Black Venture [POTC: post-DMC, spec.-AWE fic]
Title: Black Venture
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Pairing: mainly Barbossa/Elizabeth, minor Barbossa/Tia, minor Norrington/Elizabeth, minor Norrington/Jack/Will
Rating: PG-13
Genre: romance, general
Spoilers: COTBP & DMC; spec. AWE
Summary: "I should think that for one preparing to raise the dead, you would have been more prepared to see someone like me." (post-DMC, speculative AWE)
Notes: Norrington’s my favorite, but he’s being so difficult to write, even if he did end up sneaking a huge chunk of himself in here. Barbossa/Elizabeth is a favorite of mine. XP (Becoming rather fond of Beckett/Elizabeth too.) The thing between Tia Dalma and Jack here…yeah, see THIS if you’re curious (something I want to expand on later.) Some of the AWE speculation is derived from HERE, and a snapshot of a certain sword fight must be my beginning wish fulfillment from HERE. Perspective in this is, in a word…screwy. XP Loosely Elizabeth POV, though perchance detached.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Pirates of the Caribbean.
"I should think that for one preparing to raise the dead, you would have been more prepared to see someone like me." Barbossa’s voice teases her ear even though he towers above, and Elizabeth remembers fainting. She flushes crimson, half-heartedly telling herself it was perfectly natural, how else could she have reacted to a dead man walking? (Never mind mobile skeletons and actual sea monsters of varying size and menace.)
Elizabeth pays close attention, and yet everything is a blur as meetings and talks proceed in Tia’s lair: Jack’s rescue must be planned in immaculate detail.
Alliances are to be set in temporary stone, as Will and Barbossa are glaring knives at each other, Gibbs and the rest apprehensive, Pintel and Ragetti a curiously quiet pair that can’t keep their eyes off their other captain.
Not-Jack chatters in whatever language monkeys can conceive of.
&&&&&&
They are off in the Not-Pearl, in a ship Tia Dalma loans them so long as she accompanies them. Elizabeth startles at this: the priestess seemed so like the type to stay behind, according to what she had heard and observed herself, so much like the wisemen archetypes in the folklore she had so loved. (Despite the lack of wrinkles and the youth and the femininity.) Folklore is fiction for a reason, and Elizabeth does not mourn this breakage when Tia boards; the priestess is powerful, someone to be used in haste. (Even if sometimes her dark eyes say quite clearly, "I know what you done to me Sparrow." There is a curiously wrathful mother lurking beneath. "Tread lightly.")
Will finally leaks, and the kiss is laid bare between the two. Elizabeth finds herself dumbly mute, tongue fat and dry as she threatens to leak another thing-I fed Jack to the Kraken, I’ve ruined Norrington, I abandoned my father, and you and I…you and I-but Will accepts her silence, and breaks their promise. ("Latest fiancé" indeed.)
&&&&&&
All the while, she thinks of Barbossa, focuses on the dead man walking, but hasn’t he always been that to her? Thus the shame of her fainting spell increases; she should’ve expected no less from the "man so evil, Hell himself spat him back out." (Though Elizabeth remembers half-snatches of Tia’s answer to the question on everyone’s mind, how under the bizarre circumstances of the intermediates between curse and uncursed, Barbossa had never really died, or more like reached a point where resurrection was feasible, and probable; the woman had added in an oddly thick voice that "bizarre circumstances" were something to hope for with their Sparrow.)
It is not jumping back on the horse-so to speak-with the man, Elizabeth is trying to cut back on her whorish tendencies. (On the trip thus far, the howling wind has given the Governor’s daughter breath for introspection.) There is more to it, in that:
"Did you ever feel…guilty, for betraying Jack?"
It is a risk she is willing to take-more of a guarantee really, there is no way Barbossa will not know upon this question’s life. She just wants to know, and patiently waits for the elder’s laughter to cease. As she patiently waits, Elizabeth cannot help but to observe Barbossa’s chest, which rises and lowers: a heart is beating.
After the details of the curse, and seeing it first-hand, the girl had watched them all, calculating: she never did see their chests move from working lungs, nor felt a pulse when she had scuffled with Barbossa in an argument that grew too heated, during one of the dinners that seemed so endless while on that first voyage to Isla de Muerta. (Elizabeth only learned of the island’s sinking during Tia’s lecture, explaining the geographical reaction as part of the man’s resurrection. The priestess had grown tight-mouthed when asked if the same would be needed for Jack.)
Barbossa does not answer her in anything other than the laughter, and the Governor’s daughter is surprised to find how cold she is.
&&&&&&
Elizabeth breathes in a different air in Singapore, it is…sweeter, somehow. (She can’t help but watch the way Tia Dalma tiptoes around the place, eyes clouded and searching.) Despite everything, none of their crew can resist the enchantment of a new land. (She and Will speak, but only when necessary.) Elizabeth even thinks the dresses here are pretty, a fashion sense awakened within her that always slumbered before. Her avid stares at their long-flowing and loose garments do not pass Barbossa-she is too obvious, he thinks-and something folded and cold to the touch appears in her quarters one day.
The dress is dark, and she remembers-"Goes with your black heart"-and she reflects.
(Not so different after all.)
&&&&&&
She recalls the way he had aimed the pistol at Sao Feng, and again toward her before, and so Elizabeth asks something else of Barbossa, a little practice with shooting. He reacts similarly, teasing her and taunting her fire, which enflames today: the Governor’s daughter snaps out a scenario of using the damned monkey for target practice. Intrigued by the man’s poisonous glare, the reverberating growl, Elizabeth presses on, actually sincere: "Why worry, he wouldn’t die from it."
