Dancing at the End of the World (Proper Pirates Extended Dance Remix) [PotC, Jack/James/Liz, NC-17]
Title: Dancing at the End of the World (Proper Pirates Extended Dance Remix II)
Author: erinya
Summary: At the end of everything she knew about the world and her place in it, she takes comfort in the ways these two men stay the same; and finds her place anew, between them.
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Pairing: James Norrington/Jack Sparrow/Elizabeth Swann
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Disney; the story and most of the really good lines belong to penknife.
Original story: Proper Pirates by penknife
Notes: Thanks to my two wonderful betas, geek_mama_2 and djarum99, for great feedback and also for holding my hand and telling me this didn't suck. All errors and anachronisms in the text are neither theirs nor penknife's but purely my own.
Dancing at the End of the World: Part One
Dancing at the End of the World
(Proper Pirates Extended Dance Remix II)
This was-had been-her city, and James', but the streets looked different by moonlight and Jack seemed to know the twists and turns better than they did that way. So did the men pursuing them, however, and when Jack pulled them to a halt with a mutter of "Time for a new plan, mates," no one seemed inclined to argue with him.
Except James. "What, a flight up along the rooftops? With Elizabeth along?"
He had a point; pirate or not, she hadn't much experience with rooftop escapes by moonlight, though she'd no doubt Jack had. But she wasn't about to admit that out loud, so she was thankful when Jack said, "No, not up. Down," whatever that meant, although he looked rather more smug than she liked to see, in saying it.
Still, she wasn't quite prepared for the dark hole that gaped up at her from a shadowed and dubious side street. Jack, having kicked aside the rusted grating that concealed it, made a sweeping gesture as if inviting her into his parlor, spider to fly.
"What's down there?" she asked, suddenly wishing she'd given more thought to the idea of rooftops while she'd had the chance.
"Tunnels," said Jack. "Caves. Secret passages. All the stuff that pirate tales are made of. I'd draw you a map to go with it, but we haven't time. Nor a pen, if it comes to that."
"I suppose it can't be worse than being shot," James said. Elizabeth looked at him in surprise; he caught the look, but only lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug and turned to scramble down into the darkness. A second later she heard a splash and a sputter. "On second thought," his voice floated up, "maybe it could."
"Too late," said Jack, with what sounded like satisfaction, and yanked her forward when she hung back. "Down you go, Lizzie."
"Jack-"
"Go," he growled, and dropped quickly down after her, pausing only to pull the grate back over their heads, leaving them in near-blackness and up to their waists in slimy water that smelled far less than clean. Elizabeth shuddered, holding tight to Jack's arm, any last vestiges of pride forgotten. She couldn't see a thing, and he seemed the one to hang onto just now. She hoped he wasn't just making this up as they went along, however likely that seemed.
"Now what?" she said, annoyed to find that her voice shook a bit.
"Trust me," Jack said, and his hand found hers in the dark, and squeezed it. "I've been here before. I know the way out."
Coming from Jack, a directive to trust him inspired about as much confidence as a declaration prefaced by "honestly…"; but oddly, she found she mostly did, and anyway she hadn't much choice. He moved forward surely enough, though it was heavy slogging through the dank water. Elizabeth groped for the dim bulk that was James on her other side, and caught his hand as well. He hesitated for a moment, then wrapped his fingers around hers, and they went on like that, linked together; she soon stopped trying to keep track of which direction they traveled, following Jack blindly through the convoluted maze of chambers and passages. It was a kind of trust, she supposed, if born of necessity.
"Are these really pirate caves?" she said, after awhile, when their path seemed to smooth out a bit and she could focus on something other than their slippery, uneven footing. "In Port Royal?"
"Don't you know your history, love? This used to be a roaring buccaneer town before our mutual bloody friend and his bloody Navy vendetta arrived and ruined it for everyone."
"Everyone, that is, save all honest citizens and seafarers," said James. "Are you sure you know where you're going, Sparrow?"
Jack had paused; he seemed to be gathering his bearings, or perhaps looking for some landmark, though Elizabeth couldn't imagine what might act as one down here, where she couldn't see much past her own nose. "Trust me," he said again, but this time he sounded less than certain; he dropped Elizabeth's hand, running his fingers over the wall in front of him. She reached blindly out towards it to keep her balance, and her palm passed over something smooth, cool, rounded: bone. A skull, set in a small alcove. She snatched back her hand, suppressing a shriek.
"Steady on, Bess," Jack said. "They're only bones."
"Only!" she said, with a little gasp.
"Not the kind that get up and walk around, at least."
"Remains of fellow fugitives who found themselves as lost as we, I take it?" James' tone held rather more sarcasm than the words demanded, which meant he was spooked, too. Elizabeth drew his arm through hers, although she didn't know which of them she was trying to reassure.
"With the minor caveat that we're not lost." Jack's voice seemed to be moving up the wall; there were scrabbling noises, then a grunt of effort and a clatter of wood against stone. A tiny glimmer of light suddenly shone down from above them; or perhaps not light so much as a slightly lesser concentration of darkness. "Come on, then," he said, disembodied. "Unless you want to keep poor Yorick company."
"There's a ladder," James said suddenly, and helped her find it. She scrambled upwards; it was only the rotting pieces of a ladder, really, and it swayed alarmingly, but before she could panic she felt Jack's hands close around hers again, pulling her the rest of the way into what seemed to be a wide, dusty, and blessedly dry chamber.
"There we are, then," Jack said. He had located flint and tinder and busied himself in lighting the stub of an ancient tallow candle. After a moment, a little flame wavered and swelled, casting a meager kind of light that sunk the shadowy recesses beyond its reach into deeper shadow. Elizabeth reached down to help James struggle up behind her; Jack seemed disinclined to even acknowledge the other man's presence, but when James was through, he slid the trap door closed, then stared at it for a moment, frowning, before pushing a large crate over it to weight it down. There seemed to be quite a few crates here, stacked and scattered.
"Where are we?" James sounded irritable, perhaps because Jack was ignoring him or merely because the pirate had been right. Elizabeth, glancing between them in the uncertain light, began to wonder how much longer the two of them would put up with one another. It worried her, now that she had an opportunity to worry about something beyond the immediate problem of getting away.
"Smuggler's lair," said Jack, as if it were obvious. "When the water rises, like it's rising now, the passage floods-"
"Yes, I see," James said. He was soaked to the skin and filthy; they all were. The candlelight threw the lines of his face into cruel relief and hollowed Jack's eyes and cheeks, and she guessed it was not much kinder to her bruised eye or the hair falling in lank damp tangles from her queue. They looked like smugglers, or some other low and desperate breed of criminal. In fact, they were hardly better, she thought. It wasn't a cold night, but she found herself shivering in her wet clothes; she thought James might be too.
"No one can follow us, thanks to the tide," Jack said. "When she goes out, we'll slip out too, to the harbor. It's not far, and it'll be daylight by then."
"Daylight will be a long time yet," said James. He squinted around them at the jumble of crates and cases. "Do you think any of this is food?"
"Worth investigating," Jack said, as if possessed of an unlikely and boundless energy that Elizabeth, noting an unusual paucity of gesture, doubted nonetheless. He disappeared into the shadows; there was a noise of rummaging and opening boxes. A strong scent of nutmegs floated back to Elizabeth where she sat, huddled, on the floor. James occupied himself in exploring some of the nearer cases; after a few minutes, he gave a short laugh of surprise.
"What is it?" Elizabeth asked. The smell of the nutmegs was making her hungry; she couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten, let alone a proper meal.
"Champagne," he said. "Expensive, too. French."
"It'll do," she said, smiling a little. "I suppose we may as well celebrate."
James gave her an odd look. "Celebrate what?"
