occasion that his tactics made the pirate stumble. Jack was surprised to note that James fought like a young man, like a far more experienced William Turner, with a bit more patience and precision, and without quite the same tendency to use acrobatics; James did not fight like most men old enough to become a commodore of the British Royal Navy.
James had the advantages of height and reach. Jack’s edge lay in speed, a hint of acrobatics, and more intimate knowledge of the terrain (the deck of his dear Black Pearl, of course) than James could dream of--for all that the last weeks had given the ex-commodore plenty of time to get to know it, and more intimately than most. The pair of them were matched quite evenly.
Eventually, as they grew more and more at ease with each other and each other’s fighting style, their pace sped, and their postures grew less playful, more determined--not viciously or with harmful intent, but out of eagerness.
They bantered about the relative usefulness of moves from the newer French style as they pushed and lured and darted their way across the deck through several series.
Briefly, Jack managed to sidle in too-close and disarm James, but the taller man surprised him by deliberately falling, catching himself on his hands, and--in the process--using both of his long legs to sweep Jack’s feet out from under him at the knees: a move he had taught himself after seeing it used in a few brawls on the docks of one of Brazil’s port towns. As the pirate flailed and scarcely avoided tumbling to the deck, James leapt back up to his feet and ran to pick up his sword again, grinning viciously.
Jack, instinctively standing in a defensive pose once he had his feet under him again, had both eyebrows raised in surprise. “Good one, mate,” he panted.
James bowed his head slightly, and moved towards the pirate warily. “I could say the same for you, Jack.” Then he smirked again. Once close enough, he double-feinted, and then made a rapid series of precise cuts, which Jack stumbled back to avoid, only to lash out with a few moves flashy enough that James had to make a serious effort not to roll his eyes, which was a little distracting.
“You don’t seem the usual Capoeira type, Jamie.”
“What about a chicken coop?”
“Ah. You do speak Portuguese. But that’s beside the point: if you don’t know what Capoeira is, where did you learn that move?”
Still enjoying the swordfight as he did so, James told him, his storytelling not hindering his blade work in the slightest. He finished his tale with: “I saw the move was quite useful, and therefore endeavored to practice it on my own, since my captivity at that point left me with a lot of free time; although wearing chains made practice a bit more difficult. And also: I understand Portuguese, but I cannot speak it--or, rather, I cannot speak it very well; my accent with Spanish is fine, as with French, but when I attempt to speak Portuguese, the both of those accents seem to mix together strangely with my usual British and the result is positively atrocious.”
“Ah. Well, what you saw that lad use, then, was from a tradition-” a slight pause, a clash of metal that absorbed all his attention, then a riposte and a grin, even as James blocked it “-known on the street as Capoeira.” Jack’s grin widened as he forced James to step back, only to nearly lose his footing on a bit of loose rope. “And, while we’re here, we’ve got time to work on your Portuguese, if you like, Jamie.”
“I may take you up on that.” Then James kicked the coil of rope into the air so that Jack had to dodge it, which gave the ex-commodore the opportunity to get in closer and mount a new attack even as Jack cursed at him.
Jack taunted James for his more deceptive and piratical moves, when they occurred.
Similarly, James taunted Jack for his least flashy and most classical ones.
They both laughed now and then, breathlessly, and did not grow any less vigilant for it as they fought. When they grew too weary, the two stepped back from each other and saluted with their swords, bowed slightly, and then let up on formalities to clean and check their blades.
Jack shot James a smoldering look, and in return, James looked at him archly, but there was intrigue in the smug way that he smiled. Jack lifted his sword-blade near his face as though inspecting it closely, and ran the tip of his tongue up a meandering little path along the flat of the blade. He then sheathed it and, grinning brazenly, admired the look of surprise and raw lust on the face of ex-commodore James Norrington.
As though it were a mere after-thought, James sheathed his own blade, and moved with sudden alacrity to tackle Captain Jack Sparrow to the deck. Jack’s laughter rose into the air and then caught, cutting off with a pleasantly surprised gasp.
Early on, they had agreed, as men of action, not to go mad(er than usual) and to distract each other from maddening boredom accordingly. Of course, rather often, the act of providing distraction led to a number of interesting entanglements throughout the ship: on deck, in the hold, all over Jack’s cabin, throughout the main cabin, in the rigging, against the masts, once or twice in the crow’s nest, two or three times atop the topsail with some creative use of rope, and even draped across one or two of the cannons. On one occasion, Jack had also found himself pinned firmly against the wheel of the helm, but due to both the captains’ sheer enthusiasm, the events that had followed nearly led to ship-damage, which the ship herself was quick to be annoyed with them about for a day or two, and so they did not try that one again, for all that it had been a very good session, indeed--albeit one that had resulted in strange bruises.
They ate and drank when they were hungry or thirsty, but their metabolic needs had been slowed down since their “death” and they required very little, perhaps one full meal every few days; also, Jack was determined not to run out of rum, even if it meant that he had to ration it for himself. For the first week, neither of them felt tired enough to sleep. By the third week, both of them had discovered that the only sleep to be had would be fraught with their worst nightmares.
Jack dealt with his own well enough, as they were most of them familiar from his darker, madder days in the ten years without his Black Pearl; although there a few new ones about going mad alone on his ship in the Locker, about crushing black depths, about himself or James jumping head-first through the foul breath of the kracken and all those rows of teeth--or even about himself turning into a cross between Davy Jones’ fishy men and a skeleton cursed like Barbossa, proceeding to murder every pirate in existence and James as well on Beckett’s whim. He would awake, usually flailing violently and shouting something incoherent as his heart hammered fit to burst from his chest. He then sought the warmest place available--usually curled up against, entangled with, or partially wrapped around James Norrington, who obliged him without question and with a surprisingly tactful hint of tenderness that held nothing of pity in it--and stayed very still as he got his breathing back under control and stopped shaking like an old woman. Then he would completely erase the dream from his mind by passionately ravishing James, since it had proven to be such an efficient distraction, and it made Jack feel alive and free and like he was definitely still Captain Jack Sparrow.
