the Dalaverse

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The day Gibbs was discharged from the Navy, he sold the sweetheart's locket he'd held for seven years and bought passage to Tortuga. He'd heard of the rock though he'd never visited it, and it sounded like the best sort of place for a man to go drowning his sorrows.

A bit maudlin over losing his last memento from Sally, he didn't pay quite so much attention to how quickly he spent the last of the money, and so he was barely conscious to register the three wicked-looking men who started to sidle up to him in the alley. Just as panic started to bleed through the fog of drink, a hand clapped down on his shoulder.

"There y'are, Smithy! I been lookin' for your sorry hide all blasted night!"

Gibbs stared straight ahead at his would-be attackers, who exchanged a glance, apparently decided the odds were not in their favor, and faded into the shadows.

Now he turned to regard his rescuer, who certainly didn't look like a fellow to be reckoned with, despite the blade and pistol at his hip. His face was young and sharp, his eyes were ringed with smoky kohl, and his black hair jingled when he cocked his head.

"You were about t' get yourself into a spot o' trouble there, mate. You new around here?"

"Aye," said Gibbs, sobering up mostly from shock. The man looked like a pirate and smelled like a whorehouse, but he was grinning most disarmingly. "Name's Gibbs -- Joshamee Gibbs."

"Well met, Mr. Gibbs." He extended a beringed hand. When Gibbs took it, expecting a weak grip to go with the foppish appearance, he was surprised to find himself gripped tight and strong. "Captain Jack Sparrow."

That gave Gibbs hope, as he'd not yet had any luck in his search for a crew to join up with. "What be the name o' yer ship, Cap'n?"

Something passed over Sparrow's dark eyes, though his jolly expression never altered. "Well, that's something of a tale, mate. What say I buy you a drink and we maybe work our way up to th' subject?"

She wasn't going to stand for this. The impertinent little wench! Flashing sail, plunging through the waves, her men shouting and waving across the distance as if they thought themselves better than a properly painted and turned-out king's vessel. And that captain of hers -- oh, the nerve of that cad, saluting the Commodore from the mizzentop before he scrambled off to the wheel.

The Commodore was better than that, she thought proudly. Her captain was a man of little distinction, but today the Commodore sailed aboard. The Commodore was noble and true. The Commodore would not be baited. The Commodore...

...looked up into the Dauntless's billowing sails, shading his eyes against the sun. Shoulders squaring, he strode to the helm, calling out orders, and politely relieved Captain Martin from his post.

She felt the shift, the new freedom as lines were tugged and yards shifted, so surprised that she barely registered.

The Commodore frowned, stroking his hand along a spoke of her wheel and glancing at the Pearl up ahead. "Slow to respond," he murmured.

His words stung along every inch of her dignified bulk. Slow, was she? She'd show them all, the proud Commodore and his insolent rival, and most of all that flirty creation frolicking upon the blue sea.

Okay, I couldn't help myself. You get TWO OMG.




Her mama tells her not to play down by the water, but Anamaria doesn't listen. Long as Mama can't see here and the master doesn't know, she figures it doesn't matter. She loves the color of the sea, the way it changes with sun and wind and depth. The surf washes over her toes and she feels clean inside.

Her brother Paul drowns when he's out getting an eel for the mistress's supper and that's when Mama screams, holds Anamaria's hair in both hands and cries that now she'll understand how the sea takes the ones you love. Anamaria lets her mother's tears soak her skin, but knows she's wrong. The sea didn't take Paul, it set him free -- that's about the only thing she and the stiff-necked white pastor agree on.

And some day soon, she vows, she'll seek her freedom there too. One way or another.

*points. Extra velentine candy points. -facedesk-

James was six years old the first time he set foot aboard a proper ship, and he never forgot it. He had been permitted to accompany his father to Spain in order to take care of some property that had belonged to his mother's family. It was the first time since his mother's death a year before that his father had offered to take him anywhere.

He stood proudly on deck, chin lifted, watching the sailors laboring to bring the heavy anchor up. The retort of a pistol from somewhere on the docks below startled him so that he reached for his father's hand.

Peter Norrington looked down at his son, a look on his face as if he'd forgotten the boy was there. James' cheeks colored with shame, but his father merely cupped his small fingers in a broad palm.

"Are you frightened of the journey, James?"

