The butler gawked for only a moment before recognizing the figure beneath its thick coat of soot and stepping aside to clear the doorway.
"I trust your trip to the smithy was a refreshing one, Mr. Turner?" He made no attempts to mask his condescension.
"It was," Will answered brusquely, handing over his hat and the light cloak he wore. Such was always his reception when he'd been out working at the forge for the day. Governor Swann had balked at the entire proposal initially, but Elizabeth managed to sway his decision. His sentiments, and that of the whole household, however, remained unchanged.
Will briefly considered censuring the man for his insolence, but just then his muscles declared mutiny and propelled him towards the stairs and a soothing bath instead.
"Mr. Turner, Mrs. Turner requests your presence at tea," the butler called after him.
"I shall join her after I've had a bath." Will replied sharply.
"She requests your immediate presence." The butler corrected, "As a governor's daughter well knows, it is rude to keep guests waiting."
-
Will opened the door but a few inches and glanced in nervously, for his appearance was wholly unsuitable for most of the company he and Elizabeth kept nowadays. His eyes narrowed in disbelief at the ludicrous caricature before him. He was obviously more fatigued than he'd thought, for Elizabeth appeared to be taking tea with none other than Jack Sparrow.
"Not this dream again." he thought, blinking rapidly in the expectation that Jack might morph into Governor Swann or even the Commodore. Instead, the man reached into his coat pocket and drew out a small bottle of amber liquid, which he offhandedly added to his tea along with two lumps of sugar.
"If this was a dream, there wouldn't be rum," Will realized, feeling panic begin to spread over him, unfortunately accompanied by a ghastly paralysis. Stricken on the threshold, his thoughts ran wild. How very many things they might have had time to discuss in his absence! The old king's madness, conflict in the colonies, extramarital affairs…Elizabeth's face, and consequentially her countenance, was hidden from his narrow line of site.
"Bugger," he hissed, too surprised at how much Jack was rubbing off on him to properly temper the vigorous oath.
The hum of conversation fell dead at the click of Jack's teacup on the table, and before Will could wonder whether he'd been discovered, his answer came in the form of the wide, crooked grin that spread across the pirate's face.
Will stumbled back and was about to make a run for it when the door flew open and revealed Jack.
"William!" The pirate seized him into a forceful hug, checking his building momentum and sending them both tumbling to the floor. Will found himself looking up at Jack, who was precluding a rash exit by placing his full weight against the blacksmith below him.
Will put aside his worries, and squeezed the smaller man in turn, relieved at the sensation of Jack's heartbeat against his own breast. For the moment, Jack was alive and well, and Will could feel the proof beating heartily against him.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, pulling back to examine every careworn aspect of the pirate who was seated quite comfortably on his torso.
"Do come in out of the hallway you two!" scolded a voice from inside the room, interrupting Jack's reply and snatching away the moment. Will's face crossed the fine line from concern to worry, but Jack wasn't giving anything away. He reluctantly rose, pulling Will after him and into the room, closing the door behind them.
"Goodness Will, Jack Sparrow waltzes in and your manners waltz out." Elizabeth commented. She was smiling playfully, sipping her tea. No muskets or cutlasses appeared at hand. She poured Will his own cup and urged the men into their seats.
"You won't believe what Jack has brought us," she announced, holding out her hand for Will to see. There, resting on the dainty palm was the gold ring she had presented to him for the first time one and a half years before. He took it into his own rough hands, toying with it unconsciously beneath the table.
"Thanks very much," he said with a nod in Jack's direction, to which the pirate returned a playful salute.
"Really Jack, you don't know how grateful we are. Do you know that it was stolen from Will? He was away on business when a very short man asked to see the ring and took a shine to it. He actually wanted to play a game of riddles for it. Of course Will refused and the man flew into a rage, striking at him and then vanishing with the ring. Poor Will even came home with a nasty bruise on his neck." Jack smiled fondly at this reacquaintance with the familiar bruise.
"We thought we'd never see it again. How on earth did you come across it?" Elizabeth continued curiously.
