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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: R
Pairing: Will/James
Feedback: Good lines, typos, etc.
Disclaimer: Belongs not to me.
Summary: Mostly fluffy. James has a secret hobby.
***
When James was very young, his father had given him a trowel, several packets of vegetable seeds and a small plot in the yard. The most important lesson a true gentleman must learn, he’d told a solemnly-listening James, is to appreciate the fruits of honest labor, for that is what forms the base of England’s greatness. That first garden had not lasted long, but the lesson had. Even after James had had his first glimpse of the sea and recognized where his life would lay, it had clung to him like a speck of dirt to linen.
His agricultural efforts now had greater success, even though they did cause the servants to look slightly askance at him. He knew very well what kind of picture he must present, dressed in old shirt and breeches with both legs and sleeves rolled up, and sometimes he felt shame at the contrast between it and the elegant order of his uniform, but he’d found other worthy lessons in gardening. It taught him patience, and a cool head. It reminded him that from even the lowest might spring something worthy.
It was a good way to work out his frustrations. Pulling weed after weed, letting the prickles rip open his skin so the thick hot blood of his anger was allowed to drain out, he could finally let his grievances into the open air. For this reason above all, he’d positioned the garden where it could not be easily seen from the house, the neighbors’ windows or the back date.
“Damned idiots,” he snarled, wrapping his fingers around one particularly tough-looking weed. “Damn them and damn Jack Sparrow—oh, fine, I can’t but help them, but they could at least appreciate that. Make it look like a genuine escape instead of a charade that anyone with the slightest—bit—of sense—could—oof!”
The plant released its hold on the soil with a suddenness that sent James back on his arse. He immediately sprang up and looked guiltily about, but thankfully no other pair of eyes met his. He tossed the weed aside, then gave his bleeding hand a cursory examination. After he’d decided it was only superficial, he spat on the wound, rubbed it against his forearm and hunched over for the next weed.
“Sooner or later there’ll be a Crown official with some brains in his head, and then what? Do they think I’m a wonderworker?” His foot slipped on a clod just as he was bracing himself to pull. James caught himself and irritably reset his feet in preparation to yank the weed. “I’m one officer in the chain of command. I’m not the entire damned British Navy.”
“Well, you could have fooled—” Will stepped back as James whirled around, putting up his hands. From one of them dangled a bulky package that kept James’ eye, and that eventually drew Will’s once he followed James’ gaze. “It’s the gardening tools you ordered. Your housemaid said you were out here.”
Which was curious, since all his servants had standing orders to…oh, damn it. It must have been the new one.
For a few moments, the two men stared at each other. Will’s eyes moved slowly over James, noting the grubby clothes and dirty hands and sweat-matted hair. As if in response, a stinging drop slid into James’ eye. He absently rubbed it out, then realized he’d left a smear of dirt over his cheek. He refused to blush. “Well, thank you for not letting your recent guest interfere with your work schedule. I’m sure they’re of as fine quality as your other work, so you can leave them with the housekeeper. She’ll pay you.”
The words had scarcely left his mouth before he was wishing he could recall them. They were hardly polite and even less politic, no matter how secretly amused he was at Will’s shocked expression. James turned his shoulder to the other man and bent down to grasp the weed again. Hopefully Will would stammer something and leave, and forever afterward he’d try too damned hard to pretend this moment had never happened just as he had the time he’d lunged more swiftly, more cleverly during sword practice and drawn blood from James’ hand.
It was the garden, James thought. The garden and man’s propensity towards being a creature of habit. Right here was the only place where he ever allowed his thoughts to roam freely without a care towards society or duty or propriety.
“You know, that was so confused that I cannot begin to say whether you meant the compliment or the insult more,” Will finally said. He was still shocked, but unfortunately, he was no longer an impulsive youth. He’d grown and matured.
Or someone had matured him, said the bitter voice in James’ head. He yanked out the weed and turned a little too quickly towards the next one. With its patchy-colored leaves and ragged red blossoms, it reminded him of someone.
“That one looks like Jack—” Wincing, Will brushed off the bit of soil that’d hit him when James had torn out the weed. He eyed James for a moment longer, then put down his bundle and carefully stepped into the row. “This is a neat little garden. No wonder your cook is the envy of all the women in town, if this is where she gets her raw stuff.”
James chewed on his lip, but in the end he couldn’t be ungrateful. He found that irritating enough to have to step out of the garden and onto the grass, where he stood angrily dusting himself off. “Thank you. Turner, I’m busy and obviously I cannot pay you as I am. Please see Nell.”
“Are you always this snappish when you’re not at sea?” Will asked. He wasn’t looking at James, but at the row of squash. Then he leaned down to take one in his hand.
