Author's Notes: This is a crossover with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," but in terms of universe, not characters -- i.e. there will be no Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles, etc. However, the PotC-era slayer is physically based on Sarah Michelle Gellar, especially as she appeared in the alternate universe BtVS episode "The Wish." Her watcher looks like Paul Bettany.

Now that I've thoroughly confused you, on with the fic!

The Bride was crowded and Jack was becoming bored with it. The rum was as good as always, but he could do without the people tripping over his stuck-out feet and sprawling across his little table.

He scowled at the latest, a giggling woman smelling of opium, and pulled his hat down over his eyes. She flashed large green eyes at him, causing Jack to forget where he was at that particular moment. He let his chair drop back down on all its legs, words of apology and entreaty on his tongue.

Then the woman came closer, sucking in a breath so her breasts heaved beneath her low-cut bodice. Her smile showed him blackened teeth. "Wotcha doin' all by yer onesies here, eh?"

Jack let the familiar color go and remembered himself. His scowl deepened. "None o' your business, woman. Go ply your trade elsewheres."

Shrugging, the woman withdrew her hand from his knee and flounced off. Jack fixed his eyes on her backside with a bleak sigh. Even if he'd been in the mood for females tonight, those eyes would have stayed his hand.

"Goddamn commodore," he muttered, taking another pull on his bottle. "'S all his fault."

He looked back up at the room and waited patiently for the edges of his vision to solidify. He'd accomplished the first few parts of his plan: get out of Port Royal as fast as the Pearl could sail, tuck himself away in a corner, drink until his eyes were weeping rum, not think about James and his pride and the girl he'd dined and danced with at the governor's ball – inbred little hussy, she was –

Scraping his thumbnail against the glass, Jack bit hard on his tongue to stop the fuzzy, cyclical thoughts from taking him over once more. Best he carry out the final part: find a willing boy to fuck senseless so he'd be able to sleep instead of staring at the ceiling and thinking about James in his dress uniform with his lovely long fingers wrapped around some tramp's waist...

Jack cleared his throat loudly, earning himself a suspicious glance from his nearest neighbors. He blinked a few times to clear the haze from his eyes and went back to trawling for the lucky fellow.

Too tall, over there. Too old, that one by the bar. This bloke coming in the door looked nice enough, but he'd a girl on his arm. The one by the far wall – his dark tail of hair was too familiar for Jack's liking.

Here now, what was this?

He slit his eyes at the slender blond a few yards to his left. The boy was young, looked to be around seventeen, and he had his back to the wall as he too scanned the tavern's patrons. His hair tumbled in damp-looking curls over his ears, his lips were full and sensual, and his kohl-lined eyes, when they met Jack's, widened in curiosity.

They were blue.

Jack lifted the bottle to his mouth, holding the boy's gaze as his tongue flicked out to catch a few drops on the rim. He let a slow, predatory grin overtake his face and slid his hand down the bottle's cool glass neck.

Heat flashed in the boy's eyes and he looked down, a parody of modesty, before giving Jack a nod.

Jack drained the last of the rum, giddy triumph singing through the alcohol in his head. James who?

In his dreams, James searched for Jack.

It didn't seem to matter that they were in the midst of an argument when last he'd seen Jack in reality. He could remember this fact, but it was at the edge of his mind as he stumbled through a rocky, barren landscape. The urgency of his mission was a steady beat behind his eyelids, in his veins. He had to find Jack, because his Pearl was in danger. The thought of him suffering that loss again was not one James could bear.

And there was something following him.

He did not know what it was, other than a shape dissipating like mist whenever he turned his head to catch sight of it. Neither was he sure if it was pursuing him, or Jack, or the ship, or some agenda of its own that merely coincided with his fumbling path. So far it had done nothing to threaten him; yet he feared it, and the way it seemed to know its way around when he was utterly lost.

"Jack," he said in the barest of whispers, wary of drawing the thing's attention. He thought the wind stilled for a moment, as if it listened. He put a hand on a boulder, panting in the thin atmosphere. No pirate captain answered his summons.

But he felt the thing move closer.

He didn't dare stir, didn't even open his eyes. It was near him now, near enough to touch, and it did – but instead of a solid limb, he felt a spectral tendril of consciousness touching him, probing him, reaching beneath his skin. It wasn't painful, but it was wrong, wrong, wrong –

James began to scream.

"Who is James?"

"– an' doesn't even have th' decency t' lie – what?"

The man smiled at him, his mouth curving. "You've been prattlin' on about this James since we got out here."

"Have I?" Jack blinked, rubbing at one temple. He stroked his other hand along the stranger's neck. "Must be your skin. Pale as milk, like – like my Jamie –" His breathing hitched as the man spun them with surprising force, pressing his shoulders back against the alley wall. His knee worked between Jack's legs, rubbing against his crotch, and even as Jack groaned and threw his head back, shame gnawed at him.

He shook his head, making the trinkets rattle. "Apologies, mate," he said to the man who was now lipping gently at his bared neck. "'M afraid I've gone an' gotten meself chained to just one man, who'll be none too happy if he finds somebody else's marks when next we met."

The man's head came up. Jack had had too much to drink to be able to process all of it at once – the fingers tightening around his wrists to pin him to the wall, the glint in the yellowed eyes, the bony ridges on the waxy face, the teeth coming to vicious points behind open lips.

"Rest easy, sailor," the thing said, for it was human no longer, "the marks will be few." Its eyes flashed hungrily as it descended upon him again.

