Freedom

Chapter 4

by

Garnet

Jack woke with a start, breathing hard, damp with sweat and yet cold inside and out at the same time. He sat up in bed, his head bowed, his heart pounding loud as cannon fire, his hands clutched tight in the bedding.

Dead. Dead. The man was dead and yet he could still hear that voice, could still feel the mute pressure of the pistol against his flesh.

O' course it were but a dream, but it had seemed so very real. And Barbossa had come down to the brig to see him the once while he were a prisoner aboard the Pearl. But he had never spoke of what had passed between them in the past, let alone made any kind of threat. In fact, they had barely spoke at all, not until he had had him hauled up to the captain's cabin to work out the details of their accord at the last. An accord that had been interrupted before it even really began by the sighting of the Interceptor ahead of them.

Jack raised his head at the last and opened his eyes. The palest whisper of moonlight glowed from the open windows. The rest of the room lay heavy with shadows and he peered into the darkness as if more than half-expecting to find the man himself there. A foolish notion, but he found he couldn't shake it.

Grimacing at himself, he shoved the bedding away and rolled out of bed. He cocked his head, listening intently, but the house was silent enough. Almost, too silent. He went over to the door and opened it, looking out into an even darker hallway. No doubt all the servants were safely tucked in their beds at this time of night, and the Commodore himself as well. Sleeping the sleep of the just, the sleep of the honest man. Or woman, in the case of smitten young Emma and the robust Cook.

Speaking of which, he realized that he were slightly hungry. He had dined well enough earlier this evening, though Norrington hadn't joined him at the table, this time. Instead, the man had taken his own supper in his office, pleading a surfeit of work. However, he weren't quite fool enough to believe that.

Duty makes for a cold mistress...

If he could have taken those words back, he would have. After all, the man had been kind enough to him. More than kind to take him in, deathly ill and a pirate to boot, and treat him as an honored guest. Even if it half had been done at Elizabeth's urgings, or under the lash of her tongue, anyways.

He well remembered that and Will was more than welcome to it. Even if it came in a most lovely package.

Jack stepped out and closed the door silently behind him. On ghost feet of his own, he crept down the hall and to the back stairs. Following them down to the kitchen below. A candle burned on the table there and the fire lay banked, a soft red glow from one corner of the room. A door stood ajar and he could hear soft snores coming from within.

Smiling the whole time to himself, he ruthlessly pillaged the kitchen, coming away with part of a small round of cheese, a slice of the ham pie left over from dinner, and more of those lovely little cakes. Tucking his finds away into a piece of cloth, he let himself out the side door and into the night.

Treading carefully, he walked along the edge of Cook's kitchen garden, catching a hint of the smell of the herbs planted there as he did. He then hoisted himself over the low wall that protected them, and made his way around the corner of the house and into the back garden. Intending on reclaiming his favorite bench.

As he sauntered down the path, though, weaving between lemon trees and a few smaller palms, he saw that he wasn't the only one who had found himself awake at this hour. The slender moon above cast just barely enough light to see the man sitting at the far end of the garden. Sitting on the bench half-hidden between the rose bushes, their blossoms pale as smoke in the darkness, his face and shirt gleaming just as softly.

Norrington didn't move even though he had to have seen him coming down the path. Didn't acknowledge his presence at all.

Jack sat down boldly on the bench next to him, all for as if he'd actually been invited there. He laid his cloth full of edibles between them. A peace offering of sorts, not that the other man would most likely see it as such.

Taking a cake for himself, he bit into it as he tilted his head back to stare up at the sky. It was a perfectly clear night and the stars overhead were bright as jewels, forming patterns that Jack well knew. One could steer a ship by them, as much as he had heard tell that one could charter your life if one knew how to read the signs. Not that he really believed that; a man's destiny were written upon his own flesh and etched deep within his heart, far more than on some distant spangles of light.

Norrington drew in a deep breath and stirred slightly then.

"I waited too long," he said, all for as if they had already been conversing for several minutes. "I should have... I would have approached her sooner if not for that I wished to have more to offer. My promotion seemed the perfect opportunity to finally speak my mind, but I fear—knowing what I know now—that it was, by far, too late even then."

Jack shook his head slightly, swallowing his bite of cake. "One cannot know the mind of a woman. Let alone her heart. She were a fool not to marry you, aye, but even more a fool would she be if she didn't listen to what that same heart told her."

"A fool," Norrington repeated softly. "I was a fool to have ever believed her. Perhaps, part of me did not even as I did what she asked of me. So that when she came to me aboard the Dauntless after, well... she said she would keep her vow, but I knew I could not myself keep her to it. Not after I'd seen where her heart truly lay. And with whom."

