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piratesgiftexchange · 7 months

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The Governor and the Commodore

by beemovieerotica, for @litallusion

PROMPT: “ I am determined to revoke Weatherington’s meme status and actually make it a credible ship, so a fic where James reflects on how Weatherby must feel about him after the hurricane would be perfect at achieving this, IMO. Can be as platonic or romantic as you like (although, of course, romantic is preferred ;) ).”

WORD COUNT: 4,482

It’s a funny thing, how a man will let himself believe that the cause of all his actions was a woman.

James Norrington knelt in the rocking longboat, his hands quivering, sword and pistol lying on the wood as the immensity of his current situation settled upon his soul. Endless blue stretched around the boat, the water rippling and flecked with dancing sunlight—and just over there, just out of reach, faint bubbles were rising to the surface. Slower now, trickling away…until they stopped altogether.

He raised his eyes to meet the man seated across from him. Weatherby Swann, his stately clothes now drenched with saltwater, removed his dripping wig and let it fall in a heap on the bottom of the boat. Their chests rose and fell in slowing breaths, calming, accepting—united. There could be no coming back from any of this.

They met each other’s eyes, and a wordless agreement passed between them: and within that agreement lay something deeper. The corners of their mouths ventured upward. This was a mutual banishment.

They could not go back. Would not go back.

——

Norrington now remembered the crossing from England with a fondness he never knew he bore.

The voyage and subsequent restationing had been assigned to him both by virtue of his rank and his lack of permanent attachments. A lieutenant in the Royal Navy, yet he had no wife, no children, no staunch desire to remain within the bounds of England’s shores—or better yet, her more tightly controlled colonies. He’d heard of young sailors who’d made their way in such places, where wealth, status, and a devoted spouse might easily be found, and a simulacrum of a Londoner’s life made there. But no, it simply wasn’t for him. It was not a preferable life.

Although he was not unusual in this choice, and it remained common among some sailing men, uncharitable assumptions tended to be made.

No, he was needed in dangerous waters. Such was the assignment of every unattached Navy man who had the wherewithal to devote himself to his duty and the promise of discovery over the mores and strictures of a life in calm seas. It was a sacrifice, he told himself.

Sacrifices for a new world, brimming with possibility.

Lieutenant Norrington shook the hand of the newly assigned Governor Swann upon the HMS Dauntless, two men bound by fate to endure the long voyage to a distant, unseen shore. They’d read ample reports of what the colonies were like, certainly. But every journey bore its mysteries, its hesitations…its threats. But it was not entirely proper to voice such things—certainly not from the Navy man meant to guide the other in a safe crossing.

Swann was the first to speak. “It’s all quite difficult to imagine, isn’t it? Starting a new life over there?” he asked, giving quiet voice to the fears within them both.

Norrington let a small smile cross his face, and he cast his eyes up toward the full white sails. “I imagine weeks will pass before the curtain falls,” he began, “and then we can be completely certain of having been removed from our former, comfortable lives and placed in the middle of an island, across the sea, away from everything we’ve ever known.”

Swann let out a soft chuckle. “Well, it’s still part of the empire, isn’t it?” he replied. “We’ll have our familiar foods and drinks, our fashions and our habits—perhaps harder to come by or maintain than we’re necessarily accustomed to—but we’ll have it. After all, isn’t that what civilization is for?”

Norrington grinned. “Indeed.”

The governor stepped to the railing and gazed out over the shimmering sea. “You wouldn’t believe how far we’ve come just in the time since I was your age,” he said. “It seems that every day, we discover some new barbarism within ourselves that we must cast aside to allow for new, changed men to grow.” Something stirred behind his eyes. “There can be no path forward without a reflection upon our past shame. Such is the way the world turns.”

“It’s hard to fathom a man of such success and devotion to his country as having anything to be ashamed of,” Norrington said.

Swann looked up at Norrington, a glimmer of surprise upon his features. Did the man not even conceive of himself in such a light? A moment passed before he replied.

