Norrington sat in the hot sun and slowly grew hotter, more uncomfortable, and redder as the day wore on. His hat was gone, and his wig. A drop of sweat ran down the side of his face. It tickled. He fervently wished for the ability to wipe it away but his arms were stretched up and over his head, chained tightly together and fixed to the mast. He refused to give the pirates the satisfaction of watching him squirm or try to rub his face against his arms. He continued to sit, immobile. The pain in his wrists increased. The sweat trickled. The sun inched across the faded blue sky.

Things could have been worse. Much worse. He could have been standing. They might have tortured him or flogged him before setting him out for display. The pirates who passed him as they went about the ship could have been raining down blows on his helpless body, rather than curses and the occasional gob of spittle. By rights, they ought to have killed him the moment they recognized him on the merchant vessel. Instead, they seemed intent only on keeping him uncomfortably immobilized and humiliated. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or horrified that it had been Jack Sparrow to take him prisoner and not some more prosaic band of cutthroats.

A sudden shadow blocked the sun from his overheated face, breaking his reverie. He squinted up at Sparrow, stretched his legs out in front of him, and crossed his ankles as indolently as possible considering his position.

"Well, Commodore, how are you doing this fine day?"

He chose not to respond.

"How about some dinner, Commodore? Care to join me for a repast in my cabin?"

"Do I have any choice?"

"Of course you do, mate. You can politely accept my invitation," Sparrow's face and voice hardened for an instant. "Or you can stay here all bloody night. No difference to me."

Norrington suppressed a sigh. "All right, Captain Sparrow, I would be delighted to dine with you this evening."

"No need to get sarcastic, Commodore," Sparrow said as he drew a key from his coat and reached for the manacles.

Sparrow started back in surprise and nearly dropped the key the moment he touched the burning hot metal encircling Norrington's wrists.

As Sparrow sucked on his fingers, Norrington allowed his mouth to quirk into a smile. "What's the matter, Sparrow? Too hot for you to handle?"

For just a moment, Sparrow appeared shaken. "'S bleedin' hot, mate."

"Yes. Metal is a strong conductor of heat, you know."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"What would you have me say? 'Oh Pirate Captain, sir, the manacles with which you have chained me are getting a bit uncomfortable, can you send someone round to remove them, please?' I rather thought that my discomfort was part of the point of this exercise."

"Discomfort, yes. But I didn't mean for you to actually get hurt."

It was Norrington's turn to look surprised.

Sparrow continued, "You weren't even squirming or anything. All you did was sit there looking bored. If you gave some sign, I would have come over to check on you."

"Well, now that you have all the facts, perhaps this would be a convenient time for you to remove them?"

"What? Oh, sorry, getting to that now." Sparrow elaborately removed his headscarf and used that to shield his fingers as he unlocked the manacles. Norrington's breath hissed out as his arms dropped to his lap. Bracelets of shiny red skin decorated his wrists, broken by rough abrasions where the salt spray and constant motion of the ship had rubbed deeper remembrances into him.

Sparrow reached down, grasped his hands and gently helped him to his feet.

For an instant, Norrington swayed, eyes half closed against the vertigo. He regained control of his body and straightened, looking down on the pirate from his superior height.

"Lead the way, Sparrow." He kept his delivery deadpan, masking the sudden weakness he felt. Apparently, sitting immobile in the hot sun all day was somewhat draining physically.

Sparrow stared at him for a brief moment, remarkably didn't correct his omission of the title, grabbed his upper arm like a cheap whore and steered him toward the cabin. The tight hold on his arm kept his newly clumsy feet from stumbling.

Soon he was seated, door closed, none but Sparrow and him in the opulent cabin. He really needed something to drink. He surreptitiously rubbed his dry tongue against his cracked lips.

Sparrow must have read his mind because instantly a battered tin cup of liquid was before him. He reached for it, took a good long pull, and realized it was neat rum. It burned like fire, quenching nothing. In a short moment, his head was swimming in its effects.

He put the cup down, a little too abruptly. A bit of the amber liquid splashed out to fall on the manacle's bite mark inside his wrist. He involuntarily gasped at the sensation, at once steaming hot and icy cold.

Sparrow moved then, faster than he could follow, reached across the table for his hand and held it close to his face, inspecting it. After some time twisting it this way and that, letting the light catch the mark and the sparkling droplets adorning it, he brought it even closer to his face, right up to his mouth, and swiped his tongue across it.

James yanked his hand back in surprise and glared at the pirate.

"Why did you do that, Sparrow?"

"Don't like wastin' good rum, mate."

"Of course. Then why did you share it with me?"

"It's for a good cause. Need to soften you up."

"What for? Going to try to coerce some Naval Intelligence from me, are you?"

