Ordo Ab Chao
Title: Ordo ab Chao
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean; Sparrington
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I have no claim on POTC or the lovely characters who populate it, even if it seems that James Norrington has, somewhat disconcertingly, made himself quite at home in my head with no apparent plans to leave. Jack Sparrow has been dropping by at random for years, as well, which surely doesn’t help matters.
Summary: Jack Sparrow and James Norrington, in the modern era, arrive in Venice to meet James’ so-called “great-niece” Amina. Many studies are contemplated. Sequel to Mobilis in Mobili
Beta: The Most Honorable Porridgebird
Warnings: Sex.
As they pulled up to the dock in Venice after some weeks at sea, Jack was still boggling a bit at how smoothly the journey had gone. It had taken them weeks, and that was the longest time Jack Sparrow had spent with another single person in the last hundred years or so; usually, such events left both parties eager to never see each other again, but not in this case. Luckily, and to Jack’s considerable surprise, James seemed to find him entertaining rather than annoying, these days. And Jack, in turn, had found James to be an engrossing subject to study.
Still almost painfully English in demeanor, even after all these years, James had honed his droll and pawky humor to perfection, his deadpan commentary dry and yet good-natured for all its biting sarcasm, if only because there was no malice behind it now when he directed his razor wit toward Jack. All of that grace and sophistication served to conveniently mask a new sort of rogue, in Jack’s experience: not the drunken, vengeful sailor he had seen all those years ago, but a sly and bitter philosopher. And behind even that, Jack sensed something else lurking deeper, well hidden until its skills and ferocity might be needed: a calculative predator that might give lesser men nightmares.
Jack had found similar ruthless, black depths within himself several times over the years, not the least of which had shown itself when he finally shot that traitor Barbossa after ten years without his Pearl. He was aware that James--if they had somehow again become enemies--might be one of few men alive capable of frightening him, but Jack also knew he was similarly one of few men alive who could frighten James.
They had spent most of their time on deck trading tales. James had explained to him the current state of various underground hubs of slave trade: Russia, Thailand, China, and even into the Americas. He was able to lay out the whole of it like a strategist and Jack marveled a little. Jack, in his turn, knew all about a wide variety of other trades and smuggling operations around the world, as well as where their funding connected to arms dealers and terrorist operations and international corporations. In the process of explaining his own map of the world, merging the details of it with James’, Jack was hardly surprised to find that he and James had several shared informants over the years, in places where their territories had long overlapped.
Jack also told James about his own adopted families, including the descendants of the Turners, as well as the loss of his blood-ties long ago. James explained that he had kept track of his brothers’ families, and lost all but two members of that family to the second World War. In helping them, he explained with an odd sort of smile, he had indirectly brought them into contact with Amina’s descendants, and the two families had intermarried.
Their hours of talk above-deck, as the pair of them kept the little ship on course, were interrupted only by scant sleep (a habit they both fell into naturally, as it was still familiar, imprinted upon both their souls as sailing still was) and, of course, a great deal of sex. Jack had rarely ever been so thankful that the Aqua de Vida had long since provided them with disease resistance, because they would not have had enough condoms after the first week to last them the rest of the voyage. It was good, now and then, simply not to worry about modern terrors.
We should’ve gotten sick of each other by now, Jack mused to himself, watching James finish tying them up at the dock. Jack was, he had to admit, still fascinated and a little amazed to find that, where this man was concerned, his curiosity was insatiable.
Jack was jerked out of his reverie as a small, dark young woman ran down the docks at an impressive speed and shouted, “Uncle James!” shortly before launching herself at the former commodore, who straightened up just in time to catch her with a laugh and spin her around.
“I’m too old for that title, I keep telling you,” James growled, affectionately.
“Psht. You hardly look it. You’ve not got any grey hair, even.”
“That is because I am vain enough to dye it,” James prevaricated, as he reluctantly set her down, and smiled when she leapt onto the boat without hesitation, dropping her camera bag and heading for the sails to start wrapping them, not seeming to notice an amused Jack Sparrow standing near the helm.
“I saw you pull in. I can’t believe you still sail this same boat,” she shouted absent-mindedly, turning her head a little in James’ direction as she said it, but not enough to take her eyes off her task.
“And I can’t believe you haven’t noticed my guest,” James said calmly, as he boarded again.
“Hm?” Amina turned her head and then froze wide-eyed as she finally caught sight of Jack.
Jack’s eyebrows raised a little in mild surprise. She had green eyes from the Norrington side of the family, it seemed, and they contrasted beautifully with her clove-colored skin. She seemed a little stunned by him as well, and dropped from her work to approach the pair of them, and look at Jack more closely. Jack was amused to note a familiar look of shrewd appraisal cross her delicate features.
“Amina, this is Jack. Jack, my great-niece Amina,” James introduced, a warm smile tugging at his habitually composed expression, his eyes glinting with a hint of mischief.
