the long summer
Title: The Long Summer
Rating: NC-17 for typical Sparrowesque flamboyance and graphic frottage
Disclaimer: Jack and Tortuga belong to the POTC guys. Inigo belongs to the Morgenstern estate, so please don't tell them or they'll have my kneecaps by the end of the week. Imitation is the highest form of compliment.
Author's Note: For Kyri’s birthday, ‘cause she’d just the woobiest gal there is, and she likes her pirates drunk and sweaty. Beware runonthought!Inigo. The English language does not like him.
Feedback: shadesofbrixton@yahoo.com
The Long Summer
“Are you maybe,” Jack said, pushing Inigo up against the carefully curved wall of the hold, “just a wee bit jealous?” He planted one hand on the stained wood next to the Spaniard’s head, his dark fingers, and loomed in, his expression reeking of alcohol and amusement. “Mate?”
“Erk,” said Inigo.
Jack grinned at him – less a grin than a slice of dirty teeth through a waterfall of ratted hair and beads and shells – and shoved closer, one patched knee scraping roughly between his own, Jack’s elbow propping outward at an odd angle so he could get closer without changing his angle.
This was not exactly what he had intended to say to the pirate, Inigo thought.
He had intended something much more eloquent to come out. Something along the lines of ‘Jack, old fellow, I think we need to sit down and have a brief conversation over the aims of The Revenge.’ Or perhaps, ‘Sparrow, my friend, could it be that we have a few details that need sorting?’ Something highly thought out. Inigo had been practicing this speech for ages, after all. He’d had plenty of time, over the summer. In between clearing up the mess of switching Jack over to the name of the Dread Pirate Roberts, and learning how to fence while tangled in rigging, he’d thought that this sort of thing would be beyond him.
Apparently, it wasn’t beyond him at all. It was more like right in front of him, or maybe in front and a bit to the left, and could it please take off its hat, thank you, because he couldn’t see very well. And that said a bit, since Inigo was quite tall.
And then Jack had left, all mystery and grins, for a month.
When he’d returned, everything had changed. It wasn’t all bad – not at first. There was a new boat, which meant Jack would stagger from crew mate to crew mate reminding them ‘it’s Commodore Jack Sparrow, mate, thank you,’ just when they’d started to remember to call him ‘Captain’. But he still resided on The Revenge, so that was alright, Inigo thought. And he came back with a new crew, but they were, as far as Inigo could tell (which really wasn’t very far, a league at best), fine sailors.
But something had changed.
Even though Jack still swayed from side to side against the sea, and held his hand like his fingers were heavy as lead shot, and grinned like he knew all the secrets of the world. Which he probably did, Inigo thought, and wondered if maybe he’d missed out on some very important lessons in his childhood, not growing up in England, since everyone he knew from there seemed to know better than he did. Even though so many things were the same, there was still something that didn’t sit right as the wind picked up in the early-fall weather. And Inigo couldn’t put his very thin finger on it.
And then he could.
And it, as he discovered… ‘it’ was Will Turner.
Inigo realized it one night when he found Jack at the wheel of The Revenge, humming that infernal song he’d brought back with him (any self respecting Spaniard, which Inigo usually was, could tell you that anything involving ‘really bad eggs’ was a bad way to go) again. But Jack hadn’t known that song when he’d left.
And he fenced more. Usually with the main-mast, hacking off little chips of wood with a particularly sharp downstroke. Or with the crew, keeping them up-to-par with his strange little dodging jigs. Or he’d simply sit back and regale them with a tale of how he got the sword – stolen off another Commodore, and the new crew would exchange a knowing glance that crawled right up Inigo’s back. And then he would flip the blade in the light and the imperfections would make Inigo’s skin crawl at the injustice of it.
But Jack never fenced with him. Never asked him about the make of the sword.
And there was something very, very wrong with that, in Inigo’s mind.
Which was why Inigo had thought it would be a good idea to maybe ask Jack if things were alright. Not that he cared, mind, because it wasn’t Inigo’s place to question his captain. But apparently it was his captain’s place to question Inigo. Which, honestly, the swordsman should have known. If he had bothered to look closely, he would have noticed that it was, in fact, part of his contract. But he hadn’t bothered, of course, because Inigo never bothered, and that’s what got him into half his trouble in the first place.
Except for the other half, which he got into because he did.
Which led to his current situation.
A chest-to-chest experience with a very, very happy Jack Sparrow. Grinning like a loon.
“Erk,” Inigo repeated.
Jack gasped in a parody of shock and joy, rolling his head backward and clasping his hands together in a mockery of worship before fixing that grin back on Inigo. “You are jealous. Pray tell, how did that happen?”
