the Dalaverse

Backstory to "Honey and the Moon": exactly how Elizabeth got to see what she got to see. Will/James, NC-17. Beta by fabu -- thanks! :)



Moon to the Tide



“Back again, sir?”

James offered a faint smile, handing Will his latest commission. “It’s been quite awhile since my men had their weapons re-outfitted. This may not be the last order.”

Will glanced down at the paper. “Exactly the same as Tuesday’s.”

“Yes,” said James, glancing over at the hiss of sparks from the forge. “For a Mr. Willard.”

Trim eyebrows raised as the blacksmith looked back up at him. “And you couldn’t have given me this order with its twin?”

“Well,” said James haltingly, unsure where to stand as Will sat back down by his fire and inspected a new-made horseshoe, “that blade was for Mr. Mullroy, you understand. And it did not occur to me that Mr. Willard’s weapon had been looking shoddy as well.”

His back to James, Will shook his head slightly, tightening the band keeping his sweat-darkened hair out of his face. “I would not have placed you as part of the conspiracy, Commodore.”

“Conspiracy?” James inquired, scuffing his shoes on the dusty floor. It was blasted hot in here – no wonder Will was underdressed so, with just a worn pair of breeches and a thin cotton shirt.

The other man turned, a smile quirking the corner of his mouth. “To keep the poor scorned blacksmith busy with work and in pies, casseroles, hams, whatever else, because God only knows what he’d do if he had a moment of the day to think over his loss.”

James colored, though Will’s tone was gently teasing. “I don’t have the faintest idea what you are talking about.”

“Oh, but I know what everyone else is talking about,” said Will, swinging a leg over a bench to sit facing his guest, palms flat on his knees. “Me and my problems, and how I’m never seen around town anymore.” He snorted. “How conveniently they’ve forgotten that I didn’t get out much anyway, before Elizabeth and I became engaged.”

James looked for signs of pain when he mentioned his former fiance’s name, but found none, which struck him as rather odd. He remembered well how it had hurt to see her after their own parting, and the two months of Will’s courtship with her far outstripped his own. But if Will wanted to hide his sorrows and be left alone, James was not going to press the matter.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Turner,” he said stiffly. “I’ll leave you to your work.” He turned to go.

Behind him, he could hear Will sigh. “Wait – please wait.” His irritated expression softened when James turned to look at him. Rubbing nervously at the back of his neck, he said, “I might resent being patted like I’ve become orphaned a second time, but I would be a fool to turn down an offer of friendship, if it happens to be sincere.”

James saw the sudden anxiousness about his countenance. Much as he tried to hide it, it was plain that Will was hungering for company. Just as clear was his wariness, rejection turned to distrust of anyone who offered a hand.

“It is,” he said, the sincerity in his tone surprising to them both.

An honest smile bloomed on Will’s youthful face. James curled his hands into fists, taken aback by how much he wanted to see it again.

“Will you be back tomorrow?” Will asked, reverting to studying the order and thereby giving James an easy out.

“Yes, to check the progress of my orders,” he said, before taking deep breath and a chance. “And lunch, if you wouldn’t mind me bringing a basket of it.”

“I’d like that very much...James,” said Will slowly, trying out the name on his tongue and glancing up to see how James took it. He nodded politely with a small smile of his own before he ducked out through the smithy doors.

The sunlight striking him was like a blow after the close darkness of the forge. Blinking sparks from his vision, he wondered at his sudden lightness of heart and step all the way back to the fort.

It did not stop there. The next afternoon saw Gillette giving him a strange look as he realized that he was whistling.

“Are...are you well, sir?” his lieutenant asked hesitantly.

James looked down at the papers on his desk, still tasting peach preserves on his lips and hearing the sound of Will’s soft, shy laughter during their luncheon. “I suppose I am.”

Within a week, he began waking from dreams of the blacksmith’s roughened hands roving his body, their mouths pressed together in darkness. Alarmed, he made mention of being busy for the next few days, but the disappointment in Will’s face made him call again the very next day, even though he’d suffered another, more explicit dream the night before. He stood unnoticed in the doorway for some five minutes, watching the cords of Will’s back stretch and gather as he pounded steel. By the time the smith took a pause and turned, greeting him with pleased surprise, his face was flaming. At Will’s concerned question, he blamed it on the heat and some bad lobster bisque.