"Actually, I found it in a crow's nest. The little buggers have a fascination with shiny things. Like pirates, you see. Unlike pirates (well most pirates anyway), they have no fingers, so I took the liberty of relieving him of his burden. Of course when I saw the name engraved into it, my indomitable scruples demanded I seek you two out," Jack explained with the ease of a practiced liar.
"And how does one come across a crow's nest in the course of pillaging and looting and generally making trouble for the royal navy?" she pressed.
"Well there's one at the top of the Pearl's mast." Jack replied in complete seriousness. This earned him a laugh from both of his companions and a temporary reprieve from Elizabeth's curiosity.
"How surprised everyone must've been to see Jack Sparrow with a wedding ring," she mused, changing the subject.
Without skipping a beat, Jack replied: "Ah yes, it was the talk of Tortuga, but I told them I was wed to a pretty young blacksmith and that shut them up right away."
Will choked on his sip of tea and Elizabeth had a good laugh at the ridiculous notion. Jack was observing the lad though, who was clearly fighting to resume the mask of impassivity. Well he certainly wasn't going to make things easy on him.
"So, marriage? Really?" Jack sounded skeptical.
"Yes Jack. Can you stand seeing the companions of your most fantastic adventures all tied down?" Elizabeth asked, twisting her own gold band about her finger.
"To be honest, Lizzie, I'm not crazy about it in your case. Seems like the wrong cup of tea, you understand. On the other hand," he grazed his leg across the blacksmith's beneath the table before continuing, "I'd tie William down any day."
Will gave him a horrified look, which was thankfully lost on Elizabeth.
"And what about you Jack? Of course you aren't the marrying type, but haven't you found anyone special yet?" she inquired.
"Well," Jack assumed a sly look, "There is one person who has my full attention." Will's eyes alighted with a possessive glint, narrowing slightly, and his mouth settled in a frown. Was this what Jack had come to tell him?
Jack noted the reaction with satisfaction.
Elizabeth however, looked shocked. "Tell me," she demanded instantly.
Jack was happy to oblige:
"Picture an angel's face with heavenly eyes, brown like spiced rum and twice as intoxicating; a body fair and perfect in form and wrapped in skin softer than the silks of the orient; and all this divinity topped by the curious tendrils of curling chestnut hair which always escape the ribbon tying back the rest— around so long." He indicated one length, then dissatisfied, tried another.
"Rather like Will's?" Elizabeth suggested helpfully.
"Exactly like Will's." Jack agreed.
"Oh Jack, I'm so happy for you." She took his hand and gave it a squeeze when suddenly there was a knock at the door.
"My goodness, it's nearly supper time!" Elizabeth rose quickly and straightened her petticoat, "That will be the butler, you two wait here and keep Jack out of sight."
Then the lady of the house took her leave, careful to open the door only so wide as was necessary.
-
Jack and Will were alone. The pirate had downed his tea, and now poured himself a full measure of the stronger stuff, leaving a faint trail up the side of the white china.
"What are you doing here, Jack?" Will asked, stony-faced.
"I'm here to check up on you— make sure you're not cheating on me with your wife. Thought you'd be happy to see me as well." Jack assumed a pout like a child and took a gulp of rum proving himself otherwise.
"Jack you know I'm always happy to see you," Will began, his voice softer, "but not in my wife's house. Not when I can't really talk with you or touch you."
"Can't touch me? Now let's not succumb to crazy ideas, luv. Come on over to this side of the table and give your Jack an I missed you grope," Jack called, beckoning.
"Jack, you don't understand." Will wracked his mind for some way to explain his predicament in terms that would make sense to the pirate.
"What if you were with a whore, and all of a sudden I showed up and just started talking with her? What would you do?" He winced at his own analogy, awkward and lame, as it stumbled from his mouth, though admittedly the pickings were slim when it came to Jack and long-term relationships.
Jack offered him a slightly arched eyebrow before answering:
"Well I suppose I'd make you pay for half, though if you were just talking with her I'd say you don't really understand the concept of a whore, luv."
