A Fish Tale

Chapter 5

by

Oasis Herself

A pile of shellfish and sea grass lay on the rocks and Jack waved his hand at it when James climbed onto the rocks. "Help yourself, Commodore."

James poked through the pile.

"Seems to be becoming a habit, eh mate?"

"What's becoming a habit?" James asked, not looking up.

"Me gatherin' the food and you eatin' it."

James settled comfortably with his choices and began to crack open shells before answering. "I can hardly be blamed for your uncivilized tendency of being up before the sun has even cleared the horizon."

"Day's half gone already."

"Don't be ridiculous, Sparrow," he looked up to mark the position of the sun, "why, it can't be much more than half nine."

"Like I said, mate, day's half gone."

James paused in his chewing. "Was there some pressing business that required my attention this morning?"

Jack grinned at him. "Aye, but it'll keep." He slid down the rocks to James's side, "Actually I..." his words trailed off and James looked up at him curiously.

Jack had narrowed his eyes and was studying James intently.

"What?"

Jack only slid closer, still searching James's face carefully, and then leaned in to bury his face in James's neck. He breathed deeply. "Ya smell different." His voice was low and rough in James's ear.

James pushed him away. "Stop that. I'm sure there's nothing wrong with the way I smell."

"Didn't say ya smelled wrong. Just said ya smelled... different." Jack dropped his gaze and let it slide down the length of James tail.

James watched warily as Jack stretched his tail out to brush delicately against the flukes of James's tail. Jack's touch felt suddenly far too intimate, and James pulled his tail away and wrapped it around himself.

Jack gave his head a shake and, as quickly as it began, the moment was gone. He flashed James an apologetic grin.

"Sorry, mate, just seems odd, eh?" He glanced uncertainly once more at James's tail. "Do I smell different to you?"

"No," James answered cautiously, "you still smell the same."

"Ah-huh, well, that's good then, eh?"

"Jack," James prodded, "you were going to tell me something, remember?"

"Well, I'd had a thought to explore, but can't you feel it James? A storm's coming."

There was a heavy dead-air feel to the morning, and when James scanned the far horizon, he could just make out the low bank of clouds in the distance. "You're right. We should probably stay in the cove today."

"Aye, that were my thoughts. Fortunately," Jack added, "at least you've fine company to while away the hours with, eh?"

"Indeed," James murmured.

They were settling into an easy camaraderie and James had thoroughly enjoyed the morning.

Now after lunch, he was sprawled across the rocks on his stomach with his head pillowed in his arms. Jack was on the rocks above him and absently sweeping the feathery tip of his tail back and forth along the length of James's tail.

James was drowsily enjoying the lazy, sensual, pleasure of it when something Jack said caught his attention. "What did you just say?"

"I said, I was lookin' at Dree and Aroo's tails..."

James lifted his head and frowned up at Jack. "Why were you looking at their tails?"

"I wasn't looking, exactly, I just happened to notice that your tail is much nicer than theirs."

"Oh?"

"Aye, I noticed that their tails are shorter and thicker and yours is longer and narrows nicely before it curves up into the..." he stopped dead, hands still held poised in the air where he had been outlining the shape of James tail, not unlike the way a man would outline the shape of a woman's body.

Jack narrowed his eyes and glanced sidelong at James, who had his head propped up now in his hand and was grinning at him.

Jack clamped his mouth shut and dropped his hands.

"Do go on, Sparrow. It's not every day that the most fearsome pirate in the Spanish Main ogles my... shapely tail."

"I'm not ogling anything, Norrington, I just happened t'casually notice..."

"My shapely tail. Perhaps you'd care to explain why you begin the day by blowing in my ear and now... you're ogling.

"Smelling, James. Now that, this morning... that was smelling. There was no blowin' whatsoever."

Jack was scowling and silent for several moments before he looked up at James, who was still grinning at him. He huffed indignantly. "Ya know, Commodore... I'm beginnin' to think I liked it better when you just wanted to hang me."

Jack was still sulking when Dree and Aroo surfaced beside the rocks.

"May we join you?" Aroo asked.

"Certainly," James said, sitting up. "Jack and I were just discussing my shap—"

Before he could finish that statement, Jack launched himself from his perch, tackled him, and sent them both over the side of the rocks and into the water.

