Passages

Chapter 5

by

Garnet

When Norrington collapsed back, shivering just a little, he continued to salve the other man's prick for a little while, garnering every drop before it could be lost. And then let his forehead drop into the hollow of his hip, breathing in his scent and feeling his own prick ache and throb and make complaint of him.

Aye, it seemed clear that it had been a long time for the Commodore, but it had also been a fair long time since he'd allowed himself to pleasure another in this fashion. Surprising, to say the least, that he had felt the urge now, but then Norrington seemed determined to bring out the best and the worst of him.

Fingers lightly touched his hair, then trailed down along his face, pulling gently. Jack allowed the other man to lift his head, then couldn't keep the smile back as he gazed full into a pair of glazed green eyes. Eyes that looked as much apologetic as sated.

"I... did not mean to..." the Commodore started to say, his voice hitching with his breath.

"Did ye not?" Jack couldn't help but ask, and the amused way he said it made the other man glance down and away. Even in the dimness, he would swear he saw Norrington's forehead and cheeks grow even more flushed.

"Ah," he went on, pushing himself up and freely tucking his body in alongside that of the taller man's. "But I forgive ye. Being that tis me own charms ye could not resist, eh?"

A small laugh was his reward, followed by Norrington putting an arm around him and pulling him even closer.

"I must have taken leave of my senses," Norrington said, but it seemed a mild enough protest. Especially since his thumb began a long slow stroke along Jack's collarbone.

Jack sighed and settled back more firmly against the other man.

"Or found them, methinks," he said.

"No," Norrington replied, his voice still mild. "I do believe I've quite lost them. Somewhere between finding that grave empty and letting you kiss me, I must imagine."

"Oh, aye?" Jack claimed that wayward thumb and brought it to his mouth, kissing it lightly and thankfully, before guiding the Commodore's hand to rest directly between his own slightly spread legs.

The other man—to his own amusement and pleasure—rather obediently began putting both thumb and other fingers to immediate usage there as well. Tracing up and down the length and breadth of him, until he couldn't stop himself from squirming a little beneath their tender, but thorough ministrations.

"Like that, do you?" Norrington inquired, though it really wasn't much of a question.

"Just a little," Jack replied, then let out a soft breath as the other man suddenly squeezed him hard. "Tis not the first time..." and he spread his legs wider, arching slightly into that touch. "...that ye've had occasion I think... to handle another man's privity, is it?"

"No," Norrington said firmly, then quite simply failed to elaborate.

Not that Jack was in quite the mood to try to coax or cajole the details out of him, at least for the time being. Perhaps, later—if there was a later for either of them—when he could actually have half a hope of concentrating on anything other than just how very good it felt to have the other man's hand on him. After all, it had been near on two month now since he'd had the pleasures of any other than his own good self, though he'd seen fit to make the acquaintance of not one, but three fine ladies while back on Tortuga with young Will. Still, he'd not been with a man for nigh on a year now. And that had only been a frantic fumble in the dark, between rounds of cheap rum and a game of cards wherein he had lost nearly the last of his coin, even though he had cheated as fine as the best of them.

But then cards had never been lucky for him. He much preferred, if choice were given to him, the more chancy roll and tumble of dice. To leave it all in the hands of Lady Fortune, knowing that she would see fit to provide and that he would profit all the more for the risk of it. After all, look what she'd brought him this day. A stalwart Commodore, no less, and one whose fingers were even now taking it upon themselves to work his length up and down in such a fabulous commanding fashion.

Jack closed his eyes and gave himself over fully to the moment, to the touch of the other man. Smiling as he felt Norrington's mouth descend to his ear, his breath as warm as his words.

"I want you, Jack," the Commodore said. "Even though there is no sense, nor rhyme nor reason nor even a right to it."

"Right?" he echoed, thrusting up shallowly into the firm strength of the other man's grip, gasping a little now. "What's good is right... an this be ever so much to the good, love. Ah, gods, yes... so damned good..."

"Glad to hear of it," Norrington said, and Jack could have sworn it was almost a purr.

And then the world was spinning around him, turning on its ear, and he found himself all of a sudden on the floor and with the full weight of a Commodore planted firmly on top of him. With something even more firm pressing up against him.

He opened his eyes, even as the other man's mouth closed on his own, warm, wet, and more than a bit mischievous. As teeth and tongue teased him in equal measure, stealing his breath away and then rendering it back again. It wasn't tender, but neither was it furious, though he would have taken either or both from the man with the same pleasure.

Norrington buried his face in his hair, moaning something that Jack didn't quite catch. Long legs tangled themselves up with his own and arms slid beneath him and pulled him into tight embrace, even as hands roved freely down his back and he arched into the touch, quite unable to help himself. The other man felt so very good.

The hollow of Norrington's throat beckoned and he buried his face there, then began licking the salt and sweat off that pale skin. When there was no more forthcoming, he began biting down ever so gently, raising a small sound of protest.

And then a hand was pulling on his hair, lifting his mouth away from all that vulnerable flesh and back up until Norrington could kiss him once more. A melting slow kiss that made all the pain and discomforts of the past few weeks fade away. That made him glad to be alive, even if the life granted to him was but an illusory thing at best.

Cursed he might very well be, but this moment anyway, he felt easy about it, if not downright blessed.

And that made a weight lift inside him that he hadn't even known existed until then, and he set to kissing the other man until he might beg for mercy. But Norrington seemed made of stern stuff, indeed, for he returned passion in full measure. Lips, teeth, tongue, hands gripping and stroking, soft moans rising and falling again, shared breath and need.

Until finally, almost as one, they broke apart a little and regarded each other. Breathing hard, hands slowing but not entirely stopping their mute exploration, their bodies pressed tight together.

"Jack," Norrington said at the last, a bare whisper. And those normally cool green eyes were warm as he looked at him, his smile even warmer, if only a shade self-conscious still. As if the man could not stop thinking entirely, even now.

But Jack felt himself surrendering to that gaze all the same, as much as to the need in his own veins. He ran his fingers playfully down the other man's chest and stomach, which jumped slightly at his touch. Norrington let out a ghost of a laugh, also slightly self-conscious, and then took hold of that errant hand before it could get into more trouble and brought it to his lips.

Where he placed a kiss for every finger, each one lingering longer than the last. Followed by a far more leisurely lick across his palm—where the scar from the breaking of the curse lingered, seemingly more tender than the rest—before teeth closed ever so briefly on his wrist. More than a nip and rather less than a bite.

Jacks answering laugh sounded breathy, even to his own ears.

"As to wickedness," he said. "Ye seem to know a thing or two about it yourself, Commodore."

"I am nothing if not observant," Norrington replied, sounding smug all of a sudden.

"Glad to hear it," he said. "Then ye may have observed that ye be in a unique position o' command at the moment. An, it must be admitted to, a state as one might not easily obtain o'er such hard an merciless men as pirates be."

"Hard, I see," the other man replied, and now there was a teasing glimmer in his eyes. "But as to mercy... I fear I cannot say that as much of it lies in my heart as I had once imagined. You have taught me that much, Jack. Your... death..."

"Ah," Jack replied, and though he tried to keep his tone cheery, it came out darker than intended all the same. "Well it were well worth it then, eh? Me little dandle upon the rope. If would make ye a better man."

But Norrington's eyes had already glanced down and that fine mouth was thinning out.

"Don't make light, Jack," he said. "Please."

Jack took tight hold of the other man's face and planted a quick hard kiss on those stern lips.

"Please, is it," he repeated. "Well then, I promise to be as sober and stalwart as the Lords o' the Admiralty themselves, if ye would but give us a kiss an then get a good leg over. Savvy?"

That got an even stronger reaction, as Norrington's head shot up and his eyes flashed an odd combination of surprise and acute longing. Still, he only looked taken aback for a moment, before he chuckled and gave a somewhat wry smile.

"As far as I am privileged to know, they are rather less sober and stalwart than might be thought of."

"More to the better than."

***

Still, Norrington had discovered the distinct pleasure of learning how to stop up the other man's mouth, if only for a little while. A pleasure which he took stock of again, lowering his head and kissing the pirate more gently than he would have expected of himself, and certainly far more gently than Jack had evidently expected. Though he returned the gentleness in full measure, a soft little sigh breaking from him at the last.

Before those dark eyes opened again, gazing up at him with a most deliberately concentrated sober and stalwart look, though he managed it for only a moment or two, before that teasing light appeared once more. And Jack brought him back down to him for a kiss that had little of the gentleman about it, and all the fire and fluster of a most practiced rascal and rogue.

And though Norrington had never before this night known the touch of this man, he could have sworn that he'd always known it. The graceful flutter of hands, the teasing stroke of those long fingers, clenching hard and then floating softly over his skin the next, the insistent press of warm, wet lips and sly lick of tongue.

Smooth skin and rough imprinting itself on his own body as if Jack wished to be sure of leave something of himself behind, something that would never be forgotten.

As if forgetting Jack Sparrow was even possible.

Norrington opened his eyes and held the pirate's face still with a strong hold on one of those beaded braids.

Heavy lids rose and dark eyes met his once more... and for a long moment he quite forgot how to breathe. For Jack's eyes were full of depths that he could only wonder at. Seemingly quite honestly serious right now, they lay half in shadow and yet gleamed as if they had stolen what little light there was all for themselves, betraying an irredeemable and irrepressible good humor that it seemed nothing could ever dim.

