Title: Firecracker
Author: Dala
Pairing: Will/Elizabeth
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Pirates and their environs belong to Disney
Notes: Title from Ryan Adams

Will had planned to spend the evening before his wedding dining at the governor's house, making conversation with the man who would soon be his father-in-law while Elizabeth slipped her feet out of her shoes to run her toes and down his leg, making him squirm and blush (which, as she'd smugly explained once when he begged her to stop, was mostly the point). A quiet dinner, made longer by his valiant efforts to keep his hands steady at his plate while his fiancé teased him mercilessly, but pleasant enough. The wedding was still a great blank in his mind, too broad to visualize even though it was so close, but dinner he could process.

His plans were spoiled by the arrival of a stumbling visitor. Before he could turn to see who'd slipped through the doors, the donkey brayed in alarm and started forward, and he knew.

"I didn't think you'd come," he said to Jack, setting his poker aside to let the pirate clasp him in a gruff hug. He still smelled of rum and spices and salt air, the sea clinging to him even more strongly than before, if that was possible.

"And miss your wedding? Impossible!" said Jack with a grin, clapping Will on the back. "Who else's goin' to take you out for your last night as a free man?"

Will took a step back. "I was going to have supper with Elizabeth tonight. I'd invite you to join us, but, well..."

"The father of the bride might object to a pirate supping with his whelps?" Jack supplied, poking through a rack of weapons on the wall. "Catch up, lad. I've already been to see the lass and obtained her express permission to steal you away, as well as a temporary cease-fire b'tween my boys and the lobsterbacks."

Fixing him with a skeptical look, Will smacked Jack's hands away from a fine sword when they lingered a bit too long. "The commodore's got to agree to that. How did you manage it?"

"You'll have to ask your bonny lass about that one, I'm afraid. And now," he said with a dramatic flourish of his hand, swinging an arm around Will's shoulders, "we have a good brew and some company awaiting us at the Dread Kraken."

Will allowed himself to be dragged to the tavern, one that Norrington had been trying to shut down for years. It always seemed to pop back up again, bearing a different name, perhaps, but catering to the same patrons. They took a table in a far corner, tucked away in the darkened, smoky room. "Company" turned out to be a motley collection of prostitutes draping themselves all over him while Jack chuckled at his discomfiture. He turned down their offers as politely as he knew how, seeing as how one of them had arms meatier than his own. To his intense relief they took it graciously, pinching his cheek and cooing over how lucky his intended was.

"Was that really necessary?" Will hissed after Jack had finished whispering in the ear of a leggy blonde and she'd flounced away, patting Will's hand.

Jack took a pull from his bottle, swinging his feet up on the table. "All right, so I didn't really think ye'd bite, but it was worth a try. No desire to be schooled in the arts of the marriage bed before you take on a wife of your own?"

"What makes you think I need the education?" Will snapped, aware that his blush gave him away.

Jack merely snickered, his eyes flitting slowly over the rest of the tavern's revelers. "My apologies. Perhaps Miss Swann herself saw fit to enlighten you?"

Will hid his face in his tankard. "I hate you," he muttered darkly.

"I take it that means no," said Jack amiably. "Although I bet it's not for trying. At least on her part."

"Please remember that I saved your life," Will replied, rolling his eyes upwards at his companion, "and now I'm asking in return only that you allow me to change the subject."

Jack was quick to shake a finger at him. "I saved yours first, y'know."

"Right, so that makes us even, so how's the Pearl?" Jack's face brightened and, to Will's intense relief, he started in on his beloved ship. Will listened to him with half an ear, nursing his ale and thinking back on the earlier conversation. The rub of it was that Jack had struck a nerve; the upcoming wedding night had been on his mind, so much that it shocked him. It had been easy, in those days before Barbossa's raid and their great adventure, to love Elizabeth from afar. Well, not easy, perhaps, but...simple. It was a love so strong and deep that it made his chest ache with the power of it, but it was chaste, and he was at peace with the idea that it would remain unrequited. Elizabeth was an unattainable dream, filmy as wealth, as status.

Then Jack had come swaggering into their lives and things had changed. He had attained her (although she would probably snap at him for thinking in such proprietary terms) and she was no longer a thing of frustrated, vague longing. Oh, he still longed for her, and it was still frustrating, but these feelings were anything but vague. He'd spent hours contemplating the perfect creamy texture of her skin, her clear brown eyes, the elegance of her smooth-skinned hands. And there had been dreams, embarrassing boyhood fantasies in which he thought about holding her and kissing her.