"You wanted to believe. No fault in that, man. An it were the right thing to do, even so."

"Or else Turner would be dead, you mean."

Jack shrugged. "An the crew of the Pearl even now would be free to plunder to their own heart's content. Though, quit of the curse, they would be a sight less formidable, I imagine."

"The Black Pearl," the other man said pensively. "Your ship."

Jack nodded, taking another bite of cake, but finding it oddly less savory than before. He had been her captain for less years than he had had her, but she would always be his ship. No matter how distantly she sailed or under whose hand and colors. She owned the best part of him, ever and always. The part that, even now, felt hollow inside him. But then he were used to that; he had spent the last ten years trying to fill that emptiness and nothing had succeeded ere long, not rum nor gold nor women.

Aye, well used to it he was, but still he'd never gotten past the pain of it. He laid the rest of the cake aside and leaned back on the bench instead, contemplating those stars once more.

"A fast ship is she?" Norrington asked, an honest enough curiosity in his voice.

"Fast enough," he replied. "She took the Interceptor easy enough."

"Easy as you took her from me in the first place?"

Jack shrugged again, before he gave the other man a sidelong glance. But Norrington wasn't looking at him and he suspected that to be quite deliberate.

"Not a trick you'll be falling for twice, I suspect," he replied.

Norrington said nothing to that, but Jack caught a quick flash of his eyes in the dark as he too leaned further back on the bench, almost slouching for once.

"You know," he went on. "I didn't mean for her to be destroyed like she was. I would have..."

"Brought her back eventually?" Norrington's voice was amused, droll even.

"Well, no," Jack freely admitted. "But she were a fine ship. Stalwart through storm and through fire. But no match for the Pearl in the end, mores the pity. I would have rather seen her returned to you than at the bottom of the ocean."

Norrington raised his head at that and gave a very small smile. "Strange. I would have said quite the opposite."

Jack was silent for a long moment, watching the other man and well aware that he was aware of that self-same attention.

"Well now, ye still have Dauntless."

"Unless you take it in your mind to steal her as well, you mean."

Jack sat back up and laid a hand directly over his heart. "Ah, no. Just for ye, Commodore, I pledge to leave her be."

Norrington let out a soft breath through his nose at that and shook his head. "You are a scoundrel, Jack Sparrow. And a trial to any man."

"Ah," Jack replied, and couldn't keep back the smile for the sake of his own life. "A trial I may be and a scoundrel, no doubt of it. But question is—am I also a temptation? Even for the likes of thee?"

The figure next to him stiffened and seemed to stop breathing entirely for a second.

"I don't know what you mean," Norrington replied at the last. His voice had gone as frigid as those distant stars.

"I think ye do," Jack said softly.

"You presume entirely too much," the other man said and his tone would have warned off most men. Or made them shiver in their boots. Well, it made Jack shiver a little, but not out of fear.

"Nay." He turned entirely towards Norrington now, who couldn't help but look back at him. His eyes glancing as pale as the moon and his face suddenly betraying what he most didn't want to be betrayed—a helpless kind of wonder and fear and fascination. "I've not yet begun to presume, James Norrington."

Then the other man's eyes fell to the cloth between them, Jack's spoils laid out across it for all to see.

"More thieving, I see," he commented, though there was only the tiniest smidgeon of accusation in his voice. More a sense of relief at finding something else to bring up between them.

"Just a little something for a moonlight tryst," Jack replied. "Keep our strength up, as it were."

"You're impossible," Norrington said, and his whole manner was suddenly knife edged, dark as the night around them. "And I don't know why I bother."

He stood up and started to walk away, but Jack reached out and snatched at his sleeve. Holding him there by means of that fragile piece of cloth, but more by that same fear and fascination he'd just seen betrayed full well on the other man's face.

"My apologies," he said quietly, well aware that he'd pushed the other just a little too far. "I didn't mean to offend thee."

Norrington didn't look at him, but he didn't pull away either. Instead, his eyes sank shut for a long moment, before he opened them again and glanced down at the ground below his feet.

"No offense meant and none taken," he said just a quietly. "And my own apologies for calling you thief once more. You are welcome to all within my home. Within the bounds of good reason, that is. What I would consider good reason."

That last was added wryly enough and Jack smiled a little at it. A smile which drew the other man's eyes back to him when nothing else had. Oh yes, interested and interesting, indeed.

Jack let go of Norrington's sleeve and stood up then, taking on a serious air. "Then, if it would please you, I would enjoy your company at dinner on the morrow. That is, unless you have other, more pressing, duties to attend to. As you did this evening."