But that he had seen it destroyed not the once, but twice over. Once at his own hands and then nearly again in this very room. He had brought Jack back somehow the second time, but he feared he owed much more than that for having sent him to the gallows that day.

For having dared put out that light...

Pirate and scallywag and scoundrel though Jack may be—and right proud of it even—yet there was something almost infinitely precious about him. Something that could never be replaced, let alone measured out in such mundane stuff such as mere gold or silver or gems.

Something that was worth the world twice over, especially for those who hungered for just a taste of such joys and knew only their own despair and the plain life that stretched out before them, empty of all that truly mattered. Because everything that really mattered lay revealed in those black eyes even as they stared up at him, as if reassuring him that life could be good and simple and happy, even in the midst of pain.

When he knew that it was not.

But Jack was smiling now, flashing a hint of gold, and giving him the impression that the pirate was contemplating wickedness once more. As if all this were so very simple, as if everything could be simple if one merely wished for it hard enough and believed in it strongly enough.

"An what might ye be thinking?" the other man asked, the tip of his finger stroking reflectively down across his cheek and across his lips.

"That sin had never looked so fine," he replied, before he could regret the words, let alone the sentiment.

"Careful, mate," Jack replied. "Words like that might turn a man's head as much as a maid's."

"Even your own?"

"Ah, well," the pirate said. "Takes more than a dab hand at prose to win me fancy."

"What about a pretty show of leg?"

Jack made a production out of glancing down to inspect him, this exaggerated frown on his face. "Bit of a long-shanks, aren't ye," he said at the last. "But I imagine ye'll do in a pinch. An we do seem to be in a bit of a pinch."

Before he could think of an answer to that, the pirate slid one hand around the back of his neck and pulled his head down. Jack rubbed the side of his face up along his, a soft sound of mingled desire and contentment escaping him, then licked up the line of his jaw until he could nip the bottom of his ear.

"I want ye to fuck me, Commodore," he whispered, and though his voice was rough and almost breathy hot, yet he made the crude request sound like an endearment.

No matter, it had its effect all the same, as a tremor passed clear through him, leaving him feeling flushed in its wake, almost intoxicated. More than aware of his own state of almost painful arousal, and of the warm body lying sprawled and wanton beneath him. A body made even more welcoming, as Jack slowly spread his legs even further and then lifted his knees a touch.

Offering himself up to him.

Norrington gazed down into dark eyes and to his wonderment, he saw the same offer there.

"Jack," he breathed.

"James," the pirate returned in the same tone and breath.

And then he couldn't wait any more, he couldn't hardly bear the moment. As if it might actually slip from his grasp if he didn't act at the last. As if Jack might...

He shifted and took hold of himself and Jack shifted helpfully as well, until the head of his prick could slip down into position. Until he was pressed right up against tight heat and tender flesh, a contact that made Jack gasp a little and his eyes close, but for a moment. As if he, too, were savoring this first intimate touch.

He pushed a little, gently at first, and then harder and the head of his prick notched itself inside.

"Careful now, love," Jack warned, but there was a teasing note to his voice, a hint of strain, and something more. Something rich and deep and surprisingly affectionate. But then fingers tightened on his arms, and then Jack let out a long breath and he was suddenly sliding in deeper, seemingly through no power of his own.

And there were no words for what it felt like, so be grasped so, to be held within another man's body... let alone this man's body. It wasn't all pleasure, for there was little to ease the way, but the very burn of it seemed to magnify his senses, and he had to wonder if Jack was feeling much the same.

Certainly, Jack's eyes were raw, dark, unrelenting in that moment. Only to flare even darker as he pressed steadily inwards until it seemed he could go no more.

"Oh..." the pirate gasped, then shuddered beneath him.

***

But not just any man. James Norrington. Who had once given him over to death, only to return him to life once more. By the press of those shy lips. By the sheer determination of the force that lay within him to not let him go, to not give him up.

Even if he hadn't known what he was giving him up to, nor quite why he had desired so very much for him to stay.

Jack suspected the Commodore knew the answer to that now and it brought an answering smile to his own lips.

"This..." the other man asked, shaking a bit himself. "Amuses you?"

Jack wriggled his hips and somehow hitched himself up a little more, feeling Norrington sink in a little further at the same time, before he reached up and brought that mouth down to meet his own.

"Aye," he breathed. "It tickles me fancy... right enough."

"God..." the other man suddenly said, caught somewhere between a gasp and a laugh.

"No," he replied. "Just Jack."

And then he kissed him. A long, slow, lingering and quite thorough kiss. A kiss that somehow ended up with the Commodore's tongue as deep in his mouth as his prick was in his body, until both sensations seemed almost to merge inside him—becoming one flame, one fire, one and the same possession. It felt good, but more than that it made him feel truly alive again.

For though life was pain, it was joy as well, something that had been in short supply these last few weeks and something he had even sometimes doubted he would ever know again.

Dark it had been, but then here was light at the last. Here was heat and power and pale skin and muscle crushing him down beneath welcome weight. Here were fine hands to hold him close and sweet breath to cleanse him. Here was strength to keep him, to press and claim him for the insistent flesh beginning to thrust ever so tenderly his body.

Pain and joy, aye.

And where better to find it than in this.

He spread his legs even wider and closed them about the other man, and let his head fall back. A mouth immediately came down on his throat, biting at first and then licking him, as if to both mark and soothe him at the same time. As if Norrington couldn't quite make up his mind what he truly wanted.

Except that the prick inside him certainly seemed to contradict that, swollen hard and forward as heated iron shot, it was making a grand showing indeed, stalwart as any damned Lord of the Admiralty. Though the other man was still thrusting far too slow for his tastes, as if possibly afraid that he might hurt him.

He tucked his face in close to Norrington's, then gave him a little nip as well, demanding his attention.

"More," he gasped, and was immediately rewarded as the other man responded by picking up speed, pulling almost all the way out and then pushing back in again, building up to a series of hammering blows that made the heat course heavy in his veins and made his head begin to pound, as well.

He reached down with one hand and closed his fingers tight round his own prick, then was pleased to feel another set of fingers join his there. A nose nudged the side of his jaw and he brought his head around, their mouths meeting as one. Clashing and breathing into each other, as if attempting to drown in each other's taste and in shared carnal knowledge and lost senses.

And if there was anything better than this, then most likely it would be outlawed, as well. To feel another man's strength straining against your own, to know this penetrating force, to surrender to the heat rising up inside you, all around you, to see a matching heat in the other's eyes.

Eyes that were lambent green even in this half-light. Eyes that flared with effort and that looked down into his own, as if he might otherwise escape. Eyes that looked so deep inside him that, if he didn't suspect that the Commodore had already found out a few of his better kept secrets, he might imagine they would be lost this very moment.

Still, he imagined he had managed to commandeer a few of Norrington's best secrets, as well, so fair was fair.

But the other man was gripping him even more stubbornly now, with bruising force, and his mouth took his once more. A hard kiss, all teeth and tongue and demand, as if Norrington was pouring years' worth of frustration and hunger into him.

Jack arched up into him and kissed back just as roughly, using his heels to press the other man deeper and harder into him. The pleasure was resounding, pure, something that made him feel as if he might leave his skin at any moment, but that he could not bear to miss a moment of it.

Of this...

"Jack... Jack..."

The words sounded almost anguished. Norrington had buried his face in the crook of his neck now and Jack could feel sweat dripping off him. Their entire bodies slick with it as they rocked together. The other man squeezing him each time he pushed back up inside him, his breath coming fast and ragged.

And if there was pain, he couldn't feel it anymore—because the friction and pressure was perfect, too much, terrifying, overwhelming almost. But that he had been to this place before and had plumbed it depths on many an occasion. Though, it must be admitted, never before with an officer of the King's navy. With a man like James Norrington, who seemed resolute to give his all, or die trying anyway.

Now, that was singleness of purpose he could appreciate.

An obstinate man, a tenacious one... a jolly well endowed one, and Jack gasped again as Norrington began to stroke into him even harder, if that was possible. Sharp, quick thrusts that he felt resound through every part of him, that made him feel like he might melt into the rough timbers beneath him any time now. And he was pushing back, pushing hard against the man, and the other man was stroking his own prick with calloused fingers, rough and gentle at the same time, and Jack let himself melt.

He threw his head back and his breath caught once and he laughed, the sound bubbling up out of him even as Norrington lurched and paused and let go at the last. As warmth flooded him inside and out and he heard the other man mutter a soft "damn," and then shudder against him.

And, for some reason, that sent him over as well, blood-hot pleasure spilling all through him, spilling out of him, ambrosia and anguish that made him laugh again. Softer, this time. As if one more secret had just gone missing despite his own best efforts. The secret to life, perhaps.

Or, at least, an acknowledgement of a rather grand fuck.

One that left him drifting, uncaring of any discomfort, his eyes closed now, little spangles of light shimmering before him, his blood still half on fire and his body feeling ever so pleasantly drained and wanton, and only a small part of him aware of a mild snuffling in the general region of his exposed throat. As Norrington obviously struggled for air and awareness.

Jack felt like telling him to just let go—to take what he could and give nothing back—but that the effort to talk seemed hardly worthwhile, even for himself. The lassitude was far too sweet for that, the feel of the other man's body resting heavy on his a warmth and comfort he wasn't ready to put aside. Even if it made breathing rather a bother.

