"You know," Jack said as a way of greeting when Will opened the backdoor to the smithy and found the unannounced, yet not unexpected visitor with his nose buried into a white rose on his doorstep, the sole figure of the man embellished with the shades of the setting sun. Stepping aside, Will let Jack in from the early evening, and watched as the man swished through the room, peering for unwelcome others, and to the main entrance.

Glancing around the street, then firmly barring the door, Jack whirled around and pointed the rose towards Will like a sword.

"There is a tale," he drawled as if there weren't a pause to mention, descending the steps to the smithy slowly.

"Where?" Will closed the other door and plucked at the fingers his long-sleeved leather glove, inescapably succumbing under Jack's beckoning with each tug, despite himself. Swiping his forehead with his sleeve, Will pushed his uncertainties aside.


Stopping in mid stride, Jack sniffed the rose for an answer, and waved it in triumph when receiving it.

"Persia."


The bright tone with the accompanying smile plunged a painfully sharp reminder through Will's heart of how much exactly the blacksmith had been longing for the pirate. The resulting tear was quickly mended by the heady, heated perception, that he was here now, and it was all that mattered.

Proceeding to take off his remaining glove and tossing it over its pair over the anvil elevated to a workbench, Will kept his eyes away from Jack's, and gave him a look over his shoulder. "A tale? About what?"

"About a nightingale," came the response in a purr, right behind Will's back, together with a hand curving to his hip.

Will closed his eyes around the sensation of Jack's warmth on his back, merely a fraction of a moment before he could feel the man pressing against him, when he could feel Jack's movement as he took his hat and threw it away aimlessly with the soft jingle he only associated with Jack.

Leaning back experimentally, trying, testing, drunken with the thought of being able to do this, hands itching to touch but his mind fighting against the notion, Will swallowed hard.

"Another bird?"

Encouraged by the huff of amused air beside his ear, Will relaxed against Jack's chest, earning him the hand to his hip come around, drawing him into instilled time where he could but be, stay encompassed by the hour of never leaving, but always coming back.


His throat clamped shut, Will opened his eyes to see Jack's placing the rose under Will's arm and onto the gloves, feeling Jack's beard brushing the bare skin of his shoulder revealed by his loose shirt, in time with Jack's fingers tenderly brushing over the white petals of the rose.

A gasp and a small involuntary sound covered not a glimpse of the waters Will was drowning in, when Jack held him, nosed Will's hair aside and kissed the spot, humming his reply directly into Will's future dreams.

"Yes, dove, another bird." Will could almost hear Jack's eyes being shut, his tone intoxicated by something besides rum. "Another bird. And a rose."

"I'd imagine a white one," Will whispered, instead  of relinquishing the wild, desperate call which welled in his chest and threatened to render him into a madman.


In the following silence, with the remaining daylight blocked from the smithy, in spite of it insistently seeping through every crack and cranny, most of the illumination was left to the task of the forge. The flames and the red-hot embers, their light not enough to rival the power of the impeding darkness, still, while burning with all their might, the flames flickered and danced, dauntless, until they became one with the sharp edges. Mingling with the shadows, assuaging, blandishing them into casting only a shade over the men, the ingle urged the dark to honour their counterpart enough not to hide the men, forcing it to see why there need be light.

The flames, in their rejoice of replenish, turned the long forgotten flower into myriad hues, the pure white blossoming with a pale flush of red, then instantly coloured with fire itself, touched with the ethos of passion that is two hearts beating the same desirous tattoo.


Grasping at the receding hem of reason, Will twined his fingers with Jack's, let his hand to be guided over the plane of his abdomen, drinking thirstily from every sensation the parching touch brought with it, and spoke huskily; "What kind of tale?"

"A cordial one." Jack's other hand slipped downwards, caressing Will's side and down his thigh, fingers digging through cloth, and back up again, cleverly finding the fastenings of the breeches, while Jack's mouth stole tastes from Will's neck.

Will rested his free forearm to the anvil for balance when the clever hand delved for bare skin and stroked over the curve and crook of his backside. With the loss of it all, when Jack snatched both his hands away, appeased by the reassurance of Jack still pressed against him, Will took a steadying breath, leaned to both his arms and hustled with a nudge; "Tell me."

The clank and clatter of a sword and belt buckles hitting the floor came right before a flurry of muttered curses, causing Will's lips to turn into an impish curve. "Please don't say the cat got your tongue, I had planned other uses for it."


A chuckle, and a thud announced a frock coat joining the effects, and a small bottle appeared for Will's brief inspection before it joined the rose's company. "Found it. Takes more than bloody baudrons to keep me from you."

"Then tell me," Will insisted with another nudge.

The resulting, long pause was filled with Jack brushing across Will's back first through his shirt, then sneaking under it, palm flat along the smith's spine, thumb rubbing a circle in time with his resolute words. "Not like this I won't."

