A/N: So I was going to get some work done on some ACOTAR fanfics I've had in the works for ages, but pirate prompts are just so fun and honestly, I think I'm just a tad obsessed with writing from James's POV. And a Scottish Lily. So, yeah. Sorry?
Tumblr prompt—I thought pirates were meant to be intimidating and mean with no manners. You are literally the poshest, nicest and most polite pirate that I've ever met.
vVv
James has a lot of expectations when it comes to pirates. When it comes to the scourges that roam the sea, pillaging and terrorizing.
Captain Lillian Evanson is overturning every single one of those expectations.
"Do you take sugar with your tea?" The question is posed politely, the faint Scottish brogue layered beneath her voice clear.
James can only stare as another crew member unwinds the ropes that had been lashed around his wrists when he had been captured on a naval expedition with his friend. "Pardon?" The word is incredulous.
The pirate, sitting opposite him in her surprisingly neat and feminine cabin, lifts a single brow. James tries not to feel jealous of how easy she makes this look (he knows it's not. Sirius has caught him more times than he would like staring at his little mirror and practicing). "Sugar?" She repeats it more slowly. "Do you take it with your tea? It's granulated and sweet—"
He flushes, clenching his fists, yet still not daring to move with the deadly looking sword discarded by the Captain tossed on the bed a few feet away. "I know what sugar is," he bites off. "And no."
"No, you don't take sugar with your tea?"
"No, why the fuck are you doing this?"
James could've almost sworn the crew member who'd undone his ropes—another strikingly pretty dark girl missing an eye—chuckled quietly as she gathered up the ropes and retreated from the room.
Lillian doesn't flinch at his use of profanity beyond clicking her tongue and stirring her own tea with a spoon. The tantalizing scent of jasmine floats through the air. "Really, it was just a question."
A vein in his temple throbs and James glares as fiercely as he can manage. His glasses were cracked during the tussle with the pirates (at least Sirius got away, he thinks with no small measure of relief) and it impairs his vision a bit, but he doesn't let this show as he says, "I am your prisoner, Captain. A naval soldier caught encroaching in your territory. By all rights you should have killed me by now. And yet instead you're taking me out of constrains and serving me tea."
Finally, the pirate captain pauses, setting down her teacup. He tries not to notice how pretty she is—perfect Scottish complexion, fiery red hair braided back and piercing green eyes that seem like they can see into his soul. And not in a good way. Or he isn't sure if it is.
When she doesn't respond, he raised both of his eyebrows and crosses his newly free and smarting arms. "Well? What diabolical plan do you have in mind? Perhaps to poison me with tea and sugar?"
"You forgot the biscuits."
He can't believe how civilly this is going. How he's talking to her—like they're attending a state function and they're seated across from each other at dinner.
But the pirate finally pauses, an odd expression passing over her face. "I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said I needed you?" She seems almost curious about the answer.
James snorts and lets a scathing look speak for him.
A sigh. "I suppose not." She thinks for a moment, a beam of sunlight from the porthole sliding across her cheeks, casting the faint freckles scattered on her nose and cheeks into illumination. "Well, whether you believe me or not, I do need you."
James can only blink, stare at her with something approaching incredulity. He can't even manage a response.
She doesn't seem to be looking for one though as she stirs her tea absentmindedly and continues, "I've heard of you, James Potter. The heir of an elite fortune in London, respected family name—and yet serving in the ranks like a commoner. Why is that, I wonder?"
James clenched his teeth, doesn't respond. She knows nothing.
Lillian tilts her head, then laughs quietly, "No, no, I don't expect you to tell me. But…" she lets the word trail off, her accent heightening.
"But what?" The words are sharp, his curiosity too much to let that forgotten sentence fall away.
"But I wasn't actually looking for you." The Captain adds hurriedly, "Not that it isn't a true pleasure to have you on board, really." She hums. "But I was honestly looking for your superior—the one with the absurd mustache."
Officer Dumbledore.
