If there was one thing Jack Sparrow felt he ought to have learned from bitter experience, it was not to get drunk with strangers who were trying to sell you strange objects they claimed had mystical powers. It was never as much fun as all that to wake up broke, hung over, and the proud possessor of a charm against drowning that proved to consist of someone's toenails. (Granted he hadn't drowned yet, but he'd had his own toenails already attached to his feet, at no charge.)

However, like many lessons he felt he'd learned from bitter experience, he apparently hadn't learned it as well as all that. He rolled over in bed feeling, if not precisely hung over, distinctly odd, and contemplated the ceiling for a bit meditatively. This, he felt, was usually the best way of starting the day when the events of the night before stubbornly refused to come into clear focus.

He didn't remember how he'd wound up in this very comfortable bed, although that in itself wasn't so odd an experience as to be cause for concern. He did remember getting very drunk and expounding at some length about the scourge of mankind that was women. He might even have had some things to say about a particular woman and his vexing inability to scrub her memory from his ... well, memory. That was what drinking with strangers was for, was saying things you didn't want to ever be reminded you'd said again.

What troubled him was that he thought he remembered some kind of transaction taking place toward the end of the evening, when the rum bottle was sliding oddly up and down the table as sometimes he found that it did. He strongly suspected he'd handed over the entire hard-earned—well, hard-pirated—contents of his purse in exchange for a small bundle of sticks.

Why he had done this remained murky. It was supposed to ... help him forget Elizabeth? He'd already been working on that with the rum. Make Elizabeth fall in love with him? That seemed fraught, given that she was recently married to a man so fond of sharp pointy things and so alarmingly skilled in their use. Make Elizabeth want to bed him? That still seemed fraught, but also like the sort of thing that might have seemed like a good idea when viewed through the better part of a bottle of rum.

Apparently the rum hadn't done anything for his self-confidence. He liked to think that Elizabeth would not resist his charms even without whatever assistance a bundle of sticks could provide, although for the amount of money he'd apparently parted with it had better be a good bundle of sticks. He felt it ought to at least have proof from drowning thrown in as an added attraction.

He moved his head experimentally, and the absence of blinding pain suggested that he was not so hung over as to preclude making a hasty retreat before anyone discovered him in a bed he had no means of paying for and which might turn out to belong to someone who objected strongly to his presence. Something was wrong, though. No weight of beads and braids when he moved his head.

He scrambled up, feeling at his head and looking around wildly for a mirror. The loss of his spending money and a certain amount of personal dignity was a foreseeable consequence of spending the evening drinking in Tortuga. The loss of his hair would be a tragedy.

The room was a posh one, clearly not an inn, which suggested he'd better make that retreat before the father or husband—or for that matter wife—of whoever owned this bed returned. He swayed on his feet, feeling really distinctly odd. There was a dressing table with a mirror, and he stepped in front of it, nearly stumbling into it as he did.

The figure in the mirror was a very pretty one, and one he'd never really expected to see again in its current state of undress, as it belonged to Elizabeth Swann. Elizabeth Turner. Elizabeth, who was a girl. He waved his fingers, and watched her fingers in the mirror wave back.

He stared down at his hands. Her pretty girl's hands. Her pretty white nightgown, concealing her pretty breasts. He lifted the nightgown to peek at them, and was rewarded by the sight of two nipples he'd never really expected to see.

There was a knock on the door. "Elizabeth?" Governor Swann called from outside the door. "Are you still in bed?"

"Help?" Jack said experimentally, but the nipples didn't answer.

*****

Elizabeth woke up thinking even before she opened her eyes that she must be feverish. Her head throbbed, and moving brought not only a surge of nausea but also the odd sensation that her hands and feet weren't where she expected them to be. The suddenness frightened her—she'd been perfectly well the night before. Malaria? Cholera?

More likely a run-of-the-mill ague and an overactive imagination, she told herself, but she forced herself to sit up, meaning to examine herself in the mirror to see if she looked likely to expire directly. The problem, she realized as she managed to do so, was that there was no mirror, because she was not in her room.