"Being alive?" she suggested. It seemed reasonable enough to her. She thought of mentioning freedom, but the word sounded mawkish to her so long as they were trapped here, and she wasn't sure James would know exactly what she meant.
"The end of my career," James said morosely. "Again."
"You didn't really want a career with Beckett," she said softly, watching him.
"No," and she saw a tremor pass over him. "Elizabeth," he said, low. "I didn't know. I was told it was fever, not treachery."
It took her a moment to follow his thought, and another before she could answer steadily. "So you knew he was dead," she said, listening to the echo of the words dropping heavy and flat from her mouth like stones. Three small syllables; too much, too real, but she could no more take them back than she could change the thing they signified. "Were you going to tell me? Before…?"
"I hardly had time to think of how," he said, wry-faced. "The pistol you had trained between my eyes was rather more salient to my mind at the time." He sought her gaze, speaking earnestly now. "I am sorry, Elizabeth. For what it's worth."
"It's worth a great deal," she said slowly. "I had supposed…"
"You supposed I had something to do with it." His tone had gone bleak. "Why not say it? It's not as if I had entertained much hope that you might still think well of me."
"I didn't know what to think of you anymore," she said. "Any more than you know what to think of me, I expect. But I was wrong, James." She offered him as much of a smile as she could muster, to spite the cold that gripped her inside and out. "I'm glad I was wrong."
His own smile twisted a bit, but she saw a warming spark in his eyes, something else reclaimed of what she'd lost. "Elizabeth," he said; but Jack reemerged from the darkness then, arms laden, and he fell silent.
"No food to be had, I'm afraid," Jack said. Elizabeth wondered if he had been listening to their quiet conversation; if he had, he gave no sign of it, which she thought would be unlike him, to leave unseized a chance to fluster James. "But I found this," and he unrolled a long bolt of fabric with a flourish and threw it about Elizabeth's shoulders. Silk brocade, she discovered with some amusement, tucking it around herself.
"All right, Bess?" he said softly, and again she wondered what he'd heard. She nodded; his fingers trailed across her shoulder, as if by accident, and he dropped to the floor to sprawl beside her negligently, though the stiffness of the movement and his slight grunt of discomfort ruined the effect somewhat. "How's that eye of yours?"
She grimaced. "It hurts a bit."
"I thought it might," he said, raising his voice. "You're developing a very pretty shiner, courtesy of our Admiral, here."
James had the grace to appear uncomfortable. "Come off it, Sparrow," he said. "It's not as if I hit her."
"Of course not," Jack said, with heavy sarcasm. "A commanding officer can't be held responsible for the actions of his men."
James shot him a furious look. Elizabeth lifted a hand, gingerly exploring the tender, swollen spot over her cheekbone. "Does it look very awful?"
"Terrifyin'," Jack said gravely. "Makes you look quite fierce. Piratical. More than usual, I mean."
This time, her smile came easier; perhaps the chill in her bones and in her soul had begun to recede. "A sight to strike fear into the hearts of men?"
"Just so," he said, and slipped an arm around her as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
She suspected this was at least in part another way of tweaking James, but she let him do it anyway. "You don't seem too repelled, however."
"Not in the least," he agreed. "'M a braver man than most, you see."
"And a most upstanding gentleman, with your hands all over the lady." James seated himself on a crate at the edge of their little circle of light, eyeing them discontentedly; he had somehow managed to open a bottle of champagne, and he took a long pull from it as if it were something far stronger.
"Never said I was a gentleman," Jack said. "And I don't hear the lady objecting."
"It's all right, James," Elizabeth said, but she moved away from Jack, repentant of her complicity in his game of Poke Norrington. Just as, in the cell, she had been grateful to Jack for being Jack, it reassured her somehow that, at least in this one way, James stayed James, trying to preserve her virtue even now. Perhaps he couldn't think of what else to do, in a circumstance so far beyond his ken. "Besides, I think you count as a proper chaperone."
"More like a proper fool," James said, bitterly. He handed the champagne off to Elizabeth, who swigged it gratefully before passing it to Jack.
"Hear, hear," Jack said. "At least you're a proper something, mate. This is some very fine champagne," he added, with an appreciative whistle. "When it comes to the pleasures of life, one must admit those French do know what they're about."
James wiped the lip of the bottle assiduously before he drank, with a glance to Jack as if making sure the pirate noticed. "And what do you know of the finer things in life, Sparrow, other than what you can steal or swindle from their rightful owners?" His eyes flicked towards Elizabeth as he spoke; she raised her brows at the implication and plucked the now half-empty champagne bottle from his unsuspecting hand.
"I prefer the term 'liberate'," Jack said. "If fools can't hold onto what's theirs, they don't deserve to keep it."
Elizabeth, watching them idly, took advantage of their inattention to avail herself of several long sips of the sweet, effervescent wine. They almost seemed to be enjoying themselves, she thought; then, struck by the absurdity of it--and perhaps because she had been so close to tears only minutes ago--she began to giggle helplessly. Both men broke off and turned to look at her with identical expressions of affront and alarm, which only made her laugh harder.
"I fail to see what is so funny," James said.
"It's the champagne," Jack said, relieving her of it. "It's gone straight to her head. Lizzie, darling, do get hold of yourself. Or if you are planning on having hysterics, don't count on me stopping you. I'm in no state, and may simply join you. Jamie here will have to slap sense back into both of us."
"I'm sorry," she said, breathless, over the choked noise James made at Jack's impertinent nickname. "It's just…champagne and silk, and us. It's too ridiculous."
"The life of a pirate," said Jack, grinning at her. "Nice, ain't it?"
"Delightful," James deadpanned, but his old smirk surfaced momentarily as he held the champagne out to Elizabeth again. She took it, acutely and abruptly conscious of how her fingers brushed against his as she curled them around the neck, and again against Jack's as she passed it on, as if some kind of charge or tension between the three of them grounded itself in her. Fatigue and the alcohol must have affected her strangely, she decided. Still, when the champagne was gone and they arranged themselves to rest and wait for dawn, she curled up next to Jack-for warmth, she told herself-and felt James settle himself on her other side, not touching her but near enough for her to sense his heat, too, at her back, and take comfort in it. She felt safe there, between them; safer than she'd felt in a long time, at least, and more at home, no matter how incongruous their situation.
Even so, she could not sleep. The frantic energy that had coursed through her during their headlong flight had drained out of her and left her both nervy and enervated; she found herself aware of every inch of her skin, of every small movement either man made beside her, each point of contact and near-contact stirring a raw craving she only half-understood. When their candle-end guttered and went out, she shifted fractionally in the darkness until she lay flush against Jack; he turned to accommodate her, skimming his hand down her side to splay it proprietarily over her hip, his knee insinuating itself between her thighs. She drew a sharp breath at this and pressed closer still, laying her fingers lightly over his mouth to forestall the soft noise he made in his throat.
It felt so incredibly easy and natural to cross this line with Jack, the line over which she'd tried to draw Will, time and time again, during their prolonged engagement; that distance she'd so wanted to close had only widened during Jack's…absence, and even more after his return. She had disappointed her fiancé, she knew, and broken his trust, and he had begun to treat her like the stranger she supposed she must be to him, not the woman he'd thought she was. Not a good woman, neither sweet nor gentle nor modest. A murderer. A kisser of pirates.
Well, if that was what she was, she might as well enjoy her wickedness.
"What are you doing?" James demanded; of course he would choose this moment to take his assigned role as proper chaperone to heart.
"Just getting comfortable," Jack's lips brushed Elizabeth's hand as he spoke. "I suggest you do the same."
"Ah, good. Which of you shall I brazenly sidle up to, then?"
"What's your pleasure?" Jack said. "Plenty of room on this side, if you like."
