Chapter Text
The day that James met his soulmate was a fine one.
He woke, as usual, with his internal clock at around six in the morning. It was warm, as it was nearing the middle of August, and he had sweat through his sleep clothes, so he shed them and went to bathe. Unlike most men of his standing, James preferred to do things himself. Not because he came from a less fortunate background, or because he wasn’t used to having things done for him, but because he didn’t like the concept of being coddled.
So he bathed and dressed himself, tied his hair and pinned it beneath the godawful wig he wore, atop which went his hat. It was a ceremony day, his own ceremony in fact, and he would rather have ignored it completely. He’d attended far too many during his first few years in the navy not to know how much the men hated them, or found them boring.
He would simply have to apologize to his men later on and hope that they understood.
It was as he was walking down the stairs towards the dining room that James got his first flash.
Flashes, as they were known, happened in the day or so before one met their soulmate, giving them clues as to who their soulmate might be. As the time got closer these flashes became more common, until finally, a pair of soulmates would touch, and mark them forever with their personal color.
James' first flash was nothing more than a pair of dark, enchanting eyes, lined with dark kohl, canted up towards him. Wherever they were, it was dark.
He almost toppled right down the stairs when he saw them, those pretty eyes. And, though James wasn't a man who was more about looks than anything, he could certainly appreciate a pretty woman when she came around.
(He was certain, by this point in his life, that his soulmate was female. Why wouldn't they be? All the people he knew had a soulmate of the opposite sex to their own, it only made sense.)
Thankfully, he managed to get himself down to the dining room, and ate breakfast without any further incident. Plenty of fine young women came into Port Royal each day, accompanying fathers or brothers on merchant ships.
He adjusted his jacket and put on his boots by the door, and stepped out into the warm summer air. There was a pleasantly cool breeze rushing from the ocean, which he could faintly see from his home. Because of this, the walk from the Norrington estate to the docks wasn't as much of a trek as it was at the end of June, where there wasn't a lick of wind to be had and sweat stuck his underclothes to his skin.
Now, it was quite a nice walk.
It was halfway down to the docks that he got his second flash. This time, it was hard to tell what exactly he was looking at through the dark, which, he knew, was uncommon. He did catch sight of long, dark hair, the exact shade of which was concealed by the darkness, further confirming that his soulmate, whoever she happened to be, was a woman, if a woman of lower standing than himself. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was almost here.
Still, soulmate or no, he did have a job to do, so he did it. He went to check on the nightguard, and got the reports. He ensured the dayshift was happy to do their job, which they were. He made sure his crew were well-fed, and then, with his lieutenants on his heels, he made his way up to the fort. Halfway there, he stopped dead in his tracks as another flash came across his vision.
Water pooling in the bottom of a hold. He couldn’t tell exactly how big, or what was going on, but that was all he got. He blinked, rubbing his eyes, and, at the worry of his lieutenants, he shook his head and muttered something about soulmate flashes, to which they both nodded their heads. Both of them were already marked, Groves with pale yellow, Gilette with a light, pleasant pink. Light colours. It suited them.
(Briefly, he couldn’t help but wonder what colour he’d end up with.)
The ceremony went off with just one hitch in that he stopped briefly as another flash came over him (this one was even less helpful - a bucket floating in the bottom of about six inches of stillwater) but otherwise, it went well.
Turner was there, of course. He was Elizabeth’s soulmate, after all - his chest held her bright, beautiful gold in three neat fingerprints, matching her burnt orange fingers. And he and Elizabeth were friends, and he was friendly with Turner even if he didn’t particularly like the man. So when he saw Turner take a strained-looking Elizabeth up to the top of the fort, he went too, although he stayed out of sight until Elizabeth fell.
“It’s a miracle she missed them!” He told William as he dragged him back away from the wall. He wanted to jump after her, too. Another flash from his soulmate showed Elizabeth under the water, but upon glancing around, he could see no woman here.
Turner, himself, and a group of his men hurried down to the dock where the man who had dragged Elizabeth up was coughing into his fist as Elizabeth hurried to Will, who wrapped her in his coat. “Commodore, do you really intend to kill my rescuer?” Elizabeth asked him, and he sighed and gestured for the men to lower their weapons.
“I believe thanks are in order.” He said, sticking out his hand to shake. His intent had been to trick the man into revealing the brand he no doubt had on his wrist.
Fire curled up his wrist and arm, all the way into his heart, upon first contact, and he jerked away, looking down at his palm, which had turned deep, copper red. He wiped his hand on his trousers, as if it had been something on the pirate’s hand that had stained his own, only to look up to see the pirate trying to wipe something blue off of his own hand.
Navy blue. Which was, doubtless, his own colour. And, now that he was looking, the shade of his palm now matched the bandana underneath the hat the pirate wore.
The pirate looked up from his own hand, saw the red on James’, and said, “Shit.”