By contrast, James did not, at first, linger anywhere near Jack; coated in a thin sheen of cold sweat, his skin crawling and his calm shattered: James, after his nightmares, tended to be surly in a vulnerable fashion, and at first, any attempt to touch him was met with jerky aversion that bordered on real fear, or possibly self-disgust. This unsettled Jack more than he was comfortable with, and he sought to change it for the better, continuing despite resistance to reach for the slightly maddening green-eyed man he’d grown so fond of. At one point, James went so far as to snap at him, “I can’t--damn it, Jack,” before making hasty retreat as he had in the times before. Isolation, and time to rebuild his stony masks, were the only remedy he knew. Only once more did Jack have to try again to stop him, this time holding tight to James’ wrist before he could pull away further.
This time, James had dozed off on deck, stripped to the waist as had befitted his casual maintenance work in the rigging before weariness had hit him. Jack was similarly clothed, and had been content to let James use his chest as a pillow, until sleep and its nightmares had hit. James tugged pointedly at the grip on his wrist and glared at Jack.
Jack’s voice was soft, and gently insistent. “No running, this time, James. Stay with me, here.”
James closed his eyes tightly, speaking through gritted teeth. “They did not break me then, and these dreams cannot break me now, but if you keep me here and keep...keep talking softly and kindly like that, then God help me, Jack, some part of me will break, in spite of myself,” he confessed, glaring resentfully.
The pirate thought it over for a moment. Then, with more stoic tones, said, “Then I won’t talk, but you look like you could use the warmth, mate.”
James snorted defiantly, but when Jack pulled him back down, he let himself be moved, and rested where the pirate put him, trying not to make any kind of sound as the warmth of Jack’s body seeped into him and the scent of Jack’s skin cleared his mind of the lingering dream-scents of fear and filth and blood. Instead, James focused on forcing himself to breathe evenly, smoothly: reasserting control over himself.
Just as with a number of Jack’s nightmares, they merely lay close together, this time with James resting partway on Jack’s abdomen, his forearms resting on either side of their bodies, elbows bent, hands balled into fists, and his brow resting on Jack’s chest. James’ muscles were stiff, tense, and his breathing ragged. He was unwilling to let himself be vulnerable enough to accept comfort, for fear he might one day need it and not have it, as had always been the case before. He did all but openly resist it, now: the warmth, the soothing sounds of Jack’s breathing, one of Jack’s arms resting across him almost possessively. Slowly, the pounding of his heart slowed to normal, and the metallic taste of horror on his tongue faded.
Once James had mostly collected himself--enough, at least, to be sardonic, but (sadly) not yet quite enough to have fully regained his sense of humor--Jack made a low, thoughtful noise. “Can I tell you a bit of story, James?” he murmured, his voice sounding distant and almost drowsy, as though this were but the most idle and random of inquiries.
By way of reply James was able to lift his head from Jack’s chest enough to peer up at the pirate and arch one eyebrow in what was a rather insultingly cold manner, all things considered; it said, I am not fooled, Mr. Sparrow.
“Just a short one, love. A parable, really. I think you’ll find it int’resting.”
James did not roll his eyes, but the very telling, flat look of disbelief on his face worked to similar effect, and was much more dignified besides. If needed, James Norrington was capable of holding an entire conversation using only sardonic facial expressions.
Jack snorted. “So anyway, there’s this guy, right? A traveller, just like us all. And he’s fallen down a cliff, but caught himself just about halfway down, from a narrow little sapling growin’ out of the cliff face, but it’s breaking and there don’t seem to be any others, the only thing in reach is a small patch of wild strawberries sittin’ in front of him, in full fruit with some lovely, large red strawberries on them. Well, he fell over the edge in the first place because of a pack of wolves after him, and they’re pacing on the edge of the cliff. He can see them up there, and they’re waiting for him, waiting to see if he’ll die by hitting any of the wide array of unmissable jagged pointy rocks beneath him, or if he might somehow make a miraculous climb...into the jaws of death, anyway. Do you follow me so far, here, Jamie?”
Blinking a few times to dispel the vague cloud of confusion as to where the Hell he was going with this, James arched an eyebrow, but nodded. “I do, I believe, ‘savvy’, Jack. So far.” Get to the point, he did not say, but it was strongly implied.
That earned a bit of a smirk from the pirate. “Well, here’s the question, ay: what’s he do now, with death above and death below. Kind of like the day to day life of most any mortal man, whether he realizes it or not. Anyway. What’s any man to do is such a situation as our traveler’s, ay, Jamie?”
James’ brow furrowed. After a long moment, he sighed. “I concede my ignorance. I do not know,” he said at last.
“That was clear to me from the beginning, mate, hence the tale.” Jack grinned knowingly, folding his arms behind his head in a gesture of triumph. “I’ll tell you what he should do, James.” Then he leaned his head forward enough that James felt a whisper of the pirate’s breath across his face. “Eat the bloody strawberries.”
At first, James glared at him, vaguely supercilious, but then it faded into a thoughtful expression. Reluctantly, the ex-commodore smirked, trying in vain to hide it by resting his brow on Jack’s collarbone. “Alright. I get the point. Damn you,” he muttered affectionately. “The next thing I know, you will be telling me that the strawberries were shiny.”
Jack chuckled, then raised his eyebrows at the feel of James’ tongue tracing a pattern on his skin. “Feeling better then, love?”
“A bit hungry,” James replied, his arms uncurling enough to rest his hands on either side of Jack’s ribcage. He peered up at Jack again, and smirked in a slow, confident manner that made the pirate feel very warm indeed.
