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Mar. 4th, 2004 12:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marnanightingaleSteel Blue Knife
Pairing: Jack/![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
firesignwriter’s Anti-Jack.
Explicit, yes. Dark. Not quite non-con.
A followup story tofiresignwriter‘s amazing, heartwrenching, brilliant Penumbra, set in the FullMoonVerse. Read it here.
Grab a hanky and go here for the beauty that is her Full Moon story arc.
This story is an AU and should not be regarded as forming part of FullMoonverse canon asfiresignwriter is due to have A Better Idea about what happened next at any moment.
Administrivia:
Captain Jack Sparrow and Commodore James Norrington belong, in order, to each other, to Johnny Depp and Jack Davenport, who made them move, breathe, fight, laugh, and live, to the scriptwriters who made them babble and snark, and to the Mouse who pays the bills.
They do not, alas, belong to me, though the reverse is a very real possibility, and have been commandeered without permission, profit, or hope of any reward past a certain amount of judicious squeeing, though I do accept Commodores when they are offered.
Take what you can, have them bathed and back on the set for the next movie, I say. ARRR!
Please don't sue me, flame me, or let the Commodore hunt me down for what I did to Jack. Wait, belay that last. But I'm rooting for you, mate.
Jason/Jay belongs to and is the original and brilliant creation offiresignwriter, and is used with her most gracious permission. The Fullmoonverse is hers as well.
I owefiresignwriter, who built the playground, commodoresexual (for Inner!Jack), webcrowmancer (for general wonderfullness), all the people I love and have loved for insight, honesty, and experience sweet and bitter, and everyone who was in on firesignwriter’s impromptu smuttathon party or webcrowmancer’s discussion of consent and power in slash fiction more than I can say.
Archive: At the sole pleasure and discretion offiresignwriter. Control of where her character goes was not part of our negotiations, so she must do nothing, though she may do anything.
Feedback: yes, please. Anything from "well, I read it" to detailed and exacting line-by-line criticism. It all feeds the fire.
"You wanted to be me, eh?" Jack breathed against his hair, "You wanted to steal a little piece of us?"
Jay shivered, but some kind of pride kept him silent as he felt the pirate slide with heartwrenching slowness into his waiting, oiled arse. He braced himself for the pummelling to come, at last, at last...
"Here's a piece for ye, you fucking bastard," the relentless, icy voice continued, "here's what it feels like t' want, and want, like a man surrounded by ocean and desperate for a drink of clear, fresh water, until he reaches out for the deadly salty illusion and goes mad from gulping it down." The inexorable prick was filling him, stretching him, with agonising slowness, sinking ballock-deep, and then slowly pulling away until only the tip remained to taunt him.
Jay was biting his lip now, nodding his head as if the futile motion could somehow speed this up, speed it up, Hell, it hadn't begun, make it start, please God, let him fuck me please, please, let it hurt, he can hurt me, let him do whatever he wants to me but let him fuck me now, please please oh, God ...
For a moment, it seemed his prayers were answered, as Jack shifted forwards, sliding into him again, gliding over that sweet spot, oh Lord, yes thank you yes...
And stopped, hovering, nudging. So close...
"This is what it's like to be me, Jay," that harsh voice came again, "this is what it's like, riding and being ridden by a ghost, selling your soul for dirty scraps of fakery." A viciously gentle hand encircled the tip of his desperate member, flicking and scratching with fingertips and nails, careful to keep that rough palm well out of reach of any sort of manoeuver that might truly satisfy a man, as that cruelly short stroke in his arse was repeated once more.
"You think you won't beg for it, Jay, but you will. You won't get it, not tonight, but you will beg. And later, you'll beg just as hard for more torture, for the privilege of suffering more than you ever have before, as you did for release. And then you'll have your wish, boy. Then. You'll. Feel. Just. Like. Me."
And as Jay twisted under the harsh grip that stopped his attempts to move against the short thrusts and strained until his wrists burned and ached against the hemp that kept him helpless under that bronzed body, he heard the cold control in that dark, silky voice and tasted again the tang of the pirate's recent release in his mouth, and cried out after all.
...