She was instead in the cabin of a ship, in a bed that smelled of sweat and salt water and someone's heavy patchouli scent, but mainly, pungently, of rum. Thinking about the smell was enough to make her gag. She fought the nausea but only managed to be sick beside the bed rather than in it, and then tried to shove her hair back from her face with shaky hands.

Her hair seemed oddly snarled and tangled with cool beads. She stared at her hands, large square hands with callused fingertips, and then turned them over to stare at the familiar sparrow tattoo and the raised scar of a pirate brand. She looked down between her knees and felt her face flush with heat, readjusting the tails of her shirt hurriedly.

She knew she ought to think she was dreaming, or delirious with fever and returning in her mind to what she could see now was the great cabin of the Black Pearl, its windows letting in the painfully bright morning sun. It would have been rather a comfort to think she was dreaming. The problem was that she was fairly sure this wasn't a dream.

Everything was too vivid, from the throbbing of her head to the rough fabric of her shirt under her fingers to the odd weight of the beads and trinkets braided into her hair. The heavy scent of patchouli was the same one that lingered around Jack, which made sense if he was now the usual occupant of this bed; the cabin when she'd been held captive in it before had smelled of oranges and dust. Some of the furniture had been moved and the table covered in maps and books, and the magpie's clutter of silver and fine china she remembered was somewhat diminished.

So. Not a dream. Therefore real. This was Jack Sparrow's cabin; this was Jack Sparrow's bed; this was Jack Sparrow's body. The question was what she was doing in any of the above.

What in the hell she was doing in any of the above, she thought, feeling the situation warranted it, and in fact probably warranted stronger language than she actually knew. The one thing she was certain of was that it was Jack Sparrow's fault.

"Filthy, horrible pirate," she muttered, and blinked at the sound of the words in her own tones but Jack's voice. There was a knock at the door, which made her look around in alarm for any sign of Jack's breeches, something she had certainly never expected to find herself in search of.

"Cap'n, will you be coming ashore to see about the powder stores?" The voice belonged to Gibbs, she thought.

"No!" Elizabeth said, hearing her voice break too high on the word. "That is ... no, no, you go. See about the powder stores. I'll just be ... I'm just going to ..."

Be sick again, she realized, doubling over beside the bed and retching noisily.

"Ah," Gibbs said. "That sort of morning. We'll be going to see about the powder stores, then."

She was going to find Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth resolved, and then she was going to make him pay.

*****

"I'm not dressed yet!" Jack said.

Governor Swann sighed from the other side of the door. "Are you planning to come down to breakfast, or shall I send someone to wake you in time for dinner?" he asked, with what sounded like a mixture of fondness and exasperation.

Jack was tempted to plead illness, but thought better of it. One thing he'd learned on the many occasions when he'd been playing a role not his own was to save your distractions for when you really needed them. "I'll be right down," he said, and was pleased that it didn't sound too off.

"I'll send Estrella up," Governor Swann said. "In the interests of hurrying the breakfast I'm sure we'd all like to have."

"I'm sorry, Papa," Jack said. The Papa was a bit of a risk, but it sounded right, and Jack was a believer in trusting his instincts. "I promise I'll hurry!"

"And a good morning to you, too," Governor Swann said, and Jack could hear his feet retreating.

Jack looked at himself in the mirror and attempted to readjust his attitude from profoundly alarmed pirate captain to somewhat chastened young lady. It was not an entirely foreign pose; he'd worn skirts on several memorable occasions before, all but one of which had involved pretending to be female. None of those occasions had involved the services of a lady's maid, although Bootstrap had once proved himself adept enough at lacing a corset.

As it turned out, any potential awkwardness when Estrella appeared was prevented by the fact that the girl chattered constantly while unearthing bits of Elizabeth's wardrobe from a trunk with a brisk efficiency that suggested she'd packed it herself.

"It gives me a turn being back in Government House, so it does, mum," the girl said, advancing on Jack with a corset, presumably a successor of the one he'd cut the girl out of. He was prevented from reply by the knowledge that he'd better hold his breath while she laced it if he ever wanted to breathe again. "Just like you've never been married at all."

