#they put a lot of detail in the captain's room of the black pearl

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 2 - Port Royal

#kingdom hearts 2 #kh2 #port royal #scenery #my gif #this world is so dark i had to crank the brightness up for these #they put a lot of detail in the captain's room of the black pearl #i don't have access to the other ship because it got blown up but i'm sure that one looked good too

[asprettyasyourown]

How/Where do you think Jon and Arya will meet again? And how/where do you think Dany and Arya will meet?

Honestly, I can’t see Arya and Jon meeting anywhere else other than Winterfell. It would be such a satisfying “conclusion” to this aspect of their storyline. For Arya, both Winterfell AND Jon have been associated with home. She has tried since day one to return to either of them, and to see her do both at the same time would be so lovely. And Jon too, who has struggled for so long with his desire to have Winterfell (feeding his rivalry with Robb and his conflict with his status as a bastard) and Arya (contradicting his position as a member of the Night’s Watch, who have no family), would then get both at the same time. I know GRRM doesn’t like to hand things on a silver platter, and that “Be careful what you wish for” is a massive theme in the series, but come on. You can’t tell me they had it easy, and that they didn’t fight for it.

Now how and when is a little trickier.

Unfortunately, it won’t happen before a loooong time. Arya has a long way to go before leaving Essos, let alone reach Winterfell. She still needs to: 

Tie the story with the FM (including a “training” with the courtesans/the Black Pearl, and of course leaving them);

Deal with the wildlings women and children that are stranded in Braavos now that the Sealord captured the ship (= slavers) that intended to sell them;

As I’ve mentioned before, I very much see the Iron Bank being involved in her storyline, so there’s that to deal with as well;

Meet Dany (I’ll go back to this later);

Go back to Westeros;

Deal with the Riverlands, the Brotherhoods Without Banners and, most importantly, Lady Stoneheart;

Reconnect with Nymeria.

And all that doesn’t even take into account what GRRM could throw in her way on top of all of this. That’s a lot. And since Arya will definitively not see Jon anywhere outside of the North, it could only happen after she resolved all those things.

Jon too has a lot on his plate. He first needs to be resurrected (duh). He also needs to deal with the traitors who stabbed him and his future in the Night’s Watch. If you omit the whole murder thing (kinda hard to tbh), there is still the fact he broke his vows for Arya. He was already set to leave before he died. And since his last thoughts were about Arya, and we know the dead who get resurrected focus on their last conscious thoughts, his resolve to get her back will not be lessened.

Honestly, I think he’s done with the NW. I think he’s gonna do what he intended to before dying, aka kill Ramsay and get “Arya” back, whether by allying with Stannis or at the head of his own wildling army. I don’t know if he’s gonna become King in the North like in GoT, but he’s definitively going to be considered for the role; and since Bran, the legitimate heir, is still alive and will one day return to Winterfell, this could be the catalyst for the tension between these two George planned in his original draft. Not to mention the tensions it would create with the other northern lords, who would not see with a kind eye a bastard allied with the wildlings (enemies of the North for generations) and Stannis; or those who simply won’t appreciate a king not as malleable as a child (side-eye to the Manderlys).

(Oh, and there is also the matter with fArya and Theon. I’m going on a limb here, but I doubt he’s gonna be happy to learn that what he thought was his precious “sister” is really an impostor (though he might be happy to know the real Arya didn’t get what Jeyne had to endure). Or that she’s bringing along the guy who betrayed the Starks and supposedly killed Bran and Rickon. His first reaction definitively won’t be good, though it will probably soften once he learns what happened to them and how Ramsay is the real culprit. But I’m not anticipating much benevolence from him, especially since he’s in dark mode now).

So yeah. Lots of issues to be resolved before they can be reunited, and that’s without counting on the threat of the Others or what other characters might do. Honestly, I’m anticipating a reunion between the end of TWOW and the beginning of ADOS. On one hand, I think it would be more impactful in TWOW; most specifically, the last act of either Jon or Arya’s chapters. It would be a nice conclusion for the both of them, before the Others mess everything up. But I’m also aware that all the issues I’ve previously mentioned might not be resolved in one book, and that it might spill on the second one.

-----------------------------

Now Dany.

Honestly, it’s kinda hard to be sure of how they’re gonna meet. They will, that’s a certainty. There is so much hints, since the first book really. Remember this?

This time the monsters did not frighten her. They seemed almost old friends. [Arya, IV, AGOT]

Which is exactly how I’m anticipating their relationship. At first, things are going to be tense, especially on Dany’s side who has been fed lies about the Starks and their role in her exile (and who could blame her). So there’s definitively room for Arya to be frightened. But once she gets Dany to see her side to the story, and her vision of the events become more balanced, they’ll become fast-friends. They have so much in common, it’s impossible for them not to.

But, once again, the details of how they’re gonna meet is blurry. Arya will need to at least be done with the FM. And Dany... Dany has a lot on her plate too. She’s gonna need to deal with the khalasar she hears at the end of ADWD, and a possible confrontation (alliance?) with the Dothraki. She will also need to end the plot in Meereen (aka choose between “fixing” its whole culture or do what she always intended to, return to Westeros and seize back the Iron Throne). Of course, we know she’s gonna choose the latter - but a bunch of things can happen between that, and with them time passing.

At this point, Arya and Dany are very far away, each at one extremity of Essos. For them to have a chance to meet, I anticipate that Dany will end things with Meereen at the same time Arya closes the storyline with the FM (maybe even before, so Dany could already be on the road towards Braavos). Now is the tricky part. I have two theories on how they will meet: through the lost Wildlings and through the Iron Bank.

The lost Wildlings

We know the wildlings women and children in Braavos were “freed” when the Sealord seized the ship carrying them. Unfortunately, others were not so lucky.

“I know why the Sealord seized the Goodheart. She was carrying slaves. Hundreds of slaves, women and children, roped together in her hold.” Braavos had been founded by escaped slaves, and the slave trade was forbidden here. “I know where the slaves came from. They were wildlings from Westeros, from a place called Hardhome. An old ruined place, accursed.” Old Nan had told her tales of Hardhome, back at Winterfell when she had still been Arya Stark. “After the big battle where the King-Beyond-the-Wall was killed, the wildlings ran away, and this woods witch said that if they went to Hardhome, ships would come and carry them away to someplace warm. But no ships came, except these two Lyseni pirates, Goodheart and Elephant, that had been driven north by a storm. They dropped anchor off Hardhome to make repairs, and saw the wildlings, but there were thousands and they didn’t have room for all of them, so they said they’d just take the women and the children. The wildlings had nothing to eat, so the men sent out their wives and daughters, but as soon as the ships were out to sea, the Lyseni drove them below and roped them up. They meant to sell them all in Lys. Only then they ran into another storm and the ships were parted. The Goodheart was so damaged her captain had no choice but to put in here, but the Elephant may have made it back to Lys. The Lyseni at Pynto’s think that she’ll return with more ships. The price of slaves is rising, they said, and there are thousands more women and children at Hardhome.” [The Blind Girl, ADWD]

So the Goodheart was too damaged to go to Lys, but the Elephant wasn’t. It means there are still hundreds of wildlings women and children enslaved there. Honestly, I’m not sure how Arya could be involved in freeing them. Lys is a long way from Braavos, which means she would have to travel down there (with no resources and the other half of the wildlings), free them and get back up to sail across the Narrow Sea, deal with the Riverlands and then go North. It’s a little much for one girl, even one as resourceful as Arya. Sure, she could ask help from the Iron Bank (see my second point), but I doubt they would indulge her (high risk for no rewards).

But. You know who is as strongly against slavery as Arya, whose path might make her travel to Lys and who has the resources to fuck shit up? Yep, Dany.

The way I see it is, after being disheartened by Meereen and her failure to change the slaver(y) culture, Dany could very much decide to go home to Westeros - and set everything ablaze in her path. If she failed to abolish slavery from the inside, she might decide to do it by force, as a last FUCK YOU to the masters. This could be the beginning of her rock bottom, before she rises back again. It’s also coherent with the Dothraki culture of “Submit or be killed”, which could play a part if she allies with them again.

So I could see her attacking the big cities of Essos, destroying the masters and freeing the slaves as she goes along, until she reaches Braavos - who may be protected since 1. she would use its port to journey across the Narrow Sea and 2. they’re famously known for being founded by slaves and anti-slavery as a whole (and they actually enforce that rule, not just preach it and close their eyes when it counts). There, she could meet Arya through the wildlings women reuniting. Like I said, things would be tense at first, but if they might not be friends at first, they might respect each other for having their hearts set on the same goal (protecting their people). Friendship would come later, I’m not worried about that.

The Iron Bank theory

For me, the Iron Bank doesn’t get the recognition it deserves as a threat, and I fully anticipate them having a much larger role in the next book.

I really believe they will have a hand in Arya going back to Westeros. After she leaves the FM, I very much see them stepping in to offer their “help” to Arya. Personally, I believe the Kindly Man informed them of her real identity (though his motivations are yet unclear). I believe he’s aware of her value as a princess, and the (supposedly) last heir of the North. Look how people are rallying for her in the North when they hear “Valiant Ned’s precious little girl” is being brutalized. Do you think the Iron Bank is gonna pass on such a prize? I can see them trying to do to her what the Manderlys are doing with Rickon, or what Illyrio tried to do with Dany - offer their protection and help so she would be/feel indebted. They could get ahold of the North through Arya, and of the other Kingdoms through Stannis/the crown’s debt. Not too shabby.

But wait, there is a problem arising. A problem named Daenerys, who fully intends to take back the Iron Throne - and if she does, she’s not gonna care about reimbursing the debt her predecessors/usurpers left, thus lessening their leverage (and with three dragons, a Dothraki army and the Unsullied, threatening her is not gonna fly well). I can see them trying to step in too, promise the same things to her they did to Arya - except she’s not gonna fall for the same ploy like Viserys did with Illyrio.

(Btw, I’m sure Arya too will see right through them - she had a whole training dedicated to make her see beyond appearances, and she’s always been pretty observant (like when she didn’t fall for trap Cersei laid for her, with Lannister soldiers dressed as Stark men in AGOT). But she also don’t have the same resources Dany has, and if she frees the wildlings, she’ll have hundreds of mouths to feed and transport back to Westeros. I can’t see her do that without external help, so she might be playing along til a better opportunity arise.)

Now, both these theories have their flaws. The biggest one, for me, is time. Meereen is not gonna be resolved in a day (unless Dany just sets everything on fire the moment she arrives and takes off into the sunset, but I doubt that). She still needs enough time to travel to Braavos. Even if George takes his sweet time closing the FM storyline, dealing with the wildlings in Braavos and the Iron Bank, it’s not gonna take a million chapters. Unless he throws something in there to delay her departure, something that wasn’t foreshadowed yet? Because I don’t see them meeting first in Westeros. What would be the point of having them on the same continent if they don’t meet there? As always, there’s a lot left hanging in the air.

#asoiaf #arya stark #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta #jon x arya #jonrya #daenerys x arya #dany x arya #my metas #Anonymous #god #it's been so long since i've published on this blog #also why are my metas always so long #but here ya go #my two cents

[kodzukuroken]

Seasons change, but people... Do too I guess.| Chapter 1, Watercolour Cats

Genre: Angst, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers

Summary: You and Tsukishima had been friends for years but upon the arrival of a very special invitation, your relationship takes a sudden change. Will your long-harbored crush for your best friend finally come into the light? Or will your relationship be altered for good?

Aka, Reader is an artist who is in love with Tsukki, there's angst, there are laughs, there are three established captain relationships! What could a person want?

Pairings: Tsukishima Kei x Reader (Kuroo Tetsuro x Kenma Kozume, Bokuto Koutarou x Akaashi Keiji, Daichi Sawamura x Sugawara Koshi)

Warnings: Drinking, Swearing, Eventual Smut

Read on Ao3 | This will update before Tumblr

This is the second chapter! I really love writing this story, there are currently 5 chapters out on AO3, so if you’d like to read past this chapter that’s where you can do it! Enjoy!

You screeched, audibly screeched when you’d first opened the beautiful pearl coloured envelope with gold embossed letters on the front. It was exactly what you thought it might be, but that didn’t mean that you could contain your excitement any easier. Inside the envelope was a card littered with small watercolor paintings of cats (your handy work, by the way) with beautiful gold lettering that read:

“Dear (Y/L/N Y/N) you are cordially invited to the wedding of your friends,

Kuroo Tetsurõ and Kenma Kozume.

Saturday 18th at 3’oclock.”

Below was the information about RSVP and plus-ones, but you knew all the information already; you were just excited that the invite had finally arrived. You’d known that Kuroo was going to propose for months but just hadn’t had the right opportunity yet. You also knew that the only way he could agree to Kenma going ahead with a real wedding was if he planned everything in advance so that he didn’t have to worry about meetings with florists or bakers. So that's what he’d done, with the help of you and a few others Kuroo had planned his and Kenma’s entire wedding before he even popped the question. Of course, there was no doubt in anyone’s head that Kenma would say no. He and Kuroo had begun dating right after high school and it was about time that they made some kind of commitment. But once every detail was planned and every deposit had been paid, the only thing left for Kuroo to do was to ask. You’d begged him to call you when he eventually popped the question, but he’d just laughed and said

“I love you (y/n) but I think it would kind of ruin the moment if I suddenly celebrated my engagement by calling you. I’ll send out the invites the next morning, you’ll know by the end of the week”. And that you had, the invite had arrived in the mail the very next day after Kuroo had said he would propose, and you could not be giddier.

You took out your phone and called the most recent contact in your phone, the phone trilled for a second and then a very bored voice picked up.

“I told you not to call me at work, I don’t have time to chat with you during the day,” Kei said, but made no attempt to hang up the phone so you proceeded.

“Kei! Did you get it? Did you get yours?” you squealed. You could hear him tensing up at the tone on the other end.

“And what exactly is that I’m supposed to have got?” He asked as if this wasn’t something you’d both been waiting for for weeks. Well, more so you than Kei, but he’d had to listen to you talk about it constantly.

“Your invite Kei. Did you get your invite?” you heard him click his tongue and the shuffle around his desk a little. He read the same words that were on your invite out loud.

“You are cordially invited to the wedding of your friends, Kuroo Tetsurõ and Kenma Kozume.”

“Yes!”

“I’m not going,” he replied completely uninterested in your excitement. You scoffed,

“You abso-fucking-lutely are Tsukishima Kei” you knew he would be difficult about this, even though he helped plan the fucking thing.

“It's all unnecessary. They’ve been together for years, why have a party now?”

“It’s not a party, Kei. It’s a wedding ” you clarified.

“Same difference, besides who puts cats on a wedding invite. Their heads are weirdly shaped too.”

“I drew those cats you asshole!”

“I know,” you could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Keeeei” you begged.

“No”

“Pleeeeeaaase,” you begged again. He was silent this time and let you continue “We haven’t done anything fun in months. Besides, you’re Kuroo’s friend too and I know for a fact that he wants you there, plus-” you paused.

“Go on,” he pressed as if he already knew what was coming.

“I think this will really help me get over Ren,” you say. You can feel him rolling his eyes, Ren was your boyfriend of the past three years and you’d broken up just over a month ago. You were devastated when it happened but never really got an explanation as to why it did. Kei had found you after a couple of days of no replies sitting on the floor of your apartment weeping. He’d sat with you all night, letting you vent, before sending you to shower and buying you dinner. You hadn’t talked about it since then.

“Oh my god”

“It's true!”

“What does that have to do with me?” he asked, you could hear him typing on his computer now. He’d obviously realized that you weren’t going to let him get back to work.

“Because Kei! It's a wedding, I can’t go alone, that would be pathetic!”

“So you’re asking me to be your date now?” there was a small amount of evil delight in his voice, but you didn’t waver.

“Yes, I suppose I am.” He paused and you waited in the silence.

“Fine, but you’re paying for gas and buying dinner when the food is crappy” you squealed again and he huffed.

“Thank you Kei! You’re the best!” He didn’t reply, just hung up. You stood in your quiet apartment beaming to yourself, you had to call Kuroo.

You spent what felt like weeks planning for the wedding. Finding the perfect gift, making sure that Kei actually had something nice to wear, you even made him come along to help you pick out a dress which he was the opposite of thrilled about. You were about four dresses deep when you finally came out in a small dark green number, it hugged your waist well and the skirt was plenty full for a wedding.

“What about this one?” you turned to Kei who was sitting in a chair just outside the dressing room tapping through his phone boredly. He took one fairly indifferent glance at you and said

“It’s good.” You sighed and smoothed the fabric against your palms, in his defense this was the best answer you’d gotten all day.

“Really?” you asked, “you don't think its too-”

“Slutty?” he interrupted an evil grin on his lips. You hit him across the back of the head.

“I was going to say revealing” you turned to look at the back of the dress, it did cut a little shorter than you’d usually like. You sighed and waited for him to reply. He looked you up and down again and rolled his eyes.

“It’s shorter than the rest, yes but not by much. Plus it's a summer wedding” a rather pleased smile grew across your face. He saw how delighted you were with his genuine reasoning behind the choice.

“I’ve been around you long enough to know what kinds of things you like to hear,” he said plainly “Don’t start thinking that I actually care about what you wear.” But you just kept your bright smile and bounced back into the dressing room to change. You had your dress, now all you had to do was actually get him to go.

When you got to the wedding that day, you weren’t exactly shocked at how beautiful it looked. Rather, you were just reminded of the incredible taste that Kuroo had hiding somewhere in the back of his dumb jock brain. The wedding was simple, minimal flowers with lots of white and small red accents everywhere. Both Kuroo and Kenma wore black with small red hibiscus in their lapels. The ceremony was short, intentionally you figured so that Kenma didn’t have to stand in front of so many people for too long. But he looked probably the most relaxed you had ever seen him while not sitting in front of his computer, it was pretty amazing really. You and Kei sat near Bokuto and Akaashi, one of whom cried the entire way through the ceremony. You’d laughed quietly when Kei turned to Bokuto next to him and whispered

“I never pegged you as the romantic type Bo” Bokuto looked at him through teary eyes and nodded his head in response. Akaashi laughed and placed his hand on Bokuto’s to calm him a little.

Before you knew it the ceremony was ending, and just as the priest was finishing up his last words you turned to Kei and asked him something softly.

“You don’t actually believe that do you?” you asked, just loud enough for him to hear.

“Believe what?” he asked in a low voice.

“What you said on the phone before, do you really think that weddings are unnecessary?” He thought for a moment, and then shrugged just enough for you to see.

With that, Kuroo and Kenma were kissing lightly and a small blush was rising in Kenma's cheeks, the whole room erupted in applause and the two began to walk down the aisle. As you rose to leave, Kei’s lips found their way to your ear again

“I suppose it works for some people, you know if you find the right person.” The words sent electricity down your spine, what was he insinuating?

The reception was a little more Kuroo and Kema than the wedding had been. There was apple pie instead of cake and a small row of arcade games in the corner of the room, something that Kuroo had been insistent on in order to do something for Kenma. After everyone gave their speeches and the “surprisingly not the crappy” food was served ( Kei’s words not yours). Everyone began to make their way to the dancefloor besides the two of you and a few others. You watched as Bokuto swung Akaashi around wildly while Akaashi merely complied with whatever his boyfriend was doing with a small smile on his face. There were a few of the guys from Kei’s old volleyball team here, but he made no attempt to talk to any of them. It wasn’t until a tall boy with dark hair and freckles made his way over to the table that the two of you even noticed he was there.

“Yamaguchi!” you cried, completely delighted. He smiled kindly and wrapped you in a hug.

“It’s so good to see you!”

“You too (y/n)! It’s good to see you too Tsukki!” Yamaguchi paused for a response.

“Hey” Kei offered and you rolled your eyes. Yamaguchi just chuckled.

“You haven’t changed Tsukki I can tell you that” you laughed along with Yamaguchi before it was Kei’s turn to roll his eyes at you.

“I’m getting a drink, do you guys want anything?” Yamaguchi shook his head, but you offered to go with him. The two of you headed to the bar, pushing through the large crowds to a man in a vest and tie who was serving the drinks. Kei ordered for the both of you and you stood close to him you both watched the bartender make your drinks.

“You could be a little nicer to Yamaguchi you know,” you said it lightly but he knew you were serious.

“I was plenty nice,” he replied, his eyes on anything but you.

“Kei, he was your best friend i-”

“Yeah, in high school, but we’re not in high school anymore are we?” he was a little more pointed this time, and you felt it in your chest.

“So what? We were friends in high school and we still are now, or is that not what we are?” Kei was silent for a minute and met your eyes with his golden ones, you could see that he was thinking but you weren’t exactly sure about what.

“No,” he replied.

“No?”

“No, that's not what we are. You’re just the crazy girl who seems to have never left me alone since first year” he smiled into his newly freshened drink and you scoffed.

“Well that's just rude,” you whipped your head around dramatically, trying to act outraged. You heard him chuckle and it made your cheeks warm.

Then you felt his finger tapping your elbow, you sighed and tried to look distant and dramatic.

“I’m not talking to you until you apologize Kei,” you said and suddenly felt him pressed close to your back. Your heart raced and blush rose up your neck as you felt every inch of him pressed against you, if you didn’t know him any better you would have thought he might be enjoying it as much as you did. With that, he leaned down to your height and brought his mouth to your ear for the third time today.

“Let’s dance.” Your eyes widened as you twisted around, you looked at his face that had returned to it’s normal height.

“You don’t dance,” you said, eyes narrowed. He sipped his drink again.

“No, but you do and it’s a wedding.” You still looked unsure so he rolled his eyes “Plus it’s a slow song which is safe and it will get you to stop sulking” you couldn't argue with that.

You let him guide you over to the dance floor where everybody else was swaying in each other's arms. You smiled, a little nervous, you always liked to dance at parties but you were never much of a slow dancer. But you let Kei pull you in effortlessly and place his hand on your hip and hold your other hand in his. You brought your spare hand to his shoulder and let him guide you around the dancefloor slowly. For someone who didn’t ever dance, Kei was surprisingly good at it, it had even left you a little flustered when he managed to spin you around flawlessly in time with the music. You smiled up at him, and figured your look must have been an intrigued one because he asked,

“What?” you held your tongue for a minute but figured it was safe to address it.