James doesn't let on any reaction to the name, to the man who had been a close family friend for as long as he could remember, who had allowed him to abandon his title in London and follow to the drudges of naval society when Sirius was drafted two years go. "But you said you needed me."
A bright smile. "And I do. As bait." The words seem entirely too casual, offhand. It's followed by, "Thanks to that other little fish who managed to get away—" Sirius "—the naval force at Port Morellis has been alerted to the pirate presence in this water and is sailing this way right now. I know you and the Officer are close—I doubt he'd let you languish in my uncouth presence for too long."
James's heart begins to gallop, his grip on his spoon tightens. "What."
A half smile and a little shrug as she takes a bite of her cookie. "They should be here in…" she glances at a little clock on a makeshift bookshelf, "oh, I'd say a few minutes." She seems entirely too pleased with this development.
Before she can look back at him James is moving, his tensed hands lunging for the unsheathed sword on the bed at the same time as he kicks the table over—
There's a spray of china and tea and Captain Evanson's green eyes widen as he points the blade at her throat, his heart pounding.
"Enough." He digs the tip into the soft hollow of her throat, trying to ignore his racing heart. "Don't even think about screaming." He takes a deep breath. "You are going to let me walk off this ship, and you are going to command your crew to stand down when Officer Dumbledore and his crew arrive. Or else you're dead."
She stares at him. Starts to smile. "Oh, I have every intention of letting you walk off this ship, James." She pushes the tip of the blade away from her face and James is so shocked by the casualness of her movements that he doesn't even stop her, just stares. "But as for that other bit…" she shrugs, "Well, I'm afraid I've got a ship and a crew and a livelihood to look after. And no matter how handsome and adorable I might find you, these sort of schemes take time and I can't just drop it all for a pretty boy, now can I?" She's looking expectantly up at him from her position sprawled on the ground, obviously expecting some sort of reply.
"Er, no?" It's all he can manage. "I guess."
She nods. "Exactly." She moves to stand, but hesitates. "May I stand? These sort of things are so much more comfortable when not on the hard ground amidst broken china." She frowns at her ruined tea set.
James stares. Lillian takes this as an agreement and clambers to her feet, brushing dust off of her tunic and trousers. She faces him, a smile on her face.
He's suddenly struck by just how green her eyes are, threaded with little strands of grey. It's absurd that out of all the things he's seen today—swords and capsized rafts, real pirate ships and endless sea—it's this that hits him.
She really is beautiful. For a pirate. (For anybody, he corrects himself in his mind)
James's breath catches in his chest and he finds himself stepping closer, to threaten her or touch her, he's not sure—
Captain Evanson takes that choice away from him as she grabs him by the arm and pulls him towards her, almost violently and their mouths meet.
The kiss is fleeting, a harsh, searing taste of freedom and passion that is over before it has truly begun.
James gapes, his lips tingling and thoughts scattered too much to form any rational words or ideas.
Lillian looks slightly dazed as well and he has a thought that perhaps she hadn't meant to do that, that maybe she shouldn't have done it and he certainly should've have reciprocated but it still feels entirely right and wrong and—
Her eyes turn determined and she moves towards him and for a second he thinks she's about to kiss him again and he hates himself for yearning for more of her touch, already anticipating the brush of her lips against his—
Their eyes meet for a moment and a little smirk twists at the corner of her mouth. "Pirates never kiss and tell," she whispers, her breath fanning his lips—
And then she presses her fingers to the pulse point of his neck—painfully, harshly—and darkness is sliding through his gaze, his world—
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He wakes on a beach in the full sun, his hands unbound and sand coating every inch of his skin.
His head aches and the sun is blinding as he squints, his glasses somehow still perched on his nose—
James sits there for a moment, reeling. She's left him here, marooned on an island in the middle of the sea. Perhaps this was Lillian's plan all along. He thinks it is—except for that kiss that still torments his mind, dark as it.
He thinks of her last words to him as he was watching her red hair turn to fire and her eyes to dark nights.
Pirates never kiss and tell.
His dry lips spread into a twisted grin as he sits on that beach and thinks, Neither do Potters.