Fic: Twelfth Night
Author: djarum99
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Jack/Elizabeth, Gibbs, Teague, sundry denizens of Shipwreck Cove
Disclaimer: Disney owns the world of pirates, and I make no profit
Summary: Written for the Black Pearl Sails Twelve Days of Christmas celebration; post-OST speculation on ships in bottles and reunions, because I miss them so.
December brought thunder to Shipwreck Cove, laced battalions of cloudbank with lightning, sailed in hot and laden with rain. Surly winds blew damp, disinclined to fill a sail, but they carried Jack Sparrow home nonetheless, ten days too late for Christmas. Elizabeth doubted “home” held truth for Jack or any pirate; still, she saw the Hall well stocked with rum and bade welcome Teague’s prodigal son.
Jack strode in with a cat’s aplomb, as though no time had passed between them, as though no time had passed at all. “Once was quite enough,” he’d said, but it seemed he had forgotten. Jack’s path through his father’s splintered court led straight to his King and a kiss, unexpected, unsettling, and unanswerable, given that his eyes betrayed no question. Heat, amusement, assessment - yes - but all else is quicksilver, nothing she could grasp. Less than a minute in his company and she’s back aboard his Pearl, bereft of her sea legs, her sword and her crown. In full view of Teague, and a fair third of the Cove’s population.
Damn him.
He turned to his father, offering a wary salute that Teague returned, a shifting of granite that passed as a smile.
“Welcome, boy. I see you’ve not yet found your ship. Or the Fountain, so it seems.”
Elizabeth, standing close, observed the wince that Jack concealed behind a sweep of jewelled fingers, the threads of silver amid dark twists and trinkets. A flick of his wrist and the gesture became a summons, his grace familiar, stirring something heart deep that she’d thought long forsworn.
Damn him.
“Mr. Gibbs! Step up, man, and bring the Pearl with you.” Jack’s command parted the crowd to reveal his first mate edging cautiously forward, bearing a bulging sack slung over one shoulder and a passing resemblance to Father Christmas himself.
The bulges seemed to outline large glass objects, their clinking and rattling accompaniment to a strange and mournful hum. Gibbs deposited the sack gently on the great mahogany table, and the humming became a distant roar. The sound of the open sea, imprisoned in the whorl of a nautilus’ shell; Elizabeth felt curiosity stirring, and a prickle of fear at the back of her neck. Familiar, like the dance of his fingers, that red sky flare of warning preceding the storm that is Captain Jack Sparrow. She’d fail to heed it now, she knew, as she’d done before grim experience had taught her just what that stirring meant.
Elizabeth watched the tempest gather in the play of light on golden skin, chicanery brewing in dark eyes so like his father’s; she cast aside her moorings, willing, and drifted out to sea.
Damn him. And no one to blame but herself.
“Mr. Gibbs, honor us if you will with the tale. I’ve a thirst to quench, and you bear the Magi’s gifts, as it were.” Jack hoisted a bottle; Elizabeth took pity on Gibbs and passed him her own to wet the storyteller’s tongue.
Mermaids’ fangs and precious tears, Spanish zealots and fat King George, a mystic jungle Fountain, a man of God, and one so evil even pirates shunned his name; a netherworld armada captured in glass, and a woman, of course, to bind the wild tale. Another wince from Jack hinted that story ended badly, or perhaps, probably, remained uncomfortably unfinished. Time enough to find out more, as Jack had limped home with a purpose, aboard an ancient schooner now listing to port in Shipwreck’s sheltered harbor.
Jack Sparrow once again was in need of a ship, and sanctions against dark magic.
Teague rose, and pronounced summation: “Blackbeard’s sword bound the ships, and Barbossa has claimed the sword. You’ll need to find him, Jackie, a ship and a crew to help you do it and fair kismet to guide you through. I’ll sleep on my terms for our bargain, you bed down with...kismet, and with any luck perchance we’ll dream.”