“Every man bears the simple shame of being a man,” Swann said. And there was an unreadable expression in his countenance that followed.

There was so much more Norrington needed to know of this man.

Through the voyage, they found comfort in each other’s polite company: in conversation, in discussions of philosophy, and—at times—in matters that wandered close to the heart. They were conscious of who they were, but more than that, they knew who they needed to be. Governor, beacon, guide through the churning seas of progress. Lieutenant, protector, and enforcer if the other should falter.

Their meandering talks ended as always with the low, dwindling wick of a candle between them, their bodies slipping into shadow across a long desk, and they would fall quiet for a long while, listening. To the sea, they each thought—to each other’s breaths, they both wondered—and to the sounds of their own drumming hearts, there in the great space of the sea.

——

He had waited for the governor at the fort the night after his proposal to Elizabeth.

It had been a hectic day, bewildering on all fronts. He had anticipated some apprehension revolving around the day’s events, to be sure—namely, the bearing of his heart in the midst of his promotion to commodore. The elevation of his career carried the promise of a stable path forward in life, and following that, naturally, was the securing of a proper family, beginning with a wife. It was the order of the world, the way things were done.

But overshadowing all of that had been the arrival of a certain Captain Jack Sparrow, followed by his brutish acts—the threatening of the very woman he might one day marry—her rescue, and then Sparrow’s final, grateful arrest at the smithy. Too long a day. There had been no time to dwell at all on any reply from Elizabeth herself.

Meeting with her father, he thought, might illuminate uncertainties in the dark.

“Thank you, again, for the valiant bravery of you and your men today,” Swann said. It had been the third time he’d said it thus far. Norrington replied with a furtive smile.

The two were walking side by side atop the fort walls, the evening unusually chilly for the season. Of course, this followed an afternoon of blistering, dripping heat and humidity which had led to Elizabeth’s near-fatal fall into dangerous water. Tropical climes could never be so predictable.

“And Miss Swann, she is well?” Norrington asked.

Governor Swann chuckled lightly, and a sigh was mingled with the mirth. “Do you know what was the first thing she asked when we returned home? Father, have you seen the book I was reading last night? I’ve been meaning to finish it. Can you believe that? Not a word about being—being ransomed by a pirate, as if it were the most commonplace thing in the world!”

Norrington let out a huff of laughter. He could believe it. There was nothing he believed more of Elizabeth’s manner than that.

“I tell you, she’s made of far sterner stuff than I am,” Swann went on. “But her mother…” The man’s voice quieted, and once more he turned to gaze over the dark, still sea. Norrington remained one step back, watching the man slip into memory. “She was a woman of such boundless courage, conviction, and foresight, I fear I lack all that is required to set my daughter on the right path. Where she led, I simply forgave. Perhaps that is all a father is good for. Forgiveness.”

A pause, and then he abruptly turned toward Norrington with a hand upon his heart. “My apologies, I did not in any way mean to suggest that you are not the right path for my daughter. On the contrary, it is Elizabeth’s stubbornness to consider the prospects of marriage at all that has made this whole arrangement so difficult to carry through to completion.”

Norrington gave an understanding nod, his brows furrowed. “Of course.”

“You are ideal in every respect,” Swann continued. “Not just a decent man, but a tremendously good one. And you know that I’ve enjoyed every moment of your company and counsel over these years. There cannot be a better choice than you,” he said. The slightest, most barely tangible pause. “To make my daughter happy.”

It was difficult to see much in the low lantern light—but how Norrington strained to make out the expression on the other man’s face. How were they always here, in moments of darkness, speaking so openly as if none else in the world existed? As if perceiving his innermost thoughts, Swann spoke again.

“I feel that we were bound together by our mutual crossing, stepping into this new world side by side,” he said quietly. “I would have you join my family, above all others, in whatever manner that may be.”

A trembling silence followed. Norrington opened his mouth to give a hurried reply of thanks, his heart beginning to beat loudly in his chest against all reason. But something prickled in his mind. “In whatever manner…?” he asked, the words slipping out before he had a chance to silence them.