Being around him was torture, but the fact that Will had come to depend on his affections bound him to his daily visits. He told himself that avoiding him would be a simple affair if only he didn’t feel so guilty, because Will would not understand and James would sooner swallow his Turner-made sword than explain why he wanted to bolt like a rabbit whenever their hands accidentally touched over dinner or fencing. He took care to control his reactions, even when Will surprised him.

“Look what I’ve been brought today,” said Will brightly one evening after they’d shared a supper of smoked fish. He held up a couple of green bottles in one hand. James took one, popped the cork, and nearly choked on the fumes of powerful spirits.

“And what manner of person brings the gift of rum?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Surely Sparrow isn’t back in port?”

Will shot him a look that told him in no uncertain terms how amusing that was not. “My former master and employer saw fit to bring his onetime charge some sustenance. He came bearing drinks and a hearty slap on my shoulder.” He moved his shirt aside to bare said shoulder, which was indeed slightly reddened.

“Ah, Mr. Brown,” said James fondly, with a valiant effort not to stare at unveiled blacksmith muscles. Perhaps it was time for a drink after all.

“Long may he slosh,” said Will, raising his bottle with an air of gravity. James clinked his own against it and they drank. Only years of acquaintance with naval tradition kept him from gagging; it was strong stuff, much better than the rum he allotted his sailors. Will made a face and squinted at the bottle thoughtfully.

It was vile, yes, but the alcohol sent a burn to his belly, a lovely internalization of the temperature of the forge, still high even as the night cooled. Fire to fight fire, he supposed, though perhaps drunkenness was not the best deterrent for these feelings worrying away at his control. He glanced up from his second thoughts to find Will tossing the rum back with greater confidence, the elegant lines of his throat undulating as he swallowed.

“Will...” said James uncertainly, circling a fingertip around the mouth of his own bottle.

Will wiped at his lips with the back of his hand. “Something wrong, James?” A merry challenge lit in his eyes. “Afraid to go toe to toe with the landlubbing whelp?” James couldn’t suppress a snort of laughter at how closely Will could imitate Jack Sparrow. He considered the rum bottle again, rubbing his thumb over smoky green glass, before he took another swig.

Going for stamina rather than volume, they took their time drinking the rum down, performing stunts of balance and agility and arguing about who was coming out on top (Will’s choice of wording, which made James squirm a little). The heat slowly fled the room, but it was further renewed in his body the more he drank, so he stripped off clothing until he was down to the reasonable level of undress Will favored.

Will set his bottle down and stumbled over to a collection of rough-hewn blades, inelegant remainders from his earliest attempts at swordsmithing. They’d had most of their mock-duels using these practice swords, which were dull enough for safety and easy to replace.

“Come on,” said Will, tossing James the one he usually favored, a strip of blue leather cord wrapped around its hilt. James caught it, but only just, and he had to use both hands. He blinked down at the sword, drowsy with the warmth in his gut.

“Spar when we’re drunk?” he said, casting doubtful, bleary eyes at the other man. “That can’t be a good idea.”

Will made a few moves with his own weapon, only slightly off-kilter. “We are not drunk,” he retorted. “Tipsy, perhaps. Tippled.” He pointed the sword unsteadily at James, grinning widely. “Play with me, Commodore.”

A shudder wracked James at the thought of those words in another context. Really, he wasn’t terribly intoxicated, and Will looked relatively all right. They wouldn’t kill each other in this state.

Probably.

He knew it would be smart to turn the blacksmith down, but thoughts of him wielding that sword stilled his voice. Will was splendid to look at when he fought, poetry and beauty and a symphony and all sorts of other graceful things he couldn’t think of at the moment. He concentrated so fiercely, and his eyes got so intent, and the sweat poured from him so that droplets collected on his upper lip and he would occasionally flick a tongue out to lick them away...

James realized that he had already risen to his feet and adjusted his stance. He banished thoughts of dark nipples visible through clinging damp shirt and met Will’s smile with a shaky imitation. “En garde, then.”

They usually fought with keen purpose, evenly matched, neither giving an inch of leeway. A good battle could take hours and leave them both riddled with fatigue. Tonight, however, they were clumsy and playful, pausing now and then for breath and laughter. James declared victory with a fist hoisted in the air when Will tripped over his own feet and went sprawling on the ground, his sword spun out of reach.