"I imagine I should be able to clear my schedule." Again, the man's voice was wry—not doubt, in part, at being invited to attend his own table. But his eyes were intent, pale and clear as water by the moon, and quite obviously intrigued. Almost against their own will.

Jack gave a little half bow, before sweeping up the cloth holding his appropriated cakes and food and starting back up to the house himself.

"Well, then. Until the morrow, Commodore," he called back over his shoulder. "Ta."

Leaving the other man—he was more than half sure—standing there alone in his own back garden, probably open-mouthed and more than half wondering what he'd just gotten himself into.

Well, for that, he would just have to wait, wouldn't he?

About Master Knox and his occasional foray into town in order to see to his own business, which she suspected involved either women of ill repute or gambling or both. Somehow, Jack couldn't see the man indulging in either, but then he couldn't see the man indulging in anything so that was as it may be.

As for Emma, well, Cook was most distressed with the young maid. Being that she'd had more than a dozen offers of marriage since she'd come of age, but had turned them all down. Almost as if she feared leaving the master's household. And was seemingly unconcerned that she wasn't getting any younger in the meantime. The last had offered for her hand near on three month ago now and had been an earnest enough young lieutenant from up the Fort, who had seen her when he'd brought by some letters for the Commodore to sign. Whom she had turned down flat.

Speaking of which, Cook's concerns also extended to the head of said household. She was a little more circumspect about her words, but Jack still picked up on her worry about what the recent turn of events had done to the man. About how he was too fine a figure of a man to be alone such as he was, and that were a clear shame, and how any woman should be glad to have him, if they had any sense at all. Especially a man who worked so very hard and had built this lovely house and gardens, all so that he may bring back the woman of his fondest dreams to live there.

A shame, it was just a shame...

He'd nodded at that obviously heartfelt sentiment and put his feet up, only to have Cook slap them back down off her table and then bring him another plate of cakes as if to make up for it. Despite his full stomach, he slowly polished them off and was pleased to hear as he did that Emma was planning on visiting her sister in King's Town and was leaving this afternoon, not to return until the day after next.

Moreover, Cook suspected tonight would be one of Knox's nights in town, despite the fact that he was still feeling a wee bit under the weather.

Which would only leave the three of them knocking about the Commodore's house this evening if all went well. His own self, Cook down in her kitchens, and the fine figure of a man for whom it was such a shame that he was ever alone.

Trust in luck, aye. Jack were never one to turn down an opportunity if it were presented to him. Whether that be a plate of cakes or a chance to find out what might lie beneath the spit and polish exterior of a certain Commodore James Norrington. Discipline and duty could serve a man well, that were true enough, but discipline kept a rather empty bed, one that duty could never fill.

Even if the other man had half convinced himself that it could.

And Jack Sparrow was anything but cold.

Even Norrington had seemed surprised by the ease of it all, though he'd hidden any hint of enthusiasm beneath his usual calm reserve.

As they'd talked of shipboard life and the sea and, even briefly, of London. As Jack had related tales of his adventures in the East Indies, suitably edited for present company, and then listened as Norrington had talked of a trip he'd once made to Boston, to see his younger sister and her husband. With five children already and another born shortly after he'd stayed with them.

Apparently, it had been a love match and the Commodore grew silent after he'd mentioned that fact, obviously reminded of his own failings in that regard. His eyes fixed on his plate and his hand gripping the half-full glass of wine, as if they could save him from his own feelings.

Jack sat back in his own chair then, knowing that to say anything at that moment would only make matters worse. But Norrington seemed to shake off his mood on his own when Cook brought in their dessert a minute later, a fine custard flavored with mace, cinnamon, nutmeg, and rose-water. Bowing and smiling at them both, before disappearing back into her kitchens.

"A fine meal, Mister Sparrow," the other man said then, picking up his spoon. "Even if I'd paid for it myself."

"An the company?" Jack couldn't help but ask, picking up his own spoon.

Mild-enough eyes gazed at him. "Tolerable," the Commodore replied.

It was slightly more than Jack had expected and he smiled as he began to eat the custard, wondering as he did if the roses for the flavoring had come from the other man's own garden same as the lemons.

Sure and Elizabeth had been a fool to turn down all this man had to offer, but men—and women, for that matter—had to follow their own hearts, or what good were their lives to be to them otherwise? Better a fool in Will Turner's bed, then a wise woman in a loveless marriage. Though, it was quite clear that Norrington had loved her. That he still did. Enough to give her up to the man she loved.

Aye, a fine figure of a man to be sure, and one who deserved better than an empty bed and a lonely life.