“Well...I am shiny,” Jack mused, licking his lips.
Both captains spent a lot of time staring out at the horizon, and Jack, instigator that he was, tried to keep up conversation. In combination with rum and some of the other liquors from the hold of the Gold Hawk, this led inevitably to some deeply revealing and almost tender moments, which almost all seemed to start with comparing battle-scars.
James explained the rapier-slash on his abdomen that would have possibly disemboweled him, if the blade had only gone a bit deeper.
Jack showed off and explicated several nicks, both large and small, from various sword blades, and a couple of knife-gouges that had left deeper scar tissue.
James explained the deep puncture in his left calf as from a shattered bulkhead, due to cannon-fire, back when he had been a midshipman.
They compared bullet wounds from pistols and muskets. James quietly marveled at how much fewer Jack possessed than he might have expected, given how often people tried to shoot him. Jack quietly marveled at how James had managed to get as many as three, which was at least two more than the pirate had expected to find.
Jack told about his own whip marks and his early experiences with less honorable captains, pirate and otherwise.
James explained the several cat o’ nine-tails marks across his back: from a man, who had purchased him from a corrupt prison official, with intent to break him and resell him once he was obedient; the cat had been used only after the initial attempts, resulting in the few whip marks on James’ chest and shoulders, had failed. James had strangled the man with that whip.
Jack told him about the mutiny, about being marooned, and finally killing Barbossa.
It took a bottle of scotch and a few respectable pulls of Jack’s rum, but James told him about his final, successful escape from the Spanish, how the shackles had been so intrinsically involved, and why Theodore Groves knew very well that James Norrington could function more than satisfactorily in spite of not only just a concussion, but also with a concussion with its effects compounded by the beginnings of fever and a few days without food. James also told of what he had done once he had recovered, and how many men he had killed.
After draining an entire bottle of rum, Jack extolled the details behind his pirate brand, the slave cargo, the multiple betrayals, and Cutler Beckett’s parts in all of it. He told him about selling his soul to Jones and then raiding and outright sinking a number of Becketts ships and their men in the black rage that had consumed him for a time, then.
Throughout and after each session of confessions, they shared long moments of quiet. When the alcohol was gone and the words ran dry, they retired to Jack’s cabin without speaking, but they were always touching, sometimes softly, sometimes more urgently, always with the mutual intent to feel human.
After seven weeks, they had run out of tales of injury and loss, and discussed past romances instead. James explained, amused at the expression of mixed intrigue and shock crossing Jack’s face as he did so, that his first love had been a young lieutenant back when James himself was an even-younger midshipman of fourteen, for all that even then he had been mistaken for older, having grown tall and deep-voiced early on. James had discovered women two years later, and found them satisfactory sexually, but had not loved any of them until Elizabeth grew into a fiercely intelligent spitfire, and shown the promise of being his equal.
Jack’s history was somewhat the reverse, but his problem with men had been less a matter of finding intelligence in his partners, but instead the issue of his total inability to trust any of them. Thus, while Jack had a great deal more bed-partners in his history, he and James were nearly equal in the number of people they had actually loved, whether or not they actually pursued said persons, or, in James’ case, accepted or rejected one said person’s pursuit: one Theodore Groves most notably.
Jack marveled at this. How James had so easily put that to as stop, when, at the time, there had been much apparent potential, so far as the pirate could see it.
“He was very drunk.”
“But you obviously care for the man,” Jack protested.
“As you do Anamaria, perhaps,” James countered.
Jack opened his mouth to protest, then closed it, but, as usual, the quiet did not last very long. “But you’ve no real worry that he’ll kill you in your sleep.”
“I worry that he would die for me.”
Jack’s eyebrows lifted in a look of sudden comprehension. “Ah. I see that, then. You’re not the type for that. Makes sense.”
“What ‘type’ is that, exactly?”
“Idealist. Romantic. Overrun by your passions. Will and ‘Lizbeth, for example.”
James smiled bitterly. “I suppose so.”
“But you like wildfire, for all that you keep your own so controlled,” Jack mused. He was aware of the thoughtful look James was giving him.
“I suppose that I do. What is a hunter without something wild to chase?” He snorted, lifting his half-empty brandy bottle to his lips and muttering into it, “Other than bored out of his mind, of course.” Then he took a small swig.
“Lonely,” Jack added.
“Mm. Hunting can be a lonely business, with or without prey. You know that as well as I do, Jack,” the ex-commodore said.
“Aye, that I do.”
They glanced at each other, then turned their heads a bit and held one another’s gaze without discomfort, each man calmly reading his companion’s face, or perhaps simply admiring, or, more likely, both.
“Do you trust me, Jamie?” Jack asked, his voice soft, but solemn despite the teasing edge to his gold-gilt grin.
A pause followed, and throughout it, James’ eyes were as stormy as the thoughts behind them, but not in a bad way: just intense. “I trust you to be who and what you are, and I think I have a very good idea as to the nature of both. I trust you to keep your word, but I will always be keen to straighten out the exact interpretation of that word’s meaning.” Another, briefer pause, and then he added, “I feel that I can trust you with my life, because, if I’m not mistaken, you’ve come to value it.”
Jack smiled, oddly pleased and a little amused. “Aye. I value it. Not a treasure I think I could stand to be parted from for too long a time, at this point. If it weren’t such an unwieldy thing, I’d have tried to find a way to weave it into my hair.” He looked away, sipping at his rum and leaning back so that his shoulder blades rested against James’ arm; if not for his words, then the gesture would have been one of laziness and mere companionship, as it had been all of the numerous times that Jack had done it before.
