A Fish Tale

Chapter 21

by

Oasis Herself

It was odd to find Jack still asleep this late in the morning, but rather than question it, James simply pulled Jack closer and savored the warm press of his body along the length of his own.

Jack huffed out a brief complaint through his gills at the disturbance, but after a moment, he settled back into sleep.

James remained still and simply enjoyed the hushed, early morning tranquility of their world.

He could hear the drip of water into water at the back of the chamber they slept in and the distant screech of gulls high above the cliffs. Jack's even breaths fluttered softly against his neck, and his mate's familiar scent was intermingled with the sweet smell of the moss they slept on.

Their life together had become satisfying in a manner that he could never have foreseen, and as James let his gaze wander aimlessly around the interior of their cave, he came to the quiet realization that he was deeply content.

They had settled into a curious domesticity, in their time together. Jack had from the very beginning been quite happy to be the gatherer of their meals (a chore James had been more than willing to pass along to him).

James, on the other hand, had quite easily assumed the task of tidying their sleeping ledge each morning and refreshing the moss when that was needed.

And both, it seemed, had managed to add odd little touches to the cave that now, on reflection, almost appeared decorative and clearly identified the cave as theirs.

Jack, endlessly attracted to shiny things, had amassed quite the collection of shells which he had painstakingly arranged on a long rock shelf at the foot of their sleeping ledge.

He had also spent one long twilit evening gathering old fish bones and feathers from the beach. Those had been set into a very precise pattern atop a rock by the cave's entrance.

Voodoo good luck charm, Jack had claimed.

James had been doubtful, but he had left the arrangement undisturbed.

And James, well, he had added his own small touches as well.

He closed his eyes now and tasted the air with his gills. He could just barely detect the delicate, subtle scent of his moss.

He remembered the day he had gathered it. Aroo had taken him into the dark back reaches of the cavern, and shown him a fragrant moss that flowered briefly each night, with its own luminous light.

James had been so enchanted that he had carefully carried a piece of it back to their cave and tried to establish it on a pile of rocks in a dark corner. When it not only grew, but actually seemed to flourish, James had been delighted.

Jack had been openly admiring of his accomplishment and had praised him for his cunning. Then teased him relentlessly about growing flowers.

James had lived in many places in his life, and now he noted, with no small amount of astonishment, that this tiny cave he shared with Jack was the first place that had ever felt like home.

He felt Jack's nose twitch against his neck, and as he rubbed his cheek against the soft silk of Jack's hair, he thought about his elegantly appointed house in Port Royal. It would be a very cold and lonely place when he returned to it.

"Yer thinkin' too damn loud," Jack complained unexpectedly from under his chin.

James gave a start and glanced down. "Sorry."

"What are ya frettin about now?"

"Nothing, really," James murmured, brushing off the question, and then chastised, "You're quite the laze-about today." He grinned into Jack's hair and teased, "Perhaps last night's second bout of lovemaking was too much for you."

Jack chuffed out a disdainful snort against his neck. "I'll have you know, darlin', I had a lay-in for the benefit of your own good self."

"My benefit?"

"Aye. No risk of a chance encounter with Timothy in here."

James sputtered indignantly at that. "I hardly think I need to be coddled."

Jack shifted up onto an elbow and frowned down at him in mock sternness. "Maybe I like coddlin' ya, eh? Did ya ever think o' that?"

James tugged his head down for a lazy kiss. "If you're so fond of coddling me, than why do I detect a notable absence of breakfast?"

Jack grinned down at him good-naturedly. "Aye, and don't you just bloody well know I'm goin' to scurry off and get it for ya."

Jack scooted down to the edge of the ledge and dropped his tail into the water. He curled his flukes and used them like some large scoop to splash water over himself. "What do ya fancy this morning, luv? Mussels or oysters?"

"A bit of both, if you please," James answered mid-stretch.

Jack paused in his morning ritual to glance back at James. "Ya know, mate, if I ever accommodated a girl the way I do you, I probably wouldn't get slapped so damn much."

