warnings/tags: gn!reader, admiral!reader, set pre-tfa, drinking alcohol, mutual yearning, switches between Hux's pov and the admiral's pov; let me know if I missed anything!
words: 3810
author’s note: thank you so much to the wonderful @goosewriting for requesting some more Hux content! ☺️☺️ I actually wrote this one like a year ago, and then I was working on a little follow-up piece that I never finished, so I never posted either of them, but this one can certainly stand on its own as a little one-shot! the arc here isn't connected to any of the other Hux things I've written before, so there's really no background or context needed to enjoy it! also, the title and some of the general vibes are inspired by the song "Taste" by Sawyer. I hope you enjoy! ☺️☺️
You had tried to keep yourself from forming any preconceived notions about General Hux before you actually met him when you transferred to the Finalizer. You knew what the old Imperials at your previous assignment had said about him of course – that he was hotheaded and intemperate and unfit to lead. But you could hardly put much stock in that; they likely would have said similarly unflattering things about you. So you went in with as few set ideas about Hux as possible, even though it seemed like everyone in the Starfleet had a strong opinion on him. Even with this relative lack of fixed preconceptions though, you were still somewhat surprised by what you found.
Certainly in presentation he was as crisp and perfect as he appeared in all the holovids you had seen of him: immaculate uniform, irreproachable posture, not a hair out of place. But there was something different about him in person, something almost… magnetic that you hadn’t expected. What caught you first were his intelligent green eyes. When they first landed on you the cycle he came to greet the transferred officers, you felt as though they had fixed you in place, holding you mesmerized as you watched a thousand unreadable thoughts flicker in their depths. Since then, you felt them on you many other times – in meetings or on the bridge. He always seemed to glance away just as you looked, though. You wondered if you were as successful at averting your gaze each time he sensed you staring at him, something that happened more than you had anticipated. You found you wanted to know what was locked in the puzzle of those green eyes, to be able to carefully untangle the thoughts that you often watched flash through them in those moments when your gaze finally met his.
Then there was his hair, which was a much brighter shade of blazing red than you had expected. You half wondered if they muted it somehow in the holovids. It was vibrant against the dark walls of the Star Destroyer, easy to pick out on the bridge or in a bustling hangar. And it was always pristine, combed to complete perfection and held at rigid attention with careful layers of gel. But you couldn’t help yourself from glancing at the strands that swooped over his forehead, imagining what they might look like if you ran your fingers through them, leaving them cascading gently across his face. You tried to quash these imaginings, but they were difficult to banish, especially when you were sitting across from him in a meeting, watching the light from the projected images play over the delicate orange strands that would certainly be silky against the soft pads of your fingers. You would have to take a sip of caf to refocus yourself, hoping he hadn’t caught you staring.
And there were the contours of his face, which you had somehow memorized without even meaning to. You saw the dark smudges under his eyes that he clearly tried to cover, proof of his rumored sleeplessness and dedication to his work at the cost of his own need for rest. You noticed the little lines that formed around his mouth when it folded into a small frown, a barely-perceptible exterior expression of his inscrutable internal feelings. When you passed him on the bridge after he came to relieve you of your command for the cycle, you sometimes tried to get close enough to see the tiny freckles that you knew dotted his skin, but which were usually obscured by the dimmed lighting necessary for the bridge crew to see their data screens. And kriff you had tried to repress these feelings, but you couldn’t stop picturing gently passing your thumb over the tender skin under those sparkling green eyes, caressing away the exhaustion you knew was hidden there. You could see your knuckles passing softly over the little frown lines on his face, easing the long-held tension that had written itself into his skin. You could imagine the tips of your fingers dancing over his face, tracing the intricate constellations of freckles, reverently charting each pale orange star. Kriff, the wanting of it almost made you breathless.
And now you were looking at his lips, because you had spent too much time indulging yourself in such silly imaginings and had weakened your own self-control in the process. The meeting was a strategy session, and Hux was standing at the head of the table, presenting at the main holoprojection. You enjoyed listening when he spoke – he clearly knew was he was talking about, even if some of the things he discussed were outside your area of expertise. And yes, you were technically listening now, letting the pleasant cadence of his voice fill your ears, but you struggled to make out a word of what he was actually saying. Your eyes were fixed on his lips, wondering if you had ever noticed before what a lovely shade of pink they were, how surprisingly soft and plush they looked despite the crisp, clipped words that usually issued from them. You wondered what you would taste if you gently pressed your mouth to his. Would it be the familiar, warm taste of caf or the acidic herbal flavor of the bitter tea you knew he drank? Or would it be something else entirely, something almost as unexpected as all the rest of him? Kriff, you needed to refocus.
You allowed yourself the minutest shake of your head as though to physically clear those thoughts from your mind, even if it wasn’t particularly successful. You were going to present your own strategy suggestions soon, and you needed to not look like a complete fool, especially when Hux would be watching.
When Hux slipped back into his own seat after yielding the floor to you, he didn’t like that his palms were sweaty. He never got nervous for these meetings, but with you looking intently on, he couldn’t help the unexpected burst of nerves that shot through him. He tried to subtly dry his hands on his breeches as he slid his chair back up to the table. Pulling up his notes on his datapad, he attempted to make himself focus as you explained potential fleet configurations. He always liked hearing your suggestions, since they were clearly well thought out and informed by your years of experience. Your presentation was as professional and meticulous as usual, but he somehow couldn’t fully get himself to tune into the words the way he wanted to.
Earlier in the cycle, after he had drifted to sleep momentarily at his desk, he had woken from a dream about you. Actually, Hux dreamed about you more than he cared to admit, but this one was different. Usually you were just there, turning toward him on the bridge with a smile or even speaking with him. This time though, you had kissed him. Frankly, he didn’t even know how his subconscious had come up with such a thing – he had never kissed anyone and hadn’t the faintest idea how to do it. But he dreamed it nonetheless, and when he woke, he thought he could still taste you on his lips. He had tried to shake himself out of it, to rattle some sense back into his mind, but he couldn’t erase the thought. His attempts at erasing thoughts of you had yet to be successful.
He certainly hadn’t expected this, when he first saw your name on a list of high-ranking officers who were transferring to the Finalizer. He had read the title “admiral” and had simply assumed that you were some ex-Imperial who would gleefully join the small cadre already aboard the ship, all of whom clearly distained him. So, when he was required to greet the new transfers, he had steeled himself to behave with all the frosty composure he was used to summoning. But then you had stepped off the transport at perfect attention, clearly a member of his own generation, eyes bright and inquisitive as they met his. Thanks to the years he had spent keeping his expression under close control, he was certain his face hadn’t betrayed it, but he was stunned.
Immediately Hux wanted to know everything about you, an impulse he had originally attributed to his surprise at seeing you rather than the old Imperial he had expected, but it soon became clear that his interest in you had deeper roots than that. He had read through your personnel file, finding awards and accolades that spoke to your successful career, and though he had intended to stop there, assuming his curiosity would be satisfied, he quickly found that it was nowhere near enough. Soon he was ensuring that he would be early to his bridge shifts that came after yours so he could have just a few more fleeting shared moments as he greeted you and you gave him the bridge report. He was making certain he sat across from you at meetings, stealing glances at you when he thought you were absorbed in your notes or whoever was speaking, and before he could stop himself, he would become completely entranced with watching the lights from the holoprojections flicker over your features.
And he had tried to stop himself – he really had. He was more sleepless than usual as he fought to keep you from his mind. He had come up with a thousand reasons why he shouldn’t allow himself to go further. He had constructed elaborate plans to avoid you and to prevent himself from thinking of you. But it had all come too late – he was in far too deep before he realized he had even started something, and you were everywhere. Even in his dreams.
So now he was sitting in this meeting, meant to be paying attention to what was your surely intelligent strategy for fleet organization, and all he could think about was the way you had kissed him in his dream. He watched your lips move as you spoke, the welcoming sound of your voice filling the room even as he struggled to follow your words. In the dream, your lips had tasted faintly sweet as they pressed against his, something like the kind of floral tea he knew you drank. He typically preferred bitter tarine, but he would gladly sip almost anything from your lips. Kriff. He could not be thinking like this. He shifted slightly in his seat and downed some of his caf, letting the too-hot liquid bring him back to reality.
Whenever a group of high-ranking officers from across the Starfleet got together to discuss broad strategy plans, there was always the unspoken expectation that everyone would attend the reception afterwards. You weren’t even sure why they had receptions after these things – some holdover from the Empire that the ex-Imperials insisted upon, you supposed. But whatever the reason for their existence, you dreaded them. They were utterly useless and a complete drain on your time, not to mention your patience.
If there was one upside, it was that the receptions allowed for the un-rationed consumption of alcohol – in moderation, of course – a substance that was otherwise tightly controlled on First Order ships. If you were going to be forced into attending these inane receptions, at least you could have a drink or two while doing it. And anyway, this time would be different – Hux was going to be there.
You lingered near the periphery as you sipped slowly on your drink, an artificially green concoction that made you feel like a foolish, love-sick cadet for yearning for the shifting grey-green of Hux’s eyes. You had yet to see him since the brief glance you had allowed yourself as everyone filed out of the meeting room. Lieutenant Malin, head of your personal staff, waited dutifully nearby, ready for you to say that you were leaving – something you usually did as early as was professionally acceptable.
“Lieutenant,” you said quietly, and Malin was at your side in an instant, awaiting whatever command you might give, “you’re welcome to have a drink if you would like one.”
“Thank you, Admiral,” she said with a little duck of her head. “Just let me know when we’ll be departing.”
“Of course, Lieutenant,” you responded as she nodded again and made her way toward where they were serving drinks. You took a few measured steps toward the center of the reception, idly wondering if you should join a small group of other non-Imperial officers who were engaged in quiet conversation nearby. But then you caught a flash of orange.
You looked up instantly to see Hux speaking to a dark-haired lieutenant whom you had seen with the general before – Mitaka, maybe? – likely a member of Hux’s personal staff. Your feet locked in place, suddenly uncertain what to do. The glass in your hand felt quite slippery as you gripped it, a thousand imaginings that you had been too weak to resist instantly filling your mind as you watched him speak to the lieutenant.
His posture was so correct, so upright – stars he looked good. But then you were seeing your hands on the stiff, squared shoulders of his uniform, soothing away the rigid tension that was surely buried there. KRIFF. You could not be doing this right now. You inhaled a sharp breath and squeezed your eyes closed for the briefest second – so quickly that no one else would notice – and attempted to banish that image, and all the others, from your mind.
You forced yourself to repeat the litany you had prepared for just these moments of weakness. You had no reason to believe Hux was even the slightest bit interested in you. To your knowledge, he had never shown a particular interest in anyone before, and it was unlikely that was going to change now. He was a man dedicated to his work and to the cause, something that was admirable and worth emulating. You had a job to do – an important one at that, and one at which so many of the ex-Imperials were eager to see you fail while you were determined to prove them wrong – so there was no use getting caught up in frivolous fantasies.
You had almost convinced yourself of this and were about to join that group of other officers when you suddenly saw Hux’s gaze flicker to you. Every logical argument you had just worked through came crashing down around you as the lieutenant gestured toward you. Hux looked between him and you with an unreadable expression on his face before he seemed to sigh, straighten his already impeccable posture, and make his way toward you.
A thousand expletives filled your head as all your foolish imaginings reignited themselves. Watching Hux walk toward you with such brisk, confident strides was not helping you steady yourself. You gripped your glass tightly enough that you almost feared it would shatter, but it felt like the only thing holding you in place. You needed to not kriff this up.
Hux hated these blasted receptions. They were so completely pointless and stole him away from other things that needed his attention much more urgently. The only thing that kept him from stalking from the room at the earliest moment possible was the knowledge that you were there somewhere. Why that thought stopped him, he didn’t know. It seemed rather unlikely that you would take the same interest in him that he had in you; you were a highly-skilled and professional officer – you certainly weren’t letting yourself get lost in the same far-fetched fantasy world that he had permitted himself to slip into too many times. But yet, somehow the knowledge that you were there kept him where he was, sipping mindlessly on the amber liquid in his glass that burned slightly at the back of his throat in a way he wasn’t sure he fully enjoyed.
“When are you planning on leaving, General?” Mitaka’s question caught him off-guard, lost as he was in considerations of you, but he didn’t let his surprise show on his face.
“Shortly, Lieutenant,” he huffed in response. Surely it had not escaped Mitaka’s notice that Hux had already been at the reception longer than usual. The lieutenant simply nodded in response, casting his gaze out over the scattered groups of officers that filled the room. Then he appeared to notice something. He turned back to Hux instantly.
“Isn’t that the new admiral?”
Hux knew he shouldn’t have looked, but he did anyway, unable to resist a glance at you. Kriff. He caught your eyes for just a moment, but it was more than enough. He took another sip of his drink, hoping the burn in his throat would drown out the heat growing in his cheeks.
“Don’t you think you should go offer a greeting?” Mitaka prompted, gesturing toward you with his glass. Against all his better instincts, Hux looked again. You did seem a bit isolated, not really a part of any of the groups that had gathered loosely in the reception space. And you looked good. Kriff, you looked really good. Your uniform and posture were perfect, but even more than that, your eyes were sparkling with a hidden depth that Hux had longed to uncover since the first time he saw you.
“I don’t think there’s any need for that, Lieutenant,” Hux replied as he looked away, fighting with the memories of his dream, struggling to keep down the thought of the sweet softness of your lips against his.
“But the admiral’s new, and this is your flagship,” Mitaka pressed. Hux gritted his teeth. As much as he wanted to berate the lieutenant for his insufferable insistence, he knew Mitaka was right.
“Fine,” he snapped at last. Sucking in a deep breath, he levelled his shoulders and began making his way toward you.
Years of training and practice kept his steps efficient and steady, but inside he was wavering considerably. You were watching him as he approached, and he was sinking into your gaze, stumbling as he tripped over himself internally even though his pace never faltered. He had to keep himself focused. This would just be a cordial, professional greeting, nothing more.
“Admiral,” he greeted you as he came up next to you. He was certainly no closer than protocol would allow, so why did it suddenly feel like he was falling, being pulled into your orbit?
“General,” you returned with a little nod. Despite how unsteady he suddenly felt, he needed to find something to say.
“How are you enjoying the reception?” Bland and predictable. Half of him was celebrating that he might succeed at keeping this interaction strictly professional, but the other half was despairing that he might be losing his chance at something more. He took another sip of his drink, although that was probably ill-advised given the way the two warring emotions inside of him were already roiling uncomfortably in his stomach.
“To be honest, General,” you responded, also sipping from your drink, “I would hate for you to think me impertinent, but I hardly see the point in these receptions.”
Hux was stunned for a moment. Your face remained mostly placid, but he thought he could see a little glimmer of light in your eyes. Stars, how he desperately wanted to see more. But then there was something else too – hesitation maybe, or nervousness. You had no reason to believe he wouldn’t find your comment impertinent. But you had been honest with him. Did that mean something? If so, what? He pushed those questions away for the moment – he needed to respond.
“Actually, Admiral, I quite agree with you,” he replied. Your slightly raised eyebrows just barely betrayed your surprise. “These little events are something of a drain on my time.”
Stars, he hoped that was the right thing to say. It was honest at least, if nothing else. He must not have been too far from the mark, because you hummed in agreement.
“I’m glad I’ve found someone who shares my opinion on this matter, General,” you said, and Hux swore he could hear a warm smile in your voice, even if the expression didn’t make it to the carefully-professional mask of your face. His breathing was a little less even than he would have liked. “If I may inquire, what would you be doing right now if you weren’t required at this rather pointless reception?”
Hux took another sip from his drink to give himself time to measure his response. He could be honest again and rattle off a few items on his endless list of tasks, but now that he was so close to you, he was finding it difficult to think logically, and he was once again lost in a fantasy where there was a chance that you might actually take an interest in him. Would a rote repetition of all his responsibilities make him seem dull? But what else would he say? He didn’t do anything else. Could he somehow make his answer even vaguely charming? He had no confidence at all in his ability to achieve that, but blast it, he needed to try.
“I’d likely be required at another meeting that was just as pointless, but I wouldn’t be able to have a drink.” His answer was not funny at all – or at least he didn’t think it was – but you nevertheless let out a soft breath of a laugh, and it almost seemed like you were suppressing a deeper expression of good humor. Hux was beginning to feel the warmth from his drink swirl to life in his stomach, but there was also another sensation of sparkling warmth spreading through his chest, something that felt a lot like pride. He had made you laugh. And kriff, did he want to do it again. “What tasks is this reception keeping you from?”
“Nothing particularly interesting, I fear,” you replied, a lightness lingering in your voice that Hux was aching to hear more of. “I have a briefing with my staff, and there are some ship reports that need my review. Although perhaps having had a drink mid-shift will ease the rest of the cycle somewhat.” There was laughter glimmering in your eyes when you met his gaze again, and Hux was suddenly thinking that he should have skipped the drink altogether, because he was intoxicated on that alone.
“Well, I would hate to keep you from such vital tasks.” It was a complete lie. Hux could have kept talking to you for the rest of the cycle.
“Worry not, General – you’re not keeping me from anything,” you replied, an unmistakable lilt of happiness gliding through your voice. “In fact, I’d have to say that the company at this reception has made it the most enjoyable one yet.”
Summary: After your first encounter with Vigilante ends with you knocked unconscious and more terrified than ever, you call Adrian. Luckily, your sweet and amazing coworker is more than happy to help.
Adrian Chase, on the other hand, couldn’t possibly be more relieved. Because, despite a little bump in the road and the need to enact one of his many backup plans…well, everything is falling into place.
Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI: So many for this one, Stalker!Adrian, Adrian is toxic, Manipulation, Smut!! (like this chapter is mostly smut whoops), Use of chloroform, Mentions of violence, Mentions of murder, Stalking, Breaking and entering, Obsession, Adrian misunderstands a joke and gets a little sexy about it?, Vig being turned on by threats, Please let me know if I forgot anything!! (Seriously, especially with this one).
Word Count: 9.1k
Author's Note: Good golly this boy is toxic. Love him. The balance between Adrian being a sweet goofus and genuinely terrifying is a toughie to write, but hoo boy it sure is fun!! Please make sure to read the warnings, and know that stalking is a crime and I am definitely not condoning it outside of fiction!! And as always, please let me know what you think!!
(This is part of the series All Mine, Forever. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do!)
-
In a lot of Adrian’s fantasies, when he truly saves you for the first time, you swoon. Maybe you even wrap your arms around him and tremble with relief and…and maybe you peel his mask off for him, and press your lips to his, and even let him take you right there in the alley surrounded by dead bodies in the most fucked up, romantic way possible. And then he’d tell you about all the other creeps he’s killed for you, the ones you didn’t witness, and you’d swoon again and kiss him again and let him bring you home where you’ll help peel the armor from his body and he’ll smear the bloodstains of those criminals on your skin as he makes love to you again and again and-
Well, none of that happened. Fantasy totally ruined. But he gets it. He prepared for it.
“You.” You’d whispered, eyes wide and horrified as they met his visor, and his blood had run cold in his veins.
Even with the shock and realization and horror on your face, you looked so fucking beautiful. You. Right there, with your back against the alley wall and your eyes wide and that lovely, lovely stain of crimson on your cheek. The blood of the man who tried to hurt you, that he had killed for you, marking your skin like evidence of his victory. You, safe and still standing in front of him.
Oh, fuck. If he could just touch you right now. If he could just crowd you up against that wall and make you shake in a way that isn’t from fear. He’d leave his mask on, just for now, but he’d pull his gloves off so he can feel your skin against his and trail his fingers over your body until the goosebumps on your arms aren’t from panic but because of him. And then, then he’d pull his mask off so he could kiss you and feel your hands in his hair and he’d hike you up against that wall and when he makes you scream his name, be it Adrian or Vigilante, he’ll have to cover your mouth because public indecency is a crime but maybe it would be worth it if he could just-
You’re running. Fuck, of course you’re running. Shit.
It takes ten seconds to get the chloroform rag around your mouth, maybe five more for you to stop wiggling in his arms, and when you finally go limp against him, the fight leaving you with one last muffled scream, he can’t help but sigh as he presses a kiss to your cheek through the cloth of his mask.
“I’m sorry.” He murmurs again, blowing out a guilty breath as he pockets the rag and gathers you up into his arms. “Like I said, I really didn’t wanna do that. But I get why you panicked. Those guys must’ve scared the shit out of you.” He knows, of course, that you freaked out because of him. Because no amount of stealth is gonna be able to truly hide how often he’s been around. But you already didn’t swoon and he had to literally knock you out and he’d like to preserve the fantasy for a little while longer.
It’s a little difficult to get you all the way back to your place. Chloroform doesn’t last as long as he’d like, and there are one or two times where you rouse and start freaking out again, and he has to stop to press the rag over your mouth and nose. He shushes you as gently and as soothingly as he can when he does, and even rests his masked forehead against yours in a gesture that he’s sure would be very romantic if your eyes weren’t so filled with fear before they fell closed again.
It’s even more difficult to pick the lock of your apartment with you in his arms, as skilled at picking this particular lock as he may be, but he manages it. And before long, he’s laying down beside you on your bed and brushing the hair from your eyes like he has a hundred times before.
“I’m sorry.” He murmurs for the millionth time, nuzzling his nose against your cheek again. God, you smell good. Like you always do, but with the irony tang of blood beneath it. Perfect. “I know, I know a boyfriend should never ever chloroform his girlfriend. But I think if you knew everything you’d totally agree that I had to do it.”
His arms slides around your waist, and you make a soft noise as he tugs you closer to him, curling around you and rubbing soothing circles against your hip with his gloved hand.
He keeps talking, just for now, because at least one good thing about having to drug you like that is that you’ll be out for a while, with no risk of waking up. Still, he keeps his voice low, tugging his mask off so he can press soft kisses to your neck and shoulder as he speaks.
“And I know you’re gonna be freaked out when you wake up.” He hums. “But it’s okay, because you’re gonna call me, and I’ll make you feel better.” His lips brush the hollow of your throat, and you make a soft noise in the back of your throat that has his mind wandering to all the ways he could make you feel better when you do call him.
He planned for this. He’s planned for everything. It’s a little inconvenient, yeah, but it’s gonna be okay. In fact, it might even be better than before.
He pushes up beneath your shirt, fingers trailing over your waist, and wishes he could take his gloves off and feel more of your skin against his own.
You were supposed to ask him for a ride home when your car wouldn’t start. He even had a change of clothes nearby in preparation for the call. He had to learn so much crap about cars in order to break your engine down in a way that wouldn’t cost you thousands of dollars to fix.
But you’re a little stubborn, one of the many things he loves about you, so you’d chosen to walk. That’s fine. Saving your life might even better than ‘fixing’ your car.
But now, mechanic or not, he’s already established himself as someone you can go to. Who you might want to go to, if you’re scared or upset. And while he would rather have had you weep with gratitude and fling yourself into his embrace back in that alley, this backup plan works just as well.
After a while, you make another noise, possibly close to rousing again, and he hums as he presses another soft kiss to your shoulder.
“Shhh, I’ve got ya.” He coos, tugging you a little closer. “You have no idea how safe you are. Safest girl in the world, I swear. It’s okay. You’ll get it soon.”
He should get going, as loathe as he is to pull away from you right now. But if he’s gonna get home and wash all of this blood off of himself before you wake up and ask him to come over, as well as take care of those bodies in the alley, he’s gonna have to go.
“See you later.” He murmurs, and slides out of bed.
-
You wake up in your apartment. In your bed.
You bolt upright so quickly, flailing so violently, that you actually fall to the floor, and when you clamber to your feet and wipe at your eyes your hands come away bloody.
Oh God. Oh God. It’s Vigilante. The fucking borderline serial killer Vigilante is fucking stalking you.
You dart around your apartment, grab your gun off the bedside table, and try not to shake as you check every nook and cranny in the place. Make sure every single window is locked. Twice.
Panic is cold and heavy in your stomach as you fall back onto the couch. As memories of a man being fucking beheaded in front of you play through your mind, over and over.
The too-sweet smell of the rag as it was pressed against your mouth and nose. The arm locked around you like a vice. The feeling of the mask against your skin as he whispered an apology into your ear.
You can’t be alone. You can’t be here alone. It might be dangerous for another person, sure, but you…you can’t.
You don’t know who else to call.
Adrian answers on the first ring, bright and happier than ever. “Hiya.”
You open your mouth to speak. Close it. Hesitate.
“Hey. Can I…can I come over?”
“Yes.” He answers immediately. “Yeah. One hundred percent.”
“This is gonna sound weird but…” your throat is dry. It’s still a little hard to form a thought. You don’t know if it’s panic or the fucking drugs. “Can I uh…can I stay with you, maybe? For a night or two? There’s some…something going on at my place and I-“
“Hey, yeah. Of course you can. You okay?”
No. No you’re not. You’re really, really far from okay.
“What’s that sound?”
“Hm?” The sound clicks off. You frown, but you use the noise to distract yourself from breaking down and sobbing into the phone.
“The uh…that whirring sound.”
“Garbage disposal.” He answers, easily, and his voice is calm and familiar and anchoring you while every other part of you is threatening to float away with panic. “You want me to pick you up?”
Fuck. You forgot about your stupid car.
“I…yeah. Can you? My car won’t start.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He says, too quickly again. “Oh, wait, right. Where do you live?”
-
Adrian Chase grins from ear to ear as he sets down the bone saw and removes his apron and gloves.
Perfect.
He’ll finish all of…this, later. After he finds the time to get back. For now, his girlfriend called him, just like he planned. The bodies of the men from the alley can sit in his ‘Vigilante Lair’ (a much cooler word for the basement of his mom’s house) a little while longer.
He makes sure to triple check himself for blood or similar evidence of his activities tonight before he hops in his car. When he gets to your place, he knocks. It’s a little weird, to knock on a door to which he’s picked the lock more times than he can count, but whatever.
You’re starting a new chapter with him, and you don’t even realize it.
The relief on your face when you open it and see him on the other side feels like a drug. Shot right to his system and filling him with an unspeakable sense of euphoria.
The temptation to swoop in and kiss you is overwhelming enough that he has to physically hold himself back. There’s fear lingering in your eyes. It makes you look so pretty. And that bag you have slung over your shoulder, with your stuff packed inside in preparation to stay with him… God, he really did a great job with this. Those bags under your eyes? That way your gaze is darting around with all that misplaced paranoia? He’s gonna fix that. He’s gonna help you sleep again, and hold you, and brush his teeth with you in the morning and get you to really actually smile with him.
“You okay?” He asks, and you’re so tense. Too tense.
“Mhm.” Your eyes are still behind him, searching for someone who isn’t hiding in the shadows but is right in front of you. It’s okay. You’re not supposed to know that. Not yet. “Can we go?”
“Yup.” He takes the bag from your arm, and cuts off your protests by scooping you up in his arms again.
This time, you actually laugh, and it’s music to his ears.
“Okay, okay. I don’t need-“
“Shush.” He says, pulling your door shut behind you, and begins to make his way down the stairs. “I gotcha, remember?”
You laugh again, like you’re already feeling a little better, and he might melt at the mere sound of it.
All according to plan.
-
Once again, you find yourself in Adrian Chase’s bed. This time, you’re in your own pjs that you brought from home, rather than borrowed sweatpants and a t-shirt, and it makes the whole thing feel weirdly…domestic.
You haven’t told him what happened. Haven’t explained why you’re here. A part of you is worried he’ll be in danger if he knows anything, and another part of you is selfishly afraid of scaring him off. The rest of you, however, is desperate not to think about it. Just for now.
“Do you always sleep shirtless?” Even as you ask it, you have to fight the burn in your cheeks. He’s laying beside you, on his back while you sit up with your arms curled around your knees, and fuck if you can’t see every stupidly defined muscle in your peripheral vision.
“Yup.” He smiles, the expression easy and casual save for the glint in his eyes. “Sometimes naked, actually. You can sleep naked too, if you want. Totally won’t be weird.”
“That would definitely be weird.”
“I could sleep naked too.”
“Which would be weirder.”
“Why?”
“Just watch the movie, Chase.”
“I’ve seen it before.”
You huff a laugh. You can’t help it. Despite everything, all of the horror and fear you’ve felt tonight, there’s something about him that is so ridiculously soothing that you feel almost stupid for feeling better.
You turn to him, and he’s looking right at you. You like this. You like not feeling afraid, even if it’s just for now.
“You’re flexing.”
“Nope. No I’m not.”
You raise an eyebrow.
“Even if I was flexing, it would be a totally natural response. This is a stressful part of the movie. Maybe I’m just tense because of the anticipation. I don’t know if Liam Neeson is gonna-“
You lean down, and you kiss him.
You shouldn’t do it. You know you shouldn’t do it. But when your lips meet his, and that tingle flutters through your muscles and into your bones just like it did the last time, you stop thinking for a moment. You don’t worry. You don’t panic. You don’t feel tired or worn out or paranoid. You just feel the way he hums against your lips, the way that hum moves through you, and the way he’s so warm against you that every thought finally melts out of your mind.
His arm curls around your waist. He sits up for a moment, lips never breaking from your own and muscled chest pressing against yours as you shift to accommodate his movements. For a moment, you think he’s going to pull you onto his lap. So much so that you squeak in surprise when he suddenly lifts you up and flips you onto your back, settling atop you with a mischievous little grin.
You smile back, and he makes a noise of approval before sinking his teeth into your lip.
The sudden sting makes you gasp, and that sound makes something shift in the air, a weight beginning to grow behind the kiss as Adrian’s playful smile falls. He groans, body pressing down against yours, and the feeling replaces all rational thought with tv static.
You don’t think about Vigilante. About last night. About the fear and paranoia of the last couple of months. And it feels good. Your brain is finally empty, finally focused on something else. You feel a little selfish for it, but…
“Adrian.” You gasp, as his lips trail down to the hollow of your throat, and he groans low and deep and deliciously at the sound of it.
“Again.” He doesn’t sound entirely like himself. His tone is low, and there’s something dark coating the command that makes a little shiver fall down your spine.
“Adrian.” You say again, and he bites down so hard against the sensitive curve of your neck that you whimper.
“Fuck.” His hips rock against yours, and he pulls back to kiss you even more deeply than before. “That’s the best sound in the world, I swear.”
You match his fervor with your own, hands tangling in his hair to pull him closer to you with a ferocity you didn’t know you possessed.
This is a bad idea. It’s happening too fast. You can’t do this without at least telling him what’s going on and-
His hand skates down your side, and he hikes your leg up around his hip in a movement that is so smooth and determined that it almost doesn’t feel like Adrian Chase should be the one to make it. He kisses you until your mind turns to butter, all tongues and teeth and hunger until you’re nearly fucking shaking beneath him, and rocks his hips again as he moves down to bite at the shell of your ear.
“You’ve thought about this too, right?” His voice is so low, so hungry, that you feel molten heat shoot straight to your core. His hand is moving over your waistband, those strange callouses scraping against your bare skin until you’re shivering beneath him. “About how perfect we are together? How good I can make you feel?”
You arch against him, pull his mouth to yours again, and his hands tighten on you until you think you might bruise.
“Wait.” You gasp, trying to pull yourself back to clarity. This is wrong. Definitely wrong. You can’t continue this until he knows exactly how much fucking baggage you’re carrying with you. “I-I’ve gotta tell you something.”
“Mm,” he just kisses you again, and grinds against you so deliciously that the strangled noise the feeling pulls from your throat barely sounds fucking human. “Tell me when I’m fucking you.”
Your brain empties for a moment. “Adrian.”
“Yeah, just like that.” His tongue traces over your lower lip, like he’s savoring the taste of you. “I promise you can tell me anything in the world, just let me make you feel good. Fuck, I can make you feel so fucking good, I swear…”
It takes everything you have to push at his chest, to break his lips from yours. Even as you do, he slides his arm around your middle and tugs you up with him until you’re straddling his lap, lips finding yours again like he truly can’t help it. The new angle of his hips against yours is painfully distracting, and it makes you hold onto him even more tightly.
“I…mmh…” Fuck, he’s a good kisser. If he wasn’t Adrian, you might think he’s trying to distract you. “I’ve seriously gotta tell you something.”
He seems to finally sense the urgency in your tone, pulling back with a concerned frown as his hand slides up over your back, beneath your shirt, sending little sparks of want from every inch where your skin connects.
“What’s wrong?”
How the absolute fuck are you supposed to tell him? How are you supposed to say it out loud, when no one else has believed you? When the police told you it was probably sleepwalking, and sleep deprivation causing hallucinations?
Adrian kisses your nose. Your cheeks. Slides his hands over your bare back beneath your t-shirt and tugs you a little more firmly onto his lap.
“You don’t have to tell me.” He hums. “We can just-“
“I think Vigilante might be stalking me.”
Adrian goes still, but he doesn’t let you go.
You’ve scared him off. Of course you have. And of course it’s fair, and his response will be correct when he asks you to leave so he doesn’t get fucking killed, and what was blossoming into something genuinely nice and sweet is over and it’s not his fault but it still-
“Are you scared?”
You blink. Hesitate. Nod.
“Yes.” You finally whisper, throat constricting at the thought. At the memories of feeling invaded. Violated, even. At waking up with blood on you and seeing a blue suit and a red visor in your peripheral. “I-I don’t know why. I don’t know what he wants. He’s been breaking my locks and coming into my apartment and I can’t sleep and I’m worried he might hurt you too and-“
“Hey. Hey.” Adrian pulls you closer, until you can feel the brim of his glasses against your nose. “You’re okay, you know that?”
You furrow your brow, and shake your head. “I don’t…I don’t think I am. Adrian, this is why I wasn't sleeping. I bought a gun. I don’t even know how to use it but-“
“Shh.” The noise is gentle, sweet, and his had slides over your back again. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
You’re frustrated, and the feeling of his body against yours is distracting, and that’s frustrating you even more. “Why don’t you realize how fucked up this is?” Your voice is harsh, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. “You…I…this guy is a fucking serial killer.”
“Hey, look at me.” His voice is soft, in that strange way it gets sometimes, and his fingers are sliding through your hair.
