Title: "The Sparrow, the Bitch, and the Wardrobe"
Author: monimala
Fandom: PotC
Rating/Classification: AC, humor, Jack/Elizabeth, het and slash.
Disclaimer: Nope. Still the Mouse, not I.
Summary: I suppose this is sort of a sequel to both "Twinkle" and "Twirl"
AND the silly "Princess Bride crossover." Or to neither! Bad, bad, bad bunnies ahoy!
There was a pirate in her wardrobe. Tucked between her favorite blue
morning gown and the pink frothy creation she'd worn to a ball when she was
sixteen. Pink, she thought with a shudder, was most certainly a sixteen color.
Tomorrow, she was eighteen and wearing white.
Tomorrow, she was getting married.
If her husband-to-be actually made it to the church. He'd been gone for
quite a while...sailing off on a merchant vessel to sell swords to some master swordsmen in Florin. "Be careful," she'd warned. "The Dread Pirate Roberts is always near Florin this time of year. If you get slaughtered, I'll never forgive you."
"Don't worry," Will had assured with that sweet smile, "I'll be fine."
Fine. "Fine." That was what everyone said before they were so many hunks of meat for the shrieking eels.
So, the pirate sitting in her wardrobe was the least of her concerns.
She sighed. "Jack Sparrow?"
"Mmmm?"
"What are you doing in my wardrobe?" she asked, pulling the folds of
her robe more securely around herself. Although, to be fair, he'd seen her
in much less.
"If you're asking questions, Love...that's the wrong one." His eyes glinted like cheap trinkets at the bazaar. "Ask if I'm coming OUT."
There was a slur to his words and she wasn't entirely certain it was
his "normal" slur. It had been two months since their farewell on the
battlements of the fort, after all. She stepped back, allowing him room to untangle himself from yards of silk...fervently hoping he hadn't been trying anything *on*.
He hopped out in a matter of seconds, as free as you please. All lanky limbs and something...something clutched in one fist. "I brought RUM," he said, by way of explanation as he swept off his hat and executed a deep, courtly, bow. As if the dirty bottle with its dirtier brown liquid wasn't obvious enough.
She stared back at the tray Sarah had left by her bed. The lukewarm
tea and the burnt toast. The poor girl had yet to master her way around
the kitchens. The new staff her father had hired after the Incident with
Barbossa's men were all nearly children...younger than she was.
Well, Hell.
Why not?
"And so I says to the lad...'while you're polishing me boots...why
don't you polish summat else'. Bright boy. He caught on right quick. Stroking me mast, climbing the rigging. You have to train 'em well. Savvy?"
In theory, she was supposed to be scandalized by such talk. But she'd forgotten how warm and fuzzy, like a thick wool blanket, rum made her feel. "Mr. Sparrow..." she began, waving her tea cup around..."it..it appears you have a predi-predilection for cabin boys...and I am getting married to Will on the morrow...so, why are you here?"
"Why are we all here? Why are any of us here on God's blue ocean?" He smoothed his mustache with the air of a London dandy, his eyes dark and solemn as he swung the half-empty bottle of vile rum. "That," he confided, in a loud whisper, "was rhetorical."
She drained her cup, scooting back against the headboard. "I know."
Jack sprawled, then, along the foot of the bed. 'Twas really quite a
nice bed. Large, comfortable, and she'd always felt swallowed up in it. Except now... now it felt a trifle crowded. She was not used to having pirates in and on her furnishings. "I came...to give you the Talk," he announced.
"I'm sorry...what?" Her hands shook and the empty china shattered on
the floor. "What was that?"
"The. Talk," he said, slowly, as if she was daft. "You know...marital relations...what happens between a husband and a wife after the 'I do' and the funny old man in the robe does his bit. I impersonated a cleric once...boring lot, they are...bet they have no idea what happens in a bed." He winked, lasciviously, making an indecent motion with his hips.
"C-cabin boys!" she reminded, as her cheeks went past sixteen-pink and
hit red straight out.
One hand closed around her ankle. Which was bare. How unseemly of
her. Vile rum! "You know better than that. I'm an equal opportunity pirate," he reminded back, huskily, mouth all wet from liquor and soft and...
She was getting married.
"I know what happens. My governess told me everything when I was
fifteen," she yelped, defensively, yanking her foot from the grip of his bold fingers. Albeit 'everything' had basically been some mumblings about bracing herself for the pain and bearing the brute force of her husband's will like a good Christian wife.