Amina looked Jack over head-to-toe, taking in his handsome fey features, eccentric hair, sunglasses, and the trench coat he had not yet put on, but which he had draped over one shoulder. Then she glanced at James with a familiarly sardonic half-smirk. “How on earth did you two get together?”
Jack grinned widely both at the girl’s perceptiveness, and the way James’ ears turned pink. “Well, love, we’ve actually known each other a very long while.”
James cleared his throat. “Indeed.”
Amina looked back and forth between them again, and then stepped away from James and reached out a hand to Jack. “Good to meet you, Jack.” Then, as Jack reached for her hand, she added, more quietly, “If you hurt him, I and my relatives will hunt you down with a few harpoon guns.”
James blushed very deeply at that. “Amina...”
She laughed at him, leaning in when Jack accepted her handshake to whisper loudly, “He said the same thing to my first boyfriend; I’ve been waiting years to get even with him on it.”
Jack laughed heartily, his grip on her hand firm. “I think we’ll get along just fine, love,” he said, and meant it.
Amina preened and gently let him go with a nod, but despite her warm smile, there remained that piercing shrewdness in the way her eyes held his before she turned away. “Now, my dear great-uncle, I believe you promised me a few unforgettable meals on your dime whilst we’re here in Venice, so let’s get your boat ready and locked up so we can get you started on keeping that promise.” She then promptly scurried over toward the sails again.
James smiled after her, shaking his head affectionately.
“She knows what she’s doing,” Jack observed.
“I’ve taken her siblings and her cousins sailing before, as well, when they were younger. She’s one of the ones who took to it like a fish to water.”
“I like her. Reminds me of Lizzy.”
“Part of Elizabeth’s charm was that she reminded me of the fire I saw in the Amina who adopted me,” James said quietly. “Shall we aid her before-”
“Will you two quit flirting over there and help me out? Some gentlemen you are!”
The two old sailors exchanged a last amused glance and set to work.
Amina glowed with energy. She had spent a month in Venice so far, studying the art, and so moved through the streets with confidence, but she still seemed surprised when James led her to a place she had never been, his own footsteps sure, as though he had walked this way a hundred times before--which, of course, he had.
The restaurant was small, but the walls were decorated with an astounding variety of art, which had, in the past, been used to pay for food by artists who lacked the money to afford it otherwise: a common theme in some of Venice’s oldest, most traditional restaurants. Amina was in awe.
“How did you know about this place? Why didn’t you tell me about it?” she demanded quietly, once they were seated at a table. Her eyes wandered the art on the walls with hungry fascination.
“I’ve been coming here for ages, and I did not tell you about it because it would deprive me of the pleasure of taking you here myself for your first visit,” James countered.
Amina laughed and teased him, saying that if he knew the place so very well, he should order for her, because she was far too distracted to read the menu. That said, she immediately got up and began to walk around, looking at the paintings.
The dinner went well enough. Jack told a story that would have scandalized more polite company, and nearly made Amina fall out of her chair laughing. Amina teased them both, when she found that they knew a variety of places in Venice that she did not, trying to pull the knowledge from them persistently.
Despite the light-hearted nature of it all, Jack was aware of the way Amina looked at him, and at him and James both, when she thought they weren’t paying her close attention: coolly appraising and protective.
From the restaurant, they wandered the Venice streets Amina had not yet discovered, and James explained bits of the history of various places they passed by. When Jack’s fingers entwined with his in the middle of a sentence, he showed no obvious reaction, but his hand gently squeezed Jack’s, making the ex-pirate smile a little more warmly. Amina pretended not to notice.
It was late by the time they walked her back to her hotel. She leapt at James and he again caught her and spun her around twice, making her laugh. She then kissed his cheek and sidled over to Jack.
“Do I pass muster, then?” he asked quietly.
“So far so good. If you can keep him as happy as he seems to be, you’re more than welcome into our family, Jack,” she countered, in a low whisper, and kissed his cheek, too. Then she stepped away, walking backwards toward the hotel doors. “Goodnight, both of you! I expect a further tour in the morning!” She bowed low, and then darted into the hotel.
James shook his head again, still smiling. “She does have a theatrical streak. What did she say to you?”
Jack stepped closer, wrapping his arms around James’ neck. “Mayhap I’ll tell you later, love.” He leaned up and caught James’ lips, feeling James’ arms eagerly encircle his waist as the ex-commodore kissed him back. The kiss was slow, thorough, and flavored with the Venetian night. It reached an easy, natural end, both of them breathing a little harder, but still easy, still relaxed.
James’ eyes fluttered open and met Jack’s gaze. James realized, for the first time since they had stumbled upon each other back in Greece, that he was very much in danger here, because the words that almost fell from his lips might very well have undone him.
