the Dalaverse

Done. Done done done done done. I surprisedshocked the hell out of myself with this one, frankly.



Beggars Banquet III



“Oh, bloody hell,” she muttered, flinging her hands up. “Please tell me, is there anyone standing here right now who hasn’t engaged in some sort of illicit activity with every other person standing here right now?”

Will and James locked eyes across the way.

Elizabeth stared at her husband. “Do you mean to tell me –”

“No!” he said hastily, his gaze flickering away in discomfort.

“Never. But we do seem to be the only exception,” James added frostily, meeting Jack’s smug smile with an immovable expression.

Jack chose to ignore him and instead turned to Elizabeth. “Remember that night well, do you?”

Her eyes rolled heavenward and she sniffed prissily. “You’d like to think it.”

Jack clasped a hand over his heart as if he’d been shot, making a grab for the sheet as it began to slip.

“My head aches,” James offered, sinking down onto the floor and clutching at his wig. The sounds of arguing rose and compounded the problem before cool fingers lifted his chin. Will knelt before him, looking concerned. For a moment they simply looked at one another, blocking out the rest of the world and attempting to make sense of the situation in which they’d found themselves.

James glanced past him at the squabbling pair. Their conversation was difficult to follow, but Elizabeth seemed to be insinuating that Jack’s affections had not been worth the total loss of her innocence, while Jack was blaming rum and feminine prerogative for her poor memory. Finally he gave up any attempts at persuasive language and took her in his arms instead, bending her backwards and kissing her for all he was worth, which was generally agreed upon to be quite a bit. She made a low, appreciative noise and neither of them paid the loose sheet any mind as it fluttered to the floor.

Will had not looked and now his eyes closed in irritated patience as the smacking sounds reached their ears. James’ shoulders began to quiver with laughter at the absurdity of it all and after widening in surprise, Will’s eyes crinkled as well. A chortle bubbled out of him, he leaned his forehead against James’, and then they were sharing a kiss as soft and easy as their mirth.

When they broke apart, they found Elizabeth and Jack peering at them with curiosity and no small amount of arousal.

“Last man standing,” said Jack to no one in particular, leaning over to lick at the shell of Elizabeth’s ear. She had eyes only for Will now, drawing him forward without a word. Jack in turn crossed to James, pulling him up off the floor. He tucked himself into the taller man’s arms, reluctantly letting James cross arms over his waist to conceal what the sheet had totally abandoned, lying as it was puddled around Will’s and Elizabeth’s feet. Pirate and commodore silently watched husband and wife exchange a kiss and a tight embrace. She whispered something in his ear that made his eyebrows creep up to his hairline, before releasing him to turn and grin at the others.

“Gentlemen,” she said warmly, “won’t you join us upstairs?”



In the master bedroom, candles were lit, clothing was shed, and the four of them found themselves in a confused tangle on a bed that really was not large enough for that many people. No matter, though; no one was shy about appropriating a lap to save space, scooting this way, moving that leg, twisting in someone’s arms to allow for greater maneuverability. Highly polite ‘if you’d be so kind’s and ‘of course, darling’s and ‘thanks ever so’s gave way to moans running the gamut from soft to sharp, cries penetrating the insect sounds of the Jamaican night, breathing from lungs that gasped and strove and simply could not get enough air.

The madcap pile gradually took on something resembling order when Will tugged forcefully on Jack, muttering something about finishing what they’d started. Elizabeth watched with a giggle as Jack’s eyes went round at Will’s not-so-subtle tweak of his cock. She was content to let them break off, still close enough to feel every breath and shiver, while she pulled James atop her.

Leaning on his elbow, he tilted his head so that he could keep an eye on them while he teased Elizabeth’s nipples into pebbled hardness with tongue and teeth. She drew her knees up, holding him comfortably and combing back his dark hair with her fingers.

Will had managed to pin Jack down with his body weight, but the pirate still wriggled beneath him. Finally he sighed, got a fetchingly determined set to his jaw, and bent his head down to tentatively lap at the clear fluid leaking from the tip of Jack’s cock.

“Oh, that’s very intrepid of him,” James murmured into the hollow of Elizabeth’s throat, her body curving against him as he sent a hand wandering through the curls between her legs.