The Commodore pleaded that he still had some work to do after dinner, but Jack followed him into the other room and sat down in front of the fire, as if he'd been invited to accompany him. He listened to the rustle of paper for a good while, while he thought of when he'd first seen the other man. Himself gazing up over the point of a blade. Norrington's eyes even more sharp than his sword in that moment, as he warned him away from the young woman he'd just rescued from the sea.

He remembered how the Commodore had almost seemed to delight in taunting him right from the beginning. Of course, he had returned the favor ten times over by now, but no other officer—whether they had actually captured him or were simply intent on doing such—had ever taken such an obvious personal interest in him. Not even the men of the East India Company, with whom he had spent a good two weeks before his eventual escape.

Jack rubbed at his right arm, where the pain of the brand had long since faded. Though the mark never would.

Pirate. It was more than just a name.

Just as the Pearl was more than just any ship.

He didn't turn around as Knox came in and told Norrington that he was going in to town, which the Commodore acknowledged with a rather distracted sound. Still, he felt the disapproving gaze of the servant linger on the back of his head, before the man finally left, closing the doors behind him.

Jack waited another long while, then finally got up and began to wander around the room. He pulled one book out, riffled through it, then put it back. He went back and inspected the globe once more, though he didn't spin it this time. He even went over and peered at the small, though exquisite, collection of brandies, wines, and port that the Commodore had set by, all for as if he'd never seen them before.

And, eventually, he felt other eyes settle on him. A slightly puzzled, moderately annoyed gaze.

"Mister Sparrow," Norrington said at the last. "If you insist on remaining here, if you would please..."

"Drink?" he asked, interrupting the man.

There was a long heart-felt sigh, then he looked back as he heard the other man push out of his chair and begin to walk towards him.

"If you must," the Commodore said.

He took two glasses and splashed a goodly portion of brandy into one and rather less into the other. He then made to hand the first glass to Jack, who took it with one hand and then laid the other on Norrington's arm as he started to pick up his own glass.

The other man looked down at it, then back up at him. "Yes?" he asked.

Jack leaned in and kissed him.

Only to pull back again, before Norrington could even catch his breath. Let alone muster any other kind of response, good or ill.

As stolen kisses went, it wasn't the best he'd ever had, but the look on the other man's face made it all the sweeter. Consternation, surprise, confusion—taken all together it made Norrington look almost boyish for an instant. All for as if it was the very first time he'd ever been kissed.

Which Jack doubted, but that didn't rob the pleasure from it.

Nor from the look on the man's face as he leaned in again, almost, but not quite touching those lips with his own a second time. Only to draw back again at the last possible moment, knowing he were taunting him mercilessly. Quite unable to stop himself. Especially when he saw the sudden flicker of something at the back of the other man's eyes, something neither surprise nor confusion. But a loneliness and hunger fair to match his own. Perhaps, even greater than his own.

But Norrington had stepped back. "Please..." he said, his voice shaken, but then gaining control once more. "I would rather not, Mister Sparrow."

Jack lifted his glass, draining the brandy within in one gulp. He set his glass down next to the Commodore's still untouched one, then gazed at the other man once more.

"An why not?" he asked, moving forward. Taking hold of him once more, feeling the other man stiffen within his grasp. Drawing himself up to his full height and authority beneath his hands, as if that would put stop to everything immediately.

"Because it is wrong, Mister Sparrow. As well you know it."

"Aye, but it feels so very right."

Norrington tried to draw away, but Jack just tightened his grip and though the other man might have easily been able to break free, he slowly allowed himself to relax again. Still, when he looked up at him, his eyes seemed almost stricken.

"You don't understand," Norrington said, his voice even softer than before.

Jack leaned down a little, close enough that he could feel the other man's breath on his face.

"What don't I understand?" he asked, his own voice just as soft.

But Norrington had closed his eyes, his mouth grown tight once more. As if daring him to try and pry the truth out of him.

Jack sighed.

He looked the other man up and down, noting how the firelight from across the room played across the fine linen shirt, the buttons of his vest, the long legs in their pristine white breeches. Even out of uniform, he was all but in uniform still. Even his face seemed fixed in place—every line, the hollows beneath those blue-grey eyes, speaking of the heavy burdens he lived under from day to day, month to month, year to year. Reserve and responsibility and honor, that was what a man might readily see when he looked upon Commodore James Norrington. And yet...

Jack had seen, more than once, how that same face could display a deep sense of compassion. How those same blue-steel eyes could betray the most shocking vulnerability.

He leaned forward again and gently placed his lips on that taut mouth, not pressing the issue, but reminding the other man that it was still there, that he was still there. And, after a long moment, he felt Norrington's lips soften and open ever so slightly to him.