Jack struggled as he hadn't needed to in a long while. He gained no ground; what had seemed soft and frail in the tavern's light was now a weight he couldn't shift. He cried an alarm, but this was Tortuga, so it died useless upon his lips as the creature sank long fangs into the flesh of his neck.

He jerked at the sharpness of the pain, then gasped low and long as it receded into a dull, throbbing pressure. What little emotion he could touch beyond the red haze was suffused with indignant anger. Was the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow to go out like this, sucked dry by some hellish fiend in a dark corner? Christ, it would be so embarrassing.

Abruptly the teeth were ripped out, tearing his skin. The unnaturally strong body followed, leaving Jack free to press a sleeve to his wound. He tried to take a step forward and staggered, falling back against the wall instead. The sounds of a scuffle met his ears, but by the time he was able to raise his heavy lids, it was already over.

He found himself staring at a slender figure with pale hair, though not so colorless as his late companion's. At first he thought it a man, because she held a stick by her head like a weapon and she was wearing breeches, but her hair was secured in a braid longer and thicker than any man's he'd ever seen, and the rough-spun top she wore flared out over her hips like an old-fashioned tunic.

The reason as to why he was currently ruining one of his best shirts had fallen to its knees, only its elbows visible behind the girl's form. A sound made Jack's nose crinkle – it was akin to the wind in a fierce squall, with something like a child's scream in it, yet it was quiet enough that he could barely hear it over his own labored breathing.

When a tall man ducked out of the tavern and the girl turned to face him, there was nothing there.

The man took a pocketwatch from his waistcoat and nodded. His face was shadowed so that Jack couldn't see his features properly, although the girl was visible in the moonlight. Young, pretty if a bit hard-faced, with a wicked scar slicing her mouth on the right side.

"Impressive," said the man in a light, pleasant voice. He snapped the watch closed. "Though you might have saved this poor fellow some distress if you hadn't waited so long."

The girl shrugged, dropping the stick she'd held aloft. "I wanted to be sure. Remember New Orleans?" From her tone, Jack could immediately tell she was not the type to mince words, nor to waste them.

He made some sort of throat-clearing sound, wincing at the pain in his neck. The wound was still dripping blood. He pulled his hand away and gazed down at it.

"Oh," he said faintly to his crimson-stained sleeve, aware of the two newcomers turning to him. "That's a bloody shame, that is." He managed to grin at his own pun before he passed out.

James woke up on the floor, body aching and head pounding. Automatically he groped for Jack, who was the most likely cause of both conditions, but the room was empty save for himself.

He rubbed bleary eyes, fumbling several times before he managed to disentangle himself from the bedclothes. Water from the side table parched his dry throat, though it did nothing for the faint trembling in his hands, or the clammy feeling of his nightshirt twisted around his body.

When he had washed up and dressed, he found his breakfast waiting for him downstairs, as well as a maidservant with an odd fearful expression on her face.

"Is something amiss, Mary?" The eggs were fresh, but they tasted like ash in his mouth. His stomach rebelled at the thought of the hot tea.

Mary looked at him curiously. "I'd thought to ask you that, sir, the way ye was shoutin' last night."

He realized he was crumbling his roll into small bits and unclenched his fingers. "I was?"

"Aye, sir." Her eyes shifted uncomfortably across the table. "I thought o' wakin' ye, but..."

James clattered his knife loudly on the plate. "Ah, yes, of course, I can understand why you might hesitate." Jack was still needling him about that time he'd abducted a willing James from his afternoon duties and they had forgotten to lock the door.

The thought made him frown and pick at his food. It simply wasn't fair that Jack always got to have the last word, that he could storm out and leave James to his uninspiring daily routine. At times he felt almost jealous of the ship that could give Jack the one thing he couldn't, as well as being able to bear him away. He had a harbor of his own, but his ships answered to the Crown rather than the beckon of the horizon or the whim of a mad captain.

In the throes of brooding, he realized Mary was still studying him. "Sure yer all right, sir?"

"Yes," said James, giving her a tight smile. "Yes, I'm fine, Mary, thank you." The dismissal was evident in his tone, polite though it was, so she nodded and left.

He raised a hand to his face and ran his fingers over his lips, the sole reminder of a childhood nail-biting habit. If he had been dreaming – and he must have been – he remembered none of it. No doubt it had been bred by troubled thoughts of Jack after their less than amicable parting. The twinge of his muscles was already fading, and it should be a simple thing to put the nighttime worry out of his mind.

It should have been a simple thing, but it proved quite the opposite.

It stayed with the man throughout the day, watching closely. It had been conscious of him for some time, but till now had failed to reach out. When it did, it found a strength of mind far surpassing its suspicions – and as its nature was highly suspicious, that was quite notable. He was young, and healthy, and as content as someone with his intelligence and self-awareness was ever likely to be. This would mean a difficult fight, but it was not averse to the idea, for the victory would be all the sweeter for the struggle and it have loved victory best of all. Well, it could not really be said to love any more than it was possessive of a form. But if it could have loved, it would have loved its own triumphs, and if it had a form, it would be that of a man.

This man.

This man who had left behind the place that birthed him, who had bent the seas to his will, this man who was beloved of many, but most importantly of one: the one to whom She belonged.

It did not yet have the force to seek out the other man and thus Her (because where he was, She would be).

But it would, and soon, and neither man nor beast would stop it.

Twilight Zone theme What on earth will happen next?!