Friends and Abductors

by Like A Hurricane

Pairing: Jack/James
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I have no claim on POTC or the lovely characters who populate it, even if it seems that James Norrington has, somewhat disconcertingly, made himself quite at home in my head with no apparent plans to leave.
Originally Posted: 9/19/2009
Note: Remember when I said that Friends and Enemies was a one-shot? Yeah, about that... Turns out it was accidentally kind of a lie. It's all Jack's fault, this time; although James probably exacerbated it.
Warning: See that rating up there? Yeah. In this case, it means that naked men and sexual situations abound, in a thoroughly slashy way.
Summary: "It has not been three weeks, Captain Jack Sparrow." Commodore James Norrington takes a vacation. Sequel to Friends and Enemies, so read that first or nothing will make sense.

The plan went perfectly.

Just enough cloud cover to make the ship with black sails damned near invisible at night? Check. Big naval ship anchored for the night with orders to wait out the storm that the weather promised to deliver by dawn? Check. Commodore aboard? Check. Bumbling idiots Pintel and Ragetti providing adequate distraction? Check.

Jack knew he couldn't just abduct the commodore from his cabin, because he had learned from experience that James Norrington slept very lightly and (man after Captain Jack Sparrow's own weaselly black heart) always with a weapon easily in reach, often under a pillow. James' reflexes and paranoia matched the pirate's own, which was enticing for the most part, but also annoying from a strategic standpoint.

The noises of dismay, blustering, and rampant confusion near the commodore's cabin—namely: the noises of Mullroy and Murtogg meeting with Pintel and Ragetti (and wasn't Jack glad that he had missed out on having to listen to that)—had served to lure the commodore (the man must have slept dressed in his shirt-sleeves so as to be at least half-decent in case an emergency woke him, the clever bastard) quickly out onto the deck. That was when Jack, Anamaria, and one or two other nimble climbers hiding up in the rigging, dropped heavy items on the heads of everyone below, promptly knocking them all unconscious—except, of course, for Pintel and Ragetti, who were both resistant to most minor head injuries, after so many years of experience with them.

Really, Jack thought that James should have been more prepared for this, and the pirate captain was feeling quite smug about that, until he began picking his way through James' cabin and discovered a few bags, left deliberately in plain sight and packed with all the items the commodore might need for a vacation. Jack frowned at them, a little put out at first, but brought them on board with him anyway. He then wrote a note and affixed it with a dagger to the door of James' thoroughly ransacked-looking cabin:

This is the night that you will always remember as the night that Commodore James Norrington was finally caught by Captain Jack Sparrow.

Jack's signature at the bottom was, of course, written with a thoroughly flamboyant amount of flourish, and underlined thrice.

Commodore James Norrington awoke, finding himself seated in a mostly-upright position with his hands bound (with rope, not manacles, thankfully) and the bindings themselves tethered to something that held them above his head; he felt as though he were dangling from that anchor point. There was also a blindfold across his eyes, he noted upon trying to open them. His head throbbed. James tugged at his restraints experimentally and realized that he was, somewhat to his surprise, resting somewhere relatively soft and comfortable. The air around him smelled of the sea, of fragrant spices and oils, and of rum. Also, he could hear someone else in the room: breathing, flipping the page of a book, hair-trinkets clicking in the quiet of the cabin. James snorted, suddenly not the slightest bit surprised.

"It has not been three weeks, Captain Jack Sparrow," was the first thing he said, with sardonic disdain that would have been quite believable, if Jack could not see the faintest hint of a smile tugging at one corner of the commodore's mouth.

"Yer bags were still packed." Jack sounded a bit petulant about that. "Still know me too bloody well, Jamie."

"And yet, here I am." James relaxed, resting back against the—yes, it did seem to be a bedpost—the ornately carved bedpost and crossing his ankles in a nonchalant manner, looking for all the world like a man on vacation...except for the blindfold and the restraints, of course. Turning to look in what he assumed, correctly, to be Jack's direction, he offered a winning smile that made the pirate gape a bit in surprise. "And despite your complaints, you have kidnapped me anyway, which I interpret to mean that I've been doing something right."

