It was without a doubt the most absurd valentine James Norrington had ever received. Smoke-worn lace over red silk, studded with tiny grey shimmering spheres—pearls. James turned the conglomeration over and saw it hastily stitched to stiff sailcloth. He smiled. Turned it over again. Scrawled across the very center, broad and wanton in India ink was one word: Forever.

"If you think you can handle it, mate." The voice at James' window was undeniably Jack's; it was thick and rolling like slow warm molasses over crackling gravel, and it hid a laugh under a very tenuous film. James felt something spark and tumble low in his gut before it leapt back and up and vaulted the same response it always did out of his tight-drawn almost-smiling lips.

"Experience would show—" A sharp, harsh cough snapped James' head up and he very nearly tumbled backwards, because there was Jack, but not Jack, but it couldn't be anyone else, because his smile, even without lips, was exactly the same. It wouldn't suit another soul.

But perhaps soul was assuming a bit much, anyway.

Jack lifted a tattered leg over the windowsill and the rest of him slunk after, following like the wake follows a ship, each bone—bone?—a foaming eddy of piecewise motion pulled into formation by blue-silver-grey tendons and the odd strip or two of long thin striated muscle. Then Jack pulled himself up to stand fully, and the slow rolling dance as disc skated across disc ensnared James' gaze and snatched his breath away. Jack noticed, and chuckled, and the battered web of his diaphragm skittered up and down while he stood there framed by frothing curtains and stabs of moonlight. He could fairly well have glowed.

A piece of Jack fell off and landed with a gentle wet sound on the floor. James twisted his face up so that he could keep the vomit down. "Ah. That's not yours then, I take it."

"Jack!" James' voice was little more than an offended, slightly squeaky croak. Jack bent down, picked the bit of gelatin-flesh up between two clean white bone fingers, examined it as though he were considering popping it into his mouth and putting it through for another round, and to James' unspeakable relief tossed it over his shoulder out the window. But he was frowning, a frown that curled, like licking flame, into a hideous hungry smile as he stepped steadily toward James and reached out, hovered his talons within a breath of James' hips—but did not touch.

James' heart raced, thundered, and his breath left his eyes so that all he could see was a single bead, swaying quietly, when Jack just-barely-almost kissed his ear and purled, "Certain you can stomach this, love." It wasn't a question at all. It was pure challenge, and James took the bait. He wrapped his fingers around Jack's wrists—had they always been this narrow? Certainly not this cold—and planted skeletal palms atop skin and the thin silk of a nightgown. Jack's smile grew, pulling so far that strings stretched and holes grew where once there were cheeks and lips. "Such heat, Jamie-love. And you're ready to give tha' up?"

Jack's breath was rancid. His smell was sour and stale, and he resonated cold. James shivered from head to toe, hooked his thumbs over Jack's pelvic bone, and whispered back. "Not yet. Close the shades, Jack."

The silk tore a bit in high-pitched rasping protest as Jack did what was asked. James watched the transformation from monster to man, never turning away while he undid his gown and walked a known path back to the bed. When the last sliver of moonlight slipped away, James struck a match and lit a candle, so that he could see Jack golden as he crept toward the bed. His eyes were still hollow, but the candle-flicker lent them a false glint that was at least somewhat comforting. And when he touched James' cheek, cupped his jaw, swept a thumb over his cheekbone, his hand was still cold. James shut his eyes tight. "Once more. Make it worth your time."

"Oh, I will, know that."

That was the only warning James got before a slippery cold tongue landed on his nipple and he gasped and arced. Iced fingers spread over his belly and held him down as he shook in constant tremors against the dancing frigid filigrees that were striking sparks off his body, across his chest, along his neck, up behind his ear, down his arms and up his legs. Jack was chasing all the heat in him to the one place he wouldn't touch, and James was so hard now, painfully hard, and burning, needing. But the hotter he grew, the colder Jack became in horrid counterpoint, such perfect torture; finally he could bear it no longer; in an act of desperation he wrapped long legs around Jack's and ground against him—an impulse he instantly regretted because it sucked away almost all his precious heat... almost.