He no longer knew how long he had been here, trapped under this man's hands, nor how long it might be until dawn, nor why dawn might matter. Nothing left. No pride, no hope, only the desperate need to say whatever this man required of him, endure whatever torment he might next devise, hold his shaking body where it was wanted. To do whatever might buy him another few precious moments of this.
This Hell. This Hell that was as close to Heaven as he ever expected to come again. No, this wasn't Hell, this was only Purgatory, a personal Purgatory with one sinner and one cruel angel charged with stripping him down to nothing, over and over. Earlier, much earlier, he'd refused to beg, scorned to writhe on command, turned his face to the wall and held out against the lying shards of poison-sweet hope until Jack pulled away with a cold laugh and left him alone. That had been Hell. He didn't want to go back to Hell, not ever, would do anything not to go back there, but he knew it was coming for him, coming up fast. Jack didn't seem to be running short of anger, or ideas, but sooner or later he would run out of energy and when he did ... he'd already told him what would happen when he did, told him how he'd leave him in that bed, still bound, still naked, still needing ... how when he awoke Jack would be fresh, rested, ready to start all over again, to find new games to play with whatever was left.
Jay was out of games. Had run out of games a long, long time ago. He'd tried seduction early on, moaning and wriggling like a high-priced whore, doing shameless tricks with his inner muscles that had had Jack thrusting fully into him at last, hard and fast and violent, until ... until he'd pulled himself abruptly out of that welcoming arse and spent himself on Jay's shuddering back. It had been worse after that, with Jay still feeling every harsh stroke, his craving for more fucking, desperate enough before, now a constant keening anguish. Jack cold and temporarily sated and angrier than ever, turning him over onto his back and working him with those clever, merciless fingers -- pinching his nipples, rubbing them like lucky pieces and then the sudden sharp dig of a nail. He replaced the hand with that feral mouth that bit and sucked and bit again, freeing his fingers to wander down to scratch Jay's weeping shaft, to slap the sensitive head, bring that hard, callused hand down on the tender skin of his inner thighs, torment the screaming need in him by stroking and pressing around and behind his aching ballocks, dancing at random from one to the next, creating and breaking rhythms over and over until Jay's overtaxed body could neither flinch nor strain anymore, and he flowed and trembled like seaweed adrift, random and purposeless.
He'd learned from that, learned his lesson so well that finally, finally, when he'd done and said all that was demanded of him, proven his contrition over and over, Jack had entered him once again and resumed that slow, vicious almost-fucking that now made him close his eyes and babble broken, grateful thanks and agonized pleas for more of the same, shamed and hating himself and not minding, not caring anymore, careful now not to try, not to even appear to be trying for more than this man, this demon, this heathen god allowed him, lest he be cast back into Hell.
Sharp pain at his temple brought him back, unwilling, from the drifting, delirious mists. Suddenly, Jay laughed, a cracked, mad sound -- hair. Not very much hair, either, to cause such a response. Under the circumstances. He laughed, high and wild, and Jack froze within him and turned those black cold eyes on him, and...
Flinched, and reached out a shaking hand to catch the strands and comb them free of the hemp that had snagged them. As his tormentor's wrist drew back past his face, Jay pressed a soft, grateful kiss against the marked skin there, closed his eyes once more with a sigh and smiled, waiting, quiescent ...
He found himself being moved, turned, face pressed into the bed by a hand in his hair, hips shoved firmly into the sheet. And oh, the feeling of his aching prick finding purchase there, enveloped in the harsh, sweat-soaked linen, as the voice of his God said raggedly “I promised you, Jay. Swore ... show you... everything ... you want it? Still? Need?”
God was gasping, now, gasping and choking and Jay wanted, needed to know why, why God was crying, but the words wouldn't come. So long. So long since he'd needed, wanted, had any words, so long since words had mattered and all he could do was nod under that harsh hand, nod and keep his hips still, keep them still God look so still so good please please do I please you God?