“You can dance” your voice had more disbelief in it than you intended and Kei rolled his eyes.

“It would seem so, yes”

“I didn’t know you could dance” he spun you around again before you could say anything else and then came close to your ear again.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me (y/n)” your breath hitched in your throat before you brought your head to rest on his shoulder, deciding it was too dangerous to antagonize him when he had you in such a state.

When the song ended, Kei stopped and you looked up at him. His golden eyes looked softer than you had ever seen them, the light of the hotel ballroom bouncing off his glasses just enough to make them twinkle. Your heart swelled as you thought about the last seven years of your friendship together and finally, the words he’d said to you at the wedding earlier that day returned to your head.

“I suppose it works for some people, you know if you find the right person”.

Your heart stopped, how could you have been so stupid.

He was just about to ask if you were okay when you grabbed his hand and mumbled something that sounded like “Come with me”. Before you knew it you were out in the quiet hallway, the music from inside muffled by the large doors, it was cool out here and you shivered a little from the sudden change.

“(y/n)?” Kei asked, he sounded a little annoyed but confused more than anything.

“Just, give me a second Kei,” your own voice was muffled in your ears. Everything suddenly felt completely hazy but also clear as day. God, how could you be so stupid? All these years you’d been trying to preserve your friendship, thinking that Kei had no interest in you whatsoever but you knew now that wasn’t true. He’d come with you tonight, he’d laughed with you and held you while you danced together. He liked you.

~

“(y/n)? We can go, leave, if you’re not having a good time” he began “seriously if you’re going to be we-”. He was cut off by your lips crashing into his. He was tense for a moment, completely confused as to what the fuck was happening. But when he felt your hand lace into his hair, he relaxed a little. You stood there holding each other in a kiss for what felt like an eternity before breaking away to breathe. You looked deep into his eyes and smiled, your eyes were filled with tears. But Kei was too dumbfounded by what had just happened to even notice, he looked on at you blankly trying to process what had just happened.

“Kei?” he looked at you for real this time, fully coming to terms with what had just happened. You’d kissed him.

“I can't do this” he heard himself saying before he could even think about it.

“What?” he knew you’d heard him. “Kei what are you talking about, isn’t this what you wanted?”

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation. Fuck, what was he doing?

“Then what’s wro-”

“We can’t. Not now, I can’t” before he knew it he was backing away from you. He cursed himself as his arms disconnected from your waist.

“I’m sorry,” you said, you were crying fully and his heart tore in two, “I thought this was what you wanted”. You were looking down at your shoes now, just like he used to watch you do when you were younger. God, he was an idiot.

“I’m sorry (y/n), I just ca-”

“ Can’t. I fucking get it Kei” you spat at him eyes averted. He’d never seen you look this broken in his life and he’d caused it. You turned away from him and began to shake, all he wanted to do right now was hold you. Hold you, and apologize and kiss you again, but he couldn’t. After another beat of silence, you sniffled and turned your head just enough so he could hear your broken words.

“Just go Kei. Leave, please”. His heart shattered at the finality of your words, but he did as you said and left without another word.

~

After you heard the large door to the wedding swing shut behind you, you began to sob. You tried to stop yourself, you told yourself to breathe, but any air that came out of you was broken and hitched. At some point, you had managed to walk yourself over to the large spiral staircase nearby and perch yourself on the steps, before crumbling into tears again. How could you have been so stupid? Of course, Kei didn’t want you, you’d been friends for years if he was in any way interested in you by now he would have done something. God you were an idiot. In one night you had managed to lose your best friend just by giving into a feeling that you’ve been harbouring for years.  You thought about how sad he looked, how confused and shocked his face was as you pulled away. You thought about how your heart shattered when he pulled his hands from your hips. What the fuck had you done? You’d ruined everything.

You sat for what felt like forever, weeping silently to yourself when eventually you heard the doors to the wedding swing open again. There was a small part of you that had prayed he’d come back. That he’d just been scared and that he really did want to be with you, but you weren’t so lucky. You looked up from where you sat and there in the doorway was Bokuto, the smile fading from his face as he saw the tears coating your own. He rushed over to you.

“Hey, hey, hey, what happened are you okay?” he sat next to you and put a hand on your knee, but the sudden comfort just made you cry even more.

“I-it’s K-Kei” you managed to get out after a few minutes.

“What happened? Was he an asshole to you? God that fucking guy” Bokuto put his arm around you and began to curse Kei out, but you shook your head.

“N-no, it was me. I r-ruined it Bo” you sniffled your head resting on his chest now.

“Ruined what (y/n)?” he asked innocently as if your whole world hadn’t crumbled around you not ten minutes ago.

“Us. Me and h-him, everything we had. It’s gone.” Bokuto sighed and pulled you in closer.

“Don’t be crazy, you guys have been friends since high school. I’m sure it wasn’t that bad” you shook your head again.

“I ruined it, Bo. I ruined it”. Those were the only words you managed to get out for the rest of the night. At some point, Bokuto had carried you up the spiral staircase of the hotel to a room. He placed you on the bed lightly and then sat down on the one next to you.

“Stay here with me and Kaashi tonight, we’ll keep an eye on you”. You nodded, too weak to protest. He sat on the bed next to you for a while, just watching. Eventually, your eyes grew too heavy for even tears to fight off and you fell into an unrestful sleep.

The next morning, you awoke to dappled sunlight dancing across your face. For a moment, you had completely forgotten what had happened between you and Kei last night, it wasn’t until you heard a familiar voice whispering somewhere nearby that it all came flooding back.

“I don’t know Kaashi, she wouldn’t say. She just kept saying she’d ruined things” it was Bokuto. You cringed and tried to squeeze your eyes closed even tighter to make it go away.

“Do you think he tried something?” it was a different voice now, one a little softer than Bokuto’s, you heard Akaashi sit down on the bed next to you.

“No, I doubt it, Tsukki’s an asshole but not that type” there was a silence, you figured that they were looking at you. This was as good a time as any to make your presence known. You sat up slowly and groaned a little. You were met by Akaashi’s soft eyes, and Bokuto’s expecting ones.

“Hey,” you said, voice a little hoarse from all the crying last night. Akaashi handed you a warm mug.

“Here, tea will help” and smiled up at him softly.

“Thanks, I’m sorry if I intruded on you guys last night” you took a sip of the tea and tried to focus on how warm it made you feel.

“Oh don’t worry about that” Bokuto said, a little too loudly for your sensitive head, “we’re just worried about you that's all”.

“Bo” Akaashi snapped trying to be quiet about it.

“It’s ok, I appreciate your guys’ concern,” you said, setting you tea on the side and getting up to stretch. Akaashi nodded and sipped from his own mug.

“Are you okay then?” he asked, you hadn’t expected the question to hit you so hard. You plopped back down on the back.

“No,” you could only be honest here, they’d already seen the kind of state you were in last night. Bokuto sighed and came to sit next to you,

“You have to tell us what happened (y/n), did he do something?” you shook your head hard, you didn’t want there to be any confusion as to who was at fault here.

“He didn’t do anything, it was me” Bokuto looked confused because he knew Kei, and he knew the kind of asshole he could be and he never expected that you could have been the one to cause this damage.

“I kissed him” you peeked over to look at both Bokuto and Akaashi, but they were both staring at each other silently.

“And that's bad because?”

“You don’t understand Bo, I kissed him and I didn’t say anything at first I thought he liked me, between the wedding and the dress and the dancing” you were on your feet pacing around the room now “and then what he said, a-at the reception I thought it meant something”.

You looked to Bokuto and Akaashi for some kind of understanding but you were left with two vacant looks. You sighed and leaned back against the wall.

“I led him out into the hall after we danced, and I kissed him” you closed your eyes, replaying everything in your head “and he… he rejected me. He pushed me away and said he couldn’t. I tried to push him for a reason but he just kept saying he couldn’t. And then he left”.

You looked at Bokuto and Akaashi again and now their faces looked solemn. You laughed bitterly

“I never should have assumed he liked me”.

“(y/n) no!” Bokuto said Akaashi put his hand on his boyfriend’s knee attempting to calm him, but it was to no avail.

“It’s Tsukki, he’s always had feelings for you! The two of you belong together!”

You were completely taken aback by Bokuto’s words, you’d know you’d always thought these things secretly but you had no idea that anybody else could see it. But then you remembered Kei’s face after you asked him why, he looked so confused and betrayed he couldn’t possibly have thought the same things that you and Bokuto had, you were wrong.

“He doesn’t want me, Bo, I ruined it” tears began to sting your eyes again, luckily Akaashi interrupted just in time.

“Why don’t we take you home yeah?” you nodded and the two guys pulled you into a smothering hug.

“It'll be ok, (y/n). You guys will figure it out” you couldn’t make out which one of the guys this had come from, but dear god you hoped they were right.

#haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu!! fanfiction #haikyuu!! #tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima kei x y/n #tsukshima kei #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima x y/n #tsukishima #kuroo x kenma #kuroo tetsuro #kenma kozume #bokuto x akaashi #bokuto koutarou #akaashi keiji #daichi x sugawara #hq x reader #fanfic #mypost #angst #slow burn #friends to lovers

[bearpillowmonster]

Top 15 Movies

I made that Top 15 Games post so I decided to do movies as well, same rules apply here but you’re going to see mostly Marvel and Disney movies anyway so I made it one per franchise such as one Star Wars, One Avengers, One Guardians, with that Guardians Vol. 2, Pirates: Curse of the Black Pearl, Spider-Man: Homecoming were the runner ups. No particular order.

Incredibles: I went to the theaters to see this and I feel so happy that I did, I remember being so impressed with Dash running on the water then beating those goons. It really set the bar and holds up today considering I hold it higher than it’s sequel and it made me a fan of Brad Bird.

Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse: Am I hopping on the bandwagon here?...Nope! I was making this list and I was going to put either the first Raimi film or Homecoming and I started thinking...why not Spiderverse? I really adore the other ones but there are a few glaring problems with them, this one...I can’t actually name any.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: I really enjoyed this when I saw it, it’s one of those where I can watch it again and again and not get tired of it. I’m not sure why but it was a lot more fun than I expected, it also had ONE of the best villains of the MCU (in my opinion) as well as the worst.

The Losers: I see this as a staircase to the Marvel universe, I mean we have Zoe Saldana and Chris Evans here, what’s not to love. I think we all know what my favorite part was...

The Three Musketeers: Mickey, Donald and Goofy: It did justice to the characters and made a classic story into something new and entertaining. It’s underrated. And who can forget this part:

Tron: Legacy: This or Tron, This or Tron? Both were very good but this one has a little better effects obviously as well as doing a lot of things that the original already does, add Daft Punk’s killer soundtrack in there and you got yourself a formula for an uprising. #TronLives #FlynnLives

Atlantis: The Lost Empire: Good voice acting, cool effects, a nice aesthetic with the glowing lights, crystals, and ancient technology (I guess you can say I like blue lights judging by my previous entry) But I remember first seeing it and immediately feeling the weight from that beginning with Kida’s mom. It’s a nice adventure and makes me wish that it’s sequel wasn’t so iconicly hated because it gives the title a bad name. I refuse to watch the sequel if it really is that bad.

The Lion King: Can you blame me? Do I even have to explain? Animation is gorgeous, designs are peak, music is top notch, and expressions that they get ‘Oh so right’ that no live action remake could ever recapture. This is considered a masterpiece. I can quote it on the daily, remember even the tiniest details and just the amount of times I’ve seen it makes me want to say it IS a part of who I am.

The Avengers: Infinity War was close but this was the cake. You can walk into a room with this playing at any given moment and be like “Oh yeah this is a good part.” They spend every minute doing something interesting.

Captain America: The First Avenger: A lot of people overlook this one because of the other 2 but this one will always be my favorite. I remember seeing it the first time, just came out on DVD and my mom went to her baby shower, me and my dad watched it and she came back AS SOON as it was done, as if this was just to pass that exact amount of time. Cap is a character you want to root for, his morals are worth fighting for. Iron Man may have started the MCU but I say Cap shaped it and made it better, this was the real start (as Avengers was next. Red Skull is just a villain I like, both movie and comic as well.

Baby Driver: I was superhyped to see Spider-Man: Homecoming so I traveled just to go see it as early as I could, I said if anything went wrong, I would go see this. I ended up being fine and waited until this was on DVD. Edgar Wright has some of the best editing in his movies, the way this movie uses music, the tone, the idea of it being in the perspective of the ‘Getaway driver’ it makes it exciting and gives it spunk, it makes you like the character, the music, and heck root for a criminal. I wasn’t a big fan of the big twist everyone likes with the villain but that’s ok.

Inside Out: I went to Disney World and when I learned they were still playing this in theaters there, I dropped everything and went to go see it. Little did I know how right I was because I really enjoyed it. It’s an emotional film, gets me crying probably more than any other film, it really nails what’s it’s talking about...feelings. Mix that with glowful animation, good voice acting and a lesson that makes you think and really ponder.

Guardians of the Galaxy: I thought this would try and be like Star Wars and just be a giant battle in space. Nope! This has charm, character, and maybe a little bit of rudeness but man! I mean escape from prison in zero gravity, freezing in dead space, singing in the middle of everything and once again the villain. Why do I like the underrated villains? I think it’s a good contrast with the goofy personality of the characters to have a serious, brooding, and gritty character. As well as a proper introduction to Thanos (yeah he’s still number 1 villain in my book)

Star Wars: Somewhere, somehow, this had to be on the list. One way or the other, Star Wars is a phenomenon that can’t simply be ignored, with all the controversy and misdirection within the community right now, for some reason I keep getting tossed and turned but I find myself coming back e-v-e-r-y-t-i-m-e! I’ll say A New Hope is my favorite but really, I could say just about all of them. Something about seeing Luke, Vder, Leia, and Han in the same place just tops it off. The witty duo of R2 and 3PO, the original Death Star, the quotable moments that make you wish you were on that planet yet also find yourself relating with the way Luke wanting to get away but at the same time missing his old ways.

Black Panther: I’ll be honest. I don’t really like Black Panther in the comics. I felt like he was a cool secret weapon in the cartoons but I never really gained my appreciation for him until Civil War came out, then I really liked him. I figured out why too, I just really didn’t like how bland his suit was in the comics, I ended up reading a few anyway after the movie. I think he’s worthy of the Infinity Gauntlet like in the comics. Well this movie came out and I saw it opening day to a big crowd, it had good music, good style, a fresh take and blend between ancient and modern styles (kind of like how Atlantis did) as well as giving it a sense of culture, and not shying away from that. It’s almost like the Lion King, I never felt the same way about a film but those two feel similar and for that alone is a feat.

#top 15 movies #black panther #guardians #guardians of the galaxy #top #movies #list #star wars #a new hope #inside out #baby driver #captain america #the first avenger #avengers #the lion king #tlk #atlantis #the lost empire #mickey donald and goofy #three musketeers #tron #legacy #tron legacy #the losers #antman #antman and the wasp #ant-man and the wasp #incredibles #spider-man #into the spiderverse

[superhero-daugthers11]

Endgames: captain America ten years later.

1965

He wakes up to the tv blasting in the next room. He could hear the voices of the Sunday cartoons and the children giggling. He looked to his right and saw his beautiful wife, Peggy Rogers, asleeping beside him. He watches her for a moment, captured by her beauty. Her fair skin untarnished by imperfections. Her curly brown hair had grown longer almost to her waist like a goddess. Her lips red like cherries and plump. He smiled as he caressed her arm.

He felt like the luckiest man in the world. He knew that to leave the avengers, to leave his life in the 2000s was the best decision he ever made. He knew he would have never been happy there, he needed Peggy to complete him. Without her..life was just a blur...he was just going through the motions without any hope or purpose.

Back then, he had given up on the idea of ever being happy, ever getting the life he dreamed of. Yet, now his dream was a reality: he had his best girl, and two wonderful kids he adored.

Peggy’s eyes began to flutter as she woke. She looked up at her husband.

“Steve are you okay?” She asked.

“I’m fine.” Steve answered. “Your just so beautiful. I cant keep my eyes off of you.”

She rolled her eyes and chuckled.

“I can’t believe you married me.” Steve told her. “I mean son e whimpy little kid from Brooklyn got you.”

Peggy smiled as she sat up then put a hand on his cheek.

“You are so much more than that. I’m glad we found each other.” Peggy began. “Honestly your the best thing to happen to me and i don’t think anyone could have been more perfect for me. Your my everything, Steve.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Do you know what today is?” Peggy asked him with a smirk.

“The best day of my life,” he answered grinning. “The day I married you.”

He leaned in close and kissed her. A passionate kiss that made every fiber of his being surge.

“Ten years, with my beautiful Peggy Rogers.” He continued.

She leaned into him and he ran his fingers through her hair.

“I have a special day planned for us, your gana love it.” Steve told her. “I got us reservations at that fancy Howard always surgests.”

“Your joking? That place costs a fortune for one meal.” She chuckled. “It probably cost more than this house for order of fries. We can’t go there we still need to buy the kids new clothes.”

“It’s not that bad.” He remarked back. “Howard told them that we were friends of his, so the restaurant gave us a huge discount. Free drinks, and 10% off the meal.”

“Wow that is impressive. Geez who knew knowing Howard stark would be useful for something.” She joked.

He chuckled.

“Plus I found a coupon for 30 percent in the paper!” Steve boasted with excitement.

Peggy grinned and she hugged him.

“I have taught you well.” She told him. “This is gana be great! You didn’t go out your way like this, I would have been fine with dinner at the diner.”

“These years have meant the world to me and I have been so happy being by your side. I had to do something to show you how much you mean to me.”

“Oh Steve, you sure know how to make a girl feel special.”

Steve leaned in for another kiss when suddenly they heard yelling from the other room. There was a crash and then more yelling.

Then the bedroom door swung open. Two children entered dressed in colorful PJs. One was a girl with long curly blonde hair and dark brown eyes. The other a boy with short light brown hair and blue eyes.

“Mom! Phillip broke the lamp in the living room!” The girl shouted. “He was throwing the baseball in the house! I told him to stop-“

“She’s lying! She is always lying!” The boy, Phillip yelled as he cried. “She broke the lamp doing cartwheels in the living room!”

Peggy got out of bed and hugged Phillip, she stroked his hair comfortingly.

“Amelia.” Steve called with stern voice. “Did you break the lamp and don’t lie to me, I can always tell when you lie.”

“Yes, Daddy, but i-“

“No buts your gana sit your room and think about what you did for 15 minutes and then no tv for a week.”

Amelia instantly began to cry and she clung onto Steve.

“But daddy I didn’t mean too! And I’m sorry!” Amelia cried out. “I’ll be good just don’t ground me, New twilight zone is on tonight!”

“Aww. Don’t cry princess.” Steve uttered as he hugged his daugther.

“Daddy, don’t you love me? Twilight zone is my favorite show and now I’m gana miss it!” She cried harder. “I hate you! I hate you!”

“Okay I take it back, your not grounded!” Steve replied quickly.

“Steve!” Peggy yelled. “We talked about this, you can’t cave in every time she throws a fit.”

“But she said she hated me. I don’t want her to hate me.” Steve replied sheeply.

“She’s 8 years old, she doesn’t mean it.” Peggy told him. “She just says it because she knows when she does you will give her what she wants. She’s manipulative, she is my daugther.”

Later that night, Amelia and Phillip drove the babysitter crazy as they ran around the house playing out the war stories their parents had told them. They knew every line, every detail from the stories and to them they were heros. They would annoy the babysitter by replaying the newsreels from the war over and over again. The kids literally idolized their parents. Phillips favorite toy was a plastic shield, Steve made for him and Amy loved playing with the toy gun.

Meanwhile, Peggy and Steve entered the fancy restaurant dressed in their best outfits. Peggy has her hair in an updo that that reminded her of aubrey Hepburn. She dressed in a beautiful long red dress with red laced sleeves and poofed out at the bottom. She wore her favorite red heels and a pearled necklace, that belonged to her mother. Steve wore a black suit jacket and black pants. He wore a collared shirt and fancy shoes. they still stuck out like sore tumbs amoung the rich but they didn’t care.

They sat down at a table in the center of the restaurant. There eyes darted around them looking in wonder at every beautiful picture, flower and musician playing.

“This is so nice.” Peggy told him. “we haven’t gotten to go out just us in so long.”

He chuckled.

“I know. I think the last time we went out was the week before Philip was born.”

Peggy smirked. “Sounds about right. I miss this. you know just getting time to talk with each other and hear about each other’s lives without being interrupted by the kids bickering or work calling. It always feels like there’s always something, always running around.”

“I still wouldnt change a thing.” Steve answered. “These past few years have been the best of my life.”

Peggy smirked.

“Oh come on! You told me stories about your adventures in the future.” Peggy began. “You were adored and seen as one of the worlds greatest hero’s. You lived in the age of technology were people could see each other on there phone and watch movies in their homes without a VHS player. You met people with incredible powers and abilities and saved the world from being destroyed multiple times. They had a whole bloody museum dedicated to you! You werent happy then?”

“I didn’t belong there and I felt it.”

“What do you mean? You were there for awhile I’m sure you got used to things.”

“That’s not what I mean, i felt like I was just going through the motions, doing what I thought I had to do or should do. I couldn’t be happy there, everyday was another battle another war and it was draining and depressing. No body was ever safe and no matter how many times we saved the day something bigger and badder came out of the shadows. I mean as soon as I woke up from the ice they had me join the avengers and fight Loki, a few months later shield infiltrated, then the fight with ultron, then the accords battle and then the whole thanos thing. I saw the world I knew literally fall apart around me over and over again. The wars never stopped! ...and I couldn’t be anything else but a solider. That’s what they needed and that’s what they got. I was proud to be apart of their team and I was proud of what we accomplished together. But I was captain America, to the world to the team...that’s it, Steve Rogers was gone. I had no hope of him ever coming back.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me any of this before? You always boasted about the accomplishments of the Avengers and you told the stories as if they were fun, as if they were just another challenge.”

“I didn’t want to appear weak, I wanted to be strong for you. I didn’t want you to think I couldn’t handle it or that I was selfish or.... I wanted to be someone the kids could look up to, who you could be proud of. Not some fool who cracked under the pressure.”

She put her hand in his.