Once he'd fought his way to her, and fought beside her, he became aware that she had legs as well – long, long, shapely legs, clearly outlined in her borrowed breeches. The baggy shirt offered none of the flattering support of her tightly-bound dress bodices, but he found the way its collar dipped between her breasts equally compelling, if not more so. Although the mechanics of skirt and corset and stomacher were entirely beyond him, men's clothing was something with which he was familiar.

Even before that, when she'd been wearing the wine-dark dress and he had tended to her wound aboard the Interceptor, he had been astonished to find that she didn't smell of perfume or expensive French soap. Instead he could catch a faint whiff of the musty cave interior, some of its dank earth and its hoarded treasure. Mostly she smelled of salt, from the sea and the blood on her hand and her own body's perspiration. There was still a faint gleam of sweat on her face, smudges of dirt, her skin lightly colored by exposure to the sun and her hair damp and straight. Will had been baffled by the transformation; women like Elizabeth were not supposed to have natural smells, and their hair was perpetually coiffed and curled, and any smattering of freckles across their noses were supposed to be carefully concealed by powder. Yet she was, sitting across from him looking like she was rumpled – which she was – and smelling like she'd had a good dip in the ocean – which she had.

The desire to close her in his arms and kiss her had been nearly overwhelming.

Later, when he had kissed her, he knew it had been possible because he'd seen her in that state, frightened and unkempt with no hat or fan to hide behind. His feelings did not change so much as they stretched, taking in a whole new level of experience with Elizabeth as a living, breathing person not so very different from himself.

Except for – God help him – those legs, and her lips, and the way she sighed and clutched him so surprisingly tight when the two of them managed to evade her many chaperones for a few moments alone...

He belatedly realized that Jack had asked him a question. "I'm sorry, what?" he managed.

The corner of Jack's smiled quirked up knowingly as Will drank deeply in an attempt to cool his burning skin. "I was sayin', don't think you'll find much trouble with one like Lizzie – she's the type to let you know what she wants, and when, and how often." His eyes danced when Will got his meaning and choked on his ale.

"Topic – officially closed – for discussion," he gasped as Jack thumped him between the shoulder blades. If the insufferable bastard didn't know exactly what he was doing with his insinuations and his slow winks, Will would fry his own boots up for breakfast.

The rest of the festivities were mercifully free of any more discussion of his love life, current or future. Jack was thoroughly sloshed by the time Will convinced him to head home, hanging off of Will's shoulder as he lectured drunkenly about the merits of punctuality, especially to one's own nuptials, and conversely, situations in which it was preferable to be fashionably late.

"On the contrary, Jack, I believe the queen would take it amiss if I were to show up late for an audience," he said, dropping the pirate on the floor of his room. Jack sprawled there quite contentedly, snuggling up to the spare blanket Will tossed at him. "On the rare chance that such an event would occur, of course."

"Y'never know," Jack mumbled, rolling onto his side and favoring his boots as a pillow over the actual pillow Will offered. "Marryin' into money, boy."

Will rolled his eyes, sliding beneath the covers of his bed. "As if I needed one more thing to worry around tonight." Jack didn't answer, already lost in whatever dreams of gold were haunting him these days.

He was tired and he'd had a fair amount to drink, though nowhere near the bottle after bottle of rum that had knocked Jack out. But though he tossed around and beat his mattress into a more comfortable shape, sleep eluded him. In less than twenty-four hours' time, he'd be in a new bed in the new house. More importantly, he'd be sharing that bed with Elizabeth. It was really no wonder that he couldn't sleep, and Jack's infrequent snores didn't help.

A tap on his window roused him from his complete inability to sleep. He went to it to find Elizabeth standing there in the uniform that had gone missing after their return to Port Royal (she'd reimbursed the marine who had so kindly lent it to her).

"I couldn't sleep," she explained in a whisper as he slid the window open. "Estrella threatened to cane me if I tried on my dress one more time." She perched herself on the sill and swung her legs over, reaching for his help. He steadied her with a hand on her elbow, slightly panicked at having her in his tiny, bare room, thankful that his thoughts had not yet taken the turn in which he peeled that grubby shirt off her pale shoulders...

Elizabeth giggled at the sight of Jack passed out on the floor. "I figured he would end up with you." Lifting the bedraggled hat off her head, she fixed him with a critically raised eyebrow. "I trust you'll be fully ambulatory and capable of speech in the morning?"

Will couldn't quite keep his fingers from combing through the brown hair that came tumbling over her shoulders. "I'm mostly sober by now, though Jack did do his worst."

They stood silent, facing each other, for an awkward moment before she threw her arms around him. A grin crept across his face until the pull of it was nearly painful.