Swann did not move his gaze from Norrington’s face, both dappled in firelight as a cold breeze shook the lantern just beyond their reach. For the briefest moment, Swann’s eyes were illuminated—and there, right there, he could see it—Swann’s eyes were filling with tears.

As it is with all things hanging on the precipice of discovery, interruptions come too easily.

Cannonfire rang out through the harbor, and seconds before it struck, Norrington leapt upon Swann to bring them both to the ground—clutched together, hidden, safe.

——

The unending efforts to rescue Elizabeth from the pirates were wearing down on them all.

Days and nights bleeding into the early morning hours were spent in planning, negotiations, and strategizing: coordination with merchant vessels, following through on every possible lead, organizing for provisions, weaponry, and able men to crew the ships that were presently scouring every route the infamous Black Pearl might have taken. It was a daunting amount of sea to search, chasing a ghost ship faster than the wind itself.

Norrington and Swann found themselves striding from one end of the town to the other on most days than not, wrapped up in meetings and stratagem, bundles of parchment between them with maps and manifests for everything that could lead to the safe return of the governor’s daughter.

They could not spare a moment to rest, though their bodies could scarcely keep up with their spirit.

“Here, allow me,” Norrington said. He maneuvered a heavy box of documents out of Swann’s unwilling hands, urging him to release it, until Swann finally relented with a sigh. The governor had deep hollows under his eyes which no amount of bluster could hide.

“Take my arm,” Norrington insisted. He held the box easily under one arm and offered the crook of his other to the older man. Swann waved a hand dismissively and made to keep walking, but Norrington pressed. “It would not do to have you stumble and fall. Now, please.”

“I may be old, but I am not infirm,” Swann retorted.

“I can see your legs quivering.”

Norrington’s eyes flicked downward, and when they returned, he saw the other man’s face beginning to turn red. But Swann did not protest, and with his lips sealed tight, he took Norrington’s arm tight with one hand, and the two proceeded onward.

“I apologize if I’ve embarrassed you,” Norrington said quietly, their footsteps sounding upon the stone street. “But you must allow me to ensure that you are in your best health, to prevent any injury from befalling the governor of this colony.”

“I do not believe that’s part of your formal duties,” Swann said with an amused edge to his tone.

A smirk crossed Norrington’s lips. “Then would you indulge me this extra responsibility?”

Swann looked sidelong at Norrington, and their gazes met for a lingering moment. “I suppose I can indulge you,” he said softly.

A warm shiver crept up Norrington’s spine—the climate and the exertion, he reasoned.

The two continued with their near non-stop planning for Elizabeth’s retrieval, and it was only when they finally set sail on the Dauntless that they were granted a moment to breathe. Finally, they were relieved of managing and overseeing absolutely everything that needed to be done. Swann was once more just a passenger upon a vessel, and Norrington had his assembly of officers to ease his administrative burdens.

Days passed at sea, the ships tracing well-traveled trade routes.

Perhaps it was the comfortable familiarity of the same ship that had carried them to the new world, bringing them together once more, or perhaps it was the tight quarters and proximity of both the physical and the intangible memories bubbling to the surface—but Norrington and Swann found themselves again in each other’s conversational company into the late hours of the night.

They needed time to process, to breathe.

Swann poured a glass of wine for himself at his desk with Norrington seated across from him in the candlelight. Such a familiar place to be.

“I think I can forgive myself this one indulgence in the midst of all that has transpired,” Swann said. The deep red liquid swirled in the glass, and he paused for a moment before lifting it up. “Are you certain that I can’t pour you one as well? It feels quite rude of me to deny a man a drink while enjoying one right in front of him.”

Norrington gave a small smile. “The far more improper act would be my inebriation during my duty hours,” he replied. “Please, don’t hesitate on my behalf.”

Swann nodded and brought the drink to his lips. He swallowed gratefully, savoring the taste, and then he sighed. “Would that we could speak to the sea itself to discern where Elizabeth has gone. But that’s what a sailor’s intuition must become, in its maturation and exercise, isn’t it?”

