"Liar." The tone was accusatory and dark, with a snarl that dripped from the speaker's mouth as if it could clean the goat hairs from his jacket as it rolled down his chest. Jack looked up at his intruder.

"Pirate." He shrugged dismissively, returning to his chart.

Ex-commodore James Norrington strode the two paces to the desk, balled fists thunking onto oak. "Self-centred bastard in denial," he spat.

Jack paused, leaned his chin on an upturned hand and blinked coquettishly. "Yes to the first, yes to the second, but I'm afraid we're in the Caribbean, mate. That hurricane must've got your sense of direction all confused. No wonder you ended up in Tortuga—probably thought it was Marrakesh!" He smiled, eyes dancing as he wondered how tight he could wind the former naval officer without breaking him.

James scowled, his fury seemingly making his wig unfurl and hang even more sodden and bedraggled than before. "Liar," he repeated, harsher this time, words grating on the back of his throat as if it pained him to confront the man he'd so recently and publicly declared his nemesis.

Jack sighed and waved his free hand, royally gesturing James to take a seat. James glared and stayed where he was. "To what do I owe the dishonour of your contempt?" Jack asked mildly.

"What you said." James' lips snapped shut in a grim line and he breathed heavily out through his nose before clarifying, "To Elizabeth. About your inclinations." He glared again, face tight and arms locked, tense at the perceived betrayal. A part of his brain berated him—he shouldn't have confronted Jack while still flooded with anger; it made him no more capable of self-control than the Turner boy had been the morning after Barbossa's raid on Port Royal—in fact, observed the part of his brain with a sadistically sardonic chuckle, hadn't it been a copy of this very same chart that young Mr Turner had thoughtlessly rendered useless with his hatchet? James narrowed his eyes, forcing that part of his brain to the rear, deciding that there was a time for rash action, and this may as well be it, since that seemed to be the course he'd taken.

Jack, meanwhile, had narrowed his eyes so his eyelids virtually covered them. To compensate and keep James in his vision, he had lifted his chin and it perched now on the tips of his extended fingers. "Oh," he said.

It was a very eloquent 'Oh,' but it was an 'Oh,' nonetheless, and nothing seemed destined to follow it, which made Ex-Commodore James Norrington feel short-changed. "'Oh'?" he demanded, shoving himself upright without bashing his head against the deck-beams with a fluidity rarely seen outside the ranks of the Royal Navy, "Is that all the Great Captain Jack Sparrow deigns to allow as an explanation? 'Oh'?" Jack flinched at the vitriolic tone, but James was on a roll and didn't seem to notice. "Is that all the reassurance the Great Captain Jack Sparrow can give to convince his newest crew-member that he has not in fact lost his marbles, and that said newest crew-member is neither delusional nor suffering a case of mistaken identity? Is that all the Great Cap..." his words were crushed back down his throat by the force of Jack's lips which suddenly materialised, attached to James', and by Jack's tongue which took advantage of James' being carried away with his speech to thrust itself between James' teeth to light a fire in his groin. Jack had struck like lightning and dropped away as soon.

"Sorry luv." He wiped the back of a forefinger across the corners of his mouth. "You were saying?"

James tried to glare, but the initial rage had gone out of him leaving only his simmering antipathy toward the world in general and Jack Sparrow in particular for messing up his life even when he made it better.

Jack swept his eyes appraisingly up and down James' figure. "I like the beard, luv, looks good on you—but lose the wig." James frowned, a line appearing attractively between his dark brows and Jack snapped away into Pirate Captain mode, "Now get out there an' scrub me decks wi' th' rest o' me crew!"

Each man turned his back on the other, Jack returning to his chart table and James to exit the cabin. "Oh, and just for the record?" Jack's back was still turned to James as he stalled, begrudgingly preventing the other man from leaving. "You do smell." He could feel James' eyes boring into his back. "But I don't mind," he added softly, "I could cope with it if you'd rather sleep here than in the hold."

Jack risked a glance behind him. James' hand rested on the doorknob and his green eyes sparkled at him over a mud-spattered shoulder, lit by a smile so soft he thought he'd melt. "Oh Jack." Sympathy and something more welled in that rich voice and flowed like rum spilled into the vastness of the ocean; the smile changed, quirked at a corner. "Offering to share your bed with the crew? No wonder you were mutinied upon," and he was gone. Jack's jaw dropped and his mind flipped through a myriad reactions. He settled on squaring his shoulders and flinging open the door to get the last word, but whatever caustic response had been his intention died in his throat as he took in the sight of James Norrington kneeling on the deck, head bowed, as he scrubbed away with the only cloth he had—the wig which he had once so proudly worn and stubbornly refused to abandon even in its ridiculosity.

"James Norrington," Jack whispered to the wind before retreating once more into his cabin, "what have we all done to you?"