"...Jack... Jack!" Hard suction on a pebbled disc, soothing hands skating down his sides, and that terrible fire was back, and James knew the only way to feed it and quench it. "You... now."

"Aye, love."

Cold oil, cold Jack, cold slipping down behind him, cold making him gasp and choke and draw inward and there was the burn, against begrudging muscle, striking direct perfection, stoking the flame, making it erupt from James' mouth with a shout, and again, and again, a flawless rhythm, breaking him to pieces, pulling him together, winding him up tighter and tighter and steadily until before he knew what was coming he snapped, and shook, and shouted Jack's name. But even as he was still falling from the heights of his ecstasy he felt cold hands turning him, tumbling him, and his knees were bent up under him, hands clung to the headboard because Jack never missed a beat. Never missed. James eyes gave up and took refuge back inside his head while his neck whipped up and arched, strained, until it was too much and neck and shoulders went limp in wait for the next nearly-shattering wave. He grit his teeth, and came again, with the wood of the headboard biting into his palms as he shouted and gave in to panting because would Jack ever stop or slow or speed or something? A third time, a fourth, and Jack was tireless, rumbling horribly attractive obscenities and endearments alike into James' ear while he beat him battered and wasn't even out of breath.

"Oh, God, Jack." James wasn't sure his words came out as such, so torn was his throat from moaning and shouting and so loud was the blood thundering through his body in a mad race to Jack's striking inside him. "Jack stop, stop... don't stop, Jack, ah, yes," and Jack didn't stop, and James knew he wouldn't, so he surrendered altogether, shuddering silently through another orgasm, and another, and James had nothing left to give, and it was torture now, plain torment, that shot burning through his cock, and he couldn't possibly... well, possibly.

His hands slipped off the headboard and fell, quietly oozing blood, to sink into the pillow. His forehead lay on the mattress, his eyes were shut and might never open, and his knees had grown too tired to support his weight what seemed like ages ago. He moaned, low and exhausted and completely devoid of coherent thought, except to beg for Jack to show him mercy because he was sure he would die. This would kill him, and he would die.

"No, no ye won't." And as if the wind were listening, just then, it brushed the curtains apart so that a sword of moonlight could dash through and strike Jack's hands, turning fingers to needles and daggers down James' back. He felt the blood trickle along, then cold, a new cold, a hard, curved cold, pressed to the bottom of one of many rivulets and cold words of pure unmasked desire whispered in his ear, "You really want this, love, and all that comes with it. Have to want it."

"...Do you?"

"Aye."

James breathed in the smell of death and thick tired sex in the balmy night air, and breathed out the words: "Count me in."

Suddenly it was like a cool wave washing up over his body; Jack sprung away and James could feel the warm sticky blood on his back dry and stiffen over the cuts as they healed. He found himself filled with a new energy, a zeal for undeath, and when Jack took him by the hand and pulled him off the bed James got to his feet without a trace of lethargy. Though his arse hurt like buggery, he had never felt better. And Jack looked at him like a hungry wolf starved for weeks. "Open the drapes."

"Wh—what?" James tossed his head back because Jack had fallen upon him even as he gave his demand and was kissing in tiny gasps up and down James' throat. "Jack, I can't... can't do anything if you won't leave off devouring me!" Jack pulled back and nodded, then pushed James away and sat himself on the bed, rapt attention on his lover as he went to the window and took decisive hold of the heavy damask. James tossed a quick flutter of a glance back to Jack, who waved his hands in a silent 'get on with it!' gesture, then whipped the curtains open.