“Steve, I could never think that of you and you are as much a hero as any of them. War effects everyone in different ways and too much of it can drive a person insane. Your not weak for being unhappy back then your strong because you overcame it and kicked some ass.”

He gave a small smile.

“Thank you.” Answered him. “That means a lot.”

Suddenly the band starts to play a fimilar song. Steve looks at Peggy and they both have the same look of excitement on their face.

Wise men say on fools rush in

But I can’t help falling in love with you

“There playing our song.” Steve told her.

“Well...is it? I hadn’t noticed.” She joked.

He stood up and put out her hand to her. Her grin turned wider and she took his hand and he pulled her close to him. He took one hand in his and put the other on her waist. The two swayed back and forth near the table.

Take my hand, take my whole life too

For I can't help falling in love with you

For I can't help falling in love with you

#captain america #steve rogers #family #peggy carter #avengers #marvel #marvel roleplay #endgames #infinity war #the avengers #tony stark #howard stark #agent carter #steggy #feels #real #war #pain #parenting #love #loki #thor #couples #avengers endgame

[suggestionsofthecaribbean]

The Black Pearl: James and Elizabeth

The rescue mission is finally underway, and in precious snatches of privacy James and Elizabeth are trying to figure out the dynamic of their love life.

CW: An attempt at mild bondage that is quickly abandoned.  Eventually, at the end, there is relatively explicit sexual content.  This post is extremely long.

Tia Dalma said the way to Jack Sparra was as hidden as the inner chambers of the heart, beneath wave and earth, beyond time and reason.  A deep cavern, neither of land nor of the ocean - and when you came out of it, not even of this world anymore.  Her jewelry rattled, her eye glimmered; every man or woman in the room had shivered.

And Will Turner had spoken up first.  “So who’s for spelunking?”

And the Pirate King had looked away, eyes distant, maybe misty, jaw tight.

---

Teague and Barbossa handled being crammed onto the Pearl startling well.  Teague was more elegant in his ways than his son was and not desperate to prove his dominion over the ship, and Barbossa, for his part, was as obsequious to the father as he’d been mutinous to the son; their shared humility led to an agreeable and easy co-Captainship.  The Pirate King was superior to them both, but also the least qualified and the least knowledgeable; and so she marched around and looked important, got on gamely with everyone, asked Teague more about the Code, ribbed Barbossa about his monkey, and practiced her Cantonese; and all day long she barked frequently specific orders to her dog without partaking much of his company - nor that of her ex-husband, her civility to whom matched her treatment of the other captains, yet whose presence seemed to provoke zero consideration or emotion from her at all.

There were bets taken among the crew for which of her men she was on with.  Some had it that her clipped cordiality with Turner meant she had chosen him, since she spoke not a word to Norrington that was not an instruction, and thus probably meant to give him a hard time; others had it that Turner was out and the attention to Norrington was a show that she liked him - the Pirate King bein’ a female, and that bein’ the ways of females an’ all.

In spite of all of those bets, however, not a man aboard noticed that one of them joined her in her cabin that night.

---

James had her in his arms the moment he shut the door.

“Elizabeth-”

Not content only to see her again, he picked her up and hefted her onto the crook of one arm, turning her across the floor like a newlywed and then kissing her deeply.

Elizabeth gasped and laughed and then shushed herself, smacking him on the shoulder scoldingly for making her make so much noise, and rendering this scolding toothless by kissing him back with equal ardor.

“Do you know the trouble it’s been, staying reserved and silent all day when all I wish is to adore you-”

“Oh, but you did so well-” she said, running her fingers through his hair while clutching his shoulders with the other hand. “You did everything so well…”

“One does one’s best,” he said, before kissing her again.

She let him, wrapping her arms further around him, pulling him close, pressing herself closer. James carried her to her little cot and gently lay her down against it, leaning over her and seemingly, for once, uncaring of his hair falling in his face. Elizabeth pulled him closer still, guiding him down between her thighs while kissing him with increasingly soft kisses, before holding his head against her throat, tilting her head back and groaning in sharp, sudden frustration.

“I was so angry at Tia Dalma I didn’t ask after a quondam-!”

James flinched. “Well, I suppose we’re even now-”

“I’m so sorry, James-”

“How long has it been-”

“I don’t know - I should be due soon-”

“Do you suppose it’s been three weeks?”

“Yes?  Yes, it must have been -  Elizabeth blinked, breaking the mood a little. “Lord - has it already been three weeks-”

James was visibly lost in thought.

“I- if it’s been three weeks the odds are low, very low-”

She started clutching at him a little too obviously.  “Oh - really, James-?”

“I- I think,” he said warily. “I’m not positive-”

“Do you want- should we try?” she asked, pushing herself up on her elbows.

“I-”

His hand warily settled on her belly, followed by his line of sight.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I would hate to do that to you before you desire that as a possible outcome.”

Elizabeth’s shoulders sank, but her legs stayed wrapped around his waist.  She slept in a shirt most nights, but changed into a more flattering nightgown if James were invited to her cabin - tonight, particularly, she had donned it with enthusiasm.  Currently it was bunched around her hips, too long to do anything else.

“But what are the odds of that, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not the kind of thing one can tell out of hand.”

“James,” she prompted. “We could die on this quest.”

“...that’s a fair point,” he said, though he had to look away from her as he did.

She rubbed the back of his hand.

“I have not yet shaved,” he said abruptly- and, following that, he immediately winced. That, if anything, only barred them from further alternatives to what they were both considering at the moment.

“I don’t mind,” she said - touching his beard affectionately.

“Elizabeth-”

He sat up beside her.

“If you were to fall pregnant- with my child, no less-”

She pulled a bit of a face, but endeavored to appear to be listening.  “Not precisely unheard of to raise a child at sea,” she coaxed him.

“Yes,” he said patiently, “but with this whole… dog thing we’ve worked out-”

“I don’t care if anyone knows you’re the father.  And you would be a good father-”

This clearly gave him pause- James had not expected to hear anything quite so sweet as that at a time like this, and he smiled almost reflexively.

“But would you wish to be a mother?” he asked, putting his hand flat on her belly again. “It’s asking a great deal more of you than myself.”

“I’d manage,” she said, after a short pause.  She had not planned on anything that had happened to her in the past three years; this was, therefore, probably true.  “I’m sure not all pirate children grow up to be depraved little monsters with tattoos everywhere.”

“Ha,” said James, giving her a very level look. “It’s not as though either of us would set that example to start with, unless you have plans.”

She smiled at him, perhaps a little mysteriously.  “Not at present.”

“Mm. Well, I can’t say it would change my good opinion of you.”

“I was thinking about getting one,” she admitted hesitantly.  “I’ll tell you about it… later, I think.  When I’m not so embarrassed-”

“I don’t mean to pry,” he said, kissing her shoulder for good measure. “They’re quite common in the Navy, regardless.”

“Mmmm, this isn’t the Navy, James-” she sighed, shutting her eyes and tilting her head back.

“Of course not,” he said, kissing under her jaw. “If it were, I would not be doing this-”

He leaned back and added, with a stern point of the finger, “I know the sort of joke you’re thinking of, and I’m telling you now that it is not as clever or original as you may believe.”

“I can honestly tell you I have no idea what you mean,” said Elizabeth, pulling that hand to her breast.  “I only have one thing on my mind, I’m afraid…”

“What’s that?” James said dryly. “Motherhood?”

“Fatherhood,” she rejoined, and started to laugh.

“If you’re certain-”

He kissed her again.

“-you and the child will want for nothing-”

Elizabeth rubbed his chest as she kissed him back.  “You know,” she murmured.  “Captain Barbossa’s not half bad with children himself…. Perhaps sailors are just very well-suited to child-rearing.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “though I suppose you would be breaking new ground as far as carrying one goes.”

“That’s not so,” she countered.  “I don’t know too much about Jack’s mother, but I gather he was born at sea himself.”

“And Grania O’Malley had a sword in her hand two hours after delivering,” James added, “though she was, I believe, around thirty at the time. What do you think as regards naming it, hm? I suppose Weatherby is the obvious choice for a boy-”

“James,” she said faintly.

“You already said Eliza for a girl- I suppose they won’t all turn out to be little Sparrows, would they?”

“I don’t know.  Teague’s a good enough sort, I guess, but rather eccentric; you would probably be a sterner father - and a more affectionate one, I think.  Little Lizzy the Second would be much better off for that, I’m sure-”

“Wait- what does Teague have to do with it-”

“What does-?  James, you can’t be serious.”

James had gone a little frantic around the eyes, in that subdued, tamped-down way of his.

“I know you like to believe he was more a father to me than the admiral, but I never knew the man-”

Elizabeth was so incredulous that she started laughing - and she had never been good at reading the subtle details of emotion.  “Oh, come on - you’re having a go at me.”

“It’s a- well, I assumed it was a cultural sort of thing,” James began lamely, looking away from her with wide, staring eyes. “I didn’t think-”

“But they look exactly alike,” she said helplessly, still laughing.  “Anyway - why did you think Teague came on this rescue mission, he doesn’t involve himself in much else- has to be impartial to enforce the rules, I suppose - well, it explains a lot, doesn’t it?  Jack’s always been a better sort of pirate than most of them.  Cares a lot about what’s fair, in an each man to his own sort of way-”

James stood abruptly and paced across the floor. There wasn’t a lot of room to do that, and he ended up turning back to her almost immediately.

“Oh, my God.”

Elizabeth had not noticed the early stages of his panic, but when he broke from her, she knew it at once, if not the reason for it.  He found her sitting up uneasily, looking concerned.

“James?”

“Teague’s son?” he blurted. “That man- Jack bloody Sparrow-”

“Yes,” she said, hesitant to confirm it.  “Are you - come sit down-”

James groaned and sat down on the edge of the cot, pushing his hair out of his face in irritation.

“You mean to tell me,” he said, “that I threw over four hundred men into a watery grave chasing down the son of the man who saved my life-”

Elizabeth went abashedly silent, unsure of how to proceed from here.  The guilt he felt, the reality of it were so enormous she couldn’t hope to fix them.  

“James, I didn’t- I didn’t think, I’m sorry-”

Touching him gingerly on the shoulder was a poor excuse for comfort, but she thought to pull closer to him would only be smothering and counterproductive.

“I always exempted Teague,” he said faintly. “Did you never realize that? When Beckett began the purges- I fed him as much misdirection from the start as I could to keep him away from you, from Turner- and from Teague.”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“And any family I knew him to have, which was none. My God- if I’d known, I never would have sailed into that fucking hurricane-”

Elizabeth tried to rest her unhappy head on his shoulder and impede him as little as possible.

She had no idea what else to do.

“At least-”

He sighed. “It ended all right for me, I suppose. I can’t say as much for the others.”

“It was the law that was wrong - not you,” she said quickly, though her voice was a little flat - she felt numb.  “How could you make a choice? You had none.”

“The law didn’t tell me to pick up a bottle,” he countered, with a sad smile. “That’s the kind of thing that damns a man, wouldn’t you say?”

“Be damned with me,” Elizabeth whispered, turning her face to meet his gaze.  “I- I can’t say I’m not sorry for how we got here, but -”

She bit her tongue for a moment.  It was not fair to compare Will to four hundred men and boys rotting underwater, broken heart or no.

“-  I’m glad we’re here all the same.  I don’t care if it’s selfish.  You belong with me.”

James touched her cheek.

“I know.” He took a slow, shuddering breath, and added, with a similarly sad, drained laugh, “I haven’t indulged since- Good God, July?”

He paused.

“My God- Elizabeth, is it October already?”

“You know what this means,” said Elizabeth, focusing on something distantly, with a forlorn expression on her face.  

“I know something,” he said, “but nothing important right now-”

“We are really bad friends to Jack Sparrow.”

“Jack Sparrow is not my friend,” James retorted, “and it took his father just as long.”

“He’s my friend,” said Elizabeth fiercely.  Then she deflated.  “Well, he was until I murdered him in cold blood and all of that,” she added miserably, and buried her face against his arm and groaned.

“Perhaps I can bargain with the witch to bring back the Dauntless,” James said mirthlessly, “or at least the men aboard.”

“That would be a little difficult,” Elizabeth said, muffled against his arm.  “If not for her, then for them to go home to families that have spent two years mourning them.”

“I know,” James said fully. “But even so-”

“You would only be condemning them to lives as outcasts,” she warned. “Three years is a long time to be dead.  And then all of them just come back? A miracle; or summoned from hell?  And what will they go back to - wives remarried, children adopted, houses and belongings all sold - James.  There’s nothing you can do for them.”

“And yet Hector Barbossa is stomping about overhead, playing at schoolmaster,” James said, with a bitter laugh, “and Jack bloody Sparrow’s died three times now and we all have to undo that, of course.”

“One of those times was my fault,” she reminded him quietly.

“I nearly hanged him,” he said, rubbing her between the shoulders. “And came rather close to shooting him-”

“Both of those things were different. It’s - oh, nevermind.  You weren’t there.”

James smiled, but it turned into more of a grimace. “I was probably in Beckett’s office about then.”

“It’s one thing to kill a man in self-defence,” said Elizabeth, after a long moment; the silence of the cabin was terrible.  “But to preventatively kill him, to save yourself?  To kill a friend?”

“Elizabeth…”

He pulled her up a little higher, to lean on his shoulder.

“What happened back there-”

“Davy Jones sent the Kraken after him,” said Elizabeth with a pleading insistence. “We tried to battle it, but nothing worked.  Jack wanted all the survivors to pile into the longboat and make for shore while it took down the Pearl-- but it didn’t want the Pearl.  Just Jack. So I -”  Elizabeth blinked quickly.  “ - please don’t make me finish this.”

“-so you considered the greater need of your party,” James said gently.

“- I kissed him, and chained him to the mast while he was distracted,” Elizabeth said bluntly. “Will saw the kiss and looked away after, I presume.  He spent the next year thinking I was-”

She had to stop again, now feeling the tears stinging her eyes.  “This isn’t like you, terrified out of your wits and picking up a bottle in a storm.  There were more righteous ways I could have thrown Jack to the creature - could have put the matter to a vote, or told the crew what I did, or whatever.  I deceived him and then I lied about it, James.  Don’t try to protect me from this.”

“Elizabeth,” said James, though there was a note of discomfort he couldn’t quite conceal. “That’s- well, you were proactive, I suppose.”

“That’s why he hates me so much.  That’s also why I have to come rescue him.”

“Then we are alike in obligation,” he said grimly.

She kissed him on the cheek. He smiled a little at that and pressed his hand to her own cheek, as though to hold her there a little longer.  She responded by bringing her kisses down his jawline, not minding the beard one bit.

“Changed your mind?” he teased, slipping his fingers into her hair.

“You know I like it,” she said, a little miffed, as she moved her lips to his throat.  “I just also know that you don’t.  And you can grow it out again if you change your mind…”

“More like if you change yours-”

“Well, I wanted to give you the illusion of control over your own life,” she said with a low laugh. “James, get on the bed.”

“Do you mean to say you would prefer me on my back?” he asked. “I’m afraid I’m already on the bed.”

“Yeah.  I mean get on your back, on the bed,” said Elizabeth, already sliding onto the mattress.

James obligingly lay back and swung his legs up onto the mattress, with a little palm-up gesture, as though to say that there she had him.  She had him indeed; she was on top of him in a moment, hands in his hair and kissing him.

“Does this please you-”

“Touch me,” she commanded, instead of answering him.

“Where?”

“Wherever you want most-”

He began with her hair; that would be the easiest way to keep himself from getting carried away, and it was so close already to the neck he moved on to kissing almost immediately after.  Elizabeth shut her eyes and arched into it, her own hands creeping down to his chest to remove his shirt.

“I love you,” he breathed. “It still- I am still dazzled, to be so wanted by you after all-”

This didn’t propel her to greater heights of desire; it made her feel uncomfortably guilty.  As much as she had tried to anchor her feelings in their past, she could not fully deceive herself that wanting James had not been new.

“ - I love you too,” she finally responded, passing it off as having been distracted by his touching her, and turning her head to kiss the palm of his hand, a gesture he reciprocated.

“I did not think you would choose me over him,” he said, reverently, against her palm. “I hardly dared to dream of it.”

“You - never?” She hadn’t wanted to follow him down this line of thought, but her discomfort pulled her there anyway. “Not after everything?”

He lifted her hand from his mouth to look up at her with sad, knowing eyes.

“I didn’t know. It was difficult to think that things might have mended again between you.”

She couldn’t meet his gaze for long.

“I’m sorry I didn’t… I didn’t do enough to assure you.” Even with her eyes cast down, she smiled.  “That you were mine. That I intended to keep you.”

“Why, Elizabeth,” he said, reaching up to touch her face, and then pull her downward to kiss her, “that's very nearly a threat.”

“Captain Swann to you,” she whispered against his lips, smirking.  Her tone was as sultry as it was dangerous.

“Your Majesty,” he said, in a low voice.

“One day,” the Pirate King continued conversationally, gliding the backs of her knuckles over his temple, “I will have you so thoroughly that you’ll be saying that as you climax.”

“Would you like me to work on that?”

“I suppose I’ll have to train you.”

“With what instruction?” he asked, lifting one leg and firmly bending it over hers.

Elizabeth reached up and behind him, sliding her hand beneath the pillow for something she’d had prepared.

The notorious silk curtain tie.  

“Touch me a little while longer, my love,” she said with a look of profound satisfaction on her face. “Because in a moment I will ask you to give me your hands, and I will expect you to comply.”

He grinned. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

He kissed her again and pulled her down as much as he felt his station allowed.

It was, by and large, Elizabeth who took advantage of the minutes in which she allowed him to caress her - guiding his hands to pull down the bodice of her gown, nuzzling the palm of his hand, taking his fingertip into her mouth.  She saw no need to disguise that this was more for her benefit than for his.  It was an open secret, really.

“Does this please you?” he asked, pushing his fingers back through her hair.

She had been straddling him for the better part of it, all the greater pity they could not do as planned.

“Why don’t you check and see?”

“There are many kinds of pleasure, sweetheart.”

“Indeed, but I seek one at the moment.”

“Am I to look for a change in climate, then?” he asked lightly, gliding his free hand downward.

She was forced momentarily out of character by an eruption of laughter. “Climate, James?”

“If I may be so cautious-”

“I don’t enjoy your caution in this context.”

“I thought you might prefer to see your time extended.”

“Oh, it shall be, darling.  I just want you to feel how I feel before I lash you to this bed,” she said with a gentle kiss.

“What- are you hiding more ropes in there-”

He patted down the length of her body, somewhat facetiously, while raising an eyebrow at her.

Elizabeth laughed again, pulling both of his hands back to her bared breasts.  “Just your hands tonight, darling.  One cannot learn too much in a single evening.  Instructing you will take some time.”

Her smile was merciless and clearly baiting him.

“Would you have me blinded again, Your Majesty?” he asked, with an almost distressing degree of sincerity.

“Not tonight.  One peculiarity at a time, I would think, is sufficient.”

“Ah,” he said. “Er, Elizabeth-”

“Poor thing,” Elizabeth laughed, stroking his jaw affectionately. “Would you have liked that?”

“Elizabeth,” he said, and he tried to soften it with a rather embarrassed-looking smile. “I- I don’t think I particularly desire to be tied up.”

“ -oh,” said Elizabeth in surprise, the little rope still in her hands. When she lowered them, without thinking, the rope sagged as though it had overheard, and had its hopes dashed. “What do you particularly desire?”

“I’m still sorting that out,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s- Elizabeth, you know I love you very much, don’t you?”

She laughed again, once and loudly. “A bit of insurance before you tell your mistress you’d rather not be tied on a leash?”

“Well, in a sense-”

Elizabeth chewed on the inside of her cheek and then proffered the ties again. “Do you wanna do it on me?”

“What, tie you up?” he blurted, looking startled by the very idea.

Elizabeth smirked at him.  “Could make it a game, hm? Pirate hunter and captured Pirate King?”  She was tickling him under the chin with one of the tassels. He laughed, and gently pushed it away, but let his hand linger on hers before lifting it to his lips.

“I want to stay here with you,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it neatly across the palm, “and talk, and enjoy your company, and take a little time to appreciate that you’re mine…”

“There’s not a lot in there about, ah, rutting each other senseless, is there-”

“We’ll see if we can work up to that,” James teased.  

Elizabeth looked at him stubbornly.

“Do you not know where I am sitting? I think you’re worked up to it.”

“I haven’t,” he pointed out, “and I’m in no hurry to do so. May I kiss you again?”

“Hmph,” she said, with a demure nod of resignation.

He did, lips parted, and clasped her hands in his.

“I don’t want to simply rush into having a go at you,” he said, leaning his forehead to hers. “I know you don’t mind it, but- putting you to it first thing when I have been away from you for so long- as though I’m using you and worrying about the formalities later-”

“But I love doing it,” said Elizabeth, somewhere between petulance and remembered ecstasy.  “How can it be using me?”

“I hope this doesn’t constitute too much of a problem,” said James.

Elizabeth slid gingerly off his lap.  “I think you underestimate how much I want you.”

“I’m not going to challenge you to prove it,” James said lightly. “I suppose- well. I always had a very specific idea of what our marriage would entail, and the physical aspect was- never mind. I did not like to dwell on it.”

“The physical aspect was what,” she asked suspiciously.

“Rather low in my consideration,” said James. “As I said, I did not wish to dwell on it. It seemed improper.”

“What was your ‘very specific idea?’” she asked in growing, flattered curiosity.  “I- we- might implement it, if you like, if I care for it.  I think what we have now is very like what we might have had,” she said, and mortified herself by being shy.

James’s eyes widened as he looked at her, then looked away and down.

“I- I mean to say that I had thought- expected- more companionship than… physical acts,” he said, looking sidelong now to the cabin wall. “That was the very specific idea. I could not bear to think of much more save that I wanted to know you might enjoy said physical act-”

“Now I do - really, really do - and you avoid it,” she pointed out, with a small, pleased smile.

“I’ve a rather complicated history there, darling,” he said, looking back at her again to assure her he was not offended.

“Mm, yes. And you’ve a rather complicated history with me,” she agreed, rubbing his chest so as to assure him that she was not either.  “I wish I could ease your conscience some.  You have no idea how much I long for you - all day I do - and then being here with you, finally… I suppose you are less afraid of using me and a little more concerned that I am using you.”