When you look at him, the intensity of his gaze twists something in your gut.
“You are always gonna be safe with me. You get that?”
“I…”
He tugs you closer to him, and his lips brush against yours. “Always.”
“You’re not scared?”
“Nah. Not even close.”
You frown, and you let him kiss you. Slow, warm, and deeply enough that he has you newly melting against him in moments.
“Adrian.” You finally murmur, as he hums in recognition of his name. “What if he hurts you?”
He pulls back, just far enough to press warm kisses against your jaw, down to your throat. “He won’t. I’ll kick his ass if he tries.” You can feel him smile at his own words, and your fingers curl against his skin.
“I’m not kidding.”
“Me neither.” He slides his hand up to your hair, and tilts your head to offer himself more access to your throat. “Nothing is ever, ever gonna hurt you.” His breath is warm against your neck, and the shiver he pulls from you with his kisses has him pressing even closer.
Weirdly, you do. The way he’s touching you, and holding you like he’ll never let you go…you believe him.
“He might-“
“He won’t. No one will. I can take care of myself. Pinky swear.” He’s still kissing you, lips trailing over your skin and fingers skating along the waistband of your pajama pants. “I can take care of you, too.”
You could give in. You could let him make you forget. You could just…feel.
You want that. You want that so fucking badly.
So, as he lays you back down against the mattress, and covers your body with his own again, you allow yourself to forget.
-
Bliss. Pure, wonderful bliss.
Adrian Chase wakes beside his girlfriend, and his heart nearly explodes.
Good things come to those who wait, and he waited so long, and now here you are. Here you finally are. In his bed, bare skin against his, marks from his fingers and teeth on your body.
You hum as he slides his arm more tightly around your middle, lips trailing down over your shoulder until you turn sleepily in his arms.
You belong here. Right here. He might never let you leave this bed, actually.
This is how it was always meant to be. Since the moment he first laid eyes on you, this is the way you both should always have woken up. Holding you while you slept, without your knowledge, only to slip out of the apartment when you began to stir? Compared to this, that was absolutely nothing. Miserable. Nothing.
He traces his lips over a new mark on the hollow of your throat, remembers how he sank his teeth into your soft skin and whispered how perfect you are as you gasped and dragged your nails over the skin of his back.
And there, those reddened blossoms in the shape of his fingertips against the outside of your thigh, where he’d gripped you to him as you moved in his lap and he could swear he nearly blacked the fuck out. He wonders if the mark of his teeth is still on the inside of that same thigh, where he bit down like he’d dreamed of doing a thousand times until you were tugging desperately on his hair and he thought he might have died and gone to fucking heaven.
“Morning.” You mumble, breath warm against his collarbone, and that’s all he needs to roll atop you and slide his lips over yours. Can someone be addicted to the feeling of another person? He should probably google it. He knew he was pretty much addicted to you before, but now…fuck, now he doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of you. How is he supposed to let you ever leave his bed when you feel this good?
You smile back, so much of your bare skin against his, and he wonders for a moment how the feeling of human skin can be so awful when it isn’t yours. He wants to touch you all the time. Feel you against him like you are right now, with every inch of your body holding memories of how he’s touched and felt and claimed you.
Adrian doesn’t speak for a while, just savors the feeling of your lips against his own, and when he finally rocks his hips helplessly against yours you make a noise between a giggle and a gasp and he feels like he’s going to explode.
“Oh, good morning.” You repeat, feeling the evidence of his happiness against your thigh, as he presses closer and drags his teeth over your lip.
You’re so perfect. So unbelievably incredible and you’re in his home and in his bed and he made you scream his name last night but he’s pretty sure he can make you scream it louder if he just-
“I’ve gotta go to work.” You murmur, but he’s already making plans. Plans to keep you in this bed for as long as possible.
“Call out.” That spot, just below your ear. When he bit it last night, you writhed and gasped his name even louder than before. Now, you hold onto him a little tighter, and he grins.
“I work a double.”
“Call out.” He’s trying really hard not to sound demanding, but in his defense he would burn Fennel Fields to the ground to keep you in this bed with him.
“Adrian…” you’re thinking about it. He can tell. His hand skates down your side, lips trailing their way over your collarbone, alternating between teasing scrapes of his teeth and apologetic kisses to the marks he left behind last night.
“You never ever miss a shift. You had something fucked up happen to you last night.” He murmurs, risking a deep inhale into the hollow of your throat. You smell so good, he can barely think straight. “Just lemme make you feel better today. I’ll make breakfast.”
You frown, and he kisses you again until you’re smiling, body relaxing beautifully beneath his. “Dave’s not gonna believe that I’m sick.”
“Mmm.” He hums, already feeling drunk off of the taste of you, already craving more. He barely manages to pull himself back, just far enough to press his hand against your forehead. You giggle, and he leans back down to kiss you again. “You feel warm.”
“Fine. Fine.” You huff, still grinning against his lips, and he pats blindly at the bedside table until he finds your phone.
He makes it maybe two minutes. Or less. All he knows is that the phone is ringing, and by the time he hears someone answer he’s already trailing kisses down over your stomach. You swat at his head, but it’s too light to be fully convincing, and he huffs a breath of silent laughter as he bites at your hip.
“Hey, I feel like shit. I don’t think I’m gonna make it-“ his mouth finds the apex of your thighs, and you’re cut off by a sharp gasp.
“I-I yeah. I’m fine. I mean, no, I’m not fine. I’m sick. I just thought I was gonna throw up but I’m- oh fuck.” Your fingers tangle in his hair, and he doubles his efforts as he feels your heel dig into his back.
“Okay. Thanks. Thank you. I’ll see you tomorr- n-next time I work. Okay, bye.” You slam your hand against the end-call button, and glare down at him as you drop your phone. “You’re an asshole.”
And you look so flushed and pretty like this that it should be illegal.
I love you, he thinks, for maybe the thousandth time in the last twelve hours, before his hand comes up to push your leg aside so firmly that he almost worries he might hurt you.
You don’t seem to be complaining, especially with the noise you make as he continues his mission.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Mine.
-
In the few relationships you’ve had before, you’ve never really experienced a…honeymoon phase? Is that what you could call this?
Whatever it may be, it’s amazing.
You and Adrian stay in bed until noon, and when you finally wander to the kitchen on shaky legs in search of food, he just hurriedly tosses a plate of pizza rolls into the microwave before moving right back over to you and lifting you up onto the counter.
You laugh, and he laughs too as he presses his lips to yours, sliding his arms around your waist until you’re making a muffled noise of protest into the kiss.
He pulls back, and frowns a little. “What’s up?”
“You didn’t turn the microwave on.”
He turns around, surprised, and releases you just long enough to hurriedly punch a few numbers onto the timer before he goes right back to kissing you, muffling your delighted laugh with his lips.
Later, you watch a movie on the couch, and somewhere towards the middle of it you end up on your knees before him, tugging his sweatpants down over his hips until he’s tangling his fingers in your hair and groaning your name in a way that sounds like music. Like prayer.
You nap together after that, and you wake him up by rolling atop him, and you hear that delicious groan again as he sits up and drags you into his lap, the two of you quickly losing yourselves in each other until he’s panting against your shoulder and sinking his teeth into your collarbone.
“Mine. All fucking mine.” He whispers, hoarse, and any illusion of you being in control has shattered with the way his strong hands are guiding you in his lap like you weigh less than a fucking paperweight.
You whimper, and he just moves faster, crushing you to him and pulling back to slam his mouth to yours.
“Mine.” He repeats, and you can do nothing but nod. The acknowledgment makes him grip you tighter, eyes nearly crossed as they look right into yours, and when you break he does at the same time as you and you worry you might black out.
By the end of the day, every muscle in your body holds a pleasant ache, and he still snuggles close to you as he chatters about everything and nothing while the two of you eat takeout in bed.
You’ve never felt this level of comfort before. This…fullness. This wholeness in your heart. In such a short amount of time, this weird, dorky, beautiful man that is feeding you a bite of his lo mein and kissing your cheek with an exaggerated ‘mwah’ as he tugs you closer to his side, seems to have made himself as much a part of you as your achy arms and legs.
It’s all laughter and light. Even in your most passionate moments, even when your mind empties of everything but the feeling of his body against your own and you hit your peak so violently that you feel like you might fucking die, you still can’t help but giggle as he kisses you and his glasses bump awkwardly against your nose.
“Best day of my life. You should get fake-sick all the time.” He says now as you snuggle into his side, and you realize that you have barely thought about Vigilante all day. Barely had the time between the sex and laughter and comfort to even remember why you were so scared before.
“I think if I get ‘fake sick’ again, I won’t be able to walk anymore.” You joke, and his grin is so wide it’s almost manic as his hand skates up beneath your borrowed t-shirt.
“I’ll carry you everywhere.” He hums, nuzzling against your cheek. “But you do look cute when your legs are all wobbly. Like Bambi, but sexy.”
“Weird comparison, but I’ll take it.”
He smiles, and kisses you again, and you smile right back as he lays you back against the pillows, hands already beginning to wander.
This time, it’s slow and sleepy and wonderful. You’re both worn out by the day, and your body is more than a little sore, but his lips move against yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world. As he moves with you, as you gasp his name and hide your face in his neck, his hand catches your own. His fingers tangle with yours against the pillow by your head, and you whimper as he increases his pace. In response, he pulls your joined hands to his mouth, pressing his lips to your knuckles before ducking down to whisper your name against your lips.
Later, as he collapses atop of you with an exhausted and satisfied hum, and snuggles you into his chest, you fall asleep within seconds. Safe, warm, and happier than you can remember being in a very long time.
-
The days pass. Quickly, and sweetly, and wonderfully.
Vigilante becomes a problem of the past. Yeah, he’s still on the news sometimes. You still tense and panic whenever he’s mentioned. You still worry about Adrian’s safety whenever you’re not together.
But you’re always together. He drives you to work. You sleep at his place almost every night. There are even a few times, when he passes by your table while you’re taking an order, when he’ll lean over and kiss your cheek in front of the customers. You usually get a few ‘awww’s as you flush and try to hide your smile, but you can’t find it in yourself to ever be truly embarrassed.
And then, later. he’ll pull you into the alley, and you’ll make out like teenagers until Dave shows up to shoo you away from each other.
You even hang out with his friends, and you like them. A lot. And they like you. And it feels…good. So good. So comfortable.
So your life changes, just like that. You become Adrian Chase’s girlfriend.
And you almost forget about Vigilante. Almost.
-
He got you. He fucking got you. You’re truly and officially his. And yet, since you’ve been dating, he’s somehow gotten a little…worse.
But he doesn’t want to call it worse, because it’s not bad. Right? It’s not bad to follow his girlfriend home, or to use the key you made him to get into your apartment. And when he isn’t out doing superhero shit, you’re always sleeping next to him anyway, so it’s fine now that he snuggles up beside you when he’s taking a break from killing bad guys. Nothing creepy about it now, no sir-ee. If you sense anything amiss, you’ll just call him and worry to him and he’ll comfort you and kiss you and tell you that you’re totally fine.
But this…this was bound to happen eventually.
You should be at his place, but he can’t keep ignoring his vigilante duties every single night. Plus, you’ve barely even been home in a week.
But he can’t spend a night away from you. He just can’t. So, like usual, he took care of what he needed to, killed a few bad guys, and ended up here.
He likes it better when you’re wrapped up in his arms. In fact, he kind of wishes he had ignored his patrol and convinced you to come over again so he could be lying next to you without his armor, with you naked and warm against him naked and warm. Maybe he can still have that, if he uses his key as Adrian and comes over super early and climbs into bed with you. You like it when he does that. You’ll make that little humming noise and curl up against him and he’ll drag his lips over that sensitive part of your neck and you’ll melt and let him help you out of your pajamas and then he’ll have you bent over so beautifully for him as he-
He’s curling a lock of your hair in his fingers when he feels it.
You wake up. You wake up fast.
You’re not sleep deprived anymore. You’re not out like a light the second your head hits the pillow. He’s been extra careful at times like this lately, but he must have been a little too cocky tonight. A little too loud.
Your beautiful eyes fly open, and lock right on him. On the way he’s sitting beside you, the way your hair is curled around his gloved finger.
Fuck.
You open your mouth to scream, and he’s on you in a blink, palm covering your mouth as he lies atop you and you fight him with an amount of force that is actually pretty impressive, considering.
“Shit.” He whispers, and you’re clawing at his arm and shouting curses against his hand, biting down until he hisses in pain. You thrash, hands coming up to push at his face and shit shit shit you’re trying to rip his mask off.
“Hey, hey. Stop that.” He finally manages to shift atop you enough to hold your wrists above your head with one hand, his free hand still clamped firmly over your mouth, and he has the chloroform in his pocket but he so doesn’t want to use it. He hates using it on you.
You wiggle, kick, and scream again.
“C’mon, stop. I’m not gonna hurt you. Just be good for a sec. I hate drugging you, I promise, but I can’t have you screaming like that. You’ve got neighbors, you know. They’re gonna think you’re being murdered or something.” He’s already regretting the way he chose to disguise his voice. It’s too low, and it’s kind of hurting his throat.
You make a furious noise, and kick again. He sighs, and leans down to tuck his nose into the crook of your neck, allowing himself a deep inhale that makes you start wiggling again. Sure, you probably think it’s creepy, but you definitely wouldn’t if you knew who he was. What a frustrating dilemma you’ve both found yourselves in.
“Okay. I’m gonna let go of your mouth, just for a second. Okay? Then you’re gonna wake up, and I’ll be gone. No need to freak-“
“Mmph!” You shake your head behind his hand, and he sighs.
“I don’t want to. I have to.”
You shake your head again. And, to his surprise, you relax beneath him.
He frowns as he pulls back to look down at you. Your eyes are still wide, but you’re not kicking anymore. You stop trying to pull your arms away, and flex your fingers a little like you’re trying to communicate something.
He gets it. He knows you, of course. And yet, it feels a little too good to be true.
“Are you…gonna be calm?”
You nod, and he grins behind the mask. “Promise?”
You roll your eyes, and nod again.
He experiments for a moment, releasing your wrists to see if you’ll start clawing at him again. You don’t. Instead, you reach up to hold onto his arms, more gentle than he was expecting.
“I’m gonna take my hand off, and you’re not gonna scream, okay?”
You nod again, and your compliance and proximity is gonna give him a fucking boner if he isn’t careful. It has to be too good to be true, right? All that fighting, and now you’re gonna be good for him?
Oops. He shifts a little atop you, but you notice, and your eyes widen again.
“Don’t worry. Not gonna do anything. All good, here. You’re just…well, you know. You’re hot.” He explains easily, and you mumble something behind his hand that he is going to pretend isn’t a biting insult.
Carefully, and with his free hand hovering over his belt just in case, he pulls his hand away.
You don’t scream. He can see his fingerprints on your cheek. He wants to pull his mask off and trace them with his tongue.
“Hi.” He says instead, and you don’t speak. You just stare.
“Do you…mind?” You ask, glancing down at where he is still very much lying atop you. More pointedly at where the evidence of his arousal is pressing into your thigh. And you weren’t complaining last night, but then you knew it was him, so it’s fine.
“Sure. You gonna try to run away?”
“You’ll just catch me.”
Aw. You’re so smart. Worlds best girlfriend, here.
“Mhm.” He sits back, and you scoot back against the headboard. Look him over. Clearly try to keep yourself as relaxed as possible.
“What do you want?”
You. You you you in every single way he can possibly have you. He already has you, and he still wants more. He wants to lock you in a room forever so you’re only his and he wants his name to be the only name you know and he wants you so bad he aches-
“To keep you safe.”
You laugh, humorlessly, and give him a look that he’s probably supposed to understand.
“So you’re breaking into my apartment?”
“Yup.”
“Are you gonna kill me?”
“No!” The word rips from him so harshly he nearly shouts it, and you flinch, and he hates that. “No, of course not. I’ll never hurt you. I promise.”
“Why not?”
Because you’re everything to him, obviously. You’re perfect. “I just won’t, okay?” He can’t say these things, because you might freak out, and it’s frustrating. Lying to you is fucking frustrating.
“Okay.” Your voice is softer, and it makes his shoulders relax a little. “Are you gonna kill my boyfriend?”
God, he loves it when you call him that. Your boyfriend. You’re his girlfriend. You don’t even know how funny that question is, and his snort of laughter makes you furrow your brow. “Nah.”
“Okay.” You don’t look like you believe him. That’s okay. You’re talking to him. You look so pretty right now it’s ridiculous. “Let me hold that.”
He frowns, heart hammering a little faster in his chest, and glances down at his crotch.
“The fucking sword. Let me hold the sword.” You gesture again, and he realizes that he must have been so busy staring at you to see that you gestured the same way a second ago.
He shrugs, and slides the weapon out of its sheath, wordlessly passing it over.
You look surprised, but you take it. “Thanks.”
You can fucking kill him with it if you want, but he knows you won’t. That is definitely not helping his boner. “No problemo.”
“Stop breaking into my apartment.”
As if. “You’re safe. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“Do you not realize how fucked up this is?”
“Uh…yes?” No. But you don’t get it.
“Why do you keep breaking into my apartment?”
Because he loves you? Because he wants to hold you all the time? Because- “you keep changing your locks.”
“Because of you.”
“Yeah, but you don’t need to. Because I’m not gonna hurt you.”
You’re frowning at him, and there’s something in your eyes that makes him tense a little. If this keeps up, you might draw some comparisons. There’s only so much he can disguise his voice. He’s still Adrian, and you know Adrian.
Shit.
His hand moves down to his belt, and you sense it, and-
And then there’s the blade of a sword at his throat, and your eyes are hard and focused, and oh fuck oh shit this is the hottest thing he’s ever experienced.
“Stop. That.”
“Fuck.” It comes out as a breath, hoarse, and you narrow your eyes. “This is so hot. Seriously. So hot.”
Your eyes narrow. Shit. How is he supposed to keep it together right now? He’s already running his mouth, and you’re already furrowing your brow like you do when you’re thinking about something, and he is about to feel so, so guilty.
“I’m so sorry I have to do this. Really. You have no idea.”
You open your mouth, panic sparking in your eyes, but it’s too late. He knocks the machete to the side, yanks your foot down to pull you onto your back, and presses the rag over your mouth in a second.
You shriek, furious, and you’re out in seconds.
The second you’re unconscious he yanks the mask over his head, pressing his lips to your cheeks and forehead in a desperate flurry of apologies.
“I love you. I’m so, so sorry. I love you so much. I’m so sorry.” He kisses your jaw. Your ear. Even pulls back to press a gentle kiss to your lips. “You did so good, too. So good. I just can’t let you recognize me, you know?”
You don’t stir, still out cold, and he groans miserably as he pulls you into his arms.
“Yeah, you’ll get it one day. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. Promise. God, I love you.” The way you relaxed beneath him like that? The way you held his own sword to his throat? He’s the luckiest guy in the fucking world.
Still, he’s gonna have to figure out a way to apologize to you. As soon as possible.
-
Adrian is there the next morning. Breakfast burritos in one hand, a bouquet of flowers in another.
Your feet are unsteady beneath you, mind foggy with memories and that motherfucking chloroform.
“Hey.” His smile falls, and he cocks his head to the side. “You okay?”
Your sweet, wonderful boyfriend. You pull him to you by the front of his sweatshirt, and press your nose into his shoulder. He holds you so quickly that he nearly drops the bag of food in his hand.
“Fucking Vigilante.” You mumble, still hazy, and you aren’t in your right mind quite enough to feel him tense.
“What?”
“He…” ugh, it’s hard to think. “Broke in again, last night. Drugged me again.”
“Oh. Oh. Shit.” Adrian slides his arms around you, and you hear the food and flowers fall to the ground as he drops them in favor of holding you close and nuzzling his nose into your temple. “I’m sorry. I’m here.”
He’s here. He’s holding you. Everything is gonna be okay. And yet, the Vigilante Problem is becoming too normal. You should probably be freaking out a lot more.
“Are you scared?” He asks, and something is off in his voice. It gets like that, sometimes, in little moments that always pass too quickly for you to really catch them. He doesn’t sound overly concerned, like one might expect, but there’s something lower in his voice. Something in the way he asks with his lips brushing over the shell of your ear, or the way his hold tightens on you a little bit.
“I should be, shouldn’t I?” You murmur, and his breath catches a little in his throat as his lips drop down to the hollow of your throat. “I should be fucking terrified, right? Is it fucked up that I’m not?”
You think, as you tilt your head to the side and his warm hands begin to slide up beneath your shirt, that you can feel the corner of his lips twitch upwards. But that would be weird, right?
“Nah. You don’t have to be scared of anything.” He tugs you closer to him, teeth scraping over your earlobe until a shiver falls down your spine. “Not while I’m here.”
“I…what’s with the flowers?” You try, quickly losing any and all ability to form a solid thought. “You cheat on me or something?”
It’s a joke, of course, but when he pulls back to look at you his eyes are almost black. You blink, surprised, and his hand comes up to cup your chin between strong calloused fingers.
“I’d rather die.” He says, firm and almost…angry that you would even suggest such a thing, even as a joke. “I would seriously rather die. Don’t say that.”
“Hey, I was kiddi-“ he interrupts you with a kiss. A hard, hungry, rough kiss that makes you gasp into his mouth as your fingers come up to tangle in his curls.
“Don’t say that.” He says again, tone low and dark in that way it can sometimes be. He backs you up, bites hard at your lip, and pulls back to drag his teeth down to the hollow of your throat.
You just nod, painfully distracted, and he bites down hard enough to make you whimper.
“Adrian.” You try, but you’ve already forgotten what you could possibly be trying to say.
“Get on the couch.” He responds, and that low, quiet tone is sparking something familiar in the back of your mind.
“Ade, I was kidding. I didn’t mean-“ he cuts you off with something akin to a frustrated grunt, and gives you a gentle push until your back hits the cushions. You bounce a little, blinking with surprise as you look up to him, and his eyes are dark as he climbs atop you, pressing you down into the cushions with one hand catching your jaw.
“If you’re gonna joke, you should really say something beforehand.” He chastises, leaning down to catch your lip between his teeth. You make a soft noise, and he grinds his hips down hard against yours until you forget how to breathe. “Because I would never cheat on you.”
“I know.” You try to laugh. “Hey, what’s gotten into you?” Sure, he can get a little…intense, sometimes, but it’s usually played off with some kind of joke. Some break in the darkness of his eyes when he laughs and snuggles you close or does something cute that makes you forget about the whole thing.
He doesn’t do that now. His hand comes down, skating over the back of your thigh before he hikes it up around his waist and grinds again.
“Tell me you’re mine.” He all-but growls, catching the lobe of your ear between his teeth until a whimper pulls its way from your throat.
“I’m yours.” You breathe, and he groans as he moves down to scrape his teeth over your throat.
“Again.”
“Adrian-“
“Again.” His hand is sliding over your stomach, dipping beneath the waistband of your shorts as he crushes his lips to yours.
What the fuck has gotten into him? Why is it so hot you think you might fucking die? This is your sweet, goofy boyfriend. This is the guy who mumbles spider facts into your hair when he sleeps. Who woke up after that party at Emilia’s wearing her robe because he gave you the literal shirt off of his body when you were drunk and chilly on the roof.
“Y-yours.” You arch a little beneath him, a moan swallowed by his lips as his fingers find the apex of your thighs.
“Right.” His breathing is a little more ragged. His nose is bumping yours. His fingers are making you see stars and his eyes are almost completely overtaken by his pupils. “All mine. You’re all mine.”
He works you apart almost embarrassingly quickly, dexterous fingers seemingly on a mission to bring you to the edge within minutes, and in no time at all you’re gripping at his hair and fisting your own fingers in the back of his sweatshirt until he pulls away just enough to rip it off of himself. The movement is quick enough to muss his hair and knock his glasses askew, and he barely stops kissing you as he pulls you out of your own clothes, trailing hungry lips and teeth down your neck between ragged and desperate breaths.
He’s eager, like always, but this time there’s a darker sort of control to his movements. There’s no smiling between kisses, no playful nipping at your jaw. Instead, his hand tangles in your hair, forcing your head back to look at him as he moves at a deliciously rough angle that has you seeing stars right off the fucking bat. As his lips hover over yours, noses bumping and eyes crossed.
“This. I think about - mmm - this all the time, you know that? I think - fuck - I think about you all the time.”
“I-I…” you can’t speak. You can’t think.
“Say my name.” His forehead presses against yours, glasses digging into the bridge of your nose. Your fingers, in turn, dig into the skin of his shoulders, your high approaching too quickly for you to even remember how to breathe right.
Adrian growls, grip tightening on your hair and pulling a sharp gasp from your throat. His hips slow, pulling you back from the edge, and you whine in protest. “Say it.”
“Adrian.” You nearly sob, and he groans as he speeds up his movements once again.
“Yeah, you’re mine. Never ever letting you go. All. Fucking. Mine.”
You break with a wail of his name, and he follows with a growl of yours, lips slamming against yours hard enough for your teeth to knock together.
When you can open your eyes again, it’s to the feeling of Adrian smoothing his thumb over your cheek, still breathing heavily as he looks down at you with that same dark and hungry expression.
“That was…intense.” You murmur, searching his eyes and reaching up to brush your fingers over his cheek.
And then he smiles, bright and happy and sweet and so so much more like himself, and you laugh as he nuzzles his nose into your neck and pulls you closer to him.
“Mmhmm.” He hums, pressing a gentle kiss to the marked skin of your throat. And yet, despite the quick return to normalcy, you can still hear something…heavy in his voice when he murmurs again.
my heart's a sea – chapter eleven (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist
summary: James and his wife return home after the wedding reception
warnings/tags: f!reader, wife!reader, set post-cotbp, historical views of marriage and gender, mention of drunkenness, mention of food, sexual (but not particularly explicit) references
words: 2429
author’s note: alright, second chapter tonight let's gooooooo! I actually just finished writing this one last night which was also when I decided to break ten and eleven into two different chapters. I don't have a ton of other commentary to make on this chapter, but I do want to just give a heads-up that it will probably be a little bit before I can post again, just because my school and teaching schedule is really hectic, but thank you for sticking with me on this nonetheless! I'm really enjoying finally get to write down scenes that have lived only in my head for years! 🩵🌊
the sexual references are not especially explicit, but just to be safe, I'm marking this one 18+ – minors please do not interact
The carriage ride home was just as anguished as James had feared. Your hands were folded tightly together, and he got the distinct impression that they would have been fidgeting feverishly had you not been holding them hostage in your lap. He couldn’t help but notice the marked contrast between his first carriage ride with you and this one. There had been a sort of lively brightness about you as you asked him about Port Royal and fanned yourself in the midday heat. But that had been a week ago, back before things were so concretely, poignantly real. Perhaps you had been able to pretend he was simply a new acquaintance rather than your future husband. Such pretending was impossible now, with a ring on your finger that remained so tensely clasped in your lap.
To his utter frustration, James could make himself say nothing to ease your evident distress. He was acutely aware of what you feared – well, it was probably a great many things, not least the idea of the rest of your life stretching out before you wed to a man you barely knew on an unfamiliar island. But the one fear he suspected was sharper than the others at this particular moment was one he could not get himself to broach.
He endeavored to – he endeavored mightily, in fact – but such a discussion was so beyond the bounds of propriety that governed both his life and yours that he could not make the words take shape in his mouth. He had heard discussions of the subject spilling bawdy and lewd from the mouths of inebriated sailors as they stumbled through the port and James marked them down for drunkenness and disturbing the peace, but he had scarcely ever touched the topic himself.
What he desperately wanted to tell you was that he had no intention of asking that of you, as expected as it might be on one’s wedding night. He wished you to know that you would have your own room which he would not visit unless invited. But every time he attempted to articulate either one of those thoughts, the crisp white fabric around his neck began to feel like it was choking him, the discussion of such a delicate topic fragile and shattering to pieces on his tongue.
“I thought the food was quite good,” you commented at last, your voice very quiet and trembling just the tiniest bit around the edges in the laden silence of the carriage. Your mouth was tilted up in just the smallest nervous smile, like you were trying so hard to be the enjoyable companion you had promised him you would be. James was both overjoyed and devastated. You clearly didn’t hate him yet, and you were making a genuine attempt at interacting with him, but he was also achingly aware that you were forcing yourself to do it, and he didn’t wish to consider how long you could survive playing at being an elegant, cheerful doll with no feelings at all aside from those that others wished you to possess.
“Yes,” he agreed as enthusiastically as he could manage, although he was very aware that neither you nor he had touched much of it at all. “Mr. Latimer clearly knows where to find quality vendors.”
“It seems as though he has contacts all over the Caribbean,” you continued, your hands twisting in your lap the only visible sign of your anxiety. “He was telling me about many of the other merchants he does business with.”
“And was he— or, rather, were they – the Latimers, that is – agreeable hosts?” The words stumbled atrociously from his mouth, but he was suddenly seized by the idea that you would probably far rather be going back to the Latimers’ residence with them than be here with him, which did little to help him clarify his thoughts.
“Yes,” you responded immediately, the answer evidently genuine. “They were exceedingly pleasant. And they—” James watched as you swallowed and averted your eyes, his breath tight in his throat as he waited for you to finish. He desperately hoped nothing had gone awry during your stay with them. You allowed your hands a small, fluttering gesture of nervousness before refolding them. “They spoke of you with the highest praise,” you said at last, darting a small glance at him.
James didn’t know what to say. The breath he had been holding escaped in uncertain, halting puffs from his mouth that he had to cover with a small cough. That was not what he had expected at all. Of course it was reasonable that they would speak of him to you – you were marrying him after all – but he was suddenly desperate to know what they had said. Not because he sought their words of praise, but because he wanted to know what impression they had given you of him. Surely they had portrayed him as the upright, proper officer whom everyone knew him as; he rarely allowed any other side of himself to show. But even if they had praised him and his conduct, the thought that you were marrying a rigid, aloof commodore who conformed to the dictates of propriety with a militaristic exactitude could not have been comforting. Because what would that mean he might demand of you?
“That is very kind of them,” he responded at last. Another volley of expletives that he had never once allowed himself to actually say went off in his head. Could he do anything – one single thing – that might disabuse you of that notion? He quickly ran through all of his interactions with you, surveying his own conduct, and could hardly discover a falter or a slip. While normally that would be praiseworthy, James found himself wishing that he had done something to convince you that you were not now forever bound to a cold, serious, demanding naval officer who ran his household as tightly as his ships and cared as little for you or your happiness as many of the men with whom James worked did for their wives.
Then the carriage jolted to a stop, and he realized with no little measure of apprehension that he was about to have the chance to do just that, if he could ever make the words march in an orderly fashion from his mouth. He had not been able to get within a league of the subject for the whole ride back to the house, but now – regardless of his own lack of preparedness – he would need to say something.
James swallowed, steeling himself with the knowledge that however anxious he was about speaking on such delicate matters, your fear no doubt out-measured his by a hundredfold. That thought alone gave him the courage to offer you what he feared was an exceedingly stiff smile and step from the carriage, determined to show you that, if nothing else, you had nothing to fear from him.
He reached back up, and you placed your hand carefully in his. Despite the effort he could tell you were making to the contrary, he was painfully aware of how your hand was shaking, trembling like rigging in a gale.
Your hand quaking in his was the only sensation he was truly conscious of as he crossed the gravel drive with you at his side, about to enter the house that was now your home as well as his. Suddenly his mind was a storm once more, pelting rain and fearful winds screaming through him as he attempted to ready himself for what he knew he needed to say.
When he led you into the foyer, the house was mostly dark with just a few candles left illuminating the cheerful arrangements of flowers that Anna and Mrs. Baird had prepared. From the silence in the rooms, James presumed that his staff must have already retired for the night.
When he turned to look at you, his lips already parted to speak, the words stopped in his throat. The doll-like perfection and emotionless façade were gone from your countenance, cracked and shattered and falling away in jagged pieces. Your eyes were wide, darting anxiously over every flickering shadow. He could see the way your chest was rising and falling rapidly, your breathing shallow as you no doubt attempted to quell your evident panic that refused to abate.
James once again found himself in your shoes, looking at your new home for only the second time in your life, standing next to a virtual stranger who you had just married. You were utterly alone here – all your friends and family and everything that was familiar and comforting were a vast ocean away. And on top of all that, he was certain you were considering the fact of what was typically expected on one’s wedding night. He was almost surprised you didn’t flee from the foyer and into the balmy night outside – he could scarcely have blamed you. But then again, were your places reversed, he likely would be doing the same as you even as that sickening tide of terror rose inside and threatened to drown him: standing rigid and trying to calm the storm within. Knowing that your fear ran a thousand leagues deeper than his own, he was exceedingly aware that he needed to say something. He needed to say something now.
James cleared his throat, and you turned to him instantly, evidently trying to hide the fear that was haunting your features since your mouth lifted into a small, quavering smile that did little to dispel his worries about your current state of mind.
“Allow me to show you to your room,” he offered, relieved that the darkness in the house was likely hiding the uncharacteristic heat that was pinking his cheeks.
Your expression changed then, eyebrows furrowing slightly, your lips folding into a look of confusion at his phrasing. Unable to articulate anything further in the moment, James simply offered you his arm, which you took immediately, and led you up the stairs to the former guest room that Anna had made up for you. He pushed the door open, allowing you to see that the trunks containing your belongings were stacked neatly against the wall and ready for you whenever you required them.
Your eyes flickered to him again, a question clearly written on your face, but James’ mouth was suddenly filled with sawdust. His mind was once again flooded with foul language as he tried to force himself to say something, a slip in discipline that he hated even more than usual when he was trying to maintain even a modicum of control and get himself to actually speak. But his throat was constricting, the white fabric around his neck seeming to tighten as he struggled for the words he wanted. His frustration was only increased by the fact that he believed himself to be a well-spoken, articulate man, and yet, when it came to this – when it came to you – he suddenly felt as though he had drunk a gallon of briny seawater and his tongue had been dried in salt.
“I understand,” he started rather pathetically, his mouth a sun-parched beach as he fought to not sound exceedingly hoarse, “the expectations which typically attend the sacrament of matrimony.”
