A Fish Tale

Chapter 17

by

Oasis Herself

Jack was an early riser, so that wasn't necessarily an unusual thing. What was an unusual thing was to discover that Jack was not waiting for him on the rocks.

James gave a quick scan of the surrounding waters of the cove and then pulled himself up onto the rocks.

A pile of oysters and sea grass had been gathered and tossed into an untidy heap.

Apparently, James thought, he's up and about and well enough. He selected an oyster and settled in to the task of eating, though every few minutes, he returned his gaze to the waters, searching for some sign of Jack's whereabouts.

Initially, he was annoyed. To be honest, he had fallen asleep entertaining the delightful fantasy of waking to find Jack's mouth doing... well, delightful things to his person, actually.

He felt the interested thrum in his pouch and grinned to himself as his thoughts returned to the night before. Christ, that had been the sweetest kiss Jack had given him.

He glanced out across the water again and tried to shrug off a niggling anxiety. Where the hell was Jack?

He looked down at the oysters now with disinterest, and finally pushed them away. Irritation was sliding into concerned worry and he slipped into the water to search.

He made three complete circuits of the cove before returning to the rocks. He could smell where Jack had been, (and he'd been damned near all over the cove) but James still couldn't find where he was now.

After his first trip around the cove, James thought that perhaps Jack had returned to the cavern, but when he headed towards the entrance, Jack's scent marks faded entirely.

He even returned to their cave on the off chance that they had somehow passed each other in the water.

Now he clung to the rocks in worried bafflement and watched the incoming tide pound against the beach. His gaze drifted along the shore to where the entrance of their old cave was hidden in the rocks. It wouldn't be much longer and that would be completely submerged beneath the tide waters.

He wondered briefly about the old cave, but on second thought, he couldn't imagine that Jack would risk getting sand into his wound. He rejected that as a possibility and turned his gaze instead to the open ocean beyond the cove.

He suppressed a horrified shudder at the thought of a still-recovering Jack anywhere near the trench and the creature that lurked there.

Surely Jack wouldn't, he reassured himself. He searched the incoming waves and finally pushed himself off from the rocks and headed towards the sea.

He swam the entire length of the mouth of the cove, from the towering stone cliff that hid the cavern, to the rock strewn bluff that housed their own cave, on the opposite side.

To his relief, none of Jack's scent marks extended beyond the confines of the cove.

Still, relief or no, James was genuinely frightened by the time he returned to the rocks. By now he had half managed to convince himself that Jack's absence could only mean that he had suffered a relapse, and furiously berated himself for pushing Jack too hard.

He was about to go to the cavern for help, when his gaze was inexplicably drawn back to the beach. He felt the faintest bristle of his dorsal fin and though he couldn't have said how or why... quite suddenly, he simply knew where Jack was. And with that sudden knowing came the terrible fear that perhaps Jack, like the wild creatures they had become, had hidden himself away to die.

He headed towards the shore in a near panic and finally... finally, caught Jack's scent, only because the tide had risen high enough to fill the tidepool within the old cave.

Everywhere he looked was gold. From doubloons and pieces of eight, to solid bars... gold of every imaginable size and description was piled over every available bit of ledge or shelf. And curled into a tight ball atop it all was Jack... sleeping peacefully and clutching.... that damned chest!

Fear was quickly replaced by fury. "Wake up, pirate!" James roared.

Jack came awake with a jolt and lurched upright, teetered for a moment as he wrestled with the chest and then broke into a confused, sleepy grin. "Mornin' luv," he chirped.

"Don't you dare 'mornin' luv' me," James hissed, angrily. "If I weren't so damned relieved to find you alive and well, I swear I'd wring your bloody neck!"

Jack pouted thoughtfully at him for a moment. "Should I blame yer bad temper on the fact that there was no reciprocatin' a pleasures last night?"

"Blame it as you wish Jack, as I've no doubt you will... but perhaps you'd be better served to explain why you're in here SLEEPING..."

"Well, it weren't entirely my intention to fall asleep—"

"...while I was out there, searching and... and I don't mind admitting, near frantic with worry!"

"Now James, I should like to point out that tryin' to hold my tail up while I was wrigglin' cross the sand turned out to be a bit more work than I expected."

"And, perhaps while you're at it, you might also care to explain," James swept his arm wide to encompass the interior of the cave, "...this."

Jack's pout slid into a petulant sulk.

"Well?" James demanded.

"It's yer nest egg, James."

"My ne..." James's angry roar fell away and his brows twitched in bewilderment. "My nest egg?"

"Aye."

James twisted slowly in the water, trying to take in the sheer quantity of gold that filled the cave. He looked back at Jack, finally, and asked softly, "All of it?"

"Aye, this is your share."

James visibly sagged in the water. "Oh, dear God," he murmured, "Christ, Jack, I thought..." he shook his head and looked around himself again. "But how...? When?"

Jack tugged at his ear. "It's a bit foggy... but near as I remember, I tallied accounts with Anamaria on board the Pearl while you were takin' some air. Anamaria can be a right tryin' wench when she's of a mind to be, but," he paused to waggle an eyebrow meaningfully at James and added, "well, that's when I told her how things were between you an' me, luv and she agreed to stow your share of the swag here."

Jack lounged back against the gold now and cast a critical eye round the interior of the cave. "Scurried in here this morning to make sure my orders had been carried out."

James absently fingered some of the gold coins that were nearest to him. "I... I must confess," he began slowly, "when you asked me to leave the cabin that morning, I really thought that you were making some secret plan with regard to that chest."

Jack rolled upright and draped a companionable arm across James's shoulder. "Actually James," Jack confided softly in his ear, "I was."

James looked up quickly at that, but Jack only grinned broadly at him, looking for all the world as if he were savoring some great, private joke.