Jack fidgeted, caught off-guard by adorable dimples. "Right in what way, mate?"

"Continuing to hold your interest." His smile took on the hint of a wicked edge.

The pirate captain shifted his legs, trying to ease the pressure on the growing signs of interest that certain parts of him were beginning to display at the direction that the conversation was taking. "And why, Jamie, would a fine commodore such as yerself be wanting to hold the interest of a pirate such as myself?" he asked, his voice just a little rougher, belying his otherwise playful question.

"Hmm. Well..." James stretched his arms above his head as far as he could, acting as though they were not bound to the post, then arched his back luxuriantly into the stretch as well before relaxing with a content sigh. He either did not hear, or pretended to ignore, the low guttural noise Jack gave in response. "The fact that he provided me with the best sex I've had since I was a lieutenant would be one reason, and a rather good one; but there is also the fact that the pirate in question continues to keep me interested, intrigued and otherwise on my toes." He raised his eyebrows, and the movement was visible through the blindfold. "And it is good, now and then, to reassure myself that I am not actually boring."

Jack was a bit disquieted by all of that: by the commodore's appreciation of the games they exchanged as well as what James apparently took from them, by the commodore's implied reference to Elizabeth's rejection in a manner so casual that it was clear he had more than recovered from it, and by the boost to Jack's ego and arousal that the 'best sex' comment inspired, the latter of which made it a little harder to focus on quite how important the rest of James' words were.

Then James gave a soft and wicked smile that positively had to be against the articles of war somewhere, and asked, "What is it keeping you interested, Jack Sparrow, other than my habit of anticipating your next moves?"

Before he could even think about it, or about anything for that matter as his blood was busy moving south by this point, Jack was on his feet, stalking slowly toward the commodore tied to his bedpost. "Yer a real temptation to an honest pirate, mate." He trailed his fingers from the corner of James' jaw to his chin, tilting the commodore's face up. Jack was heartened by the way James leaned slightly into the touch, even as James' facial expression remained amused and inscrutable. "Lots of hidden treasure underneath the wig an' the popinjay uniform." He let the pad of his thumb trace down the underside of James' jaw, along the side of James' adam's apple. "Pretty and dangerous. What more could I want?"

His mouth gone suddenly dry, James cleared his throat and tried to stop the flush of heat that he could feel rising on his face. "I can think of a few things."

"Aye?"

"Less clothing in the way, for one."

"I like the way you think, Jamie."

"Also, is there a particular reason that I am bound and blindfolded?"

"I'll show ye."

"I find that hard to believe, in that I cannot s—" He cut off with a sharp intake of breath, followed by a sound that seemed suspiciously like a whimper. James supposed that he should have realized earlier that his belt and the buttons of his trousers had already been undone in preparation; in fact, he should have suspected it from the beginning, he told himself silently. Then Jack's mouth did something that threatened to melt his brain and James said in a breathless, uneven voice: "Nevermind. No explanations required. I think—I think I get it. OhGod."

Jack chuckled, and nipped gently at the tender skin across the hollow of James' hip. "You understand a bit of it, so far, but I've only just started, love."

This time, the sound James made was definitely a whimper.

Within a few days, the crew had more than gotten an idea of what was actually going on in the captain's cabin. Mostly this was due to a few curious ears pressed to that cabin's door at particularly opportune times. There was initially some worry that Jack was being a reckless fool, and some of the crew very much worried about whether the commodore might try to use his sway with the captain to his own naval advantage somehow.

Whilst the commodore happened to be spending a bit of time on deck one evening, Anamaria chose to question him about it in her usual polite manner.

"What is it yer up to, commodore?" she snapped.