When they surfaced again a short distance out, James was laughing and their mock battle had turned to play.

"No, I believe you're right," Aroo answered, then leaned down to nuzzle at his ear. "Did you happen to mention that it's mating season?"

"I may have forgotten that part."

"Ah. A surprise then."

The storm came in that evening with a vengeance.

Jack had wanted to tough it out in their own cave, despite the high seas and rip tides.

James had argued furiously against it and finally threatened to simply drag Jack down to the underwater cavern himself. Jack listened to him silently and then, to his surprise, acquiesced, and they followed Dree and Aroo to wait out the storm.

Aroo and Dree led them to a ledge in a dark corner of the cavern that they could use for the night. It was already piled high with the sleeping moss and the four of them sprawled companionably.

James looked around the cavern. "When I think of how many times I've sailed past these cliffs with no idea of what was hidden within..." he marveled.

"My kind have sheltered here for centuries," Aroo told him. "It has always been my home."

"You were born here, then, eh mate?" Jack asked.

"I was. Dree was not."

Dree curled into Aroo's side and sighed in obvious contentment. "It is my home now."

"Well, where are you from, Dree?" Jack asked, curiously.

"There is a place on the northwest coast of Ireland where the cliffs drop straight away into the sea. I was a young man there when a gale blowing in from the Atlantic tossed one of the mer-folk onto the rocks.

James sat up in alarm. "You mean you were once a man? But I thought this was temporary."

"It does not have to be. It is your choice to remain if you wish. I chose to remain when I met Aroo."

James leaned back in obvious relief and Jack stroked his tail in reassurance.

"D'ya not miss your home, sometimes?" Jack asked and there was almost wistfulness in his voice.

"We go there sometimes when the weather is warm and the tides are good. But the waters near England and France have become fouled and we don't go so often anymore."

Dree looked at him thoughtfully for a moment and then asked, "Cá as tú, a chara?"

Jack grinned broadly and answered, "Is as Baile Atha Cliath mé."

James looked up in surprise. "You're Irish, Jack?"

"Aye, Baile Atha Cliath—Dublin born, so I guess ya can add 'speaks Irish' to me list of crimes, eh?"

"I daresay that pales in comparison to most of your mischief," James paused thoughtfully before adding with a wicked grin, "though, that may explain your taste in shapely ta—"

"COMMODORE," Jack interrupted sharply. He gave James a tight-lipped smile before turning to Aroo, "Did you mention something about food earlier?"

He leaned close to James and breathed deeply, smelling him. "You are the Pirate Hunter?"

James drew away from him. "Well, yes, but my name is James."

The merman nodded and slid closer, wrapping his tail around James's tail. "I am called Cruu."

"It was certainly thoughtful of you to bring us food, Cruu, but I believe Jack has already gone to get our dinner."

He tried to pull his tail free, but Cruu only tightened his grip and reached for one of the oysters. After he freed it from the shell, he held it to James's mouth and leaned close again to whisper, "These are for you."

James reached for it with his fingers, but Cruu held it away from him. "Allow me," he murmured and then raised it to James's mouth again.

Dear God, James thought, I think I'm being courted. He wasn't entirely certain if he was amused or alarmed by it. "No, really, thank you, I'm not..."

"Well now, ain't this right cozy." Jack dumped the food he had brought onto the ledge and climbed up beside James. He leaned back and looked pointedly at the entwined tails. "Aye, cozy indeed."

James tried again to politely extricate his tail from the merman's. "Jack, this is Cruu. He's been kind enough to bring us our dinner."

Jack slid alongside James until he was facing Cruu and then reached out and plucked the oyster, still poised in front of James's mouth, from his fingers. "Thank you very much." And he popped it into his own mouth.

Cruu frowned briefly at Jack and then turned back to James, ignoring Jack entirely. He rested his now empty hand on James's chest. "Would you care to go for a swim? There is a deep pool in the back of the cave."

"Ah, thank you, but no," James answered, leaning away from him. He could see Jack over the merman's shoulder. Jack had risen high and was balanced on the bottom half of his tail, much like a snake would when chasing prey, and looking very nearly as dangerous.

James tried to tug his tail free. "Now see here, Cruu, I'm really not..." but Cruu's hand had begun to slide down and James felt a thrum of anticipation deep within his pouch.