Jack was having similar thoughts, as he traced James’ jawline with his fingertips. Caution made him instead say, “Let’s head back, then. Continue this someplace more private, ay?”
“Of course,” James said softly, and disentangled himself just enough to start walking, albeit with one arm still around the former pirate, who also kept an arm wrapped around him.
The tattoo on James’ chest, over his heart, was in classic sailor style, and over a century old. It was a bit faded, and would have to be re-inked in a year or so. It was a ribbon, folded several times, with only the three middle folds wide enough to display a Latin phrase: Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. The middle third of the phrase was draped across the middle of an anchor, the fold between it and the last third of the phrase curled around one of the hooks at the base of the anchor.
Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt: those who hurry across the sea do change the sky upon them, but not their souls or state of mind.
Jack had not needed to ask what it meant, and the look in his eyes as he traced the shape of the anchor with his tongue, holding James’ gaze all the while, said as much. James swallowed a moan. When Jack’s body slid against his, shifting down a few inches as Jack’s tongue swirled around his nipple, James could not hold it back again.
“Have you concluded, James, whether or not we’re capable of working together?” the pirate inquired, in airy tones, as his lips and hands made their way slowly southward over James’ anatomy. James’ hands, one in the bedclothes where he rested his weight on his elbow to sit up and the other in Jack’s braids, clutched not-quite-painfully.
“I think you know the answer, but I’ll indulge you,” James replied, his voice only a little strained as Jack nipped at his abdominal muscles. “I think that not only could we work well together professionally and that I would hate to lose such excellent resources as your mind and your skills provide, I am also very much unwilling to part with you personally. In fact, I--Oh fuck--Jack!” he gasped, as the ex-pirate abruptly enveloped head of James’ cock in his devious mouth and sucked. He cursed even more colorfully when Jack stopped.
“Do go on, love,” Jack purred, with an encouraging lick at the flesh just below James’ navel: silently promising that the pause was only temporary.
“Damnable tease,” James panted. “That aside, however, I still very much seem to want to keep ahold of you, if you might allow me--given that I seem to be falling in love with you.”
Jack’s breath stopped in his throat, his eyes suddenly very bright. Then he launched himself up to capture James’ mouth in a hungry, fervent kiss. It was part duel and part whirlwind, and when they were forced to break apart for air, neither was able to recall whether it had lasted for a minute or an hour. Jack held off for just a few moments, long enough to take two much-needed deep breaths, before catching James’ lips again, this time more softly, as he reached over to the jar on the nightstand, slicked two fingers with its contents, and spread it over his arousal in preparation.
Pulling back from the kiss, Jack grinned wide and lifted James’ legs a little higher where they had wrapped around his waist. “Keep hold, then, love,” he said, and began pushing himself into James’ body, slow enough to drive them both nearly mad with impatience. “For as long as you’ll have me, keep hold,” Jack panted, scarcely louder than a whisper, against James’ cheek.
James’ breathing was ragged and uneven, and he arched his back with a low groan as Jack filled him to the hilt. The stretch burned, ached a bit even, but James could hardly bring himself to care. He gripped Jack’s hips hard enough to bruise. His voice was not quite pleading, but there was a thread of something desperate in it as he gasped, “No quarter, Jack.”
Jack felt a rush of almost violent lust flood through him at that, and obeyed without a second thought, or even much of a first. The timbre of James’ voice and the raw exposure of their previous exchange of words, together left him abruptly senseless, as did the breathless sounds James made as Jack’s harsh pace sped, hitting home as hard as he could, every time. James moved with him, countering him, with his mouth teasing at Jack’s throat, and his hip meeting each thrust--generally just making Jack further lose his mind.
Jack retaliated by pushing James’ knees back, opening him up further and striking deeper. He could hear James’ breath catch, saw him wince, but the only words falling from the ex-commodore’s lips were encouragement, which soon dissolved into incoherent sounds as Jack tugged one of James’ hands down and guided James to stroke himself. Neither of them looked away from each other’s eyes for the longest time, then, even as James reached his peak.
As the last shreds of James’ control fell apart beneath him, Jack tried to hold himself in check a bit longer, and succeeded in earning a further shout from his lover on the aftershocks this produced, but then the broken-off, sex-rough and satisfied way James said his name pushed Jack over the edge into his own oblivion. For a moment, they still stared at each other, and Jack slowly collapsed, his eyes fluttering shut. When he had recovered sufficiently, Jack felt James once more reaching for a towel to clean up their mess, and wondered if he should move. He did not want to move. He was much relieved when James shifted him bodily instead, except for the slight disappointment when they disconnected. The towel seemed an annoying distraction until James tossed it aside and let the pirate resettle on him.
“You’re not hurt?” Jack asked gently, forcing himself to sit up enough to meet the other man’s gaze.
James smirked. “Not to such an extent that I’m averse to a repeat performance in the future.”