James looked at Jack for only a moment before his tail snaked across the ledge and he caught Jack around his waist. He tugged hard enough to tip him sprawling back against the moss and leaned over him with a leer.

"Perhaps you've just never come across a girl as skilled in the art of debauching you..." He dropped his head to lick teasingly along the seam of Jack's pouch, before dipping his tongue into the opening to lap delicately at the sensitive inner wall.

He heard Jack groan deep in his throat. "There is that," he answered roughly.

Jack climbed up beside James, took one look and muttered, "Oh, bugger," under his breath. He smiled thinly and offered up a guarded "Good morning" to Cruu.

James wisely kept silent and curled close to Jack.

Cruu nodded to each of them and then waved his hand over a pile of shellfish and sea grass. "I took the liberty of gathering an assortment of foods for your morning meal," he offered politely.

"How nice," Jack answered tonelessly and then more sharply, "Why?"

Curiously, Cruu dropped his gaze and shrugged his shoulders self-consciously before offering a soft, "I was rather hoping that I could ask you about... Timothy."

Jack grinned slowly. "Timothy?" Then he elbowed James. "Did ya hear that, luv, he wants to know about Timothy."

"Indeed."

James studied Cruu as he reached for some of the gathered shellfish.

He was somewhat surprised at Cruu's sudden interest in the boy, and in truth, James was suspicious of it. Granted, after yesterday's little misadventure, James certainly viewed the shy lad from Jack's ship with slightly different eyes, but still, Timothy had put himself at great peril to assist him in helping Jack. And James didn't regard that risk lightly.

Jack helped himself to a handful of oysters and leaned back thoughtfully against the rocks beside him. "Good lad, Timothy... fine swimmer. Even before he got the tail and gills, mate."

Cruu nodded eagerly. "Aroo and Dree have told me that he helped when you were injured, and was very courageous."

Jack plucked the meat from a particularly succulent oyster and gifted it to James before turning back to Cruu. "Aye, he was. I don't remember much, of course, being grievously injured as I was at the time, but James filled me in on the highlights."

Jack paused in his eating to look at James and then tipped his head speculatively at Cruu. "Your head is easily turned, innit mate?"

"I would have been proud to have had the Pirate Hunter as my mate," Cruu answered honestly, casting an appraising glance at James.

James felt Jack bristle beside him.

"But he was very obviously meant to be yours, Jack Sparrow." Cruu dipped his head apologetically. "Our choices are few, as you well know, and our kind must pursue our opportunities when they are presented."

James had a quick memory of how aggressive Cruu had been that night in the cavern, and a moment's thankfulness for Jack's timely intervention. "And what about Timothy's thoughts on the matter?"

"I have been fully mature and alone for a very long time," Cruu answered slowly, "I can only hope that he will find me pleasing. And if he does not..." He looked sadly off across the water and continued softly. "It can sometimes take centuries before we are able to find a mate, and I know that well enough."

Jack dropped the oyster he was shelling and looked up in astonishment. "Centuries? Bloody hell, mate, how long do you blokes live?"

Cruu looked at him curiously for a moment, and then answered in perfect seriousness, "Centuries."

James sat up slowly and leaned forward. "Cruu... exactly how old are you?"

"Well," Cruu mused thoughtfully, "let me think. I believe I was born in the same time that men of Europe discovered this place."

"That would have been in 1492," James answered, incredulous.

"Yes, that sounds about right."

James looked over at Jack who was staring at Cruu in open-mouthed disbelief. James swallowed down a sudden nervous lump in his throat and willed himself to calm as he asked carefully, "The old healer, how... how old is he?"

"Ezuu, you mean?"

"Ezuu?" Jack interrupted, in surprise. "His name is Ezuu? How's he come to have a different name than the rest of you lot?

"The second sound of ones name indicates the pod they hail from. Ezuu was born in the Mediterranean."

"Ya mean..."

"Jack." James interrupted with a gentle touch to Jack's arm, and pressed Cruu. "How old is he?"

"Ezuu is one of only four who has ever attained such a great age," Cruu shared with them, then his mouth curled into a sly grin and he added with great relish, "Ezuu remembers when your Christ walked the earth."