"Lord! Listen to him," said James. "Elizabeth, it's bad enough that you consider this man a friend, but why you would allow him to touch you so-"
"Oh, please," Elizabeth said, unreasonably irritated. "It's cold."
"Conservation of body heat," Jack said. "Very sensible survival tactic, mate. Far more sensible than you, I daresay. Do you honestly expect me to ravish her right here in front of you?"
"I wouldn't put it past you," James grumbled.
Elizabeth wouldn't have, either; she stumbled over the thought, the utter indecency of it sending a shock through her that was not entirely unpleasant. James Norrington watching as Jack…
Oh, God. She was completely depraved, and while James lay by fretting about her safety, too. Little did he know. But she said, "You worry too much, James," and rolled halfway back towards him, taking his hand as she had in the tunnels; Jack, seeing this, tightened his arm around her, leaning his head on her shoulder.
They really were ridiculous, the both of them; and she was aware, with sudden clarity, that she acted as a buffer between them as well as a point of contention, just as surely as she lay physically between them. But the danger of confrontation seemed to have passed, for Jack's breathing soon changed against her neck, and James' hand loosened in hers. She tried to fall asleep herself, but each time she started to drop off, some perverse instinct snapped her back to consciousness; and when she had just begun to really drowse at last, Jack twitched convulsively, gasped, and woke up, and she knew he had been dreaming again.
She stroked his shoulder tentatively, feeling tension quiver through him. "Jack," she said softly. "Are you all right?"
A dim glow of reflected moonlight had begun to trickle in from some unseen crack in the ceiling, and she could make out the whites of his eyes, wide and staring. His voice sounded too flat and hoarse, not his own. "I'll be right as rain, love," he said. "Just as soon as I get some sleep."
"You were sleeping."
"No, I wasn't," he said, and then, as if to forestall further argument, he tilted up his head and kissed her.
They had not kissed since the day he had died, but somehow, deep down, she had known this would happen and had been waiting for it, determined that she would make them both forget that first time as quickly as possible, and remember this one. His mouth was hard on hers, and hungry, and she responded in kind, feeling something break loose inside her at the way they fit together, a heated rush of need and relief and a fierce affection for this man, whom she had both killed and journeyed to Hell to recover. That made him hers in a way, however twisted, and made her his; somehow, at least, they had become each other's.
She slid her hands up under his shirt, incautious with the desire to make this count, to show him how much it counted while she had the chance. But the skin of his spare-muscled back was ridged and knotted, crosshatched by hardened scars, and her fingers staggered over them and slowed. "Oh, Jack," she said, distressed.
"No need to sound so stricken, Bess," he said. "I've carried those a long time. They don't hurt."
She touched them lightly, tracing the cruel signature of the lash. Men died from beatings less vicious than this one must have been. "Why…?"
"Farewell present from an old friend," Jack said. "He wanted me to have something to remember him by. Not very pretty, but it's the thought that counts."
"If they were pretty at all," she said, burying her face in the crook of his neck, breathing him in, "you might be unbearably beautiful."
"Unbearably, eh?" His mouth was hot on her ear, and he nipped at the lobe, a sharp kind of pleasure that she felt elsewhere as well, as an aching pulse of need between her legs. "I won't forget you've said that, my dear."
"Of course you won't." She expected no less of him; that was them, that was how it went. The dance, the game. "It's perfect ammunition."
He raised his head; she thought he might be frowning. "You know, Lizzie," he said, "I'm not just trying to prove I can win."
She heard a note of…something in his tone that she couldn't identify, but she said lightly, "I didn't think you ever stopped."
"I don't," he said, and she slipped her hand downward, deliberately brushing the straining bulge in the front of his breeches. He hissed, grinding into her hand, his lips trailing the sensitive line of her jaw. "Do you ever?" She was gratified by the way his voice shook, just a bit.
"Not usually," but she did this time, wondering if this was fair, if it would always be as it had been that day for them, if she was using him even now to his destruction. "Jack, I'm sorry-"
"No, you're not," he said, and kissed her deep and long, plundering her mouth with his tongue until he pulled an involuntary moan from the back of her throat; his hands roved boldly over her to cup her breasts as he rolled atop her. She gave herself up, angling her hips so that she could feel his hardness where she wanted it, even through two layers of clothes; could feel them both shudder as she arched against him. If they both lost, she thought hazily, that was like both of them winning.
"A proper pirate's never sorry," Jack said, when they came up for air. His clever fingers had found the tie on her breeches and were working it loose; she gasped a little at their dance across the seam.
"Oh, for God's sake," James burst out then, and they both froze, heads snapping round. "Does a proper pirate ever shut up?"
"We thought you were asleep," Elizabeth ventured after a moment, suppressing a laugh and a curse, her whole skin crying out for Jack to go on touching her. "You were eavesdropping?"
"I was asleep," James said. "And it's not eavesdropping when you're right here."
"Gets you going, does it?" Jack said, nastily. "I know how you feel about me, James, darling. No one pursues a man across the seven seas and straight into a hurricane merely to satisfy his sense of justice, however overdeveloped."
"Go to hell, Sparrow." The words were muffled, but Elizabeth heard an underlying note of misery and fury. It would almost seem that Jack had scored a point, though she could hardly say how.
"I've been," Jack said, and proceeded to kiss Elizabeth enthusiastically; she should have pushed him away, she knew, but her body had other ideas, and--distracted somewhat by the implications of his crude suggestion and James' curious response--she let it and Jack conspire to have their way.
"And stop that," said James, though it was unclear for which of them the order was meant, if not both.
"There's no call for jealousy, mate," Jack said, smirking over Elizabeth at James like a cat in cream. "I'd be happy to give you a kiss too, if you like."
"Jack," Elizabeth said. There was something odd, too, in his tone, in his apparent resolve to discover just how far he could push James before the other man broke and tried to murder him. Had he forgotten that James was the only one of them with a sword, or did he expect that Elizabeth's presence would be enough to protect him? She rather doubted the latter--unless he planned to use her as a human shield, willing or otherwise--and didn't much want to find out.
"I imagine you would," James said, sitting up; she realized, mildly affronted, that both of them had ceased to pay her any mind.
"Why bother imagining?" Jack answered. "The real thing's ever so much better," and his grin flashed even in that gloom as he leaned across Elizabeth and kissed James full and hard on the mouth.
Oh. And there it was, the thing she'd been missing between them. It hadn't occurred to her that their active dislike might be hiding something else.
"Feel free to join in," Jack said when he had pulled back, sounding amused and altogether pleased with himself, as if he had won that round. "I'll even let you be on top."
Elizabeth looked from one to the other, dazed. She knew from ribald stories overheard on the Pearl and books she'd been forbidden to read that men did such things, particularly at sea. But she had never thought of James doing them. One felt that Jack, on the other hand, might do anything; and he seemed inclined to do so now, here, right in front of her.
And, startlingly, so did James. "I expect you will let me," he said, thick-voiced. "I expect that's just the sort of thing you like."
Moving aside as James climbed over her to get at Jack, she felt a sudden flare of the desire that Jack had already stoked into a slow burn in her veins. And it was, at least, a better alternative than the two of them killing each other. But there was nothing gentle in the way James pushed Jack's head down, fumbling with his own breeches and then tearing at Jack's, exposing his backside. He must truly hate Jack, and want him badly, too, and hate him all the more because he wanted him; and having sent the man to his death herself for some of the same reasons, Elizabeth thought she understood that.
"Come on then," Jack said, through his teeth; Elizabeth saw, shockingly, James' cock pressed hard against Jack's arse and knew vaguely what they meant to do, but she was not prepared for the brutality with which James drove himself home, nor for the raw pain that flashed across Jack's face before fading to a sort of focused blankness. But perhaps this was how it always was with men.
