Fic: Burn Your Bridges Down (Slow Fuse remix) [PotC; Jack Sparrow/James Norrington; R]

[addison-rock.livejournal.com]

Title: Burn Your Bridges Down (Slow Fuse remix)
Author: penknife
Summary: Jack is good at taking what he can.
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Pairing: Jack Sparrow/James Norrington
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Disney's, not mine.
Original story: Burn Your Bridges Down by Dala
Notes: The original story was written pre-DMC, and the remix likewise ignores DMC canon. Thanks to geek_mama_2 for beta reading!

***

Burn Your Bridges Down (Slow Fuse remix)

When they pull James Norrington from the wreckage of his ship, he lies sprawled on the deck like a dead man, his hair stained red where blood is mixing with sea water, his left leg at an angle that ought not be. Anamaria is all for throwing him back, and while Jack can't quite feature heaving the man over the side like spoiled cargo, he sees the attraction of setting him down on the next bit of land with a friendly bottle and a loaded pistol. Gibbs doesn't look entirely easy with the idea, but Jack knows the man well enough to know he won't speak up in protest.

"Waste not, want not," Jack says instead. "He might be worth something, and if we throw him in, we can't get him back."

"We don't want him back," Anamaria snaps. "He'd see us all hanged if he could, and spit on our graves."

"Be that as it may," Jack says. There's a dangerous speculation in Anamaria's eye, as if she's weighing her support among the crew. He waits while she comes to a conclusion in her mental arithmetic.

"Aye, captain," she says, and turns to help Gibbs get the man below.

By the time Jack puts enough distance between them and the scene of the battle to turn the wheel over to Cotton and venture below, they've set Norrington's leg, a neat enough job given a rough sea. The man is breathing fast and shallow, his face pale and his eyes sunken. He could be drawing his last breaths, or then again not, and there's no surgeon aboard to venture an opinion.

"Any pursuit?" Gibbs asks.

Jack waves a hand dismissively. "Not a sign," he says. "Looks like the Dauntless and that Spanish galleon did for each other, and no one's the wiser yet. You can go take a look at those crates, if ye like." He ought to go look himself, but Gibbs is the closest thing to an honest man he's got, and besides he expects most of what they've come away with is ship's stores and trade goods, not small valuables. Gibbs would be hard pressed to conceal a bolt of cloth or barrel of salt pork about his person.

"Aye, captain," Gibbs says, and leaves with a glance at Anamaria. She looks down at the bedraggled commodore, her fingers resting on her knife.

"I said no," Jack says, because now it'll be showing his throat to let her have her way, even if upon reflection he suspects she may have been right.

Anamaria gives him an innocent look, like she wasn't just contemplating slitting the man's throat. "You want him in the brig?"

It's probably the safest place, in every sense, but even if he keeps the key, the man may wind up dead of lying too close to the bars. There's only one place where Jack can keep him under his eye without having to haunt the hold, even if that means a considerable inroad into his comfort for however long Norrington manages to postpone shuffling off the mortal coil.

"Take him up to me cabin," Jack says. "He can have the bed till his leg's fit for a hammock." He waits to see if Anamaria will say it's like that, is it? She doesn't say it, which he assumes means she knows he knows what she was thinking on deck, and that she figures she'd best not push her luck with him just now. The whole thing makes him feel suddenly tired.

Anamaria and Ragetti carry Norrington up to his cabin and deposit him none too gently in Jack's bed. Jack watches him for a while after they've gone; over the hours, his breathing slows, and color bleeds back into his face. When Jack wets a cloth and squeezes water over the man's lips, he sputters and chokes and then swallows convulsively. It's conceivable that he won't die.

Jack does the same again and again, water to make up for all that blood run into the sea and onto the deck, and wonders as he does it what he thinks he's doing. He's never been one to give an enemy a sporting chance, but after a while old enemies begin to seem more like friends. Not that he's had so many friends who didn't wind up enemies in the end. It's all very flexible.

