Sentences

by Gloria Mundi

Pairing: J/N (ish)
Rating: up to NC-17
Disclaimer: Not true, because I made it up
Archive: Imagin'd Glories. (Others please ask first.)
Originally Posted: 2/06/04 - 5/16/04
Note: I wrote this as a sort of self-challenge, sparked off by several comments in various LJs recently.
Summary: Four single-sentence ficlets. 1200 words each, give or take: one sentence: don't forget to breathe.

1. Breathless
(Originally posted 2/06/04)

The sheer banality of his new role, the emptiness of every word he had spoken that day and every document to which he'd signed his name—with that too-practiced flourish on the 'n' and his hand cramping as he gripped the quill too tightly, like a sword—made him think of the sea, made him wonder again how he had come to this desk-bound, duty-bound, honour-bound life away from the sun and the air and the dizzying height of the crow's-nest, a whole world away from everything for which he'd gone to sea as a boy: he'd told the pirate—"Sparrow," he murmured under his breath: then, with a grin, "Captain Sparrow"—that he served others, not only himself, but that wasn't true, that wasn't true at all, for now on this fine morning (already hot though it was not yet nine o'clock) James Norrington realised for the first time that he served others and not himself; that somehow, while devoting his life to the Crown, the navy and the law, he had forgotten to spare any of that life for himself, had somehow forgotten to live, so much so that it had taken a damned black-hearted pirate to remind him that there was such a thing as freedom, and that it was worth fighting for: freedom, and honour (for he'd had to admit, in deed if not in word, that Jack Sparrow—Captain Jack Sparrow—was an honourable man), and ... no, he wouldn't think of Elizabeth and her lowly blacksmith, though he found himself smiling at the thought of them both, so young and so earnest; he wouldn't think of the way that Elizabeth had looked at Will, all radiant and full of joy and with a ... a spontaneity, an honest innocence, which he had not seen in her eyes when she'd accepted his proposal at last (to save Will, his temper whispered; to save her love) ... no, he wouldn't think of them, and he would assuredly not think of Jack Sparrow and the way he'd looked at Norrington, as hot and lewd as any of the whores in the lower town, a look that, remembered, made Norrington's hand cramp again, and brought two distinct realisations to the forefront of his mind: firstly, that he was staring out of the window at the distant ocean while the ink dried pungently on his pen; and secondly—far, far worse than woolgathering when he should be attending to the King's business—that he had dreamt of Sparrow last night, dreamt of him standing close (they'd been in a private room at an inn, and even now he remembered the pattern of the cracks in the plaster, which had traced the remembered shape of the Mississippi delta, just as he'd seen it on charts of the Gulf; and for some reason, in the dream, recognising that coded map had seemed more important than the fact of being alone with Jack Sparrow in an upstairs room at an unfamiliar inn), so close that Norrington had felt the heat of Jack's skin, and he'd had to bend his neck to look Jack in the eye; and once he'd looked he couldn't look away, for Jack's eyes were dark and somehow fascinating, and Norrington—in the dream, he reminded himself, not in his waking life, though his heart was beating faster just at the memory—had found himself caught, tempted, falling, his own gaze flickering from Jack's