a bit 'o fic
Title: Keeping Up Appearances
PG-13
Summary: Pirating and Commodoring can be a hard job.
Warning: Sap.
Muse’s favorite bad-day remedy, written for the lovely Abrabacon_trask, cause I promised, and because she fought so valiantly with produce and won.
It is an oyster opening in the full of the moon.
It is a mouth telling a secret.
It is a kiln where clay battles fire.
It is the simple happiness of sleeping on a boat.
~Michael Simms
You'll have to excuse me, I'm not at my best
I've been gone for a month
I've been drunk since I left
And these so-called vacations
Will soon be my death
I'm so sick from the drink
I need home for a rest.
~John Mann
“If I were myself we’d have made it to the kitchen.”
James glanced up from the smooth dark skin he’d been studying for the last ten minutes at close proximity-new tattoo, some strange wriggling sigil that seemed vaguely familiar. He caught Jack’s dark eye peering down at him in the dim light of the fire he’d managed to light in the study’s seldom-used hearth. “Are you mad?”
Jack’s eyebrow said, very succinctly, Are you joking
James settled back against the curve of Jack’s hipbone and said, “The kitchen would be the death of us and you know it.”
“Says you.”
“Yes, says me.” James glared. He’d learned the hard way that Captain Jack Sparrow was not in the least bit affected by The Glare...unless he happened to be glaring The Glare anywhere near the pirate's nether regions.
Jack shot him a wary look but settled back into the silence of crackling flames for a moment. The answer when it came was sullen and...if it hadn't been totally and completely in all way impossible, James would say pouty "Still."
"NO."
"Oh, just fine." Jack made a horizontal attempt at throwing his hands in the air in exasperation and poked himself in the eye with his thumb. "Ruin my reputation, why don't you. Ouch."
"I won't tell a soul. The curtains won’t tell a soul. The settee certainly won’t tell a soul, though I'm not so sure about the brass thing by the door."
"….What is that thing, anyway?"
"You know, I don't know. Mrs. Wembly brought it from--" He stopped, blinked, and considered where the conversation was headed. "Jack. You are drunk. I have had a wrenched day--arrival of present company excluded, albeit at four in the morning. My housekeeper has the tendency to giggle at me when she catches us together. She giggles, Jack! She's near seventy! Can we please go to bed?"
"Bed?"
"Yes."
"Bed's at the top of the stairs, innit?"
"I'll carry you if you like."
Jack's look of horror was as genuine a look as Jack Sparrow's face could produce. "Try it and I'll shoot you."
"Good luck, love. Last I saw of your effects, they were laying on the floor in the foyer. And I wouldn't leave them there if I were you."
"Fuck. Stairs an housecleaning." Jack thumped his head against the costly and, as it turned out, not entirely soft rug, wearing a most tragic and desperate look. "I'm getting an inkling that a holiday may be in order, Jamie. OUCH."
"I think you're right."
"I'm always right."
James thought for a moment on all the many possible responses to that particular statement. He settled for, "No dead aunts this time."
_____________________________________________________________________
James woke in a lazy heap, half-way the wrong way round on the bed, with the blanket twisted up in his legs and no pirate.
He blinked until the world came into focus enough for him to see Jack, flopped oh his belly with one arm hanging off the bedframe, making the peculiar noises of someone who’d be snoring if he hadn’t a face full of pillow. Grumbling, James crawled across the rumpled expanse of feather mattress-really this bed was the most absurd thing he’d ever seen on board a ship-and looped an arm around the pirate’s middle. “…C’m back….”
Jack jumped, blinked, and said, “….weren’t me…I swear…”
James rolled his eyes, then rolled the smaller body until it draped over his own, the wild dark head propped on his chest. There. Better. Jack mumbled something about stolen cheese and settled into his new cushion with a bit of wriggling and prodding and finally a “Huumph.”
Outside the late summer light was slanting in the windows, filling the cabin with the surreal glow of sunset before a storm. The breeze carried with it the smell of roasting meat, the sound of thunder, distant, and the faint voices of the crew on shore, trying to squeeze the last bit of drunken revelry out of the golden afternoon before the rain came to spoil things.
Jack drifted pleasantly for awhile, totally and completely incapable of movement. He made a half-hearted attempt at wakefulness when the sensation of James’s lips against his neck filtered through the cotton of his well-fucked brain. James kissed his way absently across tanned skin just ever so faintly scarred by a long-ago and fondly-remembered incident with a noose. In no way enticing or luring-as though his sleeping mind defaulted to the action when no direction from his waking mind was forthcoming. A little habit of his that Jack found particularly endearing. He dredged up enough energy to wedge his knees into the mattress and slide up a bit, granting his bedmate an entire arm’s worth of space to continue on with, should he so desire it. James made a contented sound and rubbed one two-day-rough cheek against Jack’s shoulder.