Anyway, the man's cleverer and more ruthless than his pretty uniform would suggest. Jack can't help liking that, even if he hasn't liked being hunted round the Caribbean every time Norrington gets bored. If he has to go out one of these days, he'd like to think he at least won't go down under the guns of someone really stupid.

Eventually he gets tired of wondering whether the man's going to die and goes down to the galley, locking the cabin door behind him. There's a fair bit of speculation going on about the commodore's chances of recovery, his eventual fate, and whether Jack means to hang him or sell him or keep him for a pet.

"He'll be a cripple, with that leg," Pintel says. "Be a sight to see a fine officer like that dragging himself down a Tortuga alley." He goes down on his knees in pantomime, holding up a querulous hand for imaginary coins. "Won't yer think of a poor sailor what's come to a bad end ..."

"Oh, shut it," Gibbs says from a corner, his voice heavy with drink. The men young enough or stupid enough not to have given much thought to how a pirate's life will likely end are laughing. Jack raises his own bottle and drinks, waiting for their eyes to turn to him.

"Maybe so," he says. "But you'd best be right, hadn't you?"

Pintel frowns. "You ain't going to let him take after us, are you?"

Jack raises his eyebrows. "Do you need me to look after you, then? I thought that was Ragetti's job."

There's another chorus of laughter at that, but Pintel doesn't join in. "He ain't a pirate," he says.

Jack flashes him his best trust me smile. "Not yet," he says.

It's nearly three days before Norrington wakes. Jack is lying in the hammock he's slung across the cabin reflecting on how much more comfortable his bed is when he hears the man stir and then go suddenly still. Jack drops down to the deck and presents himself in Norrington's view. He's not sure whether he's a welcome sight or not. Possibly he is, if only because better the devil you know.

"Morning," he says. "You've kept me out of my bed for three days, mate, for which you owe me."

Norrington tries to answer and chokes instead. Jack hands him a bottle of rum, on the theory that it'll be more welcome than stale water and probably at this point won't kill him. Norrington drinks, and then pushes the bottle away.

"Water," he whispers.

Jack hands him the water and watches him drink. After a minute Norrington looks up at him. It's clear that talking is painful. Jack suspects listening isn't going to be much more pleasant.

"We didn't find any other survivors," Jack says. "If there was another ship came along, maybe ..."

"No other ship," Norrington says. He rasps out the words like he's under court-martial, like a man in the confessional driven by the weight of his sins. "I saw their colors. I didn't ... believe them. Thought they were ... pirates."

There'd been a fog, enough to deceive the eye sure enough, but it takes a certain kind of driven man to assume every vessel he meets is a pirate ship, even neutral vessels flying their own proper colors. Jack starts to say something about being obsessed with pirates, and then reconsiders. "Consider yourself my guest," he says, gesturing expansively around the cabin. "Or prisoner, or something. We can work that out later."

Norrington glares at him silently. Jack waits for him to say something sour in return. Norrington does not reward him with a word.

"I expect you're hungry," Jack says after a while.

Norrington says nothing, only regarding him with unreadable green eyes.

"Fine," Jack says. "I've always liked the silent type, myself. It reduces the chance of being interrrupted."

Norrington raises an eyebrow, but says nothing.

"You're not going to beg me not to kill you, are you? Because I always find that sort of thing a bit embarrassing, really."

Norrington gives him a scornful look, as if to say oh, please.

Jack turns to go, and hesitates in the doorway. "She was a pretty ship," he says.

Norrington turns his face away, and Jack lets him be.

Days pass as they do at sea, hard work and the vagaries of the weather interspersed with idle hours. They're working their way toward Curaçao, where they can dispose of both British and Spanish goods without too many questions. Jack keeps the key to the great cabin in his pocket when he's on deck, and keeps an eye on anyone who seems to linger too close, although Anamaria seems resigned to having Norrington aboard and has begun to speculate with him about a possible ransom.

Norrington runs a fever for days, and is left sweating and shaky when it breaks. Jack sits with his feet up on the foot of the bed and tries to goad the man to speak. "I have heard that the only reason there's not more buggery in the Navy is that most of the men can't find their own arses, let alone anyone else's," he tries.