She molded herself to Jack's side, tangling her hands in his hair, feeling the force of James' thrusts vibrate through his body. James' eyes were closed, and he panted, groaning, as he pounded into Jack. It came to her suddenly that Jack had goaded the Navy man to his breaking point, just as he'd meant to, and though James had taken the dominant position, Jack had all the control between them, his own and what he'd taken from James as well. That must be why he would let James do such a thing. She wondered if James knew it, or if he was past caring.
To her relief, it wasn't long before James finished, his face slackening; he cursed and collapsed forward, and she stroked the dark, sweat-damp hair at the back of his neck as she had stroked Jack's a moment ago, pressing her lips to Jack's shoulder. But Jack shrugged them both off, turning over, and Elizabeth watched, fascinated, as James took hold of him, his hand moving roughly on Jack's cock. Jack closed his eyes, his expression still caught somewhere between discomfort and pleasure; she leaned down to kiss him, slow and lingering, tasting him gently to make up for James' ungentle touch.
"He's nothing but a cheap whore," James said harshly; he wouldn't look at her, shamed or disgusted. "And you still want him?"
"I always have," Elizabeth said, but it was to Jack she spoke, her arms around him, mouth against his. "What does that make me, then?"
James' head came up sharply, but before he could answer her Jack said, abruptly, "Oh, hell. I can't-not for him-" and jerked away from James' hand; he buried his head in the crook of Elizabeth's shoulder, breathing hard, and she held him, feeling him tremble. "I need you," he muttered. "Sweet Bess…God help me, I need-"
"Then have me," she said, her own breath catching on the words, her fingers shaking as she unfastened her breeches, pushing them down and kicking them away. Somewhere far off she heard James say, "Oh, Lord," but he wasn't stopping them. She thought if he tried, she might have to kill him herself. She had lost too much, and she wanted this too badly, Jack's mouth hot and wet at her collarbone, one of his hands on her breast through her thin shirt, the other sliding down to the inside of her exposed thigh. His naked cock throbbed hot and hard against her belly, smooth skin on skin, and she bucked her hips up, rubbing her sex along his length, desperate for him now.
"Elizabeth," he said and stilled, lifting his eyes to hers; and she saw nakedness there too, desire of course, but something else, deeper and utterly unguarded, that left her shaken. "There'll be no coming back from this, love."
"I know," she said. But they had already passed that point, a long time ago, when she had brought him back; when she had killed him; or before that, perhaps, when he had saved her from death by drowning, cut her corset strings and changed the heading of her life forever.
"You really want me to," he said, as if he didn't quite dare to believe her.
"Yes," her whole body aching with it, her own need and the knowledge of his. His face changed, then, and he drew away to lie beside her, leaving her bereft and indignant for a moment until he pulled her on top of him. She straddled him, poised to take him in, and he ran his hands up under her shirt, along her sides, then back to grip her flanks.
"I'll have to hurt you, Lizzie-girl," he said softly. "I can't help that."
"I don't care," she said, sinking down onto him, bright pain like splitting open, like the green flash at the end of the world; and then he filled her, rolling his hips slightly beneath her, and her world shrank to only this, to the sensation of Jack inside her. His gaze never shifted from her face; his hands tightened bruisingly on her, but he let her set their rhythm, and the splintering ache began to fade, mingling with a building pleasure so deep that it was almost painful, too. Except she wanted more of it, still more of him, and she moved faster, her head dropping back, unable to check the wanton sounds that rose in her throat until ecstasy broke over her like a wave and broke her too, her own voice echoing in her ears like a seabird's cry.
He was lifting her off of him before she could put herself wholly together again, urging her to use her hands, and she remembered what James had tried to do for him and did the same, feeling him pulse in the circle of her fingers. He closed his own fingers over hers, showing her what he wanted; she gripped him more firmly, as if wringing him out, and he said her name once-"Bess"-and stiffened, his seed spilling hot over her hand. They lay together, boneless and panting; after a few moments he pulled her close to him, his fingers twining caressingly through her hair. Elizabeth felt about her and retrieved her silk covering, wrapping it around both of them.
"I can't believe you," James said from Jack's other side; Elizabeth started. She had almost forgotten he was still there.
"Can't believe who?" she said tartly. "Me, or Jack?"
"Either," James said. "Both. I don't know."
"You're the one who thought buggering me would impress the lady," Jack said, and James made an anguished noise, falling silent.
"It's all right, you know," Elizabeth said. "But I would rather the two of you stopped trying to take each other apart."
"I'm sorry," James said, and sounded it; Elizabeth reached over Jack to pat his arm.
"You should sleep," she said, and he gripped her fingers briefly, as if in gratitude; for what, she had no idea. She settled against Jack; his eyes had drifted shut, and he was either already asleep or close to it. Listening as both men's breathing quickly grew deep and even, she too slept at last, lulled by the sound as if by the ebb and flow of distant surf.
* * *
She woke finally to the graying of darkness as dim predawn light filtered into their hideout, the chill of early morning creeping in with it. The two men still slept beside her; she smiled slightly to see that James had draped an arm over Jack's waist at some point in the night, and then shook her head, imagining how he'd react if he woke in such a position.
Jack stirred, his own arm tightening around her; she pushed at it gently, trying to extricate herself without waking him completely.
"'Lizbeth," he mumbled, and then his eyes snapped open. "What…?"
"Hush," she said. "It's morning, or it will be soon."
"Tide's gone down, then. I should go out and look for the Pearl." But he didn't move. "Sweetheart, I'm about done," he said. "I haven't got much left to go on with."
"I know," she said. "Don't worry. I'll get us through this next part." She slipped out from under his arm and found her crumpled breeches where she'd tossed them earlier, aware of Jack's eyes on her as she slid them on. James' sword lay close by in its baldric; after a moment's consideration, she buckled it on over her coat.
"Thievery, eh?" Jack said. "Your corruption continues apace."
"He won't miss it before I get back," she said. "And I learn from the best."
He frowned. "I didn't mean for it to happen this way, Lizzie."
"I can't imagine any of us did," she said, pulling on her still-damp boots.
"Are you sorry?"
"A proper pirate isn't ever sorry." Maybe she would be, later, when she had to explain to Will that he'd been wrong about her, except lately, when he'd been right. But she wouldn't think about that now, not yet. "I'm going down to the harbor to see if they've come for us," she said. "You can rest a bit longer," and she knelt to kiss him quickly. He made a small noise of surprise, trailing the backs of his knuckles over her cheek and down to the swell of her breast.
"We're not pretending it didn't happen, then," he said.
"I can't exactly, can I?" she said, but she laid her hand over his. "I don't want to pretend anymore, Jack."
"I'd wager he does, though," Jack said, rolling his eyes towards James.
"Yes, well," she said. "He's better at it than I am." She sat back on her heels. "Poor James. I wonder what they did to him."
"I know what they did, if I know Beckett," Jack said, and she saw a shadow cross his face, like old pain remembered. "The lash. It's why he's kept his coat on."
"Beckett…" Elizabeth thought of the lines and furrows on Jack's back, under her fingers, the way James had flinched at her touch, how her father's face had faded into mist and shadows as she reached for him in that land beyond the world. A fierce anger rose up in her; when she could speak, she said, evenly, "I'm going to kill him."
"You do that, love," Jack said, and closed his eyes; and she took it as evidence of his fatigue that he made no reference to how she'd proved her mettle on him.
* * *
Outside, Elizabeth drew a breath of the sharp salt air blown in by the dawn breeze, allowing herself one glance towards the heights at the proud white mansion of the Colonial Governor, of her girlhood, small and remote now against the brightening sky.
In the thin, clean light the familiar harbor looked strange and new. But the world had not ended, after all, and it had hardly changed. It was she who was the changeling, here; and her gaze cast out to the sea, where the night's fog had begun to drift and break to reveal black spars and sails.