The Keeper faded into shadow, bulkheads and timbers creaking an echo to the rumble of his mirth. Elizabeth ignored Teague’s implication, Gibbs’ sidelong glance, and the slow, sweet burn of Jack’s smile.
“Break out the casks and carve the roast pig - we’ve but hours left of Christmastide.”
Jack’s paltry crew and the Cove’s residents fell to with sweaty vigour, the ensuing din a barricade against any further innuendo.
“We’ve come full circle,” she mused, after the Hall had finally emptied and midnight’s rum had gone to her head. They lounged alone in a candlelit corner, alone for the first time since...that island, alone and oddly at ease. Perhaps this night heralded new beginnings, some hard-won measure of peace.
“How so, Lizzie?” Jack cradled his Pearl, riding high on the crest of glass-bound waves. Elizabeth caught glimpses of movement in the rigging, on the scarred mist-shrouded deck, and shuddered; his Pearl did not sail unmanned. Dipping a finger into the furrow between crow’s wing brows, she commanded Jack’s full attention.
“The Pearl is lost, and the hunt is on once more for Barbossa. We’ve both been here before.”
“We? My ship is right here, and this hunt you speak of, my hunt, leads across most dangerous waters - besides, as I recall, you’re married, a widow, or both, in possession regardless of a pristine moral center, the having of same, of course, being of small concern to me-”
“Full circle - I am both wife, widow, and neither, with full blessings from my husband, and...King. My morals are not in question here, and how dare you presume that I’m...I’m-”
“Seducing me?” Somehow his hand had found her skin, slipped inside her collar to caress blushing flesh, the curve of bone. Elizabeth slapped it away and stood, stalked out of his reach, her dignity only slightly marred by an errant rum-induced wobble.
Damn him. Peace and Jack Sparrow could not bide in the same sentence, and she was loathe to admit she’d missed the sparring, the center of their circle. She found herself equally loathe to leave it, shattered peace or no, and turning on her heel beneath the Hall’s bowsprit archway, she swung to face him full on. Perhaps peace was mere illusion, but Jack was real, and he was here, blown back to her by fortune.
Perhaps it was the rum, perhaps Epiphany’s pending dawn, but she found herself standing toe to toe with the man who stole her world. No. The man who’d set it reeling, yes, and likely will again, but she’d abandoned the guise of princess, would not grant Jack the mask of thief.
“If I choose to seduce you, you’ll know it, without question. I’m hunting with you, Jack. To the ends of the earth if need be, because I’m still in your debt, and because you require my aid.”
“Debt? I release you.” His left hand spun charms of banishment, but his right, feckless, braved the flow of her unbound hair. “As for requiring your aid-”
“Ship. Bottle.” She stepped closer, fingertips tracing the line of his throat.
“You seem to have discounted the best parts of the tale. I found the Pearl, defeated Blackbeard himself, put my life in peril for man and fair maiden - well, hardly a maiden, but still - all without benefit of your insufferable...company.”
His heart beat strong, just there beneath her fingers, and for moment she wavered in the pain between sorrow and joy. Lower, over the cage of his ribs, feeling his breath hitch tight as her palm flattened against his skin. She lifted her gaze and he was there, fully present, all deceit cast aside, naked hunger and heat in his eyes.
“You proved yourself to be a good man, and in the thrall of no one. And yet you’ve travelled here, halfway ‘round the world, with your ship reduced to the size of a-”
“My ship is in perfectly adequate condition...oh, that’s...Lizzie...an inch southward and you’ll know it - wait. This is it. Seduction. I’ll be damned.”
“Without question. My terms.”
Jack claimed first kiss, slow and deep as the ocean, both of them awkward and swaying in a rhythm as old as her tides.
“Our terms. And how will we define the bargain, my liege?”
“I would like, very much, to sleep on that decision.”
She didn’t, but nonetheless an accord was scribed in nightwing cries and whispers, a truth, born of history and lies.
Above the sea, above the City, the Keeper kept watch in his tower, paid court to the bright sterling moon.