"What on Earth are you two discussing?" Elizabeth was back and looking scandalized.
"Just a little chat about whores. William doesn't seem too clear on the whole business. Keeping him on a tight leash are we?" Jack asked brightly.
Elizabeth pursed her lips but she knew that Jack was baiting her. Rather than back down, she decided to raise the stakes, passing up her own chair as she approached the table.
"Maybe I just keep him satisfied, Captain Sparrow," she rejoined, boldly seating herself on Will's lap. When Will recovered from his surprise, he put a reluctant arm around her waist, and kissed her platonically. His eyes followed a lizard scurrying towards the ceiling and refused to go anywhere near Jack, praying his lover wouldn't contradict her.
Instinctively, pirate fingers fluttered at the butt of his pistol before Jack schooled them to his side, and began absently buttering a scone. Elizabeth took this is a concession and happily filled the awkward void which had developed in the room.
"I've informed the butler that we have rather a reclusive guest calling and that he is not to be disturbed. There is to be a banquet tonight, but I think I should attend alone and that Will should keep an eye on Jack. You're really not in any shape to go anyway, darling," she added, brushing some soot from his dirty cheek.
"Frankly I think you could both use a good scrubbing, so why not take this time to have a bath and I'll have some dinner sent up to you, does that sound alright?"— A nod from each man—"Good. And I'll also speak to the maid about sleeping arrangements. You do intend to stay a while, right Jack?"
The pirate shrugged, "As long as it takes," he replied enigmatically, and though Elizabeth waited for him to elaborate, he said no more.
"Very well, keep your secrets," she finally assented, standing and wiping the soot from her gown. She was at the door when Jack called after her.
"Just one request," he said, folding his hands as if in prayer, "I'd like a room nearby yours… incase someone comes looking for me in the night."
Elizabeth nodded smartly, and with a final brush of her skirts, quitted the room, leaving the dust to settle between the two men. Eventually they too vacated it, and the frozen tableau of the white china sat alone against a tropical window scene. On one unsettled chair a vest hung dutifully, and in its pocket, a golden ring, forgotten.
-
The instant the door was shut and bolted, Will felt Jack's arms around him. They shared a desperate kiss that transitioned sloppily into a muddled shedding of Will's clothes and ended with him flush up against the pirate, feelings and flesh fully bared. The toil of the day bore down on Will's exhausted muscles, and he was glad to feel a very solid Jack leaning against him.
This time Will initiated a tender, patient kiss, craning his neck to feel Jack's mustache graze across his stubbly cheek. Eager hands pulled free the ribbon in his hair, and the pirate tied it around his palm. Reaching up to place four fingers at the ridge of Will's jaw, just below his ear, Jack's thumb traversed the lad's cheek, streaking a trail of pale flesh in its wake, cutting through the grimy soot.
"Next time you've a notion to experiment with kohl, roll over and ask for a hand, eh luv?" he teased, a lilting smile playing on his lips.
"Roll over? And what makes you think I'll be sharing your bed the next time such an urge hits me?" Will asked, allowing himself to be led towards the tub.
"Just the knowledge that you'll be spending a lot more time in my bed in the near future." Jack helped Will into the water slowly. It had cooled just enough to be pleasant in the hot dregs of the afternoon.
"It wouldn't be difficult. I've never passed a night on the pearl and Barbossa has spent more time in your bed than I have." Will caught Jack's busy hands and pushed up the pirate's sleeves, exposing intentional marks as well as those not chosen.
"That's a disturbing piece of trivia. We shall have to work towards remedying it—which I plan to be one of many outcomes of this visit." Jack grabbed the soap that was laid out and began to work it into lather between his hands.
"What are you planning Jack?" Will leaned back against the tub and allowed the pirate to caress away at the grit and tension, starting centrally and then moving to the extremities.
"I haven't decided yet, but you're coming when I go, rest assured. I have a foolproof fallback plan that involves hog-tying you and throwing you over my shoulder if it comes to it." Will threw back his head in almost wistful laughter, joy piqued by his affectionate lover's efforts. Jack had probably never washed himself so well.
