All Your Crooked Heart. [Pirates of the Caribbean]
You know, I spent a whole week resisting the writing of pirate-fic, or maybe just trying to wrap my brain around the new developments in Norrington's character. Either way. This is a tiny little ficlet, set very near the end of "Dead Man's Chest", so watch out for spoilers, eh?
[Turns out I missed writing Norrington more than I'd expected. Ha.]
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean.
Characters/Pairing: Norrington. [And Jack Sparrow too, I suppose.]
you shall love your crooked neighbour
with all your crooked heart
--w.h.auden
It’s a precious thing, the only precious thing he has left, and so he has to keep it safe and keep it close, tucked away against his skin. He can feel it beating, a fluttery echo of his own heartbeat - a sensation that was disconcerting at first, but now he finds it comforting. It is, after all, the key to reclaiming his future.
It’s curious, though. Ever since he obtained the heart, he’s been having nightmares. Sometimes they’re of the sea, crazed and uncontrollable. Sometimes his lieutenant, all wide worried eyes and trembling hands sir we’re sailing into a storm, sir, James, a memory of quick hands and shy smiles and red hair all reclaimed by the sea. Sometimes a laughing girl he’s never met in the arms of a handsome stranger and bubbles of jealousy he knows can only come from Davy Jones.
Mostly, though, he dreams of the pirate.
Horrid pirate, all maddening smirks and dark knowing eyes and rum-heavy voice are you worthy to serve mate are you really? In his dreams he never has an answer; he just shivers and wakes up to the echoing sound of the twinned heartbeats.
There’s nothing to do on this ship back to Port Royal; he’s neither captain nor crew, just a useless sort of almost-prisoner. His thoughts keep going back to the pirate.
James closes his eyes and he’s back in Tortuga staring down the barrel of the gun but then his hands start to tremble from the rum, from the sound of the pirate’s voice. Intoxication or cowardice or was it something else entirely that stayed his hand? He wonders, and his heart beats faster like panic; like the panic having the pirate at his mercy at swordpoint and turning away instead of daring to strike.
I knew you’d warm up to me. Maddening pirate.
He thinks again of Davy Jones. At least Davy Jones had the luck to be destroyed by a woman: a far better story, he realizes, than that of James Norrington, undone by a pirate.
[Turns out I missed writing Norrington more than I'd expected. Ha.]
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean.
Characters/Pairing: Norrington. [And Jack Sparrow too, I suppose.]
you shall love your crooked neighbour
with all your crooked heart
--w.h.auden
It’s a precious thing, the only precious thing he has left, and so he has to keep it safe and keep it close, tucked away against his skin. He can feel it beating, a fluttery echo of his own heartbeat - a sensation that was disconcerting at first, but now he finds it comforting. It is, after all, the key to reclaiming his future.
It’s curious, though. Ever since he obtained the heart, he’s been having nightmares. Sometimes they’re of the sea, crazed and uncontrollable. Sometimes his lieutenant, all wide worried eyes and trembling hands sir we’re sailing into a storm, sir, James, a memory of quick hands and shy smiles and red hair all reclaimed by the sea. Sometimes a laughing girl he’s never met in the arms of a handsome stranger and bubbles of jealousy he knows can only come from Davy Jones.
Mostly, though, he dreams of the pirate.
Horrid pirate, all maddening smirks and dark knowing eyes and rum-heavy voice are you worthy to serve mate are you really? In his dreams he never has an answer; he just shivers and wakes up to the echoing sound of the twinned heartbeats.
There’s nothing to do on this ship back to Port Royal; he’s neither captain nor crew, just a useless sort of almost-prisoner. His thoughts keep going back to the pirate.
James closes his eyes and he’s back in Tortuga staring down the barrel of the gun but then his hands start to tremble from the rum, from the sound of the pirate’s voice. Intoxication or cowardice or was it something else entirely that stayed his hand? He wonders, and his heart beats faster like panic; like the panic having the pirate at his mercy at swordpoint and turning away instead of daring to strike.
I knew you’d warm up to me. Maddening pirate.
He thinks again of Davy Jones. At least Davy Jones had the luck to be destroyed by a woman: a far better story, he realizes, than that of James Norrington, undone by a pirate.