She had pretty much decided right then that being a good Christian wife
sounded positively dreadful.
"Governesses don't know anything. 'S why they're governesses, savvy? Those who can, do...those who can't...govern. Like your sweet old da there." He smiled, wickedly, and the gold in his teeth caught the sun streaming in through her window. "Now, you just listen to your uncle Jack..."
"You're NOT my uncle!" And comparing her father to buttoned-down,
prim governesses like Miss Davison...? Well, she was at least sure that her
father visited the whores in Port Royale once in a while so there was no comparison...and oh...but that was a *horrible* thought.
Rum. She'd given up rum two months ago.
Blasted Jack Sparrow.
"'S a lucky thing 'm not your uncle," he agreed, loftily. "Else what we
did on that little island would be illegal in most of the world."
What they did. Island. Oh, Heavens. She leaned over and grabbed the
rum, took a hefty swig that made her eyes and throat burn. "I'd prefer not
to talk about the island."
"But if we don't talk about it, how can I give you a proper education?" Jack sighed, dramatically. "Oh, well. I'll just have to pick up where we left off."
"Jack! Oh, no you don't, Jack Sparrow..."
But it was too late. He was a pirate, after all. Expert at plunder. And
he swiftly moved the near-empty rum bottle out of the way, and her robe,
too, muttering something about twelve kisses to the south and a step to the
left and several strange nautical terms that she didn't quite comprehend. What she did comprehend, however, was the shocking touch of his mouth and she was getting *married* but oh...
"*Jack*...."
"The first thing you've got to establish is who is captain of your ship. That's you." At least that was what she *thought* he was saying. He was sort of muffled in her...region. Yes...oh, bother...but this *was* where they had left off, wasn't it...?
Until he'd fallen asleep.
The scoundrel.
She reached down and boxed his ear even as the warm butterflies in the pit of her stomach began to flap, flap, flap, and fly...
(Vile rum!)
Her boxing skills were apparently lacking...because they deterred him not one whit.
"If your crew don't listen to you...you have to be firm. Commanding. Make 'em swab the deck from sun-up to sundown."
Was he implying that he was...swabbing...her...deck?
Oh, mercy.
"Only you know the true coordinates of where you're sailing, savvy? So,
you get your husband...er...mate...to follow your lead."
"Or they walk...the plank?" she wondered, hips rising against the
roughness of his beard.
"Hmmm." Jack raised his head, resting his hairy chin, companionably, on her bare thigh. "Can't say that I've heard of that in these parts. But there IS a place in the Orient...Siam, methinks... where they make these fake ones so lasses can bugger their naughty boys..." and he drifted off, lost in some sort of illicit speculation.
"*Jack*," she reminded, with a nudge. "*Awake*."
"Hmmm? Oh...yes..." His long fingers took the place of his tongue. "No,
you'll be the one walking the plank, savvy? Up and down...up and down..."
"You're terribly vulgar," she gasped...perhaps moaned...something
unladylike that never happened when she was usually taking her morning tea.
"And terribly effective!"
But, then again, her morning tea was usually not interrupted by pirates
rustling about in her wardrobe.
And her...parts.
Which, she had to admit, Jack did quite well.
She sank back, bonelessly, into her pillows. Warm from the rum and hot
from...not the rum. "I...don't suppose you're going to find my errant Will and give him the same lessons?" she asked, drowsily. Hopefully.
"Oh...Mister Turner's already been made ready for you, Missus. Bright
boy." Jack smirked, taking her limp hand and kissing the back of it, gallantly, as he climbed from the bed and found his hat. "Dropped him at the smithy two hours ago."
"Wh-what?"
"Cabin boy," he said, simply, with a smile.
Blasted Jack Sparrow.
Tomorrow, she was getting married.
"Don't worry," Will had assured with that sweet--duplicitous--smile, "I'll
be fine."
Fine. "Fine." That was what everyone said before they were so many hunks of meat for the shrieking eels...or stripping themselves bare and being
lashed to the mast for lurid hijinks on the high seas.
Ha.
She reached for her robe, sliding her arms, roughly, into the sleeves as
Jack stalled at the window, one hand on the wide shutter. Deck swabbing. Plank walking. *Indeed*.
She sighed. Ground her teeth. Set her jaw. "Jack Sparrow?"
"Mmmm?"
"The Orient, you say? Siam?"
He blew her a kiss before he leapt.
"I'll bring you something back for your first anniversary."
--end--
August 4, 2003.