“I’d not be averse to a reversal of some kind, tomorrow perhaps,” Jack countered.
“Oh, really?” James maneuvered them to the less damp section of bed and resettled, seemingly at ease with Jack using him as a body pillow, especially as he wrapped an arm around the ex-pirate’s waist. “We are of the same mind, then.”
“Indeed we are.” Jack reached up and turned out the lamp as James pulled the sheets over them. “After all, James: I’m in love with you, too.”
A muffled voice from outside the door chimed, “Oh my dear Great-Uncle!”
James opened one eye, waking with uncommon slowness. This was, in all likelihood, due to being very warm and comfortable, in his gently-rocking boat, as well as pleasantly tangled up in bed with Jack Sparrow.
Both he and Jack were very startled when Amina actually burst through the door, shouting, “WAKE U--OH GOD I’MSOSORRY!” She immediately backed up and slammed the door shut again. From outside the door came further cries of, “Sorry! Sorry! I forgot! I’m so sorry!”
Jack hid his face in James’ neck, trying unsuccessfully to muffle his laughter.
“Amina, we shall join you in about fifteen minutes. Please wait for us up on deck if you would be so kind,” James called, also unable to conceal his own amusement; although he was blushing furiously and was unspeakably grateful that they had both been covered from the waist down by a sheet.
“Fifteen? That’s an insult,” Jack muttered.
“Patience,” James purred in his ear. “I have plans for you, my love, but I would much prefer to take my time with them, and to not have my niece around to hear you calling my name.” He then smirked like the tease he was and slipped out of Jack’s grasp.
Jack found himself grinning. He deliberately got a bit in James’ way as they went about their usual morning routine, making sure he was dressed and ready for the day shortly before the ex-commodore, who growled an affectionate curse at him as Jack kissed his chin and darted out of the cabin.
Jack found Amina leaning against one of the masts, looking anywhere but at him, her dark complexion not quite able to conceal the fact that she was blushing.
“I did not need to see that,” she said quietly, making a bit of a face.
The urge to make a number of highly crude and slap-worthy comments was powerful, but Jack managed to resist. He did, however, chuckle at her.
She turned and punched him in the arm, shaking her head at him, but unable to prevent a small, self-depreciating grin from tugging at the corners of her mouth.
They slipped into a companionable silence after a minute or so.
“How’d you meet him?”
“It was a long time ago.”
She shot him a look, her eyebrows raised expectantly.
“He arrested me.”
For a moment, her eyes widened, then she laughed wholeheartedly. “Oh, yes, that had to be a long time ago, then. He quit that government business when I was barely twelve, I think.” She met his gaze again. “So you didn’t start off friendly, then. What changed?”
Jack looked out along the docks for a few moments, then smiled. “We’ve been through a lot of the same chaos.” He appreciated that, judging by the way she held his gaze, she did not seem to assume either that Jack had redeemed himself or that James had become a criminal; she made no judgments on the matter and did not care to.
Jack was aware of James slowly approaching them, but did not turn his head or otherwise clue in Amina to that fact.
“And out of chaos comes stability. My favorite paradox.” She nodded, as though agreeing with an unspoken thought. “I’d wondered, honestly. So far as style and culture, you two seem to be opposite ends of a spectrum. If it wasn’t so obvious in the way you look at each other... well, it’d be hard to picture you together.”
Jack smiled a bit enigmatically and shook his head. “We come from about the same place, love.”
Amina arched an eyebrow in a familiar manner. “England?” She sounded a little confused, because Jack’s accent was hard to place at the best of times.
“No,” James interrupted.
Amina jumped, turning to stare at him as James exchanged knowing looks with the ex-pirate.
“The Caribbean,” James corrected.
For a moment, Jack could smell rum and gunpowder and Caribbean waters again, could hear the sounds of cannon-fire, could feel the rush of a good chase and the bright heat of the equatorial sun, could see the waves the color of James’ eyes and could see James in naval finery trying not to smile, even if with appropriately cold and insulting sort of amusement, at something Jack had said.
James smiled slowly, knowing well the sort of memories his words had spilled across both of their minds. “Opposite sides of its society, at the time, but times change.”
Amina was surprised to see Jack’s façade drop for a moment, revealing an expression she could not read, but which was striking nonetheless. “When were you in the Caribbean?” she asked James, although her eyes did not leave Jack’s face.
James only shook his head a little. “It’s a very long story.”
“Which we have time for,” Amina insisted.
“Not really, love. Another time, mayhap,” Jack said, his voice oddly gentle.
James nodded, and offered Amina his arm in a gentlemanly fashion.