“I take full credit for it – and for that,” she added as Will prompted a howl from Jack by doing something with his tongue that James was too busy goggling at Elizabeth to see. At his incredulous look, she smirked. “Although if we complete the circle, it goes back to Jack, so he has himself to thank, really.”

“You – he – that?” he managed, unable to stop himself from imagining her full lips running up and down his own shaft. The fantasy caused his fingers to jerk against her sensitive flesh, spreading wetness and making her gasp.

Panting as he sped up the motion, she nodded and said faintly, “And I’m – quite good too – but later, yes?” And she hauled on his arms, locking her ankles behind his back and looking up at him imperiously. “Because if I don’t have you inside me at this very moment, James, I think I shall scream.”

“Please feel free, my lady,” James replied with an unexpected wicked curve to his mouth as he pushed into her. In actuality it was Jack who screamed, Will having mastered the trick of using his teeth without hurting too badly.

Jack’s head lolled about on the pillow and his eyes came to rest on James, twinkling with merry desire beneath thick lashes. “Nearly as fast a learner as you were, Jamie.” He reached over to run a fingernail down James’ braced arm.

“Shut up, Jack,” Elizabeth snapped, interrupting herself with a high-pitched whimper, “you’re...distracting him.” Jack offered her his hand and she winked at James as she sucked a couple of fingers into her mouth before biting down on them. Will, noticing that he didn’t quite have Jack’s full attention, grunted in annoyance and swallowed him to the root. It did the trick; Jack’s hand flailed, nearly smacking James in the face, before withdrawing to tangle in Will’s tousled curls. Satisfied, Elizabeth pulled James down for a searing, imploring kiss, rolling her hips just so and causing him to add a groan to the mishmash of cries and curses that Jack was pouring into the heated air.

Her eyes were wild and intent, her body rocking against him frantically, and he knew that she would have no patience for subtlety this first time. James buried his face in her neck, stifled cries of her name escaping his lips again and again as he adjusted his angle and quickened his thrusts.

Will glanced aside at his wife, now hissing under her breath and dragging her nails up James’ back. He pressed a final peck to Jack’s cock and drew himself up.

Jack pouted, beginning to struggle beneath him again. “No fair.” As Will opened his mouth to speak, his eyes narrowed and he said, “And if you claim pirate’s rights, boy, I will take you over my knee.”

Canting his head to the side as he straddled Jack’s hips, Will seemed to be pondering this option and Jack shuddered, his desperate hardness pressing up against Will’s arse. He cast a look down at Will’s rigid, dark-flushed cock and demanded, “How ‘s it that you can last so damn long? I’ve been at this since before you were born – you’re supposed to have come all over me belly by now, ready for another go.”

“Perhaps you didn’t realize this, Jack,” said Will, his voice slipping into a bit of a growl as he carefully balanced and readjusted himself, his left knee fetching up against the join of Elizabeth’s hip and trembling thigh. “But I have a great deal of free time. And those three hours of fencing practice a day? Whittled down to barely one.” He lowered down onto Jack, concentration beading his brow with sweat as the pirate’s cock slid partway into him. A bare-teethed grin overtook his face as he nodded to Elizabeth, who was now making good on her offer to scream while she clenched James hard in climax. The man threw his head back and groaned hotly, spilling his seed into her.

“Can you guess, Jack,” Will ground out, grateful that Jack was holding still while he eased himself down and back, “where the rest of that time goes?”

“Aye, I can indeed,” Jack rumbled, his eyes and the gold in his mouth glittering. Patience at its limits, he gripped Will’s hips to set the pace himself.

At Will’s scolding tsk, Elizabeth and James glanced up from their languid cuddle. She twisted out from under him with a kiss to his nose. “Bit of help here?”

“Help with what?” James inquired, watching her in confusion as she curled against Jack’s side. Will sat up to let her press an arm into Jack’s stomach, holding his hips steady. The knees Jack propped up to support a panting blacksmith began to shake.

“Yes,” he said with an irritated snap of his teeth, “what are you all on about?”

“Will and I,” said Elizabeth silkily, “made something like a bet.”

“A challenge,” Will amended, now able to pull himself upward again so that Jack slid almost all the way out of him. The pirate’s eyes bugged out with frustration as Elizabeth kept him from thrusting into the tight, hot channel now being denied.

“Jack has to beg,” she said, giving the flummoxed pirate what could only be described as an evil leer.