James heard Jack's breath huff through his gills on a long, shocked gasp before he sagged back against James with a whispered, "Bloody hell!"

James tried to take in the enormity of it and had a moment's mad desire to, of all things, giggle. He tugged Jack—who was, for once, stunned into silence—back against himself, and buried his face in Jack's neck.

It's just an animal, he recalled telling Jack, the day they had found the dead merman. Just an animal... dear God, what a pompous, arrogant prig he had been that day.

He felt Jack shift in his arms and then ask, "So, ya reckon he knows if Christ really walked on water?"

"Jack!" James reprimanded, appalled by the question.

"Well, I'm just wonderin'."

"Would it be all right if we spoke on Timothy now?" Cruu prodded, plaintively.

And that gave James a new turn of mind. "What about Timothy?" he asked, "How long will Timothy live in the enchantment?"

"As long as any of us, of course," he shrugged, and then urged again, "Timothy?"

The subject of that longed-for conversation suddenly surfaced in the water beside them, in the company of Aroo and Dree.

"Jack Sparrow!" Dree cried excitedly, "Come quickly. I've something of great interest to show you."

Jack, whose attention span was short at the best of times, was immediately offering James a quick kiss and a "Do you mind, luv?" before diving off the rocks and arrowing off through the water after Dree.

James turned now to watch Timothy climb clumsily onto the rocks, beside Aroo. He offered a shy smile to Cruu and then a cautious one to James.

He watched Aroo nudge Timothy gently with his tail before retiring to the far end of the rocks with Cruu, where they were soon engrossed in conversation.

Timothy hesitated for several seconds and then slid down the rocks to face James.

"Reckon I knew bout you an'a Cap'n 'fore I got here, I did," he began softly, "an' weren't nothin' in me mind yesterday but foolery."

"Yes, I'm aware of that now," James answered, slowly, but he couldn't help wondering how Timothy had already known. Had Anamaria said something to the crew? He fervently hoped not.

He studied Timothy's bowed head thoughtfully and then finally had to ask, "How is it that you knew about Jack and me?"

"E'body knows the Pirate Hunter ain't a scare't a nothin'," Timothy announced matter-of-factly, "but the day the Cap'n was trapped under that hull, I seen ya and you was scare't, mate... you was real scare't." He looked up to meet James's gaze then and announced proudly, "Figured it out, I did."

"I was terrified," James admitted, "and on reflection now, I daresay I owe you a debt of gratitude that I could never hope to repay."

Timothy searched his eyes and then looked out across the water. "It'd be fine to have some'ne scare't fer me like that."

James looked up and found Cruu watching Timothy. His head was tipped to the side and his expression had softened into one of almost tender hopefulness. A far cry, James thought wryly, from the lust-fueled advances that Cruu had made upon him.

"That eventuality may be closer than you realize," James murmured softly.

Before Timothy had an opportunity to question that, Jack surfaced abruptly beside the rocks in an explosion of cascading water and excited cries. "James, come quick. It's dolphins, and ya have to see this."

He had to admit to a bit of discomfiture at watching a pair of dolphins engaged in some sort of mating ritual. He glanced at Jack, floating beside him in the water, but Jack only nudged him and nodded back in the direction of the dolphins.

Now the larger one was twisting around the smaller one and nosing along its belly. And it was then that James saw the equally engorged and fully erect prick of the smaller dolphin. He watched in amazement as the larger one suckled it into his mouth and the smaller one squealed his delight.

James continued to watch for several more minutes as the two male dolphins took turns pleasuring each other with their mouths.

Jack was curling around him now and finally drifted down to free James's cock from the confines of his pouch. James looked down to watch, entranced by the sight of his cock slipping between Jack's lips. He felt himself firming in his mate's mouth and his eyes drifted shut as he surrendered to the exquisite heat of Jack's lips and tongue.

Until he felt Jack suddenly grinning around his prick.

James opened his eyes to look down at Jack, but Jack's attention was firmly fixed on something behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to discover that the smaller of the dolphins had drifted over to grin and nod at James. He pulled away from Jack, ridiculously embarrassed, and swatted the creature away indignantly before dragging Jack to the surface.