She smiled, and turned, and went to wake her men and lead them home.
Dancing at the End of the World: Part One
Author: erinya
Summary: At the end of everything she knew about the world and her place in it, she takes comfort in the ways these two men stay the same; and finds her place anew, between them.
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Pairing: James Norrington/Jack Sparrow/Elizabeth Swann
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Disney; the story and most of the really good lines belong to penknife.
Original story: Proper Pirates by penknife
Notes: Thanks to my two wonderful betas, geek_mama_2 and djarum99, for great feedback and also for holding my hand and telling me this didn't suck. All errors and anachronisms in the text are neither theirs nor penknife's but purely my own.
Dancing at the End of the World: Part One
Dancing at the End of the World
(Proper Pirates Extended Dance Remix II)
This was-had been-her city, and James', but the streets looked different by moonlight and Jack seemed to know the twists and turns better than they did that way. So did the men pursuing them, however, and when Jack pulled them to a halt with a mutter of "Time for a new plan, mates," no one seemed inclined to argue with him.
Except James. "What, a flight up along the rooftops? With Elizabeth along?"
He had a point; pirate or not, she hadn't much experience with rooftop escapes by moonlight, though she'd no doubt Jack had. But she wasn't about to admit that out loud, so she was thankful when Jack said, "No, not up. Down," whatever that meant, although he looked rather more smug than she liked to see, in saying it.
Still, she wasn't quite prepared for the dark hole that gaped up at her from a shadowed and dubious side street. Jack, having kicked aside the rusted grating that concealed it, made a sweeping gesture as if inviting her into his parlor, spider to fly.
"What's down there?" she asked, suddenly wishing she'd given more thought to the idea of rooftops while she'd had the chance.
"Tunnels," said Jack. "Caves. Secret passages. All the stuff that pirate tales are made of. I'd draw you a map to go with it, but we haven't time. Nor a pen, if it comes to that."
"I suppose it can't be worse than being shot," James said. Elizabeth looked at him in surprise; he caught the look, but only lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug and turned to scramble down into the darkness. A second later she heard a splash and a sputter. "On second thought," his voice floated up, "maybe it could."
"Too late," said Jack, with what sounded like satisfaction, and yanked her forward when she hung back. "Down you go, Lizzie."
"Jack-"
"Go," he growled, and dropped quickly down after her, pausing only to pull the grate back over their heads, leaving them in near-blackness and up to their waists in slimy water that smelled far less than clean. Elizabeth shuddered, holding tight to Jack's arm, any last vestiges of pride forgotten. She couldn't see a thing, and he seemed the one to hang onto just now. She hoped he wasn't just making this up as they went along, however likely that seemed.
"Now what?" she said, annoyed to find that her voice shook a bit.
"Trust me," Jack said, and his hand found hers in the dark, and squeezed it. "I've been here before. I know the way out."
Coming from Jack, a directive to trust him inspired about as much confidence as a declaration prefaced by "honestly…"; but oddly, she found she mostly did, and anyway she hadn't much choice. He moved forward surely enough, though it was heavy slogging through the dank water. Elizabeth groped for the dim bulk that was James on her other side, and caught his hand as well. He hesitated for a moment, then wrapped his fingers around hers, and they went on like that, linked together; she soon stopped trying to keep track of which direction they traveled, following Jack blindly through the convoluted maze of chambers and passages. It was a kind of trust, she supposed, if born of necessity.
"Are these really pirate caves?" she said, after awhile, when their path seemed to smooth out a bit and she could focus on something other than their slippery, uneven footing. "In Port Royal?"
"Don't you know your history, love? This used to be a roaring buccaneer town before our mutual bloody friend and his bloody Navy vendetta arrived and ruined it for everyone."
"Everyone, that is, save all honest citizens and seafarers," said James. "Are you sure you know where you're going, Sparrow?"
Jack had paused; he seemed to be gathering his bearings, or perhaps looking for some landmark, though Elizabeth couldn't imagine what might act as one down here, where she couldn't see much past her own nose. "Trust me," he said again, but this time he sounded less than certain; he dropped Elizabeth's hand, running his fingers over the wall in front of him. She reached blindly out towards it to keep her balance, and her palm passed over something smooth, cool, rounded: bone. A skull, set in a small alcove. She snatched back her hand, suppressing a shriek.
"Steady on, Bess," Jack said. "They're only bones."
"Only!" she said, with a little gasp.
"Not the kind that get up and walk around, at least."
"Remains of fellow fugitives who found themselves as lost as we, I take it?" James' tone held rather more sarcasm than the words demanded, which meant he was spooked, too. Elizabeth drew his arm through hers, although she didn't know which of them she was trying to reassure.
"With the minor caveat that we're not lost." Jack's voice seemed to be moving up the wall; there were scrabbling noises, then a grunt of effort and a clatter of wood against stone. A tiny glimmer of light suddenly shone down from above them; or perhaps not light so much as a slightly lesser concentration of darkness. "Come on, then," he said, disembodied. "Unless you want to keep poor Yorick company."
"There's a ladder," James said suddenly, and helped her find it. She scrambled upwards; it was only the rotting pieces of a ladder, really, and it swayed alarmingly, but before she could panic she felt Jack's hands close around hers again, pulling her the rest of the way into what seemed to be a wide, dusty, and blessedly dry chamber.
"There we are, then," Jack said. He had located flint and tinder and busied himself in lighting the stub of an ancient tallow candle. After a moment, a little flame wavered and swelled, casting a meager kind of light that sunk the shadowy recesses beyond its reach into deeper shadow. Elizabeth reached down to help James struggle up behind her; Jack seemed disinclined to even acknowledge the other man's presence, but when James was through, he slid the trap door closed, then stared at it for a moment, frowning, before pushing a large crate over it to weight it down. There seemed to be quite a few crates here, stacked and scattered.
"Where are we?" James sounded irritable, perhaps because Jack was ignoring him or merely because the pirate had been right. Elizabeth, glancing between them in the uncertain light, began to wonder how much longer the two of them would put up with one another. It worried her, now that she had an opportunity to worry about something beyond the immediate problem of getting away.
"Smuggler's lair," said Jack, as if it were obvious. "When the water rises, like it's rising now, the passage floods-"
"Yes, I see," James said. He was soaked to the skin and filthy; they all were. The candlelight threw the lines of his face into cruel relief and hollowed Jack's eyes and cheeks, and she guessed it was not much kinder to her bruised eye or the hair falling in lank damp tangles from her queue. They looked like smugglers, or some other low and desperate breed of criminal. In fact, they were hardly better, she thought. It wasn't a cold night, but she found herself shivering in her wet clothes; she thought James might be too.
"No one can follow us, thanks to the tide," Jack said. "When she goes out, we'll slip out too, to the harbor. It's not far, and it'll be daylight by then."
"Daylight will be a long time yet," said James. He squinted around them at the jumble of crates and cases. "Do you think any of this is food?"
"Worth investigating," Jack said, as if possessed of an unlikely and boundless energy that Elizabeth, noting an unusual paucity of gesture, doubted nonetheless. He disappeared into the shadows; there was a noise of rummaging and opening boxes. A strong scent of nutmegs floated back to Elizabeth where she sat, huddled, on the floor. James occupied himself in exploring some of the nearer cases; after a few minutes, he gave a short laugh of surprise.
"What is it?" Elizabeth asked. The smell of the nutmegs was making her hungry; she couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten, let alone a proper meal.
"Champagne," he said. "Expensive, too. French."
"It'll do," she said, smiling a little. "I suppose we may as well celebrate."
James gave her an odd look. "Celebrate what?"
"Being alive?" she suggested. It seemed reasonable enough to her. She thought of mentioning freedom, but the word sounded mawkish to her so long as they were trapped here, and she wasn't sure James would know exactly what she meant.
