LAS Round 1: Uncanny
Title: Uncanny
Author: ophelivia
Pairing: James/OC, Beckington with some minuscule Norribeth
Word Count: 1511
Warnings: Nothing really, some grabby hands
Summary: An extremely AU little thing involving an OC belonging to my darling best friend Scarlet--I love you baby. The year is 1922, and a young artist called Jim Norrington finds something of interest hanging in a new exhibit at the Met.
“Uncanny”
There was a rapping at her door. It was ten in the morning-for Lola that was the crack of dawn. As she lifted her head only a few strands of black hair fell out of the line of her bob. Her eyes, however, were ringed racoonishly with purple and black paint. She could barely see out of them.
“What?” she called.
“Miss LaTorres…it’s Jim…May I come in?”
‘Miss LaTorres’ like I’m his god damn fifth grade teacher.
“Door’s open, Norrington,” she groaned, falling back down on the pillow. Lola looked around. The last man from the night before had been gone for hours. She strained for the face in her memory but all she remembered was the body, the blonde hair and the laugh. Twenty dollars on the nightstand-she hoped he’d come again. Lola was naked except for a single red high heeled shoe that was half hanging off her foot.
The man who opened the door was a stringy, stoop shouldered fellow of thirty with sea glass eyes and long fingers, which he knotted together nervously behind his back when he saw her. He averted his eyes and muttered an apology. Only Jimmy could enter the bedroom of a whore and feel bad about looking at her naked. Lola sighed. Maybe it was because of that shyness that she let him get away with so much, like paying with liquor instead of cash and sleeping all night in her bed. Maybe it was because he was English and she liked the accent. She arched an eyebrow at him.
“Didn’t sleep last night, Jimmy?”
He shrugged a little and mumbled something but the dark circles that were different from hers gave him away. Jim was from a military family, but after the war things changed. Everyone changed. But the twenties began and everyone wanted forgetfulness. It wasn’t until she met this little boy in a grown man’s body that she realized only some got it.
“I was wondering, do you want to…go somewhere with me? I mean get dressed first and then um…maybe we could…”
“Now?”
“Yes?”
“Why?”
“I want to show you something.”
He was turning a set of folded up bills between two of his fingers.
“Please?”
The look. There it was. The look. Lola moaned, laughing a little.
“Put the cash on the dresser and lemme shower first, okay?”
***
She found herself walking beside him through a cloud of pigeons all taking off at the same time. Jim laughed as their wingbeats narrowly missed his head while Lola just ducked and muttered:
“Fuckin’ things…”
Her heels went click, click, click on the stone steps. He liked it. He liked the way her cinnamon skin shone in the sunlight. He had never seen her in day before. Lola craned her neck to read the sign on the roof of the building.
“The Met. You woke me up so I could see an art exhibit?”
At her deadpan he looked bashful, plunging his hands in his pockets.
“It’ll be worth it, promise.”
“What, did they hang one of yours?”
He barked a laugh, a true one with his head whipping back on his neck.
“Rather! I can’t even get my landlady to buy one! I can’t get you to take one as a gift.”
“I never accept gifts that I don’t intend to sell later. Well-ya got me out here, ya might as well drag me the whole way.”
She grabbed him by the hand and led the way, as was her wont, but she made sure he paid the fare. His step had more bounce to it as he gained the lead up the stairs and down one of the hallways, letting at least three rooms of paintings and sculptures go by in a blur.
“Whoa, whoa, honey slow down.”
“That’s not what you say at night,” he grinned crookedly. She looked sideways at him.
“Jim, are you high?”
“Now why should you say something like that?”
“Because you’re smiling. And you just referenced intercourse in public!”
At the word intercourse she cheerfully raised her voice, and as he flinched and threw an apologetic glance to the elderly couple shuffling by she patted his cheek.
“Ah, now there’s my good little soldier boy! He’s back again.”
Jimmy blushed furiously, but he did give a tight lipped smile as he muttered, “Come off it” and resumed his brisk pace; turning a sharp left and finally entering a gallery. Lola stopped to read the sign by the entrance.