He teased them open further and they shared a breath, intimate and tentative at the same time. Then Jack ever so slowly began to deepen the kiss and was pleased when the other man began to respond willingly enough, his own tongue moving to touch his own, to twine and glide close around it. Slipping across his lips then to trace out his teeth, bone and gold both.

And Jack felt almost as dizzy as if the fever was still upon him. The man kissed so very sweetly, so gently, one would never have thought it of him. His heart was already skipping in his chest, his blood pounding through his veins, and finally he couldn't take it anymore. He let go of Norrington's arm and moved his hand to cup the back of his neck instead, his thumb tracing out mute patterns along the sweat-damp skin there. Deepening the kiss even further. His prick already hard as iron.

But then it had been a long time for him, truly. Months and months since he had been with anyone and, he suspected, even longer for the other man. Norrington didn't strike him as the sort of man who might frequent a bawdy house, either to drink or to bed a woman. Let alone another man.

Even though Norrington's own right hand was now sliding up his arm to close tight on his shoulder. His tongue dipping deeper into Jack's mouth as if it had always belonged there.

Oh no, the Commodore might be a wee bit inexperienced when compared to such as himself, but he had never seemed naïve, let alone particularly innocent to him. Still there was an odd sort of innocence here and Jack had no doubts at all that this was virgin territory to the other man. Just as he had little doubt that Norrington was a bit of a romantic at heart—how else could he have given up so very much for the woman he loved, even given her to another, and yet done right by them both thereafter. When a lesser man would have sought revenge or, at the very least, would have eschewed their company from then on.

No, Norrington was a good man, pure and simple, and Jack's life had never been pure or simple, let alone particularly good. But that is as it was, and all he cared for at the moment was how much he wanted the other man and how much Norrington seemed inclined to want him in return.

Long fingers bruised his shoulder, before slowly relaxing again, and Norrington finally pulled back. He swallowed hard, his eyes still closed, then opened them and looked up at Jack. His mouth slightly swollen and his eyes almost sad.

"Shouldn't have done that," he breathed, as if to himself.

"An why not?" Jack asked. His own hand moved to touch the other's face, his thumb gliding along the firm line of his jaw.

"You're a guest in my home," Norrington replied. "You're a man. You're a pirate."

"Mayhap, a guest. A man, aye," Jack said. "But a pirate no longer. I have the governor's own word on it."

Norrington swallowed again, then turned his head away from Jack's hand. He pulled himself free and brushed past him, not roughly, but with an obvious determination.

"Do you wish another glass, Mister Sparrow?" he asked, his voice also obviously making an attempt to sound formal. As if for all the world they hadn't just spend the last few minutes tasting each other. "I have a rather fine claret here as well if you wish to sample it. From Governor Swann's own table."

"Aye," Jack replied. "Another drink then."

Norrington busied himself with a second bottle, taking his time of it. Taking more than his time of it.

Finally, he turned again, a glass in either hand, and the firelight made the claret look more like blood. Just as it made his eyes abruptly seem more gold than grey. As if the flames themselves had crawled down inside him. His shirt was stained gold and red as well, and Jack couldn't help but notice the bulge at the crutch of his breeches.

Still he said nothing, nothing at all. Though a blind man would have known.

"Thank ye," he just muttered as the Commodore handed him one of the glasses.

Norrington nodded, but seemed distracted. His fingers clenched too tight around the fragile stem of his own glass. He moved across the room and sat down in one of the chairs by the fire and closed his eyes. His shoulders slumped.

Jack downed half the claret in one gulp and grimaced. He would have much preferred rum than this or even the brandy, but...

One made do with what one had.

He drank off the rest, then sauntered over to the other man to dangle the empty glass right in front of him. When Norrington opened his eyes and looked up at the last, he smiled as broad as he could. Which was fairly broad.

"Help yourself," the other man said. He hadn't even touched his own drink yet.

"Oh, I mean to," Jack replied. "No worries, there."

He took the other man's glass out of his hand—expecting no resistance at the act and getting none—and drained that one as well, before swiping his sleeve across his mouth.

"An now that we've each a drink to fortify ourselves," he said. "What say we get back to our little debate about right and wrong."

Norrington seemed rather bemused, both at the loss of his glass and at Jack's seemingly casual attitude. He leaned back in his chair and gazed up at him, this almost serene expression on his face now.

"You imagine that you know the distinctions?" he asked, through it really didn't come off as sounding like a question. "Or are such matters as right and wrong as rhetorical to you as ownership of property."

Jack carefully set the two empty glasses down on the floor, then turned and put both hands on the arms of the chair, effectively trapping the Commodore within its confines for the moment. He leaned in close, almost touching Norrington. Close enough that the other man must have been able to smell the claret on his breath, if not the brandy as well.