Even if bits of him were beginning to ache a little.

A trickle of wetness slowly turning cold as it made its way down his backside to the floor below.

Ah... but even that made him want to laugh. And clasp the man even tighter to him.

But that Norrington was even now working to heave himself up and untwine their twined bodies. Jack winced a little as the other man's prick pulled free, feeling suddenly all too hollow inside, but that self-same hollowness seemed to ease a bit as Norrington turned on his back and gathered him close again.

One arm hooking itself around his neck, fingers gathering braids and beads in a tangle, and the other dipping down to trail fingers through his own sticky emissions, before laying itself flat and warm on his lower stomach.

Aye, there were more treasures in the world than mere silver and gold.

And a nice bit of bum fiddling could bear witness to that, as much as any dip into a welcome honey pot.

He was actually drowsing, his eyes still closed, unable to keep the smile from his face and half-way towards being content for once in what seemed like forever, when the other man shifted a little.

"Jack?"

"Mmm?"

"Are you asleep?"

"Aye."

A hand soothed its way down his arm, before fingers closed tight about his wrist, right over the brand that the East India Trading Company had seen fit to lay upon him.

"Are you... I did not hurt you, did I?"

Jack reluctantly pried one eye back open and turned his head a little.

Norrington was looking up at the ceiling, his face in profile a near perfect example of what the British aristocracy could produce if they put half a mind to it. And a fair set of nutmegs.

But then Norrington looked down at him and gave him a smile that was almost shy, and Jack couldn't help but smile all the more.

"No more than I like," he said. "An that's all I'll say to the matter."

The other man blinked at him, then shifted again. As if it was not Jack's own backside which had just been thoroughly and quite pleasurably used and abused, but the other's fair Navy arse. Which was a pleasurable thought all its own.

But Norrington's face had turned serious once more. "I never would have thought..." he started to say.

"To find yourself sinning with a pirate?" Jack finished for him. "Ah, well, love. M' sure that God shall forgive ye your lapse, even if His Majesty don't."

A hint of that same shy smile returned, though those eyes remained far more serious than he would have liked to see.

"And I imagine you know the mind of All Mighty God that well, do you? To know what He will and won't see fit to forgive."

"Oh, aye," Jack replied. "Well as any man may, an better than most."

"Any man who may have once impersonated a cleric of the Church of England, you mean?"

"Ah," he said. "Well, there be a story to that."

"I rather thought there was," came the dry reply. Though, Norrington's eyes were looking amused now as well. Which was exactly what Jack liked to see. Though he shook his head slightly, all the same.

"But no a story for such tender ears as yours, I warrant. For I would not wish to give ye a bad opinion o' meself, love."

That won him a small laugh, and the other man relaxed a little again. "Exactly how much worse an opinion can I have of you? You are a pirate, Jack Sparrow, and there's not much worse than that."

"Oh, but there be many different sorts o' pirates, Commodore. Ye know that. For there be common enough scallywags and scamps. Aye, and loose-odds scoundrels and a fair number o' pinchpockets and manhandlers as well. But they be harmless enough..."

Norrington snorted, but Jack ignored the wordless commentary.

"But then," he went on. "There be those who give all the others a bad name. Men who prey upon their own as much as the next, an care not who they may thieve from, so long as thieving may be done. Or even the worse, those who kill in the taking o' it, kill when there were no cause for it. Men who spurn even the Code o' the Brethren. An they be not true pirates, even though they take the name for themselves."

Norrington mumbled something under his breath and Jack put an elbow into his ribs, gentle-like, but still sharp enough to claim his attention.

"Eh?" he asked. "What's this in aid of then? What have ye been keeping from me?"

"Santa Rosita," the other man said quietly, as if the mere name would answer all his questions.

"Aye," Jack said, nodding. "I've heard of it. Naught but a piddling place, with barely a decent anchorage to her name. Though, still, some o' the best doxies a town could ever boast of. Black-haired an black-eyed all, an with such Spanish fire that they could..."

"All be dead," Norrington cut him off.

Jack lifted his head a little, then bit down on his own lip. As two and two came together in his head to make five and then some. So that's what they'd all been celebrating with such enthusiasm—the sack of a tiny Spanish town, one that most freebooters wouldn't look twice at, unless interested in those same black-eyed whores. But all dead... what was the use in that? That made no sense at all.

"Dead?" he asked, just to make sure. "The lot o' them?"

"Yes," came the dull reply. "Down to the smallest babe in arms."

"There were no cause for that."

"No."

And the Commodore's voice was growing even heavier as he spoke, as if he personally was feeling the weight of all those deaths this very moment. As if he considered what had happened to them to be a failing on his part, foolish as that was.

Jack pushed himself up on one arm, shifted until he could put the other around Norrington. Until he could stare right down into those sea storm eyes of his, more mute grey than green in this light. Close enough to chance kissing him yet again, and close enough besides that there was no way the other man could mistake what he had to say.

"It were not your fault."

As reassurances went, it did not go over very well.

"Because they were Spaniards?" Norrington said, his voice abruptly harsh. "Well, if it comes to that, Captain Reade already took just that tack. And it doesn't wash."

Jack frowned, wondering just who this "Captain Reade" was that Norrington, a Commodore no less, should give two figs what he thought.

"Tis not what I mean—meant," he replied. "Just that, good right hand o' His Majesty or no, ye canna be everywhere at once. Ye canna save everyone. And so ye canna go around blaming yourself when ye don't. Ye'll just drive yourself mad by trying. Savvy?"

"I would much rather be mad, than heartless," Norrington replied.

Jack tapped his forefinger on the tip of the other man's nose, then let it fall across his lips, sealing them shut.

"Now, now," he chided, gently enough. "Save a kind word for old Jack, will ye? For there be that which even such a black scoundrel as I will not do. An the murder o' women and children be one of them. James, you know that. Ye must."
For a long moment those eyes just stared up at him, then they dropped and Norrington smiled. Just a little.

"Yes," he replied. "You may well be a scoundrel of the first order, Jack Sparrow, but I must admit I feel more than a passing kindness for you."

"Do ye now?"

***

Even if the man in his arms was now humming something just under his breath. A tune which sounded oddly familiar, though where and when he'd heard it before he couldn't quite recall.

***

Not that there was any clue to the time down here in the dark confines of the brig, but that he simply sensed the sun was about to rise. And couldn't help the quick thought that this might be his last day upon the earth. Which would have worried most men, but that he was not most men and that he had faced death a time or two before and even a brief turn under the earth had not proved the end of him.

Hearing breathing just this side of snoring, Jack pried an eye open and gazed up at the face of his sleeping companion. Without his wig and with his hair sticking up in several different directions, he looked almost like the lad he must once have been. All fresh-faced and earnest.

Even if he should die in truth yet this day—something he wasn't willing to concede yet, despite how bleak it was seeming—he would still have this past night, he would have the memories of having experienced one last time the precious best of what life could offer.

Kindness and comfort and pleasure and the giving of same in return. Better than any amount of gold or silver, and what most men would spend their hard-won silver and gold on if left to their own devices. And, if he could not have what he desired most—his ship and his freedom—at least he would not have to go down into the dark all alone.

A small piece of Commodore James Norrington would go with him, and sometimes that was all a man could hope for.

He lifted his head as he heard faint murmurings. No doubt, the Commodore's men, stirring in their own cells, perhaps wishing for a less bleak view of the future themselves. Knowing Barbossa the way he did, though, he could not see much ahead for them but pain and eventual death. After captain and crew had taken their fill of their suffering, to be sure.

And even if they left Norrington to the last, it would destroy him long before then to be forced to watch his own be tormented and murdered. Far better a quick death than that.

Far better if a deal could be struck...

Jack gazed into that sleeping face once more, then dropped his eyes to the deck. More precious than silver and gold, to be sure. A man's treasure lay nearest to his heart, and was, ofttimes, his greatest vulnerability as well for that very reason. For what a man desired most, what he could not truly live without, he would go to almost any lengths to have.

Even if he had to turn pirate to do so.

Norrington stirred slightly, tightening his grip on him, and Jack pressed a soft kiss into the other man's shoulder. He subsided again and, despite everything, Jack found himself smiling a little at the sight.

And at the thought... better still if one were a pirate to begin with.

***

"What is it?" he asked.

"Visiting hours, one assumes," Jack replied. "In our Sunday best now, love."

Norrington stood and quickly put both breeches and shirt back on, grimacing briefly at the grime and smell of them. The pirate was already dressed and standing to one side of the door, appearing to be trying to listen through the wall.

He jerked back as the small window abruptly snapped open and a dirty face peered through the bars. The light of a small lantern dazzled behind him, making it hard to read his expression. Though it could not have been pleasant.

"Ho, there," the man said. "Stand to the back, if ye please, Guv'nor."

Norrington drew himself up as best he could, but as Jack flashed him a look, he did as instructed. From the far end of the cell, he watched as the face disappeared again, then heard the sound of the lock being undone.

The door swung open, revealing not just one but three pirates. The stout one stepped into the cell and to one side, aiming a pistol right at him with a look that said he would find it quite enjoyable to pull the trigger.

"Right," he said. "You—stay where you are. Lads..."

A much larger pirate came inside and took Jack by the arm, pulling him towards him and half off his feet in one move. Jack tried to draw back, opening his mouth, probably to deliver one of his humorously scathing comments, but the large man simply hauled off and struck him hard across the face. As if he had heard one too many such from him in the past and had no patience for it anymore.

