The Choices There To Be Made
(formerly 'Best Mistake I Ever Made')
Fanfiction: Pirates Of The Caribbean: AWE/ AU
Pairing: Elizabeth/Norrington, Seren/Norrington if it were up to her
Characters: Norrington, Seren, Elizabeth, Jack!
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I do not own the Pirates of the Caribbean characters, movies nor any nouns or proper nouns associated with such, although Seren and the scene are mine. Please feel free to leave me any feedback and thanks for reading!
Chapter Seven
The Opportune Moment To Drink Rum On The Beach
"...drink up, me hearties, yo ho!" Seren giggled.
"No, no, you're doing it wrong!"
"Well, if I'm doin' it wrong, it's yer fault, as yer the one as teachin' me to dance!"
"No, now take my hand, and the other goes on my shoulder – stop that! Your hand goes on my shoulder, and my hand goes on your waist, not the other way around!"
"Don't know why yer teachin' me anyhow. Pirates don't waltz."
"And Navy Admirals don't sing pirate songs either, now do they, Siren? No, wait, I mean, Seren. But it's dead useful. Bet you anything, Sparrow knows how to waltz. No! Not anything! But he probably does. You can use this to impress somebody someday."
"Ye don't seem very impressed, Jamie," she purred.
"Not the way you dance! And I said stop that!"
"Ye know something, Admiral? Ye're not much fun at all."
"You don't find this fun?"
"Not as much as it could be."
"Captain Seren."
"Yes, Admiral?"
"Just dance."
He pulled her around in slow jerky circles, gliding in and out of the puddles of lamplight on the white sand, while she sang snatches of pirate song. "We plunder, raid an' sack," she mumbled, "an'...an'... what's that other word? Has t' do with stealin'."
"Pilfering?"
"Tha's it! Filpering! We filper and ig-nite and something-whatever! Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!"
Norrington laughed, hitching her arm back up to his shoulder. "Most people don't sing while they waltz," he pointed out.
"We're not most people, Jamie."
"You, love, are not even close." Had he just called her love? It both fit and felt strange at the same time.
"...rampage and char and I-don't-remember! Me hearties, drink up, yo ho!"
"This isn't supposed to be painful, you know." He winced as her heavy boots came down on his foot again.
"An' what should it be like?"
"Well, for one," he stooped, grabbed her leg while she clung to his shoulder for support, tugged off her boot and threw it into the darkness. "Now you won't keep bloodying up my feet. Take the other one off."
"Ye do it."
"No."
"Ow!" he laughed, hopping in place; she'd kicked him in the shin. "Fine!" He pulled her other boot off and tossed if after the first.
She tried to take off his, but failed to provide any kind of support. They swayed drunkenly, stepping on each other's feet, until finally Norrington staggered backward, kicked his legs until the boots slid off of his feet and fought his way out of his coat. "There. Now get over here."
"Is that a come-hither?"
"No, it most certainly is not!"
"Damn."
"Seren!"
He stepped forward and took her hand. "This is what it's supposed to be like." And he picked her up and spun her around, his feet moving in the patterns of the dance, her arms around his neck, laughing. "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!" they both sang loudly and breathlessly, still spinning. And then James collided with an empty bottle and fell flat, dragging Seren with him. For an instant, she stared down at his surprised eyes, inches from her own. And then she kissed him.
A minute or so later, he fell back, gasping for air. "Are you done?" he panted.
"Not in the slightest."
"No!" he growled.
"Jamie..."
Norrington frowned at the woman lying on top of him, her brilliant blue eyes. "Captain Seren, get off of me."
She replied by kissing his chin.
"Seren. Get off."
She snuggled in closer, fitting her curves to his. Norrington thought he was going to have a heart attack. "Off," he ordered, voice breaking, "Now!" But Seren was fully aware of her considerable powers and she just pushed closer and listened to his frantic heartbeat speed.
No. He would not. Norrington gritted his teeth and stared straight into her eyes, ignoring the commands his body was sending him, hearing himself say, "Seren, you are without doubt one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, but I am in love. Not with you. Get off of me or I'm going to shove you off."
With slow, injured, unhurried dignity, Seren slid off of him and he fell back with a faint groan, trying to reclaim the breath she'd stolen. He tasted blood and realized that Seren must have torn open the cut on her lip when she kissed him. That was uncomfortably bizarre, to have her blood in his mouth, and he ran his tongue across his lips, trying to rid himself of the taste. When he finally sat up, she was sitting quite innocently a few feet away with her legs crossed, smiling at him and wiggling her toes in the sand.
"Ya know Jamie, yer not really any fun at all."
"Be glad I'm not," he retorted darkly, fumbling around for the Rum bottle. "I'd kill you myself when I was sober."
"Then we'll have to keep ya drunk," giggled Seren, rolling the bottle across the beach toward him.