James blinked a few times, surprised by the admission, and by the way it formed an warm, tight knot in his chest that should have been painful, but wasn’t; it was, in fact, quite the opposite of pain. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again when he found words momentarily eluding him. In their stead, James chose action, however small, shifting his arm so that it wrapped around Jack’s waist, pulling the pirate back to lean against his abdomen instead. The easy way that the pirate allowed himself to be maneuvered made James think of a cat in a sunbeam. Nuzzling Jack’s hair just behind his piratically pierced ear, James found words again and said, in a quiet rumble, “I am rather inclined to value yours as well, Jack Sparrow.”
“Captain.”
James smirked. “I know. Really, I know. You did, after all, have me on the deck of your ship, Jack.” His voice was low, slightly rough, and seductive: gravel and velvet.
Grinning like a cheshire cat with an assortment of gold teeth, Jack chuckled. “Aye. So I did.” The smugness was almost tangible.
“And in the rigging, and in your cabin, across your desk, and on top of the cannon...”
Jack was feeling warmer already. “ I suppose that can exempt you from usin’ the title all the time.” Then he shivered at the feel of James’ tongue flicking against the back of his ear. “When I value somethin’, Jamie, as I pirate I’ve a tendency to claim it. An’ I keep what’s mine.”
“And as the sort of rogue I now am, Jack, I have every intention of doing similarly,” James purred. Then the taller man bit the back of the pirate’s neck where it met the shoulder. Jack instinctively corked his bottled of rum and let it roll away a safe distance across the deck before it could be lost or spilled in the ensuing ravishment, but James apparently had plans for the brandy, much of which was spilled on the deck; but it was worth it, because most of it was licked slowly off of Jack’s skin, and the rest was licked off of James.
“Do you suppose we’ve yet gone mad, James?”
“By what standard?”
“Well...you’re in love with a pirate, and not only do I feel similarly for an ex-officer of His Majesty’s Royal Navy who tried to hang me, but I also crave brandy instead of rum for the first time in me life, and it’s all your fault.”
A hint of a smug grin. “I see your point, but--nhnn...don’t stop doing that...”
“This?” Jack’s fingertips gently stroked the small scar at his waist: feather-light touch.
James shivered and made a soft sound suspiciously like a purr. “Yes...and as I was saying: if this is madness, I’m not particularly complaining.”
“But do you say that just because of this?”
A low moan escaped James as the pirate’s rough and ring-decorated hand stroked the hard length of him: metal and skin and maddening friction. Then Jack stopped, which was equally maddening, but James managed to hold onto his self-control. Once he had quickly caught his breath, James was able to muse airily, “Well, yes, perhaps your...ahem...handling of me may be contributing to my general lack of complaints about our situation, but that’s a sane enough, human enough reaction, I think.”
“How long have we been here, anyway?”
“Mmn?” James was understandably distracted.
“In the locker.”
“Oh. Um.” James tried to concentrate, despite the fact that Jack was sliding down his body to rest on his knees. He could feel the pirate’s breath feathering across the skin just beneath his navel. “Eight and a half weeks,” he said, his voice sounding faint, because he was focusing rather intently on the way that Jack was staring up at him, looking like mischief incarnate.
Jack licked his lips. “Think the madness will last, then?”
“If I say yes, which I plan on doing anyway, will you please just--ohGodJackYES!”
Life, such as it was, spent waiting for rescue in Davy Jones’ Locker, had proven very livable indeed; at least it was, so long as there was pleasurable company to be had with it.
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Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean; Sparrington
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I have no claim on POTC or the lovely characters who populate it, even if it seems that James Norrington is making himself quite at home in my head, the snarky British bastard.
Summary: The voyage from Singapore to World’s End is a long one. Months, in fact. It’s a very long time to have to spend stranded with two sentient ships in the middle of the desert with only one other conscious person on deck; however, life in Davy Jones’ Locker is better with company. With pleasurable company, especially, it can go quite well.
Note: Jack’s story about the strawberries was taken almost word for word (except that I Sparrowified it) from Neil Gaiman’s book American Gods, which everyone should read, because is an awesome book. It just really seemed like such a Jack Sparrow sort of tale, with an equally Sparrowish lesson behind it.
Chapter Fourteen
Life in the Locker was, to both captains’ surprise, livable. There was nothing to fear and no impending doom, no threat to hunt, and no one hunting them; their lives on pause until they could leave this place. It was, in its way, serene and peaceful. Occasionally the overwhelming dullness would begin to grate on one man, the other, or both, but there was occupation to be had, if one went looking for it: the Black Pearl needed a number of minor repairs, Jack’s cabin contained a small but respectable library, there was plotting to do, Jack was a fount of odd questions and bizarre anecdotes, James was a fount of witty retorts and thoughtful musings; and there was, of course, the sex.
From the very start, both men seemed determinedly hedonistic in that respect, if only to take advantage of the opportunity for indulgence, which neither of the captains got enough of in their normal day-to-day lives. There was also temptation aplenty to inspire them into seizing the most opportune moments, due to the simple fact that the two captains seemed to find a great deal of sex appeal in both witty banter and their companion’s abilities to form complex, elegant, and mischievous plots. James might, for instance, be in the middle of explaining his next idea, another contingency and the mad-seeming plan to take care of it, and suddenly Jack would stalk toward him until James’ words trailed away because James had not expected Jack to just drop to his knees like that and, oh, was there a thrill in what followed from there.
And with such activities taking up a surprising amount of their time, it seemed there would be little shortage of repairs needed around the ship: to tables and other furniture.
They did still possess some limitations, and thus spent a good deal of time doing things other than having sex. The captains were both, after all, active men by nature; however, they had little to do that was altogether useful, and thus had the opportunity to rediscover the ability to relax. The first time James had seen Jack sprawled out on deck as though sunbathing in his shirtsleeves and breeches, the ex-commodore had raised an eyebrow. The second time, he had sat down nearby and leaned his weight against a large stack of very neatly arranged rope coils, and proceeded to join the pirate in generally being a layabout.
