Commodore James Norrington (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stem_the_tide) wrote2011-12-07 11:19 pm
stem_the_tide) wrote2011-12-07 11:19 pm
a private garden party-- open to captjacksparrow
Continued from here
'Didn't know if it would take,' Jack says, and James's mouth twists to hold back the smirk-- or perhaps indeed the snort, were he a lesser man. As if an order were a shirt that might be a bit tight around the chest, but needed some wearing to make sure. James will accept that; it's not as if Jack has ever been in the habit of issuing orders to him, though James has heard him bark admirably at his crew when the occasion has called for it.
'Huzzah,' he concurs dryly, with a faint curl of one of his own hands, cuff flopping loosely as he lifts his arm, and he gives Jack a brief, brushing kiss, a tease and a play at propriety. 'If we are having a garden party--' and Jack is the one who established that in the first place, so James will be maintaining it-- 'there is an abhorrent lack of champagne. And a distinct dearth of string quintets. But I do rather feel that champagne in this instance is the more important of the two.'
James is not precisely what one would call familiar with the workings of multiversal nexuses, but he's familiar enough that when a white-painted, wrought iron table with a bottle and two champagne flutes on it is suddenly there where there was neither table nor bottle before, his reaction is confined to a blink and a tiny, pleased smirk. Which he turns on Jack with a lift of one eyebrow.
'Well, then. Champagne, Captain Sparrow?'
'Didn't know if it would take,' Jack says, and James's mouth twists to hold back the smirk-- or perhaps indeed the snort, were he a lesser man. As if an order were a shirt that might be a bit tight around the chest, but needed some wearing to make sure. James will accept that; it's not as if Jack has ever been in the habit of issuing orders to him, though James has heard him bark admirably at his crew when the occasion has called for it.
'Huzzah,' he concurs dryly, with a faint curl of one of his own hands, cuff flopping loosely as he lifts his arm, and he gives Jack a brief, brushing kiss, a tease and a play at propriety. 'If we are having a garden party--' and Jack is the one who established that in the first place, so James will be maintaining it-- 'there is an abhorrent lack of champagne. And a distinct dearth of string quintets. But I do rather feel that champagne in this instance is the more important of the two.'
James is not precisely what one would call familiar with the workings of multiversal nexuses, but he's familiar enough that when a white-painted, wrought iron table with a bottle and two champagne flutes on it is suddenly there where there was neither table nor bottle before, his reaction is confined to a blink and a tiny, pleased smirk. Which he turns on Jack with a lift of one eyebrow.
'Well, then. Champagne, Captain Sparrow?'
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Funny little wish-fulfillment that is. Jack thinks to say something but he hasn't time before his mouth quirks up into a crooked half-smile, genuine and painfully pleased, smitten that James should play with him, go along with it, run with it, like he is. He ducks his head, keeping the smile to himself, until movement in the corner of his eye snags his attention.
It's a table. And a bottle of champagne. There without even a sound, though surely, Jack thinks, there should have been some pop or crack in the air for things randomly appearing -- that being the state of things. Wish-fulfillment in the most literal sense then, as well.
He blinks at the table, expression stretched and open, a high declarative sign of, 'Oh,' grunting from his chest. And then his face tightens, brows furrowed, lips pursed. 'It meant to do that?' Jack glances at James warily, shoulders leaning away from the table. 'Certain it's not, erm. Cursed?'
It's never happened before, things appearing in this strange, nothing space -- or perhaps it has, but he's never been in company where he had the leniency to give it much thought. But James knows him well enough to know him as a sceptical, careful, analytical man, deep at heart.
Seems fine, though, the champage -- the table, and the bottle, and the flutes. It's not morphing into anything. No one's coming charging in after it. It could be poisoned but were Jack the sort to worry after his meals to that degree he would have starved to death years ago. Knocking the maggots out of hardtack tends to harden a man's stomach to even the most dubious of fare.
