The moon has always loved the sea. Loves to push and pull, to graze long fingers across its surface, only... just... touching.

And in its turn, the sea has always loved the moon. Loves to heave and gleam under its white glow, and swell into its stroke.

But then, they both love many things.

The moon loves the land, and she loves to watch the sea as it laps and licks its lover's edge, wraps herself around it, and surges in on its borders.

And the sea loves a ship. There are many ships, but none she loves so well as this one, who sits rocking on her skin tonight, close enough to shore to see the edges of the land rimed with lights..

They lay together, the sea, the ship, the land, and the moon loves them all, and pulls at them all with her full, round white light. Like tonight.

. . .

They built the new forge and the new house on a hill on the outskirts of town, beside the sea. It was not a large house, but a fine one, and the forge sat right beside it, shutters always open to catch the wind. Sometimes the red glow of the fire spilled out across the flagstones late into the night. The even rhythm of hammer on steel was muffled by the tinkling of water in the stone fountain at the center of the small courtyard.

So were footsteps.

She stood in the doorway a long time, watching him work. She loved to watch him work. The sky outside the windows was a perfect moonless black, but the air here was lit gold with coals, red with hot iron. It gilded the sweat on his skin. Elizabeth smiled, unwrapping the quilt that she's wound herself in, letting it drop in the doorway. It took a great amount of patience to wait until he was safely away from the anvil, and the glowing metal was steaming safely in its bath, before she drew the sword out from the concealing folds of her skirt and stepped up behind him to slide the finely sharpened tip down the long line of his spine.

. . .

The pirate was walking along a beach, and he couldn't remember how he'd got there.

The night was almost totally black, which was different. Where was the moon? Storm coming maybe, shrouding her, or maybe she was sleeping late tonight. He knew when she did show herself, she would be the swollen as a dubloon and twice as heavy with light. In this dream, she always was.

By the faint starlight, he saw the gleam of the waves and the curve of the sand. He walked on. He knew who he was looking for. This was her beach, after all. He could walk forever there and never find an end to it until he found her.

It was beginning to look as though he might do just that when finally he made out her old, worn dress, lit up with its own paleness in the gloom. And suddenly, the shine of a pair of eyes, watching.

She was walking backwards at the edge of the surf, letting it wash in over her feet. Her skin was black, night black. Blacker than the air, absorbing light. The dress was white. Her wet-dark hair blew like torn canvas. Her smile said Catch Me and he felt his lips curve. He had chased her across this sand many times, and he always caught her.

She stepped faster, sending up spray. He stepped in the swirling gullies where her feet had been.

. . .

In the dim nighttime quiet of his sleeping house, James Norrington stood shoulder-propped in the back doorway of his kitchen, where pirates so often slipped in and out (stealing bits of this and that along the way), wishing he could smell the sea.

Such a still night. He stood clad only in his carelessly thrown-on breeches, barefoot on the slate, gazing through the wavering glass towards the spot that the heavy full moon cast her path out onto the water.

A very still night, now. Not so still earlier that evening, as the sun set and fragmented his bedchamber with shadow... He remembered begging at one point... And when he'd woken in the moonlight not so long ago, there'd been blood under his fingernails and kohl smeared on the sheets, and he'd had to get up, to leave and go somewhere still and cool and dark, away from the steady quiet breathing of the other in his bed, to try to collect himself. On nights like this it was still hard, even after all this time, to come back afterward and remember where they'd gone together, and not panic just a little in his Navy heart.

He took a deep breath and crossed his arms before himself, tipping his head against the woodwork, and was suddenly overwhelmingly aware that he was not alone in the room.

"Over here, Jack," he murmured, but there was no answer. Quirking an eyebrow, he turned and saw her standing there just within the doorway, watching him, and he felt one long, overwhelming surge of numbing panic at the sight, before he realized what he was looking at.

She didn't say anything, just stood there almost totally obscured in shadow. Her skin was so black. Like the black of gnarled, carved wood soft and dark with age and exposure to the elements. He could see the planes and cracks, where the blocks of light from the window crossed her carved face. She wore what might have been a white dress once, now rags.

James swallowed and felt it lodge in his throat, cold and clinging. Around it he whispered, "What do you want?"

After all this time and all the stories, he didn't know what he'd expected. Some laughing, spectral wench, beckoning him with sinful fingers? A hollow skeleton? Just a rack of ivory, mate. Somethin' to hitch the meat to... He shuddered at the memory that wasn't a memory because he'd only heard stories of Jack standing in the shaft of moonlight, a rotting corpse playing sleight of hand and grinning with every gold tooth in his head... No, not that. She may have carried that curse on her once, but she was whole now. Free to do as she pleased. Free to slip into his home and disturb his quiet shadows and watch him with old, shrewd, calculating eyes. Calculating what?

