It was his duty to hang him, and he did it.

He didn't have a choice.

The facts—bitter consolation at the best of times—sound particularly hollow now, with the pirate's dark eyes fixed on him from a body of yellow bones and desiccated flesh, and a red headscarf—the same one Jack wore when he was rotting as a warning on dead man's quay—serving as an anchor for the strings of matted hair and trinkets that clatter hollowly against his skull.

"Sparrow." Words die in his throat—torn apart between relief and horror—and he shouldn't feel so relieved to find the pirate if not alive, then at least less dead than could logically be expected.

He thinks Jack must hate him now, but he can't tell by looking—that dark gaze is unreadable. Expressionless.

And what is one supposed to do, when one's... enemy... is dead/not-dead; too close and too dangerous and far too hypnotically intriguing to even think of escaping?

James takes a deep, shaky, steadying breath, and says the first thing that comes to his mind.

"Avaunt."

"Eh?"

"Avaunt and quit my sight, let the earth hide thee, thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold, thou hast no speculation in those eyes, which thou dost glare with."

"Shakespeare, James?" Jack's laugh is low and amused, and something tight and unhappy in James' chest loosens just a fraction. The pirate looks at him sharply, but his tone when he speaks in one of mild curiosity. "Do you feel guilty for killing me then, luv?"

"I do. You know I do," James breathes without thinking. "I..." He bites down hard on his lower lip to keep from compromising himself further.

He musters the vanishing remains of his commodorial stubbornness. "Hence horrible shadow, unreal mockery hence." Too desperate, and he knows it.

Jack sways closer.

"I'm not horrible." The pirate grins, gold fillings glinting in the moonlight. James gets the distinct impression that, had he been able, Jack would have pouted instead. "Can't you see, love?—I'm beautiful." He brushes grey knucklebones seductively over tattered shreds of skin and down the white bones of his arm. "Really. Quite. Lovely."

Jack's voice is a thick haze, warm and addictive as smoke. James feels it as sweet warmth moving through his veins.

His gaze wanders over the slender skeleton, cataloguing—memorising—every angle of bone, every blue-yellow-grey shade of off-white, every stark shadow cast by wasted muscle and moonlight.

His breath tangles into a knot in his throat and he has to force himself to breathe. "Yes." He drags his eyes distractedly back to Jack's face. "Lovely indeed." The last remaining shards of James' self control shatter and melt and burn.

Then, dazed and longing and utterly unable to do otherwise, he closes the gap between them; because Jack—no matter what he looks like—is still Jack, and altogether too fascinating to resist.


***


James' first moves are tentative, as if he fears one of them will break, so Jack leans into his touch and murmurs something complimentary until he stops holding back and plunges inside—one hand sliding up inside the pirate's ribcage, the other tracing its way around the curve of Jack's hip bones, and this is good—better than Jack thought possible. A warm tongue invades his skull—gold teeth and naked cheekbones, a careful swipe around his eye-sockets—and a warm body presses into him, tangling their legs together to drop them both to the ground.

There's a tearing off of clothes then, rushed and intent, James' wig and uniform joining what's left of Jack's outfit in an untidy heap. Jack hungrily explores every inch of skin as it's exposed, feeling James doing the same to him.

Parts of Jack go squish, and parts of him go twang—the pirate doesn't need to breathe, shouldn't be able to, but he's lightheaded as if from lack of air and he gasps, because it's James who is laughing now and the sound is joyful and wondering and mischievous all at once.
Jack shudders against him, wailing helplessly as James rips the remains of his heart out through his chest and slides his thumb over it, caressing and teasing as his fingers mark the points where Jack's main arteries used to start—over and over until the world turns inside-out, upside-down and explodes...
And oh god Jamie that's...
too much, not nearly enough, and...
only the phantom ache of a voice-box that doesn't even exist lets Jack know how loud he was screaming.