Which was, while not appropriate language in the presence of a lady, how James himself was reacting internally. “Take him to the cells.” James said, turning tail. The men did just that, unwilling to risk the ire of their new commodore, but Elizabeth wasn’t nearly as kind.
“James!” She cried, running after him in just her shift and Will’s jacket. “You surely don’t mean to hang your soulmate?” James didn’t shorten his stride for her as he usually did, but she somehow caught up anyway.
When she grabbed his arm, he turned, eyes and words icy. “If God intended that man to be my soulmate then he may have made a very grave mistake.”
He left Elizabeth standing in the street, fist clench to hide that red.
His soulmate was a pirate. The thing he swore he would get rid of entirely in these oceans.
The thing he hated more than anything else in this world.
And he was fated to be with one forever.
What a turn of affairs.
-
Of course, James couldn't stay away.
It was late, and he'd had perhaps a touch too much wine, and now he was standing on the other side of the bars where his… His soulmate was sleeping in the hay.
He kicked the bars, startling the pirate (he didn't even know the man's name) awake.
"Oh," Said the pirate, sitting up halfway, propped up on his elbows. "What do you want?"
James glared at him, glared into those eyes he'd thought were so enchanting before he knew who they belonged to. "What's your name? Your real name," He added when the man opened his mouth to answer.
"Sparrow. Captain, Sparrow. Or Jack, if you like."
Squinting, James considered the idea that his soulmate was the most legendary of pirates, and then decided that yes, the world did hate him that much.
"Sparrow, then." He said, distastefully as he could muster. "You have a dawn appointment with the gallows."
"I'm well aware of what I got, commodore. What I want to know is, what are you gonna do about it?" Sparrow was getting to his feet, now, slowly, as though trying not to frighten a wild animal. "I've seen men who've had their soulmates killed proper. You and I, we've touched. We've made the bond."
James hated that he was right. He'd seen young ladies in the black of mourning, glassy-eyed, pulled around by their mothers or sisters.
"So, tell me, Commodore." His voice was a purr, now. "What are you going to do?"
And the worst thing was?
James didn't know.
-
He figured it out.
Jack, as he'd taken to calling the man, though the familiarity with a pirate made him shudder, had agreed to get himself cleaned up and wear some proper clothes, although he hadn't been too happy about that.
And now he was sitting opposite a pirate, who was eating his best turkey with his fingers.
Jack had denied wearing any of James' clothes, rightly pointing out that they'd swamp him, and instead had cleaned his shirt in the bathwater he'd just vacated.
He ignored the part of him that was impressed with the ingenuity, and instead forced himself to be disgusted.
The shirt had taken a while to dry again, even in the harsh Caribbean heat. As it did, James found himself looking at this wild pirate he'd invited into his home.
Scars littered a back that had gone brown in the sun, and more than, hinting at something in his heritage. A tattoo of a ship lined his shoulder blade, intricate blue ink weaving into the shapes of the mast. Below that there were a handful of small, round burn marks. He wondered what they were from.
Here was a man who spent his entire life at sea. Here was a man who didn't fit with James' pretty, delicate belongings.
"Like what you see, mate?" Jack had said, and James had startled, realizing he'd been staring, and scoffed, looking away. He told himself he had only stayed to ensure the pirate wouldn't steal any of his things, but he knew the truth.
He was curious.
While the pirate ate, he penned a letter to his mother, ignoring the way the pirate watched, presuming that he didn't know how to read.
It was only when Jack snorted at something he'd written that he realized the man did know how to read, and quite well if he was reading at the pace James was writing at.
"Oh, don't stop on my account." Jack said, leaning back in the chair. Those eyes, he was seeing now, shone with intelligence. And that, he knew, was a very dangerous thing. A pirate that could plan was a dangerous one indeed, especially since he'd invited the thing into his home and…
And he was thinking about Jack like he was an animal. A clever animal, but an animal nonetheless. Which, if he kept up, might get him killed. "Don't read over my shoulder." He said, instead of anything else.
Jack shrugged and went back to his meal. He'd eaten the meat with no problems, the fruit as well, but he was eyeing the handful of vegetables on his plate like he didn't know what they were.
James couldn't help but twitch his lips up in a small smirk. Not so clever after all.
"Oi," Jack said, and the smirk fell as quickly as it had arrived. "So you're commodore, then?"
James huffed. "As of yesterday morning, yes. Why?"
Those clever eyes flashed in either excitement or, more likely, in the way of a predator that just caught the scent of prey. "Well, I'm in the market for a ship, as it were, and I-"
"No."
"What?"
"No." James did not pause in his writing, gave no quarter. "You will not be taking any of my ships, you will not be sailing to anywhere, and, in fact, you will be staying right here where I can keep an eye on you. Do I make myself clear?"
And now, though it was a look James didn't quite recognise, Jack was looking like a beast that had been trapped and was desperately searching for a way out.
"Crystal."