James shook his head emphatically, his heart speeding up with the need to express what it felt -- exhiliration, awe, relief that he was surrounded by men rather than nurses and aunts and tutors and the powedery scent of his baby sister's things. He loved the thick tang of the salt air, the improbable order amongst the hard-looking crew, the kindness of the blue-eyed captain. He was so elated to be standing beside his father, the greatest man he knew, that he feared his feet would leave the deck.

In the end, he could find no way to express all this, so he merely looked up and said, "No, Father, I'm not afraid."

Something in Peter's face changed. Later in his life, James would think back on it and realize that it had been the lingering sorrow and guilt, burning away like the fog off the English coast.

"I believe you, son," said Peter. He squeezed James' hand tightly before he let it go. James watched a few gulls chase each other through the rigging, and was quite sure he'd never be so happy again.

Here y'are! http://www.livejournal.com/users/the_dala/244384.html#cutid1

(My angst button appears to be broken and timelines are a bitch, so I must make this one an AU)


The dream unsettled him so badly that he was jolted awake, yet when he'd blinked at the ceiling for a few moments and successfully oriented himself, he could not recall it.

On the far left side of the bed, Horatio sat against the headboard. William wanted to scold him for not getting enough sleep even now, but he held his tongue. Horatio was watching Archie breathe.

"Don't wake him," he said quietly, his hand resting on Archie's forearm.

"'M already awake," Archie mumbled against William's shoulder. "Honestly, Horatio, can't you shut your eyes for a few hours? It is our last night, after all." He shifted in the bed, still twisting his upper body gingerly after all these weeks. William's hand automatically went to the scar at his side.

Obligingly Horatio let himself be tugged down until his head lay next to Archie's on the pillow. If William lifted his chin, he could just see the dark lashes falling down. "It's near morning," he remarked.

Archie tutted, glancing at William for support. "It most certainly is not. The nightingale, not the lark, and so forth."

"Not yet morning, though it will be upon us soon enough," said William diplomatically.

"And then," said Archie with a yawn, "you must be gone and live, or stay and die..."

His quotation brought the dream back to the surface of William's mind. It had been about death -- about Archie's death, which had been so close they all felt its cold breath. Even now, hidden away from the world, he was not out of the woods.

Yet when he grasped at the half-remembered feelings -- strange. Archie was the one in danger, but it was Horatio over whom Bush had most worried.

Feeling him shudder, Archie turned about again. "William? What is it?" Horatio's head of mussed curls popped up over his shoulder, suddenly wide awake again.

"Nothing," William assured them. "A bit of a draft in here, don't you think?"

Horatio bit his lip in concern, clearly thinking of Archie's health. "Perhaps we should fetch another blanket --"

Archie snagged his arm before he could sit up. "Don't be ridiculous. Name a better source of heat than three men in a small bed."

"He has a point," said William, chuckling as Archie nestled against him and rubbed a cold nose through the thatch of hair on his chest. Horatio hesitated a moment before stretching out against Archie’s back, draping an arm over them both.

Back to business tomorrow, thought William, and God only knew when they’d have the opportunity to steal another few days like those just past. No wonder Horatio hadn’t wanted to fall asleep. There was much that could be taken away in slumber.

So William turned his face into Archie’s sun-streaked hair, kept a light hold on Horatio’s long fingers, and stayed awake to greet the new day.

If only Will would stop wriggling, he’d be able to list all the many reasons why this was utterly and completely wrong, beginning with...

“So that’s what the powder tastes like,” said Will curiously, and his tongue flickered out to lap at the skin behind James’s ear.

Perhaps he should work backwards. Completely and utterly wrong, ending with...

Will’s knee nudged his legs apart, rubbing against him, the sensation losing little effect to the layers of cloth between their skin.

“You – you’re married!” he exclaimed, finally hitting upon something relevant.

“If you can find my wife to prove it,” Will replied, lips grazing his throat, “by all means, be my guest.” He grinned, waving a hand around at the empty smithy. “In fact, you already are.”

He’d thought Gillette had said something about the governor stopping by with an urgent message, wringing his hands and demanding to see the commodore, but he’d needed to pick up this hinge for his door, and he hadn’t been able to keep his feet from setting off in the direction of the blacksmith’s shop. It couldn’t wait. Why couldn’t it wait?

“Wait,” he said faintly. Will’s mouth was hot and open at his pulse point, and he was thrusting in time with the beat of James’s blood.

Will lifted his head, but it was only to look at James squarely, and his hips did not stop their rocking motion. “I have waited far too long for this, James.”

He leaned down and kissed him firmly. James finally gave in and pulled Will flush against him, thinking, So have I, so have I.