"We're getting married in a few hours," Elizabeth whispered into his neck.

Will flexed his fingers against the red wool of her coat, feeling her give a little shiver in his arms. He lifted his head from her hair to look down at her, giving up the fight to keep his expression controlled, because she was beaming right back at him. "Do you remember when we were children and you said you would never marry?"

"I never said any such thing!" she declared indignantly, tugging on one of his loose curls.

"You did," he replied, sliding his hands down to her waist. "We were climbing trees and playing pirates, as usual, and you were talking about the milliner's daughter getting engaged."

"Marietta?" She bit her bottom lip a bit sheepishly. "I do remember now."

Father had better enjoy the wedding, because I'm never going to get married. I'm going to go to sea and be a pirate!

You can't do that, you're a girl.

I can so, Will Turner, and I will. And anybody who tries to stop me, I'll whack him with my sword!

Ow!

Sorry. But you are trying to stop me.

I'm not, Miss Elizabeth. I'm only saying – what if you should love somebody? You're supposed to get married when you love somebody.

Hand me that coconut, please, it's the head of the French admiral that we've just lopped off and now we must put it on a pike. And pirates don't fall in love, Will.

Maybe they could. Maybe you could love a pirate.

Perhaps. It would have to be a very strong love, to survive such high adventure.

It would be.

"And then, as I recall, you turned bright red and ran off, claiming that Mr. Brown was calling for you."

"I was a thirteen-year-old boy," Will protested. "I just wanted to get away before you suggested we practice kissing."

Elizabeth scowled, tracing a fingertip down his jawline. "I wouldn't have done that. There were too many games of pirates to be played to waste my time on kissing."

Will smiled, catching her hand and bringing it to his lips. "Yes, well, you weren't much like the other girls – still aren't, in fact."

"You're lucky that I choose to take that as a compliment, William Turner," said Elizabeth archly.

"It will never be anything but –" He was cut off by her sudden attack on his mouth, her lips pressing tight against his before they parted to let a curious tongue brush against him. Will opened his mouth and responded, holding her tighter against him. They had shared hot, desperate kisses like this before, but there was a new focus this night, the eve of their wedding day. He let his hands wander cautiously, one sliding down below her waist and the other up, beneath her arm, his thumb gently stroking her breast through the thin linen. She would let him know, Jack had said, and she did – arching against his touch, making a soft, pleased sound against his mouth, carding her fingers through his hair to tilt his head more easily. For the first time he was not ashamed to let her feel his hardness, to press against her and let her know how much he wanted her, loved her, needed her. A small hand tightened his hip while she pushed back against him, rocked a bit, curled one leg around his own. There was nothing to compare with this, with the reality of the woman he loved in his arms – all the places where she was soft and curved, all the ways she responded to him, the sweet wet heat of her mouth on his. It was a slow burn through his blood that he could not have imagined and he was glad he'd never tried to seek it from anyone else.

She broke their kiss abruptly, her lips slipping from his with a faintly audible pop. Shuddering, she rested her cheek on his shoulder and murmured, "We haven't the freedom to pursue this at the moment, darling."

"I'm asleep!" Jack said immediately. "Deeply asleep. I might be dead. Carry on."

Will broke out of his labored breathing with a snort of laughter. "The one person in the world I should be incapable of forgetting." Reluctantly he released his bride-to-be, pursing his lips together to dry them before he kissed her cheek. "You ought to get back before someone misses you."

"Won't you miss me?" said Elizabeth in a low, slinky voice, biting down gently on his earlobe.

Will shook his head of the cobwebs he was sure had taken up residence while his body was guided by other facilities. "I won't have to, soon enough."

Elizabeth took a deep breath, holding a hand above her heart, which was racing as badly as his was. "Right. Morning. Wedding. Dress, vows, a kiss proper for church, and then..." She made a face. "Reception."

"Skip it," Jack offered from the floor. "No one'll be suprised."

Will kicked at the air around Jack's feet as Elizabeth climbed back out the window. She turned quickly back to kiss him again, a promise no less earnest for its brevity.

He watched her fade into the shadows of the alley, making her way back to her house, before he flopped back down in his bed, unable to stop grinning like an idiot.

"Not a eunuch, then," said Jack, sounding mightily impressed. "Though I'd have to wait till tomorrow to ask Elizabeth."

"I'm ignoring you, Jack," said Will pleasantly, pulling the quilt over himself and finally falling asleep, dreaming of Elizabeth's white throat and the scent of her hair and how she would taste first thing in the morning.