"Well, not just like, I should hope," Jack said when he could breathe again, and Estrella giggled. He looked at himself critically in the mirror. Could have stood to be laced a little tighter, he thought, but suspected it would be out of character for him to say so. He bent forward a bit, experimentally.

"The rose frock or the striped Indian cotton, miss? I mean mum?"

Jack turned to consider the matter. "The rose," he said decisively. Red and white stripes would not suit Elizabeth. He couldn't imagine what she'd been thinking. He wondered if he should have said please, and decided that Elizabeth was about as likely to say please to her servants as he was to his crew.

"I hardly know who to say yes'm to and who to order about," Estrella said. As cryptic as that statement sounded, Jack suspected he could parse it; Will was in no position to keep a full staff of servants, so Estrella was likely playing housekeeper and cook as well as maid.

"It is a little odd," Jack said. "I hardly feel like myself at all."

"I'm sure you'll be glad when Master Will's back," Estrella said. "Not that I'm sure your father's not glad to have you stay."

Jack silently thanked heaven for providing someone who helpfully could not shut up. "Well, I wouldn't want to wear out his welcome."

"You're not likely to do that, mum, not in the time it takes to get to Kingston and back," Estrella said. "He might be back tomorrow, if the roads stay fine."

"Won't be rain till tomorrow late," Jack said without thinking, and then hurriedly, "That's what I heard someone say."

"Hope not, mum," Estrella said, doing up the gown's buttons from the base of Jack's spine, an experience he might have found erotic under other circumstances. Might under these circumstances, actually, although it was odd not to have his prick as a signal flag of his interest. The interesting tingling in the regions where it wasn't seemed worth investigating, however.

After all, he thought, with a flash of memory from the night before that he was proud to have retrieved, he could go right back where he belonged any time he wanted. All he had to do was break the little bundle of sticks. The little bundle of sticks that were now safely in Jack Sparrow's purse in his cabin aboard the Black Pearl .

"Oh, bugger," Jack muttered.

"What, mum?"

"Nothing!" Jack said brightly, and sailed forth to face breakfast manfully, or at least as manfully as he could while wearing a dress.

*****

By the time she had cleaned up the mess on the floor and assured herself that her head was not actually about to split in two, no matter what it felt like, Elizabeth felt up to dealing with further challenges. A search revealed Jack's discarded breeches crumpled behind the screen in the corner. She pulled them on and found his coat in a pile at the foot of the bed.

With them on, she felt she wasn't an offense against decency any more than Jack was on general principle. After a moment's hesitation she slung on his baldric as well. The leather purse hanging from it looked healthily full until she weighed it in her hand, but proved to contain a shark's tooth, an odd bundle of sticks, a frayed bone fishhook, and a very small copper coin of unknown origin.

"Thank you so very much," she said. "You've left me so well provided for."

What she needed, she realized, was to find Will. Will would help her sort all this out. Will might be searching for her now, if he'd arrived back in Tortuga to find Jack Sparrow impersonating his wife. She didn't intend to count on that, however, as it relied on Jack behaving predictably, which was never to be counted on.

To find Will, they needed to go to Port Royal. Well, she had a ship, didn't she? The problem was that beyond saying "set sail for Port Royal, men!" she had no idea what the actual process of sailing it there entailed, and she suspected it entailed at least a bit more than that.

She was going to have to confide in someone, as reluctant as she was to trust pirates on general principle. When she heard the thumping of men clambering back over the side of the ship, she stuck her head cautiously out of the cabin.

"Gibbs?"

"Aye, captain?" Gibbs called from across the deck.

"I want to talk to you."

"Aye, captain," Gibbs said, giving her an odd look. He crossed the deck, and she dragged him into the cabin. "What's the ..."

"I'm not the captain," Elizabeth said. "I'm Elizabeth Turner."

"You're what?" Gibbs looked at her as if he was less surprised by her declaration than trying to figure out what it signified in Jack's unique internal landscape. "You've not been at the opium, have you?"

"Does that make you think you're someone else?"