Inigo stared at the pirate, the leather tricorne abandoned roughshod on the table behind Jack, the filthy bandana thoroughly encased in sea salt and various other unmentionables. What was he supposed to say to that? Inigo had always been very bad with questions, everyone knew that, and it really wasn’t very fair to pose him difficult ones so unexpectedly like this, thank you very much.
Besides, any answer he tried to draw up before him didn’t make much sense. It didn’t matter that the crew gathered around at night and told stories of young Will Turner, majestic Will who was more of a pirate than Inigo would ever be, because he had birthrights behind it. Gathered around and talked of the sharp, dignified lines of his face, or the hard glint of his eyes as he tried to find his footing in life, or the loyalty he’d shown their captain. It didn’t matter that Will was lithe and pretty and sharp of wit, and that he fought for command and questioned Jack’s every move like a good first mate should, for the benefit of the crew. It didn’t matter that Will was, apparently, very well trained in the acts of sailing and navigating and other important trades that Inigo had no use for, nor that he was climbing his way in society. Inigo had no use for rank, didn’t understand it, and rather tried to stay away from it, if he could. There wasn’t much use for it in his line of work.
No, it was something else that didn’t sit right with Inigo. And he could feel it in every corner of his rather dramatically abused body, even if he was distracted by the way the dull light glinted off Jack’s gold-studded grin, or the knee that pressed against him in ways that felt like sinking into a hot bath.
“He makes swords,” Inigo blurted, and could immediately see the etched confusion on Jack’s face. Not that the pirate did a whole lot to hide it, that was. Rather screwed up his face and bugged one eye out, the expression he usually saved for people telling him he was about to be dead. Inigo had seen it. He knew that expression.
“Beg pardon,” Jack asked, leaning in closer. Their noses almost brushed. Inigo could hear the rasp of dirty cloth as their legs invaded one another’s balancing space, trying to shift with the light tip of the calm sea.
“He makes swords,” Inigo repeated himself, not because he honestly thought Jack needed to hear it again, but because he was just now figuring out what it was about this legendary Will Turner that bothered him so, beyond the beauty and the youth and the spending a whole summer with his captain that was utterly wrong in every way, now that he thought properly on it. “And he makes them wrong.” His eyes flicked to the bone hooks that had been drilled into the wall to display Jack’s ‘borrowed’ weapon. It was utterly unbalanced, and it made Inigo twitch just to look at it.
Jack sighed, a quiet but dramatic ordeal. “Is that it?”
Inigo snapped his gaze back to his captain, confused. “Of course that’s it. What else would it be? You’ve got yourself another swordsman, and I’m going to get old and rusty and drown in my own liquor.”
“You do that anyway,” Jack reminded him cordially, fingers tripping down Inigo’s front to rest on the hilt of the six-fingered rapier. “This hasn’t got a proper exercise in months.” He pressed in closer, one arm slinging back around Inigo’s neck, the fingers curling obscenely on the opposite shoulder and absently petting the cloth they found there.
“Well, that is because you have been gone,” Inigo reminded him sharply, but found himself under no obligation to move. It was a dangerous job, Inigo thought, moving, when one was pinned against Jack.
“Honestly,” Jack tipped his head forward, just grazing Inigo’s cheek with his own as he found the Spaniard’s ear, and murmured. “I didn’t know you cared.” And his diabolical fingers – each and every one of them being cursed along the way by a suddenly very religious Inigo – crept a few inches left, brushed, and palmed.
“What was that?” Jack tipped his head to the side, until all Inigo could see was an eyeful of hair and earring. “I didn’t quite catch that noise.”
So Inigo was under obligation to his captain to angle his hips forward and repeat himself.
Jack hissed happily, grinning his approval, and made sure to let his swordsman know how utterly he appreciated that repetition by leaning forward himself, until those legs were thoroughly entangled and his mouth, Inigo thought, his mouth had perhaps disappeared utterly because Jack never stopped talking but suddenly it was silent except for – oh.
“Mm?” Jack mumbled against his neck, licking the rising mark.
“Oh,” rasped Inigo.
“So repetitive tonight,” Jack scolded him, his fingers clutching everywhere in endorsement and Inigo was arching again, his teeth clenched and his throat working to not let out that noise again. “I hope I can rely on that in all arenas.”
Inigo keened, despite himself, and found his fingers curling into the loose material at Jack’s waist. The fabric was slippery under his hands in ways that only unwashed clothing could be, encouraging the migration to the trousers beneath that were rough against the pads of his fingers.