“Oh, I’m always in favor of that,” said James, scooting over to catch Jack’s hands as he made a grab for his tormentors.

Jack glared daggers at the commodore. “Jamie, you traitorous bastard! You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“Sorry, pet,” said James lightly, pinning Jack’s arms over his head with one hand and tugging on his braided beard with the other. Jack thrashed and tried to bite him. “My loyalty’s to king and country –”

“Why, James, I was just thinking of England,” Elizabeth broke in with an innocent fingertip held to her chin. James gave her a wolfish grin before continuing.

“ – not to pirates who act as if they’ve all the wisdom of Solomon – oh, pardon me, that would actually be Sodom – and the rest of us poor ordinary folk ought to count our blessings for being thrown a scrap or two of carnal delight.”

Will was laughing too hard to make a sound, much less join in the verbal sparring.

Trapped, Jack writhed and threw the best temper tantrum he could manage without actually wanting to buck Will off. “Rotten idea, this was! You should all be deeply ashamed of yourselves. The moment I get free I am going to –” He failed to articulate, since James rendered him silent in a kiss with enough force to bruise, drawing it out long enough to asphyxiate them both.

Elizabeth beamed at Will while they were occupied, angling her head up to steal a kiss of her own. “Hello.”

“I think we may need a new bed after tonight,” he said against her lips. They both glanced down; Jack had gone utterly still under James’ skillful manipulation. When he was finally released, Jack sighed long and low, almost content. That wouldn’t do at all.

Will sank down onto him again, impaling himself fully with a soft moan. Jack’s eyes lit up and he bobbed his head in encouragement as Will worked up and down on him and James littered his face and neck with kisses. Elizabeth, feeling uninvolved in anything provoking pleasure, made herself doubly useful by employing her free hand on her husband’s cock. He smiled down at her in thanks, twitching in her fingers. For awhile Will’s little undone noises and the creaking of the springs was all that could be heard. Jack had clamped his lips stubbornly shut.

“Jack,” Elizabeth admonished, wagging her head and tutting like a schoolmarm even as she kept pumping Will, which only made Jack’s tongue flicker out to wet his lips.

“Not – gonna – do it,” he grunted.

“But you beg so prettily,” James told him, shoving his hands beneath the pillow. “Move those and you’ll regret it.” He took a place behind Will, kissing Elizabeth on the cheek as he passed and licking a stripe down Will’s spine. “Perhaps we need a bit more encouragement?”

Will twisted around to join Elizabeth in watching as James went to work with both hands, cupping Jack’s heavy balls, stroking the patch of skin just behind them, and working a long finger into him with some of the oil that had slipped down. They shared a look which clearly said that there were many things they still had left to learn.

“Oh – God – ” Jack’s voice was the strain of a twig before it snapped. His eyes rolled back into his head until only the whites were visible, and when Will took him all the way in again, he spasmed like a thing possessed.

“That doesn’t count,” said Elizabeth, conferring silently with Will and James. “It wasn’t directed at us.”

“Come on, Jack,” Will purred, leaning down to flutter his lashes against Jack’s dampened, swollen lips, urging with deliberate movements of his hips.

“Just give in, you old seadog,” said James in lazy amusement. He slid his hands beneath Jack’s arse, lifting up him and deeper into Will, and laved the exposed flesh with his tongue.

“Old?” Jack exclaimed, before his eyes popped open at a particularly well-timed flex of Will’s muscles and twist of James’ finger. Broken at last, he choked out his surrender. “Jesus God, you miserable wretches, take what you want and do whatever the devil may care, please – please – have pity on a dyin’ man an’ let me come –”

James and Elizabeth pulled back in tandem to let Will rock down onto Jack, who was still sobbing out pleas through gritted teeth. Both men clutched at each other and set a furious, demanding rhythm, release having been so long delayed. Careful to keep from getting an elbow to the head, Elizabeth and James settled on opposite sides, stroking and murmuring and helping first Jack and then Will back down from orgasms that threatened to set the bedding afire.

Will slid bonelessly to one side, barely aware of James catching him and laying him gently down. Elizabeth stretched out alongside an uncommonly still and quiet Jack, propping her head on her hand and tracing patterns in the warm pool on his belly.

“Am I still on the ground?” Will wanted to know, his voice muffled against Jack’s shoulder.