"Not rhetorical," he said. "Just... mutable."

And then he kissed the other man again.

And if the other had been sweet, this one was bitter fire. This was a man's kiss, demanding and sure, and Norrington—after one brief hesitation—gave back as good as he got. Teeth clashing, tongues twisting together, wet, hot, a test and a challenge in one. It made Jack's veins burn and his heart pound until he felt he might very well go blind with the pain and pleasure of it.

Certainly, his prick was telling him that he was going to.

God's love, but the man tasted so very good...

Norrington breathed a word into his mouth. It didn't sound like a threat, but Jack pulled back a little anyway. Kissing the corner of the man's mouth instead, before nudging down beneath his chin and biting every so lightly on the tender flesh there.

The Commodore jumped slightly, but didn't pull away.

"Aye?" Jack asked softly.

When the other man didn't answer, he moved back a little from him and gazed at him. Norrington's mouth was half-open and his eyes were dazed. He shook his head once, obviously at a complete loss for words, then this slightly mortified, this shamed look crossed his face.

"Ah," Jack said. "Tis not as wicked as all that."

"Wicked enough." Soft, so very soft.

Jack knelt down before him and took Norrington's hands in his own, running his thumbs gently across the other man's palms. He looked full into his face, then gestured with his head towards the door.

"Come now. Tis more than time to go upstairs, methinks. An I would accompany thee, if ye would have me."

"Are you asking?"

Jack nodded. "I would command it of ye, but a man should be willing. I am willing enough, but you... what do ye desire, James Norrington? Tell old Jack. Tell him how best to please thee."

Norrington sucked in a harsh breath. His eyes flashed like the sun on the waves, like polished silver, and then his hands turned and grasped Jack's own. Held them tight enough to bruise. The shame abruptly giving way to an even more dreadful longing.

"You," he said, his voice equally harsh. "I desire you, and damn me for it."

Jack rose gracefully and pulled the other man up with him, pulled him close. "Now, that's in God's hands, not in me own," he said. "But I'll put in a good word for ye."

"With God or the Devil?"

Jack shrugged. "It matters o'er much?"

Since they were all but alone tonight, Norrington paused to blow out each lamp and candle as they went. Leaving the house and halls behind them dark and still. Finally, he took the last candle from its place and held it to light their way up the stairs and to his bedroom. It was at the far end of the corridor from the one Jack had been staying in and the windows there were open wide, letting in a soft breeze redolent of night blooms and sea salt. A large bed stood in the middle of the room, the covers turned down on one side. No doubt, one of the maid's last duties before she'd gone to visit her sister this evening.

On the bedside table a pitcher stood and a glass and a bowl of fresh fruit, oranges and apples and bananas. Jack saw Emma's hand in this, as well; clearly she was well used to taking care of a man who oft times forgot to take care of himself. Either that, or she was bucking for a change in station. After all, he had caught her eye on Norrington more than once. No, if the Commodore was lacking in womanly company, it was only that he were not seeing what was on offer.

Though, tonight anyway, it seemed that he had noticed. Not that Jack had been particularly subtle.

Norrington lit a couple of candles on the table, then returned to the foot of the bed and blew out the one he still held. Smoke rose in front of his face and Jack smelled the faint scent of honey and heated wax for one brief moment.

He stepped up to the Commodore then and took the candle and tossed it away over his shoulder. He tilted his head to one side and leaned in closer and when Norrington would have recoiled, albeit involuntarily, he reached out and put the tips of his fingers to the other man's face. Just the smallest of touches, but Norrington stilled beneath it.

"Tell me to leave," Jack said gently. "An I will go... from your bed, from your house. From this place."

"And if I did that," Norrington asked. "Where would you go?"

Jack shook his head. "I know naught. But does it really matter? I'll make my way as I always do."

"Even if it means a return to piracy?"

"Even so."

Jack slipped one hand stealthily down the side of the man's neck and then cupped it close, feeling the pulse firm and steady beneath his fingers. "But me future, or lack thereof, is not what we came here to discourse on, now is it?"

"No?"

"No."

Jack started to shift even closer, but the other man stiffened, and not in a good light.

"What not?" Jack asked, not unkindly. He relaxed his grip on the Commodore just slightly.

"Simple enough," Norrington replied, though his tone said it was anything but. "I just am thinking that I may well live to regret this. In fact, I'm quite sure I will end up regretting this."

"An have ye never done anything before in your life that you regretted?" Jack asked, ever so softly. "Rather than simply regretting having done nothing?"

Norrington frowned slightly at that. "You well know the answer to that."