Only his grip on the smaller man kept Jack from falling to the floor.

"Come now," Norrington couldn't help but protest, his stomach twisting at seeing Jack dandling before him like a broken poppet. He started to step forward, but the pirate holding the pistol on him narrowed his eyes.

"Easy," he warned. "Cap'n doesn't want ye dead. Yet. But he didn't say as I couldn't shoot ye if ye became... unruly."

A lean pirate, holding up the lantern, stepped into the doorway as well. "Shoot em, Pinters," he said, an eager smile on his face.

"Would be me pleasure," his companion replied. "Would love to watch ye dance, Commodore. Bein' how it were yours to watch me swing."

"Painful that was," the lean pirate put in, nodding a little.

Jack coughed a bit then and lifted his head slightly. "But deserved, gentleman," he ground out. "More than."

The big man growled and pulled him back upright, closing a thick arm around Jack's neck. Norrington felt something inside him lurch again as he saw fresh blood on the corner of his mouth.

Despite the pistol still on him, he steeled himself to move, but a slight sideways glance of those black eyes in clear warning stilled him again. Before the big pirate tightened his arm even further, causing Jack to wince slightly. One of his hands rising to flail through the air.

"I shall see every last one of you hanged again," Norrington said coldly. "My word upon it."

"Ye just try it," the big man snarled, and hauled Jack back out of the room with him as if that were his final word on the matter. One final flash of dark eyes, a look he couldn't easily read this time, and then they were gone, leaving him feel even more alone than before.

The stout pirate watched them go and then slowly turned back to gaze directly at him, that pistol unwavering the whole time.

"Your word," he said. "An what be the goin' rate for that these days, Guv'nor? Same as they would pay for a Commodore stripped o' his rank and set well on his way to the gallows hisself?"

"To the gallows," the lean man echoed, sounding as if he were proposing a pleasant Sunday outing.

Norrington met their gazes coolly, even though part of him was sinking beneath the weight of his own humiliation. That these, of all men, should know his shame...

"Yer men have rather a bad habit o' gossiping," the stout pirate went on, as if that was explanation enough.

"You mean, of course," Norrington corrected. "That you have rather a bad habit of listening in."

A shrug and another wave of that pistol, dismissively this time. "Cursed treasure an the walking dead, Commodore? Now where on God's green earth would ye have ever gotten that idea?"

When he didn't answer, the two pirates looked at each other and chortled as one.

***

Jack put a hand to his cheek and felt a tenderness there, a knotted bruise that would fade soon enough. Even if the memory of the look in the Commodore's eyes when he'd been struck seemed less likely to do so.

Damnably sweet, but ever so foolish; there was no use in him getting himself killed over so small a thing.

"Good morrow," a familiar voice said.

Jack looked up at his former First Mate, who was sitting back in a chair as if he himself had personally ordered the sun to rise. In the center of the table before him there was fresh bread and cheese upon a plate, some pieces already broken off, and a pot of what looked to be butter, but Barbossa had both hands wrapped around a steaming mug, ignoring the food set out on clean linen. As he seemed to be ignoring the monkey perched on his shoulder, lazily chewing on a small morsel of bread.

"I'd offer ye a cup, Jack," he said. "But that I know ye do not like this heathen brew."

"Been raiding the Captain's larder, again?"

"Aye," Barbossa replied. "Tis most well-stocked. Only the best food and victuals would serve it seems. But then this were his ship, weren't it, Jack? Our good Commodore must have missed her sorely to risk so much to take her back again. But then a fool and his sword are soon parted."

The other man took a sip of his cup and the appreciative sound he made caused Jack's throat to close up. Well, he would have drunk whatever the man had set before him, but that he doubted the asking price had changed any.

"But where are me manners," Barbossa said, then gestured at an empty chair. "Sit, man. An just to prove I am not without mercy, have some bread if ye would. Twas fresh made this morn."

But Jack kept his hands to himself. "An if a taste o' wine would cost me a kiss, what price bread then?"

His own answer was a close-lipped smile, which was answer enough, before Barbossa went back to his own cup.

Still, there was no use standing when sitting would suffice, and no use to antagonizing a man when there might yet be advantage to be gained by keeping on the leeward side of him.

Jack commandeered the chair in question and set his dirty bare feet up, ignoring the sharp look it garnered him.

"More to the point," Barbossa said, almost as if to himself. "What price a man's soul, eh Jack?"

And, with that, the pirate captain rose and wandered across the room to stare out the windows at the blue waters and blue sky beyond. Almost as if he had never truly seen them before. The rising sun cast his face into shadow as he turned to glance back at Jack, those pale eyes narrowed. As if the light had pained them.

But then he looked back to the view, taking several large gulps of his drink, and Jack took occasion to pilfer as much of the bread and cheese as he could safely hide away beneath shirt and sash. The monkey watched him do it, but made no warning, even though those dark eyes glittered with entirely too much cleverness for their own good.

When Barbossa turned back to him at the last, he was inspecting his nails, but if the other man suspected anything he didn't say a word. He simply finished off the last of the steaming liquid and set the cup aside, before walking around the table to stand over him.

"Have ye thought about me proposal, Jack?" he asked, his voice low and almost soothing.

"Oh, aye," he replied, dismissively.

Barbossa's fingers trailed slowly across his shoulder, before the other man took him hard by the chin and turned his face towards the light.

"Not so pretty by far as ye are normally wont to be," the older man commented. "But I swear that it suits ye all the same."

Jack started to pull back, but Barbossa's fingers tightened and then his other hand was sinking into his hair, tangling both beads and braids into a rope to hold him still by.

"Nay," the other man said. "Let me look at ye. Was not so very long ago that ye were a young lad yourself. Well I remember that. How ye were more monkey than man amongst the shrouds. How bold, how brave, and how well the ladies loved ye. Tell me, Jack, do they love thee half as much, having learned how ill you treat their affections? How ye flit from flower to flower, barely tasting the honey of each, before your desires draw ye on again. Leaving them wanting, always wanting."

Jack smiled, but the other man only leaned in closer. As if he could find the answers he sought in the very depths of his eyes. The look on his own face that of a cat who'd been but recently at the cream. His breath was warm for once, smelling of coffee and sugar and rum.

"Jack... Jack..." Barbossa said softly, his voice turning coaxing. "Come now, tis a good deal, ye must admit to it. Ye to have your Pearl back again, with whatever crew ye desire, not to mention... immortality. Such a nice ring to it, don't you think? To be immortal, to be forever, to go where we will and take what we want and never no mind to any mere mortal who might try to stop us."

Despite the other man's hold on him, Jack managed to pull his head back a little and put his feet back to the floor. "Stop us from murdering women and children, ye mean? Some of your princely crew have flapping great mouths on them, or did ye not think that I would hear tell of what ye all did only but a few days ago now. What ye did in the name of that fresh new god 'o yorn. Twas not for plunder that ye sacked that town, and took knife to all within. Don't ye see, mate, when all is said and done, tis still a curse. Tis still blood. An I'll be having no part of it."

Barbossa's face hardened and his grip suddenly became like steel, his fingers digging into Jack's face as he wrenched his head up and leaned in to him. Leaving but a few free inches between them, so very close that all Jack could see was the cool blue of the other man's eyes, the taste of his breath altering all of a sudden, becoming something more akin to decaying flowers. The monkey clinging to him hissed ever so softly.

"Take care, Jack," Barbossa said. "Tis not your life we be talking about here, but your own soul. Such as it is. There be no coming back from where I may send thee, not even for the likes of 'Captain Jack Sparrow.' Think upon it... is that really what ye want? To go down into the dark and ne'er return again. While your flesh... this..." And Barbossa quite deliberately eyed him up and down. "This fine flesh o' yours remains behind. Naught but a shell, but that it still be Jack Sparrow to look upon, an any man may make free use of it any time he so like. Whether or no they find their pleasure in lust or in making ye slave for them. Is that truly what ye desire from this?"

"You know tis not," Jack replied quietly. "But if thee would have my answer now..."

Barbossa suddenly let go of him, pushing him away so roughly that Jack just about went tumbling out of the chair.

"No, Jack," the older man said. "This day I promised thee and, whatever else I may be, I am a man o' me word. But I will know by this even, one way or t'other."

Aye, that we will, Jack thought to himself. Though he didn't say a word. Not even when Barbossa looked at him again, his eyes gone dark all of a sudden. As a storm had passed before the sun.

And the fresh new day suddenly turned cold.

It was almost a relief to be hauled back outside, where he managed to get a brief glimpse of sea and sail, the crew hard at work on their grand new ship, taking holy-stone to the deck with a zeal that he found almost suspect. He managed to draw in a deep breath or two of fresh salt air, before he was hauled below once more. Down and down, into the dark and rank odor of foul water and damp timber and rats, of men packed into spaces much too small for them, until the door of his own cell yawned before him once more.

Still, Jack couldn't help but smile and even saunter a little as he was pushed into the smallish room and heard the door slam and lock shut behind him again.

"You seem pleased," Norrington commented from his place by the far wall, just a hint of suspicion in his tone. He seemed somewhat distant all of a sudden, and Jack cast a curious look at him before striking up a pose of his own before him. If he wanted pleased, then he would jolly well get pleased.