eyes to those full lips and his tongue moistening his own lower lip as the thought of kissing Jack (and Jack, oh, kissing him back) blossomed in his mind, where Jack could surely read it for otherwise there was no explanation, even in the dream, for the way that the pirate's eyes had narrowed knowingly, or the shape his mouth had made (a shape that had imparted new and nameless sins to Norrington in the dream, sins he feared he knew of in the waking world) as he'd whispered Norrington's name, his full name which he surely did not know: and just the memory of the dream of that rough-edged, luxuriously rich voice, that mouth, saying "James" had Norrington suddenly, achingly, and ridiculously hard, there in his office in Fort Charles, staring out unseeingly at the cloud-mottled ocean upon which the Black Pearl (scourge of James Norrington's conscience, if nothing else) must even now be sailing, carrying her wicked, beguiling captain to some unknown port, for surely even Jack Sparrow wouldn't dare return to Port Royal mere weeks after cheating the hangman: and Norrington smiled again even as he shook his head, because Jack might be bold but he was no fool, and only in a dream would Jack Sparrow come back simply to hunt Norrington—tables turned—and lure him to that private room with its cracked plaster on the wall and the moth-holes in the coverlet trapping his fingers as his hands clenched at the feeling of Jack behind—Norrington forced his mind back into the waking world, the hot sun-filled room and the smell of dust and ink, before his careering fancy ran entirely away with him: he swore breathlessly and gulped air, caught between damning Jack Sparrow and simply saying his name, between the risk, the embarrassment, the sheer impropriety of even thinking of that ... that pirate's filthy, tar-engrained hands on his body instead of the second draft of the naval architect's proposal for the fortification of Gallows Point, which lay unexamined on the desk before him while he stared out through the open window and thought, beyond reason and dignity and duty, of Jack's hands on him, gold gleaming behind his smile (lest Norrington forget that the sin of desiring this man was compounded by the crime of condoning his piracy) and next, Jack's mouth hot under his own kiss, a kiss without restraint, a kiss that was undeniable evidence—never mind that it was in a dream—of what Norrington finally admitted to himself, wordless and choking on his own breath in the hot morning air: he wanted Jack, wanted to feel Jack's hot skin against his own damp hands, wanted to taste Jack's kiss and then, as in his dream (he'd woken almost painfully hard, foolishly dismayed to find that the hand caressing him was his own; perhaps the desperate speed of his strokes thereafter explained the cramp that wrung his fingers this morning) to feel Jack's teeth on his throat, while Jack's hands—practiced hands, thought Norrington wryly in a small sedate corner of his mind—busied themselves at the front of his breeches, and Jack pushed his own hard prick against Norrington's hand with a moan that was more felt than heard as his mouth worked avidly down the meridian of Norrington's chest, down to where one hand wrapped firmly around Norrington's cock and the other cupped his balls, and Norrington whispered Jack's name to make Jack look up, and so their eyes met as, in the dark imagined room and in the precarious privacy of his office in the fort, in hope and in disgust, his climax rushed through every muscle in his body and robbed him of the last of his ... breath.

