A/N: Watched the new Pirates movie, PhilipXSerena became my OTP, they mentioned "forgiveness" and made me think of Kurtofsky, and then I saw a fanart on Tumblr of pirate!Dave and merman!Kurt... and thus, this was born. I don't even care if someone has already done this; because now it's MY turn.

-Which means that this is almost entirely MY OWN TAKE on mermaids, combining a few legends and adding in my own, so PLEASE don't sit there and tell me that this isn't like POTC4 or something, because I might have to use The Fury on you.

Fanart by visionsthatihold (remove spaces): visionsthatihold. tumblr. com/post/5738815265/i-watched-pirates-4-this-weekend-and-i-thought

Song used later in story (remove spaces): w w w. sailorsongs. com/its_of_a_sailor_bold. html

##Originally a oneshot, but broken up to be read easier since it turned into 9,620 word in total.## (LOL XD )

And clearly, this is an alternate universe in every sense of the term.


I am not many things.

I am a young man. I am a pirate. I am a good man. I am a sailor. I am a realist. I am stocky and strong, but I am also a weak man; cowardly to the point where I would rather run than fight, and I would not dare murder someone. I am also what the sea and my captain make me, and if that means being a thief, or a dishonest man, then so be it; I will be those, too.

What I am not is everything else.

I am not a fool. I am not an idealist. I am not brave. I am not strong in willpower. I am also not a believer in anything besides what I can see, hear, and touch with my own eyes, ears, and hands. And I am not a man of false hopes or complex thought.

So when I was marooned for trying to mutineer against my captain – a ruthless woman by the name of Sue Sylvester – I weighed my options, studied my single-shot pistol, and thought long and hard and logically. I went to school for five years; my surrogate parents saw to that. I was an orphan, but they took me in and tried to educate me. So I try to think and speak with as much coherency as I can, unlike the other pirates around me.

But I wanted to be a free man. And one night, at a bar, a man told me that I could grain freedom by being a man of the sea. It got me to this point, being a pirate and a wanted man and a filthy soul. I've never killed anyone with my own hand, but I've seen people die without stopping it, and that makes my hands just as red as any pirate's.

Sighing, I set aside my pistol. It's meant to be used to signal a passing ship or kill myself. But if I want to kill myself, I would rather drown in the sea that birthed me. I hardly remember my life before being a pirate, since I became one at the age of eleven, and I'm currently… huh. You know, I haven't counted in a while. But I think I'm twenty-two. I think it's been eleven years out at sea. It must be, because I feel over twenty.

I stand, stumbling a little, wishing for a sip of rum just enough to taste it before I give up. I've been stranded here for two weeks, living on a small pool of fresh water in the center of the small island in the Caribbean and eating coconuts, crab, and small fish. And when they're ripe, I eat a few of the limes I find growing on trees to keep from getting scurvy like so many pirates before me.

I wade out into the water, out on the rocky side of the island, the bit that was a volcano at one point. The waves crash violently around me; I can smell the salt in the air so pungently it makes my eyes burn. The rocks are slippery and jagged, and one cuts my forearm; just a scrape, but the saltwater makes it sting in throbbing waves up my arm.

"Take me to your God forsaken locker, Davvy Jones, you scoundrel below a bastard's whore! I deserve it! Take me!" I scream as a storm approaches in the distance, turning the evening sky from sunset to pitch dark.

I don't know if it's the burn of the water in my eyes or the hopelessness of my state of being, but I begin to cry.

I should have never left home. I should have finished school. I should have become a better man than this, should have gotten a decent job or worked for the crown or stopped at least some of the grief and death that I've come across. Or I shouldn't have tried to be brave and bold by going up against someone like Sylvester.

As the rain starts to come down – slowly at first, then pouring like the sky is as much in despair as I am – I start to laugh and weep, singing softly to myself as I walk deeper and deeper into the water.

The waves rise, and I spread out my arms to welcome the tide. It crashes into me, knocking me off my feet. I swirl and tumble in the water, head over heels, my thoughts a jumble, and my heart as loud as thunder in my ears.

Opening my eyes under the water, the last thing I see is a flash of green-blue, and then blackness blocking out the last of the sun.