Kiss Away Your Pain
I knock this time. I usually don't, though given the foul mood Will has been in of late, knocking seems the best course of action. He looks up as I enter with my single candle and the jar of healing salve from Tia Dalma. He has already discarded his shirt -- lash wounds still an angry red though, being supernatural, I suppose they don't heal as they should.
"I thought you might not come," Will says.
"We have argued enough in the past for me to know that is all it is – an argument," I say, dipping my fingers into the salve and running them along the lash marks. "Those are easy enough to forgive and forget, Will."
"I should have never said such things to you, Elizabeth," he says. "I can trust you. I know I can."
"It will do neither of us any good to think on it till it makes us ill with guilt and worry." I trace a finger down his back, feeling his skin grow warm to the touch. It's one of my favorite parts of playing nurse, trumped only by the extremely guilty pleasure of viewing Will shirtless night after night. "I would say I can think of more enjoyable ways of apologizing than just pretty words, though I don't know how receptive you are to the notion considering. . . ."
"What do you have in mind?" Will asks, interest piqued.
"Will Turner, you know me better than that," I tease. "What is always on my mind since the second you proposed marriage?"
"Me?" he guesses.
"Exactly," I say, setting the salve and candle carefully on the low bedside table in favor of trailing kisses down his back. "Am I making myself clear on what I consider a 'more enjoyable' form of apologizing?"
"Very," Will says, breath catching in his throat as I wrap my arms about him, fingers resting on the waist of his trousers.
"Then start apologizing."
He moves with a fluidity that surprises, but I am quite happy to find myself on my back looking up into his dark eyes. "If you wish pretty words, Will, I can give you pretty words. They're yours for the taking as am. . .as am I."
His breath hisses through his teeth. "You do not know what you say, Elizabeth. Is it a trick? Some bit of magic left over from the Dutchman?"
"No trick," I say, reaching up a hand to stroke the side of his face. "If I could kiss away your pain, Will, I would, but all I have to offer is myself. A small bit of comfort – perhaps none at all – but it is all I have. Do you accept?"
"You are all the comfort I wish in the world, Elizabeth," Will says, burying his face in the junction between my neck and shoulder and seeming to wrestle with some internal force – perhaps his own sense of nobility or wish to safeguard my honor. "How I have longed to hear you speak such words to me, but you don't. . .you don't know what you say."
"All that I have and all that I am are yours, Will," I say. "I do not believe I can speak any plainer. Do you accept?"
He lifts his head, eyes searching mine. "My answer does not require words."
I grin, twining my arms around Will's neck to pull him closer. "Nor does my reply."