Will, refusing to concede, stuck his tongue out at the celebrating commodore and swept out a foot.

“Huzz-oof!” His legs knocked out from under him, James had the foresight to fling the blade out of the way as he went tumbling down beside Will. “Cheat!” he said indignantly, grabbing for Will, who wriggled out of his amateur headlock.

“Blood of a – pirate,” Will panted, grinning madly and trying for some kind of complicated pin-and-bend move at James’s knees. James twisted away and they scrabbled for a few moments before he was able to land on top, straddling the younger man in triumph.

Trying to catch his breath, James gazed smugly down at Will and abruptly realized several things at once. One, he knew from the heat soaking through his breeches that he was becoming inescapably hard. Two, as their groins were pressed tight together, Will could no doubt feel his arousal. And three, Will had stopped struggling and was looking up at him with half-lidded eyes of melting chocolate, color flushing his cheeks and his parted lips.

James froze. Will lifted his head with some effort until only a breath separated their faces. “Hello,” he whispered, before closing the distance between them with a kiss.

Will’s mouth tearing at his own immediately set them both into motion. He pulled the body slightly trembling from fatigue up against his own, rocking his hips down. Will groaned into his mouth and tangled one hand in his hair, grabbing at his arse with the other in an attempt to bring him closer. The kiss was wonderfully hot and messy and ravenous, rum-flavored, and the friction of another erection rubbing against his own was even more glorious, stemming all thoughts except those of Will, here and now, on this hard, dirty floor. Legs came up to wrap around his waist, squeezing air out of him as effectively as a bellows. He left Will’s desperate mouth to take a scorching path up his jaw, briefly teasing at the shell of his ear before he ducked down to suck firmly at an erratic pulse. Will cried out and bucked up harder against him, seemingly trying to throw him off, except that he was still clinging to James with all his smith’s strength.

“James,” Will was saying in short ragged breaths against his neck, between nips he was sure would leave marks, “James, James –”

He heard his name falling from those lips in that tone of pressing need and he was rocketed back to earth. Pulling away was both difficult and painful, as Will immediately grunted and tried to tug him back. James managed to partially break his hold with a shove upwards, but he was unable to dislodge the legs locked about his hips. He looked down at Will’s face, clouded with desire and rum but fiercely determined, and he reached out to pinch the flesh between hip and thigh. Will yelped and released him. He rolled over onto his back, too dazed from the ordeal to get up, but at least he could think clearly now.

Or as clearly as he was able when every nerve ending was alive with the memory of sweat-slicked skin and flexing muscle writhing against him – what he’d been dreaming of for weeks now, what had been at the back of his mind throughout the drunken swordfight. He should have gone with his first impulse, except had that been to refrain in order to keep himself from rolling Will around on the floor, or had it been to accept with the unconscious hope that this was going to be exactly how affairs proceeded? Instinct and sense and sheer bloody wanting no longer fell neatly into little piles.

Will was up on one elbow, his breathing still frantic, looking at him with brown eyes that knew far, far too much.

“That –” He paused with no idea of what he’d meant to say. Will took up the task for him.

“That was me finally getting you into a position where you’d be more likely to listen to reason,” said Will quietly. “That was you’re beautiful when you let yourself go, and you taste like the sea, and I bought that rum because the bottle is the same green as your eyes. If you hadn’t been concentrating so hard on trying not to stare at me, you might have seen it coming. I’m not very good at hiding what I want either, you know.”

A shudder swept through his body and made him close his eyes, afraid of the naked honesty in Will’s face. “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know myself, not until recently,” the smith replied. James heard a skritching sound and looked down to see soot-stained nails tracing patterns in the dirt. “Let’s just say that enough time in certain company will make a man question where he’s been looking all his life.”

“Sparrow,” said James, feeling a maddening surge of jealousy despite the fact that Jack Sparrow would have more claim on this man than he himself ever could.

Will’s fingers spread flat on the ground as he pushed himself up, hugging his knees to his chest. “Not in the way you mean. Jack never touched me, but there were moments in which he made it clear that he might, if I asked.” He swallowed hard, his eyes going briefly distant. James remembered the two of them taking on his entire regiment that morning, stupid but brave, perfectly matched. “There were moments in which I wanted to ask, to my great surprise.”