James glanced down towards where he could feel the point of her knife over his pulse-point, careful not to move his head. "My compliments on your stealth, Miss Anamaria." There was a low click, and she felt the muzzle of his pistol against her stomach. "Few others, if any, could have gotten so close, even slinking up behind me whilst barefoot."

She cursed under her breath, wondering why on earth Jack had let the commodore remain armed.

"However, if you truly wish to know: I have struck an accord with your captain. He and I share a common enemy in the form of a powerful man currently running most of the East India Company."

A thoughtful pause. "You mean that hijo de diablo Beckett?"

"The very same."

"What've you got against him?"

"I've had the misfortune of working for him whilst I was a captain. The ruthlessness of his ambitions led to the deaths of nearly half my crew. I have since learned to take orders from my superiors to be...more like a set of guidelines then actual rules. I also want very much to keep Beckett from seizing control of all trade in the Caribbean, because I never want to be put under his control again."

Anamaria considered this. "An' what about your shaggin' Captain Sparrow every night?"

To her surprise, the commodore chuckled. "I am currently, as agreed between myself and Captain Sparrow, on a rather unconventional vacation." He explained briefly about preventing Beckett's potential machinations, then concluded with, "All more professional matters aside, I see no reason not to enjoy myself." He looked over his shoulder at her and lifted his pistol away. He pulled the trigger and the gun gave a harmless click; it wasn't loaded.

Anamaria's eyes widened, and then her brow furrowed in confusion, if only because she had just noticed, to her chagrin, that without the wig and with that mischievous smirk on his face, the commodore was a handsome man, indeed. She suddenly understood a little better why Jack Sparrow was doing what he was doing, and keeping this naval officer in his cabin. "I think I see." She moved her knife away from his throat, sheathing it. "But if you cross us..." she trailed off, letting the threat hang in the air.

"Then my life will become Hell, trying to chase this ship around the Caribbean as he tears my reputation to shreds by remaining so damned impossible to catch. And then at some point, you will find a way to remove portions of my anatomy with that knife, I am sure." He was still smirking a little as he leaned back on the ship's railing. He looked like he was rather enjoying his time off. "I know. Trust me on that, at least."

She raised her eyebrows, a little impressed, and wondered if Jack knew quite what he had gotten himself into with this one. "For now," she said finally.

James bowed his head slightly, but maintained eye contact. "Thank you." He watched her move off, and waited a few minutes, then returned to Jack's cabin.

Without looking up from his charts, Jack inquired, "How'd it go, then?"

A short pause, silent except for the click of the door's lock, and then the commodore answered; James' voice was a low rumble, very close behind Jack's ear. "Mutiny avoided, Captain." He nuzzled through Jack's hair to bite at the nape of his neck. Brushing the braids and baubles aside gently with one hand, James began trailing kisses, licks and nips toward the corner of Jack's jaw, and some of the extraordinarily sensitive places around it.

The pirate shivered in a not-at-all unpleasant fashion. "Oh. Good to he—eeear, Goddammit, Jamie." With a soft groan, Jack leaned back in his seat, pressing back against James' body and encouraging the lovely things James' mouth was doing to the tender skin just below his ear, the charts immediately forgotten.

It was quiet: a night at sea, at anchor but not in port. The dark outside was as peaceful as the sound of waves against the Black Pearl's hull.

Listening to the sounds of sea and a quiet ship, half-dozing, James murmured a bit, incoherent and lazy and content, at the feel of Jack's fingertips exploring his back, moving feather-light, slow and patient. So serene and near-dreaming was he, that it took James over a minute to realize that the pirate was tracing the lines of the scars that marred his otherwise smooth skin.

Still not quite willing to verbalize, James merely gave a low, inquiring hum.

"You know the origins of a number of my marks, mate. I'm just wonderin' about yours." He traced with especial interest the dimensions of a few lash-marks, very old, across James' mid-back. "Some of 'em don't much look like what you'd expect on an officer, even one of the Royal Navy."

A low, thoughtful rumble from James: not quite audible, but Jack felt it under his fingers. Then James' voice, low and calm and still almost drowsy, said simply, "Those are not from the Navy."