Every expletive he had ever heard was going off like volleys of cannonballs in his mind. He absolutely could not look at you, even though he was acutely aware of where your arm still rested over his. He instead trained his gaze on the pile of shells and coral he had left on your shelf, tugging the words one by one from his mouth as though pulling in an anchor from a great depth.
“But I intend to make no… impositions upon you now or—or in any circumstance in which my advances are undesired.”
James thought he might throw up with the way his stomach was heaving to and fro inside of him. He hadn’t been seasick in years, but now the stable floorboards were tilting beneath him like a ship in a violent storm and the only thing that wasn’t in dizzying motion was the place where your arm was linked lightly with his. The sound of the waves crashing in his head was so loud that he barely registered your little noise of surprise in reaction to his words. Your gaze turned to him immediately and he met it on instinct, finding a swirling mix of emotions crashing over your features, one of which was definitely relief and at least one more of which was a level of embarrassment at the discussion of such a subject that seemed to echo his own.
And then he lost his nerve entirely. The words that had just issued from his mouth were so unlike anything he had discussed before – their implications so exceedingly delicate – that he had reached the end of his ability to speak. What else could he say that wouldn’t cause more embarrassment or awkwardness?
He glanced away, gingerly removing his arm from yours, already berating himself for being such a bloody coward.
“I hope you sleep well. And do inform me if there is anything you require.” He couldn’t look at you as he said the words, instead dipping into a little bow, the gallantness of which he hoped – but did not quite believe – would make up for his cowardice. Then he turned on his heel, every voice screaming in his head that he was being completely pathetic and not at all the steady, attentive husband you deserved. But he could not make himself turn around. He could not bear the humiliation of his own inability to discuss such a topic that should be acceptable between husband and wife, and he could not abide seeing you standing there, silhouetted faintly in the dark house, so utterly alone, and knowing that it was he who was to blame for it.
But despite his unchangeable steps down the corridor to his own room, he was quite certain that he heard your voice follow, slipping quietly down the hallway behind him, the words just a breath at his ear when they finally reached him. Perhaps he wasn’t even meant to have heard them. But he hoped to God he wasn’t imagining what you had said, because if he had heard correctly, it sounded considerably like something that could place warm, comforting hands on him and soothe the sharp pains that were shooting through him like shrapnel. It sounded quite a bit like: “thank you, James.”
my heart's a sea – chapter ten (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist
summary: James and his wife attend their wedding reception
warnings/tags: f!reader, wife!reader, set post-cotbp, historical views of marriage and gender, mention of drinking alcohol, mention of eating
words: 1170
author’s note: hello to all my lovely "my heart's a sea" friends! I'm so sorry it's been over a month since I posted! my semester started and things have just been super hectic. but now we're back with another (shorter) chapter. I was doing some work on this story over the weekend, and realized I should probably cut this chapter earlier than originally intended just for the purposes of flow, which means that I'll actually have two chapters going up tonight as a little treat! ☺️ as with the wedding, I'll readily admit that I don't really know what was involved in an 18th century wedding reception, so I just sort of made it up lmao. as always, I hope it feels at least as vaguely historical as the movies are! enjoy!
The reception had been planned nearly in its entirety by James’ father and yours with the aid of local intermediaries like Mr. Latimer. As such, it consisted of many things that James had little taste for: socializing and dancing and excessive drink and rich food.
If your conduct throughout the course of the evening was any reliable indicator, then your thoughts on the matter appeared to be very similar to his. You were so still and quiet that it was beginning to make him lose what little appetite he had for the small portion of food he had placed on his plate. You received everyone’s gifts and compliments with painted smiles and generous words of thanks that no one but James seemed to notice weren’t quite at ease in your mouth. You barely sipped your wine and only picked at your food, your eyes constantly darting around as though you might be found doing something amiss.
He led you through a few dances – only as many as propriety demanded since you seemed as apprehensive as he was about the prospect. He was still attempting to become accustomed to the feeling of your hand in his as you spun toward and away from him, passing through the other couples with steps you were evidently quite focused on remembering from the expression of anxious concentration that was intense enough that it had managed to sneak through your careful mask. The two sensations he was most conscious of when your fingers slipped into his exceedingly careful grip were that your hand was warm, but it was trembling.
James wanted desperately to tell you that you didn’t have to dance if you didn’t wish it, but the gazes of others were all around, expecting the two of you to weave gracefully in and out of the other dancers, and he couldn’t discover a way to politely excuse the pair of you from the activity.
“You’re a very elegant dancer, Commodore,” you said softly as he rose from his bow and you from your curtsy at the conclusion of the final dance. It was the first time you had spoken directly to him since you had said your vows, and James hated that he couldn’t tell how much sincerity was behind your words. Not that he cared about the compliment – not at all in fact. He didn’t perceive himself to be a particularly elegant dancer; exact and slightly stiff would have been more apt descriptors of the way he conducted himself on the dancefloor. He was far more concerned with determining whether you felt even the slightest bit comfortable with him.
When you placed your hand in his as he walked you back to the table, that question was answered in the devastating, sinking negative: absent the need to concentrate on the steps of the dance, the slight trembling in your fingers had increased considerably. You seemed to be conscious of this fact, or else you simply desired to limit your physical contact with him, because you slipped your hand from his as quickly as possible as you retook your seat, hiding the proof of your evident distress. Both possibilities for the action make him feel equally sickened, and he looked at the food on his plate with distaste, no longer able to stomach any of it.
In the eerie, deathly stillness of his personal ocean, James’ mind was reeling. At least when the waves were crashing and the winds were screaming within him, all he could focus on was the utter chaos inside and making sure no outward sign of it was evident. But now, with this horrible, unnatural silence settling within him, he had so much space to think.
And think he did, much to his own dismay. He thought about your intense nervousness which only seemed to be growing as the reception progressed, your hands clasped tightly in your lap as your eyes flicked around the room anxiously. It seemed to James that even the faintest gust of unexpected air might startle you. He thought about the rapidly approaching carriage ride home, considering how he was ever going to get himself to say something even remotely helpful to you. And then he thought of the destination of that carriage ride, his house that was now yours as well, that would be yours indefinitely. Because you were his wife.
James sucked in a deep breath that shuddered slightly around the edges. His mind was firing off some of the obscenities that he sometimes heard sailors use but never spoke aloud himself. He was not supposed to think about that. He was absolutely not supposed to think about the future, about the life his own cowardice and inaction had condemned you to. Because if he thought about that, then he would certainly think about his parents’ own marriage, one that, on its best days, was grudgingly tolerant, and on its worst, as bitter and freezing and tempestuous as an ice storm. And he could not think about that now, not with the way it was causing his breathing to become uneven, not when he had promised – when he had sworn – that he was going to do better.
But with your clear anxiety emanating in little shivering ripples from you, with the memory of your hand shaking in his and then slipping away as quickly as possible, he found himself unable to swallow those thoughts entirely. Because what if this was the moment you started hating him? Until now, you had been gracious and amiable – even if he knew that some of your cheerfulness was forced – and a bit nervous, yes, but nothing like this. Nothing like the completely blank expression he had found when he lifted your veil, nothing like the tide of apprehension that was flowing from you now, swirling around him in eddies so palpable he thought he might be able to reach out and split the water of your fear with his hands. What if now, with the reality of everything sinking in and soaking you through like cold seawater, you realized you had married a man you had scarcely known for a week, who had dragged you across a terrifying ocean and away from everything you had ever known just to come to a strange land and become his wife? And what if you hated him for it?
Possibly the worst thing about that haunting question was that James couldn’t have blamed you for any of it. If you did hate him, he would have to live with an understanding of that hatred and know that every ounce of it was justified. True, he had not had the most active hand in the arrangement, but he also had more power to dissent to the match than you did, a dissent that, in his own foolishness, he had declined to make. He had trapped you here with him, tied you to him, had forever altered the course of your life. And he wouldn’t blame you if you hated him for it.
my heart's a sea – chapter nine (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist
summary: James marries his fiancée
warnings/tags: f!reader, fiancée!reader, wife!reader, set post-cotbp, historical views of marriage and gender, mention of hanging, mention of drunkenness, mention of death, mention of eating, brief sexual reference, weird consent stuff with kissing someone at an arranged marriage wedding ceremony (James does his best to navigate this though)
words: 3903
author’s note: okayyyyyy folks we are at the wedding!! I will once again readily admit that I am not super familiar with early 18th century wedding customs and I also did not do a ton of research 😅 I tried to still make it feel at least as vaguely historical as the movies are, so hopefully that came through. I do know that white wedding gowns were not widely popularized until queen Victoria wore one like a century later, so that's why the reader character is not wearing white. honestly, I have no idea if wedding veils were a thing in the 1720s-ish, but I included one because I needed it for plot/character purposes lmao. also, this is the last chapter I have pre-written, so I fear that updates will be a little more sporadic after this, but honestly, everyone's enthusiasm for the story has made me more excited to keep writing, so hopefully I'll have some more soon! ☺️ in the meantime, I'm more than happy to chat about the story or characters if anyone feels so inclined! 🩵🌊
the sexual reference is brief and not explicit, but just to be safe, I'm marking this one 18+ – minors please do not interact
Despite having fallen asleep so quickly, James did not feel rested when he woke on the day of his wedding. His dream haunted him. But it also clarified something. It had been a kind of shapeless, gnawing fear that had lingered at the back of his mind for days, but he had been able to ignore it when he had more pressing worries to address. But now it slid forward, materializing and taking on a defined shape. He was afraid that in marrying you, he was giving up forever any chance he might have to be with Elizabeth.
He knew at once it was a foolish fear, a childish one. She had married Turner. She wasn’t even Elizabeth Swann anymore, she was Mrs. Turner now, living elsewhere with her half-blacksmith, half-pirate husband. But still, the thought persisted that maybe someday Turner would find the noose he had so narrowly escaped after turning to piracy that first time. Or maybe he would turn out to be dissolute and knavish and drink himself into an early grave as James had seen men do before. And then Elizabeth would need somewhere to go, someone to run back to. And what if that someone was him?
But no. The thought that hurt even more, the one that felt like it was ripping open that invisible wound in his chest again as he perched on his bed in the early morning light, was that he was always the second choice. Turner would constantly be standing beside him, stepping in front of him, bringing out Elizabeth’s smile in a way he never could. Even if Turner was dead, James knew his ghost would linger forever, and James would have to live the rest of his life knowing that even if Elizabeth did wed him, he still ranked second to both a pirate and a dead man. And that sickening, stomach-dropping knowing would cause that wound to bleed for the rest of his days, torn fresh each morning when he woke up next to a woman who would rather have a dead pirate than James.
And so, he forced himself to stand. He ran a hand over his face as though the action would physically wipe the dream and its accompanying dismal thoughts from his mind. To his surprise, the motion was actually successful, since behind his closed eyes, he saw another image. It was not Elizabeth this time, but you. It was that fleeting moment in which he had seen genuine happiness beaming out of you.
Then a series of other memories associated with you all burst to life in his mind, and the one that struck him the most clearly was of the delicate roses you had grown with your careful needle. Perhaps that was what the gaping hole in his chest needed: your steady hands that planted gardens of beautiful stitches and which might be able to seal that oft-reopened wound closed forever. It was a new thought, a surprisingly welcome thought, he realized as he blinked his eyes open to the sunlight that was beginning to soak through his drapes. Other memories were still playing in his mind: your liveliness that first day, the floral scent that lingered in his carriage, the way you pored over his books, your hands coaxing elegant melodies from the pianoforte, those brief but treasured glimpses of whatever was glinting and sparkling beneath the mask you usually wore. Perhaps what he needed, what he had not allowed himself to admit that he wanted until that very moment, was you.
He had to sit on his bed again as the weight of that realization washed over him. But it was certainly far too much to ask of you. The feelings that were bubbling like sun-warmed water in his chest should be the start of a courtship, with the prospect of marriage somewhere off in the future, once you and he were familiar and comfortable with each other. It was still so early, and everything was happening so quickly, and what if, once more, any chance he had of truly knowingyou might pass him by, stolen forever by the shock of a marriage arranged by exterior forces, and again James would be too late.
He couldn’t let that happen. He inhaled a long, deep breath, kicking forcefully against the water as he swam for the glitter of sunlight that danced over the surface of the sea above. He was getting married today, and he needed to prepare.
He donned his clothing with even more care than usual, making sure he included all the components of his ceremonial dress uniform, including his sword that he made himself forget Turner had crafted. As he adjusted his wig on his head in the looking glass, he realized that you had never even seen his real hair; he had always been wearing his wig, as propriety demanded, when he visited you. Surely that fact could not have helped him appear more approachable and less strict.
When he descended the stairs, he found Mrs. Baird and Anna arranging the flowers in their vases, the blossoms bringing much-needed life and cheerfulness to the house. Despite – or perhaps because of – his newly-clarified dedication to ensuring he did things right in his marriage to you, James found he had no appetite at all. He took thoughtless bites of a bread roll, his eyes focused out the window at the clear sky that seemed to mirror the ocean in its infinite calm blueness.
James tried not to wonder at what you were thinking in the same moment, but his thoughts wandered in that direction regardless. No doubt your feelings were in stark contrast to the peaceful stillness outside. Indeed, even in the face of his own recent revelations and subsequent resolve, he nevertheless found that his own sea was growing choppier.
Without his duties to attend to, the intervening hours before the wedding felt abnormally long. He typically didn’t allow himself to pace, but after he noticed he had crossed the house from one side to the other and back again, he deemed he was probably getting in the way of Anna and Mrs. Baird’s furious rearranging and sprucing up of the house, so he walked outside, hands clasped behind his back as though he were on deck surveying the Dauntless before she put out to sea. He simply wasn’t accustomed to feeling this emphatically duty-less.
In an attempt to work out some of the latent energy that the stormy gales and frothing waves were generating inside of him, he let his feet carry him to the place where he felt most at ease. Behind the house, down a steep, narrow path cut into the hillside, he had access to a small section of beach that was, for all intents and purposes, private, since the way the hills and rocks tumbled down on either side ensured that the little path from the house was the only real point of access. He rarely visited, given that his daily duties at the fort afforded him a close view of the ocean, and when he was out on the Dauntless, he was surrounded by the sea.
James picked his way along the rocky portion of the beach where strange oceanic creatures sometimes hid in the pools of water that collected in the stony divots when the tide swept out again, leaving just those land-locked oases behind. Then his shoes were sinking into the soft sand nearer to the waterline, and he planted himself as though at attention on the bridge of his flagship, eyes cast out toward the horizon where the two vast expanses of blue met each other.
He was far more successful at calming the ocean within him as he let the steady hushing of the tide against the sand moderate his breathing and bring rhythm and order to his thoughts. He would marry you, as he was duty-bound to do. Then he would set those newly budding feelings for you that swirled inside him like effervescent bubbles as a guiding star and chart a new course. James was good at dedication – his career in the navy had honed that intrinsic trait which had always lain inside of him – and he was determined to dedicate himself to doing things right.
Set in his intentions, his private storm eased considerably, he made his way back up to the house, stopping in the entryway to clean his shoes of any traces of sand and restore the metallic shine to the buckles. He found Mrs. Baird and Anna both in their Sunday best, making the last preparations to the furnishings. As James made a pass through the rooms, he reminded himself that this is how you would see things when you stepped into what would, by then, be your official new home. He found it to be more satisfactory than he had at first dared to hope; his staff had worked wonders to make the relatively austere space far more home-like and welcoming. Then the clock chimed the hour, and he walked out to his waiting carriage, trying to keep the calming rhythm of the waves in his mind.
The ride to the church felt exceedingly long, and despite his best efforts, a storm was brewing inside him once more. What must you think of him? How must you be feeling? His imagined answers to those questions were almost enough to have him call everything off once and for all, to march into the church and say he was no longer going through with this, his father’s wishes be damned. He could so clearly picture the way your mask would shatter with the unrestrained happiness that beamed out from your face. You would embrace him, too thrilled at the prospect of your freedom to care about propriety, and perhaps even place a kiss on his cheek. He would ensure you were on the next ship back to England, returning to your father and his collections and every beloved thing you had left behind.
But as he almost allowed himself to believe that such a scenario was possible, those two achingly heavy words echoed in his head: too late. If James sent you back to England now, unwed, your reputation would be ruined, your chances at making another match dashed forever. Everyone would wonder and whisper and speculate about why he wouldn’t marry you, why he had sent you away. Your character and virtue would come into question, and once again, he would be the cause of all your suffering.
And he would also lose any chance of letting those delicate, shimmering bubbles of whatever feelings were beginning to rise within him guide him to the surface, finally breaking through to find the waters calm and welcoming around him. Not the most important consideration, certainly – James was quite good by now at sacrificing his own desires when it was required of him, as Elizabeth had so clearly proved – but it was a consideration nonetheless.
He let his head fall back heavily against the carriage seat, a lapse in decorum he only permitted himself in this private space. The rapid currents of his thoughts were rushing and changing and merging and dispersing, turning his head to a complex waterway that was becoming increasingly difficult to navigate with any sense of safety or certainty.
And then the carriage stopped. What had felt like such an unusually long journey was cut off abruptly, and suddenly James wasn’t ready. He needed more time to get himself back in order, to bring his thoughts under control. He jolted up in his seat, his posture going rigid and correct as he smoothed over the thick fabric of his coat, ensuring he didn’t look as storm-tossed as he felt on the inside.
He stepped to the ground, squinting momentarily against the sun that shone down brightly after the dimness of the carriage. He pulled himself up to perfect attention, tugging on his coat until it hung just right and adjusting the froth of white fabric around his neck, ensuring the folds were as he wanted them. James walked toward the church. His mind was hauntingly quiet, and he couldn’t determine if it was because he had reached peaceful waters, or if he was simply witnessing the calm before the storm.
Guests and attendees congratulated him on the wedding as he passed them on the way into the church, shaking his hand and offering him the expected felicitations. He returned the sentiments in kind by force of habit only; in truth, he absorbed little of what they were saying to him. His confident strides would never have betrayed the eerie stillness inside of him, perfected as they had been across the decks of his flagship, his heels ringing authoritatively against the wood. The same sound echoed on the floor as soon as he crossed the threshold into the church, but he felt none of the confidence that it usually granted him when he was commanding the fleet.
He passed quickly down the main aisle, the faces of fellow officers and acquaintances blurring past as he strode toward the apse. Two thoughts were very hard for him to ignore despite the way he was making every attempt to do so. The first was that there was no one in the church whom you knew – your family and friends were all back in England, and you were here, about to wed him utterly alone. The second was a consideration of how you might feel when you walked down the same aisle. He was putting up levees and seawalls against this speculation, but the tide was rising dangerously high and overtaking those barriers. The words carried forward on the foam were enough to ensure him that the quiet he had experienced was simply the moment of potent stillness before the storm: terror, grief, loneliness, betrayal, homesickness, sorrow, and perhaps even anger or resentment. As he stepped up to the altar to confer with the officiant, he had become a maelstrom.
And then he waited. He stood perfectly still as final preparations were made and the guests took their seats, but he was almost surprised the whole building wasn’t being torn to pieces and washed out to sea with the terrifying force of the storm inside of him. He couldn’t even grasp at his own thoughts – everything was spinning far too quickly. Houses and trees and ships were being ripped asunder, the whirling fragments nearly too fast to see as they whipped around him before being pulled into the waiting abyss.
James had been so intent upon ensuring that the storm was kept entirely contained within him that he almost jumped when the music started, indicating that the ceremony had begun. But of course, with all his flightier instincts long banished, he didn’t actually jump – he simply stood as tall and stiff as he usually did despite the destruction within.
The doors to the nave opened, and James found it difficult to breathe as the wind and water became so wild that he struggled to focus on anything except for the way it felt like everything was spinning. He planted his feet as firmly on the ground as he could, even though he might be pulled careening into the swirling, swallowing waves at any moment.
You were wearing a dress of pale gold silk, a semi-translucent veil cascading in a waterfall over your face. Your arm was linked with Mr. Latimer’s as he stood in for your father who was an ocean away. James couldn’t help but wonder if he knew, if on the other side of the world he was wondering what had become of his beloved daughter whom he had sent so far from home to marry a virtual stranger. James thought the sickening, ceaseless spinning of the water inside of him was beginning to make him dizzy with the way his legs wanted to sway and falter beneath him.
But he didn’t allow that to happen. Instead, he watched as you approached the altar, your face and any expression he might have been able to read there still concealed by your veil. He couldn’t even hear the music in the church or what the officiant was beginning to say as you stepped up in front of him; the winds were screaming and the ocean thundering, drowning out any other sound.
He only knew by the faint whispers of the ceremony that he could make out beneath the cacophony in his mind when he was supposed to remove your veil. He reached forward, stunned he had been able to make himself move at all. It wasn’t outwardly visible, but James knew his hands were trembling as they gently caught the gauzy fabric. He had stood unmoved before pirate hoards, but as he lifted your veil away from your face, he was quavering. The storm reached a strident new pitch as his whirling thoughts shrieked all his fears about what he would find beneath, all of the terror and sadness and hurt he had imagined staring back at him, the cause of it all. He wasn’t breathing as the fabric finally fell away and revealed your face to him. What he found there was so much worse than what he could have imagined. There was nothing at all.
Everything within him stopped immediately, the echoing, hollow silence somehow louder than the wailing of the storm. Your face was perfect, and utterly expressionless. You gazed back at him as though through glass eyes, unseeing. You had tied your mask so tightly that it had become a part of you, your body turning to pottery, your features painted on with a delicate brush. You had made yourself into the beautiful, feelingless doll that everyone seemed to want you to be, even as the thought had always made James feel acutely ill. And he felt that way now, the complete stillness of the brackish water inside him more sickening than the whirlpool had been, because it was so, so wrong.
In a feverish, rash moment, he thought that he might prefer to be facing down canons and cutlasses and cursed pirates than this, than the knowledge that he was responsible for this. He tried to swallow, but his throat was constricting, his chest caving in on itself as the sea went deadly still within him.
James was scarcely conscious of having said his own vows, the words issuing from his mouth as though his lips belonged to someone else. He watched you repeat yours as well, your expression as vacant as it had been when he lifted your veil. He felt as though he must be shaking, but when he carefully reached for your hand to slide the wedding band onto your finger, his own hands were unnervingly steady. He wished they would shake, he wished he had some way to show you that he was as terrified as you no doubt were, even if not for the same reasons.
When he took your hand with all the gentleness inside of him, he felt how you were trembling. The sensation sent ripples of illness over the hauntingly still water, but also just the tiniest wind of relief. There was still something within you that you hadn’t cut yourself off from completely, even if that thing was your own fear. At least that was something, something that was real, something that was you.
As he slipped the ring onto your finger, the cold metal sliding across the warm skin of your hand that he had never yet held like this, he attempted to give you the smallest reassuring squeeze he could manage. The gesture was surely exceedingly stiff and awkward, if you had detected it at all. He wasn’t even certain what he was trying to reassure you of. But then something flickered behind your eyes, and he hardly cared how unpracticed the action had been, because it had allowed him to see signs of life. He couldn’t quite read what the tiny flash was – confusion or curiosity or maybe surprise – but regardless of what emotion it betrayed, James clung to the fleeting glimpse as a drowning man clings to a tossed rope; proof that he wasn’t too late.
He spent the rest of the ceremony searching for any other flickers that might appear, but he saw none until right before he was meant to kiss you. He understood what it conveyed immediately, because it was the same feeling that was settling into his own stomach, dropping heavy and fast like an anchor finding the seabed: realization that this was real. The kiss would seal the promises the pair of you had both made, tying an eternal knot, transforming him into a husband and you into a wife, binding two into one. But there was certainly no chance to change course now; the ship was at full canvas and the winds that urged the vessel onwards were beyond James’ control or yours.
So he leaned in. He raised his hand tentatively, letting it just skim over your cheek. Heavens, your skin was so warm and soft under his palm. He didn’t think he was even breathing. He saw so clearly the way something in your eyes would flash to life before you tamped it down again, trapping it behind glass. But those darting glances were sending bolt after bolt of pain through him, spinning and fizzing as they hit the water, making him ill. And in that moment, he knew it would be wrong to kiss you on the lips; his mouth would burn with shame afterwards as sickness roiled in his gut with the guilt that he had kissed you when you hadn’t wanted it, when you hadn’t wanted any of this.
Instead, with a tangle of emotions rising in him to a wave that he couldn’t hope to see the top of, he aimed for a spot just next to your mouth. It would be close enough that no one else would know. But you would know – and hopefully you would know it meant that he wasn’t going to ask anything of you that you didn’t wish to give.
The sensitive skin of his lips pressed against the tender warmth of you for just a fraction of a second before he pulled away, feeling as though he was gasping for air. The sensation brought to mind kaleidoscoping images of warm, wonderful, comforting things: soft sand and sunlight and down pillows and sun-ripened fruit and ocean air on a perfect day out at sea. Instantly there was a part of him that wanted to kiss you again, to taste and feel everything that was so welcoming and lovely. But he absolutely could not do that – not now.
So he righted himself, trying to contain the way his heart was beating with the riotous flurry of seabird’s wings when it became tangled in the rigging. He saw one more flutter of emotion on your face that he couldn’t decode before you carefully tucked it away. Something in his head was still feeling a little hazy, making everything slightly fuzzy like an early morning mist.
But before he could interrogate this sensation further or attempt to disperse that unusual fog, he was retreating off the altar with you, passing smiling faces in the pews as the two of you walked back down the aisle and out of the church, toward the reception.
my heart's a sea – chapter eight (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist
summary: James visits his fiancée for the last time before the wedding
warnings/tags: f!reader, fiancée!reader, set post-cotbp, historical views of marriage and gender, mentions of feeling faint/ill, mentions of blood
words: 2638
author’s note: so sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out! I had it written, but this week has been more stressful than anticipated, so I just got behind in posting 😭😭 but this is the last chapter before the wedding! I'll add a quick note here that although I did a little research, I couldn't find exactly how long James had been at Port Royal by the time CotBP concludes, so I sort of made it up based on how much the characters seem to have aged. but if someone has a more exact timeline, feel free to let me know and I'll change that bit! ☺️
The day before the wedding was a veritable whirlwind. Despite the early hour at which James usually awoke, when he descended the stairs, he found Mrs. Baird and Anna already engaged in feverishly cleaning the house, even though it was as tidy and spotless as usual.
“Commodore,” Mrs. Baird greeted him as he strode into the dining room, “Anna and I were thinking we might set out the fine linens in preparation for your wife’s arrival.”
Wife. Wife. His wife. He didn’t know what to make of the hurricane of emotions that went swirling through him at that thought.
“Yes – yes, of course,” he agreed immediately.
“And perhaps I might go down to the markets tomorrow morning to pick up some fresh flowers,” Anna added.
“An excellent suggestion.” He understood that Mrs. Baird and Anna may be more attuned than he to what might make the house more welcoming for you. “In fact, you both have my permission to make any adjustments to the house you deem prudent to ensure that it is as hospitable as possible for my… wife.” The unfamiliar word stuck just a little on the way out of his mouth.
Both women ducked into little curtsies of acknowledgement before bustling off to return to their tasks. James sat down to his breakfast with a small huff, hoping the release of air from his lungs might weaken the gales that he could hear beginning to howl within him. But the attempt was less successful than he had hoped.
In reaction, he threw himself into his work as soon as he arrived at the fort, plowing through piles of documents and reports and communiques. Ensconced in his office, he made a concerted effort to ignore how the waters of his personal ocean were becoming steadily choppier, the waves capped with white foam as they rose and broke higher and higher against the shoals of his mind.
By the time he was in his carriage, making his way to the Latimer residence for his final visit to you, he was feeling quite seasick in spite of the fact that the ocean outside the carriage window was calm and blue. Everything in him was drawn tight as he struggled to resist the insistent pull of the dark waters inside of him.
Mrs. Latimer met him at the door, evidently having seen his carriage approach.
“My husband sent a note, but it must not have reached you in time,” she told him. “I’m uncertain if you’ll be able to see your fiancée today – she’s feeling a bit faint and has taken to her bed.”
Panic cracked through him like lightning as his chest compressed and his breathing became ragged.
“Should a doctor be summoned?” he asked, his voice no doubt a little flurried, although he was trying to keep his tone level. “Is her illness quite severe?”
“In truth, Commodore, I believe it is simply wedding eve nerves,” Mrs. Latimer said with a knowing smile as she guided him toward the drawing room. “Quite natural of course – I’m sure every bride has them to some degree or another. I know I certainly did.”
James lowered himself into the chair he had taken up the day before. Your absence in the seat beside him was glaring; it was an emptiness he could almost feel, like the swirling pull at the hollow center of a whirlpool, all the more haunting because he knew you were unwell.
“Are you certain it’s not something more serious?” he pressed. It took considerable concentration to ensure his tone remained level.
“I’ll check in on her, Commodore,” she replied gently, likely noticing his distress even as he attempted to repress the obvious outward signs of it.
In her absence, James heard the steady, rhythmic ticking of the clock quite loudly in the quiet room as his mind began to fill with fears that he worked to convince himself were unfounded. He thought of his mother, often pale and thin and bedridden. Perhaps there had been a time when he was very young when she was not that way, but he had only flickering, fragmented memories of it now. The barnacle-like thoughts that he was endeavoring to pry from his head were suggesting that maybe this type of illness was simply an inevitable result of marriage. Perhaps, unknowingly, he had doomed you to the same fate as his mother through the mere sacrament of matrimony.
But no – that couldn’t be true. Mrs. Latimer was married and appeared active and in good health. Mrs. Baird had reported that Mrs. Whitfield had frequently called on her acquaintances, so she must not have been confined to her bed. And, if he was being logical rather than allowing himself to fall into foolish, baseless worries, he would see that many of the officers with whom he occasionally dined had wives who were not suffering as his own mother had. So, clearly, whatever ailment had overcome you was not intrinsically linked to the concept of marriage, although he could certainly understand that the knowledge of your upcoming nuptials might have induced a feeling of illness.
Having finally succeeded in removing the last of those stubborn barnacles of thoughts from the hull of his mind, he looked up as the door to the drawing room swung open and Mrs. Latimer reentered. He straightened his already rigid posture, awaiting her report on your condition.
“Your lovely bride is feeling a bit better,” she informed him, and James wondered if she could see the breath of relief that instinctively eased itself from his body. “And she told me she will be down presently.”
Another rocket of anxiety went off inside him instantly. He hadn’t wanted that; he didn’t wish you to feel compelled to see him if you needed to rest.
“She needn’t quit her room on my account,” he said hurriedly, wondering if there was still time for Mrs. Latimer to return and tell you to remain abed.
“I told her the very same,” she assured him, “but she insisted she was feeling well enough.”
Before James could voice any more thoughts on the matter, you entered the drawing room, and James stood immediately to greet you. You ducked into a curtsy.
“Commodore, please accept my apologies for having kept you waiting; I fear I was ignorant of the time.” Your voice was even, but drained.
James was searching your face as soon as you lifted your head and met his gaze, looking for any sign of serious illness. He inhaled sharply when he saw that you appeared wan, your eyes tired. He couldn’t diagnose any evident ailment aside from what seemed to be exhaustion, but you looked decidedly unwell.
“No apologies are necessary,” he reassured you instantly, taking the few quick steps to your side to offer you his arm. “You need not feel compelled to stay if you would be better served by returning to your room to rest.”
“Thank you for your concern,” you said with a strained smile that you were nevertheless trying to make look natural, “but I’m feeling better than I was earlier today.” If this was an improvement upon your former state, James chose not to imagine how unwell you must have been at that time.
You took his arm then, and even though he sensed the way your muscles flexed slightly against him, evidently attempting to repress the sensation, he could feel how you were trembling. It was as though those tremors were an earthquake far below the surface of his personal ocean, the minute shaking raising a catastrophic tidal wave within him that was causing his stomach to heave and sway dangerously.
By the time he was helping to ease you into your seat and you were giving him a soft ‘thank you’ that you couldn’t quite stop from quavering around the edges, he was being dragged along with the force of his internal tide, struggling for breath as he was tugged beneath the waves.
“I’m relieved to hear you’re feeling better,” he said quietly as he sank back into his chair. “But I apologize for not knowing you were ill – I’m afraid the message must have just missed me. I would not have come had I known my visit would intrude upon your need for rest.”
“Please don’t worry on my account,” you entreated. “It was merely a spell of faintness. I was out in the gardens earlier and I think I’m simply not yet accustomed to the heat.”
“It can certainly be an adjustment.” James tried to make his voice as reassuring as he was able, but he wasn’t certain how successful he was in that endeavor given that he was far more comfortable giving crisp orders rather than offering sincere reassurances.
“How long have you been serving in the Caribbean?” you asked then, swallowing a little as you attempted to make the question composed and polite. But James knew he had been caught in a riptide when he met your eyes and saw that there were faint rims of tears around them. It took all the strength he could muster to speak as though he had not noticed.
“Slightly over a decade,” he responded as levelly as he could manage with the way seawater was filling his mouth and lungs.
“Then surely you’re an excellent resource on making the adjustment,” you said with a very small smile that was sad despite the way you were clearly trying to make it bright. “I’ve been asking Mrs. Latimer for her advice as well,” you continued, nodding to where she sat across the room. “And I understand a parasol is indispensable, so perhaps I shall have to acquire a few more given that I only have one presently.”
Your hands twisted in your lap, and then, as though you had noticed you were fidgeting, you moved them to smooth over your skirts instead. When your gaze met his again, he was overcome with the realization that the expression which you no longer had the strength to banish from your features was quite similar to those he had seen on castaways clinging to pieces of a destroyed ship. It was all terror and desperation and begging to be saved. And while normally he was in a position to cast out a lifeline and order his crew to pull the stranded aboard, here he was just as much a victim of the sea as you were, still being sucked under the surface and pulled away from shore by the powerful force of the riptide.
“I’d be happy to recommend my preferred merchants. Some are friends and associates of my husband, so mention his name and I’m certain they’d be glad to supply you with very fine parasols at a reasonable price.” James had almost forgotten Mrs. Latimer was in the room at all, so consumed was he by the fact that you were pleading for rescue, but he was the one who had inadvertently sent you overboard.