“The bed, actually,” said Elizabeth, leaning over Jack to kiss his fevered brow.

Will frowned. “Oh. I suppose that’s all right, then.” James laughed quietly. Will’s attempts to snuggle up to Jack were met with total immobility, so he sighed and turned in James’ arms with a nose-wrinkling wince. “Ow.” James soothed him with slow, sweet kisses. Elizabeth, finding herself neglected, poked Jack in the ribs.

His mustache twitched, but otherwise he didn’t react. “I’m never, ever, ever movin’ again,” he said, remarkably clear despite barely opening his lips.

“You are overly dramatic and prone to a martyr complex,” James said from the other side of Will, sucking in a deep breath as Will’s hand stroked lightly over his hardening cock.

Jack opened one eye to squint disbelievingly at the source of the fresh noises. “Y’can’t be serious.” James was too busy leaving a purpling mark on Will’s neck to reply.

Elizabeth sat up to get a better view of them, then raised her eyebrows at Jack. “If you don’t look a bit more alive, I’m going to hop over you and join them, and all you’ll get to do is watch.”

“I’ve no objection to that,” Jack muttered petulantly, but his other eye cracked open to watch as she ran both hands down her own body, delicate fingers curving over her hipbones to form a neat triangle between her thighs.

“Well, if that night on the island was enough for you...”

Jack’s mouth quirked and he rolled onto his side, reaching out to smooth her pout away with a thumb. “Gimme ten minutes.”

From behind him, Will let out a piercing moan as James worked with mouth and hands to welcome his cock back from exhaustion.

Jack craned his neck back, then traded a considering glance with Elizabeth. “Perhaps five.”



Daylight found the four sprawled on the relatively small bed, legs and arms and snores not easily attributed to individuals upon first glance. James slept flat on his back as he always did, one arm curled around a softly wheezing Elizabeth and conveniently keeping her from falling out of bed. His other arm and his entire right side were trapped underneath Will, who was flopped on his belly like a overgrown puppy that slept where it dropped. Jack had stolen more than his fair share of pillows, his back pressed to Will with one arm dangling in open air.

Naturally, being at the bottom of the pile, James was the first to awaken. He blinked up at an unfamiliar ceiling before he registered the numb places on his body, deadened by the weight of both Turners.

Wriggling carefully, he managed to shift Elizabeth downward so that her head was beneath his arm. He shook the newly freed limb out before using it to shove Will, which was somewhat less successful. The blacksmith refused to budge or wake up, even when James hissed in his ear.

“You won’t wake him.” Elizabeth propped her chin on his chest and rubbed at her eyes. “Nobody ever wakes Will –” A yawn, showing white teeth and pink tongue. “ – except Will. When I have a nightmare, he just keeps slumbering on even though he pulls me close.” She smiled affectionately and sleepily at her husband’s face, slack against James’ neck.

Still James struggled beneath Will, prodding in sensitive places and getting no response.

“See? I told you –”

With a grunt, Will suddenly woke himself up. He did it by kicking out both legs and burrowing his fists into or under the flesh on either side of him, and Jack went tumbling to the floor.

“Bleeding Christ – ‘m awake, Mam!” He squinted at his surroundings, his eyes clearing as three heads popped over the edge of the bed.

Seeing consternation set his mouth in a thin line, Elizabeth quickly said, “Will did it.”

“I’m sorry!”

James merely snickered, then grimaced as his numb right half began coming back to life.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack muttered to Will’s continued apologies as the boy dragged him back up. James lay back against the pillows, trying to keep still until the sharply painful tingles went away.

“How did I manage to get stuck with the end?” Elizabeth demanded, crawling over to the center of the bed and jarring James.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. Elizabeth’s eyes went wide; he’d rarely sworn throughout the night, even at the most appropriate moments. She pressed a contrite kiss to his cheek and began to massage his aching muscles.

Will leaned back against Jack, yawning. Jack nuzzled the top of his head and grinned contentedly at each of them in turn. “Well, ain’t this a sight to behold.”

“I confiscate literature about these kinds of salacious situations all the time, you know,” said James mildly, curving himself around Elizabeth as she crept into Will’s outstretched arms.

“I doubt the writers bother with this part of it – the waking up with many knees and elbows shoved against uncomfortable places, the hanging half-off the bed -- or all the way off in Jack’s case -- and ech –” She smacked her lips wetly. “The lingering taste of three other people in your mouth.”