The Swan-Turner Collection: paintings from the late eighteenth century on loan to the museum from the historic Swan-Turner House, Port Royal, Jamaica.
“Lola, come on!” Jim beckoned to her. “This is what I want to show you.”
She came to stand at his side and looked up lazily, but when her eyes actually looked at the painting they couldn’t help going wide.
“Well, damn…”
It was a painting, five feet high in a gilded frame, of Jimmy.
Well, not technically. Lola took in the tall figure in the military dress: long blue coat with gold buttons, a white wig and a three cornered hat. Lola thought the clothes looked kind of stupid. But the face…the face was unquestionably Jimmy’s.
“That’s…wow, Jim…”
“Isn’t it uncanny?” He was grinning beside her. “I’ve been coming here every day this week. I can’t keep away.”
Lola went forward to read the note below the picture.
“Admiral James Norrington, pictured here at about thirty, was famed throughout the Caribbean islands as ‘The Pirate Hunter’ at a time when Port Royal was being transformed from a robbers’ haven to a respectable colony for English settlers. It is conjectured that Norrington worked closely with King George’s representative Lord Cutler Beckett and that they were both killed in the Battle of the Cove; perhaps both by the famed female pirate Captain Swan. Portraits of both Beckett and Swan have been salvaged by the Swan-Turner House and are exhibited here.”
“The Pirate Hunter…” Jim repeated it in a low voice. “I guess this is what my dad meant about our family being tied to war. Don’t you think that’s so wild?”
“It’s fucking scary. He looks just like you.”
He looked up at the painting painstakingly.
“He looks…sad,” he said.
“To repeat myself…” she replied, only half kidding. Jim swatted at her. “This is the other guy I think.” She walked in front of a set of sketches opposite the painting of Admiral Norrington and read, “‘Lord Cutler Beckett, representative of the East India Trading Company in Jamaica c. 1780. Foremost military strategist during the Battle of the Cove. The portrait made from these preliminary sketches has been destroyed, most likely burned in effigy after his death.’ Huh. Popular guy.”
James stood for a long time, fingers outstretched over the smirking face on the parchment. Arrogance. Cold, beautiful smile like a blade. Jimmy made a note to bring his sketchbook back tomorrow. Those eyes would remain in his memory…
“Jim, look at these here.”
Lola’s attention was caught by a huge painting hung horizontally across a wall parallel from these. She went over to look at it with slow steps. Jim didn’t follow. He licked his lips and looked uncomfortable. Lola was more interested in this one than men in tights and frilly coats.
A woman sitting with her legs over the arm of a broken wooden chair; naked except for a pair of black stockings and an absolute flood of red curls hanging off the other like a waterfall of fire. Her face was worn and not pretty by the artist’s rendering, with a big set of lips in a worn face; but her narrowed, angry eyes seemed to be daring them to seep staring. Her body above the covered legs was covered in red lines and purple-gray stains. Bruises, cuts and scars of every age.
“This scares me.”
Lola was so involved in her own thoughts she had almost forgotten the boy. She read the plaque to herself.
Scarred Woman, c. 1783. Painting thought to be the same described in Cutler Beckett’s journals. This remarkable painting transgresses all bounds of the period’s artistic style and sense of propriety. The woman, most likely a prostitute, is conjectured from the journals to be known only as Rose.
“I think it’s great,” she mused in a low voice. “Reminds me of myself in a way.”
She leaned up against his shoulder, hand snaking down to press against his thigh. Jimmy’s face collapsed and he let out a shurereddering breath.
“Lola please…”
“Sex will always be there, Jimmy…Time will go on, clothes get less frilly but men and women will always want to fuck…”
Jimmy whimpered. She took his hand.
“You owe me…”
As she pulled him out of the room James’s head turned towards an engraving of a young woman with long flowing hair holding a sword above her head.
Only known engraving of Captain Swan, mythical King of the Brethren Court.
In bed, James pretends his Spanish lady from Manhattan was a girl king with a sword.