And he must have pleased him, pleased him at least a little, because his God's voice caught and he said “I swore I'd ... damn you boy... fuck ... go ahead ... have it all, have the last, the worst...” and then he wanted to think about that, about God, sobbing, and he wept with God but he was being filled again, and it ached and it burned and it was a benediction, it was salvation, anguished pleasure ripping through him, tearing him apart and the voice said “Go on, do it, fuck the sheets, go ... on, it's all we have, all we'll ... ever have ...of him... again, just empty ... dreams and cold ... sheets, but Damn you, Damn your eyes, say his ... name, say it, I want ... to hear you say it, say his name, James ... James, say it, remember ... him, dream of him” and he tried to remember James, tried to remember the time before this God and croaked out “James” and God's voice broke on the same word, “James, James Jamie oh, love, oh James oh, God Jamie” -- and that seemed wrong, did Gods have Gods too? -- but the ache in his groin was building, rushing, peaking and it was agony like he'd never known and joy he'd never dreamt of and the hand tangled in his hair tightened and he was spilling his soul into the sheets as the voice of God said once more “oh, James, oh my ...” and as Jay's eyes snapped open wild and wide something gleamed against the dirty wall and as the knife came down he closed them and wished that he had had time to thank God before the end and spun down into darkness...
...
His sister was crying again, broken muffled sobs and murmurs against his shoulder, and he tried to reach back to her, hold her close to comfort her and press her into his chest to silence her -- no, sweetie, hush now, they'll hear, silence is life, sweetie, hush now, hush now, he wanted to say, but his throat was too raw and he could only hiss a warning as he turned to pull the small shaking body into his arms but it was too large, too long, too heavy to shift one-handed and it was the wrong shape altogether and as he came back to awareness he smelled rum and tar and sweat and felt hot tears against his shoulder and he forced his stiff body to move, to turn and bring the hot face of the tormentor, the tormented, against his chest with a gentle hand on the back of his head, careful of the roughness of the slashed hemp strands still knotted at his wrists, and the other hand stiffly, mindlessly stroking the scarred back that shook and heaved in his arms.
He wrapped himself around the keening pirate and cried with him, cried for pain and joy and lost James, cried for beauty found and held and thrown away, for ignorance and lost innocence, for missed chances and for too late, too late...
...
Jack awoke to the smell of coffee. As he peeled open gummed, aching eyes and stretched, he saw the cloth by the bed. Bread, meat. Fruit.
“I had a little money” said a soft voice nearby. “I ... thought you'd need to eat. Was that right?”
Jack knuckled his eyes and stared, open-mouthed. Jay was sitting cross-legged, on the floor, drinking coffee, in the trousers and shirt he had so carefully folded and put away the night before.
“It's grand, lad,” he said carefully. “Especially since I half-expected to wake up with me throat cut.”
Jay only smiled at him. “You could have left me lying in my own blood, Jack. You even thought about it. You didn't do it. You could have beaten me bloody. You wanted to. You didn't do that either. You didn't so much as mark me, give or take the usual sort of thing. I'm not quite sure what this is, some nature of melon, looks dreadful but actually it's quite fine. Slice?”
Jack stared at him, mechanically chewing the sweetness in his mouth, lost, for once, for words.
Jay continued, “I deserved it. And,” he shuddered fleetingly, “you were right. I asked for it. Repeatedly.”
Before, Jack hadn't asked, hadn't cared, hadn't needed to know. It hadn't mattered. He’d gotten the what, and the how, the night before, torturing both of them with his hunger for the details, every last piece that Jay could remember, doling out and witholding tormenting sensation until he was satisfied that Jay had told him everything, was in fact starting to repeat himself, trying to piece together what had happened to his James to bring him to this, but whatever intentions and hungers had driven Jay to go so far beyond simple robbery had been irrelevant. He’d seen only James, but now he was seeing Jay, and the look on that old/young face suddenly made it matter more than anything.
“Why, Jay?”
“Money. At first. Then ... I wanted him. And he wanted ... I thought he wanted a pretty toy to play with. I was willing enough; he’s... well. You know better than I. But he's a dangerous sort of man, your James.”
Jack interrupted, rawly, “He's not mine.”