“Lettie was not my first woman,” he said carefully.

“I had not thought she was. Men have more reign in these matters than women do, and you are a sailor.”

He smiled unhappily at this. “That’s hardly an excuse.”

“Nor indeed do you need an excuse,” she said, rubbing her thumb fondly back and forth over his chin.

“A woman would be expected to supply one,” James retorted.

“You know I think that is a wagon of horseshit, too -”

“Does it not seem rather unfair to you that a man is not, then?” he asked.

“Of course it does - but not in that direction,” she said incredulously.  She leaned up a bit on her elbow and stretched her legs out.  “I believe,” Elizabeth mused out loud, “everyone should do whatever they please, whenever they want to, and be obligated to no person - so long as they do no person any harm.  Of course… If the East India Trading Company were to take a loss… or justice were dispensed towards those who do harm on a regular basis….”  Elizabeth started to laugh, the kind of low but uninhibited laughter that often accompanies drowsiness.  

“Those are rather unconnected phenomena, darling, that’s nothing to do with carnal matters-”

“Well, I am not merely speaking of carnal matters,” said Elizabeth peevishly. “You know people are limited in more ways than that.”

“If your father had seen the… disgraceful way I was carrying myself as recently as the week I brought the pair of you to Port Royal,” James protested, “he might never have given me his confidence around you- especially not after your incident in the library. It’s only through the grace of God I’m not poxed-”

Elizabeth shrugged.  “I don’t mind. I’m only a bit jealous.  I too would like to have a string of conquests behind me - Sao Feng left me his ship, but the rest of what he gave me wasn’t very nice, and I wasn’t with Jenny for long enough -”

“Oh, God,” James groaned. “They weren’t conquests-”

“Indeed, you were the conquest in every encounter, I am sure -” Elizabeth smiled at him teasingly.  “At least you are with me, whether I may tie you down or not-”

“They were encounters, at best,” James said. “And frequently paid. And God, that’s not accounting for-”

He grit his teeth and took a breath.

“-fumbling with boys in the dark. That was hardly conquest either. We avoided looking at one another’s faces. We knew each other too well for that. Some of the others were busy with conquest, but one learned to look the other way and try to avoid the sound of it. There was a sort of stratification- some of us simply had to get it out somewhere, and another’s hand was as good as anywhere, and others- well, God forgive me, but they were practically sweethearts. It seemed unreasonably cruel to suggest it.”

“Cruel to suggest what?”

“Parting them-”

“I don’t know why you think it is my place to offer commentary on this,” said Elizabeth, after a pause. “I wouldn’t have done any differently.”

“Squandered yourself on people for whom you felt nothing but lust, and sometimes not even that?” James asked skeptically.

“What!” she exclaimed, in some surprise; this was so little like her own way of thinking. “Gained a bit of experience and made the passage of time considerably less dull - lord, James. It’s not as though I haven’t done a few things.”

“Less dull- well, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, but I could probably have made captain another two years earlier had I not been frittering my life away on drink and loose behavior-“

“And what would that have gotten you?” she challenged.

“I don’t know- something to keep me too busy to chase Sparrow halfway across the damned planet and in position enough to curb Beckett on my own,” he said bitterly.

“Something that took you away from me?” she asked, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice, and surprised that she felt it.  It was selfishness, pure and simple - she could not pretend James was possibly happier with her now than he would have been in such a universe as he described now - but then too, Elizabeth was selfish. “Well, one of us would have been better off, but I’d much sooner have you for my dog than somebody else’s Rear Admiral.”

“Even if you had known of the drinking and wenching?” he asked dryly.

“I would have wished I could have signed up,” she said, grinning.

“Elizabeth!” he said, with a sudden, very visible flinch.

Concern flashed over her features; she touched his shoulder.  “What is it?”

“Thought of you in the uniform.”

Her hand slid off. “What,” she said flatly.

“The breeches and all that-“

“Oh, James, God!” she exclaimed in exasperation, and she shoved him backwards.

“I told you, it’s difficult to not think of such things-“

“I don’t mind,” she insisted.

“I mind!” he said, staring up at the ceiling rather than her from where she had shoved him.

“Why?” she demanded to know. “You’ve seen my legs.  Kissed them. Kissed very much between them, too-”

“I know- and I enjoyed it, thank you-”

“Then what’s so awful about picturing me in a pair of trousers?”

“It’s rather forward- and Elizabeth, I’m meant to be the one pleasing you-“

“It pleases me to be thought of. It pleases me to know you blush when you think of me. It pleases me to be wanted-”

“I do not blush-“

“More’s the pity-” she slung back heatedly.

“Elizabeth,” he said, “I’m beginning to fear I cannot keep up with you-“

That stung a little.  That stung a lot, actually; and Elizabeth was ready to retort something else at him when she found she had not the words.  She stared at him with her mouth barely open, and then, blinking angrily, she asked, “What do you think you mean by that?”

He couldn’t see her from this vantage point, did not recognize the pain in her voice, and continued, with an embarrassed and apologetic half-laugh, “I must be a dreadful disappointment to you.”

“You’re not-”

Suddenly she was leaning over him, cupping his face with her hand, tender and adamant; and just as suddenly she was kissing him. James gasped and started sitting up again in surprise.

“Elizabeth Swann,” he said fondly, “I will never deserve you.”

She growled a little and pushed him back down to the bed, absolutely devouring him.

“Elizabeth!”

It wasn’t much of a protest this time; he pulled her to him with a laugh of relief.

“I’m sorry about the ropes-“

“Forget about the ropes-” she said breathlessly.

“Ah,” he said. “Good, very good- I think I’d rather keep the dog bit out of the bedroom, if it’s all right with you-“

“My offer still stands,” she said with a lopsided smile.

“What! Oh, no, no-“

“No?” She looked mildly put out.

“Elizabeth,” he said, a little breathlessly, “I don’t think that’s at all to my preference-“

“No? Not even to do what I planned to do to you? I think you would like that.”

“I would rather be able to touch you,” he said, trailing a finger along her lower spine through her nightgown to illustrate this point.

“I just want to control you,” she said with relish. “But never mind it - I shall do so when the sun is up.”

“And I suppose, if you may accept this as an offer of trust,” he said, “you are welcome to pull my hair and grope at me as you will.”

“What?” asked Elizabeth, stupefied.  “Really? I know that your reputation is largely set in stone and that you’ll be my kept boy in all the annals of history, but do you really want that on the record?”

“If it is set in stone, it scarcely matters,” James retorted. “And I'd rather that than the ropes.”

“Look, I….”  She had to sit up and give this the thoughtfulness it deserved.  “I am not unopposed, but - not in front of Will, if that’s all right with you.  To be perfectly honest, I would rather we not do it in front of Barbossa, either, but that’s another story - he’s just too smart to fall for it.  He knows I’m a little off my head about you, and he won’t stop letting me know how much it annoys him.”

James laughed at this, and kissed her hand.

“I'm quite amenable, I assure you.”

“Well,” said Elizabeth, her eyes still wide. “I suppose that gives us something else to live for.”

“I rather assumed you enjoyed it,” said James. “God knows that without your attentions I might well have given up on my hair by now. It's damned annoying when it can't be secured.”

“It’ll grow out and then you can secure it,” she said, sliding her fingers through it now.

“I know. I know, that's how I continue to commit myself to it.” He closed his eyes and relaxed under her touch. “Though it helps to be in a situation where one can have a bit of one’s vanity back.”

She watched him a while longer with a satisfied smile.  Seeing his face still stirred more than a decade of memories, all of them more valuable now than they had ever been.  After a moment of recollection, Elizabeth leaned over to kiss him on the cheek - repeatedly, and whispered: “Dog’s head buckles…” before giggling and pressing her face into the pillow, leaning on him for support. James put his arms around her, nuzzling into her hair and kissing her temple.

“Yes, of course. Those are an absolute, are they not?”

“Mmmm,” Elizabeth agreed, leaning into it and rolling over.  “James, would you like me to indulge your vanity a bit more?”

“Mmm. Yes, I suppose,” he said, closing his eyes as he tightened his grip, a little possessively. He had earned the right to be possessive, he thought. She was his. She had said as much.

Elizabeth shut her eyes and melted further into the embrace.

“Well, looking at you….” she said, and slid her own arm around his waist, tightly. “You look like a proper pirate.”

“Good heavens,” he laughed. “Is that a compliment, now?”

“From me? You have to ask?”

“I know, I know,” he teased. “It’s more simply a wonder that I have ended here-”

“I wonder at that, too - every time I look at you and recall the last decade of our acquaintance,” she said affectionately.  She ran the flat and then the back of her hand over his chest.

“Mm,” said James. “I’m glad to know you approve.”

“More than approve,” she said softly.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “it is as much pleasing you, and knowing that I am doing so, as it is simple vanity.”

“Let me tell you again how much it pleases me…” she murmured.

“Oh, do,” James said, in a voice reduced to a low, pleased rumble. “I shall work to keep that in mind.”

“Better yet, I could show you…”

“Or both,” he said, unable to prevent another chuckle from entering his voice. “You know how much I seek to live up to any admiration I receive-”

“My dear Captain Norrington,” said Elizabeth, lips on his throat, “is that what the French call a double entendre?”

“A what?”

He opened his eyes and lifted his head at this.

“Living up to my admiration, darling?” she asked, with a strategic caress.

“Elizabeth, good lord-”

“I assume that was a no,” she said, struggling to control her laughter.  It was easy enough, though, to bury her face against his throat and resume her attentions there. James lay back down, still a little startled, and laced his fingers through her hair.

“I meant only that I want to deserve that kind of indulgence,” he clarified, with an awkward clearing of the throat.

“The indulgence is mine. You’re mine.”

“Ah, yes. I’d forgotten my place.”

“To be fair, until the acquisition of certain objects, you cannot properly inhabit it.”

“Elizabeth-” James blurted. “My God-”

“Do you object to that?” she asked, a touch exasperated.

“I’m still accustoming myself to your frankness-”

She snorted.

“There is a difference between the degree of opinion which I have always known, and been delighted to know you possess,” James said carefully, “and this… freedom of expression.”

Elizabeth lifted her head, unable to fully conceal either her embarrassment or her sincere pleasure in his admission.

“Really?”  She cleared her own throat.  “Delighted, I mean?”

“Elizabeth,” he said, “I was not thinking of you in trousers yet when I granted that you might borrow them from the Marines.”

“Delighted does not mean resigned.”

“I was delighted, I assure you. I distinctly recall laughing.”

“Oh,” she said, doubtfully.  “I suppose I remember that.”  She lay there a moment longer with his heart beating against her arm where it rested on his chest, her fingers combing through his hair.  “Can it really be so,” she wondered out loud, when she could control herself no longer, “that I’ve fallen in love with you - an older brother at most, later an unwanted suitor, uptight, honorbound, and extremely uninteresting?  Pinch me; I think I dreamt it.”

James, with no change in expression, gave her a sound pinch on the rear.

She burst into laughter.

“Not so unwanted now, it would seem,” he said dryly.

“Not a suitor either. You only call them suitors when they are still trying to win you,” she said, cupping his cheek.  “Oh, how though?”

“Something to do with the promise of dog’s head buckles, it would seem,” he said, closing his eyes and just barely allowing himself a smug smile.

“It began well before that -”

“Well, for whatever reason, I’m yours now,” James countered.

“Yes, but you were mine already,” she said - gently this time. “I just didn’t claim you.”

This time, he burst into laughter in return.

“Fair enough-”

“Now I do with pride.”

“And I gladly accept such an arrangement,” he said, leaning to kiss her on the top of the head.  Elizabeth shut her eyes and smiled.

“James, have we talked enough for your tastes or is it still too early in the evening for you?” she teased.  “Pardon me for my forwardness, Captain, but all this talk about ownership does things for me.”

“Ah, but I so enjoy seeing you like this.”

“Like what-”

“Breathless and eager-”

“Careful application of your hand will get you more of it-”

Of course it would; even saying so did.

“-and finishing you off would put a swift end to it. No, I think I should prefer to enjoy prolonging it a bit.”

She let out an affronted peal of laughter, but even as that died down she looked at him with earnest wonder. James lifted his eyebrows in questioning amusement.

“What is it?”

“I wish I knew,” she said sincerely.

James tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear and smiled up at her from where he lay.

“Perhaps it is not ours to question,” he said, “only to be happy in it.”

She returned his smile, leaned in to kiss it.

“I hope,” she said, hesitating after beginning, then going on anyway, reaching to clasp his hand as she did, “we would have found our way to this if we’d married, too.”

James paused, blinked a few times, and then slowly smiled again.

“One can only hope.”

“Even if you would not show me your scars on our wedding night,” she teased him.

“A gruesome topic for a wedding night, wouldn’t you say?” James retorted. “I know I’m hardly ravaged, but there’s a time and a place for such things-”

“Yes,” agreed Elizabeth, her voice low and warm, cupping his cheek again and leaning in as though to kiss him. “The wedding night.”

He laughed again, defeated. “All right, a fair point. You may look on them now, if you like.”

“Why don’t you show them to me?” asked Elizabeth, languidly propping herself up on one hand.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Of course-”

James pushed himself up and started trying to extricate himself from his jacket as quickly as possible, with a gesture for her to be patient.  She wasn’t, though, and helped undo the closures with an air that made that very plain.

“Show me - show me like you would have shown me then,” said Elizabeth - her shyness returning, though her ability to breathe did not.  “As if we were starting - from the beginning.”

“...ah,” said James. “Well, ah-”

He made another gesture for patience and stood- nearly rolled himself from the bed, in fact, and tried to recall who he might have been three or four years previously under circumstances such as these.

“Elizabeth,” he began- he linked his hands behind his back, without thinking- “I don't wish to alarm you, but I feel as though I cannot proceed in this without a bit of preamble-”

Elizabeth swallowed back a laugh and did her best to look innocent and cautious - and then, actually remembering what she had been like back then, a little dubious.  She had not meant this sort of mummery, but when faced with the opportunity she would gladly claim the idea as her own.

“Certainly you are aware that the Navy man’s lot in life is not an easy one,” he continued, lifting his chin despite his back still being turned to her. “I count myself very lucky, for a man of my rank.”

“Will you not at least turn and face me?” asked Elizabeth, starting to remember, too, why she had liked him less then.

His posture loosened as he turned around- he had to remind himself to straighten it again, as though he had not very recently buried his face between this woman’s thighs.

“Forgive me.”

“That is easily done, with perhaps a bit of encouragement, J- Commodore Norrington,” said Elizabeth, recalling with a pang of guilt that she had called him that even up to the end of their engagement.

“I don't wish to alarm you- or invoke your pity, either,” said James. “Only to prepare you-”

“For what? I am not ignorant of the- the customs and expectations of matrimony-”

“I don't mean to impose anything further than the awareness of- the ways in which I have been marked during the course of my career,” he said carefully.

“Oh?” asked Elizabeth, with perhaps more interest than she would have actually shown if such a day had come to pass.  

“Er, yes,” said James. He came to sit beside her again and took her hands in his.

After a moment of looking her in the eyes, he faltered.

“This- er, well, I probably would have removed the wig here,” he said, “so we can probably just ignore that-“

Elizabeth rubbed his hair, which was a bit longer than it would have been.

“And I suppose I would have done that, too. I want to believe I would have, at any rate,” she said, with a faint, agreeable smile.

“This would have shown on its own,” he said, pulling his hair back from the scar on the side of his head. “Rather starkly, at the time. You’ll have to imagine that.”

“And I would have…”

She brushed her thumb over it.

“Do you want me to continue like this, or…”

“Please.”

He cleared his throat.

“All right,” he said. “That's the worst of them. I hope that is a reassurance.”

“Is it?” asked Elizabeth, dubious again.  “I don’t mind to see the… the proofs of your courage, Commodore.”  And though she rather suspected this was not actually how things would have gone, she touched him on the shoulder and said, more softly, “- or James. May I call you James?”

He fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Of course, Elizabeth.”

“I’m sorry I did not do it sooner,” she said, and realized with a flush of warmth that she was worse than sorry, and not at all playing pretend. The sudden shine in her eyes was real.

“I don't blame you,” he said softly.

He could have kissed her in that moment, but belatedly recalled that she wanted to continue play-acting. James blinked rapidly and looked down.

“Shall we continue-”

“May we?” she asked, rubbing her nose swiftly and decisively.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose I ought to get to it.”

He returned to unfastening his weskit, with the occasional brief look in her direction.

Elizabeth set her jaw determinedly and tried to stay in character.  James was making it very easy - boring as he had ever been - but guilt was making it a challenge for her.

“Would you-”

She had found herself too authoritative, addressing a question as though it were a command, and had to shut her eyes and work out the more hesitant, softer tone necessary.  “Would you like my help undressing?”

James paused with his hands on the closures as his eyes met hers. A moment later, he nodded and moved his hands away.

She’d helped him do this twenty times now at least, and somehow it still felt different in this context.  She had been aware through all the stages of their relationship of what it might have been, and it hung over them now like a heavy curtain.  Her breath caught at the sight of him as if she really were ridding him of a military uniform, and she flushed with embarrassment at that.

“We’ll pretend this was more difficult, I suppose,” James said awkwardly. “Cravat and all that-”

Elizabeth kissed him on the throat in response to that - timidly, she recollected just in time.  Self-consciousness provided her some realism.  

“Would you have minded this terribly?” she asked, touching his collarbone.  “You had always been so overdressed around me.”

“It was a uniform, Elizabeth,” he said. “I hardly gave it any thought past keeping it in order.”

“Yes, but to be undressed right in front of me,” she pressed.  She maintained eye contact as she insisted, but her eyes dropped to his chest as it was revealed to her.  “And to be - to be staring, I would have stared -”

“You would have been my wife,” said James.

“As though that would have made a difference to your shyness so soon-”

“It would have been expected of me,” he retorted, “and as I don't exactly have anything to hide under here-”

“All right,” she said, with a touch of impatience, meeting his eyes sparingly but fiercely - rather a bit too like she had once done.  “And it isn’t as though you hadn’t seen me undressed - twice, by that point.”

“There would have been nothing to mind,” he said. “I would not have wished to impose further, had you expressed any reluctance.”

“I wouldn’t have, but you would have seen it just the same. Sent me to bed and slept beside me as stiff as a tin soldier - not in an enjoyable way, either-”

“There was no right to be claimed- my studies of how to please you or no, I would not have wished to force you-“

“I would not have needed you to force me,” she said, a hard note of insistence entering her voice.

“I know you would have stared,” he said wearily. “Why else would I have undressed before you in Tortuga?”

“Did you like it? Did you want to-” She glided a fingertip down his chest and to his navel. “-Provoke it?”

“You were married,” he said grimly, “or at least, I thought you were at the time.”

“Being engaged to you did not prevent me from staring at other men,” she reminded him, sharply, so as to dissolve his guilt.

“You did not love me then.”

“- no, I didn’t,” she said, uncomfortably.  “And I would not have on our wedding night.  But I would still have had eyes.”

“I would not have wanted you like that on our wedding night,” James admitted, after a long silence.

Elizabeth took his hand and clasped it a long time.

“When would we have… do you think…”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It grew further from my mind the longer the engagement progressed.”

“Because you could tell, you mean-” she said bitterly.

“...yes,” he said. “Because I could tell. I thought- perhaps at sea-“

Elizabeth pulled him to her and kissed him quiet. James put his arms around her in relief and gratitude.

“That is what happened, isn’t it - after all-” she managed between kisses.

“In a way- good lord, Elizabeth, is it terrible to be glad we were never married-“

“Would we have still found this-” she asked, with her eyes finding his.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can only hope so, but with so little to be sure of…”

“I’ve spent months wondering about it - how I gave you up, how I ruined your life -”  Elizabeth drew him back to the bed, drowning him in kisses.  

“Elizabeth- for all you know I might have lost you with the Dauntless-“

“As if the sea could claim me -” scoffed Elizabeth.

“Elizabeth-”

“I’ll only let you do that,” she murmured against his mouth.

“How are you so adept at this?” James said, as impressed as he was confused. “You have a greater knack for steering everything in that direction than any man I’ve ever known.”

“What direction?” asked Elizabeth, straddling him on the bed - “sex?”

“I was attempting to be more delicate than that.”

“Perhaps it is only because I am not a man,” she said, smirking.

“Mm. By now, I daresay it wouldn’t matter if you were.” He pulled her down and kissed her.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that….”

She licked him on the ear and whispered, “I’d have really fucked you by now.”

James was shocked into laughter.

“Elizabeth-”

“You’d have liked it, James,” she baited him, moving her mouth - and her tongue - over to his mouth.

“Of course I would have,” he said, making a fist in her hair. “It’s you, after all-”

She groaned a little loudly, shutting her eyes.

“-and you remember what I told you, months ago-”  

“God, as though I could forget-”

“Really?” He sounded surprised, but pleased.

“James, that was the most romantic thing I’ve ever been told-” she said, pulling back to look him in the eye, although a shy expression of pleasure came into her gaze.

James blinked in slow shock, and then moved his hand from her hair to her cheek.

“...it’s true,” he said, in a soft voice. “Every word of it. God help me- it might have been easier if I did not love you for some time there, but… I don’t believe it’s anything that can be helped.”

“Thank you,” she said, when she had found her voice again; “for waiting for me.”

“I would wait decades for you, if I had to,” James said, stroking along her cheekbone with his thumb.

“You don’t need to go so far as that,” said Elizabeth, biting back a greater smile and looking aside, just slightly away from his eyes.  “I plan to never make you wait again.”

“Will you still have me as your dog?” he asked, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“For always, I hope,” she said, meeting his eyes now.

“Before others,” he said, “I think that is what I must be.”

“They’ll know I love you,” she said, caressing his cheek, first with her fingertips and then her knuckles, back and forth, and then his throat, just the same.  “They may think something a little cruel in that love, but I won’t be able to hide it, so I will not try.”

“I can manage that,” he said. “I didn’t spend twenty years in the service to rankle under authority.”

“Especially authority as sweet as mine,” she said coaxingly, before laughing at herself.  But she touched his lips and said sincerely, “You know I love you, James.  So much.”

“I know,” he agreed. “I do know, now.”

She kissed him, cupping his cheek as she did.