Norrington raises one eyebrow wearily as if to suggest this is not one of Jack's better efforts.

"I take it you've found yours, then," Jack says. He feels that he's not entirely playing fair with a man who can't very well avoid his company, but it's hard for him to stand the man's refusal to talk. If he wanted to talk to something that wouldn't talk back, he'd have kept the monkey. "You know, the parrot's better company."

Norrington shrugs, with the ghost of his sharp smile. He looks pleased to have found a way to annoy Jack. He's always enjoyed bedeviling Jack, and up to a certain point, that point being when his neck is in danger of winding up in a noose, Jack doesn't mind playing that game. What he does not enjoy is silence.

"If you're waiting for me to get tired of the sound of me own voice, you'll wait a long time, Commodore."

Norrington goes very still at the word. He shakes his head once, grimly.

"What would you prefer, then? Mate? Love? James me dear, light of my life ..."

Norrington makes a face of theatrical repulsion, but at least he's lost that grim, set look that made Jack think that he was wise to rid the cabin of sharp objects for more reasons than his own continued good health. Jack begins spinning a long story about a girl he met in Singapore, the kind of tale he can tell while only half paying attention. Norrington half pays attention himself, but his gaze keeps drifting to the windowpanes, where the candlelight glitters and throws back their own reflection fragmented and twisted by the glass.

The man's asleep by the time Jack gets to the best part of the tale, so Jack tells it quietly for an audience of himself and the Pearl. She knows all his best stories by now, and though she never speaks, he doesn't expect her to. He likes to think she's the sweetest and most admiring of audiences, and that if she could she'd curl up beside him in his hammock and admire him most prettily. Instead he curls up cold and wonders why he didn't buy a kitten instead of acquiring Norrington. At least a cat would sleep on his feet.

Hard as it is for him to credit it, he does sometimes get tired of talking, when there's no reply but Norrington's skeptical gaze. The night after they leave Curaçao, he's come off watch dead tired and too keyed up to sleep, still a bit hung over from the previous night's drinking. He lights more candles and opens a book, looking for familiar company. He glances over at Norrington after a minute, who is watching him with more than his customary skepticism.

Jack smiles and reads aloud. "En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor." He thinks that at least should win some remark about Don Quixote being an appropriate subject for them both. At that, he's not sure Norrington speaks Spanish, more than enough to say "prepare to be boarded."

He tries something like the same in English. "In a village of La Mancha, the name of which is unimportant --"

Norrington makes an impatient sound, from which Jack assumes that he does in fact speak Spanish. "I can read English, too, if you're wondering," Jack says. "And a few other languages besides. I'm sorry if that tarnishes your image of me a bit."

Norrington shrugs one shoulder and turns up his palm as if to say he'll take the blow philosophically. He looks rather hungrily at the book.

Jack has no desire to have the room plunged back into quiet, without even Norrington's silent attention. "I'll read," he says. "You listen."

Norrington is asleep before he tires of reading, or pretending to be, anyway. Jack puts the book carefully away and puts the candles out. The cabin is silvered by moonlight, and the man asleep in Jack's bed might be any one of an army of ghosts. Jack crosses to the bed as silently as a ghost himself and traces the patterns of the moonlight and shadow in the air with his fingers, not quite touching the man's skin.

If Norrington is awake, he does not move or make a sound. His breathing is as steady as ever, a sound that's becoming familiar background to Jack's nights. Jack spreads out his hand to throw Norrington's face for a moment into shadow, and then retreats, leaving the man to the silent embrace of the moonlight.

He's noticed that the books are sometimes out of place when he returns to the cabin, so he's not surprised when he catches Norrington up hopping around the cabin on one foot; if it's possible to hop grimly, the man is doing it, but he's managing not to go sprawling to the deck. Jack offers him his arm in aid of his efforts, which Norrington silently and firmly declines. The next day he offers him a makeshift crutch, which Norrington hesitates over and then takes from him with a nod that might even be thank you.