Barbossa looks as if he aims to slap her. Things felt heavy when he refrained.
&&&&&&
The dress between them does not fill her with an obligation of giving something in return. Nonetheless she leaves candles in Barbossa’s own quarters.
They are a pale green, and smell of apples.
&&&&&&
Elizabeth is fearful for both, yet more concerned for Barbossa since she’s already seen him die and this whole battle is too reminiscent of the events that led to that first death.
But she would not have James die either.
And she is surprised at how frightening he looks in the familiar Navy blue and powdered wig and brocade, surprised by his sword’s ferocity. (This is the Pirate Hunter the girl had begged to see, but her Father forbade and James always deferred to him: even if they were friends, Father still had that irritating seniority that humbled all youth.)
Elizabeth thinks Barbossa will win, but barely: they seem evenly matched, blood and haggard breathing almost matching each in rhythm and rate. (James looks marginally worse off, perhaps even he cannot fully stave off the enemy of longer experience.)
Her hands clench the bars so hard her knuckles turn paler than white.
"Don’t."
James is indifferent, but Barbossa hears her, his steps seem to slow and soften: a second of stillness and hesitation, and a Kraken tentacle bursts through the wall, breaking all Hell loose, effectively scattering the combatants. (To fight another day.)
Barred door swinging on its hinges, and Barbossa pulls Elizabeth roughly to her feet, and he handles her roughly all the way out, grip hard and tight and protective.
&&&&&&
Certainly Barbossa and Tia Dalma have bedded each other, yet it is not something Elizabeth should think about so much.
She does anyway.
The Governor’s daughter analyzes and reasons: of course he would bed her, after ten years of forced celibacy; that, and she done him a great favor (even if warned not to cross her, under pain of death).
And the apples, of course the apples are not to be disregarded, Tia seems to conjure them out of thin air. (Not entirely unlikely, and oh, if only Jack were as easy to conjure.)
&&&&&&
It is a small thing, but Elizabeth has taken up reading the Bible to Ragetti during their venture. Though she feels awkward, the girl takes a certain care with the words for the pirate’s sake. (Congratulations on not blinking a bit at uttering the Deadly Sin of Envy.) It helps that she can feel Barbossa’s eyes lightly on her back as she reads from the weathered tome. (Odd devolution: blink, blink, while speaking Envy now.)
&&&&&&
Jack is returned, and they all lie in the eye of the storm. (The quiet, strange look shared between Sparrow and Tia before they quickly slipped away for a moment is a soft memory for Elizabeth: the word "family" comes to mind.)
It is the opportune moment, and the girl slips out when certain all are asleep. At first thinking to go bare-foot, then deciding against it, Elizabeth wears her now typical boots. (She’s rather grown to love the battered shoes.) They are clunky against the dark dress, which clings to her body, yet hangs off freely, the very picture of indecisiveness. She entertains the idea of putting her hair up like the women she had glimpsed in Singapore, ultimately decides against it. Elizabeth walks the Not-Pearl-their venture is not yet complete-playing with the dress, for that’s all it is, a plaything, a curiosity, the only damn dress she ever took interest in.
She dances and models in it, playing up to her invisible audience. Elizabeth attempts to move her thigh into the same position as the serpent stitched into the fabric; she gives up, and sits against the rail, for a moment feeling the ghost of James’ presence beside her. ("Admiral now," laughed Beckett.) The girl toys with the thought-hadn’t she always toyed with the man?-lips pursed as she studies the embroidered serpent that shines so queerly in the night, an emerald in the rough; Elizabeth finally looks up to banish the thought of Norrington, yet she is not even surprised to find Barbossa in his place. (In his exact place, arms and shoulders and everything else positioned the same, lax and worn.)
The elder man...holds an apple in hand.
As he bites into it, eyes regarding her coolly, it registers with Elizabeth that they have always been green apples, and that he picked out a dress with some amount of green in it, and his eyes were green and it was his favorite color, wasn’t it?
When they turn to face the sea, Barbossa leans gently against her as he stares up at the stars, and Elizabeth decides that if green is not his favorite color, it is certainly hers.
&&&&&&
She dimly hears a sharp intake of breath from Barbossa, but all Elizabeth can focus on is how warm her Daddy’s blood is on her face.
Her sword is still rammed messily in Mercer’s eye, his pistol mysteriously lacking. (The girl had thrown the murder weapon out through breaking glass with irrational reasoning.)
Barbossa carries her away, fearful of this broken rag doll that does not resist him.
&&&&&&
James presses one final, hopeful wish of "good luck" to her forehead, then retreats to Jack and Will, and the Pearl. Elizabeth retreats too, following Not-Jack and soon picking him up in her arms; she does not need the monkey to lead her to Barbossa.
She finds him in Tia’s hut, they are still discussing the job. ("Someone as old as me needs her connections, an’ as they grow it becomes mighty useful to organize 'em.... You an’ the girl seem fond of Singapore, an’ I be needin’ a man to lead up operations dere.")
In time she retreats further, into bed with him, and she is both guilty and grateful for the lack of intercourse thus far: it means something to her just to be held by Barbossa without a word of complaint. (He is all too aware how deep a hole her Father has left her with.)
&&&&&&
On their wedding night, she dances on the beach for Barbossa. The dark Singaporean dress hangs limp, and he sings her the most somber "A Pirate’s Life" yet.