"Oh, aye," he replied. "But then tis fair wondrous what a wee bit o' thievery will get ye." And he proceeded to pull a fair-sized piece of cheese and chunk of bread out of his shirt with a dramatic flourish.

Norrington smiled a little as well to see it, almost as if fighting against himself, though the look changed to one of surprise as Jack stepped up close to him then and pressed the food into his hands.

"All for ye, love," Jack said softly. "I've had me fair share already."

For a moment, he thought the other man would argue with him, but then Norrington nodded.

"They've finally seen fit to bring round some water," he said, starting to tear a piece of the bread off. "Just a cupful, but I saved half for you."

"Thankee," Jack replied. "But ye need it more than I."

"Jack..." Norrington stopped with the bread part way to his mouth.

"Now, if were rum," Jack went on with a well-played sigh. Not that he wasn't thirsty—parched to be sure, and half-starved as well—but the truth was that he would not die of a little hunger and thirst and Norrington could and would. "But I doubt not that they'd be sparing any o' that for us poor unfortunates down here in the belly o' this great ship o' yours."

"Jack," the other man repeated, and this time there was the snap of the Commodore in his tone. "Do not think that I am lacking in appreciation for your generosity, but depriving yourself will not lend aid to our plans of escape."

And, with that, Norrington put the piece of bread he had been about to eat back into his hand, as well as a goodly portion of the cheese.

"Do I have to threaten you to make you eat that?" he said, with a stern look that was only slightly undermined by the quirk of one eyebrow.

Jack looked directly into the other man's eyes and opened his mouth—fully intending to argue the same point he had just made to himself—but then the other eyebrow went up and he found himself closing his mouth again and gracing Norrington with his best glare instead.

Damn the man anyway...

And damn him all the more for the soft look he was giving him now that he'd thought he'd won.

"Go on, Jack," Norrington said quietly. "I know you're hungry."

To his own dismay, Jack realized that he could not resist that look nor that tone. He sat down next to the other man and they both laid into the meager meal with relish, taking their time with each bite, and he could have sworn that no food had ever tasted half as good. In the end, he did take a sip or two from the water Norrington had saved for him, but demurred from drinking it all. And the other man had not pressed him this time, perhaps also in consideration of the fact that it may be a long time before any more was offered.

When they were done, Jack was somewhat dismayed to find his own head drooping, and he leaned in on Norrington, who allowed himself to be used as a support. The man's shoulder was not terribly comfortable, but it was comforting. And with only a few short hours until he would be taken back topside and be made to face Barbossa again, he found he could not ignore nor deny that ready comfort.

As if well aware that he was not in the best of spirits, Norrington said nothing, but drew him closer still.

And ever so slowly, Jack found his eyes slipping shut.

***

Norrington felt himself oddly relieved by the fact. Not that he could not have used some rest himself, but that Jack was clearly unnerved by the thought of what the coming night might bring, much as he tried to hide it, and sorely needed the sleep.

He glanced down at the other man, whose head had now slipped down into his lap, and carefully brushed back several braids and trinkets in order to more clearly see his face. The fine line between Jack's eyes had not lessened even in sleep and, as he watched, the pirate winced a little. As if dreaming of unsavory things.

Perhaps even of cursed treasures and the walking dead.

And though he knew he should be appalled by what he was feeling—let alone by what the two of them had done last night—he found he could not muster the sentiment. Not while Jack was in his arms, anyway. Not when the future of either of them remained so very uncertain.

If this was all he had to hold on to for the nonce, then hold on to it he would. If the past few months had taught him nothing else, they had taught him that he needed to seize life while he still had it. Perhaps, if he had been more forward—had trusted in himself and the strength of his feelings, had been able to acknowledge them sooner, both to himself and to her—then he would even now be affianced to Elizabeth, rather than facing the prospect of her marriage to another man.

A man who, despite his youth, clearly knew what he wanted and was willing to risk life, limb, and reputation to attain it.

He had once thought he knew what he wanted, and had risen rapidly through the ranks to obtain it. Authority, privilege, security, wealth enough to have a few of the finer things in life. All of which he had gained, only to find it was not all he had imagined it would be, that an emptiness remained that nothing seemed to fill. He had in all sincerity believed that wedding Elizabeth would at the last bring him that missing piece, the one that would have made everything else take its proper form and shape. But now he suspected it had been a fool's errand.

For she had not loved him and he... he had not loved her enough to hazard what he already had in order to gain what he had not.

A thumb stoked across his hand.

Norrington looked down to see Jack gazing up at him, seemingly unguarded, somber yet warm at the same time. The same look he had had earlier, just before he had spitted himself upon his member. Taking pain from him as well as pleasure.

"I'll tell thee a secret," the pirate said quietly.

"Yes?" he whispered.

"A man should never regret. Anything. There's no use to it. A man should resolve to either carry on with doing, or not to do at all. Simple really."

He couldn't help but frown at that, part of him amused by the thought that Jack could seemingly read his thoughts so very well and part of him appalled by it.

"An interesting philosophy," he remarked. "Is everything either-or to you, Jack? No right. No wrong. Just... whatever you want to do, when you want to do it. Answerable only to yourself, if even that."

"Every man is answerable to himself."

"And what about to others, then? Are you beholden to no one, Jack Sparrow?"

Jack shrugged, but he turned his hand and grasped the other man's fingers with his own.

"Only within the bounds o' the Code," he responded. "It's what being a pirate is all about, mate. Going wherever ye may fancy. Doing whatever ye like. Fair and clear and free. An a lovely life it tis, too. The hardships o' the sea notwithstanding. I can't imagine that ye've never once considered it, Commodore. That ye've never wondered what it would be like."

"To be hunted? To be looked upon with fear by good, honest men? Perhaps even find myself upon the ga... now why would you think I'd never considered it?"

"Ah," Jack replied, ignoring the unfinished word and sentiment both. "But men do fear ye at times. Even such 'good honest' ones. For ye may be cold when ye wish to be. Fair cold as death itself one wonders."

"And do you also find me... cold?" Oddly, the thought stung. More so, because it immediately brought to mind once more the fact that Elizabeth had chosen Will Turner over him. A man with far less prospects, though—it must be admitted to, even if it pained him to do so—of much more fiery a nature.

Jack tilted his head a little, clearly considering the question. "Well now," he said. "If I went by first impressions, perhaps. After all, ye were not very cordial that day upon the docks. Though very determined, I must say. But I always suspected there were more to ye than that. More to thee than love of duty an King."

"Yes?"

A slow smile was his answer, that and a look which brought an answering flare of heat to his cheeks.

"Quite a lot more," Jack added, his voice both rough and increasingly warm. His gaze now blatantly assessing, with an edge of possessiveness that reminded Norrington all over again that, whatever else Jack Sparrow was, he was a pirate through and through.

"What did Barbossa want with you?" he asked, knowing he was deliberately changing the subject at hand.

The flicker in Jack's eye said that he knew it, too. But he let it go all the same. "To relive old times," he replied. "Sad to say."

"Is that all?"

A shrug. "He still wishes the same of me. But I doubt not he would find the having of it less satisfying than the wanting of it, even if I were to give it him."

Norrington took in a deep breath and pulled the other man even closer. "We must escape. If only we could get to a boat..."

"Aye," Jack replied. "An have your lovely little cannons blow us out o' the water. Tis nowhere for us to go, Commodore. But ye and your men might yet have a chance."

"What do you mean?" But a cold feeling had already taken root in his stomach.

Dark eyes caught his for a moment, then dropped away.

"Jack," he said forcefully. "You can't mean to make a deal with the man. He's betrayed you once already. You know you can't trust him."

"Not even for the lives of your men?" Jack asked, his gaze flicking up again. "What say ye to that? If'n I could get them set free? My own life be forfeit come this nightfall—might as well make it worth the while."

"No," Norrington said, feeling that coldness inside him spreading. "I refuse to allow you to trade your life for theirs."

"James," Jack said quietly. "Tis not me life I be talking about. An as for that, all o' this be stolen goods already. Innocent blood gone to raise the dead from their graves. Now where be the good in that?"

"Jack," he said warningly, but the pirate was already pushing away from him, sitting up and staring down at the floor, his hands clasped in front of him and quite still for once.

"An have ye grown so accustomed to this place that ye wish to stay on?" Jack asked quietly. "Or would be something else entire ye imagine keeps ye here now, something more than mere iron and steel?"

"You must know the answer to that."

"Aye," even more quietly. "Would that I did not."

Norrington clenched his jaw, almost shocked by the pain of it as a white-hot flare of heat speared through the cold consuming him. He reached out and pulled the other man back around to face him, shook him a little. Wanting to shake him even harder.

"Jack," he said. "We go together or we go not at all. I will not leave you here."

"Even if this be my place?"

The words were soft and they wrenched something deep inside him, even more so when he stared into those black eyes and saw how tentatively they were looking at him, revealing uncertainties that he never would have associated with the other man. But even as he watched, they faded away, to be replaced by a saucy look and a smile that were all too familiar.

Long fingers slowly reached out to curl about the back of his neck, pulling him irresistibly forward until warm lips could meet and stroke his own. Something both more and less than a kiss, a promise, a fair thee well, a blessing and a possessing that, despite his own misgivings, made the blood sing in his veins. That made his head swim and his throat close tight.

He twined his own fingers through one of Jack's braids, warm hair and cool silver laid in equal measure across his palm.

"Jack..."

"I want thee," the pirate said. "I want to have thee."