"Aye," Jack replied. He ran a thumb along the edge of the other man's jaw and then felt his way up to his mouth with it. He held it there then, as if he could seal the Commodore's lips tight with it alone. "So there then, if there are to be regrets, better they be for something ye've done and had, than for something ye've not. Savvy?"

Norrington's eyes narrowed to a dangerous pitch, but he kept his silence. He kept his mouth tight shut as well, at least until Jack began to press against it with the tip of his thumb. Then suddenly, something seemed to give—either his resolve or his temper—and his eyes flickered and he gave the smallest of smiles. Before he opened his lips and let Jack slip the offending member into his mouth.

Jack stood perfectly still then as Norrington licked his thumb, before drawing it into his mouth fully and starting to suck on it. The feeling of moist heat and pressure being applied to it seemed, oddly enough, to go straight to his prick as well and he couldn't stop the tiny gasp that escaped him.

"Ah..." he breathed, swaying a little in place. "Ah, yes..."

Norrington cocked an eyebrow at him, as if finding his lack of larger words amusing, but he seemed pleased enough by the intensity of his response. Before he went back to focusing his whole attention on the matter of Jack's thumb, as if more than aware of what effect it also had on Jack's prick.

Which had jolly well decided to pretend to the mainmast of some rather proud, even downright jaunty ship.

Jack took the opportunity then to slip his free arm around the other man and pull him a shade closer. He laid his face down into the crook of the Commodore's shoulder and ran his nose along the other man's skin. Powder, sweat, and the faintest lingering of perfumes. Clean scents all. He put out the veryest tip of his tongue, then, and licked at the tempting spot just behind Norrington's ear. Before biting down briefly on the lobe and thrusting his tongue full score into the depths of it.

The Commodore jumped a little at that and his own teeth closed for a moment on the root of Jack's imprisoned thumb, before they relaxed once more.

Jack then licked his way down the man's neck and to the open collar of his shirt. He sucked on the hollow displayed there, before lifting his head at the last.

"I'll be having that back again, if you please?" he asked.

Norrington's eyes were half-closed and his face was slightly flushed. It made Jack well imagine—and his imaginings were often quite... well, quite vivid, to be truthful—the flushed state of some other part of him. A part that, even now, was pressing up against his thigh. Raising a dampish spot in that pair of pristine white breeches.

Unable to resist it o'er long, he rubbed his leg up against it and his thumb abruptly popped free of the other man's mouth as the Commodore gasped and bucked in response.

"Oh, God..." the man mumbled, as if shocked to find such a thing happening to him.

"Not the Devil?" Jack asked and then snaked his now free hand down between them to grasp that ever so firm length through the confines of the cloth. He squeezed and stroked it as best he could, even as he began to press his own prick against the other man's hip. Bone to bone and, by God's own wounds, but it felt good.

And Norrington's head was falling back and his hand was clutching Jack's shoulder now, certainly hard enough to bruise it this time, and they could have gone on there, just like that—finished it—and it wouldn't have been a sin. Well, not much of one anyway. But Jack wanted more than that. He wanted as much as he could take this night, most especially if the Commodore found his good senses and more of those sticky sensibilities by cock's crow and tossed him out hard on his ear.

It had happened before, more than he cared to admit to. Sometimes, with the added bonus of a full chamber pot being tossed after him. Though, he doubted that Commodore James Norrington were much the chamber pot tossing sort. More of a run you clean through with a yard long piece of steel sort.

O' course, he wouldn't less mind being run through by a rather warmer and more friendly yard. In fact, he was conspiring to it, if truth be told.

"James," he said in a clear, almost clipped voice.

The shock of hearing his Christian name like that seemed to shake the Commodore somewhat out of the trance his rampant prick had put him into.

"Bed," Jack reminded him. "You do have one, eh?"

"Yes," Norrington replied, then blinked at him. "Of course."

Jack nodded at him, encouragingly. But still, it took an effort of will that even he was reluctant to admit to, to step back from the other man and walk those few steps to the bed in question. He sat down on the edge of it, then ever so slowly let himself sink down, until he was flat on his back. Staring upwards at the Commodore. Who stared down at him, this little frown on his face. With a rather large promontory in his breeches.

Jack looked at it, quite pointedly, taking his time of it, before he looked back into the other man's eyes.

Who met his gaze with an equally pointed, though somewhat shaky, degree of reserve he'd managed to find once more. A reserve that couldn't even begin to dampen the fire that lay beneath it.

"Yes," Norrington said then, almost to himself. "Most definitely the Devil's work. But then, I fear you temptation enough for a saint, let alone a sinner."

Jack smiled. "High praise, indeed. But prithee, which one do ye name yourself?"

A rueful expression was his response. Before even that fragile reserve melted and the other man joined him on the bed. As they wrapped their arms and bodies around each other once more, their mouths meeting in an almost tender duel.