Norrington took it and rose grandly to his feet, slightly marred by his stagger. He poured some more Rum down his throat. "Don't be difficult," he decided.
"Then come sing some more with the most beautiful woman in the world!" Seren slurred, spraying droplets of Rum through the air, "Ye can't turn down a lady a dance!"
"But only a dance," he told her in what he imagined was a firm tone of voice, missing his mouth with the Rum bottle.
Seren grabbed his arm and dragged him around in a circle after her, singing loudly and off-key, "Extort and filper and murder and burn, drink up, me hearties, yo ho!"
"Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me," he replied, laughing, stumbling over things he couldn't see in the dark. "Ow! Ouch, no, stop!" He sat down rather abruptly and Seren collapsed beside him. Norrington held up bloody fingers and peered at them.
"Wha'd ye do?"
"Cut my foot." How had he done that? Oh, wait, he'd stepped on a bottle, hadn't he?
"Hmm," Seren studied the short slice across the side of his foot. Then she dipped her fingers in the blood pooling across his skin and smeared it across the side of his face. As an afterthought, she licked her fingers.
"What?"
"There. Very piratey looking." She daubed some more clumsily down his cheekbone. "An' as ye tasted my blood, it's on'y fair I should taste yourn. Ye taste sweet. We're proper cannibals now."
"Wouldn't want to be ungenuine. Here," he swung at her with his bloody fingers and she dodged back, giggling and cursing. "Heaven help should a Navy Admiral be more piratey in appearance than you. Hold still." Seren leaned forward and he painted crooked dark lines across her cheeks and forehead. "More than lovely, I'm sure."
Seren leaned in, grinning with bloody lips. "Ye taste very sweet," she repeated, drawing the words out with each sultry, Rum-soaked breath. "But yer lips are much sweeter. Ye sure Seren can't have another taste?"
"Yes. I mean, no. With no meaning, yes, I'm sure that you can't."
Seren frowned, sorting out this rather garbled sentence for a second. "Yer sure that yer sure?" she crooned, tilting her head so that she peered up at him, her face gracefully painted in the moonlight, "Sounds like ye need some persuasion."
James blinked. Her sapphire eyes were floating dreamily in her freckled face, her lopsided smile hovering before his own. "No," he whispered, "I don't."
….....................................................
Elizabeth sighed. It had been a very trying night. "...don't know, Jack. We did make the right choice...didn't we?"
"Love," Jack told her, painting the warm night air with his hands, "no use reflecting on choices made, after you've made them. Done is done, and if we all die tomorrow, we'll have more than enough time to think on it then."
"I know, but-" She stopped, frowning. "Did you hear that?"
…..........................................
Seren's lips melted into his and he tasted the copper of her blood, her Rum-breath catching in his throat. He closed his eyes, struggling with himself, while her mouth moved over his, smearing crimson across his skin.
"Seren," he mumbled, pulling away, "Stop." Her lips closed over his again, and he drew back weakly. "No, Seren, stop...mm."
His hand was on her shoulder, he did not know how, his body bent as he leaned over her, propped on her elbow on the sand, kissing her.
"James..."
"Ah...No, Seren..." He dragged himself away, although it caused him physical pain, but she pushed him back down, taking his lips as though there had been no interruption.
"Mm, Seren...please..." He couldn't think past her bloody-Rum kisses, the alcoholic fog in his brain. It would be so easy to slip, to forget, to surrender to the insensibility...But he wouldn't.
"Stop!" He wrenched himself away, fumbling sideways over the sand, ready to fend her off again, but this time, she didn't follow. She stared at him, her chest heaving under her tattered coat, and then a bizarre smile spread across her scarlet-smeared lips, her head twisting to one side.
"Ye really are hard t' get, aren't ye?"
Norrington struggled to control the wild gasping of his lungs and formulate a reply. "Stop...this...Please."
"Is tha' what ye really want?" she asked softly, curiously, taking a pull from the Rum bottle.
"No," he admitted honestly, "but that's what I'll want in the morning, and that's how it has to be."
"An' what if what's-her-name goes off with him?"
Norrington looked away. There was a long silence.
"A'right," Seren declared, and there was a completely different note in her voice, a light, teasing warmth. "Friends for now, it is then. I can wait." And she upended the last of her Rum onto the wound on his foot. James yelped at the burn and Seren roared with laughter.
"I'll have you know," he declared, scrambling to his feet and fumbling for his sword, humor returned.
"Aye?"
"That...that...injuries! received in the service demand due recompense!"
"Then ha' some more Rum, love, and dance with me!"
…...............................................
Jack lifted an eyebrow. The night around them was filled with sound; men making ready for the coming battle, a great deal of drinking, ship noise, singing, laughing, shouting and gunshots. Very much like Tortuga, only spread out over a broader space.
"Which cacophonous calamity were we referring to?"