Of course, then, to the ex-commodore’s initial perturbation, Jack decided to use James as a piece of furniture: resting his head on him, leaning on him, half-sprawling across him on the occasion that James lay flat.
Within a number of days, not quite a week, James found himself adjusting with a hint of unease to the way that Jack seemed to almost constantly seek physical contact. Having been raised as starched and British as he had been, James was still a bit thrown off by close proximity to most people, and physical affection outside the realm of the sexual. Jack, however, seemed to require it as much as he required air. Slowly, James ceased turning instinctively stiff-spined whenever the Jack leaned on him, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, or--as happened increasingly often--draped across him like a huge and eccentrically decorated cat.
Within two weeks, James found himself unconsciously returning Jack’s gestures: leaning back a bit against the pirate, or resting a hand on his shoulder or hip. Eventually he even took to using the other man as a pillow, as well, when they chose to be lazy. There was a kind of animal comfort in it, and it was base without being savage, which was still, to James, something of a novel experience--outside the realm of things sexual. To his surprise, he quite liked it, and he also quite liked Jack Sparrow, for all that the pirate captain could be infuriatingly circuitous and teasing and ridiculously whimsical, and James could only believe about half of what the other man said about past events. Jack was colorful, interesting, intelligent, challenging, and the constant teasing just meant that they were rarely short of some manner of game between them.
James was somewhat startled to realize that he had never been as content and clear-headed as he currently was without being at sea. He did not mention it to Jack, but held a sinking suspicion that the pirate had already worked it out anyway.
The quiet was dispelled by the sound of metal on metal: a rough and clattering hiss, one sword-blade teasingly grazing another.
James only arched an eyebrow at Jack’s taunting motions, unfooled and undistracted by the ploy. “It’s about time we finally crossed blades, James.” That was what Jack had said, and that was how it had started. Now James’ body hummed with a swordsman’s sense of anticipation as they circled each other. Coats and baldrics, as well as a few of the bulkier items dangling off of Jack’s belt, had been set aside: too encumbering.
The two men moved slowly, fluidly, like a pair of big cats, but the keenness of their focus on each other’s eyes was more reminiscent of a pair of raptors: sparrow-hawk and goshawk. Jack spotted an opportunity first, and struck out. James parried, and with the first loud clash of metal, the fight was on and both men grinned like devils.
Neither was surprised by the evidence of formal and classical training evident in the other man’s style, or by the underhanded and unconventional tricks both men seemed instinctively prone toward using. James was also not surprised by the wild, distracting flourishes and inebriated-looking feints that the pirate used. Jack was not surprised at the matter-of-fact quality of James’ every move: the way that he seemed to parry sarcastically and feint with apparent boredom, only to smirk viciously on the occasion that his tactics made the pirate stumble. Jack was surprised to note that James fought like a young man, like a far more experienced William Turner, with a bit more patience and precision, and without quite the same tendency to use acrobatics; James did not fight like most men old enough to become a commodore of the British Royal Navy.
James had the advantages of height and reach. Jack’s edge lay in speed, a hint of acrobatics, and more intimate knowledge of the terrain (the deck of his dear Black Pearl, of course) than James could dream of--for all that the last weeks had given the ex-commodore plenty of time to get to know it, and more intimately than most. The pair of them were matched quite evenly.
Eventually, as they grew more and more at ease with each other and each other’s fighting style, their pace sped, and their postures grew less playful, more determined--not viciously or with harmful intent, but out of eagerness.
They bantered about the relative usefulness of moves from the newer French style as they pushed and lured and darted their way across the deck through several series.
Briefly, Jack managed to sidle in too-close and disarm James, but the taller man surprised him by deliberately falling, catching himself on his hands, and--in the process--using both of his long legs to sweep Jack’s feet out from under him at the knees: a move he had taught himself after seeing it used in a few brawls on the docks of one of Brazil’s port towns. As the pirate flailed and scarcely avoided tumbling to the deck, James leapt back up to his feet and ran to pick up his sword again, grinning viciously.
Jack, instinctively standing in a defensive pose once he had his feet under him again, had both eyebrows raised in surprise. “Good one, mate,” he panted.
James bowed his head slightly, and moved towards the pirate warily. “I could say the same for you, Jack.” Then he smirked again. Once close enough, he double-feinted, and then made a rapid series of precise cuts, which Jack stumbled back to avoid, only to lash out with a few moves flashy enough that James had to make a serious effort not to roll his eyes, which was a little distracting.
“You don’t seem the usual Capoeira type, Jamie.”
“What about a chicken coop?”
“Ah. You do speak Portuguese. But that’s beside the point: if you don’t know what Capoeira is, where did you learn that move?”
Still enjoying the swordfight as he did so, James told him, his storytelling not hindering his blade work in the slightest. He finished his tale with: “I saw the move was quite useful, and therefore endeavored to practice it on my own, since my captivity at that point left me with a lot of free time; although wearing chains made practice a bit more difficult. And also: I understand Portuguese, but I cannot speak it--or, rather, I cannot speak it very well; my accent with Spanish is fine, as with French, but when I attempt to speak Portuguese, the both of those accents seem to mix together strangely with my usual British and the result is positively atrocious.”
“Ah. Well, what you saw that lad use, then, was from a tradition-” a slight pause, a clash of metal that absorbed all his attention, then a riposte and a grin, even as James blocked it “-known on the street as Capoeira.” Jack’s grin widened as he forced James to step back, only to nearly lose his footing on a bit of loose rope. “And, while we’re here, we’ve got time to work on your Portuguese, if you like, Jamie.”
“I may take you up on that.” Then James kicked the coil of rope into the air so that Jack had to dodge it, which gave the ex-commodore the opportunity to get in closer and mount a new attack even as Jack cursed at him.
Jack taunted James for his more deceptive and piratical moves, when they occurred.
Similarly, James taunted Jack for his least flashy and most classical ones.