“It is a greater gift than I dared hope to receive any longer,” James said, pulling her against him and embracing her, nuzzling into the mass of her hair. “God- Elizabeth, there is no world in which I could not love you-”

Elizabeth held him and rolled over hard, to bring him halfway on top of her.

“In this world, at least, I promise you won’t lose me either,” she said in a near whisper.

James had to brace himself, with an awkward little bark of laughter, to keep from falling on her. The whole cot was sent rocking.

“Noted-”

“Oh, James-”

“What is it, love?”

Elizabeth let out a tiny laugh that died on her lips, tilting her head as she looked at him, fond and a little embarrassed. “Oh, James,” she had to repeat.

She had not reacted like this since the night she had saved him in Tortuga, and that somehow seemed more distant to him than even their former lives. Those seemed to exist nearly simultaneously, but behind a pane of glass- inaccessible, yet always visible. Their life now- his life, this life- had become so much the status quo already that it was strange to think that its course had begun so recently.

He pushed his fingers back through her hair and she shut her eyes and leaned into it.

“Don’t stop that,” she whispered, biting her lip.

“This- now, this, I might easily have done on our wedding night-”

“Mmm.”

“It seemed indecent to even think of it.”

“Touching my hair? Oh, James, good lord, imagine-”

“It’s a matter of context-”

“What a delightfully filthy idea,” she continued to tease him, wetting her lips and smiling.

“Didn't tend to imagine it quite so golden, though-”

“Well, no. It wasn’t.”

“Mm. Well, I like it golden-”

“I like that you like it,” she murmured.

“I like everything about you,” he said warmly, pulling her in for another kiss.

Elizabeth felt her face heat up and broke the kiss, as well as she could given the overall mood of the evening. “Surely not everything-” she faltered.

“Elizabeth, you're forcing my comments toward the filthy,” he half-grumbled. “Everything is close enough-”

“I did not mean it like - that,” she said, mortified.  “I only meant - my pride and my stubborness. My tact - or if you rather my lack of tact-”

“Mm. Well. I was not thinking of that-”

“Something less literal? You like the idea of me?”

“Oh God- Elizabeth-”

He scrubbed at his face with his free hand, his voice a barely audible mutter.

“I like- I enjoy looking at you.”

“Oh my G- was that all it was? You like everything you see?”  She started laughing, momentarily more relieved than flattered.

“Yes,” James groaned. “Christ- I'm still accustoming myself to this degree of informality between us-”

“Oh, dear, do you need a little bit more practice?” she asked, too innocently to mean anything but carnally.

“Oh, my God-”

She rubbed the back of his neck with a fraction more sincerity. He leaned into it- James never recognized his own muscle tension until she was relieving it- and gradually lowered his face to her shoulder in an attitude of defeat.

“I feel I am doomed to perform very poorly at being dreadful on your account if I can't handle so much as this,” he confessed. “I am brought low far too easily.”

“I do not mind you brought low - you have done some of your very best work for me in such a state as that,” said Elizabeth, holding him possessively closely, “but if you can see to it you are only done in by me, I would appreciate it. Remember who you belong to.”

“I know,” he sighed. “My God. I can promise you, I used to be better than this.”

“Why did becoming a pirate make you worse.”

“It was preceded by a long period of drunken wretchedness,” James said flatly. “I imagine that’s to blame.”

“We’ll make you better,” she said decisively.

“I am working on it, whether you can tell or not,” James said, with deeply wounded dignity.

“I can’t,” she said gamely, “though that is also because I can’t tell you have performed poorly by your own standards. I always find you competent at the very least. I have always admired you, and now that my admiration is joined by tender feelings and not a little bit of lust, I am probably blind to your faults.”

“I used to think that that was my worst,” he said. “The way I was… then. Not before you, but at sea.”

“And what do you think now?” she asked, briefly pausing in her administrations to the back of his neck.

“Well,” he said grimly, “I haven’t been back in battle in a good while.”

“Oh, that will probably change sooner than you’d like, and it will probably be ghosts or sea monsters or some other thing.  This is an awful crowd.”

“Indeed,” he said dryly. “And there I will be, with none of my earlier resources to draw upon.”

He lifted his head enough to smile at her and assure her he wasn’t completely sinking away again.

“Yes; you will have something better,” she said, and she whispered into his ear something entirely too filthy.

“Oh God-”

His head dropped again. Elizabeth started to laugh at him again, faintly, barely suppressing it against his shoulder.

“Will that not fortify you?” she pressed on.

“I meant,” he said, “without my typical resources toward inspiring terror-”

He felt like a petulant child, and shut himself up again as he weighed his words. When he finally spoke again, his voice was lower, more even.

“You may recall that I had another name before I was Her Majesty’s dog,” said James. “The Scourge, they used to call me. God help me, I had earned it, too. I used to fear your learning of it in any detail. I suppose that hardly matters now.”

She stroked his hair. It did not matter, but she was impressed with it nonetheless.

“I doubt that carries much weight among these people any longer, regardless,” he said. “One can hardly keep up that kind of reputation when rumor has it one is being bent over a desk on a habitual basis.”

That was another thought for another night - she did not think it would have been fair to suggest it when they had still been unable to enjoy each other the other way around - and she reluctantly put it out of mind.

“I don’t think it would be impossible to remind them,” she said diplomatically.  “Surely it will all come back in time.”

“One can only hope dog’s-head boot buckles and what have you can inspire a similar degree of dread as the slow removal of one's coat,” James commented.

After a pause, he added, “Because of the bloodstains, you see-”

Elizabeth shut her eyes tightly. James pushed himself up in concern.

“Are you all right?”

She bit her lip. “I’m picturing it-”

“Oh, my God-”

“So if we had married, things would have come around eventually,” she said optimistically.  “You couldn’t have kept that a secret.”

She remembered with some shame how insipid, how oppressively bland she had thought being married to him would be, but that only meant that her turnaround would have happened all the more willingly.

“That's true,” he conceded. “I couldn't exactly tell your father of any of that, either.”

“I would have been besotted,” she laughed.

“Once you stopped fussing, perhaps,” he said, leaning up properly now to brace himself up on his elbow. “I used to- oh, God, it sounds ridiculous to explain it now-”

“Please go on.”

“Cheap wine skins under my shirt.” He patted at his side to illustrate where he could have situated them. “Flat, unnoticeable. If they were slashed, my clothes would be soaked red in an instant. A bit of warfare of the mind, you could say, to fool an opponent into believing I was fighting through a wound that ought to have been lethal-”

Elizabeth started to giggle.  “I don’t think fussing would be necessary, for I would have gotten the shirt off you to see how bad the wounds were and uncovered the deception too quickly for that-”

“The devil you would have! I would have warned you first.”

“Either way, you cannot pretend you would have fooled me.”

“You're a great deal smarter than most of these people,” James said dryly. “Most of them seemed to believe I was up and about with an impossible head injury, at that.”

“I’ve had….”  This was an unpleasant thing to talk about; she wanted to keep on talking about James, Scourge of the Caribbean, and fancy a better ending for them if they had gotten married when planned, but once the topic had been brought up, it was the honorable thing to do to at least acknowledge it. “I’ve had four times the education anyone else here has had,” she admitted, then, not sounding proud of it.  “And I squandered a lot of that to read about pirates anyway.  I am sure I would have been very stupid if I had not been forced to my studies.”

“Ignorance and stupidity are two very distinct things,” James said, rather dismissively. “Believe me, there's plenty of both to go around in the Navy as well.”

“Look,” she said, after a moment, a little unwilling to argue.  “My first experience with pirates - an experience you shared, if you recall - involved ghosts and curses. I doubt that it is really that strange for a lot of these people to consider that the Crown may have undead pirate hunters to sic on them.”

“Oh, naturally,” he scoffed. “That's what made it so easy to exploit. I suppose we shall have to decide how that factors into my current status.”

“What is more fearful,” she teased, grateful to be off other topics, “death, or woman leaders?”

“A woman leader followed by three dead men, I would imagine.”

Elizabeth giggled again, leaning up enough to nuzzle him.

“We’ll have to devise a new impossible wound,” he said lightly, putting his arm around her. “The previous one is already out of sight most of the time, and will only be more obscured when I can tie my bloody hair back again-”

“Ohh, poor James,” she said, continuing to burrow into his arms.

“I’m not suggesting it’s the end of the world-“

“No, of course not, merely a great burden for you to shoulder,” she continued in the most tender tone of voice, rubbing his back.

“It's damnably annoying- I am permitted to be annoyed, you know-”

“Believe me, if you were not, I would remind you,” said Elizabeth, laying back again, and smirking up at him, tendrils of sunbleached hair falling in a tangle over her forehead.  She touched his lips absently. James kissed that fingertip and stretched himself beside her, pushing her hair from her face and letting it trail over his hand.

“I know I hardly need to ask this,” he said, “but I dearly hope you never cut this off.”

“I was not planning to. I did consider it, when I went incognito after Will and Jack, but I decided my reluctance was all the advice I needed.”

“Your impatience with it would be worse than my own,” James chuckled, leaning in to nuzzle it- and her as well.

“I do like that you like it,” she admitted, touching his own hair, and urging him closer. “I like that more than I like it myself.”

“Ah, now there's a familiar feeling,” he said, muffled by her collarbone.

“Which is?”

“To enjoy being liked for some particular quality more than that quality itself.”

“Well, I only feel that with you - and my father,” she amended, gently chucking him under the chin. “To hell with what other people think of me.”

“Mm. I have come to feel similarly about you.”

“Good boy,” she whispered.

James laughed, startled.

“You’ll note I have not yet shaved-”

“Yeah,” she said, gripping him by the jaw affectionately.  “I admit I am a little bit relieved. I like you roguish.”

“I knew it-”

“I only wanted what was best for you,” she protested.

“I’m not sure I have a best anymore.”

“Well, on that we are not in agreement; I have decided what is best for you is whatever I like most.  On that note, you are keeping the beard.  I don’t mind that it tickles. I have nothing to compare it to, anyway.”

“Noted,” James said dryly. “I shall try not to disappoint.”

“You never have,” she said fondly.

“I'm not particularly disposed toward the suggestion of a scarf.”

“Then ignore it.”

“I'm not going to stop complaining,” he said, very firmly. “I've earned that.”

“You have not!”

“Other than that,” he said, “I suppose I'm at your disposal-”

“I think earrings. Or an earring. Not one of those little manly hoops, though - something that dangles.  It’ll blend in with your hair, I think, for the most part, but catch the light and look so pretty.  Silver, I think.  It’s a better color for you.”

“I'm sorry, what-”

He leaned back up on his elbow in abject alarm.

“I believe you heard me, Captain.”

“Yes,” he said, “but I never can tell when you're joking-”

“Well, I’m not,” she said crossly.  “Don’t complain about this one, please.”

“How, exactly, do you intend to go sticking a new hole in my body-”

“Gin. Needle. Your sweet patience and an earring - something expensive, I think.”

“Oh, my God,” James groaned, laying back down.

There was a pause.

“... something dangling, though-”

“Yes.  You really couldn’t pull off hoops, I don’t think - you’re somehow too….”  She frowned at him. “Delicate.”

“That's a new one,” said James.

“Refined, perhaps.”

“It's going to be some time before I've enough hair for it to blend with, as you put it.”

“I don’t care. You’ll let me have what I want, won’t you?”

“I- yes, of course,” he said as he lay back down, a little bewildered. “How long have you been thinking of this?”

“At least all of today,” she said airily, to disguise how she felt about what she was about to confess.  “I thought we could share a pair - although I do not look better in silver. I am willing to make a concession for you.”

James scoffed. “This is your idea. If you’d rather gold, it’s all quite the same to me.”

“No, you wouldn’t wear it well enough.”

“Fine-“

“Well, now all of that’s settled,” said Elizabeth, stretching herself out on the bed while sneaking a look at him that was not sneaky enough not to be noticed, nor intended to be.

James’s eyebrows drew together.

“What now?” he asked suspiciously.

“What indeed,” she said, sliding her leg over his.

“Ah,” he said. “That.”

“James,” she pleaded.

“I haven’t got a quondam-“

“Well, maybe we should start a family. Though I am not naming any son of mine Weatherby.  I’ve always told father that.  We agreed ‘Henry’ will do; it is his middle name.”

James slowly sat up again, staring at her unbrokenly as he moved all the way up.

“...Elizabeth?”

“Darling?”

“Are you- darling, are you serious?”

He reached for her hands.  She laced their fingers together.

“I don’t want a child,” she said earnestly, but held onto him tightly, and kept her eyes on his - willing him to see her sincerity.  “But would it be so terrible if we had one unplanned?  We could die on this rescue mission. That would be a reliable form of birth control, to be sure.  Then perhaps we may not conceive at all.  And if we conceive, and we survive, then… well, then we would certainly have our work carved out for us.  I don’t know how long you could be my dog before it interfered with our child-rearing, but…. We could work it out as it happens.  James?”  She rubbed her thumbs over his knuckles, then leaned in and kissed them.  “We’re free out here.  We can do anything we want.”

“I know,” he said. “And truly, I would give you all the assistance you require. But Elizabeth-”

“Yes, James?”

“Are you certain-”

“Yes - yes, I’m absolutely certain-” she said, a little feverishly, pulling him to her.  “It’s worth the risk - and I have no worry for the consequences. I know that I can do and handle absolutely anything that falls in my path - and that you would be a wonderful father -”

“Elizabeth,” he reminded her, though he had to pause for a kiss- “Elizabeth, nine months is a rather long time-”

“Grania O’Malley,” she murmured. “Nothing shall ever slow me down-”

“Elizabeth…”

He kissed the edge of her mouth, already moving down toward her throat.

“Come back up here-” she laughed, wanting to taste him.

“Mm- you're right, it's safer up there-”

“Safer?” she asked, pausing as their lips touched, knowing she wouldn’t want to keep speaking once she kissed him.

“Less likely to lead anywhere unplanned,” he laughed.

“Ah, well - let’s do it anyway-” she laughed, and smooched him.

“Swann or Norrington, do you think-”

“James!”

“I'm making certain you're certain!”

“Swann, then!” she griped, and putting her arms around him she fell backwards to the bed.

“Mm- noted-”

He didn't add anything after that. His mouth was rather preoccupied.

The thought of having a child - of becoming pregnant with one - still left her with a quiet sense of unease.  It was mostly to do with the immediate concern of their plans, Pirate King and dog - the reality of raising a baby could not emotionally touch her no matter how much James implored her to consider it, so instead she was hung up on what a difficulty it would be to make all the sea quake with fear of her when she was pregnant and enormous - to make others dread James again, while keeping him firmly beneath her boot, when they were raising a child together.  To say nothing of the fact that the language she had adopted towards him in public could never, ever reach a child’s ears - children cannot hear their parents say such things to each other, even in play; they are too young to understand it.  

But she was not lying when she told him that if it happened, she could weather it - they could weather it together.  Perhaps they would have to raise a baby instead of raising hell - perhaps they would not be so terrifying as they wanted to be.  But what was the point of wanting freedom if one only gave oneself new restrictions?  She would not be tied down by her dreams of power; she refused.  And just once, just one chance to know him - she would take the risk for that.  Sometimes it seemed inevitable that he would die on this mission - in her mind, it was always James she feared dying, never herself - and she could not bear even the imaginary grief.  Having him beforehand would probably not lighten that if it came to pass, nor did she think, if she were to conceive, that raising a child alone after losing him would be any easier; but those hardships seemed to pale in comparison to the possibility of regret.  To never have him at all, to have loved him and lost him and never had him, would have been the worst possible feeling for her.

There was, however, nothing frantic in the way she kissed him; now that she had finally persuaded him, she felt free to take her time.  The only reminder of her plans now was in the way she led him between her thighs, and even that, she did slowly - there was so much else to do in the meantime.

James’ hand had settled on her belly in a pensive way even as he kissed her collarbones, over her breasts, her shoulders. He had remained sober for a few months now; there was now an even greater pressure to remain so if- somehow, God forbid- things went predictably in the most complicated possible direction and she fell pregnant. He was not a violent drunk, except where taverns full of taunting pirates and the chance to kill Jack Sparrow were concerned. Most of the brawling he’d gotten into during his low year had been miserably sober and in the pursuit of getting drunk again, and that was less of a concern around a hypothetical child. But he was reckless, he knew that much, and that frightened him just as much.

And even if he and Elizabeth somehow turned into outstanding parents on the first try, his stomach clenched uneasily at the thought of raising a child on board the Empress, bearing witness to engagement after engagement, being shushed while he or Elizabeth dealt with prisoners, wearing the tiniest imitations of pirate finery either of them could find-

“If it's Swann,” he murmured, lips against the soft inside of her wrist, “you may have to reconsider Eliza for a girl.”

“Why’s that?” she murmured, extending her fingers to brush them against his cheek.

“Imagine it. Sixteen years from now, a second Elizabeth Swann running about the oceans, raising Cain with the wind in her hair, attracting all kinds of attempts on her life meant for her mother-"

“-whom, I assume, she would be like enough in temperament to handle it,” said Elizabeth, before admitting in a quieter voice, “I can’t even picture sixteen years from now.”

“Suppose she were not,” James said softly. “It would be a heavy burden to place on a child’s shoulders, that sort of legacy. Any child of ours will have some degree of that. I'm not worried that either of us will turn into the Admiral, but I was raised at sea and in his shadow all the same. Any child we have will be notorious from the moment you begin to show, whether they like it or not.”

“And I am not worried any child of ours will grow into Jack Sparrow,” she said impatiently, “but we wouldn’t be the first to do it, and we cannot be worse than Teague - or your father, for that matter. Anyway everyone must have some variation of this concern when they join in the marriage bed, and many people who don’t think about it end up with inadequately cared for children.  We’re better off than many, and children are the primary result of this kind of cohabitation.  Even if we had a quondam, it wouldn’t be a guarantee - so unless you are expecting me to live with you and long for you without satisfaction for the rest of my days, you cannot convince me not to want you by threatening me with babies.”

“If you insist.”

There was another little pause.

“And all this assumes only one child-”

She burst into laughter, but it was a bit edgy at this point.  “God, James!”

“I'm not the one to carry and deliver it,” James insisted. “I must ask you to take this seriously-”

“How much more seriously am I to take it?”

“Are you eager enough to have me that you are comfortable with that risk?”

“The risk will always be there! So yes-”

“It will be much less of one when we've located a quondam-”

“And when that is located - will you then finally stop-”

“Yes! Elizabeth, that's all I'm waiting for-”

She looked frustrated and uneasy, clenching and unclenching her hands on the sheets.  Finally she tried to relax her jaw, and said, “James, I don’t - I don’t want - if something happens to one of us - “ to you, though, as she thought privately - “I don’t want us to have never known each other.”

“My mouth has been- honestly, Elizabeth, I believe I’ve known you better than many men know their wives in decades of marriage-”

“It feels incomplete,” she said mournfully.

“You’ve likely had a more complete experience by that method than I could give you by entering you to begin with,” he said flatly.

“It’s not about - James, it’s not about just - that,” she said, flushing.

“I know,” he said. “But… Elizabeth-”

James settled his hands on her shoulders.

“I love you. I love you too much to ask you accept this lightly.”

“It must be accepted whatever happens,” she whispered, struggling with her agitation. “Whatever we do, quondams or not - it will always be a risk, don’t you understand that?”

“I don't understand why it must be like this,” he said, a little wearily.

“Like what?”

“In a rush, with our thoughts elsewhere and this sense of dread hanging over us both-”

“You are the one bringing both of those things! I just want to adore you, dammit-”

He kissed her.

“Elizabeth…”

“What now-” she asked, but her anger had dissipated considerably.

“I’m sorry,” he said.”But I cannot do that to you. It's painful, it's dangerous- good Christ, some women are practically disfigured by an unfortunate enough pregnancy-”

She could have choked, pushing him back very quickly to look him dead in the eye.  “Never? You mean to tell me we are never-”

“When the risk is lower,” he said, trying to take her hand. “It will always be possible, but damn it, Elizabeth, we cannot play dice with this-”

Elizabeth groaned and pressed her forehead against his chest. James threaded his fingers back into her hair with a moody sigh of his own.

“I don't understand why this matters to you,” he said. “I've heard it's not terribly pleasant on your end to begin with.”

“Because it-”  She broke off sharply and bit her lip, pushing her face against him harder.  

“Because what? It appears if I die, the lot of you can come back for me,” he pointed out.

“Because it’s what spouses do,” she said through gritted teeth.  “Degenerate pirates may do whatever they like and call that binding but a husband and wife do one very specific thing to consummate their marriage and I haven’t done it.”

James had to stop and take this in for a moment, going still against her.

“Well,” he said, “we are not married, and I can assure you that even if we had, similar precautions would have been taken-”

“Would they have been?” she asked, with a strange flood of relief, and a pang of guilt. “Did you never want a child with me?”

“Oh, God, Elizabeth,” he said. “Of course I want a child with you.”

“Really?  Then why-”

“Haven't you got enough on your plate without that?” James asked.

“Now.  But not then-”

“Living at sea? On a patrol vessel? The consequences would hardly have been any less dire then than they are now if any part of it went away.”

Elizabeth smiled wryly.

“I say this for your sake,” said James. “I hope you can at least understand that.”

“I don’t think you know what is for the best as well as you think you do, but I do understand.”

“My mother was well nigh crippled carrying me,” he said, a little ruefully.

“She wasn’t carrying your older brothers,” Elizabeth pointed out.  “Women are not supposed to give birth so late in life.”

“She was scarcely twenty when she birthed Lawrence,” James countered, “and had the fever for four weeks after. I believe the difference there was comprised of Lawrence being the fruit of their wedding night, and not a nasty shock.”

“Is that why you wouldn’t have had me on our wedding night?” Elizabeth asked - not a demand, but too forwardly.  “Trying to avoid being at all like your father?”

“What? Oh- no, no, it's nothing as… charged as that,” said James.

“I don’t understand you at all,” she pressed onward. “You had scarcely managed to convince me you had loved me and truly wanted to marry me for myself and not simply my father’s favor before you began to impress upon me just how far from yourself you intended to keep me.”

“A lack of intent to use you for my own enjoyment is not distance.”

“You don’t want me.”

“Of course I want you,” he said, cupping his hands around her face.