“That is such a kind offer,” you responded as though you weren’t clearly adrift in the midst of a stormy ocean. “I would appreciate that greatly, Mrs. Latimer.”
“Then I’ll be sure to write you up a list of contacts before you depart,” she told you happily. It took James’ mind only a fraction of a second to remind him that your departure from the Latimers would also mean your arrival with him. He swallowed, but the action only brought more briny water into his stomach.
How he survived the remainder of the conversation without giving into his overwhelming feeling of drowning, James wasn’t certain. He was so acutely aware of how your hands twined together in your lap, your fingers tying themselves into complex knots that were so tight they could have held rigging in place. He was achingly conscious of how your teacup clattered faintly against your saucer each time you set your cup down once tea was brought in, evidence that your trembling had not abated.
Eventually, when he could suffer the knowledge of your agony no longer, he offered to let you rest, an offer you quickly accepted. This time, he insisted you remain in the cooler air of the house rather than accompany him out to his carriage in the glaring afternoon sun. You nodded in agreement, instead bidding him farewell from the foyer. He allowed himself a quick glance back as he stepped into the carriage. You were framed in the doorway, your fingers still tangled in a tense knot, your expression giving every indication that you were drowning in your own body but trying to fight against the terror that gripped at you like the cold hands of the ocean, threatening to pull you to a depth from which you could not resurface.
James turned sharply when he could bear the sight no more, sliding into the carriage. He closed his eyes as it bumped along the road, trying to steady his breathing even though it felt like all the air in his body had been replaced with unforgiving ocean water. His mind kept replaying two sickening words over and over again: too late.
He had been too late when Elizabeth plummeted from the fort, too late when the Black Pearl began shelling the city, too late when those wretched pirates commandeered the Interceptor, and too late when that same ship, his own flagship, sunk beneath the waves. And once again, he was woefully, abysmally, far too late. Too late to dissent to the marriage, too late to accepting the reality of the situation, too late to do anything at all except stay the course that had already been charted for him, desperately hoping he wouldn’t also be too late to rescue you from a life of unhappiness because he had been too wretchedly late for absolutely everything else.
When James returned to the house, feeling like a half-drowned man dragged onto the beach as he coughed up water onto the damp sand, he found it looking remarkably inviting. He would have to sincerely thank Mrs. Baird and Anna for their excellent work. The expanses of dark wood that constituted much of his furniture had been neatly laid with his best linens, brightening the space considerably. Vases sat waiting on the surfaces of most of the tables and desks, ready to receive the flowers that Anna would acquire in the morning. He wasn’t sure his abode had ever appeared so welcoming, and, amidst everything, he could at least be grateful for that.
He climbed the stairs to bed, all his worry and despair and deep frustration at himself leaving him feeling hollow and exhausted. He barely summoned the energy to place each piece of his uniform in its designated location and slip into his nightshirt. One of his last coherent thoughts before falling into unconsciousness was that it seemed unfair that he should sleep so easily when he was quite certain you would find no such rest.
Even in the dream, he hated himself for it. It was the night before his wedding, and he was dreaming of Elizabeth. She was there in her wedding gown, smiling at him. It was a scene he had indulged himself by picturing many times. But then he realized there was someone next to him, someone who stepped forward and in front of him. And then he discovered Elizabeth had not been smiling at him at all, but at Turner, who had been standing beside him all along without James even being conscious of it. Then they were saying their vows, and James was staggering off the altar, apparently invisible to all the smiling guests who sat in neat rows as he stumbled away back down the aisle, blood dripping from that unseen wound in his chest and falling like sickly red stars onto the white carpeting.
my heart's a sea – chapter seven (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist
summary: James visits his fiancée and continues to grapple with the reality of his own marriage
warnings/tags: f!reader, fiancée!reader, set post-cotbp, historical views of marriage and gender
words: 2761
author’s note: as promised, here is another little interaction between James and his fiancée! I don't have a ton of comments to make on this chapter, but I did just want to let everyone know that we're quickly approaching the end of what I have pre-written. chapter nine is the last complete chapter I have so far, so after that, updates are likely to be a bit more sporadic, but I hope you'll stick around nonetheless! enjoy!!
The next day, James left the fort earlier than he had anticipated, his concerted effort to devote his entire focus to his work manifesting itself in timely results as he wrapped up the reports he had wanted to complete more quickly than expected. So, he was being shown through to the Latimers’ drawing room slightly in advance of the time he had arranged with Mr. Latimer. However, he knew it would do him no good to dwell at the fort with no real work to do while he waited to call on you, so he hoped the Latimers wouldn’t mind his earlier appearance.
Despite the fact that politeness demanded that he concern himself with his hosts’ feelings on the matter, all he truly cared about was your reaction. When he was announced as he stepped into the drawing room, he searched for you immediately and within seconds found that you were the only one there. Evidently you were surprised by his advance arrival, or else you had been deeply consumed in your work and any disruption would have caused you to startle, because your head snapped up in surprise at his appearance.
“C-Commodore,” you greeted him as you stood and ducked into a nervous curtsy.
“James, please,” he insisted. He no doubt should have invited you to call him by his given name much earlier, but he was so relatively unused to hearing it from the lips of others that it had simply not occurred to him.
“James,” you amended, and he found he liked the way his name sounded on your lips. It was warmer, more musical than he had ever heard it. That realization had caused both his thoughts and his breathing to stutter for a moment, so he attempted to regain his focus.
“I trust you are well today?” The question was too expected to be properly charming. He swallowed a frown.
“Yes, thank you,” you responded, taking your seat again as James moved to sink into the chair beside you. “I’ve been progressing on a new needlework project,” you informed him, indicating to the wooden frame in front of you that held the piece you had been working on before he entered.
He saw an elegant border of roses in varying shades of red and pink beginning to bloom along the edge of the crisp white fabric. In the corner were three interlinked letters, the first initials of your given name and his both twined with the “N” for Norrington, his family name that you would be taking in just one more day. His chest tightened as he allowed himself to wonder how you felt about that as you stitched the proof of your future into the fabric.
“It’s beautiful,” he told you, sincerely meaning it.
“Thank you,” you responded happily, the brightness in your tone suggesting that you were genuinely pleased by his praise. “For the purposes of needlework, it’s good that your favorite flowers are roses, since – being vining plants – they make such nice borders.” You trailed your fingers lightly over the roses that were blossoming on the fabric.
“Will you be adding lilies afterwards?” James had no sense of how a needlework project was undertaken – perhaps you did all of one kind of motif before moving onto the next. You looked at him curiously.
“But roses are your favorite, are they not?” you asked as though nervous you were mistaken.
“They are,” he assured you, “but lilies are your favorite, correct?”
“Indeed,” you responded with a self-conscious laugh. “But why would my favored flower be of importance here?”
His confused response ‘because your initials are there too’ had to be swallowed when the door swung open to reveal Mr. and Mrs. Latimer, the latter of whom appeared to be just coming in from the gardens with the way she was untying a sunhat from her head.
“Commodore,” Mr. Latimer greeted him genially, and James rose to clasp his hand. “You must allow me to apologize; I was only just informed you were here.”
“It is I who must apologize,” James returned. “I fear I am a bit earlier than we had agreed since some of my work concluded sooner than expected. I hope my coming early is not an imposition on your time.”
“Of course not, of course not,” Mr. Latimer assured him as he went to take a seat on the other side of the room and James returned to his chair next to you.
“I see you’ve gotten the chance to witness your fiancée’s skill with the needle,” Mrs. Latimer remarked as she lowered herself into a seat as well, setting her hat on the table beside her. “Her attention to detail is quite remarkable.”
“Yes, her work is exceptional,” he agreed, desperately hoping you knew he was being utterly sincere. A shy, embarrassed smile crept onto your face as you averted your eyes amidst everyone’s praise, your gaze focused on where your hands were folded neatly in your lap.
“In fact,” Mrs. Latimer continued, “I’m surprised you never entered your pieces into any contests, my dear. They do run those sorts of things every now and again in London.”
“My governess wanted to when I was younger,” you said softly, “but my mother wasn’t convinced my work was up to such a high standard.” Mrs. Latimer scoffed quietly.
“With all respect to your dear mother, you might tell her she needs to have her vision examined,” she quipped. Your polite laughter in response may have had just an edge of more genuine humor in it. At least James could be relieved that in spite of some of their comments which he disliked, the Latimers seemed to be treating you kindly.
“I suppose one can always stand to perfect one’s craft,” you responded far more generously than James felt your mother’s comments deserved.
“Yes, but it does become quite difficult to improve upon perfection,” Mrs. Latimer replied. James wished such warm, kind words came to him so easily.
“You flatter me, Mrs. Latimer,” you said softly as your lips folded into a shy smile once more. If he was as brave a man in the drawing room as he was on the bridge of the Dauntless, James would have said something to the effect of ‘it is very deserved.’ But alas, the courage that served him so well in the face of cutlasses and cannonballs faltered here, and he could not get the words to issue from his mouth. Then his chance was lost as the room dipped into polite conversation on other matters.
Tea was brought in eventually, and James watched from his periphery as you took the offered cup delicately with a soft ‘thank you,’ all your movements and gestures careful as though you were constantly moderating your actions. The thought made him faintly ill, given that it was no doubt because of him that you were making such a concerted effort to ensure your conduct was irreproachable.
You seemed nervous as you gingerly sipped your tea – taken with one sugar and a splash of cream, he noted – as though someone might be about to reprimand you for something at any moment. Whenever he spoke, he tried to work as much warmth into his usually crisp tone as he was able, hoping that might do something to ease your evident anxiety.
“I hear you’re quite proficient at the pianoforte,” Mr. Latimer was saying to you after the conversation had turned to the subject of music. “Would you be so kind as to charm us with a song?”
“I fear that any praise you’ve heard for my musical abilities was probably exaggerated by my father, who is, for all his other fine qualities, quite tone deaf,” you responded humbly, that same fond smile lingering on your face as you spoke of your father.
“And I’m certain you’re no doubt selling yourself quite short,” Mr. Latimer rejoined. “Won’t you enchant us with just one song?”
His kind cajoling, supported by that of Mrs. Latimer, eventually convinced you to take up a seat at the pianoforte. You adjusted your skirts as you settled yourself before the instrument, and James realized that, once again, he had come up woefully short. He hadn’t joined the Latimers in asking you to play for fear that you might not truly want to, but now his attempts to guess at your true wishes had resulted in what certainly appeared to be a lack of interest or enthusiasm from the outside. His jaw tensed as he clenched his teeth, endlessly frustrated at himself that he couldn’t seem to achieve his primary goal of making you feel more comfortable with him.
But the tension in his muscles eased as the music you were coaxing from the pianoforte began to fill the room. True, he had few points of comparison, but the effortless melodies you drew from the instrument convinced him that you were quite accomplished indeed. His mind was suddenly flooded with images of you sitting at the pianoforte that was being installed in the house today, music floating through the usually quiet rooms as your fingers danced over the keys. Rather than the cold seep of briny seawater that felt as though it had been his constant companion for the last few days, James realized his body was filling up with something warm. Maybe it was sunlight or soft sand, or perhaps it really was the ocean again, but this time calm and clear and blue, sunbeams scattering in beautiful fragments over its surface. These were waters he would gladly dive into.
“You are clearly very talented at the pianoforte,” James was finally able to tell you when he was briefly alone with you after you had offered to accompany him all the way to his waiting carriage while the Latimers remained in the coolness of the house. Your hand fluttered lightly where it was wrapped over his arm, as though self-conscious about receiving the compliment.
“That is very kind of you to say, Com— James,” you corrected yourself quickly. The more he heard you say his name, the more he wanted you to say it again. “I do dedicate myself to practicing when time allows. But you should hear some of the ladies in my mother’s acquaintance – they are true experts. I’ll allow that I’m proficient, but I am certainly an amateur, not a savant.” Again, James had no frame of reference for judging proficiency on the instrument, but he knew the rolling melodies you had produced were far more expert than anything he could hope to achieve.
“Then you must allow me to deem you very proficient,” he said as he reached his carriage and you released his arm to allow him to enter. Before too much longer, you would be stepping into the carriage with him. He silenced that thought for the moment. You ducked into a little curtsy at his compliment, but although you modestly averted your gaze, he thought your smile might have been truly pleased. Thank the heavens – this was the best he had done in days.
Then he bid you farewell, and you returned the sentiment with an expression that James failed to fully parse. He couldn’t help but wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that with another of his visits concluded, the day when he would no longer be simply visiting you was marching steadily closer. He sucked in a deep breath at that thought as the carriage lurched into motion. He permitted himself a quick glance out the window and saw that you were still standing in the gravel drive, your hands clasped in front of you, watching him depart as the honied, glowing beams of the late afternoon sun melted gently over your features. He inhaled another breath when he realized the air had momentarily lay trapped in his lungs at the sight.
When he entered the house, Mrs. Baird was waiting for him, showing him where the pianoforte had been installed and asking if she needed to contact the workmen to make any adjustments the following day. James responded in the negative, relatively pleased with how the instrument fit neatly into his rather small drawing room and hoping you would find it a suitable location for playing. But before she retreated back to the kitchen to prepare dinner, James had a question for her that he wasn’t yet sure how pose despite having considered the issue nearly the whole carriage ride back.
“Mrs. Baird, if I’m not mistaken, before you came into my employ, you were working for a certain Captain Whitfield and his wife, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir, that is correct,” she responded. Her tone was well moderated, but he thought he heard curiosity in her voice, no doubt wondering why he was inquiring after her previous employer.
“Then, if I may ask, how did Mrs. Whitfield pass her days?” Perhaps it was far too forward, but the question of how you might spend your time once you had wed him was haunting him. Thus far, he knew of three things you had done in the past that you could continue to do in your new situation: needlework, reading, and playing the pianoforte. But he also knew that if he had exactly those three activities to pass his time each and every day, he would go mad within a fortnight.
“Well, sir, she was a rather social woman,” Mrs. Baird informed him, her curiosity and slight confusion now more evident in her tone, “so she often had callers or else was out calling on friends herself. I must admit that I was not privy to all her doings, but when at home, I believe she did needlework and tended some of the flowers in the garden. Beyond that, I’m not certain, sir.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Baird, that information is certainly helpful,” James responded. She ducked her head in acknowledgement before departing back towards the kitchen. James remained standing in the drawing room, eyes fixed on the pianoforte.
The glaring problem that James saw before him now was that you knew virtually no one here. Aside from the Latimers, you had no friends to call on, and it was far beyond his power to invent new acquaintances out of whole cloth. If he were to be perfectly honest, he himself had few acquaintances outside of those officers with whom he worked, and he didn’t necessarily make himself a fixture of Port Royal’s social scene. He always had far more important matters to be attending to, and he was intermittently out at sea. Would you even want to make new connections here? Your letter to your father indicated that you were lonely, but you spoke mostly of him and your maid without a mention of any close friends. So perhaps such things were not a priority. But you also simply may not have mentioned them for any number of reasons. He could ask, of course, but given how mightily he was already struggling to converse with you, he doubted he’d be able to frame the question in a way that would encourage an honest answer.
So if there was no immediate prospect for calling upon friends to pass your time, what did that leave? The only other activity that Mrs. Baird had mentioned Mrs. Whitfield engaging in was some light gardening. James didn’t have much of a garden – certainly not compared to the Latimers – as employing a gardener to maintain it when he was not often strolling outside the house to enjoy it seemed like a waste of resources. But you did appear to have at least a passing interest in flowers, so was it worth making inquiries into the possibility of turning some of the grounds around the house into a proper garden? James truly could not tell.
His list of activities you might partake in to pass the time remained virtually unchanged by this knowledge from Mrs. Baird, since you had no acquaintances to call upon and no garden to tend. And to compound everything, his house was smaller and much more sparsely appointed than the Latimers’ and likely than your parents’ home as well. So you would not only have little to do, but little space to do it in.
James sank onto the pianoforte bench. He was so humiliatingly and frustratingly unprepared for his own marriage it would almost have been laughable if he hadn’t felt the sickening rise of cold salt water within him again, choking out any humorless laughter that might have found its way to his throat.
my heart's a sea – chapter six (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist
summary: James tries (and fails) to write a letter
warnings/tags: f!reader, fiancée!reader, set post-cotbp, historical views of marriage and gender
words: 1508
author’s note: we've got a little bit of a shorter chapter today as this is kind of a transitional scene that allows us to look a bit more closely at James on his own. two notes here: (1) technically, I believe James likely would have shaved his hair if he wears a wig most of the time, HOWEVER, his long-ish hair is one of the only things I like about his scruffy era, so we're eschewing historical accuracy on that one and James just has his lovely brown hair beneath that wig lmao. (2) him being a messy sleeper comes from a headcanon post I did here if anyone is curious! I'm planning to have another interaction between James and his fiancée up tomorrow, but until then, I hope you enjoy! 🩵🌊
James had written to your father only once, after James’ father had announced the match and informed his son that all the details had been worked out between the two of them. It would have been highly irregular for James to not communicate with the father of his betrothed at all, so he had sent an expected yet admittedly formulaic letter that likely did not even reach him before you left England. James had not yet received a reply, but given how long it took the post to cross the ocean, that wasn’t unusual.
He stared down at the blank page in front of him, his typically clean desk cluttered with crumpled papers from his previous attempts. He twirled the quill in his hand, the candles in his study flickering in the cool evening breeze that floated through the open window. He didn’t even know what he wanted to say.
He set the quill down, rubbing his hands over his face. His interaction with you earlier in the day haunted him. He would see these tiny, fragmentary glimpses of something bright and honest as they peeked through the small gaps in your façade, but you always patched them up again so quickly, apologizing and repenting for what you somehow perceived to be some sort of lapse that you evidently thought he would find distasteful. If only you knew how he longed to shatter that mask into a thousand pieces and let it fall away to reveal what was behind it. It was clearly hurting you; rubbing and pinching and chafing in all the places where it didn’t quite fit, letting those little flickers shine through. But he needed to be so careful. If he approached this wrong – as he already seemed so inclined to do given his abysmal performance this afternoon – the fragments might end up cutting you and leaving you bleeding rather than falling to the floor where they could be kicked away and forgotten.
So James had thought he might write to your father, someone with whom your letter and your comments earlier in the day suggested that you were close. But it was not proceeding as well as he had hoped. What was he meant to say?
Dear sir,
I am the virtually unknown man to whom you have agreed to betroth your beloved daughter thus stealing her across the ocean where her chances of seeing you again are uncertain. She appears unhappy here – is there any remedy you might recommend?
Sincerely yours,
Commodore James Norrington
Utterly ridiculous; completely preposterous. Of course you were unhappy here – how could you not be when your whole life was back in England and your future husband was practically a stranger to you? James allowed himself a brief lapse in decorum and rested his forehead against the wood of his desk. He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration, an unusual gesture for him since he was almost always wearing his wig.
This was unseemly – he needed to get himself back under control. He cleared his throat slightly as he raised his head, pulling at the collar of his shirt as though straightening his garments would bring order back to his thoughts. He smoothed a hand over the paper before picking up his quill once more, letting out a measured breath.
He stared at the blank page, but it stared back, its stark emptiness eventually prevailing as James quailed. Setting the quill back down, he propped his elbows on his desk and buried his head in his hands. In truth, he had no concept of what to write to your father, no sense of what he wanted to say. He wasn’t even certain your father would be the correct person to contact; after all, it was he who had arranged for your betrothal a man you had never met, so perhaps he cared as little for your genuine happiness as your mother seemed to.
He removed his face from the cage of hands, heaving a sigh as he looked out the window toward the night-darkened sea, illuminated only by the moon and stars above and the faint lights of the port below. He wished he were out on that dark expanse of water now. At sea, he always had immediate concerns to occupy his mind. There was the necessity of consulting tools and maps for navigation, the required daily upkeep of the ship, the constant communications between him and his officers. While sailing, James went to bed tired and slept deeply despite the rocking of the ship. He understood what was being asked of him there; he knew clearly what his duties were and how to perform them. There were always tasks and concerns to be addressed, and he didn’t have so much time to be lost in troublesome thought the way he did on shore.
Perhaps he should just ship out tomorrow; surely there was some disturbance to investigate somewhere. Then the wedding could not take place, and he wouldn’t doom you to your unhappiness here, tied permanently to him. But no, that was a childish flight of fancy. His leaving would only delay things by a matter of weeks, and you would be forced to stay with the Latimers longer, unable to truly settle anywhere as you waited for him to return. And surely that would only increase your sense that he had no real interest in his own marriage, that you were simply a background character in his life who could be easily sidelined and ignored. Abandoning you to fulfill his own selfish whims would most certainly be a serious dereliction of duty. He was beginning to make himself feel ill.
As he began to put away his failed attempts at letter writing in defeat, a small collection of the shells and coral he had thought of earlier when you mentioned natural specimens caught his eye. He finished tucking everything away in its proper place before discarding his abandoned drafts and walking toward his bookshelf where the delicate objects lay. He picked them up carefully, cradling them in his hands as he conveyed them to the room that would soon be yours.
He arranged and rearranged them on the shelf near the books several times, attempting to make them look charming or artistic, but his efforts always came to something stiff and regimented. Eventually, he gave up, his total of daily failures climbing much higher than it normally did.
He looked around the room, your trunks stacked neatly in the corner, his meager offerings to you collected on the shelf. Three days. Three days that were rapidly shrinking to two as the evening grew later. Two paltry days and you would be living here, married to him. The weight of such a realization had the force of a canon blast, and he had to brace himself against the cabinet. How could he have done this? Or rather, how could he have done nothing to stop it? His own cowardice was detestable to him.
He righted himself slowly, stepping carefully from the room as though the floors of the house were tilting like the deck of a ship in a storm. James felt unsteady too as he made his way to his bedroom, as though he was at sea without a compass or map or sextant, vainly searching the clouded sky for even the twinkle of a star that might guide him onto the right course. These were uncharted waters, and he was woefully unprepared to navigate them.
The only thing he could be remotely happy with in regard to his own conduct was the fact that soon after he left the Latimers’ residence, he had made inquiries into the possibility of acquiring a pianoforte with considerable success. It would be delivered on the morrow, and thus would already be installed in the house when you moved in. His intended wedding gift for you had been pearls, but that was before he knew a thing about you, and it was such a predictable gift from a naval officer. No, the pianoforte would be far better, since it was something you had actually expressed an interest in using.
When he finally fell into his bed, James slept only fitfully, taunted by fractured fragments of dreams that he forgot once he woke to find that his room was still dark. He would roll over and fall asleep again, just to be met with more of the same, chasing snippets of dreams he couldn’t quite remember when his eyes blinked open. When he finally gave up on the endeavor entirely, his bed was an utter mess, with pillows scattered and covers tossed and twisted on themselves. It was a habit he had long hated about himself, his inability to sleep in a normal, restrained manner; his unconscious always insisted upon making a production of things. At least you wouldn’t have to see the complete disaster he often made of his own sleeping space, he thought ruefully as he tried to bring some manner of order back to his bedroom.
my heart's a sea – chapter five (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist
summary: James and his fiancée go for a walk in the gardens
warnings/tags: f!reader, fiancée!reader, set post-cotbp, historical views of marriage and gender, brief reference to canon-typical violence
words: 3594
author’s note: alright, another little convo between James and the reader character where they both want to say more than the boundaries of propriety will allow!! 🤪🤪 I love to make my characters work within rigid social structures that they need to learn how to break out of in order to form a true connection lmao. also, can we tell that I was plotting this story while taking a grad seminar on the history of scientific collections? my fascination with that subject and some of the things I learned in that course will continue to make their way into the story, but here we get just a hint! as always, I hope you enjoy! 🩵🌊
Given your apparent interest in the local flora as evidenced by your perusal of his book on native plants, when James visited you at the Latimers’ the next day, he suggested a walk in the gardens. You had readily assented, even though Mrs. Latimer had made a small fuss about you going out in the heat of the day. You merely assured her that you would have your parasol, and so, armed with the delicate accessory, you had taken James’ offered arm as you descended from the veranda into the gardens alongside him.
James tried to assess your state of mind. Certainly you had long banished the quiet melancholia that he knew you feared had displeased him, even if thinking of it still caused him pain. He thought – or perhaps wished to believe – that you were not nearly as nervous as you had been at the house the day before, although he could tell that you were not relaxed. Even if he disliked the thought of you being uneasy around him, he could at least understand why: you barely knew him and yet were marrying him in a scant three days. But now he could have the chance for a conversation alone with you – even if Mr. and Mrs. Latimer were still looking on from the veranda – so perhaps he could say something that might ease your discomfort and worry. Before he could work out what might be best to say, however, you spoke first.
“I sincerely appreciate you coming to call on me every day,” you started quietly, gaze on the gravel path in front of you. “But I would hate to be a distraction from your work.” James suddenly felt the impulse to loosen the white fabric around his neck, although he did not act on it.
“You’re not a distraction at all,” he assured you, doing everything he could to soften his usually crisp tone. What were the chances of you actually believing him? Was there something more convincing, more meaningful that he could say? “In fact, it has been a pleasure to spend time with you.” James was acutely aware that he may have gone altogether too far, but then you flicked your eyes to him as though surprised by his statement. He got the distinct feeling that you weren’t displeased by the sentiment, but rather, you had not expected it. He thought you might be trying to deduce something from his features, but he wasn’t certain how much his carefully-trained placid expression would reveal to you.
“You flatter me, Commodore,” you replied then, a small, uncertain smile beginning to play around the edges of your lips. “And you must allow me to return the sentiment.”
James sensed that you were still studying him, although he couldn’t guess at what you might be looking for. His statement had been only partially true. Most of the time he had spent with you he had been wracked with worry, which was not a particularly pleasurable experience. But he was ready to admit that he did enjoy those few fleeting moments when you seemed more at ease, when something sparkling glinted from beneath your careful façade. So he had to wonder at how honest your returning of the feeling was. Perhaps even through the evident anxiety that had gripped you for much of the time you had spent in his presence, you had still found something enjoyable to cling to. At least he hoped that was true.
Before he could engage you on another subject, feeling that it might be safer for him to steer toward something more quotidian if he wanted to avoid the dark, swirling waters of his own uncertainties, you spoke again, seeming to have the same idea.
“Do you have a favorite flower, Commodore?” you asked as the pair of you passed beneath a flowering arch. Of all the questions you could have asked, that was not one that James would have predicted. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever asked him such a thing before. It was not a subject to which he had dedicated any serious consideration, but he did so now, determined to demonstrate his investment in his conversation with you. As possible responses formed in his mind, he realized how woefully unprepared he was to answer such a question; he knew little about flowers except for those with practical purposes. Then a memory flickered to life, sun-soaked and faded with time, but James still remembered the feeling of warmth at its core. During one of the times during his childhood that his mother had been well enough to go outside, she had taken him with her to clip early summer roses from the bushes outside the house. He thought he could still recall the fragrant perfume of the delicate, nodding blossoms as his mother gently guided his hand to avoid the thorns, cut the flowers, and lay them in the basket she carried.
“Roses, perhaps,” he responded, attempting to furtively read your expression and assess your estimation of his rather lackluster reply. If he expected disappointment, that’s not what he found. Instead, you seemed to be seriously considering his answer.
“An excellent choice,” you commented, allowing even more of a genuine smile to show through on your face. James was delighted, even if he feared you were giving his rather prosaic answer far too much credit. “Lovely in both looks and scent. We had trellis where they would climb every summer.”
He noticed immediately that your tone dipped a little in your last sentence, your eyes now fixed beyond the path as though seeing into a memory much like the one James had just vacated. But rather than the warm nostalgia which tinted that rare, treasured memory with his mother, he sensed a sadness creeping into your tone. He intuited its cause immediately. You were now separated from the familiar trellis and roses and the countless beloved summers that they conjured, all against your own wishes, able to access them only in memory. And he was the cause of that separation. James swallowed. He needed to find some way to salvage this.
“Then are roses your favorite as well?” he asked quietly. He was at least somewhat successful, since your attention turned to him again, and you looked almost faintly surprised that he would return the question. Of course he would – if he was going to marry you, he certainly wanted to know everything about you that you were willing to share with him. Even if it was a reality that was fast approaching, the idea of marrying someone who was a complete stranger to him was an uncomfortable one.
“It’s hard to choose, I suppose,” you mused, seeming to carefully ponder your own response. “Each flower has its own charms. And while I do love roses, I may have to give the crown to lilies. For today at least – ask me tomorrow and my answer will certainly change.” You laughed lightly then, and James basked in the sound as a few beams of light broke through your mask.
“Not at all a bad thing,” he assured you. “It is a virtue to be able to appreciate the beauty in everything.”
“Well, one does try,” you replied with another breath of a laugh. James couldn’t help but wonder if you were trying to find the beauty in your current situation as well. He sincerely hoped that you had discovered some, though he could not imagine what it might be.
The two of you lapsed into silence for a moment as your two pairs of shoes continued to crunch across the gravel path between the manicured bushes and flowerbeds. James struggled internally with himself, trying to work out what he should say next. Once again, you spoke before he could come to any conclusion on the matter.
“I’ve been reading through some letters my mother sent while I was at sea,” you started. Perhaps it was simply his knowledge of what you had written to your father about her, but James thought he heard you forcing a false brightness into your tone that would otherwise have been flattened and joyless. “And she seemed particularly concerned about the threat of pirates. I suppose maybe it’s foolish, but back in England, they always seemed to be something of a fairy story to me. Here though… should I be as worried as my mother seems to think I should be?” James thought he detected more curiosity than concern in your voice.
As he measured his answer, an onslaught of memories threatened to overcome him – memories he usually kept carefully under lock and key. Strange greenish fog devouring Port Royal as canons ripped through the town, the days of gnawing worry for Elizabeth as he coordinated the navy’s response, and then horrors beyond his imagination. Skeletal, unkillable pirates slicing through his ships and crew, revealed to be naught but animated bones in the haunting moonlight. Gold and curses and impossible legends that turned out to be true. And then, at the end of all of it, the excruciating image of Elizabeth standing beside Turner, telling James she had chosen the man who was now more of a pirate than a blacksmith rather than him.
James’ response was swift and exacting. He quickly contained all these scattered thoughts back within the chest that held them and slammed the lid shut, clicking the key into place. These memories did not serve him, and therefore there was no need to dwell upon them now. The only physical trace that he allowed this moment of weakness to have upon his conduct was a quiet exhale of breath as the unbidden wave of memories crashed through him before he contained them again. You had asked him an entirely understandable question, and he needed to respond.
“I would judge any threat from pirates to be low at this time unless you sail upon a particularly vulnerable merchant vessel. We’ve eradicated their hideouts from many of the islands, and I’m committed to ensuring that all pirates are punished appropriately for their crimes.” James intentionally did not elaborate on that point, but he was certain you took his meaning.
“I’m glad for that, Commodore,” you replied, appearing to genuinely mean it. “Mr. Latimer has told me about the good work you’ve done on that front over the past few years.” James’ cheeks warmed slightly at your praise, though he doubted the blush was detectable on his face.
“I thank Mr. Latimer for his kind words, but I am merely performing the duty I was set by the crown.” That unearthly fog was threatening to seep out of the cracks in the chest. James tightened his jaw, forcing those memories back where they belonged. “A duty that I am proud to undertake for the sake of all His Majesty’s subjects.”
Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. He was not succeeding as well as he had hoped at coming off as affable and welcoming. Rather, he was very successfully embodying his role as a stoic and duty-bound officer of the Royal Navy. That role had its place in his life, yes – a rather large one at that – but he began to fear that he was giving you the impression that he was strict and severe, not at all the sort of man you might be even the slightest bit enthusiastic about being wed to. He swallowed a grimace, wondering if there was something he could say that would give you a different impression entirely. But he was so woefully unpracticed at this he couldn’t conceive of what that might be.
“Your duty involves substantial danger though, does it not? My mother has been writing incessantly of the brutality of pirates, evidently worried that I would encounter some during the crossing. Did you request this role or was it merely handed down to you – how do they decide who must face the greatest risk?”
James was stunned at your question. When he turned to glance at you, he found you looking back at him, sincere concern written all over your expression. His breathing faltered slightly at the softness in your eyes. He swallowed. He could, of course, have regaled you on the particulars of naval bureaucracy, but that would certainly not aid in his attempt to disabuse you of the notion that he was a stiff, unfeeling officer. He tried for something else instead.
“There are dangers,” he admitted, “but once you understand how pirates operate, their movements become predictable and the risk to ship and crew is decreased.” He resisted the urge to bite down hard; in attempting to avoid a topic that was abysmally boring, he had inadvertently strayed into one that was certainly not suitable for polite conversation. He needed to redirect. “I was placed in this role initially, but my superiors determined I had an aptitude for it, so I have continued in my position. And I do take great pride in seeing that justice is done to those who commit acts of piracy.” Possibly far too proud. Could he do nothing right? He needed to switch directions and cease talking about himself, so in a decision that he had not thought through as much as he probably should have, he asked a question of you: “And how do you… spend your days?”
So he truly could do nothing right. What a pathetic inquiry. Halfway through the question he realized that he had no real concept of what you might actually do. This realization hit him like the kickback from a musket with the knowledge that, once again, he was woefully unprepared for his own marriage – he certainly should have considered this before. But he hadn’t even thought of it. He had no point of comparison, since his mother was so often ill that she was frequently bed-bound, and he had been sent off to school early in his childhood, meaning he hadn’t spent a considerable period of time at home. Surely you didn’t just sit in the house all day doing nothing, but outside of the expectations of the duties that had governed his life since he was young, he struggled to conceive of what your days might consist of.
You turned your head toward him instantly, as though surprised by his question. He bit back a grimace as he floundered, wondering if there was a way to salvage his own maladroit inquiry. But then he lost his chance, since you were graciously answering his rather clumsy question.
“Well, it’s nothing as exciting or important as tracking down pirates,” you started with a soft laugh, a little bit of that light shining out from your eyes again and capturing his attention completely. “But I keep myself occupied with needlework, reading, improving my skills at the pianoforte, and helping my father with his collections – or, at least I did when I lived at home.”