The ugly insecurity, the plummeting Will felt rushing through him almost made him jump, but was reined in by the hushed breath which delivered the same message the rose had brought. Now all Will had to do was to believe it; "I want to see you, Will. Look at me."

Then Jack stepped back, and Will braced himself.


Staring at the flower bedded between his arms, Will suddenly knew for certain that the eyes he last saw Jack through had changed forever, and he'd never see the pirate the same way again. The older man had fenced his way through the thicket around Will's heart, and he'd made the last cut with—out of all things imaginable—a single white rose.

Letting his head hang between his shoulders for a moment, Will faced the rapid surge of emotions inside him, swiftly finding the one thing he'd been trying to ignore for months now.


Collecting himself, Will stood up and turned to look at it in the eye.

It wasn't quite as he'd expected, Will was surprised to learn. There weren't even a scent of mischief, no bawdiness, no brash, smug grins nor daring look around Jack's eyes, but there was something new in their stead; Jack was thoroughly lathered with sincerity. The Captain of the Black Pearl looked helpless, for heaven's sake, and even with that he seemed comfortable enough to step forward and stop within a hair's breadth from Will, eyes roaming his face for a permission Will wasn't sure he had the authority to give.

"You see," Jack uttered, reaching behind Will, dark eyes locked with the other's. "There was a time when all roses were the purest white." He held the flower between them without looking at it. "But there was one which was the most beautiful of them all." The white blossom bounced back and forth as Jack paced and paused his tale, demanding Will's enraptured attention.

"One evening, a nightingale came flying around, happily minding his own business." Jack's tone was indiscernible, causing Will to focus on him again, and was caught with Jack's eyes drawn half-shut as if he was reminiscing an old, pleasurable memory.

"Or so the wretched creature thought. In reality," a small, indulgent smile crossed Jack's features, "he was drawn with the irresistible fragrance of the most wonderful thing imaginable, soaring blindly towards it, without even knowing it was what he was looking for."

Jack stared at Will with clear eyes again. "Imagine that."

"Now, what happened next," Jack flicked the flower to Will's lips to shut him up, to which Will was happy to acquiesce. "...was that the soddin' blighter was so enchanted by the rose that he flew a straight line to it, can you believe," Jack lipped, his voice betraying him enough to let Will assume Jack had a hard time believing himself.

Before divulging the rest of the story, Jack raised his hand slowly, tenderly, as if afraid that Will would balk from his touch. When he didn't, Jack cupped Will's hesitant face, while bringing the rose behind Will's head and out of sight.

"The bird fell in love. He was so much in love with this... magnificent creation, that he was heedless to any danger and dove right to it."


Will let out a long, shuddering breath he'd been holding too long, lightheaded with the prolonged proximity, and feverishly trying to read between the enigmatic words, his hands all but under his control when they sought to wrap around Jack's waist in response to his actions.

"Doomed to fail to begin with, what with them being entirely different species and all, the thorns of the rose tore to the heart of the bird, and his lifeblood flowed to the virgin petals, tarnishing and turning it red."

"Jack."

Will was going to say more, belay any foolish ideas of defilement, but Jack's almost inaudible 'shush, you, let me finish,' and his touch on Will's neck and cheek silenced him.

Too close for them to actually see each other, Will let his eyes flutter closed. Concentrating on the expectation growing in the back of his mind, he listened to Jack's ever lowering voice.

"Unbeknownst to the bewitched birdie," the story went on, and Will learned what Jack sounded like when he was fighting back maudlining.

"The rose had a certain fondness for him as well, and made sure that everybody knew about the sacrifice for the lost cause. The flower held to the blood of the bird, proudly bearing the colour of their love until the very ends of time."

Jack finished his tale with his nose brushing the side of Will's, lips a thought away from his, his words a plight, masquerading as a ghost of a kiss.

Tilting his head to the side a little, eyes closed, comforted by Jack's hand on his cheek, Will was struck with the flash of a sudden realization; There were promises written in the blood of the nightingale, and as surely as the blades Will forged first turned red before turning white, the same promises were weaved into the words of the man in his arms—

Jack had petrified in his stance, Will noticed, the older man's uneven, careful breaths the only thing deceiving his twitter, obviously waiting for Will's reaction.

As so often was the case, Will's need for words was overridden with his actions speaking more loudly, never mind that he had nothing to say, other than the 'yes' and the endearments that flitted endlessly in his mind. And so the promises made with tales and fables, were signed and sealed with Will's lips closing over Jack's.



It went blissfully unmarked by the two men lost in the depths of one another, that the ingle of the forge and the looming shadows had come to a balance. Their slap and tickle, their ruthless battle over getting to bestow their shades on the scene had finally found, and ran their rightful courses, each getting to slant their distinctive tinges into the play.

Only the rose above the men's heads knew it had come to bore the perfect shade of love.