James sniffed and looked away, trying to affect an attitude of indifference.

"Well then," Jack said brightly, "now that that's all sorted, what say you forgive me for worryin' ya and come sit up here with me?"

James looked from Jack's face to the chest sitting on the ledge beside him—sitting on the only space left available on the ledge, in fact—and then back to Jack's face.

"There's no room."

"I suppose there might be if you could see your way to holdin' the chest in your lap."

James searched Jack's eyes and could see the mischief dancing there. He wasn't sure what Jack was up to, but it was a reasonably good bet that the only way he was going to find out was to go along with Jack's game.

He grudgingly climbed up beside Jack and held the chest primly on his lap.

Jack twined their tails together and pulled James close against his side. "There now. Right cozy, eh, luv? Just you, me an' the gold." He slowly lifted a finger then, as if on second thought: "And the chest... mustn't forget the chest."

James surreptitiously studied the chest in his lap while trying to appear as though he wasn't. It really was a curious thing, he thought to himself; why, in an odd way, it almost seemed familiar. Now he lifted the small chest and turned it slowly in his hands.

On closer inspection, it turned out to be some sort of crockery, and not unlike what one might find used in a chemist's shop to protect delicate herbs or medicinals, though this was of far higher quality and artfully decorated. The lid fit snugly and had been sealed with wax and imprinted with its maker's mark.

James's Grandsir had owned one remarkably similar. Its careful design had been contrived to protect the fine tools within from damp London air.

Comprehension dawned slowly, and when he finally looked up, Jack was watching him carefully and anxiously chewing on his bottom lip.

"This... this is for me?"

Jack's lips curled into one of the sweetest smiles James had ever seen grace the pirate's face. "Aye," Jack whispered. "Open it, luv. See if it's weathered the salt water."

James's hands were shaking as he broke the seal and prized the lid off. The heavily oiled canvas inside was damp, but remarkably untouched for all that it had been sitting on the sea bed all these years.

And carefully wrapped in the protective folds of canvas was an exquisitely crafted set of woodcarving blades, each one worked into a Mother of Pearl handle.

James fingered each tool with reverence and swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. When he had silently touched and admired each perfect tool, he carefully set the chest aside and turned to Jack.

Jack's smile faltered. "Don't you like it, James?"

James gathered Jack into his arms and leaned him back against a mountain of gold. "I've never received a gift that means as much to me as this one." He kissed Jack gently and added, "nor have I ever received a gift acquired at such a dear price."

Jack shifted in his arms and fingered the limpet shell in his hair. "I wanted you to have somethin' special to remember our time together." He flashed James an impish grin. "And I didn't figure you'd take much to the idea of me weavin' a shell into your hair."

"If I had known what you were up to and what the results would have been, I'd have willingly worn a sea-shell braided into my hair for the rest of my life."

He leaned in and delicately traced Jack's pleased smile with his tongue. "Christ, I love you," James murmured against his lips.

Jack stilled for a moment and then gave a soft, strangled cry as he crushed their mouths together in a kiss that left them both gasping and breathless. When they broke apart, Jack pressed tight against him. "Mine," he whispered urgently against James's cheek. "My James... my mate... my love."

James held him close and whispered, "Yes."

They settled against the sea bed, content in their element and caught in the beguiling enthrallment of new love.

James felt Jack's tail loop over his own and then the gentle pressure of Jack's hand in his hair. He drew Jack closer and they drifted lazily with the current.

Neither noticed when a tiny starfish entwined itself into Jack's hair or when small fish darted around them.

Nor did they notice Dree's sudden presence (or Aroo pulling him gently away and into the circle of his own arms).

There was nowhere they needed to go, nothing they needed to do, and nothing they desired more than this simple, joyful act of quietly being... and being together.

It was the cooling waters of the evening tide that finally brought James back from the somnolent reverie that had captured them.

He opened his eyes to find the cove in deep shadows.

He was distantly aware of a thrum of desire, deep in his pouch, and the answering swell of Jack's pouch against him

Jack's eyes were closed and his expression was one of contented peace. James leaned down and kissed him, and Jack stirred and smiled, though he didn't open his eyes.

He continued to look down into Jack's face.

It was an unmistakably masculine face, yet still there was a great beauty to it. James pressed a quick kiss to the scar in Jack's right eyebrow and committed each feature, perfect and imperfect alike, to memory in the way that only lovers do.

He felt the light brush of Jack's tail fluke against his own and angled his face down against Jack's neck to breathe in and taste his mate's unique scent. The delicate flutter of the gills brushed against his cheek and he marveled at how normal that felt... and at how distant and remote his old life seemed to him now.

With a sharp pang, that served only to remind him of all he stood to lose in just a few short days.

Jack must have sensed some of James's sudden melancholy. He opened his eyes and searched James's face, his brows furrowed in concern. He tugged James's head down for a quick kiss and then pushed them towards the surface.

"Are ya all right, luv?"

"Perhaps a little hungry."

He had no doubts that Jack knew it for the lie that it was, but Jack didn't push the matter, he only studied James's face for a moment and then nodded. "Aye, we'll eat."

When Jack made to turn away, James caught him by the arm and drew him back. "Of course, now that I think about it, Jack, it does occur to me that last night there was a serious lack of reciprocation on your part."

He watched Jack's worried frown ease into a relieved grin and then curl into a suggestive leer. "Before or after we've eaten, Commodore?"

James pulled Jack close. "I think..." he closed his eyes and pressed himself experimentally against Jack. "Yes, I think I may be able to hold out until after we've eaten."

He opened his eyes to find Jack pouting up at him in disappointment. "Well, apparently the thrill's worn off, eh, mate, if ya want to eat first."

James brushed his lips against Jacks and whispered, "You're going to need the energy, Sparrow."