James thought he saw you attempting to smooth away the expression of sorrow that tried to creep onto your face as you amended your last statement. The musket ball that had been fired by the kickback of his earlier unknowing had certainly ricocheted and pierced him with the way a shot of pain echoed through his body. He took in a sharp breath at the sensation. You were suffering, and once again, he was at fault. Through his own idiotic belief that his impending marriage was simply an abstract concept that would never actually come to pass, he had forcefully separated you from your family and work that – by the tone in your voice before it dipped into a sadness you couldn’t quite conceal – you appeared to enjoy.
“And your father is a collector?” He asked the question before he could entirely determine whether it was the correct thing to say. It seemed that you genuinely enjoyed aiding your father, so one half of him wondered if that would be a pleasant topic on which to engage you. But the other half feared that it might only increase your feeling of loss to discuss what you were losing for James’ sake. But for better or worse, he had inquired, and now he would simply have to navigate accordingly.
“In some manner, yes,” you replied. He was exceedingly relieved to hear enthusiasm rather than sorrow in your voice as you described your father. “He is a scholar of natural science, and to that end, he maintains many collections of specimens to aid both his own study and that of others.”
James realized he was an ill-prepared fool for not having inquired into this far earlier. In keeping the idea of you and his own marriage remote, he had simply accepted what little information his father had given him and not pressed for more. No doubt he would seem much more agreeable to you now if he could already ask informed questions about your father’s work, but instead he was inadvertently reinforcing the conceptions you seemed to hold about his lack of interest in you and his marriage. But there was nothing to be done about that now. He had already revealed that he didn’t truly know what your father did, so he would just have to make a concerted effort to demonstrate his genuine investment in learning more about you going forward.
“And you helped him maintain these collections?” A kind of affectionately exasperated smile came over your face at the question.
“My father is incredibly erudite,” you began, and James thought he heard just a tantalizing hint of genuine, honest laughter in your voice, “but his organizational skills can be… somewhat lacking.” Your lips titled up even further into a fond smile, perhaps the first unselfconscious happiness he had seen from you since that very first day and the tiny glimmer he had glimpsed in his study. “So I often assist him with organizing his materials and ensuring that the collection remains carefully catalogued.” You looked at him with that glint of good humor in your eyes that James desperately longed to see more of. “So if you have any natural specimens that need to be stored and categorized, it is well within my skillset to assist you.”
He did not possess many currently – a few shells and bits of coral, but surely nothing of great scientific interest – but he was beginning to think he should acquire some, if only because you seemed to find working with them to be fulfilling. In that moment, James felt as though he was finally seeing clear blue skies, the wind and sea calming around him as sincere enjoyment seemed to beam out of you like sunlight.
He was trying to configure his response, making a great effort to ensure that his expression betrayed his genuine interest and enthusiasm, but then something in your eyes changed. They clouded over, the smile disappearing from your face like words written in the sand being stolen by the high tide. It was as though for that fleeting moment, you had been back in your father’s study, happily helping him sort specimens, but suddenly you were dropped back into the present, walking through an unfamiliar garden with a nearly equally unfamiliar man who would be your husband in three days. Your gaze dashed away nervously, and James understood that he had not seen clearing skies, but merely a glimpse of the eye of the storm. He was almost surprised his uniform wasn’t whipping around him with the way the winds were howling through him once more.
“Forgive me, Commodore,” you said very quietly, your eyes still locked on the path ahead. “The offer was far too forward, and I meant it only in joking. I have… little real interest in my father’s work.” James was currently certain of very little, but he was quite positive that your statement was not true. He felt the waves begin to crash over him again as he fought to keep his head above water.
“There is nothing to forgive,” he assured you hurriedly, clawing desperately at the frothing foam as he tried to stay afloat. “If I had any worthy specimens, I would happily entrust them to you.” Something about his response flustered you, and he could feel the way your hand fluttered anxiously against his arm, a sensation that he felt acutely as the knowledge of your distress filled his mouth with salty water.
“I fear that without my father’s direction, I wouldn’t know what to do with them,” you replied, your voice just a breath. “It was merely something with which I assisted my father when he asked it of me; it is not subject in which I have individual expertise or interest. I’m very content with my needlework and tending to household concerns.”
You offered him a smile that would possibly have been convincing had he not seen your more natural one just moments before. The difference was stark, and he could tell the expression was tight and strained on your face. Your last sentence was almost felt as though it had been read from a script, though he could not tell from where you had gotten the words – but they certainly were not your own.
“Perhaps we should return to the veranda,” you suggested quietly, all the laugher long vanished from your voice. “It’s getting quite warm."
The sun may have been beating down on the thick coat of his uniform, but all James felt was the cold creep of sea water as it soaked his clothes and seeped through him, weighing him down and threatening to drag him under.
my heart's a sea – chapter four (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist
summary: James gives his fiancée a tour of his home in preparation for her moving in after the wedding
warnings/tags: f!reader, fiancée!reader, set post-cotbp, historical views of marriage and gender, brief sexual reference
words: 5175
author’s note: I will readily admit here that most of what I know about lady's maids and British customs for household staff comes from Downton Abbey, which is set nearly a full two centuries after this story 😅 however, the pirates films do take a number of liberties with historical accuracy, so I hope any inaccuracies on my part can be forgiven (this is what happens when your area of primary research is the mid-late 19th century and you try to write a fic set in the early 18th lmao 😭😭). anyway, we have some peeks at the reader character's background and interests in this one, which will be explored more in coming chapters! as always, I hope you enjoy! 🩵🌊
the sexual reference is brief and not explicit, but just to be safe, I'm marking this one 18+ – minors please do not interact
James needed to do something. That was one of his first coherent thoughts upon waking. In the navy, there were protocols and procedures, a chain of command and an established code of rules. Without that rigid scaffolding, he found himself floundering. What he needed was a plan.
As he did with any challenge he faced, he assessed the problems to be addressed. He understood that much of what you had expressed in your letter was beyond his ability to solve, so he turned his attention to that which was in his control. He had intended to spend the afternoon with you at the Latimers’ residence, but it occurred to him that perhaps seeing your future home in advance of moving in would help to ease your sense of unfamiliarity and dislocation. He felt foolish for not thinking of it before – he couldn’t even imagine the terror of moving into an unfamiliar house that you were expected to consider your home on your wedding night. An advance tour was certainly in order. That would serve as the first step in the plan while he continued to work out the rest. He jotted off a quick note to Mr. Latimer to inform him of the change in plans before readying himself for his duties.
As the sun dipped toward afternoon, filling the carriage with a clinging heat, James sat rigidly across from you and Mrs. Latimer. Of course it would have been highly improper for you to accompany him to the house unchaperoned, but he longed for a moment alone with you to see if he might be able to coax you into gifting him some of the honesty he thought you might have been about to share with him the night before.
Mrs. Latimer had many things to say on all manner of subjects, almost none of which James was fully listening to as he observed you attentively. You were active and engaged in the conversation – even on the inanest of topics – but he could detect a distinct undercurrent of nervousness that never ceased flowing through your words and gestures. Although your quiet melancholia of the previous night appeared to be gone – or, more likely simply repressed, James thought as he barely contained a frown at the idea – the fluttering anxiety that replaced it did not ease his worry.
As he watched you dart nervous glances in his direction as you continued to converse, he so vividly recalled your words from the night before: I’m sure you’ll find me a much more enjoyable companion tomorrow. He knew intuitively that you were attempting to make good on that promise, to atone for whatever displeasure you feared you had caused him, to assure him that you could make yourself enjoyable and entertaining if that’s what would please him. Two tides were meeting within him, swirling until the dizzying motion of it was nearly making him sick. One was an acute sense of sorrow at the idea that you felt that your primary duty was being pleasing to him. And the second was his deep frustration at himself for not being able to express to you how much that was not the case.
As Mrs. Latimer chattered on, James realized he had barely been able to pose a question to you in the whole time he had spent in your presence. When he had been alone with you that first day, things had seemed to almost go… well – considering the circumstances, of course. Perhaps if he could interact with you more, he might be able to ease your anxiety to some degree and convey that he did not intend to demand anything from you that you were unwilling or unable to offer. When Mrs. Latimer finally paused for a moment, he took his chance.
“Were you able to take some air in the gardens this morning before the heat set in?” In many respects, the question was a bland one – merely an expected nicety. But with Mrs. Latimer looking on so closely, he needed to carefully balance propriety with honesty. Your hands twisted slightly in your lap, and James got the sense that had you not caught it in time, your face would have folded into a small frown.
“I was not,” you responded, and he thought he heard a little bit of the energy you had been attempting to infuse into your speech drain from your voice. “I received a packet of letters from my mother that she sent whilst I was at sea, and which are only beginning to arrive in Port Royal now. So I spent the morning catching up on my correspondence, since I was most eager to hear from her.” Your tone had flattened completely by the time your explanation had concluded. By that alone, James understood that you were far from eager to hear from your mother, but coupled with the words you had written to your father in reference to her, the faint idea began to prick to life in the back of his mind that perhaps your perception of your duties towards him was not entirely of your own creation.
Any further hopes he had of engaging you on other subjects were dashed when Mrs. Latimer began speaking again and your attention was diverted back to her. The fleeting glances you cast at him throughout the conversation sliced through him like the shards of wood sent flying by a cannonball through a hull. Each one seemed to ask a question: am I doing well? Am I being enthusiastic enough? Does he find me to be an enjoyable companion? Have I displeased him? Should I be doing more?
Just when he feared he would no longer be able to suffer the tiny wounds your anxious distress was scattering across his body, the carriage came to a stop. He helped you and Mrs. Latimer to the ground. Mrs. Baird and Anna, his household staff, were waiting outside, and both women curtsied as he introduced them. You ducked your head to each of them in turn, your smile slightly nervous, as though you weren’t certain if you were conducting yourself correctly. James wished to reassure you, but wasn’t sure how to do so in the presence of others.
“You have a lovely home, Commodore,” you commented quietly as the three of you approached the door. James hated that he couldn’t tell whether you were merely making him an expected yet hollow compliment, or if you truly found it to be lovely. As much as he hoped it was the latter, he wasn’t certain.
“Thank you,” he responded. “I hope you’ll find it to your liking.” And he truly did. If you were going to be trapped there with him, he at least wanted to provide you with a home that you found livable, and dare he hope even agreeable. You dipped your head in acknowledgement as you stepped through the door and offered him a small smile in which he saw just the faintest trace of something more genuine. How desperately he longed to see more.
He followed you and Mrs. Latimer inside, attempting to appraise his abode as though it was not simply the backdrop to his life. Compared to others, his furnishings were… spare. Not unfashionable or of poor quality, just practical. He often felt that he spent more time at the fort or at sea than he did at home, so he had never felt the need to fill his living space with excessive items that were of little use to him.
As he began walking through his rooms and providing something of an informal tour, he attempted to see things from your perspective. As had happened that first day in the carriage, he quickly realized that such an experiment was having detrimental effects on his ability to remain steady. As he perused his home as though he were you, he noticed that his breathing became rather shallow. There was very little that suggested warmth or comfort; the words that first sprang to his mind were ‘functional’ and ‘sparse.’
His ever-increasing worry was not helped by the fact that you never touched anything. You didn’t rest your hand on the back of a chair or run your fingers over a curtain – you barely so much as ghosted your palm across the banister as you ascended the stairs. Your hands remained clasped carefully in front of you as you passed down the middle of hallways and lingered at the edges of rooms, not even allowing your skirts to brush against the furnishings. It was almost as though you felt you weren’t allowed – an idea that was absurd to him considering you would be living there in a matter of days. He tried to disabuse you of this notion, putting things within your reach or holding objects out for your inspection, hoping you might take them. You never did. James could not figure out why. All he knew was that his nausea had intensified to the point of becoming quite acute and there was a slightly strangled sensation in his chest.
He tried not to linger on the topic of the bedrooms on the second floor, both for his sake and yours. Even as it caused an embarrassed blush to rise faintly into his cheeks – a response he was usually able to avoid – he intuited what at least some of the fears that you felt were improper to express to your father were. He was immensely glad that he had already worked out an alternative, although he understood that expressing such an unusual arrangement would be impossible in front of Mrs. Latimer. Regardless of the unavoidable reality of the situation, he ardently wished he could convey to you that he had no intentions of asking that of you, since he could hardly miss the way you cast your eyes to the floor and a little breath caught in your throat as you passed his bedroom with quicker steps than you had the other rooms. He knew the fear of it was torturing you, and likely would until he was finally alone with you after the wedding and could show you to your own room upon which he would not intrude. That thought was almost enough to make him say something to that effect in the moment, but he could not quite force his lips to form the words – it would have been far beyond improper given the current circumstances.
Instead, he concluded the circulation of the house in his small study. Something in your countenance shifted as soon as you entered the room, and before he could even fully ascertain the cause of such a change, James felt a weight lift away from his shoulders. For the first time since entering the house, you reached for something – the volumes on his bookshelf. The extension of your arm was hesitant, but the sight of it allowed him to take the first full breath he had in a considerable period.
“Do you have any books on natural history?” you asked. The genuine enthusiasm in your voice was enough to have James close to stumbling over himself to assure you that he did. Your excitement felt like a tangible presence in the room, a nearing ship viewed by a marooned sailor. His relief was palpable in his chest.
But before the words could march happily from his mouth, you retracted your hand suddenly as though it had been slapped, a pall falling over your features, the ship fading back toward the hazy line of the horizon. The sensation James experienced could not have been too dissimilar to that of being cut with a saber.
“Forgive me for the inquiry, Commodore – it was too forward. My father has an interest in the subject. That is why I asked.” Your tone had utterly flattened again as your hand returned to be caged with its pair in front of you.
James refused to allow you to fall back into a state of nervous hesitation when he had been so close to grasping at your sincere spark of interest. He was determined to seize upon that brief flicker of excitement.
“Please, no need to apologize,” he started, already stepping toward the bookcase. “I have a few volumes on the subject.” He let his hand trail over the spines, pulling out a small pile – mostly compendiums on the local flora and fauna.
He turned to you then, offering you the books, needing you to take them. Your eyes were wide as you met his gaze, and he could see the longing in them, but your hands remained trapped in front of you. James’ throat was feeling very tight indeed. Why wouldn’t you take them?
“That is very generous, Commodore, but I would hate to damage them,” you said quietly, eyes dashing away to the floor. He thought he saw you swallow, your hands trembling slightly as though it took physical effort to resist taking the offered volumes. Your words made very little sense to him – how would you possibly damage them? You had treated the whole house as though it were made of glass; he seriously doubted you would somehow release a destructive force upon the books.
“They’ve survived a number of voyages with me,” he assured you. “I’m certain they’ll be perfectly safe in your hands.” His desperation to have you take them – for you to have something that you made you feel even the smallest bit more comfortable or excited – was mounting by the second.
“They’re likely in Latin, which I… don’t read.” James could almost feel you fighting with yourself. He was absolutely determined that that little spark of excitement would win out over whatever fears were gripping you.
“They have illustrations,” he pressed gently, “which are quite compelling on their own.” He extended the books slightly further toward you. He didn’t want to force you, but he could tell you wanted to take them. He just couldn’t work out why you wouldn’t allow yourself to do so.
If there was even a single object in the house that made you feel more relaxed, more at home, then he wanted you to have it. As his own critical inspection of his living situation had revealed, he felt he had little else to offer you in the way of familiarity or comfort. He desperately needed you to take the books.
Your eyes flicked back to his, and he saw a thousand tangled thoughts weaving within them that he couldn’t even hope to parse. Then you looked at the books. With the tiniest nod that may have been more for yourself than for him, you reached out tentatively, and James eased the volumes into your hands, the breath of relief that rushed from his lungs almost enough to cause him to collapse forward slightly. He didn’t though – trained as he was to always maintain his composure – and instead strode quickly to his desk to pull out the chair for you and offer you a seat.
You hesitated for a moment before picking your careful way across the floorboards and sinking lightly onto just the edge of the chair with a softly murmured ‘thank you.’ James lingered to see if you really would peruse the books. Even though you lifted the cover as carefully as if you were handling a centuries-old manuscript rather than a somewhat battered practical guide to identifying local flora, you did open the book and begin paging through it. James allowed himself another small exhale of relief.
“Commodore?” Mrs. Latimer’s voice caught his attention from where she was standing near the door. “While your fiancée is thus occupied, might I have a word?” He nodded in agreement, following her out into the hall. He cast one more glance at you, but couldn’t determine if the interest you were showing in the pages in front of you was simply politeness or genuine excitement. How he hoped it was the latter.
“How may I be of service, Mrs. Latimer?” he asked as he joined her in the corridor.
“I’m not certain how much knowledge you possess on this front, Commodore, but as your bride’s only present female guardian, I feel it is my duty to inform you that the issue of her absent maid is a pressing one.” James concealed the surprise from his face. He had had no real inclination of the subject on which Mrs. Latimer might wish to engage him, but he certainly did not expect this one.
“The level of attention paid to her hair and dressing that her station – and yours – require are not easily achievable on one’s own,” Mrs. Latimer continued. “My maid has been assisting her for the time being, but of course that situation will soon be at its end. If at all possible, it would be ideal if you were able to engage someone for that purpose before the wedding, although I understand that there is little time between then and now.”
Certainly it was not a topic to which James had given much consideration. His own needs in terms of his household were minimal – just some cleaning and cooking. His live-in staff consisted only of Mrs. Baird who served as cook and housekeeper, and Anna who performed any other necessary duties. He needed to be able to dress himself for the time he spent at sea without access to any personal staff, so he had never seen the need for a permanent valet. However, he could easily admit even from his own limited knowledge that the preparation of your hair and garments must be significantly more complex than his. And of course he was entirely set in his intention to make you feel comfortable in your new home, so he considered Mrs. Latimer’s words very seriously.
“I will speak with my staff to see if they are up to the task or if they know of anyone who might be qualified for employment in such a role,” James responded. In truth, he had little sense of how he would determine qualifications on that front, but perhaps Mrs. Baird and Anna knew more of such matters than he.
“Thank you for your attention to this matter, Commodore.” Mrs. Latimer ducked her head in gratitude as she began to move back into the study.
“Of course,” James said softly. As he followed her through the doorway, he considered the question of whether he should have known something on this subject. He was confronted once more with his foolish and unusual sense unpreparedness for his own marriage. In the time when he had thought of his impending nuptials as a theoretical concept that might never truly come to pass, should he have been engaged in some more serious form of preparation? Certainly he likely should have been, but even then he would not have known where to start. Many of his fellow officers appeared as disinterested in their wives as his father had been in his mother, so they hardly seemed like reliable sources on the topic. He couldn’t imagine there was a guidebook for husbands-to-be on everything they might need to know about marriage and their future wives, although the existence of such a manual would have been of the utmost comfort to him. James disliked the idea that his own lack of preparedness might make things even more difficult for you when it was painfully clear to him that you were already being forced to suffer nearly all the unpleasantness of the situation while he had the privilege to pick at small concerns that would hardly upset the entire balance of his life the way yours had been fundamentally altered.
He was still engaged in these considerations as he stepped back into the room and found you poring over the book on the table, the sight halting his thoughts in their tracks. For perhaps the first time since he had met you, you seemed truly relaxed, fully and enthusiastically engaged. A little rush a warmth bubbled through him. Before he could interrogate the unexpected sensation further, you suddenly noticed that he and Mrs. Latimer had reentered, and you rose quickly, whatever ease had settled into your body being quickly replaced by that same anxiousness as before.
“Thank you for allowing me to peruse your books, Commodore,” you said. James thought there was genuine gratitude in the careful politeness of your words. “You were quite correct – the illustrated plates are indeed very engaging.”
“It was my pleasure,” he returned. “You may take them with you if you like.”
“That is incredibly generous of you,” you replied, “but I’ll leave them with you.” You paused for a moment, as though weighing your words in your mind. “And I suppose I may be able to view them again in a matter of days.” You offered him a small smile then, and James was desperately attempting to decode from the expression whether that idea was pleasing to you. The only thing his efforts returned was a sort of haunting, shapeless fear lingering behind your features. Despite the way the slicing sensation returned in response to this knowledge, he could hardly blame you – he was certain his feelings would be precisely the same if he was in your position.
“Certainly,” he responded, trying to make his tone as comforting as he could manage. “You may view them whenever you like.” So long as you allowed him to remove his necessary papers first, he would hardly have cared if you chose to ensconce yourself permanently in his study if that was the room in the house where you felt most at ease. However, there was no way he could have conveyed such a sentiment to you with Mrs. Latimer still looking on.
“Mr. Latimer will be expecting us for dinner soon, my dear,” Mrs. Latimer said then, beckoning you to her. “Let’s leave the Commodore to his duties, shall we?” James realized that she viewed herself in some respects as your guardian, but he still chafed at the way she spoke to you almost as though you were a child when you were a grown woman on the eve of your wedding. Regardless of her tone, you murmured an expression of assent and floated across the floor toward her.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” James offered, striding through the room to join you and Mrs. Latimer in the hallway.
He did not miss the way you cast a tiny furtive glance at his bedroom as the three of you passed it again. Once more, his words of reassurance were stuck in his throat, stifled by Mrs. Latimer’s continued presence. However, he thought he sensed that you were just a little bit more at ease in the house as you moved back through it, your hand resting more solidly on the banister as you descended the stairs, your steps less tentative as you passed through the corridors. The change was minute though, and James sincerely hoped that he wasn’t simply imagining it.
You offered him what seemed like a genuine, if still slightly hesitant, smile as he bid you farewell and helped you into the carriage. He stood outside for a long moment, watching the carriage depart and attempting to analyze everything that had transpired over the course of the afternoon. Two things were abundantly clear to him. The first was that you were troubled with a deep anxiety about your impending marriage to him. But the second was that he knew of at least one thing that brought you some measure of comfort, even if he never would have expected that it would be his natural history books. He was suddenly struck with the thought that perhaps he should place them in your room so that you wouldn’t feel as though you needed to ask his permission to view them again.
He ascended to his study to collect the books. The one you had been perusing was still open as you had left it. Much to James’ intrigue and slight confusion, the page had no illustrations on it. Instead, it was filled with Latin text describing some of the native plants found to have medicinal properties. Perhaps his and Mrs. Latimer’s reentry had startled you as you flipped between the plates, causing you to stop on that page. Satisfied with that explanation, he gently closed the book and stacked it with the others, plus a few more from the shelves that he had missed the first time in his haste to offer them to you.
He carried them to the guest bedroom – soon to be your bedroom, he reminded himself – and arranged them neatly on a shelf. He glanced around the room, trying to acclimate himself to the fact that in a matter of days, you would be living there. The thought caused a confused tide of emotions to well up within him, but he struggled to distinguish everything he was feeling. All he knew was that the unexpected rush of emotion made him feel like a new sailor who had not yet found his sea legs.
He tried to clear his head and steady himself. It wouldn’t do to be overcome. He needed something to focus on through the amorphous fog of feelings that floated through him, a point on the horizon for which he could aim. Then Mrs. Latimer’s words returned to him, and he snapped himself back to attention, glad for an achievable task he could complete.
Descending into the kitchen area, he found Anna helping Mrs. Baird prepare for dinner. They both looked up at his approach.
“Commodore,” Mrs. Baird greeted him, wiping her hands on her apron. “How did your fiancée find the house?”
Of course it was reasonable that she should ask. He knew they were curious about you, especially given how long he had spent on his own despite the fact that most men of his age and rank were already married. It was a perfectly polite and expected question – James could acknowledge that. But with Mrs. Baird and Anna both looking expectantly at him, he suddenly felt nervous, although he knew his countenance did not betray it. How had you found the house? He simply wasn’t sure.
“I certainly hope she found it to her liking,” he responded, hoping the light professional clip of his words buried the terrifying honesty within them. “And I must commend you on the upkeep of everything – as usual, the rooms were perfectly spotless.” Both women ducked into little curtsies of thanks at his praise.
“Is there anything we can aid you with, Commodore?” Mrs. Baird asked, correctly identifying that he was there for a specific purpose. His palms were damp where his hands were clasped together behind his back. He was grateful for a task on which he could focus, but he understood that he was woefully unqualified to discuss this subject. He cleared his throat, trying to work as much certainty into his voice as possible.
“Do either of you have any familiarity with ladies’ hair or dressing?” He was not certain if those were even the correct terms. He grimaced internally as he watched the women glance quickly at each other. He could not decipher what that private look conveyed.
“I have some, sir,” Anna responded, “although I’m no lady’s maid.” Lady’s maid – is that what you needed? Was that the proper term? Even though she claimed she wasn’t one, the fact that Anna might have even a little experience was enough for relief to flood through his body.
“Would you be willing to help my fiancée?” James tried not to make the words too desperate. “I’m told that her maid has left her to return to England, and thus she is without aid at the present moment. I would happily increase your wages to compensate.”
Anna looked nervous then, darting another glance at Mrs. Baird who seemed to nod reassuringly. James was acutely aware of the fact that he was utterly unqualified to attempt to engage anyone else, as he had no idea what skills he might be looking for or how to assess someone’s proficiency in them. Perhaps once you were more settled you might wish to undertake the task of engaging someone yourself, but he wanted to at least ease your transition by having something in place for you in the meantime.
“I—I could certainly try, sir,” Anna hedged. “Although I’m not certain my skills are fully up to the task.”
“I would be most obliged,” James rushed to assure her, the flood of relief within him rising and spreading like a high tide. “And it may only be a few weeks. You need not continue indefinitely if things become too difficult.”
“I will certainly do my best, sir,” Anna replied, and Mrs. Baird made a gesture of agreement.
“Thank you both,” James said as he turned to leave, trying to work his genuine gratitude into his voice. That was one further step in the plan worked out, one more attempt made to assure your comfort.
Later that evening as he sat in his study, working through some reports he needed to catch up on, there was just the briefest moment where he thought he could smell the light, floral scent that you had left behind in the carriage that first day. You had only been in the room for a short time, so it seemed unlikely that the aroma would linger, even faintly. But even if it was only his imagination, it nevertheless caused that confused tangle of emotions to rise within him again. His mind, weary from working late, was not as resolute as it usually was, and he allowed himself to slip into considerations that he usually avoided. What would it be like when the scent of you was a familiar one as it floated through the house? He had lived alone for so long that the idea of the irrefutable presence of another person – of you – was a foreign one. It wasn’t necessarily unwanted though, he realized as he looked out the window at the gathering darkness, the stars beginning to blink to life overhead. The thought was maybe even vaguely… comforting, welcoming.
He permitted himself to replay his few memories of you where he could see that enchanting spark in your eyes – he intentionally avoided the others, knowing he was likely too tired to resist slipping back into that sickening whirlpool should he linger on them for too long. Instead, he thought of your lighthearted conversation on the carriage that first day, of you poring over the book, a keen sense of enthusiasm in your features. He wondered what it might take to coax that excitement from you once more. Allowing himself to imagine the future for just a moment before conceiving of such a thought became overwhelming, he envisioned a potential scenario in which you might actually be… happy. Looking out at the night-darkened sea as it rolled gently under the star-speckled sky, James resolved to do whatever was in his power to bring that imagined future into being.
my heart's a sea – chapter three (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist
summary: James has dinner with his fiancée and the Latimers
warnings/tags: f!reader, fiancée!reader, set post-cotbp, discussions of objectification, historical views of marriage and gender, mentions of eating, reading of personal correspondence without the subject's knowledge, brief sexual reference
words: 4043
author’s note: we love a classic letter reading scene! such a staple of classic lit and also apparently this fic now lmao. I don't have a ton of commentary here except that if you know the writing I've done for Hux, you know I like my men so constrained by their sense of duty and propriety that they struggle to convey their true feelings 🤪 this is something James will struggle with throughout the story, but it will be especially hard because the reader character is also constrained by the same social expectations and sense of propriety, so eventually they have to figure out how to genuinely reach out to each other. the slow burn is slow burning 🫡
the sexual reference is brief and not explicit, but just to be safe, I'm marking this one 18+ – minors please do not interact
James allowed himself to wonder at your state of mind when you had awoken for the first time on an unfamiliar island, another day closer to wedding him. For the sake of his own ability to function normally, he had to hope that you had woken refreshed and rested, perhaps even finding the cool, flower-scented morning air peaceful. So that was what he allowed himself to believe as he made ready for his duties, even though the most painfully honest part of his mind was not convinced of the truth of that scenario.
Most of the day was a blur of his usual activities. James recognized the error of having allowed himself to tumble headlong into his own whirlpool of spiraling thoughts the day before, so he made a concerted effort to exercise more discipline over his mind and strictly contain such thoughts. These attempts, which started relatively successfully, faltered considerably as dinner neared.
He found himself in his carriage again, looking out the window at the slowly gathering darkness as he seriously considered turning around. He knew it was cowardly and made him no better than the pirates who slinked in the hidden shadows of the islands, but he wasn’t sure that he could bear to face the indisputable proof of your suffering again without risk of coming completely undone. Perhaps he would write to his father to finally dissent to the marriage. But no, that was merely a desperate flight of fancy; his time for doing any such thing had long passed. He would simply have to summon all his courage and forbearance as he was met with the devastating consequences of his own inaction.
He was greeted at the door and shown into the elegant dining room where Mr. and Mrs. Latimer were not yet seated, still engaged in conversation. James’ eyes flicked around the room, but he didn’t see you. He wasn’t certain whether or not that should be cause for alarm. Before he was able to consider the matter further, Mr. Latimer caught him in an enthusiastic handshake.
“You’re a lucky man, Commodore,” he informed James, “your bride is a charming girl, simply a charming girl.” Mrs. Latimer nodded in sincere agreement. Despite the kind sentiment of the words, the idea that the Latimers might already know you better than he did was causing a strange feeling to swirl to life in his stomach. What had they asked you? What had they learned about you? James’ strict control of his thoughts was slipping as the rash idea sprang into his head that maybe the wedding could have been conducted immediately, so he wouldn’t have had to leave you in the care of someone else and live with the knowledge of his own unknowing. But no, he tamped that thought down at once. You needed time to adjust to everything, and a week was hardly long enough. Anyway, as he banished the idea and began to think rationally rather than reactively, he understood that an immediate ceremony would likely have had the opposite of the desired effect, no doubt leaving you in shock and making you even less likely to reveal any part of yourself to him. He needed to refocus. He didn’t even know where you were.
“And she is…?” he inquired, letting his gaze make another more obvious pass of the room to underline the meaning of his question.
“Just finishing dressing, Commodore,” Mrs. Latimer assured him. “As you may know, there was some trouble with her maid, so she’s had to make do with one of ours.”
As though on cue, the door to the dining room swung open and you stepped through, dressed in a gown of shimmering green silk. James felt a faint warmth rise into his face as he allowed himself to acknowledge that you looked lovely. You ducked into a small curtsy almost immediately, but when you rose again and met his gaze, the breath that was leaving his throat almost choked him. Something was wrong. It was small, almost imperceptible, and the Latimers didn’t seem to notice as they encouraged you to take a seat at the table before doing the same. But James noticed. He couldn’t even describe it; perhaps it was something he felt rather than something he could see. But you seemed… tired, almost unwell. It was making him feel quite unwell himself.
He was barely cognizant of the food and wine he was being served as he watched you pick at everything you were given but eat almost nothing. Your conversation was congenial and polite, but quiet. He spent the whole evening practically perched on the edge of his chair, frantically searching for even the faintest glimmer of the light he had seen sparking out from your eyes during those fleeting moments the day before, but it never appeared. Either you were carefully smothering it, or some exterior force had dulled it. Both possibilities made him feel equally sickened.
By the time the torturous dinner had finally concluded and the four of you had retreated to the seating area on the veranda, James’ internal panic was once again nearing a maelstrom. He had to discover what was wrong or risk being eaten alive by the gaping, watery maw of his own fears. In a dip in the conversation, he declared his attention to take some evening air nearer to the balustrade, and rose, asking if you would like to join him. He desperately needed you to say yes – this was the only plan he could construct that was well within the bounds of propriety that would let him have a moment alone with you to try to untangle the question of your apparent distress.
Much to his relief, you assented and took his offered arm as you rose from your own seat. James couldn’t help but notice that your steps were slower than they had been on the docks as you glided along beside him toward the carved stone railing that overlooked the garden beyond. As you reached it, you released your light hold on his arm, resting your hands on the stone as you gazed out into the velvety darkness of early night. Now out of earshot of the Latimers who were still conversing quietly behind him, James clasped his hands behind his back, hoping the sensation of being at attention would make him braver.
“Are—are you quite well?” he asked softly. You turned to look at him instantly, a little flicker of fear scampering across your face before you brought your expression under control again. It was evident to James that the answer was no.
“Yes, of course, Commodore,” you responded, perhaps just the slightest tremor of nervousness in your voice. “Yes, I am quite well,” you repeated, almost as though to prove it to yourself and to him. “Why do you ask?”
This had been foolish, he realized then. If you would not disclose your evident suffering to the Latimers, why would you ever admit it to him? He recognized that you had few reasons to be honest with him in this matter, even as he wished to beg you to tell him what was wrong.
“You seemed quiet at dinner was all,” he responded, hoping that wasn’t too presumptuous. “And I wanted to ensure you felt perfectly well.”
Some part of his answer was clearly not the correct one, because a look of panic overtook your features for a moment that caused a shooting pain to go slicing through him.
“You must allow me to apologize, Commodore,” you replied hurriedly, “I assure you my conversation is usually far more energetic, it’s just that— well, I’m still quite tired from the journey. But I’m sure you’ll find me a much more enjoyable companion tomorrow once I’ve had another night of rest.”
Your words tumbled from your mouth in a nervous rush, and you offered him a smile that he was certain was your best attempt at genuine enthusiasm in your current state, although he could tell it was strained. James was once again overcome by the overwhelming feeling of cold sea water filling his mouth and stomach as he plunged into the deep. He understood almost immediately that you had read displeasure at you into his reply, that you took his words to mean he had found you and your conduct to be a disappointment somehow. And now he could hear your desperation as you forced yourself into false brightness while you feverishly tried to reassure him that you would make certain you were a more enjoyable companion in the future. James felt the saltwater heave in his stomach. That was not at all what he was intending to convey. He was utterly ruining this.