"Not possible, Commodore. No intelligence to speak of in the navy." Sparrow grinned cheerfully.

"Clearly not, we managed to catch you only twice..."

"But I've got you now."

"The score is still in our favor, then."

"Let me see," Jack rejoined. "Number of Jack Sparrows currently in your possession. Zero. Number of Commodores in mine. You. You might be ahead on paper, luv, but it seems that I have the advantage in practice, as it were." Sparrow reached for the empty cup and refilled it with water, only slightly sweetened with rum. James drank it down quickly. Sparrow refilled it with the same mixture. James managed to sip it this time.

"Then why?" James returned to the unanswered question, stubbornly waiting for an answer.

"Why what, Commodore?" The pirate was the very picture of innocence. James swore he even batted his eyes coquettishly at the end.

"For what purpose do you need to soften me?"

"You're right, maybe I should think about getting you hard instead?"

James stared at him, perplexed. Sparrow couldn't possibly be hinting at that, could he?

"All right Commodore, I'm trying to get you ready so you don't slap me when I do this." And Jack Sparrow, true to his namesake, darted across the table and flew at James, knocking him back to the floor. Before James could throw up his arms and defend himself, Sparrow was on his mouth, sucking like a remora.

James started to shout a protest and was rewarded with a mouth full of pirate tongue. Oddly, the sensation was not all bad. He wasn't nearly as disgusted as he felt he ought to be. Jack apparently felt his minute acquiescence and stopped behaving like a parasitic fish, continuing the kiss in a more relaxed and enjoyable fashion. He kissed back and contemplated whether it was the heat or the rum that had addled his wits so very badly.

The kiss ended and he stared at Jack Sparrow, for once without a quick retort. He slowly picked himself off the floor.

"Liked it, did you?" Sparrow asked with a smirk.

"I... I can't." James was at a loss.

"Can't what, mate? Can't like it?" And he swooped in again, delicately kissing and nibbling James's lips. James let them part, helpless to resist the latest onslaught. As Sparrow's tongue roamed into his mouth once again, he brought his arms up and crushed the pirate to him. Sparrow's beard tickled and his sword poked into James's side but it was not until his fingers encountered the cold metal of a coin embedded into the man's coarse hair that James stiffened and shut his mouth.

Sparrow eased back a step and looked at him quizzically. He traced his fingers down James's chest and lower, and lower still until he cupped James's very hard cock through his breeches with his stained pirate hand.

"Ye're sending conflicting signals here, mate. Do you or don't you?"

"I... It would be wrong." Even as he said this, James could barely control the urge to rub himself harder against that villainous hand. His breath caught when Sparrow removed it and he shivered with the sudden chill of its absence.

"You do know that you're on a pirate ship here, right? No playing by the rules, no Article 29, cheating is allowed and all that."

"Why are you trying to seduce me anyway, pirate?" James wondered just how exactly Sparrow had divined his most secret fantasies, played out in the dead of night with his hand in the leading role and flushes of embarrassment coloring his face even when he was completely alone and totally silent.

"For two reasons. One, because you are a fine man and I've been coveting you for a long time now and two, it'll be a mite harder for you to hang me after you've shagged me. One would hope."

"Oh. That still does nothing for the morality problem." James stared at his water and thought. Jack stared at James, looking equally thoughtful.

"I've got it!" Jack said as he pulled the pistol from his belt. "You're my prisoner here. You have to do what I say." He looked significantly from the weapon to James, then let it point down to the floor. "That is, if you still want to."

Oh how he did want to. That was the problem entirely. The reality of the pirate standing before him was exciting and tantalizing and all too near. Perhaps it was time he listened to his heart on this matter. Well, that and other parts. James laughed then and the sound was rich like thick cream poured over ripe fruit. His pinched expression cleared and he held his wrists out to the pirate.

"I am at your mercy." He took a step towards the pirate and looked down at him. "Do with me what you will." The challenge hung between them in the still air of the cabin.

"Good. Glad that's settled." Jack waved the pistol carelessly towards the sleeping area. "Why don't you go on over to the bed then. And start getting rid of those clothes. We won't be needing them where we're going." He put the pistol down and proceeded to remove his own garments, laying them over the chair he had been sitting on. Apparently he was not afraid of challenges issued by slightly drunk, somewhat repressed Commodores of the Royal Navy.

"Where are we going, then, Sparrow?" James asked as he started unbuttoning and discarding the layers of responsibility woven into the uniform he wore.

"Told you already. Bed." James took in the bed, overly large and covered in red and purple silks, like nothing he had ever seen on a ship before. It looked made for depravity.