“Right. Just like you're not his?”, Jay asked, and continued into the stunned silence, “but I didn't know that. Not then. That he ... I thought he was obsessed with you. Like a doll, something to take out and play with. I know about obsessions, Jack. I didn't know ... I thought... it might be safer to try to be a valuable toy. The British Navy hangs men for sodomy, just as they do for ... for rape. He wouldn't be the first to take what pleased him and slip the evidence into the harbour before dawn.”
Jack looked at him, somberly. “Aye. I get you. But why did you come it with me, later? D'ye just have no sense, lad?”
“Apparently not,” Jay said, with a quick grin. “Jack, he... God! How did you ever ... “
He started again. “I did too good a job of being you, I think. Not... good enough, but he ... I've never ... it wasn't real, but,” another pause, “He made me want to keep being you. Want to be a man who someone would touch like that. Would love like that. And when I saw you...
“I'd’ve sold my body and soul, no, I've done that, I'd’ve sold, I'd’ve given ... anything. Just to stand in that shadow again. Just to see a smile like that again, even if it could never be for me.”
“Ah, Lad. That’s James. He’d have maybe not come with you if it hadn’t been for thinkin’ o’ me. But if he had, he’d never’ve treated you any worse. Gentle, he is, for all his ways.”
“I know that now.” A small, sad quirk of the lips. “That’s my real punishment, I think. Knowing that. That I could have had all that, for one night, just for me.
“Jack, how did you ever leave him?”
Jack's rough, rusty throat suddenly ached so that he could barely manage to say it. “He sent me away. Told me not to come back again. Ever.”
“And you believed him?”
Jack stared at him, gape-mouthed in shock, for a long time.
“Jack, I am sorry. Sorry I stole what was yours. Sorry I tried to steal what was his. Sorry for ... whatever might have been mine, too. I can't ... I can't make it up to you. But I ... perhaps the third time shall pay for all. He sent you a message, Jack, your James who is not yours.”
“He wha?” Jack started to say, and then Jay's mouth swooped in on his, soft and firm, straining to put all he'd learned of love, all the pain, all the glory, all the bittersweet flavours he had carried with him since his last sight of a certain green eyed sailor, into one single kiss.
Jack stiffened, then closed his eyes, and as tears started again, leaned in and kissed his Commodore back for all he was worth..
Pairing: Jack/
firesignwriter’s Anti-Jack. Explicit, yes. Dark. Not quite non-con.
A followup story to
firesignwriter‘s amazing, heartwrenching, brilliant Penumbra, set in the FullMoonVerse. Read it here.Grab a hanky and go here for the beauty that is her Full Moon story arc.
This story is an AU and should not be regarded as forming part of FullMoonverse canon as
firesignwriter is due to have A Better Idea about what happened next at any moment. Administrivia:
Captain Jack Sparrow and Commodore James Norrington belong, in order, to each other, to Johnny Depp and Jack Davenport, who made them move, breathe, fight, laugh, and live, to the scriptwriters who made them babble and snark, and to the Mouse who pays the bills.
They do not, alas, belong to me, though the reverse is a very real possibility, and have been commandeered without permission, profit, or hope of any reward past a certain amount of judicious squeeing, though I do accept Commodores when they are offered.
Take what you can, have them bathed and back on the set for the next movie, I say. ARRR!
Please don't sue me, flame me, or let the Commodore hunt me down for what I did to Jack. Wait, belay that last. But I'm rooting for you, mate.
Jason/Jay belongs to and is the original and brilliant creation of
firesignwriter, and is used with her most gracious permission. The Fullmoonverse is hers as well. I owe
firesignwriter, who built the playground, commodoresexual (for Inner!Jack), webcrowmancer (for general wonderfullness), all the people I love and have loved for insight, honesty, and experience sweet and bitter, and everyone who was in on firesignwriter’s impromptu smuttathon party or webcrowmancer’s discussion of consent and power in slash fiction more than I can say. Archive: At the sole pleasure and discretion of
firesignwriter. Control of where her character goes was not part of our negotiations, so she must do nothing, though she may do anything. Feedback: yes, please. Anything from "well, I read it" to detailed and exacting line-by-line criticism. It all feeds the fire.
"You wanted to be me, eh?" Jack breathed against his hair, "You wanted to steal a little piece of us?"