“Please,” he entreated, “I did not mean to imply that your company was not enjoyable this evening.” He averted his eyes and huffed a small breath as he worked to assemble the words that would best convey his meaning. “I simply wished to ensure that you were… well.” He fought to keep the grimace from his face at his pathetic phrasing.
When he turned to you again, you appeared to be deeply considering his words, your expression not quite masked, but no less illegible to him. Then your mouth fell open a little, like you were about to say something, and James leaned slightly closer, breath trapped in his teeth as it seemed that you might be about to truly tell him what was troubling you. But then he could almost physically see you think better of it as your lips flattened into a faint smile. He subtly grasped the balustrade for support to slow the feeling of rapid descent that suddenly came over him at his own inability to provide you any manner of true comfort.
“You are very kind, Commodore,” you responded with a little duck of your head, “but I assure you I am quite well and merely tired.” James was painfully aware that your answer was only part of the truth, and equally as painfully aware that you felt compelled to present yourself to him as the perfect, unfeeling doll that everyone else wished you to be and treated you as.
“In fact, if it’s not displeasing to you, I might retire to my room presently,” you continued. It took James a long, confused moment to realize that you were asking his permission. The roiling tide in his stomach began to rise into his throat.
“Of course, of course,” he murmured quickly. “I sincerely hope you’re able to get some well-deserved rest,” he added, hoping you could hear his sincerity. Just the beginnings of a suggestion of a true smile lingered around the edges of your lips before you dipped into a small curtsy and crossed the veranda back to the Latimers, no doubt to announce your intention to retire for the evening.
James remained where he was, both hands resting on the balustrade, the coolness of the stone helping him to ground himself as the wild winds within him sent everything spiraling out of control. He wasn’t certain he could do this. How was it that he could face down pirates and canons with barely a trace of fear, yet in the face of his own wedding, he quailed?
There were many answers to that question, not the least of which was that he had borne witness his own parents’ marriage – arranged by very similar means – and had always sworn that he would never condemn himself, much less anyone else, to that particular form of torture. He had grown up in frosty rooms where the two hardly spoke to each other except when necessary in curt, clipped sentences. That is, when his mother had been well enough to leave her bed. He wasn’t certain he had ever seen his father go to visit her of his own volition when she was ill. He exhaled a long breath into the warm night air, trying to clear the memories from his mind. He was determined to do better.
By the time he was bidding his farewells to Mr. and Mrs. Latimer, you had already retreated to your room. He briefly considered asking them if they noticed anything odd in your countenance, but their rather carefree attitudes already told him they had not. Inquiring would certainly only create more complications for you, since they would likely ask you questions about it in the morning. Instead, he merely thanked them for the dinner and confirmed the time of his arrival the following day before striding back through the quiet, darkened house.
Just as he was nearing the door to leave, a figure stepped from the shadows gathered under the stairs. Had he been a flightier man, James might have startled, but his practice at remaining composed allowed him to not so much as flinch despite the surprise he felt internally. As the shape clarified itself, he realized it was that of a woman – someone he knew. He didn’t know her well, but her sons worked as carpenters on some of the navy’s ships, and she had been employed by a fellow officer as a maid before he had been stationed elsewhere. No doubt she worked for the Latimers now. He searched his memories for her name.
“Mrs. O’Conner.” He inclined his head toward her slightly as she fell into a low curtsy.
“Commodore,” she returned, her eyes wide and nervous in the flickering candlelight. James was about to continue towards the door, assuming the interaction was complete, when she spoke again.
“Commodore, I should hate to act impertinently, but you’ve always been so gracious to my boys, and I thought you should know that your fiancée is not… well, she’s not…” Her words trailed off uncertainly, but she had captured James’ complete attention. He turned instantly. So he hadn’t been the only one who had noticed.
“Mrs. O’Conner, please do continue,” he urged, trying to keep the desperation from his voice. “Is she unwell?” She had cast her eyes to the floor, her hands worrying at her apron. James suddenly felt as though the pristine white fabric wrapped around his neck was far too tight.
“She was crying all night, sir,” she admitted in a whisper. “I don’t think anyone else knows, but I was passing her room late and heard. I stayed up a few hours, waiting to see if she would come down to ask for something, if she was feeling ill. But she never left her room. She just kept crying.”
James instantly longed for the support of the balustrade. The terrible image Mrs. O’Conner’s words were generating was truly making it very difficult for him to remain upright on his feet. He felt as though he had been swept of the side of the Dauntless by a wave so massive he couldn’t see the top of it. It was folding over him, crushing the air from his lungs and wrapping him in a cold, dark sheet. He struggled mightily to make a question leave his mouth in a somewhat coherent manner.
“Did she tell you…” He needed to stop midway to clear his throat and steady his shaking words. “Did she tell you what was troubling her?” Despite the question having issued from his own lips, James wasn’t certain he was prepared for the answer. There was a not insignificant chance that the reason for your distress was, to one degree or another, him. Both to his consternation and relief, Mrs. O’Connor shook her head.
“No, sir. When I came to open the curtains in her room this morning, she said nothing of it. I’m certain she doesn’t know I heard.” James wished he had not acquired this new information. He had already known you were in pain of some sort, and this knowledge only had the devastating but unhelpful effect of revealing to him to depths of your sorrow without exposing its cause. But Mrs. O’Connor wasn’t done.
“But…” she started hesitantly, and James’ focus was fixed upon her once more. Her hands had dipped into the pocket of her apron. Then she stopped midway through the action, clearly reconsidering. He was ready to beg if he had to – if she had more information, he needed to know it.
“If you know more on this subject, I implore you to tell me,” he pressed, quite certain he had not fully succeeded in repressing his desperation this time. But perhaps the knowledge of his sincere concern for you as revealed by the slight quaver in his voice was the impetus Mrs. O’Conner needed.
“I promise I don’t make a habit of it, sir,” she started, finally withdrawing her hands from her pocket to reveal a folded letter. “I would never do such an improper thing, but she asked me to post this letter and – given the circumstances… I just glanced to see if perhaps she really was ill and didn’t want to put Mr. and Mrs. Latimer to any trouble. I wanted to know if I could do something to help, sir. That’s the only reason I looked.” Between Mrs. O’Conner’s apologetic words and the paper in her hand, James quickly understood that she meant she had read your letter. Had things been different, he would have been angry at this intrusion into your privacy, but he could hardly blame her when his first instinct matched hers perfectly. He held out his hand for the letter, grateful it didn’t shake.
“Under the circumstances, I think such an action may be forgiven,” he assured her. “I appreciate your attentiveness in this delicate matter,” he added.
Mrs. O’Conner hesitated just a moment longer before easing the folded paper into James’ waiting hand. He unfolded the letter. It was certainly not what he should do – he was well aware of that fact. He hated the idea of intruding on your correspondence, of somehow taking even more from you, but not knowing the cause of your suffering was far worse. Perhaps if he knew, he could do something. At least that was how he justified the action to himself as he began to scan the letter.
Your elegant handwriting raced across the page, and you had evidently written the letter in two sittings. The first section was neat and crisp, but much shorter. The remainder of the paper was filled with text that was much more scrawling, smudges of ink here and there creating dark shadows on the page. Even the paper felt different, and as he held the crinkling sheet in his hand, he realized that it had been soaked with water before drying again. He attempted to plant his feet squarely on the wooden floors as he came to the realization that your tears had fallen onto the letter. Before he could dwell on that image for too long, he forced himself to focus on your words.
Dearest Papa,
I write to tell you that I have made it safely to Port Royal and have only just arrived with the Latimers. Berthe has abandoned me, claiming the heat is too much for her. I suppose I should not have expected any more of her given that she could scarcely bear a walk through the gardens in the height of summer. And besides, she complained nearly the whole voyage, so at least I am spared her constant lamenting. I think I am being looked for now, so I will write more later.
That was where your neater writing concluded, and James found nothing of concern in your words. He could even hear that slight touch of humor that sometimes sparkled in your eyes, the one he had so feverishly searched for all evening. His eyes fell upon the messier portion of the letter.
Papa, forget what I have written above. How I miss Berthe! I have never felt so utterly alone. I made myself face the journey with as much bravery as I could muster, but I can bear it no more – I long for home! Everything here is strange and hot and bright, and nothing is comforting or familiar. I tried to approach things with curiosity as you have always trained me to do, and I dare to believe I succeeded for a time, but it has become too much for me. How I yearn to hear even one word from someone I know, or to see a face I recognize. I cannot properly express to you the depths of the isolation I feel here.
You may tell mother that if her intention was to make me as utterly miserable as she always seems to think I deserve to be, then she should congratulate herself on her great success. The two of you have made it abundantly clear that I have no choice in this matter, but I will confess to you alone that I’m not certain I can do this. I always longed for a great adventure, but I wanted the sort they write about in novels, not this kind that leaves my chest feeling so hollow I fear I may collapse in on myself. Perhaps I shall, and then I will not need to endure this torment any longer.
I cannot express how much I wish you were here with me, so that I might feel less abandoned. Why did you send me away? You had always promised me that I need not marry if I didn’t wish it, so I struggle to comprehend the ease with which you have permitted me to be separated from you so cruelly for that very purpose.
Forgive me, Papa – that is not what I meant. I must confess that I am struggling mightily to control my own emotions. And as much as you have frequently been my favored confidant, I admit to you now that I have fears about what lies in my future which would not be proper to express to you. As much as I have tried to contain them, they haunted me through the long weeks of the voyage, and I feel them now more acutely than ever as my nuptials loom.
I must apologize for the messiness of this letter and for my unseemly ramblings. Perhaps in putting my thoughts to paper, I can release them from my body and conduct myself with more grace and forbearance in front of my future husband, as I’m certain he expects and demands.
I will close now, although I confess to you that I hardly feel steadier. I beg you to think of me and to pray that I might become stronger than I feel at present. I send you all my love.
James was not one to indulge himself in outward displays of weakness, but had it not been for Mrs. O’Conner standing in front of him, he thought it very likely that he might have collapsed against the nearest wall. Your inked words hit him like volley after volley of cannonballs, smashing most of his thoughts into splinters as he fought to make sense of everything you had written. The glaring truth of it was that he had been right: you were utterly miserable, and it was his own doing.
He handed the letter back to Mrs. O’Conner. He realized that he couldn’t even feel the savage storm raging inside of him anymore – he had been reduced to a cold numbness. He must have sunk so deep into the abyss that he finally hit the ocean floor.
“Please care for her as much as you are able.” James heard his own words as though someone else had spoken them. Upon reflection though, he was relieved that something in him had compelled him to say them aloud. Mrs. O’Conner made some statement of assent, promising to honor his request. Then she curtsied again and vanished back into the shadows.
James hardly remembered the journey home. All he was conscious of were your words swirling in sickening eddies through his mind. When he fell fitfully into sleep, he dreamed he was drowning, but when his head broke the surface for a moment, he found you sobbing on the shore, and he realized that it was not the water of the sea that was threatening to pull him under, but rather an ocean of your tears.
my heart's a sea – chapter two (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist
summary: James delivers his fiancée to the couple with whom she will be staying until the wedding
warnings/tags: f!reader, fiancée!reader, set post-cotbp, discussions of objectification, historical views of marriage and gender, very brief reference to suicide, brief sexual reference
words: 3869
author’s note: I'm going to be honest and say that I am no expert on early 18th century social customs, but I know it would certainly have been considered inappropriate for a couple to live together before they were married, so that's why I've created this temporary living arrangement. I hope that things feel at least as vaguely historical as the movies are, but admittedly, I am a victorianist, so much of my knowledge pertains to the century after the one where this fic is set. regardless though, I hope you enjoy this next chapter!
the sexual reference is brief and not explicit, but just to be safe, I'm marking this one 18+ – minors please do not interact
Your gaze had wandered to the window, watching the verdant greenery of the island trundle by as the carriage steadily advanced toward the Latimer residence. James had learned from his father that Mr. Latimer, a well-to-do merchant engaged in trade in Port Royal, was an old school friend of your father. In the week before your nuptials, it had been arranged between your father and his that you would reside with the Latimers, since it would be beyond improper for you to take up residence with him prior to the marriage. As a result of this arrangement, James had been to call on Mr. Latimer once in preparation for your arrival, and he found him to be a rather good-natured, affable man. This revelation had been a great relief to him, since he was certain that if his father had been in charge of assigning your temporary place of residence, he would have placed you in the home of some severe naval officer with an equally inhospitable wife. He wanted you to have at least a chance of an auspicious start to your new life.
He turned his gaze out the window as well, once again trying to make himself see everything as though through your eyes. He also attempted to subtly watch you as he had on the docks, searching for any expression that might betray your inner thoughts. But your features remained calm and unreadable as you took in the scenery and idly fanned yourself. James tried not to let the unknowing reawaken the tempest within him. He endeavored to guess at your state of mind by putting himself in your place. Within a few short months, you had been informed you were to be married to a man you had never met, were ripped from your home, friends, and family without room for protestation, made to suffer a long and arduous ocean journey when you had barely ever stepped foot on a sailing ship before, treated like a delicate and expensive commodity rather than a person, sent to a foreign land that was nearly the opposite of everything you had ever known, and expected to bear it all with composure and even grace.
This line of thought had been ill-conceived, since the riot of emotions such imaginings awakened within him swirled his darkened waters back toward a maelstrom. If it had been him, would he even have made it to this point? Or would the layers of sickening uncertainty have been enough to induce him to cast himself into the sea on the journey? He was certainly no stranger to suffering for the sake of duty, but at least most of his duties had been self-chosen and didn’t rob him of his own autonomy. Given the hectic swirl of fears even his few moments of consideration on the topic had provoked, he preferred not to imagine what anxieties might have consumed you during the long trip where there was nothing to do but think and worry about the future to which you were being sent.
He wondered what the journey had been like for you. He was used to long periods at sea, but certainly such a voyage was unlike anything you had experienced before. Even aside from the cascade of fears that he presumed must have overtaken you based on his own imaginings, what had you thought of the trip? Were you terrified? Excited? Both? Had you been ill? Did you stay in your cabin or wander the decks? Had you come to love the endless expanse of ocean or to hate it? James had no way to give voice to these questions that he felt were possibly far too familiar to pose at this early stage, but the challenge of deciphering your thoughts was becoming such that he could no longer sit in unknowing silence – he needed to ask you something. He settled on something slightly more topical, closer at hand, a perfectly respectable question that may nevertheless reveal to him even a fraction of what you were thinking as your gaze remained focused out the window. He cleared his throat subtly so that his sudden words didn’t startle you.
“Are you looking forward to your time with the Latimers?” Your eyes flicked to him instantly, and he could read just a flash of something in them that he was still attempting to parse when you responded.
“To be honest, Commodore, although Mr. Latimer is a friend of my father, I haven’t met him since I was a child. I’m certain they are gracious hosts, but I know almost nothing of them.” Then James understood the look in your eyes. It was fear. Just the barest glance, but he saw it. The one thing he knew he would be feeling were he in your place that you had managed to keep carefully repressed until that fleeting moment. The gales within James were hurricane-force as he wondered at the depths to which that fear plunged, of which he had glimpsed only the surface before you hid it from his view again. He swallowed as that hint of nausea stirred to life in his stomach once more. Perhaps there was little he could truly do for you despite how ardently he wished the opposite were true, but he could assure you in this matter at least.
“I met with Mr. Latimer in preparation for your arrival,” he told you, trying to soften the usual crispness of his tone. You were watching him carefully, perhaps even holding your breath slightly as you awaited his assessment of the man with whom you had been instructed to spend a week. “And I found him to be quite genial and welcoming.”
James was certain he saw the set of your shoulders relax just the tiniest bit as a small, barely perceptible exhale of relief escaped your mouth. The winds within him faded a little as he rejoiced that he was able to give you even the minutest amount of reassurance.
“That is good news indeed,” you responded, your relief palpable even in the measured cadence of your tone. You looked away for a moment, seeming to consider something before catching him in the intensity of your gaze once more, the warmth he found there causing his breath to catch slightly.
“Thank you for taking the time to make Mr. Latimer’s acquaintance,” you said, an unmistakable honesty in your voice. “I’m sure you must be very busy and such a call could hardly have been a priority, but I appreciate the gesture greatly.”
“Of course,” he responded instantly, “and allow me to assure you that it was not an imposition.” The soft smile with which you answered his words was enough to quell his internal storm almost entirely. He once again noticed the implications of your statement: that preparations for your arrival were merely a drain on his time, that assuring your comfort was not a priority. He was immensely relieved that he had gone to see Mr. Latimer, if only to attempt to prove to you that neither of those things were true.
“Commodore,” you started, and James was intensely relieved that his determination to ask you a question had seemingly made you more comfortable doing the same, “if I may ask: do you find living in Port Royal to be… enjoyable?” You seemed to search for the word you wanted briefly, and despite his scrutiny, he couldn’t read anything deeper than polite curiosity in your tone. He considered his words with great care. In truth, he didn’t mind it, but he was also accustomed to the climate through his years of dedicated service in the region. Perhaps it was an acquired taste.
“It is an adjustment from London, certainly,” he hedged, trying but not succeeding to gauge your reaction from your calm features, “but not unpleasant. There is certainly more variety to life here than in the capitol.”
He watched attentively as you considered the response he had offered you. He thought he saw another question flicker into your eyes: will I find it enjoyable? But he wasn’t sure if the almost unseen question was for you or for him. If it was for him, he had no idea how to answer; he didn’t know what you considered enjoyable. Perhaps he would one day, though. Then your lips folded into a little smile, just a glint of mirth in your eyes that made James’ heart pick up its tempo slightly.
“Well, perhaps that’s good sign then,” you mused, “since I never found London particularly agreeable anyway.”
James was instantly intrigued. But before he could inquire further into the subject, the carriage’s movement came to a halt, and he glanced out the window to find the Latimers emerging from the house to greet you. He longed to give you another word of reassurance, but the driver had already popped the door open and was helping you to the ground before James could even steal a glance at your face in an attempt to gauge your feelings as you took another step toward your future with him.
He followed you out, finding that Mr. and Mrs. Latimer were already greeting you, and you were responding with polite enthusiasm that James was not certain conveyed your true sentiments. He recalled the little flash of fear in your eyes and a sickening bolt of lightning cracked through his mind as he came up alongside you.
“Why, the last time I saw you, you only came up as high as my knee!” Mr. Latimer exclaimed as he clasped your hands in his own. “Now look what a pretty thing you’ve grown into!”
“Indeed,” Mrs. Latimer agreed, nodding to James, “you’ve unearthed quite the treasure here, Commodore.”
Thing. Treasure. A volley of hail beat against him as a wave of disgust roiled in his stomach. Disgust at his father, at himself, for turning you into a pretty, feelingless doll who could be passed from hand to hand without a care for your wishes at all. He was certain the Latimers didn’t mean such things in a hurtful way, but his knowledge of his own complicity in the process caused an acute pain to shoot through him nonetheless. You accepted their words with a gracious smile and a little curtsy. James felt the swirling waters of the whirlpool sucking at his boots.
“Perhaps we should let my fiancée get some rest,” he interjected politely, forcing himself not to stumble over the word ‘fiancée’ despite the indecipherable mixture of emotions that rose in his chest as he acknowledged it aloud for the first time. “She’s had a long journey.”
You offered him just the briefest glance at that, but he thought he saw relief in it. He no longer feared falling headlong into the spinning waters below him as he realized he had managed to do something that brought you even the minutest measure of comfort.
“Of course, Commodore, right you are,” Mr. Latimer assented, already bustling you toward the house. James followed slightly behind as they beckoned you through the opened doors.
This first day, it had never been James’ intention to stay, and that was reflected in the calling schedule he had worked out with Mr. Latimer. He had wanted to give you space to rest, away from the pressure you certainly felt to behave in a certain manner toward your future husband. But now he began to fear that his departure would only confirm the ideas implied by your earlier words: that he didn’t deem you worth his time, that you and your comfort were of little interest to him. There wasn’t much to be done about that now, though, since he had made no prior arrangements with the Latimers that he would stay. He could feel the winds whipping to life inside him again, the sea growing choppy as it heaved through his mind.
He stepped up the stairs behind you and the Latimers, and in the entry hall, he finally cleared his throat to make the announcement that he could no longer change. Waves were thundering against the shore.
“I’ll take my leave of you now to allow you to rest,” he said, and the three of you turned at his words.
“We’ll take good care of your lovely bride in your absence, Commodore,” Mrs. Latimer assured him. It was something one would say about a favored pet or a precious belonging that was being loaned out with the hope that it would return intact. The wind was well and truly howling now, churning the black water into a sickly white froth.
You stepped toward him to him to extend your hand in an expected parting gesture. He caught your fingers in his only to find they were trembling slightly. The thunder of the storm drowned out most other sensations except for the slight quaver of your hand in his that you were clearly trying to repress. When he swallowed thickly, there was bile in his throat. As he had done on the docks, he pressed a quick kiss to your knuckles before releasing your hand. Then he looked up at you, intending to try to give you whatever words of meager comfort propriety might allow, but your expression instantly stopped any sound that might have escaped his throat as he nearly choked.
Something was shattering in your eyes, collapsing into shards of terror and sorrow. He had never been more acutely aware of how you were being passed from hand to unfamiliar hand like a little porcelain figurine, and the unaccounted cost of such callous treatment was revealing itself in the fissures that were cracking their way through your careful façade, breaking you apart from the inside. The swirling funnel of the maelstrom was beginning to pull him under as icy water crept into his body and his stomach roiled nearly as much as the ocean.
He wanted to ask if you would like him to stay, but it would hardly have helped – you had known him barely longer than the Latimers. And surely a measure of your terror came from the reality that was slowly setting in that you would be marrying him within the week, a man you knew almost nothing of who would soon have complete jurisdiction over your life – he doubted his continued presence would provide much comfort. What you needed was far beyond his capacity to provide, despite how ardently he longed to be able to do something to ease the agony that had risen so high and deep within you that your carefully constructed mask could no longer contain it. His own private storm had reached a strident new pitch as the waters began to drag him under to the cold darkness below.
“I’ll see you again for dinner tomorrow,” he promised, knowing his words were a lifeline you wouldn’t be able to cling to, but casting them to you anyway in a vain hope that the gesture might mean something.
“I look forward to it, Commodore,” you returned with a small curtsy. It was a miracle that your words didn’t shake. When you righted your posture again, you had quickly patched up the cracks in your façade, containing the anguish that was threatening to shatter you into a thousand pieces. But James had seen it. He knew that all his suppositions and imaginings had been sickeningly correct, in spite of how much he wished they had not been. He knew what you were suffering. And he knew only too acutely that he had a hand in it. The waves closed over his head, blotting out what little light was left in the thunderous sky as the crashing water around him pressed the air from his lungs and began to pull him further into the deep. Helpless to do anything more for you, he turned and strode back towards the carriage, his posture upright and correct despite the way he felt like he was drowning.
On the way back to the fort, James nearly asked the driver to stop a dozen times, determined to go back. And do what? That was the thought that always halted his action halfway. What would he do? Make you sit in the parlor with him and the Latimers as you were forced to talk of nothing while you cut your hands keeping the shards of yourself held together? Stand watch outside your door like some common sentinel to ensure you were actually permitted to rest? No, both ideas were ridiculous and would certainly only add to the pain you were already suffering. So he sat stiffly in the carriage, realizing that you had left a faint floral scent behind that caused his chest to seize slightly for reasons he couldn’t quite explain to himself.
As he returned to attend to his duties for the rest of the day, he found that he was distracted, a highly unusual experience for him. As he looked over maps and ledgers and reports, he constantly wondered if the Latimers were actually letting you rest, or if they were continuing to coo over you like you were a perfect doll they had just unwrapped, still sitting prettily in its nest of protective paper, gown and hair pristine and lovely, painted eyes betraying not a trace of fear or sadness. James rubbed his hands over his face, trying to press the image from his mind. He sat before a logbook that needed his review, but he couldn’t make out any of the entries because his mind kept presenting him with the image of your shattering expression that was beginning to send tiny fissures splintering through his own body.
He pushed himself out of his chair, unable to sit still any longer despite the hours at a time he was usually able to devote to reviewing such documents. He paced to the window, looking out at the ocean that was still pleasant and calm and gloriously blue. How could he have done this? It had seemed like such an abstract concept, an idea sent to him in a letter, a reality composed only of paper and ink. You had been a small, rather remote portrait that sat on his desk at home and a name in his father’s businesslike handwriting. But within the day you had been made real; paper and ink and paint ripped to tatters in the face of you, a person who had been sent halfway around the world to be irrevocably tied to him for the rest of your life. The sensation that he was drowning had not abated since he had left you at the Latimers’ home, and it was now intensifying to the point that he feared he might actually cough up salt water if he opened his mouth.
James prided himself on being a practical and reasonable man who, when he uncovered a problem, solved it as efficiently and effectively as possible. But the question of his betrothal – of you – had been something that he had avoided facing, as much of a coward as that made him. He had never permitted himself believe that it would truly come to pass. Something would certainly intervene; his father would change his mind or some complication would arise with your dowry or your ship would simply never make it to port. You would remain a distant idea. So he had never truly resisted his father’s demands, had never genuinely voiced his opposition. But now you were here, and you were real, and the cruel reality of what you were being forced to suffer for something that James had had the privilege of considering to be nothing but an abstract concept had broken you. Perhaps it was just punishment that he had seen the depth of the agony he had caused you, knowing that his own cowardice and inaction were the reason the fragmented pieces of you lay splintered in his hands.
These thoughts haunted him as he continued his unsuccessful attempts to work until he realized his efforts to focus were futile and he admitted defeat, returning home. He had hoped that a quick descent into the sweet darkness of sleep might disperse the clouds of these dreary musings that had gathered around him. But his ascent to his bed was arrested by the realization that your trunks which his father had easily signed away from your control were waiting in his foyer, ready to disperse the few personal items you had been allowed to take with you into the strange and unfamiliar rooms that you would be made to call your home. After pausing to look at them for a moment, he flew up the stairs and retreated to his bed chamber, locking the door behind him even though he knew no one would disturb him.
Once each piece of his uniform had been meticulously removed and placed in its designated location, he slipped into his nightshirt and collapsed into bed. Despite his hopes for the brisk onset of sleep, his mind took that moment to remind him that before the week was out, you would be expected to share that very same bed with him. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the idea from his mind. What emerged instead was worse: an image of you trembling beneath the covers, looking over at him with wide, tear-rimmed eyes, the same shattering terror he had seen earlier splintering across your face even as you tried to steel yourself against it. His breath left his mouth in sickened, panicked gasps as he curled in on himself. He couldn’t do that to you – he wouldn’t.
He tried to calm his fevered breathing, to quell the rising tide of illness in his stomach, to bring himself back under control. As was often his way, a solution presented itself as he cleared his mind. He would simply have Anna make up the guest bedroom for you. It wasn’t often that he entertained anyway, so it wasn’t as though he needed the room. Perhaps it was an unusual arrangement for a husband and wife on their wedding night, but James refused to entertain the alternative.
With that most immediate concern eased from his mind, he was able to let his own exhaustion from the day slip into his body and coax him into sleep. And he had been doing so well at keeping her from his thoughts, his regimented insistence that he would avoid all consideration of her working remarkably well during his waking hours. But his dreams betrayed him.
He dreamed of Elizabeth, but of Turner too. He saw her clasped in Turner’s arms, her fingers lacing through his hair. It tortured him even in the dream, and his dream-self fell to his knees, blood pouring into his hands from a wound he could not see, but could feel acutely. It was a dream he had had before, and one that always left him shaking. When he woke feeling decidedly unrested, he berated himself instantly. It was selfish of him to exercise the privilege of picking at an old, half-scabbed wound when he was sharply aware that you were suffering from fresh, deep wounds of his own causing that he wasn’t certain he could heal.
my heart's a sea – chapter one (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist
summary: James meets his fiancée and struggles to make sense of his own feelings about his impending marriage
warnings/tags: f!reader, fiancée!reader, set post-cotbp, discussions of objectification, historical views of marriage and gender
words: 2832
author’s note: the people have spoken, and so we shall have my Norrington arranged marriage fic even in its currently incomplete state! thank you so much to everyone who was enthusiastic about this story! ☺️💕 more general info on everything can be found in the masterlist for the fic, linked above. I don't have many other comments here except that I was actually really pretty pleased with my writing in this one (which I'm not always happy with in my fics), and I really really hope you enjoy the intro chapter for this story! 🩵🌊
James had often found the literary inclination to use a stormy sea to convey a character’s inner turmoil to be somewhat overwrought. He had been on many stormy seas, and had never found them to be truly comparable to any human state of being. However, as he stood on the docks of Port Royal, hands clasped behind his back, looking out at the pristine blue waters that appeared totally untroubled by his own roiling thoughts, he was beginning to sympathize with that particular literary inclination.
He did feel rather like he was standing in the midst of a storm, although from the placid mask of an expression on his face, no passerby would have been able to surmise the strength of the winds that buffeted him or the might of the sheeting rain as it bore down around him. These forces of nature were locked entirely in his own mind, a stark contrast to the beaming sun and calm winds that graced the port.
As a typhoon whipped to life inside of him, James was waiting for a ship. Not an unusual activity for him, to be certain; he sometimes felt as though he had spent much of his life waiting for a ship to do one thing or another. But this was decidedly different. Now he was waiting not only for a ship, but also for a person that it carried. And unlike the others who were gathered along the docks, watching for the passengers to begin disembarking, James was not waiting for a beloved parent or a wayward sibling or a dear friend. He was waiting for someone he didn’t even know. And yet, that unknown someone was destined to become his wife. The thrashing waves beat harder against the rocky shoals of his mind.
As he watched the passengers reach the docks in a flurry of color and activity, he wondered if he would even know what you looked like. His father has sent him a small portrait along with the letter where he had brusquely informed James that his own failed attempts to find a wife were at their end. With his new rank as commodore, it was unseemly and improper that he should remain unwed, his father had said in crisp, impersonal prose. Since James seemed to find the undertaking to be beyond his abilities, his father had merely resorted to the traditional method and had selected a suitable lady for the role, the letter had concluded. There would be no arguments. There were never any arguments with his father that ended well for James. He barely suppressed the frown from his face as the turbulent ocean in his mind swirled towards a maelstrom.
The little portrait had seemed rather generic – the image depicted your head and shoulders as you gazed out at him serenely, hair well-coiffed and dotted with flowers, lips drawn up into an almost-smile. He could not deny that the artist’s rendition of you looked pretty, but your face remained frustratingly inscrutable to him, despite the number of times that he had returned to it, trying to draw anything from the smoothly painted form that constituted his only image of you. Of course, the thing he truly wanted to know could not be ascertained from a painted image – he understood that. It hadn’t stopped him from asking the question as he gazed at your portrait though: who were you, truly? He supposed he would find out soon, even if that thought sent a hail of lightning cascading through the thundering clouds of his personal storm.
Then he caught a face in the crowd that was vaguely familiar to him, but more like someone he recognized from a dream than someone he actually knew. He was certain it was you. Your portraitist had not done you justice, despite the loveliness of the little painting. There was something much more lively, far more expressive in your features that had been entirely suppressed from the portrait. The howling winds within him began to quiet slightly as he watched you move with the crowd, getting ever closer to him. Your hair was well-dressed and your gown pristine despite your long journey at sea. A small parasol shaded your face from the glaring heat of the Caribbean sun, but even that couldn’t hide the clear vivacity that shone out from your features. He barely realized until he inhaled suddenly that his breath had lay trapped in his lungs as he watched you.
Before he could make meaning of any of these observations, you were standing in front of him, clearly having picked him out as your betrothed by his spotless commodore’s uniform. James’ storm reached a strident new pitch as the dark, swirling waters of his mind threatened to either drag him to the seafloor below or propel him onwards to clearer horizons. You extended your gloved hand to him, and he took it on instinct alone; very few coherent thoughts remained in his mind as he finally looked into your eyes and found them to be sparkling with something like curiosity, the depth of your gaze catching and holding him like an anchor dropped into soft sand.
“Commodore Norrington, I presume?” you said with a little curtsy. James took a subtle deep breath before responding in the affirmative, then he said your own name back to you, the sounds of which he had practiced nearly a hundred times after first seeing it written in his father’s dark ink, wanting to make sure his inflection was absolutely correct. You ducked your head in acknowledgment. Ever since he had received his father’s letter, he had tried to keep himself from thinking too far beyond the present moment, but the knowledge that your name might eventually find a familiar home on his lips or might rarely be spoken at all was sending his internal cyclone spinning nearly out of control. He attempted to reign in his thoughts, focusing not on a hypothetical future, but instead on what was required of him in the present.
He leaned down to press a quick, faint kiss to your knuckles, realizing it was required by propriety, but not wanting to presume too much. You offered him a small smile in response, and the choppy waters in his mind stilled slightly.
“I wasn’t certain that you would come to greet me yourself,” you commented as he released your hand. Your words were level, but James could see the way your eyes were searching his face, clearly looking for something, but he wasn’t sure if you found what you sought on his features that he had trained to be impassive at all times.
He processed the meaning of your statement, realizing how much weight you had managed to pack into the simple sentence. What you really meant was that you weren’t certain that he deemed his future bride a worthy beneficiary of his time. You weren’t certain that he found his own marriage to be a subject of much interest to him. That sentiment may have been shared by some of the officers with whom he worked – and even by his own father – but James’ feelings on the matter were quite different, as the raging turmoil within him made so perfectly clear.
“Of course,” he responded, hoping his tone conveyed what he was sure his expression did not, “I was eager to know that you had arrived safely.”
