Pairing: Will Turner/Jack Sparrow
Rating: PG
Summary: "A moving silhouette on the floor dances, sways, until another joins it."
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue
Author's Notes: Dark. Very dark. Experimental and also second PoTC story. Of many, I might add.
Feedback: Gladly appreciated!

The movements of the sea does not compare with the dance of a pirate. Watch him weave across the deck, how his hands move. They are rather nice hands, you notice. Tanned, dark, how the fingers flick about. Sometimes stabbing, playing the harp on strings of biting wind. They match the waves within his mind, the bobbing motion of the deck.

The sparrow sways in the wind, and it isn’t your eyes he focuses upon.

It looms, somewhere, ominous, and pulls its sheet of fog around it. The mist encircles the Black Pearl like a lover’s arms, dangerous, whispering promises of death and glory. Black and spherical is the compass in the sparrow’s hands. The arrow twists around and around, a wheel, and points this way and that. Kohl smudged eyes follow, darting, brown flashes.

“William! Steady, boy.”

William. The name of your father. Bootstrap Bill, his nickname was, a pirate, rogue. Good man—and you remember the faint touch of his hands on your waist, lifting you up. How he kissed your mother—so fragmented, the memory—and patted your head. Leather and embers, strong hands placed a triangular hat upon your head. You were two.

“There. Doesn’t that look handsome?” he asked. A flash of bright white in the dark recesses of memories. He bent down, tugging the hat upon your head. Wasn’t snug—too big—but you could imagine it was adorable. “That belongs to your father’s friend. A very good man. Born of the ocean, he was, how he matches the spray and wind. You’ll be lucky if your mum lets me take you one day. I’ll show you him. And you’ll love him. Just as I do. Good, good man.”

Your mother knew he meant well, but did not let you leave. It wasn’t until she fell, her last breath, that you set out to find him. You never did. Imagine how he looked like. It’s hard to see. Trace the line of his features. Strong. Dark, dark eyes. Long hair pulled back, a rogue grin. They said you had your father’s face. Your father’s laugh. His eyes.

The sparrow looks at you, cross, his head moves down, pulls away. Shakes himself out of his own thoughts, then smiles. Another flash, of gold. Medallions, hilts and teeth. Glances up minutely, and places one of those hands along your spine.

“Less towards the right. There’s a good boy,” he says. Turn and glance. Ignore the strange fluttering in your stomach; he is so very near you. He notices, and purses his lips for a moment, then jerks his head. “Take the wheel, Ana.”

A movement, and she mutters her way there. The moonlight flashes on Anamaria’s skin, off her eyes, dark. Her smile, playful. She growls a string of words, whispers, and stands where you were, fingers gripping the wheel. Mischievous, knowing, she offers a small wave, her form growing smaller from view.

Reason is that the sparrow pulls you into his quarters, blue deck fading from sight. Blue mixes with gold, darker, lighter, fading away to a soft orange hue. Offer a quaint smile when he gestures towards the chair. Sit on the edge of the table instead, long legs reaching the ground. It moves beneath your feet. He moves too, a thrown hat, fallen jacket, and suddenly he’s sitting near you. And grinning.

“You look troubled. Something wrong with the girl, is that it?” he asks.

And it hits. Look down. The circle. It rests there, a golden brand around your finger. Elizabeth. A fitting prize for Norrington, slips from the soldier’s fingers into your blacksmith hands. They’re rough, you notice. Like your father’s friend. Clear your throat. Sit up. Raise those eyebrows, and offer a casual shrug.

“It’s nothing. Just thinking about my father, is all.”

Nods his head towards you. “There’s something different about you.”

Adamant, you shake your head. Quite furiously. “There isn’t.”

Stroking his chin, he swipes a finger across the tips of his mustache. Languid eyes lift for a moment, dark, before he nods curtly. “It’s just me then. Right. Well, you go outside and do the thing that you do… It being steering, not…black..smith…ing, since technically you’re a blacksmith, but for now you’re first mate. Savvy?”

Two drops, footfalls on the floor. Starts to walk out. A moving silhouette on the floor dances, sways, until another joins it. Don’t question how you got there. Ignore the beating organ pounding in your chest. The soft little breeze that seeps in the space between your bare abdomen and his back. The way he stops, stops his dance, and turns. That grin on his face, crafty, a flash of gold teeth, light glinting off the trinkets in his hair.

Shut him up. And fuck the grin right off his face.

And when you’re done with him, and you let your eyes linger on his skin, remember it. Let the burning feeling in your gut dissolve. It’s not anger, really. Or pain. Confusion. Nerve racking, blinding, searing, and you want to hang on, want to be there forever, want to let him laugh and move his hands, dancing, dancing–

The sparrow smirks at your restraint. A swipe of fingers across your hand, pass the band, tracing them up your cheek. Raise your hand—an oath, a swipe, a terrible, terrible thing—and pulls his away, down to his chest. Spider walk your way to his mouth, press your own bare skin against his side, and let him pull you close and smell your own scent. The same. Leather and embers.

“So that’s what’s botherin’ you,” Jack says. Yes. His name is Jack. Remembered.

A bright swatch of blue cuts through gold beams, a creak follows. Steps, slow, then hurried. And another set of eyes.

“Will. Jack. Where have you—”

The band of gold starts to burn. Hands move away from borrowed trousers, and Elizabeth cants her head.

“Why am I not surprised?”

Her eyebrows raise. And then comes the smirk.

END

Return to Archive