"It might do. 'Specially if you're Jack Sparrow to start with."

"Anyway, I haven't. Because I'm not Jack Sparrow. I'm Elizabeth. I swear. Something very strange is happening, and I don't know how to make it stop."

Gibbs looked at her skeptically. "Elizabeth Turner," he said.

"Elizabeth Swann," she said. "I swear, it's me. You always hated it when I sang pirate songs, remember? Said it was powerful bad luck to be singing about pirates."

"You were just a little thing," Gibbs said. "And James Norrington just a green captain ..."

"A lieutenant," Elizabeth said, seeing the trap. "He tried to explain the Articles of War to me once, until he got to the parts he found embarrassing."

"Love of God, you are Elizabeth," Gibbs breathed. "What's that daft bugger done now?"

Elizabeth explained, to the extent that she possessed an explanation. Gibbs listened, and to his credit seemed to grasp her essential problem quickly.

"Tell you what we'll do," he said. "We'll set out for Port Royal, and tell the men you're laid up in your cabin with a fever. When we get there, we send for Will and see if we can trade you for Captain Jack. As it were."

"As it were."

"You'll have to brazen it out until we set sail, because we wouldn't sail if Jack were already so poorly he'd taken to his bed. We've a day or two more provisioning to do, and something to be done about the staysails yet."

"I shall go ashore," Elizabeth said.

"But ..." Gibbs looked none too happy about the idea.

"It's that or wander the ship aimlessly saying 'You men go on and do nautical things.'"

"That wouldn't be too far out of the ordinary," Gibbs muttered.

*****

The afternoon had lasted, in Jack's opinion, approximately seventeen billion years. He had spent a considerable amount of time strolling in the garden with Governor Swann while trying to deflect the conversation away from the governor's nostalgic reminiscences about Elizabeth's childhood, something Jack felt unqualified to discuss in any depth.

"I didn't know you were so interested in my roses," the governor had said finally. "I'll have to seat you next to Mrs. Farthingdale the next time she's at dinner. She can tell you all about her problems with bluefly."

Jack suspected Elizabeth wouldn't thank him for that, but then she wasn't likely to be thrilled with him next time she saw him, anyway, even assuming she was back in her proper body at the time. He made a mental note to stand out of slapping range.

Finally, after an interminable tea consisting of suspiciously tiny sandwiches and a single, pathetically inadequate glass of sherry, Jack had given up on dinner and pled a headache as an excuse to retire early. The governor had hovered round like a hen with one chick for a while and then blessedly shoved off, leaving Jack to sprawl in Elizabeth's very comfortable bed and wonder how to remedy his current situation.

The problem was that Elizabeth had the charm, or gris-gris, or whatever it was that needed to be broken in order to get him out of corsets. Not that he was actually wearing corsets at the moment, Estrella having already been to unbutton and unlace him. She hadn't blinked an eye at the latter, which Jack supposed made sense. Elizabeth was just the sort of stubborn wench to balk at sleeping in her corset, and it wasn't as if her figure really needed much assistance in that department.

It was only natural under the circumstances to think about Elizabeth's figure, he told himself, given that if he looked down he could see quite a bit of it her thin cotton shift. Her nipples stood out under the fabric, and he played with them idly. That led to a return of the morning's pleasant tingling, and he pulled up his shift to investigate.

"Never let it be said that Jack Sparrow passed up a unique opportunity just because it was a trifle peculiar," he said. Elizabeth had soft bronze curls below the waist, which when parted revealed soft pink parts worth exploring. He did so, and was rewarded by shivering pleasure just on the edge of pain. Sensitive creature, she was.

He stroked more lightly. Like that. And that. It wouldn't hurt just to test the equipment out a bit, see what it felt like when she—

"Elizabeth? I'm back early," Will said, pushing the door open before Jack could move. "Your father said—"

Will stopped, staring at Jack, who had his knees spread and his shift around the waist, revealing pretty much everything there was to reveal. There were really only two options, he felt, and pretending total and improbable innocence didn't seem nearly as interesting as the alternative.