James was aware of the pirate's eyes on him as he stripped himself bare. The nervous flush that had begun with the first step he took in the direction of the bed deepened. Sparrow was right in front of him, too close. He stepped back. The bed hit the backs of his knees and he sat down heavily. Sparrow followed him, straddled his waist and pushed him down on the bed. He had hold of James's arms, just above the burns, and pushed them steadily into the downy mattress on either side of his head. James tensed under the latest onslaught but didn't fight it.

Sparrow licked a trail from his neck to his ear. Nibbled gently at the lobe. Whispered into it. "Call me Jack, luv. Time we were on a first name basis here." He returned to nibbling, sucking and searing a trail back to James's mouth. James was certain that Sparrow was leaving red burns to match his wrists everywhere that he touched his mouth to James's flesh. Then Sparrow was hovering over him, ransacking every coherent thought from him by way of his mouth. He took his time over it and when the kiss ended, James was vibrating with the tension and the want. James arched up as far as he was able, intoxicated with the musky nearness of Sparrow's, no Jack's body hovering over his. Jack lowered himself inch by excruciating inch until every part of him was in contact with James. When Jack's cock touched his own for the first time, James gasped and went rigidly still.

"Everything all right, James?" Jack stared at him, his face close enough for James to see the flecks of kohl caught in his eyelashes.

"Yes. It's just not exactly as I'd imagined it." No, it was far more intense and immediate.

"You imagined doing this?" A nod. "With me?" Another nod. James felt the embarrassment on his face in a fine sheen of sweat. He was mad to be admitting this to the pirate, but oddly, it relaxed him. If he hadn't wanted it already, Jack would never have maneuvered him onto the bed in the first place. It was, after all, his fantasy come to life.

Jack grinned. He let go of James's arms and started tracing random patterns up and down James's torso with his fingers. They grazed across James's nipples. James had not realized just how sensitive they were to calloused fingers. He gasped again.

"So tell me, James, what did you imagine doing with me?"

"I..." James made another sound as Jack's fingers continued their teasing exploration. It was more a moan than gasp now. "Do you really want me to tell you?" Thinking about the fantasy Jack while receiving attention like this from the real one was fast destroying any reservations he thought he should have.

"Yes. I really do." Jack's voice was dark against his ear while his hands pulled secrets from his very skin.

"I..." The words were there, begging to be released. He tried again. "I imagine what it would be like to have my cock in your mouth. To feel your tongue at its tip, how hot your mouth is when you swallow me down as far as you are able. What your beard feels like against my balls. And your hands on my arse as you suck." He took a breath and let it out slowly, trying to still his pounding heart.

"That's pretty good for a navyboy, James. What happens next?"

"I, I think how it would feel if I do the same to you, to feel you in my mouth and to know that I was responsible for the sounds that you're making. And when you come down my throat, I try to swallow around the length of you and you're still hard and filling my mouth..." James felt desire overwhelming his trepidation.

Jack had gone still. He licked his lips and looked at James. "So, James, do you want me to go first or would you rather start things off?"

James stared back at him. "No, Jack. Not in turns. Together. At the same time."

Jack's eyes widened briefly and then a slow, lazy smile spread itself across his face. "Still waters do run deep, don't they, Commodore? All right, if that's what you want, we can do that," he said and shifted onto the bed. When Jack's weight left him, James found he could move again and he began exploring Jack with his own hands. He kissed Jack, exhilarated by the feel of Jack's lips and teeth on his tongue. Jack's tongue answered his in challenge and fought him for supremacy. After a moment, he allowed it to invade his mouth again. He moaned around it. Finally, he broke the kiss, nipping at Jack's bottom lip and trailed more bites down his throat, his chest, his abdomen. He lapped briefly at Jack's navel and listened to the sharp intake of the pirate's breath. He continued exploring with his hand and finally touched Jack's yard. Hot and hard and ready. For him. He dipped a finger into the shiny liquid gathered at the head, contemplated it, and tentatively put it to his lips, letting his tongue caress Jack's flavor from it.

Jack made a strangled mewl when he did this and James looked up, into a face shining with desire and passion. Yes, this Jack matched his imaginings, exceeded them. He shifted on the bed then so his head was angled toward Jack's feet and sank down on his side, his hands on Jack's hips, pulling him over so they were both on their sides. He stopped for a moment, pressing into the taut and sinewy pirate. He felt Jack's hair, rough and abrasive against his thighs. He moved again, fitting himself to the contours of Jack's body. He took the base of Jack's shaft in his hand and without warning sucked it into his mouth. He let his tongue explore the entire head while he accustomed himself to the feel of it stretching his lips wide.

After another brief, almost pained sound from Jack, he felt an answering wet heat surround his own cock and nearly spent himself right then. Nothing in his dreams had prepared him for this, the heated passion of Jack's mouth surrounding him and Jack's tongue teasing the most sensitive tip. He forced his jerking hips to stillness and waited a tenuous moment before he was controlled enough to go on, timing his own actions to what he could feel Jack doing to him.