“And...Elizabeth?” He blanched at the thought of the governor’s daughter observing what had transpired a few minutes ago. Though really there was no telling what she’d been exposed to aboard Sparrow’s notorious ship.

Will glanced at him again. “I loved her. That was no different in the face of...new feelings, nor was the time we spent together.” Something about the way he spoke made James look at him sharply, an inkling – Will saw the question in his eyes and nodded once. Untouched by the pirate, then, but not by the pirate maiden. “I would have married her, and I would have been happy,” Will continued. “But she would have been discontent. I know her too well to pretend to believe otherwise.”

James slowly rose, feeling as though his body was unnaturally weighed down. He sat with his legs bunched, rubbing hands that could not seem to keep still down his thighs. “I – I knew you as a child,” he finally said in a non-sequitur, wondering if Will’s memories were as fractured as his own. The calm, grounded man before him was no kin to the nervous orphan anxious to please his betters.

“Yes,” said Will simply. He slowly let himself unfold, leaning forward until he was kneeling, sitting back on his heels with his hands clasped in front of him. “But I’m not a child anymore, James. And I’m no one’s husband, no one’s apprentice, no one’s first mate. All I am...” His gaze flickered down to the floor, confidence wavering in his eyes even if it was steady in his voice. When he looked back up again, they were earnest and unflinching. “All I am is yours, if you’ll have me.”

James lifted a trembling hand, but it was still by the time he laid it against Will’s cheek, stroking the hope he could see stirring in the depths of warm brown. “If I ever were to deserve –”

“You do,” said Will vehemently. “Can’t you see that?” And he rocked himself forward so that James had to catch him. When they kissed again James tasted the smoke and earth beneath the rum, and the salt as well. Will was made both to burn and to quench; the earth within him kept him in this town despite the call of the sea.. James found himself reaching for that balance with a longing that far surpassed mere lust. And this – tonight – was not about lust either, not entirely; Will, as he’d said, could have chosen a quick tumble with Jack, with any number of drunken sailors James pretended didn’t haunt the alleys down by the docks. But that wasn’t who Will was, and it wasn’t the man he’d offered himself to either. If this was going to be done, it had to be done right, not here on this floor where they’d rub ashes and bruises into each other.

So he took Will’s face in both hands and held him away, held him steady. Brown eyes opened wide with aggravated hurt and he kissed a stuck-out bottom lip.

“Somewhere else,” he said.

Will nodded, smiling quickly with relief. He gripped James’s shoulders as he maneuvered up out of his lap, reaching down to help him up. James held tight to a hand as callused and long-fingered as his own as Will drew him into the small bedroom at the back of the building. He held on even as Will glanced around his austere lodgings, not looking James in the eye. “It’s – it’s not much.”

James brought him close again, sliding arms around his waist. “It’s fine,” he said, his breath growing short. “There’s a bed, after all...”

Will laughed and pulled him onto it.

They slowed the evening down, letting the alcohol burn off so that they could explore one another with no hindrances. It had been years since he’d gone to bed with a man, so he took his time reacquainting himself with the nature of the body beside him. Will seemed acutely sensitive everywhere, arching and gasping when he fastened his mouth to the soft skin of inner thigh, dipped a tongue into his navel, bit gently at the nape of his neck. Their builds were similar, with Will a bit slimmer and James a bit taller, but he marveled at all the differences.

“Do you shave this?” he asked incredulously, running his hands over Will’s chest. A narrow trail of dark hair picked up much lower down, but other than the tiny marks gleaned from shucking a shirt near the forge on the hottest days, the skin was perfectly smooth.

A chuckle stirred the ribcage beneath his fingers. “Why would I do a thing like that?”

James shook his head, circling pebbled nipples until they were peeking impertinently up at him. “It’s so soft.”

“No,” said Will, pushing his hands away and ducking down to nuzzle the curling hair on his own chest, “this is soft.” He lipped and nosed his way down to the tune of James’s muffled laughter – it tickled – until he reached where it sprouted most thickly.

James glanced down, feeling warm air against highly sensitive flesh. Will was staring, curious. “I’ve never seen any but my own.”

“And how –” James’s stomach tightened as Will blew gently. “How do you find me?” he asked, trying to keep the strain from his voice. No reason for Will to take to this quickly, not when he’d never so much as seen another man’s cock.

A shrug. Will sounded nonchalant when he said, “All right, I suppose.”