James cringed within himself. It was a subject he had tried to avoid thinking of, given the way it always made him feel like a cabin boy at sea for the first time, at risk of hurling over the side of the ship – the idea that you were somehow a commodity, a thing, picked out for him by his father at the most fashionable shop in London and shipped half a world away to arrive to him wrapped carefully in silk. He could have been talking about a shipment of delicate porcelain he was eager to have found unbroken in its crate, or a consignment of art that he was relieved had escaped water damage so that it could silently beautify the walls of his home. As distasteful as he found his own phrasing – and the thoughts that accompanied it – you merely raised your brows slightly, as though measuring his response, but betrayed nothing further. He simply had to carry on, even as the knowledge that he wasn’t certain of your reaction to his words was whipping up the storm inside him again.
“Please allow me to escort you to my carriage,” he offered then, understanding that was the next step in this interaction. He looked around briefly, searching for your luggage and your maid – certainly a lady would not have made the long journey alone, that would have been highly improper.
“Have you no maid or trunks?” he asked when his search turned up nothing. Your expression was unreadable.
“My maid decided the weather this far south did not agree with her,” you informed him with perhaps the lightest hint of humor in your voice. “She’s returning to England on the morrow. She refused to even step foot ashore, saying she preferred the coolness of the ship’s cabin. And my trunks…” Your tone changed then, the swirl of lightness falling away into something far flatter that James struggled to parse. “Your father has arranged everything quite… completely. I believe most of my things are already set to be taken to your residence while a few items are being conveyed to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Latimer for my temporary stay there in the meantime.”
James simply nodded in understanding, trying to ignore the way his father’s easy stripping of your possessions away from your control ignited that queasiness in his stomach again. He also didn’t know what to do with the torrent of confused feelings that beat down on him like rain at the thought that your things would soon mingle with his in his rather austere home.
“So I fear, Commodore,” you continued, your voice brightening again, your lips lifting up into just the faintest smile, “that you’re to be stuck with me alone for the time being.”
James’ internal storm quieted slightly as a few beams of sunlight tried to cut through the darkened clouds of his mind at the good humor in your tone. He wanted to take that as a sign that you didn’t hate him for stealing you away from everything that you had ever known – or at least you didn’t yet. He quickly flipped through possible responses in his mind, trying to land on something that might buoy the lightheartedness you were deigning to share with him.
“Not at all an unpleasant thought,” he replied, permitting himself to be at least mildly pleased with his response that wouldn’t have sounded out of place at a society ball. The intricacies of genteel verbal repartee were not something he had much time or interest in practicing, but at least he was able to offer you something that he hoped was somewhat charming. He must have succeeded, since the soft smile on your face widened slightly and your eyes glimmered with a kind of hidden mirth that had almost unknowingly increased the tempo of James’ heartbeat.
The waves were easing their incessant pounding in his head as he offered you his arm and you took it, adjusting your parasol. James was accustomed to long, quick strides across the well-washed deck of the Dauntless, but he tried to measure his pace with the knowledge that your elegantly layered skirts could hardly allow you the same freedom of movement as his uniform breeches. But your steps were faster than he expected as the heels of your hidden shoes clicked on the wooden boards of the dock, and James adjusted accordingly.
He tried not to think about the foreign sensation of your arm wrapped lightly over his. He wasn’t a complete novice at escorting ladies, but most of his prior experience had been short-term – from one room to another, across an expanse of cobbled street, even occasionally over a ship’s deck. None of those interactions had ever held the promise of a lifetime of such a gesture. He struggled to hold back similar thoughts to those that had haunted him when he had first said your name aloud to you: would the sensation become a familiar one as he guided you through rooms and over floors and across streets that the two of you traversed together? Or would it remain foreign, a distant and rarely practiced action?
The waters of James’ private ocean threatened to spiral into a whirlpool again, so he made himself focus on something else as he walked next to you, his posture upright and perfect. He inclined his head minutely in your direction, watching you from his periphery. It seemed to him that you were attempting to contain your genuine curiosity as you maintained a correct posture not unlike his own, but your eyes were flicking around quickly as though trying to absorb the barrage of new sights. Far from the drab, grey ports of London, Port Royal was thrumming with color, and James followed your gaze, attempting to see things as though for the first time.
The bright sun beat down as deckhands and porters exchanged crates and parcels, shouting in a myriad of languages of which even James could only identify some. There were boxes of vibrant fruits in oranges and yellows and bright greens stacked next to bolts of fabric printed with intricate patterns. Even the clothing of the people who milled the docks and shoreline was diverse, a cacophony of color broken here and there by the crisp uniforms of British sailors and soldiers. It had merely become the background to James’ daily life, but he easily understood how it could be overwhelming. As subtly as he could, he tried to search your face for signs of distress or discomfort, but what little your features revealed just seemed… curious, intrigued, fascinated. He allowed himself a slight measure of relief at that.
When the two of you reached his waiting carriage, he offered you a hand as you ducked inside. He followed suit after indicating the intended destination to the driver. He slipped into the seat across from you, noticing that you had withdrawn a small fan and were attempting to use it to dissipate the clinging heat that had settled in the close dimness of the carriage.
“Tell me, Commodore,” you started as the carriage lurched into motion, “is it always this hot?” James tried to read some inflection into your words, wanting to know if the thought displeased you, but all your tone revealed was an objective inquiry. Still, he worded his response carefully.
“It is far calmer than normal today, so there is less of a breeze to disperse the heat,” he informed you, carefully watching your face as he tried to measure your reaction, but you seemed to be waiting politely for him to continue. James weighed his options. Was it better to simply be honest? Even if it made that twinge of illness swirl to life in his stomach again, he was achingly aware that you had even less choice in the matter of your place of residence than your own maid, that you were trapped here with him now, despite whatever unhappiness or discomfort it might cause you. He fought to suppress a grimace at the thought. He opted for honesty. “But yes, it is often quite hot.”
He was already wincing internally, ready for that to be the moment your eyes glinted with hatred at him from having compelled you to suffer in a foreign climate and a completely unfamiliar world. Instead though, you just quirked your lips slightly as you took in that information. Then you hummed thoughtfully.
“Then I suppose rain is a far more welcome occurrence here than it is in England,” you mused, that glint of private laughter back in your eyes. James was briefly stunned into silence, nearly undone by the grace with which you seemed to be accepting – and almost embracing – a situation over which you had no control whatsoever. He was uncertain if he would be able to match your apparent good humor if your positions had been reversed.
“Yes, I—I suppose it is,” he replied, already berating himself for not having something more eloquent or witty to say, but he was fully engaged in untangling the puzzle of you. He was quite certain by this point that the portrait his father sent had been utterly inaccurate. The serene placidity of your painted face did nothing to suggest the liveliness he now knew was sparking inside you, hidden just beneath the surface of your carefully constructed mask of propriety, but sometimes glinting through cracks in the façade. James realized that he wanted to see more, to discover what you had tucked neatly away from sight. But he wasn’t yet convinced that you would let him.
my heart's a sea – chapter sixty-seven (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist (through chapter fifty) (starting with chapter fifty-one)
summary: recollections of the past
warnings/tags: f!reader, wife!reader, set post-cotbp, historical views of marriage and gender, definitely emphasis on the historical views of marriage and gender here, discussion of the historical reality of domestic violence and wedding night sexual assault (not as things that actually occurred to these characters, but as historical realities that were unfortunately more widely culturally accepted in the past), hurt/comfort, brief sexual reference, toxic parents; let me know if I've missed anything!
words: 3742
author’s note: another 'my heart's a sea' update so soon after the last one?? it's more likely than you think!! 😅😅 I've been trying to make even more time for myself to write in the evenings lately, and I think it's really paying off! this is a scene that I've had in mind for a while (at least in the abstract), and we've finally reached a place where both James and his wife are ready for this conversation and can come out of it feeling closer rather than more anxious about things. also, not to hype myself up too much, but I def stayed up writing later than I should have last night because I was lowkey cooking, so I'm also really excited to share the next chapter after this one! I hope you enjoy! ☺️☺️
tag list: @xalphafox @gxpsywitch19 @trelaney @queen-of-bad-ideas @justsomerandomfanfic
the sexual reference is brief, but just to be safe I'm marking this one 18+ – minors please do not interact
“I suppose it would have been wisest for me to have asked you this last night, as I might have gotten a start on it today whilst you were at the fort,” you began as you walked arm-in-arm with James from the dining room to the drawing room so that the two of you might relax together after dinner, “but I fear I didn’t think of it, so I shall inquire now: I know the coming of the Wrights is yet some considerable time off, but when would you like me to begin transferring my things out of the guest room?”
James panicked for a moment, his reason momentarily scattered by the sweet smile on your face and the bright curiosity in your eyes as you looked back at him, awaiting his response. The answer that wished to leap immediately from his tongue was that he would love it if you made the bedroom your permanent abode within the house as soon as possible, but although all your reservations the previous night seemed to have surrounded your fears about hosting the Wrights and not about permanently sharing the bedroom with him, he still did not wish to make any assumptions about your wishes.
“You may do so at any time that you wish,” he replied, swallowing any desperate wanting that might have tried to creep its way into his voice. The two of you were just passing the stairs as he was responding, and you stopped at the foot of them, with James halting his steps in time with yours. He watched you glance up towards the bedrooms on the upper level before your eyes found his again, your expression almost… sheepish.
“I should have also asked this last night, but I’m afraid I was so occupied with other concerns that I didn’t think to. How much of an inconvenience will it be for my things to clutter up the bedroom, and would you like me to remove them again once the Wrights have gone?”
Oh. Oh God. You thought you would be an inconvenience to him, that your possessions would be anything less than entirely welcome in the bedroom that was as much yours as it was his. James must have been losing his touch somewhat at predicting the range of possible negative outcomes when it came to such matters, because he had never considered this.
“Your things will not be an inconvenience in the least,” he told you, torn between wanting to answer you swiftly enough that it left no time for you to doubt his feelings on the matter, and yet also wanting a moment to compose his words the way he wished to. “And you may remove them after the Wrights have left you would prefer to have them in the guest room, but I… well, I would happily have them stay in the bedroom if it pleased you.” He ended his sentence very quietly, the truth still fragile on his tongue, even though he knew it was best to be entirely honest with you despite the way it was tightening his chest and making him want to loosen the fabric around his neck.
“Truly?” you confirmed, and James could feel your gentle grasp tighten slightly on his arm as you stepped even closer, your skirts brushing against his leg. You were searching his face intently, your features alight with something that looked quite a lot like hope. Good heavens, you did want this as much as he did.
“Truly,” he assured you immediately, doing less to quash any wanting that might make its way into his voice now. “It is our bedroom after all,” he added softly, the words so delicate in his throat, “and it seems right that your belongings should dwell there along with both of us.” James watched with elation as complete delight began to break over your face like a glorious sunrise.
“Then is it quite silly indeed if I begin the process tonight?” you asked excitedly, glancing up the stairs again as though already imagining your things making the short journey down the corridor.
“No, no – not at all,” he responded with just as much enthusiasm. “In fact, as I have no pressing matters to attend to, I can lend my services to your efforts if you would like my aid.”
That was how James came to help you ferry your items from the guest room to the bedroom, a task which, though seeming rather mundane, was in fact filled with much joy and laughter as the two of you wrangled trunks of your things down the corridor and ran into the occasional mishap. A corner of your skirt would get caught in a closing door; he would misjudge a step as he walked backwards carrying his end of the trunk; a piece of furniture would be knocked into and rattle the items upon it; things became misplaced in the shuffle and had to be sought out again. But lord, it was… fun. These small mistakes – if they were serious enough to be called that, which they hardly were – were not judged nor criticized, but rather were a moment for exchanging amused glances that broke easily into mutual laughter. God, it was so light, so wonderful, to just be with you like this.
When all that was going to be conveyed to the bedroom that evening had been brought over and your larger garments had been arranged neatly in the wardrobe alongside his clothing, you slipped off your shoes to seat yourself on the floor for a larger surface area so that you might sort your smaller accessories the way you wished. James glanced over at the wardrobe again, the seabird of his heart soaring to new heights to see your lovely gowns tucked comfortably alongside his clothes, happily at home together.
“May I help you?” he asked quietly as he came to sit on the floor across from you. It was not an action he performed often – taking a seat on the floor – so he was quite certain he looked exceedingly awkward as he tried to find the best way to fold his limbs.
“I don’t believe so, but thank you for the kind offer,” you replied, glancing up from your work with the sweetest smile. “I fear I’m dreadfully particular about these things,” you added, teasing glittering through your voice and easily coaxing a chuckle from him at the same moment you also laughed before you returned your focus to the array of items in front of you, a smile still lingering happily on your lips.
“May I keep you company then?” Your eyes met his again immediately in the wake of his soft question, and James was instantly sinking into the warm adoration glowing in their depths.
“My love, you may always keep me company,” you murmured back, the truth of that sentiment ever so clear in the way you were looking at him. “There is hardly a moment in the day when I do not yearn for your company.” James swallowed, blinking his eyes rapidly as your words sank into him and left a glorious, humming warm light behind.
“Then I shall be happy always to provide it,” he managed in just a whisper, “as I yearn equally to be in your presence.” The smile you gave him in return was all radiant sunlight that only added to James’ sense that he might actually be glowing.
He watched your organization process in fascination as you carefully arranged things into boxes and trays the way you wanted them, pairing and matching pieces of jewelry and carefully folding lacy, decorative handkerchiefs. He could only imagine how exceptional you must have been at ordering the cataloguing your father’s collections. This line of thinking led him to other contemplations, as such moments of comfortable quiet often allow, and eventually a question bubbled up in his mind that he had been pondering for some time, but felt that he might now finally be in a position to ask.
“Might I ask you something?”
“You may ask me anything,” you responded as you looked up from your task, your smile brilliant. James cleared his throat quietly as he assembled the words he wished to use, hoping his inquiry wouldn’t dampen the lovely mood. But he was so bloody curious.
“Might I then inquire as to what you were told about me – before the wedding, that is.”
Your lips parted as though to respond, but then closed again, your expression intensely thoughtful as you seemed to look beyond him for a moment, evidently seriously considering his question. Then a little mist of sadness seemed to fall across your features.
“I can certainly tell you,” you began, your words hesitant, “but I think it will displease you greatly to hear it.” Indeed, James was quite certain of that fact. He breathed a small sigh.
“I am already greatly displeased – and indeed greatly distressed – by the few fragments that you have already conveyed to me,” he told you. “But if it does not pain you to recollect it, then I must admit that I am terribly curious to know.” Perhaps he should not have pressed. His own curiosity was certainly no justification for dredging up old memories which might cause you sorrow.
“It does not pain me,” you responded, your lips beginning to tilt up into a smile, “because I have the privilege of knowing you most intimately now, and it is with great happiness that I can prove essentially everything that I was told quite false. But I do not wish to offend you by repeating those erroneous statements that were conveyed to me before I knew you.”
“You will not offend me,” he assured you. “I understand entirely that you had no way of proving any of what was told to you to be false.” You nodded in acknowledgement of his words, your features set with an expression of focus as you appeared to be calling up what were now distant memories of a time before you knew him, a time that now seemed to him to be very long ago.
“Above all, my mother emphasized to me endlessly that you were a navy man, and that such a profession came with certain expectations,” you began, setting your hands again to the task of organization.
That was far better indeed, because James had at least an inkling of what might be coming, and if he watched that past sorrow well up in your kind eyes, he would certainly end up a weeping mess to know what horror you thought you had been sailing to.
“She told me that you would no doubt expect proper, faultless behavior at all times, and that I should never allow myself to depart from decorum, even in private,” you told him quietly.
James felt himself stiffen instinctively, bristling against the notion that he would ever expect such a thing of you.
“And one of the things that frightened me most was when she said that, should I fail in this regard or commit any infractions, I could surely expect correction or punishment, as that is how things are done in the navy, and it would be your right as my husband to dispense such discipline as you saw fit.”
James’ stomach heaved immediately as horror and anger bubbled and hissed through his veins in a sickening cocktail. He would send himself overboard with a pair of cannons tried to his ankles before he ever even thought of hurting you. He did not wish to interrupt, but he also could not be silent upon such an awful subject.
“I would never.” The last word came out cracked, split through with emotion that very much conveyed just how sincerely he meant it.
“I know,” you responded, your eyes flicking to his and allowing him to see the complete trust glowing within your expression.
That knowledge soothed his anger somewhat, and he had only to recall that you had told him that you trusted him with your very life. You knew. Thank God you knew. Your trust was one of the most precious honors he had ever earned, and James was absolutely determined to never betray that trust.
“Are you certain you wish for me to continue?” you asked then, searching his face as though determining whether he was prepared to hear the rest.
James nodded in affirmation. In reality, he wasn’t entirely certain that he was fully ready – who knew what untold horrors your mother might have concocted for you – but if you had needed to hear such terrible things, then he could as well. You turned back to your items as you continued.
“You know some of the other things already: that I was not meant to tell you about my interest in the natural sciences, that I should not clutter the house with my frivolous items.”
You sighed quietly then, your hand hesitating over a piece as if you were caught in a private war with yourself over what to say next.
“Perhaps one of the most awful things,” you started, your words barely a trembling breath, “was on the topic of the wedding night.” Perhaps James never should have asked this question – he was beginning to feel as though he might be sick. “She—she explained it – rather vaguely and dryly of course – and I was frightened by the prospect and asked what happened if I didn’t wish to do such a thing. She merely informed me that that was how a marriage was consummated, and it would happen regardless of my wishes, so I had better be obliging and quiet about it and submit myself to my husband as God intended or I would make everything far worse.”
Bile was rising rapidly in James’ throat, a kind of visceral sickness that he felt to his very bones as every inch of him recoiled in revulsed horror. He recalled your terror as you stood beside him in the shadowed foyer of the house on the night of the wedding, your chest rapidly rising and falling in clear panic. Good lord, if he dwelt too much longer on that memory in the light of what you had just told him, he certainly would be sick all over the floor. Almost without thinking, he shifted forward, adjusting his position carefully so that he did not disrupt your organization, reaching tentatively for your cheek as you leaned readily into his touch. He could not bear the thought of you being alone in this, even if it was merely a recollection now.
“I am so sorry,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and raw. He both saw and felt your lips pull into a luminous smile beneath the gentle press of his hand to your cheek.
“James, you have not a thing to apologize for,” you told him, your hand reaching up to cup over his, a sunbeam against his skin. “You were – and are – the model of a kind, honorable gentleman. Once you showed me to the guest room and I had recovered from my shock, I knew I had nothing to fear from you.”
“I’m still sorry you were made to believe such an atrocious thing,” he murmured, his thumb brushing gently over your warm skin before he carefully removed his hand so that you might continue your work. He missed the contact with you though, and his palm was humming with the memory of your skin beneath his own as he settled back once more. You gave him his favorite lovely smile before you turned your attention back to the organization of your items.
“Do you wish me to continue?” you asked quietly.
“There is more?” James’ horrified surprise seeped into his voice. How could there be more? You nodded in response. Good God, what kind of a hell must you have thought you were sailing toward when you boarded the ship that had carried you to him? “If it does not cause you distress to recall it, then yes, I should like to know,” he replied softly. You inhaled a little breath before continuing, and James braced himself.
“There were quite a few other small things that are likely not worth mentioning,” you began, “but this is the last one that my mother found of great enough import to impress it thoroughly upon me.”
You sat back then, folding your hands into your lap as you surveyed the results of your work and also seemed to be working yourself up to whatever you were going to tell him next. Then you sighed heavily and continued. James was barely breathing.
“She told me that you were likely interested in the arrangement for primarily financial reasons – since my father is monied and would be able to provide a substantial dowry – and so I had better ensure that I proved a good investment.”
James was certainly going to be sick. He barely suppressed a gagging noise as he braced himself against the floor, just hoping not to keel over from his disgust with everything he had heard, a revulsion that was mounting as each horror compounded upon the others. In an instant, he was back upon the docks on that first day, remembering how you appeared to have been told to act as a beautifully-dressed doll, a precious possession with no will nor wants of your own who was carefully packed and sent across the ocean to him only to amuse him and prove to be worth displaying to others in order to exhibit his own refinement. The thought was such a sickening one that it had him nearly clutching at his stomach, struggling to breathe.
“But I hope you know I have known that to be untrue for some considerable time,” you told him quickly, evidently noticing his distress. Lord, it was hardly fair for you to comfort him in this matter when it was you whom others had tried to reduce to a mere ‘investment.”
“It is indeed entirely untrue,” he told you as soon as he had recovered himself enough to speak. “In fact, I confess that I did not even know the amount enclosed within your dowry until I had… received it,” he admitted. James couldn’t be certain whether that made his past self appear better or worse, but it was the truth, and you deserved to know it. “It was my father who made nearly all the arrangements.”
James hadn’t been able to look at you as he spoke, knowing he surely would either be sick or begin weeping if he looked into your lovely features and soft eyes and knew that you had been told and made to believe all these awful things. Perhaps it would be better if he never met your mother; he had a number of words he wished to say to her that he normally would not allow himself to utter in the company of ladies, but her conduct toward you clearly merited their expression.
Because his eyes had been trained upon the floor, the weight of what you had been forced to carry for months before you met him – and before he was able to prove himself worthy of your trust – sinking heavily upon him, it was only when he heard the rustle of your skirts that he realized you had moved. He looked up instantly to find you sinking onto the floor beside him, your sweet smile beginning to gently ease some of the agony from his body. You reached for his hands, and he entrusted them to you immediately, fluttering his eyes closed for a moment as he brought himself back to the present with the comforting, grounding warmth of your skin against his.
“I am in awe of your courage,” he breathed, twining his fingers with yours. “To be presented with such… horrorand not simply abscond is an act of admirable bravery.” You smiled shyly at his genuine compliment, your gaze flickering down to where your fingers were happily entangled with his.
“I thank you for such a generous estimation of my conduct,” you responded quietly. “But I fear it was not a concerted act of bravery that I consciously undertook. Rather, my options were rather limited, primarily because I love my father such that I could see no path forward in which I could break off all communication with him and disappear entirely. At least I knew that if I was here, he would know where I was, and that I was safe, and I could still write to him. Secondarily, your father did keep rather tight control of everything, and although I never met him, I understand that he was on the docks the day my ship departed, no doubt to ensure that I boarded the vessel as promised.”
James gritted his teeth in frustration, angered at the thought of his father looming over you like an ever-present shadow while everything was being arranged, the cold, distant, authoritative, controlling figure that he had been for so much of James’ own life.
“But whether it was bravery or chance or necessity,” you continued, your gaze meeting his again as your expression began to overflow with light, “I have been rewarded a thousandfold with such unimaginable joy that I would gladly do it again a hundred times over if the result is this life I am blessed to live with you.”
There were no words in James’ vocabulary to express the nearly incomprehensible happiness that he felt blooming in his body like a vibrant, flourishing garden of a thousand blissful flowers to hear you articulate such an exquisitely beautiful sentiment that he so completely echoed. Although his vocabulary might have been lacking, he nevertheless attempted to express these feelings with his lips, kissing you so deeply and with such adoration that he hoped the glow of it might never fade from your lips, that you might always know that he loved you beyond words and beyond human expression. You must have felt these deep stirring of his soul that he was doing his best to communicate with the tender press of his lips to yours, because you were kissing him back just as deeply, with just as much adoration, and the only thing in the entire world that mattered was that despite everything it had taken to reach this moment, the two of you had found each other, and you loved him as much as he loved you.
So I started trying to write some stuff when I found out about the real motivations as to why Hux betrayed the First Order but this is possibly the first time of me giving fanfiction a shot on AO3 so pls allow me some commendations haha thanks. This is p much a draft I decided to post but i hope somehow i’d find the time to actually give it proper attention to write more coherently/descriptively and expansively?
my heart's a sea – chapter fifty-eight (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist (through chapter fifty) (starting with chapter fifty-one)
summary: James and his wife discover new levels of intimacy
warnings/tags: f!reader, wife!reader, set post-cotbp, historical views of marriage and gender, historical views on sex, historical views on the concept of virginity, self-consciousness related to body image, sexual references, suggestive moments, heated kisses, sensual touching I guess (idk what to call it??), James and his wife both being repressed as a result of societal/cultural expectations, a LOT of mutual yearning, implied sexual content although there is no explicit description; let me know if I missed anything!
words: 7112
author’s note: a friday/weekend treat for you all!! pop the champagne and throw the confetti because at 170k words we are finally here!!! 🍾🥂🎉🎊 thank you all for sticking with this very slow slow burn up to this point (and hopefully beyond it as well). I really have enjoyed the ability to develop the relationship between James and his wife naturally over so many chapters, and I hope you also feel that it has paid off! a couple notes about this chapter: (1) there are some shots in cotbp where you can see James' tummy outline through his waistcoat, and I definitely feel super normal about that, (2) when writing female characters, I tend to write with my own body type in mind (which is not thin/skinny), but I also try to leave my descriptions as vague as possible, so hopefully that still comes through, and (3) I think this is the longest chapter I've done so far on this story, and I think that just feels right for this moment. I'm quite happy with how this turned out, and I really hope that you enjoy! ☺️☺️
tag list: @xalphafox @gxpsywitch19 @trelaney @queen-of-bad-ideas @justsomerandomfanfic
again, there are no super explicit descriptions of sex, but this one is definitely 18+ – minors please do not interact
When James had eventually needed to stop kissing you so that both of you might prepare for the day, he nevertheless still felt as though he was walking through glimmering golden clouds. As he made the final adjustments to his uniform in the looking glass, his thoughts were once again rendered nearly incoherent with happiness by the knowledge that the face looking back at him was the one that you had tenderly tucked into your locket, a reminder of him held close to you always, pressed over your heart.
Then he began to wonder at the fact that he had not at all anticipated that you might choose to enclose his likeness within the necklace. Certainly it was perfectly reasonable for a wife to keep her husband’s portrait in some form of jewelry on her person, if she esteemed him enough to do so. And yet it had surprised him. It should not have – he was well aware of that. Any uncertainty about your feelings toward him at this stage were entirely generated by his own insidious doubts and not by any lack of affection on your part. In truth, he knew he was exceedingly blessed to be the recipient of so much generously unreserved and utterly sincere affection from a wife whom he adored. So why had he allowed himself to be surprised, to doubt in the first place?
He pondered this question as he settled his hat atop his wig, adjusting it until it sat just perfectly. As he took in his completed appearance, the answer was no longer so obscure to him: James had never truly conceived of himself as someone who could be the subject of affection or desire. This revelation rocked him, the sea tilting dangerously within him, and yet not a trace of it showed on his face.
Lord, that was it, wasn’t it? He was the perfect officer; that was how he styled himself, it was what he had always aspired to be. And that image of the perfect officer – with a neatly powdered wig, a crisp, pristine uniform, and immaculate posture and bearing – left little room for anything else. He was a figure who might be esteemed, respected, admired, but desired, loved? That seemed more challenging to believe. It was difficult to be a poet when one always needed to moderate one’s speech and monitor the expressions of one’s own emotions. It was even more difficult to be a paramour, a lover, when there were always standards of presentation and decorum to be maintained and duties to be faithfully fulfilled. He was no windswept romantic hero with loose hair blowing all asunder, waistcoat abandoned, and shirt artfully undone as he made melodramatic professions of his innermost feelings. James could not have been more different.
And yet. And yet you had placed his portrait in your locket, you eagerly awaited his return from the fort each day, you blessed him with the sweetest kisses, and you folded yourself so happily into his arms. He felt foolish then, for doubting. But he had simply never imagined himself as someone who could be the subject of your desire as it blossomed from your love for him.
But it was all becoming so clear now, in the wake of recognizing his own face in your locket: the way you looked at him and touched him and kissed him, the fact that you had bought ribbons that matched his uniform to tie your stockings up and that he now woke nearly every morning with you folded against him such that the distinction between your body and his seemed to dissolve in a warm hum of nearness. Oh God, he had been floundering for so bloody long, working himself into countless worries over everything, and all you wanted was him. Because you loved him.
James’ countenance did falter then, and he leaned forward to grasp the edge of the table to keep himself from staggering slightly. You loved him, and good Lord, did he love you. And by some miracle, you desired him too, longed for his closeness, wanted him in the same way he wanted you. Perhaps he had allowed himself to recognize that you could love him as he loved you, especially given how he had heard you utter those very words more times than he ever presumed he might hear them in his life. That surety, that proof, spoken musical and glowing from your very lips, had dissolved his doubts until the golden certainty of it lived within him like a personal sun that kept his private sea fair and blue and wonderful.
What he had not accustomed himself to until this very moment was that you could also desire him. That you diddesire him. Somewhere in the course of his life – no doubt in the wake of Elizabeth – he had resigned himself to the knowledge that he might merit a woman’s esteem or even favor, but that he was not quite the sort who might inspire her passion. His highest of hopes – before he met you – had been a marriage of relative comfort and perhaps eventual mutual fondness which would nevertheless be devoid of the true, abiding love and deep devotion that men who were nothing like him might inspire.
He had so far surpassed relative comfort and mutual fondness in his marriage to you that having held such middling aspirations as his highest hopes was now almost laughable. The love he felt for you surpassed the ocean in its depth, breadth, and infinite vastness, and there was no longer any way for even his most insistent of doubts to ignore the fact that you felt the same for him.
And that love was not born out of simple esteem or admiration that might permit him to be a fixture of your life whom you looked upon fondly but without deeper stirrings of your soul. No, you had told him that he was one of the great passions of your life, and only now was the full, glorious depth of that truth sinking into him and beginning to make a home within him. As that knowledge settled inside him, its warm spirals of light filling him with luminosity, James wanted nothing more than to show you that he felt precisely the same way about you. You were, without doubt, one of the great passions of his life. And he desperately wished to make certain that you knew.
James’ typical diligent work ethic allowed him to complete his duties as briskly and efficiently as usual while at the fort, but in those pauses when he had a moment of quiet between tasks, he was busy summoning his courage. He was thinking of the ways he might frame the question, what words would come out the least strangled from his mouth, which phrases might make him less likely to go entirely red in the face. He wondered if he should consult Mrs. M’s book again, just to be absolutely certain. But no, that would be silly, wouldn’t it? He had already gleaned what information he could from the volume; the rest he would need to figure out on his own.
He was able to mostly swallow his anxieties over dinner, allowing himself to instead bask in the warm light of your presence as you asked him about his day and reported on your visit with Antonia. You seemed quite pleased with how it had gone, and James was once again exceedingly grateful that providence had sent you a companion whose company you appeared to genuinely enjoy so that you might not be so isolated while he attended to his duties.
By the time he was readying himself for bed though, he had made himself nearly sick. Half of it was the acute ache of his own wanting, and the other half was his fear. You were still in the guest bedroom, getting undressed with Anna’s help, and James was desperately trying to calm his nerves. He attempted to go about his preparations as usual, sliding off his heavy uniform coat and placing it neatly in the wardrobe. As he did so though, he caught a glimpse of himself in the looking glass. He stood there for a moment, regarding himself, once again reminded of how opposite he was of the archetypal romantic hero, how orderly and disciplined he appeared in comparison. Orderly and disciplined were not bad things, of course – they were certainly traits to be admired – but they seemed decidedly unlikely to inspire any great passion or desire.
James sighed, trailing his fingers down the golden buttons of his waistcoat as he went to carefully undo them, suddenly cognizant of the slight softness that had developed at his stomach now that he did not participate in drills as regularly as he had when he was climbing his way through the ranks. That wouldn’t… matter, would it? To you? He felt he still cut a rather sharp figure, but then again, that was with his uniform on. In only the billowing, shapeless form of his nightshirt with his hair tied loosely back, would he just be… pathetic?
Blast it! If he kept at this line of inquiry, he would make himself irreparably ill before you had even entered the room. He intentionally turned from the mirror, quickly undoing the neat line of buttons on his waistcoat and placing it in the wardrobe before he could think too much about the faults of his physical form that, possibly, you would soon be seeing as no one else ever had.
That thought was igniting a new, strange feeling in his stomach, somewhere between exhilaration and terror. He gripped the edge of the wardrobe, closing his eyes as he steadied himself. He had to keep his head somewhat clear – at least as clear as he could possibly manage given the circumstances – or risk forgetting all that he had learned from Mrs. M’s book and completely fumbling everything and making an utter fool out of himself and proving that he was never deserving of your desire anyway. Good God, he needed to stop! If he had any chance of doing this at all, he could not keep letting himself spiral into the dark, hollow centers of his mind’s most fearful whirlpools. He needed to remember that you had his portrait tucked into your locket, that you loved him.
He attempted to keep reminding himself of these facts, this knowledge that had lent him so much confidence this morning, but which was now wavering against the incessant onslaught of his worst fears, each of them precisely aimed to destabilize the sense of certainty he had built for himself. He remained caught in this mental battle as he finished putting away his uniform and slipped his nightshirt over his head. He emphatically did not peer into the looking glass as he passed, knowing that doing so would only deliver free ammunition to his doubts.
When you quietly entered the room with a soft smile, he was still setting a few things out for the next day, adjusting his wig on its stand, and doing his best to pretend this would be just the same as any other night and he did not have a proposal to make that was nearly as terrifying as it was thrilling. You closed the door gently with a sweet greeting for him that he happily returned before you pulled your book from the side table and curled up against the headboard.
James was stalling and he knew it, aimlessly milling about the room and pretending to be busy as he kept glancing at you out of the corner of his eye. He had completely forgotten all the words he had assembled earlier in the day, all the well-articulated proposals he had composed as possibilities to aid him in this very moment had gone up in smoke, and he almost abandoned everything, despite how his longing was reaching the point of desperation, screaming at him that he was being a coward.
But then he looked over at you, your lovely features glowing in the candlelight, and he knew he was being a coward. He wanted you. Desperately. And nearly equal to that wanting was his deep desire for you to not feel unwanted, when nothing could have been farther from the truth. Perhaps his own foolish inaction regarding his own marriage had had the miraculous effect of bringing you into his life, but James knew that such hesitation would not work twice, and certainly not in this circumstance. He wanted you, he absolutely adored you, and he wished for you to never have room to doubt that.
With a new sense of resolve, James finally set aside his pointless tasks and padded across the floor toward the bed. You looked up at his approach, your smile filled with sunlight and eyes brimming with happiness as you set your book aside. And then James noticed something. Your shift was undone at the collar. It was usually tied into a neat bow, likely by Anna as she put the finishing touches on your preparations for bed, the collar sitting modestly high around your neck. But now it was untied, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of your throat and collarbone as well as the silver locket that hung there, glimmering in the candlelight. James was becoming slightly dizzy.