Norrington frowned for a moment, his gaze settling on the glass, seeing past it. “One would hope,” he said quietly. “Though, every day, I see myself growing more capable of weathering the whims and tides of man and obligation, but my ability to understand nature itself remains as bereft of insight as the day I was born.”

Swann smiled gently over the rim of his glass—the first time he had smiled so in a while. “Insight and wisdom may come yet with age,” he said. “Consider yourself lucky to still have so much vitality within you.”

Swann continued to sip his drink, his eyes upon Norrington. And though he had not had anything to drink, Norrington felt a heat creep up beneath his collar. “It’s quite warm in here,” he remarked suddenly.

“Is it?” Swann asked. His gaze had not left the younger man, and finishing his current sip, his tongue tracing the taste of wine upon his lips, he offered out the glass to Norrington. “Please,” he said as Norrington instinctively raised a hand in protest, “it’s a wonderful vintage, and I would hate to finish it all myself without giving you the courtesy of one taste.”

Norrington eyed the glass, the damp print of Swann’s lips still upon it, and he looked back up. His chest was growing hot—he might need a refitting for his coat, he thought. “There will only be one glass upon the table,” Swann went on, “and if anyone should enter, they will quite reasonably assume that I have been the one partaking, not you.”

The corner of Norrington’s mouth twitched up, and he gave a sigh of amused resignation. “Very well,” he said.

The glass passed between them, and as it did, Swann held onto it for a moment longer than was needed. The edges of their fingers brushed against one another. Norrington looked up, and he caught a strange, furtive gaze from Swann before the glass was relinquished into his hands.

His heart was pounding in his ears.

Norrington cleared his throat and brought the drink to his lips—the flavor pooled upon his tongue, rich, deep, evocative, and he let out an almost too-vulnerable mmm before he finally lowered it from his mouth. He had partaken a bit more than he had intended to. More than he should have—but just as much as he had wanted.

When he looked up, Swann’s gaze was upon him, the man’s lips parted.

He knew what was meant to follow. And it was all that he had wanted, there in the secretive shadows of his soul.

Had he ever kissed another like this before? There had been fleeting courtships back in London, long before any of this, before he had made that journey to an unknown shore. Destiny. Fate. Intertwined. He and the very man who had given breath to his fears upon that voyage leaned across the desk, their lips tasting of wine, the only part of them touching for the barrier between them that neither dared to fully cross. Norrington steadied himself with a hand upon the desk, and his wrist knocked aside the wine glass, spilling it entirely, sending dark red trailing over the edge onto the floor. But neither stopped. He didn’t know when they might stop—hoped they might never—as all the years of practiced, circling courtesies between them came to this abrupt coalescence.

And as with so many unexpected ecstasies, it was unfortunately interrupted.

A knock on the door parted them, and they returned to their seats, adjusting their collars, smoothing down the edges of their wigs as they cleared their throats. Norrington glanced about the floor for anything that had dropped, and he hurriedly replaced the empty glass upon the desk, sliding it over toward Swann’s side just moments before the door opened.

“I don’t believe I called out yet for you to enter,” Swann said, his voice tinged with indignation at the newly-arrived captain.

Norrington’s heart was still beating hard within his chest, but it quivered all the more to hear how bothered Swann was by their parting.

“There’s a smoke signal, north-northeast of here,” the captain said.

The two men sprang to their feet.

In the commotion that followed, there was no time for words let alone fleeting glances to address any of what had transpired between them. And when Elizabeth was found, when she was finally, gratefully safe on board, when all believed they had put behind the chaotic and gallivanting pursuit of the ship full of ghost pirates, she’d said the words.

“As a wedding gift.”

Time stopped. The minutest of glances between Norrington and Swann followed, and then, of course, came her father’s joy.

Part of the family, in whatever manner.