Amina took it numbly, feeling as though she had missed half of their conversation. Then she saw James’ smile as he held out his hand to Jack: sharp and predatory, but also warm and more sincere than Amina had ever seen from him. She decided, for now, to let the matter drop.
|| Story Index ||
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean; Sparrington
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I have no claim on POTC or the lovely characters who populate it, even if it seems that James Norrington has, somewhat disconcertingly, made himself quite at home in my head with no apparent plans to leave. Jack Sparrow has been dropping by at random for years, as well, which surely doesn’t help matters.
Summary: Jack Sparrow and James Norrington, in the modern era, arrive in Venice to meet James’ so-called “great-niece” Amina. Many studies are contemplated. Sequel to Mobilis in Mobili
Beta: The Most Honorable Porridgebird
Warnings: Sex.
As they pulled up to the dock in Venice after some weeks at sea, Jack was still boggling a bit at how smoothly the journey had gone. It had taken them weeks, and that was the longest time Jack Sparrow had spent with another single person in the last hundred years or so; usually, such events left both parties eager to never see each other again, but not in this case. Luckily, and to Jack’s considerable surprise, James seemed to find him entertaining rather than annoying, these days. And Jack, in turn, had found James to be an engrossing subject to study.
Still almost painfully English in demeanor, even after all these years, James had honed his droll and pawky humor to perfection, his deadpan commentary dry and yet good-natured for all its biting sarcasm, if only because there was no malice behind it now when he directed his razor wit toward Jack. All of that grace and sophistication served to conveniently mask a new sort of rogue, in Jack’s experience: not the drunken, vengeful sailor he had seen all those years ago, but a sly and bitter philosopher. And behind even that, Jack sensed something else lurking deeper, well hidden until its skills and ferocity might be needed: a calculative predator that might give lesser men nightmares.
Jack had found similar ruthless, black depths within himself several times over the years, not the least of which had shown itself when he finally shot that traitor Barbossa after ten years without his Pearl. He was aware that James--if they had somehow again become enemies--might be one of few men alive capable of frightening him, but Jack also knew he was similarly one of few men alive who could frighten James.
They had spent most of their time on deck trading tales. James had explained to him the current state of various underground hubs of slave trade: Russia, Thailand, China, and even into the Americas. He was able to lay out the whole of it like a strategist and Jack marveled a little. Jack, in his turn, knew all about a wide variety of other trades and smuggling operations around the world, as well as where their funding connected to arms dealers and terrorist operations and international corporations. In the process of explaining his own map of the world, merging the details of it with James’, Jack was hardly surprised to find that he and James had several shared informants over the years, in places where their territories had long overlapped.
Jack also told James about his own adopted families, including the descendants of the Turners, as well as the loss of his blood-ties long ago. James explained that he had kept track of his brothers’ families, and lost all but two members of that family to the second World War. In helping them, he explained with an odd sort of smile, he had indirectly brought them into contact with Amina’s descendants, and the two families had intermarried.
Their hours of talk above-deck, as the pair of them kept the little ship on course, were interrupted only by scant sleep (a habit they both fell into naturally, as it was still familiar, imprinted upon both their souls as sailing still was) and, of course, a great deal of sex. Jack had rarely ever been so thankful that the Aqua de Vida had long since provided them with disease resistance, because they would not have had enough condoms after the first week to last them the rest of the voyage. It was good, now and then, simply not to worry about modern terrors.
We should’ve gotten sick of each other by now, Jack mused to himself, watching James finish tying them up at the dock. Jack was, he had to admit, still fascinated and a little amazed to find that, where this man was concerned, his curiosity was insatiable.
Jack was jerked out of his reverie as a small, dark young woman ran down the docks at an impressive speed and shouted, “Uncle James!” shortly before launching herself at the former commodore, who straightened up just in time to catch her with a laugh and spin her around.
“I’m too old for that title, I keep telling you,” James growled, affectionately.
“Psht. You hardly look it. You’ve not got any grey hair, even.”
“That is because I am vain enough to dye it,” James prevaricated, as he reluctantly set her down, and smiled when she leapt onto the boat without hesitation, dropping her camera bag and heading for the sails to start wrapping them, not seeming to notice an amused Jack Sparrow standing near the helm.
“I saw you pull in. I can’t believe you still sail this same boat,” she shouted absent-mindedly, turning her head a little in James’ direction as she said it, but not enough to take her eyes off her task.
“And I can’t believe you haven’t noticed my guest,” James said calmly, as he boarded again.
“Hm?” Amina turned her head and then froze wide-eyed as she finally caught sight of Jack.
Jack’s eyebrows raised a little in mild surprise. She had green eyes from the Norrington side of the family, it seemed, and they contrasted beautifully with her clove-colored skin. She seemed a little stunned by him as well, and dropped from her work to approach the pair of them, and look at Jack more closely. Jack was amused to note a familiar look of shrewd appraisal cross her delicate features.
“Amina, this is Jack. Jack, my great-niece Amina,” James introduced, a warm smile tugging at his habitually composed expression, his eyes glinting with a hint of mischief.