"Oh, Will," he said, with a breathy laugh, shading his face with one hand. "I was just ... missing you, and I ..." He looked up at Will from under Elizabeth's long lashes. "Now you can help me."

"Elizabeth," Will said, and then laughed a little. "Well. I suppose I could ..."

"I'm sure you can," Jack said, and watched Will blush as if there were something indecent about an indecent proposal from his own wife. Well, more or less his own wife, Jack thought as Will began unfastening his trousers. As close as one could argue made no difference.

He was proud of himself for not saying my, what a big prick you have, as he felt sure that Elizabeth had already seen it on numerous occasions. She must be used to it by now, he thought. She probably considered it merely an unremarkable part of the scenery.

"Elizabeth," Will said passionately, and scrambled atop him in the bed. "My Elizabeth."

"In a hurry, are you?" Jack found himself asking, as Will set about sheathing himself between those pretty thighs without so much as a hello-there to the nipples or anything else. "Ooh."

Will drew back, looking confused.

"But I thought you ... Don't you want me?"

"I do," Jack said, realizing that in fact he did. Having a handsome lad flailing away at him with his prick was making him as hot and bothered as he could want, but didn't seem likely to lead to a satisfactory conclusion without some modifications. "But let's try making just a few stops along the way ..."

*****

Elizabeth hadn't intended to get drunk. It was just that it had started raining, and that had necessitated ducking into the shelter of a tavern, and once there, it seemed more or less essential that she buy a drink in order to occupy a table. She'd managed to unearth a few coins from her excavation of one of Jack's coat pockets, at least enough to have the wherewithal to buy a drink.

That in itself might have been harmless had it not occurred to her while cautiously sipping at the foul stuff that it didn't really matter if she got drunk. She could finish the bottle in a pirate tavern, and no one seemed likely to take the opportunity to take advantage of her, although she wouldn't entirely put it past some of the barmaids to try.

It seemed unfair. She'd been so careful to stay clear of compromising situations, and had wound up kidnapped by pirates and then marooned with a pirate and then hung over in a pirate's bed, without even experiencing the wicked pleasures any of the above would suggest. Somehow her childhood dreams of being kidnapped by pirates and heroically rescued had involved a bit more wicked pleasure of some sort or another.

Whereas what was the worst that could happen if Jack Sparrow got drunk on Tortuga in bad company? It might irretrievably damage his reputation? Someone might steal his sticks?

This might be her best opportunity to see what being drunk was like without having to face either Will or her father being either disapproving or distressed. It might, for that matter, be her best opportunity to be wicked in any number of ways without any actual consequences. It wasn't as if it was likely to be possible to damage Jack's reputation.

She waved at the barmaid for another drink, and winked at her experimentally when she brought it. The girl giggled and leaned in close, showing a vast expanse of bosom. "Aren't you the wicked thing."

Elizabeth wasn't sure she properly was. She tried to think what a properly debauched pirate would say under the circumstances. "Give us a kiss, love?"

The girl giggled again and kissed her smack on the lips. Her lips were warm, and she tasted of paint. Elizabeth felt that she really ought to have some more passionate reaction. She'd assumed somehow that Jack's body would maintain his usual appetite for debauchery

Possibly not, she thought rather disappointedly, as the girl departed, leaving the rum behind. Perhaps it at least maintained its appetite for rum. Leave it to Jack Sparrow to strand her in his body when she apparently wasn't going to be able to do anything more wicked with it than drink.

"The problem," she found herself saying much later to an audience of whoever happened to be sitting nearby, "is pirates."

There were nods and ayes in response to that, despite the fact that most of her audience were pirates. Possibly even pirates didn't like other pirates very much.

"I hate pirates," she said. "They steal things and kidnap people and get drunk and wave their hands and shout at you when you try to tell them sensible things. They're horrible, and they can't be trusted, and you know what the worst thing about pirates is?"

"Do tell," someone said from behind her. Several people sitting around her seemed to find a reason to get up and leave at that point. Maybe she'd offended them. She discovered that the lovely thing about rum was that she didn't care.