'Wonder what else could be conjured just for wanting it,' he murmurs, more to himself than to James. He looks around, but there's no distinguishing features of where they are. No indistinguishing features either for that matter; not like the Locker. There's nothingness and sense of place all the same. With a hum, Jack considers. He tells the air, 'Could do with a few more items, if you're obliging.'
A bed appears on the opposite side of them from the table: wooden, basic, small, dressed in clean, simple linens. Jack frowns. 'Bit more than that, I were thinking. Try something more, mm, broad.' The bed obeys--or something obeys--expanding in size, bed posts growing like tree trunks until they stand nearly at the same height at James. A few pillows appear. 'And colourful. And comfortable. Sumptuous, let's say,' Jack drawls, twisting out the word. The bed morphs with each added instruction, linens darkening into a deep, rich burgandy, the frame broadening, deepening for a luxurious mattress, piled high with blankets and furs and pillows, some with tassles, Persian and Oriental by design, a bed for for a king.
Jack's never had a bed such as that. It's directly from fantasy, the kind he always wanted, an exaggeration that makes his bunk on the Pearl look paltry by nature. Perfection. He turns to James with a grin. 'I'll try yours if you'll try mine.'
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'This place tends to do that,' he drawls, a response to Jack's sceptical expression. 'Afraid I couldn't tell you how.'
But Jack seems to have taken the idea and run with it, expression gone thoughtful, and a moment later, at his instruction, a bed appears, with as little fanfare as the table had. Just an ordinary bed, of the sort that sits in his room in Shipwreck Cove, and James watches with his own curious combination of dubiousness and pleasure as Jack-- sketches, really, is the only word he can think for it-- the bed into something that could easily fit four people abreast, four-postered, heaped with enough down and silk and fur that a man could drown in it.
James can do nothing but laugh, a faint, breathy little chuckle, and he shakes his head. 'You make my imagination seem paltry.'
The grin Jack sports is more genuinely pleased than lecherous, but the bed, nearly lewd in its ostentation, says all that needs to be said. 'But of course,' James gives a little incline of his head, as if conceding a point in a battle of wits, and takes the step to pour each of them a glass of champagne, conscious of the absurdity of it when he offers one to Jack.
Briefly, he wonders if the magic extends to being able to wish Jack's clothes off-- just to see his expression when he did-- but he abstains from trying and finding out in favour of lifting the flute to his lips. He hasn't had champagne in years.
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Flicking back the cuff of his shirt with a shake, Jack accepts the one James offers to him with a smirk. He ignores James's comment about imagination--never mind if it's that what controls and dictates this kind of socery; if there's something inherent in him what produces a bed like that, and if it should say something about his own state of imagination that what first came to mind were something basic, simple, primitive, what had to be forced to gain any aesthetics--and lifts the glass in a silent toast. The first sip is small, curiously exploratory, going down smooth with a slight tingle in the back of Jack's throat. The second swallow makes him sneeze.
He pulls a face at the glass. 'Ugh. Bubbles.' They're cruel and useless things, and nose near the flute, he sneezes again, a high, tiny sound, something what could be deemed cute. Utterly unbefitting for Captain Jack Sparrow. Jack frowns at the champagne. It might be more of a pout. 'Keeps attacking me. Fighting unfaire. I can't strike back.'
Champagne's never been something he's had before, unusual for alcohol. The way this is going, it doesn't seem likely he's to have it again.
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'Don't inhale it, you cretin.' It's a fond chide. 'Drink it. It's not that difficult, I promise.'
Because it's not really a garden party, and there's no need to mill around standing up, James seizes the bottle and goes to Jack's bed, setting it down on the floor before he sits. The bedding and furs and cushions are so deep that it feels like nearly a foot he sinks before he meets mattress, and it takes him a moment to find his balance.
'Good lord. You could fit a whole regiment in this bed.'
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His nose tingles again from the bubbles, but Jack manages to stifle the sneeze this time. Wouldn't do, after all, to give James too much amusement in one instance. It might break the poor man's stoic English bearing. They might come and revoke his membership -- more so than they already have. He watches James cross towards the bed, bottle dangling from his fingers, apparently at ease with the champagne flute and the bubbles. The natural state of things for a Commodore of his Majesty's Navy.