And Jack wasn't quite sure when it happened, being much occupied with other matters, but at some point he found his shirt had disappeared and the other man's as well. Perhaps, thievery came so easily to him these days that he'd stolen them both without really thinking. But, then again, Norrington's own fingers were clever enough for two men, especially as they stroked down his stomach to stop just inches from the bulge in his own breeches.

Blue-grey eyes coming up to meet his own, as if asking permission—when he, himself, had asked none before—before those fingers continued downward. To deftly undo his braces and slip inside.

"Ah," Jack breathed as they closed tight around him. "Yes..."

Warm, so very warm, and knowing. Norrington's hand felt rough and smooth at the same time as he began to stroke him ever so slowly. And the pleasure was slow as well, a gentle wellspring rising up inside him. The other man's eyes gleaming at each small gasp he drew out of him.

As if he saw each one as some kind of victory.

Before Jack's own hand found its own nimble way into a pair of white breeches and evened up matters entirely. Never let it be said that he couldn't give as good as he got.

Then the Commodore's mouth was on his again, commanding and demanding at the same time, not so much a mere meeting of lips and tongue but a heat and force that poured itself down into him as if he were some vessel but waiting to be filled. And who could have known that it had lain behind that stern façade, behind those cool sea and steel eyes. No one but Jack Sparrow, that is.

As he felt consumed by fire. As he rose on wings of his own to meet it. Rolling the other man over to lie beneath him. Ripping those white breeches down in the process. Only to find shaking fingers doing much the same to him. Until they lay naked together, pale flesh against burnt, the kiss shared between them having somehow grown more compassionate in the meantime.

A midnight conspirators' kiss. Forged half of warm breath and of heart-pounding fear. As if they were already part of each other. As if they had always been and were ever meant to be.

Ah, if only that were true...

The Caribbees—no the whole world—would never be the same.

Jack chuckled and Norrington drew back a moment later to look at him. His mouth swollen and his color high. This fine line appeared between his eyes, not quite a frown. But if he was already feeling those regrets, he said nothing. Just reached up to touch Jack's face, long fingers tracing out the contours of his cheeks, the line of his beard. His lips.

Jack smiled and bent down to rub the side of his face against the other man's own smooth shaven skin. Before moving down to lick at the side of his neck, feeling the pulse there as if it were his own. Feeling the other man's prick leap against his hip as if it believed the same.

No, nothing would ever be the same...

Then Jack was clutching Norrington to him even harder, shifting up until his member rubbed against the man's own.

Norrington immediately gasped and Jack stole the sound from him with his own mouth. He curved one hand around the back of the other man's skull and thrust against him, a long smooth stroke that sent sharp little blades of pleasure through his prick. That made his very blood hum.

Then the world was turning again, a dizzy movement torn between hands and lips, and Jack somehow found himself beneath the other man, caught between cool sheets and hot skin. His hair fallen into his face, beads prickling at his eyes, and their legs entangled, knotting them even tighter together. As Norrington stabbed rapidly downwards at him, his prick like bone, like steel, swollen so much it must have hurt.

Fast, too fast. It would never last this way. They would never last.

But Jack didn't want it to last, not this time.

He wanted the roughness of that prick as it rubbed and jabbed and stroked across his own. He wanted the fire. He wanted the quickening. Slickness rampaging against slickness and that stern mouth close and hungry on his own, teeth clashing, a tongue thrusting deep and hard, almost as hard as the man was pushing down against him. These soft helpless sounds coming out of him now, sounds that mirrored the desperation of those clutching hands, that weeping prick.

Jack put his other arm around Norrington's back and held him close, moving against him in time to each thrust—once more giving as good as he got—and was rewarded when the other man abruptly stiffened against him. As he moaned and then suddenly cut that moan off, as if it were almost more than he could bear.

And Jack felt liquid heat spill out between them, making his own prick stutter and slide and then burn with its own measure of pain. Before, as keen as a knife's blade, liquid as melted wax, he felt pleasure leap through him and then out of him as well.

"Ah..." he gaped, open-mouthed against the other man's panting breaths. "There..."

He shuddered and surrendered to the pure simple joy of it all, fleeting as such things always were, even as Norrington collapsed on top of him. Shaking a little still and his hips making these little sideways movements. Somewhat more to starboard than to port.

Then Jack let his head fall back and closed his eyes, comforted by the weight on top of him as much as he were being crushed by it, his fingers moving down almost of their own accord to dabble in the honey-warm liquid pooling against his hip. Trickling down to those clean white sheets.

Oh, aye, it had been a long time...

Far far too long.

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