He can hear the crutch thumping on the deck below while he's at the wheel, and once a louder series of crashes that's probably Norrington tripping over a chair. His hands twitch on the wheel, but he assumes that if the man had broken his healing leg again, he'd not be too stubborn to call out. After a while he calls Ragetti over to take the wheel a minute and wanders down to the cabin to fetch out a map he wants. Norrington's sitting up in bed with a book looking none the worse for wear, so that's all to the good.

"Time you were up and about," Jack says. "You've abused my hospitality long enough, you know."

Norrington shrugs. Jack's well aware it wasn't Norrington's choice. He starts to say it's not as if Norrington couldn't have returned to the watery grave Jack cheated him of if he'd really wanted to, them being surrounded on all sides by the sea, but he holds his tongue. It's never comfortable to discover that your own life is more important to you than the man you thought you were.

It's a week before Norrington emerges from the cabin in the middle of the afternoon and makes his awkward way out onto the deck. He blinks up at the sun as if it's new to him, steadying himself against the rolling motion of the deck. He looks out across the waves, and Jack can see all the things he's taking in, their speed and the strength of the wind that drives them on, the way the weather will turn by evening and bring a steady rain.

For the first time he doesn't look as out of place as a parrot in winter, and when he turns, for the first time he's smiling without mockery. That's one thing they've got in common, then, when everything else is burned away. For a moment Jack smiles too, like they're two men admiring the same woman. It's hard to hate a man who loves the sea.

"Best get to work, then," Jack says. "I suppose you know how to mend sail."

There's a moment where he can see Norrington drawing himself up to be above such a thing, but Jack can see him change his mind and swallow his pride. He nods. Jack thinks that's won Norrington a few points with those of the crew who are finding reasons to linger on deck and watch this little tableau unfolding.

At that, he wins a few more when it's clear he can sew a straight seam and splice rope so it won't break, which is more than Jack really trusts Ragetti to do. Jack suspects he's a skilled hand at the wheel and the guns as well, and navigation is hardly the closed book to him that it is to most of the hands aboard. He's beginning to suspect it would be a waste to ransom him at almost any price, given that a crewman as useful probably can't be had in any nearby port for love or money.

What he hasn't got to entice the man to stay aboard is money, and love is probably not in the cards. There are reasonable substitutes, however. They've been a long time out of port, or at least Norrington has, having missed their few excursions ashore. There will come an opportune moment for making an offer of sorts. Jack waits for it; he knows how to be patient when there's something he wants.

Six weeks later they run down a pretty little Dutch merchantman out of St. Maarten; the captain sees reason quickly enough and strikes her colors without much of a fight. Norrington stays below, locked in the cabin against the temptation to involve himself in any capacity. Jack's not sure exactly what he doesn't trust him not to do, but he knows he doesn't trust him. Afterwards he flatly refuses a share of Jack's dinner, despite Jack's explanation of the virtue of Dutch cheeses and his generous offer of brandy to follow.

Jack thinks he looks less angry than bitter, as if brooding on being brought so low as to be offered scraps from another man's table in the cabin of an unwashed pirate. Jack wants to say that of earning your bread and having it, having it's the sweeter thing. Instead he only shrugs. "More for me, mate," he says, and the next day nothing's changed. The second time they take a prize it's the same. The third time Norrington accepts a glass of French wine and neatly dissects a wing of smoked goose as if he's at an admiral's table; if it sticks in his throat as he eats, he doesn't let it show.

They haven't taken a British ship yet. Jack's not sure what will happen if they come across one, and so he tries to avoid that eventuality. Anamaria seems to accept that they're paying most of their attentions elsewhere at the moment. He doesn't think there will ever be much love lost between her and Norrington, but she tolerates the man now, and treats him as she does Cotton, not asking him any questions that demand more answer than a nod or shake of his head.