It was like getting hit in the chest with a thousand knives. At least, that's what he felt first and strongest. The moonlight tore his flesh away, shredded it off his ribs the harshest, because the muscle everywhere else softened the scouring blow. There were thousands of claws and teeth, sharp, frantic, and infinitely worse than Jack's had been on his back, and they were lashing at him everywhere his skin lay exposed to the sneering moon. Somehow the burn of a flesh-eating disease wed itself to a cold, slick sliminess that finished the job, and just as the sour-bitter tingle raced over James and the pain seemed for a second to fade, the long-fingered Diana twisted muscle fibers from all about James' body and tugged. String after string snapped and yielded, and James was fascinated to note how similar it was to a sail's rigging pulled too taut in a storm, the way each elastic striation quivered with terror, perhaps knowing its own mortality, before it split and each end leapt back and curled tight away.

These minor explosions, bursts of white pain, popped all through him wherever there was muscle to be abused, but especially violent were the ones in his legs, most fierce in his calves, and in his arms. He brought his right wrist up to his face so that he could better watch the theatrics through his forearm—when in curiosity he made a hard fist, the little strands spasmed and broke in a frenzy, and a few were so zealous as to lash out and strike his face. James flinched back, unable to blink because he had no eyelids, and turned his head to glance a question at Jack, but the twist in his neck split an entire mass of muscle lines there as though they were no more than brittle sticks of sun-blanched driftwood. His jaw fell open to so sudden an attack, and facing square ahead to fix the moon with a furious glare James swore to himself that she could do her worst; he would not buckle.

That was when his veins all caught fire and became dry brush in a desert wind, flowing with sand not blood. They crisped and crackled and fell away, and he would consider the remnant feeling a burning one except that he had no body temperature, for lack, now, of blood. His heart shriveled, crumpled up into a collapsed mass that fell from disintegrated arteries and slipped, scraping, between delicate lungs to nestle above his stomach.

But cold silver surgical moonlight would not stand for this for long. She cut his organs out, roughly, disemboweled him and threw his entrails to the floor in a shuddering tangled mass. As the echo of that sharp splat circled around the room and faded away, so too the pain quieted to a dull nostalgic ache. He stood, gasping his breath back, heaving it in and out of soft delicate lungs that bumped against his ribcage, and then the moon played her last trick. A parting gift, she squeezed the air from his lungs and pierced them with an hundred tiny holes, so they hung limp behind the frame of his ribs and, eventually, fell to dust and powdered the floor.

James was still.

A low hollow shuffling and clacking behind him, and James felt the ladder-like horizontals of a ribcage front against his shoulders and spine. Hands folded around lower vertebrae, closed gently in front, and a rasping Jack leaned skull over shoulder and said, "Bit of a shock the first time, love."

James heard the fragile waver to Jack's voice, pulled the raw remains of lips away from his teeth in a smile reflex, and murmured, "To watch that excited you as much as it caused me pain to undergo."

Jack's affirmation was almost nothing more than a low breath and a loosening of his hands to splay one across the flat of James' pelvis, scraping his thumb slowly back and forth within the gentle cup of a hipbone. James shuddered, sagged backward, and let his neck unfold draped over Jack's clavicle. "Did it only seem to me to take as much time as it did, that ordeal?"

Jack shrugged, and his shoulder blade bumped softly up into the back of James' head. "Didn't count seconds, actually."

James gave a non-opinioned murmur that would have been 'mm' if he'd had lips to form it. "Is it... always that violent?"

"Na... all your real innards are gone now, so from here on in it's much easier. Barely notice it. Promise."

"That's just as well. And... now? What do we do next?"

"So full of questions. You were less talkative when you had all your bits and pieces." James grumbled, but Jack obliged despite and stepped around to face him, hands resting on James' ribcage while he said, "Well alright then, one thing at a time. Kiss me." Jack knocked his parted teeth against James', and when James caught in his throat and jerked his mouth open Jack's cruel mutation of a tongue shot inside and whirled around its opposite. Teeth clicked, cheekbones tapped, and tongues battled without barrier against the whispering night breeze. It was a difficult skill to master, because there were no soft malleable lips to behave as buffer and beacon, and no cheeks to keep tongues contained within their steamy microcosm. Once, in fact, James' flopped out the side of his mouth and he unwittingly bit it, shouted in indignation, then moaned when Jack got possession of the same tongue and bit it himself only slightly more gently.