"Oh." Jack pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Spanish?"

An faint, amused snort from James. "You will not guess."

"Then bloody tell me, you stubborn bloody commodore."

James chuckled.

A pause.

"Jamie..."

"My father. They are from my father," James said. He looked over his shoulder, surprising Jack with a smile that was not as bitter as the pirate might have expected. The incident had obviously been long enough ago that James had more than come to terms with it. "In one of my final years as a midshipman, I was on shore leave, and unaware that my father had recently made port, because I was occupied with a young lieutenant I had an affection for." He watched with amusement as Jack's eyes widened. "We had a room rented, above a rather questionable tavern. My father caught us in, as it were, a compromising position, but not, by far, one so compromising at the ones we had been involved in the previous night. My father was, however, quite perceptive. He handled the matter privately, in that he took care of it himself instead leaving it to the navy, if only for the sake of his own reputation. He threatened my lover with blackmail and, in his fury, gave me a brief taste of the lash. He then transferred me to a new ship immediately, told me to hide my injuries lest I further damage the family name, and to never take part in any further discretions, or else he would disown me." James glanced for a brief moment at his own scars, as best he could given that his neck could only twist so far. Then he met Jack's gaze again with a reassuring hint of a smirk. "I have, since then, learned to be the very soul of discretion, as you can imagine."

Jack nodded slowly. "Aye. I can, at that. I take it you're not on the best of terms with the man, then?"

"He passed away four years ago." His tone was passive: apathetic rather than mourning, and without an ounce of regret in evidence. James once more rested his head on his folded arms, still oddly comfortable, all things considered.

"Ah. Should I offer condolences or congratulations?"

James smirked a little. "Hmm. Let us just say that there was a reason that, upon being offered the furthest possible post from him and, so it seemed, from the rest of civilization as well, I seized upon it immediately and thus arrived here in the Caribbean." He gave a thoughtful hum. "I suppose that I owe my father that much, in that if I had not sought to put so much distance between him and myself, I would not have found my home here in these waters." There was something in his voice that suggested true love and respect for the sea out here: its moods and the way that everything seemed more vibrant here: colors, people, and life itself.

Jack felt a strange, spreading warmth in his chest, and distrusted the feeling immediately: it was too soft, too deep-seated and too lovely not to be dangerous, especially when it was inspired by a commodore of the British Royal Navy. Still, he kept touching the man, oh-so-lightly, memorizing the feel and dimensions of his scars.

"This one?" It looked like an exit wound that had clipped the lower corner of James' shoulder blade.

"Pistol shot, whilst boarding a French privateer ship. Five years ago," James murmured. His eyes had drifted shut again, and he let himself enjoy all of it: the gentle touch of Jack's hands, the sway and sounds of the ship and the sea, and the warm Caribbean night.

"This?" Long and narrow, but jagged, it curved around James' right hip, almost to his lower back.

"Cutlass, whilst defending against an attack from a Spanish ship. That was seven years ago, I think."

"I've got one like that on my thigh; same cause, similar look to it."

"I recall it. You make interesting sounds when it is bitten," James teased, his voice still lazy and sounding almost half-asleep.

"Ah, well, then, if you want to get into that..." Jack stroked along James' left side to a small scar at his waist that made the commodore shiver and feel a bit more awake all of a sudden, in a not-unpleasant way. "What's this one, then?" the pirate asked, as much playful as serious.

"Not very old, really. It is from the Isla de Muerta." James opened one eye and peered over his shoulder at Jack again, his expression unreadable.

Jack blinked in surprise. "You were wounded?" He examined the scar with more interest. It looked like it had been a shallow puncture: a flesh wound, and not severe, but enough that it should have caught his attention. "But you met us as soon as we came aboard. You showed no signs of this." He tapped it with his forefinger.