"The worst thing about pirates is that they're pretty," she said. "So even if you can't stand them, you can't help looking at them. And dancing with them. And thinking about them."

"You'd know all about pretty pirates, wouldn't you, Sparrow?"

Elizabeth turned, suddenly aware that the voice behind her was a familiar one. She hadn't heard it since its owner's resignation from the Navy shortly after the terrible storm that had claimed the Dauntless and so many of its crew.

James looked unwashed and unshaven, his hair straggling loose around his shoulders and his entire person smelling of rum. He gave her a sharp, mocking smile she'd never seen before. It made her shiver a little.

"James—" she began, and then realized that her current position with respect to James Norrington was rather fraught with peril.

"Hello," James said, and drew his sword. "I rather think that the worst thing about pirates is you."

What would Jack do? Elizabeth thought. The answer seemed clear enough; she turned over the table between them and ran.

The problem with running while drunk was that she seemed to have too many legs, or at least the ones she had showed a regrettable tendency to tangle together in a way that made her swerve oddly around the street. Behind her, James seemed to be having his own difficulties involving repeatedly falling down. She would have made a clean escape had she not somehow turned a circle and ended up tripping over James and going sprawling to the dirt.

He grappled with her, pulling her hard against him. "You're a dead man, Sparrow," he said, the edge of his sword against her throat. She had her knee between his thighs, and the hard pressure she could feel there wasn't his sword. She realized that her own prick was hard, too, her body taut with hunger despite the painfully hard grip of his hands and the sting of the blade at her throat. Maybe even because of them.

"You wouldn't kill an unarmed man," she said, rubbing her knee deliberately against his groin. His breath caught, and she thought she could feel him arch his hips up into the pressure.

"The trouble is you're not unarmed," he said.

She could hear just what Jack would say, and so she said it. "Do you want to feel my blade?"

"Is it made of wood?"

That seemed a non sequitur, but then the conversation was a little disjointed already. "We could see."

The pressure of the blade against her throat retreated, and she took the opportunity to kiss him. He tasted like rum and dirt and blood, having apparently bitten his lip somewhere in their struggle, but she could feel herself shudder at the kiss the way she hadn't with the barmaid. She wasn't sure if she preferred to think of this as something she hadn't known about Jack or something she hadn't known about herself.

"I hate pretty pirates," James said, at the same time as he tugged her breeches down.

*****

Jack found it hard to believe that Elizabeth had never so much as introduced Will to the pleasures to be had from her sweet mouth, let alone anything more adventurous. He supposed it ought to be the other way round, but it seemed clear to him who the more daring of the two of them in that department was. Given the amount of time it had taken Will to kiss the wench, they'd both be as old as Methuselah before he got around to proposing sodomy.

He seemed to like it well enough, though, making strangled noises as Jack did his best to deal properly with all of him. "Are you sure people do this?" Will asked breathlessly.

If they're not eunuchs, Jack thought, and then slightly more charitably, and if they don't go to their wedding bed virgins who've never so much as had their hand up a girl's skirts. "My father has a ... book of engravings," Jack said, thinking that if old Weatherby wasn't having it off with the servant girls, he had to have something to keep him warm at night.

"They make engravings of ..."

"You should see the statues in India," Jack said, and then, "I mean, pictures of them." Will didn't seem to notice; Jack thought he could probably have delivered a lecture on the finer points of temple architecture without distracting the lad's attention from his prick.

"Maybe I should read this book," Will said, and Jack wondered if he ought not come round with some instructional literature once his little problem was sorted out, just in case Weatherby kept his library clean or his more questionable books under lock and key. "Oh, but ... I think I'm going to ..."

"That's the idea," Jack said, and sucked him until he groaned and clutched at Jack's hair and spent himself explosively in Jack's mouth.

Jack licked his lips and smiled smugly up at him, aware only when Will narrowed his eyes at him that it wasn't at all one of Elizabeth's expressions. He tried to readjust his expression to shy pleasure. Elizabeth would blush, he thought. She might even giggle, for all that she was a ruthless wench. He couldn't help thinking of the way she'd laughed when he'd spun her round the fire.