Jay shivered, but some kind of pride kept him silent as he felt the pirate slide with heartwrenching slowness into his waiting, oiled arse. He braced himself for the pummelling to come, at last, at last...
"Here's a piece for ye, you fucking bastard," the relentless, icy voice continued, "here's what it feels like t' want, and want, like a man surrounded by ocean and desperate for a drink of clear, fresh water, until he reaches out for the deadly salty illusion and goes mad from gulping it down." The inexorable prick was filling him, stretching him, with agonising slowness, sinking ballock-deep, and then slowly pulling away until only the tip remained to taunt him.
Jay was biting his lip now, nodding his head as if the futile motion could somehow speed this up, speed it up, Hell, it hadn't begun, make it start, please God, let him fuck me please, please, let it hurt, he can hurt me, let him do whatever he wants to me but let him fuck me now, please please oh, God ...
For a moment, it seemed his prayers were answered, as Jack shifted forwards, sliding into him again, gliding over that sweet spot, oh Lord, yes thank you yes...
And stopped, hovering, nudging. So close...
"This is what it's like to be me, Jay," that harsh voice came again, "this is what it's like, riding and being ridden by a ghost, selling your soul for dirty scraps of fakery." A viciously gentle hand encircled the tip of his desperate member, flicking and scratching with fingertips and nails, careful to keep that rough palm well out of reach of any sort of manoeuver that might truly satisfy a man, as that cruelly short stroke in his arse was repeated once more.
"You think you won't beg for it, Jay, but you will. You won't get it, not tonight, but you will beg. And later, you'll beg just as hard for more torture, for the privilege of suffering more than you ever have before, as you did for release. And then you'll have your wish, boy. Then. You'll. Feel. Just. Like. Me."
And as Jay twisted under the harsh grip that stopped his attempts to move against the short thrusts and strained until his wrists burned and ached against the hemp that kept him helpless under that bronzed body, he heard the cold control in that dark, silky voice and tasted again the tang of the pirate's recent release in his mouth, and cried out after all.
...
He no longer knew how long he had been here, trapped under this man's hands, nor how long it might be until dawn, nor why dawn might matter. Nothing left. No pride, no hope, only the desperate need to say whatever this man required of him, endure whatever torment he might next devise, hold his shaking body where it was wanted. To do whatever might buy him another few precious moments of this.
This Hell. This Hell that was as close to Heaven as he ever expected to come again. No, this wasn't Hell, this was only Purgatory, a personal Purgatory with one sinner and one cruel angel charged with stripping him down to nothing, over and over. Earlier, much earlier, he'd refused to beg, scorned to writhe on command, turned his face to the wall and held out against the lying shards of poison-sweet hope until Jack pulled away with a cold laugh and left him alone. That had been Hell. He didn't want to go back to Hell, not ever, would do anything not to go back there, but he knew it was coming for him, coming up fast. Jack didn't seem to be running short of anger, or ideas, but sooner or later he would run out of energy and when he did ... he'd already told him what would happen when he did, told him how he'd leave him in that bed, still bound, still naked, still needing ... how when he awoke Jack would be fresh, rested, ready to start all over again, to find new games to play with whatever was left.
Jay was out of games. Had run out of games a long, long time ago. He'd tried seduction early on, moaning and wriggling like a high-priced whore, doing shameless tricks with his inner muscles that had had Jack thrusting fully into him at last, hard and fast and violent, until ... until he'd pulled himself abruptly out of that welcoming arse and spent himself on Jay's shuddering back. It had been worse after that, with Jay still feeling every harsh stroke, his craving for more fucking, desperate enough before, now a constant keening anguish. Jack cold and temporarily sated and angrier than ever, turning him over onto his back and working him with those clever, merciless fingers -- pinching his nipples, rubbing them like lucky pieces and then the sudden sharp dig of a nail. He replaced the hand with that feral mouth that bit and sucked and bit again, freeing his fingers to wander down to scratch Jay's weeping shaft, to slap the sensitive head, bring that hard, callused hand down on the tender skin of his inner thighs, torment the screaming need in him by stroking and pressing around and behind his aching ballocks, dancing at random from one to the next, creating and breaking rhythms over and over until Jay's overtaxed body could neither flinch nor strain anymore, and he flowed and trembled like seaweed adrift, random and purposeless.