“You want to preserve me,” she said, grimacing. “That is the only way you express your love.  I feel - God help me, James, I thought marrying you was going to be like being shut up in a little box, and I still feel like I’m in there sometimes.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he insisted. “I would think that’s something different.”

“I only want -”  

She caught herself before blurting something insensitive, pulling his hands from her face out of a sense of duty.  James might not want to hurt her, but she had a startling knack for hurting him.

“Elizabeth,” he said, “there are other ways we can pass our time, you know.”

“It isn’t the same.”

“You’re right, it’s more enjoyable.”

“James,” she said firmly, “I enjoy your company, I enjoy talking with you, but it isn’t the same.”

“I wasn’t speaking of conversation.”

“I don’t want you to think of me as your mistress,” Elizabeth said heatedly, without thinking.  “I am not some - some -”

Elizabeth let off with an agitated hiss through her teeth.  She did not know what she meant to say, but none of it could have been good.  She ran her fingers through her hair til it fell over her face, and then she pressed her eyes into the palms of her hands and sighed.

“Forgive me, James, I want to be your wife.”

James’s response was not even hurt so much as concerned.

“Do you consider it the lot of a wife, then, to be impersonally emptied within and then dismissed to sleep?” he asked, tentatively brushing her hair aside.

Elizabeth shook her head.

“I don’t want to serve you - I know you would never take me like that anyway. That was never even a concern before.  But I am - I am so burdened by the inverse.  You wanting always to serve me, barely wanting me to touch you - I want to be together.  This is not together, James, it is just… it just you playing forever at being my dog.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” he said. “This is… exactly how I might have treated you as my wife.”

He shook his head slowly.

“Then we would have come to the same place eventually, I suppose.  I thought - I thought you must have been treating me differently.  Oh, God’s wounds, I know that you hate the place but I wish we were back in Tortuga.  I miss what we were like in Tortuga.”

“Has it changed?” he asked, his frown deepening. “As I recall, I did not consider it wise to do what you ask of me there, either.”

“I don’t know. It seemed more domestic then.”

“I have not changed in my feelings toward you, if that’s a concern.”

“I already know your heart is mine,” she murmured, pulling him wearily into an embrace.  “It’s the rest of you I lack.”

James put his arms around her.

“There are few things in the world more one-sided and joyless than a man penetrating a woman,” he said, “or so I have been told. When one adds to that the consideration of the physical complications of pregnancy, I fear above all else that I would be inviting your resentment.”

“Then let me have you otherwise,” she said with a note of desperation in her voice.  “You cannot tell me you are sparing me your selfishness when you are merely displacing it onto me instead.  Let me tend to you, the way you tend to me - you make it seem as though it is a chore to be endured -”

“I don’t derive the degree of enjoyment you wish to give me from that,” James said, rubbing her shoulder now. “I’m much happier tending to you, I can assure you-”

“Now who is being selfish?”

“Elizabeth,” he laughed. “Lie down, and let me enjoy you.”

She did not comply - she did not say anything.  She looked up at him moodily and her eyes flashed betrayal.

James sighed heavily, looking away.

“I don’t know how I can convince you of the intensity of my wanting,” he said, holding her a little tighter, “without feeling that I am using you for my own benefit.”

“At least do me the honor of acknowledging you are making me feel as though I am using you for mine,” said Elizabeth, her stubbornness colliding with her temper.

“I don’t mind it- heaven’s sake, Elizabeth, it’s all right by me. I don’t enjoy feeling helpless and drained- the blindfold was one thing, but-”

“But I do,” she said desperately.

“Are you saying you want to please me?”

“Yes!” she blurted, taking his face in her hands.  “In this one thing, please, please let me be a wife to you and not a king-”

“I don’t want you to be a king then either!” James blurted. “Dear God- that sly, smiling pleasure in seeing me brought low- that’s all very well in front of others, but here-”

That stung.  Elizabeth had thought it a game to play, not a cruelty at his expense, and she had believed - he had given her reason to believe - that he had enjoyed it as well as she.

“Let us leave this conversation off for another night,” said Elizabeth in cresting irritation.  “Let us use this bed for the only purpose we can agree on.”

“All I’ve ever wanted of you was a wife,” he said, putting his hands on her face in reciprocation. “I was settling for a king. I believed a king was all I could have now.”

“No, you don’t want a wife,” she said, yanking his hands down.  “You want some kind of doll-”

“What?” He stared, confused and hurt and completely, genuinely at a loss.

“What made you believe that? I- Elizabeth, if I could have you now, I would. It’s a great difficulty, wanting you as I do and being unable to do anything about it- and feeling all the more ignoble for it.”

“You don’t!” she cried indignantly.  “You practically wince if I touch you - as though you hate it!”

“Pardon me for not enjoying an ongoing litany of how helpless I can be made to look, then,” James said stiffly.

“I am going to bed,” said Elizabeth poisonously, making good on this threat by standing abruptly and walking to the side of the bed, getting into it and staring sullenly at the wall, her back to him.

“Elizabeth,” he said, sitting down behind her and touching her shoulder. She shrugged his hand off.

“I said I am going to bed, Captain.”

“I will not trouble you any further if you wish to be left alone after I give my explanation to you,” he said, “but I would like to apologize for my lack of transparency in why I have felt such reluctance to accommodate you. I understand that my actions have been… confusing, in light of how I have asked to be treated in the company of others. I have sought to avoid treating you with any carnal disrespect, and I see now that that has…” He paused and swallowed.

“Miscommunicated the nature of my desire for you, and what I desire of you. For that, I am sorry. If you will have me, I would gladly offer myself to you.”

He touched her shoulder again- more deliberately this time- and stroked her hair away from her neck.  She had not turned to look at him yet, but at this, she sank into the bed with relief.

“I am plagued by fear that I am misusing you. I never meant to make you believe I don’t want you. It’s- well, it’s a lot of things. But not wanting you has never been one of them.”

Elizabeth swallowed.  “Lie down with me,” she said.

James cautiously stretched himself out alongside her and put his arm around her.

“How's this…?”

“Yes - good. I mean, yes, that’s what I meant -”

He kissed her at the soft place where her neck joined her shoulders, gliding his hand further down her body.

“Forgive me my misunderstanding.”

She took his hand and held it, pressed against her stomach, without any intended meaning behind it.

“If you will forgive me my silk rope…”

“It still makes an excellent blindfold,” he reminded her, with a weak laugh.

“And do you care for an excellent blindfold?”

“I can enjoy an excellent blindfold.”

“I see.  Was your enjoyment at all enabled by the fact that you were servicing me at the time?”

“I won't pretend otherwise.”

“So was the blindfold part of that, or…?”

“I felt it improved my focus,” he said, with a small shrug.

“Ah,” she said knowingly; “my very thorough former Commodore,” she added affectionately and turned her head to nuzzle him back. James smiled and kissed her, holding her a little more possessively now.

“This is really not a trait of yours I thought I would come to enjoy, and I seem to be growing used to it,” Elizabeth observed, tilting her head back against his shoulder so that she could just sort of look at him.

“Which trait is that?” He had closed his eyes.

“Your professionalism,” she said, choosing the word particularly.

“It prevented me from any untoward thoughts,” he said, just as particularly.

“Not precisely a problem in my eyes.”

“And at the time,” he said, “wishing to avoid thoughts of drink.”

“Well, I thought you were a bore,” said Elizabeth, rubbing his hand.

“I'm aware,” he said flatly.

“You still are, but it’s…. I’m learning to work my way around it.”

“Thank you,” he said, even more flatly.

“I suppose… It was always an inflexible notion in my mind. That you were you, and I was of course too different from you - James, why didn’t that seem like an obstacle to you?  We are so different.”

“I have always loved you as you are,” he said, giving her hair a gentle ruffle.

“And you thought we would - forgive me, you thought we were a suitable match regardless?”

“I was planning to bring you to sea,” he pointed out.

“Yes, where I would apparently be remaining a virgin for some time,” she teased.  

He laughed. “I would like to hope, in retrospect at least, that the sight of me covered in blood and wine might have assisted things somewhat.”

“Christ,” she swore. “I would like to see that now.”

“Another reason for you to prefer me in black.”

“I would have torn your soiled clothes off you, darling.”

“Mm. How good to know…”

He kissed her again. Elizabeth squirmed in order to turn over onto her back, and James drew her closer to his body.  She freed her hand to touch his face, then his hair, which she gripped as she deepened the kiss.

“You're allowed to do that-” he said softly, in a light gasp from the intensity of her kisses.

She closed her hand into a fist and pulled his head back - smoothly and deliberately, not with a short jerk.  

“Good,” she whispered, before kissing him again.

Between pulling him backwards and pushing herself up to take a more aggressive tactic with him, she had soon pushed James onto his back, leaning over him, pressing him into the cot, smothering him, all her hair spilling over her shoulder and over him.

“Do you like this, darling-”

“Of course I do,” she gasped, out of breath.

“Ah- good, then-”

“Do you?”

“Mm- yes, quite-“

She smoothed his hair back over his forehead and smiled down at him.  It was done almost grudgingly, but the smile was sincere, if becoming tired.

“Ah- mm. How do you feel about rolling over and-“

“Really?” asked Elizabeth, startled and, perhaps, not displeased.  “You want to do that?”

After a second’s pause, she asked, without a change in tone, “With what?”

James had to give himself a moment and run a number of calculations in his head to follow what she meant.

“What? Oh- oh, no, that’s not what I-“

Elizabeth burst into peals of laughter. “So you don’t want to do that-”

“With what, to begin with-“

“That’s what I asked!”

“I was going to ask you how you feel about letting me have a run between your thighs-“

“Oh - I have no idea what I feel. Rather, I have no idea what I would feel- do you happen to know?”

“Well,” he grumbled, “I’d probably have to start you off first-“

“Oh, and now you don’t like that?”

“It sounds as though you don’t-“

“I love it,” she said fervently, “I just wish you would let me touch you too-”

“-and all else aside,” he said, “I can’t fathom it working without getting you good and slick-“

Her mouth opened. James grimaced.

“I know, that’s not what you asked for, but I feel as though I’m going to have an apoplexy if we don’t do something-“

“Oh, please let’s do something-”

Emboldened by this response, James took a moment to consider things one last time, swallowed, and nodded.

“...Eleanor if it’s a girl. What do you say?”

She gave him a very flat look. James had to look away.

“I… God help me. I want to be inside you-“

“I think you have successfully changed my mind on the viability of that suggestion,” she said, albeit more gently than she had initially intended, upon seeing his reaction.

“...right,” he said, feeling more keenly than ever that he was God’s perfect idiot.

She put her hand over his affectionately. James’s eyes flicked toward her and he had to look away in embarrassment.

“Oh, good God,” he muttered.

Elizabeth kissed him on the cheek.

“It’s not as funny as you seem to find it,” he said. “That- good Christ, I’m an idiot-“

“Why?” asked Elizabeth, walking her fingers up his hand and over his wrist teasingly.  “Because you want the same things as I do?”

“I regret saying anything on the subject.”

“I’m glad you did. It’s been… enlightening,” she said, scooting close enough to him to lean her head back onto his shoulder contentedly.

“I suppose I’ve little choice now but to lie here consumed by lust,” he said flatly.

“There are other ways to be inside me,” she suggested - a bit shyly, given his record with the topic.

He looked at her in mild discomfort.

“Elizabeth,” he said.

“You liked it before,” she said crossly.

“I don’t understand how the entire process doesn’t strike you as rather unhygienic-“

“If I can go from having regular baths and a personal maid to the lifestyle of a pirate captain, to say nothing of the honeymoon suite I stayed in in Tortuga, I think I can manage one measly little-”

She cut herself off, embarrassed.

“...it’s not that little,” she said feebly.  “You know what I mean-”

“No offense taken.”

“Besides, you like doing it to me-”

“You don’t… emit anything with that force-“

“What’s the force got to do with the hygiene?”

“Nothing erupting in my face, for one-“

“Oh, lord, James, I don’t mind any of that-”

“I mind!”

“Please let me have you, James,” she murmured, touching his chest, rubbing her thumb over his bare skin thoughtfully, her eyes dropping contemplatively to her hand and unfocusing.

“I don't know how long I can give you,” he said, a little mournfully, as he stroked her hair back from her face again.

“Such is the way of the fates,” said Elizabeth, voice dropping to an intimate whisper.  “I don’t dare to question it.”

“Elizabeth…”

He pulled her closer and kissed her deeply, then just barely released her.

“Touch me.”

He kissed her again, and did not let go this time. James shifted his hips under her to give her better blind access.  She did not need to be told twice, biting his lip sweetly at the same time as she gripped him.

He froze up a little- it was impossible not to, not with some of the associations still churning around in his head- but he used the sudden tension in his muscles to pull her down further, harder, almost painfully.

Elizabeth gasped against his mouth, having to pause her kissing to catch her breath, but she returned to both tasks quickly, with earnest enthusiasm and a little bit of initial fumbling. James dragged her down beside him.

“God-”

“You don’t have to call me that, darling,” she said indulgently, before silencing him with her tongue in his mouth.

“Mmf-”

He gripped her shoulders tightly. Elizabeth had to kiss him more slowly in order to focus the lion’s share of her attention on him, but this she did not mind.  She could better savor him.

“Good God, Elizabeth,” he gasped. “More-”

“Like this?” she panted.

“Ah- yes, yes-”

“Oh, darling,” Elizabeth moaned against him, shutting her eyes, taking him in.  

For a short moment she found time to sympathize with his statements in support of the blindfold, but it was very brief.  Her eyes opened soon after to etch his expression into her memory.  The look in his eyes when they met hers - that loyal, distracted, proprietary blend of adoration and timid trust that so often provoked feelings of guilt and inadequacy - only brought from her tenderness now; a desire to protect him and please him all at once.  She leaned over him a little better, unable to help the wavy lock of her hair that slipped over her shoulder - bare, now; the shoulder of her nightgown had fallen down - and over his face; she was leaning up with one arm braced on the mattress, and would not have withdrawn her other hand from him for every piece of eight in the New World.

“God,” James was moaning. “God, you’re beautiful-”

She smiled without thinking - she was too distracted to reply, but she bit her lip and beamed at him anyway.

“Forgive me my- my earlier reluctance-”

“Forgiven - easily, always - oh, James. My love. My darling Captain-”

“I- oh, Christ, Elizabeth-”

This continued for several minutes longer, before James’s shoulders relaxed and he sank, breathless, into the bed. Elizabeth floated down beside him with a surprisingly solid thunk, nuzzling into his shoulder and shutting her eyes.

There was a long silence.

“Well,” James said at last. His voice was groggy.

She kissed him gently on the cheek.

“Thank you for letting me have that,” she whispered.

“Mmf. Think nothing of it,” said James, closing his eyes.

She kissed him swiftly on the eyelid and then the other, buying her giggling in his collarbones after. James put his arm around her and pulled her to his chest.

“How far along are you?” he murmured.

“Mm - pretty far, I think. I tend to be, you know, you-” She was tracing a shape over his chest with her fingertip idly. “- do things to my senses-”

“Let me… let me see if I can do anything about that…”

He rubbed her thigh.

Her administrations had left her compromised.  She let out a very wretched gasp.

“Don’t you need - some time-”

“Only for a certain part-”

“Yes, but to concentrate- don’t you want to - I don’t know, cuddle first?”

James burst into exhausted-sounding laughter. “There's a reversal for you.”

She pouted.

“Of course, sweetheart, of course…” he said, wrapping his arms around her again. She buried her head in his chest again, loving the salt smell of him, the sturdy weight of him.

“Are you completely convinced about the earring?” he teased, his voice a soft rumble against her ear.

“Of course I am,” she said, leaning up to nip his ear.

“My suspicions accounted for a tattoo,” he said, “but never that.”

“A tattoo…” she said, touching his chest again. “Perhaps if you are thoroughly convinced you will love me forever, you could get-”

“Oh, here we go-”

“A swan,” she said offendedly.  “What did you think I was going to say? ‘Property of Elizabeth Swann’?”

“You're very thorough yourself,” said James, “though I’m sure you already know that.”

“What’s that mean-”

“Only that you have an impressive number of ideas at your disposal,” said James, reaching up to rub the back of her neck and leaning his own head back into the pillow again to make his hair fall away from his face, if nothing else.

“You are an impressive figure; it’s fun to devise ways to improve on that,” said Elizabeth, perhaps growing drowsy.  She rolled over onto him as though she were about to curl up and call it a night, but started kissing him instead - slow and sleepy kisses of delight and gratitude.

“I always wanted to be a project,” he said dryly, but with too much of a smile to imbue it with any real disapproval.

“Maybe not,” she said in a wry voice. “But you did always want to be mine, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” he said, his caressing growing lazier. “And I’ve no point in saving my pride here; I have done nothing less than ask you for exactly this.”

“Oh, James. I still- I still can’t- oh, forgive me for saying it one more time, but I still can’t believe it’s you,” she said, tactless with affection.

“Neither can I,” he admitted, smiling a little abashedly at her.

She matched his expression with a hint of the gawky girl she’d been, before she’d found grace and wit and boldness in spades, and impulsively she kissed him.

“Did you truly think I expected to leave you at home, corseted and doing sums?” he asked, settling both hands comfortably on her back and lacing his fingers together.

“Mmhm. I thought you had no use for me but to make an alliance with my father.”

“I already had that,” he said, a little wistfully. “I had… hopes, that eventually one day you might want me- I felt as though it would eventually be inevitable, some time into our marriage. I'm aware of my good fortune in at least that sense, relative to most of my former peers-”

“I told myself the same thing,” she said, in a distant voice - too profound for apology. “But it seemed so far off at the time.”  After a few moments of consideration, hushed and bitter, Elizabeth brightened, nuzzling him to get his attention.  “In one matter at least there is a happy certainty. I thought you unappealing enough in the navy uniform that I think I would have been thoroughly struck upon seeing you out of it.”

He laughed at this, too, with perhaps a little bitterness but no anger. “How kind of you to say.”

“I remembered enough of your pig shit ensemble - after you’d joined Beckett’s fleet - that in the period between our parting ways and my seeing you again, I could still remember…”

She trailed off, letting her fingers speak for her as they glided over his throat, mesmerized.

“...ah,” he said. “Well. Thank you-”

“I don’t imagine I’d mind it so much now,” she said on reflection, “now that I love you for thoroughly enlightened reasons, and have seen you nude, of course, but at the time it was a convenient place to sink my dislike. I could not dislike you personally, of course; I had known you since for-ever; you were too nice to me; so the uniform came in handy.”  She squeezed his hand.  “I think I really just did not like the thought of marriage.”

Marrying Will did not seem to be comparable; they had to marry in order to consummate their love, and besides, in that case, she was marrying down - it meant more liberty than she had ever otherwise known, but her father had meant to provide for her as well as he could, and so she had not faced the financial insecurity that would have otherwise meant.  Marrying Will had meant a significant loss of standing and status in Port Royal’s civilized society, and that had been welcomed by Elizabeth with open arms. It had been her first step towards the place she stood now, she understood - embracing the comparable freedom allowed if she could only step away from the limitations of a class-bound, female-unfriendly world and into independence.

She hoped Will understood that someday.  That she really had loved him, regardless of whether not she’d eventually stepped beyond him, too.

“Ah,” he said, taking a moment to reflect on this. “Well.”

He fell silent for a little longer, and then abruptly added, “For what it's worth, I would have forgone the damned wig around you whenever possible.”

She smiled faintly. “I would have appreciated that.”

“For that matter,” he added dryly, “I would likely have tried to fit rather more hair beneath it.”

“I think,” she said, in a soft, reconciliatory tone of voice, “that my feelings on the marriage would have changed, as I came to know that you really cared about me, for my own sake - that you wanted my company.”

“I can hope,” he said softly.

“And perhaps we would have walked the deck together and you could have told me about the winds and the stars, and… I would have fallen in love with your attention, and your patience, and your love for me,” Elizabeth said, dazzled; uncharacteristically shy.

“Is that before or after you've torn off my bloodied clothing, hm?” he asked, more wry this time.

“I like to think before. I want to think so - that you would have gotten to know me better in conversation - long before I would have fallen in love with all of your - oh, your danger and courage -”

James kissed her for that. “I hope I can offer you plenty of that now-”

“I would like it - I would like you to-”

“Yes, Elizabeth- anything-”

“- Perhaps if you ever… tire of being my dog… you could still tell me those things, you know. I only know so much - and I don’t know any English lore at all, I’ve just learned from Tai Huang - and we could still…. Walk on the deck, and you could tell me those things, and your old pirate stories - the things you wouldn’t tell me in my father’s house - all the things you were going to tell me after we - You know, after we married -”

Her voice crept upward in pitch just enough to have become a plea.  

“I imagine I could do that now,” he said, “if one were to redefine ‘dog’ as strictly more of a wolfhound sort of role.”

“It won’t be the same,” she said with a hint of bitterness playing about her lips. “I still have to be the Pirate King, you know.  But - when we’re back - when we’ve returned to the Empress, our ship -”

“Our ship,” he repeated, taking her hands in his. He brought them together and kissed them.

“I-”

James shook his head, as though he were not only surprised, but confused by this turn of events.

“I have so much wasted time that I must make amends for- so much time spent wanting and not having, and then feeling filthy and common for the wanting- and then, to find you believed I never did-”

He let go of her hands now and put his arms around her instead, closing his eyes.

“My God. Elizabeth- you believed I did not want you? I had to tell myself I wanted you less, that I was deluding myself, just to get by. Perhaps- perhaps you were right, and my feelings have been morbidly cool. If they were, they were through my own effort.”

“I wasn’t wholly ignorant,” she protested, overpowered by two different sources of guilt - that she had not wanted him back at the time and that she had now caused him this new crisis. “I knew you wanted to marry me.  But I mistook your motives-”

“Because of my own actions,” said James, “and my decision to forcibly estrange myself from my desires.”

“James,” she said, uncomfortably. “It might not have made a difference-”

“I might have been more demonstrative-”

“I don’t want to give you unfounded hope that that might have been enough to capture my heart at that stage in things,” said Elizabeth gently.  “I was so much infatuated with Will then, for such a long time.”

“I don't think hope matters for three years in the past.”

Elizabeth sighed, closing her eyes for a moment, willing herself to regret less.