"God... yes..." he breathed back.

He would have sworn to anything in that moment, promised the world, let alone power and possession over his own body, but then a soft sound broke through his reverie. A sound which chilled him through and through, leaving him even more cold than before.

The sound of badly muffled laughter.

Jack shoved away from him, shoved him back as well, and rose quickly to his feet. His eyes went to the door, where even now the lock was being undone and solid oak and iron went swinging wide.

As Barbossa stepped into the doorway, seeming to fill it almost entire, one hand resting easy on the pommel of his own stolen sword. Those ice pale eyes flicking from Jack to him and then back to Jack again, before they narrowed.

"Well, now," the pirate captain said. "Clearly, ye be better acquainted than I had thought ye to be."

Norrington rose to his own feet, but Jack was already moving forward almost dancingly, his hands in full flex and sway, going right up to the taller man as if they were the best of friends, rather than old enemies and rivals.

"The good Commodore here," he said. "Were just telling me a few tales about one of our own. The grand Captain Morgan, who were once near on Gov'ner o' that fine little isle. Ye remember Cap'n Morgan, don't ye? Created the Brethren. Wrote the Code. They should name a drink after him, don't ye think? Now, there were a pirate's pirate. A man o' the salt and well above it."

"Telling tales," Barbossa said reflectively and, despite Jack's distracting presence right beneath his nose, his eyes again drifted up to seek him out. "Why I've been told a few tales of late, meself."

And suddenly there were two other men peering in at them from around their captain. Two men who looked familiar, and who both seemed to be trying vainly not to break out into laughter.

Jack caught sight of them as well and took a half step back. "Peerin' in through keyholes again, were ye?"

The stout pirate pretended to an offended look, but the thin one only smirked.

"Twas my turn," he said. "Bein' that Pinters here got ta watch the lady when she..."

"Shaddup," the other pirate hissed, his habitual scowl returning.

Barbossa raised a hand and they both subsided. Those blue eyes again fixed on him.

"Commodore," the pirate captain said. "Well, I know the power of Jack's charms, especially in close proximity, but I would have thought ye of all people would have had the moral conviction to resist temptation."

He drew himself up. "Neither my morals nor my convictions are on trial here, Captain. I do not give men over to torture, let alone murder innocent women and children."

"Twas not your hand set upon the death warrants o' these men, then?" Barbossa said. "Twas not ye who sent them to the noose?"

"Pirates are not innocents," he replied. "They were all tried under the law as appropriate and were made to pay for their crimes. Also as appropriate."

"An ye would be an expert on what be... appropriate, I imagine."

"More than you, sir," he responded, his voice clipped now.

Jack shot him a sidelong glance of warning, but Barbossa did not seem to take offense. Instead, the pirate captain slowly smiled, revealing yellowed and decaying teeth, and then the smile turned into a soft laughter that seemed mocking and cool at the same time.

"Aye," Barbossa said. "I were never a man o' privilege an me schooling were rather... circumspect, to say the least. But last I heard, were one man to tup another man it were a hanging offense as much as piracy ever were. As if all the pleasures in the world were there but to be taken from us poor folk."

"You must be mistaken," he said, drawing himself up even as part of him were quailing with alarm, feeling curiously both shamefaced and proud at the same time. His face flashing hot and cold.

He knew... God help us, he knew...

Barbossa's gaze swung over to Jack, who covered his own look of dismay with a widely disarming smile.

"An what say ye, Jack? Or would ye name this man a eunuch as ye once tried to lay claim to for Bootstrap's boy."

Eunuch? He glanced at Jack, but the pirate was shrugging expansively, looking innocent as the day was long. That is, if the day only lasted but a few moments.

"I doubt not that he is a man," Jack replied. "But as to the general state o' his wedding tackle, ye needs must ask another. Bein' that the fine Commodore here be shy indeed, as all good naval officers seem to be, o' showing us poor plain men what they be made of."

"Shy," Barbossa repeated, looking him over from head to toe now. "S' truth, he does blush as fine as any maid."

"You go too far," Norrington said, before Jack could do more than open his mouth again.

The pirate captain took another step into the room and suddenly that fine Turner blade was free and pricking lightly at his throat.

"An ye forget," Barbossa said, his voice ever so soft. "On whose graces ye yet draw breath."

He stared back into those pale blue eyes and raised his chin a little. Daring and damning the man in one. His dignity may have been dented and damaged these past few days, but no one and nothing could take it from him entire. Not even if he was stripped of rank and freedom both.

Still, he couldn't help but wince a little as the tip of the sword dropped slowly down and cut into the flesh just over his breastbone. Followed by a small trickle of something warm, something that drew Barbossa's eyes to it and made his mouth open slightly.

Another cut, a little lower, a little deeper, more blood, and then Jack was suddenly there, forcing his way between them and pushing that blade away with the careful crook of two fingers. His head tilted to one side and his voice coaxing sweet.

"Now, I really don't think ye be wanting to do that, mate."

Norrington found himself wondering just who the pirate was addressing, and then realized that it didn't matter, as both he and Barbossa stepped back at almost the same time.

As if neither of them could quite resist that particular tone of Jack's voice.

But then Barbossa looked back at him and, though the sword dropped in his grip, his eyes still held murder in them. Murder and something more.

"I'm afraid I have not been a considerate host to ye," he said. "But, then again, it appears as though ye have not been the most considerate of guests. But, no matter, p'raps it be high time we get to know each other the better."

And, with a small gesture of Barbossa's head, Norrington abruptly found rough hands on him, found himself being half-shuffled, half-carried out of the small cell and into the dark passage beyond. Where he could hear his own men calling out, demanding to know what was going on, their doors rattling as they tried to break free, but to no more avail than his own struggles as they manhandled him up the ladder and out onto the deck beyond.

Where the light was far too bright and stung his eyes and where, even as he turned to try and shield them, he saw Jack being hauled topside behind him. Nothing at all on his face and everything in his eyes.

***

James...

He hardly felt the bruising force of the hands that bore him forward. It was a glorious day, the sea and sun a matching brilliant shade of blue, and he could hear the taut moan of the sail over his head, feel the ship keeling through the waves, and on another occasion he could have enjoyed it all readily enough. But though the dark was made for bloody business, that did not mean that ill could not happen in the light.

Norrington shot one glance at him as they took him towards the mainmast, but then his eyes dropped and his face took on that remote aspect that Jack recognized all too well.

And the Commodore stood stoically as they tied his wrists roughly together with rope and then pulled his bound hands aloft. Stretching him up until he was just barely able to keep to his feet. He ignored the pirates gathered around him, his eyes fixed to the sky above, or perhaps to the billowing sails of the ship. As if imagining it was taking him to some far away place.

Barbossa cut through the crowd, the men falling back, glancing sidelong at him before gazing back at the Navy man. Their smiles and laughter faltered for only a moment or two, before starting up again, though slightly more subdued.

The pirate captain paused a few feet away and slowly looked Norrington up and down, as if taking stock of every last part of him.

"Well, now," he said. "There be a sight. But then, no doubt, ye've seen a man or two flogged in your day, Commodore, so it must be a sight ye be well used to. If only from the other end of things."

"You have no right," Norrington replied, lowering his gaze at the last to fix on the other man. His face was still calm, but those green eyes were angry. Storm shot, the kind of seas that would sweep unwary men overboard and damn them to the depths.

"P'raps not," Barbossa said. "But I dare say I have the privilege."

The pirate captain gave a cold sidelong look to Jack, then went to stand directly in front of Norrington, gazing at the eager crew as they pushed and shoved at each other, each trying to find the best view of the proceedings.

"Now, gents," Barbossa said loudly. "I know ye all be having good enough reason to wish to see this man bared an bloodied, but, sad to say, I needs but the one volunteer."

That raised a hue and cry and yet more shoving ensued, but at last they had all subsided but two, who stood glaring at each other. Bo'sun and Monk, the one with his massive arms crossed and the other with a hand already to his knife. Barbossa eyed the both of them, then his eyes narrowed and he nodded at Monk. Bo'sun looked as if he wished to argue for a moment, but then those pale blue eyes crossed him and his gaze dropped to the deck.

Monk stepped forward, a pleased smile on his face. Barbossa looked him up and down once more, then raised a hand.

"Get the cat," he ordered.

There was another brief scuffling, then the leather whip was borne forward by willing hands. Barbossa took it, winding the length through his fingers and regarding it with a jaded eye.

"A Navy lash," he mused. "Aye, it be most appropriate. Better still, would be to see how well ye would like your own neck to be stretched, but it would be the ending of ye and I doubt not that we are ready to lose the pleasure of your company."

He didn't look at Jack, but well he knew those last words were aimed at him and his heart seemed almost to jump. It went still, though, almost too still, as Barbossa handed the lash over with a small graceful flourish to the waiting pirate. Then stood back and crossed his arms, his head tilted back and the rake of his hat hiding his eyes in shadow.

Monk ran the part of the leather length through his own hands, almost tenderly, then moved into position behind Norrington. Whose look had taken on an even more forbiddingly remote aspect. As if Norrington had absolutely no intention of giving his tormentors even the least part of himself.

Indeed, Jack winced more than the man himself as Monk finally hauled off and struck the first blow.

But as he sensed Barbossa's eyes suddenly on him, he held himself straight then and schooled his features to a cool regard of their own. Even though the next stroke of the cat sounded even louder than the last, raising a thin line of blood through that once fine white shirt. And Norrington's body twisted, though he caught himself back almost immediately.