It's been six months by the time Norrington comes stomping into the cabin one night when they're in port, waking Jack from his fitful sleep. He never sleeps well with the noise of the docks to keep him on edge, especially this close to the lastest place he was nearly hanged, and he's not happy to be wakened in the middle of one of his few opportunities to sleep in his own bed.

"Can't you bugger off until dawn, at least?" he growls, shading his eyes as Norrington lights a lamp. Norrington throws a piece of paper onto the bed, and Jack squints at it in the dim light. It's a broadside ballad, splotchily printed and clearly the worse for having drink spilled on it, telling the tragical tale of how the Dauntless and a Spanish galleon were both brought to a watery grave by a captain gone mad with ambition and pride.

"Well, now," Jack says after he's read the last stilted verse. "Someone else did make it to shore after all. Pity he didn't tell his story to someone who could write lines that scan." He looks up into Norrington's furious gaze. "You know it's true, mate," he says, quietly. It's nothing more than the truth.

Norrington grabs the paper back from him and crumples it in his hand. He throws it across the room, hard enough that he stumbles and nearly sprawls across the bed. Jack reaches to prop him up, and Norrington shoves him away, going down hard on his knees by the bed instead. His mouth goes white with pain, but he doesn't try to get to his feet.

Jack waits. There's nothing but silence. He doesn't know how to fill it.

"I made ... one mistake." Norrington's voice is rough with disuse, or maybe just with his fury at the world and at himself.

"One is all it takes," Jack says.

"I don't want to be you."

"No one says you have to be, mate."

There's a silence. "I can't ... I'll need your hand to stand," Norrington says finally. Each word sounds like an effort. Jack takes his arm and tugs him onto the bed instead. There is a moment where they are both still, Norrington half-kneeling over him, Jack lying back, tilting his head in a way he knows will make the beads in his hair glitter in the moonlight.

"Take what you can," Jack says.

Norrington's mouth curves in a crooked smile. "Give .... nothing back?"

"That's right, mate," Jack says softly, and pulls him down into a kiss.

Norrington seems hungry enough, pressing against him and tearing at their clothes, letting out a little self-satisfied laugh when Jack turns over under him, head bent and skin bared. He grasps at Jack, and then falters, his hands gripping angrily tight.

"I can't, Sparrow," he snarls. "My leg --"

Jack reaches back to catch Norrington's arm and take more of the man's weight, although his own muscles are protesting. "I've got you."

Norrington holds on, finding a way to brace his weight. Then he's pressing his way in, and they're moving together, awkward but steady, a little like the rocking of the ship in a heavy sea. Norrington is tense against him, and he thinks there's as much pain as pleasure in it for the man, but that may be what he wants. Jack leans back as Norrington's hands clutch at him, bearing him up against his own weight, the way the Pearl's bearing them both up against the dark water that would drag them down.

Norrington thrusts hard into him with a wordless sound of pain, gripping Jack as if he can pull them closer together, leaning down as if waiting for some word of comfort or for some muttered curse.

"Let it go," Jack says. "There's no going back."

It's probably the wrong thing to say, but Norrington strains against him as if he'd said yes or love or mine. He shudders once, all over, and then sags, his breathing harsh. His weight then is too much for Jack to bear, and he rolls over under him, pushing him off a bit to the side.

He's not all that surprised to find that Norrington's face is wet. He leans up to taste the salt on Norrington's skin. There's no life for a man who loves the sea without its share of tears.

After a while Norrington's breathing slows and steadies. "You should have let me die," he says, his voice a harsh rasp.

"Pirate," Jack says, shrugging one shoulder. He gives Norrington a while to think about that.

"Take what you can," Norrington says finally.

"And give nothing back," Jack says, and pretends they don't both know better.

In the morning Norrington comes up on deck in time to see them coming in sight of Gallows Point. He's dressed in his best cast-off coat and breeches, and he's got his hair neatly tied back in a queue. Jack's not sure what decision he's come to in the hours since Jack left him sleeping, his hands stretched out toward the warm place Jack left in the blankets when he rose.