Jack was grinning, and Inigo couldn’t quite remember why – there was a noise, I think, yes? – but it didn’t matter anyway because there went the sword, delicately removed and Inigo wondering just how Jack could remember or even care at a time like this to be so good with the sword. And that out of the way, the belt followed next, those heavy fingers still brushing and rubbing and god in heaven, where was that thigh when he needed it?
Sliding up, Inigo found. A split second before Jack fell upon him utterly, and hands pulled out the lank rag of his own shirt, slipping up underneath and branding him in hot and cold, where fingers and rings fell in intervals. And Jack’s mouth left it’s busy place at his neck to laugh silently, gusting hot against his ear and sending Inigo’s fingers to curling again, twisting the shirt away and up in a graceless mockery of Jack’s actions. But fingers found skin, that was the main point, and Inigo couldn’t quite remember when it had felt this good since the spring.
But Jack always had to win, didn’t he, and that was why he was the captain, and really, Inigo should’ve remembered that. Instead, it was another breath choked and gone when Jack dragged his hand away from the man’s crotch to wrestle deftly with the lacings, pressing forward and trapping Inigo’s hands between them to rub himself encouragingly at his hip. It was too much, frankly, when the mouth came back and slid over his own, and Inigo couldn’t keep silent anymore.
They froze, an obscene tableau with Inigo’s eyes flashing open as Jack’s deft fingers decimated his pants and found his cock. It broke when Jack made a happy growling noise at his conquest and Inigo nearly collapsed to the floor, moaning into the pirate’s busy mouth. Jack rubbed himself closer, a tight bulge hot over Inigo’s thigh, and he found his knee bending upward to aide the friction, helpless to do much else but clutch and make thoroughly embarrassing noises and arch, and oh but the arch was his favorite part.
And then Jack was curling his hand neatly, the other latching on to Inigo’s hips to keep the man from following his pull, and Inigo went six shades of delirious at the feeling of line-roughened skin and smooth silver and gold intermittently sliding over him, the muscles in his legs straining upward and back at the same time, an odd tug-of-war that he hadn’t felt for a very long time. Jack pulled again and it wasn’t so harsh this time, the coarse slide of his fingers mellowed by a spreading wetness and now now now Inigo had to get his hands on something or he’d go mad. Or, at least, more mad, since he didn’t think any of this was quite sane or advisable in the least and it certainly wasn’t getting his point across but it did feel utterly amazing.
His hands burrowed under Jack’s shirt, sliding up or around or over and there were scars, new scars, ones he didn’t remember from before. Jack bucked into him happily, grazing the area behind his ear with a lick as Inigo ran his nimble fingers over those marks, knowing which ones this one was made from solder’s bayonets, and this one, here, both of these were daggers, and perhaps one at the back that could have been an epee, from the long curve of the raised flesh. His hands did what his eyes, too overburdened from sensation as they were, could not. They filed away information for later, one clinging to Jack’s arm with tight fingers as they rocked, rubbing and stroking and bumping along with the regular sway of the ship, the other sliding over the skin of his back and happy to catch on any new holds it could find.
Jack rubbed lazy circles with his thumb over the fine dip where Inigo’s leg met the rest of his body, fingers splayed low on the curve of his hip, and dragged himself in one long stripe up Inigo’s thigh, a stifled groan leaking through his clenched teeth. The sound urged Inigo’s hands onward, clutching tighter or roaming farther, pulling Jack securely against him and sliding his leg to and for, slowly. Always slowly, because Jack was the exact opposite of that, and he felt like a freight train was about to barrel into him (or he would if freight trains had been invented yet, but they hadn’t) by route of his lungs.
“I think,” Jack said, his voice rough on the edges, and my God how could he even think about talking right now, Inigo demanded in a corner of his mind, how could he even put thoughts together and make his tongue work because it’s just not possible when things feel this good. “I think,” Jack started again, “that you missed me.” And he circled his hips against Inigo’s, his hand straining in between them to speed itself and Inigo whimpering high and bucking at the knowing laugh that circled his ear.
“Did you?” Jack panted, his thumb curling and oh, that was new, hello. Making Inigo’s hips snap desperately forward, grinding them together with a great broken cry into Jack’s sun-grimed neck, Jack shoving him deliciously back against the wall and sucking air through his teeth as hot and good and wet spread between them.
“Hnn,” said Inigo, staring up at the time-sanded boards that made the ceiling of the small room, his neck cricking pleasantly from the angle and Jack draped over him like an overlarge doll, save for the violent breathing.
“That – ” Jack coughed, cleared his throat, and it took on his more teasing tone. “ – is not an answer.”