“Yer getting prickly there, love.”
“Mmmm…tough…”
“…should let it go…you’d look fetching w’ whiskers…”
“…I cannot even imagine such a thing…”
“Not that you don’t look fetching now…”
“Go to sleep, Jack.”
Thunder again, closer.
“…storm coming…”
“…MmmHmmm…”
And the sudden pattering of rain on the Pearl’s dark wood. From the shore came the sound of a bottle breaking, a whoop of laughter, and a faint, “Aw, fuck!”
James snickered.
There was silence while the rain washed the last of the sunset from the horizon.
Jack moved a bit, simply for the sensation of skin sliding against smooth skin, and savored the feeling of the weight of the world pressing him down into the warm body beneath his, locking him into all the spaces in which he fit so well. Large, callused hands slid down the length of his back and back up again, as though seeking out those spaces for themselves. Eventually they came to rest over sharp hipbones, fingering the fresh bruises there. Jack grunted softly at the pleasant ache and smiled.
Aye, James was right, wasn’t he? There were other things a body could do to entertain itself. So many things. But really, in the end so few of them involved clothes…
“So, do let me guess. A deceased aunt, was it?” James’s voice was lazy and full of gavel.
“Uncle. Problem, mate?”
“I do think the Governor is getting a mite suspicious, Jack.”
“Well, I was pressed for new ideas.”
“This is the second funeral I’ve been to this year.”
“Ain’t my fault yer family’s so sickly.”
James moaned. “Forget I said anything.”
“…Such a tragedy, too. Pined away, he did. That auntie of yours must’ive been a hot little-“
“Jack.”
“Hmn?”
“Sh.”
Jack waited just long enough for James to think he’d won and lapse back into a doze before casually asking, right in his ear, “But ain’t this still better than doing whatever it was you were planning on doin before I showed up?”
“Infinitely,” James muttered. He opened one eye. “Especially considering that what I would have been doing probably would have consisted of chasing you, filling out endless paperwork generated by the expense of chasing you, or attempting to explain to the Admiralty why I haven’t caught you yet.”
“Aye. Kinda makes y’wonder why you spend so much bloody time chasin’ me around, when all you really got to do is get naked, an I’ll come right to you.”
“MMmmm...got to keep up appearances...”
“Bloody appearances.”
PG-13
Summary: Pirating and Commodoring can be a hard job.
Warning: Sap.
Muse’s favorite bad-day remedy, written for the lovely Abrabacon_trask, cause I promised, and because she fought so valiantly with produce and won.
It is an oyster opening in the full of the moon.
It is a mouth telling a secret.
It is a kiln where clay battles fire.
It is the simple happiness of sleeping on a boat.
~Michael Simms
You'll have to excuse me, I'm not at my best
I've been gone for a month
I've been drunk since I left
And these so-called vacations
Will soon be my death
I'm so sick from the drink
I need home for a rest.
~John Mann
“If I were myself we’d have made it to the kitchen.”
James glanced up from the smooth dark skin he’d been studying for the last ten minutes at close proximity-new tattoo, some strange wriggling sigil that seemed vaguely familiar. He caught Jack’s dark eye peering down at him in the dim light of the fire he’d managed to light in the study’s seldom-used hearth. “Are you mad?”
Jack’s eyebrow said, very succinctly, Are you joking
James settled back against the curve of Jack’s hipbone and said, “The kitchen would be the death of us and you know it.”
“Says you.”
“Yes, says me.” James glared. He’d learned the hard way that Captain Jack Sparrow was not in the least bit affected by The Glare...unless he happened to be glaring The Glare anywhere near the pirate's nether regions.
Jack shot him a wary look but settled back into the silence of crackling flames for a moment. The answer when it came was sullen and...if it hadn't been totally and completely in all way impossible, James would say pouty "Still."
"NO."
"Oh, just fine." Jack made a horizontal attempt at throwing his hands in the air in exasperation and poked himself in the eye with his thumb. "Ruin my reputation, why don't you. Ouch."
"I won't tell a soul. The curtains won’t tell a soul. The settee certainly won’t tell a soul, though I'm not so sure about the brass thing by the door."
"….What is that thing, anyway?"
"You know, I don't know. Mrs. Wembly brought it from--" He stopped, blinked, and considered where the conversation was headed. "Jack. You are drunk. I have had a wrenched day--arrival of present company excluded, albeit at four in the morning. My housekeeper has the tendency to giggle at me when she catches us together. She giggles, Jack! She's near seventy! Can we please go to bed?"
"Bed?"
"Yes."
"Bed's at the top of the stairs, innit?"