"Elizabeth," Will said, and Jack leaned up to kiss him, letting Will pull him up onto the bed. "I feel so selfish."

"Well," Jack said, trying to think how Elizabeth would put the frustration he could feel throbbing between his legs into words. "You could. You know. Do the same thing to me." He wanted to find out what being properly fucked felt like as a woman, but right now he rather more urgently wanted to bloody well come, by whatever means. Anyway, that particular gun had already been fired, not that he supposed at Will's age it would take all night to reload.

"You mean ... my mouth on your ..."

"I'll show you," Jack said, and tugged at Will's hair to pull him down.

*****

Elizabeth wasn't entirely sure of how two men went about engaging in debauchery, but James seemed surprisingly knowledgeable on the subject. He rolled her over until she was kneeling under him, all her unfamiliar parts throbbing and aching to be touched. Instead he grasped what Jack would likely have called her arse and thrust his fingers somewhere unexpected.

It hurt, and she heard herself make an involuntary noise of pain. Somewhat to her surprise given his feelings about pirates, she felt James hesitate.

"I wasn't expecting to be swiving pirates today," James said. "So sorry not to have come prepared." She wasn't sure if his tone was mockery of Jack or of himself.

"I want ..." She trailed off, frustrated, not even sure what she wanted.

"Oh, fuck," James said, and then, "Do me. I'm too drunk to mind it dry." She wasn't sure she understood until he climbed off her and looked up at her on hands and knees, his hair shading his face. "What do you want, an engraved invitation?"

"I want to kiss you," Elizabeth said, and did so, slowly and thoroughly. When she pulled back, some of Jack's beads caught in James's hair, and at first she attributed James's expression to that.

"That's not part of the bargain," James said softly.

"Is there a bargain?"

"I stop trying to kill you long enough to fuck," James said. "I think that's generous enough."

"As long as I get full measure," Elizabeth said.

"No fear, Sparrow," James said, but there was still something she couldn't read in his expression. She wondered for a moment exactly what she'd gotten Jack into. "I keep my bargains."

"That may be your problem," Elizabeth said under her breath.

"Enough talk, Sparrow," James said. "Or can't you get it up?"

"My ... equipment ... works just fine," Elizabeth said. In fact, the tightness in her groin had increased to the point of growing painful, her prick achingly sensitive. She thrust it against James's thigh from behind, and he groaned. She spat on her hand, realizing what he'd meant about dryness, and pressed her fingers where she supposed they had to go.

"God, yes," he said, pressing back against her. She pressed in further, and then pulled her hand out slowly, and was rewarded by seeing him breathe like he'd been running. She hesitated, but she knew she'd never get another chance, not to have James and not to do this.

Elizabeth pressed the tip of her prick against that same sensitive place, and James groaned and arched back against her, the leather strap of her baldric caught between them; she thrust, pressing Jack's leather purse against James's hip, and there was a crack as something in it snapped.

*****

Jack leaned back on his elbows, knees spread to give young William better access, and felt his nether regions begin to tighten again. He was already sweating and shaky from the first onslaught of pleasure, and felt that another was imminent. No wonder wenches were so keen to spread their legs for him. And he was better at it than Will.

"That's it, love," he said. "Just a ... little ... more ..."

He closed his eyes and drove up with his hips, feeling the warm, tight pressure embracing his ...

... hard prick, which he was using to fuck someone who clearly wasn't Will, taller and moving differently underneath him. His breeches were around his thighs, and his arse stung, and the muddy street reeled around him in a way that spoke of large quantities of rum. Elizabeth had clearly used her time to good advantage.

"Pirate," he breathed.

"I'm not," the man underneath him growled, and Jack tensed as he matched a face to the bent head and straining shoulders he could currently see. "I hate pirates."

"Wait just a minute—" Jack said, and then realized he couldn't. This body hadn't come yet, and was apparently fairly desperate to.

"You can't wait, can you," James Norrington said, and one hard thrust was enough to send him over the edge.