They both laughed now and then, breathlessly, and did not grow any less vigilant for it as they fought. When they grew too weary, the two stepped back from each other and saluted with their swords, bowed slightly, and then let up on formalities to clean and check their blades.
Jack shot James a smoldering look, and in return, James looked at him archly, but there was intrigue in the smug way that he smiled. Jack lifted his sword-blade near his face as though inspecting it closely, and ran the tip of his tongue up a meandering little path along the flat of the blade. He then sheathed it and, grinning brazenly, admired the look of surprise and raw lust on the face of ex-commodore James Norrington.
As though it were a mere after-thought, James sheathed his own blade, and moved with sudden alacrity to tackle Captain Jack Sparrow to the deck. Jack’s laughter rose into the air and then caught, cutting off with a pleasantly surprised gasp.
Early on, they had agreed, as men of action, not to go mad(er than usual) and to distract each other from maddening boredom accordingly. Of course, rather often, the act of providing distraction led to a number of interesting entanglements throughout the ship: on deck, in the hold, all over Jack’s cabin, throughout the main cabin, in the rigging, against the masts, once or twice in the crow’s nest, two or three times atop the topsail with some creative use of rope, and even draped across one or two of the cannons. On one occasion, Jack had also found himself pinned firmly against the wheel of the helm, but due to both the captains’ sheer enthusiasm, the events that had followed nearly led to ship-damage, which the ship herself was quick to be annoyed with them about for a day or two, and so they did not try that one again, for all that it had been a very good session, indeed--albeit one that had resulted in strange bruises.
They ate and drank when they were hungry or thirsty, but their metabolic needs had been slowed down since their “death” and they required very little, perhaps one full meal every few days; also, Jack was determined not to run out of rum, even if it meant that he had to ration it for himself. For the first week, neither of them felt tired enough to sleep. By the third week, both of them had discovered that the only sleep to be had would be fraught with their worst nightmares.
Jack dealt with his own well enough, as they were most of them familiar from his darker, madder days in the ten years without his Black Pearl; although there a few new ones about going mad alone on his ship in the Locker, about crushing black depths, about himself or James jumping head-first through the foul breath of the kracken and all those rows of teeth--or even about himself turning into a cross between Davy Jones’ fishy men and a skeleton cursed like Barbossa, proceeding to murder every pirate in existence and James as well on Beckett’s whim. He would awake, usually flailing violently and shouting something incoherent as his heart hammered fit to burst from his chest. He then sought the warmest place available--usually curled up against, entangled with, or partially wrapped around James Norrington, who obliged him without question and with a surprisingly tactful hint of tenderness that held nothing of pity in it--and stayed very still as he got his breathing back under control and stopped shaking like an old woman. Then he would completely erase the dream from his mind by passionately ravishing James, since it had proven to be such an efficient distraction, and it made Jack feel alive and free and like he was definitely still Captain Jack Sparrow.
By contrast, James did not, at first, linger anywhere near Jack; coated in a thin sheen of cold sweat, his skin crawling and his calm shattered: James, after his nightmares, tended to be surly in a vulnerable fashion, and at first, any attempt to touch him was met with jerky aversion that bordered on real fear, or possibly self-disgust. This unsettled Jack more than he was comfortable with, and he sought to change it for the better, continuing despite resistance to reach for the slightly maddening green-eyed man he’d grown so fond of. At one point, James went so far as to snap at him, “I can’t--damn it, Jack,” before making hasty retreat as he had in the times before. Isolation, and time to rebuild his stony masks, were the only remedy he knew. Only once more did Jack have to try again to stop him, this time holding tight to James’ wrist before he could pull away further.
This time, James had dozed off on deck, stripped to the waist as had befitted his casual maintenance work in the rigging before weariness had hit him. Jack was similarly clothed, and had been content to let James use his chest as a pillow, until sleep and its nightmares had hit. James tugged pointedly at the grip on his wrist and glared at Jack.
Jack’s voice was soft, and gently insistent. “No running, this time, James. Stay with me, here.”
James closed his eyes tightly, speaking through gritted teeth. “They did not break me then, and these dreams cannot break me now, but if you keep me here and keep...keep talking softly and kindly like that, then God help me, Jack, some part of me will break, in spite of myself,” he confessed, glaring resentfully.
The pirate thought it over for a moment. Then, with more stoic tones, said, “Then I won’t talk, but you look like you could use the warmth, mate.”
James snorted defiantly, but when Jack pulled him back down, he let himself be moved, and rested where the pirate put him, trying not to make any kind of sound as the warmth of Jack’s body seeped into him and the scent of Jack’s skin cleared his mind of the lingering dream-scents of fear and filth and blood. Instead, James focused on forcing himself to breathe evenly, smoothly: reasserting control over himself.
Just as with a number of Jack’s nightmares, they merely lay close together, this time with James resting partway on Jack’s abdomen, his forearms resting on either side of their bodies, elbows bent, hands balled into fists, and his brow resting on Jack’s chest. James’ muscles were stiff, tense, and his breathing ragged. He was unwilling to let himself be vulnerable enough to accept comfort, for fear he might one day need it and not have it, as had always been the case before. He did all but openly resist it, now: the warmth, the soothing sounds of Jack’s breathing, one of Jack’s arms resting across him almost possessively. Slowly, the pounding of his heart slowed to normal, and the metallic taste of horror on his tongue faded.
Once James had mostly collected himself--enough, at least, to be sardonic, but (sadly) not yet quite enough to have fully regained his sense of humor--Jack made a low, thoughtful noise. “Can I tell you a bit of story, James?” he murmured, his voice sounding distant and almost drowsy, as though this were but the most idle and random of inquiries.
By way of reply James was able to lift his head from Jack’s chest enough to peer up at the pirate and arch one eyebrow in what was a rather insultingly cold manner, all things considered; it said, I am not fooled, Mr. Sparrow.