“I only wish…. I wish father could see us.  Not perhaps at this particular moment, but just to know-”

“He was proud of you to the very end,” said James. “I don’t know how he would feel about me, but he never regretted your course save to fear for your safety.”

“He’d be smug to be right,” said Elizabeth, opening her eyes with a wry look in them.  “About us.  He would try to hide it and frame it as about my happiness, of course, not entirely incorrectly, but I’d still be able to tell.”  

Elizabeth’s smile faltered, and she pressed her cheek against James’ chest for a bit of comfort.

“...I miss him so much,” she said, feeling a tear leak out of her eye, though she otherwise kept a good lid on it. James pulled her up a little closer to his shoulder and pushed one hand into her hair.

“So do I, love. Every day.”

“I’m glad we…” Her voice squeaked out to nothing, and she cleared her throat. “I’m glad we have each other now - there are many other reasons for that, but I think we are the only two people who really -”

He kissed her forehead in silent understanding. She tilted her head up to accept it.

“Then doesn't matter anymore. You're mine now.”

“Captain Norrington,” said Elizabeth with a sniff and an easy laugh. “Please.”

“He used to slip up and call me that even after I made Admiral. For that matter, before I'd made Captain. He never made that mistake with others.”

“Father?”

“It was an affectionate nickname, at first. After that, we had relatively little chance for him to grow used to ‘commodore’, and he knew what Admiral Norrington brought to mind.”

Elizabeth smiled faintly. “I thought he was a bit blinded by paternal pride when he began to transparently push us closer together - in you, not me.  I thought he wanted you for a son enough to overlook that you would be ill-suited to his daughter.”

“Do you think he would approve of… this-“

He broadly waved a hand over himself.

“If he approves of me, I don’t doubt he does. He’s probably grateful - probably would be grateful - to you for turning pirate just to take care of me.”

“I thought of him when I did.”

She smiled.

“I can only hope it does not disappoint him to see me doing wolfhound-ish activities on your account,” James added, with a small stressed-sounding laugh.

“I can only hope his vision is limited,” said Elizabeth, affronted.

“I’m beginning to itch for that.”

There was a small pause.

“Don’t worry,” he said, with no change in tone. “I’m as surprised as you are.”

“....by what?” she asked in bewilderment.

“I had assumed I would have been engaged more often by now.”

She had completely misinterpreted his itching and was momentarily disappointed, but the notion of James in battle overcame that quickly.

“Ooh, I’m so sorry,” she said with a sly smile. “I promise when we return there shall be lots and lots of ships to raid and wayward pirates to shepherd.”

She kissed his throat and upward, finding his lips with satisfaction.

“I miss the fear,” he said, staring up at the ceiling. “God, I miss the fear.”

Elizabeth pressed her face against his neck, momentarily taken aback by that - feeling her cheeks flush and her pulse pound in her temples.

“Oh, God, James,” she whispered.

“What is it?”

He lifted his head in concern. Elizabeth turned her face up to look at him, flushed and breathless and visibly self-conscious of it - then, meeting his eyes to be sure he saw, deliberately rolled down her shift.

“Ah-”

He made a delighted sound and pulled her up for a kiss.

“Further down,” she complained.

“Ah- oh, yes, of course, you poor creature-”

She urged his head to her breasts with her hands in his hair and over his face, slipping her fingertip into his mouth, ruffling his hair, murmuring insistently.

“I want-“

“Not as much as I do -”

“-to be bloodied for you-“

“Ohhh-”

“Will you let me-“

“I shall direct you myself, my love-”

“Your scourge-“

“My darling Captain,” she repeated, feeling the blood rush to her face again. She cupped his face in her hands and just barely tilted his head back to look at him as she glided possessively into his lap, letting her skirt gather around her hips.  She released him and moved her hands to his, lifting them to her mouth to kiss his knuckles, then turned them over to kiss his palms.

“Your hands are so rough,” she murmured. “And so strong.  I know you will do great things for me with these hands-”

“This- this is what I wanted-“

“Hm?” she queried, taking his fingertip into her mouth and meeting his eyes so that he would know how she felt, how overcome she was with wanting him.

“When I said I would be your dog-”

“Oh, darling, I know,” she said, releasing his finger, and going to the next one.  Holding his hand against her face, and bringing the other to her waist, she shut her eyes and said fervently, “Every soul on this ocean is going to fear you - the corsairs who think themselves above all law and order, even the most basic of decency to his fellow man - how they shall dread you again. The East India Trading Company knows damn well what to expect, and you’ll confirm their worst suspicions.  Every fat merchant too rich for his own good, every Spanish galleon, every navire français, they’ll bring back their stories of you, James, you shall blacken the Norrington name, you shall haunt it, you shall be better known than your miserable excuse for a father ever was - he’ll come to regret throwing you away on this backwards, lawless place, they’ll wish they kept you in their pocket for the war effort, but it is too late, your fate is quite decided, you have fallen to pirates and the Pirate King; you are mine, my darling, my Captain - they shall know you are the man who holds the heart of Davy Jones to ransom.  And I - you shall be my wolfhound and my love - you shall hold my heart too - how does it feel to be the most powerful man on the ocean?  I’ll show you. Let me give you that - oh, James-”

He wanted his mouth free to murmur whatever crossed his mind. He slipped the hand on her waist further down.

“Tell me more.”

For a moment she could not even speak, though she was far from silent.  Then she swallowed and said, her voice trembling, “You’ll be - every inch - the exact man - I always wanted you to be-”

She took a shallow breath.

“And James- soon I shall have every inch-”

“And more.”

He grinned terribly and intensified his efforts.

It was much too difficult to talk, not even to tell him how infamous and dreadful he would be - she would have to picture it.  James with windswept hair, bleeding from minor cuts, probably not soaked with wine - she would have him in black, she thought, so that wouldn’t show.  A single earring; a woman’s earring, decadent and incongruously pretty against the aura of menace she knew he would project.  James was well-built, tall and broad; all in black, no less, he would stalk more than he would stroll.  A long coat, perhaps, would whip in the wind behind him.  He would wear boots in black leather, and tarnished silver dog’s heads would be on them, and on his belt, and his hand - beringed, and she would put the rings on him herself, she thought of that too - would rest on a pistol at his hip, while he directed defeated sailors to await judgment with a lazy, confident gesture with his sword.

And he would bow to her when she emerged to pass that judgment - he would catch her by the waist and she would take him by the lapel and she would dip him - she would force him to drop to one knee and she would kiss him.  She would taste blood on his tongue, some blow to the face causing his teeth to cut the inside of his cheek at some point - she would smell blood and sweat on him.  She would taste it on him later - and everyone would know, they would look at them and know they were in love, know as soon as their victory had been attended to properly that they would have each other at once - spread the story in England and Jamaica and Cuba and Spain and everywhere else where there be sailors that the Pirate King and her dog are dangerous and indefatigable and very, very deep in love.

She could not form the words to tell him all of this, but she managed to gasp out: “You shall be - positively - the most dreaded man in the Spanish main -”

And it struck her as a familiar thing- had she said it to him before? - when she realized she had said it to Jack, when she had seduced him with drink til he had passed out, and what that had possibly meant about her feelings towards Jack even so early as that, and she pushed that out of her mind.  She had manipulated Jack to her own ends then; she had meant nothing, she was certain of it. To James she knew she was being sincere, if for no other reason than that she intended to be the most dreaded person, and it suited her to have James be as dangerous as she.

When it was over, he wiped his hand on the sheet and kissed her again, enjoying the weight of her joyously exhausted body on his as he lay back again.

“Did I please Her Majesty?”

His voice was low and rumbling beside her.

“I thought of you,” she said softly, resting her hand wonderingly on her face as she looked at him.  “I mean of what you’ll be like, when this rescue mess is over, when we’ve got the Empress back and are doing what we’re meant to be doing.  I was seeing you… cleaning the blood from your sword… in my mind’s eye just as you bid me finish,” she said, and she bit her thumb and grinned at him.

He laughed a low, tired, throaty laugh and nuzzled her throat.

‘Such high expectations to live up to.”

Her pleasure was still very near to her, and the slightest touch of his lips to her neck made her freeze up and let out another little cry of his name.

“I shall do my best to exceed them…”

“Yes,” she said faintly.  “Very - just so.”

“What were you thinking of?”

He was in her hair again, breathing deeply.

“You,” she said, after thinking of how best to describe it and failing to come up with anything so succinct as that.  “Winning battles for me - with me - how handsome you are going to look all in black - how good it is going to feel when I kiss you in front of captured crewmen.  Flaunting to all the world how much we -” Her breath caught; she still struggled with openness on this account. “- love each other.”  She kissed his temple, which was where her lips fell when she turned her head.  “Oh, James, everything you do to me is - is wonderful, but I - I can’t wait until you are - properly situated-”

“Once we’ve finished this, I intend to prioritize that.”

He turned his head to kiss her properly. At least they had that much. She took out her frustrations in that kiss.

“Then we shall be - as good as married - in every way that matters -”

“Yes-”

He was beginning to push her atop himself again, to get a better look at her. When he looked up at her again there was a warm wonder in his eyes and a smile playing around his mouth.

She met his look with a soft smile of her own, wistful and wanting.

“I barely feel satisfied.  I want you all over again and I’ve just had you.  I begin to live and breathe wanting you,” she complained.

“It’s all right. I’m never leaving you again.”

Elizabeth tenderly settled back down again, lying atop his chest as if she were reluctant to leave even that much.

“All in black, hm?” he teased, rubbing her on the small of the back. “The better to match you, I suppose.”

“I don’t know that I will never let you wear a color again, but it is difficult to imagine you in one - I assume blue is right out, and don’t think red is wise - so black, in different textures.  Besides: you have very dark hair, and very green eyes; black will look excellent on you. And you are enormous, so you might as well make the most of that.”

“Ah, yes. Looming.”

“And they’ll tell stories,” she said, stretching out on top of him, “of the man-eating Pirate King and her werewolf consort, I am sure…”

“Oh, my God- is that why I’m resigned to the beard-”

“Perhaps it is.  And perhaps I just like the way it scratches when you’re between my legs.”

“With the rest of this insanity, I suppose sea werewolves were only a matter of time.”

He slipped his free hand down toward her thighs and lightly rubbed the inside of one of them, as though in response to her comment about scratchiness. Elizabeth whimpered.

“That is not fair, you know how wet I still am -”

“I’m making up for time wasted.”

“I’ll say,” she said gingerly.

“So much for morbidly cool, eh?”

“Shall you fixate on that for the rest of our lives?”

“Perhaps. It did hit rather close to home.”

“How so?” she asked, snuggling closer.

“I have always been adept at ignoring certain inclinations,” he said, adjusting himself for her comfort.

“So why take offence to it now?”

“I had assumed everyone did something of the sort.”

“Good God, no-”

“Why not-”

“Because,” she said imperiously, though she did not have a ready answer. “Because I would have gone mad if I had tried and I had a very large, very empty bedroom - does that satisfy your curiosity?”

James paused.

“...ah,” he said. “That’s not what I meant, but. Well. That much is understood.”

“Is it?  Do be honest. I can demonstrate, if you like, if you require it,” she said, innocently widening her eyes.

“Oh, no. No, no, no-”

“No?  Absolutely certain?”

“I was thinking of going between your thighs next, let us not grow hasty-”

That knocked the wind right out of her.

“Oh-” she said wretchedly.

“I was not always this way,” he said, curiously defensive for a man who had just brought her to shuddering ecstasy. “I grew disgusted with myself-”

“How could you do that, when you did such lovely stuff with your Lettie?  That should have made you feel proud of yourself-”

“Well, you see, that was with Lettie- and for Lettie, at that-”

“I don’t follow.”

“It was one thing when it was one woman- quite another when- oh, God, never mind-”

“I can’t never mind, you have to tell me.”

“I was sixteen, seventeen, on double pay and already a drunk. What do you think I did ashore?”

“James,” she said, exasperated. “If not for the complications - of which you’ve spent half the night informing me - and the certainty of social ruin, girls wouldn’t behave any differently.  You can surely remember me at that age - trying to spend as much time as I possibly could with Will, and - well, with you, you may recall.”

“Would you have been sitting at the gambling table with a bottle in your hand and a girl in your lap, with her hand in your trousers?” he asked, in a very flat voice.

“Oh,” said Elizabeth, with an involuntary shiver.  “Hell yes.”

“...ah,” said James. “Poor example-”

“You must face it, James, you are no less a degenerate than the rest of us,” she said, sounding bored, but really thinking about how much she’d have liked to have sat in James’ lap in Tortuga with her hand in his trousers - how unfortunate he could not handle a bottle.

“No.” he said, “I’m probably worse-”

“Good. You are a pirate, and you are my consort, besides - I require worse.”

He closed his eyes in a mixture of resignation and amusement, pushing his hair back with one hand.

“Pity I can’t rely on the scar any longer,” he mused. “It was such a petty thing, but it had its uses for being worse.”

She kissed him on the temple, and, watching his face, and going slowly for his comfort, slid her hand down the front of his trousers again.

“...ah,” he said, opening his eyes. “There you are.”

They finished opening rather wider than usual.

“And there you are.”

“That’s… all right, give me a moment to think this through-”

“May I help you think?” asked Elizabeth, the moisture from sucking on her lower lip glistening in the low candlelight when she parted her lips and continued to stroke him.

“Do you want me between your thighs or not-”

“Of course I do-”

“I- oh God, Elizabeth-”

He closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath.

“We don’t have to-” she said hastily, upon seeing him upset.

“What- oh, no, no, darling, it’s-“

He grit his teeth.

She laid her hand on his waist, to be safe, and slid off his lap and to the side of him.

“...I think I’m making a bit of a mess.”

“No, no, you can-”

He reached for her hand and, after a couple of awkward groping tries, laid it on the partially open front flap of his trousers again. She smiled ruefully and slipped her hand inside.

“Thank you, James, but I’m afraid that’s not what I meant.  You can say what you like about forceful emissions, but at least you do that all at once and have it done with.”

“-ah. I'd noticed, without thinking of it.” His voice was hoarse.

“James, are you all right?”

“Mmm. Yes, I'm just a bit- compromised-”

“Do you mean this?” she asked with a squeeze.

“YES, THAT-”

She smiled, taking his hand as though to hold it, and guiding it instead to the state of her thighs.

“So we are even.”

“You poor creature. I thought I had relieved that.”

“Hardly at all.”

“Mm. Suppose I’ll have to try harder-“

“Or perhaps…”

Elizabeth bit her lip, glancing down at her hand, and then met his eyes with a growing smile. James leaned up on one elbow and returned the grin.

“You’re thinking of something.”

“I think you know what I’m thinking of,” she whispered.

James very nearly made a joke about what they could name the resulting child, but if she felt safe with the idea…

What was a child but something else to fight for?

“Are you certain?”

“Don’t you want to?” she asked, touching his face. “The timing is just too perfect- you are ready, I am ready… and I want you, and you want me…”

She smiled distantly, her mind on something else.  

“...yes?” James asked.

“Nothing,” she said, looking into his eyes again abruptly.  “As I said.  We’re both - ready, and willing, and wanting-”

“If you’re not ready,” he said, putting his hand on her thigh, “I won’t hold it against you.”

“I am,” she said, with a short laugh, looking down at his hand and rubbing it.  “It’s just…. I was ready to do this with someone else.  I don’t think about him as much as I used to, but he’s here on this ship now - right now.  While I’ve been in your arms. I forgot him.  I forgot he was there.”

“... right.”

James bit the inside of his cheek.

“I can't grudge you that-”

“I don’t know how I could have done that-”

“I would hope it is because you love me,” James said softly.

She looked at him, startled into silence.  Her eyes were very bright.

“....I think it is,” she said, squeezing his hand. She wiped at her face, suddenly. 

“Elizabeth…”

He pulled her toward him and put his arms around her shoulders protectively.

“Oh, I ruined the moment-” she groaned, and laughed tearily.

“Possibly for the best. Imagine if I had gotten you with child.”

“I don’t know if I mind the thought of it. Children - with you,” she admitted in a small voice, with a sheepish laugh.

“...I certainly don’t,” said James. “For a moment, I was nearly… looking forward to it.”

“But I truly, truly think…. We should terrorize the seas first.”

“For the greater good, of course-“

“Oh, I think not,” said Elizabeth, sidling up closer to him, and resting her hand on his thigh again.  “For our reputations. For each other.  And because it’s fun.”

“...and the greater good-“

“I shall leave that to you,” she said, kissing him. James allowed himself to fall back against the bed and take her with him, perhaps a bit physically unsatisfied but personally content.

“I will do my best to fulfill it, then-“

“So, James,” she said, a little muffled.

“Hm?”

“What was the - other thing you were suggesting -”

“Mm. I had a few thoughts.”

“It’s so late that by now, it’s most likely early,” said Elizabeth, with something that could only be called a giggle. She nuzzled his throat.  “Tell me while we still have a chance to make something of the night…”

“I could have a go between your legs, though I don’t know what you’d derive from that,” he admitted.

“What would you derive from it?”

“...I don't know. I've never done it, it was always more of a… two-man sort of business-”

“I don’t mind being that for you,” said Elizabeth, more than a hint of mischief in her smile.

“You’re missing a rather vital point of friction,” James teased.

“Touch me then,” she murmured, kissing his bearded chin and moving her lips along his jaw, running her hand up his thigh and gently squeezing.  “Let’s not be wasteful.”

He ran his hand down her back and around the curve of her hips and her rear.

“Like this…?”

“I thought more that - while you are having your go - if perhaps I am not being satisfied…”  Elizabeth leaned her head against his shoulder, far enough back to look at him and smile.

He thought this over.

“Oh- oh, no, I don't think the position would work for that, love-”

She looked briefly disappointed, but curiosity won out.

“What is the position?”

“Front to front-”

“Oh, I thought it was - nevermind-”

“You thought- oh, good lord, Elizabeth, I would be afraid of accidentally-“

“Don’t want a little risk?” she asked, rubbing him with her hand.

“Do you? It’s not… the most comfortable-“

“I think you could make me comfortable,” said Elizabeth softly.

“We don't- you need grease of some kind for-”

He cut himself off, mortified, and covered his eyes for a moment before pushing that same hand back through his hair, exhaling hard.

“We don’t have to do that one,” said Elizabeth, the bluntness of her tone momentarily breaking the soft intimate atmosphere they had built to at present; and, surprising herself with that, she laughed, further breaking up the mood.

“Oh, thank God-”

“Doesn’t appeal to you?”

“Not particularly.”

“I could…. Get on top of you…”

His eyes widened.

“That's… dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” asked Elizabeth, eyes widening in mystified delight. “How?”

“Again, the risk of an accidental entry-”

“James, everything fun is a risk-” she pleaded.

“You could take me into your mouth-”

Her mouth opened.

“That is to say, if you wanted to-” James said, too quickly.

“James! You are distracting me - of course I want to, but -”

“Yes?”

“I wanted to do something where we….both…. You know.”

“We’re a little low on options now, sweetheart.”

He touched her cheek.

“Let’s do what we did in Tortuga,” she argued.

“Which part-”

“On the beach, after the storm,” she said, touching his thighs encouragingly.

“Oh- ah. Was that- did you enjoy yourself that much?”

“Ohh, James,” she said- biting her lip in remembered delight.  “You really don’t know, do you?  That was - my first time, I suppose, in the most liberal sense - Will had never… He wanted things to be very proper, I think.  I was already quite fallen - breaking off the engagement with you, being sullied by Barbossa - and spending all of my time with Will teaching me to use a sword, I never saw another invitation from the moment Will and I became engaged. But he was so stubborn. I think he had something to prove.  We didn’t…. There was kissing, but it was all standing up.  Leaning against a wall, at most… He didn’t want me to touch him.  Well, let me correct that - I am certain he wanted me to, as he wanted to touch me. But he wouldn’t let me.”

It was an unexpectedly sad, if distantly sad, burst of speech, and Elizabeth had to take a moment to return to the topic at hand. But she did, with a mischievous smile, pulling James’ hands to her breasts again, as though to relive the moment.

“It was… the first time I had ever been touched here. The first time I had ever felt a man stirring, or at least been sitting on him.  The first time… Oh, James, the first time I ever knew pleasure outside of what I had taught myself-”

“Oh, thank God,” James blurted.

Elizabeth could not contextualize this response.

“I’m sorry, come again?”

“I didn’t realize- I was mostly just- pleased to have you.”

“James, you had your mouth all over me,” she said, flushing as she realized what she’d said.  “- of course I enjoyed it.”

“Enough to recall-”

“I recall it often,” she said, with reverence. “It was such a beautiful night.”

“Oh-“

James moved his hands up from her breasts to her face again, beaming and a little ashamed of it.

“Yes, James?” she asked, smiling.

“I… I am glad to have pleased you,” he said, grinning a little helplessly.

“Mm,” she laughed. “Can we do it again?”

“Yes- oh God, we're going to have to wash after this, aren't we-”

“We can just fill a basin and wipe down with towels, it doesn’t have to be complicated-”

“I know that-”

He pulled her down and kissed her.

Elizabeth kissed him back eagerly, sliding into his lap.  Though in Tortuga, they had both been fully-clothed, and it was only her jumps and her shirt he had removed from her - this was different, and she broke the kiss with an abrupt, loud noise.

“Elizabeth?”  

He pushed himself up in alarm.

Elizabeth pressed her hand sheepishly over her mouth, barely situated in his lap.  She dragged her eyes agonizingly to his and took a moment to pull her hand away, resting it on his shoulder, and whispered, “...that’s wonderful. Sorry, James.”

“What was that-”

“What was what?”

“You cried out-”

She felt her face grow hot.  “Because it’s-”  She grit her teeth. “- Can’t you tell?”

“I wasn't certain. I feared I had hurt you-”

Elizabeth groaned as much in exasperation as from physical sensation and pressed her face against his shoulder to prevent herself from rolling her eyes.

“-or done something wrongly-”

“James.”

“Yes?”

“God help me, you are so dumb.”

“You stopped, and I feared-”

“I am… trying to get my bearings,” she said, privately hoping that she could stay quiet this time - not merely because she feared being overheard, when Will was on board, but because she did not want him to stop and check her for injury every time she made a sound.  