"I thought...I heard..."
Down on the beach, someone was singing loudly. Two someones in fact, on completely different octaves and notes.
Elizabeth squinted in that direction.
"Oy, I know that wondrous song!" Jack realized, "We both know that song."
"And...I know that voice," Elizabeth murmured, incredulity on her face. She strode off through the darkness curiously and Jack decided to follow.
….......................................................
"...and don't give a hoot, drink up, me hearties, yo ho!" Norrington was running out of breath. "Very good," he told Seren, guiding her in one more endless circle, "You've only stepped on my feet thrice in the last five minutes. I'm beginning to have faith in you."
"Ye'll be the first. It's a bit like swordfighting: yer bad until yer good."
"Yes, now faster, this is not a slow song, no, step like that, and around....Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!"
Seren threw her arms around his neck and joined him, half-shouting, "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!"
Norrington kicked out his legs, laughing, and stumbled, falling into Seren's arms. She caught him by sheer luck and he pulled himself up, put his arms around her waist and continued to sing.
"We plunder and burn and silch and fack...Good God, what am I saying?"
"Tha's not very proper, Jamie!"
"Because you're so very society, Siren love. Now, turn again! Ouch, oh, sorry...We burn up the city, we're really a fright, drink up, me hearties, yo ho! Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!"
Norrington took a hearty swig of Rum that he could no longer taste and pushed the bottle at Seren. She pulled one arm off of his neck to take it and both fumbled the bottle and stepped on his foot at the same time. Rum splashed across both of their chests, sticking their shirts to the skin, before Norrington grabbed the bottle, knocking Seren off balance. He retrieved her by the sleeve of her vest, drained the remainder, ("Before you pour the rest of it across your breasts. I swear you did it on purpose,") and launched back into the song.
…....................................................
Elizabeth could only stand and gape.
"I always did say you should get him drunk," Jack commented, coming up behind her, "Could have saved us loads of trouble."
"I-I don't believe it." And abruptly she was laughing, watching James...well, it couldn't really be called dancing.
One hand was propped on Seren's hip, the other gripped a bottle of amber liquid that was fast disappearing. Seren had her arms sprawled across the tops of his shoulders, clutching handfuls of his shirt to keep from falling down. They were spinning in dizzying circles and singing at the top of their lungs.
She almost didn't want to interrupt. As they watched, the two spun apart, clutching their sides from laughing, bare feet flying as Norrington chased Seren in a circle. There was something...magical? about this that Elizabeth didn't want to ruin with her presence. There was so much laughter in his eyes, his shirt sticking to his chest with Rum and sweat, dark hair flying about his face, as they sailed through another rendition of the song, their hands joined, tilting in haphazard circles. But then Seren hauled him in closer, cupping his face in her hands, laughing and Elizabeth stiffened. Alright, maybe she did want to interrupt. But James leaned backwards drunkenly, averting his head, Seren did not pursue him and Elizabeth didn't know whether to be relieved or exasperated. Good Lord, the man was a saint!
"...so we of course gave the order," Norrington was saying, neatly dodging another kiss, "but chickens! All over the entire ship!" He seemed to be having difficulty breathing past the laughter in his throat.
"Captain Seren came fully armed," Jack muttered behind Elizabeth, startling her from the strange scene below. He waved an almost-full bottle at her, a second cradled in the crook of his arm.
"You know her?"
Jack smiled at some private memory. "Aye, she had the honor of serving under me on The Pearl. And thus I had the great honor of having a ship named after me."
"After you?"
"Don't sound so surprised, darling. The Sea Sparrow. Good name. Good ship." He passed the bottle to Elizabeth.
"Jack. We're fighting almost the entire Royal Navy tomorrow, I do not think drinking is a good idea."
Jack tugged the cork out of a bottle and drained at it. "Didn't stop him. And such occasions are almost always dealt with best when a few sheets to the wind."
"I'm the pirate king."
"An' that automatically blacklists you with any crime any pirate has ever committed. You are the dirty rascal's king. Take my advice, love: not only when in Rome, but try a few of the sins they insist on hanging around your neck. It's extremely liberating to know you're not actually guilty of them, as it's their fault you tried them in the first place. I mean, no sense dying for something you didn't actually enjoy, what? We can't have a pirate king who's only been drunk once."
Elizabeth opened her mouth, but found no suitable reply. With a resigned sigh, she uncorked the bottle and took a long swallow.
"Only James could find a way to waltz to this song."
"On contrary, love. I know how to waltz very well. You just have to tailor the song a little, to fit the three-count."
"You?"
Jack waved his arms, looking offended. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, of course I know how to waltz." He held out his hands in invitation.
Elizabeth eyed him skeptically. "Jack, no, I'm not going-"
"You're telling me you didn't enjoy the last time you danced with dear ol' Jack?" There was a smoldering look in his eyes. He tossed back another swallow of Rum.