“Just a short one, love. A parable, really. I think you’ll find it int’resting.”
James did not roll his eyes, but the very telling, flat look of disbelief on his face worked to similar effect, and was much more dignified besides. If needed, James Norrington was capable of holding an entire conversation using only sardonic facial expressions.
Jack snorted. “So anyway, there’s this guy, right? A traveller, just like us all. And he’s fallen down a cliff, but caught himself just about halfway down, from a narrow little sapling growin’ out of the cliff face, but it’s breaking and there don’t seem to be any others, the only thing in reach is a small patch of wild strawberries sittin’ in front of him, in full fruit with some lovely, large red strawberries on them. Well, he fell over the edge in the first place because of a pack of wolves after him, and they’re pacing on the edge of the cliff. He can see them up there, and they’re waiting for him, waiting to see if he’ll die by hitting any of the wide array of unmissable jagged pointy rocks beneath him, or if he might somehow make a miraculous climb...into the jaws of death, anyway. Do you follow me so far, here, Jamie?”
Blinking a few times to dispel the vague cloud of confusion as to where the Hell he was going with this, James arched an eyebrow, but nodded. “I do, I believe, ‘savvy’, Jack. So far.” Get to the point, he did not say, but it was strongly implied.
That earned a bit of a smirk from the pirate. “Well, here’s the question, ay: what’s he do now, with death above and death below. Kind of like the day to day life of most any mortal man, whether he realizes it or not. Anyway. What’s any man to do is such a situation as our traveler’s, ay, Jamie?”
James’ brow furrowed. After a long moment, he sighed. “I concede my ignorance. I do not know,” he said at last.
“That was clear to me from the beginning, mate, hence the tale.” Jack grinned knowingly, folding his arms behind his head in a gesture of triumph. “I’ll tell you what he should do, James.” Then he leaned his head forward enough that James felt a whisper of the pirate’s breath across his face. “Eat the bloody strawberries.”
At first, James glared at him, vaguely supercilious, but then it faded into a thoughtful expression. Reluctantly, the ex-commodore smirked, trying in vain to hide it by resting his brow on Jack’s collarbone. “Alright. I get the point. Damn you,” he muttered affectionately. “The next thing I know, you will be telling me that the strawberries were shiny.”
Jack chuckled, then raised his eyebrows at the feel of James’ tongue tracing a pattern on his skin. “Feeling better then, love?”
“A bit hungry,” James replied, his arms uncurling enough to rest his hands on either side of Jack’s ribcage. He peered up at Jack again, and smirked in a slow, confident manner that made the pirate feel very warm indeed.
“Well...I am shiny,” Jack mused, licking his lips.
Both captains spent a lot of time staring out at the horizon, and Jack, instigator that he was, tried to keep up conversation. In combination with rum and some of the other liquors from the hold of the Gold Hawk, this led inevitably to some deeply revealing and almost tender moments, which almost all seemed to start with comparing battle-scars.
James explained the rapier-slash on his abdomen that would have possibly disemboweled him, if the blade had only gone a bit deeper.
Jack showed off and explicated several nicks, both large and small, from various sword blades, and a couple of knife-gouges that had left deeper scar tissue.
James explained the deep puncture in his left calf as from a shattered bulkhead, due to cannon-fire, back when he had been a midshipman.
They compared bullet wounds from pistols and muskets. James quietly marveled at how much fewer Jack possessed than he might have expected, given how often people tried to shoot him. Jack quietly marveled at how James had managed to get as many as three, which was at least two more than the pirate had expected to find.
Jack told about his own whip marks and his early experiences with less honorable captains, pirate and otherwise.
James explained the several cat o’ nine-tails marks across his back: from a man, who had purchased him from a corrupt prison official, with intent to break him and resell him once he was obedient; the cat had been used only after the initial attempts, resulting in the few whip marks on James’ chest and shoulders, had failed. James had strangled the man with that whip.
Jack told him about the mutiny, about being marooned, and finally killing Barbossa.
It took a bottle of scotch and a few respectable pulls of Jack’s rum, but James told him about his final, successful escape from the Spanish, how the shackles had been so intrinsically involved, and why Theodore Groves knew very well that James Norrington could function more than satisfactorily in spite of not only just a concussion, but also with a concussion with its effects compounded by the beginnings of fever and a few days without food. James also told of what he had done once he had recovered, and how many men he had killed.
After draining an entire bottle of rum, Jack extolled the details behind his pirate brand, the slave cargo, the multiple betrayals, and Cutler Beckett’s parts in all of it. He told him about selling his soul to Jones and then raiding and outright sinking a number of Becketts ships and their men in the black rage that had consumed him for a time, then.
Throughout and after each session of confessions, they shared long moments of quiet. When the alcohol was gone and the words ran dry, they retired to Jack’s cabin without speaking, but they were always touching, sometimes softly, sometimes more urgently, always with the mutual intent to feel human.
After seven weeks, they had run out of tales of injury and loss, and discussed past romances instead. James explained, amused at the expression of mixed intrigue and shock crossing Jack’s face as he did so, that his first love had been a young lieutenant back when James himself was an even-younger midshipman of fourteen, for all that even then he had been mistaken for older, having grown tall and deep-voiced early on. James had discovered women two years later, and found them satisfactory sexually, but had not loved any of them until Elizabeth grew into a fiercely intelligent spitfire, and shown the promise of being his equal.
Jack’s history was somewhat the reverse, but his problem with men had been less a matter of finding intelligence in his partners, but instead the issue of his total inability to trust any of them. Thus, while Jack had a great deal more bed-partners in his history, he and James were nearly equal in the number of people they had actually loved, whether or not they actually pursued said persons, or, in James’ case, accepted or rejected one said person’s pursuit: one Theodore Groves most notably.