He swallowed as he pulled back the covers, coming to sit beside you on the bed, but as much as he scrambled around in the corners of his mind, he could not find a single one of the words he had prepared. He tried to regulate his breathing, looking for something, anything to say that would express the enormity of his longing, of his adoration, of his passion. And despite the fact that he was a high-ranking officer of the Royal Navy, your bravery far surpassed his own, because you spoke instead as he settled himself on the bed beside you.
“James?” you began, and now that he was so close to you, he could hear the little tremble of nervousness in your voice. “I—I wonder if you recall what you told me on our wedding night?” you asked quietly, and he noticed that your eyes were widened slightly with worry of their own.
James went reeling, tumbling overboard and into the choppy sea below. He remembered precisely what he had told you: he had said that he had no intention of making any impositions upon you in any circumstance in which his advances were undesired. The fears that had been simmering in the back of his mind came diving to the forefront, screaming like a flock of seagulls as they circled. Certainly you were bringing this up now to remind him of his promise, that he had gone much too far that morning and that those advances were indeed undesired. It would be like he had always known: he was not the sort of man who could inspire a woman’s passion nor induce her to welcome his desire in return. He felt like his mouth was filled with briny seawater, choking him as it trickled sickeningly down his throat.
“I—I believe I said that I would never make impositions upon you in any circumstance in which my advances were…” He struggled with that last word as it landed heavy upon his tongue. “Were undesired,” he finally finished in a hoarse whisper. His eyes were on the folded-back covers, for he could not look at you and know that he had failed once again to be what you deserved. The flow of saltwater down his throat increased, threatening to begin drowning him. “And I meant that sincerely,” he added, hoping he didn’t sound like the half-drowned man he was becoming.
“I know you did,” you murmured in response. Then your hands were warm in his, pulling them gently into your lap, and despite his intention to look away, James glanced up instantly, confusion reigning in his mind. Your gaze, all though still tinged with nervousness, was mostly warmth and deep affection. “And I could not be more grateful to you for that,” you continued, squeezing his hands lightly to underline your words.
You breathed a little sigh then, your eyes darting away for a moment as though you were considering what you wanted to say. James knew he was barely breathing, the frothing waves of his worried mind stilling for a moment as he attempted to determine what you might be thinking. Then your gaze met his again, and there was a kind of sweet resolve in them, like you had decided upon something. You shifted closer until your knees were nearly touching his.
“And I—well, I know this is possibly very forward of me, but I wish you to know that…” You trailed off for a moment, averting your gaze as you took another deep breath. “I wish you to know that your advances are far from undesired. In—in fact, if you… well, if you… if you also desire to make such advances, I do very much desire to receive them.”
OH. James had not misinterpreted anything. He had not been wrong. He had been utterly, entirely, completely correct. All the revelations that had washed over him that morning and had filled him with such exquisite happiness had been nothing short of the absolute truth. You desired him, you loved him, and he was one of the great passions of his life, just as you were his.
“I—” He choked on the word at first and needed to try again. He was acutely aware that now was not the moment for hesitation. He needed you to know that he felt precisely the same. In hopes of achieving that goal, he lifted one hand toward your face, tenderly cradling your cheek and gently coaxing your embarrassed gaze back to him after it had fled again in the wake of your confession. You obliged instantly, a mixture of fear and hope in your lovely, kind eyes that made him want to weep. He never wanted you to fear on his account, and certainly not his rejection of you. He didn’t even want you to have to hope – he wanted you to know. “I—I do desire to make such advances,” he told you, the words hoarse upon the exit from his mouth, but hopefully you knew that they were all the truer for the way he struggled to articulate such delicate longings. He brushed his thumb over the curve of your cheek, watching in complete joy as you took in his meaning and elation broke like a sunrise over your face. “I have desired to for some time,” he confessed in a whisper, wanting you to know that his feelings were neither momentary nor conditional; they were an expression of the infinite ocean of adoration he felt for you.
“Oh, James, why didn’t you tell me?” you exclaimed, your expression folding slightly in concern even as a light laugh fluttered from your lips. You rocked forward and threw your arms around his neck in your utter delight that could evidently no longer be contained in your body. You were so close to him now, foreheads nearly brushing, his own long-contained wanting also reflected in your warm eyes.
“I—I wanted to be completely certain,” he murmured, “that you felt the same. So, perhaps I ought to ask: are you certain?” The question trembled on his lips even as he already knew the answer. Perhaps that was why it trembled, because he was nearly quaking with a thousand suppressed desires that were finally shivering to the surface, basking in the light of your nearness.
You shifted again then, until you were nearly on his lap, your hands sliding forward to his face so that you could cup his cheeks, each of your palms a sunbeam on his skin. Your lovely eyes were glowing with sincerity, looking deep into his own and only further igniting everything he felt for you.
“I am absolutely certain,” you told him, the assurance in your voice leaving no room for doubt. “I love you, James,” you continued, the phrase never failing to make his heart stutter in his chest. Your words began breaking a little then, softened by the depth of emotion in your voice. “I love you, and I… I want to be your wife in every possible way.”
Oh God, nothing could ever have prepared him for the exquisite tenderness held so gently in this moment. He had to swallow down a rather unseemly sound that threatened escape his lips, and his throat thickened slightly with tears even as he was certain that from your position half on his lap, you would not remain ignorant much longer of the physical effects your words were having upon him. You loved him. You wanted to be his wife. All that time ago, greeting you on the docks, James could never have imagined that he would end up gloriously here.
“And I want no other wife than you,” he breathed, tasting your impossibly sweet smile in response as he caught his lips in yours, pulling you toward him until you were nearly straddling his lap and now surely very aware that there was nary a lie in his words about the desire he felt for you. Even if that thought made him blush for a moment, those thoughts were soon scattered by the fact that the warmth of you was all around him, your arms looping about his neck once more as you met his kisses with just as much eagerness as he felt.
“Wait,” you said after a moment, the word breathless as you gasped for air. James stopped immediately, his heart cacophonous in his chest. “Heavens, this is silly, but I think perhaps I should like to take my necklace off first,” you said, your smile equal parts nerves and excitement, the same feelings that were sparking through his own veins. “It is quite old after all, and I should hate for the chain to snap. Perhaps you might help me?”
James nodded immediately in affirmation, his barely-breathed ‘of course’ hardly audible from his own breathlessness. You gave him one more sweet smile before turning so that he could see the back of your neck where the necklace was clasped.
His hands were shaking as he reached past the loosened collar of your shift for the thin strand of silver. He could feel your breath catching as his fingertips brushed your warm skin, and his own breathing was not faring much better. It took him longer than it should have to undo the little clasp, given how much he was trembling. But he finally managed to unclasp it, letting the locket that held his own likeness fall carefully into his hand as he reached to set it on the side table.
James considered himself to be a man of restraint – prided himself on it, even – and so when he realized that your loose collar might easily reveal the crook of your neck to him as he still sat behind you, he almost resisted the temptation. But now was not the time for restraint, he reminded himself.
With hands that were shaking even more now than they had been before, he grasped the ruffle of your collar lightly in his fingers, pulling it slowly away so that he might see the elegant bend of your neck as it sloped toward your shoulder, that soft expanse of skin that he had dreamed of kissing now bare before his lips.
He skimmed his fingers across the long curve first, not wishing to startle you, and he was absolutely certain that you would know just how much emotion was trembling through him as his fingers shivered against your skin. He heard your quiet intake of breath as the pads of his fingers began their journey just beneath your ear, and he hesitated, almost lifting them away. But then you tilted your head slightly, leaning into the gesture, and he nearly choked on his own elation, letting his fingers continue to trace the line of your neck and shoulder, your skin so soft beneath his loving touch.
Then even his long-practiced restraint faltered, and he was kissing you, his lips pressed to the tender skin below your ear. God, it was so much better than he had dreamed, so warm and welcoming that he knew he could kiss every inch of you a thousand times and never tire of the sensation of your sweet skin beneath his adoring lips.
He both felt and heard your small gasp as he kissed you, but before he could withdraw his lips in fear of having displeased you, the sound melted easily into a happy sigh, and James thought perhaps he risked descending into madness over the knowledge that you relished his touch. He allowed himself to continue then, his lips making a slow, deliberate trail from your ear down to your throat, and he could feel the rapid pace of your heart thrumming against his lips, a sensation which did little to convince him that he was not simply going to go mad with happiness.
This feeling was only strengthened when he felt you tilt your head, revealing more of your neck to him, giving him more access, asking him for more. James could not have been happier to oblige, permitting his lips to ramble now, joyously wandering over your skin and eventually sinking deeply into the bend of your neck where he could smell and taste nothing but you.
It was as he was immersing himself entirely in you, living in a wondrous world where you and he and this moment were all that existed, when his hands, nearly of their own accord, or of some deeply-buried instinct, reached for your waist. His fingers sank gently into the softness of your stomach as his palms settled just above your hips, the warmth of you easily seeping through the fabric of your shift and sinking into his skin.
He allowed himself to revel in feeling the soft, natural shape of you, the one that was usually hidden beneath gowns and stays, the one that he was blessed to hold against him as he slept, and the one you now wished for him to touch as no other man ever would. James was certainly on the brink of delirium, a gasping, shuddering breath escaping him even as his lips remained pressed into the crook of your neck.
And then you leaned back against him, your head resting against his shoulder as you eased into his hold. James was now entirely delirious. A soft noise had escaped your mouth as you melted into him, and he was practically trembling with the knowledge that his touches could have such an effect on you. Even in his recognition that you desired him, he somehow had not quite accounted for this.
As he adjusted for the warm weight of you settling against him, his lips continued their wandering path along the top of your shoulder, his thumbs swirling slow circles on your back as he held you. With you resting against him like this, he could now feel more clearly than before just how breathless you were, inhaling and exhaling in fluttering gasps that were making his vision go a bit fuzzy around the edges. Or perhaps that was because of the way he was delightedly pressing kisses to your skin without any thought that he might need air. Likely it was both.
By the time he reached the edge of your shoulder though, he needed to see you. He lifted his lips away after placing one final kiss to your skin. His chances of forming coherent words were slim indeed, so he tried instead with his hands, exerting just the lightest of pressure where his hands still held the curve of your waist as though to turn you toward him.
Evidently, you understood precisely what he was attempting to ask – or perhaps you wished to see him as much as he wanted to see you. That thought was enough to have James fluttering his eyes closed for a moment to recompose himself. As he did so, he felt you raise yourself from where you had been resting against him. He blinked his eyes open in time to see you shifting on the mattress to sit in front of him again.
God, what a heavenly sight. You were bathed in the golden candlelight, your eyes warm and glowing as you gazed at him with a kind of adoration that was making him feel as though he was made of starlight, and a soft, luminous smile on your lips – your lovely smile that lit up James’ whole world.
It was as he was allowing to take in the divine vision of you when he noticed that the untied collar of your shift which he had displaced as he planted flourishing gardens of kisses at your neck and along your shoulder had left the front of the garment hanging in such a way that his cheeks were beginning to redden. Granted, it had not fallen away completely, but he could see more of your décolletage now than he ever had when the plush of your bosom peeked out of the necklines of your gowns, even the slightly lower-cut ones that he swore he wasn’t spending more time stealing glances at to determine whether they truly were cut more deeply than others. And if the collar just slipped entirely off your shoulder and took the rest of the garment with it in its descent, well then James might be dangerously close to collapsing.
“James,” you said quietly, and his gaze was on your face again in an instant, watching as a little nervousness began to creep into your eyes. “You should know… well, you probably presumed I suppose, that I have never done anything of… this sort before,” you confessed, the words just a breath on your lips as you glanced away in embarrassment. “I assume it was an unspoken truth that you would not be sent a sullied bride – I understand that my… purity was a nonnegotiable matter in the arrangements our fathers made.”
Indeed, James had known that implicitly even if such terms had not been precisely spelled out. An unmarried lady of your standing would of course have been expected to maintain her virtue, even if such things ultimately mattered little to him so long as you were still you.
But he could imagine your fear; he had even felt it, on the night of the wedding as you stood beside him in the shadowed house, your breathing unsteady and eyes darting around anxiously as you reconciled yourself to the fact that you would be expected to give yourself quietly and willingly to the virtual stranger you had just wed. And his thoughts on that matter now were precisely the same as they had been then.
“Would you like me stop?” he asked quietly, reaching for your hand where it was resting against the rumpled covers. He would stop. Even if it took every ounce of self-control in his body, he would stop. There was nothing more vile or hateful he could do than take from you that which you did not wish to give. But you shook your head in the negative.
“No,” you told him, your eyes meeting his again as they brimmed with sincerity. “No, I don’t wish for you to stop,” you emphasized, squeezing his hand lightly while you spoke. “I merely wished for you to know because…” You heaved a little sigh. “Because I have never known a man like this before.” You gestured with your free hand to the small, intimate space between the two of you. “And admittedly, I know little on the subject. I have seen my father’s anatomy books, but my mother forbade me to read anything further and made my father collect and keep hidden any volumes that might touch upon the topic. Evidently knowing anything other than the few basic guidelines I was given before I sailed to marry you would be an unpardonable blemish upon my purity.”
You rolled your eyes in frustration, and James could not help a chuckle at the endearing gesture, which had the blessed effect of coaxing a smile and a sweet laugh from you in return. You met his gaze then, and James was instantly sinking into the warm depths of your kind eyes.
“But what I really wish to say is that I have almost no knowledge or experience to speak of… and—and I don’t wish to be a disappointment.” You finished the sentence so quietly, your expression already sheepish as you looked back at him.
Oh. So that was the cause of your nervousness and hesitation. James could not bloody believe he had never thought of that before. Of course you would share his fears – why wouldn’t you? This was an entirely new experience to both of you, but somehow he had convinced himself that he was uniquely unprepared, entirely alone in his inexperience. At least he had been able to acquire a book on the subject, and you had been left with nothing except whatever surely insufficient advice you had been given all that time ago.
“This is new for me as well,” he confessed to you, reaching up to brush his fingers over your cheek as he felt you smile beneath his touch. This was a secret he knew he could entrust to you, here in the sacred, private space between the two of you, that despite his age and rank and the rumors that sometimes circulated about the doings of other naval officers, he had never been this close with anyone. Ever. Until you. “And there is no chance of you being a disappointment.” He hoped you knew he was completely sincere in that assessment; there could never be anything disappointing about being with you. “Anyway, I believe I am the one who is much more likely to be a disappointment,” he joked lightly in the hopes that his rather pathetic attempt at humor might relieve some of your worries.
You breathed a little laugh in response, even if you were already shaking your head in disagreement. But his words – likely his assurances of his own lack of experience more than his self-directed joke – seemed to have reassured you, because he thought he saw some of the tension in your shoulders ease.
“I can assure you that you will not be,” you told him softly, your gaze all warmth and genuine affection that made him feel like he was practically glowing.
And it was in that tender moment when he realized that his terror at the prospect of this unprecedented level of closeness had long ago retreated. Just… being with you made things feel so wonderfully easy, like these uncharted waters were ones the two of you would navigate together.
“But do tell me if you wish for me to stop,” he insisted. James preferred not to even imagine the disgust he would feel with himself if he pressed forward when you did not wish it. You gave him a lovely smile, reaching for his hand that had fallen back to the covers after he had caressed your cheek. You took his hand in yours, your fingers so warm and gentle as they trailed across his palm, sending little shivers of delight through him. Then you twined your fingers with his and met his gaze.
“I promise to tell you,” you assured him. Then you shifted closer, your free hand lifting to his face, your fingers spreading like an unfurling flower and leaving comet trails of light and warmth behind as you cradled his cheek. He was so close to you now, foreheads nearly touching as he looked into your eyes. They were all starlight, but warmer somehow, like infinite constellations of candlelight, warm and glowing, and all for him. “But James,” you continued, your voice just a breath in the tiny space between your lips and his, “I don’t believe I shall ever want you to stop.”
Then James was kissing you again, your lips warm and eager against his as your fingers found their way to his hair and began to weave through the strands as you deepened the kiss. Before he was even fully aware of it, he was easing you gently back against the pillows without ever breaking contact, one hand braced beside you as the other cupped your cheek while he continued to drink in your impossibly sweet kisses. There was no wine on earth that could fill him with the same fizzy, dizzying, brilliant warmth as the knowledge that you never wanted him to stop touching you. James could so very easily and happily arrange for that.
In response to your evident pleasure at his touch and your assurance that you would tell him if you wished for him to stop, James allowed his hand to wander as until now only his mind ever had. He trailed his fingers down your cheek, skimming over your neck before luxuriously tracing the elegant curves of your body, savoring the warmth of you that he could feel even through the fabric of your shift that still concealed much of your skin from his view. His hand came to rest at your midriff, just above the swell of your hip, his grip gentle even as the feeling of the plushness of your waist beneath his touch threatened to plunge him once again to delirium.
“James…” you murmured against his lips, and the sound of his name broke through to his reason as he stopped immediately, thinking perhaps now he had taken too many liberties with his wandering touches, and you wished him to cease.
He was panting as he looked down at you, cushioned softly amongst the pillows in the golden candlelight and gazing back up at him like there was no other man in the world, your lips still slightly parted from his kisses. He made a fist of his hand that was keeping him upright, forcing himself to focus.
“James,” you started again, your voice very quiet, “don’t you wish to remove my shift?”
OH. Admittedly, he did wish to remove your shift. He very much longed to see all of you, parts of you that until then he had only imagined. How he yearned to caress every inch of your skin, to let the adoration in his touch tell you how unspeakably precious you were to him. But his handbook had mentioned that some ladies preferred to keep their undergarments on to preserve a sense of modesty, which did seem a bit silly to him, given the circumstances being discussed. Nevertheless, James did not wish to make presumptions as to your preferences.
“Do you wish me to?” The question was a fragile, breathless one, but the way you were looking at him like he personally set the birds to singing and directed the sun to rise each morning told him the answer even before you spoke.
“Yes,” you breathed back, and even as your gaze fluttered away in slight embarrassment at the admission, the way you met his eyes again after a brief moment and your lips pulled into an almost playful smile, threaded through with ribbons of nervous excitement told him you meant it. You wanted him to see you. James’ vision went a little fuzzy.
But then he was kneeling back, giving you enough space to sit up as he willed himself not to become faint. How entirely humiliating would it be if he simply passed out at the prospect of consummating his marriage with his wife whom he utterly adored? And yet it felt like a tangible possibility; his body and mind were entirely unprepared for the glorious tender intimacy of everything about this moment, and thus he felt his usual predictable stability quavering as he struggled to contain this ocean’s worth of love and tenderness within himself. But he was not going to falter, not when you were entrusting yourself into his hands and letting him see you, letting him touch you, as no one ever had before and as none but him ever would. God, the heady rush of that thought was threatening his ability to remain conscious.
But then you were sitting up in front of him, your shift even more disheveled than before as you looked utterly stunning in the glow of the candlelight, and James was focused once again. All his earlier fears had dissolved completely as he watched you look back at him, your expression shy but eager as you reached carefully for his hands. He delivered them into your care immediately, and you drew them gently toward where the hem of your shift was pooled around your knees. You placed his fingers on the light fabric until he was grasping it gently and there was no hiding the way he was shaking.
He met your gaze again, and he saw mirrored back in your eyes all his own longing that he had carried quietly for so long. He wondered how long you had done the same, how often you might have thought or even dreamed of this moment, yearning for him to touch you just as much as his hands had been aching for the feeling of you beneath them. James risked losing the last few shreds of reason remaining to him if he lingered for too long on the thought that perhaps some days when you were putting your stays on, you wished his hands had caressed your bare waist, longed to know the feeling of his lips pressing adoring kisses into the plush of your stomach. Now he wondered if you had ever chosen those lower-cut dresses intentionally on days when you had perhaps woken from dreams not too dissimilar from those that had set his own cheeks ablaze, wanting him to look, imagining his loving touch that until now had only been dreamed.
Then you nodded as your hands lifted away from where his were gently grasping the hem of your shift, a final affirmation of your desire for him to proceed. With trembling hands, he raised the fabric, slowly revealing the hidden parts of you that you now wished for him to see, to touch, to hold. The pair of you then sank happily into an ocean of tenderness, illuminated by a sea of glittering stars above as both of you sailed onwards toward new, magnificent horizons that the two of you would discover together as one.
my heart's a sea – chapter fifty-seven (james norrington x wife!reader)
my heart's a sea masterlist (through chapter fifty) (starting with chapter fifty-one)
summary: James and his wife wake up (lmao I'm so bad at summaries 😅)
warnings/tags: f!reader, wife!reader, set post-cotbp, historical views of marriage and gender, historical views on sex, sexual references, some suggestive moments, James being repressed (but valiantly working his way through it!), mutual yearning, some very heated kisses; let me know if I missed anything!
words: 3009
author’s note: alrighty friends, please enjoy this sneaky update that I am actively putting off my coursework to post! I'm so sorry I'm behind on answering all your lovely comments on the last chapter (I will get to those asap!), but I really wanted y'all to have this chapter to enjoy before the end of the weekend! I am now off to do all my readings and wish I could be writing my fanfic instead! 😭 wild how having a ton of coursework and grading to do has only increased my motivation and productivity on writing this story, but honestly, I'm not complaining at all, because it's been super fun!! anyway, I actually am going to go do my work now, but I wanted to say that I'm really pleased with this chapter and I really hope you enjoy!! ☺️☺️
tag list: @xalphafox @gxpsywitch19 @trelaney @queen-of-bad-ideas @justsomerandomfanfic
we're definitely getting a little more suggestive here, so I'm marking this one 18+ – minors please do not interact
When James awoke the next morning, it did not take him long to realize that his hand, typically sedately resting on your waist or your back, had wandered. His palm lay pressed to the swell of your hip, his fingers brushing against the plush of your upper thigh. He could feel his cheeks beginning to burn already, even if his hand was still separated from your soft, warm skin by the fabric of your shift.
The previous night, he had allowed himself to go further than he ever had before, but not quite that far. He had held you to him, drinking in your kisses until he was nearly delirious and seeing stars even in the darkness of the bedroom. But then you had eventually settled yourself against him, your breathing becoming steady and deep, and he had fallen asleep with you in his arms, more at peace with his own more risqué thoughts than he had been in… well, possibly ever.
Now though, without the safety of the soft darkness in the room, with his waking mind clarifying itself and beginning to line up a hundred ways in which he might be misinterpreting things, James wasn’t so certain. But his hand was on your hip, and it would be so wonderfully easy to skim his fingers over you, to lovingly trace the graceful shape of you, his hand reaching your cheek by the time you woke so that he might cradle your face and sip the sunrise from your lips. But he shouldn’t… should he?
Then his chance to debate this quandary with himself vanished when he felt you shift as you began to wake. James should have moved his hand, sliding it upwards toward your waist where it usually rested, and he was beginning to attempt to subtly do just that when it became clear he was far too late.
He felt your hand cup over his beneath the covers, your fingers fitting themselves into the spaces between his as you gently pressed his palm to the curve of your hip, helping him hold you even closer to him. The fact that he was already lying down did almost nothing to mitigate the dizziness that scattered his more coherent thoughts when he felt you sigh happily against him, tucking yourself even further into his embrace, his hand still cradling your hip.
James was cognizant that he was certainly not breathing properly, his vision going a little hazy around the edges, but it was difficult for him to care about that in the face of the realization that you most certainly wanted him to hold you like this, that it was making you happy. And, God, was it making him happy, so happy that he risked becoming delirious with it.
He was very aware of every place where you were pressed against him, and it was most certainly one of those mornings where the distinctions between his body and yours seemed to dissolve. Your leg was kicked over his as it had often been of late, your head tucked just under his, most of you resting comfortably half against him, and his hand on your hip and your hand on top of his, irrefutable proof of your desire for such a gesture.
All that precious contact, even if hidden beneath the drapes of the covers, was beginning to cause images to materialize in his mind, images that he – for once – did little to stop or resist. In fact, James did something bold, rash even, his confidence bolstered as it was by the confirmation of the knowledge that your desires mirrored his own. He adjusted his gentle grasp on your hip slightly, fingers skimming over the ridge of your hipbone and just daring to brush over the plush of your upper thigh. He could feel the warmth of you sinking into his skin through your shift, could imagine how soft your skin might feel if the barrier of the fabric were not there. Such a thought only ignited a blaze of heat in his cheeks, and he swallowed thickly, trying to quell at least some of his unrulier thoughts.
That endeavor proved entirely unsuccessful when he felt your contented hum in response to the gesture, the soft noise of happiness resonating in his body as well as yours. In the next instant, you were easing into his rather daring hold on you even more fully, so naturally responding to the slightest movement of his hands against your body that it was truly beginning to make him feel delirious, sparkling fireworks cascading through him and filling his vision with multicolored stars.
A sharp knock on the front door downstairs echoed through the house in the quiet morning, and James felt you jolt at the same moment he did, the stars scattering from his vision as he tried to bring his mind into coherency in case this was a situation he needed to assess. The two of you remained still and alert, both half sitting up in bed, straining to hear if another knock would come. Instead, there was the faint sound of the door opening, and distant, indecipherable words that James was eventually able to identify as being spoken by Mrs. Baird, no doubt to whomever was at the door.
With a huff, he collapsed back against the pillows, draping his arm over his face in a gesture of exaggerated annoyance that he would never permit himself except in this safe, private space with you. He heard your musical laughter in response, far more melodious than any of the birdsong that had greeted the sunrise, and James found himself laughing too. Lord, you made everything feel so wonderfully easy, so gloriously light.
Then your hand was on his forearm, gently urging him to uncover his face, and he did so immediately only to find himself looking into your absolutely beautiful eyes and radiant smile. James was seeing stars again, brilliant lights ringing your face and casting you in a glittering halo that only seemed to better illuminate each of your lovely features.
“Commodore,” you began, and the way you were smiling around his title was seriously testing his self-control. But then you leaned closer, your nose nearly brushing his. “James,” you started again, saying his name like it was the most precious word you had ever uttered, like the very taste of it was sweet on your tongue. James had to bite back the rather unseemly noise that threatened to rise in his throat at the sound. “Am I permitted to inquire whether your lips might be at my service on this fine morning?”
If James could have uttered a single word, he would have told you that you never needed to inquire, that his lips were at your service always and forever. But he was not in a position to be uttering any words, and so he attempted instead to convey that same sentiment with the way he kissed you as though he would never need any other sustenance except the touch of your lips to his. He raised himself from the pillows, closing the miniscule distance between the two of you and catching your lips in his. There was soft laughter bubbling in your kiss as you happily reciprocated, and James knew there was not a champagne on earth or in heaven as divine as this.
Then your delighted laughter gave way to sighs that were having deleterious effects on his ability to maintain his grasp on reason. You looped your arm around his neck, deepening the kiss as he sat up more fully, enfolding you in his embrace until the plush of your chest was pressed nearly flush against his and you were sprawled half on his lap. God, he had never kissed you like this before, this new kind of nearness allowing him to sense the fluttering of your chest, the rapid pace of your heart as your flurried breathing and heartrate matched his own. With what little sense remained to him when most of his thoughts were dedicated to the divine experience of kissing you and then bursting into glittering golden clouds in his mind, he was vaguely relieved that he was still mostly draped with a tousled mess of sheets and covers so that you might not see the evidence of the effect you were having on him.
Somewhere in the distance, as though in another world from the heavenly realm in which he was living, he heard footsteps approaching the door. You must have heard them too, because your kisses slowed at the same moment his did, as though you were listening carefully for a sound that seemed as distant to you as it did to him. You pulled back slightly, panting quietly as James surely was as well, even if he was not yet fully conscious of the mortal realm again. Your eyes were warm and bright and brilliant as they met his, brimming with happiness that only served to increase his own delight a hundredfold, if such a thing were even possible.
Then the promised footsteps arrived, and there was a knock at the bedroom door. James did his best to swallow his annoyance; it was certainly true that the two of you were usually well up and beginning to prepare for the day by now. James called to indicate for the person on the other side of the door – who he very much assumed was Mrs. Baird – to speak.
“I do apologize for interrupting your preparations for the day, sir,” she began, and James was just relieved that she didn’t know precisely what she had interrupted. “But a courier came with a note from Mrs. Pace inquiring if Mrs. Norrington might be amenable to receiving a visitor today.”
James looked over to you, his vision going slightly blurry in the peripheries when he realized that the collar of your shift had slipped slightly off your shoulder amidst his fervent kisses, and he could now see a tantalizing sweep of your revealed skin from your shoulder to your neck that was so temptingly kissable that he had to make a fist of his hand in the sheets to physically restrain himself. But as he was nevertheless torturing himself by also not looking away, he noticed a little glimmer of silver at the crease of your neck, a delicate chain that swooped forward and disappeared beneath the collar of your shift. He had never noticed it before, but he had also rarely been given such an opportunity as this to see the tender skin around your neck that was usually carefully tucked away under neatly-folded fabrics or hidden by the ruffled collar of your shift.
“You may tell the courier that I would be very happy to receive her today,” you responded, and James could hear the way you were working to hide the breathlessness in your voice. It was perhaps not entirely respectable that James was a little thrilled by the private secret that his kisses had induced your breathlessness.
“Of course, ma’am – I’ll let him know straightaway,” Mrs. Baird replied, her footsteps disappearing down the corridor once more. After a moment, you turned to James, eyes sparkling as you broke into another round of quiet laughter that he was only too happy to join.
“What on earth is Antonia doing up at this hour to be sending couriers out?” you joked with clear affection for your friend, even if it was touched with just a little exasperation at being interrupted.
“I can hardly blame her for thinking of you immediately upon waking,” James responded, feeling much braver than he had in… well, possibly ever now that even his most persistent doubts could no longer dispute the truth of your feelings for him. Even so, he felt his cheeks pinken as he assembled the rest of the words that he wished to say, reaching forward to readjust the collar of your shift so that he could be focusing on something else and not stumbling entirely as he happily lost himself in the warm glow of your kind eyes. “I know I do the same each and every day.”
Heat flared in his cheeks as he caught the ruffle of your collar gently, and he permitted himself to just skim his fingers lightly over your warm skin as he righted your shift, but even that was inspiring a touch of dizziness as he thought again of pressing his lips to the bend of your neck. Your thoughts must not have been particularly far from his own – which was also not helping him to feel entirely stable – since he heard your breath catch at the tender brush of his fingers.
“James,” you murmured, turning to look at him just as he was replacing the fabric. All his movement stopped immediately, his hand still on the ruffle as he became entirely transfixed by the depth of warm, sincere adoration that was glowing in your gaze. “You must stop saying that you’re not a poet,” you insisted, “because you are always telling me the most poetic things I have ever been blessed to hear.”
“I—Thank you,” was what he managed in the end, a pathetic response for the way your words were making his heart feel as though it was taking flight within him, his cheeks certainly still embarrassingly pink.
When he regained his ability to move, he allowed his fingers to just dance over the thin silver chain at your neck as they released the fabric of your shift. He cleared his throat before attempting to speak again.
“Is this new?”
Your fingers lifted immediately into the place his had just vacated, and James wondered if you wished that he hadn’t removed his hand given how much he himself was now regretting having potentially lost the chance to twine his fingers with yours. You caught the chain delicately in your fingers, and he watched as you slid them down the length of the slender strand of silver until what appeared to be a locket emerged from the collar of your shift. It was a small, silvery oval, decorated with curling floral patterns that reminded him of some of your exquisite embroidery work.
“The locket itself is quite old, as it belonged to my grandmother,” you told him quietly, holding it carefully out from your neck so that he might see. “But I’ve refitted it with a new miniature relatively recently – here, would you like to see?”
You shifted even closer, gently placing the locket in his hand as he took it with the utmost care. The metal was still warm from being pressed so closely to your skin, and James passed his thumb lightly over the front, feeling the indentations where the lines of complex interlacing had been carved into the locket. Given, well, everything – your current closeness and all that had just transpired – James’ thoughts were not as clear as they might have been in other circumstances, and so he did not attempt many informed guesses at whose miniature might be enclosed within the locket. His first thought, and the one that seemed reasonable enough that he did not question it further, was that it was an image of your father; perhaps he had sent one in his letters. Because of this unquestioned assumption, he was not at all prepared for the visage he found looking back at him as he pressed gently on the tiny metal clasp and opened the necklace.
The face in your locket was his own.
James stopped breathing for a moment, immobile as the locket lay open in his fingers, happily presenting to him the fact that you had chosen to enclose an image of him in this precious piece of heirloom jewelry that you wore tucked so close to your heart. Points of pressure appeared at the corners of his eyes as his body tried and failed to process and contain the warm tide of tenderness and adoration and elation and a hundred other wonderful emotions which he had no names for rising within him.
“This was the miniature of you that my father gave me as he was arranging everything with your father,” you explained softly. “I found it again when I was going through my things, and then thought to trim it down so that it might fit in the locket.”
James recognized the image, one of a few that had commissioned after his promotion to commodore, mostly to send back to his family, as he had no need to keep miniatures of himself. He was still attempting to compose himself as his eyes remained fixed on the small portrait of him that you had carefully trimmed to put in your locket, now wondering at the winding path that had brought it to you. No doubt it was one that he had sent to his parents which his father had then sent on to yours when arrangements for the marriage were underway, and who in turn had given it to you as your only indication of your future husband’s likeness.
He wondered if the small portrait had haunted you as much as yours had haunted him; he remembered looking at the little painting of you he had been given, desperately searching it for any sign it might reveal of who you truly were. Now he had the incomparable privilege of knowing who you were. And now, all this time later, you were someone who loved him enough to carry an image of him with you always, pressed close to your heart.
Almost before he was aware of it, James was kissing you again, summoning all the tenderness his body could possibly muster and pouring it into the way he pressed his lips to yours, needing you to hear everything he knew he couldn’t fully articulate. He released the locket to fall gently back toward your heart, moving his hand up to cup your face, his thumb brushing adoringly over your cheek as he cradled you close, holding you like the wondrous miracle you were.
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