Jack was struggling to contain his mirth. "Sorry, luv," he gasped, finally, "but darlin', ya shoulda seen your face."

"Oh, for God's sake, Sparrow," James huffed in exasperation, and then began to snicker softly to himself. "It was a bit disconcerting," he admitted finally with a grin.

Jack twined himself around James and stole a quick kiss before asking, "What d' ya think of that, James? Reckon it's not quite so unnatural after all, now is it?"

"Apparently not," he agreed, "Christ, Jack, can you imagine if the clergy were privy to that?" He laughed outright at the very idea. "Wouldn't their reaction be something to relish!"

They bobbed companionably for awhile in the gentle waves, each lost in his own thoughts and content to be doing so.

James pondered the astonishing thing they had just witnessed, and as he did, he couldn't help but wonder about Timothy's decision to stay in the enchantment. He almost envied Timothy, his new long life, and all the possibilities that life offered. He tugged Jack closer and considered what such a life would be like with a beloved companion at his side.

He sighed to himself after a few moments and shook the thought off for the foolish meandering that it was.

Besides, his still-erect prick reminded him, he had more immediate concerns.

He drew back to look down into Jack's eyes and asked solemnly, "Want to play dolphin?"

Jack's eyes danced with mischief. "Thought ya'd never ask, mate."

Until finally and quite unexpectedly, Jack twined his fingers into James's hair with desperate intent while James was pleasuring him and refused to let go. James held him tightly then with arms and tail and brought him to a quick, shuddering release.

By the time Jack finally slid down his body to return the favor, James was near frantic with need and his own pleasure ripped through him as soon as he felt the warm heat of Jack's mouth.

They curled around each other afterwards and just drifted lazily with the current until hunger finally prodded them to action.

James twined around him anxiously and finally helped him to the surface. "What is it, Jack? What's wrong?"

" 'm not sure mate. I just... I couldn't catch me breath there for minute."

James pushed Jack's hair back from his neck and ran careful fingers along the gill ridges. "Your gills look all right," he murmured. "They're nice and pink, like they're supposed to be."

"Aye?"

"Yes, how do you feel now?"

"Better," Jack answered slowly.

James tipped Jack's head back to carefully examine his gills one final time before announcing. "You've most likely just pushed yourself too hard after your injury."

"Aye, I expect that's it."

There was something... off, about Jack's answer and James searched his face now in concern. Jack was watching him solemnly but the dark eyes were guarded. He reached out finally to pet James's cheek gently.

"What is it, Jack?"

Jack only shook his head. "Guess I'm just tired, luv." He curled close then to whisper into James's ear, "I love you, James."

He hugged Jack tight. "I love you too, Jack," he answered. He wasn't sure what was wrong and though he tried, he couldn't quite dispel a nagging sense of dread at the back of his mind.

They decided to pass on returning to the rocks, and instead fed from the sea bed as they made their way back to the cave.

Jack seemed to be doing well enough now, though he wasn't consuming the massive quantities that were usual for him. And now that James thought about it, his appetite was off as well. He ate a variety of shellfish, trying to whet his appetite, but it seemed that he savored none of it.

The sun was just going down by the time they reached the cave.

Jack remained remote and quiet as they climbed onto the ledge, and James didn't push him. He simply tugged Jack down into the protective circle of his arms and hoped that whatever strange mood had taken his mate would soon pass.

He found Jack sitting on the rocks and studying the night sky. James pulled himself up beside Jack and tugged him back against himself. "What is it?" he asked softly. "Please, Jack, tell me what's wrong."

Jack was silent for so long that James didn't think he was going to answer him, but finally he sighed sadly and whispered, "Look at the sky, James... what do you see up there?"

James looked up at the night sky and searched it carefully for several long moments before realization settled heavily on his heart. "Stars," he finally answered, sadly.

"Aye, stars... just stars."

James dropped his head down against Jack's neck. "I'm not ready, Jack," he whispered, "I'm just not ready for it to be the new moon."