Norrington had not been raised particularly religious. His family was Protestant at a time when it was politically advantageous to believe in such a manner but their faith was more a question of theory than practice. Norrington himself had believed in a higher power since childhood; an invisible, frowning being who looked eerily like his father and who knew every secret thought and deed, every word he uttered, every sin he contemplated or committed. Of course, back then sins were confined to a stolen lardy cake from the kitchen or coveting his brother's tin soldiers, but still, Norrington remained firmly convinced that he was being watched, measured, judged and found wanting every minute of his life.

That was the only explanation for the situation in which he currently found himself.

"Explain to me again the part where you managed to escape a sinking ship while clapped in leg and neck irons, with a fortune in the King's gold concealed about your person but still managed not to see a second military frigate, stationed just next to the first. The one you happened to claw your way into through a porthole."

On the other side of the bars, miserable and stinking of the sea, sat Captain Jack Sparrow. "Ah. Now's a funny thing you should bring up the porthole. Technically, I only used it as a sort of, well, handhold, a brace you might say, to get aboard the gig alongside. Gold's heavier than it looks, James. You're lucky I managed to get on board at all. Another few strokes and old Davy himself would have come up to greet me."

Norrington seethed. "And now you're here. In my jail. Wanting me to release you."

"Yes, and my gold, too. The way I figure it, once you swim a thousand meters with the stuff it might as well be yours." Jack swung his feet down off the bunk. "Funny things, frigates. They're big ships, yes, but it's something about the perspective of the ocean, I think, makes them look tiny. I've never understood that."

"I suppose the guns look tiny too!"

Jack made a dismissive motion with one hand.

Norrington paced a tight circle. "And it's not so much release you as, oh what is the word I'm looking for? Oh yes. Escape. You want me to help you escape." He stopped in front of the cell. "With stolen goods!"

Jack slid off the filthy bench and slipped across the cell to stand right next to the bars, pressing himself against them. Norrington watched him walk, the peculiar loose-hipped swagger he had that made Norrington feel all tingly and fidgety, like he'd had too much sugar.

"Keep y'voice down, love," Jack whispered through the bars. "No sense announcing it to the world."

"Are you aware," Norrington asked quietly, "that I have only recently been made adjutant commander of this garrison?"

"Jack, what makes you think I'd risk my career yet again not only to free you from a quite rightfully deserved imprisonment but that I'd assist you in making off with His Majesty's property to boot?"

Jack looked down at Norrington's feet then back into his eyes. "M'not asking for His Majesty's boots, am I?"

Norrington opened his mouth to respond then shut it again, staring Jack squarely in the face. He hadn't seen Jack in nearly half a year, not since Jack had sunk his very first command, the HMS Forthright. His cargo had been lost, his men imprisoned and he himself had been brought aboard the Black Pearl in chains, taken below and—

Jack had done unspeakable things to him below, while he was shackled. Unspeakable, incredibly pleasurable thing. And then more of them in his cabin aboard the Pearl, until Norrington's whole concept of the world and in his place in it had changed, until he wanted nothing so much as to be a pirate's kept boy, the whole circumference of the world dwindling down to the confines of Jack's cabin. Until—

Norrington narrowed his eyes. Until indeed. Sometimes Norrington suspected that the higher power he'd feared since childhood had a wicked and capricious sense of humor. How else could he interpret Jack's timely appearance?

"I suppose congratulations are in order," Jack said. He cleared his throat. "Congratulations. Now, about the bit where you help me escape..."

"About that indeed." Norrington took in the sight of Captain Jack Sparrow, late of the Black Pearl, shackled in a prison cell in the garrison under his command. His cock filled in his trousers at the sight of those chains, at his memories of what it felt like to be shackled himself, naked and open for Jack's desires, able only to ride Jack's fingers, his cock, whatever Jack knew would bring Norrington to the edge of pleasure and beyond.

Jack took a step back from the bars. "I know that look. That's not your 'helping Jack escape' look. James, what are you..."

Norrington looked at Jack. He pictured him without the flowing shirt and loose breeches, without the boots and belt. He pictured Jack with just the shackles, bowed with pleasure.

Jack looked at Norrington. After a few moments, a wide grin spread over his face. "James," he whispered. "Oh James. I do so like it when you put up a good fight..."

Norrington grinned, then turned on his heel and walked out.

Whistling a merry tune, Norrington strode calmly back to his quarters for supplies, his conscience light and carefree. He prayed for forgiveness in advance. For now, however, he had some sinning to do.