He took Jack as deeply as he could into his mouth, gagged slightly when it reached the back of his tongue, and had to back off slightly. He tried again, letting it sit as far back as he could, caressing it with his tongue. He continued his explorations, alternating sucking and licking, taking it in a bit farther each time before reflex forced him to retreat. All this while, Jack was gently using his lips and tongue up and down James's own length. Suddenly, Jack engulfed him completely and he felt chapped lips tight around the very base of him. That the pirate had far more experience in these matters was abruptly clear to him. Still, he couldn't bring himself to care as his hips bucked uncontrollably and he fucked Jack's mouth. He was moaning, almost whimpering and would have been shouting if not for Jack's prick filling his own mouth. He tried again to swallow more of it. He forced himself to relax into the motion and was amazed to feel more of the hard length slide easily over his tongue.

The sensations of feeling Jack's mouth and yard at the same time were overwhelming him, sinking him deeper and deeper into the fulfillment of his darkest desires. He backed off and used his hand, nibbling gently along the underside as he mastered his breathing and his arousal. He felt Jack do the same. Jack was fondling his balls, sending new and different jolts of pleasure through him. Then Jack took them in his mouth and sucked gently. James did whimper then, kissing and sucking at the very tip of Jack's cock with his hand wrapped around the base. Jack removed his mouth entirely, chuckled against him and licked his way back up James's shaft.

When Jack's mouth surrounded him again, he felt Jack's fingers leave his balls and gently trace back along the sensitive path to his hole. The moist fingers circled delicately around it, finding new and uncharted pathways of delicious arousal, adding to everything he was feeling. One was teasing around the opening, setting his nerves aflame with unfathomable need and he unconsciously spread his legs a little wider for Jack's exploration and then Jack's finger was no longer on him but in him, pushing past the ring of muscles that had tightened involuntarily against it. This had not entered into his fantasies. He had not even imagined it was something one would do. But it lifted him into a level of sensation he had not thought existed. He took his own fingers into his mouth to wet them and traced the same path on Jack. He felt Jack's mouth tighten around him. Tentatively, he pushed one inside Jack. Jack squirmed to impale himself further on the finger. James added a second, pushed them in more, as much as he dared. Two of Jack's fingers were in him now, moving and twisting and questing while he continued sucking James to the hilt. James could no longer to control the thrusting and rolling of his body. Jack held his hips tight to him with his other hand, bruisingly hard. James could no longer see anything but dancing spots of light before his eyes. They were rocking in time with each other now, yards deep in each other's mouths, fingers deep in each other's arses. He was overwhelmed, teetering on the very edge of something infinite.

Suddenly, Jack touched something inside him and he was falling over the precipice, falling and flying at the same time. He was clenching uncontrollably and coming deep into Jack's throat. He convulsively pushed his fingers deeper into Jack and pulled Jack's hips even tighter to him. Jack's cock was bumping the back of his throat and he could feel the tickle of hairs against his lips. He was still coming, bucking and sucking and moaning. He felt Jack tighten and then he was swallowing frantically as Jack's essence spurted far down his own throat. Jack was keening and writhing and he imagined that he could hear Jack screaming his name over and over. The echo of Jack's name was still ringing loud in his own head. He could not stop the jerking of his hips, his cock, the tightening of his muscles around Jack's fingers. He felt answering tremors in his mouth and against his fingers. It seemed to go on for days, wringing every last bit of pleasure from him.

At last, he gently drifted back down. He let Jack's cock slide partway out of his mouth and took a breath. He was still shaking. Jack's whole body was trembling too. Jack's mouth, gently sucking his spent cock, was too much for him now and he yelped. Jack stopped, pulled off him and urged him to turn around and lie with him. James did as he was bidden and they sprawled in each other's arms, utterly spent and shattered.

After some time, Jack looked at him and grinned his brazen grin. "So how do I compare?"

"Compare to what? I've never experienced anything like that before." James tried to rouse his leaden and languorous mind to Jack's words.

"To the fantasy, luv?"

"Oh God, Jack. My imaginings were like a shallow puddle, but this, this was a storm at sea... I'm sorry, Jack, I have no words."

"T'was only because your active imagination started us off in the right direction, James."

James smiled at him and was drifting off when Jack spoke again. "So, James, if you've any more fantasies you need demonstrated, I'll be happy to help you out. It's going to be a while before we'll be dropping you off in Jamaica, you know."

James debated telling the pirate the next thing he wanted to do. He envisioned it clearly but he wasn't quite ready to say it out loud yet. Jack would think him too deviant by far, he thought. But then again, the pirate did start all this by chaining him to a mast. He did fall asleep then, smiling as the dream overtook him.