rescue fic #3, in which I dabble tremulously in another fandom

One last attempt at romance. This is my valentine for mimesere, who stokes the Davenport love and warms my heart every single time I think about her. If I could, sweetness, this would be written on pink construction paper cut in the shape of a heart and glued to a doily like a proper valentine.
Horological Disputations (Sparrington, PG).


In the Governor's gardens, Norrington walks alone.

Now that Elizabeth has removed herself to the Virginia colony, he is the only one to come here with any regularity. He takes his time, pacing the wide paths, squinting against the sun. The ground is firm beneath his boot and if he does not look too closely, the hedges and flowers could almost be those at home.

He cannot help but look closely, however, and when he does, the garish spread of alien foliage threatens to overwhelm. Orchids whose petals droop and curl, are damp to the touch, garishly colored. Shiny emerald leaves to the hedges, brighter and sharper than anything truly English. More orchids that creep up the trunks of trees, clinging and twining, opening unashamedly, obscenely, to the sun and beat of wind.

At sea, he could be anywhere, rolling with currents and gales. It is only ashore that he is out of place, displaced, alienated.

There is a crunch of boots behind him as Norrington rounds the next corner, a crunch accompanied by a characteristic jangle and clink of beads, silver chains, sword.

Norrington pauses before he turns, inhaling, squaring his shoulders, swallowing against the small kernel of heat forming in the back of his throat.

"Jack Sparrow."

Sparrow nods vehemently and claps Norrington's shoulder hard enough to shake a lesser man. "James, mate. Hearty felicitations. Got your gift right here--"

Jack pats down his shirt, vest, trousers, even upends his hat and plumbs its depths. For him, the search is methodical; his fingers twitch and pluck as the ornaments in his hair click and rustle.

Here outside, full midday sun in glaring cloudless sky, Jack is too much. A surfeit, overwhelming: Light caught off the edges of blades, foreign vegetation obscenely hued, green tornado skies.

Norrington clears his throat and adjusts the hang of his tails.

"Really, Captain Sparrow, it's--"

Flash of the whites of eyes in brassdark face, grin sly and rapid, at the correct appellation.

"Right here, *Commodore*. Just a matter of finding it, one mo'--"

Of course, even indoors, Jack is too much, trapped fire and caged cats. In the cool emptiness of Norrington's white-plastered quarters at the fort, Sparrow paces, rustles, sparks.

"A-*ha*! Here's the lovely!"

Jack grabs Norrington's wrist and prises open his fingers. His palm is pale and babyplump in Jack's dark, clever grip.

"Captain Sparrow--"

"Close your eyes."

Norrington glares at Jack, but gets only a grin in response, then an elegantly cocked eyebrow. Norrington sighs.

"You want your birthday gift or not, mate?"

"My birthday," Norrington says and removes his hand from Jack's grip, "was a fortnight last Monday."

When Jack shakes his head, the plaits of his beard whip and click against each other like children's toys. "No, no, that's not right."

"I assure you, I know my own birthday." Redirecting the sigh backwards, back down his throat, Norrington lets it stiffen his shoulders and firm his posture. He catches Jack's elbow and steers him around the next corner, toward the hydrangea bower.

Since Elizabeth's departure, the garden's nooks and niches are much less well-tended, and Norrington suspects that the governor, lacking a daughter to watch over, no longer attends to clear lines of sight in every direction.

Jack collapses, loose and rattling as a bundle of tindersticks, over the entire bench and, leaning back on his elbow, grins up at Norrington. "Private, eh?"

"It is," Norrington replies, glancing around before nudging aside Jack's carelessly sprawled legs and taking his seat. "We can at least agree on that."

Jack raises his fist between them and a gleam of gold shines through his brown fingers. "Going to give you this. Think of it as - as -"

"An obscenely late birthday gift? Or perhaps a ridiculously *early* one?"

"Now, see, there's the rub," Jack says and pushes his fist against the back of Norrington's hand. Like a puppy, demanding attention. Push-poke-push-push. His mouth twists rather cruelly as he drops his voice. "Take it, James."

Norrington turns his hand and, thinking of heliotropes and orchids, hydrangeas and roses, opens it. He lost the calluses and burns that once defined his hands, that he once believed would be his until his dying day, once he reached the lieutenancy. Gradually, the blisters broke and the skin sloughed off.

Under Jack's hot, rough grip, his skin is nearly as tender as a flower's. Far less attractive, to boot.

A golden chain snakes from Jack's other hand, waving and twisting in the sunlight, and Norrington hears, rather than feels, himself take a breath.

Nearly in time with the chain's descent toward his palm, its meeting with Jack's thumbnail carving ovals across the meat of his hand, such that the metal, warm, almost soft, touches down just as Norrington starts to exhale.

He starts to curl his fingers, reflexively if slowly, around the chain and Jack's thumb, until Jack clucks his tongue. This close, Norrington can smell the sharp currents of the climate Jack seems to carry around him like a loose, ill-matched envelope. Sweat, of course, and too many fingers of rum, all sunk into the shingled heat of saltcured lemons and limes. Sour, necessary, bittersweet.

"Where did you get this?" he asks as a round watch drops into his palm accompanied by a pleased little chuckle from Jack.

"Don't be so suspicious," Jack says and nudges him with his shoulder. "Go on. Open it up."