"The end of my career," James said morosely. "Again."
"You didn't really want a career with Beckett," she said softly, watching him.
"No," and she saw a tremor pass over him. "Elizabeth," he said, low. "I didn't know. I was told it was fever, not treachery."
It took her a moment to follow his thought, and another before she could answer steadily. "So you knew he was dead," she said, listening to the echo of the words dropping heavy and flat from her mouth like stones. Three small syllables; too much, too real, but she could no more take them back than she could change the thing they signified. "Were you going to tell me? Before…?"
"I hardly had time to think of how," he said, wry-faced. "The pistol you had trained between my eyes was rather more salient to my mind at the time." He sought her gaze, speaking earnestly now. "I am sorry, Elizabeth. For what it's worth."
"It's worth a great deal," she said slowly. "I had supposed…"
"You supposed I had something to do with it." His tone had gone bleak. "Why not say it? It's not as if I had entertained much hope that you might still think well of me."
"I didn't know what to think of you anymore," she said. "Any more than you know what to think of me, I expect. But I was wrong, James." She offered him as much of a smile as she could muster, to spite the cold that gripped her inside and out. "I'm glad I was wrong."
His own smile twisted a bit, but she saw a warming spark in his eyes, something else reclaimed of what she'd lost. "Elizabeth," he said; but Jack reemerged from the darkness then, arms laden, and he fell silent.
"No food to be had, I'm afraid," Jack said. Elizabeth wondered if he had been listening to their quiet conversation; if he had, he gave no sign of it, which she thought would be unlike him, to leave unseized a chance to fluster James. "But I found this," and he unrolled a long bolt of fabric with a flourish and threw it about Elizabeth's shoulders. Silk brocade, she discovered with some amusement, tucking it around herself.
"All right, Bess?" he said softly, and again she wondered what he'd heard. She nodded; his fingers trailed across her shoulder, as if by accident, and he dropped to the floor to sprawl beside her negligently, though the stiffness of the movement and his slight grunt of discomfort ruined the effect somewhat. "How's that eye of yours?"
She grimaced. "It hurts a bit."
"I thought it might," he said, raising his voice. "You're developing a very pretty shiner, courtesy of our Admiral, here."
James had the grace to appear uncomfortable. "Come off it, Sparrow," he said. "It's not as if I hit her."
"Of course not," Jack said, with heavy sarcasm. "A commanding officer can't be held responsible for the actions of his men."
James shot him a furious look. Elizabeth lifted a hand, gingerly exploring the tender, swollen spot over her cheekbone. "Does it look very awful?"
"Terrifyin'," Jack said gravely. "Makes you look quite fierce. Piratical. More than usual, I mean."
This time, her smile came easier; perhaps the chill in her bones and in her soul had begun to recede. "A sight to strike fear into the hearts of men?"
"Just so," he said, and slipped an arm around her as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
She suspected this was at least in part another way of tweaking James, but she let him do it anyway. "You don't seem too repelled, however."
"Not in the least," he agreed. "'M a braver man than most, you see."
"And a most upstanding gentleman, with your hands all over the lady." James seated himself on a crate at the edge of their little circle of light, eyeing them discontentedly; he had somehow managed to open a bottle of champagne, and he took a long pull from it as if it were something far stronger.
"Never said I was a gentleman," Jack said. "And I don't hear the lady objecting."
"It's all right, James," Elizabeth said, but she moved away from Jack, repentant of her complicity in his game of Poke Norrington. Just as, in the cell, she had been grateful to Jack for being Jack, it reassured her somehow that, at least in this one way, James stayed James, trying to preserve her virtue even now. Perhaps he couldn't think of what else to do, in a circumstance so far beyond his ken. "Besides, I think you count as a proper chaperone."
"More like a proper fool," James said, bitterly. He handed the champagne off to Elizabeth, who swigged it gratefully before passing it to Jack.
"Hear, hear," Jack said. "At least you're a proper something, mate. This is some very fine champagne," he added, with an appreciative whistle. "When it comes to the pleasures of life, one must admit those French do know what they're about."
James wiped the lip of the bottle assiduously before he drank, with a glance to Jack as if making sure the pirate noticed. "And what do you know of the finer things in life, Sparrow, other than what you can steal or swindle from their rightful owners?" His eyes flicked towards Elizabeth as he spoke; she raised her brows at the implication and plucked the now half-empty champagne bottle from his unsuspecting hand.
"I prefer the term 'liberate'," Jack said. "If fools can't hold onto what's theirs, they don't deserve to keep it."
Elizabeth, watching them idly, took advantage of their inattention to avail herself of several long sips of the sweet, effervescent wine. They almost seemed to be enjoying themselves, she thought; then, struck by the absurdity of it--and perhaps because she had been so close to tears only minutes ago--she began to giggle helplessly. Both men broke off and turned to look at her with identical expressions of affront and alarm, which only made her laugh harder.
"I fail to see what is so funny," James said.
"It's the champagne," Jack said, relieving her of it. "It's gone straight to her head. Lizzie, darling, do get hold of yourself. Or if you are planning on having hysterics, don't count on me stopping you. I'm in no state, and may simply join you. Jamie here will have to slap sense back into both of us."
"I'm sorry," she said, breathless, over the choked noise James made at Jack's impertinent nickname. "It's just…champagne and silk, and us. It's too ridiculous."
"The life of a pirate," said Jack, grinning at her. "Nice, ain't it?"
"Delightful," James deadpanned, but his old smirk surfaced momentarily as he held the champagne out to Elizabeth again. She took it, acutely and abruptly conscious of how her fingers brushed against his as she curled them around the neck, and again against Jack's as she passed it on, as if some kind of charge or tension between the three of them grounded itself in her. Fatigue and the alcohol must have affected her strangely, she decided. Still, when the champagne was gone and they arranged themselves to rest and wait for dawn, she curled up next to Jack-for warmth, she told herself-and felt James settle himself on her other side, not touching her but near enough for her to sense his heat, too, at her back, and take comfort in it. She felt safe there, between them; safer than she'd felt in a long time, at least, and more at home, no matter how incongruous their situation.
Even so, she could not sleep. The frantic energy that had coursed through her during their headlong flight had drained out of her and left her both nervy and enervated; she found herself aware of every inch of her skin, of every small movement either man made beside her, each point of contact and near-contact stirring a raw craving she only half-understood. When their candle-end guttered and went out, she shifted fractionally in the darkness until she lay flush against Jack; he turned to accommodate her, skimming his hand down her side to splay it proprietarily over her hip, his knee insinuating itself between her thighs. She drew a sharp breath at this and pressed closer still, laying her fingers lightly over his mouth to forestall the soft noise he made in his throat.
It felt so incredibly easy and natural to cross this line with Jack, the line over which she'd tried to draw Will, time and time again, during their prolonged engagement; that distance she'd so wanted to close had only widened during Jack's…absence, and even more after his return. She had disappointed her fiancé, she knew, and broken his trust, and he had begun to treat her like the stranger she supposed she must be to him, not the woman he'd thought she was. Not a good woman, neither sweet nor gentle nor modest. A murderer. A kisser of pirates.
Well, if that was what she was, she might as well enjoy her wickedness.
"What are you doing?" James demanded; of course he would choose this moment to take his assigned role as proper chaperone to heart.
"Just getting comfortable," Jack's lips brushed Elizabeth's hand as he spoke. "I suggest you do the same."
"Ah, good. Which of you shall I brazenly sidle up to, then?"
"What's your pleasure?" Jack said. "Plenty of room on this side, if you like."
"Lord! Listen to him," said James. "Elizabeth, it's bad enough that you consider this man a friend, but why you would allow him to touch you so-"
"Oh, please," Elizabeth said, unreasonably irritated. "It's cold."