"We were marooned."
"Then close your eyes, darling, and pretend there's no one here."
Elizabeth stared at him for a long moment, then took another mouthful of Rum and closed her eyes. She heard his feet in the sand, and then he was right in front of her, his warm breath against her face. He jangled slightly when he moved from all the trinkets, but it still took her by surprise when the cool glass of the Rum bottle and the warm hand that held it bumped against her hip, his calloused hand twining over her fingers. She took his hand, unable to stop herself from exploring the strange twisted rings on his fingers, took another swig of Rum, and draped her left arm, bottle and all over his shoulder.
"That's it, love," he heard him whisper, and then, suddenly, his feet were moving and she opened her eyes as he guided her across the moonlit beach with a sure touch. It was unlike any dance she had ever had. His confident hands led her without a stumble in graceful circles, his lithe body seeming to float in the darkness, his gold teeth glittering as he smiled. He quickened the pace until her feet seemed to fly above the sand as he pulled her toward him, pushed her back away, leading her around again without a falter, the sand shuffling beneath their feet. And then he began to hum in a sultry voice, matching the timing of the notes to their revolutions, guiding her through the familiar motions with panther grace. She hummed with him, a grin she couldn't help decorating her lips, feeling faintly drunk and dizzy, though she hadn't had near enough to drink. The stars floated by over head, and wild gunshots rolled out over the town of Shipwreck like defiant thunder.
"That's it, Lizzy, only don't be burning the Rum this time."
She laughed, pulling her arm off of his shoulder to toss some of said drink down her throat.
"Pirate kings don't burn Rum, Jack, it's against the Code."
"Then we should've made you king a long time ago. Let's hear you sing, you sound so much better than those drunken sods over there."
"Jack..."
"We're marooned, remember? There's no one to hear you at all. Besides," he whispered conspiratorially, "It's high time we had a pirate king what could sing."
"Oh, alright." They waltzed for a moment more, watching the oblivious ex-Admiral and she-pirate captain stagger about, laughing and singing. When they reached the beginning of a verse, Elizabeth took over, lending her sweet voice to the rough words, "We pillage and plunder and rifle and loot, drink up, me hearties, yo ho!"
Jack took a pull on the bottle and joined her, singing, "We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot, drink up, me hearties, yo ho!"
For a moment, all four pirates were singing together, "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!"
And then Norrington pivoted, still clutching Seren to his chest and half-bowed, almost falling over. "Elizabeth!" He stopped dancing and dragged Seren after him.
"You're drunk!" Elizabeth exclaimed in amused astonishment.
"Took us long enough! Dance with me?"
Elizabeth stepped away from Jack. "No, really, I didn't intend-"
But he had released the giggling Seren and staggered forward and suddenly, Elizabeth found one of his hands on her hip, the other in hers.
"Oh!" she cried, startled. "James, no, I'm not going to-"
"You'll dance with Sparrow, but not with me? I know you know how, I've danced with you before."
"Yes, but that was hardly-"
"It is, after all, your song."
"It is not my song!"
"No, you're right," James recalled dryly, "my commanding officer taught it to me."
"Really, James..."
"Drink some of that," Norrington advised, pointing at the bottle she held, "and get back to me, preferably when you're Elizabeth rather than Miss Swann." He dropped his hands, gazed wistfully and a little foggily at her, then looked around. "Ser-Sir...Siren? Seren?" Norrington frowned at a bewildered Elizabeth and tried again. "Sieran love, she won't dance!"
Seren came dashing by, looped his arm and dragged him off into some sort of madman's jig. "Well I most certainly will!"
"If you have ever entertained in the slightest a dream of dancing on a beach with a drunken former Admiral," Jack told Elizabeth, peering at her critically, "then this would be your opportune moment."
Elizabeth watched them with longing, half wishing she could run out there and join them. "I would need a lot more Rum," she decided.
"Well, you better hurry up, they're drinking it all, and I think your ex-ComoAdmiral-whatever is nearing passing out."
Elizabeth slugged at the Rum, then glanced between them, clearly torn. Something James had said came back to her all of a sudden; 'I am extremely jealous of the fact that Sparrow spent an entire day and night drinking Rum on the beach with you, something I can never do, I am afraid that I am going to lose you as soon as we set foot in Shipwreck Cove, and I am ashamed of myself.' Jealous, was he? He wanted to drink Rum on the beach, did he?
"Who's to see, Elizabeth? They're all drunker than you are. I shan't tell a soul," Jack vowed securing the matter. Elizabeth had the sudden strange idea that Jack secretly wanted to see Norrington get the girl.
"Not even Will?"
"Not even your bonny Will."
"If anyone asks," Elizabeth told him, tugging off her boots and shedding her coat, "I was drunk." And then she dashed out across the beach, laughing and kicking up sand.