Thank you to all these fantabulous reviewers: Kawaii Theif Kitsune (hey, thanks for putting this in you C2 Community- I'm kind of sorry for having to up the rating now…), elanion, im-a-day-dream-believer, ciz (thanks times two, I believe), Kickassangel (your offer of marriage is greatly appreciated but, alas, according to your bio you have a fiancé…) my beautiful darling Demus, Yuki Bombay, Lyowyn, the anonymous Commodore fan, mssparrington (thank you times four!) and Kleine Snowdrop. Erm, review again please!
Chapter Five- The Pirate's Honour
"What are you laughing at?" Jack Sparrow's face is accusing but his hazel eyes are sparkling.
I manage to restrain my giggles for a moment. "Your beard," I say, trying to inject a note of solemnity into my voice. I fail.
"My beard?" Sparrow's mouth opens slowly and he gives me a toothy grin of surprising warmth. He doesn't even protest as I reach out a finger to touch one of his gold teeth.
"I've been thinking of getting one of these," I joke.
"Wouldn't work."
"Why not?" I glance down to find that Sparrow's oddly gentle fingers have half-eased open the laces of my breeches. "Um." I swallow hard, finding myself oddly nervous.
Sparrow leaves my trousers and softly strokes a hand down my cheek. He kisses my forehead. "It takes a certain kind of man to pull off a beard and I'm afraid, my dear Commodore, that you just don't have what it takes."
Commodore.
Tension creeps into my limbs. My body, just recently so pliant beneath Sparrow's roaming hands, freezes.
Commodore Norrington."Relax." His hands stroke my back. Feather-light kisses are planted on my hairline and Sparrow murmurs something about a'no blasted wig' underneath his breath.
Commodre Norrington, Officer in His Britannic Majesty's Royal Navy.
"Could you maybe call me James?" I ask.
He nuzzles my cheek. "I'll call you what I like," he whispers. "My love."
I pull away from his embrace. "What did you call me?"
"I'll call you the King of bloody England, if it will stop you going all tense on me…"
I look carefully at Sparrow. There's lust in his eyes but also this overwhelming warmth. When I speak my voice comes out as a croak. "Do you think I could have some more rum?"
"You can have a whole bottle." Sparrow climbs off the bed and rummages through an untidy pile of his belongings. He emerges with a large bottle and tosses it to me. "Don't let it ever be said that old Jack's anything less than generous," he says.
I gulp down yet more of the rich spirit and watch the other man through half-lidded eyes. He moves around the room and lights candles until there are candles and dancing flames everywhere. Then he stands in the middle of the room and pulls his shirt over his head. It falls to the ground. "I'm not ashamed," Sparrow says. For a moment I'm unsure what he means but then he twirls round in the candlelight and I see that there are scars everywhere- jagged white scars cruelly marking tanned flesh. "I've had a hard life and I'm not pretty."
I've drunk too much now. I know I have. I can't seem to form words let alone coherent sentences. I can't seem to say things that I know as implicitly as I know my own being.
Jack Sparrow is sin.
Not a sin but rather sin itself. He is what my parents warned me about as I child. He is everything I know I should not want.
He is everything I do want.
He is dangerous and he is beautiful. He knows what he is and is unashamed. He is everything I secretly long to be.
"Not pretty…" Sparrow repeats. His naked torso shines with sweat. "Take your shirt off, James," he says. "It's too hot in here."
My hands follow his instructions even while my eyes remain fixed on his. My shirt drops to the floor and I start to tremble, either with lust or fear or both. I drink more rum and become more scared. I'm aroused too. I'm a mass of contradictions. Part of me dreads Sparrow coming any closer to me; part of me longs for him to finish with the laces on my breeches.
Part of me longs to come undone.
"I don't know what you're scared of," Sparrow says in a frank voice.
"I'm not scared."
Suddenly, Sparrow is on the bed again. I cannot recollect him moving across the room. I try to sit more upright than I am doing but the pirate has other ideas. He pushes me down so that I'm lying on my back and then before I can take another breath he's looming over me. His dark eyes gleam as his nimble fingers roam across my chest: trace soothing circles as they roam ever lower.
"You don't have to be scared because whatever else I may do…" Sparrow leans down for a thoughtful chew on my left ear before continuing in a breathy whisper, "I certainly don't go around raping officers of the Royal Navy..."
His hands finish the laces of my breeches with a couple of quick movements. I try to sit up again; try to see what Sparrow is doing but an impatient hand pushes me back down.
"Relax, James."
"I've never…"
"Just because you've never done something doesn't mean you can't do it. Besides," says Sparrow with a wicked grin, "You don't have to do anything…"
"Jack-"
"Just let me pleasure you, lad. Close your eyes.Just forget and think about how it feels…"
I bite back a moan at the first sensation. Heaven. And then in my last second of clarity I realise that I called the pirate 'Jack'.
The Following Morning
Too much bloody light.
My eyes are tightly shut but it still gets though.
I groan loudly. "Oh God, get that bloody light away from me! Hell and Damnation- get it away!" I roll onto my front and bury my face in a pillow. "Oh no." Even the pillow smells of that goddamned rum. "It has to end," I moan.
"Not the best greeting I've ever have," says Jack Sparrow. "And might I remind you that I did not force the rum on you."
My head is pounding. I feel sick. "Make it end," I plead.
"There's only one way to avoid a hangover."
"What? Tell me." The pillow muffles my voice but Jack seems to understand my words.
"Keep drinking."
"Argh."
A moment later a weight settles on my lower back and tender hands knead my shoulders. "Just relax… Lose the pain…"
"Think about how it feels," I quote.
Jack laughs. "And it felt good, did it not?"
"Like I'd died and gone to heaven!"
"That's blasphemy, James!"
"Then may I burn in hell!"
Jack leans down and kisses the back of my neck."You'll feel better soon, love," he whispers.
"I already do." My stomach's settled and the percussion in my head had died right down. Jack's touch is like a healing balm.
He lifts his weight off my back for a moment so I can roll over.
I smile up at him, my eyes not yet fully opendue to the bright light flooding into the room.
"Kiss me, lad." Jack almost looks nervous of my response. He's nothing to fear. I pull his neck down with one arm and prop myself up on the other elbow. I gently touch my lips to his, chastely for a moment, then with more fire. I open my lips; let my tongue tease his.
"You can take me now, if you want," I say once we part. I sound shy.
Jack nods. "If you will."
He climbs right off me and removes his clothing. I raise myself fully onto my elbows in order to properly remove the breeches, laces undone, that I'm still wearing.
"I've wanted this for a fair while," Jack says, approaching me. "It'll hurt, you know. Not that I'll hurt you intentionally…"
I nod.
"But first time like this… It'll be painful and-"
CRASH!
Suddenly, the door to the room is broken off its hinges. Gillette and half a dozen marines climb across the rubble. "Lay a finger on the Commodore and I'll blow your brains out!"
Jack and I stare at each other in horror for a few seconds. "No-" I begin.
"Step away from the Commodore, you… you filthy sodomite!"
"No-"
"Aye, that I am," Jack says. "Filthy."
I stare at him.
The world spins.
The drink.
The shock.
The love.
The pain.
I feel myself falling.
Dimly, I can hear voices, as if through a mist.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?!"
Gillette screaming.
"I drugged him."
Jack smirking even as he sacrifices himself for my reputation.
The crack of a musket butt colliding with a head. A sharp intake of air.
Pain.
"You'll hang for what you've done to him," says Gillette.
Gillette doesn't understand. I try to speak.
Pain.
I close my eyes.
Pain.
I black out.
Tbc…