"It's time for him to go." James was proud at how calm he sounded. He'd faced many fantastic things, and conquered many fears, but he knew nothing would ever shake him again like this strange wooden totem staring him down out of the dark."You want him back, is that it?" Dammit, but why wouldn't she say something? Or was she just planning on standing there and scaring the piss out of him all night? Lovely.

Well, that just wouldn't do. He had places to be, people to... er... oh, blast.

Summoning as much Navy as he could, he drew himself up and stated, "Well, madam, if there's something that you want, feel free to ask." She's a lady, Jamieluv. Mine, to be exact. So you'd best remember to speak to her with respect. "Otherwise, I shall have to beg your pardon. I have... company." And he smiled.

Ah. Not wood, after all. Only true weathered flesh could smile so knowingly, wrinkle like that around the eyes. Her smile was young and white and perfect.

And then that one gold tooth.

She brought dark hands up in that prayerful way he'd seen so many times before on another body, and it was so familiar that the breath hitched in his chest. Then she was gone.

. . .

Her legs were long. She was so swift, running now over the sand, skirts caught up out of the sea foam. Suction tripped him up, slowed him down, strung pearls of sweat out on his skin. Faintly he could hear her laugh. He laughed as well, breathless, just steps behind her. Reached out one hand and grabbed air.

One dark eye glinted over her shoulder at him, and she swirled around, feinting out of his reach once, twice. And then he had her.

She fetched up against him in the shallows and they were both laughing and out of breath, and he just held her. Any other lass he'd kiss, but not her. To kiss her was to be lost, he knew, and he didn't feel like being lost just yet. Instead he called her "Strumpet" and she grinned.

She let him clutch her until both their breath had calmed, before giving him a bit of a shove, and stepped back. "Time to be getting back now, aye?" Her voice was young and old, rough and soft. He blinked away the mist that always threatened to cloud his eyes at the sound.

"What?"

"Your pretty lover is waitin for you. So? Go, get on."

He gazed at her, standing there so still now when just moments before she'd been the wind. She smiled at him, and then lifted her face to the sky. This wasn't how the dream usually ended. Eyes as black as hers were bright narrowed. "What are you up to, sweet?"

"Waiting," she simply said. And when he didn't move, she glanced over. He eyes reflected sharp points of starlight back at him, wicked. "What? Don't you be thinkin you're the only one who has someone to be waitin on."

The waves washed in over his feet, and he woke in an empty bed.

Slowly, he sat up, letting the sheets pool around his waist. Ah, here was the moon.

He watched the shadows cast in the white glow for a long minute, smiling as all the places where he'd been gripped and clawed and various other wonderful words of that nature earlier that evening made themselves know one by one, and then stood and went to find his 'pretty lover'.

Pretty, hell. The blighter scratched. Sir bloody His Majesty's Royal Fleet was just at tad bit more talented at putting holes in pirates, it seemed, than in pirate ships.

But then, she knew that. That's why she liked him.

. . .

He hadn't realized that she had him cornered until he fell in the fountain.

With a whoop of laughter, she set one bare foot triumphantly on the stone ledge and watched him flounder, spraying water in sparking droplets from his slick-dark hair, gasping. Dashing water from his eyes with the same hand that still clutched his sword~ in vain, seeing as how the stream flowing from the lips of the stone lion above emptied itself directly onto his head.

"Surrender?" she suggested. She rather hoped he would. Looking at him there, sheened with water and firelight, flustered and flushed, the cotton of his shirt plastered across sleek shoulders, she rather lost the urge to chase him around with a sword.

He said, "Never."

She said, "Not even if I let you ravish me?"

He said, "Well, that's a diffrent story alltogether."

. . .

In the dark (still and quiet and his again) James heard the soft jingle before felt rough hands skate around his middle to rest flat on his belly. He leaned back into Jack's sharp angles. Jack pressed the tip of his nose into that spot at the nape of Jamie's neck that he knew was most sensitive and breathed out a slow sigh, chuckling as the taller man shivered and squirmed a little.

"And what are we doing out here, all by our onesies?"

"Thinking, "James said. Rolled his shoulders. "Don't do that."

"MMmm... Why not?"

"It tickles."

"I know. That is why I do it." He did it again.

"Sparrow..." A huffed breath that didn't sound all the annoyed at all, really... "Are you difficult on purpose or is it compulsive?"