"I'll carry you if you like."
Jack's look of horror was as genuine a look as Jack Sparrow's face could produce. "Try it and I'll shoot you."
"Good luck, love. Last I saw of your effects, they were laying on the floor in the foyer. And I wouldn't leave them there if I were you."
"Fuck. Stairs an housecleaning." Jack thumped his head against the costly and, as it turned out, not entirely soft rug, wearing a most tragic and desperate look. "I'm getting an inkling that a holiday may be in order, Jamie. OUCH."
"I think you're right."
"I'm always right."
James thought for a moment on all the many possible responses to that particular statement. He settled for, "No dead aunts this time."
_____________________________________________________________________
James woke in a lazy heap, half-way the wrong way round on the bed, with the blanket twisted up in his legs and no pirate.
He blinked until the world came into focus enough for him to see Jack, flopped oh his belly with one arm hanging off the bedframe, making the peculiar noises of someone who’d be snoring if he hadn’t a face full of pillow. Grumbling, James crawled across the rumpled expanse of feather mattress-really this bed was the most absurd thing he’d ever seen on board a ship-and looped an arm around the pirate’s middle. “…C’m back….”
Jack jumped, blinked, and said, “….weren’t me…I swear…”
James rolled his eyes, then rolled the smaller body until it draped over his own, the wild dark head propped on his chest. There. Better. Jack mumbled something about stolen cheese and settled into his new cushion with a bit of wriggling and prodding and finally a “Huumph.”
Outside the late summer light was slanting in the windows, filling the cabin with the surreal glow of sunset before a storm. The breeze carried with it the smell of roasting meat, the sound of thunder, distant, and the faint voices of the crew on shore, trying to squeeze the last bit of drunken revelry out of the golden afternoon before the rain came to spoil things.
Jack drifted pleasantly for awhile, totally and completely incapable of movement. He made a half-hearted attempt at wakefulness when the sensation of James’s lips against his neck filtered through the cotton of his well-fucked brain. James kissed his way absently across tanned skin just ever so faintly scarred by a long-ago and fondly-remembered incident with a noose. In no way enticing or luring-as though his sleeping mind defaulted to the action when no direction from his waking mind was forthcoming. A little habit of his that Jack found particularly endearing. He dredged up enough energy to wedge his knees into the mattress and slide up a bit, granting his bedmate an entire arm’s worth of space to continue on with, should he so desire it. James made a contented sound and rubbed one two-day-rough cheek against Jack’s shoulder.
“Yer getting prickly there, love.”
“Mmmm…tough…”
“…should let it go…you’d look fetching w’ whiskers…”
“…I cannot even imagine such a thing…”
“Not that you don’t look fetching now…”
“Go to sleep, Jack.”
Thunder again, closer.
“…storm coming…”
“…MmmHmmm…”
And the sudden pattering of rain on the Pearl’s dark wood. From the shore came the sound of a bottle breaking, a whoop of laughter, and a faint, “Aw, fuck!”
James snickered.
There was silence while the rain washed the last of the sunset from the horizon.
Jack moved a bit, simply for the sensation of skin sliding against smooth skin, and savored the feeling of the weight of the world pressing him down into the warm body beneath his, locking him into all the spaces in which he fit so well. Large, callused hands slid down the length of his back and back up again, as though seeking out those spaces for themselves. Eventually they came to rest over sharp hipbones, fingering the fresh bruises there. Jack grunted softly at the pleasant ache and smiled.
Aye, James was right, wasn’t he? There were other things a body could do to entertain itself. So many things. But really, in the end so few of them involved clothes…
“So, do let me guess. A deceased aunt, was it?” James’s voice was lazy and full of gavel.
“Uncle. Problem, mate?”
“I do think the Governor is getting a mite suspicious, Jack.”
“Well, I was pressed for new ideas.”
“This is the second funeral I’ve been to this year.”
“Ain’t my fault yer family’s so sickly.”
James moaned. “Forget I said anything.”
“…Such a tragedy, too. Pined away, he did. That auntie of yours must’ive been a hot little-“
“Jack.”
“Hmn?”
“Sh.”
Jack waited just long enough for James to think he’d won and lapse back into a doze before casually asking, right in his ear, “But ain’t this still better than doing whatever it was you were planning on doin before I showed up?”
“Infinitely,” James muttered. He opened one eye. “Especially considering that what I would have been doing probably would have consisted of chasing you, filling out endless paperwork generated by the expense of chasing you, or attempting to explain to the Admiralty why I haven’t caught you yet.”
“Aye. Kinda makes y’wonder why you spend so much bloody time chasin’ me around, when all you really got to do is get naked, an I’ll come right to you.”
“MMmmm...got to keep up appearances...”
“Bloody appearances.”