Jack marveled at this. How James had so easily put that to as stop, when, at the time, there had been much apparent potential, so far as the pirate could see it.
“He was very drunk.”
“But you obviously care for the man,” Jack protested.
“As you do Anamaria, perhaps,” James countered.
Jack opened his mouth to protest, then closed it, but, as usual, the quiet did not last very long. “But you’ve no real worry that he’ll kill you in your sleep.”
“I worry that he would die for me.”
Jack’s eyebrows lifted in a look of sudden comprehension. “Ah. I see that, then. You’re not the type for that. Makes sense.”
“What ‘type’ is that, exactly?”
“Idealist. Romantic. Overrun by your passions. Will and ‘Lizbeth, for example.”
James smiled bitterly. “I suppose so.”
“But you like wildfire, for all that you keep your own so controlled,” Jack mused. He was aware of the thoughtful look James was giving him.
“I suppose that I do. What is a hunter without something wild to chase?” He snorted, lifting his half-empty brandy bottle to his lips and muttering into it, “Other than bored out of his mind, of course.” Then he took a small swig.
“Lonely,” Jack added.
“Mm. Hunting can be a lonely business, with or without prey. You know that as well as I do, Jack,” the ex-commodore said.
“Aye, that I do.”
They glanced at each other, then turned their heads a bit and held one another’s gaze without discomfort, each man calmly reading his companion’s face, or perhaps simply admiring, or, more likely, both.
“Do you trust me, Jamie?” Jack asked, his voice soft, but solemn despite the teasing edge to his gold-gilt grin.
A pause followed, and throughout it, James’ eyes were as stormy as the thoughts behind them, but not in a bad way: just intense. “I trust you to be who and what you are, and I think I have a very good idea as to the nature of both. I trust you to keep your word, but I will always be keen to straighten out the exact interpretation of that word’s meaning.” Another, briefer pause, and then he added, “I feel that I can trust you with my life, because, if I’m not mistaken, you’ve come to value it.”
Jack smiled, oddly pleased and a little amused. “Aye. I value it. Not a treasure I think I could stand to be parted from for too long a time, at this point. If it weren’t such an unwieldy thing, I’d have tried to find a way to weave it into my hair.” He looked away, sipping at his rum and leaning back so that his shoulder blades rested against James’ arm; if not for his words, then the gesture would have been one of laziness and mere companionship, as it had been all of the numerous times that Jack had done it before.
James blinked a few times, surprised by the admission, and by the way it formed an warm, tight knot in his chest that should have been painful, but wasn’t; it was, in fact, quite the opposite of pain. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again when he found words momentarily eluding him. In their stead, James chose action, however small, shifting his arm so that it wrapped around Jack’s waist, pulling the pirate back to lean against his abdomen instead. The easy way that the pirate allowed himself to be maneuvered made James think of a cat in a sunbeam. Nuzzling Jack’s hair just behind his piratically pierced ear, James found words again and said, in a quiet rumble, “I am rather inclined to value yours as well, Jack Sparrow.”
“Captain.”
James smirked. “I know. Really, I know. You did, after all, have me on the deck of your ship, Jack.” His voice was low, slightly rough, and seductive: gravel and velvet.
Grinning like a cheshire cat with an assortment of gold teeth, Jack chuckled. “Aye. So I did.” The smugness was almost tangible.
“And in the rigging, and in your cabin, across your desk, and on top of the cannon...”
Jack was feeling warmer already. “ I suppose that can exempt you from usin’ the title all the time.” Then he shivered at the feel of James’ tongue flicking against the back of his ear. “When I value somethin’, Jamie, as I pirate I’ve a tendency to claim it. An’ I keep what’s mine.”
“And as the sort of rogue I now am, Jack, I have every intention of doing similarly,” James purred. Then the taller man bit the back of the pirate’s neck where it met the shoulder. Jack instinctively corked his bottled of rum and let it roll away a safe distance across the deck before it could be lost or spilled in the ensuing ravishment, but James apparently had plans for the brandy, much of which was spilled on the deck; but it was worth it, because most of it was licked slowly off of Jack’s skin, and the rest was licked off of James.
“Do you suppose we’ve yet gone mad, James?”
“By what standard?”
“Well...you’re in love with a pirate, and not only do I feel similarly for an ex-officer of His Majesty’s Royal Navy who tried to hang me, but I also crave brandy instead of rum for the first time in me life, and it’s all your fault.”
A hint of a smug grin. “I see your point, but--nhnn...don’t stop doing that...”
“This?” Jack’s fingertips gently stroked the small scar at his waist: feather-light touch.
James shivered and made a soft sound suspiciously like a purr. “Yes...and as I was saying: if this is madness, I’m not particularly complaining.”
“But do you say that just because of this?”
A low moan escaped James as the pirate’s rough and ring-decorated hand stroked the hard length of him: metal and skin and maddening friction. Then Jack stopped, which was equally maddening, but James managed to hold onto his self-control. Once he had quickly caught his breath, James was able to muse airily, “Well, yes, perhaps your...ahem...handling of me may be contributing to my general lack of complaints about our situation, but that’s a sane enough, human enough reaction, I think.”
“How long have we been here, anyway?”
“Mmn?” James was understandably distracted.
“In the locker.”
“Oh. Um.” James tried to concentrate, despite the fact that Jack was sliding down his body to rest on his knees. He could feel the pirate’s breath feathering across the skin just beneath his navel. “Eight and a half weeks,” he said, his voice sounding faint, because he was focusing rather intently on the way that Jack was staring up at him, looking like mischief incarnate.
Jack licked his lips. “Think the madness will last, then?”
“If I say yes, which I plan on doing anyway, will you please just--ohGodJackYES!”
Life, such as it was, spent waiting for rescue in Davy Jones’ Locker, had proven very livable indeed; at least it was, so long as there was pleasurable company to be had with it.
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