By the time Jack pries his eyeballs from the back of his skull and can see with something approaching clarity, James has won back a tiny sliver of his usual composure. Sprawled across the pirate, he looks content and smug, and not nearly as incoherent as he should be, his desire still present but muted.

His guard's down. Trusting enough to make Jack feel... something. Passion, not quite anger, yet it burns like a need for revenge, because no matter how much Jack enjoyed it, James just tore him apart at the seams; shattered him so completely that he doesn't know if he can rebuild himself, and Jack demands nothing less than to return the favour.

So he grins, with enough mischief to make James go still, and flips them over. Easily. Effortlessly. James is alive—wonderfully, fascinatingly alive—and no match at all for Jack's undead strength. The tension of James' body, pinned between him and the deck, lets Jack know just how aware James is of the fact.

Perfect.

Jack pushes closer, stealing the warmth from James' skin, sliding his hands up the soft inside of James' arms to circle his wrists. He holds them not quite too tightly as he brushes the sharp edge of his ribs across his nipples. James hisses, the sound a mix surprise and arousal, and struggles reflexively against Jack's hold.

He doesn't have a hope of breaking it, but he's not trying very hard, either. Deliberately slowly, Jack repeats the motion, bone against flesh, all down the length of James' body, delighting at the gasp and shiver of his reaction.

"Perfect." This time he says it aloud, close enough to tickle the hollow of James' throat. He fastens his teeth over the spot, too light to really hurt, easily hard enough to mark—hard enough to drag a surprised moan from James lips.
"Yes, just like that, precious." He bites and nibbles his way upwards until he can close his mouth over James'. "You are mine," he breathes into him. "You can't fight me, you can't resist me, you can't deny me. Mine." With a twist, he traps James' cock inside himself, the shreds of flesh left enough to tease, but not satisfy, and he laughs as James bucks helplessly into him.

It's an effort to concentrate now—James like this is distracting, almost too much so.

Jack rolls them onto their sides, releasing James' wrists abruptly. He slides his hands down the length of James' spine to tease at the base of it before moving lower.

"But then," he continues silkily, "I'm irresistible, am I not?" His fingers find James' tight opening and stroke it, a constant circling that layers sensation over sensation until James cries out, the sound desperate and pleading but still muffled by clenched teeth as he struggles to maintain some sort of dignity.
Jack draws back, just long enough to detach first one then two of his fingers, then returns to slide them inside. They're barely under conscious control as they wriggle further into James' passage, the cool counterpoint to his heat making him jerk in startled, distracted arousal.

Rocking his hips into the pleasure does nothing, they're inside him, twisting and rubbing against his sweet spot with an utter, overwhelming lack of mercy, and all he can do is gasp out variations of "Jack," and "please" over and over again. "Jack, Jack please, please stop-don't stop, please Jack; Jack, I... I, oh Jack, please...."
Skeleton hands seek out every sensitive part of him, cupping and stroking his inner thighs, holding them steady as Jack's fingers continue to move inside him, sending shocks of ever-increasing pleasure through him. "Please, Jack, I need..."
Then the memory of a tongue is sliding between his lips, stealing his words, his breath, everything he is... Jack is tight around him—can't be, it's not possible, Jack—the pirate pulls back long enough to hiss breathlessly at him. "Now Commodore, come now."
James does. Comes harder than he ever has before, feeling the world white-out and fall away from under him, and that cry was his, wasn't it?

It's hard to focus, but James manages it. They're lying half in the moonlight, half out of it, and Jack's gold skeleton-grin turns partway through into an infinitely satisfied smirk. James' voice doesn't seem to be working, but be manages to dredge up some kind of a dazed smile before falling asleep in Jack's arms.
Jack doesn't sleep. He lies silently, watching the light, steady rhythm of James' breathing. Thinking. "A life for a life, Jamie-darling," he murmurs finally. "And you killed me, so..." he grins, "I guess you're mine now, love."

________________
Read the sequel, And Quit My Sight.