"Ah. Something of a nervous twitch, actually. Picked it up in Calcutta..." Jack's murmur trailed off into busy kissing.

James smiled and rested his head against the crown of the wild dark mane behind him. It was very tempting to let Jack have his way until they were both in a sweaty heap (he knew the ending to this tale from personal experience) on the kitchen floor. He contemplated this scenario as the mouth that he frustratingly couldn't watch kissedbit its way across his shoulder blades. Hhmmm... stiff for a week, or stop now and climb all... those... stairs? "Jack."

"MMmmmpphhh...?"

"Perhaps we should... take this back to bed..."

His tousled headrest vanished as Jack crouched to lick a long trail from the small of his back to the base of his neck, not even realizing that Jack's pickpocket hands had disappeared inside his trousers until he was surrounded by callused heat and squeezed. His head fell back helplessly with nothing to meet but wall, and he groaned. "...Nevermind..."

"Heh. 'S what I thought."

. . .

Laughing, they rolled together, clutching one another, like children on a grassy hill instead
of the dirty roughness of a forge floor barely softened by an old quilt.

Will came out on top as they fetched up against the hearthstone, hands working smoothly at the lacings of her bodice. This was one thing she could never best him in. Rough blacksmith's hands they might have been, but they could still unlace a bodice faster than her (not so ladylike) lady's fingers could unbutton a pair of breeches. He thrust his hips down upon her hands, trapping them in the dark heat between their shell-like hip bones. She glared up at him as the final cross of sweat-soaked silk cord came free. Smug bastard.

"You cheated."

He grinned at her with a smugness that was all too familiar. "Don't make me say it."

. . .

Jack smiled against the curve of James's back. Beautiful, he'd always thought so. More beautiful than any stretch of sand or sea in the Caribbean was this expanse of skin. He didn't think that his James had any idea how exotic unmarked skin was to him (and Jack knew exotic when he saw it). No one who lived in the company so many well-behaved men so determined to keep their clothing on could have any idea. Smooth, pale, clean... until Jack was finished with him, of course. So different from what bound him up.

He kissed his way along the smoothly muscled groove at the man's spine, loving the taste, delighted at how quickly the velvety hot flesh in his hands was hardening to life, the way James's hips were rolling into his touch. Beautiful, and now he wanted, wanted, more than he had earlier, if that was possible. Everytime it was more. If he stayed much longer he just might kill them both with wanting, especially if the man didn't find a carpeted room to stand around looking unreasonably delicious in. Jack nipped and sucked his way up, back to that entertaining little spot just below the tips of neatly trimmed brown hair. Placed his mouth there, and sucked hard.

"UUuuhhhnnn Jack!!" James bucked in his grip and that was it, they were both sliding down the wall to the cool stone floor, abusing elbows and knees along the way, and James found himself on his back, straddled by his dark and wild attacker who was (oh, he hadn't noticed that) rather completely bare and finally kissing him for sweet Jesus's sake, fumbling with the fastenings on his trousers which he'd thankfully only bothered to do up halfway in the first place.

Clever fingers popped the last button finally free, and to congratulate himself, Jack sucked James's tongue into his mouth with a purr. The body beneath him shuddered, and James was clutching him as though he could map permanent territory on the tanned flesh with his bruising fingertips, and the kiss went on and on, sapping the air from his lungs and numbing everything except the slick slide and click of teeth and the grind of hips.

Jack tore himself free finally, gasping, and reared back to jerk impatiently to at the waistband of the pants that were still so rudely in his way. "Up. Now." James arched his back, letting the pirate drag the offending material down over his hips. Someone gave a great sigh of relief as his very obvious arousal slid free. It could have been either or both of them. No one was keeping track anymore.

James craned his neck to admire the graceful dip and curve of Jack's body as he bent, eyes closed, to rub a stubbled cheek against the pale tautness of his abdomen. Twitched at the tickle of whiskers against sensitive skin. His harness was trapped, throbbing against the pirate's sweatslick breastbone, and for a long moment that was all he could focus on, until the soft growl of Jack's voice broke through the haze.

"...uhnn... God... love you, James..." The throaty rasp broke off and James writhed as Jack fastened onto him and sucked hard, just at the spot where what little tan he could claim faded away "...love you, love you, fuckin love you..." And Jack lifted his head, panting breaths ghosting over his navel, to level a black gaze up along his body so thick with want he could taste it. And grinned.

James moaned. Reached out to twine long fingers in the dark beaded mane of Jack's hair, not knowing what else to do except hold on as Jack's insanely hot mouth engulfed him whole.