——

When Elizabeth chose Will, up on the fortress walls, without an ounce of hesitation at the life that would bring, Norrington felt a quietude settle over his soul. Any other man so spurned and led around believing his proposal was accepted, to his own detriment, might have flown into a fury. But Norrington gave only an acknowledging smile, with an understanding far deeper than anyone might have known. He accepted it all. Who better than he knew the strength of an unconventional love?

He found Swann some ways off in a quiet corner away from prying ears and eyes. The governor was deep in thought, resting his chin upon one knuckle. He stared out over the walls toward the town he was charged with leading into a brighter, more prosperous age.

“Governor Swann?” Norrington ventured.

It was a moment before Swann turned to him, and his eyes were foggy as if he were only seeing the other man for the first time. “Ah,” he said. Norrington slowly drew near, and he was surprised when Swann took a distant step back. Swann held up his hands, palms out, his eyes downcast. “I have—there is so much for me to consider at this time,” he began.

The air went still. A distant bell rang out somewhere in the harbor. Norrington felt something cold begin to tighten upon his heart.

“Too much is uncertain,” Swann went on. “I’m afraid I will be…terribly preoccupied for the foreseeable future.”

This, Norrington could not weather as easily as he had Elizabeth’s refusal. His jaw tightened, and his eyes blurred, hot and stinging. He took a moment to breathe.

“Do you feel nothing?” he asked in a hiss.

Swann furrowed his brows. “Feel for whom?”

Norrington could not speak the words. But they were there in his burning eyes.

Swann spoke in a hush, and it was clear from the pain in his gaze that he was doing not what he wished, but what duty called him to do. “It cannot be,” he whispered, shaking his head. “It simply cannot be.”

Norrington could not, for the sake of his station, for the sake of them both, press the governor any further.

He bit the inside of his mouth until it bled. “Understood,” Norrington murmured.

He turned and departed, and something in his heart felt as if it were severed.

——

Many would have said that Norrington lost his mind in the tempest that took his ship and his crew. That the violent storm, battering him so, whipping him through wind and water had stripped him of any sense or care in the world. But it had not happened then. No, it had happened before, there on the fort walls, when the governor bid him goodbye.

He threw himself into the pursuit of the next impossible thing: the pirate with the fastest ship in the world.

It was mad, he knew. He might die, of course. He didn’t care, there was nothing else worth committing his time to, and when he set sail in the direction of that next impossible thing, he looked back over his shoulder toward the mansion high upon the hill where he knew—he knew the governor was at the window, looking out toward the sea.

And he lost it all.

Then he turned to drink.

And just when he believed his life and everything were over, opportunity struck once more, and he found himself in the midst of the next fantastical thing. Another cursed ship, another crew of the damned, but then a heart: a beating, physical thing. He carried the terrible thing back to the place where it had all come undone: to the fort of Port Royal.

It weighed heavy in his hands. He could not think of it.

He understood now why a man might carve out his heart.

And upon his return, by the magnanimity of Lord Beckett, his career was restored to him. Just like that. Of course, there was the ceremony to be done, his promotion to admiral, which was still beyond belief…and the man bestowing his promotion could be none other than the governor himself.

——

They met again on the fortress, this time under banners, muskets, and a beating sun.

Norrington’s palms were damp with apprehension, his eyelids flickering beneath beads of sweat. And he did not know how he felt, could not describe the maelstrom of emotions that tore through him now, when Swann appeared, standing clear across from him between the lines of marines—and the man’s face was painted with stark relief.

He was glad to see him. He had wished for his survival.

And Norrington regretted all he’d done instantly, the pain and terror that must have beset Swann, and as he walked up to face the other man, Swann presented him once more with the very same sword he had earned those years ago. Here they were, circling back to the beginning.

“It’s good to see you again, James,” Swann whispered.

He could not speak for the sob that remained stifled in his throat.

——

They found themselves once again on a ship far out at sea. This time they were under still more perilous circumstances, as the heart of Davy Jones beat within a chest, guns trained on it. Beckett had cowed the devil of the seas into submission, and so too had he maneuvered the governor into unwilling compliance. They were the three of them, Norrington, Swann, and Jones, mere dogs of an uncaring master.