Crouching beside him, the pirate silently worked his hands through his boy's soft brown mane. He cupped some fresh water from his tub, for Will's had largely lost its capacity to clean, and released it over the mass of curls. Then he proceeded to banish every trace of sweat and soot, working meticulously, until by soap and water and unyielding tenacity, he returned the locks to their usual state of soft, sensual loveliness.
Long after the job was completed, Jack's hands continued to roam about, effortlessly seeking out their favorite haunts until Will shooed them away and sent Jack to undress and get into his own tub. When he was situated, Will boosted himself out of the murky waters and followed, sidling in across from him. The blacksmith sat cross-legged between Jack's knees and saw that the pirate was regarding him with rapture.
" All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," Will murmured, leaning forward to place a kiss at the junction of Jack's chest. The pirate drew him in, and they crushed the loneliness between them.
-
The tub was really too small for two, and their bodies were tightly wedged together on the one end to allow room for their legs, which were scrunched and tangled on the other. Jack rested his arms on the rim of the tub, realizing with satisfaction that he would sleep well tonight. Just being near the lad gave him a second wind and his spirit soared out of their intimacy like a phoenix from the flames.
They might have foreseen that getting out was going to be quite a trial, but neither was thinking much about that at the moment. All Jack was thinking about was gazing at the canvas of Will's broad shoulders and upper back. There, a thin layer of soot had escaped his attentions and splashes of water had turned it into a paste. He saw that Will's eyes were closed, and the calloused blacksmith hands rose and fell with the ribcage on which they rested, but he had slept beside the boy often enough to know that he was awake.
"Will, you're a blacksmith with a profitable business, handsome and young, married to the most eligible woman in the Caribbean, who incidentally you've been mad about since childhood. What the hell are you doing here in a bathtub with an old scoundrel like myself?" Jack absently ran his finger across Will's shoulder, with a paintbrush effect, making Will shiver.
"You know Jack of mine, I might ask what a seductive rogue who could have a different woman on a different continent every night wants with a ho-hum blacksmith who he can only see in the form of precarious, whirlwind encounters once in a blue moon," the boy rose up from his sun kissed pillow for a quick peck of punctuation, "This obviously isn't a match of convenience."
"And what exactly is it a match of?" Jack asked uncertainly.
Will took a long moment before replying: "It's a match of complements."
"Compliments? Like when I said you had a nice hat?" It had been a kind gesture but Jack hardly considered it the basis of their relationship.
"No, complements." Will wondered how to explain himself. What he finally came up with was this:
"Its like everywhere I end, you begin, and everywhere your body dips, mine curves. We fit together like the shore and the sea, that's why we've lasted this long." As if to emphasize his thought, he leaned over and retrieved Jack's hat, placing it firmly down on his own head and then falling back into the comfort of Jack's chest.
"But we're so different!" Jack replied, adjusting the hat so that it was slightly askew.
"Peas in a pod can't embrace Jack, they just tumble away from each other. It's the pod that holds the peas." Will said, shrugging. Pressed up so closely, Jack could feel the words rising through Will's body and the tremor that spread across the boy's muscles as he shrugged.
"So you're my pod?" Jack absently drew a curve through the soot in Will's shoulder.
"Yes." Fascinated, the pirate crossed the top with a horizontal line.
"And are you Elizabeth's pod too?" Now he added a triangle beside it with its two downward sides expanded.
"Well, you always said that you and she were two peas in the same pod." Beside that, his finger traced two thirds of a complete circle, leaving a gap in its right edge.
He finished with a vertical stroke from which two diagonal lines jutted out to the right, one upwards and one downwards.
"One oughtn't to share one's only pod," he reflected silently.
-
"What on Earth's gotten into you, darling?" Elizabeth asked, looking over her book at her husband. Will was inches from the mirror, carefully edging his customary mustache with his customary straight razor. It was a mundane ritual that she might have ignored but for the fact that he was rather persistently humming, which was most uncharacteristic.