*****

Elizabeth's head swam for a moment as she found herself leaning back on her elbows on warm eiderdown, her knees apart and Will's head bent between them, every nerve ringing with the pleasure of his mouth on her tender sex. Oh, Jack , she thought. Wicked, impossible ...

"... horrible pirate," she heard herself say, and came with a shuddering intensity that made her cry out helplessly and dig her nails into Will's shoulders.

Will raised his head, his eyes gleaming, his voice low and intense. "Pirate, am I?"

"My pirate," Elizabeth said, and tugged him roughly onto her.

"Then maybe I should take what I want," he said.

They tangled in pleasant struggle which ended when he bore her down against the bed, and she gasped in pleasure when he finally drove himself inside her. He thrust hard at first, but she could feel him tensing, beginning to doubt her pleasure.

"What we want," she said, and drew him down firmly into her arms.

Afterwards, they lay panting in a tangle of covers. Her shift lay discarded on the floor along with Will's clothes, and she ran her hand down his shoulder in the lamplight. He looked up at her hesitantly, and when she smiled, he relaxed, his mouth quirking in the little half-smile she loved.

"I never knew engravings could be so educational."

Come up and see my engraving, Elizabeth thought. There's a new one. On the other hand, she hadn't behaved any better, had she? She probably ought to confess the truth, but as Will pulled her down to lie comfortably on his shoulder, both of them sweaty and wrung-out with pleasure, she couldn't really think of a reason why.

She lay back on Will's shoulder and wondered idly if Jack had left the engravings anywhere to hand.

*****

"Damn it," Norrington said. The note of frustration in his voice made Jack a bit sympathetic. Especially since it had been caused by a source of frustration Jack knew very well. Thinking about Elizabeth too much was enough to make a man ready to do just about anything to get her off his mind.

"Here," Jack said, and rolled them both over so that he could wrap his hand around James's prick. It felt strange having so recently had another one in his hand. He felt he ought to be taking mental notes in case it was ever necessary to identify them by feel.

James strained against him, making it as much a wrestling match as anything else. Jack felt that he was going to have uncomfortable bruises by the time James finally shuddered and came in his hand, sagging heavily against him as if he'd lost some fight.

Jack wasn't entirely sure who the opponent was. At the moment, he didn't feel like volunteering. After a minute Norrington struggled up to his elbows, pushed himself off Jack, and dropped back down again.

They lay sprawled in the mud for a while, breathing hard, neither of them speaking. The street was going slowly round and round, but Jack felt it wasn't up to him to try to stop it.

"Tell me again why we were doing that," Jack said after a while.

"Because you're a pirate," James said, with the sort of precise enunciation that made it clear he was three sheets to the wind. "That's what pirates do."

"Bugger people?" There was a certain amount of truth to that, although he could have said the same about the British Navy.

"Prey on people's ..."

"Better natures?"

"Weaknesses."

Jack considered the sword that Norrington seemed to have abandoned at some point. "What, like you keeping on trying to kill me?"

"That's not a weakness. That's my duty. Was. Is. Was."

"Buggery's more fun," Jack said.

"Oh, fuck you."

"Not if you're going to try to kill me."

"Can't," Norrington said. "We had a bargain. No killing each other until we've finished fucking."

"That's not exactly an incentive to be finished, is it?"

Norrington regarded him skeptically through the mud. It was starting to rain. "Sooner or later we've got to be finished."

"Tomorrow," Jack said. "In the morning I can throw you off my ship and you can vow that I won't escape you so easily next time." Jack didn't add assuming next time you're less easily led about by your prick. "Very dramatic."

"I'm not on your ship," James pointed out. "I can tell by the absence of waves going up and down."

"Very clever," Jack said. "Pride of the British Navy, you must be." He offered James a hand. After quite a long pause, James took it and let Jack pull him to his feet. Both of them swayed.

"I'm going to regret this in the morning," James said.

"That's what they all say," Jack said. "Just don't let anyone sell you any toenails."

"I have toenails," James said, giving his feet a confused glance.

Jack clapped him on the back. "No worries, then," he said, and threw an arm around James's shoulders to steer him along.