James isn't a Commodore. Hasn't been a Commodore in years, despite the fact he'll always be Navy. 'Couldn't have conjured up something sensible, mm? Like... rum.' Angling himself slowly towards the bed, hips swaying, Jack lifts his brows at James in suggestion. James looks to be fighting his own battle with the linens, tipping and turning to gain his balance. Jack struggles hard not to smile anything what isn't mocking amusement for his turn. 'Missing a piece to go with champagne, aren't you? Figure of life lived in decadence such as you are.' He doesn't say the words this time, only thinks it, pictures what he wants in his mind and lets the workings of this place translate it into a happening.
A bushel of loose strawberries clutters onto the bed, falling on James and onto the sheets, bouncing and tumbling onto the floor. Jack smiles, rascally pleased with himself, and gets a knee up onto the bed, brushing aside fruit in order to walk himself on his hands and knees over James. From the bedding, he plucks one of the strawberries between his fingers and profers to out to James to take a bite.
'Not looking for a regiment. More interested in only one of their commanding officers.' He takes a bite of the strawberry himself, juices trickling down his chin, into his beard, and then leans forward to kiss James, licking the taste out of his mouth, sweet and fizzy from fruit and drink.
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The thing, as it turns out, is a strawberry, small and bright red, light reflecting dully off the curve of it, and the places where seeds indent into small hollows. There are, in fact, strawberries all around him, the result of a miniature hailstorm of them, scattered over cushions and furs and onto the floor, and he turns a look on Jack, who's wearing a look of utmost, smug pleasure with himself.
'You are ridiculous,' James informs him, as Jack crawls up over him, but stretches his neck nonetheless to take a bite of the proffered strawberry. He feels a bit foolish, allowing himself to be fed, but there's no denying that the strawberry is delicious, and he can't quite stop the tug of muscles around his mouth. The game is just as ridiculous as Jack is, and yet here James is, playing it with him.
The taste of Jack's mouth, sweet and dry and faintly sharp, is just as appealing, and James, instead of sinking back into the bed, leans up into it, the hand with the champagne flute off to the side so he doesn't accidentally spill any. The other hand he uses to brace himself, and hums into the kiss, ending it with a little scrape of teeth over Jack's lower lip. He can feel the strawberries that have rolled down the depression in the heaps of bedding to lie nestled next to his legs.
'You,' he murmurs, wry and pointed, 'are going to get strawberry juice all over this absurd, opulent bed.'
And all over James, and Jack, but he refrains from pointing that out; even he can see the obvious potential for innuendo there.
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Right until James's comment regarding strawberry juice and deriding the bed. Jack pulls back to narrow his eyes at James, considering, mischeivous. 'The bed is marvellous,' he corrects, mockingly prim; 'Never did anything to you, did it. Don't think that should be the risk what worries you.' And then to prove James's concerns right, he smears the remains of the strawberry up the line of James's neck and across the arch of his cheekbone, sticky juice reflecting dully in the light when James moves.
Jack grins. 'Think there's a bit of something just--right there, mate.' He touches the pads of his middle and ring fingers to James's cheek, sugar tacky against the skin. Hanging for a moment to watch James's expression, the response to an act what's both challenge and suggestion, Jack ducks closer and licks over James's cheek, sucking off the juice, tongue feathering light patterns over the arc of bone. He follows the path he drew with his mouth, down over James's jaw, under his ear and following the tendon in his neck to nip and suck at the place where his collar hangs open. They'll be a mark there later, but Jack doesn't rightly mind.
With a flop to the side, he flicks the strawberry stem over the edge of the bed and stretches out on his back on top the pillows and furs, taking up another strawberry to examine in his fingers as his muscles find the contours of the bed and sink in.
The bed's perfect. Soft but not too soft, the blankets coming to form a certain kind of luxurious nest around his body. Jack flexes his toes and groans, satiated. His eyes fall close. 'A man could never want for anything else in life with a bed like this. Give it a mast and a sail, and there's paradise.'