"Conservation of body heat," Jack said. "Very sensible survival tactic, mate. Far more sensible than you, I daresay. Do you honestly expect me to ravish her right here in front of you?"
"I wouldn't put it past you," James grumbled.
Elizabeth wouldn't have, either; she stumbled over the thought, the utter indecency of it sending a shock through her that was not entirely unpleasant. James Norrington watching as Jack…
Oh, God. She was completely depraved, and while James lay by fretting about her safety, too. Little did he know. But she said, "You worry too much, James," and rolled halfway back towards him, taking his hand as she had in the tunnels; Jack, seeing this, tightened his arm around her, leaning his head on her shoulder.
They really were ridiculous, the both of them; and she was aware, with sudden clarity, that she acted as a buffer between them as well as a point of contention, just as surely as she lay physically between them. But the danger of confrontation seemed to have passed, for Jack's breathing soon changed against her neck, and James' hand loosened in hers. She tried to fall asleep herself, but each time she started to drop off, some perverse instinct snapped her back to consciousness; and when she had just begun to really drowse at last, Jack twitched convulsively, gasped, and woke up, and she knew he had been dreaming again.
She stroked his shoulder tentatively, feeling tension quiver through him. "Jack," she said softly. "Are you all right?"
A dim glow of reflected moonlight had begun to trickle in from some unseen crack in the ceiling, and she could make out the whites of his eyes, wide and staring. His voice sounded too flat and hoarse, not his own. "I'll be right as rain, love," he said. "Just as soon as I get some sleep."
"You were sleeping."
"No, I wasn't," he said, and then, as if to forestall further argument, he tilted up his head and kissed her.
They had not kissed since the day he had died, but somehow, deep down, she had known this would happen and had been waiting for it, determined that she would make them both forget that first time as quickly as possible, and remember this one. His mouth was hard on hers, and hungry, and she responded in kind, feeling something break loose inside her at the way they fit together, a heated rush of need and relief and a fierce affection for this man, whom she had both killed and journeyed to Hell to recover. That made him hers in a way, however twisted, and made her his; somehow, at least, they had become each other's.
She slid her hands up under his shirt, incautious with the desire to make this count, to show him how much it counted while she had the chance. But the skin of his spare-muscled back was ridged and knotted, crosshatched by hardened scars, and her fingers staggered over them and slowed. "Oh, Jack," she said, distressed.
"No need to sound so stricken, Bess," he said. "I've carried those a long time. They don't hurt."
She touched them lightly, tracing the cruel signature of the lash. Men died from beatings less vicious than this one must have been. "Why…?"
"Farewell present from an old friend," Jack said. "He wanted me to have something to remember him by. Not very pretty, but it's the thought that counts."
"If they were pretty at all," she said, burying her face in the crook of his neck, breathing him in, "you might be unbearably beautiful."
"Unbearably, eh?" His mouth was hot on her ear, and he nipped at the lobe, a sharp kind of pleasure that she felt elsewhere as well, as an aching pulse of need between her legs. "I won't forget you've said that, my dear."
"Of course you won't." She expected no less of him; that was them, that was how it went. The dance, the game. "It's perfect ammunition."
He raised his head; she thought he might be frowning. "You know, Lizzie," he said, "I'm not just trying to prove I can win."
She heard a note of…something in his tone that she couldn't identify, but she said lightly, "I didn't think you ever stopped."
"I don't," he said, and she slipped her hand downward, deliberately brushing the straining bulge in the front of his breeches. He hissed, grinding into her hand, his lips trailing the sensitive line of her jaw. "Do you ever?" She was gratified by the way his voice shook, just a bit.
"Not usually," but she did this time, wondering if this was fair, if it would always be as it had been that day for them, if she was using him even now to his destruction. "Jack, I'm sorry-"
"No, you're not," he said, and kissed her deep and long, plundering her mouth with his tongue until he pulled an involuntary moan from the back of her throat; his hands roved boldly over her to cup her breasts as he rolled atop her. She gave herself up, angling her hips so that she could feel his hardness where she wanted it, even through two layers of clothes; could feel them both shudder as she arched against him. If they both lost, she thought hazily, that was like both of them winning.
"A proper pirate's never sorry," Jack said, when they came up for air. His clever fingers had found the tie on her breeches and were working it loose; she gasped a little at their dance across the seam.
"Oh, for God's sake," James burst out then, and they both froze, heads snapping round. "Does a proper pirate ever shut up?"
"We thought you were asleep," Elizabeth ventured after a moment, suppressing a laugh and a curse, her whole skin crying out for Jack to go on touching her. "You were eavesdropping?"
"I was asleep," James said. "And it's not eavesdropping when you're right here."
"Gets you going, does it?" Jack said, nastily. "I know how you feel about me, James, darling. No one pursues a man across the seven seas and straight into a hurricane merely to satisfy his sense of justice, however overdeveloped."
"Go to hell, Sparrow." The words were muffled, but Elizabeth heard an underlying note of misery and fury. It would almost seem that Jack had scored a point, though she could hardly say how.
"I've been," Jack said, and proceeded to kiss Elizabeth enthusiastically; she should have pushed him away, she knew, but her body had other ideas, and--distracted somewhat by the implications of his crude suggestion and James' curious response--she let it and Jack conspire to have their way.
"And stop that," said James, though it was unclear for which of them the order was meant, if not both.
"There's no call for jealousy, mate," Jack said, smirking over Elizabeth at James like a cat in cream. "I'd be happy to give you a kiss too, if you like."
"Jack," Elizabeth said. There was something odd, too, in his tone, in his apparent resolve to discover just how far he could push James before the other man broke and tried to murder him. Had he forgotten that James was the only one of them with a sword, or did he expect that Elizabeth's presence would be enough to protect him? She rather doubted the latter--unless he planned to use her as a human shield, willing or otherwise--and didn't much want to find out.
"I imagine you would," James said, sitting up; she realized, mildly affronted, that both of them had ceased to pay her any mind.
"Why bother imagining?" Jack answered. "The real thing's ever so much better," and his grin flashed even in that gloom as he leaned across Elizabeth and kissed James full and hard on the mouth.
Oh. And there it was, the thing she'd been missing between them. It hadn't occurred to her that their active dislike might be hiding something else.
"Feel free to join in," Jack said when he had pulled back, sounding amused and altogether pleased with himself, as if he had won that round. "I'll even let you be on top."
Elizabeth looked from one to the other, dazed. She knew from ribald stories overheard on the Pearl and books she'd been forbidden to read that men did such things, particularly at sea. But she had never thought of James doing them. One felt that Jack, on the other hand, might do anything; and he seemed inclined to do so now, here, right in front of her.
And, startlingly, so did James. "I expect you will let me," he said, thick-voiced. "I expect that's just the sort of thing you like."
Moving aside as James climbed over her to get at Jack, she felt a sudden flare of the desire that Jack had already stoked into a slow burn in her veins. And it was, at least, a better alternative than the two of them killing each other. But there was nothing gentle in the way James pushed Jack's head down, fumbling with his own breeches and then tearing at Jack's, exposing his backside. He must truly hate Jack, and want him badly, too, and hate him all the more because he wanted him; and having sent the man to his death herself for some of the same reasons, Elizabeth thought she understood that.
"Come on then," Jack said, through his teeth; Elizabeth saw, shockingly, James' cock pressed hard against Jack's arse and knew vaguely what they meant to do, but she was not prepared for the brutality with which James drove himself home, nor for the raw pain that flashed across Jack's face before fading to a sort of focused blankness. But perhaps this was how it always was with men.
