Some nights James will say "no" and try to push him away, but so far it's been possible to change that tune into the far sweeter one of "oh-please-don't-stop-oh-God-Jack-please-oh-yes!". Amazing, really, what a little expert application of lips and tongue and some strategic groping can accomplish.

And then Jack will fuck him and Jack will suck him and Jack will ride him and Jack will do whatever he wants to him, driving him wild and beyond wild, beyond conscious and subconscious and unconscious, until there is nothing left of him but a sweaty lump of boneless flesh.

They don't kiss. The one time Jack tried, he walked around with a swollen tongue for the better part of a week.

James tends to ignore the rest of the crew, within the bounds of common courtesy, and they usually return the favour. The sole exception is when some new recruit gets the wrong impression of the chains he is always wearing. Usually, one of the old hands are around to handle the matter, although if not, then the sharp knife and the loaded pistol he always carries have so far been quite sufficient to set them straight.

In the evenings Jack will read or chart a course or simply lounge on the bed, watching through half-lidded eyes as James rubs the pungent ointment onto his wrists and then goes over the irons with an oiled cloth, before putting them back on and returning the tiny key to its place on the silver necklace he wears—the only present from Jack he has ever accepted.

Jack hates the chains and the key. Every time he sees them, it itches in his fingers and all he wants to do is throw them overboard, but he never does. The only one throwing things overboard is James, every time after the first that Jack has tried to give him a gift. At first he thought it might have something to with the kind of gift, so he racked his brain, but gave up on the day that a leather-bound translation of Dante was swallowed by the waves (a waste, in Jack's humble opinion, since he strongly doubted that Caribbean fish were capable of appreciating Italian poets).

Now Jack keeps things for himself—books are simply put on the shelves in the cabin, clothes too large for himself placed in a random sea chest. James will take the books down and read them before putting them back. James will wear the clothes. Jack never asks him why it has to be this way.

There are a lot of things that Jack never asks him. Like how come James does not respond to his title, will pretend to have not heard it—and if someone persists in calling him "Commodore", that someone will be treated to one of James' rare glares.

Jack never asks what James was doing on that French merchant ship or why he—freely and of his own choice—walked across to the Pearl, but unlike the two sailors who did the same firmly refused to sign the Articles and go on the account. Or why it is that every time the lookout will cry "sail ho!" he will go below or aloft and not be seen again until the pillage-and-plunder part of the day is past.

Jack never asks about the sword—or to be more specific, the shards of the sword (which was obviously very fine, folded steel and gilding and all)—that he has found wrapped in an old shirt and hidden under many more in one of the sea chests in the cabin. Never as much as mentions it.

Jack does not even ask when he sees James, on the (admittedly rare) nights when he has done nothing to him, and the man tosses and turns, cries out in his sleep and is covered in cold sweat. Never asks—just tries his damnedest to make sure those nights are few and far between.

Sometimes late at night, when he is right on the verge of post-coital sleep, cock still buried balls-deep in the limp body beneath him, he will admit to himself that what he fears is not that James might refuse to answer.