2. Breathless Too
(Originally Posted 2/07/04)

A fine clear day, and a good wind just west of north, stretching the new black canvas and sending the Black Pearl racing through the sparkling waters of the Gulf—he'd seen matched sapphires that colour, strung on a silk cord, back on the Isla de Muerta amongst the gathered hoard that Barbossa's mutinous dogs had piled high in their ten-year reign; but any gem merchant would demand a truer blue; and sapphires had never suited him, not the way that rubies did, and so he'd left that king's ransom of sea-coloured stones lying there—as Jack Sparrow, Captain Jack Sparrow once again, sailed south from New Orleans, heading for Port Royal for no more reason than a dream that came to him night after night, a dream so improbable and yet alluring that the thought of bringing it out into the real world, the thought of making a dream into reality (as he'd dreamt for ten years that the Black Pearl would be his again) amused Jack mightily, amused him and intrigued him and drew him back as though Commodore Norrington could somehow be, not his nemesis but something new; Jack Sparrow was never one to deny the inclinations of his own heart, and his heart knew what his head did not, and he'd felt that pull, that urge to be closer to the Commodore, even while said Commodore was clapping him in irons, locking him in the brig, drawing up that long, long list of Jack Sparrow's crimes (long but incomplete, and the Captain grinned as he remembered how very much he'd wanted to demonstrate some of the omissions to Norrington), insisting on the letter of the law while those green eyes of his—the colour of the sea in the Pearl's shadow, now that Jack thought of it—spoke a story that was quite different ... and that, of course, was what made Jack Sparrow wonder if, after all, there might be more to this dream than sheer unsatisfied desire; if the vision of Norrington, ardent and shaking and utterly focussed on Jack, might spring from more than his own foolish disinclination to bed a whore or two (or three, he thought, smirking as he remembered that time in Savannah; he'd been younger then, of course, and they'd kept him up all night, as it were—he chuckled at the memory, and felt the weight of Anamaria's glare: it was almost supernatural, really, the way the bloody wench always seemed to know when he was thinking about sex—but though he might have less stamina now than he'd had back then, before Barbossa, he'd make up for it, surely, in sheer technique) and after all, only a fool would pass up the proliferous opportunities for debauchery that were available in the fine new city of New Orleans, and Captain Jack Sparrow was no fool, never mind the rum and the reeling and the act; he generally knew what he was up to, and when, as now, it took him a while to come to it, that simply meant that his head hadn't caught up with his heart: and after all, James Norrington—“James,” he mouthed silently, testing the name on his lips; it hadn't been difficult to find out—was such a pretty commodore, and surely Providence wouldn't have put him in Jack's way if he'd been intended to resist that particular temptation, because he might be cunning and subtle and too clever even for himself, but if there was one thing he couldn't resist it was temptation, and right now temptation wore the form—the immaculately-shod, crisply-uniformed, gilded and garnished and polished and shiny form—of Commodore James Norrington, pride of His Majesty's Navy, feared by pirates throughout the Caribbean but not by Captain Jack Sparrow, who had felt the heat and tremor of Norrington's hand on his arm when Jack'd leant in too close one time too many: oooh yes, Commodore Norrington was not as cool and collected and impartial to pirates—this pirate, at least—as he might like the world to believe, and the world could believe what it liked as long as the Commodore—James, James—didn't mind giving it up to Jack, as long as he'd let Jack come even closer, close enough to get past the wig and coat and sword and rank, close enough to come (Jack found that he was smiling broadly at the idea, and Anamaria was scowling at him; “Take the helm for a while, love!” he called to her cheerily, heading for the cool dimness of his cabin and the privacy of his, well, his thoughts) and the thought of his skin, his bare skin, pressed against Norrington's own paler flesh, the thought of that imperious expression melting into a pleading look as his hands pointed out to Norrington exactly what he'd been missing, exactly what—Jack devoutly hoped—he'd been craving, whether he knew it or not; because, to Jack, it was blindingly obvious that the good Commodore didn't spend nearly enough time enjoying the finer things in life, amongst which Jack of course counted himself: and the dream he'd had of the Commodore enjoying him, and specifically the glorious image of being enjoyed by the Commodore—flat on his back, spread out and pinned by those strong hands as Commodore Norrington stopped worrying about the spirit of the law, never mind its letter, and got down to the basics of what a man could do—and the Commodore could definitely do him (Jack, sprawling on his bed, writhed and moaned and grinned to himself as he imagined that the hand touching him wasn't his own; it felt wrong, though, and he sucked on his index finger—sending another surge of blood down the centre of his body to his straining cock—and loosened the ring that he'd worn for so long, the ring that Norrington's hand didn't bear), the Commodore could most certainly do Jack, and the idea of Norrington—James—coming apart for Jack, with Jack, James realising that what he wanted was something he could have, and taking it with Jack's enthusiastic cooperation; he'd bet ten gold dollars that the Commodore would be a passionate lover, energetic and insistent and maybe even playful, willing to do anything, willing—oh, please, thought Jack, moaning again as he stroked himself the way he wanted to stroke Norrington—to turn the tables, turn himself, and be taken the way he'd take Jack: or, no, maybe he'd like to string it out with his—his?—Commodore, use his fingers and tongue and teeth and maybe even some other parts of his body (Jack stretched luxuriously) to tease James Norrington, to drive him wild, to ensure that the two of them need never again encounter one another without the memory of this moment—that illusory moment, thought Jack distractedly as his body took over from his mind and rushed him over the edge; that recurring dream that he longed to make real, and just as recurrent—to soften the distance between them: the memory of a moment when their hearts raced to the same rhythm, a moment that—Jack was suddenly, breathlessly sure—would ... come.