Amina looked Jack over head-to-toe, taking in his handsome fey features, eccentric hair, sunglasses, and the trench coat he had not yet put on, but which he had draped over one shoulder. Then she glanced at James with a familiarly sardonic half-smirk. “How on earth did you two get together?”
Jack grinned widely both at the girl’s perceptiveness, and the way James’ ears turned pink. “Well, love, we’ve actually known each other a very long while.”
James cleared his throat. “Indeed.”
Amina looked back and forth between them again, and then stepped away from James and reached out a hand to Jack. “Good to meet you, Jack.” Then, as Jack reached for her hand, she added, more quietly, “If you hurt him, I and my relatives will hunt you down with a few harpoon guns.”
James blushed very deeply at that. “Amina...”
She laughed at him, leaning in when Jack accepted her handshake to whisper loudly, “He said the same thing to my first boyfriend; I’ve been waiting years to get even with him on it.”
Jack laughed heartily, his grip on her hand firm. “I think we’ll get along just fine, love,” he said, and meant it.
Amina preened and gently let him go with a nod, but despite her warm smile, there remained that piercing shrewdness in the way her eyes held his before she turned away. “Now, my dear great-uncle, I believe you promised me a few unforgettable meals on your dime whilst we’re here in Venice, so let’s get your boat ready and locked up so we can get you started on keeping that promise.” She then promptly scurried over toward the sails again.
James smiled after her, shaking his head affectionately.
“She knows what she’s doing,” Jack observed.
“I’ve taken her siblings and her cousins sailing before, as well, when they were younger. She’s one of the ones who took to it like a fish to water.”
“I like her. Reminds me of Lizzy.”
“Part of Elizabeth’s charm was that she reminded me of the fire I saw in the Amina who adopted me,” James said quietly. “Shall we aid her before-”
“Will you two quit flirting over there and help me out? Some gentlemen you are!”
The two old sailors exchanged a last amused glance and set to work.
Amina glowed with energy. She had spent a month in Venice so far, studying the art, and so moved through the streets with confidence, but she still seemed surprised when James led her to a place she had never been, his own footsteps sure, as though he had walked this way a hundred times before--which, of course, he had.
The restaurant was small, but the walls were decorated with an astounding variety of art, which had, in the past, been used to pay for food by artists who lacked the money to afford it otherwise: a common theme in some of Venice’s oldest, most traditional restaurants. Amina was in awe.
“How did you know about this place? Why didn’t you tell me about it?” she demanded quietly, once they were seated at a table. Her eyes wandered the art on the walls with hungry fascination.
“I’ve been coming here for ages, and I did not tell you about it because it would deprive me of the pleasure of taking you here myself for your first visit,” James countered.
Amina laughed and teased him, saying that if he knew the place so very well, he should order for her, because she was far too distracted to read the menu. That said, she immediately got up and began to walk around, looking at the paintings.
The dinner went well enough. Jack told a story that would have scandalized more polite company, and nearly made Amina fall out of her chair laughing. Amina teased them both, when she found that they knew a variety of places in Venice that she did not, trying to pull the knowledge from them persistently.
Despite the light-hearted nature of it all, Jack was aware of the way Amina looked at him, and at him and James both, when she thought they weren’t paying her close attention: coolly appraising and protective.
From the restaurant, they wandered the Venice streets Amina had not yet discovered, and James explained bits of the history of various places they passed by. When Jack’s fingers entwined with his in the middle of a sentence, he showed no obvious reaction, but his hand gently squeezed Jack’s, making the ex-pirate smile a little more warmly. Amina pretended not to notice.
It was late by the time they walked her back to her hotel. She leapt at James and he again caught her and spun her around twice, making her laugh. She then kissed his cheek and sidled over to Jack.
“Do I pass muster, then?” he asked quietly.
“So far so good. If you can keep him as happy as he seems to be, you’re more than welcome into our family, Jack,” she countered, in a low whisper, and kissed his cheek, too. Then she stepped away, walking backwards toward the hotel doors. “Goodnight, both of you! I expect a further tour in the morning!” She bowed low, and then darted into the hotel.
James shook his head again, still smiling. “She does have a theatrical streak. What did she say to you?”
Jack stepped closer, wrapping his arms around James’ neck. “Mayhap I’ll tell you later, love.” He leaned up and caught James’ lips, feeling James’ arms eagerly encircle his waist as the ex-commodore kissed him back. The kiss was slow, thorough, and flavored with the Venetian night. It reached an easy, natural end, both of them breathing a little harder, but still easy, still relaxed.
James’ eyes fluttered open and met Jack’s gaze. James realized, for the first time since they had stumbled upon each other back in Greece, that he was very much in danger here, because the words that almost fell from his lips might very well have undone him.