. . .

In the failing light of the fire, they lay on the floor before the forge's hearth, wrapped in the quilt. She propped her chin on his naked side, watching the flames die down. More red now than gold.

She asked, "You're leaving with him soon, aren't you?"

His side jumped with quick breath. "Yes" He turned to look at her with those earnest eyes, always carefully searching her face—for what, by now, she didn't know. Disapproval? Not likely to find it. She grinned and reached out to tug his tangled curls. "Good"

His eyes widened, and amusement quirked his mouth. "Good?"

"Yes. Just don't be gone too long."

"You know I never could." He swallowed. He wanted to kiss her, she could tell. He still hesitated from time to time. A bad habit in her opinion, though every time Jack brought him back home the habit was more and more broken. When he spoke next, his voice was a husky thing, live with wonder. "You really don't mind, do you?"

"William Turner!" She let her head drop back with a moue of exasperation. How many times would she have to argue this extremely obvious point? Bloody hell!! "Why exactly would I mind?"

He opened his mouth to giver her what would be a most definitely well-thought-out answer, she was sure, about danger and trust and reputation and bodies rotting beneath the waves, bodies rotting in cages, never to be heard from again, or held before a fire again on the sooty floor of a forge. Before any of it could make itself known, she thunked him beneath the chin, shutting his teeth with a click, and said, "Oh, hush and listen. You know you have to go. I know you have to go. But we both know, don't we..." Here she leaned in close... lips just barely brushing... "We both know that every time you come back, you are more and more my pirate."

He drew breath in a shuddering gasp, almost cross-eyed in the attempt to focus on her face.

"So. I should hurry up and go. If I were you." And, smiling, she leaned in and bit him lightly on the shoulder. Just so.

He said, "Ooh..."

. . .

Somehow he'd ended up with his head under the kitchen table.

Jack gazed up at the underside of the old butcher-block, one arm curled loosely around its sturdy wooden leg. With his other he traced slow dips and swirls over Jamie's chest, smiling whenever his fingers hit a sensitive spot and the tousled brown head pillowed on his ribs twitched.

"...Stop it..."

"Why?"

"It tickles."

"I know. S'why I do it..."

In the dark, Jack could almost hear the soft crinkle of James's smile. The warm body against his gave a long, noisy, soul-emptying, thoroughly contented sigh.

"Ahhh, yes," Jack mused. "I do like that sound."

Dark, still and quiet. Cricket song drifted in from the pale silver night. Jack yawned a jaw-cracking yawn and happily scrubbed long fingers back through James's rumpled hair, contemplating the commodore's kitchen floor. It really was one of the more comfortable slabs of rock he'd ever had the pleasure of sprawling on... (and he'd sprawled on many, in every conceivable state of undress.) So far, this one was the only one he'd revisited for a repeat performance.

And repeat it he would. Again, and again, and again. Oh, yes. In every damn room in the house, if need be.

It was right in the middle of this pleasant turn of thought that James turned his yesterday-morning-was-quite-awhile-ago-rough cheek against Jack's belly and asked, "You'll be leaving soon, won't you?"

Jack never stopped his indolent petting. He twirled one finger in the errant curl that liked to form itself at James's brow and murmured, "Now whatever gave you that idea, Jamie?"

James blinked. It wasn't the answer he'd been expecting, to say the least. "Because you're due, I daresay. How many days can it take that mad crew of yours to restock a ship?"

Jack gave a dry chuckle. "This is Tortuga we're talkin about, luv. Y'have to double all your usual numbers on account of the whole blasted town being schnookered from noon to dawn, daily." He drew a callused fingertip down over the lovely aristocratic bridge of that lovely aristocratic nose, restrained himself WITH EFFORT from poking the man up one of those lovely aristocratic nostrils, just to see what reaction he'd get. "You know, it's beginning to sound as if you're trying to get rid of old Jack here..."

"No, it's most certainly not that, I..." but James let his swift response trail off as the pirate's body vibrated with another quiet laugh. Quirking a brow, James lifted his head to gaze up at Jack and was taken aback by the expression he found on his sharp, elfin face. He recognized that look. He'd seen it on Elizabeth's face a year ago, the afternoon he'd used Jack's given name just one too many times in passing conversation, in that certain way, and the connection was finally made~ a kind of sly sweetness. Pride. A little bit of bawdy leer, for good measure. He blinked. "Jack, what are you up to?"

"What makes you say I'm up to somethin, mate?"

"You've got that look."