Jack moved fast. He had Cruu by the wrist before his hand ever reached James's stomach. "You don't want to be doing that, mate," he growled low in his throat.

Cruu pulled his hand free and, rising high on his own tail, turned to confront Jack. "I was given to understand that there was nothing between you and James."

"What's between me an' the Commodore's nobody's business but our own, now isn't it?"

James watched in stunned disbelief as the dorsal fins on both of them stiffened and fanned high over their backs in challenge. He reached for Jack's arm. "Jack, don't."

Jack just shook his hand off. "Be quiet, James."

Jack and Cruu took each other's measure for several moments and then finally Jack raised a finger to the corner of his mouth and affected a look of deep thought. "I'm thinkin' here, that maybe you should scurry on over to your own side of the cave, eh?"

Cruu held for a heartbeat, apparently weighing any possibility of advantage against Jack's obvious rage. He finally gave a quick nod of his head and slipped into the water.

Jack watched him swim off and then rounded on James. "An' ya call me an idiot!" he hissed.

"I beg your pardon?"

Jack threw himself down into the corner of the ledge. "Ya know what he was tryin' to do, don't ya?"

"Of course I do, but I think I'm perfectly capable of fending off an amorous merman."

"Ya' didn't seem to be tryin' very hard," Jack snapped.

Jack was still furious and James watched him visibly trying to calm himself. He waited silently for several minutes and then asked softly. "What exactly did you think you were doing, Jack?"

"Watchin' out for my..." he bit off the rest the sentence and glared at James.

"Your what?"

Jack scrubbed tiredly at his face and then gazed out across the shadowed cavern for several moments before answering. "I don't know."

"Now look, Jack..."

"I said I bloody well don't know, Norrington, all right?" He turned his back to James and lay facing the back wall of the ledge.

"Are you hungry?"

"No."

James gathered up what food had been collected and simply dumped it into the water beside the ledge. It could be retrieved easily enough in the morning.

He made himself comfortable on the ledge and let his mind chew and worry over what had occurred. What's happening to us, he wondered, and why was I so willing to let that creature touch me?

As he sat studying Jack's back, a sharp memory of that shark biting into the dorsal fin of its mate came back to him, and with it, a sudden and unbidden image of holding Jack in a similar way. His gaze followed the line of Jack's back to the curve of his rump and the softer scales at the crease of his arse. A fleeting, and wholly disturbing image intruded into his thoughts—an image of himself taking Jack, plunging into his arse. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, shocked at himself. Jesus Christ, he thought, what the bloody hell am I thinking here?

"It's this blood," he muttered aloud. "It's this damned merman blood in us."

Jack rolled over to face him and said softly, "Ya know mate, if ya wanted to... ya know, be with that merman... I mean, if you're curious or somethin', I could find somewhere else to sleep. I wouldn't think poorly of ya for it and it's... well, it's no matter of mine, is it?"

James searched his face. Jack was lying to him. He could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes. And even worse, James thought, Jack smelled different now to him as well. He swallowed the urge to bury his face in Jack's neck and just breathe him in.

"James?"

"If I were so inclined, it would—" he bit down hard on his tongue. He had almost said, 'it would be with you.' Instead, he caught himself and finished. "It would be with someone I knew and trusted."

"Aye, right. That's good."

James could see the relief in his face.

"Well then, a good night's sleep an we'll both be right as rain in the mornin', eh mate?"

"Perhaps you're right." He curled carefully onto his side of the ledge and felt Jack settle back down beside him.

"Night, James."

"Good night, Jack."

James was almost asleep when he felt the tip of Jacks tail curl around his own.

"What are you doing?"

"Waitin' for you to wake up."

"Why?"

"Guess what I can do, mate?"

James shifted up to lean on his elbows. "I shudder to think."

Jack planted his hands firmly on the floor of the ledge and pushed up with his tail until he had gotten himself into a crooked handstand. He lifted his tail and when it was high above his head, he slowly straightened his arms and lifted himself higher. He teetered for a moment and then wrapped the end of his tail around a thin overhang of rock. When he had a firm grip, he let go with his arms and dangled there, upside down.

James frowned up at him. Apparently, James thought, watching him, he has fully recovered from yesterday's odd behavior and is back to his usual madness. "Come down from there, Jack, you look like a deformed bat."