Jack was having similar thoughts, as he traced James’ jawline with his fingertips. Caution made him instead say, “Let’s head back, then. Continue this someplace more private, ay?”
“Of course,” James said softly, and disentangled himself just enough to start walking, albeit with one arm still around the former pirate, who also kept an arm wrapped around him.
The tattoo on James’ chest, over his heart, was in classic sailor style, and over a century old. It was a bit faded, and would have to be re-inked in a year or so. It was a ribbon, folded several times, with only the three middle folds wide enough to display a Latin phrase: Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. The middle third of the phrase was draped across the middle of an anchor, the fold between it and the last third of the phrase curled around one of the hooks at the base of the anchor.
Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt: those who hurry across the sea do change the sky upon them, but not their souls or state of mind.
Jack had not needed to ask what it meant, and the look in his eyes as he traced the shape of the anchor with his tongue, holding James’ gaze all the while, said as much. James swallowed a moan. When Jack’s body slid against his, shifting down a few inches as Jack’s tongue swirled around his nipple, James could not hold it back again.
“Have you concluded, James, whether or not we’re capable of working together?” the pirate inquired, in airy tones, as his lips and hands made their way slowly southward over James’ anatomy. James’ hands, one in the bedclothes where he rested his weight on his elbow to sit up and the other in Jack’s braids, clutched not-quite-painfully.
“I think you know the answer, but I’ll indulge you,” James replied, his voice only a little strained as Jack nipped at his abdominal muscles. “I think that not only could we work well together professionally and that I would hate to lose such excellent resources as your mind and your skills provide, I am also very much unwilling to part with you personally. In fact, I--Oh fuck--Jack!” he gasped, as the ex-pirate abruptly enveloped head of James’ cock in his devious mouth and sucked. He cursed even more colorfully when Jack stopped.
“Do go on, love,” Jack purred, with an encouraging lick at the flesh just below James’ navel: silently promising that the pause was only temporary.
“Damnable tease,” James panted. “That aside, however, I still very much seem to want to keep ahold of you, if you might allow me--given that I seem to be falling in love with you.”
Jack’s breath stopped in his throat, his eyes suddenly very bright. Then he launched himself up to capture James’ mouth in a hungry, fervent kiss. It was part duel and part whirlwind, and when they were forced to break apart for air, neither was able to recall whether it had lasted for a minute or an hour. Jack held off for just a few moments, long enough to take two much-needed deep breaths, before catching James’ lips again, this time more softly, as he reached over to the jar on the nightstand, slicked two fingers with its contents, and spread it over his arousal in preparation.
Pulling back from the kiss, Jack grinned wide and lifted James’ legs a little higher where they had wrapped around his waist. “Keep hold, then, love,” he said, and began pushing himself into James’ body, slow enough to drive them both nearly mad with impatience. “For as long as you’ll have me, keep hold,” Jack panted, scarcely louder than a whisper, against James’ cheek.
James’ breathing was ragged and uneven, and he arched his back with a low groan as Jack filled him to the hilt. The stretch burned, ached a bit even, but James could hardly bring himself to care. He gripped Jack’s hips hard enough to bruise. His voice was not quite pleading, but there was a thread of something desperate in it as he gasped, “No quarter, Jack.”
Jack felt a rush of almost violent lust flood through him at that, and obeyed without a second thought, or even much of a first. The timbre of James’ voice and the raw exposure of their previous exchange of words, together left him abruptly senseless, as did the breathless sounds James made as Jack’s harsh pace sped, hitting home as hard as he could, every time. James moved with him, countering him, with his mouth teasing at Jack’s throat, and his hip meeting each thrust--generally just making Jack further lose his mind.
Jack retaliated by pushing James’ knees back, opening him up further and striking deeper. He could hear James’ breath catch, saw him wince, but the only words falling from the ex-commodore’s lips were encouragement, which soon dissolved into incoherent sounds as Jack tugged one of James’ hands down and guided James to stroke himself. Neither of them looked away from each other’s eyes for the longest time, then, even as James reached his peak.
As the last shreds of James’ control fell apart beneath him, Jack tried to hold himself in check a bit longer, and succeeded in earning a further shout from his lover on the aftershocks this produced, but then the broken-off, sex-rough and satisfied way James said his name pushed Jack over the edge into his own oblivion. For a moment, they still stared at each other, and Jack slowly collapsed, his eyes fluttering shut. When he had recovered sufficiently, Jack felt James once more reaching for a towel to clean up their mess, and wondered if he should move. He did not want to move. He was much relieved when James shifted him bodily instead, except for the slight disappointment when they disconnected. The towel seemed an annoying distraction until James tossed it aside and let the pirate resettle on him.
“You’re not hurt?” Jack asked gently, forcing himself to sit up enough to meet the other man’s gaze.
James smirked. “Not to such an extent that I’m averse to a repeat performance in the future.”