"It was covered by my coat. I was still...a bit numb at the time, my blood still pounding from the fighting. I was so focused on my duties that I hardly let myself feel it until much later, and even then...our ship's surgeon had more than enough work on his hands, with all of the other injured men. I cleaned and stitched it myself that night."

Again, Jack ran his thumb over the length of it, this time scrutinizing even as James made a low, distractingly lovely noise in response. The scar was not much wider than the cutlass that had caused it; the stitches had been good. The warm, slightly rough pad of Jack's thumb stroked back and forth across it slowly.

"Jack," James muttered, struggling with every ounce of his reserve to keep from squirming, but his voice had an edge of desire to it that he could not conceal. "You've proved your point; it's sensitive, yes, but if you are not planning to do anything about it..."

Content to let himself be distracted, Jack leaned in and dropped a kiss on the back of James' neck. "Now, love, I never said anything about that."

"Teasing piratical bastard," James growled, with a hint of something that sounded suspiciously like affection as he arched a little into the contact.

Some weeks later, James was getting tired of hearing breathless exclamations of "Oh, but how in God's name did you escape?" Even more so was he tired of repeating the story over and over and over.

The story itself might have sounded a bit ludicrous, if he did not say it in such a calm, matter-of-fact matter. Then again, most stories of a single prisoner outwitting an entire ship full of pirates would sound similarly outlandish.

"So you had no aid? No help at all?" The admiralty's representatives scrutinized him sharply, but there was an air of awe and slight bemusement about them by this point.

"Well, the first mate was, to put it politely, more than happy to see me go. She was, in fact, enthusiastic enough to help anyone with any sort of plan that would see me thrown overboard, as she considered me a threat to her captain."

Looks were exchanged all around at the truly strange idea of a female first mate.

"You may go, commodore."

James bowed, and then left.

Some hours later, he was wiping sweat from his face with a handkerchief as William finally stopped discussing fencing and asked, tentatively, "So...did you enjoy your vacation, then?"

James shot him a look that, aside from the glint of amused curiosity, was otherwise rather masked. "Worried about us?"

Will cleared his throat. "Not so much as before, but I do know the both of you, and can see the potential for a great deal of chaos wherever you two might be in the same place, whether you happen to be enemies or..." He blushed. "Er. Friends."

A thoughtful smirk crossed James' features. "We are not both quite so bad as all that," he chided.

"No fights? No explosions? No inexplicable conflagrations?"

"No. All conflagrations were well accounted for."

"Were you bored, then?" William mocked.

James' thoughts drifted to the strangely easy rapport he and the pirate had fallen into, and the even easier levels of physical comfort, both in sex and casual exploration. He smiled slowly. "Not all adventures require violence, chaos and destruction."

"I am not at all sure I want to know."

"You need not worry about us killing each other," James suggested, helpfully. "I believe that we have reached an understanding."

"You have?"

"Yes." His expression was again masked and inscrutable when Will tried to read it.

"Would you care to elaborate?"

James' smirk was distinctly evil. "I seriously doubt that you want me to."

Will turned red again. "Point made."

Elizabeth was more shrewd, and could see through James' mask, noting the glow in his eyes that had not been there before, and how much more frequently he seemed to smile, for all that it was often with a well-hidden edge of secretiveness or mischief. After James had shared his weekly breakfast with herself and her father, she waited patiently for her father to be pulled away by a distraction she had set up in advance. Then, wearing her, mildest, most proper and innocent mien, she pounced.

"James, are you in love?"

The commodore choked on his tea.

Two months later, Jack was hiding in William's smithy, because a series of ill-timed incidents had caused him to arrive in Port Royal at dawn instead of before it, and he had scarcely avoided getting arrested just on his way here, let alone to his primary destination. Will called him a fool. When Elizabeth dropped by, she gave the pirate a knowing sort of smile that left Jack feeling distinctly uneasy.

When Will was, however briefly, out of earshot, she observed casually, "You look different, Jack."

"How so, love? I've not added much to my hair."

"Except for that button."