“Not to mention the pecan pie a certain someone insisted on at two o’clock in the morning.” Will pointed to the sheet bundled up on the floor; it had somehow managed to get the majority of the pie dumped onto it when Elizabeth suddenly leapt on Jack as he was daintily licking it off his fingers. James, temporarily out of the room to soothe his strained vocal cords with some water, had returned and sat in it before anyone could warn him. And exactly how they’d gotten the whole mess cleaned up was too much for the dirty story collection of even the sauciest midshipman.

Jack blew into Will’s ear, earning himself a retaliatory swat on the thigh. “I get a sweet tooth when I‘m frustrated, and one o’ you was being a bloody cocktease. Again.” He tugged thoughtfully on his beard. "Can’t recall which, precisely...”

“It was Elizabeth,” said James absently, stroking her slender forearm.

“Oh yes,” said Jack with a fond grin of remembrance.

Elizabeth pulled herself upright in indignance, dislodging James. “I am not a tease!”

In perfect unison, her three lovers said, “Yes, you are.”

After thinking about it for a moment, Elizabeth shrugged and settled back down. “I suppose I can live with that.”

Jack wiggled his toes in pleasure at Will’s tongue slicking a last trace of sugar from his neck. “Now tell me this isn’t worlds better than quarreling.”

“I can’t even remember why we were fighting,” said Will, shifting himself to let James’ idle hand count the burn scars on his arm.

Elizabeth’s frown threatened to spoil the morning’s sated peace. “I do. Father’s dinner.”

Will groaned and flung the attended arm over his eyes, leaving James to slide a palm along Jack’s hip instead. “Of course.”

“Please go,” she said quietly. “If only because I’m asking you to.”

Jack made a horrible face. “Wouldn’t catch me at one of those fanciful affairs, not ‘less I could have my free pick of pockets.”

“The governor will look foolish if his own son-in-law doesn’t attend,” said James reasonably.

“He invited you as well,” Elizabeth remarked, giving him a sly, slit-eyed glance. James scowled, recognizing a set-up but too late to rescue himself.

Will lifted his chin over Elizabeth’s head. “I’ll go if you will.”

“It’s Lizzie’s old home,” Jack pointed out. “She knows her way around, an’ I’m sure you bright young things can manage to slip away someplace private.”

James shook his head with a wry grin. “However did I get myself into this, I ask?” He meant a great deal more than the dinner obligation, and they all knew it.

“I dunno, but it does solve our bit of a spat as well,” said Jack, an expression on his face like he simply couldn’t get over his own genius. “Now I’ve somewhere to leave you so’s you don’t brood yourself straight off the edge of the dock.”

James couldn’t summon Jack’s assurance about the lasting nature of their current arrangement. It had been a night beyond all reasonable -- proper -- sane imagination, certainly, but he had his career and Jack had his Pearl; Will and Elizabeth had their very new marriage.

Hesitantly, he said, “I – I wouldn’t think to impose –”

“James, you twit” said Elizabeth in exasperation, half-turning to kiss him deeply. She clasped his hand in her own, smiling at him as Will lifted their entwined fingers to his mouth.

“Gotta learn when to keep your trap shut,” Jack advised, his eyes softening at the pleased, natural smile curving James’ lips so beautifully.

A sigh passed through them, one by one. Comfortable silence stretched across the room until Elizabeth raised her cheek from the top of James’ head. “Breakfast is the one thing I feel I’m lacking in this world.”

“Coffee,” said Will wistfully.

“Tea,” James added. “With fresh lemon.”

“Toast and jam.” The words lingered on Elizabeth’s tongue as deliciously as the food itself.

“Rum!” Jack exclaimed brightly.

Three groans told him exactly how much his contribution would be appreciated.

“What? Last night happened when we were stone sober, remember – just imagine what we could get up to with some spirits in our bellies.”

Elizabeth gazed reflectively at the window. Will and James looked at each other and commiserated without a word spoken between them.


I would just like to add that I had the strangest writing soundtrack this evening. First it was the fabulous mishmash of the "Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood" soundtrack, then Melissa Etheridge, then Roy Orbison, then Bowie. And I swear, "Oh! You Pretty Things" was playing as I finished.