The blue sky, the fine day, seemed almost a mockery as the pirate set to with a vengeance after that, the cat snapping across the space between them, raising more and more red upon that white linen, and even though Jack stood still between his former mate's hands, something wretched wrenched and tore within him with each blow of the cat on the other man's defenseless body.

Five strokes. Nine. An even dozen. And still Norrington didn't make a sound, though somehow that made it all the worse. He just turned his face into his forearm, his breathing growing ragged.

Well, he knew himself what it was to be there. To stand helpless and bound before all those watching eyes, the wait between each stroke of the lash almost as bad as the lash itself. How time itself seemed to slow, making it harder and harder to breathe. Each blow building upon the one before it, the pain expanding until it was all that remained.

He feared the cat—one lesson he had learned at a young age—but he had never come to respect it.

Yet he would have taken it in the other man's stead now, if he could. And not simply because he could more easily heal the injury of it.

Such a good man as the Commodore did not deserve this, not the least of it. Especially since it was not for his own benefit, but for Jack's. By Barbossa's own whimsy and cool will for vengeance, and because he suspected at the very least that he bore some regard for his fellow captive.

Perhaps not the true depths of that regard—despite the tattlings of Pintel and Ragetti, who had clearly guessed more than they had heard—but then he himself could not make claim to know just what he felt for the man. Shared pleasure was one thing, a shared fate quite another and he was, if nothing else, a pirate and Norrington a King's man, but yet...

It was on his own head that Norrington was beneath the lash this moment, there was no way to deny that, and so Jack forced himself to stand there and to watch, to witness it all as best he could. It was, after all, the least he owed the man. Even though it felt as if the cat were tearing at his own flesh, as if it were his blood staining that torn shirt.

But then the cat struck thirteen—an uncanny number that made Norrington's eyes close at the last, his face pinched now, though his mouth remained firmly compressed—and Jack couldn't stop the flinch as the fourteenth hit direct on the heels of that. Fifteen. Sixteen. And Norrington's head slowly fell forward, his whole body shuddering a little.

"Enough," Barbossa snapped as Monk raised the cat once more.

The other pirate frowned, but stepped back.

Barbossa walked up to Jack, gave him an appraising look, before turning and going over to Norrington. He stood in front of him, then reached out and took him by the hair, roughly using it to lift his head.

The Commodore's eyes were closed. There was blood on the corner of his mouth, as if he'd bitten into his bottom lip at one point. But, as Jack watched, the other man slowly opened his eyes and stared back at Barbossa, a coolly defiant expression on his face.

Overhead, the monkey hissed and skittered down a rope to take up his usual place on Barbossa's shoulder. Tiny hands gave something to him, before the monkey turned his head to look directly at the man hanging before them.

"Ah," Barbossa said softly. He held the familiar gold coin up to catch the sun and gazed into it, as if it held all his answers, before looking back at the Commodore once more. He ran the edge of the coin down the side of Norrington's face, then pressed to his mouth, as if he would make him swallow it down whole.

"Shall I perchance place this between your lips once the breath be gone," he asked speculatively. "An see if ye rise as well from the earth? For then we could play with ye for all eternity could we not."

"A Navy man be cursed enough," Jack said loudly. "Methinks ye need not be adding to his sentence, mate."

Blue eyes slewed towards him, even as a couple of the crew laughed. They went silent again almost immediately as Barbossa straightened up and looked around him. Norrington's head sank down again.

"An were ye laughing so when he sent ye all to the gallows?" he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he turned back around and regarded Norrington once more. "By my lights, ye be a fine enough scoundrel yourself, though ye wear the vanity o' a moral man full well. But then, tis often the case that them that preach most against it, partake of same in the dark. When they feel that none may make comment."

Barbossa glanced at Monk and the waiting cat, then back at the gold coin. He handed it back up to the monkey, who took it gladly enough, with a quick little bite of the edge as if to ensure it was safe and his own once more.

"Still, if ye will not satisfy me crew," he went on. "If ye will not grant them what they be owed, then perhaps we should start upon your men an see if they be cut from the same cloth as yourself."

Norrington lifted his head at that. "No," he said, his voice sounding firm. But that effort seemed to take something out of him, because his eyes flinched shut immediately after.

"No, is it?" Barbossa said genteelly, smiling ever so slightly.

Jack felt a weight of sudden dread fall over him at that voice, at that smile. But Barbossa didn't spare him a glance. Instead, the Commodore had his full attention, as he glanced up at the ropes binding the man, then back down again.
Before he reached out a quick hand and took hold of the other man's privates through his tattered breeches.

Norrington let out a gasp and his eyes shot open. Instinctively, he tried to pull away from the grip, but Barbossa's fingers tightened and twisted ever so slightly and the Commodore shuddered and went suddenly very still. His head back up again now and his gaze fixed on the other man's face. And though his face was still controlled, despite being entirely too pale, his eyes were leached nearly empty of their normal brilliant color.

Jack felt the dread turn to a dark edged anger at the sight, and he strained ever so slightly against the hands holding him in place. In that moment, if he had had his pistol, he would have shot the man all over again, and worse than that if he could. He glared around him as the crew laughed and made crude comment, damning the rest of them, as well.

But, when he looked back, Norrington's eyes were on his, just for a moment, but they warned him to do nothing. Before the other man turned his gaze back upon Barbossa, who—it seemed—had not missed the look that had passed between them, for his own eyes narrowed.

"As I thought," he breathed, then raised his voice for the benefit of the rest of his crew. "Aye, tis a most fine bauble ye have here. T'would be a shame to lose it. But seein' as ye have taken to the cat so well, an ye will not allow me own lads the right o' revenge o'er your men, then needs be we must find some other form of persuasion."

There was a general round of "ayes," and Monk dropped the cat in disgust at not being allowed to continue.

Still, his eyes gleamed as Barbossa looked back at the man before him. Leaning in close. "But, no matter," he said softly. "Methinks ye will make a fine eunuch, Commodore. Worth a pretty penny on the block even. If ye survive, that is."

"No," Jack said, his voice hardly above a whisper.

Barbossa's head swung sharply towards him. "What did ye say, Jack me lad?"

Jack twisted his way free of the men holding him somehow and took a step forward. When they would have come after him, Barbossa shook his head and they subsided.

"I said," Jack replied. "I yield."

The other man's head tilted back, shrewd eyes meeting his own. "Do ye now?"

Jack took another step and Norrington's gaze flickered towards him. And now there was fear in those fine storm-colored eyes and surprise and other emotions that he couldn't read. It made him even more determined to do this, especially as the other man slumped down again and those eyes slid shut. As if the man had finally come to the last of his strength.

"Pardon me for doubting your intentions," Barbossa said. "But I need a wee bit more than that, Jack Sparrow. Afore I will let go this poor man. Let alone let him keep the last of his dignity."

Jack nodded. He looked at that bloodied, but unbroken man for a long moment, then fell gracefully to his knees.

"I will swear to ye," he said softly. "Whatever ye desire of me."

Barbossa smiled.

***

Salt tears and blood.

And he heard Jack's words, but couldn't hardly believe them, even as the pirate captain let go of him and walked away. He tried to raise his head again, but a tide of nausea and darkness swept over him and it was all he could do right then to keep breathing.

No... he hadn't asked Jack to do that, he would never have asked Jack to do that... he had to make him take it back, he had to...

Dimly then, he felt a tugging upon his arms, his wrists, and heard distant laughter and cursing, some rude jest at his mother and his own dubious heritage. And then he was falling, heavy beneath his own weight, impossibly heavy, until he struck the floor hard—the blow resounding through his whole body, making the blackness swirl and rise up even thicker around him, stealing away the last motes of dimming sunlight—and vaguely knew himself to be lying facedown upon the decks. Where he chanced to taste salt and blood once again and knew it for his own.

"No..." he somehow managed to breathe at the last, but there was no answer but the faint chittering of that damned monkey, just before he felt tiny hands on his face and the darkness surged up entire and swallowed down his whole world at the last.

***

Jack sat and leaned back, forcing a nonchalance that he didn't feel.

But Barbossa clearly could see right through it. But then the other man knew only too well what those words and that gesture out on deck had cost him.

"Ye shall captain the Pearl in my name, then," was all he said, though. "Once we take her."

"Aye," Jack said. "That I shall."

The words felt as if they would smother him beneath their weight, like they tore pieces of out of his heart and soul, but yet he acquiesced.

Though, clearly it wasn't enough, because the other man lifted his head and gave a sharp little half-smile.

"Swear it, Jack."

Jack stared long into those pale blue eyes, remembering when they had last held this passionate light—when the Pearl had been taken from him so long ago, when he had laid upon her decks and known his life forfeit—and then straightened and gave Barbossa a sly smile of his own.

"So I shall, if ye swear to me that no harm shall befall the Commodore an his men from this time forth. That ye shall set them free."

Barbossa regarded the apple in his hand. "Ah, but for that, Jack," he said nonchalantly. "I will need more than your word that ye shall serve me. For that, I shall require a bargain of a more... personal nature."

"What sort of bargain be ye thinking of?" Jack asked, though he suspected he knew well enough already, and though the room remained just as closed and hot around them, he suddenly felt cold through and through.