3. Complicity
(Originally Posted 5/15/04)
Dedicated to thefourthvine for coining the perfect description of this literary form—'grammar bdsm'.

There's complicity between them, something that prevents either man from lying—to himself or to the other, at least, though not to any one of their various friends, acquaintances, relatives and shipmates—about what's brought the two of them here to this sordid, inaccessible tavern on a marshy island off the coast of Jamaica; no one remembers Meg Murray these days, but the rickety black-walled tavern still bears her name and its customers still ply her trades, all three of 'em, those being the selling of victuals and strong drink; the provision of a marketplace for those tawdry girls (and not a few boys) who flout their wares with ragged clothes and painted faces, and pay a tithe to the landlord for use of the rooms upstairs; and the buying, selling, handling, discussion and comparison of stolen goods, the trade of smugglers and pirates and dishonest pursers, of dockside workers and clever clerks, of anyone and everyone who's laid hands ("finders keepers!") on something that isn't theirs to sell, and of those bold adventurers who'll take a chance on anything if the price is right, no questions asked, and never mind the lawful owner's name: and so, really, the combination of lust and greed, the desire to have what isn't rightly one's own, the casual disregard for law and order and the cheerful riot of the common-room, all make Meg Murphy's tavern a fine and suitable venue for this clandestine meeting of pirate and commodore, both of them in shabby dark coats and villainous hats, James' disguise so effective (never mind whether it's a good disguise or a bad one) that he recognises Jack before the pirate sets eyes on him, and Jack's eyes widen at Norrington's transformation from upright Navy man to, well, degenerate rogue; but Jack, of course, is laughing with (or at) him by the time James reaches the nook in which Jack's ensconced himself, and James can't help returning the smile, rather hesitantly but with genuine warmth, as he slides in next to Jack behind the splintery table where they can sit side by side and not have to look one another in the eye; though he wants to look Jack in the eye, he finds, and when he turns to face the pirate he finds Jack looking at him, peering at him (they're at the back of the room, as far from the shuttered windows as they can be, and the flickering lantern hides more than it reveals) as though James is some new and precious acquisition, some treasure plundered from its rightful owner: Jack's saying his name, and smiling—James is irritated all over again by the gilded trumpery of that smile, whilst simultaneously feeling a rush of fondness (and, he can't deny it, desire) for its owner—and then he gestures at James' wigless head—or no, at the low, stained ceiling above his head—widens his eyes meaningfully, and leers in such a comically exaggerated manner that James almost chokes on the ill-advised mouthful of smuggled wine he's just taken, and he realises that Jack is suggested that they go upstairs, to ... to ... James can't quite get his breath, this is all too fast and too headlong and too real and too immediate, but Jack's edging closer to him—close enough that his knee's pressing against James', and that's enough to make a shiver run from knee to thigh to gut and so forth, and to make James realise that he's as keen as Jack to get somewhere private—and Jack's hand is nudging his, pointing to the scarred table-top, and to the paler marks where someone (Jack) has recently scratched their initials, "JS" and "JN", and the rough outline of a heart around them both; James' sudden arousal is matched by a tightness in his chest, and he can't help staring at Jack for a moment with, no doubt, his entire self laid bare in his expression: Jack stares back at him with that warm, dark, smiling stare that James has brought to mind on many lonely nights, and for a moment it's almost too much, too honest: then Jack's nudging him, winking, gesturing and gesticulating, leading him on, but there's nothing empty about this promise, and Jack's taken him by the hand—here where anyone, any thief or criminal or rogue, might see—and is leading him up the crooked stairs with their stink of saltwater and their bundles of drying sea-grass overhead; Jack seems to know where he's going and he doesn't slow at the top of the stairs, though there are doors leading off an open landing and the sounds of—well, of merriment, James thinks rather primly—coming from behind those doors, enough sounds to make him think of bare skin and then, inevitably, of baring himself before this pirate, the pirate who's glanced over his shoulder to be sure that James is still behind him, who smiles and says, "It's unlucky to look back, but I couldn't have you getting away, now, could I?" which is a question to which there are so many answers that James is hard-pressed to choose one, besides being distracted by the sight of Jack Sparrow ascending a second flight of stairs in front of him, all sway and curve, more inviting to the hand than any corsetted whore; it's quite an effort to keep his mind on the matter in hand, and to retrieve the question from some echo in the air, and to say, "That presupposes your catching me, when it's evident to anyone that the boot's on the other foot," which has Jack chuckling even as—with an inevitable flourish that has James rolling his eyes—he produces an ornate brass key from somewhere underneath his shirt, and bends to fit it to the lock of a door that's half-hidden in the angle of the staircase: James tries to imagine what might await him on the other side of that door, but he's not a little distracted by the prospect of Jack, and his hand can't help but follow the curve of Jack's arse, revealed as it is by the hang of his coat and by the tautness of cotton breeches that are soft to the touch with age and wear, and the warmth he can feel through the cloth more than makes up for the admonitory tap on his wrist and the playful reproof in Jack's voice as he murmurs, "No handling of the merchandise, love," which does nothing to convince James to stop what he's doing, especially as Jack's pushing back into his touch in a way that makes it difficult for them to both get through the door without getting tangled up in one another, and in fact James finds himself braced against the doorjamb with Jack pressed against him, neither of them in the least interested in closing the door until they hear heavy footsteps ascending the stairs below them: then Jack Sparrow all but drags James into the tiny room and forces the door shut—will they ever get out? will they ever want to?—behind them both, and turns the key in the lock: click.

