the Dalaverse

The next bit of "North and South of the River." Short and intimate, not a smutfest, proof that see! I can do substance too!

Usual drill, pirates are Disney's whores as much as James is Jack's is Will's is James, title comes from U2 once again ("Another Time, Another Place" off of Boy. I had to get some baby-band in here somewhere.)


NaSotR: Your Time, Your Place



Even after weeks, James still had trouble determining the differences between Will’s mouth and Jack’s But he learned other things.

He learned how Will took his tea. He learned that Jack could play the violin. He learned exactly how long Will could hold up before he finally snapped and did whatever wicked thing had been plaguing his mind in the seventeen minutes Jack had spent teasing him (James himself was unable to come anywhere near this record). He learned that the golden cast of Jack’s skin spread everywhere on his body, when they made love with the lights burning, though Will was pale as milk under his clothes.

He learned that Jack mumbled in Spanish and French when he was having a good dream and Portugese when he was having a nightmare. He learned that Will hadn’t eaten pork since he was thirteen, because Elizabeth had begged her father for a pot-bellied pig that year and received one for her birthday. He was unable to remember the pig’s name and after two days with it niggling at the back of his mind, James supplied it: Cormorant. Why she had named her pet pig after a seabird, neither of them was able to fathom.

He learned that the surest way to get Jack to do something was to tell him that he couldn’t, while the surest way to get Will to do something was to simply ask him. Instead of getting the proper amount of sleep he was accustomed to, he stayed up nights listening to Jack’s voice tip up and down the scales, frequently interrupted or corrected by Will’s steady baritone. They shared the tales behind every scar, every inked tattoo, every odd endearment, every trinket and bauble clinking in Jack’s hair.

He learned about Will’s father, and Jack’s mother, stories that they both knew by heart and were eager to share with someone new. It took time for them to coax his own tales out because he felt he had nothing to compare, but eventually he spoke of his childhood and his travels.

“What if you could go anywhere?” Will asked him one night as they were lying curled together, Will half-sitting against the headboard, Jack using him as a couch, James with his head in Jack’s lap.

“Anywhere you wanted,” Jack added. “Anywhere in the world.” He smacked at James’ fingers as they ran ticklishly across his stomach.

James shrugged, breathing in the musky odor of sweat and sex and Jack’s own sea-salt blood.

“There must be somewhere,” Will insisted, reaching down to tug on his ear.

“Here,” said James softly, watching Jack’s body lifting with the rhythm of his own breathing and with Will’s. “Right here.”

“That’s boring,” Jack scoffed, combing the tangles out of James’ hair with his nimble fingers. “You’d make a bloody awful pirate, Jamie love.”

Will’s hand joined Jack’s on his head. “Don’t listen to him. I know exactly what you mean.”

“Always have to argue with me – and it’s the both of you now,” said Jack indignantly. “If I didn’t –” He was cut off by James’ sudden surge upwards to trap his mouth under a kiss.

Will watched them, grinning. “He’s really very easy to silence once you know how.”

James exhaled long and slow against Jack’s cheek, Will’s gentle grip on the back of his neck holding him there.

“If you didn’t what?” he asked.

Jack pressed warm lips to his temple. “Nothing. Nothing a’tall.”



This fic will not leave me alone.