“I’d not be averse to a reversal of some kind, tomorrow perhaps,” Jack countered.
“Oh, really?” James maneuvered them to the less damp section of bed and resettled, seemingly at ease with Jack using him as a body pillow, especially as he wrapped an arm around the ex-pirate’s waist. “We are of the same mind, then.”
“Indeed we are.” Jack reached up and turned out the lamp as James pulled the sheets over them. “After all, James: I’m in love with you, too.”
A muffled voice from outside the door chimed, “Oh my dear Great-Uncle!”
James opened one eye, waking with uncommon slowness. This was, in all likelihood, due to being very warm and comfortable, in his gently-rocking boat, as well as pleasantly tangled up in bed with Jack Sparrow.
Both he and Jack were very startled when Amina actually burst through the door, shouting, “WAKE U--OH GOD I’MSOSORRY!” She immediately backed up and slammed the door shut again. From outside the door came further cries of, “Sorry! Sorry! I forgot! I’m so sorry!”
Jack hid his face in James’ neck, trying unsuccessfully to muffle his laughter.
“Amina, we shall join you in about fifteen minutes. Please wait for us up on deck if you would be so kind,” James called, also unable to conceal his own amusement; although he was blushing furiously and was unspeakably grateful that they had both been covered from the waist down by a sheet.
“Fifteen? That’s an insult,” Jack muttered.
“Patience,” James purred in his ear. “I have plans for you, my love, but I would much prefer to take my time with them, and to not have my niece around to hear you calling my name.” He then smirked like the tease he was and slipped out of Jack’s grasp.
Jack found himself grinning. He deliberately got a bit in James’ way as they went about their usual morning routine, making sure he was dressed and ready for the day shortly before the ex-commodore, who growled an affectionate curse at him as Jack kissed his chin and darted out of the cabin.
Jack found Amina leaning against one of the masts, looking anywhere but at him, her dark complexion not quite able to conceal the fact that she was blushing.
“I did not need to see that,” she said quietly, making a bit of a face.
The urge to make a number of highly crude and slap-worthy comments was powerful, but Jack managed to resist. He did, however, chuckle at her.
She turned and punched him in the arm, shaking her head at him, but unable to prevent a small, self-depreciating grin from tugging at the corners of her mouth.
They slipped into a companionable silence after a minute or so.
“How’d you meet him?”
“It was a long time ago.”
She shot him a look, her eyebrows raised expectantly.
“He arrested me.”
For a moment, her eyes widened, then she laughed wholeheartedly. “Oh, yes, that had to be a long time ago, then. He quit that government business when I was barely twelve, I think.” She met his gaze again. “So you didn’t start off friendly, then. What changed?”
Jack looked out along the docks for a few moments, then smiled. “We’ve been through a lot of the same chaos.” He appreciated that, judging by the way she held his gaze, she did not seem to assume either that Jack had redeemed himself or that James had become a criminal; she made no judgments on the matter and did not care to.
Jack was aware of James slowly approaching them, but did not turn his head or otherwise clue in Amina to that fact.
“And out of chaos comes stability. My favorite paradox.” She nodded, as though agreeing with an unspoken thought. “I’d wondered, honestly. So far as style and culture, you two seem to be opposite ends of a spectrum. If it wasn’t so obvious in the way you look at each other... well, it’d be hard to picture you together.”
Jack smiled a bit enigmatically and shook his head. “We come from about the same place, love.”
Amina arched an eyebrow in a familiar manner. “England?” She sounded a little confused, because Jack’s accent was hard to place at the best of times.
“No,” James interrupted.
Amina jumped, turning to stare at him as James exchanged knowing looks with the ex-pirate.
“The Caribbean,” James corrected.
For a moment, Jack could smell rum and gunpowder and Caribbean waters again, could hear the sounds of cannon-fire, could feel the rush of a good chase and the bright heat of the equatorial sun, could see the waves the color of James’ eyes and could see James in naval finery trying not to smile, even if with appropriately cold and insulting sort of amusement, at something Jack had said.
James smiled slowly, knowing well the sort of memories his words had spilled across both of their minds. “Opposite sides of its society, at the time, but times change.”
Amina was surprised to see Jack’s façade drop for a moment, revealing an expression she could not read, but which was striking nonetheless. “When were you in the Caribbean?” she asked James, although her eyes did not leave Jack’s face.
James only shook his head a little. “It’s a very long story.”
“Which we have time for,” Amina insisted.
“Not really, love. Another time, mayhap,” Jack said, his voice oddly gentle.
James nodded, and offered Amina his arm in a gentlemanly fashion.
Amina took it numbly, feeling as though she had missed half of their conversation. Then she saw James’ smile as he held out his hand to Jack: sharp and predatory, but also warm and more sincere than Amina had ever seen from him. She decided, for now, to let the matter drop.
|| Story Index ||