Norrington tried to console Swann, but it was as if the man were at all times within a trance. He could think of nothing, speak of nothing else but his absent daughter.

It was when Jones told them all that he had seen Elizabeth’s ship sink that Swann became undone. He threw himself toward the heart with a father’s unbridled fury, willing to die.

“Let me end it!” he cried.

Norrington intervened, holding the man, clutching his arms and urging him to calm. All sound seemed to trickle from the room, save for the muffled conversation between Beckett and Jones.

“…she’s still alive…”

“…geis upon the heart…”

Norrington was unsure of how much of it the distraught Swann even comprehended. But he saw the look that passed between Beckett and his right hand man. There was an understanding there, and then a nod to the governor. He knew far too much.

After all he knew of the man now, Norrington wouldn’t dare think Beckett unwilling to cross the line of treason.

“I’ll go,” Norrington said, with Swann still weeping in his arms.

Another exacting look passed between Beckett and Mercer.

“Go?” Beckett asked. “With him?”

“I will see to what must be done,” Norrington replied. “Grant me as much. An assurance by my own eyes that it will be merciful.”

And for whatever reason, perhaps out of pity, Beckett waved a hand to permit it.

The three of them: Norrington, Swann, and Mercer, descended into a longboat.

He never would have imagined himself doing this. Not for anyone. Not even for Elizabeth. Because this, too, was unconscionable: to kill the right hand man of a lord. To destroy any chance he might have at a peaceful return to civilization. To throw away all that he had worked for, his entire career, every notion of who he was, up until this moment.

He waited until they were out of sight of the ships, when he knew with absolute crystalline clarity that Mercer was of a singular mind. Swann had been seated between the two of them as the younger men rowed, with his body facing Norrington, his back to Mercer, his eyes pinned on the distant horizon. Through all the exertion and ache of his arms, Norrington’s gaze never once left Swann’s tear-stained face.

It was finally when Mercer drew a dagger from his belt and looked to Norrington with a conspiratorial nod that Norrington sprang to action.

They had so foolishly assumed Norrington’s compliance. He had given them plenty of reason to believe it so, with his endless scraping and bowing to the man who had had him pinned beneath one heel. He surged past Swann, like a hawk striking its prey, and engaged Mercer in a hand-to-hand struggle.

Swann let out a scream as the dagger went tumbling into the water.

“You…will not…take him,” Norrington hissed.

And it was as Norrington’s arms were beginning to tremble, his grip loosening upon Mercer’s neck, that Swann joined him—his old arms infused with a terrible vengeance.

The two men quieted Beckett’s man forever. They thrust him over the side, down into the water, where only the sea would speak of it.

Swann and Norrington looked to each other, the distant ships receding as the tide pushed them farther away, toward islands speckled on the horizon. Swann drew a hand across his damp brow.

“There can be no going back,” Swann said.

“No,” Norrington replied quietly. He drew in a deep breath and picked up his oar, squinting against the sun toward salvation. “Shall we?” he asked.

Swann did not move for a moment. “Why do this?” came the impossible question.

Norrinton could not reply for a long time. The words caught in his throat—adulation and poetry and so many overwhelming ways of saying precisely the same thing. His mind finally settled upon the clear, simple truth.

“It was always you,” he finally said. “And there will be none other than you.”

The great sea rocked them gently, two men inextricably tied by the cords of fate.

Swann’s pale cheeks flushed red, and he cleared his throat loudly, picking up one oar with a decisive hm. Despite it all, his hands were no longer trembling. “To distant shores,” he said triumphantly. “To new possibilities.”

Norrington felt a smile cross his face. And Swann replied with an improbable, endearing, tenderly soft chuckle.

The two men paddled on in unison, their oars cutting through the waves together, onward into the unknown.

#pirates of the caribbean #potc #weatherby swann #james norrington #submission #round 5

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