With a final long, stony glance at Jack's highly amused face, Norrington depresses the delicate catch on the side of the watch. It is a fine piece, he knows as much already. Good weight, well-balanced, and not carved halfway to pieces like many ladies' pieces these days. The top springs open, and Norrington raises the dial to his eye.

"Sparrow, this is -"

"Thing of beauty, yes. Saw it, thought to myself, now, *that's* something fitting for James's natal day."

"It is not accurate."

"What's that?" Jack leans in as if they're separated by a busy street, cupping his ear, resting against Norrington's shoulder and squinting at the watch. "It is not."

"It claims that the hour is eight," Norrington says. He has to suck in his cheeks to keep from smiling.

"Well, perhaps the hour *is* eight."

"The hour -" Norrington retrieves his own, perfectly serviceable piece from his waistcoat and attempts not to make too much of a show in opening it. "Is half past one."

"Somewhere in the world," Jack says, "It must be eight. Unjust to accuse the watch, of all innocent, lovely baubles, of not being *accurate*, when it's *you* who -"

"Sparrow. Thank you."

Jack slumps slightly and crosses his arms. Petulant as, now, a kicked puppy. "Welcome. Felicitations. Best wishes for the year, so on, so forth -"

"Thank. You." Norrington clasps Jack's shoulder, marveling as he always does at its narrow boniness. Jack is all motion, tricks of light on water, volume and shape-shifting, and it's easy to forget what a slight man he actually is. "Most thoughtful."

"Didn't even see the best part." Jack kicks out one leg, turning his boot to and fro as if the scuffs and odd smears of polish contain the mysteries of the cosmos. "Secret part's the best part."

Norrington does not remove his hand from Jack's shoulder. This makes studying the watch, looking for the secret, slightly more difficult than it ought, rightly, to be. Jack's shifting and murmuring beside him simply complicates matters that much further. From the corner of his eye, Norrington is half-certain he catches Jack looking at him, no longer pouting, but were he to glance over, he knows, the playful petulance would be fully apparent.

He does not bother checking; Jack's games are at once delightful and irritating, and the watch's latch is giving him trouble just now.

At last, just as Jack's elbow catches his own and jostles Norrington, his thumb slides over a smaller, nearly invisible hinge, and the watch's case springs open again.

This time, however, the watchface is not visible. Not entirely so, that is; a thin sheet of hammered ivory covers it and in the unpainted spaces, he can glimpse the blurred outlines of the numbers on the face.

It is the painting on ivory, however, that captures his attention. Jack, in full regalia, hat with false plume stuck in the brim, wild hair brushed back over his shoulders, scowling back at the portrait painter, and, through him, at Norrington.

Beautiful, challenging, half-feral and utterly beguiling. Smoky eyes and fierce set to his jaw that lifts his beard plaits, lets them catch the light.

"Th-thank you," Norrington says, again, for the first time, biting his lip against the boyhood stammer. "Jack, I -"

Bent at the waist, eyes burning, Jack pounces. Catches Norrington around the shoulders so suddenly that Norrington's hand closes around the watch, and he hears the click of the latch, before he quite knows what has happened. Jack is pressing him against the hedge that forms the rear wall of the bower, twigs and leaves scraping Norrington's neck, tangling in his wig, poking his temples.

There is the sun, its glare blinding, and there are candles that melt as slowly as a woman removes her undergarments, and there is the metallic stink of cannons, but the heat of Jack's mouth is all of those things, and more, and indescribable. Sweet as pulled taffy, wetter than gin, enthralling and intoxicating.

Norrington's free hand beats ineffectually against Jack's side.

Jack mutters, low in his throat, nipping at Norrington's upper lip.

Finally - and Norrington would like to believe that it is despite himself, but he knows better than that, cannot lie to himself, not in Jack's presence - his palm ceases beating and he is stroking Jack's arm, fingers plucking and toying at the saltsoftened fabric of his coat.

"There," Jack says, hoarsely, drawing back for breath. "Much better, don't you think?"

Norrington schools his breathing, blinks against the darkfire of Jack's face, but does not release his lover. "An improvement, certainly."

"Exactly," Jack says, dipping his head, kissing a narrow wavering snakeline across Norrington's jaw. "Now. When did you say your birthday was?"

Norrington is supposed to accede. To admit that Jack's version of the world, riotous and impulsive, is the better one. He smiles, slowly, watching Jack smile back.

"A fortnight Monday."

Jack cuffs him but Norrington grabs his wrist, wrestles *him* against the bower.

"And the watch is wrong. But beautiful. Thank you."

Jack's eyes roll wildly, his lips working, twisting, stretching, all silently. At last: "You're welcome, then. James."




[end]


Disclaimer: Jack and Norrington belong to the Rat Mouse; I'm borrowing and won't hurt them.
Notes: Cut text from Dickinson's CXXXV ("A clock stopped—not the mantel’s"). Anachronistic, yes.



Earlier attempts to combat the scourge of schmoop:
1. Little Company (Angel/Oz, NC-17). Curtainfic, Wishverse-style.
2. Fantastic Life Never the Same (Giles/Oz, NC-17). It's Giles's birthday, and Oz is stoked.

Masterlist for the anti-schmoop challenge is here and all I can say is, thank hell for the Wishverse. Be sure to catch moireach's Xander/Willow and trkkr47's Giles/Oz as well as kindkit's evermore touching Giles/Ethan.