He'd learned from that, learned his lesson so well that finally, finally, when he'd done and said all that was demanded of him, proven his contrition over and over, Jack had entered him once again and resumed that slow, vicious almost-fucking that now made him close his eyes and babble broken, grateful thanks and agonized pleas for more of the same, shamed and hating himself and not minding, not caring anymore, careful now not to try, not to even appear to be trying for more than this man, this demon, this heathen god allowed him, lest he be cast back into Hell.
Sharp pain at his temple brought him back, unwilling, from the drifting, delirious mists. Suddenly, Jay laughed, a cracked, mad sound -- hair. Not very much hair, either, to cause such a response. Under the circumstances. He laughed, high and wild, and Jack froze within him and turned those black cold eyes on him, and...
Flinched, and reached out a shaking hand to catch the strands and comb them free of the hemp that had snagged them. As his tormentor's wrist drew back past his face, Jay pressed a soft, grateful kiss against the marked skin there, closed his eyes once more with a sigh and smiled, waiting, quiescent ...
He found himself being moved, turned, face pressed into the bed by a hand in his hair, hips shoved firmly into the sheet. And oh, the feeling of his aching prick finding purchase there, enveloped in the harsh, sweat-soaked linen, as the voice of his God said raggedly “I promised you, Jay. Swore ... show you... everything ... you want it? Still? Need?”
God was gasping, now, gasping and choking and Jay wanted, needed to know why, why God was crying, but the words wouldn't come. So long. So long since he'd needed, wanted, had any words, so long since words had mattered and all he could do was nod under that harsh hand, nod and keep his hips still, keep them still God look so still so good please please do I please you God?
And he must have pleased him, pleased him at least a little, because his God's voice caught and he said “I swore I'd ... damn you boy... fuck ... go ahead ... have it all, have the last, the worst...” and then he wanted to think about that, about God, sobbing, and he wept with God but he was being filled again, and it ached and it burned and it was a benediction, it was salvation, anguished pleasure ripping through him, tearing him apart and the voice said “Go on, do it, fuck the sheets, go ... on, it's all we have, all we'll ... ever have ...of him... again, just empty ... dreams and cold ... sheets, but Damn you, Damn your eyes, say his ... name, say it, I want ... to hear you say it, say his name, James ... James, say it, remember ... him, dream of him” and he tried to remember James, tried to remember the time before this God and croaked out “James” and God's voice broke on the same word, “James, James Jamie oh, love, oh James oh, God Jamie” -- and that seemed wrong, did Gods have Gods too? -- but the ache in his groin was building, rushing, peaking and it was agony like he'd never known and joy he'd never dreamt of and the hand tangled in his hair tightened and he was spilling his soul into the sheets as the voice of God said once more “oh, James, oh my ...” and as Jay's eyes snapped open wild and wide something gleamed against the dirty wall and as the knife came down he closed them and wished that he had had time to thank God before the end and spun down into darkness...
...
His sister was crying again, broken muffled sobs and murmurs against his shoulder, and he tried to reach back to her, hold her close to comfort her and press her into his chest to silence her -- no, sweetie, hush now, they'll hear, silence is life, sweetie, hush now, hush now, he wanted to say, but his throat was too raw and he could only hiss a warning as he turned to pull the small shaking body into his arms but it was too large, too long, too heavy to shift one-handed and it was the wrong shape altogether and as he came back to awareness he smelled rum and tar and sweat and felt hot tears against his shoulder and he forced his stiff body to move, to turn and bring the hot face of the tormentor, the tormented, against his chest with a gentle hand on the back of his head, careful of the roughness of the slashed hemp strands still knotted at his wrists, and the other hand stiffly, mindlessly stroking the scarred back that shook and heaved in his arms.
He wrapped himself around the keening pirate and cried with him, cried for pain and joy and lost James, cried for beauty found and held and thrown away, for ignorance and lost innocence, for missed chances and for too late, too late...
...