He beckons the man over to the wheel, and Norrington makes his way up to the quarterdeck and stands at his elbow, hesitating. Jack hasn't trusted him before with the wheel. He reaches out, his hand tracing the curves of the warm wood, and then looks up at Jack, a question in his eyes.

"You can't go back," he says. "But you're welcome to try."

"Free to try tilting at windmills?" Norrington asks hoarsely. From the rail, Gibbs turns to stare at him as if he's seeing a ghost.

"Free, mate," Jack says. "It's a big ocean."

"I have a name, you know," Norrington says. He catches the wheel as Jack lets it go and steers them steadily around the point, as pretty a turn as Jack could want.

"If you think we're on those kinds of terms, James love." Best to start by making a joke of it himself, to take the sting out of anything the crew may say about Jack having tamed his pet at last. The last thing he needs is to give them ammunition. If there's anything more serious to this than one night's release from tension, that's a card he plans to keep close to his chest for as long as he can.

Norrington strokes the curve of the wheel and glances over at him. "As long as you're clear it's not 'Commodore.'" It only seems to hurt him a little to say it.

"Well, for that matter, it's 'Captain Sparrow' or 'Jack me darling love,' but not 'Sparrow' like you think I belong before the mast," Jack says. "I'm the captain here, savvy?" The words come out sharper than he meant them. He's weary to the bone these days with fighting the whole world.

"I've never been a disloyal man," Norrington says. "I'm sorry if that tarnishes your image of me."

"I'll live," Jack says. "If you're planning on taking us into the harbor ..."

"I thought we'd take another course," Norrington says. "If you don't object."

"Change of course!" Jack calls out, and watches Norrington bring them about, steering them back toward open water. Gibbs takes his bearings from Norrington after a glance at Jack, and they run out from Jamaica with a fine wind behind them. There's no need for a heading beyond that just yet.

When Jack glances behind them, he can see the last destination for a few unlucky pirates growing smaller in the distance. He sweeps his hat off to them and then turns away. There's no use in looking back, or in thinking too much about how a pirate's life ends. Instead he follows James's gaze, out toward the glittering morning sea.

***

Comments

[aris-writing.livejournal.com]

I love it! The leg bit--and the dialogue--and the last bit just gets me. Beautiful!

[penknife.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

[the-dala.livejournal.com]

Oh squeeee! That was excellent! I really liked the altered dialogue, and the expansion of the reading bit. You did a great job, thank you so much!

[penknife.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it -- I really had a lot of fun remixing this, especially since this isn't one of my usual pairings.

[medie]

Damn but you did an amazing job with this. It's fantastic

[penknife.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much!

[siryn99.livejournal.com]

That was wonderful. Excellent job!

[penknife.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

Fic: Burn Your Bridges Down (Slow Fuse remix)

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

The time out out at sea and the communal confines of the ship!
Anamaria was wonderfully drawn in her role in the story.
And the development and justification for their relationship works really well.
It's not an easy pairing for me to see, but now I really get it.

Re: Fic: Burn Your Bridges Down (Slow Fuse remix)

[penknife.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's not one of my usual pairings either, but it was fun to play with in this story.

[djarum99.livejournal.com]

I'm becoming a Sparrington fan - never thought I'd see the day. Your story and the original are perfectly in character, and make their connection absolutely believable.

"Take what you can," Norrington says finally.

"And give nothing back," Jack says, and pretends they don't both know better.

Gorgeous. Brava!

[penknife.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! This was a fun story to write.

[elessil.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous work. I enjoyed dala's original story, as well as this one. A lot.

[penknife.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

[threewalls]

I love Jack's narrative voice in this (and the contrast of his near-constant chatter with Norrington's stubborn silence). It must be hard to pull that off so well, neither too little nor too much.

[penknife.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Jack is always interesting to write, yes, especially in a serious story -- it's easy to let his tendency to ramble about absurd things run away with a story.

[kangeiko]

Ooooh, this is lovely!

[penknife.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[park-hye-in.livejournal.com]

Oh, I really liked this. Thanks for sharing.