Barbossa regarded the apple in his hand for a long time, then finally took a bite. He chewed with obvious relish, though his eyes were entirely for Jack now. Looking at him as if the next bite were to come from his own flesh.

"'M not a greedy man," Barbossa said then. "Not as I was, anyway. Ten years in Hell may well teach even an old dog as meself new tricks. Come now, Jack... three times, tis all I be asking of ye. Three times, but for it be willingly enough. Once for your precious Commodore's freedom. Once for his men, whom he would not leave behind nor to the kindnesses o' me crew. And once, at the last, for the feelings I know full well ye bear the man or else ye would not have surrendered so."

"And I refuse?"

Barbossa shrugged. "It's all or naught, Jack. If ye deny me, then the blood of all his men shall go one by one to feed that lordly heathen Devil who raised ye all so sweetly from that unhallowed ground."

"And the Commodore? Will ye see fit to murder him, as well?"

Barbossa walked back across the room and put one boot up on Jack's chair. He leaned in on his knee to stare him right in the face, close enough that his hat blocked out nearly all the light from the transoms across the room.

"For that," he replied softly. "Perhaps I've a mind to see what I may have been missing out on. He withstood the caress of the cat entirely too well, but as for a more tender caress... all that white flesh, methinks it far too fine for the likes of most men, let alone a pirate. Or am I wrong, Jack Sparrow?"

"The Commodore personally saw to the hanging of all the Brethren aboard this ship, save yourself," Jack said, his voice low. "No mere pirate, as you say, could ever catch his fancy, even if he did not think it a sin in the first place."

"That be not an answer," Barbossa pointed out.

"Tis all the answer I have."

"Jack, Jack..." The other man shook his head, contemplating the partially eaten fruit still in his hand as if it had been plucked from the very tree of the Garden itself, before tossing it freely to one side. "Now ye be not so much a fool as that. Nor so ignorant of your own appeal, I must say. I have seen the man's eyes upon ye and they be not the eyes of one unmoved by what they have seen. Commodore of the Fleet or no and a true ruddy gentleman, he fancies thee something awful. Though I have little doubt, he would rather not."

Jack laughed, forcing himself to smile wickedly up at Barbossa. Even though he already knew he could not completely hide his disquiet from those shrewd blue eyes. His own future was already forfeit to his feelings for Norrington; he would not, if he had any say in the matter, allow the Commodore to be so compromised by any affections he may bear in return. No matter how small.

"Nay," he said, letting his voice drop. Knowing he sounded resentful and glad for it. That part of him actually believed in what he was saying. "Now there's where ye be to the wrong. Ye, and those two who told such tales as none may believe. For the illustrious Commodore be Navy through and through. Bound to his duty and naught else. I have little doubt his greatest fancy is but to see me hanged once again, and to do a more thorough job of it, this time. As he would see ye kick the wind right next to me, every last man jack of us who would sail beneath a black flag and dare count himself free."

Barbossa's eyes narrowed, but now there was a spark of doubt in his eyes. A spark which Jack readily latched onto.

"Aye," he went on. "True. He be a comely enough fellow. An, despite his own fancies of seeing me in irons, let alone upon the block, I do wish the man no ill."

"Come now," Barbossa cut in. "Ye wish more than that, Jack."

Jack nodded, shrugging expansively. "Aye, an if I do? He is what he is and I am what I am, and there's no easy meeting point between the two. But I would see him safe, all the same. As well ye know."

"An so ye would pay his ransom?"

"If I must. If I may."

"So we have an accord," Barbossa said, and the way he said the word brought to mind the last such accord they had shared, standing over the stone chest on the Isle of the Dead, an accord that Jack had broken the spirit of, if not exactly the letter, when he had taken up arms against him.

"Aye," Jack replied darkly. "Ye harm not the Commodore and his men, but set them free, and I shall lie with thee. I swear to it."

Barbossa tilted his head, moving in close enough that Jack could feel the cool of his breath upon his cheek. Along with the scent of fresh apples, of rum and decayed flowers.

"On account, Jack," he said. "Ye shall come to me tonight, an for two nights thereafter. An, in return, them in the brig shall no be harmed. In fact, I shall see to it that they be well fed an even share the last o' the Captain's wine with them. Do that sound fair to thee?"

Jack nodded, half expecting the other man to claim a kiss right then and there. On account, as it were.

But Barbossa was moving back, his hand sliding into his coat and emerging with a familiar enough object. One that he tossed to Jack, who caught it with one hand. He glanced at the black compass, then back at Barbossa, one eyebrow arching questioningly.

"One token of affection for another," Barbossa said. "Though I must imagine ye a fool, to not have even tried your hand with that comely enough Commodore. To be expelled from Heaven, without even a taste of ambrosia to sustain thee. What am I to do with ye, Jack Sparrow."

"Give me rule then in Hell, eh?" he replied. "For what else is there for such as we?"

The other man took another apple from the bowl, polished it on his coat, and then took a large bite of the crisp flesh. "What, indeed."

***

Alone in their cell. Alone in the dark. Alone with the pain.

And with the tide of sickness which seemed to have settled into his stomach, heavy with the weight of the image which kept playing in his mind again and again.

The sight of Jack Sparrow going to his knees in front of Barbossa.

Leaving him to wonder why. Leaving him to imagine what the man might be demanding of Jack for that very capitulation. For his life...

A moan escaped him despite his tight-set jaw, as he ever so slowly moved to his side. His back caught fire again and a sour taste filled his mouth, knotted up in his already bruised throat. He heaved, quite unable to help himself, but just a thin bit of bile came out, enough to leave him shaking with more cramps and pain as his whole body protested the effort.

And then blackness rose up once again, stealing over him like the thief it was. Light-fingered at first, and then closing its grip on his thoughts and lifting them away entirely.

For a long time, he drifted in some hollow place. Fleeting images spiraling in and out of sight. Elizabeth in an ivory and cornflower-blue dress, her lovely eyes sad, so very sad, even as she turned away from him and slipped her hand through the crook of Will Turner's arm, the two of them walking down some white sand shore together. And then a black ship, no longer with tattered sails, but high and grand and sailing directly into the rising sun, even as the man standing at her wheel smiled, his teeth flashing gold as well.

Even as he turned to him... and then gestured for him to join him...

There was the softest of touches on his face. Fingers trailing ever so lightly down the side of his face, before coming to rest upon the great pulse in his neck. An even softer voice, familiar and urgent and oddly teasing.

"James... James, love... c'mon, open your eyes... I know ye can..."

He couldn't resist that voice, that touch, but at the same time he felt light enough to drift away entirely, and frightening as that feeling was, it seemed far safer as well. To go somewhere where he could be safe from the hurt and further humiliation, from the world of pain and fear waiting for him just beyond the darkness.

But those fingers were insistent, as they stroked across his face again, briefly laying themselves across his lips. Leaving the taste of wine and Jack behind, rich and earthy and warm.

"James... my love... please..."

Somehow, the word rose out of him, more breath than anything else.

"Jack?"

An ever-so-pleased-with-himself tone was his instant reward. "Aye, that's it. C'mon then, come back to me..."

He opened his eyes slowly, but still the light stung them. Jack immediately shifted until the bulk of his body shielded him from the lantern now sitting on the floor beyond.

"Sorry about that," he said.

Instead of answering, Norrington gazed up at the other man's face. But, though Jack's eyes were fixed on his own, he could read nothing in them. Nothing, but an ever so clear concern.

He swallowed hard, tasting bitterness and sorrow in equal measure.

"I would not... have had you... abase yourself like that, Jack."

Jack shrugged. "What's pride to a man's life."

"Jack..."

"Nay," came the reply, determined now. "Tis of no mind. Come now, let me see to those wounds. An I've wine—or water if ye prefer—enough for the both of us."

Norrington didn't ask the reason for this sudden generosity on the part of their captors. It was clear that it had been dearly bought and by whom, and he had no stomach for that thought for the moment.

But Jack was turning away, pulling over a basin and a rag. He had an open bottle with him as well, wine from the look of it, and a pitcher of what he suspected was the water. Jack saw him looking at it and poured out a cupful, then held it for him to drink.

Ship's water, yes, but still fairly fresh, and Norrington drank it down thankfully. When it was gone, Jack raised an eyebrow, but he shook his head and subsided. Jack filled a cupful for himself and drank it down, then sighed. He set the cup aside and half-filled the basin with more water.

He put the rag in it, then looked back at him. A sad, almost shameful look that said more than he probably wished it to, as if Jack felt truly to blame for what had happened.

"Jack..." he started to say, but the other man dropped his eyes, then delved inside his shirt. He pulled out a familiar object, stroking a thumb across it before flipping the compass open and staring into it as if it held all his answers in life. The pirate then sighed again and closed it once more.

"A small token," he said softly. "Of good faith for our bargain. An the way I shall most like be getting me Pearl back, as well."

"Where... did you ever get that?" he couldn't help but ask.

Jack's thumb stroked across it, then he abruptly stowed it away in his shirt again. "I imagine ye would ask me more, why it tis that it does what it does then? But I would ask ye first all... why did ye keep it?"

Any real answer to that seemed to require more words and effort than he felt capable of for the time being.

"It seemed... proper," was all he could manage.

"Ah," Jack replied, and clearly he found that answer enough, for he knelt down next to him, his face sober. "Let's get ye cleaned up, Commodore. An once we start in upon that wine, then see if we have the stomach for the tale, for it be a sober one, indeed."

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