Author: ophelivia
Pairing: James/OC, Beckington with some minuscule Norribeth
Word Count: 1511
Warnings: Nothing really, some grabby hands
Summary: An extremely AU little thing involving an OC belonging to my darling best friend Scarlet--I love you baby. The year is 1922, and a young artist called Jim Norrington finds something of interest hanging in a new exhibit at the Met.
“Uncanny”
There was a rapping at her door. It was ten in the morning-for Lola that was the crack of dawn. As she lifted her head only a few strands of black hair fell out of the line of her bob. Her eyes, however, were ringed racoonishly with purple and black paint. She could barely see out of them.
“What?” she called.
“Miss LaTorres…it’s Jim…May I come in?”
‘Miss LaTorres’ like I’m his god damn fifth grade teacher.
“Door’s open, Norrington,” she groaned, falling back down on the pillow. Lola looked around. The last man from the night before had been gone for hours. She strained for the face in her memory but all she remembered was the body, the blonde hair and the laugh. Twenty dollars on the nightstand-she hoped he’d come again. Lola was naked except for a single red high heeled shoe that was half hanging off her foot.
The man who opened the door was a stringy, stoop shouldered fellow of thirty with sea glass eyes and long fingers, which he knotted together nervously behind his back when he saw her. He averted his eyes and muttered an apology. Only Jimmy could enter the bedroom of a whore and feel bad about looking at her naked. Lola sighed. Maybe it was because of that shyness that she let him get away with so much, like paying with liquor instead of cash and sleeping all night in her bed. Maybe it was because he was English and she liked the accent. She arched an eyebrow at him.
“Didn’t sleep last night, Jimmy?”
He shrugged a little and mumbled something but the dark circles that were different from hers gave him away. Jim was from a military family, but after the war things changed. Everyone changed. But the twenties began and everyone wanted forgetfulness. It wasn’t until she met this little boy in a grown man’s body that she realized only some got it.
“I was wondering, do you want to…go somewhere with me? I mean get dressed first and then um…maybe we could…”
“Now?”
“Yes?”
“Why?”
“I want to show you something.”
He was turning a set of folded up bills between two of his fingers.
“Please?”
The look. There it was. The look. Lola moaned, laughing a little.
“Put the cash on the dresser and lemme shower first, okay?”
***
She found herself walking beside him through a cloud of pigeons all taking off at the same time. Jim laughed as their wingbeats narrowly missed his head while Lola just ducked and muttered:
“Fuckin’ things…”
Her heels went click, click, click on the stone steps. He liked it. He liked the way her cinnamon skin shone in the sunlight. He had never seen her in day before. Lola craned her neck to read the sign on the roof of the building.
“The Met. You woke me up so I could see an art exhibit?”
At her deadpan he looked bashful, plunging his hands in his pockets.
“It’ll be worth it, promise.”
“What, did they hang one of yours?”
He barked a laugh, a true one with his head whipping back on his neck.
“Rather! I can’t even get my landlady to buy one! I can’t get you to take one as a gift.”
“I never accept gifts that I don’t intend to sell later. Well-ya got me out here, ya might as well drag me the whole way.”
She grabbed him by the hand and led the way, as was her wont, but she made sure he paid the fare. His step had more bounce to it as he gained the lead up the stairs and down one of the hallways, letting at least three rooms of paintings and sculptures go by in a blur.
“Whoa, whoa, honey slow down.”
“That’s not what you say at night,” he grinned crookedly. She looked sideways at him.
“Jim, are you high?”
“Now why should you say something like that?”
“Because you’re smiling. And you just referenced intercourse in public!”
At the word intercourse she cheerfully raised her voice, and as he flinched and threw an apologetic glance to the elderly couple shuffling by she patted his cheek.
“Ah, now there’s my good little soldier boy! He’s back again.”
Jimmy blushed furiously, but he did give a tight lipped smile as he muttered, “Come off it” and resumed his brisk pace; turning a sharp left and finally entering a gallery. Lola stopped to read the sign by the entrance.