She molded herself to Jack's side, tangling her hands in his hair, feeling the force of James' thrusts vibrate through his body. James' eyes were closed, and he panted, groaning, as he pounded into Jack. It came to her suddenly that Jack had goaded the Navy man to his breaking point, just as he'd meant to, and though James had taken the dominant position, Jack had all the control between them, his own and what he'd taken from James as well. That must be why he would let James do such a thing. She wondered if James knew it, or if he was past caring.
To her relief, it wasn't long before James finished, his face slackening; he cursed and collapsed forward, and she stroked the dark, sweat-damp hair at the back of his neck as she had stroked Jack's a moment ago, pressing her lips to Jack's shoulder. But Jack shrugged them both off, turning over, and Elizabeth watched, fascinated, as James took hold of him, his hand moving roughly on Jack's cock. Jack closed his eyes, his expression still caught somewhere between discomfort and pleasure; she leaned down to kiss him, slow and lingering, tasting him gently to make up for James' ungentle touch.
"He's nothing but a cheap whore," James said harshly; he wouldn't look at her, shamed or disgusted. "And you still want him?"
"I always have," Elizabeth said, but it was to Jack she spoke, her arms around him, mouth against his. "What does that make me, then?"
James' head came up sharply, but before he could answer her Jack said, abruptly, "Oh, hell. I can't-not for him-" and jerked away from James' hand; he buried his head in the crook of Elizabeth's shoulder, breathing hard, and she held him, feeling him tremble. "I need you," he muttered. "Sweet Bess…God help me, I need-"
"Then have me," she said, her own breath catching on the words, her fingers shaking as she unfastened her breeches, pushing them down and kicking them away. Somewhere far off she heard James say, "Oh, Lord," but he wasn't stopping them. She thought if he tried, she might have to kill him herself. She had lost too much, and she wanted this too badly, Jack's mouth hot and wet at her collarbone, one of his hands on her breast through her thin shirt, the other sliding down to the inside of her exposed thigh. His naked cock throbbed hot and hard against her belly, smooth skin on skin, and she bucked her hips up, rubbing her sex along his length, desperate for him now.
"Elizabeth," he said and stilled, lifting his eyes to hers; and she saw nakedness there too, desire of course, but something else, deeper and utterly unguarded, that left her shaken. "There'll be no coming back from this, love."
"I know," she said. But they had already passed that point, a long time ago, when she had brought him back; when she had killed him; or before that, perhaps, when he had saved her from death by drowning, cut her corset strings and changed the heading of her life forever.
"You really want me to," he said, as if he didn't quite dare to believe her.
"Yes," her whole body aching with it, her own need and the knowledge of his. His face changed, then, and he drew away to lie beside her, leaving her bereft and indignant for a moment until he pulled her on top of him. She straddled him, poised to take him in, and he ran his hands up under her shirt, along her sides, then back to grip her flanks.
"I'll have to hurt you, Lizzie-girl," he said softly. "I can't help that."
"I don't care," she said, sinking down onto him, bright pain like splitting open, like the green flash at the end of the world; and then he filled her, rolling his hips slightly beneath her, and her world shrank to only this, to the sensation of Jack inside her. His gaze never shifted from her face; his hands tightened bruisingly on her, but he let her set their rhythm, and the splintering ache began to fade, mingling with a building pleasure so deep that it was almost painful, too. Except she wanted more of it, still more of him, and she moved faster, her head dropping back, unable to check the wanton sounds that rose in her throat until ecstasy broke over her like a wave and broke her too, her own voice echoing in her ears like a seabird's cry.
He was lifting her off of him before she could put herself wholly together again, urging her to use her hands, and she remembered what James had tried to do for him and did the same, feeling him pulse in the circle of her fingers. He closed his own fingers over hers, showing her what he wanted; she gripped him more firmly, as if wringing him out, and he said her name once-"Bess"-and stiffened, his seed spilling hot over her hand. They lay together, boneless and panting; after a few moments he pulled her close to him, his fingers twining caressingly through her hair. Elizabeth felt about her and retrieved her silk covering, wrapping it around both of them.
"I can't believe you," James said from Jack's other side; Elizabeth started. She had almost forgotten he was still there.
"Can't believe who?" she said tartly. "Me, or Jack?"
"Either," James said. "Both. I don't know."
"You're the one who thought buggering me would impress the lady," Jack said, and James made an anguished noise, falling silent.
"It's all right, you know," Elizabeth said. "But I would rather the two of you stopped trying to take each other apart."
"I'm sorry," James said, and sounded it; Elizabeth reached over Jack to pat his arm.
"You should sleep," she said, and he gripped her fingers briefly, as if in gratitude; for what, she had no idea. She settled against Jack; his eyes had drifted shut, and he was either already asleep or close to it. Listening as both men's breathing quickly grew deep and even, she too slept at last, lulled by the sound as if by the ebb and flow of distant surf.
* * *
She woke finally to the graying of darkness as dim predawn light filtered into their hideout, the chill of early morning creeping in with it. The two men still slept beside her; she smiled slightly to see that James had draped an arm over Jack's waist at some point in the night, and then shook her head, imagining how he'd react if he woke in such a position.
Jack stirred, his own arm tightening around her; she pushed at it gently, trying to extricate herself without waking him completely.
"'Lizbeth," he mumbled, and then his eyes snapped open. "What…?"
"Hush," she said. "It's morning, or it will be soon."
"Tide's gone down, then. I should go out and look for the Pearl." But he didn't move. "Sweetheart, I'm about done," he said. "I haven't got much left to go on with."
"I know," she said. "Don't worry. I'll get us through this next part." She slipped out from under his arm and found her crumpled breeches where she'd tossed them earlier, aware of Jack's eyes on her as she slid them on. James' sword lay close by in its baldric; after a moment's consideration, she buckled it on over her coat.
"Thievery, eh?" Jack said. "Your corruption continues apace."
"He won't miss it before I get back," she said. "And I learn from the best."
He frowned. "I didn't mean for it to happen this way, Lizzie."
"I can't imagine any of us did," she said, pulling on her still-damp boots.
"Are you sorry?"
"A proper pirate isn't ever sorry." Maybe she would be, later, when she had to explain to Will that he'd been wrong about her, except lately, when he'd been right. But she wouldn't think about that now, not yet. "I'm going down to the harbor to see if they've come for us," she said. "You can rest a bit longer," and she knelt to kiss him quickly. He made a small noise of surprise, trailing the backs of his knuckles over her cheek and down to the swell of her breast.
"We're not pretending it didn't happen, then," he said.
"I can't exactly, can I?" she said, but she laid her hand over his. "I don't want to pretend anymore, Jack."
"I'd wager he does, though," Jack said, rolling his eyes towards James.
"Yes, well," she said. "He's better at it than I am." She sat back on her heels. "Poor James. I wonder what they did to him."
"I know what they did, if I know Beckett," Jack said, and she saw a shadow cross his face, like old pain remembered. "The lash. It's why he's kept his coat on."
"Beckett…" Elizabeth thought of the lines and furrows on Jack's back, under her fingers, the way James had flinched at her touch, how her father's face had faded into mist and shadows as she reached for him in that land beyond the world. A fierce anger rose up in her; when she could speak, she said, evenly, "I'm going to kill him."
"You do that, love," Jack said, and closed his eyes; and she took it as evidence of his fatigue that he made no reference to how she'd proved her mettle on him.
* * *
Outside, Elizabeth drew a breath of the sharp salt air blown in by the dawn breeze, allowing herself one glance towards the heights at the proud white mansion of the Colonial Governor, of her girlhood, small and remote now against the brightening sky.
In the thin, clean light the familiar harbor looked strange and new. But the world had not ended, after all, and it had hardly changed. It was she who was the changeling, here; and her gaze cast out to the sea, where the night's fog had begun to drift and break to reveal black spars and sails.
She smiled, and turned, and went to wake her men and lead them home.
Dancing at the End of the World: Part One