"Your ship has a reputation."
"Oh does it?"
James Norrington was drunk, but Captain Jack Sparrow was drunker still.
"Yes, it does."
"That's good. It should have one."
James drained his bottle of rum and licked the last drops from his lips.
"Don't you want to know what that reputation is?"
"Does it matter? I'll leave the name calling to you gentlemen."
"I'm not a gentleman."
Jack paused in his step and took another swig of rum from his bottle.
"Aye, you wouldn't be on this ship if you were, now would you?"
"You had Will Turner here."
"Will Turner was a means to an end. You are not."
Leaning against the wall for a moment to steady himself, James studied the captain.
"Then am I an end?"
"Well I dunno, are you? Tell me more about this reputation of mine."
"Of your ship's, you mean."
"Me, my ship--it's all the same thing." Jack waved his arms expansively, nearly braining James with the heavy bottle. "Tell me about the reputation."
"Well," James started, then paused to steady himself. His vision seemed to be getting much narrower. "Everyone knows that pirates like plundering, but everyone says that your ship adds a little extra to it."
Jack leaned forward and braced himself against the wall over James's head as the ship heaved so that their faces were close together. "Do I?"
"They say that your run-in with the East India Trading Company began with a little incident involving you and a cabin boy who was the son of a very important man."
The ship creaked, and somewhere on deck a drunken song started, but both men in the captain's cabin had gone very still. James watched Jack carefully, and Jack closed his eyes for a moment.
"Where did you hear that?"
"Like I said, this ship has a reputation on the docks. I picked it up from simply asking around." James didn't smile and Jack didn't look him in the eye. "I've always been amazed by how much one can learn while exchanging pleasantries with the criminal underbelly."
Jack drew in a deep breath. "Don't spread that around."
"I didn't intend to."
"Then what did you intend?"
Taking one last sip from the bottle of run in his hand, James leaned down and set it on the floor, his hand brushing against Jack's thigh.
"You said I wasn't a means to an end. That must either mean that I am irrelevant or that I am an end."
Jack didn't smile when James met his eyes. "Is that all you want, then?"
"Why do you think I let your sorry excuse for an escape plan work?"
Finally, finally James's lips quirked a little as Jack raised his eyebrows and leaned down further. "You needen't have blackmailed me, then."
"That," James whispered as their lips brushed, "is just another of those criminal things that I've learned about."
Their lips met and James stiffened for a second, then relaxed and opened his mouth. Jack pulled back and chuckled.
"Well, believe me, mate--you've got a lot more to learn. Hand me that bottle of oil over there and I'll show you."
"What's it for?" James asked as he picked it up.
Jack hooked an arm around the other man's waist and pulled him into another kiss as he tugged James's shirt loose from his breeches. "Don't worry, lovey, you'll find out soon enough."
This is an IJ porn battle promt. I don't even ship this ship...well at least I didn't when I began this...so I have no idea why I wrote this? I don't really write this fandom, especially because I'm in a place right now where I don't have access to the movies at the moment and can't really check facts (and have only seen the third movie once...how sad.) So there will probably not be any more of this, but I just wanted to post it for some reason I'm not sure of. I dunno. Should I write more? Backstory?
Hope you enjoyed it, leave me a review, eat your vegetables, etc etc. See you next drabble!
P.S. Disclaimer: NOT MINE.