"Bet you can't do it."

"Why in the name of Almighty God would I want to?"

Jack shrugged. "S'all right mate, if ya can't, ya can't.

"I didn't say I couldn't. I just don't see the point."

Jack began to swing himself back and forth over the edge of the ledge, and when he had enough momentum, he swung out a final time and dropped into the water. He surfaced and climbed back onto the ledge. "Why does there have to be a point?"

"Then why do it at all?"

"Nothin' better to do till the storm's over and... it's fun, James!"

"Fun?"

"Aye, that's what ya do, mate, when you're not workin'. And in case ya hadn't noticed, we're not. Workin'. As it were."

"You don't work, Sparrow, you're a pirate!"

"Believe me, pilferin' and plunderin's damned hard work," he shrugged, and leaned back on his elbows. "No matter. Ya probably can't do it anyways."

James stared hard at him for only a moment. "Move out of my way Sparrow."

Grinning, Jack slid to the back of the ledge.

They had been engaged in a sort of tag game amongst the coral reefs when James suddenly realized that it had begun to feel more natural to have a tail and flukes and fins instead of legs.

The awareness hit him hard and he stopped his pursuit and drifted slowly to the surface.

Sparrow, unaware that the game had ended, came after him like a shot, grabbed him round the middle and dragged him back down into the water. They tussled briefly and when James had almost gotten free, Jack took advantage with his tail, wrapped it snugly around James and tucked the tip of his fluke deep into James's pouch for a firmer hold.

The bolt of lust that roared through James at that contact nearly overwhelmed him. He shoved Jack roughly away and shot to the surface.

He was still in the water but clinging to the side of the rocks when Jack surfaced beside him.

"James? Are ya all right, mate?"

"Sparrow, get away from me," he panted, pressing his face hard against his forearm.

This can't be happening, he thought, desperately trying to pull himself back from the near blinding need that was ripping through him. Christ in heaven, his cock was jutting high above his pouch and he was as hard as the rock surface he was pressed against.

Jack moved closer to him. "Are ya sick, James?" he asked anxiously, stroked his tail along the length of James's in an apparent attempt at comfort. But James shivered at the touch and then lifted his head from his arm to meet Jack's bewildered gaze.

He could smell him... could smell Jack's sex, and in that moment it didn't make a damn bit of difference to him that Jack was male. This, some new part of himself decided, was simply not to be denied.

Something must have shown in his face then and Jack moved away from him in the water, frowning uncertainly.

"Come here, Sparrow."

"No, I don't think I want to," Jack answered, still moving cautiously away from him. "Yer not lookin' quite yourself there, Commodore."

James pushed away from the rocks and followed Jack out into the deeper water. He stayed his distance, but swam in lazy circles around Jack, narrowing the circles with each pass. Jack twisted in the water, trying to keep James in his line of vision.

Jack finally sank beneath the surface. There would be no way for Jack to miss Norrington's intention now and James reached down and stroked himself to make sure that intention was clear.

Jack erupted from the water a few moments later, sputtering. "No... oh, no, no, bloody hell, no..." He arrowed off through the water and James was right behind him.

James was the faster swimmer, but Jack was far more agile and darted randomly in the water to elude him. When Jack tried to double back, James feinted and then slapped him hard with his tail as he tried to dart past.

He sent Sparrow somersaulting end over arse through the water and caught hold of him before he could right himself, twining their tails tightly together. Jack struggled furiously but James was wild with lust and bit down savagely on the top edge of Jack's dorsal fin to hold him in place as he rubbed his prick into the crease of his arse, frantically searching for the opening.

Jack's struggles began to weaken and slow and when he finally went limp, James brought them both to the surface. Jack's head lolled back against his shoulder. "Mate," he gasped, and he sounded almost like he was drunk. "Yer hurtin' me..."

Jack's words filtered through his lust-fogged mind and he tried to make sense of them... tried to catch his breath and clear his head.

His cock was right there. All he had to do was push his way in to satisfy this mindless, overwhelming need.

"James, please," Jack whispered, "I'm beggin' ya, mate, not like this."

He warred with himself, teetered for an agonizing moment of indecision and then in the most astonishing act of will that James could ever have imagined himself capable of, he pushed Jack away and fled.

He swam himself into exhaustion and then took refuge, finally, in the cave.