4. Collision
(Originally Posted: 5/16/04)

It's a very small room, dusty and uncarpeted, but it's cleaner than the bedrooms downstairs, which after all is what Jack's paying Molly for: he's visited Meg Murphy's place a time or two on various business, and he's even slept (eventually) on a soft, stained mattress in a room that smelt, faintly, of mould and seaweed: not that there's any getting away from the smell of the sea on an island as small as this; and anyway, he has better things to think about, for James is here, alone, with him, in this pale-walled room with its watch-window looking out over the marsh towards the mainland: James is here, eyeing him as though he doesn't know whether to leap on Jack or leg it, and if he doesn't fancy doing the leaping himself, Jack's more than happy to leap first and not worry about the consequences, for surely they'd not both be here now if at least part of James wasn't interested in what Jack was offering ... Jack grins at the thought of exactly which part, or even parts, of James might be most interested, and for all his enthusiasm he almost protests aloud as James takes one long step towards him, grabs him by the shoulders and kisses him as assuredly as though all this—the rendezvous, the room with its clean sheets and bare boards, the whole notion of their two worlds colliding in this private universe—had been his idea and not Jack's at all: not that Jack's complaining, with the Commodore's (James') mouth hot on his, James' tongue tasting him as though he were a delicacy, their teeth clicking together and the clean taste of James' mouth taking up all of his attention, which is a crying shame considering that James' long, elegant, broad hands ('he'd look good in gloves,' thinks Jack to himself, and then, irrepressibly, 'gloves and nothing else') are still on Jack's shoulders, but moving, moving down his back, making sure he doesn't get away; Jack wriggles closer at the thought, putting his own hands to work underneath the other man's disreputable coat, working his fingers underneath the threadbare linen of a shirt that had seen better years, until he feels the sleek bulge of muscle under the skin and the shudder that vibrates through James as Jack's callused, tar-stained fingers touch his bare skin, still hidden by his clothes, for the first time: the first but not the last, and the first by mere moments as James' own hands catch the bottom of Jack's shirt and hitch it, not very gently, up over his scarred back; Jack's almost embarrassed about the scars, and he's pretty sure that Norrington's dealt this sort of punishment a time or two himself, but Norrington's—James'—fingertips run gently over the ridged skin as though he's tracing the grain of new wood or the relief on a picture-frame; as though Jack's something precious, which of course is true but somehow it had never occurred to him that James might agree, but it's clear from his kiss, from the way he's pulling Jack inescapably close, so close that they're both moaning slightly into the kiss as each movement, each breath, brings their pricks into alignment, and Jack's painfully aware of wanting James' cock in more than just alignment (in his hand, in his mouth, inside him) though he's not sure of the etiquette here: whether he should let James, whom he suspects of happy vagueness where the mechanics of sodomy are concerned, take the lead, or whether he should take it himself—"shouldn't've left it lying around, mate"—and risk racing ahead too fast for his inexperienced, but utterly irresistible, lover-in-waiting; though it seems very likely that there won't be much more waiting at all, what with the way that James' hand is fumbling rather impatiently at the front of his breeches, and his kiss is becoming fiercer in a way of which Jack thoroughly approves and which he feels might indicate a laudable urge on the Commodore's part (might as well give him the courtesy of his rank, since he's taking command so nicely) to take matters into his own—ah!—into his own hands, just as he's taken Jack's aching erection into his hand and is stroking firmly, just hard enough, with that flick of his thumb over the wetness at the end that Jack hasn't had from anyone save himself since he was in Lisbon that time; the least he can do, really, is to return the favour, and never let it be said that Jack's slow about getting where he wants to be, for there, he's in, his hand is sliding its way around James' cock—big enough to make him moan urgently, enthusiastically, into James' mouth at the thought of having it inside him, though his jaw aches at the distance his fingers travel to wrap around it; not that he doesn't want to give James the night of his life (and it's not even dark yet) with hands and mouth and, oooh, anything else that springs to mind; but he's also determined to take what he can, and it's not as though anyone's keeping count of whether, and how much, he gives back to James, who is moaning into his mouth, spearing him with his kiss, thrusting into his hand more rapidly than a moment ago: "Bed," says Jack indistinctly against James' mouth, hauling him over to the narrow cot against the wall, and he pulls James down on top of him, simply for the blissful sense of being held down by the other man's weight; maybe James is remembering how their old roles should play out here, because he growls into Jack's ear and tightens the hand that's on Jack's collarbone, while his other hand plays merry hell with Jack's nerves, now slower, now faster, until he realises that (firstly) his own hand's sadly passive in this little play, no more than somewhere (and there are far better somewheres) for James to thrust; and secondly, he's begging breathlessly between kisses, gasping "James" and "please" and "yes", which would be much, much worse than it is if James weren't doing the same—well, obviously not quite the same, for it's "Jack" whom he's imploring, and Jack finds he likes the sound of that extremely—so they're neck-and-neck, prick-and-prick, in this mad delicious race towards the finishing line, and it isn't that he wants to finish but the sooner this is done, the sooner they can start again, and the sooner, too, that he can get James out of those horrible clothes and lie down with him skin to skin, on this clean sheet that's incongruously orange-scented and that's about to smell of their seed, of his seed and James' mixed, and the thought of that mix makes him thrust hard into James' hand and bite down on his shoulder and come, tasting James' skin and his own muffled cry: and better than that, better than coming, is the sight of James leaning back and raising his own sticky hand to lick Jack's seed from it, and, shuddering, coming all over Jack's hand and shirt and belly as he tastes Jack for the very first time.

-end-