"Hmmm... Look?"

"Yes. The look you get when you're up to something."

There was a long silence. Then, his usual drawl tinged with disapproval, "I do NOT have a look."

Exasperated... "Oh you bloody well do and you know it !! It's called the 'Watch as I give the good Commodore a spot of heart failure' look. I know it well." He let his head fall back, thunking a hefty 'Oooph!!' from his firmly muscled cushion. "Forget I ever asked. It's better that I don't know what's got into your mad brain."

Jack's sigh lifted James's head several inches. The sudden sensation of muscles playing beneath his cheek distracted him so well, he nearly missed the comfortably purred, "Just contemplating love, Jamie darling."

"Love?"

"Aye, love, Eros, that thing which has lead me to scandalous acts on this very floor here, twice, with no end in sight."

"Er. Oh." James settled back ~crossing his arms, ankles~ to contemplate the ceiling. Love. Oh. "Love, you say?"

"Aye, love."

"Any... particular reason this subject should happen to cross your mind at this particular moment?"

The pirate reached up to trace one finger along God knew what thing-or-another that had caught his easily-caught attention on the underside of the table. The words came as easily as if he was discussing what he'd eaten for breakfast. "You mean the fact that I love you painfully, desperately, and allconsumingly, to the detriment of me own life should I ever be caught within a hundred miles of you, and I want you more than mortal flesh should be able to stand and spend every waking second that I'm NOT within a good five inches of you imagining committing acts upon your luscious self so disreputable that they'd be considered hanging offenses in at least four known countries and a couple I'm sure you've never even heard of...?"

James said... er... nothing, unfortunately. He made a valiant effort, but could only manage to open and shut his mouth once or twice. Oh... of all the blasted... damn him, anyway!! He could battle vengeful undead pirates with hardly a qualm, charm the spirits of cursed pirate ships, seduce notorious scalawags, and (not to be forgotten) bear up under Elizabeth's constant teasing with (what he considered) admirable grace. But one (probably) completely exaggerated speech from this madman had him blushing like a lady and imitating beached fish. Damn, damn, triple damn!!

"Well," Jack was continuing as this mental tirade wound itself out atop his midsection."If that was what you were thinking I had in mind, you were wrong."

James squeaked, "Is that so?"

"Aye. Was someone else entirely that I was thinking of, mate. Sorry to disappoint you."

James squeaked, "Think nothing of it."

"Good. Now that that's settled..." Jack propped himself up on two bony elbows, smirking down at the befuddled commodore in his lap, who had just been dislodged to slide down until his ear was propped against a much more interesting bit of pirate anatomy. "Much as I hate to, I do suggest that you either take your fetchingly nude self back to bed, or put some clothes on sometime before dawn. Unless you forgot what happened the last time."

James had been sure he could not blush any more redly than he already was, until that moment. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes with a low moan. "Do NOT remind me, Sparrow. I couldn't look my own housekeeper in the eye for a month..."

A low spurt of badly-contained laughter convulsed Jack's body.

"...And when I finally did, she laughed at me for an hour straight!! What are YOU laughing at?! I wasn't the one she was chasing around the kitchen table with a knife!!"

By now the pirate was in spasms of laughter so violent that the only sound he could force out was a kind of wheezing gasp. Knowing what Jack could be like when he worked mself into that state, James sat up and pounded him soundly on the back. "Yes, yes, fine... breathe Jack. Good God, man..."

Jack flapped one hand at him, curled his other arm around aching ribs, panting. James scowled, as blackly as he knew how. "It wasn't that funny."

"I... beg to differ... mate..."

"Well, fine! If you enjoyed it so much, maybe I should just leave you out here."

Jack smirked. "Mmm... yes, James, I'm sure."

"There IS a lock on the bedroom door."

The laughter vanished from Jack's face instantly. "You wouldn't."

James leaned in. Slowly. Until they were almost nose to nose. Until Jack was almost cross-eyed in the attempt to focus on his face. "Oh, wouldn't I?"

. . .

In the moonflooded garden, a dark, dark shape puddled out on the grass amongst the jasmine and orange trees, a manlike poppet of ink and shadow, dark head pillowed on spindly dark arms, listening to the dip and fall of conversation through the gently propped window. There was a long silence, and then the sudden sound of scrambling, the scrape of a heavy piece of furniture across a stone floor. A thump. A gasped curse.

A laughing, refined voice... "Mind your head, Jack."

She smiled, and the moonlight glinted fondly off one gold tooth. Gazing skyward, she kissed a hand to her lover.

The sea sighed against the shore.