The Swan-Turner Collection: paintings from the late eighteenth century on loan to the museum from the historic Swan-Turner House, Port Royal, Jamaica.
“Lola, come on!” Jim beckoned to her. “This is what I want to show you.”
She came to stand at his side and looked up lazily, but when her eyes actually looked at the painting they couldn’t help going wide.
“Well, damn…”
It was a painting, five feet high in a gilded frame, of Jimmy.
Well, not technically. Lola took in the tall figure in the military dress: long blue coat with gold buttons, a white wig and a three cornered hat. Lola thought the clothes looked kind of stupid. But the face…the face was unquestionably Jimmy’s.
“That’s…wow, Jim…”
“Isn’t it uncanny?” He was grinning beside her. “I’ve been coming here every day this week. I can’t keep away.”
Lola went forward to read the note below the picture.
“Admiral James Norrington, pictured here at about thirty, was famed throughout the Caribbean islands as ‘The Pirate Hunter’ at a time when Port Royal was being transformed from a robbers’ haven to a respectable colony for English settlers. It is conjectured that Norrington worked closely with King George’s representative Lord Cutler Beckett and that they were both killed in the Battle of the Cove; perhaps both by the famed female pirate Captain Swan. Portraits of both Beckett and Swan have been salvaged by the Swan-Turner House and are exhibited here.”
“The Pirate Hunter…” Jim repeated it in a low voice. “I guess this is what my dad meant about our family being tied to war. Don’t you think that’s so wild?”
“It’s fucking scary. He looks just like you.”
He looked up at the painting painstakingly.
“He looks…sad,” he said.
“To repeat myself…” she replied, only half kidding. Jim swatted at her. “This is the other guy I think.” She walked in front of a set of sketches opposite the painting of Admiral Norrington and read, “‘Lord Cutler Beckett, representative of the East India Trading Company in Jamaica c. 1780. Foremost military strategist during the Battle of the Cove. The portrait made from these preliminary sketches has been destroyed, most likely burned in effigy after his death.’ Huh. Popular guy.”
James stood for a long time, fingers outstretched over the smirking face on the parchment. Arrogance. Cold, beautiful smile like a blade. Jimmy made a note to bring his sketchbook back tomorrow. Those eyes would remain in his memory…
“Jim, look at these here.”
Lola’s attention was caught by a huge painting hung horizontally across a wall parallel from these. She went over to look at it with slow steps. Jim didn’t follow. He licked his lips and looked uncomfortable. Lola was more interested in this one than men in tights and frilly coats.
A woman sitting with her legs over the arm of a broken wooden chair; naked except for a pair of black stockings and an absolute flood of red curls hanging off the other like a waterfall of fire. Her face was worn and not pretty by the artist’s rendering, with a big set of lips in a worn face; but her narrowed, angry eyes seemed to be daring them to seep staring. Her body above the covered legs was covered in red lines and purple-gray stains. Bruises, cuts and scars of every age.
“This scares me.”
Lola was so involved in her own thoughts she had almost forgotten the boy. She read the plaque to herself.
Scarred Woman, c. 1783. Painting thought to be the same described in Cutler Beckett’s journals. This remarkable painting transgresses all bounds of the period’s artistic style and sense of propriety. The woman, most likely a prostitute, is conjectured from the journals to be known only as Rose.
“I think it’s great,” she mused in a low voice. “Reminds me of myself in a way.”
She leaned up against his shoulder, hand snaking down to press against his thigh. Jimmy’s face collapsed and he let out a shurereddering breath.
“Lola please…”
“Sex will always be there, Jimmy…Time will go on, clothes get less frilly but men and women will always want to fuck…”
Jimmy whimpered. She took his hand.
“You owe me…”
As she pulled him out of the room James’s head turned towards an engraving of a young woman with long flowing hair holding a sword above her head.
Only known engraving of Captain Swan, mythical King of the Brethren Court.
In bed, James pretends his Spanish lady from Manhattan was a girl king with a sword.