“Full circle.”
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Jack/Elizabeth, Gibbs, Teague, sundry denizens of Shipwreck Cove
Disclaimer: Disney owns the world of pirates, and I make no profit
Summary: Written for the Black Pearl Sails Twelve Days of Christmas celebration; post-OST speculation on ships in bottles and reunions, because I miss them so.
December brought thunder to Shipwreck Cove, laced battalions of cloudbank with lightning, sailed in hot and laden with rain. Surly winds blew damp, disinclined to fill a sail, but they carried Jack Sparrow home nonetheless, ten days too late for Christmas. Elizabeth doubted “home” held truth for Jack or any pirate; still, she saw the Hall well stocked with rum and bade welcome Teague’s prodigal son.
Jack strode in with a cat’s aplomb, as though no time had passed between them, as though no time had passed at all. “Once was quite enough,” he’d said, but it seemed he had forgotten. Jack’s path through his father’s splintered court led straight to his King and a kiss, unexpected, unsettling, and unanswerable, given that his eyes betrayed no question. Heat, amusement, assessment - yes - but all else is quicksilver, nothing she could grasp. Less than a minute in his company and she’s back aboard his Pearl, bereft of her sea legs, her sword and her crown. In full view of Teague, and a fair third of the Cove’s population.
Damn him.
He turned to his father, offering a wary salute that Teague returned, a shifting of granite that passed as a smile.
“Welcome, boy. I see you’ve not yet found your ship. Or the Fountain, so it seems.”
Elizabeth, standing close, observed the wince that Jack concealed behind a sweep of jewelled fingers, the threads of silver amid dark twists and trinkets. A flick of his wrist and the gesture became a summons, his grace familiar, stirring something heart deep that she’d thought long forsworn.
Damn him.
“Mr. Gibbs! Step up, man, and bring the Pearl with you.” Jack’s command parted the crowd to reveal his first mate edging cautiously forward, bearing a bulging sack slung over one shoulder and a passing resemblance to Father Christmas himself.
The bulges seemed to outline large glass objects, their clinking and rattling accompaniment to a strange and mournful hum. Gibbs deposited the sack gently on the great mahogany table, and the humming became a distant roar. The sound of the open sea, imprisoned in the whorl of a nautilus’ shell; Elizabeth felt curiosity stirring, and a prickle of fear at the back of her neck. Familiar, like the dance of his fingers, that red sky flare of warning preceding the storm that is Captain Jack Sparrow. She’d fail to heed it now, she knew, as she’d done before grim experience had taught her just what that stirring meant.
Elizabeth watched the tempest gather in the play of light on golden skin, chicanery brewing in dark eyes so like his father’s; she cast aside her moorings, willing, and drifted out to sea.
Damn him. And no one to blame but herself.
“Mr. Gibbs, honor us if you will with the tale. I’ve a thirst to quench, and you bear the Magi’s gifts, as it were.” Jack hoisted a bottle; Elizabeth took pity on Gibbs and passed him her own to wet the storyteller’s tongue.
Mermaids’ fangs and precious tears, Spanish zealots and fat King George, a mystic jungle Fountain, a man of God, and one so evil even pirates shunned his name; a netherworld armada captured in glass, and a woman, of course, to bind the wild tale. Another wince from Jack hinted that story ended badly, or perhaps, probably, remained uncomfortably unfinished. Time enough to find out more, as Jack had limped home with a purpose, aboard an ancient schooner now listing to port in Shipwreck’s sheltered harbor.
Jack Sparrow once again was in need of a ship, and sanctions against dark magic.
Teague rose, and pronounced summation: “Blackbeard’s sword bound the ships, and Barbossa has claimed the sword. You’ll need to find him, Jackie, a ship and a crew to help you do it and fair kismet to guide you through. I’ll sleep on my terms for our bargain, you bed down with...kismet, and with any luck perchance we’ll dream.”