"It's good to see Jack again, isn't it?" he replied, smiling into the keen blade.
"It certainly is, and I was so relieved to have your ring back, though how it got from that thief to a crow's nest I shall never know," suddenly she dropped her book onto her lap, "Could you believe what he said about being in love with a lady?"
"That's not exactly what he said," Will quibbled.
"No, but he seemed smitten with her. I just hope she knows him well enough to leave him gracefully."
The razor froze against the soft flesh of Will's cheek.
"What are you talking about?" he asked apprehensively.
"Will, when a woman gives a man her love and devotion, she expects an equal measure in return," she explained, closing her book.
"Then you don't think Jack's capable of love?" Will let the straight razor fall away from his face and wiped his chin with a cloth.
"That's not what I said at all. Jack loves the sea, and his Pearl, and most importantly his freedom. To deny him of that would be a most hateful crime." She set aside her book and snuffed the bedside candle.
Will hesitated a moment. "What if she loves him?" he asked the darkness.
"Then she will know that she may as well love the wind, or the sea itself. And she will release him from every cage that threatens to trap him, including her love." The answer was definite and seemed to spring as much from the pervading shadows of omniscience as from a human mouth.
Will and his pensive reflection gazed at each other, echoing silent questions. The answers cast frightening shadows and uncertainty was passed between them like a flask. Love had always been the purest, most sublime entity in Will's estimation, but love was not freedom. In many ways love was a sometimes voluntary, sometimes blissful servitude. And that very night Jack himself had expressed a great deal of insecurity.
There was a thudding in Will's head, and every fiber of him simultaneously willed the pirate to his side. He wanted to call out to him, desperate to be laughed at and told he was being silly, desperate to have Jack's strength surround him like a shield against the icy slings of doubt. Only a few feet between, and still he could not close the gap. A heavy gloom fell over him, and the blacksmith unconsciously pushed back the fabric of his collar. In the mirror's reflection, the light of the candle revealed fading pirate script; scrawled across his shoulder, a name— 'JACK'.
End of part IIIA/N: Obviously Will has read Tolkien anachronistically. Anyway, let's talk reviewers. You guys made my week. I cannot thank you all enough!
Queen Vampyre Akasha- Hey, a new reviewer, welcome. So you must've read into that "we've each left our mark on the other" line…you know I always thought that speckett should be jackett, but I suppose it goes by last names and sparrington is a very cool word…anyway, glad to know that you were interested and thanks for the reassurance regarding the flamer. Your comments are always appreciated.
Thorinella- You know I wasn't sure if I could get away with that kissing scene. I was afraid it came off as too abrupt because usually in these stories Will needs a good deal more convincing. But, I am very glad to hear you enjoyed it and I'll just let you know things are gonna get rocky…we're in the heart of the fic and here there be drama. Please read on and thanks again for commenting!
Robin Goodlass- Hmmm, I don't know why exactly it seems like a buccaneer name. Goodlass…kinda sounds like cutlass don't you think? And Robin goes well with Sparrow, Swann, Tern. I've been trying to communicate even more in this chapter that there is something precious in this relationship, so you really flatter me. Thanks for sticking with the story as things got underway and I hope to hear from you again.
FastFuriousChick- Glad the flashback sat well with you. I gotta admit I'm a sucker for romance when it comes to these guys. And while I can't make any guarantees about Jack getting Will, this is not going to turn into a W/E either. Unfortunately, things are about to get more complicated than all that, and I still haven't decided what kind of an ending that means. As you guessed, the Commodore is about to be thrown into the equation. Thank you so much for your support!
Phoenix Red Lion- I believe the same thing, and while I'm certainly not trying to insult anyone, I think the description of this fic is pretty hard to misinterpret. Poor Will, what on earth is he going to do with that pirate? Like you said, Jack's having trouble with this arrangement as well…no saying how much longer he can tolerate me putting in those W/E moments…my sincerest gratitude for your time and attentions. And just out of curiosity, what is the origin of your name?