Thus revitalized they began again to kiss, but before they could get too well into it Jack had become fed up with the squelchy mound at his feet and tried to kick it away. His toe caught on a section of small intestine, though, and the more he shook his foot to free it the more thick wet cord wrapped itself around toes, heel, ankle... "Damn your guts, James Norrington."

The once-owner of said interloping innards added his assistance, and kicked his foot into the mess as well. It only made things worse, and soon, after a few more clashes and swears and squishes and scratches they were tangled on the floor, limbs all akimbo, bones of one slipping between bones of the other to build an inescapable puzzle. When they tried to move, loosen themselves, raspy bones and slippery flesh and taut-stretched muscles rubbed and ground against each other, and two groans slid as one from naked pharynxes.

"Jack, I—" a whine as Jack sent a wave arching through his body joint by joint, and each move stretched and scraped James in places he'd never thought he would survive being touched "—I think the entrails won that."

"Aye..." Jack walked his fingers speedily up James' spine, James shivered, and both of them grit their teeth and grumbled gravelly moans at the impeccably shared quake. "But I still rather appreciate my consolation prize all the same."

James appeared to look offended (even with only half his face with which to express, and that itself is a generous estimate) and tucked his chin between Jack's collarbone and shoulder blade before he petulantly murmured, "Is that all I am to you, Jack, a consolation prize?" A patchy tongue darted out to lick at Jack's ear, a bit of which fell off and the tongue snatched it away hungrily, giving way to a satisfied smile that made Jack knock his head back and half-shout half-groan.

"No, Jamie, you're much more important than that."

"I ought to be. Especially after all of this." James wound and twisted, toes to head and back down, and Jack shook fiercely and helplessly. James chattered along with the convulsion, his eyes rolled in his head, his head rolled on his neck, he and Jack rolled on the floor, they shouted, rasped, begged, gasped, cursed, and then James felt himself silently slide from shaking with unspeakable trapped need to still, limp, and quietly keening in the painful just-too-far, afraid to move because when he did it was excruciating unrelenting pain that can only have pleasure as its excuse.

They were still, absolutely, and though Jack's eyes were devoid of focus James' watched the moon anxiously. "Before the night is out we must come apart, unless there is to be an even worse mess come morning."

Jack nodded, and even that sent a tremor of whimpering overload through the pair. "Rest now... try again later."

"Yes."


[Nota Bene: Jack and James did eventually get separated, the guts got thrown out the window, and there was much cleaning to be done. The help did not ask questions, much to James' relief.]


...


My Two Cents: Oh. My word. I hated this piece, as my Quality Control Team will recall, and now I couldn't think of anything more fun. They get stuck. Together. Like those stories, with the punks kissing, and then their piercings get caught... I'm sorry, but this is just one enormous joke to me. "Damn your guts, James Norrington"—*giggle* But at the same time as I was laughing my arse off at how incredibly ridiculous this all is, I was trying also to craft something grotesque, and something sexy. And something to make up for my terrible poorjamesing in Hemp... so I decided hey, I'll see that Jamie gets off seven times. Of course then I beat the crap put of him with moonbeams and make him trip over his own guts, but... He still gets off seven times. (Because yes, Jamie is superhuman and yes, Jack fucks that well. Shut up I'm the author.) Also, got to use the words akimbo and pharynx. Also, mum walked past and asked "why are you doing so damned much research on the male human pelvic bones?" My excuse? "Ummmmm... bio project?" Yeah, I haven't taken bio since Freshman year. However, "hi mom I write gay zombie porn with someone else's characters in order that I might further postpone the writing of my term paper" just doesn't have the right ring to it... you know? Eh.

Sooo... did I squick ya? Did I did I did I?