The Keeper faded into shadow, bulkheads and timbers creaking an echo to the rumble of his mirth. Elizabeth ignored Teague’s implication, Gibbs’ sidelong glance, and the slow, sweet burn of Jack’s smile.
“Break out the casks and carve the roast pig - we’ve but hours left of Christmastide.”
Jack’s paltry crew and the Cove’s residents fell to with sweaty vigour, the ensuing din a barricade against any further innuendo.
“We’ve come full circle,” she mused, after the Hall had finally emptied and midnight’s rum had gone to her head. They lounged alone in a candlelit corner, alone for the first time since...that island, alone and oddly at ease. Perhaps this night heralded new beginnings, some hard-won measure of peace.
“How so, Lizzie?” Jack cradled his Pearl, riding high on the crest of glass-bound waves. Elizabeth caught glimpses of movement in the rigging, on the scarred mist-shrouded deck, and shuddered; his Pearl did not sail unmanned. Dipping a finger into the furrow between crow’s wing brows, she commanded Jack’s full attention.
“The Pearl is lost, and the hunt is on once more for Barbossa. We’ve both been here before.”
“We? My ship is right here, and this hunt you speak of, my hunt, leads across most dangerous waters - besides, as I recall, you’re married, a widow, or both, in possession regardless of a pristine moral center, the having of same, of course, being of small concern to me-”
“Full circle - I am both wife, widow, and neither, with full blessings from my husband, and...King. My morals are not in question here, and how dare you presume that I’m...I’m-”
“Seducing me?” Somehow his hand had found her skin, slipped inside her collar to caress blushing flesh, the curve of bone. Elizabeth slapped it away and stood, stalked out of his reach, her dignity only slightly marred by an errant rum-induced wobble.
Damn him. Peace and Jack Sparrow could not bide in the same sentence, and she was loathe to admit she’d missed the sparring, the center of their circle. She found herself equally loathe to leave it, shattered peace or no, and turning on her heel beneath the Hall’s bowsprit archway, she swung to face him full on. Perhaps peace was mere illusion, but Jack was real, and he was here, blown back to her by fortune.
Perhaps it was the rum, perhaps Epiphany’s pending dawn, but she found herself standing toe to toe with the man who stole her world. No. The man who’d set it reeling, yes, and likely will again, but she’d abandoned the guise of princess, would not grant Jack the mask of thief.
“If I choose to seduce you, you’ll know it, without question. I’m hunting with you, Jack. To the ends of the earth if need be, because I’m still in your debt, and because you require my aid.”
“Debt? I release you.” His left hand spun charms of banishment, but his right, feckless, braved the flow of her unbound hair. “As for requiring your aid-”
“Ship. Bottle.” She stepped closer, fingertips tracing the line of his throat.
“You seem to have discounted the best parts of the tale. I found the Pearl, defeated Blackbeard himself, put my life in peril for man and fair maiden - well, hardly a maiden, but still - all without benefit of your insufferable...company.”
His heart beat strong, just there beneath her fingers, and for moment she wavered in the pain between sorrow and joy. Lower, over the cage of his ribs, feeling his breath hitch tight as her palm flattened against his skin. She lifted her gaze and he was there, fully present, all deceit cast aside, naked hunger and heat in his eyes.
“You proved yourself to be a good man, and in the thrall of no one. And yet you’ve travelled here, halfway ‘round the world, with your ship reduced to the size of a-”
“My ship is in perfectly adequate condition...oh, that’s...Lizzie...an inch southward and you’ll know it - wait. This is it. Seduction. I’ll be damned.”
“Without question. My terms.”
Jack claimed first kiss, slow and deep as the ocean, both of them awkward and swaying in a rhythm as old as her tides.
“Our terms. And how will we define the bargain, my liege?”
“I would like, very much, to sleep on that decision.”
She didn’t, but nonetheless an accord was scribed in nightwing cries and whispers, a truth, born of history and lies.
Above the sea, above the City, the Keeper kept watch in his tower, paid court to the bright sterling moon.
“Full circle.”