There was a better way to prevent his fretting over every detail, and she implemented it as she might a defensive maneuver - simply began kissing his throat and gently gliding her fingers through his hair to pull his head back to give her better room to do so, before she began to move against him once more.  She could still not help but whimper, but he couldn’t possibly mistake it for discomfort when it was his name she was whimpering, while clinging to his impossibly broad shoulders.

“Lisbet- how's this-”

“Oh, darling, lovely-”  Somehow the nickname provoked shyness from her, in spite of the circumstances.  Elizabeth pulled her head back enough to look at him, but only barely, and she smiled with an obvious self-consciousness.

“James - touch me-”

“Like this-”

He slipped it downward, between them.

“Oh God-” she moaned.

“Ah, there we are,” he teased. “Good girl-”

Elizabeth shut-up kissed him, rocking in his lap perhaps just enough to make the cot squeak at them. James pushed his free hand back through her hair and gripped at the nape of her neck, forcing the kiss deeper.

“Call me - call me Lisbet again-”

“If you want to be Lisbet in bed,” he said as he dragged the kiss down to the edge of her jaw, “I shall never call you anything else-”

“No one else has - ever called me that-” she managed, though she could no longer catch her breath.  She clumsily tried to kiss him.

“You were never theirs as you are mine,” James retorted, meeting her mouth in a rough kiss and then refocusing his oral attentions on her breasts.  Elizabeth threaded her fingers tightly through his hair, more tightly than intended or realized.  She did her best to keep the volume down, but it was difficult - she was not accustomed to inhibiting herself, and her natural inclination was to cry out his name - over and over.  She pressed her lips to the top of his head, first in a sincere kiss, and then to keep her voice smothered.  

It was indeed a dangerous place to be - more than once James forcibly gripped her hips or her ass to slow her movements, lest he enter her - but the need for caution had its uses beyond the practical.  It was an unnecessarily lengthy period of time before they finished, melting into the sheets in each other’s arms, incapable, momentarily, of speech, and filthy, and trembling, and besotted with each other.

Elizabeth rubbed his stiff shoulders with one hand as she clung to him, unwilling to unwind herself from him just yet. James curved one hand back to entwine his fingers with hers and squeezed gently.

“...how are you managing?” he asked, in a quiet voice.

The response she murmured sounded delicate in tone, but the precise language used, about precisely what manner of woman she was becoming under his tutelage, was not.

“That, historically, has not been enough to dissuade me.” James pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed it.

“We are a smart match again,” said Elizabeth with a self-satisfied yawn.  “Former commodore turned pirate, former governor’s daughter turned --- pirate.”

She smiled against his chest.

“Oh, don't go on about that. Everyone will think I’m social climbing again,” James laughed.

“That’s what my maid said the night you proposed.  A smart match.”

“Do you know what the rest of the garrison said the day before?”

“Oh, tell me.”

“‘Her? Good luck, Jamie, you’re going to need it.’”

Elizabeth laughed ungraciously.

“I doubt many of them are surprised by your latter fortunes,” he said as he closed his eyes again and crossed his arms over her back.

“It turns out, James, that you are even better a pirate-hunter than your reputation stated.  You got me in the end, didn’t you?”

“Good heavens- I suppose, if you want to think of it that way-”

“You bagged the pirate king. Good job!  And with such - “ yawn; “ - vigor, James, too…”

“Of course. I've a reputation to uphold, you know-”

“That’ll- show her…” Elizabeth murmured. “Heard you made her scream, Commodore.”

“A great deal of begging. I shan’t share the finer details in polite company.”

Elizabeth giggled into his chest.

“She’s a lucky woman, to tell you the truth.”

This broke the mood, though in the gentlest of ways. James looked pensively down at her for a long moment, with a faint, pleased smile.

“Do you suppose she is?”

Elizabeth still half-slept, responding without waking.  

“What pirate… or woman… ever entered better custody? And though she evaded capture for so long, now there is nowhere else she would rather be, not in all the world…”

“You flatter me.”

“Mm, what a comfortable prison… So broad and strong.”

“I wish that I could have presented more impressively to you to begin with.”

“Didn’t matter,” she yawned. “Loved Will.”

“Mmph. I meant now.”

“You said, ‘begin with’.”

“After defecting, then.”

“Oh.”  She smirked, slowly.  “Didn’t matter… already loved you.”

“Ah. At least one of us is satisfied,” he said, relaxing and closing his eyes.

Hers, on the other hand, finally opened, blinking and adjusting to the dark; she hadn’t realized all but one of their candles had blown out.  She poked him crankily in the thigh.

“Which one of us do you mean isn’t?”

“Oh, you seem quite pleased-”

“So do you, Captain.”

“In one way, at least. I'll settle quite happily for that.”

“What now,” she sighed, resignedly dragging herself up to sitting, realizing as she did so both how exhausted she was, and how sticky.

“Lie back down, it's nothing important.”

“We’re soiled,” she said amusedly.

“Oh, God.”

“It’s all right, love, it happens,” she said, gently teasing him. “It’s just as well for I’d be disappointed if we were clean.”

“Have you anything to clean with?”

“There may be a pitcher of water in here,” she said, a little unconcernedly looking about.  “Let me…. Yes, I think it’s still there.”

“I would offer to clean you,” he said, with a yawn, “but I fear restarting the entire process…”

Elizabeth smiled back at him in the dark of the cabin, listening comfortably to the creaking and groaning of the ship - the waves beyond them - as she took up their last candle and made it to the pitcher.  To save him from temptation, she took care of herself before bringing a fresh cloth and the water back to him.

“I’ll clean you,” she said generously. “I have no fear of anything.”

“I do,” said James, but he lay back with an unusually trusting gesture anyway.

She was probably less thorough than he would have tried to be, but the water was only so clean anyway; she did not see the point, and she wanted to sleep.

“When do you want me to set the phone alarm for,” said Elizabeth after she had finished and unceremoniously tossed another dry cloth at him to pat down with.

“When are we expected to make landing?”

He was visibly trying to pull away from the soiled patch on the sheets.

“I don’t know or care.  After I’ve slept, I hope.”

“Have I exhausted you?”

“Thoroughly.”

Elizabeth slid into the bed, not caring about the state of it and rolling immediately onto her side. James leaned in to kiss her shoulder and put an arm around her, and she responded warmly, pressing her back against him snugly and embracing his arm with a sigh.

“You know,” James murmured, “even this- this is more than I ever hoped for.”

“You wanted to marry me, James,” she argued sleepily.

“I didn't think on this at all. It seemed too intimate…”

“It would have - “ She suppressed another yawn. “- happened eventually anyway-”

“To feel the warmth of your body against mine-”

“Mm.”

“I'm happier than I think I have ever been.”

“I’m glad I brought you off, too,” she said, patting his hand.

“Elizabeth- that's not what I meant, I would have been quite content without-”

“I know, my love.”  Elizabeth laced her fingers with his and pulled his arm tightly around herself, tucking his hand against her breast as she settled in contentedly with a little wiggle.  “But it was… mm… lovely just the same...”

The chances were very good that the conversation did not end there - not on his part, anyway - but Elizabeth closed her eyes, and soon heard not a word of it.

#pl: the black pearl #jackquest 1748 #potcsuggestions #long post #ch: her majesty if you're nasty #ch: firing squad #norribeth

[tatooine92]

Homeward, ch. 7 (POTC OC)

Synopsis: Eleven years ago, Adonia Barbossa was abandoned as a child by her father for no discernible reason. Now a pirate captain in her own right, she seeks him to finally demand answers.

Rating: T for language and any various and sundry innuendoes.

A/N: Y’all, I’m really sorry. Stuff at work completely stole my will to write. This may not be a very good chapter, but I wrote it, and that makes me happy. :)

Shoutouts: @soulventure91, @and-will-nice-hat, @queen-scribbles

Present.

"I've seen worse, capitaine, don't worry so much," Jim said with an unconvincing calmness.  

Adonia looked over her shoulder and shot him a glare from where she stood by the tiny window in her equally tiny quarters, cradling her healing arm in its sling. Beckett's ship, the Endeavour, had towed the Dainty Lass from Cuba back to Port Royal, and now Adonia and her crew were being housed ashore while the Lass was repaired—all an elaborate ruse to give her the illusion of freedom while ensuring she didn't run for it. Might as well have thrown them all in prison. At least this way, even if there were guards outside the door, Jim or anyone else from the Lass could come see their captain.

"Aye, you have," she grumbled, "but for us, here, now, in this situation, it is bad. I'll not apologize for worryin'."

She could see the bay from her window, but not the Lass. She had no idea if Beckett had ordered her scrapped just for good measure, or perhaps repainted in Company colors. All she could see were the distant, teal waves of the sea, taunting her. That was all she had seen as they returned. She hadn't seen Port Royal in three years, but now it seemed grim, as if the life of a bustling colony town had been squeezed out of it like water from a rag. Even with the sun above, it all seemed gray. Instead of a garrison of Royal Navy forces, now it was the hub of the Company's operations here. She loved money as much as the next pirate, but, God, it seemed such a burdensome force when it dictated people's lives like this.  

"We are alive," Jim pressed. "We may not like how that bargain was struck, but I tell you even Thom is grateful to live."

"Aye, for now. And what happens when we're forced to fire upon our own kind?"

What happens if my father sees me flying their colors?

Jim didn't have an answer for her, but Adonia knew he was mulling it over, so she didn't press him. He drummed his fingers on his thigh as he sat across the room from her, and she leaned against the window, trying to get a better angle to see if she could see the Lass. Still no.

"Dammit," she sighed.

This waiting game was like to drive her mad. Maybe that was what Beckett was counting on! She already knew she was a hostage, but one plied with a bed and hot meals. Maybe Beckett hoped to steal her crew from her with offers of higher wages, softer beds, prettier whores. But she knew her men. They'd not leave her for a shilling. For the finest rum and the absolute prettiest whore in Tortuga, maybe, but not for a shilling.  

There was a soft knock on the door. Adonia turned, brow arching in surprise when the door didn't immediately open. Jim gave her a furrowed-brow look of uncertainty and got up to answer the door on her behalf. He cracked open the door with a gruff, wary "Qui est-ce?"

"It's Jim, isn't it?" Adonia recognized Lieutenant Groves' voice. "May I see your captain, Jim? Is she within?"

"Let him in," Adonia told Jim. "I don't think this one's come to assassinate me."

"Is that a common concern?" Groves asked as Jim stepped aside and allowed him through.

"I'm not really sure," she replied. "I've never been a hostage before."

Jim snorted a laugh and returned to his chair, fetching his journal and pencil, the two personal items he had, and opening to a blank page. The soft skritch sounds of his work seemed to echo like a clock ticking as Groves awkwardly cleared his throat.  

"I'm sorry this is going so badly for you, Captain Barbossa," he said.  

"At least for right now there's not a gallows with my name on it."

"A gallows...?"

Without a word, Adonia opened the window and gestured Groves to lean close. Over the squawking gulls and the rush of the sea, they could hear the unmistakable dull thud of a gallows trapdoor opening, followed by the inevitable gurgling and choking as the rope tightened. The gruesome noises echoed from the nearby fort courtyard, and Groves paled.

"I—I didn't realize..."

"That Lord Beckett put me in this chamber on purpose?"

"...that he was continuing the hangings. I thought... once he began coaxing the Brethren out of hiding..."

"Allow me a moment of unrepentant cynicism, lieutenant. Folk like Beckett, they get drunk on cruelty rather than rum. I'd not be a bit surprised if he's kept it up just for his amusement."

"...I suppose I knew that," Groves sighed as he shifted back from the window. "It's just that all of this—Beckett's takeover, the hangings, the whole lot—happened so quickly. Speaking for myself, I've barely had time to contemplate the man in whose service I now find myself."

"Find yourself?" Adonia asked, pulling the window closed. Groves nodded.

"Yes. When Lord Beckett arrived in Port Royal, he came with either the king's authority or his ignorance—"

"Aye, well, depending on the day, they're much the same thing."

"Indeed." Groves let out a derisive snort that, just for a moment, showed Adonia how frustrated he was in that blue and gold coat. "But he arrived in Port Royal, and some of us found ourselves suddenly working out our commissions in much different ways than we had expected. I knew we were in for a difficult run when he arrested both the governor and his daughter, but..."

His gaze skipped to the window. An unconscious shudder rippled through his frame. Adonia's brows furrowed. He doesn't want to be here, either.  

"...we rounded up women and children, too," Groves murmured. His gaze was distant, and now his body had half-turned away from Adonia. She tensed with unease. Why confess to her? "Literally any soul who could even remotely be accused of associating with pirates. We didn't even interrogate them. We just—"

He stopped himself as if seeming to remember where he was. Jim's sketching had stopped. The only sound in the room was the soft, incessant ticking of a timepiece by the bed. Adonia looked down and picked at a loose thread on her coat cuff. Groves cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Forgive me," he said. "I did not mean to—that is, I came only to ensure your welfare."

"Well, we're faring," Adonia replied.  

"Then I should leave you be. Certainly, if I hear news of your ship's progress, I'll return with it."

Groves dipped his head in farewell as he turned to go. Adonia glanced out the window at the distant sea and sighed.

"How long were ye looking for me, lieutenant?"

She heard Groves swallow uncomfortably.

"Lord Beckett has sought out every possible pirate or pirate-associated person since his arrival some months ago," he replied. "It's almost a miracle you evaded him this long."

"Not a miracle—cleverness. But, again, how long were ye looking for me, specifically?"

"...ah. After your, er, mercantile scam, there was an open warrant for your arrest, though I'm sure you were aware of that."

"To be expected, aye."

"And Lord Beckett did, of course, have plans to capture you. But then just recently he found a new ally in the pirate lord of Singapore, Sao Feng, who gave up the identity of your father as another pirate lord. So, he's kept you in his sights for this specific reason for less than a month. Not long at all.

"I am sorry, though," he continued, his gaze dropping. "It was unfair to use your father against you. To trap you with the hope of meeting him again... I can only imagine how you felt."

"Can ye?" Adonia asked, turning fully toward him. Across the room, Jim muttered "Eh, merde." Adonia's hands dropped to her side in clenched fists. "To be manipulated, played, into the hands of a bastard like Beckett, when all I wanted was to demand answers of why the man what called himself my father abandoned me?"  

"Abandoned you?" Groves asked. "I thought—"

"That we'd have a happy reunion? Nay. My father, such as he is, dumped me on an empty dock when I was a bitty six years old with nary a reason nor explanation, save that I no longer had a place on his ship. So for eleven years I've been on me own, strugglin' to survive—because that's what I do, lieutenant, I survive—while he's been off gallivanting and God knows what else, freed of the burden of a child he claimed to love. And I'd intended to ask him why."

Silence hung in the air between them. Flushed with fury, Adonia realized how much tension she held in her frame, and she tried to relax her fists, to no avail. She folded her arms tightly and sighed, trying to follow the sigh with a deep breath. The look of surprise and—dare she say—sympathy on Groves' face made her squirm uncomfortably. I don't want your pity. I want my revenge.

"I'm so sorry, captain," he murmured. "I had no idea. I would not wish such a childhood upon anyone, though I can't help but wonder if—"

"If what?" Her eyes narrowed uneasily. Groves tilted his head slightly, as if gauging her response.

"I... assumed you'd heard of what befell your father."

Adonia said nothing, cocking her head and furrowing her brows. What the hell was he on about? She'd heard nothing of her father in eleven years—nothing of any detail, anyway. There were the usual stories of the Black Pearl seen pillaging and plundering, and aye, she'd noticed a fair number of uneasy glances and whispers at the sound of her last name, but...

"Ye'd best speak quick, lieutenant," she said, "and tell me what ye mean."

"About three years ago, my former commander pursued a ship of cursed pirates across the seas—vengeful and cruel, unable to die. The ship was the Black Pearl, and I remember distinctly that your father was her captain, though I did not have the privilege of making his acquaintance. I was not privy to all the details, but Commodore Norrington was able to defeat the pirates only when their curse was broken and your father killed."

The world seemed to abruptly clench around Adonia, squeezing her head at the temples and knocking the breath from her chest. She sagged into the windowsill, her nails digging into the wood. The rumor was true? Anger burned in her chest, and vengeful tears stung her eyes as she looked up at Groves. It wasn't until she felt Jim's hands on her shoulders that she realized she was visibly shaking and hadn't breathed. She gasped raggedly.  

"Dead?" It's all a lie, I'm being lured to my death for a lie, Papa's not a pirate lord, he's not even alive, he's been dead three years and I never even knew...

"Yes, he was. Was!" Groves quickly crossed back to her and crouched beside her, a hand on the windowsill as he looked up at her with soft, apologetic eyes. "I'm so sorry, captain, I didn't finish—Feng testified that your father had come to see him in Singapore, and that is how Feng knew of the Brethren's gathering. I have no idea how he could be dead and then return, but—"

"What is the testimony of a pirate worth to you?" Adonia choked. "Maybe Sao Feng lied! Maybe you've all lied to me and I should kill ye where ye stand."

"...I would appreciate it if you did not, but I would understand if you did," Groves murmured. Adonia stopped cold at that. No, no, she'd not kill a man who had nothing to do with it. A man like this, who looked at her with such gentleness and blushed when they spoke, was a man trapped by orders when his nature was far better than this. She sucked in another shaky breath.

"I'll save my shot for Beckett," she sighed, "if I ever get the chance. So is my father alive or not?"

"A pirate would lie about many things, I'm sure," Groves replied, "but Sao Feng was too eager to save himself. Besides, Beckett's man Mercer corroborated Feng's story and saw your father as well. I'm so sorry, captain. I should have opened with that."

"Aye, that's true." She realized suddenly that her grip had shifted from the windowsill to his shoulder. She swallowed hard and pulled her hand away. "So I am well and truly bait."

"...yes. I'm sorry."

"If ye keep bein' sorry about this, then ye'll not have sorry left for the big mistakes," Adonia snorted. She took one last deep breath to steady herself. Think, Addie, use your brain. You're clever and quick. Best begin to act it. "I understand a man followin' orders. It's not ye I despise.

"Besides," she continued, mustering a smile, "how could I be cruel to me very best customer?"

Groves flushed the color of Adonia's hair and got to his feet, stammering. It's just shirts, she wanted to say to him, but instead she smirked silently and let him fret. It was amusing, in its way, though she couldn't figure why she'd send him into a tizzy like that. Jim chuckled, low in his throat, beside her.

"Well, I—I believe I've overstayed my welcome, as I'd only come to ensure your welfare—" Groves muttered, turning quickly for the door.

"Don't be a stranger!" Adonia called. "I may have more shirts for ye next time!"

The last thing Groves heard as he closed the door was her bright, trilling laugh. Adonia waited for his footsteps to fade down the hall before she looked up at Jim.

"What do ye make of all that, then?"

"Don't think you should've told him about your childhood," Jim mused. "Might come back to find it used against you. But then, maybe not by that boy. Seems to admire you."

"He'd better not," Adonia said. "Admiring a pirate will get him killed."

I hope he doesn't come back. He's too decent to lose his life for talkin' to the likes of me.

"Might be worth checkin' into, this thing about a curse," Jim added. "Might explain a few things."

"Aye, it might at that." I asked you if the treasure was sick, Papa. Why did you lie? "So we continue as planned. We sail so politely and do as told, and when we find my father..."

She trailed off, but Jim nodded in understanding and agreement. Adonia picked herself up and neatened her coat, looking out the window. One day I'll have the truth.

#steph writes #potc fic #potc oc #adonia barbossa #theodore groves

[piratewreck]

The Different Types of Pirate Ships

Pirate Wreck Pirate Wreck - Your Favorite Pirate Toys and Accessories

The Different Types of Pirate Ships

When we talk about pirate ships, we all think about the Black Pearl, a huge vessel with glorious ornaments that can carry hundreds of men. But there were many different types of ships that were put into use by pirates. They had differences in their performances, sizes, and many other details. Here’s a list of ship types that were the most common choices for pirates.

Even though there are dozens of types of ships, pirates mostly chose those from the list of vessels below for their activities. When you read more about them, you will understand why.

1. Brigantine

These big ships were able to withstand almost anything the ocean might throw at them without slowing down. They were great for big crews and had more room for weapons, mortars, and booty.

This is why brigantine was the perfect pirate ship. This sailboat with two masts was able to take on more men, more supplies, and more cargo than most other ships, without sacrificing swiftness.

2. Clipper

These incredibly fast sailing ships had a square rig and three masts. They were long and narrow, speedy enough to compete with steamships, but they couldn’t carry much.

Even though this type of ship only came to be after the golden era of piracy, it was a common choice of the pirates of the 19th century.

3. Warship

These ships were there to destroy other vessels. Their design was all about carrying weapons, ammo, and soldiers, and they would usually carry an impressive amount of cannons to use on unfortunate vessels on their path.

They were able to deliver and withstand a beating, but they were bulky and slow. Especially if you compare them to other pirate favorites.

4. Sloop

Because of its swiftness, the sloop was a great choice for pirates. Sloops were capable of easily sailing across the Atlantic, and transporting cargo swiftly. This made them perfect for capturing bigger, slower vessels.

They were one sail ships and had fore-and-aft rigs.

5. Frigate

Sometimes known as ship of the line, a frigate was a speedy, maneuverable warship. They had at least 28 cannons on board and were devastating for enemies.

Frigates had three masts, and they could withstand a lot, chase down any other ship, and take it down, regardless of its size. So you understand why a pirate would love to be on one of these.

6. Slave ship

These ships were huge. Back then, carrying people was a good business. Since the slaves were thought of as plain cargo, the merchants just took care that their investments got where they should, as fast as possible. This meant that they chose to customize these ships to fit their needs – slave vessels were both speedy and able to carry a large crew.

As you can imagine the pirates did greatly appreciate these two properties..

7. Schooner

Both pirates and smugglers alike would prefer this type of a ship. It has two masts, weighs less than 100 tons, and its hull is very narrow. Sometimes, sailors would add more sails to these ships, to make them faster.

Their specific design gave them the ability to wait for their victims in shallow coves. The fact that they are large and fast made them perfect for hunting down big, rich ships.

The Different Types of Pirate Ships Captain Jefferson

from Pirate Wreck https://www.piratewreck.com/blog/different-types-pirate-ships/