Jack awoke to the smell of coffee. As he peeled open gummed, aching eyes and stretched, he saw the cloth by the bed. Bread, meat. Fruit.
“I had a little money” said a soft voice nearby. “I ... thought you'd need to eat. Was that right?”
Jack knuckled his eyes and stared, open-mouthed. Jay was sitting cross-legged, on the floor, drinking coffee, in the trousers and shirt he had so carefully folded and put away the night before.
“It's grand, lad,” he said carefully. “Especially since I half-expected to wake up with me throat cut.”
Jay only smiled at him. “You could have left me lying in my own blood, Jack. You even thought about it. You didn't do it. You could have beaten me bloody. You wanted to. You didn't do that either. You didn't so much as mark me, give or take the usual sort of thing. I'm not quite sure what this is, some nature of melon, looks dreadful but actually it's quite fine. Slice?”
Jack stared at him, mechanically chewing the sweetness in his mouth, lost, for once, for words.
Jay continued, “I deserved it. And,” he shuddered fleetingly, “you were right. I asked for it. Repeatedly.”
Before, Jack hadn't asked, hadn't cared, hadn't needed to know. It hadn't mattered. He’d gotten the what, and the how, the night before, torturing both of them with his hunger for the details, every last piece that Jay could remember, doling out and witholding tormenting sensation until he was satisfied that Jay had told him everything, was in fact starting to repeat himself, trying to piece together what had happened to his James to bring him to this, but whatever intentions and hungers had driven Jay to go so far beyond simple robbery had been irrelevant. He’d seen only James, but now he was seeing Jay, and the look on that old/young face suddenly made it matter more than anything.
“Why, Jay?”
“Money. At first. Then ... I wanted him. And he wanted ... I thought he wanted a pretty toy to play with. I was willing enough; he’s... well. You know better than I. But he's a dangerous sort of man, your James.”
Jack interrupted, rawly, “He's not mine.”
“Right. Just like you're not his?”, Jay asked, and continued into the stunned silence, “but I didn't know that. Not then. That he ... I thought he was obsessed with you. Like a doll, something to take out and play with. I know about obsessions, Jack. I didn't know ... I thought... it might be safer to try to be a valuable toy. The British Navy hangs men for sodomy, just as they do for ... for rape. He wouldn't be the first to take what pleased him and slip the evidence into the harbour before dawn.”
Jack looked at him, somberly. “Aye. I get you. But why did you come it with me, later? D'ye just have no sense, lad?”
“Apparently not,” Jay said, with a quick grin. “Jack, he... God! How did you ever ... “
He started again. “I did too good a job of being you, I think. Not... good enough, but he ... I've never ... it wasn't real, but,” another pause, “He made me want to keep being you. Want to be a man who someone would touch like that. Would love like that. And when I saw you...
“I'd’ve sold my body and soul, no, I've done that, I'd’ve sold, I'd’ve given ... anything. Just to stand in that shadow again. Just to see a smile like that again, even if it could never be for me.”
“Ah, Lad. That’s James. He’d have maybe not come with you if it hadn’t been for thinkin’ o’ me. But if he had, he’d never’ve treated you any worse. Gentle, he is, for all his ways.”
“I know that now.” A small, sad quirk of the lips. “That’s my real punishment, I think. Knowing that. That I could have had all that, for one night, just for me.
“Jack, how did you ever leave him?”
Jack's rough, rusty throat suddenly ached so that he could barely manage to say it. “He sent me away. Told me not to come back again. Ever.”
“And you believed him?”
Jack stared at him, gape-mouthed in shock, for a long time.
“Jack, I am sorry. Sorry I stole what was yours. Sorry I tried to steal what was his. Sorry for ... whatever might have been mine, too. I can't ... I can't make it up to you. But I ... perhaps the third time shall pay for all. He sent you a message, Jack, your James who is not yours.”
“He wha?” Jack started to say, and then Jay's mouth swooped in on his, soft and firm, straining to put all he'd learned of love, all the pain, all the glory, all the bittersweet flavours he had carried with him since his last sight of a certain green eyed sailor, into one single kiss.
Jack stiffened, then closed his eyes, and as tears started again, leaned in and kissed his Commodore back for all he was worth..