James blinked. His mouth opened and worked without sound as he tried to come up with an appropriate response. He had never considered himself vain, but his interest in Will’s anatomy was something he’d assumed would be reciprocated. Was it shape, or size, or perhaps scent that was causing Will to...?

To laugh, his shoulders shaking under the hands James placed on them.

“You are teasing me,” he accused petulantly, scowling as Will scooted back up to kiss him.

“Maybe a little.” Bolder now, Will curled fingers around his length with a grin at James’s sharp intake of breath. He lost a great deal of his composure when James reached for him, stroked up and down, spread moisture from the tip to ease his way. Biting his lip, Will copied his movements and brought his hips forward to let their cocks slide together, guided by two hands and one purpose.

James pressed his face to Will’s shoulder, his eyes shut tight. Something like a whine was forced from his lips. With his free hand, Will took his chin between thumb and forefinger and pulled his face away in order to look at him. James tried to nestle into him again, shamed by the unquenchable desire lighting his own features, but Will held him still, leaving small kisses in random places.

“In answer to your question,” he murmured against James’s temple, “I find you...” Fingers twisted, pulled between their bodies and he interrupted himself with a groan. “Impossibly lovely,” he finished determinedly, abandoning his trek across cheekbones and nose to rest his forehead against James’s own, breath and kisses stealing between their lips. “And your face, right now – your voice...”

“I’ve said little,” James replied, biting off a cry as he realized that Will had not meant his words. A hand, now sticky, snaked out to fasten onto his hip, holding him steady and moving him at the same time as they set a more reckless pace. He freed his own arms to wrap more tightly around Will, cries and whimpers falling unbidden against Will’s mouth as their cocks tangled and strove, so close together he wasn’t entirely certain where he ended and where Will began.

A dance, a duel, an accord – “Will,” he broke out in a hoarse plea, “Will – sweet holy – Will...” He could feel climax encroaching upon him and he both welcomed and damned it, because with that last shuddering flood there would be no going back, and the fear of where it would take him was a taste thick in the back of his throat.

Will was kissing him wildly, nails digging into his skin as he pushed and writhed and clutched.. “Come apart for me James, please, take – take me...take me with you...”

Yes – yes, he could do that, he could brave this maelstrom if Will was with him, if they could find within one another the power to overcome loneliness and fear and despair.

He let go his doubts and came apart, shattering, light bursting into the brilliance of steel under sunlight behind his eyes. He brought Will at his side, as he’d asked, as he’d begged. The sounds of reaching that point together filled the stillness of the tiny, darkened room until they faded into an echo, Will’s breath hot against his neck and their release hot and damp against his belly. He laid his cheek on soft brown curls and stretched a leg over trembling thighs. Will snuggled closer, lowering his head to listen to the beat of James’s heart as it finally slowed.

The simple joy of complete relaxation was a boon after all the flames of the moments before. James tried to remember what was said at this point, the excuses he should be making to get back to his own house, but the thought of leaving the blacksmith’s warm embrace made his insides recoil. Still, there was work to consider, and his servants, who might not worry if they didn’t catch him coming home late, but would certainly take it amiss if he should still be absent in the morning.

“I should...” Loathe to complete the sentence as he was, James gritted his teeth and did it. “I should be getting back.”

Will shifted in his arms, lifting his head to look at him. “I would rather you stayed.”

James kissed the sleepy furrow from his brow. “I know, and it would be wonderful if I could, really, but –”

“James. Do you want to stay, or don’t you?”

“It’s late –”

Will stilled him with a palm over his mouth. “Answer the question, please.”

He wanted very badly to break away from that unwavering gaze, because it was very good at stripping him bare. “Yes, I want to stay,” he mumbled against Will’s hand, flicking his tongue out to taste the salt and iron there.

“Good, then,” said Will with a yawn, burrowing back into James’s neck again. “I get up before dawn, so you’ll have plenty of time to return home before anyone knows you’ve been gone.”

And that, it would seem, settled that. James ran a hand down Will’s spine to settle on the small of his back, the sheet drawn up just beneath. They would be safe enough for the night, tucked in here away from prying eyes, until the dawn broke to spirit him away. Back and forth he would be drawn, from Will to his duties and back to Will again when the sun sank beneath the horizon. If the sea did not complain of her changing tides, then James Norrington had no business doing so.