Jack kept the small silver vial hanging by a length of hemp from a nail in the wall at the head of his bunk. It was covered all over with delicate, exotic filigree and topped with a twisted glass stopper.

"From India," was the only answer given whenever James asked. And he'd get a strange look in his eye that would intrigue him just enough to ask again. But he always got the same reply. Until the night Jack looked at him across the table in the table where their mugs sat empty and forgotten, and grinned his golden grin. "Why don't I show you?"

...later, he would work it out as a formula: two mugs of stolen rum (it was important that it be stolen, or this wouldn't come out properly), the grin, and the eyes. Take them together, and he'd let the pirate do whatever he damn well pleased to him...

Eyes closed, he stood and tried to ignore the feel of pirate pressed against his back, tried to keep his face perfectly still as Jack ghosted the cool, pointed glass tip of the stopper along his lower eyelid...verrry slowly ("Relax, luv, I'm not planning to poke yer eye out.")...from tear duct to outer corner, tickling ("...never seen lashes like that on anyone but a lass, I swear, it's a bloody crime...") and then starting all over again ("...look down...no, I mean with yer whole head, aye, that's a boy...") and it was torture not to twitch, or tremble, or think about Jack resting his biceps against his shoulders, or his chest against the curve of his spine, or his...

Jack's breath ghosted hot and alcoholic against his ear. "All done."

His eyes felt dry and blurred for a moment. He blinked to clear his vision, and realized that it was just the mirror playing tricks on him. He wouldn't have expected it of a mirror in the cabin of Captain Jack Sparrow (no matter how many times he'd accused the pirate of dressing in the dark), but the thing was a filthy relic. There was a fresh wound rubbed in the dusty glass, just enough to reflect two pairs of eyes. Hazy green and mahogany. Both rimmed all around in the blackest of black.

The pirate asked, "Well? What say you, eh, Jamie lad?"

James reached out and cleared away the rest of the grime obscuring their faces with his formerly pristine shirt sleeve. Funny, he hadn't noticed Jack's sharp chin resting on his shoulder until he saw it reflected back at him.

And the other face. That one he did not know.

"Christ, Jack. You've made a woman out of me."

Jack raised a thoughtful eyebrow. "Oh, no. Not quite. But if you've a mind to try that as well..." Jack's hands, sure from years of captaining the fastest ship in the Spanish Main, smooth from years of pick-pocketing, could be anywhere or nowhere, and you would never notice them unless he wanted you to. "...I'm sure i could oblige you..." James hadn't noticed them, drifting lower and lower, fluttering just above and never touching. Until they reached their destination Then he noticed them. The ship could have been on fire and those hands would be all he was noticing. "...somehow or other..."

James sucked in a huge breath, spine arching, lashes fluttering closed as he attempted to keep his legs from dissolving beneath him. Jack chuckled, the sound rumbling softly against the skin of James's throat.

"Tole' you." One rough pirate fingertip reached up and stroked a streak of kohl from the corner of James's eye down his cheekbone. "A bloody crime."