“Don’t—” James cut himself off when Will looked at him, then went ahead and said it anyway. It was foolish and he’d regret it later, but right now he wanted his damned garden with its peace and quiet back. “You’ve invaded my life at sea. Can’t you keep out of the rest? I have precious little free time as it is, and I refuse to—just get out.”
Blinking, Will hastily did, though he still didn’t leave. He motioned vaguely with his hands. “Sorry. I didn’t realize it meant so much to you—”
“A tradesman like yourself?” James snapped.
He saw that he’d pushed Will too far, but the fire was in the other man’s eyes before James could undo the damage. “Well, no, I wouldn’t know. Since you have the right to invade my shop whenever you please, commission my services for whatever you please and if I want to stay a free citizen of Port Royal…” Will heatedly retorted.
“Then why don’t you go off with Jack and Elizabeth?” James started to ask a few other questions, but this time he managed to stop himself. His mouth twisted sourly as he looked away from Will’s face, which said the other man had heard everything anyway, said and unsaid.
The squash that were swelling beneath the green leaves would need to be picked soon, James idly thought, or else they’d rot on the vine while he was busy at sea. He’d have to remind Nell to pinch the blossoms from now on, or else they’d end up with too great a bounty of them like last year. Pick too soon, or pick too late—the result was bad either way. That was a lesson gardening had taught him over and over, yet he never quite seemed to learn it.
“Because I have my reasons for not doing so,” Will said. He took a step towards James so his hands drifted into James’ field of vision. They were sooty, crusted over with little scabbed burns. “Why aren’t you this direct when you’re…well, not here?”
“Because it wouldn’t be appropriate. And don’t give me that look—I know you understand the concept better than Elizabeth does, or wishes to.” James gazed at the other vegetables, judging times for thinning and harvesting. Another drop of sweat trickled into his eye and he began to brush it off, but had to stop because Will had seized his wrist.
“And why would I be the one invading your life at sea?” Will’s voice had fallen to the volume of a whisper.
The onions probably would be ready for tonight’s dinner. Their tops looked as if they would have developed enough bite. “Let go, Turner.”
“When you’re finally being honest?” Will said.
The words stuck in James’ craw where they festered, because of all his flaws, he had never numbered that among them. He finally swung around to look at Will, who hung on to his arm so they were dragged together. “I never lied,” James fiercely replied.
“But you never said what you wanted. You might have been truthful to everyone else, but you lied to at least one person.” Reflected in Will’s eyes was the identity of that one person in question, as well as the understanding that Will also knew.
James drew a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. It didn’t work. His refuge had been broken, and suddenly all his fury spilled out.
They crushed the rhubarb first, cracking stalks and snapping their leafy heads as their knees and elbows churned the dirt so one plant after another toppled over. Pebbles shoved painfully up beneath James’ nails as he scrabbled for a grip, a handhold—anything, but all he found was loose soil. And Will.
He snarled, but the rich black earth soaked it up as it’d soaked up so much of his emotions before. His back chilled as the dampness of the dirt seeped through it and his hands blistered as they moved over Will’s body, raking up clothes like he would hoe ground. Leaves closed and opened over their heads, whispering gently over their furious grunts and groans. They stroked and tickled along the skin that Will feverishly bared, sticking to the spit Will’s mouth left behind. James twisted, trying to force his hands down the small space between them, and smashed his head into a pea-plant. The pods bounced off of him as his prick slid into Will’s grip, as he buried his hands in the heat of Will’s body and frantically, desperately, reaped what he’d sowed in so many careless, thoughtless moments. He did his best to catch it, but like he feared it spilled through his shaking fingers.
And somehow, it fell on him, curling around him in a tangle of exhausted limbs and filthy clothing that rooted him to the earth. He lifted a hand and gently touched Will’s shoulder, then let his head fall back to stare at the sky. He’d always expected that the waves would wash it away, as those had so many other things.
“Damn it,” Will said later. “It was a nice garden and now I’ve ruined it. I’m sorry. I’ll help fix it.”
“I don’t think you can,” James muttered. He looked up and saw a streak of soil jagging its way over Will’s cheek. When he tried to wipe it off, he only succeeded in smearing it more badly.
Will started to speak—headstrong boy not so distant after all—but then stopped, eyes intense and solemn on James. He nodded once when he’d understood, but the line of his jaw was firm instead of dejected. “Then I’ll help replant it.” Slight hesitation, first sign of uncertainty. “If you don’t mind.”
“I…” James looked at the sky again, then touched the dirt he’d spread over Will’s face. He smiled—a little sourly, but without restraint. “You picked a good day to deliver the spades and trowels. I hope you don’t mind hard work.”
Very carefully, Will reached out to dot James’ chin with dirt. He was smiling as well. “Not at all.”
***