Jack's spine stiffened. He reached for his rum bottle surreptitiously. "Aye. A relatively recent addition." From James' uniform. He knew that, but had not expected Elizabeth to spot it and recognize it quite so quickly.

"There is also the matter of your obvious sleep deprivation, as I can tell it is more than your usual kohl making for dark circles around your eyes, as well as a certain haggard, almost nervous look of impatience." After glancing around to be sure William still couldn't hear, she said, "James is in the same state, you know."

Jack choked on his sip of rum and coughed heavily.

"Funny, he reacted exactly like that when I asked if he happened to be in love," Elizabeth mused, her voice light and airy, with just a hint of smugness.

"You're an evil bloody woman."

"Engaged-to-a-pirate," she countered.

"Lizzie, you're thrice the pirate young William is and you know it, damn you."

"Thank you, Jack. I did, however, mean what I said."

"...What did he answer?"

Elizabeth smirked.

Click!

James opened his eyes as an afterthought, looking down the barrel of his pistol at whoever it was responsible for waking him so abruptly in the middle of the night, but it was a new moon, and therefore very dark, and he could see nothing. His aim did not waver.

"Good to see you, too, love." This was followed by the sound of his window being pulled shut.

James blinked a few times, blearily, and squinted, but the dark remained impenetrable. James' hearing, however, was very keen, and he could hear familiar shuffling steps and the familiar rustle of hair trinkets. "Jack?"

"Aye."

James set his gun aside, just as the pirate reached the side of his bed. "You're late," he said softly.

"A squall around Cuba gave us a setback."

A flicker, then a hissing flare.

Jack lit the candle at James' bedside. His eyebrows raised. "You normally sleep in the nude at home, then?"

"On a night like this? Of course."

Jack's eyes were dark and heated, but he merely sat on the edge of the bed, removing his boots, coat, baldric, belts... "I've more than half a mind to abduct ye again," he said as he worked.

James watched him, a bit guarded, but still smiling faintly. "If only we could afford to make a habit of it," he mused, leaning forward to pull Jack closer, then working to untie the pirate's bandana and sash.

Once his clothes were in a pile on the floor, Jack pressed forward, nuzzling close, not quite letting James' lips catch his. "Miss me, then?"

His breath ragged, James' voice was all too honest. "Yes." His usual controlled air of calm and sangfroid evaporated under Jack's wandering hands.

Jack smirked. "It's a good thing we've such a good friendship here then, ay?"

"Call it what you like," James rumbled, trying to pull him even closer. "Friend, abductor, lover, matelot, just bloody let me kiss you, you insufferable, teasing, irredeem—"

Cutting him off with a kiss, Jack ran his hands up and down James' sides, soothing. He paused, only briefly, to mutter against James' lips, "Love you, too, Jamie." When James gasped softly in response, Jack used it as an opportunity to deepen the kiss further, which earned a low growl, not at all disapproving, from the commodore, whose hands were wandering all over now, and causing Jack no end of distraction.

When the pirate pulled back, his mouth trailing down James' throat, James offered fervent agreement, in a quiet voice that nearly rasped, "Yes." His hands clutched at Jack's waist and tangled his legs around the pirate's. "Yes— yes, I do." He pressed his face into Jack's hair, careful to avoid the more dangerous decorations, and nuzzled at Jack's cheek. "It is, of course, madness, but I do believe I love you, Jack."

Jack let out a shaky breath of mixed relief and ardor, leaning into the caress. "Quite a mess we've got ourselves in," he mused, laughter in his voice.

"A beautiful mess," James corrected, equally amused. "I plan to enjoy it." He undulated his hips for emphasis, making Jack gasp.

"I've corrupted you, then."

"Are you complaining?"

Jack chuckled, and kissed a trail down James' chest from collarbone to sternum. "Never, love. Especially not when I've finally got myself a few nights of vacation with you."

James chuckled, tangling his hands in Jack's hair and pulling him back up for another kiss. "I love vacations."

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