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BACKDRIFTS Author: Katla Disclaimer: The Mouse owns Pirates and I don’t, sadly. Summary: “We’re backdrifting this far,” he said once, “but no further.” But nobody would have known that backdrifting would have led you forward in the end. Author's Note: This little You/Will was born when Mary asked me to make it for her nineteenth birthday. So obviously, it’s dedicated to her, not just because it was for her birthday, but because William brought us together in the first place! This is heavily influenced by the awesome Radiohead song, “Backdrifts.” If you don’t have it, get on iTunes or something and get it. It’s gonna change your life, especially if it’s your first Radiohead song. So do so, and make Katla happy! So this story is post-Dead Man’s Chest. “But wait,” you might say, “I saw the movie and William’s not really going anywhere!” Maybe not, but this is my world and he’s coming back to see you. ’Cause I say so. I’m notoriously bad with timelines anyway, so it shouldn’t surprise you. Also, yes, William. He’s going to be William all throughout this. Mary and I like it. :) (Also, there is some implied Jack/Elizabeth here. It’s mostly to make this work. I’m not too fond of the ship myself and I promise that it’s not graphic, mentioned, or even implied all that well. Just a fair heads-up, that’s all.) So enjoy, my lovelies! Read and leave a review if you’re so inclined, and feel free to backslide… We’re backdrifting this far, but no further * * * * * Just when you think William Turner has completely disappeared from the face of the earth, gone forever, stuck somewhere you can’t follow, he comes back. Darkness brought him to you and so darkness brings him back to the hill underneath the stars. The moon’s gone from the sky. It’s left to renew itself, to get rid of the holes on its surface, but it will come back flawed and ruined just the same. The darkness suits William more than he’ll ever admit, so you’ll admit it for him. When you say as much his face shifts and you know that he might be smiling. He only says, “You haven’t changed at all.” His voice says that he’s changed a lot. You feel like he’s aging on without you, marching closer to the grave while you can’t keep up. You don’t want to say that so you just kiss him, tentatively and shyly, instead. For a moment he doesn’t move and you’re worried that you’ve done something wrong, strayed from right into wrong. But then he kisses you back and holds you tight and you feel amazing, flying above clouds that aren’t there. Your shadows stray together as if they’ve always fit like that, your overtones of darkness coming together as you drift back and further away. You’ve been conducting this nothing affair, a dirty secret, for what feels like forever. It took ages to come alive, waiting for the hint of a spark. When he said he was due to be married to her, you told him you wouldn’t let go, propriety and honor be damned. He left you alone on the hill after that, because he had to adjust to a proper life, a life without you. You had shivered cold at night, reduced to dreaming about him again as if he’d never happened, as if he was something else you made up. But he had come to the hill anyway—maybe to say his last goodbye, to forget you forever and only remember her. But you had taken him back and you had held him tight enough to make him lose his breath. “Don’t do that ever again, William,” you cried to him, your salty tears hot on his skin. And so he had curled his fingers up with yours, agreeing to drift backward again. He holds you tight now that the kissing is done, murmuring your name into your hair. You forget your thoughts of your history with him and rest your head on his shoulder, smelling the sea on him. It’s a strange scent and it’s not his, and you wrinkle your nose angrily…and then, with a silent prayer of thanks, you realize it’s there. There’s the familiar smell of fire and metal and darkness, which brought you to him in the first place. It makes you feel like you’re home at last, here with him on the hill, keeping company with things you never say. But something changes, and you know something’s out of place when you bring your arms around him. You stiffen up as if someone’s pointed a pistol at your back, looking up at him with frightened eyes. He looks half-asleep, wondering what’s wrong with you…instead of what’s wrong with him. “You’re hurt.” You don’t bother to phrase it as a question. You know he’s hurt, and you can’t help biting your lower lip, drawing blood as you wonder: Why didn’t he tell me? You brush the question away, intent on finding your proof without his approval of your fear. You push your hands tightly against the back of his shirt, feeling the crisscrossed markings of a whip. You stifle a gasp because the wounds still feel red and angry. You run your fingers over them, your eyes full with concerned tears. He tries to break away but you told him you’d never let go. You don’t intend to break that promise any time soon. “It’s nothing,” he insists, though you knew from when you were careless with a knife he’d be up in arms against anyone, that he didn’t like to see you hurt. What’s to stop you from feeling the same? He’s trying to be strong but he doesn’t know that you can tell they still hurt him, five long wounds that won’t be washed away. “It doesn’t hurt. I completely forget they’re there.” “Who did this to you?” you demand angrily, your face wrinkling with anger in the dark. He comes closer suddenly and you instinctively pucker your lips, expectant for a kiss. He passes you almost entirely, settling himself against your shoulder blade. Your hearts beat together as you wait expectantly, absentmindedly placing his wrist down on yours so that your pulses are connected, again, somewhere else. “The person who did this…was someone I thought was dead,” he murmurs, at last, down your seashell ear. To make you forget how sad he sounds, and how he didn’t tell you the name, he nibbles at your ear and you melt against him. He drifts away, leaving you to whine at the loss of contact, at the loss of him and his smell and his lips and everything he is. You think you can hear him murmuring, “Forget it, honeysweet, just forget it.” But you decide it’s just a trick, played by the wind that isn’t there, because now his mouth’s on yours again and that is where all of you rests. Shifting your skirts to make more room for him, he grasps you a little too tight, trapping your arms where they can’t feel the scars. You worry about it for all of two seconds because his mouth opens and yours does too and oh, you don’t need Heaven when you can feel like this on Earth. “You’ve changed so much,” you say breathily when you reluctantly pull away, desperate for air. “You’re nothing like I remember.” You lower your eyes, knowing that you shouldn’t have said that he’s not the same…not since he was arrested, not since Lord Beckett struck a bargain for his freedom and hers too, not since the pirate captain went down and her heart with him… “Then why are you here?” he asks, trying to tuck his heart away so it’s not resting on his sleeve. “Because… I don’t need a reason, or even a rhyme, William Turner. You’re alive and I am too… and we’re together.” Your smile and his are twins of each other—hard to read, easy to deny, especially in the dark. But you both have a right to smile. After all, who would have guessed that backdrifting would bring you forward in the end? THE END |